Eggs

I love eggs. I can eat eggs every meal and never get tired. I think I inherited this desire from my dad who said that when he was young it was the luxury item his family couldn't afford so he was always up for it.


There are several ways you can prepare eggs.


Poached


I used to eat eggs only poached in the Eggs Benedict dish. I would not eat any eggs during the week and on Sunday I would meet up with a friend to have brunch and get my fix.


I tried to poach eggs in the microwave but they never come out with the yolk liquid. Cooking it in a pot of boiling water was too complicated for me. Whenever I go to a restaurant for breakfast I will always get the poached egg dish.


Scrambled


I don't like to scramble eggs because it requires too much effort and cuts into my computer gaming-while-cooking. At the restaurants it's very hard to get good scrambled eggs. You usually see the big block of eggs they make and reheat. I had good scrambled eggs at a fancy restaurant once but it's still hard to find one.


Microwaved


My mom used to make this as a quick protein dish for the family. Crack several eggs in a bowl, add left over ingredients and vermicelli and sliced mushrooms. Microwave and eat. You could say it's like a baked egg dish.


Hard Boiled


I eat hard boiled eggs most often because they are easy to make and relatively healthy. I like them with salt and pepper or with mayo. On a sad day I can gobble up 6 in one sitting.


Soft Boiled


I don't make this - I need a kitchen timer and a good recipe. I've made it for the Arpege Egg dish at a party once.


Special preparations


In the near future ...

restaurant review: Qing Hua

I bought 80$ worth of dumplings for a party last night. Most were available as frozen but I also bought two uncooked dishes to be boiled at the party. Everyone enjoyed them immensely. They cost from 10-13$ for 30 frozen dumplings to cook at home (6 minutes in boiling water). You get 18 boiled or 15 fried if you eat at the restaurant.

This restaurant only sells these soup dumplings and a few appetizers. All the meat dumplings have a broth in them so when you eat them there's soup gushing out. If you are not careful you can burn your tongue or splurt liquid all over yourself and your dining party.

The best flavor combination is lamb and coriander, I also like the shrimp/egg/leek one.

The restaurant started as a small below street level join on St-Marc and Tupper. It opened last winter and has been a hit at the chowhound board. They recently moved into a larger location on Lincoln and St-Mathieu (see sidebar for a google map link).

This place is part of Montreal's "Chinatown 2" which is in the Concordia ghetto. I'll be reviewing more restaurants in this area.

Buzz Lightyear Lego

Last weekend on a soda trip to Plattsburgh, I bought the Buzz Lightyear lego set from Target. It was $10 cheaper than in Montreal. 


Toy Story is one of the new themed Lego sets for 2010. It's a great combination for licensed toys but I don't like the sets so far. I have a particular fondness for Toy Story as it was the first fully CGI animation movie and there was a funny line that we used in the support group at SGI.


When a martian gets picked by "The Claw", he says


"I have been chosen. Farewell, my friends. I go to a better place."


We all laugh how we wanted to get away from customer support as a dead end job.


I even bought a big doll of the martian model to go with my Tinky Winky doll.

Random dish ideas

If you provide the kitchen and equipment, I'll bring the ingredients to make these.


Slice thin sashimi-grade salmon and roll into cigars. Stuff with extra-ripe avocado and mango. Dress with a white miso dressing. Serve with roasted red beets.


Boil edamame and chill for a salad with mini cucumber balls and green peas. Sprinkle some basil and mint chiffonade. Dress with a lemon, cold pressed extra virgin olive oil and rice vinegar mix.


Steam rice with tomato water. Mix with finely chopped dill (almost a powder). Serve with a robust flavored meat.


Soak sultana raisins in rum. Make maple syrup rice krispies. Brown banana slices in butter. Serve with high quality vanilla ice cream.


Slice zuchini and use as lasagna pasta. Use avocado instead of cheese. Use crushed pistachio with tofu crumbles for the meat texture.

Baked Ginger Tofu on Soba

I'm bringing meat dumplings to a party tomorrow and there are two vegetarians in the group. The restaurant doesn't sell frozen vegetarian dumplings so I had to make a dish. With the success of the soba noodle I made for Lanie's x-mas party I decided on it with a ginger tofu dish I like at Le Commensal. I found a copy of the recipe online (in french). The soba dish is copied from my favorite japanese restaurant.

2 tablespoon of no taste (not olive oil) vegetable oil
1 cup of light soy sauce
2 tablespoon of dark soy sauce with mushroom
a 2 x 1/2 inch rhizome of ginger minced

Mix the above in a blender (I used my Magic Bullet) until you get a smooth sauce. Cut firm tofu into slices or cubes. Marinate for more than 3 hours. Bake the tofu in an oven for 30 minutes at 400 F.

soba noodle
finely chopped green onion
toasted sesame seed
nori cut into thin strips
sesame oil
minced ginger and daikon
soy sauce

Cook the soba noodle as indicated on the package, be sure to rinse it 5x with cold water. Toss the noodles with a tiny bit of sesame oil to prevent the noodles from sticking (they shouldn't if you rinsed enough).  Serve with the green onion, sesame seeds and strips of nori. Garnish with the ginger and daikon. Soy sauce is added if you want to eat this by itself.