Salt

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Not all salt is created equal, everyone knows this. When people start taking cooking seriously, it’s one of those things everyone searches on google, “what makes kosher salt special?” or “difference between regular salt and kosher.” We’ve all been there. I won’t bore you with the details since google can give you better answers on the differences of salts so what I will do is tell you which salts you need at home without giving you bullshit explanations on why you need a certain salt that you will never use.

Table Salt
This is your regular salt you get from a bag or box at the supermarket. You can buy the cheapest one you can find. You will use this when you have people over that you don’t really like. It’s the salt you add to water when steaming things, or for a science experiment. You need this because you won’t be using your more expensive salts for stupid shit like this.

Kosher Salt
Now this is the salt you will always be using for cooking. Need to salt the water for your pasta? Use this. For seasoning anything and everything? Yup, this. There’s two main brands, at least in the US, which fight like the Capulets vs the Montagues, it’s Morton and Diamond Crystal. There’s no right or wrong, it’s just a matter of who introduced you to it and how feverishly you will defend their honor. Morton is a finer grind, which makes a “pinch” slightly saltier than the “crystals” from the Diamond brand. This is why when it comes down to exact recipes like baking, you always weigh the white stuff.

Finishing Salt
This is your expensive salt, the fancy stuff you find at specialty stores and rarely in your neighborhood grocery store. Most of these will be labelled “fleur de sel”, which translates to salt flower. This salt is the stuff that forms as a thin crystal on top of evaporated seawater. Some people say it has less sodium than regular salts, but I’m not sure about that. There’s one brand I trust above all others, and that’s Maldon Sea Salt. They make it in the town of, you guessed it, Maldon in England. It has flakes that naturally form into tiny pyramids that look amazing when you sprinkle them on food. To state the obvious, you use it at the end when garnishing a dish, hence why it’s called a finishing salt.

That’s it. That’s all the salt you need at home. You don’t need to buy black, pink, green, or whatever colored salt they sell in a fancy container. You don’t even need that block of Himalayan Pink Salt to “cook your steaks on” because you’ll do it once and never do it again. Don’t even buy smoked salts, they’re a waste of money.

Ricotta Cheese

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Some things are just so simple that there’s no excuse not to make it yourself, even if just once. When you make ricotta at home, you can control how much moisture is in it. You do this by letting it rest however much you want in the cheese cloth. The longer it rests and drains in the cheese cloth, the drier it is. The annoying thing about this is that you have to buy a thermometer, but you should have one anyway. So go on that website and buy it.

Ingredients
– 1 gallon whole milk (NOT ultra-pasteurized)
– 1 teaspoon citric acid (or 2/3 cups vinegar)
– Salt to taste

Heat the milk gently to 200°F, stirring it the whole time. Once at temperature, turn off the heat and stir in the citric acid (or vinegar). Let it sit for 10 minutes, if it hasn’t separated into little curds and a clear yellowish liquid, add a little more acid. Once it separates, drain it with a mesh strainer lined with cheese cloth. The yellowish liquid is whey, yes THAT whey from your protein powders, so either drink it or use it as a substitute for water in baking. Once the cheese has the texture you want, salt it to your liking and eat it, or use it for whatever you were going to use it for.

Peanut Sauce

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There was a time when I first started cooking that I thought peanut sauce was the same as pad thai sauce. Just to be clear, it is not the same thing but if you’re craving that peanut flavor and you want to make a broke down version of pad thai, this will do in a pinch. Just make the sauce and mix it into some instant noodles, top with a fried egg. Always top with a fried egg. This is a dipping sauce, by the way.

1 inch knob fresh ginger (peeled) [see note]
1 clove garlic (peeled) [see note]
1 tablespoon honey
1 teaspoon Sriracha
1⁄2 cup peanut butter
1⁄4 cup soy sauce
1 tablespoon rice vinegar
1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil
1 tablespoon fish sauce
Scallions (for garnish)

Put everything in a blender or just in a bowl and mix. All you need to make sure is that the ginger and garlic are properly mixed, smashed, or chopped.
[Note] If you’ve made some of the fermented ginger and garlic mixture, use that instead, it’s a thousand times better than using the regular stuff.

Chimichurri

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In Argentina, everyone and their mother have a “secret” chimichurri recipe passed down from generation to the next. Lucky for me, I have not been tied down to one recipe and have played around plenty with many types of chimichurri. Sometimes you have to go far from the recipe to make it better, in this case Mexican oregano. It’s hands down the best oregano out there, I don’t know if it’s a different species of plant or if it’s the terroir but it’s simply better.

Ingredients
– 2 cups flat leaf parsley (One bunch / 55 grams)
– 1 cup dried Mexican oregano
– Half cup dried red pepper flakes (use less if you can’t handle heat well)
– 3 big cloves of garlic
– 1 cup cane vinegar (white vinegar will do fine)
– 3 cups olive oil (use some good stuff)
– Salt
– Pepper

Chop up parsley and oregano, place in a big bowl. Smash up the garlic and add everything else into the bowl. Salt and pepper to taste. Let it sit for a day and voila! It’s a simple recipe so it’s easy to discern the difference between quality ingredients and shitty stuff, so use the good stuff. If you want it to be spicy, use dry piquin peppers as well, their flavor goes well with this.

Sesame Aioli

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Aioli and alioli are basically the same thing except for the eggyolk. Aioli is French and it has the eggyolk, alioli doesn’t have eggyolk and is Spanish I think, don’t quote me on that. Now that you know that bit of useless information, I always go for the eggyolk. I love eggs beyond any other food because they are magical. They can turn almost anything into something decadent. This mayo, which is basically what this is, can be used as a spread, a dip, or just by the spoonful if you’re into that kind of thing.

Ingredients
– 1 large garlic clove (peeled)
– 1 large egg yolk
– 1 teaspoon salt
– 1.5 cup peanut oil (can be substituted with canola)
– Quarter cup sesame seed oil
– 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
– Yuzu juice (to taste) (substitute with lemon or lime)
– Black pepper (to taste)

Put the egg yolk in a big bowl with the mustard and whisk until homogeneous. Drizzle the peanut oil while you’re still whisking so it doesn’t separate. This is where you’ll be testing your forearm strength. Add the sesame oil next until it’s all incorporated. Once done with that, smash the garlic with the salt so it’s a paste and add it to the mixture. Add yuzu juice to taste and season with salt and pepper to taste. If you need larger amounts, you can add as much oil as you want, the egg yolk is a magical vessel that can emulsify an almost infinite amount of oil, just make sure you season it so it’s delicious.

Lacto-Fermented Ginger and Garlic

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I finally get it, why all the recipes online have pages and pages of a backstory behind the dish. It’s an excuse to write, and it feels good to troll you into reading my thoughts before giving you my delicious knowledge nuggets.

Lacto-fermentation is one of the easiest things in the world. Just put some salt on whatever you want to keep for a long time and let it do its magic. It has something to do with lactobacillus bacteria converting sugars from fruits and vegetables into lactic acid, which is a natural preservative. The salt is used because the lactobacillus bacteria can live in a salty environment while everything else dies a salty death. Food that has been fermented this way can stay edible for a very long time. My aunt once gave me some five year old kimchi that was actually really good. It tasted very different from any kimchi I had (obviously) but it was still delicious and very much edible.

This ginger and garlic mixture is so delicious and versatile that I can’t recommend it enough, so make a lot of it.

Ingredients
– Ginger (peeled)
– Garlic (peeled)
– Non-iodized salt

Rough chop up ginger and garlic into small pieces. The size of the chop only matters if you’re not going to process it at the end. In that case, chop it to the size you want.
The ratio of ginger to garlic also doesn’t matter. It’s up to your personal taste but I recommend a 50/50 split.
Weigh the mixture and calculate 2%. Add that in salt. If you have one of those sea salts that feel like wet sand, add a tiny bit more. How much more? Doesn’t matter, just a tiny bit more.
Mix it well and let it sit in a corner of your kitchen for a week or two. Once it stops producing so much gas (burp it), pulverize it in the food processor if you so desire and keep it in the fridge. It should last for months, maybe even past a year but the jars I make don’t make it that far, and neither will yours.

Garlic Honey

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Garlic fermented in honey has been one of those things that has stuck with me since I discovered it from Brad Leone’s many fermentation recipes. It goes so well with Korean food that I have had to make jar after jar of it. Korean food uses a lot of sugar and a lot of garlic, most times together, so why not? It’s as easy as peeling some garlic, sticking it in a jar, and covering it in your favorite honey.

A few points of interest. Not all honey is created equal. There’s stuff that comes from China that is tainted with different syrups and is not really honey, so shop local. After making a few different batches of this stuff, I have realized you get a different end product depending on if you crush your garlic or not. I don’t mean completely smashing the garlic, just a light crush to activate that allicin. When you do crush it, the garlic turns into this gummy-candy textured nugget and when you leave it intact, it’s this crunchy clove of sweet garlic.

My taste buds are not powerful enough to tell you the difference between different types of garlic but I’m sure there is something to play with there. Most of the jars I have made have just been the regular garlic that comes from the supermarket, except for the one I made with elephant garlic. It’s definitely milder, but that’s as far as I can describe it.

The longer it goes, the better. I have a three year old jar that has turned the honey into this black liquid that tastes like fermented black garlic (figures, I know). When you first submerge the garlic in honey, it’ll take about a week or two to release a bunch of garlicky gases that will stink up your kitchen in the best way possible. Hence, why the lid should not be closed all the way unless you want to “burp it” (open it every day). I would say the optimal time to let it sit before consuming it is at least two months. It’s a long time to wait, but that’s just my suggestion. I know I have had a few spoonfuls of honey at different times of fermentation.

Ingredients:
– Garlic (peeled)
– Honey

Place peeled garlic in jar, cover in honey. Done. If you so desire, and I recommend it, crush the garlic cloves slightly with the flat part of a knife before placing in jar.

And So It Begins

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I figured I should write down my recipes somewhere. I had my nice moleskin notebooks but seems like I always end up using them for other shit or they’re not with me when I’m actually writing down ideas for menus. I haven’t written in a while, either, so it’s gonna take some time to warm up. Don’t mind the shitty storytelling but do keep me in check when I make grammar mistakes. I thank you in advance. So, here we go!