Category Archives: Recipes

Rotisserie Chicken, mango salsa

Annie and I were out on a date in Los Altos, a small town northwest of San Jose, one Thursday evening. We were going out for sushi but, when we got out of the car, we noticed a farmer’s market that was open in the evening one street over from the restaurant. We hadn’t been to a farmer’s market in over a month, so we went over to investigate.

It was a very bustling farmer’s market. As it turns out, a Roli Roti rotisserie truck was there selling rotisserie chicken and baked potatoes. We had read about Roli Roti in a post on EatingAsia that enthused about their porchetta (roast pork). Too bad only the San Francisco one sells it.

Even though we were planning on sushi that night, we still picked up half a rotisseried chicken to take home for the next night’s dinner. Here it is, served with kalamansi limes. It was very flavorful but, being reheated in the microwave, it probably would have been better eaten the day we bought it.

At the farmer’s market, Annie got some mangoes for cheap. She made a mango salsa using one of the mangoes, the tomatoes we bought, plus a mild, sweet pepper. Seasoned with lime juice, s&p, and ground cumin and coriander.

The porchetta will have to wait till another day.

Aloha, Nate

Linguine w/ Pancetta, shallots, zucchini, and homegrown cherry tomatoes

Pasta has been one of my comfort foods going back to small kid time when we used to add bottled Ragu sauce to ground beef and ladle it on a big bowl of spaghetti, then top it with torn up Kraft American cheese slices. The ingredients have significantly improved in the House of Annie (as demonstrated by her recent Linguine alla carbonara). This time, she decided to kick things up a notch.

Instead of the regular bacon, Annie used pancetta. She also used shallots instead of onions. The cherry tomatoes were picked fresh from the garden, as was the basil chiffonade

How do you “kick up” your pasta?

Aloha, Nate

Pan-fried gyoza

In a previous post we did gyoza which was cooked by thrice boiling it in a big pot of water. The boiled dumplings are then eaten with a soy-vinegar dipping sauce or enjoyed with a steaming bowl of noodles. That’s not the only way to eat gyozas though – you can pan-fry them as well.

Put a little oil in a med-hot pan, arrange some gyoza flat-side down and start frying until you hear a sizzle. Then add some water to the pan until it comes up to 1/3 of the height of the gyoza. Cover the pan and cook until the water has evaporated. Let the gyoza crisp up for another minute, then remove from heat.

You can either scoop them out with a spatula (be careful not to break the skins) or turn them over onto a plate.

I like eating pan fried gyoza because the flavor is not lost in boiling water. Instead, flavor is created from concentrated, caramelizing gyoza juices. You don’t need any dipping sauce this way.

Here’s a video of the gyoza-making process

What’s your favorite way to eat gyoza?

Aloha, Nate