Gentry Chicken

This past Saturday I attended the first ever Gentry Chicken NYC pop-up at the Old Bowery Station. Gentry Chicken is run by Leonard Shek, whom I've known through the internet but have only met the first time on Saturday. He told me he was doing a fried chicken pop-up. Oh, you can't say no to fried chicken meals. Leonard did fried chicken 2 ways, original and Japanese (toshiro mifune). Both were mega delicious, crispy....juicy fried chicken. There were also pickles, salad with tomatoes, mac n'cheese, and corn.

Hit up Gentry Chicken if you want to find out where's the next pop-up.

Warm Potato Salad

There were so many great stuff last week at the farmers market that I sort of randomly grabbed a bunch of stuff. I bought some fingerling potatoes, tiny sweet peppers, 1 bunch of shiso leaves, 1 bunch of Thai basil, purple long beans, a box of shallots, and a garlic. While on the way home, riding the train, I was thinking what I should do with all the things I bought. Maybe a vegetarian version of the 3 cup chicken with the Thai basil? Or maybe a pasta with the sweet peppers and shiso leaves. Then I went online and posted the stuff I got and see if anyone had any new/fresh ideas. Then a friend suggested potato salad. I thought...YEAH! I had a bottle of Kewpie mayo, mayo is a must in potato salad for me.

I decided to keep things simple by just slicing and roughly chopping everything. To make it more simpler, I kept all the ingredients raw and just have the heat from the cooked potatoes sort of bring all the ingredients together.

I rarely make anything delicious but this was so darn good. I ate a whole pound of potatoes in one day. Then this past weekend, I made it again but this time I measured things out.

So here it is....

1 1/2 lb of fingerling potatoes 3 shallots 6 tiny sweet peppers (or more if you really love peppers) Handful of shiso leaves Handful of Thai basil 1 tablespoon plus a splash of mirin 2 tablespoon soy sauce 2 tablespoon of Japanese mayo Drizzle of sesame oil Pinches of salt + pepper

Clean the potatoes then put them in a pot. Add enough water to cover the potatoes and then add salt to the water. Put the pan on high heat. Cook the potatoes till tender which is about 10mins after the water starts to boil. Or you can check the doneness by sticking a knife into the fattest potato. There should be little resistance and should slide off the knife easily. When done, pour the potato and water through a colander and then pour the potato back into the pot to keep warm.

Thinly slice the shallots and put them into a bowl. Add the potatoes into the bowl with the shallots. Toss to mix.

Roughly chop the Thai basil and shiso leaves. Thinly slice the peppers. Add everything in with the potatoes and toss to mix.

Add the mirin, soy sauce, sesame oil, and Japanese myo. Mix well

Season to taste with salt and pepper

Optional After boiling, I used a knife to roughly cut the bigger potatoes in half. I like the look of the potatoes. If you cut them when raw, they look too clean for me. I wanted the "rustic" look with the rough edges.

Also, I added few dashes of Japanese chili powder cause I've been craving spicy foods. Obviously you don't need to.

Sunday Potluck Brunch

I love brunch but I can't stand the crowd or having to wait for a table. But yesterday, we decided to do a potluck brunch with a smorgasbord of delicious foods. I brought slices of pies from Four & Twenty (of course), chopped liver, and some Hungarian salami which had sweet paprika and pork. Other people brought bagels and spreads, mixed berries, cherries, avocado spread, beers, gin & tonic, juice, hash brown, eggs, veggies, croissants, bacon, and turkey sausages. Yum!

Roasted Broccoli With Shichimi Togarashi

Are people bored of broccoli? Or is broccoli boring? I don't hear people getting excited about broccoli. I'm definitely guilty of over looking it every time I'm at the farmers market...going for more the super seasonal vegetables. But after eating so much fried chicken at the Fried Chicken Club meeting, I had a super strong craving for broccoli. I'm not sure why I had the craving......but I ended up buying couple heads of broccoli at the farmers market. I love chicken and broccoli and my mom usually stir fries it with garlic but I wanted to try something different. So in spite of the heat, I roasted the broccoli.

1 head of broccoli 1 onion (optional) Salt + pepper Olive oil Shichimi Togarashi

1. Turn on the oven to 425 degrees. 2. Trim the stem of the broccoli to get rid of the tough part. 3. Cut the broccoli into smaller pieces. (I like slicing each floret down to the stem.) 4. In a mixing bowl, mix broccoli with olive oil and season with salt + pepper. 5. Lay the florets on a roasting tray. (I had an onion lying around, so I roasted that also.) 6. Roast the broccoli for 15-20mins or until tender. 7. Sprinkle with shichimi togarashi to taste. 8. Serve + eat

This is super optional but I had some King's Hawaiian dinner rolls so I made a broccoli sandwich with Kewpie mayo and onion.