Hi folks, Chef G. here, and I'm happier than a hyena scavenging on the rotting carcass of a wildebeest to be here. That's pretty gosh darn happy, according to most of my hyena friends. It might even be as happy as ants licking sugar, which I described in my last post.
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Anyway, there is one question I constantly hear from my legion of Chef G-niuses. "What is the famous Chef G. like in real life," they ask.
I get it. I wonder that too about my larger-than-life superheroes like Hunter S. Thompson, David Lynch, Walt Whitman, Lou Reed, Julia Child, Batman (the Adam West version), and the robot from "Lost In Space."
So, in this episode, I'll answer your question by shedding a little light on the everyday life of the REAL Chef G.
I'm actually just a regular guy. I shovel my driveway, mow the lawn, pay the bills, ride my bike, and spend hours on my computer--just like any normal person.
And when I'm not producing delicious recipes for my blog, I'm cooking regular old dishes for me and my family. Sometimes we go to a restaurant and let a local chef cook for us. Below is a chronicle of my delightful eating in the month of January.
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My son, Son of Chef G., lives in the Seattle area, but he was visiting us for the holiday season. Mrs. Chef G. and I were very happy to have him. Plus, he has some very fine cooking skills. Sometime during his visit, he made an amazing batch of chili. Chef G. recognizes an amazing batch of chili when it is hot enough to make his mouth burn and his forehead sweat, but not so hot that he can't resist a second or third bowl. I wish I had a picture of his chili creation. The good news is that I have a lot of other food pictures for your enjoyment.
On New Year's Day, I made a Prime Rib roast.
I didn't achieve my normal perfection with the roast. It wasn't quite as rare as Son of Chef G. and I like it, but it was still delicious. Mrs. Chef G. thought it was just right.
The next day, Son of Chef G. made prime rib sliders from the leftovers. I was very proud of his creativity.
Before we drove Son of Chef G. to the airport for his flight back to Washington state, we went to Bimi Thai, which is MY Town's only Thai restaurant. I didn't remember to take photos of my Tom Kha Gai or the meals of Son of Chef G. and Mrs. Chef G., but I did get a picture of this fortune from my after-dinner cookie. (For some reason, I don't think fortune cookies are a thing in Thailand, but I could be wrong.)
I was hopeful that the little piece of paper was telling me The Chef G. Cooking Channel would finally bring me the riches I justly deserve. I had visions of myself moving into a gigantic mansion very soon. Of course, the mansion would include a kitchen equipped with the kind of ovens, stoves, pots, pans, and cooking utensils that my celebrity chef competitors take for granted.
Alas, like so many fortune cookie fortunes in the past, this one didn't come true. I'm starting to think those fortune cookies really have no idea what is going to happen to me in the future.
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It was very uncharacteristic for Mrs. Chef G. to buy a pork tenderloin so soon after we had the prime rib of beef roast, but I was glad she did. I told her I'd handle it from there, so I made a brown sugar & soy sauce glaze and cooked that chunk of meat to absolute perfection.
After consuming that pork tenderloin, you'd think I would have had enough pig meat to last well into February. Um, nope!
A few days later, I had a craving for my Grilled Baby Back Ribs, which were made famous by a very early episode of the Chef G. Cooking Channel. When I get such a craving, it must be satisfied. I sure wasn't going to let a little snow and cold deter me.
Not surprisingly, the ribs were deliciously delicious.
It was time to move on from beef and pork to another meat. This meat is rich in omega-3 fatty acids and fishy flavor. I baked a 1.25 pound salmon fillet in the oven. Do you have any doubt that it was prepared to the highest celebrity chef standards? I didn't think so.
Medium rare, pretty, and pretty tasty
I'm really good at boiling water, but I don't always use it in a recipe. Every year, I make a nice batch of boiled water on a super cold day and use it for conducting a scientific experiment. Last week, nature cooperated by providing a nice temperature of 20-below-zero [F].
On that day, my other son, Chef Arlo, didn't watch my experiment. He had his boots and puffy jacket on, but he only wanted to be outside long enough to pee.
This weekend, I made one of my favorite dishes. It was a long-time Chef G. family tradition, started by my dad, to have a popcorn party every Sunday night. I don't make it EVERY Sunday night, like Father Chef G. did, but I make it on a lot of Sunday nights.
On this Sunday night, I made popcorn in preparation for the NFC Championship game between the Los Angeles Rams and the Seattle Seahawks. Football goes with popcorn like breakfast goes with eggs.
Popcorn popped in a pan with coconut oil.
The popcorn was shoved into Chef G.'s mouth on game day. I was rooting for the team from Seattle because that's where Son of Chef G. lives. Thanks to our support, Seattle won the game.
The next day, I had another craving. This time it was for chicken lo mein. I made it with rice noodles this time and it turned out to be just as good as when I use semolina noodles. Who woulda thunk it?
Damn, that was some good stuff.
Not surprisingly, I can cook delicious food for canine puppies as well as I can cook for human adults. Chef Arlo agrees.
High quality kibble with a little water mixed in. Arlo loved it.
I'm going to finish off this post full of January cooking with something I didn't cook. Mrs. Chef G. can cook too. Last night, she made a fine batch of Spanish Rice. It's one of her favorite dishes. I must admit, it's pretty darn good.
A Mrs. Chef G. specialty
Thank you for watching. Have a nice day. See you next time. Hasta luego.
Hi folks, Happy New Year, and welcome to the 66th episode of the finest cooking blog in the western hemisphere of my town. I'm your host, Chef G., and I am super happy to be here. You could say I'm happier than an ant on a sugar high.
Have you ever seen an ant all hopped-up on sugar? I have. In fact, I've seen a whole messed-up horde of 'em and, let me tell you, it's almost impossible to describe the crazed joy I saw on their faces as they spent an hour licking the remains of some evaporated soda pop off a picnic table. I felt like I was watching a weird remake of the classic anti-marijuana movie, "Reefer Madness," except that the actors were ants and the drug was Dr. Pepper.
So, if you can imagine all those tiny smiles on all those tiny faces, you'll have a pretty good idea of the huge smile on my huge face today. The reason for my huge smile is that I get to talk about the dish I make more often than any other. It's a dish that is fun & easy to prepare, it's healthier than most of the foods I make, it's my go-to dish when my creative food mind goes blank, and it's wide open to many variations--most of which turn out to be delicious. Have you guessed what it is yet?
Ants, after abusing hard core sugar. Note the drugged-out bulging eyeballs and huge smiles.
Chef G. used no drugs and licked no sugar before posing for this picture, yet his smile is just as big as the smiles on those ants.
STIR-FRY
Sometime back in the 1980's, I got my first wok. Mrs. Chef G. gave it to me. Prior to that, my cooking consisted of baking frozen pizzas in the oven, tossing salads, scrambling eggs, pouring cans of soup into a pan, and preparing boxes of Hamburger Helper or Kraft Macaroni & Cheese.
I truly believe that wok was the most important factor in my transformation from the lazy-bachelor cook I was as a young man to the world-class-chef I am today. Ever since I got that thing, I've been stir-frying every kind of meat and vegetable you can think of, experimenting with new Asian herbs and spices, testing various homemade and store-bought sauces, and pouring my creations over different kinds of rice and different kinds of noodles.
I found this internet photo to show you what my first wok looked like. It was beautiful but can you believe I wore it out after only 40 years?
Thank goodness, Mrs. Chef G. bought me another one last year. It's the one I'm holding in the photo you saw earlier on this page. (That would be the photo in which I'm wearing my chef's hat and a gigantic ant-like smile.) The steel in my new wok is thicker and it radiates heat like an 18-inch-diameter sun. I'm quite sure it will last me the rest of my life--even if, by some kind of miracle, I manage to live three more years.
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It's true, you can use any kind of meat in a stir-fry. Beef, pork, chicken and shrimp are the most common, but don't be afraid to use lamb, goat, turkey, salmon, venison, or rodent.
It doesn't have to be fresh meat either. Leftover meat can easily be turned into a delicious stir-fry. I once diced up some two-day-old smoked brisket for one of the best ones I ever made. I think even roadkill would be fine after frying it in hot oil with soy sauce and shallots.
Vegetable choices are unlimited too. Heck, you don't necessarily even need meat for a good stir-fry. Always use garlic, onions, and red chili pepper though. Beyond that, go crazy! I like carrots, broccoli, asparagus, green beans, green bell peppers, zucchini, cabbage, mushrooms, ginger, and probably a few other things I can't think of right now. I'm primarily a meatatarian--not an expert on veggies--but I've heard there are many hundreds of edible plants out there.
Today, I'm going to instruct you on how to make a basic stir fry. To the best of my memory, it'll be a replication of the very first one I ever cooked. After that, I'll leave the wonderful world of stir-fry experimentation up to you. ENJOY!
The first step is to prepare a stir-fry sauce. There are many such sauces in the grocery store but, believe it or not, I didn't know that when I made my first stir-fry. I followed a recipe to make my own.
Here are the ingredients. Bring it all to a boil, turn down the heat, and let it simmer in the pan while you continue with the next steps.
Next, cook up a batch of rice according to the directions on the package.
Cut a chicken breast into 1/2" pieces.
Stir-fry them in olive oil for a few minutes. (I know olive oil isn't exactly authentic to Asian cooking, but that's what I always use no matter what kind of ethnic dishes I make.) Remove the browned chicken, set it aside in a bowl, and wipe the wok with paper towel for the next step.
Get out the knife and cut some vegetables. You can't go wrong with broccoli, zucchini, onion, red pepper flakes, garlic, and carrot.
After pouring some fresh olive oil into the wok and turning the burner up to high heat, I made a couple of videos that demonstrate the next steps. Even though my camera man didn't film my face, rest assured that I was the one doing the narrating and the stirring.
It only takes a couple minutes to stir-fry the vegetables. Add the chicken back into the wok and stir for another minute. It will probably look like this when you're done.
That's when you pour a little bit of your delicious homemade sauce in there. Stir for a minute and serve over a bowl of rice.
