Bbq sushi

So Mrs. Dude and I had a weekend alone in Los Angeles recently.  (Bbq Jr. was home with Grandma Dude).  And of course, we have to check out the local restaurant scene.  First night up?  Kiriko Sushi.  We were a little concerned when we found the place.  It's in a dying conference/banquet center, where half the businesses are empty, and from the ground floor, it looks like Kiriko will be seeing the grim reaper soon.  But when you walk in, it's hopping inside.

This is one of those sushi joints where you sit down at the bar, and the conveyer belt in front of you brings fresh sushi by.  You grab a roll, or a piece of sushi, and eat it, and at the end of the meal they count the number and colour of the plates in front of you, and tabulate your bill.  I've only been to such a place once before, and it wasn't that good.  You can imagine, if not properly done, the sushi can age on the belt.  It's not conducive to making the freshest product.

At Kiriko, even at 6:30 p.m., the place was hopping, and food was moving off and onto the belt at a pretty decent clip.  Everything was fresh and delicious.  The various deep-fried offerings were still warm, and so delicately seasoned.  Even the spicy tuna roll, often used as a way to hide old tuna, was sweet and delicate.

This was an enjoyable meal, and we stuffed ourselves silly.  (Yes, we got a bit out of hand.  It's been quite some time since we had sushi that compared favourably to Kiriko).

Just when I thought I was done, I see the sushi-maestro going all Pulp Fiction on a piece of halibut with a blowtorch.  Awesome.  Bbq sushi.  Well, you just know I had to try it.  It was a basically a California roll, wrapped with caramelized halibut, with a wee bit of Kirik Secret Sauce, also caramelized.  It tasted of smoke and fish and rice and sauce and YUM!  The perfect way to end the meal.

If you find yourself in L.A., and are looking for a place to have excellent sushi, keep Kiriko on your list.


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Fleur de sel caramels

What's a tasty dessert that you can serve after dessert?  (Yeah, baby, let's have a 2 dessert dinner!  That's decadence!)

Caramels.  And, they don't take much time.  I used the recipe from Gourmet.  (Back before they sucked.  Naturally, before they were shut down.)

1 cup heavy cream
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1 teaspoon fleur de sel (+ extra for sprinkling)
1 ½ cups sugar
¼ cup light corn syrup
¼ cup water

Line an 8 × 8 pan with parchment paper.  Oil the paper lightly.

Warm the cream, butter and fleur de sel in a small heavy saucepan.  Bring them to a boil, stirring.  Keep warm.

Meanwhile, mix the water, corn syrup and sugar in a heavy pot.



Heat over medium heat, stirring until sugar dissolves.



Keep warm, swirling the pan to mix periodically.  This next bit will take a while, but once the colour change starts, it will happen quickly.  The colour change indicates that the sugar is caramelizing, and taking on really delicious flavours.



Once it reaches a nice deep brown colour, pour in the warm cream mixture.  BE CAREFUL.  The foaming and popping is rather exciting.



Continue stirring over medium heat.  When the caramel reaches 248°F, pour it into the parchment lined pan.  Let cool two hours.



Remove the caramel.  Slice it in two, and roll it lengthwise.



Slice the rolled caramel into individual pieces. Serve in a manner that they're not touching each other, as they can incredibly sticky. Sprinkle with remaining fleur de sel on the caramels (or not).

Serve.



These caramels are soft, gooey, pull-your-fillings-out sticky, but the delicious buttery, caramel flavour is really tasty.  These are going to become a traditional favourite in the Dude household.  Tasty.

Wordless Wednesday: Umami burger

Pomegranate-thyme sorbet

You may recall that I've arrived at the food blogger bigtime.  I have.  Received.  Free juice.  Yes, the lovely folks at Pomwonderful have seen fit to promote their product with me.  Pomegranate juice.  They sent me a case of the stuff, so take anything I say about it with a grain of salt.  I have been bought.  ;)

But what to do with pomegranate juice that's truly creative or fun?  How about a tasty palate cleanser?  I decided to make a pomegranate-thyme sorbet.  I used this pomegranate sorbet recipe from Cafe Fernando as a starting point for 1 quart of pomegranate-thyme sorbet:

4 cups pomegranate juice
1 ¼ cups sugar
2 tbsp fresh squeezed lemon juice
large bunch of lemon thyme
1 oz vodka

Combine everything except the vodka, and heat over medium heat until it boils.



Let steep for two hours, then sieve out the chunks of lemon pulp and thyme leaves out of the syrup.  Add 1 oz vodka (vodka keeps the sorbet from freezing too hard, but doesn't add any significant amount of alcohol).  Move to the fridge for at least six hours, preferably overnight.

Run through your ice cream maker.  With the KitchenAid Ice Cream Maker Attachment, it means turn on your stirrer to the "stir" setting, and then pour in the cold sorbet syrup.  Run for 25 minutes until nicely frozen into a sorbet.

For such a strong-flavoured sorbet, I pour the servings into shot glasses, and freeze them harder in the freezer.  Otherwise, you can just freeze it in a larger container, and scoop it to serve.



Serve with a long handled spoon, so you can scrape out every drop.



Look at that incredible colour!  Yum.  The lemon thyme blends really well with the pomegranate, and this is a bright, fruity mix with just enough acid to keep the flavour interesting.  Perfect to cut through the grease of a bbq dinner, for example, pulled pork (what I served the pomegranate-thyme sorbet after).

Yum.

Post-script:  In the future, it might be fun to substitute the vodka with a flavoured alcohol, like green Chartreuse.  These are flavours that go well with the thyme in this recipe, and I think Chartreuse might be tasty with the pomegranate as well...