CHEF SAMBRANO Food Articles Video Recipes
Okay my foodie friends, let the master book reviewer tell ya alls what I just read through at Barnes & Noble down there in Lahaina, and by the by, if you're down there, you better buy something from the cafe, and don't bring any outside food, like noodles from Panda Express, or a Mc Donald's hamburger, or a bucket of KFC. The managers will get in your face! I remember this one time the manager tossed out an elderly lady around 80 years old out into the parking lot because she busted out a DQ hot dog. "Hey old hag! Git outta here!" BOOM! Okay we got the protocol outta the way, now it's time for drum roll please... darrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
My end of summer foodie book pick is VEGAN COOKING FOR CARNIVORES by Roberto Martin. The book is really nice, my last book I picked about a year ago was from Tal Ronnen, and both these chefs had something to do with cooking for celebrities. Martin a meat cooking master got a gig cooking for Ellen Degeneres and her spouse. Great book, I mean it's well put together, great pictures, great little stories. The book has a forward and an afterward by Ellen and her spouse, and there's the typical funny story of the chef, you know, "I wasn't a vegan cook, but I got the gig and I just fried up some eggplant and wow! They loved it." Yeah whatever, same stuff. But the meals are simple that anybody can make, in fact I worked with some young talented vegan chefs before that could actually create better stuff. But... as far as a marketable new book for the foodies, especially if you want to stay away from animal byproducts, this is a great looking book. Would I buy it? Yeah if I had like 25 to 30 bucks. I'd highly recommend this book.
Here are some of the pages that tickled my fancy, whatever that means.
Page 27, TOFU BENEDICT WITH CHIPOTLE CREAM.
Now look at that picture, this looks freeking ono, delicious, tasty, orgasmic, totally. Hmm, that picture tells a story, what story? I don't know, when you figure it out, call me up. So this is a page for breakfast that tickles my fancy.
PAGE 39 AVOCADO REUBEN a vegan sandwich, this is all looking Yay Yay if you know what I mean. Now keep in mind, Chef Roberto Martin probably just slapped it together, because for this project, there was an award winning food photographer that did the shoot. You could have made a tuna sandwich the guy would make look terrific.
PAGE 63 BELUGA LENTIL CAVIAR ON BLINI Vegan caviar, nuts guys, looks great and looks tasty too.
So the pictures are really beautiful, the presentations are éclat, the stories are cool, I'd rate this book a good purchase for any vegan out there, or food book collectors. Of course there's only one chef/author I really dig and that's Anthony Bourdain. I mean c'mon, no one can touch Bourdain, no one. But this book is really nice, great simplistic meals that anyone can prepare. Now if you got some kind of ailments, this is a good book, vegan cooking is good for the health. I mean you don't need meat to survive, and when a trained and talented chef can create meals that looks this great without meat, it has to be good. Sorry no spareribs, no briskets, no ham hocks, no gizzards, no pigs' feet, no ox tails, no mahi mahi, no roasted duck, no animals in this book for food. Sorry, so go out and get my end of summer pick, cook me something from the book, and I'll come over and eat it. No, make that cook it, and deliver it to me, thanks.
VEGAN COOKING FOR CARNIVORES Roberto Martin 15.00 to 25.00 dollars, shop online or head to your nearest Barnes & Noble Book Sellers.
RON'S OVERALL RATING FOR THIS BOOK IS 5 LAVA ROCKS OUT OF 5
Here it is folks, it is August 9, 2012 and I did my little survey for this time of the year. After talking to our visitors, that's right, not the locals, but talking to our visitors from around the world, I asked them what is their favorite plate lunch?
And here is what I came up with, now I got a life I won't question a thousand peeps, so one day I was cruising Lahaina town, and just started talking to people, I had my Android to log down the answers. I went for 20 people.
So the question was, "What is your favorite local plate lunch?"
10 out of 20 said "Loco Moco." No shit? Wow!
03 out of 20 said "Hamburger Steak, messy." Messy hmmm, who's teaching them our lingo? By the way messy is with gravy all over the plate even over the mac salad
03 out of 20 said, "Chicken Katsu."
04 out of 20 said, "Chow Fun."
Okay, so out of 20, Loco Moco ruled. So if anybody wants to cash in on doing plate lunches, just build a Loco Moco stand and that's all you sell till you run out of food.
If it's not a Portuguese sausage omelet, how about a 3 Egg scramble with 5 oz. of Portuguese sausage sliced, and a hefty amount of toasted and buttered bread?
I love cooking breakfast, some chefs or cooks don't like it, they'd pass that task on to someone else, well I love that first meals of the morning, it's the best.
Locals in Hawaii love eggs and sausage of any kind really, and when they wanna get real down and dirty, there are now stops. They'll cook eggs by the dozens, and fry up SPAM, grill Korean style chicken, heat up leftover kalua pork, beef stew, luau squid, luau stew, fried chicken, you name it, t-bone steaks, anything. Parrot fish Uhu, ahi, mahi, ono, lobsters, crabs, the list goes on and on.
Don't be surprised if you see a local in Hawaii eating huge meals for breakfast, and do not be surprised by what he may put on the food. You might see him dousing his white rice with soy sauce and Tabasco. You may see his wife scooping or squirting mayonnaise all over the plate, just to let you novice to the Hawaiian islands know, one of the most favorite condiments any local stocks up on is mayonnaise. So when you think food and locals eating in Hawaii, mayonnaise is one of the tops, as well as soy sauce and Tabasco.
One of my favorite dishes to make for friends in the morning is the simple stuff, like this kick ass Portuguese Sausage Omelet, filled to the max with the best ingredients.
3 large local eggs, over 5 oz. of diced Portuguese sausage, diced sweet Maui onions, mushrooms, herbs, a blend of grated cheddar and mozzarella cheeses all melted to perfection. Served with some toasted and buttered bread, fresh cut potatoes, fruit, coffee. Can it get better than this?
When is this omelet called for? It is called for the morning after that wild wedding party, or that party with the strippers, or the morning after you guys lost the county softball tournament, despite it being a division 3 and all you guys are out of shape the loss hurts! So this is another good time for a 3 egg Portuguese sausage omelet.
Mayo, it has to be one of my favorite condiments, I mean I wouldn't put that on anything, actually it's kind of rich, and too much mayo can be rather... well, gross. But just enough of it can add richness to a lot of foods that tend to be without juice, or well, dried. Now I would not put mayonnaise over a juicy fried chicken, that's not making sense at all. But there's people who probably do that.
Now, mayonnaise can be spruced up by adding something to it, like if you want a hot Mexican mayonnaise, try adding some cayenne peppers, or hot sauce to it. Or if you want that umami Japanese thing, add some soy sauce, and some wasabe to it.
Here's a tip, try deep frying some mahi mahi, breaded of course, and instead of using a tartar sauce, try using some of these.
11/2 cups of real mayonnaise
1 tsp. of onion powder
2 tsp. of garlic powder
1 tsp. minced onions
1/2 tsp. minced dill
1 tbsp. lemon juice
1 tsp. honey
dash of salt and pepper
Put in a stainless steel bowl and mix well.
Spoon some of this on to your deep fried breaded mahi.
Do you love cooking? If you are that foodie that loves to spend time not just visiting new local digs to eat what is in, but are one that loves to cook new meals, you are the maestro behind the counter, at the stove cooking up a storm, for whoever. Now this picture to the right is a glass top stove from Frigidaire, it's a Gallery. So let me google this stove and see what's it made of, because I been using this stove off and on for cooking gigs, and I really don't like it one bit, because of the glass top surface, you need to be gentle, and the grease builds up and you need to clean it with a certain kind of cleaner/polish, and really it is too time consuming, can't stand these types of stoves, give me the gas ones, or the old school electric stoves with the coils, and some Fantastic or 409 to wipe it down. Yay for the old school stoves, Nay for this sucker from Frigidaire!
FRIGIDAIRE GALLERY
Exterior Aluminum with stainless steel finish
Cooktop finish Black Porcelain
Door finish stainless steel
Door handle stainless steel
Here's the pain in the butt for this type of stove, the stove top is made of Black Ceramic Glass and when grease gets on there, and if you don't tackle the cleaning duties ASAP, that crap stays on there like gunk. And the only thing to shine this piece a crap stove is this....
WEIMAN GLASS COOK TOP Heavy Duty Cleaner and Polish 15 fl oz.; and a soft scouring pad.
If you don't clean your stove top soon, it takes some sweat and time to clean it, and I really don't find life enjoyable after cooking an awesome meal, only to spend f........g lots of time f......g cleaning a stupid stove. Call me a little bit Pig Penn from Peanuts, or Oscar Madison from the Odd Couple, maybe not as bad, but man, to clean this crappy stove and make it shine all the time when done cooking? No way Jose that sucks!
Most of my cooking gigs are in someone else's condo and I'd say 90 % of people have this type of electric stove set up in their kitchens.
Don't like it, though Frigidaire does make fine kitchen tools and equipment, I'd settle for a professional style gas stove hooked up in my home, well if I did own my own home. But I really don't like this stove, just because you gotta put elbow grease in there. Now I think when they invented this piece of crap, they were in cahoots with Weiman, you know, the more glass stove tops Frigidaire sells, the more Weiman cleaners they sell, a win-win situation.
THE VOTING
OLD SCHOOL COIL ELECTRIC STOVES YAY!
OLD SCHOOL GAS STOVES YAY!
GLAS TOP COOKING...................................................NAY!
There you have it, old school wins!
Seafood Omelet today's breakfast, 3 eggs, mahi mahi, shrimp, grape tomatoes, onions, mushrooms, herbs, fresh limes, cheddar and mozzarella cheese.
Toasted lightly oiled bread.
One of my favorite times to cook and create using food is the mornings, love the mornings, the best meals are the ones that start the day. These meals we made working at the old Kaanapali Beach Club Restaurant back in the day, seafood omelets are the bomb, there's nothing like the flavors of mahi mahi, and shrimp, with herbs, and fresh limes, and melted cheeses, and of course a good beverage to go with it, this is a huge omelet, 3 large eggs, there's actually over 1/2 a pound of mahi and shrimp in this bugger. All the natural juices from all of the ingredients makes this wonderfully tasty, especially the little grape tomatoes with lots of flavors.
