June 8, 2016 Lunch – Sushi Hana, Dinner – Cashew Chicken with Baby Bok Choy

June 8, 2016 Lunch – Sushi Hana, Dinner – Cashew Chicken with Baby Bok Choy

I toasted a bagel for breakfast and put cream cheese, slices of the newly prepared Gravad lax, capers and slices of onion on it.  The gravad lax is fabulous.  It must be the wonderful fresh salmon I bought at Ta Lin for $7.95/lb. on Saturday with all of its fat that made the difference.  We sometimes forget how good the fish department at Ta Lin really is.

At around 11:30 Cliff called and I met Cliff for lunch at Sushi Hana.  We both ordered the mackerel  Bento box for $7.95, which has become one of my favorite downtown lunches.  You initially are served a salad with a great ginger dressing and a bowl of good miso soup.  The the bento box is brought with all its sections filled with an inverted bowl of rice, a sautéed salted mackerel filet on a small pile of stir fried vegetables, four nigiri sushi, four pieces of vegetable tempura and a tempura shrimp, a slice of orange, and an Eggroll, plus small bowls of teriyaki dipping sauce for the tempura and some plum sauce for the Eggroll.  What a wonderful meal,

We enjoyed talking about stuff and eating all the different interesting items in the box until about 1:30.

At 4:00 I had to go to a closing at Stewart Title on Academy, so after the closing I stopped at the Sprouts store at Academy and San Mateo and bought Fresh Rockfish, blueberries, an eggplant, a small boneless ribeye steak, granola, olive oil.

I got caught in the rush hour traffic at 5:45 on I-25 going south from Osuna.  What a mess.

I finally got home and called Suzette , who said she was going to Belen to the Jaramillo Winery to taste and buy wine for the big meal on the 18th.

I decided to fix dinner.  I sliced the two Ichiban eggplants I bought at Ta Lin on Saturday into 2 inch long strips and put them aside for Suzette to cook her favorite Garlic Eggplant dish grip on the Mastering the Art of Chinese Cooking Cookbook by Fei.  I then sliced four stalks of Shanghai Baby Bok Choy from their stalks and separating the heavy white part from the green tops.   I then diced 1 chicken breast and put it with the white tops.  I then chopped up 2/3 of an onion and 1 zucchini and put that in a separate bowl. In the minced 2 cloves of garlic and 1 T. of ginger.  I got out the sesame oil, Chinese Cooking Wine and soy sauce and the small can of sliced bamboo shoots I had bought at Ta Lin.  

The secret to producing a harmonious combination of ingredients in a stir fried Chinese dish is to understand the relative cooking times for each ingredient and to add them and the sauce up ingredients at the right time.  For example, with tonight’s meal the longest cooking time is required for the onion and zucchini so they are added first just after the peanut oil and a dash of sesame oil was heated and the ginger and garlic added to flavor the oil.  Then after five to ten minutes of stir frying the onion and zucchini,I added the chicken and white sections of Bok choy and stir fried that for several more minutes and then added the bamboo shoots, 1/3 cup chicken stock, a dash of rice wine and a dash of soy. 

I stopped the process there to wait for Suzette, but when Willy told me he was invited to Robin’s apartment to view the NBA finals at around 7:30, I fired up the heat under the wok and added the green tops of the Bok Choy and a handful of cashews and stir fried the mixture to combine the green tops and cook them.  I made a thickening sauce with ¼ cup of chicken stock, 1 ½ T. of cornstarch, 2 T. water, 1 ½ T. of rice wine and 1 T. of soy. 

In a couple of minutes everything was hot again an well blended, so I added the thicken upping sauce and waited a minute to see how thick the sauce became.  When I saw that the sauce dried up, I added another ¼ cup of water to loosen up the sauce and heated some PPI rice from last night.

Willy and I served ourselves piles of rice covered with the chicken and cashew dish.  No sooner had we sat down than Suzette arrived and plated herself a plate of the chicken dish and joined us.

I had not added and salt or sugar so the flavor of the dish was a little bland, so I added soy to the fish to give it a salty flavor and so did Suzette.

We all liked the lightness of the dish.  I particularly liked the tenderness yet firmness of the bamboo shoots.

Bon Appetit