Congratulations to Ted and Sarah – they both did a great job. Their meals looked very tasty, and their pictures and write-ups were detailed and thoughtfully done. I hope others will follow their lead. Go trek around some of the best parts of Atlanta, get yourself in the kitchen, and fire up something new!

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Being a Chinese food cooking novice, I was really excited to have the opportunity to participate in the Land of Plenty Challenge. Given that my heat tolerance is a lot higher than Alison’s (my wife), I elected to go with dishes that were described as on the milder side. For dinner tonight, we had the Dry-Fried Chicken (gan bian ji) accompanied by Stir-Fried Mixed Vegetables (si zhong shu cai). Like the first participant, I did all my prep work in advance so as to be able to cook more quickly.

First up, I cut the veggies for the stir fry. Here are all of the ingredients: snow peas, lotus root, cucumber, tomato, and julienned ginger.

After getting these in order, I put together the components for the chicken dish. This next shot shows all of the ingredients lined up, which include: cubed chicken, sliced celery and scallions, dark soy sauce, chili bean paste, Shaoxing rice wine, sesame oil, dried chiles, and whole Sichuan peppercorns.

Here is a close up of the peppers, as well as the liquid ingredients:

Time to cook. The chicken takes longer, so I started with it. First, ¼ cup of peanut oil into the wok and stir-fry until the chicken was brown and most of the liquid had cooked off.

Next step was to add the chiles and peppercorns, stir-fry until fragrant, and then add the paste. The paste imparted a great red orange color to the chicken, which deepened considerably as it cooked.

Next, I added the wine and dark soy, and cooked over medium heat until the sauce thickened and nearly cooked off (about 10 minutes) at which point the celery and scallions went in for a couple of minutes, until crisp-tender.

Towards the last few minutes of cooking the chicken, I made the vegetable stir-fry in a separate pan. First, I heated the peanut oil until smoking, then quick-fried the snow peas. I then pulled these out of the pan, added the ginger until fragrant, and then the lotus root. Next came the cucumber, and then the tomatoes with the snow peas added back to warm through. Very simply seasoned, the dish called only for some salt in addition to the ginger.

Finally, it was time for plating, and, of course, eating! I served the chicken over some steamed basmati rice, and the vegetables on a separate plate.

Of the two, we definitely preferred the chicken. It was very flavorful. The sauce was complex, with a nice numbing feeling from the peppercorns, and a slow, mild heat. Actually, I thought the heat was a bit too tame, and I would add more chiles next time. The textures were similarly complex, with the celery added a nice crunch to off-set the soft chicken. Of note, the recipe suggested adding salt to taste, but I found that the combination of the soy and chili paste provided ample saltiness. The vegetables were a bit disappointing. I found the lotus to be starchy and a bit bland, perhaps because I couldn’t find fresh and had to settle for pre-sliced and refrigerated. I think jicama would actually work better in this dish, imparting a bit more sweetness. While the dish was designed to be simple and refreshing, I thought it was a bit too tame in the flavor department.

Overall, the dinner was a success, and I am looking forward to trying more dishes from Land of Plenty. I really enjoy dabbling in new cuisines, especially when the results are as tasty as the chicken dish.

Sourcing

I was able to find the vast majority of the ingredients at the DeKalb Farmer’s Market and at the near-by First Oriental Market on Ponce. The only thing I couldn’t find there was the lotus, which I located at the Buford Highway Farmer’s Market. This was my first trip there since the re-model, and I wish I had had the time to explore it in greater detail. By far the most interesting and varied collection of international foods I have seen in Atlanta. It also has a terrific produce section, including a surprisingly large amount of organics. I will definitely have to pay it another visit soon.

Thanks to Jimmy for putting this contest together, and for helping me expand my culinary horizons!

A guest post where someone cooks something different, using unique ingredients, is very much in the spirit of this site – hopefully it will inspire you to get out there and cook up something you’ve never tried before. Thanks Sarah!

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For my Land of Plenty challenge, I chose to make Spicy Cold Noodles with Chicken Slivers (p. 95) and Dry-Fried Green Beans 2 – Vegetarian Version (p. 290). The first thing I did was get all of the ingredients ready.  From reading Jimmy’s posts, I assumed the actual cooking would go quickly and I would want to be ready. I boiled the chicken breasts and then Ben made them into nice slivers by first mashing the breasts with the meat pounder, then slicing them along the grain.

Here is everything for the noodles ready to go, except the noodles themselves.

I cooked the noodles and, following the recipe, spread them out, sprinkled some peanut oil over them, and tossed to coat.  This prevents them from getting sticky while they cool.

While the noodles and chicken were cooling, we made the sauce by mixing all of the ingredients together.  Said ingredients include tahini, soy sauce, Chinkiang (black Chinese vinegar), sugar, garlic, ground Sichuan pepper, chili oil with chile flakes (ours had peanuts in it too), and sesame oil.  The rest of the noodles dish is simply layering everything.  First, I placed the bean sprouts at the bottom of the bowl (as seen in the first picture), then placed a layer of noodles over those.  Here is everything mid-way through the layering process.

I spooned a generous amount of sauce over the noodles.  Lastly, I placed the chicken and some chopped chives on top.  Here is a close-up of the noodles ready to eat.

For the beans, first I cut the ends off the beans, then I sliced the scallions, ginger, and garlic, and cut the chilies in half.

To cook the beans, I heated the peanut oil in a skillet (a wok would be ideal here) and cooked the beans over medium heat for about eight minutes.

I set the beans aside, wiped out the pan, and heated some fresh oil.  Then I added the scallions, ginger, garlic, chilies, and Sichuan pepper.  I stir-fried those briefly then added the beans back in.  After adding some salt, they were ready.

The finished products were very yummy looking.

There was definitely a lot of heat in both dishes.  Once we got past the heat…or more correctly, before the heat set in, the noodles were quite fantastic.  We both said that we taste the many different flavors in the sauce, and that it was a great combination.  The description in the cookbook calls this dish distinctively Sichuanese, so I was glad that we both enjoyed it so much.  We ate the leftovers for lunch the next day.

For me, the green beans were a small disappointment.  They tasted like exactly the ingredients – the beans, the peppers, the garlic and the ginger.  I wonder if I did not "dry fry" them enough, because they didn’t look wrinkly like in the cookbook.  I did cook them longer than the recipe called for, but perhaps I should have kept going.

Overall I was pleased with the results and we were both satisfied after our delicious dinner.  Just to mimic Jimmy’s great style, I should mention that we paired our meal with Sweetwater 420.  And lastly, here is Holden, the most amenable food critic around…

Sourcing

I found all of the ingredients either at Publix or the Buford Highway Farmer’s Market. This was my first trip the Farmer’s Market and it was a great experience.  While it may appear slightly sketchy, it is very well organized, and most of the Chinese products have translations.  The prices are good, and I loved their enormous tea selection.  I felt that Ben and I had to be the preppiest suburbanites in the store, given that we were dressed for dinner at Watershed afterwards.  On our way home, after eating our gourmet southern meal, I kept talking about how I love that Atlanta represents so many different cultures but still retains the best of the south.

Happy belated birthday to my dad, who turned 54 yesterday. Now well into his fifties, he’s still going strong and kicks butt in the gym 5 days a week. I tell you this, I wouldn’t mess with him. That also applies to his youthful spirit; as he says, “you can’t always be young, but you can always be immature”. 

I stayed in Atlanta this weekend but my mom made a special brunch for him today, and I’m sorry I missed it. Looking at these photos, you can see where my inspiration originates. 

Happy Birthday pops. 

Before the guest post, I wanna give a shout out to Yelp. I feel that Yelp is the best source of online information for general public opinion on restaurants, shoppings, and events. There’s a lot of information, thorough reviews, and you easily have the ability to dig into very localized information (e.g. what’s the best pizza near Westside of Atlanta). The iPhone app utlitizes GPS to tell you what’s “Hot” near you right at that very moment. Very cool. Try it out, and if you join, be sure to look up my profile. I’m gonna try to give back a little and add more snobby reviews myself. 

Without further ado, Nick’s post (unedited so don’t hate on me):

Pig Roast

Over the past couple of months a few friends and I have been talking about cooking a pig so we decided that doing one for a football weekend was a good idea. We decided on doing it for the UGA v Auburn game weekend as GT was off and I would be in town to help. 

Before trying to cook a pig, be sure you are ready to do a lot of work with little to no sleep while doing it. To get started you need to order a pig a week or two in advance of the pig roast. You can usually get one from any butcher shop, they run anywhere from $1.50/lb to $2.00/lb. There are not too many actual butcher shops around these days, but look in your local ghetto and you will probably find one, also they will typically pickle anything you want for an extra couple bucks. 

The Wednesday before the pig roast we decided to get all the materials and dig a small pit to limit ourselves the amount of work we would have to do the night of cooking. You don’t have to dig a pit, you can build up the blocks higher if you like, but I enjoy digging a pit. I have found it helps keep the heat in a little better while cooking as the dirt provides insulation. Another way to do it would be to use a large catering style smoker, although you feel more macho digging in the dirt. The hole is about 3.5’ x 5’ and 1’ to 2’ deep.

Notice the blocks on the side have two less in the middle, I will use bars here to support the weight of the pig while it cooks and the higher blocks on the outside will help hold up the metal covering I use to keep the heat in. 

Now that the heavy labor of playing in the dirt and moving 32 cinder blocks is over it is time to prep the pig for cooking. The pig was picked up Friday afternoon to cook that night.  Due to UGA sucking this year, the game time was set for 12:30 so we wanted to be able to eat by 1pm. This meant the pig needed to be on the fire around midnight on Friday. While you wait, prepare to have it stored in a large cooler so the meat doesn’t get funky. To prepare it I used the following seasonings to make a rub.

 You can pretty much use anything you want as the natural flavors of the pork come out after 10-12 hrs of cooking. We used some olive oil, salt, pepper, and various rib rubs. 

Once it was seasoned we put the rods through the pig. We used 0.25” non-galvanized rebar for this. Be sure to clean it of rust before piercing the pig. When piercing the pig go through the shoulders and ribs to provide a sturdy support. You need the bone structure to help support the pig white it cooks as the meat gets so tender it will fall off of the rods.

 Once the rods are through the pig you will need to wrap it tightly with chicken wire to keep the pig from falling apart while it cooks. We used 18 gauge picture hanging wire to tie the chicken wire closed. I also tied its limbs to the re-bar for extra support.

Now it is time to get the fire going. Put a couple of bags of ice on the pig to keep it cold while you get the fire going. Pile charcoal, wood, etc into the corners of the pit and get it lit. You want them in the corners out from underneath the pig to provide indirect cooking, basically a big outdoor oven.

Once the coals become white hot place the pig over the pit and cover with something to keep the heat in.

We used corrugated roofing metal. I’ve also used plywood before. Now you just hang out, drink cold beers, and wait for about 10-12 hours until it is finished cooking. During this time you will need to replenish the coals about every hour. I also like to put some hickory chips in the fire to make it smoke. Also flip the pig over maybe once every 3 or 4 hours to get even cooking. 

At about hour 10 use a meat thermometer to check the inside of the pig, the inner most meat should be around 180 degrees for it to be finished. Once this happens take the pig off and put it on the table for the picking. You should now have some of the tenderest BBQ you will ever have. Find some BBQ sauce, a cold beer, and enjoy.

 As a side note, I’ve found out several times that it is good idea to pick a bunch off and put in bowls away from the main table as many people get freaked out by the site of folks pulling meat out of a carcass on the table.

Also, I laid an egg by not posting about the chili cook-off yet, but I am planning on doing that after work today. I am still waiting on some photos from others because the photos I have came out very blurry. 

Today’s meal photos are from my brother. He and his girlfriend have ordered “lobster-grams” a few times, and this time they went all out with a seafood feast that is definitely jealousy inducing. Also, I have a couple of camera-phone photos from his meal last night. Enjoy. 

The order. Can you believe how much stuff is included (and what it must have cost)???

Dogs love lobster too. 

Simmering snow crab claws. Looks awesome. 

Dying with dignity. 

Bibs on!

Something with which to wash it down. (btw alliteration rules)

Eggs benedict with lobster leftovers. What could be better?

Shifting gears to a different meal. A baked potato topped with chili cook-off leftovers. 

Chicken soup (with real homemade stock)

 By: Matt L (Contributing Writer) 

Jimmy’s Note: The first guest post (Power Meal: Super Stuff Pork Tenderloin) was quite popular, and a handful of people have asked if they could contribute, so it looks as if a “series” has been created. I’m a fan of it, and I think it’s cool that others are getting on-board. Now…on to the lobster.

To begin, lobster bisque has to be one of my favorite soups.  The one attribute of this particular soup that really matters to me is chunkiness.  Now, I don’t really mean this in the traditional sense, but just that most places (no matter how nice), will charge you an arm and a leg for completely liquid soup that has some lobster juice thrown in.  This recipe is far beyond any of those. 

I researched for a little while in preparation for my bisque-venture and found 4 recipes, from which I gathered some insight.  My parents recently went to Maine (following a trip to Bean-town to see GT play Boston College) and brought back several pounds of fresh frozen lobster.  The lobster is obviously the main focus of the soup, but don’t worry, you can find good lobster fairly easily (not cheaply though).  The bisque starts with a white onion, 2 stalks of celery, a shallot, a teaspoon of garlic, and 4 tablespoons of butter (no one ever said this soup was healthy).  I chopped the veggies up in a pretty small dice, but you can use your own discretion here.  Now, just throw everything in a nice and heavy soup pot over med-high heat.  Let the veggies soften and mix up with the butter.

When they look good and are soft to the taste, add 1/3 heaping cup of flour and mix it in really well with a utensil of your choice (I like wooden spoons).  I say “heaping”, because I added 1/3 cup and ended up having to dump some flour in towards the end to achieve a good texture, which is not ideal.  Once you have all that mixed, which shouldn’t take very long, add 2 cups of half n half.  Turn the heat to med-low and let this simmer for about 5-10 min.  The next step is to add the seafood stock.  Fish stock is recommended here, but if you are like me and traveled to 3 stores and found NO fish stock, you can use half clam juice and half vegetable stock (which ended up tasting amazing!!).  Add roughly 3 and a half cups of your stock, with 3 tablespoons fresh chopped parsley, and turn the heat up a bit.  You don’t want to boil the soup, but get it pretty hot for about 10-12 minutes, so it thickens a bit. 

Once you have it at a decent thickness, its time for the LOBSTER!!  I used half a pound of cooked lobster meat and chopped it up pretty well.  You can use any size chunks you want. 

Turn the heat back to med-low and let everything simmer for about 10 minutes.  When this is done, you should taste and add salt and pepper as needed.  I accompanied this soup with a few chunks of fresh Ciabatta bread, for sopping, and threw a few freshly chopped chives on top. 

We have reached the conclusion of our Lobster Bisque lesson, and I am sure you will enjoy it.  In the spirit of Jimmy, I shall pair this dish with a wine.  I recommend a crisp chardonnay with an introductory blast of fruit and a woody finish…or just make a screwdriver.

By: Ryan Johnson (Contributing Writer)

Jimmy’s Note: This is the first time this site has featured a “guest blogger”. Ryan (next door neighbor and friend) sent this to me for consideration. I decided that because this site is all about how others have inspired me to do this, it would only be right for me to post his write-up. However, I bear no responsibility for the content in general, or particularly Ryan’s (poor) attempt at humor. 

This past Thursday night, I decided on my ride home from work that I wanted to cook dinner for whoever was going to be at the house, potentially two roommates and a girlfriend. I soon realized that everyone was home and hungry. Good news! Then I thought, as I normally do, “What would Jimmy do in this situation?” In my continuing efforts to impress the foodie next door, I thought maybe I could take a couple of pictures and make a submission to eatitatlanta.com. I went at it with great enthusiasm at this point, making exaggerated claims to my roommates who were just lounging in the living room. “I am going to rock y’alls world tonight!” “Screw you!” one of them yelled at me. Make your haters your motivators, right? Haha

Anyway, I was getting to work. Oh yeah, on my way home I also stopped at a liquor store to see if they had the new Southern sensation in which I had only heard rumors. I walked in and asked for some “Firefly.” The Indian lady working there rolled her eyes at me and pointed to a big display of bottles right in front. Oops. I picked up a bottle of Firefly Sweet Tea infused vodka. Firefly Vodka is infused with the only tea grown in the United States. The tea plantation is less than 5 miles from the distillery on Wadamalaw Island outside Charleston, South Carolina. I found out from the Indian lady that the Firefly literally just arrived in Atlanta last week. I made everyone a cocktail. Three-fourths vodka, one-fourth Minute Maid Lemonade. I garnished with a slice of lime. It was dangerous it was so delicious. Rave reviews followed first sips. 

Now on to the tenderloin. I purchased a 2-pound Teriyaki-flavored pork tenderloin from Kroger about a week ago. It is very easy to cook. Just open the package and pop the log on a pan for 30 minutes at 400 degrees. Very tasty. This night I was inspired by a Men’s Health recipe for a stuffed loin. I thought it was a good variation on my usual loin dinner. 

The first step is the butchering. The picture below is my attempt at butterflying the loin, the hardest part of the whole meal. Take a paring knife and split the meat down the center, cutting almost but not all the way through, and then open the halves so they lie flat. The shape should resemble a butterfly.

Next came the stuffing. The recipe calls for 1 cup reduced fat ricotta cheese, 2 cups chopped fresh baby spinach leaves, 1 jar (5 oz.) of artichoke hearts, drained and diced and a half teaspoon of dried basil. Leigh had arrived and offered to help. She started taking the stems off the spinach, in which she said she had much experience.   

We decided to put the cheese, basil, spinach, and artichokes in the blender to chop it down even further to form a thick spread. I think a food processor would have worked better though.

I proceeded to stuff my meat. That’s what she said. The directions said to roll the meat around the stuffing. I quickly realized that that wasn’t going to work. I stuck bamboo spears through the sides of the meat to support it, but I ended up smearing the spread on top of the meat which worked just as well I think.  

I drizzled some olive oil on top and sprinkled some salt and pepper over the whole thing. I roasted it for 30 minutes at 400 just like usual. The awesome tenderloin aroma filled the house almost immediately. 

I cut the loin into about 10 pieces. The meat was moist and flavorful. That was to be expected though. I am a loin leader, and I’m not just talking about food here. The stuffing was soft and but had a richness to it. It was like a healthy cheesecake. Delicious. We plated it up with broccoli, mac and cheese and creamed brussel sprouts.  

The dinner was topped off with some big chocolate chip cookies. Comfort food at its best. It was a great meal overall. Most people were complimentary. I think they were just happy that they had a no-effort-required meal. Hopefully this makes the cut, Jimmy. *crossing fingers*