Xesla Research Organisation

Fettucini with Fresh Vegetables

Pasta is not something many people make fresh for themselves. A terrible shame as far as I’m concerned. Home made pasta will always taste better than any supermarket brand pasta and probably cost less too. A pasta machine can be purchased for as little as $25. Of course pasta takes about an hour from start to finish to make, but only really half of that is hands on and kneading dough is incredibly soothing after a hard days work.

Fresh pasta only takes a couple of minutes to cook and is brilliant with just a few fresh vegetables. You don’t need any thick cream or rich tomato based sauces.

Continue Reading »

Tags: pasta

Umami is known as the fifth taste and is often described as ‘savoriness’ or ‘meaty’.    In the last few years it’s been getting a lot of attention around the internet as well as some of the better of the TV chefs / cooking shows ( Heston Blumenthal, Top Chef, and others ).

Over the last few months I’d been slowly collecting Umami rich ingredients with a plan to produce a recipe that really highlights it.   A few days ago I stumbled across a review for a burger place in California called ‘Umami Burger’ and I figured that a burger would be a great food to highlight the flavour.

I spent the morning putting thought to paper on what ingredients to use, and how to use them.  I decided on trying to get the taste into everything that went into the burger from the sauce to the bun.   So I made a Shitake Mushroom sauce, a Parmesan Crisp, and a Truffled Brioche Bun.   The burger has Beef, Shitake, Vegemite and Truffle salt through it.

Recipes after the jump.

Continue Reading »

Tags: Burger, Cooking, Hamburger, Umami

This is the moon landing of the 21st century. In the 20th century people asked “where were you when Armstrong walked on the moon?”, “what were you doing when JFK was shot”. In a few decades we’ll all be asking eachother “Where were you when the double down was released?”.

When asked this important question I will proudly say “I was at KFC on that fateful day, and I ate a double down”.

The meal … Double Down, Wedges ( KFC here doesn’t have the awesome fries like back home ) and to add some irony ( the 12th secret herb and/or spice ) to the meal, a Diet Coke …

The verdict? AWESOME! I mean fried chicken with cheese bacon and a mustardy mayonnaise, Even the 14 year old manning the fryer can’t get that wrong. I wouldn’t eat it every day, but I will eat it again if I happen to drive past a KFC when hungry.

Tags: chicken, double down

I love Thai food, but have had a real hard time finding good Thai in Austin ( Although I’m told Thai Fresh downtown is excellent ). I finally decided that if I was going to have good Thai I’d have make it myself and spent the last few weeks on the lookout for shrimp paste, galangal, lemon grass and other things that can be hard to find in this Maccas and Kraft Dinner country.

Continue Reading »

Tags: Beef, chillies, curry, Thai

I decided to turn my Pastured Pork Shoulder into one of my all time favourite dishes Cochinita Pibil. I’ve posted a recipe for this before so I won’t go into too much detail. Traditionally the Pibil is served with a red onion pickle. I also had some blue corn flour that I’ve been saving to have a go at making tortillas.

Continue Reading »

Tags: Onion, pickle, pork, tortilla

With a gallon of raw milk to get through I wanted to try my hand at making some cheese. After doing some googling and research I found a nice simple recipe that looked like it would work well.

I poured a litre of milk into a heavy bottom saucepan and put it over low heat. I added some citric acid and some rennet and brought it up to 31 C. I gave it a good stir and then turned off the heat and covered it for several hours.

When I opened the lid I was happy to see the curd had seperated out. I cut the curd into squares and brought the temperature up to 42 C stirring occasionally. I held the temp at 42 for about 30 minutes stirring every 5 minutes or so.

I strained the curds into a cheesecloth and let it drip for about 30 minutes. The curds went into a bowl with a dash of salt and was mixed. The curds then went into the microwave for 45 seconds and then I needed it by hand until it gave me a nice elastic mozzerella feel to it. Into the fridge to cool and done!.

Tags: cheese, mozzerella, raw milk

Searching my cookbooks for something to do with the Raw Milk I got yesterday from MooJesus Dairy I stumbled across this dish in the Momofuku cookbook. I took a few liberties with it ( the Capt Crunch and the cornflake tuille are my additions ).

Continue Reading »

Tags: avacado, captain crunch, corn flakes, cream, dessert, Milk, panna cotta

One thing that really annoys me about living in Austin is the lack of a really good butcher. Don’t get me wrong there’s a few good places to buy quality meat ( Central Market, Wholefoods, etc ) however their butchers are generally too busy running a long counter with lots of customers to talk meat. When I have managed to get a few minutes with them I’ve found them to be fairly unknowledgable about non-standard isssue meats. Ask them about Caul fat, Pork Jowls, or heaven forbid a whole pigs head and they generally just tell you they don’t have any… No offers to get any in.

Anyways, because of this I’m always on the lookout for local farms that sell direct. I’ve found often the prices charged by the farms are very similar to that of CM and generally far superior being pastured, grass fed, etc. I stumbled across MooJesus Farm’s website and after a quick read knew that I had to go there. Not only pastured meats, but raw dairy!

Continue Reading »

Tags: Beef, Farm, Milk, pork, Review

Just a quick note to mention that I’ve added an iPhone skin which should make browsing xesla.ro easy from an iPhone or similar device. Be handy for when at the supermarket and trying to remember what I need to buy for a particular recipe.

I don’t cook fish much, something I often contemplate changing. With some fresh Mahi Mahi at $6/pound it seemed like a great opportunity to cook some. I decided to go for a basic saute with just salt and pepper. If I was doing it again I’d probably take it off the gas earlier and finish it off in the oven.

I made a white sauce by gently cooking down half an onion with some almond slivers being careful not to colour the onion. I added a good splash of white wine, a bay leaf, a couple of cardamon pods and some salt/pepper. I reduced the wine down and then added some milk and left it on low heat while the fish cooked.

Tags: Fish, mahi