At least,  that review was of what I thought was the Atlas 10… SAY WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT? #PLOTTWIST

After receiving my Atlas 10, I opened it up and exclaimed, in the words of She, “WHY IS THIS SO THICK? WHAT IS THIS EXTRA GIRTH THAT I WAS NOT EXPECTING? MY THIS IS SMOOTH.”

Side-by-side, the rail on the Atlas 10 that Adorama rents out (left) is essentially half as thin as the actual Atlas 10!

And the carriage itself is also only about half as big! (the Cinevate logos above are the same size) So what exactly is this bizarro anorexic Atlas 10 that Adorama is renting out? #SCANDALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

It seems like this thinner 35″ rail is actually part of the vertical kit that Cinevate makes for the Atlas 10 (note the carriage sizes above). Now, I’m not sure why Adorama opted for a whole bunch of just vertical kit rails, especially since they’d have to then separately order the end caps and feet and re-build each slider… Oh Adorama, what a quandary of a business you are.

While it is heavier, I do actually welcome the wider rail and carriage. A MkIII with a 70-200 pretty much maxes out the Adorama Atlas 10, but the version I have now at least feels like it’ll handle much, much more. I get a little less travel with the wider carriage, but it does let me put a beefier head on there as well as a larger camera package~

So those looking to throw down for an Atlas 10 after playing with Adorama’s, BE WARRRRRRNED, it’s not quite gonna be what you expect it to be…

…unlike Guy Fieri’s restaurant, which is EXACTLY what you expect it to be:

TOTALLY. MONEY.   

They’ve got all sorts of options, from pulled chicken with rosemary and white wine to ratatouille to even beef tongue. The intensely Roman man behind the counter touts, “DIS IS-AH REEL ROMAHN FUD.” Then he showed me his collection of chariots and centurian garb. 

The kicker? THEY’RE ONLY 5 BUCKS. Get two and and a soda and you’ve got yerself one of them fancy pants Manhattan lunches you can Instagram to make your out-of-state friends jealous. 

Madison Square Eats is only going on until Oct. 19th! Located at 5th and 25th in Worth Square~ 

I find there are essentially three schools of thought when it comes to burgers. 1 – the thick steakhouse burger a la Peter Luger or Alias, 2 – the small but thick almost meatball shaped burger a la Dumont or Corner Bistro, and 3 – the wide floppy fast food / diner burger, where there is no choice in done-ness, the only option is wide floppy curiously juicy deliciousness. The Sourdough Jack is that latter burger. 

DA-MEN SHOW! (CROSS SECTION SHOW!) Don’t get me wrong, I love me some perfectly medium-rare all beef burger with a nicely seared crust, but every now and then, I just want that perfect storm of buttery toasted sourdough, tomato, beef, cheese and bacon that is the $4 Sourdough Jack. Be sure to get it without mayo though because, you know, that makes it healthy.


2) The Classic Beef & Cheddar and Curly Fries at Arby’s 

I’m not going to try to defend the Beef & Cheddar from Arby’s. I really have no idea why I find this thing delicious. I think at this point it’s just for nostalgia sake, but I. CAN’T. STOP. I will defend their curly fries though. Now I’m sure Arby’s didn’t invent the curled french fry, but it was the first place I ever had ‘em, thus I forever associate Arby’s with the seasoned curly fry, AND ALL OTHERS ARE FOREVER SAD IMITATIONS. On a completely unrelated note, is there some unspoken universal seasoning for every curly fry on the planet?

DA-MEN SHOW!


3) The Hot Dog from Costco

To this day, I’ve yet to find a more satisfying hot dog than the classic Costco hot dog. Why? IT’S ACTUALLY FILLING. This is a hot dog that feels like a real meal for a change, plus it’s buck… and you get a soda!… and all the great deals at your friendly local neighborhood Costco!


4) The Orange Julius at Puente Hills Mall

It’s a melted orange creamsicle that’s frothy. I mean, what?  

5) The Cheese of Stick at Hot Dog on a Stick in Puente Hills Mall

IT’S FRIED CHEESE ON A STICK.

DA-MEN SHOW!


6) The Beef Burrito and Carnitas Super Nachos at Moca Salsa

DA-MEN SHOW!

And yes, I know Moca Salsa is more known for their Super Fries than Super Nachos, but I’ve found that Super Fries are just wayyyy to filling. I mean, it’s like, 4 lbs of french fries topped with guacamole, salsa, beans, sour cream, and meat. NACHOS INSTEAD MAKES IT LIGHT. Either way though, super anything is a godsend, especially with carnitas instead of carne asada.


7) The Oreo Shake at Jack in the Box

Well ya gotta come full circle, and the Oreo shake from Jack in the Box is a beautiful thing. This is no ordinary milkshake, IT’S JUST SLIGHTLY MELTED ICE CREAM. The straw is purely for aesthetic purposes because it’s literally impossible to drink this thing through a straw. You’re better off using it as a really inefficient spoon, which is really the only way to properly enjoy this glorious dessert. 

Anyway, here’s the ingredient list:

 Take your slice of bacon, and cut into thin strips.

Then cut it into little pieces. You want to get as small a dice as possible so that when we cook these burgers, the bacon just melts, keeping our burger juicy and adding a hint of smoky deliciousness.

You’ll see a lot of burger recipes calling for breadcrumbs and eggs and milk and all sorts of stuff, PFFT. All that’s just filler ingredients for shitty beef. The classic American hamburger is about MEAT, A BIG DISC OF MEAT, and in this case, MEAT WITH MORE MEAT FOLDED INTO IT.

Here’s all we’re adding to our burgers. The paprika, salt, the juice from half a lime, and our minced uncooked bacon.

 Fold these ingredients into your ground beef, making sure to disperse the bacon evenly. 

And form into patties. You can make these up to a day in advance, just wrap each patty with plastic wrap and keep refrigerated. But take them out at least half an hour before you plan on cooking them to get them back to room temperature. If you were to throw an ice cold patty onto a hot pan, the outside would burn before the inside of the patty were done, AND THAT SUCKS.

I often get asked about how caramelize onions, so, QUICK SIDEBAR. Caramelized onions are one of the most versatile ingredients out there. You can put ‘em on anything and it automatically becomes fancy. Scrambled eggs? PFFT. Scrambled eggs topped with caramelized red onions? UH, WINNING.

Start by cutting off the top and bottom of your onion. You don’t have to cut off too much, just enough to give the onion a flat surface. Don’t want to waste any of that onion right? After all, I work in the film/tv industry, I even find onions expensive… AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH tear. 

Cut the onion straight down the middle.

And peel away the outer paper.

Then cut out a V where the leaves of the onion come together at the root. This will separate all the leaves.

 Then make radial cuts inwards towards the center of the onion, like the spokes of a wheel.  

 You want to make these cuts relatively thin, about a 1/8 of an inch.

Separate the onions a bit with your hands by tossing them around, just so they’re not all clumped together. 

In a small saucepan, melt half a tablespoon of butter with a teaspoon of vegetable oil over medium heat.

When the butter melts and begins to bubble, add your onions and a teaspoon of salt. Toss them around to get them coated in the oil, and then just let it sit over medium low heat. We want to coax the sugars out the onion and have them brown, so refrain from constantly stirring them.  

And before you know it, CARAMELIZED ONIONS. With a larger pan, you can cook onions like this in batches and keep them in the fridge in an airtight container for about a week. Now you can always have these on hand to make things fancy. PUT ‘EM ON A DOLLAR SLICE.

Now when it comes to spinach, I’m a huge fan of boxed frozen spinach. It’s cheap, and it’s a hell of a lot cheaper and easier than buying fresh spinach and cooking it. To prepare frozen spinach, just take it out of the box, sprinkle on a tablespoon of water, a teaspoon of salt, and microwave, covered, for around 6 minutes. Then drain any excess moisture.

LET’S MAKE RED PEPPER GARLIC OIL. When it comes to garlic, buy fresh garlic. Avoid that pre-minced stuff that’s sits festering in sad oil in screw-top jars. IT’S THE WORST and tastes of shredded dreams. 

 To peel fresh garlic, just cut off the root end.

 And take the back of your knife and smash it.

  The paper should easily come off now. If not, SMASH IT SOME MORE. 

 Then mince it fine.

 In a small saucepan, add your oil and garlic to ROOM TEMPERATURE PAN. If you add garlic to a piping hot pan with piping hot oil, it’ll burn, and burnt garlic tastes like the DEVIL, the M.Night Shyamalan version. 

 When making flavored oils, the key thing is to bring your oil up to temperature along with all the other ingredients. So add your garlic, about a tablespoon of oil, and red pepper flakes and heat gently over medium high heat.

 After a minute or so, your kitchen should smell like awesome. And the color of the oil should start to turn deep orange.  

 Then add your spinach and toss to coat. Remember the spinach is already cooked, so all we’re doing is heating it back up.

AND NOW THE BURGER.

 

Remember, bring your burger to room temperature before cooking. In a small saucepan, heat a teaspoon of oil over medium heat. 

 Sprinkle both sides of your burger with salt, and when the oil is hot, place your burger in the pan. There should be a satisfying sizzle. If your burger touches the pan and it just splutters sadly and uneventfully, your pan’s too cold. UNDO, and wait for the oil to get hotter. 

 Cover your pan, and let cook for 3.5 minutes over medium heat. Don’t go poking or prodding at it, just let it be for 3.5 minutes.

 The top of the burger should be a meatball-like grey. 

 FLIP. There should be a nice golden crust. Of course, all ranges and pans carry heat differently, so the turn the heat up or down or cook for longer or shorter accordingly. Let cook for 3 minutes on the other side, uncovered this time.

 After 3 minutes, turn off the heat. While the burger’s resting, we can dress it. Layer on your sliced chorizo. 

 The caramelized onions.

And the pepper jack or Monterey jack cheese. 

Cover, and let melt.

 Toast your potato bun, and lay a bed of the sautéed spinach on the bottom. Then top with your burger. 

 And feed it to your roommate so you don’t feel as bad using his Netflix Instant account.

  

 

“This burger made me sad when it was over.”

So just a heads up, this is also a two-day recipe, but it’s not required really. As with any stews or thick soups, it’s always better the next day because the flavors meld and whatnot, but if you can’t wait, it’s not a big deal.

SO HERE WE GO:

This makes a solid 4 to 6 portions. Our vegetables from left to right: 2 medium onions, 2 medium potatoes, a cup of mushrooms (4 oz, or half a container), two medium carrots (I ended up adding another one later), and one medium head of broccoli.

With white curry, I generally like to go with white meats, such as chicken, turkey, or pork. It keeps the dish nice and bright in my opinion. These are two chicken breasts that I pulled off a whole rotisserie chicken that I got at Whole Foods for $9.99.

I’ll do a post later next week about making the most of these store-bought chickens. At under 10 bucks ($5.99 even at supermarkets like Safeway or Albertsons), they’re pretty cost-effective if you’re looking to make meals ahead of time.

The preparation of this dish is very similar to the nikujaga recipe. In fact, it’s more or less identical except for the later stages. We begin by sweating the vegetables over medium heat with about two tablespoons of butter or oil or even non-stick spray.

Butter is preferable, as it compliments the rich-ness of this dish, and if you use oil, use canola or vegetable oil. The inherent flavor of olive oil, especially extra virgin, is a little overpowering if used here. The same goes for most (if not all) Asian dishes actually. Stick with canola, peanut, or vegetable oil. Save the olive oil for Italian dishes.

Cook for about 5 to 10 minutes, just until the vegetables start to give off some of their moisture.

This is called “sweating,” by the way. We’re cooking until the onions start to turn translucent around the edges and mushrooms soften. Don’t forget to season your vegetables here with some salt. No pepper though. You don’t want little black specks floating around your stew~

Then, like with the nikujaga recipe, add enough water to cover your vegetables. Add at most 5 cups if you’re only using 1 box of sauce mix.

And bring this to a boil. At this point, I also like to add around a tablespoon of dashi.

Then we add our “tasty cream stew sauce mix.” The same goes with these mixes as with the curry mixes. If you made a cream sauce yourself (or bechamel sauce, if you want to be pretentious), it wouldn’t taste the same. It would taste kinda like a chicken pot pie filling.

Again, concentrated cubes of Japanese goodness wins.

Because our chicken is already cooked, and the broccoli doesn’t take long to soften, we add these in last, after we’ve added our stew mix. As you can see, I just shredded the chicken breasts by pulling it apart by hand into bite-sized pieces.

Give it a good mix, and cover and simmer over low heat for a good half hour to 45 minutes at least. The longer the better, depending on how you like your vegetables cooked.

Again* 1 box of sauce mix is good for about 5 cups of added water. I’d pick up a couple boxes so that you if you add too much water, you can thicken it back up, or if you like thicker sauce, then you can add single cubes until it’s thick to your liking.

As you can see, a lot of the vegetables shrink down, and the chicken starts to break apart too. I used pre-cooked breast meat here, which does break apart like this in stews.

If you want chunks of chicken, go with raw chicken breasts or thighs.

Cut it up into cubes, saute it quickly over medium high heat to brown the edges, and remove from the pan. Then proceed with the vegetables and etc. Then add it back into the stew with the broccoli. Of course, thigh meat works just as well and tends to stay more tender over long cooking times.

From here, you can let this cool, and let it sit in the refrigerator overnight. This will give the stew a chance to settle and let the flavors meld. Again, this isn’t mandatory, so if you’d like, you can skip the cooling, and move straight onto the gratin part.

In a small bowl, melt 1 tablespoon of butter in the microwave for about 2 minutes.

While that’s melting, spoon some of the curry into an oven-safe dish, such as my French onion soup bowl! Also, turn on your broiler to its highest setting. I just use my toaster oven set to broil.

Once it’s melted, add a little bit of salt.

And toss in a handful (about half a cup) of panko.

Give it a good stir and top your stew. Be liberal with this; the layer should be about a quarter inch thick. Pop it in the broiler, and stay watching it. It only takes less than a minute for the panko to take on a nice golden brown.

Serve alongside white rice and a couple slices of French baguette.

And top with parsley and garnish with green onion that you won’t eat to be doubly egregious.

Extra points if you eat this in an over-exposed environment.

The gratin topping isn’t really necessary, but it does add a nice texture to the dish.

The chicken for the most does retain it’s shape.

And the carrots with the riffle cut is mandatory. If you don’t have a riffle cutter, you can’t make this dish. I’ll fight you with my bare hands if you dare make this dish without a riffle cutting your vegetables.

What’s great about stews like this (such as the Japanese hamburgers from the last post), is that the leftovers taste even better. So I strongly suggest making this in a large batch, and saving it for throughout the week. Split the pot up into individual tupperware containers and you can keep ‘em for up to about a week and a half in the refrigerator, or freeze them and they’ll keep for around 1 months to a month and a half.

Alrighty, here’s your ingredient list for this dish:

// Japanese White Curry
makes 4-6 servings

2 – medium onions
2 – medium potatoes
2 – medium carrots
1 – head of broccoli
4 oz – sliced mushrooms (half a container)
3 tbsp – butter (2 for the vegetables, 1 for the gratin topping)
1/2 cup – panko
1 tbsp – dashi
salt to taste
water to cover

Enjoy~ I made this at the start of the week when I made the hamburgers, so I now have a solid week and a half of food prepared, so my next couple posts won’t be whole dishes, but rather some small tips and things like that.

Such as that chicken thing I mentioned earlier. If there’s anything you’d like me to make, or any questions you may have that you’d like me to blog about, let me know!

I’LL MENTION YOU IN THE POST AND YOU CAN BE FAMOUS. holy crap.

For the soup, our vegetables: Two medium-large onions, 1 sprig of fresh thyme, 2 bay leaves, and 2 cloves of garlic.

For the chicken: One chicken breast, skin-on and bone-in. Roasting chicken with the bone in makes it a lot juicier than skinless and boneless chicken. You can always peel the skin off later too.

So in a large pot or wok over medium heat, sautee the onions in two tablespoons of butter with the thyme, bay leaves, and garlic until softened and carmelized.

While that cooks, preheat the oven to 400 and prepare the chicken by rubbing it liberally with olive oil, salt, and pepper. Feel free to add other herbs and spices to your liking, such as oregano or rosemary, but you’d be surprised how flavorful good chicken can be just roasted with salt and pepper.

When the oven is heated, roast the chicken for around 40 minutes while you make the soup.

After around 25 to 30 minutes, stirring occasionally, your onions will be nice and caramelized.

As you can see, they cook down quite a bit.

Add around a cup of red wine, and turn the heat to high to bring to a boil. When the wine is boiling, bring the heat back down to around medium and cook until the alcohol cooks out and wine evaporates.

This will take around 10 minutes or so.

Fish out the thyme and the bay leaves, and then sprinkle the onions with two tablespoons of flour. Stir liberally to break up any lumps, and cook for another 10 minutes.

The flour will combine with the wine to form a nice and flavorful coating over your onions.

Then we add 1 quart of beef stock, and bring to a simmer.

Cook for another 10 minutes, and season to your liking.

The classic preparation of this soup begins by pouring a serving into an small crock pot or similar oven safe bowl like the one above. Make sure to leave about half an inch from the top of the bowl for the bread and cheese.

Place a slice of toasted French baguette and layer gruyere cheese over it. Be sure to toast the bread first, or it will immediately sop up the soup and become soggy.

A couple minutes under the broiler, and the cheese melts nicely around the bread.

Garnish with a sprig of thyme because it looks awesome.

By then, your chicken will be nicely golden brown. Serve along-side brown rice and salsa.

You can see how juicy the chicken is when you leave the skin and bone on.

Nom.

—

Oh, and my bonsai tree fails. I’m beginning to think the seeds never sprouted.

TEAR.

But I will be gathering ingredients throughout the week for okonomiyaki. So look for that this weekend! And… no bonsai update either because… well… it looks exactly the same.

Anyway, seeing as how Friday was independence day, I decided to be uberly American and make a steak.

This is around a 12oz. rib-eye steak with a red-wine & beef-broth reduction sauce with sauteed mushrooms and potatoes roasted in a red-pepper and sun-dried tomato pesto.

With steaks, the general idea is to start on high heat, and with a steak that’s room temperature. If you take a steak straight out of the fridge and onto the pan, it’ll cool the pan down too quickly, and you won’t be able to get a nice sear.

For medium done-ness, as pictured above, it’ll take around three or four minutes on each side on medium-high to high heat. Of course, this varies depending on the thickness of your steak (mine was about a half-inch), your range (gas, electric, etc.), and what kind of pan you use (steel, iron, aluminum, etc.). Some pans will retain heat a lot better than others, reducing cooking time, and vice versa. I used my mini-teppan grill for this steak, because mini-teppan grills are awesome.

It’s integral to let steak rest after you take it off the pan. In this case, at least 5 minutes. If you cut into it immediately, all the juices will flow out, and your steak will dry up very quickly. Resting gives the juices a chance to cool down, regain some of its viscosity, and redistribute itself throughout the meat.

Oh, and a trick with potatoes. After you cut them, put them in the microwave for about 2 minutes to par-cook them before you season them and put them in the oven. This drastically reduces the time it takes to roast potatoes like this.

The potatoes above only took about 25 minutes in a conventional toaster oven at 375 degrees.

Hope everyone had a good long weekend!

The traditional recipe calls for thinly sliced beef, like that used in sukiyaki. But I like large chunks… because why not. The beef I’m using here is prime chuck. You could easily make this dish with pork or chicken. The flavor won’t change too much.

Our vegetables from left to right: 2 medium potatoes, 1 medium onion, a handful of baby carrots. They don’t need to be baby carrots, I just had a bag of ‘em lying around.

So we start by browning the beef over high heat.

Just until they pick up some color.

At this stage, the meat will still be around medium-rare.

Then we add our vegetables, chopped into bite-size pieces to match the beef.

This is sauteed for around 5 minutes, just until the onion starts to cook.

Then we add enough dashi broth just to cover. Here we are using about 2 and a half cups. Dashi is sold in most Japanese markets in a granulated form in packets, so making dashi broth really involves just adding water.

When this comes to a boil, the heat is turned down to around medium/medium-low, and we cover, and simmer for about half an hour, or until the potatoes soften. After which, we add around 2 tablespoons each of soy sauce and sake. Then we add brown sugar to our liking. Of course, the soy sauce and sugar can be substituted for bottled sukiyaki sauce. Same ingredients~ Sukiyaki sauce can border on the sweet side though, so balance it out with some salt, or more soy sauce if it’s too sweet for your tastes.

Cook uncovered over low for another 8 minutes or so to reduce the liquid and cook the alcohol out of the sake.

By now, the onions have dissolved, and, combined with the starch from the potatoes and reduced broth, forms a nice sauce. There’s not too much sauce, but just enough to coat the meat and vegetables.

Served with some white rice, and this stew is Japanese comfort food at its best.

Nom.

Oh, and no bonsai tree update today…. nothing’s happened.

… tear.