White fungus is from the mushroom family and is sold dried.

You have to soak the fungus in water.

I soaked the fungus in water changing the water at least a half dozen times for a few hours and rubbed it like I was giving it a shampoo to make sure it was forking clean.

The fungus had an aroma or funk that I didn’t care for so then I soaked it over night in a mixture of rice wine vinegar, water and kosher salt.

I then got the fungus ready for cooking and gave them a trim of the hard base they have.

I rinsed off the liquid and put the fungus to boil in a solution of 2 cups of sugar and 6 cups of water and let the fungus boil two minutes. I thought the fungus is now edible and would taste good in a stir fry but I wanted to do something different.

I took the fungus out with a slotted spoon and then placed them on a silicon mat and then in a 225 degree F oven.

After about 90 minutes most of the fungus quickly became hard and crunchy and tasted similar to frosted corn flakes cereal. They became shattering crisp.

All I did was sprinkle the fungus with sweetened cocoa and some cinnamon.

The fungus would be great on top of a dessert or chocolate for a light as air crunch on top of something.

There’s fungus is among us.

It’s GOOD and that’s The Forking Truth

Spicy Gangnam Style Potato Salad

This is a Korean Inspired Potato Salad. This salad differs from most potato salads in many ways. First of all to get a more intense potato flavor…… I boiled the potatoes with a teaspoon of baking soda. It intensifies the potato flavor but it also breaks down the surface of the potatoes making them very soft. That is what I wanted for this style of potato salad because a Korean style Potato salad is suppose to be creamy from the potatoes in addition to the mayonnaise. It comes out almost like a mashed potato salad but with big chunks of potatoes. I flavored the salad with Korean Gochujang that’s savory, spicy and pungent, added some fruit and topped the salad with crumbled egg yolk. I’ve been told this salad is forking delicious so if your into these kind of flavors you should enjoy it. The salad is spicy but not too spicy.

Ingredients Makes about 8 servings

2 lbs Potatoes pealed (you want the potatoes cut some but not much because you will slightly over cook them and they will break when you mix. You want the pieces big like limes or big apricots)

2 extra large eggs

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 Tablespoon kosher salt

1/4 cup celery chopped small

1/2 cup apple chopped small

1/4 cup scallion whites

1/4 cup scallion greens

1 cup low fat mayonnaise (I reserve full fat mayo for deviled eggs and egg salad)

2 teaspoons gochujang

1 Tablespoon rice wine vinegar

1 Tablespoon soy sauce

1 Tablespoon honey

BIG pinch shredded Korean red pepper

Directions

Add very cold water a little more than 1/2 way up to your medium size sauce pan. Add your potatoes, salt, baking soda and eggs to your pan.

Place on heat source and bring to boil and then reduce to a simmer. Everything will be done in 15-20 minutes.

While your potatoes are cooking you can mix up your dressing and quickly chop the produce you need for this recipe. For the dressing in a small bowl add your mayo, gochujang, rice wine vinegar, soy sauce, honey. Mix till combined well and set to the side.

When done set in a colander to drain and peal your eggs. Cut the eggs in half and set the yolks to the side (you use them at the end) and break the whites down somewhat small and add them to the potatoes. Add your celery, apple, scallion white ends.

Now top the potato mixture with the dressing and fold gently. Top with green ends of scallions. and top the scallions with egg yolks and you just push threw the colander or crumble well. For an optional touch it’s fun to add some spicy Korean Shredded pepper to the top of the potato salad.

Spicy Gangnam Style Potato Salad

Spicy Gangnam Style Potato Salad

It’s Forking Good! and That’s The Forking Truth

Cold Ginger Chicken

I enjoyed the cold ginger chicken dish at Wo Fat Chinese Restaurant in Las Vegas recently and I thought I could make something similar using my Sous Vide. I thought the chicken would get the right infusion of flavor and a certain tenderness that I wanted.  Instead of a whole chicken I just used legs so everything would be done at the same time in the Sous Vide. I studied several recipes for Hawaiian Style Cold Ginger Chicken.

Basically Cold Ginger Chicken is made by simmering a whole chicken in water with ginger garlic and green onions. Then you pull it out of the liquid when cooked and then shock it with cold water and chop and serve with the sauce. At the restaurant they served the chicken with bones and skin that you had to remove. They also served it WARM so I also serve it warm. I prefer to remove the skin and bones before serving.

Not all but many of the recipes I looked at for the sauce included a large amount of oil that you heat up and add the minced green onions and ginger with a little garlic and cilantro. What I did different from most recipes was to cut the oil to only 1/4 cup and added some water. I didn’t want to use a large amount of oil for this dish. When I made the sauce I thought it was good but as it sat it turned more oniony than I wanted so I added 2 teaspoons of brown sugar and one teaspoon of rice wine vinegar. It seemed balanced after that but I don’t know if those are ingredients are authentic for a cold ginger chicken recipe but they taste good that way so there they are. This dish comes out FORKING AMAZING and different! It isn’t a strong ginger taste like you might expect. It just comes out DELICIOUS!

Ingredients Set Sous Vide to 176 degrees F 4-8 hours I’m doing 6

4 lbs. whole chicken legs

4 garlic cloves rough chopped

1/2 medium onion pealed and rough chopped

2 1/2 in. ginger chopped

1 carrot cut in a few pieces

1 small Thai chili cut in half

1 Tablespoon kosher salt

1 Tablespoon fresh cilantro

2 scallions chopped in half

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

2 oz. frozen chicken fat

Everything goes in your Sous Vide Bag. Just Vacuum and seal and let it cook about 6 hours at 176 degrees F. When it’s done you can put in an ice bath to stop the cooking process. Don’t use any of the vegetables. All the flavor came out of them, they are trash now. I like to remove the skin and take the chicken off the bones to serve. Reserve the liquid from your Sous Vide bag for serving. Skim off the fat and use a tablespoon or 2 of liquid for each serving of chicken.

Sauce Ingredients

10 scallions chopped

3 garlic cloves chopped

2 Tablespoons fresh cilantro chopped

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/3 cup grated ginger

1/4 cup canola oil

1/2 cup water

2 teaspoons dark brown sugar

1 teaspoon rice wine vinegar

Just blend up and heat before serving and pour over the chicken that might be warm.

Sous Vide Hawaiian Inspired Cold Ginger Chicken

This is a great recipe. Even people like my husband who hates ginger thinks this dish is delicious. Kept forking thanking me all night long for preparing this dish.

It’s FORKING Delicious and that’s The Forking Truth

..

Duchess Inspired Kabocha Squash

One of the most delicious and most indulgent potato side dishes are duchess potatoes. They are like mashed potatoes but are over the top and are like on steroids. Duchess potatoes are cooked potatoes that are mixed with heavy cream, soft butter, egg yolks and a little nutmeg with salt and pepper. The potatoes get piped threw a pastry bag and and then baked in the oven to get tasty crisp ends. It’s a very rich dish and you sure don’t come by it often as it often was a dish that was usually served table side on a big silver platter with a chateaubriand also know as a Tenderloin for two. Those kind of dishes and restaurants with table side service seemed to disappeared around 1990. They seemed to have gone out of style.

I think I updated the recipe using much lighter healthier kabocha squash. To make a batch of either duchess potatoes or duchess inspired kabocha squash we start with a medium size squash or about 3 pounds of potatoes. The nutrition is significantly different.

about 3 pounds of potatoes is around 854 calories and about 248 carbs

about 3 pounds of kabocha squash is around 240 calories and about 42 carbs

I also cut in half the amount of butter I’d use to make duchess potatoes and instead of the 3 egg yolks I just used 1 whole extra large egg.

Because the flavor profile is different I did splurge on a 1/4 cup of dark brown sugar I thought we could afford.

Overall it’s very tasty and dinner guest will not be aware that this is a much lighter healthier alternative to a potato side dish.

Ingredients to make around 16 portions (extras can be frozen and reheated well)

1 medium kabocha squash roasted, seeded and flesh removed

2 oz. butter (room temperature)

1/2 cup heavy cream

1 extra large egg beaten

1/4 cup dark brown sugar

1 Tablespoon cinnamon

1/2 a very small fresh grated nutmeg

pinch salt

Directions Set oven to 350 degrees and you need lightly greased baking sheets

mash squash with potato masher and slowly add all the ingredients and mash till well combined. Fill your pastry bag about halfway with mixture and  twist the end to hold the mixture in.

Squeeze out the mixture with your hand holding on to the twisted end while pushing the mixture threw the tip. Make like your adding soft serve ice cream to a cone.

Place in 350 degree oven until the ends crisp up nice and look like they were torched. Depending on oven and the amount of pans in your oven that might take around a half an hour.

Use what you need and extras can be frozen. Around holiday time I like to top them with a mix of extra brown sugar, cinnamon, butter and some chopped up roasted chestnuts.

It’s Forking Delicious and that’s The Forking Truth

Purple Sweet Potato Salad with Gochujand

Gochujand  (go-choo-jahng – pepper paste) is a savory, spicy, pungent fermented staple Korean Condiment made from red chilis, glutinous rice, fermented soybeans and salt.

Gochujand

I thought my purple roasted potato would make a delicious salad with this gochujand and it DID come out FORKING DELICIOUS!

Ingredients makes about 8 servings

1 lb. 10 oz of purple sweet potato roasted and pealed and then chopped in cubes

1 scant cup celery chopped

1 scant cup sweet white onion chopped

1 small apple pealed, cored and chopped

1 purple carrot shredded (purple just looks right in this dish)

1/4 cup chopped dates

1/4 red bell pepper chopped

3/4 cup low fat mayonnaise   ( I don’t use real mayo for often because of high fat content, I rather get my fat from something forking fried, something buttery, something cheesy or dessert) (Real mayo for me is reserved for deviled eggs)

1 Tablespoon gouchjang

2 Tablespoons rice vinegar

1 Tablespoon kosher salt

3 Tablespoons fresh Thai Basil chopped (preferably any fresh basil from your garden. I find that home grown basil of all kinds has much more flavor than store bought and doesn’t fall apart as much in dishes)

Directiones

You need one large bowl and one small bowl. In your large bowl combine purple potatoes, celery, onions, apple, carrot, dates, bell pepper and set a side.

In your small bowl mix up your mayo, gouchjang, rice vinegar and salt.

Gently mix the small bowl into the large bowl and when combined fold in the fresh basil. Top with a few chopped scallion greens if you have them.

Purple Sweet Potato Salad with Gochujand

This one is forking good and that’s The Forking Truth

Cucumber Tomato & Fresh Corn Salad

This salad has more punch to it than a typical tomato or cucumber salad. This salad has more texture with the addition of the fresh corn and more flavors are going on with the fresh herbs. This is a cool light salad that’s forking easy to prepare for a hot day! Most people might add a little oil to a recipe like this but I don’t think it’s necessary here. I cut back when I can and forking indulge in other areas, mostly on the weekends.

Ingredients makes about 8 servings

2 cups of fresh roasted corn kernels (must be fresh or you won’t have the texture or right taste)

2 large cucumbers pealed and sliced in slightly thick slices.

6 campari tomatoes sliced as thin as the cucumbers (or any tomato you like but campari tomatoes are like bigger cherry tomatoes and are usually very sweet)

1/2 large sweet onion sliced thin

1 garlic clove minced

1 cup sugar

2 cups red wine vinegar

2 Tablespoons kosher salt

1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper

1/2 cup chopped fresh basil

2 sprigs oregano chopped fine (make sure you chop very fine because oregano can be very over-powering)

1/2 teaspoon fresh rosemary chopped fine

Cucumber Tomato and Fresh Corn Salad

Just combine chill, adjust seasonings if necessary and serve!

It’s good and that’s The Forking Truth