Welcome Back Mom! Here are some Scallops!

My mom came home from a 3 month business trip yesterday and the first thing she wanted to do was go to the supermarket. Living in New York we take for granted the variety of ingredients we have so easily accessible to us. Walk into our supermarkets and most of the ingredients are fresh and of high quality. Our fruits and vegetables are fattened from fertilizers and steroids. Authentic ethnic ingredients are flown here from all over. Just back from China, my mom said our Chinese supermarkets have more Chinese ingredients than the motherland. That's because we get goods from all of China and not just specific regions like they do there.

My mom was a kid in a candy store picking up items with cool wrappings that she's never tried before. In our cart went tons of meat, some destined for the freezer, bags and bags of fresh veggies and fruit, and some shrimp chips and red bean pops for snacking. Upon walking in my eyes fell upon these beauties:
Fresh Scallops

I don't often see fresh scallops in their shells in the market, let alone still moving! One of these suckers clamped my finger tip! Now I know they are fresh!


I came home and scrubbed the outside with a wire brush. Then I opened the scallops by first sticking a butter knife in and scraping the meat off one side of the shell. After doing this the shell can be opened and the side with no meat cracked off and discarded.


Remove all the weird parts leaving just the scallop behind. Rinse the scallop and shell in cold water to remove any debris and sand. Using your butter knife loosen the scallop from the shell so it will be easier to eat later.


I spooned some thinly chopped garlic, scallions, salt, pepper, and oil on top of each scallop and set it over a steamer. Steam for a minute and a half.

When removing from the steamer make sure not to loose all the juices that are left in the shell because it makes a nice sauce.

Next time I will put some cellophane noodles along with the garlic and scallions before they go in the steamer so it will absorb all of the sweet juices from the scallop.

Let the Ghetto Gourmet teach your Ass how to cook! Shaka!

You must watch this episode of Cookin' With Coolio! Yes Coolio, who sings Gangsta's Paradise! I guess everyone is trying to cash in on the cooking show business. I don't know what is more outrageous, the fact that he keeps his "special seasonings" in dime weed bags or his sous chef/hype man or is it his second rate, big boobied, worn out looking video girls? Nope it's none of these. It's not even him comparing his caprese salad to "your mama's titties". What's outrageous is Coolio now has his own cookbook titled, Cookin' with Coolio: 5 Star Meals at a 1 Star Price! Hear are a few of the more interesting recipes you can find in the book:
Soul Rolls (deep fried spring rolls wrappers with beef or turkey and seasonings)
Finger-Lickin',Rib-Stickin', Fall-Off-The-Bone-and-into-Your-Mouth Chicken
Crybaby Chicken
Chickena la Jarez Marsalala
Peanut Butter Chicken Love
Grilled Italiano Breasteses
Popcorn Steak
Cat Me If You Can Catfish
Jarez Make-It-Rain Peanut Butter Cookies

You can get it now on Amazon for the low low price of $10.88. Better get your copy now before they all get sold out for Christmas!

Check out his other cooking videos!

Brussel Sprouts on the Stalk

Look what I found! I'm so excited. I love brussel sprouts. These babies are going to taste fabulous roasted!

P.S. My favorite places for roasted brussel sprouts are Alta and Momofuku Ssam Bar. Craft Restaurant's sprouts were disappointingly dissapointing. My friend said I make them better. I expected more from you Tom!

Grilled Eel Japanese Style

I've been making this at home lately because it's so easy, all the ingredients are nonperishable and can be kept for whenever you are hungry with no food, and can be made for one person. I buy the eel at the Chinese supermarket. You can find it in the freezer aisle next to the frozen fish balls. It comes vacuumed sealed already seasoned with the sweet eel sauce. I usually cut myself half a piece and grill it in my toaster oven until the edges get nice and charred. I serve it on top of Korean or Japanese rice with seaweeed and sesame furikake seasoning and sliced avocados. It is delicious and so easy. Today I didn't have any avocados but I had some pickled spicy shiso that I made the other week. Deeeelicious!

Turkish Kitchen

Originally I was going to post this in the What's shakin' and bakin' section of my blog but there was just too much that I wanted to say. Turkish Kitchen is one of my all time favorite restaurants. I just went yesterday and I'm already craving me some more. There hasn't been one thing on their menu that I haven't liked. All the seasonings are well balanced. Meats are cooked perfectly. Every dish is full of flavor. You can tell that care and thoughtfulness was put into everything they make. My Armenian boss took me my first time and we ordered everything on the menu. For apps we had Patlican Salatasi mashed eggplant blended with herbs, Humus chick peas & tahini paste, seasonal with garlic and olive oil, Tarama Salatasi red caviar spread, blended with olive oil and lemon juices, Sigara Boregi phyllo scrolls stuffed with feta cheese pan-fried till golden brown, Mucver pan-fried zucchini pancakes served with garlicky yogurt sauce, Cacik homemade yogurt mixed with chopped cucumber, blended with garlic, mint and dill, and Manti poached beef dumplings served with garlicky yogurt sauce. For entrees we all shared the Döner Kebab vertically grilled lamb sliced very thin, served over rice, Sis Kebab chunks of baby lamb chargrilled on a skewer, served with rice and pan-fried potatoes, Etli Yabrak Dolmasi grape leaves stuffed with ground beef, rice and herbs cooked olive oil, served with rice, Piliç Topkapi boneless cornish hen stuffed with traditional rice, served with zucchini pancakes and baked potato, Akdeniz Levrek Izgara mediterranean whole sea bass, and chargrilled, served with romaine lettuce, a lemon & oil dressing. Seriously, everything was delicious. All the dips are good. The lamb is superb. I was a little afraid that the cornish hen wouldn't be cooked right but it was delicious. I normally don't like grape leaves but Turkish Kitchen makes theirs so good! You have to try it even if you're not a fan.

Last night when I went they were having 20% off because it's their 20th anniversary! Woohoo that means I can eat 20% more. What a great deal! My date and I ordered the Icli Köfte cracked wheat (bulghur) patties stuffed with ground lamb, pinenuts, black currants and walnuts as an app and it was delicious fried goodness filled with really flavorful lamb. Too bad there was only two on the plate. I could have eaten more. For entrees my date's boss, who has been to Turkish Kitchen six times, recommended the Iskender Kebab vertically grilled lamb sliced very thin, served with garlicky yogurt and tomato sauce over pita bread and I'm so glad he did. The lamb was just so damn tasty. Some parts were nicely browned and charred which is how good gyro meat is done. The garlicky yogurt had the texture and taste of ricotta cheese and the pita bread soaked up all the juices from the lamb and the sauces and was more like pasta then bread. The dish is sort of like a turkish lasagna. I ordered the Bildircin Izgara chargrilled boneless quails served with zucchini pancakes and traditional rice. The quail had a nice char to it without being dry. It was well seasoned and flavorful. I loved the rice. It was seasoned with just enough spices to give it a little bit of flavor and had the texture similar to chinese sticky rice which I love. I don't really like my rice dry and loose so it was perfect.

I recommend going to Turkish Kitchen with a big group just so you can try all the dips and apps. But it's also a great place for a romantic date. The next time I go I want to try the Arnavut Cigeri pan-fried calf’s liver served with onion and parsley mix, Ahtapot Salad chargrilled octopus salad tossed with tomatoes and onions, Pirzola baby lamb chops chargrilled and served with traditional rice, Islim Kebab baked lamb shank, wrapped with eggplant slices, served with rice, Hünkar Begendi puree eggplant topped with baked chunks of lamb or chicken marinated in a tomato sauce, and save room for dessert! I'm eying the Keskul almond pudding made with milk and cracked almonds and Revani semolina based pistachio cake soaked in honey syrup. Check out the menu with pictures on their website:

Turkish Kitchen
386 3rd Ave (27th & 28th St)
New York, NY
212-679-6633