belated dinner pics

The following food pics should have been taken this past Saturday, while Charles, Tom, and I were together and having dinner, but I don't think any of us thought to take photos because we were all too hungry to think about anything other than eating. Anyway, here's a series of images with a bit of commentary. No clicking necessary; the images have all been resized to fit the blog's main column. Enjoy.

First up: Charles's flatbread, which came out perfectly. Charles did most of the prep at his place, but he rolled out and cooked the bread at my place, deftly wielding a rolling pin and a stainless-steel frying pan to create perfect stovetop rounds of flatbread that pleasantly bubbled and puffed out the way they were supposed to, then settled back into a standard flatbreadish shape as they cooled. Charles had made enough for four people, but we were only three, and I ended up eating the rest of the flatbread the following day. One interesting ingredient in Charles's flatbread was yogurt, which added a certain smoothness to the dough, but none of the sourness I had been expecting.

Below: a shot of my Middle Eastern chicken, sitting on a bed of couscous, but with no toppings (I added those later, as you'll see):

A somewhat blurry shot (sorry) of the now-topped chicken:

Next: another frustratingly blurry shot, this time of the galbi (Korean-style beef short ribs). I had bought 2 kg of L.A. galbi from Costco; I marinated the beef all night, then cooked out the marinade as a glaze after adding a ton of brown sugar to it. I pan-fried the short ribs, then painted the glaze onto them when they came out of the pan. The result was glistening and beautiful. Too bad the shot doesn't capture that; my phone can be frustrating when it comes to taking photos; a shot might look good on the phone's screen, but when the image is magnified, it can turn out to be bad. I need to take some classes in photography, I think. Anyway, behold:

Next up is a photo of some "short-cut" hummus that I made as a way to get rid of the extra chickpeas I had. The shortcut, in this case, involves using Korean sesame oil instead of tahini (oily sesame paste): the texture doesn't change much, and the taste remains exactly the same because the sesame retains all that sesame flavor. (Don't tell the hummus purists about my workaround.) Because chickpeas are now sold in many Korean stores, I no longer have to venture out to Itaewon to buy them. Tahini is a different matter, but using sesame oil obviates the need to buy the paste, which is very convenient for me.

We didn't eat any hummus on Saturday; I made this batch Sunday evening and will be taking it into the office tomorrow, to offer to the troops.

Below: salvaged burger buns and pan-fried hot-dog buns. The burger buns, which I had bought for the burger fest the previous weekend, had begun to develop teeny, tiny spots of mold on them. I scraped off the mold and toasted the buns on the stainless-steel pan to kill any other microorganisms that might be hanging around. I then buttered three buns with regular butter; the rest of the bread was "buttered" with the spiced-oil mixture that I had used to make my Middle Eastern chicken. If toasting the buns hadn't been enough to get rid of all the microscopic critters, what happened next probably took care of the rest: I then pan-fried all the bread.

Monday morning, I'm taking a mess of food to the office as a way of getting rid of it all quickly. I'm packing up the leftover Middle Eastern Chicken, plus thirteen strips of galbi. I've also got a whole package of Citterio salami, and I didn't have any more flatbread to use with the hummus, which is why I pan-fried all that bread: the rolls with regular butter can be used for salami sandwiches, and the rolls with the Middle Eastern spices can be used with the hummus. That's my hope, anyway; some weirdo might try pairing the Middle Eastern bread with some salami, which is going to be gross and awkward, I think.

Here's a glimpse of the leftover Middle Eastern chicken, packed up and ready to be transported over to the office, where I hope it will disappear down several gullets:

Again, apologies for the blurry photos. I need to check my pics more carefully the moment I take them so as to present only quality images to you, Dear Reader. That said, I hope you enjoyed the parade of victuals.