“Despite the cryptic name and anonymous office-park architecture, the nature of the enterprise located at AFB International is clear the moment you sit down for a meeting. The conference room smells like kibble. One wall, entirely glass, looks onto a small-scale kibble-extrusion plant where men and women in lab coats and blue sanitary shoe covers tootle here and there pushing metal carts. AFB makes flavor coatings for dry pet foods. To test the coatings, the company needs to make small batches of plain kibble to put them on. The coated kibbles are then served to consumers: Spanky, Thomas, Skipper, Porkchop, Mohammid, Elvis, Sandi, Bela, Yankee, Fergie, Murphy, Limburger, and some 300 other dogs and cats that reside at the company’s Palatability Assessment Resource Center (PARC), about an hour’s drive from its St. Louis–area headquarters.

Home-made Margarine

Have you seen “New Scandinavian Cooking” on PBS? Andreas Viestad is a maniac! I swear I’ve seen him fish with his bare hands!

In this morning’s episode, “Shellfish for Summer” he made home made margarine to go with the crabs he “just happened to catch” in the fjord.

Here’s the recipe…

½ cup of vegetable oil
½ cup of coconut fat
½ cup of coconut milk
1 tsp. mustard
1 tsp. turmeric
Juice of half a lime

1. mix everything except the lime juice in a pan and heat to approximately 122°F, or until all the fat has melted.

2. Prepare a cold bain-marie by filling a large bowl with iced water and putting another smaller bowl inside it. Transfer the batter to the bain-marie and whisk while it cools down and thickens. Transfer to suitable containers, cover and refrigerate to enable the batter to set.

That’s it. Leave it to the Scandinavians to made their own margarine. Technically, it’s coconut margarine, but don’t you want to try it?

See the full recipe for Grilled Crab with Coconut Margarine here.

# New Scandinavian Cooking

http://make-me-laugh.net/ submitted

Remember when eating pistachios meant Red Fingers?

↵ Originally from makemelaugh-site

↵ Reblogged from roberthsims

I like this one so much, I’m sharing it!

Shrimp and Bok Choy Stir Fry

3/4 cup stock (I use chicken stock)
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon Mirin or Sake
1 1/2 teaspoons cornstarch, dissolved in 1 tablespoon of water (or stock)
2 tablespoons canola oil
2 tablespoons finely julienned peeled fresh ginger
1 clove garlic, thinly sliced
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper
1 large onion, thinly sliced
1/4 pound shiitake (or any available mushroom) sliced
1 small head bok choy, about 12 ounces, thinly sliced crosswise
1 pound shrimp, shelled and deveined

(Be creative. I added a handful of edamame and some cut up bell pepper)

Preparation

1. In a bowl, whisk the broth with the soy sauce, mirin and cornstarch slurry.
2. Heat wok until very hot about three minutes. Add the canola oil, julienned ginger, garlic and crushed red pepper and stirfry until fragrant, about 20 seconds.
3. Add the onion and shiitake slices and stirfry until they are slightly browned and tender, about three minutes.
4. Add the sliced bok choy and cook until leaves are wilted and stems are chrisp tender, about two minutes.
5. Add the shrimp and stirfry until they are pink and nearly cooked, about three minutes.
6. Stir in the sauce and cook until slightly thickened about two minutes.

Serve over rice or buck wheat noodles (as shown)

I don’t have a wok, so I use a 12” skillet.
I partially fry each ingredient in turn and set aside in a bowl as I fry the next. Then I return all the ingredients back in the frying pan with the garlic and ginger at the end.
Garlic and ginger will burn easy, so I fry them up last, right before returning the other ingredients to the skillet.
I cook the shrimp (shells on) ahead of time, in the stock I’m going to use for the stir fry. This adds flavor to the stock. I do this first so that the shrimp cool down enough to clean before I start cooking.
It’s important to have all the ingredients ready before you start. This recipe goes fairly quickly.
I garnish with plenty of Chili Garlic Sauce. SPICY!

Enjoy!