Boiled Shrimp

This recipe is pretty easy to do. It's quick and simple. You just need raw shrimp that is either fresh from the seafood counter or thawed completely. I can usually pick up a pound of headless shrimp from Fubonn in Portland. Sometimes shrimp is on sale for $5-$7/lb. I try to stay in that range. What? No instructions on prepping the shrimp? Why bother. Just unshell and rip off its legs after it's been cooked.

Ingredients

2-3 tbsp fresh ginger, sliced
1-2 lb raw shrimp
1 tbsp Chinese rice wine
4 c filtered water
pinch of sea salt

Directions

Bring water, wine, and ginger to a boil. Process in batches of 10. When the shrimp changes color to light pink, remove from heat and add more raw shrimp. If you need to, remove all the cooked shrimp from the pot and wait for the water to come back up to a boil.

Serve warm.

New York Styled Bagels

Fresh baked bagels from a hot oven is definitely the way to go for future bagel eating. Simply, wow. The dough is airy and soft like a pillow. Its underside is a nice golden brown color and when you tear the bagel apart, it has that classic bagel-tearing-texture. How else to describe it..? I've never been to New York and I've always been skeptical of bagels sold west of New York state. The style has less to do with the ingredients in the dough than how the dough is prepared, specifically the boiling time of the bagels. This recipe was adapted from the Sophisticated Gourmet blog.

New York Style Bagels from Scratch

Ingredients

3 1/2 c all purpose unbleached wheat flour (minus 3 tbsp)
1 1/4 c warmwater (or whey), heated to 115 F
3 tbsp Bob's Red Mill Vital Wheat Gluten
1 1/2 tbsp organic granulated sugar
1 tsp sea salt
plus more flour for kneading