I hit the ground in Gainesville ready for a homey dinner. Reggae Shack Cafe turned out to be the perfect choice. The atmosphere is fun, the service wonderfully welcoming. And the food is superb.
I ordered the Jerk Tofu, extra hot. The heat sneaks up on you. I started to tear up after about 30 seconds. The heat was wonderful. Tofu is ideally suited to soak it up and give you a nice blast. The vinegar in the sauce also gives it a good tartness.
The bread was billed as like cornbread but it reminded me of a cruller. It was delicious and it really did help tamp down the heat.
The vegan coconut cake was superb. It was moist and dense with a very nice texture. The coconut was very fresh and extremely flavorful. Vegan baking is the hardest type of baking. My server explained that the owner makes the cake in the morning and brings it to the restaurant---kudos!
I made candied ginger a few years ago. It's not something I would do every day but I had a lot of fun doing it. I recently acquired a pressure cooker and it inspired an interesting idea to me: why not make candied ginger in the pressure cooker? It should be very soft and flavorful. Here is the result. I peeled two large ginger roots, cut them into small cubes, and put them in the pressure cooker with heavily sugared water. The traditional method first boils the ginger in plain water to soften it and then again in sugar water to candy it. The resulting candy was very tender but still with the characteristic ginger texture. It was also sweet without being overpowering. The traditional method leaves a lot of sugar crystallized around the ginger. The pressure cooker gives a much more subtle result. The ginger stays moist even after it cools but you can dry it in the oven at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes. That inspired me to dip it in chocolate. While I was in the b...



Comments
Post a Comment