Biscuits and My Visit to Sticky Rice

Afternoon!
I woke up at 7AM today, which is a major feat for me. Especially during the summer. With so much time on my hands before I had to go to Short Pump (I got my macbook bezel/frame replaced for free even without warranty.. hollaaaa), I decided to make a breakfast nibble. I turned to TasteSpotting for a biscuit recipe, and decided on one of the simplest ones, found at The Cooking Photographer (her blog/recipe found here). Definitely try that recipe. You can easily add extra flavorings, and she even has suggestions for buttermilk substitutes if you're in a pinch (which I was). Here, I added sharp cheddar cheese, garlic and scallions.

Mmm.. look at all the cheese, scallions and garlic speckled throughout these tasty morsels!

These biscuits were garlicky, slightly cheesy, and wonderful with a glass of milk. They were firm and flaky on the outside, which I absolutely adore in biscuits. The insides were soft and fluffy with nothing left to be desired. SO GOOD! Making biscuits is surprisingly easy, and you can feel good about sending family off to work/school with something homemade to nosh on. Give these a try, they take less than 30 mins (including baking time).

Cheddar Garlic Biscuits
Adapted from The Cooking Photographer's Buttermilk Biscuit recipe

1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoons baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons cold butter cut into pieces (I used 6 tbsp veg shortening because I was out of butter.. butter would def be more flavorful)
¾ cup buttermilk (I used 2 tsp vinegar and milk as suggested by TheCookingPhotographer)

1 cup (more or less if you'd like) of grated sharp cheddar cheese
1 tbsp minced garlic
½ tbsp garlic powder
1 handful chopped scallions, white and green parts

Pre-heat oven to 450 degrees. Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Put flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt into a food processor and process to mix. Add butter and pulse until crumbly with small pea sized butter pieces still in places. Add buttermilk and pulse just until the dough comes together. Pour mixture into bowl and stir in cheddar, garlic, garlic powder and scallions.

Flour a surface, dump out dough, and then flour top of dough. Kneed a few times and roll out to about 1 inch thick. Cut out biscuits with a drinking glass or biscuit cutter. Continue to roll out dough and cut biscuits until dough is used up. *I was too lazy make them pretty, so I just scooped and shaped the biscuits by hand. Then I lightly brushed the tops of the biscuits with some garlic+oil (garlic and butter would be even better!)*

Place on a cookie sheet and bake for 12 to 15 minutes.



On to my review of Sticky Rice, located on W. Main St. (Richmond). It's a low-key, hole-in-the-wall place that serves fusion sushi and other Asian-inspired dishes.

I don't understand how this place has gotten 5 stars (on Yelp). The first thing I noticed when I walked in was the smell. It sort of smelled like a public bathroom at the amusement park... But I digress.. On to the food.

The lettuce wrap appetizer was probably the best thing I had there, only because it didn't taste off. There was a lotttt of ginger though.

I'm not an extreme sushi purist, but I've gotta say that the sushi here is mediocre. Creative ideas, I guess, but not as delicious as you'd hope. Fish didn't seem very fresh/high grade either, but I'm not complaining too much about that because the place isn't pricey. I ordered the eel roll, broiled salmon skin roll and tuna tempura. The eel was mushier than it should've been (and there wasn't much), broiled salmon skin was soggy (but dry?) and sort of flavorless. I couldn't detect the tuna in my tuna tempura, and the tempura wasn't even thick, so what the heck? It wasn't bad though, and it looked pretty cute all dolled up with some red tobiko. Haha.

My friends ordered the Mongolian beef entree w/ udon noodles. They enjoyed that, and even had leftovers. Maybe you should go with non-sushi dishes, unless you're drunk (there were some obnoxious 20something females next to us downing sake and shoving tater tots down their throats.. I overheard that the tots were "SO FANTASTIC!"). Then it probably wouldn't matter what you eat.

Service was good. We had our waters refilled frequently, and questions/requests were heeded graciously.

Sticky Rice
2232 West Main St.
Richmond, VA 23220
(804) 358-7870

And finally, the RANDOM FOOD FACT OF THE DAY!
A lot of people wonder wtf canola oil is, so here we go (info selected from Wikipedia): Canola was originally naturally bred from rapeseed in Canada in the early 1970s. However, due to the negative associations with the seed's unfortunate name ("rape" comes from the latin word for turnip), the name was changed to Canola and marketed. Canola = Canadian oil, low acid (referring to the lower levels of erucic acid compared to traditional rapeseed oil).


Cheers,
T