I don't know how authentically greek this actually is, but it is at least greek-esque, what with all the feta and olives. My friend Krista made this salad at her house a couple weeks ago and it was so delicious that I tried to duplicate it at home. She didn't put any chickpeas in hers but I thought it would be an acceptable deviation. Your best bet is just to get her to make it for you, but this one I made last night worked out pretty well.
I got a bag of mixed baby greens from the DeKalb Market and dumped them in a big salad bowl. I sliced grape tomatoes in half, using about 1/2 of a pint container. Cut half a hothouse cucumber into quarters lengthwise and then sliced the quarters into 1/2" chunks. Sliced in half a small red onion, then cut paper thin slices from the halves. Crumbled up about 1/2 a block of feta cheese--I'm not sure how much it actually was. Couldn't have been more than 1/3 cup. Pitted and sliced 10 Kalamata olives. Drained and rinsed very well a can of chickpeas and set aside about 3/4 of the can to use on the salad. I guess you could just use all of it if you really liked chickpeas. Put all these vegetables and other ingredients on top of the greens in the salad bowl, not bothering to toss yet, just letting them chill there until it was time to eat. Juiced one lemon and poured it into a glass jar with a lid. Added about 4 tablespoons good olive oil and a liberal grinding of pepper and salt. Closed the lid tightly and shook it up in the jar until it was emulsified. I waited to dress the salad until the rest of our dinner was ready, then right before we ate I poured the dressing over everything and tossed it all up until it all ingredients were mixed up and the dressing covered everything.
Jeremy and Melanie brought up chicken and delicious spicy chicken sausages so we marinated the chicken in teriyaki and boiled up the sausages like brats before slapping them on the grill. I sliced one small eggplant into rounds and marinated them in salt, pepper, red pepper flakes, balsamic vinegar and olive oil. I cut 4 very small, yellow crookneck squash in half lengthwise (they were so tiny! little baby squash--no longer than 5 or 6 inches, adorable!), and 2 red peppers into strips. These I marinated separately from the eggplant in olive oil, salt, pepper, red pepper flakes, minced garlic, 1 teaspoon dried thyme and a little bit of minced red onion left over from preparing the salad. First up I grilled the chicken breasts, then the eggplant, then peppers and squash (grill cut side down on the squash to get attractive char marks), then sausages. As always, checking with instant, digital meat thermometer for safe temperatures. Please tell me you have one of these. They are wonderful things and have many applications, only one of which is grilling. You can also use them to annoy your spouse, by jabbing the pointy end into their stomachs and saying "I'll take your temperature!" I'm not saying any of us were doing that but if anyone was, it was Jeremy.
Also, we had boiled peanuts before dinner. I made them like I usually do, which is to cover fresh, green peanuts with water, add about 3 tablespoons pickling spices, 2 crumbled bay leaves, 2 tablespoons red pepper flakes and an assload of kosher salt, probably about 4 tablespoons, depending on how many peanuts and how much water. You want it to be briny. Boil them until they get soft, drain and drizzle olive oil over them and sprinkle with a little vinegar. They are better with chile oil, but I didn't have any on hand.
Monday, May 21, 2007
Monday, May 14, 2007
Cheddar biscuits with ham & chives
I am going to tell you how to make these biscuits except I am going to tell you how to make them with MUCH LESS SALT! I made these for a Mother's Day party that a friend from the dog park hosted. She has a really gorgeous house and let a bunch of us childless dog park people come over with our grubby pets and mess it up on Sunday. I think it was a really cute idea to have a Mother's Day brunch for us dog mothers...even my mother who is an actual, real, human mother who doesn't normally go in for "whimsy" or "fun of any sort" thought it was funny. Anyway, I made these biscuits to take over which was actually a good idea but they were far too salty as I had underestimated the power of ham. So, learn from my mistake and don't bother putting any salt in the dough at all if you'll be using ham. If omitting the ham, you'll need a smidge of salt but not much because the cheese flavors it a bit as well.
I had the guy at the DeKalb Farmer's Market deli counter slice me two big pieces of (incredibly salty! learn from mistakes!) smoked ham. He adjusted the slicer to get them about 1/2" thick each. I only ended up using one of them--cut the 1/2" thick piece of ham into teeny tiny little cubes and fried them up to get a bit crispy in a pan, then set aside. Probably was not even a 1/4 cup of teeny ham cubes all total. Finely grated about 1/2 cup of sharp cheddar cheese and set that aside as well, along with about 1/3 cup of minced fresh chives. Began preheating the oven at 450 degrees and greased up a couple of baking sheets. In a big bowl, mixed very well 2 cups of flour with 3 teaspoons baking powder, and 1 teaspoon baking soda. Cut up about 4 tablespoons of cold butter (you can use less, but should use at least 2) into tiny, ham bit-size chunks and integrated them into the flour mixture. You can use a food processor if you have one. I don't, so I cut it in with my hands by picking up butter chunks and rubbing it into the flour. It's tedious, but whatever. Your biscuits will thank you. Get all the butter really well integrated--it turns the flour grainy and piecey, but there should not be any butter left visible. Then added 1 cup buttermilk, 1 teaspoon cayenne, and the cheese, chives and ham bits. Mixed until it just barely stuck together in a ball. As with the lemon pancakes we made at Easter time, this is the thing with foods in the quick bread family--you do not overmix them or push them around or harrass them or they become tough and don't rise up in the oven or go to college and make a decent living. So just stir the wet and dry ingredients until they are barely incorporated and starting to cling together, then turn out on a floured surface and knead super lightly a few times. I was making these in drop biscuit form, rather than cutting them out with a biscuit cutter, so maybe I didn't actually need to knead at all. Not sure about that. If you wanted to cut out these biscuits instead, you would add less liquid--maybe 3/4 cup. Anyway, I dropped the biscuits in little spoonfuls onto my greasy baking sheets--they made about 18 or 20 total. Popped them in the super hot oven for just shy of ten minutes, then hauled them out. They were puffed up nicely and looked really pretty. Then I stupidly put them into a container and walked them over to the dog mother's day brunch and they got all squished because they were still hot. But they tasted good, if unattractive. Oh, and salty. You may have noticed that I left that out--seriously, I was nibbling on a leftover one just now and I think I have instant hypertension.
I had the guy at the DeKalb Farmer's Market deli counter slice me two big pieces of (incredibly salty! learn from mistakes!) smoked ham. He adjusted the slicer to get them about 1/2" thick each. I only ended up using one of them--cut the 1/2" thick piece of ham into teeny tiny little cubes and fried them up to get a bit crispy in a pan, then set aside. Probably was not even a 1/4 cup of teeny ham cubes all total. Finely grated about 1/2 cup of sharp cheddar cheese and set that aside as well, along with about 1/3 cup of minced fresh chives. Began preheating the oven at 450 degrees and greased up a couple of baking sheets. In a big bowl, mixed very well 2 cups of flour with 3 teaspoons baking powder, and 1 teaspoon baking soda. Cut up about 4 tablespoons of cold butter (you can use less, but should use at least 2) into tiny, ham bit-size chunks and integrated them into the flour mixture. You can use a food processor if you have one. I don't, so I cut it in with my hands by picking up butter chunks and rubbing it into the flour. It's tedious, but whatever. Your biscuits will thank you. Get all the butter really well integrated--it turns the flour grainy and piecey, but there should not be any butter left visible. Then added 1 cup buttermilk, 1 teaspoon cayenne, and the cheese, chives and ham bits. Mixed until it just barely stuck together in a ball. As with the lemon pancakes we made at Easter time, this is the thing with foods in the quick bread family--you do not overmix them or push them around or harrass them or they become tough and don't rise up in the oven or go to college and make a decent living. So just stir the wet and dry ingredients until they are barely incorporated and starting to cling together, then turn out on a floured surface and knead super lightly a few times. I was making these in drop biscuit form, rather than cutting them out with a biscuit cutter, so maybe I didn't actually need to knead at all. Not sure about that. If you wanted to cut out these biscuits instead, you would add less liquid--maybe 3/4 cup. Anyway, I dropped the biscuits in little spoonfuls onto my greasy baking sheets--they made about 18 or 20 total. Popped them in the super hot oven for just shy of ten minutes, then hauled them out. They were puffed up nicely and looked really pretty. Then I stupidly put them into a container and walked them over to the dog mother's day brunch and they got all squished because they were still hot. But they tasted good, if unattractive. Oh, and salty. You may have noticed that I left that out--seriously, I was nibbling on a leftover one just now and I think I have instant hypertension.
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
Chicken tortellini soup
Oh, I have covered chicken soup TO DEATH! I know it, you know it, all five people who read this know it. But wait! This time I put tortellini pasta in it! Mm-hmm, it's true! Also, I took a "less is more", precision soup-making approach...and I think the end result was a different soup than ones I have made in the past. Refine refine refine.
I don't know how you would make soup without a chicken. We roasted it on Monday night, so I had a nice looking leftover chicken carcass to boil up. If you are not a chicken eater or a chicken roaster, I suppose you could skip this whole first step and use vegetable stock or chicken stock. There are some good brands out there, I imagine. I have seen some good looking organic, aseptically packaged ones on the shelves at the grocery store. Anyway, I first stripped down my left over chicken and reserved the meat from the thighs and breast and stuck it in the fridge and forgot about it. Then I covered the leftover chicken bones and meat with water in my big cast iron dutch oven pot and let it heat up while I chopped up the rest of the ingredients for the stock. Tossed in 2 bay leaves, then about 6 garlic cloves. I didn't really peel or chop them very carefully because I knew I would be straining the stock anyway. Then a 1" piece of ginger, cut up into chunks, and 3 carrots (left unpeeled) and 4 stalks of celery, both also poorly chopped. Can you sense a theme? Stock making is the easy-going step--no need to carefully trim the veggies! It all boiled happily together for about an hour, whereupon I strained it through a fine-mesh colander into a container and set it aside to wait.
To make the soup: Back in the same dutch oven, I melted 2 tablespoons of butter and added 1/2 of a sad-looking onion. It was from Jeremy & Melanie's house and was looking a little bit tired but I trimmed it up and carefully sliced it into small, attractive bits, then added to the hot butter. I also carefully diced 2 stalks of celery and 2 carrots and added those to the pot after the onion had become soft and fragrant. Stirred this mirepoix over medium heat until it was soft, then added in 2 yukon gold potatoes, diced. Poured back in my stock and added some salt. When everything had been boiling together for about 10 minutes, I added 1/2 a package of mixed cheese tortellini, let it go for another 5 minutes and added about 1/4 cup of green peas. Cooked until the tortellini were done through, then removed the soup from heat and stirred in 1 tablespoon white wine vinegar and the diced chicken meat from earlier. I actually forgot about the chicken until the last minute--I was dishing up the soup and Brian was poking around in the fridge, and he says "hey, what's the chicken for?" and I said, "oh shit, that's right!" We know how to have fun around here.
I don't know how you would make soup without a chicken. We roasted it on Monday night, so I had a nice looking leftover chicken carcass to boil up. If you are not a chicken eater or a chicken roaster, I suppose you could skip this whole first step and use vegetable stock or chicken stock. There are some good brands out there, I imagine. I have seen some good looking organic, aseptically packaged ones on the shelves at the grocery store. Anyway, I first stripped down my left over chicken and reserved the meat from the thighs and breast and stuck it in the fridge and forgot about it. Then I covered the leftover chicken bones and meat with water in my big cast iron dutch oven pot and let it heat up while I chopped up the rest of the ingredients for the stock. Tossed in 2 bay leaves, then about 6 garlic cloves. I didn't really peel or chop them very carefully because I knew I would be straining the stock anyway. Then a 1" piece of ginger, cut up into chunks, and 3 carrots (left unpeeled) and 4 stalks of celery, both also poorly chopped. Can you sense a theme? Stock making is the easy-going step--no need to carefully trim the veggies! It all boiled happily together for about an hour, whereupon I strained it through a fine-mesh colander into a container and set it aside to wait.
To make the soup: Back in the same dutch oven, I melted 2 tablespoons of butter and added 1/2 of a sad-looking onion. It was from Jeremy & Melanie's house and was looking a little bit tired but I trimmed it up and carefully sliced it into small, attractive bits, then added to the hot butter. I also carefully diced 2 stalks of celery and 2 carrots and added those to the pot after the onion had become soft and fragrant. Stirred this mirepoix over medium heat until it was soft, then added in 2 yukon gold potatoes, diced. Poured back in my stock and added some salt. When everything had been boiling together for about 10 minutes, I added 1/2 a package of mixed cheese tortellini, let it go for another 5 minutes and added about 1/4 cup of green peas. Cooked until the tortellini were done through, then removed the soup from heat and stirred in 1 tablespoon white wine vinegar and the diced chicken meat from earlier. I actually forgot about the chicken until the last minute--I was dishing up the soup and Brian was poking around in the fridge, and he says "hey, what's the chicken for?" and I said, "oh shit, that's right!" We know how to have fun around here.
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
Grilled red potatoes
Yesterday was really nice. I got out of work at least an hour earlier than usual. Brian is in his "no work, no school" temporary state, so he was hanging around, and both Jeremy and Melanie were home early for some reason too. This is why we could all be found drinking beers on the porch by 5 pm on a Monday. We got very loungey and nibbled on edamame and pretzels as our cocktail hour stretched on, but eventually figured we'd eat something that could be considered real dinner. Of course once you've been drinking on a sunny porch while the rest of the city battles rush hour, the last thing you want to do is go anywhere to get specific dinner supplies...no, you'd much rather just grill whatever happens to be lying around the house. Melanie had a bag of small red potatoes languishing in her apartment and so we thought we'd try grilling them, and it worked really well:
Took most of a 3 pound sack of small red potatoes and scrubbed them well. Sliced them in half, except that we left one whole as an experiment. Jeremy took them down to their apartment to microwave (we have limited technology in our house), which I believe took 3 minutes. They have a very powerful microwave though, so maybe on a conventional one it would be more like 5 minutes. Anyway, the goal was to cook them a bit so they would not be too long on the grill. They offered just a little resistance when I jabbed one with a knife. Covered them with a 1/3 cup mixture of olive oil and canola oil, then added 1 tablespoon each vindaloo powder and chile powder, and 2 teaspoons each of paprika, red pepper flakes and salt. Mixed it all up really well with the potatoes and let them sit until the grill was hot. Realized I had an orange pepper hanging around in the fridge, so I sliced that into 8 thick pieces and stuck that in with the potatoes as well.
When the grill was hot we tossed on veggie burgers and a bit of flank steak that had been marinating in teriyaki sauce (by the way? the Soy Vey brand called "veri veri teriyaki" is sort of awesomely delicious). When those were done, I hauled them off and put all the potatoes on, lying them cut-side down, along with the pepper strips. The pepper strips were done much faster, so I just pulled them off as they got browned and soft. The potatoes grilled very well--they don't burn easily but get lovely char marks on the skin parts. I think they took about 10 minutes of grilling, with frequent turning and moving around to make sure they got evenly done. And the flavor of grilled potatoes is excellent--a little bit smoky and spicy from all the marinade ingredients. I usually find potaotes insipid, so this was a nice surprise.
Took most of a 3 pound sack of small red potatoes and scrubbed them well. Sliced them in half, except that we left one whole as an experiment. Jeremy took them down to their apartment to microwave (we have limited technology in our house), which I believe took 3 minutes. They have a very powerful microwave though, so maybe on a conventional one it would be more like 5 minutes. Anyway, the goal was to cook them a bit so they would not be too long on the grill. They offered just a little resistance when I jabbed one with a knife. Covered them with a 1/3 cup mixture of olive oil and canola oil, then added 1 tablespoon each vindaloo powder and chile powder, and 2 teaspoons each of paprika, red pepper flakes and salt. Mixed it all up really well with the potatoes and let them sit until the grill was hot. Realized I had an orange pepper hanging around in the fridge, so I sliced that into 8 thick pieces and stuck that in with the potatoes as well.
When the grill was hot we tossed on veggie burgers and a bit of flank steak that had been marinating in teriyaki sauce (by the way? the Soy Vey brand called "veri veri teriyaki" is sort of awesomely delicious). When those were done, I hauled them off and put all the potatoes on, lying them cut-side down, along with the pepper strips. The pepper strips were done much faster, so I just pulled them off as they got browned and soft. The potatoes grilled very well--they don't burn easily but get lovely char marks on the skin parts. I think they took about 10 minutes of grilling, with frequent turning and moving around to make sure they got evenly done. And the flavor of grilled potatoes is excellent--a little bit smoky and spicy from all the marinade ingredients. I usually find potaotes insipid, so this was a nice surprise.
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Black beans with chipotle peppers and sundried tomatoes
It's been a really long time since I've posted anything...but it's not like I haven't been cooking. It's more like I've been making the same things over and over again. I've been tweaking my caesar salad recipe and continually making udon noodles with tofu. At least one or two roast chickens in there too, and some grilling adventures. But the problem is you can't write about the same stuff over and over again! So this is something I made last week in a weird fit of wanting black beans, and it was brand new and not the same old thing, so here it is:
I unearthed a nasty old bag of dried black beans from the back of the cabinet. You know, those little plastic tubes of beans that look all dusty inside. Rinsed well 2 cups of dried black beans and put them in about 4 cups of water to boil, along with 2 bay leaves, 1 tablespoon epazote and 2 cloves chopped garlic. No, I did not soak them. I don't believe that it actually matters whether you soak them or not. Maybe if you are in a hurry and you remembered to put them up the night before or something, then maybe it shaves 20 minutes off your cook time. But you can just go ahead and cook them up without soaking too. I partially covered the pot and did something else for about an hour and a half, checking occasionally and added more water once, then drained them off once they were pretty close to tender. Some people like to keep the bean water for further cooking but I didn't worry about it. I had a chicken stock simmering on the stove top, so I added 2 cups of that liquid, along with the onions floating around in there to my drained beans. If you don't have a chicken stock going, just saute 1/2 a minced onion in olive oil until lightly golden, toss in your beans, then add vegetable stock or packaged chicken stock or whatever you have handy. You don't want too much liquid--you're not making bean soup. Then I opened up a can of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, minced up two of the peppers and added those to the pot along with some of the sauce. They have a nice, hot, smokey flavor. I wanted to put in tomatoes but I had none on hand, neither fresh nor canned. So I minced up about 1/4 cup of sundried tomatoes and put those in, figuring they'd rehydrate nicely. And guess what? They totally did! They're a little sweeter and have a nice texture, and it's a better match for the spicy chipotle peppers than fresh tomatoes would have made. After about another 20 minutes or so of everything cooking up together, I added a splash of worcestershire and took them off heat. I packed them away in the fridge because we had chicken soup that night. I just felt like making beans.
However, this was a good thing because the next night I was really hungry and grumpy from work and didn't want to take forever with dinner, so I just put some tilapia in a pan with hot butter, then poured over a mini can of coconut milk, and dusted the top with paprika, salt and pepper. I heated up the black beans (flavor had improved overnight in the fridge) and we had them with lime wedges alongside the fish. I'm pretty sure I diced up an avocado and put that on top of everything too. Anyway, it was delicious.
I unearthed a nasty old bag of dried black beans from the back of the cabinet. You know, those little plastic tubes of beans that look all dusty inside. Rinsed well 2 cups of dried black beans and put them in about 4 cups of water to boil, along with 2 bay leaves, 1 tablespoon epazote and 2 cloves chopped garlic. No, I did not soak them. I don't believe that it actually matters whether you soak them or not. Maybe if you are in a hurry and you remembered to put them up the night before or something, then maybe it shaves 20 minutes off your cook time. But you can just go ahead and cook them up without soaking too. I partially covered the pot and did something else for about an hour and a half, checking occasionally and added more water once, then drained them off once they were pretty close to tender. Some people like to keep the bean water for further cooking but I didn't worry about it. I had a chicken stock simmering on the stove top, so I added 2 cups of that liquid, along with the onions floating around in there to my drained beans. If you don't have a chicken stock going, just saute 1/2 a minced onion in olive oil until lightly golden, toss in your beans, then add vegetable stock or packaged chicken stock or whatever you have handy. You don't want too much liquid--you're not making bean soup. Then I opened up a can of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, minced up two of the peppers and added those to the pot along with some of the sauce. They have a nice, hot, smokey flavor. I wanted to put in tomatoes but I had none on hand, neither fresh nor canned. So I minced up about 1/4 cup of sundried tomatoes and put those in, figuring they'd rehydrate nicely. And guess what? They totally did! They're a little sweeter and have a nice texture, and it's a better match for the spicy chipotle peppers than fresh tomatoes would have made. After about another 20 minutes or so of everything cooking up together, I added a splash of worcestershire and took them off heat. I packed them away in the fridge because we had chicken soup that night. I just felt like making beans.
However, this was a good thing because the next night I was really hungry and grumpy from work and didn't want to take forever with dinner, so I just put some tilapia in a pan with hot butter, then poured over a mini can of coconut milk, and dusted the top with paprika, salt and pepper. I heated up the black beans (flavor had improved overnight in the fridge) and we had them with lime wedges alongside the fish. I'm pretty sure I diced up an avocado and put that on top of everything too. Anyway, it was delicious.
Monday, April 09, 2007
Lemon pancakes with banana topping
I don't want anyone to start thinking that we're particularly religious around my house--although we both grew up Catholic, we're not really any type of faith anymore. For example, we didn't go to church on Easter. As Brian would point out, it's stupid to only go one day a year, sort of meaningless in the big picture. You should probably just go the week AFTER the holiday if you're going to go at all; at very least you'll get better parking and at very best you won't be a hypocrite. However, there is nothing hypocritical about regular observation of the holy tradition of Easter brunch, and with that in mind we decided to make pancakes and invite some heathen friends over.
Grated the zest off one lemon (have I told you all about organic lemons yet? Use them if you can because pesticides pervade the oils in lemon peel so thoroughly that you cannot possibly wash them off) with a microplane (have I told you all about microplanes graters yet? Best damn graters out there), juiced the lemon and set aside. Mixed 4 cups flour with 2 tablespoons baking powder, 2 teaspoons sugar, 1 teaspoon salt. Separated 3 eggs and had Molly work out her aggressions by beating the whites separately into a fluffy froth. When they were quite fluffy, added 2 cups milk, the yolks of the eggs, a drizzle of melted butter and the lemon juice and zest. Mixed very well and slowly added to the dry ingredients, being careful not to overbeat once the wet got into the dry. Pancakes are fragile creatures. You should beat them as minimally as possible after you have combined dry and wet to keep them from becoming tough. It's important to mix very well the separate groups, but once they've been combined, just barely incorporate them and then set aside or you will have juvenile delinquent pancakes that drive hotrods and hang out on street corners smoking cigarettes with their hotpants girlfriends. I'm just saying. Heated up a very large, flat griddle and melted butter all over it. When it was sizzly, added pancakes in 1/4 cup dollops, smoothed them into roundish shapes and watched them puff up beautifully. Kept warm in the oven until it was time to eat.
Banana topping is made by cutting up 5 bananas into chunks and dumping them into a pot with a bit of butter to toast. Browned them slightly, then added 2 teaspoons sugar, 1 teaspoon each cardamom and cinnamon, and 1/2 teaspoon each nutmeg & allspice. Mixed up until bananas were falling apart slightly but still keeping shape, then added 1/4 cup orange juice. Cooked another minute or two then removed from heat to serve with pancakes.
We also had vegetarian breakfast sausage, a frittata that Molly brought and really really good, totally from scratch Bloody Marys made by Katie. Later on Brian and I ate jelly beans from Malley's candy company in Ohio, so it was a completely successful Easter.
Grated the zest off one lemon (have I told you all about organic lemons yet? Use them if you can because pesticides pervade the oils in lemon peel so thoroughly that you cannot possibly wash them off) with a microplane (have I told you all about microplanes graters yet? Best damn graters out there), juiced the lemon and set aside. Mixed 4 cups flour with 2 tablespoons baking powder, 2 teaspoons sugar, 1 teaspoon salt. Separated 3 eggs and had Molly work out her aggressions by beating the whites separately into a fluffy froth. When they were quite fluffy, added 2 cups milk, the yolks of the eggs, a drizzle of melted butter and the lemon juice and zest. Mixed very well and slowly added to the dry ingredients, being careful not to overbeat once the wet got into the dry. Pancakes are fragile creatures. You should beat them as minimally as possible after you have combined dry and wet to keep them from becoming tough. It's important to mix very well the separate groups, but once they've been combined, just barely incorporate them and then set aside or you will have juvenile delinquent pancakes that drive hotrods and hang out on street corners smoking cigarettes with their hotpants girlfriends. I'm just saying. Heated up a very large, flat griddle and melted butter all over it. When it was sizzly, added pancakes in 1/4 cup dollops, smoothed them into roundish shapes and watched them puff up beautifully. Kept warm in the oven until it was time to eat.
Banana topping is made by cutting up 5 bananas into chunks and dumping them into a pot with a bit of butter to toast. Browned them slightly, then added 2 teaspoons sugar, 1 teaspoon each cardamom and cinnamon, and 1/2 teaspoon each nutmeg & allspice. Mixed up until bananas were falling apart slightly but still keeping shape, then added 1/4 cup orange juice. Cooked another minute or two then removed from heat to serve with pancakes.
We also had vegetarian breakfast sausage, a frittata that Molly brought and really really good, totally from scratch Bloody Marys made by Katie. Later on Brian and I ate jelly beans from Malley's candy company in Ohio, so it was a completely successful Easter.
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
Udon noodles with black bean sauce
So I was trying to recreate a dish that I order at Saigon Cafe--udon noodles in a black bean sauce with fried tofu. Holy crap, it is so delicious. I get that and a bubble tea for lunch and I'm pretty happy. Anyway, what I made at home the other day is absolutely NOTHING like the inspiration...but I think it turned out OK anyway. I was just experimenting and it ended up being pretty tasty. I guess Saigon Cafe has some kind of deal with the devil over there, not to mention a whole lot of authentic thai and vietnamese cooks in the kitchen.
First I fried up some tofu as usual. For the record--I actually like un-fried tofu just fine. Brian has texture issues so he prefers it fried up. Soon he will have fat issues if he doesn't watch it. Heated about 4 tablespoons canola oil in a heavy pot until sizzly, added 1 block of extra-firm tofu that had been cut up into 1" chunks (I have covered this issue before--the more you dry off your tofu the better it will fry up. I didn't dry it very well this time). Just tossed it all into the hot oil and let it brown on one side for about 3 minutes, then flipped all the pieces for total tofu-surface browning. Turned off the heat and drained all the oil (or as much as possible), then returned the pot to the stove and added 2 tablespoons teriyaki sauce and a little soy sauce, stirred it with the browned tofu over medium-high heat until the sauces made a shiny glaze, then removed all the tofu to a dish and set aside. I ended up just using the same pot to boil up 1 1/2 cups water and dropped in 2 packets of udon noodles. I don't know how other people find these. I find mine at the DeKalb Market, in the refrigerated section, right next to the miso & other Japanese products. They are a brand that claims in english to be "the best noodle!" but the rest of the packaging is in Japanese characters so I can't read it. Maybe Alan could. They come with a packet of soup mix that is really salty. Udon noodles are big, soft, thick noodles that are ususally packaged fresh and don't need more than 3 minutes of cooking. Soba noodles are a good substitute. Anyway, I boiled them in less water than normal and went ahead and added the salty soup mix that comes with. In a wok, I sauteed 1 clove minced garlic, then poured in the noodles and their cooking liquid. I let the liquid reduce down, then stirred in 2 tablespoons black bean paste. Then I tossed in the tofu and mixed everything up well. After about 1 minute, I added 1 head of thinly sliced baby bok choy (including both green & white parts). After this got wilty (another 1 to 2 minutes), I took everything off heat and we ate it then drank a lot of chardonnay while cleaning the apartment.
(Note to survivalists: If you wanted to make something like this in the wilderness, you get some tofu and black bean paste from your trip into town to the one organic grocery store, also picking up fresh green beans or snow peas, if they have them. Also get a can of water chestnuts if you can find them. Ask the meth-addled townie behind the register to locate them for you. Then you would saute the green beans along with the garlic to get them a little browned but still crunchy, then add drained water chestnut along with the fried tofu. I don't know what you do about the udon noodles! Maybe you can use any other type of pasta or even ramen? It would be different but still pretty good, I bet.)
First I fried up some tofu as usual. For the record--I actually like un-fried tofu just fine. Brian has texture issues so he prefers it fried up. Soon he will have fat issues if he doesn't watch it. Heated about 4 tablespoons canola oil in a heavy pot until sizzly, added 1 block of extra-firm tofu that had been cut up into 1" chunks (I have covered this issue before--the more you dry off your tofu the better it will fry up. I didn't dry it very well this time). Just tossed it all into the hot oil and let it brown on one side for about 3 minutes, then flipped all the pieces for total tofu-surface browning. Turned off the heat and drained all the oil (or as much as possible), then returned the pot to the stove and added 2 tablespoons teriyaki sauce and a little soy sauce, stirred it with the browned tofu over medium-high heat until the sauces made a shiny glaze, then removed all the tofu to a dish and set aside. I ended up just using the same pot to boil up 1 1/2 cups water and dropped in 2 packets of udon noodles. I don't know how other people find these. I find mine at the DeKalb Market, in the refrigerated section, right next to the miso & other Japanese products. They are a brand that claims in english to be "the best noodle!" but the rest of the packaging is in Japanese characters so I can't read it. Maybe Alan could. They come with a packet of soup mix that is really salty. Udon noodles are big, soft, thick noodles that are ususally packaged fresh and don't need more than 3 minutes of cooking. Soba noodles are a good substitute. Anyway, I boiled them in less water than normal and went ahead and added the salty soup mix that comes with. In a wok, I sauteed 1 clove minced garlic, then poured in the noodles and their cooking liquid. I let the liquid reduce down, then stirred in 2 tablespoons black bean paste. Then I tossed in the tofu and mixed everything up well. After about 1 minute, I added 1 head of thinly sliced baby bok choy (including both green & white parts). After this got wilty (another 1 to 2 minutes), I took everything off heat and we ate it then drank a lot of chardonnay while cleaning the apartment.
(Note to survivalists: If you wanted to make something like this in the wilderness, you get some tofu and black bean paste from your trip into town to the one organic grocery store, also picking up fresh green beans or snow peas, if they have them. Also get a can of water chestnuts if you can find them. Ask the meth-addled townie behind the register to locate them for you. Then you would saute the green beans along with the garlic to get them a little browned but still crunchy, then add drained water chestnut along with the fried tofu. I don't know what you do about the udon noodles! Maybe you can use any other type of pasta or even ramen? It would be different but still pretty good, I bet.)
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Caesar salad & steaks with compound butter
It was Jeremy's birthday yesterday so we celebrated with extra-special dinner plans. He is fond of caesar salad (really, we are all fond of caesar salad, so that worked out well) and it seemed like it would be fun to grill something so we decided to go retro with a strip steak and salad combo for dinner.
Melanie & birthday boy picked out 3 pounds of beautiful NY strip steaks. Seriously, they were perfect. I covered them liberally with salt, pepper and a good drizzling of olive oil and we let them rest at room temperature until the grill was ready.
Caesar salad isn't difficult but it relies heavily on timing well with the rest of the meal because it must be served immediately. So I prepped as many ingredients as I could but did not assemble the salad until the steaks were done grilling. First we made garlic croutons. Melted 3 tablespoons of butter with 2 tablespoons of olive oil and sauteed 4 cloves of minced garlic until soft but not browned. Sliced 6 pieces of good italian sandwich bread into 1" chunks. This created a little drama with Brian who was sad to see all the bread get used up until he remembered (deus ex machina!) that he had plenty of bagels in the fridge. It was like a little one act play. You can probably use any kind of bread that suits you--this is just what we happened to have lying around. Tossed the bread with the butter-olive oil-garlic mixture in a roasting pan, added salt, pepper, 1/2 tablespoon of red pepper flakes and 1 teaspoon of oregano. Popped it in the oven at 350 degrees and said to Melanie "Ha ha, now I'm going to forget about it!" Of course I forgot about it and remembered in a panic about 10 minutes later; fortunately they were not burnt but I think they easily could have been. Set them to crisp up on paper towels. Meanwhile, Melanie and I washed a large head of romaine lettuce and chopped it into 2" pieces. You don't want huge, unwieldy bits of lettuce while you are trying to enjoy a caesar salad. We also cut a garlic clove in half and rubbed it all over the inside of a wooden salad bowl to get it ready to have the salad tossed in there.
Here's the part where you should be ready to go with eating dinner as soon as you're done putting this together. For the dressing, I brought a small pot of water to a rapid boil and put in 2 eggs. Let them sit in there for 60-80 seconds (keep a good eye on the clock!), then scooped them out and cracked them into the salad bowl. Made sure to scrape out any egg white that had lightly cooked and clung to the shell and got that into the bowl as well. Beat the eggs very well with a fork until they were well mixed up, then slowly added 2 tablespoons of lemon juice. Continued to beat with the fork and slowly incorporated 6 tablespoons olive oil. When than was all mixed up, added a dash of worcestershire sauce and then about 2 tablespoons of well-minced/mashed up anchovy filets. Added salt and lots of black pepper, mixed well again, then added the romaine lettuce and tossed up from the bottom. This takes a little while. Toss toss toss. You want to make sure the dressing gets evenly mixed up with all the lettuce. Then taste a piece to make sure it doesn't need more salt and pepper, then top with the garlic croutons and a ton of fresh shaved parmesan cheese. Serve tout de suite.
Meanwhile, the steaks were getting finished up on the grill. The only trick is to flip them a lot and keep a close eye. Try to use a really hot grill at first so you can get cool looking cross-hatch marks on them. When the steaks were done, we served them with pats of delicious butter on top. Mashed up 3 tablespons of butter with 1 tablespoon of capers, 1 tablespoon minced parsley and 1 minced garlic clove with my mortar and pestle. Just kept mooshing it until it was all well combined, then scraped it out and put in in a plate in the fridge to chill until it was time to eat. Put a dab on top of each hot steak--a perfect accompaniment to garlicky Caesar salad.
Melanie's mom had made Jeremy a chocolate pound cake for his birthday. We had it after dinner with vanilla ice cream and strawberries and it was indescribably delicious.
Melanie & birthday boy picked out 3 pounds of beautiful NY strip steaks. Seriously, they were perfect. I covered them liberally with salt, pepper and a good drizzling of olive oil and we let them rest at room temperature until the grill was ready.
Caesar salad isn't difficult but it relies heavily on timing well with the rest of the meal because it must be served immediately. So I prepped as many ingredients as I could but did not assemble the salad until the steaks were done grilling. First we made garlic croutons. Melted 3 tablespoons of butter with 2 tablespoons of olive oil and sauteed 4 cloves of minced garlic until soft but not browned. Sliced 6 pieces of good italian sandwich bread into 1" chunks. This created a little drama with Brian who was sad to see all the bread get used up until he remembered (deus ex machina!) that he had plenty of bagels in the fridge. It was like a little one act play. You can probably use any kind of bread that suits you--this is just what we happened to have lying around. Tossed the bread with the butter-olive oil-garlic mixture in a roasting pan, added salt, pepper, 1/2 tablespoon of red pepper flakes and 1 teaspoon of oregano. Popped it in the oven at 350 degrees and said to Melanie "Ha ha, now I'm going to forget about it!" Of course I forgot about it and remembered in a panic about 10 minutes later; fortunately they were not burnt but I think they easily could have been. Set them to crisp up on paper towels. Meanwhile, Melanie and I washed a large head of romaine lettuce and chopped it into 2" pieces. You don't want huge, unwieldy bits of lettuce while you are trying to enjoy a caesar salad. We also cut a garlic clove in half and rubbed it all over the inside of a wooden salad bowl to get it ready to have the salad tossed in there.
Here's the part where you should be ready to go with eating dinner as soon as you're done putting this together. For the dressing, I brought a small pot of water to a rapid boil and put in 2 eggs. Let them sit in there for 60-80 seconds (keep a good eye on the clock!), then scooped them out and cracked them into the salad bowl. Made sure to scrape out any egg white that had lightly cooked and clung to the shell and got that into the bowl as well. Beat the eggs very well with a fork until they were well mixed up, then slowly added 2 tablespoons of lemon juice. Continued to beat with the fork and slowly incorporated 6 tablespoons olive oil. When than was all mixed up, added a dash of worcestershire sauce and then about 2 tablespoons of well-minced/mashed up anchovy filets. Added salt and lots of black pepper, mixed well again, then added the romaine lettuce and tossed up from the bottom. This takes a little while. Toss toss toss. You want to make sure the dressing gets evenly mixed up with all the lettuce. Then taste a piece to make sure it doesn't need more salt and pepper, then top with the garlic croutons and a ton of fresh shaved parmesan cheese. Serve tout de suite.
Meanwhile, the steaks were getting finished up on the grill. The only trick is to flip them a lot and keep a close eye. Try to use a really hot grill at first so you can get cool looking cross-hatch marks on them. When the steaks were done, we served them with pats of delicious butter on top. Mashed up 3 tablespons of butter with 1 tablespoon of capers, 1 tablespoon minced parsley and 1 minced garlic clove with my mortar and pestle. Just kept mooshing it until it was all well combined, then scraped it out and put in in a plate in the fridge to chill until it was time to eat. Put a dab on top of each hot steak--a perfect accompaniment to garlicky Caesar salad.
Melanie's mom had made Jeremy a chocolate pound cake for his birthday. We had it after dinner with vanilla ice cream and strawberries and it was indescribably delicious.
Friday, March 23, 2007
Corned beef and cabbage
Well, it has been awhile since I got a chance to post on anything...to make up for the absence, this is the story of how I home-cured a brisket into corned beef then cooked it up with other things on St. Patrick's Day. This should answer the oft-asked question: "What exactly is a corned beef?" and "What do you mean you corned a damn beef?" and so on. Interestingly (or maybe not, you be the judge) the word "corned" in this case refers to the salt you use during the process. I guess large bits of salt were called "salt corns" at one time. So really, we're just saying "salted beef," sort of like pickling it or preserving it; the end result is kind of like a cross between jerky and home-made pickles. Anyway.
First of all, I procured a large amount of flat-cut brisket from the venerable DeKalb Market. I got 7 pounds at first, then figured I'd need more so Marilyn kindly picked up another 3 pounds. Took this 10 pounds of brisket and pricked it all over, both sides, with a fork. I mixed 1 cup kosher salt with 2 tablespoons each of ground allspice, cracked black peppercorns, dried thyme, paprika and about 5 crumbled bay leaves. Notice that there is no saltpeter in there. That's what makes corned beef turn bright pink, which is a color many people expect to see. I don't use it. It's an ingredient in gunpowder and that makes it seem suspect. Probably toxic. Spread this salt & herb mixture over both sides of the briskets, kind of like a dry rub. Packed up the seasoned beef into large ziploc bags and stuck them in the fridge in a large metal baking dish (so they wouldn't get all drippy on the fridge). They stayed in there for about 5 days, getting flipped over every now and then.
The day before St Patrick's Day, I removed the now-corned beef from the bags and rinsed them off. I had to use 3 pots to accomodate all the beef. They got covered in water and I added about 3 tablespoons of pickling spices per pot. Then I set them to boil for a couple hours, until we had to go pick up Francesca and Paul from the airport because they were coming to visit us for the weekend. This is really the only reason that I started pre-cooking the corned beef--I didn't want to get stuck in the kitchen and waste time that I could have been spending with Fran and Paul. If you are doing this, you should just cook it all the day you intend to serve it. This also cuts down on possible foodborne disease (mmm, toxins! Clostridium perfringens, anybody?). I followed instructions from the person at my job who is in charge of restaurant inspections--she gave me very specific directions on cooling it to a safe temperature before storing it in the fridge over night.
Marilyn drove me to the market to get 2 green cabbages and about 5 pounds of mixed red potatoes and tiny fingerling potatoes. I try to get them as tiny as possible--they are so cute and can be boiled whole without any cutting up. She also came over to hang out and help me prep ingredients which was very helpful. She sliced all the cabbage up into chunks and we cleaned the potatoes.
About 1 1/2 hours before we expected anybody to show up, I put the 3 pots of corned beef back on the stove and brought them to boil again. I ended up consolidating into 2 pots of beef (the brisket shrinks down quite a bit) and saving the other pot full of liquid to cook the potatoes in. I added water as necessary to keep the pots from boiling off all their liquid. About 25 minutes before eating, I put the potatoes in to boil and 15 minutes out, I added the chunks of cabbage to the pots with the beef and also about 2 pounds of carrots, peeled and chopped into 3 inch chunks. When the vegetables were done, I drained them and took out the beef, sliced it against the grain and arranged it all on platters with beef in the center, surrounded by cabbage, carrots and potatoes heaped on the side. And let me tell you, that was some tender, delicious corned beef.
We had a ton of people over. Byron was first one there, besides Francesca and Paul who don't count because they were staying at our house. Rick made 3 loaves of his excellent irish soda bread. He's really good at it--seriously, he should open a bakery that only sells soda bread. Katie produced these gorgeous little profiteroles for dessert that she makes with a perfect pâte à choux that I could never duplicate. She sliced them open and we stuffed them with ice cream that Marilyn and I had made the night before. It was vanilla but we added green food coloring to be festive. And we all drank a ton of whiskey and it was a lot of fun.
First of all, I procured a large amount of flat-cut brisket from the venerable DeKalb Market. I got 7 pounds at first, then figured I'd need more so Marilyn kindly picked up another 3 pounds. Took this 10 pounds of brisket and pricked it all over, both sides, with a fork. I mixed 1 cup kosher salt with 2 tablespoons each of ground allspice, cracked black peppercorns, dried thyme, paprika and about 5 crumbled bay leaves. Notice that there is no saltpeter in there. That's what makes corned beef turn bright pink, which is a color many people expect to see. I don't use it. It's an ingredient in gunpowder and that makes it seem suspect. Probably toxic. Spread this salt & herb mixture over both sides of the briskets, kind of like a dry rub. Packed up the seasoned beef into large ziploc bags and stuck them in the fridge in a large metal baking dish (so they wouldn't get all drippy on the fridge). They stayed in there for about 5 days, getting flipped over every now and then.
The day before St Patrick's Day, I removed the now-corned beef from the bags and rinsed them off. I had to use 3 pots to accomodate all the beef. They got covered in water and I added about 3 tablespoons of pickling spices per pot. Then I set them to boil for a couple hours, until we had to go pick up Francesca and Paul from the airport because they were coming to visit us for the weekend. This is really the only reason that I started pre-cooking the corned beef--I didn't want to get stuck in the kitchen and waste time that I could have been spending with Fran and Paul. If you are doing this, you should just cook it all the day you intend to serve it. This also cuts down on possible foodborne disease (mmm, toxins! Clostridium perfringens, anybody?). I followed instructions from the person at my job who is in charge of restaurant inspections--she gave me very specific directions on cooling it to a safe temperature before storing it in the fridge over night.
Marilyn drove me to the market to get 2 green cabbages and about 5 pounds of mixed red potatoes and tiny fingerling potatoes. I try to get them as tiny as possible--they are so cute and can be boiled whole without any cutting up. She also came over to hang out and help me prep ingredients which was very helpful. She sliced all the cabbage up into chunks and we cleaned the potatoes.
About 1 1/2 hours before we expected anybody to show up, I put the 3 pots of corned beef back on the stove and brought them to boil again. I ended up consolidating into 2 pots of beef (the brisket shrinks down quite a bit) and saving the other pot full of liquid to cook the potatoes in. I added water as necessary to keep the pots from boiling off all their liquid. About 25 minutes before eating, I put the potatoes in to boil and 15 minutes out, I added the chunks of cabbage to the pots with the beef and also about 2 pounds of carrots, peeled and chopped into 3 inch chunks. When the vegetables were done, I drained them and took out the beef, sliced it against the grain and arranged it all on platters with beef in the center, surrounded by cabbage, carrots and potatoes heaped on the side. And let me tell you, that was some tender, delicious corned beef.
We had a ton of people over. Byron was first one there, besides Francesca and Paul who don't count because they were staying at our house. Rick made 3 loaves of his excellent irish soda bread. He's really good at it--seriously, he should open a bakery that only sells soda bread. Katie produced these gorgeous little profiteroles for dessert that she makes with a perfect pâte à choux that I could never duplicate. She sliced them open and we stuffed them with ice cream that Marilyn and I had made the night before. It was vanilla but we added green food coloring to be festive. And we all drank a ton of whiskey and it was a lot of fun.
Monday, March 05, 2007
Maki sushi
This post represents a fairly successful attempt at home sushi! Normally, this is definetely something to be left to the experts, but we had been going out for it so much lately that I felt like the only way to put this craving to rest was to actually try to make some. It was mostly vegetarian, but we also had crab (er, alaskan pollack, pressed, dyed and formed into crab-like sticks) and cooked shrimp. If we seek out some sushi-grade tuna or something, maybe we'll try making the raw fish variety someday, but for time being it seemed best to stick to relatively benign ingredients. We did not make nigiri or anything fancy, just stuck to maki rolls. It was definetely a group effort--in fact, I did very little beyond prepping the ingredients. I am not so skilled at rolling and it was really neat to see Melanie, Jeremy, Ryan and Betsy producing these beautiful maki rolls. Even if our sushi wasn't perfectly authentic, it was a fun thing to do all together.
First, I made the sushi rice so it would all be ready to go. This is probably the most involved part of the whole operation. Sidenote: I heard once that the Japanese word "sushi" actually refers to the rice, not the rolled up bits of deliciousness that you make with the rice. Is this true? Anyway, I have a rice cooker so everything is a little bit easier. I think it would not be too much worse on stove-top though. I rinsed well 3 scoops of sushi rice (I use Kohuko Rose brand) in several changes of water to remove the starch. Drained and added 2 ¼ cups of water and turned on the rice cooker. While this was cooking, I mixed ¼ cup rice vinegar with 1 teaspoon salt and 1 teaspoon sugar over low heat just until the sugar and salt dissolved. Removed it from heat at that point and allowed it to cool to room temperature. When the rice was done, I scooped it into a wooden bowl and sprinkled the rice vinegar mixture evenly over the top. I covered the bowl with a damp dishtowel and let it sit for 2 minutes. I then enlisted Melanie to fan the rice while I stirred it gently (sort of in an up-down stabby motion, rather than round and round) to keep from breaking the rice grains. It's sort of hard to stir and fan at the same time, so it's good if you can get Melanie to come over and do that part for you. You want to bring the temperature of the rice down and get the grains very shiny but not mushy. Set the rice aside, covered lightly by a towel, until we were ready to assemble. If it's going to be much more than an hour until you eat, you may want to keep the rice in the fridge. Something interesting about quantity: This seemed like a lot of rice but it went pretty quick between all 6 of us making and eating rolls. I ended up making a second batch after we ran out halfway through. The second batch was a little too much--I'd say one and a half batches of rice done this way would be the right amount for 6 people, unless you want leftovers. However, if you only have 4 people, one batch would probably be the perfect amount of rice.
For fillings, like I said, we did not use raw fish of any kind. I had about ¼ pound of cooked shrimp, cut up into little chunks and a package of those weird crab-like sticks (thankfully for Ryan's sake, they were not made from over-fished haddock; apparently alaskan pollack is still OK to eat), which were sliced into thin strips. We also had a can of inari (sweet, fried tofu) which I cut into thin strips. I soaked 1/3 cup of dried, sliced shittake mushrooms in hot water for one hour, then put them in a pan with their soaking liquid, 2 tablespoons soy sauce and a bouillon cube. Reduced off all the liquid and set them aside. For other vegetables, sliced 8 radishes into thin sticks, 2 carrots into matchsticks, 1/2 long english hot-house cucumber into long, lengthwise strips, and one red bell pepper into thin strips as well. I also sliced up 2 avocados and drizzled very lightly with lime juice, just to keep them from browning. Also at the ready was a container each of black sesame seeds and white sesame seeds. I think that was it for filling choices.
Fortunately, Brian had rolled maki before, so he was able to provide guidance. My first one was really bad, but everybody else had good luck. You need to lay a sheet of nori (seaweed wrap) on a bamboo mat and then carefully spread rice over it. Maybe about a 1/3 cup of rice, unless you are Ryan who made a very successful Jumbo Roll with about 3/4 cup of rice. Then you flatten out the rice over the sheet of nori, but leave about a 1/2 inch space from the edges. Jeremy spread his rice with surgical precision, and it was a thing of beauty. Then place the fillings of choice on the end closest to you and begin to roll up. The trick is to get all your fillings in under the first roll over or it will probably not stay together very well (my mistake). Then just roll up, using the mat to press it tightly and keep your roll neat and together. Then slice it up crosswise into chunks of whatever width you prefer. There is a slight learning curve, but everybody at our house was turning out very pretty rolls fairly quickly, and I don't think any of us were what you would call predisposed to good sushi-making skills (well, maybe Brian because he is sort of an artist and Jeremy because he is sort of a doctor, but the rest of us are marathon runners and public health people, so really it must be easy).
Good filling combos were shrimp and avocado and cucumber, inari and crab and avocado, shittake and red pepper and avocado...really, avocado makes everything delicious. We also started sprinkling black sesame seeds on the rice before rolling it up--that was really good.
First, I made the sushi rice so it would all be ready to go. This is probably the most involved part of the whole operation. Sidenote: I heard once that the Japanese word "sushi" actually refers to the rice, not the rolled up bits of deliciousness that you make with the rice. Is this true? Anyway, I have a rice cooker so everything is a little bit easier. I think it would not be too much worse on stove-top though. I rinsed well 3 scoops of sushi rice (I use Kohuko Rose brand) in several changes of water to remove the starch. Drained and added 2 ¼ cups of water and turned on the rice cooker. While this was cooking, I mixed ¼ cup rice vinegar with 1 teaspoon salt and 1 teaspoon sugar over low heat just until the sugar and salt dissolved. Removed it from heat at that point and allowed it to cool to room temperature. When the rice was done, I scooped it into a wooden bowl and sprinkled the rice vinegar mixture evenly over the top. I covered the bowl with a damp dishtowel and let it sit for 2 minutes. I then enlisted Melanie to fan the rice while I stirred it gently (sort of in an up-down stabby motion, rather than round and round) to keep from breaking the rice grains. It's sort of hard to stir and fan at the same time, so it's good if you can get Melanie to come over and do that part for you. You want to bring the temperature of the rice down and get the grains very shiny but not mushy. Set the rice aside, covered lightly by a towel, until we were ready to assemble. If it's going to be much more than an hour until you eat, you may want to keep the rice in the fridge. Something interesting about quantity: This seemed like a lot of rice but it went pretty quick between all 6 of us making and eating rolls. I ended up making a second batch after we ran out halfway through. The second batch was a little too much--I'd say one and a half batches of rice done this way would be the right amount for 6 people, unless you want leftovers. However, if you only have 4 people, one batch would probably be the perfect amount of rice.
For fillings, like I said, we did not use raw fish of any kind. I had about ¼ pound of cooked shrimp, cut up into little chunks and a package of those weird crab-like sticks (thankfully for Ryan's sake, they were not made from over-fished haddock; apparently alaskan pollack is still OK to eat), which were sliced into thin strips. We also had a can of inari (sweet, fried tofu) which I cut into thin strips. I soaked 1/3 cup of dried, sliced shittake mushrooms in hot water for one hour, then put them in a pan with their soaking liquid, 2 tablespoons soy sauce and a bouillon cube. Reduced off all the liquid and set them aside. For other vegetables, sliced 8 radishes into thin sticks, 2 carrots into matchsticks, 1/2 long english hot-house cucumber into long, lengthwise strips, and one red bell pepper into thin strips as well. I also sliced up 2 avocados and drizzled very lightly with lime juice, just to keep them from browning. Also at the ready was a container each of black sesame seeds and white sesame seeds. I think that was it for filling choices.
Fortunately, Brian had rolled maki before, so he was able to provide guidance. My first one was really bad, but everybody else had good luck. You need to lay a sheet of nori (seaweed wrap) on a bamboo mat and then carefully spread rice over it. Maybe about a 1/3 cup of rice, unless you are Ryan who made a very successful Jumbo Roll with about 3/4 cup of rice. Then you flatten out the rice over the sheet of nori, but leave about a 1/2 inch space from the edges. Jeremy spread his rice with surgical precision, and it was a thing of beauty. Then place the fillings of choice on the end closest to you and begin to roll up. The trick is to get all your fillings in under the first roll over or it will probably not stay together very well (my mistake). Then just roll up, using the mat to press it tightly and keep your roll neat and together. Then slice it up crosswise into chunks of whatever width you prefer. There is a slight learning curve, but everybody at our house was turning out very pretty rolls fairly quickly, and I don't think any of us were what you would call predisposed to good sushi-making skills (well, maybe Brian because he is sort of an artist and Jeremy because he is sort of a doctor, but the rest of us are marathon runners and public health people, so really it must be easy).
Good filling combos were shrimp and avocado and cucumber, inari and crab and avocado, shittake and red pepper and avocado...really, avocado makes everything delicious. We also started sprinkling black sesame seeds on the rice before rolling it up--that was really good.
Thursday, March 01, 2007
Pizzas
It turns out that I'm not the only one who likes to make pizzas for Academy Awards night--my younger sister does it too. Anyway, it is sort of a tradition and my other sister once wondered how to make the sauce and George claimed that he really really loved the pizzas, so even though it kind of feels like a junk food entry, I'll write about it a little.
The sauce really does change depending on what I have around. The one I made this time was a little thinner than usual and probably not my best work. Whatever. Sauteed 1 small, minced yellow onion in olive oil until soft, then added 5 minced cloves of garlic. Stirred all together until well cooked and fragrant but not at all burnt (sometimes you can get away with a little carelessness, but a sauce will have a nasty taste if your garlic burns). Added red pepper flakes, a half-can of those whole, peeled roma tomatoes that I like (they come in a big, jumbo 48 ounce can but I always use half), one small can of tomato paste, 2 teaspoons sugar and about 1/3 cup of red wine. Simmered it all together, stirring frequently, and allowed it to get somewhat reduced and thick. After about 30 minutes, took it off heat and put it through a food mill to get a nice, smooth thick puree. Set aside until pizzas were ready to bake.
Toppings: Chopped one small bell pepper and sauteed in olive oil until soft and slightly browned, about 7 minutes. Removed from pan and set aside ina little bowl. Melted 1 tablespoon of butter in the same pan (you could, of course, use as many pans as you felt like washing up afterwards for, but I am lazy and like to see how few pans I can use) and added a 1 package worth of sliced cremini mushrooms. Sauteed over high-ish heat until golden and a little crispy. Took out of pan, laid out on cutting board to cool off (don't pile them up when warm or they get soggy and all your mushroom crisping work is for naught), then set aside in a little bowl. Sliced 5-6 cloves big cloves of garlic into thin slices, then crisped those slowly in a mixture of olive oil and butter until they were golden little chips of heaven. Set aside in a little bowl, after cooling them off (much like the mushrooms). Using kitchen shears, I cut up sun dried tomatoes into thin slices and put them in a little bowl--probably about 1/3 cup's worth total. Brian cut up a pineapple and sliced about 1/2 cup into teeny little 1/2" chunks for me, which also sat and waited in a little bowl. I rolled about 2 cups of fresh spinach leaves into a tube and sliced them thinly to make a chiffonade, and dumped them in a prep bowl too. Minced a bunch of parsley and set aside. I had some pepperoni from the grocery store and some pre-shredded mozzarella ready as well.
Here's the truly lame part--I don't make my own crust. Nor do I use really decent pepperoni or good cheese. My mother's eyes would be rolling and she would shake her hand at me and say "Hey, keeed! What ees theeese?" but I'm like, that's OK. I'll make the dough by hand one of these days and use good, fresh cheeses, omit the garlic and aim for less schizophrenia in my topping choices...and that will really probably be a true and good pizza. But I was raised here in the USA and that means I like a too-sweet sauce, gooey cheese, crackery crust and a lot of crap on top of my pizza. A lot of fidelity to true Italian cooking shows up in my day-to-day cooking, but for some reason I've never cared to do right by pizza. Anyway, I use a Martha White mix. It costs 79 cents per package at Publix. You dump it in a bowl, pour 1/2 cup hot water over, mix it, shape into a ball, drizzle over olive oil and cover it with a dishtowel for 5 minutes. That's it. Stretched it out over the greased back of a cookie sheet (yes, Brian, the BACKS of the cookie sheet. Why? Because no one wants to scoop it out of a ridged pan and it is too hard to spread out. If you have a flat pan with no edges then it don't matter which side you use. And I lost the pizza stone my sister gave me once, which is sad), pricked it all over with a fork and stuck it in a pre-heated 450 degree oven for five minutes. Now it was ready to be covered with a thin layer of sauce, then what ever toppings sounded good in combo, red pepper flakes and a mess of cheese. Threw it back in the oven, kept a good eye on it and pulled it out when all the cheese was golden and bubbly and everything looked good (maybe 10 minutes?). A particularly successful combination was pineapple and lots of pepperoni with red pepper flakes and parsley.
Melanie and I drank a bottle of wine and we bet on Oscar winners with George and Brian. George won. Melanie lost. Brian and I were somewhere in between, but I suspect Brian did better than I did.
The sauce really does change depending on what I have around. The one I made this time was a little thinner than usual and probably not my best work. Whatever. Sauteed 1 small, minced yellow onion in olive oil until soft, then added 5 minced cloves of garlic. Stirred all together until well cooked and fragrant but not at all burnt (sometimes you can get away with a little carelessness, but a sauce will have a nasty taste if your garlic burns). Added red pepper flakes, a half-can of those whole, peeled roma tomatoes that I like (they come in a big, jumbo 48 ounce can but I always use half), one small can of tomato paste, 2 teaspoons sugar and about 1/3 cup of red wine. Simmered it all together, stirring frequently, and allowed it to get somewhat reduced and thick. After about 30 minutes, took it off heat and put it through a food mill to get a nice, smooth thick puree. Set aside until pizzas were ready to bake.
Toppings: Chopped one small bell pepper and sauteed in olive oil until soft and slightly browned, about 7 minutes. Removed from pan and set aside ina little bowl. Melted 1 tablespoon of butter in the same pan (you could, of course, use as many pans as you felt like washing up afterwards for, but I am lazy and like to see how few pans I can use) and added a 1 package worth of sliced cremini mushrooms. Sauteed over high-ish heat until golden and a little crispy. Took out of pan, laid out on cutting board to cool off (don't pile them up when warm or they get soggy and all your mushroom crisping work is for naught), then set aside in a little bowl. Sliced 5-6 cloves big cloves of garlic into thin slices, then crisped those slowly in a mixture of olive oil and butter until they were golden little chips of heaven. Set aside in a little bowl, after cooling them off (much like the mushrooms). Using kitchen shears, I cut up sun dried tomatoes into thin slices and put them in a little bowl--probably about 1/3 cup's worth total. Brian cut up a pineapple and sliced about 1/2 cup into teeny little 1/2" chunks for me, which also sat and waited in a little bowl. I rolled about 2 cups of fresh spinach leaves into a tube and sliced them thinly to make a chiffonade, and dumped them in a prep bowl too. Minced a bunch of parsley and set aside. I had some pepperoni from the grocery store and some pre-shredded mozzarella ready as well.
Here's the truly lame part--I don't make my own crust. Nor do I use really decent pepperoni or good cheese. My mother's eyes would be rolling and she would shake her hand at me and say "Hey, keeed! What ees theeese?" but I'm like, that's OK. I'll make the dough by hand one of these days and use good, fresh cheeses, omit the garlic and aim for less schizophrenia in my topping choices...and that will really probably be a true and good pizza. But I was raised here in the USA and that means I like a too-sweet sauce, gooey cheese, crackery crust and a lot of crap on top of my pizza. A lot of fidelity to true Italian cooking shows up in my day-to-day cooking, but for some reason I've never cared to do right by pizza. Anyway, I use a Martha White mix. It costs 79 cents per package at Publix. You dump it in a bowl, pour 1/2 cup hot water over, mix it, shape into a ball, drizzle over olive oil and cover it with a dishtowel for 5 minutes. That's it. Stretched it out over the greased back of a cookie sheet (yes, Brian, the BACKS of the cookie sheet. Why? Because no one wants to scoop it out of a ridged pan and it is too hard to spread out. If you have a flat pan with no edges then it don't matter which side you use. And I lost the pizza stone my sister gave me once, which is sad), pricked it all over with a fork and stuck it in a pre-heated 450 degree oven for five minutes. Now it was ready to be covered with a thin layer of sauce, then what ever toppings sounded good in combo, red pepper flakes and a mess of cheese. Threw it back in the oven, kept a good eye on it and pulled it out when all the cheese was golden and bubbly and everything looked good (maybe 10 minutes?). A particularly successful combination was pineapple and lots of pepperoni with red pepper flakes and parsley.
Melanie and I drank a bottle of wine and we bet on Oscar winners with George and Brian. George won. Melanie lost. Brian and I were somewhere in between, but I suspect Brian did better than I did.
Monday, February 26, 2007
Peanut sauce with fried tofu and vegetables
This represents my attempt at making something that Ann and Jim can replicate out in the snowy wilderness (hey guys! how's it going?). They requested something that would feature tofu and readily available vegetables, because they live in the middle of nowhere and it's still winter there (not here! I saw ice cream trucks this weekend!), which limits access to a range of exciting foods. I ended up making this and really liking it a lot. I am calling it "Vegetarian Fondue"--the ingredients are very flexible and it's fun to eat for a family meal. Especially a stuck-in-the-woods-why-won't-the-snow-stop family, who might be sort of low on amusements right about now.
Gently wrung one block of extra-firm tofu in a clean dishtowel and cut it up into 1 1/2 " pieces. Dried out the tofu pieces further on the towel. This is important because you are going to fry it and you want as little moisture in as possible. You can also weight it down in a colander for 30 minutes or so, if you have that kind of time. Just get it as dry as you can. I then heated about 4 tablespoons of canola oil in a deep saucepan with a lid (lid is important to avoid burns). When it was really hot I dumped in about half the tofu pieces (needed to do this in two batches) and put the lid over (it's glass, which helps you monitor the progress but not get spattered). Flipped the pieces when they were golden brown on the bottom and waited until both sides were a nice toasty brown. Probably took about about 3-4 minutes per side of tofu. Removed tofu from the pan, set aside to drain on paper towels and repeated this process with the second batch of tofu. When all were done, I salt and peppered them and set them out in a single layer so they wouldn't get soggy.
Put 1/3 cup of peanut butter in a bowl with 2 tablespoons soy sauce, a pinch of red pepper flakes and 2 tablespoons rice vinegar (if no rice vinegar, just use cider vinegar or a white wine vinegar). I also put in about 1 teaspoon of miso paste, but that is optional. Blended everything together with hot water (added a little bit at a time to keep it in control, I probably added about 1/2 cup total) until the consistency is good for dipping--sort of like heavy cream but a little more runny, if you can imagine that. Set aside.
Now the vegetables! When I did this, I thinly sliced 1 red pepper into strips and trimmed a bundle of asparagus. Then I steamed them until each was just cooked through and tender, but still a little crispy. If there is no red pepper or asparagus, you can use any vegetable that is handy, just lightly steam it first. You want a texture that can be picked up and nibbled on, so not too floppy or overcooked. Carrots or zucchini, cut into thin strips would be nice. Broccoli or cauliflower in small floret and with stalks cut into strips would also be tasty. Even cabbage would be good. It is good to use at least 2 vegetables, but if you just have one then just use one.
We put the fried tofu in the center of a big platter and laid the red pepper strips one one side and the asparagus spears on the other. The bowl of peanut sauce goes next to it (I put it in a bowl of hot water to reheat it right before serving so it is nice and warm--like fondue!) and then you can dip the veggies and tofu into the sauce. Delicious. Also, brown or white rice would be a good addition, on the side.
Gently wrung one block of extra-firm tofu in a clean dishtowel and cut it up into 1 1/2 " pieces. Dried out the tofu pieces further on the towel. This is important because you are going to fry it and you want as little moisture in as possible. You can also weight it down in a colander for 30 minutes or so, if you have that kind of time. Just get it as dry as you can. I then heated about 4 tablespoons of canola oil in a deep saucepan with a lid (lid is important to avoid burns). When it was really hot I dumped in about half the tofu pieces (needed to do this in two batches) and put the lid over (it's glass, which helps you monitor the progress but not get spattered). Flipped the pieces when they were golden brown on the bottom and waited until both sides were a nice toasty brown. Probably took about about 3-4 minutes per side of tofu. Removed tofu from the pan, set aside to drain on paper towels and repeated this process with the second batch of tofu. When all were done, I salt and peppered them and set them out in a single layer so they wouldn't get soggy.
Put 1/3 cup of peanut butter in a bowl with 2 tablespoons soy sauce, a pinch of red pepper flakes and 2 tablespoons rice vinegar (if no rice vinegar, just use cider vinegar or a white wine vinegar). I also put in about 1 teaspoon of miso paste, but that is optional. Blended everything together with hot water (added a little bit at a time to keep it in control, I probably added about 1/2 cup total) until the consistency is good for dipping--sort of like heavy cream but a little more runny, if you can imagine that. Set aside.
Now the vegetables! When I did this, I thinly sliced 1 red pepper into strips and trimmed a bundle of asparagus. Then I steamed them until each was just cooked through and tender, but still a little crispy. If there is no red pepper or asparagus, you can use any vegetable that is handy, just lightly steam it first. You want a texture that can be picked up and nibbled on, so not too floppy or overcooked. Carrots or zucchini, cut into thin strips would be nice. Broccoli or cauliflower in small floret and with stalks cut into strips would also be tasty. Even cabbage would be good. It is good to use at least 2 vegetables, but if you just have one then just use one.
We put the fried tofu in the center of a big platter and laid the red pepper strips one one side and the asparagus spears on the other. The bowl of peanut sauce goes next to it (I put it in a bowl of hot water to reheat it right before serving so it is nice and warm--like fondue!) and then you can dip the veggies and tofu into the sauce. Delicious. Also, brown or white rice would be a good addition, on the side.
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Applesauce & pork chops with glazed turnips
Pretty much the whole point of dinner this evening was to make applesauce. Everything else was incidental. That's why this post is called "applesauce & pork chops" and not the other way around.
Making applesauce is ridiculously easy--I used 3 different types of apples (Braeburn, McIntosh and one other that I can't remember) and got 2 of each. 6 apples peeled and chopped will make plenty of applesauce for 4 people. The annoying part is peeling but Brian helped me so it went pretty quick. Chopped them into small, uneven pieces (probably less than 1 inch in size). Put them in a pot with a tablespoon of butter and 1/2 cup of mixed apple juice and water. Sprinkled 1/2 teaspoon of cardamom, a teensy, unnecessary smidge of nutmeg and 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon into the mixture. Set over medium heat until they were quite soft (about 10 minutes) then mashed them up right in the pot. Tasted and added a tiny bit of salt. The only thing with applesauce is to make sure you get mealy type apples. Usually they are the kind you wouldn't enjoy eating fresh because they aren't crisp enough. You can cook them in any liquid you feel like--Brian said it was cheating for me to use apple juice, but I could have used orange juice or just water instead, if I felt like listening to him.
Peeld and cut 2 turnips into even 1 1/2" pieces and steamed them until they were a little bit soft but still not all done (about 6-8 minutes). Set them in a pot over medium-low heat in a mixture of 1/2 tablespoon butter, 1/4 cup of white wine, 1 teaspoon salt and 1 teaspoon sugar. Let them cook, gently stirring every now and then, until all the liquid had cooked away and they were shiny and lightly browned. Moved them around to make sure all sides got browned, then removed from heat.
4 gigantic pork chops just barely fit on my grill pan, did you know that? I had to nestle them together. I just stuck them over high heat until they were well-seared on both side with nice, dark grill marks. Then I poured some apple juice and water over them to keep from burning or drying out. Salt and peppered the tops. When they were cooked through, I removed them and tossed 3 cloves minced garlic and 2 tablespoons minced parsley into the empty, hot pan, stirred them around for a couple seconds then poured white wine (maybe 1/4 cup?) over to make a sauce. Poured that over the chops and that was it.
There was also asparagus, but I don't need to get into that.
Making applesauce is ridiculously easy--I used 3 different types of apples (Braeburn, McIntosh and one other that I can't remember) and got 2 of each. 6 apples peeled and chopped will make plenty of applesauce for 4 people. The annoying part is peeling but Brian helped me so it went pretty quick. Chopped them into small, uneven pieces (probably less than 1 inch in size). Put them in a pot with a tablespoon of butter and 1/2 cup of mixed apple juice and water. Sprinkled 1/2 teaspoon of cardamom, a teensy, unnecessary smidge of nutmeg and 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon into the mixture. Set over medium heat until they were quite soft (about 10 minutes) then mashed them up right in the pot. Tasted and added a tiny bit of salt. The only thing with applesauce is to make sure you get mealy type apples. Usually they are the kind you wouldn't enjoy eating fresh because they aren't crisp enough. You can cook them in any liquid you feel like--Brian said it was cheating for me to use apple juice, but I could have used orange juice or just water instead, if I felt like listening to him.
Peeld and cut 2 turnips into even 1 1/2" pieces and steamed them until they were a little bit soft but still not all done (about 6-8 minutes). Set them in a pot over medium-low heat in a mixture of 1/2 tablespoon butter, 1/4 cup of white wine, 1 teaspoon salt and 1 teaspoon sugar. Let them cook, gently stirring every now and then, until all the liquid had cooked away and they were shiny and lightly browned. Moved them around to make sure all sides got browned, then removed from heat.
4 gigantic pork chops just barely fit on my grill pan, did you know that? I had to nestle them together. I just stuck them over high heat until they were well-seared on both side with nice, dark grill marks. Then I poured some apple juice and water over them to keep from burning or drying out. Salt and peppered the tops. When they were cooked through, I removed them and tossed 3 cloves minced garlic and 2 tablespoons minced parsley into the empty, hot pan, stirred them around for a couple seconds then poured white wine (maybe 1/4 cup?) over to make a sauce. Poured that over the chops and that was it.
There was also asparagus, but I don't need to get into that.
Monday, February 19, 2007
Salmon with sweet potato & misoyaki sauce
The first time I had salmon like this was at Molly's house and she said that her father made a sauce that he cooked the fish in. Then she thought of covering it with sesame seeds. I started doing something very similar which has evolved into a first-marinate-then-roll-in-sesame kind of thing. And now I'm out of sesame seeds and must buy more.
Sliced about a pound of salmon filets into 4 chunks and marinated in a mixture that was equal parts tamari, orange juice and olive oil (enough to cover the fish). Slapped it in the fridge and left it alone until it was time for dinner (about 3-4 hours). When it was time to cook, I removed the pieces from the marinade and coated them in sesame seeds. Put in the oven at 375 for about 10 minutes, until flaky but still moist. Voila. Fish is easy.
Sliced a big sweet potato into 1/2" half rounds. Steamed them until just soft, then put on a sesame oil treated ridged cast iron pan and stuck under the broiler to fake-grill until they had nice grill marks and were done through. Kept warm until dinner and hoped they wouldn't dry out.
Mashed up 2 heaping tablespoons miso with 3 tablespoons hot (but not boiling!) water and 2 tablespooon white wine to make a runny paste. In a small pot over medium heat, mixed 1 tablespoon cornstarch with 2 tablespoons water and 2 tablespoons white wine. Heated and stirred briskly until it became thick, then whisked this into the miso mixture until it made a smooth, thick sauce. Added a little honey to taste.
About 3 hours before dinner, cut 1/2 hothouse cucumber in thin slices and marinated in 1/3 cup rice wine vinegar, 1/2 tablespoon sugar and a healthy pinch of red pepper flakes. Added thin peels of 1 carrot and poured it all over 1/3 thinly shredded red cabbage about 1/2 hour before serving. Mixed well and let it stand at room temperature.
Molly and George came over for dinner. Along with the things described above, we also had broccoli (sadly, I forgot about it and it overcooked. I threw out the leftovers at the end of the night because I hate soggy broccoli and Molly yelled at me, then fished a piece out of the trash. True story) and rice. George brought cherry cheesecake pie and Molly did her laundry.
Sliced about a pound of salmon filets into 4 chunks and marinated in a mixture that was equal parts tamari, orange juice and olive oil (enough to cover the fish). Slapped it in the fridge and left it alone until it was time for dinner (about 3-4 hours). When it was time to cook, I removed the pieces from the marinade and coated them in sesame seeds. Put in the oven at 375 for about 10 minutes, until flaky but still moist. Voila. Fish is easy.
Sliced a big sweet potato into 1/2" half rounds. Steamed them until just soft, then put on a sesame oil treated ridged cast iron pan and stuck under the broiler to fake-grill until they had nice grill marks and were done through. Kept warm until dinner and hoped they wouldn't dry out.
Mashed up 2 heaping tablespoons miso with 3 tablespoons hot (but not boiling!) water and 2 tablespooon white wine to make a runny paste. In a small pot over medium heat, mixed 1 tablespoon cornstarch with 2 tablespoons water and 2 tablespoons white wine. Heated and stirred briskly until it became thick, then whisked this into the miso mixture until it made a smooth, thick sauce. Added a little honey to taste.
About 3 hours before dinner, cut 1/2 hothouse cucumber in thin slices and marinated in 1/3 cup rice wine vinegar, 1/2 tablespoon sugar and a healthy pinch of red pepper flakes. Added thin peels of 1 carrot and poured it all over 1/3 thinly shredded red cabbage about 1/2 hour before serving. Mixed well and let it stand at room temperature.
Molly and George came over for dinner. Along with the things described above, we also had broccoli (sadly, I forgot about it and it overcooked. I threw out the leftovers at the end of the night because I hate soggy broccoli and Molly yelled at me, then fished a piece out of the trash. True story) and rice. George brought cherry cheesecake pie and Molly did her laundry.
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
Spicy lentil, okra & sausage soup
I just had a very frustrating experience--I wrote this whole thing down and then the computer ate it. It was annoying. So I hope I don't leave anything out on my second-go-round of writing this...
Sautéed 1 minced onion in a tablespoon of mixed bacon fat and butter. After it was soft, I added 1 minced carrot and 2 minced celery stalks. After about 3 minutes, added a coil of sausage (handmade by my grandfather in New Jersey!) chopped into 1" pieces and browned those up. Added 3 tablespoons minced garlic, sautéed for about 2 minutes then added waaaaay too many red pepper flakes. It was sort of an accident--dumped in about 2 tablespoons which I had to correct later with seasonings. Put in 2 cups of lentils and about a 1/2 pound of thinly sliced okra. After that had all been mixed up for about 1-2 minutes over medium heat, I added chopped-up tomatoes (I usually get a big 32 ounce can of peeled, whole plum tomatoes and then use half then can at a time) and their juices. Brian had made chicken stock and we had at least 8 cups of it, so I just put it all in, stirred well and brought to a low boil. I then added a drizzle each of balsamic vinegar and worcestershire along with 3 tablespoons of the red wine I was drinking. It was still way too hot-flavored from the red pepper mishap so I added 1 tablespoon of brown sugar which smoothed it out. Lowered the heat to a simmer and covered to cook until the lentils were soft and the soup was thick--about 25 minutes.
Sautéed 1 minced onion in a tablespoon of mixed bacon fat and butter. After it was soft, I added 1 minced carrot and 2 minced celery stalks. After about 3 minutes, added a coil of sausage (handmade by my grandfather in New Jersey!) chopped into 1" pieces and browned those up. Added 3 tablespoons minced garlic, sautéed for about 2 minutes then added waaaaay too many red pepper flakes. It was sort of an accident--dumped in about 2 tablespoons which I had to correct later with seasonings. Put in 2 cups of lentils and about a 1/2 pound of thinly sliced okra. After that had all been mixed up for about 1-2 minutes over medium heat, I added chopped-up tomatoes (I usually get a big 32 ounce can of peeled, whole plum tomatoes and then use half then can at a time) and their juices. Brian had made chicken stock and we had at least 8 cups of it, so I just put it all in, stirred well and brought to a low boil. I then added a drizzle each of balsamic vinegar and worcestershire along with 3 tablespoons of the red wine I was drinking. It was still way too hot-flavored from the red pepper mishap so I added 1 tablespoon of brown sugar which smoothed it out. Lowered the heat to a simmer and covered to cook until the lentils were soft and the soup was thick--about 25 minutes.
Thursday, February 01, 2007
Soba noodles with fried tofu
There was so much soy the evening I made this. I actually did not put any miso in the sauce I made for these noodles, simply because I felt it would be over the top to eat that many soy-derived food products in one evening. Anyway, it was highly tasty.
Opened up a package of extra-firm tofu (it was not packed in water, but that kind is fine too) and dried it off by wringing it gently in a clean dishtowel. If you had time you could also weight & drain it to get even more water out. Sliced it into small chunks of about 1 1/2" square. Dusted the tofu pieces with about 3 tablespoons of cornstarch--I was trying to get them pretty well covered. Heated 1/4 cup of canola oil in a deep, lidded pot until it was very hot, then fried the tofu pieces in 2 batches. This isn't too tricky--this particular incredibly handy pot that I was using (thanks Dad!) has a glass lid which makes it easier to monitor frying foods. Flipped the pieces once to brown both sides, then removed them to drain on paper towels. When both batches were done I sprinkled with black pepper and set them aside in a single layer so they would stay crispy. Sliced one red pepper into very thin strips (no more than 1/4") and did the same with 1 peeled & trimmed broccoli stem (not the florets). Minced 4 cloves of garlic and sautéed in 1 tablespoon of sesame oil with a pinch of red pepper flakes. When the garlic was getting soft (maybe 1-2 minutes), added the red pepper & broccoli stem strips and sautéed all together over high heat for about 3 minutes, then set the mixture aside with the tofu. Meanwhile, I put one bundle of soba noodles to boil (they only take 4-5 minutes, so keep an eye on them!), drained them and set aside. To the now-empty pot I added 3 tablespoons soy sauce and 2 tablespoons rice vinegar and mixed them well over medium heat. Added a tablespoon of tahini and about 3 tablespoons of white wine and continued to mix until sauce was a good, creamy consistency. Added the soba noodles to the sauce and mixed them well so they got good and covered, then added the vegetables and the tofu. Made sure everything was warmed, and then served sprinkled with sesame seeds.
Considering we boiled up some edamame to snack on while cooking, that's 3 entirely different soy types in just one meal! I am now reconsidering the sauce: I think I would have added a little less soy sauce and stirred in 1 tablespoon of miso with a splash of orange juice, before adding the noodles & vegetables/tofu. I am amazed by the versatility of soy.
Opened up a package of extra-firm tofu (it was not packed in water, but that kind is fine too) and dried it off by wringing it gently in a clean dishtowel. If you had time you could also weight & drain it to get even more water out. Sliced it into small chunks of about 1 1/2" square. Dusted the tofu pieces with about 3 tablespoons of cornstarch--I was trying to get them pretty well covered. Heated 1/4 cup of canola oil in a deep, lidded pot until it was very hot, then fried the tofu pieces in 2 batches. This isn't too tricky--this particular incredibly handy pot that I was using (thanks Dad!) has a glass lid which makes it easier to monitor frying foods. Flipped the pieces once to brown both sides, then removed them to drain on paper towels. When both batches were done I sprinkled with black pepper and set them aside in a single layer so they would stay crispy. Sliced one red pepper into very thin strips (no more than 1/4") and did the same with 1 peeled & trimmed broccoli stem (not the florets). Minced 4 cloves of garlic and sautéed in 1 tablespoon of sesame oil with a pinch of red pepper flakes. When the garlic was getting soft (maybe 1-2 minutes), added the red pepper & broccoli stem strips and sautéed all together over high heat for about 3 minutes, then set the mixture aside with the tofu. Meanwhile, I put one bundle of soba noodles to boil (they only take 4-5 minutes, so keep an eye on them!), drained them and set aside. To the now-empty pot I added 3 tablespoons soy sauce and 2 tablespoons rice vinegar and mixed them well over medium heat. Added a tablespoon of tahini and about 3 tablespoons of white wine and continued to mix until sauce was a good, creamy consistency. Added the soba noodles to the sauce and mixed them well so they got good and covered, then added the vegetables and the tofu. Made sure everything was warmed, and then served sprinkled with sesame seeds.
Considering we boiled up some edamame to snack on while cooking, that's 3 entirely different soy types in just one meal! I am now reconsidering the sauce: I think I would have added a little less soy sauce and stirred in 1 tablespoon of miso with a splash of orange juice, before adding the noodles & vegetables/tofu. I am amazed by the versatility of soy.
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Beef stroganoff
This is one of those dishes that I had never made before, partly because of its status as a clichéd-come-to-a-dinner-party-in-1961-paprika-reliant-high-goo-factor sort of food. Also, we never had it when I was a kid (go figure). But then I went to Watershed restaurant and had their truly excellent beef stroganoff and became a convert. It was just a matter of time before I tried my hand at it. Screw the snobs--this is delicious comfort food in one of its best incarnations.
Mixed about 1/3 cup of flour with salt and lots of pepper. I had some top round stir fry beef all ready for stir frying before I got the idea for this in my head, so I cut up a little less than a pound into 1" chunks. Sprinkled most of my flour mixture over the beef and covered it well. Set aside the rest of flour mixture for later. Melted some butter over medium-high heat and put the dredged beef chunks in to brown on all sides--probably about 8-10 minutes. Removed beef to plate and added about 2 tablespoons of butter, ½ chopped onion and sliced cremini mushrooms (I think they are usually in 8 ounce packages? Not sure--anyway it was all of one package). When the onions were soft and the mushrooms were starting to give up liquid, added 2 minced garlic cloves. When things were getting a bit browned and well-cooked (maybe about 5-6 minutes), sprinkled over the reserved flour and stirred it to absorb the butter & liquid for about 1 minute. Added 1 ¾ cups of chicken stock (it would have been better with beef stock, but sadly I had none on hand), brought to a boil and stirred until thickened. Added about ¼ cup white wine (probably a little bit more actually), the beef and any accumulated juices, and 1 tablespoon chopped parsley. Stirred well and removed from heat. Before serving, stirred in 1 ½ tablespoons sour cream.
Boiled up ¾ package of cavatappi and put stroganoff over it. Sprinkled with smoked paprika, because that's what you do with stroganoff when you're living in 1961.
Mixed about 1/3 cup of flour with salt and lots of pepper. I had some top round stir fry beef all ready for stir frying before I got the idea for this in my head, so I cut up a little less than a pound into 1" chunks. Sprinkled most of my flour mixture over the beef and covered it well. Set aside the rest of flour mixture for later. Melted some butter over medium-high heat and put the dredged beef chunks in to brown on all sides--probably about 8-10 minutes. Removed beef to plate and added about 2 tablespoons of butter, ½ chopped onion and sliced cremini mushrooms (I think they are usually in 8 ounce packages? Not sure--anyway it was all of one package). When the onions were soft and the mushrooms were starting to give up liquid, added 2 minced garlic cloves. When things were getting a bit browned and well-cooked (maybe about 5-6 minutes), sprinkled over the reserved flour and stirred it to absorb the butter & liquid for about 1 minute. Added 1 ¾ cups of chicken stock (it would have been better with beef stock, but sadly I had none on hand), brought to a boil and stirred until thickened. Added about ¼ cup white wine (probably a little bit more actually), the beef and any accumulated juices, and 1 tablespoon chopped parsley. Stirred well and removed from heat. Before serving, stirred in 1 ½ tablespoons sour cream.
Boiled up ¾ package of cavatappi and put stroganoff over it. Sprinkled with smoked paprika, because that's what you do with stroganoff when you're living in 1961.
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Tilapia with coconut rice
The funniest part about tonight's dinner was afterwards when we went downstairs to Melanie & Jeremy's and Brian was talking about how he could probably eat an entire loaf of pumpkin-chocolate chip tea bread in one sitting (he also gave a detailed description of what kind of cake-icing combinations he would or would not be capable of eating and how many rows of brownies). He explained that his entire dinner of "fish, rice and broccoli" was nowhere near a cake-like caloric intake and he had no difficulty polishing it off. I'm not sure what the point was, but I pointed out that he sounded like a spartan health hero when he said dinner was fish, rice & broccoli--he left out the part where I covered everything in coconut milk and butter. Anyway:
Rinsed about 1 ½ cups rice, added it to rice cooker and covered with most of a 16 ounce can of coconut milk, added 2 bouillon cubes and enough water to make 3 cups of liquid. Put it to steam in rice cooker. Before it was done, added chopped broccoli to the veggie steaming rack on top to eat alongside dinner. Rice cookers are great. They are a low-energy way of cooking both rice and vegetables (or shrimp or whatever) at the same time and also ensure that your rice will be perfectly cooked and kept warm at a safe holding temperature until you are ready for it (thereby minimizing risk of Bacillus cereus and accompanying sudden onset of nausea and vomiting). Anyway. Rice cookers. Nifty.
Sautéed 1 clove minced garlic in a couple chunks of butter until golden. Added 2 filets of tilapia, let cook about 2 minutes over medium-high heat, flipped to other side for 2 minutes, then sprinkled a pinch of red pepper flakes in the pan. Added rest of can of coconut milk (maybe ¼ cup) and ¼ cup of white wine. Let the mixture cook down around the fish for a minute or so, then sprinkled the top of the filets with 2 teaspoons chopped parsley, a pinch each of paprika & turmeric, salt & pepper. Let liquid boil down about 2 more minutes, then took off heat, slid the fish onto the coconut rice and poured the sauce over the top, with broccoli alongside. A better way to do this if you have a lot of liquid but don't want to overcook your fish is to remove just fish from heat, then aggressively cook down the sauce.
Rinsed about 1 ½ cups rice, added it to rice cooker and covered with most of a 16 ounce can of coconut milk, added 2 bouillon cubes and enough water to make 3 cups of liquid. Put it to steam in rice cooker. Before it was done, added chopped broccoli to the veggie steaming rack on top to eat alongside dinner. Rice cookers are great. They are a low-energy way of cooking both rice and vegetables (or shrimp or whatever) at the same time and also ensure that your rice will be perfectly cooked and kept warm at a safe holding temperature until you are ready for it (thereby minimizing risk of Bacillus cereus and accompanying sudden onset of nausea and vomiting). Anyway. Rice cookers. Nifty.
Sautéed 1 clove minced garlic in a couple chunks of butter until golden. Added 2 filets of tilapia, let cook about 2 minutes over medium-high heat, flipped to other side for 2 minutes, then sprinkled a pinch of red pepper flakes in the pan. Added rest of can of coconut milk (maybe ¼ cup) and ¼ cup of white wine. Let the mixture cook down around the fish for a minute or so, then sprinkled the top of the filets with 2 teaspoons chopped parsley, a pinch each of paprika & turmeric, salt & pepper. Let liquid boil down about 2 more minutes, then took off heat, slid the fish onto the coconut rice and poured the sauce over the top, with broccoli alongside. A better way to do this if you have a lot of liquid but don't want to overcook your fish is to remove just fish from heat, then aggressively cook down the sauce.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Stir fry with pineapple & pepper
I had a chunk of flank steak waiting in reserve from grilling to stir fry this week. The pineapple is due to Brian who cut one up the other night and suggested it be included. I don't think I would have thought of it on my own but from now on it will be included in the roster of protein and produce that get considered for stir fry nights.
Halved 1 orange bell pepper, sliced it into very thin strips and set aside. Minced 4 cloves garlic and 1 inch of ginger, set aside. Took the chunk of raw flank steak (not sure how much, maybe it was 1/2 pound?) and sliced it against the grain into thin strips (1/4"-1/2" wide). Chopped up about 1/4 cup of the pineapple that Brian had previously sliced up. Cut a small head of broccoli (including stems, as always) into slightly more bite-size pieces than usual and set them to steam over the rice. Removed when they were just barely cooked and set aside. Heated 2 tablespoons sesame oil in the wok and added the orange pepper strips , stirring them over high heat until they had some brown marks and were a bit wilted. Removed and set aside. Allowed the wok to cool somewhat, then added the garlic, ginger and a tablespoon red pepper flakes and stirred those about 2 minutes, then added a drizzle more sesame oil and the steak. Cooked until browned, then removed and set aside. Added 2 tablespoons soy-ginger sauce, 1 tablespoon tamari, a tiny splash each of rice wine vinegar and apple juice and brought to a simmer. Then added 1 cup chicken broth, stirred well and sprinkled the sauce with 1 teaspoon cornstarch, stirring very well after adding it. When the sauce was slightly thickened, added the steak, peppers, pineapple and lightly steamed broccoli, mixed together well in the sauce and made sure everything got heated through. Put over white rice and sprinkled with sliced almonds to finish.
Halved 1 orange bell pepper, sliced it into very thin strips and set aside. Minced 4 cloves garlic and 1 inch of ginger, set aside. Took the chunk of raw flank steak (not sure how much, maybe it was 1/2 pound?) and sliced it against the grain into thin strips (1/4"-1/2" wide). Chopped up about 1/4 cup of the pineapple that Brian had previously sliced up. Cut a small head of broccoli (including stems, as always) into slightly more bite-size pieces than usual and set them to steam over the rice. Removed when they were just barely cooked and set aside. Heated 2 tablespoons sesame oil in the wok and added the orange pepper strips , stirring them over high heat until they had some brown marks and were a bit wilted. Removed and set aside. Allowed the wok to cool somewhat, then added the garlic, ginger and a tablespoon red pepper flakes and stirred those about 2 minutes, then added a drizzle more sesame oil and the steak. Cooked until browned, then removed and set aside. Added 2 tablespoons soy-ginger sauce, 1 tablespoon tamari, a tiny splash each of rice wine vinegar and apple juice and brought to a simmer. Then added 1 cup chicken broth, stirred well and sprinkled the sauce with 1 teaspoon cornstarch, stirring very well after adding it. When the sauce was slightly thickened, added the steak, peppers, pineapple and lightly steamed broccoli, mixed together well in the sauce and made sure everything got heated through. Put over white rice and sprinkled with sliced almonds to finish.
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
Grilled flank steak & vegetables
Again with the winter grilling! It was pouring rain but very warm out so we grilled on our porch. It's on the second floor, covered & screened in so it's an ideal all-seasons grilling perch. The only trick is to not burn down the apartment building...
I bought a little more than 2 pounds of flank steak at the venerable DeKalb market. I sawed off a piece to use in stir-fry later in the week (undoubtedly, the next post will cover that adventure) and covered the rest of it in a marinade of salt, pepper, minced garlic cloves, red pepper flakes, olive oil, worcestershire and a little red wine. It hung out in the fridge until about a half hour before grill time, during which I let it rest at room temperature. Sliced 2 red peppers and covered with olive oil, salt and pepper. Cut 2 sweet potatoes into 1/2" slices and steamed them for about 7 minutes, until a little more than halfway cooked through, then added to the red peppers, with a little more olive oil, tossed gently. Brian started the grill for me, which was kind of him, and it burned very hot. Melanie kept me company on the porch as first the flank steak went on, flipped about every 3 minutes or so, then red pepper, then sweet potato, as room became available. The flank steak probably took about 10-15 minutes total, but the veggies just got pulled off as they developed nice char marks. Put the sweet potatoes in their own bowl, tossed with the juice of half a Meyer lemon, and surrounded the flank steak with the red peppers.
I accidentally also made what Jeremy kept calling "croutons" and he said he liked them, even though he doesn't normally enjoy crunchy bread (?). Melted a lot of butter and a little olive oil in a pan with 4-5 cloves minced garlic. Added small rounds of a baguette (sidenote! the DeKalb market appears to have stopped making my usual double ficelle loaves and in the place that I used to find those, there are now bags of misshapen, long, squishy things marked "country baguettes." they still come 2 to a package, so I guess they are the new hotness. They are actually pretty good and I have no qualms, I just think it's weird that I can't find the bread I used to get there), and tossed them in the butter-oil-garlic mixture until well-coated. Spread them on a baking sheet, made sure the garlic was well distributed, sprinkled a little parmesan on top, put them in the oven at 350 degrees...and promptly forgot about them while grilling. Brian eventually pulled them out of the oven and they were a very crunchy, tasty counterpart to our grilled foods.
We had this insane peachy pound cake with a caramel-bourbon sauce for dessert. It was leftover from a party that Melanie went to earlier where all the girls were on some no-pound cake diet, so we destroyed the ample leftovers. It was incredible. Also for dessert: my new Lava Lite that Brian got me for Christmas. It warmed up and started looking pretty groovy by the end of the evening.
I bought a little more than 2 pounds of flank steak at the venerable DeKalb market. I sawed off a piece to use in stir-fry later in the week (undoubtedly, the next post will cover that adventure) and covered the rest of it in a marinade of salt, pepper, minced garlic cloves, red pepper flakes, olive oil, worcestershire and a little red wine. It hung out in the fridge until about a half hour before grill time, during which I let it rest at room temperature. Sliced 2 red peppers and covered with olive oil, salt and pepper. Cut 2 sweet potatoes into 1/2" slices and steamed them for about 7 minutes, until a little more than halfway cooked through, then added to the red peppers, with a little more olive oil, tossed gently. Brian started the grill for me, which was kind of him, and it burned very hot. Melanie kept me company on the porch as first the flank steak went on, flipped about every 3 minutes or so, then red pepper, then sweet potato, as room became available. The flank steak probably took about 10-15 minutes total, but the veggies just got pulled off as they developed nice char marks. Put the sweet potatoes in their own bowl, tossed with the juice of half a Meyer lemon, and surrounded the flank steak with the red peppers.
I accidentally also made what Jeremy kept calling "croutons" and he said he liked them, even though he doesn't normally enjoy crunchy bread (?). Melted a lot of butter and a little olive oil in a pan with 4-5 cloves minced garlic. Added small rounds of a baguette (sidenote! the DeKalb market appears to have stopped making my usual double ficelle loaves and in the place that I used to find those, there are now bags of misshapen, long, squishy things marked "country baguettes." they still come 2 to a package, so I guess they are the new hotness. They are actually pretty good and I have no qualms, I just think it's weird that I can't find the bread I used to get there), and tossed them in the butter-oil-garlic mixture until well-coated. Spread them on a baking sheet, made sure the garlic was well distributed, sprinkled a little parmesan on top, put them in the oven at 350 degrees...and promptly forgot about them while grilling. Brian eventually pulled them out of the oven and they were a very crunchy, tasty counterpart to our grilled foods.
We had this insane peachy pound cake with a caramel-bourbon sauce for dessert. It was leftover from a party that Melanie went to earlier where all the girls were on some no-pound cake diet, so we destroyed the ample leftovers. It was incredible. Also for dessert: my new Lava Lite that Brian got me for Christmas. It warmed up and started looking pretty groovy by the end of the evening.
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