Pepper Steak with Red Wine & Nam Pla Sauce

1 lb round steak, sliced thin
1 med onion, crescent-sliced
1 tsp oil
kosher salt
1 Tbsp garlic powder
1 Tbsp hot paprika
1 tsp cumin
2 bell peppers, sliced
1 cup (dry) white rice
1/2 cup red wine
2 Tbsp fish sauce
1 Tbsp lemon juice
dash worcestershire sauce
1 heaping tsp cornstarch

Cook the rice.

Put the oil in a very hot cast iron skillet. Sear the beef with a small pinch of kosher salt. Work in batches, if necessary, to avoid crowding the pan. Reduce heat to medium low, add sliced onion. Stir in garlic powder, paprika, and cumin.

Whisk together wine, nam pla fish sauce, lemon juice, worcestershire, and cornstarch, and add to pan. As the mixture thickens, toss to thoroughly coat the meat and onions. Cook 5 minutes, lowering heat further if necessary to prevent the sauce from burning. Add sliced bell pepper, toss, cook 5 more minutes.

Serve over rice.

Paprikash-ish

Waiter, there is too much pepper on my paprikash. 


1 chicken cut up
2 onions, sliced
8 oz mushrooms, halved (quartered if they're large)
2 T paprika
4-6 cloves garlic, minced
kosher salt
olive oil
2 c stock or bouillon
2 T BBQ sauce
1/4 c butter
1/4 c flour
2 bell peppers, sliced thin
8 oz sour cream
juice of 1/2 lime


Put a large pot on medium high heat. Brown chicken pieces in a little olive oil, 3-4 minutes each side. Do in batches, if necessary to avoid crowding the pan. Remove and set aside. (It will still be mostly raw, so beware cross-contamination!)


Reduce heat to low. Add onions and a generous pinch of kosher salt. Cook until softened. Add mushrooms, paprika, and garlic, and cook for 10 minutes or so until the mushrooms give up their liquid.


Put the chicken back in the pot, add stock and BBQ sauce. Cover and stew for 45 minutes.


Make a roux: Melt the butter over low heat in a small saucepan. Add the flour and cook gently for 5-10 minutes until the mixture is blond in color and smells rich and nutty.


Once the chicken is completely cooked and tender, add the roux and simmer a few more minutes until the sauce starts to thicken. Add the bell pepper. Remove from heat and stir in the sour cream. Add a splash of lime juice immediately before serving.


Makes a huge double-buttload that you can serve over rice and eat on all week.

Candied Ginger Vegetable Curry

Inspired by a Bulgarian hangover breakfast.

1 medium onion, sliced
1 medium potato, 1/2 inch dice
splash olive oil
handful okra, chopped
1 red bell pepper, coarsely chopped
1 cup Bulgarian yogurt (runnier than normal Dannon, or just plain yogurt thinned out with a couple tablespoons of water or white wine)
1 T curry paste
1 t garlic powder
1 t sweet paprika
half dozen grape tomatoes or 1 small roma, chopped
half dozen pieces candied ginger
kosher salt

First: Candied ginger is absurdly easy to make. You can easily find plenty of recipes for it. I'll post mine later.

Put olive oil in a nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add the onion, potato, and a pinch of kosher salt, and saute, tossing occasionally, until the onion is translucent.

Reduce heat to low. Add the yogurt and curry paste and stir until well-combined. Mix in the okra, ginger, tomatoes, garlic powder, and paprika. Cover and simmer for half an hour until the potatoes are tender. Add the bell pepper, turn off the heat, and cover for 5 minutes.

Serve over brown rice or some other favored starch.

Kebab-stuffed artichoke bottoms

1/2 c short-grain brown rice
1/2 c wild rice medley
1 T dark miso
1-2 t schwarma seasoning or cumin
2-4 dashes chile oil

1/4 pound kebab meat (or spiced ground beef or lamb)
1/2 onion, chopped
1 small bell pepper, chopped
1 t garlic powder
kosher salt
1 T light oil

1 can artichoke bottoms
crumbled feta cheese

Put the rice, miso, schwarma seasoning and chile oil in a pot with 2 cups of water. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover and simmer until the water is absorbed.

Heat oil in a skillet. Break up the meat into small pieces and brown. Add onion, bell pepper, garlic powder, and a pinch of kosher salt and saute, tossing occasionally, until the onion is translucent.

When the rice is ready, add the meat mixture.

Arrange the artichoke bottoms in a skillet and spoon over the rice mixture. Sprinkle with crumbled feta. Place under a hot broiler for 1-2 minutes until the cheese starts to brown.

Roast Chicken Salad With Homemade Mayonnaise

Spicy garlic mayonnaise

A variation on Alton Brown's recipe, adjusted for taste and on-hand. Using the food processor is awesome - your arms don't get tired!

2 T rice vinegar

2 T lemon juice

1 whole egg + 1 yolk

1 t table salt

1 t ground mustard seed

1/2 t garlic powder

1/4 t dark brown sugar

Scant 2 c safflower oil

3 T hot chile oil

Add all wet ingredients (except the oil which is a liquid but isn't "wet") to the work bowl of a food processor along with the salt, mustard and sugar. Pulse 5 times. Turn processor on and add oil in a steady stream until incorporated. Keep at room temperature for 2 hours. Refrigerate for up to 1 week.

Note: there's a good reason for leaving the freshly-made mayo at room temp for 2 hours. In the unlikely case that the eggs are contaminated with salmonella, the acidity from the vinegar and lemon juice will work to kill the bacteria, but that action will only take place at room temperature. Refrigeration slows down all biological processes including the massacre of the evil beasties.

Roasted chicken salad

both breasts off a roasted chicken, diced

1/2 a small onion, minced

2 stalks celery, chopped

2 small roasted potatoes (optional)

2 hard boiled eggs (optional)

3/4 - 1 c spicy garlic mayo

smoked paprika

Nothing fancy to the preparation; combine all the ingredients and sprinkle with paprika to taste. Other optional ingredients (though probably not so good all together): a bit of diced serrano or anaheim chile with 2 t honey; sliced grape tomatoes; sliced grapes; pitted and minced kalamata olives; 1-2 T [horseradish|honey|dijon] mustard.

Stoup

Yeah, for a lot of people every time they hear the word "stoup" their hatred for Rachel Ray gets just a little bit hotter, but I like the perky little spunkmuffin. I've gotten some good recipe ideas from her 30-minute meals show, though I have to say my experience shows she's usually cheating on the time just a little, if by no other means than having a fully-staffed prep kitchen just off-camera.

Anyway...

6-8 cups freshly-made chicken stock
chicken meat stripped from the carcass and shredded
1/4 cup red lentils
1/4 cup pearl barley
1/2 cup split peas
1/2 cup dry white beans
1/2 T garlic powder

8-10 grape tomatoes, quartered

kosher salt

1 large onion
3 stalks celery
1/2 bell pepper
1 moderately hot chile - an Anaheim or Serrano or Mirasol or New Mexico green
4 large cloves garlic, smashed and minced
olive oil
1 t sweep paprika

Strain the stock, return to pot and bring to a simmer. Add the lentils, barley, split peas, beans, garlic powder, tomatoes and salt to taste. Simmer covered for 2-3 hours until the white beans are tender. Coarsely chop the onion, celery, bell pepper and chile and add to a saute pan with the olive oil over high heat. Sprinkle on the paprika and toss to distribute. Saute for 2-3 minutes, then add the garlic and saute for 2-3 minutes more.

Add the chicken meat and sauteed vegetables to the stock, cover and simmer for another 15 minutes. Adjust the seasoning.

Curried Seitan With Vegetables

So, I'm not a big fan of seitan - done right and in some kind of stew application it's nearly indistinguishable from meat, so what's the point?

Well, if you've ever despaired of communicating what cut of meat you want from a butcher with whom you have no language in common and it's the end of a long, hot, sticky day and your air conditioner keeps freezing up and leaking water all over your coffee table, and you just don't have the energy to deal with One. More. Thing, you'd understand the point.

I started with this recipe, adapted for my preferences and on-hand.

8 ounces beef flavor seitan
2 T oil
8 oz mushrooms, coarsely chopped
1/2 bell pepper cut in large squares
1 onion, sliced
2 green onions, sliced in 1-inch lengths

marinade:
dash coconut cream
dash Worcestershire sauce
1/2 T green curry paste
1 T peanut butter
1 oz fond
juice of 1/2 lemon
splash water

curry sauce:
2 T green curry paste
1 can coconut cream
dash Worcestershire sauce
1 T chunky rooster sauce
3 large cloves garlic, smashed and minced

Mix up the marinade in a large bowl; cut up the seitan and let it marinate while preparing the curry sauce. Mix the sauce ingredients in a saucepan and bring to a simmer over low heat.

Meanwhile, brown the seitan with the marinade in the oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. When the sauce is simmering, add the mushrooms, bell pepper, and onion. When the seitan is well-browned add it as well. Simmer for  10 minutes, add the green onion, and simmer for 5 minutes more.

Serve over starch, rice or cubed potatoes.

This Is How You Empty A Fridge

Ginger Filet of Beef

1 6-8 oz sirloin or filet
kosher salt
1 T ginger-scallion oil

Pan-sear the filet and finish in the oven as described here, but without peppercorns. Spoon the ginger-scallion oil over the meat immediately after removing from the oven and allow to rest.

Passionfruit Curried Cauliflower

half-dozen cauliflower florets, quartered
1/2 red onion, chopped
1/2 jalapeño, seeded and chopped

pinch kosher salt

1 T olive oil

1/2 c passionfruit juice drink
1 T green curry paste
1 t cornstarch
5 canned white asparagus spears
1/2 small cucumber, chopped
handful cilantro leaves, chopped
1 lemon wedge

Heat oil in a nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Saute the cauliflower, onion, and jalapeño with a pinch of kosher salt until they just start to soften. Add the passionfruit drink and curry paste, stir to mix, and bring to a low boil until the liquid reduces by about a third. Mix the cornstarch in a little water to make a slurry, add and stir until thickened. Remove from heat and add the cilantro, asparagus, and cucumber. Squeeze in the lemon just before serving.

Served with leftover miso rice.

This Grocery Store Is A Big F'ing Deal

I've been living in one of Atrios's dreams of an urban hellhole without a car for several months. My grocery shopping has therefore been limited to what I can reach on foot (or bicycle) and what I can carry. I live right off a big shopping district so it's not like it's a hardship - there are wonderful vegetable stalls, fresh spices, bakeries just steps away. But it's urban rents so while there are 5 different grocery chains nearby, they're all small stores with limited selections.

Today a friend drove me out to the burbs to one of the biggest, fanciest-ass grocery stores in the entire nation, the Tiv-Taam in Rehovoth Rishon LeTzion. The store has a bar in it. Actually it has TWO bars - one's a wine bar with a great pub food menu, and the other is a noodle bar and a sushi bar and a Guinness-on-tap bar. And since Tiv-Taam is the not-kosher shopping chain, the place was hopping late on a Friday afternoon. I'm told it's a major destination for the secular folks on Friday nights and Saturdays.

Yes, this is how strange and sad my life has become. I'm gushing over the experience of going grocery shopping.

I didn't lose my mind completely - the leg of lamb looked gorgeous but I would've needed to buy a freezer to put it in. The gigantic cowboy ribeyes were pretty damn impressive as well but I would've needed a bank loan. So instead I went vegetarian with some items I haven't seen at a reasonable price in the city.

Asparagus salad

5 stalks white asparagus
1/4 avocado
1 slice red onion
1/2 small cucumber
pinch kosher salt
1 T rice vinegar
1/2 t mirin

I will cop right away to this: the asparagus came out of a jar. Fresh asparagus in Israel is, well, see above, bank loan. And of course we're way out of season. But it worked for this application. Nothing fancy; peel the cucumber, chop everything up and toss it with the vinegar and mirin. Let sit while the rest of the meal is prepared.

Sauteed Shemeji Mushrooms

1 package (3-4 oz.) brown shimeji mushrooms
3 large cloves garlic, minced
2 t extra virgin olive oil

Trim the base so the mushrooms are all separate stalks. Heat the olive oil over medium heat; add the mushrooms, toss for a minute, and add the garlic. Sautee, stirring, until the mushrooms just start to darken. Remove from heat and plate immediately; residual heat will cook them just a little more. While still warm, top with 1-2 t of Francis Lam's ginger-scallion oil.

Sauteed Enoki Mushrooms

1 package (~2 oz.) enoki mushrooms
1 T butter
lime zest

Trim the base and separate the mushroom stalks. Melt the butter over low heat. Add the mushroom with a small pinch of kosher salt and saute gently for no more than two to three minutes. Garnish with lime zest.

Miso rice

Prepare white rice as normal but add 1 T dark miso per cup of water

Using rice vinegar and the sweet mirin in the salad prevents the mild flavor of the white asparagus from being overwhelmed. The avocado is buttery and rich in flavor and soft in texture; the cucumber, onion, and the acidity of the vinegar make a great counterpoint.

The shimejis are toothsome and garlicky with the savory flavor amped up by the giner oil. The enokis are buttery and rich. And the saltiness of the miso in the rice brings out the different tastes of the fungus.

I enjoyed all of this with some country onion bread from the Tiv-Taam's bakery, and I'm going to finish the evening with my other big find - a bottle of Tullamore Dew, and at darned near duty-free price!

Phuket BBQ sauce

Yeah, I know, it's not really pronounced that way. But phuket.

I felt like something spicy and aromatic, so I started with a basic recipe for Kansas City BBQ sauce and went nuts.

1 onion
1/2 bulb garlic
1 peach or other stone fruit, very ripe
2 T toasted sesame oil
2 T sweet paprika
1 T chili powder
crushed red pepper to taste
1/4 cup dark brown sugar
1 cup ketchup
1/4 cup vinegar
juice of half a lemon plus water to make 1/4 cup
1 T green curry paste
1/2 t grated fresh nutmeg or cinnamon
kosher salt

Dice the onion finely and saute with a pinch of kosher salt in the sesame oil over medium heat until the onion is well-caramelized. Separate the garlic cloves, mash and mince and add to the onion along with the brown sugar, paprika, chili powder, and crushed red pepper. Saute, stirring, for a minute or two until you can smell the garlic.

Reduce heat and add ketchup, vinegar, lemon juice and water, and curry paste. Dice the peach finely and add it along with the grated nutmeg or cinnamon. Simmer covered for at least half an hour, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat and allow to cool, and then you can puree with a stick blender if desired. I like the chunky bits.

I've got a pan of chicken legs in the oven right now, liberally doused.

Chicken and Dumplings

Cracker Barrel may be a despicable corporate entity: racist, sexist, homophobic, abusive of their workers, and pretty much a canonical instance of the faux-friendly jes-plain-folks Disney fake of actual human-to-human contact - but their chicken and dumplings hits my comfort-food sweet spot. When I'm on the road and I have the time for a sit-down meal I've been known to bite down hard on my principles, stop there and order some. And overtip the waitron.

So when I got a hankering for some chicken and dumplings, I canvassed the internet and quickly found a recipe that claimed to be theirs or as near as matters. I made it a couple of times and it is very very close to what you get in the restaurant. But I also realized that when you're not on a long and lonesome highway the comfort-food aspect is not so compelling, and it can definitely be improved. So I'm going to reproduce the recipe here and annotate it as prepared this evening.

Here we go:

3 quarts water
1 3-4 pound chicken cut up
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 small large onion sliced
2 stalks celery, chopped
1 4 cloves garlic, peeled and quartered smashed and minced
1 t garlic powder
1 bay leaf
4-6 whole parsley leaves
1 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper
1 tablespoon lemon juice

Dumplings

2 cups all purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 1/4 teaspoons of salt
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons milk

Get a little oil very hot in a large pot and sear the chicken. Add water to cover and bring Bring the water to a boil in a large pot. Add the chicken, 1 teaspoon of salt, onion, celery, garlic powder, bay leaf, and parsley to the pot. Reduce the heat to simmer and cook the chicken, uncovered, for 2 hours. The liquid will reduce by about one third.

Tonight I replaced part of the water with leftover egg drop corn soup.

When the chicken has cooked, remove it from the pot and set it aside. Strain the stock to remove all the vegetables and floating scum. You only want the stock and the chicken, so toss everything else out.

Pour 1 1/2 quarts (6 cups) of the stock back into the pot (keep the leftover stock, if any, for another recipe-it can be frozen). You may also want to use a smaller pot or a large saucepan for this. Add coarsely ground pepper, the remaining 1/2 teaspoon of salt to taste, and the lemon juice, then reheat the stock over medium heat while preparing the dumplings.

For dumplings, combine the flour, baking powder, 1 1/4 teaspoons salt, and milk in a medium bowl. Stir well until smooth, then let the dough rest for 5-10 minutes.

While the dough is resting, coarsely chop the onion and celery and saute it in a little oil over medium-high heat, adding the garlic as it starts to soften. Saute, tossing frequently, until the onions start to caramelize.

Roll the dough out onto a floured surface to about a 1/2 inch thickness. Cut the dough into 1/2 inch squares and drop each square into the simmering stock. Use all of the dough. The dumplings will first swell and then slowly shrink as they partially dissolve to thicken the stock into a white gravy. Simmer for 20-30 minutes until thick. Stir often.

While the stock is thickening, the chicken will have become cool enough to handle. Tear all the meat from the bones and remove the skin. Cut the chicken meat into bite-size or a little bigger than bite-size pieces and drop them into the pot, also adding the sauteed vegetables. Discard the skin and bones. Continue to simmer the chicken and dumplings for another 5-10 minutes, but don't stir too vigorously or the chicken will shred and fall apart. You want big chunks of chicken in the end.

Makes 8-10 servings.

Roasted Potatoes with Sausage

A meaty variation on a family favorite!

6-7 medium potatoes

1 medium onion

4-6 large cloves garlic or 1 T granulated garlic

a double handful of ground sausage

1 T chili powder

1 t cumin

1/2 t turmeric

2 generous pinches kosher salt

fresh ground black pepper

crushed red pizza pepper (optional)

3 T olive oil

Preheat oven to 450F. Dice the potatoes and onion to 1/2 inch; crush and mince the garlic; crumble the sausage. Combine in a cast-iron skillet. Add salt, pepper, chili powder, cumin, turmeric, and pizza pepper. Drizzle on the olive oil and mix by hand until everything is well-coated.

Bake 30 minutes, turn well with a nonstick spatula and bake another 30 minutes.

Serve with brown gravy if desired.

I added some leftover rice to the leftover salad and it made a very nice, mild counterpoint to the spicy potatoes.

Egg-Drop Corn Soup

Chicken stock:

a chicken carcass or equivalent

1 onion

1/2 bulb garlic

2 stalks celery

8-10 cups water

kosher salt

yield: 4-6 cups stock

3 ears corn

1 t grated ginger

1 T soy sauce

2 T cornstarch

4 green onions

2 eggs, lightly beaten

There's a grocery store nearby that has chicken leg quarters on "permanent special" if you buy 3 kilos or more. So every couple of weeks I go buy 3 kilos. I roast them or BBQ them or pan-fry them in a batch, and then I have a week's worth of lunch if I'm too lazy to whip something else up. And that leaves me with a big pile of bones. I give one or two to the kitten who makes the most amaaaazing moaning sound of pleasure as he destroys them. The rest get frozen until I need some stock. And then I do like so:

Put the chicken carcass, onion, celery, and garlic in a large pot with 8-10 cups of water. The vegetation is just for flavoring and will be strained out, so there's no need to chop it finely. I just cut the onion and garlic cloves in half and break the celery into pieces small enough to fit. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer, covered, all day - 6 hours, minimum.

If you keep the simmer at the proper level over the cooking time the liquid will reduce to 4-6 cups. When it reaches that point, remove from heat and strain. Voilà, chicken stock. Salt very lightly, not to taste - you'll be adding soy sauce in a minute.

Put the stock back on the fire. Add the freshly-cut-off kernels of three ears of corn, 1T soy sauce, and 1 t freshly-grated ginger. A Microplane® fine grater works best for this. (It's only recently that I learned that Microplane was a brand name. Duh.) Simmer 30 minutes until the corn is tender.

Raise the heat slightly until the soup is at a low boil. Put 1 T of cornstarch in a small mise-en-place bowl or ramekin. Skim off a couple tablespoons of the soup and mix it into a slurry, then stir it back in to the soup.

While the soup thickens, coarsely slice 2 green onions and lightly beat 2 eggs. While stirring the soup slowly, drizzle in the eggs so they feather as they cook in the hot liquid. Remove from heat, salt and pepper to taste. Garnish with chopped green onions.

Hmmm, the corn kind of overwhelms the egg flavors in these proportions. Maybe use less corn next time. And I don't like my soup to be thickened a lot so others may wish to use more cornstarch than I did.

It's only knife work, or, Phake Pho

I started out the evening by making Francis Lam's ginger-scallion sauce, even though I don't have a food processor. (I haven't bought one yet because the good quality models are ludicrously expensive in Israel.) I told a friend I was going to try making the sauce and she suggested I buy one of those mini-food-processoids, basically a glorified POS stick blender with attachments. But it only took about 10 minutes of knife work to reduce the ginger and scallions to the prescribed consistency.

There's certainly nothing wrong with using a labor-saving device. I don't have a food processor now but I used to. Actually, I used to have two. And a stick blender. And I still have an orbital mixer, a coffee grinder (plus another one for spices), and for that matter an automatic drip coffeemaker. Technology is a wonderful thing. I like wearing ready-made clothing and pooping indoors.

But if you have the time and if you enjoy it, there's something to be said for the sensual pleasure that comes from doing your food prep "by hand". I enjoy the rhythm of the knife rocking back and forth, the tension in my biceps and across my shoulders as I control the blade, the fresh aroma of the ginger rising up.

Francis Lam, by the way, is one of the few remaining interesting voices on Salon.com. If I detailed all the ways that that publication no longer satisfies me I would stray into a subject area that I promised myself I wouldn't allow on this blog, so I'll just leave it at that.

Now that I have some yummy yummy ginger scallion sauce, what to do with it...?

1/2 cup white rice (dry)

2 T miso

some kind of meat-substitute snausage

a medium onion

half a red bell pepper

a stalk of celery

oil for pan-frying

pizza pepper

soy sauce

Cook the rice. Dissolve the miso in 2 cups of water in a small pot. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer.

Slice the snausage into long, thin strips (almost bacon-like) and pan-fry it in more oil than you would normally use until it is very crisp. The more crisp, the better it will taste. Drain and set aside.

Slice the onion, celery, and bell pepper into thin strips and saute with a pinch of salt; finish with a dash of soy.

Put a scoop of rice in a deep bowl, then some of the vegetables and strips of snausage on top. Ladle the miso over and season generously with ginger-scallion oil. Eat with chopsticks and a big spoon, like pho. In fact, you could dress it with a squeeze of lemon, some fresh basil, and some rooster sauce if you wanted. I don't have any basil or rooster sauce tonight, but it was still pretty yummy.

Serves 2.

Onion soup avocado pasta

Yeah, yeah, another pasta dish. I got a bunch of shells and linguine on sale.

1 large onion

garlic to taste - I like a lot, about half a bulb

1 t turmeric

1 t toasted sesame oil

1 T olive oil

kosher salt

pepper

broth or stock or fond or bouillon

handful olives

half an avocado

a nice fat lemon wedge

parmesan cheese if desired

8 oz linguine

Slice the onion and smash and dice the garlic fine. Put the sesame and olive oil in a nonstick skillet over medium-low heat. When the oil starts to shimmer add the onion, garlic, turmeric, with a pinch of kosher salt and a few grinds of pepper. Let the onion cook down for a good forty minutes or an hour, tossing occasionally.

If you're the kind of person who keeps stock or fond in your freezer, well, good on you. Thaw half a cup or so. If not, dissolve a beef bouillon cube in however much water the instructions say, and reduce it down to half a cup or so. Then add it to the onions and let it simmer down further until it will coat a spoon.

Meanwhile cook half a pound of linguine. Chop the olives, whatever kind you prefer. I've got some mild black ones and some garlic-stuffed green ones. Scoop out half an avocado in one piece and slice it lengthwise.

Drain the pasta and toss together with the onions. Plate, sprinkle on the olives, arrange the avocado on top, squeeze lemon juice on to it and top with fresh grated parmesan cheese if desired.

The onions are piquant, the stock or fond gives you a darkness and together with the avocado you get a luscious mouth-feel, and the olives and lemon juice add a lovely bright note that rides on top of it all.

4 side dish or 2 entree servings.