This morning I made some very simple, very tasty brunch-pasta. It's only brunch pasta because it was brunch time. But I suppose fatty potatoes are also reminiscent of brunch... This one features fried unboiled gnocchi. I learned about this from this recipe on 101cookbooks and ever since I first made her spring gnocchi, frying without boiling has been my favorite method of cooking those little buggers. I love the way the butter seeps through the whole dumpling, and they're soft on the inside and cripsy on the outside.
Nameless Brunch Gnocchi
1 lb. fresh gnocchi (I love the non-refrigerated kind they have at Stanley's, but I'm sure other ones are good too. Just stay away from the crap in the fridge at Whole Foods.)
butter
olive oil
kosher salt
pepper
7 roma tomatoes, coarsely chopped (a couple of handfuls of halved cherry or grape tomatoes would be good, too)
2 c. sliced shiitake mushrooms
white balsamic vinegar
fresh thyme
fresh rosemary
fresh sage - about a tablespoon of each of these, finely chopped
parmesan cheese
Gnocchi: Melt about 3T butter with about 2T olive oil in a large pan. Add gnocchi (unboiled!) and saute with a sprinkling of kosher salt and pepper until they are all cooked through and golden and crispy on the outside.
Veggies: Melt about 2T butter and 1T olive oil in another pan, preferably not a non-stick one. Add the mushroom slices and some kosher salt and pepper. I like a put a lid on to cook them on all sides evenly. When they're tender, pour out the liquid that has accumulated in the pan and drizzle some white balsamic vinegar over them. Continue cooking until the vinegar has cooked off. Add tomatoes and cook for about 30 seconds, until they are warmed through, then add the herbs and cook for about 30 seconds more.
Pile veggies on the top of the gnocchi, grate some parmesan over the top, and eat!
Serves about 3-4, depending on how much you each and what other things you may be eating...
Showing posts with label food. Show all posts
Showing posts with label food. Show all posts
Sunday, March 11, 2007
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
I stopped shoving food in my face just long enough to write this blog post
I had a fantastic dinner tonight. I’m busy as all get out, and although I finished my latest knitting project (again: behold, KNITTING naysayers! I have completed something. Soon it will be blocked and in action, keeping me warm.) I have a shitload of homework to do. Like both Chef Yum Yum and ER, I eat every day. Sadly, I don’t knit every day, and those there are the two primary topics on my blog. That and … NOTHING.
This pasta is amazing. It’s nutritious and comforting. It’ll keep you warm. Especially when combined with red wine… And the seasoning is very simple, with satisfying results. It requires dirtying many pans, but it’s worth keeping those veggies separate from one another so things don’t get soggy. Also, if you start the squash a little bit ahead of time, each component on its own takes about the same amount of time, which is neat.
A warning, if you balk at excessive quantities of butter, this isn’t for you. Also, my blog may not be for you, either. I might not be for you.
1 butternut squash, diced
A handful of fresh sage leaves, coarsely chopped
2 small yellow onions, thinly sliced
2 cloves garlic, pressed
1lb mushrooms, sliced
1 lb linguine
a handful of grated parmesan (the nice kind)
Olive oil
butter
Kosher salt
Pepper
Squash:
Spread the diced squash evenly over a plate, cover with plastic wrap, and microwave for about 10 minutes, or until tender about halfway through each piece. Don’t overcook the squash! It will turn into baby food. Heat a generous drizzling of olive oil and about 3-4T butter in a large non-non-stick pan over medium heat. Toss the squash chunks with a small handful of kosher salt, generous crackling of pepper, and sage. Brown the squash mixture in the pan. This will take about 10 minutes – spread the squash evenly throughout the pan and leave it alone for a few minutes, turning it a couple of times.
Pasta:
Bring salted water to a boil, add linguine, and cook until al dente – about 12 minutes.
Onions:
Heat another generous helping of olive oil and a couple more tablespoons of butter in another non-non-stick pan over medium-low heat. Add the onions and the garlic and allow them to brown for about 10 minutes.
Mushrooms:
Heat olive oil and butter in yet another pan (non-stick or otherwise), add the mushrooms with some salt and pepper, and allow them to cook until soft.
Drain the pasta. Toss the vegetables together and layer them over a plate-full of pasta. Sprinkle with parmesan and savor every bite. Or cram it into your face. Either way, it’s great.
Serves 3
[edit: serves more like 6 if you eat less than I do. I eat a lot.]
Alas. Back to the school work.
Monday, January 1, 2007
a new year's eve menu for you and your roommate
I'm not a big fan of new year's eve as a holiday. I'm like a new year's scrooge. I don't like holidays where everyone gets the I HAVE TO GO OUT AND ACT REALLY DANGEROUSLY AND LIKE I DO NOT NORMALLY ACT idea (see Halloween for adults, and increasingly St. Patrick's Day as well), and everything costs a million dollars. Also, I just don't think January 1st is more different from December 31st than any other day is to the one before it. Need to change something in your life? Decide the next day is a fresh start and just do it. There is nothing special about January 1st in and of itself. Is it your birthday? Then it's special for that reason. Is it the day you decide to quit smoking / eat healthier / exercise / lose weight / whatever - then that's what makes that day special. This "first day of the new year = big special fresh start" ... I'm not buying it. Maybe that makes me a crabby bitch. So be it. New year's eves that I have enjoyed included, but are not limited to: being a kid, when staying up to midnight is exciting, attending a small dinner party where everyone wore pajamas, and last night's - sitting on the couch, eating a fancy dinner with my roommate, teaching her to knit, and watching a CSI marathon.
Our menu consisted of smoky mustard greens with chicken drumsticks, barbecued pork loin, and potato-corn hash. Becki was in charge of the (delicious) pork, so I'll only blog about my contributions. Here's what we did:
1/3 lb. bacon
8 medium-sized red potatoes
1/4 onion, diced
2-3 T butter
2 c. frozen corn, thawed
kosher salt and black pepper
1/2 onion, thinly sliced
1 lb. mustard greens (really, any hearty coarse green thing will work here. I just wouldn't use spinach. But kale or something like that would be good.)
3 chicken drumsticks (or another kind of dark meat chicken)
1/3 c. dry white wine (or vermouth would be nice)
a few drops liquid smoke
1 T "better than bouillon" (this is a bouillon mix that comes in a jar and many flavors. I used vegetable last night because that's what I have, but any flavor would be great here. I've found it at Dominick's and the (evil, crappy, and over-priced) Hyde Park Co-op. If you can't find better than bouillon some regular old broth would be fine, but maybe add a little less wine so things don't get too sloppy.)
kosher salt and black pepper
Boil the red potatoes until they are about halfway done (so you can stick a fork in, but with difficulty). Strain them, and dump them into a bowl of ice water to stop them from cooking more. When they are cool enough to touch, chop them (with skins!) into bite-size chunks. Set aside.
Chop the bacon into strips about 1/2" wide and fry them over medium-high heat in a large skillet. When they're done to your liking, take them out of their grease with a slotted spoon and set them aside for later. Pour half the grease (carefully!) into another large skillet.
One of these skillets is for the potatoes, and one is for the greens.
Potatoes:
Cook the onions in the bacon grease over medium-high heat until translucent. Add the chopped potatoes and season heartily with kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper. My potatoes sucked up that bacon grease pretty fast, so I ended up adding a couple tablespoons of butter to help prevent sticking and make the outsides nice and brown and crispy. When the potatoes are nearly done, add the corn, just so it gets heated through. Sprinkle with bacon pieces when done.
Greens:
Cook the sliced onion over medium-high heat until golden. Add the chicken pieces with the skin side down in the bacon grease and cook until nicely browned. You may turn them to brown other sides as well, but the middle should be remaining uncooked. Add a generous sloshing of white wine, a sprinkling of liquid smoke, the bouillon, and a generous sprinkling of kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper. When the chicken is browned to your liking but not fully cooked, add your greens and cover the pan to cook them down. No need to dry them after washing - the water will help cook them. When the greens are about half cooked, remove the lid and allow them to cook the rest of the way as some of the remaining liquid evaporates.
Share with roommates, get comfy, and enjoy! Fyi, the left-over potatoes make GREAT hash browns in the morning.
Our menu consisted of smoky mustard greens with chicken drumsticks, barbecued pork loin, and potato-corn hash. Becki was in charge of the (delicious) pork, so I'll only blog about my contributions. Here's what we did:
1/3 lb. bacon
8 medium-sized red potatoes
1/4 onion, diced
2-3 T butter
2 c. frozen corn, thawed
kosher salt and black pepper
1/2 onion, thinly sliced
1 lb. mustard greens (really, any hearty coarse green thing will work here. I just wouldn't use spinach. But kale or something like that would be good.)
3 chicken drumsticks (or another kind of dark meat chicken)
1/3 c. dry white wine (or vermouth would be nice)
a few drops liquid smoke
1 T "better than bouillon" (this is a bouillon mix that comes in a jar and many flavors. I used vegetable last night because that's what I have, but any flavor would be great here. I've found it at Dominick's and the (evil, crappy, and over-priced) Hyde Park Co-op. If you can't find better than bouillon some regular old broth would be fine, but maybe add a little less wine so things don't get too sloppy.)
kosher salt and black pepper
Boil the red potatoes until they are about halfway done (so you can stick a fork in, but with difficulty). Strain them, and dump them into a bowl of ice water to stop them from cooking more. When they are cool enough to touch, chop them (with skins!) into bite-size chunks. Set aside.
Chop the bacon into strips about 1/2" wide and fry them over medium-high heat in a large skillet. When they're done to your liking, take them out of their grease with a slotted spoon and set them aside for later. Pour half the grease (carefully!) into another large skillet.
One of these skillets is for the potatoes, and one is for the greens.
Potatoes:
Cook the onions in the bacon grease over medium-high heat until translucent. Add the chopped potatoes and season heartily with kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper. My potatoes sucked up that bacon grease pretty fast, so I ended up adding a couple tablespoons of butter to help prevent sticking and make the outsides nice and brown and crispy. When the potatoes are nearly done, add the corn, just so it gets heated through. Sprinkle with bacon pieces when done.
Greens:
Cook the sliced onion over medium-high heat until golden. Add the chicken pieces with the skin side down in the bacon grease and cook until nicely browned. You may turn them to brown other sides as well, but the middle should be remaining uncooked. Add a generous sloshing of white wine, a sprinkling of liquid smoke, the bouillon, and a generous sprinkling of kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper. When the chicken is browned to your liking but not fully cooked, add your greens and cover the pan to cook them down. No need to dry them after washing - the water will help cook them. When the greens are about half cooked, remove the lid and allow them to cook the rest of the way as some of the remaining liquid evaporates.
Share with roommates, get comfy, and enjoy! Fyi, the left-over potatoes make GREAT hash browns in the morning.
Monday, December 25, 2006
baking porn
So what did I do for Christmas this year?
Spent 18 hours making bread!
I read that New York Times article from Mark Bittman about the no-knead 18 hour bread when it first came out, and got all worked up about it (is this for real? is it good? is it as good as kneaded bread?), and then forgot about it until Chef Yum Yum made it and told me all about her fantastic results... I believe she said, "best. bread. ever." or something along those lines. Needless to say, my interest was renewed...
Of course, the original Times article has gone into their "you've gotta pay for it now" archive, so I couldn't find the original, but a quick google search revealed that no less than 88,000 food bloggers had made this bread, posted photos, discussed the pros and cons of the recipe (um, mostly pros...), and on a few sites I found the basic recipe. I printed up this one for my use in the kitchen, but I saw basically the same thing on a few other sites.
I mixed up that dough, set it aside in the laundry room to rise (it's warm in there, and not drafty like the rest of the house...) and waited. About 20 hours later (18 hours first rise, then you move it around a bit and let it sit for another 2 hours) it was ready to go in the oven! Now, had I been at my place in Chicago I would have baked this in my le creuset pot. (I want to marry that pot.) But, in the land of Hillsboro, Oregon there is only fancy non-stick cookware. I used the largest of my mom's calphalon pots, which are supposedly good in the oven up to 450 degrees. I may or may not have destroyed the pot... It was smoking quite a bit and the bread cooked faster than I expected. When I make this again I'll definitely use the le creuset, not calphalon.
The results were delicious!!!! I love the method of cooking in the pot - BRILLIANT. The inside of the bread is moist and bubbly and the crust is ... crusty!
So here's where I get critical. (This part always comes, huh.) When I use this method again I think I'll add a little something to the dough. As written, it doesn't have the most interesting flavor. I think the recipe is really more the structure of a method rather than a finished product in and of itself. Like a skeleton... At the very least, this bread needs some oil. With its bubbly consistency I think a little olive oil would really help this stuff out. Maybe I'll add some cloves of garlic as well? Sometimes my mom gets this bread from a local bakery that is crusty and olive oil-y and is chock full of whole cloves of garlic. I love eating pretty much anything with whole cloves of garlic in it. Also, maybe a little sweetener. That yeast needs something to snack on while it's rising for 18 hours, for Christ's sake.
Finally, having made kneaded bread about 10,000 times before, I don't think this no-knead method really replaces the old-school one. In practical terms, yes, I am a whole hell of a lot more likely to make bread that requires about 15 minutes of effort on my part. But there is really something to be said for the incredibly developed flavor you get from dough that has been worked and developed through kneading. Although it does rise nicely, it just doesn't get that elastic-y quality from sitting for 18 hours. Maybe I'm being nitpicky (and I'm not being delusional - I'm absolutely sure of this), but this bread just doesn't have that "developed" taste to it. But yeah, I will probably set aside some flour and yeast on a Friday evening so I can have some fresh bread for my dinner on Saturday night and the bread will be fantastic.
Spent 18 hours making bread!
I read that New York Times article from Mark Bittman about the no-knead 18 hour bread when it first came out, and got all worked up about it (is this for real? is it good? is it as good as kneaded bread?), and then forgot about it until Chef Yum Yum made it and told me all about her fantastic results... I believe she said, "best. bread. ever." or something along those lines. Needless to say, my interest was renewed...
Of course, the original Times article has gone into their "you've gotta pay for it now" archive, so I couldn't find the original, but a quick google search revealed that no less than 88,000 food bloggers had made this bread, posted photos, discussed the pros and cons of the recipe (um, mostly pros...), and on a few sites I found the basic recipe. I printed up this one for my use in the kitchen, but I saw basically the same thing on a few other sites.
I mixed up that dough, set it aside in the laundry room to rise (it's warm in there, and not drafty like the rest of the house...) and waited. About 20 hours later (18 hours first rise, then you move it around a bit and let it sit for another 2 hours) it was ready to go in the oven! Now, had I been at my place in Chicago I would have baked this in my le creuset pot. (I want to marry that pot.) But, in the land of Hillsboro, Oregon there is only fancy non-stick cookware. I used the largest of my mom's calphalon pots, which are supposedly good in the oven up to 450 degrees. I may or may not have destroyed the pot... It was smoking quite a bit and the bread cooked faster than I expected. When I make this again I'll definitely use the le creuset, not calphalon.
The results were delicious!!!! I love the method of cooking in the pot - BRILLIANT. The inside of the bread is moist and bubbly and the crust is ... crusty!
So here's where I get critical. (This part always comes, huh.) When I use this method again I think I'll add a little something to the dough. As written, it doesn't have the most interesting flavor. I think the recipe is really more the structure of a method rather than a finished product in and of itself. Like a skeleton... At the very least, this bread needs some oil. With its bubbly consistency I think a little olive oil would really help this stuff out. Maybe I'll add some cloves of garlic as well? Sometimes my mom gets this bread from a local bakery that is crusty and olive oil-y and is chock full of whole cloves of garlic. I love eating pretty much anything with whole cloves of garlic in it. Also, maybe a little sweetener. That yeast needs something to snack on while it's rising for 18 hours, for Christ's sake.
Finally, having made kneaded bread about 10,000 times before, I don't think this no-knead method really replaces the old-school one. In practical terms, yes, I am a whole hell of a lot more likely to make bread that requires about 15 minutes of effort on my part. But there is really something to be said for the incredibly developed flavor you get from dough that has been worked and developed through kneading. Although it does rise nicely, it just doesn't get that elastic-y quality from sitting for 18 hours. Maybe I'm being nitpicky (and I'm not being delusional - I'm absolutely sure of this), but this bread just doesn't have that "developed" taste to it. But yeah, I will probably set aside some flour and yeast on a Friday evening so I can have some fresh bread for my dinner on Saturday night and the bread will be fantastic.
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
grease fires: 101
I'm really pleased with myself that I made these potatoes for lunch, and was thinking "wow, I've really improved upon Ruth Reichl's recipe here," nearly started a grease fire and burned the bejesus out of both my forearms, and yet I still have the audacity to post it on my blog. I think the recipe is JUST THAT GOOD. So, I was planning on taking some really pretty pictures of these guys after they were done ... but I didn't take them, after the arm-burning and near grease fire...
So here it is - my improvement upon Ruth Reichl's recipe. HA.
I read her memoir (one of them, I guess), Garlic and Sapphires, many many months ago, and I still think about it almost every day. And I make the recipes frequently. They are GOOD. And the memoir bothers me in some ways, yet I continue to think about it. So it's not that it's bad... I just have some issues with it. And she'll probably find some way to sue me and put me in jail or something for trashing it on my blog, and I swear to GOD I like it, and maybe if I knew her I wouldn't feel this way, but this book is written about the period when she started working as the restaurant critic for The New York Times, through her tenure there, until she started working as the editor of Gourmet Magazine. I love the stories in the book. She's dressing up in crazy costumes, seeing how these different types of people get treated at different NYC restaurants ... it's all very exciting and scandalous. But this issue occasionally comes up, where she is lamenting, along the lines of, ... Ohhhh I used to be in Berkeley, all 'stick it to the man' and eating granola and whatnot and really believing in things, and now I'm the restaurant critic for the New York Times, and I don't want to be an elitist and lose touch with the people BLAH BLAH BLAHHH and I just find it quite false and self-indulgent and patronizing. Maybe that's just me.
I've made quite a few of the recipes she printed in that book, and man are they good, though. This one is almost great, but I think it needs a little help, and I am truly a supreme asshole for thinking I can improve upon Ruth Reichl's recipe, based on something she ate in a famous New York restaurant. Especially when I nearly started a grease fire making it... But these hash browns are GOOD and I just want to get my 2 cents in here.
Hash Browns
about 2 lbs. small waxy potatoes
6T unsalted butter
1/2 small onion, very finely diced
salt and pepper
Boil the potatoes about 10 minutes, until they are cooked about 1/2 way through. Drain, and dump them into some cold ice water to make them stop cooking, and cool enough so you can touch them. Skin them and chop them up into cubes of about 1/4".
Melt 4T butter of medium heat in a 10" non-stick skillet. Add the potatoes, smoothing them over to make a cake, and let them cook, undisturbed (only occasionally pressing down on the top of the cake with the back of a spatula, but not moving the potato cubes around) until the bottom layer is browned together. That butter will be bubbling up through the potato cubes and making them soooo delicious. (and making them hold together...)
Evenly sprinkle the diced onions on top of the potatoes, with a generous tossing of salt and pepper.
Put a large plate (the flattest one you can find) upside down over the top of the potatoes and turn the heat off. Let them steam for about 3 minutes, then grab each side of the plate/pan disk and flip it upside down, so the potato-cake falls down onto the plate. (This is where I almost started the grease fire. I know butter's good and all, but don't use so much you almost burn down your apartment. For the record, I've done this twice before to great success. Sans fire. I recommend those silicone pot holders - you can get a good, firm grip on the pan-plate disk with those suckers, and that makes the flipping less scary.)
Put the pan back over medium heat and melt a little bit (2T) more butter. Then carefully (this is *#$*# hard) slide the potato cake off the plate onto the pan, if possible, without breaking up the cake formation. Let it cook in the butter about 4 more minutes, until the bottom is browned and crusty as well.
When it's done, getting the cake out onto a serving platter intact is tricky. Reichl says to slide it out of the pan. This never works for me. I think you have to be Ruth Reichl (i.e. have magic powers that defy space and time) to do that. But you know what does work, is just flipping it onto another platter, like you did before. The flipping has to be FAST but not vigorous, so the potatoes all fall at once. Season with salt and pepper again, and serve in a giant cake so as to wow your guests.
For the record, here are some of the things I do differently to make this recipe a little bit more manageable. Reichl uses a cast iron skillet. I'm sure that tastes great and all, but I am not muscle-bound and flipping a cast iron skillet is damn hard. Plus, if you use a non-stick one, the potatoes WON'T STICK. That also makes the flipping easier... Also, I'm not that meticulous about peeling the potatoes. I cut them up and most of the skin comes off, which allows them to cook together into a cake, but I like a little skin... it's good for you. Also picking every last bit off is a pain in the @#)$* when you have a whole ton of small potatoes. Finally, I chop my potatoes WAY smaller than she does. She says to cut them into 1" cubes and I have no idea how you would get potato cubes that big to stay together in a cake. I'm even wondering if that's a typo it's so big...
So here it is - my improvement upon Ruth Reichl's recipe. HA.
I read her memoir (one of them, I guess), Garlic and Sapphires, many many months ago, and I still think about it almost every day. And I make the recipes frequently. They are GOOD. And the memoir bothers me in some ways, yet I continue to think about it. So it's not that it's bad... I just have some issues with it. And she'll probably find some way to sue me and put me in jail or something for trashing it on my blog, and I swear to GOD I like it, and maybe if I knew her I wouldn't feel this way, but this book is written about the period when she started working as the restaurant critic for The New York Times, through her tenure there, until she started working as the editor of Gourmet Magazine. I love the stories in the book. She's dressing up in crazy costumes, seeing how these different types of people get treated at different NYC restaurants ... it's all very exciting and scandalous. But this issue occasionally comes up, where she is lamenting, along the lines of, ... Ohhhh I used to be in Berkeley, all 'stick it to the man' and eating granola and whatnot and really believing in things, and now I'm the restaurant critic for the New York Times, and I don't want to be an elitist and lose touch with the people BLAH BLAH BLAHHH and I just find it quite false and self-indulgent and patronizing. Maybe that's just me.
I've made quite a few of the recipes she printed in that book, and man are they good, though. This one is almost great, but I think it needs a little help, and I am truly a supreme asshole for thinking I can improve upon Ruth Reichl's recipe, based on something she ate in a famous New York restaurant. Especially when I nearly started a grease fire making it... But these hash browns are GOOD and I just want to get my 2 cents in here.
Hash Browns
about 2 lbs. small waxy potatoes
6T unsalted butter
1/2 small onion, very finely diced
salt and pepper
Boil the potatoes about 10 minutes, until they are cooked about 1/2 way through. Drain, and dump them into some cold ice water to make them stop cooking, and cool enough so you can touch them. Skin them and chop them up into cubes of about 1/4".
Melt 4T butter of medium heat in a 10" non-stick skillet. Add the potatoes, smoothing them over to make a cake, and let them cook, undisturbed (only occasionally pressing down on the top of the cake with the back of a spatula, but not moving the potato cubes around) until the bottom layer is browned together. That butter will be bubbling up through the potato cubes and making them soooo delicious. (and making them hold together...)
Evenly sprinkle the diced onions on top of the potatoes, with a generous tossing of salt and pepper.
Put a large plate (the flattest one you can find) upside down over the top of the potatoes and turn the heat off. Let them steam for about 3 minutes, then grab each side of the plate/pan disk and flip it upside down, so the potato-cake falls down onto the plate. (This is where I almost started the grease fire. I know butter's good and all, but don't use so much you almost burn down your apartment. For the record, I've done this twice before to great success. Sans fire. I recommend those silicone pot holders - you can get a good, firm grip on the pan-plate disk with those suckers, and that makes the flipping less scary.)
Put the pan back over medium heat and melt a little bit (2T) more butter. Then carefully (this is *#$*# hard) slide the potato cake off the plate onto the pan, if possible, without breaking up the cake formation. Let it cook in the butter about 4 more minutes, until the bottom is browned and crusty as well.
When it's done, getting the cake out onto a serving platter intact is tricky. Reichl says to slide it out of the pan. This never works for me. I think you have to be Ruth Reichl (i.e. have magic powers that defy space and time) to do that. But you know what does work, is just flipping it onto another platter, like you did before. The flipping has to be FAST but not vigorous, so the potatoes all fall at once. Season with salt and pepper again, and serve in a giant cake so as to wow your guests.
For the record, here are some of the things I do differently to make this recipe a little bit more manageable. Reichl uses a cast iron skillet. I'm sure that tastes great and all, but I am not muscle-bound and flipping a cast iron skillet is damn hard. Plus, if you use a non-stick one, the potatoes WON'T STICK. That also makes the flipping easier... Also, I'm not that meticulous about peeling the potatoes. I cut them up and most of the skin comes off, which allows them to cook together into a cake, but I like a little skin... it's good for you. Also picking every last bit off is a pain in the @#)$* when you have a whole ton of small potatoes. Finally, I chop my potatoes WAY smaller than she does. She says to cut them into 1" cubes and I have no idea how you would get potato cubes that big to stay together in a cake. I'm even wondering if that's a typo it's so big...
Friday, December 8, 2006
quasi-cantonese beans and rice
 |
| From food |
Other name possibilities include krypto-cantonese beans and rice, pseudo-cantonese beans and rice, or my personal favorite: meatrice. (Sorry, Chef YumYum, this one's not for you!)
This recipe is a schlepped-together version of something amazingly delicious and flavorful that I had at a friend's house a while back. This friend prepared an enormous dinner for many people, focusing on Chinese food. Not the General-Tsao's-Chicken-kind - the closer-to-what-people-actually-eat-in-China kind.
As an aside, I've been to China once, and MAN did I eat some good food. I wasn't really culinarily aware enough yet to commit any of the meals I had there to memory, so I really don't know much about Actual Chinese Food beyond the fact that I never ate any General Tsao's Chicken or fortune cookies there. (Although, I did have something that a friend translated for me as "black tofu" from a street market in Beijing, where Chinese people were selling all kinds of parts of animals and bugs and things - all on sticks, incidentally, from what I recall - to amaze and horrify the Americans and Australians wandering through. It was a pretty touristy thing, but fun. I recall mostly Australians eating the weirder items they had... Anyway, the black tofu was decidedly unremarkable when I ate it, but it made me spectacularly sick soon thereafter. The guy who sold it to me told my Chinese-speaking friend that it was "seasoned, and then left in a moist dark place for several days," while giggling maniacally. SHOCKING that it made me violently ill... ANYWAY as it turned out I didn't die in China and returned to America to write in this blog. Ha ha.)
So the friend who made the somewhat "authentic" (as far as I know) Chinese meal copied a recipe for me called "Cantonese Clay Pot Rice." All I have is that photocopy, and I have no idea who wrote the recipe or what book it's from. So if you happen to recognize the butchered elements of your recipe here, random chef, please don't sue me too hard. Remember, I have a lawyer roommate.
Quasi-Cantonese Beans and Rice
about 1/4 oz. dried porcini mushrooms
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon multi-purpose flour
1 chicken thigh, thinly sliced
1 1/2 c. chicken stock/broth/whatever
1 c. long-grain rice (I used basmati because that's what I have in a long-grain variety)
about 1/8 c. barley (it's okay to go without the barley, but I like how it makes the rice taste a little heartier and nuttier)
3 thin slices peeled fresh ginger
about 3/4 c. cooked red beans*
2 oz. Canadian bacon, thinly sliced***
a generous handful of chopped cilantro
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit.
Pour hot water over the porcinis just to cover them and let them stand about 20 minutes to soften. Drain, saving the water. Press the mushrooms to get all that tasty mushroomwater out. Rinse them to get rid of any remnants of dirt that may be stuck to them. It's a good idea to strain the mushroom water through cheesecloth or a coffee filter to get the dirt out of that as well.
Stir the soy sauce and flour together in a small bowl, and toss with the sliced chicken in to coat. Let stand for about 10 minutes.
In a clay pot** combine the chicken broth, strained mushroomwater, rice, barley, ginger, mushrooms, and beans. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat.
Sprinkle the sliced Canadian bacon and sliced and marinated chicken evenly over the top of the rice, cover the pot, and bake it in the middle of the oven for about 25 minutes. All the liquid should be absorbed, the rice fully cooked (and the chicken!), and it should be slightly crusted to the edge of the pot. Sprinkle the cilantro over the top. The variety of textures makes for an exciting meal!
 |
| From food |
*I like to buy dried beans and cook them in a slow cooker with delicious broth and spices, then keep them in small containers in the freezer and pull them out as I need them. The red beans I had on hand were cooked in chicken broth with bay leaves until al dente, so they wouldn't be obliterated when I cooked them into a recipe. Canned beans would of course do fine, when rinsed, but fresh beans always make such a difference. Try it! Perhaps I'll blog about my beans some time.
**This is the ideal. I don't have a clay pot. I do have a le creuset dutch oven, however, which I love very much. This worked really well.
***Chinese sausage would be a great addition, as it is called for in the original recipe that I'm riffing on here. I didn't have any, though.
Thursday, December 7, 2006
Hello world!
I'm leaving that generic wordpress subject line there for my first post. I think it's hilarious. And actually it's December 2nd. The day I tried to start this blog is whatever date about a month ago is listed above. I can't figure out how to change it. Sue me.
So I've tried to start blogs many times before, but I have trouble with it. The thing is, I write a LOT. I write a lot of pointless emails, I run my mouth (sans filter most of the time) pretty much all day, but I have trouble committing. I also have a problem with internet monogamy. And plus, I take terrible pictures. I mean really bad. The kind people on other blogs make fun of and complain about. I can never get things properly lit, they are somehow always blurry, I own what must be the first digital camera ever made (still works great, though, although it doesn't have much in the way of storage space), and even when I take the picture and I think it looks great, I put it on my computer and notice that it's horribly crooked and I've cut out half of someone's face or something. So bear with me on the pictures. Oh also, it's Chicago in winter. There isn't much natural light in my apartment. Also, there aren't many spots where I can take a picture of something/someone without getting a cardboard box, a pile of discarded beer bottles, or something else along those lines in the background... "Here's my knitting! Here's some delicious food I made! Here's my roommate! Oh, what's that in the background you say? Just some vagrant we picked up off the street who is sleeping and vomiting all over the couch! Don't mind him!!!"
Oh well. What can I do. This morning I downloaded Picasa, along with the whole damn Google desktop, and so far I'm a fan. That google software is pretty great. I like the idea that I can click one button in Picasa and my pictures won't look quite so retarded.
To conclude, here are two pictures of some apple streusel I made this morning from a mix in a box. Note the cardboard box in the background. And that the streusel is sitting on a chair. I really wanted to eat that streusel, so I had to figure out where to take that picture FAST. Also, I loooove baking things in a cast iron pan. They just look so ADORABLE!
edit: Screw you, google! Why am I inexplicably "forbidden" from your web-based photo album thing! I blogged about how much I love your software!!! FINE! I'll use flickr like everyone else in the free world. But I wanted to use YOU, google, because you put that handy little button in Picasa to put my pictures directly into my google web album with one click! Why, google, WHY!!!!
So I've tried to start blogs many times before, but I have trouble with it. The thing is, I write a LOT. I write a lot of pointless emails, I run my mouth (sans filter most of the time) pretty much all day, but I have trouble committing. I also have a problem with internet monogamy. And plus, I take terrible pictures. I mean really bad. The kind people on other blogs make fun of and complain about. I can never get things properly lit, they are somehow always blurry, I own what must be the first digital camera ever made (still works great, though, although it doesn't have much in the way of storage space), and even when I take the picture and I think it looks great, I put it on my computer and notice that it's horribly crooked and I've cut out half of someone's face or something. So bear with me on the pictures. Oh also, it's Chicago in winter. There isn't much natural light in my apartment. Also, there aren't many spots where I can take a picture of something/someone without getting a cardboard box, a pile of discarded beer bottles, or something else along those lines in the background... "Here's my knitting! Here's some delicious food I made! Here's my roommate! Oh, what's that in the background you say? Just some vagrant we picked up off the street who is sleeping and vomiting all over the couch! Don't mind him!!!"
Oh well. What can I do. This morning I downloaded Picasa, along with the whole damn Google desktop, and so far I'm a fan. That google software is pretty great. I like the idea that I can click one button in Picasa and my pictures won't look quite so retarded.
To conclude, here are two pictures of some apple streusel I made this morning from a mix in a box. Note the cardboard box in the background. And that the streusel is sitting on a chair. I really wanted to eat that streusel, so I had to figure out where to take that picture FAST. Also, I loooove baking things in a cast iron pan. They just look so ADORABLE!
edit: Screw you, google! Why am I inexplicably "forbidden" from your web-based photo album thing! I blogged about how much I love your software!!! FINE! I'll use flickr like everyone else in the free world. But I wanted to use YOU, google, because you put that handy little button in Picasa to put my pictures directly into my google web album with one click! Why, google, WHY!!!!
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