Khao soi

So our most recent vacation trip was to Singapore/Thailand in November.  So many new foods and tastes and smells!  One of the favorites is khao soi, a northern Thai curry chicken noodle dish, a Chiang Mai specialty.  Our friend who grew up in Thailand took us to his favorite place outside of old town, and our first time eating khao soi was DELICIOUS!

Khao soi is a spicy gingery curry chicken broth, with chicken drumsticks in it, and wide egg noodles.  It is topped with pickled mustard greens, sliced shallots, and fried egg noodles.  I think it's the fried egg noodles that makes it so awesome.

Luckily, I had signed us up for a cooking class the day after, and I was able to learn how to make it!  I learned how to make the khao soi curry paste (in a mortar pestle), and also cook it with the coconut cream to make the curry broth, but they did everything else for us.

So now I'm practicing the whole thing at home!  Out of all the curry pastes we learned in the class, I think khao soi is definitely the easiest (least number of different ingredients, and also most moist ingredients, easier to pound).

Try #1: way too spicy.... maybe my dried chilis are spicier than expected?  And burnt a couple of the fried noodles.  Also got lazy and just threw in pre-cooked chicken, so the broth lacked the meaty depth of flavor.

Try #2: not spicy enough (overcompensated too much in the other direction), but getting better at frying the noodles!  Still was lazy and threw in roasted chicken meat, so that was an interesting combination of flavors...

Try #3: ok spicy, but not too spicy, fried noodles were ok (and we remembered to salt them this time!), AND also poached the chicken in the coconut cream and curry broth.  SUPER tender chicken!  And got fancier this time because we had friends over, so I got pickled mustard greens too!

A work in progress :)

Romano beans

Summer time is when there are lots of tomatoes, beans, corn, basil and peppers at the farmer's market.  We keep seeing these longer, flatter, green beans, called Romano beans, so I've been wanting to try cooking with them sometime.

We've never actually ordered a Blue Apron box, but I do like the fact that they post recipes and how-to videos online for free.  I was searching for fregola recipes, because our jar of fregola has been sitting on the shelf kind of sad and unused lately, so it was perfect that this recipe involves both fregola AND Romano beans!

Summer Saute with Fregola Sarda and Mozzarella:
https://www.blueapron.com/recipes/matt-s-summer-saute-with-fregola-sarda-buffalo-mozzarella

Pretty fast to prepare, and it tastes like summer!

The Sweden box

So a couple of weeks ago I got an email saying that 'Try the World' was running a deal where you only pay $5 for shipping to get the Sweden box.  Try the World is a gourmet food subscription box where they send you condiments and snacks from different countries, and typically each box is normally $40.  I had gotten the France box a year or two ago also for $5, and it was pretty awesome because you get 6-8 things from that country in the box.  Of course I couldn't resist getting the Sweden box, I just had to remember to cancel the membership within a month :)

The real impetus in getting the Sweden box was I was pretty sure it was going to contain lingonberry something, and I really wanted to try my hand at making swedish meatballs.  Lo and behold, I wasn't disappointed!

The last time I went perusing cookbooks at the library, I stumbled upon a Scandinavian cookbook, and put a post-it note on the Swedish meatball recipe.  The only other time I've had Swedish meatballs was at IKEA, so I wanted to see if I could make my own!

Real Swedish Meatballs, from The ScandiKitchen:

1/3 c Porridge, Old Fashioned Oats or breadcrumbs (I used oats)
2/3 c meat stock
14 oz ground beef
9 oz ground pork
1 large egg
2.5 tbs all purpose flour
a pinch of salt
1 tsp allspice
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
1/2 t ground white pepper
a dash of soy sauce
1 small onion, grated
butter and oil for frying

Soak the oats for 5 mins in the meat stock.
Mix the meat with a pinch of salt in a food processor.  Mix eggs, flour, spices, soy sauce in a separate bowl, then with the oats/meat stock, onion, and meat.  Rest the mixture for 20-25 mins.
Shape the meatballs roughly 1" in diameter with damp hands.
Heat a frying pan/skillet with a small amount of oil/butter, fry the meatballs and roll them around so they don't stick.  It takes about 5 mins/batch to cook, so cook them in multiple batches.
When all the meatballs are done, make a gravy!  Add a tablespoon of flour to the leftover fat and whisk, add stock until you get a good creamy gravy, and season with salt.

Serve the meatballs with mashed potatoes and the gravy.  Oh, and I added some gailan in there for green veggies!

P.S. - I don't think I'll ever attempt anything this ambitious on a weeknight again for the first time.  It was later than I wanted to be eating :/

Kale salad (no massaging needed)

The kale salad we typically make requires massaging the vinaigrette into the kale leaves to soften them and make them tender and delicious.  Definitely a bit of work to massage the kale and it results in messy hands, but the final product is tasty afterwards with either persimmons and almonds, or dried cherries, croutons, and nuts. 

I was perusing a cookbook borrowed from the library, called 'Crossroads' by Tal Ronnen when I stumbled upon a kale salad that doesn't require massaging.  So of course we had to try it!

The key to eliminate the massaging was to cut the kale into really thin ribbons (chiffonade), and just mix in the vinaigrette and let sit for 10 mins before serving.  Totally worked!

Adapted from Crossroads:
Kale salad with currants, pine nuts, and lemon (no thyme) vinaigrette

1 bunch tuscan/lacinato kale
1/4 c. raisins
1/4 c. pine nuts
1/4 c. lemon vinaigrette <-- I accidentally poured in 1/2 cup... but it still tasted really good!

Lemon vinaigrette: (makes 1 cup)
1/2 small shallot, minced
1 garlic clove, minced
1/4 c. white balsamic vinegar
zest of 1 lemon + juice
1 tbs agave nectar (I used maple syrup)
1/2 c. olive oil
salt + pepper to taste

Remove the ribs from the kale.  Then stack a couple of leaves and thinly slice into ribbons.  It is easier to do this if you roll them up into a log.

Wash/dry the kale in a salad spinner.  Combine the kale, raisins, pine nuts, and vinaigrette and mix together.  Let sit for 10 mins, and serve!

Strawberry (Daifuku) Mochi

 

We went to a mochi shop called Two Ladies Kitchen on the Big Island of Hawaii that sold all sorts of different flavors of mochi (different fruit, cookies and cream, marshmallow, red bean, other flavors).  Ranier Cherry Mochi!!  They were famous for their strawberry mochi, but each one was $3.25 or $3.50!  Very expensive.  But they were pretty good!  My only complaint is that the mochi skins were a bit too thick for my liking.  So of course, after we returned from our trip, I was very motivated to try making my own!

Strawberry mochi typically has one strawberry, red bean paste, wrapped in a rice flour skin (mochi).  Some people (non-Asian) have a harder time liking the bean paste, so I figured I'd also try to make some with Nutella instead of red bean paste.

I did a bunch of research reading other blogs on how to best make mochi.  People recommended shiratamako rice flour instead of mochiko, and it was supposed to produce smoother and more chewy mochi than normal mochiko rice flour.  So I went to the local Japanese market and picked some up.

It was surprisingly easy to make, but quite messy because the rice flour is very sticky and hot when you take it out of the microwave.  The final product is totally worth it and delicious though!

Recipe adapted from Chocolate and Zucchini
http://chocolateandzucchini.com/recipes/cookies-small-cakes/strawberry-daifuku-mochi-recipe/

10 strawberries (not too big ones)
100 g shiratamako (glutinous rice flour)
50 g sugar
150 mL cold water
potato starch for dusting
Red bean paste and/or nutella

Wash and dry the strawberries, cut the green tops off. Cover each strawberry with red bean paste or nutella.  I found this easier to do with fingers instead of a knife.

Mix the rice flour, sugar, water in a microwave-safe bowl and stir well to make sure everything is dissolved properly.  Microwave on high for 2 mins, stir, and repeat once or twice until the mix is thick and sort of translucent.

Pour potato starch into a large rimmed baking dish.  Scrape the dough out of the bowl and onto the potato starch, and pour some more on top.  Flatten the dough a bit, and then use a pastry scraper to cut it into 10 pieces (square-ish is better than triangular).

Take a piece of dough and stretch it out a bit, and wrap it around a strawberry, sealing it on the bottom, and coat with more potato starch to prevent it from sticking.  Put it on a plate to cool.

Note: the dough gets less flexible and stretchy as it cools, so work fast!

Fruit mochi are supposedly best the day they're made, but we did an experiment and left a few in the fridge overnight, and they were still good the next day :)

More tomatoes! (+ peppers)

In addition to tomatoes, there are bell peppers and basil all over the farmer's markets as well.  And G loves bell peppers!  Raw with hummus, or zaatar + olive oil, stir fried, or stuffed with meat and rice.

Continuing to pick out of 'a girl and her greens', here is a recipe that uses all three of the ingredients!!

Piedmontese Peppers with Tomatoes, Basil, [and Anchovy]

3 small red/yellow/orange (NOT GREEN) bell peppers
3 garlic cloves, sliced
6 basil leaves, torn into small pieces or sliced
6 small/medium tomatoes (blanched + peeled)
1 tsp flaky sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
olive oil

Preheat oven to 450 F.

Cut each of the bell peppers in half, and de-seed them, but leave the stems intact.  Blanch the tomatoes, slice the garlic, and tear the basil leaves.  Find a baking dish that will fit the bell peppers, cut side up.  Put some garlic into each of the bell pepper halves, and some basil.  Shove a tomato into each of the bell peppers halves, and top with some olive oil and sea salt and pepper.

Put the dish into the oven for 45 mins - 1 hr, use the back of a spoon to press down on the tomatoes every 15 mins or so.  Remove the dish from the oven and sprinkle the remainder of the basil leaves on.  Serve when it has cooled down to warm.

Tomatoes = Summer!

The farmer's markets are bursting with tasty tomatoes this time of year, and they really never taste this good any other time of year.  Heirloom tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, early girls, everything!!!  So naturally I started looking for recipes that have tomatoes and basil :)

I haven't made a soup in a while because it just takes a long time to chop all the ingredients and simmer it on the stove.  But I was feeling industrious this weekend, so it was a lazy afternoon filled with cooking.

This is the second time I've borrowed 'a girl and her greens' from the library, but it is seriously a great book featuring veggies (though not all the recipes are vegetarian).  This is totally my style -- eat lots of veggies and not a lot of meat, but the meat that we do eat is sustainable and locally raised.

So this weekend's Sunday cooking project is from 'a girl and her greens', a soup called Ribollita (meaning re-boiled in Italian).  It is apparently a classic Tuscan soup similar to a minestrone, but with stale bread in it.  Now, we didn't have any stale bread or beans, so it's just a very nice soup :)

It smelled so good and tasted so full of flavor that G thought I had used chicken broth!!  It's actually vegan!

Adapted from 'a girl and her greens':

Summery Ribollita

6 medium garlic cloves: 4 minced, and 2 thinly sliced
[small handful marjoram leaves] <--- omitted because we don't have any
1/2 c olive oil + 3 tbsp
1 med/large onion, 1/2 finely diced and the other 1/2 diced
1 large carrot, 1/2 finely diced and the other 1/2 diced
4 celery stalks, 1/2 finely diced and the other 1/2 diced
1 bunch swiss chard, stems finely diced, and leaves cut into strips/pieces
2 teaspoons salt
-3 dried pequin chiles] <-- omitted
2 lb cherry tomatoes
[2.5 cups beans] <-- omitted
[1/2 lb stale rustic bread] <-- omitted

 Heat 1/2 cup of oil in a large pot over medium high high, put in onion, carrot, celery, chard stems, 1 tsp salt.  Cook and stir often for 15 mins.  [Melody addition: 2 bay leaves -- I think this is what makes soups taste distinctly Italian].  Put in the minced garlic (and marjoram and chilis if you have it).  Reduce heat to medium low, cook for another 30 mins or so until the veggies are tender and sweet.  Stir to prevent burning!

[Melody's lazy shortcut] Dump in the swiss chard leaves and stir in with the other veggies, put the lid on.  The actual recipe says to boil the leaves until wilted and then drain and chop.

Put the 3 tbsp oil + sliced garlic into another pan/pot and heat until light golden brown, then dump in the cherry tomatoes and 1 tsp salt.  Cover and lower the heat and stir a couple of times until the tomatoes burst (about 10 mins).  Now it says to pass the tomatoes through a food mill, but I don't have one so I just used my trusty immersion blender (one of the most awesome kitchen gadgets ever!!)

Pour the tomato mixture into the veggie pot, and wash out the tomato pot with some water and pour that into the veggie pot as well.  Add water to the veggie pot until you're satisfied with the consistency of the soup.  Heat until warmed, and add salt and pepper to taste.