• 18Feb

    Asian Cooking at Home – the Cut and Paste Method

    Mekhala‘s Asian cooking pastes are organic, vegan, and gluten free, and we were lucky enough to get our hands on a few of them. Of the dozen or so available varieties, the four that we cooked with were the Yellow Curry (Thai), Red Curry (Thai), Lemongrass Turmeric (Vietnamese), and Sichuan Mala Chilli (Chinese).

    • Lemon Turmeric Wild Coho Salmon
    • Yellow Curry Cauliflower Stew

    The Yellow Curry paste worked well with coconut milk in a vegan cauliflower, peas, and onions dish. This was my second favorite of the four dishes shown here, and my dining partner’s favorite.

    We used the Lemongrass Turmeric paste with coconut milk on wild salmon, which was my favorite of the four dishes. The scallions absorbed a ton of flavor, which helped make this a tasty combination.

    The Red Curry with coconut milk and Lotus Foods Organic Jade Pearl Ramen (green noodles) was a wonderful soup you might expect to find in a restaurant, so it was nice to have it at home. This was my dining partner’s second favorite dish of the four.

    • Sichuan Mala Chilli Bacon Salad
    • Red Curry Jade Ramen

    We combined the Sichuan Mala Chilli Paste with apricot preserves and a little lemon juice, and applied it to the bacon prior to cooking. This gave the bacon a nice sweet, sour, and spicy flavor, and a color that might put off people (like my dining partner) who aren’t used to eating bright red meat.

    Whole Foods and Mom’s each carry a few of Mekhala’s varieties. I’m keeping an eye out for the Thai Basil Garlic paste. Mekhala also has a line of sauces and dressings such as Pad Thai and Thai Chilli. Once you have some of Mekala’s products in your pantry, you can use some of the recipes on their website, or experiment like we did. And yes, these dishes all involved some cutting and pastes. 🙂

    -JAY

    Editor’s Note:

    Mekhala was nice enough to send several of these products for us to review. The Yellow Curry paste was purchased at Whole Foods.

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  • 09Oct

    West African(-ish) Vegetable Stew

    Being furloughed and not really having much in particular to do (but needing to save money!), I’ve been experimenting with African cuisine, particularly soups and stews, and even more particularly rekindling my love of (a) couscous and (b) fufu.

    What follows is my favorite concoction so far, a hybrid recipe using ideas from a few places – mostly from The African Food Joint, Serious Eats, and Leslie Cerier. Being me I couldn’t be bothered to follow any of the recipes exactly, but the result was sufficiently delicious (if not all that authentic), to make it very worth sharing.

    Vegetable StewI used:

    •  2 cups cherry tomatoes
    • 1 medium yellow onion, chopped
    • 1 Scotch bonnet Pepper, seeded and minced
    • 1 large Yam (the purple kind with white flesh), cubed
    • ½ cup raisins
    • 1 can Garbanzo Beans
    • 4 cups kale, chopped
    • 6 small garlic cloves, finely diced
    • 1 Cinnamon stick
    • 1 tablespoon Sesame oil
    • 4 cups Chicken Stock
    • Salt, pepper, cayenne to taste

    What I did:

    •  In a large pot (I used an aluminum stock pot), add the tomatoes, onion, 3 cloves of garlic, and Scotch bonnet and toss with the oil over high heat, just until it starts to get fragrant.
    •  Add 1 cup of stock and bring to a boil for about 2 minutes, then blend using your hand blender.
    •  Add your remaining stock and bring back to a boil, adding your yams and cinnamon stick. Boil on high heat for about 5 minutes. Now lower heat to simmer, cover the pot, and leave for about 15 minutes.
    •  Next, add your chickpeas, up the heat to medium, and taste/adjust heat level using cayenne. Stir in your kale and remaining garlic, cooking a few minutes till the kale is done.
    •  Season with salt, black pepper, and more cayenne if needed.

    The first night I made this, I made fufu as described in the African Food Joint recipe, except I made quenelles out of it which I then fried in butter, because I just got back from France, but it goes well with the more traditional fufu, and couscous too. If I were going to adjust this recipe next time, I’d again call out to my French culinary habits and add in some cream in the second step (the blending), and maybe use a second Scotch bonnet as opposed to extra cayenne. That said, I’m going to happily keep eating this batch till it’s gone!

     – MAW

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  • 07Jul

    Who’s The Best Date? I’m The Best Date.

    In blatant ritualization of my amazing narcissism, I frequently have ‘date nights’ at home with myself: I cook an elaborate meal, drink good wine, and watch terrible reality TV. My most recent such evening, I was also feeling a bit lazy, so I went for something simple and unplanned, but which turned out to be awesome, and I want to remember it for the next time I cook for an actual date.
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/jennifrog/5138834425/

    The recipes below are more or less in the order I made them, but that has more to do with making it all up as I went than any intention. What I ate, in order: salad, soup, fish and veggies, cheese, chocolate. I drank a Malbec from Catena, but cooked with one from a box.

    Stock/soup

    1 carrot, sliced thin
    1 red onion, diced
    About 1/2 cup of diced celery hearts
    3 sun dried tomato halves
    3 cloves garlic (peeled, whole)
    Handful tellicherry peppercorns
    1 whole star anise pod (about 6 seeds)
    1 bay leaf
    3 cloves
    Vegeta
    Sherry vinegar
    3/4 cup red wine
    5 cups water
    Olive Oil
    Sesame Oil

    I tossed the celery, onions, carrots and garlic into a large pot over medium-high heat, and let them start to caramelize. Once they start sticking to the bottom (but not quite charring yet), I added a small splash of sesame oil and a good dose of olive oil, let that get hot, and then deglaze with 1/2 cup of the wine.

    I then added the water and the rest of the wine, plus sun dried tomatoes, dry spices and Vegeta (I used about 1/5 tbs…adjust to your taste). I brought to a boil and then back down to simmer, uncovered, for about 40 minutes. I added a splash or two of the vinegar about 3/4 of the way through.

    While the stock was bubbling away, I made my salad by putting some raddicchio, baby spinach, frssé, and fresh dill into a bowl and topping it with finely diced yellow squash and some grape tomatoes.

    I also prepped the fish, using:

    1 mahi mahi fillet, either fresh or flash-frozen but fully thawed, rinsed and patted dry.
    1/4 yellow squash (sliced into half-moons about 1/4 inch think)
    1/4 zucchini (sliced into half-moons about 1/4 inch think)
    1/3 red onion (diced)
    Herbs de Provence
    Olive Oil
    Vegetable stock

    I sauteed the onion in the oil until they start to get translucent, about 2 minutes, then added the squash and zucchini, sprinkled with the herbs, and sauteed another couple minutes. I turned the heat down to medium-low and put the fish on top of the bed of sauteed veggies in the pan. Sprinkled with some more herbs. Next, I poured about 1/2-2/3 of a cup of stock into the pan, making sure to baste the top of the fish with it, and brought it all to a boil (it helps if you’ve just made the stock and it’s already hot).

    Again, back the heat to low-medium-low, covered and cooked about 6-8 minutes, until the fish was done. I plated the fish and strained the veggies out of the remaining broth (which you can return to your stock pot for extra flavor, if you don’t mind a little fish in your veggie stock). I served them immediately.

    Now, I actually ate my salad (dressed with olive oil and seasoned rice vinegar) while the fish was cooking, because I was hungry and dammit it was my date.

    I plated the fish, veggies, and soup at the same time. The soup was really just all the veggies that cooked in the stock removed to a bowl with a slotted spoon and then the bowl filled with the stock and finished with some fresh garlic croutons. Bloody delicious I tell you!

    So, after salad and soup, I ate my fish, which was really, REALLY good. I have to say I feel pretty smug about that – tender, moist, and so rich with steamed/poached-in flavor. The veggies were fantastic too.

    It being a date, I wanted to make the best impression, so I had also pulled from my fridge a couple of awesome cheeses (a stinky blue one and a hard, nutty tomme of some kind, both from the Eastern Market cheese lady), so I had those on baguette next. And then, for dessert, I went with simple-is-best (because at this point I was getting lazy), and had Mexican table chocolate shaved over a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

    At the end of the day, I would totally give me a second date…and all told, there is now a ton of awesome veggie-with-a-hint-of-fish stock in my freezer, ready for such an occasion.

    -MAW

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  • 18May

    Lemongrass-Sunchoke Soup: It’s Almost-Summer!

    The farmers markets have started up again, and I am (as usual) ecstatic. Wandering through last week, I saw a big pile of sunchokes (a.k.a. Jerusalem artichokes, which doesn’t sound as nice) next to a bunch of lovely golden beets. I immediately remembered that I had a lemongrass stalk sitting in my fridge lonely for a home, and a scheme was hatched.
    You’ll need:

    • 1 large leek
    • About a pound of sunchokes
    • About 2 tbs. finely chopped (use a blander if you’ve got one) lemongrass
    • 2 cups stock (I used water with vegeta, herbs de provence, celery
    • salt, white pepper, and fish sauce)
    • 1 cup water (I boosted mine with about a 1/2 tsp of Bragg’s)
    • 1/4 cup heavy cream (plus more to taste)
    • 2 tbs butter
    • 1 tbs olive oil
    • 1 tsp truffle oil
    • Fresh ground pepper
    • Tiny pinch of nutmeg
    • Garnish with sumac, if you like.
    • Golden beets (optional)

    Caramelize the thinly sliced leeks in the butter and olive oil (about 20 mins on med-low heat), then stir in the lemongrass. Add scrubbed sunchokes, cut into 1″ or so chunks,as well as your stock and water. Bring to a low boil, then back off the heat to medium (or, preferably, med-low), and simmer until the sunchokes are fork-tender (but not mushy). This takes at least 20 minutes – longer if you use lower heat (which I recommend). Somewhere in this time, stir in the nutmeg (to taste) and truffle oil.

    Remove from heat and blend (I used my nifty immersion blender, but a regular one will do fine). If you have a china cap, it might be nice to make the soup an even texture, but I kinda like the roughness of a puree. Finally, stir in the cream and add pepper (salt too, if you must). Serve, topped with a sprinkle of sumac.

    The result is delicious. Adding the lemongrass really brightens up the dish, and makes the nutty sunchokes stand out even more, I think. As good as it was the first night, piping hot, I may have liked it even better cold.

    Temperature is only one possible variation here. The first (and best, but only on the hot soup) is where the beets come in. Scrub and slice your beets very (very!) thin, and toss them in the over at about 350 until they crisp up. Then, toss them with a tiny bit of olive oil and sea salt, and they make a really pretty topping for the soup, adding a nice crunch as well.

    For future versions, I may try roasting the sunchokes beforehand to give it an earthier, sweeter flavor. I think this also would be a great accompaniment to a braised pork shoulder or short rib.

    Enjoy!!!

    –MAW

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  • 24Oct

    Vegan Pumpkin Soup

    It’s fall, and that means it’s time again for me to cook pumpkins. Because, as we all know, I love the orange beasties. Plus, it’s just before Halloween, and this is a great party recipe: it’s delicious, easy to make in quantity, and goes well with both booze and candy. I was inspired by a Thai pumpkin soup (Tom Jieufak, I think) I had recently, and so the primary flavors in this dish are Thai, but I modified it for my current veganism (more on that in a later series), and since this was made on the fly the proportions are a bit random and you should adjust to your own tastes. Also, you might like it less spicy than I do, so adjust accordingly. Here’s what I did:

    From: http://www.flickr.com/photos/calliope/4988191034/

    Photo by Muffet

    Ingredients:
    o 4″ shoot of lemon grass, sliced
    o 2 tsp fresh ginger
    o Health handful of fresh basil leaves
    o 1 green bell pepper, chopped
    o Juice of 1 lime
    o 4 oz water
    o 1 tbs peanut oil
    o 2 garlic cloves, chopped
    o 5 shallots, thinly sliced
    o Half a vidalia onion, thinly sliced
    o 1 tsp crushed dried red chili flakes
    o 3 Thai chillies, chopped
    o 22 oz vegetable stock
    o A handful of green beans, chopped
    o 2 tbs soy sauce
    o 2 tbs vegan Worcestershire sauce (or fish sauce)
    o Cubed peeled meat of 2 small pie pumpkins
    o 1.5 t sugar
    o 1.5 tsp fresh ground white pepper
    o 2 tbs organic creamy peanut butter
    o 3 tsp curry powder (I used Madras, but if you have Thai it might be better)
    o 8 oz coconut milk
    o Splash of rice vinegar
    o Sriracha
    o Turmeric
    o 2 tsp arrowroot powder

    To facilitate cutting up the pumpkin, I microwaved them for about 4 minutes each…while that’s happening, chop everything else. Puree the ginger, 1 garlic clove, lemongrass, green pepper, lime juice, curry powder and water a blender, and drain off excess liquid. In a large saucepan (I actually used a Dutch oven) over high heat, fry the chilies, the other garlic clove, and shallots over high heat till they get a little crispy, then add the onion and let them get a bit translucent.

    Now add your pumpkin, beans, soy/Worcestershire sauce, all but a couple ounces of the stock, and the puree, reducing heat to medium. Stir for about a minute, and stir in the peanut butter, sugar, and white pepper, then simmer. While that’s happening, dissolve your arrowroot in the remaining stock. When the pumpkin is very nearly done, crank up the heat to high, add the coconut milk, and bring to a rolling boil for a minute or two. Drop the heat back to medium-low, and adjust flavor with Sriracha, vinegar, and turmeric. Finally, stir in your arrowroot mixture to thicken (you could probably also just cook it longer to reduce, but I am lazy).

    I served this over French bread, but rice noodles would be good too.

    -MAW

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