Foodie Friday - A Chinese New Year Valentine

This year, Valentine's Day and Chinese New Year are on the same day, and what better way to treat your sweetheart than with a few of his favorite Asian dishes. This worked out well for me, because I prepared one dinner that covered both occasions. I planned this for tonight because of this post, and the fact that it will leave us free to do brunch on Sunday! That's a nice bonus.

We started our meal with Fresh Vietnamese Spring Rolls accompanied by nuoc cham for dipping. Round rice wrappers, (banh trang), are soaked in warm water until softened, then filled and rolled like an egg roll. These were filled with prepared rice noodles, cooked shrimp, cucumber, carrot, scallion, snow peas, and fresh cilantro. They're a year round favorite here, but are especially nice during the summer when it's too hot to do much cooking. When the mint is over running the garden during the warmer months, we add that too.

Our main course was Thai Green Curry Chicken with Long Beans. Chicken is poached in a coconut milk sauce that is seasoned with Thai green chile paste, garlic, kaffir lime leaves, lemon grass, fish sauce, lime, and fresh basil leaves. This dish is packed with flavor, and can be mildly hot or very hot, depending on how much curry paste you add. We serve this over jasmine rice. The rice collects some of the sauce, which is very thin, and also mitigates a bit of the heat. This dish is simple to prepare. Finding 'exotic' ingredients is what consumed my time.
I would have made Thai Black Rice Pudding for dessert, but in my travels to local food stores I've yet to find the special rice. As a substitute, my husband requested my regular rice pudding. It's a perfect finish to almost any meal, so I'm including the recipe that an Aunt gave me years ago.

Creamy Rice Pudding

Cook 3/4 cup long grain rice in 1 quart of water. Don't let dry out. When the rice absorbs most of the water and looks creamy, add 1 quart of milk and bring back to a boil.

Thoroughly mix together 2-3 eggs, 1 cup sugar, 1/4 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 tsp. nutmeg, a dash of salt, and 1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract. (You can also add a cup of raisins now, if desired.)

Using a whisk, whip the egg mixture into the boiling rice mixture. Stirring constantly bring back to a boil. Pour into a large serving bowl. Chill before serving. (Note: Pudding thickens as it stands.)

This post is being linked to Designs by Gollum, where Foodie Friday is well under way. Please stop by and visit our hostess, Michael Lee, and see what others are cooking up for the dual holiday on February 14th.

Happy New Year and Happy Valentine's Day..........Nancy

Foodie Friday - Japanese Steak House Sauces and Restaurant Week in NYC

If I ask my husband what he'd like me to make for dinner, 9 out of 10 times it will be some type of Asian food. Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, or Thai food will put a smile on his face any night of the week.

One of our favorite dinners is a Japanese steak house style plate. Mushrooms, zucchini, and rice are the mainstays. We use beansprouts if we have them, and then we complete the meal with chicken, shrimp, scallops, beef or lobster. This past week we chose chicken, because I had some in the freezer.
While the meat or fish and vegetables are certainly delicious served as prepared, they are tremendously enhanced by the addition of ginger or mustard sauce. Years ago I stumbled upon the recipes for both. I make them well in advance of preparing the rest of the meal, so the flavors mellow a bit.

Japanese Ginger Sauce

1 small onion , sliced 1 small piece of ginger cut into small dice

1/2 cup soy sauce 1/4 cup rice wine vinegar

Place all ingredients in a blender and mix at high speed for 2 minutes, until ginger and onion are finely chopped. Just before serving, strain if desired.

Japanese Mustard Sauce

1 Tablespoon dry mustard 2 Tablespoons hot water 1/4 clove garlic, crushed

1 Tablespoon sesame seeds, toasted 3/4 cup soy sauce 3 T. whipping cream, whipped

In small bowl, combine mustard and water until smooth. Place in blender and add remaining ingredients except whipped cream and blend on high until smooth. Remove to bowl and stir in whipped cream.

BTW: You don't need a hibachi table to prepare this meal. Any griddle or large flat fry pan works just as well.

Please go visit our hostess, Michael Lee, at Designs by Gollum for more Foodie Friday surprises. She'll have Mr. Linky up and ready to take you on this weeks culinary tour.

Foodie Friday Extra!!!

Restaurant Week is drawing to a close in NYC. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this event, participating restaurants charge a reduced price for full course lunches or dinners. This year the lunch price was set at $24.07. Reservations are snapped up quickly, but this year my son was able to get one for lunch at Nobu, chef Nobu Matsuhisa's trendy restaurant in Tribeca. He's wanted to go there forever, but the budget of a family of four didn't really permit the luxury. To say he was excited would be a total understatement. He kept sneaking pictures of the food with his phone and sent them along after each course! Here's the email he sent when he returned home...further proof that some Foodies are born into the fold. (BTW: He's a really good cook, too.)

The food was simply outrageous. It WAS the best meal I've ever (and probably will ever have) eaten. The portions were proper, too. We left satisfied, and didn't have to make an emergency stop at Grimaldi's on the way home (that was our contingency plan should they give us teeny-tiny bites of really nice food). If they do it next year, I want you and Dad to come - he would've been in heaven between the Rock Shrimp Tempura w. Creamy/Spicy sauce and the Beef Anticucho. The sauce on the Anticucho was brilliantly spicy with Peruvian peppers, and required the provided sticky rice to temper the heat - right up Dad's alley. You probably would've chosen entree #3 - almost every diner around us did - the broiled Black Cod with Miso. It smelled heavenly, and the fish was flaking off of everyone's chopsticks. It looked perfect.

The Sashimi Salad was pan-seared tuna with pepper crust, two large pieces, over mixed greens, with Chef Nobu's personal dressing, the best variation on a sesame-ginger I've ever tried. I tasted equal parts ginger/garlic/onion, and had a low acidity point, as to not further cook the fish. The sushi was fantastic - every piece melted in our mouths, not like what we get at places around here, which is tasty but requires some work. These were all "like butter!" M shared two pieces of her tuna roll with me, as well as the maguro (tuna) and cooked shrimp sushi. She polished off three different pieces of white fish (looked like sea bream, yellowtail, and smoked salmon), salmon, salmon roe (I identified it for her - she loved it), and 4 pieces of the tuna roll.

Dessert was Tofu Cheesecake! I was worried we'd get some variation on green tea ice cream, but they totally came through - light, fluffy, and absolutely delicious, it was served with a lemon-orange sauce, a spoonful of syrupy diced apple, and a crispy chip seasoned with cinnamon and cardamom. It made for a perfect finish to a perfect meal.

Food for Thought

Consuming Passions - A Food Obsessed Life *****

Do you read cook books like they're novels? Do you enjoy a good memoir? Do you like to laugh? If you answered yes to any of these questions, Consuming Passions by Michael Lee West should fly to the top of your 'must read' list.

~~~

Author West takes us on a guided tour of the southern kitchens that she knew as a child, but she doesn't stop there. With a witty and breezy writing style, she also candidly chronicles her adventures and mishaps in her own kitchen, while sharing treasured family recipes. Stories about making breakfast for her new husband, mastering the art of making her grandmothers buttermilk biscuits, her husband's foray into bee keeping, and the quest for the best egg salad recipe are wonderful telltale vignettes of a true foodie's life.

~~~

There are also helpful hints scattered through out the book. We learn how to season cast iron cookware, what type of food to bring to a funeral, how to handle kitchen fires and what to do when you're burned while cooking. The aunts and Mama also liberally dispense advice on men folk, and some of their hysterical observations certainly ring true!

~~~

Along the way we're introduced to a wonderful cast of family characters. Aunt Dell, the family 'artiste', Aunt Tempe, renown for her coconut cake, and Ary Jean, West's mama are just a few of the colorful southern women who bring spice and life to this memoir. They're so skillfully drawn, that you feel you know them by the end of the book.

~~~

So pour yourself a tall glass of sweet tea, (if you don't have a recipe there's one in the book), and settle down for a most enjoyable read. Of course you won't be seated for long, because when you read some of these recipes you'll be on your feet, in the kitchen, and up to your elbows in flour!

~~~

This post is being linked to Food For Thought. If you'd like to read more book reviews please just click the icon at the top of this page. You won't be disappointed.

Foodie Friday - Cheatin' Pizza

Meet my new best friend... Yes, it's that cute little Poppin' Fresh, and he brought me a pizza crust! That's a good thing to have on hand when you've had a hectic day, all of a sudden it's 6PM, and you need a quick, easy dinner. (This is especially true when it's really, really cold outside, and a trip to the local pizza joint just isn't gonna happen.)

My husband and I like thin, crisp crust, so first we roll the dough out with a rolling pin on a large, very lightly oiled cookie sheet.
It goes into a hot oven for a few minutes to crisp up a little,

Then my sous-chef, aka: husband, will cover the crust with sauce and toppings. This particular 'pie' is half white, which is a mixture of ricotta, grated pecorino romano and shredded mozzarella. We ran a small clove of garlic through the press and chopped some fresh basil, then tossed those seasonings into the cheese mixture as well.

Now back into the hot oven for about 12 minutes, (NB: After 5 minutes, your house will smell like a wonderful Italian restaurant. It's a nifty bonus!)

Now for the finished product...

Start to finish this only took us 25 minutes, and there's always enough left over for lunch the next day. Best of all, it was piping hot, because it didn't have to take a ride in a cold car and be carried though a 16 degree night.

Please stop by Designs by Gollum and see what else was cooking this week around the blogosphere. Our hostess, Michael Lee, has provided Mr. Linky to guide you on your way...