Cooking Challenge Week 35 - Marinating - Bulgogi and Thai Cucumber Salad

It's a Neglected Cookbook Project double feature!  Both recipes are (slightly) adapted from Williams-Sonoma Collection: Asian, which my brother and his wife gave to me for Christmas years ago.  It's a well-written, beautifully-photographed book, and yet somehow I never found myself cooking from it.

So a few weekends ago I picked it out of the NCP pile and starting leafing through.  Knowing the marinating challenge was coming up, these two just jumped right out at me.

I know the ingredient list for the bulgogi looks long, but the marinade and the sauce use mostly the same ingredients in different quantities, so it's really not that bad.

Bulgogi (Korean BBQ)

Marinade

• 3 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 1 tbsp sesame oil
• 1 tbsp rice vinegar
• 4 green onions, minced
• 1 tsp ginger paste (or finely chopped ginger)
• 1 tbsp sesame seeds
• 1/2 tsp ground black pepper
• 1 tbsp water

Sauce

•  1 clove garlic, chopped
• 1/2 tsp sugar
• 3 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tbsp rice vinegar
• 1 tsp Sriracha chile sauce
• 1 tsp sesame oil
• 1 green onion, minced
• 1 tbsp sesame seeds
• 1 tbsp water

• 1 1/2 lbs beef tenderloin
• 1 tbsp canola oil

Make the marinade: Using a mortar and pestle, crush the garlic with the sugar to form a rough paste.  (Alternately, if you don't have one, use a cutting board and the flat of a heavy knife to mash them together.)  Transfer the paste to a small bowl and add the remaining marinade ingredients, whisking well to combine.  Set aside.

Make the sauce just as you made the marinade, combining everything in another small bowl.  Refrigerate until needed.

Cut the beef across the grain as thin as you can manage (1/8" or less is ideal).   Placing the beef in the freezer for 30-45 minutes before slicing can help firm it up and make it easier to get thin slices.  (Mine actually weren't so good, I need to get my knives sharpened.)

Add the beef slices to the marinade and toss to mix.  Cover and refrigerate 1-3 hours.

Prepare a hot fire on a charcoal grill, or preheat a grill pan on the stove on high.  Brush the grill rack/pan with the canola oil.

Remove the beef from the marinade and pat dry, discarding the marinade.  (I tried to get most of the sesame seeds off, afraid they'd burn, but really they didn't, so there's no need to be too fussy.)  Working in batches, arrange the beef in a single layer on the hot pan.  Sear, turning once, until crisp and browned on both sides, about 2 minutes per side.  Wipe down and re-oil the pan between batches if necessary.

Here, I served it over rice, drizzled with the sauce, with a side of...

Thai Cucumber Salad

• 2 lbs. cucumbers
• 2 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 1/2 cup rice vinegar
• 4 shallots, thinly sliced
• 1 red jalapeno or other fresh red chile, seeded and julienned
• 2 tbsp fresh cilantro leaves

Peel the cucumbers, halve lengthwise, and scoop out the seeds.  Cut crosswise into 1/4" thick slices.  Place in a colander, sprinkle with 1 tsp of the salt, and toss to mix.  Set aside to drain for 1 hour, then pat the cucumbers dry.

Meanwhile, in a small saucepan over medium heat, combine the sugar, the remaining 1 tsp salt, and the rice vinegar.  Heat until the sugar and salt dissolve, about two minutes.   Set aside to cool.

To assemble the salad, in a large bowl combine the cucumbers, shallots, and chile.  Pour the cooled vinegar mixture over and toss well.  Garnish with the cilantro leaves, and refrigerate at least 1 hour before serving.

Cooking Challenge Week 33 - Turn Something Boring into Something Great - Chipotle Mac 'n' Cheese

I think this might be the worst picture in the history of my blog, but, I realized, just as I was about to reheat the last chunk of leftovers for breakfast, that I hadn't gotten a picture.  If I were a pretentious artist, this would be titled "Spicy, 4:30 am."  So yeah, very little effort went into this awful picture.

But the dish? Not awful in the slightest.  In fact, it's the best non-standard mac 'n' cheese I've ever had.  Which is why it immediately came to mind for this challenge.

Here's the recipe, which, of course, I highly recommend you try.

Baking Challenge Week 33 (Almost Caught Up!) - Vegetables - Carrot Muffins

So good, they get a real beauty shot.  I'm serious.  These muffins are amazing.

It took me twenty minutes to grate the carrots for this on my crappy little hand grater, and the whole time, I was trying not to skin my knuckles and thinking, "These better be worth it."

They are.  I would make them again in a heartbeat, even at the risk of knuckle damage.

And next time, I think I'll put streusel on top.  Or add walnuts.  Or both!

Carrot Muffins
(adapted from Complete Baking)

• 3/4 cup margarine, at room temperature
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 egg, at room temperature
• 1 tbsp water
• 1/2 lb. carrots, peeled and finely grated
• 1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 350 F.  Grease a 12-cup muffin tin, or use liners.

Cream together the margarine and sugar until light and fluffy.  Add the egg and water and blend well.

Stir in the carrots.

In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, spices, and salt.  Gradually blend into the carrot mixture.

Spoon into the prepared tray, filling cups almost to the top.  Bake 25-30 minutes, until tops spring back when touched lightly (or when a tester inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean.)  Let stand ten minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool.

Cooking Challenge Week 32 (Late!) - Corn - Corn Chowder with Smoked Sausage and Pasta

Since I'm trying desperately to catch up to the current challenge, I'm going to keep this one short and sweet.  It's not the most attractive soup to try to photograph (pale yellow and fleshy pink?) but it's soooo tasty.

Let's get to that recipe, shall we?

Corn Chowder with Smoked Sausage and Pasta
(adapted from The Cook's Encyclopaedia of Soup)

• 1 small green bell pepper
• 1 pound potatoes, peeled and diced
• 2 cups canned or frozen corn kernels
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 1 celery stalk, chopped
• 2 1/2 cups chicken stock
• 1 1/4 cups milk
• 1/2 cup small pasta shapes (I used penne because I had it, but I'd recommend something smaller)
• 4 oz smoked sausage, sliced
• oil

Seed and finely dice the green pepper.  In a small bowl, cover with boiling water and leave to stand for 2 minutes.  Drain and rinse.

Put the potatoes in a saucepan with the corn, onion, celery, green pepper, and chicken stock.  Bring to a boil, then lower the heat, cover, and simmer 20 minutes or until all the vegetables are tender.

Add the milk, and season with salt and pepper.  Carefully puree half the soup in a blender and return to the pan, stirring to mix well with the remaining soup.  (Alternately, do what I did and use a hand blender to whiz the soup in the pan until it's partially pureed.  It's a lot safer, and it means fewer dishes to wash.)

Add the pasta and simmer for 10 minutes, until the pasta is al dente.  (Adjust this to the cook time of your specific pasta, if necessary.)

Meanwhile, heat a little oil in a small saucepan and fry the smoked sausage quickly until warmed through and lightly browned, 2-3 minutes.  Stir into the soup, and serve.

Cooking Challenge Week 31 (Late!) - Broiling - Molettes

Tasty and easy!

Time for a procedural recipe, this doesn't need things like measurements and quantities.

Start with crusty finger rolls, or, in my case, hot dog buns.  The buns were really a little too delicate for this treatment, but my bakery hadn't made any hoagie rolls that day, which would have been better.

Brush them with a little bit of softened butter and broil until lightly browned and crispy--don't let them go too far at this point, since they'll be going back under.

Spread some refried beans on there...

...and then top with some shredded cheese.  I had sharp cheddar, but mild cheddar or any Mexican-style blend would also be good.

Pop them back under the broiler until the cheese is melted and the beans are warmed through.

This is the salsa I made for the molettes.  You certainly don't have to make homemade salsa, though, just use your favorite jarred stuff if you like.

Top with generous amounts of salsa and eat!  Setting aside the time that making the salsa took, I had these done in less than ten minutes, making them a great quick meal.

Cooking Challenge Week 26 (Late!) - Pizza - Bacon and Portobello Mushrooms on a Spent-Grain Crust

  

The general how-to is easy.  Be a homebrewer, have spent grain from your last batch of beer, and mix some in your favorite pizza crust recipe.

The actual how-to is a little more complicated.  I like this recipe, but a single batch isn't enough to cover my baking sheet, so I've taken to making a quadruple batch but only dividing the dough into thirds to get the right coverage.  (I freeze the other two for later.)  Judging by other spent-grain pizza crust recipes, they mostly use less than half as much grain by volume as flour, so I added 2/3 cup per 'batch', for a total of 2 2/3 cups grain.  The texture seemed good, I don't think it really needs more.

Top with sauce, cheese, and fixin's, and bake at 450 F for 16-18 minutes.

Neglected Cookbook Project: Gingery Chickpea Curry

This is from the very first cookbook on Indian cuisine that I ever got, the day after my first Indian meal.  I was in England, visiting my husband while he was doing his Master's over there, and he took me out to this charming curry house down the street from his flat.  The next day, I found Recipes from the Indian Spice Trail at a used bookstore two streets over.  I browsed through while I was there, but we had a lot going on, so it was on the flight home that I read most of it.

It's an odd and fascinating blend of travelogue and cookbook, being a companion piece to a BBC radio series.  Being a sort of journey-through-food, the recipes are divided by region and often subdivided further by ingredient, focusing on the handful of predominant flavors of the area.  This means I usually start hunting in the index when I want to make something with a specific ingredient (like this week, when red bell peppers were on sale and I really wanted to use them in a curry), which is not my normal method of finding recipes, so that may be, in part, why I don't use this book nearly as often as it deserves.  Until now, I really had only made one recipe from it, a cinnamon-scented caramelized rice that can be tricky to pull off without burning, but goes so, so well with super-spicy curries.  I haven't made it for a while, I should really make it again soon....

This recipe starts out as a side dish without any red pepper in it at all, but one of the variations recommends stuffing the chickpeas inside peppers and baking them.  From there it wasn't much of a stretch to simply include it in the curry to begin with, very similar to my bean and broccoli curry, which was so good I made a second batch that same week just to freeze for later.

One note: while I cook most of my own beans from dry, I don't have an inexpensive source for dried chickpeas, which is why I use canned here.  If you're cooking them yourself (which I highly recommend you do, if you can) the steps remain basically the same, you just leave out the bell pepper and dramatically lengthen the cook time from twenty minutes to whatever your brand of dried chickpeas recommends.  The original recipe assumed dried and says 1-3 hours, depending on brand, and suggests canned as a time-saver. Throw in the bell pepper for the last 20-30 minutes and you're good to go!

Gingery Chickpea Curry

• 3 15-oz cans chickpeas (garbanzo beans)
• 1 large red bell pepper, chopped
• 2 to 3 inch piece ginger, skinned and minced finely, divided
• 6 cloves garlic, minced finely, divided
• 2-4 thin green chillies, half left whole but slit, half seeded and finely chopped
• 1 large onion, finely sliced
• 2 tbsp ghee or butter
• 1 1/2 tsp cumin seeds
• 1 15-oz can diced tomatoes
• salt to taste

Combine the chickpeas and bell pepper in a large saucepan, and add just enough water to cover.  Stir in half of the minced ginger, half the minced garlic, and the slit chillies.  Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, heat the ghee or butter in a skillet and fry the onion until soft and golden (which should take just as long as the simmer, I won't lie and say you can caramelize onions in 5 minutes like so many recipes do.)  Add the rest of the ginger and garlic, and the cumin seeds.  Fry another minute or so until the garlic is fragrant and the cumin seeds start to pop.  Stir this mixture into the chickpeas.

If a lot of water is left, remove some of it now; then mash some of the chickpeas against the side of the pan to thicken what's left.  Stir in the undrained tomatoes and heat through.  Season to taste, and serve with plain boiled rice.

Cooking Challenge Week 23 - 20 Minutes or Less - 18-Minute Pasta with Sausage and Peppers

Not the fanciest thing, I know, but it's hard to beat for filling, delicious, and fast.

I set the timer for 20 minutes and got to work.

1. Set the water on to boil.
2. Started 3/4-lb. of bulk hot Italian sausage browning in a saucepan.  This has to be good sausage, folks.  Lots of the flavor that will eventually be in the sauce starts here.  My local grocery chain does their own sausage, which is invariably high-quality and delicious.
3. Chopped one small onion and one medium green bell pepper, and added them to the sausage when it was mostly browned.
4. Stir, stir, cook, wait for the water to boil.
5. At 11 minutes left, the water was boiling, so I added half a pound of rotini, which needed to cook for 7 minutes.  A little early, perhaps, but I wanted to be sure I'd have time to assemble.
6. Back to the sauce--time to add a 15-oz can of tomato sauce.  Not jarred spaghetti sauce, thank you, but the plain stuff that lives next to the other canned tomatoes.  Remember that I said it should be good sausage?
7. I'm not above nudging my sauce with herbs, though.  In went a little basil, oregano, and mint.  Yes, mint.  Don't look at me like that, it really adds something, and it won't taste like toothpaste, I promise.
8. While the pasta was cooking and the sauce was simmering, I realized I had a good three minutes with nothing to do, and remembered a wedge of Asiago in the fridge, which promptly became friends with my micrograter.
9. Drained the pasta, tossed with the sauce, and boom! Done at 18 minutes.

Cooking Challenge Week 22 - Tarts - Bacon and Red Pepper Quiche

I will jump at any excuse I can to make quiche, although I'm still working on getting my pie crusts to be pretty, as you can plainly see.

In past pastry posts, I've linked to a good shortening-based pie crust recipe; but this time, I was out of shortening.  I did have five sticks of butter in the freezer (buy butter on sale and freeze it!), so I tried smitten kitchen's all-butter crust.  I have to say, it was a lot easier to handle than my previous pie crusts, so I think I might very well be a butter convert now...

If the flavor profile here looks familiar, it is.  What can I say, they're delicious together!  I left out the onion here, though, because my bell pepper was huuuuuge and I didn't want the egg filling to overflow. 

Bacon and Red Pepper Quiche
(makes 2 9-inch tarts)

• 2 pie crusts from your preferred recipe
• 6 strips thick-cut bacon
• 1 large red bell pepper, chopped
• 1/2 cup Mexican-blend shredded cheese (cheddar would also be lovely)
• 4 large eggs
• 1 cup sour cream
• 1 cup milk
• salt and pepper

Make your pie crusts.  While the dough is firming up in the fridge, proceed with the filling.

Also, get your oven preheating to 400 F.

Chop the bacon into 1 1/2" inch pieces.   Cook over medium heat until done but not super-crispy; remove bacon pieces with a slotted spoon or spatula as they look done, so none overcook while the others are finishing. Drain on a paper-towel-lined plate, and set aside.

When all the bacon is out, throw in the bell pepper and cook over low heat until tender, stirring often.  I like a little bit of char on mine, so I turned up the heat to medium-high for the last minute, but that's purely optional.

As the red pepper is cooking, roll out your two pie crusts and get them into your pie pans.  Dock well and blind-bake (ie, line with parchment or foil and fill with dried beans or pie weights) for 12 minutes.  Remove from the oven, carefully lift out the foil and let your weights cool off somewhere. 

Turn the oven down to 350 F.  (Do not forget this step!)

Divide the bacon, bell pepper, and cheese evenly between the two crusts.

In a small bowl (or preferably, a 4-cup liquid measuring cup, for easier pouring) whisk the eggs until well-blended.  Add the sour cream and whisk until there are no lumps; finally add the milk and whisk until smooth.  Season well with salt and pepper.

Divide the egg mixture between the two crusts and bake 30-35 minutes, until the edges are browned and the filling is set.  Allow to cool on wire racks 10 minutes before serving (for hot) or longer to nearly room temperature, which is quite nice on a hot summer night like tonight.

Refrigerate leftovers.  Also, this freezes incredibly well; I often freeze the second quiche whole.  To reheat from frozen, bake at 350 F for 25 to 30 minutes, covering the edge of the crust with foil if necessary to prevent over-browning.

Cooking Challenge Week 21 - French - Curried Celery Souffle

Alright, so it's really a French/Anglo-Indian fusion.  I've never made souffle, but I have several good all-around cookbooks that, between them, tell me pretty much how to make everything.  One of them (Kitchen Sense, which I know I mentioned before) has a Carrot and Ginger Souffle recipe which, in the description, says souffle can be made with pretty much any vegetable as long as you cook it until tender and puree it.  It then goes on to say, throw in some curry powder for a nice variation.

So that immediately reminded me of two things: 1) one of my favorite soups is curried celery soup, and 2) that I had half a bunch of celery in my crisper drawer.

And that's how this bizarre inter-cuisine love child was born.

The things I learned on my first souffle foray:  it really does start to fall immediately after it comes out of the oven, even if you've done everything right, which I'm pretty sure I did; and while it's delicious, it's an awful lot of trouble for something that doesn't make good leftovers.  What would one do with leftover souffle, anyway?

It's not a fail, certainly, but I don't think I'll be making it again.  It's good to know I can, though.

Curried Celery Souffle
(adapted from Kitchen Sense and The Cook's Encyclopedia of Soup)

• 7-8 stalks celery, trimmed and sliced
• 1 medium white onion, peeled and roughly chopped
• 1/4 cup heavy cream, sour cream, plain yogurt, or buttermilk (I used yogurt)
• 1 tbsp curry powder
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• salt and pepper to taste
• 4 tbsp (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 cup milk
• 2 tbsp lemon juice
• 6 large eggs, at room temperature

Preheat the oven to 425 F.  Grease a 2-qt. baking dish or 8 individual ramekins.

Bring a pot of salted water to a boil and cook the celery and onion until very soft, 20-25 minutes.  Drain, transfer to a blender or food processor, add the cream/yogurt/whatever, and process until very smooth.  You should have about 1 1/2 cups puree; discard any extra.  Add the curry powder and oregano, then season to taste with salt and pepper.  (Over-season slightly at this point, as adding the egg whites will dilute the flavor some.)

In a small saucepan, melt the butter.  Add the flour and cook, stirring, for 2-3 minutes until the flour smells toasted.  Add the milk, a little at a time, stirring constantly to form a thick paste.  Mix in the celery puree and cook over low heat 5 minutes.  Remove from the heat and cool another 5 minutes.  Stir in the lemon juice.

Separate the eggs, one at a time, placing the whites in a mixer bowl and whisking each yolk into the cooled celery mixture.  When all six are done, beat the egg whites with a pinch of salt on low speed until just frothy, then increase the speed to high and beat until stiff peaks form.  Gently fold the whites into the celery mixture, stopping as soon as the mixture is a uniform texture--don't over-mix!

Gently spoon the mixture into the casserole or ramekins and bake 15 minutes (for the individual servings) or 25 minutes (for the casserole).  Serve immediately.

Bean and Broccoli Curry

I have been a fan of Indian food ever since I was introduced to it on my first trip to England.  My then-future husband took me down the street from his flat to a little curry house, and I fell in love.  With the food, that is, I was already in love with him.

I came home from that trip with no less than three cookbooks on Indian cuisine, and several years later, when two of his British friends hopped the pond to visit us, they brought another one with them as a thanks-for-having-us gift.  I'm still working my way through it, picking it up every few months to see what jumps out at me, begging to be made, and this latest is no disappointment.

Though, to be fair, I did modify it some, leaving out spices I can't get locally and relying on a pinch of curry powder to replace curry leaves, something that would shock a purist, I know.  I like authenticity, but I'm not so uptight that I will forgo making a dish just because one of the ingredients can't be had!  I also ended up adding broccoli to fill it out a bit.  I think it's a good addition--I've seen quite a few recipes from other cuisines that pair white beans and broccoli, and many, many curry recipes are prefaced with "use whatever vegetables you like/have on hand" so I wasn't too afraid to experiment.

Bean and Broccoli Curry
(adapted from Anjum's New Indian)

•  2 tbsp vegetable oil
• 1 tsp brown mustard seeds
• 1 medium onion, peeled and chopped
• 1 tsp ginger paste (or 1/4 tsp ground ginger)
• 5 large cloves of garlic, peeled and minced
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp mild curry powder
• 1/2 tsp turmeric
• 1/4 tsp red chili powder (or more to taste if you like it hot)
• 1 1/2 tsp ground coriander
• 3/4 cup coconut milk
• 1/2 cup water
• 3/4 lb broccoli, washed and cut into small florets
• 3 1/2 cups cooked cannellini (white/Great Northern) beans (that's about 2 cans, drained, if you don't cook from dry like I do)
• 2 tsp sugar
• 2 tsp lemon juice

Heat the oil in a large saucepan.  Add the mustard seeds and fry until they begin to pop, then add the onion.  Cook over medium-low heat, stirring often, until the onion is soft and golden, 10-15 minutes.  Add the ginger and garlic and cook one minute more.

Add the salt and powdered spices and cook 30 seconds more, until fragrant.  Add the coconut milk, water, and broccoli.  Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer, covered, for 8-10 minutes, until the broccoli is just tender.

Add the beans and simmer 5 minutes more to allow the flavors to marry.  Add the sugar and lemon juice.  If desired, mash some of the beans against the side of the pan, then stir them back in to thicken the curry.  Adjust the seasoning to taste, adding more salt, sugar, or lemon juice to balance the flavor.  Serve with rice or (my favorite) naan!

Cooking Challenge Week 16 - Asparagus - Chicken Asparagus Pasta Salad

This was one of those lightning-flash inspirations.  I like asparagus just fine, now that I eat my green vegetables, which wasn't always true.  But aside from the deep-fried asparagus at Scottys when we visit my husband's parents during prime asparagus season....I really don't eat it much.  Looking though the few recipes I do have, the seasonings for asparagus sides always seemed to involve lemon, garlic, or both.  I didn't want to throw some token roasted asparagus next to a steak and squeeze a lemon over it.

When I realized I had another meal planned this week that needed chicken, so I was already dragging out my beloved pressure cooker, and I have lemon juice and olive oil and garlic and pasta all sitting around anyways...

Chicken Asparagus Pasta Salad

•  8 oz. uncooked small pasta shapes (like rotini, in my case)
• 1 lb. asparagus, cleaned and trimmed
• 1 cup chopped cooked chicken

Dressing

• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1 1/2 tbsp lemon juice
• 1 small clove garlic, minced
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp pepper
• 1/4 tsp dry mustard

 In a small bowl, combine all the dressing ingredients and blend thoroughly with a whisk.  (Alternately, if you have a cocktail shaker, those work great for mixing viniagrettes too--thank you, Good Eats!)

Slice the asparagus spears into 1/2-inch pieces, and load into a steamer basket.  Steam over barely simmering water, covered, for five minutes--we're shooting for cooked but not mushy.  Transfer to a large mixing bowl and allow to cool while preparing pasta.

Then, cook the pasta in well-salted water according to package directions, as times will vary by pasta shape.  Drain, but do not rinse, and add to the asparagus.

Add the chopped chicken to that, then pour over the dressing and toss to coat everything.  Refrigerate until fully chilled before serving.