July 3, 2009
Posted by Blake Royer, July 2, 2009 at 4:00 PM
I'm not too crazy about room-temperature bean salads; I like my beans best when they're hot and refried. But I'm always tempted by legume recipes for their cheapness and healthiness, and it's the season for salads. I've also yet to meet a Jamie Oliver salad that I didn't like—the man has a knack. So when I saw this chickpea recipe, I took a chance. I liked that they are heated in a skillet to give them color and creaminess, similarly to another delicious recipe I made awhile back.
Shedding the usual trappings of lettuce and raw vegetables, this salad pairs the creamy chickpea against salty feta cheese and sweet cherry tomatoes; bits of basil and mint shoot it through with herby freshness. The dressing is bright and lemony, and a little hot from a fresh chili. It's not a revolutionary recipe, but it was simple to prepare and very appealing. The trick to take away is the heating of the chickpeas; beyond that, the spices and ingredients could be easily adapted.
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Posted by Nick Kindelsperger, July 1, 2009 at 4:15 PM
I'm currently between apartments, crashing at friend's place for a week until I can safely move in to a new place. This means all my spices and gadgets are boxed up and hanging out in a storage unit far away from me. All I have are my condiments, which I knew would go bad if I left them out of the fridge for a week. That's really the only reason I settled on this recipe for soy-poached chicken from the New York Times. I knew I had a huge bottle of mushroom-flavored soy sauce, and I could easily pick up everything else at the Trader Joe's by my current residence.
Luckily, the recipe is from Mark Bittman, whose recipes are always flavorful. Much like other braised chicken dishes I've tried, this one is littered with ginger. To that, Bittman adds the aforementioned mushroom soy sauce (regular soy sauce can probably be substituted, but I have no proof of this), mei kuei lu chiew (which you can substitute an off-dry Gewurztraminer for), sugar, and water. The chicken cooks at a boil for 10 minutes breast side down, and then it is flipped, the heat is killed, and the bird bathes in the broth for 15 minutes to hopefully finish cooking.
Except mine didn't get done. When I cut into the legs I noticed they were nearly raw. I blame this on the fact that my bird was a four-pounder and not the skinny 2 1/2 pounds that was recommended. It's not a huge deal; I just brought the liquid back to a boil and cooked the bird for an extra five minutes. The chicken comes out perfumed with ginger, star anise, and that mushroom soy sauce, but the skin does look a little pale. This is solved by tossing it in a very hot oven for five minutes to crisp the skin up. The chicken is utterly delicious, but it's the sauce that I loved the most. When I finished my plate I ate the sauce from the bowl with a spoon.
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Posted by Blake Royer, June 30, 2009 at 4:30 PM
The magic of garlic and chili together in a skillet is enough to build a hundred pastas on. In fact, I'm willing to try almost anything that improvises on this marvelous combination, especially when the humble anchovy is added to the mix. Like in this Orecchiette with Broccoli I made a few weeks ago, the anchovy takes the already spicy and nutty concoction and adds a deep roundness, as the little fillets seem to melt into the olive oil and disappear completely. Not fishy or overly strong, they simply make everything taste better.
So when I was looking over an old New York Times article from Mark Bittman about quick ways to cook dinner, this line stuck out: "A Roman classic: slivered garlic, with six or so anchovy fillets and a dried hot chili or two. Dress pasta with this." Maybe the garlic/chili/anchovy combination was not only a good start to a pasta, but good enough all on its own.
I made sure to get some good-quality anchovies and fancy bronze-die pasta, and dinner came together as soon as my pasta finished cooking. It was a subtle dish, to be sure, and I was glad I splurged on the pasta, because it's the most important taste in the dish.
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Posted by Nick Kindelsperger, June 29, 2009 at 4:45 PM
I picked this recipe from the Perfect Pantry mainly because of the sauce, which somehow manages to successfully combine soy sauce, hoisin, Sriracha, lime juice, and agave nectar. (I only stash the last one in my pantry for cocktails.) But the resulting sauce manages to make everything it touches taste better.
So take the vegetables listed here as merely a guide. I can imagine bok choy working really well. I also added some tofu to bulk out the recipe and make it less of an appetizer and more of a main dish.
Everything works really well, but I'm still getting used to soba noodles. They make sense in theory, and I love everything they are paired with, but I'm always a little confused by the noodle's temperature. Almost every recipe I find has them at room temperature, or even cooler than that. For someone who eats Italian pasta warm at least once a week, I find the cold noodles a different sensation, if one I'm happy to try and figure out.
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Posted by Nick Kindelsperger, June 26, 2009 at 4:30 PM
I make kimchi fried rice all the time, but it's always a haphazard affair. Half a dozen vegetables go in along with a mound of chopped kimchi and a couple eggs. I turn the heat to high and stir quickly. That's my style. It's always good, but I wanted to see what it would be like if a put a little bit more care into the production. What if I didn't go crazy and chuck in every ingredient I could find in the fridge? Luckily, I ran across this recipe for kimchi chahan on the blog Adnilem's Journey. It looked incredibly simple, and also a bit odd.
From what I can tell, Chahan is Japanese-style fried rice. The real peculiarity is that the rice and egg are mixed before they ever hit the pan. I was deeply skeptical of this at first. Nothing derails a fried rice for me more than the egg and rice sticking to each other and clumping up. But the high heat and agressive stirring solves that problem, and it allows each grain of rice to have its own coating.
The result is a nuanced and ultimately more intriguing version of the dish. It also requires fewer ingredients and less time to make. Not a bad deal.
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