Fusion Reaction

I’m being lazy with my blog and just re-posting my recipes for now. I hope you like them!
This one was originally posted on Monday, August 4th, 2003

Baked Salmon

Prep work takes about 10 minutes.

1 one pound salmon fillet (Coho Salmon if you can get it)
2 Tablespoons of a dry white wine
1 teaspoon lime juice
1 Tablespoon olive oil
3/4 teaspoon lemon pepper spice mix
a pinch of kosher salt
3/4 teaspoon dill (dried is fine, fresh would be better)
a few grinds of black pepper
1 shallot, thinly sliced
Preheat the oven to 350.

Drizzle a little of the oil into a shallow baking dish. Wash and pat dry the salmon, then place it in the baking dish. Using small needle-nose pliers, pull out the pin bones. (Run your finger up along the thick part of the meat and you’ll feel them sticking out.)

Carefully pour the white wine and lime juice on top of the fish. Drizzle the rest of the olive oil on top. Sprinkle with lemon pepper spice mix and gently rub the oil and spices into the fish. Sprinkle on the kosher salt, dill weed and a few grinds of black pepper. Lay the shallot slices on top.

Bake uncovered for 20 minutes or until fish flakes easily with a fork.

Another recipe from the archives.

Originally posted December 15, 2003:

Slow Cooker Chicken with Garlic Mashed Potatoes

This is a recipe that’s best made one day ahead of time. On day one you’ll need:

1 whole chicken
2 yukon gold potatoes
10 or so new potatoes
several pinches of kosher salt
several grinds of black pepper
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 teaspoon dried basil
1 tablespoon lemon pepper
1 large handful (several springs) of rosemary

Wash and trim the chicken of any extra fat and remove (and discard) all the innards. Pull back the skin. Cut the yukon gold potatoes in half and arrange all potatoes on the bottom of the slow cooker. Set the chicken on top of them and stuff with the rosemary. Sprinkle salt, pepper, thyme and basil and replace the skin. Sprinkle with the lemon pepper. Cover and cook on low, 6 hours. When cooked, remove chicken to an oven-proof container. Remove potatoes to another container, and drain all the liquid into a third container. Place everything in the refrigerator overnight.

The next day you’ll need:

2 tablespoons butter, divided
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon whipping cream
1 cup canned low sodium chicken broth
1 cup of the chicken stock from the previous night (skim the fat off of
the top and discard)
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon white pepper
1 teaspoon garlic powder

Place the chicken in the oven and turn it on to 350 degrees for the chicken to warm up while you prepare the potatoes. Cut all the new potatoes in half and then push all the potatoes through a potatoe ricer into a microwave-proof bowl. (Alternatively you can simply roughly mash them up and leave the skins on, or peel them all and roughly mash them up. Leave chunks.) Heat them in the microwave for three minutes, stirring every minute. In a pan on the stove, heat the other tablespoon of butter and four over medium-low heat until it has a light golden color. Remove from heat and add cream. Stir until it a smooth paste again. Slowly whisk in the chicken stock, then the broth. Remove potatoes from the microwave and sprinkle with salt, pepper and garlic powder and stir. Add one cup of the broth mixture and stir. Add another 1/2 cup or cup, depending on the potatoes and stir. (You want them to be thick and fluffy and not watery.)

Remove the chicken from the oven and enjoy!

One afternoon in 2003, while waiting in a Doctor’s office lounge, I came across an intriguing recipe  recipe that suggested wrapping a piece of fish in grape leaves before baking.

I had two enormous jars of grape leaves, packed in acidulous water that I had bought from a Mediterranean grocery store. I’d intended to make dolmas (stuffed grape leaves) but never got around to it, then forgot I had one jar and bought another one! Naturally, when I saw a recipe for baking fish inside a pouch of grape leaves I decided to try it.

It is absolutely fantastic. If you can get grape leaves – fresh or in a jar – I highly recommend this approach; it was quick, easy and absolutely delicious and the fish was moist, tender and full of flavor.

Originally posted Friday, July 8th, 2003:

Halibut Baked in Grape Leaves

You can use just about any fish, but I used halibut as the recipe recommended.

2 boneless/skinless halibut fillets
3 or 4 fresh grape leaves (or 5 or 6 canned/preserved) for each skinless fillet
2 Tablespoons olive oil
2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees, then lightly oil a baking dish. Lay out the leaves on a cutting board, overlapping them to create an 8 inch round circle. Sprinkle with half the olive oil, the thyme, salt and fresh ground pepper. Place a fillet in the center of the leaves and wrap them around it in a clockwise fashion to close it up. Lay the package, seam side down, into the baking dish and bake for 20 minutes or until the fish is cooked through. (The grape leaves will crisp up.) Carefully transfer to a platter and peel away the leaves.

I cooked mine for twenty minutes, then turned off the oven and let it sit in there until I’d finished some pasta (about another 5 minutes).

The fillets are delicious plain but the recipe also included a fantastic vinaigrette to serve it with:

3 Tablespoons fresh squeezed lemon juice
1 teaspoon dijon mustard
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme
salt and pepper to taste

Blend all ingredients together and pour about a tablespoon or so over each fish fillet

Apparently today is “National Cook a Sweet Potato Day” day, according to Foodimentary. In that spirit I offer you my recipe for Sweet Potato Pie. I used a recipe from “The Encyclopedia of American Food & Drink” and added some of my own touches.

Originally posted Friday, October 31, 2003:

Sweet Potato Pie

1 lb sweet potatoes
3/4 c brown sugar
1/4 t salt
1 t ground cinnamon
1/2 t nutmeg
1/4 t ground cloves
3 eggs
3/4 c milk
3/4 c heavy cream
1 T butter
1 pie plate lined with pastry crust (I used Mrs. Smith’s 9″ deep dish home style pie crusts.)

Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees. Poke a bunch of holes in the sweet potatoes with a fork, then microwave on high for 10 minutes. Allow to cool for 5 minutes. Cut in half and scoop out the meat inside into a large bowl and beat till smooth. Blend in the brown sugar, salt and spices. Beat in the eggs, milk and heavy cream and then beat in the butter. Pour into pie crust, leaving about a half inch space from the top. Bake at 400 degrees for about 40-45 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

I think the cream is important and I use one type in all my ice creams and in this pie. It’s a product of Holland, “Dairytime” or “DairyLand” pure cream. Since I get mine from
Phonecia in Houston it’s got Arabic writing all over it.

When I saw something like this on FoodTV’s Barefoot Contessa (Brocolli and Bowties from the “Kids in a Candy Store” episode) and decided to make up my own, simpler, variant and give it a try. It’s incredibly simple and, if you use the multicolored rotini, it comes out delightfully colorful. You can also add chicken to this to make it a complete meal.

So, here’s my version:

Broccoli-Parmesan Pasta

1 cup broccoli florets (1 head)
4 handfuls of dry rotini pasta, the colorful kind if possible
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon minced garlic (I use the ready-minced-garlic-in-a-jar for this)
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Kosher salt
1 cup freshly grated Parmesan

Steam the broccoli for 10 minutes – or until just tender (don’t overcook). Place in a large bowl and set aside.

Meanwhile, in another very large pot, boil a large amount of water, salt well, then add pasta and cook until tender (about 10 minutes, see tip below). Drain and add to the broccoli in the large bowl.

In a small saute pan, heat the butter and oil over medium-low heat until butter is melted. Add minced garlic and cook for 2-3 minutes, letting the butter brown, but not burn. Remove from the heat and add the lemon juice. Pour this over the broccoli and pasta, sprinkle with salt and pepper. Add grated parmesan and toss well.

It’s very important to use a large amount of water and salt the water WELL (if it tastes like seawater it’s great) when you cook pasta. Try it sometime – boil some pasta in just enough plain water to cover it, then cook the same kind of pasta in another pot with triple the amount of water and a few tablespoons of salt. Drain, rinse and taste ‘em. Big diff.

Another recipe from the vault:

Original posted Monday February 10, 2003:

Coconut-Steamed Mussels

1 tablespoon olive oil
1-2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 shallot, chopped
3/4 cup water
1/4 cup white wine
1/2 cup canned coconut milk
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
a pinch of kosher salt
1 pound mussels
a few grinds of fresh black pepper

In a large pot, heat the olive  oil over medium-high heat. Add the garlic and cook for 3 minutes. Add the  water, wine and coconut milk. Bring to a boil. Add salt and red pepper  flakes. Insert a steamer basket and add the mussels. Cover and steam for 6  minutes. Remove mussels to a lareg bowl, discarding any that haven’t  opened. Add black pepper to broth and pour over mussels. Garnish with  chopped cilantro.

Enjoy!

So many of the people I know online seem to be succumbing to a 24 hour bug that I thought it would be appropriate to repost my expereince with making chicken stock and chicken soup.

Originally posted, July 12, 2002:

I am so proud of myself.

Yesterday I made some scrumptious blueberry muffins and a chicken and potato dish. Yum. Today I made a soup from scratch; I’d just bought some yummy veggies and wondered what to do with ‘em. Yes, I made it up – no recipe or anything! Actually I had been reading several dozen soup recipes the day before, so I guess I just figured out the “soup basics”.

It turned out perfect.

I started with one bunch (with the leaves all still on) of smallish organic carrots. Small and expensive, but wow – what flavor! Well worth the expense. I chopped them up into smallish bits, then diced a clove of garlic and two medium stalks of celery (after I’d peeled all the tough strings out of the celery) into same size smallish bits. Note, peeling out those tough strings made a huge difference. It was a bit of extra work, but worth it in the end.

I then sauteed the veggies in olive oil very briefly – just 3 to 5 minutes – and added about six roughly chopped mushroom caps (no stems). I also chopped the white ends of green onions (about six smallish ones) and added those and a tiny bit of water. I let that saute for another 5 minutes or so.

Next I added about 4 cups of water and three chicken bouillon cubes. (I was out of chicken stock.) I also chopped up the two chicken breasts I had left over from the previous night’s dinner (they’d already been baked with tarragon, thyme and rosemary before) into medium chunks and added those and a half can of (drained) “toovar liva”, otherwise known as Indian bean seeds. (They’re like a firm and smallish black-eyed pea. Lentils or some other smallish bean would substitute nicely.)

Then I tossed in some seasonings: sea salt, onion powder, black pepper, basil, tarragon, lemon pepper, sesame seeds, and about ten dashes of white wine vinegar.

Finally I added a couple of handfuls of egg noodles, lowered the heat a bit and simmered the whole schemer (covered) for about ten or so minutes.

Yum!

Originally posted April 14, 2003:

Sometimes I want to make something really good and home cooked, but not  put a lot of effort into it. This slow cooked chicken is really easy and you get a lot of mileage (chicken dinner, stock and soup) out of one chicken.

Whole Slow Cooked Chicken:

First thing you need is a slow cooker. Most of the models available now have an integrated timer, but if you have an older model you can buy adapters that will give them the same ability.

Take a whole chicken and get rid of the skin and any stuff left inside. I’ll often trim off a lot of the fat too, then rinse the bird. Cut a large yellow onion into big quarters and stuff that inside of the bird with a few springs of rosemary. Place inside the slow cooker, on top of a small rack (if you’ve got one for the cooker). Sprinkle a lemon pepper spice mix all over the chicken and set to the lowest setting for about 6 hours.

You can set the whole chicken ontop of several potatoes in leiu of a rack. This has the added bonus of infusing the potatoes with chickeny goodness. With a little butter and milk or cream they make excellent mashed poattoes.

After dinner I’ll strip the chicken of the meat and and save both that and the carcass (onions and everything) in separate containers in the fridge. I can use some of the chicken for dinner the next night or keep it for soup.

Chicken Stock:

The next day, or immediately after trimming the chicken and putting the meat in the fridge, place the carcass (bones and all the trimmings.) Fill with water enough to just cover and then set your slower cooker on the highest setting.

You’ll notice a huge difference in the bones after three hours and if you let it go long enough they’ll start to disintegrate. When you’re ready, just strain the whole thing through a cheesecloth into a container and refrigerate. The next day you’ll be able to lift off any remaining fat off the top of the stock. (It’ll be a solid layer on top.)

Voila. You’re ready for chicken soup.

Hearty Chicken Soup:

This one does take a little more prep, but it’s still pretty quick.

Take three stocks of celery from a bunch and chop them up into small cubes. I de-string the stuff first, then cut them into strips and chop to get the nice cubed look. Take three or four carrots, peel ‘em with a potato peeler and chop them up into similarly sized bits. Dice one clove of garlic.

In a large pot over high heat, add your home-made chicken stock and a bay leaf (or two) plus 4 to 6 chicken bouillon cubes.

In a saute pan, add a small amount of olive oil and the garlic. Cook for a minute or two. Add the celery and carrots and sprinkle with salt. Cook two or three minutes max.

Scrape all the veggies into the chicken stock and bring to a boil. Add small (not wide) egg noodles and cook until almost done.

Roughly chop up the leftover chicken (don’t get it to small) and add to the soup when the noodles are almost done. Add some lemon pepper spice to taste (and for a nifty touch toss in a handful of sesame seeds) or, alternatively, season with cumin and allspice. Cook  until noodles are done and the chicken is heated through.

Enjoy!

I tweeted about a successful culinary adventure yesterday and was promptly asked for the recipes. Here they are! (The fish is my dad’s own recipe, and the zucchini is mine, so this is the first time they’ve been written down.)

Dilled Tilapia

4 frozen tilapia fillets
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon onion powder
1 tablespoon garlic powder
2 tablespoons dried dill weed
4 tablespoons olive oil

Lay the fillets on a microwave-safe plate. Zap the four fillets in the microwave for just 40 seconds or less – enough to make them slightly moist, but still frozen. Sprinkle one side with half the spices. Heat the olive oil in a non stick frying pan over high heat. Add the fillets, spiced side down. Sprinkle the remaining spices on the other side of the fillets. Reduce heat to medium-high. Cook for three minutes. Turn fillets over. (Add some olive oil if necessary.) Cook for six minutes. Turn over once more and cook for an additional two to three minutes. Remove from heat and serve.

Couscous with zucchini

A pinch of saffron
2 tablespoons hot water
3 medium zucchini, cubed (about 1/2 square chunks)
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 tablespoons onion powder
salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste
3/4 cup couscous (for a really nice look, use the multicolored couscous)
1 cup boiling water

Soak the saffron threads in the hot water. Heat olive oil in a shallow saucepan (that has a tight fitting lid) on high until zucchini sizzles when dropped into it. Reduce heat to medium and toss in all the zucchini. Cook until just slightly translucent, but still a bit firm. Add spices and toss well. Add the saffron-infused water and the boiling water. Cover with lid and let sit for 15 minutes. Fluff with a fork.

Originally posted September 12, 2002:

Kemah Taco

1 lb ground beef
1 package frozen peas
1 tablespoon each: ginger, cumin, garlic, onion powder
1 teaspoon each: salt, black pepper
1 tablespoon tomato paste

Toppings:
green olives, sliced
shredded cheddar cheese
plain yogurt

Small (6″) tortillas

Brown the ground beef in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add the spices and incorporate thoroughly. Add the frozen peas and cook until they are no longer frozen. Add the tomato
pesto, stir through throughly and remove from heat.

Warm the tortillas ( I usually zap in a microwave for a couple of seconds).  Add the shredded cheese and sliced olives. Spoon on the meat mixture, then top a dollop of yogurt. Roll up like a burrito and enjoy!

Over the next few months I’ll be reposting a few of the better posts for my old blog. That includes all of my recipes. Here’s the first:

Thai Red Curry

2 tablespoons canola or peanut oil
1 onion, finely chopped
2 teaspoons Thai red curry paste
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 can coconut milk
3 Tablespoons fish sauce
2 bay leaves
1 chili pepper
1 can bamboo shoots
3 skinless, boneless chicken breasts, cut into small chunks

Heat the oil in a large saucepan over a medium heat. Cook the onion for 5 minutes. Add the curry paste and garlic and cook, stirring, for one minute. Add the next four ingredients and heat until bubbling. Add the shoots and chicken, reduce the heat and simmer until the chicken is done. Serve with steamed jasmine rice.