Chicken schnitzel doesn't exactly sound sexy (if I had to pick a sexy-sounding schnitzel it would be duck schnitzel like the one they serve at The Marrow). And it doesn't look sexy. But I feel like I keep running across recipes for it lately and honestly, schnitzel can be really tasty (provided it's not dried out and flavorless, which can be a serious problem with chicken breasts and/or pork). Alex and I have long been fans of breading and cooking chicken. Generally we bread the chicken with some panko and/or cornflakes and throw it in the oven because it's easy and the breading tends to fall off on us when we try to cook it in a pan. But this recipe worked out beautifully - the panko was beautifully golden brown and crispy and the chicken was cooked through without being dry. And none of the breading fell off! Plus when you added the piccata sauce it makes everything that much more delicious. Who doesn't love browned butter with capers and lemon juice? I think chicken schnitzel always needs a sauce because
the breading often isn't seasoned and even though the chicken breasts here weren't
all dried out and overcooked, it's still boneless, skinless chicken
breast with breading. By definition the combination is a little dry. This piccata sauce works nicely, but a spicy sriracha mayo (or a simple squirt of lemon juice) works too.
As for the asparagus salad, I love asparagus salads. And this one worked nicely with the chicken schnitzel because it is crisp, bright and acidic. It cuts through the slight richness of the chicken nicely. This isn't my favorite raw asparagus salad that we have ever made, but it was really nice and fresh, but the dressing gives it a little creamyness and umami. I would make it again.
Recipes after the jump!
Hurray for fresh asparagus! Before I go on I should disclose that I bought about 3 lbs of fresh asparagus at the farmers' market this week (along with a LOT of other fresh produce, some of which we already used) and as of today we have only used about half of it. So you can expect a few more asparagus recipes shortly. We already made a much lazier version of this Spring Salad of Asparagus, Ramps, Snap Peas, and Peas, with Poached Egg and Lemon Vinaigrette and we are planning on making some asparagus tacos tomorrow. We will have to wait and see how much asparagus we have left after that, but I'm thinking it will be enough for at least one more dish.
I guess I should turn to this salad. I bought My Pizza by Jim Lahey roughly two years ago but we haven't had the opportunity to use it much. There are a ton of delicious looking pizzas in there (one of which I am considering for our remaining asparagus), but there are also some nice salads and other appetizers. For us it has become one of those cookbooks I always mean to use, but somehow never do. I need to fix that because this salad was one of the easiest and tastiest things we have made at home recently. The combination of asparagus, avocado, lime and mint isn't an intuitive one for me but it works really nicely. I was worried this salad would be a little too simple, but it works - it's really simple, but the avocado makes it creamy and a little indulgent and the fresh farmers' market asparagus has a lovely grassy sweetness. Our lime was a little stingy on the juice so I would recommend tasting and adding more lime juice to taste (or a little lime zest if your limes are similarly stingy). This is a dish I can definitely see us making in the future - it's perfect on days where you just don't want to turn on the stove and/or oven, but a mixed green salad doesn't work. It makes a really good side dish that could work with a number of entrees, but I can see myself serving it for brunch with a simple frittata or omelet and some fresh fruit. I don't think I would pair it with pasta, but it could also work nicely with some homemade pizza. I would probably do a simple pizza without too much cheese and meat - maybe a margherita or stracciatella pizza or a pizza with prosciutto and arugula. My Pizza also has a spinach pizza called a Popeye Pie that I would pair this with.
Recipe after the jump!
We have made a bunch of variations on this salad before with our Spicy "Fried" Chicken Cutlets. We tend to vary the type of greens, the dressing and the veggies that go in the salad, but this might be my favorite combination yet. I thought the buttermilk dressing was really nicely fresh and tangy and it worked really well with the spicy "fried" chicken. I have always been hesitant to use mayonnaise in salad dressing, but it worked beautifully here. Now that I have learned my lesson I won't be such a chicken in the future when it comes to using mayonnaise in my salad dressings and/or sauces. You can include any number of veggies (we had cucumbers and radishes in the fridge) and any salad green (baby spinach this time) so consider those ingredients as mere suggestions, but I highly recommend the combination of the dressing and the chicken!
Recipe after the jump!
I love kale salads. And yet, so many of the ones we make at home are vaguely disappointing. I feel like it's tough to strike the right balance with a kale salad - you need the dressing to be fairly assertive because kale is a hearty little green with a slightly bitter flavor. If you try to dress it the same way you would dress baby spinach or really tender young salad greens with a light balsamic vinaigrette it's just not going to work out. But sometimes the dressing just goes a little too far in the wrong direction and gets too assertive and you lose the kale. I have been trying for months to come up with a spicy Asian kale salad with cashews (for some reason I am really stuck on the cashews) and I keep failing. The first time the dressing wasn't flavorful enough and the second time it was too harsh. It was a bummer. But this recipe is a wonderful quasi-Asian take on a kale salad that combines two of my favorite greens/vegetables - kale and brussels sprouts. It has great flavor - bright fresh herbs, slightly bitter greens, and fried greens all tossed in a spicy fish sauce vinaigrette. And it has wonderful texture. But I should point out that it is labor intensive. Alex took one look at the recipe and his comment was "at least you picked a simple recipe for dinner." I believe my response was along the lines of if he does the menu planning in the future he can avoid over-complicated salad recipes, but until then... We will make at least one change in the future to simplify the recipe a bit - roasting the kale and brussels sprout leaves in the oven saves us the time, aggravation and oil spatter of frying them in small batches. I really liked the crispy texture and the nutty, concentrated flavor of the fried kale and brussels sprouts because it added depth of flavor and additional texture to the salad. But you can achieve a nearly identical result (without risking third degree burns) by roasting the kale and brussels sprouts in the oven. I'm also tempted to try to transform this into an entree salad by serving it with some tofu (we might roast that too) or shrimp. I will probably play with it a little more, but I really liked this salad and aside from tinkering with the cooking method out of self-preservation and laziness, there isn't anything else I can think of that I would change to the base recipe. As a side note, just because I found this recipe doesn't mean I am going to quit my quest to find a perfect spicy Asian kale salad. I'll get there eventually.
P.S. The picture sucks because we misplaced the memory card for our camera and had to use my cell phone. And my iPhone 5s (which has otherwise taken excellent pictures) absolutely and utterly refused to cooperate.
Recipe after the jump!
The summer is officially over which means that heirloom tomatoes will be disappearing from the farmers' market any day now. To be perfectly honest, the best ones are probably already gone. Every time I walked by a farmers' market in the months of August/September with a decent heirloom tomato selection I couldn't seem to stop myself from picking up another handful (or two) of tomatoes. At least half of the heirloom tomatoes ended up in tomato-mozzarella salads and the like, but I do occasionally feel the need to experiment a bit. I'm currently in a bit of a panzanella phase so I keep making tomato salads with giant croutons of sorts tossed in. I also included a variation on a fattoush in this post that we modified from a Susan Feniger recipe from her Street Food cookbook, but aside from the spices, the salad reminded me more of a panzanella because the bread was olive bread, cut into large croutons, rather than smaller pieces of crispy pita.
My favorite of these three salads was probably the panzanella. It had the right balance of tomato and acidity with the pickled shallots. I might take those shallots and use them in other dishes because I thought they really worked. My second favorite was the heirloom tomato salad with pomegranate-sumac dressing. I thought the flavor of the pomegranate-sumac dressing with the herbs and shallots on top was really nice. My only complaint was that the sumac left it a little gritty. And you have to like the flavor of pomegranate molasses in order for this dish to work for you. You rarely see pomegranate molasses left to shine on its own in quite this way and the rather concentrated sweetness might throw some people. And the sweetness of the pomegranate sweetness masks a bit of the natural sweetness of the tomatoes themselves. As for the fattoush it was my least favorite of the three. I really thought it was going to be amazing, but it was a little heavy and it just wasn't as vibrant and fresh as the other two salads. The heirloom tomatoes just got a little lost.
Recipes (and more pictures) after the jump!
A few weeks ago Alex and I were at an impasse. We have been too busy to cook and when we do cook, we cook the same things over and over again because they are easy. But I picked up some little gem lettuce and we had a huge basil plant from the farmers' market and I wanted to do something fun with them. So we made this salad. My original plan was to pick up a rotisserie chicken from Citarella and throw it on top, but they were sold out by the time I made it to the store. So we ended up making this salad along with an heirloom tomato and fresh mozzerella salad with even more of the fresh basil. As far as this salad went, I wished the dressing had a little more umph to it. It was good. I liked it. And I always like homemade croutons. But I wanted a little more rich, nutty flavor from the anchovy and more basil flavor. Also, in the future I will probably stem and hand tear my little gem lettuce. We left the cute little heads of lettuce mostly whole here, which meant that the dressing didn't really penetrate into the heart of each head of little gem. The next time I get my hands on little gem lettuce there is a Nancy Silverton recipe I want to try in her Mozza cookbook. But lord only knows when I will find more little gem lettuce at Fairway as well as the free time to cook, so it could be some time before we get around to it...
Recipe after the jump!
Here's another salad for you courtesy of the farmers' market. Work is busy enough that I only have the opportunity to cook/eat 1-2 meals per week at home so I really want to take advantage of the produce at the farmers' market and make great meals when I can. This salad started with the peaches. I love the smell of fresh peaches, but I just can't get into eating them solo. It's the fuzz on the skin that really throws me. But when you combine fresh peaches with other ingredients in a salad or crostini I really enjoy it. Go figure. I was going to make this Grilled Peach Panzanella Salad but I thought it would be fun to try something new. Since I really liked the combination of prosciutto, peaches and dairy in the crostini I wanted to make a salad that used those ingredients. This Tyler Florence recipe fit the bill perfectly. It wasn't the most amazing salad we have made but it was fun and different. I liked the crispy prosciutto and the fennel. We don't use fennel a lot, but it is really growing on me. The anise flavor and the crunch of the fennel works beautifully in a salad. While the salad was nice, it didn't really come together for me. If you had a bite with equivalent amounts of every single ingredient in it, it wasn't bad, but if you had a bite without the prosciutto it lacked seasoning/salt. It was still yummy, but it wasn't quite as delicious as I had hoped for.
I'm hoping that work will slow down enough for us to make a few more farmers' market-inspired meals. At the very least I have a few more to post about, including the Corn Som Tam with Rock Shrimp we made this afternoon.
Recipe after the jump.
I know I referenced this recipe weeks ago and promised to post about it. And then I didn't. This isn't going to be the longest post ever but I know myself and if I don't get something up about it now it's not going to happen. So here goes. This recipe was the first recipe we made from Hugh Achesons' cookbook and I loved it. The serrano chili vinaigrette is not shy - it's spicy. But it works really nicely with the sweet watermelon. If you don't like spice, you should cut the number of chilis in half (or seed some of the chilis). We like spice so we went whole hog, but I think it would be a little too spicy for a lot of people. Anyway, I know we have made a number of watermelon salads on this blog (I have a thing for watermelon salad), but this might have been my favorite one ever. It had a perfect balance of salty, sweet and spice. Sometimes the cheese can throw off the sweetness and freshness of the watermelon (particularly if your watermelon isn't very sweet), but this salad retained all of the fresh and bright flavors that I love and added some kick. We did cut back on the amount of cheese slightly, but that was due to the fact that we ran out (not because I made the strategic decision to do so). I thought the amount of feta was fine as we made it so I will probably continue to use a little less cheese than the amount the recipe calls for in future watermelon salads. But if you want a fun and funky take on a classic summertime treat, make this salad. If your tastes are at all similar to mine, you will love it.
Recipe after the jump!
Sometimes my meal planning get a little weird. Take this salad for instance. We made it for lunch last Sunday. We had 3/4 of a head of red cabbage leftover in the fridge from our shrimp tostadas and I wanted to do something different with it. This seemed to fit the bill. I wanted something salad-like, but a little more filling than slaw and I didn't want to go out and buy a dozen ingredients in order to make an Asian chicken salad. So I poked around a bit online and this is what I came up with. We still had to go out to buy the pancetta because we don't typically keep it in the apartment but I didn't need to buy (and then chop) a ton of veggies. When we made this Saigon Chicken Salad for example, it took almost 30 minutes to prep and chop all of the ingredients. The green papaya alone took forever. The only things that required chopping here were the red cabbage itself and the pancetta, shallot, almonds and parsley. I considered that pretty easy. Granted, Alex did most of the chopping and prepping (although I did chop the cabbage) because I was doing work. But it looked fairly easy to put together. And it was tasty. I liked the combination of different flavors and textures. The sweetness of the currants and balsamic was a nice match for the crispy, salty, porky pancetta, the crunchy almonds and the crispness of the cabbage. It worked on a number of fun and interesting levels. One thing I will say - the leftover salad kind of creeped me out. I brought it into work on Tuesday and the dressing had turned gritty and strange. I had a few bites and tossed the rest. Don't let that deter you from making the salad in the first place, but don't plan on making extra salad for leftovers.
Recipe after the jump!
We are currently on a bit of a Korean kick. We made six (Belated) Chinese New Year meals (I know that I still owe you guys one (Belated) Chinese New Year meal) and then a bunch of southeast Asian meals. Now we have cycled through to Korean or Korean-inspired meals. Randomly enough, we even went out to dinner at a Korean restaurant last night. The inspiration for this meal actually came from a vegan food truck that I like called The Cinnamon Snail. About a month ago I tried one of their dishes that they served with a kale salad. I liked the dish, but I liked the kale salad better. And two weeks ago I tried another of their dishes (Korean barbeque seitan) that also had kale in it. The kale in both dishes had a spicy vaugly Korean flavor to it. When I noticed how nice the Tuscan kale looked at Fairway last week I decided to buy a few bunches and try to make a Korean-y kale salad. And then I started thinking that if I was going to do a Korean-y kale salad I could probably figure out some sort of Korean-y seafood recipe to go with it. Cod immediately came to mind and I went home and did some Google research and came up with these two recipes. The kale salad (recipe available here) wasn't eactly what I was looking for, but I figured it was easy and would give me somewhere to start. I wanted to add some salted cashews but by the time I got home and went for the cashews Alex told he he had finished them off as his afternoon snack. Oh well.
Both dishes were a little salty for me, but otherwise good. I thought the cod had nice flavor - a little spicy, a little sweet. I liked it. Our cod fell apart when I tried to flip it but we have a pretty good habit of ruining fish so there is nothing new there. Alex massacred one of our Dover sole filets the other night too. At least he only destroyed one fillet - I managed to destroy both here (although I reassembled one of them nicely for the photos). I am going to keep working on the salad to perfect it. I like kale salads better when the kale is cut into thin strips (I find it easier to eat that way), although I left the kale in larger pieces for this recipe because it was going to be sauteed briefly in the warm dressing. In the future I would probably skip the step of sauteing the kale in the warm dressing and if I wanted to wilt the kale down, I would make a warm dressing and pour it over top of the kale (like this Korean-Style Romaine).
Recipes after the jump!
Last night Alex and I decided at the last minute to invite his brother over for dinner. I'm ashamed to admit that a large part of the reason for inviting him over for dinner was entirely selfish - I wanted to make this salad and I knew that making it for just Alex and I would be a little ridiculous. On Friday morning I swung by Whole Foods on my way to work and I picked up some really beautiful Tuscan kale. I knew I wanted to make a salad with it, but I wanted to make something different. We have made several different kale salads in the past (many of which were either Caesar-like or featured a lemony vinaigrette and cheese combo) and I wanted something new. I have looked up this recipe several times and considered making it, but the timing (and/or the contents of our fridge) never seemed right. Luckily we had both Tuscan kale and Brussels sprouts in the fridge yesterday and with a third person at the dinner table it didn't seem quite as ridiculous to make a heaping bowl of kale and Brussels sprouts salad. And even more luckily, I really loved this salad. It had everything - a the tangy mustardy vinaigrette, salty cheese, crunchy nuttiness from the almonds... We have made several kale salads in the past where our chief complaint was that the salad was missing something crunchy and/or buttery (e.g. croutons or toasted nuts). This recipe felt, for lack of a better word, "complete" - I can't think of anything that it was missing or anything that I would really change. Some of the reviews on Epicurious complained that the recipe doesn't create enough dressing. I like my salads to be lightly dressed so it was perfect for me (and I used the entire amount of dressing), but if you like a little more dressing on your salad I would suggest making a little additional dressing. Some reviewers suggested doubling the dressing so take that into consideration when you make the salad - I would say look at how much shredded Brussels sprouts and kale you have and go from there. And be a little more generous than you think you need to be. I think it also helped that we dressed the salad about 30 minutes prior to sitting down to eat so the kale and Brussels sprouts had some time to hang out in the dressing and wilt down a teensy bit. Other reviewers added pomegranate seeds to the recipe. I'm not sure that the pomegranates are necessary in my book, but it's an option. I would serve this salad at any dinner party - it is different, full of flavor and delicious. You can also throw it together far in advance of dinner (although you might not want to dress it too far ahead) and just let it hang out while you prepare the rest of dinner. I think it would make a wonderful counterpoint to a rich holiday meal or an interesting addition to a potluck dinner. I will definitely be making this salad again and I'm pretty excited that between this recipe and the Mediterranean Salad with Prosciutto and Pomegranate I have two new delicious and festive salad recipes for future dinner parties. Of course, future dinner parties are going to have to wait until we get out a one bedroom apartment in NYC, but that's ok.
Recipe after the jump!
What do you do when you know you are going to be traveling constantlyfor the next 2-3 weeks and (1) your fridge is full of random vegetables and (2) you know that due to traveling you will be eating burgers and chili on the mountain in California/Nevada, BBQ in Texas and other heavy meals, rather than salads and seafood? If you're anything like me, you make random salads and/or random roast vegetables. Or you get lazy and combine the two and top a bed of baby arugula with roast cauliflower. And when you discover that you have some bacon left over from the Bacon Braised Cabbage you throw that in there too. Sometimes my randomness works out and sometimes it just doesn't. Luckily, this salad ended up working out really well. There were a lot of textures and flavors that came together beautifully to make a nice salad. Roasting the cauliflower in a 425 degree oven for 45 minutes made it nice and nutty and sweet and the sweetness was further augmented by the shallots and a scant teaspoon of honey. The crispy bacon added a hit of wonderful smoky, porky flavor, which made the salad feel warm and rich. Then there was the hit of acidity from the red wine vinegar, the peppery flavor of the arugula and the butteriness of lightly toasted pine nuts. It was a winner for me - fulfilling the dual goals of clearing out the fridge and providing me with a moderately healthy (it would have been much healthier had we omitted the bacon, but bacon makes everything better) meal.
Recipe after the jump!
I know it's a little déclassé, but I have a real soft spot for egg salad. I picked up my love of egg salad at sleep away camp in elementary school and it has been one of my guilty pleasures ever since then. My only problem is that I am a little picky when it comes to egg salad due to my pesky aversion to mayonnaise. I take one look at most egg salads and run for the hills. I think I can count on one hand the number of places whose egg salad I have been brave enough to taste. First there was a bagel place near my first apartment in NYC whose egg salad I cautiously ordered after my first 6 months of staring at it skeptically - it was pretty good, but not amazing. And then there was the egg salad sandwich I ordered at an airport in Canada on my way to Whistler (I can't remember if it was Montreal or Toronto, but I think it was Montreal) that was full of herbs (I remember tarragon, chives and chervil) and absolutely delicious. I have tried to recreate it at home but my version has never lived up to the original (partially because I have a really tough time finding chervil at the grocery store). Last week I was really close to ordering a simit (a Turkish bagel) with sumac egg salad from Simit and Smith, but I chickened out and ordered the simit with salmon, red onion and cream cheese instead. The funny thing is that I haven't been able to get that sumac egg salad out of my mind ever since. And then I was poking around the various food blogs I like yesterday and stumbled across a recipe for Egg Salad with Pickled Celery and Coarse Dijon on Smitten Kitchen and I decided that it was fate - I had to make egg salad. I briefly considered adding some sumac to the Smitten Kitchen Recipe and then decided to save the sumac for another day. I always add coarse dijon mustard and minced shallot to my egg salad (and often to tuna salad as well) because I love the flavor and texture of both, but the addition of pickled celery really intrigued me. I often use finely chopped celery in tuna salad, but pickling it first had never occurred to me.
So there I was, in the midst of cooking Tuesday night's dinner, while hard-boiling eggs and also assembling ingredients for the marinade for last night's dinner. The kitchen was a disaster area. Alex took one look and told me I was getting a little elaborate and/or crazy. But thus far, everything has turned out wonderfully and I'm hopeful that tonight's dinner will be equally wonderful. I ate a couple spoonfuls of the egg salad last night because I couldn't resist (both before and after the addition of the pickled celery and I thought the pickled celery really made a difference), and served the rest of it today over a bed of mixed greens with some whole wheat sourdough that I toasted until warm and crunchy. It was absolutely lovely - the perfect light meal that was both nostalgic and delicious. The pickled celery added a nice crunch and some brightness and acidity, while the minced shallots added a little sweetness and more crunch. It was reminiscent of my own egg salad, but better. And I am not too proud to admit it. I think I am in love.
Recipe after the jump!
I have to be honest - sometimes I make food because it is just too darn pretty to resist. Look at this salad for one. My picture doesn't do it justice, but if you check out the original recipe at Bon Appetit and the version from Smitten Kitchen, it's just gorgeous and so very festive - I love the colors of the white bowl or platter, the greens, the proscuitto and the pomegranate. And I love the combination of proscuitto and fruit, whether it's pomegranate or melon. The fennel made me a little nervous because neither Alex nor I is particularly enamored of the licorice/anise flavor of fennel, but sometimes you have to live a little. When I was thinking of a salad to go with the Spicy Chickpea Soup I was making for dinner I jumped at the opportunity to make this one and then didn't bother to tell Alex what I was making, except to say that he would like it because it includes one of his favorite ingredients. I believe Alex said something along the lines of "sure" and then went back to fighting the good fight with Turbotax. When I put the salad out on the dinner table I was hoping that it was every bit as tasty as it looked and it absolutely was. The pomegranate seeds gave the salad a wonderfully sweet and tart flavor that balanced nicely against the salty porky flavor of the prosciutto and the anise flavor of the fennel. For those of you who might worry about the inclusion of the fennel, I think that tossing it in evoo and salt prior to adding it into the salad mellowed out the intense flavor of the fennel. I was pleasantly surprised by how well it worked in the salad.
And given how much we both liked the salad, I think it definitely made the cut for recipes that we will making again in the future. I would definitely serve this salad for company (or for the holidays) because it looks and tastes fancy, even though it is supremely easy to throw together. I know this is completely superficial but it would look so perfect on the table for Christmas dinner or any dinner party, and sometimes, you just want to look perfect.
Recipe after the jump!
In my last trip to the grocery store I decided that I needed to buy more vegetables that get overlooked in our apartment. I wasn't looking for vegetables that we never make, but for vegetables that we make from time to time, but with no real regularity. Broccoli rabe was an obvious candidate, as was cabbage. And I threw in some beets for good measure because I love them and as far as I am concerned, we don't make them enough. But somehow none of our usual recipes appealed. So I decided to try this recipe for Moroccan Beet Salad with Cinnamon from Serious Eats. I wasn't sure if I would be serving the beets by themselves or over a bed of greens, but as soon as I took my first bite of the beets I knew I wanted to serve them as a salad. So I threw together a quick salad with what we had in the fridge - a few large handfuls of mixed greens, toasted hazelnuts and some Coach Farm goat ricotta. And I topped it all with the beets and their dressing. Speaking of the dressing, it worked really nicely as salad dressing - I loved the aroma and warmth of the cinnamon. I had never paired cinnamon and beets together before but I liked the combination a lot. I have never added sugar to my beets before, but I thought together with the lemon juice it amped up the sweetness just enough without making the beets too sweet. The tangy goat ricotta was a nice counterpoint to the sweetness of the dressing, although you could use any number of cheeses instead of goat ricotta (which I admit is not exactly the easiest thing to find at the grocery store). The hazelnuts provided a really nice crunch, although it wouldn't be the end of the world if you omited them in the future. And I'm sure some toasted pinenuts would work nicely too and would give the salad a nice buttery flavor. Obviously you could serve the beets as is, without the rest of the salad, but I thought they were really nice this way.
Recipe after the jump!
This dish was something I randomly came up with one night a few weeks ago while trying to decide how to use the shrimp I had defrosted. I started thinking that we hadn't had an entree salad in awhile and then started thinking about what kind of shrimp salad I could make that would be interesting enough to appeal to Alex (who isn't a huge fan of the entree salad genre but goes along with it to humor me). I started kicking around ideas in my head until I came up with the idea of doing a quasi-Indian tandoori shrimp salad - marinating the shrimp tandoori style, crisping up some garlic naan to use as croutons and rounding out the salad with the cucumber, red onion and radishes we already had in the fridge. When I hit the grocery store to pick up some salad greens and the naan I decided that baby spinach sounded like the obvious choice. Then I decided that some grape tomatoes would be another nice addition to the salad. And then I went home and started wildly throwing stuff together.
My favorite elements of the salad were the shrimp (even though we overcooked them they had nice flavor) and the whole garlic naan as crouton idea. Unfortunately, overcooking seemed to be something of a theme because I wandered off and crisped up the naan a little more than I had intended. Oops. I also love salads full of herbs and random veggies. Adding herbs to salads is somewhat new to me (and I only do it occasionally), but ever since I had a salad at The Spotted Pig that included some fresh mint I have been intrigued by the idea of using herbs (in moderation) in salads. Now that I think about it there was an Asian salad I was obsessed with over the summer at Chop't that also included herbs. Unfortunately they rotate their menu of salads and that salad is no longer available, but I have high hopes that it will be back next summer. The dressing was also nice - I liked the interplay between the tang of the Greek yogurt, the hint of sweetness from the honey and the warmth from the spices. I would definitely try the dressing again and play with the spices until I found the perfect combination (I think the combination we found was a good one and worked really well with the salad, but I'm sure that there are a lot of different variations that would be just as good, if not better).
Recipe after the jump!
Two weeks ago I was struck with a vicious Vietnamese chicken salad craving. I wanted cabbage, peanuts, poached chicken, dressed with lime juice and fish sauce. Unfortunately, I couldn't figure out a single place near my office that serves Vietnamese chicken salad so I had to go without. And last weekend I decided that if I couldn't find a restaurant that would serve me Vietnamese chicken salad I would just make some for myself. First I had to go down to Chinatown to buy all of the various ingredients - it goes without saying that the grocery stores on the UWS aren't exactly chock full of things like long beans, green papaya and Thai shrimp paste. And then after we bought all of the ingredients we spent what seemed like several hours, chopping, cleaning and prepping the various salad ingredients. Peeling, de-seeding and chopping up the green papaya felt like it took 30 minutes alone. Once you add in all of the other ingredients that needed to be julienned/chopped/shredded - tomatoes, cucumbers, carrot, napa cabbage, long beans, etc., it's no wonder that this salad took forever to prepare. Even the nuoc cham dressing was more labor-intensive than usual. I have never toasted shrimp paste for a nuoc cham before. But I will be the first to admit that the dressing was pretty kickass. We were worried that it would be overly salty/fishy but it worked beautifully. I would use this dressing on any future Vietnamese chicken salad attempts. Actually, I would use it on any variation on a Vietnamese salad - shrimp, beef or chicken, noodle-based or not. It was that good. The only problem is that the dressing does not improve with age. By the next day the dressing had lost its piquancy and the salad just seemed a little limp and sad. But the day that we made the salad it really hit the spot. It was bright and flavorful, as well as full of crunch and texture. I really enjoyed the combination of the various ingredients (although it was pretty painful to chop and prep all of the vegetables) and I thought that the chicken itself was very tender and flavorful. In the end, I think the two things that I would definitely use again from this recipe are the marinade/cooking method for the chicken and the recipe for the nuoc cham. While I enjoyed them, I'm not sure that the green papaya and long beans added enough to the salad for me to trek down to Chinatown every time I want a Vietnamese chicken salad. And I probably won't go out and buy a whole bunch of celery just for the celery leaves again. I can (and probably will) make a passable version of the salad with just chicken, cucumbers, carrots, cabbage, cilantro and peanuts.
Recipe after the jump!
First things first - the hurricane hit and we are A-OK. I know that much of lower Manhattan (as well as various suburbs and boroughs of Manhattan) are underwater and without power, but we survived pretty much unscathed. While we were cooped up in the apartment we ended up cooking quite a bit, so this is going to be one large post containing a number of new recipes that we made over the past few days, in no particular order. We also made a bunch of recipes that we have made before (like these Buttermilk Biscuits with Green Onions, Black Pepper and Sea Salt) And due to the weather, we don't have pictures of all of the recipes, which is unfortunate, but what can you do?
First up is this brussels sprouts recipe, which I saw on Serious Eats and got really excited about because it couldn't be easier. Once I started reading further I realized that it is a little finnicky and tedious in that you are supposed to make sure all brussels sprouts are first added to the pan cut-side down, and then "turn each sprout over carefully on its back" after the brussels sprouts have seared up nicely on the cut side. We cut corners a bit and weren't as precise in the cooking process as perhaps we could have been. Things I will use from this recipe - the cooking method. You get an unreal amount of caramelization on the brussels sprouts in a fairly short time period. I would probably try different vinegars and seasonings in the future, but it was a beautifully simple recipe. You got nice sweetness from the balsamic, balanced nicely against the nutty flavor of the caramelized brussels sprouts. It wasn't the most amazing recipe I have ever made, but it was a really nice, simple side.
Now for the Mexican chicken soup. This was something of a day long endeavor. I started prepping the stock while on a conference call at 11:00 am. The stock took about an hour to prepare, before we let the chicken cool in the stock for another few hours. Around 6:30-7 pm we got started on making the soup to serve to some of our neighbors. It smelled wonderful while it simmered away. By the time the soup was ready I was really hungry and excited to finally taste it. We don't often go to the trouble to make homemade stock and every time we do it really excites me because soup made with homemade stock is better than soup made with boxed stock by several orders of magnitude. And when you make homemade stock you can season and modify your stock so that the flavors best suit the soup you are preparing. This time I added various ingredients that are typical of chicken stock (onions, carrots, celery, thyme, garlic, bay leaves) and a few ingredients that I think of as being typically Mexican (chilis and cilantro). I think that the flavors of the soup were really interesting. I was a little worried about the texture of the blended hominy and chilis, but it ended up being nicely thick and hearty. The chilis gave the soup a nice slightly sweet, slightly spicy flavor. I will definitely be making the soup again because it's great cold weather fare and pretty simple.
Now for the Lettuce in Sesame Sauce. I'm not really sure what there is to say about this recipe - I have a feeling that the sesame sauce is not going to appeal to a lot of palates. I told Alex I thought the salad would go really nicely with a batch of Sichuan Dumplings in Chili Oil. The combination of the thick and nutty sesame sauce would be nicely offset by the sweetness and heat of the chili oil. We ate it with fried rice, which wasn't the most ideal pairing, but we had a limited selection of ingredients left by Tuesday afternoon...
Recipe after the jump!
I don't know why I am always experimenting with different salad recipes. I have a few go-to greens (baby arugula and big mix from 5 lbs of Dirt are the most common salad greens in our apartment) but we tend to mix it up with dressings and ingredients. I bought some nice blue cheese at my new favorite cheese shop last weekend (more on that later) and I have been trying to figure out what kind of salad to make with my cheese. I thought about getting some pears and doing roasted pears with blue cheese over salad greens, but decided to go with this salad because it used ingredients we already had in the apartment. My one complaint with the salad was that this salad dressing combined with the dried cranberries (which for the record were unsweetened) was a little sweet for me. I would probably cut back a little more on the amount of maple syrup or use a more bitter green. The big mix is fairly bitter because it has baby kale and chard and mustard greens in it, but it' not as bitter as some other greens. I definitely would tone the dressing down before using it with something as mild as baby spinach. When you got a bite that combined all of the ingredients the blue cheese and the toasted pecans really helped to cut through the sweetness of the dressing. But there were a few bites with just lettuce and the sweetness was a little overwhelming. I think there are other salads with blue cheese and fruit out there that do a better job of striking a balance between the pungent flavor of the blue cheese and the sweetness of the fruit or the dressing.
Recipe after the jump!
Every time we use our Andrea Reusing cookbook I am reminded of how much I enjoyed her restaurant Lantern
in Chapel Hill. It is a phenomenal place. Her cookbook features a
different type of cuisine than the restaurant did (the restaurant was
Asian-inspired, whereas the cookbook is very seasonal and American), but
it really is lovely. We should use the cookbook more than we do
because it really is great for seasonal meals made of ingredients we
picked up from the farmers' market. The recipes are not overly
complicated and the ingredients are often relatively easy to find. The
next few recipes I have bookmarked to try are her Spinach with Melted
Leeks and Cardamom, her Roasted Spareribs with Crushed Fennel and Red Chiles and her Sauteed Savoy Cabbage with Speck and Lemon.
The savoy cabbage might actually happen later this week since we just so
happen to have both savoy cabbage and speck in the refrigerator right
now.
This particular salad recipe has been on my list of recipes to try for some time now - one of the first that I bookmarked and decided that I wanted to try when I bought the cookbook. Some salads fall into the category of being both incredibly seasonal and delicious. This salad falls among them. Roast mushrooms scream fall to me - warm, savory, nutty and richly flavorful. Sherry vinegar, shallots, garlic and parsley are all natural pairing for mushrooms but combining the mushrooms with frisee, lemon juice and chives was new to me. The dressing lightened and brightened up the umami flavor of the mushrooms, while the frisee gave it a hint of bitterness that was balanced out by the sweetness of the roasted shallots. And the garlicky croutons gave the salad both texture and flavor. I loved the roughly torn look and the crunch of the croutons. The original recipe called for 1 1/2 pounds of mushrooms, but I drew the limit at spending $30 at the farmers' market on wild mushrooms. And I kept the amount of the other ingredients the same so that it was more of a salad with roasted mushrooms, rather than a side of roast mushrooms tossed with a little frisee. After eating this dish (and walking home from the grocery store in the cool rain) I have to say that fall is officially here.
Recipe after the jump!
