Tofu Omelet with Sweet Peanut Sauce (Tahu Telur)

What does it say about Alex and I that when we were looking through our fridge and the only things we had to make were eggs and tofu my first thought was to make a tofu omelet.  I knew that The Asian Grandmother's Cookbook had a recipe for a tofu omelet and I was pretty sure that we had everything we needed.  Alex kind of laughed about it - of course this was the recipe we came up with after scrounging around in our fridge for a little while with no idea what to make for dinner.  In his opinion most normal people would make spaghetti or chicken parmesan after scrounging around in their fridges, but we made a recipe with esoteric ingredients like shrimp paste, Indonesian sweet soy (ketjap manis) and tofu.  Most people would have to plan ahead and search for ingredients like those.  We just have them.  I said it was a little scary that the second he started talking about eggs and tofu I knew exactly what cookbook had a recipe for a tofu omelet, but otherwise I didn't think it was that weird.  In the spirit of full disclosure I must admit that I spend a lot of time pouring over our cookbooks while sitting on the couch.  I find that flipping through cookbooks while meal planning inspires all sorts of fun ideas.  And I like fun ideas.

This recipe isn't for just anyone.  I know that I talked about the intensely shrimpy and funky nature of shrimp paste when we cooked Water Spinach with Shrimp Paste and Chilis (Kangkung Belacan).  The recipe actually called for black shrimp paste, which is different from the belacan dried shrimp paste that we used for the water spinach.  But we figured that we could use a little of the belacan (less than the recipe called for since black shrimp paste has sugar and water and isn't quite as pungent) and add a little sugar to the sauce to make up for the substitution.  The sauce has a ton of components - fried garlic, chilis, lime juice, Indonesian sweet soy (ketjap manis), peanut butter and water - but less than a teaspoon of shrimp paste still provides it with a distinct funk.  I liked the funk.  I thought it was an acceptable level of funk, but if you're not into funk then leave the shrimp paste out entirely.  The omelet is really hearty and filling, but if you think about it the omelet has 5 eggs and just under a pound of tofu in it.  Of course it's filling.  I was worried that we wouldn't have enough to eat, but I couldn't even finish my half.  Granted, I threw on a few handfuls of pea shoots that I picked up at the farmer's market on Sunday.  The recipe called for celery leaves or cucumber as a garnish, but I wanted to use up my beautiful pea shoots instead.  It was definitely an interesting meal.  I enjoyed it.  I don't think it will be a crowd-pleaser because of the moderately high funk factor and somewhat lame description (a tofu omelet sounds about as exciting as a study in beige), but I'm glad we made it.

Recipe after the jump!

Chicken and Broccoli Stir-Fry

I periodically feel like Alex and I should make more of an effort to eat healthy.  It's not that we are terribly unhealthy eaters, but everyone could use a few diet tweaks from time to time.  Our current diet tweak is to try and eat more vegetables and maybe a few less carbs.  Don't get me wrong, I love carbs and I refuse to cut them out of my diet entirely.  What self-respecting Asian (or half-Asian as the case may be) refuses to eat rice or noodles?  I mean seriously.  But if I can substitute one or two servings of pasta or bread a week with some veggies, then why not?  The tweak actually has a dual purpose.  We end up wasting so much produce every week and I am hoping that this diet tweak will help us stop wasting produce so we can save a little money on groceries.  Groceries are expensive.  We have been pretty good this week with our squash blossoms, sugar snap peas, pea shoots, salads, etc.  And then tonight we had broccoli.  I'm actually planning on cooking more broccoli later this week because I bought two bunches.  My plan right now is to roast the second bunch of broccoli, but I will figure that out later.

The inspiration for this recipe came from Stir-Frying to the Sky's Edge by Grace Young.  She had a recipe for beef with broccoli and it occurred to me that I had a massive chicken breast defrosted in the fridge.  I briefly considered just substituting the chicken for the beef in that recipe, but decided it sounded a little heavy.  The cookbook also has a bunch of recipes that call for velveting chicken (marinating the chicken in a mixture of egg white and cornstarch before stir-frying) and since I had never tried that before I decided to give one of those a try.  So this recipe is actually an adaptation of another recipe in the book for Chinese Indian Chicken Manchurian, which we tweaked a bit before adding some broccoli.  And it was a total success.  The chicken was very moist from the velveting and it had a very tender, silky texture.  It also had a surprising amount of flavor.  Chicken breast is usually the most disappointing part of any stir-fry, dry and bland.  This was the exact opposite.  Not only was the chicken delicious, the broccoli was perfectly cooked and flavorful.  I loved the hint of heat from the chili and the fresh flavors of the scallions and cilantro.  The combination of chicken stock and soy sauce made a really simple and nice stir-fry sauce.  I might use it on future stir-fry variations in the future.  We usually add sesame oil to stir-fry and some rice vinegar, but I didn't miss them at all in this recipe.  It was all a lot fresher and brighter than our normal stir-fries and made me think that maybe simple is better.  A stir-fry made of chicken and one fresh vegetable might just be better than chicken stir-fry with a variety of canned and fresh vegetables.  Just a thought.  In the name of healthy eating we served our stir-fry with brown rice.  Go us.

Recipe after the jump!

Squash Blossom Quesadillas

Along with the snow pea shoots I picked up at the farmers' market yesterday, I grabbed some beautiful squash blossoms.  The few months out of the year when squash blossoms are available I tend to make frittatas with them.  We have tried sauteing them with baby zucchini (not good enough to merit a post) and breading them and "frying" them in the oven (good but not great).  So when I picked up the squash blossoms I was originally contemplating making a frittata with mint or basil and some creamy cheese.  But once I got home and started thinking about it, I changed directions.  I started thinking that the way to go might be quesadillas instead of a frittata.  When I Googled "squash blossom quesadillas" I kept coming across references to recipes using grilled poblano peppers and epazote.  I didn't have any epazote, but I figured I could substitute cilantro instead.  Since literally every recipe I came across called for poblano peppers and I needed to go to the grocery store anyway, I decided it was worth picking up at the store.  So after a crazy work out session (remind me that pilates followed by a really hard spinning class - perhaps the hardest spinning class I have ever taken - is completely nuts), I ran to the grocery store and picked up my poblanos, tortillas and Monterrey Jack cheese.  And then we came home and made lunch.

Quesadillas aren't exactly traditional Fourth of July fare, but they are delicious.  And these were no exception.  We served the quesadillas with homemade pico de gallo (a combination of Roma tomatoes, sweet onion, garlic, cilantro, jalapeno, salt and lime juice).  It was a wonderful meal.  The squash blossoms taste faintly like zucchini and their inherent delicacy makes the quesadillas feel that much lighter.  Yum.  I love summer.

Recipe after the jump!

Asian Flank Steak with Sugar Snap Pea and Pea Shoot Salad

This flank steak had about 10 different mental incarnations.  First I was going to stir fry it with snow peas and serve with pan-friend noodles.  My next idea was to simply season it with salt and pepper, grill it up and serve it with a homemade chimichurri sauce.  Then I was going to make a steak salad of some sort.  Finally I came up with this recipe after I got super excited at the farmer's market and bought some pea shoots.  They were just too beautiful to pass up.  I'm not sure that I have ever had fresh pea shoots in American cuisine, but they are one of my absolute favorite vegetables in Chinese cuisine (dou miao), where they are simply sauteed with garlic.  I love pea shoots cooked that way.  But I don't think I have ever had them raw.  The idea to put them in a salad came from my Cooking in the Moment cookbook by Andrea Reusing where Andrea has a recipe for a Pea Greens with Ume Plum Vinaigrette and Chive Blossoms.  We didn't have enough pea shoots to saute them (unfortunately), but we had a perfect amount for a salad.  So I re-evaluated my flank steak recipe and decided I wanted a vaguely Asian flank steak to go with a vaguely Asian pea shoot salad.  I had a few different ideas for an Asian marinade - the first thing I had to decide was whether I wanted to go Thai/Vietnamese with fish sauce, etc. in the marinade, Japanese with sake, Korean with some sesame oil and Korean red pepper flakes, or Chinese.  I ended up going vaguely Chinese with sherry and soy.  

I thought that these two dishes work together beautifully as a meal.   The flank steak is bold and in your face, with the savory flavors of the soy, the sweetness from the Sherry and the honey, and just a whisper of heat from the sriracha.  Then you contrast the boldness of the flank steak against the subtle flavors of the sugar snap pea and pea shoot salad.  The dressing is not going to blow anyone's mind or change anyone's life, but its subtlety really works to let the delicacy of the fresh pea shoots shine.  I'm a sucker for sesame oil so of course I like the dressing.  I really liked combining the salad and the steak together in each bite because I thought that they complimented each other so well, although both dishes were perfectly fine on their own.  Alex ate them separately and he thought the combination was really nice too.

Recipes after the jump!

Pistachio-Crusted Arctic Char and English Peas with Mint

My first experience with peas was in a casserole that my grandmother prepared.  I want to say that she made the same exact chicken casserole every single time that we visited her; it was something that I began to associate with visits to her house at an early age.  I wouldn't be surprised if there was a nice can of Campbell's Cream of Mushroom soup in there too, but I'm not judging.  I don't think that I had a single fresh pea until I moved to NYC.  They weren't something that we ate at my parents' house.  But I saw fresh English peas at Trader Joe's and thought in the spirit of the season we should get some.  Actually, this dish probably also marks the first time that I had peas as more than a minor component of a dish.  I know you sometimes see peas in chicken pot pie and I generally throw it in there when I make pot pie, but I can't think of a single time that I have ordered or eaten peas by themselves as a side.  I am on a mission to try to expand our vegetable repertoire.  You could say this was something of an experiment.  We eat asparagus and arugula all the time.  They are our go-to vegetables.  When we decide to mix it up we usually move on to some baby spinach, lettuce, Swiss chard, green beans or sugar snap peas (only recently have we begun to play with sugar snaps).  But I really want to add some new veggies and veggie recipes into our catalog.  While I have spent the majority of this post talking about the peas, what I really should discuss is the arctic char.  Char is a fish that I first experienced in NYC.  It's fairly similar to salmon in taste and fat content, although I believe it is a trout.  I'm no fish expert, but I know that I like it.  I found a recipe on Epicurious for Pistachio-Crusted Arctic Char that sounded delicious so I decided to make that along with our peas.  The recipe for the peas was a combination of several recipes I came across, including the one on the label of the peas.  I knew that mint was a natural choice for seasoning peas, but having never made them before I needed some guidance as to cooking time, etc.

So the real winner of this meal was the arctic char, and not the peas.  The basil in the crust got really nice and sweet while roasting in the oven.  The shallot probably contributed to the sweetness too, but what I really tasted was the basil.  The pistachio gave the crust some texture and body - without it the crust would have basically been a sweet basil butter.  While not an amazing fish dish, it was really solid.  The peas on the other side were a little bland and boring.  I guess we didn't use enough salt when we first simmered them and after that nothing we did really gave the peas enough flavor.  In the bites with fresh mint you would get a sense of what the peas would or could taste like if properly cooked and seasoned.  They were also a little starchy, which I guess means we didn't cook them long enough.  Oh well.

Recipes after the jump!

Tacombi at Fonda Nolita

After my pilates class yesterday Alex and I were wandering around Soho trying to figure out what to eat for lunch.  Generally when I do pilates downtown on Saturdays we head down to Chinatown afterwards for dim sum.  But as I mentioned in last night's post on Pork Souvlaki, Alex didn't think that dim sum was appropriate hot weather food.  He either wanted something cold, or just something on the lighter end of the food spectrum.  First I suggested Cocoron for some cold soba, but then I remembered that there was a taco place nearby I had been meaning to try.  Alex agreed that tacos were appropriate hot weather food (his logic was along the lines that Mexico is hot, therefore the food they serve there is hot weather food).  So I busted out my phone and started Googling for tacos in Soho.  I love Google.  And to be honest, I have no idea how I survived before I had a smartphone.  The ability to Google on the go, or do a Yelp search for nearby restaurants is totally key when Alex and I are wandering around NYC trying to decide where to eat.  And then the maps are key once we figure out where we want to go, but don't know exactly how to get there.  Anyway, after about 15 seconds on Google I found what I was looking for - Tacombi @ Fonda Nolita.  As you can see in the picture above, Tacombi @ Fonda Nolita features an old school VW van parked inside what looks like a former garage.  According to NY Mag the space actually used to be a clothing store, but that is beside the point.  The idea with Tacombi was to replicate the feeling of a taco truck at the beach in Mexico (the original Tacombi, launched by the owner of Tacombi @ Fonda Nolita, was actually parked in Playa del Carmen).  The idea is really interesting and I'm of the opinion that it is totally successful.  When you walk in the first thing you notice is the VW van, but then you start noticing the rest of the decor.  It easily could come off as cheesy, but I think it really works to make the place low key and fun.  After a brief primer on how to order and pay (you buy tickets at the counter and then take the tickets to one of two windows for your food - the VW van has all of the meat and vegetarian options, the window in the back has the breakfast tacos and fish tacos), we picked out 6 tacos (3 from each window) and sat down to eat.

Pictures and our favorite taco after the jump!

Pork Souvlaki

When I was younger my parents used to take me to this a food court in a mall near our house where I would eat pork souvlaki.  Looking back on it I'm not sure if their souvlaki was actually any good or not, but I sure liked it (although I certainly didn't know any better at the time).  My parents liked it too and I assume that they had a better basis for judging the quality of the souvlaki.  For the record, this wasn't one of those typically terrible food courts that you find in most malls and airports; it was better than average and offered options beyond Panda Express and Sbarro's.  Since then I have tried the pork souvlaki at various restaurants (rather than food courts), but I have never made it at home.  We had some pork shoulder defrosted for a stir-fry that I had intended to make tonight for dinner, but a comment Alex made this morning when we were discussing lunch about wanting hot weather food rather than dim sum resonated with me.  As a side note, we both decided that the appropriate food for hot weather was tacos, but more on that later.  So when I started thinking about dinner I decided that wasn't really in the mood for stir-fry because it struck me as heavy.  Somehow souvlaki sounded lighter and more appropriate for hot weather.  So we made souvlaki instead.

And it was delicious.  The pork was so moist and tender, plus it had great flavor.  We let it marinate for just over 4 hours, but it really picked up a lot of flavor from the marinade in that time.  I wonder how much more flavor it would have absorbed if we had left it to marinate overnight?  I guess I will have to find out next time!  You can clearly taste the lemon, garlic and oregano, all of which scream Greek food to me.  We served the pork with some tzatziki and a fattoush salad - a recipe that I tried out for the first time just over a year ago.  It's a marvelous salad, with flavors that totally complimented the souvlaki.  Actually, this meal was so successful that I think I am going to try out some spanakopita later this weekend!

Recipe after the jump!