Roast Broccolini with Parsley, Garlic and Anchovies and Salt and Pepper Salmon

For whatever reason, broccolini is a vegetable that we don't often make in our apartment.  I honestly don't know why that is because I love broccolini.  Broccoli I can take or leave, but broccolini is delicious.  Broccoli has a tendency to turn to mush, but I find that well-cooked broccolini has a really nice tender consistency and sweetness that I thoroughly enjoy.  It also adapts to different flavor profiles and cooking methods fairly easily.  I generally saute broccolini, but I have found that roasting it gives it a nice nutty flavor.  I adapted this dish from a recipe in Cooking in the Moment, which called for broccoli rather than broccolini and grilling rather than roasting.  But I figured that the sauce that the broccoli was tossed in sounded intriguing.  So I went ahead and modified the recipe and we served the broccolini with our favorite Salt and Pepper Salmon.  I can't believe that I haven't posted the salmon recipe before (although I know that I have included the link to the recipe in several of my past posts), but if you have a really nice center-cut salmon fillet I am of the opinion that there is no better way to simply prepare it.  With just a little evoo, butter, s&p you end up with a phenomenally crispy skin and buttery medium-rare salmon.  As for the broccolini, it is delicious.  The dressing has a ton of flavor and is very well-balanced.  If you are worried about the anchovies, don't be.  They don't taste fishy at all - instead they are salty, nutty and savory.  Their rather intense flavor is nicely balanced with the bright lemon zest, the fresh parsley and the spice of the chili flakes.

Recipe after the jump!

Pasta with Lemon, Hot Peppers and Pecorino Romano

To take advantage of the fresh pasta we picked up today from Eataly I decided to make a recipe from one of my Batali cookbooks that I have been wanting to make for awhile now.  There are several Batali pasta recipes and pasta dishes at his restaurants that include jalapenos (or other chilis) - including some that call for lobster and crab that I have been very intrigued by for some time.  This is the first time that we have attempted one of those recipes.  The dish was intended to be made with fresh fettuccine, but since we picked up fresh maccheroni alla chitarra (a spaghetti-like fresh pasta that is forced through a device that looks like a loom or a harp that cuts the pasta into square shapes) we used that instead.

I really liked this pasta.  I thought that the lemon sauce was bright and lemony without being overbearing or too acidic and the sauteed onions were nice and sweet.  The last time we made a pasta with a lemon sauce (Lemon Fettucine with Slow-Roasted Cherry Tomatoes) I thought that the lemon was too acidic and harsh.  Here it was nice and mellow, lemon tempered by the wonderful richness from all that butter.  Alex and I were surprised by how little heat the jalapenos and chili flakes lent the pasta, but I guess our jalapeno wasn't very hot to begin with and once we took out all the seeds it lost any heat that it might have originally had.  Instead of heat from the jalapeno you got a nice mild chili flavor, which I thought was nice.  In the future I might add an extra dash of red chili flakes for just a little more heat, but overall I thought this was a really nice dish.  I liked how the flavors were so distinct from all of the other pastas we have made in the past.

Recipe after the jump!

Asparagus and Pecorino Salad

I love asparagus in spring.  I love everything about it.  I could eat it every day of the week if I were allowed to do so.  Over the years I have made asparagus dozens of ways.  Some of my recent favorites include Pan-Roasted Asparagus, Poached Egg & Miso Butter, Roast Asparagus (which can be modified and made hundreds of different ways - one of my favorite variations is to drizzle it with sesame oil and topped with toasted sesame seeds instead of cheese), and the Korean Rice Bowl with Steak, Asparagus and Fried Egg.  I have several recipes picked out that I plan on trying as soon as I can, including Asparagus with Butter and Soy from Cooking in the Moment by Andrea Reusing.  But since it was so hot out today Alex and I decided to make a simple asparagus salad, rather than cooking the asparagus.  The very last thing I wanted to do today was to turn the oven on.  So I shaved up some asparagus and some pecorino romano and tossed them with a lemon vinaigrette.

I can't say that this salad makes my list of favorite asparagus recipes, but it was a nice change from all of the roast asparagus that we generally eat.  Good fresh asparagus is tender, sweet and fresh, with a hint of grassy flavor.  When you roast it the asparagus gets nutty and it loses its grassy flavor along with its subtle sweetness.  In this salad the natural flavors of the asparagus shine through, but it's just missing something.  There is nothing to really bring the salad together.  It's good, but it's not amazing.  And I can't really figure out what I would do to change that... 

Recipe after the jump!

Thai Chicken Wraps

Back in March Alex and I had a Thai Chicken Wrap on our flight back from Colorado.  It was legitimately good - for airplane food it was close to amazing.  I was expecting something totally pedestrian and lame, so I was pretty impressed.  Way to go United!  So the other day when I was thinking about what to make for dinner tonight, I started thinking about that Thai Chicken Wrap.  Since I couldn't remember exactly what went in that wrap, I decided that we would throw in some romaine lettuce, red bell pepper, carrots and fresh herbs.  And serve the wraps with a nice spicy peanut sauce.  

Our Thai Chicken Wraps turned out really nicely.  The chicken was moist and fairly flavorful and there were tons of fresh crunchy veggies in the wraps to give them some substance.  We ended up using napa cabbage instead of romaine because Alex came home from the grocery store with napa cabbage and no romaine.  Oops.  I'm sure that at one time or another we have all gone to the grocery store and ended up with the wrong ingredient.  I know I have.  The switch worked out just fine.  I briefly considered adding some scallions or some red onion, but got lazy.  The next time I make the wraps I will probably throw in a few thinly sliced scallions.  I also considered tossing the napa cabbage in the peanut sauce to more evenly distribute the sauce throughout the wrap, but decided that might be overkill.  If you did that you might end up with overly dressed, soggy wraps.  And no one likes that.  The Thai Peanut Sauce came from a recipe we found on a blog called She Simmers.  I have never added curry paste to a peanut sauce before, but it is delicious.  The curry paste gives the peanut sauce some heat and a nice aroma.  The coconut milk makes the sauce nice and rich.  This sauce is pretty thin, so if you want a thicker peanut sauce, you can either make the sauce in advance and refrigerate it (it will thicken up a lot as it cools) or cut out the water.  I liked the peanut sauce so much that we might make some satay to serve with it later this week!  And I liked the wraps enough that I am already looking forward to having another for lunch tomorrow.  Yum.

Recipes after the jump!

Thai Cucumber Salad with Roasted Peanuts

I was looking for another random Thai vegetable side dish and came up with this recipe.  At first I was a little worried at first that it would be too similar to the Tomato, Cucumber and Red Onion Salad with Mint, but after reading the ingredients I decided it was different enough.  Both recipes have cucumbers, fresh mint and red onion, but the dressings were completely different.  I'm not sure which one I preferred, but Alex said he might have preferred this Thai Cucumber Salad with Roasted Peanuts to the more Greek-inspired recipe.  I think I agree with him because I love the combination of fish sauce, lime juice and sugar.  It beats red wine vinegar any day.  Both recipes are fresh, light and summery.  This one is a little spicy, a little funky from the fish sauce and a whole lot tasty.  I love the addition of the salted roasted peanuts for texture (and flavor). 

Recipe after the jump!

Vietnamese Shrimp and Pork Stir-Fry

This is another dish that I have been wanting to make for some time.  According to Blogger, I put this recipe in my queue back in early September 2010.  Granted, I have recipes that I picked out years ago and haven't made yet saved in my Gmail account.  The fact that I picked a recipe out so long ago and haven't made it yet doesn't necessarily bear any relation to how much I want to make the dish.  Sometimes I sit on a recipe for ages because I just cannot manage to find one particular ingredient.  Then there are the times that I pick out a recipe and then misplace it or forget about it.  That happens a lot.  Sometimes I sit on a recipe because it just never quite comes together - everytime I get ready to make it something comes up or I find that I am missing something that I could have sworn we had in the apartment.  Usually we discover that we are missing something before we actually start cooking, but every once in awhile there is a late stage panic when we realize that we are out of some absolutely necessary component halfway through the cooking process.  Anyway the component that we were always missing for this dish was the 1/4 pound of thinly sliced pork shoulder/butt.  Since pork shoulders tend to be so large, they aren't something we generally stock in the freezer.  And most normal grocery stores don't stock pork shoulder so buying one always requires a special trip to Fairway or Whole Foods.  But the last time we cooked pork shoulder I hacked off a chunk and threw it in the freezer so I would have it the next time I thought about making this dish.  Good thinking on my part, huh?

Not to quote Alex's favorite phrase twice in a row, but this dish was kind of awesome.  Vietnamese food is always a huge winner in our apartment - neither Alex nor I can get enough of the flavors of nuoc cham (Alex actually claimed that he likes it so much he could drink it), fresh herbs, fish sauce and lime juice.  Vietnamese food just tastes so fresh and bright.  It is also perfect for hot, steamy weather (like mid-80s over Memorial Day weekend in NYC), which is really no surprise given the steamy climate in Southeast Asia.  The pork and shrimp in the stir-fry itself had a surprising amount of flavor given that they were quickly marinated in fish sauce and sugar, before being simply stir-fried with lemongrass and garlic.  They didn't really need the nuoc cham at all.  But if you are going to serve the stir-fry over rice noodles like we did, I would recommend the nuoc cham for the noodles.  We quickly stir-fried our noodles in the pork and shrimp juju that was left in the wok after we cooked the stir-fry to loosen the noodles up and flavor them.  If you don't have noodles, you could also serve the stir-fry with rice and a sauteed vegetable of some sort.  Any way you serve it, I think you will have an excellent meal.

Recipe after the jump!

Korean Rice Bowl with Steak, Asparagus and Fried Egg

After a few weeks of working late and not being able to cook, it has been pretty exciting to be able to cook dinner every night since Monday.  I have weeks of recipes that have piled up on me, just waiting for me to have some free time to cook.  This take on bibimbap was one of the ones that I have been dying to make.  Given how excited I was to make this dish, it's not at all surprising that this is my favorite dish we have made this week by far.  To use Alex's favorite phrase when he really likes something we made it was "kind of awesome."  I concur.  It was kind of awesome.  All of the ingredients worked perfectly together - the sesame salt on the asparagus, the marinated flank steak, the fried egg with the runny yolk and the fluffy white rice.  The Korean hot pepper paste added the perfect level of flavor and spice.  There are a few ingredients and a few steps (which requires the use of a few pans/pots), but it all comes together pretty quickly.  And every component to the dish plays off every other component in a way that really satisfies.  The dish is delicious - a real winner.  There is literally nothing I would change about it.  And that almost never happens.

Recipe after the jump!