Duck Salad

If you like Vietnamese food, then this duck salad should go on your menu for the week. I took recipes from two different food blogs and cobbled them together into a close approximation of the vermicelli dishes I get at Vietnamese restaurants. I roasted the duck the day before because it takes around 3 hours to render off all the fat. My suggestion is that you DO not do this if the dish you are eating for dinner that night is disgusting and makes you want to vomit. Just so happens the meal I made on Sunday that I had to eat again on Monday, the night I roasted the duck, was an enormous FAIL. So I had to eat that crap while the scent of roasting duck tickled my nostrils. I ended up helping myself to a leg when it came out of the oven, and gave Sonny the other one as an apology for my awful awful spaghetti. I also saved the fat, and am definitely going to use it for something.

Recipe 1: Aromatic Duck Salad I changed it obviously but I like to give credit where credit is due.

1 Roasted duck (mine was 4 pounds and change)
1 package Rice Vermicelli
1 seedless cucumber thinly sliced
1 Bunch scallions, sliced into matchsticks (huge pain in the ass)
2 cups mung bean sprouts

To roast the duck:
Salt liberally and pat dry. Don't forget to remove giblets and if you want you can trim off loose fat, but why would you want to do that? Let sit for about half an hour at room temperature while you preheat the oven to 350. Roast at 350 for two hours, turning every half hour. Increase heat to 375 and roast for additional 30 minutes, then roast at 400 for ten minutes to re-crisp the breast. Total cooking time about 2hr 40 min for a 4 pound bird. The leg should swivel easily and pull out without a struggle. Just so you know flipping the duck is a bitch because you want to be careful not to prick the skin, so you have to fiddle with spoons and cavities and what not to get that sucker on its back and vice versa. Let rest 20 minutes.

Once the duck is cool enough to handle--in my case the next day by which time I couldn't frakking wait to eat the stupid thing--cut off the wings at the joint, and then cut that sucker in half lengthwise. Then cut the halves in half lengthwise. Work the meat off the bones, you want to end up with perfect little pieces of sliced duck with the skin still attached.

To cook rice noodles:
Bring water to a boil, take off heat and throw the rice noodles in for five minutes. Do not over cook, rinse with cold water while draining.

To slice cucumber:
Slice in half cross wise, and then in half again lengthwise, then slice thinly crosswise. This would be good with little matchstick cucumbers but I didn't have the patience for that. If you do, well . . . you're weird.

To slice scallions:
I have no idea how people get those perfect little scallion matchsticks. Can you buy them that way? I mean seriously slicing those suckers is the most irritating job in the world. Half of the bunch ended up sliced on a diagonal, because I am not made of time.

Throw everything together.



Recipe 2: Nuoc Cham This I kept the same, except my directions are the lazy way.

1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup warm water
1/4 cup fish sauce (Viet Huong Three Crabs brand)
1/4 cup white vinegar
1/2 of a lime, juiced
3-4 cloves of garlic , minced
2-3 Thai chili pepper, minced

Add the sugar to the water and swirl until the sugar dissolves. Throw everything else in.

Pour some dressing over your salad, and voila. A dish that makes up for my colossal spaghetti failure. AND there's enough left for lunch for two more days. Thank God!

Self-Congratulatory Post

I roasted my first chicken and it was awesome! The technique called for a full day of dry brining, and then roasting that puppy at 475-500 degrees for an hour. I didn't have to add any fat and the skin was nice and crispy. I also threw some Chinese Broccoli in the bottom of the roasting pan for the last ten minutes and when it came out it had been fried in chicken grease. It was delicious. I totally recommend it. I stole the recipe from one of my favorite food bloggers.

I'm serious OK, even the breasts were juicy (tee hee)!

Eating Experiment

So I was browsing through the comments section on this guest-blog post by Michael Pollan and one of the comments in particular struck me. Kathy Leland writes:

I am teaching "The Omnivore's Dilemma" this semester in my Introduction to Literature class (somewhat bucking the tradition that only fiction can be literature), so I'm very excited to tell my students about this site and the great opportunity to correspond with Mr. Pollan. I'm sure they will have many questions! Young people today have a very quixotic and disconnected relationship with the food they eat: they understand and heartily endorse the merits of environmental awareness, they recycle, they don't waste paper, they don't litter -- yet at the same time, they live on fast food, can't identify more than 4 or 5 vegetables, and often have no idea what a really great peach tastes like. I think "The Omnivore's Dilemma" should be required reading in a lot of college classes. I hope I am starting a trend.

...and that just struck me as wrong.

I probably cook with a decent bit more vegetables than the average American, but it got me to thinking of other ways I could expand my horizons, starting with seeing if I can take some suggestions. So... in the comments, list as many different vegetables as you can, the only rule being that you have to have actually eaten them. If I didn't include that qualifier... well, I know Anna and I could probably have a good time just sitting down and listing out all the veggies we can think of. You can include herbs and specific varieties as well (after all, I regularly eat at least 4 different kinds of potatoes). Any vegetables in the responses that I have not eaten, I will incorporate into my next week's menu, if they're available, or add to the menu as soon as they are. And maybe it'll encourage you guys to do it too!

I'll start: arugula, asparagus, artichokes, basil, beets, broccoli, broccolini, cabbage, chives, cilantro, corn, cucumbers, eggplant, fennel, garlic, green beans, green peppers, jalepeno peppers, leeks, mushrooms (portabella, shitake, white, cremini), okra, onions (white, yellow, red, boiling, green), oregano, parsnips, parsley, peas (garden, sugarsnap, snow), plantains, potatoes (yukon gold, white, red, 'new'), pumpkin, radishes, rutabagas, sage, shallots, spinach, squash (yellow, acorn, butternut, spaghetti), sweet potatoes, tarragon, thyme, turnips, tomatoes (plum, heirloom, common grocery, yellow), water chestnuts, zucchini.

What a difference the right cheese can make

Since Livvy asked me to give it to her, I'm going to go ahead and post my recipe for tamale pie. I hated the thing for years and years, but my husband loves it, so I'd keep making it. It was an easy weeknight dish you can toss together, and hey, sometimes it's not about what I want to eat.

I was never a big fan of parmesan either. Then I bought some real parmesan, and realized it wasn't that I didn't like the cheese, it was that I didn't like the cellulose filled pre-processed cheese-füd I'd been eating. Real parmesan cheese is incredible!

Well I finally found a way to cook tamale pie that I think makes it taste incredible as well. It's still just as easy, and all of a sudden, I can stomach more than a few bites and don't have to pretend I'm full. The secret was in the cheese. Oaxaca cheese, to be exact. Oaxaca is also called Asadero, and I find mine at Harris Teeter. If you can find some, try it, it's so wonderful.

So.... on to the recipe. You will need:
Hardware:
1 skillet large enough to sautee the beef, and hold the rest of the ingredients
1 8" square baking dish (or thereabouts)
1 largish bowl for the batter

Ingredients:
1 lb ground beef
1 sm tomato, diced small
1 sm green pepper, diced small
1 cup frozen corn
1 sm onion, minced
1 jalepeno pepper, minced
1 cup (or more to taste) oaxaca cheese, shredded
1 pkg cornbread mix (your choice, there. I'm too lazy to make my own cornbread batter, this is supposed to be a quick meal!)
chili powder
ground cumin
salt
pepper
other seasonings to taste

To cook:
Preheat your oven to whatever temp your cornbread tells you to.
Sautee the ground beef in the skillet with the onion, seasoning it up to your personal heat/spice preference.
While the beef is cooking, mix up the cornbread batter
Before the beef is quite done, add in the rest of the vegetable ingredients, leaving the tomato for last so it doesn't get all mushy, mix well.
Dump the whole mix into the baking dish, spreading it out evenly, and then layer on the shredded cheese.
Spread the cornbread batter on top, and pop it into the oven.
Cook for as long as your instructions for your cornbread batter tells you to, then take it out and let it settle down for five minutes or so.
Done!

I like to top mine with sour cream.

Simply Wonderful - Roast Chicken with Lemons

The recipes I always like the best are the ones that require just a few ingredients, and very simple preparation. If those two requirements are met, I don't mind if the dish itself takes a long time to cook, I can start dinner earlier. I just don't want to spend more than half an hour actually preparing ingredients. Whenever I see a recipe that calls for 2 tsp of this, 1 tablespoon of that, 3 tsps finely minced garlic, 4 tablespoons of shredded this, etc, I just cringe. Those are the dishes that I save for the weekends, when the additional work involved is less daunting.

A really simple recipe, however, just seems to have an extra edge to it. I marvel at how just a few ingredients can produce such a satisfying flavor. When I'm serving it to guests, I feel smug that so little effort produced such rave reviews. Last night, I tried a really simple recipe out of Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, and it's one of those recipes. So simple it's easy enough for weeknights, and really tasty.

All you need are: roaster chicken, 2 small lemons*, salt, pepper, roasting pan w/ rack, some kitchen string.

*the lemons need to be small enough that you can cram them into the bird. If they're too large, you'll split the birds rib-cage, which, while it doesn't affect the taste, makes it look it's harboring an alien.

Preheat your oven to 350°. Rinse and completely dry the chicken. Sprinkle it with salt and pepper, inside and outside, and rubbing it into the skin to really distribute it well.

Roll the lemons across a cutting board with the palm of your hand, sort of squishing them up as you go to soften them up a bit, then poke the hell out of them with a skewer or knife tip or fork. Cram the lemons into the chicken.

Put the chicken on the roasting pan breast side down, and sort of loosely tie up the legs. The goal isn't to keep them from moving or to make the ends meet, but just to keep them from spreading apart too much and splitting the skin during the cooking process.

Put the bird in the oven, and leave it there for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, turn it over, trying not to tear the skin on the bird and let it cook for another 30 minutes. When that time is up, raise the heat on the oven to 400° and let it cook for at least another 20 minutes, more until it's done.

There's no need to baste the bird or use any additional cooking fat. And the point of not tearing the skin is that, if you don't, the chicken will swell up with the juices. It won't hurt if you do tear the skin, though.

Leave the lemons in the chicken when you carve it, and serve the pieces with the juices that run out of the bird. For a 4 lb bird, with my oven, total cooking time was 1 hour, 35 minutes.

This chicken was amazingly juicy and flavorful, and the lemon wasn't a dominating flavor at all, the meat was infused with just a hint of citrus tang to it. I'll definitely make this one again.

Adventures In Slow-cooking

As you all know, I accidentally ended up with a very nice 7qt All-Clad slow-cooker, even though I've never had any interest in using one before. Well, after a few gentle nudges, and some not so subtle hints from Russ and I finally set the thing up and tried it out.

Yesterday morning after I got the coffee started, I rubbed a pork butt with 1 tsp hawaiian sea salt, and 1 tsp liquid smoke, and then put it in the slow-cooker for 12 hours on low. I turned it over once after about six hours. When it came out, it was fall-off-the-bone, and pull-apart-with-a-nudge-of-the-fork tender. I even saved the rest of the meat for leftovers, it was that good. I served it with baked plantains and steamed rice, with lime wedges on the side. And as hectic as my day was yesterday, if the meat hadn't already been taken care of, when I got off work we would have eaten out. Maybe slow-cookers aren't that bad after all. I'm going to try barbecued beef tomorrow.

Tornadoes Ruin Lives

So, I have been planning a trip to San Diego for about three months now. I had pretty much every minute of my three day stay mapped out, and was ridiculously excited. When I landed, Leigh and I were going to get sushi on the beach, and then head to the House of Blues to see Lily Allen in concert. The next day was going to include another trip to the beach, a tour of the Palomar Observatory, maybe some hiking, and a visit to a tranny bar called Lips. Then Sunday we would go to the Annie Liebowitz exhibit (which doesn't hit DC until fall I think), a patisserie called Extraordinary Desserts, and then the Farmer's market to buy ingredients to cook a nice dinner. Sounds like fun right?

My flight was cancelled. The string of storms that have been pounding the Central states pretty much shut down DFW. They said they couldn't get me another flight until Sunday, and since I had already been standing in line for an hour and a half I just asked for a refund. So what does a girl do when she has time off work, and $300 worth of vacation money burning a hole in her pocket?

She makes a cake.

I don't have star shaped cookie cutters, and I thought that 2.5 cups of melted white chocolate was a bit too much for one layer, so I split the cake into 4 layers. I also omitted the amaretto liquer, because I was too lazy to go to the liquor store. I still think the end result was really fucking good.

Chicken, Red Pepper, and Green Bean Stir-Fry

Ok...So as promised, here is a post of my first dinner :). Well, second really, but the first one was taco salad and I think we all know how delicious those are!! Anywho, I made Chicken, Red Pepper and Green Bean Stir-Fry last night and it turned out really, really tasty. It took longer than I wanted it to, but total time was 1 hour and 10 minutes from start to finish (including prep and clean up), so over all I'm going to say that is pretty speedy. Here's the recipe as printed on Epicurious.com:

4 ounces green beans, trimmed
3 tablespoons oriental sesame oil
1 8-ounce skinless boneless chicken breast, cut crosswise into strips
1 red bell pepper, cut into matchstick-size strips
1 tablespoon minced peeled fresh ginger
2 large garlic cloves, minced
3 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons rice vinegar

Cook beans in pot of boiling salted water until crisp-tender, about 2 minutes. Drain. Refresh under cold running water.

Heat 2 tablespoons oil in heavy medium skillet over medium-high heat. Sprinkle chicken with salt and pepper. Add to skillet; stir-fry until just cooked through, about 2 minutes. Transfer chicken to plate. Add 1 tablespoon oil to skillet. Add bell pepper, ginger and garlic; stir-fry 2 minutes. Add chicken and beans to skillet. Stir in soy sauce and vinegar. Simmer until sauce thickens slightly, about 2 minutes. Serve hot.

Makes 2 servings; can be doubled.
Bon Appétit
30-Minute Main Courses
March 2001

I might try w/ beef next time though because I just don't like chicken very much. The total caloric content for the recipe (WHEN DOUBLED) is 1348/4 servings. 1 serving is 337 calories.

So, I doubled the recipe because I didn't think 2 servings would be enough for me and Nick. I thought about taking a picture of it, but I forgot, so no dice. Maybe next time. Tonight I am going to make my own Chicken Gyros. I'll post about it tomorrow!!! Super excited about it though because I LOVE Gyros!!

CHEERS!!!

Eat Your Veggies!

A few veggie suggestions for you guys, since I've been trying different vegetables lately....

Leeks
Leeks look like really big green onions, but they have a milder oniony taste when cooked. Avoid really fat thick leeks because they tend to be tough, and instead look for thinner (less than 1 1/2" diameter) stalks. The more white/pale green on the leeks, the better, because the dark green stuff is going to get cut off and discarded. They generally sell in bunches of 3 or more, and I find that 3 med leeks will do quite nicely for a side for two people. Here's a simple way to prepare them.

3 med leeks
2 tblspoons butter
salt

Slice off the tops of the leeks, starting where the leaves turn tough and dark green. Take a very thin slice off the root end (you want the layers to stay attached, so make the slice thin). Slice the leeks in half lengthwise, so that you have long half-cylinders. Put the leeks in a bowl of cold water, and swish them around a bit, to get the dirt out of them, fanning the leaves gently if you need to. Melt the butter in a large sautee pan with a lid on med/med-low. Drain the leeks and then place them cut side down in a single layer in the pan, cover it, and let them cook for about 8 minutes, until they get really tender. Remove the lid, turn the leeks over, raise the heat to med/med-high, and let them sizzle a bit 'til any of the liquid in the pan has evaporated. Add a little salt to taste and serve.

Plantains
Plantains are like a yummy cross between a banana and a potato. They're sweet, like bananas are, but are a lot starchier and tend to hold up to cooking a lot better. When plantains are green, they can be twice-fried in slices. When they're ripe, the skin will be yellowish black to completely black. There are all sorts of ways to prepare them, but here's a stupid-simple method for ripe plantains that goes really well with roast pork.

2 large ripe plantains (yellowish black to completely black skin)
butter
salt
1 lime
hot sauce (optional)

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Line a baking sheet with tinfoil. Pierce the plantains all over with a fork, then put them on the baking sheet and let them bake in the oven for about 20 minutes, until tender when pierced with a knife. Take them out of the oven, slice them in half, and then slit the skin on each piece so you can peel it back like a baked potato. Mash up the plantain on the inside with a fork, add a pat of butter and some salt, and then serve with wedges of lime, and hot sauce.

Rutabagas
Rutabagas are also called yellow turnips, and they look kind of like yellowish turnips, only a lot larger. They also lack the peppery sort of taste that turnips have. They're generally coated in wax when sold in grocery stores, and they're a royal pain in the ass to peel, but they're a nice change of pace. Look for rutabagas that don't have any cracks or bruises on them, and don't look mushy or gross on the cut ends. Here's another alternative to mashed potatoes...

1 med/large rutabaga (about 1.5 lbs)
1 sweet apple (golden delicious, fuji, etc)
4 tblspoons butter
salt
1 small yellow onion (optional)

Peel and cube the rutabaga, cutting it into about 1/2" squares. Peel and cube the apple the same. Put the pieces in a large pot, and cover to about 1" over with cold water. Boil the rutabaga and apple until the rutabaga is tender, about 20 minutes. Drain pot, add about 3 tblspoons of butter to the mix, and then mash it all up. If you're going to use the onion, melt 1 tblspoon butter in a small pan on low. Slice the onion into thin strings, and then sautee slowly in the butter until the onion has turned soft and carmelized. Serve on top of the mashed rutabagas.