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Archive for the ‘Asian Cuisine’ Category

Many Ways with Lean Ground Turkey

Posted in Asian Cuisine, Healthy Foods, Italian Cuisine, tagged , , , , on March 31, 2013 | Leave a Comment »

Recently I’ve been buying the large 4-pack of ground turkey at Costco. Each pack is about 1.5 lbs, so I’ve had to get creative for Chris and I to have a healthy dish without “tasting healthy” (aka bland). Of course, if I could I’d be eating ground beef or sausage instead! Here are a few of the ideas I came up. Hope you enjoy!

  • Turkey, Tofu, Tomato Stew – a classic favorite my mom would make growing up, healthy and hearty!
  • Turkey & Black Bean Chili – spices and a bit of beef broth help to add a burst of flavor
  • Turkey Bolognese – tomato paste and loads of pureed vegetables “beef” up this dish
  • Turkey Boscaiola – a woodsy Italian mushroom sauce, my take includes ground turkey, mushrooms, white wine, beef broth, fresh thyme and fennel seeds
  • Turkey Asian Lettuce Wraps – a Chinese restaurant classic, make it simple with just soy sauce or jazz it up with hoisin or plum sauce
  • Turkey Taco Lettuce Wraps – you can easily cheat and use ready made taco seasoning and instead of tortillas or shells use iceberg lettuce

Most of these dishes I’ve recently made up and haven’t really measured. But as always, make sure you taste and season to your liking!

For the Turkey Black Bean Chili, finely chop a 1/2 yellow onion and a few cloves of garlic. Cook those for a couple of minutes and add the ground turkey. Crumble it as you brown and then add in some cumin, coriander and/or chipotle in Adobo if you have it. Add a beef stock cube for extra flavor. Cook for a few minutes then add the strained black beans and about 1 cup of beef broth depending on portions. Let simmer with a bay leaf or two for about a half hour. Taste and adjust salt/pepper/cumin accordingly. Serve with fresh chopped cilantro and/or sour cream. Easy and hearty.

For the Turkey Bolognese, I like to pack in as many vegetables as I can. Sometimes I’ll cheat and use my little Cuisinart chopper and I’ll blitz a couple raw carrots, couple raw celery and about a 1/2 yellow onion. Cook that with some olive oil for a couple minutes. Add the turkey, a good heap of tomato paste (a small tin if you have it), tomato sauce if you have, and a can of chopped tomatoes. For dried herbs, I use what I have in my cabinet so maybe Italian seasoning, some fennel seeds, extra oregano etc. Add a little beef broth if you have it and a good splash of red wine. Add some bay leaves and let this simmer for a good 30-40 minutes to let the flavors blend together. Taste and add salt/pepper/sugar as desired.

Perfect for Freezing

Perfect for Freezing

For the Bolognese, I used some defrosted roasted cherry tomato sauce I always have on hand instead of can tomatoes. It’s full of so much flavor and the big containers at Costco are much cheaper than the small ones at most grocery stores. Just lay the tomatoes on a baking sheet (with a rim, not a cookie sheet basically). Add several peeled garlic cloves. Drizzle generously with extra virgin olive oil, dusting of kosher salt, and lots of black pepper. Roast at 375F until the tomatoes have all popped (about 30 minutes). Let this cool and using a spoon smash up any remaining tomatoes that haven’t popped and smoosh the roasted garlic. You can then freeze this as is. When you’re ready, pop the ziplock in the microwave for a minute or two. You can then add it to the dish above, maybe add some sauteed onion or shallots and add some broth. But you could also pan fry some fish and serve right on top with some asparagus on the side.

The Turkey Boscaiola is inspired by one of my favorite little restaurants in London – La Porchetta. They make this dish with pork, so I thought it’d be an easy swap for ground turkey. Of course, they make it with delicious and rich cream. I actually made this dish without cream. However, I cheated and used some leftover beef stock/sauce from a Garlic Brisket I had made previously. So the beef stock I added had been reduced and slow cooked with onions and garlic (bursting with flavor!). I think it’ll be just as good with any beef broth. Let this dish simmer to get lots of flavor. If you don’t mind a little decadence then add cream of course! Otherwise, a bit of grated Parmesan on top is just as lovely.

Finally, for the Lettuce Wraps, both are extremely quick and very healthy. Serve it for lunch by putting the already peeled iceberg lettuce leaves into a small plastic bag. For the Asian style, cook some chopped onion and garlic. Add the turkey and cook a few minutes. Add any of the following – soy sauce, sesame oil, hoisin sauce, plum sauce, chili garlic sauce. Remember you can always add more, so go easy, taste and add more if desired. Sesame oil is quite strong so you don’t need much. You can then add some crunch with water chestnuts or peanuts. Brighten it up with fresh chopped cilantro and/or green onion.

For the Taco Lettuce Wraps, simply make taco meat according to a package and serve with fresh cilantro, chopped tomatoes and/or cheese with the iceberg lettuce wraps. If you want to make your own, add a bit of each – tomato paste, cumin, coriander, chili powder, garlic salt.

For the iceberg lettuce, I usually chop the core off. Then chop the lettuce in half. It usually makes it a little easier to get the leaves off. You can always thinly slice the center and make a taco salad!

Hope these mini recipes have given you some inspiration to be healthy. Remember you can always substitute pasta for brown rice or wholewheat pasta or even farro or couscous.

Happy Easter!

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Happy Labor Day!

Posted in American Cuisine, Healthy Foods, Vietnamese Cuisine, tagged , on September 4, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

When I went outside this morning, I felt a breeze and realized that summer may very well have ended. But I took full advantage of the long weekend and grilled loads with my family. When it comes to visiting my parents, there are a couple staples we ‘kids’ always request. This weekend included my Dad’s gigantic steaks, grilled corn, my Mom’s Vietnamese egg rolls and my Dad’s grilled Vietnamese pork (Bún Thịt Nướng, previous post). My hubby and I are moving into a new place soon, and I canNOT wait to get us a grill for the new patio. You really can’t beat the flavor that comes from grilling. It just transforms the simplest ingredients.

Prime example is sweetcorn on the cob. Boil or grill? I’ll always choose the grill. It’s such a simple food, yet there are SO many variations on how to eat it. We went simple this time and just topped it with some salted butter. Some of my other favorite ways to eat it:

  • Vietnamese Style : on low/medium heat, sauté several bunches of thinly sliced green onions (scallions) with plain oil and fish sauce. Don’t brown the onions but get them nice and soft. Slather onto freshly grilled corn.
  • Mexican Style : there are a few variations on this one, but the basic ingredients are mayonnaise, Parmesan or Cotija cheese, lime juice and butter.
  • Cajun Style : this is pretty straightforward by simply adding some Cajun spice on top of the melted butter or you can make your own rub (try this one)

 

My Dad’s Perfectly Charred Rare Steak!

 

Taking my British husband on an All-American ‘vacation’!!

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The Perfect Fried Egg

Posted in Asian Cuisine, tagged on February 4, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

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This morning I made my hubby and I a goodie but an oldie – Vietnamese style fried rice and perfectly fried runny eggs. I’ve posted about fried rice before (here and here).. This dish will never get old for us. And this morning he was particularly happy with just how runny his eggs were..

It made me remember living in Vietnam in the summer of 2006.. The eggs you’d have for breakfast with fresh mini baguettes were always perfectly crispy around the edges with perfectly runny yolks. I’m not 100% certain how they get this crispy edge.. It might be because they almost deep fry it as they put quite a bit of oil in a frying pan.. Or it may be they use cast iron pans that are kept on high heats during service.. Or maybe it’s all about having the perfectly sized frying pan so the edges are up against the sides of the pan..

But in my humble kitchen in our 2-bedroom flat, my method seems to work every time.. At the moment I’m stuck with an electric stove but either way it’s key to have a hot stove but not smoking. Use a small frying pan and add a knob of butter and splash of plain oil. The butter should melt but not burn right away. Crack the eggs in and sprinkle some black pepper. Put a lid on and keep an eye on it. As soon as the tops turn white they’re done! If you don’t like your eggs too runny, I use the very technical “wobble” method. Aka gently shake the pan and let the eggs cook until they wobble a little less! We don’t add any salt because we like to drizzle a little bit of Maggi (lite almost sweet soy sauce) or regular soy sauce. Serve over fried rice, warm white rice or dip some freshly toasted buttered baguette!

Hope you have a lovely weekend!

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The Trick to Great Fried Rice

Posted in Asian Cuisine, Chinese Cuisine, Vietnamese Cuisine, tagged , on January 28, 2012 | 1 Comment »

After watching Ken Hom on BBC’s Saturday Kitchen, I had to chuckle a little.. He was showing James Martin his trick to making perfect rice and egg fried rice. Both tips were ones my mother taught me growing up!

The best way to make fluffy white rice is to put the rice in a pot or rice cooker and fill the water above the rice up to the first line on your index finger. Fill the water and sift it a bit to flatten it. Then put your finger into the middle and touch the rice. The water should come up to the first line. If using a pot, bring it to a boil and reduce the heat to a very low simmer (covered) for about 15 minutes. Take it off the heat, fluff the rice and leave it covered. If using a rice cooker, fluff it when the cook light changes to warm. Then put the lid back on and it’s done when it has stopped steaming.

So the trick that Ken Hom said was exactly what my mom has always taught me – use cold rice to make the best fried rice. (here’s a link to my fried rice post) His rice was a bit simpler than I normally make.. But what I prefer to do is soften chopped onion or shallot in butter and a bit of oil. Then add the rice in straight from the fridge or freezer. Add a knob of butter and heat the rice through. When it starts to warm up, add a few dashes of soy sauce and black pepper. If you want egg in it, I prefer to make a little well in the middle of the pan and add the lightly scrambled egg (seasoned s&p). Gently push the egg until it sets a little then mix it into the rice. OR you can serve it with a perfectly fried runny egg with some Maggi sauce!

Hope you find fried rice as easy as I do :-) I’m happy to answer any questions any time!

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My First Professional Experience

Posted in Asian Cuisine, British Cuisine, tagged , , , , on January 21, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

Hi Everyone! Hope you’ve been enjoying the first couple weeks of the new year. As I mentioned previously, I’ve taken up a new role back in finance. So with commuting and working, it’s been tough to find time to sit down and blog. So nearly a month later, I finally found a Saturday afternoon to share a few pictures of my very first professional experience.

Just one town over in Amersham, the Seasons Catering team were gracious enough to give me the opportunity to cook with them one evening at a private party. It’s a bit of a story how it came about, but needless to say I’m a big fan of the Seasons group which includes Seasons Cafe in old Amersham, another at the Rowan Garden Centre and their traditional Sweets shop also in old Amersham. Chris and I are frequent customers of the Cafe in old Amersham where we have brunch on the weekends. We love sitting up at the counter, reading the paper and having our huevos rancheros or super fluffy scrambled eggs on corn toast. It’s a really cosy place with a deli too – selling all sorts of treats, bread, pies, sandwiches and more.

Chef/Co-Owner Claire and I

So for my catering experience, I arrived a private home in Amersham to meet Claire and the team. It was so impressive how much equipment they brought with them! For about 60 guests, the team provided a pop-up bar and staff who served up a few different canapes and ‘small-bowl’ food. You are probably asking what I did – what is small bowl food?? It is apparently a new trend in the catering world. Rather than having a buffet, catered events are now offering small bowls of food served by wait-staff. As you’ll see in the pictures below, they are literally small bowls. The portion size is a few bites and is similar in size to Spanish tapas or Chinese dim sum. The staff serve them on trays and then pick up the empty bowls afterwards.. Got the concept? It’s brilliant isn’t it?! All the guests were well fed and were able to socialize and mingle about.

Right, the most important party – the food! The first canape we did was Coconut Crusted Prawns with sweet chilli dip. As you’ll see below, Claire is amazing at presentation. She had a collection of gorgeous platters and add a fresh touch of orchids, lemon grass and chillis.

Coconut Crusted Fried Shrimp

While these look simple, they were incredible. The coconut added such a great, unique flavor with the shrimp. I’ve only ever seen a coconut crust once before with chicken at a Caribbean place in L.A. If you ever order from Seasons, I highly recommend these! There were a few other canapes served that evening including Fresh Scallops Wrapped in Bacon and Lobster Bisque with Paprika Crositini. But I was too busy prepping to take more photos. But here are some of the small bowl foods we prepared that night..

Small Bowls of Bangers & Mash with Caramelised Onion Gravy

Small Bowls of Thai Green Chicken Curry with rice

Small Bowls of Tandoori Lamb, Pilau Rice, Mint Raita and fresh Poppadoms

There was one more dish that night that I didn’t get a chance to take a photo of.. And what a shame because I think it was my favorite! It was Duck a l’orange with Dauphinoise Potatoes. So all in all, you can see why I was so blown away by my first catering experience. Unfortunately, I didn’t get the chance to help out with all the prep. Claire took care of all that and brought a lot of the food prepared. I just helped out with prepping and serving the dishes. But it was such a great experience. The team worked so well together! There was so much going on – from getting the timings right to ensuring all the dishes were being served hot and being cleared for more. The team even bring all glass, crockery and cutlery and even take it with them to wash up. So the customer’s experience is completely stress free!

To the Catering Team at Seasons, thank you so much for the experience and I hope to work for you again some time soon! In the mean time, I’ll see you around in the Cafe :-)

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My Husband The Budding Chef!

Posted in American Cuisine, Asian Cuisine, British Cuisine, tagged , , , , on December 11, 2011 | 1 Comment »

So despite my love of food and cooking, there are times when I am delighted to sit back and let my hubby do all the hard work. Although I don’t let him into the kitchen often, when he does cook he does a darn good job! He’s a master at rack of lamb and toad in the hole, but not long ago he was so sweet and made his American wife a British Thanksgiving dinner. It was all last minute and he managed to find a turkey crown from a local butcher that morning. Now I must say my apologies to my Dad, my Mom and my aunts because I have to admit that Chris’s turkey was THE best turkey I have ever had! It was the most flavorful and moist turkey and that was without a brine.

Roast Turkey Crown

After very thorough research he tried a new (and very successful) method of cooking the turkey. He rubbed it all with a seasoned butter (just salt and pepper) and then painted olive oil on top to seal the butter in. He also used little pigs in a blanket (British versions are cocktail sausages wrapped in bacon) and tucked them into the edges with toothpicks/cocktail sticks. Simple and straightforward but with great results. After cooking it at 160C for awhile, he checked the temperature and it was about 140F (it should be 165F). So he removed the cocktail sausages and raised the temperature to 200C/400F for another 20 minutes or so until it reached 165F. While it rested under a foil tent, he got on with all the trimmings : duck fat roast potatoes, sauteed green beans, sage and onion stuffing, carrot and parsnip puree and super crispy Yorkshire pudding! I do have to note that the carrot and parsnip puree was sooooo yummy. He used one part carrot, two parts parsnip and just added a splash of milk and butter.

It was all so good and helped me miss home a little less. The only thing missing was a Honey Baked Ham which is a tradition with my family. And I haven’t seen any ham in the UK come close to the succulent juicy ham from the Honey Baked Ham store with a crispy sweet crust… Mmm.. But I can’t complain really as for the first time my Thanksgiving dinner was made all by my hubby :-)

Thanksgiving - British Style!

So you might be thinking – okay – roast meat and trimmings.. Sure that’s nice.. But he really impressed me this past weekend when he made us Thai Fish Cakes! Not only did he make it all by himself but he used a couple different recipes to make his own version! Here are two recipes that he referenced – one from the BBC and another from Good Food.

Thai fish cakes is one of my favorite Thai dishes and something that always felt very daunting. We had some leftover frozen fish that we wanted to use and this turned out to be a great use for it! You just add the fish, egg, lemongrass, garlic, spring onion, chilli, coriander/cilantro, ginger (if you have it), some oil, fish sauce and lime zest into a food processor and blitz. Add it to a bowl and mix in some chopped green beans. The mixture was a little wet, so he added a couple tsp of plain flour to help bind it.

Heat about half an inch of plain oil (vegetable or sunflower) in a large frying pan. Don’t put it on your highest heat but just below it. Make a small patty at first to test the seasoning and oil temperature.

While Chris made the patties, I was flipping and frying them. My method here was to use a large round metal spatula with holes in it and a fork. The oil temperature was hot but not so much so that the oil was splashing out. Basically it was safe and I could stand close to it. After forming the patty, place it onto the spatula and slide it gently into the oil. If it won’t slide, flip it into the oil but use the fork to catch it with your other hand. Let it fry until you can see it browning up on the sides. Then turn it over. You will need to cook these until just before they look burnt. They’ll be a nice dark brown. Keep flipping them if you need to even the coloring. Let cool on kitchen towel before eating with sweet chilli sauce and some salad greens. Enjoy!!

Thai Fish Cakes

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Some Vegetarian Delights

Posted in Italian Cuisine, Vegetarian, Vietnamese Cuisine, tagged , , , , , on November 23, 2011 | 1 Comment »

As you know I am a major meat lover. However, every once in awhile I try to do a Meatless Monday for my husband and I. It’s usually planned with the intention of being healthy but somehow there’s always Lots of cheese involved! Here’s a mix of different vegetarian dishes I’ve made recently. Enjoy!

First up something I’ve raved about before – Farro. Farro is an “ancient wheat” that is very similar to spelt or bulgar wheat. It’s nutty, chewy in texture and very hearty. The great thing about it is that it soaks up liquid really well, so it goes well with a vinaigrette. Sadly it’s not the easiest item to find. Your best bet may be an Italian delicatessen or health food store. Crazily enough, I bought my small bag in an Italian shop in New Orleans where they’re famous for their Muffaletta sandwich. I brought it back to Arizona and then all the way to London with me! Using seasonal butternut squash, I made a Farro Salad with Roasted Butternut Squash and Goats Cheese in a Sherry Vinaigrette.

Warm Farro Salad with Butternut Squash and Goats Cheese

Next up was a simple started of Fried Halloumi with a Red Onion, Caper, Coriander Vinaigrette. Halloumi is this delicious, salty white cheese from Cyprus. It can be made from either cow’s, goat’s or sheep’s milk and has a semi-hard, chewy texture. I find it’s nice crumbled in a salad, hot off the grill as a kebab or coated in flour and pan fried. I did the latter and it was incredibly easy.

It comes in a block about 4 or 5 inches long, about 3 inches wide and 3 inches high. Slice into pieces as thin as you can get it (maybe half a cm). Since it comes with a bit of water in its package (much like mozzarella), just dip it in flour and it will coat easily. Then fry in a bit of oil in a pan. Serve with a simple white wine vinaigrette with finely chopped red onion or shallots, chopped capers and chopped coriander/cilantro. If you have some lime, add the juice from half. You don’t need to add salt to this dressing as the capers and cheese will be salty. Enjoy!

Fried Halloumi with Red Onion, Caper, Coriander Vinaigrette

Next up is a Vietnamese Carrot Salad. This dish isn’t entirely vegetarian as it uses fish sauce, but this can be substituted for salt. But this salad isn’t meant to be served as an appetizer/starter. It’s more of a side dish. While it’s not

Traditional Goi Tom Vietnamese Shrimp Salad

entirely ‘traditional’, even the BBC has a similar version with cabbage. This is really a quick easy version of the actual traditional salad Goi Tom which has shrimp, daikon and cucumber. My mom makes this salad all the time. It’s really refreshing and she does a great presentation. She’ll mound the salad on a plate, slice the shrimp in half length wise and place them all over the salad ‘dome’. It looks gorgeous. She’ll also use green papaya at times. Check out this recipe for Goi Tom or this recipe for green papaya salad.

This quick and easy use of carrots is great with some grilled or pan roasted prawns/shrimp and some rice noodles. Or with some grilled Vietnamese style pork (lemongrass) and steamed rice.

Peel and then julienne or grate your carrots. Finely chop some red onion or shallots. Cut some mint in chiffonade (thinly slice) or chop some coriander if you don’t have mint. Add some chopped chilli if you have it. Gently toast your peanuts in a pan if possible, otherwise just crush and toss in. Make enough dressing (nuoc mam cham) with this ratio (2 parts water, 1 part sugar, 1 part fish sauce, 1 part lemon or lime juice, 1 clove garlic, chilli pepper). Go easy when adding the sauce to the salad though. It’s very strong! But just toss it all together and serve!

Vietnamese Carrot Salad

Last but not least is a quick and easy Beet and Apple Salad with Blue Cheese. I’ve done a similar salad before (click here for recipe) with avocado as well. But this one was even easier. In the UK, you can buy cooked whole beets in water in the salad section but in the States canned beets are just fine. Some people find this salad a bit too sweet but you can offset that by adding the blue cheese, lemon juice or some rocket/arugula leaves.

Slice the beets into matchsticks. Similarly slice the apples (skin on). Toast some walnuts and crush. Make a simple lemon dressing (lemon juice, extra virgin olive oil, salt, pepper) with finely chopped shallots if you’d like. I like to toss the beets and apples in the dressing separately so that you can maintain the color contrast. Serve with a few knobs of blue cheese (I like Gorgonzola for this) and sprinkle the walnuts on top!

Beet, Apple and Blue Cheese Salad with Walnuts

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Chicken, Beef and Pork – Oh My!

Posted in French Flavors, Italian Cuisine, Vietnamese Cuisine, tagged , , , , , , , , , on October 20, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

All my British friends and family are more than likely to be familiar with the “3 for £10″ meat offer at most supermarkets (Tesco, Sainsbury’s and recently Waitrose). For all my American friends and family, I’m sure I’ve complained to you how expensive meat is here! While this deal isn’t always the best I have found, it makes grocery shopping a little easier. In this case, I just picked three different types of meat/poultry and thought I’d figure out what I would do with them later. I still struggle with accessibility to quality meat in the UK.. I mean – let’s be honest. The steaks are just NOT the same as American steaks (unless you’re willing to spend a small fortune). Most of the time, steaks served in restaurants are thin and overcooked and have this distinct taste that I really can’t explain. However, I HAVE had a good steak here.. but it was one I cooked myself at Cordon Bleu with meat sourced from Allen’s of Mayfair (London’s oldest butcher shop with superb quality and the prices to match!).. Nonetheless, I still crave red meat from time to time. So that day at Waitrose, I decided to buy a tray of chicken thighs/drums (bone in, skin on), a couple frying steaks and some pork loin steaks.

The dishes I came up with were:

Because it was National Curry week in the UK not long ago, I decided to use up my chicken thighs and drumsticks by making Vietnamese Chicken Curry. Now I’ve promised my mother that I’d never divulge her ‘family’ recipe. But what I can do is refer you to another Vietnamese recipe by The Ravenous Couple (a young Vietnamese couple cooking traditional recipes). There are a few variations of this recipe depending on the family, but their recipe is great. Since I don’t always have these ingredients on hand, I make a few shortcuts and a few additions.

  • I haven’t been able to find curry paste in the UK, so I use Madras curry powder from Costco UK and it tastes just fine.
  • I don’t often have the patience to cut shallots, so I just use white/yellow onions.
  • Again, I don’t often have the patience to marinate the chicken but if you have time then it will only make your dish better!
  • My family doesn’t usually add carrots (even though it’s traditional). Instead we add sweet potato chunks. We also don’t add onion wedges.
  • My husband likes his curry thick, so I’ll add some corn starch/flour with water.

Vietnamese Chicken Curry by TheRavenousCouple.com

While I can’t reveal my mom’s measurements, my method is basically this.. Cook chopped onions and garlic until translucent. Add curry powder and secret ingredient. Cook a minute or so. Add chicken and brown on all sides. Add chicken broth, fish sauce or salt and smashed lemongrass. Let cook and then add chopped potatoes, sweet potatoes and coconut milk. Let cook and thicken as necessary. For some added spice, add cayenne.. Traditionally, Vietnamese curry is eaten with fresh baguettes but it’s often eaten with rice vermicelli or plain white rice. It’s also always better the next day or day after that! PS.. I’ve used up leftover mushrooms to make a vegetarian version of Vietnamese curry – check out this old blog post.

So after eating curry for dinner and lunch the next day, I was ready to cook my steaks (click above for recipe). This was a dish I thought of based on my basic pantry ingredients. It’s such a great classic and is super fast to make. Also, a creamy rich sauce is great to mask a lower quality meat! I used basic Oxo beef stock cubes and didn’t actually have any wine to add, but it was still great! To make the sauce super rich, I reduced the stock quite a bit and added a knob of butter at the end. The sweet potato and fennel combo came about purely because they were available at my local market. I was trying to come up with more creative and nutritious starches to bread and pasta. So I had leftover sweet potato from making curry and roasted it with the fennel. Fennel is a great vegetable which isn’t used too often. I didn’t grow up eating it but I see it so often lately that I’m doing my best to find new ways to cook with it. It did take quite awhile to roast though. So be prepared to wait for this one. But this dish is really minimal in prep and has very little cleanup!

Steak in creamy peppercorn sauce with roasted sweet potato and fennel

So as I worked my way through my very full fridge, I was torn on what to do with my pork (click above for recipe). They were pretty thin already (just about 1cm thick), so making any hope of cutting ‘chunks’ for a Vietnamese dish were out the window. I also wasn’t in the mood for cooking with fish sauce.. It CAN smell the house up a bit :-) So I figured I’d utilize the capers I had yet to open. I originally wanted to make an escalope (breaded) but realized we were low on breadcrumbs. It’s also a bit messy to set up an assembly line of flour, egg wash and breadcrumbs. But dipping in just flour isn’t so bad! Due to the recent unexpected heat wave, asparagus had a second season and was available in abundance at my local market. This is one of my favorite vegetables and I think I’ll be eating more of it.. It’s so easy and quick to roast and can be eaten on its own, in an omelet or tossed with garlic and pasta! Whenever I think of scallopini or escalopes, I always think of warm pasta. Since I’m on a garlic kick right now, I took the easy route and infused extra virgin olive oil with a LOT of garlic. I found that if you let it infuse until the garlic slices become really soft and golden, the taste isn’t too strong and doesn’t stay with you for ages. This is also my ‘fast’ way of getting nice garlic flavor instead of roasting a whole garlic. But yum, remembering this dish is making me very hungry.. pasta, garlic, extra virgin olive oil, meat, butter, lemon.. Mmmmm.. Hope you enjoy!

Pork Scallopini in Lemon Butter Caper Sauce

P.S. I recently discovered my new favorite ‘affordable’ wine! Sainsbury’s House Cotes du Rhone. 75cl is £3.99. It also comes in mini 250ml bottles that are 2 for £3.

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Healthy Summer Eating

Posted in Asian Cuisine, Healthy Foods, tagged , , , , on June 20, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

After writing a couple posts on how I’ve been splurging post diet, I thought it would be a good idea to go back to my overall objective – maintaining a healthy lifestyle. My goal wasn’t only to just lose weight for the wedding, but to get Chris and I into the habit of eating a healthy, balanced and still delicious diet. We are clearly not health ‘fanatics’ nor are we completely gluttonous. We enjoy food and don’t want to deprive ourselves. But we also don’t want to have to spend lots just to be healthy. This is always the challenge as fresh food just doesn’t come cheap. I also struggle with the huge difference in food prices from the US to the UK. Meat and fresh fruit in particular are much more expensive here. But it really helps to compare prices and to try and not skimp too much on quality without breaking the bank. Buying in bulk is always a good idea but it does mean poor Chris has a lot of dishes with cherry tomatoes, coriander, onion and sausages. I love my local market where I can get fruit, vegetables, ground beef (mince) and sausages for a lot cheaper than the supermarket. Just make sure you have a decent sized freezer (especially when you’re cooking for just the two of you!). Or make sure you have family near by who like your cooking :-)

Right – so to my point – healthy eating. In my weekly Epicurious.com email, I noticed a link for Healthy Summer Eating. And to my delight, they have several menu ideas for an entire day adding up to 1,500 calories. The recipe ideas sound good and don’t have ingredients that are difficult to come by. There are some key ingredients that I love and swore by for my wedding weight loss : eggs (cooked all ways), avocados/guacamole, black beans, string cheese or Laughing Cow Low Fat Cheese, tortilla wraps, Asian rice cracker mix with wasabi peas, pita chips and of course fruit.  Everyone has their preferences but I know that, for me at least, I can’t completely deprive myself or else I’ll end up stuffing myself even more! Hence why I had to replace the really good cheeses with low fat string cheeses or low fat cream cheese. I didn’t skimp on avocados because your body still needs fat and avocados are a ‘good fat’. Other good fats include nuts (unsalted) and olive oil (prefer extra virgin). By no means am I a nutritionist, nor a diet expert though. Here’s another good Epicurious.com article though comparing trendy diets. Here are a couple go to healthy snacks for me:

  • Wheat toast with 1/2 avocado sliced, extra virgin olive oil drizzled, pinch sea/rock salt, red chilli flakes (previous post)
  • Wheat tortilla, low fat garlic & herb cream cheese, turkey deli meat, alfalfa sprouts or lettuce
  • Banana, ice, milk, vanilla protein smoothie
  • Low fat greek yogurt, sunflower seeds, drizzle honey, blueberries
  • Asian rice crackers, Triscuit Thin Crisps, hard boiled eggs (not all together of course!)

I’ve got to finish this up but thought I’d leave with a pretty healthy recipe – Asian Lettuce Wraps. This can be made healthier by using ground turkey or even ‘soy meat’, but I find the best flavor for this dish comes from ground pork. There are a ton of recipes out there for lettuce wraps. I looked through several of them but ultimately used whatever I could find in my cupboard. And I think they were pretty successful as Chris couldn’t stop moaning and made sure I could remember how I made it so we could have them again! For texture, roasted peanuts are always a great addition or canned water chestnuts. If you’re worried it might not be filling enough, you can serve some fried rice on the side (just rice, butter, shallots, garlic, soy sauce) or a cold rice noodle salad with red bell peppers and green/spring onion (with rice vinegar, fish sauce, chilli dressing).

Asian Pork Lettuce Wraps

Below is another version I’ve made before – lemongrass beef with rice noodles on the side in a chilli fish sauce dressing. Tasty but I definitely prefer using ground meat versus strips.

Lemongrass Beef Lettuce Wraps

And if all else fails – grill, grill, grill! It is summer after all!

Grilled Eggplant with Balsamic, Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Basil & Feta

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My Ongoing Love Affair With Meat

Posted in British Cuisine, Sandwiches, Vietnamese Cuisine, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on October 1, 2010 | 2 Comments »

As you all know I am quite carnivorous. I do love my veggies and am improving on my fruits, but nothing can really beat a juicy steak or Sunday roast (except for maybe anything fried).  So I thought I’d share a little slide show of the meat I’ve been eating. Hope you enjoy! 

Sunday Roast - Rosemary Garlic Lamb

Perfectly crispy, fluffed, roast potatoes

So many people give the Brits a hard time about their “plain” food, but as I’ve come to learn plain is just another word for simple. And if you have good quality ingredients, you don’t always need a whole lot of them. The above is courtesy of Mr. Chris Hutton (the boyfriend). Lamb was the very first thing Chris ever cooked for me, and three years later I’m still around! He stuffs garlic cloves and rosemary into the meat and rubs English mustard powder and a bit of flour on the outside. Since rosemary is such a fragrant herb, it can really stand on its own. (Tarragon and sage are other unique, distinct herbs) Be sure to keep it covered ~75% of the cooking time so moisture isn’t lost. It’s SO simple, but when done right it’s such a comforting meal.. Especially when it’s accompanied by perfectly crisp, fluffed potatoes! It’s not fair the Brits get such good potatoes. I have neeever been a potato person, but I’m definitely a convert! A classic trick is to use some goose fat to brown your potatoes in. It’s a natural product and will give you super crispy results! For crispy fries/chips, ensure you have dried, cooked potatoes before frying. Stick them in the oven for just a minute or two to finish off the drying process and voila! 

(CLICK FOR MORE…)

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