Category Archives: Fast

This meal can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

Fear of Frying: Kabocha Squash Tempura

Posted on November 8, 2010 | 3 comments

A few weeks ago, I consumed a completely embarrassing amount of the most crisp, succulent kabocha squash tempura at the home of some really lovely people who I don’t happen to know very well and who are excellent cooks. (I felt SO lucky to be included!) We were standing around in their kitchen sipping one of those apricot-floral half dry German wines and smacking on the crisp golden edges of this squash which had been finished with the light crunch of sea salt. I was utterly gluttonous – we all were. Afterwards we watched as they cleaned and cut geoduck into satiny sashimi. If you have never seen a geoduck at all, seeing one being cleaned will be quite a surprise for you – I’m not kidding! I was delighted to eat geoduck sashimi but I will gladly leave the prep to someone else. The tempura, however, inspired me to address my deep rooted fear of frying things at home.

It’s not that I’m afraid I’ll set the kitchen on fire and I’m fine with the clean-up. I do own the kind of thermometer that can go in searingly hot fat. And I’m not afraid of cooking with fat for health reasons – once or twice a year making french fries, who cares?

Here’s what it is: I don’t want to own a deep fat fryer (too big and messy and they only do that one thing) and I hate the idea of having to fiddle around with the stove the whole time to get the heat right. I imagine I would be irritated if the oil starts to smoke too much or if the batter is too heavy or if the oil is not hot enough. And if the food comes out leaden and greasy? – I would hate that. Or if we’re talking fried chicken, what if the outside is golden and crisp while the inside remains scarily raw? Yuck.

Fried food must be crisp, golden, light – nothing short of perfect – the first time out or I don’t want to have anything to do with it. There’s no rescuing a failure in frying. Yet, despite all my nervous notions, I decided to try to make tempura anyway. The memory of that delicious tempura drove me to it.

Kabocha has a very tough exterior

The most difficult thing was slicing the kabocha squash which has an extremely beautiful but leathery skin. In the interest of keeping it very simple and because our hosts at the dinner party used it, I decided to buy a box of tempura mix – just add water and stir – so the batter was a no-brainer. (hey, what kind of cooking blog is this anyway?) Our hosts shallow fried the tempura, so I did too. Not a big deal. Very simple. The clean-up was a breeze.

Guess what? Making tempura was easy! Nothing to quail over at all.

Kabocha Tempura

  • 1 Kabocha squash
  • 1 box tempura mix
  • sea salt
  • canola oil for frying


With the squash set on a stable cutting board, slice down through the center firmly and carefully. I cut right down through the stem. Once you manage to slice through the exterior, you can wedge the blade back and forth a bit and gently force the halves apart.

With a soup spoon, scrape out the seeds and guts of the squash which are very similar to a pumpkin.

Sliced and peeled kabocha

Cut the halves into slices 3/8″ thick, then peel off the skin. Chill the squash in the refrigerator

Prepare the tempura mix, following the instructions on the box. I found I had to thin mine quite a bit with water. It should be thinner than pancake batter, just barely clinging to the squash.

Film a 10″ heavy bottomed saute pan with a 1/4″ of canola oil and heat until shimmering over medium high heat. If the oil starts to smoke, remove from heat until smoking subsides.

Crisp and almost done

Dip 3-4 slices of squash into the tempura batter. CAREFULLY lay them in the hot oil with tongs. The squash should take 3 minutes per side. You can check as soon as the batter seems to set – it should be barely golden when finished. Flip when the underside is golden and continue to fry for another 3 minutes.

When both sides are golden, remove the tempura to a platter lined with paper towels and sprinkle with sea salt.

These are very fine with cocktails.

I think of this shallow fried tempura as the gateway project to a whole world of deep fried foods that until now have seemed unattainable to me because of my fear and impatience. Look out – fried chicken and samosas are just around the corner!

If you are interested, here is a link showing how to clean a geoduck:

How To Clean a Geoduck

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Carrot Cake

Posted on October 26, 2010 | 3 comments

I haven’t always been a fan of carrot cake. To say that I actively hate carrot cake would be untrue but I’ve never craved it. (To put it in context- if you asked me if I’d like a slice of Roasted Clementine and Chocolate Tart? Yes please, I’ll take one right now!) Carrot cake doesn’t call to me that way. The truth is, until this weekend,  I hadn’t even eaten a piece of carrot cake in over 20 years.

Why? The memory of those sticky, bloated, too sweet raisins for one thing. And those crummy little bits of walnut. I love walnuts. Walnut cake, walnut ice cream, toasted walnut halves with beets. Walnuts are the king of nuts and it kind of drives me nuts (yes really!) to see them in a supporting role.  Would Laurence Olivier take the role of a mere page?! I don’t think so. I wouldn’t put them in brownies or chocolate chip cookies either. Don’t even get me started on that Carrot Cake / Pineapple variation. I’m not totally sure where this prejudice came from. But guess what? It all changed for me last weekend.

When I was asked to make a carrot cake for a fall baby shower, I was nonplussed. How about Parsnip Cake? – I thought, or Persimmon Cashew Cakes?!  Carrot Cake? But I could make anything you want! No, carrot cake please! was the answer – it’s perfect because it’s fall. So I did a little reading. I read every one of my carrot cake recipes. (There are so many!) Of course there are variations beyond mere pineapple! Of course you can skip raisins. Of course you don’t have to gutter the walnuts.

For example, carrot cake can have coconut instead of walnuts, currants instead of raisins. The sometimes gloppy and heavy cream cheese frosting can lighten up with lemon rind and juice. One can make beautiful ribbons of carrot, candied in maple syrup to garnish that swath of now tart ivory frosting. When I began to change up the classic recipe, the process started to get really fun! This was no tired, old-fashioned, cafe carrot cake, getting stale under a glass dome. No. I borrowed a little of this and a little of that, combined recipes and, wow -I guess I love carrot cake! Enough like the original not to disappoint a traditionalist but irreverent enough to please an obsessive cake eater like me. Very pretty too.

I combined fragments from Joy of Cooking, the Weekend Baker by Abby Dodge, the Barefoot Contessa Parties by Ina Garten, and The New Best Recipe from Cooks Illustrated. The stole of toasted flaked coconut is me. Thanks to Maria for the nudge which dashed all my boring preconceived notions. What a fun project. And it was perfect because it’s fall.

Here’s what I did. All of the parts are fast and beyond easy.

Carrot Cake with Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting

Preheat oven to 350.

  • 1 1/2 c. all purpose flour
  • 1 c. sugar
  • 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 1/2 tsp cloves
  • 1/2 tsp freshly grated nutmeg (or ground if that is all you have)
  • 1/2 tsp ground allspice
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/3 c. vegetable oil
  • 3 large eggs
  • 1 1/2 c. finely grated carrot
  • 1 cup shredded sweetened coconut
  • 1 cup currants
  1. Butter and flour (2) 9″ round cake tins.
  2. Whisk flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, allspice, and salt in a large bowl.
  3. Pour the vegetable oil into a 2 cup liquid measuring cup. Add the eggs. Whisk with a fork.
  4. Whisk the dry ingredients with the oil and eggs mixture until smooth.
  5. Fold in the carrots, coconut and currants until evenly combined.
  6. Divide the batter between the two cake pans and bake for 25-30 minutes.  Allow to cool in the pan for 10 minutes and then transfer to a cake rack to cool completely.

Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting in the Food Processor

  • 12 ounces of cold cream cheese
  • 1 c. unsalted butter – can be cold, better at room temperature
  • 2 1/2 c. confectioners suger, measured then sifted.
  • 1/2 tsp table salt
  • 3 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
  • 2 tsp finely grated lemon zest (a good job for a microplane grater)

Place all ingredients into the bowl of a food processor and pulse until evenly combined. You may have to scrape the bowl once or twice. Do not over-process.

Maple Candied Carrots

  • 1 cup of finely grated carrot
  • 2 tbsp unsalted butter
  • 3 tbsp maple syrup

Melt the butter in a medium sized heavy saute pan. Add the carrots and the maple syrup. Stir over medium high heat until the liquid is reduced and the carrots are glistening. You will see small candy bubbles on the side of the pan, browning slightly.  The whole process of cooking the carrots should take about 3 minutes. Turn all the carrots onto a paper towel lined plate and cool.

Toasted Coconut

  • 1 1/2 c. wide coconut shavings

  1. Preheat oven to 300.
  2. Spread 1 1/2 c. coconut in large roasting pan.
  3. Toast for 10-15 minutes stirring every 5 minutes. Watch for burning.
  4. Transfer coconut immediately to dinner plate to stop browning.
  5. When cool, store for up to 2 weeks in a tightly sealed container.

Assembling the cake

  1. In the center of a 10″ or larger flat plate, dab 2 tbsp of the frosting.
  2. Center one of the carrot cakes on the plate using the frosting as “glue” to hold it in place.
  3. Put 3/4 of a cup of the frosting on the cake and spread carefully up to the edge.
  4. Center the second cake on top. Then, using a scant 1/2 cup of frosting, carefully spread a very very thin layer of frosting all over the cake. This is called a crumb coat and it will keep the frosting crumb free ( Crumb-y frosting looks very messy.)
  5. Place the cake in the refrigerator for a half hour so that the crumb coat has a chance to set.
  6. Then proceed to frost the rest of the cake.
  7. Holding the cake over a roasting pan or a half sheet pan to catch the falling coconut, press handfuls of coconut gently into the frosting until the sides of the cake are completely covered.
  8. Take about 1/2 cup of the candied carrots and looking directing down over the top of the cake, heap the carrots artfully right in the center. Ta-da!

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Peas Pasta Ham and Cream

Posted on October 25, 2010 | 5 comments

Peas, Pasta, Ham and Cream. Sigh. I have made this so many times I have been dreading to write about it. I have to write about it though, because I can make it with my eyes closed. Also I always have all these ingredients on hand. Even the cream (or rather especially the cream). And my kids, dare I say all kids, like Peas Pasta Ham and Cream.

Once, there was an actual recipe that I followed in Marcella Hazan’s Marcella Cucina. In fact the first time I made this, we made the handmade garganelli (a homemade hand formed macaroni) as she recommended, used gorgeous leftover Christmas ham and ate it the day after Christmas with a really good Pinot.

Times have changed and the method has morphed accordingly. What we have now is a down and dirty last minute preparation that you can get on the table in the time it takes to boil the water and cook the pasta. I don’t think my fast version has lost too much credibility. Ok, it doesn’t have the carefully crafted (seemingly!) simple luxury of that post-Christmas meal of 12 years ago, but everybody likes this dish. At least at our house. And my sister’s house. In fact, I believe it was after I showed my sister how to make this that she said “You need to start a blog. I need more recipes like this and so do all my friends.”

Oh – and another thing: in my version you’ll only need one pot. So nice.

Peas Pasta Ham and Cream

This is a great dish to offer the sort of kids who only want to eat pasta with butter – it’s a kind of gateway dish to something more exotic.

It’s a good idea to keep frozen Petit Peas in the freezer at all times.

For an older baby, you can make this with orzo.

Asparagus makes a good variation – use the pencil thin variety and cut them into small pieces – add to the pasta water just as you would add the peas.

  • 3/4 lb pasta – any type will do but I like pipe rigate because the little pipes catch peas like crazy so kids are less likely to leave all the peas on the plate
  • 1 c. frozen petite peas – the regular kind are too mealy
  • 3/4 – 1 c. heavy cream
  • 1/4 lb thinly sliced ham (I like a Breton style ham. I might avoid a heavily smoked one. If you can get it, prosciutto cotto would be perfect)
  • Reggiano Parmesan (you could also use grana padano but do NOT use anything called cheese that comes out of a green tube –  that would be weird and wrong)
  • Sea salt and freshly ground (I prefer coarsely) black pepper
  1. Start a large saucepan of water, full to almost an inch away from the rim, over hight heat
  2. When the water is boiling add 2 tsp of salt and then the pasta. Stir thoroughly  – this isn’t really quite enough water to ensure that the pasta wont stick to itself. So stir it a couple of times as it cooks. Set the timer for 3 minutes less than it takes to cook the pasta.
  3. If you haven’t already, slice the ham cut into 1/4 inch ribbons and grate 3/4 cup of cheese plus more for serving. (I think the beauty of this dish is that the pasta cooking time is just the right amount of time to do slicing and grating)
  4. When the timer goes off, add the peas and set the timer for 3 minutes.
  5. Drain the peas and pasta in the colander and give them a good shake to get the excess water off.  Return them to the saucepan.
  6. Add the cream and turn up the heat, getting it to simmer and stirring all the time. Stir for 2 minutes or so until the cream coats the pasta and has thickened slightly. Remove the saucepan from the heat and toss in the 3/4 c. grated Parmesan and the ham.
  7. Grind some black pepper and sprinkle some sea salt over the top. Stir and taste, adjusting the seasoning as necessary – you may want more cheese, more pepper, who knows?
  8. Serve with a bowl of grated Parmesan on the side.

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Warm Bulgur Salad with Grilled Salmon, Cucumbers and Mint

Posted on April 12, 2010 | 2 comments

Normally I steer away from Family-Friendly-Weeknight-Fast-Only-15-Minutes headings in magazines. It’s not that I’m against any of those sentiments – not at all!  It’s just that if there is a can of artichoke hearts involved or a jar of marinara sauce or a bag of frozen pizza dough, I worry that the resulting dish really won’t be delicious enough. You don’t have to take so many short-cuts to eat well quickly.

Today was really busy though, and I knew I wouldn’t be home until 5:30. I wanted to eat something fresh, easy and fast (all those buzz words!) that I would be able to put together in 1/2 an hour or less – no crazy chopping, no long marinating, nothing like that. So I found myself flipping through the “Family-Friendly-Fast” section of a magazine. Here I found “Minty Bulgur Salad with Salmon and Cucumbers”. It looked promising and turned out to be delicious. As always, I steered away from the finickier parts.  The author would have you cool the salmon and bulgur in the fridge after cooking – not for me! I say it’s more delicious, more flavorful and – dare I say – more elegant to serve it just barely warm.

On the side, we had beautifully charred, salt and pepper-y grilled asparagus.

Warm Bulgur Salad with Grilled Salmon, Cucumbers and Mint

  • 1 tbsp delicious green olive oil, or more to taste
  • 1 1/4 pounds salmon fillet
  • Salt and pepper
  • 1 1/2 cups bulgur
  • 1/2  an English cucumber
  • 10-12 small tomatoes
  • 1 cup flat leaf parsley leaves, stems removed
  • 1/3 cup fresh mint leaves, larger leaves torn
  • 1/2 cup thin slivers of red onion
  • 2 tbsp lemon juice
  • good red wine vinegar to taste
  1. First, boil a kettle of water. While the water is boiling, put the bulgur into a medium sized heat proof bowl. Pour three cups of boiling water over the bulgur, briefly stir and leave to sit for 25 minutes (or more if you’re not quite done with the other parts of the recipe.  It shouldn’t take much longer than that though.)
  2. Put the red onion slivers in a small bowl with cold water to cover.  Add a splash of vinegar and set aside.
  3. Thinly slice the cucumber and halve the tomatoes. Sprinkle with salt and pepper
  4. Heat up the outdoor grill or your grill pan. Season the salmon with 1/4 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp freshly ground pepper. Spray or brush generously with olive oil. If the grill is gas, set the heat to direct medium. With a grill pan, medium high on the stove should be right.  You want to get that grill or pan good and hot – then things won’t stick to it. Lay the salmon flesh side down. Grill for 7-8 minutes on the flesh side. The general wisdom will tell you that salmon fillet is done when you cook it 5 minutes each side – but that is not really the case.  After 5 minutes on a non-stick surface, salmon will cling to the pan or the grill with a vice-like grip.  You could try to flip it but the whole crisp and grill marked surface will be ruined. BUT! if you wait another minute or two, carefully lifting an edge with a thin metal spatula, the filet will slide right off like a slipper and you won’t have mangled the grill marks.   7-8 minutes on the flesh side, 3 on the skin side – that’s how you grill perfect salmon.
  5. As the salmon is grilling, drain the bulgur and the onions. Toss bulgur with the olive oil, lemon juice and red wine vinegar to taste. Season with salt and pepper. Add the onions, cucumbers, tomatoes, parsley and mint. You can flake the salmon and toss everything together on a large platter or serve larger pieces of the salmon over the warm salad, which is what I did.

Grilled Asparagus

The thicker variety is best here – the pencil thin asparagus just falls through the grate and also becomes terribly mushy. Conveniently, the asparagus cooks at the same temperature and for nearly the same time as the salmon!

  • 1 lb asparagus, washed and woody ends snapped off
  • olive oil
  • salt and pepper
  1. Toss the asparagus with 2 tsp olive oil. Sprinkle with salt and pepper
  2. Grill for 6-8 minutes on direct medium heat, flipping once.
  3. Serve.

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Five Spice Pork with Chinese Egg Noodles

Posted on April 8, 2010 | Leave a comment

I have a big beef with fake-y Chinese food and weird ingredient substitutions. For instance, I have never had any success with Dan Dan Noodles using peanut butter. It always comes out gloopy. There is this one recipe in Joy that fails miserably. In my copy I have a note next to “Spicy Peanut Sesame Noodles” in thick blue indelible ink that states: “DO NOT TRY TO MAKE THIS AGAIN!”. Barefoot Contessa and Cook’s Illustrated recipes aren’t any better. Also, I never feel that spaghetti is an adequate substitute for Chinese egg noodles. I don’t know what it is exactly but Italian noodles just don’t have the same bounce as the Chinese kind.

Still, I am always looking for recipes that will give me that exotic hit, without a trip to Uwajimaya, the fantastic but somewhat out of the way Asian grocery here in Seattle. There’s nothing like inhaling steaming star anise scented broth, savoring the hot caramel notes of sauteed garlic and chillies or the salt and tang of fermented black beans in the middle of a busy week but often there isn’t time to swan around town, scavenging for ingredients. This recipe doesn’t call for anything esoteric. Ok, maybe you can’t easily find those bags of tangled fresh Chinese egg noodles in grocery stores outside of bigger towns and cities – I don’t really know – but all of the other ingredients are common in most big American grocery stores these days.

In this dish there is bacon to mimic the smoky barbecue pork flavor missing from plain old ground pork. Also Worcestershire, which I’ve seen in other American versions of Chinese dishes and I have to say, I find it a little disconcerting. I won’t let it get to me though. Actually, I’m happy that I haven’t tasted the original dish, because if I knew what this was really supposed be like, I might not prepare this pork and noodle dish again (I bet there’s a word for this arcane kind of snobbery). However, this recipe is so easy, fast and kid friendly, with that exotic whiff of China, it would be a shame not to make it from time to time.

Don’t let my photograph, which makes it look like brown glop on spaghetti, put you off. It tastes much better than the photograph would have you think, trust me. It would have been much more handsome served in individual bowls…maybe with thicker noodles.  I’ll just have to play with it.

Five Spice Pork with Chinese Egg Noodles

Serves 6

  • 3/4 cup peanuts
  • 4-5 thick slices of bacon
  • 3 medium cloves of garlic
  • One 3″ piece of ginger
  • 3/4 tsp red pepper flakes
  • 1/3 cup canola oil
  • 1 1/4 lbs ground pork
  • 3/4 tsp five-spice powder
  • 5 scallions, thinly sliced, white ends separated from green tops
  • 3 tbsp soy sauce
  • 1 1/2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
  • 1 1/2 tbsp dark Asian sesame oil
  • 3 tsp white vinegar
  • 1 1/2 tsp sugar
  • 1 1/4 lbs fresh Chinese egg noodles
  1. Bring a large pot of water to the boil and salt.
  2. Into a small bowl, combine the soy sauce, Worcestershire, sesame oil, vinegar, and sugar. Set aside.
  3. As the water is heating, start chopping. If you want this to be really fast, use your food processor.
  4. First roughly chop the nuts; if using the processor, pulse. Set aside.
  5. Then, cut the bacon into 1″ pieces and roughly chop the garlic and ginger. Put the bacon, garlic, ginger and red pepper flakes into the food processor and pulse until finely chopped.
  6. Over medium heat, place a 12″ heavy duty sauté pan add the contents of the food processor. Cook, mashing it apart (a metal potato masher like this one works really well for this), until the bacon renders its fat and browns. This should take 4 minutes.
  7. Add the ground pork, five spice powder and 1/4 tsp salt and raise the heat to medium high. Break up the pork with a wooden spoon (unless of course you have that potato masher – it works particularly well for ground pork) and cook until it loses its pink, raw color – this should take 3 minutes.
  8. At this point the water should be boiling, so add the noodles and cook following the package instructions.
  9. Add the white part of the scallions and the contents of the bowl from step 2 (soy sauce, Worcestershire, sesame oil, vinegar, and sugar.) Stir the contents of the pan and heat thoroughly.
  10. Drain the noodles and toss them into the pork mixture.  Divide between individual bowls and sprinkle with scallion greens and peanuts.


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Finally. A soup for my sister.

Posted on March 22, 2010 | 9 comments

Lisa – this soup is for you.

Our family has had many memorable meals from Marcella Hazan’s Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking. Her Bolognese, her pesto, La Grande Insalata Mista, cannelloni, fresh pasta, focaccia, the Roast Chicken with Lemons. All memorable, all standbys. Although it has been a couple of years since Chick Pea Soup has been in rotation, I bet I have made this soup over 100 times. How should I describe it? For a grown-up, this soup can be rustic Italian; for a kid, it’s an easy going pasta and beans; for a baby this soup could be food, could be a toy, and it’s definitely great for practicing small motor skills.

I made Chick Pea Soup today but what I initially wanted to make was Alice Water’s Pasta e Fagioli –  the one I wrote about in my very first blog post. I love that soup but you have to soak the beans in advance. I can never bring myself to use canned cannellini. Canned cannellini are too mushy and they don’t deserve to go in Alice Waters’ soup. Canned garbanzo beans are another story. Although I usually like to soak and cook my own, today was a very busy day and I had to take short cuts. When I realized at 2 pm that I’d forgotten about soaking cannellini or cranberry beans and that I hadn’t any more time to go to the market, I knew it was time. Time to make the soup that was probably the initial inspiration for this blog. This soup is the reason that I always keep cans of chick peas, boxes of Pacific brand organic chicken stock and canned tomatoes in the house. I have slightly adjusted the quantities of the soup so that there will be no leftovers from the cans. Two cans of chick peas, one quart box of chicken stock, a large can of tomatoes, half a pound of pasta. Done.

We had a whatever-is-left-in-the-crisper salad and Boursin and crackers on the side. I was going to write that this meal was not my proudest moment but I think I’m going to have to take that thought back. Making a meal that satisfies every person in the family, without a special trip to the grocery store, using just what’s on hand, is something to be very proud of.

Last Minute Menu

  • Chick Pea Soup
  • Whatever Salad (ours was romaine, tomatoes, carrots…and feta?! Weird but fine.)
  • Boursin and water crackers

Chick Pea Soup – pasta variation

Serves 6

Chick Pea Soup is unlike most soups in that it is not particularly soupy. Most Americans would beg that this is not soup at all as there is hardly any broth. What I say is that if Marcella says this is soup then I do too. It is a lovely soup. As Marcella states:

Soup is one of the tastiest things one can do with chick peas.

I have to say I agree.

  • 4 whole garlic cloves, peeled (no need to chop!)
  • 1/3 c extra virgin olive oil
  • a small sprig of fresh rosemary (you really should have a plant in the back yard!) or 1 1/2 tsp dried rosemary, crushed
  • (1) 28 oz can tomatoes, drained of their juice
  • (2) 14 oz cans chick peas, drained and rinsed
  • 1 quart chicken broth
  • salt and freshly ground black pepper
  • 1/2 lb elbow pasta (I like the ribbed Barilla elbows)
  • Grated parmesan to serve
  1. Put the olive oil and garlic cloves into a 5-6 quart heavy bottomed soup pot and turn on the heat to medium. Sauté the garlic until it becomes light brown all over and then remove them from the pot (you can toss the garlic out).
  2. Add the rosemary sprig (or dried rosemary if that’s all you’ve got) and immediately add the tomatoes. They will sizzle wildly for a few minutes. I stand as far back as I can with an apron on and my kitchen scissors in hand and quickly snip all the whole tomatoes into 3/4″ pieces. A normal person would just get out the cutting board and chop them up beforehand. If you value your shirts and your hands, I recommend that you do this.
  3. Cook for 20-30 minutes over medium low heat. You’ll be ready to continue when the oil floats free of the tomatoes.
  4. Add the drained chickpeas and stir thoroughly. Simmer for 5 minutes.
  5. Add the broth, cover and simmer for 15 minutes.
  6. Add the pasta, and stir every few minutes, following the cooking time stated on the box. Stirring frequently will keep the pasta from sticking to the pot.  Cooking pasta this way is very different from cooking it in copious amounts of salted water.
  7. Season with salt and pepper and serve with freshly grated parmesan.

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Faux pho

Posted on March 21, 2010 | 1 comment

Faux pho (which I guess is pronounced “foh – fuh”) is a lot easier to make than true phở. True phở has a bunch of exotic ingredients which, in this house anyway, make it a tall order – especially on a day like crazy Thursday. Saigon cinnamon, star anise, roasted ginger, black cardamom, coriander seed, fennel seed and clove.  Out of those I know I have the coriander, the fennel and the clove. And the star anise. Most people don’t have star anise and I have to admit, mine has been sitting around for awhile. Also the broth has beef bones and chicken parts and a lot of other things that make true phở not for the faint of heart and really not for last minute, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants types. A bummer if you ever crave phở in the middle of the week and it’s not practical to go out.

Faux pho is a different story. I made faux pho last Thursday and although it was a little insane to make it for the first time mid-week, I know that I’ll make it again and that next time it will be MUCH easier.

You might look at the picture and the list of ingredients for this soup and then see that I categorized it as Fast and Easy and come to the conclusion that I’ve either lost my mind or that my chopping hand is bionic (it’s not). I’m not crazy either. The prep for this soup isn’t bad at all. Do all of the knife work up front. If you chop everything before you start a recipe, the process goes a lot faster and there’s a lot less fumbling around as you cook. Also here is a Rule of Thumb (I can’t emphasize this enough):

The first time you make any recipe with a long-ish list of unfamiliar ingredients, don’t make it mid-week. Make it on Sunday afternoon so you can read the directions carefully and leisurely play around with it.

With this recipe it’s especially important because it’s not that hard or time consuming. Trying a recipe with more prep than you are used to mid-week might be so stressful that you’ll never try to make that really great recipe again. In this one there are no difficult techniques. There is some chopping, not too much.  Just the shallots, ginger, the green onion and the chili.  Think about it. How long could it possibly take to chop the ingredients in those small quantities?!

If you’ve never prepared lemongrass before, you’ll want to read the directions about trimming and removing the outer layer a couple of times before you start (since the line of directions has only 17 words – it won’t take that long). And you’ll see very quickly that lemongrass is not a big deal, no more difficult than prepping a scallion.

A couple more things: First, I rewrote the recipe and tried to break it down into essential parts.  It looks longer this way but the scope of work should be crystal clear. Also I adjusted the role of the chilies. In the original recipe they are added with the basil, the lime juice and the soy sauce. Since I had green thai chilies they were nearly indistinguishable from the scallions. It was as if those innocuous little green rings were crazy spicy naval mines in the soup – ambushing unsuspecting children and less seasoned adults. Those bird’s eye chilies are hot! So I specify using the red variety (so you don’t confuse them with the scallions) and using them as a garnish.

Chicken Noodle Soup with Lemongrass

Serves 4

The Soup:

  • 2 1/2 tbsp canola oil
  • 3/4 lb boneless skinless chicken breast
  • kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
  • 3 shallots (4 oz total), peeled and sliced into thin rings
  • 2 stalks lemongrass, ends trimmed, outer layers peeled off and discarded, halved lengthwise, whacked once hard with a mallet
  • 1 tbsp minced ginger
  • 2 tsp packed light brown sugar
  • 5 1/2 cups low-salt chicken broth
  • 3 1/2 oz shiitake mushrooms, stems removed and sliced
  • 12 ounces fresh udon noodles
  • 8 large fresh basil leaves, torn
  • 1 medium lime, half juiced and half cut into 4 wedges
  • 1 tbsp soy sauce

To Garnish:

  • 2 medium scallions, trimmed and sliced
  • 1 medium carrot, cut into matchsticks (or coarsely grated)
  • 1/2 c. fresh cilantro leaves, rinsed and dried
  • 1 red thai bird chili, sliced into thin rings

Preparing the chicken:

  1. Heat 1 1/2 tbsp canola oil in a 6 quart heavy bottomed soup pot until shimmering.
  2. As oil is heating, season chicken breasts with 1/2 tsp kosher salt and 1/2 tsp black pepper.
  3. Cook chicken breasts without disturbing for 2 minutes, or until the chicken easily releases from the pan. Flip and cook until the second side is browned, 1-2 minutes more.
  4. Place chicken on a cutting board to cool.

Bring a pot of salted water to the boil for the udon as you are preparing the broth.

Making the broth:

  1. Add the remaining 1 tbsp canola oil and shallots to the pan.  Sprinkle with 1/4 tsp salt. Reduce heat to medium and cook for 2 minutes or until shallots begin to soften.
  2. Add lemongrass, ginger and brown sugar, cook until ginger and lemongrass become fragrant and the pan starts to sizzle – about 1 minute.
  3. Add the chicken broth, stirring and scraping up any browned bits from the bottom of the pot.  Raise the heat to medium high.  Bring the broth to a boil, then lower heat and simmer.
  4. Add the mushrooms and continue to simmer for 5 minutes.

Preparing the udon:

  1. In the pot of boiling salted water, cook the noodles, stirring once or twice to ensure they aren’t sticking together.
  2. Simmer for 3 minutes or until just tender.
  3. Drain and run under cold water to stop the cooking.  Drain well.

Assembling the soup:

  1. Shred the chicken with your fingers or the tines of a fork and add it and the noodles to the broth.
  2. Simmer until the chicken is fully cooked and the noodles are tender, about 2 minutes.
  3. Remove and discard the lemongrass.
  4. Add the basil, lime juice and soy sauce, seasoning with more soy to taste.
  5. Divide the noodles and chicken between 4 large bowls, ladle the broth over the top.
  6. Serve with bowls of the garnishes at the table.

*What makes this pho really faux is that the recipe developers at Fine Cooking decided to make it with udon, not rice noodles. Initially I was suspicious. Why substitute udon for rice? They are equally easy to find and prepare. After trying the soup with udon though, it tasted more substantial than with rice noodles.  I might not use the japanese noodles every time, but it was fun to eat the bouncy chewy udon here.


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Crazy Thursday: another lentil soup

Posted on March 5, 2010 | 2 comments

According to Mr. Fearnley-Whittingstall, “This soup is a brilliant standby if you need to produce a quick meal from store cupboard ingredients”. I took that as a challenge – mostly because the soup has caraway seeds in it and I almost never like food with caraway seeds. Lentil soup with caraway and minted yogurt. I also find it suspect when an ingredient is given “ed” status. Minted yogurt indeed. Hmph.

You must be wondering why, given the starring role for caraway and the silly “minted name”, I would have ever decided to try this soup. Especially given that it was Crazy Thursday and I usually try to stick with a sure thing that the kids will like because they’re so tired after all the activities they have that day.  Also there are so many recipes in River Cottage Everyday that I am really truly excited about.

What it came down to was that I had all the ingredients. Even the fresh mint for the yogurt I had from the lamb the night before. I also had half a loaf of great bread in the freezer and the Fleur d’Aunis from the tartiflette for a grilled cheese sandwich to accompany. The instructions for the soup seemed really easy and I could see it would be a cinch to put together.  So I went down the caraway path.

Guess what?! The soup was wonderful and not only because it was so easy.  Now I’m curious if the reason I don’t really like caraway is because in most recipes the seeds are included whole and that makes them more pungent.  Not to mention that their hard chewiness is distracting. In this recipe the caraway seeds are toasted and ground. Their earthy herbaceousness contrasts with the coriander – which is sprightly and citrus-y.  Since the soup is pureed, the lentils add smooth vegetal body combined with all the onion and some carrot. It’s actually quite marvelous, the way it comes together.  And I have to admit, the “minted” yogurt garnish is wonderful, adding spring-like freshness – perfect for the last days of winter.

If you use a food processor to chop the carrot and onion, this soup will come together in half an hour – and most of that time is sweating and simmering. While the soup bubbles away on the stove, you can put together some grilled cheese sandwiches.

Lentil soup with caraway and minted yogurt – River Cottage Every Day

Serves 6

The soup

  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • 2 yellow onions, roughly chopped
  • 1 carrot, roughly chopped
  • 2 tsp ground coriander
  • 1 tsp caraway seeds, (toasted in frying pan and ground – I hope you’ll bother to toast them – it’s easy)
  • 2 garlic cloves, crushed
  • 12 oz red lentils
  • 1 quart low salt chicken broth – I like Pacific brand organic
  • 2 cups water
  • sea salt and freshly ground pepper

The minted yogurt garnish

  • 5 tbsp plain yogurt
  • 2 tbsp finely chopped fresh mint
  1. Heat the olive oil over medium heat in a heavy bottomed soup pot.  Add the onions and carrots, stir to coat with the oil. Cover and sweat for about 10 minutes.  Stir every 3 or 4 minutes.
  2. Combine the coriander and the toasted caraway in a small bowl and stir.  Add half the spices to the carrots and onions along with the garlic and stir over medium heat for a minute.
  3. Add the lentils, broth and water to the pot and bring to the boil, skimming off any scum that forms on the surface. Reduce the heat and simmer for 15 minutes or until the lentils are very soft.
  4. Now to puree. Mr. Fearnley-Whittingstall would have you transfer the whole pot of soup to a blender or a food processor and puree.  I really hope you have an immersion blender, it’s so much easier to dunk it into the pot to smooth out the soup. You don’t need the fancy huge one from Williams-Sonoma.  It’s overkill.  I got my Braun at Costco 15 years ago and it has several useful attachments.  A food mill would also work using the smallest disk, but if you have an immersion blender that would be the easiest by far.
  5. Return the soup to the pot and heat through. Adjust the seasonings, adding the rest of the caraway and coriander and salt and pepper. (I added 1-1/2 tsp salt)
  6. While the soup sits over low heat, stir up the yogurt and mint.  Put a little blob into each bowl over the hot soup just as you serve.

If you really need to rely on what is at hand and have no fresh mint, just use plain yogurt.

I am sure you are wondering if the kids liked this soup. I think it’s just a matter of conditioning. We don’t ever have pureed soups, so they’re not used to the texture. There was nothing off-putting about the taste. Which is to say, no, they did not like it. They all tried it though! And they happily made do with the toasted cheese sandwiches. Nobody cried. I will make this soup again.


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Sweet Banana Dutch Baby

Posted on February 28, 2010 | 9 comments

For about 3 seconds this morning I convinced myself that I was a brilliant culinary genius. Ha! Pure hubris. I made something I always make and added another thing I sometimes make and it was really very good. I just got lucky. The fact that both things are so incredibly easy to do is the icing on the cake, so to speak.

Yes, this is breakfast and even though I am sort of committed to dinner and generally not all that interested in breakfast, this morning I made a Dutch Baby with Caramel Bananas and it was fabulous. We have a tradition in our house of eating a large slice of birthday cake in bed the morning following a birthday dinner. So I’d already eaten a big piece of banana caramel cream birthday cake. I hadn’t actually planned on having a real breakfast at all. Yet there I was, standing at the kitchen counter, sneaking a large corner of the pancake that I had made “for the kids”, mashing the custardy remains into the brown sugar syrupy leftover bananas in a bowl. The high note tang of the lemon was underscored by the dulce de leche sweetness of brown sugar.  It was dreamy.

I am a big fan of eating something very delicious and over the top in bed (like birthday cake), especially with a big cup of coffee and these Dutch babies would have been perfect. Add a good book, the sun streaming through an open window and that crisp earthy early spring smell coming in – what could be nicer than that?

Dutch Babies with Caramel Bananas

Dutch Baby – Joy of Cooking

20-22 minutes – start to finish

generously serves 4

  • 1 cup milk
  • 1 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 4 large eggs
  • 1 stick unsalted butter
  • powdered sugar and lemon slices to serve
  1. Preheat the oven to 425 F.
  2. Set the oven rack in the middle of the oven, leaving the space above clear.  This pancake will rise.
  3. Place 9 x 13 Pyrex pan in the oven with the stick of butter, cut into 6 pieces, in it to melt.  Don’t forget about it and burn it.  Just melt it.
  4. Whisk the milk, flour, sugar and eggs together in a medium sized bowl.
  5. Pour the contents of the bowl into the melted butter.
  6. Bake 15- 17 minutes. Call your children into the kitchen just before you pull it from the oven. The batter will have risen to great heights around the edges and become deeply browned.  The middle with be almost custardy and glisten with hot butter.
  7. Sift powdered sugar over the surface and serve immediately with lemon slices on the side.

Haydee’s Microwave Bananas – Best Food Writing 2003

4 Servings

3 minutes start to finish – you should start the bananas after the Dutch Baby has been in the oven for 10 minutes

The name doesn’t do them justice.

  • 2 ripe bananas – peeled and sliced into 1/2″ thick slices
  • 2 tbsp unsalted butter
  • 2 heaping tbsp brown sugar
  • 1/4 tsp cinnamon (I never do the cinnamon but the original recipe includes it)
  1. Place bananas, butter, sugar and cinnamon into microwave safe bowl and cook on high for 1 or 2 minutes.
  2. Spoon onto Dutch Baby.


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A “perfect” dinner…

Posted on February 12, 2010 | 4 comments

There’s this lady food writer who kind of bugs me.  She’s very lovely (a former Wilhelmina model), she writes about healthy food alternatives (admirable), and she tries to keep things simple for busy families (good idea!). So I feel like kind of a worm for not liking her.

Maybe it’s the photos – she always stares calmly, smilingly at the camera, posed artlessly in front of a roaring fire, apple (healthy!) in hand.  She’s coiffed, but not excessively. She is slim but not scary-slim. Her menus are so virtuously planned – whole grains, leafy greens, colorful vegetables and a modicum of healthy fats in the form of olive oil, almonds or walnuts.  Why do I always roll my eyes?! Probably because in my kitchen, there is always an undercurrent of turmoil, I am always at least slightly disheveled and I have such an affinity for butter.

Anyway, given my feelings about this person, I’m not sure how I ended up trying this menu she authored – but I did.  The thing is, it was great. Sigh…Coriander roast pork tenderloin, spicy roast vegetables and brown rice with walnuts and golden raisins. Really easy and really great.  Now I really feel like a worm.  (Will I now actually try the Healthy Blueberry Muffins?! Where will this lead?)

I did make a couple of changes to the recipes though, to streamline them and also to accommodate the ingredients I had in my house. In my version there is no crushing of seeds and no seasoning of oils. It doesn’t add enough in terms of flavor and all that crushing and infusing makes for too much clean-up. I tossed the spices directly into the food. In addition, I will write it all up here in a game plan to accommodate your busy household.

Coriander Crusted Pork Tenderloin with Spicy Roast Vegetables and Brown Rice Pilaf

Game Plan:

15 minutes prep, 35 minutes cooking time

  1. Set the oven to 450 F and place a large rimmed sheet pan in the upper middle rung of the oven.  Set the other rack to the lower middle rung of the oven.
  2. Chop all the vegetables including  the onion and parsley for the pilaf.  This should take about 10 minutes.
  3. Start the rice, cooking the onion, adding rice and water and setting the heat to low.
  4. Mix up all the spices for the vegetables in a small bowl.
  5. Toss the vegetables with the olive oil and the spices and put on the sheet pan in the oven.
  6. Rub the pork with the mustard and spices ; brown in saute pan and put in the oven.  This should take 10 minutes.
  7. Toast the walnuts.

Spicy Roasted Vegetables

  • 3-4 large carrots, quartered and cut into 1″ pieces, on diagonal
  • 1 large red onion, cut into 8 or more wedges, leaving root end intact to hold the layer together
  • 1 bell pepper, cut into 1″ pieces
  • 1 large head fennel, but into 8-10 wedges, root end intact to hold layers together
  • 1/2 a small butternut squash, cut into 1″ chunks
  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • 1/2 tsp ground cumin
  • 1/2 tsp ground coriander
  • 1/2 tsp ground ginger
  • 1/4 tsp cinnamon
  • 1/8 tsp cayenne
  • kosher salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
  1. Place vegetables in large mixing bowl and toss with olive oil.
  2. Mix spices with 1 tsp salt and pepper in a small bowl.  Sprinkle over vegetables.
  3. Place vegetables on hot sheet pan in the oven for 35 minutes.
  4. Toss with more kosher salt and pepper to taste.  Serve.

Brown Rice with Walnuts and Golden Raisins

  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • 1/4 small onion, finely diced
  • 1/2 c. brown basmati rice
  • 1/4 cup toasted walnuts – toast in a heavy skillet over medium heat for 3-5 minutes.  They’ll smell fragrant when they’re done.  Pay close attention while toasting so they don’t burn.
  • 2 tbsp finely chopped parsley
  • Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
  1. Heat the olive oil in a heavy bottomed saucepan with a lid over medium high heat.
  2. Add the onion and cook until translucent, about 2 minutes.
  3. Add the rice, stirring to coat with the oil.
  4. Add 1 1/4 c water and 1/2 tsp salt.  Bring to boil over high heat. Cover, reduce heat to low, maintaining a low simmer.  You want to be careful.  The water should simmer; too much and you will have dried-out hard grains of rice, too little and you’ll get a soggy mess.
  5. Cook until water is absorbed and rice is tender, about 35 minutes.
  6. Let sit for 5 minutes off the heat and then remove lid and fluff with a fork.
  7. Stir in walnuts, raisins and parsley.

Coriander-Cumin Crusted Pork Tenderloin

  • 1 lb- 1 1/4 lb pork tenderloin
  • 2 tsp Dijon mustard
  • 1 1/2 tsp ground cumin
  • 1 1/2 tsp ground coriander
  • freshly ground black pepper
  • 1 tsp kosher salt
  • 1 tbsp olive oil
  1. Spread the mustard over the pork tenderloin.
  2. Mix the cumin, coriander, salt and pepper and rub onto the mustard coated pork.
  3. Heat the oil in a 12 inch sauté pan over medium-high heat. Brown the pork, turning it with tongs, until nicely browned – about 3 minutes per side.
  4. Put the sauté pan with the pork in the oven and roast until an instant read thermometer registers 155 F – 18-20 minutes.  Rest for 5 minutes before slicing.

I am happy to say that we all liked this dinner very much – really!  If you have family members who are sensitive to spicy foods you may want to reduce the cayenne – but honestly, it is just pleasantly warm – not searingly hot – my 2 year old loved the roasted fennel particularly.  The edges of the vegetables will be caramelized.  The raisins and walnuts add sweetness and richness to the rice.  This is fine mid-week fare on a not-crazy afternoon.  It’s actually very good – although I hate to admit it.

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