Beef and Bok Choy Stir Fry

For some reason, whenever I get home from a trip or don't feel well, I suddenly turn into an old Vietnamese lady and drink boiling hot water or eat food laden with ginger. I got home from Chicago early this morning after (I calculated this) 30 hours of awake time with a total of maybe 3 hours of nap interspersed in there. I came home and zonked out for 5 hours. Woke up famished and looking for some old lady comfort.

Enter stir fry. Thing about stir fry is that it can either be really delicious, or a mess. And it only takes knowing the basic stir fry formula to get it right. It doesn't have to be done in a wok. Someone asked me that recently and I thought: why would you buy a pan for just 1 application? What is it about a wok that does it right? A wok has surface area. A good surface area to heat ratio. Problem is, in American kitchens, we have flat cook tops. We don't have the appropriate hole with fire under it type cook top that many Chinese restaurants have to effectively use a wok. So then you just have a giant wobbly pan on a flat surface. Dumb. Get a giant frying pan. Lots of surface area to heat. It's not about volume. If you do it right, you should be doing it in batches anyway, not piling everything in and then hoping for the best. You end up with meat that looks unappetizing, simulateously soggy and burned vegetables, and throwing hot sauce on top to drown out the mess. Don't do that. It's gross.

Here's the key: HEAT. High Heat.

Here's the formula:

high heat + oil + aromatic (ginger, garlic) + vegetables

**Remove the vegetables and set aside**

High heat + oil + protein (silk the meat for the Chinese take out texture) - cook until meat is done

**add the vegetables back in**

Stir it so that the flavors meld

**add a finishing sauce (I run to oyster sauce for this)**

For this, I used:

- Beef trip tip steak, sliced and marinated in 2 tbps of soy sauce and 1/2 tsp of baking soda (this is silking)
- chopped up bok choy
- about a half inch of ginger root, grated or chopped
- 2 cloves of garlic, minced
- soy sauce
- sliced onions
- sesame oil
- 1 tbsp oyster sauce
- s+p
- veg oil

1. Giant frying pan, add about 1-2 tbsp of oil and let it heat til it shimmers. Add ginger and garlic and stir around for 30 seconds.
2. Add bok choy and a small amount of sesame oil. Stir it around and cover for about a minute so that it can wilt down a bit.
3. Remove bok choy from the heat and set aside. Add fresh oil and stir fry the beef. Add the onions. Cook until beef is to desired done-ness.
4. Add the bok choy back in and stir it around. I added a little more soy sauce at this b point and the oyster sauce. Killed the heat, stirred it around. You can add any further salt, if needed, here. Add black pepper.

I salt at the end because of the soy and oyster sauce; it's really easy to over-do the salt if you're not careful.

If you stir fry this way, you end up with vegetables that are cooked appropriately and meat that is browned and looks appetizing. It turns into a vibrant, delightful dish rather than just a giant pile of soggy suck.

Pan Roasted Chicken Thigh with Bacon Gravy and Succotash

Succotash. Nobody in the Pacific Northwest knows what it is. But since I've become a country-music loving, gun-toting, soft-core redneck, I felt the need to revive my (barely) Southern roots one weekend and introduce succotash to my kinfolk.

A note about getting a good crackle on fowl skin or a good sear on a steak: dry your meat. Take a paper towel and dry it off before seasoning it. Here's why: hot pan + plus wet meat = steamed meat.
Hot pan + dry meat = meat sticking until it's released on its own at exactly the right time and a perfect crust or crackly skin. Science.

Need:
Bone-in, skin on chicken thighs, dried off
S+p
Garlic powder
Vegetable oil

Succotash:
Chopped bacon
1 C chopped yellow onion
1 C frozen corn, defrosted
1 C frozen lima beans, defrosted
S+p
Garlic powder
Cayenne

Bacon gravy:
Chopped bacon
1/2 C chopped yellow onion
Some white wine
Salt
1 tbsp butter

1. Season chicken thighs all over and sear in a cast iron skillet. Place chicken in a preheated 375° oven for about 35 min. Done.

2. Place chopped bacon in a pan and heat and cook it until crispy. Remove from pan, leave drippings. Add the onions and saute for 1 min. Then add the corn and lima beans. Saute and season with salt, pepper, garlic powder and cayenne pepper to taste. Thoroughly heat veggies thru, then add cooked bacon back into the mix.

3. In another pan, cook chopped bacon, again, til crispy and remove. Add the onions and saute 1 min. Then add a bit of white wine. Keep the heat med-high to high until some of the wine cooks off a bit. Taste and salt, as needed. Turn off the heat, add the bacon back to the sauce and the butter. Melt it into the sauce until it comes together.

This was a delightfully lightened (pfft) version of Southern food. I garnished with mint because Kentucky derby. And because it's what I had on hand for garnish.

Vietnamese Inspired Steak Salad

I'm divorced. That's my reason and I'm sticking to it.

Meanwhile, my cooking has elevated to another dimension that I could never have dreamed of before. I've been inspired over and over again and my passion has been re-ignited. On the verge of turning 29 for the first time this year, I resolve to follow my passion and keep developing this talent that people keep telling me I have. And to be honest, at this point, even I'd rather eat my own cooking than go out.

This salad was thrown together tonight based on a whim and a glimpse of a steak salad this morning on foodgawker (my favorite way to pass time at work is to stare at pictures of food until I'm inspired to create something). Somewhere recently I saw another picture of a vietnamese style steak salad and the idea stuck.

The kids have been obsessed with peanut butter sandwiches lately and that, too, gave me ideas. Funny how things come together like that to create a symphony of flavors.

Need:
Romaine lettuce, shredded
Fresh mint leaves
Julienned carrots
Sliced cucumber
Sliced green mango
Sliced scallions
Lemon juice
S+p
Tri tip steak

Peanut sauce:
1 tsp peanut butter
A splash of soy sauce
A splash of fish sauce
1/4 tsp of sesame oil
A splash of white vinegar
A splash of rice wine
1/2 tsp sugar
Sambal hot sauce, to taste
Garlic powder
1/3 C Vegetable oil

1. For the peanut sauce, throw it all in a food processor and blend til smooth, streaming in vegetable oil while it runs.

2. Toss the lettuce, mint, and scallions together with a bit of lemon juice, s+p.

3. S+p on the steak and grill to desired doneness. Let it rest. Slice it up.

4. Arrange the salad, cucumber, carrots, mango slices around the lettuce. Top with grilled meat. Then add peanut sauce as you like to the top.

For this, I also made some cilantro oil (fancy like that) to drizzle around the plate. I garnished with French fried onions and sliced habanero pepper.

Michelada de Camaron

I was craving for something salty, spicy, limey, and beer-y for dinner. So I decided on a Michelada - which is a Mexican shrimp cocktail topped off with beer. It was incredibly satisfying. This is especially good on a hot, summer day.

Need:

chopped shrimp (bay shrimp are fine for this use)

chopped tomatoes

peeled, chopped cucumber

finely chopped onion

finely chopped serrano pepper

finely chopped carrot

2-3 limes

salt

Tapatio hot sauce to taste

1 Mexican beer

1. Add the first 6 ingredients in a bowl. Squeeze the lime juice into it. Add a little salt and hot sauce.

2. Let it marinate for at least an hour

3. Serve in a tall glass with ice cubes. Top off with beer and mix around. Add more hot sauce, if you like. I like.

I love to drink/eat this with some tortilla chips. 

Cauliflower Soup

I never used to like cauliflower very much. Then one evening, we went out for a lovely dinner at Canlis and the amuse bouche was a cauliflower soup. It was ambrosia to my tongue and I immediately went home and emailed the chef for the recipe. I'm not sharing that recipe. I'm sharing a slightly heartier version that I made because I didn't have cream.

Need:

Cauliflower
broth (beef, chicken, or mushroom)
1/2 white onion
2 tbsp. butter
1/2 C milk
1 heaping tbsp. of cream cheese
salt
white pepper

1. Chop onion and sauté in butter until translucent.

2. Rough chop the cauliflower and add to the onions and butter. Add broth and bring to a simmer until the cauliflower is soft.

3. Pour the contents in the pot into a blender. REMOVE THE LITTLE BLENDER LID-KNOB THING AND COVER THE HOLE WITH A TOWEL WHEN YOU TURN IT ON. Otherwise, the pressure will build up and you will have HOT cauliflower debris all over you and your kitchen. I've done this before, it sucks a lot. Blend until smooth.

4. Add the puree back to the pot and add the milk and cream cheese. Whisk until smooth and then taste it. Add salt, if needed, and the white pepper.

Cobb Salad with Goat Cheese Dressing

 

 

If you don't know how to put a salad together, my friend, I feel bad for you. Don't worry. I won't tell anyone (I'm telling everyone).

 

Need:

shredded lettuce (I used red leaf)
1 hard boiled egg
1 cooked beet
some cooked, chopped bacon
cheddar cheese cut into small cubes
turkey breast, cut into cubes
a bunch of grape tomatoes
thinly sliced white onion
goat cheese
white vinegar
olive oil
honey
s+p

1. Put the shredded lettuce in a bowl.

2. Pile on the egg, beet, bacon, cheese, turkey breast, tomatoes, and onions.

3. In a blender, add goat cheese, vinegar, olive oil, honey, s+p. Blend until smooth. Dress the salad.

If I'd had an avocado, I would have added that too. But my daughter loves avocados, so they don't last long in this house.

Beet Pancakes

This needs to go into the "failed-attempts-at-trolling-my-own-children" file. I thought that I'd be super smart tonight and put some beet puree in pancake batter to trick them into eating beets. I figured that if I cover it with some frosting and sprinkles, they would never be the wiser. Boy, was I mistaken. To my established, adult palate, I almost didn't notice the beets. To my son, who walked up and made a face and groaned, they tasted "gross." He hadn't even tried them yet. After I told him that they were "Iron Man Pancakes" (Iron Mancakes), he tasted them. Then he told me that if you eat them, "You might die. This is disgust-o." That one is an evil genius. I was stifling my own laughter the entire time he critiqued the meal. The girl ate them just fine, so long as there was enough frosting. How do other mothers trick their kids? Mine won't fall for this nonsense. I'll keep you guys posted on my other failures with these two.