"Mom! You forgot to cut off their heads!" I don't know what came over me. All I can say is that I was rushed and tired, and for five minutes, when the task of cleaning the shrimp fell on me, I lost my head and didn't remove theirs. My family was not amused; they were nauseated. Too bad, because the sauce was great. So even if the sight of their beady little eyes and whiskers is a big turn-off, give it a try. Shells and heads are optional. I can't remember where I found the original recipe, and I never wrote down all the proportions because sometimes it's nice not to measure. It's been great every time. I'm going to write this out exactly as I have it on my recipe card from seven years ago. Shrimp Marinade: ginger cornstarch or arrowroot powder salt sake sesame oil Sauce: a drop of chicken broth water oyster sauce cornstarch or arrowroot powder Other Ingredients: oil for frying salt a little minced garlic 1/2 pound snap peas or snow peas, rinsed and de-stringed if they are tough 2/3 pound shrimp, preferably peeled and cleaned Directions: night, they marinated for no more than ten minutes and the world did not end.) Heat up some oil in a wok or fry pan over high heat, and when it's hot add the minced garlic. Give it a stir and then add the shrimp. Keep stirring. When they are cooked, transfer them to another container and set them aside. Stir the shrimp back in. The shrimp will feel velvety too, but not from yuck and goo like my family assumed, but from the cornstarch in the marinade. We ate this with hot rice and cabbage pickles. Fry garlic, add shrimp. Remove. Add salt and snow peas. Add sauce. Add shrimp. Serve.
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Oh yum. I used this on short ribs and then again with pork tenderloin. Delicious both times. The beef short ribs had the best flavor, but they were tough in spite of my best efforts to tenderize them. You can grill the meat or cook it under the broiler, but it tastes better grilled. We usually serve it with vinegared cucumbers, kim chi, and a fried vegetable. The traditional way with all the little sides would take an army. Suit yourself. Ingredients: 2-3 pounds meat 1/2 onion, minced 1/2 bulb garlic, peeled and minced 1/3 cup soy sauce 3 tablespoons honey black pepper Directions: Mix all the other ingredients together for the marinade except for the meat. Put the meat in a bowl, stir in the marinade, and leave it covered in the refrigerator overnight. Grill the meat. Long before I ever ate at an Indian restaurant, there was this chicken curry from Charmaine Solomon's The Complete Asian Cookbook. When it cooks, I always think this is what chicken curry should taste like. It's also very simple and adaptable to what you have on hand. It is nothing but dump, stir, dump, stir. Ingredients: 2 pounds of chicken, cut in pieces if it is a whole chicken 1 onion 3 cloves garlic 1 teaspoon ginger 1/2 cup cilantro or mint 1-2 tablespoons oil 1 teaspoon turmeric 1-1/2 teaspoons garam masala 1-1/2 teaspoons salt 1/2 teaspoon chili (you can double this or leave it out completely) 1/2 cup yogurt 2 tomatoes, chopped OR 2 tablespoons tomato paste in a pinch Directions:
Blend the onion, garlic, ginger, and cilantro or mint in a food processor. You can, of course, chop it all up by hand if you choose. Fry it in a pot in a little oil until it has cooked a little. Add in the turmeric, garam masala, salt, and chili. Fry it for a minute, then add the yogurt and tomatoes. When the tomato starts to break down, add in the chicken. Bring it to a boil, then turn it down to simmer and cover it. You will have to check it and give it a stir now and then to make sure it doesn't burn. If it gets too dry before the chicken is done, add a little water. When the chicken is done, turn up the flame to evaporate the extra liquid and thicken the sauce. Serve it with rice and a vegetable or salad. This post is about what happened to my chicken, what to do with a whole chicken, and of course a recipe for Chicken Paprikash. After what felt like an eternity of bleeding, hacking, dying, and disemboweling, we were finally ready to cook. I had considered freezing all the meat to give myself a little time to absorb and forget all the slaughter, but how many times in life does a girl like me get to taste fresh chicken? And how many times will I have a Hungarian in my kitchen offering to show me firsthand how to make Chicken Paprikash? I'm guessing only once. Here is a picture of what we were left with. I know, I know. Me too. Yikes. You can imagine how I felt. But you will notice how red all the meat looks. The breast meat looks like dark meat. Everything had been rubbed down with salt and rinsed multiple times. The stomach had been cleaned out and then kissed (literally) to show that it was perfectly safe now. Into one bowl went the skin, the wing tips, the head, the back, etc, for making a soup. Into another bowl went all the pieces destined for the Chicken Paprikash. I lobbied for the feet to go toward the soup, but was overruled. Apparently feet are incredibly sweet. Same for the comb and the testicles. There was a comic strip a few years back that shows a hen feeding her sick rooster chicken soup. "It's supposed to be good for you," she tells him. "And don't worry, it's no one we know." It's become something of a family joke, and it was a little difficult to eat someone we knew. But the flavor was so much better than any chicken I have ever eaten before. It was a little tougher, but I don't think that meat should have the same texture as butter anyway. I must have had three helpings, and I sat there staring at the foot, thinking that if that was the best part, I was really missing out. So if you ever have the opportunity to try fresh meat like this, take it. Ingredients: 1 chicken cut in pieces with most of the skin and fat removed 3 tablespoons of Hungarian paprika olive oil 1 onion, minced 2 cloves garlic, minced 1 tablespoon salt fresh ground pepper 1/3 cup red wine 3 tablespoons flour 1/2 cup water 1/2-1 cup sour cream
Soup for the rest of the chicken...I don't have all the pictures of this one, but I wanted to keep a record of it here anyway. Take all the rest of the chicken bits that seem a little exotic or unusable, like some of the skin, the head, back, etc, and put them in a stock pot. Add one unpeeled onion and fill it with water. Add about a tablespoon of salt, though you will need more later. Bring this to a boil and let it simmer for about an hour. Then add two peeled potatoes, two peeled carrots, a little broccoli, and a parsnip if you have it. When the vegetables are cooked through, remove them. Boil one pound of angel hair pasta, drain it, and toss it with a little of the broth so it doesn't all stick together. Season the broth and serve it with the vegetables and pasta in separate dishes.
Not an inspiring name, I know, but try it and you'll see I'm onto something. This dish has a thousand possible variations, and it's a great way to use up mismatched vegetables from your garden. We have been making it with calcium broth and the whole family seems to like it. It's been hard to post this because every time I make it I vary the ingredients, but then I realized that was the beauty of it. Apart from the ingredients you see below, I have also made this with tofu, dried salted shrimp, bamboo shoots, carrots, onion... Pretty much anything that needed to be eaten. I have also made this with dashi instead of chicken or beef stock, and I've seasoned it with equal parts soy sauce and sugar and left out the ten spice powder and sesame oil. Ingredients: 2 boneless pork chops cut into bite-size pieces oil garlic, minced ginger, minced scallions, sliced assorted vegetables cut into bite-size pieces 2-4 cups broth 2 bundles cellophane noodles soy sauce Chinese Five Spice or (even better!) Ten Spice sesame oil Directions: This is just so good. According to the woman who first made beef sukiyaki for me, it's very high calorie food. Well, maybe for the Japanese, but this is one of the lightest dishes I know, and if you are a real meat-and-potatoes kind of person you might even be ready for a second dinner a few hours after eating this. It's usually made with beef slices instead of salmon, made right at the table, and served with hot rice and raw egg. As the food cooks, you fish it out of the pot, dip it in the raw egg, and eat it with hot rice. I don't have the right equipment to do this at the table, so I make this on the stovetop in 2 batches. I also never remember the raw egg, but I don't think any of that really matters. This is really easy and flexible. You can vary the ingredients quite a lot depending on what you like. Also, there are a lot of different ways to make the broth, but this is the way I was first shown and also the simplest. Ingredients: sliced salmon sugar soy sauce Now use any combination of the following: mushrooms Napa cabbage bean sprouts spinach onion broccoli chrysanthemum leaves shirataki tofu Directions: Slice everything into bite size pieces so they cook quickly. Place the vegetables in the pan and add just a little bit of water and bring it to a boil. Be conservative with the water since a lot of liquid will come from the vegetables as they cook. When the liquid is hot, slip in the salmon. Sprinkle sugar and soy sauce right over the vegetables and keep tasting until it's as salty or as sweet as you like it. Keep it at a low simmer, and add more vegetables and fish as there's room. Serve this with hot rice. I found this slightly bizarre video of beef sukiyaki being made, so if you're curious, take a look. The good news is that no one's dying, and the bad news is that the annual November cold has finally hit my kids. So it's chicken soup for us. I spent years making a Korean chicken soup, then a Vietnamese version, but this has been my favorite for the last few years. My husband, who hates the flavored water known as soup, genuinely likes this and is genuinely surprised every time that he does. This was a happy accident. I tried a recipe which turned out to be really awful, and this is what happened when we fixed it. The addition of feta to chicken soup seems a little strange, but it's so good! It adds a nice salty note. If you hate feta you could use goat cheese or queso fresco. I would use 4 peppers, and I have in the past, but I'm afraid that it might make the soup spicy and I want my kids to eat this. I have a sneaking suspicion that these peppers aren't spicy at all, but it's been so long since I've used the full amount that I can't remember anymore and end up playing it safe every time. The rice will continue to swell over time, so one cup will make a really thick soup, but not until the next day. If you want a lighter soup, use only 1/2-3/4 cup of rice. Directions: 1. Wash out the chicken and remove the liver, neck, heart, and gizzards. (I put the liver in one freezer bag and save it until I have enough to make liver pate, the rest I put in a freezer bag with other odds and ends until I'm ready to make stock.) 2. Put the chicken in a stock pot and add barely enough water to cover the chicken. Less is better. Bring the pot to a boil and skim the scum off with a slotted spoon. Add the onion and garlic and turn it down to a simmer. Let it simmer for 30 minutes until the chicken is cooked through. 3. In the meantime, place the 4 guajillo chiles in boiling water and boil away for 10 minutes until they are soft. Drain them, remove the stems and seeds, and blend them in a processor with the tomatoes. If the skins haven't softened or really broken down, you can press the whole mess through a sieve. Add it to the chicken when you're done.
4. When the chicken has cooked through take the chicken out and allow it to cool before removing the meat and chopping or shredding it. Stir in the rice and cabbage and simmer until it's cooked through, then add the chicken back in. Season it with salt and pepper and serve it with a sprinkling of feta and cilantro if you have it. This is how she tried to sabotage my late afternoon run- by tempting me with a taste of her amazing risotto. One bite is not enough. One bowl is not enough. The broccoli she served with it was doused in a mustardy vinaigrette, the perfect counterpoint to the rich and creamy barley. Enjoy. Ingredients: 2 tablespoons of olive oil 1 onion, sliced or chopped 8 cups of assorted mushrooms, chopped if large 1 stick butter cut into cubes (!!! I know, but just do it) salt and pepper 3 pinches of thyme 1- 8.8 ounce bag of 10-minute barley (available at Trader Joe's) 1 quart of beef stock shredded Parmesan (available in a bag from Trader Joe's) Directions:
Heat a large cast-iron skillet over medium heat. Add the olive oil and onion. When the onion becomes transparent, add the mushrooms and a little salt and pepper. When the mushrooms have withered slightly, toss in the barley, thyme, and butter. Stir it, and when the butter has melted add a cup of stock. As that absorbs, add more stock and keep stirring. Continue stirring and adding stock as it absorbs. You may want to adjust the heat if the barley is sticking to the pan. When almost all of the stock has absorbed, turn the heat off, cover the skillet, and leave it for 10-15 minutes. Season with more salt if necessary and sprinkle it with Parmesan to serve. This time of year I always feel like a sore throat is about to come on. I combat this with as much homemade chicken broth as I can stand, and it works wonders. This dinner is perfect because it is warming and balanced. It has just the right proportion of broth, meat, noodles, and vegetables. It was based on an Eating Well recipe from a few years ago. Ingredients: 2 tablespoons toasted sesame oil 1 pound ground beef or pork 1 bunch scallions, sliced 2 cloves minced garlic 1 tablespoon minced ginger 4 and 3/4 cups of homemade chicken broth, or one quart and 3/4 cup water 3 cups sliced bok choy or broccoli 8 ounces of dried Chinese noodles or 1 pound fresh or 1 pound frozen 3 tablespoons soy sauce 1 tablespoon rice vinegar optional additions: sliced cucumber, cilantro, sriracha, pepper, yuzu ponzu Directions:
1. Fry the meat in 1 tablespoon of sesame oil and set it aside. 2. Put the broth, water, vegetables, noodles, soy sauce, vinegar, scallions, ginger, garlic, and remaining 1 tablespoon of sesame oil into a pot and bring it to a boil. Cook it until the noodles are tender. Add the meat back in and garnish with additional scallion, cucumber, or cilantro if you like. Season to taste with salt, pepper, sriracha, or yuzu ponzu. This is the second pork and cabbage soup recipe I've posted, but they couldn't be more different from each other. I am still working my way through Countess Morphy's Recipes of All Nations Hungarian section, and this was another winning recipe. This is good, easy, inexpensive winter food. Ingredients: 3/4 pound pork tenderloin cut in 1 inch cubes 2 pounds cabbage sliced and shredded 1 large onion, thinly sliced 2-3 chopped tomatoes 1 cup sour cream 2 tablespoons flour 2 tablespoons lard or butter or olive oil 4 cups water 1 teaspoon paprika salt Directions:
Heat up the fat or oil in a Dutch oven. Add the cabbage and onion and salt it lightly. Add the meat, paprika, tomatoes, and a little more salt. Stir it well and allow it to cook and simmer in the juices that come out for 30 minutes, being careful not to burn it. Add the 4 cups of hot water, bring it to a boil, and simmer for another hour and a half until the meat and cabbage are tender. (If you are in a hurry I think you can eat it long before then and you would be in no danger of shattering your teeth on tough meat and cabbage.) When you're ready to eat it, mix together a little sour cream with the flour and some of the hot soup stock. Taste it for salt. Return it to the pot and let it simmer a few more minutes before taking it off the heat and stirring in the rest of the sour cream. |
AuthorI love trying new foods, cooking, and gardening. I hope to share these experiences on this site. Thanks for taking a look! Categories
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