Chinese Breakfast Burrito
Here’s a quick breakfast: veggie Egg Foo Young (with julienned broccoli stalk, chopped red onion, baby bella mushroom, and napa cabbage) with gravy, fresh napa cabbage leaf and a touch of Chili Garlic sauce, all wrapped in a moo shu shell.
Microwaved, from egg foo young prepared last night, and ready in 5 minutes!
Sesame Pea Shoot Salad with red pepper and chickpeas
This salad was my veggie offering at two Memorial Day BBQ parties that I attended; it’s a simple salad of basically 3 vegetables and a tangy dressing.
The salad dressing is my homemade version fo Trader Joe’s Goddess dressing. I simply worked from the ingredient list on my empty bottle: vegetable oil, water, tahini, apple cider vinegar, soy sauce, [lemon juice,] salt, garlic, sesame seeds, [spices, zanthan gum.]
“Goddess” dressing ingredients
I skipped the ingredients shown in brackets (above), used sunflower oil, and I used tamari instead of soy sauce. (Tamari is basically a gluten-free soy sauce.)
Combine these ingredients in a blender and liquify while adjusting to taste. To the best of my recollection I used these quantities:
I deferred the addition of~4 T. sesame seeds to the salad afterward rather than blending into the salad dressing.
If you’ve not had Trader Joe’s Goddess dressing, it’s a smooth dressing that is tan in color (slightly browner than the tahini).
The blended “Goddess” dressing
To prepare the salad, I coarsely chopped 8 oz. of pea shoots, finely diced one red pepper (seeds and veins removed), and drained and rinsed one soup-sized can of chickpeas.
Then I tossed the pea shoots, red pepper, and chickpeas with about 1/4 of the aforementioned prepared dressing (add sparingly, so as not to drown the vegetables in dressing), and a generous amount of sesame seeds.
I don’t know whether or not everyone enjoyed this salad, but I did, and the dish was empty by the time I left the party.
Regardless, whether you buy it from the store or make it yourself, this dressing is a hit.
Yay, I’m all caught up – now just to read all your recipes that I missed! :-)
Blackened Catfish Sandwich with tzatziki and pea shoots
Here’s a nice, simple, spicy catfish sandwich.
First spice a catfish filet generously with a mix of: oregano, thyme, granulated (dry) garlic, salt, pepper, and cayenne powder to taste. (I used a frozen swai filet, thawed in water, then patted dry.)
Pan fry the filet in oil (I used sunflower oil) on medium-high heat, until it is cooked through and possible to flake with a fork. The hotter the pan, the more likely the spice mix will blacken.
Place the filet atop a nice roll and top as you like. I smeared the sliced roll with a homemade tzatziki sauce (greek yogurt, dried dill, minced garlic, salt, pepper) and added coarsely chopped fresh pea shoots (these typically being available from asian grocers.)
While I have only recently started using this asian catfish, sold in the U.S. as “swai,” it definitely has a wonderful taste and texture that rivals our american catfish and it cooks similarly, i.e., it is forgiving to pan fry owing to, I assume, it’s relatively high fat/oil content.
I like the combination of the spicy fish with the soothing, garlicky tzatziki sauce, and some sort of fresh greens; give it a try!
Blackened Catfish Sandwich
Scrambled Egg with Tortilla Strips and Portabella Mushroom
Here’s a typical sort of quick breakfast that I make… especially since plain scrambled egg is *boring*.
First, cut one or two corn tortillas into strips (maximum length about half the diameter of the tortilla) and crisp these in olive oil in a pan, then remove from heat. Saute sliced baby bella mushroom, perhaps with some garlic, salt and pepper, and place those aside as well. Prepare one or two scrambled eggs as you like; here I mixed in about 1 T. of kyopoolu sauce; I’ve mentioned this red pepper, eggplant, and garlic-based sauce in a number of earlier posts. Lastly, mix the ingredients together and top with cheese if you like:
A great way to add taste and texture to boring old scrambled egg!
I learned to add crisp corn tortilla strips to scrambled egg from my Mexican sister-in-law. :-)
Wow, I see I haven’t posted in 3 weeks! I bet you were all worried, “Is Dave still eating?”
I offer this hiatus as evidence that I do have a job… actually, I was doing my research work and also had a nice week visit to San Diego for a workshop and to visit old and new friends.
So, lets catch up with some quick-and-dirty foods.
This one is simply a serving suggestion: tilapia tostadas… mashed black beans, shredded napa cabbage, queso fresco, and a tilapia filet (from frozen, defrosted in water and patted dry) lightly pan-fried in oil with oregano, salt, pepper, and a jalapeno hot sauce, and scallion greens, all atop a crisp corn tortilla.
One tip I have for you is to buy corn tortillas and bake them in the oven to crisp them, rather than using those “hard” deep-fried corn tortillas for tostadas.
Chicken Tinga Tostada topped with ripe avocado, scotch bonnet queso fresco, and cilantro leaf.
I’m a huge fan of Mexican and Tex-Mex food; if pressed, I usually say it’s my favorite. As such, I was surprised that, to the best of my recollection, I’d not heard of this fantastic dish.
In preface, I can say that after making this in my kitchen, I’m pretty sure my house has never smelled so good. Perhaps it did on Thanksgiving Day. :-)
My inspiration was: (a) to make something Mexican in honor of Cinco de Mayo – despite the idiocy that sometimes surrounds its “observance” in the U.S., and (b) to use up my chorizo.
Chicken Tinga ingredients.
I started with this impressive recipe: chicken tinga, apparently by a Kiwi chef now living in the Yucatan. One thing that struck me about this recipe is that many ingredients are used twice: to poach the chicken and also to make the sauce.
Here’s are my modifications:
First, when rehydrating ancho chilies, I do as Rick Bayless suggested, and cover them with a small plate to keep them submerged, for 30-45 minutes. Remove the stems and the seeds and rinse them before blending them into the sauce.
Rehydrating ancho chiles
I tasted the chicken before combining it with the sauce, and it was quite flavorful on its own. (I’ve often prepared chicken breasts for pulled or shredded chicken by boiling it in V8 juice; that’s a nice short-cut, but not nearly as good as with these spices.)
Poaching/boiling chicken breasts
Sautéing red onion strips and browning chorizo.
Preparing the sauce: onions, chorizo, and garlic
Sauce with blended tomatoes, ancho chiles, vinegar, sugar, and spice added
My total prep time was about 1 1/4 hours, including a wait for the chicken to cool so that I could pull or shred it rather finely, finishing by stirring it into the sauce to simmer for 5 minutes.
I took the Chicken Tinga to a friend’s house where we served atop both crisp tostadas and warmed corn tortillas along with shredded iceberg lettuce, ripe avocado, cilanto leaves, and crumbled Scotch Bonnet Queso Fresco.
Chicken Tinga tostada
I’m really happy with how this Chicken Tinga turned out, and, if I’m to believe them, so were the 3 friends, including one child, that have tasted it so far! I can also suggest the substitution of ancho chilies (that are just a bit spicy); their flavor worked really well in the sauce.
Here’s the recipe that I adapted:
On a subsequent morning, I placed a poached egg atop Chicken Tinga for a nice breakfast from the leftovers… a serving suggestion from the video linked above.
Chicken Tinga with poached egg and queso fresco on spiced bread.
There are some complementary mexican recipes and interesting videos here:
Scotch Bonnet Queso Fresco
This is my second foray into cheese-making; my first was making paneer, that I made according to this post: Paneer 101.
As far as I know, Mexican queso fresco is pretty much the same thing as paneer, except usually saltier and is made using vinegar to cause the milk to curdle, instead of lemon juice. It’s a simple, fresh, crumbly, non-melting cheese that is great for Mexican dishes.
If you’ve followed my blog, you might have noticed I’ve been having a love/hate, hmm no, just a relationship with scotch bonnet peppers. I’ve loved habaneros for both their heat and flavor, but most recently bought about 10 scotch bonnets instead, after seeing their similarity and learning they’re related varieties. Unfortunately, I’m not enjoying them as much. To me, the scotch bonnet has just been a ridiculously hot and a less flavorful, red version of the tasty orange habanero. Oh, well, I only have one scotch bonnet left so I’m determined to use it; I thought, “Why not put it in a cheese, to be soothing from its heat and impart some nice color and spice to this typically mild cheese?”
Preparing to make queso fresco.
Ingredients:
Since the scotch bonnet addition was an experiment, I decided to prepare 2/3 of the cheese as plain queso fresco, and 1/3 with the pepper, hence I used only one pepper.
Preparation:
You know what? I’m not going to describe this. It’s written up well in both of these recipes:
Squeezing the whey from the curd in cheese cloth
Scotch Bonnet Queso Fresco before pressing
Using plates to press moisture from the cheese
(I pressed it with the plates held vertically over the sink.)
Drying queso fresco under weight
I will leave you with these tips from my experience, however:
Scotch Bonnet Queso Fresco
This was a good Cinco de Mayo project, and I was left with two varieties of queso fresco ready for my forthcoming Chicken Tinga tostadas and tacos!
Chorizo Buffalo Chicken Sandwich
If ever you find yourself having to choose a last meal, and it must be a sandwich, you’d be doing yourself a final favor to request this Chorizo Buffalo Chicken Sandwich.
This is a sort of tribute to Katja’s Kitchen, as it is a variation of Katja’s Oven-Baked Buffalo Chicken Sandwich.
I used her recipe pretty much as-is. However, I started by browning about 2.5 ounces of mexican chorizo in a pan. I cooked the chorizo slightly less than I would if eating it immediately; after all, it’s going to bake in the oven with the chicken.
Sliced chicken breast and pan-frying chorizo
I sliced a relatively small chicken breast lengthwise, but not all the way through, so I could fold it open to a nice thickness for a sandwich. (Hmmm, this may be twice as much chicken per sandwich as Katja’s recipe.)
Next, I pressed most of the fat from the chorizo and mixed it with .5 ounces of lightly crushed Special-K breakfast cereal, then coated the chicken breast as she described in her recipe. Be sure to press the coating to the chicken so that it is still adhered when it finally makes its way to your sandwich.
Dredge the chicken breast in flour, coat with egg, and chorizo/cereal mixture.
I similarly baked it in a 350° F oven for 30 minutes.
I served the chicken on lightly toasted sliced cheese bread, from our Farmer’s Market, topped it with hot sauce (Valentina brand Salsa Picante, which is much hotter than Frank’s Red Hot, thus I used it sparingly), ranch dressing, thinly-sliced celery, and a bit of crumbled queso fresco – not that the sandwich needed it, it’s just that I made the fresh cheese yesterday, so “Why not?” It’s my last meal of the, umm, afternoon. :-)
Chorizo Buffalo Chicken Sandwich
Here are the recipes that inspired this sandwich:
Thanks for this and the other recipes, Katja!
The Grilled Shrimp Roll
Shrimp Week’s dramatic conclusion!
If you’ve ever had a Lobster Roll, then you know it’s approximately the best sandwich in the universe…
Certainly, you’ll agree it’s at least the best sandwich in Maine.
Here’s my twist on that classic, prepared with some left-over grilled shrimp.
Shrimp Roll ingredients
Ingredients (per sandwich):
Preparation:
In a bowl, simply mix shrimp, celery, chives, and (sparingly) the coconut milk-based peanut-lime sauce to prepare a sort of shrimp salad. Since the sauce is quite thin, be sure not to add too much.
Assemble the sandwich by filling the roll with that mix, atop the napa cabbage leaf; this helps prevent the thin sauce from saturating the roll.
Grilled Shrimp Salad / sandwich filling
I served the Shrimp Roll with a bit more sauce for dipping.
Grilled Shrimp Roll with Thai Peanut-Lime Dipping Sauce
As you can see, this sandwich is so tasty that I didn’t manage to get another photo before taking a few bites. :-)
You can find the recipe for the sauce here:
Avocado & Shrimp Quesadilla with Coconut Lime-Peanut Sauce
The Shrimp Week posts continue!
With some left-over grilled shrimp and dipping sauce, I made this delicious quesadilla for a quick breakfast.
It is simply hummus, cooked shrimp cut to bite-sized pieces, ripe avocado, and a coconut milk-based Peanut-Lime Dipping Sauce warmed open-faced in a pan over medium heat until the tortilla reaches the desired crispness.
I wait to add the avocado at the end, since I prefer it unwarmed.
As it happens, hummus is commonly eaten for breakfast in its countries of origin.
Avocado & Shrimp Quesadilla with Coconut Peanut-Lime Sauce
Hmm, now that I think of it, since I substituted hummus for cheese, I guess it’s not a proper quesadilla. How do I get away with this stuff? Yay for fusion cooking!
I’ve been making quesadillas since I was a child, having been introduced to them by my California cousin.
Here’s a quesadilla-making tip: while I didn’t do it here, when warming the quesadilla in the pan, spread the ingredients, especially the cheese, over the whole tortilla, not just one half. The cheese melts faster, and the other ingredients warm faster, so you’re less likely to over-brown your tortilla… and the melted cheese acts as an adhesive so you can still fold it over without having the ingredients falling off the “top” half.
Here’s the recipe for the sauce:
Kitchen Convivial 