Tag Archives: recipe

Pan-fried Noodles with Vegetables

Posted by Dave in asian, gluten-free, vegetarian and tagged with , , ,

Pan-fried Noodles with Vegetables

Here’s a quick vegetarian, and potentially gluten-free, noodle dish.

To prepare: place rice noodles in warm water to soften (20-30 mins.)  I used rice noodles that were approximately 1/4 inch wide, but wider noodles would work well too.

Prepare a sauce by combining fish sauce, soy sauce, water, and honey, and fresh lemon or lime juice … perhaps 1/2 cup total.  (To be gluten-free, use tamari rather than soy sauce.)

Sauté vegetables in canola or peanut oil to desired tenderness in a large pan or wok; for this dish I used matchstick carrot, sliced white button mushroom, sweet onion, and minced shallot, adding a portion of the sauce as well.
Remove the vegetables from the hot pan and set aside.
Quickly scramble an egg in oil in the pan, and place it with the vegetables.

Once the noodles have softened, drain pan-fry them likewise in a bit of oil, until they begin to crisp or brown slightly.  Control cooking with the sauce (which can also be used to add some color to the noodles.)

To finish, return sautéed vegetables to the warm pan, add any remaining sauce, add chopped fresh cilantro and chopped peanut and combine thoroughly.

I served this in one large bowl per serving… a pretty simple but satisfying meal just for myself, this time. :-)

Pan-fried noodles with vegetables.

Fried Fresh Bluegill

Posted by Dave in fish and tagged with , , ,

Fried Bluegill with zucchini green salad and sautéed chard

I haven’t posted many “rustic” meals. However, here’s one tied to my fond memories from summers at the lake in my childhood.

When I was young, my dad would fry panfish on the grill. First, of course, we’d have to catch the fish; typically for the lake we visit those would be perch, bluegill, and crappie (the latter two being varieties of sunfish.)  Then he would clean them, stationed on an old wooden bench covered with newspaper; if there happened to be many perch in the catch, he was not happy… apparently they’re harder to clean. Next he would drop them in flour and fry them in cast iron pans on a charcoal grill, so as not to make a mess of the kitchen.  My dad passed away more than half-my-life ago, but I still have these good memories and the cast iron pans as well. :)

I spent these past few days on a splendid holiday vacation at the lake in the northwoods (out of mobile phone coverage) with lots of swimming, canoeing, and just a bit of fishing.  While in recent decades I’ve eschewed fishing, opting instead for even lazier passtimes at the lake, a recent interest in foraging and finding one’s own food, and the idea of preparing a meal one might be able to do solely from what the earth provides directly, helped to change that.

Bluegill, a common variety of freshwater Sunfish

Bluegill are an attractive, colorful variety of panfish, i.e., a fish that typically fits, whole, in a frying pan.  (That’s a bit gruesome… wouldn’t that mean human beings could be called “pine box apes?”)

My companion and I caught four bluegill for this dinner, two for each of us; one was caught by casting an artificial lure and the others simply with cheese dangling on a hook as bait. I’ll admit I caught one and she caught three. :-) (When I was a kid, we usually fished with live bait: worms or night crawlers, but the cheese was conveniently on hand.)  I don’t believe that bluegill have any special affinity for cheese, but they were more interested in it than hot dog. :) Sometimes you can even catch panfish on a bare hook!

I considered cooking the bluegill whole (sans scales and guts, of course), but decided to do it as my dad did, removing the fish’s head and its gills along with it.

Scaling the fish with a knife…Warning to the squeamish: fish guts!

 

Once cleaned, I simply patted the rinsed fish partially dry, and dipped them in flour, spiced with salt, pepper, fresh thyme leaves, and an adobo seasoning mix (from Penzey’s.)

Bluegill dipped in flour and seasonings

I poured perhaps 1/2 inch of canola oil into a cast iron pan on a medium heat grill.  Once the oil was hot (test with a small piece of batter or food), I placed all four bluegill in the pan and cooked for 3-5 minute per side, until they began to brown and the fish flaked easily from the bone.

Frying bluegill in oil

Once done, place the fish on paper towel to drain excess oil.

Fried Bluegill

I don’t try to fillet panfish… besides, eating them carefully and watching for bones brings a civilized pace to the meal. :)

We ate our bluegill accompanied by a delicious green salad of fresh lettuces with sautéed zucchini, croutons flavored with fresh sage, and a touch of salad dressing; sautéed rainbow chard with garlic scapes; and a nice beer.

A meal of fried bluegill and vegetables

The bluegill were tasty, with a mild flavor and just slightly crisp, thin coating just as I remembered, having last had them prepared this way more than 20 years ago. They went from lake to plate in about an hour. I bet my dad (and mom) would be proud of my preparation from childhood memories. :)

Mmmm, fried bluegill tails!

Last but not least, don’t forget to try the crispy tails! They’ve got a potato chip-like consistency, and you can eat perhaps the last 1/2 end of the tail, just as you might eat the tail of a deep-fried shrimp.

Oh, I am also fresh from the lake in that last photo. :)

Open-Faced Poached Egg and Hummus Quesadilla

Posted by Dave in breakfast, mediterranean, texmex, vegetarian and tagged with , , ,

Open-Faced Quesadilla with Poached Egg and Hummus

Here’s a colorful quick breakfast (and, for me, lunch) idea: poached eggs atop hummus on a open-faced quesadilla of flour tortilla with sharp cheddar cheese, tomato salsa, fresh scallion and habanero pepper.

This is simply a melenge of favorite ingredients that I almost always have on hand.

Poached Egg and Hummus Quesadilla

Oh, on an urelated note, Happy Canada Day! :)
Here some interesting Canadian craft beers for the occasion:

Salade Niçoise

Posted by Dave in fish, mediterranean, potatoes, salad and tagged with , , , ,

Salade Niçoise: a french treat with tuna and anchovies

Here’s a delicious and colorful salad that makes a whole meal… and it’s perfect to make with your fresh vegetables on a warm summer day.

There are a number variations of the Niçoise Salad, common in its namesake city, Nice, France, and along the rest of the Côte d’Azur, where I first enjoyed it.
Apparently it became popular in the states because of Julia Child.

Last night, in anticipation of this salad, my companion and I biked around our city to procure vegetables from the yard and from a little farmers’ market (4-7pm!).  After a nice summer evening’s ride with a short stop for live music and visiting friends, we prepared our ginormous Niçoise salad from these ingredients (for 4 meal-sized servings):

  • romaine and other leaf lettuce, torn to bite sized
  • Nasturtium leaves, chopped
  • fresh basil leaves, chopped
  • fresh parsley, chopped
  • scallion greens, from 2 scallions, finely cut
  • green beans, 1 pound, blanched (we substituted some nice Dragon Tongue Beans that surprising lost their purple stripes when cooked)
  • ripe roma tomatoes, 3, quartered and coarsely chopped
  • eggs, 4, hard-boiled, and quartered
  • fingerling potatoes (~1/2 pound), boiled (e.g., with the eggs)
  • green olives, pitted
  • tuna, 1 can, partially drained of oil
  • anchovy, about 2/3 of one very small jar

Dressing ingredients:

  • balsamic vinegar, 1 T.
  • apple cider vinegar, ~1/8 cup
  • Dijon-style mustard, 1-2 T. (e.g., Grey Poupon Country Dijon)
  • honey, ~1 t., to taste
  • olive oil, 1-2 T.
  • water (sparingly, to dilute slightly if desired)
  • capers
  • salt & pepper, to taste if desired

Niçoise Salad

To serve, we tossed the cooked beans with dressing, and placed them atop the chopped lettuce on a large platter and arranged the other toppings, leaving the tuna and anchovies for last, and finally lightly drizzled the salad with the rest of the dressing and olive oil.

Salade Niçoise, plated

I enjoyed this both for dinner and my subsequent day’s lunch. :)

Give it a try and experinece this tasty sample of southern France, especially if you can find some beautilful vegetables in your garden or at your farmers’ market!

Update (June, 2013):

I made this again… this time with the traditional green (string) beans and used a combination of pimento-stuffed spanish olives and jalapeno-stuffed olives. Also, I used a spicier Dijon mustard (Trader Joe’s)… mmm, still awesome.

Salade Niçoise

Salade Niçoise

Mediterranean White Fish Salad

Posted by Dave in fish, mediterranean, salad and tagged with , ,

Mediterranean White Fish Salad

I visted the farmers’ market this morning and found some nice romaine lettuce and slender green onions (amongst other things) and decided to make this quick salad for lunch – before, hopefully, heading out to the lake with some friends.

Ingredients, for the fish:

  • white fish filet (I used swai, from frozen; tilapia would be a good choice as well)
  • lemon juice
  • dill
  • mint leaves, finely chopped
  • rosemary
  • fennel seed
  • oregano
  • green onion, whites cut finely
  • salt
  • black pepper
  • kyopoolu (I used Trader Joe’s Red Pepper Spread;
    You can also find kyopoolu or avjar at Polish, Bulgarian, etc. delis or stores.)

Ingredients for the salad:

  • romaine lettuce
  • green onions, greens cut finely
  • kalamata olives
  • balsamic vinaigrette dressing
  • olive oil

To prepare:

Pat the filet mostly dry and coat liberally with all the spices, i.e., everything but the green onion and kyopoolu, as if you were making blackened fish, for instance.  In a cast iron or other skillet on medium high heat, pan fry the filet in olive oil.  When the fish is nearly done (flip to cook both sides), add the green onion to the hot pan and spread a teaspoon or two of kyopoolu on onse side of the filet, and flip that side down briefly.

Here, I served the fish filet atop a salad of the ingredients above, drizzled with some olive oil.

This was a tasty salad; I hope it inspires you to have a nice summertime lunches too. :)

Colorful Coconut Cream Curry

Posted by Dave in asian, indian, potatoes, vegan, vegetarian and tagged with , , ,

Colorful curry with carrot, red potato, broccoli, and coconut cream served with jasmine rice and raita

It’s been a few weeks since my last post, mostly because I’ve been making some old favorites that I’ve already posted and otherwise enjoying the nice weather and summertime.

Today’s post is a new off-the-top-of-my-head vegetable curry with a lot of color. I’ve done a number of indian and thai curries, but this one may be something of a haphazard fusion of the two, as I just chose my ingredients by whim.

Ingredients for the rice:

  • jasmine rice
  • cumin seed
  • bay leaves
  • cinnamon stick
  • hot curry powder
  • salt

Ingredients for the raita:

  • yogurt (I was lucky to have been given some homemade, from cow’s milk)
  • garlic, minced
  • carrot, julienned
  • green pepper, finely chopped
  • tomato, cored, seeded, and finely chopped
  • garam masala
  • saffron threads
  • salt

Ingredients for the curry:

  • canola oil
  • water
  • carrot, peeled and sliced
  • red potato, skins intact, small-diced
  • broccoli, bite-sized pieces, steamed
  • red onion, sliced (top to bottom) into thin strips
  • garlic, minced
  • habanero pepper, seeds and veins removed, finely minced
  • cumin seed
  • turmeric
  • garam masala
  • salt and pepper
  • coconut cream/milk
  • cilantro (chopped fresh or crushed dried)
  • thai bird peppers (one per serving)

I chose coconut cream for sweetness; you could substitute coconut milk (or even a yogurt) if you prefer.  Here’s one discussion of Coconut Milk vs. Cream.

Preparation:

First, to prepare the rice, I simply put the ingredients in a rice cooker and let it do its thing; afterwards I removed the cinammon stick and bay leaves and added them to the curry.

While the rice was cooking, I prepared the raita.  (Of course, if you want a vegan dish, you’ll have to skip the yogurt-based raita.)  Simply mix all the ingredients together, and let sit.  (This is also nice to make in advance, and refrigerate, as the flavors mellow and blend together.)

I prepared the curry in a 12 inch cast iron skillet; first toasting the cumin seed, then mixing the spices and oil, garlic, onion, hot peppers, and cooking the potatoes.  I added the sliced carrot later, as it was sliced thinner and would cook faster.  Add water occassionally as necessary to avoid sticking to the pan, and add the (separately steamed) broccoli and the coconut cream after the potatoes and carrot are cooked to suitably tender.

Coconut Cream Curry with raita and spiced jasmine rice.

I served the rice, curry, and raita sprinkled with some crushed dry cilantro leaf and a (cooked) whole red thai bird pepper.  (This hot pepper makes it easy for each diner to spice it up to their own taste.)

A colorful curry with rice and raita

That’s it! I hope this inspires some colorful cooking for you to share to likewise share with the wonderful people that color your life. :)

By the way, WordPress tells me this is my hundredth post!
(Now the money will start rollin’ in, right?)

Sesame Pea Shoot Salad

Posted by Dave in asian, gluten-free, salad, vegetarian and tagged with , , , ,

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:

  • ~2 T. sunflower oil
  • ~1/3 cup water
  • ~1- 1 1/2 T. apple cider vinegar
  • ~2 T. tahini
  • ~1 1/2 T. tamari (or soy sauce)
  • 4 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped
  • salt to taste (sparingly, as the tamari or soy sauce is salty)

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

Posted by Dave in fish, mediterranean and tagged with , , ,

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

Posted by Dave in breakfast, texmex, vegetarian and tagged with , , ,

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. :-)