Archive for the 'recipe reviews' Category

Dinner Tonight: Asian Noodle Salad

Published by Hal on April 28, 2008 in recipe reviews. 1 Comment

I spent a little more time in the kitchen tonight than I have in recent weeks. I just wanted to cook something, and I came across a delightfull gem in my “starred” posts in my RSS reader: Pioneer Woman’s version of Asian Noodle Salad (by Jaime Oliver). This salad has a ton of everything God made that was delicious. I didn’t take pictures because we were so hungry, but if you’ve ever been to PW’s blog, you’ll agree that I can’t hold a candle to her photography greatness (her and Jaden from Steamy Kitchen–they are both AMAZING).

Before you follow the link, let me give you a few pointers about this salad:

1. It makes a TON of food. Vegetables are bulky. Cooked pasta takes up alot of room. You can either halve this recipe or make it in your bathtub. Your choice. Personally, if your bathtub is clean…

2. This recipe calls for hot peppers–2 or 3 jalpeno’s or serrano peppers. If you don’t like the heat, cut back to just one pepper and make sure you take the seeds out. To really ensure that you won’t have any problems, slice the ribs and membrane off the inside of the pepper, just like filleting a fish. What ever you do, though, don’t skip the pepper! Once you get past the heat, it adds a lot of flavoriciousness.

3. Yes, this recipe really calls for that much cilantro. Yes, you need it. Yes, you could use more than just a bunch. And, apparently, if cilantro tastes like soap to you, you might be allergic to it. At least, that’s the rumor floating around teh interwebs.

This salad was amazing. Make it for yourself and 5-7 of your friends. Or, enjoy it for a day or two. I’m sure it can only get better with age!

Spaghetti with Three-Tomato Sauce

Published by Hal on February 11, 2008 in recipe reviews and recipes. 0 Comments

After purchasing Everyday Food over the weekend, I was eager to try something from the book. I settled on this simple, rustic-style spaghetti dish and made plans to make it Sunday. Of course, life got in the way, and Stacie and opted for Fazoli’s instead (and, might never opt for it again, but that’s a different story for a different time).

We have been notoriously deficient at being able to keep our pantry and refrigerator stocked, but I had enough staples on hand that this recipe wasn’t a problem. The end result was a delicious and not so saucy take on a simple spaghetti with tomato sauce that will be sure to please. And, after thinking about it, this could be a perfect Valentine’s Day addition to your dinner table–it’s simple, delightful, and–most importantly–it’s red! Coincidence? I think not. 3tomspaghetti04

Spaghetti with Three-Tomato Sauce

From Everyday Food: Great Food Fast

Ingredients:

  • Coarse salt and fresh ground pepper
  • 1 pound spaghetti
  • 1/2 cup oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes, chopped, oil reserved
  • 4 garlic cloves
  • 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
  • 1 can (28 ounces) whole peeled tomatoes
  • 1 pound cherry tomatoes, halved

Procedure

  1. In a large pot of boiled salted water, cook the spaghetti until al dente according to the package directions. Drain, reserving 1 cup of the pasta water; return the pasta to the pot.
  2. Meanwhile, heat 2 tablespoons sun-dried tomato oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the garlic and red pepper flakes; cook until fragrant, 30 seconds. Add the canned tomatoes (with juice) and sun dried tomatoes. Simmer gently, stirring occasionally and breaking up the canned tomatoes, until thick, about 15 minutes.
  3. Add the cherry tomatoes; simmer until soft, about 10 minutes.
  4. Add to the pasta. Season with salt and pepper. Toss, adding pasta water as desired. Serve immediately.

The book says this makes 4 servings, but between my plates and the reheat-able containers, I got 7. The box of pasta says this should actually be 8. Your mileage may vary.

As you are aware, I have a tendency to look at a recipe once and think I’ve got it down. I never do, because I also want to do something the recipe doesn’t call for or I omit a step. So, what did I do differently here? Well, I thought I needed to roast the cherry tomatoes, so I did. Then I checked the recipe. Then I remembered that I forgot to pick up fresh garlic and I didn’t haven’t any pre-minced stuff*. So, I used about a teaspoon of garlic powder added once I added the tomatoes.

Beyond that, there wasn’t much else for me to screw up :) Even still, I think roasting the tomatoes added a nice smoky flavor to the dish–and there just wasn’t enough garlic flavor (we love garlic–it’s yummy-licious!). We served it up with a store-bought baguette, and it was good. Try it and let me know what you think!

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*As a matter of practice, I don’t buy the pre-minced garlic anymore. Sure, it’s, convenient, but you’re pay a large mark-up on something you can easily do yourself. Plus, fresh just tastes better. 

Follow-up: Salmon and Roasted Vegetables

Published by Hal on February 9, 2008 in recipe reviews. 0 Comments

After posting a preparation method last night, I thought I might show you the final result–yum!

salmon01

Perfectly cooked salmon, and roasted cauliflower!

salmon05

I had brussel sprouts once, and I just didn’t like the idea of eating little, bity cabbages. I think it’s because they were steamed and the texture was off-putting. However, I thought this preparation method might yield some better results–and it did. They weren’t my favorite vegetable of the night, but they were much better than the first time I had them. Which means I could do this again.

Follow-up: Chicken & Corn Chowder

Published by Hal on February 2, 2008 in recipe reviews. 0 Comments

Dear readers, I love to hear when you try out something I put up on this site. A friend of Stacie’s made the Chicken and Corn Chowder I posted about the other night–you can see his review here.

This makes me really excited, because someone else tried what I came up with, he liked, and he did a few things that made the recipe his own. Oh, and he added a recipe to his cooking arsenal ;)

Here’s what he did and why it worked:

  • He used buttermilk rather than whole milk. This was in response to the question “Can I use skim instead?” I said he could try, but it might not work as well–this is because skim milk is not as rich, and he’d really just be adding white coloring to the chowder. Buttermilk, however, is not as fattening as whole milk, but is richer than skim. Good way to improvise!
  • He used regular baking potatoes rather than the small potatoes I recommended. This worked in this chowder because regardless of the size, potatoes have starch, and starch is what thickens the chowder. When I came up with this, these potatoes are what I had on hand and what I needed to use up. He noticed that his potatoes were not browning (though everything else was)–this is because baking potatoes have more water in them than the “baby” kind. The starch never could get hot enough to caramelize because the potatoes just kept steaming themselves.

However it works, I’m excited he tried it and liked it. Cooking is not that scary. Many times, it’s just taking a basic recipe or idea and tweaking it for the vision in your head or whatever ingredients you have on hand. Kudos!

P.S., dtjunkie, the taste you found that was new to you–probably was the tarragon. It works especially well with chicken and potatoes, and is apparently one of the four fines herbs of French cuisine–or, at least, Wikipedia says so, so it must be true!

Recipes: Roasted Red Pepper Mashed Potatoes

Published by Hal on January 5, 2008 in recipe reviews, recipes and technique. 4 Comments

I got a potato ricer for Christmas, so my in-laws wanted to see it in action. I decided to make some roasted red pepper mashed potatoes, and they turned out pretty good. Basically, you take your standard mashed potato recipe and add some roasted red pepper puree and there you have it. The most challenging thing for me was roasting the red peppers.

This recipe was inspired by this post at Culinary Therapy, which only fed two people. I expanded it to make six generous servings, and thought it to be very easy. There are a million and one ways to make mashed potatoes, and I thought this one did a decent job cutting back on the “bad” ingredients. At the end of the day, each serving only gets less than 3 tablespoons of sour cream and butter combined. I also up’d the proportion of red pepper puree to potatoes, because I didn’t think the flavor could come through enough.

Ingredients:

  • 6 medium russet potatoes
  • 3-6 cloves of garlic
  • 1/2 cup of sour cream
  • 1/2 cup (1 stick) of butter
  • 1 1/2 cup of chicken broth
  • 3 roasted red peppers, pureed

Directions:

  1. Roast the red peppers in the oven, under the broiler, until the skin is black and blistered.
  2. Once the peppers are roasted, place them in a plastic zip-top bag for 15 minutes to steam.
  3. Meanwhile, skin the potatoes and cut them into cubes.
  4. Place the potatoes and garlic in a large pot and cover them with cold water.
  5. Cover the pot and bring the water to a boil.
  6. While the water is coming up to a boil, run the red peppers under cold water to help peel the skin.
  7. Remove the seeds and the ribs from the peppers and puree.
  8. Boil the pototoes until they are fork tender, then drain.
  9. Mash the potatoes (or run them through a ricer).
  10. Add the sour cream, butter, and pepper puree to the potatoes.
  11. Stir to combine, adding the chicken broth until you have reach the desired consistency.
  12. Salt and pepper to taste.

These potatoes are really tasty, and relatively easy. If you make them ahead and you aren’t ready to serve them, you can put them in a double boiler to keep them warm.

Enjoy!

Review: Coq au Vin (a la Gastronomist)

Published by Hal on December 17, 2007 in Hal's Hint and recipe reviews. 0 Comments

I made this recipe tonight and thought I’d provide some thoughts about the end result (you can see my interpretation here, with a link to the original–I would link directly, but I don’t want to flood that blog with trackback-spam).

The aroma was amazing while the hen was cooking and we were really excited to taste it when it was finished. It wasn’t very hard at all–simple as placing some ingredients in a pan and letting the heat do it’s work. However, you’ve got to handle the bird quite a bit, so if that makes you the slightest bit squeamish, you might want to look at a different preparation method.

The first thing I had to do was make sure the chicken was defrosted. I’m not sure how, but after two days in the fridge, the birds still weren’t ice free. No worries; I had to rinse them anyway, so I just did so under cool water. The ice came right off (or so I thought).

I get really nervous, though, about overcooking meat. I don’t want it to dry out, so I have a tendency to pull things out of the oven before I’m supposed to. The Gastronomist says to leave the hens in for an hour, which actually didn’t work for me. I’m sure this was one of two things: the hens were probably not fully defrosted or the oven is not properly calibrated. This would have been solved by using an oven thermometer or a good instant read thermometer. Unfortunately, I broke our thermometer one day when I was grilling (Hal’s Hint: They make special probe thermometers for grilling–don’t use the same one you’d use for regular cooking). Regarding over-cooking the chicken, if you notice it browning a little faster than you’d like, place a foil tent over the meat until you’ve finished cooking. This will prevent over-caramelization while still promoting even, thorough cooking.

Once we got the doneness right, the chicken was incredible. Very moist and succulent–my wife could really taste the citrus! We had a little trouble eating, though–cornish hens are a little, well, little. So, next time I’ll probably try a bigger bird, or I’ll just use thighs and legs. And, I’ll bet this would have tasted so much better if I had included more aromatics in my birds–as it were, I was missing sage (I used it for the pumpkin risotto), lemons, and parsley. Next time, I’ll stop being such a man and actually follow directions! ;)

Overall, we were impressed. And, believe it or not, this isn’t terribly expensive–the most expensive part will be the bottle of wine. Between the hens and the aromatics (but not the wine, because we had some on hand), I spent about $9. Not too bad for a “gourmet” meal!

Enjoy, and let me (and the Gastronomist) know what you think!