Monday Recipes - Thai Omelets and Shrimp Rice Salad

Broke out the Thai cookbook today. My recipes were limited by the fact that I didn't want to buy 2 dozen ingredients, and I don't like coconut. I briefly considered making spring rolls, but didn't want to deal with the wrapping and frying. I figured an omelette would be pretty easy, and a salad even easier.

I had to improvise a bit. The store I went to did have lemongrass (and let me tell you, it's very bizarre to cut up something that looks like a dry scallion and have it smell like lemon), but they didn't have lime leaves or thai basil. Also, I forgot to buy cucumber, but the salad recipe says that you can pretty much throw anything in there and it'll work. Also, I used frozen shrimp instead of dried shrimp with shrimp paste.

Thai Omelet
8oz pork (I actually used a pound, and the flavors still came out just fine)
2 tomatoes, diced
onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2T sugar
2T fish sauce (doesn't actually taste like fish, so don't let the name deter you)
1-2T cilantro, minced
2T peanut/grapeseed oil
5 eggs
2T fish sauce

Pour oil into pan and saute onion and garlic until soft (but don't let the garlic brown or it can become bitter). Add pork and cook until slightly browned. Add tomato, cilantro, 2T fish sauce and sugar and cook until liquid (from the tomatoes) has thickened a little bit (or, until you get tired of cooking it, like me, and just use a slotted spoon to remove it from the pan).

Beat eggs together with 2T fish sauce (what I did was to do three eggs at a time, as that was one omelet and when I make the rest of the pork into the omelet, I'll crack more eggs). Pour the egg mixture in a thin layer into a medium-large pan and cook until slightly browned on the bottom and no longer runny on top. Spoon pork mixture on top. Using a spatula, serve on a plate. The recipe said to fold the egg over the pork into a packet. However, I put too much pork and it just didn't fold easily (it'll come out of the pan more easily if you lift it a little on each side to loosen before sliding the whole thing out). So I just had a pork sandwiched in egg, and it was tasty.

Shrimp Rice Salad
3C cooked rice (I used brown rice)
20 frozen shrimp, defrosted and cut into small pieces (I'm guessing at the amount, this is flexible)
2 lemongrass stalks, sliced into small pieces
C toasted slivered almonds
avocado, pitted and diced
juice of 1 lime (the recipe called for 2 lime leaves)
2 Thai basil leaves (I left this out all together)
1 Asian pear, cored and diced
1 1/4C water
2T sweet chili sauce
1 spicy green/red pepper, minced
2T brown sugar

While the rice is cooking, put the water, sugar, 1/2 stalk sliced lemongrass, lime juice, and shrimp in a small pot and bring to a boil for about five minutes. The original recipe said to strain the liquid and use that as dressing, discarding the rest (given that the dried shrimp would not be included and therefore not discarded. I chose to add the shrimp to the dressing, and therefore didn't strain it).

Put the rice in a large bowl and let it cool. Remove dressing from heat and let cool. While cooling, cut up the pear, the rest of the lemongrass, and the avocado (and 1/2 cucumber, if desired). Toast the almonds.

Add the pear, lemongrass, avocado, almonds, sweet chili sauce, Thai basil (if desired), chili pepper and dressing. Mix thoroughly.

To be honest, I haven't actually tried it yet, but will be eating it for lunch. I'll let you know how it turns out!

Spain - Catalan Salmon and Almond Garlic Soup

This week kicks off Spanish week on the blog. I haven't ever cooked Spanish food before, but I just got a Spanish cookbook at the holiday book sale, so I figured I'd give it a go. There were a ton of recipes using chorizo (sausage) and some with red meat, but as I did lamb last week for France, I wanted to change it up a bit. I ended up making salmon, and the recipe was wonderfully easy to make.

One thing I failed to take into account was that the recipe called for 8 fillets of fish, and I was only cooking two. So I ended up with a huge bowl of sauce left over. No matter! I took some chicken out of the freezer, dumped a few spoonfuls of sauce into the bag and put it in the fridge to defrost. Dinner tonight, mmm! For the rest of the sauce left over, I took an ice cube tray and filled eight of the cube-holes (is there a name for those cube-holes? There should be...but then, maybe there's is, this is the "Lethological" gourmet, so not remembering words is par for the course). I then stuck the tray in the freezer. And it did, in fact, freeze solid. So now I can take out one cube at a time and have some yummy marinade!

I'm putting the salad recipe below too. It's not Spanish, but it was yummy, so I decided to include it. And for once, I actually tossed the salad with the dressing. Normally I make salads at work, and I don't have a big bowl the mix it in, so I just plate it and put the dressing on the top. But it's soooo much better tossed! And the fig vinager I found at Whole Foods, while damn expensive, really ended up being wonderfully tasty (if you're curious, it's from l'Olivier, and it's fig pulp and vinager mixed together).

The Almond Garlic Soup I didn't like at all. I'm not sure if it's the recipe or if it's an acquired taste, but to me it tasted like salad dressing (too much vinager). I'm including the recipe anyway, just in case it's my taste buds, and to give you an idea of what it is. I must say, I was really surprised that there was bread in the soup, and that it wasn't cooked at all.

Catalan Salmon (Catalonia is the Barcelona region of northern Spain)
8 salmon fillets (or you can make 2 and have extra sauce)
3 avocados (1 avocado works for two fillets)
1 1/3 cups of olive oil (plus 2T)
1/3 cup sherry vinager
1/3 cup orange juice
1/4 cup orange zest (I didn't have exactly that, I used the zest of two oranges)
3T capers, drained and chopped finely
salt and pepper, to taste

Rinse the salmon and place it skin-side down on a baking dish (or grill). Brush with 2T of olive oil and bake (I don't know the exact timing, but I put it on about 350 for, I don't know, 15-20 minutes). To know when it's done, take a fork and pull at the flesh a bit to make sure it's light salmon (cooked) instead of deep orange (raw).

While the salmon is cooking, whisk together the oil, vinager, orange juice, zest, capers, and salt and pepper. Also, cook up your favorite grain (I used quinoa). Slice the avocado (I finally got to use my nifty avocado slicer (left), which didn't work as well as expected, but I was still excited to try it). Plate the quinoa and avocado side by side and top with the salmon. Spoon enough sauce over top to lightly cover the salmon and avocado. Enjoy!

Salad with Fig Vinegar Dressing (I'm not going to give quantities on the veggies, depending on how much you need just make enough dressing to cover it all)

baby spinach
red bell pepper, cut into small pieces
walnuts
apples, with skin and cut into small pieces
grapes, halved
parmesan

dressing
1-1.5 parts olive oil
1 part vinegar (either balsamic, white balsamic, or fig)
dollop of dijon mustard
salt and pepper

Garlic and Almond Soup (this is apparently a speciality in Spain, though I'm not sure if I'm making it correctly here. If any of you have made it and can see where I went wrong, please let me know!)

3c blanched almonds
4c fresh country bread, cut into 1" chunks
3T coarsely chopped garlic
2/3c sherry vinegar
2/3c olive oil
3T salt
6-7c water
sliced almonds and halved grapes for garnish

Put the blanched almonds and garlic in a food processor and process until grainy. Add the bread, vinegar, oil, salt, and 4 cups of water and process until paste. Pour into a bowl and add the remaining water. Chill for four hours. Stir thoroughly before serving and add sliced almonds and graped to the bowls after plating (I forgot the grapes).

Debunking the Bunk - Salad

Wait, what? Salad? You're kidding, right? Salad's always been good for you!

This week I'm turning the tables - foods that everything thinks that are great for you, that really aren't always. And up first is salad. Ok, not salad per se, but salad dressing and salad toppings. You can't go wrong with veggies, whether it be lettuce, spinach, tomatoes, flowers, dried fruit, fresh fruit, etc.

But where I see people go wrong is on all those toppings and especially the salad dressing. I can't even tell you how many times I've seen this very scenario: coworker/friend/random person is talking about how they want to lose x amount of pounds for x event (usually it's a wedding or something). So they switch to eating salads every meal, cut out all carbs, and basically give their diet a bland make-over. You already know how I feel about restrictive diets. But whenever I see someone revert to salads and cold cuts (no bread) for lunch, I can practically count down the days until it's back to pizza.

Here's the problem with salad dressing - first of all it's made out of oil, vinegar, and sugar (with other spices and additives added in), or even worse, cream. Now, we've learned that oil is good for you, but it's really all about moderation. But the pesky little thing about oil that most of us forget is that while it does raise your good cholesterol, one serving is one tablespoon and 120 calories. So the majority of the calories in the salad are coming from the dressing, especially if that bottle is getting upended and squirted to cover every last inch of the lettuce. Plus, add in the nuts (again, good fat, but only if used in moderation), bacon bits, cheese, croutons, fried chicken etc.

And because it's a salad, we're likely to eat more of it, and then have dessert or a nice yummy sugary treat later to reward ourselves for being so virtuous in eating that salad.

Now, don't get me wrong, salads are a great idea, and we shouldn't eat less of them. But adding a variety of flavors to the salad will cut down the need to have too much dressing (purple cabbage is a great option because it's so flavorful and looks so pretty), and adding lots of pretty colors also helps satisfy the eye-stomach link too (if it doesn't look tasty, then we're less likely to be satisfied with it, right?). One suggestion: spinach or mesclun salad with purple cabbage, red peppers, some walnuts, and some dried cranberries. And here's my favorite dressing that I use most of the time (having the vinegar in there definitely helps the moderation because too much makes my mouth pucker, but just a couple T is awfully tasty):

1 part olive oil
1 part balsamic (white or dark) / or lemon juice
dollop of dijon mustard
salt and pepper

Flower Power

Sauntering around my local farmer's market yesterday at lunch, I came across a big tray of mesclun lettuce with nasturtium (edible tulip) flowers. I'd seen them before and had kind of looked askance at them. They're definitely pretty, with the bright yellow and orange offset against the dark green leaves. But flowers? I know that people eat them, but I'd never had the chance (or desire to) before. But I was on a farmer's market high, having just bought scrumptious raspberries, Jamaican spinach, heirloom tomatoes, apricots, chocolate cookies, and multi-grain rolls. So I figured, why the hell not?

So I brought the flower salad back to the office and set up a nice plate with the mesclun, nasturtium, a sliced up apricot, parmesan and oil and white balsamic. As I'm heating up the rest of my lunch (eggplant parm), one of my coworkers came by and was entirely flabbergasted that I would eat flowers. He truly didn't believe I would, and demanded that I eat one to prove it. So I did. And my eyes popped. Oh. My. God. Those flowers were really that good. They were peppery but not too much so, and slightly sweet (the apricots helped the sweet side along too). I nearly inhaled that salad, and then I wanted more. I'm normally really picky about salads, but this salad I could eat at every meal. The excellent news is that the flowers will grow until the fall. I wonder if they'll grow in the shade of the walkway outside my door?

They were also selling squash flowers that you can stuff with parmesan and bread crumbs, and I'm seriously tempted, though they're not cheap ($.50 per flower, and they're pretty small).

Seriously, everyone I talked to yesterday heard about those flowers. If you see them at your local farmer's market, you definitely should try them!