the glimmering sesame

A simple dinner of simply dressed baby lettuce greens, soft boiled egg, brie cheese, and sunflower wheat garlic toasts. The sunflower wheat bread and greens are from the local Farmers Market.

The perfect vinaigrette is based on the right ratio of ingredients. It’s usually 1 part mustard (an emulsifier which binds together the oil and acid parts), 1 part vinegar (an acid), and about 2 parts of extra virgin olive oil (fat/oil). This ratio makes it easy to manipulate the vinaigrette for your tastes.In the simple vinaigrette I made for this salad, it includes: dijion mustard, finely minced garlic, black pepper, salt, extra virgin olive oil, champagne vinegar, and a touch of honey.

To make garlic toast, just brush olive oil on bread and toast them. When they are finished toasting, take a clove of garlic and rub the clove on the toast. This is a fast way to make garlic toast. A lovely side to salads, pastas, stews, or soups to sop up those lovely sauces and juices. For a garlic-phobe boyfriend, this is one of his favorite things to eat with saucy dishes.

Salt & Pepper Squid

It’s a lot of fun to clean squid for some reason. Almost cathartic in some ways. If you don’t know how to clean your own clean or what you should be looking for when you buy squid at the market, I highly recommend checking out Youtube. There’s quite a few videos that give a great run-down on how to clean squid.

Anyways, though my coating didn’t really work out too well… the dish was still flavorful from the spicy pepper mix and the squid was quite tender to the bite (not overcooked = yay!).

Recipe: http://userealbutter.com/2011/01/03/chinese-salt-and-pepper-squid-recipe/

Fried Whole Shrimp

Whole shrimp can be intimidating with their shell and heads on. But, seriously, there’s so much flavor to be head with those shells on. If anything, do save the shells and heads for a flavorful stock. Though, fried shrimp heads are a true delicacy and you’re missing out if you haven’t tried it yet.

One thing that is extremely helpful when cleaning shell-on shrimp is kitchen shears/scissors. I have a pair that comes apart into two pieces that makes it easy for cleaning (sometimes things can get caught at the hinge). So I highly suggest investing in a pair.

Quickly dust in starch (not flour) and fry, fry, away in hot oil. Make sure you drain the fried yummies on a rack above a covered baking sheet. The rack allows for draining of the oil, but helps keep the items crisp. If you placed them directly on the covered sheet, the shrimp would steam themselves and the crispy exterior will get all soggy. Season with salt and pepper. Or, finish them off in the Chinese salt and pepper style with garlic, spicy peppers, and whatnot.

Hui Guo Rou (Twice-Cooked Pork Belly)

The boyfriend requested that I make this (first-time ever), but I think it came out quite well. Literally translated, the dish means meat returned to the wok/pan. The reason why the dish is called Twice-Cooked Pork is that the pork belly is boiled with  ginger and scallion, cooled and sliced, and then returned to a hot wok with more aromatics (scallions, ginger, serrano peppers, green frying peppers, & garlic) in a stir-fry. By boiling the pork belly, it gives you the chance to render out some of that fat and also remove some of that strong animal/meaty taste that certain cuts of meat can have.

Bucatini All’Amatriciana

A dish I really loved when I visited Italy. It’s not easy to find guanicale in my area, so I substituted uncured bacon (odds and ends) and pancetta.

Chicken Piccata and Artichokes over Angel Hair Pasta

The cousin dish to one of my favorite Italian American dishes, Chicken Francaise/French.

Cleaning out the Freezer and Pantry: Pork and Mushroom Dijon

My pantry is pretty much overfilling and has accumulated various odds and ends over time (never go food shopping when hungry, lol). So, it was time to clean out the pantry! Armed with Uncle Ben’s rice (leftover from some other cooking escapade), Campbell’s condensed Cream of Mushroom soup, and a freezer stocked with lots of pork, this recipe fit the bill. Not super fancy pants, but extremely easy and quick to throw together. Pork isn’t very ideal for this recipe, but it’s what I had on hand. I would suggest chicken or beef for this dish.

Simple, not 100% homemade dinners can be pretty too!

Recipe: http://www.campbellskitchen.com/RecipeDetail.aspx?recipeId=5&ref=%2fSearchRecipesResult.aspx%3fq%3dcream%2bof%2bmushroom%26filter%3d%26page%3d2

Baja Shrimp and Fish Taco spread for an Anniversary dinner. Complete with chipotle yogurt sauce, pico de gallo, avocados, shredded red cabbage, jicama salad, plantains, and lime wedges.

Fit for a special dinner, plus many leftovers following that special occasion…

Bratwursts cooked in beer and onions served with mashed potatoes, sauerkraut, whole grain mustard and homemade red cabbage slaw. A simple dinner for a spring forward kinda day.

Steak sandwich done my way.

Sauteed onions, mushrooms, garlicky mayo, arugula, and sliced steak on bread. Have to say, a simple thing such as garlic mayo (mayo, garlic paste, and minced parsley) really makes the sandwich come together quite nicely.

Uni Ricebowl!!!!

Served with fresh shiso leaves (also known as perilla or sesame leaves), cucumber slices, and nori (not pictured). The purplely stuff sprinkled on the rice is dried purple shiso.

CNY dinner spread for two

A mountain of noodles for CNY!

Noodles chock full of whatever was available on hand: Chinese sausage, pork, shrimp, enoki mushrooms, carrots, cabbage, onions, and scallions. Use soy sauce, hosin sauce, oyster sauce, rice cooking wine, and honey for the seasoning.

We had originally wanted to use a different type of noodles, a thinner type of noodle, but the supermarket nearby didn’t carry it :( hence, the lo mein-style noodles. It was unnaturally foggy outside, so wasn’t worth the trip to try the other supermarket for noodles.

Today’s dinner

Baked Ziti

It’s not particularly pretty looking (the one on their website and show looks much nicer), but it’s still tasty. I’m not sure if I would make this again since it’s a lot more labor intensive and uses a lot of bowls. However, that’s what American’s Test Kitchen writes their recipes so that any beginner can replicate the dish to perfection. We liked that the pasta wasn’t swimming in watery sauce. I ended up using rigatoni, since that’s what I had on hand.

heh heh, my basil spring is so disproportionate to the piece of baked ziti.

Recipe from: America’s Test Kitchen