China In A Day

Well, our journey continues tonight, and we've arrived in China. I decided to make a dish called Beef with Mandarin, and then pair it with some Chinese vegetables and hearty brown rice. It made for a simple weeknight meal that was totally satisfying. I would have expected a bit more citrus flavor from using the mandarin peels that the recipe called for, but it was a bit mild for my taste. I think I might actually add a bit of orange juice if I make this again, just to bring out the flavor some more. Chinese cooking varies across it's vast landscape. In the South, Cantonese cooking involves steaming and stir-frying natural ingredients and incorporates lots of soy sauce, ginger and scallions. Peking cuisine, from the North, has a harsher climate, which results in hot pots, lots of dumplings, and of course, the famous Peking duck. Meanwhile, Szechwan food is bright with chillies and spices. And, in Shanghai, meats and fishes are braised slowly to create very rich dishes.

So, I gathered my ingredients and prepared my mise en place for tonight's dinner. I grabbed some rib eye steak, soy sauce, dry sherry, fresh ginger, sesame oil, peanut oil, white pepper, dried mandarin peel, caster sugar, corn starch and beef stock.  I prepped the marinade for the beef first, since it needed to sit and "stew" for 15 minutes before I could continue the process.

The mandarin peel is a weird little ingredient, let me just tell you. A very nice lady at the local Asian market helped me find it on the shelf on Monday, and I brought them home. I was having trouble interpreting to the shopkeeper and she spoke both Chinese and English. She came to my rescue! I took them out of the bag and well, they were really hard. The recipe calls for them to be finely chopped? I can't get my knife through it...nor could i get it to chop up in a mini food processor. Wait a minute...I missed something on the front of the bag. "Must boil for 10 minutes before using." Ah...that makes a bit of sense. I took care of that next so that I could have all my ingredients together. Check out the difference between the really hard mandarin peel, and the reconstitued one that was much easier to chop!

My mise en place is now complete!

I heated some peanut oil in a wok and then added the beef with its marinade. Once all the beef was almost cooked through, with a nice bit of color on it, I added the white pepper, chopped mandarin peel, some soy sauce and caster sugar. In another bowl, I combined the cornstarch with a bit of the beef stock, and once it was incorporated, I added the rest of the broth to the bowl. This acted as the thickening agent for the sauce. After the beef and other ingredients had stir-fried briefly, I added the broth mixture to the wok and stirred until the sauce boiled and thickened. You'll know it when this happens so don't take it off the heat too soon, or you'll have a watery mess.

I served this dish over some brown rice, and I was glad that I opted to make the Chinese greens as well. I would have been craving a veggie if I hadn't. As it was, this was a very balanced and hearty meal for a weeknight. It came together rather quickly, and it was quite simple to prepare! I find that when I do make Chinese food at home, it usually comes together quickly, and can be a great quick fix if you keep all the spices and sauces on hand. My pantry is never without soy sauce, oyster sauce, sesame oil or peanut oil...they are staples of Asian cooking...and I do a lot of that! So, next time you crave Chinese take-out, think twice...and give it a whirl for yourself. You'll get a healthier, heartier meal, and I promise you'll be full for longer!

There's a New Sherpa in Town!

I'm always looking out for the newest culinary trend, or a great deal on a rare ingredient, or even, an ingredient I've never used before! This is why I am so excited about a website that was recently brought to my attention: FoodSherpa.

The website offers a daily deal on a specific food item, and some of the past deals are nothing to scoff at! Great prices on truffle oils, exotic teas and fancy dips and marinades is a very exciting prospect for me. I promise you I will be taking full advantage of this brilliant idea for a website.

I will make an effort to post the especially special deals on the blog, so that all of my faithful readers can take part, but I certainly suggest signing up for the free email-a-day so you can participate in this amazing concept!

Bul-Goh-Gi!

This morning, while my husband made us some breakfast, I put together the marinade for our dinner, Lamb Bulgogi with Asian Pear Dipping Sauce, another Korean favorite of ours. Since the lamb needed to marinate for at least 4 hours before cooking, I decided to put everything together before we left the house to enjoy the warmer weather.

Because the only prep work required for this recipe is throwing some ingredients in a bowl, I didn't do a mise en place photo this time around. Please forgive me this indiscretion! :) For the marinade, you'll need:

4 green onions, coarsely chopped

3 tablespoons sugar

3 garlic cloves, coarsely chopped

1 2-inch piece fresh ginger, peeled, cut into thin rounds

2/3 cup soy sauce

2/3 cup mirin (sweet Japanese rice wine)

1/3 cup Asian sesame oil

2 tablespoons toasted sesame seeds

1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 boned butterflied leg of lamb, trimmed of excess fat (about 5 1/2 pounds)

(I used a leg of lamb that weighed less, since it was only two of us eating)

Now, I know that looks like a lot of ingredients for a marinade but this is pretty simple. Just throw the green onions, sugar, garlic cloves, and ginger into a food processor and blast 'em until finely chopped. You might have to use a spoon or spatula to push down the sides a few times. Once its all chopped up, transfer this mixture to a bowl and add the soy sauce, mirin, sesame oil, sesame seeds and black pepper. Whisk this all together and pour half of it into a container long enough for the lamb to lay flat. Add the lamb to this mixture and flip it around a little bit to coat. Then pour the second half of the marinade over the top. Cover with saran wrap and refrigerate for 4 hours up to one day, which means you can do this one night, let it marinade over night for a week night dinner too!

Okay, so let's fast forward a bunch of hours to dinner-time! I pulled this out of the fridge and got ready to start the rest of the prep work. My husband helped me out tonight by manning the grill outside while I got the rest of dinner together. As he left our apartment for the downstairs patio, I put the sticky rice in my rice cooker, and hit the "cook" button. I then turned my attention to the Asian Pear Dipping Sauce, which proved to be just as easy as the marinade, with almost as many ingredients. You'll need:

1 cup chopped, peeled, cored Asian Pear (about 1/2 large)

2 green onions, chopped

1/2 cup soy sauce

1/2 cup mirin (sweet Japanese rice wine)

3 tablespoons sugar

3 tablespoons Asian sesame oil

2 tablespoons sesame seeds, toasted

For the sauce, add the pear and green onions to a food processor and pulse until it turns into a smooth puree. Once that happens, add the soy sauce, mirin, and sugar, and pulse until the sugar is incorporated. Add the sesame oil and pulse again until the oil blends with the mixture. Once the sauce was finished, I put some Korean appetizers into bowls (marinated, pickled cucumbers and a daikon, carrot slaw - both purchased at H-Mart). I also put some Korean red pepper paste into a bowl.

When I knew that the lamb was almost done, and the rice cooker had clicked to let me know the rice was ready to go, I separated the leaves from a head of butter lettuce (for making little wraps) and cut up some jalapenos and garlic cloves to grill for garnish, along with some green onions. We threw those on the grill in a little basket (I didn't have the skewers called for in the recipe) towards the end of the lamb's cooking. (If you decide to go with the same size lamb leg that the recipe calls for, then cook it for about 20 minutes per side, but if you go for a smaller size, you'll have to experiment. We put it on for 10 minutes each side, and it wasn't cooked through - so we cooked it another 10 minutes...we probably could have gone a few minutes less, for a pinker center)

Once the lamb was done, I sliced it all up, and plated it along with the charred green onions, roasted garlic cloves and grilled jalapeno halves. Each of our plates got a scoop of sticky rice and we were ready to eat!

Now, bulgogi can be eaten any way you would like, but my favorite way, and the way they serve it in Korean BBQ restaurants is as follows: Take a lettuce cup and add a little bit of rice. On top of the rice, put a slice or two of meat and top with some red pepper paste. At this point, you can add some of that garlic, or a jalapeno, or a charred scallion - whatever your little heart desires. Roll it all up like a little Korean taco, dip it in that Asian Pear Dipping Sauce and take a nice big bite! Add some of those Korean appetizers to your plate for a nice side to your bulgogi.

Yummy! :)

Take a break! Have some coffee!

Happy National Coffee Break day, everyone! In honor of this special day, I would like to pay homage coffee, as an ingredient!



Coffee, in all its forms, is a wonderful addition to chilis, rubs, marinades and of course, desserts. Recipes call for beans, grounds, instant, and brewed...but no matter how you start, coffee adds quite a punch to dishes. It has a natural acidity that makes coffee good for tenderizing meat as well. Marinating the meat in something with acidity will cause the meat to break down and be moist and succulent once cooked.  Incorporating ground coffee into a dry rub for burgers, steak and short ribs brings a lot of smokiness to a dish, and you'll instantly find the difference between using it and not. You can also brew coffee to use in a wet marinade. Try Short Ribs Braised in Coffee Ancho Chile Sauce for an example of spice and the smoky flavor of coffee combining in this southwestern-inspired dish. Plan ahead, you need to cook short ribs for a good 3-4 hours to get the meat really soft and falling off the bone.

Many chili recipes use brewed coffee as an ingredient. Coffee goes well with spice, as we've already seen, and adds smokiness to a dish that's well, supposed to be smoky and spicy! :) Here's a recipe for a Chocolate Stout Chili. Chocolate and coffee go well together as well, and chocolate is one of my favorite things to throw in chili, it adds a richness without even knowing that it's chocolate that you're eating!



Finally, I would be remiss if I didn't mention the BEST coffee dessert ever. Affogato (Italian for "drowned") is an italian dessert made with scoops of gelato, or ice cream. Hot coffee, or espresso, is then poured over the ice cream, and it is DELICIOUS! The ice cream melts a bit, the coffee cools down a bit, the flavors mix, and it's like a very sophisticated version of an ice cream float! Here, Giada De Laurentiis shows us one way to make Affogato.

I hope this posting left your mouth watering with a craving to try coffee in ways other than in a cup first thing in the morning! Expand your horizons, and put those ingredients to use in unexpected ways!