rice and wheat

Pozole Rojo (Pork and Hominy Soup)

angi — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 18:21:01 +0000

Back when I used to live in San Antonio (yes, in Texas), the small Mexican restaurants in town would serve homemade menudo during brunch hours on the weekends. Once my family discovered this soup, it quickly became a weekend favorite. After all, what is not to love about a rich, spicy, warming soup of hominy and beef tripe? At the time, though, I had no idea that menudo is supposedly a great cure for hangovers … which begs the question: did my parents sneak out to some fun parties while my younger self was sleeping soundly??

Although I do have a soft spot for menudo, I’m also not prepared to mess with cooking tripe at home, so I’ve been searching for alternatives. Then one day, at a little Yucatecan restaurant, I discovered pozole, a hearty, warming, green soup full of hominy and chicken. A while later, Nathan and I randomly stopped into a different little Mexican restaurant for lunch and there was pozole on the menu there too! But theirs was a different version, a rich, spicy, red soup full of hominy and pork (menudo-esque, if you will), and that’s the one we’ve been obsessing over ever since.

After some research, we learned that there are many different regional versions of pozole, roughly categorized into the three colors of the Mexican flag: green (verde), red (rojo), and white (blanco). For our beloved rojo, we eventually dug up two different recipes: one from Señor Bayless himself and one posted on Chowhound. Being the most indecisive people in the world, we couldn’t choose so ended up using parts of both of them. In a moment of insanity, we also decided to double the recipe and ended up with way more pozole than we could handle or even store. But then, that’s when you can count on your sister, friends (like Ben and Erin), and neighbors for backup, right?

You know, with Thanksgiving only days away, you might actually hear your leftover turkey bones and meat whispering ‘pozole’ to you on Friday morning (but not in a creepy way). I know if I do, you just might find me back at the stove again working on another giant cauldron of pozole, a green turkey one this time.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Adapted from this recipe by Patricia Quintana (via Chowhound), with some Rick Bayless-inspired changes.

Pork Broth:
3 quarts of water
2 lb pork butt, cut into large chunks
1 lb pork bones (ask the butcher to cut them into small pieces for you)
1 small head of garlic, halved
1 small onion, halved
a healthy pinch of salt
1 29-oz can of hominy, rinsed and drained

Chile Paste:
2 ancho chiles
2 guajillo chiles
1 tomato
1/2 onion
1 clove garlic
3/4 tsp Mexican oregano
1 tsp salt

Condiments:
shredded cabbage
thinly sliced radishes
finely chopped onion
crushed Mexican oregano
limes, cut into wedges
tortilla chips

Make the broth: This step takes the most time but you can (and should) do it the day before. Combine the water, pork bones, and pork meat in a big stockpot and bring to a boil. Skim off the foam that rises up. Once most of the foam is gone and no more is rising up, add the onion, garlic, and salt and reduce heat to a simmer. Simmer covered for about an hour. Then uncover and simmer more until the liquid is reduced to about 2 quarts, which will take roughly another hour or two. Turn off the heat and cool the meat in the broth (we just left the pot on the stove overnight).

Once cooled, skim the fat off the top of the broth. Take the meat out, shred into small pieces, and set aside. Drain the rest of the broth using a colander to remove the bones and the leftover onion/garlic bits. Rinse the stock pot, then return the broth to the pot (or refrigerate if not using right away).

Make the chile paste: Boil a kettle of water. Remove the stem and seeds from the ancho and guajillo chiles. Toast them on a hot dry griddle (or pan) until you see little wisps of smoke. Immediately put them in a bowl, pour hot water over them, and weigh them down to let them rehydrate for about an hour. Once they’re soft, puree the chiles, tomato, onion, garlic, and oregano together in a food processor or blender. Season lightly with salt.

Assembling the pozole: Reheat the broth over medium heat. Add in the reserve pork meat and the washed+drained hominy. Using a fine-mesh strainer to eliminate big chunks of peel, add in the chile paste. (We do this by pouring in a portion of the chile paste into the strainer, then using a spatula or wooden spoon to push it all around.) Once you’ve added all the chile paste, taste the soup and season with salt.

Serving: Set out the shredded cabbage, lime wedges, radish slices, chopped onion, oregano, and tortilla chips on the table. Ladle out the pozole into large individual bowls and tell everyone to decorate their own pozole accordingly.

(Makes 6-8 servings)

Pork and Leek Gyozas

angi — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 17:13:59 +0000

It’s been a while since I’ve waxed poetic (at least here) about how much I love dumplings. When I really get going, I have been known to declare that dumplings are the snacks of the gods, are so awesome that nearly every culture has developed some version of them and quite possibly, the food item that will eventually bring about world peace. But I will spare you.

Finding that suddenly I have much more free time than I have in the past months, I decided it was time to stock up the freezer with a menagerie of dumplings again. This time, I restricted myself to only two varieties: a trusty pork and ginger filling from Ming Tsai and a new-to-me pork and leek filling from a recent cookbook acquisition, Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid’s gorgeous Beyond the Great Wall. I ended up modifying their dumpling recipe slightly by adding an egg to the filling to help it bind better and by scaling up, since I always make dumplings in big batches for freezing.

Now that I own two of their books, I can officially say that I love this couple of cookbook authors. Their books are more like travel diaries interspersed with recipes and with plenty of beautiful photography, which happen to be three things I love…well, in addition to dumplings, of course.

Adapted from Beyond the Great Wall. I think this recipe would probably work quite well if you use ground lamb as well.

Gyozas:
2 leeks
1/2 lb ground pork
1 tsp salt
2 tsp soy sauce
1 tsp sesame oil
1 egg
2 packages of round dumpling wrappers (I prefer the ones marked ‘gyoza’ and not ‘potsticker’ because I find the potsticker wrappers to be too thick)

Dipping Sauce:
soy sauce
sesame oil
chili oil (optional)

Clean the leeks by trimming off the root and the tough green leaves, then slice in half and wash thoroughly to remove all dirt. Chop finely.

Combine the leeks, ground pork, salt, soy sauce, sesame oil, egg to make the filling. Then go ahead and wrap the dumplings (see video here for a dumpling-wrapping refresher course).

To freeze the gyozas: simply line them up on a baking sheet or tray, making sure they’re well-separated (or you’ll end up with a giant mass of dumplings). Freeze the whole tray until the dumplings are totally hard (e.g. overnight) and then transfer to plastic freezer bags for storage. You can cook the dumplings directly out of the freezer, without thawing.

To cook the gyozas (frozen or not): The key to perfect crispy bottoms is to be patient and not poke at them while they’re cooking! Coat a non-stick pan with vegetable oil and arrange the dumplings on the pan (you can do this before or while the oil is heating up – no need to risk being splattered by hot oil). Once you hear the oil starting to sizzle, add in enough water to cover the bottom halves of the dumplings. Immediately cover pan and let the dumplings boil and steam in the pan (no poking!).

After about 5 min, peek at the pan every so often. Once most of the water has pretty much boiled off, uncover the pan and let the rest of the water evaporate. Once all the water is gone, the bottoms of the dumplings will start to brown and start to look like they’re sticking to the pan (but thanks to your non-stick pan, you’re not worried). Turn off the heat and carefully remove the dumplings with a spatula.

While the gyozas are cooking, prepare the dipping sauce. Pour a couple spoons of soy sauce into a small dish, add in a dash of sesame oil and a few drops of chili oil (optional).

Serve the gyozas with dipping sauce.

Lemon Berry Scones

angi — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 18:59:20 +0000

Right before our wedding, Nathan and I were invited to brunch at our friends Amar and Aliza’s house. Amar’s parents were in town and Auntie likes to treat us kids to dosas whenever she’s around. After (not) much consideration, we decided that even with a list of wedding to-dos staring at us, we of course could not resist the call of homemade dosas. I mean, a wedding is serious stuff but so are homemade dosas! So off we went … with a plate of scones in hand.

I love making scones. I love them not only because they’re tasty and delicious, but also because they’re easy, fast, way better when fresh and warm from the oven, and most importantly, the perfect baking project for us lazy people. Why? Because you actually want to mix as little as possible to ensure light, flaky, and tender scones. Oh, and they’re also the perfect thing to bring to parties because honestly, you don’t want a whole batch of them sitting at your house tempting you with their buttery goodness.

I’ve tried this recipe twice now and it’s worked out well both times. The first time was in the middle of blueberry season so I used fresh blueberries. This time, no blueberries were in sight at the store, so I experimented with chopped-up fresh strawberries and it still worked out quite well. Frozen berries should also work splendidly. I think in the winter, I might try this recipe again with dried berries to see if this is a recipe for all seasons.

Recipe adapted from The Cheese Board Collective Works. They give instructions for using a stand mixer also, but I like using my hands for these scones, since you absolutely do not want to overmix.

3.5 cups all-purpose flour (I like King Arthur and I sift before measuring)
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp kosher salt
3/4 cup sugar (+ 1/4 cup for sprinkling on top)
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter – cut into chunks and keep very cold
grated zest of 1 lemon
1 cup fresh/frozen berries (e.g. blueberries, chopped strawberries)
1/2 cup heavy cream
3/4 buttermilk

Preheat oven to 375F. Line baking sheets with parchment – you’ll probably end up using 2 baking sheets.

Sift together flour, baking soda, and baking powder in large bowl. Add salt and 3/4 cup of sugar to the bowl and stir with wooden spoon until combined.

Add in the butter chunks (cold from the fridge please!) and rub into the flour with your fingers. You want to end up with what looks like wet, coarse sand with pea-sized bits of butter. Add in lemon zest and berries and gently mix in with a few turns of the spoon.

Make a well in the center and add the cream and buttermilk. Mix briefly and gently, until the dough just comes together. You don’t need a totally uniform dough – bits of loose flour clumps and chunks of butter are totally fine and the dough should look rough and craggy. In fact, it’s more important to not overmix at this point or your scones will come out tough instead of light and tender.

Using a large spoon, drop balls of dough (~2 inches in diameter) onto the prepared pans, placing the balls about 2 inches apart. Sprinkle 1/4 cup of sugar all over the tops of the scones.

Bake on the middle rack for 25-30 min, until golden brown, then move to a wire rack to cool. I’ve noticed that because they’re so buttery, the scones have a tendency to melt into what looks like little puddles during baking. Because I like my scones to be thicker, I usually pull out them about halfway through baking and then using two spoons, gently repack the puddles into little mounds before finishing the bake.

(Makes about 12 scones)

Back from Spain…

angi — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 01:55:49 +0000

October turned out to be as crazy as we had expected and perhaps even more. Our wedding was lovely and gorgeous (after some stressful last-minute drama involving mandatory evacuations, power outage, and mudslides resulting from the huge storm that hit the Santa Cruz mountains) and it was so wonderful to see all the people we love and party with them. Then we jetted away to Spain for two weeks and pretty much stuffed ourselves with as much jamón, little fried fishes, tapas/pintxos as possible.

But now we’re back and I’m plotting my first entry as a married woman…. and I think it’ll feature something with lots of butter and baking.

Until I get my act together though, maybe you would be interested in our food pictures from Spain??

Seared Cod with Creamy Fennel Ragout

angi — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 07:07:25 +0000

Wow, is it really the end of September already? That means, Nathan and I are getting married in less than month — yikes! Panic time!

Ok, I exaggerate – we’re actually doing pretty good as far as planning goes, so there’s really no need to panic. But you’ll still have to pardon me and my very-likely leave of absence from blogging once we get even closer to the wedding date, and then definitely when we’re on our honeymoon. But we’re going to Spain, possibly one of the best places in the world for eating, so I hope to come back with lots of delicious stories and pictures.

In the meantime, even though I don’t have much extra time for flipping through my cookbooks and scouring my favorite blogs to hunt down new recipes, I have some very lovely friends who will do the work for me. This one comes to us by way of my good friend and former roommate Ms. Laura. I was contemplating a strategy for this head of fennel sitting in the fridge when all of a sudden, my IM window popped up with a message from Laura telling me she just made this awesome recipe from Epicurious. Now, if that’s not divine intervention, I don’t know what is.

The major change I made to the recipe is to scale it down to serve two and to skip the sun-dried tomatoes since I didn’t have any at home. Also, I bought my fish at an Asian market where, shall we say, labeling fishes by their English names is not their highest priority. So I just chose a firm-looking white fish and it worked well. Just avoid delicate or super-oily fishes, like salmon or mackerel. I cooked up some simple sauteed spinach to serve with this and it went great with the creamy ragout.

2 slices bacon, cut into chunks
olive oil
1 fennel bulb, stalks removed and sliced
salt and black pepper
1 cup chicken broth
2 tbsp chopped, drained sun-dried tomatoes packed in oil (optional)
1/3 cup heavy cream
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
2 pieces cod, scrod, or halibut fillet (about 1 inch thick)
1/2 tablespoon Dijon mustard

Cook bacon over medium heat, stirring, until a little bit crispy and a lot of the fat has been rendered out (about 6-8 min). Transfer bacon onto a paper-towel-lined plate.

Pour out most of the fat except for about 1 tbsp (careful!) and add in 1 tbsp of olive oil. Saute fennel with a good sprinkle of salt and pepper over medium heat until lightly browned, about 6-8 min.

Once fennel is slightly soft and a bit browned, add in broth, cream, tomatoes (if using), and garlic. Cook over medium-low heat, partially covered and stirring occasionally, to thicken the ragout. This will take about 20 min.

While fennel is cooking, heat another tbsp of oil in a non-stick skillet over medium-high heat until hot. Season fish fillets with salt and pepper on both sides, then pan-fry in skillet. Depending on the thickness of your fish, you’ll need to adjust your cooking time. Start with 4 min each side and then check the thickness part of your fillet to see if it’s done or not. A knife should pass easily through the flesh when the fish is done and the flesh should be quite opaque.

Before serving, stir mustard and the reserved bacon into the fennel ragout. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Ladle ragout onto plates and lay the fish on top.

(Makes two servings)

Chilled Corn Soup

angi — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 02:37:08 +0000

If you’re a Top Chef addict like me, then you probably already know from the title of this post that this is the dish that Jamie Lauren (of SF’s very own Absinthe) made during an episode last season that the judges raved about. Everyone loved it so much that she subsequently added it to the menu at Absinthe.

I have to admit that when I saw this episode, I was a bit skeptical that a simple soup, mostly of pureed corn, can taste so amazing that Padma declared it her favorite dish all season. So of course, I had to try it myself! And I didn’t even have to make the trip over to Absinthe when our weekly CSA gave us a sudden flood of sweet corn.

Thanks to Jessica over at Apples and Butter for scaling down the the original recipe to one that’s more reasonable for the home kitchen!

This soup is delicious and I totally get now why the judges and Padma kept talking about it. The cold creamy soup is perfect for a light lunch on a warm summer day (see how the soup is in a little plastic container above? It’s ready to take to work for lunch!). The little dots of chili oil supply a tiny and perfect bit of heat. Sadly, I didn’t have mint in the house, so I substituted for green onions instead. But I definitely plan to find and add the mint next time around.

Recipe based on this one from Apples and Butter. The main difference is that I substituted green onions for mint and was too lazy to make my own chili oil, so I just used a premade one I had in the house.

3-4 ears corn
half stick of butter
2 cloves garlic
1 yellow onion, diced
4 stalks celery, diced
1 russet potato, quartered
Salt to taste
4-5 cups of vegetable or chicken stock
3/4 cup heavy cream
chili oil and chopped mint (or chopped green onion tops) for garnish

Cut corn off the cob and save a handful of kernels for garnish. Smash garlic cloves and set aside.

Heat 1/2 tbsp of the butter over medium heat in a large pot, add the corn kernels you’re saving for garnish, and fry for a minute or so. Remove from pot and set aside.

Heat the rest of the butter, add smashed garlic cloves, and fry until fragrant for a couple of minutes. Add onion and celery and saute until soft.

Add the potato quarters, corn, and a big pinch of salt. Saute for a couple more minutes. Add in stock, bring to a simmer, and simmer until potato cubes are soft. Remove from heat.

Using an immersion blender or carefully in a few batches with a normal blender (careful! hot liquid!!), puree the soup with the cream. If you’re working in a few batches, add some cream to each batch to make pureeing easier.

(At this point, you can either choose to strain the soup for a smooth texture. I actually didn’t do this because I like the chewiness of the unstrained soup.)

Chill the soup in the fridge until cold. Then serve topped with the reserved corn kernels, chopped mint (or green onion tops), and a few dots of chili oil.

(Makes about 4 servings)

Zuni Cafe’s Caesar Salad

angi — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 07:20:32 +0000

About two years ago, one of my favorite food writers Michael Ruhlman wrote a very entertaining rant on Chicken Caesar Salads… which led him to introduce the Chicken Fried Pork Belly Caesar… which then led him to challenge Chris Cosentino, chef of Incanto here in SF, to put the dish on the Incanto menu … which actually led to the development of an even more ridiculous version (as in ridiculously awesome) of the Caesar Salad by Chris Cosentino himself. If you haven’t seen it before, I suggest checking out this series of posts – if you’re not drooling by the end, then I regret to inform you that you must be a robot.

I will tell you right now that I’m not trying to one-up either of those guys by topping the salad with something even more ridiculous (fried bone marrow? Is that even possible??). But I will tell you about a basic Caesar Salad recipe so amazingly good that also happens to be amazingly simple and requires no frying of any kind. Don’t get me wrong, I love pork bellies and pretty much all things Chris Cosentino cooks (seriosuly, Nathan and I went to his restaurant three times in the span of six months). But thanks to Judy Rodgers and her Zuni Cafe cookbook, here’s a Caesar Salad so delicious and flavorful that you won’t even need to think about garnishing it with crazy proteins.

(Note that the dressing here uses raw eggs, so depending on your personal feelings on raw egg consumption, you may want to use pasteurized eggs. In full disclosure, I have not tried this dressing with pastuerized eggs, so if you do, please leave a comment and let me know if it works out!)

I mostly followed the recipe from the Zuni Cafe Cookbook but altered it because I didn’t have some of the exact ingredients and was too lazy to run to the store. It turned out delicious anyway, which reconfirms my theory that more often than not, it’s totally ok to be lazy when it comes to cooking.

a couple slices of slightly stale, chewy bread (I used sourdough)
extra virgin olive oil

a small head of romaine lettuce (about 10-12 leaves total)
1/2 tbsp red wine vinegar (I used white wine and it worked fine)
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
3-4 anchovy fillets (recipe asked for salt-packed but I used oil-packed)
1-2 cloves garlic, depending on how much you like garlic
1 cold egg
3/4 grated Parmigiano-Reggiano, loosely packed
1.5 tbsp fresh lemon juice
salt & freshly ground black pepper

Make the croutons: Preheat oven to 350F. Cut bread slices into 1/2-inch cubes and place in a mixing bowl. Add in a couple glugs of olive oil and toss. Add in a healthy pinch of salt and toss again. Spread on a sheet pan and roast in the oven until golden all over, about 8-12 min. Taste a crouton to make sure it’s well-seasoned and slightly chewy in the middle. Set aside to cool.

Prep the greens: Trim any bruised or wilted spots off the romain leaves but leave them whole. Wash in plenty of water and dry thoroughly – there’s nothing worse than using wet greens in salads. The original recipe recommended layering the leaves between kitchen towels but since I don’t own mountains of kitchen towels, I just used a salad spinner. Once dried, put the leaves in the fridge while you work on the dressing.

Make the dressing: Rinse the anchovy fillets under water and coarse chop. Coarsely chop the garlic, sprinkle with a little salt (it helps with the mashing), then mash the garlic using the side of your knife (here’s a video that shows the mashing technique I’m talking about, at about 2:30 – I prefer mashed garlic in recipes that use raw garlic because you’re a lot less likely to bite into a big chunk). Once garlic is mashed, combine with anchovies and roughly mash them together to create a paste.

Combine vinegar, olive oil, anchovy/garlic paste, another pinch of salt in a small bowl and whisk together. Add the egg, about half the cheese, and lots of black pepper. Whisk again to emulsify – when the dressing comes together and looks creamy, you’re good to go. Add the lemon juice and whisk again. Taste a bit of the dressing by itself and also on a small bit of lettuce – adjust with salt and black pepper accordingly. How you adjust the seasonings will depend both on your personal preferences and how sweet your romaine is.

Assemble the salad: Place the romaine leaves in a large salad bowl. Add in most of the dressing and gently toss. You want to coat the leaves pretty thoroughly, so add more dressing as needed. Sprinkle on the rest of the cheese (but save a tiny bit to dust on top of the finished salad), add the croutons, and toss again.

You can either serve the salad family style or plate it out on individual plates – don’t forget a final dusting of cheese in either case, of course!

(Makes enough for a light supper for 2)

Szechuan-style Green Beans

angi — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 06:36:35 +0000

Green beans is one of these ingredients that has always stumped me. Whenever we get a big bag of them in our CSA box, I inevitably throw them in the fridge, ignore them for as long as possible, and then wind up just blanching them and eating them in giant dinner-size salads. Which, admittedly, is not such a bad thing every once in a while, but even I can’t bring myself to eat giant dinner-size salads more than once or twice a week.

It seems, then, that I need an alternative green bean strategy. For a while, I attempted the ‘French tactic’ – by purposely calling them ‘haricot vert’, I thought it would make them sound much more exotic and delectable. But sadly, I found that while I did enjoy saying the phrase (especially many times in a row), I still had no good ideas on what to do with this giant pile of now-fancy ‘haricot vert’.

So when we recently got another big bag of green beans (ahem, ‘haricot vert’), I opted for a ‘Chinese tactic’. I had eaten a Szechuan-style dish featuring slightly charred green beans in this deliciously salty/sweet/tangy sauce a long time ago and I decided to try to recreate this dish. After some research, I learned that the biggest trick is to ‘dry-fry’ the green beans until they get slightly soft and blistery – this actually takes longer than you would think for a vegetable that usually only takes a few minutes to blanch. But while you wait, you can mix up a sauce and chop up big piles of garlic, green onions, and ginger. Then you just throw everything together and the solution to the Green Bean Dilemma will be literally at your fingertips.

I will never dread the arrival of green beans again.

This dish would work perfectly as a side dish. But if you’re lazy like me, you may also find that with a big bowl of steamed rice, this by itself makes for a pretty decent dinner too.

peanut or vegetable oil
a big bunch of green beans (about 2 lbs)
a 2- to 3-inch knob of ginger
3-5 cloves of garlic (adjust to your personal like/dislike of garlic)
3-4 scallions
hoisin sauce
rice vinegar
soy sauce
sugar
sesame oil
chile oil (or sambal oelek, which is what we had at home), if you like spicy

Heat oil in a wok or skillet over medium-high heat until shimmery. Add green beans and leave alone for a few minutes, so that they get a chance to get soft and slightly blistery. Toss green beans after a few minutes and again, leave them to cook. Keep doing this until the green beans get soft (not mushy) and parts of them are lightly charred. This should take about 15-20 minutes, depending on the size of your pan and how many green beans you have in there.

While the green beans are cooking, peel the ginger (easiest with a spoon!). Mince ginger, garlic, and scallion and set aside.

Mix the sauce: Start with a big dollop (~3 tbsp) of hoisin sauce. Now add in a small splash of vinegar, a small splash of soy sauce, a pinch of sugar, and a tiny drizzle of sesame oil. Taste a tiny bit of the sauce and adjust with small amounts of any of the components – the sauce will be pretty salty, which is fine because you’re adding this to a big batch of green beans. But you also want to be able to taste the acidity of the vinegar and some sweetness (both from the sugar and the hoisin sauce). When the sauce taste good, add chile oil (or sambal oelek) to the spicy level you like.

Once the green beans are charred, throw in the minced ginger, garlic, and scallion and stir fry quickly. Add the sauce and toss everything until combined.

Serve with white rice or as a side dish.

Roasted Broccoli with Shrimp (a la NYT)

angi — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 06:50:44 +0000

I have to admit that when I first saw this recipe, I was skeptical. I mean I’m all for simple and quick foods, but this? This looked beyond simple – so far beyond that I doubt it can be anything but meh.

But then I saw it mentioned again, not once but twice, by two of my favorite bloggers no less. Luisa over at The Wednesday Chef called it a ‘minor miracle’ (!) and all Molly over at Orangette would say was that it was so perfect she’s still thinking about it. Really, can just throwing broccoli and shrimp in the oven really be that good? The only way to know is, of course, to try it for myself.

The result? Well, let’s just say that I recommend some slight amendments to your schedule tomorrow: cancel your dinner plans, run by the market on your way home, make a giant pan of this, and proceed to laugh maniacally at how you must have cheated the cooking gods by making something so amazingly delicious in less than half an hour.

So yeah, it really is that good.

While I’m sure this would go well with many starch options, in the spirit of simplicity and to allot more time for maniacal laughter, I recommend the easy route – a big pot of fluffy white rice.

a big head of broccoli, cut into bite-size pieces
extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp whole coriander seeds
1 tsp whole cumin seeds
1.5 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
pinch of hot chili powder (or more, if you like it spicy)
1 lb large shrimp, shelled and deveined
a lemon

Preheat oven to 425F.

Put broccoli in a large bowl and toss with a big glug of the oil, coriander, cumin, 1 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp pepper, and chili powder. Spread in a single layer onto a large baking sheet and roast for 10 min.

In the meantime, zest the lemon. Then, in another bowl, combine shrimp, another big glug of olive oil, lemon zest, 1/2 tsp salt, and 1/2 tsp pepper.

After 10 min, add shrimp to broccoli and toss well. Roast for another 5min and toss everything again. Finish roasting everything until shrimp is just done and broccoli is tender and slightly golden on the edges, about another 5 min.

Squeeze some lemon juice over the whole thing right before serving.

(Serves 4)

Savory Bread Pudding (a la 101 Cookbooks)

angi — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 19:00:32 +0000

As you can probably tell by the infrequent posting, life has been a bit hectic lately and I’ve been having trouble finding the time to share my cooking adventures with you. What with a wedding to plan and grad school work ramping up, I haven’t been attempting many ambitious cooking projects at home. (Case in point: you should see my poor sourdough starter, which has been sadly sitting in the fridge unused for a couple of months now when I’m sure all he wants to do is come out and play. Hopefully, I won’t have to keep him pent up much longer.)

Of course, all of this doesn’t mean I haven’t been cooking – it’s just the focus lately has been on simple, easy, super quick meals. After much internal debate, I’ve finally decided that I would write about these anyway and hope that one day, it’ll help someone (possibly even me, since I have the worst memory in the universe) whip out a quick dinner without running to the store. So you’ll start seeing posts about these improvised “recipes” soon – although I hesitate to even call them recipes since I’m never that careful with measuring things when I’m improvising.

But before I start busting out the improv (ha), I want to encourage all of you to try this awesome recipe from none other than Heidi at 101 Cookbooks, one of my all-time favorite recipe blogs. Take advantage of those gorgeous asparagus before they go completely out of season!

Of course, you can replace the asparagus and mushrooms with any other vegetables your heart/stomach desires that day. In fact, I’m day-dreaming about how mighty fine a bread pudding like this would be with some wilted leafy greens, capers, fresh tarragon, and maybe even some roasted fennel. Why, what a lucky coincidence – I have those exact veggies sitting in the fridge at home!