Beef Dan Dan Noodles

Recipe: "Xie Laoban's Dan Dan Noodles" from "Land of Plenty: Authentic Sichuan Recipes Personally Gathered in the Chinese Province of Sichuan" by Fuchsia Dunlop.
Rating: Good.
Status: Made once.

Carrot and Cucumber Buttermilk Salad

When I'm working from home, I like to snoop around my fridge to see what leftovers can be used up.  Today, there was some left over buttermilk sauce that I didn't have any plans for and a lonely cucumber half and carrot half (left over from here) that need to be used up soon, otherwise they will go bad.  I like to make "something" out of nothing.  So after I finished the one remaining eggplant with buttermilk sauce, I made this quick salad to eat with some leftover toasted bread.  It is tangy and satisfyingly crunchy--just the kind of thing that would be nice on a hot summer day.

A post I recently read about Israeli Salad was the inspiration for this dish.  The sauce in this salad is different then that post, however I used the idea of finely diced raw crunchy vegetables with parsley.

Buttermilk sauce (about 1/2 cup)
1/2 cucumber
1/2 carrot
pinch of za'atar
ground black pepper
chopped parsley
salt

Peel the carrot and the cucumber.  Remove seeds from the cucumber.  Cut both vegetables into a fine dice.

Mix buttermilk sauce with diced vegetables, a pinch of za'atar, a pinch of ground black pepper, and some chopped parsley.  The sauce already has some salt in it, but you may need to add an additional small pinch of salt (to taste) to adjust for the extra vegetables.  Taste carefully--be careful to not add too much salt, because you cannot remove it once you add it.

Serve cool or chilled. The salad can be eaten as is, or with bread.

Eggplant with Buttermilk Sauce

"Eggplant with Buttermilk Sauce" from "Plenty: Vibrant Vegetable Recipes from London's Ottolenghi" by Yotam Ottolenghi.  Note that there is an error in cooking temperature of the online version of the recipe (the book is correct); the eggplants should be cooked at 400 F (at high heat).

Maldon salt (the suggested type of salt) is a good choice of salt for this recipe. You should generously salt the eggplants before roasting them.  My cooked eggplant also needed a generous sprinkle of Maldon salt with the sauce, though I probably didn't put enough salt on the raw eggplant.

Even though the pomegranate looks very pretty, there wasn't any at the grocery store I went to, and I didn't want to buy another ingredient, so I used chopped parsley to garnish (along with the suggested thyme and za'atar).

Clams with Tomatoes, Pea Shoots, and Israeli Couscous

This is a variation on linguine with clams in a white wine, butter, garlic sauce.  I used Melissa Clark's recipe "Clams with Peas, Pea Shoots, and Israeli Couscous" from "Cook This Now: 120 Easy and Delectable Dishes You Can't Wait to Make", except there wasn't any fresh peas at the farmer's market today, so I used a handful of cherry tomatoes, and 6 zucchini blossoms (with the zucchini attached).  I added the tomatoes when the peas were supposed to be added, and the zucchini blossoms a bit after that.  Both were quite tasty!

There is one error in this recipe. She forgot to mention adding a pinch of salt. You can add this in the beginning of cooking, when you add the shallots and garlic.

The pea shoots were okay in this recipe; I should have removed more of their thick steams. They are a good way to integrate veggies into this dish, so you can have a one dish dinner, though I also think the recipe would be fine without them.  I think you could also try using spinach instead of the pea shoots.

I used mint as suggested in the recipe and this added a nice slightly fresh taste to the dish. I think the dish would also be nice with parsley (which would be a more traditional take on clams in a white wine, butter, and garlic sauce).

I made 1 cup of dry Israeli couscous to go with this--this was the perfect amount for two people for a light to normal sized dinner with no leftovers.  We also used a few pieces of bread to sop of some of the pan juices (I added a little bit more wine then suggested in the recipe because there didn't seem to be enough liquid).

Eggs in Purgatory / Shakshuka

2 eggs per person
1 cup of tomato sauce per person
salt

Heat tomato sauce until it is simmering.  Make indentations in the top of the sauce for the eggs.  Crack 1 egg into a small separate bowl; remove any stray eggshell pieces. Carefully pour each egg into an indentation in the tomato sauce, being careful to not break the yolks.

You can cook it in two ways.  Either keep it at a low simmer on the stovetop and cover with a lid so that the tops of the eggs will cook, or place in an oven heated to 375.


Cook for 6 - 10 minutes.  The eggs will continue cooking in the hot liquid, so be careful to not overcook them. Check them often as soon as you see most of the egg whites have solidified with just a little bit of clear whites around the yolk. They will only need another minute or two after this point.  If you want runny yolks, then the eggs are done as soon as the whites have fully set (they are full set the moment that you don't see any more clear egg whites).  The egg whites will be opaque everywhere you see them, including around and perhaps a little bit on top of the yolk.


Sprinkle the eggs with a bit of salt.  Optionally you can drizzle a little olive oil on them, or dot a few pats of butter around.

Buttery Pastry Shell

"Buttery Pastry Shell" by Thomas Keller in "Food & Wine" magazine.  This a savory pie crust for quiches and savory tarts.

The original recipe suggests just using the ring from a springform pan on a baking sheet, but I used a 10-inch leak proof push pan, using the ring and the bottom.  I didn't notice any disadvantage to using the pan bottom; I'm not sure why the original recipe suggests not using it.  The huge benefit to using a leak proof pan with the bottom, is if you put liquid ingredients into the pie crust and has holes in it that you weren't able to patch, then the pan will prevent the liquid from leaking all over your oven and making a huge mess.

I used the parchment paper method for rolling out the pie dough, since the pie dough is very buttery and soft.  The parchment paper made the dough easy to roll out and transfer to the pie pan. Whenever the dough got difficult to work with or got so sticky it stuck to the parchment paper, I just re-refrigerated it, and it became easier to work with again.

I made a mushroom quiche the first time I made this pastry shell.

Tip for Perking Up Dull Tomato Sauce

To perk up cooked tomato sauce that seems dull, add 1 tsp vinegar (e.g. sherry vinegar).

Braised Short Ribs

Someone made me short ribs! Recipe for "Braised Short Ribs" from "The Art of Simple Food: Notes, Lessons, and Recipes from a Delicious Revolution" by Alice Waters.

The Philosophy of Leftovers

This is a good article on using leftovers in cooking, and creatively using the ingredients that you have around: "A Recipe is Not Always the Place to Begin" by Tamar Adler.

Some More Hummus Tips

Recently, I found out a few more tips about hummus (some previously mentioned hummus tips on this blog are here).  I haven't tried these yet, but I'm listing them here so that I can remember what these tips are the next time I make hummus.

• Apparently where the chickpeas are grown may make a difference (see here and here).  Dry chickpeas which are small and evenly colored are better then large chickpeas or old chickpeas.  Large Mexican garbanzos are often undesirable.
• Adding baking soda to the soaking water (about 1 tsp) and to the cooking water (1/4 tsp to 1/2 tsp) may help the chickpeas to absorb more water, and therefore soften more easily.  But you want to be careful to not add too much baking soda, because it can give the chickpeas a soapy taste.  Also if you add baking soda you may not want to use the cooking water in the hummus, because the baking soda can be hard on the stomach. So baking soda is optional, but if you have difficultly softening your dried chickpeas or want them to cooking faster (it isn't unusual for chickpeas to take 2 hours to cook), then you may want to try baking soda.
• All (or nearly all) bean cooking recipes recommend soaking and cooking with un-salted water, and adding salt to the beans in the last 10-15 minutes of cooking so that the beans can absorb some salt.  However none of the chickpea cooking recipes seem to suggest this final addition of salt. So it might not be necessary, or might not be desirable.
• Cool the chickpeas after cooking them.  Grinding the chickpeas when they are warm can make the dip pasty since the starch crystals in the chickpeas break down more easily when they are warm.  Most recipes seem to indicate cooling to room temperature, though I did see one recipe which suggested refrigerating them for 2 hours before grinding.
• Some recipes suggest not mixing any oil (including olive oil) into the dip.  Instead they suggest that authentically middle eastern hummus only has olive oil drizzled on top.  (e.g. here).
• Many recipes seem to suggest that cumin is an essential spice in hummus, and that sprinkling cumin on top of the hummus is more traditional then paprika.

Thai Red (or Green) Curry with Eggplant and Shrimp Dumplings

For dinner tonight, I wanted to make something that was fast, and that uses some of the ingredients I have leftover from previous things that I have cooked.  So I decided to make something using the same homemade "Red Curry Paste" from that I made in this post, but since I didn't want to make exactly the same dish as last time, I decided to make shrimp red curry instead of chicken red curry.  Since shrimp cooks quickly, I decided I would follow the red curry recipe, but leave out the chicken, and add the shrimp at the very end of cooking since shrimp only takes a minute or two to cook through.  To see if I could find any new curry hints, I decided to check "She Simmers", a Thai home cooking blog.  In one of her curry posts, she mentioned shrimp dumplings in curry, and when I saw that, I thought "That's it!"  I knew I wanted to make a variation of it, since I love similar things such as fish balls, har gow (shrimp dumplings), and I just got a new hand mixer which has the ability to become a small food processor.

So for this dish, I followed the recipe for "Quick Red Chicken Curry" from "Hot Sour Salty Sweet: A Culinary Journey Through Southeast Asia" by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid.  Except instead of using chicken, I made shrimp dumplings (or shrimp balls) based on a recipe from "She Simmers" (note this blog post also contains an excellent explanation of why commercially prepared curry pastes are acceptable to use in places where the ingredients are hard to find (e.g. coriander roots is extremely hard to find in San Francisco--I've looked everywhere.)).

I made approximately 1/2 the curry recipe using 3 cups homemade coconut cream made from the first pressing of 340 g defrosted frozen coconut (which was 1 bag of frozen grated coconut, though bags can differ in size).  You should use only the coconut cream from the first pressing, because curry should be thick and creamy.

For the curry paste, I used the Mae Ploy brand (which happens to be a brand that Kasma Loha-unchit  recommends); I choose to use a commercial paste for the reasons explained in this post).  I only used 1 Tbsp red curry paste, because William doesn't tolerate very spicy food well.  I used two types of eggplant, 6 Thai and 8 small round Asian eggplant.  I also added 1  1/2 Tbsp fish sauce, and 2 Kaffir lime leaves.

I shaped the shrimp paste into quenelles using to large table spoons and set them on a plate. After the eggplant was cooked through in the curry, I removed the eggplant temporarily into a bowl, in order to make room to cook the shrimp dumplings.  I then carefully added the quenelles into the curry, while keeping the curry at a low simmer.  I turned the dumplings over once, and the dumplings were cooked through in about 2 minutes.  We really liked have these dumplings in the quenelle shape because the shape made them really light, fluffy and bouncy (perhaps because the mixture is only pressed lightly together with spoons until it holds shape).  Finally I added back in the eggplant, and also added the julienned red pepper, and fresh basil leaves.  I served this with Thai black cargo rice.

Shrimp Dumplings (modified from She Simmers)

Ingredients:
1 pound shelled and deveined shrimp
1 egg white
2 tsp fish sauce
1 Tbsp corn or tapioca starch dissolved in a little bit of cold water

Blitz the shrimp in a food processor; it is okay to overmix them a bit, since this will help them to become elastic. Mix all ingredients together--mix them aggressively to achieve elasticity.  Form into either quenelles or bite-sized balls. Gently drop into a simmering sauce.  They should only take a minute or two to cook through (you can cut one in half to make sure).

I also tried this recipe with green curry.  William doesn't like things too spicy, but this curry needs to have enough paste in it to give it flavor, and it will consequently be spicy also.  I used commercial green curry paste, so perhaps commercial green curry paste is just too dull and I should have made one from scratch.  The shrimp wasn't as fresh as I'd like either, and the curry came out a bit too thick (I could have added more water).  The recipe is loosely based (it has heavy modifications and barely resembles the original recipes) on the two green curry recipes in "Thai Food" by David Thompson.

First make the shrimp balls, and place the raw formed balls or quenelles on a plate.

To make the green curry, I defrosted 4 cups of coconut milk (2 bags of frozen coconut milk).  I simmered 2 cups coconut milk until it broke.  I put some of the oily part of the broken curry milk into a small pan and sautéed it with 50g of green curry paste for 5 minutes.  When you first mix the paste with the broken coconut milk, the paste will reabsorb the oil; as you continue simmering it the oil will start to separate.  The fried paste will no longer smell raw (5 - 10 minutes, depending on the type of paste).  Next I added 2 cups fresh coconut milk into a large pot, and brought it to a boil (since the final curry was a bit too thick, I could have added a mixture of water or stock and coconut milk here).  The advantage of frying the curry paste in a small separate pan, is that you can add the cooked paste to taste into the dish.  I added a portion of the paste into the large pot.  It ended up being less than half of the paste.  The first day there was only 1 large spoonful of paste in it, and the curry was too dull.  The next day I added another spoonful of the fried paste, and the curry was much better and more flavorful.

Next I thinly cut some Japanese eggplant and added it to the simmering curry.  When the eggplant had just started to soften but was still mostly firm, I added the raw shrimp balls.  I continued cooking the curry until the shrimp balls were cooked through (you can check by cutting them in half), and the eggplant had fully softened.  I garnished the curry with some julienned kaffir lime leaves (3 leaves, ribs removed before it was julienned) and a handful of Thai basil.

The first day that I served this curry it was also a little too thick.  Thinning it with water on the second day, fixed the problem.

Raw Shrimp Balls

Cracked Coconut Cream

Fried Green Curry Paste

Green Curry with Shrimp Balls, Eggplant, and Thai Basil

Served with Jasmine Rice

Mushroom Quiche

I saw this recipe for "Over-the-Top Mushroom Quiche" and "Buttery Pastry Shell" by Thomas Keller in "Food & Wine" magazine years ago, and I wanted to make it. A year or two ago, I remembered that I had read this recipe, but I couldn't find which magazine or which month it was in my stack of magazines that I occasionally bought over the years.  So I was elated when Smitten Kitchen recently featured this recipe on her blog--finally the link to this long lost recipe! And she also has some good hints about how to follow the recipe, and also she has converted the volume measurements to weights.


The original recipe suggests just using the ring from a springform pan on a baking sheet.  However, as Smitten Kitchen points out, this means that any holes in the pie crust will can allow the liquid egg custard mixture to leak out all over your oven and make a horrible mess. I'm new to making pie crusts, so I doubt that my pie crusts are leak proof, so I ignored this direction. I made this quiche with my new 10-inch leak proof push pan, using the ring and the bottom. This turned out to be a great decision, and it made the recipe much easier. I didn't notice any disadvantage to using the pan bottom; I'm not sure why the original recipe suggests not using it.  (A picture of the second time that I made this recipe is here.)

I used the parchment paper method for rolling out the pie dough, since I was forewarned by Smitten Kitchen that the pie dough is very buttery and soft.  The parchment paper made the dough easy to roll out and transfer to the pie pan. Whenever the dough got difficult to work with or got so sticky it stuck to the parchment paper, I just re-refrigerated it, and it became easier to work with again.

My 10-inch pan actually only held half the liquid. The amount of cheese suggested in the recipe seemed to be very small to me; I recommend buying more then the 0.15 lbs recommended, since you will cut off the rind. I bought 0.5 lbs, cut off the rind, and used about 3/4 of the cheese, and this seemed to be a good amount.  I used the full amount of mushrooms and cheese, but next time I would try the recipe with only half the mushrooms, either half or the full amount of cheese, and half the egg custard.

When I cooked my mushrooms they gave off a lot of liquid; I was able to evaporate all of it in the 20 minutes the mushrooms are supposed to cook for. You should definitely make sure that nearly all the liquid is evaporated when you cook your mushrooms--otherwise it will make the quiche too watery to set properly.

I also wasn't able to tell when the inside of the quiche was cooked through, so I cooked my quiche for the full 1.5 hours. The inside was still perfectly moist, but the crust and top got a bit too much color; so next time I would cook my quiche for less time (maybe 1 hour). The quiche will jiggle when you pull it out of the oven, however don't be worried. The quiche will set firmer then when you pulled it out of the oven as it cools to room temperature.  It is done when the top is nicely browned, and you can pull out a toothpick with no egg on it. The toothpick will be moist, and may even have some of the cheese stuck to it.