Pumpkin Curry Soup

 

Week 2 of my “new recipe” New Year’s resolution and going strong! When I told J. about my resolution, he made one request – to use up ingredients in our cabinets and fridge! Since we have about half a dozen cans of pumpkin stocked up in our cabinets, I knew I had to do something with them.  And since one of the requirements of the new recipe resolution was that it had to be “healthy,” pumpkin pie was out of the question.  (Plus, who eats pumpkin pie in January?  That is a dessert I personally reserve for Thanksgiving.) 

So after some google searching, I found this recipe for this Thai pumpkin soup, which was perfect for the cold single-digit weather we had this week!  But since it calls for ingredients that I usually have in my pantry and is ready in minutes, I would make this any time of the year.

Pumpkin Curry Soup

Adapted from Foodie Crush

Ingredients:

• 2  14.5 oz cans pureed pumpkin
• 4 cups low-sodium chicken broth
• 1  14.5 oz light coconut milk
• 2 Tbs red curry paste
• 1-2 tsp fish sauce (to taste)
• A few dashes of sriracha sauce (to taste)

Method:

• In a medium sized pot, toast the curry paste for about a minute over medium high heat.
• Add chicken broth and pumpkin, stir until smooth and cook until it reaches a boil, about five minutes.
• Stir in coconut milk, and cook until heated through, about another three minutes
• Season with fish sauce and sriracha to taste and serve.

Brussels Sprouts and Chinese Sausage

Last night, I just didn't feel right blogging about food.  My heart goes out to all those affected by the Boston Marathon bombings.  Although the longest distance I have ever run is 6.2 miles, I can only imagine the heartbreak of the runners and their loved ones on a day that was supposed to celebrate months of hard work and training, which turned to devastation and tragedy.  To learn more about how you can help, Julie at Peanut Butter Fingers has compiled some useful links and resources.  

This is what I would have blogged about last night: 

I've been on a bit of a brussels sprouts kick lately.  I've learned that brussels sprouts are best when cooked with a cured meat, such as bacon, ham, or corned beef.  But since I didn't have ham or corned beef handy, and all of our bacon was an icy frozen block in the freezer, I had to rummage through the fridge to find a good substitute.  Sure enough, I found a ziploc bag of Chinese sausage, or lap cheong. hidden in the back of the fridge.  Unlike breakfast sausage or Italian sausages, Chinese sausage is salty and sweet in a way that's hard to describe. While it is a little different in flavor from the Taiwanese sausages I grew up with, Taiwanese sausage is hard to come by unless you have a live-in Taiwanese grandmother in your house.  So it's good to have around a substitute to throw in stir-fries and fried rice.  When I was growing up, I remember my mom and my grandma would use leftover bits of sausage to flavor cabbage stir-fries.  So when I found the forgotten sausage links in the back of my fridge, I had a culinary epiphany! Chinese sausage  and brussels sprouts! Perfect. 

The rest was improvisation.  I sliced the sprouts into quarters and minced the garlic,  I thinly sliced the sausages on a diagonal just like my grandma used to.  But to season the sprouts, I mixed together my own concoction of fish sauce, soy sauce, hoisin sauce, and sriracha.  The combination of the fish sauce, soy sauce, and hoisin sauce mimicked the sweet and saltiness of the sausage, while the sriracha added just the right kick of spiciness. J. and I both loved how this dish came out. So I gave myself a virtual pat on the back, and mentally drafted how I was going to write this post.  

Today, I did a quick google search on "brussels sprouts and chinese sausage," which produced approximately 162,000 results, including this recipe from Steamy Kitchen, one of my favorite blogs. It turns out either I just reinvented the wheel, or on some subconscious level I was remembering reading this recipe.  

And here I thought I was so clever.  

Oh well, I still say this is a a great recipe, and I take full credit for my method and seasoning.  

Brussels Sprouts with Chinese Sausage

1 package brussels sprouts, halved or quartered, depending on size of sprouts 

3 links Chinese sausage, thinly sliced on a diagonal

2 garlic cloves minced

1/2 tsp sesame oil

1 tsp fish sauce

1 tsp soy sauce

1 Tbs hoisin sauce

a few dashes of sriracha sauce, to taste

Heat large skillet.  Cook sausage until fat is rendered (about 2 minutes), be careful not to burn it.  Remove sausage from the pan, while keeping as much of the fat as possible in the pan.  Drain sausage on a paper towel.  Return pan to medium heat.  Add brussels sprouts and cook until lightly browned.  (Try not to stir it around too much or it won't brown).  Push sprouts to the sides of the pan to form a well in the center of the pan.  Add sesame oil to the center of the pan.  Add garlic to the oil and cook for about 30 seconds or until fragrant. Stir garlic with the sprouts.  Add sausage, fish sauce, soy sauce, hoisin and sriracha to the mixture and toss until combined. Allow to cook for about another minute or until heated through.  Serve immediately with rice. 

Other Brussels Sprouts and Chinese Sausage of recipes (since apparently I am not as original as I thought I was): 

Steamy Kitchen

Foodie with Family

Imeeshu

Sriracha Garlic Chicken Stir-Fry

I know what you're thinking, "Another stir-fry post?"  Bear with me, though, because this one incorporates a few tricks I've learned to keep the meat juicy and tender, plus a spicy kick.  The trick is to add corn starch to the marinade.  I don't understand the science behind it, but some how the corn starch "seals" the meat and keeps it juicy and tender.  And the sriracha adds a spicy kick, which was good since I still had a cold when I made this and needed to clear the sinuses.

Sriracha Garlic Chicken Stir-Fry

Ingredients:

Marinade:

2 Tbs low-sodium soy sauce

1 Tbs sriracha sauce

1/2 tsp fresh grated garlic

2 small cloves of garlic, pressed through a garlic press (or minced)

1 Tbs sesame oil 

1/2 Tbs corn starch
Juice from half of a lime

1 large skinless boneless chicken breast, sliced into roughly pinky-sized pieces

1 bell pepper, chopped

1 stalk celery, thinly sliced on a diagonal

2 scallions chopped into 1-2 inch pieces

1 Tbs grapeseed oil

Method:

Combine marinade ingredients in a bowl.  Add chicken and toss to coat.  Marinate for about 15-20 minutes. 

In a large skillet, heat oil on medium-high heat.  Add pepper and celery, and cook for a few minutes until they start to soften.  Add marinated chicken breast and cook for about two minutes on each side or until fully cooked.  Add scallions and cook until the scallions are slightly wilted. Finish with a squeeze of fresh lime juice. Serve immediately with rice. 

Pork and Apples in Bulgogi sauce

This may seem like just a riff off of the last post. But there’s a moral at the end of this story, I promise.

So a few weeks ago, when Hurricane Irene was allegedly rampaging through the Northeast, Boyfriend and I and another couple decided to escape the torrential rains, flooding, the Apocalypse, etc. for drier pastures inland to State College, PA. Which actually turned out to be a very entertaining getaway, even if it turned out the world did not end when the hurricane hit New Jersey.  While our friends in New Jersey were huddled inside their homes, conserving bottled water and unperishables, we were exploring Penn State's campus, walking to bars and swimming in the hotel swimming pool.  On the last night our “hurrication” we drove to a neighboring town for Korean food at a restaurant called, “Kimchi.” Yes, we had kimchi at Kimchi, you know that just had to be said. Among the other dishes we had though, was a classic Korean dish, beef bulgogi, which I very much enjoyed. The next day, we left early in the morning to make our way home.  The trip home started out smoothly but came to a standstill shortly after we crossed the state border into New Jersey where we sat in traffic.  Apparently the storm had eroded away pieces of 287!  We eventually made it home and to find that my apartment was fortunately left unscathed by Irene.  Everything inside my apartment was as it was before; I didn't even come home to the flashing red digits on my alarm clock, a tell-tale sign of power outage.  I did, however, come home with a craving for bulgogi.  Luckily, since the power never went out, the contents of my fridge remained unspoiled,  including a bottle of bulgogi sauce. (Which I most likely purchased the last time I went out for Korean food.)

So that is the inspiration for this week’s post. After the impromptu teriyaki stir-fry from the last post, I wanted to improve upon it, because the meat turned out to be overcooked and tough. So this time, I marinated the pork in the bulgogi sauce in the morning and went off to work.

When I got home, I had to decide what to do with it. I had a green apple, which I had saved for the purpose of cooking it with pork. Boyfriend makes a pork and apple stir-fry that comes out quite nice, and Rachael Ray has her own pork and apple dish, so I knew that pork and apples go well together. So I chopped the apple up along with the other vegetables I had in the fridge.

But what to do with the meat, so it would not be so tough? This time, I cut the pork into bigger chunks. I then sprinkled about a teaspoon of corn starch and mixed it around the meat and let it sit while I chopped the vegetables.

It turned out this method worked out really well. The pork was not tough and overcooked, but plump and juicy. I will definitely stick to this method in the future. And the apples let out a little bit of sweetness to the pork and the sauce, to make a sort of East meets West all blended together into one dish.

So as promised, there is a moral to this story, in fact there is more than moral to this story:

1. Marinate your meat with cornstarch
2. When there is a hurricane, take a “hurrication” if you can, you’ll have a blast.

Pork and Apple Stir-Fry in Bulgogi Sauce

Ingredients:
1 pork tenderloin, chopped into 1-2 inch chunks
1 green apple, chopped
1 yellow squash, chopped
1 green pepper, chopped
½ onion, chopped
1 clove of garlic, minced
About 3 Tbs of bottled bulgogi sauce for marinade, and another 2 Tbs for adding at the end
1 tsp cornstarch
Toasted sesame seeds for garnish
Olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
Pinch of cayenne pepper

Method:

Prep:
Marinate pork in 3 Tbs of bulgogi sauce. (I did it for about 10 hours in the fridge since I did it just before I left for work. You can probably get away with 1-2 hours). Sprinkle with cornstarch and set aside while you chop the vegetables.

Cook:
Heat some oil in a large skillet. Brown the meat first for about two minutes on each side. Set aside on a plate. Add some more oil to pan and heat it a little bit on medium heat. Cook the onions first. Then add pepper, apples, and squash and cook for about 3 minutes. Create a “well” for the garlic by pushing the vegetables to the rim of the pan. Add the garlic with a little more oil to center of the pan. Allow to cook for about 30 seconds before incorporating with the rest of the mixture. Season with salt and pepper. Cook the mixture for a few more minutes until you can easily pierce a fork into one of the chunks. (You may need to cover it to speed up the cooking). Add cooked pork, and stir in 2 Tbs of bulgogi sauce, heat for about another minute. Sprinkle with cayenne pepper. Garnish with some toasted sesame seeds.

Impromptu Pork and Vegetable Teriyaki

Growing up, we had a lot of stir-fries for dinner. Both my parents worked seven days a week, and nearly ten hours everyday. We ate out a lot as a result of that, frequently at Chinese restaurants (why do Chinese/Taiwanese families always eat out at Chinese restaurants?). But when we did eat at home, it had to be cooked fast and on the fly. Served over white rice, of course. And now that I am an adult, I find that this style has influenced my everyday cooking.

Of course, my stir-fries are a bit different from my mom's. My mom's stir-fries usually involved garlic, dried shrimp, ginger, and cabbage. A lot of cabbage. I tend to use more western vegetables, such as zucchini, summer squash, peppers and eggplant. I've also experimented more with sauces.

Here is an example of something I threw together today, using the vegetables I had in the fridge:

Impromptu Pork and Vegetable Teriyaki

Ingredients:
1 boneless pork tenderloin
1 small eggplant, cubed
1 zucchini, cubed
1 red pepper, chopped into roughly 1 inch chunks
1/2 yellow onion, diced
1 garlic clove, minced (set some aside for the sauce)
Olive oil
Sesame seeds for garnish

For the sauce:
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup mirin
1 Tbs sugar
pinch of ground ginger
pinch of minced garlic


Method:
Heat some oil in a large skillet. Cook the pork until brown on both sides (Roughly 1-2 minutes on each side). Remove and set aside on a plate. Add a little more oil and reheat the pan on medium-high heat. Add onions first. When the onions are starting to brown, add eggplant, zucchini and pepper. Allow to cook for about a minute or two and then push the vegetables towards the rim of the pan, leaving a space in the middle for the garlic. Add garlic and little more oil, and cook until fragrant (about 30 seconds). (This method is to avoid burning the garlic.) Incorporate the garlic with the rest of the vegetables. Continue to cook until the vegetables are soft enough that a fork will easily pierce them). Stir in cooked pork.

While the vegetables are cooking, combine the ingredients for the sauce in a small saucepan and heat on low. Allow to simmer for 3-5 minutes or until the sauce is slightly thickened. When the pork and vegetables are combined, pour the sauce and mix to combine. Garnish with some sesame seeds and serve immediately over rice.

Panko-crusted chicken with teriyaki sauce

After several days of Thanksgiving leftovers, I was looking something different, with a zingy, tangy taste. Granted, if I really wanted a change from Thanksgiving, I probably should have moved away from poultry all together. But not having the foresight that I might be sick of poultry after Thanksgiving, I bought two pounds of chicken breasts (they were buy one get one free!) on the day before Thanksgiving.

So I turned to Jaden Hair's Steamy Kitchen cookbook, since Asian flavors were about as far as I could think of from Thanksgiving. I am an avid reader of Jaden's blog, and was delighted to get her book as a gift last Christmas. What Jaden has done in this book is great because she memorializes Asian recipes in writing. And from what I know from experience, written Asian recipes are hard to come by! All of my grandmother's cooking was simply her tossing in ingredients and seasonings based on her experience and taste. Growing up in my house, we never even had measuring cups in our kitchen! So you can imagine, it is difficult and maybe even impossible to re-create my grandmother's dishes in my kitchen.

What I especially like about this book is that at the beginning there is a section that gives the low-down on Asian ingredients and cooking techniques in a way that easy for my Americanized brain to understand. I found this book has helped me learn more about Asian flavors and get an approximation to what I remember from my grandmother's cooking.

The following recipe is adapted, barely, from Jaden's book. As usual, I made adjustments based on my tastes and availability of ingredients. I reduced the whole recipe to only make one serving for myself. I also reduced the amount of sugar the sauce called for, since I didn't want it to be overly sweet, and I omitted the sake, simply because I didn't have any. If I were to do this again, I would add more orange juice because it is supposed to by a citrusy sauce, but I didn't taste much of the citrus. Another thing I might try next time in cooking the chicken is pan frying it first to get the nice golden brown crust, rather than simply spraying cooking spray and putting it in the oven. (Although, admittedly, this would make the recipe less healthy).

Panko-crusted Chicken with Teriyaki sauce
Adapted from Jaden Hair, Steamy Kitchen

Ingredients:

For the chicken:
1 chicken breast, flattened to about 1/3 to 1/2 inch thickness
1/4 cup panko crumbs
1/4 cup flour
1 egg, beaten
salt and pepper to taste

For the dipping sauce:
3 Tbs soy sace
3 Tbs orange juice
3 Tbs mirin
1 Tbs sugar


Preheat oven for 475 degrees. Combine flour with a sprinkling of salt and pepper. Dredge the chicken in the flour mixture and then dip into the egg. Shake off any excess egg and dredge the chicken into the panko crumbs. Spray baking sheet with cooking spray and both sides of the chicken. Place chicken in the pan and bake for about 15-20 minutes at 475 degrees.

While the chicken is baking, combing the sauce ingredients in a saucepan and bring to a simmer for about 3-5 minutes.

(Note for next time I try this recipe: try frying chicken in oil for a few minutes on each side to get the nice golden brown crust. This time, I didn't quite get the golden brown crust, even after raising the temperature to 500 degrees for an extra five minutes. Perhaps the chicken was not thin enough, or perhaps my oven is finicky, but it just wasn't meant to be.)

Serves 1 person with white rice.

Chicken Stir-Fry

This dish was one of my go-to meals back in college, which I adapted from "The College Cookbook," (which, by the way, is a great reference for beginner cooks, in college or not.) The original recipe was only vegetables, but I wanted to add chicken so I could have nice one-dish meal that includes my protein and veggies. In college, though, I had problems with the method. The chicken would always end up either too dry and tough, and the vegetables mushy or tough and undercooked. It wasn't until I began avidly watching professional cooks on the Food Network and reading food blogs that I finally figured it out the perfect method. The trick is to cook your ingredients separately, so that each retains its own flavor. I also got some help from Jaden Hair's The Steamy Kitchen, with great tips on stir-frying meat on this page. Another trick I learned is to parboil the tougher vegetables, such as broccoli or carrots first, before adding to the stir fry, so that they won't be tough and undercooked at the end.

So the method below is basically a compendium of different techniques that I've garnered after many attempts and mushy vegetables.

Chicken Stir-Fry

Ingredients:
Note: The ingredients are quite flexible and you can use whatever meat or vegetables you have on hand. Below is what I happened to have handy:

Chicken breast, cut into bite-size pieces
Broccoli
Red pepper
Button mushrooms (canned or fresh, I used canned)
Other vegetables that would be good: Carrots, snow peas, onions if you like them, etc., just chop everything into bite-size pieces.
1 clove of garlic, minced or 1/2 teaspoon of the minced garlic in the jar
Salt and pepper to taste
Oil


For the sauce:
A couple tablespoons of soy sauce
1 teaspoon of corn starch dissolved into a couple of tablespoons of cold water

Method:

1. Start by boiling water for cooking tough vegetables like broccoli or carrots. Boil these vegetables for about five minutes, drain and set aside.
2. While the water is boiling, sprinkle salt and pepper on the chicken, and heat a few tablespoons of oil (I recommend olive oil) on medium-high heat.
3. Once the pan is hot, (test it by flicking a drop of water on to it. If it sizzles right away, that means it's hot enough), cook the chicken, a few minutes on each side (until lightly browned). Be careful not to overcrowd the pan, even if this means that you have to cook the chicken in batches. (click here for more stir-fry tips). Set chicken aside.
4. Add garlic to the pan. Once it start sizzling, add remaining vegetables and cook for 2-3 minutes.
5. Stir in broccoli and carrots and chicken.
6. Prepare the sauce by stirring corn starch into cold water and soy sauce. Slowly stir in the mixture over the chicken and vegetables so that it evenly coats everything. Allow it to cook for about a minute, until the sauce turns shiny and translucent.
7. Serve over rice.

Baked Sesame Chicken

This was one of my favorite ways to make chicken back in college. The recipe can be found here. The veggies next to it are simply red and green peppers and carrots stir-fried in garlic with sesame seeds for garnish. And of course, rice. (I did the neat bowl trick, found in the post on fried rice.)

Fried Rice

This is one of the few Asian-inspired dishes that I can make without too many mishaps. It’s also a great way to get rid of leftovers. Everyone has their own way of making it and there tons of variations.* Here are a few general tips that I picked up over the years.

- Use day-old rice. The best is to use leftover Chinese take-out rice if you have it because it tends to get dry the next day. I didn’t today so I just used the leftover rice we had in my house.** It also helps to break up the rice before you add it to the pan.

- Don’t be afraid to use a lot of oil and garlic. Start off by using enough to coat the bottom of the pan. You may need to add more oil as you go along.

- Make sure you get the pan nice and hot – I judge it by how the oil makes wavy lines when you *gently* swish it around the pan. Some people like to flick a drop of oil to the pan, and if it sizzles that means it’s ready. I find that way a little scary.

Ingredients:
Oil
1 garlic clove, smashed with the side of a knife
Leftover ham (I used Canadian bacon here), chicken, pork, beef or whatever you have lying around, chopped into bite size pieces
About 1.5 cups of cooked rice
1 well- beaten egg
Handful of frozen peas
2-3 teaspoons of soy sauce (You may need more depending on how salty you like it)

Method:
1. Heat the pan on medium-high with the garlic until the garlic starts to sizzle. (Be sure to remove the garlic when it starts to get brown or it will get bitter)

2. Add the meat and gently brown it – about 2-3 minutes. Set aside

3. Heat the pan again. Add egg and cook until solid (about a minute or two if the pan is hot enough). Break the egg up into pieces using the spatula as you are cooking. Set aside.

4 . Heat the pan again. Add rice and toss it lightly so that it browns evenly. Add cooked eggs and drizzle the soy sauce. The order here is important because you don’t want to put too much soy sauce on the meat or it will get too salty.

5. Stir in frozen peas and meat and cook until heated through. (About another minute or two).

6. To get the cool bowl shape, pack the mixture into a rice bowl, place a plate over it and flip the bowl over.

* My grandma used to make a version with ketchup. As disgusting as it sounds, it tasted pretty good and came out a cool orange color. I’ve tried to make it myself a few times, but never quite the same as Grandma’s.** I could write a whole other blog about the superiority of rice generally found in Asian households as opposed to Chinese restaurant rice. In fact, maybe one day I will. But I admit that fried rice is one thing that Chinese restaurant rice may have over the rice in my house.