This is not an authentic recipe but it's really really good and a great way to stretch the steak budget. Believe it or not I don't eat Asian food everyday (although I wouldn't object)but the recipes that I seem to have worked out to be good enough to post oddly have been the Asian ones. I can't even guess at why that is but so be it. I guess the fact that they are generally very healthy, very flavorful and very economical helps :). This recipe is 100% Bobby Flay except that I very often substitute cheaper cuts of steak and slice thin against the grain. It's not as tender as the filet but often times it has more flavor. The rice noodles in the picture were left over from making my pad Thai so I just put them under the salad. Not a bad addition but totally not necessary.
Recipe: Grilled Spicy Filet Mignon Salad with Ginger-Lime Dressing
Courtesy of Bobby Flay
Ingredients
3 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
1 tablespoon chili paste with garlic (Sambal Oleck)
1 tablespoon peanut oil
2 (12-ounce) filet mignons
Freshly ground pepper
Directions
Whisk soy sauce, lime juice, chile paste, and peanut oil together in a small baking dish. Add the steaks, turn to coat, cover, and let marinate for 30 minutes in the refrigerator. Remove from the refrigerator 15 minutes before grilling. While steak is marinating, make:
Ginger-Lime Dressing:
1/4 cup fresh lime juice
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon rice vinegar
1 tablespoon finely diced shallot
1 tablespoon finely grated fresh ginger
2 teaspoons sugar
2 tablespoons peanut oil
Salt and freshly ground pepper
Whisk ingredients together in a small bowl. Season with salt and pepper, to taste. Let sit 10 minutes before using.
Then make:
Salad:
1 head Bibb lettuce, torn into bite-size pieces
3 cups mizuna leaves, torn into bite-size pieces
(If you have these great but I generally use a mix of whatever I have on hand like romaine and napa cabbage)
1/4 cup chiffonade Thai basil or regular basil, optional
1/2 English cucumber, halved and cut crosswise into 1/4-inch thick slices
2 carrots, julienned
5 radishes, thinly sliced
8 each yellow and red cherry tomatoes, halved
Ginger Lime Dressing, recipe follows
Salt and ground black pepper
Combine all salad ingredients in a large bowl.
Heat grill to high. Remove steaks from marinade and pat dry. Season both sides with pepper and grill for 3 minutes per side or until slightly charred and cooked to medium-rare doneness. Remove from the grill, let rest 5 minutes, and slice into 1/4-inch thick slices.
Toss salad with half of the dressing and season with salt and pepper. Transfer to a platter, top with the steak, and drizzle the remaining dressing over the top.
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Well, it's nice to finally be posting a new recipe. Life just gets crazy sometimes doesn't it? We're trying to find a new place to live in the suburbs to downsize and cut our living expenses for a while, I was sick for most of the month of February and my youngest son moved back home to re-group! I think I've been a bit overwhelmed. But I have been cooking in the midst of all of this and think I might just be in the "calm before the storm" so hopefully I can share with you some of what's been cooking in my kitchen.
As many of you know, my husband works for a food company and quite often brings me home a whole box of god-knows-what that forces me to find 12 different things to do with in this case, salmon. I have already posted the BBQ Salmon Tacos that M made so there's one! Now I found this very easy, healthy and super flavorful recipe of Tyler Florence's that we really liked a whole lot! I used the salmon filets that he called for but I imagine you could use the canned stuff in a pinch. There's two!
I found that 24-oz. of diced salmon gave me about 10 human sized patties. I just didn't care for the idea of 4 giant salmon burgers. I also used panko bread crumbs because that made sense to me and I was very happy with the results. Here is the original TF recipe and you can modify it how you see fit. Enjoy!
Recipe: Hong Kong Salmon Cakes with Baby Bok Choy
Recipe courtesy Tyler Florence
Serves: 2 to 4
Ingredients
Salmon Cakes:
1/4 cup peanut oil
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 shallot, minced
1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger
1 to 2 red or green chiles, minced
1 1/2 pounds skinless boneless salmon fillets, cut in small cubes
1 cup fresh bread crumbs (4 slices white bread with crusts removed pulsed in the food processor)
2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh cilantro leaves
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
1 lemon, juiced
1 large egg white
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons peanut oils
Bok Choy:
2 tablespoons peanut oil
2-inch piece fresh ginger
2 heads baby bok choy, halved lengthwise
1/4 cup water
3 tablespoons low-sodium soy sauce
1/4 cup oyster sauce
1/2 lemon, juiced
1 tablespoon brown sugar
Toasted sesame seeds, chopped cilantro leaves, and sliced green onion, for garnish
Directions
To make the salmon cakes: Heat 2 tablespoons of the peanut oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add the garlic, shallot, ginger, and chiles; saute for a few minutes to release the flavor. Remove from heat to cool slightly.
In a mixing bowl, combine the salmon, bread crumbs, cilantro, mayonnaise, lemon juice and egg white. Scrape the garlic/ginger oil into the salmon mixture; season with salt and pepper. Fold the ingredients together gently but thoroughly, taking care not to mash the salmon too much. Using your hands, form the mixture into 4 salmon cakes, they should be moist and just hold together.
Coat a non-stick skillet with the 2 tablespoons of peanut oil and bring it to a slight smoke over medium heat. Fry the salmon cakes until brown, about 4 minutes on each side, turning carefully with a spatula. Keep warm on a plate lined with paper towels.
To make the bok choy: Return the skillet to the heat and coat with the 2 tablespoons of peanut oil and heat until almost smoking. Split the piece of ginger open with a knife then whack it with the flat side of the knife. Lay the ginger pieces in the oil, cut-side down to let it start to perfume. Pan-fry the bok choy, cut-side down, for a couple of minutes to give it some color. Add the water and cook another minute to steam the bok choy; carefully remove it to a plate. Add the soy sauce, oyster sauce, lemon juice, and brown sugar. Cook and stir for 3 minutes until the sauce is the consistency of syrup.
Serve the salmon cakes with the bok choy, and drizzle the brown sauce over the whole thing. Garnish the dish with the toasted sesame seeds, cilantro, and green onion.
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This recipe was originally published as A Cookie of the Month in Martha Stewart Living Magazine. I always rip these out along with her Desserts of the Month because they always look so fabulous but I very rarely get around to making any of them. I didn't get around to making these either! My son made them while we were away last weekend and let me tell you these were a wonderful welcome home! The whole house still smelled like cinnamon...Mmmm. These are awesome with coffee I discovered and are now a family favorite. You must give these a try. Enjoy!
Recipe: Cinnamon-Swirl Cookies
Ingredients
FOR THE DOUGH
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for surface
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
8 ounces (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated orange zest
2 large eggs
FOR THE FILLING
2 ounces (4 tablespoons) unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup light-brown sugar
1/2 cup dark-brown sugar
1/2 cup chopped walnuts, toasted (1 1/2 ounces)
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Directions
Make the dough: Sift flour, salt, and baking soda into a large bowl. Beat butter, sugar, and orange zest with a mixer on medium speed until smooth, about 3 minutes. Beat in eggs. Reduce speed to low. Add flour mixture gradually, and beat until just combined. Divide dough in half, wrap each half in plastic, and refrigerate for 1 hour (or overnight).
Turn half the dough onto floured parchment. Roll into a 10-by-12-inch rectangle, then trim edges straight. Repeat with remaining half of dough. Transfer rectangles on parchment to a baking sheet, and refrigerate until firm but pliable, about 10 minutes.
Make the filling: Mix all the ingredients in a small bowl until well combined. Crumble mixture evenly over rectangles. Starting on a long side, roll 1 rectangle into a log, and wrap it in the parchment. Repeat with remaining rectangle. Refrigerate logs for 1 hour (or overnight).
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cut each log crosswise into 1/4-inch-thick slices. Transfer to parchment-lined baking sheets, and bake until edges are golden brown, about 19 minutes. Let cool on sheets on wire racks. Cookies will keep, covered, for up to 3 days.
Traditionally, the skin-on chicken pieces are dredged in flour and fried. Cooking light had a version that used boneless, skinless chicken breast to reduce fat and cholesterol. I wanted a happy in between if one could be had. I find plain chicken breasts in a dish like this to be dry and flavorless. I wanted to try and keep it reasonably healthy while still maintaining the integrity of this old southern classic. To that end I used legs and thighs, took the skin off (which I have never done in my life), marinated the chicken for 20-30 minutes with smoked paprika (not a traditional ingredient), a little olive oil and salt and pepper. I opted to not dredge in flour and fry but instead just added the chicken and cooked it with the rest of the ingredients. It turned out moist and flavorful and hopefully I made it a little healthier too.
This dish is also traditionally quite bland, really, but I really liked the basic ingredients and decided it could be amped up pretty nicely. Boy was right about this one. I took some ideas from an Emeril recipe and then added some Spanish chorizo, and a couple of jalapenos! Life can be sooooo good when you listen to the voices in your head! I don't usually rave about my own cooking because I tend to be a perfectionist and since perfection is rarely, if ever, reached well I'm always at least a little let down by the finished product because it wasn't exactly what I had in mind. Well this recipe delivered, for me, on all fronts. It's savory, sweet and spicy (not too much so) and with the toasted almonds and rice...I don't know this really turned out be a knock out dinner. Manly and Michael couldn't stop eating it and I received kudos all around. I actually can't wait to make it again...it's THAT good! You will love this. Enjoy!
Recipe: My Riff On Country Captain Chicken
Both South Carolina and Georgia lay claim to this Southern classic, which may have been brought to America by a ship's captain ferrying spices from the Far East. For a little more history see after the recipe.
Accompaniments:
Cooked White Rice
Yogurt Sauce (recipe follows)
Ingredients:
1/3-1/2 cup whole almonds toasted and chopped, set aside for garnish
4 or 5 chicken thighs and 4 or 5 drumsticks or the equivalent, patted dry
Salt, Pepper, Smoked Paprika sprinkled liberally over chicken
About 2-3 tablespoons olive oil drizzled over the spice.
Then rub it all in to the chicken. Set aside and let marinade 20-30 minutes.
In a large pot or dutch oven add
2-3 tablespoons of olive oil and heat over med-high heat.
Then add:
1 cup chopped yellow onions
1 cup chopped poblano peppers (green peppers are traditional but I don't like them)
1/2 cup celery, diced
1/2 cup carrot, diced
2 jalapenos, seeded or not depending on how spicy you like things, minced
2 bay leaves
1-2 tablespoon curry powder (vary this to suit your taste, I used all 2 tablespoons)
1 teaspoon dried ground thyme
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper (optional)
Cook until vegetables are crisp-tender, about 5 minutes.
Then add:
1 tablespoon minced garlic
Cook until fragrant about 1 minute.
Then add:
1-28 oz. can whole peeled tomatoes, crushed, with their juices
1/2 cup chicken stock, or canned low-sodium chicken broth
1 tablespoon dark brown sugar
Salt and Black pepper to taste
Stir to blend and reduce the heat to medium. Add the chicken and cook, stirring occasionally, until the meat is tender but not falling from the bones, about 50 minutes.
Add 1/2 cup of currants and cook for 10 minutes longer.
Remove from the heat and adjust the seasoning, to taste. Serve hot over the steamed white rice. Garnish with the almonds and yogurt sauce and serve.
Recipe: Yogurt and Herb Sauce:
Make this ahead and refrigerate so the flavors meld a bit.
1 cup non or low-fat plain yogurt
1/4 cup fresh cilantro leaves, chopped
5 scallions, white and green parts finely chopped
3 tablespoons Major Grey's Mango Chutney
***(start with 1 tablespoon then add more to taste; you can substitute honey here).
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
In a bowl combine the first 4 ingredients, season with salt and pepper, to taste.
A Brief History of Country Captain Chicken
The Hobson Jobson Dictionary states the following:
COUNTRY-CAPTAIN. This is in Bengal the name of a peculiar dry kind of curry, often served as a breakfast dish. We can only conjecture that it was a favourite dish at the table of the skippers of ‘country ships,’ who were themselves called ‘country captains,’ as in our first quotation. In Madras the term is applied to a spatchcock dressed with onions and curry stuff, which is probably the original form. [Riddell says: “Country-captain.—Cut a fowl in pieces; shred an onion small and fry it brown in butter; sprinkle the fowl with fine salt and curry powder and fry it brown; then put it into a stewpan with a pint of soup; stew it slowly down to a half and serve it with rice” (Ind. Dom. Econ. 176).]
This delicious dish, known throughout Georgia, dates to the early 1800s. It is thought that this dish was brought to Georgia by a British sea captain who had been stationed in Bengali, India and shared the recipe with some friends in the port city of Savannah, Georgia. Savannah was then a major shipping port for the spice trade. The dish was named for the officers in India called “Country Captains.”
In the 1940s, Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), 32nd President of the United States and General George S. Patton (1885-1945), U.S. Army General, were served this dish in Warm Springs, Georgia, by Mrs. W. L. Bullard. Their praise and love of this dish helped to rekindle its Southern classic status. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt who first gave national recognition to Warm Springs when, in 1924, he visited the town's naturally heated mineral springs as treatment for his polio related paralysis. Roosevelt was so enchanted with Warm Springs that he built the only home he ever owned here - a modest, six room cottage called the Little White House which served as a relaxing, comfortable haven for him.
Copied from What's Cooking America (dot) net.
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