Back of the Box

We have been eating a lot of pad thai lately. This is a dish I didn’t even realize you could make at home until pretty recently, when my new friend Z. invited me over, ostensibly to talk about books and Astoria and my nascent business. The evening suddenly became much more delicious, when she and her husband hauled up dinner ingredients to their roof via an external dumbwaiter and made the best pad thai I’d ever eaten, in a wok, on a grill, while watching the sun set over Manhattan. It was truly a memorable evening.

 

According to my calendar, that was last July. A lot has happened since then. I was laid off, my girlfriend moved in with me, we got married, and we signed a lease for our bookstore. We’ve been busting ass to get the store open as quickly as we can, which leaves less time than I would like for my regular kitchen meditation time (aka cooking elaborate dinners). Luckily, the early weeks of CSA deliveries inevitably have a lot of leafy greens that are best eaten in salads or with very brief cooking times. Mizuna, for example, and chinese cabbage.

Another recent news item from our household is that Connie had to have a root canal. The upshot of that is that for a while, at least until she gets a crown on the tooth, she’s got to stick to foods that are easy to chew. Which is how I found myself making pad thai twice in one week.

The recipe, which is derived from the back of the box of Annie Chun’s brand pad thai noodles, is astonishingly easy. Start by putting on a kettle of water. When it boils, pour it over the rice noodles in a big bowl, or a relatively solid tupperware container, and let them soak. While that happens, chop up some shallots or onions, garlic, some tofu or chicken or shrimp, and any asian greens you happen to like. Slice the greens very thin, so they’re only about as wide as the noodles. Then mix up a quarter cup of lemon juice, 3 tablespoons of sugar, 3 tablespoons of fish sauce, and a little crushed red pepper.

Heat up a wok over high heat, and add a little vegetable oil. Dump in the garlic, onion, greens, and whatever protein you’ve chosen. Stir fry them up until the greens are wilted, the onion is translucent, and the meat or fish (if you’re using it) is cooked through. If you’ve timed it right, the noodles will be soft by now. Strain them into a colander and transfer the contents of the wok into the bowl you were using to soak them.

Return the wok to the heat, add another couple of tablespoons of vegetable oil, and crack in two eggs. Scramble them up, and when they’re cooked, pour in the lemon juice/fish sauce combo and add the strained rice noodles. Stir everything together, then add the cooked veggies and a cup of bean sprouts. Turn off the heat and garnish with chopped scallions, crushed peanuts, cilantro or mint, and a squeeze of lime juice.

The result is a wok-ful of sweet/salty/spicy/sour noodles, easy enough to chew for even a patient recovering from dental work. I have a feeling this will stay in the dinner rotation even after Connie’s tooth is back in working order.

Monochromatic but Polygustative

My birthday dinner this year is brought to you entirely by Monica Bhide’s Modern Spice: Inspired Indian Flavors for the Contemporary Kitchen. My friend L. came over and we picked a few things to make that required only a few additional ingredients to be purchased. I had been fixated on the garlic smashed potatoes for a while, and to go with that we chose cauliflower roasted with a fennel chili spice rub (which I’d made once before), and a tamarind chicken recipe adapted for tofu, because I’d been eating a lot of meat lately.

The cauliflower couldn’t be simpler. The spice rub is a mix of toasted fennel seeds crushed up with dried red peppers, black pepper seeds, and coriander. Toss it together with some cauliflower florets and some vegetable oil–

and roast at 400F for 30 minutes, tossing once halfway through.

Then for the potatoes, cook potatoes as for regular mashed, and mix in some melted butter. Then cook some mustard seed, shallot, garlic, and hot peppers (yay for a stash of jalapenos in the freezer!) in vegetable oil, mix in some shredded coconut, and then mash all that into the potatoes.

The result is very flavorful and not as cream-laden as traditional mashed potatoes (a welcome alternative, since Thanksgiving is just around the corner and we’re all bound to O.D. on butter and cream soon enough). Garnish with fresh cilantro.

And then, for the tofu. Saute some shallot and hot peppers in vegetable oil–

and add in some cubed tofu.

Cook, stirring, until it starts to brown a little, and then stir in a little turmeric.

Then turn off the heat and mix in some tamarind chutney–or, if you were planning last minute and live closer to an Italian gourmet market than to Kalustyan’s, a tablespoon each of tamarind paste and fig jam. A surprisingly good combination–L. and I were very proud of our ingenuity–and one that worked very well with the tofu.

When we put everything on the plate, I commented that we happened to choose three recipes that were all in a white/cream/yellow color palate–a white meal, as my mom would call it. But while they were maybe not so visually stimulating, there is a TON of flavor in these three dishes.

And then we O.D.’d on cupcakes from Crumbs for dessert. Because that’s what birthdays are really about.

Cabbage Stir-Fry, Take Two

It is going to be insanely hot today and tomorrow here in New York City. If the forecast holds true, it’ll be our first 90F degree day since that one stupid weekend in April. So in the interest of not having to turn on my stove tonight, I cooked a lot yesterday. I pickled peppers, I baked shortbread (this time with summer savory, thyme, and lavender), and I stir-fried some cabbage. I made this dish once before, but seeing as how stir-fries require the more or less complete attention of the chef, and I do not often remember this fact, I was unable to photodocument the process. This time, I came prepared, and pre-chopped and minced and sliced, so everything was ready to be dumped in at the appropriate moment, and I still had time to snap a photo every once in a while.

The recipe, for Sweet and Sour Cabbage with Tofu and Grains, comes from one of my favorite sources, the New York Times Recipes for Health column. I followed it pretty much to the letter, but I suspect that it would also be very good with shrimp. I had Early Jersey Wakefield cabbage this week, but I think I made it with Napa cabbage last time. In both cases, it was made much better by the liberal addition of some chili garlic sauce, which is a piece of cake to make yourself if you have a Cuisinart.

The first step, as always with stir-fries, is to prep everything. Get out every ingredient, cut and mince what needs to be cut and minced. Because there are a lot of steps that read something like “add in the xxx and cook for 30 seconds, then add in the yyy, cook another minute, then add the zzz.” and those 30-second intervals don’t leave much time for “Ok, now WHAT do I need to be cutting for this next bit?” It has taken me, um, 6 years of owning a wok to learn this lesson.

For this particular recipe, first you cook up the tofu, in peanut oil and then with a little soy sauce.

Then remove that, and cook the onion slices.

Add scallions, garlic, and ginger, cook for a bit…

then a bit of cayenne and the cabbage.

Cook a bit longer, then add some rice vinegar and sugar.

Serve over bulgur wheat, with chili garlic sauce, or the asian hot sauce of your choice.

Better warm than cold, but still very tasty. And better cold than heating up the apartment when it’s 90F outside.

Old Favorites

I know there are a lot of varieties on noodles with peanut sauce, and on occasion I will branch out and try some of them, but when it comes down to it, I really just want my mom’s Sesame Chicken Salad, by which I really mean her friend Pepper’s Sesame Chicken Salad. These days I often make it with tofu, but either way, it is one of my favorite meals on the planet. It’s the kind of dish where I have to put away the leftovers as quickly as possible so I don’t just keep eating. And it has the added benefit of being ridiculously quick to prepare. I once cooked and ate a bowl of it in less than a half hour.

Start by toasting some sesame seeds in a pan, then turn off the heat and add some peanut butter (I’ve used almond butter, too, which is equally good) and let it melt.

Then you add in the rest of the sauce ingredients (soy sauce, peanut oil, ginger, sugar, rice vinegar) and mix it all together. At this point, if I’m using tofu as I did tonight, I’ll dice it up and toss that into the pan, and keep it on a very low simmer until the pasta is ready, so it soaks up all the flavor.

Then you deal with the pasta and the veggies. I opted for 1 giant carrot and 1 even more giant summer squash, chopped into big matchsticks.

If you like your veggies the way I do, i.e. barely cooked, just put them in the bottom of the colandar and they’ll cook perfectly as the boiling pasta water pours over them.

Slice up some (giant) scallions to go on top:

Pour out the pasta over the veggies (soba noodles work great, although what does NOT work great is using a flash to take a picture of something with a lot of steam)

And mix it all together!

And the other thing I learned tonight is that if you freeze tofu, it becomes kind of yellow and the texture changes, but it soaks up flavors infinitely better. And with a sauce this good, that is absolutely something you want.

Sesame Tofu Salad, adapted from the Pepper Pot Cookbook
serves 4 reasonably, 3 if you’re a bit hungry

8-12 oz soba noodles (different brands come in different sizes–anything in this range works, as would any other kind of pasta)
1 lb tofu, cubed
1 lb summer squash, cut into a thick julienne
1-2 carrots, ditto
2 Tbsp sesame seeds
2 Tbsp peanut butter
1/2 c soy sauce
1/3 c peanut oil
1 Tbsp sugar
1/2 Tbsp minced ginger
1 Tbsp rice vinegar
scallions, finely chopped
optional – bean sprouts

Put on a pot of water to boil, for the pasta.

Toast the sesame seeds in a saute pan over med-low heat until lightly brown. Turn off the heat and add the peanut butter. Stir it up so it melts, and then add the rest of the sauce ingredients. Add the cubes of tofu and turn the heat to very low.

Cook the pasta according to package directions. Put the vegetables in the bottom of a colander, and pour the noodles over them. Mix the noodles and veggies together with the sauce and tofu. Top with scallions (and bean sprouts). Try not to eat it all in one sitting.