Anne Burrell's Pasta Bolognese Review

Brown food really does taste good ... really good.  This sauce is really flavorful and easy to make.  It is time consuming, so make sure you have a few hours to spend.  I will admit, I changed a few things and rushed the cooking time.  I wanted to make this sauce on a week night after dinner, cool it down, so that it would be ready for the next night's dinner.  I didn't have the full three to four hours to simmer the sauce, I didn't have two cups of tomato paste, and I didn't have three pounds of ground beef.  You're probably asking why in the world I decided to make this sauce when I was missing so many key ingredients, and maybe you're also asking what ingredients I did have.  I wanted to make this sauce because I had a pound of ground beef in the freezer, six really ripe tomatoes, fresh thyme, and jalapeños.  My husband has been growing chile plants and now they all have fruit.  We also have a forest of thyme in our front and back yards.  This sauce seemed like a good way to use up a bunch of ingredients I had lying around.

I pulverized the chiles with the onion, garlic, carrot, and celery.  After they were good and brown, although admittedly I probably could have gone a bit darker, the beef went in.  A pound of beef seemed like plenty of meat, and my husband couldn't believe that the recipe called for two more pounds.  I added the wine next because I didn't have tomato paste.  During all of this, my husband roughly chopped the tomatoes and then ran them through the food mill.  The tomatoes went into the pot and then we added water to the appropriate level.  We also added in a good bunch of thyme and bay leaves at this point and then, as Anne Burrell likes to say, we "BTBRTS".  We added more water twice to the pot during our 2-1/2 hour simmer period.  From my very few data points, I would interpolate that we would need to add water twice more with a longer simmering period.  And that's it.  Pulverize and brown veg; brown meat; deglaze with wine; add tomatoes, herbs, and water; simmer and add water as necessary.  In the future when I make this I would keep the chile and maybe increase the beef just a little.  I really liked the fresh tomatoes, and seriously? Who has two cups of tomato paste lying around? I used to have those little cans of tomato paste, but it felt so wasteful only using a tablespoon or two at a time so I switched to buying the tube of tomato paste.  I'm sure the tomato paste version tastes good too, but if you have happen to have fresh tomatoes I highly recommend using them.  I highly recommend this recipe: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/anne-burrell/pasta-bolognese-recipe/index.html

Bobby Flay's Turkey Pot Pie with Sage Crust

Our herb garden is in full bloom, and Bobby Flay's recipe for Turkey Pot Pie with Sage Crust uses Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme [insert song here].  I thought it might be a perfect recipe to showcase our fresh herbs.  I think the sage crust, which is full of other herbs, was really good, but the turkey filling was pretty bland and unremarkable.  I also wanted to try cooking with turnips.  I had never had a turnip before, and I thought that it would be an interesting addition.  The turnip is very similar to Daikon.  It smelled spicier to me, more like a radish, but I didn't actually try eating it raw to see if that was actually the case.  Unfortunately it was cooked way too long in the broth, and then again in the oven.  This dish was really disappointing especially for containing such interesting ingredients.  The vegetables were cooked way too long.  I like my vegetables to have some bite and these were mush.  There was quite a bit of fat in this dish, and I don't think it was necessary because it really didn't add much flavor.  The crust was good, but it used a lot of butter and shortening.  I can forgive this though because the crust was definitely flakey.

In the future, I'd use the filling recipe from Ina Garten's Chicken Stew with Biscuits.  I'd modify the sage crust such that it was a sage "biscuit".  Instead of a sheet of pastry for the crust I'd make biscuits.  I'd cut the fat in the biscuits as well.  I probably won't attempt this until it's cooler because pot pie isn't really a summer dish.  I guess I better start drying herbs.

Let's reintroduce ourselves... and talk about japchae

Welcome to the Xin Gan Food Blog.  My mother's nickname for me is Xin Gan, which is Chinese for "Heart and Liver".  Yes, my mother calls me her heart and liver, because that's how precious I am to her.  Actually, as she tells it, she started calling all of her children Xin Gan because my older sister got mad at her one day when my mom confused her for me on the phone.  But let's get back to the food...

I have always loved eating, creating, sharing, and learning and talking about food.  My husband, who also shares my passion for food, decided it was time for me to start writing about food, and thus this blog.  Sadly, I haven't been as enthusiastic about the writing.  I'm a PhD student in a very competitive program, and cooking is my creative outlet.  Every week I test new recipes.  I have post-it notes in all of my cookbooks with tips and comments about specific recipes I've tried.  It's about time I start keeping track of everything, and hopefully other people will find it useful too.

So let's get started!

This week I made Korean Japchae - a quick noodle dish with lots of vegetables and meat.  This is a perfect weeknight dinner because it's fast and it doesn't require any extra sides to round out the meal.  I grew up eating meals that always had starch, protein, and vegetable components.  If one of those components is missing from my meal, I usually end up craving it and getting hungry at 10:30PM -- not the best time to be eating.

Japchae noodles are made from sweet potatoes, but not the orange/red kind that we're used to seeing in the States.  The noodles are a translucent greyish color -- I know it doesn't sound all that appetizing, but no one here is eating plain noodles so it'll get better I promise!  The noodles are boiled for ~10 minutes, then cut into smaller pieces.  When you buy the dried noodles they are really long, and sweet potato noodles are really chewy once cooked, so don't forget to cut them.  While I'm waiting for the water to boil, I prepare all the vegetables and meat.  I tried both chicken and beef, and they were both delicious.  I cut the meat into thin slices across the grain.  For chicken, I used breast and I marinated the slices in Chinese cooking wine, salt, and white pepper.  For the beef, I used sirloin flap and I marinated the slices in Chinese cooking wine and soy sauce.  I use the sirloin flap for stir-frying applications because it's pretty cheap and tastes great.  I used to use flank steak which costs almost twice as much!  While the meat marinates, I prepare all the vegetables.  It's really important to get all the ingredients prepped before you start stir-frying, because once the wok is on there's no waiting around.  You'll end up with mushy vegetables or rubbery meat if you wait around with a hot wok.  Sliced onions, minced garlic, and 1-in chopped green onions are a must.  I think julienned carrots are necessary for some sweetness and color, but I'll be the first one to admit that julienning carrots is a pain so if you don't have the time just skip it.  I like leafy greens so I chopped up some bok choy and threw in some spinach.  Nappa cabbage and romaine would be great too.  Kale, beet greens, and chard may be a bit tough for this application -- I may try it one day but I would blanch it first.  I also used zucchini, bell pepper, and fresh Shitake mushrooms.

When there are 5 minutes left for the noodles, I heat the wok on high.  I use a little oil, and stir fry the meat.  As soon as the meat is cooked through I take the meat out of the wok.  There should still be liquid in the wok, but if not add some more oil.  Cook the onions and garlic next.  Add some soy sauce at this point to help soften the onions.  When the onions are soft which should take only a minute or two, add in the rest of the vegetables.  Thicker vegetables first and leafy vegetables last.  The seasoning is soy sauce, sesame oil, and sugar.  I add some chicken broth to increase the amount of "sauce" that I want the noodles to soak up.  As soon as the last leafy vegetable goes in, dump in the noodles.  Add in the meat, and mix it all up.  Let the noodles soak up all the delicious sauce.  Just turn the burner off and walk away.  Let it sit for a couple minutes, come back, mix it up and walk away for another couple of minutes.  It's delicious, healthy, and quick!  I'm sorry, there aren't any pictures for this post -- we were too hungry and excited to eat our Japchae to remember to take pictures.

A Review for Anne Burrell's Peach Crisp

I'm a fan of Anne Burrell.  She's fun to watch on tv, and she inspires me to cook with all her enthusiasm.  Her food also looks great.  That being said, I haven't tried that many of her recipes.  I've tried a Chicken Soup recipe that included cinnamon and lemons.  Interesting and quite tasty.
We had some peaches so I thought I'd give her peach crisp a try.  After reading reviews that were posted on foodtv.com I was a little hesitant about whether or not I should cut the butter, sugar, lemon, and raisins.  I decided to follow the recipe as written and hoped for the best.
I agree that there's too much lemon, and that the dessert is too sweet.  Unlike other reviewers I didn't find the raisins or butter overpowering.  I didn't have individual ramekins, so I baked the crisp in one large dish and covered it with the topping.  There was way too much topping.  I think I only used about half of what I made.  I could imagine that if I had used all the topping it would have been too buttery and sugary.  I did like the oats and almonds that were in the topping.  It gave the topping a nice nutty flavor.  Next time, I may add some cinnamon to the topping as well.
I wish the recipe would have specified how large the peach chunks should be and that the peaches should be peeled.  I peeled the peaches, because I didn't want peach skin in the crisp, but I think this should be explicit.  I used the scoring and boiling method to peel the peaches.  I also think it would be helpful if she told us the weight of the peaches instead of just 5 large peaches.  I think my large peaches were smaller than hers.  I used 6 peaches, but I still think that I could've had more peach especially because the lemon was overpowering.  That being said, it would be helpful to know what exactly how much lemon juice to use.  Lemons are different sizes so for the recipe to just say "1 lemon, zested and juiced" isn't very helpful in my opinion.
If I were to make this again, I would cut the topping in half, cut the sugar in half, use half a lemon (~1 T juice), increase the amount of peaches, and add cinnamon to the topping.  I'm not sure I would make this dessert again though simply because I think the peaches tasted better on their own than cooked up in this dessert.

Grilled Chicken Marinades

 

I have been craving grilled chicken.  It was a summer staple for my family growing up.  We always had bone-in, skin-on, chicken breasts marinated in Italian dressing.  So delicious and juicy.  I don't like BBQ sauce or other sticky, sweet sauces on my chicken so the simple dressing marinade has been a favorite.

S and I haven't tried grilling chicken because we're afraid of under or over cooking it.  We decided to try it, but we gave ourselves some insurance by getting bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs.

Instead of the dressing marinade I grew up with, I decided to try two other marinades: The Gourmet Cookbook's "Foolproof Grilled Chicken" and The Barefoot Contessa's Back to Basics "Tuscan Lemon Chicken".

We've been growing lots of herbs in the garden, so these recipes were perfect for pruning the rosemary, mint, and cilantro.

Gourmet's recipe called for first brining the chicken.  This step requires making a brine by heating water with salt and sugar.  I was only supposed to brine the chicken for 6 hours, but I let it go for a good 18 hours.  This may have made the meat a little too tender.  There's an Asian inspired dressing that goes over the hot grilled chicken.  The dressing has lime juice, cilantro, mint, fish sauce, chile flake, and oil.  I didn't have enough lime juice so I also used lemon juice, and I didn't have enough cilantro so I put in some parsley.  I didn't add the salt that the recipe called for, because I thought the fish sauce was salty enough.  I wish this dressing would have called for something a little sweet.  Maybe some honey agave.  The chicken didn't soak up the dressing flavor so much, and the brine didn't season the chicken that well in my opinion.  I think it would be easier, and tastier, if the chicken were just marinated in the dressing!

Ina Garten's marinade, smelled great, and tasted great!  It was pretty simple too which is a big plus.  Her marinade, which is like a dressing, included lemon juice, zest, rosemary, and garlic.  The chicken soaks up all the delicious flavor, especially the lemon, and is really quite delicious.  In her directions, she says to cook the chicken on the cool side of the grill.  This is important because the oil based marinade will catch on fire and turn your chicken into fireballs! 

We followed the grilling guidelines from Gourmet's brined chicken which called for searing the chicken on the hot side of the grill first before moving it to the cool side.  Luckily, S was smart enough to move the chicken in the oil based marinade to the cook side quickly so we only had a few fireballs :)

We both really liked the simpler dressing-style marinade from the Barefoot Contessa book.  It reminded me of an Ann Burrell herb paste for roasted chicken.  I think the ingredients are very similar.  The Barefoot Contessa's chicken tasted very similar to the chicken I ate growing up.  The Italian/Mediterranean flavors were very familiar to me.  I may just go back to my family's standard since I think it's easier than Ina's and it tastes just as good if not better.  I think with a few tweaks the Asian dressing would make a good marinade and it would be nice to add an Asian flavored grilled chicken to my repertoire.

Hopefully, one day I'll get around to trying Tandoori and Jerk chicken!  Yay for summer time and for S using the grill :)

Brussels Sprouts

So, first of all, I just learned that these are called “Brussels” sprouts (note the ‘s’). Also, I’m used to these not tasting very good. Right before Thanksgiving, Jenn found a recipe for brussels sprouts that was actually supposed to taste good. The solution: pork fat (makes everything better). This recipe uses pancetta.

Recipe:
Wash brussels sprouts – remove the outer leaves if they are loose

Slice sprouts in half – set aside

Chop pancetta


Render the pancetta in a pan with a little olive oil. No more than medium heat!

When the pancetta becomes crunchy, remove it from the pan (leave all the yummy fat behind!) and put on a paper towel.

Put the sprouts in the pan.

After a minute or so, add about 1/3 cup of chicken broth. Cover to let the sprouts steam. After a few minutes, check the sprouts with a fork to see if they are done.

When you serve them up, top them with with the pancetta bits.

Wonderful recipe! The first time we made this we got a beautiful thick slice of pancetta from the massive Market District in Robinson. The flavor was amazing. This time, however, we didn’t make it up to Robinson and so bought the pancetta at Trader Joe’s. It was pre-chopped and a little dry. The final product was definitely lacking flavor.

Fry Party!

A few years ago, our new group of friends decided to have a latke party for Hannukah. Jenn had the wonderful idea to make spring rolls since we would already be frying things. This became an annual event. Last year we even expanded to making soufganiyot (jelly-filled donuts). This year we decided to forgo the donuts in favor of tempura (more on that later).

Latkes are potato pancakes traditionally eaten during Hannukah. The recipe we used was equal parts potato and onion plus a little flour, egg and salt. We grated the potatoes in our new Cuisinart food processor. The opening was bigger than the food processor we had used in previous years. This meant that the whole potato fit (instead of having to cut the potatoes into chunks). Although this sped up the process, it resulted in much longer potato strands and a more hashbrown-like latke.


This year we tried a new technique to make the spring roll filling. In previous years we've had issues with the oil spitting because we used corn starch to thicken the filling. Once it hits the hot oil, the corn starch liquefies again and goes everywhere. Since I'm the one who is frying this year, I thought a change might be good. This year we salted the shredded cabbage and carrot, let it sit, and then wrung out all the liquid. To this we added the cooked chicken and onions. No corn starch. Raw cabbage and carrots. The result was quite tasty. We will make more soon, but we will bake them instead of frying them (much healthier that way).

Spring Roll Recipe:
1 green cabbage, shredded
2-3 large carrots, shredded
4 chicken tenders, very thinly sliced -- almost roughly ground
3 green onions, chopped
salt and white pepper to taste

Generously salt the cabbage and carrots in a bowl and leave in the fridge overnight. The next day, taste the veggies. If it is too salty, rinse with water. Drain out the water in the bowl and wring out the veggies in batches using a cheese cloth. Really squeeze! Stir fry the green onions in some oil until fragrant. Add the chicken. If it starts to stick, use some cooking wine (Chinese is best!) to scrape up the bits. Add salt and white pepper. If there is liquid left over, drain it out. Let the chicken cool and then add and mix it into the veggies.
We use store-bought spring roll wrappers (NOT egg roll wrappers -- these are much thinner). We find them in the frozen section and leave them in the fridge overnight to defrost. When wrapping the spring rolls, it is important to keep your filling as compact as possible. It is better to be long and skinny rather than short and fat. To seal the end of the wrapper, we use a mixture of cornstarch and water.
We don't really deep fry them so we just fry on one side until golden brown and then flip.




Tempura is a whole discussion so it will come in the next entry ;-)