Fried Rice

The most important ingredient in fried rice is cold leftover rice. You can make your own leftover rice by; steaming it using your favorite method, spreading it on a cookie sheet and putting it in the freezer until chilled.

The second most important ingredients in fried rice are oyster sauce and toasted sesame oil. The oyster sauce adds saltiness like soy sauce but has greater depth of flavor. The sesame oil adds that certain something that makes this fried rice taste authentic. WARNING; a little goes a long way. Toasted sesame oil can really take over a dish.

Fried Rice

2 tablespoons or so oil, divided
2 eggs, beaten
salt and pepper
3 cloves garlic, minced
3 cups or so previously cooked and chilled brown or white rice
1 cup chopped cooked chicken, pork, shrimp or ham
oyster sauce
soy sauce
toasted sesame oil

Heat 1 tablespoon or so of the oil over high heat, add egg and cook, stirring constantly until cooked and fluffy. Set aside.

Wipe out pan if necessary. Add remaining tablespoon of oil and garlic. Cook, stirring constantly until you can smell the garlic. It is better if the garlic doesn't burn.

Add the rice, eggs and meat. Stir to break up eggs and clumps of rice while it is coming to temperature.

Stir in oyster sauce, soy sauce and toasted sesame oil to your taste. I probably use a tablespoon or soy of oyster and soy and a 1/4 teaspoon of oil.

Serve.

Frozen peas can be added to great effect. Bacon makes an awesome cooking oil and meat for this recipe.

Sincerely,

Shrimp13

Groundnut Stew

I was sitting on two bags of unsalted peanuts that will get rancid if not used soon. What to do? I remembered that peanuts are African in origin and are used specifically in ground nut stew or soup.

This recipe was my inspiration. I particularly love that most of the ingredients are optional. My kind of recipe. I was cooling for a vegetarian so I left out the chicken.

I did make my own peanut butter with my big Thai mortar and pestle. If I had it to do over again I would have used the blender. My peanut butter was not what one would call smooth.

Groundnut Stew

1 tablespoon oil
2 onions, chopped fine
1 clove garlic, minced
1 15 ounce can tomatoes
1 pinch cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 bay leaf
2 sweet potatoes, peeled, cubed and microwaved on high for 5 minutes
1 green bell pepper, chopped
1 small butternut squash, peeled and cut into cubes
Salt
Pepper
water
1 cup peanut butter

Heat oil over high heat in a big soup pot. Add onions and garlic. Cook stirring occasionally until beginning to brown.

Add tomatoes and bring to a fast boil while stirring. Add cayenne, coriander, bay leaf, sweet potatoes, bell pepper, squash and enough water for a soupy consistency. Season with salt and pepper. Add peanut butter and stir until smooth.

Bring to a boil and reduce heat and simmer for about 30 minutes or until the squash is tender, stirring frequently as the peanut butter seems to encourage burning at the bottom of the pot.

Serve over boiled rice.

Peanut Butter

Put peanuts in mortar

Beat to a pulp until smooth.

Simmer in 1 cup water until emulsion comes together.

Shrimp13

Lentil & Rice Casserole

This is the first blog post since I began the eating experiment inspired by my reading of Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It and it has a quite low glycemic index if you care about such things.

Let me continue by stating that this is much better than it looks and it does not look pretty. I fixed this in a subsequent version by putting some of the added cheese on the top and perhaps a sprinkling of herbs as a garnish. Perhaps if I had looked at the pictured of the recipe I would have caught that sooner.

This is the recipe I used for inspiration. It is so simple it's practically not even cooking. Pretty much; Combine ingredients, bake.

Lentil & Rice Casserole

4 cups broth (or seasoned water)
3/4 cups lentils
1/2 cup brown rice
1 medium onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 teaspoon Italian herb mix
1 cup grated cheddar, divided

Preheat oven to 300 degrees F. Mix all ingredients except for the cheese in a baking dish.

Cover and bake for 1 hour 10 minutes.

Uncover, stir in 3/4 of the cheese, top with remaining cheese and bake for 20 more minutes.

Voila, food;

You might note chunks of ham in the version above. Chunks of chicken would also be very appropriate.

Also, my wife, Yvonne told me that this one needs to be added to the regular rotation. That is a ringing endorsement.

Shrimp13

Some Friday Thoughts about 2 Books

The first book is Gary Taubes' Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It. This book has been making me mad, so mad that I have typed profanity into the notes of my Kindle version.

The first half is a very salesy, pseudoscientific, fake logic-y setup. The second half appears to be the Primal Diet, or something like it.

I will write more on this topic but not until I experiment a bit with his ideas. I have been more or less taking in and expending a fairly stable amount of calories for the past 5 years and especially in the last year. Without changing the calories in/calories out aspect of my eating (that has allowed me to lose 130 pounds, flying in the face of Taubesian fake-logic), I am going to alter where these calories are coming from in a ratio similar to what he puts forward in his book. I'll let y'all know what happens.

The second book is The Celebrity Cookbook compiled by Dinah Shore for release in 1966.

Within are about 63 recipes, almost all of which contain watercress, shared by the celebrities and celebrity wives of the day. My half-baked plan or hare brained scheme, if you will, is to cook through this book a la Julie & Julia. I will also limit myself to a year which should be easy considering she had 524 recipes to complete and I only have 63.

I have about thawed from my 20 degree bike ride in this morning, time to make the donuts. Have a great weekend!

Shrimp13

Safeway Split Pea Soup

This is the split pea soup recipe I always use. It is foolproof and if you don't have 1 or 2 of the ingredients it still works (witness me not having dried thyme, ham hocks or carrots last night). It is also quite handy that if you shop at Safeway the recipe is printed on the bag of split peas.

Safeway Split Pea Soup

2 tablespoons olive oil
2 onions, chopped
2 carrots, peeled and chopped
2 celery stalks, chopped
2 lbs. ham hocks (about 3)
1-1 1/2 lbs. ham steak, fat removed, cut into 1-inch pieces
4 bay leaves
3 quarts (12 cups) water
1 lb. split peas, rinsed
1 teaspoon dried thyme

What I did have was a ham. For the ham hocks and ham steak portion I used about a ham steak's worth of 1" cubes and the de-meated bone.

As referenced above I left out the carrots and the thyme but I usually substitute an Italian herb mix if I am out of thyme.

DIRECTIONS:

In a large soup pot, heat olive oil over high heat. Sauté onions, carrots and celery until vegetables begin to brown, about 6 minutes.

Add ham hocks, chopped ham, bay leaves and water.

Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer, partially covered, for 2-2 1/2 hours or until ham is very tender. Remove ham hocks and bones. Shred meat into bite-size pieces and return to stock. Discard bones.

Add split peas and thyme. Simmer, uncovered, 1 hour and 20 minutes or until peas dissolve and thicken soup. Remove bay leaves.

Ridiculously, I don't have a picture of the finished product. I have some in a container for lunch but that is not the perfect presentation, especially for split pea soup, second only to gizzards for being a bad food model.

Shrimp13

Ham Steak with Red Wine Sauce

Last night I sliced a thick steak off of the cut end of the ham I was baking for use in couple of upcoming recipes.

I was thinking about red-eye gravy, a recipe for a sauce based on coffee that keeps popping up on TV and in books and periodicals. I had tried it once before and was nonplussed. But now that I have reread the Wikipedia article, I think I might try it again as a sauce for ham and biscuits.

I decided to go with the kind of sauce you might make of the dripping of a pan seared beefsteak (and it went a little something like this);

Ham Steak with Red Wine Sauce

1 tablespoon oil
1 ham steak
1/2 cup or so red wine
1/2 cup or so water or stock, I used water as the ham drippings already have a lot of flavor
1 tablespoon or so Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons or so butter

Heat oil in skillet over high heat. Add ham steak and cook for 10 minutes, turning after 5. Remove ham to a plate. If you want to keep it warm you could use an oven proof plate in an oven set to warm.

Add the wine and the water to the stuff left in the pan and scrape the bottom with a spoon to get up all those stuck little tasty bits.

When the liquid has reduced to the point that it is starting to thicken up, add the mustard and stir to incorporate into the liquid. Finally, remove from heat and stir in butter until incorporated.

Pour over ham and eat. I had mine on bread. Tasty!

Shrimp13

Gizzards and Green Bananas - Dominican Style

Searching for gizzard recipes, like I do, I ran across a comment to a question about what to do with them. It was simply; braised with onions, peppers, green olives, and green bananas - Dominican style.

I haven't cooked vary many Caribbean recipes. I have made jerk chicken and tostones. I think that's about it. I do know that the preferred method for green bananas is to boil them, skin on (easy) or off (more difficult) for about 20 minutes or done. I know that gizzards benefit from a long braise. I read that oregano and cilantro and lime are traditional Dominican ingredients. So I developed a plan and it went a little something like this;

Gizzards and Green Bananas - Dominican Style

1 tablespoon oil
1 medium onion, sliced thinly
1 large red bell pepper, sliced thinly
3 Serrano peppers, minced
1 cup or so red wine
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 package gizzards
3 green bananas, peeled and broken into big pieces
1 teaspoon salt
chopped cilantro and halved limes for garnish

Heat oil over high heat in small soup pot. Add onion and peppers and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened and beginning to brown.

Add wine, garlic, oregano, gizzards, bananas and salt. Bring to a simmer, reduce heat to low, cover and cook, stirring occasionally for about an hour (or more depending on how tender you like your gizzards).

Taste for salt and reseason if necessary. Eat the whole batch over the course of the evening. (!)

I was really surprised at how good this smelled while cooking and completely delighted with the flavor. If I was serving this and not eating it myself at the cutting board, I would have served it with rice.

Please note that it is impossible to take a pretty picture of something long cooked with gizzards.

Shrimp13