Thailand via Dupont Circle

I don't usually like vegetables, but there's one dish that I actually enjoy: mixed vegetables with chicken from Thaiphoon in Dupont Circle. Other Thai restaurants won't do, it has to be from Thaiphoon. I used to live a few blocks away and could get takeout a couple of times a week, but I recently moved several blocks in the opposite direction so it's not very convenient to eat on a regular basis. I finally decided to take matters into my own hands and learn how to make this dish, which is just vegetables and chicken in some sort of savory, broth-y brown sauce.


I barely cooked at all until I met NP, and I'd certainly never tried to make Asian food before, so this was a new challenge for me. For reasons I will not go into now, I went to whole foods before I had the chance to look up any recipes. I was also bogged down by a huge, giant printer/scanner/fax machine that was too big for the cart I had brought to transport it. And to top it off, I was there during the post-work rush hour and the store was packed. These conditions were not conducive to googling via iPhone possible ingredients, so I had to wing it. Not the best start to my thai cooking adventure, but I was determined to get my thai chicken veggies so I perservered. My first step was the ethnic food aisle, where I bought every type of sauce and seasoning that seemed like it could possibly be in the dish. When I got home, I realized a lot of the things I got were for Japanese or Chinese food, but I did happen to get one Thai product: fish sauce!



Most of the vegetables were easy (broccoli, asparagus, carrots, shitake mushrooms), but I struggled to find the sort of soggy lettuce-y stuff that's in the original dish. I bought something that looked like a head of iceberg lettuce, except that the leaves were a little crinkled. It turned out to be savoy cabbage. I have no idea if this is used in asian food, but it looks cool, so here's a picture:


After all of my trouble at the grocery store, NP ended up working until after 1am that night so I didn't even get make the dish for dinner that night. Instead I made it for lunch the next day, without NP's help. I couldn't find any recipes online that sounded right, so I just kind of threw everything together, and it turned out awesome.

First, I cooked 1 clove of garlic in some vegetable oil, then added asparagus, cabbage, and pre-sliced carrots, bell peppers, broccoli, and mushrooms. Then I added a bunch of chicken broth, because the original dish is kind of soup-y. I put in a little soy sauce, but I didn't think that tasted right, so I used regular salt and pepper. I then put in about a teaspoon of the strange looking fish sauce, and I think that helped it a lot. I also added about a teaspoon of brown sugar. Not enough to make it sweet, but it made it taste better. Lastly, I put about 2 teaspoons of butter to make the sauce a little bit shiny. I kept adding more chicken stock as it evaporated, I probably used about a cup total. Lastly, I thinly sliced some chicken I had gotten from the salad bar and let it heat up.


I also made rice for the first time! I was shocked that it came out okay. I tried to make it once in college, but it didn't work out for me, so this was a pleasant suprise. Anyway, here's a picture of the final dish! It didn't taste exactly like the version from the restaurant, but it was still really tasty!

Blackened Chicken and Avocado Salad

I don't really like salads as a meal except for this one. I used to get something similar from the Guards for lunch when I worked in Georgetown, and I started making it at home. It's really easy and tasty. I get chicken breasts or cutlets and pound them till they're pretty thin, then coat them with olive oil, salt, pepper, old bay, paprika, and cayenne pepper. I have no idea what is included in a real blackening seasoning mix, but I think this tastes good. Then I cook the chicken in a skillet. Meanwhile, I cut up some cucumbers and tomatoes and dress them with lettuce in balsamic vinegar. Then when the chicken is done, I slice it and put it on the salad, along with slices of avocado. I've been getting some prepared corn and bean salad from whole foods and adding that as well. We usually eat it with a french baguette. Mmm.

The Most Delicioius of All Foods - Ribs

During July, I cooked ribs twice. The first time was at a lake house, where a group of us cooked a smorgasbord of great food. We cooked ribs and a pork butt. The ribs we coated in a rub and let marinate overnight. We then wrapped in heavy duty foil and added about a quarter cup each of margarita mix and OJ. We popped the package in the oven for a couple of hours at about 260. After two or three hours or so, we pulled it out, drained the juices, added some bbq sauce and then slapped it on the grill to get some nice delicious caramelization.



Along with the ribs we served chopped pork bbq (which will get its own post sometime) and grilled asparagus. For the asparagus, I just speared them all on a couple of skewers to make it easier to turn. I then marinated them in a bit of olive oil, salt and pepper.



A couple weeks later I made ribs a second time around. This time, I had no grill so had to do everything in the oven. The beginning stages were the same but instead of taking it to the grill, I used the broiler. I brushed bbq sauce on it and left it under the broiler for a few minutes. Once caramelized, I brushed more sauce on and put it back under the broiler. I did this a few times until the ribs had several layers of delicious sauce.



The first picture is the ribs with just the rub. The second is just out of the oven with the first coating of bbq sauce. The third picture is after the sauce has been cooked on several times. The last is the finished plate. I served the ribs with baked beans, a potato salad and steamed broccoli.

Summer Grilling

So after a month-long hiatus, I'm back with several updates. This post I have two burger dishes. This first one is cooked on the new grill KJC got when she moved into a new apartment. It works quite well, even giving the burgers and veggies some nice grill marks. A charcoal or gas grill is preferable but for apartment living this is not too bad. Well this meal was just simple beef burgers plus the sides of squash and zucchini. I coated the veggies in olive oil and salt and pepper. Very simple yet delicious.




This next meal also involved burgers but probably the best part is the side dish of potatoes. I cooked the potatoes two ways. The first is hash browns with parmesan cheese and parsley. I simply diced then boiled the potatoes and then browned them in a pan with a bit of oil. When they were close to being done, I added the cheese, parsley, pepper and salt. For the second preparation, I thinly sliced the potatoes, coated in olive oil and then grilled. They had great texture and tasted like a cross between potato chips and french fries. I served the potatoes with a burger and green beans. Not a great picture of the potatoes but you get the idea.

Buffalo Burgers

We decided to do the classic burger and fries with a few minor twists - namely buffalo meat instead of beef or turkey. Of course with no outdoor grill, the bulk of the cooking unfortunately had to be done on a grill pan. Also because we decided to do sweet potato fries, the apartment really heated up as they were roasting in the oven.

Anyway, I microwaved two sweet potatoes for about 4 minutes to get the cooking process started. Then I thinly sliced the potatoes and coated them in olive oil before placing on the sheet pan. I roasted them for about 25 minutes at 350 (flipping them when they are crisp on one side). Next time, I would slice the potatoes a little thicker (about 1/2 inch). Also microwaving them before didn't help as much as I thought it would. I would likely not do that step again or would do it for a bit longer. While the fries were roasting, I blanched the trimmed green beans in boiling salted water.

After the potatoes were in the oven about 15 minutes, I threw the buffalo burgers on the grill pan. I seasoned them generously with salt and pepper. I also put some olive oil on the burgers because they are so lean and can dry out. Once the burgers were done I simply dry grilled the green beans - no oil or butter.

Lettuce, tomato, onion and cheddar cheese on the buffalo burger. Salt and pepper on the fries and the green beans. While everything was good, I think the green beans were my favorite. Very simple and light.

C-BATE for breakfast

This was the first meal we cooked in my new apartment, and it was a joint effort. I loved going to Darlington House for their BLATE breakfast sandwich with bacon, lettuce, avocado, tomato and egg. They took it off the menu, so I decided to make it myself on a Saturday morning. I forgot to buy lettuce, so we ended up with a BATE, but I added cheddar cheese so NP demanded that we re-name it the C-BATE. We used toasted potato rolls, turkey bacon and cooked the eggs sunny side up so the yolks would run a little. NP made the hash browns from frozen potatoes, and it was very tasty. One of my all time favorite meals, so good I made it again the next day.

Pork again

So tonight marked round two of the pork tenderloin we started last night. Didn't do anything too ambitious here, just decided to use the leftover pork for pressed Cuban sandwiches on the grill.

I started with the half of the (slightly undercooked) pork tenderloin that we saved last night. I cut it pretty thin, into about 12 small slices, then dropped it on the hot grill for about a minute on each side. Then I brought it back inside for the sandwich assembly. Just a straight up version with which I'm sure you're all familiar: pork, ham, pickles, swiss, and mustard. We opted for ciabatta as the bread, which worked out pretty well. I used the heavy lid from our grill pan to get some good pressing action on the outside grill. All in all, the sandwich was fantastic, although it was pretty dense. JDH could only handle half and now has lunch for tomorrow. Wouldn't change a thing, although I did have trouble getting the nice blackened grill/panini marks I was hoping for, mostly because the propane for the grill was clearly running out.

On the side we made some okra with greek seasoning. An old standby for us (as I think it is for many of you), and it was just as good this time.

Overall, a pretty simple meal that took just a few minutes. It occurs to me, however, that what really makes this sandwich for me is the dill pickle. Although I wouldn't put it in my top five, it's long been a favorite (in fact, dating back to when I was just a wee lad, long before I was dropping sandwich stackers into cuban sandwiches, "Santa" used to leave me a jar of dill pickles under the tree each year -- true story). As such, I've penned a little verse to my early love. I call it "An Ode to Dills":

Of pickled treats, I cannot claim
A knack to make, or tasting fame.
But this I know, my little wit:
Pickled dills are, indeed, the shit.

A humble cuke, still fresh, unpeeled,
Vinegar'd, with spice - then sealed;
Does riseth forth, from jar so tight:
A butterfly, now taking flight.

Vlasic, Heinz, in a pinch will do,
But for you, Claussen, my love is true.
Your delicious tart, a sour punch,
But most of all, that savage crunch.

On rich grilled cheese, or Cuban pressed-
You are the star; outshine the rest.
But this one fact I must relate:
A dill alone will still elate.

So thank you, dill, for a tested rule,
I now embrace, this puckered fool:
Through thick or thin, and dark or light,
A simple dill - the f'ing shite.

Grilled Pork Tenderloin

Perfect weather today, so we decided to fire up the charcoal to appropriately honor and respect Mother Nature. I am watching the season two premiere of TrueBlood as I type this, so I hope I don't inadvertently describe freshly extracted human hearts rather than the grilled pork tenderloin, broccoli rabe, and couscous that we actually cooked.

So the meal prep began after my return from the grocery store in the early afternon. I put one pork tenderloin in a marinade of olive oil, white wine, white wine vinegar, lemon juice, salt, pepper, and fresh oregano and chives from out back.

When the grill was finally ready (it took a long time to get going, allowing me to drink many beers on the back patio), I dropped the meat on first. I swear by the digital thermometer when cooking any sort of pork, and this evening was no exception. However, for some reason tonight my thermometer decided to work only in Celsius, so after rifling through long-forgotten, jumbled memories of 5/9 or 9/5, I moved the computer outside for easy calculations. I wanted to be sure to leave half the pork a little undercooked (a la P.N. Peterson) for tomorrow night's meal (that's supposed to be a cliffhanger).

The pork cooked faster than I thought, so I pulled it off to rest and dropped on the broccoli rabe and lemons. I had previously tossed the broccoli with a little olive oil, salt, and pepper, and the lemons I just cut in half and grilled pulp-side down. The lemons were awesome when I finally pulled them off, but the broccoli rabe (despite getting a nice char) was a little crisp. Probably should have left it on the covered grill a little bit longer.

The final dish was a simple whole wheat couscous. No big surprises here, but I did opt for chicken broth rather than water. I also toasted about a 1/3 cup of pistachios while the pork was cooking, then smashed them up and mixed them into the couscous right before serving. I've got to say, the pistachios were delicious (but kind of a pain to shell).

All told, a solid summer meal. Not mind-blowing, but tasty and healthy.

And I cannot figure out how to get these pictures to work how I want them to. Any thoughts?

Summer Salads

These two salads are not novel, in that I have prepared them for many members of this blog's audience. Nevertheless, they are quickly becoming summer favorites - and we enjoy them so much, we thought they merited repeating with my parents in town this weekend, as well as sharing on this blog.

The first is a twist on the classic Caprese. It is an avocado, tomato and mozzarella pasta salad. Fresh, farmers market tomatoes are key to making this dish. And as for what I would do differently... next time I would amp the whole grain mustard in the dressing as I think that element adds a lot. The recipe is as follows:

6 oz farfalle (bowtie pasta)

6 ripe red tomatoes

8 oz fresh mozzarella

1 large, ripe avocado

2 TB chopped fresh basil

2 TB toasted pine nuts

Dressing:

6 TB olive oil

2 TB wine vinegar

1 tsp balsamic vinegar

1 tsp whole grain mustard.

pinch of sugar

S&P

Pretty straightforward instructions. Slice and arrange the tomato, mozz, and avocado. Cook the pasta. Whisk the dressing. Toss the pasta with half the dressing. Drizzle the rest over the tomato, mozz and avocado. Sprinkle with pine nuts and basil. Serve.

The next salad is originally a Kaky Grant recommendation from the Lee Brothers Southern Cookbook. In fact, I copied it down at the Grant's lovely abode in Greensboro on a scrap of Catherine McGinness FONZ paper. Wow :)

Sauteed Corn and Snow Peas. The fresh ginger really makes this dish pop, as does the lime juice. My only change to the recipe directions below is to cook the corn and snow peas a little less. Especially if you have quality, fresh ingredients, you don't want to mess them up by overcooking them. We find that keeping a nice bite/crunch to the veggies really makes this salad delish.

4 ears of corn, shucked and cut from the cob

2 TB unsalted butter

2 TB minced fresh ginger

2 large shallots, chopped

1/2 lb snow peas, trimmed and cut crosswise into 1/4" strips

S&P

1 TB fresh lime juice

Melt butter in medium sautee pan over medium heat. Add the ginger and shallots and cook until almost soft, 2-3 minutes. Add corn and snowpeas, S&P and cook until just tender, 5-6 minutes, stirring often. Stir in lime juice, more S&P an serve.

Garlic Shrimp Pasta

This dish ended up great although it took longer than anticipated. I used frozen shrimp, which added some time. Begin by peeling the shrimp and simmering the shells in water for about ten minutes to make a shrimp stock. Shrimp stock is the quickest stock you can make and really tastes great. You can even freeze shrimp shells until you are ready to make a batch. Since it is so easy to make, I never bother to freeze the actual stock though.

As the stock is simmering, cut broccoli into florets, slice one large shallot and slice two large cloves of garlic. Peel two additional garlic cloves. Once the stock is done, strain and trash shrimp shells. Bring the stock back to a simmer and cook broccoli. As the broccoli is cooking, heat 1.5 T of butter and 2 T of olive oil in a pan with the 2 garlic cloves. Remove cooked broccoli and bring stock back to a boil, adding more water if necessary. Add pasta to the boiling water/stock and cook. Meanwhile, add the shallot and garlic clove slices once the oil is hot. Remove the whole cloves, cook the garlic and shallot slices until slightly browned and then add the shrimp. Cook shrimp until nearly done and then add the broccoli. Stir in the pasta and add 1-2 T of the cooking stock/water to thicken up the sauce a bit. Add salt and pepper as needed.

Jerk Roasted Pork Tacos

There was a sale on pork tenderloin so I have quite a few in the freezer. I usually pan sear and then roast the tenderloin so this is a variation of that basic dish.

Rub the tenderloin with jerk seasoning. I use store bought seasoning which I think tastes fine. Add a little oil to a pan and sear the tenderloin on all sides. Roast in a 400 degree oven until almost done. Since I never am able to eat a whole tenderloin in one sitting, I usually slightly under cook it. Then, I slice/chop what I need and finish in the pan. When I use the rest of the loin the next day, it won't dry out when I reheat it.

While the loin is resting add sliced peppers and onions to the pan and brown. Chop the pork while the peppers and onions are cooking. Remove the peppers and onions and cook chopped pork until crispy. As the pork is cooking, heat tortillas in the microwave. Once the pork is done, squeeze some lime juice on it.



While I didn't do it this time, I think sour cream would really add something to the dish. Other than that it was quite delicious.

Italian Sausage White Pizza

Hey all, a week ago my friend John suggested making pizza but we all kind of wanted something non-traditional but still good. He suggested making a raw mozzarella spicy Italian sausage pizza. It's basically exactly how it sounds, very simple, but really really good. The whole was definitely better than the sum of its parts.


We got a good quality store-bought pizza dough. Then placed chunks of raw mozzarella on top. We got a nice spicy Italian pork sausage which we took out of the casing and crumbled it over the cheese.Then into the oven for about 25-4o minutes at 400. This was definitely eyeballed. It came out great. Went perfect with wine/beer whatever people were drinking. We had salad. A great casual food. Definitely recommend.

Chinese Take-Out (cont'd)

Using the leftover beef and rice from the night before, along with some random items in the fridge, I made beef fried rice. This is a very easy and versatile recipe. Whenever I make rice, I usually double the recipe and make fried rice later in the week. Use cold rice because it soaks up the flavor better.

For this recipe, cook frozen corn and peas in the microwave. Meanwhile scramble two eggs and saute half an onion. When the onion is just about done, add the rice. Then add vegetable oil and soy sauce. Break up the rice and add the beef. Cook until rice and beef are hot and then add the cooked vegetables and eggs. At this point, the dish is basically done. Adding rice wine vinegar, or any other mild vinegar, helps to punch up the rice a bit.

Chinese Take-Out

Well I finally found an opportunity to cook and decided to do beef and vegetables in a spicy black bean sauce. I began by marinating a london broil in teriyaki sauce overnight. I left the london broil whole but next time I would probably slice it thinly before marinating so it takes more of the marinade.

The next day, I drained the marinade and patted the beef dry before thinly slicing it. I also sliced an onion and two green peppers into thin strips and put them in the teriyaki marinade. I then sauteed the beef in batches until cooked through. I set the beef aside, wiped out the pan and cooked the peppers and onions until soft.

At this point it was time to build the sauce. I added about a tablespoon of jarred black bean sauce and cooked for about 1 minute. I then added about half a cup of water to the pan, cooked the mixture for a few seconds and then added the beef back to the pan. I then added about a tablespoon of cider vinegar and a tablespoon of soy sauce. I added a few pinches of sugar and black pepper. To finish the sauce, I added a corn starch slurry (corn starch and water) to the pan until the sauce was the consistency I wanted. I served over rice. I enjoyed it but the sauce was a little too spicy for KC (the jarred black bean sauce had chiles).

Impromtu Islander

I'm beginning to think I'm the only person cooking these days...where is everyone? This meal was supposed to be prepared by N, but work intervened, so I had to throw something together at the last minute. We had mahi mahi, and I love citrus and seafood, so I marinated the fillets in olive oil, lime juice and lime zest. Then I sprinkled it with some Old Bay and cooked it on the panini pan. I've always wanted to grill fish, but having never lived in a place with an outdoor area, much less a grill, the panini pan was as close as I could get. I thought I was thawing some frozen hericot vert in a pan with a little bit of water, but I ended up cooking them way too much. Oops? But to continue the citrus theme, I tossed the beans in some olive oil, butter, lemon juice and salads. Not as good as my mother makes, but not too bad either. Finally, I roasted some potatos and onions, which took waaay too long. Next time I will cut them smaller or maybe just cook them on the stove. The potatoes were not remarkable looking, but the psuedo-grilled fish deserved a picture:

leftover mania

So I made this mushroom ravioli and salad the night after the salmon and green beans, and I wanted to use up some random stuff we had hanging around. The sauce was really easy, just the leftover canned chopped tomatoes, half an onion, a few cloves of chopped garlic, parsley, and oregano. We had an extra random chicken breast in the freezer, so I chopped that up into bite size pieces and (over) cooked it in the sauce. I realized we wouldn't be able to eat the whole bag of spinach as a salad, so I put some of it into the sauce as well. The pasta component of this meal was trader joes mushroom ravioli, which were really tasty, but we both agreed would have been better in a creamy sauce. Pasta in our world is not complete without garlic bread, so I used a french baguette, covered with a couple table spoons of the mix of melted butter, olive oil, fresh garlic, and garlic powder. And parmesan cheese and parsley, of course. I burned the first batch (oops) so this garlic bread was try number 2.




Next up was the salad, which was also really easy. Bagged spinach plus the strawberries I had for snacking plus pistachios I bought to attempt to make pistachio cupcakes for NP's birthday plus goat cheese which we use in a lot of salads. I liked the balsamic/dijon vinaigrette I made to go along with it, but NP thinks champagne vinaigrette would have been better. Next time I'll use Gorgonzola cheese instead of goat cheese though. Or maybe next time NP can do the cooking...

Kerry goes to Greece

As a homage to NP's heritage, I tried to re-create my favorite dish from an awesome lunch takeout place, the greek deli. They only serve the super delicious baked salmon platter on friday, which isn't really helpful when I have a craving for it on a Tuesday night. Right, so, the cooking. I made three dishes - salmon with yogurt and dill, green beans with tomatos, and orzo. I looked at a few recipes online but couldn't really find anything I was looking for, so I decided to just wing it.

First, the salmon. I put the fillet in a baking dish and seasoned it with olive oil, salt, and pepper. Then I put a few sprigs of fresh dill on top, and covered the whole thing with plain greek yogurt and more salt/pepper and about a table spoon of fresh lemon juice. I baked it at 350 for about 25 minutes. The idea was for the yogurt to melt and turn into a kind of creamy sauce, like at the GD, but that didn't happen. I had never had greek yogurt before, and it turns out that the tangy flavor wasn't really what I was going for, but it was still pretty good. In the future, I'd use less yogurt since the flavor was a little overwhelming.

The green beans turned out great. I sliced up an onion and sweated it in a pot until it was translucent, and then added three chopped up garlic cloves. After a few minutes, I added fresh green beans and about a cup of chicken stock. I brought it to a boil and covered it for a minute or two, then added about a cup of canned diced tomatoes then turned it heat down and let it simmer till most of the liquid had evaporated. I added a little fresh parsley and that's it! Mmm.

The orzo is pretty obvious, but I used half chicken stock and half water so it was more flavorful. The final product was a success, and NP did the dishes.