Archive for the ‘appetizers’ Category

Dad’s Perfect Crab Cakes

Friday, September 18th, 2009

Next to fresh steamed lobster, you would be hard pressed to find a dish I would rather eat than crab cakes. This recipe is based on some instructions that my dad gave me over the phone once when I asked him how he makes his “perfect” crab cakes. You could take this recipe any way you like, but personally I like it just the way it is—with just a few flavors added to enhance, but not overpower the crab meat.

I realize fresh crab meat is expensive, but served with a simple mayonnaise based sauce, a side salad and maybe a few wedge fries, a single crab cake makes a fairly decadent meal for one person. NOTE: There is no substitute for fresh crab meat. I wouldn’t even bother with this if you can only get it canned.

Dad’s Perfect Crab Cakes

1 lb of fresh lump or back fin crab meat, picked free of shells

1 large egg

2 tablespoons mayonnaise

2 teaspoons dijon mustard

1 tablespoon roasted red pepper, minced

A few drops of Worcestershire sauce

3 saltine crackers, crushed

Pinch of cayenne pepper

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground white pepper

Pinch of salt

8 saltine crackers, crushed

vegetable oil for pan frying

lemon wedges for garnish

1. In a medium bowl, combine the egg, mayonnaise, dijon mustard, roasted red peppers, Worcestershire sauce, 3 crushed saltine crackers, cayenne, white pepper and salt. Taste and adjust seasoning if necessary (I realize it has raw egg in it, but I taste it anyway, egg and all).

2. Put the remaining 8 crushed crackers on a large plate. Place a large biscuit ring on top of the crackers and fill it with 1/6 of the crab meat. Press down gently to form the cake. Remove the ring and sprinkle the top of the crab cake with crumbs to coat. Set each crab cake aside until six cakes have been formed and coated with bread crumbs on both sides. Alternately, if you don’t have a biscuit ring, you could form the cakes by hand (make them smaller for appetizer-size portions).

3. Heat some vegetable oil or other neutral oil in a skillet over medium heat. Unless you have a large skillet you will probably need to cook the cakes three at a time. Cook them until the cracker crumbs are golden brown and the cakes are set. You can keep the first three cakes in a warm oven while you’re cooking the second batch.

4. Serve the crab cakes with lemon wedges and your sauce of mayonnaise based sauce.

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Posted in appetizers, main dishes, seafood | 3 Comments »

Little Dumplings of Joy

Wednesday, June 17th, 2009

Sunday night as I was going through my Google Reader I noticed an abundance of dumpling recipes on favorite sites like Chez Us and Use Real Butter. It turns out that the June Daring Cooks challenge is Chinese dumplings or potstickers. I had just recently learned about the Daring Kitchen and decided to sign up. But, it turns out there is a waiting period to be an “official” participating member. Something about keeping the challenges secret. Fair enough. I still wanted dumplings. Unfortunately, it was late, I didn’t have the ingredients and I was exhausted. So instead, I sobbed silently over a plate of hot dog fried rice. Don’t judge me.

There is one person I know that makes the best “mandu” (korean dumplings) I have ever eaten in my entire life. Her name is Wool and she is pretty much amazing. She can turn the simplest of ingredients into the most flavorful dishes you have ever tasted. Although she has told me the secrets of her mandu, I have never been able to replicate them, and believe me I have tried. Thinking maybe she was leaving out some ancient Korean secret, I bought this book by Cecilia Hae-Jin Lee called Eating Korean. It’s a great book—I’m not by any means an expert, but to me it has the most authentic looking recipes of any Korean cookbook I have ever looked at, and most importantly, it has the Wool stamp of approval. So I’m using a recipe from it as the basis for my dumplings, with a few changes.

Korean Pork “Mandu” (Dumplings)

Adapted from Eating Korean: From Barbecue to Kimchi, Recipes from My Home

The original recipe calls for mung bean sprouts, but I substituted napa cabbage because that’s what I bought. I also added a carrot and soy sauce because Wool uses both in her mandu. The recipe calls for fresh ginger, but I used powdered, well, because Wool does. And I added a little sugar … just because I wanted to.

1 cup shredded napa cabbage, washed

1/4 of a large onion, sliced

1 carrot, chopped

1/2 lb ground pork

3 large cloves of garlic

2 stalks of green onion, finely chopped

2 tsp kosher salt, divided

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1 tsp toasted sesame oil

1 tsp white pepper

1 tsp sugar

1 tsp ginger powder

1 package of round dumpling wrappers (or you can make them homemade if you have time)

oil for frying

1. Salt the cabbage with 1 tsp kosher salt and allow to sit for 15 minutes. Squeeze the water out and place the cabbage into a food processor with the carrots, onion and garlic. Process until the vegetables are finely chopped. Squeeze out any moisture from the mixture.

2. In a large bowl mix the vegetables with the pork. Add the salt, soy sauce, sesame oil, white pepper, sugar and ginger powder. Mix gently with your hands until the seasonings are thoroughly incorporated into the meat. At this point I like to cook a small amount of the filling in a skillet to taste for seasonings. I can then adjust them if I need to.

3. The next step is to fill and pleat the dumplings. Set up a small bowl of water at your wrapping station. Place a teaspoon of filling in the middle of the wrapper. Then, dip a finger in a bowl of water and wet the edges of the wrapper (usually I do it halfway around so it doesn’t get too soggy). If you don’t want to mess with the pleats, you can just fold it over and pinch the edges closed. If you want to make them look pretty and authentic,  you’ll want to pleat them. I could try to tell you how, but to really understand you need to see photos of the process. Jaden at Steamy Kitchen has a great tutorial with photos that will be much more useful than any explanation I can give here. So if you need help making your dumplings look all neat and fancy, get on over there and check it out.

4. At this point you’ll either want to cook the dumplings or freeze them.

If you’re going to freeze them lay them out on a baking sheet sprinkled with flour. Freeze the dumplings until they are nearly solid and then seal them up in a ziplock bag. You can cook them later at any time using the instructions here. If you’re going to cook the dumplings you’ll want to do it immediately because if you let them sit for too long, they will get soggy. Then the wrappers will come apart, they’ll all be stuck together and you’ll be pissed.

To cook the dumplings (you do it the same whether they are frozen or fresh) arrange them in a hot, oiled skillet, flat side down. Once the dumplings are nicely browned on the bottom (a few minutes, but longer if you started with frozen dumplings), add about 1/4 cup of water (carefully, it will make a lot of noise and splatter) and quickly put a lid or a plate over the top to steam the tops of the dumplings. Once the wrappers look translucent (this only takes a minute or so) remove the lid and allow the rest of the water to cook out. Serve them right away. I like to make a dipping sauce out of soy sauce, rice vinegar, sambal oelek and a little sugar.

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Posted in appetizers, asian | 2 Comments »

Lenten Drinking Snacks? Or not.

Wednesday, March 25th, 2009

This post has been a long time coming. I actually made these Shrimp Cakes about a month ago and have never gotten around to posting about them. My only excuse is laziness. The recipe was based on this one from Gourmet magazine. I also apologize for the photo. It’s not that great (when in doubt, use an extreme close up). I might have had a cocktail or two by the time I got these finished and I made myself snap a photo, right on the kitchen counter, before they were devoured by my friends, who also might have had a cocktail or two. Maybe since we’re in the middle of lent, you can make them as an appetizer while you’re having Friday night cocktails with your friends. No wait you can’t because they have bacon in them. So have them on a Thursday night with cocktails. Unless you’ve given up cocktails for lent. In that case, well, these are pretty good on their own.

Shrimp Cakes

First of all the original recipe calls for WAY too many green onions. I cut the amount in half. Also, I think it’s irrelevant what size shrimp you use since you’re just going to chop them up, so don’t buy the most expensive jumbo shrimp you can find because some little bity guys will work just as well. The coating for these is supposed to be sliced almonds, but I didn’t have any so I substituted a cornflake crust mixture from the Hudson’s On the Bend cookbook. If you happen to have any leftovers (I did because I doubled the recipe), these are great served on a bed of lightly dressed greens.

1 slice of bacon  

1 slice firm white sandwich bread (I used a bolillo roll)

1 lb of shrimp (any size), peeled, deveined and patted dry

1/4 cup of milk

1/4 cup sliced green onions

2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro

2 teaspoons corn starch

3/4 teaspoon kosher salt (less if you have salty shrimp … they live in salt water ya know)

1/2 teaspoon sugar

Fresh ground black pepper

Slivered almonds or hot and crunchy crust for dredging 

Hudson’s on the Bend Hot and Crunchy Crust

Pulse in a food processor:

1/4 cup slivered almonds

1/4 cup sesame seeds

2 cups cornflakes

1/4 cup sugar

1-1/2 Tablespoons red chile flakes

1 Tablespoon salt

Dipping Sauce

Combine the following:

1/2 cup mayonnaise

1 teaspoon tamari soy sauce

juice of 1/2 a lemon

a squirt of sriracha (or other hot sauce), to taste 

1. Pulse the bacon in a food processor until finely chopped. Add the shrimp and pulse until coarsely chopped.

2. Soak the bread in the milk for about five minutes. Squeeze to remove excess moisture and combine with the shrimp.

3. Add the rest of the ingredients (except the crust) to the shrimp mixture and combine well.

4. Heat a large skillet with some neutral oil. Put a generous amount of crust mixture onto a large plate. Form the shrimp mixture into patties and roll them in the crust mixture until they are well coated. Drop the cakes into the skillet a few at a time, being careful not to overcrowd the pan. Cook until shrimp is done and cakes are well browned on both sides.

5. Serve with dipping sauce and lemon wedges. 

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Vietnamese Spring/Summer/Winter rolls

Friday, January 23rd, 2009

Vietnamese salad rolls or Goi Cuon make a light, refreshing meal. In the spring. That’s why people call them spring rolls. But don’t get them confused with Chinese spring rolls, which are fried crispy. They’re also good to eat in the summer, which is why some people also call them summer rolls. Get it? And now it’s winter so … sorry. I know that was lame, but I couldn’t resist. Apparently this has been a topic of some contention. Really, I don’t know what the seasons have to do with these crunchy, fragrant little rolls, but if you took the wrapper out of the equation you would be left with … salad. Not only does the name “salad roll” make the most sense, but apparently this is also the literal translation of “Goi Cuon.” Besides, you’re supposed to eat them year round.

I have been meaning to make these for some time. The first time I ever made them we used rice noodles that were too thick and they were quite chewy. And to further add to the naming confusion, my very clever father in a fit of hilarity dubbed them, “rubber rolls.” We rolled and chewed and chewed and giggled and then chewed some more. We even took a nice photo.

When I got this lovely book in the mail a while back, I saw there was a recipe for rubber … er salad rolls and also vietnamese baguette sandwiches or Bahn Mi. They call for a lot of the same ingredients, so recently when I decided to try my hand at salad rolls again, I made plans to have Bahn Mi the next day to use up the leftover herbs and vegetables.

These were really tasty. In fact they were so tasty and I was so hungry that I failed to take a clear photo. In the midst of eating them I decided I had better get up and take a picture, but I didn’t have the patience to make a nice pretty roll for the photograph. Instead I took a big bite out of the fat, lop-sided roll that was sitting on my plate, held it still (I thought) and snapped a photo in my dark kitchen. I didn’t zoom in to make sure it was clear. I just put the camera away and continued to polish off my dinner as if I were a starving child in Africa (my apologies if any starving children in Africa are actually reading this). So I present to you this seemingly chubby hand (and why is it that my hand always looks chubby in photographs?) holding a half-eaten lop-sided blurry salad roll. Taa daaa!

I know. Hold your applause. I also meant to mention before that I was inspired to make salad rolls again when I saw this post at ChezUs. Notice the pretty pictures, the nice even rolls and the non-chubby hands.

Vietnamese Salad Rolls

Disclaimer: This is not really a recipe. It’s more like a starting point for how to make your own salad rolls written in recipe format. People put all kinds of things in salad rolls. The most basic recipe includes cucumber, carrots, a few herbs and boiled shrimp or pork (or both). Add or substitute other meats, herbs, veggies, or fruits, keeping in mind color, texture and flavor. Many rolls are made with bean sprouts or bell pepper. Jicama might be a nice variation and I’ve even heard of adding mango. P.S. A mandoline is a good thing to have for julienning the vegetables. Watch those fingers!

Rolls

1 large carrot, julienned 

½ english cucumber, julienned 

2 large radishes, julienned 

1 head boston lettuce 

4 oz rice vermicelli 

1 lb shrimp, peeled and de-veined 

fresh mint 

fresh cilantro 

2 tablespoons hoisin sauce 

1 clove garlic, minced 

1 fresh jalapeno or serrano, minced 

1 package of rice paper wrappers

Dipping Sauce

⅓ cup lime juice 

2 tablespoons sugar 

3 tablespoons fish sauce 

1 tablespoon soy sauce 

1 clove of garlic, minced 

1 fresh jalapeno or serrano, minced

1. In a small bowl combine the shrimp with the hoisin sauce, garlic and jalapeno. 

2. Place the vermicelli in a large bowl and add boiling water to cover. Soak for 15 minutes or until the noodles are tender. Rinse in cold water and set aside. 

3. Prep the veggies and carefully wash and dry the herbs and lettuce. Cook the shrimp in a small skillet until they just turn pink. Allow to cool. 

4. In a small bowl combine the dipping sauce ingredients. 

5. To serve, assemble all the fillings. Place a large, shallow bowl of hot water on the table and allow each person to make their own. 

6. To make a roll, dip a rice paper round into the water for a few seconds to soften and then lay it on a plate. The wrapper should not be softened entirely in the bowl. It will continue to absorb residual water and soften as it sits on the plate. 

7. In each wrapper place three shrimp, a lettuce leaf, some rice noodles and a small amount of each of the veggies and herbs. Fold the sides of the wrapper in and roll like a burrito. It may take some practice to create a tight roll without tearing the wrapper. Rolls that are not pretty still taste good (see chubby hand photo as evidence). 

8. Dip in sauce and eat.

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Posted in appetizers, asian, seafood, vegetables, vietnamese | 1 Comment »

Kale Chips

Saturday, December 20th, 2008

Sounds a little strange, I know. But as I looked in my refrigerator and saw the massive pile of greens building up right before my very eyes, I knew something had to be done. The kale would have to be sacrificed as soon as possible. I had been thinking about trying this for a long time, but I thought I would save it for a time when I needed to eat some greens up pretty fast. After being sick for three days and not cooking anything, I thought now was as good a time as any since: A. My green vegetable quota had seriously suffered this week thanks to a diet of all things white and bland; and B. My Greenling delivery will be showing up on Monday instead of Tuesday because of the holidays, which means more food will be here before I know it. And I must say, if you ever have an urge to eat an entire head of kale in one sitting, this is a really good way to do it. You won’t even flinch, I promise

So this, my friends, is some sort of curly purplish kale. It’s exact scientific name seems to have slipped my memory. If it looks vaguely familiar to you, you’ve probably seen it before. It was probably a garnish on a catered tray of food and it probably got thrown away. Believe it or not though, you can eat this stuff and it’s actually pretty good.

So here is what you do. There are lots of recipes floating around for “kale chips” and the general idea is you put a light coating of oil on it. Then maybe you add a sprinkling of apple cider vinegar or soy sauce for flavor and a small pinch of salt (use less salt than you think, and you can probably omit the salt if you use soy sauce). Toss it all together and then lay it out on a single layer on a baking sheet (I had to do this in two batches). Bake it at 375 degrees Fahrenheit for about 15 minutes, flipping it over halfway through. The key is to dry it out as much as possible without letting it turn too brown (it becomes bitter). It will become crispy and crumbly and highly addictive and you might eat all of it before anyone even knows what you’ve done.

These actually reminded me of another highly addictive snack: toasted and salted sheets of nori. I went the apple cider vinegar route when I made these, but I think next time I will use soy sauce and a little bit of sesame oil so that they will taste more like toasted nori.

Now if I could just figure out what to do with all those lemons.

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Posted in appetizers, budget recipes, vegetables, vegetarian | No Comments »

Venison Hot Tamales for Martyrs

Tuesday, December 9th, 2008

So, here it is, as promised, the recipe for my venison tamales. I would recommend that you make the filling the day before, not because it needs to sit overnight or anything, but because making the tamales themselves is more than enough work for one person to do in one day. Another good strategy would be to do this when you have out of town house guests that have nothing better to do than help you. Or even better still, use child labor. This recipe makes quite a few tamales—unless I have a lot of people available to eat them right away, mine go straight into the freezer in a gallon ziplock freezer bag once they’re made.

Venison Hot Tamales          

This recipe has bacon drippings to add moisture to the venison, which is very lean. If you don’t have venison or you can’t find it, beef would work just as well. But, since most ground beef has a higher fat content than venison you may want to reduce the amount of bacon drippings when substituting beef, depending on how lean your beef is.

Makes about 30 tamales. 

For the Filling

2 lbs ground venison 

6 ancho chiles, stems and seeds removed 

3 tbsp pureed chipotle peppers in adobo  (use less for a milder tamale)

4 cloves garlic, minced 

1 teaspoon cumin seeds 

1 teaspoon coriander seeds 

2 tablespoon tomato paste 

1 teaspoon sugar 

3 tablespoons bacon drippings 

salt to taste

For the Tamales

6 cups masa harina

1 pound lard 

1 1/2 teaspoons fine grained salt 

3 teaspoons baking powder 

6 cups chicken broth (warmed slightly)

1 package corn husks, soaked

1. Soak the ancho chiles in boiling water until soft and puree in a food processor with some of the soaking water. 

2. Toast the cumin and coriander seeds in a small skillet and grind in a spice mill or with a mortar and pestle. 

3. In a large dutch oven, brown the venison in bacon drippings. Add both pureed chiles, garlic, sugar, spices and tomato paste. Add 6 cups of water and cook until reduced by half. 

4. Using an immersion blender puree the mixture to make a smoother mixture. Cook until the water is completely evaporated and the meat looks like a paste. Cool. 

5. In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the lard until light and fluffy. 

6. In a separate bowl, whisk together the masa, salt, and baking powder. Add the warm chicken broth and stir to combine the wet ingredients with the dry. 

7. Add the masa to the stand mixer in batches and beat thoroughly on high speed in between additions. Beat the masa until a spoonful dropped into a glass of water floats. 

8. Spread about ⅓ cup of masa across each corn husk and fill with about a tablespoon of meat filling in a vertical line down the center of the masa. Roll the husk to enclose the filling inside the masa and fold and tie the ends with strips of leftover corn husk.

9. To cook the tamales right away, steam them for 30 minutes. To cook frozen tamales steam for 45 minutes.

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Posted in appetizers, budget recipes, game meat, mexican | No Comments »

(Almost) Painless Vegetarian Tamales

Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008

Over the Thanksgiving holiday, I made vegetarian tamales. Now if we were talking about your traditional meat-filled tamales I would say, “if you’re ever feeling like you’ve just had it too easy lately and you really want to punish yourself, keep reading because I’m going to tell you exactly how to do it.” These tamales, however, are not “filled” in the way that typical meat tamales are. Instead, the vegetable filling is stirred into the masa. Thus, they are much faster and easier to put together and you could probably knock out a few dozen of them in a couple of hours.

And I know what you’re probably thinking, who cares if they’re easy. Vegetarian tamales? That’s an oxymoron. Tamales are supposed to be soft, greasy, lard-laden little bundles of joy with a meaty surprise inside. This is true. However, I’ve done some research and it appears that the more heart-healthy variety has quite the following. If you don’t believe me, hang in there. The recipe for the venison tamales that I also made over the Thanksgiving holiday—the ones that took all day long and left me twitching in a useless heap on the couch for the remainder of the evening—is coming.

Vegetarian Tamales with Sweet Corn, Carrots, Hatch Green Chiles and Cheese

These tamales are made with a combination of olive oil and butter instead of the more traditional lard. You could use vegetable shortening and they would still be vegetarian, but vegetable shortening is bad for you and it tastes like nothing, so where’s the fun in that? Make sure to season the veggies well and use a flavorful vegetable stock. Offer these with all the fixin’s: salsa, sour cream, guacamole, shredded lettuce, chopped onions, jalapenos and cheese.

Makes about 30 tamales.

6 cups masa harina

2 teaspoons salt

3 teaspoons baking powder

1 tablespoon chili powder

2 teaspoons ground cumin

1 teaspoon ground coriander

1 teaspoon cayenne

4 cups flavorful, room temperature vegetable stock

3 tablespoons pureed chipotle peppers in adobo

1 cup olive oil

½ cup (1 stick) butter, softened

1 onion, 1/4 inch dice

2 carrots, 1/4 inch dice

1½ cups corn (fresh off the cob is best, but frozen is fine)

6 hatch green chilies, roasted, peeled and diced

8 oz grated cheese (cheddar, monterrey jack, queso quesadilla or a blend of the three)

1 package corn husks, soaked and rinsed

1. Caramelize the onion in a little oil or butter. Add the carrots and cook for several minutes. Add the chilies and the corn and cook until the mixture is fairly dry with no visible moisture. Set aside to cool.

2. In a large bowl whisk together the masa harina, seasonings, salt and baking powder. Stir in the stock, chipotle puree and two cups of water.

3. In the bowl of a stand mixer beat the butter on high speed until fluffy. Add the olive oil and continue to beat until combined. With the mixer on medium speed, slowly add large spoonfuls of the masa mixture. Then increase the speed and beat for several minutes until the mixture becomes light and fluffy. To test the readiness of the dough, drop a small spoonful into a glass of water. If it floats, it’s ready. If it doesn’t, keep beating.

4. With the mixer on low speed stir in the vegetables and the cheese.

5. Fill each husk with 1/3 to 1/2 cup of the masa. Roll the husk to enclose the filling and secure the ends with strips of corn husk if you like.

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Spicy Pine Nut Hummus

Friday, November 28th, 2008

My hummus-making has evolved a lot over the years. The first batch of hummus I ever made (I cleverly called it bean dip so that Shawn might eat it) was a pasty combination of canned chickpeas, tahini, lemon juice, and an assortment of spices I threw in haphazardly with hopes of overpowering that weird tahini flavor. Shortly after that, I developed a flavorful hummus that became my new obsession. It included roasted garlic, a whole jar of roasted red bell peppers, parsley, green olives, canned black olives and only a small amount of tahini. While that was all well and good and it was delicious, it was sort of expensive to make for a dip and it didn’t quite have the creaminess I was looking for. But my new favorite is this: spicy pine nut hummus. It gets some of its creaminess from the addition of pine nuts allowing me to eliminate some of the tahini from the recipe for a more (I think) balanced flavor. I also found a great tip for giving it some spice with a red pepper infused olive oil here. And best of all, Shawn now asks for my hummus and I don’t have to call it bean dip.

Spicy Pine Nut Hummus

1 tablespoon red pepper flakes

1/4 cup olive oil

1 cup dry garbanzo beans, cooked and drained (or 2 cups canned)

1/2 cup toasted pine nuts

1/4 cup tahini paste

1 clove garlic, sliced

1/4 cup boiling water

1 lemon, juiced

Salt to taste

1. In a small skilled warm the olive oil with the red pepper flakes to infuse the oil, being careful not to burn the flakes. Once the oil has begun to take on a rusty hue, remove from heat.

2. In the bowl of a food processor pulse the garbanzo beans, toasted pine nuts, tahini paste and garlic. With the machine running pour the hot water into the feeder tube until the hummus becomes smooth and creamy.

3. Add the lemon juice and salt and combine. Taste and adjust seasonings if necessary. Serve with chips or use it as a sandwich or wrap filling.

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Posted in appetizers, budget recipes, mediterranean, vegetarian | No Comments »