Polenta Fries

A revelation in the side dish arsenal! Not a potato fan? To lazy to clean up the mess from deep-frying? Sure, they take a little advance planning (you need to make the polenta ahead, and let it chill) but they are deliciously different from the usual burger and barbeque accompaniments. The outside turns delicate brown (or striped, if you're patient enough to use a grill or grill pan), and the insides are creamy and delicate. Plus, unlike french fries, you can make extra and re-heat them without feeling sorry for yourself. If you're not keen on the inherent finger-food qualities of the fry/soldier shape, feel free to leave your polenta servings in large squares and grill them up that way.

Parmesan Polenta Fries

1 cup yellow cornmeal (coarse)
3 cups chicken broth
1 cup water
90 grams freshly grated parmesan cheese
2 tablespoons of sour cream (light is fine)
2 tablespoons finely minced fresh chives
dash of ground white pepper
canola or olive oil spray

Bring water and stock to a boil. Add cornmeal in a steady stream, stirring constantly for ten minutes. (Start with a whisk, then switch to a silicone spatula as it thickens). When you set your whisk aside, it helps to be able to soak it in water right away, for easy clean up later.

After 10 minutes, remove from the heat. Add sour cream and stir until smooth. Add chives and pepper, and stir again. Add the grated parmesan in small handfuls until it is all mixed in, stirring all the while (I use the coarse side of a four-sided grater to grate all that cheese - it's faster and works nicely). Pour immediately into a 9 x 13 pan sprayed lightly with cooking spray, and spread to make an even layer (quickly, before it sets up). Refrigerate until cool and firm (or overnight). Make sure you don't cover it with plastic until it is completely cold, or condensation will wreak havoc on the texture.

Once ready to make the fries, lift the polenta block out of the pan and onto a sheet of waxed paper. Cut the block into thirds, cross-wise, then cut lengthwise into 10 equal slices (so you have a total of 30 fries). Spritz the pieces lightly with cooking spray. In a pre-heated grill pan (or a non-stick skillet), lay the fries down with a little room between each. Grill until they have nice grill marks, then flip to the other side, and repeat until all sides are done.

Lemon Ginger Muffins

Muffins are a very rewarding thing to make. They don't take very long to mix up or to bake, they don't generally have a long list of ingredients, and they deliver a satisfying portable munchable that works for breakfast, lunches, snacks, etc. Best of all, they don't require a sophisticated technique in order to turn out great.

These Lemon Ginger Muffins were developed because I had some milk to use up, and a lemon that was starting to soften. At the very last minute, I remembered that I had some extra Apple Crisp topping in the fridge, so I decided to sprinkle it over the unbaked muffins to make a streusel-type finish.

Lemon Ginger Muffins

Makes 12 regular-sized muffins

1 lemon, zest and juice
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup 2% milk (minus 2 tablespoons)
1/4 cup pure canola oil
1 egg
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 3/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
2 tablespoons light sour cream

Preheat oven to 400 F degrees.

Grease the bottoms only of a 12-cup regular sized muffin tin (or spritz with canola spray).

Mix the milk, sour cream, and lemon juice, and let stand.

Peel the yellow zest from the lemon using a vegetable peeler (long strips). Put the lemon zest pieces into a food processor with the sugar, and pulse until the zest is finely chopped into the sugar. Add the egg, oil, vanilla, and milk, processing after each addition until smooth.

In a separate bowl, stir together flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and ginger. Make a well in the flour mixture and pour the contents of the food processor in all at once. Stir rapidly with a fork until any dry bits are gone. Don't worry about small lumps, though, the batter doesn't need to be smooth. Divide the batter between muffin cups. If you like sprinkle a teaspoon of streusel topping over each muffin before baking.

Bake in preheated oven for about 15-18 minutes. Let stand in pan for five minutes, then run a knife blade around the edges to loosen each muffin so that you can remove them to wire racks for cooling.

Store cooled muffins in a sealable container in the fridge to keep them fresh. You can also wrap them individually in plastic and freeze. Reheating a muffin for 10 seconds in the microwave works beautifully, and makes them taste oven-fresh, or as we say "freshly killed".

This was a definite winner. I'll be making them again.

Hot Sauce! (Hot Orange Pork Skillet Dinner)

Oh, hot sauce. At any given time, my fridge holds anywhere from six to thirty hot sauces. It's really my go-to condiment (closely followed by mustard), and it can be used in oh-so-many different applications, from deep in the cooking process to the finishing flare, to the rescue of deeply questionable take-out.

The four lovely hot sauces that you see above were sent to me recently by the good folks at Cholula, who either stumbled upon my blog post in '06 for our Hot Sauce Tasting Party, which featured Original Cholula as the third sauce in the line-up, or they saw my back-in-the-day essay extolling the virtues of hot sauce. Either way, a quick glance at this blog undoubtedly suggests that I'd be interested in trying the new flavours, and rightly so! I was pleased to accept the offer, since I already like and buy the original Cholula hot sauce.

One of the reasons that I stock Cholula Original in my fridge is that it is a very versatile sauce, adding a little zip (it's not too hot) and has a pleasantly peppery, yet neutrally "Mexican" taste, without significantly changing the flavour profile of whatever you are adding it to. It's very good for a quick quesadilla, or to jazz up some chicken wings (or legs...), or even just on top of cheese-and-crackers, and it sometimes adds just the right note to a simmering pot of chili that wants a little something. It's perfect for making buffalo-wing pizza. But, I already knew all that. That's why I buy it. The other flavours were launched throughout North America last year.

First up: Cholula Chili Lime - a no-brainer for someone like me, who loves citrus almost as much as hot sauce.

Straight up, Cholula Chili Lime tastes just as you would expect it to. The same basic flavour profile as Cholula original (the same pepper blend, in fact, of pequin and arbol chiles, plus guajillo and paprika), punched up with lime flavour which leaves more citrus-y aftertaste. The lime flavour comes from "natural flavor", I assume, as there is no mention of lime in the ingredients. The bad news (and there is some) - the somewhat odd choice to put sugar and dried tomato into the sauce, in combination with the unspecified natural flavor/lime, gives a faintly metallic tone and aftertaste to the sauce. A lot of folks I know aren't affected by that (whatever it is that creates that particular sensitivity), but if you are someone who really dislikes lime-flavoured tortilla chips, this may not be the sauce for you. For me, it just means that I am more likely to use it as an ingredient, where that faint aftertaste can be burned away by other flavours, than as a finishing sauce for something delicate, such as scrambled eggs.

I did crack it open in time to use with a recipe that I am currently developing - Hot Orange Pork Skillet Dinner. The "Hot" in the name is from the two habanero peppers in the recipe, and they nicely blast away any aftertaste. The Cholula Chili Lime was used in the recipe itself, and as a finishing garnish.


Hot Orange Pork Skillet Dinner

Makes 4 servings
Total Prep and Cooking Time: 45 minutes

1 lb pork sirloin steak
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon black pepper
1 tablespoon olive oil
1½ cups diced red onion
1 tablespoon chopped garlic
2 habañero peppers, 1 minced, 1 whole
½ teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon hot sauce of your choice (I used Cholula Chili Lime)
1 cup orange juice
2 tablespoons lime juice
200 grams parboiled rice
2-3 cups diced zucchini*
1 medium red bell pepper, diced
1 cup hot chicken broth
1 teaspoon cornstarch
½ cup cold water

Cut the pork steaks into 4 equal pieces, and sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper on each side. In a 12" skillet, quickly sear the pork, and remove to a separate plate as soon as it is golden. Add the oil to the emptied skillet, and once the oil is hot, add the onions, garlic, cumin, and habañeros, cooking and stirring until the onions are softened and a bit translucent. Add a splash of water (or tequila!) if needed to prevent burning.

Add the zucchini and the bell pepper and stir again. Add the rice to the skillet, and add the hot sauce, orange juice and lime juice. Stir well so the rice grains get thoroughly coated and loosen any stuck-on bits. Add the hot water and chicken base and stir again. Stir the cornstarch into the cup of cold water, until smooth. Add to the skillet and stir carefully (your skillet will be quite full) until thoroughly incorporated and bring to a simmer.

Top with the pork in a single layer over top of the rice, cover tightly, turn the heat to the lowest setting and cook for 25 minutes. Garnish with extra hot sauce, and maybe some cilantro, if you like.

Serve with a sliced avocado, or maybe a jicama salad.

Estimated Nutritional breakdown (via online calculator) per serving: Calories: 445, Fat 10.76g; Saturated Fat 2.98g; Cholesterol 73mg; Sodium 312.57mg; Total Carbohydrate 59.77g; Dietary Fiber 5.14g; Sugars 6.03g; Protein 26.66g; Est. Percent of Calories from: Fat 21%, Carbs 54%, Protein 24% Please note: your mileage may vary.

*If you are wondering what the heck kind of zucchini is in the photo, I actually used a chayote squash, instead. Big mistake. The pieces were too large, the texture too much like apple, and the flavour contribution almost non-existent. Zucchini, my first thought, should have been the way to go. Maybe corn. I'll keep you posted.

Next up: Cholula Chili Garlic. Looking forward to it!

Are you a Cholula fan? Check out their Facebook page for contests and recipes.

Caldo Verde

Here in the Pacific Northwest, we're used to equating Spring with rain. We're not so used to it being so ridiculously cold, however. So, maybe soup is just the thing, to warm us up and tide us over until the nicer weather finally arrives.

Caldo Verde is the quintessential Portuguese soup, and considered by some to be the national dish of Portugal. Potatoes, onions and kale provide a hearty base, and often a touch of pork (in the form of sausage, sliced on the side or diced in the soup pot) to add a little extra something on those days when the soup is the whole of the meal. Add a nice chunk of bread (or, in these parts, a grilled cheese sandwich), and you've got a peasant meal that's fit for a king.

There's a lot of versions and variations, of course, from the fundamental to the fancy-pants. In its simplest form, it's often served as a starter course, both in restaurants and in fancier celebratory meals. It freezes well, although the greens lose their emerald brightness. The flavour is still delicious, though, and you can always add a little more greenery to perk it up again if you like.

Caldo Verde

You can make this creamy-textured, dairy-free soup in advance, right up to just before adding the kale. Simply prepare the kale and hold it in a sealed plastic container in the fridge until you are ready to finish and serve the soup.

Serves: 2 - 4
Total Prep and Cooking time: 60 minutes

1 ½ tablespoons olive oil, divided
1 medium yellow onion, minced
4 cloves garlic, minced
3 large potatoes*, peeled and sliced
100 - 200 grams linguica or chouriço, sliced into half-coins
4 cups cold water
1 teaspoon salt
ground black pepper to taste
100 - 150 grams kale, cleaned, stem removed, sliced into chiffonade
Dry sherry, to garnish

In a medium soup-pot, over medium heat, cook sausage slices until the oil is released, but do not allow to dry out). Remove sausage to a plate and reserve. Drain most of the fat from the pot, and the olive oil (obviously, start here for the vegetarian/vegan version). Over medium heat, cook onion and garlic for 3 to 5 minutes. Stir in potatoes and cook, stirring constantly, 3 minutes more. Pour in water, add the salt, bring to a boil and simmer gently for 20 minutes, until potatoes are very soft.

Mash the potatoes in the pot or puree the potato mixture with an immersion blender. Stir the reserved sausage and the pepper into the soup and return to medium heat. Cover and simmer 5 minutes on a medium-low heat. Taste and add more salt if needed. Stir in the kale and gently simmer 5 to 10 minutes more, just until kale is tender. Serve with bread, garnishing individual bowls with a sprinkle of sherry.

A very popular way of finishing this soup is to drizzle extra virgin olive oil into the soup in its last few minutes of cooking (or with the kale). I haven't tried that myself, yet, but I think the next time I make this soup I definitely will give it a try.

*Yukon gold potatoes work very well, as they puree to a very smooth and creamy consistency with an immersion blender.

Halved-Apple Crisp

What is the absolutely laziest way that you can make apple crisp?

Slice an apple in half and scoop out the core (I use a melon baller), cram dried cherries into the hollow, and press some crumb topping onto the cut surface of the apple. Bake on a sheet (or in a dish, to catch any juice), at 375℉ for about 25 minutes.

Dead easy (and almost terse enough to be a Twitter recipe)!

If you're one of those compulsively organized types, you can always make batches of the crumb topping and freeze them in small containers so that they're ready to go when you are. Me, I just had some leftover bits to use up. My freezer is too small to contemplate stocking such things with any regularity.

For the recipe for the crumb topping (and instructions for a more traditional apple crisp), check out my Apple Crisp post from last November.

Now that Spring is (theoretically) here, I'm loving the greater variety of fruit that has become available, but apples are available year round (at least in these parts), and this is a dish that you can have easily, anytime. For example, as breakfast. You've got your oats and your fruit, both classic breakfast components. Add a cup of coffee, and what more do you need? (Oh. Bacon, you say? Well, sure. Maybe on the weekend...)

International Bento (Japan): Gyoza-Meatball Bento!

What happens when you are making gyoza, and run out of wrappers before you run out of filling? Well, you could run out and buy more wrappers, certainly, or make up another batch by hand if that's the way you roll. However, if you only have a small amount of filling left over, why not just make meatballs?

To make sure they fit nicely into my rather flat bento, I shaped them more like tiny burger patties, and simply fried them up. So, I guess you could either call this "skinless gyoza" or flat meatballs. I "dressed" them with a little dollop of leftover tonkatsu sauce from a previous dinner, which was absolutely the right condiment (although spicy bean paste or miso gravy would have also been good). The filling I was making was pretty much the same as the pork filling, but I sometimes play fast and loose with the quantities of mushrooms and/or cabbage, which is why I ended up with a little extra this time. You can also substitute the ground pork for ground turkey, with tasty results, and one day I do intend to get around to trying a scallop-prawn gyoza.

Since gyoza filling is not cooked in advance of dumpling assembly, it's easy enough to shape any leftover bits into meatballs - you could freeze them uncooked, naturally, but I just cooked them up on the spot, downed one as a snack (just to make sure they were tasty, you understand) and packed up the rest for a lunch.

The rest of the bento is probably fairly self-explanatory: Radish lotus flowers (they look more like lotus flowers or lilies to me than roses, when cut this way), raw snow peas, and Japanese steamed rice with togaraschi shichimi sprinkled on top.

This was a fairly filling bento, between all the rice and four large meatballs, so it wasn't as balanced as it could have been. A little more veggie matter, or some fruit for dessert would have sorted that out nicely but, to be fair, I made this bento out of refrigerator scraps, essentially, so I was pretty pleased with it.

I'd like to get back into making more bentos. We've been eating out in restaurants a lot since the move, what with work schedules, hockey playoffs, and loads of new restaurants suddenly more available to us, so our leftovers haven't always been bento-friendly (or I've been too lazy to make them so). I do enjoy the way bento-making encourages the planning of a balanced lunch more than simply putting leftovers of a main dish into a container without thought or side dishes. It feels like a step in the right direction, and gets more fruit and vegetables into my lunchtime.

Takikomi Gohan

Another rice post - but rather different from risotto!

I've always enjoyed the small bowls of mixed rice, or takikomi gohan that one can get in Japanese restaurants - they provide a wonderful, warm, savory hit of satisfaction. The kind I tend to see around Vancouver are usually made with chicken, with mushroom, or with both, and I went for the combination, since it struck me as a fine idea for a casual supper at home.

I went looking online for suggestions regarding recipes, and there certainly is a number to choose from, each with a different approach to the necessary components. After a lot of searching, I finally came back to the incredibly useful Just Hungry food blog, the sister site of Just Bento. Her recipes are for straight-up mushroom (one traditional, one vegan), but she does mention the addition of diced chicken instead of bean curd, so that's the option I took. I thought I was getting the chicken pieces small enough, but next time I will dice them more finely.

The recipe itself is simplicity, if you are using a rice cooker. Chop your mushrooms (and chicken) and allow to marinate for an hour or so in a small amount of a mixture of roughly equal proportions of soy sauce, mirin, and sake. Add this mixture on top of the rice and water mixture in your rice cooker, then turn it on as usual for plain rice. Gently mix with a paddle when it is cooked, to integrate everything. Garnish as you please.

It is not a particularly elegant dish, as you can see below. It is simple, comforting, and easy fare, and one I intend to repeat again soon. The leftovers, as you can see above, made absolutely charming onigiri for a bento lunch the next day (and froze fairly nicely, too).

You can use whatever mushrooms you like. We used a combination of shiitake, king oyster, and enoki. Next time, I plan to include shimeji (beech mushroom), since I found that HMart carries the more widely cultivated bunashimeji. But really, any mushroom that you enjoy eating will work just fine.

I'm surprised it took me so long to try making this for myself, because it is very rewarding for the small amount of prep involved. Even if you've never had the restaurant version, you might want to give this a try: it is a solid entry in the grand category of soothing rice-with-bits dishes.

Lemon Risotto

I make a very lemony risotto.

Oh. Hello, there. Is it the end of March already? I'd ask where the time has gone, except that I know (all too well): I've been moving. My last few weeks especially have been a haze of restaurant meals, often at odd hours, and foraged food that is less cooked than it is assembled. We're all moved in, now, which is to say that there are boxes everywhere and loads to do, but the kitchen is up and running (thank goodness!) and I hope to be back to more frequent posting now.

But back to the matter at hand. Risotto! Specifically, a deeply yellow, unabashedly lemony risotto that is neither sour nor acidic, but has wonderful lemon flavour that is dialed all the way up to eleven. A little goes a long way, but even a small serving of Lemon Risotto makes a meal feel like a special occasion.

The trick to all this lemony bounty without the pain and suffering is the sneaky third ingredient in the recipe, that is, preserved lemon. Now, I'm sure there are shop-bought preserved lemons that you can buy, and frankly I don't know whether or not they would do the trick here (perhaps they would serve quite nicely), but I can tell you that making your own preserved lemon is both astonishingly easy and very rewarding. For one thing, it keeps for a surprisingly long time (tightly bottled in the fridge), and you only need a little tiny bit of it to get huge flavour. Essentially, preserving the lemon means that you get all of the intense flavour of the zest, without the bitterness of the pith. The lemon simply becomes a wobbly translucent mass - chutney textured if, like me, you wholly quarter your lemons and then slice them, as opposed to leaving them connected at the base in quarters. The clean, sliced lemons are tossed with kosher salt and the spices of your choice (I like to put a bare pinch of turmeric in there, to enhance the colour), packed into a jar and completely covered with freshly squeezed lemon juice. There's a quick version here, which has a very basic, clean flavour profile, but you can also google your way through Nimbu Achar recipes to get something more interestingly flavoured.

This risotto really has a triple lemon threat: the preserved lemon, yes, but also the zest and juice of a fresh lemon. With all that lemon going on, what do you pair it with? In restaurants, it can sometimes be found as a bed for seared scallops or prawns, which is a fine idea. Or, as seen above, it makes a beautiful plate partner with roasted chicken and braised fennel. But, right at the moment, asparagus is in season, and that's my go-to favourite. Anything that could benefit from a lemony kick, really.

The link provides a pretty comprehensive recipe for the risotto, but a couple of extra notes: take your time, when you're making risotto. You don't have to stir it for every single second, while it cooks, but almost! It pays to have all of your prep done ahead, and any other dishes you plan to serve mapped out.

Give a really lemony risotto a try. It's a great way to celebrate Spring.

Pizza Bianca

Oh, how I do love my pizza. We have it at least once a month, sometimes more, and we always make it from scratch. Palle is especially fond of non-tomato sauced pizzas, although he's generally pretty happy with any homemade pizza, including old faithful - pepperoni and mushroom with a classic, oregano-laden sauce. In the interests of keeping our pizza consumption from being monotonous, I like to try new things, from time to time. A recent effort involved miso gravy for the sauce, and shabu-shabu thin cut beef dressed with sesame oil and soy sauce. It went over rather well, and I'll certainly be keeping that in mind the next time I have leftover miso gravy lurking in the fridge.

But this one really wowed me. It's not even a recipe (excepting the crust, which is my usual recipe (expired link removed, please see comments below for recipe) using a three-hour rise and a fraction of the yeast) I was particularly pleased to be able to make it entirely out of things that I already had on hand, repurposing leftover roasted chicken and roasted fennel from the previous night's lemon risotto dinner, and using up the tail end of bocconcini which we had after making Messy Giuseppes (Palle's rather Italianate Sloppy Joes). Even the parsley was leftover from garnishing the risotto!

I chopped up the fennel, which had been roasted in thick wedges. I used the tenderest bits of fennel and scattered them over the crust - no sauce, I simply depended upon the olive oil that had been used to roast the fennel to get the party started. Next, meat from the roasted thighs and legs and back of the roast chicken. I generally pull the meat off the bones after dinner, while it is still warm, and plate it up for easy use later, and so it certainly stood me in good stead here. I chopped up the larger pieces, and tore some with my fingers, to get nice distribution. Finally, I dotted the small amount of bocconcini around the perimeter, sprinkled the whole thing with the already-chopped parsley, and bashed it into the oven until the crust started to turn gold. Once out of the oven, we grated some long strands of parmesan over it, and watched them melt artistically onto the pizza.

This was really a triumph of keeping things simple, too. I resisted the urge to add peppers or mushrooms or anything else, didn't overload on the cheese, and ended up with a very satisfying pizza that was very different from the taco pizza, vegetarian pizzas, or buffalo-wing pizzas that I've shared before.

There's a lot more things I want to try, pizza-wise, but for the record, I have no objection to any particular style of pizza. I like thick crust, thin crust, wood-fired, grilled, red-sauced, mustard-sauced, no-sauce at all. Best of all, I like my pizzas homemade.

Sunshine Orecchiette

For some reason, I always want to mis-spell orecchiette. It's either orrechiette, orecchietti, or worse - orrechiete. All wrong. This dish, however, is very, very right.

It came to me as I was pondering a use for the leftover half-pound (or so) of orecchiette left over from testing a recipe for a book review. While I was originally thinking that it would be a meatless dish, I was reminded that we had a double-smoked farmer's sausage in the freezer that needed using, so I threw that in, too. I was very happy with the combination of chickpeas and sausage and pasta all together, but you could easily make this dish vegetarian (vegan, in fact) by using veggie stock in place of the chicken stock, and simply omitting the sausage.

I wanted something non-tomatoey, and we weren't all that keen on a cream sauce that particular night, so I decided to make a bright, lemony sauce, using the tips and tricks I'd learned in tweaking the Chicken Sahara recipe. With the first few bites, we knew this one was a winner.

Sunshine Orecchiette

Serves: 4
Total Prep & Cooking Time: 30 - 45 minutes

200 grams orecchiette
1 double-smoked farmer's sausage
2 cups canned chick peas
2 cloves garlic, crushed
Zest & juice of a lemon
2 tablespoons unbleached flour
1 teaspoon chicken stock/veggie broth (unheated)
1 teaspoon ground cumin
¼ teaspoon smoked paprika
½ teaspoon turmeric
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
¼ teaspoon kosher salt
4 cups spinach, in chiffonnade

Dice sausage and fry gently in a 12" skillet until lightly browned. Obviously, vegetarians can skip ahead to the next step.

Combine flour, salt & spices in a large measuring cup or small bowl. Whisk the cold stock or broth into the flour mixture, along with the lemon zest and juice and crushed garlic. Do not use heated stock/broth, or you will get lumps; room temperature or cold is best. Whisk until the mixture is smooth with flecks of garlic. Pour the sauce mixture into the skillet, and cook, stirring often over medium heat for 15 minutes. Add the chickpeas and continue to cook on low, covered so the liquid doesn't all evaporate. The sauce will get much yellower as it cooks, don't worry.

Bring a pot of water to a boil and cook orecchiette to desired doneness. Drain (or - better - remove pasta from the pot with a spider tool, and add to the sauce. Stir really well, getting the sunny yellow colour to coat the pasta. If the dish seems too thick or stiff, add a little of the pasta cooking water to thin it out (maybe a quarter of a cup). Allow everything to cook for a few minutes on very low while you slice the spinach into chiffonade. Stir spinach ribbons into the pasta, combining well, and serve immediately (with a little freshly ground black pepper, if you fancy).