Asian Barbeque Chicken Wings

Chicken wings are a staple in my apartment, due to the fact that they are cheap, fast, and really tasty.  The first thing to know is that they do not have a recipe attached to them.  Absolutely no measuring was involved while making this meal, but that is one of the joys of wing making:  just throw everything together and stick it under your broiler--everyone in your life will be extremely happy you did

Combine chicken wings, minced garlic, grated ginger (not pictured--oops!), brown sugar, tamari, black pepper, red pepper flakes, and a little sesame oil in a large mixing bowl.

 I let mine marinate for several hours because I had the time, but if time is of the essence, move onto the next step.

Place wings on an aluminum lined broiler tray if you have a gas stove like mine or baking sheet if yours is electric.  Set aside the remaining marinade in a small sauce pot for making your wing sauce.  Broil the wings for 8 minutes, then flip over and broil for another 5 until they are nice and charred.

While the chicken wings are cooking, bring your marinade to a boil.  Next, see what the sauce needs.  I added water, tamari, brown sugar, lime zest, and a little cornstarch slurry to thicken it up.

When the wings are finished cooking, place them in a large mixing bowl and toss with some of the sauce.

Serve them with a fancy garnish of chopped scallions and a cold, gluten free beer, and you'll feel like you're in the middle of a sports bar, minus the hell of it all.  Eat up and keep 'em comin'!

Spicy Coconut Curry with Poached Salmon

William and I are notoriously terrible at coming up with ideas for dinner, but lately we have both been craving soup.  If someone just suggests "soup" to me, my first thoughts are of vegetable or chicken soup:  two American classics that I would really rather pass on.  Sure they're fine, and I know a lot of people would think I'm blasphemous for saying that, but when I want soup, like soul-satisfying, curled-up-in-a-blanket, serve-me-a-mixing-bowl-full-of-that soup, I want Asian soup every time.

 Usually I want the Vietnamese classic pho when I have a soup craving, but I don't personally have the patience to roast beef bones in my oven for 5 hours.  Thai curry, on the other hand, can be made in under 30 minutes and with minimal ingredients (yes, I'm basically Rachel Ray), and it is ridiculously satisfying.  Follow the recipe, but then taste away.  Keep out your lime, fish sauce, sugar, and cayenne, and play around with the curry until you love it--and trust me, you will!

Spicy Coconut Curry with Poached Salmon
-1 inch of peeled ginger
-4 cloves of garlic
-3 Thai chilies
-zest and juice of 1 lime
-1 stalk of lemongrass (softer inside part only)
-1 Tbsp canola oil
-2 cans coconut milk
-2 tsp fish sauce
-2 tsp sugar (palm sugar is best; I used turbinado; I've also made it with white--use what you have!)
-1/2 lb salmon, cut into large-ish bite sized pieces for re-heatability purposes
-cilantro and scallions for garnish
-rice for serving

Combine the ginger, garlic, chilies, lime zest and juice, lemongrass, and canola oil in a food processor and blend until a paste is formed.

Add this paste into a sauce pan and cook over medium high heat until very fragrant--this will make your kitchen smell absolutely insane!

Pour in the coconut milk, fish sauce, and sugar, and let everything simmer together for a while.  This is also the time to adjust the seasoning to your liking.

When the curry is all balanced out, reduce the heat to medium low and add the salmon.  Allow this to simmer very gently until the salmon is just cooked through, about 5 minutes.  Serve over rice, topped with chopped cilantro and scallions.  Such a comforting meal!

Tips:
-Don't use low fat coconut milk!  All of the spices and aromatics in this dish need a little fat to cling onto and make their way to your palate.  Plus you will be avoiding several sketchy ingredients like guar gum and carrageenan that are used in the low fat kind.
-Make sure you have extra lime, fish sauce,  sugar, and even a little cayenne on hand when balancing out the curry.  This is a great recipe for getting to know your palate, and as long as you just add a little at a time, you certainly aren't going to mess it up.
-Curry tastes better the next day, so make extra! 

Vietnamese Barbeque Pork Noodle Bowls!

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this lately, but I have the best boyfriend in the world.  I haven’t been doing too well this past week, and William hasn’t left my side.  Running errands, cooking meals, cleaning my apartment, he is the best nurse anyone could ever wish for.  No, we don’t have Valentine’s plans.  We’re actually not too big on presents for birthdays or Christmas and especially not for Valentine’s Day.  Not only are we broke twenty-somethings, but we’d also rather spend our little money on trips to Asheville, Charleston, or Nashville.  Instead, I am requesting his amazing Vietnamese barbeque pork noodles bowls for our Valentine’s dinner.  Yes, he just made this two days ago, but I really can’t get enough of this. 

            First, cut a pork chop or two into long, thin strips, and marinate it in soy sauce, a splash of rice vinegar, a pinch each of star anise and cinnamon, a good bit of cayenne, minced garlic and shallot, ginger, several splashes of fish sauce, and a little white sugar.  It’s good to let this sit for a few hours. 

            SIDE NOTE:  Fish sauce is scary, especially if you’re not used to cooking with it.  It smells Terrible, and our brain naturally associates bad smells with bad tastes, but don’t let the smell deter you!  Fish sauce is a classic flavor in Vietnamese cooking, and they know how to do it right.  So plug your nose and cook away!

            Time to get cooking!  Wrap the pork and a little of its marinade in tin foil and cook in a 250 (this is not a typo!) oven for 1 ½ to 2 hours.  While the pork is cooking, fix your “nuoc chan” or noodle sauce.  Combine fish sauce, white sugar, rice vinegar, and a little water in a small saucepan and let it slightly reduce.

            When the pork is almost done, boil water and pour it over a big bowl of rice noodles.  Let this sit until the noodles are soft.  Then drop them in a bath of ice water to cool them off.  Drain and set aside.  The last step is to brown your cooked pork in a very hot pan with a little oil.  This will just give it a nice crunchy crust.  Mmmmm, maillard reaction!  Toss everything together and top with thin slices of cucumber, carrot, cilantro, basil, and crunchy lettuce. 

            This is SOOO delicious!  I know the whole thing sounds a little odd, but you have to give it a shot.  It really is incredible.  And Happy Valentine’s Day!!!

Snob Diet

I recently heard about the newest fad diet out there right now called the Snob Diet.  I love that this is being marketed as a “hot new diet,” seeing that this has in fact been the way that cultures have been surviving for thousands of years.  The key here is to cut out cheap, unhealthy foods including the ever-terrifying “diet” foods and to substitute whole foods.  Brilliant!

In every article I’ve read about this diet, the main selling point is this:  instead of eating lots and lots of non-fat, no sugar added frozen yogurt, you can actually eat a normal amount of premium (read “high fat”) ice cream and actually lose weight!  Well, of course people are freaking out over this!  However, people seem to get a little more skeptical when they hear what else this diet entails…Cooking. This fact has made dieters deem this diet option completely unreasonable.  Several reviewers take issue with this diet’s “assumptions that everyone has the time/mental energy” to cook their food. 

Trust me, guys, I know firsthand that cooking every meal and snack that you consume can be hard.  It eats up your free time and some days can be really draining.  But here’s the bottom line.  Cooking your food connects you with your food.  Something about putting in the time to chop, stir, and cook gives you an understood appreciation of your food that you can’t get from just buying something premade at the store.  So get in the kitchen and start cooking!  You and your family will appreciate it, and you may just lose a few pounds in the process!

What I’ve been cooking:

Stir-Fry:  Always keep some cooked brown rice in your fridge.  It only takes 10 minutes to throw a quick stir-fry together using whatever else happens to be in your kitchen at the time.  I make my staple stir-fry with carrots, celery, onion, and egg.  Add a little soy sauce, chicken stock, and cayenne, and you’re ready to eat!

Potato Hash:  This is by far William’s favorite dish these days.  Julienne a couple of Yukon golds (we conveniently use a mandolin), toss them with a little oil, and bake at 350 for about an hour, stirring a couple of times.  Top with crumbled bacon, green onions, and a fried egg.  This is a perfect cold weather dish!

The Double

Tonight I’m not starving for dinner, but I do need to make something to eat during my double I have to work tomorrow.  The goal here is to make something very, very filling since it’s really the only meal I’ll be able to eat during my twelve-hour shift.  I’ve decided on brown rice with spicy chicken and asparagus. 

Brown Rice:

·      ½ cup brown rice

·      1 cup water

Bring the rice and water to a rolling boil in an uncovered pot, then cover and turn the heat to its lowest setting.  Allow it to cook like this for an hour.  Don’t peek!  The cooking is dependent on the steam at this point.  After an hour, remove it from the heat and fluff the rice with a fork.  For some reason this is my favorite part—William always gets me to do it, even if he’s the one cooking dinner.

      Chicken and Asparagus

·      1 tsp. canola oil

·      5 asparagus stems, cut into 1 inch pieces

·      ½ chicken breast, cut into 1 inch pieces

·      pinch of salt

·      sprinkle of cayenne pepper

Add the oil and asparagus to a pan and allow them to cook for a couple of minutes over medium high heat.  Then add the chicken, salt, and cayenne and allow the mix to cook until the chicken is just cooked through.

      Spicy Sauce

·      ¼ cup of soy sauce (the gluten free kind!  Preferably the kind that William’s uncle sent me that’s made by Japanese monks.  Only the best!)

·      ¼ cup of rice wine vinegar

·      2 tsp. grated ginger

·      1 large clove of garlic, grated

·      1 Tbsp. honey

·      ½ tsp. cayenne pepper

·      ¼ cup warm water with 1 Tbsp. cornstarch dissolved in it

Combine all of the ingredients except for the cornstarch and water in a small saucepan.  Let them get all hot and happy before adding the cornstarch mixture.  Allow the sauce to thicken slightly.

            Now all you have to do is combine the rice, chicken, and asparagus along with some of the sauce (you’ll definitely have leftovers of the sauce), and you’re ready to work from 10 to 10.  The brown rice is filling, and a new food science study shows that spicy foods curb your cravings for fatty foods, meaning that maybe I’ll be able to resist the delicious homemade potato chips we make at the restaurant.  Maybe.