Salads – Cooking in Code

Sunday Night Salad: One Day Early

caitkp — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 05:00:00 +0000

There are certain food combinations that never occur to you until you begin cooking with the male of the species. Pasta with a side of potato salad is one of them. However, after a day of biking and a serious potato surplus, and a killer potato salad recipe, it seemed acceptable.

I have never been a big potato salad person. Potatoes, unless they’re really nice fresh potatoes, have always tasted dull and starchy to me, and the idea of dousing them in mayo and topping them with bacon to make them more interesting seemed to just make the whole dish even heavier, hardly the desired effect of a summer salad meant to go with things like burgers and grilled sausages. At any rate, up until recently I was pretty strongly anti-potato salad. Then Jamie showed me the secret, or rather, he showed Dan the secret, and Dan converted me. A word of warning: this recipe, from Jamie Oliver’s new Jamie’s Food Revolution (aka Ministry of Food),

The Secret of Good Potato Salad

Jamie’s Potato Salad (R)evolution, originally uploaded by CaitKP.

Ingredients:
1¾ Pounds Baby Potatoes (or any good quality potato: we used 3 red and 3 white from the produce bin)
6 Tablespoons Extra Virgin Olive Oil
2 Tablespoons Lemon Juice
Sea Salt
Fresh Ground Pepper
Fresh Chives (I throw in dill or fennel tops too)
1 Lemon, zest
¼ Cup Natural Yogurt
Smoked Bacon (I like to use pancetta)

Cook Potatoes: Bring a pan of salted water to a boil. Peel the potatoes, chopping large ones in half (or chop into 1″ cubes if using larger potatoes). Leave the small potatoes whole. When the water is boiling, add the potatoes to the pan and bring back to a boil for about 10 to 15 minutes. While they’re cooking, in a small pan, over medium heat, cook slices of smoked bacon (or pancetta bits) in a splash of extra virgin olive oil, set aside on a paper towel to drain excess oil when done. Test potatoes with a knife to make sure they are cooked through. Drain the potatoes and place them in a medium bowl.

Dress Potatoes: Mix the extra virgin olive oil, lemon juice, sea salt, and fresh black pepper. Stir well. Toss the hot potatoes in the dressing (Jamie says it’s important to do this while the potatoes are still hot, to get the texture of the sauce right). Finely chop fresh chives (and any other herbs you’re using) and sprinkle them over the potatoes. Toss the potato salad with the zest of 1 lemon and ¼ cup natural yogurt. Next, crumble cooked bacon or pancetta on top and serve.

Excuses, Excuses

caitkp — Fri, 21 May 2010 06:12:00 +0000

This is why I haven’t been writing much lately:

My bike of 15+ years finally bit it a couple weeks ago, and what I had hoped to be a *recovery week* after a conference and a visit in T.O. was instead a week spent madly chasing anything with wheels. As luck would have it, this was also the week that the weather finally turned nice–and *everyone* was looking for bikes. After some fairly intense Craigslist-ing, I finally found a bike that suited my needs (the Cannondale), but ever the indecisive Libra, I continued to scour CL for a couple of days afterwards and that’s when I found the Trek. It was listed at $175, and I talked them down to $125, at which point I really couldn’t say no. And then there were two. On the bright side, next time one has to go to the shop, I won’t be stuck waiting for the bus.

But anyways, enough about bikes, on to food. The other reason I haven’t been cooking much (aside from getting stuck at work until all hours) is that Dan is OOK (out of kitchen) this week, and so there’s only been one person to cook for most nights, which makes it hard to resist the leftovers/takeout/grazing option. The produce box came today though (containing leeks and rainbow chard and other exciting stuff) which meant I had to cook, otherwise all the veggies wouldn’t fit in the fridge! We’d been acquiring a surplus of fennel and zucchini from past produce boxes, so I figured I’d use up some of that.

Fennel Barley “Risotto”

Our fennel is insane. I have never seen fennel with so many greens on it (the pile in the pic above came from two (two!) fennel bulbs. Despite putting handfuls of it into salads, I still can’t seem to make a dent in it.

So when I made this, I decided to sub in fennel greens for parsley (I also used cooked the barley in straight chicken stock, rather than diluted chicked stock). The end result was a ok, but a bit dull. It needs an accent flavor of some sort, although I haven’t quite figured out what yet (cheese, maybe? or pancetta…).

Ingredients

1-1/4 cups cups(300 mL) (300 mL) pearl barley
2 tbsp tbsp(25 mL) (25 mL) extra-virgin olive oil
1 small onion, diced
2 shallots, diced
2 small fennel bulbfennel bulbs, diced
2 cloves garliccloves of garlic, minced
1/2 tsp tsp(2 mL) (2 mL) salt
1/4 tsp tsp(1 mL) (1 mL) dried thyme
1/3 cup cup(75 mL) (75 mL) dry white wine
2-1/2 cups cups(625 mL) (625 mL) sodium-reduced chicken stock (I used 1 qt, but no water)
1/4 cup cup(50 mL) (50 mL) chopped fresh parsley (I subbed in fennel greens)

Preparation:
In saucepan, toast barley over medium heat, stirring often, until light golden and fragrant, about 5 minutes. Transfer to bowl.

In same saucepan, heat oil over medium heat; fry onion, fennel, garlic, shallots, salt and thyme until softened, about 6 minutes.

Stir in wine; cook, stirring, until almost no liquid remains, about 2 minutes. Stir in barley; cook, stirring, for 1 minute.

Add stock and 2 cups (500 mL) water; bring to boil. Cover, reduce heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, for about 30 minutes or until barley is tender and no liquid remains. Remove from heat; stir in parsley. Let stand, covered, for 5 minutes.

Serves about 6.

The real winner of the night though was this (another one from the “Recipes for Health series in the NYTimes):

Zucchini Pasta

If you can get past the slightly tedious process of peeling zucchinis into thin strips using a vegetable peeler, this is a really cool (and easy) recipe. Apparently you are supposed to cook it. I missed that step, and simply tossed the zucchini ribbons with the other ingredients, which worked perfectly well and had an air of fresh simplicity about it that seems unique to Italian cuisine. I tweaked the recipe a bit, forgoing the tomato sauce and adding instead fresh mint, basil and a few drops of red wine vinegar (I suspect with a punchier EVOO one could skip the vinegar, but I only had Costco EVOO, so I had to cheat and tart it up a bit).

3 zucchinis (or a combination of yellow and green zucchini)

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper

1 handful fresh basil (roughly torn)

1 handful fresh mint (cut into thin strips)

a few drops of red wine vinegar

1/4 shaved Pecorino cheese (more to taste)

1. Using a vegetable peeler, cut the zucchini into lengthwise ribbons. Peel off several from one side, then turn the zucchini and peel off more. Continue to turn and peel away ribbons until you get to the seeds at the core of the zucchini. Discard the core. You can also do this on a mandolin, adjusted to a very thin slice.

2. Toss zucchini with herbs, salt, pepper, evoo, cheese and vinegar.

Alternate 2: Cook the zucchini strips in two batches. Heat 1 tablespoon of the oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. When it is hot, add the zucchini ribbons and 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt. Cook, tossing and stirring the zucchini, for two to three minutes, until softened and beginning to turn translucent. Adjust salt and add freshly ground pepper to taste, and transfer to a serving dish. Repeat with the remaining olive oil and zucchini. Serve, topping with herbs and freshly grated Parmesan if desired.

Yield: Serves four as a side, 2 as a main dish.

Sunday Night Salad: the one where I come clean about my sources

caitkp — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 04:09:00 +0000

I’m afraid I can’t take any credit for this one recipe-wise. This one came direct from my mother’s recipe files (even the addition of the radish). However, I will say that it makes a darn fine salad for 15 minutes work. I like to make it up right before bed and let it sit in the fridge overnight so the onion flavors soften and the vinegar makes the celery and broccoli a tad less crunchy. Anyways, without further ado:

Broccoli Salad

Serves about 4-6
Source: My mother, chef extraordinaire.

Ingredients:
• 4-5 cups fresh broccoli florets
• 1/2 cup raisins (I used golden raisins)
• 1/2 cup sunflower seeds (I used ones that were toasted, but not salted)
• 1/4 cup cooked, crumbled pancetta (about 6 slices)
• 1/4 cup of red onion, chopped
• 1/2 cup of celery,chopped finely
radishes might be nice (I used one small one, sliced thin)

Dressing:
• 1/2-3/4 cup mayonnaise
• 2 tablespoons cider vinegar (of course, I used 3)
• 2 Tbsp sugar
• salt and pepper

Preparation:

Combine broccoli florets, raisins, sunflower seeds, crumbled pancetta, chopped onion, radish, and celery in a large serving bowl. In a separate bowl or large cup, whisk together mayonnaise, vinegar and sugar. Add dressing to the salad and toss to mix well; chill thoroughly before serving.

Sunday Night Salad: Double Feature

caitkp — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 02:50:00 +0000

As promised, last Sunday’s salad:

Roasted Vegetable Couscous Salad with Harissa-style Dressing

This one is a Delia Smith special, so it’s a little involved (lots of chopping), but believe me, it’s worth it, and is excellent as leftovers, so don’t be timid about quantities (I usually make about a metric ton, and then live on it for a week). Delia’s version involves sweating eggplants and blanching cherry tomatoes–I do no such thing. I just chop, roast and assemble.

Servngs: Delia says “Serves 4 as a main course or 8 as a starter”. I say serves 2 for dinner plus about 6 lunches.

Ingredients

For the roasted vegetables:
1 small aubergine (eggplant)
2 medium courgettes (zucchinis)
1 lb (450 g) cherry tomatoes, ~~skinned~~
1 small red pepper, de-seeded and cut into 1 inch (2.5 cm) squares
1 small bulb fennel, chopped (save the feathery greens at the top and throw them in too)
1 large onion, sliced and cut into 1 inch (2.5 cm) squares
2 fat cloves garlic, crushed
2+ tablespoons fresh basil leaves, torn so that they stay quite visible
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil (you may need more if you use two tins to cook the veggies)
2 oz (50 g) pitted black olives, chopped
1 heaped tablespoon capers, drained
salt and freshly milled black pepper

For the couscous:
10 oz (275 g) medium couscous
18 fl oz (500 ml) vegetable stock or water
4 oz (110 g) firm goats’ cheese (if you can find cheddar made with goat cheese, it works very well, otherwise, any sort of firm-ish goat cheese will do)
salt and freshly milled black pepper

For the salad:
1 x 3 oz (75 g) packet mixed salad leaves (such as lettuce, coriander leaves, flat-leaf parsley, rocket)

For the dressing:
4 fl oz (110 ml) extra virgin olive oil
1 rounded teaspoon cayenne pepper
2 level tablespoons ground cumin
2 heaped tablespoons tomato purée
4 tablespoons lime juice (about 2 limes)

To garnish:
1 level tablespoon black onion seeds (I can never find these, the salad doesn’t suffer too much without them)

Method

Preheat the oven to gas mark 9, 475°F (240°C).

Now arrange the aubergine, courgettes, tomatoes, pepper, fennel and onion in the roasting tin (I usually use 2 cookie sheets), sprinkle with the crushed garlic, basil and olive oil, toss everything around in the oil to get a good coating and season with salt and pepper. Place the tin on the highest shelf (if using two trays, put one in top third, one in bottom third and swap after 15-20 minutes) of the oven for 30-40 minutes or until the vegetables are toasted brown at the edges. When the vegetables are done, remove them from the oven and stir in the chopped olives and the capers then allow the whole lot to cool.

When you’re ready to assemble the salad, first place the couscous in a large, heatproof bowl, then pour the boiling stock or water over it (if you use water, you can boil it in an electric kettle to save time and washing a pot), add some salt and pepper, stir it with a fork, then leave on one side for 5 minutes, by which time it will have absorbed all the liquid and softened.

Meanwhile cut the cheese into sugar cube-sized pieces. Make up the dressing by whisking all the ingredients together in a bowl, then pour into a serving jug.

To serve the salad, place the couscous in a large, wide salad bowl and gently fork in the cubes of cheese along with the roasted vegetables. Next arrange the salad leaves on top and, just before serving, drizzle a little of the dressing over the top followed by a sprinkling of onion seeds and hand the rest of the dressing around separately.

Notes: I recommend only putting in as much salad greens as you plan to eat at that time, as they tend to get slimy if stored with the veggies. Instead, store dressing/salad/couscous and veggies separately, and assemble leftovers as needed.

Orzo Salad

This week’s sunday salad. Not as extravagant as last week, but still tasty

Orzo salad
Makes 4-6 servings

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups orzo (I used tri-color orzo pasta)
Salt
Black pepper, ground
Extra virgin olive oil (evoo), about 3 tbsp.
1/2 lemon, juiced
2 red bell pepper, roasted* and peeled, diced
Olives, black and/or green, chopped (I used both)
1/2 cup Goat and/or feta cheese, crumbled/diced small (I used the left-over goat-cheddar from last week)
1 Ripe tomato, chopped

Cook pasta according to the instructions on the box (be sure to salt the water).
Drain and season with salt, black pepper, and a splash of a good fruity evoo. Add all the other ingredients, and toss.

* to roast the peppers, slice them in half, clean from the seeds, and place skin side up under the broiler. Once their skin is blackened, remove from oven and place in a bowl, cover with a lid and let it sweat and cool. Once cooled, the skin peels easily. I had never roasted them this way, it was dead easy–the *cut them in half* step is pure genius: no more wrestling with lop-sided peppers trying to get them to roast evenly.

Note: The astute chef will note that this is a pasta salad without red wine vinegar (which violates basic culinary principles). I was planning on adding it, but ended up deciding against it at the last minute. The cheese, olives, peppers and lemon gave it enough flavour. The vinegar seemed like overkill, but, to each his own. You could also add capers or a red onion, if you wanted to experiment a bit.

Encore

An awesome green salad complete with radishes, cuc’s, arugula, lettuce, spinach, purple carrots, and a delicious dressing of left over vinagrette from the artichoke. Yum. The taste of summer.

Sunday Salads and Monday Muffins

caitkp — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 03:02:00 +0000

Sunday evenings in our house tend to end up in a mad cooking frenzy–a desperate effort to get the fridge stocked with lunch and leftovers before the chao of the week descends upon us. Lately, I’ve gotten into the habit of making a giant bowl of salad of some sort, which, in addition to making a quick and easily transportable lunch, gets *more* flavorful as the week wears on and the ingredients blend together.

Sunday Salad

This Sunday, the salad of choice was Food and Wine’s Chicken, Mango and Rice Salad, which, as the article says, makes a fairly hearty meal all by itself, especially for lunch. Not to mention the convenience factor: grill the chicken, cook the rice, chop the mango and the avocado, and assemble.

Ingredients

1. 1 1/2 cups rice, preferably short grain
2. 1 1/3 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts (about 4)
3. 1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon cooking oil
4. 1 1/4 teaspoons salt
5. 3/4 teaspoon fresh-ground black pepper
6. 3/4 cup chopped red onion
7. 1 mango, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch dice
8. 1 avocado, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch dice
9. 3 1/2 tablespoons lime juice (from about 2 limes)
10. 3/4 cup chopped cilantro

Directions

1. In a large pot of boiling, salted water, cook the rice until just done, 10 to 15 minutes. Drain. Rinse with cold water. Drain thoroughly.
2. Coat the chicken with the 1 tablespoon oil. Season with 1/4 teaspoon each of the salt and pepper. Heat a grill pan over moderate heat. Cook the breasts until just done, 4 to 5 minutes per side. Alternatively, heat the tablespoon of oil in a large frying pan and season and cook the chicken as directed above. When the chicken is cool enough to handle, cut it into 1/2-inch dice.
3. Toss the rice with the chicken, onion, mango, avocado, the 1/3 cup oil, the remaining 1 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon pepper, the lime juice, and cilantro.

Monday Muffins

I’d been planning on making these muffins for a week, and finally got round to it on Monday evening. Being the citrus junkie that I am (orange marmalade, lemon loaf etc.), I decided they needed more lemon-ness than the recipe called for, and so put in the zest of 2 lemons, and the juice of 1 1/2 lemons. The only difference was that I had to cook them for an extra couple of minutes (possibly because the batter was a bit on the moist side). The original recipe suggests icing them, but I left mine uniced, since they tend to keep better that way.

Ingredients

2/3 Cup Sugar
Grated zest and juice of 1 lemon
2 Cups All-Purpose Flour
2 tsp Baking Powder
1/4 tsp Baking Soda
1/4 tsp Salt
3/4 Cup Sour Cream
2 Large Eggs
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
1 Stick (8 Tbsp) Unsalted Butter, melted and cooled
2 Tbsp Poppy Seeds

For The Icing
1 Cup Confectioners’ Sugar, sifted
2 -3 Tbsp Fresh Lemon Juice

Method

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 400˚F. Butter or spray the 12 molds in a regular-size muffin pan or fit the molds with paper muffin cups. Alternatively, use a silicone muffin pan, which needs neither greasing nor paper cups. Place the muffin pan on a baking sheet.

In a large bowl, rub the sugar and lemon zest together with your fingertips until the sugar is moist and the fragrance of lemon strong. Whisk in the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. In a large glass measuring cup or another bowl, whisk the sour cream, eggs, vanilla, lemon juice and melted butter together until well blended. Pour the liquid ingredients over the dry ingredients and, with the whisk or rubber spatula, gently but quickly stir to blend. Don’t worry about being thorough-a few lumps are better than over mixing the batter. Stir in the poppy seeds. Divide the batter evenly among the muffin cups.

Bake for 18 to 20 minutes, or until the tops are golden and a thin knife inserted into the center of the muffins comes out clean. Transfer the pan to a rack and cool for 5 minutes before carefully removing each muffin from its mold.

Victory over Whole Foods (sort of)

caitkp — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 07:42:00 +0000

There are few premade items in the grocery store that still tempt me. I’m pretty much turned off by the entire frozen section these days, and am getting increasingly less enthused about the baked goods. And ever since hearing horror stories about chickens injected with salt-water solution, marinaded meat seems suspect too. Indeed, these days, the mantra has been: buy the raw ingredients, assemble it yourself.

That said, there is one aisle that still tempts me: the salad bar. Not so much the make-your-own-green salad part, but the variety of pasta, rice, couscous, noodle, vegetable etc. salads that they offer. However, after falling prey to this trick a few times, I have come to 2 conclusions: 1. Pasta salads are not to be trusted (they always look and smell more interesting than they taste) and 2. Everything else, tasty as it may be, is a damned ripoff, and should only be purchased under duress (i.e. when your lunch options consist of this or Subway). You only realize the rip-off part when you go to buy quinoa, and realize that you could eat lunch for a week for the same price it costs you to buy one serving of quinoa salad.

Of all the salads the overpriced salad bar has to offer, I have become most addicted to the Asian noodle salad. And so, after studying the ingredient list which the folks at Ballard Town and Country market kindly display on their salad bar, I decided to try to reconstruct it. The bits and pieces seemed easy enough: noodles, carrots, cashews, garlic, scallions, and soy sauce and sesame oil for the dressing, the challenge would be assembling them. This is what I came up with:

Whole Foods Inspired Asian Noodle Salad

(Based loosely on this recipe.)
For the salad:
– 1.5 lb cooked noodles (I bought a 2lb package of precooked yakisoba noodles and used it all. 2lbs was a little much, and probably buying dried noodles and cooking them yourself is a wiser choice, as they don’t stick together quite so much)

– 3-4 carrots chopped into 1/4 inch pieces
– 2 cloves garlic finely minced
– 1/2 – 1c cashews (unsalted)
– 3 scallions, chopped
– 1 can chopped baby corn, drained (or other asian veggie of choice: bean sprouts, snow peas etc.)
– 2 tbsp vegetable oil

For the dressing:
I used about 1/4 c each of hoisin, soy sauce and sesame oil. But you can tweak the proportions as you see fit (and add more of anything after the fact, if it doesn’t taste quite right)

-Hoisin sauce
-Soy sauce
-Toasted Sesame seed Oil
-lime or lemon juice (about 1 lime/lemon’s worth)
-A little bit of siriachi sauce or crushed red pepper flakes
(rice vinegar would probably be a welcome addition, but I didn’t have any)

Assembly:

0. Cook noodles according to directions and drain.

1. In a large skillet, over med-high heat, heat vegetable oil. When oil is hot, add garlic and stir for about 1 min.

2. Add chopped carrots to skillet and saute until they start to soften, then add coarsely chopped cashews, and saute until golden, and slightly soft (Carrots should be completely soft by this time)

3. Add baby corn, sautee for 1 min.

4. Pour noodles into a large bowl, along with stir-fried veggies and scallions, and toss to combine

5. Assemble dressing ingredients in a small bowl, and pour over noodle mixture. Toss to combine.

6. Taste, and adjust the dressing as needed.

7. For best results, assemble the night before, and let salad sit in fridge (covered) overnight. Serve cold.

And just in case you’re the sort who believes that a salad does not a meal make, here’s something else you can do the night before, to make the meal a bit more substantial:

Asian-style Grilled Pork Tenderloin

Ingredients:

-2 small (about 2/3 lb each) pork tenderloins

Marinade:
-2 small or 1 large clove of garlic, finely chopped
-1″ ginger, peeled and grated (or minced)
-1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
-2 scallions, chopped
-2-3 tbsp hoisin sauce
-1 tbsp brown sugar
-2-3 tbsp chinese cooking wine (or some other suitable liquor–whiskey works)
-2-3 tbsp soy sauce

1. Assemble all marinade ingredients in a small bowl and stir to combine.

2. Rinse the tenderloins in cold water and pat dry

3. Place tenderloins in a large resealable ziplock bag, and pour marinade over top, turn to coat the tenderloins thoroughly. Seal the bag and let rest in fridge for a few hours (or ideally, overnight)

4. preheat a grill to medium high heat, and grill tenderloins, over indirect heat (so turn on one side of the grill and put the loins on the other) for 30 minutes, and direct heat for the last 10 -15 minutes until cooked through, to give the meat a nice outer crust, without burning it.

The great thing about this meal is that you can do almost all of it in advance. Just come home, chuck the meat on the grill, haul the salad out of the fridge, and dinner is served.