Recipes by Ingredient + Prep – Page 101 – Writing With My Mouth Full

Shanghainese String Beans with Minced Pork

This is one of my favorite dishes from Joe’s Shanghai in New York City. The string beans always look wilted but they’re still crunchy when you bite into them. I’ve done this dish at home so many times that I think I know the secret to it.

Ingredients:
half a pound of sweet string beans
a large knob of ground pork
5 garlic cloves, minced
1 medium red onion, finely chopped
salt, pepper

1. Boil some water in a sauce pot. Add the string beans and cook for no more than 5 minutes. Drain and shock in an ice bath. Drain again and set aside.
2. In a large skillet with hot oil, sautÃ© garlic and onions until soft. Add ground pork and cook until light brown.
3. Add string beans and toss in the hot oil. Season with salt and pepper.

Squash Runners Wrapped in Prosciutto

For a short time in the fall, squash runners show up in Chinatown. The Filipino way would be to boil them until tender. Then we dip them in white vinegar mixed with bagoong, or shrimp paste, using our hands and eat them with white rice. Squash runners are nutrituously bitter so the sour and salty dip is a good match. I wanted to try something different without using any dip so that I can serve the vegetables to non-Filipinos, so I used some Italian prosciutto as a salty alternative. I served them with sweet pickle juice on the side.

Ingredients:
1 bunch of squash runners, also called squash vines, the thicker part of the stalks removed, thoroughly washed and patted dry with a paper towel
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 small red onion, roughly chopped
prosciutto, thinly-sliced

1. In a skillet with hot oil, sautÃ© garlic until golden brown. Add red onions until transparent. Toss in squash runner and cook until tender and wilted.
2. Remove squash runners to a plate lined with paper towel.
3. Using a separate plate, prepare each slice of prosciutto, fill in with a cooked squash runner and roll to wrap.

Tuna Salad

I bought a jar of Calypso tuna in olive oil during one of my visits to Di Palo in Little Italy. It is more expensive that the tuna-in-a-can that you see in the regular supermarket so I was curious to taste the difference. First of all, the olive oil that Calypso uses tastes good on its own that I used it as the dressing for this salad. It didn’t taste like it’s been in a sealed container for who knows how long. The tuna was in three big chunks and they flaked as soon as I fluffed the meat using a fork. I ended up using the one jar for three servings of this tuna salad.

Ingredients:
1 jar of Calypso tuna in olive oil
half a pound of mixed greens like arugula and mesclun
salt and pepper

1. After washing greens thoroughly, toss with tuna and its olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste.

Related post/s:
Where to buy Calypso tuna

Roasted Beet and Goat Cheese Salad

I splurged and bought a nice bottle of truffled wine vinegar while I was in Montreal. You can still make this salad with red wine vinegar and you can also substitute the arugula with spinach.

Ingredients:
1 bunch of red beets, rinsed well
1 bunch of arugula, thoroughly washed and torn in small pieces
goat cheese, crumbled
truffled wine vinegar
salt, pepper, olive oil

1. Wrap beets in aluminum foil and roast in oven for 1 1/2 hours at 400Âº. When beets are tender, remove from the oven and let cool. When cool enough to handle, peel and slice in thin circles. Put in a bowl with the greens.
2. In a separate bowl, whisk wine vinegar while slowly pouring olive oil to allow them to mix. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Pour over beets and greens and toss with goat cheese.

Related post/s:
Where to buy truffled wine vinegar

Beef Steak Fajitas

I adapted this recipe from an issue of Saveur Magazine. The flank is the underside of a cow’s belly. It’s a bit more chewy than the sirloin right above it, but it has a great beefy flavor for a cheap cut of beef. Marinating it for a couple of hours or even overnight makes it easier to cook later. Keep it medium-rare because flank gets more tough if overdone. Serve with bottles of Corona beer.

Ingredients:
1/2 pound of beef steak
flour tortillas
2 large tomatoes, chopped
1 red bell pepper, julienned
2 large red onions, thinly sliced
3 cloves of garlic, crushed
light soy sauce
lime juice
half a bunch of cilantro, finely chopped
red chili flakes
chipotle sauce
salt, pepper

1. Make the marinade. Mix in soy sauce, garlic, one of the onions and half of the cilantro in a bowl. Add some lime juice and season with salt and pepper to taste. Add the steak and marinate, covered in the fridge, for a couple of hours.
2. When ready to prepare, make salsa. Combine tomatoes, the other onion and the rest of the cilantro in a bowl. Add some lime juice and season with salt, pepper and red chilis to taste.
3. A few minutes before serving, preheat oven to 400Âº. Transfer steak to a pan and broil for about 7 minutes on each side for medium-rare. Remove from the oven and let rest for 10 minutes on a chopping board. Slice into strips along the grain.
4. Wrap tortillas in aluminum foil and heat in the oven for less than 2 minutes.
5. Let your guests assemble their own fajita: fill in tortilla with strips of steak and red bell pepper with some salsa, lime juice and chipotle sauce.