Recipes by Ingredient + Prep – Page 32 – Writing With My Mouth Full

Beet and Watercress Salad in Juniper Vinaigrette

I know my pantry is well-stocked, but it still surprises me sometimes when I find an ingredient that I’ve forgotten about and it turns out it would work with whatever I’m making. For this salad, from Los Angeles’ Street Restaurant, I needed juniper berries to make the dressing and I was surprised to see a small jar of it from the time I pickled a pig’s head. Really.

I’ve used them ever since for my pickles, but I never thought of them as part of a salad dressing. As soon as I smelled the aroma while crushing them, everything came together. How come I’ve never made a juniper vinaigrette before? I needed an apple and I found half an uneaten apple wrapped in Saran in the fridge. Walnuts? Leftovers, too. If you have raisins around, toss those in, too.

I don’t expect you to roast one beet for this salad, of course. Use your time wisely and roast a bunch of beets so that they’re ready for the week. I simply stored them in the fridge and made the salad two more times. One bunch of watercress served two people. For more dressing, just double up and refrigerate the leftover for up to a week.

Ingredients:
1 large golden beet, washed, dried with paper towel
1 bunch of watercress, thoroughly washed, dried with paper towel
half an apple, chopped
a handful of walnuts, toasted, crushed

For the juniper vinaigrette:
1 tsp juniper berries, crushed using a mortar and pestle
lime juice
oil, salt, pepper

1. Preheat the oven to 350º. Wrap the beet in aluminum foil and place on a roasting pan and roast for about 1 hour or until tender. When cool, peel and cut them into 1-inch chunks.
2. While the beets are roasting, make the vinaigrette: put all the ingredients in a glass jar with a screw top and shake to mix.
3. Assemble the salad by tossing the beets with the watercress and apple in a salad bowl. Drizzle with the vinaigrette and dust with the walnut pieces.

Related post/s:
I really pickled a pig’s head, see?

Pinakbet, Filipino Vegetable Stew with Shrimp Paste

My father’s from Ilocos Sur in the northern part of the Philippines and pinakbet, or pakbet, is one of his specialties. It’s also one of my favorite Ilokano dishes that he makes on a regular basis. Most recently, I watched as he made a pot full of Filipino vegetables at home and wrote down the recipe he’s had in his head ever since I was young.

I love how easy this recipe is to cook. The challenge is to find an Asian grocery store that carries all the vegetables, but you can surely substitute as long as you have the shrimp paste handy. Speaking of shrimp paste, or what we call bagoong, my father has tried every brand available out there, but has only been happy with Kamayan Sauteed Shrimp Paste. Because it’s cooked, it has a darker brown color compared to the usual pink shrimp paste and it’s less fishy and salty. Once you have all your vegetables in one pot, all you need is the shrimp paste and a few minutes to stew it in water.

Ingredients:
1 bittermelon, halved lengthwise, seeded, chopped
2 Japanese eggplants, chopped
1 pint of okra
1 small squash, harder skin removed, chopped
1 bunch Chinese long beans, chopped
1 large tomato, chopped
1 red onion, chopped
1/4 cup of Kamayan sauteed shrimp paste
1 pound shrimp, shelled, heads on

1. Put all vegetables in a large Dutch oven. Top with dollops of shrimp paste. Add 1 cup of water and let simmer, covered. When water is simmering, mix everything together, making sure that the shrimp paste gets distributed.
2. Cook for about 20 minutes or until squash is tender, adding a little bit of water to keep the stew from drying. Add shrimp during the last five minutes of cooking. Add more shrimp paste to adjust taste.

Zucchini Bread

Lisa brought two more zucchinis for me from her garden. This time I ended up making zucchini bread since I had an entire Saturday free. It was pouring outside so as soon as I switched to cooking mode, I couldn’t stop. I ended up staying in the kitchen all day baking.

For fun, I used my financier molds to cook smaller version of the cake and served it with vanilla ice cream after lunch.

Ingredients:
1 large fresh zucchini, grated
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 eggs, beaten
1 cup sugar
2 tsps vanilla
2 tsps baking soda
a pinch of salt
1/2 tsp nutmeg
2 tsps cinnamon
1 stick of butter, melted
a handful of walnuts, crushed with hand

1. Preheat the oven to 300º. In a large bowl, mix together the sugar, eggs and vanilla. Mix in the grated zucchini and then the melted butter. Sprinkle baking soda and salt over the mixture and mix in. Add the flour, a little at a time while mixing with a spatula. Sprinkle in the cinnamon and nutmeg and mix until well-combined. Fold in the walnuts.
2. Divide the batter equally between 2 buttered 5 by 9 inch loaf pans. Bake for 1 hour or until a wooden pick inserted in to the center comes out clean. Check for doneness at 50 minutes. Cool in pans for 10 minutes and then turn out onto wire racks to cool completely.

Asian-Style Duck Soup

The waiter looked at me funny when I asked for the duck carcass at Peking Duck House during dinner last week. I think he was surprised only because I wasn’t one of his regular customers asking for it. I’m sure they use the duck excess to make other dishes, but the way I see it, I should be able to take the carcass home myself if I paid $40 for their Peking duck.

At home, I was able to salvage a lot of meat from the carcass. I spent the rest of the rainy weekend making stock out of the bones. I made a very hearty soup out of the entire thing using rice vermicelli noodles, but feel free to use udon or soba; just cook according to package instructions. I was able to make several servings of soup with this recipe. I added smoked tofu in one, carrot tops and dried mushrooms in the other and homemade meatballs another time. It was the soup that kept on giving.

Ingredients:
For the duck stock:
1 duck carcass from your Peking Duck order, chopped in pieces so they fit in your pot
1 carrot, chopped
1 celery, chopped
2 scallions, chopped
1 onion, chopped
1 cinnamon stick
2 star anise
1 bay leaf
salt

For the duck soup:
rice vermicelli
leftover duck meat
baby bok choy, chopped
1 bunch of scallions, thinly sliced
half a bunch of cilantro, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 small knob of ginger, peeled, grated
fish sauce
light soy sauce
lime juice

1. Make duck stock like you make any stock. Store in plastic containers in the freezer until ready to use. Before eating the duck soup, heat the duck stock in a small pot. Add garlic, cilantro and ginger and let boil to absorb the flavors. Stir in the meat and the baby bok choy for a couple of minutes until the greens wilt.
2. Separately, boil some water to cook the noodles. If using rice vermicelli noodles, you only need to cook them for 15 seconds. Remove from boiling water and add to individual soup bowls before serving.
3. Ladle in flavored duck broth to bowls with noodles. Top with scallions. Drizzle with some soy sauce, fish sauce and lime juice to taste.

Beet and Beet Greens Salad

It’s really not the time to be using the oven but when I saw beets in the supermarket, I all of a sudden had a craving. So off I went home after watching Julie & Julia with three gigantic beets and their greens stuffed but peeking from my tote bag.

Have I told you my Belize beet story? I’ll tell you again anyway. In 2003, the Dr. and I went to the Cayo District in Belize and stayed in Ian Anderson’s Caves Branch where we rented a jungle cabana with the shower pail outside. Buffet meals were included and when it was time to eat, you had to sit with other guests in the mess room and make new friends. The staff was announcing the menu for dinner and everyone was quiet and paying attention. The second beets were mentioned, the Dr. and I–and I’m not exaggerating here–simultaneously squealed, Yay! Beets! out of the blue. I don’t know–it just came out. We had a big laugh about it, but I don’t think we made friends that night.

At home, I readied a bath of water for the greens to easily clean the soil off. I prepared the beets for roasting and turned the A/C on high. I wore disposable gloves when I peeled them just so I don’t stain my hands. I dropped the first batch of dressing and broke a glass jar, so I had to do it again.

The hour-long roasting and the peeling with disposable gloves have always turned me off when cooking beets, but I also come from the school of if-you-work-for-it-it would-taste-better. This salad really did.

Ingredients:
3 large beets, tops chopped off with an inch of the stalk intact
beet tops, harder stalked removed, thoroughly washed, chopped in half to fit a pot
a dollop of mustard
balsamic vinegar
oil
salt

1. Wrap the beets in aluminum foil and roast in the oven for an hour or until done. Check for doneness using fork; it should give but not too easily. Remove from oven and place on a chopping block. Open the foil to let cool.
2. In the meantime, boil some water and prepare an bowl of water with ice cube in the sink. Add the beet greens to the boiling water and cook for about 30 seconds. Remove to the ice bath to stop cooking. Squeeze out excess water and chop in smaller chunks. Loosen to a salad bowl.
3. Make the dressing. In a small glass jar, combine the rest of the ingredients and shake to mix.
4. When beets are cool enough to handle, peel by hand. Chop beets in manageable pieces and toss with the beet tops. Drizzle with dressing.