Recipes by Ingredient + Prep – Page 70 – Writing With My Mouth Full

Shiso-Wrapped Tempura Prawns

For this recipe, I made my own shiso oil to drizzle the prawns with after flash-frying them, but I also used the leaves to wrap them. A toothpick can hold the leaf in place but I ended up using one of the prawn’s harder feelers as a replacement.

Ingredients:
5 prawns, peeled but with heads intact, deveined, feelers and arms chopped
5 shiso leaves
shiso oil
rice flour
club soda
red pepper flakes
lime
salt, oil

1. Wrap each prawn with a shiso leaf. Use a toothpick to keep the shiso leaf in place.
2. Make batter. In a shallow bowl, combine flour, red pepper flakes and salt. Drizzle club soda slowly and mix until it has that pancake batter consistency. Cover each prawn with batter.
3. In a skillet, heat some oil and flash-fry for about 4 minutes, turning each prawn gently with tongs after two minutes. Remove to a paper towel-lined plate and squeeze with lime juice. Serve immediately.

Homemade Shiso Oil

I’ve never seen Ming Tsai on TV before so when I happened to flip to PBS and saw that his ingredient of the day was shiso leaf, I tuned in. Perilla, or shiso leaf to the Japanese, is a member of the mint family. There’s no mistaking that after you take a bite. It has a nice kick to it that’s why it’s perfect as a palate cleanser after a few pieces of sushi. What I like to do when I’m at a Japanese restaurant is to ask the sushi chef to make me a small shiso leaf maki after my omakase meal. It ends the night with a piece of rice and a bright taste in my mouth.

Ingredients:
about 30 pieces of shiso leaves
grapeseed oil
1 tbsp ginger, peeled, minced
1 tsp sugar
salt and pepper

1. Prepare an ice bath in a small bowl in the sink. Boil some water in a pot with a lot of salt. Blanch shiso leaves in boiling water for 1 minute and immediately remove to the ice bath. Squeeze in a ball and cut in smaller pieces.
2. Put shiso leaves in a blender with the ginger, sugar and a little bit of salt and pepper. Blend while slowly drizzling a little bit of grapeseed oil into the mix. Season to taste. Use for shiso-wrapped tempura prawns or shiso-marinated beef stir-fry.

Pork Chops With Rye-Bread Stuffing

In 1959, The New York Times published a recipe using pork chops. Because pork chops are an inexpensive cut of meat, it was then “dinner on the cheap.” Everything is expensive nowadays but three thick chops are still affordable at $9 from Dom’s in SoHo and a knob of rye-bread from Balthazar only cost me $3. I didn’t have caraway seeds for the stuffing so I grounded some fennel and cumin seeds to substitute. It was also a good time to use the parsley I planted last year because it’s been growing like crazy on my window sill. I didn’t seal the pork pockets with toothpicks after stuffing them but they held together nicely and didn’t fall apart. I boiled some pasta during the last few minutes of cooking, tossed it with the pork chops fat and served it with these delicious chops.

Ingredients:
3 bone-in 1-inch-thick pork chops, sliced to form a pocket
a small knob of rye-bread, thrown in a blender or food processor to crumb
1 medium onion, roughly chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tsp fennel seeds, grounded
1 tsp cumin seeds, grounded
a small bunch of parsley, roughly chopped
1 egg, lightly beaten
3 tbsps butter
3/4 cup chicken broth
salt and pepper

1. Preheat the oven to 350Âº. In the meantime, make stuffing. In an ovenproof pan, melt 2 tablespoons butter over medium heat and sautÃ© onion and garlic until softened, about 5 minutes. Add to a large bowl with the bread crumbs, fennel and cumin, parsley and egg. Season with salt and pepper. Mix with a fork until well combined.
2. Season both sides of the pork chops with salt and pepper. Fill the chops with the stuffing. Arrange in the same ovenproof pan and bake, covered, for 45 minutes, turning them over gently after 25 minutes.
3. Switch the oven to broil, move up the oven rack and brown the chops for 3 minutes per side, uncovered. Transfer to a serving platter and keep warm.
4. Set the pan on the stove over medium heat and add remaining butter and broth. Reduce the pan juices to a thick glaze. Simmer, scraping up the pan drippings, until thick enough. Season to taste. Strain over the pork chops.

Related post/s:
Where to get pork chops and rye bread

Bacon-Wrapped Scallops

I’m not sick of bacon just yet. The third yield from my first shipment of bacon became dinner. This would be awesome with some mashed potatoes on the side.

Ingredients:
6 pieces of large scallops
6 slices of bacon

1. Season scallops with salt, pepper and paprika. Wrap each scallop with a piece of bacon.
2. Using a skillet, sear each bacon-wrapped scallop until bacon is crisp and golden brown. Sear the side where the bacon ends first. Using tongs, gently turn them and cook the other sides. To make sure the bacon stays closed, sear the end again for the last few seconds. Remove to a paper towel-lined plate. Serve on a different plate after 1 minute.

Turkey Bacon Avocado Portobello Sandwich

Talk about a quick lunch with bacon. I was hungry but I didn’t want a limp and sorry-looking sandwich. I wanted something filling, semi-healthy, and of course, robust. (I think robust is a good word to describe this sandwich.) The only shortcut I took here is to buy a few slices of honey-roasted turkey from the grocery deli. Using one loaf of French bread, this recipe fed two hungry people.

Ingredients:
4 slices of honey-roasted turkey breast
4 slices of bacon
1 avocado, halved, pitted, thinly sliced
1 portobello mushroom
1 bunch of arugula, rinsed and patted dry
French bread, halved, toasted

For onion relish:
1 yellow onion, thinly sliced
1/8 cup dark brown sugar
1/4 cup red-wine vinegar
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar

For aïoli:
1 egg yolk
1 garlic clove, minced
1 tsp Dijon mustard
2 tbsp sherry vinegar
oil, salt, pepper

1. Make onion relish. In a saucepan, boil the onions in water until soft. Remove from heat and drain. Return to the pot and add brown sugar, red-wine vinegar and balsamic vinegar. Simmer in low fire until liquid is thick–I had this simmering until I was ready to assemble the sandwich. Stir occasionally.
2. In the meantime, roast portobello mushroom. Preheat oven to 400º. Place mushroom, pleats side up, on a baking sheet. Drizzle some olive oil and balsamic vinegar on mushroom and roast until soft. When cool to the touch, slice and set aside.
3. Cook bacon. Using a skillet, cook about 4 slices of bacon until crisp. Remove to a paper towel-lined plate. Set aside.
4. Make aïoli. In a blender, purée yolk, garlic, mustard and sherry vinegar until smooth and creamy, 2 minutes. Slowly drizzle olive oil into running blender until completely emulsified, about 2 minutes. If aïoli gets too thick, add a small amount of warm water, 1 tsp at a time. Season with salt and pepper and cover and refrigerate until ready to use.
5. Assemble sandwich! Lay toasted bread halves on a chopping board. On one half, spoon the onions and top with the meats and vegetables. Drizzle with aïoli. Top with the other half and hold together using a toothpick.