Category: Recipes by Ingredient + Prep

Recipes by Ingredient

Fennel and Beet Salad

Adapted from Mary’s Fish Camp

Ingredients:
1 bulb fennel, sliced thinly
1 bunch red beets, rinsed, pat dry
shaved aged goat cheese
lemon juice
salt, pepper, olive oil

1. Preheat oven 350º. Wrap beets in aluminum foil and roast in the oven for about 1 1/2 hours. Set aside. When cool enough to handle, peel with a paring knife and slice in rounds.
2. Meanwhile, soak fennel in a bowl with lemon juice. This is to keep the fennel’s color.
3. When ready to serve, drain fennel and combine with beets, salt, pepper and olive oil. Using a peeler, shave off some goat cheese on top.

Related post/s:
Visit Mary’s Fish Camp

Spiced Kohlrabi

I keep seeing this weird bulb in Chinatown but no one could tell me what it was. I asked the vendor and all I got was a OneDOLLAH! So I asked my dependable Chinese friend, Shao, and she said her mother calls it choi tao but she wasn’t sure what Americans call them. A visit at Telepan answered my question. Our friend’s chicken dish came with cauliflower and kohlrabi. I’ve never heard of kohlrabi before so when I got home, I Googled it and lo and behold, it was that Sputnik bulb!

The name comes from two German words that mean cabbage and turnip but its flesh is like the stem of a broccoli. You peel off the tough outer layers and cut the flesh in an angle to get slices like that of an apple. Shao’s mom uses two bulbs to include it in a pork and vegetable stir-fry. I found an old zucchini recipe that I thought would work with the tender flesh of a kohlrabi.

Ingredients:
1 kohlrabi, peeled, diced
1 garlic clove, crushed, sliced
1 tsp cumin, grounded
1 tsp fennel seeds, grounded
1 tsp black peppercorns, crushed
1 red chili
1 bay leaf
1 tbsp lemon juice
salt, pepper, olive oil

1. In a large skillet, heat oil over medium heat. Toast bay leaf until fragrant and remove. Sauté garlic. Add kohlrabi and spices. Set aside some of the ground spices for garnishing. Cook until soft, stirring constantly, about 30 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.
2. Serve in ramekins and sprinkle with a little lemon juice and remaining ground spices.

Related post/s:
I found kohlrabi in Chinatown in November
Okay, Google told me what kohlrabi was, but I tasted it as Telepan
Spiced zucchini recipe

Roasted Sea Bass with Fennel Tomato Salsa

I schlepped in the pouring rain to stop by the farmers market and order my turkey for Thanksgiving. After I put my name down for an 11-pound bird, I noticed the Blue Moon Fish tent. There were a few people standing in front waiting to be helped so I squeezed my way in to see what the commotion was all about. They were giving away fish heads and bones for stock. I waited for my turn and got my own but I also ended up buying a $6 whole sea bass. Blue Moon hails from Mattituck, New York and they specialize in wild-caught fish. But I didn’t even stay long enough to ask what kind of sea bass it was. The Dr. said it would be a black sea bass because that’s the type most often caught in the east coast.

I could only think of roasting it so I also bought a couple of fennel bulbs and bunches of herbs before I walked to the subway to go straight to work. I was juggling to hold my umbrella, my purse and the goods in my half-wet tote bag. At dinner time, I opened a bottle of Chardonnay from Lamoreaux and roasted the fish I stuffed with lemon, onions garlic and rosemary. While it was cooking, I made a bowl of salad. The Dr. stopped by after a long day in the hospital. He confirmed it was indeed a black sea bass and also gave me a nod for a wonderful rainy night meal.

Ingredients:
1 whole black sea bass, scaled and cleaned with head and tail intact
1/2 red onion, sliced into thin rings
1/2 lemon, cut into thin rounds
a few sprigs of fresh rosemary
2 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
salt, pepper, olive oil

For the fennel tomato salsa:
1 fennel bulb, chopped
3 medium tomatoes, diced and seeded
1 red bell pepper, julienned
1 yellow bell pepper, julienned
1 red onion, roughly chopped
a handful basil leaves, torn
a handful mint leaves, torn
red wine vinegar
salt, pepper, olive oil

1. Prepare the salsa. In a small heated skillet, let the fennel sweat to soften them. Toss for a couple of minutes and let cool. Combine all of the ingredients in a large bowl and toss to mix well. Let sit at room temperature for 30 minutes before serving.
2. Preheat oven to 400º. Rinse the fish under cold running water to make sure the cavity is clean of any entrails and pat dry with a paper towel. Stuff the cavity with the onion rings, lemon rounds, garlic and some of the rosemary sprigs. Put some in the head as well. Make small slits on the body to insert more garlic.
3. Place the fish on a bed of rosemary branches set in a large roasting pan. Rub the fish with the olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Roast the fish until completely cooked through, about 40 minutes. Transfer the fish to a large platter and serve with the salsa.

Related post/s:
Fresh fish from Blue Moon

Lechon Kawali, Deep-Fried Pork Belly

My brother loves to cook. In fact, together with a friend, he cooks for small private events in Manila. He’d like for his business to be a bigger catering service in the future but I think he likes the fact that he’s paying attention to every detail in smaller portions than, say, a batch for more than a hundred guests. Of course, he has my mother’s full support. She hires him to cater her parties whenever she is in Manila entertaining. Lechon kawali, or deep-fried pork belly, is one of the best Filipino staples. We like our pork and we like it even better deep-fried in hot, hot oil. The last time my brother visited New York, he made this and I swooned (and then I think I got a heart attack because of clogged arteries from all the fat) so I just had to call him to ask for the recipe when I had the craving.

Letting the pork belly air dry after boiling and freezing it before frying are important. After boiling it until it was soft, I left the house at lunch and did not return until 10pm. I put them in the freezer and did not fry them until the next day. So it takes some time but I can guarantee you that all the trouble is worth it.

Ingredients:
pork belly
salt, pepper, oil

1. Sprinkle the pork belly with salt and pepper and let it sit in the fridge for a few hours up to a day then boil in water until soft using a big pot with a heavy lid on low to medium fire. This should take about two hours.
2. Transfer to a colander in a large bowl to drain excess water and let it sit in room temperature to air dry.
3. When the pork belly is dry, cut it in four large chunks. Set them on a plate, separated, and store in freezer until the next day.
4. When ready to cook, heat a lot of oil in a heavy-duty pot, low to medium fire. In the meantime, take the pork belly out of the freezer. You will fry them frozen. There should be enough oil to deep-fry the pork belly chunks. Dip one chunk in the oil using a pair of tongs to test if the oil is hot enough. You’ll just know. Set them gently in the oil and fry until golden brown, uncovered. Serve while hot and crunchy with crushed garlic in soy sauce and vinegar on the side.

Related post/s:
Buy affordable pork belly from Chinatown
Or else get grass-fed pork from the farmers’ market

Yellow Curry Pot

The wind was howling in New York City this week. All I wanted was something warm, thick and filling for dinner. This stems from two yellow curry recipes, one with chicken and one with fish balls because who says you can’t have it all? I visited the newly-renovated Asia Market on Mulberry at the corner of Bayard and found everything I needed. Feel free to toss in any hard vegetable you have in the fridge. Just make sure you cook them first before the softer ones. Cauliflower and zucchini would be fun to add, too; perhaps even baby corn. At home, the curry paste cooking in peanut oil will release one of my favorite smells in the kitchen.

Ingredients:
boneless chicken thighs, cut in small pieces
a pack of fish balls, thawed
a pack of cuttlefish balls, thawed
1 cup of coconut cream
1 cup of vegetable stock
a handful of green beans
4 Thai eggplants, sliced in half moons
1 Japanese eggplant, chopped
1 red bell pepper, roughly chopped
cilantro, roughly chopped

For the yellow curry paste:
2 red chilies
1 tsp black peppercorns
coriander root, peeled and thinly sliced
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp fennel seeds
1 tbsp ground turmeric
1 small knob of ginger, peeled and thinly sliced
3 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 small red onion, chopped
1 lemongrass stalk, white part only, pounded with a pestle
1 tsp of sambal oelek
shrimp paste, to taste
2 tbsps peanut oil

1. In a large wok, heat the peanut oil. Make the curry paste by sautéing all the curry ingredients and cooking them until fragrant, about 3 minutes.
2. Add the chicken, green beans, pepper and the Thai eggplants with the coconut cream and stock. Cover in medium heat until chicken is cooked and the vegetables are tender, about 8 minutes.
3. Add the cilantro and the softer eggplants and cook for a few more minutes. The peanut oil should be separating from the curry paste. Make sure you keep stirring to distribute the heat and add more stock to keep the sauce from drying up. Add shrimp paste to adjust the taste.

Related post/s:
Buy all the ingredients in Chinatown