Russian "Winter" Salad

Winter Salad
Made this for book club tonight, since we were discussing The Master and Margarita. A Russian said it tasted really authentic.

For once, I'm going to be really specific about the directions, so watch out.

Winter Salad

4 potatoes for boiling (Yukon Gold works)
3 hard-boiled eggs
2 medium-large carrots
2 spring onions
a handful of fresh parsley
4 small gherkins
peas, canned in sugar, salt, and water
a few slices of ham
a few dollops of mayo and/or sour cream
most of a medium Granny smith green apple

• Scrub but do not peel the potatoes. Do not cut them up.
• Peel carrots but do not cut up.
• Boil potatoes and carrots in the same pot.
• When potatoes let a fork pierce them without much resistance, remove from pot, drain, and set aside to cool.
• Meanwhile, dice the gherkins into tiny pieces, like relish size.
• And chop the green onions into small chunks.
• And boil the ham if you need it. The ham shouldn't be like lunchmeat, it should be more substantial than that. Cut it into thinnish rectangles.
• Dice the eggs.
• Chop the parsley.
  
• When the potatoes and carrots are cool, peel the potatoes and cut them into bite-sized pieces.
  
• Chop up the carrots bigger than the gherkins.

Okay, now here's a tip: you eventually will be mixing all this together. But the more you mix it, the mushier everything gets. So I worked in layers, adding potato, egg, gherkin, carrot, onion, parsley, ham, peas (drained), and mayo.

THEN, dice up a slice of the apple. Dice really finely, as finely as you can. Add that to your layer and then mix gently. I used a spatula, wriggled it under everything, and turned everything over five times.

Repeat until everything is in there. Refrigerate for many hours to get all the flavors to mix. Serve cold as a side.

--BONUS RECIPE--

I didn't make this, but Erik brought it, and it was great. It may have made me like beets.

Borscht

First, sauté:

• onions
• garlic
• potatoes
• red cabbage
• celery

Then add that to:

• beef broth
• canned diced tomatoes
• canned beets

Stew for a long time.

Lentils And Everything You Got Soup

Sick. Paper, translation project, and exam yet to finish. Sentences... beyond my ability. But, recipe:

Lentils and Everything You Got Soup

lentils

stock (turkey)

onion

everything you got (can of tomatoes/okra/corn; can of mushroom pieces; bowl of cooked but left-sitting-for-2-weeks red kidney beans; leftover carrot--no, wait, it's rubbery; leftover fresh spinach; remainder of frozen chopped spinach)

seasoning (chili seasoning, parsley, curry powder)

Cook lentils til soft, drain.

Fry onions in butter. Add mushrooms halfway through. Stir-fry over high heat.

Thaw out homemade turkey stock (only 2 months old, not bad). Add a little lentil juice for good measure.

Combine lentils, onion, mushroom, and basically everything you got (except the spinach) into a big pot, and add the thawed stock. If the stock doesn't cover it all easily, add water and/or more stock, as long as the liquid doesn't get too watered down.

Bring to almost-boil, then reduce heat to simmer.

It's ready to eat whenever the flavor penetrates the red beans. Then add spinach and simmer for a few minutes more.

CAREFUL with that curry powder. Not even a teaspoonful.

Also, take the time to skim off the scum off the top. Don't say I didn't tell you.

Result: awesome.

Mexi-chuan Shrimp & Scallions

This weekend H-Mart was having a deal on scallions: 5 bunches for $0.98. Giant was having a sale on frozen shrimp: $8.98 for 2lbs (medium size shrimp). I searched in my Google Reader for recipes for these ingredients and found these two by Mark Bittman:

Sichuan Shrimp and Scallion Stir-fry

Chili-Fried Shrimp With Scallions

Both were excellent, but I liked the first one better for the unusually-green-oniony flavor. I had some shrimp left over and the scallions were due to go bad (I had purchased 6 bunches!), so I wanted to make the Sichuan one again. But I had 3/4 of an avocado to use up, plus I wanted more spiciness.

I added chili oil (the kind that you get on the side when you ask for it in Chinese restaurants) to the peanut oil before adding the shrimp. This made for a recurring kick throughout the meal that I enjoyed.

I started to add just a slice of the avocado, but then realized that my other avocado was going soft already. I decided to throw all 3/4 of it into the blender, plus a little lemon juice. I blended and BOOM, guacamole color instead of the vibrant verdancy of green onion. I tasted it and found I'd created a Mexican dish out of a Sichuan one.

It turned out really well. I had it on top of rice, but I'm wishing I had some tortillas to finish off the remainder.

Mexi-chuan Shrimp & Scallions

• Salt
• 3 bunches scallions, trimmed
• 1 clove garlic, peeled
• avocado (maybe half? play with amount)
• dribble of lemon juice
  
• 1 pounds shrimp, peeled
• 2 tablespoons peanut oil
• one teaspoon of chili oil
  
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro leaves

First, if using frozen shrimp, take them out of the freezer and into a colander, and put them under cold running water (not too fast a stream). Shake them around every few minutes to distribute the flow of the water. They should be thawed in 15 min.

Boil water. Cut 2 bunches of scallions into 4-inch pieces. When water comes to a boil, dump these into the water and let cook for only a minute (just getting them bright green). Then drain, saving liquid for smoother pureeing. Then plunge scallions into icewater. Then drain again, not reserving the liquid. Put scallions, garlic, avocado, lemon juice, and a little of the scallion liquid into blender and puree.

"Roughly" chop the remaining scallions and cilantro. Peel shrimp if necessary.

Heat oil on high, adding a spoonful of the chili oil (with lots of the chili flakes). When chili flakes begin to sizzle, add shrimp and spread out on bottom of pan. Pinch some salt on top of them. Do not stir (for some reason) until sides look a little pink (a minute or less). Then stir to your heart's content. When everything looks pink, add the "roughly" chopped cilantro and scallions. Stir-fry for a minute. Then add avocado-scallion puree. Season to heart's content. Cook until everything's warm. Serve on rice or in a tortilla.

Spinach and Feta Pasta

This came out well, but I think I added too much feta. I think a little feta can go a long way. Maybe too many tomato bits, too. Just enough spinach, though.

Plagiarism CYA: I looked up a number of recipes. Most of them were the same. I mainly followed this one: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Sukis-Spinach-and-Feta-Pasta/Detail.aspx

Spinach and Feta Pasta

• whole wheat and flax penne pasta (Trader Joes, about 1/2 a package)
• diced tomatoes (from a Trader Joes can)
• a couple of handfuls of fresh spinach, washed
  
• red onion, chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• olive oil
• feta, about 6 oz
• seasonings (salt, pepper, red pepper, parmesan)
  

Salt the water and boil, cooking pasta. This variety takes a little longer than normal spaghetti. Cook until almost done. Drain and leave.

Glug some olive oil into a wok. Get it hot, but turn down the heat to med-high. When the oil shimmers, add the onion and the garlic.

When the onion and garlic turn brown or at least soft, add the tomatoes and the spinach. Turn up the heat just a smidgeon. Stir-fry and wilt that spinach down to a fourth of what you thought you put in. (Which is to say, don't wilt it too much.)

Add pasta and crumble the feta. Stir around a bit. Season. Done.

Black Bean Hummus

My roommate had a book club meeting at our house tonight. (Book was Year of Wonders.)

In the kitchen, I saw her chop up a heaping bowl of celery, dump out a heaping bowl of baby carrots, and pour a heaping bowl of bagel chips, all to go with one shallow-size container of plain hummus. I mentioned that there wasn't much dip for all the dippers, and she said, "Do you want to run out to the store to buy some?" (Tensions were running high, since this was just prior to everyone's arrival.)

I said, "No, but I can make some black bean hummus."

Black Bean Hummus

• one can of black beans
• some lemon juice
• one clove of garlic
• a little tahini
• a little cumin
• a little cayenne pepper
• a little kosher salt
• a little ground black pepper

I don't own a food processor, only a blender, so I did it in two parts to be sure I didn't get stuck.

Fork out half the beans into the blender, and pour in half the liquid in the can.

Crush and mince a clove of garlic (crush means flatten it by pressing down on the flat of your big knife). Add half the mince garlic to the blender.

Mix up your tahini (mine had separated, but that's okay) and drizzle at most a teaspoon, but err on the side of too little.

Grind up some pepper into the blender, and sprinkle a little cayenne pepper as well. Add more cumin than both of the peppers together. Then sprinkle just a little salt.

Stir.

Blend.

Repeat with the rest of the ingredients.


I'll let you know later how the book group liked it.

Best Gyoza Ever

I made the best batch of gyoza ever last night. Maybe it was the freshness of the pork, or maybe it was the (too much, I thought after I poured it,) sesame oil, but they were awesome.

Gyoza

• potsticker wrappers (circular, sold frozen or refrigerated, but not the same as wonton wrappers)
• chopped-up cabbage, boiled
• green onion
• a bit of ginger, minced
• a clove of garlic, minced
• ground pork
• soy sauce
• sesame oil
• rice vinegar

Chop up your cabbage into little bits and boil it.

While it's boiling, chop up the green onions (mainly the green part is important, not the white part), the ginger, and the garlic.

Once the cabbage has boiled for a minute or two, remove from heat, drain, and rinse with cold water to cool down. Then drain again (I used our new salad spinner).

Add cabbage to bowl with ginger, green onion, and garlic, and then add the meat. There should ultimately be a nice balance of meat and cabbage, with just a little more meat than green stuff.

Add the soy sauce (a glug), sesame oil (less than soy sauce), and rice vinegar (about the same as the oil). Then mix with your hands.

Take as many wrappers as you think you're going to make from the package, and reseal the rest and put them in the fridge.

Set up your filling area with a bowl of water, a plate for the gyoza, a plate with the wrappers, a spoon, and your filling bowl.

Spoon a bit of filling into the center of the wrapper. A heaping teaspoon is all I can usually fit.

Wet your finger with the water and run it along the inner circumference of the wrapper.

Press the wrapper into a bulging semicircle. You should aim to crimp the edge together to form a better seal, like this person has done:

When all the filling is done, it's time to heat up your skillet. The goal is to brown the bottoms and then steam the inside.

Heat the skillet (I used cast iron) on about medium-high. Put sesame oil and maybe a little canola or other vegetable oil in there (not olive oil--it'll smoke).

When hot, add the gyoza in a couple of rows, touching each other. If they fry together, so much the better.

In a few minutes, the bottoms should be nice and brown. When this happens, you can flip them over or not, up to you.

When they are brown on one side, it's time to steam. I hope you have a lid that can cover either the whole skillet or just the gyoza inside it. I used a smaller-than-the-skillet lid that I just rested on the skillet's bottom, around the gyoza.

Pour just enough water onto the hot pan to get things nice and spattery and steamy. Clamp the lid down to make a nice seal. Turn the heat down to low.

After a few minutes, take off the lid and feel a gyoza. The filling inside should be firm and hot.

Remove from the pan. Serve with a dipping sauce of 65% rice vinegar, 30% soy sauce, and 5% hot oil.

Aak the Eater?

I'm glad Hatandcoat saw fit to update us about his whereabouts. More frequent updates would be appreciated, or else the hating will continue.

I don't hate, though. I only seethe.

I ate no meat today, although I'm cooking a Japanese curry meal for tomorrow that has one chicken breast in it.

This was a very productive, good-food day. I woke up early, started making oats, and while I waited for oatmeal I cut up lettuce, radicchio, carrots, sun-dried tomatoes, a couple pepperoncini, and a quarter of a green bell pepper for a salad for lunch. I topped the salad with half an avocado (salted) and a hard-boiled egg (made last night).

I made the dressing next: olive oil, red wine vinegar, Spanish rosemary, a little Spanish thyme, salt, and pepper. Interesting results, but the key was to use not very much on my salad. It ended up going very nicely together. I used the dregs of my dressing to jazz up my morning hard-boiled egg. Interesting results, again.

Today's Meals

Breakfast: steel-cut oats w/milk and honey, and a hard-boiled egg with the above dressing.

Lunch: salad and dressing as described above, white rice and half a Punjab Eggplant curry packet from Trader Joe's.

Dinner: rice and the rest of the Punjab Eggplant, a whole grapefruit, and 4-5 tbs of plain yogurt.

UNNECESSARY SNACK: one piece of black Aussie licorice, offered me by my roommate.

Today's Exercise

Biked both SS-UMD and UMD-SS by way of the roads (a route that is steep and strenuous at some points, moreso than the trail)

Grapefruit and Avocado Salad

(Where the F is Mr. Hatandcoat? His last post here was 1/27. That's almost two weeks ago. I'm close to saying this is a defunct blog. I might just take it over as my own food blog.)

I saw a grapefruit and avocado salad recipe somewhere in my million-strong Google Reader feeds. Then I saw grapefruit (really nice-looking and -smelling grapefruit) on sale for 50 cents each at Giant. I decided to give this salad a go.

Grapefruit and Avocado Salad (beta)

• 1/2 grapefruit, no white bitter stuff
• 1/2 avocado, diced in kinda big chunks
• three leaves of red lettuce
• one knife's shredding of radicchio
  
• handful of walnuts
  
• olive oil
• honey
• red wine vinegar
• lemon juice
• kosher salt
• pepper

I put the leafy stuff in the bottom of my bowl, then put the grapefruit and avocado on top with a few walnut crumbles just for the heck of it.

The rest of the ingredients were for the dressing. It was about 40% olive oil, 30% honey, 15% lemon juice and 15% red wine vinegar, with a small sprinkling of kosher salt and pepper. When I tasted the mixture, it was like BAM vinegar BOOM honey BAP salt ZING pepper. After a few minutes, the flavors settled into sweet citrus with a tang.

Know Problems and Bugs (with the beta version):

1. The dressing was not quite what I wanted here. Too sweet.
   
2. The avocado was practically nonexistent. I couldn't taste it at all with all the flavors competing around it.

Planned Fixes

1. Try a saltier dressing to contrast with the grapefruit's juicy citrus and to bring out the avocado. I'm thinking something with a soy sauce base.
   
2. Try putting less of the dressing on it. My leaves were swimming by the end of it.
   

Miso Oatmeal

I've been on a cheap cooking kick lately. I finally got around to hard-boiling eggs for the week on Sunday; I've had an egg or two every day. I've also been eating steel-cut oats every morning. But even in the reduced-time way to cook them, they still take 25 minutes to make, and that's a lot of my morning. So, Monday night, I made about three servings of oatmeal. I wanted to see how long I could stretch it. I had the second serving today and, after microwaving in water, I thought they tasted just as good as fresh.

Instead of just going with sugary oatmeal, I have been trying to make miso oatmeal. It's not incredible, but, if I get sick of maple syrup in my oats, I can always break it up with miso flavoring.

Miso Oatmeal

steel-cut oats
dashi (Japanese seafood-based powder stock)
miso (red or white)

1. Add oats to a pot, then cover with 2 times as much water as oats.
2. Sprinkle dashi into water and stir. (this is instead of the normal pinch o' salt) The key is not to make it really overwhelming, just a hint of flavor is good.
   
3. Begin simmering. I don't cover it since it usually boils over if I do.
4. Every five minutes, stir.
   
5. After 25 minutes, take off heat and cover.
   
6. Separately, warm up some water (just a couple ladlefuls).
7. When the water is steaming, mix in a spoonful of miso.
8. Add miso mixture to oatmeal. Enjoy.
   

Almost-100th Post

Well, now, here's a funny thing. This blog named Hatandcoat, so diffidently updated by its creator, has gone past Districted and has arrived at its 100th post.

Almost.

The Blogger Dashboard reports that Hatandcoat had had 99 posts before this one, but Blogger includes an unfinished, unpublished draft. The draft is, of course, by Hatandcoat. It is titled "What Blogging Feels Like." There is no text other than that.

So I don't feel bad posting this Almost-Hundredth Post. I'll wait for Hatandcoat to look back nostalgically upon the 100 postings, once he deletes "What Blogging Feels Like" and sets down to really write something.

Hatandcoat has a case of writer's block, he says. The lurid details of BJJ dojos may never reach you via this half-alive blog. Things are so desperate, I think I'll suggest a web service that is designed to keep blogs alive. Go to http://www.plinky.com/, Hatandcoat, and seek help.*

As for me, I think I'll write about my food adventures today. (I know my audience.)

For breakfast, I made steel-cut oats the Bittman way. I'd always been suspicious of the 45 minutes steel-cut oats allegedly took, and the Bitten post I linked to above told me my instincts had been correct. After 25 minutes, I cut up a banana for some natural sweetness and put it in the steaming-hot oatmeal. It wasn't quite what I was hoping for, but a dash of maple syrup fixes most things in the morning.

Then I helped move my roommate's boyfriend into a new rental house. It wasn't far away, and it didn't take long. But instead of the normal pizza thank-you meal, I had a pot roast my roommate's mom had brought over for the occasion. (A HUGE roast. I have not seen that much meat since Christmas.) It was nice, although one of the helpers was a vegetarian.

Around 8:30 pm I started making veggie lasagna. Here is the recipe. While slicing the carrots on the mandolin slicer, I gouged my finger above the knuckle on the back, all the way down to the fatty tissue (is that bad?). Other than that, the lasagna-making went smoothly. (As of this edit, it has been 4 hours and it is still bleeding. Is that bad?)

We set up two mousetraps, one really expensive humane one from a hardware store, and one made out of a half-flattened toilet paper tube. I'll let you know which one works, if any. We put bread on the expensive one and peanut butter and cheese on the end of the tube (tying this section in to food).

And finally, near midnight, I hardboiled six eggs by covering them in cold water, salting the water, getting it to boil, and then removing the pan from heat as soon as the boil starts. After 15 minutes, I drained the hot water and poured cold water over the eggs. Unfortunately, I hadn't added any vinegar, so three of the six eggs cracked. I'm hoping the cracked ones will last at least until Tuesday.

*Also, if any readers out there have suggestions for Mr. Hatandcoat as to what he should write, please let him know in the comments.

Celebratory French Toast

As I drove my rental car back from College Park, finally free of my most-hated class of all time (ANTH 260), I realized I had a car. And I thought, wouldn't it be lovely to go over to Hinata and have some celebratory chirasi-zushi? Yes, yes it would, I thought, and I began plotting my course.

And then I thought, but wait! I have no money. And the $15.00 bowl of rice with fish overtop is the best deal out there, but 15 bucks is still 15 bucks. So I decided to go home and make myself french toast instead.

Celebratory French Toast

• 3 eggs
• some milk (enough to make it a good mix of egg and milk, not just milky eggs or eggy milk)
• bourbon vanilla extract (a glug or two)
• cinnamon (a heavy dusting)
• sugar (a pinch)
  
• bread (I had wheat)

Beat eggs. Add milk. Glug vanilla. Dust cinnamon. Pinch sugar. Drown bread, one slice at a time. Fry. Enjoy celebratorily, with syrup or whatever.