Blood Orange Salad

Hi all,

Salads, salads and more salads.  I believe I mentioned before that whenever my family has an impromptu dinner, I get asked to bring salad.  This is mostly because my husband and I are quite picky about our salads, and so if we make it, we know we'll like it.

This happened last week, and after asking the spouse what he wanted to eat, he said "do that one with the blood oranges".  Needless to say, I hadn't any clue which one he was talking about, so I set to finding a good arugula and blood orange recipe.  None of the ones I found appealed to me, so I threw all caution to the wind and made up my own recipe.  Here it is:

Arugula & Blood Orange Salad with Mint Vinaigrette

 

Salad Ingredients

spiced almonds (see below)
parsley, without stems and coarsely chopped
arugula
3-4 blood oranges, peeled and pieced
half a fennel, sliced paper-thin (either use a mandolin, or super-sharp knife/shaver)
manchego cheese, shaved (easier to do when quite cold)

Spiced Almonds

1/2 tablespoon olive oil
2 tablespoons pimenton/smoked paprika
1 cup almonds slivered

To spice the almonds, warm up the oil on a frying pan to medium-high.  Once hot, toss the almonds until slightly toasted and completely covered in the oil.  Then sprinkle the pimenton over so the almonds are uniformly covered.  (This may not need all 2 tbsp. of the pimenton)  Let cool before adding to salad.

Mint Vinaigrette

2 tablespoons finely chopped mint
1 tablespoon honey
2 tablespoons sherry vinegar
1/2 teaspoon white pepper
pinch of salt
1/4 cup olive oil

I usually make my dressings by putting them in a tight-seal tupperware and then shaking the hell out of them.  If you're all fancy and gadget-philic, you can use a hand blender to get these ingredients smooth and supermixed.  Either way, the dressing tastes best if you let it sit blended for a little while, to let the flavours marry.

Drizzle the vinaigrette over the assembled salad, and toss with gusto.  You're done!

Spanish-fusion Blueberry Hazelnut Salad

I whipped this salad together for a family get-together.  See, for ages, I hated salad with a fiery passion bordering on mania.  Lettuce and I did NOT get along.  But in my older, wiser years, I have learned to work around this hate by using arugula - a leaf my husband and I both love.  This usually means that we're asked to bring the salad for our family to-dos, as then they know we'll eat it!

This salad in particular was, as usual, inspired by something left over in the fridge: blueberries.  As anyone who is familiar with Spanish or Catalan cuisine is aware, berries don't feature that often.  But I was determined to make it work, so here it is.

 

Spanish-fusion Blueberry Hazelnut Salad

Ingredients

1/2 cup lightly toasted hazelnuts, coarsely chopped

1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika or ground rosemary

1/3 cup sherry vinegar (rice wine or champagne vinegar works too)

1/2 teaspoon saffron threads

1/2 cup olive oil  

1 heaping spoonful of honey

1 heaping spoonful of Dijon mustard, smooth or whole-grain

salt and freshly ground black pepper

arugula, fresh

1 cup fresh blueberries

1 cup fresh red pepper, chopped coarsely

Spanish Manchego cheese, shaved

To toast the hazelnuts:

First, chop the hazelnuts coarsely - in quarters approximately.  Heat up a saute pan to high.  Add the nuts to the pan, and move them around constantly until fragrant and a lovely golden brown.  If you wish, add a drizzle of olive oil and season with ground rosemary or smoked paprika.

To prepare the dressing:

After the nuts are toasted and set aside, turn the heat down to medium high and use the same small saute pan to bring the champagne vinegar and saffron to a boil for 1 minute.  In a jar with a tight fitting lid, combine the olive oil, honey, and mustard. Season with salt and pepper. Add the vinegar and saffron mixture and shake vigorously to mix well.

Assembling the salad:

Assemble just before serving.  Put the arugula in a large salad bowl, drizzle the dressing over the greens and toss gently with your hands to coat the leaves. Top with hazelnuts, blueberries, and cheese (optional, of course). Serve immediately.

Pan-fried Rosemary Croissant Chicken Breasts (or "What I had left in the fridge")

What do you do when you've got half a dozen stale mini-croissants, a couple massive chicken breasts and some left-over fresh rosemary?  This!

Rosemary Croissant Chicken Breasts

2 'ample' chicken breasts
6 stale mini-croissants (or 3 large ones)
5-6 stems of fresh rosemary
1/4-1/2 tsp white pepper
1/8-1/4 tsp salt
3 eggs
juice from 1/2 lime
as much walnut oil as lime juice
cooking oil (I use sunflower seed)

Using a handy-dandy mortar and pestle (though if you're lazy, you can use a food processor), crush and grind up the stale croissants into crumbs.  Chop the rosemary as fine as possible - we're talking FINE.  Combine the crumbs, rosemary, pepper and salt in a shallow dish (I used a small pyrex 6" dish).  Break the eggs into another similar dish, beat lightly (until uniformly yellow), and add the lime juice and walnut oil.  (Careful readers will note that this combination is the same as the dressing I use for my carrot salad - in fact, I just used what was leftover in the fridge!)  Make sure it's mixed well.  Set out a nice big plate by the dishes, and put your frying pan on medium-high with a dash of cooking oil.

Take the breasts and cut them up into decent-sized portions (no bigger than your palm).  If they are very thick, smack 'em.  By that, I mean pound them to about 1/2 inch in thickness.  Some people use plastic wrap or bags and a meat pounder - I use the heel of my hand and just go to town.  Whatever works.  Once portioned, dry them off with paper towel (the breading sticks better when dry).  Dip the chicken first into the egg mixture, then the breading, then put on the plate.  Repeat with all your pieces.  Once the pan's nice and hot, place your chicken in the pan.  Right away, give the pan a shake to make sure the chicken isn't sticking, and then let it stick without bothering it.  About 5-8 min. later (or when the cooked side is a nice golden-brown), flip the chicken pieces over and fry the other side.  Once cooked, remove to another plate (do NOT reuse uncooked chicken plates - bad idea) and let cool.  If you have some pieces that are still quite thick and you're worried about undercooking, just flip them every few minutes to keep from burning and press down with a nice wooden spatula to try and flatten them more.

Serve with salad, or veggies, or even a light pesto pasta salad'd be nice.

(Roger approves of this recipe, and has already informed me that he will be eating all the chicken without any help from me.)

Chicken in a Creamy Orange Sauce

"Chicken and chunks of oranges cooked in a creamy sauce laid on a bed of pearly white grain, tiny green peas and onions…"

Yes, it's another Hunger Games recipe! Here's what I came up with, and it turned out AWESOME.

Orange Sauce

Zest and fruit from two oranges (I used tangerines)
1 can of coconut milk
1 star anise
1 pinch cinnamon
1 pinch saffron
2 small or 1 large clove garlic, crushed
1/2 tbsp sesame oil
2 tbsp sugar (I used palm sugar)
2 large pinches of salt (to taste, really)
Cooked Chicken 
Cooked Rice

Peel the oranges carefully to remove the zest.  Use a sharp knife and avoid as much pith (the white waxy substance) as possible.  Separate and clean the segments of orange, then put aside to add later. (If you don't peel them all in one go, the outside membrane of the segments will get hard and difficult to peel!)  Bring the coconut milk to a low simmer in a saucepan - make sure it doesn't boil over, as it can cause one heck of a mess.  Add the zest, the star anise, cinnamon, saffron, garlic, sesame oil and sugar.  Allow to simmer gently until the sauce thickens and turns a lovely yellow colour - approx. 15-20 min.  Add salt to taste, and possibly more sugar if needed.  When satisfied, strain the chunks of spices out.  Slice the orange segments in chunks (usually in half is fine) and add to sauce. Let it sit on low for a few minutes (enough to warm up and soften the fruit).

Serve over cooked chicken (I used leftover breast from a roast I'd done) and rice.

Baked Fusilli with Sausage & Portobello Mushrooms (Parental Advisory: Coarse Recipe Language Used)

I was productive today.

For lunch, I made the Hunger Games Lamb & Dried Plum Stew, which turned out pretty well. So of course, at 10pm, I felt like second course. Or should I say... coarse. Read on.

Coarsely Baked Pasta Goodness:

3 tbsp. butter (or more... I'm bad with butter)
6 Portobello Mushrooms, chopped coarsely into cubes about 1cm (Sobeys had a sale - plus they're local!)
3-4 shallots, chopped or sliced coarsely
6 dinner sausages (I used Bratwurst. That's Italian, right?)
coarsely ground black pepper
"italian seasoning"
1 big clove garlic, chopped or sliced coarsely
2 cups fusilli (or other fun-to-bake pasta, like bowties or penne)
handful of fresh basil, chopped (you guessed it) coarsely
Fresh tomatoes, sliced (I used about 8 smaller Campari ones)
olive oil

Oven to 400F

Start by choppin' up your portobellos in a very coarse manner. Like, see how UNcubelike you can make them. (See, whenever I'm doing a baked dinner dish, I feel the need to chop things coarsely. If I'm frying, I like to grate or slice finely. Don't know why.) Season with coarse language. Chop up your shallots too. Coarsely. Put a bigass frying pan on the stove and melt a tbsp of the butter. Once that's up to about medium-high heat, throw the onions in. Let 'em get a little see-through (man, this recipe just gets more inappropriate...) and then let the mushrooms join them.

Important here - don't throw all the mushrooms in at one go. Six portobellos is a LOT of mushroom, and they do shrink and sweat, but they cook much better if you do 'em in batches so they're not crowding each other.

Get a bigass bowl to mix all your non-pasta ingredients in. Once all the mushrooms are done, throw them in the bowl and let them wait for the sausages to join the taste orgy. And don't throw away the juices - you want that liquid.

Putting water on to boil for your pasta at this point is a good plan, but keep in mind that the pasta does NOT need to be cooked the whole way, because you're baking it. Al dente at the farthest point. So don't start the pasta until about halfway through the sausages.

Speaking of them, skin the sausages. Easiest to just make a single line with a very sharp knife, then undress them like you're um, peeling a banana. Throw them in the medium-high hot bigass pan and break them up with a spatula until they're like ground meat - bite-sized for your dining convenience. Throw in the coarsely chopped garlic to keep them company. I added a little black pepper and "italian seasoning" (so mysterious) to them too. Keep tossing them around until they're good and brown, and the garlic's soft, then remove from pan to join the mushrooms and onions.

Once your mix is all together, throw the basil in and toss it all up. Let that sit and explore its inner gustatory beauty while you drain your pasta and ready some casserole dishes. First layer, pasta. Second layer, sausage mix. Third layer, use the slices of the tomatoes to create a fancyshmancy top to your pasta, then drizzle the whole damn thing with some tasty olive oil.

Throw in the oven and check after 15 min. Or, conversely, you can decide to broil it like I did and forget it's in there, and have an overly-caramelized top to your pasta. So trust me when I say, USE CAUTION with broiling. It does NOT take very long.

Pictures to come... maybe.

The Hunger Games' - Lamb & Prune Stew

One of the best book series I've read lately is Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games trilogy. Not only is it my usual genre (Young Adult Fantasy/Fiction), but it combines a fast-packed action plot with scads of Roman History references.  And being a Classics major, I couldn't help but devour it voraciously.

Speaking of devouring voraciously, one of the meals alluded to in the book is a Lamb Stew with Dried Plums and Honey.  Now, I won't lie - I had to google extensively to find out that dried prunes ARE in fact dried plums.  All prunes are plums; not all plums are prunes.  But after doing that, I cobbled together a few recipes of Moroccan Tagines and Kormas and Mediterranean stews to get MY version of Katniss' favourite Capitol dish.  Here's how she describes it:

"The stew's made with tender chunks of lamb and dried plums today.  Perfect on the bed of wild rice."

Not too much to go on, but enough to inspire a creative response.  Here's my version:



Katniss' Lamb Stew with Dried Prunes

2 tbsp. butter
1 1/2 lb. (approx .650kg) of stewing lamb (I used fresh Ontario lamb - yay local!) cut into bite-sized pieces
2 medium sized cooking onions, chopped
1 tsp. cinnamon
2 tsp. garam masala
1 pinch saffron (because I'm posh that way.  And I have an in in Spain.)
1 1/2 to 2 cups stock, chicken or beef (I used homemade beef marrowbone stock)
1 big handful dried prunes/plums, cut into chunks (I say about half an inch squared, at most)
1 tbsp honey
salt to taste

Served on:
1 cup wild rice
1 cup brown basmati
2 cloves garlic

Set your oven at 350F.  Then melt a tbsp. of the butter in a bigass saucepan.  Get it up to medium-high/high heat to brown the lamb.  Once lamb is browned, remove and pop into crockery - a tagine, a stoneware crock, something that'll go in the oven to slow-cook and not melt or burn you.   When the pan's empty and medium-high hot again, throw the onions in.  Toss them until translucent, then throw your spices in to get all fragrant - cinnamon, garam masala, saffron.  Throw in the other tbsp. of butter if the pan's low on liquid.  Once the onions start to golden and the scents are definitely flavouring the air, throw that mix in the crockery with your lamb.

Your pan is now probably covered with tasty brown goodness stuck to the bottom of the pan.  To not waste this flavour, I throw some stock in here and dissolve it all up.  Throw that stock and whatever else is needed to cover your lamb and onions in the crockery.  Put the top on and pop it in the oven for 1 1/2 hours (90 min.).  The trick to 'tender lamb' is cooking it a LONG time and making sure it's covered in liquid while it cooks; so once the time's up, check the liquid level, pop in the prunes and stick it in the oven AGAIN for another 3/4 of an hour (45 min.).  You can put the rice on at this point too, as it doesn't take more than 45 min.  I just cook it in the rice cooker, with the garlic clove peeled, but whole and squashed.

I like adding the salt and honey at the end, because getting that sweet/salty balance is tricky.  But make sure you let it cool quite a bit before sampling - believe me when I say OW.  Mouth burns when stew is right out of oven.  If it's too liquidy, you can reduce it simply by taking the cover off and boiling it down on the element.

Serve over the cooked rice mix, and enjoy!


(Picture is on its way; the stew's currently in the oven)

Breakfast Paella Recreation Attempt

There's this fantastic café in Vancouver called the Medina Cafe.  It has waffles with toppings that make you weep with happiness (orange & fig marmalade, milk chocolate & lavender, etc.) and coffee that's as good as anything found in Europe.  My husband and I ate most mornings there on the Vancouver leg of our honeymoon.

One of his choices was a breakfast paella that used curried orzo instead of saffron rice, and included tomato, avocado and a fried egg.  Not your average paella.  After having a couple weekdays off this past week, it made me realize how rare it is to eat breakfast out.  To me, it's more of an indulgence than a fancy dinner.  Maybe it's just because I usually feel so sluggish in the mornings that my usual breakfast is a peanut butter & jam sandwich, or a naan bread toasted with cinnamon sugar on it (eaten on the go, the both of them) or something I pick up at work and eat at my desk.

Anyhow.  This morning I set out to recreate the breakfast paella.  Here's how it turned out:

I boiled up the orzo, shook a bit of curry powder and a small touch of garam masala on it, then stirred it up.  Added avocado, tomato and some roasted red peppers (from a jar), then some crispy bacon and corn.  I'm not a huge fan of corn, but I tossed it in the frying pan after the bacon (after draining most of the fat out) and it toasted nicely with a lovely flavour.  Bacon is a miracleworker. 

Now, I only ate half of this, or I would have burst, but it turned out very nicely indeed.  The bacon was actually a substitute for the chorizo sausage that is near impossible to find here, and there was no fried egg on top, but it was a very good and very filling reproduction to start the day with.