Shrimp and Black Beans

Shrimp and Black Beans:

Shrimp on a budget. With rice and a salad this dish feeds four people nicely for about $2-$2.50 a serving depending on how much of a cheap skate you are. Since I'm currently wallowing in the flooded basement of the socio-economic strata, I tend to go CHEAP. In this case it meant cutting back on the shrimp, but still preserving enough shrimp to call it a shrimp dish.
I used cleaned, cooked and frozen 50 count shrimp which go on sale here for $12/ 2 lb bag. I used 16 shrimp, but the dish would profit from using twice as many and a larger grade (30 count shrimp or more). If you show up here for dinner, I'll do just that, but for "just me", 16 50-count shrimp are just fine.

Materials and Methods:
~ 16 shrimp, cleaned and peeled as noted.
~ 1 medium to large onion, peeled, cut in half and sliced 1/8th inch thick.
~ approx 1/8 a head of cabbage shredded to 1/8 inch slices
~ 1 one pound, 3 oz can of Progresso Black Beans with bacon. It was on sale. Normally I use the Goya black beans, but for a $1 a can I couldn't pass these up.
~ 2 heaping tablespoons of thinly sliced fresh ginger
~ 1/8 cup of dried cranberries
~ Two cups of cooked rice
~~not pictured~~:
~ two half shots of olive oil
~ minced garlic, about a tablespoon ...less if you aren't a garlic fan
~ 1/2 teaspoon of thyme
~ black pepper to taste
~ 1/2 shot of lime juice
~ 1/2 shot of teriyaki

1. Defrost and detail the shrimp, place in a bowl
2. to the shrimp add black pepper to taste, a drizzle of olive oil, a 1/16 teaspoon of minced garlic, the teriyaki and the lime juice ... agitate with some frequency and let the mix sit for 15 minutes or more.
3. In a frying pan or small wok, add the remainder of the minced garlic and one 1/2 shot of olive oil.
4. Heat until the garlic begins to "sweat"...i.e. turn slightly brown.
5. Drain the shrimp as best you can, reserving the fluid marinade.
6. High heat, add the shrimp. This should take about 3 minutes total. Move the shrimp around occasionally. The goal is to get a little bit of a brown char on them while not cooking them down to little rubbery bits. If you started with raw shrimp, you want them to look "opaque". Larger shrimp will take about one to two minutes more in toto. About two minutes into the cooking, remove the accumulated shrimp juice and add it to the reserved marinade. Cook another minute or so ...it should look like this:

7. Put the shrimp back into the marinade plus juice. This should halt the cooking process sufficiently so as to not overcook the shrimp.
8. In the same pan, add the second 1/2 shot of olive oil.
9. Add the shredded cabbage, thyme, and sliced raw fresh ginger.
10. Cook on high heat with frequent stirring until the cabbage is limp enough to bend easily and is getting a little translucent (about 5 minutes).
11. Add the onions and cranberries.
12, Continue cooking on high heat with frequent stirring until the onions turn translucent (another three to 5 minutes).
13. add the can of black beans, liquid and all.
14. Lower the heat to around medium and continue cooking with stirring... about 3- 5 minutes or more.
15. drain the marinade plus shrimp juice into the bean/onion/cabbage mix.
16. with continued slow stirring and medium heat, this should thicken up on it's own, but feel free to add a little roux or cornstarch to speed things up.
17. add the shrimp.
18. serve over steam cooked or fried rice.

Showing off Pressure Cooker

One of the best things I brought back from Brazil was a 3-litre pressure cooker my mum got me. It's the perfect size for two people and yet, should the need arise, it can hold enough food for six.

On my birthday I thought about having take away tapas but when we came back from the cinema I changed my mind and decided that what would really warm me up was a good, honest, old-fashioned pot roast. We stopped at the supermarket and bought a few carrots, 400grms of bourgignon meat (which is just plain stew meat) a couple onions, and 2 medium potatoes each.

I seasoned the meat with some cider vinegar and a mix of garlic/onion/salt/parsley (which can be dehydrated)/black pepper and rubbed it in the meat. I left it to rest while I chopped the onion, peeled the carrots, halved the potatoes, and opened the wine.

Browned the meat in very hot vegetable oil (not olive oil here though), added 2 whole bay leaves, and covered the meat with boiling water* and a little more. Left it on medium heat for 20mins, turned the gas off, let the pressure cooker release the pressure by itself- the meat carries on cooking; added the carrots, but not the potatoes. These were boiled separately, as they tend to turn to mush when added to pressure cookers, making the sauce too thick. If you want that, go for it, it's just as good!

Once the carrots were in, I left it for another 5mins counting from when the valve started to turn again.

Without the pressure cooker

Pretty much the same thing, except you'll need to cook the meat for at least an hour and a half in order to get the same texture (that is, melting in mouth). I know US meat is softer, so maybe you won't need that long. The important thing is that the water is hot and that there is enough salt, otherwise it tastes really unpleasant.

Serve it piping hot over the potatoes or simply with some crusty bread. A full-bodied red wine is best with this dish, in my opinion.

*The water must be hot otherwise the meat hardens.

Simple Apéritif

I like to make this apéritif in the middle of the week -- made it last night -- because it always makes it seem like the weekend, for some reason. It's cheap, quick, easy and very tasty, so I think it's the perfect kind of "recipe".

Four or five large fresh button mushrooms per person; a pot of Boursin or a similar cheese spread with herbs/garlic.

Peel the mushrooms, remove their stalk, fill them with Boursin. Put it in a hot oven (390 F) for 20mins - that's it!

I tried it with beer (a kind of strong-ish "abbey" beer) and red wine and much to my surprise, it's better with beer.

For Jaded, From Paris, Via São Paulo, with Love -- or, Sauces Part 1

This is almost a non-recipe, but it really does make a simple dish seem more sophisticated.

It is a kind of tradition for us to have fish on New Year's eve in my family (as well as the unwanted lentils for prosperity...) and last/this year, we had a roast salmon with this sauce. It's perhaps the easiest dish I've ever seen being made (that's right, I'd just gotten my nails done) and this might be the reason why it's so popular on New Year's eve, especially when there are over 50 guests and it is a "bring-a-dish" type of party. There are no photos of it because it was gone before I could find my camera...

For the salmon:

• 200grms (a little under half a lb) of salmon per person;
• Seasoning: freshly squeezed juice of half a lime, garlic, onion(s), salt&pepper, a drizzle of olive oil, fresh flat-leaf parsley.

For the sauce:

• a little jar of capers (100grms, about 3oz)
• juice of 1/2 lime or more if you like it tart like I do (growl) but my source tells me 1/2 should do it;
• olive oil (the amount depends on how much sauce you want to end up with; so for 4 ppl, about 50-100grams of capers, so about 2 shot glasses (obi's wonderful measurement!) of olive oil;
• optional: a teaspoon of butter.

Prep:

Mince together (preferably with a mortar&pestle or in a mixer/Cuisinart/blender-type thing) the garlic, onion, and lime juice. Rub the lot on the fish about 15-20 mins before putting it in oven. Salt&pepper to taste, but I think less is more here with the pepper. The parsley gets chopped and added, fresh, to the dish when it's ready to be served.

If you get the capers in brine, drain them well, then put them in a dry frying pan on low heat until they've dried a little. Add the olive oil, let it heat up a bit, then mix in the lime juice. Leave to cool.

Put salmon in oven (gas: 180°C - 360°F) about 20 mins per kilo (so 10-15 mins per lb), skin side down, aluminium foil on. When it's roasted for the amount of time indicated, remove aluminium foil, leave it for another 5-10mins max.

Those hoity-toity fan ovens are stronger so...probably half the time should do it, but don't trust me too much on this one, I've burned many a dish at the mum-in-law's due to the poshness of her stove/oven.

This dish is more fun/impressive if there are a lot of people and you get a whole or a half a salmon; it looks better when it's served whole/semi-whole. The sauce should be served, cold, on the side; if everyone likes it, add the whole thing over the salmon in the serving dish. As a side dish, something green and light, slightly bland. Maybe a broccoli purée or some plain green beans.

Sauteed Green Beans and Mortgage Backed Equity Salami:

This is a signature offering here at the Central Bank of Belongaobi. In the warmer months I grow my own green bean varietals and prepare this or some variation about three times a week. Winter months, the beans are from the store, of questionable quality, and outrageously priced from $3.75 to $4.00/ pound. Even so, the complete dish pictured below costs about $1.50 per person to make.

Materials and methods:











Three pieces of salami cut into 1/4 in strips
1/4 teaspoon of fresh thyme
1/4 lb green beans, cleaned and parboiled about
5 minutes or nuked 3.33 minutes on high
2 small or one medium onion cut into 1/8 in thick slices
2 medium mushrooms sliced about 1/4 in thick
1 tablespoon of thinly slivered fresh ginger
1/4 teaspoon of minced garlic
1/2 a shot of olive oil
1 teaspoon of lemon juice
1 teaspoon of terriyaki sauce
pepper and salt to taste

1. add the olive oil and garlic to a wok with high heat
2. add the parboiled green beans, thyme, and slivered
ginger
3. cook rapidly on high heat with periodic turning. I like
my beans slightly charred so I let them sit a bit
between stirrings. Should take about 3-4 minutes.
4. add the lemon juice
5. temporarily remove the bean mix from the wok
6. add the onions, and black pepper. Sautee on high heat
until they turn brownish.
7. add the beans back and the mushrooms. Sautee an
additional 1-2 minutes and add the terriyaki with
stirring.
The end product should look like this:












Served here with herbed rice, two sliced hard boiled eggs with red roasted pepper garnish, and my ubiquitous triangles of flame grilled tortilla.

The Big Easy (and I'm not talking about me)

I had a friend take me out to dinner last night for my birthday (yes, it's the celebration that never ends) and we decided to go to a relatively new restaurant in downtown Norfolk called "The Big Easy." I had heard good reviews that it was authentic New Orleans cuisine and they had killer beignets. As we pulled up at the front of the restaurant, we were surprised to find that there was an ambulance there with lights flashing. Not to be dissuaded, I got out of the car while my friend valet parked, walked around the ambulance and into the restaurant. As I was standing waiting for the hostess to seat, a guy who I assume was the manager came up and said "it's probably not a good advertisement that a restaurant has an ambulance in front of it." to which I replied "well, it didn't seem to stop me, did it?" Come to find out that the adjoining condominium that was attached to the restaurant had an elderly person who was suffering chest pains.

Anyway, on to the food. We had a fried oyster appetizer that was served over what looked like Napa cabbage with lemon caper remoulade. Very tasty. My friend ordered the traditional jambalaya and I decided to get the bacon wrapped trout with fried green tomatoes. While the trout was delicious, the bacon ended up being stuck to the skin and so I didn't eat the bacon or the skin. Final course was peach cobbler with vanilla bean ice cream and a decaf coffee. All in all, a nice night. And oh yeah, as far as I know, the guy didn't die while I was stuffing my face.

Cake Balls: Sweet Confection or Snack Food of the Lord of Darkness

Recently I read an article that the latest rage in Texas and some other state that supported George Bush, was for a dessert called "cake balls." Naturally, I was drawn to the article mainly because I figure if you have the, well, balls to call something by that name, it better be freakin' tasty. Although not much of a baker, I have set a goal to make these orbs and report back on their plusses and minuses on the blog. May God have mercy on my batter.

Banana Test Three

...following Freeek's gingerbread crumbs and discovering that Jane used them all on a pie... ; (.

Brazilian Birthday Booze

It always surprises me how efficient citrus fruit are at cheering me up when it's cold and gray and -- shock, horror - I'm getting older.

This is The Brazilian Drink par excellence, and although everyone seems to have their own way to make it, there are a few rules that need to be followed, because limes behave slightly different from lemons in my experience, and because...well, I like rules.

My mother likes to make Caipirinha with lemons sometimes (pink lemons which we can find in Brazil -- so it doesn't really help us Dimwits much, but I digress...), but being the purist I am, I always make it with limes; to me, few flavours marry as well as these 4 ingredients which are:

1 lime per person (pp), with very thin, smooth skin

1 1/2 tbsp sugar pp

2-3 ice cubes pp

1 small-ish shot of Cachaça/Pinga (I use Pirassununga 51 brand but you can use any white, industrialized brand; stay away from the "aged" stuff, those are supposed to be had neat-YIKES)

Preparation:

• Remove skin from lime, every other "strip" (i.e. leave some on), cut into 4 wedges, remove that white "strip" from the middle, and put into cocktail shaker;
• Add the sugar to cocktail shaker and start to crush the bits of lime with the sugar (preferably with a wooden pestle or something similar; before I got that one you can see in the photo, I used a wooden spoon) until you get a thick-ish liquid;
• Add the ice, the cachaça, mix well, leave it for 2 minutes so the flavours can blend;
• Serve in a cold glass with the bits of lime and lots of ice.
• Enjoy it while taking a quiz on world politics.

Saùde!

PS: the same cocktail with vodka instead of cachaça is called Caipiroska; with rum - Caipirìssima.

Today's Cheese Fix

Quenby Stilton on whole wheat crackers, with fresh Bosc, D'anjou, and Yali pears.

1 large wedge Stilton
6 Assorted Pears of the same size(D'anjou, Yali, Bosc)
Whole wheat crackers

This particular English Stilton is not as pungent unlike some other Stiltons where the flavor seems to endlessly taint your taste buds. It has a nice creamy crumble, just the perfect amount of blue veins, and a subtle kick. It paired better with the heavier sweet tartness of the D'anjou pear rather than the sweet thicker textured Bosc, or crisp grainy lightness of the Yali.

Presentation
My round cheese board was visually sliced into pie thirds for presentation.


Cut one wedge out of both the Yali and D'anjou pears, and carefully slice two wedges exactly opposite each other out of the D'angou pear. Fit the three pears together like a zig zag jigsaw puzzle to create a fitted grouping of the three pears. Place the Pear grouping at top of board.

Slice and de seed the remaining pears into wedges, then recreate new pear halves by placing together wedges of alternating colors of pear, matching the created pear color order to that of the jigsaw grouping. My color grouping was red/green/yellow ( Bosc, D'anjou,Yali) so my new pear halves had repeating red/green/yellow stripes to pick up the design continuity of the large standing fitted pear grouping.

Angle the Cheese wedge pointing in to prevent errant cheese crumbles escaping the cheese board, be sure to leave ample room for slicing and your cheese knife or Stilton scoop.

I used whole wheat Triscuits and layered them in overlapping tiles set on the diagonal 2 deep, around the lower edge of the cheese board to give a braided zig zag appearance.

Obi's Post: Sovereign Greek Default Potatoes and Eggs

Posting this for him as he hasn't been able to sign in yet.

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Like Ejade, economics has forced a radical change in my culinary habits. I now cook in a style I refer to as "Economic Downturn Cuisine"... it's basically survival cooking to keep myself alive on my $200/ month food budget without sacrificing too much in the way of gustatory ebullience.

Materials and Methods*:

* all measures are approximate. I usually don't bother and add "by eye or momentary whim". I also don't cook with any added salt; so if you're a hypertensive addict, add salt to taste.

4 averaged sized New Red Potatoes

1 small to medium yellow onion

1/2 a red roasted pepper

3 slices of salami

3 eggs

1 oz (about a heaping tablespoon) of a can of diced chili

peppers

minced garlic, black pepper, and either oregano or thyme

to taste

Olive oil - about 1/2 a shot glass' worth.

1. slice the taters up: cut them in half and then into 1/4 inch thick pieces. Parboil about 10 minutes and drain well, or nuke on high for about 5-6 minutes.

2. Peel and slice the onion into 1/4 thick rings.

3. Cut the salami in 1/2 wide strips. Do them separately or they tend to stick together in the pan.

4. add the oil to a frying pan. I use a 10 in cast iron wok.

High heat ...add the minced garlic, the potatoes, and the other herbs. Cook with frequent agitation until the tater edges start turning a little brown. Three to 5 minutes usually suffices depending on what kind of pan you're using and how skilled you are at cooking over a roaring maximum blast furnace flame.

5. add the onions, cover and agitate frequently - you're going for turning the onions slightly translucent without turning the potatoes into cinders. About 5 minutes usually works.

6. add the salami strips, diced chilli's, and roasted red pepper. Cook covered and with frequent agitation until the salami is "sweating"...i.e. the salami fats are liquefying and joining with everything else. Usually takes 3 to 5 minutes on a low or medium flame.

7. Break three eggs on top of the cooking potato pile, break the yolks once, cover and turn off the heat; allowing the heat of the potatoes to cook the eggs. I'm not sure exactly how this works, but eggs done this way tend to be sweeter tasting than faster cooking methods.

Takes about 5 minutes... check the eggs periodically. You're looking for opaque whites and a little bit of a jiggle.

8. Briefly turn the flame on again and toss/fold the eggs lightly into the potatoes, etc. This should take about 30-45 seconds.

9. Serve.

This is a very strongly flavoured dish with a surprisingly high satiety value. And yeah, it looks like an accident, but it tastes pretty good. It feeds two normal appetited humans or four metro sexuals pretty easily. Good with a salad on the side, or as a side dish to sausage, pork, chicken, hummus, or grilled green beans.

Sprinkling with a little grated parmesan also punches it up a bit.

A nice variant is leaving out the roasted red peppers and replacing them with about 6 thickly sliced mushrooms. Swapping out the thyme/oregano for tarragon also works well with the mushroom variation.

In the photo I've served it with halved fresh grape tomatoes and a tortilla that's been flame toasted on an open burner and then cut into 6ths. Tortillas are significantly cheaper than pita... ;).

Well, since we're cheating....

I decided to include a few photos of what we made for Christmas dinner -- namely roasted duck with fig sauce (Joel), new potatoes with pancetta and dill (me!) and julienned yellow squash and zucchini (divine inspiration).

Sauces & Cheaters

Ok, this might be considered cheating but I decided to copy&paste an entry from my other blog here, only because it's about food and I think that most of the time sauces are forgotten, underrated, underappreciated.

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Ah! Belgium.

What a wonderful country. It manages to have big cities that feel provincial while providing all the things one can't find in a provincial town.

The first (and quite possibly the most important) of which is Beer.

They take their beer very seriously in Belgium, far more seriously than in Germany, I think; they think of it as the French think about wine or as the British think about...well, their sauces.

Ambrose Bierce, that incredibly witty American (yes, they do exist) contended that the sauce is

"The one infallible sign of civilization and enlightenment. A people with no sauces has one thousand vices; a people with one sauce has only nine hundred and ninety-nine. For every sauce invented and accepted a vice is renounced and forgiven."

in his The Devil's Dictionary.

One wonders if he meant something like "béarnaise" or "mayonnaise" or rather something like "catsup" or "A1". Either way, it is another thing the Belgians do well. Sauces.

During our stay there, we quickly became the Grote Markt's chip stand's most reliable customers and, once our (mine, I should say) incredulity upon looking at the list of sauces we could have poured over our thin, crispy chips, diminished, one could say we became rather more civilized than we were when we arrived in the city of Bruges last week.

Gotta Love a Son Who Makes Pie

etc.

Something yummy....Mejdool Dates stuffed with garlic and herb Boursin Cheese, topped with herbs, with red and green grapes.

Politics and Food

Ok, I must admit that I'm actually posting this topic first so I can take the pressure off of Freek for being a revolutionary. However, this is more of an observation than speaking of all things political. So, to get to the point -- the economy has made me a better cook. I was one of those women in denial for years being married to a man who thought Prego was haute cuisine and ahad kid that dined on fish sticks and ramen noodles. However, in the last 2 years, as I saw layoffs and paycuts, it became a quick tradition for my son and I to cook on Friday nights. In fact, this was quite a while before he made the decision to apply to culinary school. It's been a bonding experience and I've learned a lot more about mire poix and bechamel and what happens to gluten if you smack flour around too much. Last night we made sun dried tomato marinated pork chops and risotto and life was good. So, thanks to all the government politicians, bankers, lobbyists, and greedy corporate CEOs for enhancing my life. Keep up the good work.

Paris Première

This is the first post, not because I wanted to be the first, but because I could be bothered to start the blog !

So, to start this, I think a recent photo of something I ate last week and which was delicious is in order. (Thursday lunchtime at the Café du Marché, 7th Arr, Paris)

Bon appétit !

Tartare de bœuf, pommes sautées, salad: