Fresh Pesto

This May, I will be married to my husband for two years now. (Holy cow!) And for that reason, I wanted to share a story (and a recipe) with you all.

My husband and I always talk about how vivid our first three dates are, and anything after that is a fog. Our first date comprised of a lunch date at Quartino's. We were sitting outside, and Michael kept asking me to repeat what I said because of the noise level. For dessert he ordered biscotti, even though I clearly said that I didn't like those very much. <3 Our second date was at one of my favorite tapas places, Cafe Iberico. What was memorable about this date was that we talked more in depth about our families, and the fact that we broke a beer bottle fighting over the bill. (Everyone stopped talking and stared. It was classic). <3 For our third date we drove to the Botanic Garden, and this was the precise moment when he dropped the fact that he wanted to have a ton of kids. More specifically, I asked, "How many kids do you want to have?" His response, "Have you ever watched "Cheaper by the Dozen?" (which is a movie about this family of 12 kids). And for those of you that didn't know this, Michael and I met through online dating, and on it, it does state on your profile how many kids you want. I think at the time we both said over three, but that number has now reduced to half. On this date, he walked through a row of apple trees, and he shared how he used to have apple trees in his backyard growing up. Then we ended our date with Korean food. <3
What I can also share with you is that Michael has cooked for me during one of our earlier dates. Presently, I think that makes a grand total of four now. We were at his apartment, and he popped in the movie "Borat" for me while he cooked. Clinks and clanks were coming out of the kitchen, and I was genuinely worried he'd hurt himself. To be fair, Michael studied abroad in Europe for a semester and learned how to cook. So his specialty for me that night was his famous chicken penne pesto. And it was delicious. I wondered why it took him two hours to cook this meal, and later I learned it's because he didn't have any cutting utensils. But still, in the end, his penne was very good.
Now that we are eating at home more often, we decided to find a recipe for making fresh pesto at home. Of course we had to go with one of Ina's recipes! It's perfect the way it is, so here you go. Enjoy!

Ina Garten's Pesto

Yields 4 cups

Ingredients:
1/4 cup walnuts
1/4 cup pignolis (pine nuts)
3 tablespoons chopped garlic (9 cloves)
5 cups fresh basil leaves, packed
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 1/2 cups good olive oil (depending on the dish, she always likes to emphasize on the "good" for olive oil)
1 cup freshly grated Parmesan
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Directions:
1) Place the walnuts, pignolis, and garlic in the bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade. Process for 15 seconds.
2) Add the basil leaves, salt, and pepper. With the processor running, slowly pour the olive oil into the bowl through the feed tube and process until the pesto is thoroughly pureed.
3) Add the Parmesan and puree for a minute. Use right away or store the pesto in the refrigerator or freezer with a thin film of olive oil on top.
4) Optional: throw in 2 cups of cooked, seasoned chicken with penne and the pesto.

Notes: Air is the enemy of pesto. For freezing, pack it in containers with a film of oil or plastic wrap directly on top with the air pressed out.

To clean basil, remove the leaves, swirl them in a bowl of water, and then spin them very dry in a salad spinner. Store them in a closed plastic bag with a slightly damp paper towel. As long as the leaves are dry they will stay green for several days. (This is tricky because water and basil do not mix. It browns a bit if kept wet for long period. In one of her episodes, she added fresh lemon juice to the chopped basil to keep it from not browning, but I'm not sure if that'll change the taste).

May 29, 2011

Happy 2 Years, honey!

Garlic Noodles

During my visit to Maui with my husband and his family, we grabbed life by the horns and tried out as many different restaurants as we could. My sister and brother in law highly recommended a place called Star Noodle. It had all the Asian goodness: ramen (amongst loads of other noodles), pork buns, Vietnamese crepes, Filipino bacon and eggs, and last, but not least, garlic noodles (not to mention an extensive list of sakes and cocktails). These garlic noodles found a place in my heart (and in my stomach) that I had to re-create at home. 
So literally, the prime ingredients are noodles and garlic. I tweaked the recipe a bit to more my taste. Enjoy!

Garlic Noodles
Serves 2
 
Ingredients:
1/2 package of Capellini noodles (or any thin noodles will work)
1 tablespoon grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 stick unsalted butter
4-5 tablespoon of olive oil
6-7 cloves of garlic (or more), minced
2 tablespoon oyster sauce
3 tablespoon fish sauce
1 tablespoon sugar
salt and pepper to taste
Optional: 
1 c mushrooms, sliced
2 c shrimp, frozen
lemon pepper
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Directions:
1) Boil noodles until al dente. 
2) In a pan, cook the shrimp until fully cooked. You can sprinkle on lemon pepper and salt to taste. Add mushrooms until tender.
3) In another pot, heat the butter, garlic, and olive oil in medium heat. (Make sure the garlic doesn't brown). Then toss the drained noodles to the pot. In med-low heat, add the oyster sauce, fish sauce, and sugar. Mix well. Add salt and pepper to taste. 

4) Place noodles into bowls with the shrimp and mushroom on top, and sprinkle on the Parmesan cheese. 

Mahalo for stopping by! 

 

A few pictures of our trip!

The husband and I

Father in law

 

Brother and sister in law

View from our hotel

One of the trails on our road to Hana.

Michael's catch of the day.

Black sand beach.

Drinks from Mama's Fish House. Best. Ever. Period.

Quick Quiche

I don't mean to continue my streak of French foods, but I wanted to add my favorite recipe for quiche. The reason I even know what a quiche is (pronounced "keesh") is because a few years back at the child care center I worked for, my awesome co-teacher and I had to pick a country for International Night, and one year we chose France. This was a center wide event where every classroom had to pick a country and educate the children about it (like where the country was located, what the flag looked like, and so on). We taped up a sign- up sheet on the door for parents to bring in either ingredients or dishes for the event.

"What the hell are some French foods?" My co-teacher and I racked our brains: baguettes, madeleine cookies, cheese, etc. I remember using Google for some ideas. Then one afternoon, one of our kids decided to print something from a computer game based on different countries. Now, we told our kids that printing was not allowed and that "it hurts trees" (because trust me, if they were allowed to print whatever they wanted, we would have destroyed an entire rainforest, no joke), but this one printout was a recipe for quiche. A recipe for French food! How perfect we thought. So I took on the challenge of making quiche, whereas my partner made a cherry dessert (clafoutis I believe?). It turned out to be pretty darn awesome. And this recipe is so great for breakfast/brunch, especially if you need to feed a few mouths. The best part about it is that you can make it the night before, fridge it, then throw it into the oven when the time comes. It's absolute perfection! 

Quiche (Egg Pie)

Ingredients: 
-1 frozen pie shell, thawed
-1/2 cup grated Swiss cheese (I like to add some cheddar in there too)
-1/2 a small onion
-1 c half and half cream (to be honest, sometimes I just use regular milk)
-dash of salt, pepper, and nutmeg
-4 whole eggs, beaten

Again, quiche is awesome because of its flexibility. So in addition to the recipe, I like to add other favorites such as:
-crisp, fried bacon (me gusta turkey bacon)
-sauteed, seasoned mushrooms
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Directions
1) Reheat the oven to 375 degrees.
2) In the thawed pie shell, sprinkle cheese, onion, as well as the other desired ingredients.
3) Mix the rest of the ingredients together.
4) Pour the mixture into the pie shell.
5) Bake for 45 minutes until firm.
(Directions so easy a kid can do it! ;)

Enjoy!

 

Spinach Pastry Puff

Have you started a bucket list yet? In the movie, "The Bucket List" starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman, two terminally ill men decide to make a "bucket list" where they follow their list of things to do before they die. Funny, heartwarming, crying my eyes out sad.. all in all a great movie. I remember going home that night and starting my own bucket list, most of which are very realistic. One of them is to go to Europe someday - France, Italy, Portugal, you name it. I love historical buildings and museums, and I love food.

A few weeks ago, I finally registered for a library card around my neighborhood. It's a very modest library: one floor, a computer room, a small collection of CD's, and so forth. Then in the far back corner were two aisles of cookbooks. And who did I happen to see on the cover for one of the books? My idol, Ina Garten, and her book titled Barefoot in Paris: Easy French Food You Can Make at Home. How perfect, I thought! I told Michael not too long ago that if I were to go to culinary school, it would be for French cooking over anything else. I think the book, Julie and Julia written by Julie Powell, had something to do with that. But anyway, I tried a couple of her recipes and they turned out great! So I wanted to share one of them with you. :)


Spinach in Puff Pastry
Serves 6

Ingredients:
- 1/2 stick of unsalted butter
-2 small onions, chopped
-3 garlic cloves, chopped
-2 (10-ounce) boxes frozen chopped spinach, defrosted (I would leave this out a night beforehand)
-2 scallions, chopped, white and green parts
-1 cup grated Gruyere cheese
- 3/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
-4 large eggs, lightly beaten
-1 tbsp dry bread crumbs, plain or seasoned
-2 tsp kosher salt
- 3/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
- 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
- 1/4 c toasted pignoli (pine) nuts
-2 sheets (1 box) frozen pastry puff, defrosted overnight in the refrigerator
-1 large egg beaten with 1 tbsp water, for egg wash
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Directions:

1) Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
2) Heat the butter in a saute pan and cook the onions over medium-low heat for 5-7 minutes, until tender. Add the garlic and cook for 1 more minute.
3) Squeeze the water out of the spinach and place it in a bowl. Add all the rest of the ingredients. (onion mixture, scallions, Gruyere and Parmesan cheese, eggs, bread crumbs, salt, pepper, nutmeg, and pignolis.) Mix well.
4) Unfold one sheet of puff pastry and place it on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Spread the mixture in the middle of the pastry, leaving a 1 inch border. Brush the border with the egg wash.
5) Roll out the second piece of pastry puff on a floured board until it's an inch larger in each direction. Place the second sheet of pastry over the spinach and seal the edges, crimping with a fork.
6) Brush the top with egg wash but don't let it drip down the sides or the pastry won't rise. Make three small slits in the pastry, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and bake for 30-40 minutes, or until the pastry is lightly browned.
7) Transfer to a cutting board and serve hot.

Bon appetit!

And as a tribute to one of my favorite tv chefs, here's Ina!

Kalbi jjim

Whenever my extended family gathered for the holidays, I would always load up on the meat, no matter what it is or how it's made. We would always have a turkey (or rather I should say turkeys) for Thanksgiving every year, and the reason we usually had a few is because I have this awesome aunt who would invite all of our side of the family along with her side of the family, so she would have two families gathered under one roof. That's a lot of mouths to feed! And then like I mentioned in my previous blog, we would have some form of kalbi. One could grill the marinated kalbi or one could make a kalbi jjim! After getting married to my wonderful, fabulous, supportive husband Michael, we held our first family event at our home last Christmas, and granted, we did order most of the food, but I still needed help from my dear ole mother because it ain't easy feeding twenty plus mouths. 

So after consulting with my mother, and watching two different youtube videos, I came up with a  totally awesome kalbi jjim recipe. I'm still a newbie cook so please, any suggestions are welcome! And FYI: the word "jjim" means "to steam", so I will be steaming, or more like boiling the meat.

Kalbi jjim
Ingredients:
-2 lbs short rib beef
-8 cloves of garlic
-4-5 shiitake mushrooms (if dried, soak for 5-6 hours beforehand. If fresh, make sure to cut off the bottom end of the stem)
-2 large carrots, peeled and chopped into little ball shapes
-1 small radish, peeled and chopped into little ball shapes (no explanation here! That's what the youtube lady said to do AND my mother. If my mama says to make ball shapes, I'm going to make ball shapes. It mostly has to do with the presentation of the dish.)
- 1/2 an onion
-3 stems of green onion
-1 tbsp of ginger
-3 jujubes (again, soak!)
-5 tbsp of soy sauce
- 1/2 tbsp of brown sugar
-2 c cold water
-sesame oil 
-black pepper

Directions:
1) In a large pot, bring water to a boil (enough to cover all the meat). Cut the beef so that there are large chunks of meat on the bone. Make little slices throughout the meat. Then soak in a large bowl of water.

2) Boil the meat for about 10 minutes. This will get rid of some of the fat. Then rinse the meat in cold water.

3) In a food processor or blender, mix in ginger, onion, and garlic. (In haste I accidentally added the green onion, but that's for later.)

4) In a large bowl, add the blended mixture to the cold water, along with the soy sauce and sugar. Stir.

5) Placing the meat into the dutch oven (which worked better for me; the meat didn't get as tough), add the bowl of soy sauce over medium heat.

6) After about 20 minutes, turn the heat down to low, and add the carrots, radish, mushrooms, and jujubes. Cook for another hour. Turn the meat every 15 minutes or so.
              **Notice the ball shaped radish and carrots?

7) Lastly, add the chopped green onion on top, a drizzle of sesame oil, and a sprinkle of black pepper.

                                                                            Enjoy!

Donkatsu

Growing up as a Korean American, I was lucky enough to have home cooked Korean food pretty much everyday, along with the traditional spaghetti, lasagna, pizza, you name it. As a kid I would stand in the kitchen and watch my mom run around cooking some sort of fabulous meal, and that would be after she came home from work. But I remember how she'd chop the onions a particular way, the mushrooms sliced not too small because they'll shrink, and chopped garlic was usually going in last depending on the dish. Now.. the most glorious part of idling in the kitchen was being the taste tester. Sort of like the judges on Iron Chef, I would nod with appreciation or shake my head saying things like, "Something's missing.... more soy sauce!" And so my mom would go ahead and make the adjustments. In the present moment, at the ripe age of 28, I would call my mom to ask what ingredients would go into a "deng jang jjii gae" (which is a fermented soybean paste soup with tofu and vegetables) or how to make "galbi jjim" (which is to come on this blog!). I know when most people hear 'Korean food', they think 'Korean barbeque', but there's so much more complexity to the foods.

Now I know donkatsu is a Japanese dish, but my mom used to make this at home and I would just keel over from excitement and salivate while waiting. So I thought I'd share this easy recipe with you!


Ingredients
4 pork chops
1 egg
Salt and pepper
Flour
Panko bread crumbs (Japanese brand that's crunchier)
Oil and pan for frying
Meat tenderizer

1) Clean pork chops. Cut off excess fat and pound down using the meat tenderizer (if you layer the meat with saran wrap before pounding, it keeps the tenderizer clean). Make small cuts all throughout the meat. Sprinkle salt and pepper on both sides.

2) Cover pork loin with flour. Dust off excess flour.
3) Add a bit of water to the egg and mix. Cover the pork loin in the egg.
4) Cover in panko bread crumbs.
5) On medium high heat, fry pork loin until golden brown on both sides. When finished, it's best to place the pork on a paper towel to soak up some of the oil.

Whenever I visit Mitsuwa, this huge Japanese grocery in Arlington Heights, they serve the donkatsu with a small side of macaroni salad, miso soup, and rice. Here I served kimchi (spicy fermented cabbage) as a side. 

And to top it off, a picture of me and Mom! Love you, Mom! <3

Mini Cheeseburger Puffs

Ever since my occupation turned from being a preschool teacher of four year olds to being a house-wife, I'm now more flexible to cook a variety of dishes. And by flexible I mean: I'm not tired nor crabby, and I'm full of energy. Do cooking shows inspire me even more to cook? Of course! Some of my favorites to watch are Ina Garten (the know-all Barefoot Contessa), Paula Deen yaaaaa'll, Marja and Jean from Kimchi Chronicles, and the infamous Iron Chefs. Actually, Iron Chef just makes me want to eat out at fancier restaurants instead of cooking (sorry honey). But as I delve deeper and deeper into the art of cooking, I realize how much easier it gets, to a point that I can now cook without having to look at recipes. Ta da!

So Paula made these really yummy looking cheeseburger puffs that kindled a spark inside me to try myself. The outcome? Not bad, but my problem was that I didn't have a rolling pin for the pastry puff. So what did I do instead? Patted it down and stretched it out using my hands. It made my puff too thick and it did not bake as fluffy inside. And because I felt like I had failed, I grabbed my 20% off coupon for Bed Bath and Beyond and bought myself a rolling pin for $7.99 plus tax.

Today will be my second time around making these cheeseburger puffs, and I thought I'd share the  slightly tweaked recipe with you! :)

Ingredients

For the meat:
8 ounces ground beef (that's half a pound, but I use a little more than that)
3 tablespoons of chopped red onion
3 cloves of chopped garlic
3 teaspoons ketchup
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
**If you want to add more ingredients (for example: red pepper, scallions, even Tabasco sauce and Worcester sauce), the burgers turn out a bit more meatloafy. But feel free to add whatever ingredients you like! It's all about trial and error. ;)

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil All-purpose flour for dusting
1 sheet puff pastry (from a 17.5-ounce package)
1/2 cup of shredded cheddar cheese (any cheese will do. I like to mix it up)
1 egg beaten with 1 teaspoon water

1)  If the pastry puff was in the freezer or even fridge, make sure to thaw about a half and hour to an  hour before using it. If there are cracks, you can use water to seal it back together. (Make sure to be generous with the flour so your puff doesn't stick to the surface).

2) In a larger bowl, add all the ingredients from "for the meat" list. Make sure it's thoroughly mixed.

3) Coat pan with oil. Then roll the meat into little meatball sizes and place onto the pan (should make 8 meat patties). Using a spatula, you can push down on the meat to flatten them a bit. Once both sides are browned, place them on a napkin to rest.
4) Unroll the pastry puff and roll them out as far as it can go! Cut it evenly into four strips top to bottom, then lengthwise once. (Again, should have a total of 8 stripes)
5) Place a beef patty onto each strip and top with cheese. Fold the pastry like you're wrapping a present.
6) Lastly, using the beaten egg, brush the top of each cheeseburger puff to give it that crispy glow. (The egg also helps the dough stick)

7) Bake at 400 degrees for 12-15 min until the pastry is puffed. It originally said to bake on parchment paper, but greased foil on a pan works fine.








                           Serves about 4, but the husband and I can devour this like nothing.

 

Enjoy! :)