Saturday, November 17, 2007

Will there be posts this week? Maybe. Maybe not. Spinach and phyllo and feta! It must be spanikopita.

Yetis can be awfully busy between the end of November through the beginning of January. It's time to start thinking about harvesting snow for the long summers, the snowdogs come out of their hibernation and want to play, and sometimes there are Yeti relatives that want some Yeti food. And sometimes the Yeti friends come over for a party. Here is a good party dish in small servings, or you can fancy it up and wrap the filling in individual layers of phyllo for some appetizers or small bites.

Easy Spanikopita

3 boxes frozen chopped spinach, thawed and liquid squeezed out or 36 oz fresh spinach, trimmed, washed thoroughly and drained, then chopped just a bit.
1 medium onion, as finely chopped as you like it.
1/2 cup chopped parsley (optional) – I usually don’t do this.
8-10 oz. feta cheese, grated or crumbled
1 egg
2 tbsp olive oil ¼ cup butter (1/2 stick) (or equivalent amount of olive oil – do not use margarine, it won’t work well. Butter works better than olive oil, but olive oil is acceptable)
Salt and pepper
”Enough” phyllo dough – I use store bought dough already in sheets from the freezer section, usually about ½ a package. Also optional – a small amount of grated parmesan cheese (about 1 tablespoon)

Before starting - preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Make sure the phyllo dough is thawed. Pregrease a 9 by 12 inch pan that is at least 1 in deep, or something similar in size, with a light coating of olive oil. Pam or a similar spray would work well.

In a large sauté pan over medium heat, put the 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Start the onions sautéing, and add a 2 small shakes of salt. After the onions start to sweat (become slightly translucent, about 3-5 minutes) add the spinach. Stir until the spinach is wilted and cooked – this will take about 5 more minutes. Set the mixture aside to cool.

Break up the feta in a large mixing bowl. Add the 1 egg and mix thoroughly. When the mixture of spinach and onion is room temperature, combine with the egg and feta mixture. Mix well. Melt the ¼ cup of butter or just use an equivalent of olive oil. Unroll the phyllo dough. Take one sheet of the phyllo dough and brush one side lightly with butter or oil. Place this sheet in the bottom of the baking pan butter side up. Repeat with 3-5 more sheets of phyllo dough, each buttered on 1 side. Take the entire cooled spinach – feta – onion – egg mixture and spread evenly on the top of the phyllo layers. Sprinkle the 1 tablespoon of parmesan cheese over the spinach mixture. Now, layer again with phyllo dough buttered on the top side. Use at least 4 layers more on top of the mixture. Bake the spanakopita for 40-45 minutes. The top layer of phyllo should be golden brown. Wait for 10-15 minutes after removing from the oven to slice and serve. Leftovers should be reheated in the oven for 10-15 minutes at 300F, not in the microwave unless necessary – it will be not as crispy.

Serves about 2 yeti, or 4 people, maybe 6-8 at most with salad or as a side dish. This is pretty filling.

Friday, November 16, 2007

General Sun Tzu's Chicken or NotChicken. He flanked Tso with the help of Sun Pin.

I made some General's Tofu, or if it was chicken, jeung bau gei kau the other day. It wasn't chicken as my Yeti wife does not eat the fowl nor the flesh, except for fishes and other sea-sonal things. I did some research, or rather searches on Google which substitutes for research for the lazy, into what is typically called General Tso (or other spelling variants such as Zuo) chicken dishes, and I didn't like what I saw. My favorite version of this Americanized Hunan dish had exhibited citrus floral scents, had that unami element that is often missing, and was not sickly sweet with too much sugar. It was also fairly spicy and flecked with lightly toasted sesame seeds. I tried to reproduce that and it was fairly successful.

Purists may think that this is just a version of orange chicken, but that traditionally has preserved orange peel, is based on a chili sauce, and is not sweet. This was one of the few experiments that I tried when the Yeti wife was home instead of trying it out by myself first and then reproducing a more successful version later.

Technique:
First prep the sauce ingredients but do not cook or add to the wok. Then prep and cook the chicken or tofu. I recommend using 12-16 ounces of protein for the amount of sauce this makes. Reserve the chicken or tofu, prepare the sauce, and toss the cooked protein in the finished sauce. I love to serve this with crisp, steamed vegetables tossed with lemon juice and a pinch of salt such as broccoli, asparagus, green beans, or sliced root vegetables.

General Tzu's flanking manuver sauce
Mix thoroughly in a bowl:
1 tablespoon hoisin
juice of 2 large oranges or about 1/4 cup of good orange juice
1 large or 2 small garlic cloves, crushed or minced
1 tablespoon soy sauce or, preferably, tamari
1 teaspoon fresh chopped ginger or ginger powder
1 teaspoon water
1/4 teaspoon rice wine vinegar
(optional if want additional heat) a few dashes of vinegar-based hot sauce, such as Tabasco or Durkee

have handy, but not mixed together:
about 4-6 dried pepper pods or fresh Thai chilies
1 heaping teaspoon of sesame seeds
2 teaspoons of canola oil or peanut oil
1 green onion or scallion, diced pretty thin (optional)
1 teaspoon of corn starch slurried in about 1/4 cup of cold water

Get everything else ready as once the sauce is cooked the dish is basically finished:
Cook some rice. I recommend my sushi rice or jasmine rice (earlier posting). Prep and have your veggies cooked and ready.
Cook your chicken or tofu as you like. I like to cut the protein into small pieces and then lightly bread the pieces and shallow-fry until golden brown.
Set the cooked protein off to the side until sauce is ready.

Add the canola oil and pepper pods to your wok over medium high heat. Allow the pods to flavor the oil. This takes only a few minutes. If you want spicier General Tzu, leave the peppers in at this point. If you want milder Tzu, take the peppers out or don't use them at all. Add the sesame seeds, but be careful as they will start to pop and dance and may exit the wok at a good velocity. As soon as you hear the first few pops, add your hoisin mixture and stir through. Bring this mixture to a boil and slowly add a few dribbles of the corn starch slurry until just before your desired thickness. Stop adding the slurry early (you may need to add a touch of plain water if you get a bit thicker than desired) as adding the protein back in usually causes the sauce to thicken a little more.

Toss your chicken or tofu into the sauce, stir through, and serve over rice. See, wasn't that easy? And it's better than those sugar-and-vinegar sauces you'd normally see Tso eating. Sun Tzu and Sun Pin pity poor Tso T'sung-T'ang's complexity-free and not as good chickeny concoction!

Serves about 2 Yetis, or 4 people with the veggies included, or 2 people with nice and well-microwaved leftovers for lunch the next day.

Sunday, November 11, 2007

Tomatoes we made last night, but different

Last night my Yeti wife and I had some normal human types over for dinner. I shaved so as not to scare them too much, but the snowdogs were abominable as usual and backed our guests into a corner occasionally. As usual, all they did was drool on them, but that can be scary by itself. There was an appetizer that we made that turned out OK, but I think I have a better version that I'm posting here now. They were cherry stuffed tomatoes and were quite easy. The hardest part was trying to move them to a serving dish after they were made and not have them end up on the floor. Those tomatoes are sure slippery in Yeti hands. We only had 2 losses.

Cherry tomatoes stuffed with dill and feta (you can replace the dill with basil and the feta with fresh mozzarella chopped into small cubes if you want. But I think this version is better.)

18 cherry tomatoes
4 ounces of good plain feta. I like Athenos
3 tablespoons of dried dill, or 1/4 cup of fresh dill, chopped fine
rind of 1/2 lemon
2 tablespoons of olive oil
salt
pepper

Crumble the feta into a medium bowl. Add the dill, lemon rind, olive oil, a small pinch of salt, and about 1/4 teaspoon of pepper. Stir through and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

Cut the cherry tomatoes in half through the stem. Using a melon baller, scoop out the insides carefully so as not to damage the outside of the tomato. Lightly sprinkle the inside of the tomatoes with salt and turn them cut side down on a paper towel or tea towel to drain out their water for at least 15 minutes or as long as 30.

After the tomatoes are drained, place about a human thumb full of filling in each tomato half. Sprinkle with extra ground pepper and dill if desired and serve.

Makes 36 tomato halves as long as you don't drop any on the floor like I did. The snowdogs didn't get any though as they don't get any food but their own snowdog food.

Friday, November 9, 2007

It's simple, It's seared. It's tuna. It must be not done in a teflon pan or you'll be sorry.

Ok, even though I've not made this in a while, I thought that I would post something that the more sophisticated Yeti and even some Sasquatches from Saskatchewan or Saskatoon may enjoy. But not a Bigfoot from Africa as that would be a succulent plant (Gerrardanthus macrorhiza) that wouldn't eat this. So anyways, here's one of my favorite fish dishes. You can play around with the marinade a bit, but don't let it sit too long as you're not trying to cure the fish, just impart some flavor. And nobody likes a fish that sits around too long. Except maybe Bigfoot. He'll eat grizzly bear leftover salmon filets. So here is my seared tuna over lime sushi rice recipe. Without the sushi rice. You'll have to go look at my post from October 29th, 2007 for the sushi rice recipe. I'm a sneaky Yeti.

Tuna steaks, about 1 per person, just as thick as you like it. I usually only do this when I find impeccably fresh sushi grade Ahi tuna at the market and I get a nice 1/2 inch thick piece per person or 3-4 per Yeti.

Marinade for tuna steaks for 1 Yeti, or 3-4 steaks
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 clove garlic, crushed with a garlic press or minced fine
1 teaspoon tamari or dark soy sauce
1 teaspoon rice wine vinegar or malt vinegar
Lots of optional stuff: a heavy pinch of sesame seeds, some chopped fresh ginger or powdered ginger, a small squeeze of lime juice (teaspoon or so), a minced shallot, sliced scallions or chives, a pinch of red pepper flakes, lemon or lime rind, etc.

Take all marinade ingredients and place in a zip-style close able plastic bag. Mix well. Add the tuna steaks to the bag. Close the bag, removing as much air as possible. Coat the steaks with the mixture and place in your refrigerator or outside in the cold for about 1 hour, unless you live where most Yetis or Abominable Snowmen do and that'll freeze the meat. Don't do that. Frozen in this case is bad as you're not making fishsicles. Turn the tuna steaks in the marinade over after about 30 minutes to make sure you get a good distribution of ingredients.

Make your rice before you start to cook the tuna steaks as the steaks don't take long at all to cook. Remove the tuna steaks from the marinade and pat dry. If you don't dry the steaks you'll be boiling them, not searing them. That's not so good. Heat up your grill, or grill pan, or heavy skillet to very searing eyebrow-removing hot. Put a small amount of oil on each side of the tuna steak and put on the grill. When you see the mid-point of the side of the steak looking like it is turning color, that's the time to turn the steaks over. That takes about 1-5 minutes, depending on your steak thickness and grill heat, etc. I find for a 1/2 thick steak it's about 2 minutes. Turn the steak over and grill for about the same amount of time. Remove the steaks from the heat and allow to sit for a moment before slicing into 1/4 inch thick slices and arranging over the nice mound of sushi rice that you made earlier but kept warm. I sometimes sprinkle the final dish with some black pepper or toasted sesame seeds. Eat and enjoy!

Feeds 1 Yeti, would feed 2 abominable snowdogs but they don't get Yeti food, or as many people as you have steaks.

Wednesday, November 7, 2007

Three rice stuffing

This is one of the things I make as a holiday dinner dish. It has lots of good colors, those wonderful autumn and winter cooking aromas, and it tastes really good. You can use either sausage, soy sausage (the kind that comes in tubes, not patties nor link style), or leave that part out and just add an additional pinch of salt, pinch of slightly crushed or bruised fennel seed, and extra pinch of sage or a couple of fresh sage leaves. And this also makes for amazing leftovers.

A total of three cups of cooked rice. I usually use 1 cup cooked brown rice, 1 cup cooked wild rice and 1 cup cooked long grain white rice. You can use any combination you like.
1 large red or yellow bell pepper, medium dice (sometimes I add a jalapeño or other hot pepper for some heat. Yetis may live in the cold, but we like heat in our food!)
½ medium onion, small dice or about 4-5 shallots, small dice
1 clove garlic, minced or ¼ teaspoon garlic powder
2 ribs celery, small dice
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 tablespoon dried parsley
pinch dried sage
pinch thyme
pinch rosemary
2-3 fennel seeds
a few pinches of salt and fresh ground pepper to taste
1/2 cup vegetable or poultry stock
chopped toasted walnuts (optional)
1/4 pound of good soy sausage (see note above) or 1/4 pound of good, easily crumbled sausage (optional - I like Lightlife's Gimme Lean soy Sausage Style product or Bob Evans' original flavor or sage roll sausage for this)

Heat a large, heavy bottomed skillet, preferably cast iron, over high heat with the vegetable oil. When the oil is hot, carefully add the soy sausage or traditional sausage in small pieces and stir frequently. If you use soy sausage, you will probably need to add an additional tablespoon of vegetable oil. Cook the sausage product through and then remove the sausage from the pan. Pour out most of the oil from the skillet, keeping about 1 tablespoon in the pan.

Return the pan to the heat, and add the celery, peppers, and onion. Reduce the heat to medium high and sauté the celery, bell pepper and onion until soft and the onion is partially translucent, about 5-10 minutes. Turn heat back up to high, add all spices, herbs, and salt and pepper and any optional ingredients, but not the cooked rice. Stir through on high heat for about 30 seconds. Add the stock and deglaze the pan.

Turn heat down to low or medium. Add cooked rice. Warm through and serve.

Serves 1-2 Yeti or 4-6 people as a side dish.

Saturday, November 3, 2007

Chicken enchiladas and MEAT! while Yeti Wife is away

My near-vegetarian Yeti Wife is out of town this weekend, so I'm trying out a new rub for slow-cooked (BBQ) beef briskets. If it works well, I may post it here. Or I may keep it a Yeti trade secret. Here are some chicken enchiladas that I used to make two Yeti's worth, but now I just make some since I'm the only Yeti eating them. Snowdogs don't get enchiladas, but they would like them nonetheless.

2-3 chicken breasts, skinless and boneless
about 10 flour or corn tortillas, depending on your preference
premade enchilada sauce such as a nice picante or your favorite salsa
a nice melting cheese that you like, I use Anjeho or whatever else I have on hand
¼ to ½ onion, small dice
optional – sliced jalapenos and cilantro to taste

Poach the chicken breasts in gently boiling water for about 20 minutes. If it cooks much longer you'll have cat food and not enchiladas. After the chicken is poached, allow it to cool to a temperature that you can handle easily. Preheat the oven to 350F.

Shred the poached chicken. Add about 2 tablespoons of enchilada sauce and almost all of the diced onion. Also, add the jalapenos and cilantro at this time if you wish. Reserve about ¼ cup of enchilada or other sauce for later. Place about 3 tablespoons of the chicken mixture near the edge of one of the tortillas. Add a pinch of cheese. Roll up and place the enchilada into an baking dish, seam side down. Repeat with the remaining tortillas or until you run out of chicken mixture. Leftover chicken mixture is great mixed with additional cilantro and pasta.

After all the tortillas are rolled and in the baking dish, pour a bit of the enchilada sauce over each one and sprinkle with a small amount of the remaining cheese and the rest of the onion. Bake at 350F for 20-30 minutes. Allow to cool for 5-10 minutes before serving.

Serves 1 Yeti, or 2 hungry college students, or 3 normal people, or 4 normal people with salad and dessert.

If I get some requests, I may post my recipe for chocolate enchiladas. You can even make those with leftover Halloween chocolate candy. Well, at least the chocolate bar candy type candy.