Chicken yakitori

This was pretty good, but not interesting enough to be exciting, if that makes sense.

We followed:  https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1013201-yakitori-chicken-with-ginger-garlic-and-soy-sauce

We used dark soy since we had no tamari, and shaoxing rice wine instead of mirin.  We tried to compensate for this by using 1.5 T sugar instead of 1 T sugar.  We might-could have used even more.  Finally, we used ~1 Tbsp minced ginger instead of 1/2 tsp which was a great choice since that added a distinct and interesting note in the final.

It didn't seem to thicken a lot in the 7 min simmering, so we simmered another 7 and then stopped.

The end result was definitely good if a little bit salty.  Not sure if we'll make it again, but could be worth coming back to...

[ no pic for now =(   ]

Baked Greek Shrimp with Tomatoes and Feta

NYT Recipe.  Pretty good, but you really need good quality shrimp.  Needs some kind of starch.  We made roast fingerling potatoes which were ok, but maybe orzo or something else would be better?

It wasn't spectacular, but was definitely solid and quick to prepare.  We used frozen shrimp, and a 28 oz can of san marzano peeled tomatoes so some of the steps got cut down.

INGREDIENTS

• Extra-virgin olive oil
• 3 large shallots, diced, about 1 cup
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
•  Salt and pepper
• 2 pounds large ripe tomatoes
• ½ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
• 1 ½ pounds large shrimp, peeled and deveined
• 4 ounces Greek feta cheese
• ½ teaspoon dried oregano
• 2 tablespoons roughly chopped mint

1. Put 4 tablespoons olive oil in a wide skillet over medium heat. Add shallots and garlic, season with salt and pepper and cook, stirring, until softened, about 5 to 8 minutes. Lower heat as necessary to keep mixture from browning. Remove from heat while preparing tomatoes.
2. Fill a saucepan with water and bring to a boil. Add whole tomatoes and cook for about 2 minutes, until skins loosen. Immediately plunge tomatoes in a bowl of cold water to cool, then drain. With a paring knife, core tomatoes and slip off skins. Cut tomatoes into thick wedges.
3. Heat oven to 400 degrees. Return skillet to stove over medium-high heat. Add tomato wedges and season with salt, pepper and red pepper flakes. Cook, stirring, until mixture is juicy and tomatoes have softened, about 10 minutes. Transfer mixture to a shallow earthenware baking dish.
4. Put shrimp in a mixing bowl. Add 1 tablespoon olive oil, season shrimp with salt and pepper and stir to coat. Arrange shrimp over tomato mixture in one layer. Crumble cheese over surface and sprinkle with oregano.
5. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, until tomatoes are bubbling and cheese has browned slightly. Remove from oven and let dish rest for 5 minutes. Sprinkle with mint and serve.

Fresh pasta with lemon

We made the Cook's fresh pasta again (2 C flour + 3 eggs), but this time I used the pasta roller which resulted in wonderfully thin and uniform pasta.  That was perfect for this particular sauce because it made the whole dish very light.

We used this recipe:  https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/8355-creamy-lemon-pasta?action=click&module=Collection%20Page%20Recipe%20Card&region=Our%2050%20Most%20Popular%20Recipes%20of%20All%20Time%20(So%20Far)&pgType=collection&rank=17

Except we grated the zest on a microplane and added half the lemon juice at the end slowly increasing until it tasted right.  We also added a pinch of sugar.

We served it along with lightly charred broccolini which offered a great contrasting flavor.

It's a very tasty dish, but a better side-dish for other things.  As a main, I'd like it to have other notes in there.  Some commenters recommended adding red pepper flakes, which seems like it might be nice.

Homemade Chinese BBQ sauce chicken

This is the same recipe as the steak from before ( https://dobiekitchenlog.blogspot.com/2020/04/steak-with-homemade-chinese-bbq-sauce.html ) but this time we followed the exact same process with chicken thighs.

We brushed them with 1 Tbsp oil, put on the dry rub, grilled each side and then basted on the BBQ sauce for the second grilling on each side.

Also turned out really really great!

French toast muffins

A regular we make with Nadia.

1 loaf challa, sliced into 1" thick slices and torn to pieces.
Dry out @ 250 F for 15 min + additional 8 if required.
Combine:  4 eggs, 2.5 C whole milk, 4 Tbsp sugar, some cinnamon + vanilla to taste (very small bit of salt to boost flavors would probably be good)
Stir dried challa bits into egg mixture until fully incorporated.

Grease a muffin tin and fill with mixture.  Bake at 375 for 25 minutes.

We usually freeze these and re-heat one a day for breakfast or snack.

Haven't done a lot of experimentation with folding in mix-ins, but seems like a fun thing to do.

Super lemon ice cream with marbled blueberry sauce

Haven't tasted it yet, but here's the recipe!

Fresh pasta

We've done this two weeks in a row.

First week, we used the tasty recipe:  https://tasty.co/recipe/fresh-pasta-dough
It uses 6 yolks + 2 eggs.  (dessert pasta!)
We did everything by hand: kneading + rollings

This week we used the cook's recipe:
It uses 3 eggs.
We used the food processor for most of the kneading (only 1-2 min by hand at the end).

It turned out equally well, so I think that's what we'll do in the future.  I'm getting better at the rolling, but it may be faster to use a pasta machine, so I'll probably try that next time.

sauces:

Fresh pestso:  Last week we made a fresh pesto with basil and toasted almonds.  REALLY good!

Mushroom sauce:  This week we made a potentially good mushroom sauce with leftover porcini soaking liquid from a meal a few days ago.

Cook 1-2 minced shallot + 2-3 minced cloves garlic in olive oil
Added 1/2 dry marsala + 1/2 cup white wine and let almost evaporate (~7 min)
Added some chopped mushrooms + 1 tsp minced fresh rosemary and cooked until mostly done
Added 2.5 C liquid:  ~2 C porcini soaking water + 1/2 boxed chicken broth
Let reduce and made a roux with 1T butter + 1T flour to thicken.
We through in some left-over chicken we had as well at the end.  Also added ~ 1/4 C half-and-half at the end (might be better with cream, but we didn't have any).

Flavor was great!  Problem was that it didn't thicken enough, so we had to reduce it so far that it didn't have a sauce *feel* spread over that much pasta.  I like the concept, though, so next time I'll keep all the amounts but triple the amount of roux.

Kung Pao Chicken

This turned out really really well!

We used this NYT recipe with a few modifications:

https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1015131-gong-bao-chicken-with-peanuts

We omitted the spring onion (which wasn't in season, despite being spring), and cubed 1 zuccini, plus a half can of baby corn for Nadia (since she loves baby corn).

So good!!  The only possible modification is that not every loves the whole sichuan peppercorns in there as flavor bursts; so I might try using 1.5 - 2 tsp in the oil but then removing them with a slotted spoon before cooking everything else in there.

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Update:  A few things to note:

- Marinate the chicken first while you prep everything else.

- Start toasting the peanuts in the tiny oven @ 250 or 300 or whatever.  (figure out what the right temp is so that 15-20 minutes later they're just finishing up at the time they should go in).

- I used 2 tsp sichuan peppercorns by themselves in the oil to start and removed (most) of them with a slotted spoon before adding the aromatics and quickly thereafter the chicken.  This worked great, but I wouldn't want to go more than 2.  I think 1-2 is perfect (1 might be on the less perceptible side).

- The thing to remember is that everything needs to get cooked in about 2-3 minutes, so cube the chicken the right size so this can happen.  If you've got other things like shrimp, add them after 1 minute.  Ditto with vegetables you don't want to overcook.

- You might-could get away with less sugar.  We accidentally added the sugar to the marinade instead of the sauce this last time and it actually came out fine but it meant there was nothing sweet to balance the vinegar in the sauce, but I kind of liked the extra-vinegary sauce.  So might want to try halving the sugar in the future to see what it's like.

A jambalaya-style paella

We made a paella, but we were missing a bunch of ingredients and wanted to put in some others, and at the end, it seemed like it was sort-of like a jambalaya.  But so good!  Here it is:

1/2 tsp saffron threads + 2 Tbsp hot water

2 Tbsp olive oil
2 links andouille sausage

1 large carrot, diced

5.5 oz mushrooms (we used reconstituted porcini, but regular would have been great)

4 scallions, diced
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 tsp smoked paprika
1/4 tsp cayenne

1 red, 1 green bell pepper
2 tomatoes, quartered

1 5/8 C paella rice
2 Tbsp mixed chopped fresh herbs.

1/3 C white wine (we used 1/4 C vermouth)
4-5 C chicken stock

3.5 oz green beans
1/2 lb shrimp

Pre-prep:

• Soak 1/2 tsp saffron threads in some water
• Broil 1 red, 1 green bell pepper.  Remove skins and slice
• Heat 5 C chicken stock in saucepan to a simmer

Cooked 2 sliced links of andouille chicken-sausage in 2 Tbsp oil over medium heat for 5 min.  Removed the sausage.

Add 1 large diced carrot, cook 3 min.  Add mushrooms, cook 2 min.  Add scallions, garlic, paprika, cayenne, saffron + soaking liquid.  Cook 1 min, stirring.  Add tomato and bell pepper, cook, stirring 2 min.

Add rice and herbs, stir for 1 min.  Add wine + 4 cups hot stock + salt + pepper to taste.  Simmer uncovered 20 min, BUT read the next sentence:  ~2-4 minutes before the end of the 20 minutes, add green beans + shrimp.  Do not stir at any time; you can shake the pan a bit.  The timing here is tricky.  Ideally, you should smell a faint toasty aroma indicating that the liquid is gone and the bottom is toasting.  Remove it from the heat and let it sit with foil on top for 5 min.  Then serve.

If you don't smell the toasty aroma you could leave it on until you do, maybe overcooking green beans + shrimp.  Or you could take it off, and you just wont' have a crusty bottom.  Tough call!

South Indian Cauliflower Sambar

Adapted from Dakshin; pretty tasty!

3 oz (~1/3 to 1/2 cup) toor dal, rinsed
2 C water

2 C chopped cauliflower
2 tomatoes, quartered
1.5 tsp sambar powder (we used Aachi brand, but dakshin has a recipe for making your own as well).
1/2 tsp ground turmeric
salt to taste

PASTE
1 tsp oil
1 tsp coriander seeds
1/2 tsp black peppercorns
1 tsp washed urad dal, rinsed
1/2 tsp asafoetida powder
2 Tbsp toasted almond (original recipe calls for coconut)

FOR TEMPERING
2 tsp ghee
1 tsp mustard seeds
1 tsp urad dal
1 red chili pepper, halved (we omitted this for Nadia)
a few curry leaves

Cook dal.  Combine toor dal and water in heavy saucepan.  Bring to boil, then simmer with partially covering lid for 1.5 hours.  Add more water as necessary.  Stir a few times in the last 30 min.

Paste.  Heat oil in skillet.  Add coriander seeds, black peppercorns, urad dal, and asafoetida powder.  Saute 2 min.  Make into a paste together with the toasted almonds (or coconut) and a little water we used ~ 1 Tbsp.  You can use mortar and pestle, or a spice grinder.

Main method.  Combine cauliflower florets and tomato in pan with enough water to cover (we used ~1.5 C).  Add sambar powder, turmeric powder, and salt (we used ~1 - 1.5 tsp).  Simmer until vegetables are tender.  Add the paste and the cooked dal.  Simmer until flavors are blended (a few minutes).  If you'd like, you can add a thickener such as a few tsp of rice flour or cornstarch mixed with water.

Tempering.  Heat 2 tsp ghee in skillet.  Add mustard seeds, black gram dal and curry leaves.  When the mustard seeds pop add mixture to the sambar.

If you wish, add a little coconut milk at the end.