Fridgg: What's For Dinner?

Tour de France – Tartiflette

Tartiflette

Barbara of Winos and Foodies is known for being a huge fan of Lance Armstrong and the Tour de France – after all, every year she organizes the wonderful LiveSTRONG with a Taste of Yellow event.

Once again, she’s organized a great one – a series all about the Tour de France, that brings together a bunch of bloggers who are each assigned a stage of the Tour.

I got Stage 9, which happens today. It starts in Morzine-Avoriaz (check out Raita’s blog to see what she did for Stage 8… heh, let me just say, great minds think alike… ), and finishes in Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne.

Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne is in the Savoie region of France – the mountainous region in the south-east. It has a rich history with cycling – the many mountain passes that surround the town are absolutely perfect for biking, and it just happens to be at the heart of the biggest cycling area for climbers.

Of more interest to foodies, the town has an annual bread festival (which will happen on the 5th of August this year), and is famous for its Opinel knives.

Ooey, gooey cheese and cream…

I was delighted to hear that I was assigned to a town from the Savoie region – for several years now, there has been a dish from that region that I’ve been wanting to try. This was the perfect excuse!

Potatoes, bacon, onions, garlic, cheese, cream, wine… you really can’t go wrong with a Tartiflette. These are all the ingredients I love most!

Perfect garnished with some chopped green onions!

Tomorrow’s stage will be over on Mele Cotte, so make sure to check it out!

P.S. Did you know you can also hang out with me on the Fridgg page on Facebook?

P.P.S. Speaking of hanging out, you’re following me on Twitter, right? Feel free to say hi, ask questions, poke fun at me… I always love getting to know my readers better.

Tartiflette, adapted from Lucy’s Kitchen Notebook:

Ingredients

• potatoes to fill a 9×13″ pan (about 5-6 medium potatoes)
• 2 medium onion
• 1 lb good bacon, or other good cured pork
• 2 cloves garlic
• 4 tbsp butter
• salt and pepper
• 1/3 cup heavy whipping cream
• 1/2 cup dry white Savoie type wine
• 1/2 of a Reblochon de Savoie
• green onion

Cooking Directions

1. Heat the oven to 475°F (250°C).
2. Peel and slice the potatoes into medium-sized slices.
3. Roughly chop the onions.
4. Heat the butter in a heavy skillet and add the onions and bacon; sauté gently for 3-5 minutes.
5. Add the potatoes and continue to sauté for 5 more minutes.
6. Add the wine, give the potatoes a stir, season with salt and pepper as desired, then cover and let simmer and steam in the wine for 10 minutes.
7. Grease the baking dish with butter, crush the garlic cloves, and rub the garlic cloves all over the inner surface of the pan.
8. Add the heavy whipping cream to the potato mixture, and transfer it to the gratin pan.
9. Slice the Reblochon in half with a sharp knife flat wise, and place the two pieces on top of the potatoes, rind side up.
10. Bake for 10 minutes.
11. Turn the heat down to 400°F (200°C) and bake for 10 more minutes.
12. Turn off the oven but don’t open it, and leave the dish in the closed oven for another 10 minutes.
13. Garnish with chopped green onions.
14. Serve hot with a salad, crusty bread, and the the wine you cooked with.

Oyster Stew

Oyster Stew

If you read Sushi Day, my other food blog, you may recall that I went to Seattle, WA last August. Although the purpose of that trip was to learn about sustainable sushi, Son and I decided that if we were going to go, we might as well get the most of our trip. So we met a few friends, ate at a new restaurant owned by the husband of a food blogger whose writing and photos I absolutely adore, got lost a few times, and ended up with a foot swollen so big I could barely walk thanks to a rather inconvenient bug bite saw as much as we could of the city in one weekend.

One of the last restaurants where we ate at was Elliot’s Oyster House. Because we figured, well, we’re in Seattle, so we really should eat some oysters, right? I remember enjoying the meal, though half a year later I’ve forgotten most of what Son and I had. However, there is one thing that we ate that I still crave: the oyster stew.

Since coming home from Seattle, I kept promising myself I would make it. But I kept putting it off, because I didn’t have time to cook, it was better suited for cold weather, etc. etc. Finally, all the stars were aligned, and I made this oyster stew recipe that I adapted from Allrecipes.com.

Yum.

Get some nice crusty French (or sourdough) bread to sop up the warm soup. (Okay, I’ll admit it. That’s my favorite part. I’m not in it for the oysters (*gasp*) or even the potatoes (*double gasp*)… all I really care about is sopping up that hot soup with the crusty bread until it’s soaked and starting to get soft… mmm. Cream, butter, and some hot sauce all mixed together… what’s not to like?)

…with crusty French bread, it’s the perfect meal

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup butter
• 6 shallots, minced
• 2 potatoes, diced
• 1 quart half-and-half cream
• 1 (12 ounce) container fresh shucked oysters, drained
• salt and ground black pepper to taste
• 1 pinch cayenne pepper, or to taste
• hot sauce
• crusty French bread

Directions

1. Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium heat, and cook the shallots until tender.
2. Pour half-and-half into a large pot over medium-high heat. Mix in the butter and shallot mixture. Add potatoes. Stir continuously.
3. When the mixture is almost boiling, pour the oysters into the pot. Season with salt, pepper, cayenne pepper, and hot sauce.
4. Stir continuously until the oysters curl at the ends. When the oysters curl the stew is finished cooking; turn off the heat and serve with crusty bread to sop up the liquid.

Pork Satay

Pork Satay on Rice with Peanut Sauce

The January 2010 DC challenge was hosted by Cuppy of Cuppylicious and she chose a delicious Thai-inspired recipe for Pork Satay from the book 1000 Recipes by Martha Day.

Here at the Day/Nguyen residence, we love Thai food. For a while, we were eating take-out from a local Thai restaurant almost once a week. I go for the pad see ew (or however you spell it – it seems like the spelling is different at every restaurant), he goes for the pad thai or the pineapple fried rice.

But we’ve never made Thai food at home. Until now. Normally, I’m not a huge fan of satay, or of peanut sauce. Don’t know why, but in general it just doesn’t do it for me. However with this recipe… we got 20 skewers out of it, and they were gone in one day. Easily. Even if I had made more, we wouldn’t have had a problem finishing them. And the peanut sauce? Completely different from any I’ve ever tried. I couldn’t get enough of it. It’s one of those sauces that make you kind of want to pour it over everything you eat – it’s that good.

Will we be making this again? Oh yeah. No doubt about it.

Pork Satay

Pork Satay

• 1/2 small onion, chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• 1 tbsp ginger root, chopped
• 2 tbsp lemon juice
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tsp ground coriander
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1/2 tsp ground turmeric
• 2 tbsp vegetable oil (or peanut or olive oil)
• 1 pound of pork (loin or shoulder cuts)

Cooking Directions

1. If you have a food processor or blender, dump in everything except the pork and blend until smooth. Otherwise, chop the onions, garlic and ginger really fine then mix it all together in a medium to large bowl.
2. Cut pork into 1 inch strips.
3. Cover pork with marinade. You can place the pork into a bowl, cover/seal and chill, or place the whole lot of it into a ziplock bag, seal and chill at least 4 hours.
4. If using wooden or bamboo skewers, soak your skewers in warm water for at least 20 minutes before preparing skewers.
5. Gently and slowly slide meat strips onto skewers. Discard leftover marinade.
6. Broil or grill at 550°F (or pan fry on medium-high) for 8-10 minutes or until the edges just start to char. Flip and cook another 8-10 minutes.

Peanut Sauce

• 3/4 cup coconut milk
• 4 tbsp peanut butter
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tsp brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp ground cumin
• 1/2 tsp ground coriander
• 1-2 dried red chilies, chopped (keep the seeds for heat)

Cooking Directions

1. Mix dry ingredients in a small bowl. Add soy sauce and lemon, mix well.
2. Over low heat, combine coconut milk, peanut butter and your soy-lemon-seasoning mix. Mix well, stir often.
3. All you’re doing is melting the peanut butter, so make your peanut sauce after you’ve made everything else in your meal, or make ahead of time and reheat.

Sushi! And a sustainable replacement for unagi.

Dragon Roll

The November 2009 Daring Cooks challenge was brought to you by Audax of Audax Artifex and Rose of The Bite Me Kitchen. They chose sushi as the challenge.

Catfish

To be honest, I was both excited and disappointed when I saw this challenge. Because, well… I love sushi! But… I make sushi all the time. Where’s the challenge for me?

Dragon Roll

Sumeshi. Dragon Roll. Decorative rolls. Nigiri sushi. Those were the “challenges” for this month. For most people, this is a great challenge, because if I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard someone is scared of trying to make sushi at home… I’d be a very rich woman indeed. But for me… I’ve done that all already. Countless times. *sigh*

BLT Spiral Roll

But!!! In fact, I was able to find something here to challenge me. You see, unagi is bad, bad, bad. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve eaten unagi many times in the past and enjoyed it quite a bit. But… it’s not sustainable. At all. Not good. Especially when these days, I’m trying to go completely sustainable, at least when it comes to seafood.

BLT Spiral Roll

Inspired by a roll Hajime Sato made at the Sustainable Sushi Dinner at Mashiko, I decided I would make my own sustainable replacement for unagi. Made from catfish. And that, my friends, was my challenge for this month’s Daring Cooks challenge.

So how did it turn out? Wonderfully. Perfect. The taste, the texture… we might as well have been eating unagi. It was fantastic.

BLT Spiral Roll

For the Dragon Roll instructions and the sumeshi recipe we were to use for this challenge, go check out the posts on Audax’s and Rose’s blogs. For lots and lots more sushi recipes and the instructions that I use for my own sushi, check out Sushi Day, my sushi blog.

Catfish

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup mirin
• 1/2 cup shoyu
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 2 catfish fillets

Cooking Instructions

1. Combine the mirin, shoyu, and sugar in a small pot.
2. Bring to a boil, then simmer for half an hour. Let cool.
3. Marinate the catfish in the sauce overnight.
4. Bring the oven to 350°F.
5. Wrap the catfish fillets in individual foil packets, pouring some of the sauce over each fillet. Bake 30-45 minutes, keeping an eye on the catfish so it doesn’t overcook.
6. Let cool. Enjoy!

Phở Bò Tái

Phở bò tái (beef noodle soup)

It’s been four years, five months to the day since Son and I went on our first date. In those four years, he has widened my perspective on a lot of things – especially food. The eighteen-year-old girl who met Son in a ballroom dance club at her university wouldn’t recognize the almost-twenty-three-year-old programmer and food blogger that I’ve become – back then, I wouldn’t go near curry, sashimi, spicy foods, exotic fruits… anything that didn’t look like the Japanese- and Swedish-American foods I grew up with.

Nowadays, as you can see from the things I post about both here and on Sushi Day, my tastes have widened significantly. But oddly enough, there is one ethnic cuisine that I rarely cook in my home – Vietnamese food. Son is Vietnamese – so you’d think I’d be leaping at the opportunity to cook the food he grew up with… right? Not so much… for two main reasons.

First of all, Son lived in Vietnam until his family came to California when he was eleven years old. And, of course, his parents still cook the food they grew up with on a regular basis. So obviously, Son knows Vietnamese food pretty darn well… thus I have a certain level of insecurity when it comes to the dishes he’s eaten all his life – what if I make them terribly? What if… *gasp*… I’m deemed an unsuitable girlfriend for him, because I’m unable to make decent phở?

Secondly, we visit his parents every other weekend. And from every visit, we return with food. Lots of food. Lots of home-cooked Vietnamese food. So unfortunately, while the demand for me to cook anything at all is fairly low, the demand for me to cook Vietnamese food is even lower.

Thus when I discovered this month’s Daring Cooks challenge was phở, chosen by Jaden of Steamy Kitchen, I was excited. Very excited. But also incredibly nervous – what if it wasn’t good enough for him? I would be heartbroken if it ended up being a failed phở. But I set my fears aside, and set to work making the phở bò tái (beef pho) (click the link for the recipe).

Liquid gold

I did make a few changes to the recipe. Since there isn’t a single decent Vietnamese restaurant near me (I’d likely have to drive all the way to the Little Saigon area of Southern California, which is easily an hour or more away), I couldn’t find the *real* bones used for the broth. You know, those really great ones filled with all the yummy marrow. So I had to make do with what I could find at the grocery store: two pounds of “soup bone” (a large-ish bone with meat attached), and about three pounds of neck bone (also with meat attached).

Because of my inefficiencies in the bone department, I decided to add some extra richness to the broth by using two quarts of beef broth in place of two of the six quarts of the water used in the broth. I also could not, for the life of me, find cardamom pods anywhere during the short amount of time I had to shop before I started the phở. So I used ground cardamom instead. Instead of regular cinnamon, I used a stick of Vietnamese cinnamon that I’ve been hoarding ever since I was lucky enough to be gifted some by Todd and Diane of White On Rice Couple.

Lastly, I upped the cooking time. By a lot. You see, Jaden’s recipe says three hours of cooking is plenty to get all the great flavor from the bones. And I would have believed her. But no. Son insisted that I cook the broth for at least twenty-four hours, because when his dad makes it, he cooks it for days and days and days. And even weeks. So instead I cooked the broth as instructed in the recipe up to the first hour and thirty minutes, then instead of cooking it for only another one and a half hours, I let it simmer for about six more hours that night. Then I refrigerated it over night, and then simmered it again all the next day – about eight more hours.

The verdict? As I mentioned (more than once) on Twitter, the broth is absolutely heavenly. I would have no problem just drinking it by itself, noodles, meat, and other accompaniments be darned. But then I tried the meat that had been attached to the bones, which had been cooking the entire time and was so wonderfully tender it just fell apart in my mouth… *swoon* As for Son, he approved greatly. Which just makes me so incredibly happy, I could burst.

Yep, I’d say this was definitely a huge success. Easily a recipe I’ll be keeping in my repertoire for many years to come.

A wonderful success