Blood, sweat, and…Sweet Potato-Wrapped Cod

17. March 2011 · 2 comments · Categories: cooking, Dinner, food, recipes, Savory, Side dishes, Uncategorized, vegetarian · Tags: , ,
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For those who don’t know me, my background is as a civil engineer. While this gives me some very useful real world skills, the ability to stray from black-and-white thinking isn’t one of them. As all who know me will attest, I like to be given explicit directions and I follow them to a T. There’s no gray area for this girl.

As you might imagine, this means that I prefer to have a recipe to follow rather than making things up, and I tend to favor baking over cooking because there isn’t much room for ad-libbing.

However, I’m happy to report that since beginning this blog and reading about recipe contests that require creativity, I’ve been much more open to switching things up. I’m starting to create my own flavor combos and recipes!

I’ve found that the easiest way to begin the process of creating a “new” recipe is to rework an existing one by swapping one or more ingredients for other similar ones, or others that go equally well with the rest of the ingredients called for.

Last week my coworker sent me a recipe for a potato-wrapped fish. It involved slicing super thin slices of potato and actually wrapping the fish with it, then frying it, creating a beautiful little package.

I’m really not too fond of changes in general. I mean, I know my mom always told me that changes are usually for the best, but let me just tell you that in this particular cooking experiment, this was not the case.

My first change was to use sweet potato instead of potato…just make it a little more gourmet and colorful. These thin slices of potato were meant to be sliced with a mandoline because a knife wouldn’t get thin enough slices to have them flexible enough to wrap around the fish fillet.

I don’t own a mandoline so I attempted to do it with a cheese slicer. FAIL. Not only did it take me forever, but as careful as I was, I still managed to slice open my finger. I bandaged myself up and managed to salvage enough slices to cover four fillets. Lesson learned: DO NOT MAKE THIS WITHOUT A MANDOLINE!

I had some leftover rosemary from my tart the other day, so I made a sort of rosemary, parsley, olive pesto/tapenade to spread between the potato and the fish. It was a yummy choice. My mom warned me that sweet potato might not crisp up as well as a regular potato. In this instance, Mom, I know you may not believe your eyes as you read this but you were right. It got kind of brown but when I went to flip it, it just stuck to the pan and shredded. I could have left it to brown more, but it was already sticking a lot so I was afraid to. I mean it wasn’t horrible but certainly wasn’t as presentable as I would have liked. I served it along with a simple beet salad.

Nate enjoyed the fish, but he pretty much likes anything I make.  I, however, think I would benefited from some sort of balsamic reduction to serve over it because the pesto/sweet potato/fish combo was slightly rich and I would have liked something acidic to cut it (or maybe add more olives to to pesto?). I squeezed lemon on top but it wasn’t enough.

When I had it for leftovers the next day, I decided it was better than I had thought. That being said, by all means give it a try and make your own changes to my recipe…they might just be for the best :)

 

Sweet Potato-Wrapped Cod with Rosemary Tapenade
Recipe by Me
Serves 4

1 Tbsp rosemary
1/4 cup parsley
2 Tbsp fresh lemon juice (from about 1/2 lemon)
1/4 cup pine nuts
1/3 cup pitted kalamata olives
1-2 cloves garlic

4- 5 oz. cod fillets
1 large sweet potato, the longer the better

Put rosemary, parsley and lemon juice in food processor and blend til finely chopped. Add rest of tapenade ingredients and blend til it becomes a paste.

Peel the sweet potato. Using a mandoline, cut sweet potato into thin slices lengthwise. You will need at least 8 slices per fish fillet.

Pat fish dry; sprinkle with salt and pepper. Place a large piece of saran wrap on work surface. Set 4 to 5 slices of sweet potato on saran in row, overlapping long sides. Make another row that overlaps short ends of first row, forming 6×5-inch rectangle (see photos above). Sprinkle rectangle with salt and pepper. Set 1 fillet across overlapped short ends of slices. Spread 1-2 Tbsp of the tapenade evenly over the top of the fillet.

Fold short end of rectangle over fish one side of fish. While holding potatoes to fish with one hand, use saran to help to pull other side of potatoes up and over the fillet and wrap the fish fairly tightly in saran (see photos above). Repeat with other 3 fillets. Put fish “packets” in fridge and chill 1 hr.

Heat 3 tablespoons oil in each of 2 large skillets over medium-high heat. Remove saran and set the wrapped fish fillets, seam side down, in each skillet. Cook until golden on bottom, about 3 minutes. Turn; cook until fish is opaque in center, 2 to 3 minutes longer.

 

 

Simple Beet Salad
Adapted from Martha Stewart
makes 3-4 side dish portions

3 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp white wine vinegar
1 tsp dijon mustard
salt and pepper to taste
2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh parsley
3 medium beets, roasted and peeled
1/3 cup crumbled blue cheese
1/4 cup toasted pecan pieces

Combine oil thru pepper and whisk to blend.
Toss beets with dressing and parsley.
Before serving, sprinkle beets with blue cheese and pecans.

 

Pear, Proscuitto and Fig Tart with a Rosemary Cornmeal Crust

14. March 2011 · 14 comments · Categories: Baking, Brunch, cooking, food, recipes, Savory, Side dishes · Tags: , , , ,

Whew, that title was a long one! I never really know what to put for my blog post titles. Sometimes I want to be creative, but I feel like I need to be descriptive and tell you exactly what recipe the post contains. I guess I’ll just see how it goes. But for this one, I knew the name of the recipe itself was enough to draw you in ;) Sounds tasty, right?

Lately I’ve been trying to enter as many recipes contests as I can in an effort to get my blog out there. The other day I saw this contest on Food52, a website that hosts weekly themed contests, and this one’s winner would get to be on the Martha Stewart Show! I know she gets a bad rap sometimes, but ever since I was little, I’ve been kind of obsessed with her. I want to be her (well, not including the jail time, and maybe with a little bit more of a sense of humor). Martha, if you’re reading this, I’m just kidding- I love you!

I believe this recipe came to me by divine inspiration. No, I wasn’t sitting in bed reading cookbooks when it happened. I had just stumbled across the contest mentioned above and it got me brainstorming. I was on another long walk home and so I started to think. I knew I wanted to use the flavors of the bruschetta I made a month ago but somehow incorporate it into a tart. I was trying to figure out what type of crust to use when it came to me: Rosemary Cornmeal. I was also thinking I wanted some sort of jam to make it more tart-like so I decided to turn the figs I had used in the bruschetta into a jam.

I had all the flavor components in mind but wanted to alternate salty and sweet layers. I thought I’d make the crust have some sweetness to it, and I had the fig jam, prosciutto and pears, but I needed something else salty. I decided to spread a thin layer of blue cheese between the crust and jam. I also added a touch of balsamic vinegar to the fig jam to make it sweet, but tangy too.

Now, I don’t like to toot my own horn, but I’m going to make a bold statement and say, this could be the best food I’ve EVER eaten. Like so good I’d eat it instead of dessert!

Yep, you heard me right. This tart is better than dessert. You may be asking yourselves, “Has Amy gone off the deep end?” Well, I thought you would have noticed that happened long ago, but I promise this recipe is that good.

The rosemary in the crust is aromatic and shines through, the crust itself and sweet and crumbly, the tanginess of the jam pairs perfectly with the saltiness of the cheese and ham and the juicy sweetness of the pears, and the honey on top makes it truly decadent. Try it and see for yourself.

P.S. See my entry in the Food52 contest HERE.

Fresh Pear, Fig, and Prosciutto Tart with Rosemary Cornmeal Crust

Recipe by Me
8-10 appetizer portions

Crust:

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup yellow cornmeal (not stone-ground)
2 Tbsp sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1 stick (1/2 cup) cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1 1/2 Tbsp fresh rosemary
4 to 5 Tbsp ice water

Filling:

1 3/4 oz blue cheese crumbles (about 1/3 cup + 1 Tbsp)
1 recipe Fig Spread (see previous post)
4 oz. Prosciutto, roughly chopped
1 juicy fresh pear, cut in half, cored and then very thinly sliced
1-2 Tbsp honey

Put rosemary in food processor and process til chopped. Add flour, cornmeal, sugar, and salt to food processor and pulse. Add butter and pulse until mixture resembles course meal with some small (roughly pea-size) butter lumps. Drizzle evently with 4 Tbsp ice water and pulse until just incorporated. Gently squeeze a small handful. If it doesn’t hold together, add more water, 1/2 Tbsp at a time, pulsing after each addition and continuing to test.

Press dough evenly onto bottom and up sides of 9 1/2 inch tart pan. Chill crust until firm, about 30 min.

Preheat oven to 400. Bake crust in middle of oven until center and edges are golden, 25-30 minutes. Remove from oven and sprinkle with blue cheese. Leave cheese to soften on warm crust for 1-2 min. After softened, spread cheese around crust (small offset spatula works best). Cool crust in pan on rack or in fridge until reaches room temperature.

When crust is cooled, spread Fig Spread evenly over crust. Sprinkle chopped Proscuitto evenly over tart. Arrange pear slices in 2 concentric circles over tart. Drizzle with honey and garnish with rosemary sprig if desired. Serve immediately.

Note: Tart will not be good served after refrigeration as pears will turn brown and crust will be too hard.


Savory or Sweet: Fig Spread

10. March 2011 · 5 comments · Categories: Brunch, cooking, food, recipes, Savory, Side dishes, Uncategorized, vegetarian · Tags:

Confession: I read cookbooks in bed before going to sleep. Is that weird? I love getting to think about all the things I still haven’t tried making yet. It’s exciting.

Reading cookbooks before bed has one downside: food dreams. I dream about food all night long and wake up hungry.

I don’t particularly like cookbooks with no pictures…I’m very much a visual person. I can’t imagine how the recipe will come out if I don’t see an example.

I learn best by example. I suppose this is why I love food blogs so much. Seeing the gorgeous photos of what other people make is so enticing.

Unfortunately, while figs are a beautiful fruit, fig jam is just…well, ugly. It’s brown, and brown isn’t appetizing. But, I promise it tastes delicious, especially when paired with a mixture of salty and sweet foods like in my next post: Fresh Pear, Fig and Prosciutto Tart with Rosemary Cornmeal Crust.

Sound good? You better believe it is! But for now, you’ll just have to look at these pictures before bed and hope that you get to taste it in your dreams ;)

(Other uses include spreading on crackers, or making a similar tasting bruschetta like my old post, but using the jam instead of the chopped figs)

Savory Sweet Fig Spread

Recipe by Me
Yields about 1 1/3 cups

7 oz. dried figs (I used Mission)
1/2 cup sugar
3/4 cup + 2 Tbsp water
1 Tbsp flour
1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar

Combine in pan, boil over low heat. Reduce heat and stir til resembles jam, about 25 min. Cool to room temperature.


Ho-tteok, Sweet Korean Pancake

07. March 2011 · 17 comments · Categories: Breakfast, Brunch, Cake, cooking, Dessert, food, recipes, Uncategorized, vegetarian · Tags: , ,

Ho-tteok is a variety of filled Korean pancake, and is a popular street food of South Korea. According to Wikipedia, it is usually eaten during the winter season, which works out well for this blog post :)

It is believed that hotteok originated from Chinese merchants who immigrated to Korea after the late 19th century. Unlike many Chinese pancakes, which often contain savory meat fillings, hotteok are stuffed with sweet fillings, to suit Koreans’ tastes. They traditionally contain a filling of brown sugar, chopped walnuts or peanuts and cinnamon, that melt when the cake is fried.

I think I first had Hotteok at a Korean supermarket I went to while briefly living in Texas. It was being made right there in front of me, and it came out so fresh and hot that I burned my mouth on the sweet, sugary filling inside because I couldn’t wait for it to cool. Needless to say, it was delicious. You’d think I would have learned my lesson but I always burn my mouth on hot foods due to my impatience.

The main reason I chose to make this (other than going along with the Asian theme of my last post) is because, out of curiosity, I bought some glutinous rice flour (also called sweet rice flour) the last time I was at the Asian supermarket. I don’t know what I was thinking, really. I thought you could just use it in place of white flour in any recipe. I believe you can  with regular rice flour, but the glutinous type is mainly used in Asian desserts. It’s chewy, from the gluten I suppose, which makes it workable and good for stretching around fillings.

These days, the types of hotteok have been changing continuously. Many variations have developed since the early 21st century, such as green tea, pink bokbunja, corn, and more. In my case, I decided to alter the traditional filling by using crunchy peanut butter in place of the nuts and adding some banana because…well because you can’t have peanut butter without banana (or chocolate) ;)

Though the glutinous rice flour can’t be found in a standard supermarket, you can find it in most large Asian grocery stores, or you can order it online. I highly recommend trying it. And with the leftover, you can make mochi ice cream!

The batter was so delicious that I may try thinning it out and making waffles with it. Whether you choose to make this for breakfast, dessert, or as a snack, I can guarantee you won’t be able to wait to eat it either…and when you burn your mouth, don’t say I didn’t warn you ;)

I submitted my recipe to Yeast Spotting!

 

Hotteok (Sweet Korean Pancake) stuffed with Brown Sugar, Peanut Butter and Banana

Adapted from One Fork, One Spoon
makes 8-10 small pancakes

¼ cup lukewarm water
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon active-dry yeast
1 cup flour
¾ cup glutinous rice flour
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup milk
3 tablespoons canola or vegetable oil

filling:
¼ cup brown sugar
1/4 cup crunchy peanut butter
1 ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/3 banana, diced

Stir together the lukewarm water, one tablespoon of sugar, and active-dry yeast in a small bowl until the sugar and yeast dissolve.  Let it sit for 10 minutes, during which time it will start to bubble and foam.

Combine the flour, glutinous rice flour, salt and remaining tablespoon of sugar in a large bowl.  Add the yeast-sugar mixture and the milk.

Using your hands, bring the dough together into a sticky ball.  Knead it a couple of times, for about two or three minutes.  The dough will be sticky, but it should still come off your hands and stay together.  Cover with plastic and place in a warm spot for 3 hours.  (I put my oven on 200 for 30-40 seconds then turned it off and put dough in and turned on oven light)

After 3 hours, the dough will have doubled in size.  It will look pretty puffy.  Knead the dough a couple times until it becomes more elastic, but keep in mind that it will never become a smooth, elastic ball of dough.

Combine the brown sugar, peanut butter and cinnamon in a small bowl. Chop banana into small pieces and put to side.

Heat the oil in a large pan on medium-high heat.  Make sure your pan is hot before you start — your pancake should sizzle when it hits the pan or it won’t form a good crisp crust.  Oil your hands and pinch off a piece of dough, about 2-3 tablespoons.  Knead it into a smooth ball and then stretch it out into a loose circle, creating a depression in the middle.  Fill the depression with the sugar mixture, about a tablespoon worth.  Stretch and seal the dough around the sugar mixture and flatten it between the palms of your hands.

Drop the flattened ball of dough into the pan.  The oil should be hot enough to sizzle.  Smooth some oil on your spatula and press down on the ball of dough, flattening it further.  Continue making balls of dough until the pan has 3 or 4 pancakes in it. Be careful not to crowd the pan.

Fry the pancakes until golden-brown, about 3 minutes on each side.  Remove from the pan and let them drain on a paper towels or a wire rack.  Serve warm.

 

Sunrise, sunset…

05. March 2011 · 4 comments · Categories: cooking, Dinner, food, recipes, Savory · Tags: , , ,

Sunrise Mart at sunset, that is! Sunrise Mart is a japanese supermarket near Union Square that I discovered last year in my quest to find asian grocers in nyc.

I love asian supermarkets. I believe this penchant for exotic/unusual and, more specifically, asian groceries developed back when I was in my asian dating phase. Yep, you heard right…I exclusively dated asian men, better known as yellow fever (now, luckily for Nate, I have beardo fever!). Now don’t go asking me why I had this particular condition, because even I’m not sure of the exact catalyst for this phenomenon encompassing the majority of my adult life, but what I derived from these experiences was a love for asian food…both eating it and making it.

With each relationship, I taught myself to cook the food from the country of origin of the guy I was dating. It was mainly Vietnamese and Korean, but I consider Korean my specialty. In addition, I even learned to speak, read, and write Korean. I wish I had practiced enough to be really fluent, but as with most hobbies that came with guys I dated (paintball and motorcycles to name a couple), the korean classes, along with my desire to study, ceased when the relationship ended. But at least I can read the signs and menus in New York’s K-town ;)


I’m not sure if you’re at all familiar with Korean food, but they have these little side dishes that come to your table when you sit down, called panchan. They are DELCIOUS. They usually involve pickled veggies, or sauteed ones, or a korean version of potato salad, or these yummy black beans, and lots of other things. All korean grocery stores sell them, and this Sunrise Mart happens to sell them too, along with some other Korean items.

Prepared food case at Sunrise Mart

The point of all of this background information (yes, I realize I’m very wordy!) is that i was seriously craving some panchan yesterday. So I decided that I would go to the store and buy some, and then make some asian-inspired dinner to go along with it. I wasn’t sure what I would make but knew it would involve broiling fish and roasting veggies with some sort of asian glaze.

When I got to Sunrise Mart, I went over to the veggie area and selected some Japanese eggplant, along with what I thought was a very large sweet potato, although the label said Satsumaimo. This didn’t deter me because I knew that if it wasn’t a sweet potato, it was some other root veggie that could most likely be cooked similarly. I also picked up some white fish fillets also with a name I didn’t recognize, but it looked vaguely like Tilapia. (I looked up Satsumaimo when I got home and found out that it’s a japanese sweet potato with a milder flavor, softer flesh, and a lighter yellow coloring than an American sweet potato).

Satsumaimo, or japanese sweet potato

Source

I wandered around the store further ( I could literally spend hours in an asian grocery store picking up and investigating every item) and came across a case of Miso paste. I’ve been wanting to buy miso for the longest time, so I took some of that and figured I could incorporate it into my glaze.

Tasty taters!

I walked home excitedly, with my purchases in hand and immediately scoured the internet for recipes for Miso glazes. After getting the feel for what went into a basic miso glaze, I created my own and discovered one of the easiest, most delicious dinners I’ve ever made! I’ll definitely be looking for that Satsumaimo again…both Nate and I agreed that it tasted like candy. While this dinner had more obscure ingredients,  you can substitute most everything for the American versions, but you will definitely need Miso paste.

Mah-is-geh deuseyo! (Bon appetit in Korean ;) )

 

Miso Glazed Fish and veggies

Recipe by Me

2 Tbsp Miso paste (i used yellow but i don’t think it matters)
2 Tbsp seasoned rice vinegar (you can find in any grocery store)
1 Tbsp sake, vermouth, or dry white wine
1 Tbsp sugar
1 Tbsp orange juice
1 Tbsp sesame oil

1 lb white fish fillets (Tilapia works well)
Assorted roasting veggies (i used 2 japanese eggplant and about 3/4 lb sweet potato), chopped into large cubes
1 Tbsp olive oil

Toss vegetables with olive oil. Spread on baking sheet and roast in oven at 450 for 30-40 minutes or until tender, but not too brown.

When veggies are cooked, remove from oven and brush glaze on top.

Broil veggies until glaze is caramelized and browning. Remove from oven.

Spread enough glaze on fish fillets to cover. Broil until fish flakes easily and top is golden. Brush additional glaze on fish and veggies if desired.

 

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