I had a hankering fro some chewy bread like substance tonight so I whipped up some of my 5-minute bread dough using 2 cups whole wheat flour and 4.5 cups of all purpose flour. I was thinking of the Roman pizza bianca which is typically a simple flatbread made with a high hydration dough topped with olive oil, salt and rosemary. I added a few other ingredients to this no-cheese pizza. The dough rose for about 3 hours before I took a hunk of it and stretched it out into a square. I doused the dough liberally with olive oil and topped it with sliced garlic, fresh rosemary, fresh tomatoes and arugula leaves. The whole shebang was sprinkled with kosher salt and baked in a hot hot oven until crisp and bubbly. It really hit the spot.
Kicked up pizza bianca
June 29, 2009 by 8 Comments
Not your typical Pot Roast
March 31, 2009 by 4 Comments
Here I sit in Fargo, North Dakota. We’ve been all over the news lately for our record flooding. We are winning the battle against the water. The river is coming down. Unfortunately, so is about two feet of new snow. Yes, once again, we are socked in with a blizzard. Sometimes I think I want to just go to sleep and wake up in 2010. But the high water and blizzard just make us work harder up here in Fargo. As much as I yearn for spring (and I saw my tulips coming up a week ago) I am slapped by mother nature again reminding me that she still thinks it’s winter.
Since I can’t get out and the sandbagging has ceased (for now) I made a slow cooked pot roast. But this isn’t your typical pot roast. I loaded this one up with strong Asian flavors and served it with rice. It all started with this grass-fed rump roast from a local farmer.
I love to slow cook meats in my Turkish clay pot. I really appreciate my dear friend who gave this pot to me. It has been used a lot.
I made a sauce from strongly flavored Asian ingredients. Of course I didn’t measure anything but let me try to approximate it for you. Into a blender I put in 6 garlic cloves, about an inch of fresh ginger, a tbsp of hoisin sauce, 3 tbsp of red miso paste, 2 tbsp of fermented black bean sauce, 1 tbsp srirach hot sauce, 1 tbsp of nuoc mam fish sauce, 2 tbsp soy sauce, 2 tbsp rice vinegar, 1 tbsp mirin and 2 tbsp of sugar, give or take.
This was all blended up into a thick marinade.
The meat was drowned in the sauce and it was rubbed into every crack and crevice of the roast.
Into my pot I put a large cut up onion and 6 large carrots, cut into large chunks. I plopped the roast onto the vegetables and poured any remaining sauce on top. This was covered and placed in a 250 F oven for about six hours to slowly cook. After the first three hours I basted the roast with the pot juices every hour or so. As you can see from my first picture I served it with the carrots on rice with a side of asparagus.
At least someone is enjoying the snow.
Cellophane noodle salad with Thai peanut sauce
March 22, 2009 by 6 Comments
This noodle salad was perfect to take to a party this evening. Inspired by Thai cuisine, this dish used Korean mung bean cellophane noodles. These are usually used in the Korean dish called chop chae but instead I made a Thai style salad. I cooked the noodles until tender and cooled them under running cold water. The salad contained grated carrot, cucumber and green onions. The Thai peanut dressing was made from 3 tbsp natural creamy peanut butter, 2 tbsp rice vinegar, 1 tbsp fish sauce, 4 cloves garlic, and 1 Thai chili pepper. The sauce was pureed in the blender until good and smooth. This was tossed with the noodles and vegetables. It was quite a hit at the party!
More Pizza
March 15, 2009 by Leave a Comment
What pizza did we have last Friday? A darn good one. The pie shown above has a standard pizza sauce base topped with diced summer sausage, chopped garlic-stuffed green olives, and sliced pepperoncini peppers. On top of the cheese was some pepperoni slices.
How about something completely different? How about a cheeseless Asian-style pizza. I used hoisin sauce as the base along with some sriracha hot sauce. This proved a sweet and spicy underlay for the ingredients on top. A layer of fresh mung bean sprouts, some sliced leftover Asian meatballs, and fresh pineapple finished off this healthy lowfat pizza.
See how nice it cooked up? The only drawback was the amount of moisture in the pizza. I think that comes largely from the bean sprouts and maybe the pineapple. It was a little bit drippy and hard to eat. But it tasted really good.
Meatballs with an Asian influence
March 15, 2009 by 1 Comment
No, it’s not spaghetti and meatballs with a tomato sauce. It’s better! This dish has flavors of Vietnam and Thailand. The noodles are Japanese udon noodles. I love their silky texture. The meatballs were made using sirloin roast and pork loin ground together with garlic and green onions. The meat was seasoned with some soy sauce as well and bound together with an egg and bread crumbs. The meatballs were cooked on a sheet pan in a 375 oven just until cooked through. I had plenty leftover that I used for a pizza. I’ll post more on that tomorrow.
To create the sauce, I started with garlic and ginger in a hot wok and stir fried some finely julienned carrots. To the pan I added a teaspoon of Vietnamese sour soup paste. This is a blend of spices that gives a tangy kick to the dish. More soy sauce went in along with some milk that had a little bit of corn starch stirred in for thickening. To give it a bit of Thai nuance, I added a tablespoon of creamy peanut butter. Yes, this is a spicy, tangy peanut sauce. I added enough water to keep it liquid as it cooked. I added the cooked meatballs to the sauce and simmered them for a few minutes. Meanwhile my udon was boiling. Once it was cooked to almost done I threw the noodles into the sauce and cooked them for another minute or two and coated everything with the sauce. I finished it off with some lemon juice at the last minute to give it even more tang.