Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Recipe: Orange Sesame Asparagus
I saw some asparagus on sale at $1.99 a pound and decided to have some fun:
Ingredients
- 1 lb. asparagus
- 1 TBS. sesame oil
- 1 TBS. peanut oil (or neutral-tasting oil)
- 1 TBS. rice vinegar
- juice of 1/2 orange
- julienned zest from 1/2 orange
Directions
- If asparagus spears are thicker than 1/4 inch, peel tough skin. Trim bottoms; discard bottoms. Put spears into 10-inch pan with 1/4 inch water and place on high heat. Steam asparagus until turns deep green and is still firm.
- While asparagus is cooking, take all remaining ingredients other than zest and whisk together.
- When asparagus is done, remove from pan and put into non-reactive deep dish. Cover with the mixed ingredients. Garnish with zest. Serve at once or at room temperature.
Labels: recipes, vegetables
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
Technique: Beets, Fennel Bulb, and Other Candidates for a Hot Oven
Yesterday, I stopped off with my daughter after her early morning paper run for a snack and decided to pick up something to make for dinner. I remembered that we had some beets and then I noticed the fennel, and I decided that roast root vegetables would be a great dish. I cannot recommend this highly enough - the beets especially. The heat seems to tone the beet sweetness down just a bit. I trimmed the stems, cut the globes into pieces, tossed with some olive oil, sprinkled some kosher salt, and put them, in a roasting pan, into a 425 degree oven. One lesson learned the hard way: peel them first. I was used to peels slipping off after boiling beets, but it doesn't seem to work that way after roasting.
The fennel got the same treatment, and the anise taste worked well with the beets. In addition was some briefly sauteed (until wilted) Swiss chard. There was a roast chicken for which I sauteed chopped leek, threw in flat parsley, and added some stock I made from the chicken innards. I blended the lot for a leek sauce, though I can see now that it's a bit mild on its own, and could have used a dash of something hot.
The fennel got the same treatment, and the anise taste worked well with the beets. In addition was some briefly sauteed (until wilted) Swiss chard. There was a roast chicken for which I sauteed chopped leek, threw in flat parsley, and added some stock I made from the chicken innards. I blended the lot for a leek sauce, though I can see now that it's a bit mild on its own, and could have used a dash of something hot.
Labels: chicken, roast, sauce, technique, vegetables
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Cookbook Review: The Culinary Institute of America Vegetables
I've seen a number of books before from the CIA that were clearly for student and working chefs - recipes and instructions heavy on the technical specifications and light on the images. That's fine for the cook with heavy experience, but tough on the average kitchen denizen. So I was delighted to see The Culinary Institute of America Vegetables: Recipes and Techniques from the World's Premier Culinary College.
Let's ignore the very last claim, as restaurant schools from Johnson & Wales to those in Zurich, France, and Germany might disagree. Physically this is a well-illustrated and designed book. Recipes are laid out with the steps on one page, ingredients running vertically next to the steps, and a full color picture facing. That's critical, because students in a culinary school get to see the food when the instructors show them how to make it. But if you've never laid eyes on a dish, it's difficult to tell whether your results are correct or not.
The one place where the visuals are lacking is in basic preparation and cooking techniques as well as information on storage and individual vegetable types. But economic realities come into play. The volume is already just over 290 pages long at a suggest price of $40; any more, and it would quickly hit the $70 and higher price of culinary text books, putting it out of the price range of all but the most ardent home cooks.
Recipe organization is in a standard set of categories: soups, appetizers, salads, entrées, side dishes, and sauces and relishes. What is unusual for a book covering vegetables is that it’s not vegetarian; there are some recipes that include meat. I was actually happy to see that. Too often vegetables are treated as accompaniments to meats, poultry, and fish, and not as integral parts of the recipe concepts. Those who eschew eating that which moved about at one time won’t like those parts of the book, but for most people, I think it’s a sound approach. I also saw enough unusual dishes – such as Thai Fresh Pea Soup and Hoisin-Caramelized Root Vegetables – that this collection is unlikely to be a duplicate of the standard “exotic” recipes that you find turning up in one book after another. I look forward to the next volume they do in this fashion.
Let's ignore the very last claim, as restaurant schools from Johnson & Wales to those in Zurich, France, and Germany might disagree. Physically this is a well-illustrated and designed book. Recipes are laid out with the steps on one page, ingredients running vertically next to the steps, and a full color picture facing. That's critical, because students in a culinary school get to see the food when the instructors show them how to make it. But if you've never laid eyes on a dish, it's difficult to tell whether your results are correct or not.
The one place where the visuals are lacking is in basic preparation and cooking techniques as well as information on storage and individual vegetable types. But economic realities come into play. The volume is already just over 290 pages long at a suggest price of $40; any more, and it would quickly hit the $70 and higher price of culinary text books, putting it out of the price range of all but the most ardent home cooks.
Recipe organization is in a standard set of categories: soups, appetizers, salads, entrées, side dishes, and sauces and relishes. What is unusual for a book covering vegetables is that it’s not vegetarian; there are some recipes that include meat. I was actually happy to see that. Too often vegetables are treated as accompaniments to meats, poultry, and fish, and not as integral parts of the recipe concepts. Those who eschew eating that which moved about at one time won’t like those parts of the book, but for most people, I think it’s a sound approach. I also saw enough unusual dishes – such as Thai Fresh Pea Soup and Hoisin-Caramelized Root Vegetables – that this collection is unlikely to be a duplicate of the standard “exotic” recipes that you find turning up in one book after another. I look forward to the next volume they do in this fashion.
Labels: CIA, cookbook, review, vegetables
