Saturday, January 10, 2009

Pasta with tomato sauce, Swiss chard, and prosciutto wrapped haddock.


Started with olive oil and chili pepper flakes in a hot pan. Then I added some garlic. As soon as the garlic was stirred in I added a few skinned tomatoes that I had frozen from the summer. I mashed those in and let that sauce simmer while my pasta and haddock cooked. I then finished everything off (chard, basil, and slightly undercooked pasta) in the empty pasta pot over some heat.

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Chicken and Veggie Fried Rice




The key to chicken fried rice is cooking the rice plenty early and letting it cool off completely so each grain stays separate during the frying. I'm sure we've all been served some sort of fried rice at home or someone else's home that was not fried at all. Plain rice (or Gold help us, Minute Rice) combined with onion, mushrooms, and green peppers mixed in with a gallon of VH soy sauce. K, back to it. Cooling the rice allows the rice to fry at high heat without falling apart or mooshing together. The rice gets to settle and reabsorb any outside liquid and firm up some, much like meat does after letting it rest after cooking. Something I like to do is infused oil with flavours and then use that oil to fry the rice. I slice up some fresh ginger, garlic, chili pepper, and throw some star anise in a pot with oil and let simmer with the lid on as soon as I start my rice. I remove the lid to let any moisture escape near the end when I'm ready to start cooking. Then, meat and then quickly veggies go into a pan or wok at high heat. I then add the eggs, rice, toasted sesame seeds, and then finish with soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, sesame oil, and fish sauce. I top it off with green onion (I didn't have any today but I did have chives) and some toasted sesame seeds.