Pan-Fried Tilapia Remix

Pan-fried tilapia is simply delicious, and if you need further justification of that statement, you can read about it in more detail in a one of my previous posts, singing its praises.  I usually don’t blog about the same dish twice, unless I find a way to improve it.  My recipe for tilapia recently received an upgrade, not by varying ingredients, but by varying the cooking vessel.  I recently purchased my very first cast iron pan, and my only regret is that I waited so long to do so.  This is not only an upgrade for tilapia, but also an improvement for my kitchen in general.  This is particularly good news for anything sautéed/pan-fried, as those foods always tastes best when they achieve a golden, brown hue.  Deeper color results in deeper flavor, and a crispier texture.  Cast iron pans help to maximize this “golden (brown) rule,” and my most recent batch of pan-fried tilapia exemplified this.  My new favorite pan yielded crispy, golden fish fillets that were perfectly moist on the inside.  Cast iron gets hotter than non-stick pans, which allowed for the beautiful color to develop quickly, without overcooking the fish.

I also made a dill-mustard cole slaw to go alongside my fish.  Cole slaw is a common side dish for fried fish for a reason: it is a perfect complement.  It’s like serving your fish with a refreshing, crunchy tartar sauce.  Creamy, crunchy, tart, and briny: pan-fried tilapia couldn’t ask for anything more.  The dressing was both creamy and vinegary, with a nice bite from spicy mustard, and bright from the addition of fresh dill.  Following the general trend of cole slaw, this one gets better as it sits, so I recommend making it at least 30 minutes to an hour before serving.  It will continue to get better over the next day or so, as well.

Pan-Fried Tilapia: click here

Mustard-Dill Cole Slaw (loosely based on the Food Network’s recipe)

•                1/2 cup mayonnaise (I prefer olive-oil based)

•                2 tablespoons white wine vinegar

•                1 tablespoon whole-grain mustard, spicy brown mustard, or German mustard

•                3 tablespoons chopped fresh dill (plus extra for garnish)

•                Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper

•                1/2 head light-green cabbage, thinly sliced (about 6 cups)

•                1 small carrot, shredded

•                1 bunch scallions, white and light green parts, thinly sliced

-       Wisk together mayonnaise, vinegar, mustard, with about 20 grinds of fresh pepper and about ¼ teaspoon of kosher salt.

-       In a large bowl add the cabbage, carrot, and scallions.  Add about ¾ of the dressing and the dill.  Add more dressing if needed.  Garnish with dill when serving. 

Turkey Burgers

I made these turkey burgers after I saw Anne Burrell whip them up on the Food Network.  She is truly a gifted lover and creator of food.  Her recipes are so thoughtful.  She has a reason for everything she does, and she doesn’t feel the need to dress up her show with phony stories about staged social events.  Sometimes that can be entertaining, but Anne Burrell’s straightforward quality is refreshing.

Her recipe for turkey burgers has a couple unexpected and lovely touches, such sautéed onions and garlic (so nice to have them present, but without any raw acrid flavor).  Also, the recipe included water chestnuts for crunch.  Anne also added some water to the mix to keep the burgers moist, and I fully support this.  The burgers are boldly flavored with soy sauce, fresh ginger, and cilantro.  I also appreciated that she took a burger with a blatant Asian flair, and gave it the full American-burger-treatment with cheese, buns, a spicy mayo, etc.  I recommend a thick slice of white cheddar melted on top.  Below is my version of her recipe. 

I made these burgers on a Sunday night and continued to enjoy them throughout the week.  My mom follows an exacting formula for heating up leftover burgers, and it worked well with these turkey burgers.  Start with a frozen bun/piece of bread; add the cold burger and a slice of cheese.  Then wrap the sandwich in a paper towel and microwave for 60 seconds.  I’m sure there’s other ways to do it as well; reheating burgers isn’t exactly a subtle art form.  However, a nice paper-towel-wrapped turkey burger is certainly a nice way to end your day, especially after a good spin class (I love spin class at the moment).  

Turkey Burgers (adapted from Anne Burrell)

½ lb. ground white meat turkey

¾ lb. ground turkey thigh

1 small onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

2-4 teaspoons olive oil

1 8 oz can water chestnuts, chopped

¼ cup minced cilantro

2 inches fresh ginger, grated

2 tablespoons soy sauce

2 teaspoons Sriracha

Kosher salt

2-4 tablespoons water

Optional Garnishes:

Sliced cheddar cheese

Mayo mixed with Sriracha

Buns

Lettuce leaves

Onion

Tomatoes

-       Sauté the diced onion in olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat for 5-10 minutes, until onion is very soft.  Season with salt and add minced garlic.  Sauté for an additional minute.  Remove from pan and set aside.  Wipe out the pan.

-       Gently mix onions/garlic with remaining ingredients with your hands.

-       With approximately a tablespoon of the turkey mixture, form a tiny burger patty.  Cook in the skillet about 2 minutes per side, and eat it in order to test for seasoning.  Adjust accordingly.

-       Form turkey mixture into 4 equal patties.  Cook over medium high heat with a drizzle of olive oil, cooking in batches as to not crowd the pan.  Burgers with need approximately 8 minutes per side to cook through.  When they are done, they will be firm to the touch.     

-       Add cheese to melt.  Make burgers with desired toppings. (It’s nice to leave some burgers without cheese so leftovers may have freshly melted cheese)

Shakshuka

This recipe is foolproof.  The evening I made it, I was behaving like a fool, and it still came out great.  That day, I picked up a new pair of glasses, which was an exciting event since they are my first new pair in nine years.  When I retrieved them from the optometrist’s office, I relegated my contacts to a clean, white case in order to test out the glasses, and wore the glasses home.  This was my first foolish decision as the new prescription left me initially disoriented, which probably did not bode well for my driving.  I drove home nervously, hauled my things up to my apartment, and couldn’t find the contacts case.  After a quick and unsuccessful peruse of my car, I became a little panicky.  When the new prescription left me feeling nauseous, my heart rate picked up.  After a more thorough but equally unsuccessful search of my car and a call to the optometrist’s office to see if I had abandoned them, I started to sweat.  Just when I was in a complete state of panic, I found my contacts tucked neatly into my new glasses class, which left me feeling stupid, but relieved.

I then began to focus my nervous energy on dinner.  I had some feta cheese I wanted to use, so I turned to Tastespotting for inspiration.  While browsing the website, I was amazed to find every recipe had feta cheese in it.  I thought the stars were aligning in my favor, but then I realized that I had actually searched for feta cheese, and forgotten that detail.  Sigh.  Luckily, amidst all of this, I remembered something called shakshuka, which I have been meaning to make for some time (I pronounce this as “shack-shooka,” but I probably wrong).  It is an Israeli dish where eggs are poached in a spicy tomato sauce and topped with feta cheese.  Eggs in tomato sauce may sound strange, but it is common in Italian cooking and, of course, in shakshuka.  At an old restaurant job, one of the chefs used to make it for the staff.  Also, a friend recently e-mailed me a shakshuka recipe and Bon Appétit published a version in the December issue.  I’m not sure how all of this information was accessible in my brain when I was incapable of retaining other more recent and relevant details, but I went ahead and made shakshuka anyway. 

The tomato sauce had a good, strong kick from fresh jalapenos (which I partially seeded), and bold smokiness from a healthy dose of cumin and paprika.  I first sautéed onions and jalapenos in olive oil and added the spices to toast them before adding the tomatoes.  The spices mixed the onions looked like sludge and smelled like heaven.  Then that mass of concentrated flavor was simmered with tomatoes and some chickpeas.  After bubbling and mingling together, eggs were gently poached in the sauce until the whites were cooked, but the yolks remained runny and luscious.  Personally, I air on the side of a slightly overcooked yolk to prevent the dilemma of snotty egg whites.  The bottoms of the yolk were cooked hard, but there was still plenty of velvety yolk (and none of that snot that I hate).  I finished it with fresh parsley and lots of salty feta, and ate it with a spoon to effectively scrape the bottom of the bowl.  It made for a spicy, satisfying, and inexpensive weeknight meal. 

Shakshuka (adapted from Smitten Kitchen and Epicurious)

¼ cup olive oil


2 jalapeños, stemmed, seeded, and finely chopped (I removed about ½ of the stems/seeds)

1 small yellow onion, chopped


3 cloves garlic, minced


1 teaspoon ground cumin


1 tablespoon paprika


1 28-ounce can whole peeled tomatoes, undrained

1 14-ounce can chickpeas, drained and rinsed (I used about a cup)

Kosher salt, to taste


4 eggs


1/2 cup feta cheese, crumbled


2-3 tablespoons chopped flat-leaf parsley


Warm pitas, for serving (optional)

Heat oil in a 12-inch skillet over medium-high heat. Add chiles and onions and cook, stirring occasionally, until soft and golden brown, about 10 minutes.

Add garlic, cumin, and paprika, and cook, stirring frequently, until garlic is soft, about 2 more minutes.

Put tomatoes and their liquid into a medium bowl and crush with your hands. Add crushed tomatoes and their liquid to skillet along with ½ cup water and chickpeas, reduce heat to medium, and simmer, stirring occasionally, until thickened slightly, about 15 minutes. Season sauce with kosher salt.

Crack eggs into a small bowl one at a time, and add them gently to the sauce so that eggs are evenly distributed across sauce’s surface. Cover skillet and cook until yolks are just set, about 7 minutes. Using a spoon, baste the whites of the eggs with tomato mixture, being careful not to disturb the yolk. Sprinkle shakshuka with feta and parsley and serve with pitas, for dipping.

Thai Chicken Soup

I am on my first-ever paid winter break.  If you are feeling blood rush to your face in a fit of jealousy, take comfort in the fact that I am being punished for my brazen bragging with a terrible head cold.  Luckily, I have the time to take care of myself with good food, sleep, and daylong movie marathons.  Where I come from, chicken noodle soup is commonly known as “Jewish penicillin.”  The garlicky dish is said to have an anti-inflammatory effect.  In my case, I may require a course of actual penicillin, but I figure some chicken soup couldn’t hurt me.  The congestion has completely muted my sense of taste, so I decided to make it “Thai-style” to make it as flavorful as possible, and hoping that large quantities of ginger, chiles, and hot sauce would also provide some added health benefits.

Disclaimer: I doubt this soup can be considered authentic Thai food.  For one thing, I added about a cup of dry Italian white wine to the broth; I don’t think that is a common practice in Thai cooking.  I just happened to have it in the fridge, so it went in the pot.  I also happen to think fortifying soup with wine adds great flavor, but it is most definitely unauthentic and optional.  Nonetheless, I feel slightly justified in calling my soup “Thai” because I included the four tastes that give Thai food its distinctive flavor and balance: spicy (ginger and chiles), salty (fish sauce), sweet (sugar), and sour (fresh lime juice). 

To make this soup, I steeped canned chicken broth with garlic cloves, ginger, jalapeno, and fish sauce, while gently poaching chicken breasts in the simmering liquid.  You may want to eat around the garlic, etc. in the final product, or you may enjoy gnawing on a bit of ginger or garlic (maybe that’s just me).  I was a little disappointed by the spiciness that resulted from this process (or lack thereof), but a healthy dose of Sriracha quickly amended that problem.  I then removed the chicken to slice it up, and added carrots and scallions.  When the carrots were cooked through, I ladled the broth over rice noodles and chicken, and finished the bowl with limejuice and fresh cilantro. 

The soup was spicy enough to get through to my taste buds last night, but the flavor of it was so much more pronounced today.  And by pronounced, I mean heat, garlic, and ginger, ginger, ginger, tingling your tongue and throat, and the scent swirling around you. As is usually the case, this soup vastly matured and improved overnight. Today, I ate a huge mug of it without the noodles, and I preferred it noodle-free.  I want to make it again so I can taste the subtleties of the fish sauce and scallions, but overall this soup was a satisfying and restorative meal.   

Thai Chicken Noodle Soup (very loosely adapted from Jamie Oliver)

6 cups reduced-sodium chicken stock

2 cups water

1 cup white wine (optional, or add an extra cup of water/stock)

5 garlic cloves, peeled

2-3 inch piece of fresh ginger, peeled and chopped into large chunks

1 jalapeno, sliced in half, some ribs and seeds removed

3 tablespoons fish sauce, divided

1 lb. boneless skinless chicken breast

2 carrots, peeled and sliced

4 scallions, chopped

1 teaspoon sugar

½ teaspoon Sriracha chili sauce (optional)

6 oz. rice stick noodles or to taste (this amount will give you generous portions for 4 bowls)

Fresh cilantro leaves

Lime wedges

Soy sauce or extra fish sauce to taste

-       In a large soup pot, add the broth, water, and wine (if using).  Turn the heat onto medium, and add the garlic cloves, ginger, jalapeno, and 2 tablespoons of fish sauce.  Once the mixture is simmering, add the chicken breasts.  Continue to simmer, stirring occasionally for 20-25 minutes, until chicken is cooked through.

-       Remove the chicken from the pot, and add the carrots, scallions, a tablespoon of fish sauce, sugar, and ½ teaspoon of Sriracha.

-       While carrots are cooking, thinly slice the chicken and soak rice noodles in hot water according to package directions.

-       When the broth is ready, place a portion of noodles and chicken in a bowl and add broth.  Top with a squeeze of lime and fresh cilantro leaves.  You may need a spoon and a fork for the noodles.  Add extra fish sauce or soy sauce, if desired.

Spinach-Artichoke Dip

‘Tis the season of holiday parties, and the catch phrase of “bring a dish to share.”  I think this is a great concept, as it allows people to get together more often, without putting the financial burden all on one person.  Although, I will admit that sometimes it can be inconvenient, and store-bought contributions are sometimes necessary.  Hummus seems to go over well.  However, I went to a party on Saturday night, and I was determined to bring something a little more personal.  In my experience, spinach-artichoke dip seems to be a universal crowd-pleaser.  There is a reason that it graces so many American restaurant menus: people love it. 

 

I had recently wolfed down some spinach-artichoke dip at my cousin’s house, and used the recipe she found as a base.  Honestly, it was perfect as it was.  She found the recipe on All Recipes, and there is a link for its unscathed version below.  But for some inexplicable reason, I cannot make a recipe as it is written.  I feel uncomfortable and jumpy unless I am altering measurements and adding unlisted ingredients.  It’s bizarre and obnoxious, but I am what I am. 

Below, you will find my altered recipe, beefed up with extra spinach (oxymoron!) and some additional cheese.  My recipe has more bulk to it, while the original is creamier.  It’s really simple to make.  The most difficult thing is thawing and draining the spinach.  I defrost it in the microwave, and than aggressively squeeze water out by the fistful (with clean hands).  No one likes soggy dip, and it’s a good way to work out frustrations. 

When the dip came out of the oven, it was so hot, that I couldn’t even taste it.  There may be some partygoers that are still suffering because of this.  Then I became distracted and didn’t eat much of it once it reached a suitable temperature.  But, at about 10 pm, a friend took a big bite, looked at me with utter conviction and said, “This. Is. So. Good.”  Enough said. 

Spinach-Artichoke Dip (adapted from All Recipes)

1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened

¼ cup mayonnaise

¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese

1 cup grated Sharp white cheddar cheese, divided

1 clove garlic, peeled and minced

½ teaspoon onion powder

½ teaspoon dried basil

¼ teaspoon garlic salt

Salt and pepper to taste (I used about ¼ teaspoon salt and 25ish grinds of pepper)

1 (14 ounce) can artichoke hearts, drained and chopped

¾ cup frozen chopped spinach, thawed and drained

-       Preheat the oven to 350 (or tell your host to do so; I think anything around this temperature would do).

-       Thoroughly mix together all ingredients except ½ cup cheddar, spinach, and artichokes.

-       Gently mix in spinach and artichokes, and transfer to a small baking dish.  Top with remaining cheese.

-        Bake in the oven for about 25 minutes, or until the cheese is melted and the dip is hot and bubbling. (Unfortunately, I did not take a worthy picture of the finished product, but it was delicious!)