Sasha's Kitchen: Coconut Curry Chicken

This is a simple, heathy chicken recipe that is delicious and easy to make. I cam across this on Martha Stewart's Everyday Food, and thought it was worth giving a try. I made some minor modifications and it worked out just beautifully. This is another great dinner dish to make for a nice family dinner, or dinner for two with leftovers. The original recipe can be found here, and is called a spicy coconut chicken. Mine wasn't spicy (which was fine with me) because I used a different type of curry (powder and chile paste combo rather than curry paste), while I used a whole cut up Empire chicken rather than just the legs. Also, I added a yellow zucchini to the mix. It worked out just perfectly! This is definitely a thai inspired fusion dish, which is a favorite ethnic cuisine for me to experiment with.

Coconut Curry Chicken
1 T olive oil
whole chicken, cut up (about 3-4 pounds)
salt and pepper to taste
1 can (14.5 oz) light coconut milk
1 1/2 cups low sodium chicken stock
1/2 cup water
1 tsp curry
1 tsp chile paste
1 cup jasmine rice
2 red bell peppers, cut into 1 inch pieces
8 oz green beans
1 yellow zucchini, cut up

Using a five quart Dutch Oven, heat the oil over medium high heat. Season the chicken to taste with salt and pepper, and cook the chicken until browned (about 6-8 minutes). Transfer the chicken to a plate.

Add the coconut milk, 1/2 cup water, curry and chile paste to the pot and bring to a boil. Stir to dissolve the curry and chile paste. Stir in the jasmine rice and add the chicken back in. Cover the Dutch Oven and reduce the heat to medium-low. Cook until the rice is almost tender, about 15 minutes.

Put in the green beans, zucchini and bell peppers in the pot on top of the chicken and cover the pot again. Cook until the veggies are crisp-tender, which took me about 15 minutes.

Sasha's Kitchen: Coconut Curry Chicken

Eric's Kitchen in Jersey City: Tofu & Shrimp Pad Thai

This was my first attempt at cooking either tofu or pad thai. I will say from the start that I wasn't particularly thrilled with the results but I think the biggest mistake I made was not reading the label of the sauce I bought. Basically I needed 2 jars of thai kitchen peanut sauce for the amount of noodles that I had and I only used one. If I made this again, I'd probably try to make the sauce from scratch and make a lot more of it.

Ingredients:
1 Package Thai Kitchen rice noodles
1 Jar Thai Kitchen peanut sauce (better to use 2 if going this route)
1 red pepper, minced
1 medium vidalia onion, minced
1 package of straw mushrooms
1 handful of chopped cilantro
1 package extra firm tofu
1 lb. jumbo shrimp

I'll start with the tofu since this was the most interesting part to me, having never cooked it before. I took some advice from Alton Brown's 'Good Eats' and dried the tofu by wrapping it loosely with paper towels and placing some cans of baked beans on top to utilize the weight and drain the tofu. After that sat for 20 minutes or so and seemed less damp, I cubed it and then dredged it with egg whites, wheat flour and bread crumbs. I then pan fried the cubes in some olive oil to give it a little crunch. I do realize this kind of defeats the purpose of making healthy tofu but I figured, hey, at least we're cooking tofu for the first time! Baby steps...

I cooked the shrimp in olive oil, garlic, chopped cilantro and a little lemon juice. I like to cook them in the shells and shell them after cooking as I find they stay more tender this way and near impossible to overcook them unless you're really not paying attention.

On to the sauce (which was mostly from a jar). I sauteed the straw mushrooms, onion and minced red peppers with some garlic in olive oil and added them to the peanut sauce. I also shelled a cup or so of peanuts and crushed them with the back of a wooden spoon. These helped the sauce immensely.

In the end I served this with a slice of lemon and some sauteed snow peas. I have to say both the shrimp and tofu were excellent but the noodles needed more sauce for sure. Maybe someday I will try to follow this up with some homemade sauce instead!

Here's Sasha's versions of chicken and vegan pad thai

Eric's Kitchen in Jersey City: Tofu & Shrimp Pad Thai

Sasha's Kitchen: Thai Coconut Beef Udon

I ate quite a bit of ramen noodles during my days as a college student at Haverford College in suburban Philadelphia.  Ramen is one of the staples of a college student and in those days only required a plug-in “hot pot.” Other college “cooking” experiments in those days included peanut butter and jelly, microwave cocktails, quite a bit of amateur bartending and of course jello. I did do a little cooking the summer I spent in the apartments at Haverford after sophomore year, and had plans to help my roommate cook a pot roast that she had brought from home, except that someone entered our apartment when we were gone to steal the pot roast from the freezer and a half-used tub of Crisco (seriously, some 10 years later we have no other explanation for this, as nothing else was disturbed).  Consider below a Thai take on the college classic for a quick grownup meal.


Udon noodles, in my opinion, are the grown up version of ramen noodles. This may not be what they are intended to resemble, but they always remind me of those college instant ramen days. Udon is actually Japanese wheat-flour noodle that can be served hot or cold. It can be combined with tofu for a vegetarian soup or with beef or chicken.

Tonight I attempted to create a udon noodle dish using my extensive collection of thai spices (some of which my mom brought back from her trip to Thailand) and a coconut broth. For some reason I couldn’t find a udon recipe using a coconut broth, which I thought would be the perfect combination with udon, so I created my own.

Here are the ingredients I used. Note that I feel I used too much ginger in my broth that I made tonight (it was fine, but a little heavy on the ginger) so I am making the adjustment accordingly in the recipe I am sharing here.

1 lb flank steak (you can substitute grilled tofu if you prefer to make a vegetarian dish)
4 cloves minced garlic
½ tsp powdered ginger
8 oz udon noodles
2 cups lowfat chicken stock
1 tsp dried lemongrass
¼ tsp saffron
3 small pieces dried galanga
1 can lowfat coconut milk
Scallions
Mint
1 tsp salt
Pepper to taste

Season and grill the tofu or steak as you wish. In a pot with 1 tsp salt, bring the noodles to boil to cook for about 10 minutes, as per the package instructions. In a sauté pan, add the garlic, ginger, galanga, lemongrass and saffron to the chicken stock and lowfat coconut milk. Bring to a boil, and allow to simmer for a bit until the right consistency. Add the noodles and the steak and/or tofu. Garnish with the scallions, mint and a bit of pepper and serve hot as a soup.

I am very excited to report that my purse and shoe cookie cutters and professional grade food colorings arrived today. I plan to bake some lovely and trendy purse and shoe cookies, as well as some upcoming cake projects exploring the use of fondant as a decorative meeting.  In addition, we are planning quite the New Years Eve dinner to bring in a better 2010, so stay tuned for that too.  My menu for NYE, which will be the subject future posts, will include my take on a tiramisu truffle and how to prepare a perfect rack of lamb.

Sasha's Kitchen: Thai Coconut Beef Udon

Sasha's Kitchen: Wegmans v. Whole Foods, And Thai Stir Fry

Tonight's kitchen calisthenics were delayed due to problems with the NYC subway. After leaving work, I made a quick stop at Whole Foods to get some unusual ingredients, and then got on the subway in Union Square. What is usually a 20 minute trip from Union Square to my front door took and hour and 15 minutes, as the train was stuck on the Brooklyn Bridge (or perhaps it was the Williamsburg Bridge?) for about 40 minutes. I was not pleased

Prior to this subway disaster, I made my first visit to the Union Square branch of Whole Foods. I have to say, I don't understand Whole Foods - it's like a crowded yuppie food playground of expensive designer organic foods, that are no healthier than the half-organic / half supermarket brands I normally buy, but cost twice as much. This is not to say that Whole Foods doesn't have some great stuff for select things, as they do (great cheeses, by the way), as well as some unusual things that are hard to find at conventional grocery stores, but it's just not necessary to do all of your routine grocery shopping at a place like Whole Foods if you want to cook with great ingredients.

In addition, the shopping atmosphere at the Union Square Whole Foods is totally ridiculous. The check out lines are longer than the lines at Disneyland - I think you could get on Space Mountain sooner than you could reach the end of the full check-out at Whole Foods. There are two check-outs - one for people crazy enough to do a large grocery shop here, and one for people like me buying less than 10 items. The longer line was about a 40 minute wait. I waited for about 10 minutes. When I got to the end of the checkout line, there were beeping lights and an automated voice that told you which cashier to go to. Once you got the signal, you had to run to the cashier or someone behind you or from either of the lines beside you would beat you to the register. I managed to get it right on the second try.

Whole Foods only wishes it could be as good as Wegmans - Wegmans has 1000 times better customer service, more space, many more food/products (there is NOTHING Wegmans doesn't carry, it is truly amazing), plus that friendly upstate New York vibe, minus all the urbanite uber-cool yuppies in a mad rush. Plus, the check outs at Wegmans are simpler and much better than the ones I experienced today. Wegmans has all the same expensive brands as Whole Foods but they also have the whole spectrum of alternatives from the generic brands to the designer brands, so you can decide what is best for each food product. Further, Wegmans heavily promotes their own brands, as my mom pointed out, which are generally very high quality.

So what did I buy at Whole Foods - a few things I could not find at my local grocery stores in Park Slope (Associated, Union Market and Key Food), all of which probably would have been available at Wegmans. I bought a bag of Key Limes (for my next Key Lime Pie. I also bought some Meyer lemons and lingonberries, which I will be discussing in my next post.

Now that I have taken this tangent into the battle between the food titans of Wegmans and Whole foods, I will discuss tonight's dinner recipe - my Thai stir fry. There are a bunch of ways to make this and I do little variations each time, always trying new flavors. Here's how I made it tonight:

2 pounds thai stir fry beef
2 red peppers (cut)
1 1/2 tsp diced garlic
2 dried chile peppers (for a mild hint of spice; add more if you want more spice)
2 T fish sauce
1 T sugar
1 T dried lemongrass
1 cup fresh basil (add at the very end, about 30 seconds before you take off the heat)
1/2 onion, diced
salt and pepper to taste
(I usually make this with some kaffir lime leaves as well, but I had run out. I guess I'll check for them next time I brave the lines at Whole Foods).

I did get a late start, but luckily this recipe is a quick and easy stir fry.

Sasha's Kitchen: Wegmans v. Whole Foods, And Thai Stir Fry

Sasha's Kitchen: Pad Thai - Chicken and Vegan Versions

Tonight I made pad thai for the first time. My dinner and subsequent post were delayed by having to attend a long and boring condo board meeting. However, the pad thai actually didn't take long to make and turn out great. Tonight's pad thai recipe has plenty of wonderful flavors. I also think that I have worked out a wonderful vegetarian variation to this dish as well, which I plan on making for an upcoming dinner party we are having in January with some vegetarian friends.

Thai food is one of my favorite ethnic cuisines. Thailand is one part of the world that I would love to travel to (the closest I've been was a trip to Australia and New Zealand in 2004). My mother spent three weeks in Thailand a couple years ago and I would love to go back with her on a mother daughter trip in the next couple years. She loved visiting the elephant preserve, as well as the different types of thai dishes she ate in Thailand, which has encouraged me to experiment with some different Thai dishes, including pad thai.

Here is the recipe for Pad Thai. Note that I included a vegetarian/vegan variation on the recipe that I made tonight.

Sasha's Pad Thai

8 oz extra firm tofu (16 ox if you are making a vegetarian dish) cut into small cubes
2 8 oz skinless, boneless chicken breasts cut into pieces (obviously omit if doing it vegetarian style)
2 T peanut oil
salt and pepper (for seasoning the chicken and/or tofu)
2 shallots, finely diced
2 cloves garlic, finely diced
1 T ancho chile powder
1/4 cup water with 2 tsp concentrated tamarind paste (reconstitute the tamarind paste in the water according to the instructions on the tamarind paste you use)
1/3 cup rice vinegar
2 T fish sauce
2 T brown sugar
2 T peanut butter
1 package pad thai noodles, soaked in hot water for 15 minutes
1/8 cup chopped cilantro
4 oz bean sprouts
1/4 cup cashews, toasted
1 T sesame seeds
2 T truffle olive oil
1/3 cup sauteed pineapple (optional - not included in the dish I prepared today)

Season and grill the tofu and/or chicken separately until cooked through for the chicken or slightly charred for the tofu. Set aside.

Heat 2 T of truffle olive oil in a medium saucepan. Note that truffle oil, if you have it, might work as well. However, I have never had the privilege of cooking with truffle oil, as it is extremely expensive. A smallish bottle of truffle olive oil, which I did use, will cost you about $10.

Add the shallots and garlic and cook until soft. The add the ancho chile powder, tamarind water, vinegar, peanut butter, fish sauce, brown sugar and peanut butter. Bring to a boil. When the sauce has a nice not-too-thin but not gooey consistency, you can turn the heat off. If it gets a little too gooey, add a bit of extra water to thin.

Add the sauce to a large bowl with the chicken and/or tofu. Add the pad thai noodles and sesame seeds and mix.

As I said above, do not be afraid to make a vegan/vegetarian version of this dish. I love tofu even though I am not a vegetarian. I find it extremely rewarding to cook with since it basically adapts the flavors of the other ingredients that are used in whatever sauce it is cooked with. Preparing this dish with tofu, along, rather than combining with chicken, would help highlight the other flavors in the dish - namely the truffles, tamarind, and peanut butter. I think that some sauteed pineapple would also potentially be a welcome addition to this pad thai, which I might consider adding in the future.

Sasha's Kitchen: Pad Thai - Chicken and Vegan Versions