Teriyaki sauce ranges from thick to thin and salty to sweet depending on where you’re getting it from. This is my favourite teriyaki sauce recipe. Adjust the consistency and flavouring to your taste. Serve this with miso soup (recipe here) and Japanese restaurant style salad with miso dressing (recipe here).
Photos above: Teriyaki sauce used as a marinade (left) and used as a sauce poured over cooked chicken (right).
I had a lot of miso paste leftover from making miso soup (recipe here), so I made a miso salad dressing for a Japanese restaurant style salad. Note that you could omit the carrot and use the rest of the ingredients (adjusted to your taste) to make a simpler miso salad dressing. I served this with miso soup and chicken teriyaki with a stir fried bean sprout medley (recipe here).
In many Chinese homes, this quick and simple dish is served with rice and other dishes for dinner. I have provided recipes for 3 different variations, but you could use any ingredients and any combination that you like. My favourite combination is the steamed minced pork with salty duck eggs. (I will load a photo the next time I make it.)
Steamed minced pork with muy choi (Chinese salted mustard) is shown below. Note that traditionally, the meat is seasoned with soy sauce and the muy choi is simply scattered over the top. However, I’ve reduced the sodium of this dish by omitting the soy sauce and mixing the muy choi (which is already salty) in with the meat.
Julia Child’s aioli recipe from Mastering the Art of French Cooking calls for white bread and a mortar and pestle. One day, I will try making aioli the traditional (proper) way (post to follow), but for now, I’m happy using my food processor to make a garlic flavoured mayonnaise. You can serve aioli as a dip (perfect for deep fried sweet potato fries) or use it in any way that you would use mayonnaise.
I love cranberry sauce with turkey, so I’m not sure why I waited so long to make it from scratch. I will never buy canned cranberry sauce again. It is very easy to make and can be made a few days ahead of time. I made it for Christmas, 2010 and Ed – who doesn’t like cranberry sauce – surprisingly really liked it. Now he understands why people pair cranberries with turkey. 🙂
The great thing about this cranberry sauce is that it’s not just for turkey. You could add it to baked brie crostini or baked brie on crackers, use it as an accompaniment for pâté de canard (duck pâté), spread this on top of cheesecake (garnish with almond slices), or use it as a filling for layer cake or trifle. You could even use this like jam on french toast, plain toast, pancakes, scones, muffins, or sandwiches.
I serve this rice pudding warm, because it contrasts beautifully with the cool chunks of mango. I also love the added texture that the toasted coconut gives to the creamy pudding. (See my recipe for basic rice pudding here.)
Note: The texture of your rice pudding will depend on whether you’re using long or short grain rice. According to the Joy of Baking, using long grain rice will result in a pudding that’s chewier and slightly drier.
There are so many different ways to make pad thai authentically, that it really annoys me when restaurants don’t make it properly. The worst is when the “pad thai” is made with a thick, red coloured sauce. I rarely order it so as to avoid disappointment. Luckily, pad thai is very easy to make at home. It usually contains rice stick noodles, bean sprouts, Chinese chives, fish sauce, and sugar. White vinegar or tamarind are used in Thailand for the sour component of this dish. More information on tamarind has been posted here. Depending on the street vendor, other varying ingredients include eggs, tofu, pork, dried shrimp, fresh shrimp, preserved raddish, and/or dark thick soy sauce, etc. So add whichever ingredients you like. Ed and I prefer a mildly and lightly flavoured pad thai, but you can adjust the sweet and sour balance of the recipe below to your preference.
I’ve made butternut squash risotto and pea and prosciutto risotto before, but mushroom risotto is my family’s favourite – so far (I haven’t made them seafood risotto yet). Since this dish is so simple, the selection of mushrooms is critical to the success of it. The secret to my mushroom risotto is the use of dried black trumpet mushrooms. The texture of these mushrooms is thin and leathery, but they lend the most amazing flavour and aroma. When my mother tasted this, she was so impressed with the mushroom flavour that she thought I had added some processed or artificial flavouring. For texture and aesthetic appeal, I also used dried porcini and fresh oyster mushrooms. (I love the dried mushrooms from Marx Foods (review here). You can taste the quality of their mushrooms from the soaking liquid, which in this case, added tremendous flavour to the rice.)
Miso soup is a simple Japanese soup that consists mainly of dashi stock and miso paste. Miso paste is available in a variety of colours (ie. yellow or red) and flavours (ie. salty or sweet). Additional ingredients, such as seaweed, tofu, mushrooms, and/or pork, are often added to this soup. Although instant miso soup powders are widely available, this soup is very easy to make (minus the MSG and preservatives). Traditionally, wakame is the seaweed of choice, but this time, I used dulse, a red seaweed that I bought in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada (photo below). See my post on how to use dulse here.
Update: This photo was published in TAPS The Beer Magazine in the November/December 2012 issue!
I had never heard of dulse until I started making travel plans to the east coast of Canada. So when we were in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Krystal and I went looking for this and were lucky enough to find it at the City Market. We purchased a bag of hand picked, sun dried dulse and brought it back to Ontario. I wanted to share what I’ve learned as this might be of interest [in particular] to vegetarians, vegans, gardening enthusiasts and people who have anemia or hypothyroidism. Note: If you have hyperthyroidism, however, it may not be appropriate for you to consume dulse.
Quinoa is high in nutrients and an excellent plant-based source of protein. I usually make quinoa salads in the warmer months. But in the fall and winter, I like to enjoy this quinoa salad warm. I love the contradicting textures and flavours of this healthy and filling dish. For example, I love the creaminess and richness of the goat cheese, the crunch from the nuts, the sweetness and chewiness of the raisins, and the crisp sour bites of apple. See my other quinoa recipes here and here.
I have compared quinoa purchased from Bulk Barn to Bob’s Red Mill organic quinoa. I found that Bob’s Red Mill organic quinoa held its shape more firmly, had a better texture, and tasted better. So in my opinion, it is worth it to pay [much] more for the brand name product.
I had some roasted mini potatoes leftover (recipe here) so I made a one skillet breakfast of eggs with bacon and potatoes. The great thing about one skillet breakfasts is you can use whatever meat or vegetables you happen to have on hand. Read the rest of this entry »
Cooking with Alison 