quick and easy peanut noodles with satay sauce

this takes the cake for SUPER-FAST, easy, impossible to mess up, cheap, and versatile. add only what you’ve got in your cabinet and it’ll be wonderful.

no need to be exact – just a splash of this and splash of that.

substitute away; the only truly necessary ingredients are the first few.

cooked noodles
a splash of oil, butter, ghee, or fat
peanut butter
soy sauce
lime juice
ginger
cayenne
garlic
miso
cooking sherry
sesame seeds
chunks of mostly-cooked broccoli, raw snap peas, or whatever you like

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bored of the same old noodles? try adding:

rice wine vinegar and honey for a sweet-and-sour
leftover veggies
hoisin
crunched-up whole peanuts (or other nuts)
coconut milk
a raw version with raw zucchini ‘noodles’, raw grated carrots, and raw soaked and pureed peanuts-cashews-and-lime-juice (i’ve never done this. in fact i just invented it. but i bet it’s amazing, and i can guarantee i’m not the first person to think of it.)
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combine all ingredients except noodles in a pot. cook until smooth and combined.

toss with noodles.

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other peoples’ peanut sauces?

&& fried peanuts, gula jawa (palm sugar), garlic, shallot, ginger, tamarind, lemon juice, lemongrass, salt, chilli, pepper, sweet soy sauce, ground together and mixed with water

pork and poblano tamale pie (with diy green enchilada sauce)

a good old-fashioned american recipe. by “american”, i mean, does tamale pie really count as mexican? neither tamale nor pie, i told my friend we’d have to call it something different. nothing quite sounds right, though. rice-and-beans cornbread pie? poblano-pork cornbread-lasagna con salsa verde? who cares; it’s good. not quick, but very easy.

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i miss the tamale guy. i no longer live in a city. i am not going to simmer pork cheeks all day. a tamale craving out in the country? this will have to do.

here’s what i actually did:

PORK AND POBLANO TAMALE PIE___
(my version)

==green enchilada sauce:

a can of mild green chiles
half-can of hot jalapenos
a carrot
a head of roasted garlic
a roasted poblano
a raw yellow pepper (any bell pepper is fine)
cilantro (key, but i’m somehow out – used it all for kofta curry meatballs last night. used some raw mixed greens like arugala instead.)
a great deal of onion (houseguest refuses, so we’re going without, and it still smells wonderful)
cumin
coriander
oregano
a kiwi (wait, what? well, no tomatillos; why not?)
salt
a splash of lime juice
two drops of fish sauce

stick all that in the food processor and grind it up.

fix up some stock or bouillon and dump the ground-up veg matter (which should smell and taste amazing) into the stock. add a pat of lard if you have a greasy bacon-juice jar in the back of your fridge.

boil a while. some say an hour. you can stick it in a slow cooker if you have one – i don’t. really i’m guessing any amount of time is fine – even raw if you really wanted to. why not?

==pork

salt and brown a few pork steaks and chop em up into little bite-sized pieces.

next, you want to boil the pork steaks in the green sauce. i added a half-cup rice, a half-cup black lentils, and two cups water to the pork and green sauce and cooked it all together. i don’t know how long. until they are cooked? a while.

==cornbread topping

3/4 cup all purpose flour
3/4 cup yellow cornmeal (preferably whole-grain stone-ground)
1 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
cumin
coriander
3/4 cup whole milk
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, melted
1 large egg
1 tablespoon honey
a bunch of cheese
half a can of corn

= the process

butter a pan and line it with pork-and-rice-and-chile-sauce mixture.

crack a few eggs on top.

you are layering these, by the way.

pour cornbread mixture on top of that.

grate tons of cheese on top of that.

bake at 400 until cornbread’s done.

tweaked a recipe i originally found here

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8:24pm
smell-wise:
so far, so good.

green sauce is bubbling on the stove and smells wonderful. i’ll add meat in another moment or two.

10:15pm
the whole thing’s in the oven. smells wonderful in here.

3/11
we finished it for breakfast. awesome, although i don’t know how much more special it is than rice and beans with cheesy cornbread on the side. will make this again.

vegan “gravy”

for use with biscuits
(or on top of vegetable stir-fry, as a base for soup [diluted], as a dip, over khichdi or pasta, with eggs scrambled in it for breakfast or on top of pancakes or grits, with bread… the list goes on and on.)

fry onions til translucent (preferably in butter or coconut oil, but anything is ok)
add garlic
add roasted garlic
add coriander, nutmeg, cumin, black pepper, salt, cinnamon, and ginger, and stir-fry for a minute or two
add vegetable stock, bouillon, or broth and cooking wine (maybe a dash of balsamic or acv)
add fresh herbs, whatever you have, and dried herbs (i like rosemary and sage, but anything could work)
boil until delicious
(optional: for white gravy, add a combination of kefir and milk, or almond milk, or watered-down coconut milk, or really anything creamy – cauliflower puree would probably do the trick, too. for brown gravy, add a browned roux if you eat butter, or just caramelize the onions and garlic in the beginning.)
add flour or starch (corn, potato, whatever you have) or both until it reaches the desired thickness.

thai fusion curry from scratch

yesterday’s attempt:

put chicken thighs (or vegetables, or whatever,) in a baking dish and put just a bit of soy sauce, coconut vinegar, and salt over them. then add a ton of lime juice.

add half a can of coconut milk mixed with a teaspoonful or so of shrimp paste.

throw in freshly grated cinnamon, ginger, shallot, and garlic. fresh orange-mint and basil from the garden. turmeric. paprika. cayenne. some reconstituted and finely chopped dried thai chili, plus some of the soaking liquid. sesame seeds. black pepper. cumin. coriander. (forgot those last two.. whoops. still good.)

notes:
too shrimpy, somehow, even though such a small quantity was used. great otherwise. first attempt at cooking with shrimp paste!

baked it for a half-hour-ish. i forget what temperature. 350?

served with grits because they’re faster than rice! next time i think i’ll wait out the rice.

spicy peanut sauce // shrimp paste day

SPICY PEANUT SAUCE
from Corinne Trang’s The Asian Grill
Makes 5 cups.

2 Tbsp vegetable oil
1-1/2 to 2 Tbsp red curry paste
1 Tbsp shrimp paste
1-1/2 cups unsalted roasted peanuts, finely ground
1/4 cup granulated sugar or palm sugar
2 cups unsweetened coconut milk
2 cups chicken broth
1/2 cup tamarind concentrate*
3 Tbsp hoisin sauce
1/2 cup packed fresh Thai basil leaves, minced
1/2 cup packed fresh cilantro leaves, minced

In a saucepan, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the curry paste and stir-fry until fragrant, about 2 minutes. Add the shrimp paste and continue to stir-fry until the shrimp paste is broekn up and one shade darker, about 1 minute. Add the peanuts and stir, roasting until two shades darker but not burnt, 8-10 minutes. Add the sugar and continue to stir-fry until the sugar is dissolved and starts to caramelize, 1-2 minutes. Add the coconut milk, chicken broth, tamarind concentrate and hoisin sauce. Reduce the heat to low and simmer the sauce until slightly thickened (look for a créme anglaise consistency), about 30 minutes. By that time, the natural oils from the peanuts should have surfaced. Turn off the heat and add the basil and cilantro. Cover and let cool. Store in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.

red curry // shrimp paste day

red curry

The main ingredients are garlic, shallots, (dried) red chillies, galangal, shrimp paste, salt, kaffir lime peel, coriander root, coriander seeds, cumin seeds, peppercorns and lemongrass. Common additives are fish sauce, sugar, Thai eggplant, bamboo shoots, thai basil (bai horapha), and meat such as chicken, beef, pork, shrimp, frog, snake or duck. Tofu, and meat analogues or vegetables such as pumpkin, can be substituted as a vegetarian option. This dish normally has a soup-like consistency and is served in a bowl and eaten with steamed rice
…
Red curry paste itself is the core flavouring for a number of other non-related dishes such Thot man pla (fish cakes) and sai ua (grilled Chiang Mai sausage).

-wikipedia

so let’s see… garlic, chilis, ginger, shrimp paste, salt, lime peel, coriander, thai basil, cumin, sugar, and squash sounds pretty good to me.