Doug’s Tunachos

a fusion of traditional Hawaiian Poke and Mexican nachos

Serves 6

For the Poke

Ingredients:
2 C ahi (yellowfin tuna, sashimi grade) diced as small as you can
¼ C sweet red onion, minced
¼ C scallions, green parts only sliced thin
½ C soy sauce
1 T sesame oil – I used hot chili sesame oil I found at the Chinese market
½ tsp red pepper flakes
Salt and pepper to taste

Preparation:
Season Ahi with Hawaiian or other good finishing salt. Add all ingredients, mix well then chill for 3 hours tossing occasionally.

For the Cheese Mixture

4 C finely crumbled good quality Queso Fresco cheese
1 cob of corn – husk on but “de-silked”
2 medium red peppers
1 or 2 Jalapeno peppers (Use 2 if you’re using those wimpy jalapenos you get at most grocery stores. Use one if you’re using the real deal you get at the local farmer’s market). Remember there is some heat in the Poke as well.

High quality nacho chips (I used some made fresh by Don Antonio’s at the downtown market)

Preparation
Peel back but don’t remove the husk on the corn and remove the silk.  “Re-wrap” the cob in the husk and soak in cold water for up to an hour.

Prepare your BBQ with a healthy handful of soaked mesquite in a foil pouch.  Once it is smoking, roast the red peppers, the jalapeno and the corn.  Remove the red pepper and the jalapeno when they are charred and put in a paper bag to cool.  Continue cooking the corn in its husk until the husk is blackened and you can see some of the corn kernels starting to turn brown.  Remove the corn and let cool in the husk.

When cooled, take the peppers out of the bag and remove the blackened skin; slice open; de-vein and de-seed.  Finely chop the roasted red and jalapeno peppers and add to the Queso Fresco. Husk the corn and slice off the kernels.  Add the corn to the Queso Fresco and pepper mixture and stir well.

I served this dish as an appetizer so I arranged four large nacho chips on a smallish rectangular plate with the concave surface facing up and serving as a dish for the cheese mixture.  Scoop a couple of tablespoons of the chees mixture into each nacho chip.  Arrange the plates on a cookie sheet and place under a medium hot broiler. Be careful not to let the chips burn.  You may have to fiddle with temperature a bit to get this right.  The Queso Fresco will not melt but it will begin to turn brown.

When the nacho chips and mixture have a nice brown surface remove from the broiler.  Top each nacho chip with a scoop of Poke and serve immediately.

Goes great with chilled Perseco

Laurie’s Sesame Crusted Tuna Balls with Ginger

250 grams of fresh sushi-grade tuna, minced
2 tsp minced red chilies
2 T minced chives
1 tsp salt
½ tsp fresh ground black pepper
2 tsp sesame oil
½ T grated fresh ginger
4 T of mixed black and white sesame seeds
Oil for deep-frying
Toothpicks

1. Combine minced tuna with the chili, chives, salt, pepper, sesame oil and ginger in a bowl. Mix well.
2. Place the sesame seeds on a plate. Wet your hands, scoop 1 tablespoon of the tuna mixture and roll into a ball. Roll the tuna ball in the sesame seeds until well coated on all sides. Repeat until tuna is used up.
3. Deep fry the tuna balls over high heat for 1 minute, turning constantly. Serve immediately with the toothpicks.

From: Asian Tapas – small bites, big flavors (Christophe Megel and Anton Kilayko)

Doug’s Miso Shrimp Soup

Serves 8

6 C boiling water
6 T white Miso
4 Thai red chilies, seeded and chopped fine
2 T of chopped, fresh ginger
2 T soya sauce
2 T Mirin
2 tsp white sugar (optional, white Miso is a little sweet)

Soba noodles or any kind of rice noodle

4 green onions, chopped into ½ inch pieces (mostly the white parts – don’t use the very end of the green part.
2 C fresh baby spinach, roughly chopped
1 C cilantro, roughly chopped
½ to 1kilo shrimp, peeled and deveined, tail-on

Boil water and add Miso. When dissolved, add next five ingredients and simmer for 5 minutes. Add shrimp, spinach and chopped green onion. Cook until shrimps are pink.

Cook noodles in separate pot (they cook really fast).

Put noodles in bottom of bowls. Ladle over the soup. Garnish with Cilantro

Ta da!

ps. this off the cuff soup by Doug was phenomenal!! -Paul

Paul’s Tandoori Chicken Fajitas with Watermelon Salsa

To prepare the tandoori:

Ingredients:

1/2 C plain yogurt
1/2 lemon (juice)
1/2 small onion (grated)
1 T garlic (grated)
1 T ginger (grated)
1 T garam masala
1 T hot smoked paprika
1 tsp cumin (toasted and ground)
1 tsp coriander (toasted and ground)
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
salt to taste
1 pound chicken (boneless and skinless, but into 1 inch pieces)

Directions:
1. Mix all of the ingredients save the chicken.
2. Place the chicken in the marinade and refrigerate for at least an hour, preferably several hours to overnight.
3. Pull the chicken from the fridge and let it come to room temperature.
3. Remove the chicken from the marinade and skewer it.
4. Grill the chicken until cooked, about 3-5 minutes per side.

To prepare the salsa:

Mix together roughly two cups of watermelon diced with about one cup of ripe pear diced. Add about a third of a cup of red pepper finely chopped and one seeded serrano pepper finely chopped.

In a jar mix the juice of a couple of limes, about one half of a teaspoon of sugar and a little salt. Shake well and then add to watermelon mixture. Make sure it all gets mixed together.

Finally:

Place some salsa on a fajita tortilla, add a skewers worth of chicken, spritz the chicken with just a little soy sauce, wrap, and take a bite.

The tandoori aspect of this comes directly from Kevin at Closet Cooking; everything else was me (Paul).

Penang Prawns

Ingredients:
1 T peanut oil (I used sesame instead)
1/4 C panang curry paste
1 14 ounce can coconut milk
1 lime (juice)
1 T fish sauce
1 tsp brown sugar
1 pound shrimp (peeled and deviened)
1 red pepper (sliced)
1 handful peas)
1 handful cilantro
1 birds eye chili (thinly sliced) -optional
1 handful peanuts (roasted and chopped)

Directions:
1. Heat the oil in a sauce pan.
2. Add the panang curry paste and saute until fragrant, about a minute.
3. Add the coconut milk, lime juice, fish sauce and sugar and simmer for 15-20 minutes to thicken.
4. Add the shrimp and red pepper and simmer until the shrimp is cooked, about 5 minutes.
5. Serve garnished with peas, cilantro, chilies and peanuts.

(I found this recipe at http://closetcooking.blogspot.com/2008/01/penang-kung-prawn-penang-curry.html and made no real changes; when something turns out so well why bother.) Did not use the chili garnish since it was already fairly hot. -Paul

Pajeon

For the crepes:

Beat together til smooth:

2 large eggs
1/2 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp. ginger root
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1 C water
1 tsp. sesame oil
1 C all purpose flour
1/3 C rice flour
1 tsp salt
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper

Stir in 1 T of water, 1 tsp. at a time until consistency of medium batter. Let stand for 10 minutes.

Add:

3/4 C finely chopped green onion
2 T finely chopped red pepper
2/3 C cooked shrimp (I used quite a bit more and chopped it to chunky)

Heat 1 T cooking oil in large non-stick frying pan until hot. Add about 2 tbsp. batter for each pancake. Cook on medium for 1 minute until edges begin to appear dry. Turn over. Cook until golden. Repeat with remaining batter, using cooking oil to prevent sticking as necessary. Makes 20 pancakes.

Nuoc Cham (dipping sauce)

2 garlic cloves minced
1-6 fresh small red chilies minced
1 T brown sugar, packed
1/4 C fish sauce
3 T rice vinegar
2 T lime juice
2 T water

Combine all ingredients in bowl. Allow to stand for 1 hour to blend flavours. Can be made 2 days ahead.

Paul’s Vietnamese Satay Soup

Peel 3 or 4 medium size potatoes and cut into bite size pieces and microwave until mostly done. Set aside.

Heat 2T vegetable oil and fry about 1T Penang curry paste (I used Mae Ploy brand) for a couple of minutes.

Add:
1 onion (cut in small chunks) and fry for a few minutes til soft.

Then add:
2 scallions thinly sliced
2 cloves garlic thinly sliced
1 inch of ginger finely sliced
1 red or yellow pepper cut into bite size
2 carrots thinly sliced
2 chicken breasts, skinless boneless and cut into bite size
Fry until chicken has changed color

Then add:
4 C chicken stock
4 C water
2T lemon juice
2T fish sauce
2T chunky peanut butter
2 kaffir lime leaves
the potatoes
2 tomatoes cut into bite size chunks

Bring to a boil and then add 1 can of coconut milk.

Simmer for about one hour and serve with cilantro on top.

Note: this was partly created to match a soup served in a local restaurant and also to remove the noodles from the arrangement.

Great food/photo blog; Eating Asia

This image comes from EatingAsia which I have been reading for some time. Check it out as an example of a great blog in every way.

Best Food Writing in Recent Memory

Fuchsia Dunlop’s book of last year, is perhaps the best food book I have ever read. The content alone is entrancing but she takes food writing to a new level.

She describes how even someone with exposure to many unusual cuisines might still find Chinese cuisine daunting. Intrepid, she will eat anything but relates how it took her some time to endure, then appreciate and finally seek out those textures we in the West find appalling. The gristly and rubbery among them. Her art is in conveying not only the grotesqueness of some of these foods but also how one could find them appetizing.

Not only does she eat her way through China, she trains as a cook in the cuisine. Its a wonderful inside look, informative, eye opening,and above all, entertaining.

Paula Deen’s Heartless Cooking and Vietnamese Soup

1. Paula Deen: Cook as Suicide Bomber

Over at SeriousEats they have an interesting little series of Paula Deen recipes under the header of Paula Deen is trying to kill us, now up to part 4. The latest horror is a hamburger patty, butter drenched fried egg and bacon sandwiched into a glazed donut. Previous entries include:Lady’s Fried Mac (for those so inclined here is the recipe); you make macaroni and cheese, then take squares of the mac and cheese, wrap with bacon, dredge in flour and egg, and then deep fry.

And then there are Paula’s Fried Butter Balls (recipe right here): take frozen balls of butter mixed with cream cheese, bread and then deep fry. The other recipe is a layered cake assembled out of deep fried layers.

2. Vietnamese Soup

I have a friend who now lives too far away. Though she is still my official beer buddy, she recently moved about a thousand miles away so the beer nights have become rare. We worked together for years, and many years ago started a tradition of going for soup at a little Vietnamese restaurant across the street called the Bach Dang. We had soup there about once a month for about five years. For a few of those years it was more like once every four months when she temporarily moved a couple of hundred miles south. Every time she was back in town, we went for soup.

It was, and still is, a humble establishment. We always had the same waiter, and we always got the same Chicken Satay Soup (which originally you had to know about to get ) and sometimes added a few spring rolls. The soup was a typical pho except that though it was always good, it was never the same twice, and sometimes it was great. And it was so hot you would have a chili endorphin rush for hours after.

No matter what was going on in the rest of our lives we had this little island, this assured good soup, this tradition. And then one day, the waiter was not there. It was odd but we had always thought it odd that he was always there. The soup came and it was not quite right. It was not only different, after all it had always varied, but it was not that good and it seemed to be an entirely different sort of soup even though it looked the same. We asked if it was the same soup and he told us it was.

We went back another few times, and each time our old waiter was still not there, and the soup was never that good, and the strangest thing of all since it was so obvious that either the cooks or the menu had changed, no one would own up to anything changing. And we had to look for another soup place. We found another that was okay but it was never the same again.