bits and pieces

This vague-sounding recipe comes from a discount cookbook I found at Borders, called The Essential Asian Cookbook. Udon Noodle Soup is pretty simple, with noodles, leeks, pork, and a mixture of dashi, soy sauce, and mirin, plus green onions and spicy Japanese chili powder (ichimi togarashi) for garnish.

It was fairly easy to make, though I’m not sure what halving the recipe did to the broth. It was pretty salty on its own, but combined with the pork, leeks, and everything else, each bite was really nice.

I have another udon recipe to try later this week, and I’ve also ordered some new dishes and silverware to add to my current sets (or partial ones at that). Yay.

Yes, another Asian dish tonight, but this one is more Thai in style, which is a bit different for me.

The recipe is Coconut Shrimp Soup and comes from the Everyday Food cookbook again, and also available on their web site. It was all pretty easy to make, mostly involving boiling and simmering on the stove, so most of the work was in the preparation. Chopping the carrots, mincing the garlic, and so on.

I halved it to only make 2 portions, though I’m a bit unsure about some of their ingredient amounts. There were definitely more than enough shrimp and carrots when I halved it, and yet not enough greenery and spice for me.

The taste was definitely very creamy — it was my first time using coconut milk in a recipe — and rich, though not as heavy as I’d expected. The combination was nice, but I think I would definitely have liked more of some other vegetable besides carrots. I’m not really into cooked carrots, but I definitely liked the green onions. And I could have added more of the red pepper flakes, because I barely tasted them.

For future reference, here’s the recipe:

Coconut Shrimp Soup
Serves 4

• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1 grated fresh ginger
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon red-pepper flakes
• 1 pound (6 to 8 medium) carrots, peeled, halved lengthwise, and thinly sliced
• 1 can (13.5 ounces) coconut milk
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch
• 4 ounces angel-hair pasta
• 1 1/2 pounds large shrimp, peeled, deveined, and tails removed
• 1/4 cup freshly squeezed lime juice
• Coarse salt
• 4 scallions, thinly sliced

Directions

1. Heat oil in a large (3-quart) saucepan over medium-low heat. Add ginger, garlic, and pepper flakes; cook, stirring, until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add carrots, coconut milk, and 3 cups water. In a small bowl, mix cornstarch and 2 tablespoons water until smooth; add to pot. Bring to a boil.
2. Break pasta in half; add to pot. Return to a boil, reduce heat to medium, and simmer until pasta is al dente and carrots are just tender, 3 to 4 minutes.
3. Add shrimp; stir until opaque, about 1 minute. Remove pot from heat, and stir in lime juice; season with salt. Ladle into serving bowls, and garnish with scallions.

I thought I’d try a non-Asian dish for a change, so I went with a recipe for Spaghetti with Turkey Meatballs that I found in the Everyday Food Cookbook. It seemed relatively simple, though the prep time was pretty lengthy but it sounded good anyway.

Originally, I was going to make this last week, but a lot of stuff came up and I got too busy. I decided to freeze the meat, hoping it would turn out ok anyway. I will say that the preparation wasn’t too bad after all, though I got tired of chopping the parsley and onions pretty quickly after starting. The meatballs definitely took some time to prepare, though it was my first time trying to make them, and I was pretty concerned about the frozen meat messing things up. Oh, and the fact that I only had soy milk instead of cow’s milk for the mixture. The meatballs — 11 in all! — seemed to blend together all right, though they seemed really big and I barely fit them in the pan when it came time to cook them.

I forgot to buy spaghetti, so I ended up cooking angel hair (my favorite, anyway), and preparing the sauce was simple enough. Cooking the meatballs was not fun though. The book didn’t say whether or not I was supposed to cover everything while the meatballs and sauce simmered, and the sauce seemed to have stuck to the bottom of the pan while simmering and burned a bit. I ended up cooking it all much much longer than the recipe said, and even then I wasn’t entirely sure if the meatballs were done. I would definitely recommend cooking them for awhile, like closer to 15 minutes, rather than the 8 minutes they suggest. And cover it!

The recipe said to add the pasta into the pan with the sauce and meatballs, to mix it all up before serving. Now, I don’t know about you, but there is no way that I have a pan that large to fit a whole pound of pasta in with 11 meatballs and sauce. Maybe I need to get a larger pan, but it just wasn’t going to happen, so I had to plate it up afterwards.

Overall, I liked how this came out, especially with the mixture of onions, parsley, and Parmesan in the meatballs. However, due to the work involved and the drama with the meatballs, I think I’ll hold off on repeating it for awhile. I might try it again, but perhaps with ground beef instead, and I might need a bigger pan to fit everything at the end.

Here’s the recipe for reference:

Spaghetti with Turkey Meatballs
Serves 4
Prep time: 50 minutes
Total time: 1 hour

To make meatballs that are moist and tender, avoid using very lean ground turkey.

• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 5 cups canned crushed tomatoes
• 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
• Salt and pepper
• 1 large egg
• 1/3 cup milk
• 1 white onion, finely chopped
• 2/3 cup plain breadcrumbs
• 1/2 cup freshly grated Asiago or Parmesan cheese, plus more for serving
• 1/2 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley
• 1 pound ground turkey
• 1 pound spaghetti

1. Make the sauce: In a large nonstick skillet, heat oil over medium-high heat. Add garlic, and cook about 1 minute. Stir in tomatoes, oregano, and thyme, and season with salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, lower heat, and simmer, covered, 20 to 25 minutes.
2. Make the meatballs: In a large bowl, whisk together egg, milk, 1 1/4 teaspoons salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper with a fork. Stir in onion, breadcrumbs, cheese, and parsley. Add turkey, and mix until combined. Form mixture into 1 1/2-inch balls.
3. Add meatballs to skillet, and spoon sauce over to coat. Place over medium heat until meatballs are just cooked through, about 8 minutes.
4. Cook spaghetti until al dente according to package instructions, about 12 minutes. Drain pasta, transfer to skillet, and toss gently with the sauce. Serve with more Parmesan.

Note: Keeping your hands wet when forming meatballs will prevent the meat from sticking, making the task much easier.

To further fuel my cooking, I bought the Everyday Food cookbook and marked a number of recipes that looked like good ones to try. A lot of them are pasta-based, but I decided to try with cashew chicken, because of how simple it was.

Last night, I toasted the cashews while I was eating dinner, which was pretty simple, since you just toss them on a baking sheet and put them in a 350° oven for 10 minutes. I had to buy a few items I didn’t have, like cornstarch, rice vinegar, and hoisin sauce, but the rest was pretty straightforward.

Tonight, Fred and I cooked it all up, and I think it turned out fairly well, though I didn’t really detect much of the garlic we used. But the flavor was still good and it was really filling, especially with rice fresh from my rice cooker.

I definitely plan on making this one again, though I’d like to try adding something more than the green onion, like another vegetable or mushrooms. But for now, at least I have leftovers to take to work for lunch! :)

Here’s the recipe:

Cashew Chicken
Serves 4

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breast, cut into 1-inch cubes
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch
• Coarse salt and ground pepper
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil, such as safflower
• 6 cloves garlic, minced
• 8 scallions, white and green parts separated, each cut into 1-inch pieces
• 2 tablespoons rice vinegar
• 3 tablespoons hoisin sauce
• 3/4 cup raw cashews (4 ounces), toasted
• White rice, for serving (optional)

Directions

1. In a medium bowl, toss chicken with cornstarch until chicken is coated; season with 3/4 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper.
2. In a large nonstick skillet, heat 1 tablespoon oil over medium-high heat. Cook half the chicken, tossing often, until browned, about 3 minutes. Transfer to a plate.
3. Add remaining oil and chicken to skillet along with the garlic and white parts of scallions. Cook, tossing often, until chicken is browned, about 3 minutes. Return first batch of chicken to pan. Add vinegar; cook until evaporated, about 30 seconds.
4. Add hoisin sauce and 1/4 cup water; cook, tossing, until chicken is cooked through, about 1 minute. Remove from heat. Stir in scallion greens and cashews. Serve immediately over white rice, if desired.