Vietnamese Sauce

This traditional Vietnamese sauce also doubles for a super flavorful marinade as well as a salad dressing. This time around I marinated the steak for an hour, the brown sugar makes for some awesome caramelization. I then served it with a small bowl of the sauce on the side along with some raw cucumber and radish. Yum!

No cooking required, just stir together a half a cup of fish sauce, the juice from three limes and the zest from one, two tablespoon of brown sugar, two minced garlic cloves, and a seeded minced jalapeno. 

Celery Parmesan Soup

 

This is the perfect soup for this time of year, almost spring.

In a large soup pot with some olive oil, sauté a chopped shallot, a minced clove of garlic, and a chopped head or two of celery…leaves and all. Give it about ten minutes then add a quarter teaspoon of black pepper and enough chicken stock to cover the celery by about an inch. As always, the better the stock, the better the soup.

Simmer for approximately thirty minutes or until the celery is very soft, then puree using a stick blender or transfer to a food processor.

Put the soup back on low heat and stir in a cup or two of grated parmesan. It depends on how much soup you made, but it’s hard to add too much. To finish, salt to taste.

Roasted Eggplant with Oregano

Meat, veggies, cheese, beer, salami, tortillas, rum, the list goes on.  The number of food and beverage producers here in the MRV is incredible! And if we cooks weren’t already lucky enough, we can now add dried herbs to the list of local products. The Mad River Botanicals’ dried oregano I picked up at Mehurons for this eggplant roast was the best thing to fresh I’ve ever found on a supermarket shelf.

Preheat your oven to 450 then slice about two pounds of eggplant into ¾ inch rounds. In a large bowl, use your hands to toss the eggplant with a tablespoon of salt and enough olive oil to coat well.  It may take as much as half a cup depending on how thirsty your eggplant is.

Place the slices on parchment lined cookie sheets and bake for approximately 45 minutes.

While those are cooking, mix together six to eight minced anchovy fillets, a tablespoon plus of red wine vinegar, a minced garlic clove, two to three tablespoons of olive oil, a quarter teaspoon of black pepper, and a half a teaspoon of salt.

Pull the eggplant from the oven when they’re golden on the outside and creamy all the way through.  Set aside to cool, then gently toss with the anchovy mixture, a quarter cup of chopped parsley, and a tablespoon of dried oregano. 

Scallion Chicken

This one may look familiar, it’s an exceptionally tasty recipe I saw recently in NYT Cooking. I used a couple of pounds of boneless chicken thighs.

Preheat your oven to 450 while you stir together 4 thinly chopped scallions, 3 tablespoons each of Dijon mustard and fresh minced ginger, 2 tablespoons of minced garlic, a tablespoon of white miso paste, 2 teaspoons of lt. brown sugar, a teaspoon of salt, half a teaspoon of black pepper, and 6 tablespoons of vegetable oil. 

In a large bowl, toss together the chicken and sauce until it’s well coated.  Spread the thighs out in an oven proof baking dish or sheet pan and roast on until they’re cooked through, approximately 25 minutes.