Peanut Butter Noodles

I can already hear the sounds of disbelief at the thought of noodles and peanut butter together, but it is quick, delicious, and one of my kids' favorites. It is an "inspired" dish borne out of my love of Pad Thai. Pad Thai, for those of you who don't know, are Thai noodles that are prepared with eggs, shrimp and/or chicken, bean sprouts, lime, fish sauce, ground peanuts and many other ingredients that together create a dish that is complex and incredibly delicious. It is one of the top five on my list of favorite foods. While I can make the authentic dish, it is much more time consuming, so over time, I worked on variations of it until I got to the one I use regularly now. Another good thing about it is that its a good way to get a serving of vegetables into my little carnivores.

Peanut Butter Noodles

Half a box of noodles, cooked until just tender and drained. There is a lot of leeway here, you can use spaghetti, capellini, linguine, or stick to the traditional wide rice noodles. I have used them all, and though rice noodles are the best, even in this adaptation, the most usual choice in our household is thin spaghetti or capellini. A special note: if you want to try it with the rice noodles, you can buy them at any Asian market. They are not cooked, rather soaked in water until soft, then lightly pan fried in a little bit of oil before adding the other ingredients.

2 eggs

1 onion, diced

1/2 cup cilantro, chopped

shrimp and/or chicken (optional and not used in the dish I cooked today). The amount you add depends on how much you personally like. I would add no more than two cups total, but hey, if you're a carnivore, you may like to add more. Just don't add too much or the sauce won't coat it all. We also sometimes use Quorn, a meat substitute that is much better than any soy-based product out there. It can be found at Whole Foods and other higher end stores.

2 cups frozen mixed vegetables

1/4 cup vegetable oil

Sauce:

1/4 cup peanut butter, smooth or crunchy

1 T. soy sauce

2 T. oyster sauce

1-4 T. Sriracha sauce (a garlic chili sauce that you can buy at Wal-Mart these days).

2 T. ketchup

2 T. granulated garlic

Juice from one lime

Boil the noodles and set aside. Mix together sauce ingredients and set aside. Chop cilantro and set aside. In a pan, fry onions in oil until lightly browned, then add the two eggs.

Stir the eggs to lightly scramble them. This is MUCH easier than the traditional way of cooking little, plain omelets separately, then shredding them and re-adding to the pan!

Once the eggs are cooked, add the frozen vegetables, stirring and let cook for five minutes. This will thaw and slightly cook them.

Once the vegetables are sufficiently cooked, add the drained, cooked noodles. I used whole wheat thin spaghetti today, because I'm making this to take to work and I prefer the whole wheat noodles and vegetarian version.

Stir in the sauce well, coating all of the noodles and vegetables well. This will take a few minutes so don't be in a rush because there's nothing more disappointing than getting a naked noodle!

Let the noodles cook in the pan for a few minutes. It is a personal choice of mine to cook them until there are a few browned edges to the noodles, but you don't have to cook yours that long. Once thoroughly cooked, garnish with cilantro and eat up!

Now that I've given you the "recipe" for this dish, I just want to say that it is very easily varied, based on preference, pantry items available, etc. So really its more of a guide than an actual recipe. Sometimes I've been out of soy sauce, so I do all oyster sauce, though I wouldn't recommend doing all soy sauce, because it might be too salty. I sometimes also used some fresh, chopped vegetables such as shredded carrots, green onions, and sometimes the more traditional bean sprouts if I've forgotten to pick up the frozen vegetables. Some things to remember, if adding meat to the dish, cook it with the onions first before adding anything else. Shrimp can be tossed in with the vegetables. If using Quorn (average price is $5.95 for a bag of  frozen "nugget" pieces at Whole Foods), add them when adding the vegetables as well. It is also very easy to double this for more people. I would also recommend taking the time to make the sauce. The whole dish can be completed in 30 minutes without meat, and little more if you add meat, and the bottled sauces, while decent, still don't have the depth of flavor that a homemade sauce does. A final note about Sriracha. It is the hot sauce condiment of Asia, found on the tables of many Asian restaurants and easily available. It is a chili and garlic sauce that may be called "rooster sauce" (another brand) or "Sambal Oelek" (A Malaysian brand). It is different from US-made hot sauces in that all you taste is the peppery, garlicky heat rather than a vinegar taste, so do not try to use American hot sauce in the dish. You also need it for the consistency of the sauce, though if you don't have it in the pantry, you could double the ketchup and add sliced, fresh hot peppers (NOT pickled!). I wouldn't recommend it, but then, I am addicted to Sriracha! I put it on everything: eggs, burritos, as the hot pepper in many other dishes, and even in yogurt and/or mayo for a quick chip dip. For around $2.00, you might as well pony up for the good stuff. 

While delicious, this dish is also a lazy day or work day dish, easy to make when you don't have a lot of time, don't really feel like cooking, or don't have a lot in the pantry, because many parts of it can be so easily variable. It also has the advantage of being as vegetarian as you like, as hot as you can stand, and as healthy as you think you need. Enjoy! It's in my lunchbox for work tonight.

Raita

You'll see some Hindi/Urdu words on my Indian dishes but I will always explain them. I don't know what "raita" translates to literally, but it is one of the best sides for spicy Indian dishes. Basically it is a cucumber, onion, and yogurt salad. A yogurt salad might not sound appetizing if you've never had it but once you try it, you'll want to eat it not only with curries but even with a piece of pita bread or pita sandwich. The yogurt cools the palate, a necessity with some Indian food, and even more so, the hot, tropical climate. Raita is a simple dish that varies slightly from household to household, but it always has cucumbers and onions. Some people add tomatoes, cilantro, and chopped chilis. We leave out the tomatoes and chilis due to a pickier family member, and I usually omit the cilantro because its already in another dish. While this dish is essentially authentic, Indian yogurt is much more thin than yogurt in the US. In addition, I use ONLY full-fat plain yogurt, which has about 200-220 calories per cup, depending on the brand. Low fat yogurt will break down and become watery much faster, and is useless for cooking any yogurt-based curries, because the gelatin added to make it seem firm breaks down and curdles in the dish. Those little, curdled balls of yogurt are not appetizing to look at. Your best bet for full fat yogurt if you don't have access to an Indian or Middle Eastern grocery is to find it at Whole Foods. Most supermarkets do not carry it. You can substitute the lower fat, gelatinized yogurt for raita, but it will not be as creamy and delicious. You CANNOT substitute it in cooking.

Raita

5 small, Persian cucumbers, diced very small

Persian cucumbers are very small, usually six inches long or less, and less than an inch wide. They have tiny seeds, and taste fresher, almost melon-y. I've sometimes seen them called Japanese cucumbers, and they are available in Middle Eastern and Indo/Pak markets. Only buy them when you are going to use them. They get soft and go bad much quicker than regular cucumbers. You can substitute regular cucumber without a problem, but scrape out any really large seeds. You can also grate the cucumber, which makes for a finer salad.

Add half a large onion, also diced very small. I used red onion today, but white or yellow will do fine. You just don't want one with a strong flavor.

Add the yogurt to the diced vegetables, approximately 2 cups of yogurt, and just enough salt to neutralize the sourness of the yogurt, but not make it taste salty.

Raita, when prepared well, is a great summer salad, not only to cool down a spicy curry, but as I said, with a slice of pita bread, or even with a piece of grilled chicken or on a burger. The trick is the salt. It takes away the sourness that screams yogurt and just makes it creamy and cool. As an authentic Indian dish, it is widely eaten and served in restaurants, but in small spoonfuls. In our house, we put gigantic dollops of it on our plate because we love it so much.

Alu Gobi

Many years ago, not long after I married an Indian man, I set about to learn how to cook Indian food. I picked up a thin paperback cookbook from a small store in Dayton, Ohio and this was the first dish I cooked from it. Though the author called the dish "Kashmiri ki Kali" (or Kashmiri Cauliflower), I've since learned that his recipe was his version of a dish known as Alu Gobi, or literally "Potato Cauliflower". It is a vegetable curry with tomatoes and cilantro and is best served with rice and raita, which I'll discuss in another post. You might think you don't like cauliflower but the dish is lightly spicy and light on your stomach. A great summer meal.

Alu Gobi

1 head of cauliflower, cut into small florets
One onion, diced

3 medium potatoes cubed

One 15-oz. can of diced tomatoes

3 T. turmeric (the powdered yellow root that also colors mustard yellow)
1 T. cumin seed or ground cumin
1 T. ground coriander
1 tsp - 1 T. cayenne powder (depending on taste) Chili powder is NOT a good substitute!
Cilantro leaves, chopped fine (about 1/4 cup and optional if you don't like cilantro)
Salt to taste
1/4 cup oil

Place diced onions in pan with heated oil and cook until transparent.

Once the onions are transparent, add the cauliflower florets, the cubed potatoes and the turmeric. Mix them all together and let them cook in the pan for a few minutes.



Cauliflower florets





Cubed Potatoes



Cauliflower, onions, and potatos with turmeric added



After these ingredients have cooked 1-2 minutes, add the remainder of the spices, including salt, but reserving the chopped cilantro until the end of cooking.

You can see that I add a generous amount of cayenne pepper to mine, but you can use less if you would like. Just don't omit it. You need the heat! Like when the turmeric was added, stir in the spices and let them cook in the pan for 1-2 minutes. Indian spices need to fry in the pan in order to release the oils and lose the "raw" taste. After that, add the can of tomatoes. I'm not a snob for tomatoes. I use generic diced tomatoes. Some people think using fresh tomatoes would be better, but I have found that the fresh tomatoes put out too much water into the dish, that the color is not as vibrant, and it is just a lot quicker and easier.

At this point, the vegetables only have to soften. Cover your pan and cook on low until both the cauliflower and potatoes are fork tender but not mushy. Turn off the heat and garnish with the chopped cilantro if you wish. This dish is great served with Basmati rice, and raita (explained in another post), as pictured below:

A note on spices. If you have an Indo/Pak store in your area, take advantage of the fresher and more vibrant spices. The cayenne pepper is much redder than the stuff you buy in the little bottles at your supermarket. If you think Indian is something you want to cook often, it is worth it to buy the bigger packages of spices at the Indian store rather than the premium prices for the little bottles. The biggest differences are in the cayenne and the turmeric; brighter colors and more pronounced flavors. There is also a difference in flavor from the cumin you buy at Indian grocers versus the typical type used for Mexican food here in the US, but the difference is not as important. If you do buy the packages from an Indian grocer, store them in tightly fitted containers in your cabinet.

This is a great vegetarian dish and one of the many we eat when we don't feel like meat, rather when I don't feel like meat. It makes a great dish for a multi-course meal, as most Indian dinners have a number of dishes. This dish is an "authentic" dish.



Rice

Because so many of the dishes I cook are Indian or Asian, we eat a lot of rice, and rice is important. Let's get this straight right up front: instant rice is NEVER okay! That gummy, tasteless stuff that cooks in a minute might have once been rice, but now its just Frankstein Rice. Rice is not hard to cook, but if you want it to be as easy as possible, invest $20 or less on a rice cooker from Wal-Mart. That way you don't have to keep an eye on the water, and the rice turns out perfect every time. Of course, all bets are off, if you aren't eating steamed rice or fried rice made from cold, steamed rice, then you do have to watch.

Another important thing is matching rice to cuisine. How this worked out, I don't have a clue, but Indian/Pakistani or Persian food tastes better with Basmati rice, and Chinese food tastes weird with it. The plain, American rice is okay for Chinese food (and thats what the restaurants serve), but if you want a treat, try Jasmine rice with your Chinese food. Basmati and Jasmin rices both have a really nice aroma as they cook, and they actually do have a flavor, unlike American rice. Hint for the budget conscious: DON'T buy the cute little jars of Basmati or Jasmine from the grocery store or Whole Foods. You'll pay a premium for them! If you have Indian, Chinese, or International grocers near you, pick up your rice there. It will be cheaper for sure, though still more than American rice. It is worth the difference in price. You have not seen a rice kernel until you have seen a long, slender aromatic grain of Basmati. I think it is the best rice there is.

Now that we sorted that out, we'll soon be adding the things that go along side the rice. Just remember, as the Chinese think, those things are best eaten like condiments on the rice. If you drown your rice with your stir fry or curry, it won't be authentic or as healthful as touted.

Cooking Like I Do

To begin with, unless you grew up in the mountains, the Deep South of the US, or watched a lot of "The Beverly Hillbillies", you might not know what "vittles" are. Simply, vittles are "usable food". The word is from the 14th century word "victuals", which is pronounced the same way. And you thought it was just a stupid hillbilly word!

Anyway, I do a lot of cooking, for family, friends, and get-togethers at home, work, and elsewhere. I finally realized that many people would comment on my cooking and ask for recipes, and so I decided to start this blog in order to easily share those recipes with anyone who is interested. This isn't a cookbook. The recipes won't be divided by course (entree, soups, etc) but rather by the day that they are cooked. Also, there is no one cuisine. I have traveled and met friends from Europe and Asia and my cooking reflects that. Though most of them are more adapted versions of the cuisine it originally came from, there are some that are "authentic" and I'll likely tell you which ones are. People are always asking me, "why don't you open a restaurant?" and the answer is simple: restaurants are a hard way to earn a living, in addition to the fact that you have to deal with city and health regulations, picky customers, and even worse, rely on staff to get your food out. No way! I enjoy seeing people enjoy my food, but in an unpaid, social setting.

I also wondered myself, as much as I love food and cooking, why not chef school? Again, easy answer. I am not interested in making sauce reductions, straining a couli, or making anything infused with a flavor, or a flavored foam. No frou-frou food here. I want it to look delicious on the plate, but I am not going to be handling the food and creating shapes, color schemes, and food towers. Food is for eating, not playing with!

Ideally, I would love Anthony Bourdain's job: a combination of travel and eating; my two favorites things in the world, and as Julia Child once said "I go shopping for food the way other women go shopping for a new dress".  That's me in a nutshell.

So I hope you enjoy the blog. No matter what you like to eat, there is likely something in there for you to try. Nothing is too hard or long to make, trust me, because I don't have the time myself. Happy Cooking!