What's Your Beef?

What’s Your Beef in the kitchen?! Throughout May, in celebration of National Beef Month, join our friends at Keystone Meats as they invite fans from all over the U.S. to vote daily on their biggest kitchen problem. Keystone is ready and willing to solve it with recipe-ready, all-natural beef. When you vote, you will be entered to win a year’s supply of Keystone Meats!

If you’ve got a beef in the kitchen, tell us about it! After years of headaches, vote on your biggest kitchen beef and you could win! https://keystonemeats.com/whats-your-beef-in-the-kitchen/

My personal beef: cooking in the summertime. I want to eat flavorful meals that come from my own kitchen, but don't require a lot of cooking. This means we default to cold things, like salads, sandwiches, and gazpacho. But with Keystone products, all of the heavy lifting has been done for us--we just need to embellish the meat. (No, that's not a euphemism.) Take this relatively lazy bibimbap. It involved making a sauce, warming the meat in said sauce, and serving it over rice with some veg. We have a rice cooker, so that part was a no-brainer, but if you don't, I won't tell if you buy pre-cooked microwave rice, or use leftovers from Chinese carry-out. In any case, none of it heated up the kitchen, and we had a super tasty dish that was both hearty and light in not a lot of time.

Easy Bibimbap
The sauce can be made a couple of days in advance. If you are only feeding 2 people, you can make half the sauce, or make the whole recipe and use it on something else, like roasted cauliflower or broccoli.

For the sauce:
1/2 cup gochujang (Korean hot pepper bean paste)
3 cloves of garlic, crushed or finely minced
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 cup soy sauce
1 tablespoon sesame oil
2 tablespoons light brown sugar
3 green onions, both white and green parts chopped

To serve:
2 14.5-ounce cans Keystone All Natural Beef
Cooked rice
Sliced cucumber
Shredded carrot
Baby spinach
More chopped scallions for garnish
Sesame seeds for garnish

Combine sauce ingredients in a bowl and stir. If you're making it in advance, keep it in a lidded container in the fridge until ready to use.

Put the beef (with juices) in a saucepan with the sauce. Bring to a boil. Turn down the heat until about half the liquid has evaporated and is looking somewhat glossy. Remove from the heat.

Place a mound of rice in the bottom of a bowl (drizzle on some sesame oil, if you like). Top with a portion of the warm beef, and add piles of the cucumber, carrot, and spinach. Sprinkle on some scallions and sesame seeds and serve immediately.

To eat, mix everything up with your chopstick (or fork) and enjoy.

Makes 4-5 servings.

* Any products in this post that are mentioned by name may have been provided to Minxeats by the manufacturer. However, all opinions belong to Minxeats. Amazon links earn me $! Please buy!

Posted on Minxeats.com.

Flashback Friday - Sugar Snap Pea Salad

This post originally appeared on Minxeats.com on August 23, 2013.
----------------------------------

I love sugar snap peas, especially raw. I've been known to buy a bag of them to snack on during the long train ride to New York - they take care of both the urges for crunchy things and sweet things, and are full of folate, Vitamin C, and fiber. Win-win!

I tossed a bag of sugar snap peas into the grocery cart one week with no plans for them. Eventually, I opened it up and started snacking. Before I got too far, however, I thought I should share their goodness with my loving husband.

After checking the Internet, I found a number of snap pea salad recipes that involved radishes. That made sense to me, because both vegetables have that horseradish-y bite (it's very subtle in the peas, but it's there). I didn't like any of the dressing ideas, and most of them had cheese of some sort, which did not photograph well at all. Then I found one that was Asian-y, with soy and sesame oil. It used fruit preserves too, which I thought was overkill. The peas are sweet already! Instead, I put in the tiniest bit of peanut butter, which helped emulsify the dressing.

The end result was delicious, and we polished off all of it in one sitting.

Sugar Snap Pea Salad

1/2 teaspoon peanut butter
1 tablespoon soy sauce
2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger
2 teaspoons superfine sugar
1 teaspoon sriracha
1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil
1 tablespoon olive oil
salt and pepper
3 cups fresh raw sugar snap peas
1 cup radishes, trimmed
1/4 cup chopped roasted unsalted peanuts

Put the peanut butter in a small bowl with the soy sauce. Beat with a fork until incorporated. Add the vinegar, ginger, sugar, sriracha, and oils and beat until emulsified. Season with salt and pepper. The dressing should be boldly flavored, as the vegetables will water it down.

Julienne the sugar snaps and slice the radishes. Place in a large bowl and toss with the vinaigrette. Just before serving, stir in the peanuts. Taste for seasoning and add more salt, if necessary.

Serves 2-4



Posted on Minxeats.com.

Flashback Friday - The Oregon Grille

This post originally appeared on Minxeats.com on January 22, 2013.

January means Restaurant Week(s), and this year Mr Minx and I decided to stay in Baltimore County rather than stray into the City. Our first pick this year was The Oregon Grille, a cozy, clubby, and elegant restaurant just off the Shawan Road West exit on I-83. As befitting its location in horse country, the restaurant is decorated with equine prints and jockeys' accouterments. The menu has a nice mix of both seafood and meat dishes, featuring classics like steak au poivre and crab cakes, with a few more modern dishes like crispy duck legs stuffed with pears and a sushi-inspired appetizer called "spicy rolls two ways."

Sorry for the blurry photos, but the restaurant is dark-ish and a
flash would definitely have annoyed other guests.

I tried those spicy rolls as my appetizer, and they had a nice kick to them. The fish - tuna and salmon - was swaddled snugly within a nori wrapper padded with a layer of creamy rice. To continue with the Asian theme, we also tried an order of the crab and avocado wontons from the regular menu. They were heavy on the avocado, but crisp and greaseless. And prettily presented, I might add.

Mr Minx's RW appetizer was beef barley soup. It was a generous portion, with plenty of vegetables and nuggets of beef, but it needed a bit of salt.

For our entrees, I ordered the warm lobster salad, which was simply terrific. Lightly cooked julienned root vegetables were tangled with a bit of fresh watercress to form a bed for the meat from half a lobster, and everything was napped with a buttery lemon vinaigrette. On the side were pieces of truffled toast sorely lacking the truffle and a mite over-toasted, but I had a huge crusty dinner roll handy with which to mop up the sauce.

Mr Minx had the salmon with lobster risotto, crispy shrimp, and "vanilla dust" butter. Vanilla is a tricky flavoring to use in a savory dish, but it seems to be most successful with seafood. While all of the individual elements of his dish were well-cooked, the flavor of the vanilla was a bit too pronounced for his taste. I found it interesting, but a bit disconcerting because of the lack of accompanying sweetness. Vanilla = sweet stuff.

On to the actual sweet stuff. I had the orange-spiced apple crisp. The large shallow ramekin meant that there was a goodly portion of "crisp" - my favorite part. The combination of orange and apple was very fragrant and autumnal, and I quite enjoyed the dish. Mr Minx had the carrot cake with cream cheese buttercream, which was delicious and classic, if a bit dense from the number of layers of frosting.

While we had some minor quibbles about the meal, overall we really enjoyed the food at The Oregon Grille. The Restaurant Week prices are a real steal, and we recommend trying the place if you haven't already. Additionally, service was terrific, and our waiter, Tom, took excellent care of us. He even brought a tiny carafe of olive juice in case we wanted our extra dirty martinis even more dirty. We'll be back.

(Oregon Grille's Restaurant Week is extended to 2/2/2013, so there's still time to check it out this year.)

The Oregon Grille
1201 Shawan Rd
Hunt Valley, MD 21030
(410) 771-0505
http://www.theoregongrille.com/



Posted on Minxeats.com.



Posted on Minxeats.com.

Tofu for Tofu-Haters

Fried tofu bao, plus one bao with fried eggplant, just because.

I know there are those out there who say they will eat tofu no how no way. "It's yucky," or "it doesn't have any flavor" are common complaints. For one thing, it's not at all yucky, and for another, the lack of inherent flavor is one of the things that makes tofu so versatile. You might have heard that it absorbs the flavors around it, but that's not necessarily true unless you simmer it in a very flavorful sauce for a long time. However, a neutral protein like tofu can really make other ingredients shine because they will stand out in contrast to the soy's bland smoothness. One of my favorite tofu recipes is very simple and very delicious. In it, bold garlic, soy sauce, and chile flavors are emphasized by the milky tofu, which also provides a silky and soothing foil to the palate.

Another thing one can do with tofu is to fry it until it's crispy crunchy, like potato chips or fried chicken. It becomes all about terrific texture and works really well in something like Taiwanese-style steamed buns, or bao. You can buy frozen bao in Chinese supermarkets, or you can make them at home, or, you can totally cheat by using refrigerated biscuit dough (find that recipe here). Pillowy buns, crispy tofu, a bit of creamy Sriracha mayo or sweet hoisin sauce, sliced cucumber, cilantro, and an optional topping of crushed peanuts and sugar (to which I added black sesame seeds), makes a mighty tasty snack.

If you don't want to go to all that trouble, just mix up a dipping sauce of mayo, sriracha, a bit of sugar, some minced green onion, and a pinch of salt. Dip in crispy tofu squares and enjoy.

Super Crispy Fried Tofu

1 14- to-16-pounce package extra firm tofu (the refrigerated kind)
Corn starch
Vegetable oil for frying
Salt

Remove the tofu from the packaging and discard the liquid. Wrap the tofu in a layer of paper towels and place on a plate. Put another plate upside-down over the tofu and weight plate with a jar or can. Refrigerate for at least four hours, changing the towels at least once during that time.

When you're ready to cook the tofu, remove the soggy towels and discard. Cut the block of tofu in half lengthwise, then cut each half into 5 or 6 slices.

Put a half cup or so of corn starch in a bowl. Dredge each slice of tofu in the cornstarch, patting it into each piece and shaking off excess. Put dredged tofu pieces on a plate until you finish coating the rest of them.

Add a couple tablespoons of oil to a large non-stick skillet and heat over high heat. Add the tofu pieces in one layer and cover the pan. Cook until crisp and brown on the bottom, 4-5 minutes. Check the browning process occasionally (it will seem to brown slowly at first) by picking up a piece with kitchen tongs. (Be careful when lifting the lid off the pan! Condensation will have accumulated and will drip off the pan into the oil, causing spattering. It's best to lift the lid straight up, not on an angle, and move it away to the side quickly.)

Once tofu is browned on the bottom, turn pieces and cook an additional 4-5 minutes until the other side is brown. If you feel the tofu is browning too quickly, turn the heat down a bit. (If it browns too fast, not only can it burn, but it won't be as crisp because there will still be moisture inside.)

Remove tofu pieces from the heat and drain on a paper towel-lined plate. Season tofu with a pinch of salt while still hot.

Posted on Minxeats.com.

Kahiki Foods Brand Ambassador and a Giveaway

Sadly, there aren't a lot of good Chinese restaurants in the Baltimore area. There's Grace Garden in Odenton and Hunan Taste in Catonsville, and that's about it. So most of the time, we just go without, which pains me to no end. I love Chinese food! Even mediocre American-style Chinese food can hit the spot when I'm in the right mood. But when local restaurants don't even hit that low level, well, it makes me sad.

And then we were asked if we'd be interested in becoming brand ambassadors for Kahiki Foods. And now we can have Chinese food any time, without having to drive across town, or, if we're desperate, wait for carry-out. And end up disappointed either way.

Kahiki (cuh-hee-kee) products are all-natural, with no MSG, additives, or preservatives. They offer stir fry-type dishes, like beef and broccoli or sesame chicken, and bags of tempura battered chicken with various sauces. Egg rolls, too, and chicken fried rice and lo mein. Many items come in both single- and multi-serve meals.

We've tried several Kahiki products so far, including crispy tempura chicken with honey sauce, chicken fried rice, and General Tso's. We chose to oven bake the tempura chicken, rather than to deep fry (the other option suggested on the box), and were pleased that the large chunks of white meat chicken came out of the oven so crisp. Another thing I really like about the tempura chicken dishes is that I have the option of drenching the chicken with sauce, using it as a dip...or not using it at all. The General Tso's, which comes together in one package (sauce on the bottom, topped by rice, then with veg and meat) had admirably crisp veg and a sauce that was not overly sweet. So it doesn't look exactly like the photo on the box when you stir it all together...but what does that matter when it's so tasty?

Minxeats is giving you the chance to try Kahiki products for yourself--for free. We have three vouchers worth a combined $22 to give away to one lucky winner. If you want to be that winner, leave a comment on this post about how much you enjoy Asian food. Please make sure to give us your email address so we can contact you if you win.

All are eligible. Giveaway ends May 25th.

Kahiki’s products can be found in retail grocery stores, membership warehouse clubs and with food service operators across the country. Visit Kahiki’s website at kahiki.com or connect on Facebook or Twitter to learn more.

* Any products in this post that are mentioned by name may have been provided to Minxeats by the manufacturer. However, all opinions belong to Minxeats.e 



Posted on Minxeats.com.

Gluten-Free Millet Salad with Asian Flavors

Necessity is the mother of invention. So are leftovers.

A thorough inventory of our seemingly-full fridge revealed lots of bits and pieces of vegetables. A box of cremini mushrooms, a dozen or so brussels sprouts starting to go brown, and a handful of cherry tomatoes were among the items needing to be used quickly, and I couldn't really think of a dish that would use all of them successfully. Maybe something with pasta, but that seemed too easy.

Up for a challenge, I decided to also use up some of the ancient grains I had recently purchased for experimental purposes. There were full or partial bags of amaranth, multicolored quinoa, and millet in the cupboard, and since I was feeling in an Asian food mood, I went with the millet. While one normally associates Asia with rice, millet is also an important food crop on that continent.

I threw together a peanut sauce with ingredients we usually have on hand, cooked the sprouts and shrooms, and tossed them with some cooked millet. It made a nice accompaniment to some oven-baked chicken, and lots of leftovers for lunches.

Millet Salad with Asian Flavors

1 cup millet
2 heaping tablespoons smooth peanut butter
2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
2 tablespoons agave syrup
1 tablespoon tamari
1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil
1/2 tablespoon Chinese broad bean paste (doubanjiang)
1-2 cloves garlic, minced
1" piece of fresh ginger, grated
Veg of your choice (I used 8 ounces of sauteed sliced mushrooms, a handful of halved cherry tomatoes, and 12 brussels sprouts, trimmed, cut into quarters, and sauteed until soft, but you can use anything you wish, from sugar snap peas to jarred red bell pepper pieces)
3 scallions, chopped
Handful cilantro, chopped
Roasted peanuts for garnish

Place millet and 2 cups of water in a saucepan. Bring to a boil. Lower heat, cover pot and let simmer 10-15 minutes, until all water is absorbed. Fluff millet with a fork and pour into a bowl to cool.

Combine next eight sauce ingredients in a bowl and stir to blend. Add a few tablespoons of water to loosen to a mayonnaise-like consistency.

Once millet is cool, stir in sauce, tossing to coat every grain of millet. Stir in your veggies of choice. Garnish with chopped scallions, cilantro, and peanuts.

Serves 8.



Posted on Minxeats.com.

Sugar Snap Pea Salad

I love sugar snap peas, especially raw. I've been known to buy a bag of them to snack on during the long train ride to New York - they take care of both the urges for crunchy things and sweet things, and are full of folate, Vitamin C, and fiber. Win-win!

I tossed a bag of sugar snap peas into the grocery cart one week with no plans for them. Eventually, I opened it up and started snacking. Before I got too far, however, I thought I should share their goodness with my loving husband.

After checking the Internet, I found a number of snap pea salad recipes that involved radishes. That made sense to me, because both vegetables have that horseradish-y bite (it's very subtle in the peas, but it's there). I didn't like any of the dressing ideas, and most of them had cheese of some sort, which did not photograph well at all. Then I found one that was Asian-y, with soy and sesame oil. It used fruit preserves too, which I thought was overkill. The peas are sweet already! Instead, I put in the tiniest bit of peanut butter, which helped emulsify the dressing.

The end result was delicious, and we polished off all of it in one sitting.

Sugar Snap Pea Salad

1/2 teaspoon peanut butter
1 tablespoon soy sauce
2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger
2 teaspoons superfine sugar
1 teaspoon sriracha
1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil
1 tablespoon olive oil
salt and pepper
3 cups fresh raw sugar snap peas
1 cup radishes, trimmed
1/4 cup chopped roasted unsalted peanuts

Put the peanut butter in a small bowl with the soy sauce. Beat with a fork until incorporated. Add the vinegar, ginger, sugar, sriracha, and oils and beat until emulsified. Season with salt and pepper. The dressing should be boldly flavored, as the vegetables will water it down.

Julienne the sugar snaps and slice the radishes. Place in a large bowl and toss with the vinaigrette. Just before serving, stir in the peanuts. Taste for seasoning and add more salt, if necessary.

Serves 2-4



Posted on Minxeats.com.

The Oregon Grille

January means Restaurant Week(s), and this year Mr Minx and I decided to stay in Baltimore County rather than stray into the City. Our first pick this year was The Oregon Grille, a cozy, clubby, and elegant restaurant just off the Shawan Road West exit on I-83. As befitting its location in horse country, the restaurant is decorated with equine prints and jockeys' accouterments. The menu has a nice mix of both seafood and meat dishes, featuring classics like steak au poivre and crab cakes, with a few more modern dishes like crispy duck legs stuffed with pears and a sushi-inspired appetizer called "spicy rolls two ways."

Sorry for the blurry photos, but the restaurant is dark-ish and a
flash would definitely have annoyed other guests.

I tried those spicy rolls as my appetizer, and they had a nice kick to them. The fish - tuna and salmon - was swaddled snugly within a nori wrapper padded with a layer of creamy rice. To continue with the Asian theme, we also tried an order of the crab and avocado wontons from the regular menu. They were heavy on the avocado, but crisp and greaseless. And prettily presented, I might add.

Mr Minx's RW appetizer was beef barley soup. It was a generous portion, with plenty of vegetables and nuggets of beef, but it needed a bit of salt.

For our entrees, I ordered the warm lobster salad, which was simply terrific. Lightly cooked julienned root vegetables were tangled with a bit of fresh watercress to form a bed for the meat from half a lobster, and everything was napped with a buttery lemon vinaigrette. On the side were pieces of truffled toast sorely lacking the truffle and a mite over-toasted, but I had a huge crusty dinner roll handy with which to mop up the sauce.

Mr Minx had the salmon with lobster risotto, crispy shrimp, and "vanilla dust" butter. Vanilla is a tricky flavoring to use in a savory dish, but it seems to be most successful with seafood. While all of the individual elements of his dish were well-cooked, the flavor of the vanilla was a bit too pronounced for his taste. I found it interesting, but a bit disconcerting because of the lack of accompanying sweetness. Vanilla = sweet stuff.

On to the actual sweet stuff. I had the orange-spiced apple crisp. The large shallow ramekin meant that there was a goodly portion of "crisp" - my favorite part. The combination of orange and apple was very fragrant and autumnal, and I quite enjoyed the dish. Mr Minx had the carrot cake with cream cheese buttercream, which was delicious and classic, if a bit dense from the number of layers of frosting.

While we had some minor quibbles about the meal, overall we really enjoyed the food at The Oregon Grille. The Restaurant Week prices are a real steal, and we recommend trying the place if you haven't already. Additionally, service was terrific, and our waiter, Tom, took excellent care of us. He even brought a tiny carafe of olive juice in case we wanted our extra dirty martinis even more dirty. We'll be back.

(Oregon Grille's Restaurant Week is extended to 2/2/2013, so there's still time to check it out this year.)

The Oregon Grille
1201 Shawan Rd
Hunt Valley, MD 21030
(410) 771-0505
http://www.theoregongrille.com/



Posted on Minxeats.com.

Brussels Sprout Hash

In the same week I spotted this recipe for brussels sprout hash at Serious Eats, we purchased a tree-trunk-sized branch o' brussels sprouts at the supermarket. There are a lot of sprouts on one of those branches, and while I really didn't want to be eating them every night for a week, it was a much better deal than purchasing one of those little cups of sprouts or buying them loose (6x as many sprouts for $2 more).

Since I had decided that hash was a fine idea, I pushed the whole lot of them through the shredding blade on the food processor. Half of them were put into a freezer bag and tucked away for another time, and the rest went into a large saute pan with a mess of onions and some olive oil. I thought that bacon would be a great addition to the hash, but as we didn't have any, I had to find an alternative.

Meanwhile, I popped a couple of pork tenderloins in the SousVide Supreme. Mr Minx had suggested that I use Asian flavors on the pork. I knew there would be leftovers, so to keep the meat somewhat neutrally-flavored, I seasoned them fairly simply with tons of garlic, a good tablespoon or so of freshly grated ginger, and an equal amount of gochugaru (Korean pepper flakes). That way, we could eat the leftovers as tacos or in a pasta sauce as well as fried rice or a stir fry. I also made a simple dipping sauce for the meat with soy sauce, sesame oil, and sesame seeds.

Because I was now leaning in a vaguely-Asian direction, I chopped up some Chinese sausage and fried it until crispy. When the hash was cooked, I stirred in the sausage.

Eventually, all of the elements came together. After five hours of cooking at 135F, the pork was lightly pink inside and extremely juicy and tender. The garlic and ginger flavor had permeated the meat, and even the flavor of the gochugaru (although not the heat - it's a fairly mild pepper) was obvious. The hash was delicious - it reminded me a bit of sauerkraut in texture, although of course it was not sour - and would make a really nice accompaniment to a holiday turkey dinner. We rounded out the meal with some mashed potatoes, and a simple salad of julienned apple seasoned with several tablespoons of lemon juice.

There were leftover sprouts, which we ate the next morning topped with fried eggs, in a variation of the Serious Eats recipe.

Brussels Sprouts Hash

1 cup sliced onion
olive oil
pinch salt
2 Chinese sausages, skinned, quartered, and sliced
3 cups finely shredded brussels sprouts (about 1 lb), rinsed and drained
salt and pepper to taste

In a large saute pan set over medium heat, cook onion in a tablespoon of olive oil and a pinch of salt until soft and starting to brown. Remove onions from pan and add sausage. Turn up heat and cook sausage, stirring regularly, until sizzling and brown. Remove sausage from pan and set aside.

Return onions to pan. Add brussels sprouts and an additional tablespoon of olive oil. Stir well, then cover pan and turn heat down to medium. Cook until sprouts have wilted and softened, stirring occasionally. Taste for seasoning and add salt and pepper.

Serve topped with reserved Chinese sausage.

Serves 4.

Posted on Minxeats.com.

Pho Towson & Bar

In mid-May, we took a trip to Perennial Farms to buy some plants for our garden. On the way back down Cromwell Bridge Road, we just about got whiplash when we noticed a big sign proclaiming Pho Towson & Bar attached to the front of a Best Western hotel. We made a mental note to come back later to check it out.

Later ended up being a weeknight evening in June. We walked into the hotel and were momentarily confused by what seemed to be a buffet reception of some sort going on in the lobby before we spotted the door to Pho off to the left. The restaurant's two-level dining space is bright and airy, with a wall of windows on one side. The walls sport an attractive aqua-and-chartreuse striped paper, but are otherwise oddly decorated with a couple of flat screen televisions and hotel art. (A close-up of the hands from Michelangelo's Creation of Adam was in our line of sight.)

The restaurant had a pretty good crowd despite the early hour, a nice mix of Asian and non-Asian patrons, and from the conversations we could hear, several people were repeat customers - always a promising sign of good things to come.

The menu at Pho is fairly limited. There's a handful of appetizers like spring rolls and summer rolls, a page of pho, another of com (rice) dishes, and still another of other noodle dishes. The last page features a long list of exotic-sounding beverages, most of which are milkshake-type concoctions made with various fruits and vegetables and sweetened condensed milk, and that can be had with or without boba (large pearls of tapioca). We tried the avocado and taro flavors. Both were mildly sweet and had distinct avocado and taro flavors.

We also tried the summer rolls, which were loaded with fresh mint.

We sampled the bun tom thit heo nuong, vermicelli served with grilled pork belly and shrimp. The proteins had a really nice grilled flavor, and the pork belly was pleasantly chewy. 

Next up was com tom ga muc xao xaot, a stir fry of shrimp, chicken, and squid, in a sweet-ish sauce flavored with lemongrass, onion, and bell pepper. It came with a bowl of ginger-flavored broth.

We ordered the restaurant's namesake dish, the Pho #1 with lightly-cooked beef, tendon, and tripe. The broth was disappointingly wan, only lightly beefy, with a bit of a cinnamon aftertaste, but the proteins were all very tender, and the garnishes of basil, beansprouts, and sliced jalapenos, were generous.

Despite the disappointing pho, both the com and bun dishes we tried were very good. And those creamy milkshake drinks worked nicely to beat the heat of the jalapenos that I poured into the Pho. The last few sips also worked nicely as dessert.

We'll be back to try more.

Pho Towson & Bar
1100 Cromwell Bridge Road
Towson, MD 21286
(410) 832-2788
photowsonbar.com


Posted on Minxeats.com.

Tofu Stir-Fry

Mr. Minx here. In my ongoing battle to keep my pesky triglycerides down, I've had to seek out new ways to make healthy ingredients interesting enough for me to eat. I've always enjoyed eating vegetables, but usually in small quantities next to a big pile of pasta or mashed potatoes (yes, potato is a vegetable, but really...). Anyway, a recent trip to H Mart yielded a plethora of veggies and tofu, so the only logical thing to do was make a stir-fry dish.

The very sound of those words usually fills me with sad thoughts of my mother's bland combinations of dry chicken breast, broccoli florets, and carrots with virtually no seasoning. It was like eating warm corn flakes. Therefore, I always try to load the pan with lots of spices, but sometimes my overzealous seasoning yields odd results. Also, cooking each component perfectly can be a dodgy proposition. By the time the vegetables are the right texture, the meat is overcooked. At least with tofu, that's not an problem, but proper cooking is still an issue. With my latest concoction, however, I think I finally got it right.

To start, I drained and dried the tofu as best I could before cutting it into one-inch cubes. Then I marinated the tofu using one smashed clove of garlic, about a teaspoon of grated fresh ginger, and a few splashes of soy sauce. I left the tofu in the refrigerator for about 3 hours, but a shorter marinade time should be fine.

When I was ready to cook, I put together a sauce using the following ingredients:

1 teaspoon soy sauce
3 tablespoons sugar
3 tablespoons white vinegar
1 teaspoon of Sriracha
1 tablespoon Shaoxing wine
2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil
1 tablespoon ketchup
2 teaspoons cornstarch

Mix everything up in a bowl until the sugar and corn starch are mostly dissolved.

Next came the vegetables. I cleaned about 1/2 pound of snow peas; chopped one large carrot into thin strips; and sliced about 5 ounces of king oyster mushrooms into long strips. I also sliced one large shallot and one glove of garlic and put that in a separate container.

With everything prepped, I put about a tablespoon of vegetable oil into a pan on high heat and waited for the pan to get hot enough to cause the oil to smoke. Then I threw the vegetables into the pan and stirred them constantly for about five minutes. After transferring the vegetables to a bowl, I put another tablespoon of oil in the pan and turned the heat down to medium. I tossed in the shallot and garlic and stirred them until the mixture became soft. Then I added the marinated tofu and the sauce into the pan to cook. Once the sauce had thickened, I put the vegetables back into the pan and stirred to incorporate all the elements. A couple minutes and everything was hot enough to plate.

Serve this over some rice and you will have a healthy, satisfying meal.
--------------------------------------------------------
theminx adds: This recipe, is reminiscent of Chinese sweet-and-sour dishes, although not nearly as sweet or as sour. Also, no bell peppers or pineapple! It borrows heavily from an America's Test Kitchen recipe, so you know it's got to be good. I think the sauce would be perfect on just about any kind of protein.

Posted on Minxeats.com.

Pasta Primavera

I love going to H-Mart, but sometimes I go a little crazy in the produce department. Last week, we ended up with bok choy, Brussels sprouts, artichokes, sugar snap peas, Asian eggplant, and two bunches of Chinese broccoli, but had no real plan on how to use these goodies before they went bad.

We had some leftover roast chicken in the fridge that I needed to use, so I figured a pasta dish might be the way to go. Of course the mere mention of pasta always turns Mr Minx on, so I couldn't change my mind. In the end, I decided that an Asian-style peanut sauce might work well on pasta with some of the veg. Kinda like a pasta primavera, only not at all Spring-like.

Pasta with Peanut Sauce

1 bunch Chinese broccoli
2 6" long Asian eggplants
1 tablespoon brown sugar
soy sauce
canola oil
1/2 cup sliced onion
1 1/2 cups chicken stock
4 tablespoons chunky peanut butter
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon Hoisin sauce
2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
1 tablespoon Korean red pepper flakes (or 1/4 teaspoon cayenne)
1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil
1 carrot, julienned
1 cup cooked chicken, shredded
1 lb pasta of your choice

Slice broccoli stems into long diagonals; roughly chop the greens. Blanch stems and greens separately in boiling salted water until the stems are tender but still crunchy (about 3 minutes) and the greens are bright green. Cool broccoli down in a large bowl of ice water. When cooled, drain thoroughly, squeezing water out of greens. Set aside.

Cut off stem end of eggplants and slice into long diagonals about 1/2 inch thick. Heat a large sauté pan over high heat and add a bit of cooking oil. When pan is very hot, toss in eggplant and cook for 4-6 minutes, until beginning to soften. Add brown sugar and stir to coat. Dribble in a few teaspoons of soy, turn the heat to medium, and cover pan. Cook an additional 5-6 minutes, stirring occasionally and adding more soy if the eggplant seems dry or is sticking to the pan, until the vegetable is soft and brown. Move from pan to a bowl and set aside.

Cook pasta according to package directions until al dente. Drain off all but a few tablespoons of water and leave in pasta pot.

While pasta is cooking, make the sauce. In the large pan used for the eggplant, sauté sliced onion over medium-high heat with a bit of oil and a pinch of salt until wilted and just beginning to brown. Add chicken stock. With a fork, stir in peanut butter until well incorporated, then add honey, hoisin, vinegar, and pepper flakes. Bring to a boil. Turn heat down to medium-low and taste for seasoning; add soy sauce if needed. Stir in sesame oil, then add carrots, cooked broccoli stems and greens, eggplant, and chicken, tossing well to coat. Cook for a minute or two to warm the chicken through.

Add sauce and vegetables to pasta in pot and stir well to coat.

Serves 4-6

Posted by theminx on Minxeats.com.

Dim Sum at Red Pearl

Occasionally I'll mention here that I love small plates. Variety is the spice of life, and I really enjoy the opportunity to taste many things at one meal. One such meal that really floats my boat is dim sum, a Chinese brunch of sorts.

wu gok - deep fried taro cakes

Although there are tons of Chinese restaurants in the Baltimore area, it's never been a hotbed for dim sum. There used to be a place in Glen Burnie that we'd hit once a year or so, but that was a bit of a haul. Then we started going to places in Wheaton and Gaithersburg, which were even farther away, and while good, not really worth the drive. Finally, Jesse Wong's Hong Kong opened in Columbia, and we were happy to dine there on a regular basis. (The very first post on Minxeats was about dim sum at JWHK.) I always felt the food was just as good as that served at the places requiring an additional 40 minutes of travel time, and maybe even better because it was so much closer to home.

chive dumplings

And then Jesse Wong's closed. Luckily, Asian Court opened up in Ellicott City, shaving a few more minutes off our travel time. After a couple of visits, we determined that Asian Court was even better than Jesse Wong's (which we referred to as "Voldemort" because the restaurant's closure made us too sad to even utter its name) - the dumplings were bigger and juicier, the sticky rice in lotus was stuffed full of goodies like Chinese sausage and pork belly, and the young servers were extremely nice and knowledgeable. After a couple of years of dim sum bliss at Asian Court, Red Pearl opened in Jesse Wong's space, mysteriously with half of Asian Court's staff. After hearing rumors of Asian Court's dim sum decline, we reluctantly started going to Red Pearl.

It's ok. Just ok.

water chestnut cakes

I don't like that the layout of the room, with its many high partitions, makes it difficult for carts to maneuver. If one is seated in a smaller area, the carts are few and far between, so the selection of foods is limited. Such was the case on a recent trip to Red Pearl.

One of my favorite dim sum dishes is cheung fun (very soft, crepe-like noodles filled with fresh shrimp and topped with a sweetened soy). It's an extremely simple dish that tastes about the same everywhere I've tried it, but somehow Red Pearl's version is bland, and a bit too soft.

cheung fun with shrimp

While everything else is fine, the food is missing a certain je ne sais quoi.

shrimp balls with almonds

We did try a few new things at Red Pearl - the water chestnut cakes (photo above), which were shockingly gelatinous, yet pretty good. Savory Jell-O. And the shrimp balls coated in sliced almonds and fried. The flavor was nice, but I think the extra frying made the balls a wee bit tough.

We also ate Chinese broccoli (gai lan) with oyster sauce, sliced pork belly, beef chow fun (wide noodles),

Singapore noodles

Singapore noodles, taro cakes, shrimp-stuffed tofu, and sticky rice in lotus. All were fine. But...

tofu stuffed with shrimp

...I miss Asian Court. I think we will go back there next time, to see if the rumors are true. Can anyone out there report on this?

Red Pearl
10215 Wincopin Circle
Columbia, MD 21044
(410) 715-6530


Posted by theminx on Minxeats.com.