February 7, 2014 by Marios

Thai Coconut Shrimp Soup

So do we have a final verdict on coconut? Is it healthy or unhealthy? Is it good for you or does it clog your arteries? It seems like coconut is one of those foods that somehow managed to do a complete one-eighty a few years ago. I remember the warnings about how it was full of saturated fat, second only to palm oil, and how it should be completely avoided. Then, coconut hired the best PR person in the world and became the darling of the health nut world.

I choose to believe that it’s good for you, for no other reason than my total love for anything coconut. I’ve only recently experimented with coconut oil as a substitute for butter (with some good results) but I’ve been using coconut milk for years. And given that it’s a main ingredient in Thai cuisine, I could never give it up. Besides, who can resist a frosted, coconut cake?

So, when Bon Appétit published a recipe for Tom Kha Gai, a chicken coconut soup, that seemed simple to make and promised to be delicious, I quickly bookmarked it and prepared it at the first chance I got. Unfortunately, it was terrible. The broth was bland, the chicken was tough, and there was a taste of chicken fat permeating everything that made it hard to eat.

So, much like I did with the Caramel Garlic Chicken recipe, I set out to improve this one as well. I got rid of the chicken and used shrimp. I infused the broth with shrimp shells and let it simmer longer than the original recipe. And to add both flavor and substance to the dish, I added some carrots and potatoes, similar to what you’d get in a massaman curry.

I am proud to say that the results were lip-smacking good. Steve almost licked his bowl clean. And yes, the recipe uses coconut milk. Try it. I hear it’s good for you.

Thai Coconut Shrimp Soup – Inspired by the recipe for Tom Kha Gai in Bon Appétit

Makes 2-3 servings

Ingredients:

1 1” piece ginger, peeled
5 kaffir lime leaves (or 1/2 Tbsp. lime zest and 2 Tbsp lime juice)
3 cups low-sodium chicken broth
1 lb shell-on raw shrimp (16-20 count)
4 oz. shiitake, oyster, or maitake mushrooms, stemmed, caps cut into 1/4″ slices
3 small potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2″ cubes
1 small carrot, peeled and sliced diagonally into 1/4″ slices
1 cup coconut milk
1 Tbsp. fish sauce (such as nam pla or nuoc nam)
1 tsp. sugar
1 stalk fresh lemongrass, tough outer layers removed
juice of half a lime
lime wedges (for serving)
Chili oil, sriracha, fresh cilantro (optional)

Directions:

Remove the shells from the shrimp and reserve half of the shells (discard the other half of the shells). Using the back of a knife, smash lemongrass and ginger; cut lemongrass into 4” pieces. Bring lemongrass, ginger, kaffir lime leaves, reserved shrimp shells, and broth to a boil in a large saucepan. Reduce heat and simmer until flavors are melded, 13–15 minutes. Strain broth and return to saucepan; discard solids.

Add mushrooms, potatoes, and carrot and return to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer briskly until potatoes are cooked, about 15 minutes. Add shrimp and continue to simmer until shrimp have turned pink and are cooked, about another 3-4 minutes. Mix in coconut milk, fish sauce, and sugar and gently reheat soup. Add juice of half a lime and stir (omit this if you used lime juice instead of kaffir lime leaves).

Divide soup among bowls. Serve with lime wedges. If you want, you can also top soup with chili oil, sriracha sauce, or cilantro.

February 1, 2014 by Marios

Dried Apricot and Pistachio Ice Cream

So, apparently, the Super Bowl is happening in New York tomorrow. Yeah, that’s how much Steve and I follow football. To our defense, the Super Bowl is technically in New Jersey, not in New York city. But honestly, it could be two blocks away and we still wouldn’t know who’s playing in it. I saw the team names by accident today, while reading an article in the Styles section of the New York Times, so I blurted them out at lunch with a friend, making it seem like I always knew it was the Denver Broncos and the Seattle Seahawks (see how I did that?). They both looked at me with a look that said Who are you? so I told them the truth.

More pressing around here has been the weather. Days and days of below freezing temperatures have made even me, an avid winter lover, complain about the cold. You know it’s getting too cold when the East River fills with big, flat chunks of ice, floating down from upstate New York like mini icebergs, creating delays for the ferry. When you’re on a rickety old ferry boat, floating over a river that is so cold it freezes, the sound of thumps and scraping noises that it makes as it passes over sheets of ice can be very disconcerting.

So, it might seem strange that I am posting an ice cream recipe today but it’s really a way to cheat and give yourself a taste of summer. No fresh fruit around? No problem. Ice cream genius David Lebovitz has the solution. Take some dried apricots and reconstitute them with the help of some sweet wine and blend them into an ice cream. Given what’s around this time of hear, it’s really the best you can do.

Oh, and enjoy the Super Bowl. Go <insert you favorite team name here>!!

Dried Apricot and Pistachio Ice Cream – Slightly adapted from Perfect Scoop: Ice Creams, Sorbets, Granitas, and Sweet Accompaniments

Makes about 3 cups (750 ml)

Ingredients:

5 oz (140 g) dried apricots, quartered
3/4 cup (180 ml) sweet white wine (or dry white wine with 1 tablespoon of sugar blended in)
1/2 cup (70 g) shelled pistachio nuts (preferably unsalted)
2/3 cup (130 g) sugar
1 cup (250 ml) whole milk
1 cup (250 ml) heavy cream
a few drops of freshly squeezed lemon juice

Directions:

In a small saucepan, warm the apricot pieces with the wine. Simmer for 5 minutes, cover, remove from heat, and let stand for 1 hour. Meanwhile, coarsely chop the pistachios.

Purée the apricots with the wine in a blender along with the sugar, milk, cream, and lemon juice until smooth.

Chill the mixture in the refrigerator and then freeze in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions. During the last minute of churning, add the chopped pistachio nuts, or layer them as you scoop the ice cream into the container where you will keep it.

January 25, 2014 by Marios

Caramel Garlic Chicken

One of the gifts Steve gave me for Christmas was a book called “The Flavor Bible: The Essential Guide to Culinary Creativity, Based on the Wisdom of America’s Most Imaginative Chefs.” Unlike a cookbook, this is more of a reference book. Let’s say you found some sorrel in your local market and you’ve never cooked with it before. You don’t even know what it tastes like. A quick look at the book will tell you that sorrel goes with lentils, fish, and eggs but that it should be avoided in a salad. Or that sorrel, nutmeg, and ricotta cheese is a great combination.

I’d like to think that I have a really good appreciation for flavor combinations. Often when I cook without a recipe, I can actually imagine how different things will taste together and know what I should add to a dish to make it better without actually tasting it. Or at least I think I do. There are times when my flavor experiments fail, but others when they are really successful (like my broccoli, anchovy, black garlic concoction that ended up being incredibly addictive; I’m working on a recipe and will post soon).

So, when I saw a recipe for Caramel Chicken in Bon Appétit I was instantly intrigued and suspicious. I just couldn’t imagine those two flavors working together, which only made me more curious. So, I tried it and I was amazed at how well the recipe worked. Though, to be fair, the caramel here is very subtle. It’s more of a sour/salty sauce with caramel undertones. But it works. The problem with the original recipe was that it resulted in tough pieces of chicken covered in unappetizing fatty skin. So, I made a few changes and tried it again. This time, not only was the taste amazing, but the chicken was incredibly tender, with no fatty skin to distract from its caramel goodness. And I realized that the recipe name (Caramel Chicken) omitted a major component of the dish: the slow cooked garlic cloves that melt in your mouth and deliver the much needed depth to this dish. So, in addition to modifying the recipe, I adjusted its name.

Try it. You won’t be disappointed.

Caramel Garlic Chicken – Adapted from Bon Appétit

Makes 4 servings

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs
Kosher salt
freshly ground pepper
8 garlic cloves, peeled and lightly crushed with back of knife
⅓ cup (packed) light brown sugar
¼ cup (or more) unseasoned rice vinegar
3 slices ¼”-thick slices peeled ginger
1 cup chicken broth
¼ cup soy sauce
black sesame seeds (optional)
2 scallions, thinly sliced
Cooked white rice (for serving)

Directions:

Preheat oven at 325° F.

Heat oil in a large wide oven-safe pot over medium-high heat. Season chicken thighs with salt and pepper and add three or four thighs in the pot. The thighs should not be crowded. Cook for 10-15 seconds on one side, turn and cook for another 10-15 seconds on second side (the thighs will not brown; they will just start to turn white). Remove thighs from pot and transfer to a plate. Don’t worry if a little bit of meat gets stuck at the bottom of the pot. Just leave it in there. Repeat the process for all the thighs.

Add garlic to pot and cook, stirring often, until golden, about 2 minutes; transfer to plate with chicken. Pour off fat from pot.

Return pot to medium-high heat and add ½ cup water, scraping up browned bits of chicken. Add brown sugar; stir to dissolve, then cook, stirring, until mixture thickens and turns a deep amber color, about 4 minutes. Carefully add vinegar (it may bubble up; sugar will crystallize); stir to dissolve sugar.

Add ginger, broth, and soy sauce, then add chicken and garlic. Bring to a boil, cover and place in oven. Cook for one hour, until thighs are fully cooked.

Remove thighs and garlic from the pot and transfer to a plate. Using two forks, separate thighs in bite-sized pieces. Discard ginger slices.

Place the pot on high heat and bring cooking liquid to a boil. Cook until slightly thickened, about 10-12 minutes. Return chicken and garlic to pot; turn to coat.

Serve over plain white rice and top with black sesame seeds (optional) and chopped scallions.

January 19, 2014 by Marios

Zucchini with Eggs (Kolokouthkia me t’afka / Κολοκουθκια με τ’αφκα)

We had arrived a couple of days earlier. It was Steve’s first time in my hometown and I was driving him around, showing him the places where I grew up. It was a beautiful, sunny spring day and we were walking around the old part of the city. It had gone through many transformations, from the bustling commercial center of town to a neglected ghost of its past glory, until several years ago it was turned into a pedestrian-only zone. There was a lot of complaining from the store owners, that the lack of cars would kill the little business they had left. Instead, the area transformed itself. Old buildings were restored. Restaurants and coffee shops opened everywhere. People rediscovered the joy of walking, unencumbered by cars. Retro became cool and the area blossomed.

So there we were, walking along the “main” street (what used to be a narrow, single-lane road, but the “main” one nevertheless) when we decided to look for a place to eat. We passed by a few places, with tables out on the street, awash in sunshine, but we decided to keep looking. We turned the corner into a little side street when Steve spotted it. It was not much. An old (really old), low building in the back of an alley, with a concrete floor yard, covered with thatched straw, providing a welcome shade for us. It was a small restaurant that opened for lunch and sold just a few homemade dishes, simple and traditional, enough to feed the motley crew of locals that were hanging out outside. We took a table and ordered.

I don’t remember what else we ate there. But I do remember that we ordered kolokouthkia me t’afka (zucchini with eggs). It seemed an unremarkable choice for me. It was something I grew up with, a quick solution for a meal when my mom was pressed for time. But I also remember Steve’s face when he took his first taste. His eyes lit up with that look of amazement and discovery we both get when we taste something remarkable. “Why have we not had this before?” he said. Truth was, I had forgotten about it. Needless to say, we have had this dish many times every since.

There were a lot of memories made on that trip. There were the drives through villages redolent with the aroma of orange blossoms. There was the lunch on top of a rock overlooking the Mediterranean Sea as we watched a storm approach. But before all of those there was this, the simple meal of zucchini with eggs, cooked in olive oil and showered with fresh lemon juice.

Zucchini with Eggs (Kolokouthkia me t’afka)

Makes 2 servings

Ingredients:

Half a medium onion, chopped
1 large zucchini (about 10oz-12oz/280gr-340gr)
4 large eggs
1/4 cup olive oil
1 lemon
salt and pepper

Directions:

Cut the zucchini in half lengthwise and then slice crosswise very thin (about 1/8″) using a very sharp knife or a mandolin. Whisk eggs in a small bowl with some salt and pepper and set aside.

Heat olive oil in a large sauté pan over medium heat. Add chopped onion and cook for about 2 minutes until onion just begins to soften but hasn’t started to brown yet. Increase heat to medium-high and add the zucchini. Season with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring often, until zucchini is cooked and lightly browned at the edges (about 15-17 minutes).

Reduce heat to medium and add eggs. Cook, stirring often, until eggs are cooked through, about 2-4 minutes.

Serve immediately with lots of fresh lemon juice squeezed on top (we use the juice of an entire lemon for two servings).

January 14, 2014 by Marios

Chicken with Clementines, Fennel, and Ouzo

I’m back from a little over three weeks of travel and I am so happy to be home again. I’ve always been a homebody, so being away from home for long periods of time makes me feel rootless and restless. Even when I am in New York I’ve been known to resist being out of the apartment for too long. I like to come home, regroup, and then go out again.

One of my trips was back home to visit my family. It was a somewhat special trip because I had a reunion of sorts with three of my friends from high school, two of whom I hadn’t seen in 25 years. I marveled at how little we have changed in some things (our looks in general, our mannerisms, many of our interests) and how much in others (the inability of some us to read menus in dim restaurant lights, having teenage kids).

The older I get, the more I find myself going down memory lane and remembering little details about my childhood. The four of us, along with my sister who was there with us, remembered and laughed about some silly things, like our predilection for writing bad poems which we exchanged and commented on with the seriousness of a grand literary salon.

Inevitably, we compared our teenage years with those of their own kids. And, as it seems to be the habit of every generation, we lamented the fact that “back in our days” things were different, or better, or less complicated. Truth be told, things were simpler then. We were a lot more innocent, as was the world in which we lived. With no Internet or any connected devices, our world was limited to what was physically close to us and that made things a lot less complex.

While I was at home, I also did one of my favorite activities: go to the grocery store. I love to walk the aisles and rediscover food that I grew up with but have either completely forgotten or haven’t tasted in years. Like the slightly sweetened sesame rusks called glystarkes or the fried dough balls soaked in honey syrup called loukoumades. Every morning I ate a fresh kolokoti, a turnover filled with cooked pumpkin, raisins, and bulgur wheat.

I started this blog post thinking I was going to somehow bring it back to the taste of licorice or anise, which is a key element of this recipe I want to share with you today. I had envisioned talking about how as a kid I watched The Little House on the Prairie and always wondered what this “sweet root” (as the greek subtitles translated it) was that the kids seemed to buy at the pharmacy. And how it turned out to be licorice, a word that comes from the greek glykoriza which means sweet root. And how I realized I hated licorice, though I still like ouzo, especially on a hot summer night, turned milky with the addition of ice cold water.

But in the end, I couldn’t really find my way to all that and I figured I would just give you this recipe from “Jerusalem: A Cookbook.” It’s an extraordinary dish, made even more amazing by its simplicity.

Chicken with Clementines, Fennel, and Ouzo – Slightly adapted from Jerusalem: A Cookbook

Makes 4 servings

Ingredients:

6 1/2 tablespoons / 100ml ouzo (or other anise flavored drink like arak or pernod)
4 tablespoons olive oil
3 tablespoons freshly squeezed orange juice
3 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
2 tablespoons grain mustard
3 tablespoons light brown sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 teaspoons black pepper
2 medium fennel bulbs (about 1lb or 500gr)
2 – 2 1/2 lbs skin-on, bone-in chicken thighs
4 clementines, unpeeled, sliced horizontally very thin (about 1/4 inch)
1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves
2 1/2 teaspoons fennel seeds, lightly crushed
chopped flat-leaf parsley for garnish

Directions:

Put the first eight ingredients in a large bowl and whisk well. Cut each fennel bulb in half lengthwise and then cut each half into 4 wedges. Add the fennel to the bowl along with the chicken thighs, clementine slices, thyme, and fennel seeds. Using your hands, mix everything well and then cover and leave to marinate in the fridge for a few hours or overnight (if you don’t have the time, skip the marinating stage).

Preheat the oven to 475º F / 220º C. Transfer the chicken and all the ingredients in the bowl, along with the liquid marinade, in a baking sheet that is large enough to accommodate everything without being overcrowded (this will help the chicken to brown). Make sure that the skin of the chicken thighs is facing up. Put the pan in the preheated oven and roast for 35-45 minutes until the chicken is brown and cooked through.

Remove from the oven. Lift the chicken, fennel and clementines from the pan and put on a serving platter. Cover and keep warm. Pour the cooking liquid into a small saucepan and place over medium-high heat. Bring to a boil and then simmer until the sauce is reduced by one third. You should be left with about 1/3 cup (80 ml). Pour the hot sauce of the chicken and top with some parsley before serving.

January 3, 2014 by Marios

Savory Tomato Jam

We spent New Year’s eve in Corsica with a group of friends. Given that we were in a house situated in a tiny village of 40 inhabitants, and considering that around the holidays everything is pretty much closed in France, I have nothing to report in terms of food discoveries. We pretty much bought a bunch of groceries on our first day, and we cooked simple meals every day.

Corsica, or at least the small part we saw, is a beautiful island, with rugged mountains that come down straight into the crystal blue waters of the Mediterranean. There are fig trees and citrus trees everywhere, as well as rosemary and laurel and a strange, edible fruit-bearing tree we had never seen before called Arbutus or Strawberry trees (Arbousier in French). The mountain side on which our house was located was covered with paddle cactuses, though the delicious, red prickly pears they produce had all been picked clean by now.

The weather was beautiful. Sunny and high 50s everyday. Very different than the weather back in New York where we are getting ready to return to. With a high of 17º F, it’s a veritable Arctic landscape in the Northeast. So, if you are trying to survive the first snow blizzard of 2014 and want something that provides some spicy warmth, I give you this recipe for a savory tomato jam. It’s a delicious combination of tomatoes and spices, cooked slowly together until they form a thick sauce that is a perfect accompaniment to seafood. Though I would guess that it would also pair well with chicken or pork.

Enjoy, and stay warm out there.

Savory Tomato Jam – Slightly adapted from BonAppetit.com

Makes about 3 cups

Ingredients:

1/4 cup vegetable oil
2 tablespoons yellow mustard seeds
1 tablespoon ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
2 medium shallots, thinly sliced
2 garlic cloves, chopped
2 tablespoons chopped peeled ginger
1/4 cup fish sauce
1/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon ground turmeric
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1 28oz can of diced tomatoes
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
salt and freshly ground pepper
fresh mint, chopped

Directions:

Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add mustard seeds, coriander, and cardamom and cook, stirring often, until mustard seeds begin to pop, about 1 minute. Add shallots, garlic, and ginger and cook, stirring often, until softened, about 5 minutes. Add fish sauce, sugar, turmeric, and red pepper flakes and cook, stirring constantly, until sugar is dissolved, about 1 minute.

Add diced tomatoes with their juices. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer, stirring often, until tomatoes are softened and mixture thickens, 35–45 minutes. Mix in lime juice; season with salt and pepper.

Serve over cooked fish or chicken and top with chopped fresh mint.

December 27, 2013 by Marios

Happy New Year

Hi everyone. I’ll be taking a break for about a week, so there won’t be a new recipe on the blog this weekend. We will be ringing in the new year in Corsica with a group of friends. If we come across any interesting food finds, I will be sure to post them here.

Happy new year to everyone and may 2014 bring you all health, happiness, and lots of delicious surprises.