Indian Spiced Green Beans

Green Beans with Stewed split peas and potatoes and collard paratha

My sister planted a ginormous garden this year and I'm reaping the wonderful benefits.  Last week she gave me several bags of produce from her garden and today I turned them into an Indian vegetarian meal.

Flaky Collard Paratha

  The collards I blanched and processed
   into a dough I used to make paratha.

Raiti with fresh cucumber and tomato

The sweet, juicy tomato and crisp cucumber got chopped up and added to a tangy raita.












The green beans I fried in ghee with cumin and mustard seeds and then stewed them in a bit of water.  This recipe is so simple and quick that it qualifies as an Emmi.

This recipe comes from Yamuna Devi.  She has written one of the most comprehensive cookbooks on Indian Vegetarian Cuisine that I've ever seen!  The book is called Lord Krishna's Cuisine: The Art of Indian Vegetarian Cooking and no collection on Indian cooking can be considered complete without it.  If you don't own it, what are you waiting for?

Ingredients:

• 1 lb green beans, cut in 1 inch pieces
• 4 T ghee or light oil
• 2 t black mustard seeds
• 1 t cumin seeds
• 1/4 t crushed red pepper (more or less to taste)
• 1/2 c water
• 1 t corriander
• 1 t kosher salt
• 1 t sugar

Method:

1. Heat the ghee or oil over medium high heat.  Toss in the mustard seeds, cumin seeds, and red pepper.  The cumin seeds will turn dark reddish brown and the mustard seeds will turn gray and pop.  
2. When the mustard seeds are done popping, add in the green beans and fry for about 3 minutes, stirring to coat with the seasoned ghee
3. Add the water.  Lower heat to medium low.  Cover and cook until crisp tender (about 10 - 12 minutes.)
4. Uncover and stir in corriander, salt, and sugar.  Raise heat and cook until water evaporates.

Indian Spiced Green Beans

To finish out my meal, I made stewed split peas and potatoes.  If you are interested in that recipe, click here.

Fish Wrapped in Savoy Cabbage with Caper Butter Sauce

In an effort to eat cheaper and healthier, I've been trying to make two meals a week meatless, and two meals a week with fish.  This is a recipe I've made a couple of times now and it's always been moist and tasty.  I think it's even good enough to serve to company.  And as an added bonus, it qualifies as an Emmi!

The only things that might ruin this recipe are overcooking the fish (which I have not yet done) or under cooking the cabbage (which happened to me last night.)  The flavor and texture of the fish was perfect, but the cabbage was crunchy, somewhat spoiling what would have been a perfect dinner!  Next time, I will either cook the cabbage longer, or maybe, cut out the tough stem.

Here's my version of the recipe that I found in the March issue of Bon Appetit.

Ingredients:

9 T butter, at room temperature
4 T capers
2 T minced Italian parsley
6 large Savoy cabbage leaves
6 4-oz fish fillets (Halibut, Cod, or other firm fish of your choosing)
Kosher salt and fresh ground pepper

Method:

1.  Mince or finely chop 2 T of the capers and then add them to a bowl along with 5 T of the butter, the parsley, and salt and pepper to taste.  Mix well and set aside.

2.  Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil and drop in the cabbage leaves.  Let cook for 2 to 5 minutes, depending on how tough the leaves are.  You want them to be pliable enough to wrap around the fish.  Remove leaves, drain, and pat dry.

3.  Take one leaf and trim the thick part of the stem so the leaf will lie flat (or cut out and remove the stem completely.)

4.  Lay the leaf flat, stem end towards you, and place a fish fillet about an inch and a half from the bottom.  Sprinkle the fish lightly with salt and pepper.  Spread 1/6th of the caper butter on top of the fish.  Fold the bottom up, then the sides, then continue rolling until you have a nice, tight packet.  (Use a toothpick, if needed, to hold the packet shut.)

5.  Place the fish packet on a large baking sheet, seam-side down, and continue with remaining fish, cabbage, and caper butter.  Sprinkle packets with kosher salt and fresh ground pepper.

6.  Melt 1 T butter in a large, non-stick skillet.  Place the packets, seam-side down, in the skillet and cook until lightly brown (2-3 minutes.)  Turn fish over and repeat.  Return fish to baking sheet.

7.  Bake fish at 350 degrees for 7 minutes or until fish is cooked through.

8.  Melt remaining butter in skillet used to brown the packets.  Add remaining capers.  Cook over medium-low heat until butter turns a nutty brown.

9.  To serve, place a packet on a plate and drizzle with brown-butter sauce. 

Caper Butter

Getting ready to roll up the packet

Packets browning in the skillet

YUM!!

Chicken Marsala



Chicken Marsala with prosciutto and mushrooms


Years and years ago, Eddy and I had a delicious dinner at an Italian restaurant in town and I ordered turkey Marsala.  It was the first time I'd tasted this dish and it was delicious!  I was so smitten with it, I went to the library and searched for a recipe (this was pre-internet!)  I have been making it ever since, but usually with chicken, since turkey cutlets are not always available.

Chicken Marsala is one of the easiest dishes to make and it always turns out "company worthy."  If you are a novice in the kitchen and want to make something to really impress your guests, try this recipe.  Recipes for Chicken Marsala are pretty standard.  If you google it, you'll get a slew of hits with very subtle variations.  Here is the way I make it:  (recipe after photos)

chicken breasts, cut in half and pounded

 

browning chicken breasts in olive oil



saute prosciutto until brown and crispy

saute mushrooms until most liquid has been released and evaporated

 
Ingredients:

2 lb boneless, skinless chicken breasts (or turkey cutlets)
flour (about 1/2 cup)
4 T olive oil or butter or a combination of both
4 oz. paper-thin slices prosciutto cut into strips
1 t fresh thyme leaves
8 oz mushrooms, sliced
3/4 c Marsala
1 c chicken broth
4 T unsalted butter
3 T Italian parsley chopped

(Note: Marsala is a sweet Italian wine.  You can usually find a smallish bottle of it in most grocery stores down the aisle that has vinegar.  It should be right next to the cooking Sherry.)

Method:
1.  Lay the chicken breast on a cutting board and place your hand, palm flat, on top of it.  Use a very sharp knife (a fillet knife if you have one) to cut the breast in half, making each cutlet about 1/4 inch thick.  Do this with all the chicken breasts (turkey cutlets are good to go just the way they are.)  Next, place the cutlet between two pieces of wax paper or in a freezer bag and pound to thin a bit more.

2.  sprinkle the cutlets with salt and pepper.  Heat the oil or butter in a large, flat pan over medium-high heat.  Dredge each cutlet in flour and brown in pan on both sides.  You will probably have to do this in batches.  Set chicken aside.

3.  Dump prosciutto into the pan a stir and cook until beginning to brown and crisp.  Add thyme and mushrooms.  Cook until mushrooms have released their juice and liquid is almost gone. 

4.  Reduce heat to medium.  Pour in the Marsala and continue cooking at a simmer allowing alcohol to burn off, about two minutes or so.  Add in the chicken broth and let simmer another minute or so to reduce the sauce.  Swirl in the butter, stirring to incorporate.

5.  At this point, you can either return the chicken to the pan to rewarm, or place chicken in a serving dish, pour sauce over and rewarm in a low oven.  Just before serving, sprinkle parsley over top.

Chicken Marsala with spaghetti and green beans

Introducing the Emmi

Asian beef and noodles


My daughter has a couple of friends who I recently invited over for an international potluck.  They confessed to me that they had gone to my web site to find a recipe to cook and bring to the gathering, but that all my recipes looked too complicated.  I was stunned!!  I will admit that there are several rather involved recipes on my site, but I also have many, many simple and easy to prepare recipes.  Don't I??

I guess it's possible that because I so love to cook and have been doing it for years, what seems simple to me might be a bit involved for the occasional cook.  So, I am going to make an effort to regularly post recipes that any inexperienced cook can make (as long as they have a taste for adventure) with just a smidgen of effort.  I'm going to call these recipes Emmi Recipes (and they will be tagged as such) in honor of Emily and Michelle, my daughter's culinarily-challenged friends.

The first recipe in this collection is Asian beef and noodles.  You have to be willing to purchase a few ingredients that you probably don't normally keep in your kitchen.  If you are willing to do this one small thing, then this recipe will go together quickly and easily and the pay-off is delicious!

One of the unusual ingredients is Udon noodles.  Many grocery stores carry these now in their Asian section.  These small, individual serving packets of fresh noodles come with a seasoning packet for making soup.  They look like this:

Another unusual ingredient is Asian chili paste.  This stuff is really good and lasts forever in the refrigerator so you should keep some around anyway.  This can also be purchased in the Asian aisle of most supermarkets.  It looks like this:

The last unusual ingredient is bok choy.  Buy baby bok choy, if you can find it.  Many supermarkets, such as Meijer's, carry this.  But if you live in a city that has an Asian grocery store (and Emily and Michelle do!) you should go there.  It's going to be fresher since they have a much quicker rate of turn-over and the price is considerably cheaper! 

bag of baby bok choy from Saigon

With one quick trip to the Asian market, you can buy all the things you need for this recipe except the meat.

So then.... here is the recipe.

Ingredients:
2 T oil (such as canola or peanut)
2 lb chuck or English roast, cut into small chunks (1 1/2 inch pieces)
4 green onions, sliced
8 cloves garlic, mashed
1 1/2 cups chicken broth
1/2 cup water
1/4 c plus 2 T soy sauce
2 t ginger powder
1 T Asian chili paste
2 packages Udon noodles
4 cups bok choy, sliced (if using large bok choy, cut into 1 inch pieces)
1/2 cup minced cilantro (or more, to taste)

Method:
1.  Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat.  Sear the meat with the onions and garlic. You may need to do this in batches if your pan isn't large enough.  In this case, add the onions and garlic with the final batch.  To sear properly, the meat should not be crowded in the pan.

2.  Transfer the meat, onions, and garlic to a crockpot and add the broth, water, soy sauce, ginger, and chili paste.  Stir well to combine.  Cover and cook on LOW for 7 hours or on HIGH for 3 hours.  (you can also do this on the stove top by combining everything in a soup pot, bring to a boil, then reduce to simmer.  Let simmer, covered, until the meat is tender.  Maybe about 1 1/2 hours)

3.  Add the noodles (noodles only, throw the flavoring packets away) and stir to combine.  Then add the bok choy, stir, and continue cooking for about 15 minutes or until tender.

4.  Before serving, stir in cilantro.

(Note:  feel free to add a third package of noodles if you like less broth and more noodles!)

If you try this recipe, please leave a comment.  I would like to know if it turns out as easy and delicious for others as it does for me!

Easy and Delicious!!