CityMama™

Stir-fried Green Vegetables with Oyster Sauce

One of my family's favorite ways to eat vegetables.

Whenever we go out for Chinese, we always order gai lan or bok choy drizzled with oyster sauce. I love the crispy veggies against the sharp and salty flavor of the oyster sauce. If you are bored with steamed or sauteed veggies, this is a nice alternative, and best of all, it's not hard to make this at home.

What is oyster sauce? You have to try it to know. It's salty like soy sauce and thick like hoisin sauce. It's not as pungent as fish sauce—its more...earthy and mellow.

STIR-FRIED GREEN VEGGIES with OYSTER SAUCE

• 1 pound of your favorite green vegetable or a combination (I combined broccoli with baby bok choy, but you could use gai lan or broccolini or asparagus.)
• 1 clove of garlic smashed
• a quarter-sized disk of fresh ginger (no need to peel), slightly crushed
• a drizzle of neutral oil (I prefer peanut but you can use corn, vegetable, etc.)
• sea salt
• a drizzle of oyster sauce (available at any Asian market and some well-stock supermarkets in the Asian section)

Heat a large frying pan or wok over medium-high heat until very hot. Add in a drizzle of oil along with the garlic and ginger. Let cook for a few seconds then add in the veggies. Stir-fry until veggies are crisp-tender and still bright green. (If garlic starts to burn, remove it.) Season lightly with salt—not too much because oyster sauce is very salty—and remove veggies to a platter. Discard garlic and ginger.  Drizzle oyster sauce over veggies in a zig-zag pattern (a little goes a long way, see top photo), and serve immediately.

This is a great simple dinner along with some steamed rice.

Celery Root (Celeriac) Remoulade

Perhaps one of the easiest salads ever.

Looking for an usual salad? This might be it. Recipes I've read mention how tough celery root can be to cut or grate, but I haven't had a problem with the celery roots I purchase from my local farmer's market. They are no tougher to grate than a sweet potato and certainly much easier to deal with than a butternut squash. Maybe freshness is key. (Edited to add: Celery root tastes just like celery—maybe a little milder— but with the texture of a grated crisp apple or Asian pear.)

In any case, I've been enjoying this simple, tangy, crunchy refreshing salad all spring.

CELERY ROOT (CELERIAC) REMOULADE

• 1 celery root, cleaned, peeled and grated with a box grater or food processor
• the juice of one lemon
• two glops of mayonnaise (or enough to make it creamy)
• sea salt and freshly ground pepper
• chopped fresh parsley to garnish

Combine all ingredients in a mixing bowl (reserving some parsley for garnish). Mix well, season to taste. Garnish with remaining parsley and serve.

Quinoa Salad with Lemon Miso Dressing

I made this salad just now and between me and the girls, it might not last until dinner.  It's based off a recipe from one of my favorite food blogs, 101 Cookbooks. I used brown rice miso instead of tahini because, well, I'm just not a fan of the tangy-gritty flavor of tahini. (When I make hummus I cheat and use ground roasted sesame seeds and a touch of sesame oil instead of tahini.)

Quinoa Salad with Lemon Miso Dressing

• 1 cup of quinoa cooked in 1 3/4 cups water for 15 minutes. Set aside to cool.
• 1 can of organic garbanzos, drained and rinsed well
• 1/4 white onion, finely diced
• a handful of fresh cilantro leaves finely chopped
• 2 handfuls of baby spinach leaves

Dressing:

• 1/4 cup brown rice miso (or any you like) thinned with 2 tablespoons of hot water
• 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
• 1 clove of garlic, pressed
• 1/2-2/3 cup of olive oil
• freshly ground pepper

Mix or shake well and set aside.

Toss cooked quinoa and garbanzos with dressing until well-mixed, then add onion, cilantro and mix again. Taste for salt/pepper. I found that it didn't need any salt because the miso is salty enough. Just before serving fold in the spinach leaves. Serves 4.

Note: The spinach holds up very well in grain salads, especially if it is freshly picked (as from a farmer's market). It's fine even the next day--I often combine handfuls of spinach with my grain (quinoa, barley) and pasta/couscous salads for extra color, texture, and nutrition.

Olive oil-roasted wild salmon with tomatoes and olives + an impulse buy pantry "must-have"

First things first. Last night I made a simple dinner of olive oil-roasted wild salmon that was yum but the real highlight of the meal was a Costco impulse buy that I must share: Paradise Valley "Creamy Mash" Yukon Gold Instant Mashed Potatoes.

Now.

I think most instant mashed potato mixes are bleh, but I like to keep some on hand to make things like shepherd's pie or croquettes. When I have a hankering for those things, it sucks to have to make a whole batch of potatoes just to mash them for that purpose. Instant mashers make life easy sometimes.

The ones from Costco, though, are so good you'd swear they were real. If you've tried them, am I right? (I can't find a link to them so if anyone has one please let me know.) The ingredients are: yukon gold potatoes, butter, and salt. That's it. You cook em up by adding them to a water/milk combo with butter (or margarine) added.  They are good on their own but also super-yum with embellishments like: crumbled bacon, snipped chives and a little grated cheese (smoked gouda, Irish cheddar, whatever you like) or smashed garlic or a little fresh horseradish, sour cream, and parsley.

It's the best impulse buy I've ever made. (Run to Costco and get some!)  And they were yummy with the roasted salmon which I did as follows:

Pour enough olive oil in a large cast-iron skillet to coat the bottom and heat over medium until very hot but not smoking. Add in a pound of salt-and-peppered wild salmon fillets and 2 seasoned tomatoes which have been halved, cut-side down. (My fillets were about 3/4 of an inch thick in the middle.)

Cook salmon and tomatoes for about 7-8 minutes and then flip (if it sticks, it's not ready for flipping, give it a minute or two). Flip the tomatoes as well.

Stick the entire pan into a 375º oven along with a handful of cracked oil-cured Kalamata olives and roast for about 7-8 minutes more or until your preferred done-ness. I like a slightly pink, med-rare center.

Carefully remove pan from the oven. Divide salmon among four plates, add a tomato half and a few olives to each. Serve with mashed potatoes and a salad (we had Meyer lemon vinaigrette since I have about 20 of them on hand.)

The whole meal came together in under 30 minutes.

White Asparagus with Ham and Gruyere

For this easy side dish, I tossed a bunch of white asparagus gently with a little olive oil (not too much as the cheese will release some oil), salt, and pepper.  I arranged it in a baking dish and topped with:

• 1 large slice or 2 small slices of Black Forest Ham, julienned
• a handful of grated gruyere
• a handful of grated parmesan

Bake at 350º until asparagus are tender but crisp, about 10-15 minutes depending.

Simple Sides: Roasted King Trumpet Mushrooms

I love King Trumpet (or Oyster) mushrooms because they have the same meaty texture of fresh porcinis (which are nigh impossible to find) even if they don't exactly have a fresh porcini's rich flavor. They also don't have the creepy gills and unappealing sponginess that portobellos have. (I love mushrooms and simply cannot choke down a portobello.)

The easiest way I know to make them is just to stick 'em in a hot oven and don't bother them too much.  You begin with beautiful raw mushrooms, ends trimmed. Toss them with olive oil, garlic, and alae (pink) Hawaiian salt (or sea salt).

Get into my belly!

Put them into a 375º oven for about 25 minutes. You can give them a gentle stir about half-way through the cooking time.  When they are done, they come out looking like this:

Chewy, garlicky yumminess.

I served these alongside lamb chops when the smart and soignée Katherine came to dinner a few weeks ago.

Crunchy Korean Cucumber Salad

This salad is so easy to prepare it's stoopid.  The key, though, it making sure you serve it immediately after you toss it so that the salt doesn't have a chance to wilt the cukes. I like it when the cucumbers are still icy-cold from the fridge and you get the pleasant crunch of sea salt with every bite. The recipe calls for ground toasted sesame seeds (You can find sesame seed grinders at any Japanese market.), but if you can't find a grinder a mortar and pestle will work.  Or just sprinkle them on without grinding.

KOREAN CUCUMBER SALAD

• 2 medium-sized cucumbers, peeled, seeded, and chopped into chunks
• half a thinly-sliced small yellow onion, or 1-2 green onions, thinly-sliced
• a drizzle of toasted sesame oil (maybe a teaspoon or two)
• a hefty grinding of toasted sesame seeds (see photo)
• sea salt to taste (large flakes are great, but avoid large the coarse rocks usu. found in salt grinders)
• optional: shaved garlic is great in this, so are a few very thinly-sliced green chilis.

Toss everything together and serve immediately. Serves 4 as a side dish (or two of my children--they love this).  We had this along-side kalbi (Korean BBQ ribs) last night.

Creamy Brussels Sprouts

When Mary Tsao mentioned the creamy brussels sprouts the first time, I sat up and took notice. When she mentioned them a second time, I knew I would be making them ASAP.

ASAP was last night. I cooked up two pounds of sprouts and Bunny, my five-year-old brussels sprouts freak, ate about a pound and a half of them. Next time I think I'll double the recipe and that'll be dinner along with a loaf of crusty bread.

They were creamy and cheesy and nutty and in a word: gooooooooood.

"Steakhouse" Salad: Tomatoes, Sweet Onions, and Blue Cheese

This salad, is hands-down, my family's favorite. What's not to love about thick slabs of sweet, juicy heirloom tomatoes; thinly-sliced piquant onions; and crumbles of sharp and salty blue cheese (in this case Stilton and gorgonzola)?

Bunny and Wallie love blue cheese (just like their parents) and by the time I get around to serving this salad, I notice that there are far fewer crumbles on it than I thought...Hmmmm...

Simply arrange the tomato slices on a plate and lightly salt them (just a touch to bring out the tomato flavor; the cheese is salty), top with onions and cheese and fresh ground pepper, then drizzle with fruity olive oil.  We had this alongside grassfed tri-tip from Whole Foods, and it was the perfect complement to the meal.

Panzanella: Italian Bread Salad

This classic Italian dish is the perfect way to transition from summer to fall. You combine hearty leftover bread—the drier the better—with juicy tomatoes, basil, and olive oil. Some people like to add all manner of things like cucumbers or peppers or olives. I'm a purist and I like to keep it simple. I might add some thinly sliced sweet red or yellow onion or a splash (just a splash) of red wine vinegar, but I try to let the tomatoes shine through.

For this recipe, I used about 1/3 of a loaf of very stale La Brea Bakery whole grain loaf, three large and juicy heirloom tomatoes, a couple handfuls of fresh basil, about 4 glugs of fruity olive oil (use the best you have), half a thinly sliced onion added just before serving, a slug of red wine vinegar, and salt and pepper.

You need to start the recipe at least two hours before you serve it.  The best part about it is that it needs no refrigeration, in fact, refrigeration destroys the flavors, so make sure to keep and serve it at room temperature.

The procedure is as follows:

• Dice bread into 1-inch cubes, and layer into a bowl.
• Placed chopped tomatoes (no need to seed) and any accumulated juices into the bowl atop the tomatoes.
• Salt the tomatoes, drizzle olive oil over everything, scatter basil over the top, and just let the bowl hang out on your kitchen counter for 2-4 hours.
• Just before serving, add the onions and a splash of vinegar.  Toss well. Salt and pepper to taste, and add a touch more olive oil.  Serve. Serves 4.

You can also omit the last step and just serve it after the bread has had a chance to absorb the tomato juices.