Tuesday, March 21, 2023

ORIENTAL NOODLES AND SHRIMP

 

                                               Oriental noodles and shrimp

           This column needs to start with the proviso that noodles are NOT pasta. Pasta, the signature dish from Italy, is made from semolina wheat, different in texture and properties than wheat used for baking and includes egg as an ingredient. Oriental noodles do not contain egg, except for chow Mein noodles.  The main noodle ingredient can be fine ground wheat, rice, buckwheat or even mung bean starch as for glass noodles. Rice, glass, and soba noodles made with buckwheat are good for gluten free dishes, only make sure to read the labels for soba noodles, since some are made with a mixture of wheat and buckwheat. Also, check if manufactured under gluten free conditions.

          Noodles cook faster than pasta which is an advantage for quick meals. Raman as we know cooks in just 3 minutes and rice noodles need just need to be soaked in hot water for 3-20 minutes depending on thickness. Udon noodles are dense and chewy and come in diameter from 1/16 to almost ¼ inch.

The thicker versions of udon can be a challenge to eat with chopsticks as we found some years ago in a neighborhood Kyoto noodle shop filled with businessmen on their lunch break. The bowls of udon we ordered from the Japanese menu (fortunately with pictures) looked beautiful with mushrooms, snow peas and an egg on top, but it as impossible to snag any of the long slippery noodles with chopsticks or the small soup spoon. We struggled valiantly while the rest of the patrons could barely hide their amusement. They knew that to succeed you had to pick up the bowl, keep it close to your mouth and ‘slurp’ up those slippery noodles. My next recipe calls for the thinner version of udon noodles.


 

                                                   Oriental shrimp with udon

Boil 6-8 oz. thin udon noodles in salt water for 7 minutes. Drain, rinse with cold water and set aside.

Prepare the sauce in a small dish: 2 tblsp. lemon juice, 1 tblsp. Thai fish sauce, 1 tsp. corn starch, 1 tblsp. soy sauce.

In a pan sauté ½ lb. shelled and deveined medium shrimp in 1 tblp. olive oil and 1 tbsp. butter until pink and set aside. Add 1 tblsp. olive oil to the same pan and cook on medium heat ½ thinly sliced large onion and 3 large, sliced mushrooms for 5 minutes. Stir in 1 chopped Roma tomato, ½ julienned red pepper and cook for another 5 minutes. Return shrimp to the pan, stir in ½ cup chicken broth and the sauce mixture. Heat till the sauce looks slightly thickened. Divide the cooked udon among individual bowls, ladle shrimp on top, sprinkle with chopped scallions and serve.

Thai restaurants abound these days and present a variety of flavorful dishes, the most popular being Pad Thai. It is quite easy to reproduce it at home, even if you do not have a packet of Pad Thai sauce from the store, using either the wide or narrow flat rice noodles. The heat of the dish depends on the amount of added Thai red curry paste.

 

                                             Shrimp Pad Thai

Soak 8 oz thin Thai rice noodles in a bowl of warm water for 10 minutes (20 minutes for wide noodles) until they are flexible. Drain the noodles. Peel and devein ½ lb. shrimp and cut in half. Chop coarsely ½ cup peanuts, slice 4 scallions and chop 2 cloves fresh garlic. Fork whisk 2 eggs in a small bowl.

In a small bowl combine: ¼ cup rice vinegar, 3 tblsp. Thai fish sauce 1 tsblp. sesame oil, 2 tsp. sugar, ¼ - ½ tsp. Thai red curry paste to taste.

Heat a wok or large skillet. When hot swirl 1 tblsp. peanut oil and fry the shrimp and garlic for 2 minutes. Tip in the whisked eggs and scramble until eggs are set. Add the drained noodles and stir for 1 minute, stir in the vinegar mixture, scallions and half the peanuts. Toss together on heat for another minute. Divide among shallow bowls for serving and sprinkle the top with the rest of the peanuts.

Either one of these quick and easy dishes would also work well with chicken cut in bite sized pieces. Both make quick and easy meals with Oriental noodles. 

   (I. Winicov Harrington lives in coastal Maine and is the author of “How to Eat Healthy and Well for Less than $5.00 a Day: the Smart-Frugal Food Plan”; website: www.winicov-harrington.com)

 

 

 

 

Tuesday, March 7, 2023

PHILLY CHEESESTEAK OR FAJITAS?

                            Philly Cheesesteak or Fajitas?

           A Philly Cheesesteak is one of those things that one is bound to miss if you have ever lived in Philadelphia. It is one of those local specialties that seem to be difficult to replicate elsewhere despite its simple ingredients. It may appear occasionally on restaurant menus as shaved steak sandwich or sometimes even under its own name, but it seldom approaches the ‘real thing’. That is served in Italian neighborhoods in Philly or from the stand in Reading Terminal market, where the long lines of hungry customers wind along the market isles waiting for this succulent sandwich.

          The best I have ever encountered elsewhere was in Verdi, near Reno NV, but when questioned the chef admitted having recently moved from Philadelphia. It should not be difficult to assemble just the right slightly crusty Italian roll with quickly fried shaved steak, onions, pepper and Provolone in a slightly drippy delicious mega sandwich. During one of our last snowstorms, nostalgia made me try to do just that and here are my modestly successful results.


                                         Philly Cheesesteak, my version

          For 2 persons, start with shaved steak from the market or ¼ inch or less sliced rib steak, 4-6 oz meat per person. Slice 2 slightly crusted Italian rolls lengthwise; 1 large onion thinly sliced and 1 red or green pepper, seeded and thinly sliced.  Have ready two 10- or 12-inch pans, one with a lid.

          In the pan with the lid, fry the onion and pepper in 1 tblsp. vegetable oil without browning on medium heat, for 5 minutes.

          In the other pan fry the shaved steak, sprinkled with a bit of salt and pepper, in 1 tblsp. vegetable oil, hot but not smoking, on high heat until the meat is no longer pink. Transfer the meat to the vegetable pan on medium heat and spread meat on top of the vegetables. Place 4-6 slices thinly sliced sharp Provolone on top and cover with the lid for 1-2 minutes until the cheese is melted.

       Distribute the warm contents of the pan between the two rolls and serve with a dill pickle wedge and some French fries or potato chips.

          The flavor combination of sliced steak, onions and peppers have inspired another wrapped sandwich, Fajita.  Its origins are from South America with the spiced meat wrapped in a tortilla. It may have originated by way of thin slices of grilled tougher steaks like flank or skirt, wrapped in a tortilla for convenient eating.  Citrus is abundant there and spices came later. Current spice blend for Fajitas is complex, including chili, lime juice, cumin, garlic, paprika and cayenne. Fortunately, Fajita mix, analogous to Taco mix, is available in most stores. While salsa and sour cream feature in both Tacos and Fajitas, Fajitas do not contain fresh salad and cheese topping the meat, but both meat and vegetables are cooked arriving at a very different flavor. Fajitas taste wonderful not only with beef, but also chicken. Portabella mushrooms would make satisfying vegetarian Fajitas.  Flour tortillas are the standard, but corn tortillas would make this gluten free.

I first encountered Fajitas in a Brazilian restaurant in California, while on a sabbatical. So, on another of our trifecta of snowstorms last week, these made our dinner that day.


                                                              Beef Fajitas

Thinly slice flank, skirt or even sirloin steak against the grain in ¼ thick strips, 4 oz. meat per person. Have ready 3 small flour tortillas per person, wrapped  in a dish towel for warming in the microwave. For two persons, slice ½ large red onion in thin slices. Seed and slice a small green or red pepper in ½ inch strips. Cut wedges of lime.

In a large pan fry the meat in 1 tblsp. hot vegetable oil until no longer pink and set aside. Heat another 1 tblsp. vegetable oil in the same pan and sauté the onion and pepper for 4 minutes until barely softened. Add the meat and sprinkle a packet of Fajita mix over, stirring to coat the meat. Add the amount of water directed on the packet and cook the sauce 11-2 minutes, until mostly absorbed.

Heat the tortillas briefly, divide among the plate and place the filling in a strip in the middle. Top each with 2 tsp. salsa and sour cream and decorate with lime wedges. Eat folded up by hand, with a fork handy for filling that slips out of the cover. Enjoy!

It’s been delicious fun to recollect these flavorful meals despite, or because of all those snowstorms.

   (I. Winicov Harrington lives in coastal Maine and is the author of “How to Eat Healthy and Well for Less than $5.00 a Day: the Smart-Frugal Food Plan”; website: www.winicov-harrington.com)