Author: cia

Portobello Salad with Smoked Yellow Peppers

This is one of my favorite salads. The yellow bell pepper adds a sweetness to it while the portobello mushrooms make it beefier. I don’t have a grill outside my apartment–I don’t have an outside!–so I use the stovetop and hold the bell pepper using heat-resistant tongs. You can also broil the bell peppers until all sides are dark brown. Place the broiled peppers in a brown paper bag, close and let steam for about 15 minutes. The skin removes easily after this process.

Ingredients:
fresh portobello mushrooms, brushed off dirt using paper towel
2 yellow bell peppers, julienned
mixed greens, thoroughly washed, patted dry
2 tomatoes, chopped
1 medium red onion, chopped
a drizzle of balsamic vinegar
salt, pepper, olive oil

1. Grill yellow bell peppers until slightly black. Let them cool down before slicing.
2. Drizzle olive oil on portobello mushrooms and put in the broiler until soft. Let them cool down before slicing as well.
3. In a large salad bowl, toss all ingredients together and season with salt and pepper.

Taleggio and Mushroom Tart

Taleggio, a very rich and semi-soft cheese made from whole cow’s milk, has a distinct smell. When I saw this recipe in The New York Times, I knew it would be more fragrant with earthy mushrooms. It’s a great autumn recipe if you can afford some truffles or chantarelles in season. Otherwise, shiitake mushrooms will do.

Ingredients:
1 medium-sized deep-dish pie crust shell
Taleggio cheese, rinds removed, thinly sliced
a few ounces of shiitake mushrooms, sliced and stems discarded
1 tbsp cumin seeds
1 small shallot, finely chopped
2 tbsps crème fraîche
salt, ground white pepper, olive oil

1. Preheat oven to 350º and bake pie shell for about 10 minutes.
2. While baking, sauté cumin, shallots and mushrooms in hot olive oil until mushrooms are starting to brown. Season with salt and pepper.
3. Let the pie shell cool and then spread crème fraîche and cover with the cooked shallots and mushrooms. Top with Taleggio. Bake in oven for about 15 minutes until cheese melts.

Lamb Steak

A lamb steak is my fallback dinner when my appetite requires a big, sturdy meal but I’m too lazy to cook. A glass, or two, of red wine completes this dish.

Ingredients:
2 lamb steaks
salt, pepper, olive oil

1. Preheat oven to 350º. Rub with salt and pepper. Let them sit.
2. Using a hot Dutch oven, heat some olive oil and brown both sides of the lamb steaks.
3. Using a shallow baking pan covered in aluminum foil to catch excess fat, cook steaks on a rack until medium-rare.

Jing Fong

20 Elizabeth Street between Canal and Bayard
212/964.5256
about $60 for two, without drinks, without tip
♥ ♥

You can’t miss Jing Fong with its shopping mall-style escalators. Sunday is the best day to go for dim sum to experience just one Chinese tradition in the middle of Elizabeth Street. There’s a lady at the bottom of the escalators who screams into a microphone to call out people’s parties. Upstairs is like a madhouse bingo hall. A true red and gold banquet awaits guests and round tables are shared with strangers. Waiters push rolling food carts around so you can stop them and peek at the small dim sum dishes. A lot of them don’t speak English; they just tell you the Chinese word for a dish over and over, hoping you’d back down and stop asking.

My only advice is to try whatever looks interesting and skip the mixed fried rice you usually end up getting from a Chinese takeout. I never know the names of my favorite dishes but I go for a lot of shumais and dumplings when I’m with friends who just want the familiar, or else I go for chicken feet and snails when I’m with dim sum regulars. There is also a long table up front so you can pick other hot dishes not available in the rolling carts. If you feel more comfortable ordering from an English menu, they have it available for dishes served in larger portions.

Hanbat

53 West 35th Street between Fifth and Sixth
212/629.5588
about $30 for two, with two drinks, without tip
♥ ♥ ♥

If you tell any New Yorker Korean that you like Hanbat, they’ll tell you that it’s “peasant food” because their vegetables are traditionally from the mountains of Korea. I love the bibimbap, or mixed meal, which is a large bowl of rice topped with different kinds of root vegetables, shredded beef and fried egg, all brought together with gochujang or chili pepper paste. It can be served either hot or cold. I prefer it hot because I love watching the egg cook on top of the newly-cooked rice. My tongue burns every time I try to eat the first few spoonfuls but I can’t help myself from digging in.

Peasant food has never been this good.