cia – Page 211 – Writing With My Mouth Full

Roasted Beet and Goat Cheese Salad

I splurged and bought a nice bottle of truffled wine vinegar while I was in Montreal. You can still make this salad with red wine vinegar and you can also substitute the arugula with spinach.

Ingredients:
1 bunch of red beets, rinsed well
1 bunch of arugula, thoroughly washed and torn in small pieces
goat cheese, crumbled
truffled wine vinegar
salt, pepper, olive oil

1. Wrap beets in aluminum foil and roast in oven for 1 1/2 hours at 400Âº. When beets are tender, remove from the oven and let cool. When cool enough to handle, peel and slice in thin circles. Put in a bowl with the greens.
2. In a separate bowl, whisk wine vinegar while slowly pouring olive oil to allow them to mix. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Pour over beets and greens and toss with goat cheese.

Related post/s:
Where to buy truffled wine vinegar

Beef Steak Fajitas

I adapted this recipe from an issue of Saveur Magazine. The flank is the underside of a cow’s belly. It’s a bit more chewy than the sirloin right above it, but it has a great beefy flavor for a cheap cut of beef. Marinating it for a couple of hours or even overnight makes it easier to cook later. Keep it medium-rare because flank gets more tough if overdone. Serve with bottles of Corona beer.

Ingredients:
1/2 pound of beef steak
flour tortillas
2 large tomatoes, chopped
1 red bell pepper, julienned
2 large red onions, thinly sliced
3 cloves of garlic, crushed
light soy sauce
lime juice
half a bunch of cilantro, finely chopped
red chili flakes
chipotle sauce
salt, pepper

1. Make the marinade. Mix in soy sauce, garlic, one of the onions and half of the cilantro in a bowl. Add some lime juice and season with salt and pepper to taste. Add the steak and marinate, covered in the fridge, for a couple of hours.
2. When ready to prepare, make salsa. Combine tomatoes, the other onion and the rest of the cilantro in a bowl. Add some lime juice and season with salt, pepper and red chilis to taste.
3. A few minutes before serving, preheat oven to 400Âº. Transfer steak to a pan and broil for about 7 minutes on each side for medium-rare. Remove from the oven and let rest for 10 minutes on a chopping board. Slice into strips along the grain.
4. Wrap tortillas in aluminum foil and heat in the oven for less than 2 minutes.
5. Let your guests assemble their own fajita: fill in tortilla with strips of steak and red bell pepper with some salsa, lime juice and chipotle sauce.

Sopas de Nopales, Cactus Soup

I was walking in the Washington Heights area one Saturday afternoon when I saw cactus pads, or nopales in Spanish, on display in one of the grocery stores. I immediately remembered our trip to Mexico where we had numerous unforgettable meals. In the town of Pochutla in Oaxaca, we ate several times at Lichita Restaurant and I remember how I eagerly ordered cactus soup because the idea of eating the cactus pads excited me. I was just so curious as to how it would taste. It has the texture of broccoli stalks, tender but succulent inside. I gather that the softness is because of how the plant itself collects so much water in order to survive in the dessert. Don’t fear the thorns. They’re usually dry enough to pare off using a small knife. You can make your usual tomato soup but it would be less boring to have cactus chunks in it.

Ingredients:
4 cactus pads
2 medium-sized tomatoes, chopped
1 small can of tomato sauce
3 cups of chicken stock
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 medium red onion
lime juice
a handful of cilantro, finely chopped
salt, pepper, oil

1. Slice off thorns from cactus pads. Cut in small chunks.
2. Heat a little oil in a hot sauce pan. SautÃ© garlic until light brown, onions until transparent and tomatoes until mushy. Add tomato sauce and bring to a boil over medium heat. Then add chicken stock and bring to a second boil.
3. Add cactus and let simmer for about 15 minutes until tender. Add lime and cilantro and season with salt and pepper to taste.

Green Tea Noodle and Cucumber

I adapted this from a Nigella Lawson recipe from The New York Times. In New York City, you can get green tea noodles from Sunrise Mart for less than $5 for two bunches. You can use soba noodles as a substitute, you just won’t have that interesting green color. If you don’t have an Asian grocery store where you live, try using angel-hair pasta. The secret is balancing the sweet and sour tastes of the vinegar and the sugar.

Ingredients:
1 bunch of green tea noodles
1 cucumber, peeled and julienned
red chilis, seeded and finely chopped
3 tbsps sugar
6 tbsps rice wine vinegar
2 tbsps sesame oil
half a bunch of cilantro, finely chopped

1. Cook noodles in boiling water for about 5 minutes. When done, drain and fluff with a fork to keep the noodles from sticking together.
2. In a small saucepan over low heat, dissolve sugar, rice wine vinegar and 2 tbsps of water.
3. In a salad bowl, pour dressing over cucumber and chilis. Add noodles and toss. Drizzle with sesame oil and sprinkle with cilantro. Refrigerate for a few minutes until salad is chilled.

Related post/s:
Where to buy green tea noodles

Celery Granita

Sicilian granita is a semi-frozen dessert of sugar and water. You can substitute the celery from this recipe with almost anything that’s in season. I first tasted a homemade version of granita in Vermont when one of the boy’s professor served us a small snack flavored with raspberries he grew in his yard. He mentioned that a vegetable as flavoring will even work, so when I returned to New York City, I made it with celery. If you have access to Chinese celery–they are thinner and softer than the American kind–use it because it has a spicier taste to it. This recipe makes a generous bowl of granita.

Ingredients:
1 bunch of celery, rinsed and patted dry
1/2 cup of sugar
1/2 cup of water
1 tray of ice cubes
lemon juice
mint leaves, finely chopped

1. Make the simple syrup. In a sauce pan, bring water with sugar to a boil. Simmer until clear, about 3 minutes. Pour into a bowl and set aside to cool.
2. Using a food processor, purée celery stalks. With a cheese cloth, strain the celery juice to another bowl to make sure you don’t have any of the pulp. In a blender, chop ice cubes until crushed.
3. To serve, pour over some celery juice and simple syrup in a bowl of crushed ice. Sprinkle some lemon juice to balance out the sweet and sour tastes. You can serve this immediately with mint leaves on top.