I love this Asian hot sauce because it is not simply hot, like Tabasco; it also has flavor. My favorite brand is Huy Fong. Sriracha is a great “extra” in a summer pantry because it spices up any dish (eggs, beans, rice, pastas, marinades for meat…) and it also rounds out some quick sauces. It’s like a little secret weapon. Here are a few recipes I make frequently:
Makeshift Spicy Peanut Sauce for Szechuan noodles (Toss with angel hair or spaghetti, slivered scallions and carrots, and chopped salty peanuts):
Combine until smooth in a blender:
½ cup smooth peanut butter
½ cup soy sauce
½ cup vegetable oil
1 garlic clove, minced
2 tbsp. brown sugar
1 tsp. ginger (optional)
1 tbsp. Sriracha sauce (add more if not hot enough for you!)
Sauce for turkey burgers:
¼ cup mayo
2 tbsp. freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 tbsp. Dijon mustard (I like Maille)
A squeeze or two of Sriracha
Sauce for cheeseburgers (I make the cheeseburgers with horseradish and chives, or with Worcestershire and garlic)
1 cup mayo
1 tablespoon tomato paste or 3 tablespoons ketsup
2 tbsp. capers
1 minced garlic clove
1 tsp. Dijon mustard
1 minced anchovy filet
2 tbsp. minced fresh parsley
1 tsp. Sriracha (or more to taste)
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
The Popover Miracle
I was having a rough day. The kind where all the elements seemed allied against me. My friend Sue was visiting, and instead of relaxing and hanging with her, I was dealing with neighborhood association politics, mortgage woes, malfunctioning air conditioners – I will spare you the sad details or you might stop reading. But the point is, it’s all okay because I experienced a Popover Miracle.
Sue and I had hiked at Acadia National Park a few days before, and I made my requisite pilgrimage to the Jordon Pond House for lemonade and popovers. If you’ve never been there, make your plans right now; it is worth the drive to Maine, 4 hours past the border, to Acadia National Park, to eat the popovers, straight from the oven, hot, hollow with their popping, crispy golden brown on the outside, tender eggy dough on the inside, served with butter and strawberry preserves. Yum.
As we ate (read: devoured) our bread-treat-times-infinity, I told Sue that their recipe is quite simple, very few ingredients, but they require the precision of a chemistry lab project and a super-reliable over to turn out perfectly. I told her I had made them many times, but not always with success!
So on this aforementioned “rough day” I had planned to make them for my guest. I didn’t have my usual recipe here with me in Maine, so off to foodnetwork.com I went, and I came up with this recipe from Alton Brown. http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/good-eats/basic-popover-recipe/index.html
But as I believe I have mentioned before, my cardinal sin as a cook is that I do not always read the recipe very carefully before I begin. I am famous for getting the end of a recipe as I prepare dinner for hungry guests and just then seeing the instructions: let refrigerate for 24 hours, or something like that. And in my defense, I was quite stressed on this particular morning, and I had just burst into tears after a tongue-lashing from an angry neighbor.
SOOOO….. where Alton says “4 and ¾ OUNCES” of flour, I accidentally added 4 ¾ CUPS. Luckily, I had made popovers before and knew I ought to have a batter kind of like for pancakes, NOT like for SCONES!!! Mine was thick like a pie crust. I would have started from scratch again, but I hated to waste all that flour, and I only had one more egg, so I thought (quite negatively, I will admit), “Whatever; the rest of my morning is a total disaster, I am just going to wing it.” And what I did is take one cup (the amount on flour Alton really had intended. Note: Dear Alton, no one uses ounce measurements in real kitchens; could you just use cups? Thanks. Love, Patty) of that sticky thick mess I had erroneously created, and I whirled it in the food processor with one more egg and a bit less than one cup of milk, came up with an appropriately thin and familiar-looking batter, and poured it into my special popover pan (which I purchased at the Jordon Pond House gift shop years ago.)
I popped them into the oven (sorry, couldn’t resist), and I told Sue, “I hope you aren’t too excited for these because there is no chance in hell that they are going to fly.” I mentally prepared her and my daughter for a nice breakfast of oatmeal or toast. At least the physical effort of making them had distracted me for a while.
But wait, what’s this? When I looked into the oven after 20 minutes (through the window, of course; I know you can’t open the door), they had puffed up! A lot! This was impossible. I still wasn’t jolted from my learned-negativity of the day: I was sure they would be tough and maybe not even hollow when we ate them.
Sure enough, 20 minutes later, we all sat at the table with an absolutely beautiful-looking popover before us. We broke them open and watched a replay of the Jordon Pond House experience: steam escaping, tendrils of eggy dough begging for butter. We bit into them and savored the crisp-tender consistency. They were perfect.
Something as simple as that restored my faith in the day. I guess more importantly, it restored my faith in myself to salvage a really bad situation. We laughed and we ate them all, and I really did feel much better. But don’t worry, I am not harboring any illusions. I know I can’t mess with popover chemistry, or for that matter with other uncontrollable elements of the world. This time was truly a Popover Miracle.
Sue and I had hiked at Acadia National Park a few days before, and I made my requisite pilgrimage to the Jordon Pond House for lemonade and popovers. If you’ve never been there, make your plans right now; it is worth the drive to Maine, 4 hours past the border, to Acadia National Park, to eat the popovers, straight from the oven, hot, hollow with their popping, crispy golden brown on the outside, tender eggy dough on the inside, served with butter and strawberry preserves. Yum.
As we ate (read: devoured) our bread-treat-times-infinity, I told Sue that their recipe is quite simple, very few ingredients, but they require the precision of a chemistry lab project and a super-reliable over to turn out perfectly. I told her I had made them many times, but not always with success!
So on this aforementioned “rough day” I had planned to make them for my guest. I didn’t have my usual recipe here with me in Maine, so off to foodnetwork.com I went, and I came up with this recipe from Alton Brown. http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/good-eats/basic-popover-recipe/index.html
But as I believe I have mentioned before, my cardinal sin as a cook is that I do not always read the recipe very carefully before I begin. I am famous for getting the end of a recipe as I prepare dinner for hungry guests and just then seeing the instructions: let refrigerate for 24 hours, or something like that. And in my defense, I was quite stressed on this particular morning, and I had just burst into tears after a tongue-lashing from an angry neighbor.
SOOOO….. where Alton says “4 and ¾ OUNCES” of flour, I accidentally added 4 ¾ CUPS. Luckily, I had made popovers before and knew I ought to have a batter kind of like for pancakes, NOT like for SCONES!!! Mine was thick like a pie crust. I would have started from scratch again, but I hated to waste all that flour, and I only had one more egg, so I thought (quite negatively, I will admit), “Whatever; the rest of my morning is a total disaster, I am just going to wing it.” And what I did is take one cup (the amount on flour Alton really had intended. Note: Dear Alton, no one uses ounce measurements in real kitchens; could you just use cups? Thanks. Love, Patty) of that sticky thick mess I had erroneously created, and I whirled it in the food processor with one more egg and a bit less than one cup of milk, came up with an appropriately thin and familiar-looking batter, and poured it into my special popover pan (which I purchased at the Jordon Pond House gift shop years ago.)
I popped them into the oven (sorry, couldn’t resist), and I told Sue, “I hope you aren’t too excited for these because there is no chance in hell that they are going to fly.” I mentally prepared her and my daughter for a nice breakfast of oatmeal or toast. At least the physical effort of making them had distracted me for a while.
But wait, what’s this? When I looked into the oven after 20 minutes (through the window, of course; I know you can’t open the door), they had puffed up! A lot! This was impossible. I still wasn’t jolted from my learned-negativity of the day: I was sure they would be tough and maybe not even hollow when we ate them.
Sure enough, 20 minutes later, we all sat at the table with an absolutely beautiful-looking popover before us. We broke them open and watched a replay of the Jordon Pond House experience: steam escaping, tendrils of eggy dough begging for butter. We bit into them and savored the crisp-tender consistency. They were perfect.
Something as simple as that restored my faith in the day. I guess more importantly, it restored my faith in myself to salvage a really bad situation. We laughed and we ate them all, and I really did feel much better. But don’t worry, I am not harboring any illusions. I know I can’t mess with popover chemistry, or for that matter with other uncontrollable elements of the world. This time was truly a Popover Miracle.
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