Thai Style Buffalo

I feel like I should post a warning when a new semester starts for me: WARNING! SCHOOL IN SESSION. I MIGHT FORGET I HAVE A BLOG.

It makes me sad too because I love making good food and posting about it. So here we go, back to the middle of last month when I was talking about that fun, three-course meal I made for Aaron. The entree course was Thai-style buffalo. I was going to make them into meatballs, but decided to go with it loose over rice. It as tangy and fun and I really liked it.

Thai Style Buffalo with Rice:

Serves 4

1/2 lb. ground buffalo
Zest and juice of one lime
1 Tb. garlic chili sauce
2 Tb. toasted sesame oil
1 tsp. oyster sauce
1/2 c. rice vinegar
1/2 c. island soyaki
1/2 c. olive oil
1 c. cilantro, chopped
3 cloves garlic, diced
Zest and juice of 1/2 orange
Olive oil
1 c. cooked rice

Mix buffalo with zest and juice of lime and next 8 ingredients in a large bowl. Place in fridge and marinate for about two hours, mixing every 30 minutes.

Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add buffalo and cook for 10-15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Serve over rice.

It’s tangy and a little spicy and, of course, garlicky, which made it all a very satisfying main course. I’m sure you could marinate it for less time for a quicker mid-week meal.

Grilled Teriyaki Chicken Wings

This is the second appetizer I made for Aaron's fancy-things-that-he-likes dinner, again inspired by Real Simple (the original recipe is here). I'm not usually really into chicken wings, but these were fantastic and made all the better by the addition of toasted sesame seeds. We've recently both become obsessed with toasted sesame seed oil because it makes stir frys and fried rice just that much better, so I was stoked when I saw toasted sesame seeds at Fred Meyer's. Be careful on the time with this one. I came really close to burning them, but fortunately did not. They are crispy and delicious and might change my mind about chicken wings in general.

Grilled Teriyaki Chicken Wings slightly modified from Real Simple:

Serves 2-4

8 chicken wings
¼ c. island soyaki
Toasted sesame seeds

Heat grill. Grill wings over medium-low heat, covered, turning occasionally, until cooked through, 20 to 25 minutes. I opened up the grill around 22 and it was good that I did because they were starting to burn. They really do need to be turned and moved around as most grills don't heat evenly.

Brush with island soyaki sauce during the last 5 minutes of grilling. Sprinkle with toasted sesame seeds and serve.

These were really, really good, but Aaron did come up with a great suggestion, which is to toss the wings in more sauce after they grill and then add the toasted sesame seeds. I think that this is a great idea and I look forward to trying it again.

Asian Style Ahi

Back in January, after a long in-class weekend, I went out with a few of my classmates. This is when Kirsten and I started talking and discovered that we are both really into food and food blogs and talking about food. I love her blog, A Cilantro Color and have been meaning to try something from it since its inception. One of the reasons I love it is because of cilantro. So many people hate it and that is ridiculous! Like Kirsten, I got into it when I started eating a lot of Thai food. When my parents started making it, after a trip to Kauai, I was anti-cilantro. And then I stopped being a big baby, ate my first pad thai, and fell in love with cilantro. (If you're not into it, check out Kirsten's post about cilantro haters here.)

Anyway, a couple of weeks ago I finally tried one of her recipes or rather, I used her marinade, slightly modified, for ahi instead of shrimp, which she mentions as a use in the original post.

It's fabulous. You should try it too.

Asian Style Ahi modified from Spicy Asian Style Shrimp from A Cilantro Color:

Makes 2 ahi steaks

2 medium ahi steaks
4 Tb. rice vinegar
5 Tb. soy sauce
Juice of one small lime
5 Tb. grated ginger
3 dried Thai chilis, minced
2 tsp. Asian garlic chili sauce
5 cloves garlic, minced
4 Tb. cilantro, chopped
2 Tb. olive oil

In medium bowl add rice vinegar, soy sauce, lime juice, ginger, Thai chili peppers, garlic chili sauce, garlic, and cilantro. Mix well. Add ahi to bowl. Put in refrigerator to marinate overnight. Kirsten’s original recipe has it for 30 minutes, but as I was getting ready to prepare dinner, Aaron and I were invited out by friends, so we set it off to the next day. I think the flavor would be amazing either way.

Set your grill to a medium flame. Ahi should be served seared and rare. Grill for 3-4 minutes, until edges brown, and turn once, grilling for another 2-3 minutes. Because the marinade sunk in so much, it was hard to tell when the edges were perfect, but going off of time, it ended up being cooked perfectly.

Serve with rice and vegetables. Aaron made some awesome stir fry veggies that went perfectly with the fish. The ahi itself was amazing! It was slightly spicy, a little sweet, and had an amazing depth of flavor. It was also awesome as lunch the next day. I can’t wait to try more of Kirsten’s awesome recipes!

Fried Rice and Teriyaki Chicken

The other night Aaron and I had our friends over for dinner. Earlier in the day Aaron had asked me what I wanted to make so as to run it by our friends before we went shopping and got started on the whole thing. I panicked and couldn’t think of anything, even though I was staring at my huge to-cook list. Fortunately for me, Aaron stepped in and he decided that he would cook dinner. Tasty dinner made by Aaron and I only have to do prep? Brilliant!

Aaron has done fried rice before and, as he puts it, he improvises as he goes along, so it might be a little inexact. There was some help from a few epicurious recipes, past experience, and our 1000 Chinese Recipes cookbook. The teriyaki has an actual recipe though. Initially we had the fried rice and the chicken separate, but the chicken got mixed into the leftovers, which is what you see as the final picture. I was so hungry that I didn’t even take a photo of the food before I ate it Wednesday night. It was quite tasty too! My leftovers got a bit of extra pineapple, but that’s because I’m pineapple obsessed.

Vegetable Fried Rice and Teriyaki Chicken from Aaron’s brain, 1000 Chinese Recipes, and epicurious.com:

Serves at least 6

For the teriyaki:
1/3 c. soy sauce
2 Tb. mirin (Aaron subbed in citrus sake)
2½ Tb. cider vinegar
2 Tb. sugar
1½ Tb. chopped peeled fresh gingerroot

4 chicken breasts, roughly chopped

For the rice:
5-6 c. cooked rice (eyeballed by Aaron)
3 eggs, whisked
4 cloves of garlic, minced
1 carrot, finely chopped
½ sweet onion, finely chopped
3 small heads of broccoli, chopped
6 pineapple rings, chopped
½-¾ c. scallions
Decent splash of soy sauce
Oil



For the teriyaki sauce, simmer sauce ingredients, stirring until sugar is dissolved, until reduced to about 1/2 cup. This simmered and reduced for forever, but didn’t quite get thick enough. We will have to try it again. It was still quite good. Strain out the gingerroot and set aside.

Heat a wok and oil over high heat. Throw in chicken and cook through, about 5 minutes or so. Set aside.

In a separate pan, cook eggs over high heat and scramble into small pieces. Set aside.



(look at how gorgeous my broccoli was!)



Heat oil in the wok again and add garlic. Cook until brown or fragrant, less than 1 minute. Add the rice and then the veggies. Cook for about 5 minutes, turning frequently. Aaron eyeballed this whole process. The more you do it, the easier it is to tell when it’s ready. Add soy sauce, cook for about 1 minute to add flavor and color. Throw in scallions and egg at last minute and toss thoroughly.



Toss chicken with teriyaki sauce. Serve rice and chicken immediately. This whole meal was super tasty and quite filling. We’ve had it for lunch a few times as well. This makes a ton and is quite the crowd pleaser.

Vietnamese Spring Rolls

Growing up, I had tremendous access to delicious food. One of my favorite things in the world was the spring rolls my neighbor made. Thin, crispy and so delicious – they were definitely not the burrito sized egg rolls from the supermarket. After those, my second favorite ones are from a little place in the “mall” back home. Every time I go home, I go there. The airport is right by there, so sometimes I’m eating there immediately after landing. So delicious!

Because I love those so much, I wanted to try to do it at home. I used to watch my neighbor make hers (and sometimes helped in picking the stems off peppers) and hoped that might help. It did… a little. These were very time consuming, but so delicious. I modified a recipe from epicurious.com in a number of ways. First of all, I didn’t need 50 spring rolls, so it’s half size. Also, my husband isn’t a fan of mushrooms, so those were out. Also, I don’t eat pork (outside of bacon) and didn’t have shrimp. I used buffalo meat for half and made the other half veggie. Finally, and most importantly, I used the regular wrappers you can get at most grocery stores these days or at Asian specialty markets. The note on the original recipe says that when the woman created it, these wrappers were not easily available. The original recipe is here.

Vietnamese Fried Spring Rolls modified from original from Gourmet via epicurious.com:

Makes at least 15 rolls

4 oz. very thin bean thread noodles (in small skeins, also known as cellophane or mung bean noodles)
1 medium shallot
2 garlic cloves (I kept these two the same because I love shallots and garlic, of course)
1 c. grated carrot (about 3 carrots)
¼ lb. ground buffalo (or turkey or chicken or pork, if you like)
1/8 c. Asian fish sauce
1/8 c. plus ½ tsp. sugar
1 ¼ tsp. black pepper
1 tsp. salt
About 15-20 spring roll wrappers
About 3 c. oil



Put noodles in a large bowl and cover with hot water by several inches. Soak, pulling noodles apart and stirring occasionally, 10 minutes. Drain noodles and cut into 2- to 3-inch pieces, then transfer to another large bowl.

Pulse shallot and garlic in a food processor until finely chopped, then add to noodles along with carrots, fish sauce, sugar, pepper, and salt. I then separated this into two bowls and mixed in the buffalo into half. Mix with your hands until well combined. Chill filling, covered with plastic wrap, until cold.



Meanwhile, partially fill a large pan with water. Soak the wrappers in the pan, making sure each wrapper is covered before adding the next one. Cool water is fine for this. They should be pliable in about 2-3 minutes. Remove all of the wrappers onto a wet towel and cover with another cloth towel. I put mine on a plate as well, to make it easier to transport the lot of them to the table for assembly.





Line a tray with wax (or parchment) paper. This helps keep the tray clean. Peel one wrapper off the pile and place on the tray. Place a heaped tablespoon on the edge of the wrapper. Roll once, tightly, fold in the edges and roll completely. Repeat until done. Make sure you use only one wrapper at a time. They do tend to stick to each other, so be careful. If two are used, the outside will be crispy, but the inside a little gummy. Ick.

Heat oil in a large pot (I used my wok) over medium-high heat. Fry rolls in batches of 5 or 6 (I had room for 3), keeping rolls apart during first minute of frying to prevent sticking, until golden brown and cooked through, 4 to 5 minutes. Make sure oil get hot again before adding the next batch. Transfer to a plate with paper towels to drain.



These were very, very tasty. A few did end up being double wrapped and were gummy on the inside, but the filling was cooked, so I just scooped that out and ate it. Although time consuming, I will try this again.

Pad Khee Mao

I feel like I’ve been spending all my time at the grocery store lately, mostly with the ramp-up to Thanksgiving. Anyway, two nights ago my husband and I decided that we were FINALLY going to make pad khee mao like we’ve been talking about for forever. We both love the dish. I accidentally got him into Thai food when living with our old roommate downtown. She and I used to make cheap food dates and for a period of time, that often involved E-San. I had ordered pad khee mao on a whim one day, tired of always getting fried rice and pad thai, and looooooved it. One night we got take out and brought it back to the apartment. While getting myself a drink, Aaron got curious, bit a noodle and then proceeded to eat all of the noodles, leaving me with tofu and peppers. He was hooked.

My parents were in town from Cave Junction a few weekends ago and took me with them to Anzen, their favorite Asian grocery in Portland. While they poked around at the rice, I found the rice noodles I had been looking for. My husband and I had decided to just make pad thai for our first experiment in Thai home cooking, but when I saw these big, fat rice noodles, I knew pad khee mao could be finally realized.

So that night we searched for a recipe. Our one and only Thai cookbook doesn’t have a recipe for pad khee mao, so we went to the internet. Epicurious.com helped us, although with some difficulty. Pad khee mao is also called drunken noodles and is described as the perfect hangover food (it is). For our billionth trip to the grocery store this week, we bought the things we needed, omitting the stuff my husband doesn’t like, and decided to make it the last night. The original recipe is here. We did about a half size and still ended up with a ton.

Drunken Noodles from Bon Appétit via epicurious.com:

Yield: at least 4 servings, depending on how hungry you are. This makes so much, even at half size!

16-ounce package 1/4-inch-wide flat rice noodles
1/8 c. olive oil
6 garlic cloves, chopped
1 chopped Serrano chili (we couldn’t find Thai chilies and he’s not so into the spicy)
¾ pounds ground turkey
1/8 c. fish sauce (nam pla or nuoc nam)
1/8 c. black soy sauce
1/8 c. oyster sauce (replacement through another recipe my husband read the other night)
½ Tb. sugar
1 green bell pepper (about 6 oz. total), cut into strips
¼ c. fresh basil leaves

Cook noodles in large pot of boiling salted water until tender but still firm to bite, stirring frequently. Drain.





Meanwhile, heat oil in wok or heavy large pot over medium-high heat. Add garlic and chili; sauté 30 seconds. Add turkey and next 4 ingredients and sauté until turkey is cooked through, about 4 minutes. Add noodles, tomatoes, and green pepper; toss to coat. Transfer to large platter, sprinkle with basil leaves, and serve.



This was so very, very good. The only changes I would make in the future would be to add a little more garlic, use actual Thai chilies for a bit more spice and a bit more of the sauces. Other than that, this was ridiculously good and so easy to make. I will be making this again! For now, I’ll just have to satisfy myself with the leftovers.