little feet, big sky

17
Jan 2010
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finger-licking chinese-style bourbon crab

I whipped up this dish based on this recipe, substituting the sherry-I-did-not-have for bourbon and adding some peas to make it a bit more of a one-pot dish. We served it over calrose rice cooked with soy sauce, sesame oil and lemongrass. Something about the bourbon in the sauce was absolutely delish and being stir-fry, it was super-fast to make. ;-)

  • 1 large live crab (Dungeness is good)
  • 3 tbsp oil
  • 1 tsp minced garlic
  • 1 tsp minced ginger
  • 1/2 cup sliced green onions
  • 3/4 cup vegetable broth
  • 1 tbsp soy sauce
  • 1 shot of bourbon
  • 1 cup frozen peas, rinsed and drained
  • 1/4 tsp sugar
  • 1 tsp sesame oil
  • 2 tsp cornstarch blended with 3 tbsp water
  1. Clean the crab thoroughly, discarding the top shell. Separate the legs from the body and cut the body in half. In a bowl, mix broth, soy sauce, bourbon, sugar and sesame oil and set aside. In another bowl, mix cornstarch and water and set aside.
  2. Heat oil in a  large wok. Add the garlic, ginger and green onions, and then add the crab and stir-fry to coat with oil.  Pour in broth mixture, add peas and bring to a boil.
  3. Cook covered until crab shells turn pink. Stir the blended cornstarch if it's settled and then stir it into the dish, bring to a boil again and serve.

Filed under  //   asian   bourbon   chinese   cooking   crabs   food   seafood   simple  
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16
Jan 2010
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steam veggies in rice cooker

Img00038-20100115-1841

I don't remember where I learned this, but it's a neat trick for fast weeknight dinners. If you have a rice cooker, you can steam veggies in it while the rice is cooking. Cook the rice as usual and wash/cut your veggies while it gets started. When the rice is cooked enough to just have a solid layer on top, add the veggies and close again. Play with it a little; the veggies can cook more or less depending on how you chop them and when you add them. To take it up a notch, sometimes I toss the veggies with a light marinade or sauce before adding to the rice cooker. Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

Filed under  //   cooking   health   home   rice  
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06
Jul 2009
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jackfruit seeds

My mother recently left a huge slice of jackfruit in our fridge when she came to visit. After an offhand comment about how much work it is to cut up and needing to use oil on your hands because the sap sticks to everything, she left and left me wondering just how much work was involved. 

Turns out, if you use enough oil and grease down everything in sight, it's not that bad. I used a solid layer of canola oil on the chopping board, my hands and the knife, from blade to hilt. At that point, I suddenly realized the danger of the situation; I have to chop away at something while the knife, the cutting surface and the object in question are all as slick as.. well, oil. 

I think it's some kind of sap similar to latex, but I can only imagine the mess it would have been without the oil. Every few minutes, my hands would start to feel a little sticky, like stickiness when you have old grease on your fingers and I would have to quickly smother everything in oil again. Oddly enough, the jackfruit doesn't taste at all of the oil, and if I hadn't been the one cutting and preparing it, I would never have guessed. :-)

One fun part was figuring out what to do with the seeds. I'm a firm believer in using as much of a plant as possible, so it was a neat challenge to see what I could do with jackfruit seeds. It turns out that they're almost a delicacy in Asian parts of the world, and since I doing rice and curry for dinner, I decided to roast them, chop them and simmer them in a traditional South Indian lentil dish, parappu. It was amazing. The consistency was mild, faintly nutty and with a creamy texture similar to firm potatoes. In fact, it was so interesting that it almost felt a little wasted in curry, so next time, I'd like to try seasoning them with salt and my grandmother's curry powder, and deep frying them to a slight crisp. 

Filed under  //   cooking   jackfruit   recipes  
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