Last week we tried a recipe from Jet Tila of Food Network for beef pho. It came out pretty good so I thought we would try it again making small tweaks to the recipe. We decided shorten the time the spices in the sachet stayed in the soup, used a better grade of deli roast beef, and cut way back on the sugar. It came out even better this time.
I could easily eat this every week. Next time I think I will try chicken pho or maybe shrimp pho. It is a great, filling, low-calorie dinner.
We have made this a couple of times and are closing in on the correct rendition. We use Jet Tila’s recipe https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/kung-pao-shrimp-7112947
There is a video on the recipe page to watch if you need further explanation. My one warning would be to not toast the cashews and chiles very long. They are in the dish the whole way through the cooking and can get burnt.
I seem to have gotten behind in my postings so today will be a three post bonus day! On meatless Monday John and I made a big, vegan chickpea stew. While John gathered the spices I started chopping up the veg in the order that it goes in the pot. Then he started cooking while I finished the chopping. We are a well-oiled machine (even though I occasionally squeak at John!) In fact we have even talked about making videos called Beeba and Zayde Bicker in the Kitchen. But then cooking might start to feel like work!
This recipe originally came from NY Times Cooking but we have adapted it to our own taste.
Moroccan Chickpeas and Greens
This week’s dinner egg has found its way on top of my salad. This was simple to make and filling too with protein coming from the egg, the cheese, and one slice of deli ham. I garnished my salad with green onions and crunchy tortilla chips.
The other night we saw Jet Tila make what he considers a quick beef pho. Pho is a delicious Vietnamese soup but the broth takes two days to make. I guess if you have an entire weekend to work on it, it might be fun to do. Tila asserted that this recipe could produce authentic tasting pho. We tweaked his recipe a bit to make it even easier and the results were so good that we are making it again next week!
The original recipe which includes a video can be found at
https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/quick-beef-pho-7112948
This is our take on Jet Tila’s recipe with the changes in bold.
FOR THE PHO STOCK
2 tablespoons (30 g) beef bouillon or base, (1 quart beef stock)
1 tablespoon (15 g) Vietnamese fish sauce
1 tablespoon (15 g) white sugar (1 1/2 teaspoons of sugar)
One (2" [5-cm]) piece ginger, sliced into thin coins
1/2 yellow onion, large dice
2 cloves garlic
Pinch kosher salt
Put the next three items in a cheese cloth sachet:
2 whole cloves
2 whole star anise
1 cinnamon stick
INGREDIENTS NEEDED TO ASSEMBLE THE PHO:
1/2 pound (240 g) thin rice stick noodles, rinsed
1/2 pound (240 g) beef strip loin or fillet, freeze first for 40 minutes and then shave thin slices
(much easier if you just buy 1/2 lb. thinly sliced rare roast beef from the deli. Cut it into large bite sized pieces)
1 cup (240 g) Vietnamese basil leaves or basil leaves
1 cup (240 g) bean sprouts
1/2 cup (95 g) cilantro leaves
5 jalapeno or serrano chiles, sliced thin (2 is enough)
4 scallions, sliced thin on the bias
1/2 yellow onion, sliced paper thin
1 lime, cut into wedges
Hoisin sauce, for the table
Chili sauce, such as Sriracha, for the table
DIRECTIONS FOR THE STOCK
Add the beef base and 1 quart water to a 2-quart (1.9-L) saucepan or the one quart of beef stock and bring to a low boil.
Add the fish sauce, sugar, ginger, onion and salt to the stock and reduce the heat to a simmer. Wrap the cloves, star anise and cinnamon stick in a piece of cheesecloth and tie it into a satchel. Add the satchel to the broth and simmer for at least 30 minutes, but no more than 45 minutes.
Around the 30 minute mark (we stopped at 20 minutes), taste the broth to see that the spice flavors have been extracted, and adjust seasonings if necessary.
Strain the stock removing the onion etc. and satchel of spices from the broth, return to the soup pot, and reserve for assembly.
DIRECTIONS FOR ASSEMBLING THE PHO
Bring the broth back to a simmer. In a separate pot, bring water to a boil. Using a sieve or basket, quickly dip the noodles into the water until they are hot and al dente, 10 to 20 seconds. (We put the noodles in super hot water for 10 minutes)Drain the excess water from the noodles and distribute the noodles between 4 bowls. (This amount was not enough for 2 people. Next time we will double the beef broth and aromatics but not the spices in the sachet.)
Top each bowl with some sliced beef, basil, bean sprouts, cilantro, jalapeno, scallions and onion, or as each person wishes. Ladle in enough broth to cover the ingredients in the bowl. Garnish with a lime wedge. I like to serve pho with Sriracha and hoisin sauce.
Why a fancy dinner tonight? It is Leap Day! It seems if a day only appears once every four years, it deserves a special dinner.
There are a lot of moving parts to our fancy dinner but none of them are especially difficult. John is in charge of cooking the scallops which he does after everything else is ready. They only take a couple of minutes.
I, as usual, take care of the vegetables. The braised leeks, cut in half moons, cook for 10 minutes in a little white wine and butter. I cut the asparagus with biased cuts and they are quickly cooked in a little butter and water. I also make the mashed potatoes which John is nice enough to peel and cut in fairly small pieces so they will cook quickly. They were done in about 15 minutes.
John made the beurre blanc. It sounds daunting but it is pretty easy. Here’s the recipe I used.
https://www.instructables.com/Quick-Beurre-Blanc/
I know you are thinking, That’s a lot of butter! And, yes, this dinner is pretty butter intensive. But it is for a day that happens only once every four years. Surely we can go a little overboard.
We switched our meal plan around this week because we needed a day when it was not raining to grill outside. We are having a bout of atmospheric rivers and it has been raining a lot. Can’t complain, though. It is so much better than drought.
I bought a pound of Kobe ground beef for $5.99 at Grocery Outlet and it makes the most delicious hamburgers! John makes three burgers out of the meat and he adds some salt and a little baking soda to keep the burgers juicy and well-browned. He does a superb job grilling them and we are always wishing there were more.
I made a fast version of my Texas caviar. This means that instead of tediously cutting up fresh tomatoes and jalapeños I merely use a can of Rotel. To that I add chopped up onions, carrots, bell peppers, and a can each of drained and rinsed black beans and black-eyed peas. Then I dress the vegetables with Italian dressing and add salt and Tabasco sauce to taste.
I rate this dinner super yum!
I was looking for a new preparation for tilapia and John suggested trying a Veracruz style dish. Veracruz style dishes use a combination of indigenous and Spanish ingredients. The sauce that the fish cooks in is a combination of tomatoes, hot and mild peppers, olives, and capers. You can find the recipe similar to my dish at
https://www.thespruceeats.com/white-fish-in-veracruz-sauce-2342737
The difference in our dish is that after we cooked the sauce we nestled the tilapia in it. With the burner set at simmer and the pan covered the fish was cooked in nine minutes.
We served it with yellow rice and I thought it turned out pretty good. The only problem I had was that it upset my stomach a bit but that is just a “me” problem. I am a little sensitive to dishes that have a lot of acid in them. John was fine with it.
We probably will not be having Veracruz style fish again. But we will keep on looking for new ways to prepare our lowly tilapia.
This dish is so good and with the exception of the rice it is no-cooking. I marinated the tofu in nuoc cham for a few hours. Shortly before dinner I cut up the vegetables and made the dressing.
Tofu bowl dressing
I use my mini prep to do the mincing and then add the rest of the ingredients.
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Slice up the cucumber and cabbage thinly. Add the slices along with the edamame, avocado, and jalapeños to a bowl with some rice in it. Pour on some of the dressing. Garnish with cilantro, a squeeze of lime, and furikake.
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