Category Archives: dinner

Green onion cakes

Posted on by bruleeblog

Summer in Edmonton means festivals, and festivals mean food. There are certain food items that you usually expect to find at Edmonton’s festivals, one of which are green onion cakes. It always baffles me why people insist on standing in long lines for this. I can understand if they’re looking for the puffy kind that you can usually find in restaurants, but more often than not the kind that I see people eating are the flat ones. Don’t they know that they can easily make them at home themselves?

Just a warning – this is not a “how to make green onion cakes from scratch” kind of post. Screw that, I don’t have the time! This is my patent-pending “how to make green onion cakes the quick, cheap and lazy way” recipe.

Green onion cakes

Ingredients
1 package of frozen green onion cakes, can be purchased at any Chinese grocery store
a neutral cooking oil like canola or sunflower oil

my favourite brand of frozen green onion cakes

my favourite brand of frozen green onion cakes

Directions
Heat a non-stick frying pan somewhere between medium and medium-high. Add oil to the pan. You will need more oil than you think; I usually use a bare minimum of one tablespoon (and sometimes more) per side for each green onion cake. The dough will soak up the oil very quickly so if you don’t add enough oil the cake won’t cook properly and if you add too little the cake will be too oily.

Stick your still frozen green onion cake in the pan. (I don’t recommend defrosting them because the dough will stick together and then you will have one very tall green onion cake blob instead of multiple green onion cakes.)

partially cooked green onion cake

partially cooked green onion cake

The green onion cake will start to change colour from white (frozen), to partially translucent (defrosted), to golden brown (cooked). Flip it once one side has lightly browned. Make sure to check on them as they cook, as they can easily burn. Once both sides are nicely browned, slide them onto a plate and you’re all done!

fully cooked green onion cake

fully cooked green onion cake

Be careful of eating them right out of the pan because they will be piping hot and you will burn your fingers and/or mouth. Eat plain, or serve with your favourite condiment (Sriracha, etc.).

Asparagus and mushrooms recipe

Posted on by bruleeblog

A trip to the City Market last Saturday netted me a few goodies including two bunches of fresh Edgar Farms asparagus (where I bumped into Sharon from Only Here for the Food when we both raced there to grab some before they sold out), and a 1 lb. basket of mixed wild and domestic mushrooms from Mo-Na Food. I also picked up a small container of morels to experiment with, but more on that on another post. I did think about some fiddleheads as well, but I’ve bought them a couple of weeks in a row and I needed a bit of a break from them.

My farmers’ market bounty inspired to cook up a simple vegetarian dinner.

I snapped the bottom ends of the asparagus and gave them a quick rinse, then popped them into some boiling water for a very quick parboil. I then popped them into cold water in order to shock them and stop the cooking process.

While the asparagus cooled, I cleaned and roughly chopped up my mixed mushrooms, diced a couple of garlic cloves, and chopped up another six portobello mushrooms that I had bought at Costco and added that also to the mix. I stir fried the whole lot with about three tablespoons of margarine and reduced the heat to a medium high temperature.

stir-fried mushrooms

stir-fried mushrooms

Once they cooked through, I splashed in about a tablespoon and a half of shao hsing Chinese cooking wine and added salt and pepper to taste (very little salt, as the cooking wine has salt in it already).

I then started plating. First, some drained asparagus. Then, spoonfuls of mushrooms. And to top it all off, scoops of the sauce over the whole thing.

asparagus and mushrooms

asparagus and mushrooms

Simple, fresh, nutritious and delicious. Great with a side of brown rice, or maybe some roasted potatoes. Myself, I toasted some whole grain bread and dipped it into the sauce until it soaked everything up.

Alternatives to the Chinese cooking wine include soy sauce, cooking sherry, or oyster sauce.

A warning – the amount of mushrooms that I cooked were enough to make at least 6-8 servings. I had plenty of leftovers.

Chinese style scrambled eggs and tomato

Posted on by bruleeblog

This dish is great served with rice. If you want a lot of sauce to soak up in the rice, leave the seeds on your tomatoes. If you want a dish that is not as watery, then you should deseed your tomatoes before cooking. Some recipes also add ketchup to boost the tomato-y flavour – if you do that then I recommend you reduce the amount of sugar you add to the dish.

Chinese style scrambled eggs and tomato

Chinese style scrambled eggs and tomato

And why use white pepper instead of black? White peppercorns are fully matured peppercorns, while black peppercorns are green peppercorns that are dried until they become black. White pepper is usually used in Chinese and other Asian cooking. It has a slightly different flavour (more sharp) and cannot be seen once incorporated into food. You don’t usually see black flecks in Chinese food… unless the food is burnt. ;) Use white pepper sparingly when adding it to food as it can be as hot as black pepper, although some people argue that it is milder or hotter than the black.

Chinese style scrambled eggs and tomato
Makes one shared entrée or 5-6 individual servings.

Ingredients
2 medium tomatoes or 3-4  “on the vine” tomatoes, roughly chopped
4-6 eggs (if you want you can use egg whites only, but I would recommend keeping at least one or two yolks for the flavour)
canola or sunflower oil
1 tsp sugar
salt to taste
white pepper to taste

Directions
Whisk your eggs and fry them in a non-stick pan or wok with the oil. Scramble your eggs until they are about 1/2 to 3/4 of the way cooked. Remove the eggs and place them on a plate to the side.

In your pan add all the chopped tomatoes to the pan, and stir-fry until soft.

Add all of the sugar, and salt and pepper to taste.

Add the eggs back into the pan and gently stir until the eggs and tomatoes are incorporated. The eggs should be in large chunks still. Cook for another minute or so until the eggs are done.

Kale chips

Posted on by bruleeblog

The kale I’ve seen in grocery stores over the summer has been limp, pathetic and unappealing. So last weekend when I saw some gorgeous kale at the Sundog Organic Farm at the City Market, I immediately grabbed two bundles. They were $4 per bundle, but seeing that the bundles were quite large they ended up being only slightly more expensive than kale sold at the grocery store and much more healthy looking.

I stuck some in a soup (this one, but without the beans). And the rest went towards my kale chips experiments.

kale chips

kale chips

I’ve seen kale chips on many blogs, and I was dying to try it out myself. I tried varying some of the measurements but I’ve found that keeping it simple is best. I made about four trays that night. And another two the next day. They’re horribly addicting! And once you master this version you can try variations like adding dried chili flakes, or making salt and vinegar chips.

Kale chips

Ingredients
2 tsp olive oil per baking tray
One bunch of kale leaves
Salt

Directions
Wash your kale, rip or cut into potato chip sized pieces, and dry throughly. The more dry the leaves are, the better. (I spun them in a salad spinner, and then ended up leaving them to air dry for a while.)

Preheat your oven at 400 degrees Fahrenheit/200 Celsius.

On a lined baking sheet, spread out a single layer of kale leaves. Drizzle 2 tsp of olive oil over the leaves. This may not look like a lot, but any more than this and your end product may be too oily.

Very lightly sprinkle the leaves with salt.

Pop the baking tray into the oven for approximately 10 minutes. The kale will turn a rich forest green colour during the baking process, but don’t take them out until they start to brown! If you take them out too early the kale won’t be crispy.

Once the leaves start browning, remove from the oven and enjoy. You can add more salt at this point if you think you need it, but I find that less salt makes these taste better.

How do you know that they’re done? Try picking one up. If it’s crisp enough they will crumble in your hand if you’re not careful because they are very fragile and similar in texture to deep fried parsley.

Gallo pinto and Lizano salsa

Posted on by bruleeblog
Lizano salsa

Lizano salsa

A friend went to Peru and Costa Rica, and asked me what I wanted as a souvenir. I’m sure she was expecting me to ask for a sweater or something like that, but I think I surprised her. Food, I replied. Something unique. Maybe a sample of the tea you’re supposed to take when you’re climbing Machu Picchu?

What she ended up bringing back was some Lizano salsa, (Lizano sauce). The taste of Lizano is a little hard to explain. A sauce made out of vegetables and salt, it tastes a little like a slightly sweet and spiced V8-flavoured sauce, minus the tomatoes.

Stick it on tacos, she said, when I asked what it was normally used it for. That seemed kind of a waste though. and then I found a recipe for a Costa Rican gallo pinto – beans and rice.

Now you can apparently substitute Lizano sauce with Worcestershire sauce, but they just do not taste the same. I tried called a couple of places to see if i could find it here in Edmonton, but with no luck so far. Paraiso Tropical said they have carry the same kind of sauce but from a different brand. The person who answered the phone at El Rancho Latin Market told me they didn’t speak English and hung up on me. Anyone know if I can find this stuff here in town? If the other brand doesn’t taste right I’m going to have to resort to ordering the sauce online.

gallo pinto

gallo pinto

Gallo pinto
Adapted from Serious Eats
Serves 4

Ingredients
1 tablespoon canola oil
1 yellow, white or red onion, diced
1 red pepper, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup cooked rice (you get better results with day old or defrosted frozen rice than freshly cooked rice)
1 cup of canned black beans, with some liquid
5 tablespoons Lizano salsa or Worcestershire sauce
Salt and black pepper to taste
cilantro, roughly chopped

Directions
Pour the oil into a large skillet or wok set on medium heat. Add the onion and cook until the onion starts to turn translucent. Add the red pepper and cook until the red pepper is soft. Add the garlic and cook for about a minute.

Add the can of beans to the pan, but only add a little of the liquid in the can (reserve the rest of the liquid just in case). Add the Lizano or Worcestershire sauce, stir and let everything cook for about 3 minutes. If the pan starts to dry out, add more of the reserved bean liquid. Season with salt and pepper.

Add the rice, and stir until well coated, and cook until the rice is heated through. Top with chopped cilantro, and add additional salt, pepper, or Lizano sauce if necessary.

Update: I found some Lizano, but it was in Vancouver. So I had someone bring me lots of bottles. :)

2nd Update: I keep getting internet stores advertising in my comments, so I am closing comments on this post. Google it if you want to order Lizano online.