Category Archives: Recipes (Savory)

A Simple Stir-Fry with Big Bang

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You’ve all probably had this experience: You spy a dress or jacket on a rack that doesn’t really look all that special. But you tote it to the dressing room, just for the heck of it, without any real expectations.

There, you slip it on, and it reveals itself to be not only flattering, but downright transformative.

This recipe for “Stir Fried Chicken with Tomatoes” is like that piece of clothing. It’s a simple stir-fry that doesn’t look like much on the page. In fact, it’s one of those recipes that you’re likely to just flip right over in a cookbook.

But what a mistake that would be.

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Grilled Chinese Sweet & Sour Pork Kebabs

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If you leaf through the new February issue of Coastal Living magazine, you’re sure to stop in your tracks to admire the recipe and full-page, color photo of  “Grilled Chinese Sweet and Sour Pork Kabobs.”

Well, at least I hope you do, because it’s my very own recipe — my first one published in the magazine.

It’s part of the story, “Fresh Tropical Flavors! Pineapple,” which I helped developed recipes for.

I solicited well-known chefs, including legendary Hawaiian toque, Sam Choy, for favorite dishes that showcase fresh pineapple.

I also came up with my own — a riff on everyone’s favorite take-out dish of sweet ‘n’ sour pork. Instead of greasy, battered, fried pork, though, I lightened the dish by threading skewers of pork with red onion, green and red peppers, and chunks of fresh pineapple that get thrown on the grill.

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Ad Hoc’s Crispy Braised Chicken Thighs with Olives, Lemon and Fennel

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Fat is flavor.

Big time.

How often have you heard chefs equate fatty goodness with deeply developed, satiating flavor?

Countless, I’m sure.

This simple recipe for “Crispy Chicken Thighs with Olives, Lemon and Fennel” from “Ad Hoc at Home” (Artisan) by Chef Thomas Keller is a prime example of just why they espouse that.

Chicken thighs get seared golden brown in a pan, then removed to a cooling rack. Peer into the pan and you’ll see a small pond of glistening, rendered liquid fat at the bottom.

Don’t be afraid.

Healthful, gym-rat me was tempted to pour out that fat, while good food-loving me was smacking my lips at the lusciousness pooling in the pan. In the end, the latter me won out, especially because Keller makes no mention in the recipe of cleaning out the pan before proceeding with the rest of the directions.

For good reason.

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Chef Michael Symon’s Cured Tuna

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Ahi combines with fennel, olives, oranges, and olive brine for incredible results.

We know the man has a way with pig.

After all, whenever you see Chef Michael Symon on TV, he’s usually talking or cooking pork. Who can blame this Midwestern chef with his acclaimed Cleveland restaurants, Lola and Lolita, for having such a porcine love affair?

There’s a whole lot more than pig in his new cookbook, “Michael Symon’s Live to Cook” (Clarkson Potter). Sure, you’ll find the likes of roasted rack of pork with grilled peaches and chestnut honey vinaigrette, not to mention pappardelle with pig’s head ragu.

But you’ll also find everything from sheep’s milk ravioli with brown butter and almonds, and veal chop Milanese with arugula salad to the colorful “Lightly Cured Tuna with Olives, Orange, and Shaved Fennel” (photo above).

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Microwave Potato Chips — Really!

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I made these in the microwave. Really!

I like to think of myself as a glass-half-full kind of gal.

I tend to have a sunny demeanor. I try to accentuate the positive even in the most grave of situations. And I’m optimistic that one can do anything one sets one’s mind to — or at the very least get darn close to it.

But when I stumbled upon a recipe early last year in Eating Well magazine for making potato chips in the microwave, I balked. I was a disbeliever. I was convinced this was beyond impossible.

I was wrong.

As part of the Reheat Anything Generation, I knew full well from experience that foods heated or cooked in the microwave most often turned out soft and limp, not crunchy.

So how could thinly sliced potatoes end up crackling crisp? Seriously?

They not only do, but they also possess a purity of flavor — of real, fresh potatoes. Unlike so many store-bought bags of potato chips with their long list of ingredients, there are just three in these: potatoes, olive oil and salt.

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