Chow Mein Chow Down!

Every Sunday growing up, we'd have a light breakfast, and my mom would make a giant platter of noodles for lunch.  You'd think she were serving an army, but it was usually just the 3 of us; mom, dad & me.  She'd rotate between chicken chow mein, Singapore style noodles (my and Justin's favorite), and tomato beef chow mein.  In an effort to continue the tradition, we whipped up some tomato beef chow mein, albeit for dinner rather than lunch, on a recent rainy Sunday.

Start by slicing your flank steak into bite size pieces.  Season it with some white pepper, and make a marinade of soy sauce, sesame oil, and Chinese five spice.  You'll also want to toss in some cornstarch; just enough to coat the meat.  This will help give the meat a nice crust when you cook it, and help thicken the sauce.

While your meat is marinating, you can get to work on your sauce.  Start by slicing up some onion and bell pepper.  It's up to you how you want to slice 'em.  Mom always cut them into chunks, which makes it easier to pick up with chopsticks, but it's totally up to you.  Toss them into your wok with some oil so they start to cook and soften.  You'll also want to slice up some celery.  I like my celery to still have some bite to it, so I add these in towards the end.

Once your peppers and onions have softened, add in your tomatoes.  We happened to have some fresh tomatoes on hand that needed to be used, so we diced those up and added them to the wok.  It wasn't quite enough, so we also added in about half a large can of tomatoes.  As they start to cook down you can just use a wooden spoon to break them up into more manageable chunks.  You'll also want to add in curry powder.

Once the tomatoes start to break down, add in your meat.  I just dump the whole bowl in, including any extra cornstarch that's in there.  Again, this will help thicken your sauce so you have a thicker, gravy-like consistency.  Just before the meat is cooked through, I add in the celery.

While all this is going on, you should boil some water for your noodles.  You'll first want to cook them in the boiling water, like you would pasta, but pull them out while they're still slightly underdone.  Transfer them to a baking sheet that you've sprayed with cooking spray, and pop them in the oven so they can crisp up.  Once they're golden brown, flip the noodles, and pop 'em back in the oven so the other side can get crisp.  The easiest way to flip your noodles is to place another baking sheet on top of the pan with the noodles, and flip 'em over.

Once the noodles are done, pull 'em out of the oven, and you're ready to serve!  If you're serving it up family style, place your noodles on a platter and top with your sauce.  The warm sauce will help soften your crisp noodles, and make it easier to break them apart and eat.  Since it was just Justin and I, we put noodles in each of our bowls, and spooned on the sauce.

It was a great, comfort meal on a rainy day.  Almost as good as mom's!

Today's Forecast: Chili with a chance of deliciousness!

With the impending inauguration tomorrow, we're hunkering down at home, avoiding the crowd and all the out of town escalefters (for those not familiar, an escalefter is someone that stands on the left side of the escalator, preventing you from walking up/down the escalator).

So with a Sunday night of football, what better meal to make than chili?  Plus, it means I get to try out my new crock pot that Justin gave me for Christmas.  Oddly enough, this is my first go-round with a crock pot.

We started with half a package of ground turkey (the other half from when we made burgers), and some ground beef.  We also threw in a chopped white onion and let it all cook up.  For spices, we tossed in cumin, cayenne, and chili powder.

While that was browning, we threw some tomatillos, a huge clove of elephant garlic, an Anaheim chili, a poblano chili, and a habanero into the oven to roast.  The oven was set at 350, and it only took about 20min for everything to get roasty, toasty and charred.

Once they were cool enough to handle, I chopped them up so they could be added to the pot.  We also drained and rinsed a can of kidney beans, cannellini beans, and corn.

After the meat browned, we added the roasted peppers, tomatillos and garlic, and the beans and corn.  There wasn't as much liquid to our liking, so we threw in a can of whole tomatoes.  With a good toss, so everything got coated in the spices and juices, and a sprinkle of red pepper flakes, we put the lid back on and let it simmer so all the flavors could meld together.

 

While the chili was simmering, we threw together some honey hush cornbread, ala Dinosaur Bar-B-Que.  I know I've said it once before, but I'm going to say it again...if you find yourself in Harlem, Syracuse, or Rochester, NY, you MUST find your way to Dinosaur Bar-B-Que.  They have the best, melt-in-your-mouth brisket you could ever imagine!

Anyway...the cornbread.  We just followed the recipe I linked to above...mixed up all the ingredients, popped her in the oven and let her bake up.

The chili was topped with some shredded cheddar, a dollop of cilantro lime crema, and some freshly chopped cilantro.

Sunday Night Steak Out

Ahh Sundays...since my Pittsburgh Steelers failed to make it to the post-season, I have even more time on my hands where I can either mope around that I have to get up early the next day or make something delicious to eat.

Today Kara and I were looking to use up few items from our last share.  Originally we were hoping to grill our steak since the weathermen promised us a sunny and 70 degree day, but yet again we were led astray by a weather forecast fail; so that was out of the question.  Instead, we decided to work around this by sous-viding our buffalo strip steak. We're not fortunate enough to own an immersion circulator, so we simply threw our vacuum-packed steak into a dutch oven filled with water heated to about 130 degrees for about 40 mins.  Once it was cooked through to a nice medium, I removed it, seasoned it with a little roasted garlic salt and black pepper, and seared it in a grill pan for about two minutes a side.

 

Next up was the kohlrabi.  We were simultaneously thinking "awesome" and "WTF?!?!" when we learned we were getting kohlrabi this week.

A brief search through the interwebs led us to this fritter recipe .  We subbed the besan for good old-fashioned flour.  One tip when squeezing out the excess water from the shredded kohlrabi...place it all in a dish towel, and just wring it out.  You'll be able to squeeze a lot of water out without losing any kohlrabi down the drain.




The fritters were pretty easy to put together...shred the kohlrabi, chop up some scallions, mix in the spices, and you're good to go!

What about those greens? Why we sauteed them with some garlic, shallot, and the rest of our spinach.

The meal was really starting to take shape, but rich steak and starchy pan-fried fritters needed to be paired with a fresh component.  Luckily, we had lettuce from our CSA and decided to throw together a little salad.  During a quick jaunt to Trader Joe's, we picked up some mini portabella caps, which we roasted with some goat cheese, and some orange muscat vinegar to round out the salad...plus some decent $2 beer to boot.

We were only missing one thing...a tasty sauce to compliment our greens and meat.  I'm a huge fan of red meat and Bearnaise sauce, and I like putting my own spin on this classic sauce by subbing the tarragon for other herbs, deglazing with liqueurs etc.  Since we had the dill, I simply used it in place of the tarragon.

It all came together quite nicely, and we truly made the best of an otherwise dreary day by relaxing with some quality food and drink.