西安西泽: caesar salad with chickpea cutlets et crème anglaise de vanille

a funny thing about living in china... even when surrounded by some delectably delicious foods, sometimes the western tongue craves something from home.  i miss chinese food, oh how i do, but while i was there, it was always satisfying to partake in something familiar.  it was more than just "comfort food" -- even eating something as mundane as boxed mac and cheese had a certain magic.   tuna melt? pure joy.

my friend adam and i enjoyed making soup. and no soup in my life will ever be that good because the mushrooms they have in china? they best any other mushroom ive ever had. ever.


the veggie market was across from campus. it was a bustling place, always, with the ever-present smell of rich spices.

it was a superb place for people watching. it was also always an adventure.

adam and i didnt just make soup though. we also enjoyed making caesar salad. it was a careful procedure because, while the produce in china was good, one had to be super careful when washing it. because the water is not potable, the choices were 1) use your precious drinking water or 2) boil water and let it cool. most of the time we forgot to preboil and cool water, and we were starving, so we developed choice 3: wash and dry. for nearly all fruits and veggies, this was not an issue. you just had to make sure you got ALL the water removed. but for lettuce, this proved to be a challenge. salad spinners were hardly commonplace. and so we'd use a windmill technique. wrap the lettuce in a towel and swing your arm like the dickens. worked pretty well.

now that im living somewhere that is neither china nor the US of A, i have moments where i miss both of those places. sometimes i make something yummy that reminds me of those other worlds and it is jut the right thing.

i made a fresh batch of chickpea cutlets and gathered ingredients to make caesar salad a la adam.

crunchy and delicious

first, i toasted the croutons.


while they were in the oven getting all golden, i made the cutlets. because the mister was actually home for dinner (YAY), i decided to make 'em fancy. in my previous post, i discussed the gluten strings that signals the doneness of the dough. this is what those strings look like:

gluten strings

using a cookie cutter, i made two special star shaped cutlets for us.

then i mixed up the dressing.  i still have a piece of paper with the ingredients scribbled down thusly:
½ Cup olive oil
1 Tablespoon Worchester Sauce
3 Tablespoons lemon juice
2 cloves of garlic – mashed
Pepper to taste
Parmesan Cheese

i gave the goods a whisk, and the mister combined the lettuce, croutons, and dressing.  on top, i gave us each a gold star.  we didnt use romaine (which was a challenge to find in china, by the way), so adam might disown me.  i just have a hard time paying 5 francs for a head of lettuce.




but wait! i forgot the cheese!

cheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeese

there we are. dinner is served.

room for dessert? hells yeah.

i made us vanilla custard with roasted nectarine. the custard is all smitten kitchen's fault. i had to try.





Bon App!

plein comme un œuf: salad and mirabelle clafoutis

christian returned from the market the other day with a big baskey full of mirabelles (yellow plums!). they are just as delicious as delicious can be. ive been snacking on them. as all things around here do, they were turning rather quickly and so i decided to bake those bad boys. but what? i asked christian how he felt about pie. he started salivating. ah, but we didnt have enough butter for a crust. hmm, thought i, what can i make that does not require a trip to the market on this dark and rainy day? hmm... we've got eggs... milk... so something custardy.... ah HA! clafoutis! i asked christian what he thought and he strongly approved of the idea. then i confided in him that i had never made clafoutis in my life.  he said no matter what, im sure it will be delicious.  (and you know what? he was right. )

i did some reading and settled on the following batter measurements, cobbled together from a few recipes and altered for my personal taste:

3 eggs
1 cup milk
vanilla to taste
1/4 cup sugar
2/3 cup flour
1/4 tsp salt

the oven was turned to 175°/350°


i washed, halved, and pitted the mirabelles. then i sprinkled some sugar on 'em (i didnt pour--i sprinkled), and i then added a food good shakes of both powdered ginger and cardamon.

the rest of the ingredients were mixed together pancake style: dry ingredients combined, wet ingredients combined, all ingredients combined.


i settled on julia child's method of baking because she was a rad woman and i trust her. i buttered the casserole and then poured just a bit of batter on the bottom and baked it for 5 minutes--just until it was starting to set. then i took it out of the oven, and added the fruit. the rest of the batter was poured in and then it hung out in the hot oven for about 45 minutes.

the end result?  victory is mine!   the flavours really worked together well.  it wasn't overly sweet, or whoa-heavy, but satisfying.

earlier in the evening, i dined on salad. it was round 2 of a simple and delightful salad i had for lunch yesterday featuring roasted sweet potato, mango, and edamame (soybean)

i had a meeting to attend for work and i needed a lunch that was quick but fulfilling. it was going to be a long and intense meeting and i didnt wish for my stomach to start staging a protest in the middle. bad form.

in the morning, i prepped everything so i could just throw it together and go when the time came.


i peeled and chopped the sweet potatoes, then roasted them with a handful of fresh cilantro and oil.

i steamed the edamame, while the taters were roasting,


and sliced the mango.

and then i made the dressing.

the dressing was an easy mixture of honey, rice vinegar, olive oil, fresh chopped mint, and a pinch of cilantro.

everything was plunked on a bed of lettuce and spinach (spinach was ON SALE)

christian missed out. i made enough for him too, but he didnt have time to eat it. so that was my dinner tonight. again, poor fella, he missed out.

but he DID have dessert.