Tag Archives: ginger

Easy to Prepare, Holiday Dishes, Recipes, Sauces and Condiments, Vegan Dishes, Vegetarian Dishes

Ginger Cranberry Chutney

I never cared much for cranberry sauce until I tried out my grandmother’s suggestion to make a recipe with fresh cranberries.  Aside from the brightness of flavors and use of a whole orange for zest, the star of the show was the crystalized ginger.  I was an instant convert.

Many years later, upon reading through Amanda Hesser’s NYT Cookbook, I came across a chutney recipe that seemed to contain all of my favorite fall flavors.  I decided to tweak it a bit and again make crystalized ginger the star of the show.  The result was a lush, bright sauce that served the perfect stand-in for that canned cranberry nonsense. Continue reading Ginger Cranberry Chutney →

Easy to Prepare, Main Courses, Rice Dishes, Seafood Dishes

Ginger Shrimp with Coconut Rice

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Ketchup Worth Relishing

Anytime anyone says that the secret ingredient in a recipe is ketchup, you have the right to run away screaming. Not this time, though. The shrimp in this recipe are gloriously complex, with the perfect combination of ginger, Chinese Five Spice Powder, scallions and yes, ketchup. Don’t knock it till you try it. They should be called Glorious Ginger Shrimp.

As for the accompanying rice, this recipe is deceptively simple – replace plain water in the rice pot with unsweetened coconut water and cook as usual. Ok, not so deceptive, but the flavor is incredible, making this a nice addition to your next supper.  It works particularly well for soaking up all of the lovely sauce from the aforementioned shrimp. Continue reading Ginger Shrimp with Coconut Rice →

Easy to Prepare, Impressive Dishes, Main Courses, Meat Dishes

Kalua Pork

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When I last went to Hawaii, I made it a personal goal to eat my weight in kalua pork. Yes, that sounds disgusting, but I don’t even care. The stuff is so ridiculously good that I find myself longing for it in an almost atavistic fashion when I am not around it. I’ve known it to be a treat partially due to the complicated preparation – a whole pig is wrapped in ti leaves and banana leaves and then submerged into an underground pit called an imu and covered with coals and/or lava rocks. Sure, I could do that in my back yard. In Arizona.

Back to the drawing board, and as I’m looking through my We The Women of Hawaii cookbook, lo and behold, a recipe for kalua pork. In the oven, no less. I can do this! Apparently, after a little more research, I come to find out that the legendary Sam Choy makes his kalua pork in the same way, using mesquite liquid smoke to replace the flavors imparted by the burning banana leaves of the imu. But how the heck am I going to mimic banana leaves in my home oven? Continue reading Kalua Pork →

Appetizers and Small Plates, Cheese Dishes, Easy to Prepare, Seafood Dishes, Side Dishes

Crab Rangoon with Sweet Chili Sauce

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I’ve always thought of this vintage throwback as a weird amalgamation – crabmeat, cheese, water chestnuts and ginger all wrapped in a wonton and fried.  Crazytalk!  But altogether, it’s a delight – one that I first tried at the now closed tiki restaurant, Honolulu, that was right off the highway in Alexandria, Virginia.

Now, I find it hard to track down a good version from Chinese takeout places, and instead, make my own.  If you love crab rangoon, but hate how many places use artificial crab meat, or worse, only cream cheese, then this is the recipe for you. Tender crab is perked up by sesame oil, ground ginger and the crunch of water chestnuts, with just enough cream cheese to bind it all together. Continue reading Crab Rangoon with Sweet Chili Sauce →

Easy to Prepare, Lighten Up, Sauces and Condiments, Side Dishes, The Daring Kitchen, Vegan Dishes, Vegetarian Dishes

Cilantro Chutney

Recipe for The Daring Kitchen
Mary, who writes the delicious blog, Mary Mary Culinary was our August Daring Cooks’ host. Mary chose to show us how delicious South Indian cuisine is! She challenged us to make Appam and another South Indian/Sri Lankan dish to go with the warm flat bread.
No hyperbole employed here, but my god, this stuff is glorious. Like draw a bathtub full of the stuff and take a dip. And maybe use some naan for a towel. What? Too much?

I first fell in love with this chutney at my favorite Indian restaurant in Northern Virginia, Raaga. There, they serve the stuff on their lunch buffet in a huge punch bowl with a ladle that just sings to me to scoop to my hearts content. I would have sold my soul for the recipe and called it a day. Continue reading Cilantro Chutney →

Easy to Prepare, Lighten Up, Main Courses, Recipes, Side Dishes, The Daring Kitchen, Vegetarian Dishes

Curried Potatoes and Chickpeas

Recipe for The Daring Kitchen
Mary, who writes the delicious blog, Mary Mary Culinary was our August Daring Cooks’ host. Mary chose to show us how delicious South Indian cuisine is! She challenged us to make Appam and another South Indian/Sri Lankan dish to go with the warm flat bread.
In the midst of planning a well-rounded menu for my second Daring Kitchen Feast, I had a formidable opponent in finding a party-pleasing veggie. My husband, though an adventurous eater, seems to have an outstanding war with turmeric. It just turns his stomach, negating all the loving care placed in perfecting the taste of the dish. I’d been reading through Amanda Hesser’s massive New York Times Essential Cookbook and was on the beans and legumes when I came across a recipe for Chickpeas with Ginger. The sauce had notes of Indian spices that rang true with the other offerings for the Daring Kitchen, and no troublesome turmeric. Continue reading Curried Potatoes and Chickpeas →

Easy to Prepare, Main Courses, Poultry Dishes, Recipes

Ginger Scallion Chicken

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This one is hardly a recipe in that ginger scallion sauce does all the heavy lifting.  As much as I feel that recipes within recipes can be daunting (I’m talking to you, Thomas Keller), the actual ginger scallion sauce is so simple that you’ll barely feel like you are tacking on extra steps.

My first dance with the glory of ginger scallion chicken was at my favorite haunt for Chinese food in the DC Metro area, XO Taste.  Prepared the traditional way with a whole poached chicken accompanied by small dishes of the spicy, complex ginger sauce, I was in love.  Not with the chicken so much as the sauce, which I wanted to drink by the canteen full if possible.  When I set out to make this recipe for myself, I tried to amp up the chicken a bit to include all of my favorite elements.  Rather than poach and serve with loose, rubbery skin, I decided to sear the skin on bone-in chicken breasts and then finish them off in the oven.  The result is crisp, crackly skin protecting moist, white meat chicken, all of which is adorned with ginger scallion saucy glory.  Victory is mine, and can be yours as well with a few easy steps. Continue reading Ginger Scallion Chicken →

Main Courses, Meat Dishes, Recipes

Ginger Beef with Snow Peas

Let’s talk about food worth lauding over.  The kind of dishes that don’t mess around with excesses and hit a balance of flavor and texture right on the nose.  Ingredients that are versatile – equally sassy doing the roger rabbit by themselves or the kid ‘n play with a friend.  This dish wants to rock right now – it’s Ginger Beef and it came to get down.  It’s not internationally known…okay, that’s probably enough of that.

Keeping the cooking on this one a breeze involves doing all of your chopping before even thinking about heating up your wok.  Call it your mise en place.  Call it your OCD.  Either way, you’ll be ready to wok and roll (and spout out bad puns, apparently).  Also, to get the beef to cook quickly, you’ll want to slice it so thinly, it’ll seem as if your shaving off pieces.  A trick to make this process easier is to slice the flank steak while it’s partially frozen.  The meat holds it’s shape and gives your knife stability as you cut away.  Yes, yes y’all. Continue reading Ginger Beef with Snow Peas →

Easy to Prepare, Lighten Up, Recipes, Sauces and Condiments, Vegan Dishes, Vegetarian Dishes

Ginger Scallion Sauce

Seriously, ginger scallion sauce, just stop.  You have definitively rocked my socks.  And all to the point that I say bad words when I see you.  You. are. greatness.  When Escoffier sang the praises of his transcribed mother sauces, he missed the mark with you.  If bechamel and hollandaise and and velouté rule the roost, you built the roost from ashes and sheer will.

It’s no secret that I’ve always been enamored with ginger, but this sauce paints it in the finest of lights.  Grated ginger and minced scallion are barely cooked in hot oil, taking away all of the bite from the aromatics and leaving behind a condiment that can make the most stubborn palate sing.  This sauce is BFFs with poached chicken as the dynamic duo, “Ginger Scallion Chicken”.  I don’t limit the stuff, though – string beans, skirt steak, steamed fish, my fingertips.  I’ll attack this sauce with calculating ruthlessness.  It’s mine, and I don’t want to share.  Ok, I’ll share, but you bring the ginger and scallions next time.

This sauce isn’t hard to make, but it’ll seem a little scary the first time you make it – don’t fret.  You’ve got this.  When you add hot oil to wet ginger, you’re gonna get a bit of sizzle.  This subsides quickly, and if you make this expecting a science-fair baking soda volcano, you’ll be underwhelmed rather than shocked.  This is a good thing.  Just make sure to use a heat-proof bowl or 1-qt saucepan for the ginger-oil reunion and you’ll be golden. Continue reading Ginger Scallion Sauce →

Easy to Prepare, Holiday Dishes, Recipes, Sauces and Condiments, Side Dishes, Vegan Dishes

Cranberry Relish

The much-aligned cranberry gets a bad wrap – only typically broken out at the holidays in the form of a canned cylinder of fright, these tart lovelies are so much more.  A long while back, my paternal grandmother decided to have a more cooperative Thanksgiving and assigned the kids recipes to bring.  My sister and I were assigned a Cranberry Relish recipe that she had snipped from a magazine.  The recipe itself seemed kind of wacky as we were making it, from the use of a whole orange (peel, pith and all) to the use of crystalized ginger, which we had never heard of at the time and had to look up (and this was well before “Google it” became a catch phrase).  Turns out the spicy treats were considered candy in Australia and could be purchased with the other McCormick spices in the baking aisle.  Who knew?

Well, knowledge begets power and powerful that first batch of relish was in transforming our opinions of the lowly cranberry.  Once an afterthought next to the turkey, potatoes, stuffing and green beans, this relish had star quality.  It’s ingenious in its ability to freshen up the heavy meal and enliven your palette.  Best of all, it requires not a lick of cooking – just pulse everything in the food processor, pour out into a bowl and put it on the table.  Done.  For such freshness and flavor with absolutely no work, those cans of cranberry gelatin are looking mighty good for target practice right about now.

Recipe for

Cranberry Relish

Ingredients
1 bag of fresh cranberries
1 small orange
1 tbs. of crystallized ginger (candied ginger) pieces
1/3 to 1/2 c. of sugar, to taste

Cut the orange in half and then into 1 inch pieces.  Add all ingredients to the food processor and pulse until it forms a chunky relish.  Pour mixture into a bowl and let sit for at least 5 minutes to allow the flavors to blend.  Store any leftovers in the fridge.