cooking

Lemongrass Green Pea Stir-Fry

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr)

This surprising meal is repurposed from a side dish, tweaked, and streamlined.  The result is a sweet pea-and-onion stir-fry that goes fantastic on rice.  Served with a green it’s a full meal without being heavy and is pretty easy to prepare.

The only challenge is finding the lemongrass and preparing it.  You can either chop it fine or chop it in a blender with water (used then to dry-sauté).  Lemongrass does not cook like onions to and still stays woody when they’ve long ago softened.

Makes 4 servings

Ingredients:

  • 2 trimmed stalks of lemon grass.
  • 1 large yellow onion, chopped fine.
  • 4 Tbsp soy sauce
  • 4 Tbsp lime juice
  • 1 Tbsp maple syrup (optional)
  • 4 cups frozen or fresh green peas

Preparation:

  1. Mix the soy sauce, lime juice, and maple syrup in a separate bowl.
  2. Add shredded lemongrass and about 2 tbsp of water to a blender and use it to chop the lemongrass.  If you can get finely shredded lemongrass skip this part.
  3. Dry-sauté the onion in the lemongrass-water mixture, adding water as needed until onion softens.
  4. Add all other ingredients, sauté until the sauce reduces and the peas are coated.

– Steve

Recipe: Japanese Curry Sauce Plus

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr)

Figured it’s time I get back to posting my cooking experiments.

This sauce came about after seeing an Indian mini-cafeteria on my job.  It had some lovely thick sauces that looked like a complete meal on rice, and there was a dish that was a bed of greens, then rice, then curry.  These came together in my head to make me ask “can I make a curry sauce that is largely a meal?”

This is the result.  This sauce’s body comes from squash and garbanzo beans and tastes very much like my Japanese Curry sauces.  Each serving has a about serving of legumes and a serving of vegetables in it.  Throw it onto rice with a side dish – or rice and a bed of greens, say shredded spinach, and you have a very complete meal.

Makes 6-8 servings

Ingredients:

  • 1 small butternut squash (about 2 pounds unpeeled), peeled, seeded, cut into cubes.
  • 2 tomatoes, diced.
  • 3 cups cooked garbanzo beans (2 14.5 oz cans)
  • 2 cups low-sodium vegetable stock
  • 2/3 cup red wine (shiraz and zinfandel are good)
  • 4 tablespoons curry powder.
  • 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
  • 1/4 tsp black pepper
  • 1 tbsp maple syrup
  • 4  tablespoons soy sauce (If you use store-bought not-quite sodium free vegetable broth, use 1 Tbsp)
  • 4T bsp garlic
  • 4 1/2 tsp cocoa powder
  • 4 Tbsp peanut butter

To prepare:

  1. Place squash, tomatoes, garbanzo beans, vegetable stock, wine into a pot, bring to boil, simmer.
  2. While bringing to boil, add other ingredients one at a time, stirring.
  3. When the squash is soft, mash with potato masher to break it and the beans and tomatoes up.
  4. Either puree with immersion blender or let cool and puree in regular blender.

Notes:  This sauce is a bit thick, may need more vegetable broth – I’d say ½ to 1 cups.  it’s also hot so you might want to tone the curry powder down a bit depending on taste

– Steve

Recipe: Basil and White Bean Soup

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My pre-move experiments in simpler, faster cooking continue.  This is a simple and fast-to-prepare soup, the only challenging ingredient being fresh basil (which many stores have anyway, but its not something you’ll likely have lying around without a garden). It has a nice, light taste, though may need a bit more salt depending on your preferences – fair warning, a little salt goes a long way with this dish.

Ingredients:

  • 1 Yellow onion, diced
  • 1 cup carrots, diced
  • 3 cloves garlic (about 1 TBSP) crushed.
  • 3 cups of Cannellini beans (2 14.5 oz cans)
  • 3 cups vegetable broth (may need a bit more depending on how you make it)
  • ½ cup chopped fresh basil.

 

Preparation:

  1. Dice onion, and dry-sauté it with carrots and garlic until onion starts to soften.. Add 1 or 2 Tbsp of water if it gets sticky.
  2. Add all other ingredients, bring to boil, then simmer until the carrots are tender, but still a bit firm. Usually about 15 minutes.
  3. Serve.

 

– Steve