recipe: cold sesame noodes with ginger soy fish

I probably should be making a meal that will sustain the upcoming snow storm but I was thinking about this all day since today is part of the Chinese New Year celebration, so I decided to come home and just go with it. Who am I to argue with my stomach? I’m not terribly versed in the techniques of Asian cuisine so I’m fairly sure this recipe is about as far from authentic as you can get, but I find it very tasty and it seems to work and for now, so that’s what counts. I tried to break it up into parts to make it easier to follow, however, typically, as like tonight, I am doing most of the steps simultaneously… it is a super quick meal overall, which is a big part of the reason for enjoy it (although, I hate cleaning it up!).

Noodles portion
noodles (spaghetti works fine)
Black Tea bags
Bowl of chilled water
pot

Bring the pot of water to a boil
Steep the tea bag in the boiling water
Add the noodles and cook until al dente (according to package instructions)
Once cooked, drain and chill the ice water

Sesame Sauce portion
Sesame oil
Sesame seeds
creamy Peanut Butter
Black tea
Soy Sauce
Cilantro
sauce pan

Add about 1:1 mixture of Black tea and peanut butter in the sauce pan over low heat
Combine the tea and peanut butter slowly until they are creamy, do not let them boil or begin to burn to the sauce pan
Begin to add the Sesame oil and a bit of soy and a few red pepper flakes (to taste) to the mixture making sure to keep the constancy creamy and rich
Once you have the sauce together plate the noodles and drizzle the sauce over the noodles
Sprinkle some sesame seeds, cilantro and if desired red pepper flakes over the sauce

The fish portion
Typically, I’d use a nice white fish, but realistically, this could be easily made with almost anything that is fresh. Today, it was a nice piece of Mahi Mahi, but the first time I ever made this dish it was actually with line caught Salmon, it was nice. The ginger can be fresh (which, is always preferred) but if you have the dried kind, it will reconstitute in the same way you’d use onion flakes or dried rosemary, etc. in a liquid

Fish fillets
ginger
shallot
black pepper corns
soy sauce
cilantro
Black tea
water
medium skillet

Fill the skillet about 1/3 with tea and soy sauce (2:1 tea to soy), and add chopped ginger, chopped shallot, the black pepper corns and the dried cilantro and bring the boil the mixture
Continue the boil to reduce by about half and add the fish to the mixture
Poach the fish in the liquid until it is cooked through, do not let the liquid completely evaporate during cooking
Plate the fish and drizzle the liquid over the fillet for a light sauce

Cabbage Salad portion
cabbage
onion
olive oil
cider vinegar
soy sauce
sugar
2 mixing bowls

Shred the cabbage and slice the onion and combine in bowl
Whisk together 2:1 ratio of oil to vinegar, sugar and a dash of soy sauce
Add dressing to veggies, toss and serve
A nice touch to this is to add some toasted ramen and cashews too

One last note: a trick is to reuse the tea from the noodles in the other steps rather than steeping tea several times in the process.

RECIPE: The revenge of General TSO aka little blast from the past!!

So, back in the day and still I love to experiment with the deep fryer….Myself and The Doormouse had talked about general Tso’s bacon, and he had dropped a challenge for me to come up with a recipe and way to batter and deep fry bacon, well here’s what I came up with..

1lb thick sliced bacon (14/18 is a good thickness)
1/4 cup rice flour
1 cup all purpose flour
1cup club soda
1tbsp sesame oil
1 1/2 tbsp black sesame seeds
1 tsp kosher salt
crushed red pepper flakes to taste
So, cook off your bacon but don’t cook the hell out of it leave it a little soft and flexible it has to go into the deep fryer remember our friend the deep fryer?
after the bacon is cooked, let is drain on some paper towels, while mixing the A/P flour, club soda(add this in 1/3rds add until you get a thin paste consistancy),sesame oil, salt, sesame seeds, and crushed red peppers (add alot of these and give this dish some balls) now take your drained bacon put it in a sealed container and add the rice flour and shake the hell out of it to lightly coat the bacon(it helps the batter stick) the get your deep fryer up to a smooth 375 degrees dip your bacon in the batter a gently place it in the fryer for about 1 to 1 1/2 min. or until batter is golden brown….
Now I thought battered bacon would be a little over kill, but hell no!! it’s damn good just don’t tell your cardiologist about this recipe….The irony of this all is this, General Tso, she was a vegiterian!!