Just for fun: Spicy Salmon Roll
Mix some sriracha with some mayonnaise, salt, pepper, and granulated garlic before mixing it with some chopped sashimi salmon. Take a half sheet of Nori and coat it in cooled rice (mixed with rice vinegar and sugar). Put a thin line of salmon down the middle and roll it in from one side to the other (dipping your hands in water helps with the stickiness of the rice). Because it is a half sheet, the ends should meet.
Caramelized Onion & Mushroom Tart
Anyway, I decided to start this new project I call “Things I Love in a Pie Shell”. Anddd since I bought this:
hopefully there’ll be more. Anyway, call this subject #1. I don’t really like raw onions, but when cooked they turn into something completely different, and when cooked slowly over medium low heat until brown and sweet— well. Then you have this:
Caramelized Onion & Mushroom Tart
Tart Shell Recipe @ SmittenKitchen (It’s probably not the right shell for the job, but it’s my favorite fail-safe crust recipe, no matter how much you fudge it up it’s always delicious, proven because I didn’t have a rolling pin, and i made it too crumbly)
3-4 medium sized onions (I used 6, and had onions left over for the next day); sliced into rings or half rings
1 lb mushroom, I used half cremini half white, but any would be great; sliced
sugar
salt & pepper to taste
1/4 c. barbecue sauce, optional
1-2 tbs butter
doubled tart shell recipe
Cook the onions slowly over low medium heat with the salt and sugar until brown and caramelizing (this can take from 20-30 minutes), then add the mushrooms and cook for a few minutes more until soft. Some liquid will come out of the mushrooms you can use it to deglaze the pan, if it doesn’t work you can use a bit of chicken stock or even water. Off the heat mix with barbecue sauce.
Preheat the oven to 400˚F. Press the prepared tart shell in a 8-9 diameter cake pan (ok, obviously a pie pan or tart pan would be better, but I worked with what I had). Fill the shell with the onion mushroom filling and fold the excess shell in over the filling. Melt the butter and brush over the crust.
Bake for 45 minutes or until the shell is golden brown turning every 15 minutes (instructions from the tart shell recipe).
This isn’t a perfect recipe, far from, but it’s really delicious, and maybe an experiment you should try too. If you have any questions, suggestions, or a new recipe leave it in my ask, I’d love to hear about it.
Garlic Naan
Original Recipe @ allrecipes.com
Note that for the garlic, I tried the recipe with both butter and olive oil, either works fine (olive oil if you want to be healthier obviously). I also tried mixing garlic into the bread dough hoping for a more garlicky flavor, but it didn’t really seem to make a difference.
Korean Pickled Cucumbers (Not Authentic, just went with my gut on this one, but it was delicious)
5 persian cucumbers
1 Tbs of distilled white vinegar
1 Tbs of chili powder
1 Tbs of paprika (less next time)
1 Tsp of ground ginger
1/2 Tsp of Salt
1 Tsp of soy sauce
1 Tbs of honey
4-5 cloves of garlic, minced
Mix all ingredients together (toss with a spoon, don’t burn your hands). Store in jars and refrigerate. They’ll be delicious in only a few hours.
Homemade Thin Mints
I don’t know about you guys, but being a college student, I can’t afford thin mints for $4 a box. Granted, these are more expensive. But they are fresh! And without preservatives! Best of all…they help me purge my unreasonably large collection of cocoa powder.
Original Recipe @ SmittenKitchen
1 1/2 cups (6.75 ounces) all-purpose flour
3/4 cup (2.4 ounces) unsweetened cocoa powder (see Note)
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
14 tablespoons (1 3/4 sticks) unsalted butter, slightly softened
3 tablespoons whole milk
1 teaspoon peppermint extract
1 lb of dark chocolate (I used 72%)
Mix together flour, cocoa powder, sugar, salt, and baking soda. Drop in butter (already cubed) and cut in with your hands (I LOVE BAKING WITH MY HANDS). Mix thoroughly with your hands until the batter looks like curdle. Add milk one tablespoon at a time (sometimes I don’t need the whole thing) and mix with hands until dough comes together. Then add peppermint extract. Form the dough into two logs about a foot long each. Wrap in plastic warp or parchment or wax paper and refrigerate for at least 1 hour up to a week.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cut log into disks about 1/8-1/4 of an inch thick. Place on a prepared cookie sheet about an inch apart and bake for 12 minutes. Cool on a cooling rack.
When cookies are baking chop a pound of chocolate (I learned on Good Eats that this is best done with a cerated knife) into small pieces of equal size (for even melting). Using a double boiler method (a heatproof bowl over a pot of simmering hot water) melt the chocolate. Be careful not to let any steam or moisture into the chocolate or it will seize and be ruined! (If that happens either oil or cream or butter will do the trick)
Spoon melted chocolate onto cooled cookies, or dip cookies into the chocolate. Let set at room temperature, or quicker in the fridge (makes the chocolate look matte though, which I don’t like).
Yields about 4 dozen.
Butter Brickle, Recipe @ Allrecipes.com
It was wrong of me to keep this recipe from you. So delicious, like an ice cream cake. Note that it needs to sit overnight, so plan ahead if you’re waiting to eat this!
My only complaint is that it might have been a tad too sweet, maybe cut out some sweetened condensed milk in the filling (perhaps by 1/8 of a can).
