Tag Archives: recipes

Pancit Bihon (Rice Noodle Stir-Fry with Lots of Vegetables)

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A few weeks ago we were in South Africa, and I was so excited to be able to go into a HUGE grocery store so that I could get, among other things, rice vermicelli noodles so that I could make what is one of my very favorite things to eat: pancit bihon! I made it the day after we returned and am trying to hold myself back from making it again. Tonight.

My very oldest friend (by which I mean my first friend; she’s only 2 and 1/2 years older than I am!) Sarah and I have always loved to cook and eat together, from the time we were eight and ten years old trying to make things out of children’s cookbooks in our mothers’ kitchens which NEVER seemed to have the right ingredients for anything we wanted to make. I can remember making weird no-bake cookies that I think were something like peanut butter rolled together with cornflakes (ew) and also making chocolate-chip pancakes and ALSO, once, during the summer, eating an entire bag of chocolate chips together while watching Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Avonlea marathon-style, because it was too hot to bake, anyway.

So one of the last times I was at Sarah’s house I was nosing around her cupboards, because that’s what we generally do upon entering each other’s houses. I do it because I’m looking for junk food that I know Sarah might have that I might not buy for myself but will certainly eat; she does it in order to rearrange my messy cabinets. Incidentally, Sarah is a lot like my husband in this particular regard. They can’t understand how I can STAND to rifle through things to find what I need, and they love to rearrange closets and cabinets and then to stand in front of their work saying, “see? Isn’t that better? Are you going to KEEP it this way, Rachel?”

(No. Can’t say that I will.)

But I digress. When I was in Sarah’s cupboards last, I found some rice noodles. “Ooh! I love these! Let’s cook something,” I said. “Pancit!” she said. “I have a recipe from Jeremy’s aunt.”

Jeremy’s family is Philipino, and pancit is a very essential dish. You can think of it, basically, as a rice noodle stir-fry to which you can add any number of vegetables and even meats if you like. What you must not leave out is the cooking of the noodles IN BROTH and in the pan in which you’ve stir-fried the vegetables. I would not dare to claim expertise in a cuisine that I scarcely know, but that techniques seems to be what gives the pancit its special taste. It’s pancit bihon when you use rice noodles. If you use flour noodles–like lo mein noodles–it’s called pancit canton. Sometimes people make pancit with two kinds of noodles, but I think I like pancit bihon the best.

And so…feel free to change the quantity and variety of vegetables. Don’t omit the onions and garlic, but, beyond that, just try to include a cup each of three different vegetables of various colors and textures. Sugar snap peas or snow peas would be a good addition, as would bean sprouts if you like them (I don’t). You should also feel free to use leftover vegetables…just add them later in the cooking process so that they don’t get soggy. As with any stir-fry, the general rule is to put vegetables in the pan in descending order of cooking time: carrots toward the beginning; spinach at the end.

Pancit Bihon

neutral cooking oil (corn or grapeseed)

1-16oz package rice vermicelli

1 cup red onions, diced very finely

4 cloves garlic, minced

1 cup carrots, shredded coarsely

1/2 cup celery, diced finely

1 cup cabbage, sliced into fine ribbons

1 cup green beans, cut into 1/2 inch pieces

1 cup cooked, shredded chicken (optional)

soy sauce and oyster sauce (oyster sauce is optional, but tasty; add a pinch of sugar if you use only soy sauce)

fresh cilantro, lime wedges (optional)

several cups broth (chicken if using chicken; vegetable if vegetarian)

  • Heat a large skillet over medium-high until a drop of water sizzles
  • Pour over several teaspoons of cooking oil, swirl to coat the pan, and add onions. Cook and stir until onions are just starting to brown. Then add carrots and celery, stirring often.
  • When carrots and celery are just starting to soften, add green beans and cabbage and garlic and stir continuously until vegetables are nearly cooked through but not soggy. Add meat if using.
  • Remove vegetables and meat to a different pot or bowl and pour two cups of broth into the hot skillet, scraping the bottom carefully to loosen browned bits. Stir in 2 tablespoons of soy sauce and 1 tablespoon of oyster sauce.
  • Break the rice vermicelli into the hot broth and cover, stirring occasionally, until noodles are cooked through (5-10) minutes. You may need to add more broth.
  • When noodles are cooked through and broth has been absorbed, add vegetables/chicken back to the skillet and toss together. Taste, adding more soy sauce, oyster sauce, or salt as needed.
  • Garnish with optional chopped fresh cilantro and serve with lime wedges.

Delicious!

Spring (Roll) Recipe: NOW, not January, is the time for eating seasonally.

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Okay, maybe not now-now, as people here often say when they mean “at this very moment,” but spring is surely the time for taking up the practice of eating (at least some things) that are local and seasonal. Now’s the time to find a CSA (some of them even deliver, which can be so convenient) or plant an itty-bitty garden, if you can spare the space and effort. Even if all you’re able and willing to grow is a pot of herbs on a windowsill, by all means, do it. 

Do it for this recipe alone. You may be thinking that it is weird to eat a bunch of herbs all together, but once you taste the cilantro, basil, and mint in these rolls, you’ll see it’s not weird at all. The peanut dipping sauce is pretty much all-season; it’s equally good with spring rolls as with rice and cooked veggies and strips of grilled meat, chicken, or fish (and even with tofu, if you like tofu. I do, especially with peanut sauce.)

You know those fancy food blogs where the house is so perfect and there's no crumpled up napkins lying around, or, if they are, they're lying around artfully, somehow? This isn't one of those blogs.

You know those fancy food blogs where the house is so perfect and the table is so retro-fabulously beautiful and things are out of focus, but in a good way, and there’s no crumpled up napkins lying around, or, if they are, they’re lying around artfully, somehow? This isn’t one of those blogs.

Spring/Summer Rolls and Peanut Sauce
For the Rolls:
8 sheets rice paper
8 soft lettuce leaves
4 ounces thin rice noodles, soaked until tender (but not mushy)

A quantity of vegetables:

  • Grated or julienned carrots, cucumber, avocado, radishes—be creative!
  • ½ cup each fresh mint, cilantro and basil leaves torn into pieces. (If you lack one of these, feel free to omit one or the other, but it’s really best with all of them; see above!)

Soak 1 sheet of rice paper in warm water for 10 seconds or so, then lay out on a kitchen cloth. Place a lettuce leaf in the middle, and fill it with a finger size portion of noodles, a bit of each vegetable and some of the fresh leaves. Roll up the rice paper wrapper like a burrito, closing in both sides. Repeat with the remaining ingredients, making sure not to allow rolls to touch, or they will stick together. You can wrap them in a damp towel and plastic wrap and serve within an hour, with peanut sauce (my favorite) or go easy-lazy style with a simple dipping sauce of equal parts soy sauce and rice vinegar with a couple tablespoons of sesame oil stirred in.

For the Peanut Sauce:

Chop finely and sauté together in 2-3 tablespoons of neutral oil
(like corn or grapeseed) until tender and fragrant:

  • 1 small onion
  • 3 cloves garlic
  • 1-inch piece ginger
  • 1-2 stalks lemongrass (optional)

Sprinkle with 1 teaspoon turmeric and stir to coat, 1 minute.
Then add:

  • 1 can (organic is best, if you can!) coconut milk
  • 2-3 tablespoons soy sauce
  • 3 tablespoons brown or turbinado sugar (you can also use maple syrup; or substitute 1/4 cup hoisin sauce and reduce soysauce to 1-2 tablespoons)
  • 3 tablespoons fresh lime juice
  • ½-1 cup non-hydrogenated peanut butter
  • Ground cayenne pepper to taste

Simmer, stirring constantly to keep from sticking and adding water to achieve the desired dipping consistency. Taste and adjust seasonings and serve liberally over everything.

{Shameless plug: adapted from a recipe in my new book, where you’ll find more non-guilty, joyful reasons to eat seasonally as well as fun, tasty recipes that are healthy and fresh without being nutso about the whole thing}

How weirdly long and thin does the Stone Doctor's arm look in this photo? Feed that man!

How weirdly long and thin does the Stone Doctor’s arm look in this photo? Feed that man!

Beer-Batter Your Vegetables

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If you can believe it, there’s a pretty decent little Italian restaurant here in Zomba. Not, like New York Italian, but Italian-from-Italy-Italian, which means there’s no deep-fried chicken cutlet smothered in mozzarella cheese and marinara sauce and served with spaghetti and called “Chicken Parmesan,” and, alas, no New York-style pizza, but which means that all the pasta is fresh.

One of my favorite things to get there is an appetizer listed as fritto misto–battered and fried mixed vegetables; whatever’s in season–they’ve had green beans, carrots, zucchini, onion rings, eggplant, and okra. They serve it with several dipping sauces, including a sweet ketchup-like “tomato sauce,” a sort of chili-mayonnaise, and a very spicy sauce that I can’t resist tasting just so I can suffer a little.

The other night I was staring down several zucchini that I wasn’t sure what to do with, and I decided to try making a little fritto misto of my own. I found a great beer batter recipe online, and tried it on onion rings and spears of zucchini. It was very, very tasty; very light and crispy, owing to the baking powder and the bubbly beer.

So here’s how to make your own, with whatever vegetables you please.

You’ll need:

  • several cups of vegetables, cut into small spears, sticks, or, in the case of onions, rings, tossed with one tablespoon or so of flour

Mix together–it’s OK if it’s lumpy:

  • 1/2 cup all purpose flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/2 cup very cold beer

Meanwhile, heat some oil in a pot suitable for frying over medium-high heat. In the US, I use grapeseed or coconut oil for frying. Here, I use what I can find, which was, I think, sunflower oil this time. Not ideal, but it works fine. You want the oil to be deep enough to keep things sizzling but not so deep that they’re floating.

Dip each vegetable piece individually in the beer batter and place in heated oil, turning as necessary (use metal tongs) until all sides are golden. Drain on paper towels, and serve with your favorite dips.

(Why not try Sriracha-Lime Mayo, or a simple dip of equal parts rice vinegar and soy sauce with a few dashes of sesame oil and a squeeze of lime?)

Noodle Casserole That Makes People Want to Marry You

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Some friends and I were discussing some article I skimmed and promptly forgot everything about, including the site I read it on, except this: that a man wanted to divorce his wife because her tuna noodle casserole was so gross and she served it so often.

I’ll have to check with my resident geeks (ie. my husband, Tim, and my dad, Tom) but I think the Talmud actually does provide some legitimation for these grounds for divorce–there’s a kind of “if she burns the bread” clause.

But anyway, I said to my friends, I don’t want to brag, but my noodle casserole makes people want to marry me.

(Don’t want to brag? Whatever. Of course I want to brag! This stuff is good! )

And so one friend asked for the recipe, and here it is, as promised.

Salmon Noodle Casserole

Preheat oven to 400F. Set a large pot of salted water to boil for the egg noodles, and a smaller pot of salted water to boil for the broccoli.

In a saucepan over medium-high heat, dry saute 8 ounces fresh, cleaned, mushrooms, broken into pieces.

Continue to stir them for 10 minutes or so, or until they have given up much of their moisture. Add 1 medium onion, minced finely, and just enough butter to keep it from sticking. Cook another 10 minutes or so until onions are just short of browning. Remove from pan and set aside.

In same saucepan, melt 2 tablespoons butter, stir in 2 tablespoons flour and blend well over low heat until just short of browning. Whisking constantly, pour in 1 cup half and half. Continue to whisk and bring to just short of the boiling point, add onion and mushroom mixture, salt and pepper to taste, 1/3 cup milk and set aside.

Meanwhile, blanch and cool 1/2 lb (2 cups) of fresh broccoli. (ie. throw it in some boiling salted water for 1 minute, then drain and run under cool water; set aside.)

I think these noodles are the best ones.

Cook 12 ounces extra-wide whole-egg noodles for three minutes less than the shortest time suggested on the package, drain, rinse thoroughly with cool water.

Mix cooked noodles, sauce, and broccoli with 2 cups grated mild cheddar or jack cheese and 2 cans wild-caught salmon* (drained) and spread in shallow buttered ovenproof pan, sprinkle with 1 cup crushed high-quality potato chips.

(Yes, I realize that potato chips are not “healthy,” whatever that is. You can leave them out if you want, but don’t blame me if your casserole doesn’t attract the adulation you desire.)

These potato chips (local for me!) are the BEST!

Bake 20-25 minutes.

*you can skip the salmon to make it vegetarian, but why not support the lovely Leslie Leyland Fields‘ other job, too? ;)

Seriously Good, Seriously Curative Chicken Soup

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The thing about chicken soup is that it it can make you think about being sick, which is not so appetizing. And since the curative powers of chicken soup have been written up in medical journals and such, it’s a dish that can have an unfortunate medicinal aura about it, as if you are slurping cough syrup or something.

But this chicken soup is not like that. It cooks so long and slow and fragrantly that by the time it all comes together, you feel energized just smelling it, and almost virtuous when you start eating it.

It’s soothing for people with colds, and also to those with intestinal woes–though it’s a good idea to stick to broth alone at first. But with all the vegetables, chicken, and noodles (and some fresh bread and butter), it’s a meal that everyone–sick or healthy–can enjoy.

I prefer to make a raw-bones stock, but if you have a chicken carcass, by all means, use that. Some people buy chicken wings and backs specifically to make stock, but I prefer to use a whole small bird–sometimes a Cornish game hen, because free-range ones are more readily available where I live.

Ingredients:

For the stock:

bony pieces from ~3 lbs chicken

olive oil

salt

2 bay leaves

1 large yellow onion, chopped, most of peel left on

celery tops, cleaned (about 2 cups)

2 carrots, cleaned

1 head garlic, cloves separated but left unpeeled

For the soup:

schmaltz (I’ll explain!) or olive oil

leftover OR raw chicken, cut into very small pieces

2 pounds each celery and carrots, cut into very small pieces

1 large yellow onion, chopped very finely

3 cloves fresh garlic, minced

To Prepare:

Make schmaltz:

Begin by stripping all skin and fat off the raw chicken; de-bone the meaty pieces and set the meat aside. Place all the skin and fat in a large skillet with 1 cup water and cover; place over low heat. You are going to simmer this slowly until the fat dissolves, the skin releases its fat and becomes slightly crispy. Then, you will skim off the skin pieces and use the fat to cook the soup veggies and chicken. Or, you can skip this and just use olive oil, but don’t come crying to me when your soup doesn’t have the authentic Jewish-grandma taste. (Plus, chicken fat has antibacterial properties. Really.)

Oy Gott. This is just awful looking. So vulnerable.

Make stock:

CAREFULLY hack all the bony pieces into 2″ chunks. Please be careful–use a good chef’s knife or cleaver and pay great attention when you do this; we don’t want fingerbone soup. Place your stockpot over medium high heat and add 1 Tablespoon olive oil, then chicken bone pieces. Turn them after 2 minutes, browning on all sides. Add chopped onion and stir frequently until the onion is very soft. Add garlic cloves, celery tops, carrot, and bay leaves. Continue to cook and stir until the celery tops are very wilted and dark green and vegetables have reduced in size–maybe 20 minutes, or longer if you want a more developed flavor. Add 2 teaspoons salt and water to cover. Bring close to the boil, then reduce heat to a simmer and simmer at least 2 hours, adding water as needed to maintain the same level.

The vegetables should be looking like this before you add the water--maybe even a little more wilted.

Now prepare soup vegetables/chicken:

After the fat and skin have released lots of yummy fat into the water, turn heat to medium high and allow excess water to evaporate, stirring constantly and watching so that it does not burn. Add chopped onionand cook until they are translucent. Add minced garlic, stir 2 minutes more. Add small chicken pieces; stir until close to browning; add chopped carrots and celery. Reduce heat and stir frequently until carrots and celery are softened; cover and allow vegetables to simmer in their own juices for at least 1 hour, checking occasionally that they don’t burn.

After stock has simmered, strain it through a colander lined with a cheesecloth (or just a colander if you’re not fussy about little bits). Add stock to vegetable/chicken mixture; simmer 30 minutes and add salt boldly to taste.

Cook extra-wide egg noodles (Pennsylvania Dutch brand is highly recommended, yes I know, white flour blah blah–but they are the best) separately in heavily salted water; drain and toss with butter to keep them separate. Add noodles and soup separately to each bowl.

Deliciousness!

I swear this soup has helped my kids recover from illnesses quickly. Sometimes I throw the steaming strained stock vegetables in a bowl so my kids can inhale the curative steam.