Ever get that feeling when you eat
something that you just love in a restaurant where you want to be able to make
that dish at home whenever the heck you want? I do too…a lot. My friends that
aren’t associated with the food industry often think I can eat something in a
restaurant and go home and then POOF! WIZBANG! ABRA CADABRA! With the chopping
of some vegetables, the boiling of some water, and a wee bit of cooking that I
can just pop these dishes out of my ass. Well I try to do this, and more often
than not I’m disappointed in the result. There are always going to be tricks,
equipment, ingredients, knowledge, and time that are going to get in the way of
making a dish in a similar style and fashion to those from a restaurant.
I recently had the pleasure of
being taken out to dinner by some awesome new friends I met in California to a
restaurant nearby the Culinary Institute called Formosa. If you haven’t gone
yet and you’re in the Hudson Valley and looking for some good Asian flavors I
would recommend this place. It’s cheap, flavorful, the portions are big, and
there is tons of variety so you can go back (even as a vegetarian) and have a different
dish each time. Or if you have an appetite like I do then you just order a few
of them at the same time. More flavors equals more fun right?
Formosa has this one dish called
bean curd with chives. Guess what’s in it…bean curd and chives. Sounds very meh
right? Wrong…it is frickin delicious. It has one of those umami (savory flavor)
laced sauces, with the nice firmness of the tofu and these bright, fresh, and
crispy chives. I’ve had it twice and will most likely continue to order it each
time I go eat there. I enjoy it so much that I wanted to try and make something
like it at home.
I started at the farmers market up
in Rhinebeck, which by the way is the best farmers market in the Hudson valley,
where I was on the hunt for ingredients. It’s the beginning of the season so I
was not expecting much but what I did find had me jumping for joy…in my head.
There were beautifully vibrant bunches of green garlic from the Taliafero Farm.
I knew then and there that they were getting stir fried later that day. While I
was there I also picked up a few other green things (asparagus and young
collard greens) because like at Formosa I wanted more than one flavor for
dinner.
I’m no master at stir frying…but
one thing I have learned is that if you want to have any bit of success at it
you must (MUST) have all of your prep work done before you do any of the
cooking. This is where the success of cooking vegetables will be found or lost.
Think about it for a second. If you are busy with chopping and washing
vegetables, opening cans, and taking sauces and spices out of the fridge and
pantry then you are not leaving yourself much time to focus on the cooking.
While you are doing ten other things your veg is overcooking and becoming that
overly soft mess that you will put a frown on your face because it doesn’t
taste like what you had hoped it would.
I made three dishes tonight and during
the week I’ll post the recipes for them. You of course don’t have to make then
all at the same time but I was really pleased that they all tasted distinct and
had very few similarities in their final flavors (something I tend to fail at
when I’m cooking any sort of Asian food…it all ends up tasting the same). I did
substitute kidney beans for the tofu because I simply like beans better.
Here is the first recipe:
Stir Fried Green Garlic with Kidney Beans
6 Green Garlics
(from the white bulb to the tip of the green), cleaned really well, and cut
into 1 inch pieces
Vegetable Oil
4 carrots peeled and
julienned (match stick pieces)
1 tbsp. minced
ginger
1 can dark red
kidney beans drained and rinsed
1/3 cup soy sauce
Chili paste (like
sambal olek or sriracha)
Honey
Sesame Oil
Salt
Pepper
Heat a large
skillet or wok with vegetable oil until oil is almost smoking. Place the green
garlic and stir fry for 1 minute. Season with some salt and pepper and add the
carrot and ginger and stir fry for 2 minutes. Add the Kidney beans and cook for
another 45 seconds. Add the soy sauce, and enough honey, chili paste, and
sesame oil to suit your tastes. Season once again with salt and pepper (again
to your tastes and serve). The dish should not take more than 5-6 minutes from
the start of the cooking to the end.
