Random, I know, but like most of my recipes, I had a craving. Sweet meat and pancakes (ish). Traditional mu shu is typically pork, which my husband doesn't eat, and served with pancakes, which my son and I can't eat. And I wanted it to be easy.
Easy it was. I did about 10 minutes of prep work ahead of time, and when it came time to actually make dinner, this was less than a 30 minute meal. Rachel Ray, eat your heart out!
I thawed the meat ahead of time, cheated and used corn tortillas and bought my veggies pre-chopped. But it was a keeper, definitely.
Mix together ground turkey, ginger, garlic, tamari sauce, and corn starch in a large bowl. Stick it in the refrigerator to marinate. If you are making homemade hoison sauce, mix together above ingredients with a fork. Set it aside.
Go do whatever you have to do for a couple of hours.
When you're ready to make dinner, pull out your turkey, a pack of corn tortillas, your sauce, and your slaw mix. Heat a large skillet and add the sesame oil. Add the turkey and brown. Remove the turkey to a bowl or plate. Beat up your eggs and cook in the same skillet, flipping once. Chop. Remove to plate or bowl, and toss in the broccoli slaw. Stir fry it until it is just limp. Add the turkey and egg back to it, and about a half-cup of water. Cook on medium heat about five minute or until the sauce is reduced.
Meanwhile, steam the tortillas in the microwave. To serve, spread a tablespoon or so across the corn tortilla, add the turkey and veggie mixture, and roll up.
Don't fight with each other over the last of the hoison sauce. You can always make more.
I looked around last night and discovered I had neither rice nor potatoes. What's odd about that is that we haven't bought rice in a year (we bought a 20 lb. bag last time) and we don't necessarily eat one or the other for every meal. But I was stumped. So after refusing to cook and taking a bath accompanied by reading a book, I recalled having some gluten-free noodles on hand.
And my plot began to form. My husband, for reasons unbeknownst to me, refuses to eat sweet potatoes. I have tried to explain how much better for him they are than white potatoes, but he still refuses. However, last night I prevailed, as I had some vermicelli on hand made from sweet potatoes. HA! So there, dear! (Small victory, I cannot gloat, as he still has no idea.)
I received a rating of "great" from my daughter, "delicious" from my husband, and a clean plate from our little president of the clean plate club.
Hoison Salmon Vermicelli
Salmon:
16 oz (or so) of salmon (preferably wild-caught), cut into 4 oz. pieces
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 tsp. grated ginger
3 tbsp. sesame oil
1 tsp. lemon zest
1 oz. soy sauce
1 tsp. powdered wasabi
1/8 cup hoison sauce
Noodles:
8 oz. vermicelli (glass) noodles
8 cups water
1 cup green tea
2 tsp. fish sauce
2 tsp. hoison sauce
1 tsp. grated ginger
1 tsp. powdered garlic
1/2 tsp. black pepper
It sounds like a laundry list, but most of the ingredients are repeaters. We brought this all together, including thawing the salmon, in under an hour.
Pour first 6 ingredients of the salmon marinade into a small pan, cook on low while stirring until fully blended. Add hoison sauce and stir well. Spoon the marinade over the fish, set aside to marinade for at least 10 minutes.
While fish is marinading, put on a large pot of water to boil. Splash a dash of salt and sesame oil in it. Meanwhile, make a cup of green tea. Make yourself a cup, too, you deserve it. Set tea aside.
Begin to heat a skillet over med-high heat. Once it is hot, pour in enough coconut oil to coat the bottom. Let heat for a minute or so, then add the salmon pieces, skin side down. Cook for 5 minutes. Flip. Cook for 4 minutes and remove. Keep warm & covered.
Meanwhile, either have your significant other cook the veggies (like I did) or stir-fry all ingredients together. Add your noodles to the boiling water and boil for 5 minutes. Strain and rinse well with cold water (my package said to rinse 3 times.
Pour your cup of green tea into the salmon pan, and scrape up any bits left on the bottom of the pan. Bring to a boil. Add your noodle ingredients (fish sauce, hoison sauce, grated ginger, powdered garlic, black pepper.) Let boil together about 2 minutes. Taste. If it's super yummy, add your noodles. If not, adjust the seasonings. When adding the vermicelli, be cautious. It tends to travel by plop (I burned my face in 3 places when I strained them initially. NICE.) Cook 3 more minutes, your noodles will resemble in looks a tar pit. Never mind that, serve immediately, in layers-- noodles + veggies+ sauce.
If, like my husband and I, you like some things to pack a little heat, we used the Sriracha Hot Chili Sauce.
No this is not the latest craze on Cartoon Network, believe it or not. It was last night's dinner. And quite tasty it was, too. Easy to make, pleasing to the whole family, a winner in my book. The baby is going through this mysterious stage where he doesn't want to eat vegetables. I'm not really sure why, and quite frankly, I really don't care. Eating vegetables is not an optional thing around here, and the sooner he learns that and quits screeching and throwing things, the better off we'll be. But he ate last nights veggies without protest, which made dinner a much quieter affair. See? If you were brought a steamy yummy looking plate like this-- I bet you'd eat your veggies too.
Ingredients:
1 lb. shark steak (preferably wild-caught)
1 cup jasmine rice
4 cups water (divided)
a large chunk of fresh ginger
frozen veggies
tamari sauce
powdered garlic
Worcestershire sauce
1/4 cup onion
rice vinegar
sesame oil
corn starch
1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper
lemon zest
Cut your shark steak into large cubes and place in a bowl. Grate up about a tablespoon of fresh ginger, and about a teaspoon of lemon zest. Sprinkle with about 1 teaspoon of rice vinegar, 1tsp. powdered garlic, and about 1 tsp. of tamari sauce toss. Set aside. Start rice cooking (for me jasmine rice seems to take about 25 minutes. I have no package directions because we bought a 25 pound bag and are down to just a bit in a Rubbermaid container.) In a large skillet, pour about 1 tablespoon of sesame oil and the chopped onions. Once the onions start to turn translucent, add the marinated shark to the oil and cook at medium heat until the chunks are cooked through. I forgot to time this, but was able to prep coffee for the following morning, inspect a messy child's room, feed rice chex to the baby, stirring throughout, and then I think it was done, if that gives you an idea. Remove shark to another (clean-please!) bowl.
Grate more ginger into the pan, add another teaspoon or two of garlic, about 1/8 cup tamari, 1/8 cup Worcestershire sauce, another tsp or so of lemon zest. Stir together, and add the frozen veggies. Fresh would be great if you have them on hand, I did not. I used a frozen pack of "Asian" vegetables and a mystery can of salt-free green beans that has been around for ages. Cook until veggies are cooked through, then add them to the bowl of shark. In the same pan, add more sesame oil, about 1 tablespoon, more grated ginger and lemon zest, 1/8 cup rice vinegar, and about the same amount tamari sauce and Worcestershire sauce. Add 1 teaspoon of powdered garlic, 1 teaspoon of brown sugar, 1/2 tsp. of cayenne. Then, dissolve some corn starch into 3 cups of warm water. How much you use depends on how thick you want your sauce to be. Add this mixture to the sauce and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and cook together for about 3 minutes.
Add shark and veggies to the pan and stir well, making sure all is coated evenly. Serve shark & vegetables over rice with sake. This meal is totally gluten-free. I'm not sure about the sake though.
A note on sake: We always buy the same brand, and we only buy it at Super H Mart. It's twice the price anywhere else. We have developed a pretty easy method for heating it, since we like hot sake but don't want to cook the alcohol out. We bring a small pot of water to a boil, then remove it from the heat. Then pour your sake into your sake carafe and place it in the water for 2-3 minutes. Remove the carafe and pour from there.
Last night, when I finished working, I just didn't have my normal energy to cook. I was hungry and wanted dinner in a hurry. Maybe it's that mile I ran on my lunch break, who knows?
So I made hoison bison lettuce wraps, which I was able to pull together in about 15 minutes (eat your heart out Rachel Ray!) and make everyone eating at home happy.
Ingredients:
3 tsp. hoison sauce
3 tsp. grated fresh ginger
2 cloves garlic
3 Thai chilis
1/2 sweet onion, diced
1/2 bell pepper (any color)
1 lb. ground bison
1 tsp. sesame oil
lettuce (I used Romaine but Bibb would work so much better)
tomatoes (I used cherry tomatoes that I quartered)
carrots
cucumbers
sliced onion
Add sesame oil to a large skillet, bring to medium-high heat. Add smashed garlic cloves and onion, cook for about 2 minutes. Add chopped bell pepper and cook for another 2 minutes or so. Add your ground bison. Stir this all together, inhale and enjoy the scent. If your Thai chilis are frozen, throw them in the mixture whole, being careful not to break them open. Throw about 8 of the tomato quarters into the mix, and then spoon about 3 heaping teaspoonfuls of hoison sauce over the mixture. Mine was gluten-free.. but I would read the label carefully. (I'm sure this would be tastier and healthier if I made my own hoison sauce, but again, I was in a hurry this time. Next time for sure.) Mix well. Lower the heat to low. While the meat mixture is simmering, wash the lettuce and lay out the leaves for the wraps. Cut the cucumbers and carrots into matchsticks, slice some onion, and lay out quartered cherry tomatoes. Once this is done, your meat should be about ready. Pull out any meat for those that can't or won't eat spicy. (I pulled a cupful out for the baby.)
Now, grate up about 3 tsp. of fresh ginger. I wouldn't measure this, just eyeball it. Pull out your Thai chilis and mince them. Then put them, seeds and all, back into the meat mixture. Stir it all up and cook a couple more minutes.
Serve the meat on lettuce with assorted vegetable toppings. (My husband topped his with feta cheese, but to me it didn't seem to go. It's your wrap though, so feel your moment.)
