Ginger | I Can Cook That

Ginger Sesame Chicken with Bok Choy and Mushrooms

Finishing out my CSA bundle for the week, I decided to make a stir fry that had both bok choy and mushrooms as ingredients. (The recipe for Ginger Sesame Chicken with Bok Choy and Mushrooms originally called for oyster mushrooms, but I went with the button mushrooms I had from the vegetable share. Food & Wine had a recipe that sounded right up my alley so I tried it out.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup chicken broth

3 tablespoons low-sodium soy sauce (or coconut aminos to make gluten free)

1 tablespoon sherry

1 tablespoon sugar

1 teaspoon cornstarch dissolved in 1 tablespoon water

1/2 teaspoon unseasoned rice vinegar (I only had seasoned, so I used that)

1/2 teaspoon Asian sesame oil

1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper

3 tablespoons olive oil, divided

1 pack of button mushrooms, sliced (feel free to use the pre-sliced kind)

1 pack of chicken tenders, cut into 1 inch pieces

Salt and freshly ground pepper

2 bunches of bok choy, thickly cut crosswise

1 small red bell pepper, sliced with seeds removed

2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh ginger

1 garlic clove, minced

To make the sauce, combine the chicken broth, soy sauce, sherry, sugar, dissolved cornstarch mixture, rice vinegar, sesame oil, and crushed red pepper in a medium-sized jar.

Shake well and set aside. Prepare all your vegetables, ginger, and garlic.

In a large saute pan, heat 2 teaspoons of olive oil over medium-high heat. Add the mushrooms and cook, stirring occasionally, until browned and tender, about 6 minutes.

Transfer the mushrooms to a large plate or bowl. Season the chicken with salt and pepper. Add another 2 teaspoons of oil to the pan. Once heated, add the chicken and cook until just barely cooked through, about 4 minutes.

Transfer to the same dish as the mushrooms. Add 1 tablespoon oil to the pan and add the bok choy and red pepper. Cook for about 3 minutes.

Transfer to the dish. Add the remaining 2 teaspoons to the saute pan. Add the ginger and garlic and cook for 1 minute, or until fragrant.

Return the chicken and vegetables to the pan. Shake the sauce in the jar and add to the pan.

Bring to a boil and simmer until slightly thickened, about 1 minute.

Transfer to a bowl and serve.

I really liked this dish, but I was hoping for more vegetables overall, especially more bok choy. I don’t honestly think that this would be much better with oyster mushrooms, so don’t go crazy looking for them if you can’t find them; button mushrooms were good enough. The sauce had some nice heat without being too spicy, so I will definitely try this recipe again with more veggies.

Broiled Tenderloin Steaks with Ginger-Hoisin Glaze

There were a couple of parts to this recipe that made me nervous to try it out: working with fresh ginger and using the broiler. The latter ended up being the more difficult part, but that was due to my all-encompassing fear of burning the beef tenderloin steaks. Overall though, this dish was a lot easier than I made it out to be. I followed this recipe almost exactly, but the original is linked here.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 tablespoons hoisin sauce

1 1/2 teaspoons grated peeled fresh ginger

1 1/2 teaspoons honey

1 1/2 teaspoons lower-sodium soy sauce (or coconut aminos to make gluten free

1/4 teaspoon chili garlic sauce (such as Lee Kum Kee or Huey Fong)

3 (4-ounce) beef tenderloin steaks, trimmed (1 inch thick)

Cooking spray

1/8 teaspoon salt

Hoisin sauce and the chili garlic sauce can be found in the Asian section of your grocery store. Getting to a supermarket for me is kind of a pain but I was able to find the sauce in my corner store.

Before doing anything, preheat your broiler to high. If you’re like me and have zero clue what the broiler even is, chances are it’s within your oven and you just need to press the “broil” setting. Be sure to remove everything from the oven before turning it on.

Broiling is basically the opposite of grilling—the heat source is coming from above instead of below. Because the heat is so high, really keep an eye on anything you are broiling; it can burn very very quickly. Also be sure to have an oven mitt that can withstand high temperatures. The broiler may cause some smoke so be sure to turn your exhaust fan on during cooking. Ok, time to actually start cooking…

Ginger root is much easier to work with than I imagined. It looks so intimidating but I’m glad to have this ingredient on hand—it can be used to treat nausea and is also known to have anti-inflammatory properties. The root can be wrapped in plastic and refrigerated or frozen for long term use.

Boo! …See? Very intimidating

To work with ginger root, use a peeler to peel off the bark-like outer layer for the area you’ll be using. You will begin to smell ginger almost immediately. Yum.

Cut the peeled area off. You can either mince the ginger root with a knife or use a grater. As a warning, the root has a lot of juice to it and can get a bit slippery so be careful of your fingers. I may or may not have lost a piece of ginger when it slipped out of my hands and few across my kitchen. Whoops.

Fresh Grated Ginger

To prepare the hoisin glaze, combine the hoisin sauce, ginger, honey, soy sauce and chili garlic sauce in a small bowl using a whisk to combine. Set this aside.

Hoisin Glaze

The original recipe suggested putting the steaks on a foil-lined broiler pan. I somehow ran out of foil, so I just put them on a broiler pan coated with cooking spray but for cleaning purposes, I’d suggest using the foil. Sprinkle the steaks with salt.

Place the pan into the oven 5 inches from the heat (so 5 inches from the top of the oven… probably around the middle rack). Cook for 2 minutes and turn over. Broil for another 2 minutes and turn steaks over again.

Not that appetizing yet. Just wait…

Brush steaks with half of the glaze and broil for one minute.

Looking better…

Turn the steaks over and brush with the remaining glaze and broil for 2 minutes or until desired degree of doneness.

So, I ended up putting mine in for a good 5ish more minutes, turning the steaks half way through. They came out a bit too rare for me with the original time suggested, but I think this is really up to the person cooking it. I was so fearful that it was going to burn that every 2 minutes I was checking on the steaks, which probably wasn’t helping the whole cooking process.

When it was finally cooked to my liking though, this was one tasty dinner. When making the glaze, I was afraid it might be a bit on the spicy side but it actually ended up having an almost caramelized taste to it, which was a pleasant surprise.

The hoisin glaze would be great on a number of different proteins: chicken, salmon, perhaps even scallops. Using the broiler still makes me a bit nervous though, so I may consider whipping up a batch of this glaze for use on the grill, if it ever warms up in Philadelphia (today is March 28—almost April—and the high is 45. Super.) I hope you enjoy this meal with less stress about broiling than me!

Chicken and Vegetable Korma

Korma is an Indian dish that is usually a creamy and somewhat spicy broth over rice with vegetables or meat, primarily chicken or lamb. It’s usually my go to dish in Indian restaurants. Cooking Light had a recipe for Vegetarian Korma in its March 2011 issue, which I used as a base and changed to fit my own taste. The result, Chicken and Vegetable Korma.

The spices in this dish are known to have great benefits. For those with type 2 diabetes, Cinnamon can help lower blood sugar, triglycerides, LDL, and total cholesterol. Cinnamon also has cancer fighting properties and can increase circulation. Tumeric may help impede the growth of cancer cells and can also help reduce swelling. Garlic is also known as a cancer fighter, can stop blood clots from forming, and also has anti-fungal, antibacterial and antiviral effects. Ginger not only helps with stomach ailments (nausea, motion sickness) but it also helps limit swelling due to arthritis and can help prevent blood clots. Cumin is a good source of iron and helps maintain a strong immune system; like ginger, it also helps with digestion and may also have anti-carcinogenic properties. Cayenne pepper has antioxidant properties and is also known to increase metabolism. Cayenne is also thought to help with high blood pressure and contains some cancer fighting properties. Whew!

Ingredients:

1 ½ tablespoons butter

1 cup chopped onion

1 tablespoon minced peeled ginger

3 garlic cloves, minced

1 tablespoon tomato paste

1 ½ teaspoon ground cumin

½ teaspoon ground red pepper (canyenne pepper)
1/4 teaspoon ground turmeric
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 cup frozen shelled edamame

1 baking potato, peeled and diced (I couldn’t find my peeler, so the skin stayed on. Oh well, more nutrients!)

1 cup fat free, lower sodium chicken broth

1 teaspoon all-purpose flour

1 can light coconut milk

4 pieces of chicken tender strips

3 cups broccoli (original recipe called for cauliflower) florets

2 cups hot cooked long-grain white rice

Cook rice according to directions. Remember that rice usually doubles in size from uncooked to cooked, so you’ll only need about 1 cup of uncooked rice. I used light coconut milk instead of water to really get the coconut milk flavor into this dish. While rice is cooking, prep your broccoli, ginger, garlic and onions. Also feel free to mix your dry spices together because they will be added to the dish at the same time. Set the rice and your prepped food to the side.

prep work

Melt butter in a large sauté pan over medium-high heat. Add onion and cook for 2 minutes. Add ginger and garlic and sauté for 30 seconds stirring constantly. Stir in tomato paste and all the dry spices (cumin through cinnamon). Cook for 1 minute stirring.

This is what happens when you try to take a photo while stirring a steaming dish

Stir in edamame and potato. In a bowl, combine chicken broth, flour and milk stirring with a whisk until smooth (if the flour clumps a little, that’s fine). Add the broth mixture to the pan and bring to a boil.

Reduce heat and simmer for 8 minutes stirring occasionally. Stir in the broccoli and simmer for 9 minutes or until the vegetables are tender.

While the broth is simmering, season the chicken with salt and pepper. Add to another sauté pan with 1 tablespoon heated olive oil. Cook for 3 minutes on each side until browned. Add to the large sauté pan to finish cooking within the broth. Serve over white rice.

finished dish

I left the combining of the spices to my boyfriend, which may have led to an over-pouring of the spices. This dish was much spicier than I was prepared for. Not wanting to assume he did add too much of the above spices, I’d cut all the spices maybe in half. It’s nice to have some heat in a dish, but the spiciness of this meal actually took away from the overall dish. Past that, this was really tasty and filling. As a plus, the spiciness probably kept me from overeating!

not all that pretty. but spicy!

Yum

Chicken and Vegetable Korma

Total Time: 40 minutes

Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients

1 ½ tablespoons butter
1 cup chopped onion
1 tablespoon minced peeled ginger
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 ½ teaspoon ground cumin
½ teaspoon ground red pepper (canyenne pepper)
1/4 teaspoon ground turmeric
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 cup frozen shelled edamame
1 baking potato, peeled and diced (I couldn’t find my peeler, so the skin stayed on. Oh well, more nutrients!)
1 cup fat free, lower sodium chicken broth
1 teaspoon all-purpose flour
1 can light coconut milk
4 pieces of chicken tender strips
3 cups broccoli (original recipe called for cauliflower) florets
2 cups hot cooked long-grain white rice

Instructions

Cook rice according to directions. Remember that rice usually doubles in size from uncooked to cooked, so you’ll only need about 1 cup of uncooked rice. I used light coconut milk instead of water to really get the coconut milk flavor into this dish. While rice is cooking, prep your broccoli, ginger, garlic and onions. Also feel free to mix your dry spices together because they will be added to the dish at the same time. Set the rice and your prepped food to the side.
Melt butter in a large sauté pan over medium-high heat. Add onion and cook for 2 minutes. Add ginger and garlic and sauté for 30 seconds stirring constantly. Stir in tomato paste and all the dry spices (cumin through cinnamon). Cook for 1 minute stirring.
Stir in edamame and potato. In a bowl, combine chicken broth, flour and milk stirring with a whisk until smooth (if the flour clumps a little, that’s fine). Add the broth mixture to the pan and bring to a boil.
Reduce heat and simmer for 8 minutes stirring occasionally. Stir in the broccoli and simmer for 9 minutes or until the vegetables are tender.
While the broth is simmering, season the chicken with salt and pepper. Add to another sauté pan with 1 tablespoon heated olive oil. Cook for 3 minutes on each side until browned. Add to the large sauté pan to finish cooking within the broth. Serve over white rice.

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Pumpkin Walnut Muffins

VisitPhilly.com’s Philly Homegrown section recently posted fall recipes from local eateries in Philadelphia. All of them sounded amazing and I hope to try them all in the coming weeks, but my pumpkin obsession took priority. Metropolitan Bakery’s Pumpkin Walnut Muffins were calling me. I’ve adjusted the recipe a bit, but the general idea is still very much there.

The recipe made two dozen large muffins, or 4 dozen cupcake-sized muffins. Your friends and coworkers will like you a whole lot after you make this recipe!

Ingredients:

4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
2 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
2 cups granulated sugar
2 cups lightly packed brown sugar
10 tablespoons unsalted butter
6 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups pumpkin puree, canned
3/4 cup milk
2 cups chopped walnuts

Continue reading Pumpkin Walnut Muffins