Trying New Things: Chayote

I like new foods. I pretty much want to try anything, especially fruits and vegetables, because that's totally guilt free. It's not like trying say, Southern fried chicken. I honestly can't remember ever having eaten that. But, I have eaten chayote. I found it sitting amongst the ordinary produce at Safeway and could not resist. It was pretty inexpensive, too. I'm reluctant to spend a lot of money when I don't know something will be good. Here's what it looked like before I got to cooking it:
It was light green, firm, and pear shaped.

I wasn't really sure what chayote was like or how to cook it. But, that's what the Internet is for. I found this promising recipe on Epicurious. By a twist of fate, I had all the ingredients on hand. It's not that surprising though, since you only need chayote, garlic, parsley, green onions, and of course salt and pepper for seasoning. Basically, it's a quick saute to yield crisp tender results. I included the pit and skin because I read that both were edible and I'm all for eating the whole thing.

It looks pretty good, don't it?

The flavour and texture were superb. There was a nice crispness to the texture, almost like a perfect apple. The flavour of the chayote was sweet and accented perfectly by the sweetness and richness of the butter. It was plenty buttery and I used less than the recipe recommends. So, you can cut back a little. . . or you know go nuts. The garlic added a nice, garlicky flavour, that complemented the sweet chayote. It should not be skipped. The green onions and parsley seemed more like garnishes, which I suppose they were. But, they look and taste good.

Trying new things is fun and rewarding, especially when you take a chance on something as tasty as chayote. According to Wikipedia, it's a member of the gourd family and is an important part of the Mexican diet. But, Wikipedia claims the flesh is "mild." I'd say it has a pleasant subtle sweetness. Moral of the story, if you see chayote looking all nice in a store or market, but it and try it. You won't be disappointed.

Some Interesting Homecooking

Today I'm going to introduce you to two of my more intriguingly delicious creations and one recipe that I tried, but maybe didn't get quite right. It's interesting nevertheless.

First off, another "fried rice" creation. It's not rice but millet and I've used some cut up deli ham, red bell pepper, summer squash, onion, green onion, and an egg. The sauce is the usual with soy, a little rice wine vinegar, and very little or no sambal oelek. I really liked how the saltiness of the ham worked in this. It was a really tasty lunch and of course the egg really enriched the sauce. Next up is my first attempt at a recipe I was curious to try from Super Natural Cooking by Heidi Swanson. She has a recipe for Baked Purple Hedgehog Potatoes with Yogurt-Mint Dipping Sauce. I prepared a slightly modified 1/4 recipe utilizing 2 small red potatoes (about 8 ounces total) in place of purple potatoes. She states that any type of new potato may be substituted and these were the best I could see, although they didn't look that good. I'd expected to find better potatoes at the store. Basically, I made thin slices part way through the potatoes that you can see here in my photo of the potatoes pre-baking.
Into the slits in the potato I put thin slices of garlic from the garden coated with a mixture of olive oil and sambal oelek. I used the sambal in place of harissa, the Tunisian hot sauce that Swanson recommends. I think the substitution worked. I then sprinkled the potatoes with salt and pepper and baked them covered for 25 minutes and uncovered for about 25 minutes at 375 F.

I prepared my own version of the dipping sauce by combining a half cup of yogurt with a chopped garlic clove, salt, pepper, and a bunch of chopped basil. I used basil because that's what I had although I'm sure mint and cilantro would be good, probably better. The whole recipe seemed good in that garlic-is-good way. I like dipping things in cool, creamy, tangy yogurt and also used the dip for a pork chop and some grilled patty pan squash.

There was a problem, though. The potatoes were crispy and undercooked. Clearly much more than the 45 minutes of total baking time in the recipe is required, at least for 4 ounce potatoes. I might try this recipe again, but I will be way more careful to cook the potatoes enough.

Finally, the Thursday-night thrown together dinner that was unexpectedly really, really delicious. This is my millet and clam superbowl. Umm, yeah. That's the name. I started by sauteing a quarter of an onion, 3 sliced mushrooms, and a couple of pinches of red chili pepper flakes in a little olive oil. I added a minced clove of garlic and some chopped red bell pepper and sauteed a little more. Then I added 2 chopped smallish tomatoes, 2 chopped green onions, and a small can of chopped ocean clams (about 80 grams). Finally I added 1 cup of cooked and cooled millet and a splash of chicken broth. I broke up the chunks of millet and warmed everything through before adding a bunch of torn basil and mixing it with grated Parmesan cheese in the bowl. It was of course seasoned with salt and pepper to taste. And here it is:

It was sooooo tasty. The bell pepper and tomato added irresistible sweetness. That was balanced by a slight spicy kick from the pepper flakes. The clams had an intriguing salty taste of the ocean and pleasingly chewy texture. The basil added fragrance while the Parmesan added complex cheesy flavours and richness. The mushrooms were tasty and meaty as well. Altogether, this was one unexpectedly delicious bowl of light, summery dinner.

Now you have it, three things that I've tried cooking lately.

Magical Salmon, Where Are You?

It's finally that fleeting time of year when wild Pacific salmon is available fresh at the grocery store. It excited me, so I bought a couple of good sized steaks of fresh Sockeye Salmon. And I cooked both the next day. Salmon for lunch and salmon for dinner.

For lunch I improvised a salad topped with noodles and the salmon. The salad was cucumber and mixed lettuce with rice wine vinegar, soy, and sesame dressing. It tasted fine. The rice noodles had some soy sauce and vinegar as well as sauteed garlic and green onion. They tasted okay, but once again clumped together. Clearly, I don't really know how to handle them. But, "noodle cake" is not so bad although I did accidentally dump in a bunch of pepper. I need a new pepper shaker. The salmon was cooked in a skillet after seasoning with salt and pepper. I thought the magic of sockeye salmon would shine through. Here's my salad:
Alas, the salmon was much milder in flavour than I'd anticipated and could have used more. . . added flavour. But, the awesome thing was when I peeled the skin off the cooked steak and late crisped it up in a hot skillet. It was a crispy, fatty, fishy snack of great deliciousness to end the meal. Salmon skin really is a treat.

For dinner I went with a "real recipe" and I followed it pretty closely. Really, I did. And I think it's a winner. The recipe is "Baked Sockeye Salmon with Bell Peppers and Capers" by Marcella Hazan and is available here on Epicurious.

This is how it looked out of the oven and just short of being fully cooked:
I made about 1/4 of the recipe. I roasted and peeled one small red bell pepper, used a few spoonfuls of capers, and put one whole clove of garlic in the olive oiled dish with a salmon steak. I found that the recommended baking time of 16 minutes was woefully inadequate for my thick steak. It actually took closer to 25 minutes (I think), but should you make the recipe you should check on your unique piece of fish. The recipe is actually recommended for a long skin on fillet.

Anyways, let's talk about the flavours. I really think that the sweet, sightly smokey roasted bell pepper and the salty, slightly tart capers gave the salmon the flavour kick it needed. Actually, I really like roasted pepper and caper anyways. I also paired some bites of salmon with a bit of the garlic, which was also good. I don't think I ever would have thought to pair roasted bell pepper with salmon, but it's a great idea and I'm glad I found this recipe. It's a great on for baked salmon.

But, I am a bit sad that I couldn't have grilled salmon like we usually did at home because I don't have a barbecue. One of my favourite meals at home was a whole salmon (usually a wild pink salmon) stuffed with lemons and herbs and grilled wrapped in foil. If you have a barbecue and enough companions to warrant a whole salmon, I recommend trying that.

And finally, an update on a recipe that I posted previously here for some excellent blueberry muffins. I modified the recipe to make blueberry-maple-oatmeal muffins by omitting the lemon zest, reducing the oil to 2 tablespoons, using 1/4 cup packed brown sugar and 1/4 cup maple syrup for the sweetening, and adding a trace more baking soda. The results look pretty good:

They tasted pretty damn good too and had excellent muffin texture. However, I found the maple flavour to be pretty subtle. I don't think I could be sure it was there. Maybe, considering the expense of maple syrup lemon zest is a better flavouring option.

Using the Greens

Pork Chop and Rice Noodle Salad, originally uploaded by lisbear18.

I'm getting more and more excited about the garden produce. So far I've used some parsley and chives, the garlic shoots, and a fair bit of salad greens. Today, I tasted a few early strawberries. Yes, Edmonton is that far north that strawberry season is beginning as it ends elsewhere. Unfortunately, one of the strawberries wasn't that great. But they're still better than the ones in the store, which I don't buy.

Anyways, I planted some chard today and I'm excited about that. It was delicious last year and totally new to me. I'll be looking for some good recipes for it. I'm also on the lookout for green bean recipes since I'm confident that they will be abundant later in the summer. In the grocery store I'm looking for blueberry season to start. I think they're actually my favourite berries. I'm especially stoked to make blueberry pancakes and maybe oatmeal-blueberry muffins.

This photo is a main course salad that I made using mixed greens for the garden. I dressed them in rice wine vinegar and sesame oil and added some sliced cucumber. I topped that with rice noodles that I mixed with sesame oil, soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, and sambal oelek. I also added sauteed garlic shoots and onion. The meat on top is a pork chop that I skillet cooked after marinating it--for too short a time really--in soy sauce. The meal was pretty good except the noodles were clumpy. Clearly I don't quite know how to handle them right. . . kind of like at that inferior Vietnamese restaurant.

Yin and Yang: Quinoa and Sausage

Quinoa is supposed to be this super-healthy grain-like substance that contains all the essential amino acids. I've been meaning to try it for a while. If it tastes good what's not too like. Now, you might think I'd incorporate it into some super-healthy dish. But, that's not quite what I did. You see, at the same time I bought the quinoa at Save-On I also bought some Spolumbo's Spicy Italian Sausage.

Thus I created a sort of sausage "ragout" perhaps and served it over quinoa. It also may have been good over pasta. Anyways, what I did was to boil the sausage until it was mostly cooked. Then I sliced it and sauteed it in a little olive oil with about one medium chopped onion; seven large, chopped crimini mushrooms (the brown ones), and a couple of chopped garlic cloves. I sauteed for quite a while to try to get things browning. Then I added a 14 ounce can of plum tomatoes that i stabbed up a bit (stabbing is a good cooking technique, you should stab the sausage with a fork while you boil it). I added some pepper, thyme, and oregano and let it simmer for a bit. Towards the end of the simmering I added a chopped red bell pepper and some crushed chili pepper flakes. Finally, at the very end I stirred in some fresh parsley. I served it over quinoa (cooked by boiling for 15 minutes) and garnished with parsley and grated Asiago cheese.

This is what my concoction looked like:

It was quite delicious, spicy from the pepper flakes and sausage. Sweet with red bell peppers. Aromatic from the herbs. Meaty-tasting chunks of mushroom and of course the incorporable joy of pieces of sausage.

You might be wondering about the quinoa: Did that "grain" work? It worked wonderfully. It has this fantastic slightly chewy texture and a subtle flavour. I liked the way it stuck to the bits of meat and vegetables in this dish. This is what cooked quinoa looks like if you're curious:

I cooks up fast, tastes good, has an appealing texture, and is very healthy as it is high in fibre and protein. I can see myself buying more quinoa and making it a regular part of my dining at home. Actually, I ate quinoa today as sort of a "salad." I sauteed peas, garlic sprouts, and green onion and mixed that with quinoa, canned sardine, pepper, soy sauce, and rice wine vinegar. I thought it was pretty decent for something thrown together and quite enjoyed the quinoa. But, no photo of that.

What I call garlic sprouts are shoots cut off the green part of the garlic growing in the garden. They tasted garlicy but not really strong.

Quinoa must be rinsed thoroughly prior to cooking to remove its bitter outer layer.