Herbal Tongue Twister

For this weekends cooking adventure, we pulled another recipe from The Herbal Kitchen. We've done two recipes from the book before, both excellent meals with no daunting prep. And, again, the book delivers an easy, delicious meal. It also contained my favorite ingredient (kale) and one of E's (pork). Sadly, my photos all came out rather blurry and I won't post the recipe because it is straight from a cookbook. Instead, you'll get the least-blurry of the photos and a brief description of the recipe - anyone who has cooked a few times should be able to figure something delicious out. Without further distractions, the meal complete with centerpiece:

The basic idea behind the meal is you take one hard to pronounce pasta (orecchiette) and one delicious pork product (pancetta). Try saying those together ten times. While the pasta cooks, you brown the pancetta then add in garlic and pepper flakes, followed by diced kale. As that begins to brown, you throw in a little liquid for the finish, add in the paste, and toss it with parmigiano-reggiano. You eat it and are happy. You have it for leftovers, cold, from the tupperware, and notice that it is more delicious that way.

Kale (not at all) Bibimbap

Continuing my week of destroying Asian dishes by using kale (yesterday I did it to sushi, tomorrow I'm going to cancel the trend of destroying them with kale because I'm now out of kale), I've moved a bit west to Korea. I get Korean food cravings every now and then, which is hampered by a lack of good Korean food in SF. Specifically, dolsot bibimbap. While my dining companions are getting their fill of sundubu jjigae, I'm patiently waiting for my egg and rice to crust-up on a hot stone bowl. Well, I don't have a hot stone bowl at home, so I'll have to settle for bibimbap. Except not really, because I'm busy destroying regional cuisines.

This dish can only barely be called "bibimbap". "Influenced by" might be a better term, but maybe I'm better off just not mentioning the inspiring dish. For one, my dinner lacked cucumber, bean sprouts, mushrooms, and basically all of the signature veggies you expect to find. It did have the signature egg, the spicy chile sauce, and seaweed. Still, a far cry from the real thing. Also it had avocado because, hey, who doesn't love it? The flavors were mostly right, given my massive substitutions, and I'd file this under "easy" as far as prep goes. So why not give it a shot the next time you've got some lacinato kale?

You could definitely add some sauteed sprouts and mushrooms to the recipe below, and optionally some tofu. I've also suggested you eat it with lots of banchan. I didn't have any, so I just had some amazing hummus and chips. Not traditionally a Korean side, but it will do in a pinch.

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Kale Bibimbap

Serves 2 (assuming a healthy selection of banchan)

2/3 cups rice

2 eggs

5-10 leaves of lacinato (dino) kale

1/2 red onion

1 small, ripe avocado

1 tsp rice vinegar

1 tsp olive oil

furikake (or other form of seaweed/fish flavoring)

lime juice

sriracha (or other form of spicy chili paste)

salt

honey

Cook the rice as per the cooking instructions. When the rice has about 10 minutes to go, dice the red pepper and cut the kale into strips, widthwise. Put in a frying pan with a dash of olive oil over high heat. After 5 minutes, add in a small amount of the following: lime juice, sriracha, honey, rice vinegar, and a dash of salt. Continue stirring until it looks mostly cooked, then remove from heat.

When the rice is done, add in 1 tsp rice vinegar and 1 tsp olive oil, plus a small pinch furikake and stir. Put rice into 2 bowls and split the kale and onion mixture between them; garnish with sliced avocado. In a frying pan over medium-high, crack in the two eggs. Fry them as to your liking, preferably leaving the yoke runny. When you think they are cooked enough, immediately (but carefully, so as to no break the yoke), place an egg on top of each bowl. Add a dash of furikake on top of the egg for a visual garnish. Eat immediately, breaking the egg and stirring everything together.

Something like nigiri, only not at all

Exactly as described, this dish was an experiment (I swear I cook things that aren't experiments but I usually don't post them unless they are new and delicious). I wanted something cold for dinner, so I went on my way to get salad ingredients. Somewhere on the 3-block walk, I decided I'd rather have tofu and kale (a common craving). And, somewhere on the walk home, I came up with an odd idea - wrap the tofu in kale and bake it at a high heat, quickly, to give it a crunch, then let it cool.

And while I was at it, why not add some more crunchy things - sliced apple (instead of the saltiness of soy sauce, the sweetness of fruit) and red onion (to provide bite like wasabi). I also, of course, still made the salad. Do I recommend you make these? Maybe, they were quite good. But they aren't exactly perfected, half of them fell apart, and the flavors need some work.

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Hippie Nigiri (Kaleifornia Rolls)

Serves 1 adventurous person

1 single-serving block of baked tofu (~8 ounces) cut into 8 pieces

8 leaves of lacinato (dinosaur) kale (plus more if you just want to eat it)

16 fingernail-sized slices of red onion

8 thin apple slices

olive oil

sea salt

crushed red pepper

Prepare a few things: an oven heating to 475 degrees, a pot of boiling water, a bowl of ice water, and a baking sheet lined with aluminum foil. Once the water is at a boil, blanch the kale leaves by dropping them in the water, letting them cook for 10-20 seconds, and transferring them to the ice water. Make sure they cool, and press out all of the liquid.

Take each piece of tofu and place an apple slice on it and two pieces of red onion, then wrap it in a piece of kale, leaving the loose ends under the tofu slice. Place on the pan and brush with a bit of olive oil. Sprinkle on a bit of salt and a dash of crushed red pepper.

Bake for no more than 10 minutes, until the kale is crispy. Either eat hot (delicious) or let cool a bit (also delicious). Wonder what the fuck you just ate and how it tasted good.

Kale and Potato Bake With a Honey Soy Glaze

It turns out kale may be my favorite vegetable. I keep having it at lunch - sauteed or baked; cut into strips, leaves, or tiny bits; served by itself, mixed in with a stir fry, even on pizza. Its prevalence could be simply a seasonal thing and my desire for it fleeting, but I eat it whenever I get the chance. One thing I don't eat a lot of are potatoes; I'm usually a rice-for-my-starch kinda guy. But I found myself at Whole Foods, trying to find some exotic flours, staring at fingerling potatoes as I considered dinner. The flour expedition was half a success - I found myself with a modest amount of spelt flour but none of the desired durum, but my bag of fingerlings looked delicious. So it goes.

I also walked out of there with a bunch of mushrooms, a star-shaped yellow squash, a zucchini, and a bag of kale. Can't forget the kale. What to do with these? Bake them! Except the kale, which can be baked to make delicious kale chips as a snack, but should mostly be cooked in a pan. A note to aspiring chefs: different ingredients have different baking times. Mushrooms don't take long, nor does zucchini, but potatoes and squash want quite a while in the oven. Whoops.

My olive oil is running low, a fact I wasn't aware of, so I improvised for the baking sauce. I was thinking Asian-influenced; sesame, cayenne, walnuts, soy sauce. And honey, just because I like it and thought the spice of cayenne could use a little sweetness. And for the kale I was adventurous and went with a very light steam/sautee with no oil instead of the more common heavy-on-the-oil sautee where you turn it to mush.

Kale/Potato Bake with Glaze: (serves ~2 if you have something else on the side, like bread or soup)

• 1 bunch kale
• 5 (or more) fingerling potatoes
• 1 small box of mushrooms
• 1 small squash
• 1 zucchini
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tbsp honey
• 1 tsp sesame oil
• 1 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1 handful walnuts, crushed by hand
• 1/4 to 1/2 cup water
• lemon juice

Preheat oven to 400. Slice mushrooms, potatoes, squash, and zucchini into bite-sized cubes. Put cubes into mixing bowl and throw in the soy sauce, honey, sesame oil, and cayenne pepper. Toss to mix ingredients around. Place on foil-lined baking sheet and stick in oven for 25-30 minutes.

Dice the kale into tiny pieces. About ten minutes before the bake comes out of the oven, heat a frying pan over medium with the kale in it. If the kale is wet, add ~1/4 cup of water; if it is very dry, up it to 1/2 cup. Continue stirring. When the water is mostly sizzled away and the kale shrunk by about half (no more than 10 minutes), squirt in a small amount of lemon juice and toss in the walnuts, cooking for another few minutes. Don't let the kale get too mushy.

Pull out baking sheet and combine baked ingredients with sauteed ingredients; eat.