On Friday night, as I was preparing my delicious dinner of miso glazed chicken thighs and wilted tatsoi salad I had a nice little surprise. I was about to put the tatsoi into boiling water to wilt when I noticed that...it just didn't look like tatsoi! I had asked at the CSA pickup and had been told by another person that it was the tatsoi, but the leaves just looked far too delicate to plunge into boiling water. Fortunately, my friend J is like an encyclopedia on all things food (really on all things in general) so I gave her a frantic call. She also happens to be in charge of the CSA, so I figured she would have good info for me. Well, long story short, it was NOT in fact tatsoi, but spring pea greens that I had in my little bag! Fortunately I was able to just wash them off and toss them in the dressing that I had made for the tatsoi and proceed along. And they were AWESOME.
Also on Friday afternoon I decided to amp up our dinner plans a little bit with the addition of some homemade scallion pancakes. Last weekend Z had asked me very sweetly if I would make him homemade flatbread, so I figured that this was a good opportunity to try out a variation on the theme. It was a little bit involved, but the end product was delicious and extremely well received around these parts. I picked apart a few different recipes to make a healthier version of the traditional chinese dish and I think it worked very well. Here is the recipe, along with a little photo tutorial:
Scallion and Cilantro Pancakes
- 1 and 1/2 cups white whole wheat flour
- 1 cup all purpose flour
- 1 cup boiling water
- spray canola oil, or canola oil and a pastry bruch
- 1 bunch green onions, thinly sliced
- 1/2 cup cilantro, finely chopped
- sea salt
- Mix the two kinds of flour together in a medium sized bowl and make a well in the center. Add the boiling water and mix well. Knead the dough first in the bowl and then on a counter top or cutting board until it is well mixed, smooth, and elastic.
- Coat the dough with a thin coat of oil and place it back in the bowl. Cover with a dish towel and let it rest for 20 to 30 minutes.
- Meanwhile, chop the scallions (in our case, green onions) and the cilantro. Grease the bottom of a large cookie sheet. I used a jelly roll pan.
- Cut the ball of dough into 4 equal parts.
- Place one of the dough balls on the greased cookie sheet and roll it out until it is approximately rectangular and measures about 12 inches by 9 inches. It will be VERY thin.
- Lightly brush the flat surface of the dough with oil (or give it a light spritz of oil if using spray oil).
- Sprinkle 1/4 of the cilantro and scallions over the surface of the dough and salt it lightly.
- Now, working from one long end of the dough, roll it up into a long "log".
- Cut the log in two equal pieces.
- Roll the two log pieces into balls...it seemed to work best to start from the center part of the log. Once you have made these sections both into balls, coat them with another light shmear of oil.
- Repeat the process with the other 3/4 of the dough.
- You can now make the pancakes right away, or you can let the dough rest until you are ready to cook. I put all the dough balls back into the bowl and covered them again with a dish towel. I let them rest like this on the counter for about 2 hours until dinner time. If I had let them sit much longer I would have refrigerated them.
-When you are ready to cook, heat a large, heavy skillet over medium high heat. (I used cast iron.) Take one of the balls out of the bowl and roll it out on the greased cookie sheet until it is about 8 inches across.
- Spray or brush your pan with a little oil. When the oil is hot, place the pancake in the pan and allow it to cook for about 2 minutes. Flip and cook 2 minutes more. Repeat with the remaining pancakes!
We ate these with our pea shoot salad and miso glazed chicken thighs and loved them. We also dipped them in a little soy sauce and ate them on their own. And today my husband enjoyed the last one with some homemade hummus. They were good ever way we tried them!
Pictures of the process are as follows:
One great meal down...now on to Saturday! We have a little bit of a dilemma around these parts on the weekend right now. You see, D has to work pretty much all day every day....when starting a company there are no weekend days off. Unfortunately since his office is smack in the middle of the house that can create problems when you add a rowdy 5 year old into the mix. There is only one thing that I can figure to do...go on day trips with the kiddo! This weekend we went to the big city and had a wonderful day. First we went to the Contemporary Jewish Museum and saw an exhibit of the art of Margaret and H.A. Rey. We had just recently read the story of how they escaped Paris during World War 2 with basically only their manuscripts, artwork and the clothes on their backs, so it was fun to go and see some of the original pieces they took with them. After we were done there, we rode the Cable Car over to Pier 39, got a snack and then lived out one of Z's long-standing dreams...we rode a vintage streetcar along the Embarcadero back to the bart station. It was a great day!
Of course, by the time we got out of the city it was getting late and I was EXHAUSTED. The good news is that I had planned for this and knew exactly what we were going to do for dinner. We drove straight from the bart station to the Cheeseboard in Berkeley...home of some of the very best pizza in the world! They serve one kind of pizza a day, and you can order a slice, a half pie or a whole pie. That's it. Of course, their pizzas always include amazing cheeses, and they couple the cheeses with whatever local, fresh veggies and herbs they can get their hands on. Saturday night's pizza included 3 kinds of cheese (I can't remember what all they were though!), baby asparagus, some meaty mushrooms and garlic oil. It was mild but divine.
We all know though that we can't live on pizza alone, so when we got home I threw together a salad that my friend R had recommended to me. I must admit that when I saw the recipe I was a little uncertain about how it was all going to work out...the ingredients just seemed so disparate. But boy did it ever work out! All three of us were clamoring for the final bites out of the bowl. Next time I will make at least a double recipe, if not a triple! The recipe is as follows:
Fennel Orange Salad with Pistachios
- 1 naval orange or 2 minneola tangelos, peeled, quartered and thinly sliced
- 1 bulb fennel, quartered, cored and thinly sliced
- 1/4 cup coarsely chopped cilantro
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon lime juice (I used Meyer lemon juice)
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/3 cup shelled, roasted and salted pistachios, chopped
- Just toss everything together and serve. Prepare to have a fight on your hands!
That covers it for the weekend highlights! Monday's post will be up in a bit in advance of dinner...I ran 20 miles yesterday and my body is protesting with exhaustion, so I think I have another 8 p.m. bedtime in my future!
1 comment:
I will be eating these pancakes when YOU make them for me... I would NEVER have the patience. oxoxox
Post a Comment