Sunday dinner 12-13-15

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Take-out Chinese. Shrimp egg foo yung and house special chow mein. We now have enough leftovers to last us at least a week, or to feed a small army. I'll have to freeze the 2 pounds of rice that came with the order.
 
I had shrimp marinated in a little olive oil, garlic and lemon juice, quickly pan fried, and drizzled with butter. Roasted asparagus tossed with olive oil, parm, then sprinkled with a bit more parm after roasting. I love those little bits of crispy parm on the asparagus, and nibbled on the leftover bits on the roasting pan. :yum: Oven roasted potato wedges. I'm stuffed. :)
 

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Kayelle you're such a tease not hinting what's in your recipe. :)

Tenspeed, that salmon sounds great! I love salmon so much I swear I could eat it raw! In fact Thursday night I did have raw salmon! ;) My trekking took me past one of our larger Vietnamese supermarkets and their sushi grade salmon looked too good to pass up. So I didn't. ;) I stopped by a Japanese take out place before returning home and got some spicy tuna roll. (Unfortunately I can make better tuna roll myself, live and learn.)

Tonight I wanted either Thai or Indian chicken, but having left over fresh Thai ingredients I opted for Kai Yang: Thai barbecued chicken. Kai or gai means chicken, yang or yarng means grilled or barbecued; the Thai have a unique alphabet so Thai to English translation never results in reliable spelling of words. In any case this recipe is popular at street vendors and in restaurants in Thailand.

In my version of the recipe a marinade of coconut milk and tumeric is the basis, augmented by ground pepper, and sometimes salt although nam pla (fish sauce) is commonly used in Thai cooking not only to add saltiness but also to add dimensionality to the flavor. It is the Asian equivalent of Worcestershire sauce in that it is in essence fermented anchovies. Nam pla has fewer ingredients and commonly is a dark tea colored liquid, although Vietnamese fish sauce can be much darker and is often less filtered. Myself, I prefer all ingredients for my Thai cooking to be of Thai origin so I used my favorite Cock Brand (think "rooster") although the name maybe a bit tittering (oops there I go again!) but if you want to cook Thai food my advice is to use Thai ingredients produced in Thailand. (My Chaudoc coconut milk and Aroy-D coconut cream are also Thai products.)

So as I alluded, I was using up ingredients from a Thai curry I had (last night?) and gai yang is a marinated chicken so my marinade was as follows:

I used up my coconut cream (the heavy top produced when coconut milk is processed) and mixed it with a lot of tumeric (8 oz. coconut milk/cream to 1 T. tumeric is a good start), maybe 2 t. pepper, and 4-5 cloves of minced garlic. I usually use 1 t. salt but decided to use nam pla instead ... because I go with my instincts when cooking Thai. That's the usual recipe but as long as I'm off the road I decided to throw in some crab paste (another flavor dimension expander) and I minced a few very hot[/u] Thai chili peppers, and some minced lemongrass. (To mince lemongrsss put a stalk between plastic wrap after peeling the tough outer layers, and smash the heck out of it with a mallet, then use scissors to process it into your recipe).

I have some Thai basil (it's not like our sweet basil, it's got reddish stems and sometimes reddish veins through the leaves, and has an almost licorice like taste) and I'm sure to garnish my gai yang with it before serving.

So it's been marinating an hour and I'm sure to start it out in my oven at 375F although I may finish it in the patio -- it's a bit rainy in Los Angeles and I may finish it under my convection broiler instead.

Gay yang is always served with a sweet dipping sauce and while I have my own dipping sauce recipe (PM me if you want my website) I find that a very nice equivalent -- and less work -- is made from about equal parts of Mae Ploy sweet chili sauce (yes, another Thai brand), a finely diced lime including the skin, and I'm undecided on whether to add a splash of nam pla.

So my two chicken leg/thigh (probably too much food) has been marinating about 2 hours and my convection oven is set for 375F and heating up, about ready to start really cooking. I'll serve it with the sauce and some left over fried rice. I like to take a cookie sheet or broiler pan and cover it with foil, then set a grill on top to keep the chicken out of the grease and also makes for quick clean up).

So that's what is cookin' here tonight: Thai style barbecued chicken, Thai dipping sauce, quasi-fried rice.

By the way I'll clue you to my secret ingredient in many savory recipes. Just squeeze some lime juice over the top. It's particularly effective if your guests didn't see you do it! ;)

Lime, lime juice, lime rhind and chopped limes are such a great ingredient!
 
The chili verde and cornbread I had planned for yesterday is tonight's dinner.

I switched to making corn muffins instead of cornbread. That seems to work out better.
 
Everyone has great sounding and looking meals!

Greg and Cheryl, my Mexican Carnitas Casserole is still in the oven, but it's looking good, and if it turns out well, I'll give a full report. Thanks for the interest. ;)
 
Everyone's dinners sound really good today.

Dx made chicken and vegetable soup. She makes the best soup, I think because she simmers the stock for Hours. With that we had some thin sliced baguette and garden pesto.
 
Everyone has great sounding and looking meals!

Greg and Cheryl, my Mexican Carnitas Casserole is still in the oven, but it's looking good, and if it turns out well, I'll give a full report. Thanks for the interest. ;)

Zowers!! Carbs would actually detract from this dish!! It was an outstanding mix of several recipes, so I guess it's mine.;)
I'll work up the recipe and post it in the proper place tomorrow.
It wouldn't be limited to the Carnitas I had frozen from Costco. Gr.beef,shredded chicken, or just pulled pork would work nicely.

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Zowers!! Carbs would actually detract from this dish!! It was an outstanding mix of several recipes, so I guess it's mine.;)
I'll work up the recipe and post it in the proper place tomorrow.
It wouldn't be limited to the Carnitas I had frozen from Costco. Gr.beef,shredded chicken, or just pulled pork would work nicely.

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I'm looking forward to it.
 
Looks great, Kay! :yum:

Everyone's dinners sound so good, and inspiring.
 
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We got a deal on T-bone steaks last week - bought three for $7.99 a pound - and had the second one tonight (the third is frozen). Salted it for about an hour and seared it in my cast-iron skillet to medium rare, then we sliced it and shared it. Served it with skillet-braised green beans and baked potatoes. Yummy :yum:
 
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Wow, K, that looks worthy of half a pan for sure!

Our dinner party this evening went well.
We had:
Assorted aritsanal cheeses, crackers, wine and beer to start.
Our buffet dinner included a supped up salad, garlic bread, and two
kinds of Lasagna (our guest is a vegetarian).
Our dessert buffet consisted of homemade Old Fashion Gingerbread with whipped cream, assorted homemade cookies, coffee and after dinner drinks and good conversation.

I sent our guest home with enough leftovers for his lunch at work tomorrow, that adorable Giant Gingerbread Boy Cookie as well a zip-bag of those other cookies. We were sorry that we didn't get to meet his new girl friend, but there'll be other chances.

Funny, we started to talk about how folks he knows won't make Lasagna because it costs too much to make...
After he left, DH asked me how much did I spend on our main dish.
I guessed about $16USD, but that made I figured about 16 servings... a dollar a serving, that's not expensive. Yes, I put out some dough, but it pays off.
 
Cheryl, those shrimp look delish! I have asparagus, and we love oven roasted potato wedges. IF I run out of food to use up this week, I'll certainly reprise your meal.

Kayelle, not only do the carnitas look yummy, I love your Polish pottery dish. I have an oval one and try to use it any chance I get.

Saturday night/Sunday morning I made a huge batch of potato salad and an almost-huge bowl of coleslaw so that I could clean and decorate, knowing all I had to do for dinner was run out for fried fish. My hip barked at me so much today I didn't get much done. :( However, we ate very well with my fixin's and some fried cod and bay scallops. I have a generous amount of both side dishes to use for another couple of meals.
 

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Since I was having back issues, Craig made the meatballs, slaw and sauce we use for banh mi, but we used bib lettuce to make wraps instead of sandwiches.
 
My Sunday School class had a pot luck lunch after 11 am service yesterday. wow what wonderful food and fellowship. I did a ham with Pineapple rings. Had some with my eggs this morning.
 

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