Lemon Garlic Shrimp

Do you have a favorite shrimp dish? For the past few days, we have very cold weather in Montreal and felt like winter is coming soon. I didn't felt like going to grocery, instead tried to cook something out of ingredients we had at home. My parents tends to buy boxes of shrimps when they are on special, we probably have like a dozen of it at home. I ended up making a simple garlic lemon-flavored shrimps reduced in rice wine vinegar for the sauce and serve it over rice.

Serves 2-4

Preparation Time: 5 mins

Cooking Time: 5 mins

Printable Recipe

Ingredients

40-50 medium-sized shrimps, peeled and deveined

1 tbsp butter

2 tbsp olive oil

3 garlic cloves, minced

1-2 tbsp lemon juice

1/4 cup rice wine vinegar or white wine

Parsley to garnish

Procedure

1. In a skillet, heat oil and melt butter over medium heat.

2. Cook shrimp until it turns pink, about 1 min on each side. Add garlic and cook until fragrant.

3. Turn to high heat. Add lemon juice and wine, cook until liquid reduced by half, about 1 min.

4. Remove from heat. Season with salt and pepper. Garnish with parsley. Serve.

Meatloaf

Great news everyone! I just submit my Master thesis after a full summer of writing. Back to the food blogging world.

Do you have a favorite cookbook? Recently, I bought a cookbook from the Williams-Sonoma collection called Comfort Food: Warm and Homey, Rich and Hearty. Any comfort food that you used to eat in your childhood is all in this cookbook. Take a look and I will guarantee you that you want to buy it. The first recipe I really wanted to try is the meatloaf. I never tasted meatloaf in my life considering that my parents mainly cook Chinese food during my childhood. I was amazed how the meatloaf turned out, no wonder why this dish is comforting. The recipe is for 1 meatloaf, but the pictures present 2 meatloafs. Unfortunately, I accidentally deleted the picture of a great presentation dish...

Serves 6
Preparation Time: 15 mins
Cooking Time: 1 hour
Printable Recipe

Ingredients

1 lb ground beef
1 lb ground pork
1 onion, chopped
1/2 cup bread crumbs
1/2 cup + 3 tbsp ketchup
2 eggs, beaten
2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
salt and pepper

Procedure

1. Preheat oven to 350F.

2. In large bowl, mix with your hands all the ingredients until combined, but set aside the 3 tbsp ketchup.

3. Transfer meat to an oiled bread loaf pan. Bake the meatloaf for 45 mins. Spread the remaining ketchup on top of the meatloaf and bake for 15 mins or until the meat thermometer registers 165F inside the meatloaf.

4. Remove from oven, let it rest for 5 mins. Serve.

Chicken Zucchini White Sauce

Here is the fifth sauce. This is one of my favorites of the night. This involves using chicken and zucchini cooked in a buttery white sauce.

Serves 4-6
Preparation Time: 5 mins
Cooking Time: 20 mins
Printable Recipe

Ingredients

300g boneless chicken breast, cubed
2 zucchinis, cut in half lengthwise and sliced
2 tbsp salted butter
2 tbsp flour
2 cups whole milk (2%)
1 medium onion, chopped
Salt and pepper to taste

Procedure

1. In a large pot, heat oil over medium-high heat. Cook chicken and add a bit of water along the process to prevent from browning. Cook until all white. Remove from heat and shred chicken with two forks. Reserve.

2. Cook zucchini until soften and reserve with chicken.

3. In the same pot, melt butter over medium heat. Cook onion until transparent.

4. Blend in flour until stir until homogeneous

5. Slowly pour in milk, stirring constantly.

6. Simmer until it thickens. Incorporate in the chicken and zucchini and let it cook for 1-2 mins until warm. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Carbonara Sauce

Here is the fourth sauce. I always thought that carbonara was a tomato based sauce. It is in fact slices of bacon in a egg-based sauce. Anything involving bacon tastes really good, try this one out!

Serves 4-6
Preparation Time: 5 mins
Cooking Time: 10 mins
Printable Recipe

Ingredients

8-10 slices bacon, cubed
1 1/4 cup half-and-half cream (15%)
3 eggs
1/4 cup grated parmesan
Pepper to taste

Procedure

1. Heat skillet over medium heat. Cook bacon until soft and slightly brown.

2. Add in cream and eggs and stir until smooth and thick.

3. Incorporate parmesan and stir until it melts. Season with pepper to taste. Serve.

Creamy Cheese Sauce with Bacon

Here is the third sauce. Classic creamy cheese sauce involves using flour, butter and milk to make a béchamel sauce. This recipe uses crème fraiche instead and bacon is added also. Try it and I guarantee you that you will love it!

Serves 4-6
Preparation Time: 15 mins
Cooking Time: 15 mins
Printable Recipe

Ingredients

50 g butter
200g tub crème fraiche
about 450g grated marble cheddar
5 tbsp grated parmesan cheese
5 slices bacon, cooked and cubed

Procedure

1. In a saucepan, melt butter over medium heat.

2. Add crème fraiche, cheddar, parmesan and stir until thick and cheeses melt. Season with pepper to taste.

3. Incorporate cooked bacon and serve.

Roasted Pepper and Pea Sauce

Here is the second sauce, a mix of hearty vegetables cooked in cream.

Serves 4-6
Preparation Time: 15 mins
Cooking Time: 15 mins

Ingredients


2 red bell peppers
12 button mushrooms, quartered
60 g butter
100 g frozen peas, thawed
225 ml heavy cream (35%)
Salt and pepper
Procedure

1. Roast peppers under a hot grill or in oven at 500F until all the skin is charred and blistered. Put them in a paper bag, fold it to seal, and set aside. When they've cooled, peel, decore and dice.

2. Fry the mushrooms on medium heat in the butter.

3. Add thawed peas and cook for another minute. Add red pepper and stir in for a few seconds.

4. Add cream, salt, and a liberal amount of black pepper. Turn up the heat and stir constantly until cream thickens.

Sort of Spicy Tomato Pasta Sauce

Have you ever organized a pasta night? Last week, this is the most successful cooking session ever! I was amazed of how many friends and colleagues joined for pasta night. Typically, in a cooking session, it is about 12 people but I didn't expect that we were in total 40 people for this night. I was even surprised that the small apartment can fit that much people.

At first, I was excited to show my friends how fresh pasta taste very different from dry pasta and I only prepared fresh ones for 10 people. It takes quite a while to make it for 40 people. I actually have to ask some of them to buy dry pasta, I was glad there was a grocery store nearby.

It wouldn't be a pasta night if there weren't any sauces involved. You can see in the picture the number of wonderful sauces that were made. In total, 15 creative sauces were made and all tasted incredibly good. I learnt a lot about sauces that I was unfamiliar with.

Since I was busy making and cooking pasta, I did not took a lot of pictures that day especially that the tomato sauces were all gone after the first batch of pasta. I will post a spicy tomato sauce from Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution with sausage added. Other sauces will be posted in the following week.

Serves 4-6
Preparation Time: 5 mins
Cooking Time: 20 mins
Printable Recipe

Ingredients

1/4 cup fresh basil
1 medium onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 fresh or dried chile, seeded and sliced
2 cans (14 oz.) diced tomatoes
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar

Procedure

1. In a pot, heat olive oil over medium heat. Add onion and cook until softened.

2. Add in garlic and chile and cook until fragrant, about 1 min. Stir in basil leaves.

3. Add tomatoes and balsamic vinegar to pot and bring to a boil. Season with salt and pepper.

Making Your Own Pasta

I just got back from a full week conference. Don't worry, I'm still partially food blogging while writing my thesis. I finally accepted the offer to do my PhD in Ottawa, Ontario. I found a marvelous place to live with a huge fully equipped kitchen, at least twice as large as my home kitchen. This means more tested recipes with a new group of people. I haven't given much thoughts about how to plan a one-person menu, any suggestions?

During the conference week, I went to a kitchen equipment store and saw a pasta machine that was on sale for only $20. The cost of such machine is about $70. Before buying a kitchen appliance, I have to get the approval of my parents and strangely, they were strongly in favor in buying one. When I came home, I immediately open some of my favorite cookbooks, start making pasta and cut it into fettuccine. Pasta requires three basic ingredients: egg, flour and salt. My first attempt of making pasta was impressively success. This is the first time that I have ever tasted fresh pasta and it taste very different from the dry ones. No wonder that on this season of Hell's Kitchen, Gordon Ramsay can tell if the pasta is made fresh or not. Fresh ones have a soft and tender texture which absorb the full flavour of sauces. The recipe is adapted from The Cook's Book - Concise Edition.

Serves 2
Preparation Time: 25 mins
Cooling Time: 30 mins
Cooking Time: about 1 min, depending on the shape
Printable Recipe

Ingredients

1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp salt
2 eggs

Procedure

Dough
1. Pour flour onto the surface and form a well, large enough to hold the eggs.

2. With a fork, whisk eggs and slowly incorporate it with flour. Add salt to eggs and continue pulling small amounts of flour until it becomes thick.

3. Once thick, start kneading and add the remaining flour until it can no longer absorb the flour.

4. Set dough aside, clean work surface and dry hands.

5. Knead the dough on clean surface until smooth and elastic. Sprinkle a bit of flour if very sticky, but don't let dry.

6. Wrap dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for about 30 mins. This will help soften the dough, enough to be stretched.

Pasta Machine
7. Cut dough in half. Flatten the dough and pass it through the widest setting on the pasta machine.

8. Decrease the setting a notch and pass the dough once again. Repeat it once more.

9. Fold the dough into thirds and flatten it. Return to its widest setting and repeat step 7 and 8, 3 more times until the dough fells silky and elastic.

10. Roll the dough through the machine on decreasing settings until desired thickness is reached.

11. Use cutters to cut pasta into fettuccine or tagliarini. Toss a bit of flour to prevent for sticking after cutting.

Cooking
12. In a large pot, boil water and add salt.

13. Add fresh pasta and cook for about 1 min. It is ready when you can no longer taste the rawness of the dough.

14. Drain and serve with your favorite pasta sauce.