Like most people I find it intimidating to cook a whole live lobster. So I love to cook with lobster tails, its simple to work with and I don’t have to kill anything. Since lobster meat is delicate and sweet, I deviated from strong flavors but used some spices to enhance and compliment the lobster meat….
This curry is great for those new to Indian cooking as it does not use a ton of ingredients and is relatively simple to follow.
Vada is a South Indian savory fritter made with soaked lentils and usually fried to a golden crisp. This recipe is baked with little to no oil for a healthier alternative. I used green split pea unlike the typical split chana dal (dry split chickpea) for variation. This recipe works well with chickpeas, black lentil and other legumes.
The most important step is soaking the peas till it plumps up three times their size. I soak the peas for a minimum of 12 – 24 hours to make it easier to digest. Change the soaking water every 3-4 hours, till the water is clear and free of bubbles. Add a pinch of sea salt when soaking overnight to draw out the gas which will form bubbles on top of the water. Be sure to use cold water when rinsing and soaking the peas. Changing the soaking water and adding some sea salt helps reduce bloating and uncomfortable gas associated with legumes.
In the above the picture you see the difference between dry and soaked split peas. Another advantage to soaking the peas for 12-24 hours is the peas grind smoother and cooks evenly….
Lumpia is a fried spring roll made with minced meat and a variety of vegetables, made famous as the Filipino eggroll. Some varieties are fried with raw pork or beef, others with cooked filling. For safety reasons I like to fully cook my meat before filling the lumpias.
Lumpias uses an array of vegetables but feel free use what is on hand and personal preference. The only substitutions I wouldn’t make are garlic and red onion because they are the foundation of flavors. I used a series of colorful vegetables like sweet red bell peppers, crunchy celery, savory red onions, and crispy carrots. Soy sauce and rice wine vinegar are added to season the meat. The rice wine vinegar is mellow and sweet, great for balancing the salty bite of soy sauce. Rice wine vinegar is low in acidity, unlike other varieties of vinegars….
Tuna wrap is an easy healthy flavorful recipe that is great for lunch or dinner. This recipe isn’t loaded with a million spices and complicated steps, it’s easy for anyone to make.
This recipe uses canned white albacore tuna. I’m not a fan of dark fish meat because it’s too musky. The albacore tuna can be quite meaty as it is canned as a portion of a tuna steak. I break it apart with my hand so it’s flaky and can evenly disperse with the vegetables. Squeeze as much water out of the tuna as you can otherwise the final dish will be watery.
The combination of vegetables used are light and flavorful. The vegetables are finely minced to speed up the cooking process and blend with the flaked tuna. The base flavor for the tuna are minced red onion, ginger, garlic and chili. The green bell pepper and celery are savory and give a slight crunch. The turmeric powder gives a depth of flavor and the chili powder gives spiciness. These spices combined give the tuna a beautiful orange hue….
This is a healthy recipe using a whole red snapper. Seems imitating? Luckily the fish monger does most of the hard work of gutting and removing the scales of the fish. I love red snapper because of its delicate white meat. But any medium sized white fleshed fish would work just as well….
If you’re craving a spicy hearty Indian chicken recipe that is somewhat easy…this dish is for you!
Making a paste marinade allows the spices and fresh ingredients to seep into the chicken, tenderizing it and insuring it will be succulent. Roughly chop the red onion (you can substitute with white onion), ginger, bird’s eye chilies, and crush the garlic. It makes it easier for the food processor or handheld emulsifier to grind through. I leave the curry leaves whole before I grind them, since the leaves are not fibrous. Curry leaves give the dish a distinct earthy floral flavor, mainly used in South Indian dishes. Most grocery stores carry it, but if you are out of luck, substitute with cilantro….
This recipe is a healthy delicious vegetarian dish. If you’re not a fan of a particular vegetable, try roasting it and you might be surprised! Slowly roasting the vegetables allows any existing sugar content to caramelize. So the vegetable is left sweet, nutty, and earthy which melts in your mouth.
The combination of vegetables I used in this recipe is great, but feel free to use what you have on hand, or according to your personal preference. To make this dish more filling I used mainly root vegetables like parsnips, carrots, turnips, beets, potatoes and cauliflower. Also I added aromatic vegetables for flavor, like green bell pepper, red onion, and the garlic. All the vegetables are cut to roughly one inch pieces, to ensure even cooking….
These baked chicken wings have the same crispiness and guilty pleasure of fried wings, but without gallons of wasted oil or exploding wing particles!