Asian Pesto

I've been on an Asian food kick for the past few weeks - maybe because I've been working on a feature article about a woman who grew up during the Cultural Revolution, and we've had several lunch meetings at her favourite Chinese restaurant. Anyway. I've just polished off the last of a jar of (homemade) ginger and onion sauce. With apologies to my Italian brother-in-law, I call it Asian Pesto. It's delicious, versatile, good for your throat and sinuses - and it's so easy to prepare, it doesn't need a demo.

All you need is a piece of ginger about as big as your palm, a bunch of green onions, and 1/2 - 3/4 cup of peanut oil.

Peel the ginger. Tip: use the edge of a spoon to scrape off the ginger's thin brown skin and get around all the knobby bits. For easier handling, hold the spoon where the bowl meets the stem. Grate the peeled ginger finely. Slice the green onions thinly. Heat the oil in a heavy-bottomed sauce pan. When the oil is hot, dump in the prepared ginger and onion, give it a good stir, and take it off the heat. Allow it to cool before placing it in a clean jar.

Asian Pesto keeps for up to a month in the fridge. Serve it as a dipping sauce for roast and steamed chicken, fish, pork, or tofu. You can also use it to flavour steamed white rice or noodles.




Asian Pesto




Holy feasting

Feasts mean food. This week is no different. It's Passover for the Jewish people, the Easter Triduum for Christians. It's a time for bitter herbs and unleavened bread, for fasting and abstinence. But it's also a time for joy, celebration, and thanksgiving to a bounteous God for a plenitude of grace.

Check out the National Post's Food Quarterly (link at right) for Easter and Passover recipes, and for an interesting commentary on the menagerie of chocolate animals that seem to have displaced the Easter bunny.

Also, below is the recipe for my Good Friday dish: Steamed Salmon and Tofu with Garlic. I got it from a newspaper clipping which I've since lost. God bless the chef who shared it! Have a blessed Holy Week!





Holy feasting




Sizzling Beef

Who says you have to stick to turkey for Thanksgiving? I know that in North America, the following remark will amount to heresy, but turkey is bland and boring, no matter how you dress it up. It also makes everyone sleepy and lazy after eating. Not to mention the everlasting leftovers you are forced to consume.

This is one of the dishes I served for yesterday's dinner, the first-ever Thanksgiving I hosted. The other dish I made earlier in the week, and simply froze it, then put it in the oven to heat up. My aunt brought the carbs - pansit palabok - a family favourite. So I was free to prepare this dish freestyle, making it up as I went along, which is the cooking method I most enjoy. Serving it in a sizzling cast iron pan was a definite wow factor, and guess what? No leftovers.

2 pounds beef short ribs
1/2 cup hoisin sauce
1 tbsp soy sauce
1/2 tsp sesame oil
2 tsp cooking oil
2 cups shitake mushrooms, sliced
4 green onions, sliced into 4-inch pieces
Sesame seeds

Combine the hoisin sauce, soy sauce, sesame oil and cooking oil. Mix into the beef and marinate for about an hour.

Heat up a cast iron pan until smoking. Add the beef and cook until crisp. Remove from the pan and set aside. Add the mushrooms and cook until just tender. Remove from the pan and set aside. Last, add the green onions and cook until limp and starting to turn brown in spots. Remove from the pan.

When ready to serve, put the beef back into the hot pan, top with the mushrooms and finally the green onions. Sprinkle sesame seeds over all. Don't forget to put a trivet on the table!




Sizzling Beef