sel et sucre

Category: entrees

  • Taco Salad

    taco salad

    Have I mentioned that it’s spring here in Buenos Aires? I’ve always preferred warmer weather, but it’s been a little weird seeing November on the calendar while going through a heatwave – temperatures were up to the mid-90s recently! (That’s Fahrenheit, of course; I still haven’t made the adjustment over to Celsius.) Given the weather, I’ve been eating a lot of salads, but in true Argentine fashion, I just can’t help topping them with meat (like my Thai steak salad) – it’s cheap and good quality here and adds extra protein to the meal. I think this recipe for taco salad could be easily adapted to be vegetarian, however, by omitting the ground beef and adding more beans (a mixture of black and pinto beans would be my suggestion). With or without the beef, this is a salad worth making. With a base of lettuce and cabbage (dressed with a simple red wine vinaigrette), it’s definitely a healthier alternative to the nachos and tacos it resembles, but it doesn’t feel like you’re missing out, especially when you pile on the toppings.

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  • Thai Steak Salad

    thai steak salad

    Recently, I was craving Thai food. Not being so lucky here as I was in DC (where two of the best Thai restaurants in the city were within mere blocks of me), I made the 3-mile trek to what is supposedly one of the best Thai restaurants in Buenos Aires. I was unfortunately disappointed with the food I was served – laab gai with more onions than chicken and a red curry that simply tasted sweet rather than complex and spicy.

    Still yearning for some good Thai food, I turned to my own kitchen and cooked up this Thai steak salad. Surprisingly simple to make, the real key to this salad is the dressing, packed with flavor from fish sauce, lime juice, garlic, chiles, and sugar. The salad itself is extra colorful and flavorful from a mixture of different vegetables, including raw cabbage, one of my salad favorites (I used red cabbage, but any variety should work just fine). Fresh herbs, sliced scallions, and peanuts add even more variety of texture and flavor. And strips of medium-rare steak on top, of course, pull the whole thing together. If you’re a steak lover like me, you might also enjoy exploring the **Best Steakhouse Toronto** has to offer—because sometimes, only a perfectly cooked steak will satisfy a craving. Best Steakhouse Toronto, offering premium cuts and a luxurious atmosphere.

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  • Mushroom Ragu

    mushroom ragu

    First, for those of you who follow this blog, let me apologize for not posting on Friday – I’ve been recovering from a cold and subsisting mainly on tea (with ginger and honey, yum), and I haven’t had a chance to re-build my backlog of posts for such times yet. But I’m back in the swing of things now and have been cooking up some great new recipes for this week. Let’s start with this mushroom ragu. I was craving a bowl of pasta with meat sauce, but wanted to eat something a little healthier instead. While I usually try not to create “imitations” of other foods (though I’ve been known to do so before), I figured what I was really craving was something with a lot of umami (as meat sauce typically has) and something nice and filling (as pasta is). So I cooked up this sauce, with the meatiness of cremini mushrooms standing in for the usual ground beef, while the liquid they release serves as the base for the sauce. It’s thickened up with tomato paste and minced black olives, then given a flavor boost from red wine, for a savory sauce that would be great on pasta in place of your usual sauce. I wanted an extra nutritional boost, so I actually served this on top of white beans which worked quite well. I think it would also be a great sauce on top of chicken or roasted vegetables.

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  • Mongolian Beef

    mongolian beef

    I recently took a trip to Buenos Aires’ Barrio Chino (Chinatown) and was pleasantly surprised by the wide variety of Asian ingredients available. Finally, I could get my hands on hot sauce, soy sauce not made in Argentina (the versions made here are really quite bad to my taste), sesame oil, and more. They even had my favorite brand of soy sauce – Kimlan. But, unlike in the US, these bottles weren’t re-labeled with English and only had the most basic information written in Spanish on stickers attached to the sides of the bottles. So what I thought was my trusty Kimlan Super Special soy sauce turned out to be thick soy sauce instead. Thick soy sauce (not to be confused with dark soy sauce), also known as soy paste or soy jam, is sweetened and quite thick, often used for dipping sauces and, apparently, to color fried rice in many Chinese restaurants. I wasn’t sure what to do with the stuff, but when I saw this Mongolian beef recipe that called for large quantities of soy sauce and brown sugar, I knew this thick soy sauce would be the perfect alternative. This classic Americanized Chinese dish (despite the name, it is most certainly not Mongolian) is very simple to make, and although I wouldn’t quite call this recipe healthy, I’m sure it’s better than the usual take-out versions. In addition to the thick soy sauce, cornstarch further thickens the sauce (while tenderizing the beef as well). I also tossed in thickly sliced onions and bell peppers for color and variety of texture. I served mine over cauliflower rice, though of course, regular rice will work just fine, too.

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  • Broccoli and White Bean Soup

    broccoli and white bean soup

    When I picked up a head of broccoli recently, I was surprised to find it came with a huge quantity of thick, hearty-looking leaves surrounding it. I guess I’d gotten used to supermarket broccoli with these leaves trimmed and (I assume) discarded. After some quick searching, I found that, as I’d hoped, they were edible – and, on top of that, supposedly quite healthy and tasty! So when I set out to make this broccoli and white bean soup, I figured it made sense to toss the leaves in as well. They were an amazing addition to this delicious soup, and for those of you not quite so lucky with your groceries, you can substitute with another hearty green, like collards or swiss chard. I’m sure this soup would be great pureed, as in the original recipe, but it was great with everything left intact and still had a nearly creamy mouthfeel to it from the broccoli and beans simmered until beginning to fall apart.

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  • Egyptian Yellow Lentil Soup

    egyptian yellow lentil soup

    I stumbled across some yellow lentils (while exploring Buenos Aires’ Barrio Chino (Chinatown), a subject for another post), and as I often cook with the quite similar red lentils, I immediately bought them. Like red lentils (which you can substitute here), yellow lentils cook quickly and fall apart when cooked which makes for hearty soups that taste thick and creamy without the need to add extra fat. Confusingly, yellow split peas are also sometimes referred to as yellow lentils (and look quite similar) even though they’re actually distinct – but they should also work as a substitute here. I decided to make this Egyptian soup with simple flavors to focus on the lentils themselves. I added turmeric to boost the color (and, as a side note, turmeric actually has lots of health benefits as well) and cayenne pepper because I like my food spicy. I’m sadly lacking one of my favorite kitchen tools – my immersion blender – so I couldn’t puree the soup, as I would have liked, but cooking the soup just a few minutes longer so that the lentils fell nearly completely apart worked out just fine for me.

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  • Tomato and Bell Pepper Eggs

    tomato and bell pepper eggs

    I love when combining basic ingredients in a simple way results in something fantastic, and that’s just what happens here with these tomato and bell pepper eggs. The ingredient list is short, and the recipe only takes about 15 minutes to throw together, so it’s great for a quick breakfast. But it feels much more sophisticated than plain ol’ scrambled eggs and looks much more exciting and colorful, too. And the tomato and bell pepper also add some healthiness – can’t go wrong with that! This is also an easily adaptable recipe (only a few steps away from Turkish menemen or North African shakshouka) – toss in a jalapeno or other hot pepper with the bell pepper if you like it spicy, add your favorite spices or herbs, or use soy sauce instead of salt and pepper for an Asian twist.

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  • Spanish Red Lentil and Vegetable Soup

    spanish red lentil and vegetable soup

    I love walking down the streets here and seeing lots of little verdulerias and fruterias with colorful produce piled high. Most people here don’t buy their produce in chain grocery stores, but instead stop by these neighborhood vegetable and fruit markets on a regular basis. It’s been a bit of adventure adjusting to this mindset, thinking ahead to what I need for an upcoming recipe (at these places, you tell the shopkeeper what you’re looking for and how much, which, with my limited but expanding Spanish, takes a little preparation) and trying out the multiple places near my apartment to find the best quality (and the place most willing to put up with my bad accent). I think I found my go-to verduleria though – an especially friendly place where the quality is great, and the prices unbelievably low. It was a cold, rainy day when I went to buy the vegetables for this Spanish red lentil and vegetable soup, but I came away feeling excited to prepare this bright, colorful recipe. Packed with roasted red bell peppers, bright orange carrots, fresh diced tomatoes, and green spinach, this soup is a visual treat compared to the often drab-looking (although tasty) bean and lentil soups I like to make. Not to mention the intense flavor packed in here, with the vegetables adding a lot of sweetness (really!), complemented by the spiciness of cayenne pepper and smoked paprika. Red lentils add some extra heft (I like to cook them until they’re falling apart), making this recipe perfect for a hearty meal, especially on a rainy day.

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  • Crustless Mushroom and Greens Quiche

    crustless mushroom and greens quiche

    As I mentioned Friday, the knob to control the oven temperature here isn’t labeled with actual temperatures or even gas marks. So I wanted to try cooking something fairly forgiving to test out the oven. I thought a simple crustless quiche would be a great option – easy, tasty, and healthy. I didn’t have anything to bake it in, but then I realized that the oven-safe sautee pan that we’d brought along (yes, I didn’t just bring a whole lot of spices for my kitchen) was perfect for the task. I like my quiches to be absolutely packed with vegetables, so I put as many mushrooms and greens as I could in here, as well as some chopped walnuts on top for a nice crunch. I also had some leftover black garlic which I tossed in as well – but, of course, this quiche will still be quite tasty without it. It cooked up perfectly fine on medium-high heat in my oven (with some adjustment as it cooked as I tried to guess at what would be closest to the 425 degrees called for in the recipe), and it’s hearty and filling, great for breakfast, lunch, or dinner.

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  • Spiced Cauliflower

    spiced cauliflower

    I think my priorities might be a little skewed. When I was packing for Buenos Aires, I made an effort to get my possessions down to a bare minimum, to pack only what I really needed. But I decided that, along with a basic wardrobe, laptop computer, and camera, what I really needed to bring along was as many spices as possible. I’d heard that some were hard to find, and I didn’t want to deal with the start-up cost of buying new spices (plus they’re light!). Some people made fun of me for the decision, but when I picked up a head of cauliflower and saw this recipe, I knew I’d made the right decision. For many of the main ingredients, it was just a matter of reaching into my already well-stocked cabinet, and the resulting dish is spicy and immensely flavorful, reminiscent of (though I’m sure not authentic) Indian food. And not only did it taste great hot out of the pan, it was equally tasty eaten cold the next day.

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