Sauteed Cabbage and Carrots

I like cooking vegetables. Their wide variety gives out many different taste and menu possibilities. That, and most of the time I find a lot of the veggie recipes to be easy to make. Here’s one to prove my point: sautéed cabbage and carrots, another childhood dish I grew up with in Indonesia. Originally called, orak-arik, this recipe has to be one of the easiest things to make. With shredded cabbage, carrots, a little bit of vegetable oil, salt, black pepper, and garlic, I get a delicious plate in no time. Do you notice how sweet carrots become after being sautéed? That sweetness goes real nice with the black pepper and crunchy cabbage. In its traditional form, the recipe includes scrambled eggs in the mix. But I am making that optional here.

Things that we’ll need:

(Serve 2)

• 1 small (or half of a large) cabbage head (cut into thin shreds)
• 3–4 carrots (cleaned and chopped in a food processor)
• 3 garlic (chopped)
• Salt
• Black pepper
• 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil

Steps:

• Heat up a medium size pan (over medium heat)
• Add oil and then garlic. Let it sizzle for two minutes
• Add carrots, cabbage, salt, and black pepper. Stir to mix everything together (I use two cooking spoons to mix them up).
• Cover the pan and let the veggies cook for five minutes or until everything wilts
• Move it away from the heat

Ideal to serve as a side to a beef or chicken dish. Don’t forget the rice :D.

Hope you like it and happy cooking!

Heavenly Buttery Soft Broccoli

Salty and aromatic, garlicky, and buttery soft broccoli! The dish has earned a spot on my favorite list. Thanks, Food52. The trick? Immerse the vegetable in boiling water (also known as blanching) for five minutes and then cook it with olive oil, garlic, chili peppers, and anchovies. Yes, anchovies! The result? Incredibly tender, savory, but yet sweet broccoli that would melt in your mouth.

I do mine slightly different from Food52‘s recipe. Here’s my adapted version:

(Serve 2)

• 1 bunch of broccoli (a bunch that would be enough for two people). I remove the florets by hands and make sure that they’re not too chunky.
• 8 anchovies (chopped). I use marinated ones. The original recipe asks for 4 anchovies but I think 8 make my dish much more flavorful. I believe anchovy is the key ingredient here 😀
• 3 garlic (chopped)
• 3—4 tablespoon of olive oil
• 4 hot finger peppers or 2 Thai peppers (chopped)
• Black pepper

Steps:

• Fill 1/3 of a medium pot with water and bring to boil over medium heat
• Add broccoli florets into the water, cover the pot, and let simmer for five minutes
• Meanwhile, heat a medium pan (over medium heat) and add olive oil, garlic, anchovies, and chili peppers. Stir frequently and let them cook for one minute or until the anchovies start to melt in the oil. Reduce the heat.
• Once the five minutes of hot bath is done, drain the broccoli, and add into the pan
• Stir and mix the broccoli with the olive oil-anchovies concoction. Add black pepper. Cover the pan, lower the heat, cook for another three minutes (until the broccoli become soft), and then turn off the heat. Let the broccoli stay in the covered pan to soak the olive oil, anchovies, garlic, and peppers for at least half hour before serving. (The original recipe calls for 2 hours of cooking over low heat, but I find that my broccoli gets soft enough after the blanching, then the three-minute cooking with anchovies, and the half hour of resting in the covered pan. I think the heat gets trapped and continues to cook the vegetable for a while.)

Great to serve by itself, over rice, on top of egg noodle or pasta, or as a side dish to Yakiniku-style Beef and Sauteed Onion.

Inspired by a similar recipe using the same method of cooking, I tried my recipe above with carrots! I found that shredded or thin-sliced carrots work better for this method. I skip the blanching part and just cook the carrots directly in the anchovies-garlic-chili pepper infused olive oil. Stir and mix them well, cover the pan, lower the heat a bit, and let it cook for about 10-15 minutes. Turn the heat off and let the carrots rest in the covered pan for half hour before serving. The mixture of anchovies, garlic, and chili peppers magically brings out the natural sweetness of the carrot. So good!

Hope you like it. Thanks for visiting!

Peace

Savory Pastry with Turkey and Vegetables

Inspired by Indonesian’s pastel goreng, a savory treat similar to empanadas, I made this easy pastry recently. The wonderful smell of ground turkey, peas, carrots, garlic, and onions baking inside of a pie crust in the oven filled the apartment. Hmm…delicious!  This flaky and savory pastry makes a great appetizer.

Here’s a list of things we’ll need:

• 2 sheets of pie crust
• 1 tablespoon of canola or vegetable oil
• 1 pound of ground turkey (or beef)
• 1 bag of thawed frozen (mix) peas and carrots
• 4 garlic (chopped)
• 1 sweet onion (chopped)
• Salt
• Pepper
• A dash of curry powder

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
• Heat up a medium pan and add the oil.
• Add garlic and onion. Cook for two minutes.
• Add ground beef and let it brown.
• Mix in the peas and carrots, salt, pepper, and curry powder.
• Following Paula Dean’s direction on her empanada recipe: I cut out rounds from the pie crust using a small cookie cutter (3-inch), place a bit of cooked turkey and veggies in the middle of the crust, brush the edges with water, fold, and repeat. Place the pastries on a baking tray and bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes until they turn golden brown.