Oven Roasted Green Beans with Garlic Oyster Sauce

Green beans (aka String Beans aka Snap Beans) are super high in fiber and Vitamins A & C, among other nutrients. Here's a delicious and fun Asian-inspired finger food recipe that easily gets my big monsters eating half a pound of them each.

Oven Roasted Green Beans with Garlic Oyster Sauce
Serves 4 as a side

A fun kid and family friendly veg dish that my big monsters can't get enough of. :)

- 1 pound green beans, washed, dried, stems removed
- 1.5 Tablespoons oil

Sauce

- 3 Tablespoons oyster sauce
- 1 Tablespoon minced garlic
- 2/3 to 1 Tablespoon honey, depending on how sweet you like your food
- 1/2 Tablespoon water
- 1/8 teaspoon black pepper

1) Preheat oven to 425F.

2) Toss the green beans with the 1.5 Tablespoons oil to thoroughly coat each green bean and spread evenly in a single layer on a half sheet pan.

3) Roast green beans for 8 minutes on middle rack of oven. While you're waiting, combine the sauce ingredients in a bowl and stir to mix thoroughly.

4) After 8 minutes, take the beans out of the oven, pour the sauce over them and gently stir to coat. Make sure to put the beans back in a single layer on the sheet pan.

5) Put the beans back on the top rack of the oven and roast another 2 to 2.5 minutes.

6) Serve beans on a platter with the remaining pan sauce drizzled on top.  Toasted sesame seeds are also a super cute and yummy garnish, but Joe and Mads aren't having any of that... YET. :)

I usually serve them up in a big bowl or platter, and we all pick 'em up with our grubby fangers and munch away, but you can totally serve them as part of a plated meal to be eaten with forks (or chopsticks).

Enjoy!

shinae

P.S. That sauce that clings to the bottom of your dish is really yummy with steamed rice. ^^

P.P.S. Quick Tip: Sometimes it's hard measuring out thicker condiments in measuring spoons because they cling when you try to pour them out. A quick swirl of vegetable or olive oil in your measuring spoon (or cup) will make it super easy for the stuff to slide right out and you're all set for your next one!

Full cooking album HERE.

Thai-Korean Inspired Preserved Shrimp

I don't expect this will be the most popular concoction I've ever shared here. It is admittedly slightly hardcore and challenging stuff.

But it's the kind of stuff I grew up eating and loving as a little girl when they used to call me hahlmohni (Korean for grandmother) for my somewhat precocious inclination toward what were usually considered to be tastes acquired later in life.

And it was inspired by a dish we had at our dinner at Lers Ros with my friend Maria up in San Francisco, koong chae nam pla, which is a seasoned fish sauce brined raw shrimp with things like garlic, lemongrass, chilies, and fresh mint. 

When I took my first bite, it immediately reminded me of a Korean side dish called gaejahng (the preserved crab, not the dog soup), which is a similar soy sauce brined preparation, only made with raw blue crabs, eaten with steamed rice.

I left the heads on the shrimp because the stuff inside is similar to crab tomalley, and that stuff is the most prized element of Korean gaejahng.

Thai-Korean Inspired Preserved Raw Shrimp
(inspired by koong chae nam pla and gaejahng aka gejang)

- about 3/4 pounds raw head-on 31-40 count shrimp, body peeled and deveined, heads intact

Brine ingredients:

- 1 jalapeño, thinly sliced
- 1 habanero, thinly sliced
- 2 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
- 2 chiles de arbol, thinly sliced
- about 1.5" knob of ginger, peeled and finely julienned
- 1 teaspoon crushed chili flakes
- 2 dried Kaffir lime leaves, finely julienned (optional)
- the zest and juice of 1 Kaffir lime (about 2 tablespoons) If you don't have Kaffir lime, you can just the zest of 1 regular lime and about 1.5 Tablespoons regular lime juice
- 1/4 cup + 1 Tablespoon fish sauce
- 1 Tablespoon soy sauce
- 2 Tablespoons water
- 2 Tablespoons sugar

1) Combine all the brine ingredients and stir until the sugar is completely dissolved.

2) Lay the shrimp in a single layer in a bottle or plastic container and spoon enough brine over it to coat. Repeat the process until all the shrimp is layered and brined.

3) Store in the fridge for at least 4 hours before eating, redistributing the shrimp 2 or 3 times to ensure even seasoning.

I served it tonight over a bed of green cabbage and chopped fresh mint and cilantro with some extra brine spooned over the greens so we could squeeze some fresh lime juice on top and make a salad of it.

And that went perfectly with our dinner of Coconut Coconut Curry and steamed jasmine rice washed down with a fat mug of mint limeade. :)

shinae

Sweet & Spicy Thai Inspired Maple Glazed Salmon

While I've had the luxury to indulge in all kinds of leisurely cooking for the past couple of years, I realize that that will likely come to a temporary moratorium once the Pod hatches. And also that lots of peeps here already have very compelling reasons to find quicker and easier recipes than some of the recipes I post.

And when it comes to proteins, nothing says quick and easy like seafood or chicken breast. And while I'm not a huge fan of chicken breast, I could eat proteins from the water all day.

So when The Man asked me to make something Asian inspired, sweet, and spicy, and with a kick for dinner last night, I came up with this salmon recipe to serve with some jasmine rice and slaw with which I am REALLY pleased. 

And the entree itself only takes 20 minutes.

SWEET & SPICY THAI INSPIRED MAPLE GLAZED SALMON
Serves 3 to 4

- a roughly 1.5 pound salmon fillet
- salt & pepper to season
- 1 Tablespoon oil for searing salmon

- 1 large clove garlic, minced (just under a Tablespoon)
- 2 Tablespoons shallots, thinly sliced
- 5 to 7 stems cilantro, chopped (stems and leaves)
- 1/2 a jalapeno, thinly sliced (or if you like hotter chilies, you can certainly use another kind)
- 1 Tablespoon oil for the glaze
- 3 Tablespoons maple syrup
- 2 teaspoons chili garlic paste (I use Huy Fong.)
- the zest of half a lime
- 1 Tablespoon lime juice
- 1.5 teaspoons fish sauce

1) Preheat the oven to 400F and prepare an oven safe dish or baking sheet in which to bake the salmon. I like to line the dish or sheet with foil for easy cleanup.

2) Season the salmon filllet lightly on both sides with salt and pepper.

3) In a bowl, combine the garlic, shallots, cilantro, jalapeño, and oil, and toss to thoroughly coat. The reason I do it in this order instead of just stirring all the glaze ingredients together is that coating the aromatics with the oil first gives them a toastier, more caramelized flavor when they're cooking in the oven on top of the fish.

4) Add the rest of the glaze ingredients together and stir to mix thoroughly.

5) In a non-stick pan, bring the cooking oil up to medium high temp, and sear the salmon fillet for 2 minutes per side.

6) Transfer the salmon to your oven-safe dish, pour the glaze evenly on top, as well as any remaining cooking oil from the pan.

7) Bake the salmon on the center rack for 6 minutes, then turn the oven onto broil and place the salmon so that the top of the salmon is about 5 inches away from the broiler heating element, and broil for another 4 to 5 minutes.

That's it!

Serve with steamed rice and slaw like we did, or atop a bed of salad greens dressed with some of the glaze and a squeeze of fresh lime, and it's a quick 30 Minutes (or fewer) meal!

Our slaw from last night: green cabbage,
white onion, cilantro, jalapeño, and red
bell pepper, tossed with some dressed up
nuoc cham, extra lime juice and zest, & oil.

P.S. I think this is probably a pretty good recipe to convert salmon haters. :)))


Here's another: "Miso" Salmon.

shinae

Heaven's Dog - SOMA, San Francisco

Dinner on Day 2 in San Francisco.


When traveling with my dad, whom I've mentioned is not only diabetic but also falling victim to creeping dementia, we experience many moments of intersection between a real need to eat at regular intervals and an unreasonably dogged determination to eat something RIGHT NOW, but just not the thing my mom is offering him to tie him over until we figure out what to do about whatever the given meal. 

What appears to be a golden Lab
who just went for a swim,
hanging on the wall @
Heaven's Dog.
Food pics later.

And quite frankly, he can be a real PITA about it, putting my mom in not only a crap mood, but also between a rock and a hard place, especially when she knows that the rest of us just aren't that hungry because we ALL ate a late lunch, are exhausted from walking all over Chinatown, and are just generally not ready to do anything about dinner at the moment.

But that's what happened last night at about 6:30 when my dad decided he was ready to have a proper dinner. Adding to my mom's frustration is that there is a very short list of foods that my dad considers to be a proper meal, almost all of them Korean or some other kind of Asian food.

So let's just say there was a lot of shortness and snapping going on last night as I was charged with the task of finding a nearby restaurant that would be a happy compromise for all involved and that in the end, I chose this place that we spied on our Monday night apres dinner walk in a bit of a huff, and that there was a lot of pissyness to go around between me, my mom, and my dad on our short walk from the hotel to the restaurant. 

As it turns out, this place is Charles Phan's (of Slanted Door fame) foray into mostly Chinese-inspired cuisine, and everything we ordered was really well executed.

- the pork, shrimp and shiitake shumai
- steamed manila clams (very good for the most part but needed just a little bit of a citrus acid element)
- soy braised pork belly buns
- sweet sour spicy tiger prawns
- wuxi pork spare ribs
- tea marinated crispy duck
- wild mushroom noodles with what I think were shiitakes, oysters, and woodears
- sauteed pea sprouts with crispy fried shallots

It's nice to be able to take the kids every once in a while to a highly conceptualized restaurant and watch them soak up and even bask in the ambience. They both loved the food, and all the adults, even my dad, were pleased.

My only beef with the place is that between the older people and the younger people in our party, our server appeared to initially read us as people he didn't want occupying one of his tables (there was a lot of urban hipster chic going on among the clientele as you can imagine) and treated us fairly brusquely until it was apparent that we were going to spend enough money to be worth his while. Sometimes the people who work in these kinds of places forget for a moment that they're in the business of hospitality, but I do give him credit for turning it around in the end, for whatever reason.

Besides the really good food, generally minimal and sophisticated decor, interesting if somewhat conflicted ambience (Chinese food, paintings of dogs all over the walls, and American rock music in the background - not quite understanding the juxtaposition just yet), and an interesting beer, wine, and cocktail list are all reasons to give this place a go.

Heaven's Dog
1148 Mission Str. @ 7th
San Francisco, CA 94103
415.863.6008
www.heavensdog.com