First off, this is funny — my friend Christy just posted about her salad rolls too! The ones she made look great and she has much better pictures of her “rolling station” than I do. The main difference seems to be that some of her sauce type ingredients are on the inside as well, tossed with the noodles, which sounds like a great idea. My inside ingredients are just plain but wow — this dipping sauce is really tasty!

I’ve actually made these twice in the last month — once with shrimp and once without. I deviated from the original recipe by not using pork and by using spinach instead of a different type of lettuce. I also omitted the bean sprouts. This is one of those recipes where (if you’re not trying for authenticity), you could probably put a lot of different combination in the wrappers and be really happy with the outcome.

I found this on the Splendid Table web site, which is becoming a nice resource for me when I remember to poke around there.

Vietnamese Salad Rolls
Adapted from From The Best of Vietnamese and Thai Cooking, by Mai Pham — I totally want this cookbook!
12 medium-size raw shrimp with shells
8 (12-inch) round rice papers (keep extra on hand just in case you tear some)
1 bag baby spinach (you won’t use the whole bag)
1/4 pound rice vermicelli, cooked in boiling water 4 to 5 minutes, rinsed, and drained
1 red or orange bell pepper, cut into thin strips
12 cherry tomatoes, halved
1/2 cup fresh thai basil leaves

Cook the shrimp in boiling salted water until just done, about 3 minutes. Shell, de-vein, and cut in half lengthwise. Refresh in cold water and set aside.

Just before making the rolls, set up a salad roll “station”. Fill a large mixing bowl with hot water. If necessary, keep some boiling water on hand to add to the bowl if the temperature drops below 110 degrees. Choose an open area on the counter and arrange the following items in the order used: the rice paper, the hot water, a kitchen towel or cloth napkin for working on, and a cutting board or plate to hold all the stuffing ingredients.

Working with only 1 rice paper sheet at a time, dip the sheet, edge first, in the hot water and turn it to wet completely, about 10 - 15 seconds. You will be tempted to leave it on the water for more much longer. Don’t do it. It won’t feel that pliable when you first take it out of the water, but after you finish layering all the ingredients, the wrapper will be nice and soft.

Lay the sheet down on the towel/napkin and stretch the sheet slightly to remove any wrinkles. Line the bottom third of the wet, pliable rice sheet with 3 shrimp halves, cut side up. Make sure the ingredients are neatly placed in a straight row. Place some spinach on top of the shrimp. Next, top with a little vermicelli, bell pepper strips, cherry tomatoes and 2 to 3 basil leaves. I even added a little grated carrot here. Make sure the ingredients are not clumped together in the center, but evenly distributed from one end to the other.

Using your second, third, and fourth fingers, press down on the ingredients while you use the other hand to fold over both sides of the rice paper. (Pressing down on the ingredients is particularly important because it tightens the roll.) With fingers still pressing down, use two thumbs to fold the bottom edge over the filling and roll into a cylinder about 1-1/2 inches wide by 5 inches long. Finish making all the remaining rolls.

To serve, cut the rolls into two equal pieces and place the cut rolls on an appetizer plate. Serve with Vietnamese dipping sauce on the side. If you like, garnish the rolls with mint or cilantro sprigs.

Vietnamese Dipping Sauce
Makes 1-1/2 Cups
2 small cloves garlic, sliced thinly
1 tsp chili paste
1 fresh Thai bird chili, chopped (optional — I didn’t use)
1/4 cup fish sauce
2/3 cup hot water
2 tbsp fresh lime juice with pulp
1/4 cup sugar
2 tbsp shredded carrots

Place garlic and chili paste in a bowl and mix briefly.

Combine the garlic mixture with the remaining ingredients. Whisk until the sugar has dissolved. Ladle sauce into serving bowls and float the carrot slivers on top.

I was flipping channels over the long holiday weekend recently and caught some of Giada’s new show. Something about her fabulous life and having spa days at home — I dunno. I think the concept works for Ina but I’m not so sure about Giada. Maybe if she occasionally invited strange people over to her house who wore whale pants. Then maybe…

Anyway, I watched this show (Giada at Home, I just looked it up), long enough to see and then decide to make this recipe. Mainly because we had leftover beef wellington gorgonzola and also because it looked really good.

I decided to use half Parmesan and half gorgonzola, which worked out really well. I’ve made this recipe twice now — once when I remembered to drain the tomatoes for about 5 minutes and once when I didn’t. Advice: remember to drain.

Roasted Tomatoes with Garlic and Gorgonzola
Recipe adapted from Giada De Laurentiis
6 Roma tomatoes, sliced in 1/2 lengthwise
2 tbsp olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 tsp kosher salt
1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup plain bread crumbs
1/2 cup finely crumbled Gorgonzola or grated Parmesan cheese (or 1/4 cup of each, mixed together)
1 tbsp chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Using a teaspoon or grapefruit spoon, remove the seeds from the tomatoes. Place the tomato halves, cut side down, on paper towels to drain, about 5 minutes.

In a large bowl, mix together 2 tablespoons of the olive oil, garlic, salt, and pepper. Using clean hands, gently toss the drained tomato halves in the oil mixture until coated.

Marinate the tomatoes for 10 minutes.

In a small bowl mix together the bread crumbs and Gorgonzola cheese.

Place the marinated tomato halves, cut side up, on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Fill each tomato half with the bread crumb filling. Drizzle with the remaining olive oil. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes until slightly softened and the underside of the tomatoes are brown.

Arrange the cooked tomatoes on a serving platter. Sprinkle with the chopped parsley and serve immediately. I placed the 12 halves around a huge plate and piled a big salad in the middle. Looked really nice and was very tasty!

This month, Weekend Cookbook Challenge is all about appetizers. MMMmmmmm…snacks. This one is interesting. I was intrigued. It’s an olive, in a cheesy dough ball. The recipe is in a little book of appetizers and cocktails called, “Shag Party.” It also has lots of illustrations by Shag. Duh.

Oh and I promise I’ll post more next week. Really. I’m even going to try for one more post on Friday!

Snake Eyes
From the Book Shag Party by Adam Rocke
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
1/2 cup butter, softened (1 stick)
1 cup AP flour
1 dash Worcestershire sauce
1 (5 oz) jar of pimiento-stuffed olives

Mix cheese and butter in a mall bowl until blended. Mix in flour and W. sauce to make a dough. It’ll eventually come together. At least mine did. The liquid in the olives later will actually help a lot.

Roll dough on a board and pull off pieces to form around your olives.

I found the best way to do this was to put a piece of dough in my palm, put an olive on the dough and make a fist to press the dough around the olive.

Bake olives on parchment-pappered or aluminum-foiled baking sheet at 400 degrees for 15 minutes, or until lightly browned.

Let cool briefly before serving!

Thanks again to Sara for hosting this month!

***

Oh, here’s something else, would it kill Portland to sand or salt the icy roads? That’s why the whole city shuts down with snow, because no one can go anywhere because of the roads. Portland is all, “hey, man, it’ll melt.” And sure, 98% of the time, it will melt the next day, but for the rare times it doesn’t? MAKE THE ICE GO AWAY, YOU BASTARDS!! AGGHHH!!!

Okay. That’s all…

The other night, we had Jamie Oliver’s Cabbage and Bread soup for dinner, as I saw it on Food Network last Spring and I’ve been waiting for Fall and colder weather ever since to make it. Now, I know what you are thinking — Bread and Cabbage Soup. Really? But, oh my god, if you had seen the episode you would understand.

I did make that and it is the next post but I thought I’d start with this — Crab Hush Puppies. I made this as sort of a starter for the soup, just because I happened to see the recipe and was intrigued. Here are a few caveats though –

1. I know the inclusion of “just add water” Cornbread Mix gives it that, uh, somewhat Semi-Homemade kind of feel. This will be doubled when you realize the only “just add water” Cornbread mix you can find is by Marie Callendars (not that there’s anything wrong with that…) Just fight it and move on.

2. Crabmeat is damn expensive! We had a 25% off coupon for the Belmont Zupan’s, which is another reason we tried this recipe with fresh crabmeat. But, honestly, you’re already using Cornbread mix — if you can’t get crab on sale or anything, you can try using the imitation crab. I made a half recipe, so I only needed a quarter of a pound of crab. If I had been getting more, I probably would have tried the imitation crab. Another option, which I use for hot crab & artichoke dip, is canned crabmeat. Really, just like the dip, crabmeat is not the star here — the flavor is mixed with the cornbread and curry. Just drain the crab super, super, super well if you use canned.

Okay. That is all. Here’s the recipe.

Crab Hush Puppies
Recipe adapted from Bon Appétit magazine
This is the full recipe (20-24 puppies), halving will give you 10-12 puppies
1/2 tsp curry powder
1 cup just-add-water cornbread mix
1/4 cup bottled clam juice (or chicken broth, which is what I used, for a half recipe, this is 2 tablespoons, hardly worth buying a whole jar of clam juice, imho)
1/2 pound fresh lump crabmeat, diced
5 finely chopped green onions
Peanut or vegetable oil (for frying)

Dipping sauce:
2 parts Dijon Mustard
1 part honey
sprinkle or two of curry powder

Stir mustard, honey, and a little curry powder in small bowl for dipping sauce. Taste. Adjust as needed.

Stir cornbread mix, clam juice or chicken stock, and 1/2 teaspoon curry powder in medium bowl. Mix in crabmeat and the chopped onions.

I did all this, formed the hush puppies, and stored them in the fridge for about 2 hours. So, definitely make-aheadable.

Pour enough oil into medium saucepan to reach depth of 1 1/2 inches (almost a whole bottle of oil, depending on your pan size). Attach deep-fry thermometer to side of pan and heat oil over medium heat to 320 degrees F to 330 degrees F.

Working in batches, drop batter into oil by heaping teaspoonfuls. Fry until golden and cooked through, 1 to 1 1/2 minutes. Transfer to paper towels to drain.

Serve with dipping sauce. Both jwa and I thought these were really tasty!

Okay, next post is that amazing soup. Stay tuned…

Hot! Hot! It is hot in Portland. About 99 Saturday and 95 today (Sunday). Thankfully, we are, hopefully back to the 80’s and 70’s (yay!) this coming week. I am not a fan of hot weather, which is one of the reasons that I wanted to move North, but we do get a handful of 90+ days each Summer. This is a nice recipe for those kind of days or any kind of day, really.

I wasn’t quite sure how they would turn out but I am happy to say that both jwa and I really liked these shrimp cakes. They are also a great use for a bag of frozen shrimp (defrosted) that you may have hanging around the freezer. Also, you can use panko for all of your breadcrumbs here, but personally, I kind of like to save my panko for breading-type applications and use regular, plain breadcrumbs for filler type uses. So, I used both type of crumbs here.

When I made these, I did a half recipe and got four nicely sized cakes, which along with a Spinach & Strawberry Salad, was a good amount for two people. The recipe as written below, should yield eight shrimp cakes.

New: Printable recipe pdf!

Shrimp Cakes
Adapted from Bon Appétit magazine
16 uncooked large shrimp (about 1 pound), peeled, deveined
1 large egg
1 green onion, chopped roughly
2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
1 tbsp + 2 tbsp Dijon mustard
1 handful fresh cilantro
1/2 tsp hot pepper sauce
1/2 tsp salt
Pinch of ground black pepper
1 cup plain breadcrumbs
1 cup panko (Japanese breadcrumbs)
2 tbsp (or more) peanut oil (or canola or olive oil — I used olive oil)

Coarsely chop shrimp in processor. Add egg, green onion, lemon juice, 1 tablespoon mustard, cilantro, hot pepper sauce, salt, and pepper. Blend in using on/off turns. Add 1 cup of plain breadcrumbs and blend in using on/off turns. Form mixture into eight 4-inch-diameter cakes.

If you don’t have a food processor, I don’t see why you couldn’t chop the shrimp by hand and then mix it in with all the other ingredients.

Place on a parchment lined baking sheet or plate and cover with plastic wrap. Let sit in refrigerator for at least 30 minutes and up to 2 hours.

Brush half of the remaining mustard on one side of each cake and dip in panko. Brush other side with mustard and repeat with the panko so that both sides are coated.

Heat 2 tablespoons of your oil of choice in a heavy large skillet over medium-high heat. Working in batches (if needed), fry cakes until cooked through and golden brown on both sides, adding more oil to skillet as needed, about 6 - 7 minutes total. Serve with Lemon and Paprika Aioli.

Speaking of, this is a mighty tasty sauce. Originally, it was paired up with Fish Cakes (using halibut) but I figured it would work well for the shrimp cakes too. It really did!

Spicy Lemon and Paprika Aioli
3/4 cup mayonnaise
3 tbsp fresh lemon juice
3 large garlic cloves, minced
1 tbsp tomato paste
3/4 tsp smoked Spanish paprika (or 1/2 tsp Hungarian sweet paprika and 1/8 tsp cayenne pepper)*

Combine all ingredients in small bowl; whisk to blend. Season aioli to taste with salt and pepper. (Can be made 1 day ahead. Cover and refrigerate.)

* But, really, imho, it is worth it to find yourself some Smoked Paprika because it is a little bit of awesome in a jar