Lemongrass Chicken

Thai Basil
Corner of SW Oak & 2nd Ave
Portland, OR
503-330-1010

Well, as I’ve mentioned before, I have a new job downtown and one of the nice benefits of that is the lunch choices. My last position was up on Skyline and my lunch option was…Pizzicato. I mean, that was good, but that was it. That was the only choice nearby.

But now…the possibilities are endless! So, I thought I would start a little review of lunch carts in downtown Portland. The first is Thai Basil, which is right across the street from my office building. How convenient!

Thai Basil Menu
Chicken or Tofu Curry — a red curry, green curry and a yellow curry
Chicken or Tofu Stir Fries — ginger, garlic, veggie lovers, spicy basil and cashew versions
Chicken or Tofu Noodle Dishes — pad thai and two other varieties
Chicken or Tofu Fried Rices — comes in pineapple, spicy basil and with extra chilis

They also have specials. These include Lemongrass Chicken, Pumpkin Curry with Chicken or Tofu, Spicy Mango Curry and Stir Fried Asparagus with Chicken or Tofu.

All of these menu items come with a salad roll and dipping sauce, and a drink (Thai ice tea or water) for $5.00. Oh and a weird little wrapped candy that I’m not crazy about (tastes like lemony caramel).

Yeah, all of this for $5.00!

I have had the pumpkin curry with chicken (excellent and spicy) and I just recently tried the lemongrass chicken, which is my favorite so far. The lemon grass gives it a subtle, Thai-ish flavor and it comes with a spicy peanut sauce, chili sauce and a heavy, molassesy soy sauce. So, so good. I was in dipping heaven. The vegetables with this dish include carrots, broccoli and bok choy (I think or maye some kind of cabbage).

Another nice thing about Thai Basil is that the portions are huge! I spend $5.00 and I have lunch that day, take my leftovers home add some coconut milk (in the case of my leftover pumpkin curry — that one I even had enough to split it with jwa and we both had some) and have a lunch to bring back to work a day or two later.

Chicken Pumpkin Curry

Thai Basil gets 3.3 bowls of rice out of 4.

Coming soon in the “What’s For Lunch?” series: a selection of lunch carts on SW 5th Avenue. Also, here’s a neat little lunch cart map of downtown Portland by Audrey.

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Je Mange la Ville is going on vacation next week. I’ll get my SHF post up next Friday but that’s probably about it, as we’ll be in Montana most of the week, celebrating my mom’s birthday.

Yes, I realize that this is kind of a lame post. It’s short, it’s a packaged item and salad dressing hardly counts as a recipe! I know, you-know-who-you-are (jwa). Too bad, for I am sleepy! Ha!

There was a new kind of flat Italian pizza at Trader Joe’s the last time we went and I couldn’t resist as I am quite fond of these tasty, frozen pies. Pizza Mascarpone with artichokes, mushrooms and sundried tomatoes. I just threw a few pine nuts on top and popped it in the oven last night.

While it cooked, I threw together an awesome spinach salad with just baby spinach and a peppery oil and vinegar dressing that both jwa and I really liked with the hearty spinach leaves.

Peppery-Dijon Dressing
1 tsp Dijon mustard
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp Penzey’s creamy peppercorn

Whisk together mustard, vinegar and creamy peppercorn. Drizzle in olive oil and whisk until it thickens. Let sit for at least 5 minutes. Whisk again before dressing the salad.

I think the goat cheese and kalamata olive is still my favorite Trader Joe’s frozen pizza but this one was not too bad at all. I’d buy it again (in fact, I just might this weekend). Ugh, speaking of which, Trader Joe’s on the weekend…I need to start rethinking that plan, as I am getting sick of having to park on the street. The one at 39th & Holgate is a zoo on Saturday. A zoo, I tell you.

But, shopping woes aside, all in all, this was a pretty good, quick meal.

Flank Steak Rolled Up with Feta & Spinach:
This post is a little different. It’s half quick recipe and half product review of sorts. Whenever I buy chicken at Trader Joe’s I always see these rolled up steak things that look intriguing. They are, in fact, flank steak stuffed with feta, spinach and red pepper — but usually, I just see them and think, “huh, those look interesting.” This week, however, I actually bought a package. For you see, I am easily lured by the promise of feta stuffing. In addition to the persuasive power of the feta, they were very cute — they looked like little meat wheels. At $4.99 a pound, the price wasn’t bad either (the package I bought was $6.99).

Typically, I (and subsequently jwa) am still mostly in the chicken, fish and turkey cooking/eating cycle at home. See this post for more on my history of meat. I’m not looking to eat a lot more beef but every so often it would be nice to cook up some red meat when the mood strikes. As it is, I think I buy beef tenderloin once a year for Mini-Beef Wellingtons at Christmas but that’s about it. So, I am expanding my non-poultry and non-fish repertoire!

The package said to cook the steaks 10-15 minutes per side and not knowing all that much about flank steak I figured I’d just do what it said. If we didn’t like it, well more brussel sprouts and pine nut rice pilaf for dinner.

So, here you go — my Trader Joe’s meat experiment.

Ingredients:
1 tsp olive oil
1 package Trader Joe’s Flank steaks, rolled up and stuffed with spinach, feta, and red pepper
8-10 button mushrooms, cleaned and sliced thinly
3 cloves garlic, sliced thinly
1/2 cup of red wine (Cabernet works well)
1/4 cup beef stock
1/2 tsp dried thyme
salt

I heated up a heavy pan and added a little olive oil, salted the steaks and set them down to sear. I also added a bunch of sliced mushrooms and three sliced garlic cloves to the pan, thinking they would get all golden while the meat cooked. Then, I realized that the mushrooms would give off some liquid and probably keep the meat from browning, but you know what? They didn’t. Sure they gave off a little bit but between the olive oil, medium-high heat and tantalizing meat fat everything got all brown. It went perfectly to plan! Ha! I love it when that happens.

I gave the steaks ten minutes on each side then removed them to a plate and covered with foil, while I made a quick pan gravy. This entailed adding about 1/2 cup of red wine, dried thyme and 1/4 cup of beef stock to the mushrooms and scraping down all the brown bits in the pan. I let cook down just a bit — 3-4 minutes, then plated the steaks, removed the string (as the meat was secured in its circular shape), and drizzled some of the mushroom & wine gravy on top of each steak. Served with the pilaf (from a box — lazy!), sprouts and the rest of the Cabernet.

Braised Brussel Sprouts:
The brussel sprouts were cleaned, halved and sautéed with 2 cloves of garlic (minced) in a little butter until browned. Then I added beef stock (typically, I use chicken stock but I figured beef would work better here) and let them braise for about 20 minutes. Delicious!

All in all, this was a pretty good experimental dinner! If you’ve seen these spinach and feta stuffed flank steaks at Trader Joe’s and like me, have wondered if they were any good, you should give them a try — they were pretty tasty!