Daring Cooks

Roasted Potato and Radish Salad

~ Lynn ~ 13 Comments

Jami Sorrento was our June Daring Cooks hostess and she chose to challenge us to celebrate the humble spud by making a delicious and healthy potato salad. The Daring Cooks Potato Salad Challenge was sponsored by the nice people at the United States Potato Board, who awarded prizes to the top 3 most creative and healthy potato salads. A medium-size (5.3 ounce) potato has 110 calories, no fat, no cholesterol, no sodium and includes nearly half your daily value of vitamin C and has more potassium than a banana!

It’s been awhile since I last participated in a Daring Cooks Challenge. The last few months have been quite hectic, and the challenges just didn’t fit into my schedule or my menu.

This month’s challenge was a different story. Potato salad is one of my favourite summer side dishes and as soon as we planned a hamburger night I knew I’d have to make some. I headed to the market to find some inspiration, but it’s still a little early in the season for most vegetables here so the only thing that caught my eye was radishes. Their bright pink colour just spoke to me.

I decided to roast the potatoes to give this recipe a twist on a traditional potato salad, and wonder what would happen if I roasted the radishes as well. I quick Google search told me that radishes can indeed be roasted. So my salad was planned. It’s quite simple, but since I was experimenting, I didn’t want to throw too much at it. My mom repeatedly requested bacon bits, as “a little bacon never hurt anyone”, but I decided to stick to the healthy aspect of the challenge. In the end, I don’t think it needed bacon, but I’m sure it wouldn’t have hurt. After roasting, the radishes lost their peppery flavour. Instead they were actually quite sweet, sort of like a roasted turnip.

In the future, I think I might do a combination of roasted and raw radish, to get both the sweet and peppery taste. The raw radish would also add a little crunch.

Roasted Potato and Radish Salad

  • 2 lb new potatoes, cut into bite size pieces
  • 1/2 lb radishes, cut into bite size pieces
  • olive oil
  • salt and pepper
  • 1/2 red onion, diced
  • parsley, chopped
  • 1/4 cup olive oil
  • 2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
  • 1 tsp dijon mustard
  • 2 tsp honey
  1. Preheat the oven to 400.
  2. Toss the potatoes and radishes with olive oil. Season with salt and pepper. Pour onto a baking sheet and roast for 45 minute to 1 hour until they are cooked through and lightly browned.
  3. Let the potatoes and radishes cool slightly, then pour them into a bowl. Add the parsley and red onion.
  4. Make the dressing: Whisk the olive oil, vinegar, mustard and honey together. Season with salt and pepper. Pour over the salad then toss to combine, making sure the salad is well dressed.
  5. Serve warm.
Enjoy!

Daring Cooks Peruvian Ceviche

~ Lynn ~ 8 Comments

Kathlyn of Bake Like a Ninja was our Daring Cooks’ March 2011 hostess. Kathlyn challenges us to make two classic Peruvian dishes: Ceviche de Pescado from “Peruvian Cooking – Basic Recipes” by Annik Franco Barreau. And Papas Rellenas adapted from a home recipe by Kathlyn’s Spanish teacher, Mayra.

Once again, I found this months Daring Cooks Challenge to be quite intimidating. Ceviche is fish or seafood that is “cooked” in lime or lemon juice. In a restaurant I wouldn’t hesitate to order it, but making it at home had me worried about food poisoning. I read up on the safety of making your own ceviche and found that the most important thing is to have fresh fish. If you don’t have a trusted fish monger, the secret is to buy fish or seafood that has been frozen at sea. Freezing at sea means the freshness is basically locked in.

I chose to use Argentinian scallops that were frozen at sea. At my local grocery store they come in packages that are vaccum sealed; if you use the same ones make sure the seal isn’t broken. If it is the scallops may be freezer burned. Argentinian scallops are quite small so I didn’t cut them into pieces.

Even though I used all the precautions I could when making the ceviche, I was still very nervous about eating. I took a bite. It tasted good. I took another, then another. I finished my plate, then waited. No food poisoning! This was a ceviche success!

I was also going to make the Papas Rellanas. Papas Rellanas are fried mashed potatoes with a ground beef filling. I was sure I had the ingredients on hand, but it turns out I was missing quite a few. Instead of making something that was very far from the original recipe, I chose to skip that part of he challenge.

Peruvian Ceviche

  • 2 lbs. scallops
  • 2 garlic cloves, mashed
  • 1 chili pepper, mince
  • 1 cup (240 ml) freshly squeezed lime or lemon juice (between 8-12 limes)
  • fresh coriander (I omitted this)
  • 1 red onion, thinly sliced lengthwise
  • Salt and pepper (to taste)
  1. Combine the lime juice, garlic, chili and coriander. Pour over the scallops, making sure all are covered.
  2. Put sliced onion on top. Let sit for 10 minutes as it “cooks”.
  3. Lift fish out of lime juice mixture and serve with sweet potato or corn.

Enjoy!

Tempura and Soba Salad

~ Lynn ~ 5 Comments

The February 2011 Daring Cooks’ challenge was hosted by Lisa of Blueberry Girl. She challenged Daring Cooks to make Hiyashi Soba and Tempura. She has various sources for her challenge including japanesefood.about.com, pinkbites.com, and itsybitsyfoodies.com

After missing last months Daring Cooks Challenge I was really excited to get to this one. I joined the Daring Cooks as a way to broaden my cooking horizons and push myself, and tempura is definitely new to me. In fact, I’ve never even tried it before. When I read the recipe I realized it’s basically just deep fried seafood and vegetables. My track record with deep frying is just so so, but I thought I could do this. I followed Lisa’s instructions to make the batter, then started heating the oil. Then the oil started to smoke well before the thermometer said the temperature was right. I started doubting the thermometer. That’s when the smoke detector went off. I turned off the heat, ran to the smoke detector and started waving a towel at it until it stopped. I took the battery out of the smoke detector then went back to work. My mistake in all this was that I didn’t check the temperature of the oil again after the smoke detector went off. I don’t think it was hot enough because both the shrimp and peppers were kind of soggy.

The moral of the story: take the battery out of the smoke detector before I start deep frying.

The second part of the challenge was to make a cold soba noodle salad. This part was less dramatic. I made the spicy dipping sauce to serve on the salad. I was a little disappointed with the sauce, I found it mostly tasted like soy sauce and sesame oil. Both are great flavours, bur I guess I was expecting something a little more complex.

Since I think I kind of failed at this challenge, I’m just going to paste the instructions exactly as written. My tips and changes are only useful if you like soggy deep fried foods.

Soba Noodles:

Ingredients
2 quarts (2 Liters) water + 1 cup cold water, separate
12 oz (340 g) dried soba (buckwheat) noodles (or any Asian thin noodle)

Directions:

Cooking the noodles:

  1. Heat 2 quarts of water to a boil in a large pot over high heat. Add the noodles a small bundle at a time, stirring gently to separate. When the water returns to a full boil, add 1 cup of cold water. Repeat this twice. When the water returns to a full boil, check the noodles for doneness. You want to cook them until they are firm-tender. Do not overcook them.
  2. Drain the noodles in a colander and rinse well under cold running water until the noodles are cool. This not only stops the cooking process, but also removes the starch from the noodles. This is an essential part of soba noodle making. Once the noodles are cool, drain them and cover them with a damp kitchen towel and set them aside allowing them to cool completely.

Spicy Dipping Sauce:

Ingredients
¾ cup 70gm/2½ oz spring onions/green onions/scallions, finely chopped
3 tablespoons (45 ml) soy sauce
2 tablespoons (30 ml) rice vinegar
½ teaspoon (2½ ml) (4 ⅔ gm) (0.16 oz) granulated sugar
¼ teaspoon (1¼ ml) (1/8 gm) (0.005 oz) English mustard powder
1 tablespoon (15 ml) grape-seed oil or vegetable oil
1 tablespoon (15 ml) sesame oil (if you can’t find this just omit from recipe.)
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste – roughly 1/3 a teaspoon of each

Directions:

1. Shake all the ingredients together in a covered container. Once the salt has dissolved, add and shake in 2 tablespoons of water and season again if needed.

Tempura

Ingredients
1 egg yolk from a large egg
1 cup (240 ml) iced water
½ cup (120 ml) (70 gm) (2½ oz) plain (all purpose) flour, plus extra for dredging
½ cup (120 ml) (70 gm) (2½ oz) cornflour (also called cornstarch)
½ teaspoon (2½ ml) (2½ gm) (0.09 oz) baking powder
oil, for deep frying preferably vegetable
ice water bath, for the tempura batter (a larger bowl than what will be used for the tempura should be used. Fill the large bowl with ice and some water, set aside)

Directions:

  1. Place the iced water into a mixing bowl. Lightly beat the egg yolk and gradually pour into the iced water, stirring (preferably with chopsticks) and blending well. Add flours and baking powder all at once, stroke a few times with chopsticks until the ingredients are loosely combined. The batter should be runny and lumpy. Place the bowl of batter in an ice water bath to keep it cold while you are frying the tempura. The batter as well as the vegetables and seafood have to be very cold. The temperature shock between the hot oil and the cold veggies help create a crispy tempura.
  2. Heat the oil in a large pan or a wok. For vegetables, the oil should be 320°F/160°C; for seafood it should be 340°F/170°C. It is more difficult to maintain a steady temperature and produce consistent tempura if you don’t have a thermometer, but it can be done. You can test the oil by dropping a piece of batter into the hot oil. If it sinks a little bit and then immediately rises to the top, the oil is ready.
  3. Start with the vegetables, such as sweet potatoes, that won’t leave a strong odor in the oil. Dip them in a shallow bowl of flour to lightly coat them and then dip them into the batter. Slide them into the hot oil, deep frying only a couple of pieces at a time so that the temperature of the oil does not drop.
  4. Start with the vegetables, such as sweet potatoes, that won’t leave a strong odor in the oil. Dip them in a shallow bowl of flour to lightly coat them and then dip them into the batter. Slide them into the hot oil, deep frying only a couple of pieces at a time so that the temperature of the oil does not drop.
  5. Place finished tempura pieces on a wire rack so that excess oil can drip off. Continue frying the other items, frequently scooping out any bits of batter to keep the oil clean and prevent the oil (and the remaining tempura) from getting a burned flavor.
  6. Serve immediately for the best flavor, but they can also be eaten cold.

Enjoy!