I’ve been making sushi bowls pretty regularly of late and found this last week when I went to look if she had something I could incorporate.
I didn’t start early enough tonight to be able to chill and fry the rice cakes, but having read your report I think I’ll try to plan ahead next week.
Agree on salt, btw.
ISLAND BLISS-SHRIMP SALAD w/COCONUT LIME DRESSING, pg. 184
This is s super fresh and unique salad. It’s made with a slaw base and just gets a little more crazy cool from there.
I’m not sure who put lime and coconut together, but they were GENIUS.
The dressing is made first. You mix coconut cream, lime zest, lime juice, fish sauce, sugar, ginger, and garlic to make the dressing. She suggests that you put the coconut cream into the fridge to firm up. However, American coconut cream- be sure to get the unsweetened kind and not the sweetened kind for cocktails!- is already pretty firm. There is liquid at the bottom of the can, but it’s not very easily reincorporated. Nor did I desire to do so. Thus, I had super thick coconut cream already. So, I mixed the dressing and stuck it into the fridge while I assembled the salad.
To make the salad, you julienne a Granny Smith apple to get about 1/2 cup. Squeeze lime juice over the apple slices and toss to coat. Thinly slice or shred some napa cabbage to make about 2.5 cups. Thinly slice a couple of green onions. Toss all three together with some dressing.
Horizontally halve some cooked shrimp. Throw it into the bowl. Add in some chopped mint and cilantro. Add a little more dressing. Toss again.
To serve, pile high on in a bowl or plate, drizzle with more dressing. Enjoy!
So, what is interesting is that there isn’t any salt or pepper in the recipe. So, bear that in mind. That being said, the fish sauce was salty enough that I do not think salt was needed. In fact, when I make this again on a hot ass summer day, I will use less fish sauce. I thought it was a little too forward in the dressing. It worked nicely, when shrimp was in the bite, but when there was just salad it was too much. And the flavors are bold enough that I didn’t think pepper was needed. YMMV
Also, this was not pigeon-hole-able as a cuisine. It’s Asian-ish. It’s Island-ish. I guess we can call it Australian- like.
As part of the coolness of her book- we will see if this sticks around- there are QR codes for more info. The QR code for this recipe takes you to her blog/YouTube of her making this recipe.
The Turkish thread reminded me of this one. I’ve made it a few times - very good!
CRUSTLESS QUICHE - HAM AND CHEESE
Made this as a trial run for guests later this month. Followed recipe exactly, using sharp white cheddar and heavy cream. Didn’t brown like hers did so think I will add grated Parm on top for guests. Easy, tasty, not mind-blowing but I will not be sad to eat it for the next few days. I might like it better with roasted mushrooms, goat cheese and leeks - if I try that I will report back.
My wife and I disagreed on whether such things are a crustless quiche existed. I, as someone who bakes, insist that a quiche has a pastry case. Because calling a crustless version a quiche sets my expectation of there being a pastry case we have reached a compromise; she now calls her “crustless quiche” a Tortilla and I call a crusted one a quiche.
Time for August nominations!
Voting thread for August is here:
HEALTHY OATMEAL BREAKFAST COOKIES from the blog
I was looking for something a little different from my recent granola-fest, and I thought the addition of almond flour to the oats would make these more cookie-like. Not really, as it turns out - the texture of the taster (tiny blob!) was very soft, almost like the commercially available chewy granola bars. I let them cool on the pan for about an hour and they were still fairly soft.
I used rolled oats (One Degree sprouted gluten-free oats), dried coconut, and some trail mix containing almonds, cashews, craisins, blueberries, and sunflower seeds. I blitzed the coconut chips and trail mix in the Cuisinart to make everything small enough, but still had to chop most of the recalcitrant almonds by hand. Maybe next time I’ll give the oats a whirl in the Cuisinart too just to break them up a bit.
I also only used 1 T maple syrup per her note - glad I did that, as this was plenty sweet from the dates. Those dates… needed 2T extra boiling water to be mashable, and I’m still not sure I mashed enough.
I do think these would be good for breakfast on the road; maybe I’ll stick them in the freezer for an upcoming trip.
I’ve been wanting to try her recipe for Rissoles, Australian Beef Patties.
I’ve cut way back on beef and pork so this was a special treat. I doubled the recipe, used fresh thyme instead of dried because I had some, added chopped parsley and fresh basil, much more garlic (through the garlic press). I shredded the onion, zucchini, carrot on big holes of box grater. I wish she’d given cup measurements for the onion. I dried off zucchini with paper towels. Since I was doing 2 lbs of ground chuck, I used one big nonstick frying pan. I think the veggies gave out some water so I should have emptied the pan after the first batch. I sprinkled on sea salt after they were done.
I enjoyed these (others did, too) but I prefer my recipe for Italian meatballs, which have a lot more eggs, more moist. Welcome change. Good in a Hawaiian roll!
I served with Serious Eats Mashed Potatoes with russets. Two things I changed: after ricing the potatoes, I whisked in mixer with butter, 8 oz of room temperature cream cheese, then warmed milk. Remarkable how delicious the humble potato can be.
Tonight I made the pad see ew from the blog. I had to make a few substitutions: GF soy sauce for both light and dark, and broccolette instead of Chinese broccoli because that’s what was at the grocery store. The final dish was just meh and I don’t know if that was because of the soy sauce swap - there was definitely something missing. I’ll eat the leftovers but won’t make this again… which is a shame, because pad see ew is one of my go-to Thai restaurant orders. 
CRUSTLESS QUICHE - roasted mushrooms, leeks and goat cheese version.
Used 1 heaping cup of grated goat Gouda, 1 cup of roasted quartered baby Bella mushrooms, a heaping 1/4 cup of sautéed slivered leeks, plus the 5 eggs, 1 cup heavy cream, S&P. Dusted bottom of heavily buttered glass pie pan with grated Pecorino and also put a good layer of Pecorino on top but it still didn’t brown on top the way the picture on the blog shows. Added soft goat cheese blobs halfway through cooking. Delicious!! Vastly preferred to the ham and cheddar version. With mushrooms roasted and leeks sautéed ahead of time it was easy and quick to get into the oven when I woke up. Served to guests with baguette, we were all very happy.
RISOLES
I made these as written, but substituting Impossible for beef. Slightly smaller batch as Impossible comes in 12-oz packs. Oh, another sub was GF pretzel crumbs instead of panko, as I currently cannot find a decent GF panko (Ian’s, my previous go-to, has disappeared 
). Anyway, these were disappointing. Just kind of bland, compared to other ground beef/patty type things I make, like kofta. Served with Dr. Praeger’s carrot and potato tots (ick, never again) and corn from the CSA. Oh, and kimchi ketchup, which definitely saved the day.
Join us for Thomas Keller month!
Beef Soba Noodles with Green Beans [sugar snap peas]
This was really tasty. Used a half recipe for one serving. Changes I made: used a very small piece of leftover ribeye, used sugar snap peas instead of green beans, skipped fried shallots because I am not crazy about them so never have them around, used a whole scallion. I did find I enjoyed it more once I sprinkled some very hot Cobanero chili flakes on it so next time will plan to add thinly-sliced fresh chilis as garnish. And there will be a next time.
Note: I think any leftover protein - steak, chicken, pork, salmon, other fish - would work splendidly here. And if you have leftover protein and make the dressing in the morning this would get onto the table very quickly for dinner.
ETA: photo
Come nominate for a new month:
I really love Nagi’s blog and book … I know I’ll be cooking her recipes for a long while. Finally got around to making JAMBALAYA: https://www.recipetineats.com/jambalaya-recipe/ I took a few liberties … increased recipe by 50% for most items, washed the rice in cold water 5 times … been doing that for years, ever since I read about it in China Moon cookbook.
I used Aidell’s Cajun Andouille, chicken breast instead of thighs (I don’t like dark meat) and wild prawns (I wait for them to go on sale at WF. Takes a while to clean a pound of prawns!) I eliminated the bacon here since I think it’s such a dominating flavor.
My daughter eats almost everything but won’t touch bell peppers so I subbed poblano, anaheim and jalapeno. (Nagi just says to cut celery, peppers, etc. into pieces but doesn’t indicate any size.
I made the mistake of shopping late morning, starting the recipe after 3 pm. There’s a lot of chopping (onion + I added shallots and leeks) and a lot of dishes to wash … have to take breaks cause of bad knees. So, was not finished until 10:30 pm! Good thing it tastes great reheated or even cold! Instead of canned tomatoes I added roasted cherry tomatoes and about 1/2 cup Vermouth after adding the rice.
Seasoning mix: I discovered my tin of Hungarian sweet paprika had little black bugs running around inside so subbed a mild Kashmiri chili powder (I’ll but some paprika from Rainbow Co-Op soon!)
Mine was done after 22 minutes in the oven; pretty similar to paella.
Beef Chow Mein from the blog.
I followed the recipe pretty closely but did not use dark soy sauce and the lack shows up in the pale color. Will use it next time. Also next time, for my own preference, will use less noodles, more veggies, a bit more sauce and add fresh chopped ginger in about the same amount as the garlic. But this was very tasty, I am looking forward to the leftovers. Once you do the prep it comes together with breath-taking speed. I can imagine making this fairly often, doing the prep in bits and pieces during the day when I have 5 or 10 minutes here and there (working from home).
I have really enjoyed browsing her blog - she is very likeable! - and have oodles of the recipes marked to try. Very thankful this was a COTM, I might not have run across it otherwise. Her cookbook is on my wish list.
Two follow-ups: this reheated beautifully for lunch today in the microwave on power level 5 (thanks to the current microwave thread). When tossing halfway through I added a dribble each of soy and RedBoat fish sauce and that was excellent.
Also, you could really use any ground protein in this, including Impossible or Beyond. For that matter you could skip it and use several different veggies: lots of comments about adding capsicum, zucchini and other veg.
Thanks for your review and the link. I bookmarked it - it sounds good!
