Pasta with a Spicy Peanut Sauce

Peanut butter is one of those things, you either love it or you hate it. And the funny thing is, these people that love it or hate it usually love it or hate it for the exact same reason ... because they ate it everyday as a child for lunch! What American didn't eat PBJ sandwiches as a kid? I qualify it as "American" since I'm starting to realize some of my blogging audience is not American.

Speaking of Americans and peanut butter. When my BF lived in Japan for a year, he made sure to take a huge container of PB with him. He knew it'd be difficult and expensive to get ahold of his beloved Skippy while he was out there. Although his Japanese is quite fluent with very little accent, he could still shock his Japanese friends and colleagues with his American-ness. And of course his love for PBJ sandwiches was a dead giveaway he wasn't "one of them" ... Though, I get this feeling his love for natto might have tricked them into thinking he was actually Japanese! (I love natto too!) You rarely meet a non-Japanese that loves this stuff. According to Anthony Bourdain its the vegemite of Japan!

Anyways, I've been trying to clean out the frig of random leftover ingredients. I had some napa cabbage, onions, carrots, scallions in the frig ... a chicken thigh in the freezer ... we always have a ton of pasta in our cabinets ... and of course PEANUT BUTTER! So I threw together this chicken pasta with a spicy peanut butter sauce.

Recipe for Pasta with Spicy Peanut Sauce

1/2 pound of a thin spaghetti
1 onion, thinly sliced
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1 chicken thigh, cut into bitesized chunks*
1/2 cup napa cabbage, thinly sliced
3 small carrots, cut into batons
1/3 cup peanut butter
2 T hoisin sauce
2 T sugar
2 T sake
2 T mirin
1 t soy sauce
1 T roasted sesame oil
2 T sesame seeds
red pepper flakes to taste
1 bunch scallions, chopped
1/4 cup cilantro, chopped

Cook spaghetti according to package directions. Before draining the pasta, keep a cup of the pasta water for later use.

Using the large pot you boiled your pasta in, saute the onions, garlic, and chicken in sesame oil over high heat. After the chicken is cooked, turn the heat down to medium, and add the napa cabbage and carrots**. Mix in the peanut butter, hoisin sauce, sugar, sake, mirin, soy sauce, additional sesame oil, sesame seeds, and red pepper flakes. The sauce will be pretty thick. Taste it to check the flavor, adjust to your liking. Turn the heat to low, and add the pasta and pasta water until it is at a consistency you prefer. If the sauce is still too thick to mix, add more water. Make sure to check the flavor since it will get watered down by the pasta and water. Turn off heat and serve with more red pepper flakes and chopped scallions. I usually love cilantro, but since this was a frig clean out, I didn't have any! But please add some if you enjoy cilantro.

*This can easily be made a vegetarian meal by not adding chicken or replacing it with a firm tofu.

**I add these later because I prefer these veggies tender crisp.

Mussels in a Saffron Tomato Cream Broth

I'm sure everyone has a similar story ... But when my boyfriend was a little boy, he got a blue highlighter (blue is his favorite color) that he was so excited about that he wanted to save it for a special occasion. He kept saving it and saving it. By the time he tried to use it, it was all dried out. :( So whenever we have something we're trying to save for a "special occassion", we have to tell ourselves "highlighter!" and make ourselves use it. I tend to do this alot when it comes to meats in our freezer or other special ingredients. Then I end up with freezer-burned meat. Yuck! It would have just been better to use it when I thought of it. I also have some free Starbucks coffee coupons from the VIA challenge that I should use, especially since those expire mid November. Anyways, back in August, I went to Greece and picked up some Santorini tomato paste and Greek saffron, but have been saving it to try make Bouillabaisse. "Highlighter!!!!" ... So since I had a bunch of leftover chopped shallots and garlic from my boyfriend's birthday dinner, I decided on a quick mussels dinner. As long as I'm at it, I ended up throwing in some spinach leftover from a week ago that still looked fresh enough.

Mussels are a great for a quick inexpensive dinner. It only takes about 5 minutes to steam open. Seriously easy! It looks impressive to make for guests, but it only costs about $3/lb at any decent Manhattan market. But if you're close to Chinatown, or already there, its only $3 for a 2lb bag! Though I've noticed that Chinatown ones are a bit gritty, so you have to make sure to incubate them with some cornmeal for about 30 minutes to get rid of the dirt in the mussels (when you do this the mussels will exchange will spit out the dirt and exchanges it for cornmeal).

Recipe for Mussels in a Saffron Tomato Cream Broth

2 lbs Mussels
2 T butter

2 large shallots, chopped (appx 1/2 cup)

2-4 cloves garlic, chopped

1 cup white wine

1/4 teaspoon saffron threads, crushed

2 T double strength tomato paste
1 T or more Red Pepper Flakes

1 tomato, chopped
1 T Soy Sauce (optional)

1/2 cup heavy cream or half and half

Salt and Pepper to taste

Bunch of spinach (optional)

If you think the mussels are going to be sandy/gritty, place mussels in large bowl or pot cover with cold water and about 2 T of cornmeal. Leave for at least 1 hour. Then drain and rinse with cool water.

Saute shallots and garlic in butter over medium heat in a pot large enough to hold all the mussels. I usually throw in some salt so that these sweat instead of brown. Cook until softened. Add white wine and cook down until reduced to half the volume. Add saffron threads, tomato paste, red pepper flakes, and chopped tomato. Cook until bubbling again. Then add mussels, mix around, and cover pot. It should not take too long for the mussels to open. I usually check every two minutes and then mix it around so all the mussels can be closest to the bottom (heat source) and open up. If you cook mussels too long, they shrink alot and get a bit chewy. After most of the mussels have open (about 4 minutes on my stove), mix in the soy sauce, cream, and spinach. Mix until the spinach has just wilted. Add salt and pepper to taste. I tend to like my mussels salty, since it gives a briny ocean taste to the plate. My boyfriend doesn't like "American" salt, but can take alot of soy sauce, which is still high in sodium, but okay since he's Japanese. This explains the soy sauce in the broth!

Serve over pasta or with a crust bread to mop up all the yummy sauce!

All done! Gochisousama deshita~~~!

Kimchi Quesadillas

So, I've been reading all over food blogs that Kogi truck korean short rib tacos are really popular in LA. It looks so delicious online. I'm originally from LA, but they didn't have these when I lived there. And now I live in NYC (uh, for 6 years now!), and we don't have a korean taco truck! I just didn't have the ingredients or time to make Kalbi tacos right now ... but, hmmm ... but what do I have in the frig? ... tortillas, kimchi, cheese, onions, scallions, and frozen thinly sliced pork belly ... Quesadila! I saw kimchi quesadillas on the Kogi truck are popular too! Brilliant! Boy did my man love these! We made it enough times to use up a large jar of kimchi just from making a bunch of these.

Kimchi Quesadilla Recipe
(for one quesadilla)

1 8-inch tortilla
1/2 cup shredded cheese (used pepper jack)
1/2 onion sliced
1 slice thinly sliced pork belly or bacon, chopped bite sized
1 stalk scallion sliced
1/2 cup kimchi, chopped and drained on napkin
roasted sesame oil or rayu (red pepper oil)
Sriracha for serving

In a 10-inch fry pan, fry sliced pork belly or bacon over medium high heat. After some of the fat has melted into the pan, throw in the onions. Remove pork/bacon once cook to perferred crispiness. Continue cooking onions until lightly browned. Remove onions, and wipe down the bacon fat so there is a small amount to cook the quesadilla in.

Assemble the quesadilla by putting half the cheese on half of the tortilla. Over the cheese, layer on kimchi, pork/bacon, onions, scallions, and then the other half of the cheese. Fold the empty half over the filling. Put a touch of roasted sesame oil or rayu on the pan over medium high heat. Once the pan feels hot, put the quesadilla on the pan. Fry until it is browned and crispy. Flip over and brown on the other side. Remove from pan and cut into 3 wedges. Serve with sriracha hot sauce.