Nước Mắm (fish sauce) Recipe

My friend Hanh taught me how to make this sauce at her house in Portland, Oregon during graduate school. We made this along with about 250 egg rolls. Nước Mắm is a Vietnamese condiment that is easy to prepare but you may want to open the windows in the kitchen before you begin to cook it as it emits a potent aroma. The end result, however, is a golden, briny sauce that is the perfect companion to the Egg Roll recipe that I will be posting this week.

Ingredients:
1 cup "Squid" brand fish sauce (see photo below)
2 cups water
1/2 cup vinegar
1 cup sugar
3 cloves garlic, diced
6-8 pickled leeks or scallions, chopped
Preparation:

1. In a medium sized saucepan, mix together the fish sauce, water, vinegar, and sugar.
2. Bring mixture to a boil over medium-high heat.
3. Lightly boil the mixture for about ten minutes, skimming off and discarding any bubbles as it cooks.
4. Let cool and then pour into a jar and refrigerate. It will last for about 2 weeks in the refrigerator.
   
5. When you are ready to use this sauce, add the garlic and leeks (or scallions) and serve with egg rolls.
   

Fish Sauce

Vietnam

Heading to Atlanta for the 1st Annual Atlanta Food & Wine Festival!

Photo (c) Flickr User jbudlo2

I'll be grabbing a red-eye tonight out of San Francisco for my maiden voyage to Atlanta for the 1st Annual Atlanta Food & Wine Festival. I'll be in Atlanta until Monday covering this event, which is being billed as a celebration of authentic Southern cuisine, wine and spirits.

You know I'm a sucker for a good food and wine festival, especially one with chefs like Chris Lilly, John Besh, and Tim Love involved. The organizers are patterning the event after the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen, which is the benchmark for these types of gatherings.

Here's what event organizer, Dominique Love had to say, "We're planning an experience like no other that will unite leaders of their craft - barbecue pit masters, award-winning chefs and mixologists, Master Sommeliers, fry cooks and local growers - to provide Festival guests the opportunity to sip, savor and learn about the best of Southern food and beverage traditions." Sounds good to me.

I do have a new, recently filmed breakfast video almost ready, so stay tuned for that, and as usual, I welcome you to follow along with all the fun on my Foodwishes Twitter account. Enjoy!

Whole Grain Gluten-Free Bread

Whole grain gluten-free deliciousness.

Just when you think you have it all figured out, life snakes you a curve ball and rattles your position. Just a little a bit. Just enough to make sure you're still awake, still paying attention. Because what is life about if not change? Change is the only constant. Change is our true companion.

Nothing stays the same.

Especially persnickety celiac tummies. I know this from readers. I know this from gluten-free bloggers. I know this from personal experience. We start at A, oblivious. We skip and stumble to D. We settle in. We think G or J is pretty cool. Then Q throws us into a tizzy.

We discover gluten is an enemy. Then maybe milk. Or mustard. Or kidney beans. You name it. Fill in the blank. Most of us with celiac disease end up with a few additional culprits on our Need to Avoid List. Maybe not right away. But over time, many of us will have to fine tune our repertoire of ingredients.

If we want to stay healthy.

If we want to grow stronger, not fatter.

If we want to feel trim, not bloated.

Which brings me to bread. (What celiac conversation doesn't lead to bread, I ask you?)


Continue reading

We Won a 2011 Saveur's Best Food Blog Award!

I am very proud and honored to announce that Food Wishes has won a second consecutive Saveur Magazine's Best Food Blog Award in the video category! A giant thank you to everyone who took the time to register and vote.

Through your support with these types of awards, you are directly helping get our videos in front of a whole new audience. That's what this is really all about. That, and bragging rights. Also, my hearty congratulations to all the other winners and nominees.

Cream of Green Garlic and Potato Soup – The Young and the Cloveless

I use so much regular garlic that to see the plant in its premature form always fills me with wonder and excitement. To think that these tender, scallion-like bulbs will eventually divide themselves into all those neat, paper-wrapped cloves fascinates me every time. Yes, I’m easily fascinated.

Green garlic, as I’ve come to learn relatively late in life, makes one hell of a good soup. Its flavor, once simmered slowly with potatoes and a bit of pork, is somewhere right in the middle between raw garlic and sweet caramelized onions. 


The role of pork in this soup is being played by chopped-up prosciutto scraps, who you may remember from such productions as Roasted Asparagus with Prosciutto and Poached Egg. It did a fabulous job, but even the most novice soup maker could figure out how to substitute ham or bacon. 

There are no secret tips or tricks here; this is about as simple a soup as you could ask for. As you’ll see in the video, we only pureed the large chucks, so this rustic soup had a little bit of texture to it. For me, this isn’t a soup that should be completely smooth. Like thornless roses, or radio-edit rap, it’s just not as interesting like that.

We still have more than a few chilly spring days ahead, so head out to the farmers market, or better produce markets, and grab some green garlic, so you can enjoy this fine soup. If you can’t find it, use leeks or green onions with some regular garlic instead. I hope you give this a try soon. Enjoy!

Ingredients:

1 tbsp olive oil

2 oz minced prosciutto

3 cups sliced green garlic

4 med russet potatoes

1 quart chicken broth

1/2 cup cream

salt and pepper to taste

cayenne to taste

chives to garnish

Sun Dried Tomato Calzone Recipe

This calzone recipe features all that is great about Mediterranean cuisine. The shell is highlighted by a hint of lemon zest and a dusting of Parmesan cheese. The filling includes 2 thin slices of prosciutto topped with fresh mozzarella cheese, diced onions, garlic, basil, oregano, and sun dried tomatoes.

Ingredients - dough:
1 cup warm water
1 package active dry yeast
1 tspn Kosher salt
3/4 tspn sugar
2 3/4 cups all purpose flour
zest of 1/2 of one lemon
1 tbsp olive oil

Ingredients - sauce:
oil from sun dried tomatoes (about 4 tbsp)
1/2 tspn dry parsley flakes
1 tspn crushed red pepper flakes
3 cloves garlic
1 tspn basil
1/2 tspn oregano
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar

Ingredients - filling:
prosciutto, thinly sliced
8 oz. fresh mozzarella, sliced
1 jar sun dried tomatoes (I used Bella Sun Luci)
1 yellow onion, diced

Preparation:

1. In a small bowl, mix together the warm water, yeast, salt, and sugar. Let sit for 20 minutes.
2. In a large bowl, mix together the flour and lemon zest. Make a small well in the middle of the flour and pour in the yeast mixture.
3. Knead the dough for 10 minutes. Coat the ball of dough with the olive oil and place it in a bowl covered with a kitchen towel. Let the dough rest for an hour in a warm place. The dough should almost double in size.
   
4. While you wait for the dough to rise, prepare the sauce. In a small saucepan, mix together the oil from the sun dried tomatoes, balsamic vinegar, basil, oregano, dried parsley flakes, red pepper flakes and garlic.
5. Heat the mixture over medium heat. When it begins to boil, remove pan from the heat then set aside.
   
6. After the dough has rested for an hour, turn the dough out of the bowl onto a floured, flat surface. Cut the dough into 4 equal pieces. Form each of the pieces into balls and place them back into the bowl. Cover the bowl and let sit for another 15 minutes.
   
   
   
7. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
8. On a floured surface, use a rolling pin to roll out each ball into a flat, round piece of dough that is about 8 to 10 inches in diameter.
9. Place 2 thin slices of prosciutto in the center of each piece of dough.
   
10. Place 2 to 3 thin slices of mozzarella on top of the prosciutto.
    
11. Next, place the diced onions on the mozzarella.
12. Chop up 4 to 5 sun dried tomatoes for each calzone and place the pieces on top of the onions and mozzarella.
    
13. Top each calzone with 1 to 2 teaspoons of the sauce and a teaspoon of Parmesan cheese.
    
14. Fold the calzone once to enclose the filling with the dough. Pinch along the edges or use a fork to seal the calzone. Cut a small slit in the top of each calzone.
    
15. Lightly baste the tops of the calzones with oil from the sauce and dust them with Parmesan cheese.
    
16. Place the calzones on a greased baking sheet and bake for 20 minutes.
17. Remove from oven and let the calzones cool for 20 minutes before serving.

Italy

Next Up: Cream of Green Garlic & Potato Soup