Super Seafood Tray Bake!

Last night I had friends over for dinner in my new place for the first time and broke my own rule about not making something I've never made before when I have guests over... I broke the rule because:

• I have been dying to try this recipe from Jamie Oliver's app.
• It looked pretty fool-proof.
• I wanted to do something in the oven so we could chat and hang out while the food was getting ready (best way to eat with guests!)

Photo courtesy of Jamie's app since I totally forgot to take pics until we had devoured almost EVERYTHING!

I did not regret the decision! This dish was flavorful but light, ideal for a late evening meal. it was citrusy and minty, and the smell of the fresh parsley stalks as I cut them reminded me of my childhood for some strange reason I could not quite place...

It was the first time I bought fresh seafood at the wet market! It's weird but all the live fish have intimidated me for a LONG time and it was fun to finally overcome my squeamishness. But more than that I haven't really cooked with seafood very often before either, except for the odd grilled salmon dish or shrimp stir-fry, so it was nice to have this recipe to guide me!

The main ingredients were seafood (Jamie says any kind will do, and his recipe called for jumbo shrimp, shells off but tails still on, and scallops. I added squid to mine on top of that!) and tomatoes. Jamie says a variety of tomatoes, adding up to 1lb (around 450 grams) for 4 people, but it is hard to get much variety in tomatoes here in Shanghai. I ended up using some red cherry tomatoes, some orange cherry tomatoes and a large tomato on the vine. The carb that gave some sustenance to the dish was couscous, and it was light and flavorful!

Ingredients: (for 4 people)

• 8 sea scallops (getting these was hilarious; in the end I had to ask the guy at the market to please kill them for me!)
• 12 extra-large shrimp, shell off, tails on (it was a struggle with the lady at the market over this too! She insisted the heads were delicious, along with the "yellow stuff" inside them, and really wanted me to keep them!)
• 1 1/2 cups couscous
• 1lb mixed ripe tomatoes
• 1 cup jarred roasted peppers
• 3+1 cloves garlic
• 3 cups arugula
• 4 spring onions (Jamie calls them scallions. Also, the ones in China are tiny compared to the ones in Jamie's photos, so I used more than 4.)
• 3 lemons
• 1 bunch fresh Italian parsley (I have no idea what is meant by "Italian" parsley... I just used parsley!)
• 2 tbsp fennel seeds
• 6 sprigs fresh cilantro
• 6 sprigs fresh mint
• olive oil
• sea salt
• black pepper

How To:

• Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit/200 degrees Celsius.
• Quarter the large tomato and halve the cherry tomatoes, leaving the very small ones whole. Put them in a big mixing bowl. Then add the roasted red peppers (from a jar), roughly chopped.
• Slice up the spring onions finely, and add to the bowl of tomatoes with the juice of one lemon. Add some salt and pepper to taste.
• Pick the leaves off the parsley and separata them out for later; chop the parsley stems up finely (this is the smell that reminded me of my childhood!)
• Peel and finely slice the garlic cloves; pound the fennel seeds with a pestle and mortar. 

ASIDE:

I am such a disorganized cook! I pounded the stupid fennel seeds and then totally forgot to add them to my dish later on! Haha! I wonder how different it would have been...

• Bring some water to a boil in a saucepan or kettle, and meanwhile heat some olive oil in a frying pan and add the garlic, parsley and fennel seeds (I FORGOT THE FENNEL SEEDS!). Stir and fry until the garlic is golden, then add the dry couscous and stir so it gets coated evenly in the oil. 
• Add 1 and 1/3 cups of boiling water to the couscous and stir until all the water has been absorbed.
• Tip the couscous into the roasting pan and spread it out to make an even layer.
• Add the shrimp, scallops, and any other seafood (in my case, squid!) to the bowl of tomatoes, add some olive oil and toss to coat everything evenly. Then spread this somewhat evenly over the couscous.
• Drizzle everything with olive oil, add some salt and pepper, cover with aluminum foil and stick it in the hot oven!
• Cook for 30-40min (I left mine in a little longer, around 45, and it was fine!)
• While it's doing its thing, pick the leaves from the mint and cilantro, add to the parsley leaves and mince it all up really finely with the zest of one lemon and a clove of garlic.
• Wash and dry the arugula.
• Squeeze the juice of the zested lemon into a glass jar, add twice as much olive oil and some salt and pepper, cover the jar and shake. Use this to dress the arugula once dinner is ready to serve!
• Serve scattered with the chopped herbs, a squeeze of lemon juice and a side of lemony arugula. This dish was a huge success!

To be honest, the only problem is that we all might have eaten a little more if there was any left!

Note: Avocado Lady has the couscous, lemons, mint, parsley, arugula, and other foreign ingredients necessary for this dish! I bought the jar of roasted bell peppers at City Shop on Nanjing Rd.

Roasted Bell Peppers (the stuffed of legend!)

My dinner tonight was divine if I should say so myself...

I have made stuffed bell peppers myself before, mostly intuitively, putting in them rice, veggies, and anything else I found lying around. But tonight was different. Against my better judgment, I followed a recipe by Jamie Oliver after downloading his app, Jamie's Recipes for the iPhone. Now, I say against my better judgment not because I do not like Jamie Oliver but because I do not like recipes, nor do I ever really follow them. But I decided to download Jamie's app because it has good reviews, I have seen and enjoyed hi TV shows, and his app has a whole recipe package for tray bakes, my favorite way of cooking!

The finished product looked colorful and was absolutely delicious!

I love tray bakes because, in Jamie's words, "it's basically just an assembly job." Yes, I enjoy throwing things together and then just allowing the oven to do its thing while I do my thing. That's what cooking reluctantly is all about!

So anyways, the point is, Jamie's recipe was pretty mind-blowing. It was absolutely DELICIOUS and I  kind of felt sad that no one was around to share it with me, but happy it worked out and I can maybe impress some friends with this sometime. I don't usually cook for others when I am trying to make something for the first time... takes the pressure off ;)

These were the ingredients:

• 1 Red Bell Pepper
• 1 Yellow Bell Pepper
• 1 Ripe Tomato
• 1 Eggplant (Jamie's recipe said 1/2 but Chinese eggplants are so small... plus, what the hell am I going to do with half an eggplant in my fridge?!)
• 1 Red Onion
• 1/2 Head of Garlic
• Fresh Parsley, Mint and Thyme
• Lemon
• 1/2 Tablespoon Coriander seeds
• Kalamata Olives (I just used regular black olives in mine)
• Sun-dried tomatos
• 100g. (about 4 oz.) Feta Cheese
• Pine Nuts
• 1/3 cup of couscous
• 1/2 cup of chicken broth (Jamie says vegetable, but I was out!)
• Salt & Pepper to Taste
• Olive Oil 

Beautiful, fresh ingredients just for me :)

1. I chopped up the zucchini and eggplant into bite-sized pieces. I quartered the tomato and peeled half of the onion, cutting it into wedges. I put all these ingredients straight onto the roasting pan.
2. I picked the thyme leaves off the stems and discarded the stems. Then I ground up the coriander seeds using the mortar and pestle, separated the garlic cloves from each other, leaving the skins on, and setting 2 of the garlic cloves aside for later. I added the thyme, coriander and garlic cloves to the veggies on the roasting pan, added some salt, pepper, and a few glugs of olive oil and mixed everything up so the veggies were all evenly coated. I set this aside.
3. I preheated the oven to around 200 degrees Celsius (400 Fahrenheit). Meanwhile, I put the pine nuts in a non-stick frying pan over medium heat and moved them around until they were a nice golden brown (just a couple minutes).
4. I heated up the chicken broth in a saucepan and added it to the couscous in a large mixing bowl, which I then covered with a lid. While the couscous was doing its thing...
5. I minced the remaining half of the onion really fine and sautéed it in olive oil over very low heat, allowing it to get really soft but not brown. While it was heating up I minced the remaining 2 garlic cloves and added those in too. 
6. When the onion and garlic were done, I chopped up the olives and sun-dried tomatoes, picked the leaves off of the parsley and mint stems and chopped them up finely. Then I added the onion, garlic, olives, sun-dried tomatoes, pine nuts, parsley, mint, and the crumbled feta cheese, to the couscous. I mixed everything up with a fork and seasoned with juice of half the lemon, some lemon zest, salt and pepper.
7. I cut the bell peppers in half lengthwise and removed the seeds and the white foamy bits on the inside with a spoon (mostly my fingers to be honest.) Then I stuffed them with the couscous mixture and lay them over the veggies on the roasting pan. I wrapped everything in aluminum foil and put it in the oven!
8. It was in the oven for about 45min and then I removed the foil and allowed it to cook for another 20min. uncovered.
9. My house was filled with the most divine, citrusy-peppery-feta-cheesy smell EVER as I took the time to wash up the dishes and watch some TV...

This experience has taught me a few things:

• Pine nuts are amazing little things. I have not often cooked with them, except in the odd pesto sauce when I am feeling inspired (which is not often), but these little guys were an AMAZING complement to this dish. Their nuttiness was a great addition to the flavor but, more importantly, their texture did wonders for this dish, which can be a little mushy otherwise! If I ever make stuffed bell peppers again, even if I am not following this recipe, I will try to add some kind of nut to the dish, for the crunch :)
• I have totally undervalued thyme in my cooking. This zesty, lemony little herb deserves more of my attention! I will try to get some for my herb garden, so I use it more often.
• If there was one thing that could be improved, it was the fact that a lot of water was left in the veggies... I like my roasted veggies a bit dryer, so I would uncover them a little earlier next time, to dry the dish out a bit more.
• More roasted garlic in my life, please! The soft, white garlic, slipping out of its silky skin with the slightest pressure from a knife or fork, YUM! I hadn't added this to my roasted veggies in way too long and it's time to bring it back!
• I remember the value of recipes! Even if I don't follow this to the letter ever again, I learned a lot about combining some of these mediterranean flavors and ingredients, and feel more confident I can make something awesome on my own next time ;)

Hmmm... my plate was full and now it's empty :D

Making Homemade Yoghurt!

Good plain Yoghurt is hard to come by in China, and I love it! To be had with granola and fruit, to be had plain or drizzled with honey, to be used in salads and as a healthier substitute for sour cream... you get the picture!

To eat good plain yoghurt in Shanghai you have to either buy it imported (usually from Europe) at an exorbitant price, or be organized enough to order it from Bebemamie, which delivers weekly to your door but forces you to buy over 800g. (2 lb.) of fresh yoghurt every week for approximately $20 USD! I love yoghurt but even I can't get through 2 lb a week, and I like to have yoghurt on my own schedule, and while $20 for 2 lb is a good deal compared to eating the imported stuff, it's still pretty pricey...

I paid the equivalent of about $7 USD (including shipping!) for my "Little Bear" yoghurt machine and making my own fresh yoghurt at home is awesome! Not to mention it makes my foreign friends jealous! Not to mention it is so easy!

My yoghurt is fresh, unsweetened, and made with milk I trust (somewhat) so I believe I have less of a chance of consuming contaminated dairy. It also contains no preservatives and other chemicals, but for this reason it won't really keep for more than a week or so.

Steps to making your own yoghurt in China:

1) Purchase a yoghurt machine! I paid just 35RMB for mine (about $5 USD) on Taobao and it's been working fine for over 2 years now. I got "Little Bear" brand, but there are lots of others available.

2) To begin your first batch, you will need some fresh yoghurt to start your culture. I bought some Greek yoghurt at city shop for about 30RMB for a cup (almost the price of my machine!!). The good news is that you only really need to do this once.

3) The yoghurt machine basically consists of a plastic container that becomes warm, and a tupperware that fits snugly inside it. Before using it, pour boiling water into the tupperware and lid, and sterilize all the parts that will be in contact with the yoghurt.

4) Pour milk (I always use whole milk, for creamiest texture!) into the tupperware until it is near full. Then mix in a spoonful of plain greek yoghurt.

5) Plug in the yoghurt machine and let the yoghurt bacteria (Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus and Streptococcus salivarius subsp. thermophilus, according to Wikipedia) do their magic! You should keep the yoghurt culture in the machine for approximately 14-16 hours in order to get thick, creamy yoghurt.

6) When it's done, just unplug the machine and transfer the tupperware straight to the refrigerator. It will take at least a couple of hours for the yoghurt to chill completely.

7) Each time you make yoghurt, make sure to save a large spoonful to add to your next culture. That way, you won't ever have to buy the expensive foreign imports again!

Enjoy!!

The Avocado Lady

The Avocado Lady is a creature of legend among Shanghai expats, and a not so secret secret that everyone should know. If you live in Shanghai and you don't know the Avocado Lady it can be said that you do not really live in Shanghai, you merely exist here.

From the outside, the Avocado Lady's little produce shop looks like the myriads of other little local businesses!

The Avocado Lady is your one-stop shop for all sorts of produce that is hard to come by here in Shanghai, and China in general. While an increasing number of fancy foreign supermarkets have started supplying a lot of what this magical being has provided for years from her humble little shop, no-one can beat her prices!

It is a mystery to me to this day how and where she manages to source her imported products for so cheap (small, family-owned businesses usually find it hard to compete with the likes of Carrefour and Walmart when it comes to price!), or where this entrepreneurial woman got this wonderful idea in the first place.

She stocks hard to come by produce such as beets, radishes, arugula, nuts, fresh spices and cheeses and, of course, avocados, which she sells at the cheapest price I have ever seen in China.

On top of the produce, she also stocks an ever increasing array of imported goods such as wine, olive oil, jams and marmelades, breakfast cereals, canned goods... and on and on!

Inside the store, the shelves are laden with foreign goodies and fresh produce!

I came home on my bike the other day, my little basket heavy with the delicious things I picked up. I generally buy my regular veggies closer to my house, but for special things I simply cannot find at my regular produce stand, the wonderful Avocado Lady saves my day!

Beets, avocados, almonds, walnuts, arugula, radishes, olive oil, fresh mozzarella, coconut milk, cream and canned tomatos were some of the spoils from my latest visit to the Avocado Lady!

The Avocado Lady's shop is in Shanghai's French Concession at 274 Wulumuqi Rd, near Wuyuan Rd. The closest metro is the Changshu Rd. stop on lines 1 and 7.

In Chinese: 乌鲁木齐中路274号，靠近五原路。