Posts Tagged ‘sort-of-Thai’

17 Jun

Deconstructed Thai Egg Salad

Posted by wooddogs3 in cooking, home food production, Ketogenic diet, Uncategorized, urban farm animals, urban homesteading, vegetable gardening. Tagged: , , , , , , , .

If you have chickens, there are inevitably times when you grow tired of eggs. I had one of those times recently and started to grope for a new way to think about egg salad. Since I love Thai food and keep a lot of the necessary seasonings around, some sort of Thai egg salad seemed like the perfect way to reawaken my enthusiasm. I wanted to make it quick and easy, too, so cupboard condiments played a large role. I used coconut milk, fish sauce, some artificial sweetener (people with no blood sugar problems can just use sugar,) Shark brand Thai  sriracha sauce (important, because it tastes very different from standard Vietnamese-style sriracha,) the excellent Hand brand Matsuman curry paste, and chopped peanuts, and all I added to them was eggs and sliced mint leaves.

For two people I started with three hard-boiled eggs each, and chopped them roughly leaving them in large chunks. I heated the top fat off one can of coconut milk, stirred in a heaping tablespoon of Matsuman curry paste, and cooked a few minutes until thick and smooth. I added fish sauce to taste and sweetened it a bit. I pooled this elixer on a plate, put piles of chopped eggs on top, salted the eggs to taste and then dribbled Thai sriracha (which is not very hot) liberally all over the eggs. Peanuts and sliced mint finish up the seasoning, and a bit of sushi ginger on the side is my own very weird addition.

If the eggs are already hard-boiled, you will be plating your lunch in about ten minutes. It’s ketogenic except for the sugar in the sriracha, which isn’t much. You can use your own sweet-hot dipping sauce for the dribbling if you prefer. The mint could be replaced with Thai basil or cilantro. I speculate that finely slivered leaves of lemon verbena might be interesting here but I haven’t tried it yet. This is of course in the Thai-ish category and I feel free to experiment and find new tastes.

This is a good time to say something about producing the best eggs you can: in addition to a good commercial laying pellet high in an Omega-3 source such as flaxseed, feed your chickens all the greens that they will eat and a good source of calcium. In addition to oystershell I save all eggshells, dry them in the microwave and grind them, and feed them back in any soft foods from the table or kitchen that I have occasion to give my birds. I grow alfalfa patches in the back yard so that I can cut fresh alfalfa for them. Chickens are busy little machines that convert the 18-carbon Omega-3 fatty acids found in plants, which we absorb poorly, into the 20 and 22-carbon Omega-3s EPA and DHA, which we absorb well. (More structural info here.) One small commercial egg producer who feeds this way says he has hit about 600 mg Omega-3s per egg, verified by testing. I haven’t tested mine, but when I watch my chickens chow down greens, I know that it’s happening and that they are the best eggs I can get.

 

19 May

Salmon in Springtime

Posted by wooddogs3 in cooking, edible landscaping, farmers market, fish and seafood, front yard gardening, recipe, salads, vegetable gardening. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , .

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Here in central New Mexico we are enjoying a cool and unusually wet spring, and the romaine lettuce is still in great shape. Our local Fishhuggers are back at the markets with lovely Alaskan sockeye salmon caught by Kenny, and there is no healthier meal. For some reason I like my warm-weather lunches to lean Southeast Asian, and this one is a bit Thai-ish.
I used romaine, green onions, and cilantro from the garden, a fillet of sockeye salmon, crushed peanuts, and the vaguely Thai dressing below, which I keep jars of in the refrigerator in warm weather. Put generous heaps of sliced romaine on plates, rub the fillet with salt, grill quickly ( on a hot Green Egg grill, about 2 1/2 minutes each side will do it,) let cool a bit while you chop the cilantro and green onions ( green part only,)break up the fillet and remove all skin and put chunks of warm salmon on the lettuce, scatter on a handful of chopped cilantro and green onions, dress generously, and sprinkle crushed peanuts over the top. Delicious and very quick as well as insanely healthy.

Sort-of-Thai dressing:
Large chunk of ginger, about 1″ by 3″, peeled and sliced
7-10 large cloves of garlic
1/4 cup coconut fat
1 tablespoon green curry paste
2 tablespoons fish sauce
1 cup water
1 can full-fat coconut milk
Sriracha sauce to taste
Artificial sweetener ( I use liquid stevia,) or sugar, and more fish sauce to taste

Finely chop the ginger and garlic, heat the coconut fat in a saucepan, and stir-fry the garlic and ginger until cooked and fragrant but not browned. Add the green curry paste, stir-fry about another minute, add the fish sauce and water and bring to a boil, add the coconut milk and cook just until it’s all melted and creamy, then remove from heat. Let it cool to lukewarm, taste, and add more fish sauce if indicated. Add some sriracha if you like it hot (I love hot food and use about a tablespoon,) and then add sweetener, if you are ketogenic or low-carb, or sugar if that’s still in your kitchen, slowly, tasting frequently. I like mine on the sweet side, to balance the heat. Let cool all the way and use or keep in the refrigerator for later use.
This makes a perfect lunch to eat outside.
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