Mother's Day 2007

Another day, another cooking event, this time for Mother's Day. Much respect to chefs out there cooking for a living. Even though I cooked for 4 people today, it was still a little tough after the cooking marathon yesterday. Food still came out very tasty...

Menu
1) Mixed Greens with Roasted Mangoes, Goat Cheese, and Caramelized Onions
2) Broiled Red Snapper with Chorizo and Mussels
3) Pan Seared Shanghai Tips
4) Greek yogurt with dates, figs, and honey

Mixed Greens with Roasted Mangoes, Goat Cheese, and Caramelized Onions
Salad here is very interesting, since it has the sweet and spicy thang going on contrasting with the richness of the goat cheese. The textures of the walnuts and crispiness of the salad makes it interesting to eat.

Ingredients
3 Mangoes skin and seed removed, cut into slices
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Hot Sauce from a yellow or orange pepper (e.g. scotch bonnet or habanero)
Honey
1/3 cup water
Goat Cheese (the sharper the better)
1 Vidalia Onion sliced
Walnuts
Juice of 2 fresh limes
Salt and pepper

1) Roast mangoes in a 325 degree oven for 10 minutes.
2) While mangoes are roasting, saute onions in olive oil for about 10 minutes over medium heat. Salt and pepper onions immediately after place in the pan. Make sure they don't burn. You're looking for them to turn into a light brown, then to brownish color. Congrats - you just made caramelized onions...
3) Combine two of the mango slices in a food processor along with the juice of 1 1/2 limes, a touch of the hot sauce (to taste), the honey, a drizzle of the olive oil, and a little water. Puree it until smooth. You want the consistency of a salad dressing - add more water if needed. Adjust flavors (e.g. honey, hot sauce, salt, pepper etc.) if needed.
4) Combine salad with dressing and plate. Add caramelized onions, 2 slices of roasted mango, crushed walnuts, and goat cheese on top. Finish with extra virgin olive oil.

Broiled Red Snapper with Chorizo and Mussels
Got this from Jacques Pepin, tweaked it slightly, and it came out wonderful. I served this with some leftover Mexican rice and beans. The sauce from the mussels and chorizo are heavenly and match perfectly with the snapper. I could eat the crispy chorizo from the broiler every single day (but I would probably need an angioplasty)

Ingredients

2 pounds Red snapper fillets, scaled, and bones removed
dozen mussels scrubbed and beards removed
1/4 pound Chorizo sausage (i got them deli sliced, not what i wanted, but came out really good any way)
2 shallots
4 cloves garlic
fresh basil
1/4 cup white wine
salt and pepper

1) Place chorizo (reserve 1/4 of the chorizo) in a saute pan over low heat. Cook for 5 minutes until oil is released and chorizo gets crispy.
2) While chorizo is cooking, preheat broiler. Also, preheat oven to 375 degrees. Rub olive oil over snapper fillets and add a generous amount of sea salt and pepper to both sides of the fillets. Add chorizo slices on the bottom of the broiler. Place fillets on top of the chorizo in the broiler. Broil until skin gets crispy - maybe 7 minutes? Switch fillet and chorizo to oven and finish off (to make things easier use a toaster oven to broil and as the oven). Make sure it doesn't overcook...maybe another 5-7 minutes depending on thickness of the fillets.
3) While fish is cooking, remove chorizo from the saute pan. Saute shallots in chorizo oil until softened over medium heat. Add garlic and cook for 30 seconds. Add mussels and cook over high heat. Add white wine and cover for about 1 minute. Remove mussels that have opened in your serving plate. Cover and cook the remaining mussels that have not opened. If they still don't open after a 1 more minute, discard.
4) Add fish on top of chorizo and mussels. Make sure to get the juice from the fish and chorizo back in the serving plate. Add olive oil and fresh basil.

Pan Seared Shanghai Tips
Shanghai tips are like bok choy except the bottom part is more green, and I think it has way more flavor. I treated these vegetables like the Italians do, since they love to caramelize their vegetables a lot to bring out more flavor...this works on almost all veggies.

Ingredients
1/2 pound shanghai tips cut in half thoroughly washed
2 tablespoons Soy Sauce
2 tablespoons Chinese Rice Wine
4 cloves garlic thinly sliced
Peanut oil

1) Heat oil over in a saute pan over medium heat. Place shanghai tips cut side down. Cook until very caramelized on the cut side down and do not move the vegetables (maybe 5-7 minutes).
2) Add more oil if necessary and sautee garlic until fragrant (15-30 seconds)
3) Add soy sauce and cook for 10 seconds (soy should immediately form a glaze)
4) Add rice wine and cook for 10 seconds. Immediately serve.

Greek yogurt with dates, figs, and honey
A thick Greek yogurt, fresh cinnamon and nutmeg are key here. Nice rich dessert that doesn't make you feel gross afterwards.

Ingredients
1 cup Greek yogurt
6 dried figs
6 dried dates
tablespoon of honey
water
fresh mint
2 teaspoons freshly ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg

1) Place figs, dates, cinnamon, nutmeg, and honey in a saucepan and cover with water. Bring to a boil, lower to simmer and reduce until a syrup is formed. Put aside to cool.
2) Divide yogurt evenly into serving bowls. When syrup is cooled down, add syrup mixture (including dates and figs) into the yogurt and swirl around. Garnish with fresh mint leaves.