Archive for the ‘#1 Go-To Recipes’ Category
Basic Crab Salad
I use imitation crab for this for this for several reasons, 1. I like it, 2. good sized black crabs are hard to get as nearly all are sold to restaurants. Crab salad is commonly called 'Seafood Salad' which I would say is incorrect as the only seafood is the crab, or in my case, fish that tastes like crab (yes, imitation crab is just fish). So Crab Salad it is, sounds much better than "Fish Flavored Like Crab Salad." You can make this many ways so it is different each time. This is just a common salad I put together. Enjoy.
Ingredients
- 500 grams imitation crab, (1 lb)
- 1 red onion, finely diced
- ½ cup celery, finely diced
- ½ cup mayo, start with less and use as needed
- ½ teaspoon paprika
- ½ teaspoon dill
- ⅛ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon black pepper
Instructions
- Unwrap the crab sticks and slice them at an angle, add to mixing bowl.
- Dice the onion and celery and add to the bowl. (Chopped cilantro works well if no celery on hand, which is what I used.)
- Add remaining ingredients, but for the mayo, start with less than 1/2 cup. Gently mix everything together until all is coated with mayo, adding mayo as needed but not trying to make it dripping with mayo as well.
- Cover and place in the fridge for 1-2 hours before serving. (Once I put the salad in a container for the fridge, I added some halved cherry tomatoes and mixed those in.)
- When serving, gently mix the salad again. then serve. Serving options can be just as a side, on a bed of lettuce, or in a sandwich. Enjoy.
Notes
Tesco brand crab sticks, which taste perfectly acceptable, will cost about 95 Baht for 500 grams. For 4 servings this is about 68 cents per serving.
Variants: 1. Add halved cherry tomatoes. 2. No celery on hand? No problem, add ½ teaspoon of celery seed if you have that or use chopped cilantro. 4. Add ¼ cup sliced black olives. 5. Add ½ cup grated or cubed Cheddar cheese.
Sauteed Chinese Sausage
This is a basic recipe and I want to write this to make it easier, or rather better, for more enjoyable Chinese Sausage. In Thailand there is many brands of this sausage, don't look in the refrigerated or frozen meat section, this is air dried sausage and is shelf stable when it is packaged, so just look on a shelf. I am going to use the most common one, called Lap Cheong, which is the Chinese name and is a sweet sausage. My mother in law received several packages of this a few years back, from Northern Thailand, a very good brand. The family was excited about this but mother in law told everyone, no one cooks it except my wife, her daughter, her other daughters were not allowed to cook it. So I cooked a dish for the family and it was very well liked by mother in law, who stated, ok, now the only ones that may cook this for her is me and my wife. The secret to good Chinese sausage, steaming. Steam whole, then slice, then saute.
Ingredients
- 4 links Chinese sausage
- 2 cloves garlic, smashed and minced
- 1 onion, diced large
- 2-3 spring onions, chopped into 1-2 inch pieces, white and green
- 1 tablespoon soy sauce
Instructions
- First thing we need to do is soften the sausages, we are going to use a steamer of your choice, I will use my rive cooker with a steamer basket it came with. Add a 1-2 cups water to the steamer pot, when boiling, add the sausages to the steamer tray, cover, and steam for 15 minutes.
- Remove the sausages to a cutting board and slice about 1/4 inch thick (or a bit less) at an angle. This is for appearance as well as making a larger piece of sausage. The sausage is hot so use tongs to hold them while you slice.
- Heat a large non stick pan on medium heat, when hot, add the sausage and garlic, stir often. Lot of sugar in this sausage so it will burn rather quickly. Cook until the garlic is starting to brown.
- Then add the onion and spring onion, continue stirring often to crisp up the sausage and soften the onions. Stir in the soy sauce.
- Serve with sides of your choice.
Notes
Low cost.
My own creation, Lee Thayer.
Thailand.
Thailand.
Potato & Chinese Sausage Hash
I like potatoes and I like Chinese sausage, so here is something I just threw together as I always seem to have the main ingredients on hand, hash with an Asian twist. The sausage is a sweet variety and gives the hash a different flavor. Overall, easy and tasty dish. Link to the Shortcut is listed in the Recipe Notes section.
Ingredients
- 3 medium potatoes, diced
- 3 Chinese sausage
- 1 onion, diced
- 1 red bell pepper, diced
- pepper, as desired
- lard, or cooking oil, (Shortcut)
Instructions
- Potatoes scrubbed and ready for dicing. I totally forgot to add the onion and bell pepper to the board for the photo. oh well, not a show stopper. Now the sausage is air dried but not safe for consumption yet.
- Chinese sausage is stable at room temp before opening the package and refrigerated after that. This is a hard sausage, and a trick to get it soft is to steam it first before adding to a dish. The steaming also cooks it mostly through. The 3 sausages added to my hot steamer (rice cooker).
- Steam for 20 minutes. Here you can see the sausage has swelled up a bit. After 20 minutes, remove them to a cutting board and dice them.
- While the sausage is steaming, heat some lard or cooking oil, maybe 2-3 tablespoons, in a large non stick pan on medium heat. While the pan is heating, dice the potatoes and add them to the hot pan and give a good shake or two of pepper if you like.
- Then add the bell pepper and onion and mix into the potatoes.
- When the sausage is ready, dice that and add to the pan.
- Continue cooking until the potatoes are browning up and tender.
- Serve with sides of your choice.
Notes
Red Radish Salad I
I love red radishes so this salad sounds really good. I made this on 6 Oct 2018, excellent taste, and my wife loved this. A small amount is perfect as a side as it has a strong flavor.
Ingredients
- 5 large red radishes
- 1 cups white vinegar, or rice vinegar
- 1/2 cup sugar
- pinch salt
- pinch black pepper
Instructions
- Wash the radishes and thinly slice, the use of a mandolin is highly recommend.
- In a large mixing bowl, add the vinegar, sugar, and salt, whisk until the sugar is dissolved.
- Add the sliced radish, mix, then season with pepper as desired, a pinch or two. If there is not enough liquid to cover most of the radishes, mix in equal parts water and vinegar, then place in the fridge for at least an hour. This salad will last 2-3 days in the fridge.
- For serving, think as a salad, or mixed into a lettuce salad, or as a burger or hot dog topping.
Notes
Low cost.
Variants: 1. Add thinly sliced onion to the radishes. 2. Use rice vinegar in place of white.
Recipe adapted from Just A Pinch Recipe Club, Julian Esquivel, and the original recipe is here.
United States.
United States.
Jimmy Dean Sausage
A copycat recipe in 4 flavors; Regular, Maple, Sage, and Hot. Sounds good and I look forward to making this. To clear up any misconceptions, pork butt is from the rear part of the shoulder, NOT the back legs.
Ingredients
Regular
- 500 grams pork butt, cut into 1 inch cubes, (1 lb)
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon dried parsley
- 1/4 teaspoon ground sage
- 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
- 1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
- 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper
- 1/4 teaspoon ground coriander
- 1/2 teaspoon MSG, optional
Maple
- 500 grams pork butt, cut into 1 inch cubes, (1 lb)
- 3 tablespoons maple syrup
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon ground coriander
- 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
- 1/2 teaspoon MSG, optional
Sage
- 500 grams pork butt, cut into 1 inch cubes, (1 lb)
- 1/4 teaspoon garlic salt
- 1/2 teaspoon dried parsley
- 3/4 teaspoon ground sage
- 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
- 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
- 1/4 teaspoon ground coriander
- 1/8 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1/4 teaspoon MSG, optional
Hot
- 500 grams pork butt, cut into 1 inch cubes, (1 lb)
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper, or to taste
- 1/4 teaspoon rubbed sage
- 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
- 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
- 1/4 teaspoon ground coriander
- 1/4 teaspoon MSG, optional
Instructions
- For all flavors of the sausage, the steps are same. Start with cutting the pork but into 1 inch cubes.
- Mix the ingredients for each flavor into the cubes.
- Run the meat through your meat grinder.
- Mix again by hand, cover and place in the fridge for 6 hours or overnight, this lets the flavors blend. Bowl won't fit in the fridge? No problem, place the meat mixture on foil and wrap it.
- Form mixture into patties, or stuff into small diameter casings, use or freeze for later use.
- Here it is in patty for getting ready to go into the freezer. Place parchment paper between each patty.
Notes
Pork butt will cost about 70 Baht/500 grams. 500 grams will make 1 lb of bulk sausage or 6 links, each link being just about 2 3/4 oz. This is about $2.12 for 1 lb of bulk sausage or 6 links. Estimating bulk to be used in a dish with minimum 4 servings, this is about 54 cents per serving. If estimating 1 link per serving, this is about 36 cents per serving.
Used in Recipes Listed on this Site:
- Potato & Breakfast Sausage Skillet.
- Breakfast Sausage Casserole.
- Best-Ever Beans & Sausage, made it, GO-TO recipe.
- Crustless Quiche, made it, GO-TO recipe.
Sausage, Peppers, and Onion (Slow Cooker)
This is my twist on the classic Sausage, Peppers, and Onions dish prepared in a skillet on the stove. Simply slow cook and it is delicious! I added a can of whole tomatoes, chopped, with the tomato juice for the liquid. You need a large slow cooker to make this as listed.
Ingredients
- 900 grams sausage, see Step 1, (2 lbs)
- 2 red bell peppers, diced
- 1 green bell pepper, diced
- 1 yellow bell pepper, diced
- 1 onion, diced
- 1 can whole peeled tomatoes, chopped plus juice (this is about 2 1/2 cups)
Instructions
- For the sausage, I use what is sold as 'sausage scraps' which are the cut offs from larger sausages to make a uniform weight, this is what they come like in the package, already cut. The large pieces are very much like kielbasa or a good summer sausage. As you can see the colors and sizes are different, based on the meat used, as well as the seasoning. Some have black pepper, chilis, garlic, basil, etc. These come in 100 gram (about 1/4 lb) packages. For this I used 9 packages. If you are using kielbasa or a sausage of your choice, just slice it up to bite size pieces.
- Place the sausage in your slow cooker.
- Dice the peppers and onion, and add those to the slow cooker. (I state 2 red bell peppers as ours here are much smaller than the green and yellow ones.)
- Mix everything together.
- Pour the juice from the can of tomatoes into the slow cooker, then chop up the tomatoes and add them to the slow cooker, and give another stir to mix everything again. Place the lid on the cooker and set to High setting and cook for 5 hours.
- Finished. And you can see, the sausage will swell up a bit during cooking.
- Serve with rice on the side for a nice meal.
Notes
I cannot really price this per serving yet. The sausage I used and in the photos here were free when you bought a package of bacon. I will say Fair cost per serving now until I can track down the regular kielbasa.
My creation, Lee Thayer.
Thailand.
Thailand.
Breakfast Sausage Casserole
This casserole is wide open to changes, and it is delicious! What I like to do is make breakfast for dinner so this worked out very well. Instead of breakfast sausage, think bacon or ham. Link to the Shortcut is listed in the Recipe Notes section.
Ingredients
- 4 slices sandwich bread, white or wheat is fine
- 500 grams bulk breakfast sausage, (Shortcut)
- 6 eggs
- 2 cups milk
- 1 tablespoon prepared yellow mustard
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
- 1 cup Sharp Cheddar cheese, grated
Instructions
- Heat a large non stick pan, when hot, add the bulk sausage, break it up with the your spatula, brown it until no more pink is visible. Drain well and set aside. If using bacon, fry that to crispy, drain on paper towels and crumble it up. If using cooked ham, cube that.
- Preheat your oven to 180 C (350 F) and grease a 7x11 baking dish with butter or spray with an olive oil mister.
- Tear up the bread into small pieces and place in the baking dish, spread them out evenly.
- Spread the sausage, bacon, or ham, on the bread.
- In a mixing bowl, whisk the eggs, then add the milk, mustard, salt, and pepper. Whisk until combined.
- Pour the egg mixture over the sausage in the baking dish.
- Sprinkle the cheese on top of the casserole.
- Place in the oven uncovered and bake for 35 to 45 minutes or until set in the middle, check with a toothpick.
- When done, remove from the oven, let the casserole rest 5 minutes. The casserole will be puffed up a bit, it will collapse down after 5 minutes.
- Slice.
- Serve and enjoy.
Notes
This is low cost if making the breakfast sausage yourself.
Shortcuts: Breakfast Sausage, Jimmy Dean Sausage.
Variants: 1. Replace the sausage with cubed ham or cooked and crumbled bacon. 2. Replace the Cheddar with Monterey Jack. 3. Add chopped mushrooms.
Adapted from an internet recipe.
Quail Egg Potato Carrot Soup
This is a very good soup, and well liked by the family. Link to the Shortcut is listed in the Notes section.
Ingredients
- 30-40 hard boiled quail eggs, peeled, or canned, Shortcut
- 4 medium potatoes, diced
- 2 carrots, chopped or rangiri (see Notes)
- 2 quarts vegetable broth, fresh or from powder, (8 cups)
- 7-10 spring onions, sliced, white and green
- 6 shallots, sliced, or 1 purple onion
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon black pepper
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- fresh parsley, chopped, for garnish
Instructions
- Veggies ready.
- Veggies prepped.
- Add the broth, potatoes, and carrots to a medium size pot and bring to a boil.
- While the pot is heating, heat the oil in a non stick pan on medium high heat, when hot, add the shallots and garlic. Saute for a few minutes until the shallots are translucent and tender.
- When the pot is boiling, add the shallots and garlic, reduce heat to a low boil and cook until the potatoes and carrots are tender, about 20 minutes.
- When the potatoes and carrots are tender, add the quail eggs and spring onion and stir.
- Reduce heat to low and let the eggs warm through. Season with the salt and pepper.
- Spoon into serving bowls, garnish with chopped parsley, serve and enjoy.
Notes
Low cost per serving.
Option for the carrots: Use a Japanese style of chopping carrots, called Rangiri, which is basically, cut a piece of the carrot off at an angle, then rotate the carrot ¼ turn, cut another piece off at an angle, repeat the turning and cutting. This makes for bite size pieces, and a larger surface area giving two uses, first, it absorbs more of the stock flavor, and second, it cooks faster with a larger surface area.
Shortcut: Perfect Hard Boiled Quail Eggs.
Variants: 1. Use mushroom or chicken stock in place of the vegetable broth. 2. Straw mushrooms, halved would be a great addition to this soup.
Seasoned Black-eyed Peas (Pressure Cooker)
I made these on 23 Sep 2018 and I must say, these are good beans! I used my 9 liter (9½ quart) stove top pressure cooker for these. Follow all safety precautions for your model of pressure cooker.
Equipment
- Pressure Cooker
Ingredients
- 500 grams dry black-eyed peas, soaked 6-8 hours, (1 lb)
- 250 grams bacon, chopped, (8 oz)
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 tablespoons butter
- 1 onion, diced
- 1 green bell pepper, diced
- 1 red bell peppper, diced
- 8 cups chicken stock, fresh or from powder
- 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
- 1 tablespoon Worcerstershire sauce
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin
- ½ teaspoon chili powder
- ½ teaspoon celery seed
- 2 teaspoons dried oregano
- ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
- salt and pepper, to taste
For Plain Black-eyed Peas
- 500 grams dry black-eyed peas, soaked 6-8 hours, (1 lb)
- 2 tablespoons olive oil, very important
- 8 cups water
- salt and pepper, to taste
Instructions
- Rinse the beans and place in a large container, cover with 1-2 inches of water. Leave on the counter to soak for 6 to 8 hours. If soaking overnight, place in the fridge to prevent the beans from fermenting.
- When you are ready to start cooking, drain and rinse the soaked beans. Set the beans aside.
- Heat the oil and butter in your pressure cooker with the lid off, when hot, add the onion and saute for a few minutes.
- Add the garlic and bell peppers, saute to just soften them, a minute is fine.
- Add the apple cider vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, cumin, chili powder, oregano, stir together.
- Add the chopped bacon and stir in.
- Add the chicken stock and beans, and stir together.
- Place the lid on the pressure cooker, add the weight (jiggler). Turn the heat up to high. When the weight starts to move and release pressure, turn the heat to low or medium in order to maintain the jiggler moving and venting pressure (indicating you have full pressure.) Set your timer for 5 minutes.
- When 5 minutes have passed, turn off the heat, and carefully move the pressure cooker to an unused burner and allow a natural release of pressure, basically, just let the pot sit there until you have indication of zero pressure, 15-20 minutes.
- When the indication is zero pressure, pull off the weight (jiggler), then remove the lid. Taste the beans and adjust seasoning with salt and pepper as desired.
- Serve as a side dish.
Notes
Spanish Garlic Mushrooms
Champinones Al Ajillo for the Spanish speaking folks. These are very good, can be a side dish or served as a hot appetizer or snack.
Ingredients
- 10 white button mushrooms, large, quartered
- 5 cloves garlic, smashed and minced
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 tablespoon lemon or lime juice
- 2 tablespoons dry sherry, or 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar + 1 tbsp water
- ¼ teaspoon smoked paprika
- salt and pepper, to taste
- ¼ teaspoon red chili flakes, optional
- 1 tablespoon fresh parsley leaves, chopped
Instructions
- Heat the oil in a non stick pan on medium high heat, when hot, add the mushrooms and saute for 2-3 minutes to start them browning.
- Add the remaining ingredients except for the parsley. Saute for another 5 minutes, basically stir frying.
- Remove the pan from the heat, stir in the parsley.
- Serve as a side, hot appetizer or snack. Enjoy.
Notes
Low cost, local grown button mushrooms for 35 Baht/110 grams, is about 25 cents per serving.
Variant: 1. Use Straw mushrooms halved instead of quartered.