Thai Satay Rice Bowls

This meal has been our family favorite for at least a year now. I'm not even sure how we started putting it all together?! We had all these parts and ideas we loved so we just started putting it all together to create something new. This is the result. You know I never blog anymore, but I've found myself having to piece all the parts together into texts when I'm giving others the recipe. Isn't that why I started Market to Meal to begin with? To have a place to share what we were figuring out? So here you go...Choose any or all of the toppings! Chicken should be marinating 6-24 hours ahead. 

Thai Satay Rice Bowls

To build a bowl: 

Base: Coconut Rice

Protein: Chicken Satay

Sauce: Peanut Sauce

Toppings and garnishes: diced mango and/or pineapple, sautéed green beans, strips of cucumber and bell pepper, cilantro, green onion, chopped peanuts, limes, microgreens...

When ready to assemble, place cooked coconut rice, diced chicken, and desired toppings in a bowl. Top with a drizzle of peanut sauce and a squeeze of lime. The combo of warm rice and chicken with cool veggies as well as the sweet and spicy mix is just perfect! 

Satay Marinade:

1/4 cup coconut milk

1 Tbs soy sauce

2 1/2 tsp yellow curry powder

1 1/2 tsp turmeric

3 cloves garlic, finely chopped

1 Tbs red curry paste

~1 inch ginger root, grated

1 Tbs brown sugar

1 Tbs fish sauce

1 Tbs oil

 2-3 boneless chicken breasts (or thighs) pounded to an even thickness

Combine everything for the marinade in a bag or container. Add chicken and marinate for at least 6 hours, overnight is even better. When ready, grill the chicken pieces and dice for the bowls. 

Coconut Rice

Cook 2 cups of rice in 3-4 cups of coconut milk, 2-3 pinches of salt, and a dash of olive oil. I do not use canned coconut milk usually--if you do, you can do part coconut milk and part water since it's thicker. I usually buy a box of unsweetened coconut milk off the shelf or something like unsweetened Silk brand in the refrigerator section. Rice will take 15-20 minutes covered over low heat on the stovetop to cook. Just like if you did it in water! 

Peanut Sauce

1/4 cup soy sauce
3 Tbs coconut milk
1/4 cup peanut butter
2 Tbs oil
1 Tbs vinegar
1/2 Tbs honey
1 tsp sugar
1 inch fresh ginger root, peeled and sliced
2 cloves garlic
1 small red chili, seeds and ribs removed
1/3-1/2 cup salted peanuts

To mix together sauce, put all ingredients except the peanuts into a blender or food processor. Pulse until garlic, ginger and chili pepper are pureed in. Add peanuts and pulse until they are crushed to desired amount. This can be made ahead and refrigerated til ready to use. 

The satay recipe is adapted from here.

Mardi Gras King Cake Cupcakes

It is Mardi Gras season in Louisiana! This is a favorite time of year for our family, and we love when visits to the US coincide with Mardi Gras parades! We are SO sad the parades are cancelled this year, but that hasn't dampened the spirit I'm seeing around town. A dreary, grey Thursday had me in the kitchen messing around with a few recipes for these cupcakes. This was the family favorite of the taste tests, so I wanted to document it here in order to not forget what I did! Ha! Enjoy! Laissez le bon temps rouler! 

Mardi Gras King Cake Cupcakes 

3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened

1 cup sugar

2 tsp vanilla

3 egg whites

1 2/3 cups all purpose flour

1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp baking powder

1/3 tsp salt

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt or sour cream

1/2 cup whole milk

Cinnamon Swirl

1/3 cup sugar

2 tsp cinnamon

Cream Cheese Frosting

8 oz cream cheese

1/2 cup unsalted butter

1/2 tsp vanilla

4 1/2-5 cups powdered sugar

Bring all cake ingredients to room temperature! Preheat oven to 350F (180C).

Whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon in a small bowl. Make sure to fluff your flour and gently fill your measuring cup, scraping the excess off the top. In a separate small bowl, stir together the sugar and cinnamon for the cinnamon swirl. Set aside.

 In a large bowl, beat together softened butter and sugar. Add vanilla and the egg whites, one at a time, completely blending after each one. Incorporate half the flour mixture. Blend in the milk and yogurt or sour cream. Finally add the remaining dry flour mixture. 

Put 16-18 paper liners in muffin tins. Using a Tablespoon or a small cookie scoop, place one spoon into each liner. Top with about 1/4 tsp cinnamon sugar mixture. Repeat. Finish with a third spoon of the batter on top. Do not fill more than 2/3s full. Bake at 350F (180C) for 18-20 minutes. Check for doneness by inserting a toothpick to see if it comes out mostly clean. It may have a crumb or two and that's ok! Remove cupcakes to a cooling rack. 

While cupcakes are cooling, make the cream cheese frosting. Beat together cream cheese, butter, and vanilla. Add powdered sugar a cup at a time until it reaches a texture that can be piped on to the cupcakes. 

Once cupcakes are cool, pipe on the frosting using a large decorating tip and bag. Sprinkle with purple, green, and gold sugar or drizzle with those same colors of icing glaze (see below). Enjoy! 

For the colored icing glazes, I mixed about 1/2 cup powdered sugar with a very small amount of milk and food color to get a fairly thick consistency I could drizzle or pipe on using a small bag with the corner barely nipped off! 

If you can't buy colored decorating sugar, you can make your own! 

Grandma Terrill's Rum Cake

 My Grandma Terrill passed away earlier this year. She was a feisty lady, to say the least. Quite opinionated to boot. I still remember a day I was visiting her while still in college. I believe I might have been moving from the dorms into an apartment. She told me no kitchen was complete without a pretty bundt pan, so she took me to buy one. In her own kitchen, the bundt pan was used primarily to bake rum cakes. It changed through the years whether she made the cake part with a mix or from various recipes, but no matter what, that cake was well soaked in a rum glaze and we'd all finish it quickly. She always had homemade cookies in a cookie jar, too, but her rum cake was always the favorite. Enjoy! 

Grandma Terrill's Rum Cake

For the cake:

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 cups sugar

1 small box vanilla instant pudding*

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

1/2 cup unsalted butter

1/2 cup oil

1/2 cup whole milk

4 eggs

1/2 cup rum

2 tsp vanilla

Pecan halves, opt

For the glaze:

1/2 cup unsalted butter

1 cup sugar

1/4 cup water

1/4-1/2 cup rum

2 pinches of salt

1/2 tsp vanilla

*I do not usually have access to instant vanilla pudding mix, so I add the following ingredients as a substitution into my dry mix:  3 Tbs sugar, 2 1/2 Tbs cornstarch, 2 1/2 Tbs dry milk powder, pinch of salt, 1 tsp vanilla powder. In this case, I would omit vanilla powder and just add 1 Tbs vanilla to the cake.

Bring cake ingredients to room temperature prior to beginning, including the butter, eggs, and milk. 

Begin by greasing and flouring a bundt pan and set aside. You can place pecan halves in the bottom of the bundt pan once it is greased and floured. The batter will be poured over them and add a pretty touch in the final product. Bites with a pecan are a treat, but omit if you don't like nuts. This was just the way my Grandma always did it. 

Place all dry ingredients into a mixing bowl and whisk together. Add the softened butter and oil to make a crumbly mix. Add milk and mix well. Beat in eggs one at a time. Gently combine in the rum and vanilla. Place cake batter into the prepared pan. Bake at 325F (165C) for 50 minutes to 1 hour. Test for doneness with a toothpick. When it is inserted and comes out clean, remove the cake and set on a wire rack to cool. 

Meanwhile, mix together the glaze. In a small saucepan, melt together the butter, sugar, rum, water and salt until combined and boiling. Reduce the heat and allow to simmer for 5-7 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla. 

While cooling, the cake will have separated slightly from the edge of the pan. Using a long, thin skewer, poke holes all over the cake. Pour hot glaze over, allowing to soak through holes and around edges of cake. Let cake continue to cool. When cooled, turn cake out onto a plate. The cake may stick and not easily release. You can try gently running a knife between the cake and pan, but this can be difficult with some bundt pans (this could also be made in 2 small/medium loaf pans). 

Enjoy! 

Buttery Homemade Biscuits

 Homemade biscuits have been a simple, humble affair my entire life. My grandmother and my mom do not do anything fancy--they just throw together some self-rising flour, oil and milk, cut, bake, and eat. So easy and quick! And these biscuits really work wonderfully for about anything. That said, sometimes a nice, layered, buttery biscuit might be more what you want. I'd call these more "restaurant" style. I've been throwing them together a lot in recent weeks--they require a bit more thought and a few more minutes, but they are well worth it and still easy! Grating the partially frozen butter, rather than cutting it in, is a simple hack that saves a lot of time. Enjoy! 

Buttery Homemade Biscuits

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 Tbs baking powder

1 1/2 tsp salt

1 1/4 tsp sugar

1/2 cup unsalted butter

1 - 1 1/4 cups cold, whole milk

*It will help if you place butter in freezer for 15-30 minutes prior to making!

Measure dry ingredients into a mixing bowl and stir until well combined. Working quickly, grate in the butter and stir to coat. Add 1+ cup of the cold milk. Stir gently and add an additional tablespoon or two if there is still flour in the bottom of the bowl. The dry ingredients should be completely added and the dough should only be a tad sticky or wet looking. Lightly flour the counter and place dough ball down. Gently flatten a bit, fold over, turn 90 degrees and repeat 2-3 more times. Be very careful not to overwork the dough. After folding 2-3 times, use hands to flatten to about 3/4-1 inch thick. Use a biscuit cutter or glass to cut out biscuits. Place on a cookie sheet with Silpat, parchment, or lightly greased. Bake at 425F (210C) for 10-12 minutes. Brush with melted butter after baked if desired.

This recipe will yield 9-10 large biscuits, or 14-15 smaller sized.

Lightly simplified from this Bacon, Cheddar and Chive Scone recipe! 

Jambalaya

Never did I think back in January when we made "quick" visit to the US that I would be displaced here for many months. I'm missing my notebook of recipes. I have a few things I've been making over the past few years which just remain scratched in a notebook in my kitchen. Luckily I found a photo of the jambalaya recipe I wished I had with me archived in an old group chat. Now I'm feeling the need to post a few recipes so I have them in this digital collection. So I can access them when I'm not home, when I didn't think I'd be gone so long I'd need to be cooking so much. Too bad all the crazy of this season can't be fixed by looking back in an old chat. But I'm enjoying the slowness to ponder and think about it. Let us not be found worried about the bombs...rather lets be found doing good and loving well. For me that is with food.

Jambalaya
1 medium green bell pepper
1 small-medium onion
3-4 stalks celery
4-6 cloves garlic, peeled
1 1/2 cups water
--
1 lb andouille sausage (other smoked beef or pork sausages work as well)
1-2 chicken breasts
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp Cajun seasoning (I like Tony Chacere's, but you can make your own as well)
--
2 cups chicken stock
1 Tbs Worchestershire sauce
1 tsp Cajun seasoning
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp thyme (1/2-3/4 tsp if ground)
3 bay leaves
2 cups rice

1-2 diced tomatoes (Or one can, drained)

Wash and roughly chop celery, onion, bell pepper, and garlic cloves. Place all these in the blender with the 1 1/2 cups of water. Puree together. Chop the chicken and sprinkle with 1/2 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp black pepper, and 1/2 tsp Cajun seasoning. Slice the sausage into bite size rounds.

In a lidded pot large enough to cook all the ingredients together, put a teaspoon or two of oil in with the chicken and lightly sear. It does not have to be fully cooked through. Add in all remaining ingredients except the rice. Bring to a boil. Stir in the rice. Put a lid on the pot and reduce the heat to low/simmer. Cook about 20 minutes, until the rice is done.

Variations: 

*Just use one meat if you want. Just chicken or just sausage is great.

*This is also wonderful with shrimp!

*In China, if I'm using sausage, I like using this Cajun-style sausage I get stuffed at markets in the winter.

Cajun Red Beans and Rice

For an expat, the question of "home" gets tricky. I was just thinking as I sat to write up this recipe that I've lived more of my life as an expat than I have in my passport country. I was going to start this by saying we call Louisiana home in the US. But we don't... We come from Louisiana, maybe? But I don't actually...just married in. My home is here. This place in China at this time. My kids don't really identify with anywhere in the US when they think of "home." But there is a whole lot of back story that brought me to now. There is a whole lot of southern US and western Africa and Asia that has influenced who I am and how I cook. Cajun food has become a bigger part of the picture too; as I said I married into that one. But you won't hear my husband say we're going "home" when we visit Louisiana. I think the Chinese for this is actually the perfect word--Louisiana is his 老家 (lao jia). Literally "old home." But the meaning is far deeper. Its where your family is from, maybe even where you grew up. It influences your story and who you are, but you are somewhere different now. I love making sure our family gets a taste of Louisiana culture here and there. We all know how to enjoy a good Mardi Gras parade and eat Cajun food at least. This red beans recipe is nothing pretty to look at, but it tastes great. I especially love making it in winter when I've been able to go to the local markets and get a Cajun sausage stuffed into casings. This has been one of our best china cooking hacks! But even meatless, this meal is good! Its pretty adaptable on the method--I usually do the slow cooker, but I'll tell you how to do it stovetop and you could easily do a pressure cooker too. Hope you enjoy!

Cajun Red Beans and Rice
1 lb (or 500g) dry kidney beans, washed
1 medium onion
1 medium green bell pepper
3 stalks of celery
1/2 head of garlic cloves, peeled
3 cups chicken stock
3 cups water
1/4 cup red wine, opt (or omit wine and sub a 12 oz beer for part of the water! An amber lager is my favorite.)
2 bay leaves
2 tsp cajun seasoning
1 tsp salt
~1 lb sliced andouille or cajun style sausage

In a blender, puree onion, bell pepper, celery and garlic along with the 3 cups of water. Pour this mixture into a slow cooker and add the dry beans, chicken stock, wine (if using), and bay leaves. Cook this on high for about 7-8 hours. You will need to check it after about 6 to see if you need to add extra water--even up to 2 cups. You can always cut the temperature to low as well. Once beans have softened, about 30-60 minutes before serving, stir in the salt and cajun seasoning. Adjust to taste from there. You can stir in sausage at this time as well. Serve over hot rice and enjoy!

Stovetop method: Presoak the beans overnight, then follow recipe accordingly. It will take it 2-3 hours to cook on the stove, covered and over a low heat.

Notes: You can use the slow cooker with soaked beans as well--maybe only need 6 hours on low if the beans have been soaked. You'll just have to watch liquid and know how your slow cooker does with other recipes. They aren't all created equal!

A good Louisiana native would simmer the beans with a leftover ham bone! I've tried that, but thanks to the hacking nature of butcher shops here, we ended up with a lot of bone chips in the sauce. 

All Things Pumpkin Spice

Its our first rainy, cool day of fall. I've been thinking for a few weeks that I was ready to roast some pumpkin for baking with. I bought a big Chinese pumpkin/squash (南瓜）last night and got it in the oven first thing this morning. It roasted in an hour or two and I quickly pureed it and got started. I chose Pumpkin Butter first. It is perfect for biscuits, toast, and bagels. My son dipped apples in it today. I had to follow the pumpkin butter with bagels. I even tried a batch of bagels substituting 1/2 cup of water with 1/2 cup of pumpkin puree and adding 2 teaspoons of Turmeric Twist, my current favorite spice blend from iHerb. Its a sweet blend of turmeric, cinnamon, and other chai type spices. The savory blend is equally amazing. You could also do about 2 teaspoons of pumpkin pie spice.

While I had a Vitamix full of pumpkin puree I decided to task a kid with making pumpkin bread. And if they kids make it, you can guarantee it will have chocolate chips added in. By this point I decided we should go all in and make some pumpkin spice syrup so I could have a latte too. My house has had all the wonderful smells today. And I still have about 1 cup of puree I could make something else with. Granola maybe? I haven't decided. But for today, my work is done. Just wanted to leave you with some inspiration for your own pumpkin spice making and baking and fall creations.

Start with making Pumpkin Puree. My nearly 4 kg pumpkin cost less than 8 rmb.

Try some of these:
Pumpkin Bread
Pumpkin Spice Granola
Pumpkin Spice Syrup for lattes or drizzling on about anything!
Pumpkin Butter 
Pumpkin Spiced Doughnut Muffins
Caramel Pumpkin Pie
Pumpkin Doughnuts
Whole Wheat Pumpkin Bars
Pumpkin Creme Caramel

These are the Chinese 南瓜 (nan gua) which I have always used. Pumpkins as we'd know from the US are harder to find and often only in more rural areas in the fall, but these are available year round. They work great for pumpkin puree.