Sometimes it feels good not to eat a full meal, heavy with meats, starches, vegetables, etc. I am here in California for a few weeks while I am going through the unending difficulties of renewing my Russian visa, and looking forward to the forthcoming difficulties of actually registering the visa within 3 days once I land back in Russia. So, I take these opportunities to take advantages of the flavors that I miss from California that are not available or cost-prohibitive in my city on the other side of the world.
You've seen some of the dishes I've been cooking in California; usually a full main dish accompanied by sides and filling enough to even be considered too much food. Although we love to eat in California, there is also a collective focus on healthy eating, flavorful ingredients, and portion control. It is considered healthier to eat more, smaller meals throughout the day rather than overwhelming your body with larger quantities of food in one sitting and then starving your metabolism until the next great feast.
I haven't concentrated on sharing only healthy recipes here. There are a lot better places written by more qualified people if that is what you are after. My goal is to share some of my favorite, most basic flavors that I remember from my childhood and still enjoy to cook. This is my personal recipe box that I am sharing, including the influences on each recipe by local ingredients I am forced to use to create flavors from opposite sides of the world. The appetizers I am about to show you have amazing flavor and are healthier than most.
Flavor usually means fats and proteins, and a lot of calories. The image of the perfect American family traditionally shows families sitting together for 3 meals a day, enjoying plentiful meats, cheeses, breads, etc. and that image persisted through the last few generations as normal and healthy. Family economics these days generally require two incomes and that leaves a lot less time for meal preparation, and health research has proven there are better habits to eating. One of them being, eating light at dinner, allowing your body to concentrate on more important functions than digesting, such as healing cells, organs, and repairing the day's effects. So, even though I enjoy a nice hearty meal as much as the next guy, sometimes it feels great just to have an appetizer night. I created some light appetizers that included some of my favorite flavors that are a bit more expensive or impossible to accomplish back in Russia.
I made 4 different appetizers for us, each with a distinct separate flavor. These are very simple to put together and take very little time. Most of the time is spent finding the ingredients, but when they are put together, it is well worth it.
Shrimp Ceviche on baby Chinese cabbage.
Garden fresh vegetables and herbs will help this appetizer taste very bright and the flavors are unforgettable. The ingredients we need are:
1 lb. (450 grams) small cocktail shrimp, cooked, shelled, and de-veined
1 young head of Chinese Cabbage
1 ripe avocado
1 yellow bell pepper
1 ripe tomato
3-4 radishes
fresh cilantro
1 lime
1/2 red onion (optional)
Completely rinse the cooked shrimp and dry thoroughly on paper towels. Place the dried shrimp into a medium bowl. Dice the tomato into small chunks approximately 1/8 of an inch (3mm). We are looking for small pieces because each bite will have many small pieces of each ingredient, so make them reasonably small. Place the diced tomato into the medium bowl.
Cut off the top and bottom of the yellow bell pepper. Then, you can lay the bell pepper on it's side and use your knife to cut along the inside, cutting away the ribs and waxy inside of the pepper flesh. You will be left with a nice, uniform strip of bell pepper. Cut this strip into 1/8 inch (3mm) strips, and then cut those strips into 1/8 inch 93mm) squares. You can use other colors if you can't find a yellow bell pepper. I use yellow because it adds to the color variety in the final dish. Add the diced bell pepper to the bowl.
Take each radish and cut the top and bottom off. Next, cut one side of the radish and lay that side down flat on the cutting board. Use your knife to cut off the two new sides, making a square. Then lay this square on it's side and cut off the final remaining side with red skin. Now you should be left with a white block of radish. Divide the block into 3 planks and then stack the 3 planks on each other and cut them 3 times into straws, then cut the straws into a small dice. Add the diced radish to the bowl.
To cut the avocado, use your knife to cut into it length-wise and rotate the knife around the seed, cutting the meat but not through the seed. Twist the two halves to separate them and use your knife to lightly hit the seed so the knife sticks into the seed. Twist the knife and seed together out of the avocado half, and using your fingers, pinch behind the seed so your fingers gently push the seed off the blade. Use a large spoon to separate the avocado meat from the skin and lay it flat-side down on the cutting board. Make one horizontal cut on each half, then dice them by cutting 3 or 4 times in each direction. Add the diced avocado to the bowl.
Chop some fresh cilantro and add to the bowl with the juice of 1 lime. Add a pinch of salt and pepper and stir all the ingredients to combine. Let the mixture sit a few minutes to combine the flavors while preparing the baby cabbage spoons.
Cut off the bottom 1 inch (25mm) of the cabbage head. We want the leaves to separate from each other, but we do not want the very middle to fall apart. When you pull out the very middle, you will see where you should cut the bottom again to separate the smallest leaves. Cut as little as you can, and pull apart the inner-most leaves to preserve the cup-like attribute to them. These leaves will hold our mixture. Reserve the larger leaves for another purpose.
Use a large spoon and fill each cabbage leaf with as much of the mixture as it will hold. If you end up with more mixture than leaves, you can use a toothpick to hold together larger leaves with the mixture inside, or simply put any remaining mixture into a small bowl and put it in the center of the plate with the leaves surrounding it. Garnish with a sprig of cilantro.
Prosciutto-wrapped cantaloupe
Cantaloupe is one of those fruits I have not seen in Russia and it is sorely missed. Every spring there is a definite onslaught of watermelon, and a few other melons I have not quite identified yet, but cantaloupe and honeydew melons are two that I always keep an eye out for and have been unable to find in Russia. So I took this opportunity to create this appetizer while I am in California. It's simple, it's basic, and it is not even relatively creative, however the flavor combination is truly worth revisiting often.
Simply cut a cantaloupe into 16ths, then cut each slice into half and wrap it with a slice of prosciutto. In Russia I will do something similar but since I can't find cantaloupe and prosciutto is twice as expensive as it is in America (which already isn't cheap), I will try wrapping a similar type melon with any thinly-sliced dry-aged meat we find locally. The contrasts of salty and sweet, meat and melon, will make every bite interesting.
Parmigiano Reggiano and pear stacked 'crackers'.
Aged Parmigiano Reggiano has a slightly crunchy, salty flavor which contrasts with the grainy, sweet pear perfectly. Thinly slice both the Parmesan cheese and the pears and stack them, alternating layers. The reason to slice them as thinly as possible is because we want to create more surface area on our ingredients. More surface area means more of that ingredient comes into contact with our tongue registering more flavor. And it's all about flavor, isn't it?
Bacon Wrapped Scallops.
Scallops is another food that unfortunately I have not seen in Russia. Since scallops are mostly found on the east coast of America, it's no wonder why they aren't on every restaurant menu and in every market of Russia too. Not to mention that only recently I have started seeing cured bacon in a couple of our local hypermarkets in Russia. Our familiar smoked, cured American bacon is a flavor that almost all Russians have never tasted and still remains quited expensive when I do find it. Bacon wrapped scallops is another one of those American flavors I make sure I find while I am here.
Fry the bacon in a pan, but it's important not to cook it until it is crispy. We still want the bacon to be flexible enough to wrap around our scallops.
Check your scallops. Many scallops can be quite large and can easily be cut in half to create a bite-sized appetizer. Cut large scallops in half, rinse and dry the scallops thoroughly. If you don't dry them well, they will not caramelize in the bacon fat. Once the scallops are wrapped, using a toothpick to hold the bacon around the scallop, return them to the pan of bacon grease. Fry each side only for 2 minutes. Do not move them around the pan, if they stick to the bottom they will release naturally as the cook further.
The hardest part about these appetizers, is getting one before they are gone! Be sure to make plenty if you have more than a couple guests coming. Sometimes it's really nice to just sample a few different flavors and enjoy a nice and easy appetizer night. These appetizers are some of my American flavors I wish I could recreate on the other side of the world. Who knows, maybe soon. Enjoy!!
You've seen some of the dishes I've been cooking in California; usually a full main dish accompanied by sides and filling enough to even be considered too much food. Although we love to eat in California, there is also a collective focus on healthy eating, flavorful ingredients, and portion control. It is considered healthier to eat more, smaller meals throughout the day rather than overwhelming your body with larger quantities of food in one sitting and then starving your metabolism until the next great feast.
I haven't concentrated on sharing only healthy recipes here. There are a lot better places written by more qualified people if that is what you are after. My goal is to share some of my favorite, most basic flavors that I remember from my childhood and still enjoy to cook. This is my personal recipe box that I am sharing, including the influences on each recipe by local ingredients I am forced to use to create flavors from opposite sides of the world. The appetizers I am about to show you have amazing flavor and are healthier than most.
Flavor usually means fats and proteins, and a lot of calories. The image of the perfect American family traditionally shows families sitting together for 3 meals a day, enjoying plentiful meats, cheeses, breads, etc. and that image persisted through the last few generations as normal and healthy. Family economics these days generally require two incomes and that leaves a lot less time for meal preparation, and health research has proven there are better habits to eating. One of them being, eating light at dinner, allowing your body to concentrate on more important functions than digesting, such as healing cells, organs, and repairing the day's effects. So, even though I enjoy a nice hearty meal as much as the next guy, sometimes it feels great just to have an appetizer night. I created some light appetizers that included some of my favorite flavors that are a bit more expensive or impossible to accomplish back in Russia.
I made 4 different appetizers for us, each with a distinct separate flavor. These are very simple to put together and take very little time. Most of the time is spent finding the ingredients, but when they are put together, it is well worth it.
Garden fresh vegetables and herbs will help this appetizer taste very bright and the flavors are unforgettable. The ingredients we need are:
1 lb. (450 grams) small cocktail shrimp, cooked, shelled, and de-veined
1 young head of Chinese Cabbage
1 ripe avocado
1 yellow bell pepper
1 ripe tomato
3-4 radishes
fresh cilantro
1 lime
1/2 red onion (optional)
Completely rinse the cooked shrimp and dry thoroughly on paper towels. Place the dried shrimp into a medium bowl. Dice the tomato into small chunks approximately 1/8 of an inch (3mm). We are looking for small pieces because each bite will have many small pieces of each ingredient, so make them reasonably small. Place the diced tomato into the medium bowl.
Take each radish and cut the top and bottom off. Next, cut one side of the radish and lay that side down flat on the cutting board. Use your knife to cut off the two new sides, making a square. Then lay this square on it's side and cut off the final remaining side with red skin. Now you should be left with a white block of radish. Divide the block into 3 planks and then stack the 3 planks on each other and cut them 3 times into straws, then cut the straws into a small dice. Add the diced radish to the bowl.
To cut the avocado, use your knife to cut into it length-wise and rotate the knife around the seed, cutting the meat but not through the seed. Twist the two halves to separate them and use your knife to lightly hit the seed so the knife sticks into the seed. Twist the knife and seed together out of the avocado half, and using your fingers, pinch behind the seed so your fingers gently push the seed off the blade. Use a large spoon to separate the avocado meat from the skin and lay it flat-side down on the cutting board. Make one horizontal cut on each half, then dice them by cutting 3 or 4 times in each direction. Add the diced avocado to the bowl.
Chop some fresh cilantro and add to the bowl with the juice of 1 lime. Add a pinch of salt and pepper and stir all the ingredients to combine. Let the mixture sit a few minutes to combine the flavors while preparing the baby cabbage spoons.
Cantaloupe is one of those fruits I have not seen in Russia and it is sorely missed. Every spring there is a definite onslaught of watermelon, and a few other melons I have not quite identified yet, but cantaloupe and honeydew melons are two that I always keep an eye out for and have been unable to find in Russia. So I took this opportunity to create this appetizer while I am in California. It's simple, it's basic, and it is not even relatively creative, however the flavor combination is truly worth revisiting often.
Aged Parmigiano Reggiano has a slightly crunchy, salty flavor which contrasts with the grainy, sweet pear perfectly. Thinly slice both the Parmesan cheese and the pears and stack them, alternating layers. The reason to slice them as thinly as possible is because we want to create more surface area on our ingredients. More surface area means more of that ingredient comes into contact with our tongue registering more flavor. And it's all about flavor, isn't it?
Bacon Wrapped Scallops.
Scallops is another food that unfortunately I have not seen in Russia. Since scallops are mostly found on the east coast of America, it's no wonder why they aren't on every restaurant menu and in every market of Russia too. Not to mention that only recently I have started seeing cured bacon in a couple of our local hypermarkets in Russia. Our familiar smoked, cured American bacon is a flavor that almost all Russians have never tasted and still remains quited expensive when I do find it. Bacon wrapped scallops is another one of those American flavors I make sure I find while I am here.
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