Author Archives: Jenn - Chivalrous Cooking

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

July 30, 2014

Posted under

Appetizers, Salads, Sides, Veggies

Comments

6 Comments

Strawberry Fields Salad

Strawberry Fields Salad

I haven’t been doing my part in our joint blog so Nate coerced me in writing this one or else he wasn’t going to post anymore. 😛 Nate and I threw an intimate dinner and game night about a week ago so I’m deciding to share a small piece of what chef Nate had prepared. Today, I will be presenting a super easy quick recipe that is perfect for summer. It’s a strawberry balsamic salad with feta cheese. I’ve actually been eating this salad for several days since it was so yummy (mostly because I can’t cook). It’s really great for lunch or as an addition to a main course.

Main Salad Ingredients

  • Spring Mix
  • Walnuts
  • Strawberries
  • Feta Cheese

Salad Dressing Ingredients

  • Lemon
  • 1/2 cup EVOO
  • 1 tbsp Strawberry Balsamic
  • Pinch of Salt
  • Dash of Pepper

Recipe

  • To make the salad dressing, mix all the ingredients listed above in a small bowl.
  • Cut the lemon and squeeze the juice into the dressing. Mix well.
  • Slice the strawberries thinly for the salad
  • Mix the spring mix, strawberries, and walnuts together
  • Now add the strawberry balsamic dressing to the salad
  • Add fresh feta cheese as desired

That was pretty easy right? I don’t even think I needed the steps for the recipe. The feta cheese wasn’t too overpowering since it was balanced well by the sweetness of the strawberries. Overall, it was an awesome start to the meal and was our only veggie for that night. Bon appetit! 🙂

 

 

Advertisement
Image

Posted by

Posted on

April 29, 2014

Posted under

Food Discoveries

Comments

1 Comment

It’s Summer in San Francisco!

French Custard Froyo

This is a SMALL serving. SMALL! *Pardon my flaking nailpolish

It is RIDIC hot in San Francisco. Like 85 degrees. No joke. All the ladies came into work today with sleeveless sundresses on. After our weekly team lunch, I was suffering from a massive mexican food induced coma. Definitely didn’t help that I was resting on a nice leather couch by the window. I decided to venture outside since it was so freaking nice (and super rare!) to go and grab some froyo to wake me up. I came across Caffe Ambrosia while I was yelping for some frozen treats when I gave up ice cream for Lent. And man, this place is GOOD. It’s a pretty hole in the wall cafe and hard to spot since it’s literally in an alley. My go to flavor is the French Custard and I’ll usually add some toasted almonds and crushed up Oreos. Super simple treat and they give very, generous portions. The texture is super smooth and the taste is more like soft serve ice cream than you’re typical tartiness of other frozen yogurts. Tummy is happy.

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

April 29, 2014

Posted under

Pasta & Noodles, Recipes

Comments

3 Comments

Chicken Pesto Pasta

DSC_0031

Happy Monday! I was pretty surprised Nate was up to do another dish for the blog today. That’s 3 in a row! I was thinking once a week was going to be our average quota. Nate opted to do a noodle based dish today, so I persuaded him to do pasta!  Mostly because of my love for cheese and the fact that his basil plant was starting to wither. He forgot plants needed sun. After going on a quick run to Trader Joe’s after work, we were set to start cooking.

This is the recipe Nate used.

The Dish:  Chicken Pesto Pasta

DSC_0003

Ingredients:

  • A Couple of Chicken Breast
  • 2 cups of Basil (or all of his potted plant basically)
  • Cherry tomatoes
  • Heavy Cream
  • Pasta (we used linguine)
  • 1/2 Cup of Parmesan Cheese
  • 3 cloves of Garlic
  • Olive Oil
  • 1/3-1/2 cup of walnuts or pine nuts
  • Salt & Pepper

Steps

Pesto Sauce
Adding tomatoes

Pesto Sauce:

  • Add 1/3-1/2 cups of walnuts and 3 cloves of garlic to a food processor and pulse it a few times
  • Add the basil and pulse a few more times
  • Slowly add the 1/2 cup of EVOO and pulse a bit more (scraping off all the sides)
  • Add the 1/2 cup parmesan cheese and pulse it yet again
  • Add salt and pepper to taste

Pasta

  • Boil the water and salt it accordingly to cook your pasta
  • Heat the pesto in a pan with a little EVOO and stir it
  • Add as much cream as you deem necessary (We ended up adding more than we originally planned to thicken it, but it didn’t turn out super creamy)
  • Add some tomatoes
  • Salt and Pepper to taste
  • Add the pasta and mix thoroughly

Chicken

  • Salt and pepper
  • You can grill it or pan fry it (He used a pan, since he can’t have a grill at his apartment)
  • Cook throughly
  • Cut and enjoy!

Here is the final product!

Add the grilled chicken
Needs more cheese!

After the two major fails (see below), Nate’s dish actually came out as a major success! He was very impressed with himself, which he claims is hard to do. Obviously, I added more parmesan cheese to my pasta. The pasta wasn’t as heavy as I expected which is how I prefer it. It was pretty light dish overall and I loved the nutty and crunchy texture of the pesto. We paired our pasta dish with a light side salad as well to balance out the heavy carbs.

Stay tuned tomorrow for our next noodle dish!

Cooking Fails

**Please don’t be as clumsy as we were

Dropped a whole box of linguine unto the floor
Poor blue saucer

 

Standard

Posted by

Posted on

April 26, 2014

Posted under

Meat, Recipes

Comments

Leave a comment

Fried Kimchi Burger

Kimchee Burger

The Dish: Ground Beef Burger topped with deep fried kimchi, shoestring onion rings, egg, cilantro, green onions, cheese, and a spicy aioli.

Our first ever post! Hopefully we don’t disappoint. After drooling over PornBurger’s So Kalbi Maybe burger the day before, Nate was inspired to recreate his own version of it. We decided to forgo a private gala at the Cal Academy of Sciences, and instead, spend a night experimenting with this hunk of deliciousness. Nothing better than a fresh homemade burger topped with spicy kimchee, spicy aioli, and a runny egg on a rainy Friday night.

Please note that Nate made most these steps up while cooking. Try at your own risk.

Ingredients for Burger

  • 1.5 lbs of Ground Beef (Makes ~6 patties)
  • loose leaf lettuce
  • cheese as desired
  • kimchi
  • 1 brown onion
  • eggs
  • cilantro
  • green onions
  • salt
  • pepper
  • hot sauce (i.e. garlic chili sauce, sriracha, etc)
  • mayonaise
  • soy sauce
  • sesame oil

Preparing the Burger

*Disclaimer: measurements are all relative since Nate pretty much just guesses. Feel free to do the same according to your own taste buds.

  1. In a bowl, add ground beef, 2 tbsp hot sauce, 1/4 cup soy sauce, 2 tsp of sesame oil, salt and pepper to taste
  2. Mix well
  3. Form patties to your liking (remember that the patties shrink, which created a problem for one of them)
  4. Fry the patties to your liking – add cheese if you are into that
  5. Fry an egg to your liking, but I highly suggest letting it run a little
  6. Toast your buns (heh…)
  7. Assemble your burger with the onions, kimchi, and aioli (see below)
  8. Add a few chopped green onions and sprigs of cilantro to taste

Preparing the Batter for Fried Kimchi & Shoestring Onions

We used this recipe for the batter. Just dip the onions and kimchi in it and fry the shit out of them

Preparing the Spicy Aioli Sauce

Mix the mayo and some of the same hot sauce you used earlier (or different one, whatever you want) to taste.

DSC_0043

Mandatory Cut of the Burger

DSC_0045

All in all, it was really good! A deceptively filling burger. Nate and I were fully satisfied after 1.