Spicy Balinese Long Bean Salad with Pan-Seared Tuna

Tim and I tried another recipe from my Lobong culinary experience in Ubud, Bali since many of the ingredients overlapped with the chicken satay and peanut sauce...  tonight's recipe was a pan seared tuna steak on top of a spicy, fragrant long bean and cabbage salad.  

And by "spicy," I really mean, "burned our faces off."  Oops.

Despite the excessively pedas salad, this dish was still good.  Perhaps next time I would use fewer chilis.  Far fewer. 

The recipe seems to be Chef Dewa's riff on the traditional Balinese dish, ikan bakar sambal matah, which is grilled fish with a raw chili sambal.  He put the sambal and fish on some veggies and made it into a healthy and fresh tasting salad.

Here's the recipe, adapted and with my notes:

Ikan Bakar Sambal Matah Salad

Adapted from the Lobong Culinary Experience

Ingredients:

100 grams of tuna (Tim and I upped the tuna factor and got one super fresh tuna steak each)

15 shallots, halved and sliced super thin (This measurement is for the tiny Indonesian shallots... if using regular French style shallots, maybe more like 4 or 5)

10 bird's eye chilis, minced (Based on my experience, I would recommend fewer unless you want to lose functionality in your lips and tongue) 

5 kaffir lime leaves, shredded

4 lemongrass stalks, tender center white part only, thinly sliced

1 piece torch ginger (My grocery store was out of this, so I improvised by grating/micro-planing about an inch long chunk of regular ginger)

100 grams of cabbage, shredded (Chef Dewa says crunchy romaine is a good substitute, too)

100 grams of long beans, sliced into pea-sized pieces (You could substitute regular green beans here)

Handful of cherry tomatos, halved

90 ml of coconut oil (I used the fresh coconut oil made by the Lobong family, which was delicious. The only problem: it had solidified in our air conditioned apartment, so I had to dip the bottle in warm water to loosen it up... didn't that problem when cooking outside at the Lobong compound... don't substitute this with another oil, though, as the coconutty flavor is essential)

Squeeze of lime juice (my addition)

Directions:

1. Toss all ingredients except tuna together in a salad bowl.

2. Lightly salt and pepper tuna steak, then sear both sides briefly in vegetable oil over medium-high heat.

3. Either top the salad with the tuna, or break the tuna up and gently toss it with the salad.

4. Enjoy and cross your fingers that you don't blow up from the heat of the chilis.

Roasted Salmon with Lime and Cilantro

Tim and I saw some salmon at our local butcher shop, and although it was clearly not local, it looked so good and so different from everything we've been eating over the past few months, so we got some.

We cooked them according to this recipe from the Other Martha- roasted until super tender and moist and then topped with lime juice, cilantro and a little bit of soy sauce.  Served with a side of garlic-sauteed green beans and couscous with garlic and green onion to soak up the sauce.  Delicious! 

Apricot Chicken and Roasted Garlic Green Beans

So, it's been a while since I've done any serious cooking, but I picked some good recipes to break that streak this week. We got a pound of super cute mini-apricots from the CSA this week and I wanted to use them in a savory recipe... Simply Recipes to the rescue! This apricot chicken recipe was really nice- sweet, a little spicy, a thick rich sauce...mmmm.Also, this green bean recipe is a keeper, for sure. I saw it on Daisy Cooks, but had trouble finding the recipe online. I improvised... roasted some garlic, threw it in my salad dressing whizzer-thing with a little bit of chicken broth, added salt and pepper, threw it over slightly sauteed green beans from the CSA, threw the cover back on for a few minutes and then served! Awesome and so easy.

Both recipes got two thumbs up from both Chuck and Tim. Tim said it was "the best apricot dish I've had since I got back from Armenia." He got back from Armenia last Friday. Thanks a lot, Tim.

Thai-Style Stir-Fried Chicken and Green Beans with Basil

I got the first of the season's green beans from the CSA this week and needed a simple but exciting way to prepare them that didn't involve going to the grocery store... couldn't deal with the crowds after a long weekend of Chicago-style drinking and an extra long day of workin' hard for the money.

A little Googling was all it took: Thai-style stir-fried chicken and green beans with basil. The recipe I used is a simplified (only about 7 ingredients!) version of this Thai staple: gai pad krapow. Mine was heavier on the green beans (1 lb) relative to the chicken (also 1 lb). And it was spicy and delicious. Try it.

Green Beans with Feta Vinaigrette

Originally, I planned to make this Green Bean Salad with Feta and Lemon that was in last week's Washington Post Food & Dining section, but after unsuccessfully searching for the requisite dill at two separate grocery stores, I decided to look for another green bean and feta recipe.

Google gave me this Green Bean and Feta Salad as the first hit, which is basically green beans, feta, and Vidalia onion with a vinaigrette. Pretty good, although the recipe made a TON of sauce. I didn't put it all on the beans. I also only let it marinate for like 30 minutes, not 4 hours. And I didn't cook the onion because I couldn't figure out what the recipe instructions were trying to get me to do with the onion... pour hot water over it? Meh.

Look closely at the photo and you can see my arm, nostrils and glasses. Photography = not my specialty.