Plated Week 10
Originally published at Soapturtle.net. Please leave any comments there.
This week was good. We enjoyed both dishes and I can see making our own versions of them at a later date.
Peanut Noodles with Bok Choy and Miso-Glazed Eggplant
This was tasty. Shmoo generally avoids miso, but was really happy with how it worked in this dish. I don’t think I’ve had a peanut-ginger flavored sauce before and I quite liked it, and the miso glaze on the eggplant helped it out quite a bit. The noodle sent was linguine again, which we still find odd for asian flavored dishes but for the most part I guess noodles are noodles. The egg plant did it’s job. It was the meat substitue of the dish, and that was fine. I would have honestly preferred some extra-firm tofu instead. Cubed and put in the miso-mirin glaze to marinate, possible overnight, would have been divine. Chicken would have also been good, but we both feel like the point of the vegetarian dishes is to be tasty and vegetarian, so we both sided on tofu as an eggplant replacement for this one.
Seared Steak with Bell Pepper Panzanella
Shmoo loves bell peppers so his statement about this one was “It was really good, I loved the panzanella and steak is always great!” This was the first time for both of us eating panzanella, and my first time eating an arugala based salad. I’ve been avoiding it ever since having an escarole salad a few years back that was supposed to be super tasty (shmoo did like it) but was way too bitter for me. Everyone says escarole is “spicy” but all I got was a mouth full of bitter. And I digress! Arugala was good. We’d do this one again for sure. I do think I’d do this as one dish though, instead of a salad and a meat I’d just put the meat in the dish (likely chicken that had been marinated in something, and then cubed about the same size as the bread) and call it done. When there are enough diverse flavors and textures in a dish, I don’t see much of a point in having the protein be on the side unless you really want a particular one, like say, steak, shrimp, lobster, etc.
We should have another desserts post soon, as shmoo is in the kitchen right now catching up on those.