This is the dish I crave when I am feeling a cold or the flu coming on—a big bowl of noodles topped with spinach and tender pieces of beef infused with garlic, ginger, anise, and cinnamon. The flavor gets better and better every time you reheat it.

1 teaspoon safflower or corn oil

Chile-Cinnamon Seasonings
6 scallions, trimmed, cut into 1 ½ inch sections, and smashed lightly with the flat side of a knife
6 cloves garlic, peeled, smash lightly with the flat side of a cleaver, and thinly sliced
4 slices fresh ginger (about the size of a quarter(, smashed lightly with the flat side of a knife
1 ½ teaspoons hot chile paste
2 cinnamon sticks
1 teaspoon aniseed

8 ½ cups water
½ cup soy sauce
2 pounds chuck or beef stew meat, trimmed of fat and gristle, and cut into 1 ½ inch cubes
10-ounces spinach, trimmed, rinsed, and drained
½ pound flat Chinese wheat-flour noodles, udon, or other flat noodles, such as fettuccine, cooked until just tender, rinsed under warm water, and drained
3 tablespoons minced scallions

1. Heat a large pot or casserole over medium high heat. Add the oil and heat until hot, about 30 seconds. Add the chile-cinnamon seasonings and stir-fry until fragrant, about 15 seconds. Add the water and soy sauce and bring to a boil. Add the beef and bring back to a boil. Reduce the heat to low, cover, and simmer for 1 ½ hours, or until the beef is very tender. Skim the surface to remove any impurities or fat. Remove the ginger slices and cinnamon sticks and discard. Add the spinach and bring to a boil.
2. Divide the noodles among six soup bowls. Ladle the meat, spinach, and broth over the noodles and sprinkle with the scallions. Serve.

6 Servings

Nina Simonds © 2011

Spunky Stir-fried Ramen

Walk around any city or town in Japan and you will see some version of this dish. When I’m rushed, which is most of the time, I use the instant “ramen,” discarding the flavor package, dipping the noodles in boiling water, and tossing them quickly in the sauce.
1 pound boneless center-cut pork loin, fat trimmed and cut into thin julienne strips

Marinade Mix together:
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 ½ tablespoons minced gingerroot
1 tablespoon minced garlic

4 ½ tablespoons safflower or corn oil
2 cups sliced onions, cut into thin julienne shreds
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper, or to taste
4 cups sliced Chinese Napa cabbage, stem section trimmed, slices laid flat and cut lengthwise in half, then into thin julienne shreds, leaf and stem sections separated
1 cup grated carrots
1 ½ tablespoons rice wine or sake

Sauce Mix together:
¼ cup soy sauce
3 tablespoons rice wine or sake
1 ½ tablespoons sugar
1 ½ tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
½ teaspoon toasted sesame seeds

¾ pound fine dried Japanese ramen, Chinese egg noodles, or angel hair pasta, cooked until just tender, rinsed, and drained

1. In a bowl, mix the meat with the marinade, toss lightly, and let marinate for 30 minutes.
2. Heat a wok or a skillet, add 3 tablespoons of oil, and heat until near smoking. Add the pork, stir-fry until the shreds separate and change color, remove, and drain. Wipe out the pan and reheat.
3. Add the remaining oil and heat over high heat until hot. Add the onions and crushed pepper, and stir-fry about 1 minute. Add the cabbage shreds. Toss lightly for 1 minute and add the carrots and rice wine. Cook for another minute and add the sauce. Heat until boiling. Add the cooked pork and the noodles, and toss lightly to blend. Transfer to a platter and serve immediately.

6 Servings

Nina Simonds © 2011

Shrimp and Pea Shoot Soup

This is the quintessential Chinese soup—an extra-light, fresh, and refined broth, brimming with barely poached seafood. Pea shoots are the delicate leafy tendrils of snow pea vines. They’re sold in Asian markets and specialty food shops. If pea shoots aren’t available, substitute snow peas or snap peas.
5 ½ ounces somen or other very thin noodles, such as angel hair, cooked until just tender, rinsed under warm water, and drained
2 pound medium shrimp, peeled, scored down the back, deveined, and rinsed
2 tablespoons Chinese rice wine or sake
2 teaspoons minced fresh ginger
1 teaspoon safflower or corn oil
1 tablespoon minced scallions (white part only)
2 teaspoons minced garlic
½ pound pea shoots, touch stems removed, wilted leaves discarded, and cut into 2-inch lengths
¼ cup Chinese rice wine or sake
5 ½ cups Chinese Chicken Broth
1 ½ teaspoons salt, or to taste

Chinese Chicken Broth
3 ½ pounds chicken bones, necks, backs, and/or pieces
9 cups water
1 cup Chinese rice wine or sake
6 slices fresh ginger (about the size of a quarter), lightly smashed with the flat side of a knife
1. Divide the noodles equally among six soup bowls.
2. In a medium bowl, combine the shrimp with the rice wine and ginger, tossing lightly to coat.
3. To make the broth, combine the chicken bones, water, rice wine, and ginger in a large pot and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to low and simmer, uncovered, for 1 ½ hours, skimming the surface to remove any foam or impurities. Strain through a fine strainer and remove fat. Measure out 5 ½ cups.
3. Heat a heavy pot over medium-high heat. Add the oil and heat until hot, about 30 seconds. Add the scallions and garlic and stir-fry for 15 seconds, or until fragrant. Add the pea shoots and rice wine, turn up the heat to high, and stir-fry for 30 seconds. Add the broth and salt and bring to a boil. Add the shrimp and simmer for about 1 ½ minutes, until they turn pink, skimming the broth to remove any foam or impurities. Taste for seasoning, ladle the soup over the noodles, and serve.

6 Servings
Nina Simonds © 2011

Nutty Soba Noodle Pot  with Chicken and Scallions

2 whole boneless, skinless chicken breasts (about 1 ¼ pounds)
3 tablespoons rice wine or sake
½ pound soba noodles
1½ teaspoons olive or canola oil
8 whole scallions, trimmed, and chopped (about 1 cup)
1½ tablespoons minced garlic
8 cups chicken stock, preferably low-sodium
3 tablespoons soy sauce
7-8 ounces baby spinach, rinsed and drained
2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil

1. Using a sharp knife, separate the two breasts. Cut the chicken crosswise into thin slices about 1/4-inch thick. Place the chicken in a bowl, add the rice wine, toss lightly to coat, and set aside.
2. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add the soba noodles, return to a boil, and cook for 3 to 3 ½ minutes until al dente or nearly tender. Drain and rinse under warm, running water. Divide the noodles evenly among 6 soup bowls.
3. Heat the oil in a casserole or Dutch oven until hot. Add the chopped scallions and garlic and stir-fry over high heat until fragrant, about 20 seconds.  Add the chicken stock and soy sauce and bring to a gentle boil over medium heat. Add the chicken slices and cook for 5 or 6 minutes, or until almost cooked completely, skimming any foam or scum from the surface. Stir in the sesame oil and the spinach leaves, cover the pot and cook for about a minute, until the leaves are just wilted. Taste for seasoning, adding more soy sauce if necessary.
4. Ladle the chicken, spinach, and hot broth over the noodles, and serve immediately.

6 Servings

Nina Simonds © 2011

Six Servings

I make this meal-in-one salad often at home. Vary the vegetables according to the season and substitute other cooked meats or seafood for the chicken.  Serve it with vegetarian wraps or flour tortillas.

6 cups baby salad greens

3 to 3 ½ cups cooked chicken meat, weighing about 1 ½ pounds

3 cups frozen, defrosted, and blanched corn or cooked, fresh shucked from 4 ears

1 pound or 2 ½ cups cherry tomatoes, cut in half

1 15-ounce can pink, pinto, or black beans, blanched briefly in boiling water, and refreshed in cold water, and drained

2 ripe, but firm avocados, peeled, pitted, and cut into ¼-inch cubes

2 cups good-quality store bought salsa (or homemade see below)

¼ cup chopped, fresh cilantro leaves

*Spicy Homemade Salsa:

1 ½  jalapeno pepper ends trimmed and seeds removed

1 tablespoon minced garlic

1 cup minced scallion greens

1 pound vine- ripened tomatoes, rinsed and drained

4 tablespoons freshly-squeezed lemon juice, (about 1 lemon)

1 teaspoon salt or more to taste

½ cup chopped, fresh cilantro leaves

1. Prepare all the ingredients as directed. Arrange the  greens in the bottom of a large serving bowl. Arrange the corn, cherry tomatoes, beans in separate concentric circles, with the cut chicken in the center. Arrange the avocados pieces on top.

2. Pour the store-bought salsa into a serving bowl. Mix in 2 tablespoons of the chopped, fresh cilantro. If preparing the homemade salsa, see recipe below. Sprinkle the remaining chopped cilantro on top. Serve.

* To prepare the homemade salsa, drop the jalapeno peppers and garlic down the feed tube of a food processor fitted with a steel blade while the machine is running, or into a blender, and chop finely. Add the scallion greens and pulse to mix. Add the tomatoes and pulse until coarsely chopped. Stir in the lemon juice, cilantro, and salt. Pour into a serving bowl and let stand for 30 minutes at room temperature, then refrigerate until ready to serve.

.

© Copyright Nina Simonds 2009

This is a transcript of “Pyramid on a Plate #3: Healthy Italian Food Exposed,” dated May 20, 2008.

Boy it’s hot back here.

Chef: You know what they say. If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.

I’m out of here. I can’t stand it!

Nina: Hi, this is Nina Simonds for Spices of Life. I’m thrilled to say we’re here for Gail and Walter Willett. We’re eating the pyramid, Italian style. We’ve ordered what are usually no-nos.

Walter Willett: Right. Ordinarily people are told to stay away from fried foods. But, frying isn’t really good or bad per se, it’s really what type of oil is used. We’ve checked this out with the kitchen, and the calamari is fried in non-hydrogenated canola oil. So this will be fun for us. I’m sure this will reduce your cholesterol and reduce your risk of heart disease.

Nina: Very often, what we do with this is give tips. So I think one of the first tips is ‘Ask Questions,’ right?

Walter: Absolutely. And one of the first things that you want to know if you’re going to eat something that is prepared with any kind of oil, is what kind of oil they use. I’m pretty aggressive about it. If they don’t know, I go to the back of the kitchen and ask to see the labels.

Nina: You? Aggressive?

Gail: Walter will actually ask if he can go in the kitchen and look at their labels. And they will sometimes look at him like “I’m not sure.’ But he’ll stand up and go.

Walter: This is an educational opportunity for the restaurant staff too. Everybody learns, and I make sure I’m going to have a healthy meal that way.

Nina: Second tip, is that we’re going to eat according to your wonderful pyramid. So we’ve ordered lots of vegetables, a fish and some chicken. We ordered some grilled vegetables with balsalmic vinegar and fresh herbs, which will be delicious. One of the things we try to do at Spices of Life is to show people how eating healthy can be delicious.

Walter: You can’t go wrong here.

Nina: I think that’s the message we need to give people that “healthy” is not a four-letter or five-letter or six-letter word. It really can be as enjoyable an experience as eating the other way.

Walter: In fact, it’s usually better. The less healthy foods – fast-food, that kind of stuff – are usually monotonous in flavor, bland, quite salty. Here we’re going to have tremendous variety. Whole grains have more texture, more flavor. This is going to be a better meal, than you would get eating unhealthily.

Nina: Another tip that Eleanor, the manager, said, is to ask about the source of the food, which is a really great idea. At many good restaurants the chef will develop relationships with local growers, or with very good beef and chicken places. I think that is the sign of a really great restaurant, if they know where the food comes from.

Walter: And it’s almost sure to be fresher and more flavorful if that is the situation.

Nina: Look at that! Isn’t that gorgeous? It’s beautiful!

Walter: Do you know where your vegetables are from?

Eleanor (Vice President of Operations): Yes. Most of them come from Sid Waner, who is a provider here in Massachusetts, that has all natural, organic farmers that are co-oped into helping them out. Then we also have Eva, who is a wonderful woman, down in Darmouth, MA, that does all organic herbs and all sorts of fabulous things. So a lot of those are coming from there. And Equinox Farms, which is also does organic farming in Massachusetts.

Nina: Fabulous. It’s gorgeous.

Walter: We want to hear about the source of the chicken.

Steve Brown (Co-head Chef): We bring this up through Cambridge Meatpacking, they call it FreeBird now, it’s in Amish country. A lot of the farms down there are organically raising their chickens. We found this was the most flavorful. We’re going for – it’s prime, it’s flavor, it’s tenderness. There is so much going on. And people are happy. We’re happy. We did all of the blind taste-testing, you know.

Nina: Oh you did? Wow. Blind taste-testing. So you guys are serious!

Steve: Oh we’re serious. So now we’ve reached where we want to be and other people are coming – try this, try that.

Nina: Here we have our next extraordinarily beautiful dish. This is the grilled scallops with whole wheat pasta and garlic chives. It’s an amazingly plentiful portion. How many scallops would you say, Walter? Would you take half of this?

Walter: That’s a whole big meal in itself. Oftentimes we might order two appetizers and one entrée and share the entrée.

Nina: Another tip!

Gail: Another thing you could do is take half of this home and have it for lunch the next day.

Nina: Exactly! So you don’t have to cook. Gail and I think in the same direction! This is Nina Simonds from Spices of Life. Thank you to the Willetts for eating the pyramid Italian-style. I think we did it in grand style, wouldn’t you say?

Walter: I was going to say this was a huge sacrifice.

Nina: And how do you say bon a petit in Italian?

Walter: Ciao! Bon a petito!