THAI PORK TENDERLOIN SALAD

I’m going to try not to dwell on how far behind I am. Recapping all this summer’s successful recipes is apparently going to be an impossible task, so let’s skip ahead to fall—but first, I’d be remiss if I didn’t tell you about the year’s top salad, as far as our household is concerned. Coincidentally, it’s the second recipe in a row I’ve posted from the New York Times, which I normally don’t follow foodwise, but considering it’s given me double slam dunks, I may need to remedy that.

This salad shares some DNA with our fave peanut-lime chicken rice noodle salad, including, unfortunately, being something of a pain in the ass to put together. I’m not going to lie: Assembling the marinade is pretty time-consuming. I’ve made recipes with longer lists of ingredients and more steps, but somehow this one contains just the right combination of chopping and mincing and juicing and zesting to add up to a massive time suck. I recommend doing it the night before, so the pork can marinate for 24 hours, but make sure you’ve got something quick and easy planned for dinner that evening, because this marinade is a full-time kitchen job in itself.

The good news is that everything else about this recipe is A+. In a genius move, some of that laborious marinade will be reserved (separate from the raw pork, of course) to serve as your dressing as well. The resulting salad is flavorful, refreshingly crunchy, chock-full of a rainbow of vegetables, and enjoyable year-round (perfect for bridging the awkward, sweltering gap that lies between summer and actual fall in SoCal, and which I complain about annually). It’s a champion leftover generator in both quantity and quality—with sturdy cabbage as the base, you can store it all mixed together in grab-and-go servings (I hate dragging a million different little containers to work for meals that can’t be assembled until just before eating). It has pork, which I’m getting more and more fond of (a nice break from the 74 chicken recipes I’ve accumulated over the years), and yields the most perfectly cooked tenderloin I’ve ever managed to make, with little to no effort. Also, cashews and toasted coconut will never fail to delight me.

A few other notes:

• The original recipe was titled “Spicy Thai Pork Tenderloin Salad,” but I didn’t detect much heat either time I made this. I used just one jalapeno, so next time I might try two, or the Thai bird peppers instead.
• I couldn’t fit 8 cups of sliced cabbage in my largest mixing bowl, so I had to scale back to 6, which turns out to be plenty for six generous main-dish servings.
• I also cut back on the herbs. I’m usually the one doubling the cilantro in recipes, but 4 cups of herbs to 8 cups (or 6 in my case) of cabbage seemed a bit excessive, especially when that included a full 1½ cups of mint, which can be so overpowering.

Marinade/dressing:
1½ pounds boneless pork tenderloin
⅔ cup thinly sliced shallots (about 4 shallots)
⅔ cup chopped cilantro leaves and tender stems
5 tablespoons light brown sugar
6 garlic cloves, minced
5 tablespoons soy sauce
5 tablespoons peanut or grapeseed oil (I just used olive oil)
Juice and zest of 4 limes
3-inch piece peeled ginger root, minced
2 tablespoons Asian fish sauce
½ teaspoon kosher salt
1 to 2 Thai bird, serrano or jalapeño chile peppers, seeded and minced

Salad:
6-8 cups Napa or regular cabbage, thinly sliced
5 scallions, trimmed and thinly sliced
2 small Kirby or Persian cucumbers, thinly sliced
1 red bell pepper, thinly sliced
1 cup cilantro leaves
¾ cup mint leaves
1 cup basil leaves
1¼ cups roasted cashews or peanuts, toasted and chopped
¼ cup unsweetened coconut chips or large flakes, toasted

1. Pat pork dry with paper towel. In a bowl, combine shallot, cilantro, 2 tablespoons sugar, garlic, soy sauce, oil, lime zest and juice, ginger, fish sauce, salt and chile. Pour a quarter of the mixture into a blender, add remaining sugar and purée until a smooth, loose paste forms. Place tenderloin in a large bowl and spread the paste all over pork. Marinate at room temperature for 2 hours, or cover and refrigerate up to 24 hours; turn the tenderloin occasionally.
2. Save the remaining, unblended mixture to use as dressing (store, covered, in the refrigerator).
3. When ready to cook the pork, preheat the broiler and arrange the oven rack at least 4 inches from the heat. Place the pork on a wire rack and place the rack on a foil-lined baking sheet. Broil pork, turning occasionally, until well browned and meat reaches an internal temperature of 145 degrees, 4 to 10 minutes per side depending upon the heat of your broiler. Keep an eye on it so it doesn’t overcook. (You can grill the pork instead if you prefer.) Let meat rest while you prepare the salad.
4. In a large bowl, combine the salad ingredients, reserving the herbs, cashews and coconut. Whisk the dressing and use just enough to dress the salad, tossing to combine. Let sit for a few minutes for the flavors to meld, then right before serving, add herbs and toss again.
5. To serve, slice the pork. Arrange salad on a platter and top with sliced pork. Scatter cashews and coconut on top, and drizzle with a little more of the remaining dressing, to taste.

Serves: 6-8
Time: 2 hours, plus 2 to 24 hours of marinating
Leftover potential: Great. The mixed and dressed salad will stay relatively intact in the refrigerator for at least three to four days.

BBQ CHICKEN PIZZA WITH CILANTRO SLAW

So it’s official: I don’t hate cabbage anymore. I’m not apt to look at a recipe and think, “Ooh, cabbage!” but I’m willing to admit that there situations when its cool crunch is welcome. Each time I make fish tacos, I find myself piling on more and more cilantro-lime slaw, and maybe eating any leftovers straight out of the serving bowl with a spoon. And when I saw a photo of a barbecue chicken pizza topped with slaw in Cooking Light last year, it actually looked like a good idea. I always feel the need to serve a salad with my BBQ pizza since it’s the rare meal in my arsenal that’s pretty much vegetable-free, so why not just throw the salad right on top?

I didn’t use CL’s recipe, but I’m grateful for the inspiration. Fresh, crisp, colorful, and tangy, an easy cilantro-spiked slaw plays perfectly with the sweet heat of the barbecue sauce and elevates the pizza from good to fantastic. The first time I made this, I cautiously sprinkled a pinch onto each slice; now I pile on as much as the crust will bear. Trust me, as a reformed slaw-phobe: If you’re making this pizza, you should make the slaw too.

Slaw:
2 teaspoons cider vinegar
2 teaspoons olive oil (or canola oil)
1 dash sugar
Salt to taste
¼ to 1/3 small head of cabbage, cored and thinly sliced
1 medium carrot, grated or julienned
1 generous handful chopped cilantro (or to taste)

1. In a medium-large bowl, whisk together the vinegar, oil, sugar, and salt to taste. Add the cabbage, carrot and cilantro and toss well.
2. Let sit for at least 15 minutes, until the cabbage is softened. While it’s marinating, make the BBQ Chicken Pizza.
3. Before serving pizza, top each slice with a generous spoonful of slaw.

Serves: 4 (you may have a little slaw left over)
Time: 5 minutes for the slaw, about 1 hour for the pizza
Leftover potential: Good! One of the things I like about cabbage is that, like kale, it makes a great do-ahead salad because it can sit in its dressing with no ill effects; the slaw will keep in a covered container in the refrigerator for several days. Store it separately from the pizza, and spoon it on after you reheat the pizza.

BAKED EGG ROLLS

Egg rolls are one of A’s favorite foods (after tacos), but I never considered making them at home because I’m afraid of deep-frying. It didn’t occur to me that egg rolls could be baked until I saw this recipe at Budget Bytes. I did think egg rolls that weren’t fried and didn’t contain meat might be a bridge too far for A, so following a lead in the comments, I swapped out the veggie filling for one that included pork. This took a little manipulating, since the pork version was intended for potstickers and was thus uncooked, so I ended up making a mashup of the two different recipes. Unfortunately, I didn’t take good notes, and enough time elapsed before I made these again that I didn’t remember what I’d done before and had to figure it out all over again. Luckily, the filling is forgiving.

You should know that I’m cabbage-averse, although I’m slowly warming to the stuff. I was a little put off by the thought of using a whole head, so the first time around I just bought a bag of pre-shredded cabbage from Trader Joe’s. That’s probably why I only ended up with enough filling to stuff 12 of my 20 egg roll wrappers, although this didn’t occur to me at the time. On my second attempt I increased the pork to ¾ pound, upped the carrot and green onions, and used a whole head of cabbage. (Luckily, Budget Bytes has helpful slicing instructions with photos, since I hadn’t tried to take on a head of cabbage since my CSA gave me one in 2007.) It turns out there’s a lot more cabbage in a head than in a bag! I filled 20 egg roll wrappers generously and still had a little filling left over. So maybe I should have stuck with just ½ pound pork? (A would say no.) In both iterations, the filling tasted great, which is the important thing. I even liked the cabbage.

Are baked egg rolls the same as fried ones? They aren’t going to fool anyone into thinking they’re takeout; the texture is crunchier, chewier, a bit drier (definitely have your favorite dipping sauce on hand; I love Trader Joe’s gyoza sauce, which is basically soy sauce, vinegar and sesame oil with some seasonings, but sweet chili sauce or spicy mustard are also good options). I actually think I might prefer the baked version, though. Four or five plus a side dish (see my next post for that) adds up to a reasonable meal with a decent serving of fresh veggies that doesn’t feel too heavy, and they even make passable leftovers. (I think if you reheated them in the oven or toaster oven they’d regain their crispness and be near-new again, but even zapped in the microwave and thus a bit softer, they were just as tasty.)

These may be a bit more complicated than tacos, but they still weren’t too hard for a weeknight and will definitely be a regular menu feature.

½-¾ pound ground pork
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1-inch segment fresh ginger, peeled and grated or minced
1 clove garlic, minced
2 green onions, sliced
1 medium carrot, shredded
1 small head green cabbage, cored and thinly shredded
½ teaspoon salt
¼ cup soy sauce
1 teaspoon sesame oil
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
1 package of 20 egg roll wrappers
Nonstick spray (or additional vegetable oil)

1. Heat a large skillet or wok over medium heat. Add the pork and brown, breaking up with a spoon, until cooked through. Remove with a slotted spoon and drain on a paper-towel lined plate, leaving the skillet on the burner.

2. Add 1-2 tablespoons vegetable oil to the skillet. Add the green onion, garlic, and ginger and sauté until slightly softened (1-2 minutes). Add the carrot, sauté for one minute more, and then add the cabbage and ½ teaspoon salt. Continue to cook and stir until the cabbage has reduced in volume by half.

3. Return the pork to the skillet, then add the soy sauce and cook until slightly thickened. Drizzle the sesame oil on top and stir in. Turn the heat off and add a few grindings of pepper. Give the mixture a taste and adjust the seasonings to your liking. Let the mixture cool slightly.

4. Begin to fill and roll the egg rolls. Place one wrapper at a time on a clean surface and place about ¼-1/3 cup of the pork mixture just off center, close to one of the corners on the square. Roll the corner up and over the filling, fold each side in, and then roll the rest of the way up. Keep a small bowl of water near by and use it as “glue” to hold the corners of the egg roll wrapper in place.

5. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Prepare a baking sheet by covering with foil. Place the egg rolls on the baking sheet and coat with nonstick spray or brush with vegetable oil. Roll them over and spray/brush the other side with oil. Bake for about 20 minutes or until golden brown and crispy. Turn the egg rolls over halfway through cooking and rotate your baking sheet if you have hot spots in your oven.

Serves: 4-5 as a main dish, more as an appetizer
Time: 1 hour 15 minutes
Leftover potential: Surprisingly OK. Reheat in the oven or toaster oven for best results, but microwave is fine if you don’t mind a softer texture. You can also freeze the unbaked egg rolls and just pop them into the oven without thawing, although the texture may not be as good as with the freshly made ones.

FISH TACOS

I wanted fish tacos. And lo, I did make them. The End.

Except I’m not sure I know why I wanted fish tacos, considering I’ve eaten them maybe three times before in the course of my life. I’m guessing I just saw them on a food blog somewhere and they suddenly seemed like the most perfect, light, fresh, summery, Southern-California thing to stuff my face with. I’m especially susceptible to the romance of food photography in the summer, the sparkly lemonades, the effortless salads, the insouciant sandwiches, the kicky kebabs, the chic grilled steaks, all prettily arranged on sun-drenched picnic tables looking like they don’t care (bonus points if you know that movie reference), seeming to promise me entrance to some higher plane of casually elegant being where I will nonchalantly produce cool, delicious treats from my kitchen in mere moments without ever breaking a sweat.

Whatever the inspiration, it took me a long time to find a recipe that matched the Ideal Fish Tacos in my head. I wanted the fish to be breaded (I always think of the classic fish taco as being batter-fried, but a lot of online recipes just have you grill or sautée) , but not deep-fried (both for health reasons and because I’m a wuss when it comes to hot oil). Exactly like the panko-coated pan-fried halibut from my beloved fish and chips recipe, actually—in fact, I belatedly realized, I could actually just use that recipe, maybe leaving out the parsley and swapping lime zest for the lemon zest. Perfect! Except that neither Trader Joe’s nor Whole Foods had any halibut last week. I could have used cod, tilapia, or another whitefish, but then I spotted the frozen, pre-battered halibut (basically just fancy fish sticks) at Trader Joe’s and my love for halibut, combined with my laziness, won out. The fish looked to be decent, the ingredients relatively simple and wholesome, and it could be baked in the oven in about 15 minutes. It’s sort of funny that I ended up doing this, because during my intensive recipe search I’d stumbled upon, and rolled my eyes at, this Real Simple fish taco recipe that’s basically the same thing (albeit with Gorton’s fish tenders, which I suspect are several steps down from what I used). Luckily, the end result was really tasty, crisp without being greasy, even though the fish beneath the batter was a wee bit dry. In the future I’ll try breading my own (and forgoing the halibut if I must), but high-quality pre-battered stuff would be acceptable again if I were in a particular hurry.

I also, for some reason, had a really specific vision when it came to the condiments. When I think of classic fish tacos I think of cabbage and a white sauce (usually mayonnaise-based), neither of which I really like very much on their own, but I’ve got to admit they do go well with fish. The fish taco recipes I found online came with a host of varying condiment suggestions, from pico de gallo to pickled onions to mango salsa to guacamole, but my impulse was not to stray too far from tradition—and, for some reason, to avoid normal salsa, because somehow the combination of fish and tomatoes doesn't appeal. I decided to concentrate on the flavors that tantalized me most in the recipes I was skimming, all three of which seemed to marry well with both the fish concept and the taco concept: lime, cilantro, and avocado. I always use broccoli slaw (from Trader Joe’s) instead of cabbage with the fish and chips, so I decided to do the same thing here and found this simple, lime-and-cilantro-laced recipe for a fish-taco-friendly version. Ironically, Trader Joe’s didn’t end up having broccoli slaw that day, so I ended up using shredded cabbage after all—and it was still quite tasty. Then, taking a cue from this excellent recipe from Whipped, I pureed yogurt (the original used sour cream, but I prefer yogurt for most things) with avocado and more cilantro and lime for a fresh, zippy sauce that is also, I might add, addictive on tortilla chips, chili, or just, you know, your fingers.

Considering I cobbled it together from three different sources—and then ended up having to scrap my original plans and improvise thanks to the vagaries of ingredient availability—I’m really pleased with how this meal turned out. I’m not normally an inventive type, and neither A nor I was even certain how much we even liked fish tacos, but I had a dream…OK, that sounds a little grandiose. How about: I had a craving for a fresh and fun summer meal, and I satisfied it exactly. And just for a minute, eating my bright, pleasingly green-and-golden fish tacos and drinking a cold beer, I felt like one of those glossy food-magazine people. Except that we were eating indoors, sitting on the floor in front of the TV, fending cats away from the table, and I was sweating.

One final note: I used a 10-ounce package of fish and halved the slaw recipe and it served two (a generous three tacos apiece), with leftover avocado cream. You could easily scale up the fish amount and make the whole slaw recipe and serve three or four. I don’t think it would be worthwhile to end up with leftovers, though—except for the avocado cream, I can’t see this being good the next day.

Cilantro-lime slaw:
4 cups broccoli slaw or shredded cabbage
⅓ cup thinly sliced green onions
¼ cup chopped fresh cilantro
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
1 tablespoon olive oil
¼ teaspoon salt

Avocado cream:
1 ripe avocado, peeled, seeded, and chopped
½ cup sour cream or plain yogurt
¼ cup fresh cilantro
Juice of ½ large lime
Salt to taste (a few good pinches)

Pan-fried fish:
1 pound 1½-inch-thick halibut fillets (or cod, tilapia, or another whitefish)
¾ cup panko
1 teaspoon coarse kosher salt
1 teaspoon finely grated lime zest
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
2 large egg whites
2 tablespoons dark ale
2 tablespoons olive oil
OR
10 ounces to 1 pound good-quality breaded frozen fish fillets

6–8 corn tortillas

1. To make the slaw, toss together the broccoli or cabbage, the green onions, and the cilantro in a large bowl. Mix in lime juice, oil, and salt and toss well to coat.

2. To make the avocado cream, place the avocado, sour cream or yogurt, cilantro, lime juice, and salt in a food processor or blender and process until smooth.

3. To make fish, cut halibut into sticks and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. While oil is heating, combine panko, salt, lime zest, and cayenne in a shallow bowl; in a separate shallow bowl, whisk egg whites and ale. When oil is hot, dip fish sticks in ale mixture, turn to coat, and shake off excess; then place fish in panko mixture and turn to coat all sides. Add fish sticks to skillet and cook about 2 minutes on each side, until all sides are golden and fish is opaque in center. Transfer fish to paper towels, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and serve immediately. OR, if using frozen fish fillets, skip this whole step and prepare according to package directions.

4. Heat a skillet over medium heat and warm tortillas on each side for a minute or so, until soft and pliable. Place tortillas on plates and top with a piece or two of fish and generous amounts of slaw and avocado cream.

Serves: 2–4
Time: 1 hour
Leftover potential: Not good, except the avocado cream will last for several days in the fridge and makes a great dip for chips or veggies.

COLESLAW FOR COLESLAW HATERS

I was a bit resentful that my very first CSA delivery contained cabbage, but mollified by the fact that the CSA newsletter contained this palatable-sounding recipe for it. I made it on Sunday night, along with meatloaf and slow-cooked carrots, and it was…not bad. I’m not saying I’m going to actually intentionally buy cabbages to make this again in the future, but if cabbages appear on my doorstep or I have to cook a summery picnic meal for a group of coleslaw fans, this is certainly the recipe I would turn to. It didn’t taste like cabbage, and it wasn’t drowning in mayonnaise (ew, mayonnaise); in fact, it seemed more like a fresh shredded cabbage-and-veggie salad with a lightly creamy sweet-and-sour dressing, a far cry from that drippy white stuff I think of as coleslaw. But while I might have eaten my Sunday-night serving with grudging admiration, and A claimed to heartily enjoy it as well, the leftovers still sit uneaten in our fridge. We coleslaw-hating leopards can’t change our spots overnight, you know.

1 small head green cabbage, shredded (about 6 cups)
1 large carrot, grated (about 1 cup)
½ cup green onions, chopped (green parts only)
¼ cup minced fresh chives
¼ cup buttermilk
2–3 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1½ tablespoons canola oil
1 teaspoon (or to taste) dry mustard powder
1–2 teaspoons honey
1 teaspoon salt, or to taste
freshly ground black pepper to taste

1. Toss the cabbage, carrots, green onions, and chives in a large bowl.

2. In a separate medium bowl, whisk together all remaining ingredients. Pour this dressing over the cabbage mixture and stir well.

3. Allow salad to rest for at least 2 hours to allow the flavors to blend.

Serves: 6–8
Time: 15 minutes (plus 2 hours for flavors to blend)