Monthly Archives: June 2021

Slighter LIGHTER Healthier Quick EASY Miso Hollandaise Sauce Recipe

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Hollandaise sauce is delicious but it is basically mostly melted butter and egg yolks made into an emulsified sauce. Often this sauce is served with asparagus, fish, eggs, and steaks. I got the idea to do Miso Hollandaise Sauce for my bok choy today but I don’t want to use mostly just melted butter and just egg yolks because that is too unhealthy to enjoy at home. For my research on something slightly lighter I read a healthy style hollandaise recipe from someone else who used buttermilk and corn starch to cut the amount of egg yolks and butter……..That might be a very good recipe but I started to think why don’t I just use the egg white instead of buttermilk and corn starch. After all egg whites are a very healthy lean food. I just don’t see a reason NOT to use the egg whites. Somehow I guessed the flavors perfect but I had to make this recipe twice. First time around I did the recipe in a sauce pan and I accidentally over cooked the sauce slightly (still useable but not nice enough to photo so I tried again). The second time I just microwaved the butter ….Then I added the hot butter to my beaten whole egg, blended them together with my stick blender, and microwaved that for 30 seconds. Then I blended it again with the miso. Added the rest and I was done. It was almost instant and came out perfect. The serving size is hard to give you because I don’t know how much that you want to use. This recipe is for one very large portion (like enough to drown a sandwich) or what I really think is two proper sized portions ( like two dollops). (for my taste it didn’t need salt because my miso was salty enough but you might want salt) I also need to note that I used a stick blender. It might be hazardous to prepare this with a regular blender because it the hot liquids that you are messing with.

Ingredients for two servings

1 1/2 oz unsalted butter

1 1/2 oz white miso

1 whole egg

pinch ground white pepper

small dab garlic confit or a very small or 1/2 a garlic clove ground to paste (I usually make garlic confit when I buy bags of garlic because it taste so much better for sauces and certain things….To make garlic confit take garlic heads and cut across and drizzle well with olive oil and cover and place in a 350 degree F oven till soft and roasted (around an hour) pop out the cloves when cool enough to handle and blend till smooth. It keeps for a very long time refrigerated)

1/2 lemon – just the fresh squeezed juice

optional finish with chives or scallions

Directions

Melt the butter in a microwaveable dish (mine took 30 seconds).

In a small microwavable dish add egg and beat it. Now add the hot melted butter and blend. This blend of egg and butter are not cooked yet. This goes in the microwave another 30 seconds and gets blended till smooth.

The miso, garlic, white pepper. some chives if using…rest of chives will look nice on the top.

Add fresh squeezed lemon juice and blend that in.

SERVE!

Slightly Lighter Healthier Easy QUICK Miso Hollandaise Sauce

Enjoy!

The Forking Truth

A Little Taste of The Miracle Mile Delicatessen in Phoenix AZ

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The Miracle Mile Delicatessen is located in Phoenix Arizona. This is a cafeteria style deli that is family owned and ran since 1949. The well known dishes here are hot pastrami, corned beef, beef brisket, stuffed cabbage, and turkey dinners. Lesser known dishes are the baked cod with puffy cheese and the honey dijon veggie wrap of avocado. peppers, carrots, lettuce, cucumbers, crispy onion strings with honey dijon dressing in a spinach tortilla. You order while walking threw the line, pay and seat yourself indoors or outdoors.

corned beef and pastrami

Here are the sides that you can pick for your sandwich. There’s fresh fruit, apple sauce, carrot and raisin salad, Cole slaw, macaroni salad, potato salad, Not sure but I think the one on the end looks like pasta salad.

They also offer desserts. The bread pudding is made in house.

main dining area
What would Bernie get here?

We shared a pastrami sandwich and a corned beef sandwich on marble rye bread.

pastrami sandwich
corned beef sandwich

The sandwiches come with very good pickles.

They both are Arizona style sandwiches. Well we are in Arizona so that is what I should expect……….The bread and taste of the meats does differ from East Coast Style. (east coast bread is crusty and usually thin and toasted while AZ rye bread is soft, thick and cold) (east coast pastrami taste smoked and has a peppery rub…we don’t taste much of that here) (east coast corned beef is seasoned more than AZ corned beef) Everything was fresh tasting and the restaurant seemed clean. Plates were cleared quickly.

Parking is easy because they have their own parking lot. Service is speedy because you go threw the line quickly, you pay and seat yourself.

That was a Little Taste of The Miracle Mile Delicatessen in Phoenix AZ.

www.MiracleMile deli.com

The Forking Truth

A Little taste of Campo Italian Bistro in Scottsdale AZ

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Campo Italian Bistro is located in Scottsdale Arizona. This restaurant is by Genuine Concepts Group that also has at least five other restaurants or bars in metro Phoenix. This is a casual restaurant that does differ from other Italian restaurants in atmosphere and on the menu.

They offer patio dining.

They also offer a variety of indoor dining.

There is seating at the bar and several high top tables.

There are two mini living room type areas.

Here is the main dining area.

The menu has lots of small plates and many of the small plates feature amazing cheeses. They also offer salads, pasta, pizza, panini, and a few entrees. It’s hard to pass on stracchino cheese when you see it on a menu so we started with that.

Ohhhh it’s so good! It’s finished with olive oil, peppercorns and fresh herbs. It goes amazingly well with the delicious lavosh crackers. It was bigger than I expected it to be since it was only $6 (subject to change…and it might!)

There were many other small plates that we wanted to try but found it impossible to turn down the artisan cheese plate.

This was also bigger than I expected it to be and we had to take a bunch of it home. BUT HOLY CHEEZUS….WOW was this FORKING Great! Some of the cheeses were robiola, taleggio, and pecorino. One cheese had truffles in it….The taleggio with the honey comb was BOMB! This also came with grilled Noble Bread.

I couldn’t try all the cheese that Campo Italian Bistro offers but they also offer a handmade mozzarella.

The special tonight was also cheesy and I might have ordered it if I wasn’t trying so many cheeses already. The special was wild mushroom mascarpone pasta…(wow that sounds good!) and the pizza of the day was zucchini, pancetta, pesto, pistachio, and caciccavalo cheese.

My husband went with the creste pasta.

They use pasta that is locally made. This dish came with locally made Schriener’s sausage, broccolini, roasted peppers and feta cheese. This came out a little too dry for our taste…but the crispy salmon was outstanding.

The salmon is crispy on both sides and stayed crispy. The flesh was moist, succulent and medium cooked. It rested over creamy beans with kale and tomato butter and was topped with herby greens. WOW! It was a really great salmon dish.. If you don’t think you like salmon then maybe it might be because you never had really good salmon…THIS was REALLY GREAT Salmon.

We enjoyed the cheeses and I enjoyed the salmon.

That was a little taste if Campo Italian Bistro in Scottsdale.

www.CampoItalian.com

Everything is subject to change and it usually eventually does change.

The Forking Truth

Chocolaty Beet Brownies with Beet Coconut Caramel Beet Meringues

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I got this recipe off the internet and had to edit it, simplify it, change some ingredients and change the amounts of the ingredients to make it work. I wound up with something that is this that is FORKING delicious. The original recipe was originally in metric. So I continued fixing the recipe in metric. I do like cooking in metric…..metric is perfection…and the measuring is so easy. This recipe makes 6 brownies and around 12 meringues.

Ingredients for 6 servings

1 medium/large beet – skin removed – beet grated – split into two bowls. Slightly larger amount of beet to go into the brownie mix. – brownie (smaller 1/2 is for caramel)

60g 100% chocolate grated – brownie

50g unsalted butter – melted – brownie

100g sugar – brownie

1 egg – beaten – brownie

15g cocoa powder – brownie

15g flour – brownie

neutral non stick spray – brownie

1 egg white – meringue

50g sugar – meringue

1 Tablespoon beet powder (or juice from a beet) – meringue

110g sugar – beet coconut carmel

45g water – beet coconut caramel

150ml coconut milk – beet coconut caramel

1/2 reserved shredded beet – beet coconut caramel

Directions

Set oven to 250 degrees F or 121 C

Make meringues.

Whip egg white till stiff. Fold in sugar and beet powder. Get a pastry bag with a large star tip and squirt them out on a parchment covered baking sheet. Put them in the pre-heated oven for an hour. Then shut oven off and let them cool down and harden.

Make the beet coconut caramel.

In a sauce pan add the sugar and the water on medium high heat. DON’T STIR. This will eventually boil and you want it to turn brown. When it turns brown then take it off the heat and add the coconut milk and the reserved shredded beets and stir. BE CAREFUL because this will foam up. Keep to the side.

Make the brownies.

Set the oven to 350 degrees F or 180C . Get your muffin pan and spray 6 of the muffin cups with non stick spray. In a large mixing bowl combine the beetroot, chocolate, butter, sugar, egg, cocoa powder, flour and mix well. Evenly fill the 6 spots for muffins in the pan. This needs to stay in the middle rack of the oven till cooked. All ovens do differ. In my oven at 15 minutes mine were almost done but I could feel the center was ever so slightly wet so I put them back. In my oven mine were done in 18 minutes. At 18 minutes my kitchen smelled like chocolate and I knew they were done. After I tasted one I knew it was perfect.

I made a drizzle real fast that I never measure. I had a handful of white chocolate chips, a small knob of butter and the end of my 100% unsweetened chocolate (around 60g) and I carefully melted hit in my microwave and drizzled it all over the brownies.

Put the brownies together and enjoy.

Chocolaty Beet Brownies with Beet Caramel, Beet Meringues

This is a winner!

You will make this again!

The Forking Truth

The FANTABULOUS Dish – The Cream Of Corn Poblano Soup from SWB A Southwest Bistro from the Hyatt Regency in Scottsdale AZ – Worth a Fork!

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The FANTABULOUS Dish means – Top of the line, marvelously good, peachy keen and dynamite!

I kept thinking about my recent restaurant week dinner from SWB in Scottsdale. Every dish I tried exceeded my expectations and EACH dish was a FANTABULOUS dish. I zeroed in on this dish because it is offered on the lunch and dinner menu..

I usually don’t even ever like cream based soups but this one was different and was not too heavy and had layers of flavors that were delectable. First your mouth gets the velvety sweet corn accented with the right amount of poblano taste. Just enough poblano to make the corn more interesting….But leaves you with that perfect corn finish. You get more layers in your next spoonful because you go for a little chili oil and maybe some queso fresco and a bright grassy little pop of cilantro.

The cream of corn poblano soup from SWB Bistro in Scottsdale (Hyatt Regency) is one FANTABULOUS Dish and is Worth a Fork!

Worth A Fork!

www.Scottsdale.Hyatt.com

The Forking Truth

Charred Asparagus with Pickled Egg Yolk and Hazelnut Pesto Recipe – different but based on chef Josh Egglton’s recipe

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I came across chef Josh Egglton’s recipe for Charred white and green asparagus with pickled egg and pesto when I was searching for another really great asparagus recipe. I never heard of a brined and pickled egg yolk before so I had to try this recipe. I already had hazelnut pesto that I made recently that I had to use so I didn’t make chef Egglton’s for the pesto. I pretty much followed the brined and pickled egg recipe because I didn’t know how to do that. The only minor difference was that I didn’t have a teaspoon of pickling spice so I used a pinch of each of the ingredients that picking spice is made of (mustard seed, allspice, coriander seeds, red pepper flakes, ginger, bay, cinnamon and clove). I’m sure mine might taste slightly different but it still came out amazing. I did have one issue with the pickled yolk. The recipe is written that you are suppose to brine the eggs for 30 minutes and then pickle them for 30 minutes for runny and longer (it does say how long..) for less runny. I do note that I wanted less runny so I pickled for 45 minutes. Mine came out with a jammy surface but very delicate (they broke very easy) and were runny but very delicious. I will try them again but next time I might try an hour of pickling and see what happens.

Ingredients for around 4 servings

4 eggs (just the yolks)

4 cups water

3 1/2 oz sea salt

8 oz sugar

10 2/3 oz white wine vinegar

1 teaspoon pickling spice (I did a pinch of mustard seeds, 4 allspice berries, coriander seeds, red pepper flakes, ginger, bay leaf, cinnamon, 2 cloves)

1 sprig rosemary

1 sprig fresh thyme

1 bay leaf

2 black peppercorns (I upped to 3)

28 oz asparagus (I did two bunches) – hard woody ends removed

1 large shallot – fine chopped

1 teaspoon olive oil

sea salt to taste

lemon juice to taste

heaping 1/4 cup pesto (mine was around a bunch parsley (just leaves), handful of toasted hazelnuts, a good amount of grated parmigiana, smallest amount of garlic (you can leave out) very small amounts of salt and pepper and just enough extra virgin olive oil to blend.

Directions

Make brine for egg yolks.

Combine the water with salt and 1 2/3 Tablespoons of sugar, rosemary, thyme, bayleaf and peppercorns in a pan. Heat till sugar is dissolved. Cover and leave pan to the side to cool.

Make the pickling liquid.

White wine vinegar, remaining sugar, and pickling spice go in a pan. Stir some. You heat it till the sugar is dissolved. Leave to cool. Strain and then set to the side.

As soon as the brine is cool. Separate the eggs and carefully place the egg yolks in the brine for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes the egg yolks get placed in the pickling liquid for another 30 minutes or longer for harder.

Make the asparagus tartare. Take two asparagus and slice extra thin and mix with the finely chopped shallots. Season lightly with some sea salt.

Boil the asparagus for a minute. Then shock them with ice water. Dry them off.

Griddle, fry or grill the asparagus till you get them charred.

Dress the asparagus with lemon and oil and very lightly with sea salt and pepper.

Serve them with the brined/pickled eggs and the pesto.

Charred Asparagus with Pickled Egg Yolk and Hazelnut Pesto

A special THANKS! to chef Eggleton for his Amazing recipe!

The Forking Truth

A Little Taste of Yutaka Japanese Restaurant Phoenix AZ – BIG Portion Sushi – Good Value

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Yutaka Japanese Restaurant is located on Bell Road in North Phoenix Arizona. This restaurant offers a variety of appetizers and or small plates, sushi, teriyaki, ramen and noodle bowls. Get here early because the tables fill up fast.

My favorite plate that I tried so far might be the spicy tuna crackers.

The tuna is fresh, flavorful and spicy. It’s a tasty appetizer that you don’t find everywhere.

The sushi menu menu is limited but what they serve you is fresh and clean tasting……..

yellowtail, salmon, tuna

and unusually LARGE. I don’t know how to eat this sushi. It’s about THREE times the size of normal sushi. If I had a knife I’d cut them in thirds. It’s good because it does taste very fresh and the right temperature that it should be but is very hard for me to eat because of the large size. Most sushi here is priced at around $5.00 for two pieces (today subject to change) so that is a great value because they give you more fish than most places……But for some people the over sized sushi can be hard to eat.

The collar is the best part of the fish so we shared a salmon collar (they also offer yellowtail collar)

It is seasoned just so and taste delicious but is slightly over cooked today.

We also shared a sizzling chicken teriyaki.

It came with miso soup that was a little richer than most miso soups that I’ve tasted. It also had seaweed in it.

I thought that the teriyaki was a large portion. The onions with it were very tasty. For us this teriyaki was sweet forward and very slightly overdone.

That was a little taste of Yutaka Japanese Restaurant in Phoenix AZ – Big Portion Fresh Sushi – Good Value and you won’t leave hungry from here.

www.YutakaJapanese.Business.Site

Everything is subject to change and usually does change.

The Forking Truth

PA’LA Wood Fired Cooking (Downtown) Phoenix AZ – Worth a Fork! FANTABULOUS!****With Revisit

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PA’LA Wood Fired Cooking (downtown there is another more casual PA’LA in Phoenix) is a wood fired, ever changing, fine dining sort of Mediterranean-ish, sort of Italian, laced with Japanese sort of restaurant. Somehow the flavors can be magical together. At this restaurant you will find small plates, a few sandwiches, a couple salads, two pizzas, fresh made pasta, fresh amazing wood fired seafood and a few specials. At the moment this restaurant serves lunch (Tue.-Sat.11-3) but dinner is only on Fridays and Saturdays (5-10) (subject to change).

They have an indoor-outdoor bar.

It looks like this when you walk in.

From my seat I can see the open kitchen and the wood fired oven.

Here’s the view from the other side.

There are a variety of traditional tables and partial booths. You can’t see the large mirrors behind me that make the room look enormous. Bright light comes in from the windows out front and upstairs. They only use the upstairs when needed. The decor sure doesn’t look like Phoenix to me……Look at the chandelier..

There are lots of details and big cherubs on it. It reminds me of Vegas….maybe Chicago….Maybe certain parts of Philly?…… When I see it and the big curved booth I see this in my head.

Robert De Niro with Joe Pesci. I can visualize them dining here.

Or maybe it looks more like this?

Anyways….

We start out with the pickled white anchovies with fennel crackers.

The anchovies are sprinkled with some fruity mildly spicy pepper and have a splash of a quality olive oil. The fennel crackers might be Taralli (Italian fennel crackers)

I went for the fish of the day plate. It was sea bass. It was described coming with Fresno chili and fregola (Italian cous cous shaped toasted pasta).

The fish is tender, moist, and flaky. It has a nice tasty sear. There are all kinds of flavors and surprises in the fregola. I taste bitter greens, pickled fennel, stringy things that I thought were sprouts but taste like spicy ginger…I taste an Asian sauce…. and there is a special red pepper flake. It really just dances together…It’s fiendishly great!

My husband went with the pasta of the day dish that came with shrimp.

The sauce was made with Bianco tomatoes. It’s a very good some sort of wheat or grain rigatoncini pasta and a very well made sauce. I heard that the shrimp were delicious.

We saved room for a little dessert.

We shared a little dish of smooth rich chocolate called pot de creme topped with pistachios and a little pistachio and fruit biscotti that was a great sweet ending to a FANTABULOUS meal out.

I have to say PA’LA Wood Fired Cooking (Downtown Phoenix AZ) is…

Worth a Fork!

Worth A Fork!

www.PalaKitchen.com

We returned.

The menu and special board differed.

Service differed too and we had the same server.

She brought out our appetizer and main meals together.

Our appetizer was the Niman Ranch Prime Beef Skewer.

The beef had mushrooms between each piece. The beef was as tender as butter and did taste very good. The polenta was very plain but creamy.

For my main I had the albacore brown rice bowl.

The fish was lightly seared and seemed very fresh. It had a little Asian rice seasoning and sauce on it. The brown rice was chewy and was adorned with pickled onion, some extra thin shreds that tasted like ginger, cucumbers, tomato, and avocado.

My husband had the roasted mushroom pizza with mozzarella and salametto picante.

The pizza was extra thin and very chewy.

Everything is subject to change.

The Forking Truth

Hasselback Beets with Lime Leaf Butter and Crispy Fried Beet Leaves Recipe by Yotam Ottolenghi

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I’ve must have done beets over 50 different ways so far but I am still always searching for something new and different. I came across the most FORKING AMAZING white albino beets from from Singh Meadows Farm in Tempe Arizona. I got lucky and found this FORKING AMAZING recipe for beets and a FORKING AMAZING recipe for crispy fried beet leaves both from genius chef Yotam Ottolenghi on www.TheGuardian.com There are more recipes to both recipes but I thought for me I had enough to enjoy. You can add a blend of heavy cream and greek style yogurt to the beets if you want. To the battered crispy beet leaves you can make a tangerine dipping dipping sauce. Serving size here is difficult to call. The recipe says that it makes 4 side servings from 8-10 medium/large beets…..for me that sounds more like 8 servings…?????? I will say 4 servings.

Ingredients for around 4 servings.

2 pounds beets with leaves (reserve leaves for frying if desired)

sea salt

1 stick unsalted butter

1 1/3 oz olive oil

5 lime leaves – chopped

1/3 oz fresh ginger – peeled and chopped

1 garlic clove – crushed

1 Tablespoon lime juice + 2 tsp to serve

10 lime leaves – stalks removed and finely chopped – lime leaf salsa

1/2 teaspoon fresh ginger – peeled and fine chopped – lime leaf salsa

1/2 garlic clove -crushed- lime leaf salsa

1/2 green chili – fine chopped – lime leaf salsa

1 Tablespoon cilantro leaves, tender stems ok – chopped – lime leaf salsa

3 Tablespoons olive oil – lime leaf salsa

beet greens (I used just the leaves but it is ok to include stems)

scant ounce – dill – torn in small pieces

1/2 ounce fresh mint – torn in small pieces

1/2 Tablespoon Szechuan peppercorns – crushed

1/2 cup flour

1/2 cup corn starch

1 Tablespoon baking powder

1 cup ice water

1/2 teaspoon black sesame seeds

pinch ground white pepper

oil for frying

Directions

Set oven to 425 F. Place beets (not leaves) in a in a baking dish with a thumbs length of water. Add one tablespoon of salt and cover tight with a lid or foil. Bake one hour and twenty minutes or until beets are fork tender. Let them cool and remove skins when cool enough to handle.

While beet are cooking put the butter, oil, lime leaves, ginger and garlic in a sauce pan on medium high heat. Gently cook until butter begins to bubble about 4 minutes. Then let flavors infuse for around 40 minutes. Discard solids and stir in 1 Tablespoon lime juice and one teaspoon salt (preferably flaked salt).

Make lime leaf salsa. Mix the lime leaves, ginger, garlic, green chilli, cilantro and olive oil together. Set to the side.

By now the beets are cool and peeled. Make the hasselback on the beets. Cut slits on the backs….I used chopsticks around each beet as I made the cuts so I wouldn’t accidentally cut all the way threw. Place the beets on a baking sheet lined with parchment. Spoon the melted butter over the beets and into the cuts. They need around 1 hour and 15 minutes in the oven. Baste them around every 20 minutes. They need to cook till they are cooked threw and have crisp edges and are caramelized.

While the beets are in the oven you can make the crisp battered beet leaves. Have a pot of oil on medium heat slightly towards high. In a small bowl add the flour, cornstarch, baking powder, sesame seeds, dill, mint, peppers and salt. Add ice-water till you have a nice smooth batter. Dip a few leaves to fry up. They get done when golden. Use a cooling rack or a baking sheet lined with paper towels. Repeat till done.

To serve – Spoon the butter over them, (if using yogurt cream spoon that on too) Drizzle with salsa and remaining lime juice.

Hasselback Beets with Lime Leaf Butter and Crispy Fried Beet Leaves

ENJOY!

A special THANKS! to Yotam Ottolenghi for his FORKING AMAZING recipe and to the Guardian for putting his recipes up on the web.

The Forking Truth

My Forking Thoughts on Universal Yums – Turkey 2021

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Universal Yums is a gift or subscription service for a box of international snacks. You have a few different size choices.

I get the basic Yum Box and it comes with a booklet of facts, trivia, a recipe and information about my snacks.

Lets try a snack.

Ummmm…Now these are tasty! They are little cookies filled with a chocolaty filling that is laced with a small amount of hazelnut and tahini. These are tasty…Now they are gone.

We got a Yum bag with Mastic Toffees and Melon and Lime Chews.

Oh joy……..(not really)…Turkish sour watermelon gummies. I just don’t do gummies and ESPECIALLY Don’t FORKING do sour gummies. But I will ask my husband to eat one.

Next is a coconut & coffee snowball cake.

I like coconut but never liked coffee so far. I thought maybe I haven’t had good coffee yet and that is why I don’t like coffee? I tried two bites. I think I would like this if I liked coffee. The cake is moist with a nice texture and the exterior is very unique. The center cream isn’t terrible. I would like this if I liked coffee, Coffee just taste like bitter coffee grinds to me……

Next……

Baharat spiced cracker chips in taco flavor…??? They are odd to us….They are very powdery chippy crackers……..The powder texture sort of bothers me more than the odd flavors….They are very salty, they are onion-ee, there is sweetness to them, They finish very sweet….They sort of stick to my teeth.

Only two treats left….

Here’s tahini halva…..Not bad…It seems like light fluffy frosting that taste like sesame seeds instead of something too sweet.

Last treat

These are just plain chickpeas that are salted. These are GOOD! The texture doesn’t break my teeth like most bagged chickpea snacks. These you can actually eat in salad and do have a nice natural chickpea flavor. These I would buy if I saw in the store.

Those were my FORKING Thoughts on Universal Yums – Turkey 2021

www.UniversalYums.com

Your Forking thoughts may differ.

The Forking Truth