Chicken and Mango Lettuce Wraps

Now that Bon Appétit is moving east and losing the wonderful Barbara Fairchild as editor (she didn’t want to relocate), I’m hoping the magazine won’t suffer a slow decline. New York is the heartbeat of the universe, of course, but you can’t deny the innovation of the California food scene. Hopefully, that will still be reflected in Bon Appétit.

I told you awhile ago that the Food Network Magazine was not at all bad. In fact, it’s pretty good. I like the thumbnail pictures of every recipe in the index and the pullout booklets – this month was 50 panini, one month was 50 kebabs. It’s not that you will actually cook 50 variations of whatever it is, but it does give great ideas for changing things up.

The October issue had a good recipe from Guy Fieri - Asian chicken in lettuce cups. His sauce was way too salty, so I changed it up a bit. Plus whenever I have a mango around I can’t help using it, so that went in too. I also added some gorgeous black rice (from Eataly) underneath the chicken mixture, to "beef" up the dish a bit.

The ingredients for the stir fry DO take ages to chop, but then the cooking and assembling is really fast. BTW, Guy says his recipe serves 6 to 8. No way.

Chicken and Mango Lettuce Wraps (serves 3)

Adapted from Guy Fieri’s Asian Chicken Lettuce Cups

Printable recipe here

Sauce:

3 oz. light soy sauce

2 tbls. water

2 tbls. red wine vinegar

1 tbl. red hot sauce

3 tbls. plum sauce

1 tbl. hoisin sauce

1 tbl. dry sherry

½ tsp. sesame oil

1 clove garlic, minced

For frying:

1 tbl. vegetable oil

2 large slices ginger, unpeeled

Filling:

1 lb. boneless chicken breast, diced

2 small carrots, diced

½ red or orange pepper, diced

Handful snow peas, halved lengthwise and cut into dice

½ red onion, diced

1 clove garlic, minced

¼ cup nuts, chopped

2 scallions, sliced

½ cup diced mango

For serving:

3 large Iceberg lettuce leaves

1 cup cooked black or brown rice, heated up

Mix all ingredients together for sauce. Set aside.

Heat oil and ginger in wok or sauté pan over medium high heat. Add chicken and stir fry for 2 minutes. Add carrots, peppers, snow peas, red onion, garlic and nuts. Stir fry for 3 to 4 minutes, making sure chicken is cooked. Take out ginger slices.

Add 1/3 cup of sauce to mixture and cook, stirring, for another 2 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in sliced scallions and mango. Place 3 large lettuce leaves on 3 plates. Spoon 1/3 cup rice on top of each lettuce leaf. Top with chicken and mango mixture. Serve remaining sauce separately.

!Feliz Cinco de Mayo!

It’s the 5th of May! !!!Yay!!!

I feel terrible for the folks in Mexico, who are missing their annual Cinco de Mayo celebration because of their (and everyone else’s) public health crisis.

The timing is just terrible for this festive holiday, but I hope that, at least, they are celebrating today with their families at home. Mexican officials, citing improvement in the battle against the virus, announced plans to reopen government offices and restaurants on Wednesday -- and museums, libraries and churches the following day.

This is definitely the appropriate day to announce that I have come up with what I consider a TORTILLA EATING REVOLUTION! Note: I don’t eat tortillas that often and so even if you’ve been doing this forever, please let me think I came up with it. 

This is what to do:
Heat the meat. (I’m going to tell you about a great recipe in a sec.) Heat the tortilla – corn or flour. Here comes my life changing tip – LAY A LARGE LETTUCE LEAF OVER THE HOT TORTILLA AND START SPOONING THE FILLINGS ON. GO WILD! The lettuce will insulate the tortilla from the juicy meat and all the other fillings and keep them from soaking through. The point is you can fill the tortilla with lots more than you usually would and it won’t fall apart…if you eat it fast enough.

Kind of awesome, right? WHO isn’t looking for a way to shove more stuff into a tortilla. Maybe one day they’ll make an edible rubber-lined tortilla, but until then…use lettuce.

The February/March edition of The Food Network Magazine had a perfect Cinco de Mayo recipe - Slow-Cooker Pork Tacos. I did change the recipe in a number of ways.

• I used a Dutch oven in the oven and not a slow cooker.
• I used 3 dried ancho chiles (no pasillas) and soaked them in hot water for 10 minutes. I added the liquid to the stock.
•  I used an entire onion.
•Beef was on sale, so I used a 3½ lb. piece of beef chuck, instead of the pork. (Nothing to do with 2009 H1N1 .)
• I seared the meat, removed it and cooked the onion, chipotle and stock mixture as in the recipe and added back in the piece of beef.

Here I served the meat with queso fresco, guacamole and no lettuce. Okay, I admit there's kind of a lot of stuff there:

But look here how much more I got on after lining the tortilla with lettuce:

Here’s a second recipe, which is a great accompaniment to the tacos or is hearty enough to stand on its own - an absolutely fabulous chili made with black beans. It has a real kick and a very complex rich flavor from chipotle chile powder, chocolate and coffee. 

This chili comes from a wonderful new cookbook, Gluten Free Every Day Cookbook by Robert M. Landolphi.

If you need gluten free recipes, this is a very useful addition to your library. If you don’t, this book is full of just plain great cooking. Smoked Gouda Polenta and African Peanut Soup look yummy. Plus there are plenty of gluten free baked goods in the book – spiced pumpkin roll, carrot and coffee cakes and cookies that I’d like to try.

Chocolate-Espresso Chili serves 6 to 8

from Gluten Free Every Day Cookbook by Robert M. Landolphi
Recipe posted by permission of the publisher, Andrews McMeel Publishing, LLC. The pictures are mine.

Bittersweet chocolate, coupled with a kick of espresso, adds depth to a great vegetarian chili.

¼ cup olive oil
3 medium yellow onions, chopped
2 tablespoons chili powder
2 tablespoons ground cumin
2 tablespoons minced fresh oregano
1 (28-ounce) can crushed tomatoes
2 tablespoons honey
3 cloves garlic, minced
4 (15-ounce) cans black beans, rinsed and drained
¼ cup brewed espresso or strong coffee
1 cup water
1 ½ teaspoons salt
1 ½ teaspoons chipotle chile powder
1 ounce bittersweet chocolate
2 tablespoons minced fresh cilantro

In a large soup, heat the oil over medium-high heat and sauté the onions until tender. Stir in the chili powder, cumin, and oregano and cook for 1 minute. Add the tomatoes, honey, and garlic. Decrease the heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer for 30 minutes.

Add the black beans, espresso, water, salt, chile powder, and cinnamon. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, decrease the heat to a simmer, and stir in the chocolate and cilantro. Simmer, uncovered, for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally, until thickened.

Chef’s Tip:
Make this chili the day before and refrigerate together nicely. Reheat before serving.

The New Food Network Magazine

I was happy when I saw fellow Foodbuzzer, Michelle, post about the new Food Network magazine. I had been meaning to write about it ever since I got it weeks ago.

I resisted buying it at first. After all, the new website is such an abomination that I didn’t feel the necessity of one more inadequate place to go for recipes. But I needed something to read on a train, so I bought it. And you know what? It's not half bad…in fact, it’s rather good and it even has genius touches in places.

The number one thing I like about it is that the index includes a picture of each and every recipe. That makes it easy to quickly peruse the magazine to see if there’s something you’re interested in.









For us Food Network fanatics, (and who else is going to be reading this?) there is also a index, by FN chefs, of recipes. So we see that Jamie is on pages 19 and 33 and Giada is found on 33 (as well?) and 127. Oh, page 33 has the newest books by Food Network folks.

The Weeknight Cooking feature (I suppose this will be in every issue) is also well done, with the recipes being given half a page each (lengthwise), so it’s easy to cut them out.






What about the actual recipes? There were definitely some that I would try. Also, just leafing through the magazine made me think about some combinations I would use, even if I didn’t follow that actual recipe – eggplant with sesame seeds, salad on pizza (which I absolutely love) and cranberries with pomegranates.

Not every page is edifying. One feature, which I hated, was “Out of the Box”. It gives new “twists” on ways to use mixes. This time it was corn muffin mix. In the time it takes to open the box and pour it out, you could have measured the corn meal, flour and leavenings. There is also a Lighten Up feature - “Slim Six Layer Dip” in this issue. Why bother?

Even with those reservations, I still think I may have persuaded myself to subscribe for $24 for 30 issues (their “Best Deal”) AND for an extra $5 I can get 12 issues of House Beautiful, which gives me an extra Ina bonus every month.

It’s nice to report on something well done, well organized and nicely presented…for once.