Fried Rice with Chinese Sausage

Fairly spectacular fried rice with Chinese sausage and other things., originally uploaded by umamitv.

I’m not proud to admit this, but this Chinese sausage stayed in the back of my freezer just a bit longer than might be considered ’safe’. Still, it resulted in tastiness, and I’m officially adding Chinese sausage to my list of ‘convenience meats.’

Braised Beans with Broccoli Rabe, Grilled Chicken and Other Things

rich, saucy, licorice-y fennel seed to accentuate the sweetness of the caramelized onions, creamy and buttery from the beans, slightly bitter from the broccoli rabe.

I’ve been taking photos of all the food I’ve been cooking lately, with some interesting results. I’ve come to realize, for example, that I use a lot of the same ingredients over and over again. Zucchini comes to mind… Not that there is anything wrong with that, but when I look at all the photos back to back, the colors are all the same, it compels me to try and come up with something different. Hence this dish.

I started out by slicing some older larger onions into fairly chunky pieces, crosswise, so they wouldn’t melt away while being caramelized, melted some butter and let it start to almost brown before tossing in the onions, and then I just let them sit and develop a nice color.

I keep my nose on things when I’m not looking because I’m too busy chopping up the rest of my ingredients, you can tell when the onions start to brown and it’s time to give them a toss, because the air in the kitchen starts to smell of caramel.

This is what it looked like after I tossed in the broccoli rabe, I didn’t blanch it first because I wanted it to stay really crisp, but I did separate the stems from the more delicate florets since the latter would cook much faster and should be added closer to the end of cooking.

Once the stems started to get that gorgeous green color, I tossed in some minced garlic, let that cook very briefly just enough for the aroma to come out, and followed it with some chopped tomatoes (canned, Muir Glen are the best).

I left them to simmer for a while on low heat, to break down while I ground up some whole fennel seeds and tossed those in, followed by a can of white beans, cannellini or northern will work. I also threw in the florets I’d set aside from the rabe at this point. I left that to simmer on low low heat for a good while, until the thickest stems were tender but still pretty crunchy.

I’d butterflied my chicken breasts and marinated them for a couple of hours in some balsamic vinegar, brown mustard, olive oil and salt and pepper so I just grilled them up on high heat while I was waiting for the rest of the meal to finish cooking.

The whole thing topped off beautifully with a bit of parmesan and a hunk of sourdough baguette (because the sauce is the best part). It worked out great: tasty and different colors from the rest of my album.