recipephile

Product Reviews - Dueling Peelers - Fried Zucchini and Mediterranean Potato Salad

What We Tried
My friend Jeffrey and I tested three different peelers.  The chef’n Palm Peeler ($4.99 - this is kind of like a ring that is also a peeler, but with no diamond), the OXO Y Peeler ($7.99 - a peeler that is shaped like a Y, hence the name) and the Pirhana Peeler from Kuhn Rikon ($7.00 - claims to not only peel your typical veggies, but also tomatoes, which we did not test).

To make things fair we each peeled a carrot, a cucumber, a potato and a zucchini (I bought the zucchinis from two adorable little girls that were standing at the corner of 19th and Eureka in San Francisco selling veggies that were grown in Healdsburg, CA.  Is this the new lemonade stand? They even asked me if I wanted to be on their email newsletter list, which I immediately signed up for. How can you say no to spam from a 7 year old.)

What We Made:
We actually made two dishes. 
The first was a fried zucchini dish that was really really tasty.  We peeled three medium zucchini and then cut them in half. Using the OXO peeler, this is the best peeler for this recipe, we sliced long and thin strips and covered them in a mixture of flour, granulated garlic (dried), cayenne pepper and freshly ground black pepper (for 1 cup of flour about 1 tbsp of each dried herb).  Really coat the slices well and fry up in olive oil.  Drain on a paper towel, salt and drizzle with some fresh lemon juice. 

We used up the potatoes, carrots and cucumbers that we peeled to make a Mediterranean like salad.  Peel three potatoes, three carrots and three cucumbers.  Chop each into ½ inch pieces. Cook the potatoes and steam the carrots and let cool.  Mix ¾ cup of Greek strained yogurt (I use the Fage brand), with 1 tsp fresh dill, ½ tsp salt, 1 tsp freshly ground black pepper, 1 tsp of honey, 1 clove of minced fresh garlic, 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil and the juice of 1 lemon. Shake it well and pour it over the veggies.  Mix, chill and serve.

What They Rated:
The chef’n palm peeler’s design is definitely interesting and once you get over the novelty of wearing a peeler as a ring it can be quite handy on the typical veggies that you find yourself peeling (e.g., carrots).  Jeffrey complained that the peeled bits don’t fall off of the vegetables, you actually have to stop what you are doing and remove the peeled piece yourself. 

OXO has this handy grip thing going on with all of its products, which make them so ergonomically correct and easy to use.  This product was no exception and was really easy to navigate when we peeled the zucchini for the one of the dishes that we made. I really liked this product, but am still a little bit of a traditionalist when it comes to peelers.

The Pirhana Peeler’s serrated blades and the traditional shape of this peeler make peeling a breeze.  While Jeffrey loved the OXO I was a huge fan of the Pirhana.  It just felt right. My only complaint is that it was not as easy to peel the zucchini slices that we needed for the fried zucchini.

Basa Firm White Fish With Spicy Lemon Mayo Sauce

While strolling the fish department in Safeway yesterday I came across a type of fish that I have never tried before.  It is called basa.  According to Wikipedia the basa fish, Pangasius bocourti, is a type of catfish in the family Pangasiidae. Basa are native to the Mekong River Delta in Vietnam and Chao Phraya basin in Thailand.

My plan was a simple one.  Pan fry the fish with a little bit of olive oil and end the cooking process with a mixture of mayo, lemon and serachi spicy chili sauce. Serve with a simple salad of greens, feta, red onion and olive oil and rice vinegar dressing.  Also serve with brown rice cooked in chicken broth and seasoned with minced garlic.

The salad and rice are easy.  To prepare the fish saute two large filets in olive oil for about 2-3
minutes on each side.  Prepare the sauce by mixing the juice of 1 lemon, two tbsps of low fat mayo, 1 tsp of serachi and then mix well.  After the fish has cooked for a couple of minutes on each side top with the sauce while still in the pan and let cook down for about a minute.

Serve over rice with the salad.

Product Review - The Emulstir and Lemony Roasted Garlic Salad Dressing

What I Tried: The Emulstir ($14.99 – Get It Here)
Chef’n makes some pretty interesting products and I have had a fun time testing their kitchen gadget innovations.  So when the Emulstir arrived at my doorstep I raced into the kitchen to test it out.

What is the Emulstir?  The product brand name comes from the word emulsify, which is basically the process of suspending one liquid into another by vigorously stirring or whisking the two fluids together. The Emulstir is shaped like a cruet with a lid on top and a spout for pouring. The cruet has a plastic whisk-like, curly-q apparatus on the inside and handle on the outside that makes the plastic whisk-like, curly-q apparatus go around and around. By pressing on the handle the curly-q rotates and incorporates air into the two liquids, hence emulsification.

So basically, Chef’n has done a little bit of product emulsification by inventing the Elmulstir. They have taken the cruet and the whisk and have combined the two together in an effort to simplify the process of making salad dressings.

What I Made: 
My friend Tim came over to help me test this one out and together we concocted a simple salad dressing consisting of extra virgin olive oil, lemon, roasted garlic, kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper.

If you don’t have any roasted garlic in the freezer you can use regular garlic, but I must tell you that roasting garlic and storing it in the freezer for frequent use is a practice that you will thank me for later. It is easy to do too. All you need is bulb of garlic (or you can do like I do and buy the big container of peeled garlic in the veggie section of the grocery store).  If you are roasting whole bulbs of garlic cut the top off and loosely wrap it in foil.  Before closing the foil drizzle a little bit of olive oil over the top.  Roast at 400 degrees for about 30 minutes. Take out, let cool, remove the foil and you can literally squeeze the roasted garlic cloves out of the bulb.  If you are roasting the already peeled cloves create a pouch large enough to loosely hold the cloves, drizzle with a little bit of oil and roast for 30 minutes at 400 degrees.

For the dressing you will need:

-    ¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
-    ½ cup of freshly squeezed lemon juice
-    4-5 roasted garlic cloves, mashed into a paste
-    ½ tsp kosher salt
-    ½ tsp sugar
-    1 tsp freshly ground black pepper

Place all of the ingredients into the Emulstir, cover and holding with one hand press on the handle and the let the plastic whisk-like, curly-q apparatus on the inside do the rest.

We used the dressing for an arugula salad with Parmegianno Regianno cheese. It was yummy.

What it Rated:
Both Tim and I really like the Emulstir.  The concept is simple and the end result delivers exactly what the product brand name promises. Of course every product has a few little flaws, but the ones we discovered during the testing phase were not deal breakers.

I personally like the process of grinding my pepper into the bowl that I usually use to make my dressing.  The opening at the top of the cruet is a little too small to make this a possibility so I had to grind the pepper first and then scoop my peppery bits into the top.

The little opening at the top needs to be on tight. If it is not a little bit of the dressing can leak out during the emulsification process, which can be a little messy. You need to make sure the handle is pointing away from your body while operating the plastic whisk-like, curly-q apparatus. It is much easier to operate that way.

All in all, this is a very cool product and for the price it is well worth the money and the time you’ll save when making dressings. Oh yeah… I took it to my sister’s house and the niece and nephew liked it too. “This is fun,” Maggie giggled to me as she made the plastic whisk-like, curly-q apparatus on the inside go around and around and around.