Tuna With Grilled Panzanella

Tuna With Grilled Panzanella

Why this recipe works: Panzanella is a classic Italian bread salad, and in our version we add smoky flavor by grilling all of the components. Once charred, the bread and vegetables are matched with a grilled tuna for the perfect summer might’s meal. The briny, acidic bite of capers adds contrast and depth to the bread salad, and a healthy dose of basil lends summery freshness. The dressing pulls double duty here we use it to flavor both the salad and the tuna. We find that Italian bread with a crusty exterior and chewy crumb works best in the panzanella. After cooking the vegetables, we allow a few minutes for the grill to heat up before cooking the fish and use the downtime to assemble the bread salad.

Tuna with grilled panzanella

Ingredients: sever 4

3 tablespoon white wine vinegar

2 garlic cloves, minced salt and pepper

9 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

1 red bell pepper

1 large red onion, sliced into ½ inch rounds

4 slices crusty Italian bread (about 1 inch thick)

3 tablespoons capers, drained and rinsed

3 tablespoons chopped fresh basil

4 tuna steaks (6 to 8 ounces each), about 1 inch thick

Procedures:

1. Whisk vinegar, garlic, ¼ teaspoon pepper, and 6 tablespoons oil in large bowl. Transfer 2 tablespoons dressing to small bowl and reserve.
2. Slice bottom off pepper, stand upright, and slice off a large, fleshy piece from side of stem. Slice off remaining smaller pieces. Toss onion and pepper with 2 additional tablespoons oil and season with salt and pepper. Grill bread over medium fire until charred on both sides, about 2 minutes per side. Grill onion and pepper until charred on both side, 3 to 5 minutes per side. Cut bread, onion, and pepper into ¾ inch pieces. Toss bread and vegetables with dressing in large bowl. Toss in capers and basil and season with salt and pepper.
3. Brush tuna with remaining tablespoon oil and season with salt and pepper. Grill over hot fire until browned on both sides, but still red in center, 2 to 4 minutes per side. Transfer tuna to platter and drizzle with reserve dressing. Serve with salad

Quick prep tip cutting pepper for grilling

Slice the bottom off the pepper and stand it upright. Slice off a large fleshy piece form two sides to expose the core. Slice down the ribs, avoiding the seeds and stem, to create smaller strips.

Kitchen know how warming up a gas grill

Heat the grill with all the burners turned to high and the lid down for at least 15 minutes. Once the grill is hot, scrape the grate clean with a grill brush, then adjust the burners as desired. Cook with the lid down in all instances: it concentrates the heat when searing and keeps the temperature steady when slow cooking. 

Vietnamese – style Noodles with chicken

Vietnamese – style Noodles with chicken

Why this Recipe Works: this simplified version of bun cha, a quintessential Vietnamese street food offering, gets its bold flavor from boneless, skinless chicken thighs that have been coated in an assertive marinade. The thighs cook quickly and, thanks to a fair amount of fat, remain moist. Their succulence adds richness to an otherwise fat-free dish. If desired, cilantro leaves can replace the mint leaves, or you can try a mixture of both.

Ingredient: 4 serving

7 tablespoon fish sauce

7 tablespoon sugar

2 garlic cloves, minced

½ teaspoon pepper

8 boneless, skinless chicken thighs (about 1½ pounds), trimmed of excess fat

1/3 cup lime juice

5 tablespoon water

8 ounces rice vermicelli

4 cups shredded romaine lettuce leaves (6 to 8 leaves)

2 cups bean sprouts (about 6 ounces)

¾ cup shredded fresh mint leaves

½ cup chopped roasted salted peanuts

Procedure:

1. Combine 2 tablespoons fish sauce, 2 table spoon sugar, garlic, and pepper in medium bowl and stir until sugar dissolves. Add chicken thighs and turn to coat.
2. In small bowl, combine remaining 5 tablespoons fish sauce, reaming 5 tablespoons sugar, lime juice, and water and stir until sugar dissolves.
3. Bring 4 quarts water to boil in large pot. Remove from heat, add vermicelli, and let stand until vermicelli are tender, 6 to 8 minutes. Drain in colander and rise vermicelli with cold running water until cooled. Drain well.
4. Divide lettuce, bean sprouts, and mint among 4 individual bowls. Top vegetables with vermicelli, dividing evenly.
5. Grill chicken over medium – hot fire until charred and chicken registers 170 degrees, 5 to 6 minutes per side. Cut chicken crosswise into ½ - inch strips. Place chicken on top of vermicelli and sprinkle with peanuts. Serve, passing sauce on side for pouring over individual servings.

Smart Shopping Rice Vermicelli

Asian noodle nomenclature can cause confusion in the grocery store. For this recipe, look for thin rice noodles called rice vermicelli – they are also some times labeled as rice sticks or as mainfun. But be warned: other rice noodles are also labeled as rice vermicelli and rice sticks. Always look closely at the noodles themselves – for this recipe and other like it, purchase the fine, wiry noodles in strands that resemble angel hair pasta. To add to the confusion, there are no standard weights for rice vermicelli packages – some contain 6.75 ounces of noodles, others 8.8 ounces. Both of these sizes should be enough to serve four, but if you’re less than 7 ounces, consider supplementing the dish with additional vegetables just to be sure. 

Grilled Turkey Sausage with Fennel Salad

Grilled Turkey Sausage with Fennel Salad

Why this Recipe Works: Supermarket turkey sausage is a great choice for a summer dinner: It’s  inexpensive, easy to find, cooks up quickly, and tastes great hot off the grill. Plus, it comes in a variety of different styles, with numerous flavoring and seasoning combinations. For this recipe, we like mild, Italian style turkey sausage, since its flavors pair well with the fennel salad. But any fresh, uncooked sausage will work, so fell free to be creative. The salad is a study of familiar yet contracting textures are flavors: apples and oranges, fennel and olives, scallions and cider vinegar. We use a sparse amount of oil cured olives, chopped up, to get a subtle but recognizable hit of intense briny flavor in each bite. If you’re using another, less assertive variety of olive, up the amount form ¼ cup to 1/3 cup. We recommend using a mandoline to slice the fennel into thin, even ribbons. The thinner the slices, the more tender the fennel becomes and the easier it is to eat. While the mandoline is out, go ahead and use it to slice the apple – there’s no better way to cut even, thin slices quickly. And don’t peel the apple; the green flashes of peel add visual interest to the dish. The sweetness of the orange is key to the flavor profile of this particular salad, so be sure to remove all of this particular salad, so be sure to remove all of the bitter, white pith from the orange segments. If you don’t the oranges less pleasing bitter qualities will carry over into the salad.

Ingredient: 4 serves

2 fennel bulbs, cores removed and sliced very thin on mandoline

1 granny smith apple, cored and sliced thin

2 oranges, peel cut away and segments removed

2 tablespoons cider vinegar

¼ cup olive oil

4 scallions, sliced thin

¼ cup oil cured olives, chopped salt and pepper

1 ½ pounds turkey sausage

Procedures:

1. Toss fennel, apple, oranges, vinegar, oil, scallions, and olives together until combined. Season with salt and pepper
2. grill sausages over hot fire until golden brown and cooked through, about 12 minutes. Transfer to platter. Serve with fennel salad.

Quick prep tip SHAVING FENNEL

Because of its awkward bulbous base and feathery foliage, working with fennel can be tricky. Here’s how we handle this oddly shaped vegetable in the test kitchen. We cut off the stems and the feathery fronds on top and then trim a very thin slice from the base of the bulb. Next, we slice the bulb in half lengthwise from top to bottom before cutting out the tough, triangular – shaped piece of the core located on the bottom of each half. Finally, we carefully run the fennel, cut side down, down the length of the mandolin. Since the blade of the mandoline is very sharp, many mandolins come equipped with a safety device that elevates your hand away from the blade. 

Greek Lemon Soup with Chicken Meatballs

Greek Lemon Soup with Chicken Meatballs

Why this Recipe Works: How exactly do you make a creamy, rich soup without any cream? The answer is by using an egg liaison – a mixture of egg yolks and lemon juice – as a binding agent. To avoid scrambling the eggs, we don’t add the yolk mixture directly to the hot soap; we “temper” the liaison first by slowly adding some of the hot broth to the yolk mixture and then whisking the warmed yolk mixture back into the soup. At this point, there’s a gentle simmer will both cook the yolks and thicken the soup. Whit rice can be substituted for the orzo. The mixture for the meatballs will be fairly wet and loose. To tighten the mixture up, we use panko (Japanese-style bread crumbs). We found that they absorb more moisture than regular bread crumbs do.

Ingredient:

8 cups low sodium chicken broth

1 pound ground chicken

1 small onion, grated(about 1 cup)

½ cup panko(Japanese-style bread crumbs)

3 tablespoon chopped fresh mint

3 tablespoon chopped fresh dill

¼ cup chopped fresh parsley

3 large egg yolks and 1 whole egg salt and pepper

1 cup orzo

3 medium carrots, peeled and sliced into ¼ inch rounds

3 tablespoons lemon juice

Procedure:

1. Bring broth to boil in large saucepan. Cover and set aside. Combine chicken, onion, bread crumbs, mint, dill, parsley, whole egg, 1 teaspoon salt, and ½ teaspoon pepper together in bowl. Knead mixture until well mixed. Shape mixture into 1 inch meatballs(mixture will be soft).
2. Add meatballs, orzo, and carrot to broth and bring to simmer. Lower heat to medium-low and simmer until meatballs are cooked through and orzo is tender, about 15 minutes.
3. Gently whisk lemon juice and yolks together in bowl. Whisking constantly, gradually ladle 1 cup hot soup into egg mixture, then stir egg mixture back into soup, again whisking constantly. Gently simmer soup on low heat until slightly thickened, about 2 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.

Quick prep tip

TEMPERING THE EGGS WITH THE SOUP

Whisking constantly, pour the hot broth in a slow, steady stream into the beaten egg yolk mixture. Once the broth is fully incorporated, slowly pour the warm egg yolk mixture back into the soup, again whisking constantly. Bring the soup back to a gentle simmer and cook until the soup is slightly thickened.