Thai Fiddlehead Stir Fry

 It was already nearly the end of June when I decided to cook my way through the Bicentennial Cookbook. So I realized that some ingredients might be seasonal, and therefore, not readily available, in the six months and twelve days that I planned to attempt this cooking adventure. Sure enough, fiddlehead season had already passed us by. I did try to find frozen fiddleheads, with no luck. 

My husband and I love Thai food, but he is not fond of fiddleheads (me, I love 'em, can't get enough of 'em). So I decided to just use whatever vegetables we had on hand, and I will do a proper Thai Fiddlehead Stir Fry next spring. 

The thin strips of steak fry up very quickly, so I cooked all the veggies first and then set them aside to quickly cook the meat. It looks beautiful on a plate and tastes so good, you won't need to order out Thai ever again (altho please do, we want to support our local restaurants, especially in this pandemic!).

This is the 200th recipe in the cookbook. And yes, the cover of the book boasts 200 recipes. But by my count, I still have enough recipes to last till the end of the Bicentennial year. And I've already picked the grand finale recipe, which is going to be well worth the six months-twelve days wait, so don't miss it! 

Why am I choosing the Fiddlehead Stir Fry without fiddleheads, as my 200th recipe? Well, I think fiddleheads are one of the special seasonal Maine foods which people look forward to each year, just like blueberries (see Blue Ribbon Blueberry Pie blog, which was my 100th recipe) and apples and strawberries and potatoes. Yes, you can often obtain seasonal foods year-round, frozen or cold storage. But it's nothing like fresh, is it? Enjoying the bounty of Maine foods in-season helps us to appreciate the gifts of this good earth we live on, and tunes us in to the rhythms of nature and an appreciation for the different seasons we enjoy here in Maine. So you see, having tried this fabulous Thai recipe without fiddleheads gives me the joy of daydreaming, through the long winter, about cooking this recipe in the spring with fiddleheads!

*If you are enjoying this blog, or, better yet, if you have purchased the Maine Bicentennial Community Cookbook, and you enjoy the recipes and family stories in the cookbook, you may want to help the Cookbook to win the People's Choice Award at The Readable Feast People's Choice 2020 (tryinteract.com)  Do it right now, the contest ends Monday, December 7th!



Comments

Post a Comment

I welcome your comments. Please be kind and considerate. Thanks for stopping by!

Popular posts from this blog

Lancey House Dip

Image
Funny how childhood memories will pop up when a food reminds us... This dip is not one that I recognize from reading its ingredients, but when I tasted it, oh, wow, did it ever take me back in time! As a child, we lived in a large house in Bangor, and my parents loved parties. My mom enjoyed making dips and this one tastes very familiar to me. Maybe it's the cottage cheese base, but there are other ingredients that compliment the cottage cheese and really bring it together. A nice mix with other cheeses to bind it together. My husband is not fond of blue cheese, but I love it. I decided that, since I promised myself I'd try to stay true to the original recipes in the book, the first time around, I would keep the blue cheese in, and see how it tasted.  Turns out, it is in such small proportion to the rest of the recipe, I doubt he will really notice. It simply adds strength to the cheese base, I think, but not enough to overpower other flavors. He hasn't come downstairs to t...
Read more

Maine Party Chicken

Image
 As I read the ingredients for this recipe, I had a flashback to my childhood. My parents enjoyed having friends over, and my mother was not a chef by any means, but she would look for recipes that were easy to prepare for a crowd. This is one of the recipes she used to make.  I used to be a can-of-soup cook, like my mom, when a white sauce was called for. But since I learned how to do a bechamel, oh my, there is no going back. Not that there is anything wrong with an easy pop-top cream of mushroom soup once in awhile. It does the trick, and you just tuck this dish in the fridge overnight and do a three-hour bake the next day, which gives you time to focus on putting up party banners, or whatever, for your company. I'm not sure I care for the dried beef in this dish. Awfully salty. But the bacon, when you do a slow bake, smells fantastic for three solid hours. Can you say Anticipation?! I say, when you go big, go easy. Try this recipe for a crowd. You'll be glad you did!
Read more

Riverhouse Scallops "Benedict"

Image
 If elegant and easy ever paired perfectly, this would be the recipe for such a happy marriage. I saw the minimal ingredients, and thought to self: "This is where the quick hors d'oeuvres meet the 'oh wow' from the guests, with the hostess barely lifting a finger, except to sip some wine." Now, that's my kind of hors d'oeuvres! Slice the very fresh scallops into thin circles. Drop them into fresh lemon juice to "cook." You are also supposed to slice the avocados into circles, to mirror the scallops, but mine ended up being whatever shape the avocado chose. I don't argue with avocadoes about their shape, I just eat them and am grateful they choose to show up on the plate at all. The recipe calls for a few shakes of hot sauce on each scallop slice. I used Cholula Sweet Habanero Hot Sauce.  This is a fabulous appetizer that will impress your friends and family!
Read more