Easy as Pie Test Kitchen

Open, sesame!

Sesame seed oil is probably my favorite kind of oil. It's so fragrant when it's cooking, with such a nutty, sunshiny flavor.

Pan-Fried Sesame Chicken with Spinach

Ingredients:
4 chicken breast halves, boneless, skinless
2 tablespoons sesame oil
1 bag spinach, (12-ounce)
1 onion, peeled and chopped
1 tablespoon sesame seeds
salt
pepper

Directions:
Heat oil in a large skillet over high heat until smoking a bit. Salt and pepper both sides of the chicken, and place the breasts in the skillet. Cook until browned on both sides and no longer pink in the middle. Remove from pan and cover to keep warm. Add a little extra oil to pan if it is dry. Lower heat to medium-high. Add onion and cook until onion is beginning to get tender. Add spinach and cook it with onions until it has shrunken quite a bit but is still green. Remove from heat. Serve chicken and spinach together sprinkled with sesame seeds.

Ghosts of tuna past (more appetizing than it sounds)

This recipe is a little reminder of summer for all my snow-bound friends. Heck, it’s even been a little wintry here in southern California. By “wintry” I mean a little rainy and below 60 some days. Please don’t throw snow at your computer screen.

 

A few months back, a co-worker wrangled this tuna off the California coast, and I ran home and cooked it ASAP. Fresh tuna deserves to go from ocean to stomach with as little cooking as possible in between. I am not brave enough to prepare my own fish completely raw, however, so pan-seared was the way to go. Fresh caught fish is an occasion at the Walton household, so I bought some of these decorative-looking mini mixed greens from Trader Joe’s that always remind me a little of alfalfa. Turns out they’re not just pretty, but yummy, too. I seared the tuna and made some pickles to top it with rice vinegar, as well as a little horseradish sauce I made. (Trader Joe’s didn’t have wasabi, which probably would have been better.)

 

Pickles

1 cucumber, cut in small cubes or slices

1 very small red onion, or 1/2 a medium red onion, chopped in small pieces

1/4 cup rice vinegar

1/2 teaspoon salt

 

Mix ingredients in a metal or ceramic bowl. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours. (I just whipped this up and stuck it in the fridge the night before.)

 

Sauce

1/4 cup mayonnaise (I can’t eat eggs, so I use vegan mayo, which is better than the real store-bought stuff IMHO)

1 1/2 tablespoons rice vinegar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon hot chili sauce (I prefer Sri Racha, but I’m sure Tabasco would do)

2 tablespoons horseradish

1 tablespoon lemon juice

 

Tuna

Tuna

Sesame seed oil

 

Pat the tuna dry and sprinkle with pepper. Heat a skillet over medium high. Add the oil, then the tuna. Cook the tuna on each side until it is golden—usually under a minute.

 

Serve tuna topped with pickles and horseradish sauce.