Ruth Paget

I ordered shrimp vegetable stir-fry from Golden Star Chinese Restaurant in Salinas, California and knew from the wonderful aroma that the restaurant used 5-spice powder to make this dish. Golden Star combines 5-spice powder shrimp with thin, bite-size pieces of broccoli, cabbage, carrots, zucchini, and mushrooms to make this delicious “food as medicine” stir-fry.

5-spice powder appeals to the following Chinese flavor profile:

-sweet

-bitter

-sour

-salty

-savory

The typical 5-spice powder blend is made with the following ingredients. Several of these ingredients contain strong antioxidants that help remove free radicals that can cause cancer from the body:

-star anise

-cloves

-Chinese cinnamon

-Sichuan pepper

-fennel seed

These flavors blend with the usual Chinese seasonings of fresh garlic and fresh ginger that go in with the peanut oil to start a stir-fry. The shrimp is then added and cooked a few minutes and followed by the vegetables. The hot oil draws out moisture from the shrimp and vegetables. The moisture is hot and is perfect to cook seasonings without burning them.

At this point, many Chinese restaurants will add in a mixture of cornstarch and water to give the food a glowing sheen. Golden Star does not appear to do this, which I do not mind. The vegetables in the shrimp vegetable stir-fry I ate were bright and tender as they were.

The nutrient powerhouse in this dish at Golden Star was the broccoli with Vitamin C (an antioxidant), potassium, and vitamin B6 (nutrition information from the USDA – US Department of Agriculture website).

Cabbage has large amounts of vitamin C as well (nutrition information from the USDA – US Department of Agriculture website). Carrots contain large amounts of vitamin A (from the WebMD.com website). Mushrooms contain antioxidants (from the Medical News Today website).

What is nice about this highly nutritious 5-spice powder shrimp vegetable stir-fry is that it is very flavorful without being spicy hot. The Sichuan peppercorns in the 5-spice powder made the dish refreshing without the numbing heat that they are famous for.

People trying Chinese food for the first time might enjoy this shrimp vegetable stir-fry at Golden Star Chinese Restaurant in Salinas, California on South Main Street.

By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Sunday, June 30, 2024

4th of July Salinas, Monterey County, and Monterey Peninsula 2024

Many ways to celebrate the 4th of July in Salinas, Monterey County, and the Monterey Peninsula in 2024!

July 4th Salinas, Monterey County, and Monterey Peninsula

Reposted by Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

Raspberry Jam Gravy Recipe by Ruth Paget

This is an American heritage recipe from my father Clarence Pennington (World War II Veteran) and Frederick McKinley Pennington (World War I Veteran). This recipe has been reprinted by Mark F. Sohn in his cookbook Appalachian Home Cooking: History, Culture, and Recipes published by the University Press of Kentucky (2005).

My father always made homemade biscuits to go with the jam, but I use ready-to-bake biscuits to speed up the cooking process.

Serves 4

Ingredients:

-1 can 12 ready-to-bake biscuits

-1 stick butter (equals ½ cup butter)

-1 (15-ounce) can raspberries with juice

-6 tablespoons sugar

-4 tablespoons flour

Steps:

1-Put biscuits in to bake according to package instructions. While they are baking, make the jam.

2-Melt the butter in a frying pan.

3-Add the raspberries with their juice to the butter.

4-Mix the sugar and flour together. They will not clump if they are mixed together before going in with the raspberries. Stir the flour-sugar mixture into the raspberries.

5-Simmer the jam until thickened.

6-Take the biscuits out of the oven when they are done, split the biscuits apart, and spoon the raspberry jam gravy over the biscuits.

Eat the biscuits and jam gravy while they are warm with a strong black coffee.

By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Apple Duck Confit at Chez Philippe in Los Gatos, California by Ruth Paget

My family is not going to the Summer Olympics in Paris (2024), but wanted to honor this event and went out for a swanky French dinner at Chez Philippe in Los Gatos, California high up in the Santa Cruz Mountains by San Jose.

We began our meal with escargots (snails) that swam in delicious melted butter with pungent, freshly crushed garlic from nearby Gilroy and freshly chopped flat-leaf parsley. Snails are purged with white flour to clean their digestive tract, which makes them spongy, popcorn-like balls that easily soak up garlic-butter sauce. I like to soak up the leftover sauce with pieces of bread.

As my main dish, I ate apple duck confit. Duck has a lot of fat and sautéing it in this fat makes it juicy with melted fat. Bordeaux wine is said to go well with confit. I did not order a glass of it, because the confit came with an applesauce to cut the rich flavor of the duck confit. This is a good dish for a designated driver.

The apple duck confit also came with potato slices that had been fried in duck fat, making them dense and able to soak up sea salt. Crisp, steamed French green beans rounded out the meal for a refreshing finish.

In place of dessert, I shared a cheese platter with my husband Laurent. We both love cheese and liked the well-aged cheese chosen for this platter:

-roquefort from Averyron, France

-pont l’évêque from Normandy

-Brie de Meaux from outside Paris

Eating at Chez Philippe is pleasant, and the restaurant sometimes has live jazz playing at dinnertime. (Check the website for jazz evenings.)

By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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