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Bangkok Chicken

Rinse chicken and pat dry with paper towels. Cut chicken crosswise into 1/4 inch wide slices.
Combine onion, anchovy paste, garlic, and crushed red pepper in a food processor or blender; process until smooth. Set aside.
Heat the wok over high heat about 1 minute or until hot. Drizzle oil into the wok and heat 30 seconds. Add chicken and stir fry until chicken is no longer pink in the center. Remove chicken to a large bowl.
Reduce heat to medium.
Add onion mixture to the wok and stir fry 1 minute. Add mushrooms and corn; mix well. Add soy sauce and sugar; stir until sugar dissolves. Return chicken to the wok. Stir fry until heated through. Add basil; toss gently to combine.
Line a serving platter with lettuce leaves. Spoon chicken mixture onto lettuce.
Garnish, if desired.

Recipe4living - Vegetables

Chefs seek repeal of looming foie gras ban

In 2004, the California Legislature gave foie gras producers seven years to find a humane way to create the duck liver delicacy without forcing food down the birds' throats.

With the law set to take effect the July 1, some of the state's top chefs on Monday were attempting to overturn it. A hundred have signed a petition saying they want to keep the sale of foie gras legal and establish new regulations for raising the birds. They are visiting with their representatives trying to accomplish an uphill task: finding someone to sponsor a bill to repeal it in time.

Their 11th-hour attempt has ruffled the feathers of the ban's original sponsor.

"I gave them seven years seven years, and I shouldn't have and now they're all going, 'Oh my God, I just don't know how we're going to survive,"' said John Burton, the former president pro tem of the state Senate who is now the state Democratic Party chairman. "I'm so infuriated with the bad faith going on here that words cannot describe it."

Burton's bill banned the "inhumane practice" of force-feeding ducks and geese as well as the sale of foie gras in California. Burton initially agreed to delay implementation of the bill because the state's sole producer had asked for time to find a more humane way to engorge the birds' livers to keep the dish on menus.

"It's been a rough couple of years for restaurants because of the economy," said Nathan Ballard, spokesman for the group that delivered the petition to the office of Assembly Speaker John Perez on Monday. "This is one more blow to the restaurant industry in California. Chefs don't want to see it go into effect."

Perez's office had no comment on the issue.

Foie gras, French for "fat liver," is created by the funnel-forced ingestion of large amounts of feed into the duck's esophagus. Eventually the liver grows to more than 10 times its normal size.

The chefs who opposed the ban most from the San Francisco Bay Area also are using an animal welfare argument. Calling themselves the Coalition for Humane and Ethical Farming Standards, or CHEFS, they are asking the state to set standards for foie gras production that would include audits by animal welfare experts, cage-free birds, hand feeding by methods that don't impair breathing, and limits on fattening. They say that if foie gras is outlawed, people will buy it on the black market.

Sonoma Foie Gras founder Guillermo Gonzalez, whose company is California's only foie gras producer, said his 26-year-old business has been unfairly maligned in the name of animal rights. His birds, Gonzalez said, roam free for most of their lives and are individually fed by the same feeder twice a day for the last two weeks of their lives.

"I do not believe that foie gras farming, when done correctly, is harmful or hurtful to the animal," Gonzalez said. "I believed then, as I believe today that our farming techniques would be considered humane under any unbiased scientific scrutiny."

He said that when Burton first introduced his bill, there was talk of a compromise in which the state would fund research "validating or negating whether the methods used in our foie gras production were acceptable." But the funds never were attached to the legislation, and "as a result, there was no study, and therefore, no way to exonerate my business."

- AP

nzherald.co.nz - Food & Wine

Corn Griddle Cakes with Sausage

For orange-honey butter:
Melt butter in a small saucepan over low heat. Whisk in honey and orange zest. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Cover and keep warm.

For corn cakes:
Melt butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Spoon milk solids from surface and discard. Pour clarified butter into a small glass measuring cup (there should be about 1/4 cup), leaving any browned bits behind; set aside. (Alternatively, use 1/4 cup grapeseed oil.)

Cook sausage in a 10" cast-iron skillet or other large heavy nonstick skillet over medium heat, breaking up into small pieces with the back of a spoon, until browned and cooked through, about 8 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer sausage to a small bowl. Add corn to same skillet and cook over medium-high heat, stirring often, until browned, 5â€"6 minutes. Transfer corn to bowl with sausage and let cool. Wipe skillet clean and reserve.

Whisk cornmeal and next 7 ingredients in a medium bowl. Whisk buttermilk and eggs in a large bowl; add dry ingredients and whisk until just combined. Fold in sausage, corn, and scallions.

Heat 1 tablespoon clarified butter in reserved skillet; working in batches and adding butter as needed between batches, add batter to pan by tablespoonfuls. Cook until cakes are crisp and golden brown, 2â€"3 minutes. Turn cakes over and cook until browned, 1â€"2 minutes longer. Transfer cakes to paper towels to drain. Serve warm drizzled with orange-honey butter.

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Creamy Asparagus Soup

Method

1 Cut tips from the asparagus 1 1/2 inches from top and halve tips lengthwise if thick. Reserve for garnish. Chop the remaining asparagus stalks into 1/4-inch rounds.

2 Melt the butter in a 4 to 5 quart pot on medium heat. Add the onions and cook until translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the chopped asparagus (not the spear tips) to the onions. Sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste. Cook another 5 minutes.

3 Add the broth, water, and thyme to the pot. Increase the heat to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. Simmer, covered, until the asparagus are tender, 10 to 15 minutes. At the end of cooking, stir in the chopped parsley.

4 While the soup is cooking, blanche the asparagus tips in a small pot of boiling, salted water (about 1 1/2 teaspoons of salt per quart of water), until the tips are just tender, about 2-4 minutes, depending on the size of the asparagus. Drain. Rinse with cool water to stop the cooking. Set aside.

5 Use an immersion blender to blend the soup until smooth. (If you use an upright blender, work in small batches, fill no more than a third the blender bowl at a time, and hold down the lid while blending.) For a creamy texture, if you want, press the puréed soup through a sieve or food mill. Stir in the cream. Stir in the vermouth and a squeeze of lemon juice. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Garnish with asparagus tips.

Yield: Serves 4-6.

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