Making Restaurant Recipes at Home
Copycat Recipes Make Eating In a Treat
Did you always want to know how to make your favorite restaurant food at home? Well these days, lots of restaurants are sharing recipes with their customers. You can find them online at places like copykat.com, where there are recipes for things like Chili's Awesome Blossom (deep fried battered onion) and Macaroni Grill's Pasta di Pollo. And also from the restaurant's own cookbooks that they often sell onsite or through major booksellers. Popular ones include California Pizza Kitchen, who sells cookbooks that share not only recipes for their amazing pizzas, but for all their pizza dough variations that can be made ahead and frozen, and Panera Bread who gives the secrets to breadmaking in addition to many of their restaurant specialties in their cookbook The Panera Bread Cookbook: Breadmaking Essentials and Recipes from America's Favorite Bakery-Cafe.
In fact, if you go to Amazon.com online bookstore and type in "restaurant cookbooks", you will find more than 1,000 cookbooks with your favorite restaurant secrets from restaurants from Starbucks to Ruth's Chris Steakhouse. There are specialty compilations like Best Places Seattle that highlight a certain city's best cuisine, and Top Secret Restaurant Recipes: Creating Kitchen Clones from America's Favorite Restaurant Chains that include hundresds of recipes from chains accross the world such as Pizza Hut, Bennigans and Lone Star Steakhouse.
Another way to find restaurant recipes is to visit the restaurant's website. Chef Wolfgang Puck posts recipes from a multitude of his popular restaurants at his site. Popular P.F. Chang's China Bistro posts a seasonal "featured recipe" on thier site. Our own copycat versions of two popular dishes from Wolfgang Puck and P.F. Changs are listed below.
The following recipe simulates P.F. Chang's popular lettuce wraps, using sausage.
Lettuce Wrap Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 pound sausage, casings removed and broken into small pieces
- 2 to 3 teaspoons szechwan seasnoning
- 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
- 1 can (8 ounces) sliced water chestnuts, drained and chopped
- 1 cup shredded carrots
- 1/2 cup sliced green onions
- 1/2 cup chopped toasted walnuts
- 3 tablespoons soy sauce
- 1 head lettuce, leaves separated, rinsed and drained
Directions
- Cook sausage and szechwan seasoning in hot oil in large nonstick skillet on medium-high heat until well browned, stirring to break meat into small pieces.
- Add water chestnuts, carrots, green onions, walnuts and soy sauce; cook, stirring until heated through.
- To serve, spoon about 1/2 cup sausage mixture into center of each lettuce leaf. Roll and eat.
To make a copy cat of the Thai Peanut Pasta Salad offered at Wolfgang Puck's Cafe, use the easy recipe below and enjoy restaurant taste in your own kitchen.
Thai Peanut Pasta Salad Recipe
Ingredients
- 6 tablespoons peanut butter
- 1/4 cup chicken broth
- 3 tablespoons rice vinegar
- 3 tablespoons soy sauce
- 1 1/2 tablespoons sugar
- 1 tablespoon oriental sesame oil
- 1/2 teaspoon dried ginger
- 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
- 8 ounces linguine
- 1 large orange bell pepper, cut into fine strips
- 1/2 cup chopped green onions
- 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
- 1/4 cup chopped salted peanuts
- 1 cucumber, peeld and sliced
Directions
- Combine first 8 ingredients in small bowl; whisk to blend. Set dressing aside.
- Cook pasta in large pot of boiling salted water until just tender but still firm to bite, stirring occasionally. Drain pasta; rinse with cold water and drain again.
- Transfer pasta to medium bowl. Add bell pepper and green onions. Pour dressing over; toss to coat.
- Season salad with salt and pepper, and top with cilantro, cucumber and peanuts.
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