Archive for April, 2008
OK, that’s not all we ate. It was staggered between a bowl of oatmeal, strawberries and blackberries, leftover bean salad and some greens, but after a mid-afternoon birthday brunch, none of us were much in the mood for dinner. I’ve decided that on these occasions the most recent meal should count as the default.
Besides, I want to tell you about a chocolate cake that’s low in fat, made with canola oil and tastes like a giant Jos Louis.
But first, brunch: the usual suspects - poached eggs, back bacon, and yes hollandaise since I have recently become reacquainted with it and had people over to safely dispose of (read: take home) the leftovers. And cinnamon bun French toast. A few weeks ago my parents dropped by on their way home from IKEA with a 6-pack of cinnamon buns, and since it a) was 9 o’clock at night, and b) there are only 2 1/2 of us, there wasn’t much to do with them but stash them in the freezer until they could be called into service for an occasion such as this. It was either cinnamon bun bread pudding or cinnamon bun French toast; since bread pudding still seems to still have very few fans, I decided not to risk it.
In case you’re wondering, you make cinnamon bun French toast the same way you’d make it with bread; slice them in half or in thirds, crosswise (they’re thick), dip in egg-milk-vanilla, and cook in a well-seasoned cast iron skillet with a bit of canola oil.
Now, the cake. Chocolate, of course, with my favorite frosting: known in my grandma’s battered cookbooks as 7 Minute Frosting, Boiled Icing or Seafoam, it’s a light, creamy, meringue-like, marshmallowy whip that is beaten in a stainless steel bowl set over simmering water in order to cook the egg whites. The light and creamy texture makes it easy to spread, it’s fat-free (yes I realize it’s loaded with sugar, but no more than regular buttercream frosting, which also contains butter and/or shortening), and takes on flavorings and food coloring very well. (The chocolate cake is delish with peppermint-spiked frosting.) Add a few drops of color to the water if you want to tint the frosting, or drop it in at the end to create a swirled effect. My only complaint is that the ultra-whiteness of it tends to show off every chocolate crumb.
Chocolate Cake
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour, or half all-purpose, half whole wheat
1 1/2 cups sugar
3/4 cup cocoa
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup milk (regular or soy)
1/2 cup canola oil
2 large eggs
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup hot coffee or boiling water
Preheat oven to 350° F. Spray two 9″ round baking pans or one Bundt pan with nonstick spray, or line muffin cups with paper liners.
In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt, breaking up any lumps of brown sugar and cocoa.
Add the milk, oil, eggs and vanilla and beat with an electric mixer on medium speed for about 2 minutes. Add the coffee and beat on low speed just until blended. The batter will be thin.
Divide the batter among the prepared pans and bake them for 30-35 minutes for layer cakes, 20-25 minutes for cupcakes or 50-55 minutes for a Bundt cake, until the top of the cakes are springy to the touch. Let them cool for about 10 minutes before running a knife around the edge of the pans and inverting them onto a wire rack. Cool completely before you frost them.
Makes two 9″ layers, 2 dozen cupcakes or one Bundt cake.
Seven Minute Frosting
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 Tbsp. light or golden corn syrup
1/3 cup water
2 large egg whites
1 tsp. vanilla, coconut, maple, mint, or other flavored extract
In the top of a double boiler or in a clean stainless steel bowl set over a pot of simmering water, combine the sugar, corn syrup, water, and egg whites. Make sure the simmering water doesn’t touch the bottom of the bowl or double boiler – you only need an inch or two of water in the pot. Beat the sugar mixture with an electric mixer on high speed for about 7 minutes, until it stands in billowy peaks. Remove it from the heat and beat in the vanilla.
To make Seafoam (Brown Sugar) Frosting: Substitute packed dark or golden brown sugar for the white sugar.
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April 20 2008 | breakfast and cake | 5 Comments »
I know, I’m not setting a stellar nutritional example here, but it was an emergency. It was Emily’s 10th birthday party today, a party she planned around a soccer theme, complete with outdoor game. Anyone in Calgary knows full well why we had to come up with a plan B. For anyone not in Calgary - the snow is ankle to knee deep (depending how old/big you are) and hasn’t stopped since Friday morning.
Of course by Friday morning any venue they could think of was booked up for Saturday, so Emily chose a cooking theme for her party. What food is more fun for 10 year olds than corn dogs and mini donuts? (We did provide the biggest bowl of fruit salad ever to try and balance things out a little.)
I figured out how to make these last year during Stampede, and quickly discovered you can be the hero of any party if you crank out homemade corn dogs for everyone. Seriously, they won’t stop talking about it for an entire year, at which point you’ll be expected to make them again. I suppose the only downfall is once you set yourself up for that sort of thing, you’re obliged to carry on with it for life.
Mini Donuts
1 package active dry yeast; instant if you’re in a rush (2 tsp.)
2 Tbsp. warm water
3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour, plus additional for sprinkling and rolling out dough (use half whole-wheat if you like)
1 cup milk, at room temperature
2-4 Tbsp. butter or non-hydrogenated margarine, softened
1 large egg
2 Tbsp. sugar
1 tsp. salt
canola oil, for frying
cinnamon-sugar, for dipping (spike sugar with as much cinnamon as you like)
In a large bowl, stir together the yeast and water; set it aside for 5 minutes, until it’s foamy. (If it doesn’t foam, throw it out and buy fresh yeast. It won’t foam much, but if it just sits there and does nothing, it’s inactive.) Add the flour, milk, butter, egg, sugar and salt, and stir until you have a soft, sticky dough. Stir for a minute or two, then cover and set aside for an hour, if you have time and aren’t at a 10th birthday party.
Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and pat with floured hands until it’s about 1/2 inch thick. Cut out as many rounds as possible with the rim of a shot glass, and poke a hole in each with your finger, stretching it out a bit as it will puff up as it cooks, closing the hole somewhat. If you like, cover with a kitchen towel and let them rise for another 20-30 minutes (this isn’t necessary, but will produce lighter doughnuts).
Heat about 2” of oil in a deep, heavy saucepan until it’s hot but not smoking. You’ll know when it’s hot enough by dipping in a piece of bread or a bit of dough – it should start sizzling right away. If the oil is too cool, they will take too long to cook and will absorb too much oil, making them heavy.
Cook doughnuts 2 at a time, turning occasionally with tongs or a slotted spoon, until puffed and golden brown, about 2 minutes per batch. Transfer to paper towels to drain, then toss in cinnamon-sugar while still warm.
(Tip: to make maple dipped donuts instead, add enough maple syrup to icing sugar to make a dipable consistency, and dip away.)
Corn Dogs
1 cup whole wheat or all-purpose flour
¾ cup yellow cornmeal
1/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1 1/4 cups buttermilk
1 egg, beaten
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 - 1 lb. pkg. hot dogs
canola oil, for frying
wooden sticks – bamboo skewers, popsicle sticks or chopsticks work well
In a large bowl, stir together the flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder and salt. Make a well in the middle, and add the buttermilk, egg and baking soda; whisk until well blended.
In a deep, heavy pot, heat enough oil to accommodate the corn dogs (depending on if you want to make big long ones, or cut them in half to make shorter ones, which are more manageable) until it’s hot, but not smoking. You’ll know when it’s hot enough by dipping in a piece of bread or a bit of cornmeal batter – it should start sizzling right away. If the oil is too cool, they will take too long to cook and will absorb too much oil, making them heavy.
Stick a wooden stick into the end of each hot dog (cut them in half first if you like), and dip them in the cornmeal batter to coat. Place them no more than two at a time (you don’t want to crowd the pot, or it will cool down your oil) into the hot oil, and turn them as they need it until they are golden. (When they are nice and golden they are done – the hot dogs should be well heated, but since they are already cooked you don’t have to worry about properly cooking them all the way through.) Remove with tongs and set aside on paper towels.
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April 19 2008 | snacks and sweet stuff | 4 Comments »
I just spent 11 hours cooking for a private event, and my legs feel like a cartoon thumb that has been whacked by a hammer. I made, in no particular order:
Lemon risotto aracini, mushroom crostini topped with Asiago cheese, panko-crusted fried ravioli, prosciutto wrapped prawns, sliced pork tenderloin wrapped around dried figs that were poached in red wine and honey (the bundles were roasted, brushed with a thick garnet reduction of the poaching wine, balsamic vinegar, rosemary and brown sugar - from my Martha Stewart Hors’ d’oeuvres Handbook), and flatbreads (I think it’s funny that there is this new high-end word for pizza) topped with caramelized onions, caramelized pears (slice them thin and saute in a little oil and butter with a drizzle of honey until they are golden), onion and chili pepper jam with various cheeses and another version made with sun dried tomato pesto, shrimp, basil and feta.
But back to the prosciutto-wrapped prawns; I’m sure I’ve mentioned these before, withough really going into detail about how to make them. This is something you should definitely be able to make.
Buy raw frozen shrimp/prawns (same thing, “prawns” just sounds fancier) around 21-30 count - this is the number on the bottom corner of the bag that refers to the number of shrimp that would make a pound. The larger the number, the smaller the shrimp. Or prawns. Get them in their shells or with just the tail on if you can, otherwise take their jackets off, leaving the tails to use as little handles. (If you keep the shells, cover them with stock and simmer for 5 minutes, you’ll have shrimp stock.)
Get about half as many thin slices of prosciutto as you have prawns, slice each slice in half lengthwise, and wrap it around each prawn, leaving the shell part of the tail exposed. No need to skewer or anything - the prosciutto is tacky enough to stick to itself. Now you can grill them or saute them in a skillet in a little oil just until they are opaque. Serve with a small dish of bottled pesto for dipping.
Oh right, dessert - chocolate espresso brownie lollipops and vanilla mascarpone panna cotta spoons: we laid out almost 200 of those Chinese soup spoons and filled them with the panna cotta mixture (really just cream, honey and gelatin, and in this case, a few spoonfuls of mascarpone, stirred in while it’s warm so that it melts), then chilled them (the advantage to doing events at the country’s largest liquor store is having a walk-in beer fridge the size of the average house) and topped them with berries. It made a perfect bite.
Although all I did today was taste and graze (starting with a yogurt I grabbed at the grocery store this morning, which, when I opened it at a red light, exploded all over me and the side window. I had no choice but to wipe it up with the spare pair of Scooby-doo underpants we keep in the glove compartment) I’m sure that calorically what I tasted my way through counted as several dinners. When I want to keep myself from sampling as I go, I chew gum in the kitchen. This is a very good idea when I’m baking cookies - it really makes you aware of how often you have a taste. And even if you spit out your gum, everything is going to taste weird for a bit, like right after brushing your teeth.
M and W had pesto chicken stew and bison chili for dinner. Freezers were the best invention ever. (Besides Spanx, of course.)
Balsamic Mushroom Crostini
20 slices baguette, sliced diagonally about 1/2” thick
1 large clove garlic, cut in half lengthwise
1 Tbsp. olive or canola oil
6 cups sliced fresh mushrooms – button, Portobello, shitake or a combination
Salt and pepper to taste
1/3 cup dried cranberries
2 Tbsp. balsamic vinegar
1 Tbsp. chopped fresh rosemary
½-1 cup shredded Asiago, aged gouda or old white cheddar cheese
Preheat oven to 400° F.
Place baguette slices on a cookie sheet and toast in the oven for about 10 minutes, until barely golden. If you like, brush each toast with olive oil before baking.
Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet set over medium high heat. Cook the mushrooms, stirring occasionally, until the moisture has evaporated. Season with salt and pepper and continue to cook until the mushrooms are golden. Add the cranberries, balsamic vinegar and rosemary and cook for another minute, until the liquid has evaporated.
Spoon the hot mixture onto toasts and sprinkle with cheese. Return to the oven for 5 minutes, until the cheese melts. Makes about 20 crostini.
To turn this into Balsamic Mushroom Dip: stir 4 oz. light cream cheese or goat cheese and 1/2 cup light sour cream into the mushroom mixture while it’s still warm, and stir over low heat until the cheese melts. Serve warm with crackers or crostini for dipping.
Per crostini: 84 calories, 2.1 g total fat (0.5 g saturated fat, 0.9 g monounsaturated fat, 0.4 g polyunsaturated fat), 2.9 g protein, 13.7 g carbohydrate, 1.6 mg cholesterol, 1 g fiber. 22% calories from fat.
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April 18 2008 | appetizers | 1 Comment »
I know, some days I sound like the biggest food snob.
I’m cooking for 160 tomorrow night at Willow Park, and since the menu includes arancini, I needed to make a vat of risotto in advance.
I swear, risotto is one of those things that sounds ultra-fancy, you may pay a fortune for in a restaurant, but it’s just rice. I promise it’s easier than steamed rice; it’s as easy as making oatmeal. It’s nursery food.
If you love risotto, just try it once. Once you’ve figured it out, there are all sorts of possibilities with risotto. I just stuck with the basic lemon-parmesan version I made last time, but after I scooped some of it out it occurred to me I could tear some fresh spinach straight into it, and it would just wilt into its warmth. It was great.
Since I was busy prepping other things, I pulled a chicken from the freezer, stuck it in a bowl of warm water to thaw, and then roasted it, knowing it would be super with the risotto and the leftovers will feed the boys tomorrow in my absence. Another zero-effort dish, unless you count rubbing it with oil and sprinkling it with salt and pepper. The spent lemons I used in the risotto filled up the cavity nicely, too. (Hint: roasting chickens is a great way to keep cast iron skillets well-seasoned!)
So really, the idea behind risotto is that you stir it lots (in contrast with not disturbing it as it cooks) in order for the rice to release its starch into the dish, making it thick and creamy and oatmeal-like. Which is what makes it particularly difficult to screw up; you just keep on adding liquid, cook until it absorbs it all, and add more and keep on stirring until the rice is tender. If there’s too much liquid, it will eventually absorb it; if there’s not enough, add more. You warm the stock first so that it doesn’t cool the risotto and slow the cooking down every time you add some.
Lemon Parmesan Risotto
a drizzle of olive or canola oil and a small knob of butter
1 small onion, finely chopped
2 cups Arborio rice
6(ish) cups chicken or vegetable stock, warmed up
1/2-1 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
zest and juice of 1 lemon
another small knob of butter, if you like
In a medium-large pot, heat the oil and butter over medium-high heat and saute the onion until it’s soft and translucent. Add the rice and cook for a minute, just to coat the grains with oil.
If you like, add a splash of white wine and cook until it’s absorbed or evaporates. Add about half a cup of stock and cook, stirring, until it’s absorbed. Continue adding stock a half cup to a cup at a time and cook, stirring (it doesn’t have to be constantly, just frequently) until it absorbs the liquid. When it’s all used up it should be about half an hour, and the grains should be soft. If they still have a crunchy core and the liquid is used up and absorbed, just add a little more water.
When the rice is cooked and it’s nice and creamy, stir in the cheese, lemon zest and juice, and butter. Stir until the cheese melts. (If you like, stir in a handful of chopped fresh spinach, parsley or basil too, and it will wilt into the risotto.)
Serves about 6.
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April 17 2008 | chicken & turkey and grains | 3 Comments »
Happy Eggs Benedict Day!
Yesterday, being Eggs Benedict Day Eve (I’m not sure who chooses these days, or who makes them official?) we had eggs Benny on the Eyeopener. I made a classic version of hollandaise sauce, which is dead easy to do in the blender; it’s really like mayonnaise - blended egg yolks with melted butter drizzled in, and a bit of lemon juice. Three yolks and a cup of butter to 1 tablespoon of lemon juice is the ratio; you really could not get any more high fat than hollandaise sauce if you tried, which is probably why people don’t generally make it at home. When you order it at a restaurant you don’t witness (nor take part in) the use of cups of melted butter. Not being an accomplice absolves us of at least some of the guilt.
I went to Big Fish this past weekend and had crab eggs Benedict (they also do steak eggs Benedict), which reminded me of the crab cakes Benedict I wrote a recipe for in Homemakers’ magazine years ago. Crispy crab cakes topped with a poached egg and hollandaise. So I made them in the studio yesterday, and when Mike heard what I had done, he (rightly) told me that not making some for him as well would be just grounds for divorce. What judge wouldn’t take his side?
Using crab cakes as a base instead of the English muffin-back bacon combo was a stroke of genius, if I do say so myself. Use any crab cakes you like, top with a poached egg and drizzle of hollandaise. I used a can of crabmeat, drained and bound together with a bit of minced yellow pepper, about a handful of breadcrumbs, one of the egg whites left over from the sauce, a squirt of grainy mustard and spoonful of light mayo. I wish I had some panko to fry them in, but I just doused them with flour and fried them in a skiff of canola oil. Here’s a link to the original Homemakers’ recipe. (One of my very first assignments. I was completely ecstatic.)
Hollandaise is a room-temperature sauce, since it’s made with melted butter that would congeal if it was too cold and egg yolks that would scramble if they got too hot. Some recipes heat it gently in a double boiler, but the easiest method I find is to whiz 3 egg yolks (and if you have it, a tablespoon of half & half) in a blender until it’s foamy; then with the motor running drizzle in a cup of melted butter that has been heated until it’s bubbling (I do this in the microwave) but not browned. About halfway through, dribble in a tablespoon of lemon juice. The mixture will thicken to the consistency of slightly runny mayonnaise. Serve it just as is. People tend to get funny about the use of heated but not necessarily cooked through egg yolks in their hollandaise, which I think is funny considering no one thinks twice about the runny yolk of the poached egg underneath it.
But this is the recipe I think you should have - a lightened version of hollandaise sauce that was one of my biggest food challenges ever. In this hollandaise, white bread is soaked in water and lemon juice and whizzed until smooth with the other ingredients, acting as an emulsifier and giving the sauce body in place of the traditional egg yolks and large quantity of butter, for a savings of more than 50 grams of fat (mostly saturated) and about 450 calories!
Lightened Lemon Basil Hollandaise Sauce
1/4 cup water or milk
1 to 2 Tbsp. freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 slice of white sandwich bread, torn into pieces, or about 3/4 cup fresh bread crumbs
1/4 cup butter, melted
Salt to taste
2-3 fresh basil leaves
Pour water and lemon juice over the bread crumbs; let stand for about 5 minutes until the bread absorbs all the liquid and becomes mushy. In a blender or food processor, mix the soaked bread until it turns into a paste. With the motor running, drizzle in warm melted butter as thin a stream as possible and process until mixture thickens slightly. Taste and add salt if necessary. Add basil leaves and pulse a few times until the basil is chopped and incorporated.
This is what full-fat hollandaise looks like after cooling in the fridge - it has the spreadable consistency of frosting and the texture of soft, whipped butter. (When it has congealed the fat content becomes obvious.)
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April 16 2008 | eggs and seafood and vegetarian | 4 Comments »
I was at a meeting until about 5:30 today, trying to pull together the final details of a fundraiser I’m emceeing next Thursday night at the Hotel Arts. (An 8 course dinner, plus wine and oysters, prepared by some of Calgary’s best chefs, for the low low price of $150.) We’re trying to raise money for Nicole Pageau, an Edmonton woman in her 60s who when she saw the plight of the widows and orphans of the Rwandan genocide on TV and thought how awful, I wish there was something I could do, just picked up and moved to Rwanda. With $5000 in her bank account she moved from Alberta to Rwanda and when she got there, just sort of wandered around asking people if they knew where she could find the widows, and when she did, she built a village.
(That was me shamelessly trying to push tickets on anyone interested in joining me for dinner next Thursday night?)
At last years’ fundraiser she brought a few of the Rwandan volunteers with her, and one of them said something to me I won’t ever forget. He was telling me how so many people ask him why he does what he does - devote his life to the widows and orphans - and his answer is, “I’m only human.” He doesn’t understand why we North Americans use that phrase to justify our weaknesses, or wrongdoings, or to excuse bad behavior. He thinks the meaning of the phrase should be the opposite; that it should be considered “only human” to be good and honest and charitable. So he’s sticking with his explanation, hoping the new meaning will catch on.
So I got home at 5:42 without a plan, and it was dinnertime like right now. When I poked through the fridge I discover a jar of peanut sauce I had forgotten I made last week, so I put on a pot of spaghettini - thinner-than-usual spaghetti that I like to make because it cooks faster (because it’s thinner) and allows a greater sauce-to-pasta ratio (because it’s thinner).
The great thing about peanut noodles is that you can add anything to them. I had carrots, which I peeled and then kept on peeling off strips of - all the better to twirl around my fork with the noodles - and a chunk of yellow pepper, and some cilantro leftover from last night’s Indian Hamburger Helper. Peas would have been good, or asparagus, or broccoli (a handful of that bagged broccoli-slaw works great), green beans, sprouts, cucumber, mango… and any sort of leftover meat; roast chicken, pork, or tofu, or even frozen shrimp, dumped straight from the freezer bag into the boiling water with the noodles to either quickly cook or thaw. (Same thing with the peas; just dump them in the water with the noodles for the last couple minutes of cooking time.) I pulled out a bit of frozen shredded roast chicken and did the same - tossed it in the water with the noodles to thaw as they finished cooking. Then drained it all, put some in a little bowl with tomato sauce for W, then ran the rest under cool water and tossed it with the peanut sauce and veggies I had torn and chopped. Dinner was ready by 5:58.
Peanut Sauce
Peanut sauce is a wonderful thing. Double the recipe (leftovers keep well) if you want extra to pour over cold noodles or dip satays, lettuce wraps, rice paper rolls, grilled chicken or shrimp. Use more or less broth to make the sauce as thick or thin as you like. If you like coconut flavor in your peanut sauce but not the saturated fat it contains, add a teaspoon of coconut extract.
2-4 Tbsp. chicken or veggie broth or coconut milk
4 Tbsp. peanut butter (preferrably the just peanuts kind, but any will work
3 Tbsp. soy sauce
2 Tbsp. brown sugar or honey
2 Tbsp. rice vinegar or lime juice
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 tsp. grated fresh ginger
1 tsp. sesame oil (optional)
1/4 – 1/2 tsp. curry paste (optional)
Combine all the ingredients in a blender or jar and whiz or shake until smooth. Refrigerate until you’re ready to serve it. Makes about a cup.
Per tablespoon: 26 calories, 1 g total fat (0.2 g saturated fat, 0.5 g monounsaturated fat, 0.4 g polyunsaturated fat), 0.7 g protein, 3.9 g carbohydrate, 0 mg cholesterol, 0 g fiber. 35% calories from fat
On the downside, W was far too quiet as we were eating our noodles. He came downstairs with a funny rash all over him - a pinky red rash that was greasy and smudged easily.
I asked him if he drew all over himself with lipstick. He nodded, this over-exaggerated nod he does, and added, “and wall!”
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April 15 2008 | one dish and pasta and vegetarian | 10 Comments »
Every time people I know move, I am the eager recipient of boxes of old cooking magazines they may have stored in their basements. These then get transported into my basement, or my parents’ basement, to be dusted off and moved again when we do. Mike loves this.
Likewise, I am always the one lugging magazines out of church and garage sales for a quarter apiece. Then they get stored in our basement/garage/bedroom until I have a chance to flip through them and pull out the most interesting pages. Their final stage of decomposition is when said pages are piled into my big yellow milk crate for sorting, and the rest gets recycled.
As I may have mentioned, my parents are moving, so a box of Saveur magazines have been returned to their rightful owner. I stumbled upon this recipe for ground lamb and peas in yogurt: aha! a use for that chub of ground lamb and unreasonably huge bag of peas taking up prime real estate in my freezer.
Keema matar calls for a technique known as tarka: which refers to sauteeing whole spices - in this case coriander, cumin and chiles—in clarified butter (also known as ghee) to boost flavour. Of course this does not require you to go purchase a jar of ghee; my plan was to simply use melted butter and perhaps scoop the suds off the top. But to be truthful, my enthusiasm for this dish waned with every step as I plodded through the instructions. I thought I had garam masala; I did not. I had to puree the ginger and garlic with turmeric and garam masala and water to make a watery paste. When it came time to do the tarka, I found I had exhausted my stash of cumin seed, and my coriander was missing (this could be due to one of W’s favorite pastimes: to throw my spices out the bathroom window) but I soldiered on. I threw in the towel when I realized I didn’t have chiles de árbol, only ancho and guillano, and who knows if they are similar? I plopped in a spoonful of curry paste and was done with it.
The method - saute onions, add ginger-garlic paste and tomato paste, cook to caramelize (? the onions should be caramelized before the moisture goes in) and then add the lamb and cook it, too, was odd. I’d have done it the other way - cook the onions and lamb, then add the ginger-garlic and spices and tomato paste. I’m not sure what the benefit is of the other method - it was difficult to tell when the lamb was cooked in that mixture, and impossible to pour off the excess fat - but I’m sure if someone with Indian cooking expertise did it it would turn out beautifully.
And actually, Mike thinks it did. I was ho-hum about it, but I found him picking out of the pan after dinner, and he said “this is one of the best things you’ve ever made! It’s like an Indian Hamburger Helper.”
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April 14 2008 | lamb and one dish | 3 Comments »
Don’t hate me for making butter from scratch.
Wait, hear me out. I knew if the title read: Day 104: homemade crusty bread and freshly churned butter, the collective groan would be ‘oh come on!’, and everyone would abandon me for getting all Martha.
But seriously, I was desperate. I had mixed up a batch of no-knead bread yesterday and forgotten about it until this morning, and so baked it. (That’s the great thing about no-knead bread; people think it’s inconvenient that it has to sit for 12-24 hours, but it’s the most convenient that way: you have a 12 hour window in which to find time to pop it into the oven, rather than spend hours in its service; kneading, resting, punching and rising.)
I taught an hors d’ouevres class at The Cookbook Company this afternoon, and ate my share of spanikopita and bacon wrapped Medjool dates stuffed with Parmesano-Reggiano (I’m sure those will come up again this year - they have to) at about 5, and got home to find myself locked out. So I sat on the patio for an hour and a half, and by the time I got in didn’t have the gumption to feed myself properly, not that I really needed to after cooking all afternoon. (M & W ate at his mum’s.)
Right, the butter. I didn’t have any, and the bread was all warm and crusty. It was tragic. As I rummaged through the fridge I found about about a cup of whipping cream left over from the strawberry shortcakes, and remembered making butter in elementary school by turning the little pint of cream over and over all day long. The seed, I suppose, had been planted by a video of Daniel Patterson making butter on the current Epicurious home page. Was I really that desperate? Yes. (If you smelled this bread you’d understand.) Besides, what’s the difference between spending 10 minutes (2 minutes actual effort) making the stuff and spending 10 minutes running to the store to buy some?
I quickly referred to the Daniel Patterson recipe, lest I had forgotton some essential detail since 5th grade. I hadn’t. All you do is beat cream for a long time, and it turns into butter. I poured it into my stand mixer, took his advice to splatter-guard the top with plastic wrap, and turned it on high for about 10 minutes while I went about my stuff. (It does tend to spatter once the butter separates from the buttermilk, so the plastic wrap is a good idea.)
In about 10 minutes, I had lovely, soft, pale yellow butter. You can then salt it, although I don’t understand why this is kneaded in at the end, rather than as you beat the cream. I like mine sweet; it reminds me of eating out at a fancy restaurant, so I had some plain and then mashed in a little salt. So I suppose that was technically dinner. (I finished half a banana and a carrot, too.)
Next time, once the butter is done, I’m going to try beating in some Highwood Crossing cold-pressed canola oil, then spread it in a crock and chill it. My theory is that it will stay soft and spreadable in the fridge. I’ll keep you posted.
No-Knead Bread
Adapted from Jim Lahey at the Sullivan Street Bakery in Manhattan
3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, plus more for dusting (I usually use half whole wheat and half all-purpose, sometimes with a shake of ground flaxseed added)
¼ teaspoon instant yeast (sometimes I use about 1/3 teaspoon regular active dry yeast)
1 teaspoon salt
In a large bowl stir together the flour, yeast and salt. Add 1 ½ cups plus 2 tablespoons water, and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap or a plate and let it rest on the countertop for 18-24 hours at room temperature.
The dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Flour a work surface and place dough on it; sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice, then roughly shape into a ball. Generously coat a cotton towel (not terry cloth) with flour; put dough seam side down on towel and dust with more flour. Fold it over the bread or cover with another cotton towel and let it sit for another hour or two.
While the bread is resting, preheat the oven to 450°. Put a 6-8 quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats. When the dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under towel and flip the dough over into the pot; it may look like a mess, but that’s OK. Cover and bake for 30 minutes, then remove the lid and bake another 10-15 minutes, until it’s nice and golden. Eat up!
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April 13 2008 | bread | 5 Comments »
Mike and his gut are not getting along tonight, so when W and I walked back to the corner store to return The Darjeeling Limited (worth a rent) we stopped in at Valta Bison (their Ramsay locati0n) and picked up a log of bison pepperoni. W, carnivore that he is, ate a good third of it on the way home, peeling back the paper and chewing on it as if it were an ice cream bar, and then we sliced it thinly onto pizzas built on whole wheat pitas with garlicky tomato sauce and part-skim mozzarella. Baked at 400F for about 10 minutes. With a bit of salad and the last of the lentil-sweet potato soup from last night.
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April 12 2008 | bison | No Comments »
There’s nothing wrong with reheated leftover mashed sweet potatoes. Until you’ve been eating them for 3 days and hardly make a dent in them. I decided they needed to be transformed into something else.
Fortunately, one of the jars on my shelf contains tiny orange lentils, which I hardly ever use but reminded me of the soup I made way back on day 2. So I chopped and sautéed the usual onion-garlic-ginger trio in a little canola oil until it smelled nice, then threw in a small spoonful of curry paste, two handfuls of lentils, a 1L tetra pack of chicken stock and a little extra water, and let it simmer. (The great thing about lentils, besides the fact that they are so good for you, is that you don’t need to pre-soak them like you do other dried legumes.) When they were soft, I scraped the last of the mashed sweet potatoes into the pot, warmed it through and blended it all, right in the pot on the stove, with my hand-held immersion blender. (I’m not the gadgety type, but this is one of the kitchen tools I could not happily live without. I don’t have the patience to transfer hot soup in batches to my blender in order to puree it.)
I wasn’t going to add any coconut milk. It was good on its own. But it needed thinning, and I couldn’t stop imagining how well it would take to some creamy coconut milk. I settled on half a can of light coconut milk, with a drop of coconut extract to boost flavor without adding any more saturated fat.
The soup was tasty, but not quite enough for dinner. Besides, when I cleaned out my freezer yesterday I pulled out a pork tenderloin to thaw, committing myself to do something with it. I haven’t made chipotle pork peanut chili recently, and had also enearthed a few chipotles in a baggie in the freezer (you never use an entire can at once).
I would probably not have called this chili had I come up with it completely on my own. One might argue that this isn’t really chili because it doesn’t contain beans, and I suppose they’d be right. But it was inspired by the Georgia chili in Jane & Michael Stern’s classic cookbook Chili Nation, which doesn’t have beans either, and it still made the cut. Who am I to argue with Jane and Michael?
You start by browning a pork tenderloin, finish it in the oven (browning adds flavor and a crunchy, caramelized exterior), then slice it and stir it into a peanutty tomato sauce that is meanwhile simmering on the stove. (For some reason the spicy peanuttyness of it reminds me of the swimming rama we used to order at Thai Away Home in Vancouver.) Serve it with a spoonful of rice, and dinner’s done in under half an hour.
Chipotle Peanut Pork Chili
1 pork tenderloin
canola or olive oil, for cooking
1 small onion
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 14 oz. (398 ml) can diced tomatoes, or 2 fresh ripe tomatoes, diced
2 cups tomato sauce
1/2 cup all natural peanut butter, or 3/4 cup plain or salted peanuts
1-2 chipotles en abodo, finely chopped
1 tsp. cumin
salt & pepper to taste
steamed rice, to serve with
Preheat the oven to 350°F.
Brown the pork tenderloin well in a drizzle of olive or canola oil in a skillet set over medium-high heat. Pop the skillet in the oven and roast for 15-20 minutes, or until just cooked through.
Meanwhile, cook the onion and garlic in another drizzle of oil in a medium pot set over medium heat for about 5 minutes, or until translucent. If you are using fresh tomatoes, add them and cook for another few minutes, until softened.
Add the tomatoes, tomato sauce, peanut butter, chipotles, cumin, and some salt and pepper. If you have whole peanuts or want the chipotles blended completely into the sauce, pulse them along with the tomato sauce in a food processor until smooth, then add to the pot. Simmer for 10-15 minutes.
Slice the pork tenderloin about 1/4″ thick and add to the pot; serve over rice. Serves 4.
As I was about to make a little pot of basmati rice I remembered the half can of coconut milk leftover from the soup. Perfect! A cup of rice to a cup of coconut milk and a cup of water, and we had coconut rice that, it turns out, was delicious piled into a bowl with the soup ladled overtop. I ended up eating that for dinner, and then a few slices of pork, retrieved straight from the pot with a fork.
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April 11 2008 | pork | 4 Comments »
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