You don't think I could post the 5 minute recipe without posting a proper one do you? While your brown Jasmine rice is cooking, you can prepare the rest. First, boil some lentils. I like using channa dal, they look like little baby split chick peas, and have a flavor and texture that I like. Red lentils are also fast cooking and good to use, or use both. I would spice the rice with butter, ginger, onion, cilantro, coriander, cardamom, salt and pepper, chile pepper, mustard seed. Heat the mustard seed in a skillet with a little oil until they pop. You can add a little tumeric if you want to up the golden color. Or else you can add saffron but not both. You can add a bay leaf but leave out the cilantro. You can add cinnamon stick pieces. I like to put dried apricot bits, golden and brown raisins, cashews or almonds. This can be done in 35 minutes or less.
Serving this with Yogurt and Mango pickle is a must!
Thursday, November 12, 2009
5 minute Improv - Vegetarian Pilaf
So the brown Jasmine rice took 30 minutes to cook. Other than that, it was a delicious and easy one pot meal. The leftovers from the previous night's stir-fry intended for a second meal, were eaten at lunch. Veteran's day, the teenager was home for lunch. I was going to ask her to make herself a quesadilla or something while I zipped out to a meeting, but the improv bug hit me. (Or I'm a softy momma realizing my youngest child is about to launch and I will miss taking care of her). I put some rice on to cook and managed some other work for 30 minutes. Then I opened a can of Amy's vegetarian lentil soup with vegetables and heated it. While wondering where I was going with this meal, I just decided to pilaf it. I threw in a couple handfuls of raisins and sliced toasted almonds. I seasoned this with a chutney I had on hand made locally, it could be recreated by blending cilantro, garlic, lemon, water. Then I added the lentil soup and stirred. Since it was in pilaf format, the mushy texture of canned lentil soup didn't bother me and the flavors were delicious with the lemon cilantro addition. I think the teaspoon of butter I folded into the rice made it yummy too. Keeping it simpler, I avoided the dried apricots and pistachio nuts. "Next time, I'll add those and everything from scratch, including fresh spices". My daughter looked up at me with a smile of proud recognition as she served herself a bowl, "This looks like a kind of pilaf!" Knowing that she doesn't always know what to call my creations, I affirmed that yes it was, as if I had intended to create a pilaf from the start. It's unlikely that she bothered to make the salad that I suggested from bagged wild greens and dressing on hand (sigh), but I had to run to a meeting.
This would be delicious served with the Indian condiments like Patak's hot and sour lime, mango or carrot pickles mixed with or next to plain yogurt.
This would be delicious served with the Indian condiments like Patak's hot and sour lime, mango or carrot pickles mixed with or next to plain yogurt.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Vegetarian conversion of Chaucroute Garni
Due to the lack of submissions for the November recipe challenge I posted, I decided to challenge myself to convert one of my favorite meat dishes to something vegetarian. I chose the famous Alsatian slow food peasant dish, Chaucroute Garni, sans meat! Hold on now, we aren’t just going meatless, we are going full flavor vegetarian! Crazy for sure.
The full charcuterie dish with the variety of slow cooked smoked meats and sausages are a favorite flavorful tender way of eating meat. I use to make this once per year for the family. Now the family prefers vegetarian, so I puzzled over how I could experience the wonderful sweet and sour of apples and sauerkraut with other flavors that would satisfy in a way that it was not just a vegetarian dish with the meat missing. Here is what worked best in my opinion.
The base flavor: onions, leeks, sauerkraut, apples and apple juice, cabbage, bay leaf, juniper berries, celery leaves or flat leafed Italian parsley, with some butter added to blend the flavors and mellow the acidity.
The meat: croutons of toasted crusty French baguette slices with stone ground mustard and a flavorful. Swiss/French mountain cheese. I used Raclette and know that Grueyere would also be wonderful. One could stop here for simplicity, and I would, but I didn't this time. I then added smoked potatoes and tea smoked eggs to parallel the smoky variety in the meat dish. Use pheasant eggs if you have access to them, otherwise, chicken eggs. The next round, I'd like to try the addition of cloves of roasted elephant garlic as one of the "meats". I avoided the imitation meats because I don’t really like the texture or taste, but one could try varieties of tofu sausages and slices of field roast or smoked tempeh bacon if they like that sort of thing. You might need to add additional sauerkraut, cabbage and apples to cover the additions.
Prep: slice the onions like apple slices, core and slice the apples like apple slices, thinly slice the cabbage the circle way, (the opposite way than apple slices). Wash the leek well behind the ears, looking for mud in the folds. Slice the white and lighter green parts of the leeks to look like coins. Peel and boil small round potatoes until just cooked, still firm and holding their shape. Use any variety. Organic potatoes tend to be more flavorful. Purple or blue ones would be good for this dish. I used yellow potatoes.
1. Stove top: sauté one large onion and one large leek, in butter and salt and pepper. Add about 2 cups of cabbage and 2 cups of sauerkraut rinsed, 3 or 4 apples sliced (I used a mixed variety), apple juice depending upon how juicy the apples are, I'd say about 1/2 cup, a few of the celery leaf tops, 1 bay leaf, a few juniper berries, a few shakes of course pepper and sea salt. Add a couple tablespoons of butter, then sauté until everything is wilted and somewhat tender. Check the balance of flavors. If it's not sour enough, add a little apple cider vinegar or more kraut. If it's not sweet enough, add more apple juice. Some recipies add wine – a Riesling, I did not think it was necessary without the meat. If you use this, ajust the balance of sweet and sour flavors accordingly. Celery salt or caraway seed would work well in this dish.
2. Drain the boiled potatoes and sauté for a few minutes in a hot pan with a drizzle of smoked oil (I happen to have a smoked grape seed oil from a vineyard in Washington) add several shakes of smoked paprika just before finishing. One could smoke the potatoes in a smoker but roll in a little oil and smoked spanish paprika first.
3. Brew black tea in a small sauce pan. Add a drizzle, maybe a tablespoonx or two of maple syrup and several shakes of the bottle of some smoked oil. (Next time I am going to buy some Lapsang Souchong smoky tea and do it the Chinese way and you don't need smoked oil, although it the tea flavor could be too earthy and assertive for this dish). Boil the eggs whole. Cool and crack the eggshells a little all over, but don't peel. Return the eggs to the liquid and I added a small amount of soy sauce to make the color darker.
4. Toast slices of chewy French baguette. Cover each side with whole grain mustard, and place sliced cheese between the layers to make a sandwich.
Assembly: If you have individual casseroles, put one egg, one mustard-cheese crouton sandwich, one or two potatoes and cover with the saurkraut vegetable mixture. Cook at medium oven temp of 350 for a minimum of 15 minutes, at least until the cheese is melted. Otherwise, follow the steps to placing ingredients into a larger casserole dish. I want to say this serves 4, but I need to make it again to confirm proportions.
To be extra fancy, serve with a garnish of cornichons or baby dill pickle slices, a dab of whole grain mustard, and a few toasted walnut halves.
The full charcuterie dish with the variety of slow cooked smoked meats and sausages are a favorite flavorful tender way of eating meat. I use to make this once per year for the family. Now the family prefers vegetarian, so I puzzled over how I could experience the wonderful sweet and sour of apples and sauerkraut with other flavors that would satisfy in a way that it was not just a vegetarian dish with the meat missing. Here is what worked best in my opinion.
The base flavor: onions, leeks, sauerkraut, apples and apple juice, cabbage, bay leaf, juniper berries, celery leaves or flat leafed Italian parsley, with some butter added to blend the flavors and mellow the acidity.
The meat: croutons of toasted crusty French baguette slices with stone ground mustard and a flavorful. Swiss/French mountain cheese. I used Raclette and know that Grueyere would also be wonderful. One could stop here for simplicity, and I would, but I didn't this time. I then added smoked potatoes and tea smoked eggs to parallel the smoky variety in the meat dish. Use pheasant eggs if you have access to them, otherwise, chicken eggs. The next round, I'd like to try the addition of cloves of roasted elephant garlic as one of the "meats". I avoided the imitation meats because I don’t really like the texture or taste, but one could try varieties of tofu sausages and slices of field roast or smoked tempeh bacon if they like that sort of thing. You might need to add additional sauerkraut, cabbage and apples to cover the additions.
Prep: slice the onions like apple slices, core and slice the apples like apple slices, thinly slice the cabbage the circle way, (the opposite way than apple slices). Wash the leek well behind the ears, looking for mud in the folds. Slice the white and lighter green parts of the leeks to look like coins. Peel and boil small round potatoes until just cooked, still firm and holding their shape. Use any variety. Organic potatoes tend to be more flavorful. Purple or blue ones would be good for this dish. I used yellow potatoes.
1. Stove top: sauté one large onion and one large leek, in butter and salt and pepper. Add about 2 cups of cabbage and 2 cups of sauerkraut rinsed, 3 or 4 apples sliced (I used a mixed variety), apple juice depending upon how juicy the apples are, I'd say about 1/2 cup, a few of the celery leaf tops, 1 bay leaf, a few juniper berries, a few shakes of course pepper and sea salt. Add a couple tablespoons of butter, then sauté until everything is wilted and somewhat tender. Check the balance of flavors. If it's not sour enough, add a little apple cider vinegar or more kraut. If it's not sweet enough, add more apple juice. Some recipies add wine – a Riesling, I did not think it was necessary without the meat. If you use this, ajust the balance of sweet and sour flavors accordingly. Celery salt or caraway seed would work well in this dish.
2. Drain the boiled potatoes and sauté for a few minutes in a hot pan with a drizzle of smoked oil (I happen to have a smoked grape seed oil from a vineyard in Washington) add several shakes of smoked paprika just before finishing. One could smoke the potatoes in a smoker but roll in a little oil and smoked spanish paprika first.
3. Brew black tea in a small sauce pan. Add a drizzle, maybe a tablespoonx or two of maple syrup and several shakes of the bottle of some smoked oil. (Next time I am going to buy some Lapsang Souchong smoky tea and do it the Chinese way and you don't need smoked oil, although it the tea flavor could be too earthy and assertive for this dish). Boil the eggs whole. Cool and crack the eggshells a little all over, but don't peel. Return the eggs to the liquid and I added a small amount of soy sauce to make the color darker.
4. Toast slices of chewy French baguette. Cover each side with whole grain mustard, and place sliced cheese between the layers to make a sandwich.
Assembly: If you have individual casseroles, put one egg, one mustard-cheese crouton sandwich, one or two potatoes and cover with the saurkraut vegetable mixture. Cook at medium oven temp of 350 for a minimum of 15 minutes, at least until the cheese is melted. Otherwise, follow the steps to placing ingredients into a larger casserole dish. I want to say this serves 4, but I need to make it again to confirm proportions.
To be extra fancy, serve with a garnish of cornichons or baby dill pickle slices, a dab of whole grain mustard, and a few toasted walnut halves.
Friday, October 30, 2009
November Challenge
November recipe conversion challenge: Post your interests in converting favorite dishes to local foods, vegetarian or vegan versions. We will brainstorm a recipe and throw it back at you. Just for fun. First 4 inquiries.
My Julia Child Story
My Julia Child story: Fresh out of college I was looking for adventure and landed a job as a cook for a company that operated wildlife tours on small cruise ships in Alaska and Baja Mexico. Having a degree in creativity and risk taking (equals fine art) and an adventurous spirit, cooking on a tour boat was just the thing. Most of the passengers were well educated, but not uppity, neither was the food. Our chief cook was from Minneapolis and created menus from her knowledge base with dishes such as hot kidney bean salad with cheddar cheese chunks and tons of mayonnaise, and hot German potato salad with apple cider vinegar and bacon. These were big hits! Okay, so it was the early 80's. The good news is that we managed to update the menu to a more contemporary Northwest seafood gourmet style of cooking utilizing our liberal arts degrees, recipe research and a little chutzpa, ( adlib by the creative types). One time, we tripped upon a dessert by accident that we were told, "if Julia Child tasted this, she would have died and gone to heaven". Here is the story. One time our freezers went out. Remember, this is a small cruise ship and we are away from port so no grocery store stops in emergencies such as this. While the engineers worked on fixing the problem, our dessert, the chocolate ice cream, became limp and gooey soft. We didn't discover our problem until it was time to serve desert. Being good problem solvers, we improvised a bit. We devised a new dessert made up of short and wide clear plastic cups filled with the melty ice cream, then we opened a gazillion Sanka packets and sprinkled a little instant decafe on top of each one and speared it with a straw and a spoon to show intenTionality. If we had known about global warming, we would have called it Ice-melt mocha moose frappe (we are in Alaska, thus the "moose", and the glaciers were receding around us like the melting contents of our freezer).
The next day, a lady introduced herself as Julia Child's neighbor in Massachusetts. She said that she loved the food on this trip and especially the mocha-chocolate-mousse like dessert and was eager to tell Julia all about it! She also told us about dinners with Julia at her house. We asked her how anyone could pull off a meal without experiencing major intimidation, for such a superstar of haute cuisine. She answered that Julia is great to cook for because she is appreciative of everything. She always expressed enthusiasm because she just loved food.
The next day, a lady introduced herself as Julia Child's neighbor in Massachusetts. She said that she loved the food on this trip and especially the mocha-chocolate-mousse like dessert and was eager to tell Julia all about it! She also told us about dinners with Julia at her house. We asked her how anyone could pull off a meal without experiencing major intimidation, for such a superstar of haute cuisine. She answered that Julia is great to cook for because she is appreciative of everything. She always expressed enthusiasm because she just loved food.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Green & Gold Veg Lasagne for the kiddo
I made up another recipe today. This one is dedicated to my vegetarian teen
Here are the layers
a little bechamel sauce
layer of lasagne noodles
sauteed spinach with 2 cloves of garlic and olive oil sprinkled across the base of the lasange
layer of arugula uncooked, it will wilt
layer of sweet Walla Walla onion poached like any vegetable (leeks would also be amazing in this)
sprinkling of cottage cheese
sprinkling of parmesan cheese
layer of Pasta
steamed zucchini slices
cottage cheese
Mozzarella cheese
Layer of pasta
cover with sauteed Chantrelle mushrooms in a little wine and butter
Mix the sauce with remaining bechamel sauce and use half to cover chantrelles
sprinkle a little parmesan cheese over this layer
top with a layer of pasta, cover with the remaining sauce, grated mozarella cheese and small cubes of fresh smoked mozzarella cheese
Here are the layers
a little bechamel sauce
layer of lasagne noodles
sauteed spinach with 2 cloves of garlic and olive oil sprinkled across the base of the lasange
layer of arugula uncooked, it will wilt
layer of sweet Walla Walla onion poached like any vegetable (leeks would also be amazing in this)
sprinkling of cottage cheese
sprinkling of parmesan cheese
layer of Pasta
steamed zucchini slices
cottage cheese
Mozzarella cheese
Layer of pasta
cover with sauteed Chantrelle mushrooms in a little wine and butter
Mix the sauce with remaining bechamel sauce and use half to cover chantrelles
sprinkle a little parmesan cheese over this layer
top with a layer of pasta, cover with the remaining sauce, grated mozarella cheese and small cubes of fresh smoked mozzarella cheese
Poached-Broiled Kasu Style Black Cod
Black Cod is an exquisitly delicious fish, with buttery flesh that is so tender, it dissolves in your mouth. Poaching the fish help reduce the amount of oil, while infusing the fish with flavor. Covering it with a miso paste and broiling it, gives you a flavorful sweet and salty crust. The traditional recipe marinates the fish in the paste. Since I poach it instead, the reduced oil content ends up just right for my tastes while still velvety and rich. Sometime I will try this with the namesake ingredient for this recipe Kasu, which consists of left-over sediments after making sake, but this recipe is divine just as it is.
2 Black Cod steaks (fillets work and salmon can be substituted)
For Poaching:
generous amount of fresh ginger, maybe a one inch piece chopped
variety of onions, scallions, leeks or chives, and yellow onions
Sprigs of Cilantro
(Other asian greens are optional like baby bok choy or baby spinach greens)
lemon juice or rice wine
Salt and Pepper
4 cups of water
Poach until fish is close to cooked. It will fall apart when it is cooked. Make sure it is still firm at the core. With a slotted spoon, transfer fish and onions to broiler safe dish. Add a few spoonfuls of the broth, but don't let it get too deep.
Cover fish with the following topping and broil until the top of the fish crisps.
topping for broiler: 1/2 cup of red miso, 1 T. soy sauce or sea salt, 2 T. brown sugar, 1 t. lemon juice (or rice wine)
Serve fish with the onion mixture and serve with a few spoonfuls of broth from the broiler dish.
Remaining broth can be used as a base for an asian soup on another day.
If anyone wants me to be serious about proportions, let me know and I'll make it again and measure!
2 Black Cod steaks (fillets work and salmon can be substituted)
For Poaching:
generous amount of fresh ginger, maybe a one inch piece chopped
variety of onions, scallions, leeks or chives, and yellow onions
Sprigs of Cilantro
(Other asian greens are optional like baby bok choy or baby spinach greens)
lemon juice or rice wine
Salt and Pepper
4 cups of water
Poach until fish is close to cooked. It will fall apart when it is cooked. Make sure it is still firm at the core. With a slotted spoon, transfer fish and onions to broiler safe dish. Add a few spoonfuls of the broth, but don't let it get too deep.
Cover fish with the following topping and broil until the top of the fish crisps.
topping for broiler: 1/2 cup of red miso, 1 T. soy sauce or sea salt, 2 T. brown sugar, 1 t. lemon juice (or rice wine)
Serve fish with the onion mixture and serve with a few spoonfuls of broth from the broiler dish.
Remaining broth can be used as a base for an asian soup on another day.
If anyone wants me to be serious about proportions, let me know and I'll make it again and measure!
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