This is one of the simpler and quicker chicken recipes in the Jaffrey book, and it turned out very tasty. We used good free-range chicken from Godshall’s Poultry in the Reading Market, which has a better flavor and more natural texture than the hormone-pumped Perdue version. We used the breasts and legs for this dish.
First up: three tbsp of yogurt, one of tomato puree, and a cup of water, mixed well with a fork. I used Greek yogurt, which is absolutely terrible for you and incredibly delicious. Seriously, the texture is like ice cream. Next, ginger and garlic in the blender with a splash of water. No onions in this dish—I’ll have to remember that next time we run out of onions. The problem here was that the amount of garlic and ginger was so small that even the mini-blender was too big-- everything just flew to the sides. We ended up grinding it with the mortar and pestle, which worked perfectly well.
Brown the chicken in a small amount of oil in the bottom of a stockpot. I was careful to cook it a bit more thoroughly, since last time I found myself with underdone chicken. Set aside. Throw in your spices—a cinnamon stick, two dried red chilies, cardamom pods, cloves, and two bay leaves. Fry for just a few seconds, then add the ginger-garlic paste and turmeric. Fry for a minute, then put the chicken back in. Add the yogurt mixture, a tbsp of lemon juice, salt and pepper and mix.
Jaffrey says to bring to a boil and then lower heat, cover and simmer. I still don't really trust her on the whole boiling-yogurt business, especially when I can't whisk it because of the big chicken pieces. I brought it almost to boiling and then simmered it for 25 minutes.
While that’s simmering, roll out your pooris. These ones contained actual wheat flour—no more gluten-free stuff, woohoo! We've been finding that it's best not to make them too big and thin-- slightly thicker and maybe 4 inches wide is really all you need. The density allows the poori to sink into the oil for a second before it puffs up and floats, and you get a better puff. Our puffing went well, but they came out a bit too crispy. Joe’s getting really into perfecting the pooris.
We finished the pooris just as the chicken was getting done—go us. We served the chicken in a bowl with pooris, and it was damn tasty. The chicken was dark and flavorful enough to really complement the sauce, instead of just acting as a sauce conveyance device. It was quite filling and satisfying, especially paired with a Yard’s Philadelphia Pale Ale. And since it’s doable in half an hour and doesn’t require any onion chopping, I think this might become a work-night staple dish in our household!
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Joe's Spaghetti and Meatballs, with WHEAT!
To celebrate Sarah's return to the wheat world I made a classic that has always been one of her comfort foods. Like most of our cooking, we find using fresh ingredients is the way to go. So, after work I stopped by DiBruno's and picked up some freshly made spaghetti and a nice loaf of fresh ciabatta bread.
For the meatballs:
1 lb ground beef
3 cloves of garlic
1/2 to 3/4 cups of bread crumbs
2 eggs
salt and pepper to taste.
While preparing the meatballs heat a quart or so of red sauce of your choosing. I used to always make my sauce from scratch but in recent years there have been a number of jarred sauces come out that are quite good and preservative free. Last night I used Newman's Own Basil Marinara. Heat to a simmer over medium heat then reduce heat to low.
Finely chop the garlic or put through a garlic press. Add to the meat in a large bowl. Add half of the breadcrumbs and one egg. For the bread crumbs I cut up chunks of the ciabatta bread and put it in a 200-degree oven for a half hour or so. Then I put it in a mini cuisinart and pulsed it until I had bread crumbs. If you have the time, leave the bread out overnight. Mix well. (I find the only way to properly mix the meat is by hand.) Add the other egg and mix again. Then add breadcrumbs until the meat is solid and any slipperiness of the eggs is gone. You have to do this by feel, as the amount of bread crumbs necessary will vary depending on the moisture in the meat, the humidity that day, etc. Add salt and pepper.
Heat olive oil in a cast iron pan. Roll the meat into balls. The size is a personal preference. I usually get about 12-14 balls out of a pound of meat. Place meatballs in pan at least a half an inch apart. Brown on all sides. This will not cook them through. When browned add to the sauce that is simmering. They should be cooked through in 20-30 minutes.
About five minutes before the balls were done I cut up bread into four flat pieces about four inches wide. I put two cloves of garlic in a press and put them in a small bowl. I added a few tablespoons of olive oil and mixed it well. Then, I spread the bread with the garlic and olive oil and I put it under the broiler until crispy and brown.
I added the pound of fresh pasta to about 5 quarts of salted water. Fresh pasta only needs about 3 minutes to cook. It was wonderful. I have forgotten how pasta made with gluten has a slightly bread-like quality and is very springy compared to the gluten free variety. There are some very good gluten-free pastas out there but nothing equals fresh pasta. Also, real pasta is more filling than gluten-free pasta. I had forgotten this and got very full quickly.
Drain pasta, put meatballs in a bowl and serve. I topped mine with some Spanish cheese with a soft parmesan quality.
By the noises coming out of Sarah, it was a successful meal.
[Sarah's note: Yes. Yes, it was.]
Monday, June 25, 2007
The Staff of Life
Hi all,
I've been doing some traveling and working some weird hours, so it's been a bad week for cooking. However, I spent five hours at my allergist's office today and found out that I now have the all-clear to eat as much wheat as I please! After two years (to the day, as of yesterday) of scrutinizing labels, buying $6 loaves of bread, and pretending not to mind sitting in the corner with a Luna Bar while everyone else eats something delicious, my ordeal is over.
Of course, it only happened in the first place because of incompetence on the part of my doctor's office in New York, but that's a long story. Just go see "Sicko" when it comes out, or read this, and you'll have the gist of it. Health care in the US is a criminally twisted system, and going without wheat for two years, even with all the trouble that entails, is small gluten-free potatoes compared to what cancer patients and pregnant women go through on a regular basis. In this system, if you live to complain about your health care, you're doing all right. And that, my friends, is why I'm a socialist.
As far as this blog is concerned, though, the menu is about to expand! I'll post some good stuff this week. Promise.
I've been doing some traveling and working some weird hours, so it's been a bad week for cooking. However, I spent five hours at my allergist's office today and found out that I now have the all-clear to eat as much wheat as I please! After two years (to the day, as of yesterday) of scrutinizing labels, buying $6 loaves of bread, and pretending not to mind sitting in the corner with a Luna Bar while everyone else eats something delicious, my ordeal is over.
Of course, it only happened in the first place because of incompetence on the part of my doctor's office in New York, but that's a long story. Just go see "Sicko" when it comes out, or read this, and you'll have the gist of it. Health care in the US is a criminally twisted system, and going without wheat for two years, even with all the trouble that entails, is small gluten-free potatoes compared to what cancer patients and pregnant women go through on a regular basis. In this system, if you live to complain about your health care, you're doing all right. And that, my friends, is why I'm a socialist.
As far as this blog is concerned, though, the menu is about to expand! I'll post some good stuff this week. Promise.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Tenderloin Filet Mignon and Fingerling Potatoes with Bearnaise Sauce
Another amazing dinner from my husband Joe, who has gone during the course of our relationship from a vegetarian to a steak connoisseur. This was amazing, largely because the quality of the meat and the potatoes, both from Trader Joe's, was excellent. I can't get over how flavorful fingerling potatoes are, especially when fried shallots are involved. Here's Joe's recipe:
Tenderloin Filet Mignon and Fingerling Potatoes with Bearnaise Sauce
Two 2 inch thick Filets
Salt and Pepper
1/2 Shallot
Half pound Fingerling Potatoes
Bearnaise Sauce:
2 Egg Yolks
Juice of one lemon
One stick of butter
1/2 Shallot
One shot of bourbon
Allow filets to come to room temperature as you prepare the ingredients.
Slice the fingerlings on the bias in about half inch thick slices while you boil a pot of water. Boil them until a fork slides in easily but with some resistance. Drain. Set aside. Chop a half shallot finely for the sauce and slice the the other half in thin half moons for the potatoes.
Generously salt the steaks. Heat a cast iron pan on high until it is very hot. At the same time heat another pan on med high and put a generous amount of veg oil (canola) in the pan to get nice and hot for the potatoes. Lightly coat the filets with a bit of oil. I just poured oil on my hands and gave them a little massage. To achieve a nice crust you want to use as little oil as possible.
Put the potatoes in the pan with the oil. Brown on each side and add the shallots toward the end. You want them to cook and crisp a bit but not burn. Place in a 200-degree oven to keep warm until time to serve.
At the same time put the steaks in the cast iron pan, which by now should be smoking slightly. Cook four minutes per side and remove to let the juices settle. The goal is a dark crispy crust on the outside and medium rare on the inside. It worked perfectly last night.
While the steaks settle make the Bearnaise sauce. Bring a small amount of water to a light boil in the pot you boiled the potatoes in. Put a stainless steel bowl over the pan as a double boiler. Put the two yolks in with a pinch of salt and whisk constantly over the heat. Remove from the heat from time to time. You don't want the eggs to cook and solidify. Whisk until they start to turn a light yellow. Add the lemon juice and whisk until the sauce is about doubled in size. Add the butter cut into 7 or 8 pieces. You want to keep the butter cold until it's time to add it to the sauce. Add little by little. The sauce should get very thick. Add the shallots and whisk some more (30 seconds or so). Add the bourbon (classically it should be white wine but I like this little variation). Turn off the heat.
Serve with Bearnaise sauce poured over the steak or in a side bowl for dipping. Garnish with chopped chives for presentation. We had none last night so we just poured the sauce on the steaks and a little dab on the side to dip the potatoes in.
We had this with a nice Argentinian Malbec from the Chairman's Selection (a great program by the PA state stores that makes high-quality wines affordable and accessible). A great meal overall if I do say so myself.
Tenderloin Filet Mignon and Fingerling Potatoes with Bearnaise Sauce
Two 2 inch thick Filets
Salt and Pepper
1/2 Shallot
Half pound Fingerling Potatoes
Bearnaise Sauce:
2 Egg Yolks
Juice of one lemon
One stick of butter
1/2 Shallot
One shot of bourbon
Allow filets to come to room temperature as you prepare the ingredients.
Slice the fingerlings on the bias in about half inch thick slices while you boil a pot of water. Boil them until a fork slides in easily but with some resistance. Drain. Set aside. Chop a half shallot finely for the sauce and slice the the other half in thin half moons for the potatoes.
Generously salt the steaks. Heat a cast iron pan on high until it is very hot. At the same time heat another pan on med high and put a generous amount of veg oil (canola) in the pan to get nice and hot for the potatoes. Lightly coat the filets with a bit of oil. I just poured oil on my hands and gave them a little massage. To achieve a nice crust you want to use as little oil as possible.
Put the potatoes in the pan with the oil. Brown on each side and add the shallots toward the end. You want them to cook and crisp a bit but not burn. Place in a 200-degree oven to keep warm until time to serve.
At the same time put the steaks in the cast iron pan, which by now should be smoking slightly. Cook four minutes per side and remove to let the juices settle. The goal is a dark crispy crust on the outside and medium rare on the inside. It worked perfectly last night.
While the steaks settle make the Bearnaise sauce. Bring a small amount of water to a light boil in the pot you boiled the potatoes in. Put a stainless steel bowl over the pan as a double boiler. Put the two yolks in with a pinch of salt and whisk constantly over the heat. Remove from the heat from time to time. You don't want the eggs to cook and solidify. Whisk until they start to turn a light yellow. Add the lemon juice and whisk until the sauce is about doubled in size. Add the butter cut into 7 or 8 pieces. You want to keep the butter cold until it's time to add it to the sauce. Add little by little. The sauce should get very thick. Add the shallots and whisk some more (30 seconds or so). Add the bourbon (classically it should be white wine but I like this little variation). Turn off the heat.
Serve with Bearnaise sauce poured over the steak or in a side bowl for dipping. Garnish with chopped chives for presentation. We had none last night so we just poured the sauce on the steaks and a little dab on the side to dip the potatoes in.
We had this with a nice Argentinian Malbec from the Chairman's Selection (a great program by the PA state stores that makes high-quality wines affordable and accessible). A great meal overall if I do say so myself.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Eating Beyond Sichuan
I'm back from Chicago and ready to cook tonight! In the meantime, read this: a call for real Chinese food in the US, from the Zagats, whose job I would love to have. From yesterday's New York Times. I'm not sure what sous-vide cooking is, since unlike the Zagats I am not a rich gourmet, but the few tastes of un-Americanized Chinese food I've had in the obscure corners of New York's Chinatown make me wholeheartedly support this call.
Eating Beyond Sichuan
By NINA ZAGAT and TIM ZAGAT
Published: June 15, 2007
TWENTY years ago, American perceptions of Asian food could be summed up in one word: “Chinese.” Since then, we have developed appetites for Korean, Japanese, Thai and Vietnamese fare. Yet while the quality of the restaurants that serve these cuisines, particularly Japanese, has soared in America, Chinese restaurants have stalled. For American diners, the Chinese restaurant experience is the same tired routine — unimaginative dishes served amid dated, pseudo-imperial décor — that we’ve known for years.
Chinese food in its native land is vastly superior to what’s available here. Where are the great versions of bird’s nest soup from Shandong, or Zhejiang’s beggar’s chicken, or braised Anhui-style pigeon or the crisp eel specialties of Jiangsu? Or what about the tea-flavored dishes from Hangzhou, the cult-inspiring hairy crabs of Shanghai or the fabled honeyed ham from Yunnan? Or the Fujianese soup that is so rich and sought after that it is poetically called “Buddha Jumps Over the Wall,” meaning it is so good that a Buddhist monk would be compelled to break his vegetarian vows to sample it?
Like so many other aspects of Chinese life, the culinary scene in China is thriving. As capitalism has gained ground there, restaurants have become a place for people to spend their newfound disposable incomes. Cooking methods passed down within families over the centuries have become more widely known as chefs brought the traditions to paying customers. Today, there are a number of regional cuisines known in China as the Eight Great Traditions (Anhui, Cantonese, Fujian, Hunan, Jiangsu, Shandong, Sichuan and Zhejiang cuisines). Unless you’ve visited China, they most likely have never reached your lips.
That’s because the lackluster Cantonese, Hunan and Sichuan restaurants in this country do not resemble those you can find in China. There is a historic explanation for the abysmal state of Chinese cuisine in the United States. Without access to key ingredients from their homeland, Chinese immigrants working on the Central Pacific Railroad in the 1860s improvised dishes like chow mein and chop suey that nobody back in their native land would have recognized. To please the naïve palates of 19th-century Americans, immigrant chefs used sweet, rich sauces to coat the food — a radical departure from the spicy, chili-based dishes served back home.
But today, getting ingredients is no longer an issue. Instead, the principal obstacle to improving Chinese fare here is the difficulty of getting visas for skilled workers since 9/11. Michael Tong, head of the Shun Lee restaurant group in New York, has said that opening a major Chinese restaurant in America is next to impossible because it can take years to get a team of chefs from China. Chinese restaurateur Alan Yau planned to open his first New York City restaurant last year but was derailed because he was unable to get visas for his chefs.
If Henry Kissinger could practice “Ping-Pong diplomacy,” perhaps Condoleezza Rice could try her hand at “dumpling diplomacy”? China and the United States should work together on a culinary visa program that makes it easier for Chinese chefs to come here. With more chefs who are schooled in China’s dynamic new restaurant scene, we would see a transformation of the way Chinese food is served in this country.
Imagine, if you will, what it would be like to discover for the first time Memphis-style barbecue, New York deli food, soul food and Creole, Tex-Mex, Southwestern, California and Hawaiian cuisines all at once. Eating food prepared by an influx of Chinese chefs would be like opening up a culinary time capsule.
When authentic Chinese cuisines reach our shores, we can expect a revolution in ingredients and styles that will change the way we prepare food for years to come. Look how quickly our taste for offal, sous-vide cooking and tasting menus have grown. We have a much more ambitious dining culture today than we did 150 years ago.
So, we welcome Chinese chefs to share their authentic cuisines with us. American palates, unlike those of previous generations, are ready for the real stuff.
Nina Zagat and Tim Zagat are the co-founders of the Zagat restaurant survey.
Eating Beyond Sichuan
By NINA ZAGAT and TIM ZAGAT
Published: June 15, 2007
TWENTY years ago, American perceptions of Asian food could be summed up in one word: “Chinese.” Since then, we have developed appetites for Korean, Japanese, Thai and Vietnamese fare. Yet while the quality of the restaurants that serve these cuisines, particularly Japanese, has soared in America, Chinese restaurants have stalled. For American diners, the Chinese restaurant experience is the same tired routine — unimaginative dishes served amid dated, pseudo-imperial décor — that we’ve known for years.
Chinese food in its native land is vastly superior to what’s available here. Where are the great versions of bird’s nest soup from Shandong, or Zhejiang’s beggar’s chicken, or braised Anhui-style pigeon or the crisp eel specialties of Jiangsu? Or what about the tea-flavored dishes from Hangzhou, the cult-inspiring hairy crabs of Shanghai or the fabled honeyed ham from Yunnan? Or the Fujianese soup that is so rich and sought after that it is poetically called “Buddha Jumps Over the Wall,” meaning it is so good that a Buddhist monk would be compelled to break his vegetarian vows to sample it?
Like so many other aspects of Chinese life, the culinary scene in China is thriving. As capitalism has gained ground there, restaurants have become a place for people to spend their newfound disposable incomes. Cooking methods passed down within families over the centuries have become more widely known as chefs brought the traditions to paying customers. Today, there are a number of regional cuisines known in China as the Eight Great Traditions (Anhui, Cantonese, Fujian, Hunan, Jiangsu, Shandong, Sichuan and Zhejiang cuisines). Unless you’ve visited China, they most likely have never reached your lips.
That’s because the lackluster Cantonese, Hunan and Sichuan restaurants in this country do not resemble those you can find in China. There is a historic explanation for the abysmal state of Chinese cuisine in the United States. Without access to key ingredients from their homeland, Chinese immigrants working on the Central Pacific Railroad in the 1860s improvised dishes like chow mein and chop suey that nobody back in their native land would have recognized. To please the naïve palates of 19th-century Americans, immigrant chefs used sweet, rich sauces to coat the food — a radical departure from the spicy, chili-based dishes served back home.
But today, getting ingredients is no longer an issue. Instead, the principal obstacle to improving Chinese fare here is the difficulty of getting visas for skilled workers since 9/11. Michael Tong, head of the Shun Lee restaurant group in New York, has said that opening a major Chinese restaurant in America is next to impossible because it can take years to get a team of chefs from China. Chinese restaurateur Alan Yau planned to open his first New York City restaurant last year but was derailed because he was unable to get visas for his chefs.
If Henry Kissinger could practice “Ping-Pong diplomacy,” perhaps Condoleezza Rice could try her hand at “dumpling diplomacy”? China and the United States should work together on a culinary visa program that makes it easier for Chinese chefs to come here. With more chefs who are schooled in China’s dynamic new restaurant scene, we would see a transformation of the way Chinese food is served in this country.
Imagine, if you will, what it would be like to discover for the first time Memphis-style barbecue, New York deli food, soul food and Creole, Tex-Mex, Southwestern, California and Hawaiian cuisines all at once. Eating food prepared by an influx of Chinese chefs would be like opening up a culinary time capsule.
When authentic Chinese cuisines reach our shores, we can expect a revolution in ingredients and styles that will change the way we prepare food for years to come. Look how quickly our taste for offal, sous-vide cooking and tasting menus have grown. We have a much more ambitious dining culture today than we did 150 years ago.
So, we welcome Chinese chefs to share their authentic cuisines with us. American palates, unlike those of previous generations, are ready for the real stuff.
Nina Zagat and Tim Zagat are the co-founders of the Zagat restaurant survey.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Chana Dal with Lamb
This is the first real dal recipe I've done from the Jaffrey cookbook. It's kind of an unusual one, because it contains lamb, and also you don't let the lentils fall apart-- they stay whole and a bit al dente.
I know I say this a lot, but... this was easy but time-consuming! My Indian foodie friend Nagesh thinks that some of Jaffrey's recipes are needlessly complicated, which is interesting. It's certainly true that it's hard to make a Jaffrey recipe without dirtying half the dishes and pans in your kitchen.
First, you fry four onions' worth of onion half-rings, till they're brown and sweet. Don't burn them. Also, don't hover over the pot so much that your eyes start stinging and you have to call your husband over to help you scoop out the onions because you can't see. Not that such a thing would ever happen to me. Set aside.
Next, put your lamb chunks (we got some nice local lamb stew meat from the Fair Food Farmstand) into the hot onion oil and brown them on high heat. Set aside.
Meanwhile, you will have blended your Indian mirepoix (onions, ginger, garlic) into a fine paste in the mini-food processor. Dump this into the oil and fry for close to ten minutes, until it starts to cook off a bit. Then add your turmeric, coriander and cumin. Give it a minute, then stir in a tablespoon of tomato puree (I used paste). Next, the warm spices: mace, nutmeg, cinnamon and ground cloves. I hadn't used mace before-- it has a strong flavor and goes well in the warm-spice mix. Give that about five minutes, then add 4 oz chana dal, the lamb, salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper, and a cup of water. Stir well, bring to a boil, and simmer for an hour, pausing your movie every ten minutes to stir.
Before service, stir in a few tablespoons of lemon juice. I served this with rice and topped it with the fried onions and chopped coriander, which made for a nice presentation.
This was delicious! It had a nice kick-- definitely the spiciest recipe I've made yet, which isn't saying much, but still. Tasty. The lamb was very tender, and the dal had this al dente not-quite-crunch to them that was very pleasant. The sweetness of the onions was a nice counterpoint to the heat and the richness of the lamb.
I'm packing some of this for my trip this weekend, and I have a feeling it's going to get very happy in the fridge!
Notes:
-Next time, I think I can drain off some of the oil before putting in the mirepoix. It was a little oily.
-Good lamb really makes a difference. We were surprised at how meat-heavy this dish was- we actually used only half the amount of meat called for in the recipe, because that's what we had on hand, and it was still very meat-centric.
-Be careful when frying onions! I need some goggles or something. Except that if I actually wore goggles around onions, Joe would never, ever let me live it down!
I know I say this a lot, but... this was easy but time-consuming! My Indian foodie friend Nagesh thinks that some of Jaffrey's recipes are needlessly complicated, which is interesting. It's certainly true that it's hard to make a Jaffrey recipe without dirtying half the dishes and pans in your kitchen.
First, you fry four onions' worth of onion half-rings, till they're brown and sweet. Don't burn them. Also, don't hover over the pot so much that your eyes start stinging and you have to call your husband over to help you scoop out the onions because you can't see. Not that such a thing would ever happen to me. Set aside.
Next, put your lamb chunks (we got some nice local lamb stew meat from the Fair Food Farmstand) into the hot onion oil and brown them on high heat. Set aside.
Meanwhile, you will have blended your Indian mirepoix (onions, ginger, garlic) into a fine paste in the mini-food processor. Dump this into the oil and fry for close to ten minutes, until it starts to cook off a bit. Then add your turmeric, coriander and cumin. Give it a minute, then stir in a tablespoon of tomato puree (I used paste). Next, the warm spices: mace, nutmeg, cinnamon and ground cloves. I hadn't used mace before-- it has a strong flavor and goes well in the warm-spice mix. Give that about five minutes, then add 4 oz chana dal, the lamb, salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper, and a cup of water. Stir well, bring to a boil, and simmer for an hour, pausing your movie every ten minutes to stir.
Before service, stir in a few tablespoons of lemon juice. I served this with rice and topped it with the fried onions and chopped coriander, which made for a nice presentation.
This was delicious! It had a nice kick-- definitely the spiciest recipe I've made yet, which isn't saying much, but still. Tasty. The lamb was very tender, and the dal had this al dente not-quite-crunch to them that was very pleasant. The sweetness of the onions was a nice counterpoint to the heat and the richness of the lamb.
I'm packing some of this for my trip this weekend, and I have a feeling it's going to get very happy in the fridge!
Notes:
-Next time, I think I can drain off some of the oil before putting in the mirepoix. It was a little oily.
-Good lamb really makes a difference. We were surprised at how meat-heavy this dish was- we actually used only half the amount of meat called for in the recipe, because that's what we had on hand, and it was still very meat-centric.
-Be careful when frying onions! I need some goggles or something. Except that if I actually wore goggles around onions, Joe would never, ever let me live it down!
Joe's Chuck Roast
So we bought this great big chuck roast from Livengood Produce's farmstand in the Reading Terminal Market. Livengood is one of the sustainably farmed, nature-based "grass farms" Michael Pollan discusses in his wonderful book The Omnivore's Dilemma. Their cows are raised eating actual grass and clover in a real pasture. They are treated humanely and killed humanely (to the extent that such a thing is possible), and the family who runs the farmstand sells only what is in season on their farm right now. They usually have a small cooler with whatever meat they have right now, and it is uniformly excellent. You know how sometimes, with commercial meats, the fat on the side tastes kind of gristly and awful? The fat on this meat tastes like... beef. And grass. And the meat is incredibly flavorful-- after you have a few of these, it's hard to go back to the nasty factory stuff. If you're in Philly, you need to check them out. The cute guy at the farmstand says they're having a customer appreciation day the last weekend in July-- who knows, if all works out, maybe we'll get CarShare for the day and head out there to check it out!
And now, the food. I had a really long day on Monday, so my wonderful husband did the cooking. He actually used to do almost all of the cooking before I started getting serious about learning, and he said he particularly enjoyed doing this roast.
Since we've stocked our spice cabinet with all manner of delicious seeds and powders, Joe decided to do a rub with some Indian spices, get the outside nice and seared, and keep it rare inside. It was delicious; we served it with fried potatoes, but I think it'll make excellent sandwiches. Here's his recipe:
Chuck Roast
Rub:
2 Cloves of Garlic
Black Caraway Seeds (1Tbsp)
Cumin Seeds (3Tbsp)
Teaspoon of Cayenne Pepper
Fennel Seeds (2 Tbsp)
I didn't measure the seeds. I just put what I though would be enough to cover the roast. I put approximates in parentheses.
Put in cuisinart for five minutes or until well ground.
Generously salt the roast. Wait 5 minutes. Pour rub out on foil or in a bowl and cover roast with an even layer of the rub. Cover as much surface area as possible.
(Credit to Alton) Put roast in a 250 degree oven until the internal temp reaches 125-128 degrees. Remove from oven and cover with foil. Crank up the oven to 500 degrees. After the oven comes to temperature, put the roast back in and bring the internal temperature to 135-140 degrees. Remove from oven. Let rest for at least 20 minutes. Roast should have a nice crust and be medium rare inside. The time period will vary depending on the size of the roast. Ours took a total of and hour and twenty minutes.
And now, the food. I had a really long day on Monday, so my wonderful husband did the cooking. He actually used to do almost all of the cooking before I started getting serious about learning, and he said he particularly enjoyed doing this roast.
Since we've stocked our spice cabinet with all manner of delicious seeds and powders, Joe decided to do a rub with some Indian spices, get the outside nice and seared, and keep it rare inside. It was delicious; we served it with fried potatoes, but I think it'll make excellent sandwiches. Here's his recipe:
Chuck Roast
Rub:
2 Cloves of Garlic
Black Caraway Seeds (1Tbsp)
Cumin Seeds (3Tbsp)
Teaspoon of Cayenne Pepper
Fennel Seeds (2 Tbsp)
I didn't measure the seeds. I just put what I though would be enough to cover the roast. I put approximates in parentheses.
Put in cuisinart for five minutes or until well ground.
Generously salt the roast. Wait 5 minutes. Pour rub out on foil or in a bowl and cover roast with an even layer of the rub. Cover as much surface area as possible.
(Credit to Alton) Put roast in a 250 degree oven until the internal temp reaches 125-128 degrees. Remove from oven and cover with foil. Crank up the oven to 500 degrees. After the oven comes to temperature, put the roast back in and bring the internal temperature to 135-140 degrees. Remove from oven. Let rest for at least 20 minutes. Roast should have a nice crust and be medium rare inside. The time period will vary depending on the size of the roast. Ours took a total of and hour and twenty minutes.
Sunday, June 10, 2007
Pork chops cooked with whole spices and tamarind juice; Maya's Potatoes with Yogurt
It's a lazy Sunday in Fishtown, Mythbusters is on the tube, and the weather is cooling off. Time for some nice Amish pork chops and potatoes. I was raised on meat and potatoes; this is just a more interesting variation.
First of all, you have to get good pork chops. We get ours at L. Halteman Amish Foods in the Reading Terminal Market. The preparation is really easy-- time-consuming, because of all the simmering, but not difficult. (Which is actually a common theme in the dishes I'm making.) You heat just enough oil to coat the bottom of your stockpot, and brown the pork chops. Jaffrey says to do this in two batches, but I was halving her recipe-- she called for 8 pork chops, and there are only two of us. Still, I had trouble fitting all four pork chops until they cooked down and shrank a bit. Brown them, take them out, put them on a plate for a minute. Put in two whole garlic cloves, a cinnamon stick, a couple of dried red peppers, and some cloves, peppercorns and cardamom pods. Fry for a few seconds and then add a bit of salt and a cup of water. (You have hot oil going here, so I'd really recommend shielding yourself with the pot lid while you do this.) Re-introduce the pork chops and simmer for half an hour, turning occasionally. Things will be smelling really good right about now. When the half hour is over, time for the remaining ingredients. Jaffrey doesn't tell you to do this, but I took out the pork chops for a minute while I whisked in the tamarind paste, sugar and salt-- it just seemed like a real pain to mix otherwise. Reintroduced the pork chops and simmered for another half hour, turning occasionally.
Now for the potatoes. I didn't start them until I had the pork chops simmering, which was a bit of a miscalculation-- the chops were done well before the potatoes. Best to start these at the same time. I made these potatoes back at the beginning of this blog, and they were quite tasty. But between then and now, I've made a few spice-buying trips, so I had things like dried chillies, fenugreek, caraway seeds, and fennel, which were missing before. I also decided to do the variation with yogurt. (Jaffrey has you prepare Maya's Potatoes and then adds a paragraph about adding the yogurt.) You fry your potatoes till they're nice and golden brown, then drain the oil. If you're me, you'll lose control of the heavy cast iron pan and end up dumping some potatoes into the sink and almost burning your hand. If you're not me, you may be able to avoid this.
Next, fry your spices. Now, technically, you're supposed to make this mixture in the stockpot, then introduce the potatoes from the frying pan and simmer in the stockpot. However, my stockpot was busy simmering pork chops, so I had to be creative. I made the spice/tomato mixture in a small saucepan-- fried the spices, then added the onion/garlic paste from the blender (no ginger this time) plus turmeric, fried that for five minutes, added tomatoes and sugar, and fried that for five minutes. The mixture smelled absolutely incredible. I added it back into the frying pan and coated the potatoes. I added in a pint of water, then remembered that I was supposed to be halving the recipe and that it should be half a pint. Yeah, I'm not too bright. I compensated by cooking this uncovered for longer than called for, then covering. This gets about 20 minutes of simmering, all told.
When that's done, turn off the heat and let the potatoes cool for a few minutes. Jaffrey says to mix in the yogurt and heat on low heat, not enough to boil it (that would curdle the yogurt) but enough to heat it through. I found that the cast iron pan retained enough heat that merely folding in the yogurt and waiting for a minute was enough to heat the whole thing through.
Served with Flying Fish HopFish Ale. The pork chops had a nice flavor, but were a little dried out. Spooning the pot juices over the chops helped, but I'd shorten the cooking time next time.
As for the potatoes-- holy shit, you guys. We both ate too much because we couldn't keep away from these potatoes. I can't tell you how much of a difference having the right spices made. We could taste the fenugreek and caraway seeds. It had this wonderful toasty, complex flavor that wasn't there before. So nice. Oh my.
Notes for next time:
-Don't cook the pork chops for the full half hour each time. Not necessary.
-Remember, Sarah: cast iron pans are heavy.
-Spiciness! One of my continuing critiques throughout these posts is that whatever I make "could have been spicier." I'm thinking that Jaffrey, in writing an Indian cookbook for Brits, decided to be really conservative with the hot spices. She usually gives a range-- one to three chili peppers, to taste (optional). And when she does, I use three-- and it's still not that spicy. Screw that. Next time she tells me one to three, I'm adding four.
To be clear: I'm a recovering spice wimp. I grew up eating food with no spices whatsoever-- maybe some garlic salt if we were feeling really adventurous. When I went to college and started hanging out with Indians, my friend Deepa used to make her kebabs especially mild just for me, and I'd still be sweating and tearing up while I ate them. I've evolved since then, and I love spicy food, although I'm not a hot-sauce daredevil like my stepbrother AJ. In the last year or so, I've been deliberately trying to train my palate to tolerate hotter spices-- I plan to visit India in the next few years and I don't want to die! So: spice levels are going to rise. Be prepared.
I'm leaving on Thursday for the Socialism 2007 conference, and the food at the hotel is not allergy-friendly, so I'll be making several dishes this week to pack and take with me to Chicago. There's a big grass-fed chuck roast from Livengood Farms waiting for me, and some Fair Food Farmstand lamb stew meat that's going into a chana dal recipe. Mushroom dal is also on the agenda. Stay tuned.
First of all, you have to get good pork chops. We get ours at L. Halteman Amish Foods in the Reading Terminal Market. The preparation is really easy-- time-consuming, because of all the simmering, but not difficult. (Which is actually a common theme in the dishes I'm making.) You heat just enough oil to coat the bottom of your stockpot, and brown the pork chops. Jaffrey says to do this in two batches, but I was halving her recipe-- she called for 8 pork chops, and there are only two of us. Still, I had trouble fitting all four pork chops until they cooked down and shrank a bit. Brown them, take them out, put them on a plate for a minute. Put in two whole garlic cloves, a cinnamon stick, a couple of dried red peppers, and some cloves, peppercorns and cardamom pods. Fry for a few seconds and then add a bit of salt and a cup of water. (You have hot oil going here, so I'd really recommend shielding yourself with the pot lid while you do this.) Re-introduce the pork chops and simmer for half an hour, turning occasionally. Things will be smelling really good right about now. When the half hour is over, time for the remaining ingredients. Jaffrey doesn't tell you to do this, but I took out the pork chops for a minute while I whisked in the tamarind paste, sugar and salt-- it just seemed like a real pain to mix otherwise. Reintroduced the pork chops and simmered for another half hour, turning occasionally.
Now for the potatoes. I didn't start them until I had the pork chops simmering, which was a bit of a miscalculation-- the chops were done well before the potatoes. Best to start these at the same time. I made these potatoes back at the beginning of this blog, and they were quite tasty. But between then and now, I've made a few spice-buying trips, so I had things like dried chillies, fenugreek, caraway seeds, and fennel, which were missing before. I also decided to do the variation with yogurt. (Jaffrey has you prepare Maya's Potatoes and then adds a paragraph about adding the yogurt.) You fry your potatoes till they're nice and golden brown, then drain the oil. If you're me, you'll lose control of the heavy cast iron pan and end up dumping some potatoes into the sink and almost burning your hand. If you're not me, you may be able to avoid this.
Next, fry your spices. Now, technically, you're supposed to make this mixture in the stockpot, then introduce the potatoes from the frying pan and simmer in the stockpot. However, my stockpot was busy simmering pork chops, so I had to be creative. I made the spice/tomato mixture in a small saucepan-- fried the spices, then added the onion/garlic paste from the blender (no ginger this time) plus turmeric, fried that for five minutes, added tomatoes and sugar, and fried that for five minutes. The mixture smelled absolutely incredible. I added it back into the frying pan and coated the potatoes. I added in a pint of water, then remembered that I was supposed to be halving the recipe and that it should be half a pint. Yeah, I'm not too bright. I compensated by cooking this uncovered for longer than called for, then covering. This gets about 20 minutes of simmering, all told.
When that's done, turn off the heat and let the potatoes cool for a few minutes. Jaffrey says to mix in the yogurt and heat on low heat, not enough to boil it (that would curdle the yogurt) but enough to heat it through. I found that the cast iron pan retained enough heat that merely folding in the yogurt and waiting for a minute was enough to heat the whole thing through.
Served with Flying Fish HopFish Ale. The pork chops had a nice flavor, but were a little dried out. Spooning the pot juices over the chops helped, but I'd shorten the cooking time next time.
As for the potatoes-- holy shit, you guys. We both ate too much because we couldn't keep away from these potatoes. I can't tell you how much of a difference having the right spices made. We could taste the fenugreek and caraway seeds. It had this wonderful toasty, complex flavor that wasn't there before. So nice. Oh my.
Notes for next time:
-Don't cook the pork chops for the full half hour each time. Not necessary.
-Remember, Sarah: cast iron pans are heavy.
-Spiciness! One of my continuing critiques throughout these posts is that whatever I make "could have been spicier." I'm thinking that Jaffrey, in writing an Indian cookbook for Brits, decided to be really conservative with the hot spices. She usually gives a range-- one to three chili peppers, to taste (optional). And when she does, I use three-- and it's still not that spicy. Screw that. Next time she tells me one to three, I'm adding four.
To be clear: I'm a recovering spice wimp. I grew up eating food with no spices whatsoever-- maybe some garlic salt if we were feeling really adventurous. When I went to college and started hanging out with Indians, my friend Deepa used to make her kebabs especially mild just for me, and I'd still be sweating and tearing up while I ate them. I've evolved since then, and I love spicy food, although I'm not a hot-sauce daredevil like my stepbrother AJ. In the last year or so, I've been deliberately trying to train my palate to tolerate hotter spices-- I plan to visit India in the next few years and I don't want to die! So: spice levels are going to rise. Be prepared.
I'm leaving on Thursday for the Socialism 2007 conference, and the food at the hotel is not allergy-friendly, so I'll be making several dishes this week to pack and take with me to Chicago. There's a big grass-fed chuck roast from Livengood Farms waiting for me, and some Fair Food Farmstand lamb stew meat that's going into a chana dal recipe. Mushroom dal is also on the agenda. Stay tuned.
Saturday, June 9, 2007
Chicken with Tomato Sauce and Butter (aka Butter Chicken) and Chapatis
Hello again! Joe and I have had rough stomachs for a few days, so we haven't been doing much cooking. But I've been enjoying this experiment so much that I actually got a little twitchy after not cooking for a few days! I'm really finding it relaxing to cook-- I put on my apron and my music and just get into my "zone," you know? And I'm really becoming much more confident in the kitchen. I read a new recipe, in the New York Times or whatever, and I think "that would be easy." I'm more competent every week-- and it's such a gratifying skill to learn!
Anyway. On to dinner. I made this dish-- Butter Chicken, Chicken Makhni, or in Jaffrey's case, Chicken with Tomato Sauce and Butter, it seems to be pretty much the same dish wherever you go. This dish was popularized by a restaurant in Delhi called the Moti Mahal, which seems to be mentioned in just about every article about Indian food as it appears on non-Indian tables. Apparently the Moti Mahal introduced this dish in the eighties, and pretty much immediately went from being a no-name hole in the wall to being a famous, tourist-destination hole in the wall. That's exactly the sort of restaurant I seek out in New York City, so the Moti Mahal is definitely first on my list of things to do when I get to Delhi (whenever that will be). (On that note: if you're in New York, check out Fresh Dumpling in Chinatown, Kabob King in Jackson Heights, Jorge's in Ridgewood and Tacqueria la Fonda in Morningside Heights.)
This dish takes a while, but it's pretty simple. Indian mirepoix (onions, ginger, garlic) goes into the blender, along with lots of whole spices. There are several spices in the mix that are normally cooked whole and taken out-- bay leaves, red peppers, cinnamon sticks-- that are crumbled and put in the blender in this dish. Whole cloves, peppercorns and cardamom pods also go in. Blend all that into a paste.
Brown the chicken in the bottom of the stockpot. (You're supposed to use breasts and legs, but we used tenderloins from Trader Joe's, chopped into cubes.) Take out and set aside. Put the blender paste in and fry for 5 minutes. Add a pound of chopped/crushed tomatoes (we used canned organic tomatoes), half a cup of water and a teaspoon of salt. Boil, cover, simmer for half an hour, stirring periodically. Then add the chicken, simmer and stir periodically for another half an hour.
In the meantime, make your chapatis. I rolled them thinner than before, and they puffed up beautifully when Joe put them over the flame. He brushed them with butter (a bit too much, I think, given the buttery nature of the chicken dish) and kept them in foil.
When the second half hour of simmering is over, take 4 tablespoons of butter, cut into pats, take the pot off the heat and stir in the butter until it's melted. This changes the color of the sauce from red to orange, which is cool. Serve over rice, with chapatis. I had it with a Flying Fish Belgian Dubbel, 'cause that's just how I roll.
This was very tasty and very rich. Jaffrey has you put the spices whole into the blender, but I think next time I'll grind them with the mortar and pestle before I put them in. They didn't really break up in the blender, and we spent a lot of time trying not to bite into whole peppercorns. I probably could have gone heavier on the red chillies, as well. That, and not so much butter on the chapatis. But definitely a success.
So full...
Next up: masoor dal with assorted local mushrooms. Yum!
Anyway. On to dinner. I made this dish-- Butter Chicken, Chicken Makhni, or in Jaffrey's case, Chicken with Tomato Sauce and Butter, it seems to be pretty much the same dish wherever you go. This dish was popularized by a restaurant in Delhi called the Moti Mahal, which seems to be mentioned in just about every article about Indian food as it appears on non-Indian tables. Apparently the Moti Mahal introduced this dish in the eighties, and pretty much immediately went from being a no-name hole in the wall to being a famous, tourist-destination hole in the wall. That's exactly the sort of restaurant I seek out in New York City, so the Moti Mahal is definitely first on my list of things to do when I get to Delhi (whenever that will be). (On that note: if you're in New York, check out Fresh Dumpling in Chinatown, Kabob King in Jackson Heights, Jorge's in Ridgewood and Tacqueria la Fonda in Morningside Heights.)
This dish takes a while, but it's pretty simple. Indian mirepoix (onions, ginger, garlic) goes into the blender, along with lots of whole spices. There are several spices in the mix that are normally cooked whole and taken out-- bay leaves, red peppers, cinnamon sticks-- that are crumbled and put in the blender in this dish. Whole cloves, peppercorns and cardamom pods also go in. Blend all that into a paste.
Brown the chicken in the bottom of the stockpot. (You're supposed to use breasts and legs, but we used tenderloins from Trader Joe's, chopped into cubes.) Take out and set aside. Put the blender paste in and fry for 5 minutes. Add a pound of chopped/crushed tomatoes (we used canned organic tomatoes), half a cup of water and a teaspoon of salt. Boil, cover, simmer for half an hour, stirring periodically. Then add the chicken, simmer and stir periodically for another half an hour.
In the meantime, make your chapatis. I rolled them thinner than before, and they puffed up beautifully when Joe put them over the flame. He brushed them with butter (a bit too much, I think, given the buttery nature of the chicken dish) and kept them in foil.
When the second half hour of simmering is over, take 4 tablespoons of butter, cut into pats, take the pot off the heat and stir in the butter until it's melted. This changes the color of the sauce from red to orange, which is cool. Serve over rice, with chapatis. I had it with a Flying Fish Belgian Dubbel, 'cause that's just how I roll.
This was very tasty and very rich. Jaffrey has you put the spices whole into the blender, but I think next time I'll grind them with the mortar and pestle before I put them in. They didn't really break up in the blender, and we spent a lot of time trying not to bite into whole peppercorns. I probably could have gone heavier on the red chillies, as well. That, and not so much butter on the chapatis. But definitely a success.
So full...
Next up: masoor dal with assorted local mushrooms. Yum!
Tuesday, June 5, 2007
Two excellent articles
Two excellent articles on food and allergy-related subjects from Orion Magazine:
A Place-Based Malady
How we help create our allergic landscape
by Gregg Mitman
Published in the May/June 2007 issue of Orion magazine
The scream of chainsaws gnawing through full-grown oak trees abruptly announced summer’s arrival in 1987 in the leafy enclave of Lake Forest on the Lake Michigan shore north of Chicago. Most residents of the exclusive historic neighborhood treasured the trees that shaded their mansions, but Laurence Tureaud wasn’t like most residents. Tureaud, known to Americans as Mr. T, star of the 1980s hit TV show The A-Team and Rocky’s nemesis in Rocky III, had moved to his seven-acre estate the previous fall, when the hundreds of oaks and other native plantings lay dormant. That spring, as the trees came into bloom, the six-foot-tall, 220-pound, well-muscled actor suffered terribly. Pity the fool, or in this case the tree, that tangled with Mr. T. Saying that allergies to tree pollen provoked him, the man who wore gold chains to remind him of his slave ancestors took action. With a chainsaw in hand and the help of hired workers, Mr. T cleared the property of more than seventy trees, many of which had been planted in the early twentieth century under the direction of famed landscape architect Jens Jensen.
and:
The Tortilla Cycle
by Rebecca Allen
Published in the May/June 2007 issue of Orion magazine
Rosa can, and does, make tortillas in the dark. The ancient generator needs a new belt and a prayer and can’t always be counted on to power the light bulbs of Unión Victoria, the Guatemalan village where I live with Rosa and her two young daughters. Rosa’s husband works in Florida. In his absence Rosa carries on, feeding her pigs, hauling firewood, planting crops, and making three meals a day. In the midst of all this, she insisted on teaching me to make tortillas.
A Place-Based Malady
How we help create our allergic landscape
by Gregg Mitman
Published in the May/June 2007 issue of Orion magazine
The scream of chainsaws gnawing through full-grown oak trees abruptly announced summer’s arrival in 1987 in the leafy enclave of Lake Forest on the Lake Michigan shore north of Chicago. Most residents of the exclusive historic neighborhood treasured the trees that shaded their mansions, but Laurence Tureaud wasn’t like most residents. Tureaud, known to Americans as Mr. T, star of the 1980s hit TV show The A-Team and Rocky’s nemesis in Rocky III, had moved to his seven-acre estate the previous fall, when the hundreds of oaks and other native plantings lay dormant. That spring, as the trees came into bloom, the six-foot-tall, 220-pound, well-muscled actor suffered terribly. Pity the fool, or in this case the tree, that tangled with Mr. T. Saying that allergies to tree pollen provoked him, the man who wore gold chains to remind him of his slave ancestors took action. With a chainsaw in hand and the help of hired workers, Mr. T cleared the property of more than seventy trees, many of which had been planted in the early twentieth century under the direction of famed landscape architect Jens Jensen.
and:
The Tortilla Cycle
by Rebecca Allen
Published in the May/June 2007 issue of Orion magazine
Rosa can, and does, make tortillas in the dark. The ancient generator needs a new belt and a prayer and can’t always be counted on to power the light bulbs of Unión Victoria, the Guatemalan village where I live with Rosa and her two young daughters. Rosa’s husband works in Florida. In his absence Rosa carries on, feeding her pigs, hauling firewood, planting crops, and making three meals a day. In the midst of all this, she insisted on teaching me to make tortillas.
Monday, June 4, 2007
Chicken with Sliced Lemon and Fried Onions; Pooris; leftover Potato Patties
This wasn't one of my most successful meals to date, but it was still damn delicious.
This particular chicken recipe jumped out at me when I was flipping through the cookbook last night, trying to decide what to make. It sounded so good, I couldn't wait to get home and make it. And after the last wildly successful round of pooris, I was looking forward to more.
I made the poori dough first thing when I got home from work. It needs at least an hour and a half to rise. I figured dinner would take about an hour, so I had half an hour to chill before starting to cook in earnest. Joe and I were both getting hungry, so I broke out the two leftover aloo-ki-tikiya from the other night. We browned them in the cast iron pan and got a nice crust-- they did, however, turn bright yellow, which tells you just how much turmeric I've been using in that pan lately. Seriously, turmeric is powerful stuff. My cuticles have been yellow since I started this blog! And even my Tide Pen, the most amazing stain remover known to humanity, isn't removing the yellow stain from the sauce I spilled on my knee tonight. I got myself a nice laminated apron with extremely cute cherries on it to cook in; guess I'd better start wearing it when I eat!
Anyway. The potato patties held together much better after having the benefit of a couple of days in the fridge. We split a Flying Fish Belgian Dubbel with them and it was an excellent snack.
And when we finished... time to start cooking. I got the chicken from Godshall's Poultry in the Reading Terminal Market-- I went for the naturally fed free-range chicken, and had them cut it into piece when I bought it. I have to say, the quality was high. You have to skin it; apparently Indian cuisine, at least as interpreted by Jaffrey, who's from Delhi-- isn't big on chicken skin.
Onions, garlic and ginger go into the blender with a bit of water. We've been calling this "Indian mirepoix"-- mirepoix (yes, we had to look up the spelling) being the mixture of onions, carrots and celery that forms the base of so much French cooking. It seems like most of the North Indian recipes in this cookbook use onions, garlic and ginger as a mirepoix. It's a wonderfully flavorful base, and I'm violently allergic to celery so I like this one much better.
Next: fry some onions in oil the bottom of a stockpot, and get them good and brown and crispy. Mine came out perfectly, I was very proud. Take them out and put them on a paper towel. Next, the chicken pieces-- I had to do mine in two stages to give them room to move around. What you want to do here is brown them without totally cooking them through, because they'll be simmering for half an hour later. Jaffrey says to do this quickly over high heat. In the end, though, my chicken was a bit underdone, so next time I think I'll take a bit more time browning the chicken.
Remove the chicken and put on a plate with a paper towel. Now for the fun part: the sauce. First, take your mirepoix and fry it for ten minutes or so, till it's nice and golden brown and your eyes no longer fill with onion tears just from looking into the pot. Then add the next classic spice blend, another one that is becoming routine for me: coriander, cumin and turmeric, with the coriander/cumin ratio about 2:1. Fry that. Then two tbsp of yogurt go in, one spoonful at a time. I added the spoonfuls and then whisked quickly-- it's not in the recipe, but it seems to do the trick when it comes to keeping yogurt from curdling over the heat. (Thanks, Joe.) Then a tablespoon of tomato puree (I actually used paste), whisked in the same way. Then your warm spices: cinnamon, ground cloves, cayenne and salt, plus 3/4 of a pint of water. Mix it, bring it to a boil, lower the heat, pop on a lid and go chill for ten minutes.
Next problem: I did not spend this ten-minute period chilling, as I should have. No, I thought it would be a good idea to plan ahead and roll out my pooris ahead of time, so that after I got the chicken simmering we could just fry them up and be done. I rolled out my pooris nice and thin, laid them on (spelt) floured parchment paper, and then went back to the main dish-- I added the chicken and lemon slices, a tablespoon of sugar and some pepper, mixed it, and put it on to simmer.
Joe really likes to fry the pooris, and I'm kind of a wimp about large quantities of boiling oil, so I like to let this be his job. (He also gets to chop the onions, so I owe him.) He got the oil nice and smoking hot, just like Jaffrey says, but had a hell of a time getting the pooris to puff up. Last time it was like magic-- this time, not so much. They kept coming out flat and hard. We speculated about what might be different this time-- and all we came up with was that last time, I was rolling the pooris out while Joe immediately fried them. Maybe they were drying out in the intervening ten minutes? Joe took a rolled-out poori, balled up the dough, and re-rolled it, and it puffed better than anything had so far. I took the few remaining ones and did the same. They still weren't beautiful like last time, but they did start to puff.
Fortunately, poori duds still taste really good. We ate them with the chicken, which had cooked down to a nice, thick, lemony sauce. The chicken was a bit underdone-- not enough to cause alarm, but next time I'll let it simmer longer. Still, it was really tender and flavorful, and I was glad I'd gotten the good stuff. And that sauce? Holy shit, you guys. That sauce was really good. We served it with rice and "poori chips" and Belgian Dubbel, and it was satisfying and tasty.
Lessons for next time:
-buy good chicken that actually grew up eating normal chicken food;
-don't let Madhur rush you on the browning;
-simmer for more like 25 or 30 minutes;
-don't roll out your poori dough until you're ready to drop it into the hot oil;
-don't spill anything that contains turmeric onto your favorite tan pants.
Yum.
This particular chicken recipe jumped out at me when I was flipping through the cookbook last night, trying to decide what to make. It sounded so good, I couldn't wait to get home and make it. And after the last wildly successful round of pooris, I was looking forward to more.
I made the poori dough first thing when I got home from work. It needs at least an hour and a half to rise. I figured dinner would take about an hour, so I had half an hour to chill before starting to cook in earnest. Joe and I were both getting hungry, so I broke out the two leftover aloo-ki-tikiya from the other night. We browned them in the cast iron pan and got a nice crust-- they did, however, turn bright yellow, which tells you just how much turmeric I've been using in that pan lately. Seriously, turmeric is powerful stuff. My cuticles have been yellow since I started this blog! And even my Tide Pen, the most amazing stain remover known to humanity, isn't removing the yellow stain from the sauce I spilled on my knee tonight. I got myself a nice laminated apron with extremely cute cherries on it to cook in; guess I'd better start wearing it when I eat!
Anyway. The potato patties held together much better after having the benefit of a couple of days in the fridge. We split a Flying Fish Belgian Dubbel with them and it was an excellent snack.
And when we finished... time to start cooking. I got the chicken from Godshall's Poultry in the Reading Terminal Market-- I went for the naturally fed free-range chicken, and had them cut it into piece when I bought it. I have to say, the quality was high. You have to skin it; apparently Indian cuisine, at least as interpreted by Jaffrey, who's from Delhi-- isn't big on chicken skin.
Onions, garlic and ginger go into the blender with a bit of water. We've been calling this "Indian mirepoix"-- mirepoix (yes, we had to look up the spelling) being the mixture of onions, carrots and celery that forms the base of so much French cooking. It seems like most of the North Indian recipes in this cookbook use onions, garlic and ginger as a mirepoix. It's a wonderfully flavorful base, and I'm violently allergic to celery so I like this one much better.
Next: fry some onions in oil the bottom of a stockpot, and get them good and brown and crispy. Mine came out perfectly, I was very proud. Take them out and put them on a paper towel. Next, the chicken pieces-- I had to do mine in two stages to give them room to move around. What you want to do here is brown them without totally cooking them through, because they'll be simmering for half an hour later. Jaffrey says to do this quickly over high heat. In the end, though, my chicken was a bit underdone, so next time I think I'll take a bit more time browning the chicken.
Remove the chicken and put on a plate with a paper towel. Now for the fun part: the sauce. First, take your mirepoix and fry it for ten minutes or so, till it's nice and golden brown and your eyes no longer fill with onion tears just from looking into the pot. Then add the next classic spice blend, another one that is becoming routine for me: coriander, cumin and turmeric, with the coriander/cumin ratio about 2:1. Fry that. Then two tbsp of yogurt go in, one spoonful at a time. I added the spoonfuls and then whisked quickly-- it's not in the recipe, but it seems to do the trick when it comes to keeping yogurt from curdling over the heat. (Thanks, Joe.) Then a tablespoon of tomato puree (I actually used paste), whisked in the same way. Then your warm spices: cinnamon, ground cloves, cayenne and salt, plus 3/4 of a pint of water. Mix it, bring it to a boil, lower the heat, pop on a lid and go chill for ten minutes.
Next problem: I did not spend this ten-minute period chilling, as I should have. No, I thought it would be a good idea to plan ahead and roll out my pooris ahead of time, so that after I got the chicken simmering we could just fry them up and be done. I rolled out my pooris nice and thin, laid them on (spelt) floured parchment paper, and then went back to the main dish-- I added the chicken and lemon slices, a tablespoon of sugar and some pepper, mixed it, and put it on to simmer.
Joe really likes to fry the pooris, and I'm kind of a wimp about large quantities of boiling oil, so I like to let this be his job. (He also gets to chop the onions, so I owe him.) He got the oil nice and smoking hot, just like Jaffrey says, but had a hell of a time getting the pooris to puff up. Last time it was like magic-- this time, not so much. They kept coming out flat and hard. We speculated about what might be different this time-- and all we came up with was that last time, I was rolling the pooris out while Joe immediately fried them. Maybe they were drying out in the intervening ten minutes? Joe took a rolled-out poori, balled up the dough, and re-rolled it, and it puffed better than anything had so far. I took the few remaining ones and did the same. They still weren't beautiful like last time, but they did start to puff.
Fortunately, poori duds still taste really good. We ate them with the chicken, which had cooked down to a nice, thick, lemony sauce. The chicken was a bit underdone-- not enough to cause alarm, but next time I'll let it simmer longer. Still, it was really tender and flavorful, and I was glad I'd gotten the good stuff. And that sauce? Holy shit, you guys. That sauce was really good. We served it with rice and "poori chips" and Belgian Dubbel, and it was satisfying and tasty.
Lessons for next time:
-buy good chicken that actually grew up eating normal chicken food;
-don't let Madhur rush you on the browning;
-simmer for more like 25 or 30 minutes;
-don't roll out your poori dough until you're ready to drop it into the hot oil;
-don't spill anything that contains turmeric onto your favorite tan pants.
Yum.
Sunday, June 3, 2007
Prawn Pullao
This dish is basically Indian jambalaya, and it's at least as tasty as the Cajun kind. This was one of the more simple, straightforward dishes I've made from the Jaffrey book.
Instead of just throwing the spices into a pan for this one, you mix them together in a teacup- a chopped green chili, turmeric, garam masala, chopped fresh coriander, lemon juice, salt and water. Heat some oil and fry the mixture for two or three minutes. (When I read the recipe, I questioned this step-- did Madhur just tell me to throw water into hot oil? But it's actually a pretty thick paste and it behaved just fine.) Next, take your peeled, deveined shrimp and cook them for about four minutes, turning them a bit to get them all coated in the spice paste. Once they're ready, set aside in a covered dish. Put 9 oz water in the pan and keep it on low heat, mixing and scraping up the spices. It won't really cook down into anything, but you're going to use this spice- and shrimp-flavored water to cook the rice.
In a pot, heat some oil and fry sliced onions until they start to turn brown. (This step is where the oil started really popping for me. I got a small burn from a particularly bad pop. Fortunately, I remembered the rule Joe taught me-- for oil burns, do NOT put your hand in water! Wipe it off with a dry cloth.)
Once the onions are looking good, add in the rice, followed by 3/4 pint of water, the flavored water from the pan, and a bit of salt. Mix, bring to a boil, and then turn the heat as low as you can, cover, and walk away for 25 minutes. I actually really like it when I get to simmer things for a long period like this-- I can clean the kitchen so I don't have to do it later, make bread or a side dish, or have a drink with my dinner guests.
When you open the pot, the rice should be nice and fluffy and smelling deeeee-licious. Put in your shrimp, fold them into the rice so they're mixed in, fluff, cover, give it another five minutes. Serve in bowls.
This was really tasty and satisfying. I'd actually like to make this again when we visit our family in Florida-- I think they'd love it, and you can get really fantastic fresh Gulf shrimp down there. It had a kick to it, but next time I'll make it a little bit hotter and serve it with raita (cooling yogurt sauce). Goes very, very well with a summery beer-- I had a Flying Fish IPA, Joe had their Extra Pale Ale, and we were both happy.
Instead of just throwing the spices into a pan for this one, you mix them together in a teacup- a chopped green chili, turmeric, garam masala, chopped fresh coriander, lemon juice, salt and water. Heat some oil and fry the mixture for two or three minutes. (When I read the recipe, I questioned this step-- did Madhur just tell me to throw water into hot oil? But it's actually a pretty thick paste and it behaved just fine.) Next, take your peeled, deveined shrimp and cook them for about four minutes, turning them a bit to get them all coated in the spice paste. Once they're ready, set aside in a covered dish. Put 9 oz water in the pan and keep it on low heat, mixing and scraping up the spices. It won't really cook down into anything, but you're going to use this spice- and shrimp-flavored water to cook the rice.
In a pot, heat some oil and fry sliced onions until they start to turn brown. (This step is where the oil started really popping for me. I got a small burn from a particularly bad pop. Fortunately, I remembered the rule Joe taught me-- for oil burns, do NOT put your hand in water! Wipe it off with a dry cloth.)
Once the onions are looking good, add in the rice, followed by 3/4 pint of water, the flavored water from the pan, and a bit of salt. Mix, bring to a boil, and then turn the heat as low as you can, cover, and walk away for 25 minutes. I actually really like it when I get to simmer things for a long period like this-- I can clean the kitchen so I don't have to do it later, make bread or a side dish, or have a drink with my dinner guests.
When you open the pot, the rice should be nice and fluffy and smelling deeeee-licious. Put in your shrimp, fold them into the rice so they're mixed in, fluff, cover, give it another five minutes. Serve in bowls.
This was really tasty and satisfying. I'd actually like to make this again when we visit our family in Florida-- I think they'd love it, and you can get really fantastic fresh Gulf shrimp down there. It had a kick to it, but next time I'll make it a little bit hotter and serve it with raita (cooling yogurt sauce). Goes very, very well with a summery beer-- I had a Flying Fish IPA, Joe had their Extra Pale Ale, and we were both happy.
Friday, June 1, 2007
Lamb Chops in Yogurt with Whole Spices; Potato Patties (aloo-ki-tikiya)
For once, I actually made a lamb dish with lamb! Very exciting. And my dear husband Joe made a trip to the Indian grocery store, so we filled in a few of the gaps in our spice cabinet. (International Foods at 42nd and Walnut-- check them out!) I finally have cardamom pods and fenugreek seeds! Woo! And let me tell you, cardamom pods? They're magical. They smell wonderful and they add so much flavor to a simmering sauce... I'm actually a little annoyed with myself for making so many recipes with crappy-ass cardamom powder instead of the real deal. Sigh. No matter-- I have lots of pods now!
The lamb had to simmer for an hour, so while Joe was out returning our car, I started chopping. This was a deceptively simple dish. Here's what you do: Mix 4 tbsp yogurt with water and set aside. Brown your lamb chops in the pan. Set aside. Fry the spices-- a cinnamon stick, a red pepper, cloves, peppercorns, and a bay leaf. (We also got some decent dried red peppers-- the old ones from the grocery store in Queens just weren't giving off much flavor. These, on the other hand...) Put in your chopped ginger and garlic. (My ginger got moldy, so I had to break out the emergency jar. Yes, that's right, I keep an emergency jar of ginger in my fridge. What are you laughing at?) Fry for a minute, then throw in your chopped green coriander. Let it wilt for a bit, then put the lamb chops back in. Pour the watered-down yogurt into the pan, add salt, bring to a boil, then turn down the heat and cover. Check it every ten minutes, stir a bit, whatever it seems to need.
That's pretty much it. This was nice and low-maintenance. The lamb came out really tender and moist and just a hair above medium rare. I realized just now, while writing this, that in halving the recipe, I got a bit confused and added too much water to the yogurt, which may be why the sauce was really thin. I didn't treat it like a sauce, more like a poaching liquid, and that worked out well.
Then there were the potatoes. Madhur Jaffrey recommends boiling the potatoes whole two hours before dinner, then chopping and mashing them about half an hour before showtime. But I had to work late tonight, and Joe had to run to South Philly to pick up a package from UPS, so our potatoes got chopped, boiled and mashed in quick succession. They sat for maybe twenty minutes while I dealt with their filling.
The filling: this is a recipe that requires some advance planning. You have to soak 3 tbsp of urad dal for 24 hours. The problem with such recipes is that I'm a total slacker, and if it's been a rough day and I have cramps and I worked late, I'm liable to put off the dinner I'd planned and order takeout. Which is what happened yesterday and the day before. So by the time I got around to making this dish, my dal had been soaking in a glass of water on the counter for three days. There was a funky, bubbly skin of lentil starch that had formed at the surface of the water, and the whole thing smelled like it might have fermented just a bit. But they looked fine and the texture was right, so I decided to give it a shot. (Very unusual-- I'm normally a bit of a paranoid freak when it comes to food safety. I've had some bad experiences.)
Turned out the urad dal was just fine. I put a few fenugreek seeds in hot oil-- those smell great too, by the way. Then I added chopped onions and a pinch of cayenne pepper-- the recipe calls for green chilies, but we didn't have any. You're supposed to let the onions get just a bit brown at the edges, then put in the coriander. I cooked everything at the correct heat, etc., and put the coriander in just as the onions got brown at the edges, but I found that by the time I'd reached for the coriander the onions were close to burning. I had to turn the heat down very quickly to save them. I was using the cast iron pan, which I suspect conducts heat better than the average frying pan. So dear readers, if I have convinced you to use cast iron (which, I admit, is one of the secret goals of this blog), keep that in mind. OK, so you fry all that for just a little bit, then put the (drained! not wet anymore!) dal in the pan and keep stirring for five minutes or so. Madhur says it'll all turn into one big lump in the pan, but that didn't happen-- I suspect she used a smaller pan than I did.
While you're doing that, your potatoes are resting. Wake them up and bring them over to a cutting board or other useful surface. Divide them into balls-- Madhur Jaffrey calls for 12, I halved the recipe and did 6. Now take a ball and flatten it in your palm. Take a spoonful of the dal mixture and put it right in the center, then gently, gently form the potatoes into a ball with the dal at the center. Then flatten it out (again, gently) so that you have a nice little potato pancake with a spicy dal center.
Meanwhile, put just a bit of oil in your cast iron pan, which you cleaned out after making the dal. Once it's hot, put the patties in. Make sure to leave them some room. I had six patties, but ended up only making four because I didn't have time to do two panfuls. (Pansful?)
Once the patties are in the oil, LEAVE THEM ALONE. 8-10 minutes. Just let 'em sit, with the heat on medium low. My potatoes were a bit less thick than I'd like, probably because we made them at the last minute, and I was concerned that things were so liquid-y that a crust wouldn't form. Silly me, I should have trusted in the amazing crust-forming abilities of my cast iron pan. The crust was lovely and golden brown. Once that forms, it's time for a flip-- a fish spatula (flat, slotted metal) is ideal, just be eeeever so careful when you turn them over. These have a tendency to break if you're not really gentle.
There it is, that's your dinner. Plate and serve. We had this with a Flying Fish Belgian-Style Dubbel, which I think went particularly well with the potatoes. The potatoes had a nice little kick from the cayenne, and the combination of crunchy crust, smooth inside potato and spicy, slightly crunchy dal was delicious and fun to eat. It went well with the lamb, too-- I still can't believe how tender that lamb was! We got it at Trader Joe's-- I'm always happy with their lamb chops.
Things to consider for next time:
1. When halving the recipe, halve the freakin' recipe. If you accidentally use twice as much water as you need, your sauce will be too thin. Duh.
2. Real spices make a real difference. As does freshness.
3. If Madhur says to do something ahead of time, she probably has her reasons. I saved the two patties I didn't cook tonight-- I'm going to make them this weekend and see how their time in the fridge changes their behavior in the pan. Purely for scientific inquiry, of course, it has nothing to do with the way they melt in your mouth... mmm... aloo ki-tikiya...
If attempting to describe a tasty meal turns you into Homer Simpson, that's a good sign, right?
There had been talk of grilled mangoes (Mexican, we still haven't landed Indian mangoes) and ice cream for dessert, but we ate late and then Joe fell asleep on the couch, so I think we'll have to save that for tomorrow.
The lamb had to simmer for an hour, so while Joe was out returning our car, I started chopping. This was a deceptively simple dish. Here's what you do: Mix 4 tbsp yogurt with water and set aside. Brown your lamb chops in the pan. Set aside. Fry the spices-- a cinnamon stick, a red pepper, cloves, peppercorns, and a bay leaf. (We also got some decent dried red peppers-- the old ones from the grocery store in Queens just weren't giving off much flavor. These, on the other hand...) Put in your chopped ginger and garlic. (My ginger got moldy, so I had to break out the emergency jar. Yes, that's right, I keep an emergency jar of ginger in my fridge. What are you laughing at?) Fry for a minute, then throw in your chopped green coriander. Let it wilt for a bit, then put the lamb chops back in. Pour the watered-down yogurt into the pan, add salt, bring to a boil, then turn down the heat and cover. Check it every ten minutes, stir a bit, whatever it seems to need.
That's pretty much it. This was nice and low-maintenance. The lamb came out really tender and moist and just a hair above medium rare. I realized just now, while writing this, that in halving the recipe, I got a bit confused and added too much water to the yogurt, which may be why the sauce was really thin. I didn't treat it like a sauce, more like a poaching liquid, and that worked out well.
Then there were the potatoes. Madhur Jaffrey recommends boiling the potatoes whole two hours before dinner, then chopping and mashing them about half an hour before showtime. But I had to work late tonight, and Joe had to run to South Philly to pick up a package from UPS, so our potatoes got chopped, boiled and mashed in quick succession. They sat for maybe twenty minutes while I dealt with their filling.
The filling: this is a recipe that requires some advance planning. You have to soak 3 tbsp of urad dal for 24 hours. The problem with such recipes is that I'm a total slacker, and if it's been a rough day and I have cramps and I worked late, I'm liable to put off the dinner I'd planned and order takeout. Which is what happened yesterday and the day before. So by the time I got around to making this dish, my dal had been soaking in a glass of water on the counter for three days. There was a funky, bubbly skin of lentil starch that had formed at the surface of the water, and the whole thing smelled like it might have fermented just a bit. But they looked fine and the texture was right, so I decided to give it a shot. (Very unusual-- I'm normally a bit of a paranoid freak when it comes to food safety. I've had some bad experiences.)
Turned out the urad dal was just fine. I put a few fenugreek seeds in hot oil-- those smell great too, by the way. Then I added chopped onions and a pinch of cayenne pepper-- the recipe calls for green chilies, but we didn't have any. You're supposed to let the onions get just a bit brown at the edges, then put in the coriander. I cooked everything at the correct heat, etc., and put the coriander in just as the onions got brown at the edges, but I found that by the time I'd reached for the coriander the onions were close to burning. I had to turn the heat down very quickly to save them. I was using the cast iron pan, which I suspect conducts heat better than the average frying pan. So dear readers, if I have convinced you to use cast iron (which, I admit, is one of the secret goals of this blog), keep that in mind. OK, so you fry all that for just a little bit, then put the (drained! not wet anymore!) dal in the pan and keep stirring for five minutes or so. Madhur says it'll all turn into one big lump in the pan, but that didn't happen-- I suspect she used a smaller pan than I did.
While you're doing that, your potatoes are resting. Wake them up and bring them over to a cutting board or other useful surface. Divide them into balls-- Madhur Jaffrey calls for 12, I halved the recipe and did 6. Now take a ball and flatten it in your palm. Take a spoonful of the dal mixture and put it right in the center, then gently, gently form the potatoes into a ball with the dal at the center. Then flatten it out (again, gently) so that you have a nice little potato pancake with a spicy dal center.
Meanwhile, put just a bit of oil in your cast iron pan, which you cleaned out after making the dal. Once it's hot, put the patties in. Make sure to leave them some room. I had six patties, but ended up only making four because I didn't have time to do two panfuls. (Pansful?)
Once the patties are in the oil, LEAVE THEM ALONE. 8-10 minutes. Just let 'em sit, with the heat on medium low. My potatoes were a bit less thick than I'd like, probably because we made them at the last minute, and I was concerned that things were so liquid-y that a crust wouldn't form. Silly me, I should have trusted in the amazing crust-forming abilities of my cast iron pan. The crust was lovely and golden brown. Once that forms, it's time for a flip-- a fish spatula (flat, slotted metal) is ideal, just be eeeever so careful when you turn them over. These have a tendency to break if you're not really gentle.
There it is, that's your dinner. Plate and serve. We had this with a Flying Fish Belgian-Style Dubbel, which I think went particularly well with the potatoes. The potatoes had a nice little kick from the cayenne, and the combination of crunchy crust, smooth inside potato and spicy, slightly crunchy dal was delicious and fun to eat. It went well with the lamb, too-- I still can't believe how tender that lamb was! We got it at Trader Joe's-- I'm always happy with their lamb chops.
Things to consider for next time:
1. When halving the recipe, halve the freakin' recipe. If you accidentally use twice as much water as you need, your sauce will be too thin. Duh.
2. Real spices make a real difference. As does freshness.
3. If Madhur says to do something ahead of time, she probably has her reasons. I saved the two patties I didn't cook tonight-- I'm going to make them this weekend and see how their time in the fridge changes their behavior in the pan. Purely for scientific inquiry, of course, it has nothing to do with the way they melt in your mouth... mmm... aloo ki-tikiya...
If attempting to describe a tasty meal turns you into Homer Simpson, that's a good sign, right?
There had been talk of grilled mangoes (Mexican, we still haven't landed Indian mangoes) and ice cream for dessert, but we ate late and then Joe fell asleep on the couch, so I think we'll have to save that for tomorrow.
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