Ginger sweet potatoes

Tonight, I decided to put some dried guajillo peppers to good use by using them with broiled tuna a la this recipe. Instead of the rice and greens on the side, though, I wanted to do some sort of mashed sweet potatoes. And so this 3recipe was born:

Peel and dice 3 small-medium sweet potatoes -- about 2 cups once diced. Using water, boil until soft, then drain. Return sweet potatoes to pot and add:

1 Tbsp butter
1-2 tsp cocoa powder
1/2 - 1 tsp cinnamon
1-2 Tbsp ginger syrup
salt to taste

If you didn't get any ginger syrup from your brother for Christmas, I imagine 1/2 - 1 teaspoon of ground or grated ginger and a tablespoon of maple syrup or brown sugar would suffice as a substitute.

Mash everything together until it looks like baby food. I didn't try this, but I suspect a dash of ground hot pepper might go over very well in this dish.

Ricotta - White Wine Sauce

Hello all,
Tonight I'm going to share a quick, tasty sauce that I've made a few times now.
I'm going to give you the general recipe for the sauce, and then list a few variations that I've tried.

Sauce:

• Olive Oil
• 2-3 Cloves of Garlic
• 1/2 large onion
• 1 - 1 1/2 cup White Wine
• A few splashes of white wine vinegar
  
• 6-8 Heaping tablespoons of ricotta cheese
  
• Parmesan cheese
  
• Oregano
• Basil
• Fennel
• Salt/Pepper to taste

1) Saute the garlic, onion, spices (expect salt) in the olive oil.
2) Add the white wine and vinegar and simmer for a few minutes.
3) Slowly stir in the ricotta a few spoonfuls at a time and simmer gently.
4) Once all the ricotta is added, add the Parmesan cheese and salt and simmer for 5-6 more minutes, until it thickens slightly. While it's simmering, taste it and see if it needs more salt and pepper (it probably will).
5) Serve over pasta.


That's it! Now, it'd be a fairly boring dish as is, so I've added a few veggies to help give the sauce a bit more body. I've tried adding peppers and broccoli to the sauce by sauteing them in with the garlic/onion/spices. I've also added spinach into the sauce by sauteing it quickly just before adding the white wine. Both have been pretty tasty.

So, basically, I've given the basics for many tasty dinners! Please experiment and leave any more tasty combination you find in the comments!

Curry coconut squash soup

Soup is perhaps my favorite way to consume squash, although I didn't discover this until recently. This dish was surprisingly easy, considering I had to use the blender.

1 butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and diced into 1" polyhedra
1 ginormous carrot (or 2 large ones), peeled and sliced roughly
1/2 white onion, roughly chopped

Boil until soft. (20-40 minutes)

These go into the blender. I had to split it into two batches, and to each batch I added:

1 pat butter
juice of 1/2 clementine
1/4 can lite coconut milk
1 glorg maple syrup (~1 tbsp)
maybe 1/4 c pecans
4 spoonfuls plain yogurt
some salt
some pepper
~1 tsp curry powder (use your judgment)
enough of the water used to boil the veggies to fill in most of the voids

Soupify. Reheat if necessary.

Pesto pasta with brussels sprouts and sun-dried tomato, roasted cauliflower

This wasn't meant to be an entropic dinner.

On the way home from work --tired and brain-fried-- I had it in mind just to cook some pasta and mix it with pesto for a quick, simple dinner. But by the time I got into the kitchen, some of my creative impulsiveness had returned and I was able to whip up the following:

Pesto pasta with brussels sprouts and sun-dried tomatoes

1/2 box rotini pasta, cooked and drained
1/4-1/2 cup pesto
1/4 cup sun-dried tomatoes in oil, chopped
~15 brussels sprouts
olive or grapeseed oil
paprika
black pepper
salt

Rinse and halve the brussels sprouts (after removing the "stem"). Sprinkle with paprika and black pepper. In a small frying pan, heat ~1 Tbsp oil over medium high. When hot, add sprouts and fry for 5-7 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the outsides have browned. (Alternatively, you could broil or grill the sprouts) Combine with pasta, pesto, and tomatoes and return to heat if necessary. Add salt to taste.

Notes: I'm discovering that brussels sprouts are among the most underrated vegetables; buy them fresh (not canned) and roast or brown them and they are quite fantastic! For the pesto, add it a large spoonful at a time until it tastes right to you. I used pesto we made this summer with our bumper basil crop, which I found to be more lightly flavored than most, so I went with around 1/2 cup.

Roasted Cauliflower

1 cauliflower
4-5 Tbsp olive oil
2 Tbsp sweet vinegar
ground cumin
dried oregano
salt

Rinse cauliflower and remove core (or cut into small pieces). Drizzle with 2-3 Tbsp oil and toss lightly (or brush, if using the head whole). Sprinkle with oregano, cumin, and salt and bake at 450F for 45 minutes, or until tops are golden brown. Meanwhile, combine 2 Tbsp oil with the vinegar and ~1/2 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp oregano. When cauliflower is done, remove from oven and cut into pieces if necessary. Shake dressing well, pour over cauliflower and stir.

Notes: most of the credit for this dish goes to Meghan, who co-writes a cooking and wine blog with her husband Doug (my former colleague). Her version is slightly different, but as she mentions, you can be pretty creative with the sauce/seasonings you use. For the vinegar, I used Trader Joe's Orange Malbec Champagne Vinegar (or something like that), which is quite sweet and fruity as vinegars go. You could do just as well with a wine vinegar or some lemon juice and a little sweetener.

Beet Soup, Fried 'taters, and Tomato Salad

Not the most adventurous of experimentation tonight, but each of these is a bit of a twist on some established recipe.

Beet Soup

I actually followed a recipe for the most part -- from the excellent 12 Months of Monastery Soups, but with a little alteration at the end.

1 qt water
1 bouillon cube (I used vegetable)
2 beets, cubed
1 onion, thinly sliced
1 carrot, thinly sliced (I added this myself)
2 stalks celery, thinly sliced
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 tsp sugar (I used raw sugar)
salt and pepper
garnish (see below)

Combine the water, bouillon, vegetables, oil, and sugar in a soup pot and cook over med-low for 30 minutes. Add the salt and pepper and cook for 10 more minutes. Blend the soup in a blender (it'll take 2 or more loads) and return to the pot. Heat for 5 minutes and ladle into bowls. The original recipe called for chopped fresh dill and scallions as a garnish, neither of which I had, so I substituted a drizzle of truffle oil and a sprinkle of dried dill weed, which seemed to turn out just fine.

Salt 'n' Vinegar Fried Baby Potatoes

A classic twist on a classic! Or something like that...

~2 cups baby potatoes perhaps cut in half or quarters
vegetable oil
1/2 tsp chopped fresh rosemary
salt
1 (maybe 1 1/2) Tbsp white or white wine vinegar

Heat a little oil in a frying pan over medium, then add the potatoes. Fry, stirring occasionally, until cooked through, about 12-15 minutes. Turn off burner and add the vinegar and rosemary while stirring. If the vinegar does not all absorb or evaporate after a minute, drain the excess, then add salt to your taste. I used Holy Smokes' smoked salt for extra awesomeness.

Tomato-Lemon salad

OK, I based this one on the classic tomato-basil-mozzarella-olive oil-balsamic vinegar salad, but replaced everything except the tomatoes with a related item. I'm not going to say it's better than the classic dish, but I'm not going to say it's worse, either!

2 tomatoes, diced
juice of 1/2 lemon
1/2 tsp fresh thyme
a couple generous pinches of shredded parmesan cheese
a small glug of grapeseed oil (only because I used the last of our olive oil in the soup)
fresh cracked pepper

Mix.

Blackberry-Jalapeno hot sauce

One of my goals each summer (since last year anyway) is to prepare a batch of hot sauce. Of course, being an entropic chef, I can't just go with one of the tried-and-true recipes to be found online; nope, it's time to get creative!

This particular recipe started forming in my mind when I found the purple jalapeno plants in our garden were beginning to produce some moderate yields. The deep purple color just begged to be paired with a dark, flavorful fruit, so I picked up some blackberries to give the sauce its body. As I continued to form the sauce in my mind, I kept coming back to something dark, rich, and complex... maybe akin to a fruitier version of Pickapeppa. So, I thought: let's start with some onions and garlic, sauteed until well-browned, then blend in the peppers and berries, some balsamic, a toss of raisins, maybe a spoonful of cocoa, and finally some cardamom to keep things fresh.

Then I thought that maybe I oughta get the peppers nice and smoky by grilling them with some smoke pellets. That, as I will point out later, was probably a mistake.

Here's what I ended up using:

8 small purple jalapenos, skewered and grilled with smoke pellets
2 large red jalapenos, skewered and grilled with smoke pellets
1 poblano pepper, skewered and grilled with smoke pellets
1/2 pint blackberries
1 small white onion, chopped finely
1 clove garlic, minced
~1 Tbsp grapeseed oil (any light oil will do)
~1/4-1/2 cup dark raisins
~3 Tbsp Balsamic vinegar
~5 Tbsp white vinegar
~1 Tbsp cocoa powder
seeds of 5 cardamom pods, ground

I took care of the grilling first, keeping the grill closed to make a smoke chamber for ~10 minutes, then opening it up and putting the peppers closer to the coals to blacken the skins. Once cool, the peppers were peeled and set aside with seeds and ribs intact. Meanwhile, I sauteed the onions with the oil for ~10 minutes on medium-low, then added the garlic and continued cooking for about another 10 minutes until both garlic and onion were nice and brown. The onions and garlic went into the blender along with the peppers, blackberries, raisins, cocoa, and cardamom, until everything was just blended. Then I added the vinegars bit by bit, blending with the highest setting between additions, until the consistency was something like a thin BBQ sauce and the sauce tasted sufficiently acidic (a glass of milk was kept handy to cleanse my palate between tastings!) When the sauce was ready, I strained it to remove the seeds (pepper and blackberry) and put it into a sterilized pint jar, which it filled perfectly.

As I mentioned before, I'd probably skip the smoking step if I were to do it again. I severely underestimated the amount of smoke these peppers would absorb (my previous smoking experience has been with meats and potatoes). Probably just grilling them would have been enough, maybe a dab of liquid smoke later on depending on flavor. Apart from the overpowering smokiness, though, the sauce seems to have turned out pretty well. I'm letting it mellow in the fridge for a bit, hoping the flavors blend some more, so we'll see what it's like in a couple of weeks. At the very least, I should be able to salvage it by incorporating it into a large batch of BBQ sauce.

Sweet'n'smoky corn-tomato chili

It's that time of year: tomatoes are ripening furiously, we've got corn up to our, uh, ears, and the hot chili peppers are coming into full bounty. That means there's only one thing to do: make salsa!

Oh! and chili!

Two things to do: salsa, chili, and an almost fanatical devotion to the pope. Three things!

Ahem.

Anyway, chili. Some people will insist that true chili is little more than spicy ground beef in a smoky sauce... none of these fancy vege-tables like beans and tomatoes. Personally, I think that's great if you're going to put it on a hot dog or some nachos, but I'm much more open-minded when it comes to chili by the bowl.

In this sense, chili is the perfect dish for the entropic chef, because you can sneak almost anything into it and still have it come out tasting pretty good. In Cincinnati, they even make it with cocoa and cinnamon, a trick I've tried a few times with pretty good success. But for today, I'm going back to basics, more or less.

Ingredients:

5 large tomatoes (the riper, the better)
3 jalapeno-style peppers
4 ears of corn
1 medium onion, chopped coarsely
1/2 red bell pepper, sliced into thin 1" strips
3 cloves garlic, minced
chili powder
ground cumin
ground coriander
salt and pepper
optional:
ground beef/turkey
kielbasa
1 can kidney beans
whole coriander (maybe a dozen seeds)

Before we delve into the chili, though, we've got to do a little prep work. I actually did this the night before, at the same time as I was making a grilled dinner.

Skewer 3 jalapeno-style hot peppers and grill them until their skin turns dark-brown and blisters. When cool, slice in half, remove the skin and scrape out the seeds. Three peppers will give your chili a little kick, stopping just shy of providing an actual "heat" sensation. If you like your chili hotter, leave some of the seeds in.

You'll also want to grill the corn. There are several methods to do this, but it's basically a trade-off of how much work you want to do and how good the finished product will be. You want a nice browning-blackening of a good portion of the kernels, but the entire cob should also be cooked through. What I've found seems to work is first to peel away all but the last couple layers of husk, then peel those down but don't remove them from the ear. Clean up all the silk, then carefully fold the attached husks back up to cover the ear. Soak the ears in water for ~30 minutes, then place on the grill directly over the coals (or flames, if that's your bag). Depending on how hot your grill is, you'll need to turn the corn every 2-5 minutes. When your corn has some nice fire marks on each side, remove and cool. Slice the kernels off the cob.

OK, now on to the chili itself. If you don't mind bits of tomato peels floating around in your chili, simply core your tomatoes and chop them up. Otherwise peel them first and then do the same. Place the tomatoes in a large pot and cook over medium. Meanwhile, drizzle ~2 Tbsp of vegetable oil into a skillet and saute the onion and red bell pepper over medium until the onions are translucent. During the last two minutes of sauteing, add the minced garlic. Add the entire pan to the tomatoes. At the same time, add the grilled pepper halves (either whole or sliced) and the corn. Generously add chili powder -- a tablespoon at least. It's hard to overdo chili powder in chili. Add ground cumin and ground coriander to your taste (I think I did about a teaspoon of each). (Note, if you are using ground beef or turkey, I'd recommend adding half or more of the spices into the meat itself while it browns, and add the cooked meat to the chili at this point, along with the rest of the spices.) Let simmer for 10 minutes and taste the broth. Decide if it needs salt or pepper or more roasted chili seeds for heat. Simmer for 10 more minutes, then add beans, kielbasa, and/or whole coriander seeds if you want any of these. Finally, let simmer for another 10-20 minutes and then serve.

Some notes: I actually split the chili into two separate recipes after adding the corn and spices, so as to make a vegetarian version for my wife and an omnivorous recipe for myself. They were basically the same except the veggie chili contained beans, while mine had kielbasa and whole coriander instead. Kielbasa might seem like an odd choice, but true to the theme of this blog, it was what I had around and ready -- actually it was the leftovers of the previous night's grilling. For the coriander seeds, I actually used green ones from the cilantro plants in our garden -- the flavor kind of splits the difference between the freshness of cilantro and the sweet citrusy flavor of the dried coriander.

I was actually surprised at how sweet the chili turned out, especially without any added sugar or other sweetener. Starting from fresh, ripe tomatoes set the stage, and using a large amount of sweet corn along with the red bell pepper only increased the sucrosity. If that's not your thing, I'd say cut back on the corn, or add some lime juice, lemon juice, or white vinegar. But I personally had no problem with the way things turned out, so I'm counting it as a success, even if slightly unintended.

Salads and stir-fry

Farmshare season is in full swing, which means we've got veggies out the wazoo! And with the recent heat wave, I've been loathe to use the stove any more than necessary. Thus: salads.

Fresh pea/tomato salad
1 medium tomato, cubed
~1 cup fresh peas (1 pint unshelled)
1-2 Tbsp sour cream
fresh mint, chopped (2-3 leaves)
fresh dill weed, chopped (to taste)
lemon pepper/salt

Beet-feta salad
4 small beets, cut into bite-size slices
a handful of mustard greens, finely chopped
~1/4 cup sour cream
~1/4 cup feta cheese
honey to taste (I used 1-2 tsp)
a dash of vinegar

As always, you can adjust the amounts to suit your taste or your actual veggie supply. I thought both salads ended up tasting pretty good for my basically having made them up on the spot, but I'm sure they could be tweaked to become even better.

Now we come to one of my classic standbys for dealing with vegetables: veggie stir-fry! I like stir-fry because it's easy and works with just about any veggies you have around. The featured ingredient for this week: snow peas!

1 pint snow peas
2 carrots, julienned
1/3 of a medium white onion, cut into petal shapes
1/2 jalapeno pepper, finely chopped
~6 inches of garlic scape, finely chopped (or a clove or two of garlic)

Pour a little olive oil and a dab of sesame oil into a frying pan and heat until medium-hot. Add veggies and seasonings and cook just until the onions lose their sharpness, stirring frequently. About halfway through cooking, add about a tablespoon of brown bean sauce (or soy sauce) and a couple dashes of mirin. (Mirin is a somewhat sweet sauce made from sake; a pinch of brown sugar or a dime-sized dot of honey should be fine as a substitute).

Vegetable Polenta

Hello everyone. I know it's been awhile, but I'm still here and still cooking! Last night I made a tasty vegetable polenta that I thought I'd share with you.

Polenta:
2 Cup Corn Meal
8 Cup Water
A Dash of Salt

Vegetable Topping:
2 Purple Scallions
1 Garlic Scape
2/3 Tsp. Crushed Garlic
1 Head of Broccoli
1 Zucchini
1 Summer Squash
1 Handful of Frozen Bell Pepper strips
The juice from 1/2 lemon
1/2 cup White Wine
A splash of balsamic vinegar
Breaded eggplant cutlets
Basil
Oregano
Salt and Pepper
Aged Asigao Cheese

Polenta:
Beat 2 cups of water into the corn meal. Slowly add the mixture to 6 cups of salted boiling water while stirring. Cook, with stirring, until the mixture thickens. Then reduce the heat, cover and cook for 5 more minutes.

Vegetable Topping:
1) Mince the bulbs of the scallions and the garlic scape. Slice up the zucchini and squash and break down the broccoli.
2) In a sauce pan, saute the garlic, basil, oregano, salt, pepper, minced scallion and garlic scape.
3) Add the zucchini, squash, peppers, and broccoli and continue to saute.
4) After a few minutes, add the lemon juice, wine, and balsamic.
5) Add a sprinkling of the cheese and toss the mixture to fully coat the vegetables. Allow the sauce to cook down.

In a seperate pan, fry up the eggplant cutlets.

Serve the vegetable mixture on top of an eggplant cutlet on a bed of polenta. Sprinkle more cheese on top and enjoy! You won't need to use all of the polenta in this recipe, so you can save the rest to use later.

Scallion Waffles and Kohlrabi Fries

OK, as promised, a new update from one of the main authors here at Entropic Kitchen. Dinner tonight was scallion waffles, kohlrabi fries, and (leftover) greensy salad with strawberry vinaigrette. Now, I have to admit that I got the waffle recipe online and actually followed it; it's easy to mess up on anything remotely bread-like, so I tend not to be too experimental when it comes to baking, etc. But in my defense, I came up with the concept of scallion waffles on my own before looking up a recipe, and had I not found one, I would have gone ahead with a regular waffle recipe with added scallions. But without further ado:

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 Tbsp yellow cornmeal
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
2 cups buttermilk
2 eggs
1 cup finely chopped scallion
coarsely ground black pepper (optional, Derek's addendum)

Mix all the dry ingredients except scallions. Seperately, whisk all the wet ingredients until uniform. Then stir wet and dry mixes together just until blended (clumps are OK) and finally stir in the scallions. Waffleize as you would any other waffle.

They were very good plain, but I topped a couple of them with a bit of freshly made strawberry jam for variety. (Sidenote: Chris and his girlfriend were over yesterday and we made jam and it is fabulous!)
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The kohlrabi fries were born out of a comment my wife's coworker made, suggesting that kohlrabi might make a good french-fry vegetable. So on a whim I decided to see if this was true. I peeled and sliced a kohlrabi into fry-sized rectangular prisms and let them cook on medium high in about 1/4 inch of canola oil. After 10 or 15 minutes, they were quite brown, but soft, not crispy. At this point I began to suspect there was more to french fries that just a simple deep fry -- after all, the stuff you get at Mickey D's has been cooked already, then fried again in the restaurant. Taking a quick peek on the internet, it seems like double-frying is the way to go, so perhaps that will be a project later on. I also suspect I may have had the temperature too high, as a couple of pieces were still slightly uncooked in the middle, despite the dark brown on the outside.

Anyway, a quick salting and pat-down to remove excess oil and there they were. Kohlrabi, dark-brown and shrively, but similar enough to potato fries that I was encouraged. The flavor was a little strong, slightly turnipy, and not unpleasant, but in combination with the squishy texture just didn't seem worth the work when fresh, raw kohlrabi is so tasty and potato fries can be had at nearly any restaurant.
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Finally, this was a leftover from yesterday's dinner with Chris and his +1, but we had a salad consisting of greens, chopped veggies (broccoli, cucumbers, turnips and scallions), craisins and feta cheese. For the dressing I mixed together

(approximately)
4 Tbsp salad oil (something nutty is good; I used walnut and grapeseed oils)
6-8 Tbsp vinegar (I used honey-champagne vinegar)
strawberry jam to taste (I used probably 2 Tbsp or so)
dash of salt and pepper

The jam was still in the process of being made (I yoinked a couple of spoonfuls from the big pot on the stove) so it was nice and fresh! Obviously, the more of it you add, the sweeter and more strongly flavored your dressing will be.

Well that's it for tonight. What about you? Do you find yourself cooking more now that fresh summer produce is readily available?

Guest Post: Prenatal Chicken Parm

Note: today's post was written by Steve, whose other excellent musings may be found here. Look for more regular updates from your usual suspects soon, now that summer produce season is in full swing.

As far as cooking goes, I’ve never been huge on experimenting. I always find myself following recipes rigidly, panicking if I’m even five seconds late to pull something from the oven. I haven’t the know-how to throw in a mixture of spices to create a new flavor. Probably one of the most dangerous experiments I’ve tried in the kitchen so far was leaving a cup of mushrooms out of a recipe (solely for the fact that I don’t like mushrooms). I love cooking, but I’ve never been comfortable deviating from written recipes.

This morning, I woke up and went to the kitchen to find that it had been quite some time before someone had restocked it. No cereals, an excessive amount of oatmeal, and just one egg (two if you count the one that was cracked inside the carton). Deciding I wasn’t in the mood for oatmeal, I thought I’d give the egg a shot. But I had eggs yesterday and the day before that, why should I do simple eggs again?

While searching through the nearly-empty fridge for something to do with this egg, I came across a nearly-empty bag of mozzarella cheese. I’ve thrown cheese on eggs before, usually cheddar or American, but mozzarella doesn’t taste good on an egg by itself. Then, my eyes came across a nearly-empty jar of spaghetti sauce.

Prenatal chicken parm, I thought to myself. Or would it be pre-natal? Let me tell you, it’s weird to find yourself going to Wikipedia to look up what a common egg is.

So, I threw some bread in the toaster and started to fry my egg as I usually do (over-hard). After I flipped the egg, I threw a small handful of mozzarella cheese on top and tried to spread it around as much as I could without burning myself. Then, I spooned some of the spaghetti sauce on top of that. I’m wondering if I should have done the cheese and the sauce in reverse order, since I had no way of telling when the cheese was melted underneath the sauce.

After a minute or two, I took the egg out of the pan and sandwiched it between two slices of toast (nice and brown for that crisp breading taste). I would have loved to have paired this meal with a glass of grape juice (because hey, it’s Italian), but all I had in the fridge was a nearly-empty carton of orange juice, so that had to do.

I took a bite into the sandwich, and immediately realized I had put too much sauce on the egg. Excessive sauce aside, it tasted quite good. I couldn’t taste the egg as much as the sauce and cheese (in retrospect, I essentially made a small pizza with a fried egg in it), but the overall flavor was still pretty good. Just as I expected, the cheese in the middle of the egg wasn’t quite melted, but that cold portion only lasted one bite. Maybe this dish deserves a little less disgusting name than “prenatal”, I thought.

Granted, I know this isn’t exactly Entropic Kitchen material. I’m nowhere near as dangerous with my food experimentations as Andrew, Chris, and Derek are. I guess if there’s one thing I learned from my experience, it’s that you don’t have to be Emeril Lagasse to have fun with your food. Experimenting is good every once in a while, no matter what degree you go to.

Side note from Derek: I was quite relieved to find that Prenatal Chicken Parm was not in this family of recipes.

Food Pilgrimage

I love a good food party. There are a number of approaches: the first is the carefully planned, elegant dinner party. The second is the social/finger-food party. This second type is really good if you pick your food right. Crepes are good for this, as you can just have a bunch of fillings, like cheese, caramelized onions, veggies, chocolate, etc, and everyone can just go crazy. Taco parties can be similarly fun.

The final type of food party is the one I like most, but requires some like minded friends to be the most enjoyable. This is the food-pilgrimage. You go on a quest to find divine inspiration in the holy grounds of the farmers market, or the health foods store, the local cheese shop, or anywhere where people care passionately about the food they are selling. You go without premonition or preconception about what you are going to cook, the journey will tell you.

Today I went on a pilgramage with my flatmate Gabe, and we headed to the Ferney-Voltaire farmers market, and the local cheese shop. We bought the following: blood oranges, avocadoes, herloom tomatos, pasta with black truffle, local asparagus, chicken, and fresh bread. Some nice looking pears for a tart too. Oh and the cheese... We got some gruyer that I think we will use for a black trumpet mushroom cream sauce to serve with the chicken, asperegus and pasta. But then just as a treat, we also got a raw milk brie ripened with truffles inside! And a delicious blue cheese blue de le something or rather (Bleu d'Auvergne). It was creamy smooth and the right amount spicy/pungent, like a good stilton.

So we had a wonderful lunch of the fruit, bread and cheese, and coffee. Tonight we will feast! The last step of the food pilgrimage often involves figuring out how to cook everything, but I feel up to the challenge. I'm going to go for a run now, just to prepare my appetite, but I will let you all know how it goes!

Smoked ginger-wasabi pork and stuffed yellow peppers

Ah, the weather is warm and that means it's grilling season! Tonight's meal: smoked pork cutlets and stuffed pepper (also smoked).

I started with three smallish, thin pork cutlets. First, I rubbed some ginger-wasabi spice mix/meat rub onto the cutlets. If you don't happen to have access to a World Market, a mix of the following will probably cut it pretty close:

-mustard powder
-brown sugar
-salt
-garlic powder
-ginger
-pepper
-wasabi powder

After the rub had been applied, I stuck the cutlets in a plastic bag and drizzled a teaspoon or two each of white wine vinegar, olive oil, and maple syrup and mooshed the bag around a little before sealing and setting aside.

For the pepper stuffing, I started with about 2 inches of old baguette, sliced into 1-cm cubes (yeah, yeah, mixed units, I know). Then, I added some dried herbs (sage, savory, and rosemary) and onion powder plus salt, black pepper, and some red pepper flakes. As a binder, I used a a mixture of melted butter, melted cream cheese, and milk. After stirring it up, it didn't seem quite wet enough, so I added a splash of vinegar and white wine, which I think made the whole thing come together nicely (some egg probably would have been suitable here as well, but I didn't have one on hand). After soaking for a half-hour or so, into the hollowed-out yellow pepper it went!

I fired up the grill using some hardwood charcoal and a packet of smoke pellets. Both the pepper and the porks went onto the upper rack so as not to get too much direct cooking, as I was going for the slower smoke treatment. I let it cook for about half an hour with the top vent on the grill closed so as to trap the smoke in the cooking chamber. The end result was smoke-darkened but still juicy pork, and a deliciously browned stuffed pepper!

Sauerkraut Hotdish

Hey folks, it's been a while since anyone updated, so I thought I'd share a quick and easy recipe that's been a staple of my family for years: sauerkraut hotdish. Now, anyone who's not from the North Star State may not be familiar with the term hotdish. No, it doesn't have anything to do with a sizzling platter, it's just our way of saying casserole.

I'm not sure how popular casseroles are outside of the upper midwest, but back at the homestead, they're everywhere! So much so that my home ec class in high school had an entire unit on making them, where I learned the four parts of a casser- erm, hotdish. Of course, that was 12 or so years ago, so I forget exactly what the parts are, but I do know beyond a doubt that there's four of them! Probably something like:

-starch (rice, pasta, potatoes, etc.)
-binder (cheese, cream of X soup, sauce, etc.)
-meat
-vegetable

The typical way to make a hotdish is to blend the four parts together, add an optional topping (bread crumbs, cheese, etc.) and bake for about an hour. As you can see, the possibilities are pretty much limitless as far as experimentation goes.

Anyway, sauerkraut hotdish is wonderfully simple, consisting of:

-1 package wide egg (or eggless) noodles (10-16 oz, I think)
-1 lb sausage of your choice
-1 8 oz can sauerkraut
-black pepper to taste

Boil the pasta, cook the sausage (if necessary), then combine it all together! If the pasta has gotten cold you can reheat it on the stove or in the oven.

Now, I realize that this may not academically qualify as a hotdish (no binder, no baking, and sauerkraut kind of stretches the limit of the term vegetable), but I don't care. That's just what it's called, and anyone who disagrees with me can go make me a ham sandwich! If you're really hankering for a saucy hotdish, I suppose a light cream or cheese sauce can't do any harm.

Traditionally, the sausage used was homemade by my dad and his brothers -- it was a loose (no casing) ground-pork-based sausage with some mild seasonings and plenty of liquid smoke. In lieu of the good stuff, you can use I think pretty much any sausage you want. Most recently I used kielbasa, and it turned out great. Oh, and don't let the sauerkraut scare you off -- the rest of the dish dilutes the strong flavors that turn most people off of it. If you're still worried, try starting with 4 oz and adding more if necessary.

An Italian in Asia

So, I've been told that you can't have pasta everyday! Blasphemy, I know, but we'll humor them. Today's recipe is an Asian inspired stir fry, with a colorful mixture of vegetables and some delicious beef on the side. I served it over some rice, but Asian noodles could be substituted if desired.

So, lets get started:
RICE:

• 1 cup rice
• 3-4 tbsp rice vinegar
• 2 tbsp oil
• 2 cups water (just under the 2 c line, actually)

Put the vinegar and oil in the pan, add the rice and stir it around. Heat it on medium high heat for ~1 minute, then add the water. Stir, cover, and reduce heat to low. Let it cook until most of the water is absorbed. (It should still be steaming, but you shouldn't see any liquid bubbling around, and the rice will appear moist.)

VEGGIES

• Vegetable Oil
• Toasted Sesame Oil
• 3 Cloves Garlic - Crushed
  
• 2/3 small onion (the rest of the onion will be used later)
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp dried basil leaves
• 2/3 lb Chopped asparagus
  
• 1 1/2 cup diced carrots
• 2 handfuls frozen green beans
• 1 large handful frozen mixed chopped peppers
• Soy Sauce
• Rice Vinegar
• Sesame Seeds
• Sriracha, cayenne pepper, and black pepper to taste

1) In a large sauce pan, saute the garlic, onion, and basil in the mixture of oils (~3:1 vegetable:sesame).
2) Once the onion is translucent, add the vegetables and saute in the mixture.
3) Add enough soy sauce to almost cover the veggies.
4) Add in a few splashes of rice vinegar, the sesame seeds, Sriracha and peppers.
5) Simmer for 10-15 minutes.

BEEF

• Vegetable and sesame oil
  
• 1 medium piece of steak, trimmed and thinly sliced
• 2 cloves garlic - crushed
• the rest of the onion from previously
• 1-2 tsp. ground ginger
• Soy Sauce
• Rice Vinegar
• Sesame Seeds
• Sriracha

1) In the mixture of oils, saute the garlic, onion, sesame seeds and ginger.
2) Make sure the oil is really hot, and add the steak.
3) Once the steak has browned, add the soy sauce, rice vinegar, and sriracha
4) Boil until the sauce has thickened.

And that's it! Take a deep breath and serve the veggies and beef over the rice. Enjoy!

Weekend sauces

One of my most common culinary experimentations is whipping up some sauce to put on sandwiches. The other night, we were having salmon burgers (breaded, frozen -- basically a fancier Filet'o'Fish). I wanted to zip things up a little, so I whipped up a creamy mustard-dill sauce to put on it:

some mayo
dried mustard (a generous amount)
a pinch of saffron threads, crushed
dried dill
black pepper
a few drops (or more) of lemon juice
a touch of horseradish
salt (optional)

I thought it added the perfect complement to the sandwich, especially with the arugula, tomato and yellow bell pepper slices that were also added. My wife declined to have any, as she doesn't care for horseradish (I thought I could sneak it by her, but her heightened sensory perceptions were far too sharp to allow that!). But I'm sure she would have agreed, right honey?

Also this weekend, I was let in on the recipe for the Heins family super-secret Easter ham sauce. Now, it's well-known in my family that the big secret behind the secret sauce is that there is, in fact, no standard recipe, but I wasn't really aware of the exact ingredients until yesterday. So at the risk of being left out of the collective wills of my relatives, here's the low-down:

Throw a glug or two of corn syrup into a sauce pan. Add some brown sugar and/or maple syrup and heat on low, stirring until dissolved. Add your favorite mustard a couple of squirts (or spoonfuls) at a time until the sweet-sour ratio is to your liking. Dry mustard and a dash of white wine vinegar can be used in a pinch. If you want, a sprinkle of cloves or nutmeg finishes the sauce nicely.

Chili or Why France Needs More Heat...

So I made chili last weekend with friends. I love chili, I like to serve it with cheese and tortilla chips (and sometimes with guac too, as you can see). The chili was very tasty, but not hot enough, the green chilis they have here are not like those used in southwest (nor south-asian) cooking... se la vie. On the bright side, in France I can enjoy my chili with a nice Cote de Rhone for about 1/4 of what one would spend in the states. Its not a bad pairing either, as you need something round and full to stand up to the chili.

Here is my preferred chili method:

Saute (or roast) peppers and onions in olive oil, with some whole cumin seeds. Add spices and garlic when the peppers and onions are a bit charred/browned. Add canned chopped tomatoes (with all the liquid) and a bit of rice. Cooking it this way makes the rice soak up the tomato and spices. Then add the canned beans, simmer for a few more minutes and I usually season to taste with salt, cider vinegar and molasses. I don't usually use much molasses (or vinegar), but it adds a special flavor. The chilis and spices are key. Poblanos or Anaheim peppers are both peppers that are not too spicy, like a more delicious bell pepper, if you can find them. Once again dried ancho pepper is sweet and a bit smokey, and mild. Habaneros are super spice, but are also delicious, with a tropical citrus flavor. These are my three favorite peppers.

Trifecta Chili

2 - 8 oz cans black beans

2 - 8 oz cans tomatoes

1/2 cup rice

1 large onion

1 red bell pepper

1-2 poblano peppers (or 1 green bell pepper and 1 small hot pepper)

1 habanero (seed unless your mouth is made of asbestos)

3 cloves garlic

2 tablespoons canola or olive oil

1 teaspoon whole cumin seeds

2 tablespoons ground coriander

2 tablespoons ancho pepper (or chili powder)

1/2 teaspoon oregano

soy sauce, cider vinegar, and molasses to taste

Pine Nut Caution

The risotto from a few days ago seems to have given me a mild case of Pine Mouth, where everything I eat has a slightly bitter aftertaste. Looking around at some blog comments, it seems like there's been a spate of complaints recently about the pine nuts from Trader Joe's, which is where I bought mine.

The cause hasn't been determined yet, but it doesn't appear to be related to pesticides or contaminants, and the effect seems to disappear after a few days. Not everyone is affected, either -- my wife ate the risotto and is doing fine. It seems to stem from certain strains of nuts that come from China or Korea, so I'm definitely sticking with nuts with European origins in the future.

Ancho chili and Fennel

So this post might seem lame because I'm not going to really say anything new. But last night I had the same "drunken french-lentil soup" as mentioned previously. It was so hearty, rich and delicious that I would probably now label it as my favorite soup of all time. I think the ancho chili powder and the sauteed fennel and carrot are really what make the flavor so complex and satisfying. They now sell ancho pepper in most supermarkets, you should go out and buy some, it will make everything you make taste better. Its not very hot at all, rather, it has a rich, deep sweet, slightly smokey flavor. You can use it anywhere you would you use paprika or chili-powder.

So this time I added garlic and 1/4 teaspoon whole fennel seeds to the sautéing process, and added 2 diced potatoes with the lentils. All very good additions, the potato was good with the lentils. We had fresh Ciabatta and good olive oil and pepper with the soup. It may seem strange to say this about soup, but it was one of the best meals I've had this year.

Two Posts in a Day!?

That's like... totally tubular, man!

Anyway, risotto. I had made a simplified version of it once before, but Andrew's post certainly piqued my interest in giving it another try. I enjoy very much savory grain-based dishes, particularly when they include some form of fat: macaroni and cheese, fried rice, pad thai, couscous, etc. Risotto seemed a logical choice.

Andrew covered the preparation pretty well, so I won't go into that too much. For the stock I used 1 can of chicken broth combined with a prepared cube of vegetable bullion. I also added a couple tablespoons of mirin -- sweetened Japanese cooking sake to give it a bit of a sweet flavor. After sauteing the onions for a couple of minutes, I added chopped portobello mushrooms as the main veggie, plus some julienned carrots (OK, baby carrots) to add a little color, some raw pine nuts, and a clove of minced garlic. Then, in turn, the risotto, the white wine, and finally some dried dill and savory. The final ingredient before adding the stock was to throw a few chopped scallions in there -- again, mainly for color as the flavor had cooked out of them by the time it was finished.

Andrew didn't specify which part of the lemon should be used, so I added the juice and zest of about 1/4 of one, as well as some fresh ground lemon-pepper (available at Trader Joe's for $2!). I admit I was a bit skeptical as to how the lemon flavor would fit in with the rest of the dish, but it was actually quite good! I shall never doubt you again, Andrew! For the dairy, I split the difference between the cheese and cream by adding about 1/2 cup each of parmesan and cream cheese, with a little milk to loosen the consistency up a bit.

Overall, I'd deem it a success! While chowing down, it struck me that some water chestnuts would have fit in quite well with their crispiness, so perhaps I will try that next time, see how it goes.