Posted By Julie on September 2, 2010

I’ve gone to the farmer’s market this summer more regularly than the past several years combined (it helps that my son is now old enough to come along on the hour-plus round-trip walk, and his stroller takes some of the load out of my backpack). The more I work with fresh, local vegetables, the more I think that maybe I should try to plant a garden next year. This is a big deal for me, because yardwork and keeping plants alive is not exactly my specialty, but my resolve is growing all the time, right alongside the basil plant and baby leeks on the windowsill (which have recently been joined by some rosemary cuttings I’m hoping to root).

As I consider the sorts of vegetables I might be able to grow in the spring, I’m keeping my eyes on the produce I keep bringing home. As part of my goal of total use, I have been looking into saving seeds wherever possible. Not all vegetables are fully mature when we eat them—green peppers, cucumbers, and zucchini are all examples—but I have been squirreling away tomato, cantaloupe and various pepper seeds in the hopes that they will be viable next spring.

The most important consideration when saving seeds appears to be dehydration. If your seeds are not fully dry when you store them, they may well mold or rot. I have been dehydrating my seeds in the sun whenever we have warm enough days, and otherwise in the oven on the lowest possible setting, long enough to take most of the moisture out of them. Then, just to be safe, I set them out on the countertop for a week or more in little open containers, stirring them up from time to time.

I outlined the procedure for saving tomato seeds in a previous post, which requires a few days of fermentation to stave off disease and strip the gel coating off the velvety seeds. Cantaloupe seeds should be covered with water, and all the floating bits—bits of pulp and under-developed seeds—skimmed off before draining and drying as described above. Pepper seeds need the least fuss, but be careful to protect your hands if saving seeds from hot peppers: I harvested from two banana peppers without wearing gloves, and several of my fingers had searing pepper burns for several hours due to the potent oils in the seeds and ribs. I am also saving dill seeds from some heads that I had leftover from making pickles, by placing them seed-side down in an open paper bag to dry out. As the seeds are ready for storage, I make little packets from waxed paper and label them so I will know what is what when the time comes; these will go in a box in my cool basement for now.

Of course, I will have no way of knowing if my seed-saving techniques are sound until next year when I cross my fingers and plant them. But I’ve been having fun dissecting my vegetables and dreaming about the possibilities.

This post is linked up to Simple Lives Thursday.

Category: Veggies and Salads | No Comments »
Tags: drying, farmer's market, gardening, preservation

Posted By Julie on August 31, 2010

Today I want to share an old family recipe that I loved as a child: spinach balls. Almost more of a stuffing ball than a spinach ball, my mom always used to make this recipe to take to potlucks because they tasted good at room temperature and she knew I would at least have something to eat (not to mention it was one of the few vegetable preparations I accepted). These little nuggets of bread, cheese, and spinach were one of the first foods I ever made for my husband (aside from boxed pasta and clam chowder linguine in the dorm kitchen), and being the bread fiend that Jeremy is, he loved them. I haven’t gone back to most of those old recipes for years, now that we are bona fide foodies, but last night spinach balls sounded like just the ticket to accompany a bowl of salmon chowder on a rainy, fallish day.

The original recipe called for a lot of pre-packaged foods—stuffing mix, frozen chopped spinach, pre-shredded cheese—and a shocking amount of butter. I adapted the recipe to be more real-food friendly, starting by drying quarter-inch cubes of leftover flax hamburger buns and sourdough bread heels. This was quick to accomplish in the convection oven over very low heat, especially since my homemade bread doesn’t contain preservatives that artificially extend its softness. I didn’t have quite enough bread to make the full recipe, so I figured it wouldn’t hurt to throw some frozen bread crumbs on the tray and dry those out too.

Then I sauteed some sweet onion and garlic in olive oil and threw in a large bunch of washed and chopped organic beet greens, an incredible free score at the farmer’s market—can you believe people pay for bunches of beets and ask for their beautiful greens to be chopped off and discarded? Since they taste just like chard, and chard tastes a lot like spinach with a backbone, I thought these greens would be perfectly suited to the recipe. I wilted them down in a large skillet with the onion over fairly high heat, throwing in a good pinch of salt to help them along, and cooking them until they were bright green and I couldn’t see any more residual moisture. Some eggs, melted butter, seasonings, and a handful of finely chopped mozzarella cheese, and they were ready to go in the oven, with my handy-dandy disher to save my hands from becoming a greasy mess.

They were perfect, just like I remembered but better. Nolan was suspicious at first, since he wants his food plain these days (as in, slice of bread), but I strong-armed one bite into his mouth and he proceeded to gobble down at least 4 spinach balls on his own. I think Jeremy had about a dozen, with a bowl of chowder as an afterthought. I thought they were great, with the homemade bread cubes providing a less mushy, sturdier chew than that prepackaged stuffing mix could; I actually might play around with adding a larger percentage of crumbs to fill them out next time. The beet greens stepped up admirably in place of the frozen spinach. If you are a picky eater, or feeding one, fresh greens are the way to go, beet or otherwise: I always used to take umbrage to the stringy texture and stems that always came with frozen spinach, even though it is an inexpensive time-saver. My free organic beet greens didn’t take any longer to stem, chop, rinse and saute than a box of spinach would to thaw in the microwave and get squeezed dry in a towel.

Spinach Balls

I suspect pretty much any vegetable would work in this recipe if you chopped it up finely enough and parcooked it. My mom once made broccoli balls because we were heading for a school potluck (I was in about 3rd grade at the time) and she discovered we had no spinach in the freezer; I was very skeptical even though broccoli was my favorite vegetable, but they tasted good. You could also probably make a larger version of these, more side-dish appropriate than appetizer-sized, by dishing the mixture into a greased muffin tin and cooking it a bit longer, a lot like Rachel Ray’s stuffin’ muffins.

2-3 bunches of cooking greens (such as spinach, chard, beet greens, kale), stemmed, coarsely chopped and rinsed -OR- 2 packages frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dry in a towel
2 small onions, chopped (about 1 1/2 C)
2 garlic cloves, minced
12 oz bread, combination of crumbs and 1/4″ cubes, very dry -OR- 1 package Pepperidge Farms herb stuffing mix
1 tsp salt, divided (omit if using stuffing mix)
1 tsp Italian herb blend (omit if using stuffing mix)
4 extra-large eggs
1 stick butter, melted and cooled
1/2 C mozzarella cheese, shredded or finely chopped

Preheat oven to 350F. Saute onion and garlic in a tablespoon of olive oil until translucent; add the greens and half a teaspoon of salt, and cook down over medium high heat until greens are brightly colored and wilted, and any residual moisture from rinsing has cooked off. Remove from the heat and allow to cool briefly. You want to end up with 2-3 C of cooked greens.

Dump the cooked greens and all of the remaining ingredients into a large bowl and stir very well to combine. If your bread cubes are especially hard, like mine were, you may want to let the mixture sit for a little while to absorb the moisture and soften up slightly. When ready to cook, roll the mixture into 2-tablespoon balls with your hands (or use an appropriately sized disher, which is sooo handy). Place on greased or silpatted cookie sheets—close together is fine—and bake at 350F for 15 minutes, until set. Don’t overbake or they will dry out.

Category: Appetizers, Sides, Veggies and Salads | No Comments »
Tags: bake, bread, greens, mozzarella, spinach

Posted By Julie on August 30, 2010

I’ve been making tons of muffins this summer, with varying degrees of success. Most of the time they get eaten up so quickly that I am lucky to snap a quick photo before they’re gone, and sometimes even my photo model gets pilfered. So I thought I had better write up a post compiling some recipe notes for future reference—get ready for more muffins than you can shake a stick at!

I bake my muffins in a 9-well Pedrini LeLillotte silicone muffin pan that I’ve had for probably about 6 years. It makes smallish muffins that frequently resemble hockey pucks, but up until the past few months, it has given me absolutely no issues with sticking, no matter what I put in the muffins. I suspect that it is reaching the end of its lifespan, however, and was very sad to see that my particular brand was no longer available anywhere; I’m currently debating what to replace it with, not being a fan of paper muffin liners.

Raspberry Nibby Muffins

If I remember correctly, these muffins were an adaptation of these lemon-poppy seed muffins. I made them way back at the beginning of July, the start of berry season, using cacao nibs for crunch and adding a handful of organic raspberries from the farmer’s market to half the batter, knowing that chances were I would only be eating berry-free ones myself. To further distinguish between the varieties, I sprinkled the tops of the nib-only muffins with coconut-infused sugar (as opposed to coconut sugar, which I have only just heard of and really want to try), and the tops of the raspberry-laced muffins with nibby sugar. These were tasty and very pretty, if a little dry.

Apple-Oatmeal and Apple Sourdough Muffins

These two varieties of apple muffins were both gobbled up before I could photograph them. The former was adapted from the Apple-Nut Muffin Cake recipe in Dorie’s Baking book and the latter from The Baking Barrister. For Dorie’s recipe, I soaked the whole grains and nuts in milk and yogurt for a few hours before adding the remaining ingredients, and adjusted the leavening to account for the yogurt’s acidity. To me, these tasted more like oatmeal nut muffins with bits of apple than apple muffins, per se; however, they were tender and moist with good textural chunks, and not overly sweet. I plan to make another batch with dates in place of or in addition to the apple bits, and will try to write down my tweaks when I do.

As for the sourdough muffin recipe, I used half and half whole wheat flour and all-purpose, mirroring the composition of my starter, and I left the apples in larger slices. The muffins turned out alright, but seemed kind of bland to me; the apple was definitely chunkier than I prefer, and they dried out after 24 hours. All in all, I was underwhelmed by this recipe, but I will likely play around with sourdough muffins again in the future.

Peach Butter Muffins

These muffins, moistened with that ubiquitous peach butter, were moist and reasonably tasty. I had hoped to do a peaches-and-cream thing using a yogurt swirl, but I was too impatient to drain my yogurt long enough so it wasn’t very successful. All in all, this was a pretty forgettable recipe, and I didn’t bother writing it down. Not the peach butter’s fault, though!

Chocolate Chip Beet Muffins

I made these muffins based on a Bundt cake recipe, using a combination of roasted golden beet puree (using the beets I left out of that risotto) and homemade applesauce made from quickly steamed apples. The beet flavor was very subtle, partly due to the variety, which is not as overtly earthy as the red ones, and partly due to the small amount I had on hand. I don’t know if my husband even realized the beet was there. These muffins are egg-free, and vegan if you go with non-dairy chocolate. The combination of oil and apple-beet puree made for muffins that stayed super-moist, and the chocolate chips made them decadent; I halved the recipe for my available ingredients, but we ate them so fast that I wished I had made the full-sized batch. I won’t make that mistake again!

Chocolate Chip Yogurt Muffins

These are more egg-free muffins. I didn’t get any photos because they baked up so oddly, with their muffin-tops all slid off to the side like the convection was blowing them around. I’ve never seen muffins behave like that, and will be very curious to see if future batches do the same. They were slightly dry the day of baking and reminded us very much of the eggless yogurt chocolate chip cookies I made a few weeks ago, but seemed to absorb moisture overnight and were much tastier the next day, an attribute which actually makes this a desirable recipe in my book—I bake muffins for the next few days’ breakfast, after all, and we run out too fast if the fresh, warm ones are irresistible.

1 1/2 C all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/8 tsp salt
1/2 C organic sugar
1/4 C canola oil
1/4 C plain yogurt
1 C milk
1 tsp vinegar
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 C chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350F and prepare a muffin tin. In a bowl, mix the flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt. In a 2-cup measure, whisk together the oil, yogurt, milk, and vinegar. Pour the wet mixture over the dry and stir just until incorporated. Add the chocolate chips and spoon into muffin cups. Bake for 18-20 minutes for regular size muffin tins.

Source: The Witchy Kitchen.

Chocolate Ricotta Muffins (aka Cannoli Muffins)

This batch of muffins came out of trying to find a good way to use up a cup of chocolate ricotta-cream cheese mixture leftover from filling cannolis. It came down to a choice between making crepes or muffins, and the latter is just much more practical for us. The finished muffins were slightly tweaked from a Mollie Katzen recipe: I added a bit of cinnamon, decreased the sugar to 1 cup since my ricotta blend was slightly sweetened, and in a moment of madness, decided to omit the chocolate chips since there was shaved chocolate in the cannoli filling already. Fresh from the oven, these muffins were uninspired, dense, and almost more bitter than sweet. The next day, they were a different beast altogether: moist, rich, and better balanced, very much like my chocolate yogurt loaf. They would still have been better with chocolate chips, though; Jeremy smeared them with peanut butter, and I kept envisioning a chocolate glaze and white squiggles of frosting on top, a la Hostess Cupcakes. The recipe made about 18 muffins, so they lasted a few days, and I’d happily make them again.

Chocolate Ricotta Muffins

1 C ricotta cheese (I used a blend of 2:1 drained ricotta and cream cheese, sweetened with powdered sugar and melted semi-sweet chocolate)
2 large eggs
1 1/3 C milk
1 T pure vanilla extract
4 T unsalted butter, melted and cooled
2 C all-purpose flour
1 1/4 C granulated white sugar (or slightly less if your ricotta is pre-sweetened)
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2/3 C Dutch processed cocoa powder, sifted
1 C semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350F. Place rack in the middle of the oven and prepare your muffin pan.

In a medium sized bowl, whisk the ricotta cheese and then add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the milk, vanilla extract, and cooled and melted butter, mixing well. Set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and cocoa powder. Add the ricotta mixture to the flour mixture. Stir just until combined and then fold in the chocolate chips; do not overmix. Divide the batter amongst the 16 muffin cups using two spoons or an appropriately sized disher.

Place in the oven and bake about 20 minutes or until lightly browned and a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean. Remove from oven and place on a wire rack to cool.

Source: Mollie Katzen via Joy of Baking.

Category: Baking, Breakfast | No Comments »
Tags: apple, beet, cacao nib, chocolate, chocolate chip, cinnamon, egg-free, muffin, oatmeal, peach, quick bread, raspberry, walnut, yogurt

Posted By Julie on August 29, 2010

Watching the peppers, corn, and tomatoes cropping up at the farmer’s market, I have known, with slight trepidation, that eggplant could not be far behind. Sure enough, last weekend, while browsing through some multi-colored bell peppers that I determined were past their prime, I happened across some pint baskets of white, purple, and streaky baby eggplants, the largest specimens no longer than 3 or 4 inches. They were such colorful little jewels that I let myself be tempted, also recalling that it is usually the very large eggplants that have the most issues with large seed pockets and bitterness.

When I got my eggplants home, I had to decide what to make from them. My last eggplant encounter involved making fritters from mashed eggplant, which tasted alright but masked the eggplant so thoroughly that it might as well not be there. This time I wanted to showcase it more blatantly, so I selected a garlicky stir-fry dish to serve over chicken-fried rice.

My eggplants were so small that I just trimmed their tops and sliced them in half the long way, not bothering to skin or salt them. The recipe called for steaming the eggplant before stir-frying, which allowed me to use my handy-dandy expanding steamer basket for the first time; it accommodated all the eggplant comfortably in my 10″ saute pan, and I also used it to steam some green beans (half of which went into the fried rice, and the remainder into the freezer). The tender eggplant was then quickly finished with fresh garlic and ginger, and a sauce of tamari, black vinegar, shaoxing wine, and sugar. I cut back drastically on the red pepper flakes and finished off the dish with a drizzle of sesame oil. Finally, I served it up with chicken fried rice made from onion, green beans, leftover roast chicken and ginger rice (a tablespoon of fresh ginger sauteed in a bit of oil with three scoops of jasmine rice, cooked in the rice cooker with stock replacing the water). I could have done with less sauce or more eggplant because the stir-fry was pretty strongly flavored, but the fried rice helped to temper it, and we happily gobbled it all down. It was so successful that I feel ready to move on to some more classic eggplant-centric dishes like moussaka, baba ghanouj, or eggplant parmesan.

Garlicky Eggplant Stir-fry

1 pint baby Asian eggplants (a pint’s a pound, the world around!)
1/4 C soy sauce or tamari
2 T black vinegar (or substitute balsamic)
2 T shaoxing wine or dry sherry
1 T sugar
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
3 T vegetable oil
1/4 C minced garlic
1/4 C minced ginger
1 tsp sesame oil
1/4 C finely minced scallions

Cut the tops off the eggplants and slice them in half lengthwise; if you have larger ones, cut them into sticks or slices. In a small bowl combine the soy sauce, vinegar, rice wine, sugar, salt, and pepper flakes. Set aside.

Steam the eggplant, covered, over high heat for 5-8 minutes, or until it is tender when pierced with a knife. (I used a collapsible steamer basket set in a wide saute pan for this.)

Heat a wok over high heat until a bead of water vaporizes within 1 to 2 seconds of contact. Swirl in the vegetable oil, add the garlic and ginger, and stir-fry 10 seconds. Add the eggplant and stir-fry 20 seconds. Stir the sauce, swirl it into the wok, and stir-fry until the eggplant is heated through, about 1 minute. Drizzle on the sesame oil and scallions. (My wok is non-stick and far from authentic, so I typically adjust to slightly lower heat and longer cook times than this—your mileage may vary.)

Source: The Breath of a Wok, via The Perfect Pantry.

Category: Dinner, Veggies and Salads, World Cuisines | 2 Comments »
Tags: chicken, Chinese, eggplant, garlic, ginger, rice, stir-fry

Posted By Julie on August 27, 2010

The August 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Elissa of 17 and Baking. For the first time, The Daring Bakers partnered with Sugar High Fridays for a co-event and Elissa was the gracious hostess of both. Using the theme of beurre noisette, or browned butter, Elissa chose to challenge Daring Bakers to make a pound cake to be used in either a Baked Alaska or in Ice Cream Petit Fours. The sources for Elissa’s challenge were Gourmet magazine and David Lebovitz’s “The Perfect Scoop”.

I was slow to get started on this challenge because I had cannolis to make for a potluck, and we were still rolling in ice cream from last month’s Swiss roll ice cream bombe. Once there was a tiny bit of space in the freezer again for a fresh batch of ice cream, I selected David Lebovitz’s salted butter caramel ice cream, which I have been dying to make for ages and which I thought would pair nicely with the brown butter pound cake. Unfortunately, the tiny bit of space in the freezer was not sufficient to fit my ice cream maker’s bowl, so I ended up doing without it this time, just stirring the ice cream base in its container every hour or so until it thickened up to ice cream consistency. This took substantially longer than I had allotted in my day for the challenge, so I made a snap decision to use up the last of the apricot frozen yogurt first, in order to give the caramel ice cream more time to ripen.

The brown butter pound cake was straightforward enough. I used a home substitution for cake flour (2 T cornstarch topped with enough all-purpose flour to make a cup), but otherwise followed the recipe to the letter. Although a toothpick came out squeaky clean after 25 minutes, I was suspicious that the cake might not be done yet, so I baked it for an extra five to be safe. As it turns out, I should have baked it for at least five more, because when I cut into it, I discovered a rather soggy center. It tasted delicious nevertheless, so I just cut around the gooey portion and snacked on the scraps while finishing off the challenge.

As for the choice between baked Alaska and ice cream petit fours, I knew immediately that I would be making the former. Actually, my husband and I had just discussed the notion that baked Alaska would make a good Daring Bakers challenge, although in reference to the variety that calls for ladling flaming booze over the meringue to brown it. This version takes a less flamboyant (and equally less hazardous) approach and calls for browning the meringue under the broiler or via brulee torch. As much as I would have loved to use this challenge as an excuse to buy a torch, it just wasn’t in the budget this month, so I made do with the broiler. Just a few minutes was enough to brown the top of my meringue peaks and swirls, and although it was not as pretty or uniform as a torch job, I was mostly just relieved that the frozen yogurt didn’t melt in a big orange puddle first.

My baked Alaska is now in the freezer again, firming up before we cut into it. I may even attempt to brown it a tiny bit more first. In any case, I’ll post an update soon with photos of the cross-section. I also plan to use the majority of the pound cake and that salted butter caramel ice cream to try my hand at the petit fours, once the baked Alaska is no longer occupying the top shelf of my freezer. I’ve been sampling the ice cream as I stir it up, and the flavor is stupendous but very sweet; I think that a dark chocolate glaze and a pinch of fleur de sel on top will be just the ticket to balance it out. So stay tuned!

Update 8/28/10: Tonight after dinner, I made some little flower garnishes for our baked Alaska from homemade fruit leather (I’ll give you one guess what I made the fruit leather from), and then cracked it open with a sharp knife. The meringue stayed very soft in the freezer, and the cake gave less resistance than I expected. The pound cake had a delicious, slightly nutty flavor and moist texture, and I would certainly consider making it again for other desserts, but paying more particular attention to doneness.

As for the baked Alaska itself, it was a fun way to serve ice cream, but was otherwise largely unremarkable. I imagine it being invented when a baker had made a batch of custard-based ice cream and was looking for ways to use up the leftover egg whites—I frequently have that dilemma myself! Since I made just made one baked Alaska in a large mug to share with my husband, I only made a two-egg meringue, and still had about half of it leftover. So as not to waste the remainder, I folded some hazelnut praline powder into it and baked off dollops into crisp little cookies for my son to nibble on (300F for 10 minutes, 200F for 1 hour, and left overnight in the oven after turning it off). He’s not a big fan of ice cream, so this was an ideal solution.

I also made a deconstructed version of the baked alaska with my salted butter caramel ice cream, squares of pound cake and a meringue cookie. Less flashy, but probably more to our tastes. The caramel ice cream, incidentally, was delicious, if rather soft, even after two days in the freezer.

I am a member of the Theta Class of the Daring Bakers, induced in July of 2007. For more information and a list of my previous challenges, click here.

Category: Baking, Dessert, Foodblog Events | 5 Comments »
Tags: apricot, bake, beurre noisette, cake, caramel, Daring Bakers, ice cream, meringue

Posted By Julie on August 23, 2010

This week’s Preserve the Bounty challenge was preservation in vinegar, a.k.a. the other sort of pickling. Now that I’ve got the gist of pickling through fermentation and have quart jars of sauerkraut and dill pickles mellowing in the refrigerator, somehow vinegar-based pickles feel like a step back. Or maybe I’m just having flashbacks to the quick fennel pickles I attempted back in June, which were overly salty and utterly confounding; I never did figure out a way to use them.

The timing of this event doesn’t work very well with my purchasing schedule, since I go to the farmer’s market every other Saturday and don’t know how I’m going to be preserving until Monday or Tuesday, so I have just been figuring out ways to use what I’ve got on hand for the challenge. I fermented cucumber pickles last week, and might have gotten a few extra to put up in vinegar for a comparison had I known this was the week’s challenge. Ah well, this gave me the opportunity to try my hand at some less familiar (to me) pickled vegetables, Swiss chard stems and okra.

I’ve long been a fan of using both the leaves and stems of Swiss chard, starting with pizzoccheri back in 2006. How could you not, when the stems are so meaty and brilliantly colored? While prepping a pile of chard from my favorite local, organic farm, it suddenly crossed my mind that the stems could be pickled. Sure enough, there was a recipe—from Gramercy Tavern in New York, no less—for refrigerator-pickled chard stems. I had only one bunch of stems, but made up the whole recipe of brine using apple cider vineger (and leaving out the beet, as I hadn’t purchased any).

With the excess brine, I decided to be bold and pickle a handful of baby okra, adding a touch of red pepper flakes for heat. From what I understand, acid keeps the mucilaginous qualities of okra in check. Although I have now cooked okra successfully twice now, both using dry heat and a bit of acid, the picky eater in me still cringes at the mere sound of the word (and have I mentioned the fact that I don’t even really eat cucumber pickles?), so I have no idea if I will be able to muster up the courage to sample this jar.

My main question for this week is, what the heck should I be doing with these pickles now? Just like the fennel pickles from two months ago, I look at the pretty jars in my refrigerator and scratch my head. There’s pretty much no way I’m just going to be eating them straight out of the jar. Should I be chopping them up to use like relish or giardiniera in sandwiches and tuna salad? Or can anyone suggest recipes that call for off-the-wall pickled vegetables? Tell me quick, because my refrigerator is filling up with ferments and pickles, and I think the goal of preserving this stuff is to use it eventually.

Category: Appetizers, Foodblog Events, Sides, Snacks, Veggies and Salads | 1 Comment »
Tags: chard, garlic, greens, okra, pickle, preservation, vinegar

Posted By Julie on August 22, 2010

Considering Britain’s historical relationship with India, particularly as it pertains to food, it should come as no surprise that that my leftover milk-braised chicken and rice, courtesy Jamie Oliver, could be so readily transformed into a sort of Indian casserole. I had originally thought to do some sort of rice salad with chicken and lemon cucumbers, but my rice was on the mushy side, and a little more digging turned up a leftovers version of chicken biryani. Granted, I’ve never had authentic chicken biryani, so for all I know this is not remotely similar, but I can tell you that it was an incredibly tasty way to get another meal out of those elements.

Essentially, I made a spiced tomato gravy for the chicken, starting with a base of onion, garlic and ginger (dried slices since I was out of the fresh stuff). To this I added about 3 tablespoons of my precious homemade tomato paste and enough chicken stock to lubricate the works. Once it thickened to the consistency I wanted, I added several handfuls of shredded chicken and some garam masala (I am perfectly happy to use the Penzey’s blend rather than toasting and grinding it myself, in this case). This fragrant gravy was layered with the leftover rice in a small casserole dish, covered, and baked until everything was steaming hot. Jeremy inhaled his portion in mere minutes and went back for seconds, Nolan had a grand time squishing the rice between his fingers and selecting all the morsels of chicken out to eat, and I thought it was fragrant, comforting, and not too complicated flavor-wise, as Indian food is wont to be (from this picky eater’s perspective, at least).

To go with the biryani, my mind went right back to those lemon cucumbers, perhaps in a raita. But in digging through the crisper for them, I ran across my last handful of baby okra and was reminded that it is a frequent ingredient in Indian cooking. Despite my concerns about their potential sliminess, I ended up making a stir-fry of okra and onions as a side dish. This consisted of splitting the pods lengthwise and sautéing them in olive oil with onion slices until very tender and lightly browned, and seasoning the skillet with a few key spices, a pinch of sugar and splash of lemon juice. The okra wasn’t slimy in the least and the dish complemented the biryani perfectly. I actually found myself wishing I had not pickled quite so much of my okra the day before (but more on that soon!).

Leftover Chicken Biryani with Sweet and Sour Okra Stir-Fry

1/2 large sweet onion, diced
1 T ginger, minced
2 T garlic, minced
2 T olive oil
3 T tomato paste
2 C chicken stock
1 T garam masala
About 1-2 C leftover cooked chicken, shredded
About 2-3 C leftover cooked rice

1/2 lb baby okra, rinsed and dried very well, tops removed and sliced in half lengthwise
1/2 large sweet onion, cut into 1/4″ slices
2 T olive oil or chicken fat
1/4 tsp turmeric powder
1/2 tsp ancho chile powder
1 tsp ground coriander seed
1 tsp granulated sugar
1-2 T lemon juice

In a hot wok or pan, heat the oil then sauté the diced onion on medium high heat until they are golden brown; add ginger and garlic and sauté on high heat for another minute. Add the tomato paste and stock; cook until the liquid has mostly evaporated and you have a gravy-like consistency. Add the garam masala, chicken and salt to taste, and let simmer on low heat for about 3-5 minutes to let the flavors meld.

Preheat over to 325F. In a glass casserole dish, layer half of the rice and top with half of the chicken mixture; repeat layers. Cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes, until uniformly hot.

Meanwhile, pour the oil into a nonstick skillet and set over medium heat. When the oil is hot, add the okra. Fry, stirring frequently, for about 7 minutes or until the okra is very lightly browned on all sides. Add the onions. Stir and cook for a further 5 minutes, or until the onions, too, begin to brown. At this point, add the turmeric, ancho, coriander and a pinch of salt. Reduce the heat to low, and cook, stirring for another few minutes, until everything is very tender and fragrant. Stir in the sugar and lemon juice, taste for seasoning and adjust if necessary. Serve with the chicken biryani.

Source: Adapted from Leftoverchicken.com, Cook @ Ease, and The Captious Vegetarian.

Category: Dinner, Meat, Veggies and Salads, World Cuisines | No Comments »
Tags: chicken, garam masala, Indian, leftovers, okra, onion, rice, saute, spices

Posted By Julie on August 21, 2010

All summer long, every time we brought home a huge, deeply red wild salmon fillet from the store, I made a little mental note to save a piece of it to try making into gravlax, a Scandinavian version of lox, or cured salmon. How I came across this idea, I’m still not sure, because I’ve never even tried smoked salmon; and then I proceeded to cook all of it anyway, probably due to some niggling anxiety whether the finished product would even be edible.

This time, the purchase of a wild sockeye fillet coincided with a fresh bunch of dill in the crisper, and I was finally determined to give home-cured salmon a try. It was just a few moments’ work to mix up brown sugar, salt and a bit of ground coriander, pack it on both sides of the salmon with a mound of chopped fresh dill, and wrap it firmly in plastic wrap. I opted to store my curing salmon in a heavy ziploc bag set inside a loaf pan just to make sure any leakage was contained.

I flipped the salmon every time it crossed my mind, several times a day, and by the third day, the brown sugar mixture had mysteriously vanished, a considerable amount of liquid had leached out of the fish (none of which escaped the bag, fortunately) and the flesh felt very firm under its coating of wilted herbs. With considerable trepidation, I unwrapped the salmon, poured off the liquid, and scraped away the dill, revealing a darkened and rather withered-looking piece of fish that I thought might have become over-cured.

Despite my better judgment, I sliced into the salmon on a bias into the thinnest possible slivers, noting that it wasn’t quite so dry and tough as it had at first appeared. I dared to sample a bit no larger than the tip of my pinky finger, and was very pleasantly surprised by a buttery texture and rich, salty flavor perfumed with dill. It was so good that I immediately started casting about for ways to use it, other than nibbling slices right off the board.

My first thought, of course, was to serve it on bagels (this was the reason I baked those sourdough bagels, incidentally), but we had no cream cheese and I didn’t feel like waiting for yogurt to drain. Instead, I folded bits of the gravlax into softly scrambled eggs, served with a toasted bagel and a dollop of yogurt shot through with dill and garlic. The salty gravlax seasoned the eggs and filled a roll very similar to bacon; I liked it much better than the scrambles I have made with leftover cooked salmon, whose moisture always seems to affect the texture of the eggs negatively. I also loved the garlicky yogurt with it, much more than Jeremy did, I daresay.

A few days later, after stocking up on fresh vegetables at the farmer’s market and scoring three ears of fantastic corn for a dollar, I made a pot of corn soup for dinner. Despite the sweetness of the corn and simmering the cobs in milk and broth, I didn’t find the finished soup particularly impressive, so I loaded it up with flavorful garnishes: sourdough garlic toast, fried okra croutons, and some slivered gravlax right in the center for seasoning and a colorful contrast. The combination put the meal over the top, and we scraped our bowls clean, hiding out in our air-conditioned bedroom against the heat.

I should also note that the okra, remarkably enough, came from the farmer’s market; I’d never seen it fresh before, even at the grocery store, and had never tasted it before either. This was baby okra, mostly 2″ or less, which apparently has fewer issues with sliminess than the more mature pods. I soaked it in buttermilk and fried it in a basic coating of flour and cornmeal to further combat the textural issues, which made this picky eater decidedly anxious. The resulting “croutons” were super-crunchy and not slimy at all; in fact, I had a hard time distinguishing the okra’s flavor at all, other than a mild bitterness that played off the sweet corn and salty gravlax. All in all, this was a very good week for overcoming food fears!

Homemade Gravlax

1 pound best-quality wild salmon fillet, bones removed, skin on or off (I found recipes both ways)
5 T sea salt
4 T light brown sugar
1 tsp ground coriander
Freshly ground black pepper
1 bunch of fresh dill (stems removed), coarsely chopped

Combine the sea salt, brown sugar, coriander, and a few grinds of pepper; pack firmly onto both sides of the salmon fillet. Sprinkle half the chopped dill onto a sheet of plastic wrap then set the salmon on top of it, and cover with the remaining dill. Tightly wrap the salmon fillet and place in a ziploc bag or baking dish. Place in the fridge for three days, turning several times a day. When the fish has darkened somewhat and feels firm, unwrap, scrape off the dill, and slice very thinly on the bias to serve.

Source: Delish.

Category: Breakfast, Dinner, Lunch, Seafood, Sides, Snacks, Soups, Veggies and Salads | No Comments »
Tags: bagel, corn, curing, dill, egg, farmer's market, fry, okra, salmon, salt

Posted By Julie on August 20, 2010

One of my goals for this summer has been total use: making use every part of every food we buy, within reason. I prefer to think of it this way as opposed to simply reducing waste, although of course it is both. I’ve been doing pretty well at this so far—for instance, I detailed how I now break down my chicken here and my use of potato peelings here—and will be sharing more of my total-use tips in August alongside the Preserve the Bounty challenge. This week’s big project was making homemade tomato paste and lacto-fermented ketchup with farmer’s market produce, now that tomatoes are finally starting to show up.

I started with approximately 6.5 pounds of ripe tomatoes from Hermiston, Oregon. After hauling them home, the first order of business was to break them down. I don’t have a food mill (my aunt lent me one to play with a year or two back, but I wasn’t working in bulk then and returned it), so this process was a little bit onerous. It was in my best interest to peel the tomatoes first, so I X’d, blanched and chilled them, as with the peaches from a week ago but less problematic—it always seems like half my peaches peel easily and the rest fight me.

Next, I cut the tomatoes in half and seeded them as well as possible, then dumped them into the blender in several batches. By the time this was done, I had about 5 pounds of liquidy tomato puree, meaning that 1.5 pounds of skin and seeds were sloughed off. (More on that below.) Since we are currently having a heat wave, I decided to cook down my puree partly on the stovetop before transferring it to the oven, keeping it at a simmer and stirring periodically until most of the liquid had boiled off and only the solids remained. These were spread out in a non-stick cake pan with the convection oven set to about 250F, and cooked until very thick and dark. I ended up with just over a cup of rich tomato paste.

While the tomato paste was still boiling down on the stovetop, I took advantage of the empty oven to dehydrate the tomato skins. This is a perfect example of my effort to use every part of the food, making a richly flavored tomato powder from something that would ordinarily go straight in the trash. Laid out in a single layer on a silpat, the skins dried rapidly in my convection oven, transforming into a bowlful of what looked a lot like tissue paper—but not for long. I blitzed them up in batches in my spice grinder, and they were soon reduced to bright red powder. I don’t know precisely what I will do with this, but my first instinct is to add some to biscuits or bread dough for tomato color and flavor without the moisture. A fun, and not entirely anticipated, side effect of making tomato paste!

Finally, I decided to save the seeds from my tomatoes. I’ve been keeping an eye out for vegetables with harvestable seeds, thinking I might attempt to save and plant them next spring. So far I’ve got cantaloupe, black Hungarian pepper, and these. The process for drying tomato seeds is a little odd, requiring you to allow them to ferment (covered in plastic wrap with a pinhole for air) for several days before rinsing and drying. Apparently this helps to remove the gel coating from around the seeds and to eliminate some of the diseases they can harbor. Once my seeds looked appropriately “scummy,” I rinsed them thoroughly and dehydrated them in the oven until dry to the touch; they will sit in an open container for a week or so to ensure that all residual moisture is gone.

And after all that, what happened to the tomato paste? I used the majority of it to make lacto-fermented ketchup, and froze the remainder in a few small scoops for enriching future recipes. I won’t know how the ketchup comes out for a few days, as it needs to ferment for the lactic acid twang that replaces vinegar in the recipe and allows it to be stored for an extended period of time. It would have to be the best ketchup in the world to make up for the expense, effort and time involved, though, so I probably won’t make this again unless I have tomatoes coming out my ears—a possibility, I suppose, given the number of seeds I harvested.

Category: Veggies and Salads | No Comments »
Tags: drying, fermentation, grind, ketchup, seed, tomato, total use

Posted By Julie on August 19, 2010

This is one of those polarizing recipes that people either find fascinating or disgusting, possibly both simultaneously. It is a Jamie Oliver recipe for a whole chicken braised in milk scented with lemon peel, sage, garlic and cinnamon, with an end result of very tender chicken and very curdled-looking sauce. Doesn’t sound appealing, but I’ve made pork loin braised in milk, which is a classic Bolognese preparation, any number of times (and apparently never blogged about it). I’ve done versions by Marcella Hazan and Molly Stevens; the latter uses very similar flavors to this chicken dish, namely garlic, lemon and sage.

I came across a version of Jamie Oliver’s recipe that made the addition of rice to the milk braising liquid, essentially sopping up the juices as it cooks and eliminating some of the shock factor of the curdled sauce (I have served the pork version both as is and after pureeing the sauce to smooth it out; both are deliciously savory but the latter is less intimidating). Since we have been big fans of chicken and rice dishes lately, I thought that sounded like a great way to go.

The dish is actually a really easy one. You dry, season and sear a whole chicken on the presentation side until it is gorgeously brown; I used my oval Le Creuset which fit the chicken perfectly, and drained off most of the excess fat before continuing. Then I added 1 1/2 cups of long-grain rice to the dutch oven, toasting it for a nutty flavor before pouring in the whole milk and flavoring it with lemon peel (I only had dried, and used about a tablespoon), half a cinnamon stick, a bay leaf, a bit of rubbed sage, and 7 unpeeled garlic cloves. The chicken was nestled back into this mixture, about half submerged, and braised in the oven with just the last few minutes uncovered. It emerged with the browned skin still miraculously crisp and the meat incredibly tender (you can see it pulling away from the bone in the photo above), atop a bed of rice that soaked up the milk, spices and chicken juices like a sponge.

The meal still presented a bit of a conundrum when it came time to serve, however, because the chicken was too tender to remove as a single unit from the dutch oven for portioning, and most of the rice was buried underneath it. I was able to dig carefully around the chicken for scoops of rice and then pull big hunks of meat free; the breasts held together for this purpose much more cleanly than the legs and thighs, but it all tasted excellent.

Chicken Braised in Milk and Rice

1 (3 pound) whole chicken
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 T olive oil
1 1/2 C long-grain rice
3 C whole milk
1/2 cinnamon stick
1 good handful fresh sage, leaves picked (or 1 tsp dried sage)
2 lemons, zested (or 1 T dried lemon zest)
8 garlic cloves, skin left on

Preheat the oven to 375F and find a snug-fitting heavy pot for the chicken. Season it generously all over with salt and pepper, and fry it in the olive oil, turning the chicken to get an even color all over, until deeply golden brown. Lower the heat, put the chicken on a plate, and drain off most of the fat left in the pot, reserving a tablespoon or two. Add the rice to this and stir to coat, cooking until some of the grains are lightly toasted. Add the milk and remaining ingredients, nestle the chicken down in the center, cover, and cook in the preheated oven for 1 1/2 hours.

To serve, pull the meat off the bones and divide it onto your plates. Be sure to scoop down beneath it for rice and silky caramelized garlic cloves (these can be squeezed out of their skins onto slices of bread).

You can also make this without the rice; just use 2 cups of milk and serve over the chicken, as is or pureed with an immersion blender for a smoother consistency (just remember to pull out the bay leaf and cinnamon stick first!), preferably with a side of mashed potatoes and some greens.

Source: Jamie Oliver and Big Red Kitchen.

Category: Dairy, Dinner, Meat | No Comments »
Tags: braise, chicken, cinnamon, garlic, lemon, milk, rice, sage