♥
Baby potatoes fried in duck-fat with gomashio
♦ ♦ ♦
Oyako Don (親子丼)
♥
Miso soup with acorn squash & ginger
♥
Greens with calamansi vinaigrette
♥
Homemade Japanese pickles — carrot; watermelon radish; ginger
Winter vegetables in tare sauce.
Showing posts with label potatoes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label potatoes. Show all posts
Sunday, December 3, 2017
Japanese Dinner
♥
Baby potatoes fried in duck-fat with gomashio
♦ ♦ ♦
Oyako Don (親子丼)
♥
Miso soup with acorn squash & ginger
♥
Greens with calamansi vinaigrette
♥
Homemade Japanese pickles — carrot; watermelon radish; ginger
Winter vegetables in tare sauce.
Monday, October 30, 2017
Sri Lankan Fish Patties (Malu Paan)
One of the great things about "fusion" cooking is how seamless it can actually be.
Canned tuna is not exactly the most exotic of ingredients. It's quite boring and bourgeois and very middle-American. We're just going to use Sri Lankan magic to amp it up a few notches.
There's nothing new about Sri Lankan spices either. They're all there in India but it's the combinations that are new and as the CC has pointed out endlessly, this is just a combinatorial game.
You're most likely to encounter this stuff as "fish cutlets" — the mixture is deep-fried. However, a little dig underneath the surface and you see it also as "fish patties" and "fish rolls" and "fish balls".
There's also the ubiquitous malu paan which is the same fish filling inside a bread that is baked.
For the record, the paan is from the Portuguese pão and is the same as the Japanese パン (pan), the Filipino pandesal (bread with salt), and the Indian paav (a much more accurate transcription of pão.) The Portuguese spread the cult of yeasty bread baking all along South-East Asia.
What matters, of course, is the filling at the center of these concepts.
All the CC has done is to take the patties and stick them in a burger bun (which is vastly simpler) and achieves the same purpose.
Dinner is served.
Ingredients
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp coriander seeds
1/2 tsp fennel seeds
1 tsp black pepper
1 sprig curry leaves
1 piece of fresh turmeric (or 1 tsp ground turmeric)
1" ginger
4-5 green chilis
2 large potatoes
1 can tuna
1 medium-sized onion (diced finely)
cilantro (finely chopped)
1 lime
salt (to taste)
Note 1: The combination of cumin, coriander, and fennel in the ratio 2:2:1 along with ground turmeric is often used in Sri Lankan cooking particularly in dishes involving fish. It gives it that characteristic "Sri Lankan" taste.
Note 2: While this mixture is freely available in Sri Lanka pre-made, the CC assumes that the majority of the audience will not have access to this. Also, if you're going to add black pepper to the final mix, you might as well grind it all together.
Note 3: Fresh turmeric adds a complexity that ground turmeric simply doesn't. The CC vastly prefers the former but feel free to use the later.
Recipe
Grind the spices to a fine powder.
Grind the ginger, green chilis, and turmeric to a paste. (If you grind the spices in a mortar and pestle, you can do this in the same step.)
Boil the potatoes in water until tender. Peel and mash gently.
Heat some oil in a pan. Add the diced onions and curry leaves and fry for a bit until the onions have softened. Add the spices and ground paste and fry till the raw smell has dissipated. Roughly 2 minutes.
Add the tuna from the can and break it up. Let it cook for 4-5 minutes. Add the boiled potatoes and mix it all well together.
(If you are going to deep-fry into "fish balls", make it drier than normal. Otherwise it should be wet enough to form into patties.)
Dump the whole stuff into a bowl. Let it cool for a bit. Pick out the curry leaves and discard. (They don't do this in Sri Lanka but then the leaves there are more tender than the ones found here.)
Add the chopped cilantro and the juice of one lime and crush gently using a potato masher. Mix and check for salt.
To make the patties, you can just either pan-fry them with some oil (which is the way the CC prefers) or for a fancier richer taste, do the same after an egg-wash and coated with breadcrumbs.
Canned tuna is not exactly the most exotic of ingredients. It's quite boring and bourgeois and very middle-American. We're just going to use Sri Lankan magic to amp it up a few notches.
There's nothing new about Sri Lankan spices either. They're all there in India but it's the combinations that are new and as the CC has pointed out endlessly, this is just a combinatorial game.
You're most likely to encounter this stuff as "fish cutlets" — the mixture is deep-fried. However, a little dig underneath the surface and you see it also as "fish patties" and "fish rolls" and "fish balls".
There's also the ubiquitous malu paan which is the same fish filling inside a bread that is baked.
For the record, the paan is from the Portuguese pão and is the same as the Japanese パン (pan), the Filipino pandesal (bread with salt), and the Indian paav (a much more accurate transcription of pão.) The Portuguese spread the cult of yeasty bread baking all along South-East Asia.
What matters, of course, is the filling at the center of these concepts.
All the CC has done is to take the patties and stick them in a burger bun (which is vastly simpler) and achieves the same purpose.
Dinner is served.
Ingredients
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp coriander seeds
1/2 tsp fennel seeds
1 tsp black pepper
1 sprig curry leaves
1 piece of fresh turmeric (or 1 tsp ground turmeric)
1" ginger
4-5 green chilis
2 large potatoes
1 can tuna
1 medium-sized onion (diced finely)
cilantro (finely chopped)
1 lime
salt (to taste)
Note 1: The combination of cumin, coriander, and fennel in the ratio 2:2:1 along with ground turmeric is often used in Sri Lankan cooking particularly in dishes involving fish. It gives it that characteristic "Sri Lankan" taste.
Note 2: While this mixture is freely available in Sri Lanka pre-made, the CC assumes that the majority of the audience will not have access to this. Also, if you're going to add black pepper to the final mix, you might as well grind it all together.
Note 3: Fresh turmeric adds a complexity that ground turmeric simply doesn't. The CC vastly prefers the former but feel free to use the later.
Recipe
Grind the spices to a fine powder.
Grind the ginger, green chilis, and turmeric to a paste. (If you grind the spices in a mortar and pestle, you can do this in the same step.)
Boil the potatoes in water until tender. Peel and mash gently.
Heat some oil in a pan. Add the diced onions and curry leaves and fry for a bit until the onions have softened. Add the spices and ground paste and fry till the raw smell has dissipated. Roughly 2 minutes.
Add the tuna from the can and break it up. Let it cook for 4-5 minutes. Add the boiled potatoes and mix it all well together.
(If you are going to deep-fry into "fish balls", make it drier than normal. Otherwise it should be wet enough to form into patties.)
Dump the whole stuff into a bowl. Let it cool for a bit. Pick out the curry leaves and discard. (They don't do this in Sri Lanka but then the leaves there are more tender than the ones found here.)
Add the chopped cilantro and the juice of one lime and crush gently using a potato masher. Mix and check for salt.
To make the patties, you can just either pan-fry them with some oil (which is the way the CC prefers) or for a fancier richer taste, do the same after an egg-wash and coated with breadcrumbs.
Saturday, July 8, 2017
A French Summer Lunch Menu
Inspired by my recent Paris trip, here's summer lunch à la Provençale.
Consommé à la japonais aux légumes d'été
♦
Bulots froides avec aïoli aux herbes
♦
Rouille du pêcheur
In translation:
"Dashi" with summer vegetables
♦
Whelks with chive aioli
♦
Octopus and new potatoes with "rouille"
Consommé à la japonais aux légumes d'été
♦
Bulots froides avec aïoli aux herbes
♦
Rouille du pêcheur
"Dashi" with summer vegetables
♦
Whelks with chive aioli
♦
Octopus and new potatoes with "rouille"
Saturday, March 25, 2017
Pav Bhaji
What do the laws of electromagnetism, the Portuguese, the price of cotton, time zones, vegetarianism, and the American Civil War all have in common?
They came together to invent the iconic Mumbai street dish known as pav bhaji (pronounced: paav bhaaji — the two "a"'s are actually long vowels.)
Every good military general would tell you that the best way to win a war is through economics. The naval Union Blockade of April 1861 which heavily targeted New Orleans (Louisiana) and Mobile (Alabama) made the cotton exports of the South come to a grinding halt. The savvy Gujarati speculators of the old Cotton Exchange in Bombay knew the drill. Rates were wired in and orders wired out late into the night when the corresponding exchanges in Chicago would've been open.
(Bombay made its fortune on the basis of its cotton mills — a fact that is quite clear even today in its geography. The point being that the price of cotton mattered hugely and the American Civil War and the telegraph provided a mechanism to speculate on the price swings. Note that the world was on a Gold Standard back then so that exchange rates between the dollar, the pound and the rupee, which was basically the pound, would not matter.)
The word for trader in both Hindi and Gujarati is dalal (दलाल) — it's not a neutral word. It has a slightly shady connotation to it. No trader would self-describe themselves as a dalal even though that's exactly what they are. It carries with it the negative connotations of both "speculator" and "pimp". The Japanese equivalent is kabuya (株屋) — stock-broker/stock-slinger (= speculator.)
Now you have a bunch of traders working hard into the deep night. They're largely vegetarian. They're rich (or wanna-be rich) but in the classic tradition of rich people, they're also cheap. When you have a demand, a corresponding supply opens up. It has to be fast, tasty, and yes, cheap.
Where do the Portuguese come in?
India had no tradition of baking leavened breads before the 15th-century just like most of Southeast Asia. The Portuguese were responsible for introducing the yeasty bread (pão in Portuguese) which is paav in Hindi and パン (pan in Japanese).
The dish is made from the cheapest of ingredients — potatoes, tomatoes and onions. Plus fried bread. It's a street dish. It's not fancy. You toss in whatever vegetables you have lying around. It's also infinitely configurable with different toppings depending on the individual taste buds.
The critical point is that everything could be made ahead of time. You're basically stir-frying at the last moment. Even the bread could be made ahead of time. It could even be slightly stale because it would be fried again. Every corner that could be possibly cut was actually trimmed. This is one efficient caloric machine.
Needless to say, it was an instant hit.
Nothing's changed since 1861. This dish is still a hit and will continue to be so.
It's endlessly addictive. It's one carb-laden umami-laden butter-laden bomb!
Ingredients
(serves 4)
6 small potatoes (or 3 large ones)
8-10 tomatoes
1 large onion (finely chopped)
1" ginger
4-5 cloves garlic
butter
salt
3-4 tbsp pav bhaji masala
chopped vegetables (peas, carrots, cauliflower, french beans — optional)
12-16 pieces pav
Toppings
red onions (finely chopped)
lime
cilantro (finely chopped)
Note 1: Some of the toppings are missing in the photograph. Specifically, the red onions with lime and cilantro. (The toppings are frequently mixed together so you just add as much as you like including the lime juice.)
Note 2: The CC knows that the bread in the picture is not fried. As Julia says, butter makes everything better, but sometimes a little restraint also works. (People also add extra butter on the bhaji itself which is kinda "over the top".)
Note 3: Yeah, the CC is totally aware that the picture below isn't the "real" paav but one must work with what one has in New York not what one wishes one had. It's the closest approximation to the "real thing". The bread pictured above has the right texture — hard exterior and soft interior. It's from a local bakery.
Note 4: For once, the CC is not going to post a recipe for the spices. You are better off buying this at a Indian grocery store. You could do it yourself but the proportions would be all off unless you plan on making a year's supply. Sorry.
Note 5: Note the presence of two different kinds of sourness — amchur (= dried green mango powder) in the pav bhaji masala and lime juice. This is a consistent theme in Southeast Asian cooking. The presence of a dry "mellow" kind of sourness allied with a wet perfumed "fresh" kind of sourness.
Note 6: The CC knows that it's much more tricky to describe a street dish than it is to describe a more conventional one. However, when you are faced with alternatives and problems, the key question you need to ask yourself is "Would a street vendor in 1861 worry about this problem in the middle of the night?" If the answer is no, then the CC says, "Wing it!" Except for the butter, the spice mixture, onions, potatoes and tomatoes, it's all up in the air anyway!
Note 7: If you've ever watched it being made on the street, you'd realize that your puny home cooking range simply doesn't have the BTU's. Additionally, the tomatoes are simply not ripe enough. They toss whole ripe tomatoes onto the sizzling skillet and de-skin them with their spatula. You have neither the heat nor the skill to do so. Do it the CC's way, OK?
Note 8: The vegetables may or may not have been part of the original recipe but they've become "traditional" with the advent of healthier eating.
Recipe
First boil the potatoes. Skin them and set aside. Mash gently.
Pass the tomatoes through a food mill to get just the pulp. If the tomatoes are not completely ripe, you may need to par-boil them for 5-6 minutes each to get them to soften.
Pound the ginger and garlic into a paste.
Heat up the butter in a pan. Add the onions and fry till they turn pink. Do not let them caramelize. Add the ginger-garlic paste and fry for a bit. Add the tomatoes and let it come to a boil. Skim if you prefer that. Let it cook for at least 10 minutes. Add the pav bhaji masala.
Add the mashed potatoes and let it cook for 8 minutes or so. This concoction has a tendency to act like molten lava splashing everywhere so cover the lid partially otherwise you will be cursing the CC.
Taste. You may need to add more pav bhaji masala. It's hard to predict how much exactly.
Split the bread into two without cutting all the way. Take a skillet. Add butter and let the bread fry on both sides. (This is optional.)
Serve the bread, the pav bhaji and the toppings on the side (as needed.)
They came together to invent the iconic Mumbai street dish known as pav bhaji (pronounced: paav bhaaji — the two "a"'s are actually long vowels.)
Every good military general would tell you that the best way to win a war is through economics. The naval Union Blockade of April 1861 which heavily targeted New Orleans (Louisiana) and Mobile (Alabama) made the cotton exports of the South come to a grinding halt. The savvy Gujarati speculators of the old Cotton Exchange in Bombay knew the drill. Rates were wired in and orders wired out late into the night when the corresponding exchanges in Chicago would've been open.
(Bombay made its fortune on the basis of its cotton mills — a fact that is quite clear even today in its geography. The point being that the price of cotton mattered hugely and the American Civil War and the telegraph provided a mechanism to speculate on the price swings. Note that the world was on a Gold Standard back then so that exchange rates between the dollar, the pound and the rupee, which was basically the pound, would not matter.)
The word for trader in both Hindi and Gujarati is dalal (दलाल) — it's not a neutral word. It has a slightly shady connotation to it. No trader would self-describe themselves as a dalal even though that's exactly what they are. It carries with it the negative connotations of both "speculator" and "pimp". The Japanese equivalent is kabuya (株屋) — stock-broker/stock-slinger (= speculator.)
Now you have a bunch of traders working hard into the deep night. They're largely vegetarian. They're rich (or wanna-be rich) but in the classic tradition of rich people, they're also cheap. When you have a demand, a corresponding supply opens up. It has to be fast, tasty, and yes, cheap.
Where do the Portuguese come in?
India had no tradition of baking leavened breads before the 15th-century just like most of Southeast Asia. The Portuguese were responsible for introducing the yeasty bread (pão in Portuguese) which is paav in Hindi and パン (pan in Japanese).
The dish is made from the cheapest of ingredients — potatoes, tomatoes and onions. Plus fried bread. It's a street dish. It's not fancy. You toss in whatever vegetables you have lying around. It's also infinitely configurable with different toppings depending on the individual taste buds.
The critical point is that everything could be made ahead of time. You're basically stir-frying at the last moment. Even the bread could be made ahead of time. It could even be slightly stale because it would be fried again. Every corner that could be possibly cut was actually trimmed. This is one efficient caloric machine.
Nothing's changed since 1861. This dish is still a hit and will continue to be so.
It's endlessly addictive. It's one carb-laden umami-laden butter-laden bomb!
Ingredients
(serves 4)
6 small potatoes (or 3 large ones)
8-10 tomatoes
1 large onion (finely chopped)
1" ginger
4-5 cloves garlic
butter
salt
3-4 tbsp pav bhaji masala
chopped vegetables (peas, carrots, cauliflower, french beans — optional)
12-16 pieces pav
Toppings
red onions (finely chopped)
lime
cilantro (finely chopped)
Note 1: Some of the toppings are missing in the photograph. Specifically, the red onions with lime and cilantro. (The toppings are frequently mixed together so you just add as much as you like including the lime juice.)
Note 2: The CC knows that the bread in the picture is not fried. As Julia says, butter makes everything better, but sometimes a little restraint also works. (People also add extra butter on the bhaji itself which is kinda "over the top".)
Note 3: Yeah, the CC is totally aware that the picture below isn't the "real" paav but one must work with what one has in New York not what one wishes one had. It's the closest approximation to the "real thing". The bread pictured above has the right texture — hard exterior and soft interior. It's from a local bakery.
Note 5: Note the presence of two different kinds of sourness — amchur (= dried green mango powder) in the pav bhaji masala and lime juice. This is a consistent theme in Southeast Asian cooking. The presence of a dry "mellow" kind of sourness allied with a wet perfumed "fresh" kind of sourness.
Note 6: The CC knows that it's much more tricky to describe a street dish than it is to describe a more conventional one. However, when you are faced with alternatives and problems, the key question you need to ask yourself is "Would a street vendor in 1861 worry about this problem in the middle of the night?" If the answer is no, then the CC says, "Wing it!" Except for the butter, the spice mixture, onions, potatoes and tomatoes, it's all up in the air anyway!
Note 7: If you've ever watched it being made on the street, you'd realize that your puny home cooking range simply doesn't have the BTU's. Additionally, the tomatoes are simply not ripe enough. They toss whole ripe tomatoes onto the sizzling skillet and de-skin them with their spatula. You have neither the heat nor the skill to do so. Do it the CC's way, OK?
Note 8: The vegetables may or may not have been part of the original recipe but they've become "traditional" with the advent of healthier eating.
Recipe
First boil the potatoes. Skin them and set aside. Mash gently.
Pass the tomatoes through a food mill to get just the pulp. If the tomatoes are not completely ripe, you may need to par-boil them for 5-6 minutes each to get them to soften.
Pound the ginger and garlic into a paste.
Heat up the butter in a pan. Add the onions and fry till they turn pink. Do not let them caramelize. Add the ginger-garlic paste and fry for a bit. Add the tomatoes and let it come to a boil. Skim if you prefer that. Let it cook for at least 10 minutes. Add the pav bhaji masala.
Add the mashed potatoes and let it cook for 8 minutes or so. This concoction has a tendency to act like molten lava splashing everywhere so cover the lid partially otherwise you will be cursing the CC.
Taste. You may need to add more pav bhaji masala. It's hard to predict how much exactly.
Split the bread into two without cutting all the way. Take a skillet. Add butter and let the bread fry on both sides. (This is optional.)
Serve the bread, the pav bhaji and the toppings on the side (as needed.)
Saturday, February 18, 2017
Pommes Anna
When your life is in total disarray as is wont to happen from time to time, only Julia Child will do.
Structured potatoes and butter because you need some structure in your chaotic life. And as Julia says, butter makes everything better.
(A judicious amount of duck fat makes it even better. Oh, Julia!)
Most likely, the dish was prepared by Adolphe Dugléré who was a pupil of Marie-Antoine Carême who was quite possibly the greatest celebrity chef of all time. The eponymous Anna is unknown although theories proliferate.
Do we care? No, we don't bloody care. Potatoes and butter, does the CC really need to upsell this?
It's on pages 394-397 of Vol. II.
It should be trivially obvious that when a recipe features just four ingredients — butter, potatoes, salt and paper towels — and yet occupies three whole pages of explanation, it's going to be awesome.
Ironically, it's not hard. It's very easy. It just requires the one thing that's missing in modern cooking — patience.
All you have to do is "nothing". Can you patiently sit with your thumb up your ass for a longish time? That's all it takes.
That and a mandoline.
What is it?
It's a potato pie that looks really pretty and bejeweled if done right except it's made in a skillet.
It's been modified somewhat from Julia. This is more la bonne cuisine femme than it is la cuisine de roi.
Thank me no thankings, Julia, nor proud me no prouds.
Ingredients
potatoes
melted butter
salt
pepper/herbs (optional)
patience (metric tons of it!)
Note 1: You will need a cast-iron skillet or a non-stick pan with a loose cover. Don't sweat it. Even a simple aluminum foil will do. The heat never goes above medium. It's much more important that the heat be uniform than anything else.
Note 2: You need to cook the potatoes as soon as you slice them. You need the starchiness of the potatoes to make sure the dish sticks correctly.
Recipe
Melt some butter in a pan. Take off the heat. (This is what makes the recipe awesomely stress-free. No need to work in real-time. Chillax is the name of the game.)
Now, slice the potatoes as thinly as possible on a mandoline. Layer them in the pan so that they all touch and overlap and look pretty.
Drizzle some more butter over them. Season with some salt. (Add some finely chopped herbs here if you'd like.)
Overlap a second layer. Repeat with the butter, salt, and a third layer and a fourth one.
Put the pan back on the stove at medium heat. Once the butter melts, you should start hearing it sizzle at a low pace. This is when your patience kicks in.
(A generous pour of butter or olive oil around the edges doesn't hurt at this point.)
The pan will sizzle and the fat spit a little. Cover the pan for just a minute so that the potatoes soften gently. Uncover.
Gently rock the pan to see if the starch in the potatoes have made them attach to each other. Let them keep cooking at medium heat. There should be a continuous sizzle.
When you smell the potatoes turn golden and toasty, it's time to gently turn them over. This is a bit tricky. Use a dish if you need to. You most likely will not need it.
Cook until the other side is also golden and crispy.
Enjoy your, "Oh sweet baby Jeebus, Julia is so much better" moment!
Structured potatoes and butter because you need some structure in your chaotic life. And as Julia says, butter makes everything better.
(A judicious amount of duck fat makes it even better. Oh, Julia!)
Most likely, the dish was prepared by Adolphe Dugléré who was a pupil of Marie-Antoine Carême who was quite possibly the greatest celebrity chef of all time. The eponymous Anna is unknown although theories proliferate.
Do we care? No, we don't bloody care. Potatoes and butter, does the CC really need to upsell this?
It's on pages 394-397 of Vol. II.
It should be trivially obvious that when a recipe features just four ingredients — butter, potatoes, salt and paper towels — and yet occupies three whole pages of explanation, it's going to be awesome.
Ironically, it's not hard. It's very easy. It just requires the one thing that's missing in modern cooking — patience.
All you have to do is "nothing". Can you patiently sit with your thumb up your ass for a longish time? That's all it takes.
That and a mandoline.
What is it?
It's a potato pie that looks really pretty and bejeweled if done right except it's made in a skillet.
It's been modified somewhat from Julia. This is more la bonne cuisine femme than it is la cuisine de roi.
Thank me no thankings, Julia, nor proud me no prouds.
Ingredients
potatoes
melted butter
salt
pepper/herbs (optional)
patience (metric tons of it!)
Note 1: You will need a cast-iron skillet or a non-stick pan with a loose cover. Don't sweat it. Even a simple aluminum foil will do. The heat never goes above medium. It's much more important that the heat be uniform than anything else.
Note 2: You need to cook the potatoes as soon as you slice them. You need the starchiness of the potatoes to make sure the dish sticks correctly.
Recipe
Melt some butter in a pan. Take off the heat. (This is what makes the recipe awesomely stress-free. No need to work in real-time. Chillax is the name of the game.)
Now, slice the potatoes as thinly as possible on a mandoline. Layer them in the pan so that they all touch and overlap and look pretty.
Drizzle some more butter over them. Season with some salt. (Add some finely chopped herbs here if you'd like.)
Overlap a second layer. Repeat with the butter, salt, and a third layer and a fourth one.
Put the pan back on the stove at medium heat. Once the butter melts, you should start hearing it sizzle at a low pace. This is when your patience kicks in.
(A generous pour of butter or olive oil around the edges doesn't hurt at this point.)
The pan will sizzle and the fat spit a little. Cover the pan for just a minute so that the potatoes soften gently. Uncover.
Gently rock the pan to see if the starch in the potatoes have made them attach to each other. Let them keep cooking at medium heat. There should be a continuous sizzle.
When you smell the potatoes turn golden and toasty, it's time to gently turn them over. This is a bit tricky. Use a dish if you need to. You most likely will not need it.
Cook until the other side is also golden and crispy.
Enjoy your, "Oh sweet baby Jeebus, Julia is so much better" moment!
Thursday, November 24, 2016
Thanksgiving Menu
♥
Saffron Roasted Potatoes
♥
Brussel Sprouts with Parmesan & Pomegranates
♥
Champagne with Pomegranates
♥
Russian Cookies
Sunday, November 20, 2016
Saffron Roasted Potatoes
This recipe is also the epitome of simplicity. The CC got it from a friend who used to subscribe to the old Gourmet magazine. The CC would just like to record it here before it disappears.
Easy to make ahead of time, a sleeper hit, and easy to reheat.
Ingredients
1 lb new potatoes
3-4 tbsp tomato paste
saffron
salt
pepper
olive oil
parsley
Note 1: The CC likes the new potatoes in their jackets. You could par-boil and remove the skin if you prefer. If so, cut back on the cooking times.
Note 2: Don't skimp on either the tomato paste or the saffron.
Recipe
Heat some olive oil, fry the tomato paste in it. Add a few tbsp of water to it. Toss in two large pinches of saffron and take off the heat.
Lay the potatoes in a baking sheet, pour the liquid all over it, and bake at 400°F for 30-40 minutes until the potatoes are lightly browned.
(You can also par-boil the potatoes and then finish the cooking in the original vessel. Both methods work equally well.)
Finely dice the parsley and sprinkle on top right before serving.
Easy to make ahead of time, a sleeper hit, and easy to reheat.
Ingredients
1 lb new potatoes
3-4 tbsp tomato paste
saffron
salt
pepper
olive oil
parsley
Note 1: The CC likes the new potatoes in their jackets. You could par-boil and remove the skin if you prefer. If so, cut back on the cooking times.
Note 2: Don't skimp on either the tomato paste or the saffron.
Recipe
Heat some olive oil, fry the tomato paste in it. Add a few tbsp of water to it. Toss in two large pinches of saffron and take off the heat.
Lay the potatoes in a baking sheet, pour the liquid all over it, and bake at 400°F for 30-40 minutes until the potatoes are lightly browned.
(You can also par-boil the potatoes and then finish the cooking in the original vessel. Both methods work equally well.)
Finely dice the parsley and sprinkle on top right before serving.
Saturday, August 22, 2015
Huevos Rotos
After the insane tapas party, the CC needed to make something basic and elemental. He did some searching and, lo and behold, he had all the ingredients necessary for a nutritious and tasty breakfast.
This is not a "fast" dish. However, you don't need to do much. Set the timer and get away.
Best eggs ever. They combine the magic of "home fries" and poached eggs in one easy dish.
You need to serve them with jamon serrano, of course.
Ingredients
(serves 2)
1 large onion (chopped coarsely)
1 green pepper (chopped into matchsticks)
3 fingerling potatoes (chopped into thin rounds)
4 cloves garlic (minced fine)
4 eggs
1/4 cup parsley
1 tsp paprika (agridolce)
olive oil
salt
pepper
Recipe
You need a frying pan that has a lid.
Heat up some olive oil in a pan. When it shimmers, toss in the onion and the garlic. Fry for a bit. Add the peppers and let them fry for a bit. Add the potatoes, turn the heat down to the lowest possible setting and let them cook. Add the paprika, salt and pepper. Let the potatoes cook for at least 25 minutes. Add the parsley and let cook for an additional 5 minutes. (Total of 30 minutes.)
Keep stirring while the potatoes cook. Every 10 minutes is sufficient. No need to break them up.
You will be able to smell the potatoes being done. It's unmistakable.
Spread the mixture evenly over the pan. Crack the four eggs in the four corners. Cover the pan and let cook for 4 minutes. You may need an extra minute but take the pan off the heat once the whites are set.
Serve the poached eggs - two per person with the potatoes below. The yolk will be barely set but that's perfect when you crack it and it coats the potatoes. Enjoy with the jamon in tow.
This is not a "fast" dish. However, you don't need to do much. Set the timer and get away.
Best eggs ever. They combine the magic of "home fries" and poached eggs in one easy dish.
You need to serve them with jamon serrano, of course.
Ingredients
(serves 2)
1 large onion (chopped coarsely)
1 green pepper (chopped into matchsticks)
3 fingerling potatoes (chopped into thin rounds)
4 cloves garlic (minced fine)
4 eggs
1/4 cup parsley
1 tsp paprika (agridolce)
olive oil
salt
pepper
Recipe
You need a frying pan that has a lid.
Heat up some olive oil in a pan. When it shimmers, toss in the onion and the garlic. Fry for a bit. Add the peppers and let them fry for a bit. Add the potatoes, turn the heat down to the lowest possible setting and let them cook. Add the paprika, salt and pepper. Let the potatoes cook for at least 25 minutes. Add the parsley and let cook for an additional 5 minutes. (Total of 30 minutes.)
Keep stirring while the potatoes cook. Every 10 minutes is sufficient. No need to break them up.
You will be able to smell the potatoes being done. It's unmistakable.
Spread the mixture evenly over the pan. Crack the four eggs in the four corners. Cover the pan and let cook for 4 minutes. You may need an extra minute but take the pan off the heat once the whites are set.
Serve the poached eggs - two per person with the potatoes below. The yolk will be barely set but that's perfect when you crack it and it coats the potatoes. Enjoy with the jamon in tow.
Wednesday, December 24, 2014
The Potato Chronicles
Have you ever had an experience where you ask yourself why something so obvious is so completely unknown?
The CC is going to discuss roasted potatoes and French fries and what they have in common.
It's a well-known fact among connoisseurs of the humble potato that the best way to fry it is in various versions of animal fats. Goose fat, duck fat, chicken fat and horse fat. Expensive but mind-blowingly awesome.
What also makes the perfect fry is that the surface is crispy and brown (tastes come from the Maillard reaction) and the insides perfectly soft and creamy. It's the contrast that makes it work. Here's a refresher to the science.
The potato has been a staple in many cuisines once the New World was discovered. It rapidly spread across the globe. Roasting it aside the meat which shed its fat was a common and delicious idea.
The innovation which surprised the CC last night was simple. Instead of letting the potato roast, the chef took a medium-sized potato, peeled it, sliced it vertically into thin sections that were still attached at the base — leaving the potato whole — and roasted it. It's simple knife-work. This thin slicing meant that the edges of the potato were completely crispy while the insides were completely creamy. The potato was clearly roasted with some goose fat and served with the roasted goose giving the dish a coherent feel.
It's such a simple idea and yet so radical.
The CC is going to discuss roasted potatoes and French fries and what they have in common.
It's a well-known fact among connoisseurs of the humble potato that the best way to fry it is in various versions of animal fats. Goose fat, duck fat, chicken fat and horse fat. Expensive but mind-blowingly awesome.
What also makes the perfect fry is that the surface is crispy and brown (tastes come from the Maillard reaction) and the insides perfectly soft and creamy. It's the contrast that makes it work. Here's a refresher to the science.
The potato has been a staple in many cuisines once the New World was discovered. It rapidly spread across the globe. Roasting it aside the meat which shed its fat was a common and delicious idea.
The innovation which surprised the CC last night was simple. Instead of letting the potato roast, the chef took a medium-sized potato, peeled it, sliced it vertically into thin sections that were still attached at the base — leaving the potato whole — and roasted it. It's simple knife-work. This thin slicing meant that the edges of the potato were completely crispy while the insides were completely creamy. The potato was clearly roasted with some goose fat and served with the roasted goose giving the dish a coherent feel.
It's such a simple idea and yet so radical.
Sunday, July 6, 2014
Rouz Jerbi (Riz Djerbian, Tunisian Spinach Rice)
This is one of the strangest yet most awesome recipes that the CC has seen.
When the CC first encountered it he was mystified. Wouldn't 50+ minutes of steaming turn the vegetables into mush? Was he getting something wrong?
No, he was just forgetting something.
Rice is deeply hygroscopic.
It will absorb moisture like nobody's business so you need to store rice in a humidity-free environment. In fact, it is so hygroscopic that if you ever drop your cellphone inside water and it doesnt' work, first dry it out and then put it inside a sealed bag filled with dry uncooked rice. Chances are it will work in a few days.
The CC has given this advice to quite a few people and they were just baffled. The CC argued, "What do you have to lose? A few cups of cheap rice, right?" Right down to the last man and woman, the smartphones have come back to life. One friend whose young daughter had mastered the art of grabbing his smartphone and throwing it in the toilet particularly appreciated the CC.
Science. It works, bitches!
The recipe is from the island of Djerba in Tunisia. The CC has provided the French spelling as well since Tunisia was a French Protectorate and you are more likely to encounter the dish under that name.
In this recipe, a mélange of dry rice, spinach, parsley, vegetables, chickpeas, optional meat, and a ton of spices are steamed for about 50 minutes. The rice does most of the absorption (including the liquid given off by the spinach and vegetables) and what you get is a perfectly steamed mixture that is intensely flavored and smells magical.
The dish can be extremely spicy but you can control the heat with the amount of harissa that you add to it. It has a slow burn.
It's not a hard dish in the least. You could do the prep in 30 minutes but you will need to endure two phases of steaming with by a precise interlude where you turn everything over and recommence.
Just think two de-stressing cocktails because minus the prep and the tiny amount of the interlude, you're not exactly working very hard. Even the prep is easy.
A steamer works perfectly here but the CC improvised since he has none in his apartment. The recipe is quite forgiving.
You absolutely need a long-grained rice. Short varieties are not going to work in this dish.
Ingredients
1 1/2 cups long-grained rice (e.g. basmati)
2 large onions (chopped fine)
4 cloves garlic (chopped fine)
1 large potato (cubed into large pieces)
1 large carrot (cubed into medium pieces)
1 large tomato (chopped into fine pieces)
1 cup cooked chickpeas
1/2 cup peas
2 large bunches of spinach (chopped into fine slivers)
1 large bunch parsley (chopped fine)
chicken/lamb/beef ‐ (optional) ‐ cubed into small pieces
1/2 cup tomato paste
1/3 cup olive oil
1-2 tbsp. harissa
4 tbsp. coriander seeds (roasted and ground fine)
1 tbsp. caraway seeds (roasted and ground fine)
1 tbsp. turmeric
2 tsp. red chilli powder (or to taste)
Recipe
First, toss the rice with the tomato paste and olive oil and mix thoroughly. The goal is to coat the rice with the oil to make sure that each grain remains separate. This is the aesthetic hallmark of Arab cuisine which you will see everywhere from Northern Africa to Iran to India.
Then you just add all the ingredients in a large bowl and mix them thoroughly.
The mixture must then be steamed in a tightly-sealed steamer for about 25 minutes. At that mark, you must pull it out into a bowl, very gently mix everything together and steam it again for about 20-25 minutes. (Add more water to the bottom if necessary.)
The length of the second steaming depends on the age of your rice. The older it is, the less you will need to cook it.
Rouz Jerbi
When the CC first encountered it he was mystified. Wouldn't 50+ minutes of steaming turn the vegetables into mush? Was he getting something wrong?
No, he was just forgetting something.
Rice is deeply hygroscopic.
It will absorb moisture like nobody's business so you need to store rice in a humidity-free environment. In fact, it is so hygroscopic that if you ever drop your cellphone inside water and it doesnt' work, first dry it out and then put it inside a sealed bag filled with dry uncooked rice. Chances are it will work in a few days.
The CC has given this advice to quite a few people and they were just baffled. The CC argued, "What do you have to lose? A few cups of cheap rice, right?" Right down to the last man and woman, the smartphones have come back to life. One friend whose young daughter had mastered the art of grabbing his smartphone and throwing it in the toilet particularly appreciated the CC.
Science. It works, bitches!
The recipe is from the island of Djerba in Tunisia. The CC has provided the French spelling as well since Tunisia was a French Protectorate and you are more likely to encounter the dish under that name.
In this recipe, a mélange of dry rice, spinach, parsley, vegetables, chickpeas, optional meat, and a ton of spices are steamed for about 50 minutes. The rice does most of the absorption (including the liquid given off by the spinach and vegetables) and what you get is a perfectly steamed mixture that is intensely flavored and smells magical.
The dish can be extremely spicy but you can control the heat with the amount of harissa that you add to it. It has a slow burn.
It's not a hard dish in the least. You could do the prep in 30 minutes but you will need to endure two phases of steaming with by a precise interlude where you turn everything over and recommence.
Just think two de-stressing cocktails because minus the prep and the tiny amount of the interlude, you're not exactly working very hard. Even the prep is easy.
A steamer works perfectly here but the CC improvised since he has none in his apartment. The recipe is quite forgiving.
You absolutely need a long-grained rice. Short varieties are not going to work in this dish.
Ingredients
1 1/2 cups long-grained rice (e.g. basmati)
2 large onions (chopped fine)
4 cloves garlic (chopped fine)
1 large potato (cubed into large pieces)
1 large carrot (cubed into medium pieces)
1 large tomato (chopped into fine pieces)
1 cup cooked chickpeas
1/2 cup peas
2 large bunches of spinach (chopped into fine slivers)
1 large bunch parsley (chopped fine)
chicken/lamb/beef ‐ (optional) ‐ cubed into small pieces
1/2 cup tomato paste
1/3 cup olive oil
1-2 tbsp. harissa
4 tbsp. coriander seeds (roasted and ground fine)
1 tbsp. caraway seeds (roasted and ground fine)
1 tbsp. turmeric
2 tsp. red chilli powder (or to taste)
Recipe
First, toss the rice with the tomato paste and olive oil and mix thoroughly. The goal is to coat the rice with the oil to make sure that each grain remains separate. This is the aesthetic hallmark of Arab cuisine which you will see everywhere from Northern Africa to Iran to India.
Then you just add all the ingredients in a large bowl and mix them thoroughly.
The mixture must then be steamed in a tightly-sealed steamer for about 25 minutes. At that mark, you must pull it out into a bowl, very gently mix everything together and steam it again for about 20-25 minutes. (Add more water to the bottom if necessary.)
The length of the second steaming depends on the age of your rice. The older it is, the less you will need to cook it.
Monday, March 31, 2014
Classic Fish Pie
Amazing British Food? Surely that's an oxymoron.
Not so fast, my fine friends.
In the 18th century, there was very little difference between English, French and Italian food. If you look at the recipes, and they are almost all from the upper-crust of society who could afford to have servants and cooks and people who actually wrote the recipes down (as opposed to just make them), you will notice a strikingly similar set of palates and techniques. All the variation is just in what modern-day parlance is referred to as "locally-sourced ingredients" — what other choice was there back then?
It's the rise of nationalism in the 19th century and the extreme productivity of the early industrial society that led to a sharp distinction in cuisines. For lack of a better phrase, it was a form of "nationalistic branding". Even then, assuredly British cuisine could hold its own against the rest. After all, this was the richest society on earth. Surely nobody rational can believe that they ate badly, right?
It is also important to note that Britain's primary source of wealth was its Empire. A young stalwart called America was muscling onto its economic terrain using the power of technology — in this case agricultural and transportation technology. Midwestern grain could reach Europe cheaper than anything they could produce there. It was just economies of scale.There was a long slow decline in Britain's fortunes that has been documented extensively.
What laid utter waste to British Food was the Great War — World War I.
It destroyed the aristocracy. It destroyed the wealth, the food sourcing, the elaborate techniques, and the accumulated knowledge. You have to remember that a British aristocrat using the power of the nascent telephone (and canning technology!) back then could source food ingredients from all over the world. It was the proto-typical Internet.
It was all completely annihilated.
After that, between the loss of reserve currency status, loss of Empire and World War II, the culture turned into an economic wasteland with predictable effects on its food.
It took another 60 years to recover.
So the CC is going to argue quite forcefully that people who deride British food are looking at it through myopic eyes. Was it awful for about a century? Emphatically yes, but that's for non-reproducible reasons in what is but a twinkling of an eye in world history which happens to be the same as food history.
So you are going to have to dial back the clock and not just look at a modern-day recipe but what exactly were its antecedents. Once you do, you see the same "fresh herbs" and "fresh ingredients" and "attention to detail" that you see in other places.
What would classical English spicing be? Any herbs that grow in a colder climate. Just remember than the British Isles are nowhere near as cold as Scandinavia because of the warm North Atlantic Drift.
English thyme, parsley, bay leaves, rosemary, rue and mint (which is basically a weed and will grow anywhere). The entire cornucopia of spices imported from India since Roman times (pepper, cinnamon, cloves, etc.) and also from the West Indies (nutmeg, etc.)
The sauces are a little complex and heavy for modern palates but then the same goes for Classical French Cuisine which has fallen out of favor as well. All that can be easily addressed. You can lighten the sauce to make it more amenable to a contemporary audience. It's not even hard.
What's presented below is a classic fish pie.
Note the extensive use of fresh herbs. Note the careful three-part technique upfront before the final baking where each step neatly turns into the next one so that not even the slightest iota of flavor or ingredients are wasted.
How does it work?
In the old days, you would have sourced whole fish, whole prawns, etc. Our modern fillets and cleaned fish waste most of the parts that are used to extract even more flavor into the whole. This is our loss both economic and culinary.
First you use all the "remnants" of the fish (heads, shells, etc.) to make a fish broth (step 1). Then the fillets and the shellfish are poached with milk and fresh herbs (step 2). The fish is separated and the milk is strained and reserved and made into a classic béchamel (step 3) with vegetables and the fish broth and more fresh herbs are added into which the flaked fish will be folded in. Optionally, cheese might be added. (If it is, it's with a light hand. It would be a traditional cheddar which has nothing like the aggressive flavor of a modern-day cheddar. It's very mellow and has insane umami particularly when combined with the fish broth.)
The vegetables would've been "seasonal". People back then were just as bored eating the same-ol'-same-ol' as they might be today. Leeks, carrots, cauliflower, peas, asparagus, spinach, sorrel.
Separately, you make mashed potatoes. The dish is layered with the fish below the potatoes and baked till you get a British gratin. The killer step which so few people bother to do these days is that the mashed potatoes on top must be carefully raked like a Japanese Zen-Garden with the tines of a fork so that when they bake, you get not only a gorgeous presentation but crispy-brown bits thanks to the Maillard Reaction.
In the old days, the béchamel and the mashed potatoes would have had cream in them. It would also have have been presented in a pastry crust for formal presentations. All of this can be "lightened up".
This is technique at the highest level!
Ingredients
1 large piece of cod
12 clams
6 whole prawns (reserve the shells)
1 cup water
1 cup milk
2 large leeks
butter
8 tbsp. flour
1/2 cup cheddar (grated)
1 small carrot (diced)
1/2 cup peas
1 bay leaf
12-20 black peppercorns
parsley
nutmeg
parsley
3 large potatoes
milk
chives
sea salt
Recipe
First make the fish broth. Heat up some water with some prawn shells and let it simmer for about 10 minutes. (If not using prawns, use dried fish or dried shrimp to make a broth. Yes, this is important.)
Filter and retain the broth.
Take the clams and add the above broth to it. Steam them in an open pot until they open. Fish them out. Filter the clam broth through a cheesecloth and reserve. Chop the clams and reserve.
Heat the milk, the bay leaf, some parsley and the peppercorns. Bring to a boil. Put in the cod and let it poach for about three minutes. Fish it out. Put it in a bowl and flake it discarding the skin and bones.
Filter the milk combination discarding the bay leaf, parsley and peppercorns and reserve.
Now make a classic béchamel. Heat up some butter and when it is bubbling, add the leeks and let them cook for a bit. Add the flour and let it cook until light golden. Add the milk combination from above and let it reduce till it is thick. When the milk is denatured, add the broth. Be careful not to add the broth until the milk has denatured otherwise it will curdle. Add the grated cheddar, the remaining chopped parsley, black pepper, grated nutmeg and fold in the flaked cod, prawns, and chopped clams.
Separately, cook the potato in salted water till it is tender. In a bowl, mash it with some milk. Add the chives to this mix. The mixture should be on the thicker side not like traditional mashed potatoes which have more liquid.
Preheat the oven to 350°F.
In an oven-proof dish, layer the seafood in the béchamel sauce at the bottom. Top with the mashed potatoes. With the tines of a fork, rake the surface of the mashed potatoes with deep ridges in an attractive pattern.
Let it bake for 30 minutes till the top of the potatoes are lightly crispy.
Serve with a salad.
Not so fast, my fine friends.
In the 18th century, there was very little difference between English, French and Italian food. If you look at the recipes, and they are almost all from the upper-crust of society who could afford to have servants and cooks and people who actually wrote the recipes down (as opposed to just make them), you will notice a strikingly similar set of palates and techniques. All the variation is just in what modern-day parlance is referred to as "locally-sourced ingredients" — what other choice was there back then?
It's the rise of nationalism in the 19th century and the extreme productivity of the early industrial society that led to a sharp distinction in cuisines. For lack of a better phrase, it was a form of "nationalistic branding". Even then, assuredly British cuisine could hold its own against the rest. After all, this was the richest society on earth. Surely nobody rational can believe that they ate badly, right?
It is also important to note that Britain's primary source of wealth was its Empire. A young stalwart called America was muscling onto its economic terrain using the power of technology — in this case agricultural and transportation technology. Midwestern grain could reach Europe cheaper than anything they could produce there. It was just economies of scale.There was a long slow decline in Britain's fortunes that has been documented extensively.
What laid utter waste to British Food was the Great War — World War I.
It destroyed the aristocracy. It destroyed the wealth, the food sourcing, the elaborate techniques, and the accumulated knowledge. You have to remember that a British aristocrat using the power of the nascent telephone (and canning technology!) back then could source food ingredients from all over the world. It was the proto-typical Internet.
It was all completely annihilated.
After that, between the loss of reserve currency status, loss of Empire and World War II, the culture turned into an economic wasteland with predictable effects on its food.
It took another 60 years to recover.
So the CC is going to argue quite forcefully that people who deride British food are looking at it through myopic eyes. Was it awful for about a century? Emphatically yes, but that's for non-reproducible reasons in what is but a twinkling of an eye in world history which happens to be the same as food history.
So you are going to have to dial back the clock and not just look at a modern-day recipe but what exactly were its antecedents. Once you do, you see the same "fresh herbs" and "fresh ingredients" and "attention to detail" that you see in other places.
What would classical English spicing be? Any herbs that grow in a colder climate. Just remember than the British Isles are nowhere near as cold as Scandinavia because of the warm North Atlantic Drift.
English thyme, parsley, bay leaves, rosemary, rue and mint (which is basically a weed and will grow anywhere). The entire cornucopia of spices imported from India since Roman times (pepper, cinnamon, cloves, etc.) and also from the West Indies (nutmeg, etc.)
The sauces are a little complex and heavy for modern palates but then the same goes for Classical French Cuisine which has fallen out of favor as well. All that can be easily addressed. You can lighten the sauce to make it more amenable to a contemporary audience. It's not even hard.
What's presented below is a classic fish pie.
Note the extensive use of fresh herbs. Note the careful three-part technique upfront before the final baking where each step neatly turns into the next one so that not even the slightest iota of flavor or ingredients are wasted.
How does it work?
In the old days, you would have sourced whole fish, whole prawns, etc. Our modern fillets and cleaned fish waste most of the parts that are used to extract even more flavor into the whole. This is our loss both economic and culinary.
First you use all the "remnants" of the fish (heads, shells, etc.) to make a fish broth (step 1). Then the fillets and the shellfish are poached with milk and fresh herbs (step 2). The fish is separated and the milk is strained and reserved and made into a classic béchamel (step 3) with vegetables and the fish broth and more fresh herbs are added into which the flaked fish will be folded in. Optionally, cheese might be added. (If it is, it's with a light hand. It would be a traditional cheddar which has nothing like the aggressive flavor of a modern-day cheddar. It's very mellow and has insane umami particularly when combined with the fish broth.)
The vegetables would've been "seasonal". People back then were just as bored eating the same-ol'-same-ol' as they might be today. Leeks, carrots, cauliflower, peas, asparagus, spinach, sorrel.
Separately, you make mashed potatoes. The dish is layered with the fish below the potatoes and baked till you get a British gratin. The killer step which so few people bother to do these days is that the mashed potatoes on top must be carefully raked like a Japanese Zen-Garden with the tines of a fork so that when they bake, you get not only a gorgeous presentation but crispy-brown bits thanks to the Maillard Reaction.
In the old days, the béchamel and the mashed potatoes would have had cream in them. It would also have have been presented in a pastry crust for formal presentations. All of this can be "lightened up".
This is technique at the highest level!
Ingredients
1 large piece of cod
12 clams
6 whole prawns (reserve the shells)
1 cup water
1 cup milk
2 large leeks
butter
8 tbsp. flour
1/2 cup cheddar (grated)
1 small carrot (diced)
1/2 cup peas
1 bay leaf
12-20 black peppercorns
parsley
nutmeg
parsley
3 large potatoes
milk
chives
sea salt
Recipe
First make the fish broth. Heat up some water with some prawn shells and let it simmer for about 10 minutes. (If not using prawns, use dried fish or dried shrimp to make a broth. Yes, this is important.)
Filter and retain the broth.
Take the clams and add the above broth to it. Steam them in an open pot until they open. Fish them out. Filter the clam broth through a cheesecloth and reserve. Chop the clams and reserve.
Heat the milk, the bay leaf, some parsley and the peppercorns. Bring to a boil. Put in the cod and let it poach for about three minutes. Fish it out. Put it in a bowl and flake it discarding the skin and bones.
Filter the milk combination discarding the bay leaf, parsley and peppercorns and reserve.
Now make a classic béchamel. Heat up some butter and when it is bubbling, add the leeks and let them cook for a bit. Add the flour and let it cook until light golden. Add the milk combination from above and let it reduce till it is thick. When the milk is denatured, add the broth. Be careful not to add the broth until the milk has denatured otherwise it will curdle. Add the grated cheddar, the remaining chopped parsley, black pepper, grated nutmeg and fold in the flaked cod, prawns, and chopped clams.
Separately, cook the potato in salted water till it is tender. In a bowl, mash it with some milk. Add the chives to this mix. The mixture should be on the thicker side not like traditional mashed potatoes which have more liquid.
Preheat the oven to 350°F.
In an oven-proof dish, layer the seafood in the béchamel sauce at the bottom. Top with the mashed potatoes. With the tines of a fork, rake the surface of the mashed potatoes with deep ridges in an attractive pattern.
Let it bake for 30 minutes till the top of the potatoes are lightly crispy.
Serve with a salad.
Wednesday, February 19, 2014
Parsley, Potato & Parmesan Soup
The CC was confused. How come he saw fresh parsley along with the usual panoply of winter vegetables at the farmers' market?
Turns out that parsley is a biennial and has another component that is not generally well known — parsley root which as a winter vegetable is not very different from turnips, parsnips or potatoes.
This French-style soup which uses fresh parsley is just perfect for chasing away the winter blues.
Ingredients
1 large bunch of parsley
2 medium potatoes (peeled and chopped)
1 medium onion
5-6 cloves garlic
butter or olive oil (or a mixture)
4 cups broth
1 cup grated parmigiano-reggiano
salt
black pepper
Recipe
First prepare an ice bath.
Wash the parsley discarding all thick roots. Leave the thinner ones on. In a large bowl, pour boiling water over the parsley and let it blanch for about a minute. Plunge the parsley into the ice bath. This helps preserve the vibrant green color otherwise you will end up with a dull green soup.
Heat the olive oil in a pan. Sautée the onions and the garlic for 6-8 minutes at a low heat. Fry the potatoes for at least 8 minutes till they are fraying around the edges and coated with the fat.
Add the stock, salt to taste, black pepper and bring to a boil. Simmer at a low heat for 25-30 minutes until the potatoes are soft. (It really depends on the size of the pieces.)
Skim the fat as it comes to the surface.
Add the parsley to the soup and blend really fine. Add the parmesan. Bring to a quick simmer again and serve.
You can pass the soup through a fine sieve if you want a really smooth version. A drizzle of crème fraîche works great for serving as would a crumbling of blue cheese.
Turns out that parsley is a biennial and has another component that is not generally well known — parsley root which as a winter vegetable is not very different from turnips, parsnips or potatoes.
This French-style soup which uses fresh parsley is just perfect for chasing away the winter blues.
Ingredients1 large bunch of parsley
2 medium potatoes (peeled and chopped)
1 medium onion
5-6 cloves garlic
butter or olive oil (or a mixture)
4 cups broth
1 cup grated parmigiano-reggiano
salt
black pepper
Recipe
First prepare an ice bath.
Wash the parsley discarding all thick roots. Leave the thinner ones on. In a large bowl, pour boiling water over the parsley and let it blanch for about a minute. Plunge the parsley into the ice bath. This helps preserve the vibrant green color otherwise you will end up with a dull green soup.
Heat the olive oil in a pan. Sautée the onions and the garlic for 6-8 minutes at a low heat. Fry the potatoes for at least 8 minutes till they are fraying around the edges and coated with the fat.
Add the stock, salt to taste, black pepper and bring to a boil. Simmer at a low heat for 25-30 minutes until the potatoes are soft. (It really depends on the size of the pieces.)
Skim the fat as it comes to the surface.
Add the parsley to the soup and blend really fine. Add the parmesan. Bring to a quick simmer again and serve.
You can pass the soup through a fine sieve if you want a really smooth version. A drizzle of crème fraîche works great for serving as would a crumbling of blue cheese.
Sunday, November 4, 2012
On the Love of Specialized Instruments
The CC owns something called a "bird beak paring knife". It's a paring knife with a curved beak (presumably like that of a bird.)
Mostly it's used for carving stuff - you know, edible roses and stuffed cherry tomatoes. The kinda fussy stuff which the CC generally doesn't get to very often.
It originally came in a package set and has been gathering dust ever since.
The CC has finally found a very good use for it. It's perfect for de-seeding and de-pithing the inside of a bitter melon when you want to stuff it.
The stuffing for this recipe is from Kashmir. Specifically, it seems to be a relatively modern vegetarian adaptation of what must inevitably originally have been a Mughal meat dish.
That it is a vegetarian response to the original marriage of Mongol and Persian traditions to Indian spices can hardly be in doubt. That it happens to feature the altogether New World potato means that it can be no more than 250-300 years old (long enough for the potato not only to cross the shores but enter into a routine upper middle-class vocabulary.) There's a variant that uses paneer which may be marginally older. (And then there are hybrids which are just the normal evolution of any dish.)
Even if you don't end up stuffing bitter melons, do make this recipe. It would be amazing stuffed in just about anything - peppers, tomatoes, zuccini, squash. It's all about the spices.
Several versions are presented below. Feel free to pick from any of them because the magic is in the texture and the spices. In fact, the CC guarantees that you will have to stop yourself from stuffing yourself just from the stuffing.
Just for full disclosure, this recipe is definitely "fussy" and time-consuming. Its origins clearly lie when emperors had armies of cooks from whence it filtered down into homes with cooks from whence it filtered down into regular homes where the wives stayed at home all day and were bored. It's not going to jive well with modern sensibilities but it made a lot of sense when the CC was cooped in all-day after a pesky little hurricane.
Q: What does he do when he's bored?
A: He stuffs fuckin' karela's.
E: Nice!
For the modern-day readers' convenience, short-cuts are suggested but you will definitely miss out on some of the textural element in the dish.
Ingredients
8 bitter melons (prepared - read below)
Stuffing
1 large red onion
4 green chillies (finely diced)
Meat or Potatoes
3 large potatoes
or
2 potatoes
1 cup crumbled paneer
or
2 cups minced meat
Spice Mix 1 (Whole)
1 tbsp fennel seeds
2 tbsp nigella
2 tsp turmeric
2 tsp chilli powder
2 tsp dried ginger (substitute by fresh)
3 tbsp amchur (dried green mango powder)
Spice Mix 2 (Ground fine)
2 tbsp fennel seeds
1 tsp coriander seeds
2 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp black peppercorns
1 tbsp garam masala
1/2 tsp fenugreek seeds
Recipe
First prepare the bitter melons. You need to scrape them clean till they are pale green and look like naked dead skinned green mole rats. Using a very sharp paring knife, cut them length-wise gently making sure that you don't slice them down the middle. This is harder than you think because every once in a while you will encounter a hard seed. Have no fears! Jump over the seed and continue. The problem will fix itself.
Gently with your fingers separate it along the edges. Be careful of both ends. They have a tendency to break. Using the bird-beak knife (or your fingers), gently reach inside and start scraping away at the seeds and the pith. This will take a few tries but as it does you will notice that it becomes easier and easier. (This was a surprise to the CC!)
There are pesky seeds at either end of the length of the bitter melon every once in a while. It's quite tough but you can do it! They must be removed.
You will have eight stuffable bitter melons which you need to thoroughly rinse and set aside until they dry.
When dry, thoroughly salt the inside and the outside of the bitter melon. Set aside in a colander for at least an hour. At the end of the hour, you will notice that the bitter melon has turned very very soft and flexible because the salt has changed its celullar structure and drawn out quite a bit of the bitterness. Thoroughly wash the melons both inside and outside one more time and set aside until they are dry.
Meanwhile, while the bitter melons are salting, prepare the stuffing.
The potato needs to be diced into what the French would call a small dice. You could do a brunoise but then you would really have to be extraordinarily bored. (Crumble the paneer with your hands into tiny irregular pieces.)
Hurrah, meat-eaters! You have something over the granola's after all. You don't need to do anything. All the prep above is doing is simulating the texture of ground meat.
The onion also needs to be diced really fine. So the meat-eaters can't really escape from the prep after all. Welcome to the jungle, my friends!
(Since the CC promised short-cuts, you can just dice the potatoes and do a quick mash with a potato masher in the pot and let cook for an additional 6-7 minutes. However, not the same. Be aware, be strong!)
In a large shallow pot with a lid, fry the onions and green chillies till the onions are translucent. Add the first set of whole spices, and fry for about 30 seconds. Add the potatoes (or meat) and fry for about 6-7 minutes till it changes color. Add water and cover.
Let cook until done. It's different for different versions. At least 15 minutes for either one, and possibly a tad more for the vegetarian versions.
Uncover and let cook till it's relatively dry. Toss in the second set of spices and mix thoroughly.
Let the stuffed mixture cool down.
Stuff the bitter melons. (Try not to eat all the stuffing. You will attempt anyway. You will be hunted down like the animals that you are by your own families so beware!)
You can pre-prep this recipe upto this point and let the stuffed vegetables sit in your refrigerator for a few days.
In a shallow skillet with a lid that can hold all the bitter melons, heat up some oil. When it is shimmering add the stuffed bitter melons gently face-down and let them fry for about 7 minutes at medium-high heat. Turn them over gently with a pair of tongs and let them fry for an additional 4-5 minutes. Gently add about a cup of water and cover the lid. Let cook for about 10 minutes on a very low flame till they are completely tender.
Serve with some parathas and some raita.
Mostly it's used for carving stuff - you know, edible roses and stuffed cherry tomatoes. The kinda fussy stuff which the CC generally doesn't get to very often.
It originally came in a package set and has been gathering dust ever since.
The CC has finally found a very good use for it. It's perfect for de-seeding and de-pithing the inside of a bitter melon when you want to stuff it.
The stuffing for this recipe is from Kashmir. Specifically, it seems to be a relatively modern vegetarian adaptation of what must inevitably originally have been a Mughal meat dish.That it is a vegetarian response to the original marriage of Mongol and Persian traditions to Indian spices can hardly be in doubt. That it happens to feature the altogether New World potato means that it can be no more than 250-300 years old (long enough for the potato not only to cross the shores but enter into a routine upper middle-class vocabulary.) There's a variant that uses paneer which may be marginally older. (And then there are hybrids which are just the normal evolution of any dish.)
Even if you don't end up stuffing bitter melons, do make this recipe. It would be amazing stuffed in just about anything - peppers, tomatoes, zuccini, squash. It's all about the spices.
Several versions are presented below. Feel free to pick from any of them because the magic is in the texture and the spices. In fact, the CC guarantees that you will have to stop yourself from stuffing yourself just from the stuffing.
Just for full disclosure, this recipe is definitely "fussy" and time-consuming. Its origins clearly lie when emperors had armies of cooks from whence it filtered down into homes with cooks from whence it filtered down into regular homes where the wives stayed at home all day and were bored. It's not going to jive well with modern sensibilities but it made a lot of sense when the CC was cooped in all-day after a pesky little hurricane.
Q: What does he do when he's bored?
A: He stuffs fuckin' karela's.
E: Nice!
For the modern-day readers' convenience, short-cuts are suggested but you will definitely miss out on some of the textural element in the dish.
Ingredients8 bitter melons (prepared - read below)
Stuffing
1 large red onion
4 green chillies (finely diced)
Meat or Potatoes
3 large potatoes
or
2 potatoes
1 cup crumbled paneer
or
2 cups minced meat
Spice Mix 1 (Whole)
1 tbsp fennel seeds
2 tbsp nigella
2 tsp turmeric
2 tsp chilli powder
2 tsp dried ginger (substitute by fresh)
3 tbsp amchur (dried green mango powder)
Spice Mix 2 (Ground fine)
2 tbsp fennel seeds
1 tsp coriander seeds
2 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp black peppercorns
1 tbsp garam masala
1/2 tsp fenugreek seeds
Recipe
First prepare the bitter melons. You need to scrape them clean till they are pale green and look like naked dead skinned green mole rats. Using a very sharp paring knife, cut them length-wise gently making sure that you don't slice them down the middle. This is harder than you think because every once in a while you will encounter a hard seed. Have no fears! Jump over the seed and continue. The problem will fix itself.
Gently with your fingers separate it along the edges. Be careful of both ends. They have a tendency to break. Using the bird-beak knife (or your fingers), gently reach inside and start scraping away at the seeds and the pith. This will take a few tries but as it does you will notice that it becomes easier and easier. (This was a surprise to the CC!)
There are pesky seeds at either end of the length of the bitter melon every once in a while. It's quite tough but you can do it! They must be removed.
You will have eight stuffable bitter melons which you need to thoroughly rinse and set aside until they dry.
When dry, thoroughly salt the inside and the outside of the bitter melon. Set aside in a colander for at least an hour. At the end of the hour, you will notice that the bitter melon has turned very very soft and flexible because the salt has changed its celullar structure and drawn out quite a bit of the bitterness. Thoroughly wash the melons both inside and outside one more time and set aside until they are dry.
Meanwhile, while the bitter melons are salting, prepare the stuffing.
The potato needs to be diced into what the French would call a small dice. You could do a brunoise but then you would really have to be extraordinarily bored. (Crumble the paneer with your hands into tiny irregular pieces.)
Hurrah, meat-eaters! You have something over the granola's after all. You don't need to do anything. All the prep above is doing is simulating the texture of ground meat.
The onion also needs to be diced really fine. So the meat-eaters can't really escape from the prep after all. Welcome to the jungle, my friends!
(Since the CC promised short-cuts, you can just dice the potatoes and do a quick mash with a potato masher in the pot and let cook for an additional 6-7 minutes. However, not the same. Be aware, be strong!)
In a large shallow pot with a lid, fry the onions and green chillies till the onions are translucent. Add the first set of whole spices, and fry for about 30 seconds. Add the potatoes (or meat) and fry for about 6-7 minutes till it changes color. Add water and cover.
Let cook until done. It's different for different versions. At least 15 minutes for either one, and possibly a tad more for the vegetarian versions.
Uncover and let cook till it's relatively dry. Toss in the second set of spices and mix thoroughly.
Let the stuffed mixture cool down.
Stuff the bitter melons. (Try not to eat all the stuffing. You will attempt anyway. You will be hunted down like the animals that you are by your own families so beware!)
You can pre-prep this recipe upto this point and let the stuffed vegetables sit in your refrigerator for a few days.
In a shallow skillet with a lid that can hold all the bitter melons, heat up some oil. When it is shimmering add the stuffed bitter melons gently face-down and let them fry for about 7 minutes at medium-high heat. Turn them over gently with a pair of tongs and let them fry for an additional 4-5 minutes. Gently add about a cup of water and cover the lid. Let cook for about 10 minutes on a very low flame till they are completely tender.
Serve with some parathas and some raita.
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Baked Cod with Golden Roasted Potatoes & Thyme
The pairing of fish and thyme is a classic combination all over the Mediterranean. Paired with golden roasted potatoes and a salad, it's a simple superb dish.
If you're wondering if this is not just a variation of this, you'd be right. You can't invent new tricks all the time. This is nothing more than the combinatorial approach to cooking which is the proverbial housewife's savior everywhere from Japan to India to the Middle East and the Mediterranean.
The CC will have a lot more to say about this subject but that's for a later post.
Ingredients (serves 2)
1 large cod fillet.
6-8 small roasting potatoes
4-6 sprigs thyme
olive oil
sea salt
black pepper
Recipe
Preheat an oven to 375°F.
Toss the potatoes with olive oil, sea salt and black pepper. Roast them for 15 minutes. Pull them out and toss again carefully to make sure they don't stick to the bottom. Toss springs of thyme all over them. Roast for another 20 minutes.
Meanwhile season the cod fillet by rubbing it with olive oil. Season with sea salt, black pepper and thyme.
Pull the pan out of the oven. Push the potatatoes aside to one side of the pan. Place the cod fillet gently on the other side and roast for 10 more minutes. Don't overcook it.
A quick salad with a nice lemony-vinaigrette pairs really well with this dish. (The salad above has thinly cut radishes added to give it some crunch and textural complexity.)
If you're wondering if this is not just a variation of this, you'd be right. You can't invent new tricks all the time. This is nothing more than the combinatorial approach to cooking which is the proverbial housewife's savior everywhere from Japan to India to the Middle East and the Mediterranean.
The CC will have a lot more to say about this subject but that's for a later post.
Ingredients (serves 2)
1 large cod fillet.
6-8 small roasting potatoes
4-6 sprigs thyme
olive oil
sea salt
black pepper
Recipe
Preheat an oven to 375°F.
Toss the potatoes with olive oil, sea salt and black pepper. Roast them for 15 minutes. Pull them out and toss again carefully to make sure they don't stick to the bottom. Toss springs of thyme all over them. Roast for another 20 minutes.
Meanwhile season the cod fillet by rubbing it with olive oil. Season with sea salt, black pepper and thyme.
Pull the pan out of the oven. Push the potatatoes aside to one side of the pan. Place the cod fillet gently on the other side and roast for 10 more minutes. Don't overcook it.
A quick salad with a nice lemony-vinaigrette pairs really well with this dish. (The salad above has thinly cut radishes added to give it some crunch and textural complexity.)
Thursday, February 9, 2012
Hazelnut Crusted Cod with Roasted New Potatoes
One of the tricks that professional chefs have is to give thematic unity to a seemingly disparate ensemble.
The dish below is an example of that.
The cod has been crusted with a mixture of hazelnuts, breadcrumbs, thyme and lemon zest.
The potatoes have been roasted with harissa, olive oil and thyme.
The vinaigrette for the salad in the background is made with lemon juice, thyme and hazelnut oil.
As you can see there's a clear thematic element of lemon, hazelnuts and thyme running through the ensemble.
There is also a clear visual and methodic disparateness. Textures, colors, cooking methods all separate to provide interest but tied into an integrated whole at an underlying level.
The dish below is an example of that.
The cod has been crusted with a mixture of hazelnuts, breadcrumbs, thyme and lemon zest.The potatoes have been roasted with harissa, olive oil and thyme.
The vinaigrette for the salad in the background is made with lemon juice, thyme and hazelnut oil.
As you can see there's a clear thematic element of lemon, hazelnuts and thyme running through the ensemble.
There is also a clear visual and methodic disparateness. Textures, colors, cooking methods all separate to provide interest but tied into an integrated whole at an underlying level.
Monday, March 8, 2010
India Trip : Day 4 : Post 1
Eventually the CC had to go all "Anthony Bourdain" on you! You knew it was inevitable. Admit it!
Street food in all its gargantuan genius. The gaudy glittery glory of the glitzy gutters!
Eat your heart out, Ferran Adrià, you tarty little bitch! You'll never conquer this experience. You're just another Escoffier-whore and you know it!
Deep breath, CC, deep breath. Focus, focus, focus!
...
...
... and we're back.
You really had to be there but the short version is that if it's fried, it's filled with hit-me-back umami, and it's addictive, what more can you ask for?
We really need to put that on a bumper sticker.
The fried potatoes in the spicy mint sauce, and the same fried potatoes separately in chaat masala are to die for.
Wondrous cheek-bulging battles were forged while gulping gourmands greedily grabbed as much as they could gobble ("Hello?!? we can order more, goodly geniuses!")
Hyper-purists will note that there is a "big" difference between "Delhi chaat" and "Bombay chaat" (pictures of the latter will be posted at a future date.)
Whatevs, daaahlink!!! Let's cut through the crap.
Why pick one when you can have them all?
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Street food in all its gargantuan genius. The gaudy glittery glory of the glitzy gutters!
Eat your heart out, Ferran Adrià, you tarty little bitch! You'll never conquer this experience. You're just another Escoffier-whore and you know it!
Deep breath, CC, deep breath. Focus, focus, focus!
...
...
... and we're back.
You really had to be there but the short version is that if it's fried, it's filled with hit-me-back umami, and it's addictive, what more can you ask for?
We really need to put that on a bumper sticker.
The fried potatoes in the spicy mint sauce, and the same fried potatoes separately in chaat masala are to die for.
Wondrous cheek-bulging battles were forged while gulping gourmands greedily grabbed as much as they could gobble ("Hello?!? we can order more, goodly geniuses!")
Hyper-purists will note that there is a "big" difference between "Delhi chaat" and "Bombay chaat" (pictures of the latter will be posted at a future date.)
Whatevs, daaahlink!!! Let's cut through the crap.
Why pick one when you can have them all?
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Friday, October 9, 2009
Ragda Pattice
Most people know Mumbai (or Bombay) in connection to either Finance or Bollywood. What is less known is the sheer plethora of completely scrumplicious street food on display. You could spend months there just eating those alone.
This recipe here is one of those delights that make you want to slap your mom† in sheer glee!
Ragda Pattice (as traditionally spelt) clearly derived from Ragda Patties are fried mashed potato-disks (patties) topped with a lentil sauce (ragda) which you can then tailor to your taste by adding a variety of sauces - traditionally, at least three - a sweet-sour date-tamarind chutney, a cilantro chutney, and a fiery mint sauce. Also, the Indian love of raw onions mixed with lime and cilantro means these are added on top.
There is nothing subtle about this recipe. Both the date-tamarind chutney and the mint one have one of those over-the-top "hit-me-again" tastes.
The long list of ingredients and sauces may put you off but this is better suited to a party where the guests can mix-n-match whatever toppings they like for themselves.
You might see minor variations of this recipe on the web but if you see a recipe that calls for yogurt, it is bogus!
Clearly those people have never been to Mumbai. Yogurt in this dish is akin to mayonnaise in traditional Chinese food - an act of heresy which should be followed up by actually slapping that person's mom!
† just an expression, folks!
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Ragda
Ingredients
2 cups vatana (dried peas)
1 onion
1 piece ginger
3 green chillies
1/2 tbsp ground coriander seeds
1/2 tbsp ground cumin seeds
1 tbsp garam masala
2 tbsp amchur (ground mango powder)
1 tsp ground red chilli powder
1 tsp turmeric powder
salt (to taste)
Recipe
Soak the dried peas overnight. Cook in a pressure cooker or in 6-8 cups water until tender but not mushy.
Chop the onions, ginger, garlic in a food processor. Heat some oil, and fry the lot. Add the cooked dried peas along with the ground cumin-coriander mixture, and the chilli powder and the turmeric. Add some water if necessary. The mixture should just be slightly sloppy. Towards the end add the garam masala and the amchur.
You can cook this ahead of time. It actually improves overnight.
Patties
Ingredients
4 potatoes
salt
Recipe
Boil the potatoes in salted water. Peel and mash. Mix with your hands to get a smooth-ish mixture. Do NOT add extra water. The mixture should be shapeable by hand.
Make into disks and pan-fry. The CC has also had great success with brushing them with oil on both sides and baking them in a 450°F oven for 45 minutes, flipping them half-way. (The latter method is clearly the scalable one!)
A modest advice to the baking-kind. Poke a few fork-pricks in the patties to release moisture. That's what frying does. Nobody will notice the pricks but the lot will cook faster. (Shocking how basic science manifests itself in food!)
Date-Tamarind Chutney
Ingredients
6 tamarind pods (de-seeded)
12-14 dates (coarsely chopped)
1 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp ground red chilli powder
1 tsp black salt (kala namak)
Recipe
The black salt is absolutely indispensable. Without it, you will simply not get the tang that is this chutney!
Blend all the stuff with water in a blender into a sauce which is easily pourable. Use less water initially; you can always dilute it later.
This is also the only one of the three chutneys that can be successfully frozen to no detriment.
Cilantro Chutney
Ingredients
2 bunches cilantro
4 green chillies
1/4 cup peanuts
salt
Recipe
Blend in a blender.
Mint Chutney
Ingredients
2 cups mint
8 green chillies
1/8 cup peanuts
salt
Recipe
Blend in a blender. This chutney is noticeably thinner than the previous one. Also, packs a lot more fiery punch!
Onion Mixture
Ingredients
1 red onion (finely diced)
2 limes juiced
1/4 cup finely chopped cilantro
salt
Recipe
Mix. What else?
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This recipe here is one of those delights that make you want to slap your mom† in sheer glee!
Ragda Pattice (as traditionally spelt) clearly derived from Ragda Patties are fried mashed potato-disks (patties) topped with a lentil sauce (ragda) which you can then tailor to your taste by adding a variety of sauces - traditionally, at least three - a sweet-sour date-tamarind chutney, a cilantro chutney, and a fiery mint sauce. Also, the Indian love of raw onions mixed with lime and cilantro means these are added on top.
There is nothing subtle about this recipe. Both the date-tamarind chutney and the mint one have one of those over-the-top "hit-me-again" tastes.
The long list of ingredients and sauces may put you off but this is better suited to a party where the guests can mix-n-match whatever toppings they like for themselves.
You might see minor variations of this recipe on the web but if you see a recipe that calls for yogurt, it is bogus!
Clearly those people have never been to Mumbai. Yogurt in this dish is akin to mayonnaise in traditional Chinese food - an act of heresy which should be followed up by actually slapping that person's mom!
† just an expression, folks!
.jpg)
RagdaIngredients
2 cups vatana (dried peas)
1 onion
1 piece ginger
3 green chillies
1/2 tbsp ground coriander seeds
1/2 tbsp ground cumin seeds
1 tbsp garam masala
2 tbsp amchur (ground mango powder)
1 tsp ground red chilli powder
1 tsp turmeric powder
salt (to taste)
Recipe
Soak the dried peas overnight. Cook in a pressure cooker or in 6-8 cups water until tender but not mushy.
Chop the onions, ginger, garlic in a food processor. Heat some oil, and fry the lot. Add the cooked dried peas along with the ground cumin-coriander mixture, and the chilli powder and the turmeric. Add some water if necessary. The mixture should just be slightly sloppy. Towards the end add the garam masala and the amchur.
You can cook this ahead of time. It actually improves overnight.
Patties
Ingredients
4 potatoes
salt
Recipe
Boil the potatoes in salted water. Peel and mash. Mix with your hands to get a smooth-ish mixture. Do NOT add extra water. The mixture should be shapeable by hand.
Make into disks and pan-fry. The CC has also had great success with brushing them with oil on both sides and baking them in a 450°F oven for 45 minutes, flipping them half-way. (The latter method is clearly the scalable one!)
A modest advice to the baking-kind. Poke a few fork-pricks in the patties to release moisture. That's what frying does. Nobody will notice the pricks but the lot will cook faster. (Shocking how basic science manifests itself in food!)
Date-Tamarind Chutney
Ingredients
6 tamarind pods (de-seeded)
12-14 dates (coarsely chopped)
1 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp ground red chilli powder
1 tsp black salt (kala namak)
Recipe
The black salt is absolutely indispensable. Without it, you will simply not get the tang that is this chutney!
Blend all the stuff with water in a blender into a sauce which is easily pourable. Use less water initially; you can always dilute it later.
This is also the only one of the three chutneys that can be successfully frozen to no detriment.
Cilantro Chutney
Ingredients
2 bunches cilantro
4 green chillies
1/4 cup peanuts
salt
Recipe
Blend in a blender.
Mint Chutney
Ingredients
2 cups mint
8 green chillies
1/8 cup peanuts
salt
Recipe
Blend in a blender. This chutney is noticeably thinner than the previous one. Also, packs a lot more fiery punch!
Onion Mixture
Ingredients
1 red onion (finely diced)
2 limes juiced
1/4 cup finely chopped cilantro
salt
Recipe
Mix. What else?
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Saturday, March 14, 2009
Hash Browns and Scrambled Eggs
There is only one trick to making successful hash browns. You need extraordinarily dry potatoes where the cells are broken to remove the moisture.
To that end, you must first grate the potatoes and then wash them (to remove surface starch.) Then you need to squeeze them until they are dry. Then place them between towels, and squeeze them with a rolling pin to squeeze out even more liquid. Then squeeze them again.
Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze. Then, squeeze some more!
Then put them in a very hot skillet with oil and fry. Spread them in an extraordinarily thin layer, and press periodically with a spatula. Only if they are really dry, are you going to be able to do the successful "omelette" flip.
(For less dexterous people, slide it onto a plate, invert onto another plate and slide it back into the hot skillet. This is safe, efficient and guaranteed to succeed.)
For instructions on scrambled eggs, read here.
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To that end, you must first grate the potatoes and then wash them (to remove surface starch.) Then you need to squeeze them until they are dry. Then place them between towels, and squeeze them with a rolling pin to squeeze out even more liquid. Then squeeze them again.
Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze. Then, squeeze some more!
Then put them in a very hot skillet with oil and fry. Spread them in an extraordinarily thin layer, and press periodically with a spatula. Only if they are really dry, are you going to be able to do the successful "omelette" flip.
(For less dexterous people, slide it onto a plate, invert onto another plate and slide it back into the hot skillet. This is safe, efficient and guaranteed to succeed.)
For instructions on scrambled eggs, read here.
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Monday, May 12, 2008
Aloo Palak
This is really one of your pan-Indian classics. What makes it "regional" is the varying spices they use, and even the varying underlying frying fat they use.
In this presentation, we are going to do better than your average Indian mamma, and use classic Italian technique to turn a two-pot double-frying fiddly-mom-dish into a single potter without sacrificing absolutely anything.
At the heart of it is a rather simple idea (although the implementation may be complex.) In order to get flavor, you need to let vegetables fry first, and then boil/steam later. The point is that once you get even a reasonable amount of water in the dish, you are no longer frying but steaming/boiling so you really need to control the amount of moisture so that the stuff is actually frying not making the transition into boiling.
Everyone still with me?
Hoo-kay, onwards and upwards.
This is not one of those fiddly dishes. For some bizarre reason, what goes below is loved by adults and children, most likely for different reasons. This is what Indian mammas cook up when they are bored, or possibly when they are shtupping their boyfriends. Then they claim they made it because it's good for you (which it is.)
Whatever. Either way. Basic but delightful.
Ingredients
3 large potatoes (cubed)
2 bunches spinach (blanched, squeezed, diced fine)
1 large onion (diced fine)
1" ginger
4-5 Thai green chillies
3 cloves garlic
1 tbsp cumin
oil
salt (to taste)
Recipe
Grind the ginger, garlic, green chillies into a paste. Try and use as little water as possible.
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First fry the onions.
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Then fry the ginger-garlic-green-chilli paste. Toss in the cumin (not shown) towards the end.
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Then fry the potatoes. This will try your patience big time. It takes bleedin' forever, and it tries everyone's patience. Learn how to deal.
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Finally the spinach. You need to fry it for a while. If you plan to use frozen spinach, please read this note first.
When you are bored out of your skull, which you will be, add the water, and let it cook until the potatoes are tender (at least 10-12 minutes.)
.jpg)
Aloo palak
In this presentation, we are going to do better than your average Indian mamma, and use classic Italian technique to turn a two-pot double-frying fiddly-mom-dish into a single potter without sacrificing absolutely anything.
At the heart of it is a rather simple idea (although the implementation may be complex.) In order to get flavor, you need to let vegetables fry first, and then boil/steam later. The point is that once you get even a reasonable amount of water in the dish, you are no longer frying but steaming/boiling so you really need to control the amount of moisture so that the stuff is actually frying not making the transition into boiling.
Everyone still with me?
Hoo-kay, onwards and upwards.
This is not one of those fiddly dishes. For some bizarre reason, what goes below is loved by adults and children, most likely for different reasons. This is what Indian mammas cook up when they are bored, or possibly when they are shtupping their boyfriends. Then they claim they made it because it's good for you (which it is.)
Whatever. Either way. Basic but delightful.
Ingredients
3 large potatoes (cubed)
2 bunches spinach (blanched, squeezed, diced fine)
1 large onion (diced fine)
1" ginger
4-5 Thai green chillies
3 cloves garlic
1 tbsp cumin
oil
salt (to taste)
Recipe
Grind the ginger, garlic, green chillies into a paste. Try and use as little water as possible.
.jpg)
First fry the onions..jpg)
Then fry the ginger-garlic-green-chilli paste. Toss in the cumin (not shown) towards the end..jpg)
Then fry the potatoes. This will try your patience big time. It takes bleedin' forever, and it tries everyone's patience. Learn how to deal..jpg)
Finally the spinach. You need to fry it for a while. If you plan to use frozen spinach, please read this note first.When you are bored out of your skull, which you will be, add the water, and let it cook until the potatoes are tender (at least 10-12 minutes.)
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