Roasted Curry Cauliflower Soup

The CC's mom used to make a cauliflower soup when he was growing up. He always felt that there was something missing. The soup was too boring and bland.

Of course, it wasn't the spices that were missing but Maestro Maillard.

The soup here takes longer to make(you don't have to do anything; you can lay back and drink your martini) but the results speak for themselves.

Ingredients

1 head cauliflower (cut into florets)
1 large red onion

1 1/2 tsp curry powder

olive oil
sea salt
black pepper


Recipe

Preheat the oven to 450°F. Toss the cauliflower with olive oil, sea salt and plenty of black pepper. Roast for 25-30 minutes until it is lightly brown.

Fry the onions at medium low heat until they are softened. Add the roasted cauliflower, and the curry powder and fry for a minute or two. Add the water, and let it come to a boil. Skim if necessary.

Blend the mixture, and pass through a sieve. Reheat if needed.

Everybody loves bacon

You can buy a bacon air freshener. Nope, the CC is not making this up.

Cauliflower Gratin

Easy peasy shouldn't make anyone queasy.

Delightful with a salad as a complete meal.

Ingredients

1 large cauliflower (cut into florets; read below)

1.5 cups béchamel sauce

1 cup grated gruyère
1 cup grated parmigiano-reggiano

nutmeg
sea salt
black pepper

breadcrumbs


Recipe

Blanch the cauliflower florets really quickly in hot salted water for no more than 3 mins, and immediately dunk in cold water to cool off. Let it drain.

Take some of the stalks of the cauliflower and put them in your food processor to get a crumbly mixture. (Alternately, just grate them with a box grater.)

Meanwhile, prepare the béchamel sauce.

Mix the cauliflower florets, cauliflower crumbs, the sauce, the cheeses, salt, pepper and nutmeg in an ovenproof dish. Top with the breadcrumbs.

Bake uncovered in a 375°F oven for roughly 20-25 mins until the top browns nicely. (The time will vary depending on the shape of your dish, and the consistency of your sauce.)

Spelt Crackers

In these trying times, when it's harder to stretch the dough further and further^†, it helps to learn how to do things from scratch rather than going completely crackers^‡.

Particularly when party times beckon over the holidays.

They have a very rich wheaty flavor that can stand up to strong cheeses. You'll never go back to the commercial kind after you make these.

Of course, the CC being the CC made these into an assembly line with different toppings. You can whip up a batch for 40 people in less than 2 hours if you get your CC-Rhythm™ going.

Cost: roughly $1 for 40 crackers.

(Hat tip: Smitten Kitchen who got it from the New York Times Magazine.)

† Pun intended. Spelt flour is low in gluten.

‡ Sorry!

Ingredients

1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups spelt flour
1 cup water

coarse sea salt
"stuff" for toppings (kalonji, poppy seeds, sesame seeds, etc.)

Recipe

Preheat the oven to 350°F.

Dissolve the salt in 1/2 cup water. Add the spelt flour and knead until a ball forms.

Roll the dough out on a cookie sheet into a 12"x17" square. Use a little flour to prevent it from sticking. Try and make it as thin as possible without breaking it.

Spray water all over the dough for a glossy finish. Add the coarse sea salt, and the toppings, and lightly press down with the rolling pin to secure it.

Prick all over with a fork. Score into cracker size segments with a knife to break it easily.

Bake it until it is golden (15-25 mins.) Check after 10 mins to make sure it doesn't burn.

Cool. Break apart. Store in a dry cool place.

Dinner, Brunch and Dinner

Sour panchratna daal
♥
Paneer mutter
♥
Sukke (with long beans)
♥
Parathas (not shown)
Coconut chutney
♥
Sambaar
♥
Idli
Paneer mutter
♥
Saffron pulao

Chives

The smallest member of the onion family, and among the mildest, they have a very mild onion/garlic flavor.

When finely chopped, they shine as a topping on soups as well as in other contexts where a mild oniony flavor is desirable.

They are easy to grow indoors, and can be frozen without any harm to the flavor.

On a practical level, the CC would like to point out that you need far more than you think. In spite of years and years of experience, the CC always ends up chopping far fewer than needed.

Zucchini Gratin with Tomato and Marjoram

It's a little late in the season for zucchini but New York has been having unseasonably warm weather (at least when the article was written), and the CC found excellent zucchini at the farmers' market.

When asked about the presence of such zucchini, the farmer merely grunted, "Greenhouse."

A few days later when the CC was trying to scramble up something to eat, he thought about making one of the usual zucchini dishes but then he decided to consult Marcella Hazan on a whim.

And lo and behold, she rode to the rescue as she is always wont to.

You need to make a tomato sauce for this but just this once as luck would have it, the CC had some leftover in the fridge (from a completely disastrous culinary attempt which will not be revealed.)

What the CC adores about Marcella is that her recipes always succeed. She should be beatified.

Ingredients

2 large zucchini
1 tbsp garlic

1 cup tomato sauce
1/4 tsp marjoram
4 tbsp Italian parsley (finely chopped)

parmigiano-reggiano (very coarsely grated)

olive oil
black pepper

breadcrumbs

Recipe

The trick here is simple. You first fry the garlic and the zucchini to get the Maillard going. Cook until they are slightly limp. Take them off the heat.

Mix the tomato sauce with the marjoram, parsley, and plenty of black pepper.

Then, layer zucchini/sauce/cheese/zucchini/cheese/breadcrumbs in a oven-proof gratin dish.

Please note that the garlic doesn't show up in the final dish although a slight memory of its taste certainly does.

Bake at 400°F uncovered for 15-20 mins.

Zucchini Gratin

Breadcrumbs

The CC cannot believe that he is writing a blog entry on this subject but given that the culinary arts reach new lows daily, this is a much needed rant.

Good breadcrumbs are necessary for many dishes.

What makes them good? Well, if you don't like to eat them as is, they are not good. It's as simple as that. They should also preferably be relatively uniform in size (although opinions differ on this subject for a good reason.)

So what's the solution you ask?

Find a nearby baker that makes "naturally-leavened" bread. Most of y'all in urban or semi-urban areas should have no trouble finding one. Get a baguette or a ciabatta, cut it up, and let the pieces dry out for 4-5 days. The pieces will be hard as rocks when they are done. (If they are thinly sliced, they will dry faster.)

There is complex science involved in why this works only with "naturally-leavened" stuff but that's for another post.

Grind the stuff using a food processor, and sieve it. The last crumbs should be passed through a coffee grinder (which grinds finer) and sieved again. (The CC needs to wear earplugs for both steps because it is so loud.)

The stuff will store indefinitely in a tight container. Yeah, you heard that right. Indefinitely.

You will never go back to the commercial crap again.

Is this so hard?

Comprehensive Comprehension Failure

Zucchini, Onion and Rosemary Frittata

The basics of a frittata are explained here.

The recipe is obvious so here's a picture instead:

Béchamel Sauce

This is your basic white sauce in fancy French terms. It's shockingly easy to make so it's a bit of a surprise why people can't seem to make it right.

In the classification scheme, it would be (S + (W/S))/W.

Like all French sauces, reheating is not really an option so you have to make it, and use it although this one is a little more resilient than others.

Ingredients

1 tbsp butter
2-3 tbsp flour
1 cup milk

salt
flavorings

Recipe

Set the milk to boil in one pan. When it nears boiling, shut it off. You want hot milk not boiling milk. (Or you can just nuke it in a measuring cup like the CC.)

In another pan, melt the butter at a medium low heat. Add the flour, and let it fry. Do not let it burn. When it is light golden, add the hot milk slowly while whisking continuously. Crush any lumps against the sides. Let the sauce thicken to desired consistency.

At this point, you can salt it without fear of the milk curdling, and add whatever flavorings you are going to use with the sauce.

Gaeng dtai plaa

Made with fermented fish innards (not kidneys as Pam states), the CC gorged on what is reputed to be one of the hottest Thai dishes.

The waitress opined, "You sure you want this? It's too hot for me."

It's filled with fresh peppercorns, gkapi, long beans, Thai eggplants, bamboo shoots, etc.

Well then, don't just sit there? Tell us how it tasted!

It fuckin' kicked ass is what it did! End of story.

Gratin

The gratin (fr: crust) is a classic of French bourgeois cooking. It is a casserole-style dish that is typically made with some ingredient, and béchamel sauce (sometimes Mornay sauce which is béchamel plus gruyère and parmesan), and/or grated cheese and typically with breadcrumbs on top, baked to a finish with a golden crust.

It should really be regarded as a technique or a meta-recipe rather than a specific recipe even though the words au gratin have entered English as a synonym for au gratin dauphinois (potato gratin.)

This is a sensationally easy dish after you've mastered the art of making béchamel which the CC assures you is really rather easy.

Celeriac

Also, known as "celery root", this is a root vegetable with a strong celery flavor.

Bit of work to prep (sorta like peeling ginger) but it's really tasty.

Watch this space for recipes.

Arugula, Walnut, Orange and Feta Salad

You may make substitutions but please respect the perfect blend of sweet, salty, sour and bitter, and the textural variation.

Ingredients

2 cups arugula (washed)
1 orange (peeled, diced into half-slices)
1 cup walnuts (roasted)
1 red onion (sliced very thin into semi-rounds)

feta (crumbled)

1 orange (juiced)
1/8 cup olive oil
1/16 cup balsamic vinegar
black pepper

Recipe

Whip the juice, balsamic vinegar, olive oil and black pepper into a vinaigrette. (You don't need salt because the feta is salty enough.)

Mix together. Serve.