Spirit of Halloween Past

These are from a past Halloween but they were all laced with "surprises" so you might just bite into something that is too salty, or too sour, or too spicy. You pays no money and yet you takes your chances.

Needless to say, people didn't like the "surprises".

These were the "normal" ones but the CC couldn't resist hiding a buncha "surprises" in this batch as well.

Yeah, the CC is evil!

Ravioli with Walnut-Garlic Pesto

Years ago, the CC had made the walnut sauce from another cookbook (which he will not reveal) and he was all, like, "what's the fuss about? this sucks!"

Turns out if you skip a few key steps, and a few key ingredients, the thing sucks. Well, who could've guessed that, right?

Many many many moons later, the CC decided to revisit this Ligurian classic from a different recipe (which involves a teeny-tiny bit more work and features a lot more ingredients,) and he's in love!

Ingredients

1 cup walnuts
2 cloves garlic (chopped)
1 cup grated parmigiano-reggiano
1/2 cup stale bread

salt
black pepper

Recipe

Pour boiling water over the walnuts. Yep, this is the key step actually. Soak for 30 minutes.

Fish the walnuts out. Soak the bread in the walnut liquid until soft.

Blend the walnuts, parm, garlic, bread, salt and pepper to a smooth sauce. You can add more of the walnut liquid to get the thing going.

PS :- The dish about clearly has chopped parsley and black pepper but there's nothing more there. Full disclosure, folks, full disclosure!

Vinaigrette of the Gods

Three simple things - fig vinegar, hazelnut oil, and kala namak (Indian black salt.)

Yes, yes, you can thank the CC later!

Taste of India

Some of the choices are questionable, and there are notable omissions but that is inevitable given the format. Not bad overall. Worth debating about.

(Source: FoaFoaF = "friend of a friend of a friend". If somebody provides accurate attribution rights, the CC will be happy to.)

Scrambled Eggs with Tarragon

When hunger beckons, and speed is at a premium - eggs, tomato paste, tarragon, salt and pepper, scrambled, and served over sourdough toast.

Frozen Elegance

Frozen Food (with String Beans) 1977.
Irving Penn is better known for his fashion photography but never before has frozen food looked so elegant. It almost makes you want to eat it.

Pasta with Butternut Squash, Sage and Pine Nuts

This utterly simple dish is dazzling array of textures and of tastes, and yet is so beguilingly easy that can easily be made at a moment's notice.

Interestingly, as my dinner companion pointed out the dish follows all the aesthetic and culinary rules of Japanese washoku inspite of the fact that the dish is Italian, of course. The rules of go shiki (five colors) and go mi (five tastes) and go ho (five ways = different methods) are effortlessly satisfied.

It's success is precisely that it's visually arresting (Toulouse-Lautrec might be jealous) and texturally and tastewise different with every bite.

Ingredients

1 large red onion
2-3 cloves garlic (chopped into thin segments)
4-5 dried red chillies
1 butternut squash (diced into large-ish cubes)
salt
black pepper
1/4 cup sage (chiffonaded)
1/2 cup pine nuts
olive oil

2 cups pasta
grated parmigiano-reggiano

Recipe

Toast the pine nuts in a skillet. Set aside.

In a pot, heat some olive oil at a medium-low heat. Fry the onion, garlic and red chillies. Do not hurry this process. When the onions are limp but not caramelized, they will rerelease the oil they have absorbed. Add the butternut squash and fry languidly. Add the salt, and liberal amounts of black pepper.

Add some water, and cover and let the squash soften. The mixture should be just slightly on the wet side.

Cook some pasta al dente in heavily-salted water.

When the pasta is done, add the sage to the squash mixture, and toss with the pasta.

Add the parmigiano-reggiano and the toasted pine nuts as toppings.

Chilli Corn Toast

Well, the CC's been getting a cornucopia (sic) of freshly-picked corn courtesy of a late summer blast.

The CC decided to turn it into an old childhood favorite that his mom probably picked up from some magazine. It's a perfect dish for hors d'oeuvres or along with a salad and a glass of wine, a light dinner.

Guaranteed to please children of all ages!

Ingredients

4 ears corn (shucked)
1/2 cup milk
4 tbsp corn flour
butter
6-8 Thai green chillies
salt
black pepper

bread (for the toast)

Recipe

The idea is to make a béchamel using the corn flour instead of regular flour. Add the chillies and the corn. Let it cook. Crush the corn lightly.

Toast some bread lightly; spread the mixture over it, and pop in the oven at 375°F for 20 mins or so.

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!

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?

The "other" L-O-V-E

(Site: Willets-ramp entrance to Flushing Meadows.)

Sane Snail Advice

From Jane Grigson's book Good Things:

If you are likely to eat stuffed snails regularly, it's worth investing in snail tongs and forks (as well as in snail plates.) One can manage quite efficiently, though, with a pile of paper napkins, and a set of needles stuck into corks.

Now that's the kinda practical advice that the CC loves rather than the modern purveyors of flim-flam devices!

Yumurtali Ispanak

This classic Turkish breakfast dish consists of spinach and eggs.

The eggs are not quite fried, and not quite poached, and not quite baked sur le plat. It's somewhere between all three. However, it's really easy to make and was a sleeper hit at today's Sunday brunch.

The CC served the dish over toasted sourdough (as seen below.)

A note about the sumac. This dish is simply not the same without it!

Borrowing an expression from The Big Lebowski, "it ties the dish together".

Ingredients

3-4 eggs
1 red onion (finely diced)
2 bunches spinach (chopped loosely)
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
1/2 tsp cumin (ground)
1/2 tsp whole black pepper (ground)
1 tbsp tomato paste

1 tsp ground sumac

olive oil
sea salt

Recipe

Fry the onions in olive oil at a low heat. Add the pepper flakes, cumin, black pepper and salt. Add the tomato paste and fry. Finally add the chopped spinach.

The spinach will release water. Keep frying it till it is wilted and turns dark green. Separate out spaces to crack the eggs. Crack one egg in each space.

Cover the pan and cook until done. The CC likes his eggs mollet which took 3 minutes.

Sprinkle the ground sumac over the eggs when serving.

Mushroom Ravioli in Corn Sauce

A year ago, the CC ate a corn agnolotti in a corn reduction at a fancy restaurant at the height of summer. The dish simply blew him away. The sauce had a silky-smooth mouth feel, and the essence of the concentrated corn flavor sang the song of summer.

Clearly, this was a recipe worth emulating!

So this summer, the CC finally got his hands on some excellent just-picked-that-morning corn (we've had a late summer here!) Naturally, reproducing the recipe was on the cards.

Well, the CC wasn't going to attempt the corn agnolotti. One may experiment but one should have a full understanding of one's own limitations. So the mushroom ravioli came from Raffetto's.

Oh, and how did the reproduction go?

Well, gentle reader, if it had gone badly, the CC would hardly have blogged about it, would he?

It's like the rules of a slasher movie where the heroine must be in danger, or a WWII movie with fighter planes going down in flames. There is just no escaping the conventions of the genre.

Corn Sauce

Ingredients

8 ears corn
1 large red onion (diced)
2 cloves garlic (chopped coarsely)
8 sprigs thyme

corn flour
sea salt
black pepper (lots!)

basil

Recipe

The recipe has multiple stages but they are pretty easy.

Shuck the corn kernels but reserve the corn stalks. Split them into two or three pieces each.

Fry the onions and garlic at medium low heat. When they are sufficiently limp but not colored, add the corn stalks and fry. Add 2/3-rds of the corn kernels, salt, lots and lots of black pepper, the thyme. Add about 6 cups of water.

Bring to a boil. Simmer at low heat for 25-30 minutes. Fish out the thyme (it's easier if you tie the thyme in a bundle using kitchen twine.)

Blend the mixture. Pass through a fine sieve (this is the hardest part but it's totally necessary to get that silky mouth feel.)

Bring the mixture to a low boil. Add the rest of the corn kernels. Reduce for about 10 minutes. Towards the end, whisk in some corn flour to get a smooth unctuous sauce.

Toss in the basil right before serving.

Slicing Sandwiches

Everyone claims that sandwiches taste the same way whether cut in half or on the diagonal but anyone with taste knows the "truth" - that diagonal-cut ones taste better!

To all that have struggled with this (and you know who you are!) you are not alone.

The CC is with you!

Ratatouille

Ratatouille over Couscous

Haitian Meal

The CC had been hankering for a Haitian meal and he received a ton of the right veggies courtesy of a friend's CSA so he decided to go all out and prepare a Haitian meal.

He had some vegetarian friends over for dinner so the beef was substituted by tempeh (the only reasonable thing that can stand up to a long marinade, and long cooking times without falling apart.)

Corn Fritters with Pikliz
Rice & Beans
Tempeh in Creole Sauce
(Source: Fine Haitian Cuisine by Mona Cassion Ménager.)

Beef in Creole Sauce

Ingredients

2 pounds beef (rump pot roast, sirloin tip or any beef cut suitable for braising)
1 bitter orange, or 2 lemons + 1 orange
1 1/2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 habanero chile
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
pinch of ground cloves
1 tbsp chopped chives
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup white onion shavings
1/4 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf pasley
1 sprig of thyme
5 garlic cloves, peeled, and crushed
1 tbsp tomato paste diluted in 1 cup boiled water
4 cups boiled water
1 sliced white onion (for sauce)
1 sliced bell pepper (for sauce)

Recipe

Trim excess fat from beef. Cut meat crosswise into six fairly equal pieces. Rub meat with bitter orange. Rinse quickly with very hot water. Drain carefully. Put meat in a bowl and coat with orange juice, vinegar, chile, black pepper, cloves, chives, salt, onion, parsley, and thyme. Cover with plastic wrap, and marinate in a cool place for 30 minutes to 1 hour in the refrigerator or overnight.

Heat 2 tablespoons oil in a heavy lidded 5-quart pan over high setting. Reserving marinade, add meat, and saute until beginning to brown, about 10 minutes. Add marinade, reduce heat to medium, cover, and cook until juice thickens, about 10 to 12 minutes.

Meanwhile, heat remaining oil in a 3-quart heavy pan over medium high setting. Add garlic and sautee for 1 minute. Add diluted tomato paste and boil uncovered until all liquid evaporates, 15 to 20 minutes. Stir-fry for about 1 minute. Add 3 cups of boiled water to tomato paste, mix well, and pour it over meat. Cover and cook until all liquid evaporates, about 45 minutes. The sauce should be thick. Remove meat and chile from the sauce. Season sauce with additional salt and pepper if desired. Add 1 cup of boiled water to the sauce, and stir in. Add meat and reserved chile. Reduce, uncovered, over medium heat until sauce thickens, about 5 to 7 minutes. Add onion and bell pepper slices during the last minute. Discard chile. Serve hot.

Rice and Beans

Ingredients

1/2 cup red kidney beans (soaked)
1/4 heaped tsp ground black pepper
1/4 tsp ground cloves
3 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
1 tbsp minced chives
1/2 cup white onion (finely diced)
1/2 cup shallots (finely diced)
1 habanero chile
1/4 cup red bell pepper (diced)
2 bouillon cubes
1/4 tsp ground cayenne pepper
3 cups bean cooking liquid (read below)
2-3 sprigs thyme
1 sprig parsley
2 cups long-grain rice

Recipe

Wash the beans, and bring to boil with 8 cups of water. Cover, and cook over medium heat with the lid ajar until the beans are cooked through, 45 minutes to 1 hour. The beans should hold their shape. Drain but reserve the cooking liquid.

Heat 2 tsp oil in a heavy pan, over medium heat. Add the beans and sauté until the beans are crispy about 7 minutes. Add black pepper and the cloves at the last minute. Set aside.

Heat 2 tsp oil in the same pan over medium heat. Add the garlic and sauté till slightly golden. Add the onion, shallots, chile, chives and diced red bell pepper and sauté for 3-5 minutes. Add the rice and fry to coat with the oil. Add the bouillon cubes, cayenne pepper, thyme, salt and parsley along with the 3 cups of cooking liquid and the reserved beans.

Cook till the rice is done. (You may need to add additional cooking liquid or water.)

Roasted Summer Vegetables with Rosemary

Served on a bed of Israeli couscous with a dash of tartness added by a splash of vinegar.

Mushroom Barley Risotto with Late Summer Vegetables

Practical Lessons for Urban Herbs

As the CC has mentioned, he acquired a ton of them.

At the end of this summer, more than half have died. The survivors are mint, rosemary, basil and sage.

Now, admittedly, this has been the worst summer on record in terms of sunlight but still...

Clearly, the CC's skills do not extend to plants and their maintenance!

We shall see how many make it through the winter. The CC is not optimistic.

Still, there are lessons to be learnt and there's always next year. Here's what the CC has learnt so far:

1. Replanting is a skill. You need to pack the dirt just tight enough to transmit water to the roots but not so tight as to inhibit them. (This was the CC's biggest mistake!)
   
   
2. Don't buy plants at the farmers' market early in the season. Yes, the CC knows you are chomping at the bit but what is good in an open field simply isn't good enough in an apartment or even a terrace. Wait. Get robust herbs and you will get robust urban herbs.
   
   
3. Houseplants in summer need a little more water than is expected. Whether it's the urban concrete jungle or what, the CC doesn't know but it's true. Conversely, they need a lot less water when it's cooler. So you need to turn into a lean, mean, weather machine.

Omnivore

Something about growing plants and snipping parts off them appeals to both my inner carnivore and my inner vegetarian!