Odd and Ends, or Primavera di Estate

Sometimes, what you have on hand is enough. In this case, quickly grilling some languishing zucchini and peppers while the farfalle pasta boiled up, and tossing with fresh herbs, a diced tomato, garlic and olives. And, just like that, dinner is ready.


I love it when thing work so simply, and so well.

Little Jerks

I can seldom resist the temptation to tamper with a recipe, even when it's one as delicious -sounding as Templar's Jamaican Beef Patties. In my defence, the only thing that persuaded me to vary the recipe was the knowledge that, lurking in the depths of my freezer, were some little containers of Palle's wonderful homemade jerk sauce, carefully saved from the last Caribbean dinner we had. How could I resist? Much of the seasoning in the recipe immediately fell aside as I gleefully poured about a cup of reserved jerk sauce into the beef and onion mixture. I did add a fresh jalapeno, as well - so between the habaneros in the jerk and the whole (seeds and all) jalapeno that I blitzed with the bread crumbs, there's a certain spicy quality about them that would probably seriously harm some of my more heat-wary friends.

I made a half-batch, as I only had one pound of ground beef at hand, so I also halved the dough recipe, whirring it up in my food processor in almost no time. I did use a little less water than called for - I always like to go a bit scant on the liquid, to prevent toughness. I've never used the processor to make pastry before, and I was quite impressed with the results. Tender, even a little flaky. Viva la "pulse" function!

I divided the dough into twelve pieces, and rolled each out out to roughly hand-sized, as directed. The dough is full of curry powder, giving it a lovely flecked appearance and a yellow hue from the turmeric (the latest and greatest cancer-fighting food, you know). It does take a bit of time to roll out a dozen pastries - thirteen, all told, when I re-rolled the cut scraps into an extra, slightly large patty. I was glad that the dough took so little effort to make, since the rolling took longer than I had thought. Each patty is about the size of a samosa, excluding the last one, which is more along the size of the ones you can buy from shops in this neck of the woods. I had a little filling left over, since I didn't want to risk exploding pastries, and that has been tucked into the fridge to be made into a feisty pasta sauce later in the week.

The proof is in the tasting, of course, at the end of it. Happily, they were delicious! I will have to make them again, of course, using the proper seasonings - just to see how they turn out. But I was happy to have a couple for dinner, and I plan to freeze any that don't get wolfed down in the next day or two. I've just added a new entry into my collection of freezer treasures - little homemade gems that are an absolute delight to pull out when one is short on time and in need of a quick, tasty supper.

A Day in Pictures

I didn't really set out to spend all day in the kitchen, but brief shopping excursions aside, that's pretty much what happened.

Breakfast was a quickly cooked and even more quickly eaten breakfast quesadilla, full of scrambled eggs, chile pepper rings, cheese, and Bufalo Chipotle hot sauce.


This fortified me long enough to get some much needed shopping out of the way in the morning, before coming back to the kitchen.

The first thing I set about making was a Turkish Lentil Salad, which I had promised earlier would be in the works for this afternoon. It takes less than an hour, and is pretty relaxing work.

The flavours of lemon juice and white wine vinegar sink into the warm lentils and take with them a payload of salt, cayenne, and most of all cumin. It's delicious while it's still hot, but it's even better when it has a chance to sit in the fridge for a while, to let the flavours meld.

I must have gotten a little faster at the vegetable chopping, since I had time to knock together a white bean hummus, flecked with parsley. I used the recipe Molly posted on Orangette as a departure point, but substituted cayenne for cumin. It's not hot, but it has a little zing to it.

Moving on, my only other real task of the day was to make Challah, which I wanted to do because a) we were perilously low on bread, and b) I wanted to make some as a thank you for someone who did something very nice for Palle and I last week.

I went with the traditional braid, as I often do. This is the bread that I often bring as a gift to housewarming parties, so if you think it looks familiar, it should. This is the "single decker" as opposed to the "double decker" that I sometimes do when there's a lot of people to feed.


I love the little extra bit of rising that occurs in the oven - oven spring - which creates lovely, decorative little tears between the braided strands, and shows of a wonderful contrast between the shiny burnished brown of the egg-washed curves of the braid and the pale, non-reflective, almost white interior of the loaf.

With my last task out of the way, and the bread lying on a rack in the bedroom, which is the coolest room in the house and is the only place safe from cat-predation of baked goods, I decided to have a whack at a raspberry almond torte. I monkeyed around with the ingredients to reduce the amount of oil called for, and studded the batter with fresh, juicy raspberries.

The almond appears as ground almonds, which I buy pre-ground (but very fresh) from Parthenon on West Broadway. It is essential to use fresh ground almonds, because I once made this cake with somewhat stale ground almonds left from Christmas amaretti, and the cake was barely tolerable and had an aftertaste. Not this one, though.

Fresh as a daisy. Er, fresher, actually, as daisies have always seemed a little rank. The reduced oil actually seemed to lighten the torte, making it airier and giving it a real spring in its slice. I plated the torte upside down and dusted it with confectioners' sugar for a simple, rustic dessert or snack. The raspberries did sink down to the bottom of the batter, though, so next time I may have to add them to the top of the unbaked torte, and perhaps they then will only sink half-way. Still, it should suffice for lunches for the coming week - if it lasts that long.

And now my day is drawing to a close. I still need to bag up the challah and put away a few dishes, and then it's quittin' time.

Good night.

Double Ginger Chicken Stir Fry

There is an art to the stir fry, and it's one that has taken me a long time to learn. Most of the principles seemed pretty simple - cut things small, cook quickly over high heat, use contrasting textures of vegetables for maximum effect.

Somehow, though, my stir fries were never quite what I wanted them to be, until one night that Palle made dinner for me. It was the onions. They were cooked, but still crisp - a textural issue which had eluded me for some time. His secret? Add the onions at the end.What? Onions go in at the beginning. Almost every dish I make seems to involve chopping up an onion first. It felt wrong to add it last. I cringed, looking at the neat pile of chopped onions on my cutting board when I first put the theory into practice. I probably made a face. But, at the end of it, I added the onions last, and they had the texture I had been looking for. A whole world of stir fry opportunities opened up for me.

There are a few secrets to stir fries, and most of them involve the word "not." Not to add too much thickener to the sauce, not to cook too long so that the tender vegetables go limp, not to add too many different seasonings that will make the finished dish taste like all of the leftovers at a Chinese restaurant were smooshed into the same takeout container. There are a few positive rules, too: always make sure your pan is very hot before you begin, or you won't properly sear the meat or infuse the aromatics into the hot oil.

Double ginger chicken stir fry came about because I love fresh ginger. I also like the background heat of dried ginger, and combining the two as the dominant characteristics on a background of chicken just sounded like a really good idea. I added mushrooms, because I like them, and because they also play well with ginger. I added bell peppers, because they are a sought-after stir fry item in this household, and I added celery because I had some on hand.

The stir fry is a college mainstay for good reason. You don't need a lot of meat (but you can use it if you've got it), it has loads of flavour, and uses vegetables that are usually pretty affordable, particularly in the summer. It's a cheap topping for inexpensive rice or noodles. You can substitute ingredients according to whim, availability, and budget. You can pick a flavour and go deep - spicy, or gingery, or garlicy, or black-bean, or hoisin, or oyster sauce, or... or... it's really up to the cook.

Too much tzatziki

I have no sense of proportion when it comes to making sauces, so perhaps it should be no surprise that I have way too much tzatziki sauce left after my lamburger dinner on Sunday. The solution? Souvlaki! A little lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, oregano, salt and pepper, a little time goes by, and boom! Onto the grill.

Shortly after that, it's into a split pita with an enormous spoonful of greek salad and the aforementioned tzatziki sauce, and dinner was ready.

My day was not quite as simple as that sounds, however, because I had lessons in camera maintenance to learn. Namely, that if you leave the camera turned on while plugged into your computer for 24 hours, the fresh batteries die. So, with my souvlaki marinating away, I ran out to the corner store, cursing under my breath at the shoe that would not stay on my foot, skitter into the shop to get stuck behind some slow-talking customer who couldn't make up his mind what kind of phone card he wanted to purchase, bought the batteries with the last of my change, and skittered back home.

I still have a little tzatziki left - just enough to take care of the leftovers.

Mmmmm. Souvlaki.

If you don’t know me by now…

I’ll have to supply more details!

Linda has tagged me for The Cook Next Door meme.

What is your first memory of baking/cooking on your own?
I was seven years old, making oatmeal cookies that I had “assisted” with many times before. I panicked and added only 1/8 of a cup of flour instead of 1 cup plus 1/8 of a cup. The cookie dough was very liquidy, but I pressed on anyway, and the entire pan of cookies flowed into a solid, caramel coloured mass. We pried it off the sheet and cut it into squares, called it candy and ate it anyway. It was tasty, and my family was very reassuring that it wasn’t a dead loss, but I was quite embarrassed. It didn’t stop me from tackling independent cookery again, but from here on I was more disposed to ask advice if something didn’t look quite right.

Who had the most influence on your cooking?
Without question, my mother, who was not only an excellent cook, but had an almost magical ability to make great dinners out of almost nothing at all. There are some other significant influences, though, including the Dutch neighbour we had when I was growing up. She introduced the family to Tai-Tai gingerbread, olieballen, krokets, and all manner of fascinating food. She had been a professional cook for most of her life, and had stories to tell from working at exclusive clubs to being the cook for a logging camp. I was impressed at how much enjoyment she took telling stories about various culinary flops ("The next perogie filled the entire plate!") and her blithe manner of handling things not working out as they should.

Do you have an old photo as “evidence” of an early exposure to the culinary world and would you like to share it?
Nope. There are very few photos (other than school pics) of me as a child, and it would never have occurred to us to photograph something going on in the kitchen.

Mageiricophobia - do you suffer from any cooking phobia, a dish that makes your palms sweat?
I suffer from Fear of Frying. Specifically, deep fat frying. I’ve done it, but it makes me nervous, and I tend to avoid it.

What would be your most valued or used kitchen gadgets and/or what was the biggest letdown?
Best: My mother’s cast iron frying pan, and my Goldhampster 8” chef knife
Worst: None, really. I have a zester that's not as useful as I'd hoped.

Name some funny or weird food combinations/dishes you really like - and probably no one else!
Peanut butter on pancakes
Fruit yogurt on pancakes
For the record, I don’t think these are weird at all, but this is what I am told…

What are the three eatables or dishes you simply don’t want to live without?
Bread
Garlic
Cheese

Any question you missed in this meme, that you would have loved to answer? Well then, feel free to add one!

Three quickies:Your favorite ice-cream…
Dark chocolate

You will probably never eat…
The still beating heart of a cobra.

Your own signature dish…
That’s a toughie… I love inventing dishes, and am immediately smitten with anything that turns out well. Perhaps my Bengali Red Lentils, or braised lamb shanks. I make a mean sour cherry soup, too…

I think everyone that I know in cyberland has already been tagged, but if you’re reading this and want to participate, go for it (and send me the link)!

Yowza! Gyoza!

This is why I love having a stash of homemade things in the freezer. Even straight from the freezer, these little devils cook in mere minutes, and if you're feeling frisky, a quick little fry on one side gives a fantastic result.

This was the last of my most recent batch of gyoza - chicken with shiitake mushrooms, ginger and green onion. I must make more soon! Every time I make them, I vary the ingredients on whim and availability, and I've never had anything less than stellar results. While admittedly, this is a tiny serving - 3 dumplings of 2 1/2 inches long - it makes a wonderful topping for ramen, soba, or spicy somen, or as an appetizer.

(Note: expired link removed - instead, please see recipe(s) in the comments, below)

Lamburgers

I like lamb. I've gone from a childhood virtually free of lamb, on to become someone who cooks lamb at least once each month. As I cooked lamb last Sunday, for the Taste Canada event, I'm actually having lamb twice in two weeks - an astonishing increase!

One particularly easy and inexpensive lamb dish is the lamburger. Lamb takes to a variety of spices very well, and I often tend toward middle eastern or mediterranean flavours to spruce up the bugers. The usual salt and pepper is supplemented with pomegranate molasses, cumin, mint, and sumac, or mint, oregano, garlic and parsley. I use one of those indoor "grilling" devices, which has sloped channels to collect away the grease - a blessing with a fattier meat, like lamb - and perfect for a hot summer's day when you really don't feel like heating up the kitchen any more than you have to.



Of course, in my case, the kitchen was already hot, because I got the bright idea of making rosemary buns out of my pizza dough recipe, since I couldn't quite face the price tag of the only tolerable commercial hamburger buns that I could find.

I've used the same basic dough recipe to good effect as foccacia, making hamburger buns seemed a no-brainer. I remembered to keep the dough soft (not add too much flour) so that the buns wouldn't rise straight up and give me tall, narrow buns. It worked quite well. One recipe of pizza dough yields four generous-sized hamburger buns, and the texture and flavour beat the daylights out of most commercial efforts.

Since I suffer somewhat from a fear-of-frying, or at least of deep-frying, and the household protests the frozen variety, I seldom make french fries at home. Instead, I like to use fresh summer salads to accompany my burger dinners. Coleslaw, lentil salad, and one of my favourites, couscous salad.

Couscous salad is basically a tabbouleh like salad full of tiny chopped red onion, cucumber, tomato, fresh parsley and mint, lemon juice, olive oil, and a heavy hand with the black pepper. Instead of using bulgar wheat, I use couscous, which I steam up with lemon juice to give an extra zip to the salad. The overall texture is softer than a tabbouleh, but tends not to run as soggy (especially if you remove the seeds from the cucumber and tomato).



It makes a terrific, light side dish, and doesn't heat up the kitchen. Plus, it packs well for lunches, so I make lots, and devour the overage over the next couple of days. A sprinkle of sumac over it gives a fantastic, floral yet woodsy flavour.

I also have taken to using tzatziki sauce as my primary condiment on lamburgers. A little mustard is nice, too, but a slightly garlicky, creamy tzatziki is a perfect accompaniment to a lamb patty. It is also significantly lower in fat than mayonnaise or hamburger sauces, so that pleases me, too - but mostly I like the taste.

It occurred to me tonight, as I tidied up the very few dishes required to make dinner, that I have yet to try an Indian treatment on my lamburgers. Immediately, this conjured notions of lamb patties spiced with kashmiri pepper, garam masala, and cumin, and instead of the tzatziki (although it is perilously close to a raita, as it is) a fruit chutney - mango, or perhaps tamarind. A banana and yogurt salad on the side, or shredded carrots with lime juice and hot chilies - this could be a fantastic meal. The bun, of course, requires some choices. I'm unlikely to make naan at the drop of a hat, but I could see a version of the rosemary buns made instead with dried fenugreek leaves (happily, on hand in the spice box already).

I may have to have this for dinner next Sunday. After all, I have to report back, right?

Spinach & Chicken Curry

Fortnightly update!

The main Always in the Kitchen website has a new recipe:

Spinach & Chicken Curry - a variation on Saag Paneer. Vegetarians can simply leave out the chicken (increase the paneer, if you want it as a main dish).

and a new essay:

Ecumenical Eating

"...My classmates thought that, because they were eating, they were getting away with not studying, even though a highly specific vocabulary lesson was being delivered. Me, I was happy to have bread, cheese, and crisp green pears, and speculate about what it would be like, to live in Paris – where, no doubt, I would be popular, and stylish, and understood."

Enjoy!

Apricot Nectar Cake: Progress Report

I was pleased with my initial efforts at a citrus-y, lower-fat snack cake that would be good for work lunches, but there were a few problems with the first version. The lemon-juice glaze was delicious, but in an already moist cake it created a sticky, fall-apart texture after one day on the counter or any amount of time in the freezer. I scribbled some notes on the recipe I had developed, and set it aside for the future.

Well, the future is now. I tinkered with the leavening (upping the baking powder and lowering the baking soda), I used actual apricot nectar instead of a Sun-Rype multi-juice, and I switched over to a bundt pan instead of the rectangular pyrex dish I used before.

So far, the changes are a raging success! The cake is tender, light and moist without being sticky or fragile, and the appealing bundt shape makes for attractive slices. It's still under 25 % of the calories from fat - well within the acceptable range for snacking.


Apricot Nectar Cake

2 cups unbleached all purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup plus 1 tablespoon white sugar
zest of one lemon
225 mls apricot nectar
1/2 cup apple sauce
1/4 cup canola oil
2 eggs, beaten
2 egg whites, beaten
1 teaspoon orange extract

Preheat oven to 325 F. Spray a 9" bundt pan with cooking spray or grease lightly.

In a medium mixing bowl, blend the flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder and sugar. Mix well with a wire whisk, to aerate. Add the lemon zest and whisk again.

In a separate bowl, mix the apple sauce, canola oil, eggs and egg whites, and orange extract. Measure out the apricot nectar in a measuring cup (just a little less than one cup). Add one third of the dry ingredients to the applesauce/egg mixture, beating on low with an electric mixer until just combined. Add half of the nectar, and beat again. Repeat, and finally add the last of the dry ingredients. Mix until just combined.

Pour into your prepared pan, and bake for 40 minutes, or until a cake-tester (or toothpick) comes out clean when inserted into the centre of the cake. Remove cake to a rack and allow to cool before slicing.

If you're not planning to freeze the slices, you might want a little decorative icing, made by mixing a little lemon juice into some icing sugar, and drizzled over the cake as it cools.

A little addition of spices to the dry ingredients would probably be very good - nutmeg, cinnamon, or clove would be my picks. It really is quite tasty just by itself.