Archive for the ‘ethnic’ Category

Spaetzle

Monday, March 1st, 2010

Spaetz is Swabish for “Sparrow”, so spaetzle are “little sparrows”. I’m not really all that clear on the relationship between small, soft egg noodles and baby birds, but whatever. I like it, and I think that’s what I’ll call them from now on.

I made spaetzle last night, and forgot to take a picture of the finished dish, which was delicious and quite attractive. The recipe is extremely easy and fresh pasta is such a treat – it’s really wonderful to be able to make it without an expensive pasta maker and the extra work of drying and tempering. I’d even suggest this for a work-night dinner; fast, uses common ingredients and is capable of being reinvented with every sort of leftover.

For this recipe you will need a colander with large holes, say 3/8″ diameter. Several sources suggest using the large holes of a cheese grater, but the surface is small and hard to hold above the pot. I bought a .99 cent plastic colander at the grocery store which works beautifully or you could buy a spaetzle-board for about $12.00.

You can tell I got a little carried away with the colander. . .

Spaetzle for two or three – the recipe doubles easily.

2 eggs, 1/3 C whole milk, 1/4 C parsley, minced; 1/4 tsp salt; 1 1/3 C all-purpose flour. Mince the parsley very fine.

Bring a large pot of salted water to boil. In a large bowl, add the eggs, milk, parsley and salt and mix well. Add the flour a little at a time while mixing – the dough should be a little runny. Let it sit for 10 minutes. If it sits longer than that, it will begin to “bind”, so add a little more milk at that point.

Carefully hold the colander over the pot of boiling water (or place the spaetzle-board across it), spoon the dough into the container and then push the dough through the holes with the back of a wooden spoon. Wriggly “little sparrows” will drop into the water, fall, and then rise as they cook. I wait 3 or 4 minutes, but taste one at about 2 minutes. They don’t take long to cook and a lot depends on the consistency of your dough.

Drain the cooked spaetzle and, when most of the water has run off and they begin to dry, spread them on an oiled cookie sheet (I use a Silplat) until you’re ready to use them.

For the basic dish, simply saute the spaetzle in butter and serve with applesauce.  I toss them with roasted broccoli and sauteed leeks, topped with Parmesan, but I’ve also had them with tomato sauce, with a glaze of reduced cider and topped with bread crumbs – go nuts!

We had creampuffs for dessert, with creme anglais and chocolate ganache. Next post is the recipe, which is blindingly easy.

Stuffed naan

Friday, January 22nd, 2010

Flatbread dough filled with a soft herb/cheese/onion mixture – this is  an easy recipe if  a little messy ( as all the best ones are). When I make this dish for company I finish the breads ahead of time and warm them, wrapped in foil, in the oven. This is a vegetarian version, but ground lamb is a popular addition. Actually you can use any combination of ingredients for the filling as long as the result is fairly soft and smooth – hard bits will force their way through the soft dough and spoil the surface.

Stuffed Naan

naan step 13 3/4 C unbleached white flour (I make some of this up with chapati (chick pea) flour and whole wheat to add flavor, but all white flour makes a dependable texture), 1 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp salt, about 1 1/4 C plain yogurt, unsalted butter for brushing the finished breads.

Put all the ingredients except the butter in the bowl of your food processor and process until the dough follows the blade around in a ball. You may need to add more flour, or yogurt. This dough isn’t fragile and some extra whapping around won’t hurt it.  Dump the dough out on to a floured board. It will be soft and sticky, but try to gather it up into a ball (you may have to push it around some with a little extra flour), and put it in an oiled bowl in a warm place to rise for about an hour. This is not a yeast dough – the time will temper the gluten in the flour but it won’t appear to rise.

Meanwhile, make the filling. In a medium bowl mix: 1 8 oz farmer cheese (or paneer, ricotta, small curd cottage cheese), 2 Tbs fresh parsley, cilantro to taste, 1/4 C sauteed onion and 1 C cooked potato. I generally make naan in conjuction with a curry, so I cook the potato and onion for that as well. Leftovers work fine, too. Mash everything together thoroughly – you should have a dry, sticky mix that won’t ooze out of the bread, or stick up through the dough.

Heat an 8 – 10″ frying pan or cast iron skillet over medium low heat – add a little vegetable oil if it’s not seasoned. Keep in mind that the pan will need to go under the broiler in a minute, so no non-stick surfaces or wooden handles allowed. Dump the dough out on to a floured board and divide into five or six balls. Some people make lots of small breads, but it takes a lot longer that way. I like to make a size that just fits in my frying pan. naan step 2

Roll a ball out to about 6″ in diameter, and drop a healthy amount of filling on the center – about 1/4 cup. Keep the rest of the dough covered so it doesn’t dry out. Gather the edges up in pleats to the center and twist slightly to make a spiraled top to your dough ball of filling. Which is a great name for a band. Flatten the ball, flip it over and roll it out to the size of your pan. Now you see why you want a soft filling.

naan step 3Turn on your broiler to low. Pick up the bread and place it in the hot pan, shaking slightly so it doesn’t stick. Cook until the underside is nicely browned. Now put the pan and all under the broiler and turn off the burner. Make another naan.  In a minute (or few), the top will puff up and develop brown spots.naan step 5 Pull the pan out and slide the bread onto a cutting board. Race back to the stove and turn the burner on, slide the next piece into the pan. Now go back to the first naan and rub the top with a stick of unsalted butter. Cut into wedges and serve to the first lucky participant with a bowl of spinach curry and sides of yogurt and mango chutney.

Next week I’m going to try this recipe with a banana chocolate filling and powdered sugar on top. I promise to take pictures.

Happy New Year Buns

Thursday, December 31st, 2009

new years buns

This is a weird picture, but it’s the only one I have – we ate them too quickly. My family traditionally celebrates New Year’s Eve by staying in and eating dumplings. Tonight we made potstickers (fried and then steamed, made with unleavened dough) and baozi (steamed, leavened filled rolls).  We also made a batch of shrimp, ginger, garlic, spinach and water chestnut filling and used it for both batches. Here’s the recipe for the baozi – you’ll need a bamboo or metal tiered steamer and a food processor.

1 Tbs active dry yeast
1  cup lukewarm water
2 tablespoons cooking oil
2 teaspoons sugar
1 egg
3 1/2 cups all-purpose wheat flour or bread flour, plus more as needed. You can also use rice flour, barley, whole wheat or corn meal as part of the dry ingredients.

Add flour, sugar and yeast to the bowl of a food processor. Pulse a few times to mix.  Add water, oil and egg; process until well blended and the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl. This is a soft dough.

Let the dough rise until doubled in size, about 1 to 3 hours depending on the room temperature.

Stretch the dough out into a log with a diameter of about 2.5 inches. I generally let it lie coiled on a large cookie sheet lined with a Silplat. Using kitchen shears, cut the dough into 2 inch pieces (it should make around 25), and let rise again for at least 30 minutes. You can steam these plain for 20-25 minutes,  or you can fill them, like we did tonight. Flatten a piece of dough in your hand (oiling your fingers first makes this easier). Holding the dough cupped in your palm, put about 2 tsp of filling in the middle and fold the edges up in a pleat, squeeze shut. I like to roll the opening underneath the bun so that it doesn”t show, but it’s also traditional to keep them upright, showing off their little topknots.

Any filling you can imagine works well with this dough. I’ve had spicy pork, red bean paste, homemade jam, cream cheese and strawberries, butter-sugar-cinnamon, bean curd and pineapple boazi – they’re all good.

Happy New Year!

Hardy Ancestors – Mincemeat

Monday, December 28th, 2009

68 adams rdI grew up in this house. There were cows wandering the first floor when my parents bought it in 1955 shortly after I was born. My father had adventures and tetanus shots ripping off the decrepit front porch and flipping the huge old floorboards over to hide the damage from the livestock. The house was built in 1770 – or thereabouts and had been updated last around 1800. He did extensive renovations before my grandmother would allow my mother to move in with the new baby.

The Institute Cookbook’s recipe for mincemeat “has remained unchanged for quite some time”. The book dates from 1800 and the editor is prone to understatement so I imagine a cook in my childhood home might have made it the same way in 1770. My father told me once that his grandmother made mincemeat with woodchuck, but he too was prone to understatement and I would keep to the “lean beef” mentioned in the recipe, myself.

1 lb suet, 2 lbs lean beef, 1 quart chopped apple

1/4 C candied orange peel and 1/4 C candied lemon peel, 1/2 lb citron, 3 C seeded raisins and 1 C currants

Juice and grated rind of 1 lemon and one orange

1/2 C molasses, 1 C sugar, 1 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp allspice and cloves, 1 nutmeg, grated (about 1 tsp)

2 1/2 C sweet cider (as opposed to hard cider)

Let the meat simmer slowly in a covered kettle until tender (insert my father’s story about sampling the meat cooking on the back of the stove, finding it fairly lean and good, and then being told it was ‘chuck). Run the meat and then the suet through a meat chopper and mix well. Add the other ingredients, chopping the peels and citron before adding. Put in a stone (ceramic) crock and let stand several days to ripen. Bake in a plain or half puff paste double crust pie.

I should add that I’ve had vegetarian versions made with beets and dried apples instead of meat and suet – not the same, but not bad.

Quick dinner

Friday, December 18th, 2009

Last night I came home late (work has been crazy) and needed supper in a hurry. It yakatori 003was 6 pm, it had been dark for 3 hours, the wind chill was minus 17 and we have at least three more months of this – we needed comfort.  The recipe below will make you feel great in less than half an hour. I apologize for the picture being mostly about salad. It was great salad, too. Note the Chinese ladle at the top of the frame loaded with marinated chicken, and the bowl of tofu strips and mushroom slices? That’s dinner.

Yakitori Donburo

3 boneless chicken breasts, sliced width-wize into well, stir fry pieces. That’s the only way I can describe it. Too bad the picture is all about the salads, eh? You can add 3 – 4 oz tofu in 1/2″ cubes and 1 C sliced mushrooms if you like.
1/2 cup  soy sauce
1/2 cup mirin or Chinese cooking rice wine
1  teaspoon ginger minced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 C vegetable oil
2 tsp sugar
2 green onions, cut into 1/4 inch pieces, green and white parts)
• 3 cups cooked white rice

Mix soy sauce, mirin, ginger and garlic in medium glass or plastic bowl. Place chicken in soy mixture and marinate for at least 15 minutes. Meanwhile, set the rice to cook. Do you have a rice cooker? Good, it’s the only way to go.

Drain chicken, reserving soy mixture. Heat oil in a wok or 12-inch skillet until hot. Cook chicken until brown on both sides and almost done, and then add the bean curd and mushrooms, if using. Cook another few minutes until everything is done and coated with the now reduced sauce.  Heat reserved soy mixture to boiling and add sugar and green onions. Boil about a minute.  This is from a Japanese recipe, however bastardized through the folk process after years in my possession. Keep in mind that this marinating liquid has been in contact with raw poultry. If you’re squeamish about your chicken or are fixing this dish for children, by all means start over with fresh mirin and soy sauce. If not, just boil the heck out of it for about a minute.

Serve with the rice, and in our house we like our rice plain and the sauce spooned over the chicken/tofu/mushrooms. This dish goes well with salads (as in the picture) or you can go one-dish crazy and add three big handfuls of spinach or beet greens  in the last 30 seconds of cooking in the wok. Delicious either way. And ready in about 25 minutes.

Our Hardy Ancestors, documented

Friday, December 11th, 2009

lyman sheldonWinter is truly here and there is no gardening at 21 degrees F and 30 knots unless you count going through the seed catalogs.  (Here’s where I man up and admit that I’ve already placed my seed orders for summer 2010, so that exercise would be redundant.) At 19:30 EST in July I’d still be working outdoors in broad daylight, but it is late November at 44  Lat and the sun went down hours ago. Winter is the time for research, and I have plenty of indoor projects that need work.

As part of my genealogy project I’ve been going through boxes and scrapbooks to find illustrations of the characters I’m researching. Or at least that’s how the process is supposed to go; I’ve reached Dorothy Filley Bidwell’s part in the family tree and it’s time to find a picture. But sometimes my hand stutters over a snapshot that’s just too good to put back in the box, never mind that I haven’t quite got to that branch of the tree.

This is, right to left, Minnie Cornelia Smith and her husband Walter Alexander Sheldon, and Emma Estelle Smith and her husband George Elisha Lyman. The Smith sisters had a double wedding on October 1, 1895 and this picture was taken on the occasion of their 50th wedding anniversary. Bet that was a heckava party.

What can I do with all this spinach?

Saturday, December 5th, 2009

And onions. Alan D. gave us onions from his garden – huge, beautiful beasts that will probably keep till March in down cellar if I stop bringing them upstairs to admire them.  Here’s a sample, with our evening tea for scale.

onion

So, I had 11 oz of spinach – doesn’t sound like a lot, but that’s one of those giant plastic clam shell cases that is or is not recyclable, depending on the whim of the guys at the Strawberry Hill Transfer Station. I was sick of trying to find room for it in the refrigerator, and slightly miffed with myself for buying it to begin with. The Boy is away at School and I should be cutting my food purchases by roughly 50% (he’s thin, but he is a 6′3″ teenager and accounts for about half our food when he’s home). The spinach will not keep until mid-winter break. Then I remembered an old, old recipe, maybe from “Recipes for a Small Planet”? I can’t find my battered copy of that old faithful, so here it is from memory:

Spinach Patties

3 tablespoons olive oil or vegetable oil
1/2 onion, chopped
2 to 4 cloves garlic, minced (optional)
11 oz fresh spinach (the big plastic box) If you don’t have this much, you can add chopped celery, kale, or those assorted greens you get from your CVA – you know, the ones that you have no idea what they are. I sympathize, I actually grow them and I have no idea what they are. Purslane? Seriously?
About 1 cup matzo meal or fine dried bread crumbs
1 tsp sea salt
Ground black pepper to taste
1/2 tsp cayenne or red pepper flakes – optional
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
Vegetable oil for frying
Lemon wedges for serving

1. In a large skillet, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the onion and, if using, the other vegetables, garlic and saute until soft and translucent, then add the spinach and cook just until most of it has wilted a little. Transfer the whole mess to your food processor. Pulse just a few times – think uniformly chopped, not puree. Add the eggs and pulse a few times again, until they are incorporated. Here you’re going to find that I’m always in a hurry, again. You could let the mixture cool a little bit, so that there was zero chance of the eggs cooking on impact with the hot, just-out-of-the-frying-pan veggies. You could. Or you could add them, pulse a few times and then dump quickly into a handy bowl and add the  matzo meal, salt, pepper and stir quickly to cool it down that way. Perfect. If the mixture is too loose, add a little more matzo meal – not too much – the mixture thickens as it stands. This can be stored in the refrigerator for a day, or over night for a very nice brunch.

2. Pick up the mixture with kitchen spoons and scrape it off into the hot frying pan, like cookie dough.  In batches, fry the little balls until golden brown on the bottom (this doesn’t take very long, about a minute?) then turn them and squish them flat with the spatula. Drain on paper towels. Serve warm, accompanied with lemon wedges.

spinach pancakes 012

I made these with a side of rice and sweet chili sauce, but they are also good with feta cheese, toasted walnuts or (gasp) bacon. Also I should warn you that this recipe makes what I have begun to think of as “too much for two people”. On the other hand, I’m sitting here at 11:15 EST and having two with some vodka, so you know they won’t go to waste.

Plum Duff

Friday, November 27th, 2009
plum duff

Normally I wouldn’t start a post off with a picture, but “Plum Duff” isn’t really going to tell you much all by itself. And the Wikipedia article will re-direct to “Spotted Dick” and then you’re REALLY going to need a picture. It’s a dessert, people. A lovely, delicious, traditional dessert created by people for whom the term “Spotted Dick” was a fond endearment.

For this recipe you’ll need a few specialty items. I always hate running across that in a recipe I perhaps haven’t read closely before starting out; “You’ll need a flugelhorn!”,  announces the author, brightly. “These days you can find one easily on Amazon!”.  So, advance warning, for this recipe you will need a pudding mold or basin with a lid or cover, a metal trivet to rest the mold on the bottom of a pot, either tall enough to enclose it, or close enough that a collar of aluminum foil will do the trick.

My Great Aunt Margaret’s Plum Duff

  • 2 large eggs
  • 1/2 cup melted vegetable shortening
  • 1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
  • 2 cups cooked prunes
  • 1 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 2 tablespoons cold milk plum duff 1
  • Beat eggs well.
  • Dissolve brown sugar in hot, melted shortening and whisk in the eggs slowly, so they don’t cook.
  • Add cooked prunes that have been drained and mashed with fork*.
  • Sift flour and add. Dissolve soda in milk and add last.
  • Fill greased pudding mold 2/3 full, cover lightly and steam one hour over rack in large cooking pot.
  • * This used to be a very messy process – cutting the prunes with a sharp pair of sewing scissors, cooking and then mashing the results. Now we can throw the cooked, drained fruit in the cuisinart and have done with it.

    Now mix in the prunes, add the flour. . .

    plum duff 2

    And spoon the whole mess into the greased pudding mold. Now would be a good time to mention that the pudding is going to be a solid mass in the bottom of this mold after you’ve cooked it and allowed it to cool. It will look like it is solidly glued in there, but no – set the pan in very hot water for a few minutes and then invert over a plate. It should fall right out – if not feel free to repeat the process. It’s not like this stuff is fragile.

    plum duff 4To the left in this photo is my aluminum trivet, useful for keeping the mold off the bottom of the pot. It is stamped “1820 Cincinnati” on the bottom, so hey – an antique! I expect modern trivets would work just as well. Also, please ignore the Goya Black Bean Soup can. I’m not making anything from this product placement – the can was there for our supper of huevos rancheros later on that night.

    I didn’t think I had a photo of the pot with its aluminum collar, but here it is. Evidently I’d thought I’d blog my recipe for huevos rancheros, because there’s all the fixin’s, but thought the better of it. Everybody already has a favorite recipe for those.  But waaayyy in the back there you can see how to make your stew pot a steamer for your pudding mold.

    plum duff 5Steam the pudding at a low to moderate temperature for about an hour. You shouldn’t be able to hear it boiling madly, and check about half way through to see that the water level still comes close to 3/4 of the way up the mold.Add more hot (from the tap) water if you’re getting low. The temperature may drop below simmer for a minute but it’s not going to bother your Duff.

    Cool the pudding in the mold overnight in a cool place, then unmold it and decorate for the season. I used horehound, lavender and geranium because this is Thanksgiving and you can never tell when someone is going to eat the garnish – better to make it all edible.

    Now go check out all the interesting steamed dishes out there, like The Bitten Word’s Persimmon Cake (which they did w/o a pudding mold).

    2 large eggs
    1/2 cup melted vegetable shortening
    1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
    2 cups cooked prunes
    1 cup all-purpose flour
    1 teaspoon baking soda
    2 tablespoons cold milk
    1. Beat eggs well.
    2. Dissolve brown sugar in hot, melted shortening and add to eggs.
    3. Add cooked prunes that have been drained and mashed with fork.
    4. Sift flour and add. Dissolve soda in milk and add last.
    5. Fill greased pudding molds 2/3 full, cover lightly and steam one hour over rack in large cooking pot.
    6. Serve hot with Rum Sauce or whipped crea

    2 large eggs

    1/2 cup melted vegetable shortening

    1 cup firmly packed brown sugar

    2 cups cooked prunes

    1 cup all-purpose flour

    1 teaspoon baking soda

    2 tablespoons cold milk

    1. Beat eggs well.

    2. Dissolve brown sugar in hot, melted shortening and add to eggs.

    3. Add cooked prunes that have been drained and mashed with fork.

    4. Sift flour and add. Dissolve soda in milk and add last.

    5. Fill greased pudding molds 2/3 full, cover lightly and steam one hour over rack in large cooking pot.

    6. Serve hot with Rum Sauce or whipped cream.

    1. m.

    Our Hardy Ancestors, cont.

    Friday, November 13th, 2009

    fishing group coloradoFour generations go fishing. It sounds like the product of a random sentence generator.

    Why do I have a dozen pictures of us fishing? We probably went all of twice – to a beautiful resevoir where Frank and Wat often fished under the bright Colorado sky. We baited hooks  with orange roe that glowed like jewelry and got my fingers all sticky. After a long day we took  home a damp canvas bag of small brown trout.

    If you actually catch a fish you will need to read  pages 56 through 58 of the Institute Cookbook, where an extremely thorough description of cleaning, drawing, scaling and disemboweling your fish may be had, so there is no need of us repeating that here. Seriously, this is the only cookbook in my collection that uses the word “putrification” four times in one paragraph. And I had to look up “ptomaines” at Wikipedia. Now we will ignore your gutted fish, resting on it’s plank of ice in the cellar (to avoid tainting the butter in the icebox), and have a nice recipe for deviled crab that requires “cracker dust” instead.  Remember, as you read this, that the crabs being fried for 10 minutes at the end of this recipe have been boiled for half an hour at the beginning and then cooked “over a hot fire” for a little while longer.

    6 crabs, 1 hard-boiled egg, 4 Tbs butter, ground nutmeg, 1/2 C heavy cream, salt and cayenne, 1/4 tsp sweet marjoram, cracker dust

    Put the crabs into hot water, add salt and boil for thirty minutes. Cut the meat into small pieces, add the hard-boiled egg, cream, butter and seasoning and cook for a few minutes over a hot fire, thickening the mixture with cracker dust. Fill the shells, dip them in the raw egg, beaten, then in cracker dust; place in a hot oven or drop into boiling fat and fry until deep brown.

    Don’t try this at home.

    Our Hardy Ancestors II

    Wednesday, October 7th, 2009

    twin-lakes-68

    You know what all these guys had in common? (Well, besides a gene pool and a fish dinner.)  They all liked cake. And, they all liked bacon. These “Hardy Ancestors” posts are dedicated to recipes that had their best days a lifetime ago, with my great-grandfather (an HA if there ever was one)  at the far left on the sofa. Days when food was abundant if you didn’t mind the lack of variety, and work was hard and long enough that you didn’t. And then there was dessert.

    My father liked a “planned dessert”. I don’t think my mother had ever heard of such a thing growing up, but it was an ongoing topic of discussion at the dinner table all their married lives. A planned dessert implied something thought out and prepared long before the meal: apple pie, butterscotch layer cake or bread pudding studded with raisins and served with hard sauce. The category did not include ice cream, store-bought cookies or instant pudding. Occasionally there would be a recipe that would satisfy both husband and wife – the perfect blend of yin and yang for ingredients, formality and ease of preparation. I give you:

    Cinnamon Bacon Sponge

    1 egg, beaten, 1/2 C sugar, 1/2 C molasses, 1/4 C melted bacon fat, 1/2 C boiling water

    1 tsp soda, 1 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp salt, 1 and 1/8 C flour (a heaping cup)

    Mix the bacon fat with the boiling water. Stir, and when slightly cooled add the egg and sugars. Add to the dry ingredients and mix well. Place into a greased 8 x 8 pan an bake 35 to 40 minutes at 350. Serve with whipped cream.

    I like to add chopped apples or raisins, and I use the pan drippings from our best pepper bacon for extra kick. Bon appetit!