SpiceLines

Extra virgin olive oil crushed with mandarin oranges adds zest to lightly steamed
haricots verts and toasted walnuts. For a touch of heat, sprinkle fleur de sel
seasoned with piment d'espelette over the vegetables.

I really love the idea of Boulette’s Larder.

Copper pots hanging in the open kitchen, a pale green vase of magnificent autumn flowers, shelves stocked with flavored salts, exquisite honeys and fragrant citrus oils. There’s carnaroli rice, duck fat and leaf lard, wild sourdough starter, homemade crème fraiche and a hundred other enticing items in this “epicerie du charm,” all designed to help you create a delicious meal with maximum impact and minimum fuss.

On Boulette’s website, a larder—and not just any larder--is defined thus:

“Larder, n. A storeroom for food. A place where cooks come to find the underpinning ingredients for a planned meal, i.e. last season’s preserved garden ingredients, grains, meats curing in various forms, garlands of dried aromatics, ripening cheeses, etcetera.

(A boulette, I now know, is a “little meatball” and also the name of the shop’s Hungarian sheepdog.)

One of my favorite finds when I was at Boulette’s last week was Colonna Mandarino, a citrus-scented Italian extra virgin olive oil that comes in a distinctive dark glass “amphora." Made by crushing early harvest olives with the zest of organic Sicilian mandarin oranges, this golden-hued finishing oil is produced and bottled on the ancestral estate of Princess Marina Colonna in the province of Campobasso on Italy’s east coast. When you taste the oil on its own, the citrus flavor is light and delicate--but sprinkle it over grilled shrimp or steamed vegetables and it gathers force, becoming livelier and more intensely aromatic. It is an alchemical ingredient—just the sort of wonder-worker that belongs in your own larder.

The idea for this recipe came from one of Boulette’s staff members. It uses four ingredients: haricots verts, toasted walnuts, a spoonful of mandarin oil and a generous sprinkle of fleur de sel seasoned with spicy piment d’espelette. This last item also came from the pantry at Boulette’s, but you could easily make it by mixing any flaky sea salt with some of the ground Basque chile pepper.

The dish can be made in minutes—and might be all you want for dinner.

Haricots Verts with Mandarin Oil, Walnuts and Piment d’Espelette Salt

Serves 2 as a main course, or 4 as a side dish

Ingredients:

1 pound haricots verts
3/4 cup walnut halves or pieces
2 to 3 teaspoons mandarin oil (see note)
Fleur de sel, or any flaky sea salt
Ground piment d’espelette (see note)

Method:

1. Rinse the haricots vert and pinch off the stems, and the tips if desired. Put them in the top of a steamer over boiling water and steam until they are just slightly crunchy. Remove at once and place them in a serving bowl.
2. While the haricots verts are steaming, heat a dry cast iron skillet over medium low heat. Add the walnut pieces and stir continuously for 4 to 5 minutes, until they are heated through and are just beginning to change color. Do not let them burn—reduce the heat if necessary. When done, remove to a plate and let cool slightly.
3. Combine the haricots verts and walnuts with the mandarin oil, tossing gently so that both ingredients are well-coated. Taste and add a little more oil if desired.
4. Mix the salt and ground piment d’espelette, as desired. Sprinkle generously over the haricots verts and serve.

Note: La Colonna is available at Boulette’s Larder and at some Whole Foods Stores. Piment d’espelette can be ordered from spanishtable.com.

Posted by SpiceLines at 7:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The smoky aroma of chiles roasted over hot coals--sweet Bell peppers, dark green
poblanos, fiery jalpenos and mild Japanese shishitos--signals the arrival of autumn.

One sure sign of fall—along with the early pumpkins and bronzey green scuppernog grapes—is the aroma of fresh peppers roasting over an open fire. At Carrboro Farmer’s Market, the folks from Peregrine Farm will sell you a pound or two of capsicums—your choice, anything from sweet Bells to the spiciest habaneros—tumbled over hot coals in a revolving wire drum. The succulent, smoky aroma perfumes the morning air, drawing ravenous crowds who’ll wait for nearly an hour to take home a warm bag of delicious charred peppers.

But you can also roast fresh peppers at home. Yesterday I mixed fiery red and green jalapenos from the garden with an assortment of peppers from the market: dark green poblanos with just a touch of heat, mild shishitos, the long yellow-green pepper popular in Japan (for more, see The Serendiptious Chef, and red and yellow Bells. Together they ran the gamut from sweet to mild to hot, which is one of the great things about mixing them up.

There are two easy ways to roast capsicums. One is to heat a dry cast iron skillet over a medium flame, toss in whole peppers and turn them until they are charred all over. This can take a while, but if you’re feeling lazy, it’s a pleasant way to while away part of a Sunday afternoon. Or, if you’re planning to cook outside, you can put them on the grill while the flames are high and the coals are still too hot for the meat. Using tongs, turn them often until they’re blackened and blistered all over.

Add thick slices of onions to the grill and you can make a version of rajas. Rajas are strips of sauteed poblano peppers and onions, and in northern Mexico, they are often served with a very thin, delicious steak known as a tampiquena. Rajas go well with almost any cut of grilled beef and also with grilled pork chops and pork tenderloins.

Grilled pork tenderloin with fresh peppers roasted over hot coals gets an extra
kick with a spicy sauce of lightly toasted ancho peppers, peanuts and cumin.

Now if you are serving pork, as I did last night, you might want to do a riff on roasted peppers by also preparing a delicious sauce of lightly toasted ancho peppers blended with onions, fresh tomatoes, a little cumin and crushed roasted peanuts. Wrinkly, blackish-brown anchos are simply dried poblanos. Gently heating them in a hot pan the them brings out their deep, fruity flavor, while the peanuts add richness to the sauce.

Spoon the ancho-peanut sauce over the top of the sliced pork tenderloin or over a grilled pork chop, add a tangle of the roasted fresh peppers alongside and serve with a tangy coleslaw dressed with while balsamic vinegar and olive oil.

Fall is here—at last!

Fire-Roasted Fresh Peppers and Onions

Ingredients:

2 pounds assorted fresh peppers, as desired
2 medium onions, peeled and thickly sliced
Olive oil

Method:

Here are two ways to roast peppers:

1. Heat a large, dry cast iron skillet over a medium flame. When it is hot, add the whole peppers. Turn occasionally until they are blackened and blistered all over. The small peppers will char faster than the others; remove them as soon as they are done. When all the peppers are roasted, set aside. Add the onion to the hot pan and turn until it is lightly charred on both sides. Set aside.

Or if you are cooking outside, make a fire in your grill and place the grill on top. Rub the whole peppers and sliced onions with a little olive oil. When the coals are red hot and the flames are high, put the peppers and onions on the grill. Using tongs, turn until they are charred all over. Remove and set aside.

2. When the peppers are cool enough to touch, cut out the stems, slit them open and remove the seeds. Rub off some of the skin if you wish, but it is not necessary to do so. Cut them into strips and set aside.

3. When you are ready to serve, heat a skillet over a low flame, add a a tablespoon of olive oil, and gently sautee the peppers and onions for 2 to 3 minutes. Add salt to taste and serve while still warm.

Roasted Ancho-Peanut Sauce

Ingredients:

6 ancho peppers (see note)
1 large onion, quartered
2 large garlic cloves, unpeeled
2 small tomatoes, peeled and cored
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
Olive oil
1/2 cup roasted, unsalted peanuts, coarsely ground
Salt

Method:

1. Heat a large cast iron skillet over a medium flame. Lightly toast the ancho peppers just until they soften and puff up a little. Do not char them—they will taste bitter if allowed to burn. Remove and place them in a bowl. Cover with boiling water and set aside to soak until they soften.

2. Add the onion quarters to the pan and cook until they are lightly charred. Add the garlic cloves and cook, turning often, until they are soft. Do not let the cloves burn. Peel and set aside.

3. Drain the ancho peppers, but reserve 1 to 2 cups of the soaking liquid. Cut away the stems, slit them open and remove the seeds.

4. Put the peppers in the container of a blender or food processor. Add the onion, peeled garlic, tomatoes, cumin and one cup of the soaking liquid. Whirr until smooth, adding a little more liquid only if necessary. The sauce should be quite thick.

5. Add a tablespoon of olive oil to a medium saucepan and heat over a low flame. Add the ancho sauce and cook gently for a few minutes. Add the peanuts and continue to cook over a low flame for 10 to 15 minutes. Add salt to taste—you’ll need a teaspoon or more to balance the flavors.

6. Serve warm over grilled pork tenderloin or pork chops. The sauce can be made ahead and kept in the refrigerator for 2 days. Reheat before serving.

Note: Dried ancho chiles are available in Latino markets and in the international aisle of many supermarkets. They may also be sold loose in the produce section of some markets. Anchos should be soft, not brittle, and should be glossy black and very wrinkled, without any holes or other blemishes. You can also order them from Penzeys or from Los Chileros de Nuevo Mexico.

Grilled Pork Tenderloins with Cumin, Coriander and Garlic

To serve 4

Ingredients:

2 to 2-1/2 pounds pork tenderloins
1-1/2 tablespoons cumin seed
1-1/2 tablespoons coriander seed
5 cloves garlic, finely chopped
Freshly ground black pepper and salt to taste
Olive oil

Method:

1. About two hours before you are ready to cook, remove the tenderloins from the refrigerator. Rub them with a little olive oil and put them in a large roasting pan.

2. In a spice grinder, pulverize the cumin and coriander seed. Mix the spices with the garlic and rub all over the tenderloins. Sprinkle with salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste. Set aside.

3. When you are ready to cook, build a charcoal fire in your grill. When the coals are covered with white ash and the flames are low, rub the tenderloins with a little more olive oil. If the tenderloins are very small—1/2 to 3/4= pound--place them on the grill, at the edges of the coals. Cover and cook for 4 to 5 minutes. Turn, cover and cook for another 4 to 5 minutes. Remove and check for doneness. If they are still too pink, return them to the grill and cook for a few minutes longer. (If the tenterloin is a large one, then place it closer to the coals and cook for 4 to 5 minutes per side, turning, for a total of 20 to 25 minutes or until it is done to your taste.)

4. When the pork is done, remove and let it rest, covered with aluminum foil, for 10 minutes. Slice thinly. Serve with the fire-roasted peppers and a bowl of warm ancho-peanut sauce on the side. Accompany with a bowl of coleslaw tossed with white balsamic vinegar and olive oil.

Posted by SpiceLines at 1:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

These small, naturally buttery potatoes could be served plain, but they are
absolutely delicious with a smattering of dill and a dollop of garlicky sour cream.

You could say that the delicate golden-skinned potatoes in Helsinki’s Kauppatori market are the essence of… potato-ness.

Or you might not.

But in these little tubers—most are the size of ping pong balls—the sublime nature of the potato is revealed. They are most certainly not biogenetically engineered, steroidal, tasteless lumps of starch that require slatherings of butter and generous pinches of salt for any sort of flavor.

No, these are potatoes that could be eaten naked. Sautee them whole, in a few drops of olive oil, over a low flame until they yield gently to your touch and their skins are wrinkly and lightly browned. Now bite. Their pale yellow flesh is soft and creamy, with a taste that is both buttery and earthy. There is an undertone of sweetness, as if the potato has put every bit of its energy into reaching the peak of flavor during the short summer growing season.

There are all sorts of Finnish potatoes with wonderful names. I was at Kauppatori in June, so I might have eaten an early potato called Hankkja Timo. There are also Van Goghs and Nicolas, and in the fall, an “almond potato” called Lapin Puikula, traditionally served with reindeer stew and lingonberry jam in Lapland, Finland’s northernmost province.

But whatever their names, Finnish potatoes fall squarely into the “waxy” category, due to the high level of a polymer known as amylopectin. This makes them good for roasting and for potato salads, but not for baking or French fries. (Starchy russets have lots of another polymer called amylose.)

Back in the nineties, the Waldorf Astoria apparently served Finnish potatoes with lobster, foie gras and truffle vinaigrette. They are that good. But at Kauppatori, you can get them the way they really should be eaten—on a paper plate, sizzling hot from a saute pan, sprinkled with a little salt, flecked with fresh dill, and drizzled with garlicky sour cream. Bliss.

The Finns, by the way, do love their potatoes. (They eat about 60 kilos annually.) The Times of London recently quoted a 36-year-old divorcee on her affair with Finland’s Prime Minister: “Oven baked potatoes are what Matti loves above all else….Once after kissing me he said I taste better than an oven-baked potato. That was great!”

Two kinds of potatoes for sale outside a food stall at Helsinki's Kauppatori market.

Recipe: Almost Naked Finnish Potatoes with Dill and Garlicky Sour Cream

I didn't bother to peel the potatoes since their skins are so fragile and delicious. But you can certainly peel them, if you wish, as they do in the food stalls at Kauppatori.

To serve 4 as a side dish:

Ingredients:

1-1/2 pounds of very small Finnish potatoes (see note)
1 teaspoon olive oil
1/2 cup sour cream
1 large clove garlic, grated, or to taste
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh dill

Method:

1. Rinse the potatoes and dry them well. Coat the bottom of large sautee pan with the olive oil. Warm the pan over medium heat. When it is hot, add the potatoes. Reduce the heat to medium low and sauté the potatoes for 3 minutes, tossing and coating them with oil on all sides.
2. Cover and cook for 20 to 25 minutes. Turn them every 5 minutes to prevent them from browning too quickly. If necessary, add a few drops more olive oil and reduce the heat to low to keep them from burning.
3. While they are cooking, mix the sour cream and garlic in a bowl and set aside.
4. When the potatoes are soft and their skins are wrinkly and slightly browned, toss them in the pan with salt and pepper to taste. Add the dill and toss again. Cook for another minute and remove from the flame.
5. Serve the potatoes in a bowl with garlic sour cream on the side. They are delicious with grilled or roasted salmon and a salad of frisee, endive and raddiccio dressed with olive oil and white balsamic vinegar.

Note: I used Melissa’s Yellow Baby Dutch Potatoes. Maybe they are Dutch, but they have a buttery sweet flavor similar to the Finnish potatoes I tasted in Helsinki. You could substitute baby Yukon Gold potatoes or wait for the yellow Finnish potatoes that will appear in markets this fall. Whichever potatoes you use, they should be no larger than 1-1/2 to 2 inches in diameter.

Posted by SpiceLines at 10:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Chilled Indian lassi gets a touch of heat from a fresh jalapeno.

There is almost nothing quite so refreshing on a torrid summer day than an Indian lassi—a frothy iced yogurt drink scented with spices and other flavorings. Most Indian cookbooks have at least one recipe: In Classic Indian Cooking, Julie Sahni offers two, one with rosewater and another with fresh mint, while in From Curries to Kebabs, Madhur Jaffrey has recipes for lassi with freshly grated ginger and with cardamom seeds.

As Sahni writes, the quality of the yogurt is paramount. It must be tangy, above all, but also thick and creamy, or else the drink will become watery when it is blended with ice cubes. She advises adding a tablespoon of cream to plain yogurt, but you could also use wondrously thick Greek yogurt or blend the cream that come on top of full fat plain yogurt into the drink.

Since jalapenos are exploding all over my garden, this week I’ve been making lassi with a single fresh chile blended into the mix. I like it a little spicy, so I slit the pepper and take out half the seeds before tossing it into the blender. I’ve also found that it helps to crack the ice cubes beforehand—this makes them easier to blend.

The fresh jalapeno turns the frothy drink a pale, icy green—a bit of deception if served to an unsuspecting guest. But you wouldn’t do that, would you?

Indian Lassi Spiced with Cumin and Jalapeno

To serve 2

Ingredients:

8 to 10 ice cubes, cracked
2 cups thick, tangy plain yogurt (see note)
1 or 2 small fresh jalapeno peppers
Large pinch ground cumin
Sea salt to taste

Method:

1. Combine the cracked ice and yogurt in the blender.
2. Cut the jalapenos in half and remove some or all of the seeds, depending upon how much heat you’d like in the drink. Add the peppers and any seeds that you are using to the blender.
3. Whir until the drink is very smooth and icy.
4. Add a pinch of cumin and blend. Add sea salt to taste.
5. Pour into two tall glasses and serve at once.

Note: I recommend using the Fage brand of Greek yogurt because it is thick, rich and deliciously tangy. You could also blend in the cream found on the top of plain whole milk yogurt, or add a tablepoon or two of cream to any plain yogurt.

Posted by SpiceLines at 10:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Roasting the jalapenos and other ingredients in this chunky salsa brings out the
natural sweetness of the vegetables and adds a wonderfully smoky taste.

Once upon a time La Fogata was a cheery Mexican restaurant housed in an old gas station on the north side of San Antonio. It was famous for its delicious salsa. One day the owner gave me a quick recipe, which mainly consisted of roasting large quantities of tomatoes, onion, garlic and Serrano peppers on a cast iron griddle and then whirring them in the blender. Probably he left out a secret ingredient (or maybe two), but I’ve been making it for years and love it just as it is.

Today, La Fogata is more like a posh hacienda with trickling fountains and carved stone columns, and the famous salsa is bottled and sold over the internet. But last Sunday, when I was roasting jalapenos and a huge bowl of ripe tomatoes was glaring at me, it occurred to me that now was the perfect time to make some of my favorite salsa. Roasting over moderately high heat brings out the natural sugars in all the vegetables and gives the salsa a wonderfully sweet, smoky flavor. Lace with fiery jalapenos and you have one of the most irresistible salsas ever.

Jalapenos are actually not as hot as Serranos (8,000-22,000 Scoville units)—so this has the advantage, if you see it that way—of being a milder salsa than the original. I tend to roast the ingredients separately in a dry cast iron skillet: first the whole fresh chiles, then the garlic cloves and onion, and finally whole small tomatoes. It’s important that the vegetable are cooked, or at least heated, all the way through. (That’s why it’s best to use smallish tomatoes and onions.) When they’ve cooled a little, I pulse the ingredients together in the food processor until they are uniformly chopped very small, but never until the salsa is smooth.

If the tomatoes leak their juices into the cast iron skillet, it may become a little crusty. To clean, let the pan cool slightly, then sprinkle the encrusted areas with salt and a little oil, and rub with a paper towel. Most of the debris will come loose and can be rinsed away with warm water.

Makes about 1-1/2 to 2 cups of salsa

Ingredients:

5 whole fresh jalapenos
3 or 4 small onions, peeled but left whole (1-1/2 to 2 inches in diameter)
8 garlic cloves, whole and unpeeled
4 or 5 small ripe whole tomatoes (2-1/2 to 3 inches in diameter)
Squeeze of lime
Sea salt to taste

Method:

1. Heat a dry cast iron skillet or griddle over a medium flame. When it is very hot, add the jalapenos and roast them, turning occasionally, until they are blackened and blistered all over. Remove to a small plate.
2. Separately use the same technique to roast the onions, garlic and tomatoes. Each ingredient should be left whole and roasted until it is blackened and cooked, or at least heated, all the way through. Leave the garlic unpeeled to keep it from burning and turning bitter.
3. When all the ingredients are roasted and have cooled slightly, combine them in the bowl of a food processor. (If desired, slit the jalapenos and remove some of the seeds to lessen the heat.) Pulse until they are uniformly chopped fine, but not until the salsa liquefies. The texture should be composed of tiny chunks, but never smooth. Add lime juice and salt to taste and stir.
4. Pour the salsa into a jar. It may be refrigerated for two days, but is much better if used at once—on eggs, grilled meats, fish and chicken, tossed with grilled or sautéed vegetables or as a dip for homemade tortilla chips. A spoonful can be used to flavor soups.

Posted by SpiceLines at 10:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

On a hot day, cold yogurt-cucumber soup, seasoned with dried mint
and maras biber Turkish pepper, is an easy, refreshing supper.

The mercury was nudging 102 yesterday.

The question du jour was: How not to cook for supper in the midst of a stultifying heat wave. Soon I found myself dreaming of the cacik I had at Turquoise last week. Tangy and subtly flavored with dried mint, this chilled yogurt and cucumber soup can be prepared in a food processor in just a few minutes. You don’t even have to go near the stove.

“Yogurt” is actually a Turkish word and, in some quarters, considered the country’s most famous contribution to world cuisine. In Turkey there are several soups made with yogurt, both hot and cold. Yayla Corbasi, for instance, is a warm restorative soup thickened with rice and a beaten egg. On the chilly side, there is a version of yogurt-cucumber soup with scallions, fresh mint and raisins in Claudia Roden’s New Book of Middle Eastern Cooking. All around the eastern Mediterranean chefs use yogurt as a cooking medium for lamb, chicken, eggplant and kibbeh (lamb and bulgur dumplings).

Turkish yogurt is like Greek yogurt—thick, creamy and very tangy. I can remember walking through the sun-baked streets of Nauplion years ago and inhaling the fresh, sour scent of yogurt being made in kitchens behind tightly closed shutters. Luckily Greek yogurt is widely available in this country. Look for the Total Fage brand at Whole Foods and at Greek or Middle Eastern food markets. If you can’t find it, try Roden’s idea of mixing plain whole milk yogurt with a little sour cream for richness.

This version of cacik is adapted from Turquoise. The original recipe calls for diced cucumbers. This creates a lot of crunch, which is nice when cacik is served as a sauce with grilled kebabs. But a soup should have a slightly smoother texture so I pulsed the cucumber in the food processor until it was finely chopped—and in fact, this is the way Kemal Cenki served it at his restaurant. At the end I couldn’t resist sprinkling the soup with a little of Kemal’s wondrous maras biber. This moist crushed red pepper from Turkey adds a touch of fiery heat to the cold, creamy soup—an untraditional, but tasty twist.

Cacik, or Chilled Turkish Soup with Yogurt, Cucumber and Dried Mint

Serves two for dinner or four as an appetizer

Ingredients:

2 cups Greek yogurt (see note)
1/4 to 1/2 cup cold water
2 medium cucumbers
2 cloves garlic
1-1/2 teaspoons dried mint
Salt to taste
1/2 teaspoon maras biber (optional) (see note)

Method:

1. In a large bowl, stir together the yogurt and 1/4 cup water until well mixed.
2. Peel the cucumbers and cut them in half vertically. Using a teaspoon, scoop out the seeds and discard. Coarsely chop the cucumbers and place them in the bowl of a food processor. Add the garlic. Pulse until both are finely chopped—but do not liquefy. The soup should have some texture.
3. Stir the cucumbers into the yogurt mixture. Add a little more water if necessary to achieve a soupy consistency. It should be fairly thick, but on the liquid side. Stir in the dried mint and salt to taste. Chill the soup in the refrigerator for two hours.
4. Just before serving, sprinkle with a little maras biber if desired. Or, for color without heat, sprinkle with sweet paprika.

Note: Fage Total Greek yogurt is available in Greek or Middle Eastern food shops and delicatessens, and also at Whole Foods. Maras biber can be ordered from www.kalustyans.com.

Posted by SpiceLines at 8:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Mint, red currants and green peppercorns make a spicy pot of summer tea.

I’ve been fooling around with basil, mint and thyme.

It's August and the herbs I planted in the garden a few months ago are exploding. The basils—purple, Thai, Genovese and lemon—are towering over the well-worn brick path, full, lush leafed and with tall flowery spikes that have to be pinched back constantly. The mint has run wild, sending out long runners criss-crossing the soil underneath the cherry tomato vines clambering up the bamboo tutuers. In other beds, the thymes—lime and lemon—have masses of delicate leaves on their wiry stems. The lemon balm looks like a fluffy lime green cloud, and lemon verbena, a touchy herb hard to grow herb, at least for me, is strong and vigorous.

In the midst of this aromatic jungle, I’ve fallen in love with herbal teas. Not just the usual mild tisanes using a single herb, but stronger more flavorful brews, fragrant with spices like saffron and green peppercorns, sweetened with summer fruit like raspberries and peaches.

I love to experiment with different mixtures in my Zen glass teapot, a lovely minimalist thing with a flat top and bamboo handle. It looks exquisitely fragile but is actually made of tough tempered glass. On even the hottest days, the sight of bright green mint, red currants and green peppercorns steeping in this transparent vessel is cooling to the senses.

Here are a few things I’ve discovered:

1. Don’t use boiling water -- it will literally cook the delicate leaves. Instead heat the water in a tea kettle until you see the first wisps of steam escape the spout.
2. Put all the ingredients into the pot, pour in the hot water and walk away. Do something else for at least 20 minutes—paint your toenails a luscious shade of pink, call your mother (good for at least 20 minutes), order that black asymmetrical Armani jacket you saw on line. Never mind how you’re going to pay for it. Or where you’ll wear it.
3. When you return, the tea will be fully flavored and still deliciously warm. If you let it continue to steep over the next hour or more, the taste of the tea will evolve as the individual flavors deepen and come to the fore. Saffron, for instance, takes a while to fully show itself.
4. Sweeten, if you like, with honey or sugar. But taste it first—the fruit may add all the sunny sweetness you need.

Here are a few blends that I love:

Garden mint, red currants, green peppercorns

Use lots of fresh peppermint for the strongest, most refreshing flavor—not those paltry stems sold in clamshells, but a really big handful that has to be stuffed into the pot. Red currants not only contribute a sweet, tart flavor but they turn the tea bright pink. Green peppercorns had a touch of spicy heat.

To make four 6-ounce cups

Ingredients:

A large handful of fresh mint
½ cup of red currants
1 teaspoon green peppercorns
24 ounces fresh cold water
Honey or sugar, if desired

Method:

1. Rinse the mint and currants, but don’t bother to strip the leaves or berries off the stems. Put the mint, currants and peppercorns in the teapot.
2. In a tea kettle, heat the water until wisps of steam curl out of the spout. Pour the hot water into the teapot, replace the lid, and allow the ingredients to steep for at least 20 minutes or longer.
3.Strain, if desired, into a glass teacup. Add honey or sugar to taste. To serve cold, allow the tea to steep for 20 minutes more, sweeten if desired, then pour into a glass filled with ice.

Citrusy Herbs with Basil and Red Fruit

Combine all the citrusy herbs from the garden with the sweet fruitiness of raspberries and strawberries. Add a sprig of basil for complexity. Each of the citrus-flavored herbs has a different flavor profile and when combined in a tea, they create a medley of aromatic flavors-- pungent, grassy, earthy—linked by the bright taste of lemon.

To make four 6-ounce cups

Ingredients:

A few sprigs each of at least three citrus flavored herbs (lemon grass, lemon balm, lemon verbena, lemon or lime thyme)
1 small sprig basil
½ cup raspberries
1 or 2 strawberries, stemmed and cut in half
24 ounces of fresh cold water
Honey or sugar, if desired

Method:

As above.

Saffron with Blackberries and Rosewater

This is based on the delicious the au safran from the Paris spice shop, Goumanyat et Son Royaume. The owner, M. Thiercelin, travels twice a year to Khorasan in northeastern Iran to bring back wildly fragrant saffron which he sells in many different forms, including this tea. The base is a blend of green, oolong and black teas to which unnamed epices, fleurs, fruit--spices, flowers and fruit—are added. I won’t pretend that I’ve managed to recreate Goumanyat’s exquisite tea, but I do like this version, flavored with blackberries and rosewater.

This is one tea that must steep awhile for the flavors to come into balance—the taste is much different after 40 minutes than at 20 minutes. The saffron turns the tea golden.

To make four 6-ounce cups

Ingredients:

Large pinch saffron threads
1 tablespoon green tea, such as Gyokuru Pearl Dew
1/2 teaspoon green oolong, such as Green Dragon
½ teaspoon mild flavored black tea, such as Ceylon
½ cup ripe blackberries
24 ounces fresh cold water
Few drops rose water
Honey or sugar if desired

Method:

1. Put the saffron, the teas and blackberries in the teapot.
2. In a tea kettle, heat the water until the first wisps of steam curl out of the spout. Pour the hot water into the teapot, replace the top and steep for at least 30 minutes. Taste and continue to steep for 10 or 15 minutes more, if desired.
3. Now for the tricky part: add rosewater a few drops at a time. Stir into the pot, then taste. The rosewater should not dominate the flavor of the tea. Rather it should just be a mysterious floral essence lurking in the background, mingling with the aroma of the saffron.
4. Add a little honey or sugar if desired and serve warm.

Posted by SpiceLines at 7:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

“Breakfast at nine. Green figs. Yoghurt. Coffee. Very black.”

--James Bond in From Russia with Love (1963)

Let’s get one thing straight: there’s only one Bond. Sean Connery, of course. Only he could order breakfast from room service in that steely burr and make it sound like a threat and a caress.

Breakfast with Bond—this time he was in Istanbul—would send a few shivers up the spine. You’d find yourself on your back, pressed against a cold tile floor, though it’s hard to say whether you’d be dodging an assassin’s bullet or murmuring “Take me around the world again, James.” (This from Dr. Holly Goodhead—played by Lois Chiles, actually a high school classmate of mine--in Moonraker, 1979.)

But let’s talk about the breakfast, which you can have in the relative safety of your own kitchen. Right now the Marseilles fig tree I planted near the porch four years ago is sprouting small hard green figs. The Marseilles was Thomas Jefferson’s favorite—he planted it in the South Orchard at Monticello and called it “the finest fig I’ve ever seen.”

If you have ever tasted one, you will know why. When it ripens, almost overnight, the fruit softens and swells to three times its size. Plucked sun-warmed from the tree, the now yellowish Marseilles has a pale, pearly sheen. Drops of milky sap rise from the broken stem. Now bite into one. Engorged with sweetness, the pale pink flesh is utterly seductive, with a luscious honeyed flavor.

I can’t imagine a more perfect breakfast, especially if, like Bond, you eat the fresh figs with a small bowl of thick, tangy Greek yoghurt and a pot of strong coffee.

If you don’t have a tree, you can probably buy fresh figs in your farmer’s market or at the grocery store during the summer. While I’m waiting for our own fruit to ripen, I’ve been paying ridiculous amounts of money for lime green Calimyrna figs from Whole Foods. Calimyrna figs originally came from Turkey, where they were grown in the Menander Valley, but they arrived in California in the 1880’s and are now cultivated for fresh and dried fruit.

Although the Calimyrna is good—some say it tastes like a banana, others call its pale flesh nutty, neither of which seems right to me—the skin can be tough and the fruit somewhat unyielding since they are picked before they are fully ripe.

The best way to cure the problem is to gently stew the figs until they become soft and succulent. Leafing through Christine Ferber’s cookbook, Mes Confitures, I came across a simple recipe for fig jam with vanilla, sugar and lemon juice. Ferber lives in Alsace and she makes her delicious small batch jams with perfect summer fruit, in this case luscious purple-skinned Bourjasotte figs. Never mind. Not so perfect green skinned Calimyrna figs are wonderful cooked in honey with a vanilla bean, a strip or two of lemon zest and a sprig of lemon thyme.

Now all you need is yoghurt and black coffee. And Bond.

To read more about figs, see "In the Garden: Figs" by Carol Williams (House and Garden, September 2007, pp. 145-147; 227. The Marseilles fig can be ordered from Edible Landscaping in Afton, Virginia.

Green Figs Stewed in Honey with Vanilla, Lemon Zest and Thyme

Can't wait till breakfast? This also makes a delectable summer dessert.

To serve two

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons honey
1 tablespoon water
1 6-inch vanilla bean (I prefer Mexican)
2 or 3 strips of lemon zest
1 sprig of lemon thyme (or any other thyme)
8 ounces fresh Calimyrna or other green-skinned figs

Method:

1. Rinse the figs and pinch off the stems. Cut them in half and set aside.
2. Split the vanilla bean in half lengthwise and cut each half into 2 or 3 pieces.
3. In a small saucepan, combine the honey, water, vanilla bean and lemon zest over the lowest flame. Stir to dissolve the honey and turn off the heat. Add the figs, gently toss them in the honey mixture, and let them macerate, covered, for an hour.
4. After an hour, add the lemon thyme. Turn the heat to very low and gently simmer the figs for 30 to 40 minutes, turning them carefully so that they don’t fall apart but are just cooked through. Remove the pan from the heat and let them cool to room temperature.
5. You can eat the figs now if you like, but they are even better if you leave them overnight to soak up the syrupy vanilla and lemon-infused juices they have exuded. To serve, divide the figs between two bowls and spoon their pale pink syrup over them. Serve with Greek yoghurt, of course, and coffee. Very black.

Posted by SpiceLines at 2:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Mild-mannered eggplant gets a spicy kick from mint, olives, and jalapeno peppers.

Did you know that solanum melongena is called “eggplant” in America because some 18th century cultivars looked like goose eggs? Elsewhere the prolific purple fruit is an aubergine or maybe a brinjal. “Mad apple” came about when someone confused the Italian melanzane with mela insana.

Of course “insana” is how you may feel when you stumble over yet another sack of eggplant left on your doorstep by a stealthy and definitely anonymous benefactor. Like the tomato and potato, it is part of the deadly nightshade family and for centuries people assumed all three were poisonous.

Yesterday the wondrous box of organic vegetables from Elysian Fields Farm, our amazing CSA, disgorged a few more pounds of slim, curvy dark purple and pale lavender eggplants. They are so lovely and tender at this time of year that I usually rush to put them on the grill, brushed with a little miso mixed with sugar and sake. Soft, a little sweet and slightly charred, they are delicious with anything else you might want cook over hot coals, especially lamb chops or pork tenderloins.

I love Paula Wolfert’s recipe for caponatina, a Sicilian dish of eggplant with celery and green olives in homemade tomato sauce, splashed with lots of red wine vinegar. Ditto for her Moroccan eggplant and tomato salad, in which both are cooked to the consistency of jam. Both recipes are in my well-splattered copy of her cookbook, A World of Food, and in true Wolfert fashion, they need to be prepared a day or two before serving.

But this week I’m tired. I’m also crazy for fresh mint from the garden, fruity Kalamata olives and ricotta salata, a flavor-packed trio that worked magic with summer squash a few days ago. I decided to try them with eggplant.

When very fresh eggplant is cut into chunks and sautéed in olive oil, the flesh becomes rich and almost creamy. To spice it up, I added chopped onion, lots of garlic and a slivered jalapeno (more bounty from the garden), then tossed in some tomato. At the end, I stirred in the mint, olives and ricotta. It was even better than the squash.

From start to finish, this is a 25-minute dish and so satisfying that it’s all you need for supper on a hot summer night. Which leaves you lots of time to pick whatever else is ripening in the garden.

Eggplant with Fresh Mint, Kalamata Olives, Jalapeno and Ricotta Salata

To serve 4 as a side dish or 2 as a main dish

Ingredients:

1 pound slender Asian eggplants
1/4 cup olive oil
1 small onion, chopped
5 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped
1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and slivered vertically
1 small tomato, chopped
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
1 small handful fresh mint, about 1/2 cup of leaves stripped off the stems
1/2 cup Kalamata olives, pitted
3 ounces ricotta salata, crumbled in largish pieces

Method:

1. Trim off the tops of the eggplants and cut them into 1/2-inch chunks.
2. Heat 2 tablespoons of the olive oil in a large pan over a medium flame. Saute the onions and garlic for 1 minute, then add the eggplant and sauté for about 8 minutes until it becomes soft and creamy and starts to brown around the edges. The eggplant will quickly absorb most of the olive oil, so add the remaining 2 tablespoons as soon as needed.
3. After 8 minutes of sautéing, add the jalapeno and tomato and cook for 2 to 3 minutes more.
4. Remove the eggplant mixture from the heat and add salt and freshly ground pepper to taste. Stir in half of the mint leaves, and all the olives and crumbled ricotta salata. Set the mixture aside for 5 minutes so that the flavors can mingle. Just before serving, stir in the rest of the mint and serve warm.

Posted by SpiceLines at 2:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Pungent mint, fruity tasting olives and creamy ricotta salata give bland summer
squash a savory spin. Add freshly cracked green peppercorns for extra spice.

When serendipity strikes in my kitchen, it’s usually by accident.

This recipe began with an embarrassment of summer squash. First there was zucchini, a notorious garden thug that drives normally circumspect people to leave baskets of the stuff on their neighbors’ doorsteps under cover of darkness.

Then came bushels of the prettiest yellow crooknecks that looked as if their bottoms had been dipped in pale green paint. Both kinds of squash are delicious if plucked when still small. They are tender, with a delicate, mildly sweet flavor--so good that you can just slice and gobble them raw, like cucumbers, or dip them into yogurt mixed with a little chopped garlic. Another way to serve summer squash is to cook it with fresh corn, onion and thyme, then smash everything together slightly and add butter and salt.

But while the squash (let's not mention the eggplant) was piling up in the kitchen, the mint was running wild in the garden, staging sneak attacks on the Sungold cherry tomato vines and the dark red dahlias. I yanked up a huge handful and came inside to savor the possibilities. Fresh mint has a wonderfully cool refreshing flavor, but it can also be hot and spicy. There are so many cultivars that it’s almost impossible to keep count, but true peppermint—mentha piperita, especially the purple-stemmed variety that's mounting a surge in our garden—is intensely pungent. It makes delicious Moroccan mint tea and fantastic mojitos. It’s the best mint to use in summer cooking, especially in any dish in which you really want the taste of the herb to stand out. I love it.

Mint seemed like just the thing to perk up the mild taste of summer squash. But there was more: In the refrigerator I found a container of purplish Kalamata olives, which would add a fruity, salty dimension to the dish. And for richness, well, there was a chunk of crumbly ricotta salata, firm, creamy tasting, and only slightly salty--left over from another experiment. All that was left was to add were a few cloves of garlic and some pepper. The distinctive taste of black pepper seemed too assertive for this dish, so I opted for freshly cracked green peppercorns which lent a touch of heat, but in a more subtle way.

This is a perfect summer vegetable dish. Squash of kinds are abundant in farmer’s markets, and you may find big bunches of fresh mint as well, or even at your supermarket. When cooking, you really don’t have to measure anything, just add the mint, olives, ricotta salata and other seasonings to taste. Best of all, it’s quick—about 15 minutes to cook and a few minutes more to stand before serving.

Summer Squash with Fresh Mint, Kalamata Olives and Ricotta Salata

To serve four as a side dish, or two as a main course

Ingredients:

(I’ve given measurements, but feel free to cook this to your own taste.)

1-1/2 pounds of small summer squash (mix of zucchini and crooknecks)
1 tablespoon olive oil
5 cloves of garlic, peeled, smashed and coarsely chopped
Salt to taste
1/2 teaspoon green peppercorns
Small handful of mint leaves, about 1/4 cup
1/4 cup Kalamata olives, pitted
2 ounces ricotta salata, coarsely crumbled

Method:

1. Wash the squash and trim the tops and tails. Quarter the squash lengthwise and cut it into small chunks.
2. In a large saucepan, warm the olive oil over medium heat. Add the garlic and sauté briefly, then add the squash. Cook, tossing occasionally with a spatula, for 7 to 8 minutes, until the squash is cooked through and is beginning to brown around the edges.
3. While the squash is cooking, put the peppercorns in a ziplock bag and crush them with the handle of a chef’s knife. Strip the mint leaves off their tough stems and roughly tear them into pieces. Smash the olives with the flat side of a knife and tear them into pieces as well. Crumble the ricotta, but keep it in largish pieces.
4. When the squash is ready, remove it from the heat. Add salt and cracked green peppercorns to taste. Stir in half the mint, and all the olives and ricotta salata. Let the ingredients sit for a few minutes, so the flavors can mingle. Just before serving, add the rest of the mint.

Posted by SpiceLines at 2:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Green borshch's brightly acidic flavor comes from sorrel leaves, which are packed
with oxalic acid. Potatoes, onions, other greens and lavish quantities of pepper
help to balance the tartness of the soup.

Green borshch, as you might suspect, has no beets at all.

Instead it gets its color from liberal amounts of sorrel, along with parsley, green onion, and a smattering of dill.

You rarely see sorrel in American markets, except perhaps in the gourmet herb section of your supermarket. Which is odd, since rumex acetosa is a perennial herb that grows rampantly throughout Europe and parts of Asia, Its bright, sour taste comes from an abundance of oxalic acid in the mature leaves, and in the time of Henry VIII it was favorite salad herb. John Evelyn, an 18th century diarist and friend of Samuel Pepys, praised the “grateful quickness” it imparted “in the making of sallets…as supplying the want of oranges and lemons.” Like citrus fruit, it was said to cure scurvy and all sorts of inflammatory ailments.

But most of us, if we think of sorrel at all, associate it with French cuisine. Larousse Gastronomique has a host of recipes for the herb, including a luxurious veloute soup in which the leaves are blanched in boiling water, sweated in butter, then pureed in a chicken consommé thickened with a white roux and beaten with egg yolks, double cream and more butter. What’s amazing is that sorrel’s powerful acidity can stand up to all that richness.

In contrast, Russian sorrel soup is plain peasant fare, the sort of dish that might have been casually improvised on a summer day after a walk in a lush meadow. Coarsely chopped leaves, gathered in the wild or cultivated in a vegetable plot, were simmered in a hearty broth with potatoes and onions. More greens were added towards the end, then a spoonful of smetana or sour cream and a sliced hard boiled egg. It was—and is—a complete meal, satisfying and filling, especially in a cool Northern climate.

Sorrel is also known as spinach dock, and in fact sorrel and spinach are sometimes combined in green borshch. Then it may be called zelyonye shchi. Shchi is a sour Russian soup, usually made with cabbage or sauerkraut—the connection, I suppose, is in the acidic taste. There is also a type of shchi that includes nettles and sorrel.

By any name this sorrel soup has a wonderfully tart flavor that seems right for summer, even if it is a bit hearty. I first tasted this soup as part of a vodka-fueled lunch at Podvorye, a rustic restaurant near the town of Pushkina that is said to be a favorite of Vladimir Putin. The recipe in Podvorye’s cookbook calls for 250 grams of sorrel –about 9 ounces. To get that much sorrel, I went to Whole Foods and ordered a dozen 3/4- ounce plastic clamshells from Jacobs Farm, an organic culinary herb grower in California. Quite naturally, the day after it arrived I was visiting a neighbor in the next block who showed me a healthy patch of sorrel in his vegetable garden. “I don’t know what to do with it,” he said ruminatively. Hmmm….

Russian sorrel soup seems to be made more often with beef broth, but because I had two quarts of homemade chicken broth in the freezer, that’s what I used. It is good either way: the important thing is that the broth should be rich and full-flavored. To slightly offset the sourness of the sorrel, I used buttery Yukon gold potatoes and sweet Vidalia onions. The cookbook specifies additional “greens” but doesn’t give many clues—I used tops of green onions, flat leaf parsley and a little dill. Lavish amounts of salt and pepper should be added towards the end in order to pull the flavors into balance. Podvorye’s soup was quite peppery.

With all the herbs, potatoes, a hardboiled egg and crème fraiche (which tastes more like Russian sour cream than the supermarket variety), this green borshch is so filling that you don’t need anything else for supper. Still, a tiny glass or two of chilled vodka wouldn’t be amiss.

Green Summer Borscht with Sorrel, Potatoes and Crème Fraiche

(adapted from the cookbook for Podvorye Restaurant)

The soup tastes even better if you make it early in the morning, so that the flavor of the sorrel has time to blend with other ingredients.

To serve 4

Ingredients:

6 cups rich beef or chicken broth, preferably homemade
3 cups potatoes, peeled and cut in 1/4 inch dice
4 large eggs
3 cups onion, cut in 1/4 inch dice
2 tablespoons canola oil
9 ounces sorrel leaves, roughly chopped (see note)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 cup green onions or scallions, tops only, chopped
1 cup flat leaf parsley, chopped
1/4 cup fresh dill, chopped
1/2 cup crème fraiche

Method:

1. Combine the broth and diced potatoes in a large saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium low and simmer for 10 minutes.
2. While the potatoes are cooking, put the eggs in a small saucepan and cover with water. Bring to a boil, turn off the heat, and leave them while preparing the soup.
3. In a medium skillet, sauté the diced onions in the oil until they are soft, translucent and just beginning to brown around the edges. Add to the soup and simmer for 5 minutes.
4. Add the sorrel, green onions and parsley to the soup and cook for 5 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste, but don’t stint. You’ll need plenty to balance the tartness of the herbs and the blandness of the potatoes. The soup should be peppery tasting.
5. Before serving, peel the eggs and cut them in quarters. Add 2 or 3 pieces to each bowl, tucking them under the sorrel and potatoes. Top each serving with a generous spoonful of crème fraiche and sprinkle with a little dill.

Note: Fresh sorrel can be ordered from Jacobs Farm.

Posted by SpiceLines at 12:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In this refreshing summer soup, the sweet earthy flavor of grated beets is brightened
with a splash of lemon juice and lots of fresh dill and green onions.

At the lunch table at my San Antonio school, the only thing worse than stewed tomatoes were the dreaded canned beets. We didn’t have a choice: we had to clean our plates. If you didn’t, you’d sit in the silent, darkened dining room all afternoon, with the plate of cold, crimson, sickly sweet slices looking back at you. It was impossible to escape the sight or metallic smell of the beets. At last, when the dismissal bell rang, a tight-lipped teacher would appear to let you go home.

Needless to say, I spent more than one afternoon with the beets.

So I don’t know what possessed me to go into the old Russian Tea Room two decades later and order the borscht, a soup in which beets are the main ingredient. It was late in the afternoon and I sat there in solitary splendor; only one other table was occupied by a Broadway producer and his director in happy, animated conversation. I remember a deft waiter handing me an enormous menu and my eyes lighting on one thing I could afford: borscht with sour cream.

I don’t remember what it tasted like. But I vividly remember falling in love with beets for the first time. So it must have been good.

In the Baltic last month, I conducted an informal borshch study—that’s how it’s spelled in Russia—by ordering it whenever I could. In St. Petersburg I sat in the window of our 7th floor room at the Hotel Astoria gazing at St. Isaac’s gilded dome, the sun still glancing off its golden surfaces at 10 PM, spooning some of the most delicious borshch I’ve ever tasted into my mouth. It was perfectly simple, just shredded beets in their broth, lots and lots of fresh dill, and lemon juice. It came with a little dish of the thickest, richest smetana or sour cream I’ve ever had, and when I stirred them together, the crimson borshch turned a bright pink.

I soon discovered that borshch, which is said to have originated in the Ukraine, comes many different ways. At Restaurant Polovtsev, in the richly paneled dining room of a famous Russian senator’s mansion, I ate a hefty borshch of shredded beets—the beets were always shredded, never chopped— in beef broth thick with cubes of tongue. It was a hearty soup better suited to St. Petersburg’s annual 130 days of rain and snow than a summer’s balmy white night. At Podvorye, a dacha outside St. Petersburg, the borshch combines pork or beef brisket with an entire vegetable market: beets, cabbage, carrots, onions, sweet pepper, tomatoes and garlic. There is borshch with beans, with mushrooms, with potatoes and with roots of parsley, celery and parsnip.. In Estonia, at Kuldse Notsu Korts (aka the “Golden Piggie”), the beetroot soup was flavored with smoky sausages. It was very tart, splashed with both lemon juice and vinegar. There’s even a so-called green borshch, a sorrel soup or shchi, which has no beets at all.

In summer I want a light cold borshch with lots of fresh herbs. I found a recipe for a cold summer soup in Russian Cuisine, a cookbook by Lydia Liakhovskaya, which is the perfect fit. It is very similar to the borshch at the Hotel Astoria, except that it is served cold instead of warm. It has the refreshing idea of adding diced cucumber to the mix, and is brightened with lemon juice.

Early to mid summer is a perfect time to make cold borshch, when the beets are freshly dug from the earth and are still small and tender. (They are a cool season crop, so otherwise, wait till fall.) I used both red and golden beets; if you can find some of the heirloom varieties such as the red and white striped chioggia, all the better. Their sweet earthy flavor is perfectly set off by lots of chopped fresh dill and the green tops of white onions. (If necessary you can substitute scallion greens.) I always use crème fraiche which is much closer in richness and flavor to Russian smetana than grocery store sour cream. It is a perfect meal, needing only a glass of chilled white wine.

Cold Summer Borshch with Dill, Cucumber and Crème Fraiche
(adapted from Russian Cuisine by Lydia Liakhovskaya)

To serve 4

Ingredients:

2-1/4 pounds of gold and red beets
6 cups water
1 pound cucumbers
1 large bunch dill, about 2 cups chopped
1 large bunch green tops of onions, about 1-1/2 cups chopped tops
1/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice, or to taste
Pinch of sugar, to taste
Salt to taste
1/2 cup crème fraiche
1 to 2 tablespoons of shredded golden beets for garnish (optional)
Additional chopped dill and green onion for garnish

Method:

1. Scrub the beets with a brush under cold running water. Cut off the tops and tails. Put the beets in a medium saucepan, cover with 6 cups of water and bring to a boil over high heat. Lower the heat to medium and simmer briskly until they are tender when pierced with a fork, about 45 minutes. Do not let the beets get mushy.
2. Strain the liquid from the beets into a bowl and reserve. In a separate bowl allow the beets to cool. When they are cool enough to touch, peel them and shred them on a coarse grater. (If you are using golden beets, reserve 1 to 2 tablespoons separately for garnish.) Set aside.
3. Peel the cucumbers, cut them half vertically, and scoop out the seeds with a spoon. Cut the cucumber into 1/4-inch cubes.
4. In a large bowl, mix the shredded beets, cucumbers and reserved broth. Add the chopped dill and green onions. Stir in the lemon juice, sugar and salt to taste. Mix well and chill for one hour.
5. To serve, ladle the cold soup into four bowls. Top with one to two tablespoons of crème fraiche, garnish with a spoonful of the shredded golden beets and sprinkle chopped dill and green onion over it all.

Posted by SpiceLines at 12:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

At the Lantern Restaurant, a spicy South Indian stew includes farm fresh vegetables
and savory chickpea dumplings spiked with toasted cumin seed and green chiles.

Here’s what Andrea Reusing says about the Lantern’s savory summer stew:

“This is an extremely versatile stew that can incorporate a wide range of late summer market produce in various combinations with great results. It is an ideal make-ahead dinner: all elements can be prepared several hours in advance and then quickly combined right before serving. At the restaurant, we serve it with a fresh cucumber-yogurt raita and spicy pickled red onions, but it would pair well with a prepared chutney as well. The dumplings are not of the fluffy variety, but are dense, sour and chewy, similar to the traditional southern Indian idli, which are typically made from fermented dhal and rice.”

And, I would add:

The dumplings are most delicious if the batter has been refrigerated for the full 24 hours (or even longer). They are firmer, chewier and spicier. To make the dumplings, I used two teaspoons and a sort of triple scooping technique, using one spoon to take up the batter, the other to scoop it from the first, and then using the first to push the batter into the boiling water. It doesn’t make perfectly egg-shaped quenelles, but as long as you use a modest amount of batter, the dumplings are fairly tidy. What matters, of course, is that they are delicious.

Indian Vegetable Stew with Tomato-Saffron Broth and Chickpea Dumplings
(adapted from Andrea Reusing at the Lantern Restaurant)

To serve 6:

Ingredients for the stew:

1⁄/4 cup canola oil or ghee (clarified butter cooked to a slightly
toasty golden brown) (see note)
10 fat cloves of garlic, smashed and coarsely chopped
2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh ginger
4 finely chopped serrano chiles, seeds included, or to taste
1-1⁄2) tablespoon spice mix (recipe follows)
1 tablespoon yellow mustard seeds
6 large, ripe tomatoes cut into a large dice and lightly salted for
10 minutes
A generous pinch saffron, crumbled
Handful fresh curry leaves (optional) (see note)
Kosher or sea salt to taste
2 pounds mixed summer vegetables, roasted (see note)
1/2 -1 cup water, depending on the ripeness of the tomatoes
1 recipe chickpea dumplings (recipe follows)
1/2 cup thinly sliced scallion
1/2 cup cilantro leaves

Method for the stew:

1. In a large, heavy dutch oven, heat ghee or oil over medium heat and
add garlic and saute until medium golden brown. Add ginger, chiles, saffron and spice mix. Season with salt and continue to cook until fragrant, about one minute.

2. Add mustard seeds and as they pop, add the optional curry leaves (stripped off their wiry stems) and chopped tomatoes and season with salt. Cook over medium-low heat for about 6-7 minutes until the tomatoes have released a substantial amount of juice and their skins have softened.

3. Add the cooked vegetables along with any accumulated juices and adjust the consistency with water to create a slightly soupy mixture. Season again and add 6-8 dumplings per person. Heat through and spoon the stew into heated individual serving bowls or a large tureen, garnishing with cilantro and scallions.

Note: Ghee is sold at Indian markets, or order it from www.kalustyans.com. It has a rich, nutty flavor and makes a much tastier dumpling than the canola oil.

I found fresh curry leaves at Whole Foods, but they are more often available at Indian markets or from www.kalustyans.com.
Used to flavor the vegetarian dishes of South India, they have a very distinctive taste—earthy, with a touch of citrus. Frozen leaves are less flavorful, but can be used if the fresh are not available.

Summer vegetables: Use vegetables such as pattypan or sunburst squash, wedged red onion, Japanese eggplant, baby zucchini and whole okra cut into
attractive, chunky shapes about 1-1⁄2 inch bite sized pieces (they will shrink slightly in cooking). Toss in a little canola oil, salt and pepper and place them in one layer on a sheet pan covered with aluminum foil. Roast in a 450-degree oven until light brown and still slightly underdone, about 20 minutes. Make sure that the oven is pre-heated and that the vegetables are not disturbed until they begin to color.

Ingredients for the spice mix:

1 tablespoon whole cumin seed
1 tablespoon whole coriander seed
1⁄2 tablespoon whole fennel seeds
2 small dried red chiles
1⁄2 tablespoon ground turmeric

Method for the spice mix:

Toast the cumin, coriander, fennel and chiles over medium heat until fragrant, about one minute. Pour into a small bowl and let cool. Grind very fine in spice mill and then stir in the ground turmeric.

Ingredients for the chickpea dumplings:

1/2 cup chickpea flour (see note)
1⁄4 cup all-purpose flour
1⁄4 cup semolina flour
1-1/8 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon Kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/2 tablespoon whole cumin seed, lightly toasted
1/2 tablespoon serrano chile, finely chopped, including seeds
1-1/4 cups whole milk yogurt
1 beaten egg
2 tablespoons ghee or canola oil

Method for the dumplings:

1. Combine and sift dry ingredients, including salt and pepper. Whisk eggs and add yogurt, ghee, or oil, cumin and chiles in a large bowl and gradually add the flour mixture until well combined. Let the batter rest refrigerated for at least one hour and as long as 24 hours.

2. Line a sheet pan with aluminum foil. Bring a medium pot of generously salted water to a boil and form small egg-shaped quenelles of the dumpling batter with two teaspoons, allowing them to cook for about 6 minutes, before scooping them out onto the sheet pan to cool and repeating with the rest of the batter.

Note: Chickpea flour is available in Indian markets and natural food stores.

Posted by SpiceLines at 6:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Gerard Vives is a pepper specialist who lives in the south of France. I am besotted with his recipe for a single perfect egg with white peppercorns, herbs from the garden and a singular syrup of honey and balsamic vinegar.

Begin, as Vives suggests, with a farm fresh egg. This is essential. The egg is the star of the show and it must be a flavorful one, with a high, rounded yolk and albumen that is thickly gelatinous. (Around here Fickle Creek Farm’s pasture-raised hen eggs are the gold standard.) Crack it into a cast iron skillet set on the lowest possible heat. As it slowly cooks, scatter herbs from the garden around the edges so that their flavor will infuse the egg white—I used small leaves of basil, a sprig or two of lemon thyme, flat leaf parsley and a snip of tarragon (which he calls the “most violent herb in the garden”). Sprinkle a few grains of sea salt over the egg, add a generous grind of white pepper to counter the richness of the yolk, and then—here’s the stroke of utter brilliance--drizzle “pearls” of syrupy honey mixed with a dash of balsamic vinegar around the edges.

This is an extraordinary dish, best enjoyed in rapt silence. Make it for yourself, or for one other very lucky person. No conversation required.

One Perfect Egg with Herbs, White Pepper, and Honey-Balsamic Vinegar
(adapted from Gerard Vives, www.gerardvives.com)

To serve one:

Ingredients:

One large fresh egg at room temperature
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1 to 2 tablespoons of finely chopped herbs: parsley, small basil leaves, thyme, a touch of tarragon
1 tablespoon lavender honey
1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
Maldon or other flaky sea salt
Sarawak white peppercorns

Method:

1. Set a small cast iron skillet over the lowest possible flame. Add a tablespoon of olive oil and heat gently. Carefully crack the egg and slide it into the pan. Cook it very slowly over the lowest heat. After one or two minutes, scatter finely chopped herbs around the edges of the egg white. Cook until the white is just set and yolk is warm but still runny. This will take 6 or 7 minutes.
2. While the egg is cooking, mix the honey and balsamic vinegar in a small pan and heat until they are syrupy. Turn off the heat and keep warm.
3. When the egg is ready, use a spatula to gently lift it onto a plate. Sprinkle with a few grains of sea salt and a grind of white pepper. Drizzle the honey-balsamic vinegar syrup around the egg. Devour immediately.

The Back Story

One sweltering summer day in Paris, I was poking around Maison Israel, a dusty Marais shop crammed floor to ceiling with every imaginable spice and herb, when my eye fell upon an oblong wooden box. Stenciled on the lid was a map of the world and a label: Le Comptoir des Poivres. Inside the box there was an old English map of the Malabar Coast and nine cork-stoppered vials of exotic peppercorns, exquisitely fresh and full of flavor.

I was intrigued.

Le Comptoir des Poivres is the invention of a man named Gerard Vives. A Marseilles native, Vives spends part of each year trawling through Asia, seeking fine, often rare peppercorns for his Michelin-starred clients. He is also a self-taught cook. His home base—Le Lapin Tant Pis in the village of Forcalquier in Haute Provence—serves as a restaurant or an atelier as the mood takes him. He has thought long and hard about the differences between peppercorns from Sarawak, Muntok, Lampong and other ports of call, and how they might be used in recipes that coax their individual aromas and flavors to the fore.

I caught up with Vives in Paris this spring, when he came to give a pepper presention at the Salon D’Agriculture. He arrived at my hotel on a Saturday morning with his glamorous blonde wife and 20 tubes of pepper, including two of his latest finds: fruity red peppercorns from Pondicherry, and Voatsiperifery wild peppercorns from Madagascar’s rain forest. “I was the first to sell poivre sauvage,” he told me. “All the famous chefs wanted it. It’s fantastic with foie gras.”

When Vives writes about pepper, his prose verges on the poetic. It epitomizes a sensuous, almost romantic view of spices that seems particularly French. (By comparison the American approach to spice seems pragmatic and results-oriented.) Here’s what he says about creamy white Sarawak pepper: “a sophisticated and harmonious pepper… with an elegant beige coat, a delightful and powerful bouquet of fresh and woody notes, with delicate acidity. A strong presence on the palate with flavours of liquorice and hints of humus…”

Posted by SpiceLines at 7:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This traditional Louisiana gumbo is rich with shellfish, and seasoned with
thyme, black and cayenne pepper, and file powder from the sassafras tree.

I had an unexpectedly delicious gumbo last week.

In the Mardi Gras spirit, Guglhupf, an artisanal bakery and patisserie in Durham, N.C., was offering a spicy gumbo special. With some trepidation, I tried it--but I needn't have worried. The gumbo was great-- rich and savory, thick with tiny shrimp, chicken and spicy local sausage, and the chef, Mary Melies, had given it a truly authentic touch, seasoning it with file powder from the sassafras tree.

The gumbo was so good that I went home and pulled Mary Land’s Louisiana Cookery off the top shelf of the spice library. I stumbled across this wonderful 1954 cookbook at Faulkner House Books in Pirate’s Alley in the French Quarter in the balmy pre-Katrina days. Happily, the owners—Rosemary James and her husband, Joseph J. DeSalvo—reopened early last year, and are doing a thriving business in first editions of Southern literature and hard-to-find books about New Orleans. It also happens to be a repository of great Louisiana cookbooks.

Mary Land grew up on the Rough and Ready Plantation in the Red River Valley in the northern part of the state. The faded photo on the back flap shows a well-upholstered, sixty-ish woman not entirely comfortable with the camera: she’s gazing firmly into the lens, with a fixed demi-smile and a slightly rueful look in her eyes. Her hair is pulled back, topped with a small, close-fitting black hat, cocked to one side; a tweed jacket and over that, what appears to be a practical, short-haired fur complete the outfit. The blurb describes her as a “dedicated outdoorswoman” and indeed, a pack of Chatahoula leopard dogs and a shotgun could well be just outside the picture frame.

In the Forward, Land confesses that her father wanted a boy and “when I came along, he simply did the best he could with what he had.” This meant teaching her to tote a gun as soon as she was big enough, and to jab a fishhook into a worm “without fainting fits” at age four. From her cousin Gammon, she learned to play with baby alligators and “the more important maxims of life—to be free of fear and to do first things first.” (She was also a poet and folklorist. If you’re thinking they don’t make 'em like this anymore, you would be right.)

More importantly, from a cook’s perspective, Land developed a deep appreciation for “the groceries supplied by Mother Earth.” I suspect that she was a fine, confident cook. As she moved around the state, she made friends as easily with New Orleans chefs as bayou cooks; her intimate knowledge of Louisiana’s natural larder is staggering, and the mostly simple, traditional recipes give us a glimpse of an almost vanished culture. It is a snapshot in time, taken well before Prudhomme, Emeril and their cohorts began to dilute and, oddly, narrow our idea of Louisiana cookery.

Land’s five gumbo recipes include a Duck Hunters Camp Gumbo (using duck gizzards and livers) and a Creole Gumbo for Large Gatherings (105 pounds of raw shrimp, 52 minced onions, 115 pounds of crab meat, 3 bottles of Red Devil Sauce and so on.) But the recipe that caught my eye was just plain Gumbo, which she describes as “a pungent mixture, inherited from Africa and the West Indies.” Although any shellfish, fowl or game can be used as a base, you can’t go wrong with shrimp, crabmeat and oysters, the main ingredients in this one.

A few pointers about gumbo: To do it right, you must "first make a roux." This is the way countless Louisiana recipes begin. The roux--a mixture of slowly browned flour and butter--is what gives gumbo, stews and other dishes their rich flavor. It also serves to thicken the stock ever so slightly. You must, and I repeat must, make a roux in a well-seasoned cast iron pot or least a cast iron skillet. Otherwise, the flour will stick to the pan and burn before it turns the right shade of dark mahoghany. Stir with a wooden spoon and don’t try to hurry the browning. As Land remarks, “Every type of dish is cooked on a ‘slow’ fire. Time is meaningless, for Louisiana cooks know that qui va doucement va surement (going slowly is the secret of cookery).”

The stock that you use also contributes to the flavor of the gumbo—and here again, speed is not of the essence. Quoting a bayou cook, Land says, “Ma chere, the mo’slow the stock is cook the mo’bet’ it is,” But I cheated and used an aseptically packaged seafood stock which turned out to be full-flavored and nicely seasoned. You could also make a stock of shrimp shells—but for 2 quarts, you will need more than the shells from the one pound of shrimp in this recipe. In a pinch you could probably use homemade chicken broth.

As for the seafood, the recipe calls for shrimp, plus 2 cups of cooked crabmeat and a dozen oysters. The lump crabmeat I bought was so sweet and succulent that it almost overwhelmed the flavor of the other ingredients, so you might want to start with less and add more to taste. Unless you can lay your hands on some plump Gulf oysters, a dozen will not be nearly enough—I used close to a whole pint of smallish Chesapeake oysters.

The final touch is the file powder. First made by the Choctaw Indians on Bayou Lancombe, file (pronounced fi-lay) comes from the dried, powdered leaf of the sassafras tree. The word derives from the French verb filer, which means “to spin into threads” and describes the powder’s thickening action. File has a sweetish, aromatic taste which has been described as a cross between thyme and savory. It adds flavor and also serves as a thickener; you don’t need much—just a generous pinch or so.

Peppery Louisiana Seafood Gumbo
(adapted from Mary Land’s Louisiana Cookery)

To serve 4:

Ingredients for the gumbo:

4 large onions, peeled and finely chopped
1 stick of butter
2 tablespoons flour
2 quarts seafood stock
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
1 cup sweet green pepper, finely chopped
1 cup celery, finely chopped
3 bay leaves
4 teaspoons dried thyme
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper, or to taste
Salt and lots of freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1 pound raw shrimp, peeled and deveined
1-1/2 to 2 cups cooked crabmeat
1-1/2 cups fresh oysters
File powder, to taste (see note)
Cooked white rice

Method:

1. In a cast iron pot or skillet, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the onions, and sauté until they are soft and translucent. Do not brown.
2. Slowly sprinkle the flour over the onion mixture and using a wooden spoon, stir it into the butter and onions. Continue to stir gently until the roux takes on a rich, dark brown color. This may take 20 to 30 minutes. Lower the heat if necessary to keep it from burning.
3. While making the roux, heat the stock until it is very hot. When the roux has acquired a dark brown color, pour in the hot stock (If you are using a skillet to make the roux, transfer it to a medium stock pot when it is done and then add the stock). Stir until the roux and the stock are combined.
4. Add the other ingredients except for the seafood, file and rice. Stir and simmer very, very slowly for 2 hours. Then add the shrimp and simmer gently for 20 minutes. Add the crab and simmer a few minutes. Toss in the oysters and simmer until their edges curl, just a minute or two.
5. Serve hot in a big bowl, as Land instructs, with “boiled rice piled high on one side.” Sprinkle with file powder to taste and serve. To accompany the gumbo you need nothing more than a crisp green salad, very lightly dressed in oil and vinegar, and a glass of wine.

Note: Zatarain and Rex gumbo file can be ordered from www.cajunsupermarket.com and it is also available at www.penzeys.com. Be sure you are buying pure ground sassafras leaf, as there are also flavored versions of file. Whole Food sells Gumbo File flavored with thyme, for example.

My 1986 edition of The Joy of Cooking, incidentally, states that file has been banned as a carcinogen by the FDA. Now we know that, although the roots and bark of the sassafras tree do contain the carcinogen safrole, the leaves do not. File is safe to use, especially in the very small quantities called for in this recipe. Under no circumstances use tapioca flour to thicken the gumbo as Joy suggests.

Posted by SpiceLines at 5:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If you love black pepper and adore Vietnamese food as much as I do, check out Andrea Nguyen’s Quick Bites for February 23. This is the newsletter for her amazing website, Viet World Kitchen—and in it you’ll find a link to SpiceLines recipe for Gio Thu, a traditional Hanoi-style New Year’s snack made of fresh bacon and pig’s ears, sautéed with garlic, scallions, onions and black fungus, seasoned with fish sauce and cracked black pepper to taste (the more the better for me). Traditionally, the pork mixture is wrapped in banana leaves and compressed in a wooden mold until the gelatin in the pig’s ears causes it to stick together--or you can weigh it down with a large stock pot filled with water. Sliced like pate and served over a bowl of hot rice, it makes a delicious, peppery snack—an easy quick bite after partying all night.

Viet World Kitchen is devoted to Vietnamese culinary traditions. It has wonderful recipes, restaurant picks and tantalizing tidbits of food culture. Right now you can read all about the Year of the Pig (people born this year are “chivalrous, generous and smart”), learn how to say Happy New Year in Vietnamese (chuc mung nam moi!) and download a traditional Tet couplet to be posted on your door. Don’t miss Andrea’s articles on Pho, the delectable Hanoi-style beef and noodle soup, for the San Jose Mercury. (For SpiceLines pho recipe, go here.) Andrea is also the author of Into the Vietnamese Kitchen, one of the best cookbooks of 2006, and a cooking teacher.

In the newsletter, Andrea refers to Gio Thu as “Vietnamese Head Cheese”.

Posted by SpiceLines at 6:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Spekkuk, an Indonesian spice cake, is rich in butter and scented with nutmeg,
cinnamon and clove.

This aromatic spice cake is a sweet, if haunting, legacy of the 350-year Dutch colonization of the islands now known as Indonesia. Like other Europeans, the Dutch were lured to that part of the world by their lust for spices, but once in control, they ruled with a brutality nearly unparalleled for the times. This cake, known as spekkuk (after the Dutch spekkoek), is a sort of cross-cultural dessert—rich with butter like a pound cake, but perfumed with the very spices that drove the conquest of the East Indies—nutmeg, cinnamon and clove.

Although nutmeg seems to have fallen out of favor these days, once it was the most eagerly sought of all the spices—as much for its curative powers as for its flavor. As Giles Morton relates in Nathaniel’s Nutmeg, the pale shriveled-looking nut “was the most coveted luxury in seventeenth-century Europe, a spice held to have such powerful medicinal properties that men would risk their lives to acquire it. Always costly, it rocketed in price when the physicians of Elizabethan London began claiming that their nutmeg pomanders were the only certain cure for the plague…” At one point, a pound of nutmeg sold for a premium of 3,200 percent on the London market.

The recipe for this cake comes from The Cradle of Flavor: Home Cooking from the Spice Islands of Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. (See SpiceLines review here.) The author, James Oseland, was given it by his friend Mami, an elderly woman who shared a box of handwritten recipes with him one sleepy afternoon in the town of Bandung. As James tells it, the recipes “were like pressed flowers in a diary, each revealing some moment in Mami’s past.” The spice cake is made with three sticks of butter—and because of this extravagance, Mami only baked it for “important guests…or for her berbuka puasa (literally ‘opening the fast’) feasts during Ramadan.”

When I made this cake, I was fortunate to have a supply of nutmeg that grew in the Banda Islands. Most of the nutmeg consumed in America comes from the much closer island of Grenada, and this Indonesian spice, which James shared with me, was a revelation. The nutmegs, encased in shiny brown hulls, are double the size of any I’ve seen before, and when freshly grated, their sweet, warm aroma is almost intoxicating. (Consumed in large quantities, nutmeg is said to induce hallucinations and euphoria—but that is another story.) I have never smelled a batter as fragrant as the one for this cake.

Be sure to eat the spekkuk warm, as James suggests, with a glass of milk.

Indonesian Spice Cake
(from James Oseland, Cradle of Flavor)

Ingredients:

2 cups sifted cake flour, plus more for dusting
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
4 teaspoons ground cinnamon
Pinch of kosher salt
1-1/2 cups unsalted butter (3 sticks), at room temperature, plus more
for greasing
1-2/3 cups granulated sugar
4 large eggs, at room temperature
3 large egg yolks, at room temperature, lightly beaten
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 tablespoon powdered sugar (optional)

Method:

1. Position a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Grease and lightly flour a 9-inch tube pan with 3-1/2-inch sides (or, my preference, use a nonstick pan of the same size but don’t grease and flour it).
2. Resift the flour along with the baking powder, nutmeg, clove, cinnamon and salt into a bowl. Now, resift the flour mixture and then set it aside.
3. In another bowl, using an electric mixer on high speed, beat the butter until it’s soft and very pliant, about 1 minute (or 4 to 6 minutes by hand with a wooden spoon). Gradually add the granulated sugar and beat on high speed until the mixture is pale and fluffy, 3 to 5 minutes (or 6 to 8 minutes by hand).
4. One at a time, add the 4 whole eggs and beat on high speed until the mixture is light and fluffy, about 2 minutes (or 5 minutes by hand).
5. Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture in 3 equal parts, beating on low speed or stirring with the wooden spoon until the batter is smooth and the flour is well combined with the butter mixture. Add the egg yolks and vanilla and continue to beat or stir until they’re well mixed into the batter.
6. Pour the batter into the prepared pan, smoothing the surface. Place on the middle oven rack and bake until a toothpick inserted into the thickest part of the cake comes out clean, about 1 hour (though I’d recommend checking it after 45 minutes).
7. Remove the pan from the oven and let the cake cool in the pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes. If necessary, carefully run a thin knife around the perimeter and the inner rim of the cake to help loosen it from the pan. Invert the pan onto the rack and lift it off of the cake. Turn the cake right side up and let it cool on the rack.
8. Transfer the cake to a serving platter. Using a fine-mesh sieve, dust the top with powdered sugar, if desired.

Posted by SpiceLines at 6:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This chili gets its rich red color from a puree of ancho and pasilla chiles.

It’s snowing outside, fat flakes falling thickly, rimming the edge of a weathered urn, making a slatted white cushion for a green café chair carelessly left outside.

Inside, a log is burning brightly in the fireplace and on TV, Marcello Mastroianni is raising a cynical eyebrow in Fellini’s 8-1/2. It’s the most luxurious kind of day, an unexpected midweek holiday. For me, it’s a day to make chili.

In Texas I sometimes made this recipe with venison. But if venison isn’t in the larder, you can certainly use chopped beef. And please do chop it—chili with ground beef just isn’t the real thing. This recipe is made with blade chuck roast, cut into bite size pieces. It’s flavorful but tough and has to simmer for 3 to 4 hours until it becomes tender. Perfect for a slow snow day.

This chili will likely not taste like any you have ever had. Contrary to most chili which is spiced with commercial chili powder, this one is made with whole dried chile pods, soaked and pureed, then simmered with the beef. The first chili powder, incidentally, was invented in Texas in 1896 by one Willie Gebhardt—Gebhardt’s is still a big name in the chili world—and if you check recipes from the annual Terlingua Interntional Chili Cookoff, you will find that every trophy winner for the last 18 years has used arcane blends of chili powders—light, dark, habanero, jalapeno, Gebhardt’s, Pendery’s, and Mexene, But before chile powder, the dish was made with whole dried chiles.

If you love chiles, a good ratio is four pods per pound of meat, fewer if you’re less enthusiastic. Normally I use ancho chiles with a chipotle thrown in for extra heat. But today I’m running short of anchos, so I’m adding half dozen pasilla peppers. The ancho, actually a dried poblano, is a meaty, fat, triangular chile, with wrinkly almost black skin and a dark rich flavor. It ranks near the bottom of the Scoville scale at 1,000 to 2,000 units. The pasilla, also on the mild side of hot, is a long and narrow dried pepper that tapers to a point; the ones I’m using have a chocolatey, slightly fruity taste. Together they make a luscious base for the chili, warm enough to create a glow, but not so hot that you’ll break a sweat. Of course, all bets are off if you include the small but fiery chipotle (5,000 to 10,000 Scoville units).

There’s a lot of debate about the other ingredients: Can you use tomatoes? How about onions? And does real chili have pinto beans? Many Texans are adamant about not using tomatoes or even onions—though here again, most Terlingua winners don’t blanch at a can of Hunts. But I think tomatoes and onions give the chili a rounder, more complex flavor, so in they go. Personally I would never add pinto beans or frijoles; they are just too bland and starchy for this spicy stew.

Decades ago, the San Antonio chili queens stirred their pots over smoky wood fires in front of the Alamo. To get some of that outdoor flavor into the chili, I sometimes sear the meat over mesquite coals before putting it in the pot. Not now, though, as the snow has turned to sleet and the day is “dreek” as a Scottish friend likes to say. Instead I’m adding a little smoked black salt from Mexico—but you could use any of the smoked salts that are so popular now. Of course salt smoked over oak Chardonnay barrels might be a bit over the top for a dish that once was a poor man’s feast—but the taste is what counts.

Like all slow-simmered dishes, the chili tastes better the next day or even a few days later. As it sits, the flavors mingle and intensify. The problem is waiting that long...

Texas Style Beef Chili with Dried Chiles and Smoked Salt

Serves 6

Ingredients:

3 to 4 pounds blade chuck roast
1 tablespoon canola oil (more if necessary)
6 dried ancho peppers (see note)
6 dried pasilla peppers (see note)
1 dried chipotle pepper (optional) (see note)
2 cups chopped onion
1/2 head garlic, cloves peeled and chopped
3 to 4 Roma tomatoes, peeled, and chopped
4 teaspoons ground cumin, or to taste
2 teaspoons oregano, or to taste
Smoked salt, to taste
1/2 cup fresh cilantro, chopped

Method:

1. Ask your butcher to chop the chuck roast into 1-inch pieces. Chuck has quite a bit of fat; you can cut away a little of it, but don’t even think of removing all or even half of it. The fat gives the chili a richer, more luscious flavor.
2. Remove the stems and seeds from the dried peppers and place them in separate bowls. Pour boiling water over each to cover and let them soak until they become suave, or soft and pliable. Drain the peppers, but keep them separate and save the soaking water for the ancho and pasilla peppers.
3. In two separate batches, puree first the ancho and then the pasilla peppers until they are very smooth, adding 1/2 cup or more of the soaking water to each batch. There will likely be small bits of tough skin remaining. You can leave the skin in the puree, but I prefer to pass it through a food mill so that the chiles are very smooth. If you are using the chipotle, chop it very finely and set aside.
4. In a large pot over medium heat, add the canola oil and lightly brown the meat on all sides. Do this in two or three batches, as necessary. Remove to a bowl and set aside.
5. In the same pot, add a little more canola oil and sauté the onions and garlic until they are soft. Return the meat to the pot, add the ancho and pasilla chile purees, the tomato, cumin, oregano and 6 or 7 cups of water. Simmer very gently over low heat for three to four hours, uncovered, until the meat is very tender. Add more water if necessary. The chili should be fairly thick, but still liquid. About one hour before it is ready, taste and correct the seasonings, adding the chipotle pepper if you want extra heat, and more cumin and oregano if desired. This is the time to add the smoked salt, but take it easy. Some, like the black Mexican smoked salt, are very intense and can taste acrid if you use too much. Start with 1/2 teaspoon, stir to dissolve, and taste, slowly increasing the quantity if you want a smokier flavor.
6. The chili will keep in the refrigerator for 4 or 5 days. It tastes best if you can wait at least a day for the flavors to mingle. When you're ready to eat, reheat the chili and sprinkle with chopped cilantro. Serve with corn tortillas (or torn pieces of toasted baguette) and a crisp green salad.

Note: Packages of dried ancho, pasilla and chipotle pepper can be found at Latin American markets or in the international section of some supermarkets. They are also available from penzeys.com.

Posted by SpiceLines at 9:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In Japan, cabbage, carrots and scallion are lightly "pickled" in salt. After a few hours, the
salt draws out the sweetness of the vegetables, which remain crunchy and fresh-tasting.

I’ve been using ancient Japanese sea salt a lot this week: Its delicate but fulsome flavor, the result of steeping pure Inland Sea salt water with seaweed--has become so irresistible that I’ve been nibbling it when no one is looking . I started to wonder: Do the Japanese use salt differently than we do?

In Hiroko Shimbo’s book, The Japanese Kitchen. I found a recipe for salt-pickled cabbage, or kyabetsu no sakuseki zuke, that is about as far from Kosher dills, bread and butter pickles and hot garlic dills as you can get. There’s no vinegar at all in this recipe, only salt, cabbage, carrot, peppery shiso leaf and the paste of a single umeboshi plum that has itself been pickled in salt. And unlike most Western pickles, this quick cabbage pickle tastes fresh and despite the salt, ever so slightly sweet.

For centuries, the Japanese have pickled vegetables in salty brine as a way of preserving them. But for more modern pickles, ready to eat in hours, Shimbo says that salt should amount to only 2 percent of the weight of the vegetables. Normally such pickling is done in a special pickling pot which has “an inner lid that is screwed down to apply the proper pressure to the vegetables,” But, she suggests, you can also put the vegetables in a container and top them with a plate weighted down with cans of food weighing about 2 pounds. After 5 hours in the refrigerator, you have a very mild, still fresh-tasting “pickle.”

I decided to try it, with a few small changes. I used both green and red cabbage to make it more colorful, and as shiso leaves are in short supply around here in January--my favorite Asian greengrocer mournfully held up a dead plant and said, “Not till summer”--I substituted slivered scallions. Obviously they lack shiso’s minty, peppery taste but I liked the mild onion flavor the scallions added to the pickle. And instead of buying whole umeboshi plums, I used a teaspoonful of sour, salty umeboshi paste.

I gave some thought to the salt. I made one batch with Oshima Island Red Label sea salt, a simple but expensive Japanese sea salt. And, quite profligately, I made another with fluffy French fleur de sel. The Oshima Island salt made a good pickle, but the fleur de sel coaxed all the sweetness of the cabbage to the fore. Shimbo, incldentally, just uses plain salt.

Be sure to eat the cabbage as soon as it is ready. At 5 hours, there is a pleasing balance of sweet and salty flavors, and, though slightly wilted, the cabbage is still crunchy. If it sits much longer, especially overnight, the salt will take over.

Quick Salt-Pickled Cabbage
(adapted from Hiroko Shimbo, The Japanese Kitchen)

Makes about 3 cups

Ingredients for the pickle:

1/2-pound green cabbage cut into 1-1/2 inch pieces
1/2-pound red cabbage, cut into 1-1/2 inch pieces
1 medium carrot, julienned
1 rounded teaspoon umeboshi paste (see note)
2 tablespoons mirin (sweet cooking wine) (see note)
3 scallions, green tops only, slivered and cut into 2-inch lengths
1 tablespoon sea salt
White sesame seeds, toasted (for garnish)
Shoyu (Japanese soy sauce) (see note)

Method:

1. Bring 2 quarts of water to boil. Put the cabbage and carrot in a colander and pour the boiling water over them. Cool the vegetables under cold running water and drain them well.
2. Mix the umeboshi paste with the mirin. In a large bowl, combine this mixture with the vegetables and the scallions. Add the salt and toss.
3. Put the vegetables in a flat-bottomed container, position a plate on top to cover them, and weight the plate with a clean stone or unopened food cans weighing about 2 pounds. Refrigerate for 5 hours.
4. Before serving, toast the sesame seeds: Heat a small skillet over a low to medium flame, then add the seeds and toast them, shaking the skillet occasionally, until the seeds are heated through and plump looking, about 1 to 2 minutes. Grind them coarsely in a mortar and pestle.
5. To serve, drain the liquid from the pickled cabbage. Sprinkle with the sesame seeds, drizzle with a little soy sauce and serve with grilled pork, chicken or meaty fish, such as swordfish, and rice.

Note: I found Eden Umeboshi Paste at Whole Foods. Mirin, shoyu, and, in season, shiso (or perilla) leaves, are available at Asian markets. Mirin and Japanese soy sauce can also be found in the international aisle of some supermarkets.

Posted by SpiceLines at 7:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Some ingredients for the enchiladas include, clockwise from top left: onion,
corn tortillas, serrano chiles, tomatillos, garlic and cilantro.

Comfort food. What is it?

Here’s my story: I’m coming home from school--a little bedraggled, uniform awry, hair a mess--and there’s Aurora with features that could have come from an Aztec stone carving, standing impassively at the stove in her checked purple and white apron, as she stirs a pot of frijoles borrachas, or chops tomatoes and chiles for pico de gallo. I go straight from the kitchen door to the stove, swerving only for a spoon, to taste food so deliciously familiar that one mouthful obliterates the day’s snubs and flubs.

Aurora smiles, just a little.

For most of us, comfort food means tastes, aromas, maybe even textures that transport us to a warm, safe, happy place. I was lucky to have Aurora, and she had her mother, Maria Ynez Ramirez. Maria Ynez was a laundress by profession. By instinct, she was a cook who could replicate a dish simply by tasting it once. As Aurora tells it, her garden in Ranchito Providencia was rich with herbs like romero (rosemary), tomillo (thyme), and hierba buena (mint). There were vegetables--elote (corn), calabaza (squash), jitomate (tomato), frijoles (beans)--and a wealth of chiles—piquin, cascabel, jalapeno, serrano, pasilla. Goats, chickens, turkeys and pigs were tethered or corralled nearby.

At Christmas, Maria Ynez would cook for more than 60 people from their rancho: a whole roasted pig, stacks of paper-thin, crisply fried bunuelos, scores of tamales, vats of atole. For fiestas, there was turkey mole. or chivo vaporera, a year-old kid steamed over pot of simmering water and served in its own broth. She had a battery of enormous earthenware cazulelas or pots, and everything was cooked in an outdoor oven or on a fogon, a rustic grill positioned over an open fire.

A few years ago Aurora and I started to write down a few of her mother’s recipes. I love the way Orejones de Calabaza ("Big Ears" of Squash) begins: “When the weather turns cold and the last crop of calabaza india has been picked, cut the calabazas into thin slices and dry them on the spines of the nopal cactus for five days….” Calabaza india is a round native squash that can be white, black, grey or cream-colored; when picked young, it is tender; when old it is as hard as a coconut. It was dried on thorns since the air could circulate and dry the slices more quickly. It's this sort of detail that convinces me that Maria Ynez was an unsung national treasure.

For me comfort food begins with the earthy aromas of sizzling cumin and garlic, two spices Aurora uses abundantly in her Enchiladas de Pollo en Salsa de Tomatillo: Chicken Enchiladas in Tomatillo Sauce. A whole chicken is roasted with cumin and garlic, then shredded and rolled into corn tortillas which have been dipped in tart tomatillo sauce simmered with cilantro and hot serrano chiles. The enchiladas are covered with mild cheese—Aurora always uses a mixture of Monterrey Jack and Muenster—and baked until the cheese bubbles and turns golden.

You must use corn tortillas for this recipe. I wouldn’t dream of trying it with flour tortillas: it seems to me that they would make the dish much too starchy. Corn tortillas absorb just the right amount of tomatillo sauce, becoming supple and tender enough to wrap around the chicken, and their slightly earthy taste mingles perfectly with the flavors of the cumin and cheese. If you live in a city where tortillas are freshly made, you are ten steps ahead. Otherwise, root around in the refrigerated case at your supermarket: usually you can find two or three packages of corn tortillas tucked behind the mountains of flour tortillas.

As for the tomatillos, you can probably find them in the produce section of your supermarket. These bright green fruits encased in papery husks are an ancient food that can be traced to Mexico’s pre-Columbian past. Like ordinary tomatoes, they are members of the nightshade family: the names for both derive from the Nahuatl tomatl which, according to www.hortpurdue.edu, referred generically to “globose fruits or berries which have many seeds, watery flesh and which are sometimes enclosed in a membrane.” Tomatillos have a very tart, fresh taste that creates a wonderful interplay of flavors with the succulent chicken, rich cheese and spicy chiles.

I love to make this dish when it is gloomy and cold outside. It will take the better part of a day, though most of the hands-on time occurs during the assembly process. Your kitchen will likely be a mess, counters splotched with sauce and oil, onion crunched underfoot, but the whole house will be warm and fragrant with enticing aromas. Besides, you can only get comfortable when there’s a little messiness around.

Aurora’s Chicken Enchiladas in Tomatillo Sauce

To serve four

Ingredients for the sauce:

3 pounds tomatillos
12 cloves garlic
4 teaspoons cumin seed
3 serrano peppers, seeded and chopped
2 tablespoons water
1 large onion, finely chopped
1 bunch cilantro, finely chopped
Salt to taste

Ingredients for the chicken:

1 4-pound roasting chicken
1 tablespoon garlic, finely chopped
1 tablespoon cumin seed
Salt to taste
Canola oil
Additional garlic and cumin to taste

Ingredients for enchiladas:

18 corn tortillas, 6 inches in diameter
Canola oil
4 cups tomatillo sauce (see below)
4 cups shredded chicken (see below)
1 large onion, finely chopped
1-1/2 cups shredded Monterrey Jack cheese
1-1/2 cups shredded Muenster cheese

Method:

1. For the tomatillo sauce: Remove the papery husks from the tomatillos, wash them well and cut them half. Put them in a pot with the garlic, cumin, serrano peppers and 2 tablespoons of water. (The tomatillos exude a lot of liquid, so this is just to get them started.) Cook, covered, over a medium flame for 30 minutes, or until the tomatillos are very soft.
2. Put the tomatillo mixture and all its liquid in a blender or food processor and whirr for 10 to 15 seconds. Do not over-process. Return the sauce to the pot, add the onion and cilantro, and cook, covered, for 15 minutes longer. Add salt to taste and set aside. (The sauce can be made a couple of days ahead and refrigerated until needed.)
3. For the chicken: Set the oven to 350 degrees. Rinse the chicken and pat it dry, inside and out. Rub it all over with canola oil, and salt and pepper to taste. Mix the garlic and cumin and rub it over the chicken and in the cavity. Put it in a roasting pan and roast for one hour and 15-20 minutes, until the chicken is cooked through. Remove and set aside to cool. Reserve the pan juices.
4. When the chicken is cool enough to handle, remove the skin and discard. Strip off the meat and shred it with your fingers into bite-size pieces. You should have about 4 cups of meat. Moisten the chicken with a spoonful or two of the reserved juices and mix it with additional cumin and garlic, as desired. Add salt to taste.
5. For the enchiladas, set up an assembly line as follows: On the left front burner of your stove, place a small cast iron frying pan or skillet filled with 1/4-inch canola oil over a medium-low flame. Next to it place the tomatillo sauce in a shallow saucepan over a low flame. Next to that arrange in succession a large plate, a bowl with the shredded chicken, a bowl of the chopped onion and a 9- X 13-inch baking dish.
6. To assemble the enchiladas, use a spatula to place a tortilla in the hot oil for 4 to 5 seconds. (Tongs will probably tear a hole in the tortilla.) Let it puff slightly, then turn and cook it for another 4 to 5 seconds. With the spatula, immediately transfer the tortilla to the pan with the tomatillo salsa and press it down briefy so that it can absorb a little sauce. Remove the tortilla to the plate and lay it out flat.
7. On the tortilla, place some chicken and sprinkle it with chopped onion. Roll the tortilla up into a cylinder and place it in the baking dish. Repeat with the remaining tortillas. You should be able to squeeze 18 enchiladas into the baking dish—12 of them vertically and 6 horizontally. Spread the remaining tomatillo sauce and any leftover onion over the top of the enchiladas and sprinkle with the mixed cheeses.
8. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes or until the cheese is bubbling and has started to brown. Remove from the oven and serve immediately, accompanied by a simple green salad and cold beer.

Posted by SpiceLines at 7:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

After a long night delivering presents, treat Santa to a plate of freshly baked
gingernaps. Made with grated gingerroot, these aromatic cookies are light,
crisp and irresistible.

The very best recipes come from friends and relations. This one is no exception. Deborah, my New York sister-in-law and dessert-maker extraordinaire, sent me this irresistible gingersnap recipe a few years ago. She was given it by her friend, Helen Freytag, who once lived in Hong Kong, and she had received it from…well, who knows? A chain of deliciousness—as Nigella might say—stretching across the country and perhaps even the world.

Made with freshly grated gingerroot and sweetened with molasses, these aromatic cookies are fragile and crisp—so insubstantial that it’s easy to inhale half a dozen or so without even thinking about it. Perfect to leave by the fireside for Santa, perhaps with a glass of bubbly to tickle his nose. After all, isn’t that a ticket to Paris tucked in your stocking?

Merry Christmas to all—and to all, a spicy 2007.

Helen Freytag’s Gingersnaps

Makes 9 to 10 dozen

Ingredients:

1-1/2 cups unsalted butter, softened
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
7 tablespoons molasses
3 tablespoons freshly grated gingerroot
4 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cloves
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon baking soda

Extra sugar, as needed

Method:

1. Cream the butter and sugar together. Add the eggs, then the molasses and then the grated ginger, beating well after each addition.
2. Sift the dry ingredients together, with the exception of the extra sugar, and slowly add to the batter, mixing very well. Chill the dough in the refrigerator for at least two hours.
3. When you are ready to bake the cookies, form the dough into small balls, about 3/4-inch in diameter and roll in granulated sugar. Place the balls on a cookie sheet, leaving 2 to 3 inches between them. (If you don’t, the cookies will run together.) Flatten each ball with the bottom of a small glass dipped in sugar.
4. Bake at 350 degrees for 12 to 15 minutes, until the cookies are lightly browned. Remove and let cool slightly before lifting them from the baking sheet. Continue with the rest of the dough.
5. The gingersnaps will keep in a covered tin for about 10 days--as long as you hide the tin from midnight pantry prowlers.

Posted by SpiceLines at 5:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If your family is like mine, you cannot have Thanksgiving without the cranberry sauce. But I’m always tempted to be subversive and tinker with tradition. This year, alongside the usual sauce, we’ll be serving Laxmi Hiremath’s hot and sweet cranberry-tangerine chutney from her cookbook, The Dance of Spices. Spiked with fiery cayenne and ginger, fragrant with cardamom and cinnamon, it will be an unexpected and sparky accompaniment to our brined turkey with rich oyster stuffing and buttery mashed potatoes.

One thing: Do not refrigerate the chutney. Make it a day ahead, as Hiremath recommends, and let it sit overnight, covered, on the kitchen counter so that flavors can meld. The next day, serve it at room temperature. If you chill it, the spicy flavors will vanish and you’ll be left with….your grandmother’s cranberry sauce. Well, almost.

Hot and Sweet Cranberry-Tangerine Chutney
(from Laxmi Hiremath, The Dance of Spices)

Makes 3 cups

Ingredients:

2 small tangerines
1 bag (12 ounces) fresh cranberries, stemmed and washed
1/4 cup chopped yellow onion
1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger
3/4 cup sugar
4 green cardamom pods, seeds removed and ground
1/2 teaspoon cayenne
1/3 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 cup chopped walnuts, toasted (see note)

Method:

1. Halve the tangerines crosswise without peeling. Remove the seeds and cut into 1/2-inch wedges.
2. In a heavy non-aluminum medium saucepan, combine the tangerines with the cranberries, onion, ginger, sugar, cardamom, cayenne, salt and cinnamon. Bring to a gentle boil, reduce the heat to low, and cook, stirring regularly, until the sugar dissolves and tangerine rind is slightly softened, 12 to 14 minutes. The chutney should be nicely reduced, thick and glossy, and adequately perfumed. Stir in the nuts. For the best flavor, allow the chutney to sit, covered, at room temperature, for a day before serving.

Note: To toast the walnuts, place in a medium skillet over medium heat. Cook, stirring, until the nuts are toasty and start to brown, 2 to 4 minutes.

Posted by SpiceLines at 12:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (1)

A rich duck curry, served with basmati rice, gets an unexpected lift from a
sweet and hot cranberry chutney with ginger, tangerines and walnuts.

We’re deep into fall: The lawn is a crunchy tapestry of red, gold and brown leaves. Gusts of wind set them swirling like cyclones, only to resettle in drifts around the trunks of nearly bare maple and crab apple trees. The last of the Canadian geese, honking plaintively, straggle south over the pasture. The scent of wood smoke perfumes the chill morning air. In the kitchen, it’s time for duck…

In her new memoir, Climbing the Mango Trees, Madhur Jaffrey writes that the men in her family were avid hunters. Winter dinners in India usually included game from the day’s outing: “There might be duck or partridge or quail, some with pellets still inside them, cooked with rich cardamom-flavored sauces; or my father’s favorite, leg of wild boar, cooked for a whole day in beer.” These were served with cauliflower and peas, spinach, or carrots with fenugreek greens, along with phulkas, “little puffed whole wheat breads” similar to chapatis.

Upon reading this, I immediately flipped to the recipes at the end of the book and, yes, there was one for duck curry cooked in medley of warming spices. The dish is sublime: A large Pekin duck, cut into pieces, is slowly simmered in a sauce enriched with creamy yogurt and a fragrant blend of sweet and pungent spices—ginger, garlic, coriander, cumin, cardamom, cinnamon and Kashmiri red-chili powder—until it is falling-off-the-bone tender. The curry is quite good served over basmati rice, but even better with the delicate phulkas Jaffrey recommends. Phulkas are easy to make and can be puffed up on a hot griddle just before serving the curry.

A spoonful of sweet chutney is a delicious counterpoint to the spices in the curry. You can always open a jar of mango chutney, but, as Thanksgiving approaches—why not take a more adventurous route and serve Laxmi Hiremath’s sweet and hot cranberry chutney with ginger and tangerines from her book, The Dance of Spices?

Classic Duck Curry with Coriander and Cardamom
(adapted from Madhur Jaffey in Climbing the Mango Trees)

To serve 4

Ingredients:

4-inch piece of fresh ginger, peeled and chopped
6 large cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
4 tablespoons whole coriander seeds
2 teaspoons whole cumin seeds
1 teaspoon cardamom seeds (see note)
1/2 teaspoon whole cloves
2-inch stick cinnamon, crushed
1 teaspoon Kashmiri red-chili powder (or 3/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper)
1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
4 tablespoons olive or peanut oil
6-pound duck (see below)
2 medium onions, peeled and finely chopped
8 tablespoons plain yogurt
1-3/4 teaspoons salt, or to taste

Method:

1. Have your butcher cut the duck into 8 pieces: 2 drumsticks, 2 thighs, and 4 breast quarters. Reserve the wings (discard the tips), back, sternum and gizzard for the sauce, if desired. Remove all the fat and skin that hangs from the sides or ends of the duck, leaving only the skin that sits on top of the meat.
2. Put the ginger, garlic and 1/4 cup water into a blender. Blend thoroughly until you have a smooth paste. Set aside.
3. Combine the coriander, cumin and cardamom seeds, cloves and cinnamon in a clean coffee or spice grinder. Grind as finely as possible. Empty the spice mixture into a small bowl. Add the red-chili powder, turmeric, vinegar and about 3 tablespoons of water to make a thick, dryish paste. (The paste may be very liquid at first, but it will thicken after a few minutes.)
4. Pour the oil into a large sauté or frying pan and set over medium heat. When it is hot, put in as many duck pieces as will fit easily, skin side down. Brown the duck on one side. Turn and brown the other side. Remove to a bowl. Continue to brown all the duck pieces in the same way.
5. Add the onion to the same hot oil. Stir and fry until the onion pieces turn reddish. Add the ginger-garlic paste and turn the heat to medium low. Stir and cook about 2 minutes, then add the spice paste, stirring and cooking over medium-low heat for another minute.
6. Add 1 tablespoon of yogurt. Stir and cook until it seems to disappear. Add the remaining yogurt in the same way, a tablespoon at a time. Now put in all the browned duck and any juices that may have accumulated in the bowl, the salt and 2-3/4 cups water. Stir and bring to a boil. Cover and turn the heat to low, and simmer gently for 1 hour and 15 minutes, or until the duck is tender. Stir gently every 10 minutes or so during the cooking period, turning the duck pieces over now and then.
7. Lift out the duck pieces and place them in a bowl. Tilt the cooking pan and spoon off as much of the fat as possible from the sauce. Pour the defatted sauce into a blender and blend very fine. Pour this sauce through a coarse sieve or strainer right over the duck pieces, pressing down on the sieve to extract all the possible juices.
8. The duck may be reheated and served the same day, or it may be refrigerated and served a day or two later. Serve with basmati rice or phulkas (see recipe below) and a spoonful of sweet chutney.

Note: Cardamom seeds removed from their shells can be found in Indian markets or ordered from www.penzeys.com.

Continue reading "Recipe: Madhur Jaffrey's Spicy Duck Curry with Coriander and Cardamom" »

Posted by SpiceLines at 10:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

If you live in the South, you had better know how to make fried chicken.

Your “friends”-–all excellent home cooks--will be persnickety, so you have to get it right, especially if you’re a Johnny-come-lately who didn’t learn how to make perfect fried chicken standing at her Mama’s elbow. The meat must be succulent, enveloped in rich, crispy, golden brown skin, fried but lightly so, with just enough grease to make you whimper with pleasure as you’re devouring your third piece. And you’d do well have a little twist—a mystery ingredient--that makes your chicken different from your neighbor’s.

I’ve been told that I make great fried chicken and I owe it all to Salli. It started one foggy morning in Nantucket, when my children and I were curled up in bed watching a fried chicken cook-off between Martha Stewart and her friend Salli LaGrone. Martha’s dark mahogany-colored chicken, which had soaked overnight in buttermilk and was dusted with cayenne-spiked flour, reposed magnificently on a platter, garnering lavish praise--while Salli’s plate of fried fowl was almost licked clean by a hungry crew who couldn’t wolf it down it fast enough. (Go here to see Salli’s original recipe.)

One of Salli’s secrets is a pinch of cinnamon added to the flour in which the chicken is coated. Over the years, I’ve gradually increased the pinch to a scant teaspoon. I love the way cinnamon’s sweetness coaxes out the natural flavor of the chicken, while its astringent edge contrasts pleasingly with the luscious fried skin. One other change I’ve made is substituting peanut oil for the shortening, which I dislike on principle. Peanut oil is great for frying and gives the chicken a tasty flavor. I’ve developed my own timetable for turning the chicken as it cooks, but these are minor tweaks to a truly stellar recipe.

One shouldn’t fiddle with success, but last week I added a teaspoonful of ras-el-hanout, the robust Moroccan spice blend that works so well with chicken cooked in a tagine, to the flour. It too contains cinnamon, but also black pepper, nutmeg, mace, allspice, ginger and turmeric. The results were subtly different, the chicken even more devilishly delicious than usual. “Your best ever,” said my husband, reaching for a forbidden fourth piece.

Now that’s my secret for great fried chicken.

Recipe: Southern Fried Chicken with Moroccan Spices

(adapted from Salli’s Fried Chicken on Martha Stewart Living)

Ingredients:

3/12 to 4 pound chicken, cut into 8 pieces
Salt to taste
1-3/4 cups flour
1 scant teaspoon cinnamon
1 scant teaspoon ras-el-hanout (see note)
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
Peanut oil
1-1/2 cups buttermilk

Lemon wedges (optional)
Siracha or other hot sauce (optional) (see note)

Equipment:

Cast iron frying pan
Deep frying thermometer

Method:

1. In the refrigerator, soak the chicken overnight in a bowl of cold water covered with plastic.
2. When you are ready to cook, pat dry with paper towels and sprinkle with salt to taste. If the breasts are large, cut them in half with kitchen shears.
3. In a large bowl, combine the flour, cinnamon, ras el hanout and black pepper. Dip each piece of chicken into the flour mixture and shake off the excess. Let the flour dry for 15 minutes. Pour the buttermilk into a large bowl and set aside.
4. In the meantime, pour about 1 inch of peanut oil into a cast iron frying pan and turn the heat to high. When the oil reaches 350 degrees on a deep frying thermometer, adjust the heat to maintain that temperature.
5. Dip half of the chicken pieces in the buttermilk and then into the bowl of flour, shaking off the excess. Carefully place them in the hot oil, skin side down, using tongs if necessary. Fry the chicken until it is light golden brown, turning frequently.
6. Place the chicken skin side down, cover the pan and turn the heat to low. Cook the chicken for 6 minutes, then turn and cook, covered, for another 6 minutes. Remove the top and turn the heat to high. Cook the chicken until it is crispy, about 2 minutes, then turn and cook until the other side is crisp, about 1 minute.
7. Remove the chicken from the pan and drain on several layers of paper towel. Place them on a baking sheet in a 250-degree oven to keep them warm.
8. Repeat steps 5-7 with the remaining chicken. Be sure to bring the temperature of the oil back to 350 degrees before putting the second batch of chicken in the pan.
9. Serve the chicken on a platter with wedges of lemon and small bowls of siracha, the Vietnamese hot sauce, if desired. I like to accompany it with a bowl of cole slaw made from red and green cabbage dressed with a white balsamic vinaigrette.

Note: I made Kitty Morse’s recipe for ras el hanout. You can also buy good ready-made versions from www.chefshop.com and www.herbies.com.au. Siracha, the fiery Vietnamese hot sauce, can be found at most Asian markets.

Posted by SpiceLines at 5:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

In Morocco, harira, a hearty lamb, lentil and chickpea soup,
is traditionally eaten to break the daylong fast during Ramadan.

I was in Casablanca and I was ravenous. It was not Ramadan—and I am not Muslim—but when I saw harira on the menu—the nourishing soup, both homely and sublime, that many eat to break the Ramadan fast—I couldn’t dial room service quickly enough.

In Morocco, harira is traditionally eaten right after sundown during the holy month of Ramadan. The ninth month of the Islamic calendar is a time for prayers, spiritual reflection, and acts of generosity. It is also a time for fasting. From dawn to sunset, not a morsel of food or drop of drink passes the lips of observant Muslims. The fast is a form of self-discipline, a stepping away from the material world in order to follow an inner path that takes one closer to God.

Naturally, as soon as the sun sets, everyone rushes to break the fast, first with a light meal and later with a more elaborate dinner. In Soup Song, Patricia Solley has written fondly of harira and her memories of Ramadan in Casablanca. As she observes, the tradition of eating soup may have begun with Muhammad who ended his own daily fast with water, dates and barley broth. Harira takes broth to an altogether different level: “..it’s hugely refreshing and nutritious—a quick shot of thirst-slaking liquid with hunger-relieving solid nutrition that prepares the body and soul for the prayers that follow, before the proper evening meal is taken.”

At Amanjena in Marrakesh, Bahija, sous chef for Moroccan cuisine, sautes diced
carrots and onions. Like many Moroccan cooks, she learned to make harira and other
traditional recipes in her mother's kitchen. Image: Christina Tabora at Amanresorts.

There are many, many recipes for harira—but the basic formula is meat, usually lamb, simmered with lentils, tomatoes and other vegetables, temptingly perfumed with cinnamon and green herbs, thickened with flour and thin noodles, and enriched with beaten eggs. It is the proverbial meal in a pot and the wonder is that the version below can be prepared in not much more than an hour.

This especially delicious recipe for harira comes from Bahija, sous chef in charge of Moroccan cuisine at the Amanjena in Marrakesh. Amanjena is Morocco at its poshest—fountains strewn with rose petals, elegant hammams or steam baths, lectures on Islamic art--but one of its endearing qualities is that you can eat this homely soup every day of the year there. (There is one guest, I’ve been told, who orders it every night.)

Bahija’s slightly untraditional version is made with beef rather than lamb—either way it’s very good, so the choice is yours. She also uses refined tomato coulis instead of the usual chopped tomatoes--again, you can go either way. I‘ve added a little ginger, and as Patricia Solley suggests, a squeeze of lemon juice to the beaten egg, making the soup a bit spicier, with a touch of sourness to complement all those rich and hearty flavors.

Recipe: Harira or Lentil and Chickpea Soup with Cinnamon, Saffron and Coriander

(adapted from Bahija, sous chef at Amanjena resort in Marrakesh)

To serve 6

Ingredients:

1/2 pound beef or lamb, cut in 1-inch dice
1/2 cup lentils
3/4 cup fresh tomato coulis (see below)
1 small bunch flat leaf parsley, chopped, about 1 cup
1 small bunch fresh coriander, chopped, about 1 cup
2 stalks celery, finely chopped, about 1 cup
1 large onion, finely chopped, about 1-1/2 cups
3-inch stick of cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon powdered ginger
A generous pinch of saffron threads
1 cup chickpeas, soaked in water overnight, or 1 cup canned chickpeas, drained
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon flour
2 ounces angel hair pasta, broken into 2-inch pieces, about 1 cup
1 egg
juice of 1/2 lemon
Salt and pepper to taste

Optional Garnish:

Chopped cilantro
Lemon wedges
Harissa paste (see note)

Method:

1. Into a large pot, put the diced meat, lentils, tomato coulis, parsley, coriander, celery, onion, cinnamon, ginger and saffron. If you are using soaked chickpeas, add them now. Add 8 cups of water, stir and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover and simmer for 30 minutes, or until the chickpeas are tender. (If you are using canned chickpeas, add them after the 30 minutes are up.)
2. Whisk the flour and 1 cup of water until smooth and add the mixture to the soup. Raise the heat to high and when the soup has just begun to boil, add the angel hair pasta.
3. Whisk the egg with the lemon juice and briskly stir the mixture into the soup. Reduce the heat so that the soup bubbles gently and allow it to cook partly covered for an additional 15 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste.
4. To serve: Ladle soup into individual bowls. If desired, sprinkle with a little chopped coriander and serve with lemon wedges and harissa paste.

Note: Harissa is a mildly spicy Moroccan paste made of red chili peppers, garlic and olive oil. Order Mustapha’s Harissa from www.chefshop.com or look for Le Cabanon brand in Middle Eastern grocery stores.

Recipe: Fresh Tomato Coulis

This is just a simple fresh tomato puree.

Makes 3/4 to 1 cup

Ingredients:

4 medium plum tomatoes

Method:

1. With a sharp knife, cut an “X” at the bottom of each tomato.
2. Bring a pot of water to boil. Drop the tomatoes into the boiling water for 15 seconds. Drain and allow to cool slightly.
3. Core the tomatoes and peel off the skins. Cut them in half and squeeze out the juice and seeds into a bowl. Strain the juice and discard the seeds. Add the juice to the tomatoes.
4. In a blender, whirr the tomatoes until very smooth.

Posted by SpiceLines at 2:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tart crab apples, pickled in a sweetened brine and flavored with an aromatic
blend of Chinese five spices, are delicious with grilled pork and venison.

Fall has slipped in without fanfare, brisk nights, almost chilly enough for a fire, trailing warm days with brilliant blue skies. Pumpkins are everywhere. Mostly there are mountains of orange jack o’ lanterns, but then I’ll stumble onto heirloom types roosting like aliens among old friends. One of the most alluring is the French pumpkin, Rouge Vif d’Etampes, a ruddy, flattened orb that looks like Cinderella’s coach before the fairy godmother graced it with her wand. New this year are ghostly white Luminas which might gleam in the dark, and an anonymous, smooth, deeply lobed pumpkin the color of seawater.

A few weeks ago Andrea Reusing, chef and owner of Lantern Restaurant in Chapel Hill (#47 on Gourmet’s list of America’s 50 Best Restaurants) fixed a trio of exotic housemade pickles using seasonal ingredients from our farmers’ market. My favorite was the lightly spiced sweet and sour pickled pumpkin. These toothsome golden half-moon slices are simmered in an Asian-style brine of rice vinegar and mirin infused with white peppercorns and fresh Thai chilies. They are easy to make and can be eaten almost immediately, although they are more flavorful after a few days in the refrigerator.

The next morning as I was looking for a small organic pumpkin to try Andrea’s recipe, I spied a basket of tiny, bright red crab apples and, next to it, a recipe for pickles. My mind flew at once to our own tree, so heavily laden with fruit this year that the groaning boughs are stretched almost to the ground. I could make pickles, I thought, and unburden the branches that have been sagging under the strain of such fecundity. (I’m sure I have the thrifty French housewife gene, for I’m never happier than using up what we have in the larder or garden.)

This is a more complicated pickle. Making it will occupy the better part of an afternoon. If you are plucking your own, choose only ripe apples that have turned completely red (or ones that are at least streaked with yellow rather than green). Look for unblemished fruit without bruises or too many insect spots. Make sure the birds have not already tasted them. This can be a very companionable way to spend an hour or two on a sunny fall day and my husband, who has lately become a pickle connoisseur, was only too happy to take a break from pruning a Japanese flowering plum and pick a few apples.

This is important: Whether you are buying crab apples or using your own, taste them first. A mealy apple is no good for eating or for pickling.

Because even the ripe fruit is quite tart, I made a brine of apple cider and white balsamic vinegars simmered with unrefined demerara sugar. The fun came in picking spices to add a little zing to all that sweetness. I decided to do a riff on Chinese five spice, using aromatic whole spices instead of ground ones. Into the pot went cassia sticks, star anise, fennel seed, cloves and black peppercorns--and for good measure, a knob of fresh ginger.

Although you can treat these as fresh pickles and eat them within a day or two, I’m keeping one jar in the refrigerator for a few weeks to see how the spices will permeate the fruit. Even after 24 hours, the flavors are starting to mellow. If the crab apples are as good as they were with last night’s caramelized pork chops, I know we’ll be enjoying them deep into the fall.

Autumn pickles: Top left, crabapples with star anise; bottom right,
pumpkin slices simmered in rice vinegar with fresh Thai chilies.

Recipe: Pickled Pumpkin with Thai Chiles and White Peppercorns
(from Andrea Reusing, Lantern Restaurant, Chapel Hill)

Ingredients:

3 pounds small, organic edible pumpkins, cut into thin moons or chunks (see note)

For the brine:

5 fresh or dried Thai chilies (or to taste) (see note)
10 white peppercorns
2 quarts unseasoned rice wine vinegar (see note)
1-1/2 cups distilled white vinegar
1-1/2 cups mirin, or Japanese rice wine (see note)
2-1/2 cups white sugar
1/2 cup kosher salt

Method:

Combine brine ingredients in a non-reactive pan and bring to a simmer. When the sugar is dissolved, add pumpkin and simmer until al dente. Cool in liquid and refrigerate. Best after 2 or 3 days.

Note: I used a small Sugar Pie organic pumpkin. To prepare it for pickling, I peeled the rind, cut it in half, scooped out the seeds and pulp, and then sliced each half into very thin half moons. If the pieces seem large, you can cut them in half again on the diagonal. Or simply cut the pumpkin into bite-size chunks.

Rice vinegar, mirin or Japanese rice wine, and Thai chilies can be found at Asian food markets and in the international and produce sections of some supermarkets.

Recipe: Crab Apple Pickles with Star Anise, Cassia and Ginger
(Adapted from a recipe at Whole Foods)

Ingredients:

2 quarts ripe, unblemished crab apples

For the brine:

2 cups white balsamic vinegar
3 cups apple cider vinegar
2 cups demerara, or light brown sugar (see note)
1 5-inch stick cassia (see note)
1 tablespoon star anise, whole or broken bits
1 tablespoon whole cloves
1 tablespoon whole fennel seed
2 tablespoons whole black peppercorns
3-inch piece of fresh ginger, peeled and sliced

For the jars:

Cassia sticks
Black peppercorns
Star anise

Other equipment:

2 quart jars or 4 pint jars, with lids

Method:

1. Wash the crab apples and discard any that are bruised or blemished. If desired, prick them with the tines of a fork. This will keep them from bursting when they are simmered in the hot brine.

2. Wash the jars and lids, or run them through the dishwasher, and put them in a large pot with water to cover. Bring to a rolling boil. Boil for 10 minutes, then turn off the heat and leave them in the hot water until you are ready to use them.

3. Place the spices in a 6-inch square of cheesecloth and tie up the ends to make a pouch. Put the spice bag in a large non-reactive pot with the vinegars and sugar. Bring to a gentle boil.

4. When the sugar has dissolved, add the crab apples. Simmer for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally until the apples are tender but still hold their shape. If overcooked, they will become mushy and disintegrate.

5. Remove the jars from the hot water and in each one, place a cassia stick, a few peppercorns and a whole star anise. Carefully ladle crab apples into each jar. Pour in the hot brine so that the fruit is completely covered. Put on the tops and let the pickles cool to room temperature.

6. Store either in a very cool dark pantry or in the refrigerator. For most flavorful pickles, wait 3 to 4 weeks before eating.

Note: Demarara sugar is natural unrefined cane sugar. If not available, substitute light brown sugar. In America, cassia sticks are usually sold as cinnamon sticks. Hard and tightly scrolled, they tend to break with a snap and have a vivid “cinnamon” flavor. (True cinnamon from Ceylon consists of crumbly layers of concentrically rolled bark; it has a softer, more nuanced taste.) For more on cinnamon and cassia, see SpiceLines Newsletter.

Posted by SpiceLines at 6:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

Tender pork shoulder, smoked, grilled and braised for 8 hours, has a
sublimely rich flavor set off by a sweet, tangy, salty tomato-based sauce
zapped with hot chiles.

When I tasted this rich, falling-apart-tender pork shoulder at the Carrboro Farmers Market, I knew I had to waylay Kevin Callaghan to get the recipe. Luckily Kevin, who owns Acme Food & Beverage Co., is a generous soul and divulged his secrets for achieving perfection: a deep, dark caramelized crust on the outside and tender, juicy meat on the inside.

This recipe is not hard, but it does require advance planning. For the best flavor, buy a naturally fed pork shoulder at your own farmers’ market—ours came from Elysian Fields Farm—or from a source like Niman Ranch. Do not even think of removing the fat: it helps caramelize the crust and keeps the meat moist and tender while it’s in the oven. You’ll also need to buy a bag of hickory chips and hardwood charcoal for the grill.

If you plan to serve the shoulder on Saturday night, rub it with the spice mixture Friday morning and refrigerate, allowing it to absorb the rub for 24 hours, or at least overnight. “You want the hot, spicy flavors to thoroughly penetrate the meat and create a layer of salt and sugar that will caramelize on the grill,” says Kevin.

Saturday morning, build a fire in a covered grill with hardwood charcoal, adding wet hickory chips when you are ready to cook. Briefly smoke and grill the shoulder over low to medium hot coals, then put it in the oven at 325 degrees for eight hours. “There’s a moment at which the meat will relax during this long, slow cooking. That’s what makes it so tender,” says Kevin. If you get it in the oven by 10 AM, it will be ready at 6 PM. You can make the sauce in just a few minutes and easily be ready to serve by 7 PM.

But first, a couple of tips: First, when smoking the pork, be sure to put it on the side of the grill away from the fire. Next, move the shoulder directly over the remaining coals. This is the tricky part: If the coals are not producing enough heat—that is, if you can easily hold your hand a few inches away from them--remove the shoulder and add a little fresh charcoal. You must let this new charcoal burn down until it is no longer flaming and is thickly covered with white ash. If it is too hot, the shoulder may catch fire when you put it back on the grill. Your objective is not to char, but to brown the outside of the shoulder until it has a dark, richly caramelized crust.

Second, when putting the shoulder in the oven, seal the roasting pan tightly with aluminum foil so that the pan juices do not burn off. I roasted the shoulder overnight and when I got up in the morning, discovered that although the pork was sublimely tender—the shoulder bone slid out like butter--all the juices had evaporated, leaving a dark sticky layer on the bottom of the pan.

With Kevin’s help, I was still able to make a superb sauce using the rendered fat from the shoulder. This tomato-based sauce—a smoky Southern version of “hot, sour, salty, sweet” flavors—perfectly sets off the unctuous richness of the pork. “Like all barbecue sauces, you should make this one to taste, but the flavors should be balanced,” advises Kevin. “Especially watch the mustard. If you can taste it, you’ve used too much. At the end, if you need to adjust the balance, try adding a little ketchup. It’s sweet and tomato-y at the same time.”

To serve 4 to 6

Ingredients for the spice rub:

1/3 cup kosher salt
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon ancho chile powder
1 tablespoon chipotle chile powder
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
3 tablespoons garlic powder
2 tablespoons ground coriander
1 tablespoon fresh thyme, finely chopped

Ingredients for the pork:

5-pound pork shoulder, bone in
Equal parts chicken (or beef) stock and beer
15 large cloves of garlic, peeled

Other items:

A covered charcoal grill
Hardwood charcoal
Hickory chips
Heavy duty aluminum foil

Method:

1. Mix the salt, sugar, spices and thyme together and rub them deeply into the pork shoulder. Pack the mixture firmly so that the meat is completely covered with a layer of the rub. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 24 hours.
2. An hour before you are ready to cook, take the pork out of the refrigerator and let it come to room temperature.
3. In a covered grill, build a large hardwood charcoal fire on one side of the grill. Soak few handfuls of hickory chips in a bowl of water. When the flames are low and the coals are covered with a fine white ash, spread some of the hickory chips over the coals. Place the pork shoulder on the side of the grill away from the fire and cover. Smoke for 15 minutes, then turn it over, add more wet hickory chips if necessary, and smoke for 15 minutes longer.
4. Make a decision: If the coals have burned down and you can easily hold your hand over the fire, remove the pork and set aside. Add a little more charcoal to the existing coals; wait until the fresh charcoal is no longer flaming and is thickly covered with white ash. (When you hold your hand over the coals, you should feel medium to medium low heat.)
5. Place the meat back on the grill directly over the coals and cover. Allow it to cook for 10 to 15 minutes, or until the sugar has caramelized and the exterior is brown and crusty. Watch carefully: Be sure the shoulder does not catch fire. (If it does, simply move it away from the coals and continue browning.) If necessary, turn and continue cooking for 5 to 10 minutes, or until all sides of the meat are browned.
6. Turn the oven to 325 degrees. Place the shoulder in a large roasting pan. Combine equal parts of stock and the beer and pour into the pan around the pork. The liquid should come halfway up the sides. Strew the garlic cloves around the meat. Cover with heavy duty aluminum foil and braise for 8 hours. Remove from the oven and set aside.

Ingredients for the sauce:

1/4 cup rendered fat from the pork, or 1/2 cup of reduced pan juices
Caramelized garlic from the bottom of the pan
1 tablespoon molasses
3 tablespoons tomato paste with roasted garlic
1 teaspoon mustard
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon ketchup

Method for the sauce:

1. Remove the shoulder from the pan. If there is liquid in the pan, reduce it by half and set aside 1/2 cup, reserving the rest for additional sauce if desired. If the liquid has evaporated, pour off the rendered fat and use that instead.
2. Scrape up the caramelized garlic and add it to the fat or juices in a medium bowl.
3. Start adding the other ingredients, whisking each into the fat or juices. Taste and adjust the quantities of each ingredient until they are balanced for your own taste. (If you are using reduced pan juices, you may want to increase the quantities anyway.) All the flavors-- hot, salty, sweet and tangy—should be in roughly equal proportion to each other.

To Serve:

1. Remove the bone from the shoulder (it should slide out easily) and cut the meat into medium thick slices.
2. Serve while still warm with the sauce on the side.

Posted by SpiceLines at 9:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

The word "tagine" refers to a Moroccan pot and the "stew" cooked in it.

One hot afternoon in August, I stopped by Marrakesh, an alluring new Moroccan shop in Chapel Hill, N.C., and found one of the owners, Christine Khaldi, preparing a tagine. She had layered onions, chicken breasts, carrots, chickpeas and green pimento-stuffed olives in the earthenware base and then added her own blend of spices—lots of ginger and cumin, a pinch of saffron, cilantro and a dash of ras el hanout, a Moroccan spice mixture. The dish was bubbling away on a gas burner, and when she lifted the conical lid, the aroma that escaped was nearly ambrosial.

There are lots of reasons to love tagines (the word refers to the “stew” as well as the pot in which it is cooked). First, this really is one-pot cooking. Everything goes straight into the tagine and simmers for a couple of hours until it is done. Except for a small bowl to mix the spices, that’s it. Second, all the prep work is in the beginning. It takes 15 to 20 minutes to put everything into the tagine and set it over a low flame. After that you can work in the garden, make a reservation to Singapore, finish writing an article—whatever tasks are most pressing—or loll around reading the newspapers, or even, if you can stand the guilt, take a nap. When you wake up, the tagine will be ready to eat.

Third, once you understand the principle, you can improvise with almost any ingredients you have on hand. Like chickpeas. “I had half a can of chickpeas left over from another dish,” Christine laughed. “So I tossed them into the pot along with everything else.” She continues: “One couple we know makes a vegetarian tagine with sweet potatoes, zucchini and squash. There’s a good one with lamb and tomatoes and okra. Redouane makes a meatball tagine with onions and diced tomatoes and ras el hanout. The next day, you can reheat it with a poached egg on top.”

Redouane, Christine’s husband and co-owner of the shop, is a master of the tagine. In between buying trips to Morocco, where he picks up henna-patterned goatskin lamps and gaily painted tables, he spends a fair amount of time in the kitchen. A few expert tips: “Build the tagine from the bottom up, one layer at a time. Rub the inside of the pot with olive oil, then add the onions, your chicken (or meat or fish), and the spices, the vegetables and preserved lemon and olives if you are using them.” Should you brown the meat or chicken before putting it in the pot? “It’s really not necessary,” he says. “After a couple of hours all the flavors blend together and it tastes fantastic.” A third tip: Don’t use ras el hanout with fish. It’s too strong.

Preserved lemons and ras el hanout are the two ingredients you may not have in your pantry. You can buy jars of preserved lemons at specialty food shops, but Paula Wolfert has an easy recipe for Seven Day Preserved Lemons in her cookbook, World of Food, that will provide you with enough preserved peel for four or five tagines. I start a new jar whenever I’m running low. It takes about 6 minutes of hands on work and having a supply in the refrigerator to use whenever you need it is unbeatable.

Ras el hanout—the term means “top of the shop” or loosely, the spice merchant’s best blend—is the quintessential Moroccan spice mixture. In Couscous and Other Good Food from Morocco, Wolfert cites blends that contain anywhere from 26 to 100 ingredients—including supposed aphrodisiacs such as cantharides (Spanish fly), as well as more common spices such as black peppercorns, mace, nutmeg, ginger, cinnamon, cloves and turmeric. (In Fez, I bought blend of 40 spices from a Berber pharmacist that was so pungent that inhaling it brought tears to my eyes.)

In World of Food, Wolfert has a scaled down recipe for ras el hanout with just seven familiar ingredients: bay leaves, thyme, white peppercorns, mace, nutmeg, cloves and cinnamon. Or, if you are more ambitious, you could try the 21-ingredient formulation in Ian Hemphill’s The Spice and Herb Bible which calls for orris root and galingale or laos root, among other ingredients. Hemphill, an Australian spice merchant, says that ras el hanout demonstrates the pinnacle of the mixologist's art: the components are chosen to produce a “balanced, full-bodied blend with no sharp edges…an ingredient that is immeasurably greater than any of the parts taken individually.”

Many American spice shops also sell packets of ras el hanout for North African cooking. You can use it in lots of ways, including putting a pinch in coffee (Wolfert’s idea) or adding it to the flour for fried chicken. But don’t leave it out—a mere half teaspoon is transforming.

Chicken Tagine with Green Olives, Carrots and Preserved Lemon
(Adapted from Christine and Redouane Khaldi)

To serve 4:

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon olive oil
2 medium onions, sliced thin
2-1/2 pounds chicken breasts, bone in and skin on, halved
Scant 1/4 cup water
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 teaspoons garlic, chopped fine
Scant teaspoon sweet paprika
Scant teaspoon ground cumin
Scant teaspoon ground ginger
Pinch of saffron threads
Scant 1/2 teaspoon ras el hanout (see note)
1 4-inch cinnamon stick, broken in half
4 small carrots, quartered
1/4 cup pitted green olives
Scant cup canned chickpeas, rinsed and drained
6 to 8 strips of preserved lemon peel (see note)
1/2 cup finely chopped cilantro

Method:

1. Rub the bottom and sides of the tagine with 1 tablespoon olive oil.
2. Layer thinly sliced onions evenly in the bottom of the tagine.
3. If the chicken breast halves are very large, cut them again in half with kitchen sheers. Place them on top of the onions in one layer. The chicken should just fill the tagine—do not pile chicken pieces on top of each other, or it will take longer to cook.
4. Whisk the water, olive oil, garlic and spices together. Spoon the mixture over the chicken, taking care to cover the skin. Tuck the cinnamon sticks under the pieces of chicken.
5. Arrange the carrots on top of the chicken. Add the olives and chickpeas.
6. Arrange the strips of preserved lemon over the dish and strew the chopped cilantro over everything,
7. Place the tagine over a low flame (use a heat diffuser if the tagine is made of clay) and cover with the conical top. Cook for 2 to 2-1/2 hours, or until the chicken is cooked through.
8. Serve with couscous and a green salad dressed with walnut oil,

Note: Preserved lemons and ras el hanout can be ordered from www.kalustyans.com. For peel, always remove the lemon pulp and discard, wash the remaining rind, and sliver or dice according to the recipe.

Marrakesh is located at 306 Market Street, Suite 122 Southern Village, Chapel Hill, NC 27516. Telephone: 919.932.6466. Email: khaldired@aol.com.

Posted by SpiceLines at 9:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (1)

Garlic soup, ladled over toasted croutons and garnished with basil flowers
and leaves, has a sweetly robust flavor. For extra bite, add a hot red chile.

This is a very simple garlic soup. Don’t be afraid to use lots of garlic: Four or five heads is not too much. When the cloves are stewed in olive oil and then simmered in rich chicken stock, they lose their fiery bite and become sweet and nutty-tasting.

In late spring, the soup is wonderful made with young garlic freshly pulled from the soil. Each immature head has only a few cloves at that stage, and the flavor they add to the soup is very subtle—sweet and mild, with a faint garlicky aroma. Right now, as we head into Indian summer, half the growers at our farmer’s market are offering mature, just-cured garlic—the flavor is deeper and stronger, with a pronounced pungency. When shopping, look for plump, unblemished heads of garlic that are firm to the touch.

Like a lot of soups, this one is especially good if you make it ahead of time so that the flavors fully infuse the stock. Naturally it is also better if you use homemade chicken broth. This is important because garlic and chicken stock are the two main ingredients in the soup. Whenever I have whole chickens cut into pieces, I freeze the backs, and, when I’ve accumulated five or six, I make a few quarts of stock, usually perfumed with a few cloves of garlic, some peppercorns and a sprig of parsley. I freeze the stock in pint-sized containers: This is money in the bank--a rainy day fund for making soup or any recipe that calls for chicken stock.

The method for making the soup is found in Alice Water’s Chez Panisse Menu Cookbook. I’ve added a sprinkling of fresh herbs for garnish: purple basil flowers, a few leaves of anise-flavored Thai basil, and a smattering of chopped garlic chives. Also known as Chinese chives, these have long, flat, pungently flavored leaves that are delicious in soups and stir fries. (Right now all three are blooming vigorously after tropical storm Ernesto gave my late summer garden a much needed soaking.) A twist of freshly ground black pepper, a smidgen of grated Parmesan and a couple of toasted croutons brushed with olive oil are all you need to complete the dish.

But like my friend Susana Trilling, I also like to add a small dried red chile for a touch of spice. Her version of Mexican garlic soup, which appears in Seasons of My Heart: A Culinary Journey Through Oaxaca, Mexico, also includes fresh squash blossoms and heart-shaped, anise-flavored hierba santa leaves. Neither is in ready supply where I live, but adding a Mexican chile de arbol or a small dried red Asian chile is a great idea. Susana also likes to serve the soup with freshly poached eggs, which makes a truly satisfying meal. (If you’d like to read our interview with Susana Trilling, please go here.)

Garlic Soup

(Adapted from Chez Panisse Menu Cookbook by Alice Waters (Random House, 1982) and from Seasons of My Heart (Ballantine Books, 1999) by Susana Trilling)

To serve 4:

Ingredients for the soup:

3 to 4 plump heads of garlic
1 cup extra virgin olive oil
6 cups rich chicken stock,
Salt and pepper to taste
1 dried chile de arbol or imported Thai red chile (optional) (see note)
4 eggs (optional)

Ingredients for the croutons:

8 slices peasant bread or one small whioe wheat baguette
Reserved olive oil
1 cut clove garlic

Ingredients for the garnish:

4 sprigs purple basil flowers
4 small sprigs Thai basil leaves, or any other basil
4 garlic chives, minced
Freshly grated parmesan cheese

Method:

1. Separate and peel the garlic cloves. (An easy way to peel them is to smack them with the flat side of a chef’s knife to loosen the papery husks.) There should be at least 1 cup of peeled cloves, but 1-1/2 cups is even better.
2. In a large, heavy saucepan, gently stew the garlic cloves in 1 cup of olive over a very low flame for about 20 minutes, or until they are very soft. Do not let the cloves brown or they will become bitter.
3. Pour off all but 2 tablespoons of the olive oil and reserve. Add the chicken stock (and the chile, if you are using it), cover and simmer for 40 minutes. Remove the chile. Taste, and add salt and pepper as desired.
4. Remove from the heat and let the soup cool to room temperature. If serving the next day, refrigerate over night.
5. Make the croutons by cutting 8 slices from a whole wheat baguette, or by cutting 2-inch x3-inch pieces from 8 slices of peasant bread. Toast them on a baking sheet in a 400 degree oven for 8 minutes, then remove and turn them over. Brush the tops with the reserved olive oil and return to the oven for another 8 minutes. They should be lightly browned and very crunchy. Rub the tops with a cut clove of garlic.
6. To serve: Reheat the soup. Put two toasted croutons in the bottom of each bowl. When the soup is very hot, poach the eggs in the soup if you are using them: Crack each egg individually on a flat plate and carefully slip them into the broth. When they are ready, spoon one poached egg into each bowl. Ladle the soup over the croutons and poached eggs. Sprinkle basil flowers and leaves, garlic chives and grated parmesan over all and serve at once.

Note: Chile de arbol and two types of dried red Asian chilies--Sanaam and Tien Tsin--may be ordered from www.penzeys.com. Most Asian markets also carry packaged red chiles.

Posted by SpiceLines at 2:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A vodka martini is garnished with pickled cherry tomatoes, plucked
green from the garden at summer's end.

It’s the tail of August and though we can look forward to a few more weeks of lusciously ripe tomatoes, the end is in sight. Squadrons of Canadian geese are flying overhead in V-shaped formations, honking loudly as they touch down in the pasture behind us. It’s a rest stop on their flight path to the Outer Banks and points south. The air is soupy, but the sun feels gentler on the skin.

Soon the tomato vines will begin to wither, leaving behind clusters of hard green fruit that will never blush even the faintest pink. This miserable state of affairs is enough to drive a tomato lover to despair. But Rick Field of Rick’s Picks, a Brooklyn-based pickle maker, has a solution.

I met Rick at the New York Fancy Food Show last month. He was wooing gourmet food buyers with jazzy jars of Windy City Wasabeans, green beans in a wasabi-spiked brine, and Bee n’ Buzz, a nouvelle bread and butter pickle with coconut, dried cherries and ginger. A former PBS producer for Bill Moyers and a Yale-Andover grad, Rick has re-invented himself as an upscale pickle maestro whose artisanal spears can be found at New York’s Union Square Greenmarket and on the shelves of fancy food shops across the country.

The urge to pickle started at the family home in Vermont, where Rick’s parents “spend most of their time from snow melt to the frost tending flower beds and looking after the garden.” His mother, Holly Field, traditionally put up dill pickles —and it was her simple recipe—Kirby cucumbers, dill heads, black peppercorns and garlic—that launched Rick on his new path.

His father, Dan Field, professor emeritus of Russian History at Syracuse University, created his own pickles at summer’s end when the cherry tomato vines were laden with fruit that would never ripen. “My Dad’s pickle evolved out of a desire to capture the late-bloomers whose very existence is threatened by early frost,” says Rick. “Pull them off the vine and pop them in the jar while they still have a brick hard exterior.”

Dan Field’s recipe calls for 6 pints of cherry tomatoes. My own garden is not quite so bountiful, so I called Elise at Elysian Field Farm, our favorite local CSA. Every Wednesday, Elise trucks in boxes of the most delectable organically grown vegetables: heirloom tomatoes, pale purple Asian eggplant, tiny red new potatoes (some the size of my thumbnail), freshly cured garlic, red, yellow and green peppers, slender leeks, a handful of fresh basil…and that’s just last week’s allotment. Luckily Elise had unripe cherry tomatoes—heirloom Black Cherries and Juliets--to spare and brought me a few pints.

The recipe is simple: Pack six pint jars with green cherry tomatoes (no tinge of pink or yellow allowed) into which you have already put bay leaves, dill heads, pickling spice, garlic and onion. Pour over them a boiling mixture of water, cider vinegar and kosher salt. Seal and let them sit for a couple of weeks. (The tomatoes are so acidic that you can skip the final boiling water bath.)

As we move toward the warm days of Indian Summer, we’ll be having our cocktails in the garden—martinis, extra dry, with a pickled cherry tomato or two instead of an olive. That’s one way to end summer: With a flourish and a grateful nod to the garden which has given us so much pleasure.

Dan Field’s Pickled Green Cherry Tomatoes
(adapted from Rick Field of Ricks Picks)

Eat these cherry tomato pickles as soon as they are ready—2 weeks. Ours were slightly sweet, gently sour, very crunchy and tasted of fresh tomato. They are delicious in a martini—the alcohol brings out the salty side of the pickle—but they are also very good with grilled pork tenderloin.

Makes 6 pints.

For each pint jar:

2 cups (approximately) hard green cherry tomatoes, washed
2 bay leaves
1 teaspoon pickling spice (see note)
2 cloves garlic
1 dill head (or 3 sprigs fresh dill and 1 teaspoon dill seed)
1 slice onion
1/8 teaspoon celery seed

For the brine:

4 cups water
2 cups cider vinegar
1/2 cup Kosher salt

Method:

1. Sterilize jars and lids in a large pot of boiling water to cover for10 minutes. Using tongs, lift the jars and lids out of the hot water and place them on clean dishtowels on the kitchen counter.
2. Into each jar, as indicated above, place bay leaves, pickling spice, garlic, dill, onion and celery seed. Firmly pack tomatoes in each jar, to just below the fill line (the extruded line on the jar approximately 1/4-inch below the top of the glass). This can be tricky since the cherry tomatoes are so small. Don’t skimp on the tomatoes and try to wedge them tightly in the jar to prevent shifting.
3. Bring the water, vinegar and salt to a boil. Pour the brine, still boiling, into the jars. The liquid should cover the solids--but only just cover them.
4. Wait 1-2 minutes to allow the brine to settle. If necessary, add a little more liquid to cover the tomatoes. Put on the tops and store for two weeks in the refrigerator or a cool, dark cupboard.

Note: The pickling spice I used came from Whole Foods and included mustard seed, cinnamon chips, allspice, dill seed, celery seed, bay leaf, mild chiles, cloves, caraway seed and ginger.

Posted by SpiceLines at 5:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (3)

“Could you PLEASE, PLEASE send me your bread-pudding recipe from your original book—my husband gave it to me years ago with a wonderful message comparing our marriage as a mixture of ‘spices.’”—Elaine Acosta, in an email to Paul Prudhomme, from “Comforting Food: Recapturing Recipes Katrina Took Away,” by Rick Brooks, The Wall Street Journal, August 26-27, 2006, p. A1.

Ian Hemphill's herb and spice "encyclopedia" lays out guidelines
for creating vibrant spice blends.

Like spouses in a good marriage, spices complement each other when they are properly combined. A sprinkle of hot, freshly ground black pepper perks up a blend of sweet spices—like cinnamon, allspice and vanilla—which might be otherwise be cloying. Tangy spices like sumac, with its bright acidic edge, give zest to the earthy flavors of the Middle Eastern mixture za’atar. And then there are mildly aromatic spices like coriander and fennel that pull diverse tastes together—acting as mediators, of a sort, to create a harmonious marriage of flavors.

In his superb reference book, The Spice and Herb Bible, Sydney-based spice merchant Ian Hemphill offers some useful rules for blending spices. The book embodies all that Hemphill has learned about his métier during a lifetime in the business: As a boy, he worked in his parents’ herb nursery, then ran a spice company in Singapore before returning to Australia to set up his own outfit, dubbed Herbie’s after a childhood nickname. The firm’s wide-ranging catalogue of 300 spices, herbs and flavorings--which includes tantalizing items like Australian wattle seed, brown cardamom from Bhutan and Egyptian rose petals—can be seen at www.herbies.com.au. The book devotes detailed chapters to nearly 100 herbs and spices: where they come from, how to use them (with recipes), how to buy and store them--and how to combine them.

Hemphill writes, “The art of making a good spice blend is to bring a range of different kinds of tastes and textures together so they create an ideal balance that tantalizes the taste buds.” As a starting point, he divides spices into five basic flavor categories and suggests relative quantities to use when creating a blend:

Sweet (2 teaspoons): allspice, aniseed, cassia, cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla;

Pungent (1/2 teaspoon): ajowan, asafetida, bush tomato, calamus, caraway, cardamom, celery seed, cloves, cumin, dill seed, fenugreek seed, galangal, ginger, juniper, licorice, mace, nigella, orris root, star anise wattleseed, zedoary;

Tangy (1 teaspoon): amchur, barberry, black lime, caper, kokam, pomegranate, sumac, tamarind;

Hot (1/2 teaspoon): chilli, horseradish, mustard, pepper;

Amagamating (5 teaspoons): coriander seed, fennel seed, paprika, poppy seed, sesame seed, turmeric.

A few more ideas:

1. Consider the intensity of flavor and aroma of individual spices within each category and adjust accordingly when mixing. As Hemphill points out, “although pepper and chilli are both hot spices, the relative differences in their flavour and heat strength makes some variation in quantity appropriate.”
2. When measuring spices for blends, measure by weight or by volume, but do not mix the two methods.
3. Allow spice mixtures to mellow for 24 hours before using them, so that the ingredients can balance out.

And a final tip: Consider the suggested proportions a starting point. Your own taste buds will guide you to the right combination. In spice blending as in all cooking—and even in marriage--you must know the rules before you can bend them.

Herbie's Spice Blend for Steak
(from The Spice and Herb Bible by Ian Hemphill)

Hemphill created this spice blend for sprinkling on steak before grilling. It includes spices from all the flavor categories--sweet, pungent, sour, hot and amalgamating—in the recommended proportions, although he has slightly increased the quantity of black pepper for a spicier touch.

Ingredients:

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon amchur powder (see note)
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon ground chilli (see note)
5 teaspoons ground sweet paprika

Method:

Combine all the ingredients and mix well. Allow the blend to mellow overnight before using. Rub on steaks or other meat 20-30 minutes before grilling.

Note: Amchur powder comes from the dried unripe fruit of the mango tree. It not only adds a pleasantly tangy note to the spice mix, but also serves as a meat tenderizer. It can be found in Indian food markets or ordered from www.herbies.com.au and as "amchoor powder" from www.kalustyans.com.

As for the chilli, you can experiment with any pure ground chili pepper. See Penzey’s website for mild ancho peppers (3,000 Scoville units), Turkish Aleppo peppers (10,000 units) or smoky chipotles (15,000 units).

In September 2006, the 2nd edition of The Herb and Spice Bible by Ian Hemphill will be available from www.amazon.com.

Posted by SpiceLines at 12:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Cardamom-infused coffee has a refreshing, aromatic flavor--and is a
traditional sign of welcome in the Arab world.

A thousand years ago an Abyssinian herder, dumbstruck by his wildly cavorting flock of goats, sampled the same shiny red berries his charges had chewed before beginning to twirl like dervishes. The berries were from the coffee tree, of course, and the goat herder soon felt a surge of vitality coursing through his veins. In time big swathes of the human race became addicted to the brew’s energizing lift.

Naturally this is an apocryphal story. But it is true that today, coffee is the second most widely traded commodity in developing counries (oil is first) and that it is consumed by tens of millions of people on a regular basis. I have adored the taste of coffee ever since I was 10 when my father used to slip a silver teaspoon of his Folgers into my breakfast milk. I have friends who cannot be civil before that first eye-opening cup; one gets migraines if she doesn’t partake. And then there are the headaches that come from the health police who want us all to abandon our caffeine addiction. We’ll sleep better, they say, be thinner and less jittery.

Ah, but now it seems we can indulge our habit to our hearts’ content. Well, almost. According to an August 15, 2006 article in The New York Times (“Coffee as a Health Drink? Studies Find Some Benefits” by Nicholas Bakalar), drinking up to 5 cups of coffee daily cuts the risk of getting heart disease, cirrhosis of the liver and type 2 diabetes. It turns out that coffee is full of antioxidants—more even than blueberries or oranges—which curb inflammation associated with cardiovascular disease, alcohol-induced cirrhosis and liver cancer. Scientists are still teasing out the reasons why it slows the onset of diabetes—one possibility is chlorogenic acid, a coffee component that reduces glucose build-up.

(The bad part: Forget coffee if you already have heart disease. Cardiologists point out that the caffeine in coffee raises blood pressure and slows blood flow to the heart, especially during exercise at high altitudes—no mountain biking, please.)

Coffee as medicine is not a new idea. In the 11th century, the renowned Persian physician Avicenna (there is a crater on the moon named after him) wrote that it “fortifies the members, cleans the skin, dries up the humidities that are under it and gives an excellent smell to all the body.” Medieval Arab traders brought Ethiopian coffee to their own lands around 1000 AD, and as Norman Kolpas notes in A Cup of Coffee, by the 16th century “coffee drinking was widespread in the Arab world—even in the holy city of Mecca, where it had been brought by dervishes who drank it during their strenuous ceremonies of worship.”

One of the most pleasurable ways to enjoy coffee is to drink it Arab-style, infused with aromatic green cardamom pods. Although cardamom is native to tropical Sri Lanka and South India (where it is known as the Queen of Spices), it was transported by Arab traders to the Mediterranean nearly two millennia ago. In the first century AD, it was a favorite spice of the ancient Romans, who also used it to clean their teeth and purify the breath. In the past it has been thought to have vague medicinal benefits, useful in treating colds, fevers and various inflammatory complaints. Combining coffee and cardamom seems like a natural, especially since it tastes so good.

In the Middle East, crushed cardamom pods are stuffed into the spout of a coffee pot—when the hot coffee flows over the spice, the brew acquires an aromatic, refreshing flavor. However, in her new cookbook The Arab Table, May Bisou says Arab coffee tastes best when dark roast coffee is simmered on low heat for 3 to 4 hours with as many as 10 coarsely ground cardamom pods. Sugar is never added and certainly not milk, which was thought to induce leprosy in medieval times. This hair-raising inky brew is sipped all day long, but never at breakfast when most Arabs prefer to drink tea.

Bisou, who is of Palestinian descent, notes that cardamom coffee is a traditional gesture of welcome in an Arab home and that you should never refuse the first cup of coffee offered by your host. You should drink at least three tiny cups and when you’ve had enough, signal your host by shaking the empty cup half a dozen times. (If no one offers coffee, you might begin looking for nearest exit.)

Coffee is an intensely personal brew—as Starbucks has learned to its great profit—so view the following recipe, made in a French press pot, as a starting point. The first time you make cardamom-scented coffee, try it my way. The next time, make it your own.

Cardamom-Infused Arab Coffee

To make two 8-ounce cups

Ingredients:

4 very fresh green cardamom pods (see note)
5 to 6 heaping tablespoons freshly ground coffee (see note)
16 ounces fresh, cool water

French press pot (17 ounces or larger)

Method:

1. Lightly crush the cardamom pods in a mortar and pestle. If the seeds slip out of the pods, crush them gently. Scoop up the pods and seeds and put them in the bottom of a French press pot. Spoon in the freshly ground coffee and set aside.
2. Heat the water in a kettle until steam curls out of the spout and the water is rumbling in the pot. Just before it boils, pour it slowly into the press pot. Put the plunger unit on top of the pot but do not press down.
3. After one minute, remove the plunger unit and stir gently with a spoon. This will cause the grounds to sink to the bottom of the pot. Replace the plunger unit, but again, do not press down. Let the coffee brew for 3 or 4 more minutes. At the end of this time, press the plunger down and pour the coffee into two cups. Drink immediately.
4. For iced Arab-style coffee, pour the coffee into a pitcher and let it cool to room temperature. Refrigerate until cold. To serve, fill two glasses with ice and pour the coffee over it. For a delicious if even more inauthentic version, add 1 to 2 teaspoons of sugar or simple syrup to each glass and milk to taste before pouring in the coffee. Stir to dissolve the sugar and serve at once.

Note: If you prefer a stronger cardamom flavor, add more cardamom pods rather than increasing the brewing time of the coffee. For best results with a press pot, grind coffee beans for about 12 seconds for a medium, uniform grind. Many press pot users insist that a burr grinder is necessary to produce a uniform grind from which the maximum flavor can be extracted. I have had excellent results, however, with my old Braun blade grinder.

Editor's note: A Cup of Coffee: From Plantation to Pot, A Coffee Lover's Guide to the Perfect Brew by Norman Kolpas (New York: Grove Press, 1993) and The Arab Table: Recipes and Culinary Traditions by May S. Bisou (New York: William Morrow, 2005) are both available through www.amazon.com.

Continue reading "Daily Addictions: A Welcoming Cup of Coffee, Scented with Cardamom" »

Posted by SpiceLines at 11:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This Malaysian rice salad is ideal summer fare: light, cooling, and scented with
green herbs like basil, mint and kaffir lime leaves.

In Cradle of Flavor, James Oseland tells of stopping in a teashop on the northeast coast of Malaysia just before nightfall. The Chinese cook had only one dish left to offer him: a jasmine rice salad tossed with freshly toasted coconut and aromatic herbs so finely slivered that they looked like “green lace” draped over the rice. It was so intensely fragrant, Oseland says, that he became an instant convert.

Herbal Rice Salad is a perfect summer dish: light, delicately flavored, redolent of anise-flavored basil and cooling mint, citrusy lemongrass and lime. Before you begin, sharpen your knife since all the herbs must be slivered very finely. The author notes that the flavors of the salad are not cast in stone—you could add more of any herbs that please you, or even use other leafy herbs that are running riot in your garden—say lemon verbena, purple basil and black-stemmed mint.

Resist the temptation to skip the dried shrimp, however. They are available in most Asian markets, and, although pungent-smelling, these tiny crustaceans add just a whisper of the briny deep once they have been pulverized in a food processor and mixed with the rice. I did cheat on one ingredient, though—Instead of grating and toasting fresh coconut meat, I made do with the packaged variety, lightly toasted until it turned golden brown. I know fresh coconut would have been luscious, but even this poor second added richness to the rice salad.

This is a dish that engages all the senses—taste and smell of course, but also the sense of touch if you toss the rice with your hands as Oseland suggests. Its light green herbal flecks are cooling to the eye, and, as for the ear, well, you are likely to hear little whimpers of delight from everyone at your table.

Herbal Rice Salad

(adapted from James Oseland, Cradle of Flavor: Home Cooking from the Spice Islands of Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore)

Makes 4 servings as a main course, 6 servings as a side dish

Ingredients:

4 heaping tablespoons toasted grated coconut (recipe follows)
About 50 fresh lemon basil, Thai basil or Italian basil leaves (about 1 small bunch)
About 35 fresh mint leaves (about 1/2 small bunch)
About 60 fresh Vietnamese basil leaves or cilantro leaves (about1 small bunch) (see note)
1 thick stalk fresh lemongrass
3 whole fresh or thawed frozen kaffir lime leaves (see note)
3 to 4 tablespoons small dried shrimp (see note)
3 shallots, very thinly sliced lengthwise
5 cups cooked jasmine rice at room temperature (recipe follows)
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
About 1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Method:

1. Prepare the toasted grated coconut: If using fresh coconut see recipe below. If using packaged coconut (very finely grated and unsweetened), heat a skillet over a medium low flame. Add the coconut and with a spatula, gently stir until it begins to change color. Continue to stir until the coconut becomes a light caramel color. If it darkens too quickly, remove it from the heat and keep stirring. After a minute or so, return the pan to low heat and continue to stir until it has turned a rich golden brown. Place the toasted coconut in a bowl and allow it to cool. (If you have used shredded rather than finely grated coconut, place it in a food processor, and pulse until it resembles sawdust, 30 seconds to 1 minute.) Set the coconut aside.
2. Working in batches, stack the lemon basil leaves, roll up lengthwise into a tight bundle and slice crosswise as thickly as possible with a very sharp knife. You should have about 5 loosely packed heaping tablespoons of the sliced herb. Cut the mint leaves in the same manner; you should have about 3 loosely packed heaping tablespoons of the sliced herb. Finally, cut the Vietnamese basil leaves in the same manner; you should have about 5 loosely packed, heaping tablespoons of the sliced herb. Set all the herbs aside.
3. Cut off the hard brown bottom and the bristly green top of the lemongrass, which should leave you with a pale white and lilac piece about 5 inches long. Discard the 2 or 3 tough outer layers. With the same sharp knife, cut the lemongrass on the diagonal into the thinnest possible slices, making them as close to paper-thin as you can. (The lemongrass slices will be difficult to chew if they’re too thick.) Set the lemongrass aside.
4. Again with the sharp knife, remove the tough center vein and hard stem of each kaffir lime leaf. Cut the leaves lengthwise into the narrowest possible strips—as narrow as a strand of hair if your knife will allow it. (The lime leaves will be difficult to chew if they are sliced too thickly.) Set the sliced lime leaves aside.
5. Place the dried shrimp in a small food processor and pulse until you have a fine powder resembling sawdust. Set the powdered shrimp aside.
6. In a large bowl, combine the sliced herbs, lemongrass and lime leaves; the powdered shrimp; the shallots; and the rice. With a large spoon (or better yet, your hands, which will allow you to distribute the ingredients more evenly), combine the ingredients until the herbs and the rice are well mixed and the rice is free of clumps. Add the lime juice and mix once more.
7. Add the salt and pepper and taste for seasoning. Because the herbs and shallots are intensely flavored, you may need to add less than 1 teaspoon salt. This dish should be neither salty nor acidic. It should be subtle and intensely fragrant with the clean taste of each herb clearly coming through. Add a squeeze of lime juice if needed.
8. Transfer to a serving bowl and eat at once. The herbs in this dish will wilt and lose their zing if allowed to sit longer than 30 minutes.

Note: Look for Vietnamese basil, lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves and dried shrimp at markets carrying southeast Asian ingredients. If you cannot find peppery Vietnamese basil, substitute cilantro—As Oseland notes, it tastes nothing like Vietnamese basil, but its fresh, clean taste makes it a pleasant addition to the salad.

See below for recipes for Steamed Rice and Toasted Grated Coconut.

Continue reading "Recipe: From Malaysia, a Fragrant Jasime Rice Salad with Lemongrass, Basil and Coconut" »

Posted by SpiceLines at 7:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

This fragrant spice paste is a blend of red shallots, garlic, ginger, turmeric and
coriander.

When is a recipe no longer the recipe?

This question came up a few days ago when I received a tantalizing receipt for jackfruit curry, a Balinese dish which sent our Singapore correspondent into culinary nirvana (see our last post) during lunch at the Amandari, an Amanresort in Ubud overlooking the Ayung River Gorge.
The recipe, sent by the Amandari’s Australian chef, Gary Tyson, poses a distinct challenge to stateside cooks in small Southern towns. Besides the tropical jackfruit, it calls for candlenuts, fresh turmeric root and fern tips, ingredients not exactly on the usual American shopping list. Still, I love nothing better than trawling through our excellent local Asian markets in search of exotic fare. After a day of scouting, though, I had to face up to the issue of substitutes.

First, there is the jackfruit problem. Oblong, green-skinned and covered with spikes, it is the largest fruit that grows on trees—it can weigh as much 90 pounds. Although common in tropical Asia and parts of Africa, fresh jackfruit is hard to come by here except, on occasion, in big city markets. Most Asian food stores carry canned jackfruit, but that seemed to miss the point of the recipe.

About this time, I had a sudden vision of a jackfruit the size of a small pig—I had seen it at Whole Foods several weeks earlier. I phoned in a special order, but the produce manager wouldn’t make any promises. Next I contacted Melissa’s Produce, where I was told that fresh jackfruit is currently hard to get and that lately it has been “all black inside. That means it was frozen.”

What to do? Tyson’s recipe actually calls for young jackfruit. “It does not have that much flavor but is a great vehicle to carry spices,” he explains. “If I could match it to flavour and texture, I would say that it is very similar to artichoke.” And in fact, Tyson suggests substituting fresh artichoke hearts for the jackfruit. “Young papaya would be good as well.”

As it happened, Grand Asia, a nearby Asian hypermarket, had piles of green papayas for making spicy Vietnamese green papaya salad. When I cut one open, the pale green flesh was just barely sweet and the texture was crisp—a good substitute, I thought, for young jackfruit, although in the end, it required a longer cooking time—35 minutes instead of the 20 minutes chef Tyson specified for jackfruit.

Green papaya, sauteed in the spice paste, is then simmered in coconut milk with
lemongrass, lime leaf, cinnamon and cardamom pods.

I had to make other substitutions and even left out a couple of ingredients:

1. Candlenuts: I used unsalted macadamia nuts in place of these oily, cream-colored nuts. Cashews are also an acceptable substitute. (See The Food Of Bali, Periplus Editions, 1995, p. 32.)

2. Turmeric root: This knobby rhizome of the ginger family is bright yellow-orange when cut open and has “a very emphatic flavor.” (Again, The Food of Bali, p. 33) I used very fresh powdered turmeric instead.

3. Fern tips and red beans: I left both out. By this time, I had run out of steam and they were basically a garnish.

4. As for other ingredients, fresh ginger, lemon grass, whole cardamom pods, and canned coconut milk can be found at most supermarkets and at Asian food shops. Lime leaves and long beans are also available at Asian markets. The fresher and brighter- tasting your spices, the more delicious the curry will be.

In the end, the turmeric-laced curry had a lovely pale golden hue. The papaya served admirably to convey the flavors of cinnamon, cardamom, lemon grass and lime leaf, all of which subtly perfumed the coconut milk. And I liked the crunch of the just cooked broccoli, cauliflower and carrots that were added right at the end.

Although Balinese spice pastes tend to be aggressively seasoned with fiery chilies, this recipe leaves them out, perhaps as a concession to western palates. If you, like I, crave the bite of the pepper, add a few bird’s-eye or Thai chilies when you make the paste.

How far can you go with substitutions and still keep some semblance of the original dish? Fortunately in this recipe, you can get pretty close.

The papaya curry is finished with carrots, long beans, broccoli and cauliflower
florets.

Young Jackfruit (or Papaya) Curry with Lime Leaf and Cardamom

(adapted from Gary Tyson, chef at the Amandari, Bali, Indonesia)

Ingredients for the spice paste:

1/2 cup red shallots, peeled and roughly chopped
2-1/2 tablespoons garlic, peeled and roughly chopped
2 tablespoons fresh ginger, peeled and roughly chopped
1/2 cup candlenuts, or unsalted macadamia nuts
2 tablespoons fresh turmeric root, peeled and roughly chopped, or 2 teaspoons powdered turmeric
2 teaspoons ground coriander
1 or more Thai or bird’s-eye chilies, to taste (optional)

2 tablespoons canola oil

Other ingredients for the curry:

1-1/2 pounds young jackfruit or green papaya, peeled and cubed (see note)

3 stalks lemongrass, trimmed to 5-inch-lengths, tough outer leaves removed, bruised in a mortar and pestle
6 lime leaves, fresh or frozen, torn
4 cinnamon sticks, about 3 inches long each, snapped in half
8 whole green cardamom pods
2-2/3 cups canned coconut milk, well-shaken (see note)
Salt and pepper to taste

Ingredients to finish:

1 cup carrots, diagonally sliced 1/8 inch thick
1 cup long beans, cut into 2-inch lengths
1 cup broccoli florets
1 cup cauliflower florets
1 cup fern tips (optional)
1/2 cup red beans, soaked and cooked (optional)

Method:

1. In a mortar and pestle or in a food processor, make a paste of the shallots, garlic, ginger, turmeric, macadamia nuts, coriander—and chilies if you are using them. The paste should be very smooth, with just a little roughness. (If you use the mortar and pestle this will take about 10 minutes, but it is well worth it for the lovely fragrance that envelops you.)
2. In a large, deep saucepan or dutch oven, heat the oil over a medium flame. Add the spice paste and gently sauté for 2 to 3 minutes. Add the cubed jackfruit or green papaya and stir to coat in the spice paste. Saute 5 minutes longer.
3. Add the coconut milk, cinnamon sticks, lemon grass, and lime leaves. Wrap the cardamom pods in a small piece of cheesecloth, crush lightly and add to the curry. Bring to a boil for just a moment (or the coconut milk may curdle) and lower the heat to medium low. Simmer for 20 to 35 minutes, or until the fruit is tender. (Note: Green papaya may cook unevenly, so be sure to test several pieces.)
4. When the fruit is almost done, add the carrots, long beans, cauliflower, broccoli, and fern tips and red beans if using. Cook for 2 to 3 minutes more.
5. Remove the whole spices from the curry.
6. Season to taste with salt and pepper and serve at once with steamed jasmine rise.

Note: Look for fresh jackfruit, green papaya and Chaokoh brand coconut milk in Asian markets. You can find all the other ingredients in this recipe at supermarkets and Asian food shops.

Posted by SpiceLines at 5:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (1)

[Editor's Note: This recipe appeared in the Fall, 2004 issue of SpiceLines Newsletter. To see our interview with Tabla chef Floyd Cardoz, please go here. To see the entire black pepper issue, click here.]

This black pepper-spiked shrimp and watermelon salad from Floyd Cardoz,
chef at New York's Tabla restaurant, is spicy and refreshing at the same time.

On torrid summer evenings, a slice of chilled watermelon, dripping with luscious juice, is nearly as cooling as an Arctic breeze. In India, where they know a thing or two about beating the heat, ripe melon is often eaten with a sprinkling of freshly ground black pepper. Those fiery nuggets not only enhance the sweetness of the fruit, but paradoxically, by stoking inner flames, also help the body cool down.

Tabla chef Floyd Cardoz takes off on this idea by marinating jumbo shrimp overnight in a pungent black pepper-coriander seed paste. The spicy, sauteed shrimp are then combined with sweet watermelon, aromatic mint and cilantro, tangy lime juice and salty capers in a dressing spiked with ginger, a green chili and more black pepper. All that pepper intensifies the layers of vivid flavor--and might even drop the mercury a degree or two.

To serve 4 as an appetizer

Ingredients for the shrimp:

8 jumbo shrimp (or 16 large shrimp), peeled and de-veined
1 tablespoon black pepper, finely ground
1 tablespoon coriander seed, finely ground
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
Sea salt
1/4 cup canola oil to cook the shrimp

Method for the shrimp:

1. Combine the ground spices with the extra-virgin olive oil in a medium bowl.
2. Toss shrimp in the spice paste. Cover and refrigerate for 24 hours.
3. Remove shrimp from the marinade, wipe away excess and season with sea salt.
4. Heat a cast iron skillet over medium-high heat for one minute. Add the oil and heat until shimmering. Carefully place seasoned shrimp in the pan and cook until crisp, about 2-3 minutes per side. Drain shrimp on rack or on paper towels.

Ingredients for the salad:

Chat masala to taste (available at Indian and Asian groceries)
Black pepper to taste
1 teaspoon peeled and minced fresh ginger root
1 hot chili pepper, seeds removed, minced fine
2 limes, one zested and cut into segments, the other squeezed for juice
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
3 cups diced watermelon, seeds removed
2 sprigs mint
1 sprig cilantro
1/4 cup thinly sliced breakfast radish (or any mild tasting radish)

Method for the salad:

1. Combine lime zest, lime juice, ginger, chili, chat masala, black pepper and extra virgin olive oil in a medium bowl.
2. Combine the watermelon, radishes, lime segments, mint, and cilantro in a separate bowl.
3. Just before serving, dress the salad by slowly pouring the juice mix over the vegetables and herbs.

For the garnish:

4 tablespoons salted capers soaked in warm water for 10 minutes, dried and quickly stir fried in one tablespoon of canola oil

To serve:

1. Divide the dressed salad equally among 4 small plates
2. Place 2 jumbo (or 4 large) shrimp on top of each salad.
3. Garnish with fried capers.

Posted by SpiceLines at 5:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Roasted cloves from four heads of garlic will yield half a cup of garlic paste.

Once you’ve roasted a few heads of garlic, smash the softened cloves into a paste using a mortar and pestle, and then whisk the paste into a white balsamic vinaigrette. (One head of roasted garlic will yield a tablespoon or more of garlic paste.) Drizzle this luscious dressing over grilled salmon, cold roasted lamb or a salad of boiled new potatoes, and you have catapulted the mundane into the sublime.

Although I usually think of earthy-tasting Le Puy lentils, grown in the volcanic soil of the Auvergne in France, as a perfect fall or winter dish, these tiny, dark green legumes are delicious in summer when served at room temperature with a roasted garlic vinaigrette brightened with fresh basil and mint. You can use the same vinaigrette in cold weather: Just omit the herbs and add thick, smoky bacon to the mix.

Serves 4 as a side dish:

Ingredients for the vinaigrette:

1/4 cup white balsamic vinegar
Salt and pepper to taste
2 tablespoons roasted garlic paste
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons olive oil

Ingredients for the lentils:

1 cup Le Puy or French green lentils (see note)
1-1/2 tablespoons fresh spicy globe basil (or other basil), finely chopped
1-1/2 tablespoons fresh mint, finely chopped

Method for the vinaigrette:

In a bowl, combine the vinegar, salt and pepper. Whisk in the roasted garlic paste and set aside for 10 to 15 minutes. Whisk in the olive oil.

Method for the lentils:

1. Rinse the lentils in cold running water. In a medium saucepan, combine the lentils with 3 cups of water and bring them to boil. Reduce the heat to low and simmer for 15 to 20 minutes, or until the lentils are just tender. Do not let them get mushy. Drain and set aside to cool
2. Put the lentils in a mixing bowl. Spoon in about half the vinaigrette and mix well. Allow the flavors to mingle for 10 minutes, then taste and adjust the seasonings to your liking—add more salt, pepper or vinaigrette, as you please. Just before serving, stir in the chopped basil and mint.

Note: Authentic Le Puy lentils, grown in the Auvergne region of France, are available at some gourmet food shops. More commonly you will find French green lentils which are small and tasty, but lack the robust, almost peppery flavor of the real thing. On the web, order Sabarot Le Puy Green Lentils from www.amazon.com.

Posted by SpiceLines at 5:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

Whole heads of garlic, baked in a terra cotta cooker, become sweet and nutty-tasting.

If your farmer’s market is like ours, right now there are tempting baskets brimming with whole heads of fresh garlic. Just last week I came away with bulbs of Music, an easy to peel porcelain hard neck, and heads of purple striped Guatemalan, one of the best varieties for roasting. As much as I love garlic raw in salsas, salads and marinades, I adore the mellow, caramel flavor of garlic baked in the oven.

When you bake or roast garlic, a near miraculous transformation occurs. The sulphuric compounds that give raw allium its pungency are muted, lulled to sleep, as it were, by the vapors of slow, steady heat. The hard cloves become soft and squishy, and the natural sugars are coaxed out of hiding. After an hour or so, the garlic can be squeezed right out of its papery husk, and its flavor is sweet and nutty, only faintly reminiscent of the raw clove’s searing bite.

One of the best ways to roast garlic is in a domed terra cotta cooker, such as the large Garlic Baker made by Fox Run Craftsmen. The glazed base is 7 inches in diameter, which means that you can roast five or more bulbs of garlic at a time. The lid has a garlic bulb as a handle and a tiny hole for steam. To prepare the garlic, I rub off some of its outer leaves, slice about one-quarter inch off the tops and drizzle with a little olive oil. Sometimes I sprinkle the cloves with salt and pepper and add a sprig of thyme or rosemary from the garden.

Roasted garlic is so luscious that you will probably find yourself standing up in the kitchen, squeezing one nutty-tasting clove after another into your mouth. (This is a good reason to bake four or five heads at once.) It is delicious served as an accompaniment to grilled meats and vegetables or on roughly torn pieces of warm baguette that have been dipped into olive oil. Or whisk a couple of tablespoons into a vinaigrette for salads. The same vinaigrette can be spooned over grilled salmon or mixed with lentils.

The Fox Run Garlic Baker (or similar terra cotta cookers) can be found at kitchenware stores. On the web, order it from www.cookscorner.com for $7.99. (Enter “garlic baker” in the search box.)

Recipe: Whole Roasted Garlic

Ingredients:

4 to 5 whole garlic bulbs
Olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
Fresh or dried thyme or rosemary

A terra cotta garlic baker (or small glass baking dish and aluminum foil to cover)

Method:

1. Using your thumbs, gently rub off several layers of the papery outer leaves covering each head of garlic. Slice about 1/4-inch off the top of each head, and prick the tops of the cloves with the tines of a fork.
2. Place the heads of garlic on the base of the terra cotta baker (or in the baking dish) and drizzle the tops with a little olive oil. Sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste and with fresh or dried herbs, if desired. Cover with the lid of the baker. (If using a baking dish, cover tightly with aluminum foil.)
3. If using a terracotta baker, follow the manufacturer’s instructions: Place the covered baker in a cold oven. Turn the oven temperature to 300 degrees. Bake for one hour or until the cloves have softened. Remove the top, and bake for 20 minutes more, or until the heads of garlic are very slightly browned.
(If using a baking dish, bake at 300 degrees for one hour, or until the garlic has softened. Remove the aluminum foil and continue baking until the garlic has browned slightly.)
4. Serve each person one head of roasted garlic while it is still warm: Squeeze the garlic onto grilled meats or vegetables, or onto chunks of torn baguette dipped in olive oil.
5. If making a vinaigrette, squeeze the cloves out of their papery husks while still warm and mash to a paste in a mortar and pestle. Set aside until ready to use.

Posted by SpiceLines at 12:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

Lots of lavender in the garden and the spirit of invention has led to some late night ice cream making marathons. But, like Goldilocks and the Three Bears, I couldn’t come up with a lavender-scented ice cream that was quite right. Several batches were so flowery that no one could eat them, others—especially those with custard bases—were simply strange when combined with lavender’s camphorous edge. Gallons of milk, quarts of cream, lots of sugar and eggs, and handfuls of lavender—all went down the drain, usually around 2 A.M.

Then Alexandra, just back from France, said, “Mom, I really don’t want to eat lavender ice cream. Mix it with some citrus.” Out of the mouths of babes, especially 20-year-olds, breezing through the kitchen…

She was thinking grapefruit, but I was thinking lemon. Lemon and lavender are a lovely blend of flavors, especially in the dog days of summer. When making ice cream, the secret is to keep all these ingredients in balance—milk with not too much cream, grated lemon zest, a modest amount of lavender, and less sugar than you might imagine. If an ice cream can be described as “sunny,” this is it: bright, sweet, tart and then, that mysterious taste of the flower.

Merci, Alexandra…next we’ll try the grapefruit. Perhaps an ice?

Lemon and Lavender Ice Cream

To make one quart

Ingredients:

3 cups whole milk
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
8 fresh lavender blossoms, organic (unsprayed)
Grated zest of 1 lemon, or to taste

Method:

1. In a large saucepan, gently heat the milk, cream and sugar, stirring until the sugar has dissolved. Add the lavender blossoms and continue to heat until the mixture is very hot. (Do not boil.) Remove from the flame and stir in the grated zest of 1 lemon. Let the mixture steep for 30 to 60 minutes, tasting occasionally to be sure that the lavender flavor does not become overpowering. If desired, add more lemon zest.
2. Strain the mixture into a large bowl, cover with aluminum foil and refrigerate until very cold, at least three to four hours.
3. Freeze in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s directions. This ice cream is best if served immediately after freezing.

Posted by SpiceLines at 9:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The new American palate craves spices of all nations. A zillion salsas line the grocery shelves. Chipotle chile-spiked mayonnaise? Been there, done that. Thai green and red curries? Check. Fiery wasabi for your sushi? Ditto. America’s most popular herb blend? Herbes de provence, of course.

Yet on the Fourth of July, after we hung the red, white and blue and bought the sparklers and bottle rockets, our own thoughts—and maybe yours—began to run in a more traditional vein. On our nation’s 230th birthday, we wanted familiar, down home food: fresh sweet corn and tomatoes from our local farmer’s market, pork from Niman Ranch. As smoke billowed from backyard barbeques to the left and the right of us, we gave into the primal urge for food cooked over fire.

One way to align these divergent desires is to give traditional fare like pork ribs and corn on the cob a global spin. Inspired by a great recipe for Asian-style pork belly from Zak Pelaccio. chef at the Fatty Crab in New York--it ran in The Wall Street Journal in January 2006, but our clipping, alas, has vanished--we concocted a rib marinade of kecap manis (Indonesian sweet soy sauce flavored with star anise and garlic), Chinese hoisin sauce, ordinary soy sauce, and rice wine vinegar, with more garlic and some ginger thrown in for good measure. Marinated overnight and grilled over a fire of hardwood charcoal, the meaty slab of ribs was rich and succulent, with a crackling, slightly sweet, charred crust. (To prove our first point, all these ingredients can be found in the supermarket, with the possible exception of the kecap manis--that we bought at our local oriental market.)

The corn couldn’t be easier or more delicious. We’ve eaten it a hundred times in Mexico, where street vendors grill whole ears, shucks intact, on little charcoal braziers. Rubbed with lime and sprinkled with salt and ground red chile powder, the corn is a jumble of irresistible flavors—sweet, smoky, fiery with a touch of citrus and salt.

Accompany this feast with a salad of sliced heirloom tomatoes, cucumber and slender carrots in a light vinaigrette—don’t forget the ice tea or lemonade with fresh mint—and you have an All-American feast that pleases the palate with a nod to our culinary melting pot.

Grilled Pork Ribs in Sweet Soy Sauce, Garlic and Ginger
(adapted from a recipe by Zak Pelaccio, The Fatty Crab, New York)

To serve 6:

Ingredients for the pork:

3-1/2 pounds pork ribs in one slab, cut in half
1 cup kecap manis (see note)
1 cup hoisin sauce
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup rice wine vinegar
1 tablespoon grated ginger
1 tablespoon grated garlic

1 tablespoon canola oil

Ingredients for the corn:

12 ears fresh corn in the husk
Salt
Ground red chile powder
Wedges of lime

Method:

1. One day before, combine all the marinade ingredients (except the canola oil) in a bowl and mix well. Place the ribs in a gallon size ziplock bag, pour in the marinade, and seal tightly (use a second bag if necessary to prevent leaks). Refrigerate overnight, turning several times.
2. The next day, when you are ready to cook, make a large hardwood charcoal fire on one side of your grill. Remove the pork ribs from the marinade, pat dry and rub with the canola oil. Discard the marinade.
3. When the coal are red hot but no longer flaming, place the ribs, bone side down, on the grill away from the coals. Cover and cook for 8 minutes. Turn and cook for 8 minutes more. Turn again and cook for a final 6 to 8 minutes. Remove the ribs from the grill and let them rest, loosely covered with aluminum foil, for 10 to 15 minutes.
4. While the ribs are cooking, remove the tough, outermost layer of the corn husks, leaving the tender inner leaves attached to the base of each ear. Gently peel these leaves back and remove the corn silk. Pull the inner leaves back over the corn so that the kernels are loosely covered.
5. After the ribs are cooked, put the corn on the grill directly over the coals which should now be only moderately hot. Cover and cook for 15 to 20 minutes, turning every 5 minutes. The corn husks will blacken and the kernels should be slightly charred.
6. To serve, cut the slabs of pork ribs into individual ribs and pile them on a platter. Serve the corn on a separate platter, accompanied by small bowls of salt and ground red chile powder and wedges of lime. Accompany with a salad of heirloom tomatoes, cucumbers and carrots in a light vinaigrette, and ice tea or lemonade with fresh mint.

Note: Kecap manis can be found at Asian markets, or ordered from www.adrianascaravan.com.

Posted by SpiceLines at 11:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (5)

One of the pleasures of having an embarrassment of lavender in the summer garden is thinking up new ways to use it. The sturdy, square stems of Lavender “Grosso,” for instance, make perfect skewers for grilled shrimp. Marinated in lemon juice, olive oil and garlic and briefly charred over a hardwood charcoal fire, the shrimp come to the table tasting of smoke, the salty tang of the ocean and just a hint of sweet, faintly camphorous lavender flavor. You could also substitute boneless chicken thighs or chunks of lamb for the shrimp.

To serve 4

Ingredients:

1 pound large shrimp in their shells
Juice of 1 or 2 lemons
Olive oil
2 large cloves of garlic, finely chopped
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
A pinch of fresh or dried culinary lavender flowers

6 sturdy stems of fresh or dried lavender, about 10 inches long (see note)

Method:

1. Devein the shrimp by cutting down the backs of their shells with a sharp paring knife. Rinse and pat dry. Do not remove the shells or the legs.
2. In a large bowl, combine the lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, salt, pepper and lavender flowers. Add the shrimp, mix well and set aside to marinate.
3. Soak the fresh or dried lavender stems in water for 5 minutes. Remove and pat dry.
4. In your grill, build a fire of hardwood charcoal. When the coals are hot but no longer flaming, thread the shrimp onto the lavender skewers and place them on the grill. Cover and cook for 2 minutes, turn and cook for 2 to 3 minutes more, or until the shrimp are opaque and the shells are just slightly charred.
5. Serve each person a skewer of shrimp, along with 2 or 3 more shrimp that have been removed from the remaining lavender stems. Accompany the shrimp with a simple salad of mixed lettuces in a vinaigrette and ears of sweet corn grilled in their husks.

Note: Dried culinary lavender and bundles of dried lavender stems may be ordered from www.sunshinelavenderfarm.com.

Posted by SpiceLines at 7:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The flowers of Lavender "Provence" have a sweet, mildly fruity aroma
that makes iced lemonade especially refreshing on a hot summer day.

Right now, the lavender is blooming madly outside the front door. Furry bumblebees are buzzing lazily amongst the rich violet spikes of “Provence”and the bluer ones of “Munstead". The flowers are so profuse that the bees don’t really mind if I steal a few from under their noses. (In the insect world, that would be “from under their probosces…”)

If you don’t have lavender in your garden, this is the moment to look for freshly harvested stalks at your local farmers market—but be sure that it’s organic, or at least unsprayed. One of the simplest and most refreshing ways to experiment with lavender is to use it as a flavoring for lemonade. Pick a few blossoms, make a simple syrup, add water and steep until the sugar mixture has a light floral taste. Then add freshly squeezed lemon juice to taste and chill until very cold.

Fresh lavender imparts a subtle flavor to the lemonade. If you are using dried culinary lavender, cut the amount in half since its stronger taste can quickly become overpowering. At Sunshine Lavender Farm, Annie Baggett makes lemonade by putting dried lavender in a tea ball and letting it steep in hot water until the desired flavor is reached.

Lavender Lemonade

Makes a generous quart

Ingredients:

3-1/2 cups water
1 cup sugar
5 fresh lavender flower heads, or 1-1/2 teaspoons dried culinary lavender (see note)
2/3 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice, strained
4 springs fresh lavender, for garnish

1. Combine 1 cup of water with the sugar in a medium saucepan over a hot flame and stir until the sugar has dissolved. Add the remaining 2-1/2 cups water and the fresh or dried lavender and bring the mixture to a gentle simmer. (If using dried lavender, put it in a tea ball.) Remove from the heat and let the mixture steep for 20 minutes, or until it has a light lavender taste.
2. Strain the mixture into a pitcher or jar, and stir in the lemon juice. Refrigerate until it is cold.
3. To serve, pour the lemonade over a glass of ice and garnish with a sprig of fresh lavender.

Note: Dried culinary lavender can be ordered from www.adrianascaravan.com or from www.sunshinelavenderfarm.com.

Posted by SpiceLines at 3:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In this recipe from Ana Sortun, carrot puree is served with dukkah,
a nutty Egyptian spice mix flavored with cumin and coriander.

The last time I had supper at Oleana, the vegetarian tasting menu began with a tantalizing carrot puree sprinkled with dukkah, a complex Egyptian spice mixture made of toasted almonds, coconut, and sesame, as well as coriander and cumin. The levels of flavor in this simple dish were astonishing: It was by turns, sweet, tart, nutty, earthy—and totally addictive. I was not surprised to learn that it is one of the restaurant’s most popular prêt a manger dishes.

In her new cookbook, Spice: Flavors of the Eastern Mediterranean, chef Ana Sortun says that she and Claudia Roden created this version of dukkah for a presentation on Middle Eastern food at Boston University in 2000. The coconut was an unusual addition which gave the traditional spice and nut mixture a new twist.

There are probably as many versions of dukkah as there are cooks. Sortun mentions one mixture made with nigella seeds and dried mint. It can be served quite simply with bread and olive oil, she says, but it is also “delicious on seared sea scallops and duck, or in a salad of raw fennel and orange. [It} is also fantastic in the summertime sprinkled on sliced tomatoes.”

Toasting not only brings out the richness of the nuts, but also transforms the raw cumin and coriander seeds by releasing their aromatic oils and giving them a nutty flavor.

Carrot Puree and Egyptian Spice Mix with Nuts and Olive Oil
(from Ana Sortun, Spice: Flavors of the Eastern Mediterranean)

To serve 8

Ingredients for the carrot puree:

2 pounds carrots, peeled and cut into 2-inch lengths
6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, plus more for dipping
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
4 teaspoons harissa (see note)
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
Torn pieces of French baguette
Salt and pepper to taste

Ingredients for the dukkah:

1/2 cup blanched almonds
3 tablespoons coriander seeds
2 tablespoons cumin seeds
2 tablespoons sesame seeds
1/4 cup unsweetened dried shredded coconut
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

To make the carrot puree:

1. In a large saucepan over high heat, cover the carrots with water and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium and simmer until tender, about 20 minutes. Drain the carrots and return them to the saucepan. Cook for 30 seconds over medium heat to thoroughly dry them. Remove the carrots from the heat and coarsely mash them with a fork or whisk. You should have a coarsely ground carrot puree that sticks together but still has rough pieces throughout.
2. Stir in the olive oil, vinegar, harissa, cumin and ginger. Season the mixture with salt and pepper.

To make the dukkah:

1. In a medium skillet over medium heat, toast the almonds until golden, about 4 minutes. Transfer the almonds to a work surface to cool, and then finely chop them.
2. Put the coriander and cumin seeds in the same skillet and toast, stirring until fragrant, about 2 minutes. Transfer the seeds to a spice grinder and allow them to cool completely before coarsely grinding.
3. In a medium bowl, combine the almonds with the ground spices.
4. Put the sesame seeds in the skillet and toast them over medium heat, stirring until golden, about 2 minutes. Transfer to the spice grinder.
5. Toast the coconut in the skillet over medium heat, stirring constantly until golden, about 2 minutes. Add the toasted coconut to the grinder and let it cool completely.
6. Grind the sesame seeds and coconut to a coarse powder. Combine with the almond and spice mixture and season with salt and pepper.
7. Serve the dukkah and carrot puree in separate bowls with torn chunks of crispy baguette and olive oil. Dunk the bread in the oil, dredge it in the dukkah, and spread on the carrots.

Note: Harissa is a peppery North African chili paste that can be stirred into almost any dish that needs a little zip. Middle Eastern food shops usually sell ready made-harissa in tubes. In her cookbook, Ana Sortun provides a recipe for harissa made from Urfa chilies, garlic and sun dried tomatoes.

Posted by SpiceLines at 7:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Curly scapes from Music garlic are just beginning to unfurl.
Sauteed, alone or in stir fries, they have a mild and delicate flavor.

It’s Memorial Day and blistering hot. A bad omen for the summer to come. While watering the tomato plants, I checked the garlic for winners and losers. Incillium and Morado Gigante appear to have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory: Both began with handsome seed cloves that barely sprouted wispy greens before disappearing. Even the original cloves have vanished, prey perhaps to marauding squirrels or voles with a taste for the exotic.

But Music, a porcelain hardneck grown all over the U.S., and Guatemalan Purple Stripe, a good performer in Southern climes, have both produced vigorous greens and curly scapes. Garlic scapes are flower stalks that shoot rapidly upwards in May to mid June, depending on your climate. As they grow, the slender tips that sport immature flower buds become curly. At this point they should be plucked in order to boost the growth of the bulb down in the soil. If you leave them in place, the stalks will straighten and toughen, and the flower buds will swell until they become bulbils or miniature above ground bulbs.

Fortunately, scapes plucked while still curly are tender and delicate in flavor. If you see them at your local farmers market, buy as many as you can and run home to cook them. Ana Sortun, chef at Oleana in Cambridge, admires the "beauties of garlic as it goes through its stages. When the scapes appear, I love to sauté them like green beans. They have such a delicate flavor. They're also great in soups." You can also chop them raw into salads or use them in your favorite stir fry.

In his 1989 book, Fragrant Harbor Taste: The New Chinese Cooking of Hong Kong, Ken Hom has a savory recipe for Beef and Garlic Shoots in Oyster Sauce. It uses garlic “shoots” as well as chopped “fresh” garlic. Of the shoots, Hom says, “Harvested in early spring, they add a mild and delicate perfume to food that is highly prized among Hong Kong’s discerning diners…their green tops may also be used as a garnish or flavoring.” We've substituted scapes for the earlier shoots, since they too are mild in flavor.

As for fresh garlic, one might use young garlic pulled about the same time as the scapes are cut. Young garlic has a smallish bulb with partly formed cloves—a sort of halfway stage between green garlic, in which bulb is essentially one large, swollen, barely undifferentiated clove, and mature garlic in which the cloves are distinct and have reached their full size. Like the scapes, young garlic's flavor is delicate; when sauteed, the cloves become almost sweet.

Hom also calls for “young” ginger. Young stem ginger, he says, is “the newest spring growth.” The tender rhizomes are “knobby in shape and moist pink; they look naked.” If you cannot find young ginger in your market, substitute very fresh ginger that is not dried up or wrinkled. Peel it before slicing or chopping.

Garlic scapes add a mildly pungent flavor to beef stir fried with sliced
ginger and oyster sauce.

Beef and Garlic Shoots in Oyster Sauce
(adapted from Ken Hom, Fragrant Harbor Taste)

Ingredients:

1 pound sirloin steak, beef fillet or New York strip

For the marinade:

1 teaspoon light soy sauce
1 teaspoon rice wine
1 teaspoon sugar
1 egg white
2 teaspoons ginger juice (see note)
1 tablespoon cornstarch
2 teaspoons sesame oil

1 cup peanut oil

4 cloves thinly sliced young garlic
6 to 12 garlic shoots (scapes) or whole scallions, cut into 3-inch pieces
6 slices young ginger, or peeled mature ginger, 1/4-inch thick
4 fresh or canned water chestnuts, peeled and sliced

For the sauce:

1/2 cup rich chicken stock, preferably homemade
1-1/2 tablespoons oyster sauce
1 teaspoon light soy sauce
2 teaspoons rice wine
1 teaspoon cornstarch

Method:

1. Put the steak in the freezer for 20 minutes or until it is firm to the touch. Cut it, against the grain, into thin slices. Whisk together the marinade ingredients, add the meat and refrigerate for 20 minutes. Mix the sauce ingredients and set aside.
2. Heat a wok or large skillet until it is hot. Add the oil and when it is quite hot (when a sliver of meat dropped in the oil sizzles madly), quickly stir fry the beef for 2 to 3 minutes. Turn the contents of the wok into a strainer set over a large bowl. Allow to drain, reserving some of the oil.
3. Reheat the wok and add 1 tablespoon of the reserved oil. Add the garlic, garlic shoots and ginger, and stir fry for 1 minute. Add the water chestnuts and continue to stir fry for 30 seconds more. Add the sauce ingredients and bring the mixture to a boil. When the sauce has thickened, return the drained beef and mix well. Serve at once with steamed white rice.

Note: To make ginger juice, grate a 1 to 1-1/2 inch piece of peeled ginger into a bowl. You should have about 1 tablespoon. Wrap the ginger in a small piece of cheesecloth, or in the corner of a clean dishtowel, and squeeze it over a bowl. This will yield 2 teaspoons or more of ginger juice.

Posted by SpiceLines at 2:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(adapted from Maria Elena Serena, Coatepec)

In Coatepec, Dona Elena pours chicken stock into a light, tropical mole made
of guajillo chiles and sweet, ripe pineapple, peaches, pears and apples.

In her last post, Claire was recovering from a shock by making manchamanteles. It is a luscious tropical mole, or sauce, which, in this version, consists of little more than spicy chiles, charred tomatoes and sweet, ripe fruit with a touch of Ceylon cinnamon. Manchamanteles literally means “tablecloth stainer;” you will understand once you see its brick red color.

Guajillos are dark red, smooth-skinned dried chiles. They are long and narrow, tapering to a point at one end, and have a slightly fruity flavor. The Scoville scale, which measures the capsaicin content of chiles, puts the guajillo in the 2 to 4 range which makes it warm and spicy, but not too hot--an ideal complement to the sweet fruit.

For the best flavor, try to buy “fresh” guajillo chiles—even though they are dried, they should be soft and supple. When frying, do not let them burn or turn black—if you do, the mole will be bitter. That means gently sautéing them just until the inner surface turns a light golden brown. This will happen very quickly, so it is best to fry the chiles one at a time.

The spice most of us call “cinnamon” is actually a close cousin known as cassia. Mexican recipes traditionally use Ceylon or “true cinnamon” which is grown in Sri Lanka. It is light brown in color, with layers of crumbly, soft bark rolled into concentric layers. Its flavor and aroma are less pungent than cassia and far more complex: sweet. warm and woody with whispers of clove and citrus. (For more on Cinnamon, including recipes and an interview with Susana Trilling, see SpiceLines newsletter at www.globalprovince.com/spicelines/index.htm.)

This recipe is adapted from Maria Elena Serena, a superb cook who invited us into her home in Coatepec, Mexico for a wonderful cena and cooking lesson. Dona Elena is very health conscious, so she has substituted canola oil for the lard that might ordinarily be used in making manchamanteles. Traditionally, this mole is served over the boiled chicken from which the chicken stock has been made “The sugar and the protein are very good for energy,” she told us.

The mole is also delicious with grilled pork loin, chicken or duck breasts. Claire has been known to eat it right out of the pot.

To serve four:

Ingredients for the chile mixture:

1/4 pound guajillo chiles (see note)
4 to 6 tablespoons of canola oil
1 medium onion, sliced thin
5 garlic cloves, sliced thin
4 large plum tomatoes
A one-inch piece of Ceylon cinnamon (see note)
1 pinch ground black pepper
1 to 2 cups rich chicken stock, preferably homemade from a whole cut up chicken cooked with onion and garlic (reserve the chicken pieces)

Additional Ingredients for the mole:

3 tablespoons canola oil
2 apples, peeled and cored, cut into medium dice
2 firm, ripe medium peaches, peeled and cut into medium dice
2 firm, ripe medium pears, peeled and cut into medium dice
3 cups pineapple, cut into medium dice
1 to 2 cups rich chicken stock
Salt to taste

Reserved chicken from the stock

Method for the chile mixture:

1. Wipe the chiles clean with a damp cloth. Using kitchen scissors, snip off the stem and cut vertically down one side of each chile. Open it up flat and remove the seeds and membranes. Repeat with the other chiles.
2. Heat 3 tablespoons of oil in a medium skillet over a medium flame. When the oil is hot, reduce the heat to low and lightly sauté the chiles, one at a time, for a few seconds on each side. The best way to do this is to open up each chile and flatten it before putting it in the oil. Saute very gently until the inner surface turns a light golden brown. Do not let outer surface turn black, or the chile mixture will taste bitter. If necessary, lower the heat and add one or two more tablespoons of canola oil to the pan.
3. When all the chiles have been sautéed, put them in a large bowl and pour very hot water over them to cover. Set aside to soften.
4. In the same oil as the chiles, saute the sliced onion until it is golden brown. If necessary, add another tablespoon of oil. Remove and set aside. Add the sliced garlic cloves to the pan and sauté until golden. Remove and set aside.
5. Heat a cast iron griddle or skillet over a medium high flame. When it is hot, sear the plum tomatoes until the skin blackens and begins to peel. Remove, chop coarsely and set aside.
6. When the chiles are soft, drain them in a colander. Tear the chiles into pieces and place them in the blender. Add the sautéed, onions, garlic, tomatoes, cinnamon, black pepper and 1 cup of chicken stock. Whirr until the mixture is smooth, adding a little more stock if necessary.
7. Even after blending, the chile mixture will probably contain bits of chile and tomato skin and small pieces of cinnamon. To remove them, pass the mixture through a food mill set into a large bowl.

Method for the mole:

1. Place a large, non-reactive skillet over a medium flame and add 3 tablespoons of oil. Add the chile mixture. When it begins to bubble, add the fruit. When it bubbles again, add some chicken stock. Begin with one cup: the mole should be liquid, but not watery. It will thicken slightly as it cooks.
2. Lower the heat and simmer gently for 20 minutes, or until the fruit is soft. Remove from the heat and add salt to taste.
3. To serve: Arrange the reserved pieces of chicken in a shallow bowl and pour the warm mole sauce over them. Serve with rice and a light green salad.
4. Other options: The mole is delicious over plain grilled pork loin or chops, grilled chicken, or grilled duck breasts.

Note: Whole dried guajillo chiles and sticks of Ceylon cinnamon can be found in Hispanic food markets and in the international section of some supermarkets. On the web, both can be ordered from www.penzeys.com.

Posted by SpiceLines at 9:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(adapted from Maria Elena Serena, Coatepec, Veracruz)

Our delicious cena at the Coatepec home of Maria Elena Serena ended with a double-barreled coffee dessert: an intensely flavored coffee flan, followed by a scoop of her homemade coffee ice cream.

Earlier, in her tidy outdoor kitchen, Dona Elena had given us a lesson in making flan: Placing a metal pan right over a gas flame, she caramelized a few spoonfuls of raw sugar until it was brown and syrupy. Setting it aside to cool, she frothed instant coffee with eggs, sweetened condensed milk and evaporated milk in her blender. After pouring the coffee mixture over the cooled sugar syrup, Dona Elena tore off a sheet of aluminum foil. She eyed us sternly: “Never put the dull side next to the flan, or it will make it dark,” she instructed. And indeed, the flan, cooked on the stovetop in a pan of simmering water, had a lovely golden brown surface, not to mention a rich, creamy coffee taste.

Dona Elena flavored her flan with Nescafe Golden Selection Tueste Intenso, a strong instant coffee I have not seen in the U.S. Instead, I’ve substituted instant espresso, which imbues the flan with a richer flavor than standard issue American instant coffee. You can try cooking the flan on the stovetop in a pan of water for 45 minutes, or for a silkier texture, bake it in a water bath in the oven. Be sure to chill the flan for a few hours before unmolding.

To serve 8

Ingredients:

3 tablespoons Demerara sugar (see note)
1/2 cup water
2 tablespoons instant espresso powder
1 14-ounce can of sweetened condensed milk
1 12-ounce can evaporated milk, plus 2 additional ounces
6 large eggs

Whipped cream (optional)
Chocolate covered coffee beans (optional)
Sprigs of fresh mint (optional)

You will also need:

1 8-inch round non reactive metal pan
1 9 or 10-inch round metal pan
Aluminum foil

Note: Demerara sugar is raw cane sugar; its large, crunchy, golden brown crystals have the sweet, mellow taste of sugar cane. It is available from gourmet food stores and on line from www.shopstashtea.com/300312.html.

Method:

1. Set oven to 350 degrees.

2. Place a small saucepan on the stove over a medium flame. Add the Demerara sugar and water, and stir to dissolve. Let the sugar mixture come to a boil, reduce the heat slightly, and let it bubble until it becomes brown and syrupy. This will take 7 or 8 minutes from the time it begins to boil. Watch carefully and as soon as the mixture thickens, test by letting a drop or two slide off the spoon into a cup of cold water; if the syrup makes a soft ball, it’s ready.

Quickly pour the syrup over the bottom of the 8-inch pan and swirl to cover. Don’t worry if it doesn’t completely coat the bottom of the pan. It will liquefy during the baking process. Set the pan aside to cool.

3. In a blender, combine the instant espresso powder, sweetened condensed milk, evaporated milk and eggs, and whirr until the espresso powder is dissolved and the mixture is well blended.

4. Pour the coffee mixture over the cooled sugar syrup. Set the pan inside the larger 9- or 10-inch pan. Carefully pour in almost boiling water to reach 2/3 of the height of the inside pan. Cover both pans with a sheet of aluminum foil, shiny side down.

5. Place the pans in the oven. Bake for 50 minutes, or until a knife inserted into the center of the flan comes out clean. Be very careful not to let the flan overcook or the texture will be nubbly and the edges will toughen. Remove the flan from the water bath and refrigerate for 2 hours, or until it is well chilled.

6. To unmold: Loosen the sides by running the blade of a knife around the inner circumference of the pan. Pour a little hot water into the larger pan originally used for the water bath. Set the flan pan into the hot water for 20 to 30 seconds to loosen the bottom. Remove it and dry the pan with a dishtowel. Then place your serving plate, face down, on top of the flan and invert. The flan will release easily from the baking pan, and the smooth, syrupy underside will now be on top.

7. To serve: Cut the flan into 8 pieces and serve on individual plates. Top each slice with a dollop of whipped cream, a chocolate-covered coffee bean and a sprig of mint if desired.

Posted by SpiceLines at 7:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (1)

Oh, my. Peeling forty cloves of garlic…does that distress you? I’m wandering the aisles at A Southern Season, our local gourmet everything store, where I get the distinct feeling that American cooks don’t want to touch the stinking rose. I find at least 14 peelers and presses, all of which are intended to keep our fingers ever from coming in contact with garlic’s sulphurous cloves.

It’s not hard to peel garlic. You can strip 40 cloves in 10 minutes or less simply by cracking the outer husk with the flat side of a chef’s knife or by pressing the cloves with the heel of your hand. I tend to do the latter, but then I love the pungent smell of garlic and don’t mind it clinging to my fingers. In this recipe raw cloves become sweet and nutty, a near miraculous transformation that requires four hours in a slow oven, giving you plenty of time to go out for coffee, plant some basil and call your brother in Singapore. (Hmmm, it’s three in the morning there. Better not.)

John Thorne’s recipe for Poulet aux Quarantes Gousses d”Ail comes from the Winter 1990 issue of his newsletter, Simple Cooking. For upwards of 20 years, John has been the most original voice in American food writing: opinionated, wry, ruminative, with a brilliant grasp of the way a dish should be made—inspiration born, no doubt, of dogged days at the stove. I became an avid reader when he was holed up in a cabin in Maine, publishing elegantly written and meticulously researched pamphlets such as A Treatise on Onion Soup and Just Another Bowl of Texas Red. As you might suspect, he’s man of lusty appetites with a predilection for down home hearty food. You won’t find recipes for Roasted Monkfish with Pink Grapefruit, Pea Shoots, and Foie Gras in his pages--look for straightforward fare like Cheddarwurst and Potato Soup instead.

As for Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic, John traces the peregrinations of this peasant dish through France and Spain to its likely origins in Catalonia—where he also discovers pistache de mouton, leg of mutton prepared with 50 cloves of garlic. He has sensibly tweaked traditional recipes, reducing the olive oil (stewing hens were once leaner), eliminating the flour and paste seal (aluminum foil works really well) and lowering the temperature to produce “very tender, juicy chicken, well-permeated with garlic essence.”

And if you are still dismayed by the notion of peeling so much garlic, he offers this elegant rationale:

“Finally, we are of two minds about peeling the cloves. It is more work for the cook to do this and less fun for the eater, but they are such appealing little morsels, sans chemise…and how else can you get a whole forkful of them? Like already shelled pistachio nuts, this may seem altogether too much of a good thing. But this is a matter of taste, even morals, rather than of technique.”

To serve four

Ingredients:

3-1/2 to 4 pound chicken, cut into serving pieces
Salt and pepper
40 cloves of garlic (about 4 heads)
1 to 2 tablespoons fruity olive oil
A bouquet garni of several sprigs of parsley and a branch of thyme
Chapons [crusts] of country bread, toasted in olive oil

Method:

Preheat oven to 200F. Season the pieces of chicken with salt and pepper. Examine the cloves of garlic. If they are fresh and firm—and if you care to—use them unpeeled. Otherwise, peel them carefully discarding any soft or moldy ones and cutting away any brown spots and assertive green sprouts. Choose a flameproof casserole with a well-fitting lid, just large enough to hold the chicken pieces comfortably. Heat the olive oil in it over medium-high heat and, when it is hot, quickly brown the chicken pieces on all sides. Do this in batches, removing each piece to a platter as soon as it is done. When all the pieces have been browned, put the garlic cloves into the hot oil and sauté these, stirring constantly, for two or three minutes, until they soften begin to brown a little at the edges.

Remove the casserole from the heat and return the chicken pieces, stirring so that they and the garlic cloves are well mixed. Work the bouquet garni down among them, cover the pot tightly with foil, and press on the lid. Cook for four hours. The chicken will be meltingly tender and suffused with the garlic. Serve with fried crusts of bread, which are to be spread with the soft garlic.

Editor’s Note: John is currently offering a set of available back issues of Simple Cooking for $172, a bargain for collectors and anyone who loves to read great food writing. New subscriptions and his most recent book, Home Body, can also be ordered from www.outlawcook.com.

Much of his writing has been collected in three earlier books, all of which are available from www.amazon.com: Simple Cooking; Serious Pig: An American Cook in Search of His Roots; and Pot on the Fire: Further Confessions of a Renegade Cook.

Posted by SpiceLines at 7:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(Adapted from Silvia Lagunes Troncaso)

According to The Wall Street Journal, the chipotle has had its 15 minutes of fame. (See“The Next Big Flavor,” Katy McLaughlin, Saturday-Sunday, April 29-30, 2006, pp. 1, 6). The smoky tasting chile Is now so mainstream—it’s everywhere, from Applebee’s Tortilla Chicken Melt quesadilla with chipotle-roasted chicken to the Chipotle Mexican Grill (500 stores in 20 states)--that its allure has faded. Adventurous chefs have turned their sights on more exotic flavors such as tamarind, guava and even leather.

But what is a chipotle exactly? The chipotle chile begins life as a ripe red jalapeno pepper, which is smoked and dried until it shrivels and turns dark brown. Although it is sometimes pickled, in Mexican cooking the chipotle is usually added to salsas, soups and stews both for its heat and for the subtle smoky flavor it imparts. On the Scoville scale, it measures 15,000 units which puts it in the medium range: hot enough to sear your tongue, but not to blister it.

Even if trendy chefs are moving on, the chipotle is a staple of Mexican cookery, especially in Veracruz where a simple salsa is found on most restaurant tables. Usually chipotles and cloves of garlic are sautéed in hot oil, then whirred in a blender with a little water until the sauce is smooth. The salsa can be fiery, especially if the seeds have not been removed. However, it can be tamed by adding a little tomato sauce, or even mayonnaise: It makes a luscious dip for fried seafood.

One day Silvia, our guide to all things delicious in Veracruz, showed us how to make one of the region’s classic dishes: camarones enchipotladas or shrimp with chipotle sauce. In her version, enormous Gulf shrimp are simmered with salsa de chipotle and a few aguacatillo leaves from the wild avocado, which add a touch of anise-like flavor. (We’ve substituted a pinch of ground anise seed.) The smoky heat of the sauce is a perfect counterpoint to the sweetness of the fresh shrimp.

Sylvia recommends cooking the shrimp in a cazuela de barro, or earthenware casserole, to give it a “special flavor.”’ Like the aguacatillo leaves, the shallow, thick-walled cazuelas are hard to find in the U.S., though they can be had for about 60 pesos in Veracruz’s central market. Do not despair: The shrimp are nearly as good cooked in a skillet.

To serve 4

Ingredients for the chipotle sauce:

5 dried chipotle chiles (see note)
2 large garlic cloves
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 cup water
Salt to taste

Ingredients for the shrimp:

16 jumbo shrimp, or 1-1/2 pounds of large shrimp, peeled and deveined
1 tablespoon garlic, finely chopped
1/4 cup olive oil

1 tablespoon chipotle sauce, or to taste
1/4 cup canned tomato sauce, or to taste
Pinch of ground anise seed
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

1. For the sauce: In a saucepan, gently sauté the garlic in olive oil over a medium flame until it is golden brown. Remove and set aside. Saute the chipotles, one at a time, until they are crispy, and immediately remove from the pan. Do not let them burn-- lower the heat if necessary. If they turn black, the sauce will be bitter.
2. Remove the pan from the heat. Pour in a cup of water. Return the chiles and garlic to the pan, place it back on the heat and simmer until the chipotles and garlic are soft.
3. Pour the mixture into a blender and whirr until the sauce is very smooth. Pour into a bowl, add salt to taste and set aside.
4. For the shrimp: Heat the olive oil in a large non-reactive skillet. Add the garlic and cook for 15 seconds, stirring, then add the shrimp and sauté until they are pink all over, but not cooked through. Do this in two batches if necessary.
5. Mix one tablespoon chipotle sauce with 1/4 cup canned tomato sauce. Add the mixture to the shrimp and stir until well coated. Taste and correct seasonings, adding more chipotle or tomato, as well as salt and pepper, if desired. Add a pinch of ground anise and simmer gently until the shrimp are cooked through.
6. Serve the shrimp with rice and, on the side, slices of ripe, buttery avocado.

Note: Dried chipotles are widely available in Hispanic grocery stores and sometimes in the produce or international section of large supermarkets. They can also be ordered from www.penzeys.com.

Posted by SpiceLines at 7:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(adapted from Sylvia Lagunes Troncoso)

Fish fillets, cooked in tomatillo salsa with acuyo leaves, is a classic Veracruz dish. At the Pescadoria Gandara, the big indoor fish market next to the municipal fish stalls, we saw a recipe for Pescado en Salsa Verde y Acuyo al Vapor (Steamed Fish in Green Sauce and Acuyo) written on a blackboard--a useful prompt for cooks who might wonder what to do with the beautiful seafood displayed in the tiled bins.

This version is adapted from one of Sylvia's family recipes. Although she uses negrillo, a type of sea bass, Susana suggested that we try it at home with striped bass fillets—a great idea since the tomatillo salsa adds a deliciously tart edge to the flavorful, meaty fish.

Acuyo or hoja santa (literally “holy leaf”) is a large heart-shaped leaf with an aromatic, anise-like taste that is widely used in Mexican cooking. Sylvia’s family grows acuyo in their backyard, but in the US the fresh leaves are hard to find. The dried leaf, sold as hoja santa, is widely available at Hispanic food markets and that is what we used.

I noticed that when we were served the negrillo, Sylvia's mother carefully removed the hoja santa leaves and set them aside. As Diana Kennedy explains in From My Mexican Kitchen, there is some concern that hoja santa may be toxic. It contains "about 70 percent safrole and caphoradione A&B, two aporphine-type alkaloids of unknown physiological properties," according to Arthur O. Tucker and Michael J. Maciarello of Delaware State University. Kennedy suggests that those who are highly allergic avoid hoja santa, although the leaves are usually not eaten in "concentrated form." Still, if in doubt, leave them out.

To serve 4

Ingredients:

2 pounds striped bass fillets, skin removed
1 large lime
Salt and pepper, to taste
1 tablespoon garlic, finely chopped
2 pounds tomatillos (see note)
1 large jalapeno pepper, stem removed
3 fresh hoja santa leaves, finely chopped (or 1 tablespoon dried hoja santa, crumbled ) (see note)
1 cup fresh cilantro leaves
2 tablespoons olive oil
4-6 fresh or dried whole hoja santa leaves (see note)
1 large banana leaf (see note)
Aluminum foil

Method:

1. Set the oven to 350 degrees.

2. Place the striped bass fillets in a glass pan and squeeze the juice of one lime all over them. Sprinkle with garlic, and salt and pepper to taste. Set aside.

3. For the sauce: Peel the papery husks off the tomatillos, wash well and core them. If they are very large, cut them in half.

Put the tomatillos and the whole jalapeno pepper in a medium saucepan with 1/2 cup water over medium heat. Bring to a simmer, then cover and reduce the heat to low. Simmer until the tomatillos are cooked through. They will be soft and greenish yellow in color.

Remove the jalapeno pepper, cut it in half, scoop out the seeds and discard them. Place the pepper in a blender along with the cooked tomatillos and cover. Blend until the sauce is very smooth.

Heat the olive oil in a medium saucepan. Return the tomatillo sauce to the pan, along with the fresh hoja santa leaves (or one tablespoon of the dried hoja santa) and cilantro. Add salt to taste. Simmer for 5 to 10 minutes over medium low heat. The sauce should be fairly thick. Remove from the heat and allow to cool slightly.

4. For the fish: Take a glass pan, 9 X 14 inches and line it with sheets of aluminum foil, so that there are six inches of foil extending over the edges of both the long and short sides.

Rinse and dry the banana leaf. Cut or tear into large pieces and place them shiny side down, over the aluminum foil, leaving enough of the leaf on all sides to wrap the fish.

If using dried hoja santa, dip 4 to 6 whole leaves into a bowl of warm water to soften slightly. Place 2 or 3 leaves on top of the banana leaf. Pour in a little tomatillo sauce, then add the fish fillets, layering with more of the sauce. Finish by placing 2 or 3 more hoja santa leaves on top of the fish and pouring the rest of the sauce over everything.

Fold the banana leaves over the fish, then fold and seal the aluminum foil by crimping the edges, so that the fish is contained in a neat packet of banana leaves and an outer layer of foil.

Cook in a 350 degree oven for 40 minutes, or until the fish is cooked through.

5. To serve, open the aluminum foil and the banana leaf. Remove the hoja santa leaves from the top of the fish and discard. Lift a portion of the fish with a spatula onto each plate and spoon the tomatillo sauce over it. Serve with white rice that has been sautéed until golden in a little oil and cooked with chicken broth.

Note: Fresh tomatillos are available in the produce section of most supermarkets. Dried hoja santa leaves can be found at Hispanic grocery stores. We discovered fresh banana leaves at our local Whole Foods; they are often available frozen at Asian markets.

Posted by SpiceLines at 3:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This recipe is a version of the delicious huevos tirados served at Antojitos Lolita in Veracruz. The secret of Senora Mencilla’s smooth, richly flavored black beans is manteca, or lard in which an onion has been fried until it is blackened. Even though we don’t have the pleasure of using that lovely soft, caramel colored pork fat, cooking the onion and the beans in peanut oil does add a touch of extra flavor.

To serve 2

Ingredients for the black beans:

1 pound black beans
3 cups water
3 to 4 tablespoons peanut oil
1/2 medium onion, sliced thin
Chicken stock, if desired

Method:

1. Wash the black beans, removing any stones. Place in a medium bowl with 4 cups of water and soak for 3 hours.
2. Place the beans and their soaking liquid in a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil, cover with a tightly fitting lid, and reduce heat to low. Cook until the beans are very soft, but still hold their shape, 40 minutes or longer. Older beans usually take longer to cook; check to see if it is necessary to add more water. When the beans are done, they should be should be slightly soupy.
3. Scoop 1 cup of cooked beans from the pot, with some of the cooking liquid .and place them in a bowl. (Reserve the rest for another use.) Using a potato masher, mash them until they are very smooth and creamy. Add a little water or chicken stock if they seem dry.
4. Heat a frying pan over medium heat. When it is hot, add the peanut oil. When the oil is hot, but not smoking, add the onions and cook, stirring occasionally, until they are blackened. Remove the onions from the oil in the pan. Add the mashed beans and slowly fry them until they have absorbed all the oil. Remove from the heat and let them cool. The beans can be kept overnight in the refrigerator.

Ingredients for the tomato salsa:

1 pound plum tomatoes, cored and chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 tablespoon cilantro, chopped
1 large jalpeno pepper
Salt to taste

Method:

1. While the beans are cooking, combine the tomatoes, onion and garlic in a medium saucepan over medium low heat. Cover and simmer for 20 minutes, or until the mixture is cooked through. Add the cilantro and stir.
2. While the salsa is cooking, char the jalapeno in a gas flame until it is blackened and blistered all over. (Or toast it on a griddle or in a dry cast iron frying pan that has been heated over a high flame.) Let it cool slightly, then remove the stem, cut in half and remove the seeds.
3. When the tomato mixture is cooked through, put it in a blender along with the jalapeno and whir briefly. The salsa should not be smooth, but a little chunky.
4. Remove from the blende, add salt to taste, and allow to cool. The salsa may be refrigerated overnight.

Ingredients for the eggs:

5 large eggs
Salt and pepper, to taste
1 tablepoon canola oil
Sliced avocado (optional)
Sliced papaya (optional)

Cooked tomato salsa (see above)
Refried black beans (see above)
Chicken stock, if needed

Method:

1. In a small saucepan, heat the tomato salsa over a low flame. In another saucepan, heat the refried black beans very gently over low heat. If the beans seem dry, thin them with a little chicken stock. They should be very soft, but not runny--about same consistency as eggs that have been just barely scrambled.
2. When the salsa and beans have been heated through, whisk the eggs in a large bowl with salt and pepper to taste. Heat a cast iron or nonstick pan over medium high heat. When it is hot, add the oil. When the oil is hot but not smoking, whisk the eggs again and pour into the pan. Reduce the heat to medium and with a spatula, begin to scramble the eggs. When they are partly cooked but still soft and loose, add the refried beans and scramble them together until the eggs and beans are completely mixed. Do not overcook—lower the heat if necessary.
3. Serve at once with cooked tomato salsa on the side and, if desired, slices of avocado and ripe papaya.

Posted by SpiceLines at 4:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Don’t know what Sundays are like at your house, but at ours the morning is pretty leisurely, spent mostly at the kitchen table. Sunlight streams in the back windows, glancing off a pitcher of apricot-cupped Salome daffodils and Grace Tea’s Winey Keemun sends curls of steam from eye-popping blue and white mugs. It’s the weekend’s last refuge from reality.

Eggs, the culinary centerpiece of the morning, offer another kind of escape. Culled from free-running hens, they come scrambled in worldly flavors: with turmeric, coriander and cumin (India), or with serrano chile, cilantro and avocado (Mexico), or with nicoise olives, basil and sweet red pepper (Provence). Each recipe starts with a base of sautéed onions, garlic and tomatoes. From there, add spices and herbs of your choice.

To serve two:

Ingredients for Indian Style Eggs:

4 large eggs
Salt and freshly ground white pepper to taste
1/4 teaspoon turmeric
1/4 teaspoon ground coriander
1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
1 tablespoon canola oil
1/2 cup finely chopped onion
1/2 cup finely chopped tomato
1 tablespoon finely chopped garlic
1 dried red pepper, crumbled
1 tablespoon finely chopped cilantro

Method:

1. In a medium bowl, whisk the eggs with the salt, pepper, turmeric, coriander and cumin. Set aside.

2. Heat a skillet over medium-high heat and add the oil. When the oil is heated through, add the onion, tomato, garlic and dried red pepper. Saute for 3 minutes. Add the cilantro and sauté for another minute, or until most of the juices have evaporated and the onion-tomato mixtue is fairly dry.

3. Turn the heat to high. Whisk the eggs until frothy and pour into the pan. Scramble the eggs with a spatula, mixing and turning to be sure that they are completely cooked.

4. Remove from the pan and serve immediately.

Variations:

Ingredients for Mexican-style Eggs:

4 eggs
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
1 tablespoon cilantro, finely chopped
1 tablespoon canola oil
1/2 cup finely chopped onions
1/2 cup finely chopped tomatoes
1 tablespoon finely chopped garlic
1 serrano or jalapeno chile, seeds removed, finely chopped
1 avocado, sliced and sprinkled with lemon juice.

Method:

1. Whisk the eggs, salt, pepper and cilantro in a medium bowl and set aside.
2. Heat the oil in the skillet as directed above. Saute the onions, tomatoes, garlic and chile. Whisk the eggs again, add to the pan and scramble.
3. Serve immediately, garnished with sliced avocado.

Ingredients for Provencal Eggs:

4 large eggs
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
1 tablespoon chives, finely chopped
1 teaspoon olive oil mixed with 2 teaspoons canola oil
1/2 cup finely chopped onions
1/2 cup finely chopped tomatoes
1 tablespoon finely chopped garlic
1 tablespoon sweet red pepper, finely chopped
1 teaspoon nicoise olives, pitted and finely chopped
1 tablespoon basil, finely chopped

Method:

1. Whisk the eggs, salt, pepper and chives in a medium bowl and set aside.
2. Heat the oil in the pan as directed above. Saute the onions, tomato, garlic, red pepper and nicoise olives for 3 minutes. Add the basil and sauté one minute more.
3. Whisk the eggs again, add to the pan and scramble. Serve immediately.

Posted by SpiceLines at 11:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

When you bite down on a clove of raw garlic, a pleasurable hell breaks loose. First there’s the pungent scent that sears your nostrils, then your tongue catches fire, and if it’s a really hot clove, tears spring to your eyes. This is just the allium sativum's way of fending off squirrels, rats and other pests—that is, all of us who are addicted to the taste and smell of the “stinking rose.”

According to a study at the University of California at San Francisco and Lund University in Sweden, the simple act of crushing a clove starts a complex chemical reaction that fires up our pain neurons. In the August 23, 2005 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (“Pungent Products from garlic activate the sensory ion channel TRPA1”), scientists found that eating garlic releases thiosulfinate allicin, a sulfurous compound that opens a specific cellular ion channel. Once the gates have been breached, other ions pile on, sending pain messages to the spinal cord and the brain as they inflame mucus membranes in the mouth and nose. Other fiery foods—wasabi, mustard and chilies—use similar channels to excite pain receptors.

Why do we like the sting of garlic and other spicy foods? In On Food and Cooking (2nd edition), Harold McGee suggests that the experience may be akin to the exhilaration of riding a rollercoaster or plunging into Lake Michigan in January. Eating salsa made with raw garlic may send danger signals to the brain, but since we know it won’t really hurt us, we “can savor the vertigo, shock and pain for their own sakes.” Endorphins kick in, creating a pleasurable glow as the pain fades.

And according to a 2005 Scripps Research Institute study published in Current Biology ("The Pungency of Garlic: Activation of TRPA1 and TRPV1 in Response to Allicin"),food may even taste better when the mouth is irritated by garlic’s sulfurous compounds. One of the study’s authors, associate professor Ardem Patapoutian, told National Geographic News that “…the activation of…pain neurons causes hypersensitivity in the mouth, so that other sensory/taste stimuli are enjoyed at more intense levels.” That means, when you eat salsa with, say, a beef fajita, the garlic inflames the mouth, heightening the flavor of the grilled meat, ripe tomatoes and, indeed, all the other ingredients.

Here’s a classic salsa recipe for Pico de Gallo (literally “rooster’s beak”). Serve it with homemade tortilla chips, or on top of scrambled eggs, or with any grilled meat, chicken or fish--or just eat it by the spoonful.

Pico de Gallo (Tomato, Cilantro and Garlic Salsa)

Makes about 3 cups

Ingredients:

1 pound plum or other ripe tomatoes, chopped
4-5 cloves of garlic, finely chopped, or to taste
1 medium yellow onion, finely chopped
1 small bunch cilantro, leaves finely chopped
1 or more Serrano chilies, seeds removed and finely chopped
1 tablespoon canola oil
Salt to taste
Lime juice to taste

Method:

Combine the tomatoes, garlic, onion, cilantro, Serrano chilies and canola oil in a large bowl. Add salt and lime juice to taste. Allow the flavors to mingle for at least 30 minutes before serving. Taste the salsa once more before bringing it to the table, adding more of any ingredients if desired.

Editor’s Note: To read the original articles cited in this post, go to the websites for The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and Current Biology. See also Harold McGee, On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen, Scribner, 2004.

Posted by SpiceLines at 11:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (3)

It was overcast this morning, with what the weather service likes to call
“wintery mix”—in our case the occasional rain drop interspersed with an ice crystal or two. In Hanoi it was also cloudy with passing rain showers, but the temperature was a spring-like 18 degrees Celsius. Still we could almost imagine ourselves there because, like practically everyone in Hanoi, we were breakfasting on a bowl of pho.

Pho is the breakfast of choice for Hanoi champions. Served at street stalls in the old town, it is an aromatic beef soup simmered with charred onion and ginger, then with cinnamon and star anise. The resulting broth is fragrant with the sweet scent of the commingled spices and the dusky undertones of nuoc mam, or fish sauce. Served with rice noodles and slices of raw and cooked beef, topped with chopped onion, cilantro, mint, green chilies and lashings of sriracha and hoisin sauce, it is the kind of breakfast that fortifies even the most most sleep-deprived citizens for a day of work.

Everyone who makes pho does it a little differently. Our recipe comes from Ha Guthrie, former owner of Kim Son restaurant in Durham, North Carolina. One afternoon, Ha invited us into the kitchen to show us how to make gio thu, a Hanoi-style black pepper and pork “pate” eaten during New Year’s celebrations. While we were chopping pigs’ ears and scallions, a vat of broth for pho was gently simmering on the back burner, perfuming the kitchen with the most irresistible aromas of licorice and cinnamon. A few weeks later, she gave us the recipe by phone, then stopped by to rescue us as we bumbled erratically through our notes. This is the perfected version.

Ha Guthrie’s Pho: Beef Soup with Cinnamon and Star Anise

Ingredients for soup:

4 pounds beef bones
1 package oxtails (about 8 pieces)
1 whole medium onion, unpeeled
1 3-inch piece of fresh ginger, unpeeled
1 cup cilantro stems, bottom 4 inches
1 4-inch piece of daikon, unpeeled and in one chunk
2-1/2 pounds chuck roast, in one piece
10 whole star anise
1 cinnamon stick, 5 inches
2 tablespoons nuoc mam, or Vietnamese fish sauce (see note)
1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
16 ounces rice stick noodles (see note)
1-1/2 pounds eye round roast, thinly sliced

Ingredients for garnish:

1/2 onion, thinly sliced
3 scallions, green part only, sliced
cilantro tops, finely chopped
1 small bunch basil
1 small bunch mint
1-1/2 cups bean sprouts
1 or 2 fresh jalapenos, thinly sliced
hoisin sauce
sriracha sauce (see note)
limes, cut in half, 1 per person

Method:

1. Place beef bones in a large stock pot with cold water to cover and soak for 2 or more hours. Drain, cover with fresh cold water and bring to a boil. Remove from heat and drain. Rinse off bones. Clean the pot and return the bones to the pot. Cover with 20 cups of cold water and bring to a boil. Add the oxtails and return to a boil. Skim the impurities from the surface and simmer over medium-low heat, partly covered, for 3 hours.

2. While the stock is simmering, char the onion in the flame of the gas burner. Char the ginger and cut in half.

3. After the beef bones and oxtails have simmered for 3 to 4 hours, add the charred onion, ginger, cilantro stems, daikon and chuck roast to the pot. Simmer for one hour. Remove from the heat and strain into another pot. Reserve the chuck roast.

4. One hour before serving: Return the stock to a simmer and add the star anise and cinnamon to the pot. Place the noodles in another large pot, cover with plenty of water, bring to a boil and cook until soft. Drain and set aside.

5. Thirty minutes before serving: Add the fish sauce, salt and sugar to the simmering stock.

6. While the stock is simmering, thinly slice the chuck roast and set aside. Thinly slice the raw eye round and set aside. Prepare a plate of garnishes for each person: sliced onion and green tops of scallions, a few stems of basil and mint, bean sprouts, slices of jalapeno, a half lime, a mound of rice noodles, and several slices of chuck roast.

7. To serve, place a few slices of raw eye round in each bowl and top with the hot stock. The stock will partly cook the eye round, but it should remain medium rare. Serve each person with a plate of garnishes and dishes of hoisin and sriracha sauce.

Note: Nuoc mam, sriracha sauce (made of fiery red chilies) and rice stick noodles can be found at Asian markets. Nam pla, or Thai fish sauce, may be substituted for nuoc mam.

Editor's note: For more on pho, see "Good morning, Vietnam" by Alex Renton for The Observer, Sunday, May 16, 2004.

Posted by SpiceLines at 11:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

“The discovery of a new dish does more for human happiness than the discovery of a new star.” Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, La Physiologie du Gout, 1825.

This was it for us, a dish far better than the discovery of a new star. Twelve years ago in Singapore, the vibrant flavors of cilantro root, birds-eye chiles and kaffir lime rind mixed with freshly pressed coconut milk awakened every one of our10,000-plus taste buds. And it can be made in 30 minutes or less.

The Thai curry was the high point of a day spent with K. Karuna, a vivacious cooking teacher, local TV personality and cookbook author. That morning, Karuna, a fifth-generation Singaporean of Indian descent, took us to one of the island’s famed wet markets, where we reveled in the sight of giant red snapper heads and bamboo baskets seething with brown Sri Lankan crabs. Like shopping fools, we scooped up every type of packaged curry paste we could find, plus fragrant kaffir lime leaves, milk squeezed from freshly grated coconut, and plump green Thai eggplants. Back in her outdoor kitchen, Karuna showed us how to make the curry in an earthenware wok over a gas flame.

Karuna made her green curry with chicken—the recipe also allows for pork, lamb or beef—but we often use shrimp. Like Karuna, we also use ready-made curry paste, usually the Mae Ploy brand, but we boost its flavor with fresh chopped herbs. Of course, homemade green curry paste is much better--we include a recipe from the Periplus series of books on Asian cookery—but that would take another 10 or 15 minutes.

To see more about K. Karuna, go to www.kkaruna.com.

Quick Green Curry

(adapted from K. Karuna)

For 4 people

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon Thai green curry paste, or to taste (see note)
7 ounces unsweetened coconut milk
1-1/2 cups water
1 tablespoon sugar, or to taste
1 tablespoon coriander leaves, very finely chopped
1 tablespoon green scallion tops, very finely chopped
1 tablespoon lemongrass, finely sliced (use only the tender inner core at the base of the stem)
2 lime leaves (see note)

1 purple oriental eggplant, cut into thin rounds (optional)
1 pound chicken, pork, lamb or beef cut into strips
or 1 pound shrimp, shelled and deveined
1 tablespoon coriander leaves, chopped
1 small lime (optional)
Salt

Method:

1. In a large saucepan, stir the curry paste into the canned coconut milk and water. The paste is quite spicy, so the first time, mix it into the coconut milk by the teaspoonful, tasting as you go. Do the same as you add the sugar. ( We usually add just one teaspoon.) Add the chopped coriander leaves, scallions, lemon grass, lime leaves, eggplant if desired, and chicken, pork, lamb or beef. Bring to a gentle simmer and cover. Cook for 20 to thirty minutes, until the meat is done and the gravy has thickened. If you prefer a thicker gravy, remove the cover midway through the cooking.

2. If you are using shrimp, combine coconut milk, water, green curry paste, sugar, chopped herbs, lime leaves, and eggplant (if using), and simmer for 20 to 30 minutes until the mixture has thickened. Add the shrimp at the end, and cook just until they turn pink.

3. Taste and correct seasonings. You may wish to add a little salt or a drop of lime juice. Sprinkle with coriander leaves and serve with white rice.

Note: Kaffir lime leaves are often available frozen in Asian markets. Mae Ploy green curry paste is also sold at Asian markets. The Thai Kitchen brand can be found at Whole Foods and some supermarkets.

Thai Green Curry Paste (Nam Prik Gaeng Kheow Wan)

(from The Food of Thailand, Periplus World Cookbooks)

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon coriander seeds
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
15 green bird’s-eye chilies
3 tablespoons finely chopped shallots
1 tablespoon finely chopped garlic
1 teaspoon finely chopped galangal
1 tablespoon finely sliced lemon grass
1/2 teaspoon finely chopped kaffir lime rind
1 teaspoon finely chopped cilantro root
5 black peppercorns
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon shrimp paste

Method:

Dry fry the coriander and cumin seeds in a wok over low heat for about 5 minutes, then grind into a powder. Put the rest of the ingredients, except the shrimp paste, into a blender and blend to mix well. Add the spice seed mixture and shrimp paste, and blend to obtain 1/2 cup of fine-textured paste.

Posted by SpiceLines at 6:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A good recipe for days when you are agitated, especially if you crave food with lots of taste and flavor, but can’t handle anything complicated.

Serves 4, or 2 rather hungry people

Ingredients:

2 whole chicken breasts with skin and bones, about 1-3/4 pounds each

Garlic, finely chopped
Rosemary, finely chopped
Tellicherry peppercorns, coarsely ground
Sea salt
Olive oil

1 lemon

Method:

1. Place a whole chicken breast, skin side up, on a heavy chopping block. Press down on the breastbone, full force, until it cracks and the breast lies flat. If it won’t crack, pound it with the heel of your hand. Eventually it will give way and you will have released some of your frustration. Repeat with the second breast.

2. Mix as much—or as little—garlic, rosemary, pepper and sea salt as you like in a small bowl. Add enough olive oil to make a fairly liquid paste. Gently (for now you are feeling calmer) loosen the skin and
put half the garlic and pepper mixture between the skin and the flesh. Rub the rest of the mixture on the underside of the breasts and over the skin so that they are well-coated with flavorings. Squeeze the juice of the lemon over the chicken. Set aside.

3. Prepare a fire on one side of your grill using plenty of hardwood charcoal—oak, hickory or mesquite. When the flames are low, but the coals are still red hot, place the chicken breasts bone side down on the side of the grill away from the coals. Cover and cook for about 15 minutes. Turn the chicken skin side down, cover, and cook for another 15 minutes. Turn again, cover, and cook for a final 12 to 15 minutes.

4. Remove the chicken and let it rest for a few minutes, covered with aluminum foil. Before serving, you may wish to cut the breasts in half with kitchen shears. The chicken will be succulent, golden brown, and irresistibly redolent of garlic and rosemary with the occasional explosion of black pepper. Serve it with a salad of radicchio, endive and hearts of palm in a white balsamic vinaigrette.

Posted by SpiceLines at 3:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)