Sweet Potato Risotto

The yellow and green stuff is soyccotash (succotash with soybeans instead of lima beans) from Trader Joe's

This is a simple variation on the basic risotto recipe. It tastes pretty good, but it is very sweet. I think it is better with butternut squash in place of sweet potato.

Sweet Potato Risotto

Ingredients:

• 2 sweet potatoes
• 1 Tb. butter
  
• 1 1/2 c. arborio rice
• 6 cups vegetable broth (we use low-salt bouillon to make the broth quickly)
• 3 Tb olive oil
• 1 onion
  
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1/2 c. dry white wine
  
• 1/2 c. parmesan, pecorina,
  
• 1 Tb. parsley (dry or fresh)
  
• salt
• pepper
  

1. Prepare the sweet potatoes
   
1. Bake the sweet potatoes
2. Peel them
3. Mash them up with about 1/2 cup of the broth, 1/4 tsp. salt, and 1 Tb. butter
4. Set aside
   
2. Heat broth until hot; keep warm in a saucepan.
   
3. Chop onion. Mince garlic.
4. In a large, heavy pot, add olive oil and cook the onion until translucent.
5. Add wine to pot and cook 1 minute.
6. Add rice to pot and cook 5 minutes, stirring.
7. Add 1/4 tsp. salt to pot.
8. Add about 1/3 of the mashed sweet potatoes to the pot.
   
9. Cook over medium heat as you would any risotto:
1. add 1/2 cup hot broth to rice
   
2. stir rice constantly
3. when broth is absorbed, add another 1/2 cup broth to rice
   
4. When the rice is just tender (about 20 minutes), remove from heat and add one last 1/2 cup broth.
   
10. Add remaining sweet potato mash to rice
    
11. Add 1 Tb. parsely
    
12. Add cheese
13. Salt and pepper to taste

Serve with the white wine.

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crustiness attained

A pastry crust has been sitting in my freezer ever since the insufficient crustiness incident. Yesterday, I finally pulled out the crust and made this Onion Pie with Mustard Cream:


The filling is from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone's recipe "Onion Galette with Mustard Cream," but I put the filling in a pie pan rather than in a galette. A galette is a "savory flat pie" made without a tart pan or pie pan by simply placing the filling in the center of a rolled out circle of dough and then folding the cides over the center. I prefer tarts and pies because they have a lower crust-to-filling ratio.

In order to avoid another undercooked crust, I blind-baked the crust for 10 minutes while my six cups of onions cooked on the stove. I don't have any fancy pie weights, so I just weighted the crust with dry kidney beans.

The filling is mainly onions, cream, mustard, and eggs. The recipe also includes 1/2 c bread crumbs, an unusual addition. The dominant flavors are onion and mustard - quite good, but I like plain onion tarts better.

The bottom crust turned out perfectly cooked. It is flaky and delicious. Hooray!

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bread of the Irish

On St. Patrick's day, it is necessary to bake Irish soda bread.
I baked this in our cast iron frying pan with a glass lid. The bread turns out much better in the pan than if you just bake it on a cookie sheet; the only disadvantage is that I have to re-season the cast iron after baking bread in it. Served with boiled potatoes and beer, 'tis very tasty.

This recipe is from the King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion

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Teufelseier

Have you been invited to a potluck and don't know what to bring? Deviled eggs will save you. Everyone likes to eat them, they are fast to make, and you probably have all the ingredients already (although you may need to buy some more eggs).















Mrs. Essen thought these were too strong with 2 tsp dry mustard per 6 eggs, but I liked them.

Deviled Eggs
Ingredients:

• 6 eggs
• 1 tsp dry mustard
• 1 tsp white vinegar
• 1/3 cup mayonnaise
• pinch cayenne pepper (optional)
  
• hot paprika (not sweet paprika)

1. Hard boil the eggs. Boil them a little longer than you usually would - you want the whites nice and firm. Start with them in cold water and heat them with the water - this way the eggs are less likely to crack. Salt the water well, since salt supposedly discourages cracks as well. While the eggs are boiling, roll them over a few times - this will encourage the yolk to end up in the center of the egg rather than floating up against the top shell.
2. Submerge the eggs (still in their shells) into cold water for 2 minutes
3. Peel the eggs
4. Slice each egg in half and remove the yolks.
5. Mash the yolks in a bowl together with mustard, vinegar, mayo, and cayenne.
   
6. Taste the yolk mixture. If it is too dry, add more mayo. If you like you eggs strong, add more mustard and possibly a bit more cayenne. Most of the bite should come from the mustard.
7. Spoon yolk mixture into each half eggwhite
8. Sprinkle with paprika
   

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St. Joseph

One of the advantages of living in Boston is the presence of Italian bakeries. There are dozens of Italian Catholic holidays throughout the year, and most are associated with particular pastries. Yesterday was St. Joseph's Day, and the associated pastry is the St. Joseph's Day Seppole (or Zeppole). The Zeppole above is from La Contessa bakery in Davis Square. It is a doughnut-shaped fried cream puff filled with a vanilla custard and cherries. Reportedly, there are many other variations on the St. Joseph's day zeppoli.

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barley

Japanese Barley & Rice

Ingredients:

• 1 cup pearled barley
• 3 T white miso
• 1/3 cup brown rice
• gomashio (sesame seeds and salt) for garnish
  

1. Combine 1 C pearled barley w/ hot water to cover, and let soak, covered, for 1 hour.
   
2. Whisk 1/2 C warm water w/ 3 T white miso.
   
3. Add to the drained barley, plus 1/3 c brown rice & 2 C warm water.
   
4. Cook like you would brown rice, then let the grains steam for 10 extra minutes before you fluff them.
   

My favorite dish to make with barley is still a mushroom-barley "risotto," which is not really a risotto because it contains no rice but is prepared like a risotto. I'll add it to this blog once wild mushrooms are in season.

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Lion's Teeth

They have dandelion greens at the supermarket this week, so I bought a bunch. Dandelion greens are only available in the Spring. Cultivated dandelion greens are longer than the ones you find in your garden - these were about 18 inches long. I wasn't sure what to do with dandelion greens - the are known for being full of vitamins and minerals but also for being very bitter. I tasted a few leaves, and they were indeed quite bitter. They did not taste bitter at first, but after a few seconds the bitterness reaches the back of your tongue and becomes quite unpleasant. When I have an unfamiliar ingredient, I first check Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison, which has sections organized by vegetable. Sure enough, the index has an entry for "dandelion greens: salads with".


The picture above is a variant of Dandelion Greens with Garlic Croutons and Hard-Cooked Egg. We did not have any bread with which to make crutons, so we I substituted sunflower seeds. The recipe has you make a vinaigrette, heat it in a small skillet until it sizzles, then pour it over the dandelion greens while tossing them with tongs. The heat of the vinaigrette wilts the greens and takes away some of the bitterness. I was amazed at how good this salad tastes. The garlic and vinegar in the vinagrette perfectly complement the remaining bitterness in the salad. We served this as a main dish salad, with a small bowl of tortellini on the side.

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no boil lasagna noodles

This is the last piece of a vegetarian lasagna I made using Barrilla no-boil lasagna noodles. I had never used no-boil noodles before and decided to give them a try because they were on sale at the supermarket.

The noodles turned out pretty well except for the top layer of noodles, which ended up somewhat dry and undercooked. You might be able to fix this by using more sauce or by only having three (rather than four) layers of noodles.

This recipe is from the Moosewood Cookbook. The filling is ricotta, beaten eggs, cooked spinach, nutmeg, and wheat germ. It is a very easy recipe, and I have made it many times. It is even better with mushrooms added to the filling.

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Ginger

I was left with two lonely egg yolks after making coconut macaroons last week. After scouring our cookbooks, we found the perfect recipe to use them in:

Ginger Pots de Creme
from Fields of Greens by Annie Somerville

The resulting pots de ceme are nothing like chocolate pots de creme. The texture is silky and smooth, much like a basic mother's custard. The ginger flavor transfers beautifully into the cream. I used light cream and thought it was still very rich.





Note: The original recipe calls for 5 egg yolks, so I made 2/5 of a recipe. We do not have a 1/5 cup measure, so I converted everything to weight and used my scale. Every kitchen needs a scale!

Ginger Pots de Creme

• 1/5 lb fresh ginger (about 3.2 ounces)
• 2/5 quart heavy cream (1 3/5 cups or 12.7 ounces)
• 1/5 cup sugar (1.4 ounces)
• 2 egg yolks
• About 2 TB candied ginger, diced [excluded because we didn't have any]
  

Fill a medium-size saucepan with water and bring it to a boil over high heat. Peel the ginger and slice into 1/4 inch rounds. Drop it into the boiling water for 30 seconds, then drain.

In the same saucepan, combine cream and sugar. Over medium-high heat, bring it to the point where it is just barely boiling. When the sugar is dissolved, add ginger and remove from heat. Cover and let steep 1 hour. Strain out ginger and whisk in yolks.

Preaheat oven to 325F. Pour mixture into three ramekins. Place them in a baking pan and add boiling water to come halfway up the sides of the ramekins. Cover pan loosely with foil and bake until custard is set, about 1 hour. Custard should be soft in the center when shaken. Remove from pan and cool. Top with candied ginger.

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but can David Beckham cook aloo gobi?

Aloo Gobi is a tasty and easy-to-make Indian dish containing potato(aloo) and cauliflower (gobi). I first made it after watching Bend it Like Beckham
with its famous quote along the lines of "anyone can cook aloo gobi, but nobody can bend it like Beckham." The DVD includes a special feature of the director Gurinder Chadha preparing aloo gobi in her own little cooking show, made all the more entertaining by the presence of her mother standing in the background kibitzing.

We happened to have a head of cauliflower and lots of potatoes in the refrigerator this week, so we had no choice but to make aloo gobi. I bought small hot peppers and garam masala at a local Indian market and was ready to go. Prep work took about 15 minutes at the most, but the potatoes took nearly 45 minutes of simmering to be done.


Here is the recipe:
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 large onion, peeled and cut into small pieces
Large bunch of fresh coriander, separated into stalks and leaves and roughly chopped
Small green chilies, chopped into small pieces (or one teaspoon chili powder)
1 large cauliflower, leaves removed and cut evenly into eighths
3 large potatoes, peeled and cut into even pieces
1 LARGE 28oz can of diced tomatoes with juice (or two regular cans)
Fresh ginger, peeled and grated
Fresh garlic, chopped
1 Teaspoon Cumin seeds
2 Teaspoons Turmeric
1 Teaspoon Salt
2 Teaspoons Garam Masala


Heat vegetable oil in a large saucepan.
Add the chopped onion and one tablespoon of cumin seeds to the oil.
Stir together and cook until onions become creamy, golden, and translucent.
Add chopped coriander stalks, two teaspoons of turmeric, and one teaspoon of salt.
Add chopped chillis (according to taste)
Stir tomatoes into onion mixture.
Add ginger and garlic; mix thoroughly.
Add potatoes and cauliflower to the sauce plus a few tablespoons of water (ensuring that the mixture doesn't stick to the saucepan).
Ensure that the potatoes and cauliflower are coated with the curry sauce.
Cover and allow to simmer for twenty minutes [took me 45 minutes]
Add two teaspoons of Garam Masala and stir.
Sprinkle chopped coriander leaves on top of the curry.
Turn off the heat, cover, and leave for as long as possible before serving.


In the DVD, Chadha's mother tells her to start with whole canned tomatoes and then grate them with a cheese grater. When I tried that, my kitchen ended up looking like the scene of a chainsaw massacre. This time I took the easy way and bought diced tomatoes.

We served it with Khakhara (an indian flatbread), rice, and okra.

Aloo gobi as leftovers the next day. Doesn't look like much, but taste is what matters.

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5-minute dinner

A cheap alternative to going to a restaurant for dinner is to buy fresh pasta and cook it at home. The closest place to me is Dave's Fresh Pasta, which makes very tasty pasta and will cut it into any width for you. This month's special is Black Pepper Pasta for $3.00/lb.

Tonight we had Black Pepper Pasta, cut into Papardelle, a pasta between 3/4" and 1" in width. To save time, we bought an alfredo sauce from Dave's. Not counting time to bring the pasta water to a boil (which doesn't count because there is no need to watch the pot), it took about five minutes to cook dinner. The black pepper papardelle was delicious and perfectly al dente. Dried pasta is no comparison. The alfredo sauce was acceptable but nothing special; if you have time I would recommend making your own. In a restaurant, this entree for two would cost at least $30; we had it for $6.50. Our bottle of wine at home avoided the restaurant markup.

The only flaw was that the generic frozen peas we had on the side were mushy and shrivelled. The lesson is never to buy generic frozen vegetables; the brand names really are worth the extra money.

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essential guacamole

The Hass Avocado Board says that the three essential ingredients are avocado, chili, and tomato. That may be traditional, but I think that the world's best guacamole consists of avocado, lime juice, and salt.

Essential Guacamole:
1 avocado, mashed with a fork (the texture should be left somewhat coarse)
juice of one lime
salt to taste, about 3/4 tsp.

I increase the salt if serving with unsalted tortilla chips.

The addition of sour cream turns it into avocado dip, not guacamole.

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insufficient crustiness

In order to use up leftover broccoli, I made a broccoli quiche. The filling turned out very well, but the bottom crust was soggy and somewhat raw. This is probably because some filling spilled as we were putting the quiche into the oven - the time spent cleaning the mess caused the oven to cool off too much and resulted in an undercooked crust.

I have three different ideas for preventing this problem next time:
1) Make sure the oven is properly preheated, and don't spill the filling!
2) start the quiche at 425 for 15 minutes and then turn it down to 375, hopefully making the bottom crust brown better
3) halfway blind bake the crust before filling and baking the rest of the way

I now have the other half of a double crust recipe in the freezer, so it will be easy to try again.







Looks good on top ...











But the bottom crust is soggy!

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