Thursday, June 27, 2013

Even Nicer

Just a quick middle-of-the-week bonus post while I kill time til lunch. Think of this as an add-on to that last one on socca. I think I mentioned in there somewhere that chickpea pancakes are as good done vegan with a pile of ratatouille on top as they are with onion, bacon, gruyere, and a runny fried egg. (And trust me, they're pretty damn awesome with a runny fried egg.) So: a recipe for ratatouille! I have no idea how authentic this actually is, and really I don't care (so please hold off the it's-not-ratatouille-without-peppers hate mail). This is really just an excuse to cook two of my favorite veggies, zucchini and eggplant, with lots of tomato and herbs and call it dinner. Bonus: those'll all be in season soon, and therefore extremely fresh and cheap at the farmers' market. Score. There are no definitive quantities here; just do it all to taste. What I've listed here makes a big pot, but do feel free to play around. Love summer squash? Add more. Eggplant at the store looking particularly sad this week? Leave it out. Love bell peppers? Blech. But you can add them in anyway. Hate onions (cough cough Sarah)? Sub in leeks. Just keep it all fresh and don't add anything weird and you'll be fine.


Over socca, with salad.


Summer Ratatouille
2 medium eggplants
2 yellow summer squash
2 zucchini
1 onion
a few cloves garlic
large can of diced tomatoes
2 large handfuls of fresh herbs (I used oregano, sage, a little basil, and a lot of parsley, since that's what's currently exploding in my garden)
Salt & pepper
Olive oil

1) Slice the eggplants (1 cm thick?) salt, and let sit for 20-30 minutes on paper towels or dishcloths. Pat dry, rinse, and let drip dry in a colander over the sink.

2) Meanwhile, slice the zucchini and squash into rounds (quarter inch thick?). Chop your herbs. Chop the onion and saute it in oil in the bottom of a large pot until it starts to brown a bit. Mince half your garlic and add it to the pot. Stir about a minute til things get fragrant.

3) Add all the veggies, tomatoes, and half the herbs. (Set the remaining herbs and garlic aside for later.) Salt & pepper to taste. (Taste before you salt, since the eggplant might still be salty even if you rinsed it.) Let simmer partly covered, stirring occasionally, until everything's nice and soft and the liquid has reduced down enough that it's not a soup. (The vegs will soak up some liquid as they cool, so it doesn't have to be totally dry.) Your squash coins will probably have their middles falling out, and your neat circles will have broken, but they shouldn't be total mush.

4) Add the rest of the herbs and garlic (minced) and let simmer just a minute or two more. Serve over socca, or polenta, or with bread, or tossed with spaghetti, or alongside some sausage, depending how virtuous you're feeling. Some romano cheese or even cooked chickpeas sprinkled on top is pretty good too. Makes great leftovers.

Sunday, June 23, 2013

Making Nice

Ok, I realize I may have freaked some of you out a little with that last post. Apologies. (That said, can't promise I won't do it again.) But you can come back now, it's safe, no furry head-on critters this time around. This recipe is so normal I got it from the Times. And you know what? It's really good.

See look, no ingredients with claws or ears.
 The first time I had socca (for the uninitiated: a savory chickpea flour pancake from south-eastern France/north-western Italy) was at a restaurant called Nizza on 9th Ave in New York. They serve food from Nice, which is what you would get if you mixed equal parts French and Italian, added a bit of Mediterranean sunshine, a pile of herbs, and then drank a bottle of red wine before cooking it up. In other words, wonderful. I could absolutely live on pistous and pissaladiers and good tapanade on fresh bread, and basically did on my trip to Nice a few years ago (at least when the seagulls weren't stealing the food right out of my hand). And the, gelato, oh the gelato. Of course I got a warm socca to eat at the open air market overlooking the beach, even if it was still way to cold to actually swim, being March and all.


The batter, ready for pouring.
 
 I hadn't thought about socca in a while, til a few weeks ago Mark Bittman did a column in the Times about all the wonderful non-hummusy things that can be done with chickpeas, and included this recipe. Don't get me wrong, lord knows I love hummus, but there's a whole chickpea world out there beyond garlicky spreads on pita. The original called for onion and rosemary for flavoring; I went in a different direction with sage ('cause that's how they make it at Nizza) and Italian sausage (because I had it in the fridge). Think of the batter as a blank canvas to play with as you will. It would be lovely with a handful of mixed herbs (sage, tarragon, and parsley?) and garlic; or onions and olives; a little bacon or prosciutto; some crumbled cheese. Beyond their basic sage/onion/pecorino version, at Nizza they use the socca as a gluten-free crust option for their pizzas, including a margherita; one with tomato, artichoke, goat cheese, and olives; and another with mushrooms, onions, and chevre. A nice ratatouille would be lovely on top too, with some oregano sprinkled over. You get the point - make it perfectly vegan or totally indulgent, whatever your mood. Just do try to have a light hand with the toppings so as not to overwhelm the pancake.

Sauteing the toppings.

 The only thing called for here that's slightly out of the ordinary is chickpea flour. I found a bag of Bob's Red Mill at the supermarket for a few bucks (look in the natural or gluten-free section if it's not in with the regular flour). Indian groceries would also have it, possibly under the name 'gram flour' or 'besan'. Worst case, there's always Amazon.

Socca
(adapted from Mark Bittman)

1 cup chickpea flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
olive oil
1 onion sliced
1 handful sage, chopped
1 link Italian sausage
Romano cheese

1) Mix the chickpea flour, salt, and pepper in a bowl. Slowly whisk in 1 cup lukewarm water, making sure to get out all the lumps. Whisk in 2 tbsp olive oil. Cover and let sit on the counter between 30 minutes and 12 hours.


Pouring in the batter

2) Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 450. Add a little olive oil to a cast iron skillet. Crumble the sausage into the pan and saute with the onions until the sausage is browned and the onions are translucent, maybe getting a little browned themselves. Add the sage and stir a minute more. (If you're using other toppings, cook them now.)

3) Pour the batter over the toppings. Stir quickly once or twive to make sure everything's evenly distributed, and sprinkle a handful of romano over the top. Stick in the oven for 10-15 minutes, until the pancake is set.

Ready to bake.

4) Brush a little more olive oil over the top of the socca and set it a few inches under the broiler. Broil it just until it gets brown in spots. Serve cut into slices with a light salad and some good summer wine.


Done.

Saturday, June 15, 2013

The Night of the Guinea Pig

Me with pig quarters. Yes, those are its front teeth.
And now for something completely different...


***WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS PICTURES OF MEAT THAT STILL LOOKS LIKE THE CUTE FURRY ANIMAL IT CAME FROM. IF THAT BOTHERS YOU, STOP READING HERE (and maybe have a good think about going vegetarian)***


So recently I've been doing upbeat spring posts about things like fiddlehead ferns and rhubarb compote and other seasonal delights you might find on Pinterest. This post is entirely different. In this post, I barbeque a guinea pig.

Three, actually, one butterflied on the grill and two roasted in the oven, which despite the cool evening may not have been my best idea ever. If you know me at all of have read back through some of the earlier posts on this blog, you know that I like to eat unusual things. (See: crickets two ways at my birthday party last month.) So when some friends and I discovered that the local C-Town supermarket stocked guinea pig in the freezer section, we knew it had to happen. That was two or three years ago; it took M. finishing his dissertation and moving to Ohio for us to get out act together and buy a few to try. (That age old story of 'oh, we'll do it next time', until finally life hits you and there is no next time.) Guinea pigs are a specialty in some parts of South America, where they're called cuy and generally roasted or fried (or so the internets tell me). So in honor of M. moving on with his life, we grabbed some cuy, invited over some adventurous friends, fired up my neighbor's grill, and made a South American(-ish) feast.



1) The rodents. There were seven of us, so we bought three piglets, and prepared each a different way. One was rubbed with a mixture of cumin, paprika, pepper, and salt and grilled over charcoal with a clove of garlic in its toothy little mouth. A second was stuffed with chorizo, parsley, and onions and roasted at 400 "til it's done". And for the third we followed a recipe found online and roasted it with a stuffing made from walnuts, parsley, onions, mint, oregano, and the innards C-Town was kind enough to leave in the three body cavities (heart, lungs, liver, kidneys), lightly poached and then mixed in with the rest. Needless to say I did not eat this last one. Unusual species don't bother me; unusual organs do. (Did I ever claim to be rational?)

Super cuy!
The cuy themselves were sold in plastic pouches (brand name: Super Cuy!) de-furred and cleaned but otherwise intact: head, feet, eyes, skin, etc all accounted for (only the digestive tract had been removed). So they looked like, well, very naked guinea pigs. Let the black humor and grisly jokes commence. They were thawed and opened up, the remaining organs removed, and stuffed or not as per above. M. did the honors of carving the roast beasts at the table, which entailed decapitation, drawing, and quartering. (Actually, I think they came pre-drawn. Whatever.) The first one, which had been butterflied and bbqed, I think was the best. Actually it's the only one I tasted. I got a nice leg (claws and all). The skin was a little rubbery, even after being crisped over the fire, but the meat was nice and tender and flavorful from the smoke and the rub. Stronger-flavored than I'd expected, certainly more pungent than rabbit, and a little fatty. Not bad at all. The second, with the guts-stuffing, I'm told was minerally, which is unsurprising when you consider it was fulled with liver and kidney. (Remind me again why people eat that stuff?) I think without the offal that's a stuffing I might actually use again though. But rodent hearts? Not so much. And by the time the chorizo cuy (pig in a pig!) was carved I was way too full to even think about eating a piece. I did nibble on the stuffing though, and that one I really will make again. Chorizo & onion: yum.


Lowering the cuy into hot water for defrosting. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Opening it for cleaning and stuffing.


What lies beneath. (The heart, mostly.)

Applying the dry rub to #1.



Herb-walnut stuffing (pre-adding of guts).

Sauteing the chorizo stuffing.

Cuy #2, stuffed and closed up with toothpicks.

#s 2 and 3, stuffed and trussed. The one on the right kinda looks like a zombie.

#1 on the grill.

Roasted. We crisped them up on the grill afterwards.



Ready for carving.

Carving the cuy.

Pig on a platter.

2) The fixings. South American themed meant yucca and plantain and avocado and pineapple.  And grilled onions, because why not. The yucca we made into baked fries, the plantains into fried fries, and the pineapple was dredged in cinnamon and grilled. Oh, and M. made some excellent tomatillo salsa, but you'll have to ask him for the recipe since I haven't got a clue. Frankly these were the best part. I mean, guinea pig is good, but grilled pineapple is better. And avocados. Yum.

Some nice bloodless chopped plantains for you.

3) The drinks. You don't think we did this fully sober, did you? Red wine and summer ale were both on hand, and probably to blame for what happened to the heads. Like I said, black humor. So cheers to a good time and the six brave should who came over to share it, and then had the fortitude to go for ice cream after. Salut!

Guinea Pig
Just read the paragraph above. That's really all we had to go on. Besides, you're not really planning to make this, are you?

Fried Plantains
Buy some plantains, the riper the better. Cut into smallish chunks. Fry in oil, probably at a lower heat than I did. Dip in Sriracha and lime juice.

Frying.

Ready for eating.
 
Grilled Pineapple
Cut a pineapple into chunks. Dredge in cinnamon. Grill til caramelized. Devour.

Cut and dredge.

Grill and eat.
Baked Yucca Fries
Finally, a real recipe! Preheat the oven to 450. Peel your yucca and cut it into 3-inch long lengths. Discard the ends. Get a pot of water boiling, and add the yucca. Boil about 12 minutes, until the middles start to split. Drain and let cool.

Cut each section in half lengthwise and take out the tough string running down the middle. There will probably be a layer peeling off the outside too; you can get rid of that if you like. Cut into wedges and arrange on a baking sheet. Drizzle with a generous amount of olive oil, then sprinkle with salt, black pepper, cayenne, and lime zest (or other spice mix of your choice). Bake 10 minutes, stir, then bake another 10 minutes or so. Let cool and eat with salsa.

Yucca Fries.

Monday, June 3, 2013

Sweet & Sour

Continuing on the theme of spring... Last weekend at the farmer's market I bought a big bunch of rhubarb. I love rhubarb - it's nice and tart, with pretty red and green stalks, potentially deadly (only if you eat the leaves... didn't Agatha Christie write a story about that?), and borderline unusual (how many people do you know who actually cook wit the stuff?). Of course, like most of my borderline-unusual farmer's market impulse purchases, I buy it expecting great things and then immediately go blank on what to do with the stuff. Like, Bon Appetit just had a whole article on cooking with rhubarb, but suddenly I didn't want to do any of that. I just made compote, and how boring to repeat. So I left them in the bottom of my fridge for a week. (In my defense, it's been waaayyy too hot to turn on the oven lately. Not that that's stopped my from making socca [post coming soon] or apricot applesauce cake [see below] and bringing my apartment up to a toasty 84 degrees according to the thermostat, but whatever.) Somewhere along the way I got the brilliant idea to mix the rhubarb with apricots and plums, because as I've said before, apricots in baked goods are basically the universe's way of giving your tongue a hug. Smitten Kitchen had a rhubarb snacking cake that looked like about what I was hoping for, but it calls for 1/3 cup of sour cream, which I haven't got and didn't feel like going out to buy. So what's a girl to do?



Not for the first time, Mark Bittman came to my rescue. After coming up empty handed from Alford & Duguid's Home Baking (I've also said this before, but they're brilliant and you should buy all their books, including this one, 'cause even though it didn't have an appropriate thickened-dairy-product-free cake for this particular project it still makes me want to make everything in it every time I open it) and the big yellow Gourmet cookbook, How to Cook Everything yielded a beautiful orange-almond cake. (And I didn't even have to go out and buy butter!) So I didn't actually have any almonds, but nuts are nuts and everything else was in my pantry/freezer. (I've started keeping my flour in the freezer to avoid the moths. Lord help me, I'm turning into my grandmother.) I waited til after dark when the temperature had gone down and I could open up some windows (to no avail; it still got hot as hell in here), roasted some rhubarb, sliced up some stone fruit, poured the whole mess on top of the cake batter, and voila! Sweet orange nut cake with tart spring/summer topping. Breakfast of champions.

All the coconut sprinkled on top makes it look blurry.


Orange Nut Cake with Summer Fruit
Adapted from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything (the original, not the new revised version, though for all I know it's in there too)
Bittman writes that "this cake is low in saturated fat but not flavor". Sure thing, Mark.

For the cake:
1/2 cup olive oil (He says light. I used extra virgin. Just don't waste your really good stuff on this.)
1 1/4 cups sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup nuts, optionally mixed with flax seeds if you're feeling virtuous (He calls for almonds. I used walnuts. I bet pistachios would be spectacular.)
2 1/2 cups flour
1/2 tsp spice (I used cardamom. Cinnamon would be good if you used apples on top. Mix 'n' match.)
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup orange juice
1/2 tsp almond extract (or vanilla, maybe anise depending on your fruit choice)
1/4 cup shredded coconut (optional) (see below)
You could probably throw in 1 tbsp orange zest or minced ginger here if you like

For the topping:
1-ish lbs rhubarb
8 or so stone fruits - I used apricot and plum, but peaches or nectarines would go well here too. so would cherries. Or apples and/or pears. Maybe toss some berries in there. Pretty much pick two or three of your favorite seasonal fruits and go to town. Strawberry rhubarb, peach blueberry, apple cinnamon, papaya with lime juice, whatever. Tweak your spices above to go.
1 tbsp sugar (less for sweet fruits, like pear or apple; it's mostly to counterbalance the tartness of things like rhubarb and apricot)
3 tbsp orange juice (only if you're using rhubarb)

Coconut sprinkle:
This is totally optional, but I had some left over from making Papuan steamed buns (ba pao), so I tossed it in. You can use plain (sweetened or unsweetened) shredded coconut instead, or just forget it altogether.
2/3 cup shredded, unsweetened coconut
1 tbsp dark brown sugar (or palm sugar, if you're weird like me and keep some in your pantry)
1-2 tbsp hot water

1) Preheat the oven to 350. If you're doing the coconut thing, dissolve the sugar in the water, then stir in the coconut. Use as little water as you can get away with. Set aside.

2) Start roasting the rhubarb: Chop the rhubarb into 1cm-long chunks. Put in a 9x13x2 (or so) baking pan. Sprinkle with 1tbsp sugar and the oj, stir, and pop into the oven. (This is probably optional; the Smitten Kitchen recipe just puts raw rhubarb right on the dough. If you do that, leave out the oj and just mix the chopped rhubarb and sugar with the chopped stone fruit in a bowl.)

3) Make the batter (and here I'm paraphrasing Bittman): Mix the oil and sugar, then add the eggs and beat for about 5 minutes. (Unless you've got forearms like an Italian grandma, I recommend you use an electric mixer for this one.) Stir in the almond extract.

4) Toss the nuts (and flax seeds, if using; I swear they're delicious) into a food processor and grind  until fine. Mix them in another bowl with the flour, spice, baking powder, & salt.

5) Stir your roasting rhubarb so it doesn't burn.

6) Mix a little of the flour bowl contents into the wet ingredients, then a little oj (of the half cup from the batter list), then repeat til it's all in there. Stir in 1/4 cup of the coconut mixture (or not) and whatever zests you're putting in there. Lick the beaters. Set aside.

7) Cut your fruit into bite-sized chunks. (For small apricots and almonds, I cut around the crease in the fruit, pulled it in half, took out the pit, then cut each half into four slices and cut those in half the short way.) Pull the rhubarb out of the oven and dump it in a bowl (possibly the same bowl you're holding your chopped fruit in.

Cut like so.


8) Grease the rhubarb pan with a little oil, then pour in the batter, smoothing it out like you would a brownie into an even layer. Spread the fruit chunks on top, more-or-less evenly. Save the juice from the bottom of the bowl to mix with seltzer and drink. Scatter with the rest of the coconut mixture (or if you do a nice fruit crisp topping that's work well here too.) Bake until a toothpick comes out clean. Mine took about an hour, but start checking at about 40 minutes; a lot will depend on how much fruit you use and how wet it all is. Thank Mark Bittman and the farmer's market for the inspiration.

I've got no in-progress pictures, so here's another one of the slice.


While we're on the topic of oil-based cake (see also: this), here's a bonus recipe, thanks to the fact that I've been cooking like mad recently and if I don't combine these two into one post I'll never ever get everything up here that I want to. The Co-op had samples set out the last time I was there on my grocery run of organic applesauce blends: plain apple, apple-apricot, peach, etc. And coupons. And they were delicious. So I bought a jar of the apple peach, and then immediately realized I had no idea what to do with it. (C.f. above rhubarb idea paralysis. This happens way too much.) So when Dolly had a party this weekend and I had to come up with something to bring, I pulled out my mom's old applesauce cake recipe and tarted it up with some slices of the apricots I had waiting in the fridge to accompany the rhubarb. So easy, so reliable, so awesome.

All that was left post-party.

Basic Applesauce Cake
This is the basic recipe. Feel free to mess with the spicing (I subbed out most of the cinnamon for cardamom to go with the apricot), use blended applesauces, and/or add slices of fruit, nuts, or berries on top.

2 cups flour
½ cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
less than ¼ tsp ground cloves
3 beaten eggs
16 oz applesauce
½ cup oil

Preheat oven to 350ยบ. Combine dry ingredients. Stir in eggs, applesauce, and oil until thoroughly combined. Bake in greased and floured 15 x 10 x 1 pan for 25-30 minutes. (Or halve everything for an 8x8 pan)