Pickled

So you know how last time I said it was way too hot to cook so I gave you a crockpot recipe? Well the last few days it's been too hot to even turn on the crockpot. Like tonight, I went to scramble an egg for dinner and couldn't even take it. In other words, sandwich and microwave time. (Except for two nights ago, when I set my toaster oven out on the back stoop to bake some stuffed summer squash. Yum.) And you know what goes great on those sandwiches and doesn't require any added heat at all? Pickles.

I just finished reading Michael Pollan's new book, Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation, on (surprise surprise) cooking, and all the anthropological/archaeological/evolutionary/biological/chemistry-ical issues surrounding it. I've been a Pollan fan ever since I read The Botany of Desire back in high school, and this one very much lives up. The first section is on roasting meat, with a focus on Carolina bbq (nom nom nom); the second is on soups and stews and braises; the third is on baking bread; and the final section is about fermentation of all kinds: cheese, alcohol, kimchee, pickles. It was the last that grabbed me the most, maybe because it's so far removed from the others: instead of an active process of chopping and adding and kneading and stirring, with the aid of a lot of heat and a bit of time, with fermentation the work is done by a (relatively) lot of time and a million micro-organisms, the same things other modes of cooking kills. There's all sorts of claimed health benefits about eating the kinds of live cultures (aka bacteria/fungi/etc) that live in fermented food (google "microbiome", or see Pollan's piece for the NYTimes magazine, or read anything Sandor Katz ever wrote), so that's cool. But I think what got me is the largely hands-off nature of the project: you're not constructing a product, or directly setting up a chemical reaction, you're creating the conditions for an ecosystem. And, ok, then eating that ecosystem. As Pollan says, it's less like cooking and more like gardening.

So a few days after I finished the book I'm walking around with fermentation on the brain, looking for an opportunity to try it out, when an article pops up in the Dining section of the Times about real lacto-fermented pickles, complete with recipe. And the day after than I find pickling cucumbers at the farmers' market downtown. Needless to say, by that night I had a batch going on my counter.

Any you know what? Pollan was right: there was something downright magical about the process. Lord knows I've seen some pretty sweet transformations enacted in my kitchen before: I've braised meat, baked bread, boiled bagels, made yogurt (successfully) and paneer (fine til I burned it), cooked a pile of tomatoes down into a pot of sauce and a pile of apples into apple butter, roasted Chinese duck and rotisseried Thai chickens and souped and stewed and chopped and sauteed with the best of 'em. But something about the time (3+ days) and the almost total lack of having to do anything combined with the fact that hey, you know that jar I set out the other night? There's something totally different inside it now, and it smells awesome - all that made it feel like something of a miracle. (Ok, the yogurt was a close second: rather less time, more stirring, less chopping, equally dramatic transformation, also technically fermentation. And granted he idea of bacteria doing something weird to food left out on the counter is hardly revolutionary - that's why we invented refrigerators. But still.) And yeah, the pickles were awesome.

Pickles!

Sour Dill Pickles.
These are fermented. In other words, no vinegar; all the work is done by the yeasts and bacteria on the skin of the cucumber and floating around in the air. No, it's not dangerous; according to Pollan the FDA has had zero confirmed reports of food poisoning from this sort of thing. The lactobacilli like the salt, and they out-acidify any nasty-making competitors. But do read Katz or Pollan if you're interested in the actual biology behind it, and don't eat it if it smells funny (rather than like pickles).

pickling (kirby) cucumbers
1tbsp (non-iodized) salt to 1 cup water (brine)
flavorings: smashed garlic
dill
caraway seeds
celery seeds
jalapenos
etc

1) Rinse the cukes in cold water. Wash out enough jars to hold them. (No need to sterilize, but do be sure they're clean.)

2) Boil enough water to completely cover the cucumbers in the jars. (May I recommend using an electric tea kettle to avoid heating up the kitchen while you're at it.) Dissolve 1 tbsp salt for every cup of water. Don't use iodized salt; that screws things up. Add a handful of ice, set aside and let cool to room temp.

3) Slice the cucumbers into spears or chunks. (Or don't.) Seed them. (Or don't.) Smash some garlic cloves. Chop some fresh hill, or get out the dried stuff. Slice some jalapenos. Or use whatever other seasonings you like, or none. Put the cucumbers in the jars, packed fairly tight so they don't float. Put in the herbs and things. Pour enough brine over top to completely cover the vegetables so they don't get moldy.

4) Set the jars in a dish (in case they bubble over) in a not-too-hot part of the house (good luck) and cover loosely with the lids. Watch and wait. After a day or so you should start to see little bubbles, and maybe smell something intriguing. After 3 days the water will be cloudy and you'll have pickles. Taste. If they're good, screw the tops on tight and stick 'em in the fridge. If you want them more sour, leave out for another day or two, tasting occasionally. Eat with a nice cold sandwich. Attempt with other vegetables than pickles if you're feeling adventurous.

Cool Beans

It's too hot to cook. Ever since I heated up my apartment to 87 degrees (87 degrees!) by making a pot of ratatouille, I've been making sandwiches, nuking leftovers, and occasionally boiling a little pot of pasta or sticking something in the toaster oven. (Or staying at my parents' house, where 90% of the cooking this time of year is done by my father on the grill.) So when I say to make this soup on the stove, ignore me. Seriously, don't do it. When I actually cooked this, a month or two ago, the temperature was normal and I could boil a pot of chickpeas without also boiling myself. From, now til September I'm recommending the crockpot method, which I haven't actually tested out but hey, what could go wrong? At the very least it's far less likely to turn your kitchen into a sauna. Which frankly right now is my highest priority, so.

This is a lovely soup, which I found on Pinterest (original here). It's basically liquid hummus, for better or worse. Given my feelings about hummus, I'm going with better. That said, it's one of those flavors that I love for the first half of a bowl and then kind of feel like enough's enough, so I'd suggest having a small bowl as an appetizer or alongside a salad and/or sandwich instead of making it your whole meal. But don't listen to me. (Do you ever?) Alternatively, it would make a good sauce for something like falafel, or maybe a dressing for a Middle Eastern-ish salad. In which case you'll want to make a whole lot less, unless you eat a *lot* of falafel.

Chickpea soup with olive oil, sumac, and lemon juice.

Chickpea Soup
2 cups dried chickpeas, or 1 big can canned chickpeas (dried tastes better but requires advance planning, never my strength when it comes to dinner)
4 cups broth of some sort (chicken/veggie)
water
1 big onion, diced
2-4 garlic cloves, minced
2 bay leaves
1 tsp. cumin
salt & pepper
olive oil
Garnishes: sumac, paprika, lemon juice, feta, parsley, cilantro and/or whatever else looks good, to taste

1) If you're using dried beans, soak them overnight first. If not, open and drain the can of beans.

2) Saute onion until it's translucent and beginning to brown, then add the garlic, cumin and bay leaf, and saute a minute more until everything's fragrant. (Note: On a hot day, skip this step. You miss out on all the wonderfullness that comes with a good Maillard reaction, but also a lot of sweat.)

3) Dump everything but the garnishes in a pot or crockpot. Cook until done. Crockpot: low heat. Stovetop: gentle simmer. Here's a handy table to make sense of cooking time, given all the variables.

	Crockpot (low setting)	Stovetop (gentle simmer)
canned beans	45 min?	30 min?
presoaked dry beans	7-8 hours	1-3 hours
unsoaked dry beans	are you nuts?	derrr… 4 hours?

Figure 1: Approximate cooking times

Do keep in mind though that those are very approximate, and a lot will depend on the freshness of your beans, the alignment of the planets, the will of the gods, and so forth. Keep checking, stirring, and adding water as needed. (Crockpot dry beans can be left to cook while you go off and have a productive/beach-filled day, just start checking near the end of the process.)

4) When the chickpeas are nice and soft, pull out the bay leaves and blend the whole mess til smooth. (Immersion blenders are good for this, if using a blender blender make sure to tilt up the little clear plastic bit in the middle so steam can escape, don't overfill, and keep a hand on the top to thwart explosions.)

5) Serve drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with whatever of the above garnishes sound good to you, alongside something Mediterranean: a cucumber-tomato salad, tabbouleh, a sandwich (grilled cheese? with feta and arugula?), or at least a nice chunk of bread to sop it up with.