Archive for June 2010
Rice with scallion sauce and stir fried tofu
Bamboo rice, fried tofu and scallion sauce
Sometimes you don’t want a fussy meal. This is a simple combination of rice and tofu with tons of flavor. It is easy to put together and nutritionally enhanced by adding some edamame pods on the side. This is great both hot and at room temperature.
Make ahead infused oil:
- 1 cup vegetable oil
- 1 Tbsp sesame seed oil
- 1/4 cup szechwan peppercorn
Simmer the peppercorn gently for 20 minutes. Cool and strain. The oil can be stored for up to 6 month is refrigerator. Crush the peppers, add to equal amounts of your favorite salt and store in a tight jar. I use the peppercorn-salt mixture on edamame pods and salads. This infused oil is inspired by Barbara Tropp’s five flavor oil in China Moon Cookbook.
Calcutta street to California home – Kathi rolls unwrapped
Home made Kathi rolls
After eating Kathi rolls at Kasa, I was inspired to make this quintessential Calcutta street food at home. When you take on such a formidable challenge, you know you are not going to win. There is nothing I can do in my California kitchen that will replicate the experience of eating outdoors at one of Calcutta’s busiest streets. Neither can I hope to replicate the rich interplay between textures and flavors that the street vendors have mastered. When my father’s generation talks about eating out during their college days, they often reminisce about these mouthwatering rolls!
So what can I hope to achieve? I can definitely beat Kasa. I can make mine with healthy, fresh, organic ingredients, mindful of the calories and the nutritional balance. I can bring my experience with modern techniques to traditional Indian cuisine to create something healthy while preserving the authenticity of tastes and flavors.
There are several key aspects to a perfect roll – the paratha, the kabab and the chutney. These ingredients need to come together in a timely manner. The container that wraps the kababs, paratha, should be chewy and flaky. The filling itself, kabab, should be charred and juicy. The condiment, chutney, should create a taste explosion in your mouth.
Gingerbread cookies with an immaculate record
Once upon a time, a batch of gingerbread cookies turned up perfect. So perfect were they that I ate those cookies by the handful – something I hadn’t done to cookies since college days.
This gingerbread cookie recipe was from NYT. We had replaced the ground ginger by twice the amount of freshly grated ginger. While melting the butter, we had added the aromatics (cinnamon, cardamom, nutmeg and cloves) to toast until the flavors were released. We had also replaced the regular molasses with mild flavored one and white sugar with dark brown sugar.
Since then, we have tried multiple other recipes but they never made it to our repertoire. No amount of fiddling with the amount of butter, varitey of spices, flours, and sugar could improve these light textured, wonderfully aromatic, perfectly sized cookies. Conclusion – the combination in the NYT recipe, originally published with FOOD; Cookies for Eating and Giving as Christmas Gifts By Moira Hodgson, is perfect.
Cardamoms and ginger – Biscotti and Chai
Cardamom and ginger biscotti
Ginger and pistachio bits seen here - cardamom aroma whafts through the kitchen
Bright specks of green from the pistachios, chewy bits of candied ginger, heavenly aroma of cardamoms and the nutty taste of wheat – and no butter….. These biscotti go very well with coffee but if you want them Indian style, you must have them with chai.
Recipe for cardamom biscotti (makes 3-4 dozen):
- 270 gm whole wheat pastry flour
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 3 large eggs
- 70 g shelled pistachio
- 70 g thinly sliced candied ginger (Trader Joe’s has an uncrystallized variety that is delicious)
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp crushed cardamom seeds
Beat the eggs and sugar together, add the remaining ingredients until a sticky dough forms. Refrigerate for 30 minutes as this will help shaping. Make into two logs and bake in a 350 F oven for 30-35 minutes until golden brown on top. Cool for 10-15 minutes before cutting into thin slices about 1/4 inch thick. Bake further for 8-10 minutes without crowding. You may need to use more than one cookie sheet to accommodate all the biscotti. Let cool completely before storing.
Heart healthy breakfast bars
Banana-chocolate bar
I am sick of store bought bars – I don’t know what it is about them that makes them repulsive after one bite. So, I have been asking my husband to experiment with home made bars. The first one he made was David’s fruitcake bar with a minor modification – an added teaspoon of fennel seeds. It turned out delicious of course, perhaps a little crumblier than a breakfast bar and a little sweeter, but delicious all the same.
The next one he attempted was Clotilde’s banana chocolate breakfast bars. This turned out great as well. For some reason, we always seem to have overripe bananas at hand, so we have made the banana bar a few times already. The recipe is highly tweakable and easy to make. In fact we put together the last batch at the end of a 14 hr long work day! The basic idea behind these banana bars is to make a matrix of solids – oatmeal, coconut, chocolate chips and nut flakes, then make a gooey mix by adding in the wet components – mashed ripe banana. In the last batch, we added a dollop of chestnut puree. Yum! To avoid the bars from drying out, I wrap individual size portions in stretch plastic and store in airtight container in the fridge. It makes them easy to carry to work for breakfast or snack.
Kathi Rolls of San Francisco
 Kasa at San Francisco, intersection of Fillmore and Filbert |
 Turkey kathi anda style @ Kasa |
Over the last year, Kasa has grown in fame for their kathi rolls, chef’s London School of Economics pedigree, and their modern hip taqueria look at the intersection of Fillmore and Filbert. Last weekend, after a long walk through the neighborhood of Pacific Heights, we found ourselves at Kasa ready to chowdown on as many rolls as our stomach could hold.
Fillmore: Jazz and Dosa
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Fillmore jazz festival is around the corner. There will be music, swing lessons, can’t forget the American Lindy Hop championships, and, inevitably, barbecue. Last year, I was at such a happy high after an hour of listening to swingin’ tunes from a time before my own that I forgot my usual wariness of San Francisco barbecue and bought a pulled pork sandwich from one of the food stalls lining the street. Even the thought of the pasty bread and the dry flavorless pork is probably killing a few neurons in the taste centers of my brain. But I have an alternative this time.
French toast with brioche bread
Almond and citrus brioche slices
What is better than French toast on a lazy weekend morning – french toast with brioche bread! Very Thomas Keller-ish. We recently got this fabulous brioche bread from our local farmer’s market (thanks Acme) – made with almond bits, candied citrus and orange blossom water. We took a low fat french toast recipe from Sally Schneider’s “New Way of Cooking” and applied that to the brioche – and wow! what a fantastically soft custard like French toast emerged.
Mochar ghonto – a quintessential Bengali recipe
Flower on a banana plant
Mocha or banana flower is one of the more complex Bengali cooking but it brings out the flavors of rural Bengal – fields of paddy, fresh rain on dry earth, and the green smell of ponds…..
On a recent visit to Delhi, had some mocha chops at My Calcutta restaurant. So, inspite of its robust flavors, it is not merely the terrain of a home cook. Once the basic prep method is complete, it can be moulded into various forms – chops, kofta curry etc.
A taste of London and Paris
Brioche with marmalade
A slice of brioche with a drizzle of Seville orange marmalade…..
Local citrus growers have started bringing their Seville oranges to markets now. Made a batch of marmalade this spring following David Lebovitz‘s recipe. We did only one alteration – removed the white pith from the rind before chopping them up. Result – absolutely the best Seville orange marmalade ever. And I am glad we canned the batch – if used in moderation, this should last us the year.
The Brioche was from Acme stand at Mountain View Farmer’s market – a citrus and almond brioche with candied orange and lemon peel and orange blossom water.
Flourless orange cake
Flourless orange cake
A cake made with poached orange and almond meal – with bits of ginger and lots of eggs. I think it was the unusual treatment of orange that got us going. Texturally, it is like a pudding with distinct taste of the nuts and orange. The cake took a trip with us through the Missions of California.
Recipe is from my favorite Parisian cook. Made without modification this time – although, a little less sugar and a little more ginger would have been fine. Took longer to bake in my oven.
Kitchen tips – slow fried onion paste
Except temple food, onions are integral part of Indian curries. For smooth curries, a traditional technique has been to start with chopped/sliced onions, fry them, puree them before proceeding with the remaining recipe. Atul Kochhar does this often in his recipes. The idea sounds fine until one realizes that frying onions properly takes time and/or a lot of fat – neither of which is desirable for an every day modern cook.
Here is an alternate way of dealing with pureed onions in Indian curries that is lighter on oil. It takes a bit of time but you can do it once a week or two and use in multiple recipes.
Start with 4 large onions finely pureed with 1 tsp salt. To this optionally add 2 Tbsp yogurt. Take a cooking pan with large cooking surface, place it on medium-low heat and pour the mixture in. Cook it down stirring once every 5-10 minutes, until most of the water has evaporated. This should take about 40-45 minutes. At this point, add 2 Tbsp of canola oil and continue to fry the mixture on low heat for another 15 minutes. Cool and store in air tight container. Use a tablespoon or two in recipes including daal, vegetable sambals and curries.
