Tag: vegetarian

Mama lets her curries mellow

February 3rd, 2025

3 February 2025 Monday

I feel my sub-conscious absorbing the ways of the wok. Velveting is a wonderful thing, and I wonder how I can use it to tenderize other things. I toss the chicken breast slivers in a mixture of soy sauce, sugar, fish sauce, ginger, garlic, and potato starch. Now, I have learned of the subtle and horribly disappointing differences between cornstarch and arrowroot (please read some post from the distant past). But I have had No such feelings for potatostarch. Could it be the starchiest starch in town, with everything you need for perfect velveting and battering? I will use potato starch going forward indefinitely, and if I do change starches, I’ll let you know. We’ve got too much in the trust bank for me to keep that from you!!

Mission and 18th, awaiting an “atmospheric river”. Another day, another curry. This noon: a chicken breast, potato starch, salt, fish sauce, red bell pepper, garlic, ginger, a Japanese curry blend, lime juice, eggplant, green beans, sugar, coconut milk.

Now, perhaps I was a little big for my britches that my last stir-fry had gone so well. And although the ingredients were the right ones, the proportions were not quite right. Also, a slight controversy around the coconut milk involved opening a second can. Pro tip-coconut milk separates naturally in a can. You’re supposed to blend it up. If it smells nice and tastes nice, it’s good. Lesson learned.

It tasted good, but it didn’t really come together the way I wanted it to. What was it? Well, I decided to leave it on the stove top and reheat it for dinner. It tastes much better. It just needed to mellow and come together. And I thought, that’s it, that ‘s what we all need-we all need to mellow and come together. That’s how the wonderful curry could community can happen! If community can happen, why not curry it in a gentle blend of spices? Now I know what you’re not thinking, you’re not thinking, BEN!!!! Why did you put Japanese curry in coconut milk like a Thai curry. I don’t know why I did that, but I did. It really is a Japanese curry, the coconut milk having lost its distinctive delicacy, meaning I can’t taste it at all. Anyway, it’s good, everything’s fine, and I’m not special. I don’t have a picture of today’s curry, but I do have a picture of last week’s pizza:

Now she’s a real beauty. My done-in-a-jiffy-crust, smothered in olive oil, blanketed with fresh pizza sauce, bespeckled with mushrooms, bell pepper, broccoli, and Genoa salame, the whole being suffocated in snowy hills of cheese. And it’s a good thing we like pizza around here because I was gifted this:

That’s a big bag of flour! That’s a lotta pizza! What’s your favorite kind?

OK, let that curry mellow friends,

Let it come together.

For we all taste better

after we’ve mellowed.
Into the pantry!

May 15th, 2024

15 May Wednesday

Mysterious cereals. Little jars of spice. Most of them were labeled at some point. Many of the labels fell off. Some of them contain a spice that is not the spice named on the label. I remember telling myself to remember that the Oregano is now Marjoram, then forgetting if that was the one that was changed or was it the dried chives. I dip my finger in and touch it to my tongue. Nothing. It doesn’t matter, it tastes only of dust now. Bottles and bottles of sauces and condiments. Enough mulling spice to host a Christmas party every week of the year. Four types of rice, five types of pasta, six types of flour. It’s nice to be spoiled for choice, it really is. Like anything else, it can be overwhelming. It’s also deep, my pantry that is, so to get the bread flour one must move three hundred other items. Pantry feng shui can be a challenge. You’ve heard this all from me before. But this is different. This is about ingredients that are labeled, that have flavor and are in great condition, I just don’t have any clue what to do with them. Let’s discuss a few.

Freekeh. A food of North African origin, it is toasted green durum wheat that is crushed. It is used in making all sorts of dishes, mostly as a grain side dish. What do you do? Well, before we all freak out, let’s do a little research. No one has more to say on this subject than Yotam Ottolenghi, one of the greats of our age. In his amazing book, Jerusalem, he has a number of recipes that have me real deal excited to eat this stuff. Spicy Freekeh soup with meatballs. Poached chicken with sweet-spiced Freekeh. I can also use it to produce falafel, which I’ve never made. That soup especially, that sounds like one tasty dish.

Course toasted semolina- I know this is your question, I know you. Benji, you don’t know how to use semolina? Yes, I’d snap defensively, yes I know how use semolina. But, course semolina? It looks different. A little quick research teaches me that course semolina is preferred for cakes, puddings, and items with longer cook times. Finer semolina (flour) is preferred for silky pastas and gnocchi. Lesson learned. It turns out that Ottolenghi has a recipe for Semolina, Marmalade, and Coconut cake, which sounds delightful. Also, a pair of semolina and date cakes in Paula Wolfert’s Cooking of the Eastern Mediterranean, another classic. I have a lot of dates too. The food, not the social outing. I have social dates too, but this is not dear diary.

Finally, what do you do with a giant sack of sesame seeds? Well, there are a million things, you just gotta do them. Sesame cookies, sesame balls, sesame seeds all over your bagels and buns. But I am thinking that I’m gonna take a crack at my own tahini. I mean, what could go wrong?

OK, that’s it, just wanted to share. It’s funny that lately my food exploration has turned decidedly to the Middle East and North Africa. Coincidence? Yes, I think so. You can’t decide to work on kebabs and not expect that many of the recipes would come from this region.

OK, that’s it. If you’ve read this far, you’ve reached the end of this post, congratulations. I hope you learned something new and are running to the nearest market to buy farm fresh ingredients which you are going to whip into the most delectable dishes smothered in this and that sauce, pulling hot loaves of crisp bread from the oven, trimming crust from the edge of a ready to bake pie crust, stirring deep kettles of fragrant stew with long ladles, cranking yellow roads of fresh pasta onto the marble countertop, swirling ivory castles of whipped cream out of thin air, basting roasting meats in their succulent juices, deftly cracking perfect eggs into batters and doughs. I hope you are doing that. Instead of reading this post, which substantively ended several paragraphs ago.

OK, that’s it, basically. Though, one thing. Earlier I wrote that Ottolenghi had more to say about freekeh than anyone else, and it occurs to me that it might not be true. I don’t know everyone, let alone people who know more about anything than anyone, let alone freekeh, and I’m comfortable extending that to the entire world of cereals and grains. I had a mildly paranoid fantasy that for some reason Ottolenghi read this blog entry and decided to sue me for defamation of character, not for misapprehending his knowledge of freekeh, but because his image is one of a humble man, not a braggard as I cast him.

OK, that’s it. Hope everyone is well. Family Feud coming on.
How to scald milk after the Western fashion

April 23rd, 2024

23 April Tuesday

If music be the food of love, play on. Happy Birthday, Will! Oh that you were with us still. Here’s what I got today:

What Shakespeare was to play-writing, Elizabeth David was to cookery writing. She was just as British, too. One of her best books, Spices, Salt, and Aromatics in the English Kitchen, is the basis for this week’s menu. This book has a beautiful little section on kebabery. And boy did I find something fun.

I’ve always been excited by dishes that have poetic names or are named after people or occasions. The French and Italians enjoy naming things after famous people, like Crepes Suzette or Pizza Margarita. Every pasta shape has its own cute little name like orecchiette (little ears), farfalle (butterflies) and my favorite, Strozzapreti (priest strangler). Chicken Marengo. In Chinese cooking, there are wonderful names for dim sum and noodle dishes like Lion’s Head meatballs, Dragon Noodles, Dragon and Phoenix, a great dish of mushrooms and cabbage and sesame oil called Three Winters. I remember as a kid we’d go to the House of Hunan in Fairlawn Plaza (you can fill in the Midwestern suburb, American/Chinese restaurant, and mall/plaza/outlet that applies to you) someone would order Happy Family and I’d wonder why everyone didn’t eat it if makes the family happy. Some items have names that are meant to be funny like Nun’s Farts or Rocky Mountain Oysters. Nipples of Venus. The British really take the cake with hilarious names-Eton Mess, Bangers and Mash, Bubble and Squeak, Rumbledethumps, and that perennial giggle-giver, Spotted Dick. So, I’ve found three dishes in this great little book that I think will taste harmonious together and have clever names that have a nice rhythmic lilt. Here is the menu and a brief description.

Sassaties, Khichri, and Junket. That’s it. That’s it, my friends. Sound yummy? It could be the name of a law firm. Well, let’s investigate. So, Sassaties. What are they, where did they come from? Sassaties are South African kebabs made with lamb marinated in tamarind paste, curry powder, onion, lemon, and milk. After a day or so the marinated cubes of meat are threaded on kebab sticks and grilled. There is almost zero information on this recipe. There are only two in the database collection of over two and a half million recipes. There’s one with apricots in the Joy of Cooking, and this one. No other recipes for this dish, anywhere, zippo, zero, notta, nothin. Elizabeth David writes that she discovered the recipe in a cookery book from 1891 entitled Hilda’s Where is it? by Hildagonda Duckitt. So, I need to find out who Hildagonda is.

Well, put simply, Hildagonda was South Africa’s first celebrity chef. She is known for her two books Hilda’s Where is it? and Hilda’s Diary of a Cape Housekeeping. She is considered an important chronicler of daily life in Victorian South Africa. You knew it had to be someone. Anyway, I may need to find a copy of those books and check them out.

She doesn’t seem to be particularly interesting, life-wise speaking. She wasn’t thrown as an infant from a burning apartment building; she wasn’t raised by bears. She was just a grande dame of Capetown living, and she knew how to throw a party and write a couple of books about it. I like her look, though. Very Victorian-hip.

Now Khichri or more commonly spelled Khichdi is a familiar dish to many in South Asian cuisines, lentils and rice and all manner of spices. Earliest mention of it dates way back to good ole 305 BC. I think these two dishes will go well together even though they grew up so far away from each other.

I ate a large bowl of minestrone soup made with my own delirious turkey stock and realized I really needed to take a walk, get my butt movin and go to the local market and get some of that kebab stuff.

The Rite Spot, a delightful tavern in the Mission District, near Gus’s Community Market, a delightful grocery store in the same neighborhood. I passed it on my way home, leg of lamb in hand. I was not able to find certain other ingredients and decided to go to one of several local Produce Markets that carry large quantities of spices and other less usual things like Tamarind Pulp. Which I got.

Tamarind pulp comes from tamarind pods surprise surprise and is a popular ingredient in African and Asian food. It is also an essential food to the survival of the African ring-tailed lemur, so I hope it’s not too popular! Anyway, the pulp is for paste, and I’ll know how to prepare that in the coming days. It will be included in both the kebab marinade and the rice and lentil dish. OK, more to come. I can’t give it all away in one writing! You!

Tag: vegetarian

Mama lets her curries mellow

Into the pantry!

How to scald milk after the Western fashion