Month: May 2010

Process Your Food Personally

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In a day when so much of our food is delivered to us pre-cut, pre-made, pre-cooked, I would argue that we’re neglecting ourselves. A meal can be a full-on amusement park of an experience if we let it be, especially when you process your food by hand.

process-food-personallyThink of a finished dish as a dot. Now picture each interaction we have with the ingredients as concentric circles surrounding that dot. Pounding a curry paste in a mortar and pestle, for instance, is a complex undertaking that would add several rings around the dot of “vegetable curry.” Lose the mortar and pestle and blam the ingredients in a food processor and you erase a few rings, like the satisfying soreness that sets in as you pound and pound and pound wondering “is this ever going to work?” and that epiphany moment when individual ingredients yield and it really does. Buying prepared curry paste deletes even more rings—like the conversation with the person at the market about chiles and where to find lemongrass stalks—until all you’re left with is a shell of “eating” around “vegetable curry.”

I’m not saying don’t ever buy another jar of curry paste—I know I’ll continue to do so in the future. I’m simply suggesting that how involved we get with preparing our food really does make a difference. It’s a wonderfully satisfying mindful eating practice.

So here’s my challenge: Pick a night (or day) when you’ve got some time, choose something you wouldn’t normally make from scratch – salsa, curry paste, vinaigrette, you name it – and make a homemade version. Then notice the difference–not just in how it tastes, but in how you feel throughout it the whole process.

Fragrant Curry Paste

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This is a good choice for an all-purpose curry paste recipe. If your fresh chiles are red, it’ll be a red curry paste. If they’re green, you’ll get a green curry paste. The texture will depend on whether you’re pounding the paste in a mortar and pestle or whizzing it in a food processor (note: if using a food processor, still adhere to the order the ingredients are added, just pulse together instead of pounding). This recipe makes enough curry paste to use for several dishes. Store it, tightly sealed, in the refrigerator for up to two months or in the freezer for up to six.

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Old World Meats Make a Comeback as a Sustainable Choice

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By Jacqueline Church

Are bunnies the new chickens? Is bison the new beef? Will goat nudge lamb off the menu? While bison, goat, and rabbit aren’t new, per se, they are garnering fresh interest among chefs and home cooks (and media) eager for sustainable options.

new-meats-postDemand for bison and goat is on the rise nationally, says Becky Faudree, Whole Foods’ global meat purchasing team leader. “Bison is one of our strongest-growing categories. We recently began carrying goat, and currently it is only offered in a few regions. Even with the small amount offered, we have seen an increase in sales. We anticipate the bison and goat categories will continue to grow.” Whole Foods may not sell rabbit yet, but other gourmet butchers do. Here’s what you need to know about these chic meats.

Bison

Sustainability story: Because bison are entirely prairie-grazed, they cause less damage to the environment than cattle raised on feedlots. In fact, bison are credited with helping to restore prairies. If you choose a producer like Wild Idea Buffalo, you’ll also know that they are never given antibiotics, growth hormones, or steroids. Wild Idea Buffalo are also slaughtered humanely in the field under South Dakota state inspection.

Taste: similar to beef.

Health benefits: Ground bison has about 25% fewer calories and half the saturated fat of grass-fed ground beef.

Best use: Use it in any recipe that calls for beef; our Buffalo Blue Burgers are a tasty introduction. Take care not to overcook lean bison.

Where to find it: most supermarkets, online, and even big-box stores.

Goat

Sustainability story: Goats forage for their food and require little land and water, making them a more environmentally sound choice than conventionally raised beef, lamb, or even chicken. In Muslim communities, where goat is a popular meat, it must be raised and slaughtered humanely, according to Islamic law. This satisfies growing consumer demand for humanely treated animals.

Taste: Young goat (kid, less than 6 months old) tastes like mild lamb.

Health benefits: 4 ounces of goat has 122 calories and 3 grams of fat (1 gram saturated). A similar portion of lamb has 256 calories and 19 grams of fat (9 grams saturated).

Best use: Goat can be cooked, for the most part, very much like lamb. Shanks may be braised; steaks sautéed or grilled; and more sinewy cuts stewed. Remember, though, that goat is very lean, so take care not to overcook.

Where to find it: Goat is new to mainstream American shoppers, but it accounts for more than 60% of the red meat eaten worldwide. Look for it at some Whole Foods stores in the Southwest, Mid-Atlantic, and South; in Latin, Caribbean, and some Asian markets; and at halal butchers that cater to Middle Eastern and North African communities. Goat is turning up at farmers’ markets, too. It may be labeled chevron, cabrito, or capretto.

Rabbit

Sustainability story: Rabbits can be bred four to seven times per year. “They have a high meat-to-bone ratio, and they require little in terms of resources,” says Jennifer Hashley, co-owner of Pete and Jen’s Backyard Birds in Lincoln, MA (which raises rabbits as well as chickens) and director of Tufts Friedman School’s New Entry Sustainable Farming Project. Bunnies’ feed typically includes fast-growing, sustainable alfalfa in addition to foraged fare, says Hashley.

Taste: like chicken.

Health benefits: Rabbit has as much protein as chicken, but about 35% fewer calories and less than half the total and saturated fat.

Best use: Rabbit has long been a staple of French, Italian, and Spanish cuisines. It can be used much the way you would use chicken pieces–braising the legs works especially well. It’s also nice marinated and grilled.

Where to find it: At farmers’ markets and gourmet butchers (you may need to call ahead to order it).

jackie-thumbJacqueline Church is an independent writer whose work has appeared in Culture: the Word on Cheese, Edible Santa Barbara, and John Mariani’s Virtual Gourmet. She often writes about gourmet food, sustainability issues and the intersection of the two on her blog Leather District Gourmet. Currently, she’s at work on Pig Tales: a Love Story about heritage breed pigs and the farmers and chefs bringing them from farm to table.


Braised Rabbit with Easy Pan Sauce

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By Alison Ashton

You’ll want a tender “fryer” or “young” rabbit for this recipe; fryers typically weigh less than three pounds. Ask the butcher to cut the rabbit into six serving pieces, which makes this a simple dish you can prepare on a weeknight. If you purchase a whole rabbit, Saveur has helpful instructions for cutting it up. Serve with Oven-Baked Polenta with Slow-Roasted Tomatoes and sauteed spinach.

rabbit-recipe2 tablespoons olive oil
1 (2 1/2- to 3-pound) fryer rabbit, cut into 6 serving pieces
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 onion, thinly sliced lengthwise
1/4 cup dry white wine
1/2 cup low-sodium chicken broth
1 teaspoon cold butter
1/4 cup thinly sliced basil
2 tablespoons toasted pine nuts

Preheat oven to 350.

Heat oil in a large sauté pan over medium-high heat. Sprinkle rabbit with salt and pepper. Add half of rabbit to pan and cook 5 minutes, turning to brown on all sides. Transfer seared rabbit pieces to a plate and repeat with remaining half of rabbit.

Add onion to pan and sauté 2 minutes. Add wine; cook 1 minute or until wine evaporates, scraping pan to loosen browned bits. Add broth and seared rabbit. Cover, and cook for 30 minutes or until a thermometer inserted into meaty part of the thigh registers 155. Transfer rabbit to a serving dish and keep warm.

Place sauté pan over high heat and bring to a boil. Cook 10 minutes or until pan juices reduce by half. Remove from heat and whisk in butter. Pour sauce over rabbit. Garnish with basil and pine nuts.

Serves 6

Spanish-Leaning Spinach and Chickpea Dip

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I waffled about whether to name this “hummus” or “chickpea dip,” but ultimately thought it veered far enough from tradition — thanks to the addition of spinach and smoked paprika — to go with the latter. (And my choice should satisfy purists like Cheryl Sternman Rule — check out her tongue-in-cheek thoughts on the matter the hummus debate here.) It is, in any case, delicious. If you’ve ever had any doubt as to the strength of pounded garlic, this little dish will set you straight.

spinach-and-chickpea-dip

3 cloves garlic, peeled and pounded to a paste in a mortar and pestle with a pinch of salt
2 cups cooked chickpeas
12 ounces frozen spinach, thawed and squeezed dry
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
2 tablespoons tahini
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground fennel
1/4 teaspoon ground coriander
Sea salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste

Combine garlic, chickpeas, spinach, lemon juice and tahini in a food processor, and blend until smooth.

Warm olive oil in a small pan over medium-low heat and add spices. Stir and cook for 1-2 minutes, until just fragrant. Scrape oil and spices into bowl of food processor, add a pinch of salt and process until well blended.

Serves 8

Mother’s Day: Celebrating Grandmas

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By Cheryl Sternman Rule

With Mother’s Day around the corner, I wanted to take a moment to honor grandmothers, those women a branch up from moms on the family tree. I’ve asked three cookbook authors, all representing different ethnic heritages, to reflect on how their grandmothers’ food traditions influenced their own.

cookbooks-post“I totally believe that grandmothers are the keepers of the culinary flame, especially for immigrant families,” says Patricia Tanumihardja, author of the recipe-packed, story-filled The Asian Grandmothers Cookbook (Sasquatch Books). “Language and food are the two most important ways that culture is passed down through the generations.” When her mother Julia was growing up, Pat’s Popo (Chinese for grandmother) would always prepare Julia and her siblings an afternoon snack of roti bakso, or sweet bread stuffed with pork. Julia, in turn, prepared the dish frequently for Pat, passing along Popo’s tradition. So even though Popo passed away when Pat was an infant, she remained a presence in the family’s household through that beloved snack.

For her cookbook, Pat interviewed grandmothers whose roots spanned the Asian cultural spectrum, from Chinese, Japanese, and Indonesian to Korean, Filipino, and Thai.  She believes strongly that immigrant grandmothers are the torchbearers of a family’s culinary heritage. “Grandmothers are the closest link to an immigrant’s homeland. They cook for their grandchildren, and they speak to them in their native tongue.” If her own grandmothers were still alive today, she says, she’d “celebrate them on Mother’s Day,” too.

Monica Bhide, a Washington, D.C.-based food writer and author of several books on Indian cooking (her most recent is Modern Spice), recalls spending many hours with her grandmothers, Savitri and Kaushalya, chopping vegetables, peeling oranges, and shelling peanuts. One of the biggest lessons they imparted, she reflects, was to always cook enough for company. Though she was raised largely in Bahrain, Monica’s roots are Indian, and many members of her extended family lived together in the same home in New Delhi.  Her grandmothers would work alongside their servants (not uncommon in many Indian households) for hours, preparing the evening meal for 20 or more family members each night.

Today, Monica has happy neighbors, largely because she has taken her grandmothers’ lessons to heart. “I make extra food, even now,” she says. “I have older neighbors, whom I love. I take them dinner every other day.”

Jennie Schacht’s Jewish paternal grandmother Henrietta lived to be 101. “She was a powerhouse of a woman,” Jennie remembers. “I absolutely adored her.” Henrietta did The New York Times crossword puzzle in 15 minutes every Sunday, and regularly turned out Ashkenazi Jewish specialties such as brisket, noodle kugel, and blintzes from the railroad-style kitchen in her tiny apartment on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. “I loved her blintzes,” Jennie says. “I could practically tell you how to make them just from having observed her so many times.” Grandma Schacht (as Jennie called her) also taught her how to flute a pie crust. “I can still picture her thumb pressing in to form the impressions.”

Jennie’s newest book, Farmers’ Market Desserts (Chronicle Books), includes a plum soup recipe her father raved about throughout her childhood. Her headnote to the recipe even reads: “One childhood role I had was to re-create my grandmother’s best hits for my dad.” That soup was one of them.

“Grandma Schacht would be enormously thrilled that I’m writing cookbooks,” she says, “because she just cared about food so much.”

This Mother’s Day, toast your mom, but raise an extra glass to your grandmothers, too.  I’ll be toasting my Grandma Sarah and her soothing chicken soup, and my Grandma Eve, whose Sunday morning breakfasts always included bagels and butterfish. To grandmothers near and far, offer thanks for their lingering presence — in your lives, in your hearts, and at the table.

cheryl-thumb

Cheryl Sternman Rule is a food and nutrition writer whose work has appeared in numerous national magazines, including EatingWell and Body+Soul. She is the voice behind the food blog 5 Second Rule.


Chicken Biryani

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By Cheryl Sternman Rule

Here’s a streamlined version of Amma’s Rice, a beautiful, golden-hued biryani recipe from Pat Tanumihardja’s heartfelt The Asian Grandmothers Cookbook (Sasquatch Books). Any type of chutney is a good condiment with this rice dish; I enjoy it with tamarind.

biryani-recipe1/4 teaspoon saffron
2 tablespoons boiling water
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
1/4 teaspoon garam masala
6 whole black peppercorns
4 whole cloves
Seeds from 5 cardamom pods
1 cinnamon stick
1 1/2 cups basmati rice
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 medium white onion, diced
5 garlic cloves, minced
1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger (packed)
1 pound organic skinless, boneless, chicken breast, cut into 1-inch cubes
1/2 cup plain nonfat yogurt, divided
Toasted almonds (optional)
Chutney (optional)

Place the saffron in a small ramekin and cover with the water. Set aside. Stir together salt, cumin, coriander, and garam masala in a small bowl. Gather peppercorns, cloves, cardamom pods, and cinnamon stick; set aside.

Place rice in a strainer and rinse well under cool running water. Repeat. Cook according to package directions, or in a rice cooker. Keep warm.

Heat oil and butter in a large Dutch oven over medium heat. Add onion, garlic, and ginger; cook 8 minutes or until soft and very fragrant, stirring frequently to prevent sticking. Add ground spice mixture and whole spices; cook 30 seconds, stirring constantly. Add chicken; cook 8 minutes. Turn heat down as low as possible and stir in 1/4 cup yogurt. Cover and cook 5 to 10 minutes, or until chicken is done.

Pour remaining 1/4 cup yogurt on top, then layer on the cooked rice. Drizzle saffron and soaking liquid over the rice, cover, and cook over low heat 5 minutes. Give a good stir, turn out onto a large platter, and serve with toasted almonds and chutney, if desired.

Serves 6-8

Ode to Mortars and Pestles

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By Lia Huber

I have a thing for mortars and pestles. Part of my fascination, I think, comes from the fact that they’re so utterly primitive. They don’t have a plug. They don’t make motorized noise. They don’t even have a sharp edge. Even the name—mortar and pestle—is simple when traced back to its Latin source: “mortarium” means receptacle for pounding and “pestillum” means pounder.

mortar-pestle-postBut don’t let the simplistic nature fool you into thinking they’re not useful tools. I use mine far more often than my food processor. With just a few whacks and a pinch of salt, garlic and herbs are rendered into a pungent paste; spices are crushed to fragrant bits; simple vegetables are transformed into a surprisingly full-flavored sauce. And you get to let off steam while taking in a little aromatherapy.

Part of what makes mortars and pestles so effective is that pounding ruptures the cells in food, as opposed to slicing or processing which semi-cauterizes them. That’s why one clove of pounded garlic can taste and smell so much more powerful than three cloves of minced.

No wonder nearly every culture has created its own version over the millennia. Each is made of materials abundant in a particular region and fashioned for the culinary needs of a particular cuisine. In France, they tend to be deep bowls made of marble. In Southeast Asia, they’re conical and often made of clay with a wooden mortar. In Latin America, you’ll find giant stone receptacles called molcajetes with a nubbin of a pestle called a tejolete.

It was a quest for the perfect molcajete, in fact, that cemented my infatuation with the tool. My husband and I were on an extended road trip from San Francisco to Costa Rica and had just spent a week in Cuernavaca, Mexico, taking a cooking class. Many modern sauces are now made in blenders, but the dishes that stole the show for me were the ones we pounded in the behemoth basalt molcajetes. The following week, when we paused in Oaxaca for a couple of weeks, I was determined to find the perfect version amidst the city’s sprawling market.

We searched for hours and hours and had almost given up when we turned the corner and spotted it—wide and irregular and pitted and rough. A tiny woman rose to her feet in front of the stall. Her face crinkled into a smile and as we looked each other in the eyes I could see a joy that matched my own. It felt, somehow, like we’d been seeking one another. We made the exchange and shared a hug, and Christopher and I packed up the molcajete for the remainder of the drive. Later, when we pulled the bowl out in our Costa Rica kitchen, I noticed that the bowl had writing around the edge—Recuerdo de Oaxaca, memories of Oaxaca.

I hope that woman knows how rich they are.

Roasted Tomatillo and Chile Sauce

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I first encountered this chile verde sauce at a remote resort in the Copper Canyon. It’s simple, but deceptively flavorful. Use it as a rustic salsa or as a sauce spooned over grilled chicken.

roasted-tomatillo-chile-sauce-recipe1 pound tomatillos, husks removed
1/2 pound peppers and chiles, a mix of poblano, jalapeno, etc.
1/2 large onion
3 cloves garlic, peeled
sea salt
juice of 1 lime

Heat a comal or large cast-iron skillet over medium-high heat. Roast tomatillos, peppers, onion and garlic until semi-charred and softened, turning often, about 10 minutes.

Roughly chop vegetables and transfer to a large mortar and pestle. Sprinkle with salt and pound to a rough paste. Stir in lime juice.

Serves 8