Endive salad

Today, for lunch, I really didn't want to turn on the stove. It's hot and insanely humid here, and though the air conditioning makes it generally pleasant inside, the kitchen can get very warm when things are cooking. So I put together salads from what we had on hand. I like endive salads with blue cheese (especially stilton), but I didn't have any today and used pecorino instead. Any sharp and lively cheese will do, but you don't want it to overpower things, so crumble it well or shave it with a vegetable peeler. For the dressing I went with Paul Newman's Lighten Up! Italian, which is the one store-bought dressing I use. It's excellent—very nearly as tasty as freshly made.

Endive salad
(serves 2)

2-3 Belgian endive, sliced crosswise
a handful of walnuts, chopped
1 pear, peeled and chopped, or a few red grapes sliced in half
crumbled blue cheese (or thinly shaved pecorino or Manchego or whatever)
lemony vinaigrette

Passionfruit Jam

The passionfruit vines in my backyard have dropped a huge amount of fruit, and I need to do something with it. When it comes to preserving acidic fruits like passionfruit, marmalade-style preserves are far and away my favorite. Most of the recipes I located online were for passionfruit curd or some passionfruit gelatin concoction, but after a little digging, I finally discovered this perfect recipe from The Cook's Cottage. I'll make it this weekend and report back.

Update: I strongly recommend the recipe. It gels beautifully, it's very tasty, and it will make your house smell wonderful.

Mango Pickle

I'm not sure where you get green mangoes in Cambridge, but summer is y-cumen in, so maybe someone will be selling them.

Since this recipe requires no measuring (just eyeballing), it works even in worlds where the meter stick is less than a meter long, the baker's cup holds a hogshead, and the scoville unit measures the amount of vanilla in a bean. Denizens of inverted spectrum worlds beware: eyeballing may not work properly there.

green mangoes, 5 or so (don't use ripe ones!)
salt
fresh chilis
white vinegar
chili powder
asafoetida
mustard oil, several tablespoons
mustard seeds

Julienne the mangoes and mix them with salt until they are coated. The ideal vessel for this activity is a pan with vertical sides, because you need to press the mangoes to get all the water out. I put a plate on top of them and something heavy (usually an economy-sized tub of vinegar) on top of the plate, then leave them overnight. Once the mangoes are pressed, rinse and drain them. Mix in fresh chilis, white vinegar, chili powder, and asafoetida to taste. Put the mango mixture in whatever container you plan to store it in. Heat the mustard oil over a medium-high stovetop, drop a handful of mustard seeds in, cook them until they pop, and take the mixture off the heat immediately. (I have found that pouring it out of the pan and into another vessel helps prevent burning, if you mess up the timing on the delicate mustard-seed-popping procedure.) Once the mustard oil has cooled, pour it over the mango mixture, seeds and all. If the oil has seeped into all the cracks between the mango bits and still covers the top of the mixture, great; otherwise, add more oil.

Leave the mixture to stew for about a week. (I've heard you can keep it at room temperature, but I always put it in the fridge.) Then share and enjoy.

Brie en croute with porcini and thyme

This is lasciviously heavy. But it's easy to prepare and satisfies the most insatiable fat-tooth. If you like sweet stuff, you can replace the porcini/thyme with honey and toasted almonds or dried cherries or et cetera.


Ingredients

• 1 wheel of brie
• 1 sheet of puffed pastry (thawed)
• some porcini (reconstituted if dried; cleaned and chopped if fresh)
• fresh thyme, 1 tsp or to taste
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
  
• one egg, beaten
  

Directions

Preheat the oven to 400ºF. Wash and stem the thyme and saute it in olive oil with the porcini for a couple of minutes.

Half the brie along the flat side to produce two slabs. Set one slab creamy-side up in the center of the puffed pastry. Place the mushrooms on the brie and close the other slab on top. Fold the puffed pastry around the wheel as decoratively as you can manage. Make sure you don't tear the pastry; otherwise brie will ooze uglily out.

Brushed the outside of the brie-filled pastry wheel with the beaten egg. Transfer the wheel to a cookie sheet or casserole dish or whatever and bake it for 20 minutes at 400ºF. Then turn down the oven to 300ºF and bake for another 10-15 minutes. Serve hot.

I'm not sure how many people this serves. If you try to split the entire wheel between two people, make sure to sleep with the windows open.

pasta for the time-pressed snob

to accompany the sweet potato fries, course.

you can seriously put this together in 20 minutes, and it tastes pretty sophisticated for a simple pasta dish. it's not very healthy, i admit. but it is delicious. occasionally one just finds oneself with a bit of leftover half-and-half in the fridge, and, well, what to do?

chopped shallots or sweet onion (don't use a pungent yellow onion here)
sliced mushrooms (i like cremini, but white ones would do)
lots of chopped thyme (absolutely essential!)
torn greens (i used beet greens, but chard or spinach would do—just don't use anything too bitter, like kale)
pasta, such as farfalle (make sure it is an elegant shape...no wagon wheels please! and, er, no boobs either)*
butter, olive oil, salt, and pepper
half-and-half (or crème fraîche or even heavy cream)

heat water for the pasta. as soon as it's boiling, add the pasta—the sauce will take less than ten minutes to make. respect the pasta: don't overcook it.

meanwhile, heat a little butter and olive oil, and sauté the shallots or sweet onion with a small pinch of salt until they are soft and starting to brown at the edges. add the sliced mushrooms and sauté with another small pinch of salt and a grind of pepper until they are...i don't know how to describe it, but until they look cooked. it will take only a couple of minutes. add the thyme. add a handful of greens and cook over medium heat, turning frequently, for a few minutes more, until they're wilted. finally, add a splash of half-and-half and simmer over low heat for another minute or two. adjust the salt, combine with some pasta, and serve with another small grind of pepper on top.

voilà!

(n.b.: you don't need much cream, because you can always make it moister by adding a bit of pasta water to the final dish. the cream is just for taste. also, i haven't done this, but it seems like a small splash of white wine might be nice after you've sautéed the mushrooms—just let most of it evaporate.)

*update: soon after posting this, i spotted farfalle jewelry at the moma store. yes, really. my pasta shape instincts are spot on!

shaving fennel, not beards

shaved fennel and pear salad

shave one large (or two smaller) fennel thinly
halve and core one pear (my favorite is Anjou) and sliver into very thin slices, about as thick as the fennel
one handful of parsley, chopped
about half a cup freshly grated ricotta salata (on the largest side of the box grater)
juice of one half of a lemon
glug of good olive oil
sea salt and freshly grated pepper

mix everything together. eat.

Sweet Potato Fries for Snobs

1. Take one big sweet potato per head. Peel, half across and cut into chunks that vaguely resemble big fries.
2. Mix with a glug of olive oil, a tablespoon or two of balsamico, some coarse salt, a dash of cayenne and a dash of cumin.
3. Spread out on a baking sheet and roast at 400 degrees for about 30 minutes. You want them to get tender but golden and caramelized on the outside, even slightly charred at the edges. Depending on your oven, they might need a final 30 second blast under the broiler.
4. Eat, with tomato chutney (or ketchup if you are a little less of a snob) and arugula salad on the side.

fall happiness:

squash!


apples!



pretty leaves!

And, not to forget: soup!


butternut squash soup with warm spices and crispy onions

I happened to have a roasted butternut squash sitting in the fridge that I had stuck into the oven this weekend, when baking something else. I highly recommend you do that, it's really a no-brainer. I imagine acorn squash would work just as well and in a pinch canned butternut squash might do, too, if you think roasting your own is too much effort (but it really isn't).

For roasting, I just halved the butternut squash, scooped out the seeds and baked it, cut side down on a piece of aluminium foil on a baking sheet (to minimize clean up) until a fork slid in easily. 45 minutes maybe, but that obviously depends on the size and your oven. I then scooped out the flesh and stored it in a tupperware container.

Once you have the roasted squash, the soup takes literally 10 minute to prepare. The crispy onions were a stroke of genius. You can omit them, but you would be terribly, terribly mistaken.

flesh of 1 scooped out roasted butternut squash
1 Tbsp of butter
1 small onion, diced
2 cloves of garlic, minced
about 2 Tbsp of your favorite thai curry paste (how much exactly will depend on the curry paste you use and how spicy you like your soup--I used green, though red would probably be even better, at least colorwise)
1/2 can of coconut milk (I had some leftover in the freezer)


Heat butter in a large pot and saute until translucent, about 2 minutes. Throw in the garlic, the butternut squash, the coconut milk and 1 cup of water. Add the curry paste. If you want to be on the safe side, add 1 Tbsp first and then adjust later. Let it cook and bubble for a little bit, then blend until smooth.

Add more water until you like the consistency. Then add salt and more curry paste, to taste. Maybe a little lemon juice?

Serve, topping with the onions. I didn't have any cilantro on hand but imagine it would go well.


crispy onion topping

1 onion thinly sliced
1 Tbsp of butter
handful of raw cashew nuts

While the soup is bubbling, heat the butter in a small pan until very hot. Add onions and let the fry, stirring occasionally. You want them to get very brown, almost burned on the edges. Just before they are ready, throw in the handful of cashews. Swirl them around and let them get a little toasted but watch closely because the little suckers like to burn when you are not watching. Sprinkle with a little salt to taste.

Serves 3.

quickie pasta salad

Make a vinaigrette by whisking together:
-1 shallot, finely minced
-small bit of dijon mustard
-glug of good-quality (i.e., sweet and tart, not sour) balsamic vinegar
-glug of extra-virgin olive oil
-a tablespoon of chopped herbs (I used thyme, sage, and rosemary)
-good salt and freshly ground pepper

Adjust the vinaigrette to taste. If you have a not-so-sweet balsamic, you could add a small bit of honey if you like. If you have a super-sweet one, relatively more mustard or a dribble of red wine vinegar will balance the sweetness. You can keep this in the fridge for a few days, and really it gets better as the flavors meld together.

Cook some smallish pasta, such as orzo, and combine it with some of the vinaigrette, plenty of crumbled feta cheese, and halved cherry tomatoes. Adjust the proportions by taste—you should be able to just taste the herbs and the shallots, and it should be pleasantly tangy&sweet&salty. Eat right away or pack for lunch.

(Other things that I didn't have on hand but that I suspect might go well here: chopped kalamata olives, small broccoli florets slightly steamed, chopped roasted red peppers, etc.)

Pickles and preserves

Time for another ridiculously out of season post. My papaya tree has been giving me more papayas, and the neighbors have more oranges and lemons than they know what to do with. Another neighbor gave me a bunch of jars and some basic preserving advice, and the results were pretty good.

Orange/Lemon Marmalade

Ingredients/equipment:
All the oranges and lemons you've got
A few bags of sugar
An old cotton T-shirt, or some cheesecloth
Some string
A really gigantic pot
A bunch of clean, dry jars

Procedure:
Wash the oranges and lemons, chop them in half, and juice them. Dump the juice into the pot, but set aside the seeds and pith. Chop the orange and lemon rinds, and dump them into the pot too. Wrap the seeds and pith in a chopped-out piece of the cotton T-shirt, or a square of cheesecloth, tie it shut with the string, and dump it into the pot. This will let you get all the nice pectin out of the seeds, but will prevent you from having to chomp down on them later on. Leave the end of the string hanging out of the pot for easy removal. Cover everything with water (just barely) put the lid on the pot, and simmer until the rinds are soft. (Set aside a few hours for this step.) Remove from heat, take the seeds out, and add sugar until the volume of the concoction has doubled, then stir until the sugar is dissolved. Don't be impatient, or you'll end up with grainy marmalade! Once the sugar has dissolved completely, put the pot back on the heat, bring it to a boil, and boil for five minutes, or until a small quantity dropped onto a plate sets in 1-2 seconds. Pour into jars while hot, and let cool for a couple of hours. Screw tops onto jars, and voila! You have a huge amount of marmalade!

Hot Papaya Pickle

Ingredients/materials:
2 large papayas
3-6 tablespoons salt
100g mustard seeds
1 tbsp coriander seeds
2tsp asafoetida (fenuigreek) powder
A couple of hot chili peppers, chopped however you please
A whole bunch of vinegar (I used white, but I think apple cider would work nicely)
The gigantic pot, once all the marmalade is washed off
More clean jars

Peel and dice papayas. Put them in a mixing bowl with the salt, stir, and leave for an hour or two, until shriveled. Discard the juice; dump the papayas into the pot. Add the spices and chili peppers, and cover the whole mixture with vinegar, leaving about an inch of extra vinegar at the top. Boil for 15 minutes. Remove from heat, pour into jars, and voila! Papaya pickle!

despair and carmelized onions

despair, because of imminent starvation. that's in fact a common theme to my dinner cooking. imminent starvation and the search of instant gratification. here is what I made a few weeks ago when my vegetable drawer was sad and empty and I had patience for only as long as it takes the pot of pasta to boil. it was really delicious and it made highly excellent lunch leftovers.


Penne with Carmelized Onions

1/2 pack of penne
3 large onions
3 cloves of garlic
couple of needles of a rosemary sprig
3 generous tbsp of creme fraiche
1 tbsp of butter and a glug of olive oil
freshly grated parmesan, lots of it
salt and freshly ground pepper

Boil the pasta and while you're waiting for first the water and then the pasta to boil, slice the onions thinly, and chop the garlic cloves and the rosemary needles.

Heat the olive oil and the butter in a pan, throw in the onions and the finely chopped rosemary needles. Cook at medium heat stirring around frequently, so they don't get burned but beautifully brown and carmelized. After about 10 minutes throw in the the garlic and salt and some ground pepper, stir around a minute or two. If you are getting impatient because the onions are brown but not soft and you want to eat, turn up the heat and add half a cup of pasta water and let it cook until the water is evaporated. (that's what I usually do, because I have very little patience when I am hungry).

Drain the pasta and return to the pot. Taste the onions for salt, pepper and stir in the creme fraiche. Stir into the pasta. If it's not creamy enough for your liking, add another tablespoon of creme fraiche. I almost certainly would do. Eat with lots of parmesan.

This serves two hungry people or one with leftovers for lunch. No need to say that the recipe doubles beautifully.

Frozen Papaya/Lemon Parfait

I know this is out of season, but I've just discovered a great way of using the papayas that grow in my backyard. I'm posting it here before I forget it. Who knows; it could be useful to the MIT community in the future.

Ingredients
1 Ripe Papaya
Milk
Honey
Cinnamon
250 ml Heavy Cream
1 Lemon
1 pint Fresh Berries

Procedure
Peel the papaya and puree it in the blender. Add milk until you've got something with the consistency of a thick smoothie, and add honey and cinnamon until you like the taste. Put the whole thing in the freezer until it's mostly frozen (I find this takes an hour and a half to two hours), then run it through the blender again and stick it back in the freezer.

Zest the lemon and squeeze out a tablespoon of its juice. Whip the cream together with the juice and the zest until it's good and whipped. Layer with berries and frozen papaya mixture in a clear glass. Serve immediately, or stick in the freezer for later use.

Delicious on a hot spring day (she says, as all her MIT friends don their sweaters and trot briskly through the autumn leaves).

Braised potatoes

Sometime ago I discovered Molly Stevens' All about braising, a lovely companion to our then new dutch oven. And while I went through it quite thoroughly, looking for more and more ways of having things cook in a pot for over two hours at low heat, I somehow missed what could be the One Way of making potatoes.

The idea is so simple. Just find some thin-skinned new potatoes. Wash thoroughly, place in dutch oven and add water (or broth, though do that at your own risk) and some wine to cover half of the potatoes. Add salt and pepper, some herbs, some fat, and some bruised garlic. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to a gentle simmer, and cook, covered, for about 40 minutes (Molly Stevens says says 20, but that has never worked for me), turning once with a spoon midway through. Remove lid, bring heat to medium-high, and let the liquid evaporate, shaking the pot a few times to let the braised garlic coat the potatoes.

The original recipe has bay leaves for the herbs and olive oil for the fat. I like combining thyme and rosemary, and combining butter and olive oil. But that's me. Sage and duck-fat might work wonderfully for all I know.

(Disclaimer: The potatoes in the picture were never braised. The dutch oven was busy with a lamb shoulder, so we baked them.)

An announcement, and a recipe

Exciting news: I've enjoyed posting recipes here so much that I decided to start my very own food blog: http://tastememories.typepad.com/ I'm still finding my feet (and my photographs are pretty awful), but I'm having a lot of fun doing so. I'd love it if you'd stop by. Oh, and guest posters would be wonderful - let me know if you're interested! I'm doing recipes of all kinds, provided they're original or at least significant adaptations of an existing recipe.

Of course, I'll still be contributing here, especially when I have a recipe for something vegetarian and lunchable. Here, as proof, is a recipe for an edamame, avocado, cilantro and lime soup that I made recently. (If you visit my blog and scroll down, you'll find an extremely unattractive picture of it. But I swear, it really is good).

Ingredients:

1 tbsp olive oil
2 medium onions, roughly chopped (I used red onions)
1 tsp salt
2 tsp cumin
6 cups vegetable stock
1lb frozen, shucked edamame
1 punnet silken tofu
2 limes
1 avocado, de-stoned
1 bunch cilantro, roughly chopped
½ cup sour cream

Method:

Add the olive oil to a large pan over medium-high heat.

Add the onions, the salt and the cumin, and sauté the mixture for a few minutes, until the onions are soft and beginning to caramelize.

Then, add the vegetable stock and bring it to a boil.

Add the edamame, and boil for about 10 minutes or until soft.

Next, puree the soup in a blender, together with the remaining ingredients (you may need to do this in batches).

Adjust the soup for seasoning and acidity. You can also add a little more liquid if you like.

This serves six, generously. By the way, I actually prefer to serve this soup cold, but it’s nice warm too. Either way, you might want to swirl a little more sour cream into it.

saag paneer

this is a very yummy version using fresh spinach. it's delicious. the cooking takes only about 15 minutes, but the prep takes about 45—you must get all the ingredients ready beforehand. i like to combine all the ingredients that will be added at the same step in one bowl, so when the moment comes i can dump them in and move on quickly. if you don't have all of these spices, i suggest you go to harvest, the co-op in central square. there you can buy spices in bulk, which is great: if you don't cook indian food very often, a quarter's worth of cumin seeds will probably do you just fine. (if you can't tell everything apart by sniffing, though, make sure to label the little bags.)

adapted from this excellent (though overly rich, i think) recipe. serves four.

heat 1-2 tbsp. of peanut oil over medium-high heat, and fry the cubed paneer until it is a light golden color on a couple of sides. drain on a paper towel. (this is optional—the paneer is also tasty unfried.)

in a big pan, heat 1 tbsp. of vegetable oil over medium-high heat. add 1 onion, chopped in a medium dice, and cook a few minutes until it is soft and golden. then add, all at once:

1 cinnamon stick
3 cardamom pods
3 cloves
3 bay leaves
1 tsp. cumin seeds
1 tsp. minced fresh garlic
1 tsp. minced fresh ginger
1 hot green pepper, de-seeded and minced
1 tomato, chopped

cook for 2-3 minutes. fish out all of the cloves, cardamom pods, and bay leaves (because it is no fun to find yourself chewing on a bitter clove down the line). then add 3 bunches of spinach, de-stemmed and washed thoroughly, turning frequently to let the spinach cook down. when all the spinach has wilted and turned a bright green, add these spices:

1 tsp. ground cumin
1/2 tsp. turmeric
1 tsp. ground coriander
1/2 tsp. garam masala
tiny pinch ground cardamon
tiny pinch ground clove
1 tsp. salt (or less or more, if you like)
a couple of grinds of black pepper

mix well and cook everything for another 3 minutes over medium heat. then add:

2 tsp. tomato paste
1/3 cup half-and-half (richer version) OR 1 cup whole-milk plain yogurt (lighter version)

mix well, turn heat down, and simmer gently for another 5 minutes or so. before serving, mix in the paneer and sprinkle a generous amount of freshly chopped cilantro on top.

Carrottes rappées

Fancy French name; simple yummy salad.

Serves 1; multiply accordingly.

2-3 medium carrots, grated with a medium-large grater*
several walnuts, chopped
1 tbsp. red wine vinegar
1 tbsp. olive oil
good salt and coarse pepper

Combine the first two ingredients in a bowl. Mix together the last three ingredients in another bowl, pour on top of ingredients in first bowl, and mix together.

*If you grate them too finely, they become too juicy and lose their nice firm texture.

Voilà!

Orange wacky cake,

or what to do when you have a bunch of citrus fruit and no more eggs.


1 1/2 cups flour
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup cocoa powder
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
100g butter
2 Clementine oranges

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Put the dry ingredients in a loaf pan, add a teaspoon of Clementine zest, and mix thoroughly. Melt the butter and juice the Clementines into a liquid measuring cup. Add water to the clementines until you have 1 cup of liquid. (If you have more Clementines instead of a bunch of grapefruit, you can just make 1 cup of juice.) Dump the butter and the orange juice mixture into the dry ingredients and stir just enough to mix. Pop the whole thing into the oven and bake for 30 minutes, or until a fork comes out of the center with just a few crumbs on it.

If you have more Clementines, I bet you could top this with a delicious glaze made of Clementine juice plus confectioner's sugar, mixed in the right proportions to generate a thin paste. Unfortunately, I just have grapefruit. Anybody have grapefruit recipes?

Lemon sponge cake with lemon curd

My neighbor brought me a basket of citrus fruit from her garden, and this was what I did to use up some of the lemons, along with most of the eggs in my fridge.


lemon curd
5 eggs
juice of 3-5 lemons, plus a big helping of their zest
3/4 cup sugar
100 g butter, cut into cubes

You'll need to set up a steam double boiler for this recipe. Luckily, making a steam double boiler is nowhere near as complicated as it sounds. The end result you're shooting for is basically a saucepan with a mixing bowl inside it. The diameter of the mixing bowl should be greater than the diameter of the saucepan, so that the bowl sits on the saucepan's rim. Between the saucepan and the mixing bowl will be a layer of boiling water, not quite deep enough to touch the mixing bowl's bottom. Inside the mixing bowl will be lemon curd.

So, now that you've got this picture fixed in your mind, take the saucepan, and put some water in it (not quite enough water to touch the mixing bowl's bottom). Put the water on the stove to boil. While it boils, combine all the ingredients in the mixing bowl. When the water boils, put the bowl on top of the saucepan. Stir the lemon curd constantly until it thickens. (I find that after 15-20 minutes, it changes suddenly from a liquid to a sort of pudding thing). Take the lemon curd off the heat and let cool.


lemon sponge cake

1 cup flour
1 tsp baking soda
4 eggs
1 cup sugar
juice of 1 lemon

Sift together the flour and the baking soda. Combine the eggs, sugar, and lemon juice in a separate bowl, and beat until huge and fluffy (you're looking for this mixture to triple in size). Fold in flour, and bake at 425 degrees Farenheit for 15 minutes.


Serve with tea and cucumber sandwiches.

3 minute gazpacho

The perfect way of using up half an avocado. Simple and divine.

Ingredients:
2 large vine-ripened tomatoes
1/2 English hothouse cucumber, peeled
1/2 avocado
handful mint (or basil, or maybe even cilantro)
sea salt
red wine vinegar
extra virgin olive oil

Method:
Grate the tomato and cucumber into a bowl. (By the way, grating rather than dicing tomato as a topping for bruschetta is a trick that I learned from the wonderful cookbook 'Moro.' I highly recommend both the technique, and the book.)
Chop the avocado and mint, and add it in.
Season the mixture to taste with (about) a pinch of salt, (about) a teaspoon of the oil, and (about) a tablespoon of the vinegar.
Add a little bit of water if you want a soupier mixture.

A satisfying meal for one.

Dissertation Writer's Breakfast

Ingredients:

1. Frosted Flakes, 1-1/2 cups














2. White Horse Blended Scotch Whisky, 2 cups

















3. Cool Whip, 1/2 cup


















4. Leftover Easter eggs (raw), 6-12


















5. Crack, 1/2 Tbsp.











Preparation:

Combine ingredients in bowl.