Sooji for Upma in the Oven

Unroasted

Closeup of the grain

After 10 minutes, closeup. Notice the slightly darker colour of the individual grains.

Notice how the whole looks the same as the original. You have to look closely to see the subtle colour change. 

Stir to redistribute the darker browned bits around the edges with the paler bits on the insides. 

Notice the clumping? This is normal. It will go away with more roasting. 

Stir, stir, stir. Then, put back in oven for 5 more minutes. 

Tada! Roasted. 

Upma. Supposedly a simple, quick dish. Lies. It's not a simple dish if you have to stand there roasting sooji for the rest of your natural life. It is the task that I dislike the most when making Indian food: roasting endlessly. 

For sooji, put the stuff onto a cookie sheet in as thin a layer as possible. For a 4 lb bag, you should need about four home sized cookie trays (or two trays twice). Shake the pans gently to get the sooji in an even layer. 

Bake at 200ºC (around 390ºF) for 10 minutes. Stir well to redistribute the browner edge bits with the paler inside bits. Bake an additional 5 minutes.

Done.

Ten Minute Chili

There are times when you need a small quantity of a dish, quickly. This means that you're not trying to cook for 10 people at once. Instead, you've already got a meal set out, and need an extra dish, because a guest just let you know at the last minute that there will be an extra person coming. Rather than trying to stretch out what you already have, just make an extra dish, even if it is in small quantity, and the food will stretch further.

There are nights when you need something fast, because you got home from work really late. However, you still want it to have vegetables in, and be relatively healthy. The Minute Meals tag is meant for such dishes. This is the first of what I hope will become a series of recipes.

1 TB vegetable oil
1/2 tsp cumin seeds (the whole seeds are important)
1 tsp coriander seeds
1 onion, diced
1 clove of garlic, sliced
1 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/4 cup tomato paste
1 zucchini, sliced lengthwise, and cut into half-moons
2 cups cooked beans of your choice (I used canned black beans)
1 cup frozen corn (or canned is fine too, if you drain the liquid)
Pinch of salt to taste
Cayenne pepper, to taste

In a pot, add the oil, and heat it on high heat. Add the cumin and coriander seeds. The seeds will toast and pop. Add the onions, garlic, paprika, and oregano (in that order). Stir well. Drop the heat to medium. While the onions and garlic cook down, chop the zucchini, open the can of beans, and measure out the corn (I usually just dump in a couple of handfuls, but some people like to measure). Add the tomato paste after the onions have had a chance to cook for a couple of minutes, and stir well. This will cause some sticking. This is OK. Essentially, you want to add the onions, chop the zucchini, add the tomato paste, stir, and then open up the cans/measure the corn.

Once the vegetables are chopped, the beans are opened, and the corn is at the ready, crank up the heat to as high as it'll go. Stir vigorously, until the onions are browned slightly, and the house smells awesome. You should hear the onions sizzle loudly by this point, and the bottom of the pot should start catching some of the spices and making it sticky. This is good.

Add the zucchini, and stir completely until the zucchini is lightly browned. Add the beans, the corn, and the cayenne pepper. Stir to combine. Bring to a boil. Turn off the heat, and taste for salt. Because you're using canned beans, which contain a fair bit of salt, you might not need to add any salt. If you do, feel free to adjust as necessary. For better flavour, you can use soy sauce instead of salt.

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I don't typically encourage you to use canned beans, which is why I've included the measurements of beans rather than a particular can size. However, the charm of this recipe is that you can run to the local bodega, grab one or two ingredients, and have food done fairly quickly. If you have a well-stocked pantry, you probably won't even need to hit up the store. If you don't have zucchini, any quick-cooking vegetable will do. Kale would be great. Cauliflower would be lovely too. If you had any leftover cooked vegetables from a previous night, this is a great time to use it up.

The point of this recipe is that you'll have exactly enough food for two people, done very quickly. While the water comes to a boil (in the last step), you could warm up some corn or whole wheat tortillas in a skillet to serve alongside the chili. If you have a pot of brown rice on, that's even better. If you want something fresh on the side, just do a quick salad of a sliced cucumber tossed with a few slices of onions, and a squeeze of lemon juice. If you drain the beans, and add a minimum of water, you'll have a lovely burrito filling.

I'm going to try to post more of the things that I cook during the week, when I'm tired, and it's late. Hopefully, you'll also get inspiration to try something out, and post your results.

Make your food taste restaurant quality delicious.

The food you get in a restaurant tastes the way it is for various reasons. One is the seasoning. Another is the collaboration. Another is the presentation. I'll get into each, so that you all can dish out a very festive meal when the time comes for it.

I cannot emphasize enough the importance of seasoning your food. I'm not even talking about herbs, spices, or anything fancy or esoteric. Just plain salt will ensure that your food tastes right. When it comes to seasoning starchy foods (rice, pasta, potatoes, etc), season as they cook, so that they have a chance to get the salt into there. If it's vegetables and the like, feel free to season once it's done cooking, so that you don't end up with over-salted vegetables. In cases of soups and stews (and especially daal), I tend to wait until the last minute to salt my food, because I don't want to have to account for evaporation and the like throwing off the amount of salt that I've added. Unless you have a recipe that specifies an amount, wait until the end, add a bit of salt, see if that improves things, and keep adding in small amounts until you get to where you're comfortable.

Some people argue that it's better to leave the food unsalted, so that the folk who like more can add more, and those who don't like as much can leave it out. This is good in theory. Unfortunately, in practise, it makes it so that you have the person who's eating leaving things alone to be polite, and quietly choking it down, even though it's bland as hell. I don't know where the stigma behind salting at the table comes from, but it runs pretty strong. Even at home, when my husband and I are having something quick, under-salting is a problem. Rather than adding enough salt to his liking in a dish that's unsalted (which happens by mistake from time to time), he'll flat out avoid it all together until I add some salt to the dish. Then, once he's seen that it does taste good, he's able to adjust up if he wants more than that.

In other words, you need some salt to get the party started, so that people don't avoid the dish all together.

In a good kitchen, there is no space for ego. Yes, there is one person in charge of the whole meal. So what? Everyone can teach you something. No matter how new someone is to cooking, that person still has her/his own opinions on what tastes good. That's why, when we're in a restaurant kitchen, we don't work in a vacuum. Everyone, from the dish person, to the waitstaff, to the line cooks, and the management tastes a new dish. We all give feedback (more salt, too spicy, not enough pepper, not creamy enough, needs more fat, is a bit greasy, odd texture, needs crunch) based on what we like. The person making the dish will incorporate that into the recipe to improve it. It's why a restaurant is able to turn out delicious recipe after delicious recipe.

We're obsessed with food. We talk about it all the time. When we find a new method, or an interesting recipe, the first thing we do is share it with each other. Bossman likes to read magazines and newspapers. He's especially a fan of the food columns in the New York Times, because they provide such a varied set of people with different inspirations. Even if the recipe isn't vegan, we can easily make it vegan. I like YouTube. I like it a lot. My mother and I will watch those cooking channels made by individuals. They've frequently got recipes just as good (if not better) than cookery books. Because they're working in kitchens that are similar to mine (actually, their kitchens are much larger than mine; my home kitchen is tiny), with similar tools, and similar concerns, they'll often come up with neat ideas to do the same thing that I've done a million times. I also enjoy online cooking forums. They'll frequently have other food nerds around, who enjoy eating and cooking. It's a wonderful thing to bounce recipe ideas off a group of people you trust, who will then come back with suggestions to tweak or improve what you've started with.

The point is that even if you don't work in a restaurant kitchen, with multiple brains around you, you can still reach out to others to get that same feedback we get. If you have anyone at all who's interested in food who's helping you to cook, let them taste everything. This is especially good if you have children underfoot. They love to help out (if they're like the children I've met), and are usually thrilled to be asked their opinion on something that you're cooking for a large group. A simple "Hey, can you please check my food for salt", will often be greeted with enthusiasm.

More so than the recipe development or tasting collaboration, a restaurant kitchen has work collaboration. Rarely will I have to make a recipe all by myself, from start to finish, without someone helping me out. Whether it's our amazing dish person, who swoops in and clears off dirty dishes to be cleaned immediately, or my fabulous coworkers, who offer to knock out vegetable chopping tasks, it's a lot more enjoyable to cook when you have help.

Nobody who is helping you is doing an unimportant job. My job would be impossible without someone to help me clean up. I worry about the dish person if he's a little late, because it will bring our production to a screeching halt if we don't have someone who's around to enthusiastically keep the place sparkling clean. Similarly, at home, I really like it when there's someone who's there to keep the dishes from piling up (and pile up they do!), so that at the end of the night, it's a question of just washing the serving plates and the eating plates, rather than the myriad preparation bowls and cookware. If your guests offer to help you clear up, take them up on the offer! If someone offers to help you out in the kitchen, have them do something that will let you concentrate on other tasks that only you can do.

There are times when my boss and I will head into the kitchen together to make something. It's not that the other cooks don't know how to do the tasks I'm doing. It's not even necessarily that they're so busy that they can't lend a hand. Sometimes, the two of us just need some time by ourselves, to talk and get work done at the same time. This happens at home too. When I cook with someone, we tend to talk about things that won't come up in regular conversation. There's a bond that we form over that food preparation that isn't quite the same as any other bond. Something about working together to reach a specific goal just makes that task fun, and meaningful at the same time.

Either way, the point is that if you can get (or recruit) help when you're cooking, by all means, take it.

Finally, there is the point that in a restaurant kitchen, common tasks will be done en masse. If we need to have peeled onions (which we do), we'll peel a 50 pound bag at once, so that the next person going in to reach for onions has some already peeled. If we need chopped ginger and garlic, we'll make 5 pounds at once, so that we'll have chopped ginger or garlic ready and waiting (although here that 5 pounds will only last a day or two tops, you can keep about a couple of heads of chopped garlic, and a palm-sized knob of chopped ginger around for about five days in the fridge). We keep bunches of parsley already chopped, and waiting to go into things as a garnish. In other words, we do the boring bits during the slow times, so that when the crazy times hit, we aren't wasting needless steps on preparing the starting ingredients. It takes me just a few seconds to roughly chop an onion. Once that's done, and I already have chopped garlic and ginger, along with my salt, oil, and a pot, I can get pretty close to any recipe started with the sauteeing or sweating of the onions within a minute or so of prep time (especially since the onions are already peeled). Once those onions go into the pot, it's just a few more seconds of gathering additional ingredients to make my food.

In other words, if you're about to embark on a major holiday spread, have those recipe starters (onions, garlic, chopped celery and carrots, chopped ginger) ready and waiting for you. If you are doing the prep work just a day or two before, feel free to chop the onions, and put them into a zip top bag. Then chop your root vegetables, and soak them in cold water. That way, when the day of arrives, you just have assembly work to do.

Finally, at a restaurant, we pay attention to how your food looks. This isn't just about plating things beautifully. It's about the entire dish itself. For example, if you make a stew or soup, and everything is brown and dark coloured, we'll frequently put something in there to break up that colour monotony. If you have millet, sweet corn, and squash, you're going to end up with something that looks monochromatic. In cases like the millet example, I'll throw some kind of green vegetable into the mix (maybe some broccoli, or chopped kale). If I'm making something of any green, brown, or yellow, I'll generally throw some red in there. There's a reason that so many restaurants will have red peppers in the food: it really pops with red without bleeding onto anything else. When you have beets, or tomatoes, it tends to leak onto other foods. When you have bell peppers, however, you have a sharp blast of colour that's self-contained.

There are many things you can do at home to make your food look and taste as good as the food you get outside. For sure, some restaurants that you go to will bump up the fat content of any meal that they serve you. This is especially true of fast food or chain restaurants. There are diners where they bring in pre-made, mass-produced frozen meals, which they just heat up to serve you. However, people still cheerfully eat them. This is not the sort of "nicer tasting at restaurants" food I'm talking about. I'm talking about those places that make healthy, delicious food, consistently. That's why I didn't just tell you to throw fat at your cooking until it yields.

If you don't have local friends or family who are interested in food, find people online. They exist! If your children are uninterested in helping you cook, at the very least get them into the kitchen with you to taste the food as you cook, so that they get an idea of how a recipe can be tweaked to make it work for you. Especially in the case of massive parties and festivals, have multiple people give you feedback on your dish, until it's exactly where you'd like it to be.

And finally, know that even when you make mistakes, you learn something new. That in itself is a valuable enough reason to get into the kitchen and get to cooking. 

Sprouted Corn & Brown Rice Blinis

EDIT: I thought that my mother would be horrified, but it looks like she's proud! 

another version of adai. but definitely different. kudo MY SON. i keep doing stuff like this to traditional recipes. go dinu.
love you
amma

I love you too, Amma! 

I learnt about blinis while watching this English cooking show called The Two Fat Ladies. Anyone who's lived with me for any length of time will tell you that I obsessively watched cooking shows, and between Julia Child and The Two Fat Ladies, I was fairly happy to while away hours upon hours of time in front of the television. Fortunately, my mother classed cooking shows under "Educational TV", so she didn't really bother much while I would spend all that time watching those shows.

You see, I was always more fond of reading than watching TV, and what TV I did enjoy watching generally involved nature documentaries on PBS, cooking shows on PBS (both Julia Child and Lydia Bastianich were favourites), and when we finally got cable, cooking shows on the food channel. I loved watching the Discovery channel, and looking at all those exotic places that the crews would go to, and watch the narrator quietly explaining what was going on.

So, while we were limited to 2 TV shows per day, there was no limit to the amount of educational TV we were allowed to watch. And, of course, no limit to how much reading we were allowed to do. Even while grounded, my mother would never curtail my watching of documentaries. There's a reason why my mother rarely resorted to grounding. She found that assigning extra chores was a much stronger deterrent.

But I digress (as usual)! On the episode where they were doing this cocktail party for the Brazilian ambassador to England, Clarissa did blinis. She had these darling little miniature pans that she fried them up in, and at the end, served them with sour cream and caviar. I never did get around to making them on my own, because they involved buckwheat flour, which I couldn't easily get my hands on at the time. Fast forward to a few years later, and I'm in New York, living as a vegan, working in a vegan restaurant. I thought back to that episode, and watched it again, thinking to make something interesting and vegan for a special.

It involved large quantities of butter (melted, so I could easily use oil), then milk (soymilk), then eggs with whipped egg whites. I stopped myself, because it was getting to the point where half the recipe was being substituted, and just watched the show, and let the matter drop. Fast forward to a few weeks ago, when I started seriously thinking things over. What is a blini, in essence? It's a slightly fermented batter, made of buckwheat and all purpose flour, combined with some kind of fat, and pan-fried. Easy, right? So what makes the eggs and such necessary? Buckwheat flour and wheat flour will have a tendency to not form a firm cake on its own. It should have bubbles in, because it's fermented overnight, but it wouldn't have enough structure and body to stand up on its own.

What does have enough structure, that is also fermented, and doesn't require binder to stay together? DOSA. The South Indians have been making fermented batters since time immemorial. In fact, they even make unfermented (but sprouted or soaked) bean batters to make various pancakes. Why couldn't I just use a base of a fermented bean and rice batter, stir in cornmeal for structure, let that all ferment for a very short time (enough to rehydrate the cornmeal), and then fry it off? It should work, right?

Off I went.

6 cups brown rice
2 cups urad daal
3 cups chickpeas
2 TB fenugreek seeds (WHOLE)

In one bowl, soak the chickpeas in 12 cups of cold water. In another, soak the brown rice in 9 cups of cold water. To the rice bowl, add the fenugreek seeds. Soak the rice and chickpeas overnight. The next day, soak the urad daal for 2 hours in cold water. While the urad daal soaks, drain the chickpeas and rice, and let them hang out in a bowl, drained. Two hours later, when the urad daal is soaked, drain it as well, and let it sit as well. You'll want your beans and rice to hang out for four or five hours so that they can sprout. That evening, grind SEPARATELY the chickpeas, urad daal, and rice, with enough water to get them down to a fine paste.

Don't worry about how much water you're adding. The batter will not end up watery at the end, because you're going to add other stuff to this as well. Once the three pastes have been formed, mix them together thoroughly with a few pinches of salt. Then, in a warm draft-free place, let the batter ferment (covered with a towel) overnight. If your oven is empty, and turned off, just leave it in there. Make sure to put it into a container large enough that if the mixture expands, it has plenty of room to expand. You want a container at least double the size of your batter.

On hot days, you'll only need about four hours to ferment the batter. On colder days, like in the winter, you'll need overnight at the very least. This is OK. If it IS a hot day, and you won't have time to get to the batter by the time it's done fermenting, feel free to refrigerate it, and ferment it for a day. It'll take longer, but you won't harm the taste any.

Then, when it's all fermented and bubbling away, you'll want to add your additional ingredients, based on what you have. For this particular recipe, I had some good quality stone ground cornmeal. I added that, along with ginger, garlic, salt, black pepper, and sweet corn kernels. I mixed everything together until it was a the consistency of a loose dough. Then, I thinned it out with water enough to get it to pancake batter thickness. You want it thin enough that the batter will spread when it hits the griddle, but not so thin that it becomes a crepe.

This is the most important step, after the fermentation of the initial batter. Because you've added fresh ingredients, you need to give the batter a second ferment, and a chance for the cornmeal to rehydrate in the batter. This way, when you cook it, you won't wind up with overly crunchy bits of cornmeal. It's not pleasant, trust me.

Let the batter ferment and rehydrate for at least four hours. This will get the cornmeal completely hydrated and make the eventual product have a light and fluffy inside. Finally, you're ready to go. Unlike blinis, which will spread on you (and therefore require a small pan in which to fry them) this batter will stay coherent. Heat up your largest griddle to about 400°F, and add some fat of your choice (I used Canola oil). Spoon the batter onto the griddle, spacing them about 2 finger's width apart. You want them a little spread out so that they have a chance to cook up on their own, and not meld into one giant mess. When you see the bubbles forming on the top of the cake, and popping, you'll notice the colour change from a milky white to a pale yellow. That's about when you're ready to flip. Carefully flip the cakes over (stabilising them with your hands, as necessary), and cook on the other side.

Much like a traditional blini, you'll see little holes forming on the cakes, and you'll have a very crispy inside with a light and slightly sourdough tasting inside. They will get more and more crisp as you fry them longer and longer.

If you want a thinner blini, with a more crepe like taste, feel free to grind the feremented batter (containing the corn kernels) in the blender until it's smooth, and spread the batter down with your spoon so that it's thinner.

I feel like the combination of the corn, with the corn kernels, and the ginger and garlic, and the black pepper and salt just have an amazing taste. You bite in, and you get a little hint of sweetness from the corn, a bit of sourness from the fermented batter, and that wonderful garlic and ginger.

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You could, if you have it, use chives, parsley, chopped leafy greens, or whatever other vegetables you like. I just used corn, because summer is almost gone, and I want to enjoy corn while I can. Instead of cornmeal, grits work just as well, as does semolina. It's really important to use the brown rice, because it actually does sprout, and gets improved with the long fermenting. And chickpeas give structure very well, without resorting to weird egg replacers and the like. The fenugreek seeds help the batter to ferment, as does the urad daal. After that, the cornmeal gives the texture a really nice boost, and keeps the cakes high enough.

Leftovers pancake

Last night, as I put away the results of a shopping trip to the Indian store, I was left with tiny amounts of each daal I had bought. I like to store my daal in glass bottles so that they don't get bigs. It means that I always have a tiny bit that will not fit into the bottle.

Instead of finding a bunch of tiny jars, I decided to soak them all overnight and make a batch of adai. This batch has toor daal, urad daal, mung beans, cracked barley, brown rice, poha, and masoor daal (red lentil) soaked overnight in cold water. The next morning, I ground it in the blender with salt, red pepper flakes, coconut, curry leaf, and some water.

They taste amazing.

I've said it once, twice, a million times.

A friend on one of my forums asked a question.

Hey guys, I'm going to be in rural Oklahoma with a large party of omnis for a few weeks next month, and I'd like to make stuff for every meal to share with them (a main course, so I've got what to eat too, I'd make some desserts also, anything really). They're potentially wary of "weird" things (though I'll still make some things with tofu, just strategically hidden). I'm not asking you to do my homework (okay, I kind of am), just give me more ideas.

I'm pathetically a cooking rookie, but I'll tackle anything. Ideally, some simple, fairly quick (or slow but totally worth it) recipes that you think would have success with omnis. Also being in rural Oklahoma means I have limited access to exotic ingredients (...exotic here includes miso paste, tahini, and hummus...and vegan yogurt, and anything else really, you're stuck eating sprayed carrots and corn from a can -- I digress!). If you've got a killer recipe that calls for something less Wal-Mart-standard, there's a Whole Foods an hour's drive away -- I would sacrifice myself for cuisine!

OK here goes. I'm not going to tell you to get fake meats (big surprise) or weird spices (that actually is a big surprise). Use what's in the pantry, and what you can find at any grocery store, and that tastes good and people can easily make, so that when you leave, they may very well be tempted to try their own hand at it. I've discussed this technique so many times, but it's still not getting out there, so I'll keep at it till it does.

Start with vegetables of any kind. Get them into equally sized pieces. As long as they're the same size (roughly) you should be fine. Get a dish, and pour in some spices that you have. Paprika is good, dried herbs like basil and sage are both really good, and if they have curry powder, seasoned salt, chile powder, mrs. dash, or any other herb or spice blend, be lazy and use that instead. Add a bit of salt (to taste), a bit of black pepper, and oil. Mix the oil and spices together. Then, toss your vegetables in the spices and oil, and bake at 350 for 20 minutes, or until tender. Check them at 20 minutes, and if they're not tender yet, let it go for another 10. Then check every ten minutes or so till it's done to your liking. Quick cooking veg, like courgette or squash or dark leafy greens without stems (you heard right--this works for leaves too) can take as little as 15 minutes. Long cookers, like whole potatoes, yams, butternut squash, or sweet potatoes, can take as long as 1 hour. Most vegetables, like broccoli, cauliflower, dark leafy greens with stems, carrots, rutabaga, daikon, and other such high-water vegetables will take about 25 - 30 minutes.

I do not kid you when I say that the smells are fantastic. If you are going this route for dark leafy greens, go ahead and put some foil over the baking sheet, so as to allow the greens to steam themselves, and prevent drying out. While you're at it, don't make just one variety. If you have a bunch of different things, and you make the same (or different) spice and oil combos for each one, and bake them in their own little dishes, and then serve a side of rice and beans, you've got a very filling meal going down, with very little effort.

With just this basic technique, you're hitting gluten free, soy free, nut free, and pretty damn near every other allergen free, barring the freaky ones that people make up to be unique and special. And it's easy. And it's low in fat and calories. And it smells and looks fantastic. AND it works for frozen or fresh vegetables. You heard me right. Frozen works fine too. Just avoid tinned veg.

To round it out (with the beans and rice as mentioned), sautee some onion (a medium one, diced is great) in a bit of oil. When the onion turns brown, throw in some of those herbs and spices you used for the vegetables. If you have access to curry powder or turmeric, throw in a bit of that as well to make lovely yellow rice. Then, throw in the rice (about 2 cups), and toss it through with the onions, oil, and spices, until the rice gets toasty, and smells slightly nutty. At that point, dump in a tin of beans of your choice (with the liquid) and wash out the tin with water, and pour that in as well. Then add one more tin's worth of water, and let the water all come to a rolling boil. Turn down the heat to a simmer, slam on the lid, and let it cook slowly for 20 minutes or so. Turn off the heat after 20 minutes, and let it sit there with the lid shut for 10 minutes, while you do other stuff. This is 10,000 times easier in a rice cooker, as you just have to dump everything in, and hit the start button. If it's not cooked enough, let it cook longer over low heat, with some extra added water. If you're using brown rice, increase the cooking time to 40 minutes.

He said that it seems quite doable, and accessible. Anyone else agree?

Mid Week Feast

Kale with coconut milk, curry powder, and scallions. I put the beets in there to cook, because the greens were done too fast. Baked at 350 for 45 minutes.

Broccoli with coconut oil and sesame seeds. Tossed in a bit of cumin powder and turmeric powder. Baked at 350 for 20 minutes.

Beet greens, stewed in a bit of water and their own juices. Seasoned with ginger and garam masala. Baked for 25 minutes.

Snow peas with ginger and mint. Tossed in a bit of oil, and baked for 20 minutes.

Rasam. It's in the book.

All said and done, the prep time took the longest, because washing and chopping all those masses of vegetables in a tiny kitchen can take some time, but after it was all put together, it took five seconds to dump everything into the oven. That was well worth it. If you were making this for two people eating one meal, it would only take like 10 minutes of prep, and then dump everything in the oven. The broccoli and snow peas may be done in the microwave, if you wish. The beet greens as well. The kale really needs the oven to develop proper flavour. I didn't get to see the kale finish cooking, because I had to leave for work, so I asked Steve to turn off the oven when it beeped. He said it was fantastic.

Mid week feast.

I don't know if this will become a regular feature, but I guess I'll give you guys a peek at this week's mid-week feast. It's a special cooking I do during the middle of the week, to lift up my spirits (because I love to cook), and Steve (because it gives him something of a change, and makes the house smell nice). This week's mid-week feat was simple, but tasty.

I had a few yuccas lying about, along with a few heads of cabbage, some onions, a lot of garlic, some tomato, and sweet potato. I peeled and chopped up the sweet potato (1 large one) into large (about 3 cm cubed) pieces, and set it in a pot of cold water. I set it onto the stove to boil. While that water came up to heat, I peeled the yucca, and set that in a pot of cold water. Set that on the stove to boil as well. Then, I chopped up 1 1/2 heads of cabbage, and the onions I had left. Then I minced up a head of garlic. I then got to cooking. By the time the onions, garlic, and cabbage were prepped, the sweet potatoes were just tender.

That's when the magic started to happen. On went some oil into a screaming hot skillet. In went some mustard seeds, cumin seeds, and sesame seeds. In went a bit of coconut oil, to fortify the smell and taste of the Canola. The house started to fill up with the heady aroma of the coconut oil, and the lovely spices. In went the sweet potatoes, a hefty hit of salt, and a bit of turmeric, black pepper, and cinnamon. I rounded it out with a good scraping of nutmeg.

I then continued to cook the sweet potatoes until they developed a rich, decadent crust on them. They browned every so nicely. I had to drop down the heat to medium low, and let them sit for a few minutes to move them around, but so what? The crust was developing. Then, I finished it off with some garlic, onion, and flaked coconut. That only boosted the smell even more.

By that point, the yucca was done. So I drained that, and chopped it up. In that same wok, I threw in some more oil, mustard seeds, and cumin seeds. When they popped, I dumped in the cabbage, along with some salt, and black pepper, and some red chili flakes. I sauteed that around for about ten minutes. That went off the heat into its serving bowl.

Finally, I had the chopped yucca, some tinned beans, the rest of my onions and garlic, and a hankering for a hearty stew. In went the mustard seeds, cumin seeds, and coriander seeds (crushed) with the screaming hot fat. In went the onions and garlic. When they browned, I threw in one tin of drained and rinsed black eyed peas, and a tin of pink beans (with the liquid it came in). I sauteed the beans around in the hot oil and spices, and slated it generously. Then in went the yucca, the yucca's cooking liquid, and some red chili flakes. The smells got even more heady, as the yucca cooked up, and the spices got more aromatic.

While this whole thing was going down, I had a pot of rice going in my rice cooker. All said and done, it took about 40 minutes from start to finish. Hope this inspires some of you to try your own mid week feasts.

CREAMY DRESSING OF DOOM OMG

So I have a couple of heads of romaine lettuce, and a few other random veg lying about the fridge. I had today off from work, so I decided to cook up a bit of a feast for lunch. First, I set the lentils that I'd soaked overnight on the boil. Then, I cooked up some aubergine for Puppy. I used fennel seed, cardamom (1 pod), sesame seed, and cumin seed. The recipe is in the book. Then I cooked up some cabbage, and used mustard seed, coriander seed, cumin seed, and sesame seed, with a bit of turmeric for colour. Finally, I composed the salad. I used two heads of romaine, two small Jordan cucumbers, grated carrot, fresh summer squash, chickpeas, Kalamata olives, onions, and of course, the creamy dressing of doom. It changes shape every time I make it, but it's got a similar base of hummus. This time, I amped up the flavour profile to be a little more adventurous.

I started with 1/2 cup of chickpeas (the other 1/2 cup went into the salad itself), and a small handful of raw cashews. I first whizzed up the cashews in the food processor until they were ground as finely as they would go (almost a powdery thing). Then, I dumped in the chickpeas, as if I were going to make a hummus. I let the food processor run until the cashews and chickpeas became a solid mass of paste of delicious. Then I added a sprinkle of salt, a scant teaspoon of oil, and let the food processor rip again. Every time I open the top of the food processor, I had to scrape down the sides, because I wanted everything to come together neatly. It was still at a thick paste stage.

Now comes the fun part.

I dumped in a heaped teaspoon of my own home made grain mustard. It has a kick like horseradish, which I hate, but a wonderful peppery back note that I love. Also, since I had so much chickpea and cashew to offset, I knew I'd be fine. Then in went the juice of one lime. Always remember to be conservative when you're building a good dressing, because you can add, but you can't take away. I let the food processor rip again. By this point, it was starting to resemble a very thick hummus.

I tasted it for seasoning, after grinding till the mustard was combined through, and almost fell over in bliss. It was such a strong, bold dressing. It was creamy, but sassy. It had boldness but with a soft touch. It was beautifully balanced, and I didn't even need to add any vinegar! Just had to use my cashews, chickpeas, salt, mustard, and lime juice. (Side note: next time, I'll add the zest of the lime as well to amp up the flavour even more.)

Unfortunately, beautiful as it was, it was also way too thick to use as a dressing. I ran the food processor at full blast while I very slowly drizzled in some water, allowing the last bit to emulsify in before adding more. I'd say if you went with a teaspoon at a time, you'll be safe. I think (but don't hold me to it or do the same thing) I ended up with about 1/4 cup of water in total, but I could be mistaken, because I tend to eyeball these things, and before I have a chance to measure what I've done, the dressing ended up perfect. I did stop a few times to check the texture.

All this took about five minutes flat. It just seems like it took longer, because I wanted you to have the experience with me, and share along in the discovery. I'm eating the salad now, and I must say that it's a beautiful matching. The best part is that because the dressing has such a strong taste, I'm not tempted to use too much, and drown my salad in dressing. Instead, the leaves are gently coated with a fine layer of silky dressing.

Give this one a shot if you like creamy dressing. For the first time you do it, leave out the mustard, or use a mild dijon mustard, and go with a scant teaspoon. The dressing does not need the mustard; I just added it because I wanted to make something different from how I've been doing it all this time.

By the by, this dressing would have also been wonderful with the addition of a clove or two of garlic, and a scant 1/2 teaspoon of curry powder. If you don't like cashews, walnuts, pecans, or hazelnuts would work fine. Macadamia nuts would work, but it'd be a bit extravagant to use macadamia nuts in a dressing! Brazil nuts would work, but you would leave out the fat, as Brazil nuts are very high in their own fat. Pistachios would work, only if you don't mind the colour being a very mild pale green. Peanuts might work, but I'd suggest that you use peanut butter, and not whole peanuts.

Try it out, and tell me how it goes for you!

I mention the chickpea dressing here.

Pictures of the salad and the dressing:

Sauce interview, Pt 5

OK, last two questions (for now!) …

Any favorite or little-known-but-fantastic-and-easy tips for using spices and ready-made sauces you want to share?

Any words of encouragement for people who, for one reason or another – lack of experience, bad luck in the past, intimidated by TV chefs, whatever – still may lack the confidence to try out things in the kitchen?

Finally, not a question, but thanks so much for imparting all this information and enthusiasm for healthy, natural, delicious, peaceful foods. Much appreciated, and I hope we can do it again sometime.

Any favorite or little-known-but-fantastic-and-easy tips for using spices and ready-made sauces you want to share?
The microwave, of course!

Whenever I'm in a severe rush, I'm never embarrassed to use the microwave. Heck, sometimes I use it even when I'm not in a hurry. There's nothing wrong with setting a pot of rice to cook in the rice cooker, chopping up a bunch of root vegetables (yams, potatoes, what have you), tossing them with some oil, and your spice blend (Mrs. Dash, curry powder, garam masala, whatever), and letting it rip in the microwave for a while. As for sauces, I tend to save those for occasions when a large pot of soup or stew is coming up flat for some reason. Suppose you've just made a fairly large vegetable stew. At the end, you taste for seasoning, and you notice that it's all well cooked and such, but it's severely lacking in flavours. This is when you start experimenting (quickly) with your ready made sauces. Grab a few small bowls, and ladle a bit of stew into them. Line up your sauces, and try each bowl with a different one. Once you've found the combination you like, start pitching it into the pot! It will taste fine soon enough!

The reason I use sauces in this manner, is because they've already been processed in such a way that the flavours are already well developed. Spice blends, on the other hand, are in a sort of suspended animation, and are waiting to release their stuff. This is why I suggest the dry cooking in the microwave: the fast cooking speed is hot enough to pull out the flavour of the spices quickly. Don't be afraid of substituting a different sauce for a different purpose. For example, if all this time, you've only had sweet potatoes with cinnamon, sugar, and a dash of nutmeg, why not give them a shot of barbecue sauce, and see where the adventure takes you? If you've only used soy sauce (or tamari) in stir fry dishes, why not try soy sauce over steamed vegetables? Start thinking outside of the box. These ready made sauces are meant specifically to work with a wide range of foods. Chances are, you'll hit on something new that you like.

Any words of encouragement for people who, for one reason or another – lack of experience, bad luck in the past, intimidated by TV chefs, whatever – still may lack the confidence to try out things in the kitchen?
Don't look at the intimidating ones, but think of the most popular ones. Julia Child. Martin Yan (Yan Can Cook!). Graham Kerr. Rachel Ray. What did all these people have in common? For one thing, their shows are filmed live. You could see when they made mistakes, and have accidents. For another thing, they stressed that you try to have a knowledge of what you're doing, rather than have a strict adherence to specific amounts and rules.

I don't think I've ever seen Julia Child measure food in her show. She just knew what it looked like in the dish, because she knew that it's not going to make a huge difference if she got a little more or a little less in the pan. She can always adjust later, as needed. Look at Rachel Ray. She doesn't pull out measuring spoons; she tells you to "eyeball" it. The reason that these TV cooks are popular is because they're showing you how to prepare food in the way that most people do in their own homes. Even though they're all following recipes, they still don't bother being all that retentive about it, because that's how you learn. I remember being in the kitchen with my mother. The two of us would be keeping up a steady stream of chatter while working on the food. Sometimes, we'd make a fairly big mistake ("oops! I forgot to chop the onions, mom." "Well, leave it out then."), and in the end, it wasn't that huge a deal.

One such time was this Friday night that we were rushing to get dinner ready. We had more people than we thought we would, and were rushing, because they were set to arrive soon. Usually, in a proper daal, you have to chop up some onions, some garlic, some tomato, cilantro, curry leaves, and set up a series of five or six spices. Everything needs to be there to give an authentic feeling. That evening, we hadn't the time to bother with all that. Instead, in her panic, my mother toasted some cumin seeds in hot oil, and added the lot of the cooked beans when she heard them pop. She didn't even bother adding salt. Similarly on my side, I didn't have time to make my cabbage, which involves onions, carrots, cabbage, and two or three spices, along with curry leaves. Instead, I just did the grated cabbage, grated carrot, some chopped onions, lemon juice, and some curry leaves raw, and tossed it all together.

This is all because the two of us didn't do anything in advance. Before leaving the kitchen, we set the rice cooker to get going, and ran to greet the guests. It was as if the food was high gourmet. Everyone had third helpings, and was raving about the food! There were other times when the mistakes would give us either over salted (meaning, you have to double the quantity of food, and add a bit of lemon), over cooked (add water, call it a soup), undercooked (sprinkle on just enough water to dampen, microwave until cooked through), or bland (liberally add in any sort of Chile sauce you can handle; Cholula is the best, because it has heat and lots of spices), or burned (gently pour out just exactly what's not burned, and don't scrape the bottom; soak the pot in water and soap; reseason the salvaged part to your liking, using some sort of BBQ sauce or such, which goes well with a smoky taste, then call it cajun).

These things happen to everyone, because that's the nature of the beast. The important thing is to avoid panicking, and work with it. I can't remember how many times I'd mix up the sugar for the salt, and sprinkle some in, and get very odd looks from my mother at the dinner table. We'd salvage it by adding some sour (tamarind, lemon, lime, what have you), and a bit of extra heat (cayenne, black pepper, ground chilly), and the actual salt itself. There's a reason that in my own home now, I refuse to use anything else but Turbinado sugar, and Kosher salt! Can't confuse those two, right? Here's a couple of ways to avoid disaster:

1. Until you're highly adept in the kitchen, don't let the dial go on anything higher than medium to start. That is, when you heat up oil, or pop spices, or do anything else that involves a naked pan + whatever you're adding, start at medium heat. This way, you'll understand how the pot reacts to the amount of oil you have in there. I generally start at medium when I'm in an unfamiliar kitchen for the same reason: I don't know how their cookware and stoves do things until I've gotten the hang of it. Sometimes, if the pots are very thin, and the stove is very hot, I'll mentally re-calibrate the dial. Medium is the new high, and so on.

2. Once your stove is above low heat, don't leave the room. I'm seriously not joking on this one. The reason is that the boiling point of water is 100ºC. Since water resists change in temperature very well, you can more or less count on the food in the pot staying at this temperature for the most part. However, once water has left, there is no compelling reason for the pot to remain at 100º. Instead, you'll see the temperature climb extremely rapidly, to the burning point. Soon, your smoke detector is screaming, and your family is coughing.

Just stay put. If the phone rings, or doorbell rings, and your stove is on high, turn the heat off, and handle those other things. It's better to come back to it, and pick up where you left off, rather than leave things a smoking mess. If you are an experienced cook, and are simmering a large pot of food over the lowest heat setting (such as when cooking beans, or making a Chile), feel free to cover the lid of the pot, and set a timer for about 30 minutes or so.

I use the timer in my microwave (press timer, set the amount of time you need it to time, then press timer again). I can then sit down with a book, or surf the internet for a while. I won't watch TV, because the sound of the TV will drown out the sound of the timer. When my timer goes off, I'll check on the food, and keep cooking, or set the timer for a bit longer, and relax. The point is that you don't have to babysit the kitchen the entire time you're cooking, if it's a long, slow-cooking food, but when you're in a hurry, be there to pay attention to what's going on.

3. Use the built in timer for your oven. With the oven, we often forget that it's there, because it's enclosed, and doesn't really make itself known too much. Instead of risking that, just read the manual of your stove, and figure out how to set the timer. If you have lost your manual, type into Google "how to set oven timer for ________" with the brand name of your oven. Something is bound to show up!

4. Clearly label, in BIG letters, your spices. A simple piece of white paper, taped onto the jar, will do the trick. Why? Because sometimes, you can't find your glasses. Sometimes, you're in a rush, and don't look too closely at the white powdered spice (which is baking soda, not powder, or sugar, not salt), and you sprinkle some in, thinking that you'll be fine. The food comes out, and everyone looks confused.

5. Try to keep your spices and sauces in roughly the same place every time. Don't let people take it out of that spot, if you can help it. If you use ketchup in everything, it'll be a good idea to have it in the same spot in your fridge every time you need it, so that you don't have to go searching for it. Similarly, with your other spices, if you keep them in easy reach, you'll remember to use them, and you'll know where to find them. I don't let people take my salt or pepper out of the kitchen. Instead, I measure out enough for that meal, and keep it in a separate container on the table. This way, I won't have to go searching for my salt box the next time I need it. It'll be right there, where it's always sitting.

6. Before flipping on the stove, try to have most of everything waiting for you. That is, if the recipe calls for crushed garlic, a bag of green peas, some Mrs. Dash, and some oil, try to have those things all in one spot, relatively close by. In fact, open the bag of peas, crush the garlic, and have the jar of Mrs. Dash open before flipping on the stove. You'll thank yourself later when you're not fumbling around. These guidelines should give you an insurance policy against mess-ups in the future. It won't prevent them completely, but it'll certainly help avoid major disasters. Trust me when I say that even the most experienced chefs have disasters. We just make it work for us.

Finally, not a question, but thanks so much for imparting all this information and enthusiasm for healthy, natural, delicious, peaceful foods. Much appreciated, and I hope we can do it again sometime.
For sure! This was pretty much what I'm very much suited to, right? Glad you enjoyed it as much as I did.

Sauce interview, Pt 4

Awesome, thanks!

I hear you on Mexican food. It's like asking how to make music sound Mexican. Are we talking mariachi, tejano, ranchera, or norteno? I'm also with you on corn tortillas. But not asparagus. :) Thanks also for introducing the versatility of coconut milk into the discussion.

Next set of questions has to do with spices that most U.S. households are likely to have accumulated over the years, for one reason or another, even if no one does much cooking. I want to ask you if you have any simple ideas for using these spices. Again, just to limit the scope, I'd like to focus on vegetables primarily and fruits and grains secondarily, but if there is a "you must know about this" tip you'd like to share that doesn't fit into those categories, don't hold back!

Cayenne pepper or similar
Chile powder
Cinnamon
Garlic powder
Onion powder
Oregano
Parsley

Not quite as ubiquitous, but still very common:
Basil
Bay leaf
Cumin
Dill

We should probably include sauces that are found in most refrigerators, as well, eh?
BBQ sauce
Soy sauce
Szechuan sauce or similar
Tabasco sauce or similar

Let's do it.

Cayenne pepper or similar
Ever seen that lovely film called Chocolat? If not, go rent it now. The next time you make a cup of hot chocolate or coffee, throw in just a pinch of cayenne. You'll never be able to go back to the sickeningly sweet stuff that passes for good hot chocolate nowadays.

Barring that, there is no Chile recipe that would do without at least a pinch of cayenne. You need it for the fiery Southeast Asian cuisines of Thailand. In fact, to be honest, I find that cayenne is just a lovely addition to any sweet-and-sour combo, to offset the sweet. Say for instance, you're starting off with a mess of stir-fry vegetables, right? Suppose you start with some screaming hot peanut oil in a skillet, and add carrots, onions, peppers, bamboo shoots (from the tin; who has time to bother with fresh!?), scallions, sprouts, cabbage, and whatever other vegetable stirs (haha) your imagination. Suppose you add a healthy splash of tamari, or soy sauce. Suppose then, to offset the salty taste, you add in a healthy splash of orange juice. Then, to offset the sweetness, you add a very generous splash of lemon juice. When all is said and done, you're talking basic, yummy, and vibrantly coloured food. However, there are those of us who like a bit of adventure when we're eating stuff that we've probably had before.

Enter the cayenne.

Just a light sprinkle of cayenne, along with some crushed peanuts, will transport your stodgy stir-fry from back-alley fast food into an orgy of flavour. If you can possibly imagine a fiery edge to the next batch of stir-fry you pick up from your local Chinese fast food place (which typically runs on the sweeter and saltier side), you're sure to do like my mother does, and carry a batch of hot chilly powder with you anywhere you go.

Chile powder
There is the spice blend that contains (amongst other spices): cumin, garlic powder, onion powder, coriander, some tiny trace of ground chilly, and other spices. This is usually what I think of when I hear "Chile Powder". It's the stuff you use when making ... well ... a Chile! Starting with about a kilo of onions, a kilo of carrots, and 1/2 kilo of bell peppers, and a head of garlic is the perfect beginning to a good, strong Chile. In the largest pot you have, heat up a few tablespoons of oil. You might need up to 1/4 of a cup of oil. Use a neutral flavoured oil, like Canola, peanut, or safflower oil.

When the oil is hot, add the onions, carrots, peppers, and garlic. Drop down the flame to as medium, and allow the vegetable combination to cook for as long as it takes to get medium brown. You want the onions, garlic, and peppers chopped into a rough chop, and the garlic to be whole (for a milder garlic flavour), or minced (for a stronger garlic flavour). When the whole lot is the colour you desire, pitch in about 1 1/2 kilos of tinned, diced tomatoes, and a good handful of Chile powder. Turn up the heat to as high as it will go, and allow most of the water from the tomato tin to evaporate. Once you're down to about 1/4 of the original liquid from the tin, add a healthy slurp of tequila or dark rum. This step is optional. Add in about 3 kilos of cooked beans (as in, they weigh three kilos when you're done cooking them; start with about 1 1/2 kilos of dry beans to get to this level, or use tinned; both are equally fine). You can use all of one bean, like pinto, black, kidney, or pink beans, or combine them in any way you deem fit. You can omit the liquid from the tin, or add it in. It depends on your preference for how thick you like your Chile.

Let the whole mess come to a full, rolling boil, and let it cook for about 10 more minutes. Add one ounce or so of unsweetened chocolate, or an ounce of cocoa powder (unsweetened). Let the whole lot cook for about 10 more minutes, and eat!

Barring that, Chile powder is wonderful when sprinkled onto yams, yucca, sweet potatoes, squash, eggplant, chickpeas, potatoes, or any other hearty vegetable that you fancy. To prepare, simply mix 1 tablespoon of Chile powder with 1 tablespoon of oil. Toss about 1 pound of your vegetable (or chickpeas, if you're feeling adventurous!) in the spice and oil mixture. Throw it in the microwave for about 10 - 15 minutes, or in the oven at 350º F for about 30 - 45 minutes. If it's a tough veggie, let it cook longer. You now have a quick and delicious entree to dump onto bread, rice, or pasta, or eat by itself.

Cinnamon
The reason that apples and cinnamon are a cliche is because the two of them work so well together. Barring that, the next time you make the Chile recipe I mentioned, feel free to pitch in a teaspoon or so of cinnamon with the Chile powder. Also, any time you do sweet potatoes with maple syrup, you have to add a healthy dose of cinnamon for the taste to come out clearly. My morning oatmeal would be incomplete without cinnamon, as would my coffee, and hot chocolate.

Garlic powder
I tend to reserve garlic powder for when I want to punch up a jarred pasta sauce. I'll throw some olive oil into a skillet, throw in the jarred pasta sauce, throw in a few shakes of garlic powder, and let the mess come together in about five minutes. When it's done, I'll dump in the fresh pasta, and the taste is just as if I've been slaving over a hot stove. Additionally, whenever I am sauteeing onions for a recipe, and the recipe doesn't call for garlic, I'll throw some garlic powder into the sautee, to punch up the overall taste. Ditto this on whenever I make a cocoanut cream sauce. I'll start with the traditional roux (1 TB of oil, 1 TB of flour, heat over low heat until light blond, then pitch in 1 cup of cocoanut milk, then add a pinch of nutmeg and garlic powder), and do my magic when the sauce forms.

Onion powder
Ew. Wait, people actually BUY this stuff? Ew. Just. Ew. The flavour is far inferior to garlic powder, and onions are cheap and readily available enough that this travesty of the spice world should really go crawl into some corner and die.

Oregano
Remember the pasta sauce example? Same here. Throw in some oregano to punch it up. Same with the Chile powder example, where I mention adding 1 TB Chile powder to 1 TB oil? Try throwing in oregano with those veggies. Also, any Chile recipe will be complemented extremely well by oregano. Simply add it with the onions and garlic and peppers. Any recipe that calls for tomatoes will do well with oregano. Any recipe with root vegetables, but not a lot else will do well with oregano. The next time you make corn chowder, try some oregano in it; your tongue will thank you. Any bean recipe will love oregano. Crumble the dry leaves in your palm before you add it to your pot, so that you release the maximum flavour.

Parsley
Any time I have a sautee going, with onions, garlic, and/or other aromatics (carrots, peppers, etc), I add lots and lots of dried parsley if I have it. Just like oregano, crumble it in your palm before adding it in. Come to think of it, pretty darn near any savoury dish does well with a healthy (and I do mean healthy!) dose of dry parsley. I find that I need about a handful or so for the impact to come through in a pot of food meant for 4 - 6 people.


Not quite as ubiquitous, but still very common:

Basil
Always use wherever there are tomatoes present. Use generously in Thai food, or any other recipe which calls for hot ingredients, or creamy ingredients (like cocoanut or cocoanut milk).

Bay leaf
Never let a soup happen without some bay leaf in it. Ever. Bear in mind, however, that bay leaves are not digestible, and need to be removed before you serve the food. Also remember that bay leaves take some serious time to impart their flavours, so use it mainly in long-cooking curries, or soups, rather than quickie foods. Will do extremely well in my Chile recipe, if you add it with the sauteeing aromatics.

Cumin
Always use cumin in Chile, to punch up the "mexican" flavour. Use with refried beans to /give/ it flavour; often the stuff in the tin or from the restaurant is fairly boring. Use generously with any root vegetable. Use with any Indian dish.

If you have cumin seeds, you are especially lucky. The next time you make a savoury dish, start like the Indians do. In a large pot, heat up a tablespoon or so of oil. Sprinkle in 2 teaspoons of cumin seeds. Wait about 30 seconds or so, and your house will fill with the mouth-watering smell of cumin. The seeds will begin to jump and pop. Add about 2 cups of uncooked, long grain rice (or any other vegetable you feel like cooking). Drop down the heat to medium heat, and gently cook the grains of rice (or vegetable) until you smell a nutty aroma (or until the veggie is browned). Add in about 4 cups of water. Increase the heat to high heat, and allow the water to come to a full, rolling boil. Let the water boil for about two or three minutes. Slam on a tight-fitting lid (or aluminum foil, if you don't have the lid), and decrease the heat to as low as it will go. Set a timer for 25 minutes. After 25 minutes, turn off the heat, and remove the pot from the heat. Allow the rice (or vegetable) to rest for about 10 minutes. Uncover the pot, and dig in! It's fabulous. This same technique can be used to make split pea soup. Just add about 3 cups per cup of water, and skip the browning step.

Cumin has anti-gas properties, which is why Indians use the spice so generously whenever they make cruciferous vegetables (cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli), or beans.

Dill
To be honest, dill is one of those few herbs that I rarely use when it's dried, because the fresh and dried version are so different, that I tend to avoid the dried. When you have the fresh, it's perfect in salad, and other raw applications. Throw some onto sliced cucumbers, with a dash of lemon, for the best summer treat ever. Combine it with hummos for an unusual flavour combo. Have it with tomatoes, parsley, and lemon, and you'll never want cooked tomato again!

Dry dill, on the other hand, is a lot more sober, and subdued. I'd use it in any application where dry parsley is appropriate.

BBQ sauce
Use for dipping French cut fries, or slices of baked potato or baked sweet potato. Slather onto mature plantain, and bake in the oven for a smoky, sweet treat. Rub onto slices of eggplant, and grill. Use as a marinade for portabello mushrooms, and grill.

Soy sauce/Tamari
Use in place of salt in recipes calling for salt. Switch to Tamari, if you're gluten free. Switch to low sodium, and see if you can really tell that much of a difference (why eat the extra salt if you don't have to!). Combine with various fruit juices, citrus, and/or spices to create your own marinades for various vegetables. When making tomato sauce, use a capful of soy sauce to counteract the tinny flavour of tinned tomato. When making a vegetable stock, add a few shakes to give the stock a much deeper, richer colour. Use for dipping of steamed vegetables.

Szechuan sauce or similar
It reminds me too much of snot to take it seriously. ::shudder::

Tabasco sauce or similar
Sriracha, Tabasco, and other fiery sauces should be on hand for those who like a bit of a kick with their food. Any time you do sweet-and-sour applications, have a touch of heat to offset the cloying sweetness that is so typical of the sweet and sour craze. Always have hot sauce on hand to combine with ketchup (and, in my house, freshly minced raw garlic) for a fabulous dipping sauce for French cut fries, and tater tots. (Yes, tater tots and other fried foods aren't healthy, but if you're having them, you might as well enjoy them, right!?) Add a fiery kick to your Chile by adding a bit of hot sauce at the table, before you dig in to eat. If you're like my husband, you'll like to have it on pretty close to everything.

Coriander powder:
For those who dislike, or are allergic to cumin, coriander powder is an ideal substitute. It's got the same smoky aroma, but a much more subtle flavour.

Sesame Seeds:
I would never let my kitchen exist without sesame seeds. I add them to hot oil before adding my aromatics (when I sautee aromatics). I add them to hot oil along with cumin seeds to release the flavour of both spices into the oil, before cooking vegetables. If I'm making (cooked) garbanzo beans, I /always/ add a good dose of sesame seeds, paprika, and olive oil, before pitching the lot into the oven for 15 minutes (at 350 F). I could never dream of a soup, stew, or bean dish without some bit of sesame seeds. Because they're high in Iron, I don't even feel guilty about the negligible extra fat they add.

As a note, there are three different varieties of sesame seeds. For the purposes I mention here, any of the three will work just fine.

Sauce interview, Pt 3

Thanks so much, Dino. Lots of information there! Definitely some stuff I didn't know. Oil is really its own subculture of cooking, is it not? Understand how to use oil and it seems like you're halfway there. [Dino's note: Whether it be oil, water, steam, or dry heat, it's paramount to know the different mediums of cooking. It's why I am so careful to specify which method to use in the recipes on here and in the book: it really does make a difference in the final food. Oil is but one of the cooking media.]

Thanks also for the "start small and gradually increase" recommendation on unfamiliar spices. Now let me get into some more specifics; these may be slightly random. For these next questions, I'm thinking about spices and sauces that easy to find.

First, I'm interested in spices or spice blends and/or off-the-shelf sauces that can be used to produce the flavors below. For simplicity's sake - and to fit in with our recent theme of vegetable - let's concentrate on vegetable dishes, maybe together with rice or other grains, or on a sandwich.

Suppose I want a Mexican feel?
What about Thai?
Down-home or soul food?
Barbecue / smoky?

Second...I'm interested in any favorite spices and sauces you have for the following vegetables. Let's say I'm quickly cooking up some frozen vegetables (nuking, steaming, pan-frying, etc.) as a side dish. It's a busy weeknight and I don't have any time to make anything elaborate, but I want to add a little something from the spice rack or cabinet.

Asparagus
Broccoli
Peas
Green Beans (One suggestion from me: A bit of Hoisin sauce. It works great.)

When there are times that you want to have a certain ethnic cuisine, but you can't be arsed to delve into the seedy underbelly of weird ingredients or expensive/time consuming stuff, you will need to guesstimate the experience of such cuisines.

Suppose I want a Mexican feel?
Mexican food is so difficult to classify, because there are so many regional variations, based on distance from the sea, the USA, and mixture of cultures in that particular place. However, there are some baseline foods that really feel Mexican, when you incorporate them into your regular food. For example, if you ever buy a wheat tortilla again (to have a Mexican feel), I will personally come to your door, and smack you with said tortillas. ALWAYS buy 100% corn tortillas. Wheat didn't show up in Mexico until long after the Conquistator oppressors showed up. Until that point, the native Mexcians made tortillas from corn.

Get. Corn. Tortillas.

Instead of lemon juice, use lime juice. Use lots of garlic, onions, tomatoes, and cilantro. Use cumin. For example, say you want to have a quickie bean burrito. Open up a tin of black beans. Drain them, and rinse them off lightly. Pitch them into the bowl of a food processor. Add some olive oil, lime juice, and cumin powder. Pulse until everything is ground down to a paste. Chop up an onion, mince a clove of garlic, mince up a chilly (be it poblano, jalapeno, or whatever heat you can take in terms of chilly). Dump the onion, garlic, and chilly into a bowl. Add a generous squeeze of lime juice. Dice up a roma tomato, and pitch that into the bowl as well. Mince up a bunch of cilantro (use parsley if you hate cilantro), and throw that into the bowl as well. Top off the concoction with some ground black pepper, a touch of salt, and about 8 oz of tinned corn (drained, of course). Quickly toast up a corn tortilla. Spread the ground black beans onto the tortilla. Top it with your salad of tomatoes and corn. Fold it in half, and enjoy!

What about Thai?
To someone from Thailand, there is no such thing as too hot or too garlicky. Get used to using lots and lots of heat and garlic.

Say you want a quick curry. In a skillet, heat up some oil. Add a diced onion. Sautee the onion until it's soft. Pitch in as much minced garlic as you can handle. Add some chopped up green beans, some minced ginger, and a healthy dose chopped tomato. When the vegetables are cooked, throw in a few tablespoons of cocoanut milk. Add a generous squeeze of lemon juice, some chopped chilly peppers, and a whole tonne of chopped cilantro. Serve the curry over rice.

Down-home or soul food?
Soul food is concerned with taking cheap ingredients, and making them taste really great. To make some quick collard greens, all you need is a bit of oil, lots of garlic, and some Old Bay seasoning. Chop your collard greens roughly. In the bottom of an enormous pot, heat some oil. Add the greens. Stir the greens around in the hot fat, so that every green is coated in a bit of the fat. When everything is coated, add a generous dose of Old Bay seasoning. Stir the greens around some more to combine them with the seasoning. Add in just enough water so that the first inch or so of the pot is filled. Add the garlic. Cover the lid of the pot, and drop down the heat to as low as it'll go. Let the greens steam for about five to ten minutes. Remove the lid, and stir everything around again. Serve with corn on the cob, a green salad, and some rice. Soul food need not be artery clogging!

Barbecue/smoky
Since I've never eaten it before, I'm out of my depth. What worked for me, is to rub on some cocoanut oil on some portabello caps, sprinkle on some Chili powder, and grill them. Friends have raved about it.

Asparagus
I hate asparagus.

Broccoli
Garlic powder, a touch of nutmeg, and cocoanut milk. Combine the spices and cocanut milk. Toss broccoli florets in spice and cocoanut milk blend. Nuke on high for like 10 minutes.

Peas
A tonne of parsley, basil, oregano, and dill (all fresh, please). Add some lemon juice, some olive oil, and balsamic vinegar.

Green Beans
Sautee in olive oil. Add slivered almonds. Pitch in some white wine. Cook until liquid evaporates.

Sauce interview, Pt 2

Now that the news about your open marriage to Mrs. Dash is out...let me ask these questions next:

- What kind of oil should I use?
- What is sriracha, and can I find it in Nebraska?
- How do I know if I've added enough spice? How do I prevent adding too much?
- If I add more than one spice, do I cut back on the amounts of each one?
- Adding OJ and lemonade is a nice touch! Do any other kinds of juice work? Pineapple? Apricot? Fruit punch?

- What kind of oil should I use?
The midnight oil, damnit! After using some of these techniques, you'll find yourself cooking less, and eating more. This is a good thing. Seriously though. It depends on what you're doing.

Say for example, you're adding garlic, onions, peppers, celery, carrots, or any combination (or any one of those) to cold oil, heating said oil and aromatics in a pan, and then adding other ingredients, you can use any cooking fat. What am I talking about? Frankly, fats have this wonderful way of only doing one thing rather well. For example, olive oil is really good at tasting buttery, and lending such a depth of flavour to whatever you eat. However, it's really bad at getting super duper hot. Try to set your stove on high with olive oil in the skillet, and you'll soon have a face full of smoke, and really nasty smelling living grounds. Instead, with olive oil, you add aromatics (garlic, onions, carrots, celery, etc.) to the cold oil, and set the pot on the heat. The aromatics have water, which prevents the oil from rising too much above the 212F, which is the boiling point of water. Mind you, this isn't a license to set the stuff on the stove and forget about it, but rather a nice insurance policy.

However, there are times when you want to really scorch the bottoms of your vegetables, and get some serious colour going. In these cases, you use an oil that can handle very high heats. Examples are canola, peanut, vegetable, and safflower oil. With these oils, you can set a pot on the stove, crank the heat up to high, add the oil, and add the aromatics, or whatever else to the pot at your (relative) leisure. You still need to act quickly, as you've got about a minute before your kitchen turns into a smoky mess, but the oil will resist the temptation to stay at the neat and pat 212F. Instead, it will aggressively inch towards 500F! The point is that you want to suit the oil to your cooking situation, right? HOWEVER! Don't feel afraid of starting canola, peanut, safflower, etc. oil off cold, with aromatics thrown in.

Starting with cold oil, and cold aromatics, and allowing the two to come to temperature together, is a time-honoured method of withdrawing the maximum of flavour from the aromatics. Also, when you're baking or have everything ready, and you do the spice blend method, you really don't need to worry about which oil you use. Let me handle the first scenario first. Suppose you are feeling infinitely lazy, and need to have a shower before dinner is served. You're smelling quite ribald, and feeling the need for the cleansing waters to relax. Get into your kitchen, and hack up some root vegetables to about the same sized chunks. In a small bowl, combine a couple of tablespoons of oil with your favourite spice blend, and a bit of salt and pepper. Make a loose paste of this. In a large roasting pan, combine the spice-oil mixture with the chopped vegetables. Toss the veggies with the spices and oil to combine everything evenly. Set the oven to 350, the timer to 35 minutes, and get on with your shower. By the time you get back, you'll have the kitchen smelling heavenly, and a large mess of vegetables, waiting to be served over salad greens, or in between two slices of bread. In this case, the oil doesn't matter, because you're mainly using it to be a vector for the spices, and the fact that the oven is slowly roasting your vegetables will keep the oil from burning. Frankly, the controlled temperatures are ideal for any oil.

The second scenario is if you have a quick hand, and everything waiting. Set your large stock pot onto the stove. Crank the heat up to high. Drizzle in whatever oil you choose. Wait about 20 seconds for the oil to heat. Immediately pitch in your aromatics. Because you've got everything waiting, you don't have to worry about the oil getting too hot too quickly. Otherwise, if you aren't that quick in the kitchen, follow the advice I originally gave.

- What is sriracha, and can I find it in Nebraska?
It's one of those delicious fire sauces from Southeast Asia. If you can't find it in Nebraska, never be ashamed of substituting Tabasco, or whatever other hot sauce you fancy. If you don't fancy hot sauce, cheat, and add a touch of black pepper (as much as you can take!) to some ketchup, and call it a night. Nobody has to know.

- How do I know if I've added enough spice? How do I prevent adding too much?
Eyeballing it works for me. If I'm looking at a piece of vegetable in the pot, and each piece has enough spice that about half of it is visible through the veil of spices, I'm good to go. If you've added too much, cheat, and pitch in some cooked pasta, potatoes, rice, or whatever other frozen vegetables you have lying around. To prevent adding too much in the first place, measure out just enough of whatever spice you're adding into the palm of your hand first. If it takes up more than a dime-sized round, you're probably going to end up with too much ... stuff in your food. Err on the side of not enough. Worst comes to it, you can always sautee some more onions and garlic in oil, add additional spices to that pot, and mix it in with the rest of the food. Nobody has to know, and you've avoided the problems of having raw-tasting dried herbs.

- If I add more than one spice, do I cut back on the amounts of each one?
Here's a rule that works for me. When I'm working with an unfamiliar spice, I'll first start with 1/2 teaspoon, and add the rest of the "normal" seasonings. For example, whenever I make a pasta sauce, I add 1 tablespoon of italian seasoning, 2 tablespoons of Mrs. Dash, and 5 cloves of garlic. However, I saw a recipe that used fennel seeds. I'm not sure how it'll work out in the end. Because I'm a bit nervous about a spice like fennel seeds, I'll even cut it back to 1/4 teaspoon, rather than 1/2 teaspoon. Chances are that it'll be so subtle that I won't even notice it (as I tend to make about a 6 lb tin's worth of diced tomatoes of sauce every time I bother to make sauce). If that slight hint is pleasant, I'll try to up the ante the next time. Eventually, I'll find an amount that's close enough to the new recipe to suit my tastes. Sometimes, I end up adding more. Most of the time, I add less than what others like. The point is that because I introduced it gently, I never jarred myself into dislike.

- Adding OJ and lemonade is a nice touch! Do any other kinds of juice work? Pineapple? Apricot? Fruit punch?
YES! Yes! Not so much. Pineapple juice is very easy to incorporate into different foods, because it's got a distinctly tropical feel. Apricot juice tastes of Tradition, and Pomp. It's quite a sophisticated taste. Fruit Punch, however, tastes of ... red. I'm serious. What other flavour can you attribute to Fruit Punch? It's lovely with a hefty shot of vodka, and a splash of lime juice, but otherwise, it's best left to Church picnics, with women who wear tragic parodies of fashions they saw in Better Homes and Gardens. Frankly, I love Better Homes and Gardens, Fruit Punch, Vodka, and Apple Pie, too. However, I do feel that all of those things should be enjoyed in places where they will make the most impact.

Interview about sauces and spices.

My friend interviewed me about some quick cook stuff, and I offered to respond to him as best as I could. Here's how it turned out:

Okay, here’s the scenario – I’m an average Joe or Jane. I’m busy and don’t cook. Dinner for me, if it’s not take-out, is something frozen or a sandwich, with maybe a salad and a vegetable to round it out. Cooking’s not my thing, I’ll never be a cook (although never say never), but I’m in a rut. I’m making a few baby steps, like buying varieties of frozen or steam-in-the-bag vegetables beyond my usual five – such as asparagus, cauliflower, and collard greens. I may not be a chef, but I figure I can shake a spice jar or pour sauce out of a bottle. Before we get into details, are there any very general guidelines for which spices and/or bottled sauces to use when? Where do I start? What should I buy? Is it totally individual, or are there certain combinations of spices and sauces and vegetables that work for most people most of the time – maybe I can start there…

Mrs. Dash is my wife. Seriously. OK, maybe I /am/ married to a man. BUT! We're not going to let that get in the way of my flavour profiles! Frankly, the only spice blend I've ever been seriously impressed by in terms of overall flavour, and overall versatility, is Mrs. Dash.

Suppose you have a bag of frozen veg, and you want to seriously add some depth of flavour to it. Start with a small amount of oil in the bottom of a skillet, and heat it up over high heat. Don't even bother thawing out the frozen veg in the microwave. There's honestly no point. When the oil is hot, pitch in as much of the frozen vegetables as you like. LIBERALLY sprinkle on the Mrs. Dash. It doesn't even matter which blend you use! That's how good her stuff is.

No, seriously. I speak from feeding carnivores. Every time I'd use aheavy hand with the Mrs. Dash, everyone would RAVE about the food, and come back for FIFTH helpings! Continue cooking the vegetables for as long as it takes for the ice to be gone, and for the vegetables to be cooked through. If you're in the mood, rub a clove of garlic on a slice of toasted bread, and use that as your starch to accompany your quickie meal.

If you're more of a saucy type, Lee Kum Kee Vegetarian Stir Fry Sauce is an excellent place to start. Start with the hot oil, the frozen veg, and the not bothering to thaw, like you would with the Mrs. Dash. I wonder if Mrs. Dash and Mr. Lee ever talked to each other. It seems to me like the two of them DOMINATE the quickie flavouring department, don't they? I digress.

Slather on about a teaspoon or so of the Vegetarian Stir Fry Sauce into your cooking vegetables. After you've added that sauce, you have a million different combinations to expand the flavour of what you're cooking. If you want a more salty flavour, pitch in a bit of soy sauce. If you want a combo of sweet and salty, pitch in some orange juice. If you want sweet, salty, and hot, do a combo of soy sauce, OJ, and some sriracha or hot sauce of your choice. If you want a sour twang, substitute a bit of lemonade (from the bottle) instead of OJ. I won't tell anyone that you buy lemonade in the carton. Quite frankly, if it ends up netting you a yummy meal, it's nobody's business what you did to get there, right?

That being said, don't feel like you have to follow hard and fast rules with these two Gods of the flavouring arena. Instead, feel free to mix and match the combinations in different ways, until you find something. Worst comes to it, you can always feed the disasters to the dog, and order takeaway.

This was the first part of a multi part interview. I certainly hope that you enjoy the rest of it as it unfolds. :)

Friday on the way in

I fortunately managed to find a ride to the airport, and it wasn't that difficult at all, once I got there. It was more or less an issue of getting through security, and getting a bit of tranquilising stuff into me. Unfortunately, I was too keyed up all day to eat much of anything, so I'd been downing a few cups of coffee instead, and not quite enough of anything else. Of course, what ended up happening then was that my nerves were shot to heck, and I was a twitch (hah!) jittery.

Fortunately, I asked Steve to snag some nuts ahead of time, and we managed to snack a bit before heading onto the aeroplane. The flight took off on time, and is hopefully going to land a bit early. I'm definitely looking forward to getting off the plane, as flying makes me ridiculously nervous.

God bless Jet Blue airlines. They have very generous leg room, as well as individual television sets in the backs of the seats in front of you. Quite fun. Of all the trips that I've taken to New York, I'd have to say that tonight's flight was the absolute best of them. It took off and arrived exactly on time, and the flight crew was friendly and attentive.

In spite of the multiple times that I've gotten lost in the past trying to find her house, I managed to make it to my friend J's house without even calling her once for clarification on directions. I think that having the cheat sheet in front of me (thank you, Google maps) and poking at her guy earlier in the day helped matters tremendously.

Of course, as soon as we got in, Steve was hungry, and I expected as much. We'd both had a long day in getting to the airport (what with the rain, and traffic delays and such), and I was in the mood to throw together something quick. My friend had bought some wonderful rustic bread with a chewy texture, and thick hearty crust. I threw together a quick bruschetta. Here's what I did.

First, I sliced up the bread into thick~ish slices. Then, I combined:
- 2 medium sized tomatoes, finely diced
- 1 shallot, minced
- 1 clove of garlic, finely minced
- 1 TB minced fresh basil
- 1 TB minced fresh rosemary
- Splash of balsamic vinegar
- Splash of olive oil
- 8 oz tinned red beans, drained well

I tossed all the ingredients together in a bowl, and ground up a bit of sea salt and black pepper to round things out. Once the bread got toasty and crusty, I removed it from the oven, and let everyone pile on the toppings to her or his own liking. They enjoyed tremendously, because the bread was fresh, and the topping was that perfect blend of tart, sweet, salty, and peppery. The herbs provided a wonderful counterpoint to the strength of the garlic, and the olive oil took the edge off of everything. Quite a success, if I do say so myself.

More to come as the weekend progresses.