Tag: vegetarian

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Pasta, Noodles, and Dumplings The Book

102. Spaghetti with Handfuls of Herbs p.204

I couldn’t find a recipe for this online, but this is more a concept than a specific set of instructions anyway. The idea is to toss spaghetti with extra virgin olive oil, butter, minced shallots, and any and all herbs growing in the garden. The pasta is then sprinkled with bread crumbs which you’ve toasted in olive oil. The heat of the pasta releases the flavours of the herbs, without wilting them too much, and the uncooked shallots are warmed but retain their sharpness.

There are no specific instructions for which herbs to use, or in what proportions. It’s totally dependent on what you have on hand. I had a grand old time out on the balcony with a pair of scissors. I ended up with basil, thyme, rosemary, oregano, parsley, chives, sage, lavender, and lemon balm. Those last two were unexpected flavours, but they absolutely made the dish for me. I got really lucky and randomly combined my herbs into a near perfect flavour medley. I couldn’t repeat the process, I just snipped a bit of this and a bit of that, and I ended up with a completely delicious and intensely fragrant plate of pasta. My dining companion thought it was good, but not transcendent, but for me it was exactly the right dish at exactly the right time. It was perfectly suited to a warm night out on the balcony.

The bread crumb topping adds a textural counterpoint to the pasta, but not one I thought was really necessary. The Book says that the bread crumbs don’t weigh the dish down the way cheese would, but I just found them oily. Admittedly my bread crumbs weren’t coarse, and they might have worked better if they’d been more like tiny croûtons. Mine were more of a sandy coating on my pasta. It didn’t really detract from my enjoyment of the dish, but I think they ruined it for my dining companion.

You may also notice that I didn’t use spaghetti in this spaghetti dish. I can’t bring myself to care about the different shapes of pasta, and I resent having to remember all of their names. They’re all exactly the same, shells, spirals, round strands, flat strands, big tubes, and small tubes all interchangeable in my mind. Sure, some shapes hold on to some sauces better, and finding things hidden in little shells can be cute. But, the idea that we all need to keep fifteen different shapes of pasta on hand to do justice to the traditions of some particular Italian hamlet is just annoying. They all taste exactly the same, and I’m going to use them as such. The only downside is that the different shapes really do differ in surface area. The amount of sauce needed to coat is proportional to area, which has little to do with mass or volume, so it does take some guesswork to avoid over or under saucing.

The concept of this dish is great, it’s simple and summery. It uses herbs at their peak, and allows for creativity around a central theme. It also has the advantage of not heating the kitchen up too too much. I was thrilled with the flavours at work in my version, and I can only hope you get as lucky as I did if you try this for yourself.

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Grains and Beans The Book

91. Smoky Black Beans p.267

The recipe

I was happy to find this recipe in The Book. I make my own version often enough because it requires no though, hardly any effort, and costs pennies per serving. I am not a great planner, and I rarely have the wherewithal to think through tomorrow’s dinner and get beans soaking the night before. The Book is full of overnight soaks, chills, freezes, and rises, which is one of the challenges of this project for me. Thankfully this recipe involves absolutely none of that. It uses canned beans, which are probably my favorite kitchen shortcut of all time. Sure they’re 15 times more expensive than soaking your own, but they still only cost 89 cents a can.

The ingredient list is all pantry staples, and the instructions pretty much come down to “simmer all the stuff together”. First you soften an onion in a bit of olive oil, then add some chopped chipotle, two cans of beans, water, orange juice, and a bit of salt. Break down the beans a bit with a potato masher, and let it simmer ’till everything thickens up nicely.

This is pretty much exactly my version of the dish, I usually add beer instead of water, and I hadn’t used the orange juice before. I like the dish mostly because I like the chipotles (I’ve written quite enough chipotle love poetry in the last few weeks, I’ll spare you any more), the beans are an ideal vehicle for chipotle flavours, and pretty much every savory dish starts with sautéed onion, so why not this one? The orange juice was a really good addition the sweetness and mild acidity complimented the chipotles perfectly.

I used these beans as a burrito filling, but they’d be equally good as a stand alone supper if you mixed in some left over pork, maybe topped with a bit of cheese and popped under the broiler. This dish was easy, versatile, forgiving, economical, and delicious. It satisfies a craving for Mexican without spending hours in the kitchen. If you happen to live in a part of the world with a taqueria on every corner, by all means go there. But, for me finding decent Mexican is a challenge. On nights when that’s just not a challenge I’m up for, this recipe is there for me.

Categories
The Book Vegetables

85. Bok Choy with Soy Sauce and Butter p.524

The recipe

This is about as simple as side dishes get. Just fry up some bok choy, toss on a mixture of water, soy, oyster sauce, and butter, cook for a minute or two, then eat. I prefer baby bok choy to the gargantuan full grown versions. They don’t taste much different, but I like the finer texture of the smaller ones. Full sized bok choy also leave you with the cabbage and celery conundrum of what to do with the rest of these enormous vegetables?

Bok choy is a prototypically Chinese vegetable, and it’s almost always prepared with that in mind. I don’t think I’ve had it any way but stir fried with some vaguely Asian flavourings tossed at it. I wonder if bok choy really has an affinity for soy sauce, or if it’s just the case that no one has ever tasted it without it? While this preparation isn’t innovative, it is quite tasty.

I liked that this dish is simple, and uses ingredients you probably have on hand. I’m not actually sure that most people have oyster sauce on hand. But, a geometric expansion of condiments is squeezing me out of my fridge, so oyster sauce was no problem to find.

This recipe was reliable, easy, and very quick. Bok choy looks great on a plate, and has a unique and appealingly mild flavour. This is a great side dish, and it could even see myself making these as dinner-for-one after an exhausting day.

Categories
The Book Vegetables

82. Whipped Chipotle Sweet Potatoes p.583

The recipe

Chipotles were the taste sensation of 2006 for me. In fact they were a taste sensation that took the fast food world by storm, from Doritos to Subway you could hardy avoid these often mispronounced smoked jalapeños in adobo sauce. Bobby Flay (restaurateur, Iron Chef, and lover of limelight) is generally cited as patient 0 in the spreading chile epidemic. I’m happy to say that I’ve been infected, and that the taste sensation of 2007 are some of Bobby’s other favourites, Anchos, Gualliros, and Pasillas. I’m still deeply fond of the chipotle, it’s unbelievable depth of flavour, and layers of smoke add a mysterious smouldering quality to any dish. As it turns out this is one of Bobby Flay’s own recipes.

It’s a very straightforward preparation, sweet potatoes are roasted in their skins, then scooped out and beaten together with chipotles, butter, and salt. The mixture is spread into a baking dish and baked for another 20 minutes. The flavours are spot on in this recipe, the sugar soaked earthiness of the sweet potatoes is a perfect compliment to the chipotles. Heat and sweet go together so very well, and these two ingredients bring out the best in each other. The recipe also resists the temptation to make things complex, there are only four ingredients here, and that simplicity is its greatest strength.

Texture unfortunately is a weakness of the dish. The sweet potatoes are whipped, but not whipped in the sense of light and airy, more dense, wet, heavy, and textureless. There’s nothing in here that would give it the structure necessary to become light. I suppose you could fold in stiffly beaten egg whites before the final baking, but I’d rather go the other direction. I wouldn’t whip them at all. This would be much better as smashed chipotle sweet potatoes. Leaving some nice chunks of firm but yielding sweet potato in there would be a major improvement.

I’ve made these a couple of times, and once I had problems with my potatoes splitting and drying out in the oven. Be careful to use undamaged potatoes, and to prick them well. If they split all is lost.

I really really liked the flavours of this dish, and it’s texture could easily be improved. It’s designed as a prepare ahead casserole that can be warmed up when the Thanksgiving hoards arrive. If you’re making it a la minute you can probably skip the final baking step. It gives the dish a crust, but that’s not necessarily a good thing. If you felt like it adding cheese before baking would turn this into a nice gratinée, and a substantial main course. This recipe is easy, cheap, and delicious. I never get tired of the sweet potato chipotle interplay, and its become a standby for me.

Categories
The Book Vegetables

81. Spaghetti Squash with Moroccan Spices p.581

The recipe

This recipe was extremely simple, and as far I’ve seen is the only recipe in The Book that calls for the use of a microwave. Basically a spaghetti squash is microwaved, the strands are pulled out and tossed with a compound butter made with garlic, cumin, coriander, cayenne, and salt. Top with a bit of fresh cilantro and you have a simple side. This dish tasted good because spaghetti squash taste good, but I’m not sure the compound butter was the best possible pairing for it. The title of the recipe is a bit of a misnomer, there’s nothing all that Moroccan about the spices, in fact they read like basic Tex-Mex cookery. I suppose it’s the coriander that’s supposed to recall North Africa?

The dish probably would have been better if it had gone more Tex-Mex. A splash of lime juice would have added some welcome acidity, and replacing the cayenne with chopped fresh jalapenos would have added more dimension than the straightforward heat of cayenne. The ground coriander was the least appealing part of the butter, it was only 1/2 teaspoon, but a little coriander goes a long way. I found it a bit distracting, and out of balance with the other flavours. The recipe could also have cut back on the butter without anyone missing it.

All of those issues are easily fixed, and the basic method of preparing the squash is great. All I did was poke the squash with a fork, then microwave on high for ~7 minutes per side. The instructions in The Book are for an 800 watt microwave, and I think mine is 1100, so it cooked a bit faster. The quicker cooking didn’t seem to have damaged anything, and you’ll know when it’s done when the squash gets soft, so the exact time doesn’t really matter. A little bit of juice flows from the holes you pricked, and the sugars quickly caramelize making the outside quite sticky. I didn’t put the squash on a plate, and the microwave try was a bother to clean.

The strands of squash come out nicely separated, and whole. They have a great texture, and they’re inherently fun to eat. My squash was sweet, deeply flavoured, and vibrantly yellow. I don’t think I’d toss it with this particular butter again, but from now on my spaghetti squash are going in the microwave.

Categories
Grains and Beans The Book

80. Broiled Polenta with Tomato Sauce p.266

The recipe

This recipe uses The Book’s Basic Polenta recipe as it’s main ingredient. The basic polenta is a great no-fail staple recipe. Here it’s dressed up by stirring in some cheese, putting it under the broiler, and topping with a very simple tomato sauce.

I served this as part of a vegetarian dinner. It was nicely substantial, and made a good centerpiece for my menu. Very often polenta is served straight from the pot, so that it’s thick but still runny, which highlights the risotto like creamless creaminess. Here the polenta is poured into a baking dish and allowed to cool and set up before it goes under the broiler. This gives it a completely different texture, it ends up gelled and reminiscent of a rice or bread pudding. In this application it seems much more substantial, which is a better base for a sauce. Putting a sauce on a custardy plate of fresh polenta might be a little unidimensional on the texture front.

The recipe calls for fontina to be stirred into the hot polenta. I don’t think I’ve ever used or tasted fontina, and I didn’t use it here. I substituted a mixture of mozzarella and cheddar, and called it good enough. It browned up nicely, and melted seamlessly into the polenta, so it seems like a fair substitution to me.

The tomato sauce was extremely simple, perhaps too simple. The sauce is nothing but softened onions, a bit of garlic, a can of tomatoes, salt, pepper, and a pointless dash of parsley. I’m writing this in August when the local tomato crop is at it’s peak, and it seems like the less you do to them the better everything ends up. I made this sauce in April, using canned tomatoes, when charms of a minimalist sauce aren’t quite as beguiling. I’ve got nothing against canned tomatoes, they’re much more flavorful than the mealy, flavourless, perfectly red, imported California tomatoes we get in April. But, they can’t compare to the hight of summer’s flavour. If you’re going to do a slow cooked sauce based on canned tomatoes I think a bit of flavouring is important. I would definitely have added a bay leaf to the sauce, and thyme or oregano wouldn’t have hurt anything at all, a splash of vodka would bring out those flavourful alcohol soluble compounds in the tomatoes, and a hint of fire from a chile or red pepper flakes wouldn’t have been unwelcome. Once the sauce was finished I tasted it and stirred in some fresh rosemary, which really improved things.

This dish was fine, but a better concept than execution. It started with a really excellent polenta base, but didn’t do enough to it. The addition of cheese and time under the broiler added great flavour and texture, but the lackluster sauce was at best a missed opportunity, and at worst dragged the dish down. There’s a huge amount of room to play and experiment with a dish like this. It’s rare that I accuse The Book of being too simple, or lacking in obscure ingredients, but this is one of those times.

Categories
Hors D'Oeuvres & First Courses The Book

63. Cheese Fondue p.72


the recipe

My God I love fondue. Everything about it is good. Incredibly rich gooey cheese swaddling a crunchy bite of bakery fresh baguette, what could be better than that? It’s an easy to prepare and casual meal, that’s inherently social and fun. It’s horrible for you, which makes it even better to share with close friends you don’t mind relaxing around. Its got traditions, like the communal kirsch shot that’s taken half way through (one for each participant, and one goes into the pot to keep things from thickening), and inventive punishments for the poor soul whose bread falls off their fork. Better yet, there’s a special surprise at the bottom of the pot where the sterno bakes a perfect little cheese crisp. Just in case it wasn’t enough fun, it involves alcohol and an open flame.

Fondue enjoyed wild popularity in the ’60’s and ’70’s and has since slipped from vogue. I feel privileged to have my mother’s fondue pot as a relic of that renaissance. I’m not sure what caused this fall from grace for this near perfect food. Maybe people just got tired of it, maybe it got watered down with poor packaged versions and less than stellar bread. I can’t say, but I think it’s ready for a comeback. I wonder sometimes if sushi will go down the same road. Now that almost every grocery store has a sushi counter, how long can it remain a hip thing to eat? And, when sushi goes, what will come next?

This particular cheese fondue recipe worked out wonderfully. It has a couple of nice touches, like a mixture of emental and Gruyère, the occasionally overlooked rubbing of the pot with a clove of garlic, and directions for a zig zag stirring method that keeps the cheese from clumping or breaking on you. It lived up to the standards set for me by a Swiss friend, and great fondue aficionado.

I was lucky to be able to find good quality cheeses at reasonable prices, and as Montreal is overrun with good quality french bakeries a beautiful baguette was no trouble to obtain. On a recent visit out west I was introduced to the French stick. My understanding of this term is that it’s a baguette, only bad. I’ve started calling the grocery store fluffy interior mushy exterior baguettes French sticks, and reserving the term baguette for a loaf with a crisp crust, and a chewy interior, made with baguette flour. I’m not sure if the term French stick came about because people don’t like food with weird French names, and the only baguettes in those places happen to be bad. Or, if the French stick is an entirely different animal, and the standards for judging what makes a good one are just different. I find the division useful, if a bit snobby. But I’m certainly not above a bit of francophilic food snobbery.

I don’t have enough good things to say about fondue in general, and this fondue in particular. Make it, love it, share it.

Categories
Hors D'Oeuvres & First Courses The Book

60. Prosciutto- and Parmesan-Stuffed Mushrooms p.27

No recipe, too bad.

These were an excellent appetizer. I brought them to a dinner party and they disappeared just like that. They’re mushroom caps stuffed with the cooked down mushroom stems, garlic, onion, bread crumbs, prosciutto, Parmesan, a useless dash of parsley, and an egg to hold it together. After the caps are filled they’re sprinkled with a bit more cheese, and drizzled with olive oil. Then they go into a 400 degree oven for 20 minutes.

The mushrooms just cook through, and the filling melts into the gills making the whole things creamy and delicious. The prosciutto and Parmesan add wonderful flavours of their own, as well as a good bit of salt which helps release the essence of the mushrooms. In theory the parsley is there to add some colour to the filling, but I didn’t find it very appealing. There is a lot of liquid in mushrooms, and the bread crumbs were there to soak it up. The 1/4 cup crumbs for 24 mushrooms the recipe recommends was a little on the low side. They could have stood to be dried out a bit.

This recipe worked really well, it was easy to do most of the prep at home, and then finish off the final assembly and baking at a friends place. I love appetizers that can be easily transported, either finished, or mostly finished. Almost inevitably you will be asked to bring things to a party more often than you’ll host a party of your own, so ease of transport is a key criterion in looking for a good hors d’oeuvre.

The filling would work equally well in little vol-au-vent, but stuffing the caps really emphasizes the mushroom flavour, and makes them more fun to eat. The balance of flavours was spot on here, the mushrooms were front and centre, with the prosciutto and Parmesan acting as capable supporting players. This recipe is a mycophobe’s worst nightmare, but a good trick to have up your sleeve if you’re asked to bring a little something to the party.