Sweet Potato Pancakes

Mollie's already making me less squeamish about my food processor. The recipe for sweet potato pancakes was too tempting and too easy to turn up. I must admit that I tried to get away with hand-grating my three sweet potatoes, but these suckers are very dense and hard when they're raw, and the fear of hands and sharp kitchen tools was greater with the grater than with the processor.

I fitted my processor with the round and shiny grater attachment and flung in the potatoes and one small onion.


Then, I mixed in some eggs and salt and began frying at high temperatures in our cast iron skillet. Actually, I must admit something. I was pretty hopeless at this. The "batter" was turning into all kinds of fried mush. So J took over for me, and produced these flat and gorgeously blackened pancakes:


I ate them piled high with full-fat plain yoghurt.

Home-Made Stir-Fry Hea-ven

After my disappointing street meal, I embarked on my quest to make a delicious stir-fry at home. An internet search generated some useful general tips and information and a basic sauce.

1. First, I learned that a wok is shaped the way that it is so that as you are cooking at very high heats, you can move food up and down the curved sides as needed to cook them more or move them away from the flame.
2. For a sauce, I would have to buy two things I've never had in my cupboard before: Chinese rice wine and cornstarch. Those, combined with soy sauce, vinegar, ginger, and garlic form the basis of a fragrant, yummy, thick brown sauce.
3. The greatest amount of work in the stir-fry is prep, as all of the vegetables and meat have to be ready to go once you start cooking as it is a high-heat method and there is no time to waste!
   

The amount of prepwork was not an exaggeration. I diligently chopped up onions, leeks, mushrooms, and zucchini, washed a handful of spinach, and pulled out some frozen peas to thaw, as well as dicing three breasts of chicken. All in all, I may have been gathering, washing, chopping, and arranging ingredients for close to an hour.

I also threw on my rice cooker.

I used Mollie Katzen's stir-fry sauce (from my new cookbook) as a guideline:

Stir-Fry Sauce

1/4 cup soy sauce
1 1/4 cups water (I'll use less water next time)
1 tbsp grated ginger
2 large cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp sesame oil
1 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp plus 1 tsp cider vinegar
2 tbsp dry sherry or Chinese rice wine
3 tbsp cornstarch

With those ingredients all mixed together, I was ready to go. I fired up the wok and in went the onions and leeks, followed by zucchini, then mushrooms, and lastly peas and spinach. Once the spinach was wilted, I set all of the veggies aside, and threw in the cubed chicken. I wish I had pounded them flat first, like they frequently do in Chinese restaurants, as that meat is always so tender, but I forgot. The nubbins of meat ended up a little bit tough...so perhaps the highest of the high heat is too much for them? But they were nicely browned on the outside.

Once the chicken was almost cooked through, I poured the sauce in the pan for it to thicken. It didn't quite thicken to a glistening restaurant-quality sauce, which is why I will reduce the water next time, and perhaps leave the sauce on for more than three or four minutes. But it was mighty tasty.

Deluxe Taboule

Taboule is one of those foods that my husband and I could eat every day and probably would if it didn't rely so much on a vast amount of chopping, the freshness of its ingredients, and had to be made fresh as it goes pretty soggy over a couple of days.

Taboule can go extremely simple - chopped tomatoes and bulgur, cucumber and bulgur - so it can be made even when you don't have all of your favorite ingredients. The three things you must always have, though, are bulgur wheat, lemons, and olive oil. Apart from that, the combination of ingredients is up to you.

We occassionally have a happy confluence of ingredients at hand, and that is when we can throw them all in for a world-class taboule-fest. So I bring you our version of a deluxe, chock-a-block taboule:

• 1 or 2 cups bulgur, minimally soaked to soften (I have recently discovered it does not have to be soaked in hot water from the kettle - any temperature water will do, and may determine the length of time that it soaks, which is never very much as it is, particularly as you will be adding some very wet ingredients that will continue the softening process)
• as many diced tomatoes as you can handle
• 1 or 2 diced cucumbers (I will always and forever buy English cucumbers, not only because they were what I was raised with, but because they have a more delicate flavor, and do not overwhelm the eater with enormous seeds)
  

Chuck these wet ingredients on top of the presoaked bulgur first, and add a hefty swig of olive oil and the juice of a lemon and a shake of salt to taste.

Then add the fragrant green things - parsley, scallions, and mint. You can add an entire bunch of parsley - I always chop it using the kitchen shears, like I'm giving the bunch a haircut. It's effective.

And voila! A delicious salad.

What Cheese?

My love of avocados has already been documented. But seriously, is it just me, or...

do you only see one thing in this picture? I do. And it ain't the cheese (or, um, the reflection from my camera on the paper varnish).

Mark Bittman's New Cassoulet

I've not been a big one for making stews because of the tendency of the vegetables to dissolve into a big homogeneous mass. Mmmm. So I was delighted when I tried Mark Bittman's new take on the cassoulet. This cassoulet (a European stew involving meat and white beans) has less meat per portion than a traditional recipe, more than making up for it in vegetables and beans. And most importantly, the amount of cooking time per vegetable is spot on, resulting in a juicy stew where many of the vegetables maintain their shape and a slight crunch.

He recommends eating it with a hunk of crusty bread - and we were more than happy to oblige.

Another thing that is so wonderful about this recipe? All the built-in variations - you can use sausages or chicken or chops and wine or stock or water and leeks or onions or shallots, meaning more often than not, you probably have most of the ingredients in your cupboard and fridge at any given time.

Cassoulet with Lots of Vegetables

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 pound Italian sausages, bone-in pork chops, confit duck legs, or duck breasts, or a combination
• 1 tablespoon chopped garlic
• 2 leeks or onions, trimmed, washed, and sliced
• 2 carrots, peeled and cut into 1-inch lengths
• 3 celery stalks, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
• 2 medium zucchinis or 1 small head green cabbage, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 4 cups chopped tomatoes, with their juice (canned are fine)
• 1/4 cup fresh chopped parsley leaves
• 1 tablespoon fresh chopped thyme leaves
• 2 bay leaves
• 4 cups cooked white beans (canned are OK), drained and liquid reserved in any case
• 2 cups stock, dry red wine, bean cooking liquid, or water, plus more as needed
• 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper, or to taste

Method

• 1. Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat, add the meat, and cook, turning as needed, until the meat is deeply browned on all sides, about 10 minutes. Remove from the pan and drain off all but 2 tablespoons of the fat.

• 2. Turn the heat to medium and add the garlic, leeks or onions, carrots, celery, and zucchini or cabbage; and sprinkle with salt and pepper and cook until softened, about 5 minutes. Add the tomatoes, their liquid, the reserved meat, and the herbs and bring to a boil. Add the beans; bring to a boil again, stirring occasionally, then reduce the heat so the mixture bubbles gently but continuously. Cook for about 20 minutes, adding the liquid when the mixture gets thick and the vegetables are melting away.
• 3. Fish out the meat and remove the bones and skin as needed. Chop into chunks and return to the pot along with the cayenne. Cook another minute or two to warm through, then taste and adjust seasoning if necessary and serve.

Source: "Food Matters" by Mark Bittman (Simon and Schuster, 2008)

Photo source - Toujour Delish's kitchen - mmmm, beans!

Adding to the Bookshelf

I am nowhere near to owning one hundred and one cookbooks, but I am delighted to have acquired a new one for my shelf, The New Moosewood Cookbook. I first heard of this book two years ago when we received a beautiful food processor that, along with my blender, frightens me quite a bit. It may have something to do with Children of the Corn, which I saw as a teenager. Nothing at all happens with a food processor in the film, but the meat slicer/hand incident was enough to frighten me off super-powerful kitchen appliances (I know, it's a horror movie, but still!).

Which means I need extra-special reasons to use them, including a whole host of these veggie soups, salads, and casseroles. This one's for you, Vegtastic Voyage;)

My First Soufflé!

Happy Easter! Let's talk about eggs, baby, let's talk about you and me...

Soufflés - they are generally invoked as an illustration of incredibly difficult cooking. All the jokes about falling soufflés and not peeking are enough to put off a skittish cook.

I knit on occasion too, and find some patterns to be written in gobbledygook, but my mother assures me if I just follow the instructions step by step, there is no reason I should not be able to knit a cardigan.

The sweater still eludes me, but I applied this same straightforward principle to a Barefoot Contessa recipe for blue cheese soufflé. I had just bought an eight-cup straight-sided ramekin and couldn't wait to get started.

My soufflé story in pics:

Ina Garten's Blue Cheese Soufflé

Ingredients:

3 tbsp unsalted butter

1/4 cup grated parm

3 tbsp all-purpose flour

1 cup scalded milk

salt and pepper

pinch of cayenne

pinch of nutmeg

4 egg yolks, room temp

3 oz blue cheese, chopped

5 egg whites, room temp

1/8 tsp cream of tartar

8 cup souffle dish

Preheat the oven to 400 º.

Butter the inside of dish and sprinkle with parm (I found out later after reading another soufflé recipe that you need to sprinkle the cheese all the way up the sides; apparently, the eggs use particles of cheese or sugar or whatever to climb up the sides of the ramekin and "souffle" up over the sides of the dish).

Melt the 3T butter over stove, then stir in flour and cook for 2 mins.

Off the heat, whisk in hot milk, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp pepper, cayenne, nutmeg. Cook over low heat, whisking, until smooth and thick.

Off the heat again, while still hot, whisk in the egg yolks one at a time. Stir in the Roquefort (we used a Danish blue) and the 1/4 cup of Parm and transfer to a large mixing bowl.

Put the egg whites, cream of tartar, and a pinch of salt in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk. Beat on low speed for 1 min, medium for 1 min, then on high until firm and glossy peaks form (as someone who has not worked a lot with eggs, recognizing the point at which to stop was a bit of a crap shoot).

Whisk one quarter of the egg whites into the cheese sauce to lighten and then fold in the rest. Pour into the soufflé dish, then smooth the top. Draw a large circle on top with the spatula to help it rise evenly, and place in the middle of the oven.

(n.b. - glass of wine will facilitate the making of the soufflé)


Turn down to 375 º. Cook for 30-35 minutes WITHOUT PEEKING as we all know what happens when you peek at a souffle. It gets really shy and collapses in on itself. It falls due to the draft from the oven door and / or the sudden temperature change (I can't remember if one of these is a myth or not). As I have read somewhere (Cookwise?), eggs, although they have magical properties, only rise once. They are not double-leavening, so once it collapses, it's not going to rise again.

I don't think I would risk making a soufflé if I had an unreliable oven, but my gas oven is always spot-on temperature-wise, so I left it in without peeking for 37 minutes - until it smelled done and slightly browned.

And then, the moment had arrived.

3 - 2 - 1


Voilà!!


WHEEEEE!!!

WHEEEEE!!!!!

It's so pretty, non? I was just floored when it came out like that. If you want to be picky, I think it's supposed to have a flat top and not a big beautiful dome like this one does, but again, I think this is because we didn't sprinkle cheese up the side of the dish.

It was rich and comforting, and the amount of blue cheese was enough to give it a kick, but light enough that it did not deter non-blue cheese enthusiasts like my husband. It's so rich, though, I would make this for four people and serve with a salad.