The Barefoot Kitchen Witch

Food 2.0 - Another Cookbook to Give Away!

DK Publishing sent me an advance copy of this book several weeks ago, and I've been reading and re-reading the recipes ever since.

I've got about 20 pages marked with mini post-it note things, and I think I put off writing about it because I couldn't narrow down the recipes to one or two to focus on.

The official background of the book is here, on the DK Publishing website.  To be honest, I had vaguely heard of Charlie Ayers, but didn't know anything about him.  Turns out he cooked for The Greatful Dead before he was hired to feed the growing number of Google employees. 

I know now that food-wise, we'd get along pretty well.  His emphasis is on locally produced, organic ingredients and lively, intense flavors from a wide variety of cuisines.

The one and only recipe that I was actually puzzled by was his recipe for fish tacos.  He calls for fish sticks.    Now, I have used fish sticks in fish tacos, but it just seemed really odd, in a book espousing the virtues of local, fresh foods, that rather than suggesting some possible kinds of fish to use, depending on what part of the country you're in, he suggests fish sticks.  Maybe it's because not everyone has access to fresh caught local fish...but still. 

I've decided, since I couldn't narrow the recipes down, I figure over the next week, while the giveaway is running, I'll try out a variety of recipes and post about them, so you can sort of peek at the food before entering the contest, if you want.

Oh - and I should also mention - in addition to a copy of the book (hardcover and in color, not a paperback advance copy in black and white), the publisher is also giving the winner a handy dandy lunch bag, so you can tote your healthy, locally grown lunch with you to work every day.

So, to get things started, and to give you an idea of the sort of thing Food 2.0 has to offer, I'll be posting (separately) the recipe for "Google Hot Sauce."  It's got heat, and layers and layers of flavor.  It packs a punch, but does so with style.

In the meantime, to enter this giveaway, here are the rules:

First, to enter, I'd like to hear from you in the comments section of THIS post, do you shop at farm stands or farmers markets on a regular basis?  What's available in your part of the world?

Second, the contest will end in one week - Wednesday, May 28th, at midnight, eastern standard time.  Any entries posted after that time - or anywhere other than in the comments section of THIS post - will not be considered.

Third, this will be a random drawing - I'll have the old faithful Random Integer thingy pick the lucky winner.

Any questions?  Okay, then - let the contest begin!  Oh - and I'll be posting the "Google Hot Sauce" in a bit later this evening.

Red Thai Curry Paste

I've had a few requests for this recipe, an unfortunately I don't have photos of the whole process, but next time we make this I'll take pictures and add them to this post.

Last year Bill made a big batch of this when he picked peppers from our garden.  Then he froze it in an ice cube tray, popped the cubes out and stored them in a ziploc bag in the freezer.  Same thing with the Green Thai Curry Paste.  Both are tremendously flavorful, as is true of Thai cooking in general.  Lots of fresh, intense ingredients.

Anyway, both recipes are from Keo's Thai Cuisine, one of our favorite Thai cookbooks.  (There's also a link to it and a picture of the cover in my list of Books about Food and Cooking.)

Anyway, most recently Bill made some for a meal of spicy fish tacos on a recent Brew Day.  (He brews beer.  All-grain batches.  BIG batches.)  To serve with the fish, he warmed the paste in a wok with some extra ginger and garlic and added part of a can of coconut milk to give it a creamy texture.  It's EXCELLENT stuff, if you like your heat to have flavor.  That's the thing, in my opinion.  If it's just hot, well, it's boring.  But if it's hot and has tons of flavor, then I'll eat it by the bowlful.  Really.  It's that yummy.  Burns your mouth raw, but in a pleasant way, if you know what I mean.

So, for those of you who have asked about it, here's the basic recipe:

Red Curry Paste

15-20 red chili peppers, seeded
2 stalks fresh lemon grass, coarsely chopped
5 shallots, thinly sliced
1 clove garlic
1 T coarsely chopped kha (a type of ginger - you can use regular
ginger)3 kaffir lime leaves, chopped
1/4 cup Chinese parsley roots, chopped (cilantro roots, if you
can get them. Or use the stalks)
1/2 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp ground caraway seeds
1/2-1 T fish sauce or 1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp shrimp paste (optional)
2 T oil

Combine all the ingredients in a food processor and process
until smooth. If a mortar and pestle is used, then add oil
after all other ingredients are ground. Refrigerate in a glass
container. Paste keeps well for several months.

And, a few notes from me...

*  We actually didn't have any more red chili peppers left from last summer, so Bill rehydrated about 10 dried red thai chiles in water, and he may have used some green fresh ones and also part of a red bell pepper just to add more color.  It was plenty potent.

*  You can freeze lemon grass, too, which is what we do - we'll buy a bunch of it and freeze it so we always have it available.  If you've never seen lemon grass, you can go here for a good illustration and description of the plant and its uses.  Also, in the upper right corner of the page, there's a picture of kaffir lime leaves.  We also buy these to freeze.  They keep forever (it seems) and impart a distinct citrus+something else flavor and aroma to Thai dishes.

*  Fish sauce is another staple of Thai cooking.  To learn how it's made, you can go here.  Basically, it's a liquid salt element, but the flavor is more than just salty.  And don't be put off by the rather powerful aroma.  Once it's in the food, sauce, paste, whatever, it melds with the other elements of the dish and becomes less...um...pungent.

*  Shrimp paste.  Yep, paste made from tiny, dried, fermented shrimp.  A little goes a very long way.  Again, it adds saltiness to whatever you're making, but like the fish sauce, it is not simply a salt substitute.  Once again, it adds depth of flavor to the mix.  And it's also fun to dare nephews to taste a teaspoonful of it blind and watch the expression on their face change.  At least that's what Bill likes to do.  He's a fun uncle.

Anyway, there you are. 

If you want to make fish tacos and have this as part of the experience, remember to combine it with some coconut milk to make it more of a sauce, rather than a paste.  We used cod, but use whatever kind of fish (shrimp is great, too) you want to.  We also included, as other possible additions to the tacos, the following:  guacamole (it's a nice soothing balance to the heat from the curry paste), cole slaw (goes nicely with the fish), rice (to absorb some of the liquid) and, for those that wanted it, some shredded cheese. 

There's nothing more fun than sitting around the table with a bunch of guys, watching their eyes water and noses run (okay, I try not to watch that part) as they bravely pile more red curry paste/sauce on their fish.  I really don't know why it didn't have the same effect on me.  But it didn't.  And I ate plenty.  Just lucky, I guess. 

But anyway, go make up a batch of this and try it out.  It's DELICIOUS. 

 

Garam Masala

Garam Masala is a blend of spices individually toasted to release and enhance both flavor and fragrance.  There are many varieties of Garam Masala - sweeter, hotter, and so on.  You can change the amounts of ingredients to suit your own taste.

Below is "No. 1 Garam Masala" from Charmaine Solomon's The Complete Asian Cookbook.

Here's what you'll need:

4 T coriander seeds

2 T cumin seeds

1 T whole black peppercorns

2 tsp cardamom seeds (measure after removing pods) (I used about 3-4 tsps of the pods, and that gave me the 2 tsp of seeds after toasting) 

4  3-inch cinnamon sticks

1 tsp whole cloves

1 whole nutmeg

(Top row:  coriander seeds, cinnamon sticks, cumin seeds.  Middle row:  black peppercorns, whole nutmeg, whole cloves.  Bottom:  cardamom pods.)

In a small pan roast separately the coriander, cumin, peppercorns, cardamom, cinnamon and cloves.

As each one starts to smell fragrant, turn on to plate to cool. 

After roasting, peel the cardamoms, discard pods and use only seeds. 

Put all into electric blender and blend to a fine powder.

Finely grate nutmeg

and mix in. 

Store in glass jar with airtight lid.

Corned Beef Project: Day 8 - The Condiments

We're getting close to the finish line.  A week ago I prepared the brine according to the directions by Bruce Aidells in the March issue of Bon Appetit Magazine.  This past Monday I turned the pieces of brisket over in their brine for the other half of their 8-day brine soak.  Tomorrow night I'll be cooking it - and an assortment of vegetables, including, of course, cabbage.  I've also purchased a pre-packaged, pre-brined corned beef brisket to cook at the same time, for comparison purposes.  We've got some people coming over for dinner to help with the whole eating part of it.

Today I made the two sauces provided in the same article.

First up -   

Horseradish Cream

1 cup sour cream

6 tablespoons prepared white horseradish

1 T finely chopped dill pickle

1 T chopped fresh chives or green onion tops

(Alex volunteered to pick early chives for me from our garden.  He didn't pick enough the first time, so I sent him back for more.  Still not enough, but I didn't want to send him back again, so I added some minced shallot instead.)

Whisk all ingredients in small bowl to blend. 

Cover and refrigerate at least 2 hours.  Can be made 2 days ahead.  Keep refrigerated.

Pretty easy, right?

And here's the second one:

Guinness Mustard

(oops - I just realized I goofed this one up a bit.  See my italics below.)

1/2 cup coarse-grained Dijon mustard

2 T regular Dijon mustard (not paying attention - I used half a cup)

2 T Guinness Stout or other stout or porter (I used a porter that Bill made)

1 T minced shallot

1 tsp golden brown sugar

Whisk all ingredients in small bowl to blend. 

Cover and refrigerate.  Can be made 2 days ahead.  Keep refrigerated.

(The additional Dijon doesn't seem to be a problem - it tasted pretty good when I tried the mixture.)

And so those are the recipes for these two condiments.  I also have a selection of mustards, including a cranberry mustard that is particularly yummy.  So I think I'm all set in this department.

Green Sauce

I love this sauce.  It may have been part of the first meal Bill cooked for me...or maybe the second.

Anyway - it comes from Betty Crocker's Mexican Made Easy - published in 1993, I think it may be out of print now.  Bill bought his copy for $2.99 at a Building 19 store an eternity ago.

Anyway, from Chapter 2 in the book - "Sizzling Sauces and Sides" - the description for Green Sauce is as follows:

                "This is a suave chile sauce, slightly chunky and rich with cream"

Suave?  I don't know about that.  There's definitely some heat to it, though.  I love it.  It's great as a dip, and we also used it in tacos made from a slow-grilled pork tenderloin, and it was fabulous that way.

What you'll need:

1 large onion, finely chopped (about a cup)

4 poblano chiles, roasted, peeled, seeded and finely chopped (about 1/2 cup)

1 jalapeno chile, seeded and finely chopped

1 clove garlic, finely chopped

2 T vegetable oil

1/2 cup whipping (heavy) cream  ( * we only use 1/4 cup)

1/4 tsp salt

Now.  If you've never roasted peppers, here's probably the easiest way.  Heat up the broiler in your oven, and put one of the oven racks on the highest level possible.  Put your peppers on a row in the pan so that when you place the pan in the oven, the peppers will be directly under the broiler flames.  Once the broiler is ready, put the pan with the peppers (it's sounding like a tongue twister in the making) on the top rack and broil for a few minutes, until the skin chars.  Pull the pan out, flip the peppers over, and char on the other side.  They should look like this -

or even more charred.  Oh, and all that gunk on the pan?  Just soak it for a while, and it'll come right off.  Or you could be smarter than we are and cover the pan with foil first.  Take your pick.

Anyway, when the peppers are nice and black on the outside, place them in a paper bag, close the top, and let them sweat a bit.

When they've sweated and cooled, you peel the skin off.  It's helpful to do this at the sink, so you can rinse the bits of peel away as you work.

Another option, if you've got a gas stove, is just to set the peppers (if they're big enough) on the burner over a flame.  Turn them periodically to get a nice even char all over.  Then proceed with the sweating and so forth.  Just - you know, don't go off and so something else while the peppers are on the fire.  It could be bad.

Okay, now, once you've got everything peeled and chopped and ready to go, place the onion, chiles, and garlic in the oil over medium heat in a small pan, stirring occasionally, until the onion is tender - about 8 minutes. 

Stir in the cream and salt. 

Ta-da!  How simple is that?  Especially in my house, where Bill does all the work and I just taste the finished product and give my professional opinion.

And my professional opinion is always "You should have doubled the recipe!"  (Yield is 1 1/3 cups)

So hey, if you're looking for a change from salsa for your Super Bowl party on Sunday (if you're having one, or going to one.  Or if you might be hungry all by your self) - make this instead! 

Green Curry Paste

This is from the book Keo's Thai Cuisine, written by Keo Sananikone and published in 1986.

Green Curry Paste

15-20 fresh small Thai green chili peppers

4 stalks fresh lemon grass, coarseley chopped

3 shallots, thinly sliced

1 clove garlic

1 tablespoon coarseley chopped kha (kha is Thai ginger - we use the fresh common ginger you can get in the produce section of the grocery store)

1 tablespoon coarsely chopped kra-chai (kra-chai is "Lesser Ginger" - again, we use common ginger here)

5 kaffir lime leaves, choped (you can get these in Asian markets.  The flavor is unique and very much a part of Thai cuising)

1/2 teaspoon chopped kaffir lime rind (if we don't have kaffir limes, we use regular limes)

1/2 teaspoon ground coriander

1/2 teaspoon ground caraway seeds

1/2 to 1 tablespoon fish sauce or 1 teaspoon salt (or to taste)

1 tablespoon sugar

1/4 teaspoon shrimp paste (you can find this in asian markets)

2 tablespoons oil.

Combine all ingredients in a food processor and process until smooth.  If a mortar and pestle are used, then add oil after all other ingredients are ground.  Refrigerate in a glass container.  Paste keeps well for several months.

(Bill put the mixture in ice cube trays to freeze it, instead of in the fridge, and then popped out the cubes when they were frozen and kept them in ziploc bags in the freezer.)

Thai curry sauces are made by adding coconut milk to the curry paste.  The amount of paste determines how hot and spicy your sauce will be.

Roasting Garlic

Two weeks ago I bought about twelve heads of garlic, intending to roast them in olive oil at the same time as some of the batches of tomatoes I'd been doing, but I didn't get to them until today.

Usually I peel some of the outer papery layers off and then old the head of garlic on its side and cut in half about midway between the stem end and the tip.  Today I mangled the first one and decided to try something different.  So I just broke apart the garlic heads and put them all in a foil-lined cake pan.

Then I drizzled a good amount of olive oil over the garlic cloves and stirred them around so all were well coated. 

Then I covered them with a sheet of foil, tucked the edges from the bottom sheets of foil up around the edges of the top layer, to tuck all the garlic in nice and snug, and popped them into a 300 degree oven (alongside three more pans of tomatoes!  It's our best tomato year ever) for about an hour or so. 

To be honest, I didn't time them.  I never do, really.  I go by smell and by touch.  Periodically I'd take the pan out and press on the bigger garlic cloves to see if they were squishy yet.  It might have taken longer - and of course oven temperatures can vary as well, so - use the squish test for best results.  You want 'em squishy.

When they're ready, take the pan out and let them cool until you are comfortable handling them.  The aroma - if you love the smell of roasted garlic - and if you don't, you're probably not going to do any of this - but like I was saying - the aroma is swoon-inducing.  If you've been in the kitchen the whole time, you might not realize just how deliciously garlicy this will smell, so go outside for a few minutes, pick some tomatoes, water a plant or something, and THEN go inside and take a good inhale.  Like I said - swoon-inducing.

What you want to do next is get a little bowl or container for the garlic, and another bowl for the papery parts.  Set the pan and these two bowls near your sink, because your fingers will get very oily during this process and the papery bits will stick to you annoyingly, so you'll want to be able to rinse often.

Next - you take one of the heads of garlic and hold it over the keeper bowl and squeeze the roasted garlic out.  Now - a couple of tips here.  I've found that it's best (if the papery part hasn't split already) to hold the clove with the stem end (the little flat end) down and the outer, rounded, convex side of the garlc toward you.  The garlic tends to squirt out at the bottom, and if the paper is going to split on the side anywhere, it seems to do that on the concave side.  At least, that's what happened tonight when I was doing it.  And I have the oil-splashed tee shirt to prove it.

The papery part goes in the other bowl (the slop bowl is what I call it), and every so often you'll notice the paper sticking to your fingers, so you'll want to run your hands under the water from time to time.

When you're done, you'll have a bowl of soft, golden-brown, roasted garlic that glistens with olive oil.

Voila!  Now, if you have time (I didn't tonight - I'd done enough for one night), you can dump all this into a food processer or blender and start pureeing it, drizzling olive oil in if needed to make a thick paste.  Then you could divvy it up into some small containers, freeze all but one, and keep that remaining one in the fridge.  Use a spoonful here and there - in a pasta sauce, smeared on bread, on your oatmeal...okay, I haven't tried that one, but who knows, it might be really good. 

Oooh - this is really good - get a baguette, slice it into about 1/2 inch thick rounds, lay the slices out on a sheet pan and put them in a 400 degree oven for about ten minutes.  Flip them over and put them in for another ten.  While they're baking, take some of your roasted garlic and whisk it in a bowl with some more olive oil, and maybe some salt and pepper.  When your little slices are dried out a bit, spread some of this garlicy oil mixture on each one and put them back in the oven for another five minutes or so.   

And then, just to drive yourself right over the edge, serve these garlicy baguettes with a slice of room temperature brie and maybe some apple slices or grapes on the side. 

Or skip the fruit, and don't invite anyone over, and just eat the whole thing yourself!!!

Just kidding, of course! 

I'd never do something like that, and I'm sure you wouldn't either.   

Certainly not.