FFwD: Roasted Salmon and Lentils

It's official. This week converted me from a lentil hater to a lentil lover. I prepared and enjoyed lentils in two very different ways this week--first Madhur Jaffrey's Red Split Lentils with Cumin Seeds on Sunday, and now the French Fridays with Dorie pick: Roasted Salmon and Lentils (pg 300 of Around My French Table).

The salmon portion of this dish is as simple as is humanly possible (rub fish with oil, salt, pepper, then roast), and, in my opinion, fell very, very flat. The lentils hold all the appeal. Green lentils simmer away in broth (yummy homemade broth), with chunks of carrot, a bay leaf, and an onion with a clove stuck in it. Why not let the clove float free in the broth? I have no idea. Maybe it's easier to retrieve from the onion? Celery should be included, but I didn't have any. Once the lentils are tender and drained, almost a cup of them are pureed, then added back in. I wish I stopped there. Dorie says to add half cup of the broth back to the pan, but I preferred it when it was thicker. Still good, but I'll know better next time.

Believe me, I groaned when I saw this recipe chosen for this week, and never in a million years expected to be shoveling spoonfuls of lentils into my mouth, straight from the pan. I never would have tried this recipe if not for French Fridays with Dorie. Hooray! I try to live by the food philosophy of tasting things I don't like over and over again, because now and then, I'm deliciously surprised. We'll see if I'm singing the same tune at the end of March, for that Grapefruit and Crab Salad. Grapefruit is my nightmare.

Conclusion: Liked the lentils, though I'm sure the quality of the broth is important to the flavor. I wouldn't make the salmon this way again.

There's a Pancake Day?

Never in my life have I heard of Pancake Day. It was today, apparently, and I unwittingly participated. For lunch, I made Jennifer Reese's recipe for Buttermilk Pancakes (pg 52 of Make the Bread, Buy the Butter), because I needed to use up some buttermilk before it went bad.

Conclusion: Pancakes make me happy. All pancakes. These were good. Liked them.

When I think of Indian food, I never think of seafood. Maybe I'm too distracted trying to choose between saag or biryani when I read the menu that I don't notice it, or maybe the restaurants I've been to haven't served seafood. Regardless, I'm intrigued by the seafood section in Indian Cooking.

Dinner was Shrimp with Zucchinis (pg 118). The sauce was tomato based, which was a departure from other dishes I've made. Honestly, this one was unmemorable. I enjoyed it well enough while I was eating it, but an hour later, I can't remember much about it.

Conclusion: I'm going to call this one just okay. It did have a lot of veggies in it, so that was good, but it's not the most delicious thing ever.

We finished up our cucumbery yogurt, so I made a new yogurt accompaniment: Yogurt with Eggplant (pg 212). The eggplant offers no flavor, but a nice, softly chunky texture. This is seasoned with salt, pepper, scallions, mint, and a bit of cayenne. The flavor is mild. The effect is of a creamy side dish, vs. the sense of refreshment I got from the cucumber one.

Conclusion: Liked it.

So Many Flavors

Is it a good or a bad thing that I've been too busy to blog, and now I have a whole list of recipes to report on? Good, in terms of life activity, methinks. Bad, in terms of having unwieldy posts. Sorry. Again.

Numero uno: Minced Meat with Peas (Kheema Matar) (pg 62 of Indian Cooking). On day one, I thought this was pretty bland. I fully admit that I'm veering toward the lower end of her spicing recommendations until I get my footing, but still, this was "eh." However, the next night, Matt made sandwiches out of it on pita, with cucumbers and the leftover cucumber mint yogurt stuff. Insert Homer Simpson drool face here. It was so good.

Conclusion: Because of the sandwich, after a day of mingling, liked it.

Last night, I tackled Lemony Chicken with Cilantro (pg 95). I chose this because I had all the ingredients. Cilantro is not something that I normally spring into action for, and the recipe only calls for two tablespoons of lemon juice, so i didn't have high hopes. Foolish me. Brown chicken, and then quickly cook a butt-load of cilantro (1.5 cups for half a batch of chicken) with a million spices. Add water to the spices, and let the chicken simmer away for a half hour. I don't think I've ever had cilantro that was cooked down so much and used as a real present component of a dish. The meat was perfectly tender, and the flavor was surprisingly lemony and complex. Matt continually muttered, "Oh my God. Oh my God" while eating. It was cute. It seems like everything I make out of this book, he says is the best Indian food ever.

Conclusion: Loved it.

I'm not a huge lentil fan, but I've liked them in Indian restaurants, so figured I'd give it a shot. Madhur keeps recommending Red Split Lentils with Cumin Seeds (pg 165) as an accompaniment to dishes, so it seemed like a good place to start. There was no picture, so I expected the lentils to retain their shape and identity. These turned out to be the consistency of refried beans, which, in my opinion, is a great thing, because I'm a fool for refried beans. They had a ton of flavor (I fear I'll be saying that a lot this month), and were the highlight of the meal for me.

Conclusion: Loved it.

I had the bright idea to use some rotting bananas to make Cocoa-Nana Bread (pg 46 of Dorie Greenspan's Baking). It's in her "Breakfast Sweets" section, and I thought, "Hey! I'll bet Charlie will eat that." Wrong-o. What is wrong with the men in my house? Charlie wouldn't touch it, and Matt nibbled one bite, then said that he doesn't do chocolate for breakfast. Grumble. It's becoming increasingly clear to me that I better focus on loaves of bread (not the sweet kind) if I want my family to appreciate my baking. Forget them.

The Cocoa-Nana bread was way more chocolatey than I expected it to be. It was really more of a cake, and I'll admit I wouldn't normally want that much chocolate for breakfast either. For a snack or dessert, it's moist and choco-licious, though. I didn't expect the bananas to be able to compete with all that chocolate, but they did. More than anything, it reminded me of a banana split.

Apparently my loaf pan was not the right size.

Woops.

Conclusion: Liked it, but I sent it to work with Matt. I don't need to eat a whole loaf single-handedly.

For book club, I made Dorie's Brrrrr-ownies (pg 103 of Baking). They're brownies with chopped up York Peppermint Patties in them. Not my favorite brownie mixture, but I do love the York Patties in the brownie. I may just add them to David Lebovitz's "Robert's Absolute Best Brownies" instead, though, because they're the absolute best.

Conclusion: Liked it.

FFwD: Cheese-Topped Onion Soup

I was looking forward to cooking this week's French Fridays with Dorie recipe: Cheese-Topped Onion Soup (pg 56 of Around My French Table), because I've made it before, and know it is delicious. Then my central air conditioning busted last week. I know that sounds like a ridiculous complaint to make in February, but the temperature started to creep upwards, until yesterday, when it hit 79 degrees outside, and hit 89 degrees in my house, according to the thermostat. Definitely not soup weather.

I'd already bought the ingredients, so I went ahead and cooked the soup anyway. Man, I wish those damn onions caramelized faster. Last time, they took me three hours. I cranked the heat up to a little less than medium heat, and it took me an hour and a half this time. Better than three hours, but still more than I have patience for on a regular basis. By the time lunch was ready, between the steam and the broiler action, I was a sweat-ball. Not good. Aren't you all glad I shared my soup experience with you this week?

Like so many foods, this soup really is worth all the time and slow preparation. It is so, so good. We're having it for dinner tonight. I didn't put nearly enough cheese on mine yesterday. Tonight, I'll know better. Prepare to be smothered in mountains of wonderful gruyere, soup!

This soup always gives me tureen-envy. Repeat after me: "I will not buy more dishware. I will not buy more dishware." 

Saag-alicious

For my first foray into Indian cooking, I decided to make my favorite: Lamb with Spinach (Dilli Ka Saag Gosht) (pg 67 of Indian Cooking). I've never eaten most of the dishes in this book, so I figured I'd start with something I knew I'd like. Boy, did I like it. I ate waaay too much of this. Matt served himself first, and I thought he took half. I took the other half. Turns out, he did not take half. He thought he left enough for me, and for lunch tomorrow. Tee hee. I ate it all. Matt said that if every meal in the book is as good as this one, we never need to order out again.

 Conclusion: Loved it. 

Jaffrey says to make your own Garam Masala (pg 21), because the store-bought stuff uses cheap ingredients and has no flavor. I quadrupled her recipe, because I don't know how to quarter a nutmeg. Ground up cardamom seeds, cinnamon sticks, cumin seeds, cloves, black peppercorn, and nutmeg make a nice warm mixture. I tasted it, then tasted the commercial blend I had in my pantry, and promptly tossed the commercial blend in the trash. It tasted like sawdust. If I ever need garam masala, I will make it. No contest.

Conclusion: Loved it.

This wasn't a fiery dish, but Yogurt with Cucumber and Mint (pg 210) still provided such a lovely, cool contrast to the cozy heat of the saag.

Mmmm...palate cleanser.

Conclusion: Loved it. A clean sweep!

Wrapping Up How to Eat, and Up Next

 Nigella Lawson's How to Eat perfectly demonstrates why I shouldn't allow the design of a cookbook to factor into my expectations of the book's quality. I do maintain that this book is not laid out in a user-friendly fashion, and there is way too much chit-chat for my taste. I don't mind intros to recipes, and I don't mind essay-type writing at the start of chapters, but this book has big chunks of chatter in between the recipes. It's distracting, and hard to find what you're looking for. There are recipes, like the Exceptional Salmon that we loved so much, that don't appear in the contents, since it's in with the chatter instead of broken apart as a separate recipe. In the paperback version, at least, there are no pictures.

HOWEVER, nearly every recipe I tried was good, if not great. I was worried that Nigella was just an English Rachael Ray, with her emphasis on quick cooking. She's not. Nigella's recipes never feel cluttered. She uses fine ingredients and cooks them simply, to maximize their flavor.

I'm not bored with this book after a month, and there are lots of recipes that I still want to try. There's a treacle tart with my name written all over it. Trying to cut back on the desserts, so I didn't get around to making it this month, but I will. Oh, I will.

My only other minor complaint is that there are a lot of recipes for game and wild fowl that I just don't have access to. If you don't have access to them either, this may not be the book to start with. I'm trying desperately to control the urge to order all of her books. Santa brought me Kitchen for Christmas, and I can't wait to jump into it. Later.

For now, I'm very excited to start my next book. I've bitched and moaned often enough here about Corpus Christi's nonexistent Indian food offerings, that I'm guessing you've figured out that I really like Indian food, but am intimidated to cook it. Well, it's time to conquer that mountain, because from what I understand, Naples doesn't have a whole lot to offer in terms of non-Italian food. If I want Indian food without having to drive a few hours to get it in the next few years, I'm going to have to make it myself. For the next month, I'll be cooking from Madhur Jaffrey's Indian Cooking. 

Doesn't she have kind eyes? I trust those eyes, and the recommendation of my friend Brigit, who steered me toward this book. I bought myself another coffee grinder for spices and a mini food processor, since a number of her recipes involve small amounts of onion puree. I stopped at the organic store yesterday and picked up whole spices and dry beans. I'm ready. Now can someone tell me how to quarter a nutmeg?? Blood shall be spilled this night! Nah, I'm better off quadrupling her garam masala recipe, even though she says to just make a little at a time.

Fingers crossed that I'm not totally sick of Indian food by the end of the month. The recipes look pretty diverse, so I think I'll be okay.

A Few Lovelies

I'm a few days late finishing up How to Eat. Woops. I lost track of the month. Oh well. I got two Charlie-Approved meat dishes out of it, so the extra few days were worth it.

The Chicken Patties (pg 439) from the "Feeding Babies and Small Children" section did not come out remotely how I expected them to, which is probably a good thing. I thought it would be a version of a cafeteria chicken patty, which, I'm ashamed to admit, I always loved. I'd probably think it was vile if I tasted one now, but in third grade, those things were awesome.

Gorgeous.

Nigella's starts with blitzing boneless, skinless chicken thighs in the food processor. She says you can substitute ground turkey, so I did, because it's easier, and I had a pound in the freezer from my handy local good-to-the-animals meat farm. Mix it up with pork sausage, nutmeg, bread crumbs, and parsley, make patties, and fry in a bit of oil. I used the whole package of ground breakfast sausage, because I wasn't sure how much the required two links would equate to. So, these tasted like breakfast sausage, which is to say that they were delicious. I made slider-sized patties, and Charlie gobbled his right up. Which reminds me, I have to throw the leftovers in the freezer so that I don't burn him out on them.

Conclusion: Liked it, and Charlie Approved.

One thing I've learned from this month with Nigella is that, under specific circumstances, Charlie will eat a drumstick. If I put the drumstick on his plate with the rest of his dinner, he won't touch it. However, if he climbs on Matt's lap--not mine, only Matt's--and Matt tries to take a bite of his own drumstick, Charlie will take and eat that one. Perhaps not the best etiquette, but we're just happy to see protein going into him. With this in mind, I made The Tenderest Chicken (pg 315). Chicken pieces marinate for 8+ hours in buttermilk, soy sauce, garlic, and mustard. When you're ready to cook, you wipe them down, then brush them with melted butter mixed with olive oil, salt, and pepper. It just tastes like roast chicken, and it was, indeed, quite tender. I poured the leftover butter solution on fresh brussel sprouts and roasted them in the stove with the drumsticks. Best brussel sprouts ever.

Conclusion: Liked it, and Charlie Approved. I'm not the hugest drumstick fan, but I'll be making them regularly, since boy-o will eat them.

Twice this week, I re-tested the Yogurt (pg 46) from Make the Bread, Buy the Butter, paying much closer attention to the temperature of the milk. I'm now certain that, the first time I tried this, I let my milk cool too much before stirring in the bit of live-culture yogurt. These two times, after an overnight rest in the oven, I opened the oven door in the morning, and voila! Yogurt. Warm yogurt, but yogurt nonetheless. I was reprimanded throughout childhood every time I left the milk carton on the counter, so I do psychologically grimace at the thought of letting it sit all night, but it's worth it. The flavor is nicer, without that sharp edge that can be in store-bought plain yogurt, plus, I'm no longer beholden to Fage. Even using organic milk, it's cheaper to make my own than buy Fage. I haven't actually strained the yogurt to make Greek-style yet, but I will.

Conclusion: Love it. It's simple, it's cheaper than store-bought, it tastes good, and I find myself eating more of it because I made it.

I ran out of peanut butter, so I made Reese's recipe. All you do is blitz peanuts and a bit of peanut oil in the food processor until you have the texture you want. Jennifer says to make it thinner than you think it needs to be, because it will firm up in the fridge. This was true. My one qualm is that she says homemade peanut butter is 80 percent the price of Jif. Maybe peanuts are just expensive in Texas, but my jar of peanuts cost nearly the same as the natural peanut butter I usually buy. A huge Costco-sized box of peanuts would be cheaper, I'd think, but the only container I could find was not.

Conclusion: Liked it, but I doubt I'll make it regularly. It costs the same here, so it's not worth the added step of pulsing it myself.

Lastly, Matt and I had date night last night, in which our friend took Charlie away for hours, and we cooked awesome filet mignon and mashed potatoes, drank wine, etc. Fun times. I planned to make creme brulee for dessert, but forgot to add the ingredients to Matt's grocery list, so I couldn't. Searching for a similar replacement that wouldn't require another trip to the store, I landed on Vanilla Cup Custard from Dorie Greenspan's Baking. All it needs is milk, eggs, sugar, vanilla, and some almond extract. Easy. Unfortunately, this tasted very eggy. Neither one of us was impressed, and Charlie only picked at his. We kept thinking up fruit sauces that would mask the egginess, which doesn't speak well of the custard's flavor.

Conclusion: Just okay.