November 26, 2009
Posted by glutenfreegirl, November 10, 2009 at 2:30 PM
"Millet was first grown in China, where it was revered for thousands of years as one of their five most sacred grains."
[Photograph: Shauna James Ahern]
Millet is the tofu of the grain world.
OK, I know that might not make some of you hungry. Tofu has a bad reputation, just like millet. Some of us associate tofu with that watery block of white goo, sealed in plastic. Unappetizing. Truly good tofu, however, is made fresh that day, still warm, silky on the spoon, and something else entirely than what you have in your head.
The same is true for millet. Where have you seen millet before? For most of you, that's probably in a bag of birdseed. Yep, millet is the small round grain fed to the birds in the park by crazy old ladies. Does that make you want to eat it? Probably not.
How about this? That salad you see up there? That's a chilled millet salad with red peppers and golden raisins, honeycomb tangerines, goat cheese, red leaf lettuce, and prosciutto. Plus, a little apple gastrique.
Millet does not have to be boring.
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Posted by MichaelNatkin, November 4, 2009 at 2:30 PM
Note: Michael Natkin of the vegetarian blog Herbivoracious drops by every Wednesday to share a delicious recipe to expand our vegetarian repertoire.
[Photograph: Michael Natkin]
If you just looked at the picture and didn't read the title, you probably just thought this was hummus, right? Wrong! While they look superficially similar, hummus is made primarily of chickpeas, while tahina is a puree of sesame seeds seasoned with lemon juice and garlic.
Hummus is well-known in the west, inspiring frightful variations with textures comparable to drywall cement, while tahina's praises go unsung. Which is a shame, because it is easy to throw together, delicious, and very nutritious.
To make matters more confusing, tahina can also be spelled tehineh or tehina, and its main ingredient is tahini. All you have to keep in mind is that tahini is just the pureed raw sesame seeds, while tahina is the prepared sauce.
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Posted by glutenfreegirl, October 27, 2009 at 2:00 PM
[Photograph: Shauna James Ahern]
I grew up in Southern California, which was always sunny, generally pleasant, and filled with people who wanted to be in the movie industry. And, let's face it, a good chunk of the people who lived there were absolutely nuts.
LA was the land of colonics and smoothies, the ever-tan and permanently grinning from facelifts. I remember seeing billboards for plastic surgeons touting breast jobs for teenagers on the side of the freeway. Dr. George Fishbeck fiddled with his bow tie nervously and apologized when the forecast called for rain. And LA is where I first heard of people eating a macrobiotic diet.
One summer, my family and I ended up at a garage sale in Malibu. I have no idea why these people were having a garage sale, when their neighbors down the street had a life-size replica of a TIE fighter on their roof, and everyone had Mercedes and Porsches parked in their garages. But there it was—a garage sale. Listening to the sound of the surf hitting the sand behind the house, we poked through old clothes and slightly scarred furniture. My mother found a standing lamp from the 1920s that she bought for $15. My brother and I found a stack of a single book: The Knowing Nose.
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Posted by glutenfreegirl, October 6, 2009 at 3:30 PM
"Its name is appropriate—this squash is delicate, weighing less than a pound, with thin skin."
My brother and I hunched over our pumpkins, racing to see who could scoop all the seeds out first. After our parents cut the top hunk off the thing, we stuck our arms in as far as they could go to rid our soon-to-be jack-o'-lanterns of unwanted weight. I flicked the stringy mess onto the newspapers scattered on the kitchen floor. From this distance, I'd like to think I regarded the process with imagination, pretending the goo was zombie slime, or something more artful. Mostly, in my mind was: "Ewww. Get this away from me."
We had to forge our way through the flesh to reach the goal: the chance to carve faces into the thick shell. However, I was always disappointed in the outcome, since my mother handed us such flimsy steak knives that they bent when I tried to cut out the eyes.
(I'm not blaming her, since it's all we owned at the time. And now that I've grown up, I know that it was my lack of artistic skill that left the triangle nose slumping to one side, the mouth a ragged patch of teeth.)
A month later, we ate pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving dinner. My brother, even as a child, wanted a quarter of the pie to himself. My mother made the crust, but she swirled the whipped cream out of a can. We loved to squirt it into our mouths after she finished decorating the pie. And as far as I knew, the filling for the pumpkin pie came out of a can too.
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Posted by MichaelNatkin, September 30, 2009 at 2:30 PM
Serious Eater Michael Natkin of the vegetarian blog Herbivoracious drops by every Wednesday to share a delicious recipe to expand our vegetarian repertoire.
[Photographs: Michael Natkin]
I typically serve polenta one of two ways—fresh from the pot or cooled, sliced, and grilled. But for today's dish, I pre-stuffed it with a mixture of spicy greens and Caciocavallo cheese so the oven and broiler could do the work of the grill. The beauty of this recipe is it can all be made ahead, and you can work on the greens while the polenta is simmering.
Italians rarely serve greens lightly sauteed. They tend to like them fully hammered. Here we cook them down with garlic, chili flakes, and red wine. The chard stems are sliced thin and thrown into the saute.
The mixture of beet greens and chardworks great, but feel free to substitute kale, collard greens, mustard greens or any other greens you fancy. I served the polenta with roasted beets, then made a sauce from the liquid left over from cooking the greens reduced with saba (also known as mosto cotto, or the cooked grape syrup rendered in the first step of balsamic vinegar production).
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Posted by glutenfreegirl, September 22, 2009 at 3:30 PM
Juniper berries. [Photograph: Shauna James Ahern]
If you had seen my spice cupboard in 2005, you might have laughed.
A half-empty cinnamon bottle, used vigorously during the holiday season, then not touched for months. The same was true for the nutmeg and cloves. I think I may even have owned a squat Pumpkin Pie Spice. Honestly, I don't even know what Italian Seasoning is, but I kept it. Iodized salt. Ground black pepper.
That was it.
Now, the spice drawer in our pull-out pantry is stuffed full of little bags and mismatched glass jars: smoked paprika; gomashio for poached eggs on brown rice; star anise; turmeric; dried lavender; fresh vanilla beans. We still have cinnamon, but it's from Saigon instead of Schilling. Those holiday cookies taste a hell of a lot better now, even if they are gluten-free.
Juniper berries have a clean taste, refreshing, like wind coming off cold mountains.
I really don't think I would have discovered the world of spices without letting go of gluten.
It's too easy to rely on old standards when you think you can eat everything. It was only when an entire world of food was closed to me that I became voraciously interested in every food I could eat.
The other day, my friend Sharon and I walked into World Spice here in Seattle. The mingled smells of cumin and fenugreek, lemongrass and mustard seeds, nigella and sumac made us both stop and smell, smile at each other, then smell again. Honestly, every time I walk into that store, I slow down. I lift lids and breathe in, close them up and wonder what I would cook with that spice, move to the right and lift another lid. It's meditation through inhalation.
At the counter, I asked for two ounces of juniper berries, among other spices and herbs. When we left the store, Sharon said, "What are you going to do with juniper berries? I would never buy those."
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Posted by MichaelNatkin, September 16, 2009 at 2:00 PM
Serious Eater Michael Natkin of the vegetarian blog Herbivoracious drops by every Wednesday to share a delicious recipe to expand our vegetarian repertoire.
[Photograph: Michael Natkin]
Westerners tend to think the full range of Indian main dishes consists of wet curries and tandoor-cooked meats. There are actually a huge array of cooking techniques used throughout the subcontinent. Today's eggplant and potato charchari demonstrates an unusual Bengali style never seen in American restaurants.
After the initial frying of spices, the vegetables are added along with enough water to steam them tender, and cooked without stirring until all of the water evaporates. Then they stay on the heat while the fat at the bottom of the pan fries the lowest layer of vegetables until crispy and dark. This crust is mixed into the dish to add a bit of flavor complexity reminiscent of outdoor cooking.
The result is a dryer-textured dish that makes a nice contrast to the typical saucy curry. Serve it with this Chana-Mushroom Masala, basmati rice, and plain yogurt or a simple raita for a real feast. The best pot for cooking a charchari is something heavy and easy to clean (but not non-stick) like an enameled cast iron Dutch oven.
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Posted by glutenfreegirl, September 8, 2009 at 7:15 PM
"You might have eaten teff and not known it."
Injera, the spongy Ethiopian bread, is made of teff flour. [Photograph: Robyn Lee]
When people find out I cannot eat gluten, they often say, "Oh, I'm so sorry."
(Not me.)
And the next utterance? "Um, does that mean you are on the Atkins diet?"
Nope. Not even close. Can I eat rice? Yes. Corn? Oh yeah to tortillas. Potatoes? I don't know what I would do without potatoes.
I am not on a low-carb diet. In fact, now that I live gluten-free, I eat more whole grains than ever before. Did you know that many Americans do not eat a single whole grain in a year? Not one. Think about it. How many people grab a toaster waffle for breakfast, a sandwich on white bread for lunch, take-out tacos for dinner? There's a lot of processed wheat in those on-the-run days but not many whole grains.
If I had not been forced to go gluten-free because of my celiac diagnosis, I don't know that I would have ever eaten teff.
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Posted by MichaelNatkin, September 2, 2009 at 2:45 PM
Note: Serious Eater Michael Natkin of the vegetarian blog Herbivoracious drops by every Wednesday to share a delicious recipe to expand our vegetarian repertoire. This week's dish will make you the popular kid at the Labor Day bash.
Want to be a hero at your Labor Day barbecue? Gotcha covered. Show up with a plate of deviled eggs. You can never make too many and I'll bet you a dollar they will be gone in minutes.
I didn't stray too far from the traditional seasonings though I couldn't resist using smoked paprika and making the mayonnaise from scratch for some additional flavor. Sumac (the Middle Eastern spice, not the notoriously skin-irritating weed) also makes an attractive garnish but if you don't have any, more paprika will be just fine.
If you are against eating raw eggs for safety reasons, or just want to make this a little quicker, feel free to use a good prepackaged mayonnaise instead. The flavor of homemade mayo, however, is incomparable, and once you know how to whip it up, you can flavor it so many different ways.
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Posted by glutenfreegirl, August 25, 2009 at 2:30 PM
Note: We've offered a small amount of gluten-free recipes on SE in the past but have never had a specific column devoted to the topic. That changes today. This post marks the Serious Eats debut of Shauna James Ahern. You may already know her from her blog, Gluten-Free Girl (one of the most popular gluten-free cooking blogs out there), or her book of the same name. We're pleased to welcome her to the site. Take it away, Shauna!
[Photograph: Shauna James Ahern]
A few weeks ago, on Top Chef Masters, Michael Chiarello quaked at the announcement of a blind taste test. The show's host explained that the chefs would have to guess at foods such as umeboshi plum. Chiarello, who prides himself on his extensive knowledge of Italian cuisine, uttered a load groan. "I don't even know what that is," he admitted in the personal interview.
Really? I've been using umeboshi vinegar (also called ume plum vinegar) for years now, splashing it into stir-fries and adding it to brining liquids for crisp pickled vegetables. Bottles of it sit in the Asian section of most of the grocery stores here in Seattle. I've started to take it for granted.
"After letting go of gluten, I have opened my palate to the entire world's foods."
But when I started to think about ume plum vinegar and why it's in my pantry, I realized how lucky I am.
I can't eat gluten.
You see, when I was diagnosed with celiac disease in 2005, my entire life changed. Told that I could not eat gluten--the elastic protein in wheat, rye, barley, triticale, and spelt--for the rest of my life, I rejoiced. I had been so sick and laid up with malaise for years that I celebrated having an answer. More than that, I saw how lucky I am. Given the choice of diseases and auto-immune disorders I could have, give me the one where I can heal myself solely by eating great food.
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Posted by Grace Kang, March 25, 2009 at 1:00 PM
Quinoa is one of those foods that I feel like I should always eat more of. Unusually rich in proteins, it's a great choice for vegetarians, vegans, or those allergic to gluten. I'm none of the above, but as I chew through the earthy, nutty grains, I instantly feel ... healthier and stronger, perhaps? It's all that protein, I'm telling you!
During my time at a farm in France, we had quinoa at least once a day, and if it's good enough for farm laborers, I'm pretty sure it's good enough for your workday. Sheila Lukins' version integrates a chimichurri sauce for a wallop of flavor to liven it up. The dish is satisfying and filling enough to serve by itself or as a side.
Win 'Ten'
In addition to excerpting a recipe each day this week, we're giving away five (5) copies of Ten: All the Foods We Love and 10 Recipes for Each. Enter to win here »
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Posted by Blake Royer, January 27, 2009 at 4:50 PM
I've long been on a search for a spectacular tomato soup recipe that doesn't achieve greatness by adding lots of heavy cream, the most common way to temper the acidity of tomatoes. I already love the variation using bread that I've already written about. But when I was flipping through The Splendid Table's How to Eat Supper the other day, the book fell open to this recipe, and lightning struck. Nestled in the Provençal-perfumed broth (think basil, oregano, thyme, and fennel seeds) was a dollop of creamy goat cheese. Brilliant!
Sure, this soup would taste a lot better at the height of summer rather than the dead of winter (you could use fresh tomatoes instead of canned). But I really couldn't wait. Turns out, it's a skillfully flavored soup, with those classic spices plus an inspired addition of ground cinnamon and the herbal punch of dry vermouth. The chevre melts into the broth, adding a calming touch with that pleasant, familiar goat-cheese funk.
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Posted by Blake Royer, January 15, 2009 at 4:00 PM
Last week I was singing the praises of Chez Pannisse Vegetables, and this Moroccan carrot salad is the next thing I cooked from it, which I made in order to use up a glut of carrots in the fridge. Though the recipe calls for pretty baby carrots with the stems still attached (not the peeled and cut "baby" ones at the grocery store, but actual young carrots), I cut up full-grown ones into half-moons and it was pretty delicious next to a roasted leg of lamb.
The spices are an unexpected blend of cumin, paprika, cayenne, and cinnamon. The recipe listed no quantities for the spices, so I experimented by using stronger amounts of cumin and paprika, just a little cayenne for heat, and cinnamon for its unique aromatic flavor. My guess is the next time I make this I'll improvise again. Otherwise, it's lemon juice for brightness, olive oil, and chopped parsley, with a clove of garlic cooked with the carrots to almost imperceptibly perfume them. The key is to allow as much time as possible for the flavors to mellow and marry; they are all strong and since they're never cooked, they can be harsh at first.
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Posted by Blake Royer, December 30, 2008 at 5:00 PM
After a vegan friend came over for dinner, the shrink-wrapped package of tofu that she'd brought along to eat languished in my refrigerator. Frankly, I didn't know what to do with it. So instead of challenging myself to find a decent recipe, I ignored it for as long as possible, until the consume-by date loomed close. I hate wasting food, but it's possible that I hate tofu even more.
Eventually I landed at 101 Cookbooks, where I stumbled on this recipe for caramelized tofu with shredded Brussels sprouts. The tofu (preferably firm) is sliced into strips and seared with oil, garlic, and pecans, then finished with dark brown sugar to give it a fabulous sweet-savory coating. Then the Brussels sprouts go into the pan so they pick up all the good pan residue and become crisp and golden. The result was a lightning-quick dinner with very satisfying, balanced flavors. The only part I didn't like? The rubbery tofu. Oh well.
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Posted by Blake Royer, November 25, 2008 at 6:00 PM
I don't cook with dried lentils often, but every time I do, I vow to use them more. A legume just like beans, they're a cheap, healthy, low-fat source of protein and fiber--but unlike beans, you don't need to plan ahead by soaking or cook them for hours. Usually I stick to the green puy lentil (also known as French lentils) for their tendency to stay intact while cooking and their earthy taste, but this recipe called for the red variety, known in Indian cuisine as "dal," which cooks in 15 minutes or so. "Dal" is also the name for this common dish.
The spices here are pretty basic Indian -- cumin, coriander, turmeric, chili, and garlic -- but I was thrown off by coconut milk, which I associate with Thai curries. I'm not sure if it was authentic or not, but it did wonders to the lentils, adding a subtle sweetness that brought out the same in the lentils. Even though the result looked a bit soupy and brown, its appearance betrayed the wonderful, comforting flavor.
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Posted by Blake Royer, October 28, 2008 at 4:15 PM
The brilliant secret to this recipe, an unclassifiable number that's kind of a stir-fry but with none of the usual ingredients, is the way chickpeas will caramelize and turn nutty-brown if you heat them over high heat in a skillet. Nick's covered this territory before in Dinner Tonight, when he cooked them until they actually crisped into snacks, making a kind of alternative to popcorn. But it was the first time I'd done anything besides purée or simmer the humble chickpea, and I was amazed. The process deepens the flavor considerably and makes them taste almost meaty.
The inspiration came from a recipe at 101 Cookbooks, which I followed only loosely: I replaced spinach for kale, lost the tofu, and added chunks of roasted red pepper. I think the recipe would be pretty successful with any number of ingredients—frozen corn, for example, or chunks of feta cheese tossed in at the end. The key is a good splash of lemon juice off the heat to brighten it and keep the oil in check. Just cook the heck out of the chickpeas and its pretty safe to say the result will be delicious.
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Posted by Blake Royer, October 23, 2008 at 4:00 PM
Halfway through making this Galician soup, I started to have second thoughts. The recipe came from Spain...on the Road Again, the Gwyneth Paltrow, Mario Batali, Mark Bittman, and Claudia Bassols public television show where they drive around Spain in Mercedes Benzes with cameras trained on them eating. Sure, it tasted great in the hills of Spain, but here all I had was a little sautéed bacon, some cubed potatoes and turnips, an onion, a can of white beans, and water in a pot. As my kitchen filled with the unmistakable smell of boiled vegetables, I wondered where this soup was headed. Do I even like turnips? I don't seem to like their smell. I put my faith in the Spanish chorizo still to come and the hearty greens that would wilt in the last minutes of cooking.
Of course, it all came together beautifully. I never would have thought to put a cured sausage into a soup, but it flavored the broth with a porky spiciness that imbued all the humble vegetables with bright flavor and color. The result is filling and healthy, a peasant soup to feed an army for nothing. In fact, I halved the recipe on the show's blog (the original supposedly feeds 4-6) and my recipe still yielded three dinners for two.
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Posted by Blake Royer, October 16, 2008 at 4:45 PM
I just came back from Italy (where I ate magnificent food all day long) with great arm-length wedges of cheese, guanciale for carbonara, and enough olive oil to bathe in. Homesick for a place I'm not from, I wanted to put all the ingredients to use right away before the lingering memory of all that good food began to fade. So I reproduced two of the simplest dishes I'd eaten and made a very satisfying dinner of it: polenta with olive oil and Parmigiano-Reggiano, and the classic spinach alla Romana with pine nuts, garlic, and raisins.
Great polenta is an art, but pretty good polenta is darn easy with quality cornmeal. The spinach dish is also a no-brainer, as long as a few tricks are used: The raisins must be soaked to increase their plumpness, the garlic must be browned gently for at least 5 minutes to bring out its nutty flavor, and the pine nuts should be cooked until golden, but not burned. The resulting dish is hearty, punctuated with bites of sweetness and creamy pine nut, and imbued with savory garlic. With the polenta, it's a terrific dinner.
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Posted by Blake Royer, October 14, 2008 at 4:30 PM
As summer vegetable season draws to a close, I'm finding late-season produce still available at the market, and it needs a little more attention in the kitchen.
Tomatoes aren't quite as glorious raw with a little basil. At this point, their flavor needs some heat and coaxing to emerge, perhaps as a tomato sauce. String beans, as well, are a bit tougher and need stewing. When I bought two kilos of yellow string beans recently, which were a bit old and tough, I turned to an Italian recipe made just for them.
Green beans with tomato sauce is a relatively common pairing in Italy. I started with a recipe from Lidia Bastianich's Italian-American Kitchen, but also turned to The Silver Spoon and liked the idea of adding chopped onion, a few olives, and leftover basil. The emerging dish was no groundbreaker, but it was classic and comforting and a good honest use of my beans.
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Posted by Blake Royer, October 7, 2008 at 4:15 PM
I've staked my claim before against overly-fancified salads, full of fruit and nuts and other frivolity. How many endive, blue cheese, and candied walnut recipes can one world eat? Give me a bowl of good farmers' market greens and nothing else, and I'm generally more than happy. Yet apple season and countless beets at the market led me to this recipe on the River Cottage website, which uses hazelnuts (something I've never put in a salad before) and aged English cheddar.
The only heating needed is to toast the nuts, which led to my lesson: hazelnuts pretty much skin themselves if you toast them for a few minutes. Otherwise, it's just a matter of thinly slicing the beets and apples and crumbling a little cheese.
Since the beets are raw, which preserves its antioxidant qualities (a nice health benefit), it's essential to slice them as thinly as possible (a mandoline, even a cheap plastic one, really helps). Uncooked, they have a pleasant sweetness and crunch, as does the apple. The dressing is nothing more than cider vinegar, a pinch of salt and sugar, and two kinds of oil—a little olive oil for its flavor, but also neutral sunflower oil so the flavors underneath still come through.
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