Fall Colors in Food

We don't have much fall color to speak of here in So.Cal. so I have to get my fix of autumn display through food.  I had a butternut squash taking up space in the fridge and I was inspired to make a lovely dal homage to the turning leaves of the Norway Maple.  I also felt that it was the right time of year to feature apples and carrots.  I made a shredded carrot - apple salad with a creamy yoghurt dressing.  The dressing is an adaptation of a sauce in Lord Krishna's Cuisine.  The sauce features a smoky roasted soy or garbanzo flour and toasted warm spices and almonds.  Nutmeg is the predominant note, supported by creamy smooth and tart yoghurt with ... a wasabi (or horseradish) kicker!  I thought it would go well with the sweet apples and earthy carrots.  I had some squash left over so I steamed it and paired it with a tamarind-coconut-cashew chutney.
Not pictured, but a nice surprise, was batter-fried paneer balls.  I got the recipe from a nice blog called Authentic Food Delights (click for the recipe).   I don't usually do fried foods, but this looked irresistible.  I didn't make the whole recipe, just the balls.  The simple batter made from all-purpose flour, salt, and water fried up so tender and light.  I was very surprised at how "un-oily" these were.  I made them small (half-dollar sized patty) and they were absolutely delightful.  Lots of bright herbal flavor paired with richness from the paneer and the batter-crust.  I definitely need to make these again. 

Butternut Dal Soup

1 cup diced butternut squash
1/4 cup red lentils
1/2 cup chopped spinach leaves (or more it you like)
1T oil or ghee
1/4 t each of cumin seeds, mustard seeds, nigella seeds, and fennel seeds
1/8 t asafetida
1/2 t salt or to taste

Place the squash and red lentils in a saucepan and add enough water to cover the ingredients by one inch.  Bring to a boil and then lower heat and simmer for 15 minutes or until the squash and lentils are very soft.  You may need to add more water to achieve soup consistency.  Add the spinach and cook a couple minutes until wilted.  In a small skillet, heat the oil and then add the seeds and cook for 1-2 minutes until the seeds start to turn color.  The longer they cook, the stronger the color.  Add the asafetida and immediately pour into the soup.  Add salt and stir.

Shredded Carrot Apple Salad
sauce adapted from Creamy Almond Sauce with Horseradish in Lord Krishna's Cuisine

1 medium carrot
1 apple
currents or sultanas or raisins (optional to your taste)
1T oil or ghee
1/8 t each ground cardamom, nutmeg, cayenne, turmeric, and white pepper
1/4 t ground coriander
1T toasted soy or garbanzo flour
1/4 cup almond meal or ground almonds
1 cup yoghurt (thinned with water to thick-cream consistency)
1/4 t salt or to taste
2T freshly grated horseradish or 1/2 T ground dried horseradish or wasabi powder.

Shred the carrot and disc the apple and place in a bowl.  Add the dried fruits if using.  In a small saucepan, heat the oil or ghee and temper all the spices for 1 minute or so.  Take off the heat and add in the remaining ingredient, whisking until blended.  Return to heat and gently heat until the mixture simmers and thickens.  About 10 minutes. Allow to cool and then mix about half of the mixture into the carrots and apples.  You can refrigerate the rest of the sauce to use in another dish or just make a bigger salad with more carrots and apples!  You could also include grapes, cucumbers, jicama, persimmons, green tomatoes or other type of firm, juicy, fruit, depending on the season.  The nutmeg makes this a fall/winter dish for me, but if you left out the nutmeg, this could be part of a summer or spring menu, especially with a bit more horseradish.

The Red Tilapia: Snappy and Peppy

Lisa has made a delicate pan-fried tilapia in a red curry sauce. The sauce was made by tempering some a garlic ginger paste and some dry ground spices. The spices included ground chili pepper, cayenne pepper, tumeric, cumin, and coriander. The pan was de-glazed with a dab of water and then coconut milk was added to the pan and simmered until reduced by half. (Lisa will post the complete recipe on Thursday)

We paired with yet another riesling, a Firestone Vineyard 2008. This wine has a yellow-green colour with apple and floral aromas, and a medium body. There is a bit of acidity and some ripe apple flavours and a relaxed finish.

Andalusian Sausage and Rice Dish With Riesling

Fridays are often a time for odd combinations of foods in our house. Today we paired a grilled Andalusian sausage with a classic Indian yellow rice, a basmati rice with tamarin, corriander, cinnamon, etc. This was topped with a smidgen of red hot pepper. True comfort food. The Spanish hot spices coupled with a delicate and mellower rice and the different hotness of the pepper make this work.

Truth be told this was just an excuse to imbibe in my new found fondness for Rieslings, a wine that for too long I had ignored as either too sweet or too mineral induced. Apparently I had not tried a good one before. Last weekend I stumbled upon a nice German rendition and have been hooked since.

This meal was paired with a 2007 Claiborne and Churchill that Lisa picked up from Bristol Farms. Lisa rocks pretty much everything she does, her selection of wines this week was no exception. The vines for this wine are planted on the marine and alluvial bench lands of Monterey County (California). The property is close the ocean breezes which help create an intense fruity flavour. The wine has tasting and aroma hints of kaffir lime and white peach and a subtle finish. There is not much of a residual sugary taste left on the palate but rather a delicate mineral undertone. It really was a nice experience with hot food.

Pistacio Cupcakes and Healthy Milk

This story has not been given much play in the media, (we'll get to that in a second), but the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has determined that rbGH and rbST, hormones given to cows to increase milk production, have a detrimental effect on the quality and healthfulness of the milk. You can read the article here on NPR.org. 
The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit said there is a "compositional difference" between milk from cows given growth hormones and those without.
The court gave three reasons they're different:

• Increased levels of the hormone IGF-1;
• A period of milk with lower nutritional quality during each lactation; and
• Increased somatic cell counts (i.e. more pus in the milk).

Now, why wasn't this front page news?  The adverse effects of hormones and anti-biotics in foods, and the ability of producers to label their products, and of consumers to get information about how their food is produced, should be an important news topic.  Not as dramatic on the front page as e-coli or salmonella, hormones and anti-biotics (and other farm practices) are a much more insidious threat to food quality and public health.  Anyway, I hope that this gives serious researchers and serious food producers hope that their efforts to label foods to provide information for consumers will not be quashed by regulation.

OK, Now for the food stuff.  In the previous post, Michael gave the link to the Pembroke College kitchen blog.  I browsed around it for a while yesterday.  Oh, my!  How does the chef do it?  He creates gourmet meals every day with incredible variety and sensitivity.  He is not just slinging the same old hash around every day; the menus are ever-changing and spectacularly presented.  The green pistacio cake caught my eye.  I searched the internet for a recipe and was disappointed to find mostly recipes that called for boxed mix and instant pistacio flavored pudding mix.  HMMM, I finally found a recipe that used fresh ingredients and real pistacios at a site called PlanetGreen.   I slightly modified it by using whole wheat flour and adding dried shredded coconut.  I did use eggs in the recipe, but I will experiment with an egg-free version.  I made 24 mini cupcakes from this recipe.  Of course my daughter loved them!  I feel OK about that as they are pretty healthy and I used a relatively small amount of sugar.  They didn't turn out green, however.  I'm not sure where one gets "green" pistacios, but I didn't want to put food coloring in them.  Maybe some spinach juice in the next batch!

I didn't take a picture of my cupcakes, since they didn't last long enough, but here is a pic of the cake that inspired me.  Doesn't that look yummy?

OK, here is my recipe

Pistacio Cupcakes
makes 6 large or 24 mini

1/2 cup "white" whole wheat flour
2 oz ground raw pistacios
1/4 cup dried shredded coconut
1/4 t cardamom
1/2 t baking powder
1/4 t salt
2T goat milk butter
1/4 cup sugar
1 egg
3-4 oz goat milk (use your eye to mix in enough milk to make a thick batter)
2T spinach juice???? for green color????

Combine the dry ingredients in a small bowl.  In a larger bowl, cream the butter and sugar, then add in the egg and whip until creamy.  In batches, add in 1/3 of the dry ingredients and 1/3 of the milk, folding until just mixed each time.  Continue adding in until you have a nice cake batter.  Pour into lined muffin tins and bake at 350F for 30 min for large cupcakes, 18-20 min for mini cupcakes.

Potential Paratha Project at Pembroke College

http://thepembrokekitchen.blogspot.com/

David Harwood, the head of Pembroke's kitchen, has graciously added a link on his blog to ours. David is a master in creating fine dining experiences that appeal to a variety of tastes and people from different culinary backgrounds. A link to David's blog can be found above. We will also include it in our blog roll as a permanent item. We encourage you to check out his adventures as chronicled on the Pembroke Kitchen Blog. If we can get the planning right hopefully we'll be able to work on something together in the UK in the Pembroke Kitchen and we'll write about it.

Cheers.

Roti Calzone Experiment

The Roti-Calzone for our son came out nicely. Pictured is a mini one I made last night. The key was to pinch the ends (thanks for the suggestion Lisa) and to bake it at 450 degrees (F) for about 10 minutes. The recipe for the dough is the same basic one we used for the pizzas.

For those following in the UK we understand there is a local variety stuffed with chicken tikka or shish kebab served up with spicy onions and a side of papadoms.

Today we will go back to writing about the more traditional dishes we have been making although the fusion approach on things has been pretty interesting.

Rainy Tuesday & A Warm Kitchen

"How beautiful is the rain! After the dust and heat, In the broad and fiery street, In the narrow lane, How beautiful is the rain!" H.W. Longfellow.

It is a wet day here in Southern California and nothing like the downpours one would see in India during the rainy monsoon season (a map of India and avg rainfall is posted - if too small to read you can find it at www.mapsofindia.com.)

Rain for me brings to mind the comfort of a warm kitchen with friends and family enjoying conversation and awaiting something from stove top.

As a follow-up to our post last night we'll be doing an Indian calzonne with a write-up to follow.