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.

Roti Pizza Party

Our beloved Mac is still in the shop, but neither rain not sleet nor gloom of nigtht will keep us from our Paratha adventures. Sunday our daugther had a craving for a cookie, and since we don't keep any in the house usually an emergency Trader Joes run was in order.

We have been very in to bread making lately and while a T.J.'s decided it might be a good idea to make our our pizza so we stocked up on cheese and pizza sauce. Rather than make normal Italian style pizza we went for a roti base. Pictured to the right are two mini roti pizzas with tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese. Delightful. We are going to try for a calzone next and need to think about ways to doctor them up so they are more Indian like. Using whole wheat flower these are much less bready, and the sauce-to-cheese-to-crust ratio is nice.

The dough is easy to make, combining 2 cups of whole wheat flour with 1 cup of H2O and a pinch of salt, and then mixing by hand (which would take a while) or using a kitchenaid mix master and dough hook for about 5 minutes of effort (which is the avenue we took). Pounding and folding the dough out is more practice and art than science and after a few attempts you'll get the hang of it.

Cheer.

Onions: Use them or Lose them?

Why the fuss  about onions today?  I have been cooking extensively in the Vedic tradition, which does not typically use onion or garlic.  So, it had been several weeks since I had made a dish with onions, when I made a beetroot curry that I saw on VahRehVah (link at left).  The onions were optional but highly recommended.  My instinct was to leave them out, but I wanted to follow the recipe as given the first time I made it, so, I made the dish with the onions.  It tasted fantastic... at first.  But then I realized that the onions were actually overpowering the tastes of the beet and the subtle spicings.  Funny, when you cook without onions for a while, the taste comes on very strong when you do have them.

I first noticed that when I discovered Zen temple cooking a few years back.  Zen temple  cooking also does not use onions or garlic or related foods. Instead, it allows each ingredient to come to its full fruition.  A simple boiled carrot slice, then, becomes itself, to be enjoyed for all of its orangeness, grassy bitterness, sweet overtones, firm yet smooth bite.    

I think I may leave out the onions in the future and just let the tastes of the other ingredients develop themselves and shine.  My sense of onions is that, because they do have such a powerful taste, they can become a sort of crutch.  Need flavor? Add an onion.  After a while, you get used to the onion flavor and think that that is what all food tastes like.  You have forgotten that there are other flavor possibilities. 

Of course, onions, too, offer their own unique experience and health benefits. (Captain Cook ordered his crew to eat raw onions every day to prevent scurvy, as if they weren't smelly enough already).  I have certainly made dishes where the onion played its role, and was balanced with the rest of the dish.  Macrobiotic cooking, in particular, treats onions in such a way as to allow them to complement the dish without overwhelming it.

So, use them or lose them?  Use them, but rarely, and with restraint.  I'll make that beetroot curry again, hold the onions. 

Sorry no photos for this post.  My laptop is in the shop and I am using my barebones backup. 

Tofu Korma

Ok, so I took the Korma challenge.  Korma seems to be a traditionally meat dish, but I prefer, for various reasons, to keep primarily vegetarian.  There were plenty of vegetarian variations to be found on the internet.  Nevertheless, the most interesting korma recipe I found was in Gordon Ramsay's Great Escape and it was for lamb korma.  I liked the spicing of the recipe, so I just decided to make it with tofu and some veggies.  I had my garden fresh butternut squash sitting on the counter.  I purchased some green beans and got to work.  The results can be seen at left.  I made it kind of dry (don't really like soupy stuff) and it was so rich and redolent of cinnamon, cardamom, and cloves.  I also decided to skip the extra cream that the recipe calls for and just use 2% yoghurt, which is plenty rich for me, and keeps the dish healthy and easy to digest.  I used extra firm tofu (which has a consistency like paneer) and is loaded with protein.   This dish was so filling, but, as I said, not heavy.  So here is my recipe.  The proportions are approximate and you can vary the veggies and proportions as desired.  I made only a small amount, but the recipe scales up.

Tofu Korma
adapted from Lamb Korma in Gordon Ramsay's Great Escape.

1/2 package of extra firm tofu, cubed
1 cup of butternut squash, cubes and steamed lightly until just tender
1/2 cup of green beans, steamed lightly until just tender
2 green chilis,
2T almond meal
6 cashews
1 inch of ginger peeled and chopped
1/2 cup water to blend
2T vegetable oil
1 cinnamon stick
4 cloves
2 cardamom pods
1/2 onion, chopped
1/2 cup yoghurt
1/2 cup water to blend
salt and pepper to taste
lemon wedges to serve

Toast the cashews a bit and set aside.  Then toast the almond meal and set aside to cool with the cashews (you can also use whole almonds, they will get ground up in the next step).  Place the cashews and almond in a blender with the chilis, ginger and 1/2 cup water and blend to a paste.  Mix in the yoghurt and 1/2 cup water and set aside.  In a large saute pan, heat the oil and saute the onions until they start to wilt.  Add the tofu and saute until the tofu just starts to turn golden.  Add the dry spices and toss for a minute, then add the yoghurt/nut mix and the steamed veggies and salt and pepper to taste.  Simmer lightly until the veggies are cooked tender (5 minutes or so).

Enjoy with some chapati and a squeeze of lemon.