Sunday, April 4, 2010

Dueling muhammaras

Nope, we're not entering the political zone of the Mideast here, or maybe we are, on a very fundamental level.

What is muhammara? Glad you asked, even if you didn't. Muhammara is one of those mysterious spreads and dips that you get in Mideast restaurants. It's Turkish in origin, they tell me,which probably means that there are disputes all over the Aegean as to where it comes from. My assistant, who is from Greece, tells me she's never heart of it, and indeed, the pomegranate molasses that is in it is not something I associate with Greek food. Moroccan? Paula Wolfert, you out there? Can you chime in? Anyone else? Syrian? Israeli? Someone?
Ultimately, who cares, unless you have a recipe you want to compare this too.
This dish requires roasted peppers, and fresh peppers are out of season for a while.

Use your pantry. You can buy really good quality roasted peppers. I bought an Italian brand that gave me three peppers to a jar: 2 red, one yellow, and they were terrific. Annalena enjoys roasting peppers herself, and the aroma that they import to the home, but hey, you gotta live with what you live with.

I think the hardest part of this recipe is toasting the walnuts, and finding pomegranate molasses. Annalena has four different types of it. I suggest you find someone who has some and borrow it, because you only need a tablespoon, and let's face it: you won't use it again, for a while.

TO THE KITCHEN: you need a cup of walnuts. To toast them, heat your oven to 350. Put the walnuts out on a tray, and toast them until, well, they smell "toasty." This is about 10 minutes. Err on the side of underdone, they'll continue to toast when you take the tray out of the oven. While they're toasting, get those peppers: six whole roasted ones, any color. Chop up a jalapeno pepper (not an option. You need this), an onion, 2 or 3 cloves of garlic, and toss them in a bowl. You also want to add to this, a tablespoon fo the pomegranate molasses, the juice of a lemon (meyer, or standard), a teaspoon of cumin.

Now, a controversial step for some people: bread crumbs. I used them. I used 3/4 cup of dried. You can use fresh, and you can leave it out, but the resulting product will be much wetter.

Put ALL of this in a food processor, and pulse. It will process remarkably easily: there's a lot of moisture in those peppers. And while it's happening, add 2 tablespoons of olive oil.

Know what? You're done. If you are familiar with Greek cooking, it may remind you of skordalia, or perhaps tahini or something like that. I see some similiartities will all of these.

All you need now is some toast of some kind to dip into the stuff. Pita is standard, and good, but use what you like.

My friends combined this with some smoked ham and found it exquisite. Me? Sheep's milk ricotta please. Or, just as it is. It's yummy. And you will notice the molasses and may find other ways to use it.

If you borrowed a bottle, your friend may never get it back

I DID say spring had sprung, didn't I? Oh well. Leek and garlic sauce

In the last post, I sang the praises of rhubarb, which I shall continue to do for a while . We are in that period of the year, however, where the spring goodies are simply not plentiful enough to push the winter goodies out of the way completely. That isn't necessarily a bad thing. As the constant reader knows, Annalena is very fond of working with what winter gives her. And if the winter gives her leeks, well, Annalena is "there."
This is a pasta sauce which, believe it or not, represents a REDUCTION of richness. As I was making it, I was tasting, and it is such a strong tasting sauce that as I looked ahead, I realized that it was going to be 'too much'. Now, coming from the pen of the writer who has said that "wretched excess is barely enough," that is saying something. But bear with me. If you make this - and I hope you will - you will see what I mean.

The ingredients are fairly simple. You need butter and olive oil. 2 tablespoons of the former, and one of the latter. You will also need LOTS of leeks - I would say that six of the monsters you can buy in the supermarket, or up to 12 of the normal sized ones you'll find at the farmers market. You really can't use too many leeks in this recipe. You also need a good dozen cloves of garlic. Use the plump ones. You'll get about six of those from every head of garlic, so do the math. In terms of liquids, you will need either 1.5 cups of chicken stock (or clear vegetable stock), or a cup of stock and half a cup of white wine. As I present this recipe, I will write it as if I were using the wine, but make the substitution. you're smart. You also need half a cup of heavy cream and, if you take this all the way, half a cup of grated pecorino romano cheese. Grate it yourself.

Now, the thing that will take the most time here, is cutting the leeks. Get rid of the dark green part, and then slice the remaining leeks into half moons. It's going to take a while, but it's all worth it. If they are dirty - and they probably will be - dump them in a big pot of water. Peel the garlic. Don't sit there and try to be clinical about this step - just smash em and pull off the skin, then cut the cloves in half.

Got everything together? Ok, let's cook. Get a wide skillet ready and put the fats in it. When the butter has melted, add the leeks, the garlic, a pinch of salt, a pinch of pepper, and lower the heat. Stir this mess a bit, for about five minutes. Now add the half cup of wine, and raise the heat, until it evaporates. If you blink, you'll miss it. Add the rest of the liquid, and lower the heat.

My original recipe calls for putting a sheet of parchment paper on top of this and lowering the heat, and I did in fact do this, but I imagine if you have a tight fitting lid, you'll be fine. The heat should be low, and you'll want to come back and stir this, every five minutes or so, for about 40 minutes.

Taste as you go along and you'll realize how much sugar is in each of these "vegetables." This sauce is going to develop a very strong, sweet, carmelization typ e of flavor. You will not think there's garlic in it. I promise.

You can use this sauce as it is, and perhaps you should. I did then add the half cup of cream, and stirred it until the stuff thickened. Once I tasted it, putting in cheese was out of the question. Indeed, when I used this as a pasta sauce, I added water to thin it, and no one minded.

You will get enough sauce here to serve at least six people. I had doubled the recipe, served 8 folks, and had enough left over to serve 3 more people. The portion size of pasta may seem small at first: you want 3 ounces per person. BUT... given the flavor of the sauce, with or without the cream or cheese, it's very mouth filling and it is really a first course kind of thing.

The extra sauce, by the way, was smashing on some guinea hen meatballs that I made from some left over meat . I think it's probably great on green vegetables too.

So, want something a bit offbeat, that kind of straddles winter and spring? Here you go. And make it during the spring when you can get the baby leeks. I'm looking at modifying it with some fava beans. Sounds good to me.

Saturday, April 3, 2010

Spring has sprung: rhubarb cake

And Annalena has been reveling in it. And neglecting her gentle readers. Mi dispiace, as my amici will recognize as an apology immediately.
I have been enjoying the "markers" of spring, even if it is pushing it here in NY. The first local ramps have come in, and that is it. So I have been splurging on importing the stuff from hither and yon, as well as using up what is left of the spring freeze fest. That includes a couple of bags of rhubarb, and that's what this one is all about. That an a dedication to my sweet friend Jeremy. Why? Well, Annalena does not need a reason; but if you want one, because this cake makes me think of Jeremy. The minute I read the recipe it seemed to have his name written all over it, and in honor of Jeremy, who is much more old fashioned than even yours truly, I left behind my kitchen apparatus and did this one by hand. It's a snap. Try it.
My standard rhubarb cake comes from the King Arthur Baking Sheet, and it's called "rhubarb ripple cake." I commend it to you. It is on their website, and it is internal to this blog; however, this new one may be better. It is definitely purer. And again, this reminds me of Jeremy, who in turn reminds me of Parsifal, in so many ways.

Abbastanza. Lets cook. Prheat your oven to 350

You start with 3 cups of all purpose flour. It's not all alike. Use a good, unbleached one, organic if you can. Mix it with a big pinch of salt. Add 3 tablespoons of sugar, and a half teaspoon of baking soda. Now, get a stick of unsalted butter, cut it into pieces, dump it into that flour, and work it in with your fingers, until you get a sandy texture. If you remember, take the butter out half an hour before you're going to make this cake, and it makes things easy. But you don't have to. it's still very easy.

In a separate bowl, combine a half cup of a dairy product and one large egg.. I used yogurt, even though the recipe called for buttermilk. I find that I can substitute yogurt for buttermilk in just about every baking application, and I always have yogurt on hand, never buttermilk. You can "make" buttermilk by adding a tablespoon of white vinegar to whole milk, or you can use whole milk. Or sour cream. SOMETHING. Stir t hese together, and then pour it into the flour mixture and moosh it up with your hands. It's fun, and it's easy. Then divide it in half.

Pat or roll out half to a ten inch circle. If you have a ten inch springform pan, this is very easy to measure. In any event, you can measure ten inches, can't you? Put that into a baking dish of some kind.

Now, here's the fun part. Cut up a pound and a half of rhubarb OR use a pound and a half of frozen, which is what I did. Put that right on top of the dough, and then pour a cup of sugar over that. Now, roll out the rest of the dough, put that on top of the rhubarb, and pinch the edges together.

Take an egg , and beat it with a teaspoon of water, and then paint the top of hte cake with this.

Don't leave out this step. DON'T.

Bake this at 350 for about an hour. You'll see the rhubarb oozing out of the sides, and the cake will get a nice golden color from the egg. The original recipe called for pouring half a cup of sugar onto the top of the cake as soon as it came out of the oven. I did that, but I don't know what good it does, except for decorative effect. And you're done.

I'm going to try this cake again with another fruit - probably frozen blueberries. Got lots of those from last year, too.

And Jeremy, you go and make this better. I know how your mind works and I can see the ginger in the rhubarb already. Or the lemon peel. Or the brown sugar and cardamom. You're the best, sweetheart, and you know it. So I'll call this Jeremy's cake from now on, how's that?