This has been a fantastic year for hot peppers in our garden. Some years we barely get any, others we do pretty well, but this year? Abundance. We grew cherry peppers, habaneros, jalapenos, peppinos, cayennes, and poblanos. There are still a lot of them out there ripening on the vine, and we’ve made good use of the ones we’ve already harvested.
In this case, Bill really wanted a jalapeno hot sauce.
We really like Red Thai Curry.
We've been making batches of Red Thai Curry Paste for years now - we freeze it in ice cube trays and use it whenever we've got a craving for complex flavor coupled with scorching heat.
I wrote about this, my favorite "color" of the various Thai curries, nearly two years ago. In that post, we'd made a batch and used some of it to make fish tacos. I only posted the curry paste recipe, not one for fish tacos per se. But you can wing that yourself, I bet.
Anyway, we've made plenty more red curry paste since that last post, and we've kind of tweaked it a bit (and continue to do so each time we make it), and so I thought I'd write about it again, and this time, I've got pictures. Lots of them.
This particular recipe is from Charmaine Solomon's The Complete Asian Cookbook. I think I've referenced this book before. It's HUGE and covers the cuisines of Bangladesh, Burma, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Laos, Malaysia, Pakistan, The Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam. The Tea Eggs, of course, are from China.
Oh yes, it's yet another sampling from Peggy Fallon's book Great Party Dips.
You know, the book I'm giving away to some lucky random entrant in the giveaway?
That book.
So far I've also tried out the "Rockin' Moroccan Salsa" and a bright pink version of the "24-Carat Caviar Dip," both of which were very yummy.
This wild mushroom concoction was actually the first recipe that caught my eye, but because the recipe instructs that you chill it for at least 4 hours, it wasn't the first one I made. I wanted faster results.
Anyway. The recipe calls for an assortment of wild mushrooms, but Ms. Fallon points out that if all you have available are crimini mushrooms, then just use them. I bought some mixed wild mushrooms, some baby bella, and I still had a package of Hen of the Woods mushrooms in my fridge that our friend John had foraged some time ago so I made sure to include them as well.
In total, you need a pound of mushrooms. I used a bit more because I wanted to use a few nice looking mushrooms as decoration, as you can see in the photo at the top of this post.
The rest of the ingredients include a half cup of walnuts...
4 tablespoons of unsalted butter (though if you wanted to, you could sub olive oil instead. But for flavor purposes, I think butter works best with mushrooms. Just my two cents.)
A quarter of a cup of chopped shallots...
Half a teaspoon of dried thyme leaves (or one and a half teaspoons finely chopped fresh thyme)
Half a teaspoon of salt, (sorry, no picture. I'm trying to break my slightly dotty habit of photographing EVERY single ingredient. Part of the recovery process is to gradually eliminate one more ingredient with each successive recipe I post. Eventually there won't even be words either. Just post titles. It's not easy. I'm just taking it one day at a time.)
2 tablespoons of cognac or brandy...
A teaspoon of soy sauce...
And four ounces of cream cheese, at room temperature, cut into four pieces.
Okay, now once you've got everything assembled it's time to start cooking.
The directions tell you to toast the walnuts on a pan in a 325 degree oven, but I did mine in a cast iron skillet on top of the stove. Whatever works for you. You want them to be "lightly browned and fragrant." Just don't let them burn - they don't taste quite so good if that happens.
Next up, the mushrooms. Ms. Fallon's directions say to chop up the mushrooms first, before cooking. I didn't - I kind of skipped over that part. I'd say chop them, though. They cook faster and release more of their liquid that way. You don't want them watery.
Anyway, melt the butter - yes, all of it - in a large skillet over medium heat. Then add in the mushrooms, shallots, thyme, and salt and cook, stirring occasionally, "until the shallots have softened and the mushroom liquid has almost all evaporated, about 7 minutes." If I had chopped my mushrooms, they'd have cooked more quickly.
At this point, add in the soy sauce and the cognac and cook a little longer. Shut off the heat and let the mushrooms cool a bit.
Now, I just want to interrupt myself a bit and note that this mushroom prep is pretty similar to a duxelle, which is basically a mixture of finely chopped mushrooms and shallots and herbs and wine or sherry (sherry goes nicely with mushrooms), cooked slowly for a long time, until the moisture has cooked off and you have a very fragrant, thick, soft mass of sublime mushroomy deliciousness. It's most famously used as part of the filling for Beef Wellington, but you can use it in anything you want - stuffings, in omelets, spread on toast, or just eaten with a spoon.
Back to the dip.
When the mushrooms have cooled a bit, place them and the walnuts in a food processor and "pulse until finely chopped." (OH! WAIT! Before you do this, remove a selection of nice looking mushroom slices - THIS must be why, subconsciously, I didn't chop the mushrooms before cooking. I knew I'd need some of them whole - and set aside for later.)
At this point you add in the cream cheese and process until the mixture is mostly smooth but still has some texture left from bits of walnut and mushroom.
Scrape the whole thing into a bowl and chill for at least four hours, or you could, as Ms. Fallon suggests, line a loaf pan or other mold with plastic wrap, press the pate in, cover and refrigerate. Later, you can unmold it onto a bed of lettuce or whatever strikes your fancy. The recipe makes about two and a half cups of pate.
I was poking around in my pantry trying to decide what to use for the pate mold. I have an assortment of loaf pans, cake pans, ring molds, etc...but what I finally decided to use were four little ice cream bowls I bought last spring or summer. I think the bright colors appealed to me - a nice contrast to the mushroom color. And the shape is nice, too.
I lined each bowl with plastic, and then - remember those nice mushroom slices I told you to set aside? Here's why. I arranged a couple of mushrooms at the bottom of each bowl before spooning in the mushroom mixture. Brown/gray pate needs something to fancy it up, no matter how good it tastes.
As you fill your mold(s)/loaf pan/etc, smooth the top and cover with plastic, and then place in the fridge for at least (per Ms. Fallon) four hours.
When you're ready to unmold, simply pull back the plastic, place an inverted plate over the unwrapped side, and flip the whole thing over in one graceful motion. Gently pull the mold or loaf pan off, remove the plastic, and - voila! - a pretty little mold of mushroom pate.
I brought the first one to dinner at Joe, and Emily's house (our nephew and his fiance) on Saturday. Our kids had been there all day while Bill and I had our taxes done and then enjoyed some fabulous sushi at Sakura in Providence, and then we were invited back to Joe and Em's for dinner. I brought a bowl of the pate and a baguette. All the adults liked it, anyway. Alex, as expected, refused to try it. (Mushrooms (ick) + dip (ick) = NO WAY!) Julia tried it but didn't really like it either. She likes mushrooms, but maybe the slight flavor of the cognac and soy sauce spoiled it for her. Who knows.
I gave another bowl to our friends across the street. And we had the other two.
Now - a sort of update to all of this - the recipe is in the "cold dips and spreads" section of the book, but I was thinking last night that it would probably taste good warm, too. So I nuked a bowl of it (plastic wrap removed first) for a minute or so on 70% power, stirred it up a bit to even out the temperature, and tried it. And I have to say I like this better warm. Bill did, too. And I think if I ever make it - or something similar - again, I'll serve it warm.
But don't go by what I say - make a batch and try it for yourself - try it cold, try it warm, and see which way you prefer. Either way, it's very tasty!
This is a variation on one of the dip recipes in Peggy Fallon's book Great Party Dips. As you may or may not know, I'm hosting a giveaway featuring this very same book. To enter, you can click here.
Anyway. The recipe in the book is called "24-Carat Caviar Dip" and calls for the use of golden whitefish caviar. The store I went to didn't have it - they only had red and black, so I went with the red. The recipe also calls for a quarter cup of chives. I picked the wild chives growing in our back yard and only got about an eighth of a cup, so I used diced shallot for the other eighth of a cup.
And, instead of the sour cream called for in the original recipe, I used plain greek-style yogurt.
Here are the quantities I used for my scary variation:
1 1/4 cups fat free Greek-style yogurt
2 oz cream cheese, room temperature
Dash of cayenne pepper
2 oz red lumpfish caviar
1/8 cup minced fresh chives
1/8 cup finely chopped shallot
And all you do is combine the yogurt and cream cheese and cayenne pepper until it has a smooth consistency (I used the food processor),
and then gently fold in the chives and shallots
and the caviar.
It looks so dramatic initially...
before you stir it. But then the red mixes with the white...
and you end up with something Barbie might serve at her next cocktail party.
I'm guessing this might be why Ms. Fallon chose the golden caviar for her version. It looks classier.
But don't let the girly color scare you away (if you are normally frightened by girly-pink foods) - the texture is thick from the Greek-style yogurt and cream cheese, and if you like salty little crunches of caviar, you'l be more than happy with the result. Just close your eyes and you'll be fine.
Cover the bowl and put it in the fridge if you're not going to serve it right away.
Serve with whatever you'd like - I found yummy little rice crackers with flecks of nori that went really well with the caviar dip...til we ran out.
Sometimes I take photos of something I'm making, but then get busy with other posts and forget (or neglect) to post some of the older recipes and photos. Like with these eggrolls. I made them in...early June. Okay, so that's only about 5 weeks ago. Could be worse, I suppose.
If you can't stand the heat...
...then this may not be the sauce for you. From the book Food 2.0, by Charlie Ayers, this is not your run-of-the-mill hot sauce. With seventeen ingredients, not counting water, this is a sauce that will set your mouth on fire and your taste buds tingling. Sweet, tangy, smokey and spicy. What's not to love?
Continue reading "Google Hot Sauce - from Food 2.0, by Charlie Ayers" »
I've had a few requests for this recipe, an unfortunately I don't have photos of the whole process, but next time we make this I'll take pictures and add them to this post.
Last year Bill made a big batch of this when he picked peppers from our garden. Then he froze it in an ice cube tray, popped the cubes out and stored them in a ziploc bag in the freezer. Same thing with the Green Thai Curry Paste. Both are tremendously flavorful, as is true of Thai cooking in general. Lots of fresh, intense ingredients.
Anyway, both recipes are from Keo's Thai Cuisine, one of our favorite Thai cookbooks.
Anyway, most recently Bill made some for a meal of spicy fish tacos on a recent Brew Day. (He brews beer. All-grain batches. BIG batches.) To serve with the fish, he warmed the paste in a wok with some extra ginger and garlic and added part of a can of coconut milk to give it a creamy texture. It's EXCELLENT stuff, if you like your heat to have flavor. That's the thing, in my opinion. If it's just hot, well, it's boring. But if it's hot and has tons of flavor, then I'll eat it by the bowlful. Really. It's that yummy. Burns your mouth raw, but in a pleasant way, if you know what I mean.
So, for those of you who have asked about it, here's the basic recipe:
Red Curry Paste
15-20 red chili peppers, seeded
2 stalks fresh lemon grass, coarsely chopped
5 shallots, thinly sliced
1 clove garlic
1 T coarsely chopped kha (a type of ginger - you can use regular
ginger)3 kaffir lime leaves, chopped
1/4 cup Chinese parsley roots, chopped (cilantro roots, if you
can get them. Or use the stalks)
1/2 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp ground caraway seeds
1/2-1 T fish sauce or 1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp shrimp paste (optional)
2 T oil
Combine all the ingredients in a food processor and process
until smooth. If a mortar and pestle is used, then add oil
after all other ingredients are ground. Refrigerate in a glass
container. Paste keeps well for several months.
And, a few notes from me...
* We actually didn't have any more red chili peppers left from last summer, so Bill rehydrated about 10 dried red thai chiles in water, and he may have used some green fresh ones and also part of a red bell pepper just to add more color. It was plenty potent.
* You can freeze lemon grass, too, which is what we do - we'll buy a bunch of it and freeze it so we always have it available. If you've never seen lemon grass, you can go here for a good illustration and description of the plant and its uses. Also, in the upper right corner of the page, there's a picture of kaffir lime leaves. We also buy these to freeze. They keep forever (it seems) and impart a distinct citrus+something else flavor and aroma to Thai dishes.
* Fish sauce is another staple of Thai cooking. To learn how it's made, you can go here. Basically, it's a liquid salt element, but the flavor is more than just salty. And don't be put off by the rather powerful aroma. Once it's in the food, sauce, paste, whatever, it melds with the other elements of the dish and becomes less...um...pungent.
* Shrimp paste. Yep, paste made from tiny, dried, fermented shrimp. A little goes a very long way. Again, it adds saltiness to whatever you're making, but like the fish sauce, it is not simply a salt substitute. Once again, it adds depth of flavor to the mix. And it's also fun to dare nephews to taste a teaspoonful of it blind and watch the expression on their face change. At least that's what Bill likes to do. He's a fun uncle.
Anyway, there you are.
If you want to make fish tacos and have this as part of the experience, remember to combine it with some coconut milk to make it more of a sauce, rather than a paste. We used cod, but use whatever kind of fish (shrimp is great, too) you want to. We also included, as other possible additions to the tacos, the following: guacamole (it's a nice soothing balance to the heat from the curry paste), cole slaw (goes nicely with the fish), rice (to absorb some of the liquid) and, for those that wanted it, some shredded cheese.
There's nothing more fun than sitting around the table with a bunch of guys, watching their eyes water and noses run (okay, I try not to watch that part) as they bravely pile more red curry paste/sauce on their fish. I really don't know why it didn't have the same effect on me. But it didn't. And I ate plenty. Just lucky, I guess.
But anyway, go make up a batch of this and try it out. It's DELICIOUS.
Garam Masala is a blend of spices individually toasted to release and enhance both flavor and fragrance. There are many varieties of Garam Masala - sweeter, hotter, and so on. You can change the amounts of ingredients to suit your own taste.
Below is "No. 1 Garam Masala" from Charmaine Solomon's The Complete Asian Cookbook.
Here's what you'll need:
4 T coriander seeds
2 T cumin seeds
1 T whole black peppercorns
2 tsp cardamom seeds (measure after removing pods) (I used about 3-4 tsps of the pods, and that gave me the 2 tsp of seeds after toasting)
4 3-inch cinnamon sticks
1 tsp whole cloves
1 whole nutmeg
(Top row: coriander seeds, cinnamon sticks, cumin seeds. Middle row: black peppercorns, whole nutmeg, whole cloves. Bottom: cardamom pods.)
In a small pan roast separately the coriander, cumin, peppercorns, cardamom, cinnamon and cloves.
As each one starts to smell fragrant, turn on to plate to cool.
After roasting, peel the cardamoms, discard pods and use only seeds.
Put all into electric blender and blend to a fine powder.
Finely grate nutmeg
and mix in.
Store in glass jar with airtight lid.
Didn't feel like putting much effort into dinner last night.
So I made some baked chips out of leftover soft tortillas...and some crisp cheesy garlic toasts out of a leftover half loaf of ciabatta...cooked some shrimp...some edamame...put out the leftover small blocks of various cheeses in the fridge...crackers...smoked oysters...cucumbers...and these two bean dips.
There was something for everyone, and it was very peaceful to have a meal where no one complained about not having anything to eat.
Why two bean dips? Because I couldn't decide if I wanted canneloni beans or black beans. So I used both. But separately. With different flavors.
First up, the canneloni beans. I used a 15.5 oz can and rinsed the beans well, drained them well, and put them in the food processor. I added some dried rosemary...salt and pepper...olive oil...and a good squeeze of fresh lemon juice.
That seemed like a good start, so I put the lid on and pulsed a bunch of times until I had a slightly lumpy paste. I tasted it, decided it needed a bit more rosemary and of course! some garlic. (I had garlic warming in a bath of olive oil and butter for the aforementioned garlic/cheese bread, so I just took about a clove's worth of the garlic from the pot and added it to the bean puree.)
Pulsed this mixture a couple more times, and poured it in one half of a crystal two-sectioned bowl perfect for the occasion.
Next up, the black beans. Rinsed and drained them and into the (also rinsed) food processor they went. To start off, I added some olive oil...lime juice...salt and pepper...ground cumin...and ground coriander. Oh, yes, and half a shallot.
Pulsed everything until nearly smooth, then tasted it. It needed more of the cumin and coriander, so I added a bit of them, and a bit more salt. Then into the bowl it went.
Ta-da! Pretty simple, no?
I didn't measure anything, so I can't tell you how much of anything to put in. I would just say - start small. You can always add more - you can't remove it once it's in there.
And don't feel obligated to do what I did. My point, really - not that I had planned to have one - is that canned beans are really handy things to have on hand - a few additions and a whirl or two in a food processor and you have instant yumminess.
We're getting close to the finish line. A week ago I prepared the brine according to the directions by Bruce Aidells in the March issue of Bon Appetit Magazine. This past Monday I turned the pieces of brisket over in their brine for the other half of their 8-day brine soak. Tomorrow night I'll be cooking it - and an assortment of vegetables, including, of course, cabbage. I've also purchased a pre-packaged, pre-brined corned beef brisket to cook at the same time, for comparison purposes. We've got some people coming over for dinner to help with the whole eating part of it.
Today I made the two sauces provided in the same article.
First up -
Horseradish Cream
1 cup sour cream
6 tablespoons prepared white horseradish
1 T finely chopped dill pickle
1 T chopped fresh chives or green onion tops
(Alex volunteered to pick early chives for me from our garden. He didn't pick enough the first time, so I sent him back for more. Still not enough, but I didn't want to send him back again, so I added some minced shallot instead.)
Whisk all ingredients in small bowl to blend.
Cover and refrigerate at least 2 hours. Can be made 2 days ahead. Keep refrigerated.
Pretty easy, right?
And here's the second one:
Guinness Mustard
(oops - I just realized I goofed this one up a bit. See my italics below.)
1/2 cup coarse-grained Dijon mustard
2 T regular Dijon mustard (not paying attention - I used half a cup)
2 T Guinness Stout or other stout or porter (I used a porter that Bill made)
1 T minced shallot
1 tsp golden brown sugar
Whisk all ingredients in small bowl to blend.
Cover and refrigerate. Can be made 2 days ahead. Keep refrigerated.
(The additional Dijon doesn't seem to be a problem - it tasted pretty good when I tried the mixture.)
And so those are the recipes for these two condiments. I also have a selection of mustards, including a cranberry mustard that is particularly yummy. So I think I'm all set in this department.
I love this sauce. It may have been part of the first meal Bill cooked for me...or maybe the second. It comes from Betty Crocker's Mexican Made Easy - published in 1993, I think it may be out of print now. Bill bought his copy for $2.99 at a Building 19 store an eternity ago.
Anyway, from Chapter 2 in the book - "Sizzling Sauces and Sides" - the description for Green Sauce is as follows:
"This is a suave chile sauce, slightly chunky and rich with cream."
I started making dinner around nine this morning. After yesterday's summer-like heat, this morning there was a very chilly breeze shaking up the leaves and cooling things down. The perfect day to make a sauce...
Two weeks ago I bought about twelve heads of garlic, intending to roast them in olive oil at the same time as some of the batches of tomatoes I'd been doing, but I didn't get to them until today.
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