A really long post about a really simple recipe

Last night I tinkered with a recipe in How to Cook Everything; and it turned out beautifully. I feel I need to write this all down before the dishes are done and the recipe goes cold in my mind.

First of all, I really like and respect Bittman’s recipes in How to Cook Everything. The illustrations, substitution ideas, and built-in timers (I have it for my Ipad) are really, really helpful for a novice like me. Also, the flavors are great. I highly recommend the purchase. I’ve made about half-a-dozen of the recipes so far and have used the cooking-technique illustrations with some regularity.

The base recipe is for cabbage and turkey breast with a slight Asian flair. I never on my own would have thought to add ginger and sesame oil to a cabbage dish (nor had I ever braised cabbage in my life!), but the nutty-ness of the oil combined with the flavorful cabbage was subtle and added a fresh tang I had not expected.

I had to tweak the recipe for three reasons: 1) my oven doesn’t have ‘temperatures’, it has ‘on’ and ‘off’ and that poses cook-time issues and can lead to dried-out meat (I did, in the end, over-cook the breast; but it was still juicy and flavorful thanks to the bacon and the tinfoil I’ll mention later). 2) Ingredients have to be altered in Cairo. You don’t just pop down to the market and find ‘fresh’ ginger any day of the week. You work with what is local and in-season. Also, I found light sesame oil, not dark as the recipe calls for; but was very pleased with the results using light. 3) I got my hands on some bacon yesterday, cut right off the hock in front of me in huge, fatty pieces - this is what one might call a BIG DEAL or, alternately, AWESOME, particularly as this is Egypt and access to quality pork products is a relatively new thing.

Ingredients:

a big ol’ Turkey Breast

a cabbage the size of a hubcap (that’s the only way they grow them here)

2 cloves of garlic, chopped

a bunch of spring onions, sliced this way and that

a few large, almost cartoon-like carrots (Bugs Bunny-style) sliced into wheels

3 tablespoons (deviation from the original recipe in that it called for tsps) GOOD olive oil (I like the stuff in the sliver cylinder)

generous drizzles of sesame oil

American Bacon; but not the pre-packaged stuff. If you can, get yourself to the butcher and watch him slice the bacon from the cured-side (side? hock? ham?) himself – you’ll thank me later.

So, here’s what I did (there aren’t any times here, because it was just ‘done when it was done’ – or, rather, overdone when it was past-done):

Turned on my oven so it could get toasty hot.

I braised ½ a head of rough-cut cabbage in 2 tablespoons of olive oil (it was a really big cabbage, as mentioned above) with two cloves of garlic over low/medium heat. The recipe said to add the cabbage first and add the garlic a few minutes later, but I like garlicky flavors, so next time I want to sweat the garlic in the olive oil before adding the cabbage. The recipe also called for ginger to be added a few minutes in, but I couldn’t get any, so I added chopped spring-onions (which are called for later in the recipe). Turned the cabbage with some salad tongs constantly to make sure it was all coated in oil and cooking evenly. When it was cooked-down and soft, I drizzled some light sesame oil on it and continued turning/stirring it over low heat for a few minutes before covering the pan and keeping it over a low flame (stirring it now and again to keep it from burning) while the breast was in the oven. The recipe says to ‘brown it’, but I kept it green on the low heat. I’m sure that changes the flavor, but I was happy with the results.

I got a ceramic casserole dish out instead of a non-stick pan. There is nothing to stick to the pan in this scenario and the thin, non-stick pan would have resulted in burnt goo. Coated the bottom of the dish in a half-tablespoon of olive oil (the recipe calls for a teaspoon here, but I really like olive oil!) laid down a bed of small-cut cabbage, placed turkey breast on top of cabbage, as per recipe. THEN, I laid three large strips of un-cooked bacon across the top of the breast and some sliced carrots around the turkey breast.

I tried to cook the breast un-covered, per the recipe; but was loosing the juicy-ness I wanted, so I covered the pan in tin-foil about 10 minutes in, which I should have done from the start. Once covered, bacon fat dripped into the cabbage and carrots and kept the breast moist in my ‘who knows what temp it is?’ oven.

When the breast should have been done, my meat thermometer said it wasn’t. Unfortunately, poking the breast with the thermometer sped up the cooking faster than I thought and a few minutes later it was over done :( Lesson learned on that one.

Anyway, the original recipe says to add the stove-braised cabbage to the pan in the oven when the breast is just short of done. I did this and the extra flavor was fantastic. Again, I re-covered it in the oven to make sure all the juices mingled instead of evaporating.

When the dish was done, I was meant to slice it for presentation, drizzle with sesame oil, and sprinkle with raw spring onions. I did slice and drizzle and sprinkle, but I left it in my pretty orange-and-brown casserole dish for serving so everything stayed warm and juicy.

For the starch, I made rustic mashed potatoes using olive oil and I can’t believe it’s not butter instead of butter and milk, and hand-mashed the potatoes. They ended up sitting a while and turning to a texture not-unlike pie crust when you cut-in the butter as it’s being prepared. This should have been a bit disastrous (Padma and Tom would not have been happy), but somehow it worked and the texture complimented the meal and my diners were happy – which is all that matters.

And that's how I made a simple recipe complicated and that’s how I made a delicious fall meal for my friends from a simple recipe! Hooray for my favorite time of year!

Experimentation

I must admit I'm guilty of childhood's cardinal sin - I've been playing with my food.

Even before I've learned how to do things properly, and certainly before I've learned to follow a recipe, I've been experimenting with cooking techniques and flavors. Fada approves, so what I'm doing can't be too bad.

Actually, I DID follow a recipe two weeks ago, for my family's homemade hot mustard; but it didn't turn out perfect, so that will have to be another post down the line when I've figured it out and tweaked it a bit.

Anyway, mostly, I've been playing with recipes I knew once and forgot, or with recipes I know and don't have the resources or time to produce properly (i.e. my recent attempt at no-ricotta, two-cheese spaghetti-sauce and spinach lasagna because there was no ricotta in Egypt, but I did have a freezer full of spinach I bought the day before the revolution began 'just in case'). Tonight, I had a whole chicken, some tomatoes, some basil, some mushrooms and one potato - it's all in the oven with some olive oil now, though god knows how it's going to taste!

One recipe I did try to follow years ago was a vegetarian linguine with asparagus and butter sauce - topped with toasted goat cheese.

I could not get the goat cheese to toast, even after following the advice of a professional chef. Also, I am not vegetarian, so I tried it with chicken.

The chicken destroyed the butter sauce, and goat cheese was not available in Egypt for a long time, so I abandoned the recipe.

Recently, I've been able to get goat cheese again. Asparagus and the cheese lingered on the shelves in Egypt (at the same time) just long enough for me to start playing with the recipe again.

After two months of making the dish once a week - I think I got it perfect (well, perfect enough for me anyway) and it is now (drum roll please...)

Spicy Shrimp and Asparagus Pasta in Goat Cheese sauce.

and it is sooooooo good!

Here's what I do:

1) place a few tablespoons olive oil in a non-non-stick skillet, add spring onions, diced onion, and chopped garlic (about 2 - 3 tablespoons of the oniony bits) and fry up. Add asparagus sliced into chunks and saute.
2) In a separate pan with some oil, cook shrimp with rosemary and crushed red pepper (as hot as you like)
3) In a pot, cook pasta. I like pasta shells, they hold the goat cheese well.
4) Add 2 tablespoons of butter to asparagus and onion mix to make a sauce.
5) drain pasta and put back in pot. Pour over butter + asparagus mixture. Throw in Shrimp.

AND NOW - Crumble about 3 - 4 tablespoons goat cheese in as you stir so it clings to every shrimp, shell, and bit of asparagus.


DONE! Voila! A delicious, easy, artery-clogging meal!

I hope you enjoy my butter-goat cheese experiment :)

xo heba

Faroula

It's STRAWBERRY (faroula) SEASON!



It's so much easier to get five-servings of fruit and veg a day when the fruit makes such a good dessert all on it's own! :)

Appeasing the god of small things: Christmas Eve

There’s been a bit of snow in Europe this week, which has seriously disrupted travel for many. As one of those whose flight was cancelled and re-booked for a later date I was part of a small group of friends ‘stranded’ in Cairo. Last Sunday and Monday the weather remained bad and it was uncertain if any of us would be able to get to our various destinations in time for Christmas so we planned to have a Christmas Day of ‘the left behind’. My contribution would be a Christmas pudding: this would give me something to do other than fret about getting to London to see family, buy yet more presents and catch up on work. It’s very difficult to settle to anything very productive when you are in a jittery, restless, waiting state but cooking is a therapeutic activity.

A pudding basin and steamer were essential pieces of equipment and I did manage to find a bowl of roughly pudding shape. No steamer though, so I had to make one from a tin tray (pierced with holes) and lots of tin foil. I had to substitute some of the ingredients too, mostly the dried fruit: lots more sultanas than the recipe, plus prunes and dates; for the candied peel, a dollop of marmalade.

By Wednesday it seemed that we all might be able to go: the weather had improved dramatically and airlines and airports were tackling the backlog of travellers. Should I continue with the Christmas pudding? Would there be any point? The ingredients I’d assembled so far (fruit marinading in brandy - shown in the photo) could be made into something else (mince for mince pies). However, when I voiced this idea at the bar (where ‘the left behind’ have been meeting on a daily basis to stay sane) the answer was a resounding NO! I couldn’t abandon the pudding now as it would jinx everything, tempt fate, Nature and the gods. Worse, human arrogance could provoke them! I agreed readily. We all felt the same, which says something about human nature, superstition and a deep, primitive desire to somehow control the uncontrollable.

So, the pudding is made, complete with brandy and a 25 piastre piece (instead of a sixpence). ‘The left behind’ has been dwindling and now, with two friends flying in less than an hour, I am the last, ‘the final left behind’. I’m due to fly this afternoon and hoping that I’ve done enough to appease the god of small things so that it all goes well. Wish me luck, cross your fingers, offer up a prayer, whatever works for you, as I would really like to see my family this Christmas!

The pudding recipe

Ingredients:

• Serves 8 - 10
• 1lb /450g dried mixed fruit (use golden raisins/sultanas, raisins, currants)
• 1 oz /25 g mixed candied peel, finely chopped
• 1 small cooking apple, peeled, cored and finely chopped
• Grated zest and juice ½ large orange and ½ lemon
• 4 tbsp brandy, plus a little extra for soaking at the end
• 2 oz /55 g self-raising flour, sifted
• 1 level tsp ground mixed spice
• 1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 4 oz /110 g shredded suet, beef or vegetarian
• 4oz /110g soft, dark brown sugar
• 4 oz /110 g white fresh bread crumbs
• 1 oz /25 g whole shelled almonds, roughly chopped
• 2 large eggs

Preparation:

• Lightly butter a 2 ½ pint/1.4 litre pudding basin.
• Place the dried fruits, candied peel, apple, orange and lemon juice into a large mixing bowl. Add the brandy and stir well. Cover the bowl with a clean tea towel and leave to marinate for a couple of hours, preferably overnight.
• Stir together the flour, mixed spice and cinnamon in a very large mixing bowl. Add the suet, sugar, lemon and orange zest, bread crumbs, nuts and stir again until all the ingredients are well mixed. Finally add the marinaded dried fruits and stir again.
• Beat the eggs lightly in a small bowl then stir quickly into the dry ingredients. The mixture should have a fairly soft consistency.
• Now is the time to gather the family for tradition of taking turns in stirring, making a wish and adding a few coins.
• Spoon the mixture in to the greased pudding basin, gently pressing the mixture down with the back of a spoon. Cover with a double layer of greaseproof paper or baking parchment, then a layer of aluminum foil and tie securely with string.
• Place the pudding in a steamer set over a saucepan of simmering water and steam the pudding for 7 hours. Make sure you check the water level frequently so it never boils dry. The pudding should be a deep brown color when cooked. The pudding is not a light cake but instead is a dark, sticky and dense sponge.
• Remove the pudding from the steamer, cool completely. Remove the paper, prick the pudding with a skewer and pour in a little extra brandy. Cover with fresh greaseproof paper and retie with string. Store in a cool dry place until Christmas day. Note: The pudding cannot be eaten immediately, it really does need to be stored and rested then reheated on Christmas Day. Eating the pudding immediately after cooking will cause it to collapse and the flavours will not have had time to mature.
• On Christmas day reheat the pudding by steaming again for about an hour.

You shouldn’t play with your food!!

Looking for recipes online, as I often do, I’m amazed (and grateful) at the variety that’s available for every single thing you could possibly want to cook. Usually – a lifetime’s habit – I opt for the easy recipes. I’ve found that the complicated versions of many a standard recipe, where the results were meant to be special, were often not! Sometimes recipes are over complicated, and cooks/chefs seem to be in a kind of competition to be the most innovative and, though I don’t doubt that this produces some delicious results, it has the effect of taking us away from the simple, but still so good, dishes. This can make you feel that the simple is simply not good enough and that you have to change and add.

Some food is so special and delicious in its natural state that it’s ‘gilding the lily’ to add too much to it. I’m reminded of France: a friend made a dish of oysters grilled with a cheese and cream sauce. It looked spectacular but the French guests were bemused (and some were devastated). How could anyone play around with this wonderful shellfish? It was already a miracle of nature, with its rough, grey outer shell contrasting with the gleaming, smooth interior; it needed no other form to present it. The mouthful that tasted of the depths of the sea - salty, clean, refreshing - needed only the addition of a squeeze of lemon to enhance the flavour: anything more was too much.

Today, I bought far too much fruit from the stall outside my apartment. I was only going to buy bananas but as I arrived so did an ancient car laden with fruit and vegetables. Two farmers unloaded boxes, bags and crates of beautiful, fresh produce so I couldn’t resist! Of course, afterwards I wondered how I could possibly eat it all while it was still fresh. Well, I couldn’t, so decided to share it – this would be my contribution to a brunch I’d been invited to. In my kitchen trying to decide what to make, I regarded the fruit. It really didn’t need anything added: it was perfect as it was. All I needed to do was put it together in a fruit salad – so simple, yet so delicious.

I don’t think I need to tell anyone the recipe for this one (any fresh fruit will do!) except to say that the fruit is in freshly squeezed lemon and satsuma juice.

Stuffing (your face) for Thanksgiving

A proud, American tradition is Thanksgiving. It's a time when all Americans - regardless of race, religion, or creed; gather with their families to give thanks for their freedoms, the food on their table, and whatever else they have to be thankful for.

The centerpiece of the traditional Thanksgiving dinner is the turkey. People have their turkey preferences: brined, grilled, smoked, and even deep fried. Me, however, I'm a traditionalist. I like my turkey roasted in the oven, basted regularly with salted butter, and stuffed to the gills with what one of my guests this year deemed "Baltimore Stuffing".

"Baltimore Stuffing" is the way my grandparents, great aunts, and mother always made stuffing on Thanksgiving and Christmas. As a child, it was the only hand I had in cooking for the family- all year. I've adjusted the recipe slightly to make it a bit 'spicier' - but at its heart, Baltimore Stuffing is a thing of moist simplicity and a welcome addition to any table.

You start with stale white loaf bread. I do not use very stale bread, just still-slightly squishy sliced white bread loaf that is a few days old (not moldy!). You tear up (just rip it into smallish pieces) two loaves of the stuff into a very, very large bowl.

Add two bunches of celery, chopped, and two medium sized onions, chopped. Stir with your hands by sort of folding and tossing.

Add herbs. LOTS. I use the following dried herbs: basil, oregano, tarragon, Paul Prudhomme's Poultry Seasoning, regular poultry seasoning, rosemary, and fresh ground pepper. Again, stir with your hands so the herbs are evenly distributed. You will notice the bread start to crumble a bit IT SHOULD this is a good thing. Taste it - spicy enough? no? add some more PPPS and pepper, and taste again.

Shove ALL OF IT deeply in to the bird's 'cavity' with your hand. (AFTER you have removed the giblet bag; cooking my first Turkey in Guatemala, I only remembered about the plastic bag of giblets after I started cooking the bird, and had to take all the stuffing out and start over!) Seem to be filling up? Squish it down in there further and put more in. Almost all of it will fit. Whatever does not fit should go under the flap of fatty skin on the front of the bird. The stuffing will be showing out the back - that's ok! It will get the benefit of baking juices as you baste your bird.

When you remove the turkey from the oven (remember, stuffed birds take much longer to cook than empty birds, so be sure to use a meat thermometer to check the temp) the stuffing comes out first. Use a spoon to remove it - it will be VERY HOT. As you carve the bird, you will discover more stuffing deeper in the bird. This is the tastier stuffing, trust me. You are not likely to get all of the stuffing out until the bird is down to the bones.

In this picture, you can see the layer of stuffing in the front of the bird after cooking:


Cover the stuffing with aluminum foil as soon as it is out of the bird if not being served immediately to keep the stuffing moist. Dried out stuffing belongs on no one's table!

Enjoy, give thanks, and eat up!

Fada Finds Fondue…fabulous!

This has been a busy year! I moved house in February and suddenly found that I had nothing to cook with as Egyptians take everything from a place when they leave: the kitchen was bare, with just an outlet to attach a gas cooker and a pipe in the wall where a sink should be. Deciding that this was an opportunity to be inventive rather than an excuse to simply order take-aways, I invested in a trivet and began making chocolate fondue. I could have made savoury versions but grilled chicken and fish are cheap and available five minutes from my apartment so it was the sweet course that was missing when I had guests.

Chocolate fondue is just so easy and so delicious! It’s also wonderfully sociable – everyone loves it because they get a chance to join in the ‘cooking’. Because everyone chooses what to dip (and what size and in what order and with how much chocolate) no one is disappointed. And, it’s fun! There are cries of,’Oh no, I’ve lost my mango…mmm, but I’ve found a marshmallow!’ ‘Hey! That’s mine!’.

Chocolate Fondue

About 200 ml of runny cream (whipping or single)

About 200 grams of chocolate broken into pieces (can be any kind, dark or milk)

Some drops of vanilla essence or a small sachet of powder

Slowly heat the cream in a sturdy saucepan and add the chocolate pieces and vanilla. You can start this off on your stove if you like (using a ‘bain marie’ to heat even more slowly if you prefer – big pan of simmering water with a smaller pan inside it with the ingredients).

Serve with marshmallows and any kind of fruit – it’s all delicious!