Salad Daze

Now that the weather’s turned towards Summer’s warmth, (OK, sorry…..downright, screachin’ miserable hot in most of the country, and I feel for ya, I really do), a lot of people are thinking about salads.

Living in SoCal, I think of salads year ‘round.  We have 100-plus days in October regularly, and I’ve baked Christmas cookies in shorts, a tank top and with all the windows open more than once.  Plus, I’m just not a huge fan of cooked vegetables.  (Unless they’re battered and deep-fried, which may be why I take cholesterol-lowering medications, ya think?)  Some cooked veggies I do love, grilled corn on the cob, oven roasted or grilled asparagus, ARTICHOKES of course, oven roasted Brussels sprouts, maybe some caramelized carrots.  But steamed or boiled green beans, peas (fresh peas I’ll eat raw thankyouverymuch) or broccoli, sautéed zucchini, I’ll pass right by on those.  They just seem so *boring* to me.  I HAVE had some transcendent veggie sides in restaurants….so I know it can be done.  Maybe I just haven’t figured out how to cook them well.  As a component in a dish, like an Asian stir fry, I do OK.  But as a stand-alone dish….eh, not so much.  Maybe I get too distracted by the main, so I can’t give my full attention to the veggie side.  I dunno….in my little kitchen, unless it’s a salad of some ilk, or is the focus of the meal, veggies get short shrift.

But I LOVE the taste of raw veggies.  Raw broccoli, raw zuke, raw cauliflower, they rock my world.  Short of serving them just as crudités though, there’s not a whole lot of creative options out there for veggies au natural.

And of course, I’m always conscious of the ever-looming-now-discarded-and-replaced- by-the-FDA-food-plate, food pyramid.  I KNOW I need to get more fruit and veg into my diet than I currently do….

And so we return to salads.

In Search of "Naan-vana"

One of my favorite things about eating in good Indian restaurants is the basket of naan bread they bring you when you sit down.  Hot, steamy and charred from the tandoor, usually painted with ghee, it’s a savory prologue to the deliciousness of the Indian meal to come.  And it’s so great alongside the meal, to sop up the spicy, flavorful sauces.

I think naan was one of the reasons I fell hard in love with Indian cuisines.  After all, I am, first and foremost, a carb freak.

Naan is a flat bread, and puffs in the middle to form a pocket similar to a pita.  The two are very different animals, though.  I feel the pita is somehow “sturdier”, and the naan a bit more delicate.  Naan typically have dairy in their recipes (usually yogurt, but sometimes milk, or both), and most recipes require an egg, as does this one.  Pita breads don’t use eggs or dairy, hence (hence???  HENCE???? Where the heck did HENCE come from?) the more delicate crumb of the naan.

Naan is difficult to recreate at home because, unless you’re very, very lucky, or very, very dedicated, or more likely, very, very obsessed, you don’t have a tandoor in the backyard.

Confession time….if I win the Lotto tomorrow, I'll *HAVE* a tandoor in the backyard.  And a wood burning pizza oven.  Of course, it won’t be in THIS backyard, but I’ll have them in whatever multi-acre backyard I purchase with my MegaMillions.

Tandoor ovens are cylindrical (usually beehive shaped) clay ovens fueled with a live charcoal or wood fire.  There’s a grill above the fire level.  Tandoors are used to make some of the most iconic Indian dishes, most notably (along with naan), tandoori chicken.  Skewered meats can also be cooked in a tandoor.  The intense heat from the fire below, plus the radiant heat from the clay walls, crusts the outside of the proteins into charry, smoky lusciousness, while keeping the interior moist and juicy because the intense heat cooks so fast.

Naan is “baked” by slapping the dough onto the sides of the oven, then pulling them off with a long hook  Since temperatures in the tandoor can exceed 900°F (yeee-IKES), no matter how we hack our home oven, or how long we preheat it and our baking stone, we’re not gunna achieve that.  But seriously, if Lady Lotto finds me, making authentic naan would be worth the tsuris of installing a tandoor.

So.  What can we do with our feeble home ovens?  Well, it’s not necessarily “authentic”, but it’s pretty darn good, and it did PUFF, so I claim success.

I Blame The Brisket

One of the things I promised myself when I started this little exercise is that I’d be honest.  Honest with myself, and therefore, by extension, honest with all y’all (there’s that N’Awlins past life thing again).  That I’d share not only the successes (of which I’d hoped there’d be many), but the failures (hopefully few and very far between) as well.  We all know, all of us that do this here cookin’ thang on a regular basis know that….well…sometimes the magic happens in the little (or big, or medium-size) kitchen and some days the magic takes a little break and leaves you in the lurch.

Big time.

This here be the outcome of one of those days.  Not that it was a total fail, the meal was edible (‘tho’ not as good as I’d hoped) and the brisket made wonderful leftovers that were more than edible, in fact, they were just groovy.  They made really great pulled BBQ beef sandwiches on soft potato buns and even better soft pulled beef tacos last night (reheated in a bit of Herdez “Salsa Ranchera”, my new favorite product).

But the day of, well.  It wasn’t a happy day in the little kitchen, and I blame the brisket.

‘Cuz, Lord knows, it certainly *wasn’t* me !

Oh, and in the interest of honesty....that be some crappy plating on that leader shot !  Unfortunately, its the only shot of the finished dish I got.

OK-true confessions are over, at least for a bit.

The Next Installment in the Continuing Saga...."Tales of the Lost Recipes"

Here’s another favorite old dinner from “The Way Back Machine” files.  "Caramelized Onion Pasta".  It's been so long ago that I first made this dish, I don’t even remember where I found the recipe, though I did remember how good it was (and is).  It’s also a great meal for weeknights, since it can be pulled together in less than a half an hour, yet it still tastes like something that cooked for much, much longer.  Another plus, it reheats fairly well the next day if you have leftovers.  And yet another plus, it’s vegetarian-friendly.  The key to the dish is to take just a bit of time to get a good, deep caramelization on the onions, and of course, to use a wine that you would be willing to drink.

You’re going to need some onions, of course, some red wine (a Cabernet works very well), dried basil and thyme, balsamic vinegar and some pasta.  Any kind of short pasta will work; bow-ties, penne, rotini, even elbows would be fine.  I used orechiette because that’s what was in the pantry.  Sorry, no class photo of the line-up, I think I was in too much of a hurry to eat that night !

Start by peeling and thinly slicing some onions.  You’ll need about a pound and a half for four servings.

Take a look at how I sliced those onions up.  Notice that I went from the top of the onion to the bottom, or what’s called “pole-to-pole”.  For applications like this (or French onion soup), where you want nice, distinct strands of onion, this method works the best.  Get the slices as thin as possible, and you may have to angle the knife in a bit on the bottom edge as you work in order to keep the slices uniform.

The "You Know You Love It" Rosemary-Olive Oil Bread From *THAT* Restaurant Chain

Even though I love the flavor of the so-called “artisan” breads that have long, slow, usually overnight rises or ferments, they don’t always fit into my schedule to make.  More realistically, (not to mention more truthfully….) I usually don’t get my act together in enough time to make them when I decide I want bread.  So I’m always on the lookout for bread recipes with a great taste, but that can be put together in a half-a-day or so.

A couple of months back, I found one of those type of recipes in, of all places, the “Food Network Magazine”.  Yes, I know.  The Food Network.  I’m ashamed to even type those words, because in other places out there in the cyber ‘scape, I’ve been one of the most vocal critics of the turn that FN’s programming has taken in the last five or so years.  I’m tired of watching other people eat, I want to watch people actually cook.  I *know* how to eat, and I’m pretty good at it.  Cooking tips, them I’m always in the market for.  I’m tired of challenge shows.  I’m tired of endless shots of whirring assembly lines, with admittedly cool machinery, churning out candy and potato chips.  I’m especially tired of watching people eat grossly huge amounts of food (lookin’ at you Guy Fieri).  I realize I’m not in FN’s demographic, nowhere near it.  But still…..

That said (and rant over), the “FN Magazine” is surprisingly very, very good.  I’ve got to give them props for it and credit where it’s due.  I got an issue as a freebie about a year ago, and liked it, so picked up a copy or three off the newsstands.  Liked them too, so I subscribed (see, I truly am a dinosaur….I subscribe to paper magazines !).

According to “FN Magazine”, this is a copy-cat recipe for a “famous Italian chain restaurant’s” rosemary-olive oil bread.  You know the chain….it has a “Grill” in the name, and a “Mac” on the front end.  While I think that the chain’s food quality has really declined in recent years (day-um, I’m cranky today aren’t I?  Or at least hyper-critical…sorry, I’ll go get another glass of wine and see if I can’t lighten up a bit), I do think that their bread is every bit as stellar as it was when they started out.

And this…?  This is a pretty damn good clone.  It certainly was, as they say, “close enough for government work”.

Let’s get to it, shall we?

Red Beans and Ricely Yours

I am completely convinced that, in a past life, I lived in Southern Louisiana.  Actually, I lived in New Orleans.  The first time I visited that magnificent city, I had the most overwhelming sense of déjà vu I’ve ever experienced in my life (and I’ve had several, knock-me-on-my-butt déjà vu trips….).  I just *knew*, somehow, I’d been there before (and not just *been*, but *BEEN*), even though I clearly hadn’t.

Well, unless you count the trip my mother took to The Big Easy when she was pregnant with me….

Every street I walked down, every corner I turned, every building I saw, I somehow felt in my bones (and soul) that “I’VE BEEN HERE BEFORE”.  It was spooky, and odd, and bizarre, and yet, at the same time, comforting.

And then I started to taste the food.  And I was even more certain that this place, and this cuisine, was not foreign to me.  I can honestly say I’ve never had a bad meal in New Orleans.  Ever.  That includes the usually-nasty-complimentary-hotel-breakfast service and room service.  I could eat New Orleans’ food (both Cajun and Creole) happily every week for the rest of my life.

I’m not going to attempt to address the subtle (and not-so subtle) differences between “Cajun” food and “Creole” food.  I’m not an expert, but an avid fan.  I’d be in way over my head to try to educate anyone about them.  As I understand it, in its most simplistic terms…“Cajun” is more “country” and “Creole” is more “city”.  Creole food uses a lot of tomatoes, Cajun, not so much.  Cajun food is more slow-cooked (stewed, braised, etc.) while Creole is often sautéed or pan-fried.

Duddn’t matter much to me.  I love it all, no matter the label.  Muffalettas, gumbos, etouffees, jambalayas, po’ boys, sauce piquants, I can eat them any day, any time.  And I especially loves me my red beans and rice.  As did the legendary Louis Armstrong, whose signature line I stole for the title of this article.  Seriously, Pops signed all of his letters “Red Beans and Ricely Yours,”.  Gotta love it.

Coffee-Chocolate Layer Cake with Mocha-Mascarpone Frosting

Hellllllo, tall, dark and velvety….where have you been all my life, gorgeous?  Come on in and stay a while.

Lord help me.  I tried to come up with a sassy, snappy title for this post, but I just couldn't.  Because nothing says it as well as "Coffee-Chocolate Layer Cake with Mocha-Mascarpone Frosting".  I mean, really, just look at that cake, and then look at its name….”Coffee”…”Chocolate”…”Mocha”...”Mascarpone”…is that a lovely little symphony of lusciousness or what?

In the great debate over dessert, custard or ice cream, pie or cake, I fall firmly into the cake camp.  Pie just doesn’t float my boat the way gooey, velvety goodies do.  And a beautiful, delicate layer cake, with creamy, silky frosting is just about the best of the best.  And I’m not talkin’ about those serviceable, but mundane boxed mix cakes, (and never, EVER about frosting in a can) or those industrial sheet cakes from the MegaMarts.  A homemade cake, with a light, tender crumb, and a rich, creamy butter cream frosting.  Wow, that’s Heaven on Earth as far as I’m concerned.

And a treat that, until recently, I hadn’t been able to achieve in the little kitchen.  It’s all about that pesky patience thing, and learning to work methodically and carefully, and taking your time with the ingredients and the process.  I’d tried “scratch” cakes before, and never had success.  They were tough, they didn’t rise evenly, the frosting was heavy and greasy, they were just…*not good*.  Not hideous really, but not worth the effort, and not anything I was proud of.  So I kept the “scratch” cake on the list of “Culinary Things I Really Can’t Do Well”.

Like bread.  After all, “I’m not a baker”.

That didn’t keep me from ripping out recipes though, for cakes that sounded yummy (yes, my recipe clipping compulsion is a sickness.  I fully expect to star in a reality show one day about recipe junkies).  And for the past few months, I’d been thinking I really wanted to give the whole cake baking thing another go.  After all, I had conquered bread, and biscuits, and even pie crusts.  I had learned to not fear the flour.  It was time to climb the Layer Cake Mountain.

So, let’s make this glorious example of the pastry arts, shall we?