Chickpea Curry

One of my go-tos these days has been chickpeas - whether it's a curry, hummus, or leftover curry made into hummus.

The recipe came from Everyday Food although I have been experimenting a bit with chickpeas - the canned variety is perfectly fine (in fact, better than my attempts at soaking and cooking the dried kind .)

Buon Appettio!

http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/quick-chickpea-curry

Ingredients

Serves 4

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 large yellow onion, diced small
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 tablespoon curry powder
• 1 cinnamon stick (3 inches)
• Pinch of ground cloves
• 2 cans (15 ounces each) no-salt-added chickpeas, rinsed and drained
• 3 tablespoons ketchup
• Coarse salt and ground pepper
• Chopped cilantro and lemon wedges (optional), for serving

Directions

1. In a large straight-sided skillet, heat oil over medium-high heat. Add onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until dark brown around edges, about 6 minutes. Add garlic, curry, cinnamon, and cloves and cook, stirring, until fragrant, 30 seconds. Add chickpeas, ketchup, 1 teaspoon salt, 1/4 teaspoon pepper, and 2 cups water. Bring to a boil; reduce to a simmer, cover, and cook 20 minutes. Uncover, and increase heat to medium-high; cook until sauce is slightly reduced, 5 minutes. Serve topped with cilantro, with lemon wedges alongside if desired.

Don't be shy. Say it with me, "Prosciutto & Gruyère Wraps."

I made a mental note about this recipe months ago & was unable to find it on-line - well, here it is. We used small flour tortillas and although the recipe seems complex for the end result - for me, it was memorable.

I think apart from the basic flavor combination, marinating the mushrooms in lemon juice, oil, etc. really *made* the dish and this technique could easily be applied to many other things.

http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/prosciutto-and-gruyere-wraps

Nutty Udon Noodles and Cinnamon Chicken

This is a work in process, but I think it demonstrates a technique that would be useful for other similar dishes - mixing a nutty paste (like peanut butter, almond paste, tahini, etc.) spice, and warm water, into a dressing (and of course the stand-by, broiling some chicken breasts to your liking.) My first try resulted in a good mixture and although I intended it to be cold, I think a warm dish would taste a little better.


(Sorry for the lousy cell phone photo.)

• 3T curry paste (I like Massaman Curry.)
• 1/3c Tahini paste (or peanut butter, almond paste, etc.)
• 2T lemon juice (For this type of thing, I usually use the juice of one lemon, halved - the juice removed with a fork, trying to prevent the seeds from getting into the dish.)
• 1/2t salt
• 12oz Udon Noodles boiled (I find them in the Asian market - frozen. Generally, cooking is less time than Italian pasta - ~8 minutes.)
• 1c cilantro
• 1/4c sliced almonds (toasted - 350F ~6 minutes.Watch closely and shake pan 1/2 way.)
• Hot water (Save hot water from cooking noodles.)

• 1 or 2 chicken breasts
• 1T cinnamon
• 1t pepper
• 1t sea salt or Kosher
• 1t vegetable oil (Generally vegetable or canola oil is better for high heat cooking than for example, olive oil.)

Mix curry paste and nut paste. Add lemon juice and salt. Whisk in hot water a little bit at a time until you have a creamy dressing. It will thicken as it cools. Taste it for spice and salt - adjust as needed.

Cook Udon per instructions (or whatever noodles you want). Drain, pat dry, and mix with dressing.

On a broiler pan shake salt, pepper, & cinnamon on both sides of the chicken breasts, then add a little oil. Coat both sides and broil 6" from flame until done -- roughly 4 minutes per side.

Mix noodles, dressing, cilantro, and top with almonds & slices of Cinnamon Chicken Breast.

[Other thoughts - add thinly sliced veggies like carrots and peppers. Maybe ginger?]

Fire Roasted Salsa - easy, delicious - duh!

Anyone who has ever been to a good taco place, like Big Truck Tacos, or caught Rick Bayless' cooking, knows fire roasted salsa is a no-brainer. For some reason I kept buying it in the jar - usually Arriba Mexican Red Salsa or Frontera.

My first try at making fire roasted salsa precipitated as I had a few tomatoes ripening on the counter on the verge of getting too ripe. I was grocery shopping, trying to pinch a few pennies, and picked up a couple of fresh jalapeños (for less than $0.40 I think.) The rest was in the pantry.

4 ripe tomatoes
2 jalapenos (remove stem)
1 onion (cut into 1/8ths and dismantle)
1c fresh cilantro including stalks
salt (sea salt or Kosher)
a few small lime wedges

Roast the vegetables directly over a gas burner. It helps to use a sturdy grilling basket that can still expose the direct flame. You'll hear some snapping as the skins burn. Rotate them with tongs charring the entire surface of the tomatoes and peppers. The onions will darken just around the edges. Try not to let the tomatoes burst (or you'll get a mess on the gas burner.) If more charring is desired on the tomatoes, they can be quartered, placing the juicy insides in the food processor and just charring the exterior 1/4" shell.

Pulse in a food processor with a blade. Salt to taste. Top with fresh lime juice.

Yum!

Obviously there is a wide array of ingredients and cooking techniques to experiment with (and certainly expert recipes to consult.) In any case, just spend 30 minutes giving it a try - you're sure to enjoy your fresh fire roasted salsa.

Crockpot Hambone with White Beans

Crockpot Hambone with White Beans

There's nothing more pedestrian, yet comforting as crockpot cooking. Over the years I've made many improvised crockpot dishes - some hit, some miss. My fear with this dish was ending up with something too sweet and too salty due to the Honeybaked hambone. I thought adding some texture (via finely chopped celery) would help as well as adding a layer of flavor that the crock doesn't deliver by pre-cooking the onions and garlic. The stars aligned this year resulting in a luscious, well balanced dish. I decided, best write this one down. I found a crayon and a scrap of paper then transposed it here.

1 hambone (This year's was a Honeybaked spiral cut ham with all of the slices removed.)
1# Great Northern beans (white beans) (Do not soak.)
6c chicken stock (I prefer stock paste + water which is much less salty, not bouillon.)
1t oregano
1t hot Hungarian paprika
1t pepper
1t cumin
3 bay leaves
3 stalks celery, finely chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 onions, halved & sliced thinly.
1/2T butter

Caramelise sliced onions in butter. (Slowly cook in a frying pan, stirring occasionally. Do not burn or brown them too quickly. They should slowly become a caramel brown color. It takes about 20-30 minutes.) Add garlic for a few mintues. Add onions and garlic to crock and de-glaze frying pan with celery.

Combine the rest of the ingredients, cover and cook for 8 hours. (Over cooking will result in mushy, split beans and a strong marrow flavor from the bone.) Gently remove bone toward the end of cooking and fold in ham pieces. Leave the larger pieces of ham to fall apart on their own. Serve on rice (We used a Texmati / brown rice blend, which complemented the dish well.)

[If the dish happens to come out too fatty, salty, or sweet I thought trimming or removing the outer layer of the Honeybaked hambone would help, although this time I didn' think it was necessary.]

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Bohemian Easter Eggs (This recipe is approximated by inspecting Nana's Easter eggs and observations from long ago. If you have suggestions, please comment.)

Ingredients / Supplies A bag full of yellow (Spanish) onion skins - One or two days take of skins from the local grocery store will be enough. Most stores will stock the onions once a day at a particular time. Whenever stocking them, they always end up with a lot of loose skins that they throw away. Just ask the produce manager what time they stock onions so you can drop by and pick them up or if they can save them for you. It might take a couple of trips to coordinate, so plan early. Bee's wax - I ran across some at a farmer's market. Any honey producer will have bee's wax. Bee's wax candles can be obtained from a specialty store. They used to be pretty common in the Catholic church, so you could try there. shallow metal container - Nana used an aluminum margarine container. Try a tuna can or soda can cut in half. Large kitchen matchsticks - Light the match and extinguish immediately. The larger black end is used for application of the wax. Eggs - white ones are a good idea so there is a contrast. Prepare the dye - In a large (6-8 quart) pot bring water and onion skins to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, continuing to reduce the liquid and adding more water as needed for 3 hours or so. You will want enough liquid to cover all of your eggs completely. Strain removing the onion skins, saving the reddish-brown liquid. Be careful to remove all onion skin residue from the liquid. Allow the liquid to cool to room temperature. Decorate the eggs - Place the bee's wax in a small metal container on very low heat. The wax should be liquid, but should be prevented from boiling. Decorate the raw eggs by dipping the burnt end of the kitchen match into the liquid wax and quickly dragging the end of the match across the egg. There's only one way to learn the timing and strokes necessary to leave the right amount of wax on the egg. Practice makes perfect. Boil the eggs - Follow standard recipe for hard-boiled eggs. History - As far as I know, there are courses in "craslice" making in the Czech republic..."Eugene Svoboda" <e_svoboda@isc-queens.co.uk> [could not find hits on "crasilce" on the web -pjk] Tips - At first, use vinegar to clean the eggs, wipe off the oily spots on the shell (and finger marks); they would show up because the dye wouldn't cover these places. Try using the round end of a pin (inserted in a shaft of wood) instead of matchstick. "Eugene Svoboda" Try using a "pen" made of goose feather" Eugene Svoboda" No need to use bee wax, use normal candle wax "Eugene Svoboda" Bessie (Bozena Kuchynka) Koktavy