Perfect puffs

Many years ago, when the earth was still cooling, dinosaurs roamed the hills, and I was but a wee lad, Mom made us popovers for dinner.  It didn't happen for every meal, but my brother and I requested them often, and as we grew older, Mom realized that a single batch was no longer enough.  We'd start to load our plates for dinner by grabbing two or three popovers each, quickly spotting the largest ones.  It became an unofficial, undeclared contest to see who could eat more, and that was usually determined by who got the last one.

Popovers are light, fluffy, cloud-like rolls, usually hollow inside.  I liked to put butter, jelly, or warm applesauce into their cavernous interiors before I ate them, but they're so good on their own that I had just as many plain.

A couple years ago, my aunt sent me an envelope full of recipes she'd gotten from Mom, written in Mom's hand.  One of them was for herb-cheese popovers.  Wow.

The Chief Taster loves popovers, too, though I've never seen her eat more than three for a meal, and that was only once or twice.  The batch size for the recipe I favor is about nine, and it's an act of great effort for me to not devour the rest myself.  Instead, I eat the last four or five from the batch over the course of the next day, for breakfast, lunch, and snacks.

They're pretty handy, because they have only four ingredients (for the base version), which are usually in the kitchen anyway: eggs, milk, flour, and salt.  If my plan for dinner is a little thin, and it needs some bread, it's a breeze to add popovers to the menu.  I've gotten pretty good at baking them over a wide range of temperatures, in case I have something else in the oven which may be more finicky.

Today, I'm going to stick to Mom's Herb Cheese Popovers, even though I don't remember her ever making them.  I only remember the bare-bones popovers, but they're both really good, and they make me happy, and I like that this recipe, in Mom's handwriting, is now in my file.

2 eggs
1 C milk
1 C flour
1/2 C grated sharp cheddar (I've used a couple different cheeses, including feta)
1/2 t salt
1/2 t dried thyme
1/4 t dried sage
1/4 t dried basil

• Generously grease a muffin pan.  You'll have to find out on your own how many cups (of the muffin pan) you need; this recipe only takes up 9 in mine, but your muffins may be a different size than mine.  I've also heard of popover pans, but mine aren't that specialized.  They do it all.  Muffins, cupcakes, popovers, eggs, whatever.  Anyway--only grease the cups you need.
• Crack the eggs into a medium bowl and beat them a little.  Add the rest of the ingredients and mix to combine.  The batter may be a little lumpy.  No worries.  Pour it into the greased cups, getting each one about 2/3 full.
• Put the rack in the lower third of a cold oven, stick in your popover pan, and set the temperature at 450F.  Bake 30 minutes without opening door.
• Remove from oven, and use a butter knife to flip them from the cups.

There's a bite mark because I couldn't wait until after I took the picture.

I've kept some of Mom's directions here (I like heating the oven once the popovers are in there, because it means it's ok to forget to preheat, and the popovers can be a late addition to the party, if needed), but I changed some and removed others (her writing recommended piercing them after 30 minutes of baking to let steam escape and returning them to the oven to dry for about 10 minutes.  I don't remember her ever doing that, and I haven't, either).

If you want to make "normal" popovers, the recipe I usually use has three differences from the one above:

1. No herbs and cheese.
2. Preheat the oven to 450F.  Put the greased pan in the oven for about 5 minutes.  This is conveniently the same amount of time it takes to make the batter.
3. Bake at 450 for 20 minutes, then reduce the heat to 325F and bake another 10 to 15 minutes.

In either case, you're done when they look golden-brown and delicious.

minty, fresh

Remember last week's pork kheema? I served this as a side, despite what the cookbook recommended.

Minted rice with tomato and sprouted beans
2 T olive oil
6 green onions, very finely sliced
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
3 C cooked, cooled Basmati rice*
2 ripe plum tomatoes, finely chopped
8 oz mixed sprouted beans (you might find these near sprouts and fresh herbs at your grocery.  They're usually a mix of bean and lentil sprouts)
small handful of mint leaves
salt and pepper to taste

• Heat the oil in a large, deep skillet/wok/frying pan.  Add the green onions and garlic, and stir-fry them for 2-3 minutes.
• Add the cooked rice and stir-fry on high heat 3-4 minutes.  Add the tomatoes and beans, stir well, and cook another 2-3 minutes, until everything is warm.
• stir in the mint and season to taste.  Eat it now.  It's really good.

*I somehow managed to make about twice as much rice as I needed for this, despite following the instructions very carefully.  I set the rest aside and used as a base for some shrimp creole a few days later, made entirely from stuff I had leftover from other dishes.  It was the best fridge-cleaning meal I've made in a long time.

kheema get it

In the interests of full disclosure, I should tell you that I'm a little embarrassed by that title pun.

Each week, I pick an entree, and the Chief Taster picks an entree.  I'm willing to cook just about anything, but neither of us wants to choose dinner all the time.  This is the best system we've devised, and it really doesn't work that well.  Some weeks I'll have five or six great ideas and won't ask her for any.  Some weeks, she keeps putting off deciding, and I have to resort to a fallback position of lasagna, tuna casserole, or reuben soup.  I feel curiously unsatisfied with those first two options, not because I don't think they're tasty, but because I've made them both so often that I don't really need the recipe much anymore, and it feels like a cop-out.  I can't say anything negative about reuben soup.

Given her reticence to choose, I was intrigued when she pulled cookbooks one morning before she left for work.  She may not have known exactly what she wanted, but she had regional flavors in mind; she grabbed the Indian and Mediterranean cookbooks from the shelf.  She stuck to the first volume, and indicated two choices each for entree and vegetable dishes.  I wanted to try the Bengali-Style Mustard Fish, but I don't think fish make good leftovers, so we shelved that one for later.  I'd already made the Spinach, Red Pepper, and Chickpea Bhaji, and wanted to try something new, so our options were thus narrowed to Pork Kheema with Peas (below) and Minted Rice with Tomato and Sprouted Beans (next week. Maybe when I get ambitious, I'll start posting more often, but that time is not now).

It must have been a successful gambit, even though the kheema recipe recommended serving with flatbread or plain rice, because her reaction when she saw the food (and to a greater extent when she started eating it) was what I would expect if she came home and learned I'd bought her a dream home.  I am now even more convinced that my next long-from work should be the cookbook titled How To Please A Woman.

Pork Kheema with Peas

1 T sunflower oil (or vegetable oil.  Or canola.  Whatever's handy)
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 jalapenos, seeded and chopped
1 t ground coriander
1 lb. ground pork
2.5 C fresh or frozen peas (the book says frozen peas are more nutritious.  I find them more handy)
3 T medium curry paste (I used hot, because the grocery didn't have medium)
3 T tomato puree (what the hell is that?  I used tomato sauce, and put the rest of the can in the fridge for later use in pasta sauce)
2 tomatoes, finely chopped
1 t raw sugar (I don't have raw sugar.  I used granulated.  I don't think it matters)
1 C boiling water
2 T plain yogurt
large handful chopped cilantro (the Chief Taster is rabid for cilantro, so I bought a 3/4 oz clamshell of it and used the whole thing)
salt

• heat the oil in a big skillet.  Add the jalapeno, garlic, coriander, and meat.  Stir-fry until meat is lightly browned.
• Add the peas, paste, puree, tomatoes, and sugar.  Stir and cook 3-4 minutes, then add the water.  Bring the whole mess to a boil, then cover it and reduce heat to let it simmer 8-10 minutes.
• Turn off the heat and stir in the yogurt, salt, and cilantro.

She got home while the skillet was covered, offered to stir the rice, and used the opportunity to sneak a peek at the pork.  Then she made various happy noises and professed her undying love, but I was chopping cilantro at the time, so she might have been talking to the greens.  My only beef with this pork is that the water never cooked out, leaving the dish a little soupy, and I wonder whether that weakened the flavor of the curry.  I might try it with less water, or none at all.  The tomatoes were pretty juicy, and that might be enough.

talk nerdy to me

Did you know this Saturday is the Pi Day of the century?  I've marked Pi Day for years, and it cracks me up that Dad is guaranteed to call me on two days each year: my birthday, and March 14, just to wish me a happy pi day.

This year, it's not just 3.14, but 3.14.15, and at 9:26:53 (in the morning, for those of you on a 24-hour clock), Pi Day will carry nine decimal places.  How great is that?!  I suggest you make something round to mark the occasion.  Pie, pizza, perfectly formed cookies, it's up to you.  I've made other plans, but here's a couple pictures to inspire you.

Pecan Pi!

Same dish, less Pi

Bluebird Pi! Pizza with barbecue sauce, Bleu cheese, grilled chicken, caramelized onion, and green bell pepper.

Chicken Pot Pi!

Key Lime Pi!

Fun fact: during my first year in college, when I was adjusting to terrible dorm food and really missed Mom's cooking, I sent a postcard home wherein I had filled the message space, in very small printing, with a very long list of foods that I missed.  Every second item in the list was a different kind of pie.

I still miss your cooking, Mom, and I miss you, too.

A conceit of pasta

I hiked the Appalachian Trail last year.  Have I mentioned that?  Forgive me; it's just that I get so many speaking engagements these days that I can't remember who's heard what.

While hiking the AT, you fuel yourself by eating a lot of crap.  Junk I'd never eat in my normal life becomes staple cuisine while backpacking for months on end.  Daily Snickers, Pop-Tarts, peanut butter and Nutella straight from the jar, handfuls of M&Ms, entire pizzas, you get the idea.  One morning I got into a town in Virginia and found one of those Dunkin Donuts/Baskin Robbins hybrid joints, and told them my plan for a new sundae: a banana split on a foundation of three donuts.  They didn't have a dish large enough for my creation, so I just ate the sundae with a side of three donuts.  For breakfast.  That's a normal thing.

During the hike, I learned that I still clung to one of the joys of childhood: mac and cheese.  I hadn't had it in ages, but I learned while hiking exactly how much water to use to cook the noodles so that I didn't have to drain anything, and the leftover moisture made the cheese sauce for me.  Some nights, I'd add chopped summer sausage or torn bits of beef jerky, if I had them, and sometimes I'd stir in some peanut butter, and was always disappointed that I couldn't taste it.  Don't look at me like that.  Peanut butter and cheese WORK together!! (see: Quinn)

Even after the trail, I found that I sometimes craved macaroni, and usually I just wanted that powdered-plastic cardboard box variety I'd eaten on the trail (prefereably in one of the exciting new flavors available that summer.  I'm still sad that I never got to try Three Cheese Jalapeno), but occasionally I'd grow the hell up and decide that if I were going to have mac and cheese, I should put more than seven and a half minutes of effort into it and bake the stuff, with some veggies and other tasty things.

One night on the trail, a few hikers were gathered... somewhere.  I honestly don't remember now whether it was a campsite, shelter, hostel, or even if it was really nighttime.  It might have been the middle of the afternoon.  Point is, we were talking about food, because backpackers always talk about food.  We obsess over it.  We fantasize about it.  We sometimes express our fondness for food by suggesting the performance of really inappropriate acts with it.  Well.  I say "we," but in my experience, it was only that one guy.  Still, the rest of us knew what he meant.  Moving on.  We started talking about macaroni.  I admitted that I craved it, and tried to have it about once a week during the thru-hike, but usually didn't manage that frequency. I also mentioned that I'd tried a couple baked macaroni recipes at home, but hadn't really found one that I liked.  One of the other hikers told me that he liked to layer it in a baking dish like lasagna, with intervening layers of mushrooms, onions, peppers, or bacon.  It sounded amazing.  For the rest of the trip, I couldn't think of macaroni without thinking of it layered with sausage and mushrooms.

When I finished the hike and started cooking in a real kitchen again, I remembered the layered macaroni.  Then I made lasagna, gave it some thought, and decided that I couldn't layer it deeply enough to satisfy my whims, because macaroni noodles take up a lot of space, and my 9x13 isn't deep enough to hold many such layers.

So I did this instead.

Macaryan and Cheese (see what I did there?)

16 oz macaroni (or some other pasta shape.  I don't care.)
good-sized bunch of fresh spinach.  A handful? I guess?
olive oil.  Just a tablespoon.  Two, tops.  We just need it to keep the spinach from sticking to the pan.
2 cloves garlic, minced
1.5 C red bell pepper, chopped
1/2 C chopped onion
1/2 C butter (that's a stick, unless you buy weird butter.  Or, I guess, weird sticks?)
8 oz fresh mushrooms, sliced
4 oz can sliced black olives
1/2 C flour
1 T ground mustard (the dry powder stuff)
1/2 T lemon pepper
1 t pepper
3/4 t salt
12 oz (about 3 C) shredded Monterey Jack
2 C milk

• Boil some water.  Cook the macaroni.  While you're at it, get that oven preheating to 350F.
• While your water comes to a boil and your macaroni cooks, get started on the rest of this stuff.  Start by heating the oil in a skillet with the garlic.  Add the spinach, stir to coat, and cover over low heat for 2-3 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the green stuff is all wilty.  Move the spinach and garlic to a plate.  We're going to keep using the skillet and oil.  I'm a big damn fan of my Lodge combo cooker, so I used that, and when it came time to bake, I didn't even need another dish.  Which is good, because I'm super lazy, and it meant fewer dishes to wash later.
• Add the butter and the rest of the veggies to the skillet.  Cook them.
• Add the flour, mustard, and seasonings to the skillet.  Keep stirring.  The butter and flour will form a roux, which helps to thicken the sauce.  Toss in the cheese and milk, then remove from heat.
• By now your pasta should be done.  Drain it, and stir it in to the cheese mixture with the spinach.  If you're using a separate baking dish, make the transfer now.  If you're lazy like me, use that time to do a little dance.
• Stick the whole mess in the oven for 40 minutes.  The Chief Taster thinks crumb toppings should be applied whenever possible, so I added that for the last fifteen minutes of baking.  If you want a crumb topping, melt 2 T butter, and mix in 2/3 C crumbs (I bought a carton of panko for the occasion) and 1/3 C parmesan (because why wouldn't I want more cheese?), and apply as directed above.

This version just happened to be vegetarian, but I think it would be good with some ground sausage or cubed ham.

Another one bites the crust

I may have mentioned this before, but in my Quest to learn how to make bread, I once spent an entire year never buying a single loaf.  If I had bread, it was because I baked it myself, and that was at a time when I had a sandwich for lunch pretty much every day, so I went through plenty of bread.  Different recipes, different shapes, different flours; I tried steaming the loaf with a pan of ice cubes under the baking sheet, and I tried different washes before baking (salt water is nice, and handy when you don't have an egg available for an egg wash).  It was a lengthy experiment, doomed to failure.

I wanted the loaves I could buy.  I wanted that stretchy, chewy crumb inside and that hard, crunchy crust outside.  I wanted a great loaf for sandwiches, and I wanted a loaf that was so good that I could just sit down with a slice of it and enjoy it all on its own merits, savoring the different textures and the contrast between that light, airy inside and the hearty crunch outside.  Instead, I got a lot of densely-crumbed loaves with weak, disappointing crusts.  If they were close to what I wanted when I first pulled them out of the oven, they had softened by the next day.  I was disappointed in my efforts and myself.  A year of dedicated work, and no progress to show for it.

I called my dad one day and admitted defeat.  He tried to console me with the fact that I still liked the bread I made; it was still good stuff.  "Yeah, but it's not what I wanted to make."

In Oregon, I mentioned the experiment once to a baker in, of all places, Safeway, and she told me that I'd probably never get what I wanted at home, because my oven just wasn't made for the temperatures required for those results.  I still toy with the idea of letting the loaf proof (a secondary rise after shaping) until it's really big then baking as hot as my oven can go, but I haven't tried it yet.  These days, someone else is buying the groceries, and I ration my consumption of them by eating much more conservative lunches.  The bread I bake now is for the Chief Taster's breakfast, and she likes it seedy, because she's one of those weirdos who thinks bread should taste like granola, and only be eaten as toast, and she won't eat a sandwich unless it's grilled, and full of cheese.

But I get bored making the same bread all the time, and I still want to find that crusty loaf, so I keep trying new recipes.  This one looked like it might satisfy both of us.  I'll give you the version from the book, and add some notes to show where I diverged.  As usual.

South African Seed Bread

unsalted butter, melted.  Maybe a tablespoon?
3 t dry yeast
1 2/3 C warm water
4 t honey
3 C whole wheat flour
1 C bread flour (unbleached all-purpose will be fine)
3 T each sesame seeds, poppy seeds, sunflower seeds, flax seeds, and chopped mixed nuts (Sometimes I decide that I want to bake, and also that I don't want to go to the grocery, so I have to make do with what I have on hand.  Believe it or not, I had plenty of flax, poppy, sunflower, pumpkin, and caraway seeds, but only 1 T sesame seeds.  All I had for nuts were pecans and some sliced almonds.  My version of this bread had 3 T each poppy, flax, pumpkin, and sunflower seeds, 1 T sesame seeds, and 1 T caraway seeds.  Don't use more than 1 T caraway unless you really like that flavor, because the flavor is STRONG.  I didn't use any nuts.  I'd recommend using unsalted sunflower seeds for bread.  Keep the salted ones for snacking.)
1.5 t salt
1 T milk (see note below)

• Melt the butter and brush it around the inside of an 8x4" loaf pan.
• Sprinkle the yeast into 1.25 C water and add the honey.  Stir it, then ignore it for 5 minutes.  I just eyeballed the honey as I drizzled it in.  Us untrained non-professionals can get away with delinquency like that.
• While you're ignoring the yeast, mix the flours, seeds, (nuts?) and salt in a large bowl, and make a well in the center of it.
• Are you done ignoring your yeast now?  Does it feel neglected?  Whisper soothing words of encouragement, give it a stir, and dump it into that well.  Start stirring in flour from the sides of the well.  For those of you who have your own copy of the book and are following along at home, you've probably read ahead (CHEATERS!!) and noticed that the book tells you to add the remaining water, as necessary, to form a cohesive dough that "just begins to leave the sides of the bowl clean," and that you won't have to knead it.  Maybe that'll work for you, but I'm calling bullshit.  I added all of my remaining water, but the mixing stick just wasn't doing the job, so I rolled up a sleeve, took off my watch, and stuck my hand in there.  SHIT GOT SERIOUS.  I had to work the dough a bit, squeezing and stretching (one might even call it "kneading") and turning it over to collect all the seeds and bits of dry flour that fell to the bottom of the bowl.  I got it all worked in, but it took a few minutes, and it looked a lot like that k-word we weren't supposed to do.  Whatever.  I like kneading, dammit.
• When the dough has gobbled up all of the seeds and dry flour bits through "stirring," you can put it in your buttery pan.  The book says to spoon it in, but I think the book ended up with a much wetter dough than I did.  Your results may vary.  No big deal.  Point is, I picked up a single doughball and squished it into the pan, patting it flat across the top as though I were following the book's instructions, then I covered it with a clean dishtowel and left it on a sunny counter to rise for an hour.
• At the end of the hour, have an oven preheated to 400F.  I don't know how long your oven takes to do that, so work it out on your own.  When the dough has risen above the top of the pan (it doesn't need to be much, but remember that oven heat kills yeast, so it won't get much bigger once you start baking), stick it in the oven.  After 30 minutes, reduce heat to 350F and bake for another 30 minutes.
• Remember int eh ingredients list, when I mentioned milk, then said "see note?"  This is the note.  When you get the loaf out of the oven, remove it from the pan and set it on a wire rack to cool.  The book says to brush the top and sides with the milk, but that will give you a softer crust, and we know how I feel about crust.  I didn't use the milk.  You can do whatever you want.  It's really not my business what you do with that loaf.  Personally, I sliced off a heel and ate it while typing these instructions but that's just me.

Live ferns and dead jokes

The Chief Taster is a big fan of the CW show Arrow. I watched a few episodes with her, but soon discovered I couldn't tolerate all the aspects which I perceived as tremendous shortcomings in writing, acting, and characterization, and which she perceived as not existing.  Now I generally go to another room to read while it's on, passing through only to get a drink of water from the kitchen, or when I remember that I still have dishes to do.  Occasionally, when she gets home late on a Wednesday, we don't get to have dinner until the show starts, so I'll sit in until my food is gone before going to do the dishes. (Clean dishes, much like hot meals, are one of those things she has come to assume "magically appear.")  That's how I learned that on any given episode, there is not just one, but up to four or five different archers.  Most of them are on the same secret vigilante team, hanging out in the same "arrowcave," which was spruced up with a live fern by the only person in Starling City who doesn't own a goddamned bow and arrow.

"Why did she buy a fern?" I asked.  The Chief Taster made the sort of noise she makes when I'm talking and she doesn't care, because she's trying to follow the intricate plotlines of who's giving whom the shaft (another joke I made which she refuses to add to her online forums of Arrow fans).  "She should have gotten a pet chicken," I added.  This apparent non sequitur broke her reverie.  "Wait, what?  Why a chicken?"

"Because then they could be Arrows con Pollo!"

Then she made the noise she makes when she heard me, but wishes she hadn't.  I told her to use the joke on her fan forums so I could gain Internet Celebrity and be really rich and stuff, but she has so far refused or forgotten.  I assume she's worried about losing me to my legions of new fans.

Every once in a while I make this as a reminder, but it doesn't do any good.  However, it is very tasty.

Arroz con Pollo

I use this recipe, because somewhere in my research I found something that said "true" arroz con pollo should be cooked with beer, and that seemed like a great idea, and this was my favorite recipe from the search for "arroz con pollo with beer."  I've made a few changes, though, so I'll go ahead and rewrite my version below.  Keep in mind that because I'm a gringo, it is unlikely to qualify as "true" arroz con pollo with the most exacting foodie in your life, but it's damn tasty, and you don't have to tell anyone you got the recipe from a white boy from Oregon.

4-6 strips bacon (I made it once without any bacon, and substituted some vegetable oil to saute the veggies with no problems)
8 chicken thighs, bone in, skin on (the three guys from Miami insist that if you use boneless skinless thighs, you will ruin the dish.  I tried it, because I like to challenge convention, and the results were still tasty.  Do as you will.)
salt, pepper, and cumin to season the chicken
1/2 C olive oil
1 chopped onion
1 chopped red or green bell pepper (I've never been able to find cachucha peppers)
4 cloves minced garlic
12 oz bottle of beer.  Any beer, but pick something you like, because then you can drink the other five with dinner.  Or, if you choose, share them with whoever's eating dinner with you.  Whatever.
3.5 C chicken broth
8 oz can tomato sauce
1/2 t Bijol powder (I've never been able to find this, either, so I subbed 1/2 t each of paprika and turmeric.)
1 bay leaf (following Dad's rule, whenever a recipe calls for one bay leaf, I use two.)
2 t oregano
2 t cumin
1.5 t salt
1/2 t pepper
3.5 C brown rice.  Wild rice.  whatever you have handy, really.
1/2 C frozen peas

This is where I diverge further from the Miami guys' instruction and end up just telling the story of how I made it, and why I did it that way.  If you've ever read any of my previous posts, you already knew that.

Chop the bacon into bite-size chunks.  Toss it into a good-sized skillet or saute pan.  I used something big and cast iron, because that's how I roll.  My original plan had been to use this pot for the entire process, but I quickly realized that it was nowhere near big enough.  For me, that was good news, because it meant I finally got to justify owning the enormous eight-quart stockpot that came with my original set of pans.  I'd used it a couple times for apple butter and pumpkin, but it usually just hides in the back of the cabinet, out of the way.  Now I use it for arroz con pollo and a Spanish chicken stew which I plagiarized from Panera.

Cook the bacon in whatever you're using.  We're using the fat to cook other stuff, so if you're one of those "microwave bacon" people, don't do that.  Skillet, dammit.  When it's starting to crisp nicely, transfer it to your Big Damn Pot (if you do not have a Big Damn Pot, consider reducing the recipe, or buying a Big Damn Pot).  While the bacon is cooking, season the chicken pieces with salt, pepper, and cumin.  Rub it in there good.  Then stick the chicken pieces in the hot bacon fat and brown them on all sides before putting them in the BDP with the BCN.  Keep that skillet hot, because now you're going to cook the onion, bell (or coocoocachoo) peppers, and garlic (you might want to add the garlic a little later than the veggies, so it doesn't overcook, but I've never had any trouble) until crisp-tender and the onion is translucent.  Guess where they go next?

...I hope you guessed the BDP.  Add everything else except the rice and peas.  Crank the heat, bring it to a rolling boil, reduce heat to low, cover, and cook it for 15 minutes.

Add the rice, bring it back to a boil, then reduce heat and cook it for 30-45 minutes, until the liquid is absorbed and the rice doesn't crack your teeth when you steal a bite.  When the rice is ready, stir in the peas and give it another 5 minutes of low heat.  Turn on the tube to your favorite archery-related program, open one or more of those five remaining beers, and enjoy.