Dinner Diaries

I started off with a red onion, diced. Along with 2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped, I sauted the onion till it lost its edge. Then I added 2 cups of rice, and cooked them together on medium heat till the rice started sticking. Then, since I couldn't find the chicken stock, I opened a can of tomatoes and added them to the rice. I added salt and stirred. By the time it was dry, I had found the can of stock, and I added that. I added about 1/4 tsp of cumin, less of coriander, a pinch of dried oregano. Then I added 2 cups of water and let it cook, covering with a lid.
In another pan, I pan fried okra and added salt and cayenne. I fried them at a high temperature to get them crisp. Then I added a bell pepper, diced, then a couple of louisiana hot links, sliced. When the rice was almost cooked I added the vegetable/sausage mixture, then added some cooked shrimp to the rice. I stirred, covered, and let the rice complete cooking. When it was done, I turned the heat off and let it sit, covered, for a few minutes.
Thoughts - the chicken/tomato combination ended up surprisingly wholesome tasting. The cayenne from the okra and the spice from the hotlinks was more than enough to keep the jambalaya well spiced. Adding the spices directly to the wet rice was an odd touch, so I kept it to a minimum. The cumin did give the dish what Diana Kennedy calls a "sweaty" taste - but faint enough that it was still pleasant.

The crust -
5oz Giustos Unbleached Hi Performer
4oz Butter
1 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
Use the food processor for this one, pulse till it forms small grains of butter, then add 2 tbsps cold water. Roll the batter into a ball, refrigerate so it's firm enough to roll (15 minutes).
Roll the dough out, place in pan, prick with a fork and bake in 425 F oven with foil and weights till the bottom is dry. This is actually rather annoyingly hard, because you can't actually see the bottom till you pull it out of the oven and remove the weights. I tried around 10 minutes, which was short... next time I'd try around 15.
The filling - saute 2 leeks, sliced, with about 1/3 lb of mushrooms, add salt and pepper and fresh thyme. Place in pan and sprinkle some cubed baby swiss over it. Beat together 6 eggs and 2 cups of dairy... I used 1 cup milk and 1 cup of this very heavy industrial whipping cream I got my hands on. Add a touch of nutmeg and salt.
Pepper the crust, add the filling, and pour in the custard. Bake at 300-325, really low to avoid the tragedy of egg coagulation... at least, this is the fear that Alton Brown put in me. Take it out when the center is still not quite set, but is close - internal temperature of around 165 F. The temp will rise outside the over to around 175F, but it should stay together.
Thoughts - the bottom crust could have used more browning, but turned out acceptably anyway. The egg ended up just set - only the edges were browned. The color of the top was more akin to a french omelette rather than the well browned frittata that store bought quiche is usually. This could probably be fixed with a flash of the broiler, but it worked out quite acceptably for me...

The Gemelli Pizza, as noted in Artisan Baking. I sped it up a bit - here's what we had today.
500g Giustos Unbleached Hi Performer
1.5 tsps yeast
1.5 cups warm water
2 tsps salt
Mix on medium in stand mixer (or by hand) till the dough comes together, let stand for 15 minutes, then mix till very well kneaded, smooth and elastic. If kneading in mixer, finish by hand with a little bench flour to get a very smooth surface. Cut into 4 equal pieces, knead into tight balls and lightly flour them.
Place in a lightly floured pan and cover gently with plastic wrap. Let rise for 1.5 hours. The balls will soak up the flour and gently stick to the wrap. This is better than the alternative - the balls easily form a crust. If this happens, there's pretty much nothing you can do about it, short of cutting off the dry bits.
Preheat the over, with stone in it, at the hottest temperature your oven can reach. Mine was at 550F today. I try not to keep it that hot for too long... but remember, it does take some time for the stone to actually get to the temperature that the oven says it is. So I only start rolling out the dough when the oven registers the final temperature.
The sauce - S & M tomatoes , a clove of garlic, a sprinkle of red chilli flakes, a handful of oregano and thyme from the garden, salt and pepper, and a touch of olive oil. Stir together.
The cheese - fresh mozarella, to taste.
Roll out the pizza gently, preferably with your hands to try not to lose all that air in the dough. I used a pin, for part of the way. The dough to ease gently into a pizza about a foot in diameter. Leave the dough a little thicker around the edges to get that high crust... Sprinkle a little semolina on a wooden peel (the large flat object you'll use to get your pizza into the oven), place the pizza dough over it, then add sauce and cheese.
Bake till edges color, approx. 6 minutes. The idea is to cook the dough and flavor it, but not to get it crisp.
Garnish with basil chiffonade.
2 hours and 15 minutes, it's the quickest truly neopolitan pizza I know how to make.
Thoughts - I love that flour. Just sinking your fingers in it is a sensual experience... And it has really nice wheat flavor. We stay quite near Giustos, so I have to believe that we're getting some of the freshest milled flour you can get in the Bay Area. We buy ours at The Milk Pail.
2 cloves of garlic is too strong, one clove is quite strong enough... use half a clove if you like your garlic subtle... It gets just barely cooked, so chop it fine.
Didn't do the final basil chiffonade today, forgot to pluck it from the garden in time. I'll do that with the leftover basil tomorrow... Speaking of which... perennial basil is a Good Thing. Consider growing some in your garden...

The shells and leftovers from the big seafood dinner went into a pot, with a bunch of water, and one and a half onions, chopped. I brought it to a boil, and then simmered for around 4 hours, then strained and refrigerated overnight. This morning I reduced it to a few cups, and put it in an ice-cube tray. All that seafood went to the making of just about 24 cubes... I wish I could note how they taste, but now our entire apartment is infused with the aroma of boiling crustacean, I can't really tell. I'll let you know when I use them...

The Phillips Clam Bake for Two... Just the perfect insane amount of seafood for 2 people. Apparently they were out of clams, so there weren't in fact any clams in our clam bake. But there were - 2 exquisite maine lobsters, more crab legs than we could shake a mallet at, prawns, mussels, potatoes and corn. I used a bottle of beer as the steaming liquid, adding a couple of cloves of garlic and some thyme and oregano that weren't in the instructions, but worked really well. Some of the mussels were a bit overcooked/gritty... the corn was terrible it arrived mushy and stayed that way. But the lobsters were dense and flavorful, the crabs delicate and sweet, and the prawns - steamed last, over the indirect heat that percolated through the other seafood, the prawns were perfectly succulent.
For dessert, Connie made a chocolate cake "Chocolate Domingo" - recipe from The Cake Bible. It's a cake in the classic mould - it has flour, crumb, isn't a fallen souffle, doesn't contain chocolate pudding, or any other gimmic. Except that it's sublime. There's really no other way to put it.

Connie made dinner - Beets, with greens. She baked the beets, individually wrapped in foil, sauted the greens (with copious oil and pepper) and sprinkled fried breadcrumbs and salt over them. Served with Saags Kielbasa and Fred's Horseradish Mustard... It's always a treat to have good beet greens, and I think baking is just perfect for beets, because it intensifies the flavors... the individual wrap kept them moister than usual, which I thought was an improvement on a good thing. Beets with horseradish... who would have thought it. Turns out - Deborah Madison. One of those things that just works.

It's not that I haven't been eating - but the approximately 9 pounds of meat we cooked in the Mexican meal have kept us in left overs. I saute'd some zucchini, and Connie's had the pork in sandwiches with cotija... but basically, it's been leftovers.
The chicken wasn't quite as green the day after, more nutty. The pork, however, did really well. The orange in the pork sauce lost none of its zing, and the pork is still tender and flavorful.

No, it wasn't the Mexican who was mad... it was us!
The menu (all recipes from The Art of Mexican Cooking: Traditional Mexican Cooking for Aficionados, except the dessert, from How to Cook Everything) -
Handmade tortillas
Grilled Nopales
Camarones Enchipotlados
Pollo En Mole Verde
Pierna de Puerco Estilo Aptzingan
Creme Brulee
And this is how it went.
Get back from last minute shopping. Connie gets started on the Creme Brulee.
Bittman is less than completely precise, which leads to a question and a problem. The question - what temperature should the cream be at when it goes into the eggs? The problem - he doesn't say you shouldn't be using an electric mixer while beating the eggs and (possibly more importantly) while adding the cream. Copious foam ensues, which causes problems in cooking (the foam insulates the custard, so it takes much longer) and final texture. Still - you can't go wrong with 6 egg yolks and a 2.5 cups of cream. Not too wrong, anyway.
Custard goes in the oven, I start on the Pork Leg. Which, according to Ms. Kennedy, is best replaced with a shoulder. Tomatoes go under the broiler, Guajillos go under boiling water. 15 minutes later, the guajillos are soft and ready to blend, and the tomato skins are blistered and blackening in parts (I turned the tomatoes once). Blend the sauce, rub it into the well pricked shoulder, add sliced orange, white onion and beer, and into the oven it goes. I put in a sheet of parchment paper between the dutch oven and the lid, but I'm not sure it did much.
Then start on the chicken. Breaking down a whole chicken is easy - especially if you don't care about leaving some extra bits in (a bit of pelvic bone still attached to the thigh? Sure!) I kept the backbone around, figuring it would add extra flavor.)
Chicken goes into water, onions, garlic, salt. Making some broth, cooking the chicken.
Toast sesame and pumkin seeds. Leave to cool.
Connie starts on the prawns, butterflying them and leaving them to marinate.
Start the chicken sauce. Brown the nut mixture (with a little of the chicken broth added) and blend the greens (with too much of the chicken broth added).
Interesting points - the use of lettuce in the green mixture, which adds a light freshness and a lot of green color. And 1.5 cups of broth is way too much for the amount of greens I have. The mixture, when I add it to the nuts, is soupy, and takes almost 30 min for the sauce to thicken enough so I'm comfortable adding the additional broth (I assumed the idea was to get the mixture to almost get dry - otherwise what was the point of waiting before adding the remaining broth?)
I clean the nopales, and cut "fingers" into the paddles, leaving them joined together at the base.
Connie starts on the shrimp, and I panic. I should have the tortillas going by now... I run to the store to buy some. Will the dinner collapse under the weight of its own complexity?
I get back in time, and Connie has somehow slowed down the cooking process of the shrimp. She finishes the dish, and we dig in to the shrimp on the (reheated) corn tortillas.
Heat up the grill, and toss on the cactus. A couple of minutes on each side, and the paddles have nice deep black criss-crossing marks on both sides, and the color gets a little darker and brownish. There's a little slime dripping from the sides of the "fingers". Move them to a cutting board, chop into squares, and they're ready to be served on tortillas. A little of the chipotle sauce from the prawns is a perfect addition.
The chicken goes into the sauce, cooks for 10 minutes, and we're ready to eat meat. The sauce is delicate and complex, nutty, but refreshing.
The pork is almost done, so I crank up the heat on it, and flip it over (since the part that was submerged in the beer is more cooked than the other half). The sauce isn't really reduced, so I don't bother with basting. 30 minutes later, the meat is browned nicely, so I remove it from the pan, remove the orange and onion slices, and reduce the sauce on a burner. Slice and then chop the pork, serve on tortillas with a little of the sauce, which is an intense combination of the chiles, orange juice, herbs, and pork.
We're almost stuffed, but there's always room for dessert!
Time to break out the blowtorch. Sprinkle (or pour) sugar over the cold custard, then Connie lets go with the blowtorch... and pretty soon we have crackly caramel candy to break into our rich custard dessert.
The only thing that really didn't work the whole meal? The Agua Fresca, from Libby/Kerns. Strawberry flavor - had a bouquet of High Fructose Corn Syrup, with a lingering finish of cough syrup... Save yourself the trouble, and go to a real Taqueria for your Refreshing Fruit Drink needs...

From Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, Connie made this delicious sandwich - goat cheese, caramelized onions, fresh heirloom tomato, and one whole bunch of spinach, sauted with garlic. Olive oil and balsamic vinegar as a dressing. The bread - Beckmann's finest, toasted.
Thoughts - half a bunch of spinach is a lot for a sandwich, and it was bursting with garlicky spinach flavor. The heirloom tomato was a bit drowned out in the mix... a little bacon might be a nice addition, though it wouldn't be quite so healthy then, I guess. Cooking note - I think it might work better to carmelize onions in a non-stick pan for this. The stainless steel does brown a little bit better, but then the browning compounds stick to the surface, and unless there's some deglazing to follow, what's the point of that? Just a theory, something to experiment with...

The problem with chicken kababs? Either they're dry or they're undercooked. Or (horrors) they're made from white meat, in which case they're possibly both, and flavorless to boot. Personally, I am fine with a little pink in the chicken... But I understand that a lot of people aren't. So we're left with the vagaries of chicken subjected to a high temperature. We tried the "Barg" this time, which is steak with near as I can tell the same marination as the chicken, with good results. The kubideh was the star, as usual... Moist, meaty, but not too strongly flavored with the lamb.
Lessons from the meal - Jalapenos don't get milder flavored as they get older! The grilled red jalapeno was truly painful

I've decided that I prefer regular, with onion, to "Animal" style. My problem - the place I go to usually burns the onions. Carmelized is good. Which would be fine on a medium rare burger, but that's not really an option here (no matter how fresh they claim their beef is, I still wouldn't do it).

Rice and peas... with a little shrimp, as a twist. This is a risotto, so follow the standard risotto technique. Mince something onionlike - today, shallots and garlic. Gently saute in a mixture of oil and butter. I hear you shouldn't brown the butter or the aromatics, but I did both today, and liked the results. Then add in the Arborio rice, stir to mix and lower the temperature. The rice gets transparent on the outside, then translucent, and it starts to smell nicely fragrant. (This is when Connie starts nosing around the kitchen wondering what smells so good...) Then add a large splash of wine (maybe 1/4 -1/2 cup), cook it off. Salt to taste. Ladle in almost boiling water, one ladle at a time, waiting till the previous water is evaporated before ladling some more. I added the frozen peas to the water, and so ended up ladling in the pea broth. When the peas were just cooked I moved them over to the rice, continuing the ladling process as before.
Today I stopped cooking at around 25 minutes, even though it wasn't yet al dente, and added some water, then let it sit for 5 minutes, cooking in its own heat. I used this time to saute some shrimp, then added some water to the shrimp to extract some of the flavor. I reduced this water and added it to the rice for a little additional flavor, and also to get a slightly soupy consistency. Serve the rice with the shrimp on top - sprinkle with salt, pepper, and drizzle a little olive over it all...
Thoughts - A touch of lemon zest would be interesting, and help bring the shrimp and peas together. Letting it sit off the flame for the last 5 minutes worked to avoid overcooking the risotto. Most recipes call for chicken stock in this sort of dish, but I really like letting the peas and rice be the main flavor. The most I'd do I think it to have a light shrimp broth, but I think the water does just fine.

Tried the nasi lemak lunch - an assortment of strong and fresh flavors. A chicken curry, thick and intense. A boiled egg, elegantly cut to look like a mouse with long carrot tail. "Anchovies", more like smelt, salty and strong. Thick cucumber slices, minus seeds. A sweet/sour/salty pickle. Spice Islands has a ways to go before it rivals a hawker courtyard in Singapore, but at least in this lunch plate, it is closer than it's "fusion" afflicted rivals...

The pasta - store bought dry egg fettucine noodle. Would probably have been better with fresh... but you don't always have the time or energy for fresh pasta.
The sauce - heat olive oil, add minced shallots and garlic, then rough cut trumpet mushrooms. Add more olive oil, and cook for a couple of minutes. Sprinkle in salt, pepper and fresh oregano, stir together. Add tomatoes (about equal in volume to the mushrooms) in this case - one very delicious heirloom tomato with a smooth fleshy texture, diced. Cook for about a minute, just enough to warm the tomato. Add cooked pasta, stir. Add salt and pepper to taste.
A delicate dish, the tenderness and flavor of the egg pasta complement well the texture and flavor of the fresh tomato and mushroom. Once again I wonder how toasted breadcrumbs would work... one of these days I'll get around to actually doing it.

Connie made fried chicken with boiled potatoes.
Fried chicken - even with the instant read thermometer, we still don't get the temperature of oil quite right. 350F I think is perfect - I like the crust a little more brown than golden - but it is hard to manually fiddle the dial to keep it at that temperature, especially immediately after the chicken goes in. Choice of oil - peanut is traditional and better with a spicy chicken, olive oil is a bit of a treat and a subtle flavor for relatively bland chicken. Neither will burn at 350.
Connie used a mixture of Mombasa and Emeril's Cajun Essense (home mixed). She marinated the chicken in yoghurt mixed with the spices and salt. The dredge in flour (boosted with lot of black pepper and more salt). While Alton Brown frowns upon this use of spice in the flour (and it does result in the oil muddying sooner, I think) it does really good things for the flavor.
The potatoes - small red, simply boiled (for around 25 minutes) and sprinkled with butter salt and pepper.

Picante - is a confusing beast. It's built like a taqueria, but a very very large one. You stand in line (a long line) read the menu, get up to the counter, stutter a bit while you make a final final decision because everything just seems so good.
And it is. The mole is chocolatey but balanced with a nice smoky chilli, the tortillas are made fresh and the taste is well worth it. The tamales are the essence of corn. The flan has really good texture, and made me question my commitment to dark caramel... though light, it had quite a satisfying bitterness. Even the tortilla chips, hot from the fryer with salsa or guacamole (though oddly not both) are special - hearty, thick chips with a very satisfying chew.
Things to try - that mole - oh yes, that mole. If tamales keep well they might make a really good lunch food. Likewise with "spanish rice" and refried beans... And once again, the "mexican" chillies here - anchos, pasillas, especially dried are such a revelation - I'm surprised that more people from other cuisines aren't yet exploiting them. A vindaloo with anchos - put that on the menu for next weekend!
Terrific restaurant - priced competitively with any hole in the wall Taqueria. Authentic? What it loses in scrappy, greasiness it makes up in fidelity to the recipe, impeccable ingredient authenticity. Now if only they offered a cabeza taco...

3 shallots, minced. Fry till golden brown on medium high heat. Add 4 oz trumpet mushrooms, cut in meaty slices then rough chop. Cook till just softened and slightly browned. Add 4 eggs (mixed with salt and milk), initially stir vigorously, and let cook till bottom is slightly browned. I do the cowards flip - I slide the omelette onto a stockpot lid, then place the pan over the lid, and flip to get the omelette back in the pan. Brown the second side, then serve. Grace Baking's Pugliese made a nice accompaniment. I always feel like it could have been cooked longer - but I have to admit, Grace Baking bread has a lovely crumb, and excellent essence-of-wheat flavor.
I like the shallots in this omelette... But the omelette does seem a little lacking as a meal in itself. Perhaps a little parsley next time?

In the Khichadi discussion, below, I didn't even know the right names of the daals - what I thought I had at home was in fact tuar/toor daal; this is definitely not a good choice for a khichadi. Instead, use the red lentil - musoor daal.

Rice, Dali Tuoy, Shrimp Ghashshi, Sprouted Moong Usal, Bhende Kaap. Recipes from Rasachandrika.
Rice - standard recipe.
Dali Tuoy - Tuar Daal (I know which one that is now), cooked with water 1:2 in a pressure cooker on low pressure for 15 minutes, with green chillies and a bit of ginger. Then add another portion of water, salt and the tadka... I forgot the tadka in the excitement at the end of the meal though... it was still quite good though.
Usal - Sprouted Moong beans, cooked with mustard seed, curry leaves, and a little water. Just before serving sprinkle a little chilli powder and salt/jaggary over it to accentuate the sweet flavor you get from cooking the moong adequately.
Kaap - cut off the ends of the okra (ladies fingers/bhende/bhendi) slit lengthwise, sprinkle salt, chilli powder and flour (I used Italian 00 wheat flour, recipe called for rice or jowar flour). I then let it sit for a while till the rest of the meal was ready... the okra exuded some juices, though, and got somewhat sticky, so I added more flour right before frying in hot peanut oil till brown. Perfect okra for people who don't like the sliminess of okra...
Ghashshi - Make a paste of coconut, red chillies, turmeric, coriander and onion. Fry with some finely chopped onion. Add the shrimp and cook...
The paste wasn't quite fine enough, should run it through the blender after the food processor next time. I need some sort of test to see whether it is acceptably smooth.
Also, need to cook the shrimp longer with the curry... but not overcook the shrimp. I think I'm going to try the Alton Brown trick of keeping the sauce at the final temperature of the shrimp, as though I were poaching the shrimp. Stay tuned... I like this dish, so have a vested interest in getting the technique down.

This time I added a bit - some shrimp (strangely tasteless, should season and possibly "velvet" in shrimp stock before adding to rice) peas, a brunoise of carrots done mostly so I could practice my brunoise... And forgot a few things as well - pepper, white pepper, sesame oil. And the Char Siu... embarrasing, that. I did make a stock from the shrimp shells, and I added it to the rice... but that effort was mostly wasted. Recipe is based on Chinese Cooking Made Easy.

Connie made Beef Chow Fun, I cooked string beans to accompany. Both recipes from The Wisdom of the Chinese Kitchen... Slices of Flank Steak (bought from a Chinese grocery because others seem to cut them too thin) and Chow Fun noodles (look more like a slab than noodles, you only see the cuts between the noodles up close). And copious black bean sauce. The beans were simple - fry the beans in oil for a minute, steam cook for 3 minutes, add julienned red bells, a little sugar and salt, and fry for another couple, till dry. I added a splash of soy.
The chief pleasures of the Chow Fun made at home - nicely browned noodles, plenty of good black bean flavor, and not having too much oil.

A quick mish-mash reminiscent of food at Synergy, the coop I used to live at when I was in school... except for the char siu... (Synergy was vegan/vegetarian). Heat the wok up to insanely hot and smokey, add the char siu (chinese barbeque pork) and olive oil, stir, add rough cut onions, ancho chillies, chopped garlic and ginger paste, stir, and sambal and hoisin sauce, stir, add soy sauce, stir, add broth, stir, add a bunch of kale (trimmed of the thick center ribs and chopped) and cook till broth is evaporated and kale is cooked. Serve with white rice.
The one good thing about this dish was the fresh ancho chillies, which I liked a lot more than simple green bell peppers. The flavor is more smoky and deep, though they aren't as juicy as bells. The sambal and hoisin were quite gratuitous... Without them, it might actually have been an interesting dinner.

Connie made a rack of lamb (one was more than enough for us) - marinated with olive oil, thyme and rosemary. Five minutes on the grill-pan, fat side down got a nice deep brown crust on it. Then the other side for 10 minutes, and a 15 minute rest between 2 plates (the top one inverted over the other, of course). The fat did pool a bit in the middle of the grill pan an lead to a little frying that the rack could have done without... but otherwise, with a final little sprinkle of kosher salt it was perfect. Green beans to go with it... I tried a different tactic today, steam cooking the beans in a wok first, then adding salt, pepper and butter. The idea was to get a fresh butter flavor, rather than cooked. However, once again I misjudged how cooked the beans were (a good 8-10 minutes after they turn bright green seems to be about right) so I actually did cook for a few minutes with the butter to finish... And the results were quite nice. The butter solids still hadn't completely browned, and the butter flavor was still quite fresh. I'm on to something here, I think. Next time, I hope to get the butter in just long enough to flavor but not enough to soak and fry the beans.
Dessert - strawberries and peaches... rather, 1 peach that was as big as a softball. From the Milk Pail... get yours now, the flavor is everything a peach can be.

Blueberries - Julia's blueberry trick - she spreads dried fresh blueberries on a cookie sheet in the freezer, then, when they are frozen, she saves the individually frozen blueberries in a bag, frozen. Which avoids the twin evils of blueberry muffin making - crappy frozen supermarket bluberries, green muffins from fresh blueberries (and occasionally, green muffins from defrosted crappy supermarket blueberries).
Extra extra - Clover yoghurt is really really good. Edges out Pavels as my favorite yoghurt for eating straight - though low fat, it's got a really lush creamy texture... got to see how it does in food.

Another winner from Carol Field's The Italian Baker, from the chapter on slightly sweet breads. The Chocolate Bread is a rather rich chocolate, and is positively stuffed with chocolate chips from King Arthur Flour. I modified the Milk Bread slightly, bringing the temperature of all the milk above 180 degrees, to try to break down an enzyme in it that weakens the gluten structure. I modified the assembly as well, applying the technique the Carol Fields gives for the Pane Al Latte to the combination of the two. I cut the dough for both recipes into 20 parts each. Then I rolled the parts into "fingers" - small dowels. To assemble, on an oiled cookie sheet I placed 5 of these next to each other, alternating chocolate and milk dough, and then I pinched the ends together to form a circular, but still quite flat, loaf. I glazed these with egg white, so as not to obscure the vivid difference in color between the two types of dough (and also because I had only two eggs and the two recipes between them use one whole egg and one yolk). I baked the loaves at a compromise of temperatures - 425 F for the first 12 minutes, then 375 for around 8. At this point the loaves were moist and had a tender crust - it would certainly have been possible to get them more crusty.
Thoughts - Pretty successful. The chocolate dough is actually quite a bit denser than the milk, and I think I will try to get their textures closer together.
Also, while preparing the milk bread I had the idea for a saffron loaf, which would I'm sure be quite delicious.

Rice and Lentils... I'm really not sure what lentils I had, but I used them. Turns out they were the wrong kind, or at the very least, their cooking time was a good 10 minutes longer than the 15 minutes rice usually takes. This was a dry type khichadi, as opposed to the more common wet. I got the recipe from Rasachandrika. It's very simple, really - Heat a little ghee in a pot, add a couple of cloves, a small cinnamon stick, a few black peppers and a pinch of turmeric. Add a cup of washed rice and half a cup of lentils (tuar, or red lentils, preferably)... and cook for a couple of minutes, coating all the grains with the ghee and letting it get opaque, rather like the risotto... then add salt, 3 cups of water and simmer till done (should be pretty much like rice, about 15 min). In this case I think I had masoor dal, because it was definitely raw tasting when I was done... so I added some water, and simmered again, which meant that my rice was somewhat overcooked. Still, a little ghee and a lot of pickle and it was definitely edible. Comfort food.

Lunch at Taqueria La Bamba, off of Rengstorff on Old Middlefield in Mountain View. Surprisingly good burritos - they use the steamed tortilla method, which I much prefer to the grilled. I had delicately flavored tongue with very fresh tasting salsa. Nicely balanced quantities of rice and beans on there as well (yes, this is a Cali-Mex burrito). The orchata was surprisingly spicy with cinnamon and sweet, but still quite refreshing.

Slice an onion, and saute in olive oil till carmelized. I use a relatively high temperature, since I'm not going for french onion soup - I'd like to keep some of the onion texture. Add 2 medium sized beets, julienned. Add salt, raise temperature to high. When beets are starting to brown add 1/4 cup water and cook till once again dry. Remove from heat, cool.
Thaw, crimp, roll frozen puff pastry sheets, or follow whatever process you use to get them ready. I use Pepperidge Farm, since it's quick and easy. Quarter the sheet to get 6-8 inch squares, place the filling in the center of each square, fold over on the diagonal and crimp the edges together.
Bake at 400 degrees (Or whatever your pastry sheets say they should be cooked at - 400 F is traditional) for 20 minutes. Serve with a dollop of goat cheese.
Fig and Pancetta Salad - Heat some olive oil, add fine diced pancetta, cook till crisp. Then add halved figs, face down, and brown. Turn over, add some white wine and cook down. Add pancetta, and cook the sauce down to a syrup. Serve fig/pancetta mixture over a bed of arugula.
Thoughts - the plate with the two together was really pretty. Connie thought it was too much cooked stuff, and that the figs were too cooked, and I agree. Just the browning on the face would have been enough for the figs, and would have been enough to get some fig flavor into the sauce. I like the punchiness of pancetta with the fig, rather than the more traditional prosciutto... though I suppose that I shall have to try a salad of that too, just to be sure. The beet turnover - something about golden beets make them work especially well in this - the keep their crunch a lot better than the other beets. And goat cheese is just the perfect thing with any beet...

Leek risotto - saute 2 leeks, sliced, in brown butter. Add 8 oz risotto rice - I used arborio, but carnaroli or some other would do just fine. Stir for a few minutes, till the rice turns opaque. It starts out looking translucent around the edges, and these gradually fill in - also, the fragrance turns less raw. Add a little white wine - about 1/2 a cup. Cook on a gentle medium low (throughout the cooking process you should ideally see bubbles only when the liquid level is very low) for a few minutes, till the wine is all evaporated. Sprinkle a little salt and stir.
On another burner, pour out 1 can of water into a saucepan, toss in one whole peeled garlic, add around 3 cans of water and bring to a boil, then turn back to a simmer, so the stock is no longer close to boiling.
Once the wine has evaporated/soaked into the rice, start ladling in stock into the risotto. Stir every minute or so, and add additional stock only when the previous set has been soaked up (this does get more ambiguous as it gets more creamy, as it should). Start tasting after 25 minutes or so, and call it done as soon as you can eat a bit without actually tasting raw rice. Then add remaining stock as you need to thin it out.
When the risotto is close to done (at approx 25 minutes) saute a couple of chopped shallots in butter in a hot skillet, then add about 8 oz of fresh mushrooms, sliced. We had trumpets today, they worked out well. Slightly brown, so as to enhance, but not overpower the flavor.
Serve a pile of risotto (about 1/4 of the total) risotto on a place, top with 1/4 of the mushrooms. Sprinkle salt and pepper on the mushrooms while cooking, then again on the assembled dish.

Kheema cutlets - Dice 1 onion, slice one clove of garlic, saute in hot oil in skillet. When golden brown, add salt, spices. I used fresh sage, dry thyme, cinnamon, turmeric, cayenne, cumin, coriander and a pinch of mace, and right at the end a couple of tablespoons of ginger paste. Then add 1 pound of ground beef - I use regular as opposed to lean. Your choice, really. Add some raisins and chopped nuts. When the meat is cooked and the juices rendered have evaporated, remove to a mixing bowl and let cool.
Meanwhile, boil 1 large starchy potato (about 1/2 pound). Rice the potato into the meat mixture. Form into balls the size of a large lemon (I got 13 from this mixture).
Beat an egg, add a little milk and season with salt and pepper. Spread some fine semolina on a plate. Dip the meatballs in the egg, then roll in the semolina and pan fry in hot olive oil. Cook for a few minutes on each side, flattening while frying to get a crisp brown crust on both sides.
Fig salad - cut fresh figs in two lengthwise, and hollow the centers of each half out a little. Squeeze 1/2 tsp or so goat cheese onto each fig half, then press some crushed pine nuts into the cheese. Broil till the nuts turn a deeper brown and the cheese melts slightly. Serve over salad mix, drizzle over with a little good quality olive oil and balsamic vinegar and grind fresh pepper over the salad to taste.
Thoughts - It worked out very nicely! I was lucky that the goat cheese we got came sealed in plastic, so getting the cheese on the figs was easy - I just made a hole in one corner of the pack and squeezed out as much as I needed. Otherwise, this is a bit of a pain. The semolina is different from the rava my Mom used to use for cutlets, but it worked out just as well. I was trying for a bit of a middle eastern flavor in the cutlets, I think the cumin and coriander detracted from that. Maybe drop those and add more cinnamon next time? These are pretty good though. And best part about it? Leftover cutlets are great in sandwiches...