Monthly Archives: April 2018

Lilian’s lemon bars

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Lemon Bars

 

I adore desserts that combine sweet and sour flavors. This is unsurprising when you consider that I’m Maharashtrian with an inherited love for srikhand. These lemon bars with their shortcrust cookie base and gelatinous lemon top are fantastic.

I found the recipe at the back of a Nancy Atherton book I’d read over a decade ago- the book called these Lilian’s lemon bars.

 

Cookie base:

Heat oven to 350. Cream ¼ cup of sugar and 1/3 cup of butter. Add 1 cup of all purpose flour and mix till crumbly. I use my kitchen aid and make sure everything stays cold. Press down into the bottom of an ungraded 8×8 inch pan and bake for 15-18 min till light gold

 

Lemon topping:

Meanwhile combine 2 eggs, ¾ cup sugar, 2 tbsp flour, ¼ tsp baking powder, 2 tsp lemon zest and 3 tbsp lemon juice. Whisk till smooth and non-lumpy. Pour over hot cookie base and back to oven for about 15-20 min till edges are brown and center is set

 

Cool and sprinkle with icing sugar. I cut these into small bars – about 25 or so.

No Knead Focaccia

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Kenji starts this article stating the absolute truth “It’s difficult to make good bread today, but it’s darned easy to make hot, fresh, world-class bread tomorrow”. I should know, I have made lots of average bread when I’ve tried to bake the same day. I’m a huge fan of no-knead bread and I will always be grateful to Mark Bittman for popularizing Jim Lahey’s technique. I use the recipe in “Artisan Bread in 5 minutes a day” by Jeff Hertzberger. A long slow rise that works the gluten for you and develops a rich sourdough flavor, a closed Dutch oven to mimic the steam in professional ovens – it’s genius. I’m all set with the basic boule recipe. My focaccia though doesn’t always turn out the way I want- till now. Kenji’s recipe works for the most part- I had to add 30-50 cc more water, the dough has to be moist and tacky at the end. He made his focaccia with olives, rosemary and pistachios. I made mine with vegan hot dogs bits, rosemary and olives. My top started to burn at the 550 F temp- I covered it with some foil. Next time I’ll start the baking with the foil cover and remove it 10 min in. Still a delicious bread- I served it with spinach soup.

https://www.seriouseats.com/2015/02/how-to-make-the-best-olive-rosemary-pistachio-focaccia-bread.html

Farro Bhel

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In my never ending quest to marry healthy food with street food- I discovered farro bhel.

Farro is an ancient whole wheat grain that cooks up beautifully in the rice cooker. 3 cups of water to 1 cup farro and the rice cooker does its thing in 30 minutes or so.

Tamarind Chutney: My recipe is approximate and involves boiling ½ cup of tamarind pulp with 1/3 cup of jaggery, 1 cup of water, 1 tbsp of cumin powder, 2 tbsp of dried ginger powder, salt, 1 star anise pod, ½ a stick of cinnamon and ½ tsp of black pepper till the consistency is syrupy (around 20 minutes).

Green chutney: Grind chillies and cilantro together with salt

Other Bhel ingredients- boiled potatoes, raw onion, cilantro and sev

Mix! Its Bhel for dinner

Deep dish pizza

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I do pizza once a week, generally with store bought dough. I do my deep dish pizza in a cast iron skillet with some olive oil on the bottom. I push in pieces of vegan hot dog and olives into the dough so the dough can bake up around them like a focaccia. Today I did a sauce of ricotta mixed with olive oil, salt and pepper and topped it with onions, jalapeños and corn. Oven 450 for about 20-25 min. I grated some Parmesan on top. It’s not healthy but it’s very good.

Jeera Rice (Cumin rice ) with vegetables

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This is my standard “exhausted after clinic” dinner- prep time: 5 minutes, rice cooker time: 20-30 min

 

1)rinse 1 cup of long grain basmati rice twice

2)remove rice cooker bowl (the cheaper ones let you do this), add 1 tbsp vegetable oil or olive oil and heat till it shimmers

3) add one at a time at 5 sec intervals :1 tsp cumin seeds, 1 pinch asafetida, ½ tsp turmeric , 1-2 red chilies and 3-4 kadipatta or curry leaves (I didn’t have any today- it’s ok)

4) add rinsed rice and wait till you can smell the rice toasting (1-2 min)

5) add 2 ¼ cups of water to rice

6) add a cup of your favorite frozen veggies (today – I added peas, corn and beans)

7) add salt till the water tastes as salty as the ocean or more poetically as salty as your tears

8) return bowl to rice cooker and let the rice cooker do its thing

9) serve with yogurt or raita (that’s the protein component of the dish)

Roasted asparagus with capers and almonds

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If Yotam says asparagus goes with capers and almonds, who am I to disagree.

Trim and asparagus tossed with olive oil, salt and peper at 425 for 5-10 minutes.

Fry 1/4 c slivered blanched almonds in 2 tbsp butter, fry 3 tbsp capers in 1 tbsp butter. Add to asparagus along with butter

Add dill (or not- I didn’t)

https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1019264-roasted-asparagus-with-buttered-almonds-capers-and-dill

Sweet Chili Glazed Tofu from America’s test kitchen

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In my meat-eating past, my favorite Chinese dish was the crispy honey chili chicken. This is better. The glaze is not goopy but clings perfectly to the tofu.

 

Tofu: 1 pack of tofu (the recipe specifies soft, I had only firm) cut into 3 inchx1/2 inch long fingers. Dredge in a dry mixture of ¾ c cornstarch and ¼ c cornmeal, salt and pepper. I dredged them twice. Shallow fry in a nonstick skillet till light golden on all sides (about 10 min). Empty oil from pan

 

Sauce: whisk ½ c water, ½ c rice vinegar,1/3 c sugar, 4 minced garlic cloves, 2-3 tsp Asian chili garlic sauce, 2 tsp cornstarch together. Cook till they form a slurry (about 2-3 min)

 

Add tofu back to glaze, garnish with cilantro serve with rice

I stir fried the rice in some sesame oil and soy sauce but that isn’t really necessary.

Mushroom Bolognese from America’s Test Kitchen

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Like many vegetarians, I’ve tried many many recipes for Mushroom Bolognese. This is the best and the easiest recipe I’ve found. I love recipes that start with the food processor and then cook without too many interventions. The soy, the porcini, the tomato paste all add so much umami flavor. The dish is meaty and heartening and also paradoxically refreshing and delicious. I generally halve this- 2 small boxes of crimini mushrooms make up one lb

Step 1: food processor ! 1 lb crimini mushrooms, half a carrot, half an onion, approximately 6-7 rehydrated porcini mushrooms. Chop in batches, dump in pot

Step 2: add 2 tbsp of butter and the porcini water (hate to waste that) and cook till browned (15-20 min) but not burnt

Step 3: add ½ tsp sugar, 1 tbsp tomato paste – cook

Step 4: deglaze with ½ cup red wine. Cook wine off till mixture is dry

Step 5: add ½ tbsp soy sauce, ¼ cup vegetable broth and 1 small can (14 oz) tomatoes with 2 cloves of garlic (use food processor for tomatoes and garlic too) and salt and pepper

Let cook for 10 min too – don’t let this dry out. Finish with 2 tbsp of heavy cream off heat

Cook pasta , add sauce thinned out with some pasta water. Add Parmesan !

Tofu chorizo beans and slaw tacos

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Tofu Chorizo: inspired by a purple carrot recipe I read today. Start with some oil, add 1 tsp cumin seeds, 1 onion, ½ a pepper, 4 cloves of garlic and 1 packet of crumbled firm tofu. Stir and roast on medium high heat till nice and brown. The original recipe added 11/2 tbsp chili powder. I added a Brazilian barbecue rub which I found in my pantry. It was a good choice – the sugars caramelized and everything turned toasty.

While the tofu was browning I

1) opened a bag of angel hair slaw

2) made my favorite slaw dressing- ¾ cup yogurt, 1 clove garlic, a handful of cilantro, half a jalapeño, 2-3 tbsp olive oil , 1 lime and my secret ingredient – 2 tsp of tahini. Give it a whir in the vitamix and season

3) opened a can of veg beans in tomato sauce

4) sliced some onions

5) toasted some tortillas

6) left the coleslaw “deconstructed” because of a fussy 9 year old

7) opened up some sour cream (for same fussy 9 year old)

Took about 30 min total and I have leftovers for lunch! The tofu chorizo technique is outstanding – I will definitely use it again perhaps with some barbecue sauce