Hummus

I am not sure why, but virtually every time I am at a potluck and someone brings hummus, it isn't very good.  It fails on about every level.  It's dry and bland and usually the person leaves with a ton left over.  I am baffled, because really good hummus takes at most 10 minutes to make and is pretty foolproof.  I think there must be a lot of bad recipes online.

So some people turn hummus into a complicated dish, soaking dried beans until the texture is just right, removing the skins, pan frying the beans, etc.  None of this is necessary for good hummus and is way, way too much work.  Canned beans work fine.  Hummus should be a volume dish.  You make a ton, you eat a ton, you make more.

This is a recipe I have used for a while.  Feel free to play with the amounts a bit.  I have jacked up the tahini, as this is key.  Stir the tahini to reincorporate the oil before adding.

Hummus

1 16oz can chickpeas (garbanzo beans, chana)
1/4 cup liquid from can of chickpeas
4 Tbsp lemon juice
3 Tbsp tahini (or more)
2 cloves garlic, put through garlic press or finely chopped
1/2 tsp salt
2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1) Drain chickpeas, saving the liquid
2) Put everything in a food processor along with 1/4 cup of chickpea liquid.
3) Run food processor for a couple of minutes, until the desired texture is obtained.  I like mine a little chunky, but I think most people like it creamy.


When serving, make a well in the middle of the hummus and fill with olive oil.  It should keep for a few days in the fridge.

Easy veggie broth

Cooking mostly vegetarian food, I frequently have to switch out chicken broth or beef broth with veggie broth.  This means that I go through a lot of veggie broth, so I make it pretty regularly (including yesterday).  For a while I was looking for the perfect veggie broth recipe, but my sister-in-law turned me on to an easy trick.  Instead of wasting money (and perfectly good vegetables) on veggie broth, just save up your veggie scraps in the freezer.  When the bag gets full, dump it in the crock pot with some water and turn it on all day.  Filter it off and plop it in the freezer.  I used to compost all my used veggies, so I never thought of this, but I had to leave my house, so no more composting for me.

I tend to include a lot of celery, onion roots, and carrot peelings (the holy trinity of French cooking).  I tend to avoid potato peelings and broccoli.  The former tastes a bit like dirt and the latter is too strongly flavored.  Tomatoes are excellent.  For seasoning, I will add a tablespoon or two of corned beef seasoning.  I have a ton of it and it contains some good spices for broth (coriander, pepper, allspice, bay leaves).  I will season with salt to taste in the end, usually a half a tablespoon or so.  Keeps in the freezer indefinitely.  Easy and makes enough for a long while.  

Matbucha

Matbucha is basically Middle Eastern salsa which you eat with pita bread.  It is a close rival in terms of popularity with hummus.  I got introduced to this dish through The Pita House in Bexley, OH when we lived up there.  The owner was a Palestinian from Jerusalem.  When we moved away, I wanted to figure out how to make it myself and scanned a lot of recipe's.  I found Tori's to be excellent and I will post the link below. I brought this to an Xmas potluck at work last year and had two people ask me for the recipe.  I've considered trying to vary kind of canned tomato.  Most canned tomatoes contain calcium chloride, which helps to preserve the texture of the tomatoes, but in this case, I want the tomatoes to disintegrate.  It's not pico de gallo.   It's salsa.

It is amazing how much the flavor changes from when it is piping hot to when it is cold.  It interacts with the tongue completely differently.  Try it yourself. 

This is the recipe that I will be bringing to a group potluck this weekend.

http://toriavey.com/toris-kitchen/2012/04/matbucha/

Update:

I wasn't happy with the texture using canned diced tomatoes.  The tomato chunks just didn't soften during the long cooking.  I would definitely go back to canned tomatoes without calcium chloride. I think stewed lack this, but check the label.  Or use fresh.  Just make sure they are good tomatoes and not green tomatoes strip mined in Mexico and ripened on the truck ride up to your grocery store.

Mulberry season is here

Mulberry season is once again upon us in SE Ohio.  I love find food outside in the woods, be it mushrooms, fruit, or nuts.  Plucking food off a tree or bush instead of opening a package or seeing a huge mountain on a grocery shelf gives the food a reality.  For all you can tell from the grocery store, food is synthesized in a lab or strip mined somewhere.  There is also the pleasure of identifying edible plants from inedible ones.  The reward is the food.

Below is a picture of a small mulberry tree (alas with no fruit).  They have very characteristic leaves, resembling mittens.  It is pretty easy to find a producing mulberry tree.  Look for the enormous purple stain under it.  I see them over sidewalks and bike paths a lot.  They are great raw, but make good pies as well.  Trees are pretty variable.  In full sun, the berries tend to dry out and in full shade, you don't find many berries.  The perfect berry is sweet, soft, and tangy.  They are basically tree-raspberries.  The white mulberry is used to grow silk worms, but the red mulberry is for eating.

Below is a picture of the actual berries:

Rum punch

So I had a cookout last weekend and wanted to bring something yummy and alcoholic.  I tend to drink mostly beer (homebrewed and commercial) and a little wine, but my wife convinced me to start making margaritas a couple of months back, which got me thinking about mixed drinks.  I've off and one heard references to whiskey punch in Irish song/literature, which sounds pretty delicious.  Even better seems rum punch, made with tropical fruit juice, some citrus, and of course rum.  When I made it last weekend, I made it too weak (in my defense, I brought the bottle of rum with for people to strengthen it up).  I added a cup of rum, which seems like a lot, but when it is diluted 12x in juice, it comes to 40%/12 = 3.25% alcohol (beer is ~5%).  So I was at Jungle Jim's on Friday and had the opportunity to load up again on tropical juices.  This time I made it right!

Warning, this goes down way too easily.

3 cups mix tropical juices (I used guava, mango, and pineapple.  Check the Mexican section of the grocery)
1/4 cup lime juice or to taste
2 cups rum

Mix and drink.  Don't plan on doing anything demanding after you start drinking, because you probably won't be very productive.

Restaurant review: Mazunte

I think people have different philosophies when they go out for dinner.  A lot of people I think want to be indulged.  They looks for something deliciously unhealthy, a massive plate loaded with  salt, fat, sugar, and carbs, all the things that our bodies crave.  Most restaurants cater this this philosophy.  It makes for happy customers and it doesn't required great cooking.  You can deep fry, salt up, and drown in cheese just about anything and it will taste good.  This isn't what I look for, however.  I am always looking for a restaurant where they cook better than me, where the food is "real", that is prepared from scratch with raw materials, beans, chopped vegetables, vinegar, spices, and a little bit of oil.  It is hard to find places like this, but Mazunte is definitely one.

Mazunte Taqueria
5207 Madison Road Suite 100
Cincinnati, OH 45227
Phone: 513-785-0000
http://mazuntetacos.com/

Here is the menu.  It is primarily tacos of different permutations, but has some choices beyond these. 

Here is the restaurant.  It is very small, so I recommend getting there early.  They are expanding soon, which should hopefully alleviate some of the peak hours crowding.  The kitchen is to the right here where you can watch them make your food.  There are some tables to the left, but not that many.  They also do carryout, so you can call a head and pick up your order.

In front you can see serve yourself margarita, punch, and fruit juices.  The margarita is spectacular, which heavy emphasis on the lime juice and citrus (Triple Sec probably).  I recommend splitting one, as it is very strong.

Here is the salsa bar to the left (sorry about the focus).  All you can eat chips and salsa for $1.50.  The chips are made at the restaurant and they seem to alternate between blue and yellow corn.  The chips are the size of a small frisbee and delicious.  They have four salsas, a roasted tomato, a tomatillo, pico de gallo, and a hot chipotle.  The salsas are fairly basic and fresh.  I could probably go for a little more cilantro flavor in them, but that is just my preference.

Here are the chips, salsa, and margarita.  The salsas are clockwise from the top left roasted tomato, pico de gallo, tomatillo, and chipotle.  On the left side is a bottle of their homemade chipotle hot sauce.  Previously they had bottles of San Marcos hot sauce, which contains artificial colors, and I was delighted to see they ditched these in favor of homemade sauce.  The San Marcos hot sauce was radiation green, which was not very appetizing.  I am hoping that they will eventually also make a "regular" hot sauce without chipotle chilis.  I don't always want that intense smokiness, as it can mask the flavors of the food.

I got the pork enchilada.  They use corn tortillas here, which is characteristic of southern Mexican cuisine.  I find them more flavorful, but also more brittle and prone to breaking.  Here the enchiladas are on the bottom and covered in lime marinated pork, pickled onions, and shredded lettuce with a tomatillo-lime sauce and crema.  They do an excellent job with presentation.  The pork was fresh, juicy, and lean.  Because everything was freshly prepared, the tortillas still had a good texture and weren't soggy.  The rice was relatively simple, lightly salt and a little buttery.

Here is my wife's potato empanada.  She like the crispiness and the mild heat in the sauce.

One thing I haven't ordered, but saw them prepare was the roasted corn.  Basically, they throw a whole corn cob directly on the burn and char it carefully, caramelizing the sugars.  I've done this before and it makes for delicious corn.

The staff is super friendly and seems to be partially Mexican, though the owner is American.

Overall, top notch real food like you would make at home, healthy and flavorful.

Vintage muffin recipe

A couple of years back my wife and I were visiting her grandparents in Kansas.  I, being interested in cookbooks, picked up a particularly old looking one they had and began to leaf through.  It turned out to be the cookbook that Beth's Nana got when she got married in 1945.  Well, Nana doesn't cook anymore, and to my surprise, she offered to cookbook to me.  Ever since I've been occasionally leafing through, trying to find a recipe worth making.  I made some cookies a while back, but haven't really made much since.  Last night Beth asked me to make her some muffins for work and I thought I'd get a recipe from the cookbook.  The recipe is a basic muffin recipe with added dried cranberries.  Just pulled them out of the oven and they are a bit denser than I expect, more roll-like than muffin-like.  They are also not very sweet, which is unlike our "modern" sugary muffins.  Some whole wheat flour might add a little depth, but I was going basic.  I switched out the "melted fat" with shortening and butter.  I used a mixer for most of the mixing.

2 cups all purpose flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 egg
1.25 cups milk
2 tbsp shortening
1/2 tbsp butter

1) Preheat oven to 425 F
2) Mix together dry ingredients
3) Mix wet ingredient
4) Mix in dry ingredients slowly, mixing just enough to get everything generally even.  Don't worry about a few clumps.
5) Fill greased muffin tin to ~2/3 full.
6) Bake 15-20 minutes, until the top shows patches of dark brown, but not burning.
7) Eat up.

Basic pancake recipe

Every weekend I make pancakes for the wife and I.  Making pancakes for me is a break from over-analyzing my recipes.  I've seen a lot of pancake recipes that call for buttermilk, ricotta cheese, and lots of procedural issues (stir, but not too much, allow to sit for x minutes, use a non-plastic bowl, etc).  I want something where I am more or less guaranteed to have the ingredients in the fridge (no buttermilk) and the recipe can be whipped together while I am still groggy with sleep.  Just like brewing beer, do the right things, use good standard ingredients, and relax.  It will come out fine.

The whole wheat and olive oil make them healthy and a bit more substantial than ordinary pancakes.  They are sweet enough that I never add syrup.  I just eat them like cookies, refrigerate the extras, and have them for breakfast during the week.

I used a "seasoned" pan, which means a pan where you have heated oil on, then cooled, poured off the oil, and wiped dry with a paper towel.  This makes the pan naturally non-stick.  I washed the pan off with water when I am done cooking.  Soap will remove the non-stick coat.  Any germs left in the pan will be obliterated the next time the pan is put on the stove.  Acidic food might also remove the non-stick layer, but it is easy to replace.  Permanent non-stick cookware can actually contaminate your food with chemicals and doesn't even work well for cooking.  You can't brown food with a non-stick pan.  Junk them and buy new ones.  My main pan that I use 90% of the time is a $25 hard anodized pan from Cuisinart.  Durable and heats well.

Whole Wheat Pancakes

1 1/3 cups whole wheat flour
3 Tbsp sugar
1 Tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 1/3 cups milk (I use whole)
2.5 Tbsp olive oil

1) Preheat a pan on medium-high
2) Mix together the dry ingredients
2) Add the milk followed by the other liquid ingredients
3) Stir until mix.  Try to break up the larger lumps, but you don't need to make it homogeneous
4) Fry one tablespoon/pancake or whatever size you want.  Adjust the pan heat so that the pancakes brown, but don't burn.  When they are ready to turn, they should be pretty easy to slip the spatula under and hold their shape.  If they seem too soft, give them another 30 seconds or so.

Favorite falafel recipe

So a work potluck has come up.  I like to bring something in that will be appealing to most people, but challenge their taste buds.  Last time I brought Matbucha, a Middle Eastern salsa, which people loved.  I had two people ask me for the recipe and one took a big cup home with her.  Middle Eastern seems like a good choice, as it has some great "fresh" flavors that are a little different, but not too weird to scare people off.  This time I thought I would bring falafel.

I've tried a lot of different falafel recipes, but they always seems to fall apart.  I end up with falafel scramble.  Even my fancy, expensive Jerusalem cookbook recipe doesn't work.  Finally, after much trial and error, I found a great recipe.  I will post a link to the recipe, because I can't even pretend that it is my recipe. I follow the recipe as written, but I can offer a couple of comments.

Make sure the oil is very hot before you add the falafel.  Hot oil means that the falafel cooks quickly, searing it to prevent it from soaking up too much oil.  I used a meat thermometer to help me gauge the temperature.  It tops out in the 200's and you want the oil around 350 oF, so the thermometer at least tells me when I am way off and getting somewhat close.  The falafels will nevertheless soak up some oil, so make sure the keep adding some, otherwise they will be dry and not cooked through.

I usually use flat leaf parsley, but they were out, so I used curly leaf this time.  I think the curly leaf is milder and bit more boring.  For this recipe, I prefer parsley over cilantro.  Parsley is just a garnish, but is a great flavoring herb.

The Aleppo pepper flakes can probably switched out with dried Mexican chilis.  Guajillo, Ancho, or New Mexico would work fine.  Don't use hot pepper flakes, as this could give too much bite.

Smoked paprika should be available in any decent sized grocery.  Mine is from Penzey's

I highly recommend making the  tahini sauce to go with it.  Tahini is basically sesame butter, similar to peanut butter.  It is one of the key ingredients in hummus and good hummus has tons of it.  I am getting to the point where I want to make tahini sandwiches instead of peanut butter.

Tigers and Strawberries is an awesome food blog.  With most chefs/cooks, the recipes tend to be hit or miss.  They wax about how fantastic something is, then you go to make the recipe and it turns out bland or just doesn't work.  Barbara's recipes are all winners and I have made a million of them.  I used to run into Barbara once in a while in Athens

Tigers and Strawberries Falafel Recipe

Red beans and rice

 Red Beans and Rice, Trini Style

Today I thought I would post a recipe to use that green seasoning.  I modified the recipe below from Simplytrinicooking.com.  The website is a bit weird, but there are some good recipes if you dig a bit.  The green seasoning really comes through.  You can use dried beans or canned.  Really, dried really isn't that much more work and you can control the hardness of the beans.  Canned beans are guaranteed to be uber-soft by the end.  This recipe is a good vehicle for hot sauce.  The baking soda is added to aid the cooking of the beans.  The acidic tomato paste is added later to avoid counteracting the baking soda.

1 cup of long grain rice, rinsed to remove dirt + starch
1 cup dry kidney beans or 2 cans
1 jalapeno, diced
1 medium onion, diced
1/2 cup diced, peeled squash, such as acorn
3 cloves chopped garlic
1/4 cup packed chopped cilantro
2 tbsp green seasoning
1 stalk celery
1 tsp black pepper
1 tbsp tomato paste
1/4 teaspoon of baking soda
salt to taste (start with a teaspoon)

1) Cook the rice and set aside.
2) Mix together the beans, chili, squash, onion, garlic, celery, and baking soda along with 3 cups of water.
3) Bring to a boil over medium-high heat and simmer uncovered until the beans are the desired tenderness, 15-30 minutes.
4) Add green season, tomato paste, pepper, and cilantro and simmer until the desired consistency is reached.
5) Serve on the rice along with your favorite death sauce.

Trini cuisine and green seasoning

In the last year or so, I've gotten into "Trini" cuisine, that is, the food of Trinidad and Tobago.  Trinidad and Tobago lie off the coast of Venezuela in the Caribbean, basically the other end of the West Indies from Cuba.  I don't think people usually get that far along the island chain, so I don't think most people think too much about Trinidad, but it is the home of a Nobel Prize winning author, V.S. Naipaul and one of the greatest batsmen in the history of cricket, Brian Lara.  Obama is such a fan of Lara that he got his picture taken with him when he visited.  Trinidad, like many Caribbean islands, was basically turned into a floating sugar plantation and populated almost exclusively with slaves.  The natives were more or less immediately wiped out.  Unlike other islands, Trinidad got heavily populated with Indians (from India that is).  I imagine that was a hell of a boat ride.  This settlement led to significant differences between Trini cuisine and that of Jamaica.
You find a lot of classic Indian ingredients and dishes made in Trinidad, but with a unique island spin.

The defining ingredient to Trini cuisine is "green seasoning".  Green seasoning is basically the herb equivalent to mild curry powder.  They use is about everything and so can you.  I love it in beans and rice and will post a recipe soon.  I've found that the "basic" green seasoning is relatively boring, both store bought and homemade.  After reading a couple of books on the cuisine, I found the one below that really snaps.  It makes enough that you can keep digging into it for a while and won't have to spend the time remaking it anytime soon.

"Shado beno" is like super-cilantro.  It has big, toothy leaves.  It is also called "Mexican cilantro", but I've never seen it in a Mexican food store, though I've only actually been looking for it recently.  Jungle Jim's has some.  Cilantro is a fine replacement.

MAKES 1 CUP

– 4 large shallots, peeled and coarsely chopped
– 1 cup minced fresh chives
– 1/4-cup minced fresh thyme
– 1/4-cup stemmed and chopped flat leaf parsley
– 2 tablespoons minced shado beni or cilantro leaves
– 1 medium onion, peeled and coarsely chopped
– 4 cloves garlic
– 1/2-teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
– 1/2-teaspoon coarse or kosher salt
– 2 tablespoons white vinegar

Place all the ingredients in the bowl of a food processor or blender and puree. If you need to add a bit more vinegar—amount 1 teaspoon at a time--to achieve a smooth, somewhat liquid paste. Store in the freezer.

From:
Sweet Hands: Island Cooking from Trinidad & Tobago (Hippocrene Books 2n ed. 2010).

Berbere recipe

I was poking around yesterday trying to find my berbere recipe.  I only made it once and it takes a long time to go through a cup of it.  I can't find the exact one, but this one looks pretty similar to what I used.  This one is freely available on Epicurious and comes from Marcus Samuelson, the Swedish-Ethiopian chef. 

• 1 teaspoon fenugreek seeds
• 1/2 cup ground dried Serrano chilies or other ground dried chilies
• 1/2 cup paprika
• 2 tablespoons salt
• 2 teaspoons ground ginger
• 2 teaspoons onion powder
• 1 teaspoon ground cardamom, preferably freshly ground
• 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground allspice

Grind up the fenugreek seeds and anything else that needs to be ground up in a coffee mill (the one you reserve for grinding spices and not actual coffee) and blend everything together.

I buy my spices whole, so pretty much everything needs to be ground.  Whole spices have a much longer shelf life than ground.  Store spices in glass jars at room temperature.

I used cayenne pepper that is widely available and available in bulk from Indian groceries.

Comparing with my store bought berbere, mine was definitely fresher and richer in aroma.  The commercial powder had some smokiness that mine didn't have.  I suspect either that they toast the chili before adding it or use an additional flavoring chili, like a New Mexico.  Next time I make it, I might blend in a little of this, as I have dried Mexican chilies coming out of the wazoo.

Reference to the recipe below:
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Berbere-354610

Berbere red lentils

This is a recipe that I made yesterday.  I adapted from one I found published in a newspaper.  I cut the oil and berbere way down.  It called for 3/4! cups of oil, which is just gross.  It also called for 1/2 a cup of berbere, which would make it so hot it would burst into flames.  Plus, your palette can only process so much flavor and 1/2 cup is a waste.

So, berbere (pronounce bear-bear-ay).  It is basically Ethiopian curry powder.  I will paste a recipe soon and I can't remember the exactly formulation difference, but it is red instead of orange or gray that curry powder typically appears.  The orange color in curry powder comes from the turmeric while in berbere there is a ton of paprika/cayenne pepper.  Berbere is really, really hot, so you will have to judge for yourself how much to add.  I added 1/4 of a cup, but I love spicy food.  It was frankly too hot for Beth, so she mixed it with a lot of rice.  Berbere is so delicious, though.  It is definitely brighter in flavor than curry powder, that is, fresher and zestier.  Remember, 4 tablespoons = 1/4 cup.

Berbere can be bought at Jungle Jim's and Penzey's in Hyde Park in Cincy.  If you don't live in Cincy, you might have a Penzey's in your local big city.  Back when I lived in Columbus, berbere was pretty easy to come by as C-bus has one of the largest Ethiopian communities in American.  I think the airport is more or less run by them.  Hamilton avenue on the east side of town has Ethiopian food store after Ethiopian food store.

Ethiopian cuisine tends to be mushy because you are supposed to scoop it up with injera, a kind of sour spongy bread.  I don't have any injera and a lot of people don't like mushy food, so I cooked the red lentils until they were soft, but still had some crunch.

Red lentils are pretty fantastic to have around the house and are pretty widely available.  They cook super fast, so are great for a quick meal. I made up a delectable backpacking meal that cooked up in 5 minutes about a month ago with 5 ingredients: instant brown rice, red lentils, salt, curry powder, and tuna from a bag.  So good.  Red lentils are also known as Egyptian dal and masoor dal in Hindi.  Always rinse dal before cooking, as they can have dust/crud on them.  Fill the pot with the dal with water and rinse between your fingers until the water gets cloudy and drain.  Repeat until the water stays relatively clear.
 

Berbere Red Lentils:

2 Tbsp oil (I used canola blend)
1-2 onions, finely chopped
1-4 Tbsp berbere
1 Tbsp peeled, grated ginger
2 tsp diced garlic
1 cup red lentils, rinsed
1/2 cup frozen peas (optional)
3 cups of water
1/2 tsp salt

1) Heat oil over medium heat
2) Fry the onions until softened, ~5-10 minutes
3) Add berbere, garlic, and ginger and cook for 2 minutes.
4) Add the lentils and fry 1 minute
5) Add the water and bring to a boil over medium-high heat
6) Simmer around 15 minutes or until the liquid level has reduced and the lentils are cooked to your preferred consistency..
7) Add the optional peas and cook until heated through
8) Serve over rice or scoop up with bread, like naan or pita bread.  Have some yogurt on the side to cut the heat if it is too hot for you.

Note: on October 24th, 2014, I tried this recipe again with 2 tablespoons of berbere.  It is still quite hot and tasty, but not as flavorful.  I would cut the water to 2 cups next time.  It came out a bit too soupy.