I've been trying out a few more recipes from my Filipino cookbook. We had chicken adobo for dinner tonight and I needed a couple other dishes to round out the meal. I opted for a cucumber salad and a mango salad. For the cucumber salad, I followed a recipe that I found online. For the mango salad, I was pretty much just winging it. I ended up stirring together a couple tablespoons each of some other dressings I had on hand and stirring together a few other ingredients with some sliced mango and a little bit of palm sugar and calling it a day. I was slightly worried that such a chaotic approach would result in a disappointing dish, but it was actually amazingly good! TF and I both had seconds. I would definitely make both this and the cucumber salad again in the future.

Mango salad (top right) picture with cucumber salad (bottom right) and chicken adobo with rice (left).

Mango Salad

Ingredients

• 1 mango, sliced
• 1 shallot, halved and sliced thin
• 1 fresh red Thai chili, sliced thin on bias
• 1 tsp. palm sugar¹, pulverized
• 2 Tbsp. dressing from cucumber salad
• 2 Tbsp. dressing from salad crêpes
• 2 Tbsp. chopped fresh cilantro

Directions

1. Combine all ingredients in a bowl and toss to thoroughly combine.
2. Cover and chill until ready to serve.
3. Top with chopped dry-roasted peanuts if desired.

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¹ My mango was a bit under-ripe and not very sweet. If you have a very sweet, ripe mango you may wish to omit the sugar. Make it to whatever level of sweetness you prefer. ^Back

We were supposed to be having "Indian" burrito bowls for dinner last night. But it wasn't until I went to start preparing them that I remembered that we were all out of bell peppers. With that plan out the window and only about an hour 'til dinner, I began frantically searchig for a replacement meal.

Conveniently this socca could be made entirely with pantry staples and freezer ingredients. It's not the heartiest of meals, but it was sufficient for us for the evening. And, added bonus, the Kidlet absolutely loved it!

I think this would be good with a little honey and olive oil drizzled over the filling just before serving, but it was plenty good as it was.

Socca with Kale, Pistachios, and Apricots

Slightly adapted from The Complete Vegetarian Cookbook by America's Test Kitchen

Ingredients

Batter

• 1 1/2 c. chickpea flour
• 1/4 tsp. coarse sea salt, ground
• 1/2 tsp. black peppercorns, ground
• 1/2 tsp. ground turmeric
• 1 1/2 c. water
• 3 Tbsp. olive oil (plus more for frying)

Filling

• 1 Tbsp. olive oil
• 1 onion, chopped
• 2-3 clove garlic, minced
• 3/4 tsp. cumin seeds, ground
• 1/4 tsp. coarse sea salt, ground
• 3 allspice berries, ground
• 300g chopped kale (or Swiss chard/silverbeet)
• 3 Tbsp. finely chopped dried apricots (~6 apricots)
• 2 Tbsp. pistachios, chopped
• 1 tsp. wine vinegar
• pepper, to taste
• 1 Tbsp. honey (optional)
• extra olive oil, for drizzling (optional)

Directions

Socca

1. Combine chickpea flour, salt, pepper, and turmeric and mix well.
2. Stir in water and olive oil.
3. Heat a little olive oil (1-2 tsp.) in a 20cm (8") skillet over medium-high heat.
4. Once the oil is hot, pour in ~1/2 c. of the batter and cook until the underside is browned 2-4 minutes.
5. Flip the socca and cook until the other side is done (1-2 minutes).
6. Remove from pan, add another teaspoon or two of oil and repeat the cooking process with the remaining batter.
7. If desired, keep the socca warm in an oven preheated to 95°C (200°F) while you prepare the filling.

Filling

1. Heat oil over medium heat.
2. Add onion and cook for ~5 minutes.
3. Add garlic, cumin, salt, and allspice and cook for another 30-60 seconds.
4. Add kale and apricots and cook until wilted (~5 minutes).
5. Remove from heat and stir in pistachios and vinegar.
6. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
7. If desired, drizzle with honey and additional olive oil.
8. Top socca with kale mixture and enjoy.

Kaaju Badam Chawal (Cashew-Almond Rice)

This rice was EPIC! Easily my favourite rice dish from this book so far. The cashews, almonds, onion, and ghee make it deliciously rich and flavourful while the mint adds a hit of freshness without actually making it taste "minty". We had it with Gujarati kadhi and mirchi nu shaak, but I struggle to think of any curries that it wouldn't be delicious with. I can't believe it's taken us this long to try it! I suspect I'm going to be using mint a lot more often from here on out.

Kaaju Badam Chawal

Slightly adapted from 660 Curries by Raghavan Iyer

Ingredients

• 2 Tbsp. ghee
• 1 onion, halved and sliced
• 1/4 c. slivered almonds
• 1/4 c. (or more) raw cashews
• 4 dried bay leaves (Indian/cassia or bay laurel)
• 1/2 tsp. coarse sea salt
• 1 c. long-grain brown rice
• 1 c. water
• 1/2 c. fresh mint leaves, chopped
• 1 tsp. black peppercorns, coarsely cracked

Directions

1. Heat ghee on sauté "medium" on InstantPot (or medium-high heat on stove).
2. Add onion, almonds, cashews, and bay leaves and cook until nuts are toasted and onion is softened and beginning to brown (~5 minutes).
3. Add rice and stir once or twice to coat with ghee.
4. Add water, seal cooker, and pressure cook on "high" for 20 minutes.
5. Allow a 10-minute natural release.
6. Release any remaining pressure, fluff rice, and stir in mint and cracked pepper.

Mirchi nu Shaak (Bell Pepper Curry)

Iyer recommends this curry in particular as a good companion to Gujarati kadhi. I've made the kadhi before, but never this bell pepper curry. I figured that I'd try to do the whole meal this time: kadhi, rice, and this bell pepper dish to add some veg to the line-up.

Mirchi nu shaak on top of Gujarati kadhi and kaaju badam chawal.

Mirchi nu Shaak

Slightly adapted from 660 Curries by Raghavan Iyer

Ingredients

• 2 Tbsp. canola oil
• 2 large bell peppers, cut into 2cm pieces
• 6 whole cloves
• 1-2 dried bay leaves (Indian/cassia or bay laurel)
• 2 Tbsp. chickpea flour
• 1 c. water
• 1 tsp. Dhania-Jeera Masala
• 1/2 tsp. coarse sea salt
• 1 tsp. sugar
• 1/4-1/2 tsp. ground cayenne
• 2 Tbsp. unsalted dry-roasted peanuts, ground
• 2 Tbsp. chopped fresh cilantro
• juice of 1 lime

Directions

1. Heat oil over medium-high heat.
2. Add bell peppers, cloves, and bay leaves and cook, uncovered, for 15-18 minutes, stirring occasionally.
3. Add chickpea flour and cook until it browns (3-5 minutes).
4. Add water and deglaze pan.
5. Add masala, salt, sugar, and cayenne and reduce heat to medium-low.
6. Simmer, uncovered, for 5-8 minutes, stirring occasionally.
7. Stir in peanuts and cilantro.
8. Remove from heat and stir in lime juice.

I grew up hearing the story of anadama -- a bread which supposedly arose when a fisherman got tired of his wife Anna making the same cornmeal porridge every day -- but I'd never actually tried it before. I generally like cornbread and other baked goods containing cornmeal, so I was hopeful that this bread would also be a success.

I think it was reasonably successful in the end. The flavour is good and everyone seems to like it. But man-oh-man, this was by far the most miserable, difficult dough I've ever had to work with! And I got ZERO oven spring from it. Which was somewhat disappointing. I am inclined to experiment with some different recipes and mixing techniques to see if I can find something that works a little better.

I'm writing this version up now, just to have a record of what I did and how it behaved. I wouldn't recommend trying to follow this recipe unless you're prepared for a big mess and a relatively dense (but flavourful) bread though.

Anadama

Slightly adapted from The Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book

Ingredients

• 1 c. water
• 1 c. cornmeal
• 2 tsp. active dry yeast (or 1/2 Tbsp. instant yeast)
• 1 2/3 c. warm water
• 600g hard (strong/high grade/bread) whole wheat flour
• 1 Tbsp. coarse sea salt
• 1/3 c. molasses
• 1/4 c. oil

Directions

1. Combine the cornmeal with 1 c. of water and bring to a simmer over medium-low heat.
2. Cook until thick and just starting to stick to the bottom a little.
3. Remove from heat, cover, and set aside to cool and hydrate. Time needed will vary from 15 minutes to as long as overnight depending on how coarse your cornmeal is.
4. Once the cornmeal has cooled and softened, dissolve the yeast in the warm water and set aside for 10 minutes.
5. Combine flour and salt and mix well.
6. Make a well in the centre of the flour and pour in the yeast mixture.
7. Gradually incorporate flour into liquids, working from the centre outward.
8. Once a stiff dough has formed, turn it out and kead it for ~10 minutes.
9. Use a fork to mix the molasses and oil into the cornmeal, breaking up any lumps.
10. Press dough flat and spread cornmeal mixture on top.
11. Knead cornmeal mixture into dough. This will be very messy. The dough will become quite wet. Mine became so soupy that I had to add a couple Tbsp. of flour despite the authors' dire warnings not to add any flour at this stage. Once the cornmeal was incorporated, it basically became a batter. It was pourable. The addition of a couple Tbsp. of gluten flour took it to being merely incredibly messy, sticky, and sloppy rather than actually runny.
12. Transfer the sloppy mess to a bowl, cover, and set aside to rise for ~90 minutes.
13. Even after sitting for an hour and a half, my dough was still completely unworkable, so I worked in ~1/4 c. more flour at this point to try to make it a little more manageable. It was still extremely sticky and wet even so.
14. Return to bowl, cover, and allow to rise for another hour or so. (I found it completely impossible to do a finger poke test with this dough, even with a very wet finger. The dough was just way too sticky.)
15. Turn dough out onto a well-floured surface and divide into two equal portions.
16. I found trying to round the portions to be a fool's errand. It was just too wet and too lacking in structure. I probably ended up working in another 2-3 Tbsp. of flour at this stage.
17. Cover and let rest for 10-15 minutes.
18. Shape into loaves (as best you can) and place into greased loaf pans.
19. Cover and allow to rise for another 45 minutes or so.
20. Bake at 180°C (350°F) for ~1 hour.

TF's family is from New England and a lot of her family still lives in Pennsylvania. Thanks to this, I discovered scrapple. Scrapple is a mix of ground pork and often some organ meats cooked with cornmeal and spices. It's then formed into a loaf, sliced, and fried for breakfast. It's apparently a "Pennsylvania Dutch" thing and you can't get it outside of Pennsylvania and a few of the surrounding states.

When I stumbled across a recipe for goetta, I was getting similar vibes. It's a mix of ground meats (usually pork and beef) cooked with oats and spices, formed into loaves, sliced, and fried for breakfast. Sounds similar, right?! And it is also a German-American dish. It just stems from a different region. As far as I can tell, this particular grain sausage loaf originates in Ohio rather than Pennsylvania, but the idea is very similar.

There are many different goetta recipes. Most seem to lean toward a 50-50 mix of ground pork and ground beef, but some use more of one or the other. I even ran across a few recipes that use sausage (already seasoned) and then add additional salt and seasonings to the mix. I felt like this might make it too salty and fatty, so I stuck to using unseasoned ground meat.

The seasonings also varied widely. Bay leaves, marjoram, black pepper, and white pepper seemed to be common to most of the recipes, but things diverged widely from there. Some included things like cloves, ginger, nutmeg, or mace. Others had coriander, allspice, sage, or thyme. And most recipes seemed to have at least a few people saying the seasonings were spot on while others said that the sausage was delicious but not at all authentic-tasting. I'm assuming this is just a case of regional variations and different people being used to different flavour profiles.

I read through a few different recipes, took note of the different seasonings and instructions, and then came up with my own based on what I thought sounded good. This seems like a fairly flexible recipe though. I'm sure you could play around with the exact ratios and seasonings to suit you own tastes or what you have on hand.

Goetta

Adapted from Daring Gourmet (and a few other sources)

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 c. steel-cut oats
• 4-6 c. beef stock¹
• 2-4 c. water
• up to 2 tsp. coarse sea salt²
• 3 dried bay leaves
• 1/2 Tbsp. dried marjoram
• 450g lean ground beef
• 500-700g ground pork³
• 1 onion, chopped
• 5-6 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 tsp. black peppercorns, ground
• 1 tsp. white peppercorns, ground
• 1 tsp. coriander, ground
• 1/2 tsp. dried sage
• 1/2 tsp. allspice berries, ground

Directions

1. Combine the oats, stock, water, bay leaves, and marjoram and bring to a boil.
2. Reduce heat to low and cook, covered, for 30-60 minutes, stirring occasionally.
3. Add beef, pork, onion, garlic, black pepper, white pepper, coriander, sage, and allspice, bring to a boil, cover, and cook for another 1-2 hours, stirring occasionally.
4. Taste and adjust seasoning as desired.
5. Line two 9"x5" loaf pans with foil.
6. Divide the goetta mixture between the two prepared pans and chill for at least 4 hours and as long as overnight.
7. The next day, unmold the goetta and cut it into 1-1.5cm thick slices.
8. At this point it can either be fried (preferably in bacon grease) or frozen for future enjoyment.
9. Don't overcrowd the pan or move the goetta around too much while frying it or it may fall apart.
10. Serve with eggs, toast, and whatever other breakfast foods you desire.

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¹ I used homemade chicken stock instead of beef stock. The original recipe called for 4 c. broth + 4 c. water, but I ended up with about 6 c. of stock, so I used all of it and then added water to bring it up to a total of 8 c. of liquid. I was quite happy with how this worked out. ^Back
2 The original recipe calls for 1 Tbsp. of salt. I thought this sounded like way too much. I put in 2 tsp. because I was using homemade stock that had very little salt in it. If using commercial stock/broth, I would likely omit the salt entirely. Once the mixture is cooked, you can taste it before putting it in the molds and add more salt if needed. ^Back
3 All the recipes I found called for 900g of meat for 2 1/2 c. of oats. However, I had a 450g package of beef and a 700g package of pork. I didn't want to try to save and find a use for 250g of pork, so I just put all of it in. I doubt the little bit of extra pork made much of a difference and it saved me dealing with leftover raw meat. ^Back

MamaEarth has started selling a few products from a local Jersey cow dairy. I was planning on making a yogurt-based kadhi anyway, so I figured this would be a good opportunity to give their yogurt a try. It was lovely and rich. And I appreciate that it came in a reusable glass jar -- which can even be returned for a rebate!

Our yogurt curry was a great success, but that only used up about half of the 1L jar. So I decided that maybe it was finally time to get around to trying the yogurt bread recipe from the Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book.

I've kind of made it before, since it's the basis for the Loaf for Learning. The only difference here is that it uses a full 900g of flour (to make two loaves rather than just one) and it's made using an overnight sponge rather than mixing the dough all up at once and baking it the same day.

I have to admit, my bread confidence has been somewhat shaken since the move. I just haven't been able to devote the necessary time and concentration to it. And, between that and the new kitchen/appliances, I've had some pretty tragic bread failures over the last couple months. So, with how things have been going lately, it was incredibly gratifying to put these loaves in the oven and see almost immediate oven spring. They still weren't perfect but, oh my goodness, they were so much better than what I've been turning out over the past few weeks that I was NOT about to complain or nit-pick! Finally, a success!

Apologies, I don't have a photo for this one. I gave one loaf away and we devoured the other one before I remembered to take a picture of it. Maybe I'll manage to snap one next time.

Yogurt Bread

From the Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book

Ingredients

Sponge

• 1 tsp. active dry yeast (or 3/4 tsp. instant yeast)
• 1/4 c. warm water
• 450g hard (strong/high grade/bread) whole wheat flour
• 2 tsp. coarse sea salt
• 3 Tbsp. honey
• 2/3 c. plain yogurt
• 1/3 c. cold water

Full Dough

• 1 tsp. active dry yeast (or 3/4 tsp. instant yeast)
• 1 1/2 c. warm water
• 1/4 c. oil
• 450g hard (strong/high grade/bread) whole wheat flour

Directions

Sponge

1. Dissolve the yeast in the warm water and set aside for ~10 minutes.
2. Combine the flour and salt and mix well.
3. Make a well in the centre of the flour and add the yeast mixture, honey, yogurt, and cold water.
4. Mix to form a stiff dough.
5. Knead for 5-10 minutes (depending on the efficiency of your technique).
6. Shape into a ball, place in a bowl, cover, and set aside for 6-10 hours. It will need closer to six hours for a warmer room (maybe 21-23°C) and closer to 10 hours for a cool room (maybe 16-18°C). If you're somewhere in the middle (~20°C), eight hours will probably do.

Full Dough

1. Once the sponge has had ample time to ferment, dissolve the remaining yeast in the remaining warm water (from the "full dough" ingredients).
2. Add the yeast mixture to the sponge and work it with your hands to soften/loosen it, making a sort of sponge slurry.
3. Work in the oil and remaining flour.
4. Turn out onto your work surface and knead thoroughly (15-20 minutes).
5. Form into a ball, place in a bowl, cover, and set side to rise for ~1 hour.
6. Knock back, knead a few strokes if desired, shape back into a ball, return to covered bowl, and let rise for another 45-60 minutes.
7. Knock back again, divide into two equal portions, and round each one.
8. Cover and let rest for 10-15 minutes.
9. Shape into loaves -- folding into thirds and rolling up -- and place into greased loaf pans.
10. Cover and let rise for 30-45 minutes.
11. Slash tops as desired and bake at 180°C (350°F) for 45-60 minutes.