Fearless Kitchen

Recipe: Walnut Bread

Recipe Source: Ingram, Christine and Jennie Shapter.  Bread.  Anness Publishing, London, 2007 p. 163

Recently, I attended an event with my husband.  This event was going to involve a lot of physical exertion over a long period for him, and when he engages in this sort of activity what he really wants afterward is carbohydrates.  Lots and lots of carbohydrates.  I thought it would be a good idea to give him a bit of protein with those carbs, so I decided to make this bread.

Unfortunately, I was less than enthusiastic about the way it turned out.  The recipe called for whole-wheat bread flour, and while I had whole wheat flour and bread flour on hand I did not have whole-wheat bread flour.  I used mostly bread flour, with some whole-wheat flour for added fiber and color.  It called for fresh yeast, which I don't even know how to find.  I used active dry yeast.  I also apparently didn't slash the bread the way I should have, because the result was a twisted and misshapen mass and not a pretty little round like the picture.  Oh well.  My husband liked it and there were no leftovers to lug home, and I guess that's the important thing.

Walnut Bread (serves 10; approx. $0.84/serving)

1/4 cup butter

3 cups bread flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 tablespoon light brown sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast

1 cup lukewarm milk

1 1/2 cups chopped walnuts

Equipment:

• Stand mixer with the bread hook attachment
• Strainer
• Baking sheets

1. Combine the yeast, sugar and milk.  Let sit until the yeast is frothy, about 5 minutes.
2. Melt the butter.
3. Mix the salt and flours in the bowl of your stand mixer.
4. Strain the butter into the flour.
5. Pour the yeasted milk mixture into the flour. 
6. Using the stand mixer, knead until the dough comes together and is no longer sticky. 
7. Let rise in a warm place until doubled in bulk.
8. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface.  Press down or roll out the dough a bit. 
9. Sprinkle the dough onto the dough, then roll it up. 
10. Cover and let rise another 30 minutes.
11. Divide the dough in half.  Cover and let rise another 45 minutes.
12. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. 
13. Put the dough balls onto lightly greased baking sheets and slash three times. 
14. Bake 35 minutes or until done. 
15. Serve.

Recipe: Caper Pesto

I was pretty sure that I had already posted this recipe at some point in the far-distant past, but apparently I didn't.  That's kind of surprising to me, since both I and my husband are pretty fond of this sauce.  We used to top pasta with it on a pretty regular basis when I was still an accountant (remember: I am In Recovery), so I can tell you from personal experience that it freezes quite well. 

Right now I'm starting to see more and more basil in the store and at the farmer's market.  This is a wonderful thing, because fresh basil is one of the most delicious things in the whole wide world.  I don't know if you have this problem, though: it goes bad almost instantly.  I've tried everything I can think of and nothing seems to work for very long.  I decided to make and stockpile frozen stocks of pesto so I can have that great summery flavor even in the dead of winter. 

Caper Pesto (makes 4 cups; approx. $2.21/cup.  One cup can top pasta for 2 - 4 people.)

1/2 cup capers, drained

1/2 cup pine nuts

1 generous bunch basil

6 generous tablespoons minced garlic

1/2 cup grated peccorino cheese

1/2 cup olive oil

1 tablespoon lemon juice, or more to taste

Equipment:

• Food processor

1. Combine all ingredients in the food processor.
2. Process until smooth. 
3. Serve, or freeze until needed. 

Recipe: Afghan Ravioli (Ashak)

Recipe Source: Saberi, Helen.  Afghan Food & Cookery.  Hippocrene Books, New York, 2000 pp. 84 - 6.

This is a recipe that completely failed to impress me until I tasted the finished product.  I'm someone who likes to taste as she cooks.  It's my quality control method.  If something doesn't taste quite right I can fix it before it affects the flavor of the final dish.  Well, I tasted the dough for the pasta.  It was okay.  Not exciting, but okay.  I tasted the leeks.  Again, okay.  Not exciting.  I tasted the sauce.  Distinctly unexciting.  But when I put everything together, all the different components combined to make a dish that honestly did knock my socks right off.  Be warned, though: the raw garlic in the yogurt gives this dish an unexpected degree of heat that wasn't unpleasant to us, but might be a little jarring to others.  Feel free to reduce the garlic. 

I didn't make a whole lot of changes to this recipe, although there were some.  I increased the amount of red pepper in the leeks.  I also increased the garlic, and I substituted ground coriander for ground mint because my husband is allergic to mint.  When it came to the sauce, I decreased the amount of oil.  The author said that to be truly authentic it should be very oily, but neither my husband nor I would have been able to eat it that way.  I also served all of the meat with the pasta, while normally you'd just sprinkle a bit on top and pass the rest of it on the side like in a traditional Italian-American gravy. 

On a similar note: according to the author, many Afghans will substitute commercially available wonton wrappers for the homemade pasta.  While pasta-making is messy and kind of a pain, I think it was definitely worth it in this dish.  You should have seen my husband's eyes light up.  "You're making your own?" he said in a voice bordering on adoration.  And really, while it may seem a little intimidating to make the pasta yourself here, it really wasn't all that bad.  It was actually kind of fun.  You could get your kids into the act if you have them; they'd probably get a kick out of it.  I know my nephew would.  But if your hands or wrists or the size of your kitchen really won't allow you to roll out and make your own pasta by hand here, there is absolutely no shame in using store-bought wonton wrappers. 

Ashak (serves 4; approx. $2.90/serving)

1 lb flour

4 teaspoons kosher salt, divided

1 egg

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 lb. finely chopped leeks

1 teaspoon cayenne pepper

16 ounces Greek fat-free yogurt

5 cloves garlic, crushed

1 teaspoon white wine vinegar

1 tablespoon ground coriander

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 onions, finely chopped

1 lb ground lamb

1/2 cup tomato juice

Kosher salt and black pepper

Equipment:

• 2 large bowls
• Pint glass or biscuit cutter
• Rolling pin
• Large wok or saute pan
• Pot of boiling water (to cook the pasta)

1. Sift the flour and 1 teaspoon salt into the bowl.  Make a well in the center and add the egg and 1 tablespoon olive oil.
2. Slowly add 1/2 cup water.  Knead thoroughly to form a smooth dough. 
3. Divide the dough into two balls, cover with a damp cloth and let sit 1 hour.
4. Heat the 2 tablespoons olive oil in the wok.  Add the onions and cook until golden, about 5 minutes. 
5. Add the meat.  Cook until the meat is brown. 
6. Add the tomato juice, salt and pepper. 
7. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer until the sauce is thick and oily.  This should be between half and one hour.
8. Meanwhile, make the filling.  Combine the leeks, 1 teaspoon salt and the cayenne.  Knead until the leeks begin to soften and add another tablespoon oil.
9. Roll out one of the dough balls on a lightly floured surface to 1/16" or as close as you can get.  (The author warns that thicker dough will be tough; I did not find this to be the case, even though my dough was far from perfectly thin.) 
10. Using the pint glass (or biscuit cutter, if you have such a thing), cut rounds of the dough out.  Put 1 - 2 teaspoons of the leeks on one half of the round, then fold the other half on top of it and pinch closed. 
11. Repeat until you've used up all the dough.  I will advise against re-rolling the scraps more than once; that does make the dough tough. 
12. Is your pasta water boiling?  Good.  Add the vinegar, 1 teaspoon salt and pasta to the pot and boil 8 - 10 minutes. 
13. Meanwhile, mix the yogurt with the garlic and the last teaspoon of salt. 
14. Spread half the yogurt onto the bottom of your serving vessel. 
15. When the ravioli are done, use the slotted spoon to remove them and put them on top of the yogurt. 
16. Top with the rest of the yogurt and sprinkle with the ground coriander.
17. Use the slotted spoon to evacuate the meat to the top of the yogurt.  Serve and enjoy! 

Recipe: Spinach Soup (Ash-e Sak)

Recipe Source: Shaida, Margaret.  The Legendary Cuisine of Persia.  Interlink Books, New York, 2002 p. 137

I happened to be taking a look at my Amazon store the other day, and I noticed that this book seems to have gone out of print.  I'm not positive about that, but Amazon didn't have a "new" price listed and the best price they could come up with was something like seventy dollars.  It briefly occurred to me that I now had an Asset, one which I could sell should the need arise.  It would take an awful lot to get me to part with this book.  First, it's one of my favorite cookbooks.  It was my introduction to what has become one of my favorite ethnic cuisines, it's easy to read and easy to use, and the recipes tend not to be too esoteric.  Secondly, it's in atrocious condition.  I actually use this book, fairly frequently actually.  The cover is half ripped off, there's turmeric stains on like ten pages, and so on.  So I wouldn't get much for it.  But if you find it for a good price at a used book store or some such place, pick it up! 

Anyway, while this is one of my favorite books, I wasn't as thrilled with this soup.  I don't think it was the fault of the recipe.  What I was really craving was the Pomegranate Soup.  Unfortunately, I had already posted the Pomegranate Soup in March of 2008 (although without pictures, which is okay.  It looks a lot like this soup.)  This is not Pomegranate Soup.  I think I really wanted it to be a lot more sour.  Adding some cilantro would have really helped the flavors.  Also, I didn't have any Seville orange juice nor have I seen Seville orange juice for sale anywhere recently.  I made up for it with some added lime juice to regular orange juice, which helped but not really enough.  So what we did was squeeze some lemon juice over it just before serving, and that really helped a lot.  (Thank you to my Spouse for that idea.... Greeks and their lemons!)  Also, the 1 cup of rice flour was really far too much, so if you make this decrease it.  Otherwise you'll get unsavory little lumps of rice flour in your soup, some of which will be not so little.  So while this soup did not satisfy my craving for Pomegranate Soup, it was a pretty darned tasty and reasonably healthy soup that was plenty filling.  The author claims that the meatballs are optional.  I disagree completely, but if you want to make this vegetarian go ahead.  I won't even mock you much. 

Spinach Soup (Ash-e Sak) (serves 4; approx. $1.90/serving)

1 onion, sliced

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 pound chopped frozen spinach

1/2 teaspoon turmeric

Kosher salt and black pepper to taste

1 cup split peas

1 1/2 quarts water

1 cup rice flour (I strongly recommend decreasing this.)

1/2 cup orange juice mixed with 4 tablespoons lime juice

1/2 pound ground lamb

1 onion, grated

1/2 teaspoon ground coriander

Equipment:

• Large pot

1. Heat the oil in the pot.  Add the onion and cook gently until golden.
2. Stir the split peas into the onions. 
3. Add the turmeric, spinach, salt and pepper.  Stir and cook around half a minute.
4. Add 1 1/2 quarts water.  Bring to a boil, then reduce heat, cover and simmer 30 minutes.
5. Meanwhile combine the grated onion and the ground lamb.  Roll into walnut-sized meatballs.
6. When the 30 minutes are up, add the meatballs to the pot.  Cover and simmer another 15 minutes.
7. Blend the rice flour with 2 tablespoons water.  Stir slowly into the soup, stirring constantly. 
8. Add the orange juice mixture and cook 2 - 3 minutes more. 
9. Serve hot with bread and lemon juice. 

Recipe: Leftover Fried Potatoes

Yesterday you saw us make smoked potato fajitas.  Well, there were quite a lot of them, and we didn't have quite as many guests as we'd expected.  My in-laws, who were visiting, stopped by as emergency backup diners but had already eaten and so weren't particularly hungry.  As a result, we had leftovers.  The leftover fixins and vegetables were used the next night with the fajita steak, ensuring that it would be quite some time before I felt the urge to eat fajitas again.  But the potatoes had another fate in store.  You see, despite having smoked at 250 degrees for 2 hours or more, they were still a little underdone.  I decided to fry them up like the potatoes at my favorite brunch joints. 

I didn't really do much extra to the potatoes, as they had plenty of flavor from the seasoning and smoke of the night before.  I did chop them up into small pieces to speed cooking time.  I added a chopped onion, because I've never seen my grandmother fry potatoes without an onion.  She just didn't.  That's really it.  They came out pretty well, if I do say so myself.  If you want to do this with potatoes that haven't been previously smoked, use the seasoning mixture from yesterday and roast them for a while before proceeding with this recipe.

Leftover Fried Potatoes (serves 2 - 4; approx. cost per serving not available)

Leftover smoked potatoes (about 1 3/4 - 2 potatoes total), chopped

4 tablespoons olive oil

1 onion, chopped

Pinch kosher salt

Equipment:

• Wok or frying pan
• Slotted spoon

1. Heat the oil in the wok.
2. Cook the onions gently until softened. 
3. Increase the heat and add the potatoes and salt.  Cook until they have that characteristic fried-potato brownness and they are tender enough for your liking. 
4. Remove from heat.  Use a slotted spoon to evacuate the potatoes to the serving vessel - you want potatoes, not oil. 

Recipe: Potato Fajitas

Recipe Source: My husband found this recipe on the Egghead Forum here.  The author's username is ledmond. 

My husband found this recipe while searching for inspiration on the Egghead Forum.  He found it, and spent two weeks wanting to make it before I finally gave in.  I'm glad that I did - it's a good recipe, very creative and very exciting, even downright healthy.  It also marked an important occasion in the history of our Sunday open houses.  While I usually do try to have at least one vegetarian entree just in case, this was the first time we have served a completely vegetarian meal.  We had a meat-based backup plan just in case we had more people than expected, but the meal was completely vegetarian.  We didn't plan it that way, which makes me feel a little better about it, and it actually wasn't until the end of the meal that we said, "Hey, you know what?  There was no meat on this table!" 

Anyway, if you visit the original recipe (highly recommended), you'll note that there are not a whole lot of specifics.  This is great because it really encourages people to be flexible and to follow their own tastes when making this dish.  I'm going to tell you specifically what I used, and frankly the spice mixture for the potatoes and vegetables is my own.  You, however, should feel free to mix and match, and add your own favorites.  If anchovies on your fajitas is really what gets you going, go for it.  (I don't know that I need to know about it, though.) 

Update 07/02/09: Apparently this week's BSI (Blogger Secret Ingredient) theme is potatoes.  Who knew?  Well, okay, Natasha at 5 Star Foodie and Sophia at Burp and Slurp, to name a few.  At their suggestion, I'm submitting this to the BSI event hosted by Doggybloggy at ChezWhat?  I've seen a couple of the other entries and they look great, so you should definitely check it out when it comes out! 

Smoked Potato Fajitas (serves 6 - 8; approx. cost per serving not available)

6 baking potatoes, scrubbed and cut lengthwise into quarters

4 green bell peppers, seeded and cut into strips

1 white onion, cut into wedges

2 yellow onions, cut into wedges

For the seasoning:

3 tablespoons kosher salt

2 tablespoons cumin

2 teaspoon lemon pepper

2 teaspoon oregano

Corn tortillas, for serving

We served this with:

Frontera Grill Salsa Verde

Frontera Grill Chipotle Salsa

1 can sliced pickled jalapenos

1 cup fat-free Greek yogurt (you can use sour cream, but I hate sour cream and wouldn't have used any leftovers.) 

4 ounces shredded cheddar cheese

4 ounces shredded Monterrey Jack cheese

Equipment:

• A Big Green Egg or other smoker is highly, highly recommended here.  If you don't have one and will die without potato fajitas, you can try oven-roasting the potatoes.  The flavor will be 100% different, but will probably still be good.
• A grill basket for the vegetables
• Two bowls

1. Put your potato wedges into one bowl and your vegetables into the other bowl.
2. Sprinkle half the seasoning mixture onto each bowl and mix well, really making sure that the contents of each bowl get a good amount of seasoning.
3. Prepare your Big Green Egg for indirect cooking with a temperature of 250 degrees.  The type of smoking wood is up to you. 
4. Roast the potatoes for about two hours.  Let the vegetables sit in the seasoning mixture. 
5. When the potatoes are done, you can increase the temperature of the Egg to medium-high.  Or you can use your gas grill, or another Egg.  You can even do this indoors if you feel the pressing need. 
6. Grill the vegetables until softened, about 5 - 6 minutes. 
7. Serve with the above fixins and tortillas.  Your guests will assemble their own fajitas. 

Recipe: Fajita Steak

I know I've mentioned that the difficulty with our Sunday open houses is that we never, ever know how many to expect, much less how many will stay for dinner.  We were planning to have potato fajitas for dinner that week, but I wanted to have an emergency backup plan in case we had more people than expected.  We decided that I would start marinating steak for the fajitas as well, and if we didn't need it then we would eat it the next day.  Well, we didn't need it.  And we ate it the next day.  And it was good.  And if my tenth-grade English teacher caught me starting so many sentences with "And," she'd jump up and down and shout. 

Fajita Steak (serves around 4; approx. cost per serving not available)

1 lb London broil or skirt steak, cut into long thin strips

2 tablespoons garlic-infused olive oil

1/2 cup tequila (I know, I know, any excuse...)

1 tablespoon kosher salt

1 tablespoon ground cumin

Equipment:

• Big Green Egg or other outdoor grill.  You can use a grill pan or your broiler, or even a griddle (horror!) if outdoor cooking really isn't an option, but it won't be quite the same.
• Zip-top plastic bag
• Small bowl
• Whisk

1. Whisk together all the ingredients except the beef in the small bowl.
2. Put the steak strips into the plastic bag.
3. Pour the marinade over the steak.  Seal the bag, pressing out as much air as possible, and massage a bit to ensure a good distribution of the marinade.
4. Marinate at least 3 hours or overnight.
5. When you are ready to cook, prepare your grill for high-heat direct cooking. 
6. Cook over high heat until your desired degree of doneness is reached, 2 - 3 minutes per side for me.  Probably more for you. 
7. Serve with the fixins for fajitas. 

Recipe: City-Style Artichokes

Recipe Source: Goldstein, Joyce.  Taverna.  Sunset Books, Menlo Park, 1996 p. 61

Artichokes are one of those foods that I always feel guilty about.  I feel guilty because while I should like them - they're very popular in the Mediterranean, they're healthy, they're not cabbage - I just don't.  I've had some preparations, such as the Sauteed Artichoke Hearts with Lemon I did for Easter, that I don't actually dislike, but for the most part it seems like too much work for too little reward.  Just getting the darned things to an edible state is more of a challenge than I'm usually looking for.  Unfortunately for me, artichokes are one of my husband's favorite vegetables.  I'm quite fond of the man - we've been married for five years, after all - so sometimes I get this strange urge to cook artichokes for him.  This dish was born from that sinister urge.

I did make a few changes.  I reduced the amount of oil, for one.  For another, I used frozen peas instead of fava beans (okay, that was suggested by the book, but still).  That was really it.  The flavor was actually pretty decent.  I'm not entirely sure that I understand the purpose of the flour here, but I added it all the same.  It does make quite a lot of food - the book says four to six, but I'd say four to six if you've just survived a year in the jungle with no food but bananas to sustain you.  Otherwise, you can easily get eight to ten servings of this as a side dish.  We did.  We sent the leftovers home with two of our guests, who assured us that they lasted a good two weeks with no loss of taste or quality.  The fact that this is served at room temperature makes this a great make-ahead dish for entertaining.

City-Style Artichokes (serves 8; approx. $1.77/serving)

Juice of two lemons

3 tablespoons flour

6 large artichokes

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 onion, chopped

8 scallions

3 carrots, peeled and diced

2 large white boiling potatoes, diced

1 cup frozen peas

1/2 bunch chopped fresh dill

Salt and pepper to taste

Equipment:

• Large bowl, and I'm not kidding
• Good sharp paring knife
• Large saute pan

1. Fill the large bowl with cold water and the juice of two lemons.  Add the flour.
2. Snap off the tough outer leaves of the artichoke.
3. Using the paring knife, trim the dark green bits from the base and the stem. 
4. Cut the artichoke into quarters lengthwise and cut out the chokes.
5. Trim off the top 1/3 of the artichoke.
6. Drip the bits into the water.  This prevents discoloration.
7. When you've prepped all the artichokes, heat the olive oil in the saute pan.
8. Add the onion.  Saute until softened.
9. Add the scallions and carrots.  Saute until tender, another 5 minutes.
10. Add the artichokes (sans water), potatoes and enough hot water to cover the vegetables. 
11. Cover and cook over low heat about 15 minutes.
12. Add the peas.  Cover and cook another 10 minutes. 
13. Season to taste.  Remove from heat and serve at room temperature. 

Failed Peach Pound Cake

Recipe Source: The King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion.  The Countryman Press, Woodstock, 2003 pp. 356 - 7

Peach season is just about upon us, and I'll admit that I love them.  There's just something about a peach that screams "summer."  I like them in savory applications too - like the Peach and Lamb Stew I made two Februaries ago.  But they're best known as dessert treats.  There's peach ice cream, peach pie, peach tarts - I'm making myself hungry.  Anyway, I got a good price on some early peaches and decided to see how they would do in a pound cake.  Unfortunately, the pound cake failed.

I'm not entirely sure what went wrong.  The cake tester I used came out clean, and other than having added the peaches I followed the instructions to the letter.  The only thing I can think of is that maybe the peaches added too much moisture to the cake. 

You may be wondering why I'm bothering to post something that I couldn't even serve.  Well, first of all, when I started this blog I promised to share my failures as well as my successes.  Secondly, it actually tasted good.  No, scratch that, it tasted great.  The peachy flavor really permeated the whole thing and matched perfectly with the vanilla.  I definitely want to make this again, but possibly with fewer peaches.  At any rate, I'm going to post this with the original number of peaches.  If you can think of a way to fix it, please let me know!

Failed Peach Pound Cake (serves about 16; approx. cost per serving not available)

1 cup butter

7 ounces granulated sugar

1 1/2 ounces light brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon vanilla extract (see, I said I followed exactly - I didn't substitute almond like I usually would!)

1 teaspoon baking powder

7 1/9 ounces all purpose flour

4 eggs

4 peaches, diced

Equipment:

• Stand mixer
• 9 - 10 cup bundt pan or tube pan, lightly lubed

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
2. Beat the butter, sugars, salt, vanilla and baking powder until smooth and fluffy.
3. Add the flour.  Mix well. 
4. Beat in the eggs one at a time.
5. Add the peaches and mix thoroughly.
6. Spoon the batter into the prepared pan and bake about 45 - 50 minutes.
7. Cool in the pan for 10 minutes.
8. Cool on a wire rack until completely cool.

Recipe: Cucumber, Bell Pepper and Olive Salad

Recipe Source: Wright, Clifford A.  Little Foods of the Mediterranean.  Harvard Common Press, Boston, 2003 p. 236

Sigh.  I made this to go with the lemony meatballs we never ate.  It's too bad, because I did taste this recipe and it was pretty darned good.  Oh well.  Sometimes these things just happen.  I made a few changes to the recipe.  I left the cucumbers peeled, naturally, because I believe that gives them a better texture.  I used black olives (kalamata, to be specific) because that's what I had on hand, but I think they made the salad a little more interesting visually.  Finally, I omitted the mint and increased the cilantro, because my husband is allergic to mint.  It's a very easy recipe that is pretty healthy and quite tasty.  Too bad we never got to really enjoy it! 

Cucumber, Bell Pepper and Olive Salad (serves 4; approx. $1.40/serving)

2 cucumbers, halved lengthwise and sliced into thin half-moons

1 green bell pepper, seeded and cut into strips

2/3 cups pitted and coarsely chopped Kalamata olives

1/4 cup (generous) fresh cilantro, chopped

1 teaspoon chili powder

3 tablespoons olive oil

2 tablespoons white wine vinegar

Kosher salt and black pepper to taste

Equipment:

• You don't need anything special for this recipe, but a good sharp knife would not be out of place.

1. Toss the vegetables in a serving bowl together.
2. Add the cilantro and toss again.
3. Add the chili powder, olive oil and vinegar.  Season with salt and pepper.  Serve.