Fearless Kitchen

Recipe: Tomato and Galangal Salad

Recipe Source: Alford, Jeffrey and Naomi Duguid.  Flatbreads & Flavors: A Baker's Atlas.  HarperCollins Publishers, New York, 1995 p. 131. 

My husband gave me this wonderful book for Christmas.  I'm in love with it already.  I love reading the stories that go along with the recipes, and I love (most of) the recipes.  I was very excited to start cooking from the book as soon as we got back from our Christmas visit to my family.  Unfortunately, I was feeling far too sick to actually go to the grocery store.  I chose a recipe that could be made from ingredients I had on hand, with a little bit of adaptation, and that needed to be used up quickly. 

I didn't have any actual whole ginger on hand.  What I had was galangal, which is related to ginger.  It is not the same thing.  It is much, much harder.  It is in fact so hard that we couldn't eat it raw.  My husband also felt that the galangal was too strong a flavor and that it overpowered the tomatoes.  Strictly speaking, this is true.  The galangal did overpower the tomatoes.  I had purchased the tomatoes the previous week to set out at our Christmas party, but as things turned out I didn't have time to make the dish for which I wanted them.  Tomatoes are NOT IN SEASON in New England in December.  When fresh tomatoes are not in season, they tend to have very little flavor if any at all.  I think that fresh, local tomatoes, preferably picked from our garden, would have stood up just fine to the strong flavor of galangal.  I didn't have quite as many tomatoes as required by the recipe, but that was okay.  I also substituted cilantro for the mint, as my husband is allergic to mint.  Finally, I didn't have a banana chile on hand.  I used a single Thai chile to give a little bit of that chile flavor to the dish. 

Despite the difficulty of eating the galangal in its raw state, the salad actually tasted pretty darned good.  The galangal infused the lime juice with some of its flavor, the cilantro matched well with the other flavors. 

Tomato and Galangal Salad (serves 4; approx. $1.32/serving)

1 3" piece of fresh galangal, peeled and sliced as thin as humanly possible

1 Thai chile, sliced

1/4 cup lime juice

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1 pound mixed "gourmet blend" cherry tomatoes

Coarsely ground black pepper to taste

2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro

Equipment:

• Serving bowl
• Non-reactive medium bowl

1. Put the galangal slices and chile in the medium bowl. 
2. Add the lime juice and half the salt.
3. Let stand, tossing occasionally, 20 minutes.
4. Halve the tomatoes and put into the serving bowl.
5. Add the remaining salt, the pepper and the cilantro.
6. Add the galangal, chiles and lime juice.
7. Toss well to coat.
8. Serve.

Book Review: The Silver Spoon

The Silver Spoon.  Phaidon Press, New York 2005

 

My younger sister gave me this book for Christmas a couple of years ago.  I saw it under the tree, this oddly-shaped wrapped parcel with my sister's usual artistic wrap job that puts the rest of us to shame.  I picked it up and hefted it - I could tell it was a book, but what kind of book could be this heavy, this thick?  Even my college textbooks weren't so huge!  Then I unwrapped it: a giant tome of cooking.  I could just see Indiana Jones skulking his way through my kitchen, dodging flying place settings and hostile native cats, to make it to the cookbook stand.  There he would open the mighty volume and find the instructions.  If he interpreted them correctly, he would have the perfect souffle and impress all and sundry with his kitchen prowess.  If he failed - well, not only would he have a major mess on his hands, but a giant stock pot would chase him through the halls of my house and the more hostile native cat would feast on his steaming entrails. 

 

Well, that didn't happen.  My own Indiana Jones days are long gone, and we've moved into a home with more storage space (negating the threat of the stock pot.)  The book continues to be a mighty tome, though.  It is apparently the best-selling Italian cookbook, translated for the first time into English.  It's kind of like a very basic cookbook, an ultimate reference manual for your kitchen.  I guess it's kind of like our own Joy of Cooking or something like that.  Organized by course and by type of ingredient, it offers exhaustive advice on how to prepare a whole wide, wonderful world of food.  With 1,199 pages of recipes and instruction, you'll be hard pressed to find an ingredient that doesn't show up somewhere in here! 

 

If you're looking for pictures, this book is not for you.  While there are photos, there are too many recipes in here to show pictures of them all.  I haven't cooked very many recipes from this book, either.  I tend to use it more as a reference, to get some of the basic ideas behind how to prepare certain ingredients if I'm not overly familiar with them.  Some of the recipes seem very odd, almost like the kinds of recipes you find in your mom's old cookbooks but you've never seen made.  I'm not saying that they're not made, just that to an American palate they seem a little strange.  Still, I refer to this book on a pretty regular basic.  I'd strongly recommend it to anyone who does a lot of cooking or to a newly wed couple.

 

Technorati Tags: The silver Spoon,book reviews,Italian food

Book Review: The Ultimate Ice Cream Book

Weinstein, Bruce.  The Ultimate Ice Cream Book.  William Morrow and Company, New York, 1999

I acquired this book at about the same time that I got my ice cream maker, and I am eternally grateful for it.  I love this book.  I refer to it all the time, every time I make ice cream.  I even refer to it when I make ice cream from other sources, or when I make up my own recipe.  When you look at my copy of this book you can tell how often I use it.  The cover is warped and stained, the sides of the pages are discolored. 

There are two reasons that I like this book so much.  One is the format.  Each recipe starts with a basic recipe followed by suggested variations.  For example, the recipe for Chocolate Ice Cream (p. 37) is followed by suggestions on additions or substitutions to create Chocolate Banana Chip, Chocolate Brittle, Chocolate Candy Bar, Chocolate Candy Dish, Chocolate Cheesecake, Chocolate Cookie, Chocolate Marshmallow Nut, German Chocolate and Mexican Chocolate-Almond ice creams.  I like this format because it allows for flexibility.  For people who don't feel comfortable deviating from a published recipe, it gives you options that may lead to an increased comfort level with spontaneity.  For people who like to go off on their own tangents, it gives you a launching pad.  The ingredients for the ice creams and sorbets run the gamut from the mundane (chocolate, vanilla, strawberry) to the exotic (Earl Grey Ice Cream.  Really.  It's fantastic.  You should try it.) 

The biggest complaint that I have about this book is its utter lack of pictures.  It is not a picture book.  Many people find that off-putting, so if you're one of them you're not going to like this book.  I guess that nutritional information might be helpful too, although personally when I'm eating ice cream I'd rather not know.  Still, this is one of my most indispensable cookbooks and I highly recommend it.

Technorati Tags: Book reviews,ice cream,Bruce Weinstein

Book Review: Meze

Barron, Rosemary.  Meze: Small Bites, Big Flavors from the Greek Table.  Chronicle Books, San Francisco, 2002

 

Plenty of cultures have a tradition of "small plates" that work well in conjunction with, say, a cocktail party.  Spain has its tapas, China its dim sum (which is not traditionally cocktail food, but it works well under those circumstances) and Greece its meze.  I love meze - piling a wide variety of small plates onto the table, letting my guests (and myself) sample from multiple dishes without overindulging.  Many of the traditional meze dishes also make simply wonderful side dishes, and they generally make a wonderful addition to the repertoire of any cook. 

 

My husband bought me this book a few years ago, and I refer to it fairly frequently when we will be entertaining.  It offers a wide variety of dishes that should suit a wide variety of palates.  A vegetarian should have no problem finding recipes in this book, and dyed-in-the-wool carnivores will be equally satisfied.  The ingredients aren't generally difficult to find, and the recipes are generally reasonably easy to follow.  There aren't a lot of pictures, although the photos that exist are quite beautiful.  The book also isn't very long, and there's been an attempt at organizing the recipes that doesn't always work all that well.  Still, I would definitely recommend this book to people who enjoy "small plates" or who entertain frequently. 

Technorati Tags: Book reviews,Rosemary Barron,Meze

Book Review: Indian: Deliciously Authentic Dishes

Husain, Shehzad and Rafi Fernandez.  Indian: Deliciously Authentic Dishes.  Anness Publishing, London, 2003

I don't remember how old I was when I discovered Indian food - maybe seventeen?  An Indian restaurant had opened up briefly in a downtown location in my hometown.  I've always been a curious, adventurous eater and so I clearly had to give it a shot.  I remember having liked it, although the experience is so lost in the dim mists of history that I no longer remember what I ate or how it compares to the dishes that I've enjoyed since then.  I'm pretty sure that the restaurant is gone now, or at least there's another lousy fast-food type joint where I remember the restaurant as being located.  I guess my little Upstate city wasn't quite ready for the deliciousness Indian food has to offer.  Anyway, moving to Boston for college allowed me to try Indian food again.  Having an Indian roommate for half a year certainly helped!  It quickly became one of my favorite cuisines.  When I got my first solo apartment and was able to cook for myself for the first time, I started buying up Indian cookbooks when I could find them.  I picked this one up because it was on the bargain shelf at the bookstore, but I really came to enjoy it. 

It's part of the Hermes House imprint, a series of cookbooks you've seen me review here before.  It follows the same format as other books put out under this label, and the recipes are all beautifully illustrated.  The recipes are easy to follow - possibly a little basic for experienced cooks - and rarely call for ingredients that are difficult to find in an urban area.  Recipes come from all over the Subcontinent, but provenance is not always given.  There are two major differences between this volume and other books from this series: some of the recipes contain nutritional information and are indicated as "low-fat recipes," which is very helpful in menu planning, and there is a list of suppliers in the back of the book.  I'm not so sure about this list of suppliers.  The authors list one Indian grocery in the state of Massachusetts, in Boston's Oak Square.  I don't know when the list was drawn up (my copy is a late edition), but when I lived in Oak Square I did not see this grocery.  I was however very much aware of other Indian groceries in town, so I wouldn't view their supplier list as gospel.  Use your local telephone directory or a search engine instead.  Still, it was helpful of them to provide a starting place.  While the recipes may be a little basic, I really enjoy this book and use it as a launching pad for many of my own recipes.  I'd recommend it to anyone curious about Indian food or to a novice cook.

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Book Review: Fish & Shellfish: Superb Ways with Seafood

Doeser, Linda.  Fish & Shellfish: Superb Ways with Seafood.  Anness Publishing, London, 2003

I love fish.  I've always loved fish, as far back as anyone in my family can remember.  One of the happiest days of my life, right up there with my wedding day, was when a doctor told me I was to eat fish almost every day as part of a special diet.  (The special diet didn't help.  But it didn't hurt either, so more fish for me!)  I'm fortunate enough to be married to a man without strong dietary preferences, whose love for the produce of the sea is almost as great as mine.  This book, which is part of the Hermes House series that I've been so fond of, is devoted to new and interesting recipes for preparing this favorite protein of mine. 

Most of the Hermes House books in my collection are about ethnic food: Indian, Irish, Vietnamese, et cetera.  They're great in that they make these recipes accessible to people who didn't grow up in that culture, or at least to people who didn't grow up cooking that way.  Linda Doeser takes the same style of instruction and brings it instead to a different medium: seafood, regardless of recipe origin.  Instead of a section on the socio-cultural history behind a particular style of cuisine, there is a good section on equipment and on some basic techniques to use for preparing seafood.  I'm not so sure that all of the equipment is really 100% necessary - it's useful, sure, but I personally don't have that much storage space for things that are only used in one way.  As for the techniques, very often you can purchase the fish already prepared for what you want to do with it, at least from a supermarket.  If you buy straight from the boat or catch it yourself, you'll want these techniques. 

The recipes included in this book come from all sorts of places.  I haven't seen a lot of books on African cooking south of the Sahara - short of Marcus Samuelsson's work, of course - but there are some recipes from various parts of the continent included in this book.  There are recipes that are identifiably Western European, some that are clearly Indian in origin and so on.  Not all of the recipes are identified as to their region of origin, but this doesn't bother me as much in this book because it isn't putting itself forth as an ethnic cookbook.  Some of the recipes will probably seem a little basic to people who have been cooking with fish for a long time, but I would definitely recommend this book to people who are new to seafood. 

Technorati Tags: Book reviews,seafood,fish

Book Review: Best-Ever Curry Cookbook

Baljekar, Mridula.  Best-Ever Curry Cookbook: Over 150 Great Curries from India and Asia.  Anness Publishing, London 2001

I love curry.  It really is one of my favorite types of food to make.  I love it especially on weeknights in the winter, when what I mostly want is something that cooks up quickly and warms me up a bit.  Curry, of course, covers a multitude of dishes.  Very often we think of India when we think of curry, but the cuisine of much of South-East Asia offers a number of dishes that also fit the bill.  Part of what makes this particular book so great is that it explores the curries of multiple areas and provides relatively easy directions for preparing them. 

This is another book from the Hermes House imprint of Anness Publishing, and as such it follows a pretty standard format.  The pantry and equipment sections are helpful and the sections on culture are informative.  What makes this book different from most of the other publications in this series is that there are two distinct parts: one for Indian curries and one for South-East Asian curries.  Each part, in turn, provides a sampling of recipes from different regions in its particular geography.   India is divided along the lines of the compass, and South-East Asia is split into Thailand, Burma and Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, and The Philippines.  Both halves contain a section on things to serve alongside curries, such as rice, bread and noodles.  Measurements are given as usual in both US and metric units.  Each small section offers a variety of types of dish, including vegetarian, poultry, meat and fish. 

I could certainly wish that this book were more exhaustive, and I'm not in a position to determine the authenticity of any of the dishes.  That said, I have made a number of dishes from this book and I found it very easy to use.  The recipes came out well and were enjoyed by all who ate them.  I can confidently recommend this book to anyone with an interest in learning a bit more about curry or to a novice cook looking to expand her weeknight repertoire. 

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Book Review: Asian Grill

Trang, Corinne.  Asian Grill.  Chronicle Books, San Francisco, 2006

 

Anyone who has read this blog more than once is very well aware of the love of grilled food in my house.  My husband is particularly enamored.  He is also able to withstand temperatures far below my comfort zone, so if we can physically get to the grill we can use it.  He's become even fonder of the grill since we obtained a Big Green Egg, which is a combination grill and smoker that is called an egg but looks like a giant hand grenade sitting on my back deck.  It makes fantastic food.  At any rate, I've been trying to find new sources of things to grill, and one of the sources I've most recently acquired is Asian Grill. 

 

I actually really enjoyed this book.  It's not a long book, and Asia is a big place.  Trang therefore can't go in-depth into each individual ethnic group's recipes.  This is too bad, but I guess that if I wanted a 500-page treatise on Hmong outdoor cooking techniques I should have bought one.  (I haven't seen one for sale, either.)  The recipes are just different enough to be a breath of fresh air and rarely call for ingredients that are difficult to find.  The author draws from a wide variety of cultures to build this book, so it is a safe bet that people with a wide variety of tastes will find something to enjoy about this book.

 

As I mentioned, this book is kind of short, and it doesn't go into the kind of depth that a true nerd like me would prefer.  Not every recipe is illustrated, although there are more photos than in other books that I've reviewed recently and the pictures that exist are certainly lovely.  Those are really my biggest complaints about the book.  My husband had some issues with the techniques, but I am not a grill master or even a grill journeyman, I don't understand his issues so for me to go into them would not make much sense.  I'd probably get them wrong anyway!  Seriously, though, I enjoyed this book.

 

Technorati Tags: Corinne Trang,grilled food,Asian food,Asian Grill,book reviews

Book Review: Dinosaur Bar-B-Que

Stage, John and Nancy Radke.  Dinosaur Bar-B-Que: An American Roadhouse.  Ten Speed Press, Berkeley, 2001

I remember, during a previous incarnation working for a large custodial bank here in Boston, a conversation between some co-workers.  One had just picked up some "fancy, gourmet" barbeque sauce in a jar from some "upscale restaurant" in New York.  I believe that they meant New York City.  The other asked which restaurant his companion referred to, and the first replied, "The Dinosaur Barbeque."  I rudely interrupted, but it wasn't my fault.  I was laughing too hard.  You see, the Dinosaur, while currently operating branches in both Rochester and New York City, was founded in what was at the time a distinctly not-upscale part of my hometown of Syracuse, New York.  It wasn't an upscale restaurant.  It was a joint, a biker place.  As the subtitle of the book proudly proclaims, it was An American Roadhouse.  Like barbeque itself, the Dinosaur embodies informality and casual dining. 

This is not to say that the food is not good.  While I mean no disrespect to people who hail from those bastions of barbeque south of the Mason-Dixon line, they make some of the best barbeque I've ever tried.  (No one will ever hold a candle to Jaffi's grandfather's pulled pork recipe, which Jaffi honored us with on a camping trip last summer, but that's a different story.)  Dinosaur is known for its bold flavors and its dedication to good, solid, stick-to-your-ribs (pun fully intended) food.  Yes, it is possible to buy some of their products in jars and bottles, and if you don't live near a brick-and-mortar vendor you can buy it online here.  But why bother buying pre-made sauces and rubs when you can make your own, at home, and customize it to your tastes? 

This review is not intended to be an advertisement for the Dinosaur, although it's great to see a hometown institution doing well.  I am going to heartily endorse their book, however.  It is written clearly and concisely, in language that you don't need a degree from a culinary school to understand.  It rarely calls for weird ingredients that you can't find.  It is liberally peppered with humor and good old-fashioned common sense.  The biggest reason I love this book is on page 15, where the authors advise you not to let assumptions "Ruin Your Barbeque."  Item number four advises, "A good recipe should inspire you to do your own thing: it's not the law, it's a guide."  That said, the recipes really are fantastic.  I made my first flambe from a recipe in this book; my eyebrows weren't even singed, and the taste was phenomenal.

The book isn't perfect.  It is woefully deficient in terms of "food porn;" you will definitely need to just kind of trust your instincts as to how a lot of these dishes "should" look.  Also, some of the recipes are deceptively complex.  You'll come across some perfectly innocent chicken recipe that looks like it should cook up in ten minutes, and it will - if you had the foresight to make up a big batch of the requisite marinades and sauces ahead of time.  If you plan to do a lot of barbeque from this book (or a lot of barbeque in general, because it's really good) flip directly to the recipe for Mutha Sauce (p. 165) and make a lot of it. 

Ultimately, I really like this book, and not just out of some weird, upstate, "we're all from the tundra together" kind of pride.  It's a great book with a lot of good, solid food and very practical advice, and you just can't go wrong with that.  Besides, the "Resources" chapter includes a tattoo artist.

Technorati Tags: Dinosaur Barbeque,book review,barbeque,Syracuse,NY

Book Review: Ice Cream

Poole, Shona Crawford.  Ice Cream.  Conran Octopus Group, London, 2001

Years ago, my parents gave me an ice cream maker for Christmas.  I was ecstatic, despite my mother's giving it to me on the condition that I not prepare squid ice cream with it.  I love ice cream, and the idea of making it at home without a lot of chemical additives was very appealing to me.  I had stopped using it for a while - a long while, actually.  I was trying to lose weight and didn't think that the ice cream maker and all the tasty treats that came out of it would be at all helpful in my endeavors.  Resolutely avoiding ice cream and sweets for about two years in no way helped with my endeavor, so recently I excavated some space in the freezer and dusted off the old machine. 

This book was a bridal shower gift from my friend Tara, who shared my love of ice cream.  She knew that my parents had presented me with the ultimate doomsday device that is the home ice cream maker and, presumably, hoped to share in the spoils.  It's a great book.  It is well illustrated, the recipes are creative and exciting, and some of the recipes even claim to be healthy.  The best part about this book, though, I think escaped Tara, or else she would probably have gotten a copy for herself as well.  Many of the recipes, believe it or not, DO NOT REQUIRE AN ICE CREAM MAKER.  That's right.  For many of the recipes, and certainly for the most decadent ones, all you will need is a whisk or hand mixer and some freezer space. 

The book is a little on the short side, and the instructions are a little more complicated than some other ice cream books in my possession.  In addition, some of the ingredients are a little out-of-the-ordinary and may be difficult to find.  Finally, the book is a little on the short side.  Ultimately, though, this is a great book for anyone who likes ice cream and wants to make it at home. 

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