Fearless Kitchen

Recipe: Bulghur Pilav

Recipe Source: Branca, Laura Ward.  Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant.  Simon and Schuster/Fireside, New York, 1990 p. 82

When we host Sunday dinners, I tend to have a few carbohydrate-heavy dishes on the menu.  The main reason for having these dinners in the first place is that we have a lot of people doing a lot of physical activity, and at least for my husband what he wants under those circumstances is .... well, carbs.  Carb dishes - pasta, rice, bulgur - can be stretched to feed a lot of people and tend to be fairly simple to prepare.  I made this for a Sunday dinner a few weeks ago, and brought the leftovers to a Labor Day cookout the next day.

Bulgur Pilaf (serves 20 as a side; approx. $0.15/serving)

2 onions, chopped

2 tablespoons olive oil

Kosher salt and black pepper to taste

4 teaspoons dried basil

1 bay leaf

1 teaspoon dried tarragon

3 cups bulgur

2 cups warm water

Equipment:

• Saucepan with a lid

1. Warm the oil in the saucepan.
2. Saute the onions in the oil for a few minutes. 
3. Add the salt and pepper, basil, bay leaf and tarragon.  Cover and cook over low heat 10 minutes. 
4. Add the bulgur and toast 2 minutes.
5. Add the water, cover and bring to a boil.
6. Reduce heat to very low and let bulgur steam. 
7. Serve warm or at room temperature. 

Recipe: Georgian Plum Sauce

Recipe Source: Cramer, Marc.  Imperial Mongolian Cooking.  Hippocrene Books, New York, 2003 pp. 58 - 9.

I'm not entirely certain what it was that attracted me to this sauce, but whatever it is deserves my gratitude.  It's a little unusual in being a relatively light, fruit-based sauce.  It's also unusual in that, being a fruity sauce, it is not sweet.  This is important, because I do not like sweet with my savory.  The original recipe recommended serving it with grilled lamb and that's what I did here, but I can see it going well with a number of other main dishes.  Chicken would probably be bland enough to really showcase the plum flavor.  A light fish, like tilapia, would probably also not be misplaced.  I'm going to advise against tofu, though. 

I didn't make a whole lot of changes to the recipe.  I accidentally used more water than was called for, and while using less would have made the plum flavor more pronounced I don't think that the dish was ruined by any means.  I did increase the garlic, and I also probably used more cilantro than was called for.  All in all, this was a delicious sauce, a great antidote to the kind of rich, creamy, dairy-based sauces so common in more Western cuisine. 

Georgian Plum Sauce (makes about 16 ounces; approx. $0.21/ounce)

1/2 lb plums, pitted (this was two plums for me.)

4 garlic cloves, crushed

3 tablespoons finely chopped cilantro

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

1/2 teaspoon chili powder (you can use paprika if chili powder is too much.  I won't even mock you.  Much.)

3 tablespoons lemon juice

Equipment:

• Saucepan
• Blender

1. Bring a pan full of water to a boil and add the plums.
2. Remove from heat and allow to sit 10 minutes.
3. Return to heat and bring to a "gentle" boil.  Cook uncovered 15 minutes.
4. Remove the plums, reserve 2 cups of the liquid and set aside.
5. In the blender, combine the plums, garlic and cilantro.
6. Add the water, 1/4 cup at a time, blending well between each addition.
7. Return the mixture to the pan and add the salt and chili powder.  Bring to a boil.
8. Remove from heat and stir in the lemon juice.  Use immediately or store in a clean glass jar in the fridge until ready to use. 

Recipe: Salted Turnips and Radishes with Scallions

Recipe Source: Wise, Victoria Jenanyan.  The Armenian Table.  St. Martin's Press, New York, 2004 p. 42. 

My reason for choosing this recipe was very, very simple: my husband loves turnips and he loves radishes.  I'm not overly fond of either of them, but I don't have any strong objections to them either.  I figured that he would like this, and he did.  I only made one real change: the original wanted this to be served atop softened Armenian cracker bread with butter.  We didn't have any cracker bread, and I wanted this to be specifically a vegetable dish.  Furthermore, we're not into butter.  Not on bread, anyway.  Otherwise, there were really no changes to be made.  It's a really amazingly simple dish, and if someone else hadn't already published this in a book I'd feel really silly posting it as a recipe at all. 

Salted Turnips and Radishes with Scallions (serves 4; approx. $0.65/serving)

3 small turnips

1 bunch radishes

Kosher salt

2 scallions, thinly sliced

Equipment:

• No special equipment is required for this recipe

1. Peel the turnips and cut them into thin wedges.
2. Trim the radishes and slice thinly.  Leaving a little bit of the leaves at the top will help greatly as you try to slice the radishes thinly.
3. Arrange the turnips and radishes on the serving platter. 
4. Sprinkle the vegetables with kosher salt to taste, then top with the scallions.
5. Serve. 

Recipe: Lamb Ragout with Spinach, Chile Pepper and Lentils

Recipe Source: Wise, Victoria Jenayan.  The Armenian Table.  St. Martin's Press, New York, 2004 pp. 144-5.

My husband and I returned from our Thanksgiving visit to my family in Syracuse on Saturday, having had a wonderful time.  We returned to a home where the furnace had apparently malfunctioned.  We were able to re-start it easily, but it takes a good amount of time to heat up a house.  As we huddled under blankets with the dog and cats - yes, in the same place, they were all cold too - I flipped through some books trying to determine what we would eat for our Sunday dinner.  We knew we wanted stew, as most people want stew when they can't feel their feet, but we weren't sure what kind.  I selected a few that looked tasty, and then I asked my husband to choose between them.  He chose this one without actually knowing what a ragout was.

I did make a few changes, but not too many as I was feeling singularly uninspired.  I'm pretty sure that the chile pepper I bought was an Anaheim as required in the recipe, but Stop and Shop saw no need to label the different chile peppers and it's a pepper I rarely use, so I can't say for sure.  (I won't go into why I was in Stop and Shop; it was a very long day.)  I couldn't find the green lentils required by the recipe at Stop and Shop either.  In fact, I couldn't find any lentils at all, although lentil soup in a can was plentiful.  (Why would you want to cook your own lentils, after all?  So much easier to let factories do it for you.)  Fortunately, I had red lentils in quantity at home.  Likewise, I was unable to find bunches of fresh spinach in the produce section, but they had salad spinach in a bag so I used that.  I also forgot the lemon juice at the end, which would have brightened up the dish significantly.  My only excuse is that Stop and Shop ate my brain.  At any rate, the dish was still tasty and very, very filling.  It didn't have as much sauce as we kind of expected, but that didn't really inhibit our enjoyment.   

Ragout of Lamb with Spinach, Chile Pepper and Lentils (serves 4; approx. $3.28/serving)

2 tablespoons butter

2 pounds bone-in lamb stew meat.  The bone-in part is very important; don't substitute boneless!

Kosher salt and black pepper to taste

1 onion, finely chopped

1 Anaheim chile pepper, seeded and chopped

2 cups water

1 tablespoon tomato paste

1 cup red lentils

1 bag (9 oz) spinach, roughly chopped

Equipment:

• Large saute pan or pot with lid

1. Melt the butter in the pot over medium-high heat.
2. Sprinkle the lamb with salt and pepper. 
3. Brown the lamb in the butter in uncrowded batches. 
4. Transfer the lamb to a plate with tongs, leaving the rendered fat and juices in the pan.
5. Add the onion and chile pepper to the pot.  Cook until the onion is wilted, about 2 minutes.
6. Increase the heat to high and add the water and tomato paste. 
7. Stir and bring to a boil.
8. Return the lamb to the pot with the juices, cover, and cook at a brisk simmer for 1 hour.
9. Add the lentils to the pot.  Stir to mix.
10. Add the spinach to the pot.  Do not stir.
11. Cover and continue simmering about 20 minutes, or until the lentils are tender. 
12. Remove from heat and let rest 15 minutes.
13. Reheat over medium heat and serve. 

Recipe: Chickpeas with Spinach

Recipe Source: Mallos, Tess.  Middle Eastern Home Cooking.  Periplus Editions Ltd., Boston, 2002 p. 96

If you've read this blog on anything resembling a regular basis, or if you snoop through my recycling bin at all, you already know that chickpeas are one of my favorite foods.  I had an opportunity to cook for a large group recently, and of course I wanted one of the dishes I served to involve chickpeas.  The problem?  Most of my chickpea recipes involve tomatoes in some way, and I needed to avoid tomatoes for a variety of reasons.  When I found this recipe, I decided that it fit the bill.  While the original did call for tomatoes, they weren't a hugely crucial part of the dish. 

I did make a few changes, as usual.  You already know about the tomatoes, or rather tomato paste.  I tripled the recipe because of the quantity of people I was serving.  I omitted the sugar because I'd omitted the tomato paste.  I omitted the mint because my husband is allergic to mint; I substituted a bit of cilantro instead.  I also used canned chickpeas in place of dried for ease of preparation - I had a lot of cooking to do!  Ultimately I think that the dish came out pretty well, and I'm sure I'll be making it again.

Chickpeas with Spinach (serves 20; approx. $0.42/serving)

3 25-oz cans chickpeas, drained and rinsed

3 onions, chopped

10 tablespoons minced jarred garlic

1/8 bunch parsley, chopped

1/8 bunch cilantro, chopped

3 generous teaspoons ground cumin

Kosher salt and black pepper to taste

3 lb baby spinach

Equipment:

• Large skillet with a lid.

1. Heat the oil in the skillet over medium-low heat.
2. Add the onions and cook until translucent, around 7 minutes. 
3. Add the garlic, stir well and cook for a few seconds.
4. Add the herbs, cumin, salt and pepper. 
5. Add the chickpeas.  Cover and cook for around 10 minutes. 
6. Coarsely chop the spinach. 
7. Add the spinach to the chickpea mixture and cook until the spinach is done. 
8. Serve warm or at room temperature. 

Technorati Tags: Tes Mallos,recipe,chickpeas,spinach,Armenian food,vegetarian dish,vegan recipes

Recipe: Lamb Stew with Garlic and Apricots

Recipe Source: Wise, Victoria Jenayan.  The Armenian Table.  St. Martin's Press, New York, 2004 p. 146

I don't know what the weather has been like where you are, but here in New England it's been "unsettled" to say the least.  A couple of weeks ago it was so hot here that I actually got sick walking the dog.  Then, the day before my birthday, it was so cold and unpleasant that grilling wasn't even an option.  This was okay.  I decided that a stew was in order, and of course the only kind of stew is lamb stew.  Hey, it's my birthday, right?  Anyway, I found this recipe and decided to give it a go. 

I did make a few changes, of course.  The author prefers this recipe with pork, but I prefer lamb to pork in most situations and decided to go with the lamb.  I used more cumin because I love cumin, and more lemon because of the Great Lemon Craving.  I didn't have any Aleppo pepper but I did have cayenne pepper; if you don't like spicy food use something else like paprika instead or omit it.  That's really it.  Once the stew got underway it was really very simple, simple enough that I will list it as an Easy Recipe.  It was also simply delicious.  Give it a try some cool Sunday evening. 

Lamb Stew with Garlic and Apricots (serves 4; approx. $4.45/serving)

1 1/4 lb boneless lamb stew meat, cut into 1" cubes.

1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt

2 tablespoons olive oil

1/4 cup brandy

3 teaspoons ground cumin

3/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

3 cups water.

24 dried apricots

16 cloves garlic, peeled but left whole

Juice of 1 lemon

1/2 bunch cilantro

Equipment:

• Large, heavy pan with a lid

1. Combine the meat with the salt.
2. Heat the oil over medium-high heat. 
3. In batches - it is very important to keep the meat in a single layer and not overcrowd - brown the meat in the oil.  When one batch is browned, take it out of the oil and set it aside.
4. When all of the meat is browned, return all the meat and any juices that have leaked out to the pan.  Add the brandy.
5. Add the cumin, pepper and water.  Bring to a boil over high heat.
6. Decrease the heat to low, cover, and simmer for 1 hour. 
7. Stir in the apricots and garlic.  Cover again and simmer another 30 minutes. 
8. Stir in the lemon juice and cilantro and serve immediately. 

Technorati Tags: Recipes,easy recipes,stew,lamb,apricots,garlic,Armenian food

Recipe: Quail in Blackberry Sauce

Recipe source: Trutter, Marion.  Culinaria Russia.  H. F. Ullmann Publishers, Germany, 2007 p. 257

 

A while ago, I was in the Super 88 Asian Market in Quincy when I found a six-pack of frozen quail.  I had never tried quail.  I'd heard about quail, but the opportunity to try it had simply never come up.  I threw the quail into my cart and figured that I was sure to find a recipe for it later.  A while later - a good while later, to be quite honest - I stumbled upon this recipe.  The original calls for pigeon.  I didn't have pigeon, and after a brief discussion with my husband I understood that if pigeon were served I would be the only one eating pigeon.  I decided that quail would make an adequate substitute. 

 

I did make another small change to this recipe: I couldn't find unripe green grapes.  I bought the least ripe of the green grapes that I could find in my local Whole Foods.  I don't think that this was a bad thing, although I can't say for sure as I haven't tried the original.  I did increase the amount of garlic, and I neglected to reserve some berries and grapes for use as a garnish.  We both really liked this recipe, and I would absolutely make it again given half a chance.  I think that, given the fact that I omitted the garnish, using frozen and thawed blackberries would probably bring the cost per serving down dramatically.  Of course, waiting until blackberries are actually in season would probably help a lot.  I'd like to try this by grilling the quail as well, probably over low heat on the Big Green Egg so that they don't dry out.  The recipe that follows is the recipe as I prepared it.

 

Quail in Blackberry Sauce (serves 3 as a main dish, 6 as a first course; approx. $7.91/serving as a main dish.)

6 quail, thawed if previously frozen.

Kosher salt

4 tablespoons melted butter

Approximately 3/4 cup breadcrumbs

1 lb green grapes

1 lb blackberries

6 cloves garlic, crushed

1 bunch dill, chopped

1 bunch cilantro, chopped

Equipment

• Roasting Pan
• Basting brush
• Food processor
• Fine sieve

1. Preheat the oven to 440 degrees.
2. Salt the quail both inside and out. 
3. Brush the quail with the melted butter.
4. Dredge the quail generously in the breadcrumbs.
5. Roast for approximately 30 minutes. 
6. Meanwhile, prepare the sauce.  Puree the grapes and blackberries together in the food processor.
7. Strain the resulting liquid in the sieve. 
8. Add the garlic, dill and cilantro to the food processor and puree. 
9. Add the blackberry and grape juice and blend well. 
10. When the quail is finished roasting (internal temperature of 180 degrees), put on a serving plate with steep sides.
11. Pour the sauce onto the plate.
12. Serve! 

Technorati Tags: Georgian food,Caucasus food,quail,roast,garlic,grapes,blackberries,dill,cilantro,sauce

Book Review: Culinaria Russia

Trutter, Marion, editor.  Culinaria Russia.  Tandem Verlag GmbH, Germany, 2007.

 

I heard a rumor that the Culinaria series was going out of print.  A relative recommended them pretty highly (thanks Dana!) so I recently trekked out to my local Borders bookstore and picked up as many as I could fine.  Once my sore muscles healed - these are heavy books - I began reading the book on Russia. 

 

I think I've mentioned before that my mental image of food in the former USSR is kind of dismal, involving lots of long lines and grayness and mostly consisting of my eternal foe, head cabbage.  That's really a shame, because if this book is accurate (and I have no reason to believe it won't be), I've been missing out on a whole lot of tasty treats.  There was a lot of cabbage, and a lot of dumplings, and I read these recipes and passed them over as befits someone with a very limited tolerance for cabbage.  Still, there was plenty to capture my imagination and interest. 

 

The book is organized into five sections: Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan.  This is very useful and helpful.  It would probably be possible to cover all the different cuisines in one go, but the variances in the cuisines would make it confusing.  This way, I got a great view of how people's cuisines adapt to different environments.  As a child of the Cold War, albeit the end of the Cold War, I kind of mentally lumped all of the former Soviet Republics together and called it done.  This way, I got a sense of the many variations and individual cultures that have survived.  This was another aspect of this book that I really appreciated.  While they offered plenty of recipes, and recipes that differed from recipes I already knew at that, they devoted at least as much space to the local food culture: normal ingredients, historical information, the impact of the local religion (and Soviet rule) on the local cuisine and culture.  Since I knew absolutely nothing about either Georgia or Azerbaijan before reading this book, I really appreciated this glimpse of new cultures.  Both Metric and Imperial measurements are given where appropriate, so my friends in England and Australia will be as comfortable using this book as I am. 

 

The one thing that I was less than thrilled with was the type.  Yes, I'm picking on the typesetting now, which should tell you how much I liked the book!  Anyway, the entire book is printed in very small type.  This wasn't too much of a problem for me, although I did come away feeling like I'd strained my eyes somehow.  I've already complained about how heavy the books are; if they'd used larger type they'd have been even heavier, so I shouldn't complain.  Still, someone like my mom would not have been able to use this book - at all.  If they aren't going out of print, perhaps a larger-print version would be in order? 

 

At the end of the day, I really enjoyed this book.  It's opened my eyes to a whole new cuisine - five whole new cuisines, really.  Thanks again to Dana for recommending the series!

Technorati Tags: Slavic recipes,Armenian food,Russian food,Ukrainian food,Azerbaijani food,Georgian food,ethnic food,Culinaria,book reviews