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South Indian fare tonight!

From the top, going counterclockwise:

2 Dosai (thin, crisp rolled crepes made from a fermented rice/lentil batter) stuffed with potato masala (spicy-sweet fried onions, potatoes, cashews, and spices); bowl of sambhar (spicy vegetable soup–mine’s got eggplant, potato, onion, and drumsticks–flavored with a smoky-hot-sweet powder and coconut milk); side of coconut chutney (coconut ground with chilies, cilantro, and roasted lentils, flavored with mustard seed and chili-pepper-infused oil).

I’ve been making and eating Indian cuisine for a few years now, but a trip to a South Indian buffet a few months back really kicked off a rush of activity; I’ve probably made at least one dish each week since then. The above is a crazy flavorful, healthy meal that has components that will combine well and make other foods, too (the same dosai batter can also be spread less to make savory “utthappam” pancakes that you can cook chopped veggies and grated cheese into; or it can be steamed into little buns called idlys–perfect for soaking in the flavorful sambar soup). I’ve got enough food for a few days now, though I’ll probably make dal makhani (sweet and creamy buttered lentils and red beans) around Tuesday to complement these leftovers.

More pics (linked to larger versions):

The sambhar soup:

The dosai batter:

The potato masala and coconut chutney:

Some dosai I made previously (on a larger, but harder to clean, skillet, heh):

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Looks fantastic. I love Indian food, but haven’t ventured much outside of lentil and bean recipes at home (in fact, I’m eating a bowl of homemade black lentils with kidney beans and chickpeas right now – teen taal dal, according to the recipe book).

2963

Golden Syrup Dumplings – A taste reminiscent of my youth, a hot dessert ideally suited for the cooler months. Last winter (in Aus) I experimented with about a dozen or so different recipes until I settled on this one, that is IMHO as close to how “My Mum used to make” as is possible. The following recipe is supposed to serve four . . . .but I suppose that all depends on how hungry (or how big a pig) you are.

Golden syrup is a pale treacle It is a thick, amber-coloured form of inverted sugar syrup, made in the process of refining sugar cane or sugar beet juice into sugar, or by treatment of a sugar solution with acid. It is used in a variety of baking recipes and desserts. It has an appearance similar to honey, and is often used as a substitute by people who do not eat honey.

Dumplings:

40g Butter (2 tablespoons), room temperature
150g Self Raising Flour (1 cup)
1 Large Egg, beaten (61g)
60ml Whole Milk (3 tablespoons)

Syrup:

3 cups water
170g (2/3 cup) Golden Syrup (or a full cup if your feeling generous).
60g Butter (3 tablespoons).
Squeeze of Lemon Juice Optional (I Prefer to Leave it Out).

DIRECTIONS

1.Place all syrup ingredients in a medium saucepan and stir until syrup has fully dissolved. Bring to the boil.

2.Meanwhile, rub butter into flour. Add egg and milk to mix into a dough.

3.Roll dough into small balls. (About the size of a marble, these will triple in size when cooking).

4.Drop (carefully place) dumplings into the boiling syrup and simmer until cooked (about 15/20 minutes) sauce will thicken in this time. Dumplings are cooked when a skewer comes out clean.

  1. Best Served with a ‘Rich’ Vanilla Ice Cream, Hot Vanilla Custard or some homemade whipped cream (not the stuff in a can).
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Over the holidays I asked fire if she had any traditional dishes she’d like me to make, and without hesitation she said, “Borsch.” At first I thought she was kidding, because I’ve always thought of borsch as little more than a punchline. This is probably because of the movie Love and Death, in which Woody Allen’s character says they’ll have to burn all the food so the French don’t get it, and completes this thought by saying, “But I know it’s tough to light borsch.” Which I thought was hilarious. But then I’m nuts about that movie.

Turns out fire was not kidding, and since I love beets and she was keen on having that dish available for the New Year, I got to it. I researched some recipes, found a vegetarian one (a necessity for her), and went about tinkering with it. It turned out well enough that I know I shall make it many times in the future.

*

Here’s basically what I did.

I bought a bunch of beets. The recipe called for a few medium to large beets, but I could only find small to medium ones, and I wanted to roast some, so I got four bunches. I trimmed most of them and put them in 10 cups of water to boil.

Meanwhile I preheated the oven to 400 and made a foil packet with the remaining beets, 3 or 4 of them. Drizzled a little olive oil and threw in some kosher salt and pepper and sealed the packet.

I boiled and roasted both sets for about 40 minutes (knife tender). I got the beets out of the water and set them to cool, saving the water.

As the beets cooked I washed and halved and thinly sliced a few leeks. The recipe called for onion, but I’m crazy about leeks and I found some really nice looking ones while looking for beets.

Next I peeled couple of potatoes and cut them into bite-sized pieces. Also grated a couple of carrots, and finely chopped half a head of cabbage.

I brought the beet water back up to a boil and put in the potatoes, cooking them for about 15 minutes. As they cooked I sautéed the leeks and carrots (well, really kind of sweated them). When the potatoes were about halfway done I added the cabbage to the pot.

I peeled and sliced the beets now that they were a little cooler, and added them back to the pot as well. I was supposed to slice them into match sticks, but the chunks were a bit too big. I liked the big chunks–they’re so meaty!–but they should have been smaller to be more uniform with the potatoes.

Next, I added about 6 cups of vegetable broth, some lemon juice, pepper, and the sautéed vegetables. I let it all cook for another 10 minutes and served it with sour cream.

It turned out pretty good. The original recipe called for a can of kidney beans—which I forgot, no big loss—and some dill, but I didn’t find any fresh dill that looked decent and besides, I’m not a big fan of dill outside of pickles (I think the tendency to push it with salmon has soured me on it), so I probably would’ve shied away from it anyway.

All in all for someone who has grown to love beets as an adult, this soup was a huge success, and even better the next day.

-xtien

*Picture courtesy of fire.

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That’s an awesome picture. I’d eat some of that and I’m not crazy for beets.

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Damn, that brought back some memories, my mum used to make them as well. Been years since I have had some. I have some golden syrup in the pantry as well…

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I tried a new roast chicken recipe and I’m kind of confused as to what went wrong. It tasted delicious, seasoning wise, but was too dry. I’m confused because I braised it, and I would have thought that braising would make it more moist, not less.

My usual weeknight roast chicken is simple. Rub the chicken with olive oil. Mix salt and pepper and pepper flakes in a bowl and rub them on the bird as well. Heat my 12" cast iron skillet in the oven at 450. When hot the chicken goes into the hot skillet thighs down to give them a head start. Cook for about thirty minutes. Turn off the oven and let cook for another thirty or so. Comes out perfect every time.

The new recipe involves braising in milk (2 cups) in my Dutch oven. A bunch of cloves of unpeeled garlic. A handful of fresh sage. Lemon zest. A cinnamon stick. Brown the chicken for about ten minutes in the Dutch oven and then add the other ingredients and cover and bake for an hour and fifteen minutes in the oven at 375. Remove the lid and then let cook for another fifteen.

The chicken falls off the bone. It’s beautiful. But it tastes dry. Why would a wet cooking method yield dry meat?

Grr.

-xtien

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With meat, getting moisture into the protein–particularly when it begins to coagulate–is always a real trick. It’s far easier to do it well beforehand (soak it in a brine so that the additional sodium content helps encourage moisture exchange through cell walls) and then work to not let as much out during cooking itself (avoid super high heat and, barring a few methods such as VERY low heat, avoid long cook-times). Bone-in meat and brown meat both work better, the latter particularly, since most of the “moisture” you experience while eating meat is actually liquified fat anyway.

Anyway, liquid cooking doesn’t guarantee much. Toss some raw chicken into boiling tomato sauce sometimes, particularly breasts. The high acidity and heat will result in tough, unpleasant chicken unless you do something to mitigate it.

Anyways, the new recipe goes from 30m of very high heat and 30m of decreasing heat to 10m of high heat and 75m of medium-high heat. As the meat’s slowly squeezing out its own water supply and said water is constantly evaporating anyway, there’s not a lot of opportunities for the braising liquid to infiltrate the meat, particularly if it’s something like milk.

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So, what to do? Reduce cook times? Lower heat? Use only dark meat? All of above?

I have no idea. I’m not much of a cook. I only recently started cooking and I find I need very specific directions or it comes out like crap. I envy people who can just whip something up. One time my colleague sent me a spice chart and to me it seemed like the periodic table. Or something.

Anyhow, that sounds like a good meal Christien – all except for the dry meat. :)

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I’m assuming it was the white meat that was dry? Or was the dark meat too?

I haven’t tried it yet, but I was told an interesting trick with regards to braising whole chickens and that is to cook it upside down. That will allow the white meat to stay more moist as the dark meat supplies it with extra juicy fat. You can turn the chicken right side up again in the last 30 minutes to crisp up the skin too, if desired.

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@Tim: Some or all of those things. And heck, sometimes you just get a dry bird no matter what you do. Maybe it didn’t drink its Ovaltine.

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Braising works best for fatty meats with lots of connective tissue. You cook it at a low temp for a long time and what happens is that the meat dries out. All the natural juices cook out. Then the magic happens as the heat breaks down the collagen in the connective tissue and it turns into gelatin. The gelatin makes the meat moist and super tender. So if your roasts are dry you probably need to cook them longer as you didn’t break down the collagen.

Meats without a lot of collagen on the other hand need to be cooked quickly. If they are dry they are overdone. I’ve never braised a chicken but I have roasted plenty of them and the trick is to watch your thermometer like a hawk and yank them from the oven as soon as they hit the right temp.

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Try a butterfly next time. Also known as spatchcocking. You cut the backbone out with a strong shear/cooking scissor. Then you flip it over on the cutting board and press down hard. This makes the butterfly/ flat chicken thing. Then you can cook it in a cast iron pan. Do what you usually do with oil and seasoning. Heat the pan to screaming hot. Put the chicken in skin down and let it scream for mercy. After the skin is almost so brown that it seems overdone, flip it. And put the pan in the oven until the thigh meat is around 165 degrees. Because you butterflied it the rest of the chicken should also be the same temp. See?

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Yeah, if poultry is dry it’s overcooked. Brining can make it more forgiving (and inject flavor), but overcooked chicken is dry and that happens no matter how you apply the heat, roasting, frying or boiling. Dark meat or bone in cuts will work better for long cooking processes but you need to have a handle on when it will be done using a thermometer.

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I hosted Thanksgiving last year having never cooked a turkey before, used this method, and it came out brilliantly–probably the best roast turkey I’ve ever eaten. The other key is cooking at high heat for a short amount of time.

I think I have a pre-oven photo somewhere, but I have to go drive in more snow now.

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Thank you all for these replies. I really appreciate the tips and suggestions. Special thanks to Armando for breaking down some of the logistics of braising. Thank you so much for doing that. I love that.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

-xtien

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Thanks for reminding me of this, Rich. I’ve been meaning to try this for some time. There’s a great episode of Good Eats where Alton Brown demonstrates how to do the procedure and then proceeds to cook it using an aluminum foil wrapped brick that he places on top of the spatchcocked chicken. I will try this.

-xtien

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I just saw an article about brining chicken today. The guy writing it talked about brining it for eighteen hours. Then letting it dry out in the fridge for twelve. That’s all well and good, but I have neither the time nor the fridge space for that kind of experiment when I have a perfectly good weekday roast chicken recipe without brining. I’m fine with spending that time on Thanksgiving turkey, because hours of brining is fine on that application. For weekday chicken, though…no way.

Still, I appreciate the suggestion, Rich.

-xtien

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Wow. You spatchcocked a turkey? What kind of pan do you have that’s wide enough to accomodate a spatchcocked turkey? I’m intrigued!

-xtien

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OMG. Word of the day, my friend. W.O.D.