Apple with cardamon sugar,ginger and cinnamon

Illustrations,

Apple sections , grind cardamom seeds with sugar , grate ginger and cinnamon bark over apple (those adverse to sugar, honey is an alternative.)

Microwave several minutes, or bake

Not only pleasing to the taste but aromatic to your kitchen as well.

grille time 2019

Ahh… the warm weather approaches, and after some yard work it’s time to light up the grille under the shadow of an umbrella.. actually the second time I’ve started the charcoal this season.

Some dough that’s been fermenting, this batch with some dark spent grain barley adorns the all purpose flour. a very wet mixture, some corn flour made it more manageable.  simply pressed into rounds, then off loaded to a wooden cutting board. decided to throw on a cast iron grille over the glowing hot embers. slightly at a tilt allowing one end to be hotter than the other for some temperature differential.

Hmmm….. some roasted grilled veggies would go good on the flatbread, mainly a bunch of broccoli, with the usual onion and garlic, green onion and celery. a spot of ginger, grated turmeric, salt  and freshly ground quad blend of peppercorns.  drizzle on some oil, toss and ready for the grille pan.

After the flatbread is grilled with the requisite char on some pieces, the perforated grill pan is placed on the hot cast iron surface.

Flatbread was thick and soft but with a flavor similaer to a pumpernickel bread.

 

ready to go with the veggies, start off with some bacon pieces to fat render for non stickiness.

raw veggie bowl ready for the grille pan.

once a slight char is attained, drizzled on some chicken broth and cover about ten minutes depending how limp you like the veggies.

Toss from time to time… MMMMM bacon bits !

Now your cover becomes a warm bowl to serve the veggies.

served over the flatbread with a porter style brew…. good close for the labor of yard work.

STIR FRY FOR YOU !

Two stir frys , one chicken and bacon and one spicy sausage.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sambal

It’s popular now so you buy it by the bottle at the market, but I didn’t have any and wanted a more custom flavor and ingredients for an upcoming recipe. I recently bought some spicy tamarind paste which would have sufficed for the recipe but none the less wanted to cook up my own Sambal.

dried chili, plain and smoked, red onion,garlic, turmeric, scotch bonnet pepper,lemon grass,lime, galangal root,shrimp paste,ginger root,brown sugar.

The basic recipe calls for a paste made and then fried, and other ingredients added with some further cooking. Chilies are an essential element both fresh and dried. I had some scotch bonnet peppers frozen, some  dried chilies, but some were smoked  and would make a dark spicy sambal.

soaking the dried chilies

Processing the paste, it was first a bit thick but added some water that the chilies soaked in to thin and blend it further.

cooking the sambal paste

dark candy sugar added melted in to bring up the sweetness to spicy balance

 

The Sambal paste is put in jar and ready for use.

lo mein

With the abundance of fresh veggies and with the addition of noodles, lo mein was an easy choice, though prep would be essential to the recipe.

A slicing of the veggies was done using the rotary slicer of the kitchen aid attachment.

One of those recipes, the more you look the more variations you find , you settle as with most “authentic” recipes to the ingredients you have available to the village or are grown locally.

I didn’t  get to list all the sauce ingredients and amounts, but loosely followed several recipes that I researched by listing all the ingredients that compose the sauce to get an idea of the basics. I modified it by adding a bit more cornstarch and a good amount of stock as I prefer s saucy-er thick coating to the dish.

The sauce was a build up from the basic soy sauce/rice wine/sugar combo. Some of the associated components are: soy sauce, rice wine, fish sauce, shrimp paste, chili paste, ginger root, galangal root, garlic, sugar, honey, salt and pepper with sesame oil.

The sauce, less the stock.

The veggies are the same deal, use what you have. Pea pods and the baby bok choy were included as they were fresh and attractive from the market. The carrot was also crunchy as they were fresh, large diameter and not very tapered as the packaged carrots were.

Stir fry the veggies in oil.

 

While stir frying the veggies, prep the noodles, I used rice noodles instead of the wheat noodles, so just a brief toss in hot water is all that’s needed, drain and add to wok.

 

Mix well , then add the sauce… serve….

 

 

 

The result is as good or better result than restaurant  because you have control of the ingredients. So if you like salad with noodles with a sauce here it is.

I made this dish twice and this post is a compilation of the pictures from both.

barbecue Satay

• 2 pounds pork loin, cut into strips (or chicken)
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/2 cup soy sauce
• 1/4 cup lime juice
• 3 tablespoon molasses
• 1 small onion, minced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 tablespoons grated ginger root
• 1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• Place wooden skewers in a pan and cover with water to cover and let soak about an hour to prevent the skewers from burning during grilling. You could skip this step and broil the pork on a broiling pan instead.

Combine the water and brown sugar in a pan and over medium heat, simmer till the sugar dissolves increase the heat till the mixture reduces to a syrup.

Remove from the heat and add in soy sauce, lime juice, molasses, onion, garlic, ginger root, coriander and pepper, mix until well combined.

Marinade the pork in the sauce reserving about 1/4 cup for basting. Refrigerate for about one hour.

Thread the pork onto the skewers, grill untill tender or broil without the skewers till tender.

Served with couscous and large leaf lettuce.

 

 

 

Citrus beverage

Similar to a previous post, a easy combination of fruit for cold beverage. Zest all the fruit, grate ginger root, squeeze the fruit and combine all with simple sugar, refrigerate. Amounts per your preference.

Chicken Curry

From Food 52 Meera Sodha’s Mum’s Chicken Curry

• A spicy chicken dish , I scaled the recipe in half and used 2 chicken thighs , bone in with the skin.
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter and 1/2 tablespoon oil (canola, olive etc.)
• 1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
• 1 , 1 and 3/4 inch cinnamon stick
• 1 large onion finely diced
• 1, 1 and 1/4 inch ginger root, peeled and grated
• 3 garlic cloves
• 1 fresh chilis, green
• salt
• 3 or 4  oz strained tomatoes
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• 3/4 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/4 teaspoon turmeric
• 1 and 1/2 tablespoon yogurt, plain whole milk
• 1 lb or so chicken, the thighs are had were large so two we close to 1 lb
• 1 and 1/2 tablespoons ground almonds
• 1 teaspoon garam masala

No surprises here, this is  similar to a braised dish and no marination or browning of the chicken is required. As always if you measure and prep the ingredients, the recipe goes easy.

I found these plastic sheets for cutting at the local Job lot, inexpensive and easy to clean plus the diced ingredients can be funnelled right into the pan. Cumin seeds are on the order list, none in stock so I used ground cumin for the saute step.

So in the butter and oil sputter the cumin seeds and cinnamon. Add all the onion and cook till very golden, low medium heat, 10 to 12 minutes. Pound up the chilis and ginger and garlic in a pestle to a course paste, very fragrant ! Add it to the onion mixture. cook for additional 2 minutes.

Now add the paste just cook the following a few minutes layering the ingredients.

Now go with the tomato paste , ground cumin, turmeric, salt to preference and whisk in the yoghurt, cook till heated through.  Add the chicken.

Lid the pan and slow simmer about 30 minutes or until the chicken pieces are done. Finish with the final addition of the ground nuts and garam masala. Flat breads or rice is a good side.

Tomato is the dominate flavor with a spicy finish not too hot. The curry is rather thick and towards the end of the recipe before the chicken was added, I added additional water. Its may be due to the fact or store bought yogurt is thick with no liquid.

I would probably go with more ginger and garlic, but with these many individual flavors additions, it also depends on the quality and freshness of the spices and herbs utilized that could affect the ratio and your preferences.

swedish cardamon rusk ,norwegian tea cakes

 

I like cookies, but love the flavor of crisp rusk and tea cakes, similar to twice baked dried cookie like biscotti. Not as sweet as the chocolate chip cookie is, but superior is the texture and flavor of the crispy cakes  as far as I’m concerned.

Two recipes here that were baked more than once during the Holiday season !

Diane makes this recipe…..

courtesy of Taste Of Home cookbook

 

 

fresh ground from the mortar and pestile , cardamon.

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My recipe, I like the ginger and cinnamon addition

from recipe reminiscing

Norwegian Christmas tea cakes

• 4 eggs
• 125 grams sugar 4.5oz
• 25 butter 1 oz
• 450 grams sifted flour 16oz
• 1.5 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon cardamon
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ginger, ground
• 50 grams almounds finelt chopped 2 oz
• 2 tablespoon nib sugar

……perhaps a bit over baked but the crisp edges are OK to me!

another rendition of the tea cake recipe, more presentable, rolled with the sugar and almonds.

Noodle with shrimp

A simple dish maybe complicated by the fact that I made my own noodle. But a quick and easy meal none the less.

Boil the required amount of noodle, here I used an semolina and egg recipe.

The frozen shrimps were defrosted in water, a bit of chopped lettuce, mushroom and broccoli prepped. the sauce was a throw together compilation of minced garlic, ginger hoi sin , soy , and fish sauce, water, oil, shrimp sauce, sugar and rice vinegar in amounts to balance out the flavor and viscosity to your preference. A spot of habernao paste for heat.

Start by panning the noodle with a bit of oil over high heat, add the veggies, stir fry several minutes. now add the sauce to coat and cook and stir, adding a bit  shrimp water to keep things liquid without burning. Add  the shrimp and continue cooking, adding small amounts of water if necessary, keep things moving. Flame off let sit a couple of minutes and plate.

I leave the shells and tails on the shrimp for texture of the crunch.