A New Farmers' Market: Almost "Raw" Banana Cream Pie

You might think I'd be getting farmers' market-ed out by this point. How can I keep up my frenetic pace of purchasing fresh produce? Well, it's not like I buy a week's worth of groceries everywhere I go. I buy one or two items, and only what I need for specific recipes I have planned (plus a few whimsical purchases (yes, I call half a dozen corn a "purchase of whimsy"...). My last expedition was to the Fete Éco-Bio Paysanne out at Tohu, the home of Cirque du Soleil. I was expecting more a of a farmers' market setup with tons of fresh produce, and there was some of that, but mostly it was companies offering samples of products, everything from energy bars to soy and rice milk, to yogurt, cheese, ionic foot baths, reflexology, skin care, make-up and two raw restaurants' booths. There was a lot of variety, but I found a conversation I had with a "raw" woman the most interesting.

She started off by explaining the concept of "raw" in a very much "holier-than-thou" kind of way, discussing how bad everything else was for your body, and eating raw is the best thing in the world for absolutely everyone. She got into talking dogmatically about soaking nuts, at which point I interrupted her practiced rant to tell her about the raw banana cream pie I had just made. I told her, self-congratulatorily, that I'd soaked and dehydrated the nuts, but before researching the recipe I hadn't known that this should be done. Her response was something along the lines of, "Sorry to burst your bubble, but almost as important as soaking your nuts is the length of time for which you soak them," and certainly I hadn't soaked them properly, even though she didn't ask me for specifics. I went home and found out later (since she didn't know off-hand...) that almonds need 8-12 hours, but cashews only need 2-3. Now I wondered if soaking for too long was an issue, because I certainly hadn't under-soaked them, but this woman had berated me for my nut ineptitude. Apparently it's not really an issue for most nuts, but cashews are already processed twice so they really don't need much soaking to get them soft. Also, if they soak too long, or dry too slowly, they get a "disagreeable" taste. The soaking is supposed to remove the enzyme-inhibitors that make it harder to digest the nuts, but cashews you don't have so much to worry about because of the processing. Walnuts, brazil nuts, macademia nuts, etc. soak longer. 

Anyway, the point is that I got away from that booth fairly quickly and found my way to the Crudessence booth, my favourite raw-food restaurant in Montreal. They had samples of their "cheese"-cake that was FAR superior to both my raw orange chocolate cheesecake and this banana cream pie, which were both very good, mind you.I think it's mostly because they use a LOT of agave nectar so it's incredibly sweet.

I'll get on with it now. I got this recipe from the same raw site as my last orange chocolate cheesecake, Rawmazing, and I decided to just do one big pie instead of mini, what they call "individual tart servings", but which are much too big for that. This is a perfect dessert when you want to be full after a meal without eating a whole bunch of sugar and things that aren't "good for you". This is NOT low in fat or sugar, but it's all the healthy kinds - nothing refined, nothing saturated.

Crust:

1 1/2 cups walnuts, soaked and dehydrated

1 cup brazil nuts, soaked and dehydrated

5 fresh dates (soaked until soft. After doing some research it seems that medjool dates are the dates of choice for raw recipes. They're much bigger than the pitted dates you'll find at bulk places. I actually used fresh Iranian dates, which are smaller in size, but much juicier. They also don't have that intensely sweet cough-syrupy taste to them. Good medjools don't either, but I was eating my way through the box of fresh dates anyway AND you don't have to soak fresh ones. Les Douceurs du Marché as well as the bulk place in the Atwater market carry them, but I've seen them in P/A supermarkets and La Vieille Europe on St-Laurent. Also, who knows how long you're supposed to soak the dates for! At least there are presumably no enzyme-inhibitors in those.

The original recipe calls for 2 tablespoons of coconut butter in the crust as well, but I just skipped it since the orange cheesecake recipe had the same kind of crust but didn't call for it and I'm slightly intolerant.

So you need to soak the walnuts and brazil nuts for at least 8 hours (overnight is fine) in at least twice as much water (preferably at room temperature covered in a breathable material like a clean kitchen cloth). You can also put them in the fridge, which I think doesn't work as quickly, but is safer for contamination. When you're fermenting anything (and that's basically what this is doing to the nuts) I don't trust "room temperature". In the morning drain and rinse the nuts, place them on a baking sheet (or several) and put them in your oven on the lowest heat with the door open for 12-24 hours. My brazil nuts and walnuts dehydrated well this way, but I had the cashews in a better-insulated dish, so they didn't dry out completely. This was fine, though, since I was using them right away and they were just supposed to be soaked and not dehydrated for the banana cream pie filling below. NOTE! I soaked extra cashews and the ones that didn't dehydrate completely after the soaking got moldy in my cupboard! Freezing them with a little water left in them is fine, I believe, but here's where "room temperature" comes back to haunt you. Throwing out formerly-delicious cashews is sad, but very necessary.

Pulse walnuts and brazil nuts in food processor until coarsely chopped. Add the dates dd to food processor with coconut butter (or not). Process until well blended. You might need to press down to get everything to process well, so be careful. Press into a large pie shell, reserving about 1/4 cup of the filling for garnish. I ended up with a bit too much filling, so you can either snack on it or make an extra little tart. The topping also works well on top of yogurt (very not-raw, I know, though ironically I only eat "raw" (unpasteurized and un-thermised) cheeses and probiotic (similar) yogurts anyway. The crust should be 1/4″ thick all around, but who can actually tell? Just make it as thick or thin as you want. It'll add some savoury-ness and crunch to the pie since the filling is creamy and sweet. I'll just say "crust to taste" and leave it at that.

Filling:

2 cups cashews (soaked 3-4 hours, not dehydrated, but dehydrate any extras you're not using for this recipe)

1 cup young coconut flesh (doesn't that just sound creepy? For a type of eating that doesn't eat animal life this sounds awfully meat-a-tarian. I skipped this because coconut and I don't get along, and just used an extra banana and an extra 1/4-1/2 cup of cashews. It makes the filling less creamy and rich (probably the difference between my cake and the amazing one at Crudessence) but my stomach will be happier. 

1/4 cup coconut water (from fresh coconut). Since I didn't use the coconut I just used water here.

1/4 cup coconut butter (I used 3 tablespoons of earth balance. The flavour is strong and creamy. If you're not vegan or lactose-intolerant, I very much promote using amazing cultured butter here. There's also Becel vegan, which in my opinion tastes better than earth balance (even better if you live in the US and can find the soy-free version of earth balance) but I hate supporting Unilever, the becel company. 

1 teaspoon lemon juice

1/4 cup raw honey (the recipe calls for agave, but I don't like it. Honey has a higher glycemic index, but it also has more flavour, and my unpasteurized "raw" version is delicious.

1 vanilla bean...or 1/2 tsp vanilla extract. Yeah, vanilla beans are expensive...but so is my organic, THICK vanilla extract. I really need to make my own extract. It's just vanilla pods and alcohol.

2 Bananas, sliced (I used 3 because I replaced the coconut flesh)

Your blender or food processor gets a workout. You need to clean it out (or not if you don't mind an imperfect texture in your filling) after making the crust. I processed the cashews, 1 banana and the water first. Then I added the lemon juice, honey, earth balance and one more banana. It was really hard to process this since it's very thick, so be very careful if you press down into the blender when it's turned on. If you make a lot of these desserts, invest in a good food processor or vitamix. When it's all mixed, add the last sliced banana (the first two just need to be roughly chopped so they blend, but this one should be a little more carefully sliced) and just stir. Don't blend it in. Pour the filling into the nut crust, sprinkle the top with the remaining crust, and refrigerate for 30 minutes. The pie will thicken as it cools, and the top will turn a darker shade of purple since the banana oxidizes, which is beautiful. 

The online recipe says you can drizzle with "raw" chocolate, but I didn't like the recipe since I didn't have any cacao butter and I didn't want to use anymore earth balance to replace coconut butter.

I would have been more happy with just finding some really good quality dark chocolate, melting it, and drizzling it over top. You could also melt it with a little sweetener (agave or honey) to make a bittersweet chocolate with a high percentage of cacao into a semisweet chocolate without the refined or cane sugar generally used, or add a little almond milk to turn it into milk chocolate...so many options.

Oh, and since this cake only lasts a few days in the fridge, freeze it after 2. It's even better when you eat it frozen since the banana becomes silken and smooth.

The Peppermaster: Blueberry Miso Vinaigrette

I sampled every single maple- and dairy-free vinegar and sauce at the Peppermaster tent in the Plateau Farmers' Market. That's about 20 different condiments. Afterward, everything burned, and I hadn't liked any of the hot sauces at all, "peppermaster" though he self-proclaimedly was. Instead I bought a blueberry vinegar that was incredibly pungent on its own. It had made me wrinkle my nose at it, but that's what a vinegar should be. You don't buy a vinegar because it's smooth, after all.

So how can a peppermaster get away with selling a blueberry vinegar? He calls it blueberry vinegar with black pepper. You don't really taste the black pepper, and it's about the same (or worse, because the black pepper wouldn't be as freshly grated) than having a pure blueberry vinegar and grating fresh black pepper into it (since the pepper is a little muted by the vinegar), but it's really hard to find a really good blueberry vinegar. It's even less common to be able to sample one before buying.

This vinaigrette dilutes the vinegar with yogurt and sweetens it with honey. Feel free to use agave nectar or sugar instead, but I actually have a blueberry honey so that worked nicely.

Blueberry Miso Vinaigrette

Ingredients:
2 tbsp miso
1 tbsp blueberry vinegar (or apple cider, or rice wine vinegar, or other vinegar)
3 tbsp plain yogurt
1 tsp honey
2 cloves garlic, minced (or 1/4 tsp garlic powder)
2 tsp olive oil

Because of the yogurt in the recipe you don't need a lot of oil. I just give it a splash. Actually I'm pretty loose with most of the ingredients. As long as you taste it after to see what it needs more of, you're golden.

First mix the miso and vinegar to get the clumps out of the miso, then add everything except the oil. You can shake it or stir it or whisk it to combine. Then add the oil in a stream as you stir to emulsify it. The vinaigrette only lasts a few days in the fridge, so use it up fast or make a half recipe. It works really well as a dip for vegetables (especially carrots and tomatoes, or any sweet vegetable), and it worked especially well for raw, shaved beets with a tiny bit of orange juice on salad.

Refried Beans: "Southwest Slow-Cooking"

How can you slow-cook refried beans?

I have a cookbook I never use. Everyone has those, I know, but for me to own a cookbook and never use it there has to be something wrong with it. This one looks so beautiful. I had such high-hopes for it when I got it, but nothing that I've ever made from it has turned out well. The first time it was the fault of un-ripe tomatillos. The second time there was really no excuse. Dismayed, I put the book aside, until now.

I returned to it with skepticism. All I needed to do was make refried beans. Yes you can buy a can of refried beans for $1.00 when they're on sale at the grocery store, but all that sodium...sometimes there's even lard involved (the more traditional kinds) or tons of some other kind of disgusting hydrogenated fat or shortening. No, I would make my own. They're even cheaper this way, and should be more delicious since they'll be much fresher. The last time I made them was in my first Toronto apartment. I remember making a breakfast of refried beans, eggs and salsa. It doubled as lunch. Not brunch. I ate two meals of it that day. The beans were under-salted and under-other-spiced, but I still loved the texture. Beans are hard to digest, so I didn't (and don't) do this regularly, but sometimes I get a craving. They're also about the only thing I like about brunches at restaurants (huevos rancheros), though I often am completely disappointed (I don't ask what's in the beans, they're definitely never home-made, and I can't have the sour cream anyway...but the guacamole can make the meal).

Anyway, I cooked up a bunch of black beans (pinto beans are just as traditional, if not more so), skimmed off the scum, and used turmeric to reduce the toxic enzymes that cause digestive woes. I heard they're toxic, but please prove me wrong if you know better? I mean, not horribly toxic, but enough to upset your digestion a little (I think they work the same way as in nuts, and that's why "raw" foodists pre-soak and dehydrate their nuts, as well as sprout them). Then I went to this book and found their refried bean recipe. It was too easy...

I didn't cook the beans in the slow-cooker like they said just because you can't skim off the scum that way. So I jumped to the next step of adding the spices. Normally refried beans having a "re-frying" step, as the name implies, but these say to just add the spices to the cooking beans. Nope. I will re-fry, thanks. So I turned to the internet and found another recipe that calls for cooking in pork fat and adding garlic and onion. Then I just did it my way...

I took about a chunk of my frozen lamb fat and melted it in a big skillet (lamb instead of pork, for flavour), then added 5 minced cloves of garlic. I let it cook for a good 8 minutes to caramelize it before stirring in the beans (about 2 cups), a tbsp of fresh oregano, 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon, and 3/4 tsp of salt. The salt is what will really make it flavourful, so I don't skimp here.

This all got stirred around to coat and then I tried mashing the mixture in another bowl to no avail. I gave up and tossed it in the blender in batches, pushing it down dangerously with a spatula to make it purée. The trick is to add a little water or broth to get it to the right consistency. Dry refried beans suck, but this shouldn't be soupy either. Broth is more flavourful than water, but since this was going into another recipe, not just being eaten on its own, I wanted to be careful with the sodium content, even though I'd added a fair bit of salt already.

Well, it worked. My best refried beans ever. It was all about the fleur de sel I used. A little went a long way. The fresh beans were so much better than canned, too. It may look disgusting, but any Southwestern food-loving person would be hard-pressed to say these weren't good refried beans. They made my Tamale Pie with Ground lamb, lamb sausage and chili-cornmeal crust to-die-for.

An Experience In Life: Tamale Pie With Chili-Cornmeal Crust

We all have those days, the ones when what should go perfectly smoothly turns into a disaster. 

I co-host a podcast on Midnight Poutine. It's kind of the highlight of my week. Probably better even than co-hosting the Friday Morning Show After on CKUT Radio (I have some audio excerpts at my other blog, Interculturiosity, that you can listen to if you don't want to pick through the archives in the link). Basically the day of the podcast plotted against me. I used to live in an apartment on the same  street where the podcast gets recorded. It was my street! How do you get lost going to your old street? I even noticed that the houses on the walk up the street to the supposed house were different. "Oh, that person must have completely re-landscaped their front lawn!....I don't recognize that bench," but I thought nothing of the changes because it's Outremont and people have money enough for such renovations. I even figured I'd walked passed the street that's supposed to intersect my old street halfway up it...twice! So obviously I'm an idiot and it's completely my fault. How can I blame the universe for such stupidity? Basically, I wasted 2 hours of my life trying to get to this recording session of the podcast, plus all the work I'd done finding music, writing up commentary and listening to the other songs to have an informed opinion of them for the show. Wasted. An experience in life...like my blueberries.

When I first moved to Montreal I went to Jean-Talon market. If you're interested in food and cooking, and you live in Montreal, that's what you do - go to Jean-Talon. The chaos, the havoc, the smells, the tastes (not as friendly as St. Lawrence in sampling, mind you)...it's a city block of joy for me. Basically, if someone took me to Jean-Talon, not knowing me very well, because it was THEIR favourite place, I would probably marry them on the spot. That or live common law, happily, and refuse a commitment ring in favour of a pound of oysters...but that's just me.

Anyway, one of the first times I went to the market I took my granny cart - one of those old lady carts that I'd seen in Chinatown in Toronto before I moved. Ever so practical, those old Chinese Grandmothers. Mine was even uncomfortably low to the ground, intended for short women, making it difficult for me (though not a tall woman) to drag behind me. I walked the 30 minutes through Outremont, the Mile End, Little Italy, and the beginnings of the cultural mélange that happens on rue Jean-Talon all the way to the market. Being the end of the summer, I loaded up on fresh produce until my cart was full. For me, the beginning of September means buying as many fruit as you can to freeze for the lean months to come. So that's what I did. I topped off my laden cart with $20 worth of Quebec blueberries - the wild ones that actually taste like something, not the big, fat New Jersey ones that are all brawn and no brain - flesh and no flavour. 

I was not going to walk my full cart back to Outremont. My back was crying out for a better method, so I took the metro. The subway in Montreal is notoriously awful, but seemingly only to people who have experienced other, more successful and efficient, subway systems. Torontonians, to put it in perspective, even the Toronto system is better than Montreal. At Jean-Talon metro there is no elevator. Some of the multiple entrances don't even have escalators, which means you're lugging your heavy stuff wherever you go. God forbid you try to leave the province with a suitcase. Impossible unless you're a Russian weight-lifter. If you're a small woman, you can carry a shoulder bag and no more, without assistance. 

Fortunately the Montreal population is extremely kind. I made it down my first escalator and first flight of stairs without incident. Then I got to the big flight - approximately 60 stairs. I had a method, you see. I take the lower part of the cart in my left hand and jam the bar handle into my hip. Holding the stair railing with my right I shuffle step down the stairs. It worked fine, but when a nice gentleman offers to help, you don't say no. I lifted from the horizontal bar handle and he lifted from the back...and there went my blueberries.

They tumbled all the way down the 60-odd steps. The man was apologetic, but much like the podcast incident, it was really all my fault. It was at this moment that a woman who had seen the whole thing turned to me with a sympathetic expression and said,

"C'est une expérience de la vie."

...I was so angry with myself. All those blueberries, expensive blueberries, lost by one thoughtless action, but yes, it was an experience in life. I was in a new city, riding the metro, experiencing Montreal life with a grocery cart full of local produce. To top it off I had interacted with two kind Francophone individuals (the man who was really my "expérience" accomplice and a woman who was my kindhearted judge. 

When I got home that day all I could do was to try my best to enjoy the food that had not spilled, and when I got home from the podcast recording that was not a podcast recording the other day all I could do was enjoy my leftovers of Tamale Pie with Chili-Cornmeal Crust. I got there. See? It wasn't the end of the world, just one more experience in life.

Ingredients:

1 tsp oil

1 lb ground lamb from Agneau Des Venne farm (plateau and mile end farmers' markets)

3 small lamb sausages from Agneau Des Venne farm (plateau and mile end farmers' markets. That leaves 4 leftover to make jambalaya...coming soon)

2 onions, diced

1/2 head bok choy, sliced and diced

1 cup green beans, diced

1 jalapeno pepper, optional. I skipped it but only because I didn't have one

1 tbsp chili powder (this makes up for the loss of heat, but not of flavour from the jalapeno)

1 tbsp cumin seeds

1 tbsp oregano (fresh is best, but dried is fine)

1 tsp salt (make sure your sausages, stock and refried beans aren't overwhelmingly salty or you'll have to reduce this)

1/2 tsp black pepper

1 cup ketchup (I only had about 1/2 cup, and it made a big difference! I use a no-sugar-added variety, but Heinz will give you a much higher sugar content. Be careful!)

2 cups (1 can) refried beans

1 cup lamb stock (or beef or chicken. Not vegetable. That's just weird since it's a heavy meat dish. Even chicken is best only used in dire straits)

1 1/2 cup corn kernels

Topping:

1 cup cornmeal

1/2 cup flour (all purpose is best for consistency, but I ran out of my gluten-free flour blend, so I used whole wheat. It was just fine, but just not as smooth as it would have been)

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp black pepper

1 cup milk (or almond breeze, or soy milk)

1/4 cup melted butter (or margarine or Earth Balance)

1 egg, beaten with a fork or whisked

1 cup Monterey Jack cheese (optional. I did not use this...but I think it would have helped. With the cornmeal the topping tasted just a little bitter and I think the cheese would have covered that up, especially since there's no sugar. It also makes it a whole lot richer, so if you're watching fat content, be aware!

1 can chopped mild green chilies (Okay, Montreal, now I know that the city has some great Mexican grocery stores, but there seem to be none in my area. I went to the Atwater market and nowhere could I find a proper can of chopped green chilies. My fallback place, Les Douceurs du Marché, providers of all things gourmet and obscure, especially in packaged, imported and canned goods, almost failed me. They had one option for canned chilies and they were no where near mild. I would not call jalapenos "mild". I ended up using an entire jar of sliced (not chopped, but that's pedantic) in this topping. Needless to say it more than made up for the lack of jalapeno in the base. Heat would have been coming out my ears had I added the optional fresh jalapeno. I really, really liked the chili-studded topping though. It turned into a real Mexican treat and not just a meat pie from just about anywhere. 

I never thought I'd make this recipe in the first place, but I went to the Plateau farmers' market one day and the guy at the Agneau des Venne stand (lamb and sheep from the Venne farm in the upper Laurentians in Quebec) looked at me in the way that means "You're not a customer." It's that look where there are free samples and they definitely think you're just there for the samples. Well, I was a little offended, even though the man was very nice, but he deals with this all farmers' market long. So I started asking questions and sampling (and I rarely eat any kind of sausage but I tried 4 lamb ones) and decided it was high time I made some jambalaya. The picture above is obviously not jambalaya, but I remembered also looking through my slow-cooker cookbook and seeing a recipe for a tamale pie that I was pretty sure involved some ground beef as well. So I bought some ground lamb and some merguez sausages (not exactly traditional for a tamale, but very, very delicious with a hot sweetness). Sure proved that man wrong, didn't I...

The recipe is actually a whole lot like a shepherd's pie but with some added chili heat in the crust itself. I changed some of the ingredients (I didn't have carrots, but I had green beans. I didn't have celery but I had the white part of bok choy) but it all worked out really well.

Tamales aren't just Mexican, so I should really shouldn't be saying this is specifically a Mexican-style dish. Apparently they go back to the Mayans and the Incas, so about 5000BC. Also, the whole point of tamales is they get stuffed in plantain leaves or corn husks and there is definitely no stuffing here. That's kind of like saying a shepherd's pie is a sandwich, or even a sandwich pie. That's just weird. 

Anyway, I love doughs, so sticking a spicy, moist dough on top of a stew of spicy, richly-flavoured meat is what I think of as a great idea, whatever the name. 

I changed the recipe process a little too:

Sauté the ground lamb and sausages (removed from casings) in the heated oil until there's no more pink. 

Remove the meat with a slotted spoon to a pig plate layered with some paper towel to absorb the fat. Don't press down with the paper towel (you want some juices to remain) but you don't want the excess. Yes you're draining flavour too, but there's more than enough flavour leftover. Don't worry. This makes the difference between 20 grams of fat in the meal and 30...approximately. Place the meat in the slow-cooker (or a deep-dish, large baking dish or casserole, for a non-slow-cooker version)

Drain the fat from the skillet (not into the sink...into a glass jar that you can keep in the fridge until full and then throw out. Or you could re-use the fat soon since it is so delicious, but it won't last forever unless you freeze it and then I'm not even sure because of the spices and things in the sausages. Help?

You don't need to wipe the pan, but just by pouring off the fat, there'll be enough left to sauté the onions, green beans, and bok choy over medium heat. After 5 minutes add the jalapeno (optional) and the base spices. 

 Cook 1 minute then add the ketchup and refried beans. 

Mix and then add the lamb stock (or beef or chicken) and the corn. Bring to a boil and then transfer it to the slow-cooker. Stir into the meat.

Now a little bit of baking, but don't worry baking novices, this is a very safe intro. 

In a big bowl combine the dry ingredients (cornmeal, flour, baking powder, salt and pepper) with a whisk or a big wooden spoon or a spatula...or just a big spoon of whatever sort. The whisk is best because it adds air to the topping, making it lighter and fluffier in the end. Make a well in the middle. In a small bowl melt the butter to have it ready to go. In another small bowl beat the egg with a whisk or a fork. Only now pour the butter, whisked egg and milk into the well in the flours. If the butter is too hot and you add it to the egg or milk in that state, it may cook the egg or curdle the milk a little. Not the end of the world, but not the lightest, fluffiest cornmeal dough ever. 

Whisk all the ingredients together (or stir) and then add the cheese (optional) and chopped chilies. 

This time I just stir because the dough gets stuck in the whisk when it's too thick. It's good to use it in the last step when the dough is being combined, even if it does get stuck, but now it's not such a big deal. 

Spread the dough evenly on top of the base in the slow-cooker and cook on high for 3-4 hours or low for 6-8. I chose low for 5 and then high for 1 and that also worked out fine. Normally I wouldn't be so bold, but the meat is basically already cooked and you're just supposed to cook until the top is risen and crusty. My slow-cooker cooks a bit unevenly so one side of the crust was fairly brown and definitely ready and the other was a tiny bit soft, so I ate from the crisp side and will make sure the rest gets thoroughly microwaved or baked in reheating leftovers another day.

You can also mix the meat and vegetables in a large casserole dish, pour the topping evenly over the filling, and bake at about 375 Fahrenheit for about 45 minutes, is my guess. That is very much just a guess, so make sure you watch it and take it out when the topping has risen and is crusty and slightly browned. The meat should be bubbling underneath.

Mmm...pie. Spicy pie. It's not a tamale, but it's has a whole lot more meat, and a whole lot more comfort, than a skimpy cornmeal-wrapped chicken or beef thing.

Vietnamese Hmong Spicy Eggplant

I found a new, wonderful website. It's not new, but it's new to me: VietWorldKitchen. I was reading about pho', but then I saw this recipe, and it basically made my day. Maybe it was a slow day, but, oh, how I love eggplant. I didn't have any scallions or cilantro, and I only had dried chilies, so I kind of massacred the recipe, but it worked out well in the end, and I got to use my mortar and pestle, which is basically my goal in life.

I boiled my eggplants whole in some water, turning them to cook them through (they were the long, thin kind, so slightly less bitter than the big purple ones. They were at a very good price at my farmers' markets). Then I let them cool while I chopped some fresh mint (it's what I had. I didn't know if it would be a good replacement for cilantro, but I figured I'd give it a go. Oh, I also threw 8 red chilies into the eggplant-boiling liquid to resuscitate them. The recipe calls for fresh, but no way was I going to go out and buy eight chilies when they probably wouldn't even end up being the right kind anyway. So I sliced my resuscitated (and slightly boiled...) chilies open, got rid of the hot seeds (the seeds don't add flavour, just burning heat) and threw the flesh into the mortar and pestle with the salt and mint.  I just skipped the scallion, but I could have added some diced shallot if I'd wanted.

Now the fun part - the mashing. You crush it all up with the pestle. There is good mortar and pestle technique and then there's bad.  Mine is lacking. I watched an episode of Poh's Kitchen (you can find the podcast on iTunes for free) where she talks about it, but it's a small screen on my iPod and I'm maybe a slow learner. Anyway, everything got mashed in the end, and that's the point, really. You're now supposed to mash in the peeled eggplant, so I mashed a little at a time, and then just mashed in another bigger bowl (carefully!). The above picture is what came out. Oh it was so good. My chilies weren't Thai chilies so the heat was different, but my goodness it was hot. Now I love heat. I LOVE heat, but this was really, really hot. I ate a lot of it anyway, because the flavour was still SO good (my tongue could still find flavour through the slightly mind-numbing heat), but if you are scared of heat, I'd say use 2-3 chilies only. You're missing all the fun, and colour, but you won't have a fit on the flour. Not that I did.

Oh, the mint worked out nicely in the end.

Finally! Home-Made Noodles in Home-Made Broth

There's something so comforting about noodle soup. I've ranted more than enough about the wonders of pho', the layer of fat, making the rich broth, browning or not browning bones, the hours of simmering, the straining, and the intensifying of flavour. I've also talked enough about my pasta maker and my new-found love of gluten-free flour blends.

So I'd had some fresh fusilli pasta sitting in my freezer along with a big container of home-made lamb broth for a few weeks. These were the practical things for this meal. The inspiration came from "Beyond the Great Wall", whose recipes of the ethnic minorities of China include a whole lot of soups with noodles, made from big hunks of meat simmered down. A meal isn't a meal without soup, and broth isn't broth without a whole lot of long simmering. The above-pictured soup is very much not Chinese (fusilli?), but it is very much traditionally-made. I took the best broth I'd ever made (a day's-worth of browning, simmering and reducing), brought it to a boil, and tossed in my frozen fusilli for a grand total of 5 minutes. It was so simple, so rich, so thick, and so meaty that it was filling but at the same time so comforting and slurpable that you really had to go slowly so you didn't end up wishing you'd stopped about 10 minutes ago.

The point is, you should go make your own meat broth and either make or buy some very good pasta. Combine. Enjoy.

Chickpea Chili

When you go to as many farmers' markets as I do, you end up with a whole lot of vegetables, and even I get stumped on what to do with them sometimes. It's not that I don't know how to cook them, but they don't always have to be side-dishes, so finding recipes that combine them in interesting and tasty ways can be more of a challenge. A good challenge. A potentially delicious challenge, and therein lies the fun.

These vegetables are so beautiful that you buy them on a whim, promising yourself you'll use them. But the first beautiful item is replaced by the next beautiful item and another promise. So when I realized I had a few items in my fridge I'd temporarily forgotten about, I chastised myself and went looking for a recipe that would use them to their full potential.

I've lately been boiling all the mountains of green beans I'd purchased in delicious leftover pho' beef or chicken broths for a side dish, but after cooking up a whole bunch of chickpeas, freezing them, and realizing that they were taking up way too much room in my freezer, something had to be done that would combine my beans, zucchini and frozen chickpeas. So I turned to Judith Finlayson's aptly-named slow-cooker cookbook, "Delicious and Dependable," and it sure was. You don't have to make this recipe in a slow-cooker. A big pot on the stove is absolutely fine. Just let it cook for about 30 minutes at a simmer instead of turning on the slow-cooker. Then when you add the corn and zucchini at the end, just 5 minutes of more cooking is fine.

I settled on "Two Bean Chili with Zucchini". I chose it because I had all the ingredients, from the perfect number of dried ancho chilies to the can of tomatoes (San Marzanos) in my cupboard, to the frozen corn kernels also taking up way too much space in my freezer when fresh corn is coming into season, and of course I had all the dried spices. It's rare that a lack of spices is my recipe downfall.

I've had ancho chilies since I made the Santa Fe Sweet Potato Soup recipe from the same book, and it was phenomenal. Since then just the thought of ancho chilies has made me happy, and I think they can do no wrong. I am, unfortunately, not above such wrong-doing. When you use dried chilies you have to soak them in boiling water for about 30 minutes. While you do this you need to make sure the chilies are completely covered by the water. If an end sticks out it'll stay hard and you'll end up chewing your chili pepper. This is very undesirable. So you put a plate on top of the bowl of chilies in boiling water to press the chilies down into the liquid. The problem is you can't really see into the bowl to make sure the chilies are completely covered, and it's not until 30 minutes later when you require the use of your soaked chilies that you realize they're not properly soaked. So be careful. That's about all I can say. Make sure your plate that's keeping the chilies submerged is big enough, but not too big, and the bowl is flat and fairly heavy. You can also try turning the your chilies over in the water after 15 minutes to make sure each side is submerged for at least half the time.

Next, you need to sweat your zucchinis. In Montreal you'd think this would happen naturally...but no, they need to be salted first. Chop your zucchinis into 1/2" lengths (I had no idea what this meant. Cut them lengthwise into 1/2" length and width, making the height the whole length of the zucchini? Length is a very ambiguous term...cut your zucchinis however you please...I like quartering the zucchini length wise, and then chopping along the length of the lengths about 1/2" apart. This is probably about what Judith means, but she doesn't specify to quarter the zucchini first. I didn't think big coins of zucchini would work well in this recipe. I generally think diced vegetables are best for chili but you can get away with less chopping work by blaming Judith's less than clear instructions). So chop them as you see fit, sprinkle them with salt (preferably coarse salt), and place them in a colander. The liquid will drain out of them. After 20 or 30 minutes (whenever it's convenient for you) rinse the salt from the zucchini and pat them dry with paper towel. Rinsing them won't make them soggy again that quickly, so don't worry. You need the liquid out of them to sauté them properly. If you don't sweat them they'll get mushy in the skillet. This way they'll brown up nicely and be more meaty. 

While the zucchini are sweating, chop a bunch of onions and garlic. It really doesn't matter how many. A lot is great. Now you need to wait for your zucchinis to sweat. If you're sweating, not the zucchini, get some ice for yourself and a glass of water. You should not be a puddle by the end of this recipe, and slow-cookers heat up your entire home.

Heat a little oil over medium heat and then add the zucchini. Stir until they brown on all sides. Then move them to a bowl and let them cool before refrigerating. Now sauté the onions and garlic in the leftover oil in the skillet. Let them soften for a good 5 minutes at least. Crunchy onions are no good in this recipe. Then in went the spices: oregano, salt, pepper, and cumin. They got cooked for 1 minute to coat the onions and garlic, and then in went the tomatoes and green beans. I just rinsed the green beans in advance and cut the really long ones, because the recipe said they could be up to 2" long! Like the zucchini I thought this was too big, so you could cut them into 1" lengths, or whatever length you prefer. It's kind of funny, though, struggling to eat long green beans with a spoon.

Now the recipe messed up. Editors, what happened?? I went to all that trouble of soaking the ancho chilies and there is no indication in the recipe of when to add them! Here I am looking around my kitchen thinking I've added everything, when I spot the bowl of chilies. When do they go in? They definitely go in before the slow-cooker gets turned on in the next step. So I shook my head, drained the chilies, removed the seeds, diced them, and added them to the pot (quickly! because I didn't want too much liquid to evaporate).

The tomatoes were coarsely chopped already, so the whole mixture just needed a little stir and it came quickly to a boil. Then into the slow-cooker it went and I mixed in 2 cups of chickpeas. The recipe says romano or pinto, but with beans I'm generally not too fussy. Chickpeas do taste a whole lot different, but they weren't going to taste bad.

Then all that was left was to turn the mixture to high for 4 hours in the slow-cooker. 4 hours of eager anticipation. 20 minutes before dinner I added the 1 1/2 cups of corn kernels and the refrigerated zucchini, and turned the slow cooker to high. The amazing thing about slow-cookers is that even though the colour fades on green vegetables, they stay fairly crisp. The zucchini was still firm (not too much, but just right) and the green beans were a tiny bit crunchy. No mushy, over-cooked vegetables. Hurray! I actually picked through my bowl in search of the zucchini, they were so good. It may also have had to do with the fact they were a little saltier than the other vegetables and beans...maybe. Still, this is a great way to get the best flavour out of your vegetables if you're going to cook them. You could also replace the vegetables with other things, like carrots, celery, or peas. With chili, the world is your oyster. Maybe don't add oysters...though worchestershire sauce is a good call because of the tamarind. I have no idea why oysters made me think of worchestershire sauce...hmm...I wonder what oyster sauce would be like...