Thai Lime and Chili Peanut Cookies
I wanted to use up some of the 10 jars of nut butters languishing in the fridge, so I decided to make peanut butter hazelnut cookies, which would use up the peanut butter, the hazelnut butter, and the peanut hazelnut butter. Heidi Swanson raves about the Cook’s Illustrated recipe for peanut butter cookies, so I used that as my base, subbing out some of the flour for wheat germ, because I wanted to use it up. The recipe calls for roasted, salted peanuts, which I didn’t have. It was either use unroasted, unsalted peanuts, or… the Trader Joe’s Thai Lime and Chili peanuts I’d been happily snacking on since my friend Robbie introduced them to me a few years ago. I decided to give the Thai cookies a chance. I pulled out all the large pieces of chilies, but other than that, used the peanuts as they were, bits of kaffir lime leaves, red chilies, and all.
INGREDIENTS
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 cup wheat germ
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon table salt
1/2 pound butter (2 sticks), unsalted
1 cup packed dark brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup peanut hazelnut butter, or 1/2 cup hazelnut butter, 1/2 cup crunchy all-natural peanut butter, lightly salted
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup Thai Lime and Chili roasted peanuts , ground in food processor to resemble bread crumbs
1. Adjust oven rack to low center position; heat oven to 350 degrees. Sift flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in medium bowl.
2. In bowl of electric mixer or by hand, beat butter until creamy. Add sugars; beat until fluffy, about 3 minutes with electric mixer, stopping to scrape down bowl as necessary. Beat in peanut butter until fully incorporated, then eggs, one at a time, then vanilla. Gently stir dry ingredients into peanut butter mixture. Add ground peanuts; stir gently until just incorporated.
3. Working with 2 tablespoons dough at a time (see illustration 1 below), roll into large balls, placing them 2 inches apart on a parchment-covered cookie sheet. Following illustration 2, press each dough ball with back of dinner fork dipped in cold water to make crisscross design. Bake until cookies are puffed and slightly brown along edges, but not top, 10 to 12 minutes (they will not look fully baked). Cool cookies on cookie sheet until set, about 4 minutes, then transfer to wire rack to cool completely. Cookies will keep, refrigerated in an airtight container, up to 7 days.
My Notes:
The cookie dough texture was excellent, and it was delicious. I could detect a hint of lime, but more prominent was the persistent warm, spicy glow it left in the back of your throat after a taste. I don’t think I would have known there were hazelnuts in the recipe, but the nut flavor was more complex than a typical peanut butter cookie, and the peanut flavor less in-your-face.
I made three cookie sheets of cookies. The first batch were smallish, about 2 inches in diameter. I accidentally had the oven at 375 instead of 350 and after 10 minutes they were starting to brown on top and burn on the bottom. After the cookies cooled they were a bit too dry. The second batch were also 2 inches in diameter, and I cooked them at 350, and pulled them out after 10 minutes. The texture was better, but still a tad dry. The third batch I made slightly larger, maybe 2.5 inches in diameter, and they were definitely the best, moist, buttery, crystalline and crumbly. They didn’t hold together that well though; you had to treat them tenderly or they’d easily break into five pieces. The lime flavor was generally not detectable, but every once in a while I’d get a piece of kaffir lime leaf and there’d be a limey burst of flavor. The hazelnuts were not detectable at all, and the peanut flavor was present, but sedated. This recipe is excellent. I’d definitely make it again.
Rating: B+
Cook’s Illustrated says that the white sugar yields crisp edges and chew centers, while the dark brown sugar is for flavoring. The baking powder is for leavening, but the baking soda isn’t for leavening since there’s no acid: it’s there to help the cookies brown, If your cookies are too oily you didn’t use enough flour. If they’re too dry you used too much flour, or cooked them too long.
Update summer 2008:
I tried making a vegan version of these cookies, substituting canola oil for the butter and apple sauce for the eggs. The texture came out a little hard and greasy, but the lime and chili flavors were more predominant than in cookies made with butter. I think it might be worth trying a combination of the two recipes.
Update: 12/20/2008
I made these cookies again using all peanut butter this time, but with thai limi cashew nuts instead of the peanuts (since apparently Trader Joe’s discontinued the thai lime peanuts). I ground the cashews a little too fine–almost to a sandlike consistency. I omitted the wheat germ by accident, and used artificial vanilla extract. Derek really liked the cookies. He gave them an A rating, i.e. excellent. Other people seemed to like the cookies as well. Derek’s only complaint was that the cookies could have been slightly moister. I think the recipe is fine, and I simply overcooked them. My brown sugar was pretty dried out, but I compensated for this by leaving out the wheat germ.
Millet Fruit and Nut Cake
This is an update of an older post, but I changed quite a few of the details so I thought it was worth reposting. I pulled some millet out of the freezer, and decided to give this recipe another try, with alterations based on my comments from the first version:
- 1 cup orange juice
- 3/4-1 cup dried fruit (I used currants, dried pear, dried apple, dried cranberries, and sour Persian berries)
- 3 Tbs. unsalted butter
- 3 Tbs. honey
- 1 large egg
- 1.5 cups cooked millet
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 tsp sea salt
- 1/2 tsp. baking soda
- 1/2 tsp. baking powder
- 1/4 cup toasted almonds, chopped
INSTRUCTIONS:
- Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
- Chop the dried fruit, and place in a large bowl. In a small saucepan, heat up 1 cup of the orange juice to not-quite boiling, then pour over the dried fruit. Let stand for 15 minutes.
- Meanwhile, in the same saucepan, melt the butter, then add the honey and stir to combine well. Pour into the bowl with the dried fruit and let cool. Toast the almonds, and then chop them coarsely. Grease a 9×5 inch loaf pan, or a 8×8 inch square banking pan.
- When the liquid has cooled, add the egg and mix well. Next, add the millet and and stir to break up any clumps. Sift in the flour, salt, baking powder, and soda, and mix gently. Fold in the almonds. Pour the batter into a loaf pan or square baking pan, and bake for about 35 minutes, or until a tester comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack.
My notes: the texture of this cake was nice. It was moist and heavy and millet-y and crumbly, and held together quite well. The almonds didn’t add a lot of flavor, but I added a bit of texture, although I wish I had left a few of the nuts in slightly larger pieces. The tart Persian berries and cranberries were a great addition, but I couldn’t taste the other fruit individually. I liked the orange juice instead of the original apple juice. It adds just a touch of acidity which is lovely. This cake is not too sweet. It’s almost mid-way between a cake and a quick bread like Irish Soda Bread with raisins. It’s nice toasted with a little salted butter on top, or toasted and topped with warm milk. It’s still a tad bit low on the pizzazz factor, which would be helped perhaps by the use of some baking spices: cloves or cardamom or poppy seeds or black pepper maybe?
Rating: B
Original post: December 31, 2007
Last year Derek and I had a delicious millet cake at Green Zebra in Chicago, and ever since then I wanted to try my hand at replicating it, partly because it’s something different, and partly it’s because it’s the first time Derek ever liked millet. I did some googling, and turned up very little–one recipe with nuts and fruit, and a few made from millet flour rather than the whole millet. I decided to start with a recipe for Apricot Millet Breakfast Cake from The Splendid Grain by Rebecca Wood.
- 1 cup apple juice + 1/2 cup (in case your fruit is very dry)
- 1/2 cup chopped dried apricots
- 1/4 cup currants
- 2 Tbs. dried cranberries
- 3 Tbs. unsalted butter
- 3 Tbs. honey
- 1 large egg
- 1 cup cooked millet
- 1 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour or all-purpose flour
- 1/2 tsp sea salt
- 1/2 tsp. baking soda
- 1/2 tsp. baking powder
- 1/4 cup chopped pumpkin seeds
My own version of the instructions:
- Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
- Chop the apricots, and place with the cranberries and currants in a small bowl. In a small saucepan, heat up 1 cup of the apple juice to not-quite boiling, then pour over the dried fruit. Let stand for 15 minutes.
- Meanwhile, in the same saucepan, melt the butter, then add the honey and stir to combine well. Pour into a large bowl and let cool briefly. Chop the pumpkin seeds, and grease a 9×5 inch loaf pan.
- When the fruit has been soaking for 15 minutes, pour it through a strainer, letting the juice fall into a 1-2 quart measuring cup. If there is more than 3/4 cup of juice, pour off some, and if there is less, add enough to make 3/4 cup (the amount yielded will depend on how dry your fruit was). Pour the juice into the large bowl with the butter and honey, then add the egg and mix well. Next, add the millet and fruit and stir to break up any clumps. Sift in the flour, salt, baking powder, and soda, and mix gently. Fold in the pumpkin seeds. Pour the batter into the loaf pan, and bake for about 30 minutes, or until a test comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack.
My Notes:
I misread the instructions and added 1 cup of apple juice instead of 3/4 cup, so then I was afraid my batter would be too wet so I added extra millet. The cake took 45 minutes to cook, rather than 30, probably because of my mistake. But in the end I liked it with the extra millet and juice, so I might actually do this on purpose next time!
I like the cake. It has a very similar texture to the one we had at green zebra~the millet is definitely noticeable, and adds a nice crumbliness to the cake. Like all of Rebecca Wood’s recipes, this cake tastes surprisingly simple, and is almost but not quite bland, with a little something elusive that makes it interesting, and keeps you going back for more.
I like that this cake uses real butter, but only 3 Tbs., and honey, but only 3 Tbs. I bet it would also be nice with olive oil instead of butter. The cake is sweet from the juice and fruit and honey, but not crazy sweet (although Derek did add maple syrup to his). I enjoyed the cake for dessert, and I had a slice toasted and covered in warm milk for breakfast, which was delicious.
All that said, I don’t think I would make this recipe again without substantial changes. I used white flour since I didn’t have whole wheat pastry flour, but I thought it could use a slightly more flavorful flour, either whole wheat or half white and half something else, maybe oat flour or cornmeal? The pumpkin seeds were subtle, but noticeable, and I didn’t dislike them, but next time would try another seed or nut instead, perhaps poppy or almonds. I don’t really care for dried apricots, so next time I make this I think I’d sub in some other dried fruit, maybe some dried apples to echo the apple juice flavor, or perhaps something very tart would be nice, something like barberries or unsweetened cranberries (although they’re very hard to find). I also might try adding just a pinch of a sweet spice like cloves or allspice or nutmeg perhaps, or maybe even cardamom.
Derek said the cake was “not bad, pretty good, needs to be sweeter.” He liked it warmed up with milk and honey or maple syrup over it, but wouldn’t touch it plain and room temperature.
Rating: B-
Derek: B-
Here’s the nutritional stats for 1/12 of a loaf pan:
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Serving Size: 1/12 cake
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| Amount Per Serving | |||||
| Calories | 176 | ||||
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| Total Fat | 4.8g | ||||
| Saturated Fat | 2.2g | ||||
| Cholesterol | 25mg | ||||
| Sodium | 178mg | ||||
| Carbohydrate | 31.4g | ||||
| Dietary Fiber | 1.5g | ||||
| Sugars | 13.9g | ||||
| Protein | 3.7g | ||||
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It’s 24% fat, 68% carbs, and 8% protein. As a dessert that seems a bit low fat. For a breakfast, you’d clearly want to add more protein. But it’s only 175 calories so there’s room for a higher protein food. With a serving of lowfat yogurt or milk or regular soymilk the percents would be around 25%, 60%, 15%, which is more appropriate for breakfast.
Homemade Granola Bars
I’m trying to use up all the grains, nuts and seeds, and dried fruit in my pantry before I leave Montreal. Faced with a huge jar of rolled oats, I discovered this recipe on 101cookbooks for Big Sur Power Bars. I’ve always wanted to try to make granola bars / power bars of some sort, so despite the fact that I didn’t have all the ingredients, I decided to give it a try. Below is the recipe I made from what I found in my kitchen, based on Heidi Swanson’s recipe, and my memories of making hundreds of batches of granola back in my days as fast food chef at the House of Commons co-op.
Edit: The original attempt and comments are at the end of the post. This is my current recipe:
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 1 Tbs. ground espresso beans
- 1/2 teaspoon fine-grain sea salt (use less if your soy nuts are salted)
- 1 cup pecan halves, broken into large pieces
- 1 cup almonds (with peels is best)
- 2/3 cup (unsweetened) shredded coconut
- 1 1/2 cups rolled oats
- 1 cup wheat bran
- 1/2 Tbs. oil or butter to grease the pan
- 1/2 cup soy nuts (salted is fine)
- 1/4 cup puffed amaranth
- 1/4 cup honey
- 1/4 cup maple syrup
- 1.5 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Measure the sugar and salt and espresso beans into a 1- to 2-quart saucepan.
On a large, rimmed baking sheet place the pecans, almonds, coconut, oats, and wheat bran. Distribute evenly over the baking sheet so that there are no holes or sparsely occupied areas. Bake the sheet for about 15 minutes, or until the coconut is deeply golden. Watch carefully, checking every five minutes and tossing if necessary to keep the edges from burning. When everything is toasted, pour the ingredients into a large bowl.
While the nuts and grains are toasting, add 1/2 Tbs. canola oil to the 1/4 cup measuring cup, and tip it around until the measuring cup is well greased. Use this oil to grease a 9- by 9-inch baking pan. Then use the oiled measuring cup to measure out the honey and maple syrup. Turn the heat to medium, stirring constantly as it comes to a boil and thickens just a bit, about 4 minutes. Let cool briefly, add the vanilla, then pour the syrup over the oat mixture and mix with a wooden spoon until it is evenly incorporated.
Spread into the prepared pan and use a fork to press down and flatten any high spots. Cool to room temperature. Turn sheet out onto a cutting board, and cut the sheet into quarters. Cut each quarter into 3 to 6 bars, depending on how big you want them.
Makes 12 – 24 bars.
My notes:
Although I haven’t followed it exactly, I’m guessing that the original Big Sur Power Bars recipe is a pretty solid recipe. However, one thing that bothers me about this recipe, and Swanson’s recipes in general, is that she doesn’t really explain much about how the recipe was created, and what purpose different ingredients serve. So I’m going to do my best to give a more thorough exegesis below. My granola chemistry knowledge is rather limited, however. If anyone can point me to a Cook’s Illustrated style granola recipe, I’d really appreciate it.
The base:
Oats are the heart of granola, and need no explanation. Even though it’s not called for in the original recipe, I like to toast the oats a bit, to enhance their flavor and crispness. I never have any rice crispies around, so I sub in some combination of extra oats, wheat bran, wheat germ, puffed amaranth, and soy nuts. I always used to add wheat bran and grated coconut to granola, as the little string bits create a great flaky texture. The coconut adds something subtle to the base flavor as well, and the wheat bran adds fiber and protein. I add the soy nuts because they add a little extra protein to balance out all the sugars and fats, and a whiff of dark roasted flavor. They can certainly be substituted if you don’t have any on hand. The fluffy little puffed amaranth balls add some visual contrast, and volume, but any puffed cereal or even more oats or bran could be used instead. Sometimes I want to try adding more than a 1/4 cup of amaranth and cutting back on the oats a bit.
The nuts and fats:
In my co-op days I experimented with every possible nut and seed in granola. After many, many gallons of granola I determined that pecan granola was always the first to get eaten, followed by almond. Walnuts and cashew granola were less popular, and peanut granola was always the last to go. So the fact that Swanson calls for pecans and almonds in her recipe is a good sign. In the bars, neither the pecans nor almonds dominate the flavor, but they create a nutty, satisfying flavor with a lot of depth. Almonds are one of the highest protein nuts, but pecans are one of the lowest. If you want a higher protein granola bar, instead of pecans try pumpkin seeds, pistachios, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, cashews, or hazelnuts.
I was surprised that this recipe doesn’t call for added fat, as most granola recipes have you add oil with the sweeteners. I suspect that the oil is added so that the granola crisps up when you bake it. Since these bars aren’t baked, I suppose the oil isn’t needed.
Sweeteners:
Swanson doesn’t say why she calls for cane sugar in addition to the liquid sweetener, but I suspect it’s because the cane sugar firms up into a harder substance than the liquid sweeteners. I don’t usually have brown rice syrup around, as I’m somewhat adverse to the slightly malty flavor it adds. So I use honey and maple syrup instead. I really liked the combo of honey and maple syrup. Even though I used a mild honey, I could definitely taste it in the bars. The maple syrup went perfectly with the toasted pecans and almonds. With 3/4 of a cup of honey and maple syrup, the bars end up very sweet. Using 1/2 cup yields a still sweet but not cloying granola bar. I’ve tried with only 3 Tbs. of each sweetener, and that works as well. The bars still hold together, and have a touch of sweetness to them, but they are more dry and crumbly (too dry for Derek in fact).
Flavorings:
I use the ground espresso beans Derek uses for his stovetop espresso maker. One Tablespoon is definitely noticeable, but not dominant. If you want a stronger coffee flavor you could try 2 Tbs. I’ve also tried adding raw cacao beans instead of coffee. They didn’t add a lot of flavor, but every once in a while I’d get a bite with a bit more alcohol aroma than I was expecting, which I attributed to the cacao beans.
I increased the amount of vanilla a tad compared to the original recipe, and added the vanilla after heating the liquid, since I thought heating the vanilla would diminish its flavor (anyone know if this is true?). The vanilla flavor is prominent in the bars. Overall, I’d say that the flavor is excellent. The toasted nuts and coconut created an earthy, satisfying, almost savory base, the honey provides sweetness and a strong floral note, and the heady aroma of vanilla bridged the sweet highs and nutty lows perfectly. The flavor actually reminds me a bit of baklava, since the honey is so dominant. It would be fun to try to make baklava bars, with walnuts as the nuts, and lots of cinnamon instead of cocoa or coffee.
Texture:
Once cooled, it’s easy to turn the whole pan out onto the counter, in a single piece. The bars fall apart a bit when cut, and sometimes crumble when eaten out of hand, but they stay together reasonably well. They’re not rock hard, nor super soft.
Rating: B+
Derek: A-
Original attempt from June 15, 2008
1 Tbs. oil or butter to grease the pan
1 cup pecan
2/3 cup (unsweetened) shredded coconut
1 cup almonds
1 1/2 cups rolled oats
1/2 cup soy nuts
1/2 cup wheat bran
1/2 cup wheat germ
1 Tbs. canola oil
1/2 cup honey
1/4 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon fine-grain sea salt
1 tablespoons chopped raw cacao beans
1.5 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
With my original attempt, I let my bars cool on the counter, but even after six hours they hadn’t crisped up. When I tried to pick up a bar they crumbled into several pieces in my hand. I’m not sure if rice syrup hardens more than maple syrup and honey, or if I did something else wrong. Maybe I should have put them in the fridge overnight. Instead I decided to put the whole pan in the oven briefly at 300 to try to crisp them all. I didn’t time it, but left them in until the top started to brown a bit. Indeed, this brief stint in the oven crisped the bars up. They were so crispy, in fact, that there was absolutely no cutting into them, or any conceivable way to get them out of the pan. Maybe putting them uncut into the oven was a bad idea. Maybe I should have cut them into bars and placed them on parchment paper on a cookie sheet. The deed was done however, and there was no way I was going to throw out a whole pan (minus one) of yummy granola bars. So I poured milk into the pan and turned my granola bars back into granola. It took a while for the bars to soften up enough to eat, but once they did, it was some tasty granola. It would be an interesting dessert actually. Cook individual granola bars in ramekins, til they’re rock hard. Then fill the ramekins with warm milk, and chat up your guests while they wait for their dessert to slowly become edible.
Update August 10, 2008: I made these granola bars a second time, using walnuts instead of pecans. I didn’t have wheat bran so I used 2/3 cup wheat germ, and added an extra 1/3 cup of oats. I didn’t have soy nuts either. I only used 1/4 cup honey this time, and used 1 ounce (about 2.5 Tbs.) of Sharffenberger cacao nibs instead of the beans). I didn’t put them in the oven this time, but greased the pan well. They came out of the pan easily and stayed together when I cut them with a sharp knife.
They were tasty. Still sweet but not too sweet. I’d actually be tempted to cut down the sweetener a bit more, but I’m afraid there wouldn’t be enough goo to hold the bars together. I couldn’t really taste the cacoa nibs, so next time I might leave them out and try the espresso powder that Heidi suggests. Also, to counteract all the sugar, I’d like to add something with lots of antioxidants. I suppose I could try goji berries or dried blueberries or cranberries, or maybe some dried spices like nutmeg or cinnamon, or even tea? Any other suggestions?
Derek’s comment: “These are the best granola bars I’ve ever had.”
I did calculate the nutritional stats for this version. The ingredients are all pretty healthy (except for all the sugar), but the calories seem a bit high, unless you’re taking them hiking like Heidi. When I’m just using them as a mid-afternoon snack I’d prefer that they were under 200 calories. I think I could do this by nixing the nibs, using less oil to grease the pan, and by using all wheat bran instead of wheat germ. If you use this version, and make 16 bars, each bar contains:
| Calories | 240 | ||||
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| Total Fat | 13.2g | ||||
| Saturated Fat | 3.15g | ||||
| Cholesterol | 0mg | ||||
| Sodium | 72mg | ||||
| Carbohydrate | 24.9g | ||||
| Dietary Fiber | 3.3g | ||||
| Sugars | 14.1g | ||||
| Protein | 6.15g | ||||
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Chewy falafel burgers
I had mixed feelings about the chickpea burgers I tried a while back, but I really liked the idea of using gluten flour in a veggie or bean burger to add a chewy texture. This is my attempt to create a burger recipe that’s a little less bland boca and a little more vibrant veggie. It’s basically a combination of Isa’s chickpea cutlet recipe and the cook’s illustrated falafel recipe.
- 4 cloves garlic
- 1.75 cups cooked chickpeas, from one can
- 2 tablespoons soy sauce
- 1/2 cup packed parsley
- 1/2 cup packed cilantro
- 1/2 tsp. ground cumin
- 1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 2/3 cup vital wheat gluten
- 3/4 cup matzoh meal
- 3 scallions, chopped coarsely
- 1/2 cup vegetable broth or water
- olive oil for pan frying
- In the bowl of a food processor, briefly process the garlic. Add the chickpeas, soy sauce, parsley, salt cilantro, cumin, cinnamon, and olive oil, and pulse a few times, until the mixture is thick and chunky, but there are no whole chickpeas remaining. The mixture should be substantially thicker and lumpier than hummus.
- Move the chickpea mixture to a mixing bowl, and add the matzoh meal, wheat gluten, scallions, and liquid. Mix with your hands until all the meal and gluten are incorporated. Knead the mixture for about 3 minutes, until strings of gluten have formed.
- Preheat a large heavy-bottomed nonstick or cast iron skillet over medium heat. Meanwhile, divide the dough into 8 equal pieces, and form a thin patty out of each piece, the thinner the better.
- Add a moderately thin layer of olive oil to the bottom of the pan. Place the cutlets in the pan and cook on each side for 6 to 7 minutes. Add more oil, if needed, when you flip the cutlets. They’re ready when lightly browned and firm to the touch.
My Notes:
Unfortunately, my experiment was not a success, with regards to either texture or flavor. When I shaped the patties the texture felt right–not as springy as last time, but they definitely held together well. They browned up nicely in my cast iron skillet, but the inside was soft and doughy, almost unchanged from the raw dough. I think making the patties thinner would help with this. I also would bump the gluten up to 3/4 cup. After the patties cooled off the inner texture firmed up, and they seemed more cooked and cohesive. They weren’t bad dipped in ketchup.
Despite my efforts, these patties were very bland! The only seasoning I really could taste was the cinnamon, which Cook’s Illustrated calls for but I don’t recall having a presence in normal falafel. The number one problem: I clearly did not add enough salt. I think the recipe needs another 1/2 tsp. or more of salt. I couldn’t really taste the cumin, cilantro, or parsley, although I could definitely see the bright green herbs. Maybe more salt would have brought out these flavors, but certainly the patties tasted nothing like falafel. I can try again, doubling all the seasonings, but I’m not sure that will turn these from bland burgers to falafel taste-alikes. Another problem was that the patties were missing any hint of hot, which I somehow didn’t notice when putting together the recipe. I went back and checked the Cook’s Illustrated falafel recipe and it calls for black pepper, but I think I’d prefer something with even more zing, maybe jalepeno or cayenne.
Rating: B-
Almond Torte with Sugared Fruit
Katrina picked a an Almond Torte with Sugared Apricots, from the blog Orangette, for our next cooking club recipe. I wasn’t too keen on the apricot idea, as they’re not my favorite fruit, and I’m trying to clean out my kitchen in preparation for my move. So instead of using apricots I decided to use frozen cranberries. Since cranberries and orange are one of my favorite combinations (I’ve been making a cranberry orange smoothie for breakfast every day this week), I also added 1 Tbs. of frozen orange juice concentrate to the batter, and drizzled another Tbs. of concentrate over the top of the cake along with the cranberries, then sprinkled with 1 Tbs. sugar.
Even though the recipe says the batter will be quite thick, I was still surprised by it: it was almost as thick as cookie dough. Besides two eggs there’s no liquid in the recipe. Orangette says to cook the torte for 40 to 50 minutes, and when I checked the cake after 40 minutes it was very brown on top, almost burnt in places. I let it cool as instructed, but when I tried to pull away the sides of the springform pan it wouldn’t budge. It turns out the edges of the cake were very brown, and stuck quite well to the pan. The bottom was brown and crispy as well. I ended up just cutting slices directly out of the pan, without removing the sides. I’m not sure if it was burnt because the orange juice concentrate slipped down the sides and burnt, or my nonstick springform pan was too dark, my oven too hot, or I messed up my timer. In any case, I actually kind of liked the crispy well-browned edges and bottoms of the cake. The inside of the cake, however, was quite boring. The texture was light and fluffy, and it tasted of butter and sugar, but I couldn’t taste the almonds at all, and the orange was barely detectable. Maybe I should have added orange zest and almond extract to the batter as well as the concentrate. Even though this recipe calls for very little flour, the final product seems much more like a cake than a torte. It’s a short, small cake to be sure, but light and fluffy, whereas I think of a torte as more dense. The cranberries were the only highlight. They had become melt-in-your-mouth soft, and released all sorts of sweetness and syrupy juice, just like Orangette said would happen if I had used apricots. I definitely want to make a cranberry orange cake again, but I’ll look for a different recipe. Rating: B-
Popped Amaranth
I was trying to find a new recipe for the rest of the amaranth in my pantry–a pretty difficult task it turns out; amaranth is just not popular. I didn’t find a recipe, but I did find out that you can pop amaranth at home. Here’s the tale.
Jane Brody, in her Good Food Book, says to heat a heavy skillet or a wok until it is very hot, and then add 1 Tbs. of amaranth seeds. Stir the seeds continually to prevent them from burning, and remove from the pan immediately when most of the grains have popped. (They don’t all pop, but the unpopped seeds can also be eaten.) Repeat this procedure until you have popped as much grain as you desire; they expand to three or four fives their original volume. She warns not to try popping more than 1 Tbs. of seeds at a time or they will just burn.
This worked pretty well, even with 2 Tbs. of seeds. With 4 Tbs. of seeds it seemed like more burnt than popped. I quite liked the popped amaranth with soymilk.
A different set of instructions from Serendipitious Chef Blog
Heat a small skillet with a tight fitting lid until very hot. Place 2 tbsp of amaranth seeds on the skillet, quickly cover with lid, and shake skillet over heat until most of the seeds have popped, 30 seconds or so. Transfer popped seeds to a bowl. Repeat procedure with more amaranth seeds until you have about 2 cups of popped amaranth seeds. Reserve popped seeds.
These instructions didn’t work very well for me–most of the seeds burned.
I often pop corn in the microwave. I just get a small paper bag, toss in a quarter cup or so of corn kernels out of the bulk bin at my local health food store, fold the top of the bag over a few times, and then microwave on high for 1 3/4 to 2 1/2 minutes. The exact amount of time will depend on the power of your microwave, the size of your bag, and the amount of corn you’re popping, but I find that a good rule of thumb is once the pops fall below 1 per second, it’s time to take the popcorn out. All the kernels won’t have popped, but those ones will fall to the bottom and you can always put them in again after you’ve eaten all the popped corn.
I’ve wondered for a few years now if you can pop amaranth in the microwave, and I finally got around to testing it out this week. I placed about 2 Tbs. of amaranth in a small paper back, and tried microwaving it. Unfortunately, before the pop rate decreased much at all I smelled burning. I pulled the bag out and took a look. One hunk of amaranth in one corner was perfectly popped, another corner was a black smoking charred mess, and a third corner was completely unpopped, but not burnt. Perhaps trying to pop amaranth in the microwave, at least without some special device, is not a good idea. I’d love to hear if anyone has done this successfully though.
Original post written December 26th, 2006
Basic mung dal
This is a simpler version of the mung and toovar dal from the cookbook From Curries to Kabobs: Recipes from the Indian Spice Trail by Madhur Jaffrey.
Serves 4
- 1 cups hulled and split mung dal
- 3.5 – 4 cups water
- 1/4 tsp. Indian chili pepper (or sub in cayenne pepper if you don’t have any)
- 1/4 tsp. ground turmeric
- 3/4 Tbs. peeled and finely grated fresh ginger
- 1/2 Tbs. garlic, crushed to a pulp (about 3 cloves)
- 1 medium shallot, minced
- 1 1/8 tsp. kosher salt (scant tsp. fine sea salt)
- 2 Tbs. oil
- 1 tsp. whole brown mustard seeds
- 1/4 tsp. chili flakes
- Wash the dal, then add to a 2-quart lidded pot, along with 3.5 cups of water. If you’re not going to eat the dal immediately, use 4 cups of water as it thickens as it sits. Bring to a boil. Do not let them boil over. Skim off the scum that rises to the surface with a slotted spoon. Stir.
- Add the Indian chili powder, turmeric, ginger, garlic, shallot, and salt. Stir. Reduce the heat to low, partially cover with the lid, and simmer gently for 50 to 60 minutes, or until the dal is tender.
- Pour the oil into a small frying pan and set over medium-high heat. When the oil is hot, put in the mustard seeds and red chilies. As soon as the mustard seeds begin to pop, a matter of seconds, empty the contents of the frying pan, oil and spices, into the pan containing the dal. Cover immediately with the lid to trap the aromas. Stir gently before serving.
My notes
I wanted to make Madhur Jaffrey’s mung and toovar dal but was out of toovar dal, as well as other necessary ingredients. This is my simplified, don’t-go-to-the-store version. If you want to veer back to the original, use 1/2 toovar dal, add in asoefetida, fresh green chilies, cilantro, and fresh curry leaves, and use whole dried red chilies instead of chili flakes, and ghee instead of oil.
I fried my spices in avocado oil, because that was what I had. I’m not sure whether it added a specific flavor, but the final dish was delicious. It was noticeably spicy, but I couldn’t stop eating it. I would eat this with my dosa recipe, or naan, or Ethiopian injera, cauliflower curry, or any other vegetable curry dish. Add some rice and/or raita and you’d have a healthy, tasty, vegetarian Indian feast.
This is a large recipe. It makes around 3.5 – 4 cups I think. I bet it would freeze well, but I haven’t tried it.
If you’ve never eaten mung dal, there’s a great picture of the different types of lentils at www.foodsubs.com. The image of the mung dal is quite accurate.
Update 1/11/2009: I made this recipe again, except I used about 1/3 mung dal and 2/3 toovar dal, and I only used 1 Tbs. of oil. I didn’t like it nearly as much as I did the first time. It was okay, but didn’t quite taste like something you’d get at an Indian restaurant. Eaten with yogurt it was fine, but was a little too stinky on its own. For this version:
Rating: B-
Derek: B-
