Easy Italian Pt. 2: Basil + Vinegar + Tomatoes = Love

As promised, the dish that taught me to cook:

Chez Piggy Pasta

This dish came originally from Chez Piggy (hence the name), an upscale restaurant in Kingston, Ontario. The pasta itself is very low key though, and has evolved over time to be considerably different from the original recipe. It was the first thing I ever cooked and it remains one of my favorite go-to dishes of all time.



Ingredients:

1/4 c Balsamic vinegar
1/4 c Red wine vinegar
1/3 c Extra virgin olive oil
4 cloves of garlic (finely chopped)
1.5 pints of grape tomatoes
a large handful of torn basil (1-2 cups)
1 lb penne rigate
fresh bocconcini
Parmesan cheese

Directions:

1. Rinse the tomatoes and cut any especially large ones in half (try to avoid cutting them *all* in half though). Place the tomatoes in a deep frying pan, large enough so that the tomatoes are more or less in a single layer.

2. Add the balsamic vinegar, red wine vinegar, olive oil and garlic to the pan, and heat over medium-low heat. You can play around with the vinegar to olive oil ratio depending on how punchy you like your pasta. I like mine pretty intense, so I tend to go heavy on the vinegar, and cut back a bit on the oil. The key is to make sure that there will be enough liquid to coat the pasta.



3. While the tomatoes and garlic are cooking on a low simmer, put a large pot of water up to boil. Once it's boiling add some salt and the penne. The penne will be ready when it is aldente, and the tomatoes will be ready when the skins are just beginning to split (be sure not to overcook them or they will liquefy and leave you with a tomato sauce, rather than cooked tomatoes). Usually, the pasta and the tomatoes finish around the same time, but if the tomatoes finish first, you can just turn the heat to low, and cover them until the pasta is finished.

4. Combine the drained pasta with the tomatoey-vinegary sauce, and mix in the basil. Stir to combine.

5. Serve and garnish with grated Parmesan fresh ground pepper and sliced bocconcini (you can add the bocconcini prior to serving, but it will start to melt and get very very stringy, making serving a messy business).

Don't be fooled by the simplicity of this recipe--it packs an incredible flavour punch for so few ingredients. It also needs a good strong wine. I tend to have it with Shiraz (Trader Joe's Purple Moon), a Sangiovese or a Montepulciano d'Abruzzo (Farnese makes a great bottle of both).

On the other hand, if you're looking for a heartier meal, with perhaps a little less vinegar, there's always this option:

Ratatouille Pasta

Every time I make this dish it evokes some deep childhood taste-memory of eggplant and zucchini cooked in tomato sauce. I have not yet figured out where this memory came from--maybe homemade vegetable lasagna?

Anyways, this one if from the Food and Wine herbs and spices bible:




Ingredients:

3 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, cut into thin slices
1 green or red bell pepper, cut into 1/2-inch dice (or both)
1 small eggplant (about 1/2 pound), cut into 1/2-inch dice
1 zucchini (about 1/2 pound), cut into 1/2-inch dice
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon fresh-ground black pepper
1 2/3 cups canned crushed tomatoes in thick puree (one 15-ounce can)
2 teaspoons wine vinegar
3/4 pound linguine
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons thin-sliced basil leaves
I like to add a pinch of red pepper flakes too, just to "kick it up a notch"

Directions

1. In a large frying pan, heat the oil over moderate heat. Add the onion and bell pepper and cook, stirring occasionally, until the onion is translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the eggplant, zucchini, garlic, salt, and black pepper (and red pepper flakes). Reduce the heat to moderately low and cook, covered, for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

2. Add the tomatoes and simmer, covered, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are tender, about 10 minutes. Stir in the vinegar.

3. In a large pot of boiling, salted water, cook the linguine until just done, about 12 minutes. Reserve about 1/2 cup of the pasta-cooking water. Drain the pasta and toss with the vegetables, the 1/2 cup basil, and, if the pasta seems too dry, some of the reserved pasta-cooking water. Serve topped with the 2 tablespoons basil.

This one doesn't need as punchy a wine. F&W recommends a chardonnay, but being a red-wine person myself, I find something light like a tempranillo goes nicely.

So there you have it. Two simple yet tasty things you can do with tomatoes and basil (and vinegar). Enjoy!

Easy Italian Pt. 1: Simple Seasoning

We north Americans, as a culture, approach Italian cuisine all wrong. We eat it in the ritziest restaurants we can find, decorated ornately with white table cloths and multiple forks per place-setting and we match the food we order to the decor: fettucini Alfredo with an insanely rich sauce, ravioli each filled individually with the latest fad vegetable, etc. etc. And if that weren't enough, we add a romantic connotation to the whole experience, just to add a little more pressure. Either that, or we take it to the other extreme: spaghetti and meatballs--simple, meaty, bland.

For a long time, I was ambivalent about Italian food, it was either too rich or too meaty. The dish that turned me around (which I shall blog about next time I make it), was neither of these extremes, instead it was bright, flavorful and satisfying, without being heavy, or too rich--and it was *simple*. And therein lies the key to *real* Italian cooking: fresh ingredients and simple recipes. Almost always, with Italian food, less is more, and you will find that the dishes that taste the best are also the easiest to make. BTW, this is not news, Jamie, Nigel, and David Rocco have been trying to educate the world on this one for a while.

Today, because it's late March and not a whole lot is *fresh* at the moment, we'll talk about the simple seasonings part. The more Italian you cook, the more trend you begin to see in seasonings. For example, there's often a salty component (anchovies, pancetta, proscuitto etc.), vinegary flavors are common too (balsamic, red wine vinegar, red wine, etc.), and there's almost always an herb and a good cheese. Once you begin to see the patterns, you can start creating them yourself (which is the best part of Italian cooking: there are no "chemistry" rules to follow).

Drunken Spaghetti

This one came from David Rocco's website. There's also an excellent video on the web of him making it for friends.



1 lb. spaghetti (454 g)
3 to 4 anchovy fillets, chopped (I used ~1 tsp anchovy paste)
2 cups of red wine (474ml) (I used an Italian valpolicella)
1/2 cup freshly grated pecorino cheese (125 ml)
Small bunch of Italian parsley, finely chopped
4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil (60ml)
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
3 dried chili peppers, crushed (optional)
Salt to season

Method:

1.Bring salted water to boil in a large pot. Add spaghetti and cook for 7 to 8 minutes, pasta should still be a little firm in the middle (just before pasta is al dente).
2.In a saucepan, heat extra virgin olive oil. Add garlic, anchovy fillets and chili peppers and cook for about 2 to 3 minutes.
3.Add spaghetti to the pan and toss well.
4.Pour in red wine and cook until it has reduced and spaghetti has finished cooking.
5.Add freshly chopped parsley and grated pecorino cheese to pasta and toss well.
6.Remove from heat and serve immediately.

Spinach, Tarragon, and Feta Fritatta

A fritatta is Italy's version of the quiche. To me, it's the perfect combo of quiche and omlette (eggier than the quiche, not as eggy as an omlette). It is also a flexible dish, meaning once you have the process down pat, it will take just about any veggies/cooked meats that happen to be idling in your fridge. This recipe comes from food and wine mag.



Ingredients

1. 2 tablespoons butter
2. 2 scallions including green tops, cut into thin slices
3. 10 ounces spinach, stems removed, leaves washed and cut into thin strips
4. 1 1/2 teaspoons dried tarragon, or 1 1/2 tablespoons chopped fresh tarragon
5. 1/4 teaspoon salt
6. 1/4 teaspoon fresh-ground black pepper
7. 8 large eggs
8. 1 tablespoon olive oil
9. 3 ounces feta, crumbled (about 1/3 cup)

Directions

1. In a 12-inch ovenproof nonstick frying pan, melt 1 tablespoon of the butter over moderate heat. Add the scallions and cook, stirring, for 1 minute. Add the spinach, dried tarragon, if using, and 1/8 teaspoon each of the salt and pepper. Cook, stirring frequently, until the liquid evaporates, about 3 minutes. Remove the spinach mixture and let cool. Wipe out the pan.
2. In a large bowl, beat the eggs with the remaining 1/8 teaspoon each salt and pepper. Stir in the spinach mixture and fresh tarragon, if using.
3. Heat the broiler. In the same frying pan, melt the remaining 1 tablespoon butter with the oil over moderate heat. Pour in the egg mixture and reduce the heat to low. Sprinkle the feta over the top and cook until the bottom is golden brown and the top is almost set, 6 to 7 minutes. Broil the frittata 6 inches from the heat, if possible, until the eggs are set, 2 to 3 minutes.
4. Lift up the edge of the frittata with a spatula and slide the frittata onto a plate (I usually put in in a pie pan, for easy storage purposes). Cut into wedges and serve.

Dead-Easy White Artichoke Pizza

This one was all me =) I was craving artichoke pizza, and so decided to experiment a little, with great success.



Ingredients:

1. A jar of preserved artichokes (buy the nice ones in a jar, rather than a can, because you can use the oil they're preserved in to coat the pizza dought)
2. 1/2 a red onion, sliced
3. 3/4 cup fontina cheese grated
4. 1/2 cup gruyere cheese grated
5. a few sprigs fresh thyme
6. thinly sliced eggplant (you want to slice it pretty thinly so that it will cook through when you cook the pizza)
7. One bag-o-premade-pizza dough (I usually get mine at Trader Joe's)
8. flour

Method:

1. Line a baking sheet with parchement paper, and preheat the oven to 450 C.
2. Let the pizza dough come to room temp. (it will be easier to shape it this way) then, on a well floured cutting board/counter, stretch/roll the dough to the desired size. Mine never ends up perfectly round or square, it doesn't really matter, as long as its of a fairly even thickness all around.
3. Brush the dough with the oil from the artichokes (or, if you'd rather, olive oil).
4. decorate the pizza with the artichokes, onion slices, and eggplant. This step is open to interpretation: you can be as liberal as you'd like with any of the toppings, or add some of your own, but note that an overdressed pizza will require a fork and knife to eat.
5. Sprinkle the cheese evenly over the pizza. I chose fontina for texture (it melts to a nice gooey stringy pizza cheese) and gruyere for flavour. Again, experimentation is encouraged =)
6. Sprinke the pizza with the thyme. I added a couple full sprigs (stem and all) for garnish, and then the leaves (no stems) from about 3 sprigs, for further flavour.
7. Cook for about 20 minutes, or until the bottom of the pizza is golden.
8. Let cool for 5-10 min, cut, and serve.

If you have a pizza stone hanging about, feel free to use it, but I have found that a hot oven and well-rolled out dough works fine.

Vancouver: The Foodie Way

I have not been cooking much lately. Mostly because the past two weekends (weekends are my primary cooking time) have been spent north of the boarder, bird-watching on Vancouver island and watching the paralympics in Vancouver. So, in the spirit of my all-time favorite food-blog An Endless Banquet, I thought I would give the foodie's summary of our adventures in Vancouver. Sadly, the camera decided to eat half of my pics from the trip, so this post will be rather sparsely illustrated

1. Banh Mi: Everytime I try to explain Banh Mi to someone who's never had it, the reaction is the same: "a sandwich is a sandwich is a sandwich". But banh mi is so much more than a sandwich. Its a delicious marriage of French and Vietnamese cuisine, a baguette dressed with homemade pâté, vietnamese cold cut meats, cilantro, pickled vegetables, and should you desire it (and you should--it makes all the difference!) hot peppers--and a magical mystery sauce. These seemingly simple flavors combine to make a sandwich so light, and so tasty, that once you've had a good one, you will never look at Subway the same again. In fact, some people take banh mi so seriously that they conduct formal experiments
   to find the best one. We made use of the research and visited the top ranked banh mi bakery: Tung Hing on our way into town, to replenish us after our long drive, and also on the way out of town, to stock up for lunch purposes.



2. Oysters! Oysters have been on my list of "things-I-should-really-be-taking-advantage-of-on-the-west-coast" for a while now. So when we happened upon a popular, reasonably priced oyster house in Yaletown, it seemed like the perfect opportunity. Rodney's was buzzing when we came in, and packed by the time we left. We enjoyed an excellent plate of pan-fried oysters, and a small sampling of raw oysters (Kusshi and Kumamoto), all were very tasty. One of these days though, I'm going to get to an oyster-house with an oyster-afficionado, who can teach me all the secrets.



3. Quebec-ness: Yes, I know, you're supposed to eat sushi and dim sum and so forth in Vancouver, not cheese, bols du café au lait, and chocolatines. But you have to realize that we're talking about two deprived ex-pat Montrealers here. Anyways, after oysters, we headed to our favorite Vancouver pub, The Alibi Room, which, in addition to an excellent selection of beers on tap, and a lovely IPA on cask (I cannot pass up a cask ale--I blame London), had a Quebec cheese plate that evening--yum!
   
   The next day, the Quebecness continued when we found ourselves out in Kitsilano, for a lovely breakfast at Coco et Olive before making our way to the Canada v. Sweden Sledge-hockey match (Canada won, 10-1). But the highlight of the morning for me was not the game, but the coffee... Coco et Olive was positively Parisian, complete with paninis, buttery pastries, "bols" of câfé au lait with strong espresso and steamed milk, and toasted baguettes with cheese. Of course, such places are a dime-a-dozen in both Montreal and Paris, but we were pretty desperate for a fix, after suffering 6 months of Starbucks-saturation.
   



4. On to Italy: It had been raining off and on all weekend, and by Saturday night, between the rain and the hour and a half spent in the cold arena watching Curling, I was ready for something warm. We decided to take a cue from the experts at Food and Wine Magazine, and hit Nook, a small understated pizza joint on Robson street. Nook is not the place to go if you want the choice of 70 different pizza toppings. Instead, they have a selection of about 10 different pizza options, each with 3 or 4 well-paired toppings. Unable to make a decision, we ended up with 2 pizzas: the special, with pancetta, roasted onions and hot peppers (which was quite spicy but in a good, warm-you-from-the-inside-out sort of way) and a classic vegetarian pizza with olives, tomatoes, roast garlic and ricotta. We also enjoyed Nook's Italian wine selection. So much so that as we were leaving, and the restaurant was closing (we dined fashionably late), we asked the staff for a recommendation for a good place to go for a glass of red. They pointed us to Uva, a cosy little hide-out where we finished the evening.
   
   



5. At last, Asian: We had big plans to go for dim sum before leaving town Sunday morning. We even had a place in mind, that had been recommended to us by two completely separate sources. (When this happens in a city with as many good restaurants as Vancouver has, its rarely a coincidence). However, when we showed up there, hungry after our morning jog and eager to give it a try, we found it closed for renovations =( Instead, we wandered aimlessly along Broadway, in search of a reasonable substitute, only to find Sha Lin Noodles. The reason Sha Lin caught my interest was that it was filling up, before noon on Sunday, which, seeing as it didn't do dim sum, was pretty impressive. So we ventured in. We were still in dim sum mode, so we ordered a disproportionate number of dumplings for 2 people (we are still working our way through them). But the clear winner here was the noodles: 4 different types of homemade, hand-cut (or dragged, or shaved or rolled) noodles, available with a variety of meats, veggies and sauces. Since we had just ordered a metric ton of pork dumplings, we stuck with vegetable, shaved noodles (shaved meaning you shave chunks of noodle dough off a block with something resembling a vegetable peeler). The noodles were gingery, garlicy and delicious, but the best part of the meal was watching as the cooks made the noodles.
   

Restuarants

• Tung Hing: 1196 Kingsway, Vancouver, BC V5V 3C8, Canada‎ - (604) 875-3394‎
  
• Rodney's: 405-1228 Hamilton Street, Vancouver, BC V6B 6L2, Canada‎ - (604) 609-0080‎
  
• Alibi room: 157 Alexander Street, Vancouver, BC V6A 1B8, Canada‎ - (604) 623-3383‎
  
• Coco et olive: 3476 West Broadway, Vancouver, BC V6R 2B3, Canada‎ (604) 736-7080‎
  
• Nook: 781 Denman Street, Vancouver, BC V6G 2L6, Canada - (604) 568-4554‎
  
• Uva: 900 Seymour Street Vancouver, BC V6B 3L9, Canada - (604) 632-9560‎
  
• Sha Lin noodle house: 548 West Broadway, Vancouver, BC V5Z 1E9, Canada‎ - (604) 873-1816‎o
  

Victory over Whole Foods (sort of)

There are few premade items in the grocery store that still tempt me. I'm pretty much turned off by the entire frozen section these days, and am getting increasingly less enthused about the baked goods. And ever since hearing horror stories about chickens injected with salt-water solution, marinaded meat seems suspect too. Indeed, these days, the mantra has been: buy the raw ingredients, assemble it yourself.

That said, there is one aisle that still tempts me: the salad bar. Not so much the make-your-own-green salad part, but the variety of pasta, rice, couscous, noodle, vegetable etc. salads that they offer. However, after falling prey to this trick a few times, I have come to 2 conclusions: 1. Pasta salads are not to be trusted (they always look and smell more interesting than they taste) and 2. Everything else, tasty as it may be, is a damned ripoff, and should only be purchased under duress (i.e. when your lunch options consist of this or Subway). You only realize the rip-off part when you go to buy quinoa, and realize that you could eat lunch for a week for the same price it costs you to buy one serving of quinoa salad.

Of all the salads the overpriced salad bar has to offer, I have become most addicted to the Asian noodle salad. And so, after studying the ingredient list which the folks at Ballard Town and Country market kindly display on their salad bar, I decided to try to reconstruct it. The bits and pieces seemed easy enough: noodles, carrots, cashews, garlic, scallions, and soy sauce and sesame oil for the dressing, the challenge would be assembling them. This is what I came up with:

Whole Foods Inspired Asian Noodle Salad

(Based loosely on this recipe.)
For the salad:
- 1.5 lb cooked noodles (I bought a 2lb package of precooked yakisoba noodles and used it all. 2lbs was a little much, and probably buying dried noodles and cooking them yourself is a wiser choice, as they don't stick together quite so much)

- 3-4 carrots chopped into 1/4 inch pieces
- 2 cloves garlic finely minced
- 1/2 - 1c cashews (unsalted)
- 3 scallions, chopped
- 1 can chopped baby corn, drained (or other asian veggie of choice: bean sprouts, snow peas etc.)
- 2 tbsp vegetable oil

For the dressing:
I used about 1/4 c each of hoisin, soy sauce and sesame oil. But you can tweak the proportions as you see fit (and add more of anything after the fact, if it doesn't taste quite right)

-Hoisin sauce
-Soy sauce
-Toasted Sesame seed Oil
-lime or lemon juice (about 1 lime/lemon's worth)
-A little bit of siriachi sauce or crushed red pepper flakes
(rice vinegar would probably be a welcome addition, but I didn't have any)

Assembly:

0. Cook noodles according to directions and drain.

1. In a large skillet, over med-high heat, heat vegetable oil. When oil is hot, add garlic and stir for about 1 min.

2. Add chopped carrots to skillet and saute until they start to soften, then add coarsely chopped cashews, and saute until golden, and slightly soft (Carrots should be completely soft by this time)

3. Add baby corn, sautee for 1 min.

4. Pour noodles into a large bowl, along with stir-fried veggies and scallions, and toss to combine

5. Assemble dressing ingredients in a small bowl, and pour over noodle mixture. Toss to combine.

6. Taste, and adjust the dressing as needed.

7. For best results, assemble the night before, and let salad sit in fridge (covered) overnight. Serve cold.

And just in case you're the sort who believes that a salad does not a meal make, here's something else you can do the night before, to make the meal a bit more substantial:

Asian-style Grilled Pork Tenderloin

Ingredients:

-2 small (about 2/3 lb each) pork tenderloins

Marinade:
-2 small or 1 large clove of garlic, finely chopped
-1" ginger, peeled and grated (or minced)
-1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
-2 scallions, chopped
-2-3 tbsp hoisin sauce
-1 tbsp brown sugar
-2-3 tbsp chinese cooking wine (or some other suitable liquor--whiskey works)
-2-3 tbsp soy sauce

1. Assemble all marinade ingredients in a small bowl and stir to combine.

2. Rinse the tenderloins in cold water and pat dry

3. Place tenderloins in a large resealable ziplock bag, and pour marinade over top, turn to coat the tenderloins thoroughly. Seal the bag and let rest in fridge for a few hours (or ideally, overnight)

4. preheat a grill to medium high heat, and grill tenderloins, over indirect heat (so turn on one side of the grill and put the loins on the other) for 30 minutes, and direct heat for the last 10 -15 minutes until cooked through, to give the meat a nice outer crust, without burning it.


The great thing about this meal is that you can do almost all of it in advance. Just come home, chuck the meat on the grill, haul the salad out of the fridge, and dinner is served.

This is why I cook: Culinary Nirvana

Once in a blue moon, everything just falls into place. You have all the ingredients you need idling in the fridge, waiting to be put to good use, you have time to cook them, nothing explodes, burns or befalls any other ill fate in the cooking process, and suddenly, just like that, you have a meal on the table that would you suspect might garner a nod of approval from even the culinary god Nigel Slater himself.

Tonight was one of those nights.




Somehow, with minimal fuss, at precisely 6:30 pm (civilized, I know!), we had put a BBQ approximation of Tandoori chicken, curried cauliflower, spicy cabbage, homemade raita, and McAuslan Apricot beer on the table, for elegant sunday night Indian dinner.

Well, to be honest, we planned the chicken (we had to, since it had to marinate over night), but everything else was leftovers that were in the fridge, in need of some TLC. The cauliflower was sauteed in a blend of indian spices and oil, then steamed. It was based loosely on Food and Wine's Cauliflower, potato and pea curry (sans potatoes and peas). The cabbage, was done a la Chachi's Kitchen, and the raita was a total afterthought: mint, cilantro, yougurt cumin, pop 'em in the blender and voila.

So there you have it, amidst a sea of marmalade-muddles, laughable loafs, and other culinary escapades, a damn fine dinner. Who knew?

Tandoori-ish Chicken:

4-5lbs chicken thighs and drumsticks, bones in, skin off

Marinade:

1 1/2 c yogurt
1/4 c lemon juice
2 tbsp chili powder
2 tbsp paprika
2 tbsp olive oil
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cayenne powder
1-2 cloves garlic finely chopped
1 tbsp ginger finely chopped or grated
1/4 tsp cardamom
1/4 tsp cinnamon

Mix all marinade ingredients together and coat chicken thoroughly (you can either use a large resealable ziplock bag, or a pyrex baking dish). Refrigerate overnight. Non-stickify and preheat a grill, drain the chicken, and plop it on the grill (it will make a mess, but its worth it). Grill covered, over direct medium-hot heat for 15 minutes, turn, and grill for another 10-15 min (until juices run clear). Serve with raita.

Raita

1/4 c cilantro, rinsed and chopped, tough stems removed
2 tbsp mint leaves chopped
1 tsp cumin
Salt and pepper
3/4 c yogurt

Pop the whole lot in the whizzer, whiz, chill and serve.

Curried Cauliflower

1/2 a large head of cauliflower
1 tablespoon ground coriander
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1/4 teaspoon dried red-pepper flakes
A couple cloves,
1 cinnamon stick

1/4 c oil

Heat the oil in a large frying pan, add the spices and cook until fragrant. Add the cauliflower and stir to coat with spice mixture. Cook for about 5 minutes, then add 1/4 c water, cover pan, and steam for another 15 min or so, until most water is absorbed and cauliflower is soft. Remove lid and boil off remaining water.

Spicy Cabbage

(Recipe taken from Chachi's Kitchen)

1/2 a large cabbage; finely shredded
1 12oz can of diced tomatoes (with their juice)
2 cloves garlic - minced
1 inch ginger - grated
2 serrano chilies - minced
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1 tbsp black mustard seeds
1/2 tsp tumeric
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp cumin
salt to taste

Heat oil in a pan, add the mustard seeds, as soon as they start to splutter, add the tomatoes, garlic, ginger and the minced chillis, stir and fry for a few minutes. Add the cumin, coriander and tumeric, fry for a few minutes. Add the shredded cabbage, stir well, so that it is coated with the mixture. Add salt and cook for 15 minutes or until the cabbage is cooked.

And of course, no Indian meal is complete without chai:

Masala Chai

1/2 c milk
2 whole cloves
3 green cardamom pods (cracked open)
1/2 inch peeled ginger, sliced thin
4 -5 2 inch pieces lemon grass
2 tsp Indian black tea leaves (I usually put this in a tea-ball)
2 tsp sugar (or to taste)

Bring 1 1/2 c water, milk, cloves, cardamom, ginger and lemon grass to a boil in a saucepan ovr med. high heat. Add tea and sugar, reduce heat, and simmer for 2 min. Remove from heat, cover, and let steep 3-4 minutes longer. Strain into 2 teacups.

Q: What beats homemade marmalade?

A: Homemade marmalade on homemade bread.

Its not impossible to find good bread here, but when it comes to bread, I've been totally spoiled (mostly by Le Fromentier). Le Fromentier tops my list for two reasons. First they have the technical aspects of bread-baking nailed (things like crumb, texture, moisture etc). I have never bought a loaf there crumbled when I cut it, or was too dry, or had a hard, leathery crust, or suffered from any other unforgivable bread flaw, which is a good start. But what really puts them over the top is their creativity. Nuts, grains I had never heard of (or at least, didn't know the French translation of), vegetables, spices, cheese, olives, herbs...you name it, Le Fromentier has made a (flawless) loaf with it. If you don't believe me, check out this blog for a (somewhat complete) list.

Now, in Seattle, it is not impossible to find a decent baguette, rye, sourdough or even whole wheat loaf, you have to know where to look, but they're out there. Beyond the standard selection though, things are experimental at best. It was the insatiable desire for a good rustic grainy loaf on which to debut the marmalade experiment that drove me to bread-making.

Well, that and the desire to try out the infamous no knead breadmaking method. The idea behind the no-knead bread making method is just as it sounds: instead of kneading the dough, you assemble all the ingredients, stir until it forms a "shaggy ball" and leave the whole lot to rise for 12-24 hrs. Then, you punch it down, give it a quick fold (only once or twice), let it sit for 15 min, shape it into a ball, and let it rise for another 1.5-3 hrs. Finally, you pop the whole lot in the oven, in a pre-heated, approximation of a bread cloche. This could be a dutch oven, clay pot, etc. Any oven safe vessel which is approx. 5-7 qts in size and holds the heat well should work (the purpose of this is to shape the loaf, and give it a nice crust). I made one loaf in an enamel cast iron dutch oven, and one in a clay pot. The clay pot loaf was more successful, but I wasn't very scientific about the whole process.

You'd think I'd have learned after my marmalade escapades to keep things simple the first time round, and just made a simple, whole wheat loaf...no such luck. I dove in, head-first and decided to make Four Seed No Knead Bread. Probably not the optimal choice for a first loaf, and the fact that I bought the wrong yeast (active-dry instead of quick/instant rise...oops) probably didn't help. I ended up with a very flat (1.5" high), grainy, dense loaf...oh well. It tasted good, and if sliced sufficiently thinly, made an excellent venue for a good strong blue cheese.

But, flat grainy loaves do not lend themselves to toast, and even less so to marmalade. So, it was back to the cutting board. This time I did my homework. I learned that yeast labels (instant? quick? active?) are *almost* as poorly standardized as cream labels are (half-and-half? light? table? old-fashioned? numbers please people!). I watched the videos on Breadtopia. I read the threads on chowhound, and finally, with new yeast, a slightly smaller pot, and renewed energy, I tried again.

This time, I simplified things a bit, no four-seeds (maybe next time) just whole-wheat flour and bread flour:

Ingredients for basic yeasted No Knead Method (from Breadtopia.com):

3 cups bread flour (the above video used 1 cup (5 oz.) whole wheat flour and 2 cups (10 1/2 oz.) white bread flour
1/4 tsp. instant yeast
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/2 cups purified or spring water

* Mix together the dry ingredients.
* Mix in water until the water is incorporated.
* Cover with plastic and let sit 18 hours.
* Follow video instruction for folding.
* Cover loosely with plastic and rest for 15 minutes.
* Transfer to well floured towel or proofing basket. Cover with towel and let rise about 1 1/2 hours.
* Bake in covered La Cloche or Dutch oven preheated to 500 degrees for 30 minutes.
* Remove cover; reduce heat to 450 degrees and bake an additional 15 minutes.
* Let cool completely on rack.
* Consume bread, be happy.

The result was most definitely marmalade-worthy.



The marmalade, sadly, was delicious, but a tad loose (I'm hoping it will improve with time), and if not, well, at least now I know how to make a killer loaf of bread. Maybe next time I'll get more creative and add a some more interesting grains.

Marmalade-Making in Gruesome Detail

"It wasn't, on reflection, the wisest of days to make marmalade. I had pruned the roses, the temperature was a degree or two below freezing, and the skin around my thumbnail had cracked open in the cold. It seemed as if each drop of bitter orange juice, each squirt of lemon zest sent shots of stinging pain through my thumb. But the Seville orange season is over in the blink of an eye and sometimes you just have to shut up and get on with things."

-Nigel Slater

That was how it began: with Nigel's marmalade recipe. I love marmalade, and usually the stuff at the grocery store isn't punchy enough for me, so naturally, I decided to try to make my own.

Marmalade was probably not the wisest choice as a first time project for someone who had never canned, jarred or preserved a darn thing. I could have chosen something benign like grape jelly and saved myself the peeling, chopping and soaking--but, for some misguided masochistic reason, it had to be marmalade. As if that wasn't bad enough, I was taking my cues from two hard-core marmalade-ists (Nigel and my mother) who both firmly believe that real marmalade should be made with no added pectin. That is, if you do it right, the pectin from the oranges themselves should be enough to set the marmalade. Which means that you have to be quite diligent about buying the right oranges (Sevilles to be precise), or else things go horribly wrong. Anyways, at long last I found my sevilles (on the other side of town) and we went on a Saturday expedition to retrieve them. On the upside, we did find an excellent grocery store (two!) in the process.

The Peeling

Ideally, one wants to peel the oranges in such a way that minimal pith (the white stuff) is left on the rinds, and so that the rinds end up in rather lage chunks (to make chopping easier later on). Nige recommends a complicated algorithm involving a paring knife, my mother recommended a vegetable peeler. I opted for the latter. Perhaps the oranges were a little off, or perhaps my peeler just sucks, but peeling oranges with a vegetable peeler proved to be no easy task, and I peeled 3 knuckles in the process. At the end of it though, we were left with a pile of peels, and 12 oranges to juice.

The Juicing

This is pretty straight-forward really: just get 2 large bowls, and squeeze the oranges, pouring the juice into one bowl and chucking the spent piths into another--Don't throw these out! Afterwards, tie up the piths, seeds, pulp and any other orange bits that are not going into the marmalade with cheesecloth.

The Chopping

Sadly, it did not dawn on me until I was halfway through peeling the oranges that I might want to try to peel off large strips at a time, to ease the chopping process. As such, chopping was doubly tedious: gathering up tiny little shards of orange peel and chopping them into strips. A good knife is invaluable. Afterwards, I added the chopped orange peel to the juice (padded out with water to make 4L) and submerged the cheesecloth bundle in the liquid. The whole mess soaked overnight in the garage, to leech all the pectin out of the oranges.

The Boiling

How hard could it be, I thought, boil with the cheesecloth bundle until the strips of peel are soft and translucent, remove the bundle, add the sugar, then boil some more. Well, the first half went fine, the peel became translucent and soft, in went the sugar, and then I waited, and waited, and waited.

The Wrinkles

The general consensus, according to the all-knowing web is that marmalade will set when a small spoonful put on a plate in the fridge for 5 minutes forms wrinkles when you nudge it with your pinky finger. If that last sentence made utterly no sense, don't worry. It won't until you've actually seen it happen. Having not seen it happen, I assumed, after an hour plus of boiling that it *must* be at setting consistency, and I just wasn't doing the test correctly, or didn't know what to look for. Oops.

That evening, the marmalade was still very liquid. And I began to get worried. A short post-mortem with my mother the marmalade expert confirmed my suspiscions. Apparently, athough this is never mentioned once in the recipe, marmalade is supposed to be made with the lid *off* and the volume should reduce by about 1/2 in the process. I had just jarred 12 jars of lovely diluted marmalade syrup. FAIL.

The Recovery

I have never seen someone look so happy about having to work on President's Day as Dan did when he left the house Monday morning. Between the drama of the first failed batch, a midnight run for sugar, jars and more oranges, and the late night juicing and chopping, I think he'd had quite enough of the whole marmalade-making process. You see, I had decided at some point the night before that I would not only try to save first batch, but also make a back up batch, in case the first was beyond all help. It was about at this point that Dan fled to work, leaving me surrounded by marmalade in various states of disrepair.

I dumped all the jars from the first marmalade batch back into the pot, resterilized the jars, and amazingly, after 15 minutes of boiling, I plopped some marmalade into the fridge on a plate, pulled it out shortly thereafter, and lo and behold it wrinkled! In fact, in the 5 minutes it took to set in the fridge, the whole darn pot of marmalade had become suspiciously dark and viscous. What began as 10 jars of marmalade syrup was now 5 jars of ridiculously dark marmalade. I have not yet gotten up the nerve to try it. It may quite potent.

The failed batch of marmalade was saved, but there was still a large pot of orange rind, juice and pith sitting in the garage (the batch I'd started when I thought the first one was destroyed). So began the boiling (again). However, knowing what to look for made the whole process much less scary, and this batch took a fraction of the time of the previous one, and ended up a slightly less disturbing color. I have not got round to trying this one either, but I'm definitely more optimistic about it.

Marmalade Making Take-Aways

• I like Nige's recipe, but it's a bit vague at times. Really, some of us are quite clueless and need to have our hands held. Things that may be obvious to some (like "Boil the marmalade with the lid OFF" may not be to others).
• Good oranges really do make a difference. I think next time I will try to seek out organic Sevilles, in hopes of getting a sunnier marmalade.
  
• The bigger the chunks of peel you can get, the easier the chopping will be.
• Do not let the back of the Mason jar box scare you. You do not need a jar grabber or a wire frame or whatever else they claim is needed to sterilize jars. All you really need is a large pot and a decent set of tongs.
• Be warned, the floor will be very sticky when you finish.