Winter cooking
My mother gave me a generous gift card to Borders for Christmas, part of which I used to purchase a book I've had my eye on since November -- Mangoes and Curry Leaves: Culinary Travels Through the Great Subcontinent by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid. It's a coffee table-sized book, quite inconvenient for the kitchen. However, it's also the kind of book you set in your lap as you relax in front of the fireplace with a mug of chai, letting your imagination take you to places with exotic names like Dhaka, Goa, and Kerala.
After several hours of armchair travel yesterday, I finally got my ass off the couch and cooked something from the book. I made the fennel flecked potato samosas. They were pretty easy to pull together. The dough comes together in the food processor and relaxes for 30 minutes while you make the filling. I used Yukon gold potoatoes in mine, and seasoned them with lots of onion, garlic, turmeric, mustard seed, cayenne powder and finally green peas. (You're supposed to put chiles in the mixture, but I didn't have any on hand, so I just added extra cayenne). Then you roll out the dough into ovals, cut in half, and fill with the mixture before sealing into neat little samosas. Then the samosas are deep fried in 350 degree peanut oil till golden and crispy. Even Oliver liked them -- till he got a bit of pea in his mouth. Then it was all over. But I loved the sweetness of the peas with the heat of the cayenne and then more sweetness with the fennel.
I also made whoopie pies this weekend. Did you know the white stuff in the middle is basically Crisco with some powdered sugar blended in? Disgusting! But I put my prejudices aside and made a batch -- and they were quite tasty. Much better than the ones wrapped in cellophane.
What else? Linda, my friend and co-author, is staying with us next weekend, which means I'm going to have a cooking blowout. We're thinking of trying a new Indian restaurant in town for lunch, but for dinner I have to come up with something yummy. I was thinking salmon in an asian-style marinade, roasted asparagus, and mango kulfi (Indian ice cream) for dessert. And for breakfast on Sunday I'm making Scottish porridge and my (in)famous spiced chai.
After several hours of armchair travel yesterday, I finally got my ass off the couch and cooked something from the book. I made the fennel flecked potato samosas. They were pretty easy to pull together. The dough comes together in the food processor and relaxes for 30 minutes while you make the filling. I used Yukon gold potoatoes in mine, and seasoned them with lots of onion, garlic, turmeric, mustard seed, cayenne powder and finally green peas. (You're supposed to put chiles in the mixture, but I didn't have any on hand, so I just added extra cayenne). Then you roll out the dough into ovals, cut in half, and fill with the mixture before sealing into neat little samosas. Then the samosas are deep fried in 350 degree peanut oil till golden and crispy. Even Oliver liked them -- till he got a bit of pea in his mouth. Then it was all over. But I loved the sweetness of the peas with the heat of the cayenne and then more sweetness with the fennel.
I also made whoopie pies this weekend. Did you know the white stuff in the middle is basically Crisco with some powdered sugar blended in? Disgusting! But I put my prejudices aside and made a batch -- and they were quite tasty. Much better than the ones wrapped in cellophane.
What else? Linda, my friend and co-author, is staying with us next weekend, which means I'm going to have a cooking blowout. We're thinking of trying a new Indian restaurant in town for lunch, but for dinner I have to come up with something yummy. I was thinking salmon in an asian-style marinade, roasted asparagus, and mango kulfi (Indian ice cream) for dessert. And for breakfast on Sunday I'm making Scottish porridge and my (in)famous spiced chai.
posted by Unknown at 2:25 PM
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