I love pirating recipes and exotic ingredients from cuisines around the world and playing around with them.  Sometimes just seeing a picture gives me an idea and I’m off and running. (Or is it Cooking?)  This particular recipe was inspired by the spices and flatbreads of the Middle East.  It’s quick, delicious and easy to make if you have a couple of specialty spices on hand.   You will need some Aleppo Pepper, ground Sumac and Pomegranate molasses.  You can order the Aleppo Pepper and Sumac from Penzeys.com.  Pomegranate molasses is becoming more and more common at grocery stores in the San Francisco Bay Area.   Whole Foods carries it, as does Draegers Market and any number of small specialty stores.   You can make this on store bought Naan or other flatbread, pita bread or pre-made pizza crust.

Middle Eastern Lamb Flatbread

Serves 2 very hungry people.

Pre-heat the oven to 425F

Ingredients:
2 Tbsp. Tomato Paste
2 Tbsp. Pomegranate Molasses

Combine and set aside.

2 small pita breads, Naan or flatbread of your choosing

1# ground Lamb
2 cloves of garlic, minced
¼ cup onion, minced
2 Tbsp oil
1 Tbsp. of the Tomato Paste/Pomegranate Molasses mixture
1½ tsp ground cumin
2 tsp. Aleppo Pepper (add an extra teaspoon for a spicier variation.)
½ tsp. ground cinnamon
½ tsp. ground ginger
¼ tsp. ground sumac, set aside for garnish
1 oz of crumbled feta cheese
1 scallion, white and green parts sliced
Salt and Pepper to taste

In a saute pan over medium heat, warm the oil.  Add the onion to the oil, season with salt and brown.  Once the onion has browned, add the garlic and cook for a minute or two until aromatic.  Add the ground lamb and brown.  Once the lamb is no longer pink, add the tablespoon of the tomato paste-molasses mixture.  Stir to combine and add the cumin, Aleppo pepper, cinnamon and ginger.  Season to taste with salt and pepper.  It should be a little spicy from the Aleppo pepper, aromatic from the cinnamon and savory from the addition of cumin and ginger.  Set aside.

Brush the crust of your choosing with the remaining Pomegranate Molasses mixture.  Divide the ground lamb mixture between the two crusts.  Garnish with the feta and sliced scallion.  Sprinkle the ground sumac over pizzas.  *If you can’t find ground sumac, just use a little bit of lemon zest.  Sumac is sour with a lemon-y component and lemon zest is an acceptable substitute.   Put the flat breads on a pizza stone or baking sheet pan.

Bake until heated through, about 10-15 minutes depending on the type of crust you have chosen.

Enjoy!!

I have a group of girl friends, foodies and restaurant people who I go out to dinner with a couple of times a month.  It is a great opportunity to try new restaurants.  As foodies we always order far too much food.  (Pete, my lucky husband, loves the leftovers.)  However one of us is a vegetarian and I have been really surprised by the lack of vegetarian offerings on a lot of the menus that I have seen.  Can’t Vegetarians be foodies too?  Do they have to go to restaurants that are exclusively ‘vegetarian’ to have any kind of choice?  Like a lot of people I flirted with vegetarianism in college, and I abstained from meat for several years.  Eating meat is not an ethical or moral choice for me.  I happen to find vegetables terribly interesting.  I really love the variety of vegetarian cuisine.  I think that vegetarian cooking at its best is exciting, flavorful and delicious.  It is a pity that more restaurants do not have interesting vegetarian foods offered on their menus. We have been eating Vegetarian a few times a week for a couple of months at this point.  It’s easier on the wallet and it is an easy way to reduce your carbon footprint.  Last night for dinner we had a simple dish inspired by Deborah Madison’s ‘Local Flavors’ Cookbook.  It was sautéed leeks that had been cooked down with a little bit of butter until they had a melted quality to them, then we added fresh oyster mushrooms from the market, a generous pinch of cumin, chopped cilantro and salt and pepper.  We devoured this on hearty country bread slices that had been toasted in olive oil.  Served with a green salad this was a lovely light meal.  You could easily top the mushroom toasts with cheese if you wanted to.  I would recommend a dry Monterey Jack or Aged Cheddar.

Oyster Mushrooms and Leeks on Toast

Adapted and Inspired by Local Flavors by Deborah Madison

1 large leek, cleaned, use only the white and light green parts, sliced into rings

½ pound oyster mushrooms

2 Tbsp. butter

1 tsp. cumin

2 Tbsp. chopped Cilantro

Salt and pepper to taste

2 slices of thick country bread

2 Tbsp. Olive Oil

1. Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium heat.
2. Add the leeks and cook the leeks for 10-15 minutes, until shiny, soft and translucent.
3. Add the oyster mushrooms and continue to cook until the mushrooms are soft.
4. Add the cumin, chopped cilantro, taste and season with salt and pepper.
5. Set aside
6. To toast the bread in olive oil, heat the olive oil in a sauté pan.  Once the oil is hot, place the bread in the pan and gently toast over medium heat until lightly browned.  Flip and toast on the second side. Set aside.
7. Place the bread on a plate and top the bread with the leek and mushroom mixture.

Enjoy!

‘What’s for dinner tonight?’ My husband yelled as he was running out the door with our daughter on his hip.  ‘Washoku’ I muttered, head buried in the cookbook of the same name.    I selected 3 recipes that I had to make.  One was made, the rest merely fantasy.   The one I decided on was the Tonkatsu recipe.  There is a wonderful picture that enticed me on the back overleaf and I was compelled to make it.  It was far easier to make than I anticipated and absolutely delicious.  Tonkatsu is a traditional Japanese dish that consists of a breaded and fried pork cutlet.  This version was far more interesting.   Instead of a traditional heavy Tonkatsu sauce, the pork loin is sliced very thinly—about 1/8” thick then is divided into two portions and rolled with two very different fillings.  One, with umeboshi plum paste and shiso leaves, the other with nori and leek miso.  Once the cutlets are rolled, they are given the flour-egg wash-breadcrumb treatment and pan fried.  They were both delicious and very different.  The leek miso and nori gave an exotic, brooding quality to the Tonkatsu.  If these two rolls were sisters, the leek and miso filling would be the brunette while the shiso would be the blonde surfer girl.  The shiso and plum paste was my favorite—I found these flavors to be particularly haunting.  The Tonkatsu made in this fashion was lovely to look at too.  They would be a fantastic hors d’oeurve at a dinner party.  It ended up being thumbs up all around.  I will definitely make this again.

, adapted from Elizabeth Andoh’s Washoku Cookbook

12 oz. pork loin, cut into 12 very thin slices.

6 shiso leaves, stems trimmed

1 Tbsp. umeboshi paste, available at Whole Foods and Asian Grocery stores.

1 Tbsp. Leek miso (Recipe follows)

2 sheets of Nori, cut or torn to the approximate size of the pork cutlet slices.

Breading

½ cup flour

1 egg beaten with a splash of water

1 cup bread crumbs, Panko, Japanese style bread crumbs are preferred but whatever you have will work.

2 cups of oil for frying

Instructions

Spread the pork slices out on your work surface.  Place the shiso leaves over half of the pork slices and spread a little bit of the umeboshi paste over the shiso leaf.  Roll up and set aside.  Repeat with the nori and leek miso.

Heat the oil.

While the oil is heating, dredge the rolls in flour, dip in the egg wash and roll in the breadcrumbs.  (You can do this ahead of time and refrigerate until you are ready to cook them.) Once the oil is hot, fry the tonkatsu rolls to an even golden brown.  Drain on paper towels, slice and enjoy!!

*It’s easiest to slice these rolls with a very sharp slicing knife.  A bread knife will work, but it will tear the rolls a bit and they won’t be as pretty.

Leek Miso

*Makes a great dip for vegetables!

1 small leek, trimmed, minced

1 tsp. sesame oil

1/3 cup mugi miso (Miso made with barley and soybeans.  I was surprised and pleased to find it at Whole Foods.)

2 Tbsp. mirin

1 ½ Tbsp. sugar

3 or 4 Tbsp. water

Leek Miso Preparation

Sauté the leek in the sesame oil until it is soft and translucent.   Add the miso, mirin and sugar and bring to a simmer.  Add the water and continue to cook until it has the consistency of tomato paste.

Remove from the heat and let it cool completely.  This will keep in the fridge up to 6 weeks.

Sometimes I just need a little something sweet and different in the morning.  You know the feeling.  Your usual breakfast looks unappealing; dry and completely uninteresting lying forlornly on a plate.  And you say to yourself:  ‘Self, I don’t really want to eat that.’  In my case it’s 2 slices of sprouted grain bread, toasted and spread with all natural, organic almond butter.  It’s so healthy! When I want to eat something, and I don’t know what, it’s like an itch that I just can’t scratch. I start wandering around the kitchen, looking at what I have in the fridge and I start pulling down cookbooks, flipping through them, trying to find something that looks appealing.   The first cookbook that I reached for a couple days ago was ‘The Perfect Finish’ by Bill Yosses and Melissa Clark.  Bill Yosses is the very pedigreed White House chef and Melissa Clark happens to be one of my favorite cookbook editors.  She also writes a column for the New York Times that appears in the Dining section every Wednesday.   I glimpsed a recipe for gingery pumpkin bread. That didn’t thrill me too much, but I did have half a can of pumpkin puree left over from making pumpkin pancakes earlier in the week that needed to be used.  And so, I paused.  I read the intro to the recipe and it said something like this ‘I love to panfry the day old slices in some butter and a sprinkling of brown sugar.’  Now that sounds like somethin’ special. And if day old pumpkin bread is good pan fried in butter I would bet that fresh pumpkin bread pan fried in butter is good too.

Since this cute thing

wakes me at 5am with Hi! Mama! Up!  I have plenty of time to bake in the morning.  Thanks Lils!  LOL

The Pumpkin bread, spiked with ginger was delicious all on its own.  However, once it was pan fried in butter and brown sugar it took on a whole new dimension.   It was warm and buttery with a lovely crunch from the brown sugar crust.  Next time I will garnish it with plain Greek yogurt, diced candied ginger and a drizzle of honey over the yogurt.

My one issue with this cookbook is that with two out of the three recipes that I have tried there has been a discrepancy between the description and the instructions and an ingredient was left out of the ingredient list but included in the instructions.  Silly me – I rarely read the directions thoroughly – I missed that I needed to add 1/3 a cup of water to my pumpkin bread.  It turned out just fine anyway, probably a little denser than it was supposed to, but that’s okay.  It was still incredibly moist.

Here it is:

Gingery Pumpkin Breakfast Bread, adapted from The Perfect Finish by Bill Yosses and Melissa Clark

Makes one Loaf

1 ½ cups all purpose flour

1 tsp. baking soda

¾ tsp. salt

½ tsp. cinnamon

¼ tsp baking powder

1 1/3 cup dark brown sugar, packed

2 large eggs

6 Tbsp. unsalted butter, melted

¾ cup of pumpkin puree (you could use sweet potato puree here, too.)

1 Tbsp. freshly grated ginger

1/3 cup chopped toasted walnuts

1/3 cup golden raisins or dried cranberries

1. Pre heat the oven to 350F
2. Sift the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and baking powder into a bowl and set aside.
3. Beat the brown sugar, eggs and melted butter until light and fluffy, scraping down the sides of the bowl as necessary.
4. Add the pumpkin and ginger to the brown sugar mixture and beat to combine.
5. Add half of the flour mixture to the wet ingredients and combine until it is just moistened.  Do not over mix.
6. Add the remaining flour mixture and beat until just combined.
7. Using a spatula, fold in the walnuts and raisins.  Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 1 hour, until a cake tester inserted in the middle comes out clean.

*This cake got dark from all of the sugar far before it was done.  I covered the top with foil about half way thru the cooking process.

Allow the cake to cool completely before turning it out of the pan.

Now, to complete the recipe, cut a good sized slice or two from one end of the loaf.  Melt 2 Tbsp. of unsalted butter in a sauté pan.  Once the butter has melted sprinkle 2 Tbsp. of brown sugar over the butter and let it get all melt-y and delicious looking. Put the slices of bread in the pan and pan fry to create a dark crust.  Turn the bread over and toast the other side too.

Enjoy!!

I love this recipe for ‘Chicken in Pistachio, Sumac and Sesame Crumbs’ from the cookbook ‘Turquoise, a Chef’s travels in Turkey‘ by Greg and Lucy Malouf.  It’s easy, exotic sounding and tastes great.  The sesame seeds and pistachios add a delightful crunch, the lemon zest and sumac add a bright lemon-y note that is tempered by the richness of the parmesan cheese. Leftovers keep well and this chicken is great the second day in a pita sandwich with a little yogurt dressing, sprouts and shredded carrots. Chicken is the workhorse of the carnivore world.  It’s easy to eat, a good source of protein, and inoffensive.  At its best it is tender, juicy and moist. At it’s worst, dry, tough and tasteless.  Boneless, skinless chicken breasts can get more than a little boring if you eat them frequently—and I am constantly looking for new ways to dress them up.  The breading on this chicken ensures that it stays nice and moist.  The recipe has a couple of steps you need to take to ensure success. The first is to pound the chicken breast to an even thickness so that it cooks evenly, use fresh bread crumbs and don’t chop the pistachios too finely.

Chicken in pistachio, sumac and sesame crumbs

4 small boneless, skinless chicken breasts, about 6 oz each, pounded to an even thickness

2 eggs

Salt and Pepper

All purpose flour

Olive Oil

Lemon Wedges to serve (optional)

Pistachio Crumbs

2 slices of sandwich bread, crust removed, torn into pieces

1 Tbsp. ground sumac (if sumac is unavailable, substitute the zest of ½ a lemon in addition to .)

Finely grated zest of 1 lemon

¼ c. unsalted, shelled pistachios, coarsely chopped

¼ cup of sesame seeds

2/3 cup finely grated parmesan

To make the crumbs, put the bread into a food processor with the sumac, zest and pistachios and pulse briefly.  Add the sesame seeds and parmesan and pulse briefly to combine.

Preheat the oven to 350F.

When ready to cook the chicken, lightly beat the eggs with a little water in a shallow bowl to make an egg wash.  Set up a production line of seasoned flour, egg wash and crumb mix. First dip the chicken pieces into the flour, then the egg wash and finally the crumb mix, patting them carefully all over

Heat the oil in a saute pan and saute the chicken pieces until golden brown all over.  Transfer to a cookie tray and cook for 8-10 minutes in the center of the oven.  Remove the chicken from the oven and allow to rest for a few minutes before serving with wedges of lemon.

Serves 4

It’s the simple things that matter most.

I discovered the absolute joy of homemade croutons while I was in cooking school in France. Oh to take a slice of white bread, cut it into cubes or other shapes (hearts on Valentines Day) and fry it in butter with a generous sprinkling of salt and a twist of freshly ground black pepper.  So tasty, I still dream about it over 15 years later.  Croutons are easy to make at home—it just takes a few minutes and the results are so much more pleasing than the jawbreakers that pass for croutons at salad bars nationwide.  So what are the advantages to making croutons at home?  Well, this way you won’t be left with half a box of croutons that you will only throw away next spring.  Freshly made they are crunchy on the outside and give just a little in the middle with an enticing softness.  You can pierce them with your fork.  They are highly addictive so unless your will power is greater than mine you should only make as much as you need. You can control the seasonings and limit the sodium.  With homemade there will be no hydrolyzed this and high fructose that unless your kitchen is wildly different than mine. At the Cordon Bleu, we used pan de mie, or Pullman loaf in English.  Any fine grained sandwich bread will do.  I like to experiment and use whole wheat, pumpernickel or rye bread depending on the recipe and salad dressing.  Don’t limit your use crouton use to just salads though.  They add a really pleasing crunch to pureed and blended soups and are a classic accompaniment to gazpacho.

Croutons

1 slice of sandwich bread, crusts removed and cut into cubes or other shapes with a cookie cutter.

1 Tbsp. unsalted butter

Salt

Pepper

Melt the butter in a saute pan over medium heat.  Add the bread cubes to the pan and toss gently to coat.  Saute until golden brown.  Drain on paper towels and season with salt and pepper while still warm.

Enjoy with  or without your favorite salad!

Feta, Roasted Pepper and Basil Muffins

I’m really lucky, in the food department, I know.  My assistant works with me on Tuesday afternoon specifically testing and developing new recipes.  Right now we are in the midst of testing freezer-friendly recipes that are all organic, natural and healthy.  I don’t always have the time to cook dinner and I really would prefer not to purchase frozen food or order takeout—again.  It’s a lot of fun and it’s a lot of work.  Tuesday afternoon is definitely the best smelling afternoon at my house.  In addition to our freezer experiment we’ll make a few meals for my mom, some food for Lily, and one recipe just because it sounds interesting.  That’s where these muffins came in. Not only were they pretty to look at, but they tasted good too.  Mmm…my favorite kind of food.  It looks good and it tastes good.    They would make a great addition to a bread basket for the dinner table or you could even have them for breakfast— with some scrambled eggs or an omelet perhaps?

Feta, Roasted Pepper and Basil Muffins

From The Art and Soul of Baking by Sur La Table and Cindy Mushet

1 dozen Muffins

2 cups all purpose flour

2 tsp. baking powder

½ tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

¾ cup (3oz) crumbled Feta cheese

½ cup jarred roasted red pepper, patted dry and finely chopped

3 Tbsp. finely chopped fresh basil

1 cup butter milk

¼ cup olive oil

1 egg

1. Preheat the oven to 375F and grease a muffin tin with melted butter or high heat canola oil spray.
2. Whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in the large mixing bowl.  Set aside.
3. In a medium bow, stir together the feta cheese, roasted bell pepper and chopped basil. Set aside.
4. Pour the buttermilk into the measuring cup.  Add the olive oil and egg.  Whisk together until well blended.
5. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients. Pour the buttermilk mixture into the well and stir gently with a spatula.
6. Gently fold in the feta cheese mixture until evenly distributed in the batter.
7. Using an ice cream scoop or 2 soup spoons divide the batter evenly among the muffin cups.
8. Bake for 18 to 20 minutes, until the tops feel firm and a skewer inserted into the centers comes out clean.  Transfer the muffin tin to a rack and let cool for 5 minutes.
9. Enjoy!  You can store the muffins in a plastic bag for up to 2 days.  Reheat wrapped in foil in a 325F oven for 8 minutes or so.
10. Yes, these muffins do freeze well. They may be wrapped tightly in plastic wrap and placed in a resealable plastic bag in the freezer for up to 1 month.  Thaw, still wrapped for 30 minutes before reheating.

As soon as I saw this recipe I knew that I had to make it.  It has three ingredients that I love, it was cold and rainy in San Francisco and I had just enough wild rice and pecans in my pantry to make it.  This recipe is perfect for the Holidays and everyday in between. It is  slightly heavy, chewy from the wild rice, nutty and rich from the pecans and slightly sweetish from the dried cranberries (you could substitute dried cherries or raspberries) nuanced gently with honey and some whole wheat flour.  The whole thing just shouts ‘Yum!’.  And you know, there are some days that are just bread baking days.  The days that you want to spend next to the stove mixing and kneading –pouring your heart and energy into want you are making.

Here is the recipe—I tweaked in gently.  Although this calls for 2 9-inch loaves, I made one smallish 9 inch and 2 mini loaves to give away.

Wild Rice, Cranberry and Pecan Bread

Adapted from Beatrice Ojakangas ‘The Best Casserole Cookbook Ever’

1 cup of wild rice

1 ½ cups pecans

2 cups warm water

1 pkg active dry yeast, 2 ½ teaspoons

¼ cup honey

1 cup whole wheat flour

2 teaspoons salt

4 cups bread flour (I used all purpose, and it worked out just fine. )

1 cup dried cranberries, cherries or raspberries

1. In a large pot, cover the wild rice with water and bring to a boil.  Cook over moderate heat until tender.  This is really important.  You don’t want hard, jaw breaking bits of undercooked wild rice floating through the loaf.  My wild rice was old and took over an hour to cook.  I kept adding water to cover when it started to dry out.  When the rice is tender, drain and set aside.
2. Toast the pecans in a 350F oven until they are fragrant.  Set aside and when they are cool, coarsely chop.
3. In the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the paddle, mix the warm water with the yeast and honey until the honey is dissolved.  Let stand for 5 minutes, until bubbly.  In a small bowl, mix the whole wheat flour with the salt: add to the mixer and beat until a smooth dough forms.   Mix in 2 cups of the bread flour until smooth.  Add the wild rice, pecans and cranberries and mix until incorporated. Switch to the dough hook.  Add the remaining 2 cups of bread flour and mix at medium speed until a soft, springy dough forms, about 10 minutes.  Cover with plastic wrap and let stand in a warm place until doubled in volume, about an hour. (At this point I punched the dough down and put it in the fridge to coo k the following day and it worked out perfectly.)
   
4. Turn the dough out onto a lightly oiled surface and divide it into either 2 large loaves or 2 minis and 1 large. Place each loaf in the appropriate loaf pan. Cover and let stand until doubled in volume, about 45 minutes.
   
5. Preheat the oven to 375F.  Bake the larger loaves for about 35 minutes, until a wooden skewer inserted in the center of each loaf comes out clean.  The smaller loaves cook in about 25 minutes. Let the loaves stand until cooled slightly, about 30 minutes.

The recipe also says that the bread can be stored in an airtight container for up to 5 days or frozen for up to 1 month.

Good Luck and Happy Baking!