Brooklyn Forager

Spring may be peeking demurely around the corner in Brooklyn, but not too long ago, we seemed to be getting the Blizzard of the Year weekly.  To prepare for the most recent of those storms, I turned to the crockpot to keep us warm and fed during the blizzard days and the cold ones that followed.  Particularly, beef stew.  I have loved beef stew since I was a little girl, especially my grandmother's which I used to request as a birthday dish, even in May (the rest of my family fired up the grill....I guess I wasn't so seasonal then!).

This time around, I thought I would try to create a new twist, yet another attempt to bring one of my more simply flavored family dishes into my husband's stomach which, as is by now well documented here, craves Asian flavors.  In the cold weather, I also like some extra spice and so the Red Curry Beef Stew was born. 

With some lovely local red creamer potatoes, frozen green beans, and a zucchini just screaming for use, the dish came together in the crockpot quickly and allowed me to stare at the snow for the afternoon.  I've always got at least one or two cans of coconut milk and various jars of curry paste or bean paste around to make a quick basic coconut curry.  With all of the vegetables, it really is a one dish meal, but a green salad could lend some crunch and freshness to the meal if you so desire.  Feel free to experiment with the vegetables as well - the onions are really the only must here because they really add a lot of nice flavor. 

Red Curry Beef Stew

• 1 tbsp. olive oil
• 2.5 lbs cubed sirloin tips (or any stew meat)
• 3 medium onions, thinly sliced
• 1 lb. red creamer potatoes, cut into chunks or left whole if small enough
• 1 can light coconut milk
• 2-4 tbsp. red curry paste (I like 4, but 2 gives good flavor without too much kick)
• 2 hot chilis, sliced (optional, remove seeds for lighter spice and omit entirely if desired)
• 3 tbps fish sauce
• 1 tsp. brown sugar
• 1-2 cups green beans, fresh or frozen (no need to defrost if frozen)
• 1 zucchini, cut into half moon slices

1. Heat olive oil in saute pan.  Add beef cubes and brown on at least two sides. 
2. Layer onions, beef, chilis and potatoes in crockpot (mine is about 3 quarts).
3. Mix coconut milk, curry paste, sugar and fish sauce well in a bowl.  Pour mixture over crockpot ingredients.
4. Turn on low for 7-8 hours.
5. Add beans and zucchini in last 30 minutes of cooking.
6. Serve with rice or noodles.

This month, the canning gurus in the Tigress Can Jam chose carrots as our mystery ingredient.  Having just thought about jam, I wasn't so sure where I was going to take this one, and then I read further.  Carrots are prime candidates for pickles! I love pickles.  For a very long time it was just your standard kosher dills.  Then all manner of cucumber pickles.  And slowly, as I explore more foods and flavors, I will pretty much at least try anything pickled (well, vegetables anyway).

Luckily, our Tigress also pickles and was very clear (thank goodness!) about the requirements needed to can carrots.  Carrots are lovely and sweet, but this means that in order to be processed in a hot water bath, they need very specific amounts of acid.  I'm interested in completing the full year of the can jam, so, as you can imagine, I took this very seriously.

Seriously means more books! This is never a problem in my house (except for the lack of space for more books), so I would like to mention two books that are now essentials in my canning library.  The first that I checked out was The Joy of Pickling which has loads of recipes spanning the globe.   These recipes are not just for hot water bath canning and I will definitely be turning to this one a lot. 

The book that won out for this time around - Ball Complete of Home Preserving - may have edged its way into primary reference status.  The directions are clear, concise and yet detailed.  More detailed than the other books that I've looked at, and so I felt even more comfortable with the process this time around.  It was here that I found the recipe for Vietnamese Carrot and Daikon Pickle.  Yum!

This also gave me a chance to break out the mandoline that I purchased months ago, but had avoided.  The carrots and daikon radish were to be julienned before they were pickled, and I was determined.  And I was largely successful at first (beginners luck?) and then found that the slicer blade was working better than the julienne blade and so I was getting some wide carrot slices that didn't quite break out into julienne form.  A work in progress, I'm sure.

Once my vegetables were (sort of) julienned, I added vinegar (a fresh bottle of 5% white vinegar to be sure the acidity was spot on), water, sugar and grated ginger to a large sauce pan and brought the pickling liquid to a boil.  Vegetables went into the mix for one minute, and then the good stuff began!

The recipe called for an optional star anise in the bottom of each jar.  I went with it and added about 5-6 peppercorns as well.  This was my only modification since I didn't want to mess with acidity ratios.  I packed the vegetables into the jar, topped with hot pickling liquid and sealed the jars.  They were processed for 10 minutes. 

As I write this, the jars are still resting (oh sweet procrastination!) and so, like last month, I haven't yet tried my pickle out of the jar.  I will be opening a jar on Sunday, so expect a full report (and a marmalade report coming very soon also!) shortly.

Vietnamese Carrot and Daikon Pickle (adapted from Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving)

• 3 cups white vinegar, 5% acidity at a minimum
• 3 cups water
• 1/2 cups granulated sugar
• 2 tsp grated fresh ginger
• 2 lbs carrots, julienned
• 2 lbs daikon radish, julienned
• 6 whole star anise
• about 36 black peppercorns

1. Prepare canner, jars and lids according to instructions. 
2. In a large stainless steel saucepan, combine vinegar, water, sugar and ginger.  Heat over a medium-high flame until boiling, stirring to dissolve sugar. 
3. Add julienned vegetables and stir for 1 minute.  Remove from heat.
4. Place 1 star anise and about 6 peppercorns in each hot jar.  Pack vegetables into hot jars, leaving a good 1/2 inch head room.  Ladle hot pickling liquid into jar to cover vegetables. Remove air bubbles with nonmetallic instrument.  Add more pickling liquid if needed to keep 1/2 inch head room.
5. Wipe rim.  Center lid on jar.  Screw band until resistance is met and continue tightening until finger-tip tight.
6. Place jars in canner, ensuring they are covered by at least 1 inch of water.  Bring to a high rolling boil and process for 10 minutes.  Remove canner lid and remove from heat.  Wait 5 minutes, then remove jars to cool.

Note: The book says this recipe will make 6 pint jars.  Mine worked out to be 4 pint jars with a bit leftover, but not enough for a whole jar. 

 

Going back to the dinner party mentioned a couple of weeks ago, there is much more locavore-action to discuss! One of the dishes that we made was Grilled Bok Choy with a spicy vinaigrette, one that I hope to reprise this weekend. (Recipe from Serious Eats, Dinner Tonight)

This couldn't be more simple and certainly is wonderfully delicious. I took baby bok choy (I think regular bok choy would also be great and might actually stand up to the heat longer) and sliced them in half length-wise. I placed these on the grill for just a couple of minutes until there was some nice char (next time, I'm going to brush them with a bit of sesame oil or the vinaigrette to allow for more even charring). Generously drizzle the spicy sesame vinaigrette and enjoy!

This month, our challenge over at The Daring Kitchen, was to make a Spanish dish called Rice with Mushrooms, Cuttlefish and Artichokes. This was a beautifully simple (a bit heavy on prep, but worth it) and yet yielded some great complexity of flavors.

The key to this recipe is a little bit of planning (and probably a glass of wine as you go). I started with the allioli which was a happy surprise for me. I don't eat anything that is called an "aioli" because my stomach turns at the hint of mayonnaise. The traditional recipe, however, is an emulsion of garlic pulp and olive oil and contains no eggs at all.

Aside from the initial excitement at ingredients, however, I was a bit stumped because the recipe required a mortar and pestle. My first mortar and pestle was left in a previous apartment in a fit of frustration and my current mortar and pestle is an unseasoned molcajete which has a knack for adding volcanic rock to any paste. I improved with a rough ceramic bowl and a Chinese spoon and while the results were perhaps not as perfect as the true method, the consistency was pretty close. (Note: use the freshest garlic you can find. Mine was a bit on the "antique" side and the taste was super strong)

Next up was the sofregit - a stew of sorts including tomatoes, garlic, onions and spices. A simple recipe, but crucial since it imparts most of the flavor to the dish. I would up the cumin since I love the flavor, but the recipe alone builds a nice base for the rice dish itself.

The next step would have been preparing the artichokes. I watched the video provided in the recipe instructions for preparing the artichoke and was horrified to see the instructor carelessly tossing the entire outer portion of the artichokes around the kitchen. I will not waste and am not confident enough with artichokes yet to figure out a better way to improvise. The artichokes will be steamed with another dinner this week and eaten whole.

Instead, I moved on to peeling the shrimp. I wimped out on the cuttlefish, partly because of the eaters in my household and partially because I had a really nice set of shrimp ready to go. I used these interchangeably with the cuttlefish, and I believe this did not detract at all.

The only other substitution I made was to use sherry in place of white wine for deglazing and in my broth. For a number of reasons, I couldn't open a bottle of wine and did not prepare/purchase stock. In place of the water, I used a mix of water, sofregit broth (the recipe makes a lot more than you need, but I ended up using a lot more than the recipe called for), and more sherry. In my opinion, this was really integral to building the flavors. I think broth would have been great, but in place of it, a good mix worked well.

This recipe got rave reviews and will absolutely go into the regular rotation. With a bit of prep work beforehand, this is a fun, festive dish that can actually be put together in relatively good time.