Gingered Beet Salad

This started out labeled as chutney, and no one knew how to eat it. Meaning what would that spicy condiment accompany? Pork or chicken satay maybe, served alongside a cucumber raita? What made it chutney, I suppose, was the diminutive dice, 1/8 inch max. And the even tinier cubes of hot green pepper and ginger.  Doused with a little red wine vinegar and a squeeze of lime juice, this is a delicious concoction that I used to serve up at picnics, until it baffled our guests. 

So this year, it dawned on me that there was nothing precious about the size of the diced beets. Dice them larger (3/8 to ½ inch), toss them with the same spicy dressing and some snippets of cilantro, and voilà, a beet salad anyone would recognize. It’s a great alternative to the ubiquitous diced beets with balsamic vinegar since each bite is surprisingly refreshing because of the restorative character of fresh ginger.  It makes a great addition to a picnic buffet since the beets can be roasted well in advance. And even after being dressed, it keeps well for a few days. If making it early, add the cilantro just before serving.

Gingered Beet Salad (or Chutney), adapted from Alice Waters, Chez Panisse Vegetables

4 medium red beets

1 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp finely chopped fresh ginger

1 tsp finely chopped jalapeno or Serrano pepper

1 tsp salt

½ tsp finely ground black pepper

Pinch of cayenne (a little more if mild)

2 tsp red wine vinegar

1 tsp lime juice

1 tbsp torn cilantro leaves

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Place the beets in a shallow roasting pan, toss them with olive oil, a splash of water and a little salt. Cover the pan tightly with foil and roast the beets until tender, 30-60 minutes depending on the age and size of the beets. Cool them, peel them and cut them into ½-inch dice for a salad, or 1/8-inch for chutney.

Combine the beets with the ginger, pepper and seasonings, and toss with vinegar and lime juice. Taste and adjust for salt, vinegar and spiciness.

Toss with cilantro just before serving. Leave the leaves whole or torn into large pieces if serving this as a salad. Mince the cilantro if using as chutney.

Serves 3-4 as a salad, and 6 as chutney.

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Homemade Sesame Mayonnaise: Vegetable Dip and a Chicken and Pepper Salad

This is not your average mayonnaise. Not even for homemade. Made with rice vinegar, soy sauce and toasted sesame oil, it is delicious as a dip for asparagus, snap and snow peas, radishes and other spring vegetables. I’ve made this many times, especially for large-scale spring gatherings, where I can arrange lightly blanched asparagus bouquet-style in drinking glasses and array lightly blanched snap peas and radishes around a bowlful of the light yellow emulsion. Illustrated here is the home rendition, with a handful of heirloom Indian yellow snow peas that I grow in pots every year and some thin asparagus that I picked at a local farm. 

The recipe makes a lot and I’ve never tried to shrink it, since it is voraciously consumed at parties and keeps well, for a couple of weeks at least. In addition to its service as a dip, I would use it as a sauce for chicken satay, or here as a dressing for summer-like salad of poached chicken and colorful bell peppers. It’s also great with poached salmon, an alternative to dill sauce.

The mayonnaise recipe comes from The Silver Palate Cookbook. The Silver Palate was a so-called “gourmet food shop” that flourished in Manhattan in the late 1970s to early 1980s and set trends for just about everything the owners Julee Russo and Sheila Lukins did.  An American-style bistro, it became the model for take-out shops just as it became a style guide for everything from the use of seasonal ingredients to emphasis on the homemade. It’s not in the least esoteric but introduced new dishes and approaches at the same time that it relies on traditional sources and methods. All that’s left of it today is a (licensed or sold) brand label on fancy foods found in the grocery store (think hot fudge sauce, flavored vinegar) and its best-selling cookbooks, in addition to later publications of the two authors.  I find the original cookbook, which is arranged by topic, to be quite entertaining, informative and useful, although I cringe at the graphic design every time I open the cover (it’s an early example of what I associate with Workman Publishing).

The Silver Palate’s Sesame Mayonnaise

1 whole egg

2 egg yolks

2½ tbsp rice vinegar

2½ tbsp soy sauce

3 tbsp prepared Dijon mustard

¼ toasted sesame oil

2 ½ c vegetable oil (canola or corn)

Optional: Szechuan-style hot chili oil

Optional: grated orange zest

In a food processor, whir the egg, egg yolk, rice vinegar, soy sauce and mustard for 1 minute.

With the motor running, dribble in the sesame oil and then the corn oil in a slow, steady stream.

Turn into a bowl and season with hot chili oil if using. Add the grated orange zest just before serving.

Makes about 3 cups.

Chicken and Pepper Salad with Sesame Mayonnaise

This recipe assumes that you don’t have leftover cooked chicken from another recipe.

2 halves of boneless chicken breast

2-3 tsp soy sauce

Water

½ orange pepper

½ green pepper

2 scallions

2-3 tbsp sesame mayonnaise

Salt or soy sauce to taste

Hot chili sauce (e.g., Sriracha) to taste

Cilantro leaves (or use Thai basil)

Thai basil flowers

Oven-poach the chicken breasts. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Place the chicken breasts in a single layer in an ovenproof glass or ceramic baking dish. Sprinkle on a few teaspoons of soy sauce and add water to a depth of about ¼ inch. Cover tightly with foil and bake for about 25 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through. Remove the foil and let the chicken cool in the juices.

Shred the cooled chicken along the grain into bite-sized pieces into a mixing bowl. Slice the peppers into lengths of approximately the same size as the chicken and add to the bowl, along with thinly sliced scallions (cross-wise or lengthwise). Add mayonnaise and adjust the seasonings to taste with salt or soy sauce and red pepper or chili sauce. Garnish with snipped leaves of cilantro or Thai basil and Thai basil flowers.

Serve at room temperature or slightly chilled. Serves 4.

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Greatest Hits of 2011

So what clicked the most with my readers this year? A few conspicuous trends, heavy on the cannin’ and jammin’ as you would expect from a blog with the word “pantry” in the title. It was definitely a good year for the pantry, with over 250 jars added, not counting the ones I already gave away. Drum roll…here are this year’s winners:

How to Eat Your Lawn

This mini-series topped the charts, especially the violet jelly and dandelion jelly from flowers that grow in our so-called lawn (otherwise known as the prairie).  The violets went viral, with over 800 clicks in one day alone.  The jellies were delicious and went fast. Continuing the flower theme later in the season, I made Queen Anne’s Lace jelly, which was pretty special, and another jelly with electric blue borage blossoms.  Mint and rosemary jellies were right up there in the ranks, 5^th place this year. More herb jellies (like lemon basil and rose geranium) were part of my “Preserving Herbs” series.

Mo’ Marmalade Momma

Yup, once again on top of the charts are the three versions of Meyer lemon marmalade that I made for the inaugural month of the Tigress Can Jam of 2010. The lemons were a gift hand-carried from California and were made memorable by the addition of rosemary and ginger. This holds the all-time record as my most popular post.

Sweet ‘n’ Hot

Another all-time winner, again one of my entries in the 2010 Tigress Can Jam, is Sweet ‘n’ Hot Red Pepper Jam. I made a couple of cases of 4-ounce jars again this year to rave reviews. No one seems to have a favorite among the three versions: a plain one spiced with ginger, ditto but with a dab of adobo sauce (smokin’ good), and a third with star anise and cardamom (in the holiday spirit).  Tomato Salsa with Ancho Chili also made it onto a favorites list, probably since it’s been featured on other blogs like Punk Domestics.

Pickle Projects

A couple of pickle projects made the top ten, stealing votes from each other. One is a sweet ‘n’ hot bread and butter pickle and the other a group of three in one post: pickled garlic scapes, dill pickles, and more bread and butter pickles. Luckily I made a lot more of these this year than last so no one should complain.  A certain person I know eats them straight from the jar. For dinner.

Party Fare

Just when you thought that I cook only for the pantry, along comes a beautiful salmon terrine wrapped in leeks and stuffed with mushroom vodka cream, pretty enough for a party. This is the second most clicked-on post in the past two years and fourth this year. It was my entry in the monthly Paper Chef international challenge, which sadly has now folded. It had been the long running blog contest (over five years) before it faded away. I miss you guys.

Waste Not Want Not

Not a new concept for me, but called out explicitly in a series of posts about frugal cooking. On the theme of “use the whole plant,” I made a very popular Celeriac Soup in a post called “Roots, Stalks and Leaves” and a version in my new Waste Not Want Not series. While many people know this vegetable only by its knobby root, which is how it most often found in the supermarket, it actually has a useful stalk (substitute for Pascal celery if you want to eat locally) and leaves when you can get them from your CSA or the farmers’ market. As part of my Preserving Herbs series, I made celery salt from the leaves (for the pantry of course).

Auld Lang Syne

Much to my delight, Sour Cream Blueberry Bread made the cut. I used to be known for the volume and variety of quick breads that I made, a sucker volunteer for every bake sale and charity event involving food. I literally cooked my way through graduate school with recipes like this, producing wares sold at a weekly departmental lunch.

Happy New Year everyone!

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Homemade Tomato-Ginger Ketchup and Sweet Potato Fries

During one of my final canning sessions to use up all of the paste tomatoes I harvested at our CSA this year, I developed a new ketchup recipe and I’m very excited about it. Last year’s sweet ketchup was very good, flavorful but not robust, although it’s one of my staples now. Last year, I also a made a spicy, slightly smoky “harissa sauce” (not really harissa but so called by Ball’s Complete Book of Home Preserving). It was surprisingly versatile. However, what I was looking for was ketchup with a kick, but not just from peppers. And here it is, thanks to ample ginger and garlic plus a little cayenne pepper. 

The idea came from Niloufer Ichaporia King’s tomato chutney in My Bombay Kitchen, her brilliant, award-winning book on traditional and modern Parsi home cooking.  If you don’t know about King, she’s a marvel. If you don’t know about the Parsi, you should. (It’s a now-scarce Middle Eastern culture that historically melded into India, with important current cultural figures like the conductor Zubin Mehta and the very cool Harvard professor Homi Bhabha). I first heard about King on NPR a few years ago, through a series called Hidden Kitchens. I can just imagine her at my favorite farmers’ market in San Francisco where she’s seeking out ingredients and trading ideas.

This came to light because her chutney recipe has been around the web recently, on blogs like The Traveler’s Lunchbox and The Wednesday Chef (thanks!). I tinkered with the proportions of ingredients and the method, creating a smooth ketchup instead of a chunky, raisin-filled condiment. It makes an amazing dipping sauce for oven-roasted potatoes and sweet potatoes. I canned it in four-ounce jars; the recipe made 8 small jars.

Tomato-Ginger Ketchup adapted from Niloufer Ichaporia King’s chutney

6 c cored and chopped paste tomatoes (about 3 lbs)

1/3 c finely diced peeled fresh ginger (one 2½-3 inch piece)

1/3 c finely diced peeled fresh garlic (1 head)

1½ c cider vinegar

1½ c turbinado (raw) sugar

1 tsp cayenne pepper (more or less to taste – mine is particularly strong)

1 cinnamon stick (2½-3 inches, snapped in half)

4 cloves garlic

1 tsp salt

Place all ingredients in a large wide saucepan and bring to a boil. Boil for 10 minutes and turn down the temperature. Allow the mixture to cook gently, a gentle boil, just above a simmer for 30-40 minutes until thick. Remove from the heat and let sit for 20 minutes to let the flavors meld.

Prepare jars and lids for water bath canning.

Remove the cinnamon and cloves and discard. Puree the tomato-ginger mixture with an immersion blender (or buzz it in a food processor) until very smooth.  Return the ketchup to the pan and bring it to a boil, cooking down further if not thick enough for your taste.  Ladle into hot canning jars and top with sterilized lids. Process for 10 minutes after the water returns to a boil (15 minutes for half-pint jars).  Turn off the heat, remove the canner lid and let sit for 5 minutes before removing the jars to a counter to cool, undisturbed.

Makes 8 four-ounce jars.

Sweet Potato Oven Chips or Fries

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Wash and dry the sweet potatoes, scrubbing the skin if necessary. Slice into wedges or ¼-inch rounds for fries, 1/8 inch or less for chips. Sprinkle them with a little olive oil and salt, adding some herbs and spices if desired (good combinations are cumin, cinnamon and cayenne, or thyme and rosemary).  Place in one layer on a baking sheet. Roast, turning once, for about 20 minutes or until browned and slightly crispy. If they’re steaming versus browning (because of moisture content of the tubers, crank up the oven to 425 degrees in the last 5 minutes or so). Serve immediately.

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Two Pots of Homemade Mustard

My antique German cobalt blue and white mustard pots with hinged with pewter hardware  – charming miniatures of beer mugs from the same manufacturer – showcase my latest attempts at mustard.  Making your own mustard is a snap and happens in a matter of a few minutes, with waiting time between. No one in her right mind should pay the kind of prices these condiments command in specialty shops, though I’m sure there are amazing choices out there that would be hard to duplicate.

The technique using whole mustard seed is simple. (There’s another technique using powdered mustard.) You soak the whole seeds in vinegar (sometimes with spices) overnight. Puree the mix into a paste in a food processor or blender. Add salt, sweetener (honey or sugar) and seasonings and let sit at room temperature for a couple of days or until the flavor is mellow enough for your taste. Then refrigerate it to store. That’s it. 

The first recipe is new for me and comes from a recipe for Sri Lankan mustard paste in At Home with Madhur Jaffrey.  It contains ginger, which I increased, and garlic and cayenne, which I decreased. I used yellow mustard seeds since I wanted the purity of color (boosted by a pinch of turmeric.). This was fresh and clean tasting and lovely in color. Jaffrey serves it with curry or slathers it on pineapple. (I  haven’t braved that yet.) 

The second is a riff on Dijon-style mustard that I’ve made before.  This time I used half yellow and half brown mustard seeds, which provided a slightly grainy texture. I find that the yellow seeds are mellower, dissolve more quickly and make a fluffier mustard.  I decreased the proportion of vinegar to seeds that I used in the first recipe to account for the addition of white wine. I also drained off the soaking vinegar, reserving it to add back in, before I ground the mustard to a paste.

Sri Lankan Mustard adapted from Madhur Jaffrey

6 tbsp yellow mustard seeds (or a combination of yellow and brown)

2 large cloves of garlic, finely chopped

1 two-inch piece of ginger, peeled and finely chopped

1 c cider vinegar

½ tsp cayenne pepper (more or less to taste but be cautious)

2 tsp salt

¼ tsp ground turmeric

4 tsp sugar

Soak the mustard seeds, garlic and ginger in a bowl with the cider overnight. Blend the contents in a food processor or blender until a paste forms. Add the remaining ingredients and whir to combine. Put in a jar and leave, unrefrigerated, to mellow for 2-3 days. (You should taste after two and add more cayenne if necessary since pepper mellow when it ages.) Refrigerate.

Grainy Dijon-style Mustard

3 tbsp yellow mustard seeds

3 tbsp brown mustard seeds

¾ c cider vinegar

¼ c white wine

1½ tsp salt (or to taste)

2 tsp sugar or honey

Soak the mustard seeds in a bowl with the cider overnight. Blend the contents in a food processor or blender until a paste forms. (The paste might form better if some of the vinegar is drained off first and then re-added.) Add the remaining ingredients and whir to combine. Put in a jar and leave, unrefrigerated, to mellow for 2-3 days. Refrigerate.

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