Curry Crazed

Ever since I've discovered how easy it is to make paneer cheese and spice blends at home, I've been trying to learn as many curry recipes as possible.

(homemade paneer)

I used this recipe from Indian Simmer how to make paneer cheese. Suuuuper simple.

(Bin Bhuna Hua Garam Masala)

Recipe from The Cooks Collection. I used it to make the mutter paneer in the link.




Other favorite recipes, in order of favoriteness:


1. Rice & Spice's Sri Lankan Curry. It's spicy like I need my curry to be, and goes well with any ingredients. I also added lime leaves, to give it a citrusy unctuousness. I made this with eggplant & tofu instead of crab, since I don't trust crab in Colorado :/

2. Dana Treat's Thai red curry paste. Again, happily spicy, just what I want when I want curry.

3. Show Me the Curry's Roti recipe. Because every curry needs a delicious flatbread to soak it up. And these two ladies are just too cute.

Life and Bread (life comes first, bread shortly thereafter)

This March & April, Colorado has been throwing little hissy fits.

Record heats over 80 degrees, brief and random monsoon-like rain showers, crazy out-of-control wildfires, a little snow and frigid winds here and there. Maybe mother nature hit her head somewhere and got a little confused.

All of that means that it's time to savor the lovely spring weather (and a budding garden!) before a drought hits.

Radish Hearts :)

Baby lettuce peeking through plum blossoms

Little tinkling bluebells


The babies are enjoying the spring sunshine too:

I made a nice lentil salad (from the lentils in my pretty glass jar)

And ground some fresh fennel to make sourdough Swedish Limpa bread.

My sourdough culture was a gift from my parents.

It wasn't wrapped with a bow, and it was more like a I-dunno-what-to-do-with-this-here-you-take-it re-gifting.

But I love it just as if it did have a bow. I feed it and dress it up and give it a place to stay.




SWEDISH LIMPA BREAD (molasses & fennel rye bread)
(makes 1 loaf)


Ingredients:

-3/4 c. warm water
-1 tsp. yeast
-1/3 c. molasses
-heaping 1/2 c. sourdough starter
-2 c. dark rye flour
-1.75 c. bread or high-gluten flour
-1/2 Tbs. ground fennel
-1 tsp. salt

Directions:

Mix the water with yeast and let sit until frothy. Then mix in the molasses and sourdough starter until the starter is well-incorporated with the water. I was using a stand mixer, so I just dumped the rest of the ingredients in, put on a dough hook, mixed on low until everything was incorporated, then beat on high 6 minutes until dough was smooth and slightly elastic. Otherwise, knead by hand 11 minutes. Roll against counter until you form a ball with a very tight skin on top. This helps keep the gasses the yeast make in, helping it rise and develop sourdough flavor.

Drop the ball in an oiled bowl, turned to coat with oil. Cover with a wet towel, and leave to rise about 8 hours (I made it in the morning so I can come back to it for dinner). If you're around to punch it down every couple hours, that's great. If not, your dough won't die of overproofing.

Afterward, form into a log, and place on greased baking sheet. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise another hour.

Preheat oven to 450 degrees, and place a tray of boiling water on the bottom rack. Score the bread (I like diagonal stripes across the top), and put in the middle rack of the oven. Bake uncovered 3 minutes, cover loosely with foil and bake 15 minutes, then uncover and bake 20 to 25 minutes. When done it should be very brown on the bottom and hollow-sounding when the bottom is tapped.

Enjoy steaming & with butter or soft cheese :)

Black beans two ways

I bought a 1/2 kilo of black beans yesterday wanting a salad and Chinese sweets.

Remember my last post with the Cantonese egg custard buns? I use the same dough, there are many variations in flavors of the same Chinese steamed bread.

BLACK BEAN AND CILANTRO MINT CREAM SALAD

Ingredients:
-1/4 kilo black beans, cooked
-1 tomato, diced
-2 cloves garlic
-3 green onions, roughly chopped
-1/2 tsp salt
-1/4 tsp pepper
-1 tsp. minced hot pepper-habañero is best
-1/4 c. cilantro (stems and leaves) roughly chopped
-5 large mint leaves
-1/2 c. chopped mozzarella cheese
-hot water

Directions:
Put all ingredients but black beans and tomato into a blender, and pour the hot water in until it just covers the tops of the vegetables. Blend until smooth.



Put the black beans in a pot over medium-high heat. Pour the blender mixture in, bring to a boil, then turn the heat to medium and simmer until the sauce becomes thick, 5-7 minutes.

Pour this mixture into a bowl and let cool. Put in the diced tomato and eat at room temperature.




CHINESE SWEET BLACK BEAN BUNS (an offshoot of red-bean buns, dou-sha bao 豆沙包)

Ingredients:
DOUGH
-3 c. flour
-1 tsp. salt
-1 Tbs. butter
-1 c. + 2 Tbs. warm water
-1/4c. sugar (I used brown)
-1.5 tsp. yeast

FILLING
-1/4 kilo cooked black beans
-2 c. brown sugar

Directions:
Wash the cooked black beans and put in a pressure cooker. Cover with fresh water until an inch above the tops of the beans. Bring to a boil, then pressure-cook on medium heat for about 20 minutes, or until the beans are beginning to fall apart (if using a regular pot, this will probably take an hour to achieve the same effects). When finished cooking, drain and wash beans again. Return to a regular pot, add the sugar, and put in enough water until just above the tops of the beans. Bring to a simmer on medium-low heat, then simmer until cooked down into a sugary paste, about 30 minutes. In the last 15 minutes, watch and stir the pot to make sure the beans do not burn. The beans should be broken down, but chunky. Set aside to cool.

To make the dough, mix the water with the sugar and bloom the yeast in this. In a larger bowl, mix the flour and salt. Pour the bloomed yeast into the flour, add the butter, and knead for 10 minutes (or until elastic) and set aside under a wet wash-cloth to rise for an hour.

When the dough has risen, punch it down and divide into 12 pieces. One at a time, roll the pieces into 3 inch circles and fill with a tablespoon of bean paste. Pinch the dough around the paste and twist to make a ball and set aside under a moist cloth. Meanwhile, bring water to boil under a steamer. Steam the buns for about 13 minutes or until springy.

Fly me to Hong Kong

One of my favorite memories from teaching at a camp in Hong Kong was arriving at the Hong Kong Baptist University cafeteria in the morning and getting noodle soup with pickled mustard, turnip cakes, green tea, and nai wong bao egg custard buns.

I recently had egg yolks on hand and a huge craving for Chinese food, so I (with the help of my wonderful boyfriend and my buddy Katherine since my right hand is out of service), pulled together these lai wong bao.

They're steamed sweet bread with a thick filling like the middle of Boston Cream Pie. Every recipe I looked up used ingredients like "Hong Kong flour" and "custard powder", so I just made my own recipe.

NAI WONG BAO (奶黄包)- Chinese egg custard buns

DOUGH-
-3 c. all purpose flour
-1 tsp. salt
-1/4 c. sugar
-1 c. warm water
-1.5 tsp. instant yeast
-1 Tbs. butter

CUSTARD-
-1/3 c. & 1.5 Tbs. corn starch
-1/2 c. evaporated milk
-1/4 c. sugar
-3 egg yolks
-1/4 c. butter

Put the sugar in the warm water and stir until integrated. Add yeast, stir, and let sit until frothy. In a bowl, mix the salt and flour. When the yeast is ready, add to flour mixture, add the butter, and knead until elastic (10-15 min). Roll into a tight ball and put in a well-oiled bowl and cover with a wet towel for an hour to an hour and a half.

When the dough is almost done rising, start the custard. Put the starch, milk, and sugar into a sauce pan over low heat, and cook until bubbly and thickening. When the whole surface is bubbling, remove from heat and add butter in chunks, stirring until melted. Place the yolks in a separate bowl, and add tiny spoonfuls of the milk-starch mixture one at a time while stirring. This heats the yolks up slowly without scrambling them. When you've added half the milk-starch mix, pour the yolk mixture back into the pot with the rest of the milk-starch. Cook this over low heat, stirring constantly, until you're able to draw lines in the bottom of the pot and the mixture is very thick, about 2-4 minutes. Take off heat and set aside.

When your dough is ready, divide into 12 even balls. Using a rolling pin, roll the balls into circles about 3 inches in diameter, big enough to put 2 teaspoonfuls of filling in. Spoon in those 2 teaspoonfuls, draw the edges toward each other to form a ball around the filling, and pinch and twist the bottom so the filling doesn't come out (don't worry if they don't completely stay shut, mine didn't and they turned out fine because the dough rises together in the steamer). Place this pinched side down on a plate and cover with a wet towel. Do this for all 12.





Meanwhile, put on a couple of inches of water to boil in a pot with a steamer basket. When boiling, turn the heat to med-low and put the buns in the basket, leaving an inch around each so they may rise. Put on a lid, and steam for about 13 minutes, or until the skin is tight & springy and the buns have risen twice their size. No, I didn't use any little wax paper squares, they came off the steamer rather easily.

Now enjoy your delicious goodies and think happy, dim-sum thoughts.

Sweeties :)

Yesterday, I peeked in the fridge and saw that nothing else could fit. There was a bunch of already cooked sweet potato, and thus was the birth of my sweet potato bread.



SWEETIES

Ingredients:
-500 g. fine ground whole wheat flour (a little over 4 c)
-1 tsp. salt
-1 c. warm water
-1.5 tsp. honey
-1 Tbs. yeast
-1 c. mashed sweet potato
-1/4 c. olive oil

Mix the water and honey together until well integrated. Sprinkle and stir in the yeast. Let stand until frothy.

Meanwhile, combine the flour and salt until well integrated. When the yeast mixture is ready, pour into flour mixture, and add the rest of the ingredients. Mix with a spoon into a loose dough and let rest for 10 min.

On a floured surface, knead about 10-15 min, or until smooth and elastic. Roll dough into a ball with a tight skin on top, put into a well oiled bowl, cover with a wet towel, and let rest at room temperature for 1-8 hours (I left mine overnight, it was fine). For a pretty much fail-safe technique, check out this video--> http://www.foodnetwork.com/videos/altons-pizza-pizzas-recipe/82409.html

Bake at 375 for 20-25 min, or until the buns are browned on the bottom, and the bottom is hollow-sounding when you tap them.

Delicious served hot on a cold morning with butter and honey :)

For a variation, make a cinnamon butter by mixing 1/4c. butter with 1 Tbs. each brown sugar and cinnamon. Spread it on the bread when it's piping hot, and thank me later.

My recent creations...

The lemon spaghetti with goat cheese on top that I sacrificed part of the tip of my finger to create. I feel I should take cooking safety lessons...




My Easter bunny. After I made walnut milk, I used the walnut grounds to make homemade marzipan, shaped the bunny, then dried him in the oven. To quote cooking god Alton Brown, "Awww, he's cute"


Homemade hummus, homemade tzaziki, homemade bread, lettuce (not homemade, though I'm sure in the future we'll be able to gene splice our own lettuce in our very own kitchen!). NEVER AGAIN will buy Costco hummus because this took two seconds of manual labor. TWO. Count them. Costco hummus takes two seconds to put in your shopping cart. Choose your destiny padawan.



Nicaraguan food--fried plantains, gallo pinto, and beets...plus THE GREEN!! (salsa verde, one of the more addicting combinations of water, sugar, and vegetable flavorings)