Category — recipes

I got some nutmegs at the store the other day.

Cool facts about nutmeg:

• It goes well with cheese sauces
• Back in the day, the only source of nutmeg was the Banda Islands — a small group of islands in Indonesia that also has good snorkeling
• There’s something called nutmeg poisoning, which may cause delirium

They smelled so spicy and sweet that I felt compelled to make something. Thankfully I found this lovely and simple recipe for Indonesian Nutmeg Tea Cookies (Kue Kering).

I didn’t have a blender, so I melted the butter a bit too much in an effort to make the mixing easier — I think this made the cookies tougher than they should have been. I also took one batch out after 10 minutes and left the other in for 2-3 more and the consistencies were totally different — biscuit crunchy v. crispy and soft in the middle. I like crunchy myself, but I’m not totally sure how they were intended.

Anyway, if I were to do them again, I would add crushed almonds to this recipe to make them more crumbly and maybe dip the tops in crystally sugar.

I’ve been doing a lot of baking lately. It started with the famous no-knead bread recipe and has been blossoming from there. I love to eat bread, slathered with butter or jam, with balsamic vinegar, baked with cheese, or sometimes just plain, so I figure I should figure a little bit out about making it myself.

My first foray out of no-knead territory was to try Cooks Illustrated’s “Almost No-Knead Bread” recipe, which purports to have better flavor, and a more consistent shape & texture than the flamboyantly unpredictable (but startlingly low-fuss) variety. The food scientists over at CI pinpointed two main variables that made true no-knead not quite perfect: moisture content (too high = difficult to work with the dough), and flavor (not bready enough). So, they reduce the moisture ratio and add in two key ingredients: beer and vinegar, to fake the yeasty flavors that supposedly develop in more sophisticated artesenal baking processes.

FYI, CI says to use light lagers only (e.g. Bud) because these beers are fermented near the bottom of the tank with yeast that work at lower temperatures which means they develop more subtle “bready” tastes rather than fruity or spicy flavors that develop from esthers and phenols in ale.

Hey-ne-way, the loaf turned out beautifully:

But woefully the flavor wasn’t that great (it was pretty bland, actually), the crust wasn’t as good as my usual no-knead crust, it turned rather dry after a day, and it took longer to make!

I loved the research that went into this recipe and I might try again, out of respect for all the work that went into its development, but I have to say, I was a little disappointed.

Almost (good) no-knead bread — from Cooks Illustrated
3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp yeast
1 1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup + 2 tbsp water, room temp
1/4 cup + 2 tbsp mild flavored lager
1 tbsp vinegar

1) whisk flour, yeast and salt in a large bowl. Add water, beer, and vinegar. Using rubber spatula, fold mixture, scraping up dry flour from bottom of bowl until shaggy ball forms. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let sit at room temperature for 8 to 18 hours.

2) Lay 12- by 18-inch sheet of parchment paper inside 10-inch skillet and spray with nonstick cooking spray. Transfer dough to lightly floured work surface and knead 10 to 15 times. Shape dough into ball by pulling edges down into middle. Transfer dough, seam-side down, to parchment-lined skillet and spray surface of dough with nonstick cooking spray. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise at room temperature until dough has doubled in size and does not readily spring back when poked with finger about 2 hours.

3) About 30 minutes before baking, adjust oven rack to lowest position, place 6- to 8-quart heavy-bottomed Dutch oven (with lid) on rack, and head oven to 500 degrees. Lightly flour top of dough and, using razor blade or sharp knife, make one 6-inch long, 1/2 inch deep slit along top of dough. Carefully remove pot from oven and remove lid. Pick up dough by lifting parchment overhang and lower into pot (let any excess parchment hang over pot edge). Cover pot and place in oven. Reduce oven temperature to 425 degrees and bake covered for 30 minutes Remove lid and continue to bake until loaf is deep brown and instant-read thermometer inserted into center registers 210 degrees, 20 to 30 minutes loner. Carefully remove bread from pot; transfer to wire rack and cool to room temperature, about 2 hours.

This morning I tried again with the carrot squash muffins, making the planned adjustments — reducing the sugar, using wheat bran, and using oil instead of yogurt.

I was also pretty meticulous in employing the “muffin method,” mixing wet and dry separately and then mixing them together with the greatest of care.

I love the heartiness of bran and the feel in my mouth compared to the cakiness/sponginess of regular muffins and the combination of bran and whole-wheat flour, plus lots and lots of veggies, was perfect. The finished product was a yummy balance between crumbly and moist — not the cardboard crumbs you sometimes get with bran. I could see reducing the sugar even more, but only because the carrots here are so gosh-darn sweet.

The only thing that could make these better is a little more crisp on the outside. The first batch were getting brown at 25 minutes, but were still a little moist on the inside. I think some fiddling with the temperature and cooking time could make this recipe even better, but maybe it will also require an ingredient shift… I left a message on a real pastry chef’s blog to see if she could help with the chemistry of it all. Will report back if I hear from her.

Bran Carrot Squash Muffins
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 1/4 cup wheat bran
3/4 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp grated nutmeg
2 large eggs
1/2 cup organic canola oil
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 cups grated raw carrot
1 cup spaghetti squash, cooked and well mashed
1/4 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated white sugar
1 cup raisins

1) Grease your muffin tin really really well and consider using muffin liners to make things easier on yourself — this is important. The bran makes these muffins fall apart more easily, so you’ll need to take care or your muffins will stick and your tops will fall off. This is okay in a Seinfeld episode, but less cool in real life. If you’re filling the muffin pan to the top because you want big crispy muffin tops, also make sure that you grease the top of the pan and not just the inside of the cups or it will stick.
2) mix dry ingredients: flour, bran, salt, bkg pwdr, bkg soda, nutmeg, cinnamon
3) in separate bowl, mix eggs, oil and vanilla
4) mix carrot & squash into flour mix
5) mix wet stuff in — just give it a couple stirs, some flour will remain floury
6) add sugars and raisins and mix until just combined
7) put into your well-greased pan
cook 25 minutes at 350

Tonight I made a simple, but toothsome dinner of brown rice and carrots with ginger-soy braising greens and some yummy slivers of cheese on the top. For dessert, I heated up a carrot-squash muffin and had some coffee from my Vietnamese coffee pot. Yum.

Hearty Brown Rice with Carrots
1 cup short grain brown rice, rinsed
1.5 cup water
1 tbsp olive oil
1 clove garlic finely diced
1/4 onion finely diced
1/2 cup fresh carrots, chopped small

1) heat olive oil in a small pot/saucepan
2) when it’s heated so it changes consistency and swishes around in the pan easily, add in onions & stir. 30 seconds later, add garlic and fry some more. 30 seconds later, add carrots and stir some more. onions should be translucent by now.
3) add in your rice kernels and stir to coat with oil. mix everything up well.
4) add your water and bring to a boil with the lid on the saucepan.
5) take off your lid and turn the heat down to a simmer, cook 25 minutes, stirring every-so-often. If all the water evaporates, add a splash.
6) if you like your rice a little wet/chewy, add a splash of water (a tsp or two) and salt & pepper to taste, give the rice a stir, then turn off the heat and leave it to sit for 5-10 minutes.

And heated up the next day with a scrambled egg:

This morning, I got up at 6:30, performed my morning ablutions and headed to my kitchen, laptop under-arm, to test out some carrot-squash muffins. I made up the recipe from a few different recipe combinations and my own swaps.

Carrot Squash Muffins
2 cups grated raw carrot
1 cup spaghetti squash, cooked
2 cups (280 grams) whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 cup light brown sugar
3/4 cup granulated white sugar
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon (3.5 grams) salt
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 cup raisins
2 large eggs
1/2 cup plain yogurt
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1) mix dry ingredients: flour, salt, bkg pwdr, bkg soda
2) mix eggs, yogurt, vanilla, sugar
3) mix carrot & squash into flour mix
4) mix wet stuff into mix until just combined
5) put into well-greased muffin tin
6) cook 25 minutes at 350

The squash was pretty when I baked it, but…. they didn’t come out quite as nice as I would have liked.

What was up:
– too sweet
– squash was lumpy in batter — don’t love the aftertaste of the squash
– too moist on the bottom
– don’t love the spongey texture

Antidotes I’ll try:
– cook 30 minutes at 350
– use uncooked squash, well grated/shredded
– add 1/2 cup of bran and reduce flour by 1/4 cup
– reduce sugar by 1/2 cup
– sub oil for yogurt

Ever since people found out that I am heading back, my amazing coworkers have been inviting me to join them for special foods and festivities. So far, I’ve made fish amok, eaten grilled eel, had delicious grilled beef skewers with papaya salad, and on Saturday morning, Rith invited me to her house to learn two new traditional Cambodian dishes.

Rith’s husband is a police officer and she lives in a house behind the police station, basically in the field better known as the “old prison” just behind my house.I went over around 9am to find Rith and one of her housemates already busy washing veggies and roasting peanuts. As the morning wound on, 5 of Rith’s neighbors and their children came over to help chop, pound, slice, fry, marinate, and otherwise contribute to our delicious lunch.

Fresh-roasted peanuts for the ceviche

Cambodian Ceviche Salad (Plear Threi)

For Cevice and Sauce
1 kilo firm white fish*
1/2 cup prahok (fermented fish paste)
1.5 cup lime juice
3 stalks lemongrass
4” galangal root
1 kaffir lime
3 kaffir lime leaves
2 bulbs garlic
2 cups peanuts, crushed small
bird chilis
1 tbsp salt, or to taste
3 tbsp sugar, or to taste
2 tbsp cooking oil
fish sauce to taste
1/2 cup water
MSG**

Assortment of vegetables:
Cabbage and/or Lettuce
Thai parsley
Holy basil
Banana flower
Banana trunk
Cucumber
Bean sprouts

1) Wash and chop your vegetables. Cabbages or iceberg lettuce can be quartered. Other lettuce should be washed and the leaves separated. For the banana flower, use only the tender top half, not the stem. Cut the top half of the bud in half again, lengthwise, then slice thinly down the moon shape. Keep in a small bowl with lime juice and water to prevent browning. Cut the disk of the banana trunk in half across the diameter and slice similarly. Julienne the cucumber. Blanche bean sprouts to reduce the likelihood of disease. Put everything in the fridge or on ice to chill.

2) Process your raw ingredients: Remove the green leaves at the top of the 3 lemongrass stalks and chop the firm white bottom part. Process in a mortar and pestle or food processor until a uniform fluffy paste and set aside — you should have about 1.5 cups. Chop the galangal root, process as the lemongrass and set aside — about 1/2 cup, loosely packed. Remove the skin of the kaffir lime (some white rind is okay — it will not be bitter) and do the same as with the galangal and lemongrass. Repeat the process with the lime leaves and 2 bulbs of garlic. Chop your prahok until a wet, gray paste. Keep each ingredient separate for now.

3) To make the sauce base, or “krooung”** add 2 tbsp of your reserved galangal, all the lime leaves and lime skin, half your garlic, and 1/4 cup of the lemongrass into your mortar and pestle. Mash together into a paste and set aside.

4) Slice fish thinly (about 2 mm thick). Chop slices into small pieces, no bigger than 2cm x 1cm. It may be easier if your fish is frozen first.

5) To the fish, add salt, sugar, and lime juice and stir well. Add the remaining galangal, lemongrass, garlic and stir. Add 1 cup peanuts and mix it up with your hands. Continue for about 5 minutes, until the fish looks completely opaque (cooked). Squeeze the fish out with your hands, and place in another bowl in the fridge. Reserve the juice.

6) Heat 2 tbsp oil in a medium pot over a high flame. When hot, add prahok and stir well. Fry for 3-4 minutes. The prahok will be very fragrant and should start to froth and bubble in the pot.

7) Turn the heat down to medium, add your “krooung” and stir. Fry for 5-7 minutes. The texture should be somewhat dry, so be careful of burning. Sprinkle in some fish sauce to taste (1-2 tsp should do).

Continue stirring and add in the reserved juice from the fish, reducing the heat to low. Add 1/2 cup water and 2 tbsp sugar. Mix until dissolved and then remove from the heat.

Serve sauce in individual small bowls. Individuals can add peanuts and chopped chilis to the sauce, as desired. Put fish and vegetables in the middle. Each person will take a lettuce or cabbage leaf, add veggies and some fish and dip in the sauce. The mixture can also be eaten over white rice.

The fish, all cooked in lime

* Cambodians use a small, whole fish called Threi Riel (money fish). They defin, descale, and degut the fish, smash it flat and then cut it in half with a cleaver. The fish was delicious, but I found the small bones poked at my gums.
** MSG is used liberally in Cambodian cooking, but I tend to leave it out in my recipes.
*** “Krooung” means “ingredients” and is used to describe any number of pastes used for bases in soups, curries, and for marinating meat. Krooung can be as simple as salt, sugar, garlic and MSG, but your typical ones include a combination of galangal, ginger, lemongrass, shallots, turmeric, garlic, and kaffir lime skin.

The tiny guys they used — I might try a boneless fish, sliced thinly

Tiny packages of goodness

Growing up in our house on Valley View street, we had this amazing tangerine tree in our backyard. I used to sit in the tree on autumn afternoons picking the still greenish fruit, peeling off the skin, and meticulously removing all the white stringy stuff so I was left with nothing but the tiny jeweled segments.

These tangerines were small-ish, mostly seedless and flat on both ends (no protruding top like some tangelos). The skin was particularly loose and easy to peel with a relatively dull orange, almost greenish color even when ripe. The fruit itself was heavenly — tart and sweet — each slice popped open in your mouth with very little of that nasty thick fibrous segment “wall” that many tangerines tend to have.

I haven’t found many tangerines like this since then, until last month they started popping up all around the markets in Kampong Cham. So far I’ve eaten 3 kilos myself and despite the fact that they’re oh-so-delicious just as is, I thought maybe I should to use the little gems for something exciting…

The finished product — nice and tart

Sour Citrus Sorbet (no ice cream machine necessary)

12 small tangerines (satsuma or robinsons are yummy)
6 Mexican/Asian limes (the small ones)
1 kaffir lime (bumpy skin, available in Asian food stores)
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup water

food processor or blender

1) Zest the kaffir lime. Make sure the zest is small — it will be going into your sorbet. Don’t worry about getting down to the white part because kaffir limes are generally not too bitter.
2) Juice the remaining tangerines and limes, don’t strain out the pulp. If you don’t have a juicer, separate the seeds with a coarse strainer. You should end up with about 2 cups of juice. Put your juice in the refrigerator to chill.
3) Add sugar, water, and kaffir lime zest to a small saucepan. Cook over medium heat until boiling, then reduce to a simmer for about 10 minutes, or until content has reduced by half, then turn off the heat
4) Add your syrup to the reserved juice and stir well. Pour into a shallow metal dish or ice cube tray and freeze for two hours or until the juice begins to freeze on the sides and top.
5) Take the mixture from the freezer and pulse it in your food processor or blender about ten times. The juice should be frothy and mostly opaque. Put it back in the pan and freeze another 5 hours, until pretty solid.
6) Take the mixture out and pulse it in the blender again. The sorbet should have a smooth, but soft texture and be able to hold its shape. Make into balls and freeze for another hour or so. Serve immediately with extra zest for garnish or put it in a container and cover the surface of the sorbet with plastic wrap to inhibit ice crystals. If your sorbet becomes icy after too long in the freezer, simply give it another whirl in the food processor before serving.

I plan to try different citrus combinations — pumelo is the next contender, with chili-salt topping! It might also be yummy to add a tbsp or two of Alize, Cointreau or Grand Marnier to smooth out the texture and add a kick, but I haven’t tried these myself. Just remember, adding alcohol means a slower freezing time, so if you try it, you may need to increase the suggested time in the freezer.

Kaffir lime for zesting!

Somart brought this over for a feast the other day and gave me her recipe. I reduced the sugar, but you could add more — it’s really up to your personal preference.

I like to eat this hot with coconut sticky rice or chilled over shaved ice. Yum!

It’s a little grey looking, but absolutely scrumptious

Banana & Tapioca Dessert (Jait K’tih)

1.5 cup coconut milk
1/2 cup water
8 mini dessert bananas sliced in half (Lakatan is delicious)
1/4 cup mini tapioca pearls
1/4 cup sugar, or to taste
pinch of salt
1/2 cup coconut cream*

Add coconut milk and water to a pot and heat until boiling. Add soaked tapioca pearls, bring back to a boil and then turn the heat down. Simmer approximately 10 minutes on low until the tapioca becomes soft.

Add sugar and a pinch of salt and stir until dissolved. Then add bananas. Bring the pot back to a simmer and cook 10 minutes more, or until bananas are soft and the mixture is a dull grey color.

Serve hot or cold with extra coconut cream drizzled on the top. This can also be eaten over sticky rice and/or with shaved ice for something different.

*If using a can of coconut milk, you can spoon off the top part of the milk which is usually the thicker, more opaque part and reserve this as the cream. If you’re using fresh coconut, the cream comes out the first time you squeeze the coconut with a little bit of boiling water and the milk will come out on the subsequent squeezes when you’ve added more water.

Sitting down to enjoy our lovely amok dinner

Last night, the girls and I got together to make fish amok. This is Sinang’s special recipe, though I added some personal notes based on variations that I’ve seen elsewhere. Amok is your quintessential Cambodian food — some call it the national dish. It varies across all sorts of dimensions — from a thin and soupy to solid congealed sauce, from spicy to no heat, from big fish hunks to tiny processed chunks. Some recipes bring out the lemongrass, while others emphasize the kaffir lime taste. But some elements run similar: the dish is always steamed, often wrapped in a banana leaf; kaffir limes always make an appearance; and the sauce always has a curry base with your typical coconut milk and Khmer curry ingredients.

This recipe is for a nicely balanced amok, tending toward a lemongrass-y flavor. The final product is firm, not runny, but beautifully moist so that it separates nicely with your fork over hot white rice. The peanuts play a major role and change the texture from some other recipes. I’m personally ambivalent — I’m not sure I like the texture mixed in, so I think I would try them as topping or garnish. On the other hand, though this recipe calls for kaffir lime at the end as topping, I personally like it mixed in.

Sinang’s Fish Amok (Threi Amok)

Ingredients:
1 kilo river fish
5 cups tender star gooseberry leaves (phyllanthus acidus or sluk gontooik)
Banana leaves made into lidless boats, banana leaves for packets, or small ceramic bowls
5 stalks lemongrass
5 grams large dried chilis, or to taste
about 1 inch fresh galangal
about 1 inch fresh young turmeric
2 cloves garlic
2-3 shallots
zest of 1 kaffir lime
7-8 kaffir lime leaves
4 roots wild ginger (kaemplena galanga or k’chlee-ay)
1.5 tbs. salt
3 tbs. sugar, or to taste
1 tbs. dark shrimp paste (kapi)
3 eggs
2 cups coconut cream (thick coconut milk)
1.5 tsp curry powder
2 cups roasted, crushed peanuts (optional)
1 bunch cilantro (optional)

Special equipment:
mortar & pestle or food processor
pot for steaming

Feeds 6-8 people
Preparation time: 2 hours total, 15 min steaming

Process:
1) Soak dried chilis in a bowl of water to reconstitute.
2) Chop the bottom third of the lemongrass stems, stopping where the stems dry up into leaves. Also chop galangal, turmeric, garlic, shallots, skin of your lime, and about 1 inch wild ginger root very finely.
3) Process ingredients with a mortar and pestle or with your food processor until they make a smooth paste.
4) Chop your chilis finely and process the chilis in a paste. Mix chili paste with amok paste until the desired spiciness. Depending on your audience, you may want to make two batches — one with chili, one without.
5) Chop your fish into small pieces. The exact size depends on your preference, but pieces should be no thicker than 0.5 cm and no bigger than 3 cm x 3 cm wide. This keeps the steaming time down and ensures that the sauce sets and the fish finishes at the same time.
6) In a large bowl, gently mix pieces of fish with amok paste and coconut cream until evenly coated
7) Continue to combine mixture, adding sugar and salt, shrimp paste, 3 eggs, curry powder, and finally the crushed peanuts. Peanuts can be omitted if desired, or added later for garnish.
Take banana leaf boats, bowls, or packets and line the bottom with 2-3 layers of star gooseberry leaves. Add amok mixture to fill the container. Repeat with all the amok mixture.
9) Thinly slice kaffir lime leaves and remaining wild ginger. Top each boat with a few slices of each for flavor. If desired, the leaves and ginger can be mixed in with the original mixture — this is up to individual preference.
10) Steam packets in a large steamer for 10-15 minutes, or until done.

Garnish with sprigs of cilantro and serve with white rice

Somart and Rumdourl assembling the amok boats

The little amok boats, ready to be steamed

And in the steamer…

Rumdourl opening up the finished product while Elaine looks on…