Weekend in review: mostly cooking
Apr. 3rd, 2011 02:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
daemonlunaI seem to be posting infrequent bursts of domesticity lately. I should really do something about the multiple tabs that collect in Firefox, but am perfectly ok with uneventfulness right now. REALLY AND TRULY. So be prepared for rambling accounts of my weekend.
Friday: grocery shopping after work while tired and hungry and coming home to collapse on the couch in front of the TV with grocery store chicken, potato salad and coleslaw.
Ominous spring snowstorm clouds. Forecast calls for 15-20 cm over the weekend. This does not bode well for driving to Calgary Sunday morning for friends' book launch events.
I finished knitting a sock! I now have four socks and a fingerless mitt. Sounds good, right? Two pairs? If only! These are four separate socks. I have four more socks (and a fingerless mitt) to knit. Have been informed that this is known as Second Sock Syndrome.
Saturday: Oh, spring snow. I sleep in,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
troutkitty get up and writes. Then I drive her to work, stop at local-coffee-place-that-roasts-its-own-beans for more beans, stop at the Asian Market to see if they have injera. They tell me not yet, but it will be in by two. I'm not sure if they get it daily, or only on Saturdays, but it's definitely made fresh. Mmm, injera. Sourdough-ish spongey Ethiopian flatbread.
Head home, look up recipes, discover I need more things. Back to the Asian Market an hour later, get still-warm injera and missing spices, stop at the grocery store for a handful of other ingredients, and another stop at the drugstore for a cheap coffee grinder for spice grinding. (We made Ethiopian last weekend withzulu and bell. The coffee grinder, they will not be surprised to hear, is MUCH more effective than grinding things up by hand with a mortar and pestle.)
I got ambitious, and decided to make the spice mix (berbere) and clarified, spiced butter (niter kebbeh) that are used for most Ethiopian stews and such. I diligently followed directions and toasted the spices in a cast iron pan, and ground things as needed. It totally paid off, taste-wise, wasn't nearly as complicated as I thought, and means we have the ingredients ready to go. However, even a day later, the whole house still smells spicy.
I used the second berbere recipe and the first niter kebbeh recipe from this page.
Berebere
2 t Cumin seeds
4 Whole cloves
¾ t Cardamom seeds
½ t Whole black peppercorns
¼ t Whole allspice
1 t Fenugreek seeds
½ t Coriander seeds
8 To 10 small dried red chiles (OR 2 tbsp cayenne)
½ t Grated fresh ginger root OR (1 tsp dried)
¼ t Turmeric
1 t Salt
2 ½ T Sweet Hungarian paprika
? t Cinnamon
? t Ground cloves
In a small frying pan, on medium-low heat, toast the cumin, whole cloves, cardamom, peppercorns, allspice, fenugreek, and coriander for about 2 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove the pan from the heat and cool for 5 minutes.
Discard the stems from the chiles. In a spice grinder or with a morter and pestle, finely grind together the toasted spices and the chiles. Mix in the remaining ingredients.
Store Berebere refrigerated in a well-sealed jar or a tightly closed plastic bag.
Niter Kebbeh (Seasoning)
1 lb butter; unsalted
¼ c onions; chopped
2 cloves garlic; minced
2 t Ginger; grated, peeled, fresh
½ t Turmeric
4 Cardamom seeds; crushed
1 Cinnamon stick
2 Cloves; whole
1 t Nutmeg
¼ t Ground fenugreek seeds
1 T Basil; fresh OR (1 t dried)
In a small saucepan, gradually melt the butter and bring it to bubbling. When the top is covered with foam, add the other ingredients and reduce the heat to a simmer. Gently simmer, uncovered, on low heat. After about 45 to 60 minutes, when the surface becomes transparent and the milk solids are on the bottom, pour the liquid through cheesecloth into a heat-resistant container. Discard the spices and solids. Covered tightly and stored in the refrigerator, Niter Kebbeh will keep for up to 2 months. Note: A good quality olive or other oil may be substituted for the butter.
I also made:
Iab cottage cheese and yogurt: good, but a bit bland. Maybe next time I'll drain regular cottage cheese instead of using dry cottage cheese curds. For the record, "salad herbs" in this case were parsley and a bit of basil.
Iab
Combine: 1 lb. Small Curd Cottage Cheese or Farmer Cheese
4 T Yogurt
1 T Grated Lemon Rind
1 t Salad Herbs
2 T Chopped Parsley
1 t Salt
¼ t Black Pepper
The mixture should be moist enough to spoon but dry enough to stay firm when served. Drain off excess liquid. One or two heaping tablespoons of lab is placed on the Injera before each guest.
Mustard lentils: SO GOOD. I added 1 tsp fenugreek as well, which I'd seen in another recipe. Brown lentils that keep their shape work best. This is probably the one we're most likely to make often, since it only takes half an hour, and not close to two like the red lentils.
Afeza
1 cup green lentils
2 teaspoons brown mustard seeds
1 teaspoon black peppercorns
1 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon cayenne
juice of 2 lemons
3 tablespoons olive oil
4 large jalapeño peppers, seeded and cut into 1/2-inch long matchsticks
Wash the lentils and put into a medium saucepan with 3 cups of water. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, then turn down the heat to low and cover, cooking gently for 30 minutes or until the lentils are tender. Drain and set aside to let cool.
Add the mustard seeds, peppercorns, salt and cayenne into a clean coffee or spice grinder and grind finely. Put into a small bowl and mix well with 2 tablespoons of boiling water. Now add the lemon juice and olive oil and stir in well.
Pour the jalapeño peppers and dressing over the lentils and toss thoroughly. Serve warm or chilled. Serves 4 to 6.
Red lentil stew: Also delicious! Could have been even spicier. I think the ground hot pepper I used this time was less potent than cayenne, so I underestimated. Also, I skipped the black cardamon on account of not having any, and used half an onion instead of a whole one. You need to use red lentils if you want them to break down into a paste.
Mesir Wat
Ingredients
* 1 large onion (nearly 1 pound), chopped finely
* 2 to 3 tablespoons nitr qibe
* 5 to 7 cloves of garlic (nearly 1/2 cup), minced
* 1 inch of ginger root, grated
* 1 tablespoon berbere; increase or decrease according to your chili-heat tolerance.
* 1 teaspoon sweet paprika powder
* 1 teaspoon turmeric
* 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
* 1/2 teaspoon ground coriander seed
* 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
* 1/2 teaspoon ground fenugreek
* 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
* 1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom seeds
* 1 whole black cardamom pod
* 2 1/2 to 3 cups water
* 1/2 cup split red lentils (masoor dal), rinsed
* 2 to 3 tablespoons tomato paste
* 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon salt, or to taste
Method
1. In a large pot, melt the nitr qibe and sauté the onions over medium-high heat until soft and golden, about 20 to 30 minutes. You’ll need to stir this frequently, and it may seem tedious, but you really want the onions to caramelize for this dish.
2. Add the garlic and ginger, and stir for a minute or two. Don’t let the garlic go brown; pale golden is okay, though.
3. Add the spices (berbere, paprika, turmeric, cinnamon, coriander, cumin, non-black cardamom, and black cardamom), and stir until fragrant, another minute or two.
4. Stir in the water, lentils, tomato paste and salt, and bring to a simmer. Set the heat to low, cover and cook for 1 to 1 1/2 hours. During the last 30 minutes or so you should stir every 5 to 10 minutes, so that the stew doesn’t stick and burn. When done, some but not all of the lentils will have dissolved.
Chickpea flour stew: This one was ultimately disappointing. Kind of gummy and, I dunno, maybe I undercooked the flour? It had a raw sort of taste to it. It was a half of the recipe, which serves ten as written. Maybe the leftover can be panfried as fritters or something.
Shiro Wat
2 cups of Shiro flour
2 large onion fine chopped
1 cup of vegetable oil
5 teaspoons minced or powder garlic
1 table spoon Berbere
2 teaspoons salt (as needed)
10 cups of water
Preparation Method: In a medium pot, simmer onion and garlic with vegetable oil. Add berbere and simmer for about 5 minutes at low heat while adding a dash of water to avoid sticking. Add the remaining water and mix the shiro by adding a small portion of the shiro flour at a time and continuously stirring. Let it cook until it becomes thick, but runny for about 20 minutes at low heat. For thicker shiro add more shiro flour. For extra flavor finish off by adding a spoon of Neter Kibe (Seasoned Ethiopian Butter).
SO good, overall, with a bottle of red wine. Then we watched the first few episodes of True Blood, and I knitted the cuff for a second sock.
True Blood verdict: kind of like the bastard lovechild of Deadwood-and-Justified with something like Smallville but with vampires? Much fluffier than Deadwood and Justified. I'm not in love with it, but mildly interested and enjoying it more than the books. I've read the first few, and found them kind of flat. However, now I am craving homemade iced tea with lemon. Might have to do something about that.
Today: Did not chance the roads and missed out on book launch activities in Calgary. Considering that the police were not advising travel in Calgary yesterday, though... if it had been a later afternoon event, we may have gone, but it was a lunch thing starting at eleven. Stupid spring blizzards. I slept in ridiculously long until close to noon and have been feeling overslept and groggy all afternoon. Linkhopped on AO3, and ended up rereading Written by the Victors. Need to get moving, eat something, and toss in a load or two of laundry. And make iced tea.
Friday: grocery shopping after work while tired and hungry and coming home to collapse on the couch in front of the TV with grocery store chicken, potato salad and coleslaw.
Ominous spring snowstorm clouds. Forecast calls for 15-20 cm over the weekend. This does not bode well for driving to Calgary Sunday morning for friends' book launch events.
I finished knitting a sock! I now have four socks and a fingerless mitt. Sounds good, right? Two pairs? If only! These are four separate socks. I have four more socks (and a fingerless mitt) to knit. Have been informed that this is known as Second Sock Syndrome.
Saturday: Oh, spring snow. I sleep in,
troutkitty get up and writes. Then I drive her to work, stop at local-coffee-place-that-roasts-its-own-beans for more beans, stop at the Asian Market to see if they have injera. They tell me not yet, but it will be in by two. I'm not sure if they get it daily, or only on Saturdays, but it's definitely made fresh. Mmm, injera. Sourdough-ish spongey Ethiopian flatbread. Head home, look up recipes, discover I need more things. Back to the Asian Market an hour later, get still-warm injera and missing spices, stop at the grocery store for a handful of other ingredients, and another stop at the drugstore for a cheap coffee grinder for spice grinding. (We made Ethiopian last weekend with
zulu and bell. The coffee grinder, they will not be surprised to hear, is MUCH more effective than grinding things up by hand with a mortar and pestle.)I got ambitious, and decided to make the spice mix (berbere) and clarified, spiced butter (niter kebbeh) that are used for most Ethiopian stews and such. I diligently followed directions and toasted the spices in a cast iron pan, and ground things as needed. It totally paid off, taste-wise, wasn't nearly as complicated as I thought, and means we have the ingredients ready to go. However, even a day later, the whole house still smells spicy.
I used the second berbere recipe and the first niter kebbeh recipe from this page.
Berebere
2 t Cumin seeds
4 Whole cloves
¾ t Cardamom seeds
½ t Whole black peppercorns
¼ t Whole allspice
1 t Fenugreek seeds
½ t Coriander seeds
8 To 10 small dried red chiles (OR 2 tbsp cayenne)
½ t Grated fresh ginger root OR (1 tsp dried)
¼ t Turmeric
1 t Salt
2 ½ T Sweet Hungarian paprika
? t Cinnamon
? t Ground cloves
In a small frying pan, on medium-low heat, toast the cumin, whole cloves, cardamom, peppercorns, allspice, fenugreek, and coriander for about 2 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove the pan from the heat and cool for 5 minutes.
Discard the stems from the chiles. In a spice grinder or with a morter and pestle, finely grind together the toasted spices and the chiles. Mix in the remaining ingredients.
Store Berebere refrigerated in a well-sealed jar or a tightly closed plastic bag.
Niter Kebbeh (Seasoning)
1 lb butter; unsalted
¼ c onions; chopped
2 cloves garlic; minced
2 t Ginger; grated, peeled, fresh
½ t Turmeric
4 Cardamom seeds; crushed
1 Cinnamon stick
2 Cloves; whole
1 t Nutmeg
¼ t Ground fenugreek seeds
1 T Basil; fresh OR (1 t dried)
In a small saucepan, gradually melt the butter and bring it to bubbling. When the top is covered with foam, add the other ingredients and reduce the heat to a simmer. Gently simmer, uncovered, on low heat. After about 45 to 60 minutes, when the surface becomes transparent and the milk solids are on the bottom, pour the liquid through cheesecloth into a heat-resistant container. Discard the spices and solids. Covered tightly and stored in the refrigerator, Niter Kebbeh will keep for up to 2 months. Note: A good quality olive or other oil may be substituted for the butter.
I also made:
Iab cottage cheese and yogurt: good, but a bit bland. Maybe next time I'll drain regular cottage cheese instead of using dry cottage cheese curds. For the record, "salad herbs" in this case were parsley and a bit of basil.
Iab
Combine: 1 lb. Small Curd Cottage Cheese or Farmer Cheese
4 T Yogurt
1 T Grated Lemon Rind
1 t Salad Herbs
2 T Chopped Parsley
1 t Salt
¼ t Black Pepper
The mixture should be moist enough to spoon but dry enough to stay firm when served. Drain off excess liquid. One or two heaping tablespoons of lab is placed on the Injera before each guest.
Mustard lentils: SO GOOD. I added 1 tsp fenugreek as well, which I'd seen in another recipe. Brown lentils that keep their shape work best. This is probably the one we're most likely to make often, since it only takes half an hour, and not close to two like the red lentils.
Afeza
1 cup green lentils
2 teaspoons brown mustard seeds
1 teaspoon black peppercorns
1 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon cayenne
juice of 2 lemons
3 tablespoons olive oil
4 large jalapeño peppers, seeded and cut into 1/2-inch long matchsticks
Wash the lentils and put into a medium saucepan with 3 cups of water. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, then turn down the heat to low and cover, cooking gently for 30 minutes or until the lentils are tender. Drain and set aside to let cool.
Add the mustard seeds, peppercorns, salt and cayenne into a clean coffee or spice grinder and grind finely. Put into a small bowl and mix well with 2 tablespoons of boiling water. Now add the lemon juice and olive oil and stir in well.
Pour the jalapeño peppers and dressing over the lentils and toss thoroughly. Serve warm or chilled. Serves 4 to 6.
Red lentil stew: Also delicious! Could have been even spicier. I think the ground hot pepper I used this time was less potent than cayenne, so I underestimated. Also, I skipped the black cardamon on account of not having any, and used half an onion instead of a whole one. You need to use red lentils if you want them to break down into a paste.
Mesir Wat
Ingredients
* 1 large onion (nearly 1 pound), chopped finely
* 2 to 3 tablespoons nitr qibe
* 5 to 7 cloves of garlic (nearly 1/2 cup), minced
* 1 inch of ginger root, grated
* 1 tablespoon berbere; increase or decrease according to your chili-heat tolerance.
* 1 teaspoon sweet paprika powder
* 1 teaspoon turmeric
* 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
* 1/2 teaspoon ground coriander seed
* 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
* 1/2 teaspoon ground fenugreek
* 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
* 1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom seeds
* 1 whole black cardamom pod
* 2 1/2 to 3 cups water
* 1/2 cup split red lentils (masoor dal), rinsed
* 2 to 3 tablespoons tomato paste
* 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon salt, or to taste
Method
1. In a large pot, melt the nitr qibe and sauté the onions over medium-high heat until soft and golden, about 20 to 30 minutes. You’ll need to stir this frequently, and it may seem tedious, but you really want the onions to caramelize for this dish.
2. Add the garlic and ginger, and stir for a minute or two. Don’t let the garlic go brown; pale golden is okay, though.
3. Add the spices (berbere, paprika, turmeric, cinnamon, coriander, cumin, non-black cardamom, and black cardamom), and stir until fragrant, another minute or two.
4. Stir in the water, lentils, tomato paste and salt, and bring to a simmer. Set the heat to low, cover and cook for 1 to 1 1/2 hours. During the last 30 minutes or so you should stir every 5 to 10 minutes, so that the stew doesn’t stick and burn. When done, some but not all of the lentils will have dissolved.
Chickpea flour stew: This one was ultimately disappointing. Kind of gummy and, I dunno, maybe I undercooked the flour? It had a raw sort of taste to it. It was a half of the recipe, which serves ten as written. Maybe the leftover can be panfried as fritters or something.
Shiro Wat
2 cups of Shiro flour
2 large onion fine chopped
1 cup of vegetable oil
5 teaspoons minced or powder garlic
1 table spoon Berbere
2 teaspoons salt (as needed)
10 cups of water
Preparation Method: In a medium pot, simmer onion and garlic with vegetable oil. Add berbere and simmer for about 5 minutes at low heat while adding a dash of water to avoid sticking. Add the remaining water and mix the shiro by adding a small portion of the shiro flour at a time and continuously stirring. Let it cook until it becomes thick, but runny for about 20 minutes at low heat. For thicker shiro add more shiro flour. For extra flavor finish off by adding a spoon of Neter Kibe (Seasoned Ethiopian Butter).
SO good, overall, with a bottle of red wine. Then we watched the first few episodes of True Blood, and I knitted the cuff for a second sock.
True Blood verdict: kind of like the bastard lovechild of Deadwood-and-Justified with something like Smallville but with vampires? Much fluffier than Deadwood and Justified. I'm not in love with it, but mildly interested and enjoying it more than the books. I've read the first few, and found them kind of flat. However, now I am craving homemade iced tea with lemon. Might have to do something about that.
Today: Did not chance the roads and missed out on book launch activities in Calgary. Considering that the police were not advising travel in Calgary yesterday, though... if it had been a later afternoon event, we may have gone, but it was a lunch thing starting at eleven. Stupid spring blizzards. I slept in ridiculously long until close to noon and have been feeling overslept and groggy all afternoon. Linkhopped on AO3, and ended up rereading Written by the Victors. Need to get moving, eat something, and toss in a load or two of laundry. And make iced tea.
