OK, The following is a really easy Chinese recipe, (if you have access to the ingredients), It's not really spicy, except for the ginger, but it's really good and wholesome. It's a tonic recipe that used to be prescribed in ancient china for warriors recovering from injury, or for women recovering fromm child birth etc. We've got a hermaphrodite chicken walking around on our farm that I've decided to use for this one. Ever since he (she? It?) started to grow up a bit I noticed that he was a bit different. He's white, all his brothers are black with gold neck feathers. He kind of reminds me of the Road Runner. I've also noticed that sometimes he tries to crow, but it sounds like he doesn't really get it. And neither do I for that matter, I like to sleep between 1 and 6 am should I choose to. In traditional India, voluntary eunuchs, called Hijra, are revered and feared by normal folk. They are payed to dance and pray at weddings and when a baby is born. The theory being that because they cannot ejaculate, all their essential energy is preserved, and so if one decides to curse you, you're in trouble. At the same time, their blessing aare worth alot. So If what they say is true, that what is good for the goose is good for the gander (I'm not really sure how this saying applies exactly in this case, but for some reason it seems apropriate) then maybe a bit of hermaphrodite chicken is just what I need.
OK, you will need:
About 1kg of chicken pieces, preferably organic, thighs and breasts, or whatever you like
At least 250ml of dry white wine, cooking sherry or sake
3 chopped scallions
A heaped teaspoon of diced ginger
A fist full of dry ginseng root, if you have slices, smash them into small cuboids in a mortar, were really talking about 2 to 3 heaped tablespoons of this substance.
As far as I can remember no salt is required
A small amount of sesame oil, (or substitute) About half a teaspoon per serving, this comes into individual bowls after the cooking is done.
OK, the method:
Use a heavy cleaver or machette (or broad veg knife pounding on the back of it) to split the pieces of chicken into 2 or 3 segments each. Pack them into a heavy stainless steel or clay pot with a tightly fitting lid. If you have steaming equipment, use it. Sprinkle over the ginger, ginseng and scallions, now pour the wine over it. Maybe dilute the wine with a bit of water if you dont have real deal steaming stuff and youre doing it directly on the heat. It should almost cover the chicken.
Put on the lid. Turn on the heat low, but high enough so it will boil eventually. Leave it for an hour, drop a bit of the sesame or olive oil or butter, (if you just have sunflower oil then just leave out this part) into each bowl and dish in some meat and some broth.
Voilà!
If you're not injured or recovering from pregnancy, I reccomend you have an agenda the next morning involving physical work, or that you have a girl with you. If you are a girl I don't know, really, my wife used to report a 'feeling of lightness' (buoyancy?) the next morning.
There it is boys and girls, Enjoy!
Monday, September 6, 2010
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Grafting Chinese and Indian
Ok, this is just gonna be a quickie...
A rush of blood came to my head the other day, and I got this idea of making a stir fry style masala.
I'm real proud of this idea,, though it must exist already somewhere in the world where I haven't been yet. The result was mediocre, but the idea is golden, and it can be improved upon.
I used fennel seed, carraway seed, fenugreek ( really just use a pinch of this, çause if it doesnt boil for a long time its very bitter). A fist full of diced ginger, a fist full of diced garlic, about as much chopped cabbage as you can fit in two hands, and about 2 large carrots, now this is the only fine point I have perfected so far, the carrots. Peel them, and chop first into inch long segments, halve them, and then slice them finely. This concept is a bit hard for me to verbalize right now, but if you meditate on it, I'm sure you'll figure it out. They're the first veg to go into the fry, so they have to be thin slices to get cooked. Carrots can take a long time to cook otherwise. And just a few pinches of your favorite curry powder, I used packo masala and rajah mild 'n spicy. Garam masala will be excellent, but use it sparingly.
Then theres the soup mix. In South Africa they sell this stuff called soup mix. It's about 60% pearl barley, 20% red split lentils and 20% split peas. This you have to pre-boil, for about half an hour. About one small cup (150ml) of this stuff should be great.
OK. You start with a some oil in the wok, as much as you feel comfortable with, I reccomend olive oil, or sesame oil,, I used some butter and canola oil but you can do better than that. Add the fennel, caraway, and fenugreek. Clove will go, and I have an idea cardamon and star anise will do wonders. Fry them lightly for about 3 minutes, then go the ginger, fry it, swirl it. Then the garlic, same thing, and at about the same time the curry powder goes. Now add the carrots. You wanna get them almost cooked. So if you have a wok, you do the shake, or otherwise swirl it around with a wooden spoon. It takes about a minute, if you're using gas that is. Now the cabbage. Just keep swirling and shaking until they change texture SLIGHTLY. You WANT them hard and crunchy (Otherwise it wouldn't be a stir fry , same goes for the carrots). Now add the pre boiled soup mix and stir fry for half a minute.
Now dish it up. I ate it all in one go by myself, but it's enough for 2 civilized people.
Enjoy boys and girls. I'd like to hear comments on how to do it better.
A rush of blood came to my head the other day, and I got this idea of making a stir fry style masala.
I'm real proud of this idea,, though it must exist already somewhere in the world where I haven't been yet. The result was mediocre, but the idea is golden, and it can be improved upon.
I used fennel seed, carraway seed, fenugreek ( really just use a pinch of this, çause if it doesnt boil for a long time its very bitter). A fist full of diced ginger, a fist full of diced garlic, about as much chopped cabbage as you can fit in two hands, and about 2 large carrots, now this is the only fine point I have perfected so far, the carrots. Peel them, and chop first into inch long segments, halve them, and then slice them finely. This concept is a bit hard for me to verbalize right now, but if you meditate on it, I'm sure you'll figure it out. They're the first veg to go into the fry, so they have to be thin slices to get cooked. Carrots can take a long time to cook otherwise. And just a few pinches of your favorite curry powder, I used packo masala and rajah mild 'n spicy. Garam masala will be excellent, but use it sparingly.
Then theres the soup mix. In South Africa they sell this stuff called soup mix. It's about 60% pearl barley, 20% red split lentils and 20% split peas. This you have to pre-boil, for about half an hour. About one small cup (150ml) of this stuff should be great.
OK. You start with a some oil in the wok, as much as you feel comfortable with, I reccomend olive oil, or sesame oil,, I used some butter and canola oil but you can do better than that. Add the fennel, caraway, and fenugreek. Clove will go, and I have an idea cardamon and star anise will do wonders. Fry them lightly for about 3 minutes, then go the ginger, fry it, swirl it. Then the garlic, same thing, and at about the same time the curry powder goes. Now add the carrots. You wanna get them almost cooked. So if you have a wok, you do the shake, or otherwise swirl it around with a wooden spoon. It takes about a minute, if you're using gas that is. Now the cabbage. Just keep swirling and shaking until they change texture SLIGHTLY. You WANT them hard and crunchy (Otherwise it wouldn't be a stir fry , same goes for the carrots). Now add the pre boiled soup mix and stir fry for half a minute.
Now dish it up. I ate it all in one go by myself, but it's enough for 2 civilized people.
Enjoy boys and girls. I'd like to hear comments on how to do it better.
Saturday, August 28, 2010
The Correct Way To Make Rice
OK boys and girls, friends and lovers. Here we go again, I've been thinking I need to add something that will go with the recipe in the previous post, and for the sake of simplicity, and starting with the basics, I thought rice is a good place to start. If you can cook rice, you can live. I lived in Japan for 5 years, so I do humbly claim knowing something about the subject.
Most people in Japan use a rice cooker, this is a kitchen appliance that is solely dedicated to making rice. Some of them can make bread too, but then it will be round. I's a good investment if you're going to be living on rice, if you're single etc. It's not practical for me, because I don't eat that much in the way of carbs, and so what follows is the manual way.
OK, let's jump right in then. If you live in South Africa, then you are probably familiar with the Tastic brand. It's OK, not remarkable, just a good meat and potatoes rice, if I may be permitted such an obscure statement. There are actually many different kinds of rice, but we won't go into that now. What is remarkable to us, borderline consumers, is that the directions, the cooking instructions on the back of the bag of Tastic and all other 'normal' rice is WRONG. It would seem that the people in charge have an interest in misleading their customers, their very bread and butter, or maybe they just don't know any better.
The idea behind making rice the right way, is to treat the cooking rice as a living organism. Like a pupa in incubation. You have to respect the things you eat, and treat them accordingly. Otherwise they gang up on you and give you heartburn, indigestion, gas, and eventually cancer.
To begin, pour out the rice into the pot. This should be a heavy pot, at least the base must be quite thick. Don't use flimsy aluminium pots. The best kind of pot for making rice is a clay pot, you can use it on gas, but I'm not sure about electric stove, at least not the kind with an exposed element. This is a bit of a novelty though, and a sturdy stainless steel pot with a snugly fitting lid should work fine. The lid is indispensable, and it must fit well. It is not essential to measure the amount of rice, but lets say for clarity's sake that it's about 500ml, or 2 mugs full.
First, wash the rice, with cold water, unless you have a solar geyser made with food grade materials. Wash it over and over until the water no longer becomes cloudy. Now for the cooking water, it must be cold, this is very important. Pour some in so that the water level is just a few centimeters above the rice level. Shake it a little bit so that the rice lies evenly. Now place the pot on a level surface and put your open hand into it so that your palm and your fingers rest on the rice. You don't really put weight on it, the rice must remain level. Now, the water must reach your knuckles, or your knuckles must be under water but it mustn't come up any higher than that. At least this is true for Japanese rice. Rice sold in South Africa soaks up more water, so what you can do is let the water come up just a little bit higher than your knuckles. but not more than 2 centimeters.
Into this, add a pinch, or two, no more, of salt. Salt is not really that good for you, and for some reason Japanese rice requires no salt at all. Tastic tastes a little bit funny if you don't put in any though. Now put on the lid and put it on the stove. You have to start with a low heat. If you don't want to pay very much attention to it, you can leave it like that for about an hour. If you're in a hurry you can turn up the heat as soon as it's boiling. The most important rule here is that you DON'T take off the lid until it's done. To find out how far it is you have to listen. There's a certain sound it makes when it's boiling (That's when you can turn the heat up), and when it's almost done it becomes more of a sizzling. Remember though that if you open it too soon, you've blown it. So if you are in a hurry, turn the heat up once it's boiling, then when you can hear that it's almost done, turn it down quite low again, otherwise it will burn.
The first time you try this, rather don't be in a hurry. Low heat and leave it for an hour. When I say low heat, I mean high enough to get it boiling eventually. This is actually why it takes a bit longer this way. Ideally it should start boiling in about 15 minutes, if it's not boiling in 20, then just turn up the heat some.
When it's done, its will sound particularly dry with a kind of sizzling noise. Open it, and give it a good stir with a rice scoop or a wooden spoon. That's it, Enjoy! If you want to be decadent, and large amounts of butter don't scare you, stir in 50~100g of butter and a teaspoon of thyme with this, just after you've opened it. (Not margarine, PLEASE!)
This is actually a good party trick because many people cringe if things aren't measured out. As for the 1 cup rice three cups water instructions, they are wrong. As far as measuring things out goes, you don't ever want more than 2 cups water per 1 cup rice. Maybe the reason they say that is because many people just cook rice without a lid, which is a total sacrilege anyway. So now you know. Happy rice making! (And eating).
Most people in Japan use a rice cooker, this is a kitchen appliance that is solely dedicated to making rice. Some of them can make bread too, but then it will be round. I's a good investment if you're going to be living on rice, if you're single etc. It's not practical for me, because I don't eat that much in the way of carbs, and so what follows is the manual way.
OK, let's jump right in then. If you live in South Africa, then you are probably familiar with the Tastic brand. It's OK, not remarkable, just a good meat and potatoes rice, if I may be permitted such an obscure statement. There are actually many different kinds of rice, but we won't go into that now. What is remarkable to us, borderline consumers, is that the directions, the cooking instructions on the back of the bag of Tastic and all other 'normal' rice is WRONG. It would seem that the people in charge have an interest in misleading their customers, their very bread and butter, or maybe they just don't know any better.
The idea behind making rice the right way, is to treat the cooking rice as a living organism. Like a pupa in incubation. You have to respect the things you eat, and treat them accordingly. Otherwise they gang up on you and give you heartburn, indigestion, gas, and eventually cancer.
To begin, pour out the rice into the pot. This should be a heavy pot, at least the base must be quite thick. Don't use flimsy aluminium pots. The best kind of pot for making rice is a clay pot, you can use it on gas, but I'm not sure about electric stove, at least not the kind with an exposed element. This is a bit of a novelty though, and a sturdy stainless steel pot with a snugly fitting lid should work fine. The lid is indispensable, and it must fit well. It is not essential to measure the amount of rice, but lets say for clarity's sake that it's about 500ml, or 2 mugs full.
First, wash the rice, with cold water, unless you have a solar geyser made with food grade materials. Wash it over and over until the water no longer becomes cloudy. Now for the cooking water, it must be cold, this is very important. Pour some in so that the water level is just a few centimeters above the rice level. Shake it a little bit so that the rice lies evenly. Now place the pot on a level surface and put your open hand into it so that your palm and your fingers rest on the rice. You don't really put weight on it, the rice must remain level. Now, the water must reach your knuckles, or your knuckles must be under water but it mustn't come up any higher than that. At least this is true for Japanese rice. Rice sold in South Africa soaks up more water, so what you can do is let the water come up just a little bit higher than your knuckles. but not more than 2 centimeters.
Into this, add a pinch, or two, no more, of salt. Salt is not really that good for you, and for some reason Japanese rice requires no salt at all. Tastic tastes a little bit funny if you don't put in any though. Now put on the lid and put it on the stove. You have to start with a low heat. If you don't want to pay very much attention to it, you can leave it like that for about an hour. If you're in a hurry you can turn up the heat as soon as it's boiling. The most important rule here is that you DON'T take off the lid until it's done. To find out how far it is you have to listen. There's a certain sound it makes when it's boiling (That's when you can turn the heat up), and when it's almost done it becomes more of a sizzling. Remember though that if you open it too soon, you've blown it. So if you are in a hurry, turn the heat up once it's boiling, then when you can hear that it's almost done, turn it down quite low again, otherwise it will burn.
The first time you try this, rather don't be in a hurry. Low heat and leave it for an hour. When I say low heat, I mean high enough to get it boiling eventually. This is actually why it takes a bit longer this way. Ideally it should start boiling in about 15 minutes, if it's not boiling in 20, then just turn up the heat some.
When it's done, its will sound particularly dry with a kind of sizzling noise. Open it, and give it a good stir with a rice scoop or a wooden spoon. That's it, Enjoy! If you want to be decadent, and large amounts of butter don't scare you, stir in 50~100g of butter and a teaspoon of thyme with this, just after you've opened it. (Not margarine, PLEASE!)
This is actually a good party trick because many people cringe if things aren't measured out. As for the 1 cup rice three cups water instructions, they are wrong. As far as measuring things out goes, you don't ever want more than 2 cups water per 1 cup rice. Maybe the reason they say that is because many people just cook rice without a lid, which is a total sacrilege anyway. So now you know. Happy rice making! (And eating).
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
This is my Gift,, My Gift to the world...
Today's Masala, or,, Pea Soup For the Soul
OK then, without further ado. Here we go. I'm reaping the rewards of this effort as I type this, and I decided it's just too good to keep to myself...
You will need:
The veg, and the substance:
50g Butter
Extra vegetable oil for fortifying spices
1 and a half Tbsp vinegar
50ml milk
Raw garlic, about 4 or 5 cloves, depends on the size
Raw Ginger, about 2 times the size of your thumb, this is very important, you can skimp and use powder, but it wont be quite the same
1 Large onion
2 Small potatoes
2 Carrots
1 apple
1 cup of Split Peas
Whole spices:
Half a teaspoon of fennel seed
Half a teaspoon of caraway seed
Half a teaspoon of fenugreek
4 or so cloves
Grounds:
1 teaspoon freshly ground coriander seeds
Half a teaspoon of Packo Masala (the five roses of curry powder)
Half a teaspoon of Rajah Mild and Spicy
Method:
OK, one thing I learned by watching Jamie Oliver and cooking shows where all the ingredients are always magically pre chopped, diced, peeled or whatever, is that it pays to do you'r preparation. Much better than bouncing from the stove to the cutting board and burning your spices.
Put the milk in a cup, toss in the vinegar, (I'll explain later). Chop chop, the carrots and the potatoes in to small cubes. You can have them big and chunky but it takes longer to cook. OK, dice your garlic, ginger and onions separately, or use a food processor, (not mush, but fine). A big, broad vegetable knife is the easiest to use fo this kind of thing. Good, now you're ready for business.
You want a saucepan, heavy and solid is good. Get it nice and hot and throw in the butter, with a bit of veg oil to keep it from wasting the butter. Now throw in all the dry whole spices, swirl it around. Patience is a virtue at this point. You have to keep it moving, not scorching, but sizzling, about 2 minutes is good. Now, the ginger goes, do the same for about another 2 minutes, you'll notice a change in texture. Then comes the garlic, only about half a minute, because it's sensitive, you want to preserve as much of the volatiles in it as possible. Now if at any point during this process what you have in your pan looks dry, add more oil. It should never get drier than a wet kind of a paste. There are 2 good reasons for this. First, you don't want to burn the spices, if their essential oils escape, you lose. Second, the extra oil captures the essential oils that would otherwise be escaping (evaporating). Got it? Good!
Now do the ground spices, they contain thickener, so remember the rule, add more butter or oil if you have to. Don't believe what the media tells you, oil is good for you. Olive oil works great, if that would make you feel more comfortable. It's very important to keep this all moving, a wooden spatula is the best. Keep this going for a minute, then toss in the onion, and still keep it moving until you notice a change in the texture of the onion.
Now, add all the remaining vegetables, (and the apple) and just lightly fry them, you don't have to be thorough, just let them taste the heat and the oil and the spices. Add about 100 ml water, mix and cover, now turn up the heat to HIGH. Wash the peas while the masala starts to simmer, then add them. Now here's where we diverge from traditional Indian cooking, or atleast the recipe's on the backs of boxes of curry powder. Peas drink alot of water. The ones I used today said 2 and a half cups water for 1 cup of peas. I'd say you need atleast that much, Infact I use quite a bit more. Anyway, this cooks on a high flame, so there needs to be enough water for it not to burn. You'll probably find it boiling down before the peas get soft enough, then you just top it up again. Add a bit of salt now, about a quarter of a teaspoon should do it.
OK, put the heat up High, and take a rest. Just check and stir every 15 minutes or so. When the peas are soft, (usually about an hour) take the milk with the vinegar in it, toss it in, and boil for another 2 minutes. The milk will have gone sour, thats the idea. If this idea bothers you, just use some yoghurt, but still add a little vinegar or fresh lemon juice, 2 minutes before serving. This is very important.
Tired? It'll be worth it. Serve with rice, naan, roti, chapati, for now you'll have to figure those out for yourself, I'm going to sleep.
- Enjoy!
OK then, without further ado. Here we go. I'm reaping the rewards of this effort as I type this, and I decided it's just too good to keep to myself...
You will need:
The veg, and the substance:
50g Butter
Extra vegetable oil for fortifying spices
1 and a half Tbsp vinegar
50ml milk
Raw garlic, about 4 or 5 cloves, depends on the size
Raw Ginger, about 2 times the size of your thumb, this is very important, you can skimp and use powder, but it wont be quite the same
1 Large onion
2 Small potatoes
2 Carrots
1 apple
1 cup of Split Peas
Whole spices:
Half a teaspoon of fennel seed
Half a teaspoon of caraway seed
Half a teaspoon of fenugreek
4 or so cloves
Grounds:
1 teaspoon freshly ground coriander seeds
Half a teaspoon of Packo Masala (the five roses of curry powder)
Half a teaspoon of Rajah Mild and Spicy
Method:
OK, one thing I learned by watching Jamie Oliver and cooking shows where all the ingredients are always magically pre chopped, diced, peeled or whatever, is that it pays to do you'r preparation. Much better than bouncing from the stove to the cutting board and burning your spices.
Put the milk in a cup, toss in the vinegar, (I'll explain later). Chop chop, the carrots and the potatoes in to small cubes. You can have them big and chunky but it takes longer to cook. OK, dice your garlic, ginger and onions separately, or use a food processor, (not mush, but fine). A big, broad vegetable knife is the easiest to use fo this kind of thing. Good, now you're ready for business.
You want a saucepan, heavy and solid is good. Get it nice and hot and throw in the butter, with a bit of veg oil to keep it from wasting the butter. Now throw in all the dry whole spices, swirl it around. Patience is a virtue at this point. You have to keep it moving, not scorching, but sizzling, about 2 minutes is good. Now, the ginger goes, do the same for about another 2 minutes, you'll notice a change in texture. Then comes the garlic, only about half a minute, because it's sensitive, you want to preserve as much of the volatiles in it as possible. Now if at any point during this process what you have in your pan looks dry, add more oil. It should never get drier than a wet kind of a paste. There are 2 good reasons for this. First, you don't want to burn the spices, if their essential oils escape, you lose. Second, the extra oil captures the essential oils that would otherwise be escaping (evaporating). Got it? Good!
Now do the ground spices, they contain thickener, so remember the rule, add more butter or oil if you have to. Don't believe what the media tells you, oil is good for you. Olive oil works great, if that would make you feel more comfortable. It's very important to keep this all moving, a wooden spatula is the best. Keep this going for a minute, then toss in the onion, and still keep it moving until you notice a change in the texture of the onion.
Now, add all the remaining vegetables, (and the apple) and just lightly fry them, you don't have to be thorough, just let them taste the heat and the oil and the spices. Add about 100 ml water, mix and cover, now turn up the heat to HIGH. Wash the peas while the masala starts to simmer, then add them. Now here's where we diverge from traditional Indian cooking, or atleast the recipe's on the backs of boxes of curry powder. Peas drink alot of water. The ones I used today said 2 and a half cups water for 1 cup of peas. I'd say you need atleast that much, Infact I use quite a bit more. Anyway, this cooks on a high flame, so there needs to be enough water for it not to burn. You'll probably find it boiling down before the peas get soft enough, then you just top it up again. Add a bit of salt now, about a quarter of a teaspoon should do it.
OK, put the heat up High, and take a rest. Just check and stir every 15 minutes or so. When the peas are soft, (usually about an hour) take the milk with the vinegar in it, toss it in, and boil for another 2 minutes. The milk will have gone sour, thats the idea. If this idea bothers you, just use some yoghurt, but still add a little vinegar or fresh lemon juice, 2 minutes before serving. This is very important.
Tired? It'll be worth it. Serve with rice, naan, roti, chapati, for now you'll have to figure those out for yourself, I'm going to sleep.
- Enjoy!
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