Polenta

This is really a follow-up or expansion on Friday's posting on homemade scrapple.  I took the time to look up polenta on Wikipedia and got a brain full.  Basically, polenta is any mush, hot and fluid, or cold, solidified, sliced and refried, made from any grain grit or flour.  Often, the grain is maize, especially in Mexico and points south.  So strictly speaking, scrapple is a pork/corn meal polenta.  The spectrum of polentas pretty much spans the specialty "puddings" of the western world: scrapple, liver pudding, hasty pudding, haggis, corn meal mush, Indian pudding, etc, etc, etc.  Tripping around in Wikipedia to all of the variations is an interesting diversion.

So my comments from yesterday about the boundless possibilities stands, or even expands.  Saturday I tried lamb with barley grits (actually 2/3 barley grits to1/3 white corn meal).  I basically used Friday's recipe with substitutions of the broth, meat, grain, and seasoning.

1 c. lamb broth taken to 2 1/4 with water and brought to a boil with
~1/2 c. finely chopped lamb meat
1/2 t. salt
1 t. dried rosemary (chopped fine, might have preferred powdered but didn't have it)
1/4 t. dried mustard
1 small clove garlic

Blend 1/4 c. white corn meal with 1/4 c. cold water
At the boil, stir in 1/2 c. barley grits and the white corn meal slurry

With constant stirring and a flame disperser, return to the boil and cook for 20 min.
Turn out into a small loaf pan.

This too turned out to be really good when sliced and fried up in a little butter.

I am pretty excited about the possibilities of this whole polenta thing.

Homemade Scrapple

The other day, I bought a boneless pork loin roast and cut it up into cubes for pork stew (which turned out really well, complete with dumplings; I used marjoram, caraway seed, and dill seed for seasonings) and had the trimmings and a left over end which I put in a pan and cooked down for broth.  A month or two ago, we were at Echo Hill and I picked up some roasted corn meal, thinking it had been a long time since we have had corn meal mush.  These two things kind of came together yesterday in an experiment.

I skimmed the fat from the broth, and picked the meat scraps pretty thoroughly.  The net result was about a cup of not terribly strong broth and maybe 1/2 cup of meat scraps, which I cut up to be as fine as I could make them.

The directions for the corn meal said to combine 2 c. corn meal, 2 c. cold water, and 2 t. salt, bring 6 c. of water to a boil then add the corn meal slurry to the boiling water with constant stirring, return to boil and simmer 15 minutes.  Based on how much broth I had, I made what turned out to be about 3/8  the recipe.  So:

1 c. of pork broth brought up to 2 1/4 c. with water
1/2 t salt
1 t. dried Sage
1/4 t. powdered mustard
~1/2 c.  finely chopped cooked pork
all brought to a boil

3/4 c. roasted corn meal mixed with
3/4 c. cold water

Corn meal slurry stirred into boiling broth, brought back to a boil, simmered 15 minutes with lots of stirring and a flame disperser under the pan to prevent it from charring.  Oh, yeah, I ground some black pepper into it, also - just some, you know how it goes.

The final mixture was poured into a loaf pan and allowed to cool then refrigerated.  By golly, turned out of the loaf pan the next morning, it looked like a block of scrapple!

Jo and I had it fried for breakfast this morning.  I really liked it.

So, whether it is variations on scrapple, fried mush, or polenta, depending on your orientation and preferences, this opens up a whole universe of exploration possibilities.

First, the corn meal:  I really like roasted, brown corn meal.  The stuff from the store is OK, but you remember we used to oven roast field corn and grind it ourselves when we lived on the farm and I would really like to give that a try.  Most recipes seem to call for yellow or white or a mix.  Some scrapple recipes use a mixture of corn and buckwheat meals (particularly from Northampton County where I grew up).  I presume one could experiment with all manner of grains.  Do they make quinoa meal?  Must do.  That might be interesting.  I reckon oat meal would work too, which starts to migrate towards haggis, I think.  I bet barley would work also.

Next, the broth and meat:  Well, pork is good, but around scrapple country, every butcher has his own recipe.  One key variable is whether they add liver and how much.  When we had Peter Bros. butcher pigs, they always charged us for a couple of pounds of beef which they added to their scrapple, so there is the option of mixing different meats.  And of course, you don't have to use scraps to avoid the yuck! factor that seems to be associated with the name (alternately, just call it polenta; that's trendy these days).  Haggis is made with mutton, I believe.  I bet lamb would be good.

And how about a good vegetable stock for a vegetarian version?  I did not add any veggies to this mixture, but I always include veggies in my soups, at least some onion and garlic, and vegetarian or not, it opens up a whole 'nother dimension to explore.

Finally, seasoning:  Sage is the classic for scrapple, and it is really good.  But any herb is possible, so there is a huge range available to explore.  I saw one recipe that was getting into small amounts of some spices, like nutmeg, too.  What happens if we head off in a mid-eastern direction, seasoning-wise.  Well, if you use ground lamb and buckwheat, you wind up at kibbi, I think.  Any way, the sky's the limit.

So, try making boiled grain meal in broth for solidification and frying.  Call by whatever name you like.  Have fun.

Bulgar Veggie "Burgers"

Has anyone posted this recipe yet?  There's a chance that someone has, but I don't feel like going back through the archives to check.  If not, then you're in for a treat.  Last night I whipped these up because our friend Coley is in town and staying with us.  We made them with homemade sweet potato fries - it was a delicious and nutritious dinner. 

That being said, you know I don't like calling something a burger if it's not really a burger.  So, I'd be more inclined to call these veggie patties or something.  Either way, a rose by any other name still tastes like a veggie mash.

1/2 cup chopped onion, divided

1 tablespoon olive oil plus additional for brushing

1/2 cup bulgur

1 cup water

1 cup canned pinto beans, rinsed and drained

1 1/2 tablespoon soy sauce

3/4 cup walnuts (2 1/2 ounces)

2 garlic cloves, coarsely chopped

1/2 cup packed cilantro sprigs

3/4 teaspoon ground cumin

1/4 teaspoon cayenne

1/4 cup mayonnaise

1/4 teaspoon grated lime zest

1/2 teaspoon fresh lime juice

4 slices multi-grain bread,toasted

Cook half of onion with 1/4 teaspoon salt in oil in a small heavy saucepan over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until golden, 5 to 7 minutes. Add bulgur and water and cook, covered, over low heat until water is absorbed, 15 to 18 minutes. Transfer to a bowl and stir in beans and soy sauce.

Pulse bulgur mixture, walnuts, garlic, cilantro, cumin, cayenne, a rounded 1/4 teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon pepper, and remaining onion in a food processor until finely chopped.

Form rounded 1/2 cups of mixture into 4 (31/2-inch-diameter) patties. Chill at least 10 minutes.

While patties chill, stir together mayonnaise, zest, and juice.

Prepare grill for direct-heat cooking over medium-hot charcoal (medium heat for gas). Put perforated grill sheet on grill and preheat 10 minutes.  Brush patties all over with oil.  Oil grill sheet, then grill burgers on grill sheet, covered only if using a gas grill, carefully turning once, until golden brown, about 8 minutes total.  Serve burgers open-faced on toast with lime mayonnaise.

I did not grill them, just fried them in a pan on the stove.  I also used pecans instead of walnuts because we have a ton of Texas pecans on hand right now.  Instead of bread, I used English muffins.  We had arugula and avocado to put on top as well.

Anywho, worth a shot!  They're good.

Molly

Kitchen sink Mega Muffins

Molly's post about mega-muffins got me to thinking - maybe my sugar-loving son who likes to get up and get himself a breakfast of a bowl of cereal (before his egg and oatmeal) would be happy to get himself a muffin instead, and in the process have a healthier breakfast.  So I searched for recipes and ended up combining several.  This is a first run through, and I'll follow with comments about what I would change next time.  Here's what we made:

1 1/2 c white flour
3/4 c flaxseed meal
1/2 c oatmeal
1/4 c wheat bran (but most recipes call for wheat germ.  I just couldn't find any)
2 t baking powder
1 t baking soda
3/4 t salt
>2 t cinnamon
1/4 c butter
3/4 c applesauce
1/2 c white sugar
1/4 c honey
2 eggs
1 1/2 c shredded carrots
1 1/2 c shredded apples
1/2 c craisans
3/4 c chopped mixed nuts
a small bag of frozen blueberries

Mix the dry ingredients.  Cream the butter with sugar and honey, beat in the applesauce, then add eggs one at a time.  Stir in remaining ingredients.  Spoon into a muffin cups with liners.  Bake at 350 for ~25 min. Recipe made 21 small-medium muffins (nice for a 4 year old's pre-breakfast or a snack), some of which are now frozen in our freezer.

These muffins are pretty good, not too dense, moist.  Next time I would:
1) Use less sugar/honey.  These are too sweet for me, so I would use 1/3 - 1/2 c sugar total, and maybe add more carrots in place of some of the apples.  Other variations I saw also called for shredded zucchini, or for chopping the apples instead of shredding them.
2) These didn't have enough "crunch" for me.  I would replace more of the flour with oatmeal or flaxseed meal, and use more nuts.
3) I might also look for wheat germ instead of wheat bran to try to increase the flavor.
4) These were actually almost too moist for me.  I would be inclined to leave out the blueberries, though I think it might be harder to convince Will to eat them then.
5) I would use more salt, probably 1 t.  But then again, I'm a salt-aholic, so I probably wouldn't use more just to cut down on my salt intake.

All in all, a good starting place I think.  I would be interested in decreasing the sugar and increasing the protein content, and I'd be happy to hear any ideas along those lines.

-Maggie

Butternut Squash and Kale Soup

Tonight I tried a recipe for butternut squash and kale soup.  Truthfully I didn't think it was going to be very good, but it looked to be healthy.  I decided to give it a shot to force us to eat more veggies.  However, I was pleasantly surprised.  This is a pretty quick weeknight soup that makes ya feel good.  Also it's fun to mispronounce butternut squash as "squtternut bash."

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon olive oil

1/2 medium onion, chopped

3/4 cup peeled and chopped carrot (about 2 large)

3/4 cup chopped celery (about 3 large)

2 tablespoons chopped scallions

some garlic, chopped

6 cups chicken or vegetable broth

2 cups water

3 to 4 cups 1-inch chopped butternut squash

2 cups torn/chopped kale leaves

2 to 3 sprigs fresh rosemary and thyme

One (15.5-ounce) can white beans, rinsed and drained

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

optional: grated Parmesan cheese, for serving

Directions:

1. Heat the olive oil in a large soup pot, then add the onion, carrot, celery, scallions and garlic. Cook and stir 5 to 6 minutes, or until vegetables begin to soften.

2. Add the broth, water and butternut squash. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to low and simmer for 15 minutes. Add the kale and herbs and simmer an additional 10 minutes. Stir in the beans and heat through. Remove the fresh herb sprigs and discard. Season to taste with salt and pepper, and serve. Sprinkle individual servings with Parmesan cheese, if desired.

I did not serve it with parm and used plenty of rosemary and thyme (I am my father's daughter).  It was quite simple but paired well with the sourdough bread I had picked up.  Give it a shot!

P.S.  Sorry about the poor quality of the photo, I took it with my phone.

Molly

Fish Curry

Kanga expressed an interest in simmer sauces and, in particular, in fish cooked in simmer sauce as a high protein, flavorful, easily swallowed food for Grandpa.  Simmer sauce is pre-made, store bought, Indian curry or spice sauce which can be used to cook meat or vegetable to make a quick and easy curry.  Our local Giant supermarket features both a fish counter and a relatively (for a suburban supermarket) extensive exotic or foreign food section.  I was able to buy a small piece of cod and a selection of three different simmer sauces and as an added bonus, a jar of ginger chutney to try.

I was very disappointed.  The simmer sauces were all spicy, but none of them was particularly tasty nor did they taste like Indian dishes I have had in Indian restaurants.  The chutney was oily and tasted atrocious, in my opinion - a big surprise as the ingredient list started out with ginger and dates and went on to list all of the things you would expect in a chutney.

I felt I owed the products a full trial, so I heated up a package of Passage to India brand Tikka Masala Simmer Sauce and added half a can of mackerel.  It got better after heating.  I ate it for lunch with some rice and raita.  Not too bad, but I didn't really care for it compared to our homemade curries and would not waste $4.50 buying this product again.

So back to square one.  I perused Fish Curry recipes via Google.  These seemed to be predominantly based on tomato and coconut milk.  I picked one that sounded pretty good as a starting point:

http://steamykitchen.com/14700-indian-fish-coconut-curry.html

I pretty much followed the recipe except I used a whole can of Delmonte Petite cut Tomatoes with Green Chilies for the tomatoes and used the juice from the tomatoes in place of the 1/4 c. of water.  When I was adding the coconut milk, I was inclined to stop after adding about 1/2 c based on taste of the sauce but then went ahead and followed the recipe since it was the first time through.  Since this was an experiment, I did not want to commit the fresh fish, so I added a can of Jack Mackerel and cooked it up.

I took half of this over to K&G to see if they like it.  I ate the other half this morning for mid-morning breakfast/lunch with rice, a sliced apple, and a small lentil-sprout salad.  The sauce is basically spicy tomato and coconut milk with fresh ginger and garam masala.  Chili powder gives it some heat and the fresh ginger adds a delightful high note.  The coconut milk tends towards sweet, but not too very much.  It is not really like anything I have ever tasted before since coconut milk has never really been a staple ingredient in our house, at least not until now.  I thought it was good but it took a little time to grow on me.  Using the Jack Mackerel, the flavor of the fish came through (it might not with a truly bland white fish).  The breakfast reminded me of the fish, rice and salad buffet set up for the Japanese style breakfast each morning at the hotel in Aizu.  The whole combination of flavors is very non-Western.

I think to play with this in the future I will try cutting back on the coconut milk (I tend to not like so much sweet and I expect the coconut flavor will still be there with only half as much), increase the amount of fresh ginger (purely person preference; I just love ginger) and maybe play around with the spice mix, try reducing the garam masala and adding in some other spice flavors.  And if K&G like it, I will try making it with fresh fish instead of canned.

January 25, 2013 Update

Today, I took another crack at this using the fresh cod fish I bought the other day.  Here is where I landed:

1 T oil
1 small to medium onion (66 g) diced fairly fine
2 large cloves of garlic (8 g) minced
Pieces of fresh ginger (23 g) minced, not grated
1/2 t Garam Masala
1/2 t Curry Powder
1/2 t Turmeric
1/8 t Chili Powder
1/2 t salt
1 can Delmonte Petite cut Tomatoes with Green Chilies
Ground black pepper to taste
1/2 cup Chicken Broth
1/2 cup Coconut Milk
~ 1/2 lb fresh cod cut into chunks

Heat the oil in a pan, add the onion and saute until translucent, then add the ginger and garlic.  Cook for ~ 2 minutes, then add spices stirring to make a spice paste.  Use the juice/water from the can of tomatoes to thin as you stir.  Then add the tomatoes and continue to cook maybe 5 minutes or so.  This is the masala.   To this add the chicken broth and coconut milk to make the sauce.  Bring to boil.  Add the chunks of fish and cook until the fish is done.

Serve with rice and raita.

So far, I like Take 2 better than Take 1- not so overpowered by the garam masala flavor, not so sweet from the coconut milk, and not so hot for those who don't like it too hot.  Also, I have to admit, fresh cod is better than canned mackerel.

Sarma

I think I posted recently that I was trying to make sauerkraut with whole heads of cabbage.  As a reminder and then follow up:

I recently had several heads of cabbage sitting in my fridge, but no time to shred and pound it to make sauerkraut. I also have some Serbian friends who love sauerkraut but were a bit disappointed by my "German sauerkraut" at Thanksgiving.  They did like my sausage and rice balls in sauerkraut at New Year's however, pronouncing in an approving manner that it is actually a lot like sarma.  Sarma is basically leaves wrapped around filling, and variations are found throughout eastern and southern Europe.  Dolmas, seasoned rice wrapped in grape leaves, even count.  Each region has it's own variation, and in Serbia sarma means fermented cabbage leaves wrapped around a meat and rice filling. Finally, I have a father-in-law whose mother used to make sarma to please his Serbian father and who was due for a visit in a few weeks.  

So, I decided to try to kill a bunch of birds with one stone - mainly by fermenting whole heads of cabbage to make sarma.

My cabbage turned out amazing!  When I first opened my crock three weeks after closing it up I was a little nervous, because it had a bit of a sharp smell on top of the sauerkraut smell.  Then I realized that sharp smell was garlic, and I dug in.  Mmmm, mmmm, mmmm!  Must include lots of garlic in all future batches of sauerkraut.  I couldn't stop eating the stuff - I just kept eating the leaves as I pulled them apart to separate the big ones that I could use for rolling sarma from the smaller ones.

George got his mother's recipe for sarma which basically boils down to a ton of meat with a hint of rice and some tomatoes wrapped cabbage leaves.

-3 pounds ground beef
-2 pounds ground pork
-1 pound ground smoked pork (except I don't know where to find something like that, and I had a pound of lamb in the freezer, so I used that instead.  It was pronounced an acceptable and delicious alterative)
-3/4 c raw rice
-some tomato sauce (I got a can of whole tomatoes in juice, pureed the tomatoes without the juice, and then added about 1 - 1 1/2 c of the tomato puree to the meat.  Enough to make it moist and add flavor, but not enough to make it goopy.
-salt and pepper to taste
-I also added a bunch of chopped onion.  I think this is part of the original recipe and very traditional.  I think it just was lost in the translation from Grandma Stanic to Aunt Kathy, to George's notes version 1 to George's notes version 2.

Mix all the ingredients together.  Roll in cabbage leaves, burrito style.  Layer on top of some chopped cabbage leaves in the bottom of a pan.  Add some smoked pork (I used some pieces from a smoked ham hock) to the chopped cabbage leaves for flavor.  Cover with a mixture of some of the cabbage brine, the juice from the tomatoes, and some water, then bake at 375-400 for 1 1/2 - 2 hours.  (Sorry I don't have more exact measurements for the sauce - I was just throwing it together to get it in the oven at that point.  But, use judgement and I'm sure it will be good.)

Apparently a roast pig is the traditional accompaniment, but I served ours with a salad of roasted red peppers, some red onion strips, and a light dressing of rice wine vinegar, red wine vinegar, tarragon (thanks for that tip Dad, I've been really getting into using tarragon lately), olive oil, and salt.

As you can imagine there is a lot of regional variation in sarma recipes.  Our Serbian friend Irena said her family always makes it without egg or tomato, but with lots of smoked paprika, and is more dry.  Her husband Dusan's family, which is actually Slovakian, makes a "more German" version with egg and tomato, and it's more wet.  And, as I described above, Aleks's grandmother makes it with tomato, but no egg.  I made Grandma Stanic's version and attempted Irena's version, and I preferred the version with tomato.

But, most importantly, I learned that you can ferment whole heads of cabbage.  This takes a LOT less work than the shredding and pounding for traditional German sauerkraut, and as far as I can tell, it ferments just as quickly.  Also, use garlic.