Ghee is an interesting ingredient. It is an over-simplification to describe it as the Indian culinary term for clarified butter.  It is best described as a combination between beurre noisette and clarified butter.

Clarified butter is when the butter is strained in such a way that only the pure butterfat remains, whereas beurre noisette is a sauce made from butter that is heated so the milk solids are browned, giving it a caramel like scent.

Ghee is both things and is heavenly. The time it takes is worth it.

 

Time :25 minutes

 

Ingredients:

4 sticks of unsalted butter

 

Things needed:

A pot to melt the butter in

A jar to store the finished product in.

 

Melt the butter over medium high heat until it separates into three parts, the proteins which are foamy, the butterfat, which is clear, and the milk solids,which should brown slightly and become fragrant like caramel. The browning process should take a long while to avoid accidentally burning the milk solids.

Using a metal spoon, remove the proteins, which float on the top, and throw them away.

Slowly pour the butterfat, which should be a golden yellow,  into a jar, preferably a glass jar.

Avoid getting the milk solids in the finished product, this can be accomplished by pouring as slowly as possible so the milk solids remain at the bottom of the pot.

Use for frying vegetables or making food have a subtle caramelized taste that goes great with anything but especially with flat breads.

It fries better than regular butter because the lack of milk solids means it is less likely to burn.

 

Did you know that in the Middle Ages it was very rare to eat a chicken? The reason for that was that the animal was more useful alive than dead, as it produced eggs. The main fowls eaten were game birds such as ducks. To actually eat a chicken you would have had to be a king, which is where this recipe idea comes from.

This is a pseudo-Hungarian dish that uses chicken and many vegetables, I call it a variety of goulash but it is not really because it contains no beef and has a thinner sauce than goulash would have.

recipe for Chicken Goulash.

12 boneless skinless chicken thighs

2 tbsp lard or olive oil.

6 carrots, peeled and sliced thin

1 cabbage, sliced thin

2 yellow onions

4 tbsp paprika

1 cup of chicken broth

1 tsp caraway seeds

salt to taste

optional, sour cream

things needed- one Dutch oven, one spoon.

time needed- three hours.

heat up the fat in the dutch oven. add the onions and saute until browned. add the carrots and the cabbage and cook until cabbage is wilted.

crush the caraway seeds in a mortar and pestel as the cabbage is cooking.

add the caraway seeds and the paprika to the carrots, cabbage and onions.

add the chicken and chicken broth.

cook for three hours in the oven, stirring every thirty minutes to avoid anything sticking to the bottom.

serve with white rice and  sour cream on top.

I made this because my mother said she wanted Kheema Muttar but we had no peas. I was wondering what to do when I noticed that we had some frozen green beans in the freezer and then inspiration struck. “What if I made Kheema Muttar with green beans?” I wondered aloud and my mother said that it could work, so with her encouragement;  I decided to test it out.  I also added tomato paste instead of tomatoes because that is what we happened to have on hand and it added some richness to the sauce. As I was looking at what I had made it dawned on me that  I inadvertently made a new dish, as I couldn’t call it Kheema Muttar because it lacked peas (that is what muttar means). I love it when that happens! I also added a small amount of black salt(kala namak) to change the flavor profile, make it more rich and subtly egg-like due to the sulfurous qualities in the kala namak.
Haree sem kheema (green beans and ground meat)
3 onions -2 red, 1 yellow
1 stick of  unsalted butter
1 container (8 oz )frozen green beans
1 lb ground beef

1 cup of water
1 1/2 tsps garum masala
2 tbsps tomato paste
1/4 tsp black salt (optional) also called kala namak
1/2 tbsp turmeric
1/4 tsp cayenne
1 3/4 cups cream
2 tbsps fenugreek leaves or cilantro
3 tsps powdered garlic
Salt to taste

Get out wok and place butter in it on medium heat.

Dice the onions.
Caramelize onions in the butter.

Turn heat to medium high and add ground beef and all of the herbs and spices except the fenugreek leaves or cilantro, and garlic. The turmeric should make the meat and onions a wonderfully yellow color.
Saute until the meat is all browned.

Add the tomato paste and let it get fragrant. The tomato paste should sizzle slightly when it goes into the pan.

Add the one cup of water and stir.  Let it reduce by half, stirring constantly.
Add the green beans, stir until the green beans are incorporated into the mixture.
Add the cream, fenugreek leaves or cilantro and the garlic.
Lower the heat to medium low and stir constantly so the cream does not burn. Cook like that for roughly ten minutes or enough to mix the cream into the tomato paste mixture to form the sauce, which should be just enough to coat the meat and vegetables .

Add more salt or black salt to taste. Be careful, black salt is potent.
Serve with white rice, or couscous.

My dad and I like making pasta dishes. He usually makes the noodles and I make the sauce. Although for this recipe, we bought the noodles due to a lack of time.  Last Sunday everyone said the lasagna was especially good so I decided to write my recipe down. The secret to making it so good is the hint of soy sauce, it adds a little salt and a much needed umami quality.

 

The recipe for the sauce

2 large  red onions

1 carrot

2 celery stalks

1 lb mushrooms

1 tbsp olive oil

1 large can (24 oz) of tomato puree

1 large can  of tomato paste

1 small (14 oz) can of diced tomatoes

1 tsp soy sauce

1 tsp Wochestershire sauce

1/2 cup of beef broth or the equivalent amount of bouillon plus 1/2 cup water.

1/2 tsp Italian seasonings

1/2 tsp chili flakes

1/2 cup of  cream

 

for the lasagna itself

1 lb mozzarella

1 cup parmasan

1 lb ricotta

1 egg

16  lasagna noodles (either homemade or store-bought)

 

Things needed

1 food processor

1 pot or wok

1 casserole dish

1 colender

 

Instructions

For the sauce

1. Peel the carrot . Wash and cut the tops and bottoms off the celery. Skin the onions. Roughly chop the vegetables and put them in a food processor. Pulse until they are uniformly small pieces. Put them in the pot.

2. Cut the bottoms off of the mushrooms and slice in half. Put them in the food processor and pulse them exactly the same way the other vegetables were. Put them in the pot. Add the olive oil. Cook the vegetable  and mushroom mixture three to five (3-5) minutes.

3.  Add the beef, making sure to break it into small pieces, cook until no pink pieces are in the meat, approximately seven to ten ( 7-10) minutes.

4. Add the tomato products and the spices. Simmer on low for thirty (30) minutes. Add the beef broth and simmer for another ten (10) minutes.

5 .Lastly , stir in the cream gently.

 

For the noodles and construction of the lasagna.

Boil the noodles (either store-bought or homemade is fine) until tender and strain them in the colander.

Mix together the ricotta and the egg to form a paste.

Spread the meat and mushroom sauce on the bottom of a 9 by 14 inch pan.

Layer four noodles on top of the sauce.

Layer a little of the ricotta-egg mixture and then some more of the sauce.

Add the other cheeses in a thin layer.

Repeat this process roughly three times or until all of the noodles are used up. The layering doesn’t have to be perfect because the cheese will melt as it cooks.

Use the remaining sauce and cheese to top the lasagna.

Bake at 345 degrees Fahrenheit for 45 minutes or until  the cheese on top is browned and the sauce is bubbly.

 

This is what the lasagna should look like when it is done. I recommend serving it with asparagus.

There are four main types of tea: white, green, oolong and black. White tea is the youngest leaves and the buds. It is the lightest flavor of all the teas. The oolong and black teas are made from different methods of oxidation, the longer the oxidation process the darker the color of the leaves. Green tea is only dried and therefore is slightly healthier than black or oolong tea.

Oolong comes from the words “black dragon” in Chinese.

Tea is the second most consumed beverage after water!

Tea comes from China and most languages use cha as their root word for tea as that is how it is said in Mandarin. Examples: Japanese ocha, chai in Indian languages and Russian, and  Shay in Arabic. Most of the world likes black tea with the exceptions of Morocco, China, Korea and Japan.

Morocco and the southern U.S. are famous for how much they sweeten their tea. One recipe I found for Moroccan mint tea (tea with mint and green tea leaves) used roughly a tablespoon of sugar per cup of water!

There are other things that are called teas but are not as they are not made from the tea plant, these are technically tisanes of what variety of herb is put in the water instead.

A famous example of a tisane is raspberry leaf tea which is said to be helpful for the female reproductive system.

 

chai masala recipe

5 cardamon pods, broken.

a small peice of cinnamon

tbsp freshly grated nutmeg (mace is also good if you can’t find nutmeg, I would use slightly more mace than nutmeg)

tbsp powdered ginger

tbsp whole peppercorns

tsp  whole cloves

 

Heat up a small pan. Toast all the spices in the pan until they start to get fragrant. This should take roughly 2-6 minutes .

Grind all the spices using either a mortar and pestle or a coffee grinder.This is optional for the already ground spices, such as the ginger; however it is recommended as it mixes the flavors so they taste better together.

Use roughly a pinch per serving of tea.

 

masala chai recipe ( Makes approx. 1 3/4 cups)

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups of water

2 bags of black tea

1/4 cup either milk , unsweetened almond or soy milk, or cream

pinch or more of chai masala.

sugar or honey to taste

 

tools needed

1 small saucepan

1 mug

1 spoon

strainer of some sort

 

How to make.

Boil the water, lower heat to a simmer.

Add the tea and the spices.

cook 1 minute then let stand 2-4 minutes (depending on how strong you like the flavor.)

Bring to a light boil and add the milk.

Turn off heat

Add sugar or honey, stirring quickly.

Strain the tea into the mug.

On Father’s Day, everyone in my family was preparing to give or make my dad something.  I decided to make my dad a really delicious cake called a Doboschtorte. He decided to help me with it as he enjoys baking as well. I was quite grateful for the help as this recipe is somewhat complicated.

A Doboschtorte is a vanilla cake with chocolate frosting and a caramel glaze on top,  which makes it look kind of like a monstrous creme brulee.

It was really fun to make because the layers of the cake had to be very thin, almost as thin as a pancake, and the whole thing had to chill for a while before it could be  consumed.

My mom was astounded at the amount of butter the cake had in it, and honestly so was I on the first read through of the recipe. However the majority of that goes into making the frosting very smooth, so it is alright flavor-wise.

I was also suprised that the cake has no salt written anywhere in the recipe, all the butter was unsalted and it never says to salt to taste anywhere. I added a touch of salt in my version. It turned out well but now I want to try it again without adding salt to see how it turns out.

Here is a picture of what the cake looks like when it is done. You can see that the caramel acts as a coating on the top while the frosting coats the outsides. The reason for this is because the cake recipe comes from when refrigeration did not exist and coating it with sugar was one way of making it not dry out  or go bad as quickly..

 

Ingredients for cake

1/2 lb unsalted butter, softened.

1  cup granulated sugar

4 lightly beaten eggs

1 1/2 cups all purpose or cake flour (The original recipe says all purpose flour, I used cake flour)

1 tsp vanilla extract.

1/2 tsp salt (optional)

ingredients for frosting.

1 1/3 cup sugar

1/4 tsp cream of tartar

2/3 cup water

8 egg yolks.

1/2 cup cocoa powder

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 lb unsalted butter, softened.

 

glaze

2/3 cup sugar

1/3 cup water

 

Recipe

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Cream the butter and sugar together in a mixer or by hand.

Beat in the eggs and then stir in the flour and vanilla extract as well as the salt, if using. Keep stirring until mixture is smooth.

Butter the underside of a 9 inch layer cake pan. Coat pan with flour and then knock off the excess flour.  spread the batter as evenly as possible on the bottom of the layer cake pan to a thickness of 1/8 inch.

Bake in the middle of the oven for 7-9 minutes or until browned around the edges.

Repeat until seven layers are made, being careful when removing the cooked layer onto the cooling rack.

While the cake is cooking you can make the frosting.

In a small saucepan combine the sugar, cream of tartar, and water. Stir under low heat until the sugar is dissolved then turn the heat to moderately high and boil the sugar mixture until it reaches 238 F on a candy thermometer or it reaches the soft ball state.

Beat the egg yolks until they lighten in color 3-4 minutes.

After the eggs lighten in color turn up the speed to medium and add the syrup in a thin steady stream, a little at a time.  Mix until the mixture is cool and is a thick smooth cream, 10-15 minutes.

Refrigerate while you make the glaze.

Put the most pretty  cake layer on a baking sheet. that will be the one that gets coated.

Mix the sugar and water in a saucepan. cook until the mixture is dark in color (golden brown but not burnt) . This will take some time if you do this on medium heat, but I recommend doing it on medium to avoid burning the caramel.

Once the caramel is done then pour it over the cake layer and draw lines in the cooling caramel with a toothpick so you’ll know where to cut later.

Now that all the parts are done, the cake can be assembled.

Assembly of the cake:

Each layer of cake gets some frosting in the middle. It is best to use a flat spatula for frosting the cake. Once the cake is frosted in the middle then it should be frosted on the sides. This part is more simple than frosting the middle because the frosting on the middle should be a rather thin layer in comparison to the layers in the middle of the cake.

Place the top layer of the cake (the one with the caramel) on top.

Refrigerate for one hour before serving.

 

Works Cited

The Cooking of Vienna’s Empire by Joseph Wechsberg.

 

 

 

 

Three weeks ago my mother, a friend of the family named Phil, and I went to a bar called Flame Club that was quite interesting, not just because of how inexpensive the foods were but because of the manner in which the cook picked what to make that day.

We went there because the cook was a friend of Phil and told him it would be nice if he came to the bar.The first thing my mom and I noticed was what the bar looked like. It was dark, with only two windows and one light. In the corner there was a list that noted what day it was and what the cook would be serving that day. What was being served changed daily, with the food styles also being rather varied, Mexican and Italian food seemed particularly common.

The cook came out and told us what he was serving that day, as the appetizers and desserts were not written on the list, only the entrees :  For the appetizer: a salad with a choice of balsamic vinaigrette or blue cheese dressing. For the entree: ribs, potatoes, broccoli and green beans, for dessert: Rainbow sherbet. My mom and I got the balsamic vinaigrette for our salads and Phil got the blue cheese dressing. We also asked that there be no potatoes with our entree as we are all dieting.

In a few short minutes the salad came out and it was really good. The vinaigrette was thick, not too sour and coated the  leaves perfectly, the large piece of tomato that was there added brightness and there was also a large piece of bell pepper that added some good texture. The only thing that I did not like was the raw red onion in the salad, it was too sharp for my tastes.

In between the courses my mom and Phil had a drink called a Gin Ricky. They appeared to like it very much, although my mom noted that the drinks were very strong, especially for it being only eleven-thirty AM.

The entree came out almost as soon as they were half-way through their drinks. The pork ribs smelled fantastic, cumin was the main scent that wafted through the air. We ate the pork ribs slowly, savoring the smell and trying to identify the other spices that were on the meat. Because there were three ribs per plate, we barely had enough room in our stomachs for the vegetables.

The vegetables were good  and simple, steamed salted broccoli and tender green beans.

The dessert was small servings of sherbet, just enough to fill in what little parts of the stomach were not quite full. We found it more than enough.

The best part? It was quite inexpensive, especially for so much food, only around 27 dollars for three people!

Butter chicken is a really easy dish to make. It takes left over tandoori chicken (chicken marinated in yogurt and spices and grilled or roasted) and then puts it into a tomato-cream sauce to stew for  thirty minutes to an hour. It should not go any longer than that time or it will become tough. The butter in Butter Chicken is something of a misnomer. Despite there being both butter and cream in the dish the phrase in Hindi for this dish actually refers to the smoothness of the sauce, buttery chicken would be a more accurate term.

The dish came to be when an Englishman was at an Indian restaurant and stated that his tandoori chicken was dry. The chef was surprised and made a sauce to go with it that had cream, tomato paste and garam masala in it. The man loved the new sauce, especially because of it’s texture.

Aloo Palek is a slightly more complicated dish that is very flavorful. It is vegetarian as well. It is made of potatoes in a pureed spinach sauce that has a little cream in it for consistency’s sake. It is somewhat more complicated than Butter Chicken because it has more steps, the spinach has to be both blanched and pureed, not just blanched as is common in some other dishes.

Butter chicken is considered in some cookbooks to be a dish that is preferred by Sikhs. A possible reason for that is that the other religion that comes from India, Hinduism, has mostly vegetarians or vegans.

Recipe for Butter chicken (serves 4-6)

2 yellow onions

1 1/2 tsp garlic paste

1/2 tsp ginger paste

14 oz canned chopped tomatoes

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

pinch of sugar

2 tbsp clarified butter

1/2 cup water

1 tbsp tomato paste

3 tbsp butter, cut into pieces.

1/2 tsp garum masala

1/2 tsp ground cumin

1/2 tsp ground coriander

1 cooked tandoori chicken (just use a rotisserie chicken if you don’t have a tandoori chicken, the difference is not profound) meat taken off the bone.

4tbsp heavy cream

salt and pepper

fresh cilantro or fennugreek leaves

yogurt

cashews

 

specialized equipment

food processor

wok

 

Roughly chop and puree the onions until smooth.

cook the puréed onions until they are caramelized 5 minutes or so. Add them back to the food processor.

Add chopped tomatoes, garlic paste, ginger paste, cayenne, sugar and salt to the food processor and purée until smooth.

add clarified butter to the wok.  Add the tomato mixture, water and tomato paste.

bring the mixture to a boil then lower to a simmer and cook for 5-7 minutes or until sauce thickens.

Stir in half the butter , garam masala, cumin, coriander. Add chicken as well. Simmer for 10 minutes or until chicken is hot.

lightly beat the cream in a bowl. Add the cream to the sauce. Add the remaining butter and stir until it melts (monter au buerre in French- one of the ways of finishing a sauce)

add chopped cilantro/fennugreek, saving about half for garnish.

serve with rice. (4 cups water, 2 cups rice, 20 minutes covered after it simmers) Garnish with fennugreek and yogurt. Cashews are optional but recommended.

 

garum masala recipe

2 bay leaves

2 cinnamon sticks ( or 2 tbsp ground cinnamon )

8 green cardamom pods, just the seeds. Using a mortar and pestle helps get the seeds without the pods.

2 tbsp cumin seeds

1 1/2 tbsp coriander seeds

1 1/2 tsp black pepper

1 tsp cloves

1/2 tsp fennugreek seeds.

1 small mace blade

, grind all of these together until everything is powder, an old coffee grinder works well for this.

 

Aloo palek

12 oz waxy potatoes

9 oz spinach leaves

3 tbsp olive oil

1 large onion, julienned

1 jalapeño, seeded

2 tsp garlic paste

2 tsp ginger paste

1 tsp ground coriander

1/2 tsp ground cumin

1/2 tsp ground tumeric

7 oz chopped tomatoes ( approximately 2 whole medium sized tomatoes)

1/2 tsp sugar

1tsp salt

3 tbsp heavy cream

 

specialized equipment

immersion blender or food processor.

 

half or quarter the potatoes, boil them in salted water until tender .

Blanch the spinach in salted water.  Blend spinach into a paste with an immersion blender or food processor.

Heat the oil over medium heat and add the onions to it. Salt the onions.

Cook for 10-13 minutes or until the onions are well caramelized.

Return pan to the heat and add spices. Stir often for 1 minute. Do not burn the spices! Add tomatoes and sugar. Cook 5-6 minutes or until tomatoes have broken down.

Add potatoes, spinach, salt and onions. Cook for 2-3 minutes.

Stir in cream and cook for 1 minute. Taste for seasonings.

Remove from heat and serve hot.

note: for more sauce to potato and onion ratio, double the spinach and spices, doubling the cream is not needed.

 

Here is a picture of both of these dishes in the same bowl.

 

 

This is a Hungarian Goulash that I made a few weeks ago. It has carrots, beef, onions, paprika , tomato paste, roasted red bell peppers, and mushrooms in it as its main ingredients. Yes the paprika counts as a main ingredient and not a spice in this dish because there is so much of it.  The main spices in this dish besides the paprika are dill and caraway seeds. This dish comes from Hungary and was originally called  Gulyas and was made by shepherds, which is what that word means.

In this picture the Goulash has sour cream on it and is on a bed of white rice. It is normally served with potatoes, not rice, but I thought it would be fun to make it with rice. The caraway seeds and dill are already in it so there is no need to sprinkle more on top but you can if you want a little more color.

There is an Austrian variation but the sauce is much thinner and contains green non-roasted bell peppers . It can have a fried egg on top of it and sliced pickles in this version.

The American dish has very little in common with this, being a closer cousin of Chipped Beef on Toast (SOS, ground beef Stroganoff) or Macaroni and Cheese.

 

Goulash recipe- takes around four hours, prep time one hour, cook time 2 1/2 to 3 hours.

1 tbsp clarified butter or lard

6 to 8 yellow onions depending on the size of the onion, I tend to go for around 7 if they are mostly medium size with one small one.

1/2 cup paprika

6 lbs beef- usually chuck works best

8 carrots

1/2 cup  white mushrooms

1 jar of roasted red peppers

1 tbsp tomato paste

1 tsp caraway seeds

1 tsp  dried dill

2 cups low sodium beef broth

salt and pepper to taste

 

Preheat oven to 320 F.

Melt the butter or lard in a Dutch oven.  Thinly slice the onions while the butter or lard is melting. Caramelize the onions, adding salt as you do so to let the liquid seep out. Add the paprika and stir rapidly.  This should take around five minutes. Do not burn the paprika.

While the onions are caramelizing, dice the roasted red peppers, slice or quarter the mushrooms and cut the beef  and carrots into 1 inch pieces.

Add the beef, carrots, mushrooms and the roasted red peppers to the onions and paprika.

Stir in the tomato paste , dill and caraway seeds. Add salt and pepper.

Put Dutch oven into the preheated oven, lid on.

Cook for 2 hours, lid on, stirring every thirty minutes.

Add beef broth when the 2 hours have passed and then cook for    thirty minutes to an hour more depending on the toughness of the meat and  how much the vegetables are cooked. At this point the lid can be left  slightly ajar if you want the sauce to get thicker.

After the thirty minutes to an hour are up, check for seasonings and adjust as needed.

Serve with boiled potatoes or rice, preferably garnished with sour cream.

 

Works Cited

The Cooking of Vienna’s Empire by Joseph Wechsberg, published 1968

Cook’s Illustrated Cookbook, 2011 Edition.

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton