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Indian Cauliflower Rice

9 Feb

I am not generally one to eavesdrop, but I am also not one to hear whisperings of what sounds like an incredible meal and then walk away.  This is how I found myself pretending to read messages on my phone while I stealthily listened to two people waiting for coffee talk about a dish involving fried rice made out of cauliflower, as in, the rice being fried was not rice at all, but rather finely chopped cauliflower.  It involved ginger, green onions, and then something-something that I could not hear, on account of the steady coffee shop din of sputtering milk steaming wands and a slightly-too-loud-for-eavesdropping playing of the Replacements (Let It Be).

I thought about the dish, and the concept of the dish, during the entirety of my walk home.  By some heretofore unseen miracle of refrigerator preparedness, I actually had cauliflower on hand (which never happens, ever, even though, I know, I am Indian and I like to make Indian food and Indian food means cauliflower and potatoes but, still, MIRACLE), but I was mildly flummoxed about what should come after finding the cauliflower in the refrigerator and marveling at my good fortune (it apparently does not take much to impress me).  Since I was receiving all the information about this new recipe via an unsanctioned source, there was very little required of me in the way of actually following a recipe.  Really, I was in this position on account of a concept, which meant that whatever I wanted to do with the cauliflower could probably not mess things up too badly.

So I went with what I know.  The cauliflower rice, originally conceived as a Chinese fried rice-type dish, became an Indian dish.  Toasted spices joined a healthy dose of grated fresh ginger, and a tiny bit of heat was added to keep things interesting.  What came together was a pleasant, delicious surprise, and one I don’t think that, left to my own devices, I would have ever happened upon myself.  Though I can’t condone eavesdropping on a regular basis (I suspect that most topics of private conversation probably involve things a lot more spicy than this dish), I have to admit that, used sparingly, a little nosiness can sometimes result in a lot of deliciousness.

Indian Cauliflower Rice

1 large head cauliflower, leaves and core removed

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 teaspoon whole cumin seeds

1 bay leaf

1 teaspoon minced garlic

2 teaspoons freshly grated ginger

½ medium yellow onion, finely diced

¼ teaspoon garam masala

¼ teaspoon turmeric

¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper

½ teaspoon coriander

salt to taste

¼ cup fresh cilantro (optional)

Cut the cauliflower into large florets.  In a food processor, pulse about 1/3 of the cauliflower until it is uniformly chopped into very small, rice-sized pieces.  Repeat with the remaining cauliflower, working in small batches and being careful to pulse the cauliflower only until it is chopped (over-chopping the cauliflower in the food processor will turn the cauliflower into a mushy paste).  When you have chopped all the cauliflower, set it aside.

In a large skillet, heat the vegetable oil over medium-high heat.  When the oil has just started to shimmer, add the cumin seeds and bay leaf, stirring constantly to keep them from burning.  When the seeds start to sputter and pop (this should take just a few seconds), add the garlic, ginger, and onion.  Cook, stirring frequently, until the onions are softened and just beginning to brown, about 8 minutes.  If your onions and garlic begin to brown too quickly, turn the heat down to medium.  Add the chopped cauliflower to the pan, and stir fry for 2 to 3 minutes, until the cauliflower just begins to turn slightly golden at the edges.  Add the garam masala, turmeric, cayenne pepper, and coriander.  Cook for an additional 7 to 10 minutes, until the cauliflower is golden and the spices smell toasty.  Add salt to taste.

Garnish with fresh cilantro, if desired.

Serves 3-4 people as a main dish, twice as many as a side dish.

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Grilled Lemongrass Chicken

29 Jan

Keen observers may have noticed by this point that I tend to go on extended benders when I become interested in making particular types of food.  Over the summer I made more tarts and galettes than any rational human should consider consuming in the span of a mere 3 months, and not long after that I became enamored with all things related to Mexican food.  A short glance at the most recent archives will more than give away the fact that my heart currently resides on the continent of Asia, bringing us food from India, Japan, and undetermined (but it sure tasted good).

A couple of those recipes are courtesy of Naomi Duguid and Jeffrey Alford, a formerly-married couple from Canada (and now Canada and Thailand) who make their living traveling around (mostly through Asia) with their children and researching recipes.  They have written numerous cookbooks (including two books on baking and one book entirely about rice), and I can only imagine that, given their track record of producing incredible recipes and cooking techniques, time will only bring us more of their wonderful work.

This recipe for lemongrass chicken is taken from one of Duguid and Alford’s books with a focus on the cuisines of Southeast Asia, from Myanmar (Burma) to Vietnam.  As is often the case, I was reading this cookbook as I would read a non-cookbook, sitting down and flipping through it page by page, reading everything in detail before moving on.  My best friend once revealed to me that sometimes she liked to sit in bed and read a cookbook before falling asleep, as one might read a novel or a magazine, and I could not stop nodding my head in agreement (needless to say, there is a reason we are best friends).

The recipe originally calls for beef, but I, recent indiscretions aside, am not the biggest fan of beef, so I swapped it out from some chicken breasts.  Say what you want to about everyone’s favorite meat to belittle, but boneless, skinless chicken breasts really work well in this application, subtly sitting in the background so the lemongrass marinade can receive all the glory.  For a dish so simple, it is a huge winner in our household.  We eat it over steamed rice, over thin rice noodles sprinkled with herbs, or sometimes over a pile of fresh and snappy arugula.  I can’t say that I’ll ever possess the gumption to cook an everyday meal like Duguid and Alford are prone to doing (I recall an article in the New Yorker that detailed the couple making a casual meal of homemade crackers, hand-rolled noodles, and roasted wild boar), but with inspiration culled from time spent with many a cookbook, I am at least hoping that, little by little, I’ll be able to take these little bursts of global cooking and transform the bulk of them into regular staples on our table.  This recipe is a good place to start.

Grilled Lemongrass Chicken

From Hot, Sour, Salty, Sweet, by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid

2 stalks lemongrass, trimmed and minced

2 to 3 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped

2 shallots, peeled and chopped

1 bird or Serrano chile, finely chopped

2 teaspoons Vietnamese or Thai fish sauce

1 tablespoon fresh lime juice

1 tablespoon water

1 tablespoon roasted sesame oil

1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts

2 tablespoons roasted sesame seeds

To prepare the marinade, combine lemongrass, garlic, shallots, and chile in a mortar and pestle or a food processor and pound or blend to a paste (adding just a little water if necessary to make a paste).   Transfer the paste to a bowl, add the fish sauce, lime juice, and water and blend well.  Add sesame oil and stir well.  Set aside.

Cut the meat into very thin slices (less than 1/8-inch) against the grain (this is much easier if the meat is cold).  Duguid recommends you then cut the slices into 1 1/2 –inch lengths, but I kept our slices longer and was quite fond of them that way.  Place the meat in a shallow bowl, add the marinade, and mix well, making sure that the meat is well coated.  Cover and marinate in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour, or up to 8 hours.

Prepare a grill, grill pan, or broiler on medium high heat.  Sprinkle the meat with sesame seeds, then grill or broil until cooked through, about 2 minutes for the first side and 1 minute for the second side, depending on how hot your grill or broiler is and how fast the chicken is cooking through.

Serves 4 as part of a meal, more as an appetizer.

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Ponzu-Marinated Flank Steak

23 Jan

There is a restaurant down the street from me that just might end up unseating the other restaurant down the street from me as the World’s Most Dangerous Restaurant to Have Down the Street from You (which is not to be confused with our other nemesis, The World’s Most Dangerous Food Cart to Have Down the Street from You).  My will power, it is weak.  When faced with the sweet memory of duck breast and lemongrass salad, I grow loose in the knees and wallet, and all I want to do is run down the street and place my order immediately.  I hear the name of a certain restaurant, and I am like a seal that has been trained to bark on command.  Spicy!  Thai!  Street!  Food!  Now!  Completely puzzling, however, is the added desire to eat a particular meat dish from the other, newer dangerous place, a meat dish that, in any other place, I am sure I would loathe.

Picture this: super thin slices of steak (I know!  I am talking about steak! Who am I?) are marinated in a savory, bright, citrusy mix of kelp and lime juice.  Then the meat gets skewered and stuck directly into a roaring fire, searing in every possible place and becoming incredibly, impossibly juicy.  The skewer, still sizzling, is brought directly to your table, where you try with all your might to maintain a sense of dignity and manners while you ravenously devour the meltingly delicious meat.  No one is more surprised than me that I enjoyed this dish as much as I did.  For a split second, I was transformed into a dedicated carnivore, a person who actually devoured meat.  It was utterly bizarre.

A few weeks ago, the holidays in full swing, I was overcome with the idea I had to try and recreate the dish at home, a task made difficult by the fact that a) I didn’t really know what exactly made up the marinade enveloping the meat in question, and b) it is winter, and therefore my access to an open fire over which to cook things is fairly well nonexistent.  The first problem was easily remedied, as a small amount of hunting around led me almost immediately to an old specials menu from the Dangerous Restaurant, and a bit more poking around led me to this great New York Times recipe for ponzu marinade, which happened to be the mystery flavor.  Ponzu, as it turns out, is sort of like a Japanese vinaigrette, and can be used in everything from salads to marinades.  One of the main flavor profiles in ponzu is kombu (dried kelp), which provides a hefty dose of natural glutamates to give the ponzu a fat (but not fatty), umami taste that rounds out your taste buds.  It also helps break down the fibers in meat, tenderizing as it simultaneously flavors.

The other problem, I am afraid, could not really be solved, as winter in the PNW means cold and wet, and cold and wet are no friends of the grill.  In a pinch, I fired up our stovetop grill pan as hot as it could possibly get, and hoped that it would do the trick.

To be quite honest, it was pretty close.  The only thing missing was the melting, seared texture that can only be achieved by sticking a piece of meat into a wall of fire, but the flavor was dead on.  Bright, but also slightly mysterious, there is a lot going on in each bite.  I am waiting for summer to arrive so I can cook this dish again as I really want to (massive pile of fire, I await you), but, in the meantime, this version is certainly no slouch.

Ponzu Marinated Flank Steak

Sauce from Mark Bittman in The New York Times

2/3 cup fresh lemon juice, more to taste

1/3 cup fresh lime juice, more to taste

1/4 cup rice vinegar

1 cup good-quality soy sauce

1/4 cup mirin

1 3-inch piece kombu (dried kelp)

1/2 cup (about 1/4 ounce) dried bonito flakes (or, in a pinch, 1 tablespoon Vietnamese fish sauce)

Pinch cayenne

1 pound flank steak

In a bowl, combine all ingredients except flank steak. Let sit for at least 2 hours or overnight. Strain.

Slice the flank steak against the grain into thin strips.  Add the strips of steak to the bowl of ponzu, and marinate in the refrigerator, covered, for at least 1 hour.  When ready to cook, drain the meat and set aside.

Heat an outdoor grill as high as it will go, or heat a stovetop grill pan on high.  When the grill is incredibly hot, add the strips of steak, cooking as many as you can without crowding the meat.  The meat will cook very fast, only needing a minute or so on each side.  If your grill is not as hot as can possibly be, it might take two minutes per side.  What you are looking for are crisp edges and a remaining quality of juiciness.  It might take a bit of trial and error (depending on how thick your slices are and how hot your grill is), so start by cooking two or three pieces at a time and seeing how long they take.  The meat is thin, so the cooking time should not be more than a couple of minutes per side.

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