Spicy Ginger Garlic Potatoes and My Favorite Raita

17 May

If it not entirely obvious by now, I tend to go on extended cooking benders that involve certain types of foods.  Sometimes the focus of my cooking will be a particular item, while other times I’ll becomes enamored with cooking food from a particular country or region.  Last week, perhaps inspired by the arrival of unseasonably hot weather, I could not stop making Indian food.

The best, and yet simultaneously worst, thing about making Indian food is the rather insistent habit I have of never, ever just making one Indian dish at a time.  If there is a main dish, there will be a side dish, and when there is a side dish, there will be an added starch, and when there is an added starch, there will be spicy pickles and cooling raitas and on and on and on.  On more than one occasion, I have taken to inviting people over at the last minute to help us devour the feast of food I just spent an afternoon preparing, because when I took a step back and really looked at the Thanksgiving-like spread of food I had just laid out, I actually got a little embarrassed.  When it comes to Indian food, I do not mess around.

So, though it might be a bit late to declare this week to be Indian Food Week on Savory Salty Sweet, I have a stockpile of lovely Indian recipes to share, and I will likely be spending the next few posts talking about just that.  I’ll start with this great staple of any Indian meal I make: gingery, garlicky potatoes topped off with a fresh, cooling raita.  If you’re looking for a simple place to start your journey into cooking Indian food, you can’t find anything easier than this.  This dry sauté of wonderfully seasoned potatoes comes together in a flash, and you can throw the raita together in the time it takes the potatoes to finish.  It’s the perfect gateway into Indian cooking, which is good if you are looking for a simple place to start, but perhaps not so good if you one day find yourself so smitten with cooking Indian food, you’re forced to throw an impromptu dinner party every time you break out a jar of cumin seeds.  You’ve been warned.

Last Year: Blueberry Biscuits

Spicy Ginger Garlic Potatoes and My Favorite Raita Recipe

Spicy Ginger Garlic Potatoes

1 pound small or medium potatoes, whole and unpeeled

1 tablespoon unsalted butter

¼ teaspoon whole cumin seeds

2 tablespoons finely grated fresh ginger

2 tablespoons finely grated or minced-and-smashed garlic

1 jalapeno pepper

salt to taste

In a small pan, cover the whole potatoes with water and bring to a boil over high heat.  When the water begins to boil, lower the heat and simmer the potatoes until they are tender enough to be easily pierced with a fork (this should take about 10 to 15 minutes).  Drain the potatoes and allow to cool enough to be handled.

When the potatoes have cooled enough to touch, peel the skins form the potatoes and then dice the potatoes into 1-inch chunks.

In a large skillet, melt the butter over low heat.  When the butter has melted and is just stating to foam a bit, add the cumin seeds.  Stir the cumin seeds, allowing them to sizzle and pop for about 20 seconds.  Add the grated ginger and garlic, and stir over low heat for 1 minute, until the ginger and garlic are very aromatic, but not browned.  If you see your ginger and garlic beginning to brown, remove the pan from the heat and keep stirring the ginger and garlic until their sizzling subsides a bit and the browning has stopped.

Turn the heat under the pan to high.  Add the diced potatoes to the pan, and stir to coat with the ginger and garlic mixture.  Allow the potatoes to develop a nice brown crust on one side, then stir, turn the heat to low, cover the pan, and leave to cook for another 3 minutes or so.

Slice the jalapeno pepper into thin strips, discarding the seeds and white ribs.  Add the jalapeno strips to the potatoes, stir to combine, then remove from heat.  The jalepenos should still retain some crispness (you don’t want them to turn totally limp).  Add salt to taste.

Cucumber Mint Raita

1 cup peeled, seeded, shredded cucumber (about 1 large cucumber)

1/3 cup finely minced fresh mint leaves

1 cup plain yogurt

pinch of salt

pinch of cayenne pepper

Using your hands, squeeze the shredded cucumber until you have removed as much moisture as possible.  Place squeezed cucumber in a medium bowl.  Add minced mint, yogurt, and salt.  Stir to combine.  Sprinkle a pinch of cayenne pepper over the top of the raita.

Tags: , , , ,

Mexican Chocolate Zucchini Muffins

14 May

Today, for the second day in a row, my son went to school wearing shorts.  This has not happened since September.  That’s the way the weather works here, the warm days bookending the beginning and ending of the school year, never to be seen in between.  The school year is drawing to a close, and that means that summer is approaching.  Though it tends to happen rather slowly around here, it does eventually happen.

Summer, to me, means taking trips.  They don’t have to be long trips, but if I can find a way to pack traveling food to take along with us, the trip is, in my mind, complete.  Last summer we took day-long bike rides, me pulling my son in a bike trailer that was nearly too small for him (his helmeted head forming a dome under the trailer’s netting while he slouched in his seat and read books about whales); we took our annual 12-hour road trip to San Francisco to watch some baseball games and visit my family; and we made a few expeditions to the beach, where we sat in the sand and constructed cities with my son’s dump trucks and sand castle toys.  For every excursion, we packed what I like to think of as a prolonged picnic mea: a bit of bread, a bit of cheese, plenty of crunchy vegetables, some sweets, some nuts, and a ration of fruit.  This summer, when our garden is bursting with summer squash, I will definitely find a way to fit these fantastic muffins into the picnic/road trip mix.

We come again to that shadowy place where a cake meets a bread, a bread meets a muffin.  The lines long blurred between the three, it is oftentimes difficult to tell where one might be inclined to be identified as something else.  Not so much a cake, but also not entirely a bread, these are a lovely little snack to take in on an afternoon trip.  They make great traveling companions, and they can survive for several days in an airtight container (presuming that one can resist eating them for that long—we did not, in all honesty, so I suppose I should admit here that my statement on the longevity of these muffins is pure, unadulterated speculation).  Though they boast a great deal of dark chocolate flavor and comforting cinnamon and almond tones, the sweetness factor is at a minimum, and a nice combination of shredded zucchini, applesauce, and vegetable oil in the batter keeps the muffins wonderfully moist without ever devolving into heaviness.  A stop in a grassy place to stretch one’s legs in the midst of a prolonged car ride would be made several worlds nicer with a bit of this satisfying, not-to-sweet treat to go along with it.  All we need now is a destination, and we’re all set.

Mexican Chocolate Zucchini Muffins Recipe

1 2/3 cup unbleached all-purpose flour

½ cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon instant espresso powder

1/3 cup vegetable oil

2 large eggs, at room temperature

¾ cup granulated sugar

½ cup unsweetened applesauce

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

¼ teaspoon almond extract

1 heaping cup shredded zucchini (from about 1 large zucchini), squeezed of its liquid

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.  Line a 12-count muffin tin with paper liners, or grease the tin with vegetable oil.

In a large bowl, combine the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and instant espresso, and whisk to combine.

In a medium bowl, combine the vegetable oil, eggs, sugar, applesauce, vanilla, almond extract, and shredded zucchini, and whisk to combine.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, and stir until just combined.  The batter will not be completely smooth, but there should be no streaks of flour remaining.  Be careful to not overstir, as that will make your muffins quite tough.

Evenly portion out the batter in the muffin tin.  Bake the muffins in the center of the oven for 20 to 22 minutes, until the tops of the muffins appear firm and a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin emerges with just a few moist crumbs attached.  Allow the muffins to cool in the tin for just a couple of minutes, then turn muffins out onto a wire rack to finish cooling completely.

Makes 12 muffins.

Tags: , , ,

Coconut Lime Frozen Yogurt and Chewy Ginger Cookie Sandwiches

10 May

As tough as it was for me to find a name for these astonishingly delicious treats (that title is almost more of a mouthful than the actual cookie sandwich), the path from idea to reality was a surprisingly simple one.  As often as I have ideas about dishes and flavor combinations I think would be great, only to have them never really work out in the end, no matter my efforts (there might be an entire article I can write about this phenomenon, which I may dub “Foods that Never Were”), it is always a great boon to my cooking inclinations when I can manage to make something work itself out on the first go around.  These frozen yogurt sandwiches came into being at just the right time.

It doesn’t take much to make the people of Portland move from cold weather doldrums to sheer, unadulterated excitement over the promise of a warm, sunny day.  All I have to do is hear someone casually mention that it might not rain for a few days and my brain wanders over to thoughts of picnics, hammocks, and tall, ice-filled glasses, their sides mottled by drops of condensation.  If it seems the warm weather might take a trip north of 70 degrees, I start to hover around the cabinet where I keep the ice cream maker, waiting in earnest for a cue—any cue—that will allow me to unearth my old friend and start welcoming the cold treats we so crave on warm days.

Striking the perfect balance of cool and creamy against chewy and crunchy, I can’t think of a better invitation to celebrate summer than having a batch of these ice cream sandwiches sitting in your freezer, waiting for the perfect moment to accompany you in a lounge chair or on a picnic blanket.  The tropical notes of the lime and coconut yogurt make fast friends with the wonderful ginger bite of the cookies that envelop it, making this an ice cream sandwich for the ages.  As an added bonus, and as any fellow fan of the frozen sandwich will hear and, no doubt, applaud, the wonderfully chewy ginger cookies that hold this sandwich together are sturdy enough to keep their shape throughout the entire life of the sandwich, but never do they impede one’s efforts to bite through the sandwich.  Crisp, yet with gentle give, they are the perfect bookends to an equally perfect treat.

Last Year: New Potato and Caramelized Leek Tart in an Olive Oil Crust

Coconut Lime Frozen Yogurt and Chewy Ginger Cookie Sandwiches Recipe

Some of you may remember these ginger cookies from a post a few months ago.  That’s how I remembered them, and that’s how I came to conclude that, with their fantastic chewiness and great ginger flavor, they’d be the perfect match for this ice cream treat.  The recipe for the cookies is the same here, only the size of each cookie is obviously larger, and the baking time adjusted accordingly.

A note on the yogurt choice: you’ve got to go Greek yogurt on this one.  The creaminess and texture of Greek yogurt are unparalleled here, and really make the frozen yogurt that much more luxurious.  If you’re afraid of the fat content in Greek yogurt (which is fine, it’s a perfectly reasonable concern), I’ll have you know that I accidentally ended up with non-fat Greek yogurt when I was making this (did you even know that there was such a thing as non-fat Greek yogurt? I had no idea), and I never even suspected it was fat-free until I was pitching the yogurt cups in the recycling bin later on in the day and noticed the designation on the label.  The taste gave nothing away.  So, Greek yogurt is a must, and full or non-fat are both fine.

Coconut Lime Frozen Yogurt

18 ounces (just a tad north of 2 cups) plain Greek yogurt

1 heaping tablespoon finely grated fresh lime zest

½ cup unsweetened coconut milk

2/3 cup granulated sugar

In a large bowl, or in a large measuring cup, combine all ingredients.  Whisk vigorously together for 1 minute, thoroughly combining.  Allow the mixture to rest for about 5 minutes to really let the sugar dissolve, then vigorously whisk once more for at least a minute, making sure that everything is fully incorporated.

Freeze in ice cream maker according to manufacturer’s directions.  When yogurt has frozen, remove from ice cream maker and pack into a freezer-safe tub.  Place frozen yogurt in freezer for at least an hour to allow it to firm up just a bit more before assembling ice cream sandwiches.

Chewy Ginger Thin Cookies

¾ cup unsalted butter

1 cup dark brown sugar

1 beaten egg

¼ cup molasses (dark or light are both fine)

1 ½ cups sifted unbleached all-purpose flour

¼ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

½ teaspoon ground powdered ginger

pinch nutmeg

1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger

Preheat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit.  Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.

In a large bowl, cream together the butter, brown sugar, egg, and molasses.  Combine the flour, salt, baking soda, cinnamon, powdered ginger, and nutmeg, and sift together directly onto the butter mixture.  Stir until smooth.  Add the fresh ginger, then mix to combine.

Using a pastry bag or a Ziploc bag with a bottom corner cut off (the dough is extremely sticky, so trying to portion it out with a spoon won’t work well at all), pipe or squeeze out cookies into circles roughly 3 inches across onto a parchment-lined baking sheet.  Place each cookie about 1 inch apart, lest they stick together as they spread during baking.

Bake cookies on the center rack of the oven for 8 to 9 minutes, until the edges of the cookies have just begun to appear slightly darkened and dry.  While the cookies are baking, pipe another batch of cookies onto your second prepared baking sheet.

Cool baked cookies on their parchment sheet placed on a wire rack.  When cookies have cooled on a rack for about 5 minutes are and no longer gooey, you can slip the cookies right off of the parchment and reuse the parchment for another batch of cookies.

The desired consistency for these cookies is super chewy but ever-so-slightly firm (they will be very bendy when they come out of the oven, and will become soft-firm when cooled).  If you find your cookies are persistently floppy even after having sufficiently cooled, increase the baking time of subsequent batches by 1 minute.

To Assemble and Wrap Frozen Yogurt Sandwiches:

Allow cookies to cool completely.  Place a cookie on a piece of plastic wrap.  Scoop desired amount of frozen yogurt on top of cookie, leaving a bit of open space around the edges of each cookie to allow for settling.  Place another cookie on top of the frozen yogurt, and gently press down until the frozen yogurt settles a bit and the top cookie starts to adhere.  Wrap the plastic wrap around the sandwich and place in the freezer to allow to firm up a bit, ideally for a couple of hours.  There is, of course, nothing stopping you from eating a frozen yogurt sandwich as soon as you assemble it, but allowing the sandwiches to rest in the freezer for a bit really does help them keep their shape while you eat them.

Assemble all sandwiches until yogurt is gone.  You will have cookies left over, but this is a good thing.

Makes 12-15 sandwiches, depending on how much yogurt you desire to put in between the cookies.

Tags: , , , , ,

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →