Tag Archives: food

Indian Spiced Smoked Spareribs

7 Jul

A few days ago, I picked up a book about slow barbecuing.  The book had been sitting on a dining room bookshelf for quite some time, having been brought home by my husband, a man with a deep interest in all varieties of meat preparation and consumption.  After glancing at the cover of the book for several weeks, I finally became curious as to what this book might offer in the way of secret insider barbecuing information, and sat down with the book with the intention of studying it.

Side note: Many years ago, I was convinced that every single book I started, I also had to finish.  No matter if I was enjoying the book or not, I felt, for reasons I am still unable to explain, compelled to slog through even the most boring and intolerable of books.  This went on for ages, until a coworker of mine happened to one day recommend to me a novel that involved cross-country travel on a bicycle, something in which I was, and still happen to be, interested.  So I started the book.  To get to the gist of what happened, I am going to edit out the slow and torturous ordeal of reading this book, and just tell you that, after all those years of practice of finishing books I did not enjoy, this particular book was so awful, so condescending in tone, and so ridiculous in character, that I, for the first time, was driven to not finish a book.  In fact, I not only didn’t finish that book, but I believe I may have, at one point, released an unpleasant and hearty groan as I chucked the book across the room and away from the earnest and somewhat tedious insistence of my prying eyes to keep chipping away at the book.

Aside from the part about rocketing the book away from my body, my reaction to that novel was pretty much a precursor to the reaction I had to reading the barbecuing book.

Why?  Why must people insist on making cooking into something that is inaccessible?  Why must cookbook writers look down upon their readers, and insist that their way, the intense, unbending way, is the only way?  Shouldn’t cooking be something that invites readers to share in a recipe?  Shouldn’t cooking be inspiring instead of belittling?  If you tell people, Mr. Barbecue Author, that the only way to make “real” barbecue is to buy a special smoker, only use lump charcoal, and never never use a gas grill while trying to make delicious barbecue, do you really think you are going to ignite a fire under people to go out and attempt your recipes?  And do you really think that I am going to read that, bend to your will, and forgo the 8 years of service that my gas grill has duly provided, just so I can tell people that I made barbecue the “right” way?

As you may have surmised, no, I did not follow the barking orders of Mr. Barbecue and his insufferable tome.  Instead, when hit by the urge to make smoked ribs for a small Independence Day celebration, I consulted with three different books about barbecuing that offered guidance and helpful tips, developed my own recipe based on flavors I thought would be interesting, then utilized a number of different barbecuing ideas that I thought would be a good fit.  And guess what?

The ribs, after four hours of smoking on a gas grill, with wood chips left to smolder in both a small smoking box and a makeshift smoking pouch made of aluminum foil, and helmed by a person with absolutely zero previous experience dealing with ribs or rub, came out beautifully caramelized and tender.  The flavor of the rub, while subtle, provided an unexpected undertone to the smoky taste of the ribs, and, even though I broke every single rule that was dutifully laid out for me by the world’s most detestable barbecuing guide, my gas grill-smoked ribs still triumphantly emerged lightly tinged with a telltale pink smoke ring on the outside edges.

And so can yours!  Gas grill, charcoal grill, or even no grill (as featured in this New York Times Magazine tutorial about smoking ribs in your home oven), you can totally tackle your own smoked ribs, no matter what equipment you do or don’t have.  See?  See how encouraging I am being?  Are you listening Mr. Barbecue Tyrant?  (And, no, I won’t link to the book, because though I won’t tell you that in order to barbecue you will need special equipment, I will definitely tell you that in order to barbecue you most certainly do not need that book.)

Indian Spiced Smoked Spareribs

1 teaspoon mustard seeds

1/8 teaspoon fenugreek seeds

1 tablespoon ground cumin

1 tablespoon ground ginger

1 tablespoon ground coriander

2 teaspoons kosher salt

1 teaspoon black pepper

1 teaspoon onion powder

1 teaspoon garlic powder

½ teaspoon ground turmeric

¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper

¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon

5 pounds spareribs, cut into slabs that will comfortably fit into your grill (I cut this particular rib rack into two large slabs)

¼ cup yellow mustard

2 to 3 cups wood chips, soaked in water for 1 hour, then drained

1/3 cup apple cider (optional)

Combine mustard seeds and fenugreek seeds in a spice grinder or mortal and pestle and grind until a fine powder has been formed.

In a small bowl, combine ground mustard seeds and ground fenugreek seeds with other spices.  Mix to combine.

Rinse ribs, then pat dry.  Place ribs in a large, flat dish, or on a baking sheet that will fit into your refrigerator.  Brush both sides of your ribs with a light layer of yellow mustard (this will help your spice rub adhere to the ribs, and will also aid in the formation of a nice crust on the meat).  Sprinkle spice mixture over both sides of rubs, very gently patting into the meat (try not to pat too hard, however, or the rub will just stick onto your hands and pull off of the meat).  Place spiced ribs in the refrigerator to rest for at least 4 hours, preferably overnight.

At least 30 minutes before you are ready to cook your ribs, remove them from the refrigerator and allow them to come to room temperature.  Set up your grill for indirect grilling.  If you have a two burner gas grill, this will mean setting one burner on medium low heat and leaving the other burner off.  If you have a three burner gas grill, it will mean setting two burners on medium low heat and leaving the third burner off.  If you have a charcoal grill, you will be raking your hot coals into two piles on opposite sides of the grill, leaving an empty space in between.  After preparing whichever grill you have, place a drip pan in the portion of the grill that is not lit or covered with hot coals. Note: you can read more about direct vs. indirect grilling here.

Toss the pre-soaked wood chips onto hot coals (if using a charcoal grill), or, if using a gas grill, place wood chips in a smoker box made specifically for gas grills (such as this one), or wrap your wood chips in a tight pouch of aluminum foil with holes punched in the top (as demonstrated here), then place the box or pouch of wood chips under the grill grate, directly on top of a burner.  I ended up using both a smoker box placed under a grill grate and a foil pouch smoker placed on top of the grill grate.

Place a small pan of water, filled ¾ full, on the heated side of the grill.

Pour apple cider into a small spray bottle.

Place the ribs, meaty side up, on the hot grate, over the drip pan that has been placed away from the heat.  If your ribs do not fit flat on the grill, as ours did not, place one slab flat, and the other on its end, propped up on the wall of the grill, if necessary.  Lightly spray ribs with apple cider.  Close lid of grill and allow ribs to smoke for at least 3 to 4 hours on medium low heat (if you have a grill thermometer, the temperature will read somewhere between 200 degrees Fahrenheit and 250 degrees Fahrenheit, though do not rely entirely on your grill’s thermometer, since many things can influence an incorrect temperature reading—our grill was sitting in a sunny place and the temperature read between 350 and 400 degrees the whole time, which was obviously incorrect).  Every 30 minutes, open the grill, turn your ribs over, spritz them with apple cider, then close the lid of the grill.  If the water in the pan has reduced a great deal, replenish the water about ¾ of the way full.

You will know your meat is done with the meat has started to shrink back about ¼ of an inch from the ends of the rib bones, and a fork is able to easily penetrate the meat.  We smoked a heavy five pounds of meat and, with repeated spritzings of apple cider, the ribs took just shy of 4 hours to cook.

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Breakfast from Portland Farmers Market

4 Jul

I would generally consider it quite inelegant to toot one’s horn so very mightily about one’s own recipe, but, and you must trust me on this one, this exception I am about to make is completely, totally worth it because, as I toot my horn, you will be introduced to what I now consider my greatest achievement in on-the-fly recipe creation, thus making you privy to all the details that would render it possible for you to make and eat this dish yourself, which, though you may not yet know it, I can assure you that you really, really want to.

Last week, as part of my twice-monthly writing assignment for Portland Farmers Market, I took my personally allotted $10 of spending money and I bought this:

Then I did this:

 And this:

Followed by this:

And then, after more chopping and mixing, I proceeded to cook everything and ended up with this:

Now, here is where the loud tooting of the horn comes in, but do you see that vegetable frittata?  It was quite good.  Okay, now do you see that thing next to the frittata?  The bread pudding made with fresh rhubarb?  It was unbelievable.  No, really.  Not one to ever turn down rhubarb, I knew I would enjoy a concoction that came about by topping a simple bread pudding with chopped up, sweetened rhubarb, but I did not realize just how fantastically the rhubarb would flavor the body of the pudding.

I am aware of the fact that, as the person who made up the recipe, I really should have a better idea of what makes it tick, but, I have to admit, I can only venture a guess as to what made this bread pudding so incredibly, intensely flavorful.  The secret may lie in what I did to the rhubarb before I spread it on top of the bread.  By allowing the rhubarb to macerate in a mixture of dark brown sugar and regular sugar for just a few minutes, the liquid that is released from the rhubarb intermingles with the sugars and starts to form a thick and luscious syrup.  Then, when the rhubarb and sugar mixture gets baked on top of the bread mixture, everything begins to caramelize together and melt into an absolutely ambrosial mixture of rich, custardy bread nestled against fragrant and velvety rhubarb.

With each bite, you get a hit of tartly sweet rhubarb, comforting bread custard, and an almost dainty and aromatic swipe of bourbon-flavored caramel.  The recipe contains no bourbon, but I suspect that when the mixture of vanilla, dark brown sugar, and the rhubarb liquid  came together, they somehow magically transformed themselves into bourbon-flavored caramel.  Or, at least, I am guessing that is what happened.  Perhaps when I make this bread pudding again (and, oh, how I cannot wait to make it again), I will further test the results of the mixture and then get back to you about it.  Or, better yet, you should just make this bread pudding yourself and discover first hand its charms and delights.  No, really.  Both my horn and I are insisting upon it.

This recipe, as I mentioned previously, was something I developed for Portland Farmers Market.  If you wish, you can read a bit more about it and its accompaniments (and get recipes for both) over here, on the Portland Farmers Market website.  However, as a service to deliciousness, I am also going to publish the rhubarb bread pudding recipe below, because heaven forbid I keep anyone from it any longer than I have to.

Rhubarb Bread Pudding

1 baguette

1 pound rhubarb, washed and trimmed of any hard, fibrous ends

¾ cup white sugar

¼ cup dark brown sugar

1 ½ cups milk

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

pinch salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Lightly butter a medium-sized baking dish and set aside.

Slice rhubarb into ½ inch chunks.  In a medium bowl, combine rhubarb, white sugar, and brown sugar.  Stir to combine, then set aside for 15 minutes to allow the rhubarb to macerate and release some of its juices.

Meantime, slice baguette into thick slices, then tear each slice into large bite-sized chunks.  You will need 5 cups total of bread chunks.  If you have any baguette remaining (as I did), set aside for another purpose.  Place bread chunks in pre-buttered baking dish.

In a medium-sized bowl, combine milk, eggs, vanilla, and pinch of salt.  Whisk vigorously until the eggs are entirely incorporated.  Pour milk mixture over bread chunks and allow to soak for 10 minutes, tipping the dish every few minutes and spooning excess liquid over the bread to make sure bread is completely soaked.

Evenly pour the rhubarb mixture over the top of the soaked bread.  Be sure to include all the liquid released from the rhubarb.  Do not mix.  Cover tightly with foil and bake for 35 minutes, until bread is puffed, the custard has been mostly absorbed, and the rhubarb has softened.  Remove foil and bake for an additional 15 minutes, until a few edges of the exposed bread begin to turn golden and crisp.

Cool slightly before eating.  Serves 6-8 people.

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Lemon Cream and Strawberry Trifle

30 Jun

Summer fruit in this area of the country is a long time coming.  Sure, we’ve had rhubarb for a few weeks now, but can rhubarb, in all its puckery a tart glory, really be counted as a summer fruit?  If you toss rhubarb with a lot of sugar, it can do some mighty fine things, but, straight from the ground, eating it is going to cause you some serious malcontent.  With those parameters in mind, I am sorry to say that I just don’t think rhubarb is going to make the cut.  So what do we do here in Portland when we want to eat our first local summer fruit?  We wait for the strawberries.

It’s been a cold, wet, and (let’s be honest) semi-miserable spring and summer, but our fortitude seems to have paid off.  Fresh strawberries began to show up at the farmers market just a few short weeks ago and, just last week, strawberries made their arrival in our home garden.  Despite the slow start our garden suffered in its beginning stages, a very short burst of warm weather seems to have coaxed some of our fruit into vibrant life, rewarding us with, upon our first harvest, 3 pounds of strawberries.  Not a typo.  3 pounds.

And then, four days later, we harvested another 3 pounds.  Two days after that came another 2 pounds.  We are swimming in sweet, juicy berries, and I could not be happier.

There have been strawberries in our granola, strawberries in our yogurt, strawberries straight from the plant, strawberries on leftover biscuits, and, in what I now realize I subconsciously created as a bit of a strawberry coming out celebration after we harvested our first basket of berries, this astonishingly good strawberry and lemon cream trifle, which, besides tasting somewhat like a heavenly dream, also happens to look quite like one.

Until it comes time to serve it, that is.  Upon being released from its pristine confines, this wonderful dessert morphs into a sloppy, goopy mess that, were one determining dessert worthiness purely by looks alone, certainly would not be in the running to win any beauty pageants.

But, if we are to continue with this pageant metaphor, let us all remember that true beauty is not represented by what one sees on the outside, but rather what one possess on the inside, which in this case happens to be fresh garden strawberries, lush lemon cream, and soft peaks of whipped cream, all nestled in between layers of a delectable semolina cake that, unlike the cake layers in many a trifle I have eaten, will not succumb to a soggy and spongy fate when inundated with a veritable flood of delicious creams.  Combine those virtues, and you’ve got what I consider to be a dessert that qualifies as a true and deserving winner.

Strawberry and Lemon Cream Trifle

Orange Semolina Cake

If you want to go all lemon with this trifle, you can certainly swap out freshly squeezed lemon juice for the orange juice, though I find that the subtle orange flavor of this cake is a welcome addition to the overall composition of the trifle. (I previously wrote about this cake recipe here.)

2/3 cup all-purpose flour

½ teaspoon baking powder

2 cups fine semolina

¾ cup sugar

2 tablespoons grated orange zest

4 eggs, separated

¼ cup olive oil

¼ cup vegetable oil

½ cup orange juice

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Grease and flour an 8” x 8” square cake pan.  Place flour, baking powder, and semolina in a bowl and mix to combine.  Combine sugar and orange zest in the bowl of a food processor or in a blender, and pulse to combine thoroughly.  Place egg yolks, orange-sugar mixture, and oils in a bowl and beat until well combined.  Fold egg yolk mixture into flour mixture with orange juice.

Place egg whites in a bowl and beat until soft peaks form.  Fold egg whites into flour and egg yolk mixture and pour into prepared pan.  Bake in preheated oven for 25-30 minutes, or until cake is lightly browned on top and a wooden skewer inserted into center of cake comes out clean.  Cool cake in pan for ten minutes, then release onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Lemon Cream

Adapted from Tartine

½ cup plus 2 tablespoons (5 ounces) of freshly squeezed lemon juice

3 whole large eggs

1 large egg yolk

¾ cup (6 ounces) sugar

pinch of salt

½ cup (4 ounces or 1 stick) cool unsalted butter, cut into 1 tablespoon pieces

Bring about 2 inches of water to a simmer in a saucepan set over medium heat.  In a non-reactive bowl that is able to rest securely in the rim of the saucepan without touching the water, combine lemon juice, whole eggs, egg yolk, sugar, and salt.  Whisk the ingredients together.  Do not allow the egg yolks and sugar sit together without being stirred constantly, as the sugar will react with the eggs and turn them granular.  Place the bowl over the saucepan of simmering water and continue to whisk for around 10-12 minutes, until the mixture thickens considerably and reaches a temperature of 180 degrees F.  Remove the bowl from above the water and allow the mixture to cool to 140 degrees F.  Stir from time to time to help the mixture cool and release its heat.

When the cream has reached 140 degrees, pour it into a blender, or leave it in the bowl if you will be using an immersion blender to mix the lemon cream.  Add the butter to the lemon cream, 1 tablespoon at a time, blending the mixture continuously until each piece of butter is completely incorporated before you add the next one.  The cream will be pale yellow and quite thick.

The lemon cream can be used immediately, or it can be made ahead and kept in the refrigerator, tightly sealed, for up to 5 days.  Makes about 2 cups of lemon cream.

Whipped Cream

1 cup (8 ounces) heavy whipping cream

½ teaspoon sugar

¼ teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Combine whipping cream, sugar, and vanilla in a medium bowl.  Using an electric mixer, whip on low speed until sugar and vanilla have dissolved.  Increase mixer speed to high, and whip until cream forms soft peaks.

Assemble the Trifle

You will need 1 pound of strawberries, each berry hulled and sliced in half from top to bottom.

When cake has cooled, cut it in half so you have two pieces that measure 8” x 4.”  You will only need half of the cake, so tightly wrap the unused half and store it for later use or enjoyment.  Then cut the remaining 8” x 4” piece in half horizontally, separating the top from the bottom.

Line the bottom of a trifle dish, or a similarly-sized glass bowl with a flat bottom (I used a 1.75 quart Pyrex storage dish, and found that I could have benefited from a dish that was taller and allowed for a bit more security of the top layers) with 1/3 of the cake layers, cutting the cake into strips and pieces as needed to fill in as much of the bottom space as possible.  Spoon 1/3 of the lemon cream mixture on top of the cake layer.  Spoon 1/3 of the strawberries on top of the lemon cream.  Spoon 1/3 of the whipped cream on top of the strawberries.  Repeat layering process one more time.  When you get to the third layer, deviate slightly from the layering order by first making a cake layer, followed by a lemon cream layer, then a whipped cream layer, then a strawberry layer.  Laying the strawberries on top of the cake, rather than under a layer of whipped cream, simply looks prettier.

Chill the trifle well before serving.  Trifle can be made ahead and left to wait in the refrigerator, fully assembled, for up to 1 day.

This trifle should serve at least 10 people very generously.  I’d tell you how long leftovers can last in the refrigerator, but ours was completely demolished within 2 days, leaving me to only guess as to how long it could last past that.  I’d say no longer than 3 or 4 days, but I’ll bet yours will be gone long before that as well.

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