Not Your Average Coconut Shrimp

When you see Coconut Shrimp listed on a menu, you can be certain it's deep-fried and served with a sticky sweet sauce. This dinner, on the other hand, was inspired by a beautiful cookbook called Cracking the Coconut: Classic Thai Home Cooking by Su-Mei Yu. Like Eating Korean and The Chinese Kitchen, it is a personal introduction to the author's culture. Stories, traditions and culinary concepts are the real backbone of these books - the recipes are just a garnish.

I stopped at the local Asian market on my way home to pick up bird chiles, galangal, lemongrass and shrimp. Bird chiles are tiny, pointy and usually red, but the bag I got contained all shades of green to red. Galangal is often compared to ginger because it looks like it. It is tougher to cut and smells like eucalyptus to me. I look forward to using this intoxicating flavor more. Lemongrass is a tough stalk with a sweeter-than-lemon aroma. The shrimp were previously frozen, 30-40 count, with heads attached.

The traditional Thai kitchen is a concrete slab behind the house, shaded by a coconut palm. The cook's indispensable tool is a mortar and pestle. With it she grinds spices, herbs and aromatics into a seasoning paste. Coconut milk and cream are her cooking oils - in fact the primary source of fat in the Thai diet, where meat is uncommon.

With a few unique flavors and a general technique in mind, I took my first swing at a homestyle Thai dish. If I were to make it again, I would double the spices or halve the coconut milk, as the final dish was far too mild to be called Thai.

I sliced a quarter-inch disk of galangal, minced it and smashed it with the end of a French rolling pin. I then crushed three cloves of garlic, one bird chile, and a four-inch stalk of lemongrass, which I cut crosswise into tiny shreds. Who needs therapy? Get a rolling pin! The smashing is to release the flavors as a mortar and pestle would. I finished the paste in the food processor, then warmed it in a little butter in a skillet before pouring in a 14 oz can of coconut milk.

While that was simmering I beheaded and gutted the shrimp, tossing the heads and shells into the stockpot with a shallot and another quarter-inch disk of smashed galangal for a delicious stock. The shrimp went into the coconut milk with about a tablespoon of fish sauce, where it cooked gently while the broccoli, yellow pepper and brown rice were steaming. When the shrimp was pink, I tossed in two sliced scallions and a handful of minced cilantro.

Even though the end result was far from authentic, the process was exhilarating. The thought of smashing more spices and evoking richer flavors is enticing. I'm only three chapters into this book and can't wait to try more.

Autumn Sushi

After a very long, relaxing holiday weekend out of town, many cooks face the dilemma of returning home to an empty refrigerator. Stephen and I worked very hard last week to use up anything that would spoil - a phase of kitchen management that I particularly enjoy. Now that we're back and haven't been grocery shopping yet, it's a delightful challenge to turn the remaining odds and ends into a meal. Sushi it is!

Sushi originated in South and Southeast Asia as a means of preserving fish through lacto-fermentation. Fishermen would layer their catch with salt, rice and seaweed, and the lactic acid produced by the fermenting rice would keep the fish from spoiling.

Modern sushi, as I made today, is like modern pickles - vinegar, salt and sugar are added to mimic the flavor but not the nutritional properties of the original food. Maybe someday I will try lacto-fermenting fish, but not yet.

The Rice:

In the morning I cooked one cup of brown rice that had been soaking overnight. After work, I dissolved a quarter-teaspoon of sea salt and two teaspoons of Muscovado sugar in a tablespoon and a half of brown rice vinegar. This I sprinkled over the cooled rice and tossed it all gently together.

The Fillings:

During the last hour of my workday, I called Stephen and asked him to put the Hubbard squash in the oven at 275 F. When I got home, I cut the cooked squash into strips, along with an omelette of two eggs, a half-teaspoon of soy sauce and a quarter-teaspoon of sesame oil. I peeled and roughly julienned a brilliant red carrot as well. The squash, eggs and carrot were all left over from the last farmers' market of the season.

The Assembly:

I laid a nori sheet on my bamboo mat and divided the rice into fourths - one serving per roll. With wet hands, I spread the rice on the nori, layered the fillings on one end, rolled it up and gave it a squeeze. Four rolls later, dinner was ready. A sharp knife is essential! Stephen and I had a roll each with soy sauce and kimchi. The kimchi functioned as a type of salad traditionally eaten between bites of sushi "so you don't look like a pig." Oishii desu!

Sauteed Bananas in Coconut Rice

This morning's breakfast started out as a recipe for a Thai "dessert." The Thais normally have fresh fruit to conclude their meals, but enjoy sweets - what we would call dessert - as snacks to tide them over until the next meal. For that reason, Thai sweet dishes tend to be too rich and filling to be eaten with a regular meal, but I thought it would be just right for breakfast.

The original recipe was for bananas stewed in coconut milk with a lot of sugar. For my adaptation, I started by cooking two servings of sprouted brown rice (four ounces dry) in the rice cooker. While that was steaming, I simmered half a cup of coconut milk with a knot of crushed lemongrass. I added Muscovado to the coconut milk a pinch at a time and can't have put in more than a teaspoon total. Because the Thais like their sweets salty, I added five or six drops of fish sauce. When the rice was ready, I sliced and sauteed three ripe bananas with a little butter and a pinch of Muscovado. I scooped the rice into a little mound in each bowl, poured on the lemongrass-infused sweetened coconut milk, arranged the bananas on top, and garnished it with cilantro.

This was sweeter than I expected for something with so little added sugar. The saltiness of the fish sauce was undetectable as such, but accented all the other flavors beautifully. The natural sweetness of the bananas and the richness of the lemongrass-infused coconut milk made this a very filling breakfast.

Many traditional societies use coconut milk liberally and enjoy good health. Coconut milk is not only delicious, but an excellent natural source of lauric acid, which helps our bodies fight infection. Enjoy!

Kimchi!

Imagine life without refrigeration. What a sanitary nightmare that would be! Most of our food today has been sterilized, hermetically sealed, blast frozen, and transported thousands of miles in a perfect state of suspended animation. It's easy to forget that this lifestyle was impossible for most of human history.

While the last century has seen dramatic leaps and bounds in the the war against microorganisms – sterilization, pasteurization, antibacterial cleansers – all of man’s history leading up to it has been a running experiment in cultivating the little bugs we can’t live without. The lost art of lacto-fermentation is one of the oldest methods of food preservation. The process depends on lactobacilli, ubiquitous bugs that produce lactic acid and prevent the growth of bacteria that cause spoilage.

Today’s culinary landscape would be incomplete without fermented foods. Bread, butter, cheese, yogurt, wine and beer, sausage, sauerkraut, salsa, soy sauce, ketchup and all things pickled are just a few of the familiar foods originally prepared by fermentation. Some still are, but many are now counterfeit taste-alikes that lack the beneficial enzymes and live cultures that made the originals so nutritious. Besides flavor, fermentation adds valuable enzymes and lactic acid to foods. Our bodies naturally produce these for digestion; getting them from food lightens the burden and helps us absorb more nutrients. Cultivating the good bugs in our internal ecosystem also improves immunity and has been associated with increased energy and long life.

All traditional societies consumed raw and cultured foods with their cooked meals. These traditions live on in the form of pickles on burgers, sauerkraut on sausage, cheese and crackers. In keeping with tradition, I try to have something fermented with every meal.

My most recent experiment with fermentation was Korean kimchi, which was an absolute joy to make. I started with a recipe from Cecilia Hae-Jin Lee's book, Eating Korean. My one adjustment that obliterates the authenticity was to leave out the garlic. How can it be kimchi without garlic? I will use it next time, and also experiment with substituting fish sauce and salted shrimp for the sea salt, and adding other vegetables like mustard greens and radishes. There is a whole world - or at least a country - of kimchi to explore. For the first batch though, I wanted to give Stephen a less-stinky introduction to that world.

Cecilia says sea salt is best because its higher magnesium chloride content keeps the vegetables crisp. Salt is essential for pickling because it inhibits the growth of bad bacteria while the preserving bacteria obtain a critical mass. So at the Korean market, I picked the salt bag that had pictures of kimchi ingredients and no English except "salt" on the back label.

I also picked up a giant Napa cabbage, two big bunches of green onions, a pound of red pepper powder and a fresh chunk of ginger. At home, I sliced the cabbage into one-inch ribbons and soaked them in salt water all day using a quarter-cup of salt and enough water to cover the cabbage.

At night, I drained the cabbage and mixed in four sliced green onions, a tablespoon of shredded ginger, and a tablespoon of red pepper powder. Very simple. The original recipe said to save the salted soak-water, but since I wasn't using organic cabbage and hoped that any chemical residues might have dissolved away into that water, I discarded it.

I packed the fresh kimchi into a quart jar and poured a half-cup of water into which I'd dissolved a tablespoon of sea salt over the top of it. Then I put it in the pantry and waited. And waited.

Tuesday night it was ready! It actually could have fermented a little longer or at a warmer temperature - it wasn't too tangy at all. Plenty salty and spicy though! I'm very excited about trying many more varieties. Even ancient traditions like lacto-fermented kimchi can have a place in our modern kitchens; it's not too late to bring this one back to life!

Spicy Grilled Veal with Cauliflower Greens

This started as a recipe for dwaeji galbi - spicy pork ribs - from Cecilia Hae-Jin Lee's cookbook, Eating Korean. It is a delightful introduction to Korean cuisine filled with history, tradition and family stories that bring Korean culture to life.

This particular recipe was one that Cecilia enjoyed at a campfire when she was young. Although the original called for pork, I thought it would be tasty with the grass-fed veal cutlet I'd had in the freezer for months. Who ever heard of veal standing in for pork?

Spicy Grilled Veal

1-2 lbs. veal cutlets (about 1/2 inch thick) - but feel free to substitute any other meat, seafood or grillable vegetables! Cooking is all about experimenting and I can't wait to try this marinade on other canvasses.
1 Tbs minced ginger
2 minced garlic cloves
1/3 cup red pepper paste or chili paste (I used a Korean import from T.UP. Trading Inc, which I chose for its four simple ingredients: red pepper, sweet rice, water, salt. I find that when buying unfamiliar condiments it's worth the extra dollar to get the best quality. This one was $7 for a kilo.)
2 Tbs brown rice syrup
2 Tbs Muscovado, not packed
2 Tbs soy sauce
2 Tbs sesame oil

Mix all ingredients and marinate veal for at least 3 hours. I prepared mine on Sunday morning and cooked it Monday night. I let it sit at room temperature for about a half hour while I preheated a cast-iron grill pan in a 300 degree oven. I greased the pan with organic lard (America's favorite pre-Crisco cooking oil), then plopped the marinated cutlet on top. I baked it for about ten minutes, then turned off the heat and opened the oven door. After letting it sit for another ten minutes to let the juices redistribute, I sliced it into neat diagonal half-inch strips.

While the veal was resting, I steamed the cauliflower greens. I've been getting this amazing organic cauliflower from the farmers' market lately, but for each head of cauliflower, very little of it is actually floret. The same is true for broccoli. I saved about two cups of the greens and stems, sliced them into half-inch chunks, and steamed them with a tablespoon of the spicy marinade. After draining them, I tossed in a little pat of butter. Local organic vegetables, especially from this particular Amish farmer, have so much more flavor than the conventional versions they shouldn't even be called by the same name. I am heartbroken that my vegetable vendor will not be back until May. Organic foods from faraway countries like Chile and New Zealand just aren't the same.

The spicy grilled veal was reminiscent of Chinese char siu (roast pork) in flavor, color and texture. Faintly sweet, salty, with a pleasant balance of soy, sesame, ginger and garlic. The spiciness is indescribable. It excites the other flavors without overpowering. This marinade/sauce would be delicious with scrambled eggs, fried rice, pizza...just about anything! I would be delighted to use it again and again.

Chestnuts Roasting

This was my first experience roasting chestnuts. I'd had them freshly-roasted from a street vendor in London and they were the perfect antidote to the cold and damp. Now that they're in season, I thought I'd give them a try at home.

When it came to making them myself, I had been put off by the thought of slicing a cross onto a round surface and expected to come out of this a few digits short. In practice, however, the chestnut skins are very easy to poke and there was only one near-miss where I'd probably have sliced myself had I been using a sharper knife.

After slicing the skins, I spread them on a cast-iron griddle in the 350 degree oven, then went to the living room and waited to hear the supposed popping noises to indicate they were done. About a half hour went by and, hearing nothing, I went in to check on them and found them already popped. I peeled them, burned my mouth tasting them (I spend much of life with my mouth and fingers blistered from over-eager tasting), and stored them in the refrigerator. I was very surprised at how sweet they are. The flavor actually reminds me of red bean paste. Strange?

These chestnuts ended up in fried rice with seasoned ground beef (soy sauce, sesame oil, Muscovado, Korean chili powder, green onions), carrots and broccoli.

American Fusion: Quinoa-Barley Pancakes

This morning's pancakes combined red quinoa from South America and purple barley from North America. Friday morning, I ground two ounces of red quinoa and one ounce of purple barley, then let them soak overnight in a mixture of buttermilk and water. I didn't nail down the proportions exactly, just about a quarter-cup of buttermilk and enough water to get a pancake-batter consistency. Next time I'll use all buttermilk. Saturday morning I added a pinch of salt and two eggs and fried them on the cast-iron griddle.

For the topping I simmered frozen blueberries (that I picked this summer!) and maple syrup, and served Amish yogurt on the side.

Cultivated in the Andes for over five thousand years, quinoa was a sacred "mother grain" to the ancient Incas. Today it is reported to be the most nutritious "grain" on the market. It's technically not a cereal grain at all because it is not a grass, but shares many characteristics with said family. It provides all nine essential amino acids for complete protein as well as fiber, manganese, magnesium, iron, copper and phosphorous. In baking, it has a grassy flavor and is gluten-free, so I like to combine it with other grains for flavor and texture.

Quinoa also sprouts quickly and easily - just soak it in the morning and by dinnertime you'll see little rootlets wrapping their way around the seeds. Cook it on the stovetop with twice as much water as quinoa for fifteen to twenty minutes or until it turns into chewy translucent pearls. Use as you would cous cous or rice.

Saffron Basmati Pilaf

This was my first attempt at a pilaf. The recipe looked so enticing in Julie Sahni's Classic Indian Cooking (from the library), I'd been looking forward to making it for two full days.

I started by soaking a cup of basmati rice for a day and a half. It really only needed seven hours, but I had some unexpected leftovers last night and didn't get a chance to make the pilaf then. I strained this rice while melting two tablespoons of ghee (clarified butter) in my cast-iron wok. Even before cooking it smelled enchanting. In a separate bowl I mixed two cups of water, a pinch of saffron (crumbled), two tablespoons of raisins, three-quarters of a teaspoon of sea salt and two teaspoons of Muscovado sugar. Muscovado is exactly like brown sugar in texture, unlike Rapadura, which is free-flowing. It has a much deeper, more complex flavor than brown sugar since it is unrefined. This particular Muscovado was grown on volcanic islands off the coast of Africa.

When the ghee had melted, I added a cinnamon stick, six cardamom pods, and five whole cloves to sizzle for a while. I took them out when the cardamom pods had browned. Then came the definitive pilaf step: I fried the uncooked rice in the spiced ghee, stirring to keep it from burning, until it browned slightly. Then I poured the water and other ingredients on top, covered it partially, and brought it to a boil. From here on, it's all about experience. My instructions said to let it simmer for ten minutes, keep it at very low heat for another ten minutes, then cover it completely and let it rest in its own steam another ten minutes. Each of these steps took me about twice as long. I was too afraid of burning it to cook it at a high enough temperature, and too afraid of undercooking it to take it off the heat too soon.

In the end, the flavor and texture were so seductive it was difficult not to eat the whole batch myself. I've had Rice-A-Roni-type pilafs before, which were lovely, but never quite as subtle and fragrant as this basmati. I served it with the Indian-style braised beef I prepared earlier this week and some steamed organic broccoli and brilliantly purple cauliflower.

I hope with practice to become a more fluent and confident pilaf-chef. I will, of course, be happy to share my experience along the way, whether at the table or online.

Stephen's Braised Beef Omelette

I am so proud of my husband. He called me at work very excited about this spectacular omelette. Stephen has always been an accomplished omelette-maker, which is a matter of pride in the Young family, and this adventure reflects a new flair for experimentation.

He started with three eggs beaten with a spoonful of yogurt and a dash of cinnamon, chili, and curry powder. He poured them into a preheated, buttered pan and let it set a bit, lifting the edges to let the uncooked egg slip underneath. As it was cooking, he shredded on some braised beef and Colby cheese.

The beef had cooked in the crock pot earlier this week with two shank bones, a sliced onion, half a teaspoon of cumin, ten cardamom pods, a cinnamon stick, five whole cloves and filtered water to cover. After the stock had simmered for several hours, I removed the bones and mixed a tablespoon of cashew butter and half a cup each of whole yogurt and cream. It could have had a bolder hand with the spices, since the final dish was very mild. Fortunately it marries very well with other brightly-seasoned accompaniments.

Everything in this omelette except the spices (eggs, yogurt, butter, beef and cheese) came from local Amish farmers. I am so grateful for them. Their organic, small-scale farming methods yield much more nutritious products than today's industrial farms. I don't mind cooking with such rich ingredients when they're produced naturally, from pasture-fed livestock, the way humans have had them for all but the last fifty years of agricultural history. Check out eatwild.com for more on the nutritional benefits of pastured produce.

Thai Rockfish

This was a simple dinner. In the morning, I shredded a head of green cabbage, of which half got packed away for pickling and the other half went into the refrigerator. At dinnertime, I steamed about two cups of it, then stir-fried it with a tablespoon of Thai green curry paste and half a cup of coconut milk. Green curry paste is pretty mild and herbal, fragrant with lemongrass. Even though it's full of green chilis, it isn't as spicy as the Red or Kaeng Par curries.

I marinated half a pound of wild-caught rockfish in lime juice (from one lime) and a tablespoon each of soy sauce and fish sauce for about half an hour, then baked it skin-side-up for 10 minutes at 350 F. I usually overcook fish (it's so easy), so this time I took it out while it looked a little underdone and let it finish cooking in its own heat. I mixed equal parts fish sauce and soy sauce for table seasoning and garnished it all with chopped peanuts and cilantro.

Gan Gin Gan Yuu (Thai) - As you eat, so you are. We must be delicious!

It's Alive! Sprouted Brown Rice

I grew up on sticky rice. I adored it. In many parts of the world, nothing is more traditional than white rice as the center of every meal. But without the nutritious bran, plain polished rice is an empty food.

How did traditional rice-based cultures stay strong without the vitamins and minerals of whole rice? They fed the rice polishings to the chickens, who faithfully delivered these nutrients in their eggs and meat. I never cease to be amazed by the economy of nature.

Sometimes, I have learned, it is necessary to break from tradition for the sake of nutrition. Brown rice supplies a fair amount of B and E vitamins, copper, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus and selenium. Since I don’t have a chicken to process my rice bran for me, I would really rather leave it on. So to deal with the antinutrients in the bran and still get the same consistency as sticky white rice, I came up with a new trick.

The rice I eat now is alive when it goes into the cooker. I sprout eight ounces of short-grain (glutinous or sweet) brown rice, which entails soaking it overnight, draining it, then rinsing and draining it twice a day until the tiniest little rootlets appear. It usually takes about a day and a half. Soaking, draining and rinsing mimics the conditions that cause germination in the wild. The sprouts shouldn't be longer than a millimeter or two, as shown above. If they're ready before you are, cover them with water and keep them in the refrigerator for up to a day. Any longer makes for goopy rice.

Once the sprouts are ready, I place the rice cooker pot on the scale, tare it, pour in the sprouted rice, then add just enough filtered water to total 24 ounces of rice and water together. After it’s done cooking, which is faster than un-sprouted brown rice, I take the pot out of the cooker, keep the lid on, cover it with a towel and let it sit for ten to fifteen minutes. The resting time allows the steam and moisture to redistribute, which keeps the rice from sticking to the pot and ensures perfectly fluffy, sticky brown rice.

Frequently I only make four ounces of rice at a time, for exactly two servings. This way all of our rice is freshly cooked moments before we eat it. I find that to cook four ounces of brown rice, sprouted, I need to add eleven ounces of water. Six ounces of brown rice, sprouted, require fifteen ounces of water to cook. If the rice is too hard, add more water next time; if it is too gummy, add less. Trial and error - that's the nature of home cooking.

India Mela

(Mela means festival in Hindi.)

This project reminded me why I cook. Cooking makes me come alive. Food is a central part of our humanity, endlessly diverse, complex and fulfilling. The passion is easy to lose sometimes, when I get bogged down with the mundanity of feeding and sink into old ruts. A few days ago I found myself sitting in the kitchen thinking that there was nothing that I actually wanted to cook. I approached this project with some trepidation, thinking that after all the work I was sure to be sick of cooking for quite some time.

While I adore old recipes and traditions, I never want to stop exploring, challenging and pushing myself into new territories. Today that territory was North India. Trying my hand at the exotic new spices, ingredients and techniques was a fascinating adventure that rekindled my hunger for culinary artistry.

Our church has a relationship with several organizations in North India, where we plan to establish some long-term missionaries - which may include Stephen and me. Today, the last day of our missions conference, we had an Indian luncheon after the service. The menu featured homemade Raita (cucumber yogurt), Chicken Tikka Masala, Chana (chickpeas), Yellow Dal (lentils), Mixed Vegetable Curry, Basmati rice and Naan. The church community really came together over this meal; many contributed food and volunteered to help.

My contribution was the Vegetable Curry, which I adapted from a recipe on Sailu's Kitchen, a beautiful Indian food blog. We had about two hundred guests, and of the main dishes, mine was the only one that ran out, so I should have made half again as much. Quantity is really hard to gauge just by looking at a recipe, especially a scaled one, but that's where experience comes in!

Preparing a recipe for two hundred is just about as complicated as preparing it for two. Besides chopping and cooking time, there are just as many steps and ingredients. This one was very passive - I let the wok and the oven do all the work. I did most of the cooking in two cafeteria-sized chafing dishes from the church and ended up with almost no cleanup!

North Indian Mixed Vegetable Curry

Ghee (clarified butter), as needed (I used 1 1/2 cups for the whole recipe)

Two softball-sized onions, finely diced
1 1/2 cups cashew butter
1 1/2 cups tomato paste
1 Tablespoon garam masala

1/4 cup cumin
38 cloves
50 cardamom pods
8 3-inch cinnamon sticks

12 lbs. yellow onions, diced
19 green chilis, finely diced
3/4 cup ginger-garlic paste (found in Indian markets)
1/4 cup Kashmiri red chili powder (I fell in love with this spice!)
2 Tablespoons cumin
3 28-oz cans crushed tomatoes, strained

4 heads cauliflower, diced
7 lbs. carrots, peeled and diced
10 lbs. potatoes, Russet and Yukon Gold, diced
4 lbs. frozen petite peas
4 lbs. frozen green beans

1 quart whole yogurt

Begin by making the brown onion paste. Caramelize the two softball-sized onions with some ghee and grind them to a paste in a food processor. Mix with the cashew butter, tomato paste and garam masala and refrigerate until the end.
On the stovetop, melt some ghee with the cumin, cloves, cardamom and cinnamon. Let them cook for a while, then strain the scented oil into a bowl. Use this oil to saute the onions and green chilis in batches until transparent. To each batch, when the onions are done, add some ginger-garlic paste, red chili powder, and cumin and saute for another minute. When all of the batches are done, add the tomatoes. This onion-tomato sauce should be overly spicy, since the flavor will be diluted over all the other vegetables.
While the onions are cooking, dice and begin oven-roasting the cauliflower, carrots and potatoes. I sat in the living room watching movies at this stage; it was a very relaxing way to spend Saturday afternoon. Toss the vegetable dice with ghee and salt, and spread them in a single layer to roast at 350 F. When they're all done, add the frozen peas, beans, onion-tomato sauce, and the brown onion paste mixture from the refrigerator. Toss thoroughly to coat. The frozen vegetables will have cooled everything down quickly, so it can either be refrigerated overnight or brought back to serving temperature at this point. Just before serving, fold in the yogurt. If heated, the yogurt will curdle.

Do check out the original recipe from Sailu's Kitchen. She has some authentic subtleties that I skipped, such as a homemade cashew paste made with melon and poppy seeds. She also recommends blanching and sauteing instead of oven-roasting the vegetables, but I didn't want to be standing over the stove all day.

All told, this was a very therapeutic recipe. Perhaps there's something in those spices... at any rate, all I know is I can't wait to get cooking again.

Yuengling Squashage Soup

So the other night I had roasted four squashes: butternut, acorn, hubbard and a pie pumpkin (not to be confused with a pumpkin pie) with the intention of adding them to the cassoulet. By the time they were out of the oven, my stew pot was nearly overflowing and I only managed to scrape in half the butternut.

What to do in this situation but make squash soup? I mashed the squashes and added a bottle of Yuengling left over from a previous get-together. These I pureed in the blender with a small handful of fresh basil from my window box and a 28-oz can of whole San Marzano tomatoes, then returned to the stovetop. While that was bubbling away, I sauteed three diced onions with a tablespoon of butter, half a teaspoon of cumin and a quarter teaspoon of garam masala. I added these to the puree and grated in three cloves of garlic. The garlic really tied everything together, emboldening all the other flavors without overpowering. I'm usually too lazy to peel and shred the fresh cloves, but wow. It's worth it. Next I browned a pound of nitrate-free Amish sausage and threw it in. In the end, my soup looked more like spaghetti sauce. As a semi-final touch, I added - you guessed it - fish sauce!

Fish sauce (nuoc mam or nam pla) is the Southeast Asian (Vietnamese, Thai) answer to soy sauce in East Asia (China, Japan). It adds a mild, exotic saltiness that intensifies the other flavors in the dish, plus many essential trace minerals from the sea (like iodine) that we non-fish-eating Americans don't usually get enough of. Fish sauce marries beautifully with acidic fruits like lime, pineapple and tomatoes. When purchasing fish sauce, put down the extra dollar to get the best quality, which still ends up being about $4.00 for a liter. It'll take all year to use that. Three Crabs is an excellent brand. More on that later - I have some beautiful recipes that I just can't wait to share.

I couldn't leave a soup without some gelatin-and-mineral-rich bone broth (the reason for eating soup), so I ran out to Whole Foods and picked up some beef shanks. These went into the crock pot with an onion that was more "hacked to pieces because I don't want to get out a cutting board" than "neatly diced," a smashed inch of ginger, and filtered water to cover. Simmered overnight. Stephen helped me strain it into the squash mixture in the morning, and I added the shank meat as well.

The quart of broth thinned my "sauce" to the consistency of soup, which also meant the previously perfect seasonings had to be corrected. I added two big pinches of salt to my four quarts of soup and a dash of fish sauce.

When I reheated the soup for dinner, I threw in two big handfuls of baby spinach for a fresh vitamin boost. Just before serving, after letting it cool a bit, I crumbled in some raw Amish Colby. Besides flavor, raw Artisan cheeses provide enzymes and nutrients for strong bones and healthy digestion.

You've heard of Beer and Cheese Soup, right? That was the inspiration behind this concoction - a whole bunch of other ingredients just happened to get in the way. Beer and cheese are both ancient, fermented phenomena that have been enjoyed together for centuries. And that, I think, is a fine tradition to keep going.

Egg in a Nest

This morning's breakfast was one of my favorites growing up. It's a step up from regular fried eggs and toast because the egg is fried in a little hole cut out of the bread. We normally used a drinking glass to punch the hole in our perfectly square supermarket bread, but since my sourdough is so oblong, I cut a freeform rectangle with a knife instead. The best part is the little cutout from the bread, which gets fried alongside in the sizzling butter. Mmm.

I bet this would make a tasty stuffed French toast, with a little dusting of cinnamon, a drizzle of maple syrup and some roasted pecans... Can't wait to try it!

It Started as a Cassoulet...

But in the end, just about everything in our kitchen ended up in this stew. I envisioned simple white beans, mushrooms, sundried tomatoes, chicken and nitrate-free Amish sausage. There were no small white beans to be found at Whole Foods, so I ended up with a pound of green lentils and a cup of pinto beans from the pantry, which I sprouted. And it was anybody's game from there.

I started a mirepoix with ten onions, a cup of sundried tomatoes, a head of celery, and two pounds of carrots. I sauteed the onions with the tomatoes and Amish butter and tossed them with the other vegetables. Then I sliced a pound of criminis and sauteed them in butter as well. Then I happened upon four yellow bell peppers at Peas in a Pod in the ten-cent basket, so I tossed those into the oven at 350 F, right on the rack. When they were wrinkly and browned, I peeled, sliced and stashed them away with the mushrooms and mirepoix. I also had three sweet potatoes and five zucchini, which I diced and roasted with olive oil and salt at 350 until soft.

I roasted a chicken, collected the meat and returned the bones to the pot for a stock. When the stock was ready, in went all the vegetables and sprouts, followed by half a roasted butternut squash, a grated dried chipotle, a cup of crushed San Marzano tomatoes, a third of a cup of crushed pineapple, and a pound of sausage shaped into little meatballs. Just before serving, I tossed in some baby spinach and mild Amish Colby cheese.

"There's stew, and then there's stew." - Dave Goneau

The best utensil for stew is a slice of hearty whole wheat sourdough, especially one that is butter-fried. For my sponge I used 5 ounces starter, 10 ounces water and 12 ounces freshly ground wheat. The next day I kneaded in 2.5 ounces wheat, an ounce of melted butter, a tablespoon of honey, half a tablespoon of salt, and half a teaspoon of baking soda for flavor. I let it rise for about two hours, balled it up in a greased loaf pan, let it rise another hour and a half, and baked it at 350 for about forty-five minutes. Beautiful.

In the future I'd like to try colder, slower rises for my sourdough, which are said to develop better flavor and texture. Experimentation makes food exciting, but an old reliable recipe is a real treasure.

Pound Stew

Colonial Americans had their pound cake, calling for a pound each of butter, sugar, eggs and flour. I thought I’d apply the same principle to this simple nourishing stew.

1 package soup bones
2-3 lb. yellow onions
1 head celery
1 lb. carrots
1 lb. lentils
1 lb. baby spinach

Begin sprouting the lentils in the morning and start the stock after work. For the stock, place the bones, an onion, a few ribs of celery, and one carrot – all roughly chopped – in the stock pot with enough filtered water to cover. Let it simmer for 3-4 hours.

The next day, strain the stock, reserving any meat from the bones. Finely dice and, optionally, saute some or all of the vegetables in butter for extra flavor. Add the vegetables, meat, and sprouted lentils to the stock and simmer until tender. You may also want to take this opportunity to empty your pantry of miscellaneous vegetables. Mix and match. Stew is really non-discriminating about the company it keeps. Season to taste with salt, pepper, artisan cheese, naturally brewed soy sauce, fish sauce, and/or whatever herbs you have on hand. Each time you reheat the stew, take out just enough for that meal and toss in a few handfuls of baby spinach (or other dark leafy greens) as it comes to a boil.

Traditions and modern science agree that while spinach is one of the most nutritious foods on the planet, reheated spinach is not as nourishing as freshly cooked. Some pass it off as an old wives’ tale, since it was passed from generation to generation with no explanation, but it has since found scientific validity. Spinach contains a lot of harmless nitrates, which convert to nitrites during cooking, storage and reheating. Also harmless to adults in small amounts, nitrites can turn into to carcinogenic nitrosamines in our bodies. That’s why I keep the spinach out of the stew until it’s ready to eat. Cook it for less than five minutes to preserve more of its nutrients and cancer-fighting potency.

All told, this recipe is simple, nutritious and dirt cheap. Pair it with a loaf of homemade whole wheat sourdough and you have a week of meals for less than $20. If you don't want to eat it all week, freeze a few quarts for quick meals later. Who ever said organic food had to be expensive?

My Kitchen Garden

Apartment-dwellers, take heart! Even if you don't have a yard, you can cultivate a garden right on your kitchen counter.

Sprouting seeds like beans, grains and rice is a natural way to add vitamins to your diet. On the shelf, seeds are full of useful minerals, vitamins, proteins, fats and carbohydrates, but their true potential is locked away. Given a long soak, periodic rinsing and good drainage, they transform visibly and chemically like botanical butterflies. All that stored energy comes to life, bringing about a significant increase in vitamin content and digestibility.

Sprouts have a long history of scurvy prevention; sailors and soldiers could easily transport the dry seeds, to be turned into vitamin C factories as needed. Since vitamins are heat-sensitive, especially vitamin C, it's important to cook them on low heat for as little time as possible.

Best of all, sprouting is easy! No special equipment required, just water and time. Wild plants have managed to self-propagate forever without special sprouters, so I don't see why we need them either. I do find it useful to have a bowl and strainer. I started soaking these pinto beans and lentils (pictured above) on Friday afternoon, rinsed and drained them on Saturday, and let them sit on paper towels in a bowl. I took the above photo on Sunday afternoon. I was short on equipment this time around, but in the future I'd recommend sprouting them separately to accommodate for different cooking times. Whatever container you choose for sprouting, be sure to leave room for the seeds to triple in size.

My favorite seeds to sprout are lentils and brown rice, which sprout within two days. Mung beans, pinto beans and wheat also sprout easily, while adzukis take a little more coaxing. I haven't successfully sprouted almonds or pumpkin seeds, which may have been because mine had already been cooked. Sprouting is a check-up on the freshness and vitality of your seeds.

As a last word of caution, stay away from tomato and potato sprouts - they're poisonous! Happy sprouting.

Birthday Cake!

This weekend I baked my first successful all-natural cakes. Many past attempts at nutritious desserts have been disastrous, as Stephen can attest. Nothing is quite as disappointing as biting into a brownie that looks and smells delicious but tastes like cardboard. It was my recent experiment with millet - those light, bright and fluffy pancakes - that reinspired me to bake with fermented flour.
Sugar and flour have been my greatest confectionary roadblocks. I am always tempted to skimp on the sugar, and if I soak the flour for too little time in too little liquid, it's too thick to blend gracefully with the other ingredients and bakes up like shoe leather. If I err on both sides, look out!
So this time, I vowed to use the full amount of sugar in the recipe and soak the flour in plenty of liquid for no less than 24 hours. And sweet success was as simple as that.

Carrot Cake (adapted from Nourishing Traditions)
8 ounces raw cream plus 2 Tablespoons buttermilk, or 8 ounces sour cream
8 ounces yogurt
10 ounces soft wheat flour
1 1/4 cups Rapadura*
4 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 cup crushed pineapple, in juice
1 cup grated sweet carrots
1 cup unsweetened coconut meal
1/2 cup chopped pecans

Sour the cream by mixing it with buttermilk and leaving it at room temperature for a day or so until it thickens. Then mix the sour cream, yogurt and freshly ground flour and let them sit out for another 24 hours. The cultured milk provides an acidic medium that prevents spoilage and also breaks down anti-nutrients in the flour. Now the waiting is over! Preheat the oven to 350 F and grease a 9 x 13 pan. Cream the butter and Rapadura in a separate bowl, blend in the eggs one at a time, and add vanilla, soda, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt. Gently fold in the flour mixture along with the pineapple, carrots, coconut, and pecans. Gently. Pour batter into the pan and bake about an hour or until the edges pull away from the pan.

Don't forget the cream cheese frosting!

Blend:
4 ounces butter, softened
16 ounces organic cultured cream cheese, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 cup raw honey
...and wait until the cake is perfectly cool to frost! This cake received rave reviews. The best part is it's made of entirely whole foods. Next time I plan to replace some of the wheat with more nutritious alternatives like quinoa, amaranth, brown rice and buckwheat.
I couldn't stop at just one cake in case it didn't work out. So I also adapted a recipe from my trusty Hershey's Best Cakes book.

Sour Cream Chocolate-Carob Cake

8 ounces raw cream plus 2 Tablespoons buttermilk, or 8 ounces sour cream
4 ounces buttermilk
7 ounces soft wheat flour
1/4 cup cocoa
1/4 cup carob powder
4 ounces butter, softened
1 1/2 cups Rapadura
3 eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt

Sour the cream, as in the previous recipe, and blend it with the buttermilk and flour. Let it sit at room temperature for at least 24 hours. Preheat the oven to 350 F and grease and flour two round 9-inch cake pans. In a separate bowl, cream butter, cocoa, carob and Rapadura. Blend in eggs, one at a time, followed by vanilla, baking powder, soda and salt. Again, gently fold in flour and pour into prepared pans and bake for 30 minutes or until the edges pull away from the pan. Absolutely gorgeous! I frosted this one with the remains of the cream cheese frosting blended with cooked blueberries, raspberries and about a quarter cup of maple syrup. It was also a big hit, and was unfortunately decimated before its photo op.

*Rapadura is the "whole grain" of cane sugar. The sugar crystals are never separated from the molasses during processing, so they retain more nutrients than totally refined sugars. Just one teaspoon delivers 11% of your recommended iron for the day!
It exceeded my expectations for workability and taste. It looks and feels like coarse, dark sand, does not dissolve as easily as refined sugar, nor does it clump like brown sugar. As is typical of whole foods compared to their refined counterparts, Rapadura has a flavor. A gorgeous one. It took me forever to nail it down, but it's like honey, caramel, even pecans. It isn't overwhelming at all, nor the least bit sharp, bitter or heavy as I expected it to be. Just a teasing, complex bouquet of earthy goodness. It also has a slightly crunchy texture like tiny toffee bits, which is great for cookies but not so much for custards. Muscovado is another unrefined cane sugar that I haven't tried yet but can't wait.

So, culinary hall of horrors, look elsewhere! I'm back in the business of making desserts that actually taste good - and happen to be good for you.

Book Review: Nutrition and Physical Degeneration

Weston A. Price, 1939

Embark on an all-expenses-paid tour from the Swiss Alps to the plains of Peru. This anthropological journey will bring you face-to-face with ancient races on the interface of tradition and modernization.

In the 1930s, Dr. Weston Price traveled the world in search of the answer to tooth decay, studying isolated groups who displayed uncanny immunity to almost all modern degenerative disease. He documented their diets, cultures and health in various stages of modernization.

Across the world, the patterns were the same. While the people were still living on their native diets, they remained in excellent health. They had broad skeletal structures, straight teeth and defined tribal features, which passed perfectly from generation to generation. They knew instinctively what to eat for disease prevention, even to the point of targeting specific deficiencies, and sometimes traveled miles for special foods. Price marveled at their physical excellence and strength of character.

As soon as these isolated people accepted the modern foods of trade – white flour, sugar, jams and canned goods – their health quickly deteriorated. Tooth decay became rampant, causing unforeseen misery and desire for death among formerly carefree people. Tuberculosis, once unknown, became a primary concern. General hardiness diminished. Most telling of all were the skeletal changes. Physical divergences from the tribal pattern began appearing in children born to modernized parents. Children were born with narrower faces, crowded teeth, pinched nostrils and skeletal deformities, all of which were magnified in younger children of the same family. Narrowed hips led to difficulty in childbirth. In all cases when some or all of a group returned to their native foods, they regained their health and active dental decay ceased.

Upon his return home (in what I expected to be the boring half of the book), Price analyzed and developed practical applications for his discoveries. He concluded that nutrition, not genetics, was the primary cause of degenerative disease. Tooth decay was just one outward expression of serious internal deficiencies; the same conditions that led to visible decay of the teeth also caused invisible decay of other organs. Price followed that principle back to pre-conception and found that the nutritional deficiencies in parents that caused bone deformations in the child could also create irregularities elsewhere – including the brain.

The conclusion that nutrition, not genetics, lies at the root of our modern ailments is an astoundingly hopeful one. If it were genetic or random, there would be nothing we could do. If it is nutrition, we can help ourselves. The damage is reversible. Price and subsequent research observed that parents with health problems, including apparently genetic abnormalities, produced healthy children when they had adequate nutrition. Among the already born, Price documented drastic health improvements through minor dietary changes.

Dr. Price presents his findings in a factual, unbiased manner. His logic and supporting data are clear and effective, his language quaint and vivid. If any emotional slant comes through, it is a humble awe at the workings of nature and grief at the loss of health among the modernized. Some of his wording is culturally insensitive today (i.e. “savages”), but the content of his observations communicates a deep respect and admiration for the people from whom he learned so much.

The photographs in this book are priceless. Hundreds of faces tell the story better than words ever could. As the text is entirely available online, complete with pictures, there is no reason not to avail yourself of this groundbreaking resource. It revolutionized the way I think about food and started me on the road to traditional cooking. I highly recommend it.

Whole Grains: the Budding Staff of Life

Modern nutrition celebrates whole grains as a healthy alternative to refined carbohydrates because they provide more vitamins, minerals and fiber. What the advertisements fail to mention is that all whole grains contain phytic acid, an “anti-nutrient” that blocks absorption of minerals like calcium, magnesium, copper, iron, and zinc. I personally have enough trouble getting adequate minerals into my body to let them go that easily. Fortunately, ancient bakers discovered several delicious ways of dealing with this biological obstacle before they even had a name for it. They did this by sprouting, soaking or fermenting the grains.

Sprouting grains invokes the life-giving miracle of germination. Neolithic folks found that their flatbreads lasted longer when they sprouted the grain first, and Egyptians discovered that they could use sprouted grain to make beer. Raw foodists today are just fanatical about sprouts with good reason. They’re among the richest sources of vitamins, minerals, enzymes, antioxidants, amino acids and proteins. Germination also deactivates phytic acid and breaks down starches into simple sugars, making sprouts easier to digest. They can be dried, milled and used like regular flour in your favorite cookie recipe. (If you do plan to bake with dried sprouts, don’t let them sprout longer than a millimeter, and store them in the freezer or else they’ll make your cookies taste like old lawn clippings. Trust me!) Sprouts are also delicious fresh in salads, soups, pilafs and any other vegetable application. The fun isn’t limited to grains – rice, beans and nuts sprout too!

Soaking and fermenting grains also neutralize phytic acid. Old-fashioned breads required flour to be soaked in sour milk overnight or mixed with sourdough cultures. Other groups mixed their cereal grains with water and let them ferment into a sour porridge. Beneficial enzymes (like phytase) and bacteria in these sour concoctions would break down phytic acid, tannins, complex starches, enzyme inhibitors, and hard-to-digest proteins in the grain while making the nutrients more available. The lion’s share of this work is done in seven hours.

It's only in very recent history that we've forgotten the nutrient-enhancing techniques of sprouting, soaking and fermenting our grains. After all, food is cheaper, faster, and tastes just fine when we skip them. The ancient ways are relegated to artisans, and I'm grateful that they're still around. In my kitchen, sprouting and fermenting grains doesn't take much more effort than using them raw - just a little more planning, patience and practice - and the nutritional advantages are well worth it.