Curry-ish

Friends, it has been far far too long, and for this, I apologize. In my absence from the blogosphere, we have gotten more tour guides, I have mastered the art of riding a bike uphill and took a ridiculous test to become a licensed guide, my brother has updated his food blog for the first time since July of 2008, and my friend Melissa has arrived in DC (more on that later.) But let's talk food. When I first started out on this food adventure, my friend Joel introduced me to a website called stumbleupon to help me find recipes. I had obviously heard of stumbleupon, but never actually used it. To read Joel's post about the website, click here (told you I would shamelessly plug you, Joel!) The way stumbleupon works is that you put in your interests and it finds websites to match those interests. Joel told me that there was an option to find pages related to food, so I did that and found all sorts of exciting recipes, one of which was a recipe for potato and cauliflower curry from a website called the kitchn (sic.) The thing about this curry is that it was far more solid and less spicy than any curry I've ever had, but still quite delicious. It tasted a lot like one of the dishes my roommate Komal's mom had made for her to keep in our mini-fridge (best idea ever.) I made this "curry" with some naan using a recipe I stole from my brother quite some time ago. The curry recipe is available here, but of course I'll put it in the blog as well.

Potato and Cauliflower Non-Curry

1 large or 2 small onions, diced small
1 pound (about 6 small) red potatoes, cut into small cubes
1 small head of cauliflower, cut into bite-size pieces
1-inch clove of garlic, minced
1 teaspoon cumin
2 teaspoons curry powder
1/4 teaspoon turmeric
1 (28-ounce) can diced tomatoes in their juices
1/4 cup yogurt

Heat a teaspoon of olive oil in a 4- to 6- quart dutch oven over medium-high heat. Cook the onions with a half teaspoon of salt until they are soft and translucent. Add the potatoes with another half teaspoon of salt and cook until they are browned on all sides. Add the cauliflower and cook until it is also browned in spots. It'll start to look like this:

Toss in all of the spices and stir until they are fragrant, about 30 seconds. Pour in the tomatoes and their juices. Bring everything to a boil, then reduce the heat to medium-low. Cover the pot and let the curry simmer until the potatoes and cauliflower are soft, 15-20 minutes. For a thicker sauce, remove the lid in the last five minutes of cooking to let moisture evaporate.

Turn off the heat and stir in the yogurt. Taste the curry and adjust the salt, pepper, or other seasonings as desired. This curry will keep for one week refrigerated or up to 6 months frozen. (If you're planning on freezing some of it, don't add the yogurt until you're ready to serve the curry.)

This makes a LOT of curry, I froze half of it and was able to bring it in for lunch 4 times within a few weeks, plus eating it for dinner and snacks. You want to make sure that you have everything cut up ahead of time and that you are constantly stirring the pot while the cover is off so nothing gets burned.

Now for part two: you can't eat curry alone, simply because it is generally too liquidy. Now since this was not real curry, it was more solid, but that wasn't going to stop me from having fun! So I made one of my favorite types of bread, naan.

Now naan is typically baked in a wood fire oven, found at most good Indian restaurants, but unfortunately, my apartment does not have such amenities...maybe some day...

In any event, I have been making naan for a while by frying it. It's fast, delicious and fun! Here's the recipe:

1 1/2 cups unbleached all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons plain yogurt

Sift the dry ingredients into a bowl. Then add in the yogurt and start kneading (with you hands! I know it seems gross and gooey at first, but I promise you'll get used to it and it's so much fun! ALWAYS use your hands while making bread. There are no exceptions to this rule unless your hands are permanently disgusting, in which case you probably shouldn't be cooking anyway.)

Keep it going until it's nice and mixed. Form into a ball, wrap in plastic and let sit out for two hours

If you're crunched on time, you could just let it sit for 30 minutes, but it's nice to give it more time.

After two hours cut into 6 pieces or more, I can usually get eight to ten out of this recipe. If you want more than that, just double it!

Make the pieces into balls, and roll those out into flattened rounds with a floured rolling pin. You can also flatten 'em by hand.

Heat the skillet, and then lightly oil the pan. Brush one side of a flattened naan-round with oil.

Then place it, oiled-side up, in the pan. After two to three minutes of cooking, the naan should begin to form bubbles, and brown spots should form on the cooking side.

Flip and brown evenly. Flipping is the best part. Don't use a spatula, just swish the naan around in the pan a bit and flip! naan is really easy to do this with, and with enough practice you could try with other things too, like pancakes (although pancakes are much harder because their tops stay liquid while cooking.) I would advise you to keep a spatula nearby just in case, but you'll master the art of flipping in no time!

Once you have done all of this, eat them together for a delicious dish. Use the naan as a spoon for less cleanup and more authenticity!

Eclairs!

When I was home I hung out with my good friend Carrie and we made eclairs! This was mostly brought on by the fact that I had watched tons of Alton Brown on the plane ride home including the episode entitled "Choux Shine," where Alton taught his viewers how to make pate a choux, the base behind making eclairs and cream puffs, as well as funnel cake. I had been looking for a good eclair recipe for a while and figured it would be a perfect chance to try it out! Here's the recipe:

Ingredients

• 1 cup water
• 3/4 stick butter (6 tablespoons)
• 1 tablespoon sugar plus 1/8 teaspoon salt (for sweet)
• 1 teaspoon salt (for savory)
• 5 3/4 ounces flour
• 1 cup eggs, about 4 large eggs and 2 whites
  
  Chocolate topping
  
• 1 cup chocolate chips
• 1 tbs canola oil
  

Directions

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.

Boil water, butter, and salt or sugar. Add flour and remove from heat. Work mixture together and return to heat. Continue working the mixture until all flour is incorporated and dough forms a ball. Transfer mixture into bowl of a standing mixer and let cool for 3 or 4 minutes. With mixer on stir or lowest speed add eggs, 1 at a time, making sure the first egg is completely incorporated before continuing. Once all eggs have been added and the mixture is smooth put dough into piping bag fitted with a round tip. Pipe immediately into s shapes, 2 inches apart onto parchment lined sheet pans. Cook for 10 minutes, then turn the oven down to 350 degrees F and bake for 10 more minutes or until golden brown. Once they are removed from the oven pierce with a paring knife immediately to release steam.

The best/hardest part is to make the eclairs and fill them--we used a pastry bag and a cake decorating syringe, it was lots of fun. Pictures soon!

A Short Break

Hey guys, you may notice a lapse in blogs in the near future. I'm going home/to St. Louis for a week and won't be cooking. I'm thinking about trying out eclairs at home though, so you might get a post of that. I promise I'll be back to cooking and posting when I return to DC!

Chicken? ?מה זה

Today I cooked chicken...weird right? I haven't had meat since Passover this year, and that was back in April. Kosher meat is expensive and hard to find...or so I thought. Did you know that the Foggy Bottom Trader Joe's has kosher meat? Jews for the win! In any event, raw meat is über gross to work with, but totally worth it in the end.
Anyway, onto the good stuff. I had a friend coming over for dinner who I had told that I was thinking of transferring to culinary school. So the dinner was sort of a last hurrah in DC slash my proof to him that I can cook. So I made this awesome recipe called Vietnamese Sticky Chicken. It's something that my mom found once upon a time, and I proceeded to become obsessed with it. Basically, it's this chicken marinated in garlic, fish sauce (warning, this ingredient sounds gross, and it is...it smells like wet dog, but it adds amazing flavor,) lime juice, and sugar, grilled and then eaten by hand rolled in a big lettuce leaf with a pickle of radishes and carrots to top it. I know it sounds weird but I promise it's amazing. Here's the recipe:

Vietnamese Sticky chicken

2 cloves garlic, minced
3 tablespoons sugar (can use less)
1 1/2 tablespoons Asian fish sauce
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
1 1/2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 1/2 teaspoons Sricha or other Asian hot chile sauce (optional)
1 1/2 pounds skinless boneless chicken breast, cut crosswise into 1/4 inch thick slices or tofu (must drain out water from tofu)

For Pickle
2 medium carrots, peeled
1/2 pound daikon radish, peeled (I always use just regular radishes)
1/2 cup rice vinegar
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt

garnish
leaf lettuce leaves
8 fresh mint, basil and /or cilantro sprigs

Marinate chicken:
Whisk together garlic, sugar, fish sauce, oil, lime juice and optional hot sauce in a large bowl until sugar is dissolved. Add chicken and toss to coat; then marinate at least 15 minutes.


2. Make pickle while chicken marinates;
Cut carrots and radish into 1/8 inch thick matchsticks (2 inches long) with slicer. Whisk together vinegar, sugar and salt in a bowl until sugar is dissolved, then add vegetables and toss to combine. Let stand, tossing occasionally, until wilted, about 15 minutes.

3. Grill Chicken:
Heat grill pan over moderately high heat until hot, then grill chicken in 4 batches, turning over once with tongs, until just cooked through, about 1 minute total per batch. Transfer chicken to a plate as grilled and keep warm, covered with foil. Serve with pickle and accompaniments.

There aren't a lot of pictures from this for a couple of reasons:
1. Raw chicken is GROSS!

2. My camera ran out of batteries and I had to use the webcam on my computer, which I wasn't going to schlep all over the place.
I did take pictures of a few things though, including the marinade:

It says the sugar should be totally dissolved, but if you can't get all the crystals to totally disappear, that's okay. Once the liquid is saturated, there's really nothing you can do about it.


Notice that this recipe includes grilling. So I had another grilling adventure. So now you guys think I've figured out how to turn one on, right? WRONG. Due to circumstances beyond both of our controls, my friend and I had to change the time of dinner, and the chicken was not grilled when he arrived at my apartment. So of course, we went up to the roof to grill together. Guess who was the one who figured out how to work the grill? Not me, obviously! My friend (Zach) was able to figure out how to light the grill because I'm clearly inept at operating large machinery (thanks Zach!)
I'll figure out the grill eventually, but until then, the Vietnamese Sticky Chicken was an absolute success! Although next time I'm going to try to make it with tofu...I'll keep you posted.

Oh My, It's Pie!

Everyone loves pie, or at least they should. Pie is one of the most versatile things around. Pies can be filled with almost anything, and be served as the main dish or as a desert. Germans believe that pie is appropriate for any time of the day, and I agree (although it helps that I'm part German I suppose.) I had an 8 AM staff meeting the other day and brought in pie, and it was enjoyed by all. Today I made a delicious English pie called Banoffee Pie--that's Banana+Toffee, aren't the English so clever? Keira Knightly talks about it in Love Actually, one of my all-time favorite movies, and when I was in London over spring break, I knew I had to try it. I ended up getting it at a pub in Stratford-Upon-Avon (Shakespeare's birthplace for those of you that don't know) called the Dirty Duck. If you are ever in Stratford, GO THERE! It's delicious, and quite near the church where Shakespeare is allegedly buried, although for those of us who were in Dr. Wentz's AP English class, we know that no one actually knows where his bones truly lie. OMGPIERCINGTHEVEIL. Haha. Anyway, it was there that I tried Banoffee pie, and vowed that I would learn to make it. I scoured the internet for recipes, and eventually decided on a combination of two: Danny Boome's recipe, available here, and a recipe from epicurious, located here. The reason I decided to be difficult and use two recipes is that the review on Danny's recipe said the toffee was too hard, and the epicurious didn't show how to make a crust. Here is the recipe I used:
Banoffee Pie:

• 1 (14-ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
• 2 cups crushed graham crackers, about 11 crackers
• 1 stick butter (1/2 cup), melted
• 2 large ripe bananas
• 1.5 cups heavy cream
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/8 teaspoon hot chocolate powder

Directions

Put oven rack in middle position and preheat oven to 425°F.

Pour condensed milk into pie plate and stir in a generous pinch of salt. Cover pie plate with foil and crimp foil tightly around rim. Put in a roasting pan, then add enough boiling-hot water to reach halfway up side of pie plate, making sure that foil is above water. Bake, refilling pan to halfway with water about every 40 minutes, until milk is thick and a deep golden caramel color, about 2 hours. Remove pie plate from water bath and transfer toffee to a bowl, then chill toffee, uncovered, until it is cold, about 1 hour.

Add the crushed crackers to a food processor. Pour in the melted butter and pulse until it sticks together and the graham crackers get pulverized. Pour the graham cracker mixture into a 9-inch spring form pan and press with your hands or a 1 cup measurer to evenly distribute on the bottom of the pan. Chill to set for about 15 minutes in the refrigerator.

Pour the dulce de leche over the graham cracker base. Spread evenly. Slice the peeled bananas and arrange over the top covering the entire surface. Whip the cream until firm and spread over the top. Sprinkle top with cinnamon and grated chocolate. Serve.

The toffee part is definitely the easiest part about making the pie, although you really do need to remember to keep a vigilant eye on the water level in the pan, sometimes it goes down too low before the 40 minutes are up. This is what the toffee looked like when I pulled it out:
I know, it looks a little weird, but it get's weirder. I stirred it to spread the heat around and get everything to an even brown color and it looked like this:
Told you it got weirder! But no worries, the lumps settle when you put it in the fridge for an hour.
Now the graham cracker crust can be pretty annoying if you are like me and don't have a food processor. First I had to crush the crackers with a porcelain bowl thing, added the butter and mixed it and crushed it with a hand mixer.


















So after lots of mixing I put it in the pie crust and it looked like this:
After that chilled I filled it with the toffee and the bananas:

Then came the hard part: whipping the cream. The key to whipping cream is to just keep going. It will feel like nothing's happening and your arm is going to kill, or at least mine always does, but that could also be because I have zero upper body strength. In any event, you have to continue whipping until it looks like this:
Then I spread it on the pie and added the cinnamon and chocolate:
Yay pie! I know this isn't a main food item, but I couldn't resist!

Shish Ka-Who?

Yesterday I made Shish Ka-Bobs! Simple right? Not if you've never used a grill before! The apartment has two grills on the roof, and I decided to make good use of them. The first thing I did was venture upstairs to try to figure out how to work the thing. Of course that was an epic fail seeing as grills don't have instructions on the outside. So I called my father, resident gourmet chef and grill master, and he told me that I needed to check what kind of a grill it was, gas or electric. Thankfully it was gas and he explained how to start it. With this information at hand I was ready to start! So I soaked some wooden skewers in a water bath for three hours and gathered my materials: a few ounces of tofu, one cob of corn (I don't really know how else to say it...one piece of corn? If you know, feel free to shout it out in the comments below,) one yellow onion, one red pepper, and some balsamic vinaigrette. A word to the wise: Don't attempt to skewer corn using a wooden skewer, it just won't happen, I promise. Just grill the corn separately. I assembled the kabobs, rolled them around in the vinaigrette and brought them upstairs to the grill. I still was nervous about turning on the grill, but luckily, some of my neighbors had already done the job and let me jump in and grill my three kabobs. I figured 2-3 minutes for each side, so I covered the grill, counted to 180, and opened it up again, to find that one of the skewers had lit on fire! Ahh! I quickly used my tongs to grab it and move it away from the flame, and the burning stick part fell away. Crisis averted! Of course it freaked me out and I ended up under cooking the kabobs a bit, but they still tasted pretty good. I think I'll be making kabobs quite often this summer, so hopefully they will continue to improve. The next time I do I'll post pictures!

The Beginning of a Culinary Adventure

And so the summer begins. I have moved out of my dorm and into my beautiful loft apartment in Columbia Heights. If only it were really mine and not just a summer sublet...sigh. Who am I? Funny you should ask that--I am Julie, the Loft Chef. I am a rising college sophomore living and working in DC. This summer I will basically have to fend for myself in terms of food, and I am very much a baker, not a chef. I can bake pies, breads, cookies, no problem, but real people food? Right now my repertoire includes pasta, pizza, and stir fry. But this summer that's all going to change--I will attempt to expand my culinary abilities, and you, lucky reader, get to come along for the ride! Most of the recipes I'll be using are vegetarian, but they will all be delicious! I am very much a novice at this whole cooking thing, so this should be an interesting journey.