What's Cooking (Take Three!)

Asian sesame oil is pressed from toasted sesame seeds, hence its dark color and toasty flavor. Gingelly is pressed from raw sesame seeds, in the manner of rapeseed, corn, and other seed oils. It has a light color. I don't know what it tastes like--I've never used it. It appears to be a staple cooking oil in South India, hence its appearance in a Madras version of Sambar. The Kerala (Southwest India) variant uses both coconut oil and coconut milk. Elsewhere peanut, rapeseed, and other neutral oils are used in Sambar.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

Interesting, Paul, thanks. I'll watch for it next time I'm in Vancouver's little India neighborhood.

Cooking at home tonight for the first time in a week. Having ten guests for dinner, all of whom will be on the cooking team for this year's wine club Xmas dinner. So it's a work night, so the food will be relatively (for me) simple: apple cider/herb/chardonnay marinated chicken, roasted, with roasted delicata squash, a big green salad and some homemade foccacia which I'm hoping to sell the group as our Xmas bread. Really good--full of herbs, finely diced sauteed onion and guess what--more chardonnay! It's proofing while I type.

...and some homemade foccacia which I'm hoping to sell the group as our Xmas bread. Really good--full of herbs, finely diced sauteed onion and guess what--more chardonnay! It's proofing while I type.

Shouldn't a Xmas focaccia have branches of rosemary and strings of popcorn?

[Jenise]

Only if you're hanging it on the Xmas tree.

[Jenise]

Tonight we're going to the Picky People's house for Canadian Thanksgiving. I'm taking stuffing--strangely, they don't like stuffing. I know them well enough now to be able to fairly accurately predict what they'll eat or not, but I didn't see that one coming since it's essentially seasoned bread and they love bread. There will be other guests who will appreciate it, though.

Whew, that is picky.

I picked up a small bottle of gingelly oil at the local Indian market. It's an almost colorless, neutral oil similar to peanut oil. If I tasted it blind, I don't think I'd guess it was made from sesame seeds.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

For lunch today we had pork carnitas tacos. For dinner, I'm going lighter with a celery root soup and salad combo.

That soup bears some talking about, actually. Way way back when I had a cream of celery root and potato soup finished with truffle oil in a restaurant. It was magical and I started making a version of that myself, boiling about half and half of each vegetable in water then finishing with a substantial amount of cream. Actually, I originally used about half whole milk and half water, but discovered that the celery root browns in contact with milk.

Today I had one large celery root and just two little red potatoes and decided to cook them into a soup base for further adjustments later in the week. (Tomorrow's trash day and I wanted to move on anything I could. Oh, and I have no cream on hand, just 1% milk. Well it turns out that in spite of the lopsided ratio, or maybe even because of it, the pureed soup has a lovely texture, and the addition of 1% milk (after cooking) results in a very velvetty and pleasantly opaque white soup. You'd never guess that it contained only almost-nonfat milk. I'm absolutely delighted with it--so that's dinner.

[Jenise]

Tonight I'm cooking a birthday dinner for the husband half of the picky people, he who doesn't eat vegetables. Three courses, 1) a salad featuring crab cakes, 2) roquefort souffles, and 3) beef pot pies. Dessert will be Cherry Garcia ice cream embellished with chocolate donut holes and bourbon-soaked Luxardo cherries.

I have those cherries, too, but I never thought to put bourbon in them.

I am eyeing a bourbon-and-spice cranberry recipe right now....

I made tom kha gai (Thai chicken and galangal coconut milk soup) the other day. The remainder of the boneless, skinless chicken thighs will become pad prik gai bai krapow (Thai stir-fried chicken with birds-eye chiles and holy basil) tonight.

Last night I had leftover Moroccan tagine-style braised chicken and olives. The recipe said "couscous is a must", so I bought some and cooked it for the first time. It is indeed an excellent foil for the Moroccan chicken.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

I have those cherries, too, but I never thought to put bourbon in them.

I am eyeing a bourbon-and-spice cranberry recipe right now....

My jar came that way, but of course it would be a no-brainer to duplicate them. BOY ARE THEY GOOD.

I had done a batch of chickpeas Sun, made hummus, but had 2-3 cups leftover. So decided to do this last night
https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/102 ... d-rosemary

I had all the ingredients called for except heavy cream, so used suggestion in comments to puree some of the chickpeas (which I did with a bit of whole milk and some fresh chevre). Otherwise basically followed recipe other than skipping the rosemary garnish- I love cooking with rosemary but not a big fan of raw. Went heavy on lemon instead. A good quick vegetarian pasta.

[Robin Garr]

I had done a batch of chickpeas Sun, made hummus, but had 2-3 cups leftover. So decided to do this last night
https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/102 ... d-rosemary

I noticed that recipe this week, Dale, and thought about making it. Your variation sounds excellent!

[Jenise]

That sounds EXCELLENT, Dale. As a child garbanzos were in the Top Five of my "I hate it" list, but they're something as an adult that I adore. I'll definitely put this on my to-do list. I think it would merit some blistered cherry tomatoes, too.

[Jenise]

So last night's birthday dinner for the picky people went very well. But man was it hard to put together! The evening before, I got my second shingles shot (if you haven't been through this yet, the vaccine consists of two within a two month period). And where the first didn't phase either of us a bit even though we got them with flu shots AND pneumonia shots on the same day, yesterday we were both absolutely flattened. Achy painful joints, totally lethargic, falling asleep sitting up, all that kind of thing. Needed lots of breaks and just pulling myself off the sofa was hard work.

In which state of mind one doesn't do one's best work. Like for the main course, the beef pies, starting with a single sheet of Pepperidge Farm puff pastry lightly rolled out and cut into four squares, I pre-baked the puff pastry shells into which I would scoop the beef stew like a vol au vent. I wrapped each square around a small ramekin then lowered each into a larger muffin tin. After the bake the ramekin is removed and voila, you have 'cups'. The squares are larger than the tin openings and you get nice fat petals for the edges. It's a great presentation.

Only, a smart person needs to use a bit of cooking spray on the outside of the ramekin AND remove it before the cooked pastry completely cools. Yesterday, I was not a smart person. Which failure results in the ramekin fully bonding to the delicate pastry, which requires a massive amount of patience to surgically cut from the sides, which only liberates the sides not the bottom which you can't get to, so then you have to gently twist twist twist to get the ramekin to release without pulling the bottom of the pastry cup out with it. Damage is unavoidable, but at least it's minimized. Oh, and you have to do all this without knocking off the fragile petals. I managed it but no joke I almost broke down in tears when I realized what I'd done; I never thought I'd get those ramekins out of there.

A particular triumph were the Roquefort souffles. Two reasons: 1) in spite of the fact my guests love everything eggs and cheese, they had never eaten a souffle before. Feeding them is in some ways like feeding a child, just because even when they like all the ingredients doesn't mean they're going to enjoy them all put together, and you never know when a new texture is going to offend just because it's new. But they loved them. And 2) I used 1% milk that I have on hand instead of investing in richer whole milk or cream which is what I've used in souffles in the past. I had really wanted to test a healthier lower fat option even at the sacrifice of flavor. But in fact, I found the result even better for being less rich and more of a showcase for the cheese. I was concerned that the lower fat might cause some kind of kitchen science issue, but no.

Brava for your fortitude and persistence, Jenise!

So, tell me more about Roquefort souffle. This sounds like something Pumpkin would like.

[Jenise]

Jeff, they're cute as a first course for guests. When they arrived we poured everyone a glass of Chablis and popped the souffles in the oven for a 20 minute bake in which time I seated everyone in the dining room to wait. You wait for souffles, they don't wait for you! One of these nights I'm going to make larger ones to serve as a main course with a simple green salad for just Bob and I.

In the past I've used a richer recipe which is more about being an ultimate version than it is a sensible one. Last night I used Gail Simmon's much more sensible recipe. Roughly: divide five eggs. In a small saucepan over a low flame, make a paste with 3 T flour and 2 T butter. Stir in 1 cup of milk (she doesn't specify fat content but most recipes suggest whole milk where as I said, I used 1% and the result was good), thicken, set aside to cool to lukewarm, then whisk in 5 egg yolks. Then fold in about 1/4 c parmesan cheese, and 1-2 ounces of crumbled blue cheese. Use your judgement depending on how strong you want it, and add salt accordingly. The cheeses are salty enough that you won't want much, if any. You can do this an hour or two before dinner and let it sit at room temp for final assembly. Dashes of cayenne or dry mustard can be nice additions.

When ready add about 1/4 tsp cream of tartar to reserved egg whites, whip just until they hold a peak, then fold into egg yolk mixture. Fill prepared ramekins (rubbed with butter and dusted with parmesan cheese) 3/4 way up and put into a preheated 375 F oven. Bake 20 minutes. Serve immediately. Voila.

Thank you, Jenise. I was thinking of it for a main course, so I suppose to use one large vessel instead of the ramekins. Maybe a 3 qt stainless pot? I have a small oval Le Creuset. I'm not sure I have anything ceramic that big.

[Jenise]

2 qt size would be fine. This isn't a large recipe. Interesting to contemplate an oval--I once tried some cool square ramekins I have, and it was a rather funny disaster--the egg just didn't know how to climb from the corners. I've only ever done round since.

[Jenise]

Had a bad cold for the last few days so not hungry or up to cooking. Not too proud to admit that last night I mixed the remainders of last weekend's chile verde into a can of Campbell's mushroom soup and, along with a fresh tomato salad, that was dinner (in fact, the only food I ate all day.

Today I'm back on my feet and am thawing some scallops. Not sure what they final dish will be, but--scallops.

Hey Jenise, you used food you had, you didn’t throw it away! And you were unwell. That rates good brownie points.
(I do have a minor concern about that can of mushroom soup which was lurking in your pantry LOL )
Hope you are feeling much better.

Tonight I'm making bouillabaisse de poulet from the recipe in Julia Child's 2nd volume of Mastering the Art of French Cookikng.

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

Going to cook tonight! Roast cornish game hen. Not sure how I'll approach it yet, just excited to be feeling good enough to get out of the soup-stage and into real food again.