What isn’t there to love about quinoa? I certainly can’t think of anything. It cooks up fine in a rice cooker, absorbs sauces and dressings without getting soggy and packs a surfeit of complete protein for those nights when meat seems too costly or unhealthy.
I make something with quinoa in it at least once a week. Its versatility makes it great for breakfasts (cook it in hot milk like oatmeal), lunches (dried fruit, nuts, a vegetable or two and a dressing) and, of course, dinners. Plus, eating it makes me feel virtuous. And surely a virtuous, healthy eater like me will always be able to find a seat on the subway, or win a medium-size lottery.
But there are times when I want something wicked to temper that piety.
The Taco Always Rings Twice: Baja Fish
March 6, 2008
It’s difficult to imbue fried foods — even the best ones — with freshness and snap, to shear away that natural feeling of overindulgence that goes hand-in-hand with eating them.
Except, I’d argue, in the case of fish tacos.
There are also dishes that wring richly intricate tastes from a few ingredients: Shirred eggs and preserved lemons come to mind, although there are many in the worldwide running — and again, I’d say fish tacos are definitely among the pack.
Poblano Tacos
February 17, 2008
If I’m ever caught slacking at work, it’ll be because I wasn’t vigilant enough to cover my tracks as I scrolled through my favorite food websites.
I’m most likely to get pinched while reading the Dinner Tonight posts on Serious Eats. I tend to fixate on what I’m making for dinner in direct proportion to how hectic work’s gotten that day, and why I like DT so much is that it helps clear my head and focus on what really matters—you know, the evening meal. (I ascribe this to the fact that the featured recipes are always precise, contextual and simple to execute.)
So this past Monday, J and I made this DT recipe for poblano tacos. Missing the char of summer barbecues, I’d zeroed in on the description of the roasted poblanos as being “chocolatey” in flavor; a minute later I was clandestinely on the phone with J, who gets off work much earlier than me, dictating a grocery list to him in sotto voce. Read the rest of this entry »
Torquing Two Reliable Standbys
February 12, 2008
What you see above, a smackdown of inspirations drawn from chicken-and-rice soup and tom yum goong (but with some distinct departures from either), has reintroduced me to the easy pleasures of poached chicken. What alchemy could be simpler? In this case, it’s bringing galangal, lime zest and a seeded, sliced habanero to a boil in a few cups of water, lowering it to a bare simmer, slipping in a cut of uncooked chicken and covering it all. When the pot’s uncovered after a few minutes have passed, it reveals a lovely, fragrant broth and chicken that’s evenly flavored and juicy, even if you use historically dry boneless, skinless breast meat.
Sumac
February 7, 2008
Sumac, that “tart, ubiquitous spice of the Middle East,” has become my newest kitchen plaything. I’ve sprinkled it on fresh pita bread and wee falafels, mixed it with yogurt and fenugreek for a muddily delicious marinade, used it in onion-pickling brine and vinaigrettes—basically, I’ve done everything but spackle a layer of the darkly rosy stuff over ice cream.
For those uninitiated, sumac (the spice) is the powder that results from grinding the dried berries of the sumac plant, which is native to the Meditarranean and Near East. When fresh, the berries have raspberry-like drupelets, but are sourer than any framboise by miles. Dried sumac is used as a primary souring agent in many Middle Eastern culinary practices, and I can see why it’s prized: Unlike other tart flavorings, such as lemon juice and vinegar, sumac doesn’t curdle delicate, dairy-based sauces, and it lends cooked dishes a distantly fruitlike aroma that’s quite pleasant.
And, of course, there’s that gorgeous color, a glowing vermilion hue to wire home about. A shake of it into some braising liquid turns wan grocery store carrots into doppelgängers of Kyoto Reds. Can you imagine what it could do when paired with beets?
Shrove Tuesday
February 6, 2008
Yesterday morning, my flatmate K burst into my room while I was blow-drying my hair, yelling gibberish nonsense words: “Mardi Gras!” “Fat Tuesday!” “Pancakes!”
Her reward was my open-mouthed confused silence — confused, I gaped at her, my hair dryer still raised halfway up to my head. I even wondered for a moment if she was playing some kind of word association game with me.
K, in her sweet excitement, tried again: “Pancakes!”
My power of speech returned. “K! It’s really early in the morning to be yelling random words at me!” I exclaimed.
K slowly explained. Fat Tuesday and Mardi Gras are also referred to as Shrove Tuesday (who knows why!), and Shrove Tuesday can also be known as Pancake Tuesday. My confused vision of Mardi Gras revelry conjoined with images of a Denny’s breakfast special faded. K wanted to eat pancakes, and she wanted me to help her do it.
Grit Came From Above
January 26, 2008
[To everyone who came here looking for "kittens" on Google, welcome. You should go here. Never let it be said that we here at HtoM stood between the people and what they came for.]
Hailing from Georgia as I do, I find it hard to believe that there are people, going to and fro in the earth and walking up and down in it, who actively hate grits. Surely, I figure, they haven’t been introduced to a properly composed bowlful of the stuff. Who of right and stout mind could resist its considerable, cheesily substantial appeal?
Perhaps (although it seems like its own form of craziness) it’s in the butter and the cheese of it all that the problem lies. After all, several of my friends in Atlanta, a number of whom were Georgians born and raised, invariably opted for the healthier charms of cornbread, toast or fruit when we’d go to brunch on Sundays. I thought of them when tinkering with this Epicurious recipe for butternut squash polenta. Read the rest of this entry »
Paella in Point Form
January 14, 2008
The one thing I immediately thought of buying when I found out my office was sending me to Madrid for a week was a good, old fashioned paellera - a shallow pan specifically made for paella. Although I live in London, in a gardenless flat, far from any wilderness or even open spaces where barbecues are allowed, my imagination still ran wild with thoughts of paella cooked over twilight open fires, with fresh seafood pulled directly from the ocean into my pan and saffron tendrils falling from the sky like a gentle snow. And, well … I bought the paella pan. I am now willing the rest of the vision to appear. Isn’t it just like purchasing a Ferrari at age 57? Don’t the hot chicks just appear? If you build it, they will come….?
There are extensive debates as to how to make a proper paella. What meat? What stock? Saffron or paprika? Add rice, then stock? Stock, then rice? What veggies? Oh lordy, it didn’t promise to be an easy undertaking. Then there was the matter of the paellera itself - did it need to be seasoned, like a wok? Could I use soap when it needed washing, or did it need to be treated like a delicate nonstick fryer - where no metal could ever touch its surface? My saffron-dusted dream was quickly turning into a bitter nightmare fraught with imitation food-colouring.
Read the rest of this entry »
Masoor Dal with Tomatoes
January 11, 2008
When I was a wee N. (n., shall we say), modern western medicine rarely wound its way to me. My mother treated most — if not all — of my occasional childhood sicknesses with the same methods her mother had used, except for (perhaps fortunately so) the outdated panaceae of gripe water and mustard poultices.
I have nothing to say against the cure-alls she used; I’ve grown to be a healthy adult, albeit short and knock-kneed, and on many bleak winter days I think back fondly to the more edible medicines, the potions she served to me in large white bowls brimming with steam. Many of the ingredients she used — neem flowers, turmeric, cumin seeds whole and ground — are substances many now consider magically, potently healthful.
Potato Soup with Peas
January 4, 2008
Bitter, disgusting winter weather plus a latent cold? I wanted soup, of course, but not the usual suspects — chicken noodle, tom yum goong or any others in their brothy company. I wanted something hearty, but silky; starch-laden but still brightly seasoned and flavorful. Wandering through Fairway, mittens in pockets, I decided potato soup would be just the thing, but that I’d have to do some thinking to leaven the blandness. I eventually picked up some peas, a pair of lemons and a bunch of thyme, ingredients my mother likes to use in a summery buttermilk soup.
