Gruyere, Jalapeno, and Scallion Mochi Balls

Can inventive-vegetarian be a cookbook category? If so, it’s my favorite. And, that’s where I would place Linger by Hetty Lui McKinnon. It’s a collection of menus from monthly meals with friends hosted at her home. Interestingly, all the photos in the book were taken when those meals happened. What you see is what was actually served as opposed to dishes primped and styled for a photo shoot. While the menus for these meals were not exactly “themed,” they were chosen in accordance with the current season. The dishes are primarily salads although may include cooked components. There are also some breads and sweets to round things out. One quibble I had is that some of the combinations of flavors in menus don’t seem like obvious pairings to me. But, I believe the idea was to offer a variety of dishes among which to choose for a varied group of friends at each gathering. I’ve been picking recipes here and there throughout the book and have enjoyed everything I’ve made so far—with lots more pages marked for future cooking. The Gruyere, Jalapeno, and Scallion Mochi Balls are my new favorite thing. They’re like gougeres’ cousin that’s easier to make and extremely fun to eat with the chewy texture from glutinous rice flour. It’s a treasure of a recipe. 

The Roasted Romanesco with Chickpeas and Ginger Scallion Oil is from a different menu, but the mochi balls would go perfectly with it. I had a beautiful head of Romanesco from Boggy Creek Farm that I roasted, and I roasted the chickpeas as well to make them a little crispy. It was all topped with the aromatic and lovely ginger scallion oil. 

 

For the Ginger-Roasted Kabocha with Black Rice and Ginger-Miso Dressing, I used kuri and koginut local squashes. I also had some local hakurei turnips that I thinly sliced and added to the salad. Garlic, ginger, and miso made for great flavor in the dressing. 

 

I was drawn in by the mention of the salsa as soon as I saw the Broccoli and Tempeh with Salsa Macha. The version in the book includes optional kombu and Sichuan peppercorns. I skipped them to keep the flavor more traditional. It’s a delicious topping for roasted broccoli and tempeh. And, the salad is brightened up with a flurry of sprouts on top. 

There’s so much more still to try from the book. Throughout the year, I know I can pick something delightful that suits the season. 

 

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Tiny Baked Potatoes with Spiced Chickpeas

I feel like I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating: It’s always worthwhile to read a cookbook all the way to the end. I tend to find fascinating tidbits in those last pages. When the final chapter is about sauces or toppings or stocks, there’s always something interesting there that makes me like the book even more than I already did from reading the main sections. That just happened once again with The Way to Eat Now: Modern Vegetarian Food by Alice Hart of which I received a review copy. This new book is a paperback release of what was titled Good Veg as a hardcover in 2016, and it’s full of great ideas for vegetarian dishes for any time of day. Along with the recipes and photos, there are also added ideas and variations sprinkled throughout the chapter introductions and recipe head notes. For example, something I can’t wait to try isn’t written as a recipe but was just mentioned in the Mornings chapter intro. It’s a suggestion to make savory French toast by adding garlic or paprika to the custard and serving it with roasted tomatoes or wilted spinach and goat cheese. Some of the dishes include dairy or eggs, and some are vegan, and substitutions are offered. There’s also acknowledgement of time and cost, and when a step may take too long or an ingredient might be too pricey other options are suggested. Several dishes have southeast Asian influences, and vegetarian “fish” sauce is listed among the ingredients. You’ll find the recipe for the sauce in that last chapter I was praising, and I was delighted to see it’s not too time-consuming to make. You’ll also find a recipe for Vegetarian Nuoc Cham, Pickled Sour Cherries, Sweet Pepper and Chile Jam, and a Thai-Style Roasted Chile Paste. That last one sent me backwards in the book to revisit the recipe for Brown Rice Bibimbap Bowls with Smoky Peppers where it’s used, and that made me happy to have read all the way to the end. Back at the front of the book, I got a bit distracted by the Chia Jams. I’d seen this method before of using chia seeds to thicken a jam rather than adding as much sugar as usual. When I saw it here, I finally gave it a try and loved chia-thickened peach jam with a little honey. I also tried the Shaved Beets with Sprouts, Kefir and Dukkah but made a couple of changes by using vegan yogurt for the dressing rather than kefir and mixing the beets with arugula instead of sprouts. I have the page marked for the Chubby Polenta Fries with Almond Za’atar Salt, and I know I’ll love the Roasted Pineapple, Coconut and Makrut Lime Sorbet. But, I want to tell you all about the Tiny Baked Potatoes with Spiced Chickpeas. 

New potatoes are available from our local farms right now, but they’ll be gone for the season soon. They were simply roasted whole with a little olive oil and salt and pepper. At the same time, canned chickpeas that had been rinsed, drained, and left on a towel to dry were roasted with cumin, nigella, hot smoked paprika, and salt. I love crispy, roasted chickpeas, but there was a twist here in that before they were done lemon zest was added for the last 10 minutes or so. It smelled amazing and added great flavor. A little honey was to be added with the lemon zest, but I skipped it. A sauce was made with sour cream and finely chopped green onion. When the potatoes were cooked through and tender and then allowed to cool a bit, I cut each in half. Each half was topped with some sauce, crispy chickpeas, more finely chopped green onion, and more nigella seeds. 

These little potatoes would be great for a party. They’re just the right size to pick up with your fingers. The sauce works perfectly to keep the chickpeas in place on top of each potato, and the spices on the chickpeas give each bite a nice boost. There’s so much variety and so many ideas in this book, I suspect I’ll be spending a lot of time with it in the kitchen.

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Golden Scallion Crepes and Dipping Sauce

I love talking about good food. The details, minutia, and subtleties of what makes particular ingredients so good is the talk I enjoy. As we all know, when you start with the best ingredients, you’ll end up with the best meals. This is exactly the path taken in the recipes in David Tanis Market Cooking: Recipes and Revelations, Ingredient by Ingredient, and I received a review copy. Whether he’s writing about heirloom beans, the fleeting season for perfect tomatoes, or the “vast and remarkable difference between the taste of conventional factory chicken eggs and that of those purchased at a farmers’ market,” it’s the details about the ingredients that matter here. Once you’ve gathered the best you can find, the rest is easy. The recipes aren’t difficult, but they are all devoted to made-from-scratch cooking with instructions for homemade mayonnaise and yogurt to name two. In the recipe for Cucumbers in Yogurt, he explains that commercial Greek yogurt available today is too creamy and bland with a lack of acidity. By making your own, you can control the flavor by letting it ferment longer. The recipes are presented one starring ingredient at a time with varied flavor influences. Among the cauliflower dishes, there’s Seared Cauliflower with Anchovy, Lemon, and Capers and Indian Panfried Cauliflower. For winter squash, there’s Hubbard Squash with Parmesan and Brown Butter and Sake-Steamed Kabocha with Miso. I’ve made the Glazed Shitake Mushrooms with Bok Choy and Sesame, and it’s a nice mix of spicy and well-seasoned shitakes over simply steamed greens. My favorite part of the book is near the end with The Art of Seasoning. There’s a section about chiles that has inspired me to grab as many from our local farms as I can now that the season is at an end and roast and freeze them. I also have my eye on the recipe for Taqueria Pickles with carrots, jalapenos, onion, and garlic. Next time I have a bunch of fresh, lovely carrots, I’ll be deciding between North African Carrot Salad with Preserved Lemon and Roasted Coconut Carrots with cilantro and mint. To start cooking, I flipped to the beginning for the Alliums United chapter. I had some green onions from the farmers’ market, and Golden Scallion Crepes sounded like a great way to use them. 

The crepes themselves are actually vegan with no eggs or dairy. The dipping sauce does contain fish sauce though. For the crepes, the batter was made with rice flour, and I used brown rice flour, ground turmeric, salt, and water. It was whisked together and left to sit for one hour. I cooked the crepes in coconut oil in a small skillet. The batter needs to be stirred well before ladling about one half cup into the hot pan. It does spatter a bit in the oil. The batter needs a couple of minutes to cook and set, and sliced scallions were added on top while cooking. Now, I had a little difficulty with flipping the crepes. They wanted to stick to the pan despite the oil. I loosened all around the edges with a spatula and carefully moved the spatula to the center of the crepe to completely loosen and flip. Still, a couple of crepes ended up broken. The dipping sauce was a mix of thinly sliced chiles, minced garlic, grated ginger, lime juice, a pinch of sugar, and fish sauce. To serve, bean sprouts, grated carrots, mint, and basil were added before folding each crepe in half. Lettuce was served on the side for picking up the crepes. 

The crepes are a simple, tasty vehicle to convey all the fresh, bright flavors of vegetables and herbs and the zip of the dipping sauce. They become like a handheld salad with the lettuce used to wrap the crepes before dipping. I could go on and on about the flavors of the fresh chiles and just-snipped herbs, but there’s much better talk of good food and recipes to go with it in this book. 

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Grilled Shitakes with Teriyaki Dressing + GIVEAWAY

To greet the new year, I have a gift for you today! I received a grill pan from Lagostina that I used for grilling shitake mushrooms, and you could win one just like it. Leave a comment on this post before noon CST on Friday January 6th with your email address so I can contact you, and you’ll be entered to win a Lagostina 11-inch Grill Pan. The winner will need to give a mailing address in the US to receive the pan. Like all the Lagostina cookware pieces, this grill pan is beautiful. It’s a good size for fitting on one burner and still having a lot of surface area for stovetop grilling. And, even though I got the pan a bit messy while grilling teriyaki marinated mushrooms, it was easy to clean and return to its sparkling appearance. For this dish, I turned to A Spoonful of Ginger: Irresistible, Health-Giving Recipes from Asian Kitchens by Nina Simonds. This isn’t the only grilling recipe in that book either. I also made the Spicy Grilled Squid with Warm Greens. Both are quick-cooking dishes that work well with a grill pan. I took a different approach for the grilled shitakes than what was suggested in the book. Rather than skewering the mushrooms and green onions, I set then on the grill pan flat. 

The Teriyaki Dressing was made by mixing one-half cup of soy sauce, one-third cup of white wine, three tablespoons water, two tablespoons of honey, a tablespoon of sesame oil, and two tablespoons of minced fresh ginger in a saucepan. I also added some crushed red chiles to give it some spice. The mixture was heated until boiling and stirred to dissolve the honey. It was then brushed on the mushrooms and green onions, and some of it was reserved for dipping. The grill pan was heated over medium heat, and it was brushed with coconut oil. The mushrooms and green onions were grilled for a few minutes on each side until everything had good char marks and was tender. 

The grilled shitakes were a delightfully savory side dish with the squid and greens I served with them. And, the grill pan performed perfectly. I’ve been enjoying using the both the stewpot and grill pan I received from Lagostina. They’re both as pretty as they are functional. Good luck to everyone with the giveaway, and Happy New Year! 

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Grilled Thai Cabbage Salad with Almond Chile Sauce

I do my best to make good choices about the food I buy. I don’t eat a lot of meat, and I don’t eat any red meat. But, I can always try to do better. The new book Living the Farm Sanctuary Life is full of inspiration for eating better, taking better care of the planet, and paying more attention to how animals are raised. I received a review copy. It’s doesn’t beat you up about how you choose to eat. It just tells the story of Farm Sanctuary and how they’ve rescued animals and inspired a lot of people to stop eating animal products. There are charming anecdotes about the animals that have been saved, nursed back to health, and gone on to delight everyone who gets to know them. There are reminders about the horrible conditions at factory farms and suggestions for making small changes that will add up. I started thinking about how my consumption of espresso drinks with milk has increased over recent years. In the past, I drank tea more often. I decided it’s time to switch back to more tea and less dairy and to make sure I’m visiting coffee bars that use milk from good sources when I do need a cappuccino fix. I’m also thinking that fewer turkey sandwiches and more sandwiches filled with vegetables would be a good change. Following the stories about the animals and the farm and tips for healthy eating, there are recipes for Breakfast, Salad, Handheld Meals, Soups, Appetizers and Sides, Entrees, and Desserts. And, they’re all free of animal products. Some dishes I want to try include: the Tacos with Salted Grilled Plantains, Salsa Verde, and Pepitas on homemade tortillas; the Spring Vegetable Cioppino; and the Savory Wild Mushroom Crepes with Roasted Fingerling Breakfast Potatoes made with chickpea flour in the crepes. I jumped right into the Grilled Thai Cabbage Salad before our local cabbage disappears for the summer. 

The salad itself is an easy mix of a few vegetables and lots of herbs, and the grilled cabbage adds a lot of flavor. But, the real star here is the sauce. I want to keep a bowl of it handy for dipping all kinds of vegetables or grilled tofu. It’s made in a blender by combining almond butter, lemon juice, rice wine vinegar, chopped fresh ginger and garlic, a chopped serrano chile, some tamari, and a little water and pureeing until smooth. You can add more water as it purees to get the consistency you’d like. Meanwhile, the cabbage was cut into big wedges and drizzled with oil. I grilled the wedges inside on a grill pan, but the flavor of grill smoke would have been even better for it. The wedges were only grilled for a few minutes per side to get some marks and to allow the cabbage to just begin to take on some tenderness. After removing the cabbage from the grill pan and letting it cool, it was chopped into chunks. The cabbage was tossed with chopped mint, basil, cilantro, and bean sprouts and green onions. It was served with the sauce drizzled over top. 

I always love a peanut sauce, so I suspected I was going to enjoy this almond sauce on the salad. In fact, I might have liked it more than any variation on peanut sauce I’ve made before. The lemon juice was the magic ingredient, and the serrano gave it just enough heat. The salad was fresh and full of flavor from the herbs, and the charred cabbage added an earthy note. With dishes like this, eating all plant-based food is easy. 

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Rice Noodles with Green Onions and Edamame

What happens when one of my most favorite cookbooks is given a part two to accompany it? I go through many, many Post-it flags marking pages. I’ve been reading and marking pages in Plenty More and looking forward to various vegetables coming into season. I can’t wait for summer to try Dakos made with ripe tomatoes, Corn Slaw, and Eggplant with Black Garlic. After my first glance at this new book, I was worried that this was just the collection of dishes that weren’t quite good enough for the original Plenty. And, I still don’t think that first book can be surpassed, but the more time I spend with Plenty More the more I find to love about it. The Urad Dal with freshly grated coconut, the Polenta Chips with Avocado and Yogurt dipping sauce, and the Taleggio and Spinach Roulade are all competing for the top spot on my list of what to make next. Every dish combines flavors, textures, and colors that are hard to resist. For spring, the Fava Bean Spread with Roasted Garlic Ricotta; the Sprout Salad Part Two with radishes, kohlrabi, carrot, and avocados; and the Rice Noodles with Green Onions and Edamame are bursting with bright, fresh tastes. I can never turn away from a noodle salad especially one that’s this easy to make. 

I learned a trick from Dorie Greenspan for cooking rice noodles in advance and letting them stand until time to serve. You just rinse and drain them after cooking and then toss them with a little oil to prevent sticking. That same technique is employed here. The cooked, rinsed, drained, and oil-tossed noodles are set aside and covered to keep them warm. Next, sliced green onions and serranos were stir fried in a wok, and blanched, frozen edamame were added. The noodles were added to the wok along with sesame oil, black and white sesame seeds, rice vinegar, and chopped cilantro. The dish was served garnished with lime zest and more sesame seeds with lime wedges on the side. 

This was intended to be served warm from the wok which I did, but the cold leftovers from the refrigerator the next day were delicious too. The lime and chiles work their way through the few other ingredients to brighten the whole dish. This book is going on the shelf next its older sibling for now, but neither of them will be left sitting for long. 

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Black Rice Salad with Lemon Vinaigrette

As I read the May issue of Bon Appetit, I noticed one mention after the next of little, old Austin. I thought: what are we, Portland? Clarks Oyster Bar was noted in Dish of the Moment regarding shrimp toast; in a list of uses for hot sauce, the Michelada was inspired by one from a dive bar in Austin; and in the Good Health section, there was a story about our Lake Austin Spa Resort. We are pretty proud of our food scene here in Austin, so it’s nice to see our city being referenced more often in magazines lately. It was in that story about Lake Austin Spa where I found this Black Rice Salad, and the recipe is available online. This is an ideal dish to have on hand as our hot, summer weather settles in. Having a big bowl of this in the refrigerator makes grabbing a healthy lunch easier than ever. I collected some local green beans and tomatoes at the farmers’ market and mixed them with thawed edamame and sliced green onions. The bright red of the tomatoes and greens of the other vegetables look great with the dark, glossy black rice. Toasted walnuts add some protein and crunch. 

Black rice requires about 35 to 40 minutes of cooking, so start that first. Once the rice is tender, you need spread the rice on a baking sheet to let it cool. While the rice cooks, toast the walnuts in the oven, and whisk together the vinaigrette. Lemon juice, white wine vinegar, and honey were whisked together, and olive oil was drizzled in while whisking to complete the vinaigrette. Season with salt and pepper to taste. I like a lot of pepper with lemon. The original recipe doesn’t include cooking the green beans, but I don’t really like raw green beans so I blanched them after cutting them into small pieces. The edamame was thawed, the green onions were thinly sliced, and the grape tomatoes were halved or quartered. Everything was tossed in a large bowl, and the salad was ready for serving. 

You could add a little decadence to this otherwise very healthy dish by topping it with crumbled goat cheese or feta, but it really doesn’t need it. My favorite accompaniment to it was extra tomatoes since they’re so good right now. This dish is just one more thing to love about Austin. 

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Black Bean and Quinoa Salad

In the December Food and Wine, there was a story about Boston chef Ken Oringer and the tailgate party he hosts on the day he cuts down his Christmas tree. The picnic menu for this party was a really good one, and I have to keep the pages I cut from the magazine because I’d like to recreate the entire thing some day. It included cubano sandwiches, this black bean and quinoa salad, mulled cider, an avocado, grapefruit, and hearts of palm salad, artichoke and spinach dip with spiced pita chips, and caramel pecan bars. Reading that list again just now made me a little hungry. Last week, I wasn’t ready to throw a picnic party and prepare all of that, but I had a plan for jibaritos and thought this salad would fit well with them. As usual, when I cook dried beans, I cook a lot of them at once. I planned ahead, cooked a lot of beans, set aside the amount needed for this recipe, and stored the extra beans in the freezer for future uses. With the black beans already cooked, prepping the salad was quick and easy.

First, the quinoa was cooked and then spread on a sheet pan to cool quickly. A dressing was made by whisking together sherry vinegar, soy sauce, lime juice, and a chopped chipotle chile, and then olive oil was incorporated. Sliced scallions, minced red onion, finely diced yellow pepper, and chopped cilantro were combined with the cooked and cooled black beans and quinoa. The dressing was poured over the mixture, it was tossed to combine, seasoning was checked, and that was it.

The salad is so full of flavor and varied textures you won’t even pause to think about how healthy it is. The chipotle added a little spiciness, and you could increase that and taste as you go while making the dressing. Obviously, you could change the vegetables in the salad, but the ones suggested were a nice mix of colors with the yellow pepper against the black beans and flecks of green cilantro and scallions here and there. This makes a very large quantity of salad, but it stores well in the refrigerator. It’s also great on a bed of arugula and topped with some crumbled feta, so I didn’t mind having a big bowl of it in the refrigerator for a few days.




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