African Food

Last weekend we made African food: Corn and Plantain Soup from Cameroon, Yam Balls which are common throughout Africa, and Beef Kofta Curry.  We used old onions and green onions in the yam balls and something was moldy... yuck.  But the soup and curry were both good.  But everything was pretty at least!  And none of the dishes were particularly hard, the hardest thing was coordinating all of it.

Plantain and Corn Soup
2 Tbsp butter
1 onion
1 garlic clove
10oz yellow plantains
1 large tomato, peeled and chopped
1 cup corn
1 tsp dried tarragon
3 3/4 cups vegetable (or chicken) stock
1 green chili, seeded and chopped
pinch of nutmeg
salt and pepper to taste

1. Melt the butter in a pan over medium heat, add the onions and garlic and saute for a few minutes
2. Add plantains, tomato and corn and cook for 5 minutes
3. Add taragon, vegetable or chicken stock, chili, and salt and pepper and simmer for 10 minutes or until plantain is tender.  Stir in the nutmeg and serve.

Yam Balls

1 lb white yam (we used sweet potatoes)

2 Tbsp finely chopped onions

3 Tbsp chopped tomatoes

1/2 tsp chopped fresh thyme (we used dried)

1 green chili, finely chopped

1 Tbsp finely chopped scallion

1 garlic clove, crushed

1 egg, beaten

salt and pepper

Vegetable oil for shallow frying

Seasoned flour for dusting

1. Peel the yam, cut into pieces and boil in salted water until tender (about 30 minutes).  Drain and mash
2. Add onion, tomatoes, thme, chili, spring onion, garlic, then stir in the egg and season and mix well.
3.  Scoop a little of the mixture to make balls, roll them in seasoned flour until you have formed all the balls.
4. Heat a little oil in large frying pan and then fry the balls in batches for a few minutes until golden brown.  Drain the yam balls on kitchen paper and keep them warm while cooking the rest of the mixture.  Serve hot.

Beef Kofta Curry (says it serves 4, we made half and I'd say we got 3-4 meals out of it when served over rice)

For meatballs:

1 lb ground beef

3 Tbsp finely chopped onion

1 Tbsp chopped cilantro

1 Tbsp plain yogurt

4 Tbsp flour

2 tsp cumin

1 tsp garam masala

1 tsp tumeric

1 tsp coriander

1 fresh green chili, seeded and finely chopped

2 garlic cloves, crushed

1/4 tsp black mustard seeds

1 egg

salt and ground pepper

For the sauce:

2 Tbsp butter

1 onion, finely chopped

2 garlic cloves, vurshed

3 Tbsp curry powder

4 green cardamom pods (we substituted at the exchange rate of 10 pods/tsp ground cardamom)

1 pint cups hot beef stock or water

1 Tbsp tomato paste

2 Tbsp plain yogurt

1 Tbsp chopped fresh cilantro

1. Make the meatballs by putting meat in bowl and mixing in all remaining meatball ingredients.  Mix well with your hands and roll into small balls or koftas and set aside.
2. Heat the butter in a pan over medium heat and fry the garlic and onion for about 10 minutes until the onion is soft
3. Reduce heat then add the curry powder, and cardamom pods and cook for a few minutes stirring well (ground cardamom maybe should be added later, I'm not sure)
4. Slowly stir in the stock or water and add the tomato paste, yogurt and chopped coriander and stir well.
5. Simmer gently for 10 minutes, add koftas a few at a time, allow to cook briefly and then add more until all are in the pan.  Simmer, uncovered for about 20 minutes until the koftas are cooked through.  Avoid stirring, but gently shake the pan occassionally to move the koftas around.  The curry should thicken slightly but if it becomes too dry, add a little more water.  Serve hot with rice.

Savory Oatmeal

I've seen a few posts about savory oatmeal recently and given my oatmeal obsession and my "don't knock it until you've tried it" philosophy (at least generally, I do knock some things that sound like they could kill you from unhealthiness in one bite or anything that has mushrooms or cream cheese), I thought I'd give it a try.  The problem is I eat oatmeal every morning and am never in the mood for something savory then, but then I wouldn't want to eat oatmeal again for lunch or dinner.  But today I escaped with celery and peanut butter for breakfast (I know, I have strange eating habits), so I thought it would be a nice lunch.  I've heard people try celery, green onions, eggs, cheese, all sorts of things.  But most had soy sauce, which is not something I use a lot of.  So I cooked a half cup of old fashioned oats with a little less than a cup of water (I wanted to make sure it was a little chewy, rather than cooked to a pulp, which I don't mind in the morning) and a chopped green onion.  I then grated a carrot on top, and added soy sauce, crushed red pepper and a little shredded cheddar.  I was in doubt about adding cheese with something with soy sauce, but it actually turned out to be a tasty combination.

It really was a simple lunch, but it might take a little breaking of preconceived notions that oatmeal should be sweet or eaten at breakfast.

And I do have one more breakfast oatmeal recipe up my sleeve that I'll eventually post.

Poached Eggs in Tomato Sauce

I love poached eggs because I love the acidity with the eggs.  I also love eggs done in a kind of Tex Mex style with tomatoes or beans or veggies.  I've mentioned before but my go to easy meal is eggs with a cube of frozen cilantro from Trader Joe's, red pepper flakes, and slightly sautéed green peppers and onions, topped with cheese and Paul Newman's (or Target's) black bean and corn salsa.  This kind of combined the two.  Poaching eggs in tomato sauce rather than water?  Genius! (I wish it was my idea, but the idea came from either google reader or Smitten Kitchen, go figure)

So my friend came over to cook and bake on Saturday (see previous post for the results of baking).  We had high hopes of making something fantastic we couldn't really make for ourselves.  But by the time we got together we were both pretty hungry.  So these became a form of "throw together what i have lying around eggs" with slightly Tex-Mex influences.  I made the sauce, she made home fries with potatoes and peppers, so I can't tell you what that was, but here's what I did.  Note that she did not salt the potatoes and I used one can of no salt added tomato sauce, I actually thought they could have used more salt.  It's actually kind of growing on me, I still do not salt my pasta water (to my family's dismay) or my eggs, potatoes, or vegetables.  But when I am adding lots spices, making beans, in oatmeal, or in tomato based things, I do add salt.  I get everything no salt added and add significantly less than the regular stuff though.  And I use sea salt (Kosher salt for baking).

16 oz tomato sauce (this might have been a little much for serving, but was a good amount for cooking)
1 clove garlic minced
1 shallot minced
Oil for cooking garlic and shallot
Swig of red wine (optional, I think the Trader Joe's Cabernet Sauvignon was maybe a little too intense for this recipe)
Dash of sugar
Oregano, basil, cumin, cayenne, black pepper, salt and really anything else to taste
Fresh cilantro
Leftover tomato, chopped into chunks
4 eggs

Cook the garlic and shallot in a wide, preferably shallow pan until brown.  Add tomato sauce, tomatoes, sugar, and spices, bring to a boil, stirring as needed.

Crack the eggs into the tomato sauce, keeping them as spaced out as possible.  The good news about tomato sauce is they won't wander into each other, but you don't want to crack them on top of each other either.  Cook for 5 minutes until whites are kind of white.  Then cover and remove from heat and allow to finish cooking for about 2-3 more minutes.

Serve over bread or potatoes or any other choice of carbs.  Make sure to include lots of the tomato sauce.  We put mozzarella cheese on top, any cheese would probably be fine, maybe even a pepper jack or something with a little spice.  You might also want to throw some beans in or near the tomato sauce to make it even more Tex-Mex.

Chocolate souffle cupcakes with mint creme

So there is one way to deal with not wanting to bake for one person or spend the money to bake for one person that is a little harder to work out: cooperative baking.  And I usually try to clean while I bake, but that is only possible to a certain extent, depending on the amount of prep work needed in proportion to the bake time and amount of prep supplies.  For something like a souffle, there are lots of bowls and lots of beating with little down time to clean (and even less when it is souffle cupcakes, which only bake for 20 minutes).  But when you throw another person in the kitchen, as long as you coordinate well, it cuts down the prep time and gives an extra hand for cleaning (someone beats the eggs, someone washes dishes).  I have a friend who likes baking exciting things as much as I do and we both loved the look of this recipe and thought it was timely with St. Patrick's day coming up.

The one issue we had was coffee, since neither of us drinks coffee we didn't have instant coffee powder and didn't want to buy it for one recipe, so we tried using one of those single serve coffee makers but apparently that's not instant so the result would be grainy.  So she sort of brewed the coffee in a little bit of water and filtered out the grounds, and we added the coffee water.  I didn't know how much to add, but however much I added, I think it was a little too much.  It was still pretty good though, especially with the mint cream (which I could have added more mint to and we would have been fine).  In fact, the contrast of the super sweet cream with the bitter chocolate/coffee flavor was perfect.  The recipe comes from my very favorite blog, smittenkitchen.com.  For reference, we doubled the creme recipe and were glad we did, and we got 10 cakes but could certainly have gotten away with making them smaller and getting 11 or 12.  And 10 is a great number for making them bake evenly by putting all of them on the outsides of the pan.


Chocolate Soufflé Cupcakes
6 ounces (170 grams) bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped (I preferred this with bittersweet)
6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) (86 grams) unsalted butter, cut into pieces
Heaping 1/4 teaspoon (1 gram) espresso or instant coffee powder
3 large eggs, separated
6 tablespoons (97 grams) sugar, divided
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
White Chocolate Mint Cream
2 ounces (56 grams) white chocolate, finely chopped
3 ounces heavy whipping cream
1/8 teaspoon peppermint extract
Get the white chocolate mint cream ready for later: Place the white chocolate in a small bowl. Bring the cream to a simmer, pour it over the chocolate and let it sit for a minute to melt the chocolate. Whisk well. Add the peppermint extract and whisk again. Lay a piece of plastic wrap on the surface of the cream. Chill until very cold, about two hours.
Make cupcakes: Preheat oven to 350°F. Line 9 standard-size (3-ounce) muffin cups with paper liners. Stir chocolate, butter and espresso powder together in heavy medium saucepan over low heat mostly melted, then remove from the heat and whisk until it is fully melted and smooth. (I like to put the butter underneath the chocolate in the pan, so that it protects the chocolate from the direct heat.) Cool to lukewarm, stirring occasionally.
Using electric mixer (a hand mixer, rather than a stand mixer, actually works best here because the volumes are so small) beat egg yolks and 3 tablespoons sugar in medium bowl until mixture is very thick and pale, about 2 minutes. Briefly beat lukewarm chocolate mixture, then vanilla extract, into yolk mixture. Using clean dry beaters, beat egg whites in another medium bowl until soft peaks form. Gradually add remaining 3 tablespoons sugar and all of the salt, beating until medium-firm peaks form. Fold whites into chocolate mixture in 3 additions. Divide batter among prepared cups, filling each three-fourths of the way. (You might find, as I did, that you had enough leftover for a extra half-cake. That’s your “taste tester”. It’s a, uh, very important part of the process.)
Bake cakes until tops are puffed and dry to the touch (some may crack, embrace it) and a tester inserted into the centers comes out with some moist crumbs attached, about 15 to 20 minutes. Cool in pan on a cooling rack, where the cupcakes will almost immediately start to fall. It will be all the better to put your mint cream on them.
Finish your masterpiece: Beat mint white chocolate cream with electric beaters until soft peaks form. Remove cupcakes from pan, arrange on a platter. Fill each sunken top with a healthy dollop of white chocolate mint cream. Top with shaved dark chocolate, if you’re feeling fancy. I’d say “eat at once” but I suspect that you already have.

Spinach Salad with Goat Cheese, Cherries and Walnuts

Yes, it's as easy as it sounds, but it's definitely one of those salads that they would serve at cute little bistros or as an appetizer salad at a steak house or another (by grad student standards) fancy restaurant.  It's a little piece of elegance you can make at home for a fraction of the cost and you'll wonder why you ever order an appetizer salad when you go out.  I recently bought some nice (and huge) plates on clearance at Target and I think they are perfect for this, partly because I have trouble eating salad without accidently pushing the greens off the plate and the larger plate prevents that, and partly because a nice plate goes well with a nice salad.  Note that I bought a nice pomegranate infused red wine vinegar for salad dressings (I think that brings me up to six types of vinegar and counting) that I think goes very nicely on this.  Balsamic or regular red wine vinegar would also work well.

1 cup spinach rinsed with stems removed
2 Tbsp toasted walnuts (and toasting nuts smells amazing)
2 Tbsp dried tart cherries (cranberries work, but not as well)
2 Tbsp goat cheese crumbles (I found them at Trader Joe's)
Extra virgin olive oil, to taste
Red wine or balsamic vinegar, to taste

I really hope you don't need directions beyond the ingredients :).

Today I ate this salad with a nice toasted vegetarian sandwich I made.  I acquired a multigrain baguette from Panera, so I sprinkled it with a little red wine vinegar and ground Italian herbs, put some Muenster cheese (Provolone would be better but Muenster was on sale), tomatoes, and red onion slices on one half of the baguette and stuck it in the toaster oven. I toasted until the cheese was almost melted then topped it with a few avocado* slices, and the other half of the bread, which I spread with roasted garlic**, and toasted it a little more.  It was a delicious, deli quality lunch, healthy but low in protein so I made sure to drink a glass of milk with it.

A few notes from this lunch:
*Avocados should be stored at room temperature until ripe.  Once ripe you can put them in the fridge for a couple days.  Cut avocados should be stored in the fridge and you can brush them with a little lemon juice and wrap them tightly in plastic wrap (with the plastic touching the cut surface) to reduce browning (otherwise you can cut off the brown part).

**To roast garlic: preheat the oven to 400 degrees.  Remove the outermost skin from the garlic and rub the whole bulb liberally with olive oil.  Wrap in aluminum foil and place in the oven for 30-35 minutes or until the garlic bulb is soft to the touch.  Note that what I did (since I don't plan on eating an entire bulb of roasted garlic, mostly I shouldn't eat that much bread seeing as that is pretty much all I ate yesterday) is removed most of the outside cloves, leaving only 4 or five in the middle and followed the directions above, but it only took about 20 minutes until the garlic was soft.  So basically it is possible to do smaller batches of roasted garlic if you are only cooking for one :).  Also this is a nice use for a toaster oven.