A White Guy Makes Idlis

Tiered idli steamer 

I said last week that I'm trying to make more food in the coming weeks and months. I wasn't kidding. Since that post, I made butterscotch pecan ice cream to share with students and colleagues, used the rest of my brioche dough from last week's sticky buns to make "craqueline," had a cousin over for dinner, and today had more friends over for brunch. I'm not sure if this pace is sustainable, but you get the idea. And I will spare you a blog post on every single item.

One thing worth writing about, though, are idlis, which I made for brunch this morning. I discovered idlis when visiting my sister in Singapore  a few years ago. To refresh your memory, idlis are small, puffy, steamed pancakes made from a combination of rice and lentils. They are popular in South India, where they are typically served with chutneys and sambar (a soupy vegetable curry with lentils) for dipping. They are both healthful and delicious. When I was last in Singapore I bought a special idli steaming pan to replicate the experience at home, which I've played with a few times.

The first thing I learned about making idlis is that there are roughly a zillion different recipes, and the goal is for them to be very soft. If you google, you'll find a ton of different recipes, mostly involving skinned urad dhal (black lentils) and at least one product made from what seems to be a discrete type of rice known as "idli rice" (available as rice, rice flour or idli rava), plus maybe a few fenugreek seeds. Some also have puffed or flaked rice. Each recipe also promises idlis as soft as your grandmother's, and much softer than those awful idlis you get at <insert restaurant or grocery store here>.

You'll also realize that these recipes were mostly written by and for people who have grandmothers that actually made idlis. They tell you to put everything in your "wet grinder," to use salt "as necessary," to wait until the batter has risen "enough," and that the temperature should be about 30 C (86 F) for things to work out. But...what if you don't know what a wet grinder is or how much salt is necessary, have no idea how much rising is enough, or live in Chicago and it's November?

Making sambar to serve
with idlis

I did more research. One thing I learned is that you can buy already-made idli batter at Indian grocery stores. Given that my grandmothers were more likely to be making rugelach and matzo balls than idlis, that comparison case wasn't an issue. I tried this and the idlis were fine. But given all the hype (and variety in the recipes), I was hungry for more. And not just more idlis.

So I did more research. I found lots of recipes, but the most helpful description was in Sandor Ellix Katz's amazing new book The Art of Fermentation. He points out that idli batter is fermented using microbes naturally present in the ingredients and allowed to rise, and steamed once it is visibly rising (but before it is done rising so that the nutrients are not exhausted). Helpfully, he also notes that recipes vary widely in the ratio of lentils to rice, but this mostly just affects flavor and reflects the relative market prices of each item. Idlis can be made with ratios ranging from 1:4 to 4:1. And he says that, in colder temperatures, it can take up to 48 hours for the fermentation process to get going.

Idli batter

Armed with this information, I roughly knew that I just needed to find a ratio that worked, get my hands on the necessary products, and do some fermentation. Urad dhal is easy to find in Indian groceries. Idli rice is a bit trickier because there's the whole rice, rice flour and the rava (which I now know is "cream of rice"). I went with the rava, on the advice of the cashier at the Indian grocery store who said she had never actually made idlis from scratch.

After some more googling, I found a recipe that seemed to have good ratios (2 cups idli rava, 3/4 cup urad dhal, 7-8 fenugreek seeds) and to break the process into fairly understandable steps. First, I soaked the idli rava and urad dhal plus fenugreek seeds, in separate bowls overnight. Then I drained the water from both bowls and combined the wet dhal, fenugreek seeds and idli rava in the food processor. I ground them until the batter was smooth, and poured it into a large bowl. I then put the bowl in a warm spot to rise overnight.

Empty idli steamer.

They didn't rise a ton, but they did foam up a bit and it was time for brunch...so I couldn't wait much longer. Idlis are steamed in a special tiered steaming pot. There are 4 tiers of idli molds that sit atop boiling water. I sprayed each mold with a bit of non-stick spray, filled the molds up, and let them steam.

After 10 minutes or so, the idlis were ready. They look and feel fairly firm when ready, and a toothpick comes out clean when inserted into the center. They were pretty good. And I suppose softer than my grandmother's, so a win?

To serve alongside the idlis, I made sambar and cilantro/mint chutney from Maya Kaimal's Curried Favors. This makes for a tasty and hearty meal that is -- as my friends today pointed out -- a nice alternative to heavier, egg-laden fare that is so often served for brunch.

Making Sticky Buns

Fully baked buns

I've decided to do more cooking and baking. It's not that I wasn't doing enough before, but more that I get tired of staring longingly at these shelves full of cookbooks and coming up with reasons not to make new things (e.g., "Ice cream is bad for you. Don't make more." or "That recipe will mean a trip to the grocery store." or "I have enough to eat this week. What will I even do with more?"). So my local friends and acquaintances should get ready for more meal invitations and more treats in the office.

Having laid bare my inner überpragmatic psyche and my occasional desire to beat it down, I come to the topic of today's entry: sticky buns. A while back I wrote a post about the differences between challah and brioche. Another difference is that there are all sorts of things you can do with brioche dough, such as sticky buns or brioche au chocolat, that I don't often see people do with challah (though perhaps they do -- anyone?). In that post and for today's recipe, I used Joanne Chang's recipe from Flour, which remains my favorite baking book. She also claims that her sticky bun recipe won her fame on the Food Network. How can one resist such a post?

The problem with the sticky buns, though, is that the recipe makes 8 huge buns. And Chang clearly states that they are best served warm or within a couple hours of baking. Not exactly a solo baking/eating endeavor. So I waited until I was having some folks over for brunch. That was this morning.

Imperfectly rolled dough, spread
with filling.

Brioche, of course, is a yeasted dough. I've done a bit of dessert baking with yeast, mostly to make babka. The doughs I've used for that, though, are not nearly as rich as brioche (which the astute reader will recall is packed with eggs and butter). I wasn't sure what this would do to the experience, but my brioche dough was pretty easy to roll out and handle. The only slight hitch was that the assembled buns need to rise for 2 hours prior to baking, and then bake for 45 minutes. So it was an early morning. But my sleep habits lately are such that every morning is early, whether I like it or not. This wasn't a problem. (And gosh, I'm really revealing a lot in this post)

Not quite evenly
sized "log"

So to make the sticky buns, one rolls out the dough into a big rectangle. My dough handling skills have hugely improved over the past year or two. I'm proud of that. What this project taught me is that they have not improved enough. Here's why. After rolling the dough and spreading the filling (sugar, cinnamon, almonds) all over it, it gets rolled up tightly. Turns out that small variations in dough thickness get magnified in this process. Note the size variation in the photos. This was not intended to accommodate guests with varying appetites (though it did, so was fine in the end).

Sliced buns getting
ready to rise

The rolled "log" is then sliced into 8 not-quite-equal pieces, and these are placed in a baking dish containing what Chang calls "goo." The "goo" was basically a cooked concoction of butter, cream, sugar, and more almonds. These are then allowed to rise for a couple hours. And you can see that they got a whole lot bigger. Crazy, no?

Check it out-
They rose!

After rising for a couple hours they get baked, and then -- after cooling for a while -- inverted such that the "goo" becomes the glaze on top of the sticky buns.

If I may say so (and I suppose I can, because I didn't make up the recipe), these were really good. The outside was crispy. The inside soft and, well, gooey. And the whole combination was absurdly sweet and delicious. I'd like to make them again, but I might be too busy trying other new recipes.

I

Pear Cardamom Pop Tarts with Ginger Glaze

Finished product,
a bit messy looking

A couple years ago on this very blog I confessed that I liked Pop Tarts as a kid. And I described making Joanne Chang's recipe for a homemade (and much better) version of those delightful pastries. I also promised you, dear reader, that I'd experiment with novel flavor combinations. It took me a while, but I'm finally getting there.

Last week I faced the conundrum of wanting to take baked goods to some friends I was visiting. I recalled that I had brought them brownies last time, and we mostly wound up eating them for breakfast over the course of my visit. This gave me the idea that maybe I should make some scones or something. Or...better yet, finally get around to a novel Pop Tart. Ok, genre established. I just needed a flavor.

It being fall in the midwest, apples and pears are everywhere. There must have been quite a crop this year (I'm told this is true, but I don't have a source to cite), as prices have been as low as 39 cents a pound for apples! Edgewater Produce, my neighborhood market, had some really nice Bartlett pears for 69 cents. So I picked up a bunch and figured I'd do something with them.

Ok, back to Pop Tarts. Chang's book provides a recipe for an apple cinnamon filling. I figured I could adapt this by substituting pears for apples. And given cardamom's natural affinity for pears (it's magical, really), I figured cardamom would work really well as a substitute here. I also had a bag of green cardamom I picked up a while ago that I really need to start using.

I should also point out that I used a nifty little time management trick in getting these together. Pop Tarts are a bit daunting to bake, because you need to make the dough (and refrigerate it before rolling), a filling, and then assemble and bake them. With a bit of planning, though, this is easy because both components can be refrigerated. So I made the dough quickly on Monday while waiting for my dinner to be ready, cooked the filling on Wednesday in just a few spare minutes, and then I assembled/glazed them on Thursday before leaving. Easy.

Cooking pears

The dough for these is easy and described in my previous post. To make the filling, I peeled and sliced two large pears, and put them in a pot with half a cup or so of brown sugar. Meanwhile, I combined a bit of flour (1/2 cup), 1/2 teaspoon of freshly ground cardamom pods (sifted), and a bit of salt in a bowl. And cracked an egg. When the pears were soft and the sugar had melted, I poured everything together. And stored it in a plastic container.

Filling the pastries

Then the dough gets rolled out into rectangles, and the individual pastries are filled and sealed. This time I filled them directly on the cookie sheet, which works way way better than trying to lift them like I did last time. Plus an egg wash to make sure they brown nicely.

To glaze them, I originally considered a cardamom glaze. Rather than grind more cardamom, though, I decided to make a ginger glaze instead. Ginger plays nicely with both pears and cardamom; and this was super easy. 1/4 teaspoon or so (heaping, as I like ginger) of ground ginger stirred into a cup of confectioners sugar, mixed with a few teaspoons of water. This then gets brushed on the pastries once they're cool.

Before the oven.

The result was pretty tasty. My hosts seemed to like them (and let me pick at them as well), and the flavor pairings worked pretty well. The ginger in the glaze was subtle, but the flavors of pear and cardamom clearly came through. A win, I'd say.

Making Thai Green Curry

In their book Hot, Sour, Salty, Sweet , Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid suggest buying fresh lime leaves any time you see them, and stashing them in the freezer for later use. I tend to do that, but then I'm not always so great about actually bothering to use them. I made green curry today because I wanted to use some lime leaves. And in the process I remembered how delicious and fun Thai coconut curries can be. I'm no expert, but I've been playing with these for a bit, so here are some thoughts.

First a word on curry itself. This has been rehashed over and over lately (see especially a great map of curries from all over the world in the spring issue of Lucky Peach), but many people have the mistaken belief that "curry" is a spice of some sort. This makes intuitive sense. Cumin powder is made from cumin. Turmeric powder is made from turmeric. Why wouldn't curry powder be made from, well, curry? And it's even more confusing because South Asian cooking uses something (totally unrelated to the powder) called a "curry leaf." But it's just not so. Curry refers not to a spice, but a style of cooking that involves a spiced sauce of some sort.

Thai curries typically involve a spicy paste and coconut milk (except "jungle curries," as coconut palms are scarce in the jungle), along with a protein and some vegetables. When cooked traditionally, this is a quite clever way of preparing a meal. Rather than cooking the protein in oil and then adding coconut milk (as is sometimes specified in US cookbooks), Thai cooks separate thick from thin coconut milk and use the thick milk as a cooking fat for the curry paste and protein.

It's worth noting here that not all coconut milk is created equal. It would, of course, be ideal if -- as in most Southeast Asian markets -- we could all just go buy freshly pressed coconut milk. Not the case here in Chicago, however, so I use canned. (It's also possible to make it yourself with fresh coconuts, but I haven't tried this yet as I'm not unhappy with the canned milk.) There are many brands to choose from, and it actually does matter because many are too thin to really cook with. I recommend Chao Koh, which is often easy to find. Arroy D is another common brand, but I don't like it as much. Avoid "low fat" or "light" canned coconut milk; it's just the normal stuff diluted with more water.

Then we get to curry paste. It's not hard to find decent curry paste in jars, but it's extremely rewarding to make it yourself. Tracking down the ingredients can take a bit of effort, but you can make a bunch at a time in the food processor and freeze it. Typically there are some dried spices (often coriander seed and cumin, sometimes mace or nutmeg) or chilies, and some combination of galangal, lemongrass, a scary number of fresh Thai chilies (often 20 or more!), shrimp paste, shallots, garlic and maybe another thing or two. The green curry paste I made today had a cup of fresh sweet Thai basil leaves as well.

Cooking the curry is quite clever. First, you separate the thick and thin coconut milk (one will usually pour out of the can first; it's not very scientific but be sure not to shake the can), and pour the thick milk (1 cup or so) into a hot wok. It will begin to lightly brown and thicken right away, which will give the curry a wonderful flavor. Stir it until it separates, and then add a few tablespoons of curry paste. This then gets stir fried until aromatic (or you have a coughing fit), and the protein is added to begin to cook it.


Once the outside of the protein is cooked (i.e., chicken turns white), the rest of the coconut milk is added to create a bubbling liquid. To this the vegetables are added and simmered. My green curry had eggplant (I used western-style eggplant, which is non-traditional but delicious). Yellow curries often have potatoes or carrots. If using eggplants, note that traditional Thai recipes often call for "big" or "small" eggplants. But it's important to know that, oddly, all Thai eggplants are smaller than you expect. "Big" ones are about the size of golf balls, while the smaller ones are the size of marbles. I've only seen the smaller ones in North America once; at Granville Island market in Vancouver.

After a few minutes of simmering the vegetables, you can add some fish sauce (for saltiness), possibly some palm sugar, and maybe -- yes, here they are -- some torn lime leaves (sans stem) for aromatics. In green curry you can also add some Thai basil leaves and perhaps strips of bell pepper. I like my coconut curries to be thick, so usually let the sauce reduce a fair bit at this point.

Then serve with some jasmine rice for a delicious and rewarding meal!

The Best Salad Ever

Greetings! It's been a while since I've posted anything, but it seems silly to write posts when I just don't have much to say. I've decided that Pearwise will continue as a sporadically updated site. If you're a reader, thanks for your patience and please check back periodically or turn on a notification of some sort.

Today I'd like to talk about my favorite salad. It's my favorite because it's never the same twice, it's always delicious and it can be made to represent at least two (and probably more) food cultures. It can also be made with any number of vegetables, easily scaled to accommodate a crowd, and stored in a plastic container for a few days if you don't finish it.

I'm talking about salad premised on chopped tomatoes and cucumbers. In India and South Asia this is called "cachoombar" (I'd bet that this word is related to "cucumber," but I have no evidence of this). In Israel it's often just called "salad" and is served for breakfast. In the US it might be called "Israeli salad" or (creatively) "cucumber and tomato salad." Part of the beauty of this salad is that it can be just that simple -- just cucumbers, tomatoes, some lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper. My mother swears by this version.

Simple beauty is great, but is not grounds for my calling something "the best ever." That requires a bit more versatility and tastiness. What I really like about this salad is the way it can be modified to become something totally different based on whatever you have. Go to the farmers' market or your favorite grocery store, buy what's good, and then make this salad.

For an Indian cachoombar salad, take the base of chopped cucumbers and tomatoes (1 of each, say) and add a chopped red onion, some cilantro, a chile pepper, juice of one lime and a teaspoon or so of a spice blend called "chat masala." You can make chat masala, but there are lots of components and it's pretty easy to find in a box in Indian grocery stores.  Or if you don't have chat masala, use some ground cumin, black pepper, and salt. Or just black pepper and salt. Or some other spices. Now you're getting the idea. If you want to get a bit non-traditional, try adding a diced ripe avocado (a small one will do). If it's really ripe, the avocado will break apart and "dress" the salad.

If you want a salad that's not as spicy and more middle eastern in character, get yourself some zaatar, which is pretty easy to spot in middle eastern groceries. Instead of onions in the above recipe, add a few diced scallions. Or radishes. Or both. Skip the chile pepper this time. Add about a teaspoon of zaatar. You could still use a lime, but lemon juice would be pretty tasty. Maybe add some olive oil for a more rich experience. Substitute flat-leaf parsley for the cilantro in this version. You'll also want a bit more salt this time, because chat masala has (black) salt and zaatar does not. An avocado is delicious in this version too, as is a bit of feta or other crumbly cheese (I used queso fresco today, because I had some around).

I've also added a red bell pepper to either version of this with much success. And I've tried it with different herbs, including rau ram (tasty, but perhaps not my favorite), mint (nice) and dill (subtle, but pretty good).

This salad is also great because it can be served in lots of different ways. Often I eat it alongside a meal. Sometimes -- particularly when I add lots of stuff -- I eat it as a meal in and of itself, with some bread or as a filling for pita. It can also be a delicious topping for bruschetta appetizers. And in the fine Israeli tradition established by farm workers on Kibbutzim (or so I'm told), it makes a wonderful breakfast.

So...have fun with this one. Eat the same salad every week like I do, but be sure you never eat the same salad twice!

Red Pepper Cupcakes with White Chocolate Icing

Completed cupcake

It's been a while since I've had a new food-related project. A recipe that involves lots of steps, some obscure ingredients and appliances like the juice extractor and dehydrator. I don't think I've even used my juice extractor since I moved to Chicago last summer. It was time.

I recently picked up Amanda Cohen et al.'s Dirt Candy, a unique cookbook from their restaurant. It's unique in a couple respects. First, it's my only cookbook in comic book form. It tells the story of their restaurant and provides recipes in an entertaining, quirky, graphic style that's a lot of fun. Second, it's a vegetarian cookbook that uses lots of fresh ingredients and flavors, while also using innovative techniques from the molecular gastronomy movement. It provides recipes for things that look like food, but prepared creatively and in interesting ways. It's a way to cook interesting food that doesn't feel like it came from a chemistry lab.

Making red pepper jam.

These cupcakes are my first project from this book, and "project" is the apt term. I didn't follow the recipe perfectly, but I came close. My only points of deviation were making cupcakes instead of a layer cake, and not serving them with ice cream and other recommended accompaniments.

The idea for these apparently comes from traditional red velvet cake, but the resemblance stops with the color. For starters, they're not even that red. Second, they're flavored and colored with, well, red bell peppers. And third, they have a white chocolate icing.

Grinding dehydrated pulp into powder

How do you color and flavor a cake with red bell peppers? It's a fair question, and there are several steps involved because the red peppers are transformed into many different creations. It starts with the purchase of a couple pounds of red peppers. About half of these get turned into a homemade red pepper jam (diced peppers cooked in pepper juice with some sugar, then pureed). The rest get turned into red pepper juice, which is reduced substantially to thicken it. And the pulp from the juice extractor is dehydrated and ground into a powder. All pretty clever, right?

So then you prepare a fairly typical cake batter, but the with red pepper powder mixed in with the butter and sugar, and some thickened red pepper juice mixed in with the wet ingredients (buttermilk in this case).

The icing is then made from melted white chocolate that gets beaten into a butter/cream cheese blend along with some confectioner's sugar. I added some lime extract for good measure.

To finish the cupcakes, I spread some red pepper jam on the top of each cupcake (instead of between the layers, as recommended in the book), and icing on top of that. The outcome? Tasty. Definite taste of red pepper. Moist cake. Creamy icing. Not the best thing ever and I might not make them again given the effort. But unique and well worth a try!  I'll foist them on some

Coconut Lime Pandan Cookies

Finished cookies before glazing

It's been a while since I've posted because I haven't felt there's been much interesting to share. Mostly that's my fault. I've been making food, sure. But mostly from recipes and without a lot of creativity. More macarons. Some cookies. Blah blah. Tasty, but not very interesting to all of you. I decided to start  having more fun with food this weekend.

Oddly, my initial ideas for a project had nothing to do with any of the ingredients in the title of this post.  I've been meaning to do a green mango pie for a while, so thought I might try that. Or maybe a tart or layer cake, which are also things I've been meaning to do more of. So how did I get to these cookies?

Eggs and pandan paste

Part of it was just trying to use what I've got around. I bought a ton of limes last week for some reason, so needed to use those up. My usual way to use up limes is to make cornmeal-lime cookies from the Flour cookbook, but my motivation in the first place was to do something more original this weekend. I also have a ton of dried coconut powder around (as one does), and brought back some pandan paste from my December trip to Singapore. (As a reminder, here's a previous post about pandan leaves, from which pandan paste is derived)

So with all of that in mind, I decided to try to mix a couple recipes together and see what happened. In the Sweet Spot, Pichet Ong often uses the trick of substituting some toasted coconut powder for flour in his cookies and brownies (which is why I have all that coconut powder). So I decided to substitute toasted coconut powder for the cornmeal in the cookies, but use the ratio of butter-sugar-flour-coconut that Ong uses, rather than 1 for 1 subsitution.

Green dough/batter

The original cookie recipe also calls for a teaspoon of vanilla extract. I used the pandan in place of that. It looked bizarre in the bowl with the eggs (see photo) and gives the cookies an odd green hue, but I figure that makes them a little more interesting. I also added sweetened shredded coconut to the glaze, instead of the lime zest that's called for.

The result is pretty tasty. The pandan and lime play off of each other very nicely. The coconut flavor is probably too subtle, but the sweetened coconut in the glaze accentuates it nicely. If I made them again, I might work on ways to increase the presence of coconut. I might also use a bit less baking powder, because these really puffed up a lot.

Here's the recipe:

1 cup unsweetened dried coconut powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
finely grated zest of 4 limes
2 eggs
1 tsp pandan paste
2 cups (280 g) all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder

1. Pre-heat the oven to 350. Spread the coconut powder evenly on a baking sheet and toast it in the oven until it is golden brown and fragrant, 7 mins or so. Let cool completely.

2. Put the toasted coconut, sugar, butter and salt together in a stand mixer with paddle attachment and cream until light and fluffy (5 min or so).

3. Add the lime zest. Beat for 1 minute or so.

4. Add the eggs and pandan paste, and beat for another 2-3 minutes. Scrape down the sides to ensure even mixing.

5. Mix the flour and baking powder in a bowl. Add these slowly to the mixer while beating slowly.

6. Drop the cookies onto a lined (parchment or Silpat) baking sheet and bake 20 minutes or until golden brown around the edges. Cool on a wire rack, and glaze after 10-15 mins.


Glaze
1 cup confectioners sugar
2 tsp water
2 TBSP fresh lime juice
2 tsp sweetened grated coconut

Mix all together, then brush onto cookies.