Olive oil ice cream

I want to state up top that I didn't come up with the idea of olive oil ice cream. As I'm sure some of you already know, pouring olive oil over ice cream is an Italian tradition. Mixing it in is a pretty obvious next step and I'm far from the first to do it. I may be the first to make a Jeni Briton-style cornstarch and cream cheese olive oil ice cream, though.

The key to making this work is in both the choice of olive oil and exactly how much to use. I happen to have a big jug of La Española extra virgin. It's fruity, a little nutty and smooth without a lot of bite so a good choice for ice cream I think. I rather lucked out on that since I never know what I'm going to get when I buy a bottle of olive oil. I rarely buy a particular brand of olive oil since a) I always want to try something new and b) I keep forgetting to take notes on what I've tried, what it was like and how I liked it. I'm the same way with wine, really. As for how much to use, I decided to go with David Lebovitz's ratio of 1/2 cup of olive oil to 2 1/3 cups of dairy. I don't think I would have used so much I was making the decision on my own, but Lebovitz has rarely steered me wrong.

Ingredients:
1 1/3 cups whole milk
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup sugar (I realized belatedly that I only had demarara on hand--no white sugar--but I did a little taste test and liked the pairing with the olive oil so I went with it.)
1 scant Tablespoon cornstarch
2 Tablespoons cream cheese
1 pinch salt
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

1. Mix cornstarch with a little milk and set aside. Whip cream cheese until fluffy and set aside.

2. Heat milk, cream and sugar in a medium saucepan until sugar is dissolved. Whisk in cornstarch mixture and bring to a boil. Simmer 1 minute. Remove from heat and whisk in cream cheese, salt and olive oil. Cool, churn and chill.


I decided, since olive oil ice cream is often paired with chocolate sauce, to make chocolate stracciatella. If you don't remember from the first time I made them (or know from other sources in your full and rich lives), stracciatella are swirls of solid chocolate made by drizzling melted chocolate over ice cream spread out in a tray. I had some trouble getting my chocolate to drizzling consistency. Maybe my cocoa percentage was too high; it wasn't marked so no way to know for certain. So less stracciatella than clumpiatella. I broke it up as best I could and I think it turned out OK. Unfortunately, I forgot the step of firming up the ice cream in the freezer for an hour before drizzling so there was a fair bit of melting while I was fussing with the chocolate. If you want to see it done right, click on the link up there and see my first try at it.

For a finishing touch, I wanted a sprinkling of salt, also a traditional Italian thing. I tried fleur de sel, but it melted too easily into the ice cream. I liked the more intense effect of coarsely crushed sea salt instead.


If you've had Italian olive oil pastries you have a sense of the flavor of the ice cream. Smelling it is like sniffing a bottle of quality olive oil, but when you taste it, the sugar and cream round out the fragrant oil into a full fruity flavor. The match with the chocolate is unexpected, but the two are surprisingly close together, particularly with the addition of the molasses in the demerara sugar I used, and enhance each other. The salt brings out the fruitiness of the ice cream and brightens the flavor of the chocolate too so it's a very nice addition.

Oh, I've just had the idea to top it with balsamic vinegar instead of the salt. (I keep a little container of a 15-year balsamic at work as a condiment.) Just a few drops for a scoop of ice cream and...now that's something else. The bright berry flavors of the vinegar sparkle against rich olive oil background and pair beautifully with the chocolate. Now I see why balsamic truffles exist. There's a whole new level of flavor going on that was missing earlier. That's definitely the way to go.

Mamidikaya Kobbari Pachadi

[Hi,
I've noticed that people are finding this post through Google recently. If you're looking to reproduce a well-made version you've had, please look at my pictures and description down at the bottom of the page and let me know if I got in the neighborhood. I like what I made, but it may not be in any way "right" and I'm curious. Thanks much.]

Here's another recipe without much of a story behind it, I'm afraid. I just picked up a coconut, some mangoes and curry leaves from the CSA, and hunted until I found a recipe that used substantial amounts of all three. This is a raw mango-coconut chutney from, according to Sailus Food's website, Andhra which is a state in southeast India.

I found a fair number of variations on the dish, mostly varying the coconut to mango ratio and the spice level. This is about average in the ratio but it's tons spicier than most.

This was my second time opening up a coconut and my first time dealing with a fully ripe one. The husk was a lot more dried out and fibrous this time around which made it rather easier to deal with. I was able to get it all off without breaking open the hull. For opening the shell, I used the technique I've seen of striking the coconut along its equator with the back of a hatchet, rotating between blows and continuing until it splits. It worked pretty quickly and made a surprisingly clean split. I'm taking an inordinate amount of pride in an accomplishment monkeys and crabs manage daily; I'm not really sure why.

Some recipes specified using a green mango for sourness, but the green mangoes to get around here are just bland so I went with a more ripe one. I got lucky that the one I picked was fairly tart. I didn't think it was tart enough, though, so I used the standard Indian technique of adding tamarind to supplement.

Ingredients:
1 teaspoon cooking oil
1 1/2 Tablespoons whole coriander seeds
3/4 teaspoon whole cumin seeds
whole dried red chillies to taste (I used 5 arbols for a good bit of heat)
8 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 stem curry leaves, removed from stem

1 cup freshly grated (or processed) coconut
3/4 cup raw mango, peeled and chopped
1-2 Tablespoons tamarind paste, loosened in 1-2 Tablespoons water and strained
salt to taste

1/2 teaspoon cooking oil
1/2 teaspoon whole mustard seeds
1 stem curry leaves, removed from stem
2 dried red chillies, seeded and torn

1. Heat the teaspoon of oil in a small frying pan over medium heat. Add coriander, cumin and chiles and fry for two minutes until aromatic, reducing heat if the spices start to burn. Reduce the heat to medium low, add the garlic and curry leaves and fry for another minute until the curry leaves become aromatic. Remove to a small bowl to cool slightly.

2. Once the spices are cool enough to deal with, add to a food processor and process for a few pulses. Add the coconut, mango and tamarind and process for 2-3 minutes until it forms a coarse paste. [Looking at it at this point, I have little faith that this is going to result in anything edible.]

3. Clean out the small frying pan, add the 1/2 teaspoon of oil. Heat briefly over medium heat and add mustard seeds. Cover with a splatter screen and heat until the seeds pop. Add the curry leaves and chiles and cook for just a few seconds to bring out the flavors. Stir into the mango-coconut paste.

Serve over white rice topped with a couple spoonfuls of ghee.



Once again this is not a particularly visually attractive dish, but it's actually really good. It's creamy (no doubt from the coconut oil) --a little gritty, but without that unpleasant dried coconut chewiness. The flavor is complex: aromatically spicy, toasty and sweet. The coconut and garlic are prominent, both pleasantly toasty, but I'm not getting any mango flavor beyond the sweetness and not a lot of tanginess from the tamarind either. Still, they must be adding to the gestalt. There's surprisingly little heat considering how many hot peppers went into there, but there's a nice warmth in the aftertaste. I'm sorry I can't explain the flavor better; it's not quite like anything I've had before. Really good, though; I stand by that.

Pork adobo

Unlike like difficulties with African recipes, I've been pretty happy with my excursions into Filipino cuisine. It generally doesn't require a lot of hard-to-find ingredients and its vinegar-intensive sauces make it unlike anything else out there. I wish I had some good story about why I've been trying them, but I just found a stash of Filipino recipes on-line and they looked interesting.

This particular recipe is a Philippine staple--one of the dishes that has a million variations. The only universals seem to be soy sauce, vinegar, plenty of garlic and an odd cooking technique. I tried to stick close to the Platonic ideal I grokked from the range of recipes I looked at.

Ingredients:
1 pound pork butt or similar cut, cut in 1-2 inch cubes (or chicken)
1/2 head of garlic, minced
1/2 small yellow onion, diced
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup vinegar
1 cup water
1/2 teaspoon paprika (most recipes call for black peppercorns, but I liked the paprika idea)
2-3 bay leaves
1-2 Tablespoons sugar (optional. Only a substantial minority of the recipes include it.)
2 Tablespoons cooking oil

1. Heat a medium saucepan on medium, add 1 Tablespoon oil and sweat the garlic and onion for a few minutes until softened.

2. Add soy sauce, vinegar, water, paprika, bay leaves and pork. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for 30 minutes. If using, add sugar at 15 minutes.

3. When the pork is tender heat the other Tablespoon of oil in a large frying pan. Remove the pork from the sauce, drain it well, and add it to the pan. Turn the heat up under the sauce and boil until it is reduced in volume by half. Meanwhile, brown the pork over medium high heat.

4. When both are done, serve with rice.

The traditional way to serve pork adobo is to leave the meat dry and pour the sauce over a scoop of rice. Garnishes are unusual, but I'm big on garnishes so I looked for exceptions and found that tomato wedges and/or hard boiled eggs are not entirely unheard of.



The meat has caramelized well, which I attribute to the sugar I added, and has absorbed some flavor from the sauce (plus it's lying in a shallow pool seeping from the scoop of rice) so the pork flavor is prominent, but nicely accentuated by tart and salty notes. The pieces are crisp and chewy--rather more dried out than most Western palates are used to, but I gather that that's how they're supposed to be. I know a lot of Indonesian recipes call for meat cooked to this texture so it's not too surprising to find it called for in the Philippines. The sauced rice--deeply savory, slightly sweet and brightly tart--is the real star here. The meat is almost dispensable. The tomatoes are a great match with the sauce--salt and vinegar bring out tomatoes' best. The eggs, on the other hand, I could take or leave. I do like the richness a bit of yolk dissolved in the sauce brings. Maybe whisking in a raw yolk to thicken and enrich the sauce just before serving would work.

Not quite Thomas Keller's salmon rillettes

[Edit: For all you googlers looking for Keller's actual recipe, it's here. It's worth coming back to read my variation too unless you're dead set on making an exact replica of his dish.]

So, I was watching The Best Thing I Ever Ate, a Food Network show where TV chefs you don't recognize rhapsodize about food you'll never eat from restaurants you'll never go to. That part's annoying, but they do go into the kitchens to show a bit about how the dishes are made and you can pick up some good ideas that way. Usually there's some obscure ingredient or restaurant technique that keeps you from reproducing the dish exactly, but the rillettes aux deux saumons from Bouchon Bistro were surprisingly straightforward, particularly for a Thomas Keller dish. Probably because it's from Bouchon, not the French Laundry (he says as if he's eaten at either).

It's just fresh salmon gently steamed in pernod, diced smoked salmon, shallot, crème fresh, olive oil, egg yolks and lemon juice. I've got most of that in the house. There is a Bouchon cookbook, so I could have looked the recipe up and tried to reproduce it exactly, but salmon rillettes isn't something Keller invented. There are plenty of variations and I wanted to come up with my own.

First, I decided to use gravlax instead of the smoked salmon; It was about time to make another batch. I also wanted to substitute in some other flavoring for the pernod. I'm not going to go out and buy a bottle of a liquor I don't really like for a single recipe. And anyway, it's a liquor I don't really like so I'm probably not going to like how it tastes in the dish.

First step, the gravlax. I kept the dill flavoring, using dill stems I had stored in the freezer, but made some changes from previous batches that I've been meaning to try. I went with the more traditional 2:1 sugar to salt ratio instead of the 1:1 lox-simulating ratio I've used previously. I used demerara sugar which still has a lot of molasses in it for some added interest. And I didn't add weights so I could see what sort of texture I'd get without the compression.


As it turns out, that texture is dense and meaty, but a little mushy on top where the salt was. The flavor is sweeter than previous batches, of course, and has a bit more depth from the molasses. Interesting. I still like lox better, but I grew up with that.


Next step, I steamed another salmon fillet over plain water until barely cooked through, flaked it into a bowl along with the chopped gravlax and mixed with finely chopped shallot, a dollop of crème fresh, a little olive oil, one egg yolk and a squeeze of lemon juice.


That goes into a container and is topped off with a layer of butter to seal it off. I was supposed to use clarified butter but I neglected to check my notes. That goes into the refrigerator to let the flavors blend for a day or two. When ready to serve, crack open the top and spoon onto crostini.


The flavor is in the neighborhood of bagels with cream cheese and lox, but with a richer more complex salmon flavor with shifting undertones of sweet, tart and savory. It's pretty complicated and I'm having trouble pinning it down with words. Sorry. It does seem to be lacking a little something. Maybe it could use some herbs or capers to round it out. (Or maybe not. Adding scallion makes it taste too much like just salmon salad, suitable for a sandwich. No more than a little chives would be best, then.)

After the fact, I've looked up Keller's recipe to see what he did differently. The big difference is that the ingredients are supposed to be mixed into generous amounts of whipped butter. That's what makes it rillettes--preservation in fat. Mine really is more of a salmon salad. Serving with a chunk of the butter layer goes some way to reconciling the differences, though. He also does use chives so that was a good impulse on my part. From the picture, his looks much less chunky, but I can't see in the directions how that came about. Odd.

I've still got half a batch left. Maybe I'll chop it up fine and mix it with some butter just to try it out. ... OK, I did that. Actually, I tossed it into the food processor with a couple Tablespoons of butter. The result was really good. The flavors stayed complex and intense but with a lot of added richness and a smooth spreadable texture. Compulsive eating with a loaf of good bread and a little bit of chives, parsley or herbs of some sort to add a little freshness in counterpoint.

Southwestern ham and shrimp potstickers

I can't really explain how this dish came to exist. I started with a recipe for corn and prawn fritters, tweaked it a bit, tweaked it some more and ended up making something else entirely. I haven't really got a recipe; I just threw things together that seemed to make sense.

The potsticker filling has two components: solid bits and a creamy medium for them to float in.

For the solid bits I used finely chopped ham (actually Canadian bacon browned to get the best flavor), scallions, cilantro, hot pepper and corn. About a half cup of each.




For the medium I used half a small Florida avocado, five extra large shrimp, one egg, salt, pepper, chili powder and cumin blended until smooth.


After I mixed them together I got concerned about how the texture would react to heat so I decided I needed to add some cheese as an extra binder. Monterey Jack would have been the proper choice, but havarti was the only melty cheese I had on hand so it sufficed.

Dollops went into potsticker wrappers (store bought even though I could probably make them without much trouble now that I've got a well-functioning pasta machine). Because the texture was a little loose I had trouble using a full Tablespoon as I could with a traditional meat-paste filling. I ended using about half that most of the time and still having trouble keeping it all in.

Practice makes passable, so I managed. They aren't the prettiest potstickers around, but they'll do. And they cooked up fine in the traditional reverse-braise method.



Here's a look inside:

You can see how the filling's solidified nicely. Better than I had hoped. And now to try one...not bad at all. A little eggier in flavor than you'd expect and a bit noodly where the dough's separated from the filling, neither of which are really bad things. Otherwise, the Southwestern flavors come through with the corn and ham up front, some herb and spice, and maybe just a hint of the shrimp. Tasty and not nearly as fusion-cuisine weird as I feared. Could use a dip, though. A fresh tomato salsa or a remoulade would be just the thing. I'll have to remember that for when I cook up the rest.

I just did a little research and found that Southwestern potstickers are not an unheard of bar food, but, from what I can see, they're just tradional meaty potstickers with different spices. My conconction is a different thing entirely. Well, good. Maybe I should give them a different name, though.

Zom

I've been wanting to cook some more African dishes while we're still experiencing serious tropical heat here in Miami. I don't often match action to thought on this, but I think cuisines are best experienced in the climate that spawned them. This particular dish is from Cameroon. I found it while looking for alternative sources for African recipes since my latest not-entirely-satisfactory experience working from the Congo Cookbook. I found one version at the Fair Trade Cookbook and another in Celtnet's collection of world recipes. Both call for spinach, but that's probably substituting in for the local green, bitterleaf, so I'm going to use callaloo instead. Unfortunately, I got a small bunch from the CSA this week so I'm using under one pound to replace two pounds of spinach, but callaloo won't wilt away nearly as much, so I think I'm still in fair shape.

Ingredients:
2 pounds beef suitable for stew, cut into 1 1/2-inch cubes
4 Tablespoons cooking oil
1 large onion, thickly sliced
1-2 pounds medium weight greens, coarsely chopped
2 medium tomatoes, chopped or 1 can diced tomatoes, drained
2 Tablespoons tomato paste
2 Tablespoons natural peanut butter
chili pepper flakes to taste
salt and black pepper to taste
a squeeze of lemon for each serving

1. Season the beef with salt and, using as much of the cooking oil as necessary, brown in batches in a large pan. Remove the beef to a pot (I used my slow cooker), salt a little more and cover with just enough water to cover, approximately four cups. Bring to a boil and simmer for around 1 1/2 hours, until the meat is just starting to get tender. Drain the beef broth you just made. Reserve two cups for this dish and keep the rest to use later (bonus!).

2. Add the remaining oil to the pan you browned the beef in, heat to medium and add the onion. Fry, browning slightly and scraping up the stuck on beefy bits. When the onion is soft, add to the pot (deglazing the pan with the reserved beef broth if necessary), along everything but the lemon. Stir a bit to get the tomato paste and peanut butter dissolving. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes, until the beef is tender and the tomatoes are falling apart. Adjust seasonings and serve over rice or millet.

And here it is:


I dunno. It's not actively bad but it's not great either. Maybe it's me; I keep getting exciting about trying regional African cuisines but peanut butter and tomatoes are just peanut butter and tomatoes, not some revelatory experience. The flavors just don't blend into anything excitingly synergistic. I can say that the callaloo works well with that combination and stands up to a half hour in the stew pot better than spinach can. That's the best I can say for the dish, though.

I've done a bit more research, and I think, instead of Cameroonian zom, I should have made Tanzanian mchicha. According to a few different sources, amaranth is common in East Africa. A few even say mchicha is the Swahili word for it. The recipes I've found call for spinach, but I'm comfortable saying that they're substituting for callaloo. They also add coconut milk and curry powder to the mix, which I think will help the peanut butter and tomatoes get along better. That certainly sounds much better than how the zom turned out, but then the zom recipe sounded better than how the zom turned out too. Next time I've got some callaloo, I'll just have to try it and see.

Roasted avocados

I know I promised more serious cooking, and I do have a half dozen post-worthy recipes lined up, but I was delayed by having to go into work on a day off and then unexpectedly finding a pork shoulder at Whole Foods. I was tempted to do something new with it, but decided to make rillettes the same as last time as I appreciated the flexibility the minimalist seasoning gave me for altering flavors after the fact.

I got home from work today too late to start the lengthy stew I had planned, but I did have time to try the kitchen science experiment I mentioned last time. I kept things pretty simple. I used one of the Tonnage avocados I got at the CSA yesterday. This cultivar is smaller than your usual Florida avocado, but no improvement in flavor or texture. I cut it in half, removed the pit, placed in cut-side-up in a baking dish, sprinkled with salt and chili powder, spritzed with olive oil and baked at 350 degrees. I checked at 15 minute intervals for changes, ending at 45 minutes. There wasn't much change visually, but there were notable changes in both flavor and texture.



Compared to a control avocado, the flavor has lost the bright high notes and is now warmer and more complex--roastier, I suppose. It's no more intense, but because the meat has softened to a silky panna cotta consistency, it coats the mouth. You get more flavor per bite and rich lingering aftertaste. The traditional accompaniments--the spices, lime juice, cilantro--are all high notes so I found the roasted avocado a much more synergistic pairing. The one webpage I found with information on cooking Florida avocados warned that they might turn bitter, but I didn't experience that at all. Overall, I found it to be a substantial improvement at least for Mexican flavors; I don't think it would work in sushi so well. But maybe it's just me. Someone else ought to try it and see what they think.

OK, a real interesting recipe next time.