CSA farm subscription - week seven

It's a pretty straightforward selection of vegetable this week; I'm not seeing a lot of fancy recipes here which is OK as I could use a rest. The only interesting question that occurs to me is finding a recipe that uses a substantial amount of scallions. Most recipes with scallion in the name really only use a few tablespoons as an aromatic. I've done a little looking around and I'm leaning towards a quiche or a beef and scallion stir fry. There's also Irish scallion champ, but while a big pile of mashed potatoes may be comfort food for some, it's not for me.

The Hon Tsai Tai will likely substitute for turnip tops in a pasta sauce.

The green beans will end up steamed or sautéed with a sauce of some sort. There's not a lot else to do with them and not much reason to as they're yummy just like that. Also, while looking over recipes on-line, I've been intrigued by the term "bacon-smothered" which keeps turning up with sautéed green beans.

Romaine lettuce and grape tomatoes are unlikely to end up anywhere other than salad, of course.

The avocado I'll use in another of those California cuisine recipes, probably. I'm strongly considering a thick slice on a roasted chicken sandwich; Despite living in California for five years I don't think I've ever actually had one of those.

Finally, the oranges I've already juiced along with all the other oranges, tangerines and such I had leftover from previous weeks. I found adding a carambola adds a very nice extra note as does a drop of vanilla. Unfortunately, juicing is thirsty work so I don't have much left to show for my efforts.

The Indonesian Pantry

If you're not familiar with Indonesian herbs and spices there were a lot of unfamiliar terms in that last post. There may have unfamiliar terms even if you do know Indonesian cooking; there are a lot of languages in Indonesia and these ingredients are used in southeast Asia too so I know of at least a couple names for each. In this post I'll give a basic introduction to everything I used along with one common characteristic Indonesian ingredient that didn't make it into these two dishes. I believe you can get everything I mention here at Lucky Oriental Mart at 8356 Bird Road. That's right across from Tropical Chinese restaurant, one of the few good places for dim sum in Miami.

Kemiri nuts, a.k.a. Candle nuts
This is a large oily nut similar in scent to macadamias (which can be substituted if you can find them raw and unsalted). They're common in curries. They're poisonous when raw and I've never seen a recipe where they're the primary flavor in a dish so I can't actually say what they taste like.

Salam leaves, a.k.a. Indian Bay leaves, a.k.a. Curry leaves
There's room for a fair bit of confusion here as I've seen salam leaves labeled as Indian bay and as curry leaves and I've seen casia leaves labelled the same way. Or possibly I've seen casia leaves labelled as salam leaves. Casia can be substituted so grab whatever you find on the shelf. Salam leaves smell a somewhat like black tea with lemon. They are also mainly used as grace notes in complex dishes. I've just now learned that I'm supposed to have been soaking these before using them. Huh.

Laos, a.k.a. Galangal
I'm not actually certain of this as the descriptions in a couple of cookbooks I have don't exactly match and the proprietors of the Indonesian grocery in Manhattan I used to go were actually Thai so they weren't certain either. I haven't shopped for these at Lucky yet so I'll have to take a look to see what they've got. Galagal, at least, is the dried slices of a root related to ginger with a similar but somewhat more floral flavor. Laos is definitely the dried slices of a root of some sort. (That cool pop-art background is my raw meat cutting board, by the way.)

Tamarind, a.k.a. Thai fruit paste
You've probably seen tamarind soda around and the fresh pods in Miami markets. In Indonesian cooking it's more commonly in the form of an intensely sweet and sour concentrated paste. As in the two recipes I made, it is disolved in at least an equal amount of water and then strained if your sauce doesn't already have lumps of a half dozen different things floating in it.

Shrimp paste a.k.a. shrimp sauce
You can find two sorts of shrimp sauces in Oriental markets: a foul-smelling fermented paste and a shrimp-chili-salt mixture. While the latter has its uses (and is commonly used in Filipino cooking), you want the former. It's rather unpleasant by itself (and you'll want to keep it tightly sealed and the bottle in a plastic bag in the refrigerator. But a quarter teaspoon brings out a lot of flavors in a recipe. It's kind of like adding a little soy sauce to a mushroom risotto to bring out the mushrooms' mushroominess.

Jeruk Purut, a.k.a. Dried citrus peel
This is the dried peel of the citron, a close relative of the lemon. It tastes of lemon and jasmine.


Finally, we've got the two common Indonesian condiments:
Kecap Manis
This is a thick sweet soy sauce also used as an ingredient. It goes well with barbeque and most coconut milk based sauces.

Sambal
'Sambal' is the Indonesian word for 'mixture' so it turns up a fair bit in recipes. It is also used for a typical hot pepper sauce that also includes salt, garlic and vinegar. Vietnamese chili garlic sauce is just about the same thing. You want the thick sort with the chili seeds that you spoon out of bowls at Vietnamese restaurants, not the bright orange stuff in the squeeze bottle. (Sorry, I couldn't get a good picture of my bottle.)

I think that covers it. If any of you decide to give Indonesian cooking a try do please let me know. Or if you know that I've made some mistakes here, do please let me know that, too.

CSA week six - asam pade daging and sambal goreng bloemkool

Over the last couple of days I made both the Sumatran beef dish and the Javanese cauliflower dish I mentioned earlier. There are some Indonesian ingredients you may be unfamiliar with that I'll talk about in a separate post, but the recipes themselves, both from The Indonesian Kitchen by Copeland Marks with Mintari Soeharjo, are quite straightforward. Actually, the beef stew recipe was rather too straightforward:
1. put everything into a pot and boil until cooked.
2. serve.

I put that at the world's fourth oldest recipe after
1. bury in ashes, wait until cooked,
1. impale on stick,
2. suspend over fire until cooked,
and
1. tenderize with rock.

Since I do have access to a modern American-style kitchen I added a few steps to improve the flavors and textures.

Asam Pade Daging
Sumatran Hot and Sour Beef

2 pound boneless beef chuck or round eye roast, cut into 1 inch cubes
1/4 cup thin-sliced onions
5 cloves garlic, sliced thin
1 slice fresh ginger
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
2 teaspoons salt
1 piece of laos
2 salam leaves
1 stalk lemongrass
6 kemiri nuts, crushed
1 tablespoon crushed fresh or dried hot red chile pepper
2 tablespoons tamarind, dissolved in 3 tablespoons water (this is actually an enormous amount of tamarind and the dominant flavor in the dish)
4 cups water

1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees.

2. Brown beef in batches with a tablespoon of oil in dutch oven. Remove to bowl.

3. Briefly sauté onions, garlic, ginger, chile, salt and turmeric in beef drippings to release flavors.

4. Return beef and add the rest of the ingredients. Cover dutch oven and place in real oven. Cook for 2 to 2 1/2 hours until beef is tender.

5. Bring dutch oven to stovetop and remove beef with a slotted spoon. Boil sauce down to 1 cup. Return beef.

6. Serve over rice with a bit of sambal.


Sambal Goreng Bloemkool
Javanese Cauliflower Stew

1/4 cup sliced onion
2 cloves garlic, sliced
2 small fresh hot green chiles, sliced thin
1 pound cauliflower, cut into small florets
1 cup coconut milk
1 salam leaf
1 piece of laos
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon shrimp paste
1 teaspoon tamarind, dissolved in 1 tablespoon water
1/2 cup cubed ripe tomato

1. Fry the onion, garlic and chiles in a tablespoon of oil for two minutes on high heat. Add the cauliflower and fry for two minutes more.
2. Add the coconut milk, salam leaves, laos, salt, sugar, shrimp paste and tamarind liquid. Cook five minutes over medium heat, stirring and basting frequently.
3. Add tomatoes and cook three minutes more.
4. Cauliflower should be tender but still crunchy. Serve over rice with a drizzle of kecap manis.

CSA week six - turnip cakes

It looks like there won't be many surprises this week as, for once, I'm making exactly what I said I would on Saturday afternoon. I looked around at the selection of recipes available online and settled on this one as it looks like the closest match to the Sunday morning dim sum version I've been craving. Plus, I always appreciate recipes that call for an actual volume of shredded vegetables instead of saying something like "two turnips". Who knows how big their turnips were and how the ones I've got compare, particularly with the much wider variety you get from local organic farms. Anyway, I made a couple small modifications. First, I added a dried shiitake mushroom, soaked, diced small and stir fried with the sausage and shrimp. That's a pretty standard addition. I also used the mushroom and shrimp soaking water in the batter to add a little extra flavor.

I used both daikon and both turnips and barely reached the 2 1/2 cups of shredded turnip needed for the recipe. However, one of my turnips was a tiny little thing so you may have an easier time of it.

Next time I think I'd reduce the water by a quarter or half cup. My batter ended up rather thin and all the good stuff floated to the top during the steaming process. I was rather hungry by the time the turnip cake had cooled so I skipped the final step of pan frying it. I recommend not doing that; the rice flour paste still tastes a bit raw and browning does it a world of good. I'll post a picture of that in a day or two depending on when I end up cooking the Indonesian dishes and when I pull out the leftovers. (There it is, badly lit and blurry but you should get the idea, below.)

I also recommend serving it with oyster sauce. It matches beautifully with the flavors in the dish.

Otherwise, I don't think I have anything more to add to the original blogger's write up; she's got it well covered.

CSA week six - sausage, chard and fennel soup

I'm still not quite recovered from the sniffles I caught during the cold snap so some soup sounded like just the thing. I used this recipe. I came across some more complicated ones, but I liked the use of the pasta water and the Parmesan rind in this one since I happened to have a rind around and I know they add a lot of flavor to soup. I halved the recipe, but added in the fennel bulb as the bunch of chard was on the small side. And I used orzo for the pasta. Here's my whole mis-en-place minus the fennel which I only remembered when I smelled the fennel seed in the cooking sausage. You can see that it took a bit of chopping, but it wasn't a lot of trouble otherwise.

In retrospect, I think I'd remove the vegetables before the half hour of simmering and put them back in near the end. They were already tender from the sweat and steaming; a half hour more in the pot left them on the verge of mushiness. Also, I'd be a bit more careful with the salt. I added some to help with sweating the vegetables, but there was plenty from the pasta water and the cheese so it ended up a little oversalted. Otherwise it turned out just fine with plenty of leftovers.

CSA farm subscription - week six

This is what happens when I start complaining about too much greens--a week with barely any at all. The bag of spinach in my freezer is going to make a poor substitute.

Still, there is some chard. I think I'll use it in a sausage and white bean soup. The Tuscan version uses fennel too and since I picked that out of the extras bin (having finally remembered to check the newsletter first so I don't grab something I'm already getting too much of) I'm leaning in that direction.

The lemongrass and cilantro mean I'll be making something Sumatran or Javanese, probably a stew. I have an interesting Javanese recipe for the cauliflower too, or I may end up pickling those (after discretely disposing of the results of last week's pickling misadventure).

The daikon and turnips I think I'll use together in some Dim Sum-style turnip cakes. A restaurant near my work has been taunting me with turnip cakes on the menu but not actually available for months. I've been looking at recipes and it seems easier to make than I expected and it's a New Year's tradition, so there's that going for it. Both of these came without their greens attached. If anyone from Worden Farm is reading, I'm curious what happened to all those greens.

Finally, there's those carambolas. Smoothies, I guess.

CSA week five - bean ceviche and avocado fritters

The final dishes using week five's vegetables are a ceviche with the beans and the shrimp avocado fritters I mentioned earlier. Both were pretty good and both were instructive.

The ceviche was my usual tossing together of whatever I had handy--I really ought to follow an actual recipe one of these days and see if it makes any difference. In this case I had handy scallops, the Gold of Bacau beans and the standard corn, peppers, onion, cilantro, lemon and lime. I only noticed that the GofB bean pods were edible after I sat down to start shelling them. That would have been useful information for the newsletter. I also had the wrong sort of corn; I think something like hominy is more traditional. But the scallops were already marinating so there was no turning back. I tossed the beans into the citrus juice too and I think they got softened a little as they soaked. The end result was nice enough, particularly with plenty of habeñero hot sauce added. The real interesting thing, though, was how well the scallops and the beans paired. Next time I find beans in my share, I'm going to grill them with some sea scallops.

The fritters were quite simple: just chopped shrimp and avocado with some minced jalepeños in a beer batter. It was a little too simple, really, as it lacked a bit in interest. The cooked avocado was soft and creamy but not very flavorful. That just left the shrimp, tasty from a sugar and salt brining, and a nice firm texture, and a bit of heat from peppers in the batter. It needed one more flavor I think and one more texture. The only crunch came from the batter and that faded quickly after the fritters came out of the oil. My first thought was adding onion, but I bet asparagus would work really well, too. Or maybe changing the beer batter to a corn batter and making hush puppies.