Wolfert
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Posts posted by Wolfert
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if your cassoulet seems a little dry, it is ok to baste the top with a little fatty stock or juices to keep it going. You might also think about lowering the temperature of the oven.
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When I was living in Morocco, I lived for some time with a family in Rabat who had sweet steamed rice at least twice a week for dinner. Steaming the rice took about l hour but the grains were incredibly light and airy and looked splendid piled high on a silver tray streaked with confectioner's sugar and ground cinnamon. We drank buttermilk with it
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This one is new to me. Paula Wolfert, in discussing cassoulet, has espoused the importance of cooking beans in "just enough liquid" and not too much in order to attain the optimum texture. It turns out that McGee has also addressed this issue. Another quote from McGee:
And it turns out, contrary to what we would expect, that seeds will actually absorb more water in a smaller volume of water: the less cooking water, the fewer carbohydrates are leached out, and the carbohydrates will take up about 10 times their weight in water. This means, then, that seeds will seem softer in a given time if cooked in a minimal amount of liquid.does this help?
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On three different occasions my editors have coerced me into removing this melokheya recipe from three of my books claiming the dish was too "far out" What a pity because as I can see from this forum there are a lot of people who love it as much as I do. Allow me to share with you some notes and the recipe and the special onion-cinnamon-vinegar dressing served alongside.
In this dish only the carefully stemmed leaves are simmered with a captivating mixture of cinnamon, cardamom, mastic and garlic in a rich chicken broth.
I learned the recipe from Nora George, author of Nora's Recipes From
Egypt. She had come up to visit her son in Walnut Creek and offered to teach me the ins and out of the dish. You might enjoy her book which can be purchased on amazon.com.It is filled with wonderful recipes translated from her mother's personal cookbook handwritten in Arabic. In those days, cooks didn't bother to write down quantities, so Nora spent a number of years using her taste-memory to calculate amounts in teaspoons and cups, a process akin, she told me, to solving a mystery with clues. Luckily she had great taste-memories of meals in Cairo and summers spent along Egypt's Mediterranean coast.
Nora made this dish for me using the chopped frozen molokhiya leaves imported from Egypt which she bought at a local Middle Eastern grocery. Frozen molokhiya is available nationwide in such stores.
"This is a typical Egyptian Sunday midday family-get-together dish," she told me as she demonstrated how to make it.
"Molokhiya is soupy so you'll need a bowl for each diner. I think it's a perfect dish for your book on slow careful cooking." She told me.
Ever-thoughtful Nora! Gray-haired with large Egyptian eyes like the ones you see in ancient paintings, she's a Christian Arab and a dynamo whose self-published book is among the very best Egyptian cookbooks that I've seen.
Molokhiya, she informed me, usually provokes a siesta because Egyptians, loving it, tend to eat too much. To my query:"Can you make it in advance," she responded: ""Molokhiya is more presentable and delicious when cooked right away while it retains its lovely green color. But it is still very tasty the second and
third day but it's color is dark and no longer green."
Her rice for the soup looks similar to Chinese white rice. "We Egyptians like our rice slightly sticky, we're able to get a nice brown crust on the bottom of the pot. We call this hekaka, cut it up and give a little piece to each person at table. It's so good no one ever refuses it."
With the molokhiya, Nora served a bowl of chopped onions which had been marinated in vinegar. "This," she explained, "must be made at the last minute, otherwise it gets too mushy."
I was barely seated before she started encouraging me to eat. "Hurry, Paula! Eat it before it gets cold. It's at its best when hot."
"How many does this feed?" I asked as I examined the enormous platter on the table. "Four Egyptians or eight Americans," she told me with a
wink.
(serves 4)
2 pound chicken parts
1 small onion, quartered
Spice packet: 1 stick cinnamon, 1/4 teaspoon mastic, 1 teaspoon
peppercorns and 3 cardamom pods wrapped in cheesecloth
1 teaspoon salt
6 cup water
Pinch each of sumac and dried thyme
Olive oil
Onion-Cinnamon-Vinegar Dressing:
1 cup cider vinegar
1/2 cup finely chopped red onion
Pinch of ground cinnamon
l pound chopped frozen Molokhiya imported from Egypt
(available at Middle Eastern grocers)
1 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon crushed garlic
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons ground coriander
Accompaniments:
2 pita breads, cut into triangles and toasted until
brown in the oven
2 cups freshly cooked white rice
1. Place the chicken, onion, spice packet, and 1 teaspoon salt in
a 4-quart casserole. Add 6 cups water and bring to a boil. Cover
and cook at the simmer for 45 minutes, skimming from time to
time. Remove the chicken to an oiled baking pan, sprinkle with a
pinch of sumac and thyme; moisten with 1/4 cup of the broth and
keep covered with a foil tent.
2. About 1-1/2 hours before serving, preheat the oven to 425
degrees.
3. Strain the chicken broth; discard the fat, measure the broth
and add more water if necessary to make 4 cups. Return to the
saucepan and bring to the boil. In a skillet heat the butter to
sizzling, add the garlic and 1 teaspoon salt and the coriander
and fry, stirring, until the texture is sandy and the color
brown, but not burnt. Add to the boiling broth and cook over
medium heat for 15 minutes.
4. An hour before mealtime bring soup to a boil, add frozen
molokhia and cook uncovered over medium heat until it completely
defrosts, without undue stirring. (If using fresh or dried
molokhiya, see notes to cook.) Makes about 3 cups sauce.
Meanwhile, set the chicken in the oven to brown. Make the onion-
vinegar-cinnamon dressing and let stand 30 minutes.
5. To serve in layers in individual cereal bowls: place toasted
pocket bread triangle on the bottom; add a few spoonfuls of plain
rice, the chicken, a ladleful of sauce and top with a spoonful of
the onion-vinegar-cinnamon dressing.
Notes to the Cook: One-half pound dried molokhiya can be
substituted for fresh or frozen: rub the leaves between hands
until finely crushed. Forty minutes before serving, rinse quickly
in a strainer, drain, soak in enough hot broth to cover for half
an hour, then add to the boiling soup and cook uncovered for
about 10 minutes.
If using fresh molokhiya: Rinse and carefully dry. Use a
mezzaluna or half-moon chopper to finely chop then set aside
until ready to add to the boiling liquid 10 minutes before serving.
Don't worry if it feels a little slimy to the touch. (A food
processor can be used for the chopping.) Add the fresh molokhiya to
the boiling soup, immediately reduce heat and cook, uncovered, (to
retain its green color) for 5 to 10 minutes. Remove from the heat
as soon as it starts to boil.
Seeds for growing molokhiya are available at some Middle
Eastern grocers in the spring.
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If you don't soak the beans first I doubt you'll have much success following Harold McGee's comments above..
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There's a great little cookbook I picked up at the local library called The Marijuana Chef by S.T. Oner.
Another book published in the seventies was the "Hashish Cookbook" by "Panama Rose." It had a delicious and thrifty recipe for the Moroccan majoun. Butter, kif stems and seeds were all simmered in a pot of water then chilled overnight. The butter was mixed with spices and dried fruits and turned into a paste. All you needed was 1 tablespoon to feel the effect.
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Monica:
The piece is fantastic and the spirit of adventure refreshing. I think I'm going to call you theh "Indiana Jane of the East"
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yes, you can substitute salt pork but it would be smart to soak it overnight in water to remove the salt.
Any good cassoulet recipe is long and complicated, but please don't be intimidated, most of the steps are prepared in advance.
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you are right..
Glazing on the outside is optional, I think. I know glazing should be on the inside to keep a slow steady evaporation of moisture.
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would the glaze affect the liquid level? i.e. more evaporation with unglazed?
Maybe Wolfert would chime in, she's the expert. But if I had to guess I would say yes: no glaze = more evaporation.
Elie
If you break the glaze from time to time in order to encourage evaporation and to get those burnished juices down into the center the final flavor will be better.
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I like to to strain the eggs before adding them to the pan. I agree about the cold butter stalling the cooking process.
what ever happened to a pan in a pan of simmering water? It makes a great scramble.
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I have the same one in pale green, and I love it for braising meats and vegetables. I do use a flame tamer when I put it on top of the stove.
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ohhhhhh
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I know you can use sandpots on top of the stove (gas or electric without diffusers).
Just keep the temperature low.
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My great-grandmother used to make cevapcici with hand chopped veal, beef, plenty of fat, and spices. She always worked in some tablespoons of soda water before she packed them onto skewers in sausage shapes. They were the lightest I ever tasted.
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I can't answer your query about Med versus Asian using the sand\claypots, but I can tell you they do absorb aroma from spices. I have two sand pots: a medium sized one I use for beans and vegetables; and a wider one I use for tagines and stews.
That heavily glazed covered pot from the sur la table link looks fabulous, but similar to the Emile Henri line and at a much better price. I have a similar one from EH and it produces clean, good tasting stews and soups. I would imagine the Italian does as well.
I have never tried soapstone for anything but griddling Tunisian breads and it worked very well. I have no idea about cooking in that particular pot. It looks very porous which might be a good thing I just don't know.
I have an etruscan stone pot I lugged home from Torino when I attended a slowfood conference. The pot cost 200 euros! I did produce the most sublime guinea hen braised with endives. I then tried the same recipe in a le crueset casserole and the dish simply paled in comparison. As a food writer, it would be irresponsible for me to continue using that Etruscan pot for testing recipes. The pot now sits in my fireplace as a "conversational piece."
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For Turkish red lentil soup, I have used my sand pot because there is a lot of slow steady cooking needed to obtain a luscious texture.
On the other hand, for lentilles du puy I have only used my all clad saucepan.
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I hold the parsley (flat) altogether, place it on the board, then with a really sharp narrow knife I shave forward from the stem end up. All all the leaves are released.
then I plop them in a strainer and wash, press, and dry.
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I think we're on the same page...
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My pot's top is unglazed; the inside of the main body has a thin slip of a glaze.
For tagines and Eastern Mediterranean stews I use unglazed very heavy pots that are rich in mica and a tiny bit of quartz; these really show my point.
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There is a difference in taste between beans cooked in a stoneware crockpot and those cooked in a partially glazed earthenware pot in the oven. This is especially true when you always cook the beans in the same earthenware pot.....as a Turkish friend said to me about this very subject: "the beans act like the pot is an old friend"
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I think the slight chilling sets the skins, then when the chickpeas re reheated they just stay in place.
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Is there an advantage to doing this (with clay pot) stovetop instead of in the oven?
I think it's better to oven cook beans in a sand\clay pot . For example, I learned an amazing and wonderful method to cook chickpeas and large white beans from a Greek dance troupe on the island of Paros using a partially-glazed claypot. Chickpeas are soaked and cooked with just enough water to cover along with some very finely grated onions, bay leaves, a pinch of salt and plenty of olive oil. The pot is sealed and the chick peas are baked in a slow oven; the results are a revelation---cooked to a silken tenderness. If you leave them to cool in the liuqid in the pot and then reheat,the skins are not only tender but taut and don't float around.
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You might want to add the tomatoes after the beans soften. I think the acidity in the tomatoes stunts the softening of the beans while cooking.
Cooking Dried Beans
in Cooking
Posted
I really believe that the two step (soak then simmer) method for garbanzos and cannelini provides the best chance of obtaining a beauitful succulent result no matter what the date on the package. Also, what about the water?