Geel Rys – Yellow Rice…er, Quinoa

The perfect accompaniment to a pot of curry is either a heaping pile of rice or some sort of fried flat bread whose purpose is to assist you in shoveling heaping mounds of curry into your mouth. Don’t get me wrong, I love bread and rice but really try to keep consumption to a minimum. I am one of those weirdos who prefer to use properly prepared pseudo-grains like buckwheat, amaranth and quinoa in my kitchen. When it comes to wheat, rice, oats and even pseudo-grains, I try to limit my use as much as possible. I get more than enough grains in liquid form via beer, one of my great loves.

This swap-out approach has backfired on me more than a few times. For example, trying to make a “healthy” version of chocolate cake with whole spelt flour and date sugar was a near disaster. I have learned that it’s best just to have an occasional bite of the “real deal” and skip out on some of these alternative preparations that taste like crap.

There are times, however, when you can easily replace one ingredient for another with great success. Swapping out rice for quinoa, a pseudo-grain closely related to beets and spinach, for has worked out well for me in the past. I really enjoy quinoa, which has that chewy bite you’re looking for with cooked grains and is also a complete protein. When I was looking for something to accompany my Quick Chicken Curry  I found a recipe for Geel Rys, which is a South African preparation of Yellow Rice. This recipe for yellow rice from The Africa News Cookbook  is really different from the standard Spanish approach and was the perfect side dish for my pot of curry. The list of ingredients was pretty short and I just swapped out the rice for quinoa, out one-for-one. Here’s the recipe I used:

4 tablespoons oil or butter

2 cups quinoa (or rice, if you prefer)

2 sticks cinnamon

1 tsp salt

1 tsp turmeric

pinch of saffron (optional)

1 cup goji berries (or raisins)

This recipe can be made in a pot on the stove but I have always had great luck cooking quinoa in my rice cooker! It’s very little hassle and it can stay warm while you get the rest of your meal ready. If you are looking for a rice cooker, my recommendation is to find one with a stainless steel insert, rather than aluminum or non-stick. There are some food safety issues with both of those materials and stainless steel last much longer, anyway. If you aren’t interested in using a rice cooker, or don’t currently have one, just prepare this recipe on the stove. No problem!

Some people have gastric upset when eating grains. Quinoa, in particular, has a high saponin content which causes the grain to taste bitter and can upset your stomach. The traditional Peruvian preparation calls for a long soak in warm water, followed by a thorough rinsing to remove the antinutrients. Sometimes I do this, but generally I just give the quinoa a good rinse under running water. If you have a storied history with grains (pseudo or otherwise), I’d say give the traditional soak method a try.

In a pot over medium heat, or in your rice cooker, add the fat of your choice. I used ghee, but you can easily use a vegetable oil or skip out on it all together. Add the quinoa and mix thoroughly.

Once all of the quinoa is well coated with the fat, you can add the remaining ingredients. The recipe called for raisins, but I absolutely abhor raisins unless they are cooked in cinnamon bread. I used Goji berries instead. I actually don’t really care the the taste of Goji berries out of hand but they were perfect in this dish. Plus, Goji berries are the darling of the health food world. Often referred to as a super food, for what it’s worth.

 Combine all of the ingredients, add 2 cups of water and start up your rice cooker. If you are cooking on the stove, bring to a boil, cover and then reduce the heat to simmer.

After about 20 minutes, once all of the water is absorbed, your quinoa will be done! The quinoa will be tender but not mushy and the Goji berries will have plumped up. Give it a good stir and serve (hopefully with a delicious serving of Quick Chicken Curry)!

I really enjoyed this new quinoa recipe and it was every bit as satisfying as the rice that typically accompanies curry dishes. This South African-spiced quinoa worked really well with the spicy curry I made but would be great enjoyed with lots of other dishes. One thing I would recommend is to remove the cinnamon sticks once it’s done cooking, especially if you plan to keep it warm in your rice cooker. I came back the next morning to a heaping pile of cinnamon flavored quinoa. Still tasty, but more along the lines of something I’d eat for breakfast.

Another tasty recipe down! Only 90 more to go.

Arugula and Fennel Salad – A Salad for Reminiscing

Salad. It’s green, arguably good for you and as a general rule, nothing to write home about. For some, a salad is just the short stop between a deep-fried, cheese-laden appetizer and the main course. It’s something many people begrudgingly consume as an excuse to eat something far worse, as if salad had the power override our gastronomical bad decision making.

I actually really enjoy a good salad. I like how incredibly versatile a salad can be with its infinite ingredient combinations and dressing options. Being raised in the south, I have a fondness for the classic green salad smothered in Ranch dressing topped with bacon, hard boiled eggs and croutons. If there’s a roasted beet salad on the menu (and there almost always is), I’m all over it. Then, there’s the classic “kitchen sink” salad that I regularly make at home which as the name suggests, is compromised of whatever’s in my crisper drawer and pantry that I fee like adding to a large bowl. When it comes to salad, I’m usually on board.

As my mission to make 100 new recipes continues, I thought it appropriate to try out a few new salads this year. I have a few go-to preparations and am regularly inspired by salads I find on restaurant menus, which I attempt to recreate at home to varying degrees of success.  But truthfully, it never occurred to me to find recipes for salad. No time like the present!

I have more vegetarian cookbooks in my collection than any other subject. This stockpile can be traced back to my early college days when I, and many of my friends, were dabbling in vegetarianism. Obviously this attempt at reinventing myself didn’t stick but I got a lot of fantastic recipes out of the experiment. Flipping through some of these books from that time in my life allowed me to reminisce, not necessarily about the food I prepared but rather, that era. Like looking though old photo albums, I was transported back to a very interesting and consequential time in my life and I am grateful for that.

Although I wasn’t successful at finding a salad recipe from my college-era cookbook collection, I was able to find one in a book I picked up recently. Yes, that’s right a new book… something I most certainly don’t need. My newest bibliophile acquisition is Edible: A Celebration of Local Foods.  It’s part cookbook, part profile on the local food movement in America. This book is 100% up my alley and some of the recipes are really inspiring. One in particular caught my eye, the Arugula and Fennel Salad.

This simple salad has only a handful of ingredients but is really, REALLY good. This salad comes together quickly and is one of those dishes that you can impress your friends with. Here’s the recipe.

4 cups lightly packed arugula

2 small fennel bulbs

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice (plus more if needed)

1/2 teaspoon sea salt

1/4 pound Parmesan (or nutritional yeast to taste for a vegan mod.)

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Another reason why I was inspired to make this salad is because it reminds me so much of my good friend and fellow blogger, Dana, who is personally responsible for my love of fennel bulbs. She makes an Italian style sliced fennel salad that is very similar to this recipe so naturally I thought of her first!

If you’ve never tried fennel, I think this is a great starter dish. Raw fennel is crisp and has a mild licorice flavor that pairs really well with the peppery arugula greens. I personally wouldn’t touch a piece licorice candy with a 10 foot pole but LOVE fresh fennel bulb. Now, let’s make some salad!

If you happen to have a salad spinner, put the greens in and let the arugula soak in cool water while you prepare the rest of your salad. When you are ready, remove the strainer, dump out the dirty water, replace the strainer and spin until dry. Add dry arugula to a large salad bowl.

Next, remove the green stalks from your fennel bulb. You can add them to this salad but I personally think they are rather stringy and a little dry. I generally run them through my juicer for a sweet addition to my green juices. You can also compost them or if you have veggie-loving dogs like ours, feed them to your dogs.

Slice off the bottom, root end of the bulb. Cut on the diagonal to remove any hard core that remains. Remove any outer layers that look bruised or dry. Cut the bulb in half, then slice into thin pieces. Add to your bowl of dried arugula.

This recipe calls for 2 tablespoons of freshly squeezed lemon juice and extra virgin olive oil. I would use that as a guide but add as much as you’d like. I ended up using the juice from a whole lemon and probably more olive oil than the recipe suggests. As I am known to do, I just eyeballed it. Add the salt and pepper, again to taste.

If you are adding cheese to the salad, you have two options.  If you want to be “fancy” use a potato peeler to cut ribbons of the hard cheese then add those gently to the salad. If you want to maximize your cheesy distribution, I’d go with a microplane or cheese grater. If you just want to skip out on the cheese altogether, my suggestion is to add some Nutritional Yeast  in lieu of the Parmesan.  This is a vegan-friendly cheese substitute which I actually really like and use pretty regularly in my own kitchen.

Once everything is in your bowl, mix well until all ingredients are well-distributed. If don’t plan to serve this immediately, I would hold off on the dressing and cheese until right before you’re ready to eat. You don’t want to a sad, limp salad at your dinner table!

That’s one good lookin’ salad and it tastes just a good as it looks! With all of the washing, chopping, squeezing, cheese grating and mixing I had to do, this salad took about 7 minutes from start to finish. Really, not much time at all. It’s a great first course, side dish or complete light meal. I enjoyed it with the next recipe I’ll be sharing, Chicken Pepperonata!

Although I thoroughly enjoyed my salad, I have to say the exercise in memory was even more enjoyable. Thumbing through my old books brought back fond memories of my early college days, reminded me of a great friend and even prompted me to remember how lucky I was to be raised in a home that valued fresh veggies… even if they were covered in delicious Ranch dressing. Who knew a simple salad could elicit such sentimentality? Here’s to you, Arugula and Fennel Salad!

The First First Taste – Panir Cheese

Picking the first recipe of 2013 turned out to be a much more difficult task than I had expected. Where do I start? Should I make some rules to help me make a decision? Should I attempt a complicated meal or keep it simple on my first go-around  There were many variables to consider. So instead of thumbing through my cookbook collection for my initial inspiration, I decided to do the logical thing and see what I had in the fridge and pantry and do some reverse engineering.

Although my house is chock-full of delicious and random ingredients, my refrigerator happened to have two past-prime items sitting right on the top shelf – a half gallon of soured raw grass-fed milk and a sad looking shriveled up lemon. Although most people would toss the soured milk and turn up their nose at that sad lemon, I could see their potential and remembered a recipe that I had read about years ago in The Vegetarian Table: India.  I tracked down my copy of the book and found the recipe I was looking for  – Homemade Panir Cheese. The recipe promised that even a first timer can master this unripened fresh cheese. The odds were promising, I had all of the ingredients and I’ve owned this book for nearly 10 years without attempting even ONE of these recipes so my decision was made.

There are only two ingredients in traditional Indian Panir (also spelled Paneer) – milk and lemon juice. If you buy this cheese at the grocery store, you’re likely to find lots of other strange ingredients and preservatives. After making my first batch of cheese, I say screw that, you can TOTALLY make your own at home! Here are three reasons why you should take on this challenge:

1. Making Panir from scratch is actually cheeper than buying it pre-made.

2. It’s a great way to use use up your less-than-fresh milk and lemons.

3. Bragging rights. Making cheese at home automatically makes you a badass.

All you need to get started is: 1/2 gallon of milk (I used raw, whole, organic and grass-fed but any full-fat milk will work), 1/4 cup lemon juice (fresh is best), a stock pot, a fine-mesh colander, a slotted spoon, cheese cloth or a tea towel, a cutting board and something that’s flat and heavy (I used a large frying pan).

To make the cheese, all you need to do is pour the milk into your pot and bring it to a boil. Stir occasionally so that the milk doesn’t  burn.

Once the milk comes to a boil, reduce to a simmer and add the lemon juice. Gently stir.

You’ll start to see those curds and whey Little Miss Muffet spoke of.

Keep stirring until no additional curds form. The liquid that remains is the yellowish whey.

Set your colander up over a bowl and line it with your towel.

Using your slotted spoon, transfer the solids into your towel-lined colander. Then pour all of the whey and small pieces in.

Once all of the curds are in the towel, run cold water over the cheese to rinse away the lemon juice.

Now, gather the corners of the towel, make a ball and squeeze the excess liquid out of your cheese.

After you’ve squeezed the liquid out, the cheese will look something like this:

Wrap your cheese back up and flatten it as best as you can. Put your cheese package on a slanted surface draining into the sink.

Put something heavy on top of your parcel. Now… find something to keep your mind off the cheese for 30 minutes to two hours.

When you come back, you’re cheese will look like this.

Hooray you made cheese. A hearty thumbs up is in order.

It’s as simple as that! I assure you, it took far longer to write up this blog post than it took to actually make a block of cheese at home. This stuff is super delicious and worth the 15 minutes (plus a few hours of anxiously waiting) to make it. Once you have your Panir, the sky is the limit. You just slice this up, fry it up in some ghee or oil and let your imagination go wild. The finished product is a firm, toothsome (not melty) cheese that will hold up in any dish. This cheese is destined for a batch of Palak Panir, one of my all time favorite Indian dishes, but that’s another recipe all together!

All in all, I would say the first recipe of 2013 was a success. I cleaned out my fridge, finally made a recipe out of that darn cookbook and got to enjoy a fantastic new treat with my husband. The bar has been set pretty high for my next recipe. I’m certain I won’t be able to find another dish that requires so few ingredients and is simultaneously so satisfying. It’s a good thing I have so many books to pull from. I’m up for the challenge.