Recipe, interrupted

Recipe: Chickpea and Sunflower Seed Hummus

A neighborhood mom and fellow Park Slope Food Co-op member has for months been raving to me about sunflower seed butter. It took me a while to make room for yet another nut butter in the fridge (next to the peanut and almond butters) but when I finally got around to trying sunflower seed butter, I could definitely see its appeal. Slightly sweet, very creamy and very rich, but it has the delicate flavor of sunflowers. It was almost too rich for me to spread on a slice of bread. Doing that kind of felt like eating sesame tahini straight up. And that’s when I tried making hummus with this instead of tahini. With sunflower seed butter, the hummus is mellow and very smooth and buttery. So buttery, that I didn’t even need to drizzle in any olive oil. I added some scallions for a spike of sharp, green flavor and my new favorite hummus was born.

This hummus tastes just right to me when it’s had a chance to sit for about an hour or so. The garlic and scallion become more pronounced as time goes on. After a day or two, my kids deem it "too spicy" (but I still like it).

 

Makes about 2 cups

Preparation time: 5 minutes, plus resting time, if desired

 

2 cups cooked chick peas, with some of the cooking liquid reserved

3 tablespoons sunflower seed butter

3 scallions, white and light green parts roughly chopped

1-2 cloves garlic

Kosher salt to taste (start with about 1/2 teaspoon and add more as necessary)

Fresh lemon juice to taste (start with about a teaspoon, going up to about 3 teaspoons)

 

1. In a food processor or with an immersion blender, process all ingredients together until very smooth. Moisten with cooking liquid and process again until you get a thick, dip-like consistency that will hold on to pretzels, crackers, and veggie sticks.
    
2. Taste and add more salt and lemon juice as desired.

 

Recipe: Kale with Millet, Brown Butter and Sage

This dish is what I like to think of as luxury-hippy food. Not in a fancy Whole Foods kind of way. More like, I’m-making-millet-but-this-ain’t-no-bird-food. With brown butter, sage, and toasted hazelnuts, millet and kale are transformed into a rich and deeply satisfying treat.

Millet is high in protein and B vitamins and is shaped like little beads, which I think are sort of cute. You can cook millet like you would rice. The problem with millet, though, is that it has a tendency to clump together in sticky, not so cute way. This recipe gets around that potentially sticky situation in two ways: brown butter coats and separates the grains and a good amount of chopped kale blocks the millet, keeping it from congregating in large crowds. Kale also balances out this dish nutritionally – you could eat this as a one-bowl meal. 

 

Serves 4 as a side dish, 2-3 as a main course

Preparation time: 30 minutes

 

5 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons chopped shallots

Kosher salt, to taste (about ¾ teaspoon total)

4 cups chopped kale

2/3 cup millet

1 ½ cups water

½ teaspoon salt

½ cup hazelnuts, roughly chopped and toasted

2 teaspoons chopped fresh sage

 

1. Melt 2 tablespoons of the butter in a saucepan over medium heat and add shallots and a pinch of salt. Stir occasionally, cooking until shallots are softened, about 3 minutes. Add kale and continue to cook until kale is wilted, another 5 minutes.
   
   
2. Stir in millet and add water. Bring to a simmer, reduce heat to low and cover. Cook until millet is cooked through and kale is tender, about 20 minutes. Transfer to a serving bowl.
   
   
3. Melt remaining butter in a small skillet, over medium heat. When butter foams, add the sage. Cook the mixture another minute or two until it is fragrant and nutty, and the butter solids have begun to deepen in color. Remove from heat, stir in hazelnuts.
   
   
4. Drizzle the sage-brown butter and hazelnuts over the millet and serve. Note: leftover millet is not so great, so clean your plates!

 

Technique: How to Toast Nuts

In my mind, using toasted nuts instead of raw nuts is almost always preferable. Every now and then I like the flavor of raw almonds. But that’s pretty much it. Raw food enthusiasts would clearly disagree with me. But if you happen to cook with heat, see what you think the next time you garnish a salad with nuts. Compare the difference between toasted and untoasted nuts. Hands down, the toasted nuts are crispier in texture, deeper in color and flavor, and just plain nuttier.

Here is a simple guideline for getting beautifully toasted nuts.

Uniform in size and type. If you are toasting whole nuts, they’re already pretty much the same size. But to ensure that chopped nuts are a fairly uniform size, don’t use a food processor. Instead, chop them with a knife on a cutting board. You don’t need to drive yourself crazy trying to get them all exactly the same. Just make sure you aren’t left with any glaringly large chunks. And leave the tiny crumb-sized pieces behind. They’d just burn when you toast them anyway.

Also, make sure you toast one type of nuts at a time. Different nuts toast at different rates.

  not so uniform

more or less uniform in size (no crumbs or whole nuts)

Even heat. You can use an toaster oven, oven (good for larger batches of nuts), or a small pan on the stove. In any case, you want to make sure the heat is distributed evenly for even browning.

Oven-toasting. The lower the temperature (like around 300°-325°F in the oven), the more even and delicate the toasting. You can use a higher heat and the nuts will toast faster (in 3-5 minutes), but you’ll need to shake the pan a few times to prevent scorching and keep a very close eye. Note: If you are toasting finely chopped nuts or sliced almonds, though, stick with a lower heat. 

If you have a convection mode, it will help distribute the heat evenly. Even with convection heat, you will likely need to give the pan an occasional shake.

Toaster oven-toasting. I get perfectly fine results toasting nuts in the toaster oven. It takes a little experimentation and an understanding of your toaster’s idiosyncratic tendencies, but a light-medium toast setting has worked well for me.  You may need to rotate the pan halfway through so that none of the nuts spend too much time in any of the oven’s hot spots.

Pan-toasting. You can toast nuts in a preheated dry pan over medium to medium-high heat. Again, keep the nuts in motion to avoid scorching them. Nuts have delicate oils that should be preserved by not letting them get close to a smoking point.  Toasting nuts in a small pan, like one you’d use for frying an egg or two, also gives you a great opportunity to practice your flipping technique. First, tip the pan so that the nuts slip toward the edge of the pan, away from you. Then give the pan a swift, small jerk up and back towards you. With frequent flipping, you’ll ensure that all the surfaces of the nuts get a turn connecting with the heat of the pan. 

Tilt the pan and let the nuts slide toward one side of the lip of the pan.

Give the nuts a flip in the air.

Close Monitoring. Nuts can go from perfectly toasted to burnt in no time, so keep a vigilant eye on them. You know they are done when they take on a caramel-y color and smell fragrant and toasty. 

Save the best for last. To keep nuts toasty and crunchy, add them to your salad, grain dish, or stir-fry just before serving. If the sit for any length of time in moisture, they’ll start to get soft. You can toast nuts in advance and store them in your fridge for up to a couple of days.

Recipe: Fig and Tomato Salad

Is it me or does this year’s fig season just keep going and going? I’m not complaining. As long as the figs keep coming, I’m happy to let them find their way into my meals and snacks. I’ve been eating them on their own (biting into a ripe fig is an indulgence every time), with cheese (fresh goat, mild blues, Parmigiano Reggiano), grilled and tossed with caramelized onions. But it didn’t occur to me until this week to toss them with late season tomatoes. It’s a combination that works beautifully. The sweetness of the fig highlights the sugar in the tomato and the tomato’s acidity extends the fig’s range. A splash of balsamic vinegar bridges the two together. All the ingredients in this quick salad are simply tossed together. You don’t really even need a recipe, just a general sense of the proportions. Feel free to scale this recipe up or down depending on how many people you are feeding.

Be sure to have some crusty bread to soak up the juices. When I ate this salad I wished I had some Pecorino Toscano, which would make a perfect accompaniment for a light lunch.

 

Serves 4

Preparation time: 10 minutes
 

3 medium fresh tomatoes, seeded and cut into chunks

6 ripe figs, quartered, with stems trimmed off

3 tablespoons roughly chopped parsley

Kosher salt (I use a little more than ¼ teaspoon), freshly ground black pepper, to taste

2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

About 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

 

1. In a mixing bowl, toss together all ingredients except olive oil. Drizzle olive oil in, tablespoon by tablespoon until the dressing tastes balanced.
   
2. Serve immediately or allow to rest for up to an hour to let the flavors to mingle.

 

 

 

Recipe: Chanterelle and Cauliflower Sauté

Fresh chanterelles are such a rare treat. Even when they’re in season, they can be quite expensive. So I stretched them out in this recipe with the ubiquitous and economical cauliflower. This pairing doesn’t just bring down the cost per pound, however. The mild earthy flavors of both ingredients blend into a mellow autumn dish. The chanterelles are meaty and tender and develop a nice crisp when cooked at a high heat. And cauliflower somehow manages to taste earthy and clean at the same time. Together, they taste to me like the culinary equivalent of a cozy blanket on a cool front porch

 

Serves 4 as a side dish

Preparation time: 15 minutes

 

2 tablespoons grapeseed oil (or other neutral high-heat cooking oil)

About ½ pound fresh chanterelle mushrooms, wiped clean and tips of stems trimmed

Kosher salt, to taste

Freshly ground black pepper

1 small head of cauliflower, trimmed into florets and cooked, but still firm

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 shallot, minced

2 tablespoons minced flat-leaf parsley

lemon juice

 

1. Preheat a large skillet over high heat. Add grapeseed oil. When oil is hot, add mushrooms, tossing them to coat evenly with oil. Turn after a few minutes, when they have browned lightly on one side. When they are nicely browned, after several more minutes, sprinkle in a pinch of salt and toss in cauliflower. Add a few twists of pepper. Stir occasionally until cauliflower is browned on some of its surfaces.
    
2. Reduce heat to medium-low. Create space in the skillet by pushing the mushrooms and cauliflower off to the side. Melt butter in the open space of the skillet and stir the shallot into it. Cook until shallot is softened.
    
3. Remove skillet from heat. Add parsley and stir all ingredients together, adjusting flavor with lemon juice and additional salt if necessary. Serve hot.

Recipe: Black Beans and Mini Roasted Sweet Peppers

More and more, I’m cooking with less meat and more beans, tofu, and whole grains. I’ve been motivated partly out of a desire to reduce my family’s carbon footprint and partly to eat more healthfully. But mostly, I’m subscribing to the Old Miller Lite “Tastes Great, Less Filling” philosophy. To me, there’s no point in eating a meat-heavy meal when a colorful, hearty vegetarian dish can satisfy me without leaving me overly stuffed and remorseful. I haven’t lost my taste for meat – I’ll still occasionally crave and happily eat a duck breast or a bison burger. But these days, I generally let vegetables take center stage and give meat a supporting role. A small amount of bacon or chicken broth can go a long way.

Here’s one example of something that can be easily and inexpensively prepared for an entirely vegetarian weekday dinner. The mini peppers come from a local, organic farm. Outside of their season, I typically don’t buy peppers. Conventionally grown ones tend to be very high in pesticides and organic peppers are often packed in plastic and shipped from far away. If you can get organic peppers, use them. If they’re the big ones (not these cute miniature ones), roast two and seed and dice them before stirring them into the beans. If pepper season has passed you by, don’t fret, try using mini pattypan squash instead.

 

Makes 4 servings

1 hour, plus soaking time

 

1 ½ cups dried black beans, soaked overnight, drained and rinsed (If you prefer, you can use 3 cups canned black beans, skip the soaking and start at step 2. I often use canned beans, but in this case I like to cook my own – the texture of canned black beans tends towards the mushy.)

1 pint miniature sweet peppers

3-4 tablespoons olive oil

Kosher salt to taste

2 tablespoons minced garlic, plus 4-5 whole cloves smashed in their skins

1 medium onion, diced

1 ½ teaspoons dried oregano

¼ cup chopped fresh cilantro

1 ½ teaspoons fresh lime juice

2-3 cups cooked brown rice

Optional: sour cream or strained yogurt (such as Greek style)

1. If using dried beans: Bring beans and enough water to cover them by about ½ inch to a simmer over medium-high heat. Reduce heat to low, cover, and cook until tender but still holding its shape. Cooking time can vary greatly, but usually takes about 45 minutes. Remove from heat, add a generous pinch of salt, cover again, and set aside.
    
2. Preheat oven to 500°F.  Toss the peppers and whole garlic cloves with about 1 tablespoon of olive oil and sprinkle lightly with salt. Spread on a baking sheet and roast in the upper third of the oven for about 10-15 minutes (shaking pan partway through to get more even roasting), until softened and browned in spots. Cover with a casserole pan or aluminum foil to steam for about 5 minutes. Most of the garlic will be charred; toss them out. If there are any soft cloves left, peel their skins off and add the cloves to the beans.
   
    
3. While peppers are cooking, heat 1-2 tablespoons of olive oil in a wide, shallow saucepan or saucier over medium heat. Add onions and a pinch of salt. Stir occasionally and cook until softened, about 5 minutes. Add oregano and chopped garlic. Stir and cook an additional 3 minutes, until garlic is softened.
    
4. With a slotted spoon remove the beans from their cooking liquid (reserving liquid), and stir into onion mixture. Salt to taste. Reduce heat to low, and cook for 5 to 10 minutes to let the flavors mingle, adding cooking liquid as necessary to moisten. Remove from heat, stir in cilantro and lime juice. Add salt to taste if necessary. Drizzle with extra virgin olive oil if desired. Serve over brown rice and garnish with sour cream or yogurt if desired.