We've been working on a project the last several months that finally is sitting on the table in all its glory. The Chaunk, An Indian Spice Kit. After Paula Wolfert, Alice Medrich, and Steve Sando of Rancho Gordo New World Specialty Foods came to our house for an Indian lunch this Summer, Steve suggested that we develop an Indian Spice Kit to make cooking delicious Indian food easier for people. We immediately got excited about the project since one of the things I always hear about Indian food is "I'd love to cook it but where do I get all those spices?" The Chaunk makes that easy. It's all in one box.
For years living in Los Angeles near a great Indian market, I was able to get everything I needed for my cooking quickly and easily. However, if one does not have a place like that on tap, cooking Indian food can be a fairly frustrating experience. Where to find, Methi leaves, Amuchur powder, Kalonji (aka Nigella)? Certainly not at one's neighborhood supermarket as I found out after we moved to Sonoma. 50 mile round trip drives to get the Indian pantry essentials I needed was a lot of work, especially if Indian cuisine at home is a new thing to someone. Which is why we came up with The Chaunk.
The Chaunk is a cooking technique used in the cuisines of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh where whole spices are fried briefly in oil to heighten their flavors then poured over the dish at the beginning or the very end of cooking. Where did the word "chaunk" come from? Some people say it originated with the muffled sound of the just fried spices being poured over the dish. Either way, it's the delicious "finish" that makes the flavors "pop". The Chaunk Box comes in two sizes. The smaller pack contains 8 spices and ingredients, the larger pack contains 12. Both packs include some of our favorite vegetarian recipes. The idea is, one can open the box and start cooking great Indian food easily at home.
I will be at Steve Sando's Rancho Gordo Store at the San Francisco Ferry Building this coming Friday, the day after Thanksgiving from 11:00 AM on, where The Chaunk will be on sale. I'll be serving up delicious Dal Makhani made with some of Steve's great Ayocote Morado beans so c'mon down and say hello. We hope to make The Chaunk available online soon.
Lately it seems as though I've been making food for large groups of
people, finger foods for awards night, buffets for birthday parties. I
just couldn't do anymore big crowd feeds. I was done for a while with racing around between steaming bamboo cookers and trays of samosas. I was having parties but barely getting out of the kitchen. I still wanted to cook, I just
wanted to be able to sit down at the table with a manageable number of guests and actually
enjoy myself for once. So I resolved (sort of a belated new Years Resolution) to have a series of small dinners, especially small dinners where big parts of the meal could be made ahead of time. Thus, the Goat Korma feast.
One of my good friends here in Sonoma, and my cooking mentor/godmother/kitchen role model is Paula Wolfert. Paula is the one who got me started cooking in clay 6 years ago. She gave me my very first clay pots and showed me how to cure and use them. Paula and her husband novelist Bill Bayer are part of our group of usual suspects here in town and we always love hanging out over a long leisurely lunch. About a week ago Bill had to be out of town and I decided it would be great to cook for Paula while he was away. What made it double great was the fact that her son Nick would be visiting during that time and we really wanted the opportunity to visit with another fellow LA/Sonoma transplant. Throw in our usual taste tester Mr. X and I now had my feasters.
Lamb, or Goat Korma is a standard Indian restaurant dish. If you've ever eaten at an Indian restaurant, most likely there's been Korma on the menu. It's curry dish served in a mild almond sauce made with cream, yogurt and sometimes even coconut milk for the lactose intolerant. It can be made with lamb, goat, chicken or game and there is even a vegetarian version which I will be getting to soon. I make my Korma with meat on the bone. I feel it adds a lot more flavor and also what I look for is falling off the bone tender.
Any Korma starts with the meat being seared to brown it and seal in the juices. It's then slowly cooked dum style, that is slowly, in a sealed pot. I cook mine in clay. It can also be made in the infamous slow cooker, aka the "Crock Pot." That's where the cook-ahead part comes in, so you can wake up the morning of your dinner party and say, "well that's done." Always a good feeling.
Korma is also a showy, fancy pants dish. Since it originated with the cooking of the Royal Court in Persia then migrated to India with the Mughals, this is not your grandpa's lamb stew.. Korma is an event meal, special guests, royal weddings, birthdays you get the picture. Hell, just think up a celebration and Korma's your dish, which is why I chose to cook it for Paula. I made my Korma with goat, but the recipe works the same with lamb.
Royal Lamb or Goat Korma
Here's What You Need:
4 lbs of lamb or goat shoulder, bone in (have the butcher cut the leg with the bone into slices) If you're using boneless meat you'll need about 2 lbs.)
8 large shallots
A 1 inch piece of ginger peeled and chopped
5 Tbs of blanched almond slivers
1 cup of water
4 Tbs of coconut oil or vegetable oil
10 whole green cardamom pods
6 whole cloves
A 1 inch long stick of cinnamon
2 brown onions finely chopped
1 tsp ground coriander
2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp kashmiri chili or 1/4 tsp cayenne mixed with 1/4 tsp paprika
Salt to taste
1 and 1/4 cups of heavy cream, or yogurt, or coconut milk.
1/4 tsp garam masala
1/4 cup thinly sliced almonds
1/2 cup of chopped fresh cilantro
Here's What To Do:
Put the 5 Tbs of slivered almonds, shallots, ginger, and 6 Tbs of water into a blender. Blend it into a paste and set it aside.
Heat the vegetable or coconut oil in a large pot, and when it's hot add in the pieces of meat.
Place the meat in 1 layer across the surface of the pot and sear it until it's browned on all sides. You may have to do the meat in batches. When it's done take it out, and set it aside.
Since I was cooking in clay, I then transferred the oil from the pot (after cooling it quite a bit to avoid cracking the clay) to my clay pot.
Put the cardamom pods, cloves and cinnamon stick into the hot oil the meat was browning in.
Stir them around, in a few seconds the spices will start to swell up and get fragrant.
Add in the onions.
Stir fry the onions until they are a light brown.
Turn down the heat to the medium range and add in the paste from the blender.
Cook the paste for about 4 minutes then add in the coriander, cumin and chili.
Stir fry the spices a bit, about 3 minutes or so.
Add in the meat pieces, and any juices, salt, cream, 1/2 cup of water.
Bring everything to a boil.
Once it's boiling, turn it all down to low and simmer everything with the lid on the pot.
Now, most recipes say you should cook this for an hour or so until the meat is tender. Stir it often and make sure nothing is sticking. I cook my korma in clay I simmer it for about 5 hours on a very low heat, just as one would cook something in a crock pot. I check it occasionally, and once it's in the simmer stage it's really no trouble.
When the korma is done transfer it to a Pyrex bowl and stick it in the fridge for overnight storage. The day of the dinner party, take it out, skim any fat that's accumulated from the top and slowly reheat it.
When cooking in clay I just keep it on a back burner of the stove on a low temperature for another 3 to 4 hours while everything else is cooking. This results in very tender falling off the bone meat.
Just before serving the Korma, stir in 1/4 tsp of garam masala.
Sprinkle the top of the dish with chopped cilantro and the thinly sliced almonds.
This recipe will feed 6 to 8 people.
I served this goat korma with a rice cooked with whole spices and fried onions, Spinach and Corn , a mango coconut salad, watercress and shallot salad, a salad of thinly sliced mooli (Daikon radish) and an onion, tomato and cucumber salad. So, one hot entree, accompanied by rice, a hot vegetable dish, and a variety of small fresh salad bowls. Of course there had to be chapattis. What's a dinner without chapattis? That gave me a chance to break out the Rotito Rolling Board the nice people at GitaDini sent me a while back.
It's got a place for everything (box for flour, hole to stash the rolling pin, easy to clean surface) and everything in its' place. I love this thing!
A good thing for me since I consider myself a very messy cook and usually need to be hosed down before I'm allowed at table with my guests. By the end of my cooking "process" it usually looks as though I've been fighting raccoons.
Here I am screaming to take away the camera. Paula, who is neat and clean is highly amused. I meanwhile am waiting for some kitchen maven to make a designer drop cloth//hostess gown that I can wear while entertaining. You hear me Snuggie People?? There's a market out there.
I've had some requests for the actual Chicken version of my Cauliflower cooked like a chicken dish. That will be coming up along with lots and lots of vegetarian dishes since spring is here in Sonoma and our Tuesday night Farmers Market opens next week. Can't wait. There will also be granitas as it's getting hot here in Sonoma.. Meanwhile, follow along on Twitter at @kathygori.
A few weeks ago, after we had our #Indianfoodpalooza I got an email from my friend Amanda of Dabblings and Whimsey. Amanda was embarking on her own Indian cooking binge and asked me if I'd like to contribute a guest post to her blog. Someone new taking up Indian food? How could I resist?
Amanda told me that I could give her any sort of recipe I wanted, and since we've had really warm temperatures around here, my mind has been drifting ahead to Summer weather. I've been thinking of cook outs, Tuesday night picnics at the Sonoma Farmer's Market and various Summer backyard pot luck parties. Of course with all this going on, one wants to spend the least amount of time one can in the kitchen during warm weather, so this black eyed pea salad recipe seemed perfect to share for many reasons.
One, it's easy
Two, it's got very simple ingredients
Three, it's fast!
Four, it can be made ahead and served at room temperature.
This easy peasy (yeah bad joke I know) Indian version of potato salad will kick those baked beans to the curb every time.
Black Eyed Pea Salad
Here's What You Need:
1 package of frozen black eyed peas ( I love Stahlbush Island Farms brand) or 3 cups of cooked black eyed peas.
3 Tbs of vegetable oil
3 peppercorns
2 cloves
1 bay leaf
1 tsp. cumin seeds
1 tsp seeded chopped fresh green chili
1 cup of finely chopped onion
1 cup of finely chopped tomato (you can also use unsalted canned)
1 tsp of salt
2 Tbs of sour cream
1/4 to 1/2 tsp of Kashmiri chili, or a half and half mix of cayenne and paprika
A handful of chopped fresh cilantro
Here's What To Do:
In a kadhai or skillet heat 3 Tbs of vegetable oil.
When the oil is hot toss in the cloves, bay leaf, peppercorns, and green chili.
Stir everything around for a minute or so and then add in the onions.
Cook the onions until they're slightly brown, about 10 minutes or so.
Add in the tomatoes and cook them down for about 5 minutes, or until they're softened.
Add in the black eyed peas, sour cream, salt, Kashmiri chili or cayenne paprika mix.
Cook everything for another 8 minutes or until the black eyed peas are warmed through.
Make sure you keep the heat on the low side so that the sour cream doesn't curdle.
Sprinkle the dish with chopped fresh cilantro.
Bring it to room temperature before serving.
I served this salad up with some grilled chicken, and couldn't resist using a gorgeous plate currently on loan to me for photographic purposes. The plate was made by Paula Wolfert's husband novelist William Bayer who also as you can see, happens to be a very gifted potter.
So thanks so much to Amanda, for giving me this opportunity to share a favorite dish with a whole new group of people. Coming up next, I get a real scale and you can get one too courtesy of OXO. Follow along on Twitter @kathygori
I'm celebrating a birthday today. Birthdays always weird me out, the whole getting older thing. The passage of time. The bigger job retouching my roots. However, there's the alternative to consider, so bring on the wrinkles!
I was going to be sharing a recipe for green mango rice but that's been called on a account of cake. I wish I could share a piece of this delicious Princess Cake with all of you who've sent me birthday greetings, but all I can offer is a virtual slice, and a very real Thank You! It's mind boggling to think of all the people I've met since starting this blog, and since every day brings someone's birthday, it's really like being at one big continuing world-wide party. So raise a glass to yourselves and also to two friends who are celebrating James Beard nominations this evening, Paula Wolfert and Suvir Saran. Congrats to you both!
Coming up next, Green Mango Rice, a great side dish made with unripe fruit. You can't go wrong!
Follow along on Twitter @kathygori
One of the perks of living in a very renowned agricultural region is being able to get up close and personal with my food and those who grow/make it. When I lived in LA it was not uncommon to see movie and TV stars on the streets, at the car wash, in restaurants and shopping in the local malls. Since our business is screenwriting, we've also met and dined with them ourselves on occasion. Up in Sonoma country things are a bit different. That's not to say we don't get our share of visiting celebrities, and after all something called "The Bachelor" is filming here now and has the town in a tizzy. Like it's the only thing in our twice weekly the paper lately. Oh, and John Waters is coming to town for our Film Festival in the Spring. As someone who treasured the scratch and sniff "Odorama" card for Polyester, I can't wait to see what that's gonna be like.
John Waters aside, here heads turn when a famous chef, or winemaker walks into a cafe. I see Ron Mazzetta of Mezzetta Foods fame at coffee most mornings, and even though this...
May not be as sexy as this...
...When you're putting a pizza together at midnight, which one do you really want to get your hands on? Okay, let me rephrase that......
Up here in Northern California food and wine and cheese are the superstars. So, you can imagine how excited I was to be able to attend a cheese making class with the Emma Stone of cheese, Sheana Davis of the The Epicurean Connection.
Sheana is the creator of Delice de la Vallee the Triple Cream Cow Milk Fromage Blanc that won 1st place from the American Cheese Society. This cheese is available at great cheesemongers around the US and you will also run across it dining at places like The French Laundry. This is one classy cheese.
When Sheana let us know that she was going to be teaching her monthly cheese class at the Krug Center here in Sonoma, of course Alan and I had to go. Also signed up for the class was Paula Wolfert chef and author of the book that's made everyone's 10 best list this year The Food Of Morocco, and her son Nick Wolfert.
We were seated at tables with wine and water, little dipping bowls of TallGrass Ranch Estate Olive Oil (amazing and sorry they don't have a website yet), Sheana's home cured olives, Delice de la vallee cheese, some tasty Sheperdista cheese from Bleating Heart Dairy ..
All accompanied by delicious bread from Costeaux French Bakery in Healdsburg.
We tasted and sample...
...then got down to learning basic cheese technique for making our own Creme de Ricotta.
1. ) Heavy Bottom pans are a must..NO NO NO TEFLON!
Turns out the Teflon diffuses the acidity in the vinegar and then cheese
doesn't happen. Not good if your goal is to like, make cheese?!
2.) We learned clay pots can be used for cheese making, with a diffuser of course.
3.) Raw milk or milk that's pasteurized low and slow is the only milk to use. Never never never the ultra-flash, pasteurized milk found in many big box places. Around here Organic Valley Dairy and Strauss Family Creamery are great as is our local Safeway milk, since it's processed only 60 miles from Sonoma and not ultra-flash pasteurized.
4.) We learned basic care and sanitizing of our cheesecloth.
Washing it and then soaking it in a gallon of hot water w/ 1/4 cup of bleach, air drying it then sealing in in a clean plastic bag for later use.
5.) We learned that cheese cloth should be 200 thread count and old (sanitized) sheets cut up and hemmed work just fine. As do flour sack type towels.
6.) Stainless steel whisks and straining spoons are a must.
7.) We learned that kitchen thermometers (vital to cheese making) can be calibrated by the lug nut under the dial using a simple pair of pliers not just thrown out if they go awry.
Who knew?!
8.) We learned that fresh ricotta can be frozen in small batches and allowed to defrost later with no side effects! Cool!
Finally the curds were ready to be separated from the whey. Houston, we had cheese!
They were gently ladled out into the cheese cloth which had been placed in a colander which had been placed in a larger bowl to allow the whey to drain without touching the separated curds.
Scoop to the side and drain in cheesecloth.
We all took a turn.
After a wait the cheese was lifted in the cheesecloth, once again gently...
...and allowed to rest. It can be kept out like that for 4 to 6 hours and then must be refrigerated.
Sheana unwrapped some warm cheese.
And we all got a taste.
Yum yum!
I'm not including the recipe here since Sheana offers these classes once a month. If you are anywhere near Sonoma it makes for a fun Sunday afternoon. You can go here for the class schedule. The next one is on Feb 12th and will feature cheese and chocolate! Of course the big cheese event in town is the Winter Cheese Fair held here in Sonoma at Mac Arthur Lodge Feb 25th through the 29th. I attended a couple of years ago and it rocked. It was the SXSW of cheese!
I left the Krug Center all jazzed up to try my hand at cheese making.Of course I couldn't wait to buy my very own cheese cloth.
So you may see some cheese magic very soon. I'm getting my dairy on. Coming up next however, I'm hitting up the root cellar for a new twist on that old vegetable hermit, the turnip. Follow along on Twitter @kathygori
Everybody has one of two movies that have made an impression on them in their lives... or maybe five or six. Either way, I believe we all walk around with internal movies playing in our heads, or at least the trailers for them. There's that deep voiced guy saying... "In a world where everything was upside down...." you take it from there.
I know that I cannot for the life of me try on clothes without thinking of Julia Roberts in that dressing room in Pretty Woman (hey, I told you this was a fantasy) or set a table without the memory of Babettes' Feast, and don't even get me started on the endless outfits in The Devil Wears Prada. But the movie that made one of the biggest impressions on me didn't concern stilettos or over the top food porn. It had to do with Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin with a pissed off Kodiak bear on their ass in The Edge .
In this movie Anthony Hopkins (Sir) is stranded out in the woods with Alec Baldwin, and what keeps them alive is that Hopkins' character Charles knows how to do stuff. The old fashioned way. Ancient lore. Which was why after seeing this film, I really decided there were a few things I needed to know how to do well. Just in case of a zombie attack or 2012, I wanted to be prepared. It's not that I was a Girl Scout. Actually I was a pretty poor Girl Scout all things considered. The only badge I ever managed to get was The Story Teller Badge... and that could easily be confused with just being a good liar.
My Girl Scout troop was unusual to say the least. We met in the Tiki bar in the basement rec room of our troop leader's house. Nine little Girl Scouts on barstools glueing rhinestones onto empty pill bottles, making "perfume bottles" for our moms while our Troop leader and her assistant, the bored lady from next door, sipped cocktails and listened to Louis Prima.
After picking me up from Girl Scouts a few times and getting the blinged-out pill bottle for Mothers' Day, my mom pulled me from the troop and the troop was disbanded. We never went camping, but come to think of it, that Tiki bar was pretty damn campy all by its' ownself. Who was that troop leader you may ask? Judy Garland? No, just some lady who taught us to Be Prepared cause even old Valium bottles can be re-purposed.
But how does that get us back to basics? Well, I actually read my girl scout handbook and then got other books on " things one should know." My great grandmother's Native Daughters of the Golden West Cookbook for one, filled with recipes that had no cooking times and talked a lot about "hot" fires in the stove and measuring things out in "dessert spoons." It also contained recipes for Squirrel, and venison, how to clean a wild duck and how to make candy. How to preserve crabapples and pickle watermelon and something called Bible Cake and Batchelor Bait Cake.
Damn I thought, enough with the Valley of the Dolls Craft Hour..these dames were pre-pared... big time! I wanted to learn to do these things too. Because after the zombies attack somebody has to re-start civilization, and where better to start than with the staff of life... bread.
Years ago my mom got a booklet in the mail advertising a bread machine. Back in the day, these machines were rare and pricy and totally off the table for my household. I however was fascinated by the booklet. It was filed with bread recipes. I studied them and then I started to bake. I'd get right up to the part that said put into the bread machine... and then what? I grabbed great Grandma Fanny's cookbook. It told me to knead and let rise and punch down and let rise again and then bake in a "hot fire" (about 450 degrees). I had made bread! Without an expensive machine. I quickly went through all the recipes in the freebee booklet.
Over the years I made bread occasionally, but it was a long tedious process.So I stopped, but I was always intrigued by those fancy crusty (pricey) artisan loaves. And then came the New York Times Mark Bittman and No Knead Bread. I had to try it. I did and it worked... amazingly. Though my bread was never as attractive as the loaves illustrated, it still tasted good. I knew however that it could be better so I went on a search to perfect The Easiest Bread In The World.
One key turned out to be the flour I was using plain old organic, unbleached flour, I needed a true, high gluten, high protein flour to give my bread a kick in the pants and get it up on its' feet. Paula Wolfert had given me a big bag of Giustos Organic Ultimate Performer Unbleached Flour to try.
I tried it. It was amazing... but I still had the problem of spread (don't we all) and how to fix it. Paula lent me a Sassafras-La-Cloche-Brick-Oven Baker. Think of it as Spanx for your dough.
It was a good thing she lent it to me because I was unable to buy one. They're sold out everywhere and I was on a waiting list. The deal with this baker is that it duplicates a brick oven in your stove. I was using two pizza stones, one on top and one on the bottom, but the enclosed oven provides perfect humidity allowing the steam in the bread to escape, leaving all those gorgeous holes in the crumb. Also it helps the dough keep it's shape and not spread out in the hot oven. It also does not require a pan of hot water beneath the baking bread to provide moisture.
So, I had the perfect flour and a great container to bake the bread in. The rest was easy.
Artisan Bread
Here's what to do:
In a large bowl mix together:
3 cups of bread flour
1/4 tsp of yeast
2 and 1/4 tsp of Kosher salt
MIx all the dry ingredients together well and then add in:
1 and 1/2 cup of lukewarm water
Stir everything together with a wooden spoon.
You should have a thick, goopy mass of dough.
Cover it tightly with plastic wrap and set it in a warm place to rest for at least 12 hours.
If the dough is going to be sitting for more than 24 hours, store it in the fridge. It will keep there just fine for about 2 weeks turning more and more into sourdough as the days pass.
When you are ready to bake the bread, flour a board, moisten your hands to prevent the dough from sticking, and scoop the dough onto the board.
Fold the dough over into a four corner package shape.
Flour a clean cotton dishcloth.
Rub the flour in well and then pick up the dough and gently lay it smooth side facing up on the dishcloth.
Place the dishcloth and the dough in a tall bowl. This helps things keep their shape.
Cover the bowl loosely and let it rise again for another 2 hours.
One hour and 30 minutes into the rise, place the La cloche, both top and bottom, or a pizza stone, into the middle rack of a cold oven. Turn the oven on to 450 degrees.
After the oven comes up to speed, let the stone or the La Cloche heat for at least another 30 minutes. You want every thing hot, hot, hot.
When the bread is ready to go into the oven, take the lid off the la Cloche and dump the dough into the bottom half.
Put the lid on the la Cloche. If you are using a pizza stone, scatter some coarse corn meal on the stone before the bread dough goes on it to prevent sticking. You don't have to do this with the La Cloche. If you are using a pizza stone, put a pan of hot water under the bread as it bakes. This provides the proper moisture in the oven.
Bake for 30 minutes with the lid on, then remove the lid and bake for an additonal 15 to 20 minutes until the bread is crisp and done.
When the bread comes out of the oven, take it out of the pan and place it on a cooling rack for at least an hour. Put your ear to the bread, you should hear a faint cracking noise. That's not in your head...that's the bread "singing" to you, a sign of a perfect crust.
I had baked a loaf of this bread a few days before and taken it with us
to our weekly Farmers Market Picnic, along with some Cypress Grove
Chevre and a good local white cheddar from Petaluma Creamery.
While we were sitting on the grass enjoying the fine summer evening with friends, someone asked where they could get this bread they were eating. They thought I had bought it at the market. Wow!
So there it is, non kneading, easy artisan bread. Believe me, I am no baker but I am now totally stoked about this bread and this method. Whether you bake it in a clay pot or a cast iron dutch oven or on a pizza stone, The Big Secret is using the best flour you can get your hands on. The other upside to this: Paula let me keep the Cloche..she knows an addict when she sees one.
Coming up next, I go all Mughlai on some Eggplant. Follow along on Twitter @kathygori
