Tandoor Aloo Potatoes With Spices Done With Fire!!!

It's been crazy up here in wine country. actually it's crazy everywhere but since this is where I am presently this is my crazy. We've been laying low since I recovered from covid. We were laying low before too. What that means is we haven't socialized, eaten out, (even contactless pickup) or gone anywhere (we are walking the dog) except to a hospital or doctor's office since this whole thing started. Meanwhile, my cooking muscle since I've been up and about again, is really getting a pandemic workout.

If that isn't enough, we've had lightning strike wildfires, rolling blackouts, and temperatures in the 100+ category. We're trying to get a script turned in and it's hard to work under those conditions. We've had our bags packed to run, and fortunately we didn't have to. We were also told to limit water / power use, and NO fires no way no how. So no outdoor cooking, not that anyone would want to stand in 103 degree temps over a fire pit. So far so good.

Last weekend we got a break, when more lightning was predicted, meaning the possibility of more fires, but the weather gods/goddesses decided to cut us a break, sent a a bit of rain and held the lightning. The fires are still burning but are much more contained, and people who had to flee their homes in the evacuation zones are being allowed to go back home. We're not out of the woods here yet, but hopefully the woods will not still be on fire.

I took advantage of pleasant temperatures and the ability to use my Homdoor Tandoor oven to do a little Indian cooking, and one of the dishes worked beautifully with the tandoor oven. It involves potatoes and is one of the simplest dishes  there is. Potatoes aka Aloo, simple boiling potatoes, basted with spices and then roasted on skewers in the tandoor till they are charred on the outside, spicy and soft on the inside. There are a lot of ways of doing this dish, this is how I do it.

Tandoor Aloo

Here's What You Need:

Several medium sized yukon gold or boiling potatoes

2 Tbs vegetable oil

2 tsp cumin seeds

1 serrano chili finely chopped, either seeded or unseeded (depends on how hot you want it)

2 tsp mashed coriander seeds

1 tsp red chili flakes

1/2 tsp turmeric

2 tsp amchur  (dried mango) powder

1/2 tsp cumin ppowder

2 tsp lemon juice

salt to taste

a handful of chopped fresh cilantro

 

Here's What To Do:

You can par boil/ partially cook the potatoes to soften them a bit before skewering them, just don't cook them all the way through.

After they are cooked, you can leave the peel on or not, as you wish. Set them aside.

What we do here is prepare a basting sauce that will be used on the potatoes as they cook and then the remains of it drizzled over the finished dish.

First, get your spices ready.

Dice the chili pepper.

Crush the coriander seed with a mortar and pestle.

In a skillet or kadhai heat 2 Tbs vegetable oil. When the oil is hot toss in the cumin seeds.

Let them toast. As soon as they get fragrant (less than a minute) toss in the  serrano chili, and crushed coriander seed.

Now add chili flakes, turmeric, dried mango powder (amchur), roasted cumin powder, and salt. Stir these around and cook them for a few seconds. This is your basting liquid. Set it aside

Rub the potatoes with oil and thread the potatoes on oiled skewers.

Fire up your Tandoor Oven. The potatoes cook at 400 degrees for about  5 minutes, if you are doing these on a grill the same applies.

Brush the potatoes with the spice marinade

Place the skewered potatoes in the tandoor or on your grill.

Let them roast for 5 minutes.

After 5 minutes take them out and brush them with the spice mixture again . Put them back in the tandoor for another 5 minutes.

When they are done, take them out and off the skewers.

Place them back in the kadhai with the marinade, coat them. 

 Drizzle them with lemon juice.

Sprinkle them with the chopped cilantro.

Ignore curious fans....

and serve them up!

Serve these spicy potatoes alongside any dish, meat or veg. Scoop the insides out of the charred skins and enjoy. 

I'm really enjoying the tandoor and especially enjoying cooking stuff fresh out of our garden in it. 

We're supposed to have more record breaking temperatures up here this Labor Day weekend.  Reports are of 102-104 degrees so I've got something cool planned. Watermelon Chaat. so stay tuned! Follow along on Twitter at @kathygori  

If You Can't Dine At Downton Abbey, Bring A Little Downton Abbey Home With Canton Sorbet.

   
   I grew up as far away from Downton Abbey as one can get. I was raised in a working class row house, with three generations and one bathroom.  As I said, not exactly Downton Abbey. My dad was the child of immigrants and English was not his first language. My mother's family came to this country after the French Revolution. Evidently they didn't like how things were going for them over there so they decamped to New Orleans. She grew up quite differently. From her I learned that one wears only three pieces of jewelry at a time, white or bone shoes are only worn after Memorial day and up until Labor Day. No patent leather if you are not a child. A lady always wears gloves and hats and a lot of other useless information that didn't go with my station in life. It's hard to be elegant, when there's lines for the bathroom in ones own home.

   Mom's family didn't like my dad's family of socialist trade unionists and so she got "cut off." Meanwhile, before the wedding they gave her a full set of dishes, finger bowls, compote dishes, claret glasses etc for 12.  I am now wondering if they were trolling her, giving her this stuff she'd never get much use of, all of which I ended up inheriting. Dishes and glasses. That's what's left behind. All of it having to be hand washed. I don't use it often but it's the only souvenir of my moms family I have, so I bought some boxes and I kept it.  I've only used it a few times, one Easter dinner, and for Christmas once.
 
   The stuff didn't mean anything to mom, she was more interested in Big Top Peanut Butter and as the empty jars could be turned into...wait for it, Fancy Pants Goblets!!!

Needless to say we ate a LOT of peanut butter to get mom her set of glasses while the real deal was sitting in a box. After seeing endless ads for the Downton Abbey movie on TV and online, I figured now is the perfect time to break out some of mom's/grandma's old stuff.  I was watching a PBS show on amazon prime  Fannies Last Supper  about  a dinner  that was served,  reproduced from the Fannie Farmer Cookbook from the 1880's. I was intrigued, so I looked up the Fannie Farmer Cookbook online and there it was, the palate cleanser served between the canvas back duck and the sturgeon. Canton Sorbet.

   Canton Sorbet is a gingery citrus sorbet that is stupid easy to prepare, and  forget the palate cleanser. It can be served as a refreshing dessert, as I have been fresh out of canvas back duck and sturgeon for let's say...my entire life! It's really delicious, especially on a warm summer night. I haven't served this to any kids yet but I'd think they'd  enjoy it too. So here goes.

Canton Sorbet

Here's What You Need:

4 cups of water
1/4 lb Canton ginger...aka regular ginger  don't let the appelation fool ya.
1 cup of sugar
1/2 cup of fresh squeezed orange juice
1/3 cup fresh lemon juice

Here's What To Do:

slice the ginger thinly and cut it into small pieces and set aside.

Squeeze the orange juice and set aside.

 Squeeze the lemon juice and set aside.

Pour the 4 cups of water into a large pot.

Add in the sugar.

Add in the cut up pieces of ginger, stir everything together well.

Bring to a boil, and let it boil for 15 minutes.
After 15 minutes, take the pot off the stove and add in the  orange and lemon juice.

Let the mixture cool to room temperature, then strain it.

Pour the strained liquid sorbet into molds.

You can use any old thing as a mold. I happened to have these silicon molds hanging around and found a good use for them.
Pop the whole thing to the freezer.
When ready to serve, un-mold.

And finally the capper, pour room temperature champagne or prosecco over the sorbet...

...and serve it up. I advise room temperature champagne or Prosecco because it will unfreeze the sorbet a bit and make it easier to eat.

Elegant, easy, just what the Dowanger Countess ordered, and now you can too.

   I haven't blogged as much the last several months as we've been trying to get the current project we're writing turn-in-able, but I have been cooking and Alan's been taking pictures and so I have a whole lot of things ready on the runway to share. Coming up next, eggplant, scallops and shrimp with coconut rice. This is a very simple yet tasty weekday lunch or dinner which looks a lot fancier then it is to make which is why it's in our family's meal rotation.

So follow along on twitter @kathygori 

Smookie, The Dark Chocolate, Gluten Free, Vegan S'More

   
   When I was working on designing gluten-free and vegan recipes for CocoaPlanet here in Sonoma, one of the things I kept hearing about was the idea of a S'more. Not just any S'more mind you, but a gluten free and if possible vegan S'more. I've only made marshmallow about twice in my life and since I'm not a fan of the corn syrup, anything that involved it was pretty low on my list. As I said, I'd only done this once before. Then I discovered AquaFaba aka BeanWater
  
   I didn't discover AquaFaba. That was the labor of many vegans over many years who longed for an egg white substitute in cooking and baking and were constantly experimenting, searching for the holy grail of vegan egg whites. Well, after several years, they succeeded and the word went out. The new weapon in the vegan baking arsenal was AquaFaba.
  
   I've known Sanjana  for a number of years through the Indian Food Community. Her site is K.O.Rasoi and she and her creations are amazing. When she first told me about bean water, my initial reaction was thanks but no thanks. The idea of turning the water I've cooked my garbanzos in into desserts was a no go. So I ignored the idea for about a year and then one day my curiosity got the better of me and I started experimenting. After all, there are so many uses for ceces, chickpeas, garbanzos, chole, whatever one calls them, why not do something with the water also. Boy, was I surprised! I started turning out all sorts of vegan and gluten free treats such as these Macarons.

 
   But meanwhile back to Smookies. Working with bean water can be tricky when you're learning, but the learning curve is pretty easy, and these smookies are among the easiest. One of the easiest ways to get started is using a can of Garbanzo beans with no salt added. So grab your beans and let's get Smookieing.

Here's What You Need:

1 recipe of Chocolate gluten free shortbread cookies 

(note:  vegan shortening can  be substitiuted for butter)

Marshmallows
The liquid from 1 can of no salt added garbanzo beans
2 tsp xanathan gum
1/2 cup plus 1/8 cup of caster sugar
1 pinch of salt
  
The Ganache:

8 oz of CocoaPlanet Vanilla Espresso chocolate or any good chocolate broken into pieces
1/2 cup of cream or coconut milk
1 Tbs unsalted or vegan margarine at room temperature

 Here's What To Do:

Bake the chocolate shortbread cookies.
Take them out of the oven.
Let them cool for about 5 minutes then move them to a cooling rack.

Immediately turn the oven down to 200 degrees.
Place the garbanzo liquid in the bowl of a stand mixer with the whisk attachment and whip at medium speed for about 4 minutes.

Turn the speed up to high and add in the sugar, salt and xanathan gum one at a time.

 Beat at high speed for about 10 minutes.

The Marshmallow fluff will get stiff and glossy.

When it's done it looks like this.

Put the marshmallow fluff into a pastry bag.

Pipe the fluff onto the top of each cookie.

Place the cookies back on the baking sheet.

Pop them into a 200 degree oven for about 30 minutes. This allows the marshmallow to bind to the cookie.

After 30 minutes remove them and let them cool.
Meanwhile prepare your ganache for dipping.
When the ganache has cooled, dip the cooled marshmallow tops into the cooled ganache.

Let the ganache set.

Place the smookies into an air tight container in the fridge to keep the chocolate coating crisp and the cookies fresh, then serve them up!

There they are, gluten free, and vegan. You'll never go back to Mallowmars again. Coming up next, back to Indian food, a kashmiri recipe for eggplant and apples that's a perfect side for a Meatless Monday feast follow along on Twitter @kathygori

Not Your Grandma's Green Tomatos. Green Tomato Sabzi, Quick, Spicy, and Vegan.

  
   Every year I plant tomatoes. They grow so easily and plentifully I usually wind up swamped by this time at the end of Summer. Things went a bit differently this year. We had a cold and rainy Spring and the early part of the Summer was not that warm, therefor I've spent the better part of August waiting for my tomatoes to turn red red red. The other day I got tired of waiting and wondered since Southerners in this country make a habit of eating Fried Green Tomatoes, how about people in other places. More specifically have green tomatoes fried or otherwise found their way into the Indian kitchen? The answer was, You Betcha!

   Green tomatoes seem to be a thing almost everywhere and I wondered just how many of those green tomato dishes were dreamed up by people like me who were hungry and tired of their tomatoes taking forever to ripen. There were a whole lot of ways to do Green Tomatoes but looking for a simple vegan version was pretty easy. Turns out that was what I was looking for for my Labor Day Vegan Indian Lunch Using Everything From Our Own Garden, a fast and simple recipe to get some use out of those slowpoke Green Tomatoes.

Green Tomato Sabzi

 

Here's What You Need:

3 cups of chopped Green Tomatoes
1/4 tsp mustard seeds
1/4 tsp fenugreek seeds
1 shallot finely chopped
1 tsp coriander powder
1 tsp Kashmiri chili
1 tsp cumin powder
4 Tbs jaggery or dark brown sugar
salt to taste

Here's What To Do:

Get yourself some green tomatoes.

Chop them into 3 cups worth.

Finely chop a shallot.

Heat 1 Tbs of vegetable oil in a skillet or kadhai.
When the oil is hot add in the mustard seeds.

When the mustard seeds start to pop add in the fenugreek and shallot.

Stir them around for about a minute then add in the tomatoes...

...cumin, coriander, Kashmiri chili and salt.

Mix everything together well then cover the pan and let cook for about 5 minutes.
After 5 minutes open the lid and give everything a good stir.

Add in the jaggery or brown sugar.

Turn the heat down to low, cover the pan again and let cook for another 5 minutes then stir again.
Take the lid off and let it further cook for another five minutes. Stir to make sure nothing is sticking or burning.

When the tomatoes are softened the sauce is ready.
Serve it up with rice or chapatti.

   It's hot spicy, sweet, and tart. A quick dish that goes from oven to table in less than an hour. This can easily be made ahead and reheated the next day for serving, always a plus when cooking on these extra hot hot hot Northern California September afternoons.

   Coming up next....more straight from the garden to the table, it's Wine Country Harvest Days follow along on Twitter @kathygori