Showing posts with label Garlic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Garlic. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 6, 2014

Spicy Onion Paratha #TwelveLoaves

Food Lust People Love: A spicy twist on traditional plain paratha made with wholemeal wheat flour and seasoned with onion, garlic, chili peppers and cilantro as well as ground coriander and garam masala and cooked on a hot griddle.

The name paratha comes from two words in Hindi and Urdu, parat meaning layer or flake and atta, which is flour, but not all paratha are multi-layered; some are simple flatbreads. All are cooked on a tawa or griddle. (P.S. It's pronounced prata. Just two syllables with the stress on the first.)

When we lived in Malaysia all those years, I volunteered in a monthly Booster Club fundraiser called PAC Shack. PAC stood for Panther Activity Center and once upon a time, it was actually a shack out in the field where moms and dads and even students served burgers with all the fixings and other goodies to raise funds for team uniforms and sports equipment.

By the time I joined the Booster Club roster of volunteers, we had a kitchen up in the main high school building with little ventilation, sad extractor fans and cardboard spread on the floor to stop us sliding around on the inevitable grease that accumulated from cooking fatty meat patties on the big diner-type flat grills.  By the time I had left KL, we had moved into bigger better facilities, with room to work and a kitchen sink with actual hot running water. But the one thing we never could get around were the tears when it was time to peel and slice onions in an enclosed space, no matter how well ventilated. The onions were always my job because I was the only one who didn’t bawl.

I’d take my 10-15 pounds out to a picnic table overlooking the school pool and get after it all by my lonesome, creating mountains of sliced onions to adorn the more than 600 burgers the other ladies were inside grilling and wrapping and popping in huge warmers before the lunch bell rang.

The moral of this story is, always get someone who wears contact lenses to slice your onions.  Those were my shields of eye protection! I found out the hard way that without them, I do cry.

This month my Twelve Loaves group decided on onions as our theme and I was delighted! I've been making paratha and chapati and naan for years so they seemed like the perfect oniony departure from the normal yeast bread I usually undertake for these challenges. I found a recipe online for an onion paratha that sounded fabulous. And indeed it is. I've added garlic and a bit more coriander, quantified for clarity and changed the method up in a quite a few ways that I hope will encourage someone to give it a try.

Ingredients
1 cup or 150g wholemeal wheat flour, plus extra for dusting as you roll the flatbread out
1 medium onion (about 6 1/3 oz or 180g)
1 clove garlic
1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds
2 small hot chilies
1/2 teaspoon garam masala
1 teaspoon ground coriander
Small bunch (about 3/4 oz or 20g) cilantro or coriander leaves
1 tablepoon olive oil, plus extra for sautéing the vegetables and greasing the griddle
1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt

Method
Mince your onion, garlic and chilies as finely as you can. Do the same with your cilantro. I cut off the long, hard stems but minced the tender parts with the leaves.



In a medium-sized saucepan, drizzle in a little oil and add your cumin seeds.

Watch closely so they don’t burn but let them toast till they are a little darker and then add in your minced onion, garlic and chilies and stir well. If the pan is too dry, drizzle in a little more oil.



Cook the mixture over a low to medium heat, stirring often. You want everything to brown but not to scorch. When the mixture is nicely browned, add in the chopped cilantro, along with the ground coriander and the garam masala. Stir well and remove from the heat and allow to cool.



In a large mixing bowl, or the bowl of your stand mixer, combine the flour, onion mixture, 1 tablespoon olive oil and the salt.



Add in 1/4 cup or 60ml warm water and mix thoroughly.

Now add more warm water, a tablespoon at a time, mixing well in between additions. Different flours require more or less water but you are looking for a nice cohesive soft dough. I ended up adding three tablespoons to get the right consistency.



Knead the dough by hand or machine for a few minutes.  Form it into a nice round ball.



Drizzle a little oil in a bowl and roll the ball around to grease it. Cover the bowl with cling film and set aside to rest for 20-30 minutes. I find that the longer I let the dough rest, the easier it is to roll into circles once it’s divided, so I make it earlier in the afternoon and let it rest until just before I am ready to serve dinner.



When you are ready to cook the paratha, divide the ball into six equal pieces.

First cut it in half, then each half into three pieces.

Sprinkle your clean work surface with some flour and use a rolling pin to roll each ball into a circle. Sprinkle on extra flour as necessary to keep the dough from sticking.

The hand is for scale. Each circle is about 8 inches or 20cm across.


Heat your griddle pan and drizzle on a little oil. Place the circle on the hot pan and watch it carefully. Brush the top with some more oil.

When little bubbles start to form on the top flip the paratha over to cook the other side.

Press down with your spatula to make sure that the paratha is making contact with the griddle. Cook for a few minutes, flipping a couple more times if necessary, until both sides have lovely brown spots all over.

I like to stack the paratha in a little sleeve made of folded aluminum foil to keep warm until I am ready to serve.



These are great with any kind of curry, like potato, chicken, fish or just dal but I must confess to warming one the next morning and nibbling on it while I sipped my cup of coffee. Divine.

Food Lust People Love: A spicy twist on traditional plain paratha made with wholemeal wheat flour and seasoned with onion, garlic, chili peppers and cilantro as well as ground coriander and garam masala and cooked on a hot griddle.

Enjoy!

Food Lust People Love: A spicy twist on traditional plain paratha made with wholemeal wheat flour and seasoned with onion, garlic, chili peppers and cilantro as well as ground coriander and garam masala and cooked on a hot griddle.




Are you a fan of all things bread and all things allium, by which I mean the onion family?  Then you are going to love this month’s Twelve Loaves recipes.








Saturday, April 19, 2014

Slow-Roasted Lamb with 40 Cloves of Garlic #NationalGarlicDay

Lamb shoulder is the perfect cut for a good long roasting in the oven and it goes especially well with garlic in abundance. The tender meat falls off the bones and the resulting gravy is rich and aromatic. If you’ve never tried lamb shoulder, it’s time, friends, it’s time. This recipe is best started early in the morning, or even the day before you want to serve it.




Growing up, my grandmother had what we call a fouillon about lamb that she passed on to my mother. I have no idea how that’s really spelled but it means a quirk against or an aversion in Cajun French. My mom extended this aversion to anything goat, as well, even my beloved goat milk cheese. She said she could taste the animal and it didn’t taste good. 

Needless to say, we never had lamb at home when I was a child so I didn’t really have an opportunity to try it until I married into a family of Brits who eat lamb all the time. It was too late to change my grandmother's mind, but I am pleased to say that I have converted my mother now and she enjoys rack of lamb and goat cheese. (Still working on the other cuts!) The moral of this story is that your mother is almost always right, unless she’s wrong.

Today we are celebrating National Garlic Day with a great garlicky giveaway and lots of center stage garlic recipes! Aside from its medicinal properties, garlic just tastes good. It adds warmth and spiciness and there are very few recipes that cannot be improved upon by adding garlic. Even ice cream! No kidding. Check out girlichef’s creamy treat made with black garlic in the links below. And make sure to enter the draw for the giveaway. One winner takes all!

Ingredients

Time! (This roasts for 6 and a half hours, not counting preparation and marinating time.)
1 shoulder of lamb on the bone, around 6 lbs or 2.7kg
1 cup or 240ml dry red wine

For seasoning the roast:
Leaves from 2-3 sprigs fresh rosemary (Plus extra sprigs for garnish, if desired)
2 teaspoons cumin seeds
2 teaspoons fennel seeds
2 teaspoons coriander seeds
10-12 black or mixed peppercorns
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
2 teaspoons flakey sea salt (like Maldon)
12 cloves garlic (about 1 3/4 oz or 50g)
1/8 cup or 30ml pomegranate molasses
1/4 cup or 60ml olive oil
Plus six extra cloves of garlic sliced lengthwise in quarters or sixths.

AND 22 more cloves – more or less – for adding to the pan in the last hour of roasting for a overall total of 40 cloves or about 6 oz or 165g of garlic.

Method
Use a mortar and pestle to crush the first eight ingredients in the spice mix list until you create a fine paste. Add in the pomegranate molasses and olive oil and stir until well combined.


Put the extra six sliced cloves into the mix.





Score the fatty top of your lamb shoulder with a sharp knife. Using a small paring knife, make holes all over the shoulder, turning the knife as you plunge it in to widen the holes enough for you to fit a forefinger in them.

Poke a piece of garlic into each hole, along with some of the spice mixture, until you’ve used up all the extra garlic and have spice filled holes on all the sides of the lamb.




Rub the rest of the spice mixture all over the shoulder. Wrap it securely with cling film, refrigerate and leave to marinate as long as you can. Overnight would be great but even an hour or two would be good.

When you are ready to start roasting the lamb shoulder, remove it from the refrigerator and preheat your oven to 400°F or 200°C.

Put lamb in a baking tray or pan and roast in the preheated oven for 30 minutes.


Add in your cup of wine and another cup of water around the roast. Cover with a tightly fitting lid or some aluminum foil. Turn the oven down to 250°F or 120°C.



After five hours, take the lamb out and toss in the remaining 22 whole garlic cloves. Baste it with the pan juices, cover the pan again and return it to the oven for one last hour of slow roasting.



When you are ready to serve, spoon off the oil in the pan. You can then pull the meat off the bones with a couple of forks and pour the pan juices over it. I let mine cool for quite a while and then wiggled the bones out to leave the roast looking relatively whole. Then I served it with a couple of forks and the pan juices made into gravy on the side. It was divine!


























How about these wonderful recipes celebrating GARLIC!



Sunday, January 19, 2014

Squid with Garlic Chili Olive Oil

Despite the title, this wonderful tapas dish also has smoked bacon pan-fried to crispy nuggets of deliciousness, along with the chilies, garlic and squid. And please don’t forget the squeeze of fresh lemon juice at the end. It elevates this dish to brilliant like a flood of hot sunshine on a sparkling white Majorcan beach.


Sunday Supper is getting the party started this week with tapas recipes. Delicious bites or snacks that are made especially for eating with drinks. And since, as I mentioned in my #CocktailDay post, this is my birthday week, I'm going to pretend that they are all for my own virtual party. Yay! Such fun!

When we were living in Paris, we took advantage of charter flights to head south and get away from the cold, damp winters that extended way too long into months we felt should have been quite rightfully spring. I’ve already written about Portugal here but one of our other favorite holidays was to the island of Majorca. To date this is our only venture into Spanish territory but I remember it so fondly, with its fresh seafood, white sandy beaches and clear, aquamarine waters that I knew immediately what I wanted to cook when the tapas theme was announced for Sunday Supper.

Majorcan traditional cooking uses mostly seafood and pork, so a dish of bacon and squid, with some garlic and chilies was perfect! I don’t mean to imply that this dish is authentic in any way or that I remember eating it there. I do want to say that it brought me back, in a way that only the clean smell of the sea in seafood and a good imagination can. I can almost feel the sand between my toes.

That little blondie is our elder daughter - Majorca, 1994


Ingredients
4 oz or 115g smoked slab bacon
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 or 2 small red hot chilies
Olive oil
1 lb or 450g whole fresh squid (I prefer baby squid, if I can get them.) Or about 9 oz or 260g already cleaned and sliced squid rings.
Sea salt flakes
Small handful fresh parsley leaves
2 sprigs fresh thyme, leaves picked off
1/4 large lemon

Method
Slice your garlic thinly and split the red chilies in half lengthwise. Chop your parsley and fresh thyme. Set aside.



Chop your bacon into the small, slim chunks the French like to call lardons.

Pan-fry them with a good drizzle of olive oil over a low heat while you clean and slice the squid.


For those of you using squid rings, you can skip this next part. Move ahead to where we are making sure the bacon is golden and crispy.

To clean the squid, first grab hold of the part that has the tentacles and pull it out of the tube-y bit. (I tried to find the technical terms for you but I didn’t think they’d be helpful after all. Who would have known what the mantle is? Yeah, me either.)

You can discard the leggy body bits from the squid but I happen to like the look of the little tentacles once they are cooked. If you agree, cut that part off just below the eyes and discard the part with the eyes. The ink sac is in that part. If you happen to pierce it, just wash everything off with water and put to dry on a paper towel. The squid ink is harmless. In fact, a lot of cooks use it to color pasta or add it to sauces.



Run your finger around inside of the tube-y bit until you find the hard thing that feels and looks like plastic. Pull it out. It should be almost as long as your squid tube so if it breaks off short, fish around and get the rest of it out and discard.

See, that thing. Take it out and throw it away.


Go check on the bacon. It should be starting to render the fat and fry gently. Give it a stir.



If you do decide to keep the leggy bit, turn it over and pinch out the hard bit with the black spot in the center and discard it.



Go check on the bacon. Give it another stir and make sure it isn’t burning.

Now peel off all the colored stuff from the outside of the squid tubes. You can use your hands but the easiest way is to rub it off with dry paper towels and then discard them. Rinse your squid in clean water and put it on paper towels to dry.



Your squid is clean! Slice it into wide rings.



Direct your attention to the bacon and turn the heat up a little if it’s not golden and crispy yet.

When it is golden and crispy, add in the garlic and chilies.

Sauté briefly until the garlic starts to brown around the edges and then put all the squid in at once. Give it a good stir. The squid should turn white and start to curl up.




Now is the time to sprinkle with sea salt and then the parsley and thyme. Give the whole thing a good stir.



Add in another generous drizzle of olive oil. Flavored olive oil is the best for dipping bread in so don’t be shy!

Squeeze in the juice of your lemon, give the dish one more good stir, and serve with slices of a fresh crusty loaf of French baguette.


Food Lust People Love: A wonderfully fragrant tapas dish with smoked bacon pan-fried to crispy nuggets of deliciousness, along with the chilies, garlic and squid. You'll love this Squid with Garlic Chili Olive Oil.
Enjoy!


Join our Sunday Supper host, Conni from Cosmopolitan Cornbread and travel with us to Spain or some other sunny clime for a festival of tapas.

When you are eating tapas, you need a glass of wine: Best Wines To Pair With Tapas from ENOFYLZ Wine Blog.

Pin Squid with Bacon and Garlic Chili Olive Oil!


Food Lust People Love: A wonderfully fragrant tapas dish with smoked bacon pan-fried to crispy nuggets of deliciousness, along with the chilies, garlic and squid. You'll love this Squid with Garlic Chili Olive Oil.


And for those of you who scrolled all the way to the bottom, I reward you with two more Majorca holiday photos. :) Thanks for stopping by!



Sunday, September 22, 2013

Butternut Squash Tian with Herb Topping

Roasted butternut squash and garlicky kale mixed with cheese and eggs are topped with herby breadcrumbs and baked for a great vegetarian main course or side dish I'm calling Butternut Squash Tian.

Food Lust People Love: Roasted butternut squash and garlicky kale mixed with cheese and eggs are topped with herby breadcrumbs and baked for a great vegetarian main course or side dish I'm calling Butternut Squash Tian.

I am always on the lookout for vegetarian recipes that make a great side but are also hearty enough to be eaten as a main dish. This recipe, adapted from Faith Durand’s post on TheKitchn can do both quite admirably. I decided to pretty it up from the usual casserole by baking it in a spring-form pan and serving it in slices. And before a load of angry French folk wielding Opinels arrive to object to my use of the word “tian,” (Bienvenue!) may I just say that I had never heard of the word before I saved the recipe almost a year ago, despite living for three years in France.

After a little research, I do now understand that the tian itself is the vessel AND the vegetable gratin that is cooked in it, so my pan choice probably means that this no longer qualifies as a tian. What can I say? It’s still delicious! And pretty! How many casseroles can say that?

This week on Sunday Supper, we are celebrating the arrival of Fall with comforting dishes using seasonal ingredients. Butternut squash is one of my favorites. And so is kale. Make sure you scroll to the bottom of this recipe to see all the other seasonal dishes on offer.

Ingredients
For the tian:
About 4lb or 1.9kg whole butternut squash
Olive oil for roasting
1/2 cup or 100g short-grain or arborio rice
1 3/4 oz or 50g freshly grated Grana Padano or Parmesan cheese
7 oz or 200g smoked cheese
2 large cloves garlic
5-6 large stems curly kale
3 large eggs
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

For the herb topping:
1 cup or 80g dried bread crumbs
1 big handful flat leaf parsley, leaves only
Leaves from 3 to 4 sprigs of thyme and/or rosemary (I used some of each.)
1 3/4 oz or 50g freshly grated Grana Padano or Parmesan cheese
2 tablespoons olive oil

Method
Preheat your oven to 400°F or 200°C and prepare your eventual baking pan or casserole dish by greasing it liberally. If you have an actual earthenware tian , more power to you! (My spring-form pan was 8 in or 20cm in diameter and about 3 in or 7 1/2cm deep.)

Peel the butternut squash, scrape the seeds out, and cut it into chunks.


Pile the squash up in a large roasting pan (not the one you’ve already prepared for baking the finished dish!) and drizzle liberally with olive oil. Toss the squash around a little so that it is well coated with the oil and then spread the chunks out into one layer. Sprinkle with flakey sea salt.


Roast for about one hour in your hot oven or until the butternut squash is fork tender and the edges have gone golden. You'll want to stir it around about half way through.


While the squash is roasting, boil your rice in salted water with a drizzle of olive oil, just as you would pasta. Keep a close eye on it. Since Arborio rice has such a high starch content, it tends to want to boil up and over. When the rice is just cooked - test a grain or two occasionally – drain the water out and set the rice aside to cool.


Grate all of your cheeses and make sure to divide the Grana Padano pile in half, some for the tian, some for the herb topping.


Meanwhile, remove the stems from your kale and chop it into small bits.


Mince your garlic then sauté it in a little olive oil being careful not to let it color. Add in the chopped kale and a sprinkle of sea salt. Cook, covered, until the kale is completely wilted. Set aside to cool.





To make your breadcrumb topping, add all of the dry ingredients to your food processor and process until it is completely uniform.

Add in the two tablespoons of olive oil and process again. Depending on the type of baking dish you use, you may have leftover topping. Store this in a bag in the freezer. It can be used for topping baked fish, much like in this delicious Bill Granger recipe .



When the squash is roasted, remove it from the oven and turn the oven down to 350°F or 180°C. Mash the squash with a potato masher and set it aside to cool slightly.


In a large bowl, whisk your eggs and then add in the butternut squash. Mix well.

Now add in the rest all of your tian ingredients: The wilted, garlicky kale, the cooked rice, all of the smoked cheese and the other half of the Grana Padano cheese that wasn’t used in the topping. Give the whole lot a good couple of grinds of fresh black pepper and then mix well.



Spoon the mixture into your prepared baking pan and smooth it out.

Top liberally with the herby breadcrumbs. As mentioned before, you can bake this in a larger casserole, in which case, you’ll probably use all of the breadcrumbs. For my smaller, deeper pan, I ended up using just about half. Pat the herb topping down so it doesn’t fall off later when serving.


Bake for one-hour, covering the top with foil part way through if the breadcrumb topping is getting too browned. Check that it is cooked through by putting a knife in and leaving it there for about 30 seconds. The knife should be very hot to the touch when it is removed. If you are using a shallower casserole dish, this may not take the full hour.

To remove from the spring-form pan, allow the tian to cool for a few minutes and then run a knife around the sides before releasing the catch.


Run a knife under the tian to loosen it from the base.


Slide to a serving plate, cut into slices and serve warm.

Food Lust People Love: Roasted butternut squash and garlicky kale mixed with cheese and eggs are topped with herby breadcrumbs and baked for a great vegetarian main course or side dish I'm calling Butternut Squash Tian.
Enjoy!


Many thanks to our Sunday Supper host this week, Soni from Soni's Food. We got news just yesterday that her family has suffered a major loss with the unexpected passing of her father. If you are so inclined, please keep them in your prayers.

Amazing Breakfasts, Brunches, and Breads
Outstanding Soups, Starters and Sides
Comforting Main Dishes
Decadent Desserts:
Tasty Drinks:

Pin this Butternut Squash Tian! 

Food Lust People Love: Roasted butternut squash and garlicky kale mixed with cheese and eggs are topped with herby breadcrumbs and baked for a great vegetarian main course or side dish I'm calling Butternut Squash Tian.