Yam Fajita Momma

Hey Becky-

One day back from your house, and I've already made the yam fajitas.

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Chorizo-Poblano-and-Yam-Fajitas-with-Lime-Marinated-Red-Onions-350963

They were so beautiful... pretty pops of orange yam and green poblano peppers sprinkled with the creamy white feta (French feta... less salty than regular Greek style feta). Very wise of your man to suggest slicing the red onions mandolin-thin. The lime juice seriously broke them down in a pliable yet still crispy, tangy way.

I meant to share a photo with you, but by the time I remembered, there was a set of teeth marks in the fajita wrapper (compliments of Carolinas: http://carolinasmex.com/)

Becky, you are so lucky to have Carolina's flour tortillas in driving distance. Thin, floury, yet stretchy at the same time (but not moist like at the average burrito place). I'm happy to have 3 packages in the freezer, but really wish Carolina's had a shipping service. In the meantime, I just need to keep making trips to Phoenix :)

Pita Madness

Becky-

Can't wait to see you tomorrow- wedding countdown clock at T-4 days (it's annoying now, but in a week, you'll read and smile).

In the meantime, I'll tell you a little story about a girl named Banana, who went to Israel 2 years ago. A sucker for any kind of local spice, Banana went to the market in Jerusalem and stumbled across a fragrant green spice called za'atar (see photo). The stuff has been around for thousands of years, but it took a trip halfway across the world to notice. Turns out, the spice was a mixture of thyme, marjoram, oregano, and sesame seeds- fragrant in an earthly, mildly musky way.


And it was commonly used to season thin, crispy, chewy flatbread...


Thinking she'd hit the jackpot, Banana waltzed out of the market with a 1 pound bag of za'atar and visions of homemade pita.

Fast forward 2 years. Banana is Anna, the bag of za'atar still weighs one pound, and no pita had been produced... until Sunday. Blame it on guilt, lack of pantry space, or the fact that I owed Matt a birthday dinner... regardless, a full kebab dinner was produced, with homemade za'atar pita to boot:
Here are the recipes- all worked pretty well with a few modifications.

Pita: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/recipes/pitabread
*1/4-1/8 of an inch will get you a pita as thick as War and Peace... roll those suckers till they're paper thin. If you have za'atar, sprinkle pita dough with olive oil, then rub with za'atar and salt right before baking.

Shawarma: http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/lamb-shawarma
*spice mixture worked well. I used a cut of lamb leg, but it was tough... recommend using the method in the recipe. Skip the sauce.

Tzatziki: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/gyro-meat-with-tzatziki-sauce-recipe/index.html
*skip the gyro meat recipe (the meat will fall apart), but the tzatziki is awesome. If you use plain greek yogurt, no need to drain.

Eggplant Fries: http://www.bonappetit.com/recipes/2011/08/eggplant-fries
*Changed my life, follow this one exact

Let me know if you try this out... I'll bring za'atar with me tomorrow.

Pasta for Posterity

A ten month hiatus... at least you have an excuse with wedding planning. I've just been lazy :) So much good food from Portugal and Korea to write about, but in the meantime, I need to document my ravioli recipe. Dug my trusty recipe out of the box today only to realize it was stuck to another recipe. Several minutes of prying and praying, and it came unglued- barely. So if you don't mind, I'd like to document electronically :)

Anna's Ravioli

Pasta
1.5 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup semolina flour
1/2 tsp salt
3 large eggs
2 tblsp oil
1 tblsp water (if dry)

Combine all ingredients in Kitchenaid mixer with paddle attachment. Mix on speed 4 for 1 minute. Turn off mixer and knead by hand to gather up dry bits- there should be dry bits, and if there aren't then you've added too much liquid. Add a bit of semolina in this case. If the dough crumbles in your hand, then add 1/2 tsp of water- the dough should be a firm, grainy ball. Add Dough Hook and mix on speed 4 for 1-2 more minutes. Dough should look smooth and somewhat shiny. Allow dough to rest up to 30 minutes in plastic wrap before rolling. Roll to desired thickness with roller attachment, making sure to place on a floured surface.


Ricotta
8 cups whole milk
4 cups buttermilk
Pinch of salt
strainer lined with cheesecloth

Combine whole and buttermilk in a pot over medium high heat. Stir constantly. As milk reaches boiling point, the curds will separate from the whey. Skim off curds and place in cheesecloth- there should be roughly 2 cups. Allow to drain anywhere from 5-20 minutes, depending on how firm you prefer your ricotta. Dump drained curds into bowl and season with a pinch of salt. Fantastic when served warm over crostini (stir in basil and honey). For this purpose... we're making ravioli filling.

Ravioli filling
1 cup cooled ricotta cheese (above)
1 large egg, whisked
1/2 cup shredded pecorino
fresh cracked pepper

Combine all ingredients in bowl, stirring until just combined

Assembly
Floured counter
Boiling pot of water

On a flat sheet of raw, floured pasta dough, dollop ~1tsp filling at 1 inch intervals. Take a 2nd sheet of pasta dough and lay ontop. Press all around the edges and between dollops to begin formation of ravioli. Cut with ravioli cutting wheel (a knife will do the trick too, but the wheel makes fun edges). After cutting with wheel, gently separate ravioli and examine edges. Odds are they won't be perfect, so pinch closed to seal any popped edges. Cook ravioli in boiling water for 3 minutes. DO NOT add pasta to water until it has reached a rapid boil- otherwise, the noodles will stick together. Drain after 3 minutes, and enjoy! Really good tossed with olive oil and topped with shredded parm... or with Trader Joes vodka sauce (after this much work, you won't want to make sauce too, trust me)

Happy eating!

Hey Becky-

Would have been nice if I checked the blog first before sending you the harassment email about reunion. As usual, you're a step ahead ;) The Cornell chicken recipe sounds amazing- but to be honest, I'm not sure I have the patience to grill for 45 minutes on indirect heat. Maybe a job for the boys- they like to mess around with gas barrels and fire, I like playing with my knives :)

Salt potatoes are totally an upstate New York thing. Every Sunday at Mimi's (my grandma's), we'd go to the local fire pit and order two spit-roasted barbeque chickens, a few ears of corn, and a styrefoam container of salt potatoes covered in clarified butter. The chicken was so smoky, sweet, juicy, and crispy all at the same time- nothing like a smashed buttery potato to round out the experience. Dessert was always strawberry shortcake. With real whipped cream. I've never heard of grape pie- likely because my grandmother lives in a town of 1000 people... imagine grape pie is more common near the wineries in the Fingerlakes.

At any rate- the reunion food fest sounds like a date to me!

Next time, remind me to tell you about my pumpkin ravioli experiment. Everything from the pumpkin itself to the ricotta and pasta dough were scratch made. It was fun, but I'm thankful for Trader Joes during the week- no wonder my great grandmother spent her life kneading bread dough!

Cornell Reunion Via Food

Hi Anna,

So I got to doing some date-related math the other day, and next May, we will have been graduated from Cornell for 5 years. Eeek! When did this happen?

I'm probably not going to be able to make it to reunion, since a) I'll be graduating from my master's program, b) I'm planning a trip to China in May so that my grandparents can meet Boy before we get married, and c) I already keep in touch with the people I want to from our class.

I saw this recipe on Huffington Post, and thought it would be a great meal spread to make in honor of Cornell, Ithaca, and all things upstate New York. Check out the article link at the end.

~Becky

Bob Baker's Cornell Chicken Recipe

Makes. 16 chicken quarters
Preparation time. 20 minutes
Cooking time. About 1 hour

Ingredients
1 egg
1 cup vegetable oil
2 cups cider vinegar
1 tablespoon table salt
1 tablespoon poultry seasoning (click for recipe)
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
4 broiler chickens cut into quarters

About quartering the bird. The original recipe calls for cutting the birds in half, but I think it is better to quarter them since the breast and thighs cook at different rates, with the breasts being thicker, but less forgiving. You can overcook thighs and drums a bit and still have moist meat, but not breasts.

About the sauce. It is very close to a mayonnaise, so you can store the sauce in the fridge for a couple of weeks, even though there is raw egg, because the vinegar, salt, and cold will prevent salmonella from multiplying. Cooking, of course makes it perfectly safe. You can cut the recipe in half by discarding half the egg after whisking it.

About the salt. I found Dr. Baker's original recipe just a bit salty at 3 tablespoons, so I cut it back to 1 tablespoon.

Do this
1) In a large bowl, whisk the egg white and yolk together with a balloon whisk or a hand mixer. Add the oil and whisk until it gets thick, homogenous, and a bright yellow, for about 2 minutes. A balloon whisk is the best tool for this job since the wire strands really do a good job or emulsifying (mixing together) the two ingredients, one oil based, the other water. Now whisk in the vinegar, salt, seasoning, and pepper.

2) Stab the chicken skin several times with a fork or knife so the marinade can get in and so fat can get out when cooking. This will help make the skin crispy. Marinate the chicken for 3 to 24 hours in zipper bags. You can do this in a bowl or pan, but you need more marinade than if you use zipper bags. Every hour or so, turn the meat a bit so all surfaces get well coated.

3) Set up the grill for 2-zone indirect cooking. This is an important technique. Click the link if you are not familiar with 2-zone grilling. Place the chicken over the indirect zone and close the lid. Every 5-10 minutes baste, turn the chickens on both sides, and move the ones closer to the heat away and the ones away closer.

4) Cooking about 30 to 45 minutes until the internal temperature of each part is 150F and stop basting. Then move them over the hot direct heat side of the grill, skin side down, and crisp the skin without burning it for 10-15 minutes. Flip and heat for about 5 minutes more. This step is important to finish cooking, crisp the skins, and make sure the meat is sterile since raw egg can contain salmonella. When the skin is crisp and the joint temp is at least 165F, take the meat off. For the dark meat stick the probe of a good instant read thermometer in the joint between the drumstick and thigh. That's the place that takes longest to cook. Even if it is a bit red in there when you cut in, it is safe at 165F according to USDA. I strongly recommend you use one of the fine new digital thermocouple thermometers available nowadays to make sure your poultry and other foods are cooked properly for taste and safety.

**Copied from article on Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/craig-goldwyn/crispy-cornell-chicken-recipe_b_771375.html

Corn Pesto

Hey Becky-

Normally my weeknight dinners are pretty boring- pizza, pasta with red sauce, soup... anything I can throw in the oven or a pot and heat. But I'm still pretending that I'm on vacation (and paying for it now as I type this at midnight). After digging through my cooking magazines, decided to try the pasta with corn pesto recipe from last month's Bon Appetit... except I made my own pasta :)

The pasta itself was an accomplishment this time- my dough generally varies from dry and gritty to sticky. This time, I combined 4 eggs, 1 tblsp oil, 2 tblsp water, 1/2 tsp salt, 2 c semolina flour, 1.5 c all purpose flour in the mixer and mixed 30 seconds with the flat beater and 2 minutes with the dough hook for a smooth, even consistency. And then- I actually let the dough rest. What a difference! The gluten must have had a chance to chill and lengthen- the dough was much more pliable than normal. Rather than beating it into submission with a rolling pin, we only had to feed it through the pasta roller a few times. Phew.

And the idea of creating a pesto with corn? Genius! Creamy, sweet like honey, and coated the pasta noodles evenly. The sweetness can be offset by either bacon (super salty, crunchy, totally out there like a swimsuit model in a thong) or by smoked salmon (smooth, smoky, mellow like a French model smoking a cigarette)- harmonized by clean, cool basil and salty sharp Parmesan.

One of my best weeknight dinners that I can't make every night because it took 1.5 hours. Started by chopping 4 pieces of bacon and frying till crispy. Remove bacon, wipe fry pan. In the meantime, cut corn off 3 cobs (~2 cups of corn), which is surprisingly easier when the corn is raw vs. cooked. Smash 1 garlic clove. Add garlic, corn, pinch salt, few grinds of pepper to pan and heat till crisp/tender. Then, make the pesto- use 3/4 of the corn, 1/4c pine nuts (or a nut blend if you don't have those- cashews and almonds are fun), 1/2c Parm, and combine with olive oil- I usually need to stir in between pulses or half my pesto looks like baby food and the other half is unprocessed. Dump ontop of pasta with remaining corn, bacon pieces, and basil. Stir to combine, and serve with more parm. If you have it, smoked salmon adds an entirely different smoky layer.

Hey Becky-

Where the hell did the summer go- September already? What have you been up to? Like all good foodies, I've been earmarking time based on what I've eaten. Trip to Seattle? Nah, it was all about that crab omelet that I ate at Pike's Place Market and the Senegalese food in the family owned restaurant. More to come on that later- I'll spend the next few days trying to catch you up on my food adventures, and I hope to hear about yours too!

Starting with today... Taste of Blue Ash is our favorite local food festival. Blue Ash is a small suburb with a few thousand residents that looks like the Pleasantville movie set- streetlights, brick sidewalks, manicured street signs, and a propensity to compete with downtown's festivals by holding their own. Small restaurants offer $3-$5 portions, and with ~20 vendors it's enough variety to be entertaining without being completely overwhelming. Granted, the restaurants aren't the most popular by chain or by locavore standards, but a few dishes stood out: Cajun scallops on field greens with vinaigrette from La Petit France. Simple, well executed (the scallops were firm yet tender with a crispy glaze), and healthy (unheard of during a street fair). Parker's Blue Ash Grill always comes to the party with a firecracker stick- a tortilla stuffed with shrimp, sausage, and onions then rolled/deep fried and dunked in a cheesy tomato sauce. It's almost cheating because of the deep frying- but something about the spicy sausage setting off the crispy shell doused in cheesy, creamy goodness puts all pessimism to rest. And hell, everyone was walking around with one, sweating bullets no less (it was hot this afternoon)! There was a pork taco stand, though it didn't hold a candle to our local taco truck, Senor Roy's. I know, a taco truck in Cincinnati! Who would have thought that this was a cool enough city to merit a food truck?! Ach, so much to catch up on!