Summer Rolls et al.

Summer rolls are not to be confused with their ubiquitous counterpart, the spring roll.  I think most Americans (I can't really speak for other nations) are more familiar with the spring roll, and many people confuse them or use them interchangeably.  It's kind of like the macaroon/macaron thing (THEY ARE NOT THE SAME!-- I hope to blog about them sometime in the future).  I suppose it's a little less egregious; some people consider summer rolls to be a type of spring roll, fairly unique to Vietnam.  In Hawaii, the difference is cooking.  Spring rolls are fried; summer rolls are not, and feature fresh/minimally cooked ingredients.  I'm all about mnemonics, so I keep them straight this way: once the summer gets really hot, you don't want to fry anything.

I hadn't encountered summer rolls until I moved out to Hawaii.  I loved them instantly.  I like the thin, melt-in-your-mouth rice wrapper and fresh ingredients.  They're crisp and refreshing, and my favorites come with spicy peanut dipping sauce. Yum!  They can be made with a variety of ingredients; I adapted a recipe published in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser to make mine.

To go with the summer rolls, my fiancé and I made up a whole bunch of small bits to eat for dinner: deviled eggs (see previous blog), stuffed peppers (I've blogged a recipe before, but I'll include what we did this time), and bacon-chickenskin skewers.

Summer Rolls
1 Tbsp vinegar
1/2 tsp sugar
1/2 C julienned, matchsticked, or grated carrots
1 1/2 C chopped red cabbage (napa cabbage was called for, but red was easier to find/use leftovers of)
1/4 C matchsticked bell peppers
1/4 C matchsticked radishes
2 Tbsp scallions
8ish cooked shrimp, halved the long way
Summer Roll Rice Wrappers

Combine the vinegar and sugar with a pinch of salt, and stir until everything is dissolved.  I recommend heating it slightly, to help everything dissolve.  It'll also help wilt the cabbage a bit, because red cabbage is quite sturdy (more so than napa-- they're not really interchangeable; adapt!).  Because the next thing is to toss the vinegar mixture with the cabbage and carrots.  Once you've done that, get a large dish of hot water (I used a pie pan) and soften a wrapper by dipping it in there. Working on a damp paper towel, lay out the wrapper, and put a mound of cabbage on it. Layer on the bell peppers, radishes and scallions, too, along with 2 pieces of shrimp.  Roll by folding up the bottom, then the sides, and rolling toward the top, keeping the roll tight.  Keep damp (but not wet) until serving.  Repeat until you're out of ingredients.  Serve with dipping sauce: I had some Thai chili sauce left over from the root beer pulled pork (see previous blog), so I just used that.

Stuffed Peppers II
10ish mini bell peppers
3/4 C crumbled Queso Fresco
1/8 C bread crumbs
1/8 C chopped onions

Combine the queso fresco, bread crumbs, and onions.  Halve and clean the peppers, and fill with the cheese mixture.  Broil about 5-10 minutes until the tops are lightly browned.  If desired (or if you have extra bacon leftover from the skewers), wrap in bacon prior to broiling.

Bacon-Chickenskin Skewers
Bacon
Chickenskin, cut into strips
Ground sage

Season the chickenskin with sage, salt, and pepper.  Place a strip of bacon on top and thread/weave onto a skewer.  Pan-crisp over medium-high heat for ~5 minutes, then finish in the broiler.

Going back to the summer rolls: they're pretty versatile, in that you can put in what you want/ what you have on hand (obviously, I used red cabbage instead of napa, which is a rather significant difference).  I feel like these might be a good way to use up some leftovers, if you could appropriately season them.  (Chop up some teriyaki chicken, toss it with cold rice, cabbage, carrots…)  There's a perfect moisture level for keeping these until serving that I am still not quite sure about; too wet will make the wrapper stick to everything; too dry and it'll crack apart.  Don't stress too much about it, and be prepared to tweak your set-up. 

The peppers are super-simple, but delicious.  My fiancé loves them.  He mastered the making of them pretty quickly, which makes life easy for me!  We eat them as sides, snacks, appetizers, and occasionally even have leftovers.  They reheat nicely.

The skewers were a bit tricky for me; the broiler finish was sort of a last-ditch effort on my part to get that chicken skin crisped through, but it worked quite well. I'd still like it crispier, so I'm going to need to work with it some more, but it's a decent consistency as presented here.  It makes the skewers that much more indulgent to me; I've always loved the richness of the skin on poultry.

Sweet Potato Fries and Stuffed Burgers

Alrighty, this won't be too original or anything,  but it was yummy nonetheless.  And really, burgers are always a great food to make, especially if you have friends coming over.  I found the recipe for the fries  on Pinterest, and couldn't wait to try them.  I also created a couple sauces to go with the fries (and/or on the burgers).

Sweet Potato Oven-Fries
1 or 2 medium sweet potatoes
Bacon, cooked
~ 4 Tbsp Garlic Confit Oil (or olive oil)
1 tsp Chili Powder
1 tsp Ground Cumin
1 tsp Ground Paprika
Salt and Pepper

Peel the potatoes and slice them into french fries. Cut or break the bacon (depending on how crisp you've got it) into pieces.  Place the fries and bacon in a bowl, drizzle over the oil, and toss to coat; sprinkle over and mix in the spices.  Dump onto a large baking sheet and spread out into a single layer. Bake in a 425˚F oven for about 20 minutes until crisp/toasty.

Cheese-stuffed Hamburgers
1.5 lbs ground sirloin
1 tsp worcestershire sauce
2 tsp onion powder
1 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp chili powder
1 tsp pepper
1 tsp salt
Cheese of your choice (we used babble and colby jack)

Slice the cheese to about 1.5 inches by 1 inch by a quarter inch.  Combine all ingredients except the cheese in a mixing bowl and mix thoroughly.  I recommend using your hands and just squishing it all together; you're going to need your hands to form the burgers, right?  Scoop out a burger-sized portion, then divide in half.  Place a piece of cheese in the center of one half; cover with the other half and flatten into a burger.  (Tip:  Make your burger wider and flatter than you want it to be; it'll contract and thicken as it cooks, and you don't want to have to squish out the juice to make it flatter while cooking.)  Grill or cook in a pan (or on a griddle, I suppose) over medium-high heat.

Spicy ketchup
1/4 C ketchup
1/2 tsp cumin
1/4 onion powder
1/4 tsp pepper
dash crushed red pepper flakes

Combine all ingredients and allow to sit for an hour or so for flavor development.

Creamy Chive Dressing
1 Tbsp mayonaisse
1 1/2 Tbsp milk
1 Tbsp snipped fresh chives
1 clove crushed garlic confit
pinch of salt
1/2 tsp pepper
dash oregano

Combine all ingredients, cover, shake, and allow to sit in the refrigerator for an hour or so for flavor development.

I think my favorite part of this was the spicy ketchup, honestly.  It was so good, and the longer I let it sit, the better the flavor.  It was reminiscent of barbecue sauce in the end.  Tasty!   The chive sauce was a little bit like ranch.  It made a nice cooling contrast with the fries.  The burgers were yummy, too.  My fiancé cooked them, and he's great at that, so they were moist and had a nice crispness/char.  I had issues with the fries-- I did it in two batches and slightly burnt the first (larger) batch.  They were still good, but it struck me as a bit of a bummer.  I was concerned about repeating the mistake, so I erred the other way on the second batch, and they weren't so crisp.  The recipe was great.  I was just distracted and chatting with my friend, and wanted to give the fries a couple minutes more, and then someone asked, "hey what about the fries?" seven minutes later.  But it made for a great dinner, very casual, very fun.

If a crepe and a quiche had a baby...

My wonderful aunt got me an absolutely fabulous Christmas present this year-- a couple magazine subscriptions, including Simple & Delicious.  NAILED IT!  The recipes are all simple, quick, and no doubt delicious.  When I was flipping through and found a recipe for a puff pancake, I decided that I needed a fancy breakfast for myself.  I had some old candy bars and a ton of super-ripe melon that I wanted to use up, so I opted to use them instead of berries as the recipe instructed.
I was also interested to see how it would turn out.  It was different from any other pancake recipe I've seen.  You make it in a pie pan and bake it, for one.  Also, it has 3 times the sugar and 1/3 the flour of the pancake recipe I normally use.  From reading BakeWise, by Shirley O. Corriher (more on this book in a later blog), I recognized a couple things: the first was steam leavening.  There isn't anything in this recipe that will cause the "puff" other than steam (no baking powder, etc.).  Also, the amount of sugar probably affects the texture.  I can't be sure on that without tweaking the recipe, but I'm reluctant to try that.

Puff Pancakes
1 Tbsp butter
3 eggs
1/2 C milk
1/3 C flour
1/4 tsp salt
3 Tbsp sugar
3 chopped Yogurette bars (or some other chocolate/yogurt candy)
1 C chopped honeyrock/ cantaloupe


Preheat your oven to 400˚F.  Place the butter in a pie plate and put in the oven to heat up.  Whisk together the eggs, milk, flour, salt, and sugar.  Briefly (so it doesn't cool too much) pull out the pie plate, and tilt/swirl so the butter coats the entire surface.  Pour in the batter, and replace in the oven for 10-12 minutes to bake.  While it's baking, sprinkle the melon with a bit of powdered sugar.  The sides should puff up and become slightly brown.  Immediately put the chocolate on the pancake so that it will melt.  Top with the melon, and serve hot and fresh.

Yummy!  The texture, as I suggested in the title, is a lot like a cross between and crepe and a quiche.  This made me think that it would also be delightful with savory components.  I tried this, actually, using cheese, bacon, and bell peppers, and it was so yummy.  My fiancé thought so, too.  Sadly, I have no photo for this.  But the point I'm trying to make is that it is deliciously versatile; you can put any number of toppings on this.
It really does need to be served right away, not just kept warm.  I wanted my chocolate to melt, so I took out the pancake, and put it back almost right away.  It still deflated.  That said, the puff-look is the only thing affected.  It actually keeps well in the fridge, so if you have any left over (you know, if you don't eat the whole thing yourself, or share it with people), you can enjoy it the next day.

Need a Vegan Dip?

While I had the Greek cookbook, I decided I ought to look at how Mr. Psilakis made tsatsiki.  I cannot get enough of that.  I didn't actually make it, though, because I didn't have a need for it, and I didn't have time to go to Whole Foods to get the kind of yogurt that I like.  But on the opposite page was a recipe for eggplant spread.  It used the garlic confit, and one of the serving/use suggestions included the chickpea confit.  Well, why not?  Bonus: eggplant.  I like to try new things with eggplant, because I've had some great eggplant, but personally find it tricky.  I want to get it right!  I want to get somewhere where I can say, "oh, look at that beautiful eggplant!  I know just what to do with it!"  This recipe is a great step in that direction.

Eggplant Spread
1 large Eggplant
1 Tbsp Olive Oil
6 Shallots
2 cloves Garlic
1 mini red bell pepper
1 mini yellow bell pepper
1 Tbsp lemon juice
12 cloves Garlic Confit 
1/4 C red wine vinegar
1/4 C olive oil

Preheat the oven to 350˚F, wrap the eggplant in foil and roast it in the oven until very soft.  For me, it took about an hour and a half.  Let it cool enough that you can touch it without blistering your fingertips off, then peel the eggplant.  I cut it into large pieces.  Line a colander with, if you have it, a double thickness of cheesecloth. I didn't, so I used a whole bunch of paper napkins instead.  Place the eggplant into the lined colander to drain overnight.

When ready to resume cooking, dice the shallots, smash and mince the garlic cloves, use a toaster oven to roast the bell peppers, and cut the red one into strips and the yellow one into smaller pieces (it makes things a little more visually interesting).  Warm the olive oil over medium-high heat, and cook the shallots until tender.  Add the garlic and bell peppers and cook about a minute more.  Remove from heat and deglaze the pan with the lemon juice.

In a food processor or blender, combine half the eggplant and the garlic confit.  Purée until smooth, then add the red wine vinegar.  Slowly drizzle in the olive oil while blending constantly (you're making an emulsion here).

Chop the remaining eggplant, and combine with the shallot mixture and eggplant purée in a good-sized bowl.  Season liberally with salt and pepper.

This dip has an amazingly creamy mouthfeel and taste.  I was surprised; I double-checked the recipe to make sure that I hadn't forgotten adding a dairy component at some point.  It was delicious.  I ate it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, usually spread on top of some beer bread, although I also used it as a dip for veggies and chips.  It probably would have been a nice addition to sandwiches, although I never got that far.  The biggest criticism I had of it was that it is not very pretty.  It is (as you can see) this odd brownish color.  I know that's just the color of eggplant, but it makes it harder to get people to try something new.

The serving suggestion I took advantage of involved combining 1 C eggplant spread and 1 C chickpea confit (drained).  Chop them together on an easily-wiped-down cutting board, then transfer them into a bowl.  Add an egg and about 1/3 C breadcrumbs (enough to make it a texture that can be formed into a ball).  Form into small fritters, dredge in flour, and deep-fry until crisp. 

The fritters were also fantastic.  Like all fried things, they were best hot, although they were so flavorful I enjoyed them cold, too.  Both of these recipes are my new favorite way to eat eggplant.

Chickpea Confit

My last blog was about garlic confit, a recipe I found in How to Roast a Lamb.  While I was doing the whole confit thing, I went ahead and made chickpea confit, too.  There was a bit of irony to this recipe, because I used canned chickpeas, which are already shelf-stable, and made what is essentially a preserve out of them.  But it's another kind of deliciousness, so let's not get hung up on that.





Chickpea Confit (By Michael Psilakis)
1 head Garlic
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp mustard seeds
28 oz. canned chickpeas (aka garbanzo beans)
Kosher salt
Pepper
Canola Oil
Olive Oil

Separate and peel the garlic cloves, and rinse and thoroughly drain the chickpeas.  Preheat the oven to 325˚F.  Combine the garlic, cumin, mustard seeds, and chickpeas in a heavy, oven-safe pot.  Season with salt and pepper, and pour in equal amounts of olive and canola oils until everything is just barely covered.  Place the lid on the pot and cook about 45 minutes, until "aromatic but not browned."

Sterilize a jar.  After the chickpeas are finished, let them cool and transfer them and their oil into the jar. Store in the refrigerator, and enjoy the delicious chickpeas and cumin-flavored oil.

When I decided to make this, I wondered what I would do with a bunch of chickpeas.  I had a vague idea that I could make some amazingly awesome hummus.  I still haven't done so (I've gotten hung up on tahini), but I've made excellent salads.  The oil is great for a vinaigrette, and the chickpeas themselves are a nice topping to a salad.  Make your salad even fancier by adding home-made croutons toasted in the oil.  The chickpeas are also ideal for fritters or burgers, bringing rich flavor that they don't necessarily have.

Probably my favorite thing that I did with these, though, was a fresh tomato salad.  I cut up some tomatoes and some fresh, mild-flavored cheese (I used Babybel, because I had some, but mozzarella or queso fresco would be equally nice).  I tossed them together with some of the chickpea confit, a bit of balsamic vinegar, a tiny drizzle of oil from the garlic confit (just to give it a little more garlic flavor), and some thyme.  It was delicious, healthy, and a great side dish or snack.

Thank you, Michael Psilakis. I love the garlic.

I recently got lost-ish in the library, found myself toddling down the cookbook aisle, and wound up checking out How to Roast a Lamb: New Greek Classic Cooking (ISBN: 9780316041218).  I love this book.  I want to cook just about everything.  I'll probably buy it sooner or later.  But in the meantime, I chose two recipes that sounded too good to pass up: Garlic Confit and Chickpea Confit.  This blog will for the garlic confit; chickpeas will get their own.

The writer, Michael Psilakis,  said in the intro for the garlic confit recipe that the reader would thank him for that recipe, "if nothing else in this book."  He was right!  So as I said in the title, thanks, Mr. Psilakis.

Confit is a traditional preservation method in which the item you are preserving is slow-cooked in oil.  It works because the oil keeps out water and makes it difficult for bacteria to grow.  So the trick here is that you want everything to be as dry as possible, and you want to have a bit of extra oil.  Because we live in the 21st century, refrigeration adds even more shelf-life to confit, so the recipe uses a blend of olive oil and canola oil.  Olive oil for flavor; canola to keep it clear and fluid in the cold.

Garlic Confit
3 C garlic cloves, peeled
2 dried bay leaves
10 sprigs fresh thyme
1 Tbsp Kosher salt (skimpy Tbsp)
1/2 Tbsp Pepper
1 C olive oil
1 C canola oil

Preheat your oven to 350˚F.  Put the garlic cloves in a heavy, oven-safe pan.  Add the bay leaves, thyme, salt, and pepper.  Cover the whole lot with oil, cover, and pop in the oven for an hour and 15 minutes, until it is tender and golden.  Pull it out and cool it to room temperature (approximately).

While the confit is cooling, sterilize a jar.  To do this, place it in a pot of water so that the water is able to flow in and out of it, and bring it to a boil.  After a couple minutes of boiling, carefully remove the jar from the water (and pour out the water), and place it upside-down on clean, dry paper towels.  Allow to dry completely, and DO NOT touch the inside.

When the confit is cooled, transfer it into the jar.  I had to use a spoon (which I sterilized the same way I sterilized the jar).  Cover the surface with a piece of plastic wrap (don't touch the oil!), and place the lid on the jar.  You don't need the confit to be perfectly room temperature, just cool enough to not shatter the jar.  The less time you spend cooling it, the less time conditions are good for bacterial growth.  Once you've to it in the jar, you can let it continue to cool.  You can place it in a cold-water bath to cool quickly.  Then put it in the fridge.  According to Mr. Psilakis, they should last at least 3 weeks in the fridge, as long as you aren't sticking your fingers in or anything.

The hardest part of this is that is time-consuming.  I spent close to 2 hours peeling garlic.  I set up a little peeling station, with a bowl for peel, a bowl for peeled cloves, and a bowl of whole heads of garlic, put on a show I liked, and did my best to enjoy it. 

The best part of cooking this (besides eating; I'll get to that) was that my whole house smelled like garlic.  In a really pleasant, Italian-restaurant-y kind of way.  It isn't like raw garlic.  

The flavor is amazing!  I love it.  This is garlic at its finest.  I was able to eat a whole clove of it.  It was almost sweet, without being caramelized.  It didn't sting or even give me bad breath.  And the oil!  Oh, I LOVE the oil.  I've been cooking just about everything with this oil-- popcorn, meat, veggies.  I drizzled it over a tomato.  BEST DANG TOMATO I have ever eaten!  Worth all the time an effort I put into it.  Hands down.

World cuisine-inspired Deviled Eggs

If you use Pinterest, you probably noticed that around Easter, everyone and their husband's uncle's mother-in-law's best friend's cow pins deviled egg recipes, because if you have kids, there's a good chance you're dyeing eggs.  And if you're dyeing eggs, there's an even better chance you hard-boiled them.  And then you're stuck trying to eat a dozen or so hard-boiled eggs in a relatively short time period.  Deviled eggs are a great way to do this.  Deviled eggs are also a neat opportunity to explore savory flavors.

World cuisine is a great source of flavor inspiration.  While no one dish or combination of flavors can capture the complexity and diversity of national and/or regional cuisines, one can see certain flavors predominate, or certain dishes are near and dear to people's hearts.  I've used that approach to create these deviled egg recipes-- one is inspired by flavors I associate with Mexican foods; the other is inspired by Greek flavors.

A friend of mine told me recently that she really enjoyed these recipes; apparently she does't usually like deviled eggs and just tried them to be polite.  For her benefit (and that of others, probably), I'm going to try to include measurements.  Please note that the measurements listed in the following recipes are estimates, and should be adjusted to taste.  If in doubt, put in less to start with.


Mexican-inspired Deviled Eggs
4 hard-boiled eggs
2-3 Tbsp mayonaise
1 tsp yellow mustard
1/4 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp ground cumin
pinch onion powder (a big pinch)
1 Tbsp chopped fresh cilantro leaves, plus some for garnish
salt and pepper


Cut the eggs in half and pop the yolks out.  Place the yolks in a small bowl and add the mayo, mustard, chili powder, cumin, and onion powder.  Using a fork, mash everything together until it is [more or less] smooth.  Stir in the cilantro leaves, and season to taste with salt and pepper.  If you're feeling fancy, pipe the yolk mixture back into the egg white halves.  If you just want to get them done, don't want to deal with cleaning a piping bag, don't have a piping bag (and don't want to use the plastic baggie with a snipped corner method), or can't bear the thought of losing even a little bit of the delicious yolk mixture to a bag, just spoon the mixture into the egg white halves.  They'll taste good enough that people shouldn't mind too much.  Garnish, if desired, with a sprig of fresh cilantro.

Greek-inspired Deviled Eggs
4 hard-boiled eggs
2-3 Tbsp mayonaise
1 tsp yellow mustard (a skimpy tsp)
1/4 tsp lemon juice
dash dried lemon zest
1/2 tsp dried oregano
pinch garlic powder
salt and pepper

As above, halve the eggs and scoop out the yolks.  Mash together the yolks, mayo, mustard, lemon juice and zest, oregano, and garlic powder.  Season to taste with salt and pepper, and place into the halved egg whites.



Something I've learned the hard way: egg whites are slippery buggers.  Watch out!  My recommendation is not to serve them on a regular plate.  Use a dish with sides, like a pie pan or a storage container, or one of those fancy egg-plates that have indentations just for deviled eggs.  

Also, if you can let these recipes sit for a little bit, you'll have better flavors, because the ingredients will have more time to blend their flavors together.  I recommend doing this before filling the eggs, because a small bowl is pretty easy to cover tightly.  The filling will dry out if you aren't careful, and it can look a little funky when that happens.  

Finally, I am always on the look-out for tips for "perfect" eggs.  I have not yet worked out the magic formula.  What I have worked out is the easiest way to cook them: put the eggs in a pot filled with cool water, and bring it to a boil.  Once it comes to a rolling boil, turn off the heat, cover the pot, and let the eggs cook with carry-over heat until the water has cooled.  I like this method because it saves me wondering how long is long enough for cooking them.  It also uses energy efficiently; you only need to heat the water to a boil.  I usually boil the eggs right before I need to run and errand or something, so all that carry-over cooking/cooling happens while I'm busy with other things.  It makes it seem like I'm not waiting.