Food – Page 19 – Into the Woods

The squash kicks in

Squash-tofu curry, cucumbers in sour cream

I picked the first yellow squash today. I already had decided that it would go into a squash-tofu curry.

The abbey’s cucumber plants are climbing high and producing excellently. Unless one has enough cucumbers to pickle, cucumbers have to be eaten fresh every day. I decided on cucumbers in sour cream. That’s a Polish dish, I believe — cucumbers dressed with sour cream, a bit of vinegar, a bit of sweetener, and salt. But the concept is the same as an Indian cucumber raita. It’s a cooling dish, and so it’s a nice contrast with a spicy curry. Sour cream or yoghurt — let your conscience be your guide.

When the garden is making lots of cucumbers, I like to stay one day behind. Today’s cucumbers get washed, wrapped in moist muslin, and stashed in the fridge. Tomorrow, they’ll be nice and chilled and ready to eat. Garden cucumbers are like garden tomatoes. It’s impossible to have too many.

First pesto of the season

Cucumber-pasta pesto. Click here for high-resolution version.

In the summer garden, the basil and cucumbers won the competition for who gets to the kitchen first. The yellow squash will be about one day behind, the first tomato about five days.

It has been an excellent gardening year, at least for the summer garden. The rainfall has been generous and well timed.

Life is good when the garden is doing well.

Click here for high-resolution version.

Garden report

Click here for high-resolution version.

I’m not the sort of gardener who does everything the same from year to year. I experiment. I try to learn from my failures. After all, gardening is an exercise in adaptability, since conditions are never exactly the same.

This year’s garden strategy was to plant sparsely in such a way that every individual plant can be pampered. I made the rows very wide so that I can use the tiller to cultivate between rows to keep down the weeds. For the remaining weeds, I’m hoeing, or pulling weeds by hand. I resolved that there would be no irrigation this year. Partly this is because the long-range precipitation forecast looked good, and partly it was because the old piping had gotten leaky and worn out, and I had to discard it. I was planting during a period of heavy rains, and washouts were a possibility. So I planted in raised rows (shaped with a hoe) and mounds (also shaped with a hoe). Everything that can climb must climb. Climbing plants such as cucumbers greatly prefer to climb, rather than to sprawl. I made cucumber trellises and tomato supports from rebar and heavy string. Weeds are much easier to manage when things don’t sprawl. There’s also my snake phobia. I don’t want to leave any places where snakes can hide.

So far, the result has been good. My primary weakness as a gardener is to let the weeds get away from me after the weather gets hot and miserable. So far, I’m well ahead of the weeds. The squash are blooming. The first green tomato has formed. There are lots of tiny cucumbers. The basil is vigorous. The onions seem a little slow, probably because I got them planted a little too late. I’m growing lots of okra this year.

So far the outlook is good for a productive summer garden.

Old Salem farmer’s market

I don’t get out much. But spring weather and the prospect of food are pretty good motivators.

One of the best farmer’s markets in this area is the Cobblestone market at Old Salem. Old Salem is the Salem half of Winston-Salem, a place with colonial roots going back to the Great Wagon Road from Pennsylvania to Georgia. Salem was on that road (which also passed just half a mile east of the abbey). The settlers were Moravians, a communal Protestant denomination with roots in Germany.

The market opened just last week. There were plenty of greenhouse items, including starter plants, lettuces, and spring greens. If you walk two minutes down old Main Street from the farmer’s market, you come to Salem Tavern. George Washington slept there. They offer a traditional cuisine, competent but also tourist-friendly. Going there is always a treat.

This is a hostess in one of the restored colonial buildings in Old Salem. Her costume is handmade and authentic — silk taffeta and linen.

Salem Tavern

Al fresco under the arbor behind the tavern

I did not order or eat this burger! Another guest did. Photographed by permission. That’s sweet potato waffle fries.

Chow mein (approximately)

As I mentioned in the previous post on Polish pierogi, if you can’t make things authentic, at least you can make things good. The fact that we don’t have either the skills or the ingredients to do exotic cuisines authentically doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t take inspiration from those cuisines and do the best we can. There’s an analogy to musicianship. The fact that we’re not all professional musicians and didn’t go to Juilliard should never stop us from making the best homemade music that we can make.

But back to the kitchen.

For the chow mein, I used whole wheat linguini for the pasta. The vegetables are broccoli, carrots, cabbage, onion, red pepper, celery, and garlic. The sauce is a combination of soy sauce, rice vinegar, honey, vegetable bouillon paste, and harissa sauce, which is a Tunisian pepper sauce that I always stock. I always have soy sauce and rice vinegar, but that’s about all I ever have that’s specifically Chinese.

No wok? A big skillet will do.

Just from experimentation, I think I have at least partly figured out the secret of wok cooking (using a big skillet). The reason you need high heat is to quickly boil away the water that leaks from the vegetables. The presence of water being converted to steam greatly lowers the temperature. But once the vegetables slow down on leaking water, you must be very careful and work quickly lest things get too hot. Once the wok starts to dry out, the browning process begins. You want the vegetables as dry as you can get them without overcooking them, and you want as much brown as you can get, because that’s where the umami is. Practice is required. It alls happens very fast. But this chow mein left no vegetable water in the bottom of the plate (or in the wok). The shiny brown color comes not only from the brownness of the sauces (which also must be largely boiled off by high heat), but also from the browning of the vegetables. The cooking oil makes everything shine.

Tofu would have gone very nicely with this. But I had roasted peanuts as a second course.

Pierogi (approximately)

I have never seen a filled dumpling or a filled pastry that I didn’t like. Have you?

Earlier today, I came across a list of comfort foods from every American state. What a list! Here it is. The one that kept my attention, though, was Ohio — pierogi.

The only thing holding me back was that I didn’t want to eat all that dough — white dough, anyway. It so happened that I’d been grinding wheat this morning. So why not try to make pierogi from fresh-ground whole-wheat flour? (For my post on how easy it is to grind your own flour — with the right machine, anyway — see here.)

I know absolutely nothing about Polish cuisine. I wish I did. But in the spirit of intrepid cooking, I’ll try anything, keeping in mind the principle that, at least you can make it good even if you can’t make it authentic. For basic instructions on pierogi-making, I consulted this. I steamed the pierogi in the steam oven rather than boiling them, and after steaming them I gently browned them in butter.

For the filling, I used potatoes, peas, browned onions, and celery. From English cookery, we know that a certain kind of alchemy happens when peas, celery, and other savory things are contained inside a crust. The filling was delicious. My sauce — a sweet and sour pepper-paste sauce — was probably more Asian than Polish. But from a bit of Googling it would appear that there are absolutely no rules about what to serve with pierogi. The limit is your imagination and what you happen to have in your kitchen.

Pastas and dumplings have a lower glycemic index than bread, so pierogis would be a good way to get your grains.

The other two photos, below, are recent makings in the grain department — whole wheat banana bread, and a cornbread luncheon sandwich of peanut butter and onion, made from leftover cornbread.

More about barley

Click here for high-resolution version

Back in January, when I wrote a post about fried barley polenta, I was using organic pearled barley, because that’s what I had at the time. However, pearled barley (though it’s very good) is not really a whole-grain product. Hulled barley is. Today, while it was snowing outside, I did another experiment with barley polenta using organic hulled barley. You can buy organic hulled barley in bulk at Whole Foods. It’s one of the best bargains in the Whole Foods bulk section.

There’s something magical about barley. It sticks to the ribs like nothing else. It’s outrageously healthy, both for the digestive system and for the bloodstream. It’s one of those foods that is pure medicine. No wonder the gladiators ate it. Smart people would figure out a way to make it a staple, using much more barley and much less wheat. The most delicious way to use barley that I’ve figured out so far is to make polenta from barley grits. Once you’ve figured out your method for cracking the barley into grits and working it into polenta, the next step is figuring out ways to season it. I plan to spin it as sausage when it’s served at breakfast (using sage and pepper). And it works great as a binder for vegetable burgers when served at supper. I’m guessing that it also would make a fine raisin pudding. It loves sauces, including gravy. It would make excellent arancini or risotto. It would substitute for meatballs in lots of recipes. It could be combined with soybeans and appropriate seasonings to make a vegan meatloaf. The barley experiments will continue.

Click here for high-resolution version

The photos in this post are digital, using natural light from north-facing windows.

Oh no. More low-end grocery stores.

I went into a Lidl store for the first time yesterday. I had no idea what it is, any more than I knew what an Aldi store is the first (and last) time I went into one. I was shocked that this is the way the grocery business is going — extremely wide aisles, not much choice, and sorry looking stuff.

However, I was not too proud to help myself to the 49-cent avocados, which surely were a loss leader. As I waited at the checkout, I noticed a big sign that says, “Carefully curated for you.” That, of course, means that they don’t have everything. It means that they have only what they can sell for cheap.

Thanks, but I don’t want my groceries “curated” for cheapness. Granted, a Lidl store might be a good thing for people who increasingly buy their groceries at stores like Dollar General, which have no fresh food. Lidl does seem to have fast-moving produce, even if it’s not the best quality.

Now I’m even more concerned about the future of Whole Foods. And I wish I liked gardening a whole lot more than I actually do. Especially during the summer, when the sun is hot and the weeds are vigorous, I’m a kitchen creature, not a garden creature.

Fried barley polenta

A good New Year’s resolution would be: Eat less bread, but eat more barley.

They didn’t call the gladiators “barley eaters” for nothing. I think we tend to scorn barley, because it’s old fashioned and common, in favor of fad grains such as quinoa (which I detest for its taste and texture and overpriced fad-itude). Barley, on the other hand, loves seasonings. It has a very meaty bite and chew. The list of barley’s virtues is very long.

Barley grits, I believe, can be bought at health food stores. I made my own from whole pearl barley, using the grinder attachment on my Champion juicer. I cooked the grits slowly in the steam oven until they were well done but on the dry side. I used vegetable broth as the liquid to give the grits a little more oomph.

I wanted a sausage spin, so I added sage, pepper, and garlic powder. I used brewer’s yeast as a binder and to help keep the mixture fairly dry. I rolled the mixture into aluminum foil and let it cool. Then I sliced it into patties and fried the patties in butter on low heat.

I’ve done a lot of experimenting with vegetable protein patties. I’d have to say that this was one of the best.

Fresh-ground barley grits

Cooled and ready to slice

Nikon digital photos

Improvisations on foo yung

Szechuan-style foo yung with yellow squash and store-bought pot stickers.

The chickens are laying so well and I am so rich with eggs that I’ve been eating far too much egg foo yung — and, of course, running experiments. This is a post about Szechuan-style sauce. It’s also a post about MSG.

First, about MSG.

I cannot find any scientific reason for being afraid of MSG. Glutamates occur naturally in many foods, especially the tasty ones such as mushrooms and roquefort. As far as I tell, MSG these days is made through a natural fermentation process. I’ll leave you to read up on all that, though, if you’re interested in the rehabilitation of MSG. As for me, I am increasingly convinced that MSG has its place in a healthy, clean-cooking kitchen.

Last week, while sautéeing onions, I added half a teaspoon of MSG, and within a couple of minutes the onions turned very brown, though the heat was low. (I never cook with high heat unless I’m boiling water.) I Googled and couldn’t find a word about any browning capabilities of MSG. But then I read the Wikipedia article, and, sure enough, MSG will get involved in the Maillard reaction — the browning of food. The Wikipedia article says that this occurs under high heat in the presence of sugar, but I can testify that the heat I use is not high, and that the onions brown — very fast! — under much lower heat, and much quicker, than onions would otherwise brown. Onions work well for this, because there is far more sugar in onions than we might think. Now this easy browning is pure alchemy! Not only are your sautéed vegetables nice and brown, the sautée process also leaves a nice brown glaze in the pan which cries out to be deglazed into a savory sauce.

I have been making a Szechuan-style sauce using harisa paste, a pepper paste that actually is Tunisian in origin. I buy it at Whole Foods. But who cares if we mix our regional cuisines. Pepper paste is pepper paste. As readers here know, I almost never write up recipes, because most of the time I don’t use recipes. But the general idea is: Deglaze the sautée pan by bringing some rice vinegar to a boil. Add honey, soy sauce, a little toasted sesame oil, and pepper paste. Reduce it until it foams. It makes a great sauce for tofu, vegetables, foo yung, or whatever.

The pot stickers, by the way, come from the freezer department at Trader Joe’s. They are sold as Thai Gyoza. But I prefer to call them pot stickers. I have tried to make pot stickers, but I just don’t have the touch, and they come out too big and heavy. The Trader Joe’s pot stickers are vegetarian and very reasonably priced.

Onions, sautéed over medium heat until soft

The same onions, same heat, about three minutes after adding a half teaspoon of MSG