Hummus Attempt No. 3
1 can garbanzo beans, drained, with liquid reserved
4 cloves garlic
1/2 jalapeno
3 Tbsp lemon juice
1/8 cup tahini
1 tsp cumin
1 Tbsp olive oil
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
Small handful of parsley
Pinch lime zest
Salt and pepper, to taste
Put all ingredients in a food processor and puree until smooth. Add about 1/4 cup of the reserved garbanzo liquid, more if needed for a “thick batter” consistency. Season with salt and pepper. Chill and serve.
Salsa Attempt No. 3
6 Roma tomatoes
10 tomatillos
4 cloves garlic
1 serrano pepper
3 jalapeno peppers
1 chipotle pepper in adobo
1 onion, in eighths
Juice of 1/2 lime
Small handful of cilantro
Pinch cumin
Salt and pepper, to taste
Turn on the broiler and move the oven rack to the second to the top position. On a broiling pan, arrange the tomatoes, tomatillos, onion pieces, one jalapeno pepper, and one serrano pepper. Place under the broiler and cook until pretty well browned or blackened, turning vegetables to cook evenly, probably 10 to 20 minutes.
Seed the other two jalapeno peppers. De-membrane-ify one of them. Put the jalapenos, garlic, chipotle pepper, lime juice, cumin, and cilantro in a food processor.
Take the vegetables out from under the broiler. Cover for about five minutes. Take the skins off of the tomatoes, tomatillos, and the peppers. Seed the peppers as well as you can, and then put everything in the food processor. Puree until it reaches a consistency you like. Add salt and pepper to taste. Chill before serving.
Argh! I haven’t made anything this week! Pretty much I’ve been eating up leftovers. Today I made the TastyBite Palak Paneer and it was not as good as I was hoping. Sadness.
I still have to write about the cooking class!
I’m taking a cooking class today at the California Culinary Academy. Here is the copy from their pamphlet.
Essentials: Kitchen Skills
Learn essential cooking techniques such as searing, sauteing, poaching, and grilling. Work with different proteins (ie. fish, meat, poultry) to create perfectly prepared masterpieces. The menu may include Grilled New York Strip Loin Topped with Red Onion Confit, Seared Sea Scallops with Orange Ginger Sauce, Sauteed Pork Medallions with Wild Mushroom Hunter Sauce and more!
Tell you about it later.
I did a LOT of cooking today. Hummus, salsa, biscuits, corn, and fried chicken. I was kind of tired by the end of it all.
Huzzah for Sigona’s! They had the tahini I was looking for. They also had a block of tamarind paste, for which my parents have been searching in order to make their pad thai perfect. Woo, tahini! I like to say it like a Jawa. (I was going to tell a story about my brother falling off his skateboard when he was 13, but it’s a little gross, so I’m not.)
Hummus Attempt No. 2 is very different than No. 1. It is a looser consistency and much less cumin-y. As I said in the comment, they are both good hummuses (hummi? hummae?), but they have diverse prospects in life. I would enjoy No. 1 on a pita with some red onion. Hummus No. 2 I would use as a dip for popcorn. I do not think my quest is at an end, yet. Tweaking is needed. The lime zest and jalapeno I threw in just because I had them out for the salsa, but I think they worked. The jalapeno, definitely.
I’m close on the salsa. Very close. Jon says it’s still too sweet, but Ryan liked it, and so did I. I was a little surprised when I only needed the juice of half the lime. I also zested it, thinking that perhaps I’d need it, but I didn’t (see above).
The corn was… interesting. Interesting in the fact that I was afraid my house was going to blow up. I cranked my oven up to 550 and put the corn in on the broiler pan (just the lower part). I got thirty minutes into it and all of a sudden my oven shuts OFF. It’s not just off, it’s completely dead. I think I’ve blown a fuse or something. I also imagine a Backdraft-y kind of situation. I decided to leave the corn in the dead oven for the last ten minutes because it’s still pretty damn hot. By the time I pull it, it’s gone down to 350, 300-ish. The finished product was very good. I don’t know if it was “ambrosia,” but I think that may be because my oven wasn’t able to go the distance. Next time, 525.
Cheers again to Keckler, from whose website I got the quote from Murder Is Corny.
Cheers also to my friend Kenny, who linked to me a few days ago. Kenny is the undisputed King of Slow Eating. Seriously. If you have a dispute, ask him out to lunch. He’s a very funny lad.
(Okay, I’ve gotten through half of my to-do list.)
Oven-Roasted Corn (The Nero Wolfe Method)
Murder is Corny by Rex Stout
Wolfe: It must be nearly mature, but not quite, and it must be picked not more than three hours before it reaches me. Do you eat sweet corn?
Cramer: Yes. You’re stalling.
Wolfe: No. Who cooks it?
Cramer: My wife. I haven’t got a Fritz.
Wolfe: Does she cook it in water?
Cramer: Sure. Is yours cooked in beer?
Wolfe: No. Millions of American women, and some men, commit that outrage every summer day. They are turning a superb treat into mere provender. Shucked and boiled in water, sweet corn is edible and nutritious; roasted in husk in the hottest possible oven for forty minutes, shucked at the table, and buttered and salted, nothing else, it is ambrosia. No chef’s ingenuity and imagination have ever created a finer dish. American women should themselves be boiled in water.
Hummus Attempt No. 2
1 can of garbanzo beans
1/8 cup tahini
3 cloves garlic
1/8-1/4 cup fresh parsley
3 Tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp olive oil
1/4-1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
Salt and pepper, to taste
Pinch of lime zest (optional)
1/2 jalapeno pepper (optional)
Drain garbanzo beans, reserving liquid. Put all ingredients in a food processor and puree until smooth. Add about 1/4 cup of the reserved garbanzo liquid, more if needed for the “thick batter” consistency. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Chill and serve.
Salsa Attempt No. 2
8 smallish tomatoes
11 tomatillos
1 serrano pepper
2 jalapeno peppers
1 chipotle pepper in adobo
1 onion, in eighths
2 large garlic cloves
Juice of 1/2 a lime
Small handful of cilantro
Salt and pepper, to taste
Turn on the broiler and move the oven rack to the second to the top position. On a broiling pan, arrange the tomatoes, tomatillos, onion pieces, one jalapeno pepper, and one serrano pepper. Place under the broiler and cook until pretty well browned or blackened, turning vegetables to cook evenly, probably 10 to 20 minutes.
Seed and de-membrane-ify the other jalapeno pepper. Put half of this pepper, the garlic, chipotle pepper, lime juice, and cilantro in a food processor.
Take the vegetables out from under the broiler. Cover for about five minutes. Take the skins off of the tomatoes, tomatillos, and the peppers. Seed the pepper as well as you can, and then put everything in the food processor. Puree until it reaches a consistency you like. Salt to taste, and add the other half of the jalapeno if it’s not spicy enough for you. Re-puree. Chill before serving.
So, the house in which Good Eats was taped is up for auction.
I made hummus yesterday. The recipe below was kindly sent to me from Val- thank you muchly. I changed a few things. I was over at Jon and Ryan’s, because they have a food processor and I don’t. They (J&R) had whole cumin seeds as well as ground, so I decided if I was already going to be toasting the sesame seeds, I might as well toast and grind the cumin. I wasn’t really sure how much whole cumin would be in a quarter teaspoon of ground, so I guessed and toasted about half to three-quarters of a teaspoon of seeds, then ground them up in a mortar and pestle. I think it was too much; the hummus turned out VERY cumin-y. Also, I used bottled lemon juice, giving it an extra squirt at the end for some added acidity. That probably made a difference. And an extra clove of garlic.
What I’m trying to do with this hummus is make a clone of the Trader Joe’s Spicy Hummus. This was a good start. I will try again soon.
Also, I have more tomatoes, so I’ll probably be attempting salsa again next week.