Roasted Tomatillo Salsa

aka salsa verde

I've posted a tomatillo sauce recipe before, a concoction that is mild and goes very nicely with a mild, cheesy enchilada. This salsa verde by Rick Bayless is much more flavorful, though, and is more of a star unto itself - great for serving with chips, or livening up simple beans and rice. M. saw the recipe featured on Mr Bayless's delightful show, Mexico One Plate at at Time. We first tried it out when Mom, intending to buy 4 tomatillos, accidentally bought 4 pounds of tomatillos via Peapod. This time around, we got a unit of tomatillos from our farm box and M. scored a free habanero from another stand.

Below is my adaptation of this recipe. You can add more or less hot peppers, depending on your type.

Roasted Tomatillo Salsa

Makes ~2 cups
Heat up the broiler.
Husk, stem, and wash ~1 lb tomatillos.
Peel 4 cloves garlic and 1/2 sweet onion.
Stem 1-2 hot peppers (we used 1 jalapeno and 1/2 habanero).
Roast the tomatillos, garlic, onion, and peppers in a rimmed pan (like a brownie pan) ~4" under the broiler until the skin of the tomatillos partially browns/blackens, about 4". Check them frequently - you can overdo it with a broiler pretty quickly.
When 1 side of the veggies looks good and roasted, flip/stir them and roast the other side for another 4 minutes or so.
Remove them from the oven and allow them to cool.
Meanwhile, wash and chop a small handful of cilantro (~1/4 c).
Put the roasted veggies, cilantro, and 1/2c water in a blender and run for just a few seconds - you want everything to chopped/mixed up but not completely uniform in consistency.

Note: this freezes really well!

Swordfish and Vegetables to Great Falls

Suzanne and M came to Great Falls (August 3) bearing swordfish from Whole Foods, zucchini from the rooftop at 704 William, and tomatoes from One Star Farm. (And lots of other things that made a fabulous gazpacho.) They also brought the following recipe from Whole Foods, calling for 3/4 lb. swordfish, skin removed 2 medium tomatoes, diced 2 small zucchini or yellow summer squash, or one of each [the recipe is so user-friendly], diced (about 2 1/2 cups) 3 cloves garlic, minced 2 T brined capers, drained and chopped We mixed the vegetables and put them atop the swordfish in an oiled casserole and let it meld in the frig. Suzanne added pepper and salt, and Robin leaned out the window and got thyme from the flowerbox. We cooked it for 35 minutes.

Neat loaf, part deux

Neat loaf is one of my favorite things to eat. Seriously! It's so good! I first had it at the SF restaurant Ananda Fuara - kinda weird atmosphere, but everything I've had there is fabulous and it's right around the corner from Symphony Hall. Neat loaf tastes nothing like meat loaf, but it does taste like heaven. I like it with Greek potatoes and some token vegetable. Om nom nom. When I had previously blogged about it, I linked to an online recipe. Imagine my horror when I found that link to be broken!! So, I realized I must post the recipe here myself. I've changed a few things, so I'm not being a total copycat. Here goes:

Preheat your oven to 300 degrees.
Start making rice, if you don't have any leftover. You will need 1/2 c cooked brown rice.
While the rice is cooking, start sauteeing 1 small onion, chopt, and ~3 large cloves garlic in EVOO.
In a separate bowl, beat 4 eggs.
Whisk in 2/3 packet of onion soup mix (I use Lipton - check the ingredients as sometimes these include sneaky meat) and 1/4 c EVOO.
Stir in 1/3 lb (~2/3 cup?) ricotta cheese and 1/3 lb soft tofu, crumbled. Mash it with your whisk to make sure it's reasonably well incorportated (small clumps are fine.)
Stir in your onion and garlic mixture, 1/2 c cooked brown rice, 1/2t oregano, 1/2t basil,  and 1/4t rosemary until well incorporated.
Gently stir in 4c bran flakes.
Pour into a greased loaf pan and bake for 1h at 300. Note: if you're making potatoes in the same oven, and you've ever made potatoes before, you'll know that it will take them A YEAR to cook at 300. I'll often bump it up to 350, 375 or so and just take the loaf out after 40 min or so. It seems to do fine - the sauce (below) hides any dryness caused by cooking it at a hot temperature.

While the loaf is cooking, make your BBQ sauce. I've never tried using store-bought BBQ sauce, but I bet it would work fine, too - just don't get one with a really out there flavor, like "ginger soy teriyaki bbq sauce" or something.
In a small bowl (a 2c measuring cup is an efficient way to do this), whisk together:
1/4c ketchup
1/4c tomato sauce (you can do all ketchup but it makes it super salty)

1/8c Dijon mustard
1/4c molasses
1/8c+ apple cider vinegar
1 pinch cayenne pepper (I do ~1/4t)

After the loaf has cooked for an hour, pull it out of the oven and pour the BBQ sauce on top. Let it cook for 10 more minutes. Let it rest for about 10 minutes before eating.

Superbowl noms

In honor of the Ravens' big trip to New Orleans, we had a small superbowl party with a large spread of delicious noms! I made sure to have lots of Baltimore specials, including hot crab dip w/ old bay, Ravens eggs (see below), Natty Boh, Heavy Seas beer, Ravenswood wine (techincally form California but I feel like it counts), and Bergers cookies, along with traditional Superbowl foods, like veggie chili and (faux) wings 'n' things w/ blue cheese dressing. I'm including a few of my new favorite recipes from last Sunday's festivities below:

Chunky blue cheese dressing
Adapted from the Joy of Cooking
Note: the original called for mayo, but I didn't have it, and I really liked the result

Process the following in a food processor until smooth:

• 1-2 garlic cloves (to make 1t minced garlic)
• 1c low fat sour cream
• ~2T red wine vinegar
• ~1T soy sauce 
• ~1T dried parsley (or 1/4c fresh)
• salt, black pepper, & old bay to taste

 Stir in 5 oz crumbled blue cheese and process until desired consistency.

I served it with wings, things, and other crudite.

Ravens eggs
Adapted from a TV news story and this recipe.
Note: these didn't taste quite as good as regular Ravens eggs, but they were fun to have for the game.

Make 6-7 hardboiled eggs (I follow the Joy of Cooking instructions)
Remove the yolks and reserve.
Boil the white halves in 1/2 bottle Ravenswood wine (the Zinfindel has a good purple hue)
When the whites have taken on a good purple color (5-10"), remove from the wine with a slotted spoon and refrigerate to set.
Make the yolks with old bay - we mashed them with the following:

• 2T mayo
• 1-2T sour cream
• squirt mustard
• salt, black pepper, & old bay to taste

Assemble eggs and sprinkle with paprika to serve.

Legend has it that these eggs are good luck if consumed before the end of the 1st quarter and bad luck if finished after that. We debunked that theory on Sunday however - we left a few for the 4th and the Ravens still won. So slow down, folks!

Hot & creamy crab dip
Adapted from this recipe from the Old Bay website

Preheat oven to 350.

In a medium bowl or food processor, mix 8 oz cream cheese (softened), 1c mayo, 2t Old Bay, 1 squirt mustard until well blended.

Gently fold in 1 lb backfin crabmeat (we used fresh Virginia crab - delicious!)*

Spread this mixture in a 9" pie plate. Sprinkle w/ 1/4c grated cheddar, bread crumbs, more old bay, and chives to taste.

Bake for 30" or until hot and bubbly.

I served it with tortilla chips & crudite. I bet crackers, fresh french bread, and/or bruschetta would be great, too!

*The result of a small miracle: our neighborhood store had fresh seafood that day

If you want a less creamy dip, this other recipe from the Old Bay website may be a good alternative.

Go Ravens!!

Dal / daal Makhani and the Haven

Hello all! This week has been amazing - I matched for residency, my dear friend/roommate got married to a great guy, I ate at my favorite hoagie restaurant in New Jersey (let the gloriousness of this moment not be underestimated), the Ravens are going to the super bowl, and Obama got inaugurated. Pretty hard to beat. Not unsurprisingly, Monday afternoon felt like a bit of an anticlimax. How do you top all that awesomeness?! With an unnecessarily elaborate Indian supper, that's how! I love Indian food - spicy, delicious, and (much of it) vegetarian. Now that I am comfortable with the basics of Indian cooking, I LOVE making it at home - all the great flavors of an Indian buffet without all the salt, butter, cream, and MSG.

If you're into Indian home cooking, Anupy Singla is a great resource. She is an Indian-American author with several cookbooks, none of which I own (sadly). She specializes in Indian slow cooker recipes as well as healthy vegan recipes. She has a great blog, Indian as Apple Pie. None of the recipes I have tried from her site have been duds - none. Today I made her Dal Makhani. I followed her recipe pretty closely, but I made enough changes that it bears a re-write here:

Rinse 1.5c dried lentils and 3/4c dried kidney beans. Black lentils are ideal, brown OK. Soak overnight.
Cover the beans and lentils with water and simmer with 1 cinnamon stick, 6 balls allspice or 3 cloves, 2 bay leaves, and 1t turmeric powder for about 1 hour, until soft enough to eat. Turn off and leave covered when done.
When the beans are done, process 4 cloves garlic, 1 onion, 1" fresh ginger, and 1.5 jalapenos (I left the seeds in - use your judgement depending on how much spice you like).
Next, heat 4T butter or EVOO in a saucepan.
Toast 1t cumin seeds until they sputter, ~1".


Add the garlic/onion/ginger/jalapeno mixture and saute until it becomes fragrant and slightly browned, 3-4".
Add 6 oz tomato paste and stir. Add a little water if needed to keep the mixture from sticking to the pan.
Put the lentils/beans and the contents of the saute pan into your slow cooker.
Stir in a few shakes of cardamom powder and salt to taste (~1t).
Cook for about 6 hours on low. Stir in 1/4 cup coconut milk at the end.

I paired it with garlic naan, saag, and raita. Note that if you get lazy with that saag recipe, you can replace most of the spices with a few shakes of garam masala and call it a day.

Pictures of the best hoagie place on the planet:

Hoagie Haven, Princeton, NJ. Can't get the photo to rotate =(

Grease stains in front of the bench out front: this is how you know it's good.