Spoonful of curry over our notes from Udaipur

For Diwali, I decided to put the spices I picked up at the Bastille market to good use. I bought six different types of spices, plus dried lentils and chickpeas, on the weekend. The man scooping up the spices for me was hilarious in a please-let-me-just-buy-what-I-want sort of way. He had a lot of input on what I was buying, even though I told him they’re not all for the same recipe, and he kept on trying to sell me the generic “curry” spice when I said I wanted to make a curry. Also, the French are absolute wimps when it comes to spice. I got piment fort and the spice man looked impressed, and after a generous teaspoon I can’t say it brought any heat to our curry. Bah.

I also saw this idea on a different blog one day and decided to try it myself: I documented the cooking process with my iPhone/Insta.gram, and the pictures look so much better than if I had tried to style the food!

Enjoy the picture tutorial with the recipe for Indian masala from our cooking class in Udaipur earlier this year.

  
  
  
  

1. Grind up half of an onion (or a shallot) with a knob of ginger and a garlic clove or two in a mortar and pestle. You can use a blender if you want, but the flavours aren’t quite the same. You can also do what I did: put in Ziploc, wrap between tea towel, and beat with a rolling pin.
2. In a pot, heat up oil and fry up the other half of the onion, diced, with 2 tsp. of cumin seeds.
3. Add in the paste when your onions are cooked to translucent. Add in 1 tsp. each of coriander powder and turmeric, and cayenne or something spicy and salt to taste. If you have garam masala, throw a dash of that in, too. I didn’t, and my curry worked out fine.
4. When it gets quite paste-y and the onions are cooked through, add in 1/2 cup of water. Stir. Bring to a boil, and then reduce until you see some of the oil come through the liquid.
5. Chop up some tomatoes (3 roma tomatoes for me) and throw them in. Bring to a boil, then simmer for at least 20 minutes.
6. In the mean time, prepare your lentils by cooking them in water until just done, and drain into curry sauce. Let simmer together for another 20 minutes or so, longer if you have the time and patience. Serve with rice or naan.

Note: you may need to add more liquid to your sauce as it cooks, depending on the time and heat you cook at. Adjust as you see fit – some people like a watery sauce, some like a thick sauce.

Happy (belated) Diwali!

Read the rest of Lentil Curry on mango on an apple. © mangoonanapple.com 2009 - 2011

When you have a flat of peaches on your kitchen counter, ripening by the second, there’s a lot of pressure to come up with recipes to let the little fuzzy things serve their purpose in life. Then I saw this picture of a stone fruit lattice pie, and knew immediately it was going to be my muse.

The recipe from Bon Appétit suggests using orange flower water in the pie filling, and my mind immediately went into overdrive with ideas. I eventually settled on using orange zest instead of the always dependable lemon juice and zest combination in pie fillings. The addition of orange zest turned out to be subtle when baked, gave the fruits a light citrus-y finish that’s familiar, yet a little different. I’m a big fan.

  

Ingredients {makes 1 7″-pie}

• 6 large peaches, peeled, cored, and sliced
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1 small orange, zested; divide zest into 1 tsp + “the rest”
• 2 packed tbsp brown sugar
• 2 tbsp granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup frozen (or fresh) raspberries
• 1 tbsp cornstarch
• 300g/200g/100g ratio of my fail-proof pie crust recipe, or your favourite pie crust recipe
• 1 beaten egg and some sugar, for brushing and sprinkling the top of the pie crust

Directions

1. Toss peaches, nutmeg, orange zest, and the sugars together in a large bowl. Let sit at room temperature while you work on the crust.
2. Prepare the crust, and mix in “the rest” of the orange zest with the flour if you’re making the crust from scratch.
3. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.
4. Line the bottom of a pie dish with pie crust, and cut the remainder into strips for the lattice top. Set aside the strips.
5. Drain peaches, and save 1/4 cup of the liquid.
6. Mix reserved liquid with cornstarch and whisk well, then pour back into the peach mixture. Add in the raspberries, toss everything together evenly.
7. Throw the filling into the pie dish, and top with the strips arranged in a lattice pattern.
8. Brush with egg wash and sprinkle on some sugar. I used granulated, but coarse sugar would be best.
9. Bake on a cookie sheet at 375 degrees for 25 minutes, then reduce heat to 350 degrees and bake until the crust is golden and the filling is bubbly. Remove from oven and let sit for a few minutes before digging in!

Although the peaches and raspberries were super juicy, I think the cornstarch really did its job in the mixture of holding back the moisture from soaking the bottom of the pie crust. The end result was one very flaky pie on both the top and the bottom, with delicious soft peaches and raspberries soaked in syrup in the middle!

Read the rest of Peach Raspberry Pie on mango on an apple. © mangoonanapple.com 2009 - 2011

(Or tea cake, since Alex devoured two slices half a cake with a cup of tea.)

I love strawberry season in Canada. Strawberries were the only fruit that I missed terribly when we were traveling, despite the abundance of tropical delicacies in Taiwan and Thailand. Even though you could get imported grapes from Chile, cherries from California, and lychees from China, there just didn’t seem to be an overwhelming enthusiasm for summer berry season in Asia. Plus, unless you peeked into a Starbucks, things like berry crumbles or squares just aren’t part of the sweets lineup over there.

So I’m making up for the lack of strawberry lovin’ in my life now, especially because it’s a short season. Ever since I saw the strawberry summer cake over at smitten kitchen, I’ve been itching to try it out. My mom, on the other hand, seems to have perfected the Asian attitude towards berries. Sure, she bakes with blueberries and raspberries because it’s her job and all, but she has a vendetta against strawberries in baking, and isn’t terribly fussed about the little local beauties to begin with. She ranted for a good three minutes on how strawberries lose their colour and taste, not to mention texture, in baked goods. All I could picture in my head as she ranted, was an image of an army of strawberry ninjas attacking her, for her to have such strong feelings against them.

I plunged ahead with my plan to use up the last of the berries while my mom napped. It was a little difficult as I’m an intruder in her kitchen these days, and she’s kind of the guardian of the ingredients. Nonetheless, victory was mine as I plopped the cake pan into the hot oven. The end result was amazing. Strawberries dotted the warm, sweet, and buttery cake, and it definitely is one of the best tea time snacks I’ve ever made.

  

Strawberry Summer Cake – adapted from Smitten Kitchen

• 85g softened unsalted butter
• 188g all-purpose flour*
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 170g granulated sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 400g strawberries, hulled and halved
• 2 big spoonfuls of sugar for sprinkling (about 2-3 heaping teaspoons)
• 2 big spoonfuls of chopped roasted nuts (I used a mix of almonds, pecans, and walnuts)

*Deb’s suggestion: swap 94 grams all-purpose flour with 75 grams of barley flour if you have it

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter, flour, and line a 9″ cake pan or a 8″ square pan with parchment paper.
2. Whisk flour or flours, baking powder and salt together in a small bowl and set aside.
3. In an electric mixer with paddle attachment, beat butter and 170g sugar until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Mix in egg, milk and vanilla until just combined. It may look a little curdled at this point if your milk and egg are cold, but not to worry, it will work itself out as you continue to beat.
4. Add flour mixture in, mixing until just smooth.
5. Pour into prepared pan. Arrange strawberries, cut side down, on top of batter, as closely as possible in a single layer. Sprinkle the 2 tablespoons of sugar and nuts over berries.
6. Bake cake for 10 minutes then reduce oven temperature to 325°F and bake cake until golden brown and a tester comes out free of wet batter, about 50 minutes to 60 minutes. Let cool in pan on a rack.

The cake is best served warm, freshly out of the oven, with a dollop of cream (or ice cream if you’re feeling extra-indulgent). Alex may or may not have heaped a healthy-sized scoop of vanilla ice cream on top of the warm cake. Although the original recipe did not include nuts, I found that the chopped nuts really added a bit more of a coffee cake taste to them – something a little more complex, and nutty of course. The taste also inspired me to try swapping in some ground almonds for flour in my next batch, whenever I make this again!

Enjoy!

Read the rest of Summer Coffee Cake on mango on an apple. © mangoonanapple.com 2009 - 2011

For the past couple of years, I’ve had great success with making fruit jams. The first year I struck gold with a delicious peach jam, and last year I swooned many with the strawberry vanilla jam from well fed, flat broke. Aside from a class on jamming in high school, I was pretty much a n00b to this amazing display of 50s-housewife-domesticity…and I should’ve known it was all too easy. Today, in my hometown, not more than two blocks away from where I first learned it all, I discovered a completely failed batch of strawberry vanilla jam.

It failed because…well, I don’t know. I may have gotten the instructions a little mixed up and added pectin when I didn’t need to. I may not have let it boil long and hot enough. Or the jamming gods have just decided enough was enough, my ego needed deflating. For all those reasons above, I eagerly opened a jar of strawberry vanilla goodness in front of my (very critical) mother, to discover something that resembled strawberry syrup. I spent the rest of the afternoon wallowing in self pity, googling remedies, and have now tried to correct one jar to see what happens tomorrow morning. It’s very difficult to type with my fingers crossed.

To comfort me in the middle of this mess, though, is the discovery that my other batch, the strawberry lemonade marmalade, turned out perfectly. I love strawberry jams that veer off course with a little bit of a surprise flavour, and this one totally fit the bill with bursts of citrus peel suspended in the jam. So this one, directly from Bernardin’s Complete Book of Home Preserving, with some tweaks to dial down the sugar content, has instantly become a part of my repertoire.

  

Quick Strawberry Lemon Marmalade

• 1/4 packed cup thinly sliced lemon peel, white pith removed as much as possible
• 4 firmly packed cups of whole washed strawberries, don’t worry about crushing them as you pack them into the measuring cup!
• 1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
• 1 package powdered pectin
• 3.5 – 4 cups sugar*

*Original recipe for 6 cups sugar was wayyyy too sweet, so my second batch had 4 cups and it still worked out fine. I may tone it down a little more to 3.5 cups on my next try, to try to bring out the tartness from the lemons even more.

1. Prepare your canning jars and lids and set up your workstation for canning – mise en place highly recommended here. You will make about seven 250mL jars of marmalade.
2. In the large pot that you’ll be making your jam in, boil the lemon peel with just enough water to cover them. Boil for 5 minutes on a soft but continuous boil, until the peel is softened. Discard liquid and put peel back into the pot.
3. Add strawberries and lemon juice to peel and mix well. Mash up the strawberries roughly with a potato masher. Whisk in the powdered pectin until dissolved, then bring the mixture to a boil over high heat, stirring constantly.
4. Add sugar all in one go, and return to boil. Let it come to a hard boil continuously for one minute, then remove from heat and skim off foam.
5. Ladle hot jam into the prepared jars, and leave 1/4 inch headspace. Place lids on, ensuring the rims of the jars are clean. Tighten screw band.
6. Place jars into canner and boil for 10 minutes. Turn off heat and open the lid of the canning pot, and let sit for five minutes before removing to set for 24 hours undisturbed.

My favourite thing about this jam so far has been the times I’ve come across the wonderful bits of lemon peel in the jam. Set against the rich sweetness of the strawberries, the burst of sunshine-y citrus is amazingly refreshing. I can’t wait to make more to share because I can’t imagine parting with my half batch of 3.5 jars just quite yet!

Read the rest of Can’t Have All the Jam on mango on an apple. © mangoonanapple.com 2009 - 2011

Check out one of my favourite food destinations online, well fed, flat broke, for my guest post today! The post features a couple of recipes from our cooking class in Udaipur. While you’re at it, give Emily a follow and send along well wishes on the Space Dinosaur!

Read the rest of Guest post at well fed, flat broke on mango on an apple. © mangoonanapple.com 2009 - 2011

My mom gave the lemon yogurt cake I made last weekend a facelift and we LOVE it! So it’s only proper that I now share the newer version with you on a Sunday.

Because of the addition of cornmeal, this cake is much more crumbly, but in a fantastic way. It is light, lemon-y, but not too sweet. I thought with cornmeal, yogurt, and an egg, it would be much heavier than my recipe – but it’s totally not the case. Adding blueberries also added moisture and nice little surprises when you eat this cake – it reminded me of something between a simple cornmeal cake and a yummy blueberry pancake breakfast! On that note, I’ve had a slice with breakfast, lunch, and dinner today. And then my mom made another one. I’m starting to feel like efforts we put into the past month of healthy eating are quickly going down the drain.

Continue readingSunday Supper: Lemon Yogurt Cake – Polenta-ized

Read the rest of Sunday Supper: Lemon Yogurt Cake – Polenta-ized on mango on an apple. © mangoonanapple.com 2009 - 2011

I spaced out and booked us so that we ate out all day on Sunday – even though I had planned and bought some lamb, chard, and potatoes for a nice treat for dinner. Instead, we had a lovely brunch at Morning Glory and a birthday dinner with my sister at Rivoli.

So, I’m going to distract you with sunshine and lemons.

This is a slightly dense and totally moist and flavourful lemon cake that goes well with breakfast, or is delightful as an afternoon snack. I love making it whenever I have plain yogurt on hand (which isn’t very often), and the bright citrus taste always brings a little sunshine to my day. It was with this thought in mind that I picked up some lemons on Saturday when we ventured out in the -19 weather to get groceries. In the middle of this bleak and freezing day, a slice of this cake with a warm cup of tea in the afternoon is perfect.

The recipe is from the Barefoot Contessa at Home cookbook that I received a few years ago when I first started building my kitchen. The book is great for basic recipes, and there are quite a few staples in here that I tend to revisit quite a bit. I have also since read that yogurt cake is a very typical French snack, and from there have made my own adjustments to all the recipes for yogurt cake I’ve come across, to get to the one below.

Ingredients

• 250g plain yogurt (non-fat doesn’t work as well as the thick whole-fat good stuff)
• 200g (1 cup) sugar
• 3 large eggs
• zest of 2 lemons
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 250g (1 1/4 cups) flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 100g (1/2 cup) vegetable oil (i.e. canola)

• juice from the 2 lemons
• 65g (1/3 cup) sugar

  

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit. Butter, flour, and line a loaf pan with parchment
2. Whisk together flour, salt, and baking powder in a small bowl and set aside
3. Whisk together yogurt, sugar, eggs, lemon zest, and vanilla in a large bowl until thoroughly mixed, but don’t over-beat
4. Fold in the flour until well incorporated. Drizzle in the oil and stir everything together until the oil is completely integrated in the mixture
5. Pour into pan and bake for 45 – 55 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. The top always cracks for me. If you have any tricks/patience to try different temperatures or techniques, please feel free to share in the comments!
6. Let cool in pan for about 5 minutes on a rack before removing from the pan
7. Put the cake in a plate or on the rack but with a plate underneath. Heat up the lemon juice and sugar until sugar is melted and the mixture is warm, and drizzle slowly all over the cake
8. Let the cake sit in the lemon juice for 5 – 10 minutes before removing from any remaining liquid and cooling on a rack

Glaze (optional)

• 1/2 cup – 1 cup (80g – 160g) icing sugar
• 2 tbsp lemon juice or water – from your remaining lemon juice would be ideal

Mix together the icing sugar and lemon juice until it’s a thick syrup consistency, and drizzle over the cake. Let the icing cool and harden before slicing.

Hope you’re all keeping warm and cozy and doing the Summer dance with me!

Read the rest of Sunday Supper: Lemon Yogurt Cake on mango on an apple. © mangoonanapple.com 2009 - 2011

A simple recipe today for safe-keeping. I originally copied this down at a store, typing surreptitiously on my now defunct BlackBerry, but forgot to save it when I switched to my iPhone. All’s not lost, as I attempted to re-create the recipe this past weekend and am pleased with the results. So, before I lose another piece of technology, here it is.

Vanilla buttercream (American style) – adapted from the Sprinkles cupcake mix carton*

• 350g icing sugar
• 227 g (1 cup) unsalted butter, room temperature
• a pinch of salt
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 tsp milk

Mix all the ingredients on low in an electric mixer with the paddle attachment until the icing sugar is incorporated. Turn up the speed to medium and whip, scraping down the bowl occasionally, for about 30 seconds until lighter and fluffier (but not too fluffy, or it’ll get runny).

Tint lightly with red colouring to get a lovely shade of pink – the best colour for an old fashioned American buttercream!

Happy birthday, Allison!

*I suppose I could go back to said store, and read the carton again, and see if I actually have everything down right…but I live so far away from the cool shops now! Yes, that’s an excuse, and I just used it.

Read the rest of Vanilla vanilla buttercream on mango on an apple. © mangoonanapple.com 2009 - 2011

I got lazy about Sunday Supper this weekend because I got a little too carried away baking for our “unhealthy eating break” that Sunday brings. We had chocolate chip cookies, a yellow cake, a lemon yogurt cake with a recipe to come, and the chocolate gingerbread cake pictured above.

For supper, we had an easy, but comforting grilled cheese sandwich with a lovely cheese we came across yesterday when we ventured out to the market during the snowstorm. I made a just-as-effortless roasted tomato and basil soup with some organic roma tomatoes and the teensiest bunch of basil found in the middle of winter. Everything’s familiar, and quick to whip up, so I could focus on the baking and the decorating that ensued. I promise, posts to come for these aforementioned sweets.

The chocolate gingerbread recipe is from Adam at Amateur Gourmet, whose posts I recently discovered, and enjoy reading immensely. I actually stumbled across Adam’s blog via Twitter, with this poignant post in support of LGBT teens. (It looks like Dan Savage will be publishing it in the upcoming book of essays – way to go!)

Chocolate Gingerbread – adapted from this recipe

• 60g (1/4 cup) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 30g (2 tbsp) packed brown sugar
• 1 large egg
• 160g (1/2 cup) molasses
• 110g (4 oz.) semi-sweet chocolate, melted and cooled
• 110g (1/2 cup) brewed coffee, cooled
• 170g (1 1/4 cup) flour
• 6g (2 tsp) baking soda
• 2g (1/4 tsp) salt
• 1/2 tsp each of: ginger, cinnamon, allspice, and mustard powder
• a pinch of freshly ground black pepper

1. Butter and flour a loaf pan, and line the bottom with parchment. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit
2. Mix together the dry ingredients in a bowl, and set aside
3. In an electric mixer with a paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugar together until light and creamy
4. Add in the egg and mix well on medium. Add in the molasses and melted chocolate and beat until thoroughly mixed. It may look slightly curdled first – just keep beating and it’ll all come together as an emulsion soon enough
5. Add in half of the dry ingredients and mix on low until incorporated. Add in half of the coffee and mix on low until incorporated. Repeat with remaining flour mixture and coffee
6. Once everything is well incorporated, scrape down the bowl and beat on medium speed for a couple of minutes
7. Pour into the prepared pan and bake for about 40 minutes or until a tester comes out clean
8. Cool in pan until pan is cool enough to be handled without mitts, and reverse out onto a cooling rack to cool thoroughly

The cake rose quickly and had a cracked top, which, me being OCD, had to cut off before I poured on the ganache. In Adam’s original version, he kept the cracks as is and the cake looked just as impressive.

  

To finish off the chocolate gingerbread, I melted 2 oz. chocolate chips with 2 tbsp. of whipping cream, plus a dash of cinnamon. Once the ganache was cool enough to touch, I poured it onto the cake (with the cracked top already cut off), and spread quickly with an offset small spatula.

I was impressed with the texture of this cake – it’s somewhere between a hardcore chocolate cake and a lighter snack like a banana bread. It’s also slightly crumbly when you slice into it, but still manages to be somewhat fluffy. The best thing is that aside from the chocolate expectations, the spices really come through and make it quite flavourful and suitable for the season. I would highly recommend giving this a try before putting the cinnamon and molasses away until December!

Read the rest of Sunday Supper: Comfort Food Edition on mango on an apple. © mangoonanapple.com 2009 - 2011

Since we’ve been eating super healthy all week (Alex snuck a cookie in midway, but I…well, I had absolutely no sugar/junk food!), I was going a bit stir crazy planning on what feast we’ll have on Sunday. I wanted to include a traditional galette des rois since Epiphany has just passed and the interwebs has been flooded with pictures and recipes for the galette. Alex requested steak. I had been dreaming of Jamie Oliver’s peanut sauce for steak since I watched him demonstrate the recipe live in November in Toronto. Overwhelmed with the desire to try all these new recipes and irrational from sugar deprivation, the final menu ended up being a mish-mash of cultures – a little Mexican salsa verde pizazz, a little southern US smoky peanut sauce, and a slightly ritzy Parisian galette des rois.

  

To start, we had a chopped green salad with lots of crunchy veggies and a light citrusy dressing to balance everything. I used a combination of romaine lettuce, radishes, red onions, and radicchio, and the dressing was simply olive oil and freshly squeezed lime, lemon, and orange juices with salt and pepper.

The sauces for the steaks were adapted from Jamie Oliver’s Jamie’s America.

Jamie’s Salsa Verde

Chop together in a food processor or by hand:

• a small bunch of mint leaves without stems
• a roughly chopped up garlic clove
• 4 stalks of green onions
• 2 medium tomatoes – I used a green/brown variety
• a small jalapeno, seeded
• a large bunch of cilantro

To finish, squeeze in the juice of a lime to toss everything together.

Jamie’s Peanut Sauce

• 1/4 cup white sesame seeds
• 3/4 cup shelled toasted peanuts
• 1 tsp. smoked paprika
• 1 tsp. dried oregano
• 1 tsp. cumin seeds (not ground cumin)
• a few sprigs of fresh thyme leaves
• 2 cloves of garlic, smashed up and chopped roughly
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1/2 cup warm water
• juice of 1 lime
• 1 chopped up jalapeno or green chile, seeded

  

1. Toast in a dry frying pan the peanuts, sesame seeds, thyme, garlic, paprika, cumin seeds, and oregano for a few minutes until it smells nice and fragrant (took me about 5 – 8 minutes).
2. Throw into a food processor with the olive oil, lime juice, and water. Add in the chopped up jalapeno. Process until smooth and shiny. If it’s a little dry, add in a little bit of oil and water at a time until the consistency is thick and still spread-able.

For the galette des rois, I used the recipe by Dorie Greenspan, as posted on Serious Eats. Overall, the dessert surprised me. It’s nothing like the typical cake or tart, but rather just as the recipe describes – almond pastry cream enveloped by puff pastry. The pastry feels light and airy, but the eggs and butter really make it a rich and delightful treat after dinner. I made two 6″ galettes rather than one large 9″ one, and splitting one of the galettes between 5 people, I think I could’ve had seconds! From making the galette, I also think I’ll be experimenting further with pastry cream in the futur – I can see it making a really nice, rich vanilla base for a buttercream for finishing off cakes.

Read the rest of Sunday Supper: Mixing Cultures on mango on an apple. © mangoonanapple.com 2009 - 2011