Super Bowl junk food: Papadi Chaat?

I'm not really an NFL fan (college football is infinitely more fun) but I do appreciate the occasional delight of excess at a tailgate party or a Superbowl party. Since everybody in the free world watches the game it seems, a lot of people are wanting something to eat for some Superbowl party or another. The trouble is, most food at these things are about the same, really. Somebody will have chicken wings. Somebody has pigs in a blanket. Somebody has chips or nachos or something. There's probably ten pizzas at least, and some dead animal is on a grill that people are crazy enough to attend in the dead of winter. It's kind of been done before over and over, hasn't it? So, making something that stands out, but is still shamefully junky in a way is a good way to change some things, and still feel like you're at a party.

A friend of mine has recently gone full-tilt into an Indian food kick, and that's a perfect option for interesting junk food. Of course, the obvious answers are yummy fried things like puri, bhajji, and pakora that most people know. Hey, it's fried dough or a fried veggie and you put chutney on it, so it's fattening, and you're going to enjoy eating it at a social event where other activities include drinking beer and burping, right?

I thought about another option for him, and it was good enough to share. Papadi chaat:


My wife asks me to make this on a pretty regular basis, and I crank it out because it's tasty as hell and it takes almost zero effort of any kind, which is good for a cook who likes to impress people with the least amount of work. It's basically the Indian version of nachos supreme or something, but it kicks way more ass than any boring nachos you'll eat at a party.

Now, I've watched a lot of Indian cooking podcasts and such, and they show how to actually make the papadi from scratch, which isn't hard at all, but is another thing that takes time. The only time I'd ever suggest making the dough and rolling it all out yourself is if you plan on adding crushed ajwain seeds. These are tasty as hell, but it's also good without them.

The way I cook papadi chaat is the way I learned from the folks who run the Indian grocer I shop at every week. I'll often come in with the notion that I'm just gonna buy some goat or some chutney and I end up staying an hour just talking about food. Anyway, the way they make it, and the way I learned is to just use soft wheat flour tortillas to make the papadi. What you do is to spread a tortilla on your cutting board and bang on it repeatedly with the tines of a fork to make holes. This keeps the stuff from puffing up when frying, and lets you have a flat surface to pile toppings onto. After making holes, take a sharp knife and cut little two-inch squares in the stuff. You'll have little triangles at the edges and that's okay, use those too.

Once you have as many squares as you want (for a party, go ahead and crank out an entire dozen I guess), start frying them in some oil, a handful at a time. Remove them from the oil with a slotted spoon and gently apply a little salt as they rest on paper towels, and keep going to make the whole batch.

From that point, take about three cans of channa (chicpeas), and spoon over about two or three tablespoons of cilantro (coriander) chutney. Partially mix and mash the chicpeas and chutney together so it's semi-loose, semi lumpy mash. You want mostly-whole chicpeas in there.

When you're arranging papadi on a plate, spoon enough chicpea mix on each to cover most of it. On top of that, spoon a little yogurt over each piece, and on top of that, spoon a little tamarind & date chutney. You can go one more level and add mint chutney also, but I haven't done this yet. On top of that, sprinkle each papadi with a pinch of red chili flakes.

Now, you can also make these with aloo (potato) medallions, and many recipes do. I haven't yet, because I never have potato on hand when I get the urge, and it takes a little longer anyway. If you do, cut some potato into little thin discs, about half an inch thick at most. You can either bake these or you can toss them into the fry oil after the papadi. Either way, just cook the things fully, and before you arrange the chicpeas and all that jazz on top, slide a slice onto each papadi, then top it. It's not necessary at all, but then again, Super Bowl parties aren't about moderation are they?

Why I like to make and eat salad

As I made a salad for dinner tonight, it gave me a little time to think about why I like to do it, so I figure I'll explain myself.

• I get to cut vegetables with sharp knives. I enjoy every opportunity I get to use my knives, and veggies are by far the most fun stuff to cut.
• I hate lettuce, and I get to make salads with far tastier greens. Lettuce is the Great Satan.
• Arugula arugula arugula arugula arugula.
• Heirloom tomatoes are awesome.
• It's another excuse to use garum, as if I needed one.
• I can just toss a mound of random crap on a plate and it's pretty even when slapdash.
• I'm very lazy. When I'm done, I have a bowl and a fork to clean. That's it.
• One more time, arugula.
  

Xocoatl and the Heart of Darkness

Just in time for Valentine's Day, lovebirds!

"You had my heart at 'FEED THE ANGRY SUN GOD', you handsome devil you <3<3<3"


A while back, I found some really awesome vegan candy bars that were all sorts of off-the-cuff flavors. One that stuck with me was "Xocoatl" which was named after the original Aztec word that became "chocolate". It was very very bitter dark chocolate, cacao nibs, and dried chili flakes. Sounds bizarre until you eat some. After that, you'll wonder why more people don't eat it that way.

I've had designs on making this forever, but I'm always hard on luck trying to find candy molds, because some organizational moron decided that, no, you can't buy candy molds at grocery stores or even stores that sell kitchen stuff. No, you have to go to the HOBBY STORE. It's the sort of organizational irony that makes me want to TEAR OUT DELICIOUS HEARTS.

Wait, I mean make candy. Yeah. Candy.



I finally ponied up some candy molds and random crap, took half a box of unsweetened chocolate, combined with a whole box of bittersweet, and melted that in the microwave. I then stirred in a heaping tablespoon each of dried chili flakes and cacao nibs. With the grace of a caveman, I sort of slathered them into molds (I didn't use a nozzle thing because I thought the little solid bits would clog it) and made a hilarious mess of things. I let the molds cool a little, let them cool a little more in the fridge, and then, the freezer:



Yay it mostly didn't make a mess! Now to add a little veneer to things:


Red for love? Red for hot chili peppers? Red for EVISCERATED HUMAN SACRIFICE? If you guessed all three, step up to the altar!

The bars are wrapped all slapdash because the foil didn't really fit, but it's not too terrible for my first foray. And yes, my Xocoatl is just as en fuego as the other stuff.

Ho Pasta

Nothing much today, but I did make a variation of pasta puttanesca


I'll admit it, the only reason I made this is because it's named after prostitutes. Yes I'm that juvenile. Don't ask me about the farfalle, I guess she only works formal parties. It was pretty good, but the next time I make it I'm adding four chili peppers instead of two to the pot. Guess that's the culinary equivalent of trading out pumps for stilletto heels?

Steak & arugula with wild mushrooms.

If you haven't noticed for the past few entries, I've been mucking about in a lot of italian food, and I found a little recipe in a book my mom gave me that was essentially "Take some steak, salt & pepper it with some olive oil. Cook. Slice. Serve with arugula."

Seriously that's about how in depth it was, and it made me laugh. Then again, isn't that sort of the point if you're going to have a steak? If you have anything with it, keep it simple stupid! You paid, what, around ten bucks for that piece of meat, maybe more? This is always why things like A-1 sauce drive me bonkers. Do you know what's in A-1? What about Worcestershire sauce? Can you rattle off those ingredients? I can't without crib notes.

Look, that's not to say things like that don't have their use. Would I bat an eye at that on a hamburger, or something like that? No way, that's a good idea. But the reason steak costs as much as it does is that it isn't ground chuck. Steak has a story to tell and it's all about texture, fat marbling, color and so much more. So, whatever you put with it should help to tell that story, and never ever get in the way.

Back to that recipe. It got me really inspired to make something simple that could compliment steak. Arugula, if you've never had it, is an awesome wild green that's just slightly bitter & slightly buttery. It's like baby spinach, but even more awesome. I thought I could get away with one more degree of flavor and still keep this a steak dinner at the heart of the matter, so I reconstituted about ten or so dried porcini mushrooms in some boiling water & let those reduce to make a nice mushroom sauce thing. Good mushrooms have that really awesome earthy & musty baseline that pairs really well with beef.

So, with those matters settled, I slicked down some big ribeyes with olive oil, and added sea salt and crushed peppercorns. Now, with it being generally cold and dark a lot this time of year (yes, even in the South), I make my steaks in the cast iron skillet, on as high a heat as I can get away with, to get a slight sear on the bottom. From there, I just chuck the skillet into my oven, which I set the rack up high and preheat the broiler during prep work. If you go to a restaurant for steak, you're likely getting something that's been broiled rather than grilled. The only difference is that grilling lets fat drip into open flame. The "grilled taste" meat gets is that fat burning, and the smoke carries the flavor back to the meat. With mushrooms a part of my game plan, I won't lose sleep over avoiding the grill. Now, being that close to the broiler top is going to cook your steak pretty quickly, so you really should keep a sharp eye on it. I'll also mention that my wife and I eat steak at about that divide between medium rare and rare, usually, so this is advice with that in mind. If you like it more done, still do the broiler thing, but set the rack down lower and give it more time.

Now, take the skillet out (please remember to use an oven mitt) of the oven and transfer the steaks to a cutting board. Go have a glass of merlot and just walk away for a bit. Don't give into the temptation to tuck in. I don't remember who told me, but one of the best things I ever learned about cooking steak or any other meat is to give it that time to rest. What you do if you cut meat straight out of the heat is basically let the juices, which are expanding outward, just spill all over the plate. This causes a mess, and it causes the rest of the meat to be comaratively dry. Instead, by letting it rest a good five to ten minutes, that moisture cools a little and retreats back to evenly distribute inside the meat. When you cut, it leaks less, and your meat stays consistently moist.

Once you've let it rest, get a sharp knife (this is where it pays to have a good knife) and get some good, thin, bite-size strips cut. If you can, get it somewhere between deli meat and how you'd normally cut steak. Once that's done, wash and towel dry a good full handful of arugula, and spread it onto a warmed plate. Add your steak, then add your mushrooms. On top of that, go and pour a little bit of the mushroom sauce over it all. Accompany that with merlot (my personal preference) or really any full bodied red wine.

Apologies to all for the absence, Christmas was murder this year.

For those who ask, no, Santa did not leave me a reservation to Dorsia. Instead, a note was under the tree for this:


Our very own wine rack / stemware holder / booze hut. Real wood and a wonderful design. I was given so many wonderful cooking-related gifts by just about everybody in the family. I'm not going to list them all here because there are a zillion of them, but keep watching this space and I guarantee you'll see me use every last bit of them.

I did have a really wonderful time with both sides of the family. Our first Christmas as a newlywed couple was so wonderful. Everyone was nice, and I think we all had a wonderful time. Oh yeah and there was some food made. I gave away some flavored olive oil bottles and a few baguettes of rosemary bread as gifts, and at least one lovely loaf of challah to my sister and her awesome husband. It was the first Christmas where we didn't really do our old family traditions, but yet it feels really great to begin to forge our own little things that we do.

So, how about a new year's resolution? I resolve to get off my butt and update this thing a lot more than it's been updated lately. I haven't forgotten about it, and I've got loads of pictures from various successes and failures I've dabbled in during the interim, so expect a few shortly.

Sometimes rules are meant to be broken.

Recall in my earlier pizza article that I usually make pizza without red sauce and without meat?

Well, I went ahead and tossed those rules out and made a pair of pizzas with a red sauce made from sweet heirloom tomatoes. To top the pies, I went with leeks, and paired with that was pancetta, which is a higher quality of cured pork belly very similar to bacon:



The sauce was very easy. Basically, I crushed and minced four cloves of garlic, added two tablespoons of olive oil to a two quart pot, and let the garlic fry for a little on medium heat. I roughly cut up the heirloom tomatoes and added them to the pot with a cup of dry white wine, and brought that up to a boil for a bit to reduce the alcohol out. Once that was done, I put a teaspoon of dried basil, a teaspoon of dried oregano, a teaspoon of salt, and a teaspoon of sugar in the mix, and topped it off with a bay leaf, and left it to simmer on a very low heat for 45 minutes.


While that was simmering, I worked together a crust. It was similar to the one I made before, but with semolina flour instead of whole wheat in a 1:2 ratio to all purpose. Instead of rosemary, I worked in oregano to give it a rustic taste.

While that was resting, I preheated my pizza stone to 500 degrees. I took out a skillet and fried up the pancetta pieces (You can get pancetta either rolled or in strips. The stuff I used was rolled) about halfway done, so that it would be able to fully cook in the oven. I set the pancetta aside, reserved the fat in the pan, and then washed and chopped my leek into strips about two inches long. With the reserved pancetta fat, I cooked down the leeks until they were very tender and separated, and set those aside as well.

When the dough was ready, I punched that down, divided it in half, and worked each piece at a time to make a wide crust. I eased that onto my peel, which had corn meal sprinkled on it. Then I spooned the sauce on the crust, spreading it evenly, then added one and a half cubed balls of mozzarella di bufala, along with my leek pieces and torn bits of pancetta. Then, it was oven time! Ten minutes of a roaring oven (approximately) and it was done.


The sweet in the sauce and the leek paired with the salty pancetta really nicely. This wasn't red sauce and meat for the sake of each. They paired well. That should be the reason you put anything together. Not because "thats how its always done" but because it tastes right. If I were making pizza margherita, I'd use a red sauce with that too, because the entire point is to celebrate the interaction of tomato and basil. So yes, rules can be broken, but be a dear and have a reason for breaking them.

That elusive Japanese fried rice

I'm assuming that everybody reading this has been to a Japanese steakhouse, griddlehouse, whateva, before. Those places where you sit around the chef, who's working on an enormous hibachi, and serves piping hot food directly onto your plate. Got it? Good. So, here's my quandry: I have absolutely no idea how they make their rice so good.

Fried rice seems like it would be positively a no brainer to crank out. It's rice, a few other things, and you cook it on a griddle. I mean, we all watch the guy do it. White rice, peas, diced carrots, a bit of pulverized fried egg, some soy sauce, sesame seeds, and butter. Now, try it yourself. I guarantee you it won't taste the same. Ever since I started cooking for myself, I've tried to make this dish, and while what I make might be tasty, it just doesn't compare at all. I tried again the other day, and while I got closer than I've ever gotten before, I still failed:


My mom gave me a cast iron griddle that fits over stove eyes, and it's awesome for cooking in this style, so I not only did the fried rice, but also some teriyaki shrimp and some broccoli, onion, and mushroom to go along. Don't get me wrong, it all tasted great, but the rice was off. It's not quite the same taste.

Now, what I did was to cook rice the previous day in my rice cooker. I then mixed the cooked rice with some peas and a diced carrot and set that in the fridge overnight. When I cooked, I rubbed a pad of butter on the griddle surface, then tossed the rice on, and folded in a pair of fried eggs that had been finely chopped. As it was popping along on a good heat, I added a tablespoon or so of sesame seeds, and some soy sauce with just a little smidge of wasabi paste and sesame oil stirred into it.

If you have better success stories than I do, by all means share them. This has given me fits forever, and I'd love to solve this universal mystery!

Butternut squash soup!

Okay, I'm not a big fan of squash, but all fall I've listened to people rave about butternut this, and butternut that. It's gotten pretty unavoidable, so I figured it's time to confront the issue full on. I wanted to make butternut squash soup, and I wanted it to be awesome. Turned out that it was pretty easy. Butternut squash is the Aston Martin Vanquish of squashes, while regular yellow squash is like the Yugo or the AMC Gremlin of squash. In other words, it's really hard to go wrong.

Here's what I used for my soup:

1 butternut squash
1 medium-sized yellow onion, chopped
1 quart chicken stock
1/4 cup heavy cream
2 tbsp butter
2 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper
1 tsp rubbed sage
1 tsp cumin powder
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
Pinch of cinnamon
1 bay leaf

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Split your butternut squash, and remove the seeds and stringy pulp from the bulb-shaped part. Clean out the stringy stuff and reserve your seeds in a cup of very salty water. You're going to roast them later and make an awesome garnish. Take the butternut halves and put them in the oven, split-side up. Roast those for about 20-30 minutes, or until the flesh is fully tender. Test it with a knife and see if you meet any resistance. If you don't, it's ready. Remove from the oven and let cool. The outer skin should peel off pretty easily with your fingers. Set the flesh aside.

Spread the seeds on a baking dish and put in the oven at the same temp for about ten minutes. Alternatively you can dry-roast them on medium heat in a skillet. The salt water should leave behind a little salt on the seeds.

In a large stock pot, heat your butter to medium, add your onions and salt, and cover, cooking for about five or ten minutes until soft. After that, add the stock, squash, and all spices except the bay leaf, and bring to an energetic boil for about two minutes. After that's done, take it off heat and add cream. Here, you can either put the soup into a blender and liquify it, or if you have an immersion blender, use that to instead. Once it's blended up, put the soup back on for a low simmer, and add your bay leaf, letting it cook for another ten minutes. After that, remove the bay leaf, and ladle into soup bowls. Take the toasted seeds and sprinkle on top for garnish.


I had some crusty bread alongside this, and it was a great comfort food experience. With the holidays coming up, if you're making turkey or ham or another roasted meat, it'll be a nice accompaniment, so keep that in mind.

Lazy lazy food update

Title says it all. I have been cooking lots of things, but not really found time to post them up. I'll keep them brief:


One of the two cheddar garlic bread loaves I made the other day. They sort of sagged in the middle lol, but it's otherwise great stuff. Been toasting two slices and having an egg in between for breakfast :)


Bindi Masala, an awesome South Indian curry featuring okra. This is pretty much my favorite way to eat okra, as I don't really care for Southern-fried usually. It's okay in gumbo, but this dish is what makes it a star. It's got a tangy, punchy taste from the curry I use, and I dope it up with a LOT of chili flakes. The rice is basmati, lightly saffroned, with toasted kala jeera.


A cream of roasted red pepper soup with rosemary. This was served with some rosemary bread, which I sliced and shaved Swiss Grüyere onto, and made into crostini. I've made this one before in an earlier blog, but the presentation was crap, and I like this one much better :)


More red peppers? HE'S A MADMAAAN!!! This is some spinach garganelli pasta with a sauce made of roasted red peppers, rosemary, toasted pine nuts, and garum. Served with chicken cooked in a white wine reduction, and topped with manchego. This is pretty similar to an earlier dish I made, but I've twisted it about a little. The sauce picked up just the right amount of a sunny note from the acidity of the wine. I wanted to try making it with a bay leaf but I'll wait for that chance later.


Risotto with sliced portabellas, white truffle oil, and manchego. This time, done properly. It held together much nicer than my last go at a risotto, and tasted infinitely better.

That's about it lately. Some other crap I made, but it didn't turn out as well.