Food, Photography and Bons Mots
I gave a birthday party recently for two of my friends, one of whom had mentioned that she particularly enjoyed flan. So, there was no question that flan would be our party dessert. The history of flan is interesting. Flan has been enjoyed for…
I was reminded of Paul Simon’s iconic hit as I was making banana bread the other day. I’m quickly finding that there are at least fifty ways to make the sweet treat. (If you want to relive a bit of Paul Simon’s performance…
On a long-ago idyll in India, I discovered unimagined rice delights. There were soft puffy rice cakes called idli commonly eaten in the morning. Pilaf-like biryanis. Sweet pongals. Here is a take on a rice dish you probably have never imagined, a poha.
While I try not to use difficult-to-find ingredients in Blue Cayenne recipes, poha is, I suspect, something you don’t normally keep in your pantry. You can find it on the shelves of most Indian markets and, of course, on Amazon. The Amazon link is here. Poha is inexpensive. You don’t have to invest a lot of money to give this rice dish a try.
If you are a little intimidated by the prospect of making this out-of-the-ordinary dish, here is a good You Tube video: Indian Poha. The recipe I’m posting below has some different ingredients, but the video will get you past your unfamiliarity in prepping poha. It’s easy.
This recipe is adapted from one that appears in Madhur Jaffrey’s wonderful cookbook, Vegetarian India. If you are vegetarian (and an adventurous cook) or if you are just trying to prepare more vegetable forward dishes, this cookbook would be a wonderful addition to your collection.
Jaffrey is an award-winning actress (Shakespeare Wallah)and an inspired cook. She has written numerous cookbooks, seven of which have won prestigious James Beard Awards. She has been quoted as saying that her three best/favorite cookbooks are An Invitation to Indian Cooking, A Taste of India and the book from which this recipe is adapted, Vegetarian India. If you want to dip your toe in the water before investing in one of her books, just type in Madhur Jaffrey on your browser and you will find a number of wonderful recipes.
As the story goes, Ismael Merchant (of the movie-making duo Merchant and Ivory–Howards End, Call Me By Your Name) set the young actress (she is now 84) up for an interview with the legendary NYT food writer Craig Claiborne. Worried about the inadequacy of her tiny NY kitchen, Jaffrey borrowed the kitchen of a friend and proceeded to prepare stuffed green peppers, sour cream koftas and raita for Claiborne. Lucky man, Claiborne.
That was 1966. The rest is history.
Claiborne wrote adoringly about her and her inspired Indian meal–Indian food was pretty unknown in America in 1966–and her career as an Indian food writer was launched.
I’m thinking it would be fun to recreate the meal Jaffrey prepared for Clairborne. Wanna come?
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Your friends and neighbors who arrive home from idylls in the Caribbean usually bring back tans, lame pirate jokes, and rum cakes. Rum, of course, is ubiquitous in the Caribbean and entrepreneurs long ago learned to add rum to cakes to expand rum’s culinary…
I was lying in bed the other night when my iWatch tapped me on the wrist. (The watch has a haptic function that allows it to tap you lightly on the wrist with a vibration to deliver reminders, alert you to the end of…
When a wonderful baking resource like King Arthur Flour bestows the title of “Recipe of the Year” on one of its creations, I sit up and take notice. That is particularly true for me because I was so in love with their lemon bliss bundt cake winner for last year. (See recipe here.) If King Arthur Flour says a recipe is stellar, I believe it.
Recently, I wrote about Jessamyn Waldman Rodriguez’ Hot Bread Kitchen and her recipe for hot cross buns. I hope you have tried them by now. They are pretty wonderful. (You can find the recipe here.) I remember reading in one of the sections of Rodriguez’ book that one of the questions HBK routinely asks trainee applicants (who are mostly immigrants) is what breads they already know how to bake. Invariably, she wrote, applicants list banana bread. Apparently, that bunch of overripe bananas that sits on our counters is one of those six degrees (or less) of separation that link bakers the world over.
Certainly, if you look online for banana bread recipes you will find unlimited takes on the traditional recipe. For example, I found a recipe for “I Be Jammin’ Jamaican Banana Bread.” That one made me laugh. There are lots of other variations, too– avocado banana bread, Nutella banana bread, chocolate chip banana bread and banana bread with a wide ribbon of cream cheese baked into the bread (I’m thinking I’ll try that one!).
Before you give all those exotic banana breads a try, bake this one. It is moist and full of banana flavor and will remind you how good traditional banana bread can be.
Here is the recipe.
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Here is the link to the original recipe from which this recipe was adapted King Arthur Flour Banana Bread
I’ve always enjoyed soup. It is my idea of comfort food. There is something wonderful about the chemistry of making soup. You put all those healthy ingredients together and (sometimes) voila! For the last few weeks my love affair with soup has taken on a…
First, pomegranate molasses is readily available. You can do this. Second, this butter cake is absolutely delicious. I don’t have the words… I discovered pomegranate molasses some time ago. I shop at a local Jons International Marketplace and they have not one but several brands…
Happy spring!
Who doesn’t love warm-from-the-oven rolls on a pretty spring day? Make them hot cross buns warm from the oven and slathered with cardamom-scented frosting and you are sure to swoon.
Some food historians tell us that the first hot cross buns were probably baked during the Middle Ages when a 12th century monk marked the sign of the cross on buns that he distributed as symbolic treats to celebrate Good Friday. Over time, it has become a tradition in many Christian communities to enjoy the delicious buns each year on Good Friday. Other historians suggest that the origin of the cross-marked yeasted sweet bread was far earlier, dating back to Roman times when a distinctive cross was carved into the surface of the bun to both facilitate the easy division of the bread into four parts and to pay homage to the four seasons. Buns marked with crosses were excavated at Herculaneum, an ancient city that was destroyed along with Pompeii by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79.
The baking and consumption of hot cross buns has not been without controversy and superstition.
England’s 16th Century Renaissance Queen Elizabeth I endorsed a law to limit the sale of the sweet buns to funeral days, Christmas and Good Friday, believing that the pastries represented a Catholic challenge to the legitimacy of her Protestant reign. England, you will remember, had just gone through religious upheaval under Bloody Mary, Elizabeth’s predecessor and half-sister. Mary, married to Philip II, Spain’s dour Catholic king, had tried to restore Catholicism as the state religion in England and the couple hoped to undo the Protestant Reformation’s effects across Europe generally. In the process, a lot of people died. Understandably, Elizabeth was more than a wee bit edgy about possible religious intrigue in her court. Nevertheless, Elizabeth’s law was widely ignored. People clandestinely baked the buns in their homes and risked being busted for the culinary felony. (Some sources posit an alternative theory about Elizabeth’s hot cross bun law, arguing that Elizabeth, rather than having a religious motivation, supported the laws limiting consumption of the buns because she feared that her subjects would misuse the buns’ supposed supernatural powers. Frankly, this story sounds like a bit of clumsy revisionist history to me–16th century “fake news.” )
Other superstitions developed about the consumption of the buns. Many believed, for instance, that the baking of the buns protected sailors from shipwrecks. Others believed that hanging the buns from the rafters of one’s house warded off evil spirits and that baking the buns on Good Friday would confer qualities to the buns that would prevent them from molding and render them edible for a full year. Still others believed that the buns, when dried, had supernatural powers to heal wounds. Accordingly, old buns were dried and ground and sprinkled into wounds. (Ouch!) It was also thought that hanging a bun in one’s kitchen would protect that kitchen from fires and ensure a year of successful baking.
OK. Enough history.
This recipe is adapted from one that appears in a wonderful baking book titled The Hot Bread Kitchen by Jessamyn Waldman Rodriguez and the bakers of Hot Bread Kitchen. East Harlem’s Hot Bread Kitchen is distinguished both by the fact that it produces exceptional artisan-quality breads and by its business model. The bakery operates a six month baker training program for immigrant women that provides paid training while also helping the women hone key skills like English as a second language, bakery math, and science to make them more employable. Remarkably, Hot Bread Kitchen places 100% of their job-seeking graduates in full-time, fair wage positions. Here is a link to a great video about the bakery. At a time of so much negativity, it is reassuring to see a project that is successfully helping people who are new to America become self-sufficient: Hot Bread Kitchen Video on You Tube.
Here is a link to the Hot Bread Kitchen website: The Hot Bread Kitchen Website.
(You can buy The Hot Bread Kitchen cookbook here.)
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I was recently at a restaurant in downtown Santa Ana where I foolishly let myself be talked into ordering the house’s kale salad. I’m usually a hard sell when it comes to kale, but I liked the young waitress’ enthusiasm as she assured me that…
