Recipes: September 2007 Archives

When we’re super strapped for cash, the first luxury product we cut from our pantry is canned items. Sure a can of garbanzo beans sets you back, oh, 69 cents. But buying industrial-sized sacks of dry beans for $3/10 pounds feels thrifty. When it comes to putting one of those sacks of beanies to good use, consider this generic-but-yummerz recipe for spicy chickpeas.

Serve ‘em hot, with their bean juice like gravy, and topped with Greek yogurt and potent harissa (the heady North African hot pepper paste that we are usually too lazy to whip up. The spices for the harissa are best if fresh, or as seeds and then ground using a mortar and pestle. If you ain’t got one, sub in the less fresh powder stuff, but know that you’re eating inferior sauce. Your choice.

Hot Chicks

(Serves 6)

2 cups dried garbanzo beans
3 Tbs. olive oil
1/2 red onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic
1 tsp. turmeric
1 tsp. cumin
4 cups vegetable stock

1. Place dry beans in a large bowl and cover with cool water. Let sit overnight.

2. When ready to cook beans, start with a large pot. Add oil and bring to medium heat, adding onion and garlic and spices. Saute for about 5 minutes before adding beans. Cook another 5 minutes and then add stock. Bring to a boil and put on simmer for at least 2 hours. You want a soft chick.

Harissa

1 cup dried red chiles
1 cup hot water
5 cloves garlic, peeled
1 tsp. cumin
1 tsp. coriander
1 tsp. fennel seeds
3 Tbs. olive oil
1 tsp. sea salt

1. Place the chiles in a deep bowl and cover with boiling water. Let sit for 30-40 minutes or until peppers are soft.

2. Once ready, remove a couple peppers at a time and slice each lengthwise to remove seeds. Careful using your fingers, the seeds are hot, you can run water over the peppers while doing it or even dump sliced pepper halves back in the bowl of water to stir around until seeds come loose. Shake dry and drop in a food processor with garlic. Pulse.

3. Add spices and oil and pulse thoroughly. Remove and top again with another dash of oil for storage (up to 4 week!)

Beverage: Stone 11th anniversary IPA
Soundtrack: Cornershop’s “Heavy Soup”

It being mid-September, summer salad season is in its last throes and our salad spinners are ‘bout to be put away. Of course, being produce geeks and living in perpetual sun, we never fully hibernate from the greenery, if anything our kitchens start seeing more salads sans lettuce. Last weekend we messed with a version of the classic Green Goddess dressing (typically dill and parsley and something creamy like avo or tahini) and presented it green leaf-less, more like a tart chutney alongside a buttery brunch meal. The tendril crunch of fava beans and the smooth lick of avocado make it the perfect end of ‘salad days’ salad.

Green God(dess)

1 lbs. fava bean pods
1 avocado
2 Persian cucumbers
1/2 red onion, chopped
2 shallots, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp lime juice
1/4 cup fresh dill, chopped
2 Tbs. walnut oil
1 Tbs. tahini
2 Tbs. champagne vinegar
sea salt and fresh black pepper to taste

1. Start by shelling yo favz. The pods will come apart easily, just make sure to pick out any ill looking beans.

2. Bring a large pot of salted water and the fava beans to a rolling boil; once it boils, they’re are done. Drain and remove and let cool.

3. Peel and slice your avocado — you want thick, firm chunks. Cut your cucumbers into similar sized pieces (peel first if desired) and add to a large mixing bowl with onion, shallots and garlic.

4. In a separate bowl thoroughly mix the lime juice, your fresh dill, oil, tahini, vinegar and seasonings.

5. Peel the casings off the now cooled fava beans and add to the green mess, dress and toss.

Beverage: Champagne Pomme lambic spritzer
Soundtrack: White Rainbow’s Zome

Most our homies don’t need encouragement to eat their leafy greens, but hey, it happens. For those who don’t get salad (and they are out there, even amongst vegans), there is one and only one cure: excellent croutons. They can turn a plate of salad into a big bowl of tasty bread that happens to have some lettuce mixed in.

Yet there’s an even better reason to start making your own croutons: We all eat bread, buy bread, and either toss out or kinda make ourselves eat the heels shit. Don’t do it! Simply save the end of each loaf, keep it in the fridge for up to 3 weeks, and when you have a heel of rye, a couple pieces of stale French bread, a pair of squaw bread slices and a hamburger bun that’s about to mold just cut ‘em up and dress up right! The crew will never notice.

Gang Crewtons

(makes 2 cups)

8-10 heels of bread (various kinds)
1 cup walnut oil
2 Tbs. olive oil
5 cloves garlic
1/2 red onion
2 sprigs rosemary
2 sprigs thyme
2 Tbs. sea salt
1 Tbs. sage
1 tsp cayenne pepper
black pepper to taste

1. Cut the heels of bread into equal-sized pieces, small, about 2 cm by 2 cm. Throw them in a shallow bowl and cover with walnut oil. Let sit (in sun if preferable) for about 30 minutes to soak up oil.

2. Heat a large skillet on high heat, add olive oil and then sauté the garlic, onion and herbs for about 5 minutes. Turn down to medium and add bread pieces.

3. Stir or toss for about 10 minutes: make sure they don’t burn or brown unevenly. Season half way through and keep tossing. Add more oil if absolutely necessary, and turn down heat if it looks too hot.

4. Remove and set on top of paper towels to blot. Cool for at least one hour before serving. Or save for up to one week.

Our great, grad school-bound buddy Aubrey “Bobby Beers” White recently high-tailed it out of town. But before she did, she broke out a box of packaged snacks from Japan, all filled with neon colored pickles, she’d been saving for over a year and we threw a sweet and sour going away party for the old gal. We washed it all down with two bottles of unfiltered sake, tempura-fried mushrooms, eggplant, sweet potato and broccoli, and this sweet, cold soba noodle salad. The oil-slicked noodles are perked with peppery cucumber slivers dunked in vinegar: an improvised recipe. Gobble it with people you like. Bon voyage Bobby Beers!

(Serves 6-8)

Szechuan Pickles

4 Japanese cucumbers
1 small bulb ginger
3 tsp. fresh black pepper
1 tsp. Szechuan pepper
1/8 cup rice vinegar
1 Tbs. soy sauce

1. Slice the thin cukes in half lengthwise, leaving eight pieces, and slice into matchstick-sized slices. Peel ginger and slice into even smaller matchsticks. Place both in a shallow mixing bowl. Toss all other ingredients and let sit 20-30 minutes or longer while you prepare noodles.

Soba Noodle Salad

2 1/2 cups water
4 Tbs. sesame oil
1 tsp sea salt
8-10 oz soba noodles
1/8 sesame seeds

2. In a medium-size pot, bring water to a rolling boil and add salt and 1 Tbs. of sesame oil. Toss in soba noodles and cook 8-10 minutes or until fully cooked, making sure they don’t stick too much.

3. In a small sauté pan, heat sesame seeds up for 2-3 minutes, tossing to keep from toasting too much.

4. Once cooked, cool noodles under cold water and drain well. Place in a large mixing bowl and top with hot sesame seeds and rest of the sesame oil. Then add the freshly Szechuan pickles and toss thoroughly. Serve room temperature or refrigerate for 2 hours and serve coolish. (Add Sriracha as desired!)

Beverage: Unfiltered sake, St. Red Rogue Dry-Hopped
Soundtrack: Elliot Smith’s self-titled