Recipes: September 2009 Archives

Last week, after a leisurely French breakfast of pastries, pastis and a mushroom duxelles omelette with fries, we strolled the grounds of the famed Santa Monica farmers market like hunters and gatherers on an a.m. liquor buzz. Predictably the mushroom stand caught our eyes. We circled 'round and grasped at beautiful fungi while joking with the shroom guy.

New farmers market concept: elaborate food stands that give shoppers the impression of foraging for wild mushrooms yourselves -- a Portobello cap here, a shitake stem there, bending down and unearthing lobster mushrooms from under the table...

Ludicrous ideas aside, we purchased half a pound each of fresh chanterelles (it is fall, people!) and scurried home. First on the menu? In a bout of lunch box paranoia, Evan flipped with fear that the mushrooms would shrivel in the fridge and miss their peak. So we minced the beauties and made a mushroom duxelles - classic French (say it 'duke-sell') for olive oil preserved mushrooms roasted with shallots and wine.

Nearly a tapenade, the stuff worked on vegan bruschetta and on top of the gorgeous spinach and pine nut pasta handrolls left over from Elf Café.

Chanterelle Duxelles
(Makes 2 1/2 cups)

1/2 pound fresh chanterelles
1 cup minced crimini
2 shallots, peeled
1 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup red wine
1 Tbs. cream sherry
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Slice and then roughly mince your 'shrooms. You want something between thick confetti and a dice. Mince the shallots too.

2. Put a non-stick skillet on medium-high heat, add about a tablespoon of olive oil (for ultimate naughtiness, use French butter) and start cooking off the mushrooms and shallots in three batches (so not to steam the mushrooms, the idea is to steal their liquid and replace it with wine and oil): Add one-third of the mixture and sauté for about 10 minutes or until much of the moisture has cooked off. Set aside on a plate and repeat until all the mushrooms are sauted.

3. Combine all together back on high heat and add wine and sherry. Let cook off completely, then season with salt and pepper.

4. Let cool and then empty into a glass or ceramic dish for storing (up to one week). Cover the mixture with the rest of your olive oil or until submerged.

Beverage: Cantillon St. Lamvinus
Soundtrack: Feist's "Mushaboom"

Since the city is still inordinately hot due to it's smoldering reality, we've been more than a little averse to turning on the oven. The mere though of cooking anything, while usually a welcome and blissful notion this week seems like some kind of seventh ring of hell type punishment. Instead we're opting for cold preparations of anything powerful enough to stand on its own, receiving little more than a cutting and a garnishing.

We're nearing the end of the stone-fruit season, and tomatoes are really rocking, so why not throw them together? Just like throwing a little salt on your desert, these two fruits offer flavors and textures that compliment and contrast to each-other; both are acidic, both are (or should be) sweet, and both have a lusty oozy nature that prompts slurping and licking. IT was only a matter of time before they ended up on the cutting board together. Are peach soups and tomato cobblers in the not so distant future?
We'll see...when it's a little more realistic to turn on any kind of flame.

Momotoro and Yellow Nectarine Salad
(serves 2)

1 ripe Momotoro tomato
1 ripe yellow nectarine
2 cups of Arugula
3 Tbs. Olive oil
Pinch of Salt
Pinch of Pepper

1. Wash your fruits and greens.

2. Core the nectarine carefully so as to not crush its flesh. One way is to score the fruit all the way to its pit as if you were going to cut it in quarters. Then run a paring knife gently around the outside of the pit.

3. Slice the nectarine and tomato nice and neat.

4. Toss the Arugula with 2 Tbs. of olive oil.

5. Assemble your slices all pretty like. Garnish with dressed Arugula. Then drizzle the remaining oil on the fruits. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

6. That's it.

Beverage: Ska Brewing's Mexican Logger
Soundtrack: John Fahey's Seachanges and Ceolecanths

Cookery is always about sharing, borrowing... yeah, even stealing. The first time we made seitan burgers we had no qualms lifting the recipe (more or less, give or take some smoked salt) from a more tested source. We flipped a barely smudged 'Real Food Daily' cookbook, that one in a long line of old housemates had left behind, landing on the page for seitan.

Sure, we ended up injecting it with molasses-slicked barbecue sauce while piling it onto the grill. But at its core, this was still a recipe we 'learned.'

When, earlier this month, we wiggled our way onto the BBQ grill at Verdugo Bar, (L.A.'s best new hope for rivaling San Fran's infamous Zeitgeist beer garden) we saw the chance to innovate our seitan standard. The big idea was to forego the bun for a baguette. Some of the best fake meat in our minds, after all, is the gooey duck banh mi on the menu at Vinh Loi Tofu.

So curry seitan it was. Now, we wanted something that behaved essentially the same as our go-to, just lighter, more of a summer seitan. Coriander (ground and fresh) helps that. And a small fistful of turmeric powder stains the stuff unnaturally gold, hinting 'chicken', not 'burger'. Finally, we shrank the oil usage slightly and cooked it a little less to stay juicy. While this recipe can still use some play, we've now made 8 loaves of the stuff. Now, you steal it.

Curry Seitan
(Makes 1 loaf)

Wet
4 cups vegetable stock
1 bunch cilantro (stems only)
1/2 cup canola oil
1/2 cup soy sauce
2 Tbs. olive oil

Dry
3 cups gluten flour
1. 5 cups pastry flour
4 Tbs. turmeric powder
3 Tbs. ground coriander
2 Tbs. ground cumin
1 Tbs. ground lemongrass
1 Tbs. cayenne pepper
1 Tbs. kosher salt
2 cups cilantro leaves
1 Tbs. fresh black pepper
Canola oil spray

1. Start by making 4 cups of cilantro-steeped stock. We suggest using 4 cups filtered water blended with bullion on high heat for 5 minutes. (Broth from the box also works, there's no need to make your own stock for this.) In a large pot, place broth on medium heat. Line up the cilantro stems and finely mince so you have about 1/2 cup. Toss half in the broth, and set the other half aside to add directly to the seitan. Let it reach a boil then turn off and cool for 20 minutes.

2. Pre-heat the oven to 375 degrees.

3. Prepare your counter space by laying out all the necessary dry ingredients, a measuring cup (1 cup), 2 large mixing bowls, a towel, a bread pan, aluminum foil, wax paper, olive oil and canola spray.

4. Now mix the dry ingredients in one bowl: the flour, the spices and salt. Finally grind the fresh cilantro coarsely in a mortar and pestle or with a knife (a clean coffee grinder also works) and toss that in too.

5. In the second bowl, measure out the wet ingredients: stock, canola oil and soy sauce. Whisk well.

6. Slowly pour about half the wet ingredients into the dry bowl and mix roughly with your hands. Flick off goo bits and towel dry hands. Pour in the rest of the liquid, saving a tablespoon or so just in case. (You want a gloopy bread batter that sticks together if you try to flip it in the bowl but can also be easily pulled apart.) Add last bit unless it seems too wet.

7. Break off enough wax paper to line your bread pan. Spray the sides of the pan with a touch of canola, then lay it down. Spray even more on the top side of the wax paper to keep seitan from sticking. Grind a decent teaspoon or so of fresh black pepper.

8. You're ready to dump-slide the seitan blob into your lined bread pan. Coat with a touch of olive oil on top, more black pepper and seal with aluminum foil.

9. Finally make a double-boiler by simply filling a large roasting dish one-third full with water and place the seitan loaf inside. This will gently bake the fucker. Put the whole thing in the oven and bake for 1 hour and 20 minutes.

10. When your timer blows up, pull loaf out and uncover. Check doneness by poking with a fork. You want it to still be pliable and soft but slightly browned. Stick it in for 10 more minutes for color and remove. Turn bread over to separate loaf from wax paper (gentle) and slice to serve, sear or reheat!

Beverage: Eagle Rock Brewery's Special Wheat
Soundtrack: Meat Beat Manifesto's "Subliminal Sandwich"