Monthly Archives: July 2014

Pappa al Pomodoro!

The delicious Tuscan “mush” of stale bread soaked into luscious tomato-ish soup, served with a splash of evoo and leaves of aromatic sweet basil. Of course, in the summer–and I’m writing this at the beginning of August–pappa al pomodoro is all about sweet ripe fresh from the vine summer tomatoes; but in the winter, pappa is also delicious eating with canned tomatoes–I once went on a vineyard visiting tour which ended up feeling more like a pappa al pomodoro tour, as each of my hosts brought out a bowlful of the thick uber-savoury mixture, saying: this wine, its perfect with pappa al pomodoro! I remember one host saying: “yes, even in the winter I love it: use good quality Italian canned tomatoes!”.

If you’ve ever spooned up pappa al pomodoro, you know it is soooooo soothing, comforting, and ever-so-filling. My friend Judy, in Tuscany, likes it so thick “I can eat it with a knife and fork”. For that, though, you need really fabulous bread: bread with substance and flavour that doesn’t turn gummy. The best bread to use is bread that is very very dry; Judy uses unseasoned croutons, I simply save bread as it stales and let it go very hard. What I don’t use for the pappa will another time become bread pudding.

In keeping with the spirit of this dish, my measurements are not so exact that you need adhere to them. For one thing, your bread will have different thickening qualities as it will be a different bread and a different degree of dryness. Ditto for your tomatoes; in fact, I recommend that you use half fresh and half canned tomatoes for this as the canned tomatoes have a more intense flavour from the cooking involved in canning. I don’t mind tomato skins, however; if you do, you’ll need to skin the tomatoes before using them.

And though tomatoes are already little umami-bursts, I’m letting you into a little secret:  I like to add a mysterious umami-boost in the form of  a porcini bouillion/stock cube, in fact, for 6 cups/1 litre of water, I use two cubes. You can’t really taste it, but the pappa tastes elusively and indefinably more savoury. Chicken or vegetable broth, or plain water, are equally though slightly differently, delicious. If you can’t find porcini boullion cubes, take a few dried porcini mushroom slices and crush in a mortar and pestle, or just break up, and add to the simmering soup. If its crushed you don’t know its there, if its in small pieces, okay, you know its there, but is that a bad thing? when its porcini, i think its always a good thing. but there IS something to be said for mystery.

6-8 cloves garlic; lightly crushed (I leave the skins on as they fall apart during cooking and its so much easier)

About 1/4 cup evoo

3-4 cups ripe tomatoes, coarsely chopped

1 can/tin (about 350g/14 oz) chopped or plum tomatoes, broken up

6 cups/1 litre broth, water, or combination broth+water

1 loaf country bread (1 lb loaf), cut or broken up, and left to grow stale; if it is not stale enough to the point of dryness, place it in a low oven for half an hour to an hour, then check for dryness). The dryer it is, the more it will absorb the liquid and become thick rather than gummy.

Tiny pinch hot pepper, or add a whole pod of a smallish dried chile at the beginning with the garlic, then fish it out at the end.

In a heavy soup pot heat the olive oil until hot but not smoking, then add the garlic and stir around, letting it just gild and smell gorgeous; you do not want to brown it. I”m talking seconds here.

Add the ripe tomatoes, and cook it together, until it becomes somewhat saucey, say 10 minutes, then add the canned tomatoes, broth and water.

Bring to the boil, cook together about 10 minutes, then add the bread. Cover and remove from the heat; let it sit together as the bread absorbs the liquid, stirring it and breaking it up as it does. In case you have big pieces of bread that refuse to break up, use a big wooden spoon.

Pappa is best at room temperature although you can reheat it and eat it warm. To serve: ladle into bowls and scatter lots of fresh basil over the top, drizzle with evoo, and sprinkle with a little coarse salt if liked/needed.

P.S. I ate the leftover pappa al pomodoro for breakfast and then went to the pool for an hour of garlic-breath powered laps; kinda the best morning ever.

Oh, its not a clear well-lit photograph, the braised/roasted carrots and brisket to the right, so I may need to rely on words to describe it: tender (yes, to use that cliche but effective description: fork-tender) strands of beef, the characteric way that brisket is at its best. The top of the meat is crusty, sprinkled with a few grains of coarse sea salt before  being served; the surrounding carrots–this dish’s raison d’etre–are tender, intensified by their long cooking, browned and caramelized by the heat of the oven.

First I simmered the brisket with carrots, parsnips, leeks and whole garlic cloves in a mixture of beef broth with a few dried porcini mushrooms.  The meat was not tender yet, but halfway there.

Then I put meat and vegetables into a glass roasting pan just large enough to hold it, and ladled in enough liquid to almost but not entirely cover it all. I drizzled olive oil on top as the meat was very very lean. If yours isn’t, omit the evoo.

Then I popped it into the oven, and roasted for about an hour and a half, until the meat was sooo  tender and the carrots as caramelized (at least on top) so sweetly that they could nearly be candy. Every half hour or so, as the liquid cooked down, i ladled a little more in; the last half hour I let it all just cook down until it was intensely delicous. And really, I did nothing more except sprinkle with sea salt. And it was superb.

With the leftover broth and vegetables, mostly a lot of carrots, I added a little chard, and some chopped up broccoli rabe. When it was heated through and tender, I ladled it over al dente small macaroni as an Italian style primo piatto, a light vegetable and pasta soup.

While the beef and carrots were braising, I pickled some carrots with onions and jalapenos. It filled up a jar and a half of refrigerator pickles; the next several weeks will be accompanied by this lovely Mexican/Central American escabeche.

Meanwhile, I decided to make Indian Cardomom-Scented Sweet Carrot Dumplings: I had eaten sweet potato/yam dumplings made by Mridula Baljekar at her book launch for The Food and Cooking of India; those delicious dumplings made an impression on me.

I adore Indian sweets but they are usually just so rich and sweet I shiver and shake all over inbetween bites. Not that I stop eating or am less greedy, oh no, but in any event, the idea of something that would have Indian flavours but not be so heavy as to leave me near-comatose, THAT I would like. And THAT was what Mridula’s gorgeous dumplings were. Because I had a mountain of carrots, I decided to make them using carrots instead of sweet potatoes/yams.

The carrots are first cooked, then mashed, then mixed with a few grains of salt, tiny bit of sugar and a hit of cardomom, as well as a spoonful of cream to help it make a batter consistency, and enough flour to bind it all together. I also added a spoonful or two of coconut flour, for a chewy rather than cakey consistency. Then I formed quenelle-shaped dumplings and browned them over a medium low heat, in a non stick frying pan with a few drops of evoo……turning them once or twice, as they firmed up. I tried to keep them from browning too much, which would take them more into pancake and less into dumpling, territory.

As they sat on their cooling tray two things happened: one: i began to think about the syrup, which by all rights would be brown sugar, water, cardomom and a little rose water. Two: my three Jack Russells, Jake, Oscar and Lambchop, gathered around me and begged for dumplings. Of course I gave in: there is nothing too unhealthy for dogs, though there is a little sugar, and I only let them have a small amount of dumpling in any event.

Here is a picture of the dumplings, plain.

And here is a picture of the dumplings in a brown sugar, cardamom and rose water syrup (sadly, a darkly lit foto, the sun was going down).  As the dumplings sit in the syrup they somewhat absorb the syrup–not completely as a crisp dry or spongey pastry would do–these are already dense and moist, as they are mostly carrots; they do , however, absorb some of the syrup. They also get softer, and sodden. But lets put it this way: deliciously sodden with syrup.

The dumplings are delicious whichever way you make them. And if you’re making a batch just for the doggies, leave out the sugar altogether–and if you’d like the dumplings to be sweet but without sugar, you could put a few spoonfuls of honey. Also for the dogs: forget the syrup. The sweetness isn’t good for them, but in any event: mine actually preferred without.

Note: I think that these could go deliciously into the savoury direction as well. Stay tuned.

Sweet Indian-Cardamom Inspired Carrot Dumplings

Serves 4-6

2 cups coarsely mashed carrots–I started with a fairly large pile; I boiled them until just tender enough to be mashed, then drained and mashed them with a potato masher. After i measured 2 cups I used the rest for the North African carrot dip, Zalook.

2 tablespoons confectioners sugar

2 tablespoons coconut flour or finely ground coconut

2 tablespoons double cream, so thick it needs to be spooned, not poured; mascarpone or cream cheese can be used instead

5 rounded tablespoons plain flour

Pinch of salt

Seeds from 3 cardamom pods

A small amount of evoo, for frying

Mix the sugar, coconut flour and double cream or mascarpone into the carrots then stir in the flour, salt and cardamom. You want a thick mixture somewhere between a batter and a dough.

Heat a small amount, say a teaspoon, evoo, in a nonstick frying pan and over medium low heat, make quenelle shapes using two soup spoons, and ease each into the pan. Let cook on first side, until it is golden and a little browned and feeling firmish, then gently turn over onto its second side. You can let them brown a little bit but they look nicer more pale.

Eat as is, or…….drench and then soak in syrup.

Syrup:

2 tablespoons light brown sugar

2 tablespoons white sugar

1/3 cup water

Seeds from 3 cardamom pods

A dash of rosewater: the exact amount depends upon the type and strength of the brand you are using

Combine the sugars and water in a small saucepan with the cardamom, and bring to a boil. Let boil until the sugars are dissolved and the syrup is a little bit thickened, say 5 minutes or so.

Let cool somewhat, then gently pour over the dumplings, or place the dumplings into the syrup. Leave to soak up the liquid, taking care when you move them around that as they absorb the liquid they are more prone to fall apart.I would let them soak at least 2 hours.

Cover until ready to serve.

Note: I chilled the leftovers, about half the batch, and kept them in syrup in the fridge; half of them were in the syrup, half were on top (it was a jar), and they were all even better, two days later, chilled. I think the reason is because the chilling firms them up; both the soaked and sodden with syrup and the ones resting on top, were great. I recommend making them ahead of time!

Cooking and eating our way through the mountain of carrots i mentioned a few days ago–the day of the two cool carrot soups–is actually a lot of fun. True, its a race against time and rot; but having the carrots there, in a pile that seemingly does not go down no matter how many carrots we eat, is kinda crazy-creative  in which my whole culinary world is carrot coloured. I look at whatever I feel like cooking and think: how can I make it more carrotty, can I put a carrot in that, or would this dish be better or worse if I made it with carrots instead of _________.

Once upon a time I wasn’t that fond of carrots, and thought them boring. I mean, a pot of chicken soup is nothing without a carrot, and roasted carrots around a pot roast is fabulous. Carrots are great–raw OR cooked–in a list so long its impossible to even begin. But I still wasn’t thrilled by them. Their sweetness was a little weird, and the texture, I mean: so ordinary. Truly, I was in the take-em-or-leave-em camp.

Yet one day a little more than a year ago,  I started to cross the bridge from once-okay carrot to freaking fantastic carrot. It might have started with Chef Nick Balla’s carrot smorebrod at San Francisco’s Bar Tartine. The carrots were roasted down to intensify their flavour, and infused with something so delicious I just had to close my eyes while I munched. The carrots were on a bed of tangy fromage frais spread on top of a dense rye bread from San Francisco’s Tartine Bakery.

Indian Chef London-based Mridula Baljekar got me kind of addicted to the combination of carrot and cardomom in a sweet carrot fritter-dumpling. And then, at the SF Chronicle Test Kitchen (the late, lamented) someone cooked chef Daniel Patterson’s coffee bean-smoked/infused carrots; I wasn’t completely sold on the combination until the vinaigrette was splashed on; THEN i was onboard with carrot creativity, big time. Bring it on!

Which brings us to here and to now. My mountain of carrots. my fabulous pilaff of roasted carrots cooked with rice, layered with turmeric and fresh dill, and cooked until the bottom crisps, making Persian tah-dig.

We ate it with chard pulled up from the garden five minutes before dinner, a cucumber salad, and uber-savoury Azerbaijan chicken kebabs: yogurt, onions, garlic, mint, saffron, and….paprika……marinated with the chicken for two days. Its wonderful. In fact, even though I hate the sort of well-balanced boring quality of a filled plate, below is my husband’s plate, about 2 minutes before he ate it.

Since this–the snapshot to the left–is my one zucchini aka courgette plant which is going crazy, every so often I might be posting recipes using these little green squash. This foto was taken last week and the plant is another third its size. It has overtaken the celery and climbed up into the acorn tree behind it. I don’t know where it is headed, but I do know that every morning it offers me a handful of long green zukes. If i dare miss a day, the next day I have a monster–or two–on my hands and my life is a little more nerve-wracking. I wish I had neighbours who would accept a basket of zucchini, but I don’t know: they don’t seem to be a vegetable-eating bunch. Its up to us to eat our way through the garden now. And I know, I know, we can do it.

Tonight, for instance I made this “pie” of shredded zucchini, bound with eggs and cheese and baked in olive oil; and it is so good I had to snap its picture before we even had seconds, then sit down to blog this.

zucchini from the garden, about 8 of em, coarsely grated and lightly salted to get rid of the bitterness (my zukes are, alas, bitter). Mixed with about 8 oz shredded white cheddar, 3 eggs, beat together then add enough flour to hold it together in a thick batter consistency: maybe 1/4-1/2 cup, 4-8 tablespoons; stir in several handfuls fresh basil, coarsely chopped. Prepare a pie pan, about 12 inches in diameter and 3-4 inches deep by drizzling the bottom and sides with olive oil. Place in 375 oven and bake for about 40 minutes or until the mixture puffs up, then falls back down, and feels softly firm to the touch. Good hot, good at room temperature, and i’m sure leftovers will be good cold, tomorrow.

Thai spicy turkey salad, a sort of streamlined version of “larb”, low carb and so fresh. That little yellow sungold cherry tomato grew in my front garden just this morning! so sweet and fresh. Romaine, cucumber, carrots, fresh mint from right next to the tomatoes…..

Interesting dressing: Thai red chile paste mixed with rice vinegar and miso. very streamlined, but good nonetheless. the sort of thing you eat and say: oh god i really needed that!