The Spice Is Right: Sweet Or Savory Round-Up Part I

Well, I am pleased to see a staggering number of entries to the second edition of “The Spice is Right,” and am happy to note that we have a few new faces here, jumping in to play the game this time around.

As I noticed in the first round, there were trends and patterns appearing in the entries. It seems that creative minds think alike–keep your eyes open when you read these entries and you can see the patterns emerge. However, even with a few similarities developing from entry to entry, the sheer diversity of recipes along with the thought that food bloggers put into this event is amazing, and once again, we are going to have a wonderful collection of recipes to bookmark and try.

First up, from northern Germany, Ulrike of Kuchenlatein is back with a very pretty dessert that she reports “even the children liked.” Noting that rhubarb is in season where she lives, Ulrike chose to highlight it in Tapioca with Peppered Rhubarb, a confection that uses black pepper to spice up a puree of the sour fruit. The combination of fruit and black pepper is an unusual one, but one that is becoming more and more popular across the world as people realize that the biting nature of pepper heightens the natural sweetness inherent in fruit. Besides–doesn’t the black-flecked pink rhubarb look pretty with the tapioca pearls?

Danielle of Habeas Brulee brings us another sweet dish using an unusual flavor: paprika. Noting that her family is Hungarian, she lists for us the many dishes that she grew up eating that were flavored with paprika: stuffed peppers, stuffed cabbage, chicken paprikas and goulash. (Dang, girl, you are making my mouth water with that list, you know?) When she told her Mom she was going to make a dessert with paprika, however, the maternal disapproval was swift and complete. But that didn’t stop Danielle, she went on, at the urging of Dave modify her cinnamon roll recipe to use paprika instead. The resulting Paprika Sticky Rolls not only look delish, but must have been truly divine, because Dave polished off half a pan of them in one night. (Dave is one smart guy, it sounds like.)

I love the way that I get to find new food blogs, just because I host this event. From the Roaring Belly of the blog, A Belly in the Wild comes a really wild treat that I would love to try: Korean Chili Powder Cupcakes! Adapting recipes from chockylit, who is Our Lady of the Cupcake, she made some fantastic-looking wee cakes that blend the fire of Korean chili flakes with the richness of chocolate, with a sweep of ginger-warmed vanilla icing. Wow! I want to go hang out in the kitchen with the Roaring Belly!

Nandita of Saffron Trail took up the challenge by making a spicy, savory dish with cardamom, a dish that when she was growing up in southern India, was pretty exclusively in sweets. (It is in northern Indian cuisine that I have primarily seen it used as a savory spice, as well as a sweet one.) After giving a bit of history of the spice and its culinary and medicinal uses throughout history, she decided to cook it with mango, ginger, garlic and chile into a delicious-sounding Spicy Cardamom-Mango Chutney. It doesn’t just sound good–look at the vivid color of the chutney–a feast for the eyes.

Debbie of Dejamo’s Distracted said that what she liked most about this event were the buried memories that are stirred to the surface of the unconscious, bringing with them scents, flavors and foods of times long past. She must have been stirred up quite a bit, because she posted -two- recipes using poppyseeds, so I had to choose which one to picture. I went with her Poppyseed Spiral Cookies, because they were just so darned pretty, but really her Chicken Chennai recipe looks pretty tasty, too. In addition, that recipe is fully illustrated, step-by-step, so if you are timid about trying to cook Indian food, because it looks too hard or involved, check out this recipe. Debbie holds your hand through the process and helps the reader out every step of the way.

Is that a pretty picture or what? Meeta, the blogger behind the excellent German blog, What’s For Lunch Honey? gives us a vision of a light dessert in shades of white and red. What is it, other than gorgeous? What spice is that? Black pepper, once again, making friends with fruit and asparagus in Strawberries, Asparagus with Orange Filets. The light, refreshing dessert is also heated up with a goodly dose of fresh ginger, which tells me that I am going to have to give it a shot once the strawberries come into season here! (Though, I will probably pass it off as a salad and not a dessert; my friends and family already expect my salads be composed of unusual combinations of fruits and vegetables. If I tried to get them to eat dessert with asparagus, there may be a mutiny in my kitchen.)

I love creativity, and people who take chances. And several entrants to this event have qualified for my admiration for going on out on a limb and really getting wild with the flavor combinations, but none more so than LG from Georgia, the author of the blog, Ginger and Mango. Even though she has had a couple of bad experiences experimenting in the kitchen, she took up the challenge posed by “Sweet or Savory,” and decided to see if anyone had ever cooked a savory dish with vanilla. And she did find a recipe for a kingfish steak, but leery of ruining an expensive bit of fish, she substituted the more common shrimp, and threw down and made a delectable plate of Vanilla-Flavored Shrimp. She combined the vanilla with ginger, garlic, shallot, lots of chiles (a woman after my own heart) and balsamic vinegar, and created a curry that was hot, sweet and sour all at once. You go, girl!

Mackey’s back and comes bearing a hot dish of sweets from the Philippines that are dark and wickedly delicious. What has the author of The Edible Garden got for us to share today? Nothing less decadent than honey-sweetened Chili-Chocolate Truffles. Oh, Mackey–I swoon to you and your love of chili mixed with chocolate, that being one of my favorite flavor combinations, ever! The fire of the chiles really offsets the dark richness of the chocolate, while the chocolate calls forth the fruity flavor of the chiles which goes often untasted. A match made in heaven!

Nobody who makes such fine looking food strikes me as reluctant, but Gabriella has named her blog My Life As A Reluctant Housewife, so I have to take her word for it. But I still have my doubts, because those Lamb Kebabs with the Three C’S (cinnamon, cumin and coriander) are looking dangerously tasty. It seems that Gabriella grew up as I did, in the strong belief that cinnamon was a sweet spice, and had only recently started using it in savory dishes. Here’s to opening up a whole new world in cooking!

Last but not least, we come to Kitarra of Cooking Debauchery who loves vanilla with a boundless passion, and so, she chose to highlight it in a savory dish that is both sweet and tart, mellow and creamy and spicy with a hint of cinnamon: Vanilla-Scented Scallops. Aren’t they lovely? She made two sauces–a pomegranate cinnamon sauce and a vanilla cream sauce, and then did a lovely plate presentation of the two swirled together at the edges. Absolutely gorgeous, and I bet delicious, to boot!

Well, this is the first installment of the Sweet or Savory round-up; look for the second installment later today, and the third either tonight or tomorrow.

There are a lot more beautiful entries to come, so stay tuned!

There May Come A Day Without Food Blogs

A couple of readers brought this issue to my attention a week or so ago, and I have been meaning to blog about it.

Then, Pim got ahold of it, and suggested “A Day Without Food Blogs” where food bloggers use their front pages to publicize the fact that big telecom service providers such as AT&T and Comcast–known in industry jargon as “The Pipes” are lobbying Congress to allow them to turn the Internet into their own little money-making venture.

They want to undemocratize the Internet and provide fast service only to those companies and websites who will be able to pay for faster service, while individuals, smaller companies and bloggers–folks like you and me–will be stuck putting our blogs and websites on “the slow lane.”

This is not the same thing as consumers paying for connection speed, where folks who want it can pay for DSL and cable, and get faster connection speeds than folks on dial-up. In fact, consumer connection speed will not much matter, if the sites you want to visit, like say, this one, did not pay some telecom giant a huge fee so that my site will load quickly. If that happened and you had DSL or cable, and I hadn’t payed the “toll”, my site would still load at a snail’s pace.

While, I am sure all the blogs that the big newspapers like the New York Times and The San Francisco Chronicle, would load with lightening speed.

So, if you just want to read what professional journalists have to say about food, life and everything else, this is great.

If not, it sucks.

Here is a list of resources for you to get more information:

From the Washington Post

From Slate

From the Baltimore Sun

From My Direct Democracy

Spread the word, though, because the big media are being fairly reticent on this issue–probably because it will benefit them.

Oh–and even if you don’t live in the US–this will affect you, because of the number of routers that are here in the US.

If you don’t like this “get richer and bigger” scheme of the telecome companies, do something about it–raise your voice and make it heard!

Follow these links and spread the news to your net-friends, and fight the attempt to make the Internet safe only for big money and big news.

Save The Internet

Don’t Mess With The Net

If you are in the US–write to your senators and congresspeople, and if you are not–make your voice heard via petition–and frankly, contact your governments as well. Perhaps your governments can apply pressure to help keep your access to the Internet safe from American corporate greed.

Thank you, Pete, Maureen and Pim for your efforts in getting the word out and getting food bloggers to cover this most important issue.

Cinnamon: Sweet or Savory?

Growing up in Applachia, there was one spice, other than pepper, that was in everyone’s cabinet: cinnamon.

Specifically, ground cinnamon. It wasn’t until I was a young adult that I saw sticks of cinnamon, which is the bark of either the cinnamon or cassia tree, which are peeled up and allowed to dry into curled quills that exude the luscious fragrance of the familiar spice. The sticks keep their scent and flavor longer than the pre-ground cinnamon does, so, if one has access to a good spice grinder, I highly suggest buying cinnamon in sticks and then grinding it yourself. If you do buy it pre-ground, buy it in small amounts and use it quickly.

Of course, these injunctions meant nothing to me or anyone I knew when I was growing up. Everyone bought cinnamon maybe once every year or so, pre-ground, in metal cans, and no one worried about how fresh the spice was, probably because we had never tasted any that was truly fresh in the first place. So, how would we know?

Cinnamon was kept around to be baked into apple pies, cookies (particularly Snickerdoodles–rich butter cookes that are rolled into cinnamon sugar before baking), cakes and to flavor the batter for french toast, pancakes or muffins.

My favorite use of the spice came in the form of the ultimate childhood comfort food: cinnamon toast. Whole wheat bread, toasted, then well buttered, sprinkled heavily with a mixture of cinnamon and sugar that was heavy on the fragrant spice, and light on the sugar. (In fact, thinking of it now, made me run for the toaster; I am glad to report that cinnamon toast is still delicious.)

It never occured to many of the folks in my family that cinnamon might be used in any other context besides sweet.

In fact, I did not encounter cinnamon used in a savory dish until I first tasted Cincinnati style chili, which is based upon the Greek dish stifado. Stifado is a stew of beef that is spiced with cloves and cinnamon, and it served as the inspiration for Cincinnati chili which was invented by two Macedonian immigrants who found Americans unwilling to eat Greek style food. So, they put it over spaghetti, topped it with beans, raw onions, and cheese and called it chili.

I have to say, the first time I tasted it, I was less than impressed. I was eleven or twelve years old, and my Grandma had made some “5-Way” and watching my mother, uncles, father and Grandfather digging into it, I shrugged and figured that it must be good, even if I did think it smelled kind of funny.

I nearly gagged when the overwhelming flavor of cinnamon hit the back of my throat. I couldn’t eat it, and ended up eating some spaghetti with butter and parmesan cheese instead.

Since then, my palate has expanded considerably, though I have to admit that even the smell of Cincinnati chili makes me shudder to this day. I have since eaten many a plate of stifado with great glee, and have personally added cinnamon to many a savory dish, but I still cannot eat that stuff they call chili in Cincinnati. Nope–give me proper Texas or New Mexico chili spiced with cumin and chiles any time, thank you.

The recipe I chose to highlight cinnamon is adaped from Madhur Jaffrey’s excellent cookbook, From Curries to Kebabs: Recipes From the Indian Spice Trail. The recipe is Ground Lamb Galavat Kebabs, which originated in the Muslim courts of Uttar Pradesh. The kebabs are very tender and flavorful, although I admit to leaving out the browned onions, because I was making a curry of potatoes and kale that was based on browned onions, and I wanted to keep the flavors from being too similar.

The garam masala I used in the dish is also adapted from Jaffrey’s every day garam masala blend; since I have discovered my allergy to black pepper, I have been leaving it out of Indian food. For the garam masala, I substituted allspice for the pepper, which gives an equally pungent, but different and fragrant flavor. I also fried two cinnamon sticks into the oil to infuse it with their fragrance and flavor before frying the kebabs in it. This is a really nice touch that results in a kebab with a haunting, ethereal flavor that is more scent than savor.

I also used green garlic in the kebabs, and when I made the green chutney to accompany them, I used green garlic in that, as well as my very own mint and cilantro from the garden. (Though I did have to dash out into the rain to pick the herbs!)

Here it is, then, my own entry to The Spice is Right II: Sweet or Savory–Galavat Kebabs with Green Chutney.

Galavat Kebabs with Green Chutney

Ingredients for the Garam Masala:

1 tablespoon cardamom seeds
1 teaspoon allspice berries
1 teaspoon whole cloves
1 teaspoon black cumin (kala jeera) seeds
1/3 of a nutmeg
1 2″-3″ stick of cinnamon broken up into smallish pieces

Method:

Put all spices together in a spice grinder or coffee grinder and process into a fine powder. Store in jar with a tight lid, away from heat and light.

Ingredients for the Kebabs:

1 pound ground lamb
1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh mint
1 1/2 tablespoons peeled and finely ground fresh or minced ginger
3 stalks (white and light green parts) finely ground or minced green garlic
1 1/2 teaspoons garam masala
1 whole thai red chile
4 teaspoons chickpea flour (besan), toasted over low heat until browned and nutty-smelling
4 teaspoons plain yogurt
1 teaspoon salt
canola oil for shallow frying
2 sticks cinnamon, broken into three pieces each

Method:

Mix together all ingredients except the oil, and cover. Refrigerate for 3 to 24 hours.

Form meat mixture into small round balls, about 1 1/2″ in diameter, then flatten them slightly into chubby patties.

Heat canola oil (it should be about 1/4 inch deep) in a frying pan over medium heat. Put cinnamon stick pieces into the oil, and fry, until the oil is fragrant and the bark darkens. Remove shards of cinnamon, and discard.

Place the patties in a single layer, not touching in the pan, and fry them gently for about 2-3 minutes per side. Drain on paper towels. Serve with Green Chutney.

Ingredients for Green Chutney (Zak, Morganna and I just call this, “Green,” as in, “Pass the Green, please.”):

1 packed cup of mint leaves
1/4 packed cup of cilantro leaves and stems
3 Thai green chiles
1/2 teaspoon coriander seeds
1 stalk green garlic, white and light green parts cut into 1/2″ slices
1 small shallot, peeled and quartered
1 teaspoon lime juice
salt to taste

Method:

Put into food processor or grinder and process into a dark green, fragrant paste.

Wasn’t that easy?

Mother’s Day: Flowers and Cookbooks

Morganna went dashing out this morning to pick me wildflowers for my Mother’s Day gift.

However, she regretted not being able to get them before I drafted her to help me cook breakfast: scrambled eggs with ham, cheese, herbs and chive blossoms, with toast. Zak, at breakfast, when Morganna voiced this regret, pointed out that the mere fact that she is with me for one of the first times on Mother’s Day itself was gift enough. To have her live with us, happy, healthy and safe is all I have ever asked for.

But, still, after clearing the breakfast dishes, she dashed outside and down the hill to pick a handful of wild woodland phlox, fleabane and dame’s rocket for me, all in shades of violet, pink and pale lavender. She dashed back up the hill (panting, for it is a very steep hill we live on) and proudly bestowed them on me, explaining that she knew I preferred wildflowers to ones from the store.

Which is true–to some people wildflowers might be plain or ordinary, but to me, their artless grace is more beautiful than any of the most grand of cultivated blossoms. (Not that I dislike cultivated flowers–I love them. I just happen to like wildflowers even better.)

I put them in a vase with some Stargazer lilies we had bought from the grocery store, where they looked truly lovely, and I started thinking.

When I was a little girl, I always wanted to cook something or bake something for Mom for Mother’s Day.

Something glorious, like the strawberry shortcake from The Better Homes and Gardens cookbook, which was one of the scant handful of cookbooks my mother owned.

She owned it, but rarely consulted it, and I can only remember her cooking a very few recipes from it. (Meatloaf and meatballs, and I think, maybe pineapple upside down cake.)

But I, on the other hand, grew up transfixed by the full-color photographs that illustrated the partitions that separated the various sections. I remember looking at the photographs of the cakes with fluffy mounds of icing with great longing, and dreaming of what the neat rows of cookies, all much fancier than any we made, would taste like. I remember reading the descriptions of how to carve standing rib roasts and turkeys at the table with intense fascination, for never did anyone I know, make a show of carving a roasted bit of animal or a whole fowl at the table. Meats were always cut up in the kitchen, and mounded on serving platters to be passed around easily at the table without ceremony or reverence.

The sections on table settings, with the flights of glasses and the many pieces of silverware also intrigued me, for our tables usually were only set with a fork and a knife, a napkin and a plate and a glass. Teaspoons made rare appearances on the table, unless we were having company, but even if they appeared, they were seldom used.

My favorite photograph was of the strawberry shortcake: a tower of cake layered with fresh strawberries and whipped cream piled in cloudlike puffs, sculpted into graceful loops and whorls. Behind the confectioner’s edifice stood a fresh-faced bouquet of daisies, and in the forground rested a strawberry blossom, looking sweet as a Tudor rose.

No one made shortcakes that looked like that. Not even Grandma, who, though she was a diabetic, was a skilled baker who had a genius for sweets. Hers were always made of small bits of spongecake or angel food cake, and the juice from the strawberries always stained the cakes red, while the whipped cream was just plopped on with a quick snap of her wrist. She never bothered to sculpt it or shape it, she just thwapped it from the spoon on top of the cakes, and that was that. When feeding a crowd of hungry farming folk strawberry shortcake, it must never have paid to worry about how pretty the food was, so long as there was plenty of it and it was delicious.

And it always was plentiful and utterly delectable.

I never did make a single recipe for my mother out of that book, for many reasons.

For one thing–I wasn’t allowed to cook much in her kitchen until I was much older. By that time, I had graduated to staring longingly at other cookbooks, like the ethnic cookbooks I checked out from the library and longed to cook from. My dreams were no longer filled with strawberry shortcake, but instead with dolmathes and moussaka, schnitzel and saurbraten, arrabiatta and pesto. I wanted to reach beyond the American standards of my youth, even if I had never tasted the ones of my dreams, and taste the glories of Europe. I was much more likely to experiment with the cuisines of other nations than look at the foods of my own home.

For another thing–the photographs tended to intimidate me. I always thought that I would never be able to make my food turn out looking so special, so rather than mess up the recipe by having it turn out ugly, I just would not try.

And finally–my mother preferred flowers to food, so every year, I would give her another potted crysanthemum, and every year, she would plant it along the foundation of our house, until I went off to college. That fall, the entire back wall of our house was ablaze in blossoms both shaggy and unkempt or dainty and daisy-like in shades of violet, lavender, white, pink, yellow, bronze and burgundy.

In short, Mom had about a dozen huge crysanthemum plants in every color the things came in, and they made her happy. Every year, I asked what she wanted, and she’d say, “Oh, another crysanthemum.”

“But why?” I would ask. “They are so plain.”

“But I like them, and they make me happy,” she would insist, so that is how she got her collection of them, which grew into an unruly hedge by the time Mom and Dad moved away from that house.

I hadn’t thought about that cookbook and my dreams for years, until this year, when I told Mom we would be visiting. She asked me what she could cook for my dinner, and instead of insisting that I cook for her, I asked that she make a pot roast, mashed potatoes, gravy and green beans–a favorite meal from childhood.

“Why do you want something so plain?” she asked.

“Because I like it, and it makes me happy,” I answered.

The irony was likely lost on her, but struck me, and left me with a wry smile.

I had planned to make a strawberry shortcake for her, just as pretty as the one in the picture, but I was stymied by nature–no local berries are ripe yet.

So, I guess I will have to wait and surprise her with a fancy strawberry shortcake in a couple of weeks.

The Spice is Right Sweet or Savory Reminder

This is just a quick reminder that the deadline for the second edition of The Spice is Right–Sweet or Savory is tomorrow, May 15th at midnight. However, if you really want to participate, and haven’t gotten around to posting a recipe (you notice mine is late, too), I will give you until midnight Tuesday, May 16th to post your entry on your blog and email the links to me.

Why am I doing this?

Because I am going to be posting the roundup on Wednsday, not Tuesday.

Tuesday is going to be something else, but I won’t tell you now. You’ll find out on Tuesday.

So, revel in your extra day, and see if you can come up with something fun for us to share on the theme of Sweet or Savory?

Now, I am off to go see my Mamma and wish her a happy Mother’s Day.

I’ll be back later tonight with a regularly scheduled post, and tomorrow, you will see my entry for The Spice is Right.

Now, frolic off and go give your Mamma a big hug for me!