Good Real Food

I can’t tell you how glad I am to be back! You all missed roast vegetables, more roast vegetables and, oh, roast root vegetables. With and without garlic. Before I go pitch my cold frame (think warming thoughts about my turnips, folks. Please. Thank you.) and harvest my beets (instead of sitting right here with a blanket and hot cider, which is so much more appealing than midnight beet harvesting) I want to ask for pickling recipes. I have a ton of green tomatoes, salvaged from plants I pulled out this weekend.

I need fridge pickles. I’m way too lazy to sterilize. Eh? Scott?

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My parents brought a dozen meyer lemons from their tree in San Francisco. Used some in salad dressing, been putting them in water glasses. I’m not used to having lemons around.  Do you keep lemons always? For what? Can I freeze the zest of the last three? Can I just freeze lemon slices? I know their days are numbered.

And, also, we have five scotch bonnets and there is no way I can eat them on my own and N. is leaving me for almost a week. What to do? Make some kind of salsa? Pickle them? Dry them?

PS, from the eat your vegetables department, mystery greens (Mr. Prince, the gardener up the street, calls it spinach, but it isn’t. More kale-y) cooked up with mint, leftover brown rice, a dash of habanero powder that Paul gave us for some reason. (You know I’m the last one to say that a gift has to be new, but there must be a story behind half a jar of powdered spice with the label faded and wearing off.) It was most excellent. Mmm, and some Parmesan.  I am going to have to start working on my protein intake, I think. I tend to just assume that they’re right when they say most Americans eat too much protein and I shouldn’t fret.  And, um, ice cream with almonds is a good source of protein, right? That is my other new trick, salted almonds in my ice cream.  I finished Reading Lolita in Tehran which is the subject of one strangely obtuse and contentious wikipedia entry, and which features a narrator who regularly pours cold coffee over toasted walnuts and ice cream and which, somehow for me turned into salted almonds and ice cream. And looking more closely at what I can learn from fiction.

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Caroline wants pickling advice and I’m afraid to tell her I don’t know a thing. I mean, I know a lot right? I know everything. But I’m too lazy to do much more than put more vegetables in the turnip pickle juice when the turnips start to run out. Sliced white onions are good for that. So are green tomatoes. Sliced or whole. Then you can put them on sandwiches. Mmmm. Sometimes I put carrots in, which don’t go well on sandwiches and are better fresh anyway. After a few rounds of onions the brine starts to get funky and I dump it.

This week, though, I made a batch of Korean turnip pickles, that came out pretty great in a garlic skunk kind of a way. Hsuan offered a book of simple Japanese pickles (which she still hasn’t delivered. I gave her some pickled turnip today to help her remember …) which got me thinking that Madhur Jaffrey would probably have some useful advice. I had to adapt a little, since I don’t have any dried Korean chilies and I couldn’t find scallions and I wanted to pickle a lot more than three small turnips.

Note: I think preserving things is one of those adventures that can lead to botulism, so, um … you know. Think for yourself here. Look up a recipe. When in doubt, throw it out.

I started with 4 or 5 really really big turnips, which I sliced about a quarter inch thick, sprinkled lightly with salt, and let sit for a few hours in a glass bowl. I gather that glass is important if you don’t want rust and funky reactions going on. I rinsed and rinsed and chopped up two monster cloves of garlic (I’m thinking now that one would have done it) and one small white onion and one nice hot chili. I don’t remember what variety it was, it was from the green market and it was super spicy. Only you know how spicy you like your pickles. I added ~2tsp of salt and a tsp of sugar and stirred it all around and added enough water to cover the whole business in a glass jar. I added three or four impossibly small beets because pink pickles rule and what else are you going to do with three or four impossibly small beets?

Rest a saucer loosely on top. It was supposed to sit for 6-8 days but I put a real lid on it and stuck it in the fridge on day 5, for no good reason. I had them in my lunch today. Like I said, I think one clove of garlic would have done it–I won’t be getting any mosquito bites tonight!

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I’m trying to get my dad to write for this blog. My dad’s a wonderful cook, and he’s terrific with bread too. I grew up cooking with my parents, but I really owe my love of cooking and comfort in the kitchen to my dad. So, until I can get him writing for this blog, here’s his recipe for a not too spicy mirchi pickle:

Take 15-20 finger peppers, washed and slit along the length. [these are the longer dark green chili, not the shorter chilis that are sometimes sold as Thai chili - you're looking for the ones sometimes called finger hot peppers]

Shake off all the water you can from the peppers. Sprinkle 1 tsp of salt and ½ tsp of turmeric and set aside for 15 minutes.

For the masala, coarsely grind 2 tsp black mustard seed along with ¼-1/8 tsp of fenugreek seeds. You don’t want a powder nor do you want too many whole seeds.

Heat vegetable oil [for 15-20 pepper, take around 5 or 6 tablespoons of oil - after you've made these once, you can decide if you like the masala to be more or less fluid and adjust the oil accordingly]. When hot add the mustard seed mixture. Stir around a couple of times and add the peppers in. Quickly stir fry the peppers for 2-3 minutes, so that the peppers will have scalded in a few places. The more you fry the less hot the peppers will be, but you want the peppers cooked, so it is a matter of taste/judgment. Make sure all the salt and the turmeric is added in, or add extra salt and turmeric. Now add 1 tsp of cumin powder and 1 tsp of coriander powder. Stir fry for 2-3 minutes until the masala is well fried (but not blackened). Take off the heat and add 1 tablespoon of lemon juice or juice of ½ lemon.

(I like more masala so I often add more coriander/cumin and mustard). Cool and bottle. Will keep for 1 week or more in the fridge. However, it taste best when freshly made and the peppers are still somewhat crisp and not limp.

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