Madhu Knits and Cooks

Recipe, knitting, and sewing project notes

Tag: Cooking — Tips

  • Pureed White Bean and Tomato Soup – Luscious and Creamy

    As I've been working my way through my Rancho Gordo dried bean stash, I've finally had to confront the beans that…I don't like that much.  I know, I know – who doesn't love every single costly Rancho Gordo artisanal bean that one covets for months before finally convincing yourself the price is "worth it"?  

    Now that we're (hopefully) past the judgment reaction, we can get to the topic of today's post – Rancho Gordo's Creamy Lima Bean, Tomato, and Feta Soup.  This soup not only used up the giant lima beans that have been hardening in my cupboard, but also produced a fantastic one-post dinner as well.  

    White Bean Tomato Soup

    I precooked 1/2 cup of dried lima beans in the Instant Pot (soaked overnight, 25 minutes high pressure with a natural release – in the future, I may increase to 30 minutes of cooking time) a day or two ahead of time, which made the soup prep just 25 minutes.  

    The result was comforting, rich, salty, slightly briny, and coated your mouth with a pleasing fulsome texture.  I could have sworn this was a heavy cream-based soup, which is a wonderful mental trick from pureed white beans.  I will keep this idea handy for thickening future soups with a healthier protein than dairy.

    Some modifications I made – I used traditional feta instead of Valbreso and 1/2 of a 140z can of crushed tomatoes.  I think you can experiment with cheese types here as well – other salty or flavored cheeses will probably add their own special imprint to this soup, even a sharp cheddar or herb-inflected cheese.

  • Ken Forkish The Elements of Pizza – Great New Pizza Techniques

    With my recent attempts to mix up my standard homemade pizza game, I checked out Ken Forkish's The Elements of Pizza cookbook from the library.  The first recipe I selected, the 48 to 72-Hour New York Pizza Dough, called for using a food processor to mix/knead the dough, which I was excited to try for a second time.

    I reduced the recipe proportions by a third to end up with one dough ball v. three, and found the recipe + techniques really easy to follow.  I really appreciated Forkish's directions on how to shape the dough ball in particular, because it resulted in a beautifully shaped dough.

    Forkish - NY Pizza Dough

    I baked the dough two days after preparing it, and ended up using Forkish's dough-stretching method which I found much easier to use as well as other dough shaping techniques I've used in the past.  It did as promised – preserved the rim while ensuring a pretty even dough.

    Forkish - NY Pizza Dough Post Rise

    Forkish - NY Pizza Dough Rolled

    I do think my general pre-baking-dough-before-adding-toppings-method is something I should continue to do because the crust seemed slightly less browned than I otherwise would like?  I can probably change this up if we get a baking steel to better conduct heat, but I think for my 15-year old Target-bought stone, a pre-bake will probably help me get the crust I want.

    Forkish - NY Pizza Dough Baked Bottom

    Two other notes – the flavor of this dough was great.  I do think though that I'll try adding the KAF pizza dough flavor powder in the future to taste the result.  Also, I used the KAF pizza dough blend instead of high-protein bread flour because it's what I had on hand at home.

  • Rancho Gordo White Beans, Cauliflower, and Capers – Outstanding Main Course or Fancy Side

    My (embarrassingly large) supply of Rancho Gordo beans continues to pay dividends…when I actually cook them, which is more rare than I'd like to admit.  I recently opened up their cookbook for inspiration, and settled on their Cauliflower with Cassoulet Beans and Capers recipe because I wanted to eat some of their great alubia white beans.  

    RG Cauliflower and White Bean

    I soaked 1/2 cup of alubia white beans overnight, and then cooked them in the Instant Pot for 8 minutes high pressure with a natural release.  Because the beans weren't uniformly cooked through, I used a tip from the Rancho Gordo cookbook to finish the beans.  I salted the beans in the Instant Pot, turned on the high saute setting, and cooked for maybe 5 – 10 minutes longer until the beans were uniformly creamy.  I will use this technique a lot moving forward because I do think it was the perfect way to ensure great finished beans.  The 1/2 cup of dried beans resulted in slightly less than 1.5 cups of cooked beans.

    For the Jerez sherry vinegar, which I didn't have on hand and I couldn't find in our local store, I substituted slightly more than half rice vinegar and champagne vinegar.  This resulted in a wonderful tanginess, complimented with the briny capers, which was quite sharp when the dish was warm and softened as the dish cooled.  

    This was a creamy, tangy, slightly sweet dish with lots of different textures from the cooked cauliflower, squishy white beans, and tighter capers.  It was a great main course for 2 hungry people, and easily could be a side dish for 4 – 8, depending on the number of other sides served.  It also is a great dish to make early on in dinner prep because you can serve it at room temperature.  I will be making it again.

  • The Pasta Roller Arrives! Homemade Pasta-Making is Here to Stay!

    I finally did it friends.  I purchased a hand-crank pasta roller, the famed Marcato Atlas 150 machine.  And sure, some may say that it's just another kitchen tool that I may not use (cough, cough ice cream maker), but after my first use, I knew this machine is going to get a lot of use in our kitchen.

    KAF Pasta - Cut into Fettucine

    First, it's incredibly easy to use.  Incredibly intuitive.  Second, it makes pasta making SO FAST.  I am used to the laborious, hand rolling of my pasta sheets, which has had me shy away from making pasta more than once a year or so.  This smooth moving pasta roller almost makes homemade pasta a weeknight appropriate dish.  

    For this inaugural pasta machine attempt, I used the King Arthur Flour Italian Style Flour Blend (their version of 00) and their accompanying pasta recipe.  I made two slight modifications – I let the eggs come to room temperature before starting the dough (tip from the Marcato guide) and I used the flour well method to incorporate the eggs into the flour.

    KAF Pasta - Flour Measured

    KAF Pasta - Flour Well

    KAF Pasta - Flour Well Starting to Be Mixed

    KAF Pasta - Flour Well Mostly Mixed

    KAF Pasta - Dough Kneaded

    KAF Pasta - Dough Wrapped for Resting

    After the dough rested, the fun began!  I have to admit I was nervous I would break the machine before getting started, but once I got over that fear, it really almost rolled itself!

    I first used a test piece, as instructed by the manual, to go through the roller and cutter settings to clean the machine.  And then I got started with the "real" dough, having it go through the thickest setting several times before feeding it through the tighter roll settings.  Each progressive roll through the machine required a good dusting of flour on each side to make sure there wasn't any sticking to the machine.

    KAF Pasta - Dough Piece Cut for Rolling

    KAF Pasta Dough - Initial Rolling

    KAF Pasta - Dough Rolling Thinner

    KAF Pasta - Roling through Machine

    KAF Pasta - Rolled through Machine

    And then through the machine one last time for the cutting of the strips, which was really, really fun.

    KAF Pasta - Fettucine Cut v2

    The pasta then cooked really quickly – about 3.5 minutes – in a pot of well-salted boiling water.

    KAF Pasta - Cooked

    The noodles were springy, salty, and really delicious after they were cooked.  I was almost tempted to eat them plain! 

    I decided though to use the sauce I had been cooking while the pasta was resting, a butternut squash sauce that will be posted later this week.  The final product was fantastic.  The noodles took to the thick sauce well, and it was really a delight to eat these chewy, well-salted, and silky noodles.

    KAF Pasta - Served Close Up

    Thank you, thank you Marcato for your product!

  • Madhur Jaffrey Instant Pot Simple Mung Dal with Spinach – and a Note on Cinnamon

    Madhur Jaffrey's been a major influence on my cooking of late, as highlighted by yesterday's curtido post.  A major reason for her resurgence in my kitchen is her new Instant Pot cookbook, which I picked up from the library before it closed (and now have no way of returning!).  

    My first new cookbook recipe attempt was a modified version of her Mung Dal with Spinach.  It was modified in the sense that I didn't have the right proportion of spinach available, so I halved the recipe entirely with even slightly less spinach.

    Madhur Jaffrey - Spinach Dal Served

    I learned a lot about Instant Pot dal cooking by attempting this recipe.  First, 10 minutes on low pressure is a perfect cook time for split mung dal, a dal that I had previously completely overcooked in the Instant Pot.  

    Madhur Jaffrey - Spinach Dal Chopped Spinach

    Madhur Jaffrey - Spinach Dal All Ingredients in Instant Pot

    Madhur Jaffrey - Spinach Dal Instant Pot Timer Set

    Madhur Jaffrey - Spinach Dal Dal Done Cooking

    Second, the 3.5-to-1 water-to-dal ratio was a bit too high, which I ended up taking care of by sautéing the dal for a bit longer with the tadka.  

    Madhur Jaffrey - Spinach Dal Tadka

    Madhur Jaffrey - Spinach Dal Dal with Tadka

    The third and most important takeaway is that we really don't like cinnamon in dal.  In this simple recipe with ginger, garlic, and spinach, the half cinnamon stick cooked with the dal produced way too much of a deep cinnamon flavor.  While that flavor faded over the coming day, it still was a great lesson learned for us to omit cinnamon in these simple dals moving forward.

  • Jim Lahey’s Pizza Dough – Very Good, But Doesn’t Displace My Favorite Recipe

    I loved Jim Lahey's pizza restaurant Co. when it was open in NYC, and was so sad when it closed.  It was a regular go-to whenever I was anywhere near that side of town.  And so when I saw that Jim Lahey had a pizza recipe book while browsing my local library stacks, I grabbed it with high excitement.  

    Jim Lahey Pizza Dough - Baked

    The resulting two pizzas I made from the half portion of his no-knead dough recipe were very good with nice salty and yeasty flavors in every bite.  I didn't follow any of his pizza topping recipes, rather just the dough and baking method.

    Jim Lahey Pizza - Measuring Flour

    Jim Lahey Pizza Dough - Dough Together

    Jim Lahey Pizza Dough - Ready for Rise

    The dough required an 18-hour room temperature rise, which led to a slightly sticky dough that was hard to stretch out nicely.  I imagine my lack of experience shaping pizzas by hand v. rolling probably contributed to this difficulty though.  

    Jim Lahey Pizza Dough - Risen

    Jim Lahey Pizza Dough - Stretched for Baking

    What I most liked about Lahey's pizza approach is that he calls for pre-heating a pizza stone 8 inches from the top of the oven at 500 degrees before then turning on the broiler to bake the pizza.  That high heat leads to a nicely cooked pizza in just a few minutes. 

    Moving forward, to really make use of this technique, I should pre-heat the broiler for longer before putting in the shaped pizza and leave the dough in the oven slightly longer until there are more black spots across the pizza.  I will probably continue to pre-cook the dough, which I generally do, before adding toppings to avoid the toppings overwhelming the thin dough.  

    What I least liked about this pizza was the relatively small pizzas that his portions led to.  One Lahey pie is enough for slightly more than one person, but not quite enough for two.  As a result, for the slightly higher effort of an 18-hour room rise instead of a forget-about-it fridge rise, I think I'll probably continue to default to my standard pizza dough recipe, but now coupling it with Lahey's broiler bake approach.

  • Sichuan-Style Eggplant – Third Time was Almost a Charm!

    Eggplant is perhaps my top cooking enemy, and Sichuan-style eggplant in particular is a feared foe that out masters me every time.  I have tried and tried again, but my homemade eggplant always has a tough, unappealing consistency.  It's almost like eating something that isn't actually edible – simultaneously overcooked and raw.

    Steamed Sichuan Eggplant - Served over Rice

    So when some eggplant arrived in a recent vegetable delivery, my heart stopped a bit.  What was I going to do with these rotund evil bulbs??

    Steamed Sichuan Eggplant - Whole Eggplants

    Not so much driven by determination to vanquish Sichuan-style eggplant as just a lack of creativity on my part, I re-opened the Madhur Jaffrey World Vegetarian cookbook and turned to the Hot and Spicy Sichuan-Style Eggplants recipe.   And instead of trying to improvise this recipe – at least in terms of technique – I set out to chop and steam the eggplant as directed, an approach I haven't tried before.

    Steamed Sichuan Eggplant - Cut Eggplant

    Steamed Sichuan Eggplant - Steaming

    Steamed Sichuan Eggplant - Steamed Eggplant Completed

    Surprisingly the texture was soft and almost melted in my mouth, without having a stringy or tough texture!  Yay, I have mastered eggplant or so I thought to myself.

    Unfortunately the disappointment came with the flavoring mix, which resulted in an overly tangy recipe that lingered on my mouth, followed by a slight stomach upset hours later.

    Steamed Sichuan Eggplant - Oil in Saute Pan

    Steamed Sichuan Eggplant - Flavorings

    Steamed Sichuan Eggplant - Herbs in Pan

    Steamed Sichaun Eggplant - Cooking in Pan with Herbs

    Steamed Sichuan Eggplant - Cooked with Chiles

    My unvetted theory is that inclusion of red wine vinegar in the recipe was particularly problematic, as it most likely caused the over-tanginess of the dish.  However, the whole dish seemed off – slightly sour, somewhat spicy, nothing quite coming together, and just completely unappealing for my palate. 

    But at least I mastered an eggplant preparation technique!  I'll take that as a win after years of trying!

  • King Arthur Flour’s No Knead Bread – Another Great Bread Recipe

    Could there be an even better version of my favorite bread recipe?  Thanks to King Arthur Flour, the answer is yes!  The KAF No-Knead White Crusty Bread recipe draws from my recent favorite Simple Crusty Bread approach, and provides more detailed guidance to result in a perfectly baked loaf.

    KAF No Knead Bread - Close Up

    The more detailed KAF guidance provides both weight measurement guidance that I followed as well as details on how to substitute a dutch oven for the baking itself.  I also followed related guidance to keep my standard inclusion of rye flour to only 20% of the overall flour weight as to not depress the bread rise too much.

    KAF No Knead Bread - Scale(hello scale, I love you!)

    KAF No Bread Dough - Initial Ingredients

    By following the weight guidance instead of the volume measurements, I ended up with a much thicker and dense dough than my usual no knead doughs, which are quite loose and shaggy.

    KAF No Knead Bread - Dough Formed

    KAF No Knead Bread - Ready for Rise

    Like my preparation of the original recipe, I did half the amount of dough I made to ultimately produce two loaves instead of four.

    KAF No Knead Bread - Second Rise

    I baked the loaf in a 7 1/4 quart dutch oven, pre-heated in a 450 degree oven (480 in our new, not-quite-calibrated oven).  I baked the bread for 28 minutes in the covered dutch oven, and then an additional 8 minutes with the cover off.

    KAF No Knead Bread - In Hot Dutch Oven

    KAF No Knead Bread - Baked Bread

    The result, when cooled, was great – full of decent holes, great crust, and a much better rise than when you bake on a pizza stone.  I'll be making this again!

  • Peppermint Chocolate Shortbread – An Almost Complete Disaster

    Two years ago, I discovered a fantastic chocolate shortbread recipe from King Arthur Flour.   The cookies – named Chocolate Dreams – lived up to their designation as they were rich, chocolatey, and had a great flaky texture.  

    As the cookies were in the oven those years ago, I browsed the KAF comments to see what others thought of the recipe.  A few intriguing comments mentioned adding peppermint extract to the dough, which apparently provided the cookies a Thin Mint-like flavor.  

    Those comments have stayed in my head over the past few years, and I recently decided to make this recipe modification myself.  I purchased what I thought was peppermint extract and then made this simple dough.  I didn't notice anything was awry with this alteration until the cookies were baking in the oven and overwhelmed our kitchen with a consuming peppermint smell.

    Peppermint Chocolate Dreams

    I checked my tiny bottle of peppermint extract and discovered that in fact it was peppermint oil.  Two very different things my frantic internet search immediately told me.  With of course, the latter being far more powerful than the former.

    As the cookies cooled, my husband and I still decided to give them a try.  My husband said they tasted like Altoids, which seemed pretty spot on as I hesitantly ate a small cookie myself. 

    This recipe attempt wasn't a complete disaster though in the sense that when I took them to work the next day, a lot of people seemed to actually like them!  Even said they tasted just like Thin Mints.  Well, to each her own!

  • Simple Hard-Boiled Egg Arugula Salad with Balsamic Vinaigrette – A Few Firsts

    This salad – which I prepared way back when – provided me a series of firsts.  It allowed me to finally try some fantastic balsamic vinegar a friend had brought us from Modena, to attempt hard-boiling eggs, and to try my first "60-Minute Gourmet" recipe. 

    Arugula Egg Salad

    Until I had stumbled upon this recipe, I was completely unaware of the 60-Minute Gourmet series, Pierre Franey's weekly New York Times column which ran from 1976 to 1993.  It was interesting to find this piece of recent culinary history as I think it may prompt a new exploration in my kitchen – what recipes have withstood trends of modern America and can really live through the ages?

    Part of that new exploration may be because this simple arugula salad with balsamic vinegar was pretty bland for my taste.  The ingredients, which individually were flavorful, didn't quite come together.  Basically, it tasted like arugula with red onions and a hardboiled egg.  With some balsamic vinaigrette on top (tasty vinaigrette though to be clear).  

    In addition to trying a new, solid salad dressing recipe that was pretty easy to put together, I also got to learn how to make a hardboiled egg, which I found easy on my first go after extensive how-to research.  I followed the Simply Recipes approach, which was pretty easy and I will likely default to in the future.