Kitchen3N

Recipes and food fun from Apt 3N

Kitchen Sink Cookies

IMG_0734 Not the most appetizing name for a cookie, I know. But take one bite, and who? wha? What’s in a name? These are actually based off the kitchen sink cookies from a certain famous/infamous bakery that has taken Queens by storm (Martha’s, if you must). Why the duality? You either love it or you hate it. Their chocolate mousse and rainbow cookies: perfection. Their cheesecakes and gelato: leave something to be desired. Pretty much everything else is lukewarm, considering it opened shop in a city that is overrun with foodies, michelin award winning pastry chefs and french macarons that are flown in from Paris daily. Enough about their kitchen sink cookies. Mine have a tad fewer ingredients (nix the white chocolate and toffee bits) and satisfy a craving for chocolate chip cookies that have just a little extra something. The addition of coconut made them appealing even for all the South Asian mouths I have to feed around here. And obviously the oats make them a healthy and nutritious snack so when your toddler stuffs her face with them you’re not thinking “I’m a terrible parent” rather “just look at all that fiber she’s getting”. Lastly, after baking chocolate chip cookies for the past 15 years, I will leave you with some things I’ve realized:

  1. You don’t need to wait around for your eggs and butter to come to room temperature before baking. Just melt the butter in the microwave or saucepan! The cookies come out just as good. But if you insist on being old school, cube up the butter so it warms up faster.
  2. The original recipe says to use quick cooking oats but I used old fashioned and it came out just fine.
  3. Make sure your leavener isn’t too old. For years I thought baking soda was just an inferior cousin of baking powder because the first time I made CC cookies I used an out of date baking soda and my cookies just went SPLAT all over the baking sheet. So, after one year, I’d say get a new one.
  4. For a long time I under baked my cookies (325 or 350 degrees for no more than 10 minutes) but these days, I bake at a higher temp (375) for ten minutes and it just toasts up the butter in the cookies and they get that magical nuttiness to them.
  5. Finally, I’ve started using raw sugar instead of white sugar and there’s no difference in taste or texture as far as I can tell.

IMG_0738 Adapted from Allrecipes.com

Ingredients

  • 1 cup butter softened (or melted)
  • 1 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 2 large eggs
  • 2 tsps vanilla extract
  • 1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
  • 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 3 cups old fashioned or quick cooking oats
  • 1 cup chopped walnuts (optional)
  • 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
  • 1 cup sweetened coconut flakes

Directions

  1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
  2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter, brown sugar, and white sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs one at a time, then stir in vanilla. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, and salt; stir into the creamed mixture until just blended. Mix in the oats, walnuts, chocolate chips and coconut flakes. Drop by heaping spoonfuls onto ungreased baking sheets.
  3. Bake for 10 minutes in the preheated oven. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

 

Deb’s Favorite Brownies

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Yes, I’m referring to her by her first name because she’s a household name around here, joining the ranks of Giada and Ina. Smitten Kitchen’s Deb Perelman is who I aspire to be. Mother, blogger, and now, cookbook author. She is a meticulous cook whose love of food and attention to detail are the biggest attributes to her success. I am a novice in many of those respects and though parenting takes up the largest percent of my time, effort and mental faculties, my hope is that in time my recipes and food photography will start to measure up to hers.

Onto the brownies. And yes, there are 1,000,001 brownie recipes out there.  Why blog about it when everyone knows that Ghirardelli’s brownies in a box is the no-fail go-to brownies to make when you’re craving some chewy, fudgy squares of chocolatey goodness? We do it because, what IF, among that pile of recipes, there exists one that is so perfect that it hits ALL THE RIGHT NOTES and you believe that you have, in that bite, found cocoa bliss? That is why we keep making these iterations. That is why Deb has 11 different brownie recipes and no doubt she will continue her brownie exploits (as we all will) until we are finally happy (which I doubt will ever happen). It’s kind of like our white whale (brown in this case)

My conclusion: excellent brownies if you happen to have unsweetened chocolate on hand. It was a rare occasion, but I did. Next time though, I might try decreasing the sugar and seeing how I like the sweetness and texture.

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Recipe from Smitten Kitchen.

Ingredients:

3 ounces unsweetened chocolate, roughly chopped
1 stick unsalted butter, plus extra for pan
1 1/3 cups granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon flaky sea salt or 1/4 teaspoon table salt
2/3 cup all-purpose flour

Directions

Heat oven to 350°F. Line an 8×8-inch square baking pan with parchment, extending it up two sides, or foil. Butter the parchment or foil or spray it with a nonstick cooking spray.

In a medium heatproof bowl over gently simmering water, melt chocolate and butter together until only a couple unmelted bits remain. Off the heat, stir until smooth and fully melted. You can also do this in the microwave in 30-second bursts, stirring between each. Whisk in sugar, then eggs, one at a time, then vanilla and salt. Stir in flour with a spoon or flexible spatula and scrape batter into prepared pan, spread until even. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes (I baked mine for 35 min), or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out batter-free.

Let cool and cut into desired size.

Elmo Cake

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For all you novice cake bakers/decorators: know that this cake is within your reach. For I am a terrible decorator. Crumb layer – I never bother. Fondant – what’s that? But for my daughter’s birthday, I wanted to make something special. And the cake part of this at least is pretty foolproof. You can just buy an elmo face shaped cake pan from your local Michael’s or Party City. Then use your favorite two layer cake recipe and bake for the recommended amount of time (maybe a few minutes longer since all the batter goes into a single pan). I used Beatty’s Chocolate Cake. The best. Chocolate. Cake. Recipe. Ever. I do enjoy Gourmet‘s and Smitten Kitchen’s chocolate cake recipe, but there’s just a bit too much coffee for my liking. This is one is just perfect every time, as evidenced by the 1,000+ positive reviews, and is easier (only one type of chocolate, not two).

Wilton walks you through the steps of preparing the frosting and tips for achieving decorating success. I outsourced this once again to my doctor-by-day-cake-decorater-by-night friend Moury. So, there aren’t many words of wisdom for me to impart to you except for the following:

  1. Freeze your cake to minimize crumbage (yes, I just made up a word)
  2. Chill the frosting after filling up your pastry bags. Room temperature stars look completely splayed.
  3. Use corn starch (not corn syrup!) to even out the frosting on the eyes and nose

 

Turkey Tacos

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This meal starts on Thanksgiving. All our usual get togethers were canceled or deferred to a different host’s house. Neither set of parents were up for hosting anything. And my husband doesn’t like turkey. So, that’s that.

Or is it? I bought some turkey thighs on my last halal meat run. I’ve never cooked turkey apart from the usual brine and roast so I thought it would make for an interesting meal. After my initial research (the usual run through of allrecipes and foodnetwork) I found this very casually written, though pretty thorough recipe for turkey tacos on chowhound. I almost didn’t follow the rules…I thought, everything good in life always starts with sautéed onions and garlic AND THEN the rest of the ingredients. Alas, I was a good girl and made the stock (with the addition of salt) and was rewarded handsomely.

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At first taste, when testing the meat for doneness, I wasn’t crazy about it. It had an overwhelming turkey smell, without enough seasoning. But patience, young jedi, pays off. After I took the thighs out and let the stock reduce…I added two ladlefuls to my stir fried shredded meat and it was magical. Like the type of magic you see in restaurant kitchens when the wine hits the mushrooms or the pasta hits the sauce and the chef does this szuszh (sp?) with the pan and you wish it were in your mouth right now.

I didn’t have the usual taco ingredients (tortilla, avocado, etc.) so I just made some roti and cut up whatever salad ingredients I had on hand. The result: my 2 year old actually ate it. Nuff said.IMG_0502

Ingredients:

  • 1 medium onion or 2 small, peeled and quartered
  • 5-6 cloves garlic, smashed with the side of your knife
  • 1 heaping tsp cumin
  • 2 bay leaves
  • juice of 2 limes
  • juice of 1 orange
  • 1 packet of dried ancho chillis (4 chillis in total…or use a can of chipotle peppers in their juices for more heat)
  • 2 turkey thighs (about 3 lbs)
  • 1 heaping tsp of salt
  • vegetable oil

Directions

  1. Combine first nine ingredients in a large pot. Pour enough water to cover the meat. Bring to a boil over high heat then reduce to a simmer. Let it simmer until meat is tender (this took me about 45-50 min).
  2. Remove the meat and let cool. Meanwhile, discard the bay leaves from the stock and blend the remaining ingredients with an immersion blender (or in a blender). Let reduce while shredding the cooled turkey meat.
  3. In a large skillet pour 2 tbsp vegetable oil over high heat. Stir fry shredded turkey, allowing it to stick to areas. After about a minute or so, add two ladlefuls of the reduced stock. Give it a final stir, getting the browned bits off the bottom of the pan. Remove from heat.
  4. Serve with tortillas (or any flat bread), tomatoes, avocado, red onion…anything you like on your taco!

Hasan’s Aqiqah

This past Sunday was my son’s (Hasan’s) aqiqah, an Islamic tradition wherein a family celebrates the arrival of new progeny with the sacrifice of an animal (one goat for a daughter, two for a son). Unlike birthdays or weddings, there aren’t a ton of customs to follow. The feast following the sacrifice isn’t widely observed, at least not in the Muslim community I grew up in. In fact the first aqiqah that I’d been to was my own daughter’s. This poses the thoroughly enjoyable challenge of creating one’s owns customs.

Menu Planning. First and foremost, who is my audience? Banglus. Don’t try to pass around beautiful, fresh tasting hors d’oeuvres. We are used to having our palates on fire. We even drink spicy lassis for goodness sake, to wash down our biryani. To start, I served my Lima Apa’s chatpati.

Chatpati is one of the great Bengali street foods. Dried white peas (or white vatana) are slow simmered in a spicy broth, then served with fresh diced tomato, onion, thai chili, cucumber, cilantro, hard boiled egg, potato chips and tamarind juice. I don’t know what her secret is…I’ve had many a bland chapati. But hers is perfectly salty, spicy, sweet and tart all at the same time. I have a feeling Shan might have something to do with it =)

On to the main course: salad and balsamic roast chicken got duped in this picture. But, that’s ok. The main attractions were the goat curries, done two ways. One is a spicy, traditional method (thanks to Hasan’s paternal grandmother) the other is a sweeter curry, made with yogurt, raisins and almonds (thanks to his maternal grandma). Then there was the mixed vegetable sauté. And the rice pilaf (palau). Don’t forget the naan and raw onions & thai chilis. Even with this spread, it wasn’t the most abundant I’d seen at some Bengali parties.

Sweet. Since the main courses were generously taken care of by relatives, I got to go all out on dessert (which is great since I really DO NOT care for bengali desserts).  Fleur de sel caramels as party favors. Chocolate cupcakes with white chocolate buttercream for the kids (I was less than impressed by the buttercream…the white chocolate did not shine through all the butter and confectioner’s sugar). Paula’s pumpkin bars with cream cheese frosting (something seasonal), which were a huge hit! And finally, for the banglus, including my husband, a caramel-less flan (dubbed egg pudding by the banglus).

Despite the near chaos of cramming 30 some odd people into our cozy junior 4 apartment, a good time, and a good meal was had by all.

How to. Here is the recipe for the pudding. Adapted from Allrecipes.com.

Ingredients:

  • 3 eggs
  • 1 (14 oz.) can sweetened condensed milk
  • 1 (12 fl. oz.) can evaporated milk
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Place a nonstick 9 in round baking dish within a larger oven proof pan (such as a 9x13x2 glass tray).
  2. In a large bowl, beat eggs. Beat in condensed milk, evaporated milk, sugar and vanilla until smooth. Pour egg mixture into the round 9 in nonstick baking dish.
  3. Pour warm water into the larger dish so that it comes up about 1/4 to 1/2 an inch up the side of the pudding pan. Carefully transfer the whole thing to a rack positioned in the middle of the oven.
  4. Bake in preheated oven 60 minutes. Let cool completely.

Pavlova

By now, you must be thoroughly confused. Traditional Bengali food. All American desserts. Mediterranean musings. Korean restaurant review. And now an Aussie/New Zealander dessert? What kind of blog is this? In short, it’s a reflection of me. My south asian roots. My growing up in the most ethnically diverse place in the world. My brief, but glorious time in Italy. My marriage to a guy whose life is even more of a hodgepodge than mine (think, Bangladesh, Libya, New Zealand, New York).

I consider myself blessed for having the exposure I’ve had. Even if that meant that I was viewed as an outsider as much in the States as I was in Bangladesh. Because it’s led me here, to this blog, where I can share a little bit of my delicious albeit widely varied culinary experiences. Right now, it’s just a lowly food blog. But my plan for tomorrow night? TAKE OVER THE FOOD BLOGOSPHERE.

Back to the pavlova. I was intrigued when my husband first told me about it. It’s essentially a giant meringue, but coupled with the creamy, fatty goodness of whipped cream, and the freshness of fruit. Kind of like Eton Mess, but without the hassle of individual servings. Kiwi is the New Zealander’s fruit of choice, but feel free to use whatever’s in season. It’s fairly simple to make. It just requires a bit of patience as you whip the egg whites. And don’t feel badly if it cracks – I haven’t seen one that doesn’t.

A few tips:

1. Dust the parchment paper with cornstarch to avoid sticking.

2. Top with whipped cream and fresh fruit JUST before serving.

3. Leave it in the oven (heat turned off, overnight if possible) to minimize cracking.

 

Recipe from Allrecipes.com

Ingredients:

  • 4 egg whites
  • 1 1/4 cup sugar
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1 tsp lemon juice
  • 2 tsp cornstarch
  • 1 pint heavy cream
  • 6 kiwi, peeled and diced

Directions

  1. Pre-heat oven to 300 degrees F (150 degrees C). Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Draw a 9 inch circle on the parchment paper with pencil.
  2. In a large bowl, beat egg whites until stiff but not dry. Gradually add in the sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat until thick and glossy. Overbeaten egg whites lose volume and deflate when folded into other ingredients. Be absolutely sure not a particle of grease or egg yolk gets into the whites. Gently fold in vanilla extract, lemon juice and cornstarch.
  3. (Flip the parchment paper over so you don’t get any of the graphite on your pavlova!) Spoon mixture inside the circle drawn on the parchment paper. Working from the center, spread mixture toward the outside edge, building edge slightly. This should leave a slight depression in the center.
  4. Bake for 1 hour. Cool on a wire rack.
  5. In a small bowl beat heavy cream until stiff peaks form; set aside. Remove the paper, and place meringue on a flat serving plate. Fill the center of the meringue with whipped cream, sweetened if desired. Top whipped cream with kiwifruit slices.

Hahm Ji Bach

I’ll start the first of my restaurant reviews with my favorite Korean spot, Hahm Ji Bach. Located deep within Queens, in one of the most vibrant Asian communities in the city…it’s a trek even from the last stop on the 7 line (Main St, Flushing). If you’re driving though, you’re in luck. Valet parking is on the house.

It is a rare establishment that serves up authenticity alongside hospitality so that even a stranger to the cuisine or the culture wouldn’t be intimidated. You walk in and are immediately greeted with a round of “Yobosayo!” from all the waitresses. Among the seated are Korean families, students from nearby colleges, and groups of buddies from all across the racial spectrum.

The menu is massive. But the one thing you’ll see on every table, aside from a plethora of banchan (small dishes, including lots of pickled vegetables, fresh greens and if you’re lucky, soft shelled crabs). are the bbq pork belly (daepae samgyupsal). Since I keep halal, I can’t share what makes this dish so ubiquitous. But for the pescatarian, the chilean sea bass cooked in kimchi, the broiled mackerel, seafood dolsot bibimbap (rice served in a hotpot) are all winners. Be weary, though, if you can’t handle the spice. Towards the end of my meal, I was wiping my nose and taking a gulp of ice water after every bite. I’ve never had food that hurt that bad, taste so good.

Dessert is limited to a small bowl of pumpkin slush and some slices of pineapple, served at the end of the meal to every table. Nothing to write home about, but definitely unique to this place.

Best part? It’s such a good value! Entrees range from $15 to $25 and include all these freebies.

Daal (Bengali Lentil Soup)

This is the quintessential Bengali side dish. The ultimate comfort food. It’s on every dinner table…from the most affluent of households to the most modest. When you invite someone near and dear to you, you always entice them with the promise of “daal bhat” (rice and lentils).

I hadn’t realized how extensive the ingredient list was for such a simple dish as daal. Mine is a bit heavy on the garlic (’cause let’s face it…the lentils themselves don’t have much flavor). The tomatoes and cilantro add freshness. To add depth of flavor, daal is traditionally made with panch phoron, added right at the end. Panch phoron is a Bengali blend of five different seeds: mustard, nigella, asafoetida, fenugreek, and cumin. It toasts up in the oil with the fried onion at the end to enhance its flavor. The combination of spicy, licoricey and earthy flavors give it a distinctly Bengali flavor.

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Ingredients:

  • 1/2 cup split red lentils
  • 3 cups water
  • 2 cloves garlic
  • 1 green (thai) chili
  • 1/2 tsp ground turmeric
  • 2 tsp salt, plus more to taste
  • 1/4 cup diced tomatoes
  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • half a small yellow onion
  • 1 clove garlic
  • 1 pinch pach forom (optional)
  • small handful cilantro (about 1/4 cup, optional)

Directions

Rinse the lentils 2-3 times in cold water. Then, combine with water, garlic and chilli and bring to a boil over high heat (cut a slit into the chili pepper to let some of the flavor out). When it comes to a boil, lower the heat (otherwise it boils over like milk) and bring to a simmer. Spoon off some of the foam on top.
Add the turmeric, salt and tomatoes. Let simmer for about 15 minutes, or until lentils are cooked through. Optional: at this stage you can break up the lentils with a daal ghutni or an immersion blender (taking care to remove the chili and garlic) to give it a smoother consistency.
While lentils simmer, thinly slice the onion and fry until brown over medium heat. Mince the last garlic clove and add it to the onions for the last 30-45 seconds. Finish with chopped cilantro. Taste for seasoning.
Serve over rice.

Your Mama’s Goat Curry (almost)

imageI wanted this blog to be part-South Asian cooking primer, part musings on Mediterranean/American/Italian cuisine and part dessert food-porn. I haven’t had much opportunity to cook South Asian food post baby no.2, mainly because I’ve been blessed with my mom’s good old home cooking most of the time.

But since it was Eid ul Fitr and my mom ran off to the homeland for a month, I got a chance to whip up some of the good stuff. The stuff that when I asked my husband to give a taste, rolled his eyes back and said “THIS is what makes the world go round”. Now, I won’t take all the credit. It’s a pretty standard curry recipe: onions, garlic, spices – with the exception of tomato paste. That’s a nifty little trick I learned from my mother in law. Intense tomato flavor and meat tenderizer in one. But it’s the meat that makes all the difference. Goat meat, very popular in the subcontinent, not so much in the states – is so flavorful, so tender. Though not as overpowering as lamb can be. I usually get ~3lbs from the shoulder/ribs/foreshank area.

I know it looks like a lot of ingredients, but they are seriously things to invest in if you enjoy south asian cooking.

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Ingredients:

  • 1/4 cup vegetable oil
  • 1 large yellow onion or 2 small
  • 2 tbsps garlic/ginger paste (or 5 garlic cloves and 1.5 in ginger root, minced)
  • 1 tbsp tomato paste
  • 2 tsps cumin powder
  • 2 tsps coriander powder
  • 1/4 tsp cayenne powder
  • 2 tsps turmeric
  • 4-5 lbs goat meat (cut into small pieces)
  • 2 tsp salt, plus more to taste
  • 6 cardamom pods
  • 6 cloves
  • 2 cinnamon sticks
  • 4-5 peppercorns
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 2.5 cups water

Directions

Heat oil over medium high heat in a nice, big pot. Slice onion and add to hot oil. Let it soften (for 5 to 8 minutes) and add the garlic/ginger paste, tomato paste, cumin, coriander, chilli and turmeric and mix  well. Let the spices cook for 2-3 minutes, adding water as necessary to keep he spices from sticking to the bottom. Add the goat meat pieces and stir to coat every piece with the flavor base. Let cook for 10 minutes (similar to the searing stage of a meat braise). Add salt, then the garam masala (cardamom, cloves, cinnamon and peppercorns). Add water and bring to a boil. Then cover and reduce the heat to medium-low. Let simmer for 45-90 minutes, depending on the age of the goat. Young goat cooks in as little as 45 min.

Taste for doneness (meat should be tender) and seasoning.

Mushroom and Carrot Salad

My best friend Moury and I are total health nuts…NOT!

She has sworn off salad greens and fruit. I am a dessert fiend and thanks to my husband, no stranger to midnight snacks (though not nearly as bad as he is…ahem empty pint of green tea ice cream sitting in recycling bin). But now, as I’m trying to lose the remaining baby weight, I’m trying to take baby steps towards better health (pun!).

Step 1: cut back on dessert!

Step 2: reduce carbs

Step 3: make the move to whole grains (I’m at multigrain bread for now, but still haven’t hopped on the brown rice bandwagon)

SInce, like Moury, am not crazy about salad greens (arugula being an exception) I try to come up with salads that I can really enjoy. And trust me, this is GOOD!

Adapted from Giada’s Fresh Mushroom and Parsley Salad.

Ingredients:

  • 2 carrots
  • 1/2 package mushrooms
  • handfull of chopped parsley
  • juice from 1 lemon
  • 2 tbsps extra virgin olive oil
  • salt & pepper to taste

Directions

Peel and thinly slice the carrots (at an angle for aesthetics). Thinly slice mushrooms. Combine with parsley in a bowl. Drizzle over the lemon juice and olive oil. Salt and pepper to taste. Let stand for 10 minutes to let all the flavors infuse the mushroom and carrots (since they are raw).