Kashmiri Rotis by Unlisted Sightings

Today marks the celebration of Holi, a Festival of Colors celebrated in India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Pakistan. You know the holiday when you see people throw brightly colored powders and colored water at each other. Like so many holidays world wide, food finds its own important place in the celebration.

Preparations begin days in advance, preparing special dishes and sweets like the malpua, mathri, Puran Poli and Dahi Vada. Learn for yourself to make the sweet, salty and intoxicating tastes that help make this festival so lively.

Puran Poli

Filling :
1. Boil 1 cup chana dal or yellow gram (1 cup) with little water until it becomes soft and paste-like. For faster results, cook it in a pressure cooker.
2. Drain it thoroughly, add approximately 1 cup jaggery flakes. You may want to adjust the amount depending on how sweet you want it to be.

Bags of dal, photo by paulswansen

3. Cook the mixture in a heavy saucepan while stirring continuously. You know it’s ready when the jaggery blends with the dal, and a soft paste forms.
3. Add 1 teaspoon cardamom, nutmeg, a few strands of saffron. Set aside to cool.

Rotis:
1. Mix 2 cups refined flour, 1 3/4 cups water or milk to make the flour into a soft dough, and 1 teaspoon refined oil (1 tbs).
2. Knead the flour into until the dough forms.
3. Make small balls of the kneaded dough. Take a ball and use a rolling pin to flatten it into a thick small roti.

Assembling the Puran Poli
1. Put the chana dal paste as a filling in the center and seal the roll.
2. Reroll it gently. If the paste slides out, use flour to seal it.
3. Roast the poli on warm griddle till golden brown on both sides.
4. Apply a teaspoon of ghee on it and serve hot.

Dahi Vada, photo by Ron Diggity

Dahi Vadas

1. Soak 2 cups urad dal mixed with 1/4 cup moong dal for about 6 hours.
2. Grind the soaked dal.
3. Add salt, ginger, 2-3 finely chopped green chilies and little water to make smooth batter.
3. Beat this batter well or blend the batter in a blender so that there are no lumps.
4. Heat oil in a pan. With the help of the slotted spoon, drop the batter in the form of balls into the oil.
5. Deep fry the balls (vadas) and remove excess oil using blotting paper or paper napkins.
6. Let the vadas rest in cold salted water for a few minutes to extract the oil.
7. Squeeze out the water from the vadas and keep them aside in a deep-bottomed dish.
8. Add 1 cup milk, 1 teaspoon cumin seeds, 1/4 teaspoon red chili powder and salt to taste to 4 cups of curd and whip the mixture.
9. Pour the seasoned curd onto a bowl of vadas.
10. Keep it in the freezer for half an hour. Serve chilled with tamarind chutney.

No meal is complete without drinks. For this, try a milky thandai made from bhang, which is distinctly associated with Holi and sold by government approved merchants.

Photo by Tom Maisey

Bhang:
1. Crush 2 tablespoons sugar and 1/4 cup bhang, that is cannabis leaves and buds together with the pestle.
2. Put the mixture and 1 tablespoon of ghee in a heavy bottom pan and boil it. Turn down heat and let it steep for 15 minutes.
3. Let it cool to room temperature.
4. Make a fine paste by processing it in a blender. Strain it to get rid of any woody fibers.

Thandai:
1. Boil 1 liter milk and allow it to cool.
2. Grind 1/4 cup almonds, 2 tablespoons poppy seeds, 1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds, 1 teaspoon cardamom powder and 7-8 white peppercorn to taste.
3. Add the grounded powder to milk and mix well.
4. Stir in the bhang. Add sugar and 3-4 strands of saffron.
5. Refrigerate the mixture for 3-4 hours. Serve chilled.

Here’s wishing you a happy Holi day filled with flying color, bhang thandai and all the vadas you can eat!

COMMUNITY CONNECTION:

For a look at how the holiday is celebrated outside the kitchen, check out Brave New Traveler’s photo essay on Holi.

Photo by quinn.anya

Yes, it’s simple. You just need the right recipe. This one comes from the Artisan Bread In Five Minutes A Day cookbook, and this is how I do it.

Mixing day:

1. Get a container that can hold several quarts of dough. My container’s square dimensions mean it takes up little space in the fridge.

Photo and Feature Photo by author

Add ingredients as follows:

* 3 cups of warm water (about 750 ml)

* 1 1/2 tablespoons of yeast (about 37 ml)

* 1 1/2 tablespoons of salt (about 37 ml)

* 6 1/2 cups of flour (about 780 g).

The recipe calls for all-purpose flour. I usually bake bread with bread flour, which is a higher-protein flour that typically makes longer strands of gluten, and I like a little bit of whole-grain tooth. For this recipe, I’ve generally been using 1 cup of whole wheat flour (ours is stone-ground and quite rough), 1 1/2 cups of bread flour, and 4 cups of all-purpose flour. Experiment with mixtures you like.

2. Stir up the ingredients until everything is damp. If you live in a dry climate and your flour seems exceptionally dry, add a little bit more water (a couple of tablespoons). Don’t worry about being super thorough — overmixing isn’t necessary. This should take about 2 minutes.

3. Leave it on the counter for a couple of hours if you want to bake immediately. If not, put it in the refrigerator. Overnight is good. A full day is great. Up to a week or two should be OK. This is what it will look like after it’s been chilling and rising:

Note: For those with small refrigerators, you can divide the recipe in half, let the dough rise on the counter, and bake it immediately so you don’t give up valuable refrigerator space to the dough. Or collaborate with neighbors and share a big batch!

Baking day:

1. Get the dough out of the fridge. You’ll want a nice, peaceful, nonstick surface for your dough to rise on. I like to use a Silpat mat — it is nonstick, nontoxic, reusable, heat safe, and flexible for easy dough-dumping. (I got mine 10 years ago at New York Cake & Pastry, which is stamped on the mat, making them a useful souvenir of my time cooking in NYC.) If you don’t have a Silpat, you can use the counter, a towel or a small plate or cutting board.

2. Dust your rising surface with a good coat of flour. Any kind will do.

3. Pull off a hunk of dough. Some guidelines: A piece the size of a grapefruit is about a pound (450 g). A piece the size of a cantaloupe is about 1 1/2 lbs (675 g). I use a piece probably closer to 2 pounds (900 g) — the size of a really big cantaloupe, or maybe a somewhat petite honeydew. You can use a knife, too, but mine usually tears easily and doesn’t require cutting.

Set the dough on the floured surface. Flour your hands. Shape the wad of dough into a round loaf just like this:

4. Cover the dough with a towel and let it nap for a while. How long it rises will depend on how warm your kitchen is. An hour is sufficient if it’s warm (75-80F/25C and up). My kitchen is usually freezing (60-62F/16C), so I leave it out 2 to 3 hours.

5. About 25 minutes before you want to start baking the bread, put your covered heatproof pan in the oven and turn the oven on to very hot (450F/232C). (My pan is a Williams-Sonoma covered cast-iron Dutch oven skillet that my co-worker Jill, God bless her, gave me in 1992.) I like to put the pan in the oven when I start the bread rising, long before I turn the oven on; otherwise, I am prone to forget it and just heat the oven sans pan.

6. When the oven is preheated, uncover your dough. It doesn’t look too much different — just a little bit taller, softer and more refreshed after its rising “nap.”

7. I bend the edges of the Silpat around the dough to shake as much flour close to the dough as I can to minimize the mess. Take the pan out of the oven (careful! It’s SO hot) and remove the lid.

Photo by ansik

Carefully dump the dough into the pan. What was the bottom will be on top, with some rough edges showing. That’s OK! It will all work out in the end.

8. Bake for about 30 minutes. Then open the oven, take off the lid, and let the bread keep on baking for about 20 minutes longer. (Those rough edges have made a gorgeous crown on the bread.) Check it after that initial 30 minutes — if your oven is hotter, the bread might not need as much time. It will be done when it is fairly brown on top, quite brown (but not black) on the bottom, and sounds hollow when tapped.

9. It comes out of the oven brown and amazing!

10. Gently (and carefully! — it’s hot) tip the bread out of the pan and let the bread cool completely on a rack.

11. Slice it and enjoy the texture. It should be moist, chewy and crusty — perfect for toast, sandwiches or just scarfing down with butter.

Please note that it has probably taken you almost as long to read this post as to make the bread!

COMMUNITY CONNECTION:

For more recipes, tips and tricks check out Matador’s Food and Travel page.

Photo by kaktuslampa

It happens to all of us. You go shopping with the best of intentions. Then a week passes. Two. Maybe even three, and you find yourself with a drawer full of old vegetables. They’re still edible, technically, but no one really wants to dig into their soft wrinkly skin.

Some ideas of what you can do with instead of throwing them away.

Pickling

From kimchi to kosher dills, pickling has been preserving food for centuries. You can read about the science of pickling and compare notes with other picklers at the Exploratorium: Museum of Science, Art and Human Perception.

Pickling works best as a preemptive strike. Say you went to the market, got all excited and ended up buying more than you need. It’s simple, quick to prepare and has a long shelf life.

A Simple Pickling Recipe

Photo by biskuit

3 cups distilled white vinegar
1 cup water
2 cups sugar
¼ cup salt

Then add whichever spices appeal: dill, whole allspice, whole raw garlic, celery seeds, mustard seeds, whole black peppercorns.

Use this liquid to preserve just about anything from tomatoes , cucumbers, carrots and peppers to fruits like mango and peaches. Store in the refridgerator.

Boil It Into A Jam Or Sauce

Chutneys, preserves and sauces provide ample opportunity to hide imperfections.
Sautee garlic, onions and spices before adding your old tomatoes. Cook them until saucy. You can also throw in any other vegetables or even fruit pureed or whole for additional flavor. Jams are also easy in that you simply heat your old fruit with water and sugar and cook until thick.

Chutney, a more savory type jam, works on a similar principle as pickling except where pickling is cold, chutney is heated. Throw in fruits like mango, apples and peaches with vinegar, sugar and spices and cook.

Spicy Apple Chutney

Photo by Clara S.

4 apples, peeled and quartered
2 tbs vegetable oil
Whole mustard seeds
1 onion, chopped
2 tsp finely chopped garlic
1 tsp fresh ginger
1-2 chillies of your choice, sliced. Include seeds for a spicier.
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup red wine or apple vinegar
1 cup water

Heat oil in a large saucepan. Add mustard seeds until toasted. Then add onion, and salt and cook until onions are translucent. Add garlic, chile and ginger and cook another minute. This releases the flavor of these last ingredients.

Add remaining ingredients and cook over moderate heat until everything is soft. Takes between 30-45 minutes depending. Stir occasionally to keep from burning.

Roast Them

Salvage your root vegetables – potato, yam, carrot, turnip and the like – by roasting.

Batatas Bravas

Chop whatever you have into bite sized pieces, coat generously with olive oil, salt and powdered chile pepper. Bake for 30 minutes at about 375F/200C until soft. Then turn oven to broil and let cook until everything turns crispy. Add more oil if you see the pan drying out.

These are incredibly spicy and go perfectly with beer.

Hide It All In A Soup

Again, the boiling principle comes to the rescue. Just about any vegetable can be salvaged by a pot of water, vegetable stock cubes or tomato sauce and spices.

Vegetable Soup

Photo by rusvaplauke

3 tbs olive oil
4 cups of whatever vegetables you want to add, chopped into bite size pieces
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
2 tsp rosemary
1 16oz can of crushed tomatoes
2 16oz cans of water
4 tbs dark soy sauce (also called sweet soy sauce)
4 tbs regular soy sauce

Heat oil until it runs like water in the pan. Add onions and cook until translucent. Add garlic and rosemary and leave on heat for another minute. Add rest of vegetables and cook.

When the vegetables just begin to soften, add crushed tomatoes and water and cook covered for half an hour. Pour in both kinds of soy sauce and cook uncovered for another ten minutes. You may want to add additional soy sauce depending on your preference.

COMMUNITY CONNECTION:

What are your favorite food preservation recipes, tips and tricks? Share them in comments below. Then check out Matador’s Food and Travel page where two favorite past times unite.

Photo courtesy of MickRheault!

But this isn’t about vegetarianism. This is about how to make your bowl of wings that much easier.

Behold. Food Wishes blog shows this video on the correct way to at a chicken wing.

COMMUNITY CONNECTION:

Food As Porn

Photo by Shannalee T’koy. Feature by Theilr

Not since Georgia O’Keefe has one woman made inanimate objects seem quite so sensuous and alive. Shanalee T’Koy of Food Loves Writing fills her blog with soft, warm, tasty photos of fruit, bakery buns, brunches and the people who lust after them.

In spite of her fantasy-provoking and mouth watering photography, Shanalee’s writing and recipe style is down-to-earth and easy. She makes you feel like you’d just love to sit down over a plate of blueberry waffles and spill all your dirty details.

Food As Frugal Philosophy

Daniel Koontz’ Casual Kitchen is about cooking more, thinking more and spending less. There, Daniel presents easy to make, healthy and unique recipes that work easily within a budget while simultaneously offering thought-provoking food related philosophy links around the web.

First, brush up on Daniel’s glossary of Casual Kitchen memes before diving into discussions of ways to help the environment from your kitchen or new ways to think about rising food costs.

Food As Fashion and Art

Luxiraire, without a doubt, presents the most jaw-dropping and awe-inspiring creations I’ve ever seen.

Photo by Sean McGrath

The most difficult avocado recipe ever first caught my eye. Then I became distracted by a parfait. I’m not usually much for parfaits, not to mention finding the word silly, but Luxirare’s method of creating solid caviar-like bubbles out of a juice to use as a layer in the dessert simply won me over.

Food As Culture

Laylita grew up in Vilcabamba-Loja, Ecuador. Her recipes have been inspired by her mother’s New Mexico cooking, the Ecuadorian market food stalls and street snack carts and from the food she ate made by her Texas grandmother.

I found Laylita’s website while searching for a good humita recipe. Humitas are fresh corn cakes served traditionally throughout Argentina, Peru and Ecuador. The corn is ground, cheese added and then wrapped in corn husks and steamed. They can be made dulce or salada, sweet or savory.

Food As Obscenity

The food creations on This Is Why You’re Fat will make your stomach turn and churn, yet you won’t be able to look away. In fact, don’t be surprised if you find yourself marveling in disgust at photo after photo of the most horrendous, artery clogging, sickening food combinations you’ve ever seen.

Photo by Alexik

Ok, maybe the Oreo S’more doesn’t look so bad, but the bacon maple hot dog drizzled with chocolate sauce?

Or how about the infamous Widowmaker? Any food that begins with 1.5 pounds of ground beef, continues to a whole package of bacon and not one, but TWO entire packaged pepperoni pizzas has got to be worth a mention.

COMMUNITY CONNECTION

Have you made or eaten anything spectacular, disgusting or amazing? Share your favorite recipes and websites in the comments below.

For some of our own Matador food porn, be sure to take a peek at our tasteful beefy centerfolds or read our guide to seven decadent New Orleans desserts.

Emma Lundmark shows off some tunnbröd dough.

My first encounter with Tunnbröd (thin bread) came in the form of local street grub I’d quickly grabbed after a day at Vasamuseet a couple years ago. The concoction I’d ordered – soft thin bread rolled up funnel-style and filled with sausage, mashed potatoes, onions, mustard, lettuce, and other dubious condiments – was called Tunnbrödsrulle.

Integral to most meals in Sweden, I would later be introduced to varied and crispier versions of Tunnbröd. Thin bread topped with cheap caviar squeezed from a tube and cucumber slices adorn tables across the country. Crispy thin bread heavily smeared with butter regularly accompanies lunch and dinner. Crushed tunnbröd is eaten with sour milk and lingonberry jam cereal-style in a fashion called bryta (also known to Northerners as smolanedi).

Tunnbröd also plays supporting role to Surströmming (fermented Baltic herring), of which I have firsthand experience sampling.

While spending last summer up in Norrbotten (Northern Sweden), we’d convened at the local neighborhood joint for lunch – a small convenience store/pub/restaurant/bakery – all rolled into one in the small village of Klöverträsk; population – 260.

The only item on the menu that day – a pasta and meatballs with brown sauce dish – also happened to be the lunch special.

Young Emma Lundmark serves us our meal.

“You know Jonny makes his own tunnbröd,” someone chimes in just as we dig into baskets of freshly baked crispy bread.

I immediately set up a date with Emma, Jonny’s oldest daughter. She agreed to take me the very next morning behind the scenes of their bakery – Klöverträsk Bröd – an icon in the village for the last 40+ years.

1. Located in the village of Klöverträsk, The Lundmarks run their small one room bakery right next to the equally small convenience store where they sell groceries and toiletries. Their attached pub/restaurant is just a door away behind the store.

2. “It’s fun to work with your hands,” shares Emma as she kneads and prepares dough early in the morning. Each batch makes roughly 40 kg of tunnbröd so two batches are made per day.

3.A grooved roll pin is used to aerate the dough and to give it its texture look.

4.The bread is passed multiple times through a “kavelmaskin” – a machine that is used to stretch out the dough into a near paper-thin layer.

5.Once the dough has been stretched to the right weight, it is sliced into manageable pieces for baking.

6.The sliced up dough is then flash-baked for 20-25 seconds.

7.The baked crispy bread is cut into stackable pieces while still hot, and piled into boxes to continue their cooling down process.

8.Each box is weighed to make sure they meet the 400g (800g for larger boxes).

9.Simple clear cellophane tape is applied to seal the boxes up.

10.The freshly baked tunnbröd is ready to be delivered to local stores, including the Lundmarks’ own convenience store.

11.Another Lundmark specialty is cardamom-infused biscuits called Bettans Biscuits.

12.It takes about 20 minutes to mix and prepare each batch of dough.

13.The dough is left to rise for 45 minutes before baking for another 45 minutes.

14.Once the bread cools down and edges are cut away, they’re left to dry out for about two days. After that, they are put in a cutting machine to continue making smaller pieces which are baked one more time for close to two hours to give them their signature crispy taste.

15.Once ready, the biscuits are bagged and ready for sale. The Lundmarks also sell breadcrumbs accumulated from the baking process so that these cardamom-flavored breadcrumbs can be used for other baking purposes.

16.The finished products end up in the backyard pub and restaurant for guests.

17.The boxes and bags of thin bread and biscuits also end up in their convenience storefront for local customers to buy. The store is literally a door away that leads from the bakery.

18.Twice a month, the Lundmarks deliver tunnbröd and cardamom biscuits to roughly 60 local stores and supermarkets all across Swedish Lapland and in neighboring towns of Luleå, Piteå, Älvsbyn, and Boden.

More on Klöverträsk Bröd (Bread)

For more than 40 years, Klöverträsk Bröd has remained a family-owned business, providing fat free, sugar free, and milk free tunnbröd. The bakery was purchased roughly five years ago by The Lundmarks – Jonny, Monica, and their five children – from previous owner Robert Öhman who, after 18 years of running the business, was ready to move on.

In addition to Klöverträsk Bröd, the Lundmarks also purchased a 20+ year old recipe for old fashioned cardamom biscuits called Bettans Biscuits, which originated from a little village called Niemisel.

Since both purchases, Jonny has expanded the bakery’s offerings to include the following four products:

• Bettans Biscuits
• Bettans Breadcrumbs which can be used for baking
• Smaller 400g boxes of Klöverträsk tunnbröd
• 650g boxes of regular breadcrumbs

22 year old Emma continues to tend the bakery, shop, and restaurant alongside her parents.

Contact Information

Klöverträsk Bröd
Klöverträsk bya väg 21
975 91 Luleå
Phone: (46) 0920-85200
E-mail: jmltrading@telia.com

Above photo by author. Feature photo by infomatique

Every year, I resist autumn. For one thing, I don’t do winter well. I hate the cold, despise being stuck indoors, and dread the daily struggle to don jackets, scarves, hats and gloves. But that’s the least of it.

Fall has always meant endings for me: end of summer. End of sweet, formless days outdoors. End of roaming. During peak tomato time, when berries still hold the sun’s warmth but back-to-school ads are inescapable, I begin to mourn the summer.

Then, A Shift Takes Place

Around the time humidity lifts and light slants a bit lower, fall wins me over with the lovely assortment of foods I find at local markets.

Photo of quinces by author

Some may find eating with the seasons stifling, particularly when local produce options seemingly limit the palate. I see it as an adventure. When there is nothing but root vegetables and rugged greens on the horizon, you’re challenged to be creative or else become bored.

No cans this year for pumpkin pie. I scored the perfect cheese pumpkin – resembles the Halloween variety — at a farm stand in Connecticut. I’ll roast it with cinnamon and cardamom and invent my own pie recipe.

A paper bag full of quinces from a Connecticut orchard perfumes the kitchen with their lemony-floral scent; they’re awaiting their appearance in a lamb tagine with saffron and ginger, recipe courtesy of Alice Waters’ Chez Panisse Fruits cookbook. If I have any leftovers, I’ll poach them with honey produced on a rooftop up the street.

Crazy, extra-terrestrial kohlrabi used to befuddle me. Now I love it julienned and dressed raw, with apples.

Finding Inspiration In the Flawed Hold Outs From the Past Season

Tomatoes that didn’t grow well and will never ripen make a mean green pickle or fried green tomato. Frost-blemished peppers blister sweetly over a flame, and summer arugula turns feisty and red-veined after a couple of cold nights. Both perfect for winter salads.

Photo by Bunnicula

Winter Spices Warm Your Home

Roasted root vegetables or winter squashes practically beg for spices such as cloves, nutmeg, and even vanilla bean, too often overlooked in summer. These fall dishes require longer cooking which means you must stay indoors as these wintry aromatics fill the air.

By the time winter arrives in a few weeks, I won’t be so afraid of the frigid months to come. Instead, I’ll find comfort in the magic of a parsnip and a stalk of Brussels sprouts, as they take the frost and the weakening light and transform them into something delicious.

COMMUNITY CONNECTION

What are your favorite winter recipes and farmers markets? Share your tips and ideas in comments.

Above: Various spices used in chai. Photos by Susanna Donato.

In our temperate North American climate, October means crisp blue skies, the sweet dusty smell of leaves piling up beneath trees, and of course, a burning desire for warm, spicy food and drink.

Nothing says “you’re home” in fall like a pot of something to warm you up. I love to draw that warmth from around the world: Fall is for chai masala.

“Chai” means tea in many languages, and “masala” means mixed spices in some Asian languages. In the world’s biggest coffee chain, a place where the littlest drink is “tall” and mixed lingos rule, “chai latte” is the international term for spicy tea with milk.

A warm cup of chai

In India, the person who makes and serves chai masala is known as a chai wallah. In areas where no master of chai is handy, you can do the job yourself.

Of course, you can stop into a café or buy a boxed, condensed version of chai. If you do so, expand your horizons by asking about locally available brews. (In Colorado, where I live, some cafes carry locally microbrewed Bhakti Chai, a fiery, spicy variety.) Or you can save money and gain insight by brewing your own.

Brew in Bulk

For years, my husband has made chai in large batches — about a half-gallon (2L). The recipe is flexible and easy to personalize: add more pepper and ginger if you like it spicy; more cinnamon and vanilla for a smoother, sweeter style. But the basics are:

Put a large pot of water to boil.

Toss in spices (refer to leading image): About 1/4 cup (approximately 30) green cardamom pods, a cinnamon stick or two, 3-4 star anise, about 12 cloves (too many will make it numbing), a few slices from a ginger root or a teaspoon of ginger powder, a teaspoon of black peppercorns, and a piece of nutmeg and/or a vanilla bean if you like.

Boil for 30 minutes to an hour. Your house will be infused with the good smell.

Tea brewing

Turn off the heat, add tea — 1/4 cup of tea powder, or about six black tea bags. Cover and steep 5 minutes.

Strain into a pitcher. Stir in a spoonful of vanilla extract and sweeten to taste.

To serve, heat gently with milk to taste.

The whole process takes about an hour, largely unsupervised, and you can keep the pitcher in your refrigerator for a few days, reheating as you like. Explore local markets to find spices in bulk — you’ll have a travel souvenir or a new local haunt, and you’ll save money, too.

Authentic Style

You can also boil the mixture together with milk for a strong, creamy drink that is much closer to real Indian chai masala. Caveat: India is still on my travel wish list, so feel free to chime in with your own recipes or tips if you know better! But I can guarantee this tastes fantastic.

You can crush or grind the same spices used above. Out of curiosity, I recently picked up a packet of masala chai mix at our local Indian market. The word online is that these pre-packaged spices might be stale, but this shop is well-regarded and busy.

This style is best made to serve immediately. Double or triple the recipe if you’re serving more than one.

Bring 1/2 cup of water to a boil.

Masala chai mix

Add 1/2 teaspoon chai spice mix (or to taste — our mixture’s ingredients begin with black pepper and ginger, so it is very spicy). Boil 1 minute.

Add 2 teaspoons of sugar and 1 teaspoon tea powder (powdered tea reportedly holds up better and produces better flavor than tea leaves when boiled vigorously like this; we had some Ethiopian tea powder on hand). Boil 1 minute.

Add 1 cup of milk. (Some swear by using only half-and-half or whole milk to be really rich and creamy.) Bring close to a boil.

When the mixture is almost boiling, remove it from the heat for a few moments. Then put it back. Repeat this process — a dance of almost boiling, removal, return close to the boil — 5-7 times.

Steep, covered, off the heat for two minutes.

Strain the mixture and enjoy.

Boiled chai masala is richer in taste and more expensive to make, with the milk or cream, not to mention the personal effort. You can make it while doing other kitchen chores — I’ve been known to brew it up while emptying the dishwasher — but it’s also wonderful to be contemplative about it. Mixing up this spicy goodness can be nourishing to the soul, as well as the body. Breathe it in, connect and enjoy. Namaste!

COMMUNITY CONNECTION

Feature photo by Leigh Shulman. Above photo by Arvindgrover

We’re all relaxing around the kitchen, chatting and drinking coffee at Ran’s place in San Ramon, a suburb just outside of San Jose.

“You’re making the pinto this morning,” Ran informs me.

Yes, gallo pinto, the classic Tican breakfast of beans and rice.

Then he turns on the loud Ritmo, because reggaeton makes him feel like cooking, and starts swinging his hips.

He helps me assemble the ingredients:

One onion, chopped
Three garlic cloves, chopped
Oil, butter or animal fat
Two stalks Celery, chopped
Half a Sweet Pepper, chopped
Handful of chopped Cilantro
1.5 cups Black Beans
2 Cups Rice
Your choice of alcohol, beer works well.
Salsa Lizano Unlikely to be found outside of Costa Rica but is similar to mild green salsa found elsewhere)
Salsa Inglese aka Worcestershire sauce
Salsa China aka soy sauce
Salt and pepper

We’re all inside opening our first beer of the day. Yes, it’s first thing, but we woke up late, so it’s more like lunch than breakfast.

Begin With A Hot Pan, Garlic and Onions

First things first. I sautee garlic in olive oil, then add onions.

While I’m at the stove with the onions, Lila’s leaping and giggling in Ran’s bedroom, turning Noah into a jungle gym and Ran’s sweet dog Drunk – pronounced dronk with a fully rolled r – is in the backyard humping a towel.

Ran comes up behind me, takes my arm and gently rotates the spoon in the pan.

Photo by Randall Arias

“How’re those onions coming, honey?” His other arm encircles me, and we dance a little together, before he gives me a kiss and heads off to see who’s at the door.

Another friend arrives. There’s clearly some drama going between the two, so I focus on the pan in front of me. The onions have caramelized nicely. It’s time to add the celery, peppers and cilantro, keep stirring over heat until everything is cooked.

Now it’s time for the rice and beans.

There are two ways to make pinto. The first, comes from the Guanacaste province. They put the rice in first, and it makes for a drier, crunchier pinto. The other originates in the central valley, where the beans go first and the final dish is moister, mushier. We’re making Guanacaste today.

In goes the rice. Ran tells me to “fry it as much as I want,” although I’m not entirely sure what that means. I let it go about five minutes before adding beans, salt and pepper.

Final Touches

Then top with alcohol, salsa Lizano, soy sauce and a bit of Worcestershire sauce. Mix and you’re ready to eat.

Serve with naitilla – sour cream if you can’t find it — cheese, fried sweet plaintain, any kind of meat or eggs. You really can’t go wrong.

Photo: karindalziel

Groceries get around more than you might realize. From farm to fridge, odds are the pineapple in your fruit bowl or the milk in your cereal has racked up even more frequent flier miles than you have.

That’s a lot of fossil fuel burned on our food’s account.

The local food movement is out to change that. By only eating foods produced in their community, region or country, adherents, known as locavores, aim to reduce pollution and support ethical farming practices.

With more and more people defecting from supermarket to farmer’s market, a number of websites have appeared to help users find local food in their own communities.

Photo: acnatta

If you’re thinking of going local, these sites can help you make the switch:

1. LocalHarvest

The Google of local food sites, LocalHarvest seems to have everything. Want to find farmer’s markets or farm subscriptions near you? Just enter your ZIP code into the site’s search engine.

Looking for local food-inspired recipes? LocalHarvest has that too. The site even has its own online marketplace, where shoppers can buy locally-grown produce from the comfort of their own homes.

2. Sustainable Table

A collection of resources for conscientious eaters, Sustainable Table provides information on issues ranging from local food to genetically modified (GMO) crops. The site also provides links to a wide selection of U.S. and regional local food guides.

For a good laugh, check out the animated parody “The Meatrix,” in which a group of livestock don trench coats and sunglasses to do battle with Big Agribusiness.

3. FoodRoutes

Photo: Natalie Maynor

A local food website for the activist in you. FoodRoutes, a national non-profit with the goal of “reintroducing Americans to their food,” advocates sustainable farming practices and provides consumers with information on the local food movement.

The site is also home to Buy Fresh Buy Local, a locavore organization with chapters in 28 U.S. states.

4. Eat Well Guide

Eat Well Guide is a spiffy, simple search engine that allows residents of the U.S. and Canada to find organic and local food shops and restaurants in their area, and the site’s guide to organic butchers and locally-raised meats should be especially helpful to the carnivorous crowd. In addition, the site hosts The Green Fork, an award-winning local foods blog.

5. Foodzie

Foodzie is an online marketplace for small-batch and artisan foodstuffs that’s all about craft, offering such delicacies as pumpkin-spice granola from Maryland and smoked sea salt from Maine. Customers can search for products by either name or location produced. However, some vendors are more local food friendly than others, so die-hard locavores might want to double-check before making their final purchases.

Plus one for our European friends:

BigBarn

An interactive map of local food markets around Britain, BigBarn’s Google Maps-based interface is easy to use and packed with information. The site also includes a searchable recipe database, where visitors can learn to make dishes like apple pancakes and wine-braised beef.

Community Connection:

Matador’s archives are full of recommendations about how you can eat local while traveling. Check out Slow Food, Slow Travel: Italy and Munching Montana: A Road Trip Guide to Montana’s Most Unique Local Food just for starters.

Want to volunteer with an organization that places a strong emphasis on local food? Read our profile of the Culinary Corps.

Interested in a more philosophical take on locavorism? How Local Self-Reliance Will Overthrow the System and Do we need industrial fertilizers to weather the food crisis? might be right up your alley.

Photo: mynameisharsha

Why Cold-Brew?

Chilling hot coffee is a common way to make quick and easy iced coffee. Cold-brewing takes several hours. Why bother?

Cold-brewing extracts the flavor and caffeine of the coffee grounds, but less of the oils and acids. Without heat, you get great-tasting iced coffee without the bitterness. Try the two side-by-side sometime. You will be converted.

The Recipe

Fill a glass container with 6 tablespoons of ground coffee.

Add 2 cups filtered water.

Cover and let rest for 12 hours.

Strain the coffee through a filter.

Fill two glasses with ice and add coffee.

(Optional) Add cream and sugar to taste.

Develop Your Caffeine Habit

Photo: findfado

Twelve hours is a long time to wait for coffee. To make cold-brewed coffee regularly, you need to plan ahead.

First, get a French press. They are easy to use for brewing both hot and cold coffee. Each night, around dinnertime, fill the press with coffee grounds and filtered water.

It will be ready at breakfast.

After you try it a few times, experiment with the amount of coffee grounds and the timing. I like the portions in the recipe above, but you might want to adjust the strength. Also, some people prefer a 24 hour brewing. On the other hand, you can cut it down to as little as four hours – make it at breakfast and enjoy it with lunch.

Cold-brewing Tips

Photo: thebittenword.com

To get great coffee flavor, buy good whole-bean coffees. Look for fair trade. Make sure it was roasted recently.

Coarse grind your coffee. The mesh screen on the French press will do a better job of filtering.

Add a little cream and sugar if you want, but try it plain first. It is smooth and probably won’t need as much extra stuff added as you are used to with hot coffee.

For variety, add a bit of honey or cinnamon to the coffee grounds. Or try adding some peppermint loose leaf tea. Flavored syrups will work as well.

Use filtered water.

If you drink iced coffee all day, you won’t be able to make them fast enough with this recipe. Consider purchasing the largest French press you can find. Multiply the recipe to make large batches. You can store the extra coffee in your refrigerator. It will keep for days and it won’t get that nasty old coffee taste.

Community Connection:

Travelers looking to make coffee on the road should check out Matador’s Coffee Gear for Coffee Fanatics. Also, don’t forget how your purchases affect the lives of coffee producers. Read more at Fair Trade for Beginners.

Fried Brains

1 calf’s brain per person

1 cup all purpose flour

2 cloves garlic minced

1/2 bunch italian parsley chopped

1 lemon

1/2 stick salted butter
salt and pepper

Pick the blood vessels and film off of the brains and soak in cold water overnight. Change the water every few hours. When they are properly soaked the water will remain clear.
 Blanch in boiling water for two minutes and remove onto a rack to thoroughly drain.

Season with and pepper. Roll through a pan of flour to coat evenly. Melt butter in a skillet on medium high heat. When it is frothy and begins to turn a nut brown color add brains. Sauté until golden brown, constantly basting with butter to evenly brown.

Remove and keep warm. In another skillet melt 3-4 Tablespoons of salted butter and quickly saute parsley and garlic. Remove from heat, squeeze lemon into garlic / parsley mixture, stir, and pour over brains.

Courtesy of msglaze.

Filipino Fish Head Soup

Photo by chanmelmel

1 fish head (salmon, lapu-lapu, maya-maya, tanguigue)
1 whole garlic, crushed and peeled

2 thumb-sized pieces of ginger, peeled and thinly sliced

2 onions, peeled, halved and sliced

6 c. of boiling water
patis
2 tbsps. of cooking oil

a bunch of sili leaves

Heat the cooking oil in a large deep saucepan or casserole. Saute the garlic and ginger until fragrant. Add the onions and cook, stirring, for another 30 seconds. Pour in the boiling water. Lower the fish head into the hot water. Season with patis. Lower the heat, cover and simmer for about 10-15 minutes, depending on the size of the fish head.

Courtesy of Pinoycook.

Lamb/Goat Brain Curry

This chef is hilarious. “I forgot the oil. My brain is not functioning, thinking about this awesome brain curry today.”

Brain Soup (Hirnsuppe)

A traditional German recipe that is surprisingly simple, if you have some brains around the house.

1 calf’s brain
2 tbls butter
1 qt beef Stock
1 egg yolk
1 cup cream
flour

To wash brain clear of blood, soak in cold water, renewing water several times. Skin and chop fine. Melt butter in pan, add brain, sprinkle with flour, and saute 10 minutes. Add beef stock and simmer 20 minutes. Just before serving, stir in egg yolk and cream.

Courtesy of recipehound.

Salted Fish Head Curry Recipe (Kari Kepala Ikan Masin)

Photo by matahati67

1 tbs oil
2 onions, chopped
4 shallots, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
¼ tsp mustard seed
¼ tsp fennel seeds
¼ tsp fenugreek
¼ tsp black pepper
3 tbs fish curry powder
200ml fish stock
1.5kg salted fish head
1 litre low fat milk
300g orange and apricot yoghurt
3 eggplants, quartered
3 tbs tamarind paste

Heat oil in awok over medium fire. Stir fry garlic, onion and shallots until fragrant, about three minutes. Add mustard seeds, fennel seeds, fenugreek and black pepper. Mix well for 1 minute. Add fish curry powder and fry for another one minute. Pour in fish stock, stirring all the while. Add salted fish head, milk and yoghurt. Allow to simmer over slow fire fore 5 minutes. Add eggplant and cook another 5 minutes. Allow the gravy to reduce before adding tamarind paste. Mix well and bring to a boil. Serve hot, garnished with chillies and coriander leaves.

Courtesy of Pickles and Spices.