Why is it that no one can agree on the proper boiling of an egg? I know. You think I’m kidding. You think I’m grasping for a topic to write about, don’t you? Well, maybe Guilty on Count 2, but I’m really not kidding.

Too many people think you can just plop an egg into a pot of water, boil it to death, and then wail because the whites are the consistency of overenthusiastic breast implants and the yolks are wearing army-issue olive drab coats. From World War I.

Others make the boiling of an egg sound like it’s culinary alchemy – an arcane set of spells and enchantments to master. Only achievable when the Harvest Moon is in the 16th hour of waning. Or is that, waxing?

I bring this up now, because the Jewish holiday of Passover begins the evening of April 18th. For most of us of Ashkenazic European descent (I confess ignorance of Sephardic traditions), the Seder dinner will commence with eating a hardcooked egg in salt water. And from what I’ve seen over the years, many people (including my own mother) can’t boil an egg to save their lives. And they don’t care. It’s a throwaway. A necessary tradition to get through and then get on with the real meal. Okay, maybe that’s a touch harsh. But only a touch.

You know what you really need to hard boil an egg perfectly every time? A kitchen timer and some ice. Oh, and the eggs, of course.

So now, a Primer on the Perfect Hard Boiled Egg:

First rule: This is one case when you don’t want the absolutely freshest ingredients. Buy the eggs ahead of time, and let them sit in the fridge for at least a few days before cooking them.

Place the raw eggs in a saucepan in a single layer. Preferably with a bit of room to move around. Add cool tap water to the pan to just cover the eggs, followed by a hefty pinch of salt. Place the pan on an appropriately-sized burner and turn the heat to high.

Immediately set a kitchen timer to 18 minutes.

When the eggs have just a couple of minutes left on the timer, fill a large measuring cup or a bowl with ice and set it next to the sink.

Immediately at the 18 minute mark (do not pass Go, do not collect $200), remove the pan from the heat and drain. Shake the eggs around in the pan a bit so that they crack, and dump the ice on top of them, then fill the pan with cool tap water.

Allow to sit for only a couple of minutes before peeling under the cool water in the pan. You’ll find that they’ll peel more easily (and pretty) when they’re still warm, than if you wait until they’re completely cold.

Note that you cook them the same way and for the same amount of time no matter the quantity. The time and rules remain the same, whether you’re cooking two eggs or a dozen.

See? Perfectly hard boiled egg: Bright, fluffy yellow yolk, no green ring, and the white is tender enough to cut with a fork.

Now you’re ready for the first course. Or deviled eggs. Or tuna salad (that’s what I’m making in this photo). Or any other application. Rubber eggs, begone!

Okay, this is pretty funny. I must have posted this photo here, instead of my Twitter feed, but that’s okay. I’ll just tell you about it.

This is Eleanor Hoh. Eleanor is known on blog and Twitter and around town as the WokStar. For very good reason, I might add. She’s one of the Miami food bloggers who actually cooks. Eleanor enjoys teaching people about wok cooking, and taking the mystery out of doing it successfully, much as I enjoy getting in the kitchen and trying new recipes, new challenges, and telling you guys all about it.

I just recently connected with Eleanor on Twitter (we exchanged pancake recipes, I think), so when she tweeted this afternoon that she was going to be teaching a free class in my end of town, I lost no time in calling MJ and asking if he wanted to come with me.

When we arrived at the Whole Foods in Pinecrest, Eleanor was just completing her set-up. She greeted us warmly and I gave her some of my Grand Marnier Blueberry Peach Sauce and Blueberry Mojito Jam.

It was a nice, small group (about 20 or so). We had a great time and learned a lot about stir-frying and why we failed at it so miserably in the past. As I get more into Asian cooking in the near future, I hope to share some of that technique with you, too. Till then, visit Eleanor’s blog for the real deal, and see how a real WokStar does it!

It was a pleasure to meet you, Eleanor – hope you enjoy the jam!

Here’s a quickie post for your Holiday pleasure – a favorite of mine, since introduced to it by some of my Cuban-American co-workers during the days before Christmas (when no one really cares if you’re a tad shit-faced at work!) – Oops! Did I say that out loud?

Crema de Vie (Cuban Eggnog)

1 cup water
2 cups granulated sugar
1 can evaporated milk
1 can sweetened condensed milk
2 – 6 egg yolks, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup rum (or to taste – use light or dark rum, your preference)
(I used nearly 2 cups, but that’s just the kind of girl I am!)

Combine water and sugar and boil for 3 – 4 minutes until it becomes syrupy. Let cool slightly.

Whisk egg yolks till frothy. Add both milks and vanilla extract to yolks. Whisk well. Add the still-hot syrup in a thin stream while still whisking. Add rum. Mix well again. Strain the mixture through cheesecloth or coffee filter. Pour into one or more decorative bottles with tight seal. Refrigerate.

Serve in small apéritif-style glasses… okay…who am I kidding? Serve in whatever glasses you want with a light grating of fresh nutmeg (optional). Just be forewarned – the stuff is addicting and potent!

This is the only recipe I know of where you can fool with the egg quantity. Just depends on how yellow & eggy you like your eggnog. I’ve seen recipes calling for up to 8 egg yolks, but that’s too close to “American” eggnog for this style, in my opinion.

*Variation: Add a 13.5 oz can of coconut milk, combine thoroughly, and you’ll get the Puerto Rican version of this holiday classic: Coquita. Adjust rum accordingly, if necessary. Also, muy delicioso!

The Crema de Vie is best made well ahead of time – my co-worker’s mother makes this in early November! But it will be extremely delicious even after just a few hours and ice-cold.

Enjoy – and Happy Holidays to All!

I haven’t been grocery shopping since we got back from vacation, and the only protein on hand in my freezer was a package of boneless, skinless chicken breasts. Hmmph. But, do you know when it’s really fun to cook? When you stop thinking about that room as the kitchen, and start thinking of it as a playground.

It’s no secret that we love Indian food – so much so, that I like to infuse some Indian flavors into my everyday cooking from time to time, too. Don’t be afraid! Indian cuisine doesn’t have to be searingly hot, is generally very healthy, and it’s incredibly flavorful. It’s really easy to do, if you keep a few basic spice mixtures in the pantry and play.

This is a one-pan dish that’s done in under an hour and is both low-fat and big on flavor – without the heat many people associate with Indian food.

American Chicken Curry Masala

4 Tbs. olive oil
4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 medium onion, cut in half and sliced crosswise into thin half circles
1 medium green bell pepper, sliced thinly
1 medium red bell pepper, sliced thinly
2 large cloves garlic, chopped fine
1 cup brown basmati rice
1 Tbs. Meat Curry Masala Powder (see Notes)
Salt to taste
1 cup broccoli florets
1 cup cauliflower florets
1/2 cup baby carrots
1 quart (4 cups) chicken broth

Heat the oil in a large frying pan over medium-high heat, and lay in the chicken breasts, top side down. Brown for 5 minutes. While browning, sprinkle the raw side of each piece with a pinch of salt and half of the meat curry masala powder. Turn the chicken and cook for another 5 minutes.

Add the onions, garlic and bell peppers, stir, and saute until the onions and peppers soften, approximately 5-6 minutes, then the rice and remaining masala powder, and stir. Now add the broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, and chicken broth. Bring to a boil, cover and reduce heat to low. Simmer for 30 minutes.

Notes:

Meat Curry Masala Powder is a blend of Coriander, Cumin, Chili, Turmeric, Black Pepper, Cloves, Fenugreek Leaves, Salt, Nutmeg, Dry Ginger, Cardamom Seeds, Cinnamon, Bay Leaf, Ground Lentil, Fennel, Caraway, Mustard, Garlic Flakes, Onion Flakes, Mace, Green Cardamom, and Asafoetida. It is commercially available in any Indian/East Asian market or online.

I’ve been kind of hanging out on Twitter, lately. Kind of a lot. And through something called “Re-Tweets”, that I don’t fully understand, I discovered a site called In Jennie’s Kitchen and her 47-Minute Spinach Lasagna. Her inspiration was a Twitter challenge. It sounds – and looks – delicious, and I was intrigued.

After all, spinach lasagna is one of my specialties, but I’ve never made it in batches smaller than platoon-sized, and it usually takes hours. Can you really make a tasty lasagna in 47 minutes? I was intrigued. And inspired.

Jennie uses her own pasta, made from scratch, homemade marinara, ricotta that I suspect she makes herself, and fresh mozzarella. I don’t have a pasta roller/machine, I’ve never made fresh pasta or ricotta (although I did see a recipe for it, recently), no fresh mozzarella, and I’m out of spinach. But did that deter me? Oh, heaven forfend!

I took a look in my pantry and fridge, and realized that I desperately need to go grocery shopping. And then there’s the other consideration – MJ’s diet (which has been going pretty well – he’s down 30 pounds! So my mother asks me why he’s losing weight and I’m not. I told her that I’ve been more preoccupied with him than myself and she understood! I still can’t get over that…), and I’ve tried to be creative in coming up with dinners that would be satisfying, not make him feel like he’s missing out on his favorite foods, and be nutritious in a way that would allow him to lose weight and reduce his blood sugar.

And oh, by the way, could I get such a meal on the table before 9:00 p.m., seeing as I don’t get home from work till about 6:30 and can rarely get my ass in gear before 7:00 – sometimes 8:00? And could I get great flavor with just ordinary pantry ingredients?

Kudos to Jennie, I still couldn’t do better than an hour. Yes, I timed myself. But man! an hour! for lasagna! And MJ loved it. “I hope you remember what you did, ’cause I’d like to see this again.” His highest praise. So, I wrote it down:

Damn! It Takes Me a Whole Hour Vegetable Lasagna

6 lasagna noodles
1 16 oz. package frozen mixed vegetables (I used my store’s brand of “Roma” frozen veg: carrots, cauliflower, zucchini, baby lima beans)
1 Tbsp. Grapeseed or olive oil
1 tsp. Kosher salt
1/2 tsp. Garlic powder
1/4 tsp. Ground black pepper
1 15 oz. container part-skim ricotta cheese
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese (divided)
1/4 cup liquid egg substitute
1/4 tsp. Dried oregano
1/2 tsp. Dried basil
1 Tbsp. Dried chopped onion
1 1/2 cups marinara or your favorite pasta sauce (homemade or jarred)
3/4 cup shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Cook lasagna noodles in boiling salted water for 7 minutes and turn off heat. Do not drain. I add a splash of grapeseed or olive oil – your choice.

Meanwhile, put the frozen vegetables in a microwave-safe bowl, and sprinkle the salt, garlic powder, pepper, and grapeseed (or olive) oil over the top. Cover loosely with plastic wrap (leaving a vent), and microwave for 10 minutes, stir then drain.

In another bowl, mix together the ricotta, 2 tablespoons of the parmesan, the egg substitute, oregano, basil, and onion. Add the vegetables and combine.

In an oven-proof rectangular baking dish (mine measures 11″ x 7-1/2″), spread 1/4 cup of the pasta sauce. Lay down 2 of the lasagna noodles, side-by-side, trimming the ends, if necessary. Spread half of the cheese-vegetable mixture over the noodles, sprinkle 2 tablespoons of the mozzarella and about 2 tablespoons of the parmesan over it, lay down another 2 noodles and repeat layering with cheese mixture, parmesan, and mozzarella. Lay down the last 2 noodles and spread the remaining pasta sauce evenly over the top, and sprinkle the remaining cheese over the sauce. Make sure the noodles are completely covered.

Bake for 20 – 25 minutes. Makes 4 servings.

Exotic? No. Tasty, simple, and quick? Oh, yeah.

Sorry, no pics, but I just couldn’t get set up for a beauty shot. Come on, you know what lasagna looks like…

Alert! Alert! Food Blog Police! OMG! I don’t have a badge! Ack!

I can’t believe it’s been a whole year since I last wrote about my adventures in South Indian cooking!

Sometime after I wrote that post, I was contacted by the author, Viji Varadarajan, to thank me and to offer advice, if I needed it. Seriously! Since I was still planning that special dinner for our friends who had gotten married like, a year and a half before, I took Viji up on her offer. Wouldn’t you?

I had been cooking out of an earlier edition of Vegetarian Samayal: Delicious Cooking from a Tamil Cuisine and asked Viji for a couple of sample menus that would be appropriate for a small dinner party. This is the menu we finally served that night.

Click if you can’t read it

A total success! The variety of textures and flavors flowed perfectly. Our guests of honor (one of which is from a Tamil family) were duly impressed. Yay!

Over this past year, Viji and I have corresponded via e-mail, and have become rather friendly. She came out with a new edition of Vegetarian Samayal, which I duly bought and have continued to cook from. When she came out with a new edition of one of her first books, Samayal: The Pleasures of South Indian Vegetarian Cooking, she sent me a copy to get my opinion. So, here goes:

I was going to link this with the Amazon.com listing, but they only seem to have the previous edition for sale right now, which is organized differently. Viji went to a lot of trouble to reorganize the sixth edition of Samayal, adding many pictures with the page numbers of the corresponding recipes, and meal plans, so you can put together a complete dinner of complimentary dishes. Which, if you’re a whitebread girl like me, is very nearly indispensable. She did something similar with the new edition of Vegetarian Samayal.

Two other indispensable features of the several books of hers that I own, are 1) the guide to what to do with individual ingredients (If You Have Eggplant You Can Make…); and 2) the pictorial guide to ingredients (what the heck are “drumsticks”?).

Samayal (as are all her cookbooks) is primarily geared to the young person of South Indian extraction, who, in today’s modern hectic world, is more inclined to get take-out than try to cook a meal, but longs for the fresh flavors of Mom’s (or Grandma’s) home cooking. That’s what makes it so attractive to those of us who love Indian food, but are intimidated by the sheer complexity of most cookbooks of the genre. I love the tips and tricks she includes with most of these recipes to make them even quicker (use your microwave!) and suggesting substitutions for some harder to find ingredients.

Personally, I’m substituting okra for anything that lists drumsticks as an ingredient. Sorry, Viji. I guess you just have to grow up eating certain vegetables…:-) But if you love to experiment with ethnic foods and cooking, and you’ve got a decently stocked Asian / Indian grocery nearby, you’ve definitely come to the right place. We love the rasams (soups), the differently flavored rice dishes, and the desserts are to die-for.

If there are any flaws, however, they lie with her copy editor. At least one recipe ends in mid-sentence, and a couple of others neglect to mention what to do with a listed ingredient (although you can figure it out by reading another recipe in the same section).

The new edition of Samayal also comes with a free Ayurvedic booklet discussing the nature of ayurveda and has some recipes from the Kerala region. This is a treat, especially if you’ve had any curiosity about this popular culture of self-purification.

We own over 65 titles of Indian cookbooks, covering just about every regional cuisine. We buy basmati rice at Costco, if that gives you any indication. South Indian (Tamil) cuisine has become my favorite type of Indian food, and MJ and I really enjoy cooking it for ourselves (the closest South Indian cuisine restaurant is an hour’s drive from us). While I haven’t tried every recipe (idlis still intimidate me), I can honestly say that the new editions of Samayal and Vegetarian Samayal by Viji Varadarajan are the go-to books in our library.

As you may or may not know, tomorrow night marks the beginning of the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashana. It’s one of those two-day holidays out here, in the Diaspora (anywhere not Israel).

Rosh Hashana marks the beginning of ten days of repentance, giving to charity, and being all-around good people, and culminating in fasting and breast-beating on Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement), so the Almighty will write your name in his Book of Life for another year.

So, MJ and I will be spending the first evening at my Mom’s and Tuesday evening at my brother’s. Usually, we’re all together for the High Holidays, but this year, Mom’s got some sort of sciatica thing going on where she can’t sit for ten minutes at a time, so she prefers to stay home; and two of my brother’s girls – one in Birmingham AL and the other in Tallahassee, can’t make it in, and his in-laws’ kids are out of town at school, too. Everyone’s growing up. So it’ll be 3 at Mom’s and only 7 at my brother’s. I think it’ll be the first time ever without folding chairs. Weird.

It will also be the first time that I’ve baked challahs and honey cakes for both evenings. That’s us Jews, for ya. Feasting and fasting so you can feast some more. Got to love a religion that is so food-centric!

Every holiday has its traditional foods and Rosh Hashana is no different. Apples and honey. I don’t remember where the apple tradition started, but honey represents sweetness. And of course, Israel is the Land of Milk and Honey. In which case, shouldn’t we be eating dairy? But I digress. Everything on the table should have a touch of sweetness, symbolizing our fervent wish that the coming year is filled with sweetness in all aspects of our lives.

In that spirit, I offer you my favorite Honey Cake recipe. And if someone tells you, “I don’t like Honey Cake”, you tell them to try some of this:

RJ’s HONEY CAKE

INGREDIENTS

2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
2/3 cup honey
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 large eggs
1/2 cup applesauce
1/2 cup hot strong coffee
handful of sliced almonds (optional)

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 325 F.

Grease (spray Crisco) and flour a 9x5x3-inch metal loaf pan.

Whisk first 6 ingredients in medium bowl to blend.

Using electric mixer, beat applesauce, honey, sugar, oil and eggs in large bowl until blended, about 3 minutes.

Beat in dry ingredients in 2 additions. Beat in coffee.

Transfer batter to prepared pan. Sprinkle the top with the sliced almonds, if using. Bake until cake is brown and tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 1 hour (test with a wooden skewer).

Cool cake in pan 10 minutes. Turn out onto rack; cool completely.

Wrap cake in plastic wrap and store at room temperature.

Makes 8 servings.

Shana Tova! A Happy, Healthy, And Sweet New Year To You All!

Well, that was fun!

We had Miz Shoes and the RLA over this evening to playtest a game MJ and I (in one of our rare joint efforts) are working on as a belated wedding gift for a couple who – in truth, we really don’t know that well. Why are we doing it? The bride is of Indian descent, and she and her husband had a slam-bang, all-out Hindu wedding last year. We were fortunate enough to have been invited, and the experience was too incredible for words.

These are not people who sign up at the bridal registry in your run-of-the-mill chain department store. They wanted people to make something for them. Well, this is what we do. Or what MJ does, rather, and under the circumstances, I got to have input on style and aesthetics. You know, the fun part.

And now, the playtesting begins. To bribe the Shoes, I promised an Indian dinner. And since the bride’s family is from Tamil Nadu in southern India, I am now entering a region of cuisine I’ve never been in before. What to do? Amazon.com to the rescue! And I learned that the flashy “premier” South Indian cookbook, Dakshin: Vegetarian Cuisine from South India , by Chandra Padmanabhan, is not the be-all of the cuisine I had been led to believe. Mile-long ingredients lists, complicated (read – messy), and time-consuming instructions did not ensure success. Both MJ and I tried several different recipes in Dakshin (a couple of them we made more than once, thinking we had screwed something up), and only one them turned out at all (the recipe for idlis). Even so, it seemed like a lot of effort for just an “okay” result. I thought it was me.

Until I spotted this little gem: Vegetarian Samayal of South India: Delicious Cooking from a Tamil Cuisine by Viji Varadarajan. The customer reviews pretty much confirmed that it wasn’t just me — Dakshin apparently frustrates a lot of people. Viji Varadarajan – in her forward, as well as her recipes – is obviously not speaking to whitebread people like me. It’s apparent from the start that she believes her audience is primarily young people of Tamil descent, probably away from home, who she hopes to inspire to carry on the food traditions of their culture. And that’s cool. But you pretty much have to already have quite a bit of familiarity with Indian cooking and ingredients to be able to grok what she’s talking about – not to mention getting past the misspellings, unusual phrasing choices and grammar problems (where were her copy editors, anyway?)

And yet, despite all of that, if you do have some experience with Indian cooking, you will enjoy the hell out of cooking from this book! The recipes are streamlined, easy, and quick to follow. And they taste good! Success! Okay, I’ve only made three things out of it, but previously, I felt accomplished if I finished one recipe out of some other cookbooks. I always wondered how the average woman in India managed to put so many things on the table for one meal, when it took me most of an afternoon to cook one dish. Now I know. They’re really doing it Viji’s way. Right? I think I’ll try some more tomorrow.

Anyway, I don’t know how this turned into a cookbook review, but since it did, I’ll just say that I was very pleased with myself today (okay, it’s yesterday already), and if you want to branch out to South Indian cooking (with the previously mentioned caveats), Vegetarian Samayal of South India: Delicious Cooking from a Tamil Cuisine by Viji Varadarajan is a pretty darned good place to start. I swear – no one paid me to say so!