Tag Archives: Recipes

I have a singular anti-passion for cucumbers. They don’t like me, and I don’t like them. Even the aroma is enough to make me move the dish or change my seating.  And yet I love Greek and Indian meals traditionally served with tsatziki and raita. Recently, I was watching a cooking show that presented an alternative using garlic, mint, rice vinegar, salt, pureed peas and Greek yoghurt. We’ve made pseudo-gyros with this, diced roasted lamb and naan. Yum.

This is a cold weather recipe we have been enjoying for 25+ years.

olive oil (light for sweating, EVOO for simmering)
3 medium onions (yellow pref)
3 shallots
4 oz green chilies (poblano or ancho pref)
8 oz tomato sauce
8 oz chicken stock
cheap rum or sherry
3 cans or can equiv vol rinsed cooked garbanzo beans
3+ cups of coarsely shredded cooked light and dark chicken
1 tsp each: cumin, red chili  powder
1/2 tsp garlic powder
Fist full of fresh cilantro (1 tsp dried if not available)
sea salt and white pepper

Chop onions to spoon size. Dice shallots to rice grain size. Saute onions to lightly caramelized, deglaze with sherry or rum.  Then sweat the onions and shallots in light olive oil. When translucent, add green chilies, tomato sauce, chicken, beans, EVOO to taste and spices. Simmer for 4-6 hours (or pressure cook 15 minutes). Broth should just cover solid ingredients.  Make up lost moisture with additional chicken stock. Adjust spices to taste then salt and pepper to taste. Add fresh cilantro and set aside refrigerated 12-24 hours. Reheat and serve with toast points or crostini. Tolerates microwave reheating well.

Variations: substituting some or all beans with homini (pozole) and/or adding 1 tsp cocoa powder (emulsify in olive oil before adding to broth)

We’ve updated the bread recipe and cooking instructions here: Bread Mods see comment at bottom

Bread is fascinating. Simple and complicated, Straightforward and nuanced. Culturally defined and defining cultures. It would appear that only the dog has been a human companion longer than bread. There are almost as many recipes for bread as there are opinions on anchors, and many are more honestly tendered.

I have been experimenting with recipes that we can take along with us. They have to take into account the limitations of boat-dom. Ultimately for us those limitations may be only a matter of heat. The recipe I like best needs 500°F for 10 minutes and then drops to 425°F to finish.  I’m not sure the Force 10 oven will do this so there may still be adjustments to make.

This “artisanal” bread makes excellent toast and provides a vehicle for all kinds of savory additions before baking such as sun-dried tomatoes, cheddar cheese, olive tapenade, basil and pecans.  Consequently a slice or two can provide a “meal at the wheel” for a watch-stander.

Enjoy.

In a sauce pan or mixing bowl, combine three cups less three tablespoons of bread* flour with 3 tablespoons of graham wheat flour. Add one and one half teaspoons of sea salt. Add the same amount of dry (activated) yeast (with a distant stale date). Whisk together. [These can all be vacuum packed ahead of time, however, I would leave the yeast out if this is done and add it after the package is opened.]

To the dry ingredients add one and one half cups plus one to two [you will have to experiment, it is somewhat flour dependent] tablespoons of cool (preferably carbon filtered)** water. Mix with a strong spoon until there are no dry ingredients in the bottom of the container. Cover with a vented lid or plastic wrap with a few punctures in it.

Let sit un-molested for 12-18 hours (yes, 12-18). If you are underway I recommend this be secured on a gimbaled stove top.

The dough mass will triple to quadruple in volume depending on temperatures.

Encourage the dough out of the container onto a floured surface with a spoon/floured fingers.  This mass is seriously sticky so you need to be well floured. Gently extend the mass into a one by three rectangle and fold the outer thirds over the center third. Rotate it 90 degrees and repeat the process. Do it again. Now form the dough into a ball (boule) and set it aside covered with a floured cloth or paper toweling to rise for two hours.  It should double again.

The oven, with a pizza stone or quarry tile on the cooking rack, needs to pre-heat for about 10 minutes beyond reaching the desired temperature. Before placing the risen bread dough in the oven, slash the top diagonally three or four times and spray the entire ball with cold*** water from a food safe sprayer/mister.

Cook for 10 minutes at 500° then lower to 425° for another 20 minutes.  The dough will nearly double in height before crusting so consider this when setting oven rack heights.

Cool the loaf on a wire rack (no pan or sil-pat under it) for at least an hour.

Keeps a week, but we have yet to see a loaf survive long enough for that to be an issue.

* One can use all purpose flour but the resulting bread is a bit rougher. One can also increase the graham (whole) wheat flour but this also roughens the bread. We have tried a variety of combinations and they are all good, just different.

**Yeast likes pure water, preferably without the halogens chlorine, fluorine, etc. There can be enough of these chemicals in some water supplies (chlorine shocked water tanks) to seriously interfere with the yeast.

***When a mass of dough is placed in a hot oven, it rapidly skins and then crusts over. This contains the expansion of the trapped gases in the dough and the result is a dense “doughy” bread. Spraying the dough with water weakens the surface layer of the dough and causes it to take longer to skin and crust. Hence a lighter, airier texture.  Spraying it with cold water lengthens the time further (the water has to heat  up  before it evaporates) and even lighter textures result.  There are cooking techniques that call for a baking pan of ice cubes under the stones, but on a boat, the spraying is less tedious, and as far as I can tell the spray generates equivalent results. Don’t be tempted to spray the dough once it is in the oven, any solid water of significance hitting the pizza stone or tile will crack it–I have firsthand experience.

More Monsoon Soon

My brother and I have been kitchen denizens of some kind our whole lives. For the better part of a century between us we have enjoyed the chemistry of the place (Love that Alton Brown).

From Albuquerque, NM he shared with me the following recipe:

Enjoy

Ingredients:

8 Medium to 6 large tomatoes- beefsteak are good

1 Medium size – Vidalia (preferably or “Texas Sweet”)

1 large bunch of Cilantro- fresh- leaves only- Note: (hold bunch and put on cutting board drag fork from base to leaves like you are raking grass. It will do excellent job of de-stemming)

3 small to medium fire/grill roasted poblano- 2 seeded one not

1 fresh jalapeño- Either TAM Mild Jalapeno 1000-1500 Scoville units (Texas A&M’s contribution to a great jalapeño or low fire jalapeño I believe a New Mexico is 6-4. Seed then fillet the inside membranes to remove the oil glands and keep the flavor not the fire. To put this in perspective -Bell peppers are 0 units and Habenero range from 150,000 to 300,000 units

2 TBSP minced garlic

2 1/2 TSP Mexican Oregano dried fresh can be used but it is hard to find-(do not use Greek it has a licorice flavor)

3/4 TBSP Kosher salt (start with this)

2 ½ TSP ground Cumin

½ TSP “Smokin Chipotle Seasoning” to taste item - Desert Gardens brand is good and can be found in most grocery stores or on line.

1 tsp sugar- (may have to increase balance with salt and acidity of tomatoes.)

In a food processor combine- cumin, garlic, 1 poblano 1000-2000 Scoville units (with the seeds) 1/3 of the fresh jalapeño, 2 tomatoes (cube them up for easier blending) and ¼ of cilantro leaves-puree 10 sec till smooth not liquefied.

Add 2 more tomatoes diced large ½ in, rest of jalapeños diced approximately 1/8-1/4 in. pieces, the 2 seeded poblanos chopped ¼ +/-, 1/3 of onion diced in ¼ -1/2 in pieces – do 2 plus pulses ( object is to incorporate items and give different texture not to make soup)

Add remaining tomatoes diced in ¼-1/2 in chunks, all cilantro leaves and another approximately 1/3 of onion diced same as earlier (This is a to taste step. Once this step is completed-Taste it ! before you add all of onion) add the chipotle season salt – 2 maybe 3 pulses then pour in bowl-stir in sugar.

He does not recommend making a big batch or doubling. The multiple textures are what you are looking for and it will change the texture as it will not blend correctly.

———————————–

Commentary:

I think we would serve this with warm blue corn chips and a little bit of shredded Asadero Cheese.

This also sounds like an excellent base for a red chicken pozole. Just add another onion, some sauteed chicken pieces and a pound of white hominy for Caldo Pollo Pozole Rojo.

Muchas gracias, hermano!