October Fool [V] [GF]

I had remarked in my previous post, a moderately-sized pie pumpkin tends to provide a tad more gourd-flesh than needed for making one or two pies.  Perhaps this remark left certain readers in suspense as to what I would do with the remainder of the cooked pumpkin I had on hand after pie-making was complete.  Then again, perhaps I'm being narcissistic, and the hard truth is that nobody pays terribly close attention to half-implied narrative arcs in an only sporadically updated recipe blog.  Well, that may be, but at any rate, I'm going to satisfy your non-existent curiosity anyhow: I made October fool (to be contrasted with April fool, which is something else entirely).

So, for those unfamiliar with the dessert known as "fool" (the etymology of whose name is somewhat hazy), it's generally a light, summery mixture of sugar, whipped cream, and pureed fruit.  This creation certainly fits the description, though the squash certainly gives it a weight and a more autumnal essence that its berry-based cousins lack.  The nice thing is that it requires little in the way of preparation (other than the initial cooking of the pumpkin, as discussed in the pumpkin-pie post) and equally little in the way of sugar.  In fact, eliminating the sugar from this dish entirely wouldn't drastically alter its character.  The recipe given below serves five.

• 1¾ cups cooked pumpkin
• 2½ bananas
• ½ cup soy milk
• 2 tsp. brown sugar
• ½ tsp. cinnamon
• ⅛ tsp. nutmeg
• ⅛ tsp. salt
• 1 Tbsp. finely chopped pecan pieces

Place the pumpkin, soy milk, spices, salt, and bananas in a food processor and puree until the resulting mixture is smooth.  Spoon directly into small bowls or wine glasses and garnish with the chopped pecans.

Old-Fashioned Pumpkin Pie [GF]

The climate in which we dwell, and in particular that in which we spend our infancy and youth, yields the bulk of the timber from which the metaphorical architecture of our weltanschauung is constructed.  For those dubious of this assertion's veracity, I heartily recommend residing in some far-flung location whose climate is as close to diametrically opposite that of one's provenance as possible, and then returning to one's native land during a particularly captivating season, such as Autumn in the Upper Midwest.  Indeed, the word "autumn" is all but superfluous on the Hawaiian Islands, where the standard deviation in temperature appears to be in the single digits Fahrenheit and the difference between summer and winter has more to do with precipitation than temperature.  In the greater Minneapolis area, however, autumn is nothing less than the symbolic requital of spring's myriad promises: it is a harvest celebration in which nature herself supplies the banners the confetti, and the music (from the throats of Canada geese volant to the crepitation of workboots upon leaf-strewn pathways), coupled with an annual acknowledgment (that you can bet pervades the Minneapolitan psyche) that human lives themselves have their seasons and cycles, that those seasons have a dramatic arc to them, and that none of them lacks its industry and purpose.   

These sentiments (bear with me here: the anthropology's nearly done and the recipe's coming...) are embodied in the region's traditional harvest foods: baked squashes, ears of gold-tasseled corn, roasted fowls packed with myriad forcemeats replete with nuts and dessicated cherries, and raw, tart apples to be broken vociferously between the teeth.  These are foods which heat the kitchen, foods far too cumbersome to prepare when only one lone diner is to sit at table and which therefore urge companionship and communion, foods rich in starches and sugars to sustain the eater through the coming dearth.  As trite as these symbols have become to most of us as a result of our collective elementary-school experience with Thanksgiving decorations and woefully historically inaccurate fables about pilgrims and helpful natives breaking bread, their symbolic power tends to get reinvigorated quickly after one is thrust into a Minnesotan autumn after many moons roaming abroad in lands without similar seasonality or seasonings.  In that spirit, one of my first culinary endeavors after arriving in Minnesota this fall was to produce from scratch perhaps the most hackneyed of the season's symbolic foodstuffs: pumpkin pie.

Making a pumpkin pie from scratch is not particularly difficult, but a few tidbits of wisdom (gleaned from cookbooks of various sorts over the years) should be passed on to the reader who has never attempted to do so before.  As far a pumpkins go, seek out pie pumpkins rather than carving pumpkins — provided you can find them.  If you're physically located in Hawaii, or some other location in which pie pumpkins aren't east to come by, I've read (though have not personally verified) that kombucha do quite well in their stead.  The only thing keeping this recipe from being vegan is the eggs, for which many apt substitutes also exist.  The recipe I've provided below makes two smallish pies.  Pie pumpkins, unfortunately, are quantized in units which tend to yield far more pumpkin flesh than require for even a pair of pies, so feel free to do what you will with what remains.  As a final comment, if you're not particularly keen on steaming as a method for cooking your pumpkin (do to time constraints or any other reason), several alternative methods (including one involving a microwave oven) can be found here.

Pie filling:

• 1 small pie pumpkin
• 2 cups vanilla soy milk
• 3 eggs
• 1 tsp. Torani hazelnut syrup
• ½ cup white sugar
• ½ tsp. cinnamon
• ¼ tsp. nutmeg
• ¼ tsp. dry ginger
• ¼ tsp. nutmeg 

Slice the pumpkin in half and remove the seeds and strands of pumpkin innards.  (If you don't want to waste the seeds, I suggest cleaning and roasting them, but this is a subject for a subsequent post.)  Wash the halves off and further slice each into five or six large slices or chunks so that all can be fit together into one large pot.  Place the chunks into such a pot with a cup or more of water at the bottom and steam the slices in this manner on medium heat for 30 min. or so, or until the pumpkin flesh is soft and can be removed from the rinds with a spoon.  Separate around three cups of the pumpkin flesh from those rinds, place it in a food processor with the soy milk, and process the two together until the puree is of a uniform consistency and all chunks of pumpkin have been broken up.  Pour into a mixing bowl and combine with the other ingredients.  Stir the mixture vigorously, taking particular care to mix the eggs into it thoroughly.   

Prepare the (rice-flour based) pie crusts by following the recipe given in the my pineapple-pie post from back last December.  Once the pie crusts are satisfactorily pre-baked, remove them from the oven to cool and turn the oven temperature down to 375°.  When the pie crusts have cooled sufficiently, pour the filling into them, cover each pie with aluminum foil, and return them to the oven for 25-30 min.  Remove the foil cover from each pie and continue to bake for another 25-30 min. or until a knife stabbed through the center of each pie remains clean when withdrawn.

Indonesian Squid Broil [GF]

Last month, while attending a conference in the greater Chicago area, I had the opportunity to drop in on what is fast becoming one of my favorite restaurants.  This would be JoyYee, an establishment which does better than any other to dispel the "jack of all cuisines, master of none" stigma that plagues (and admittedly, in most cases, deservedly so) pan-Asian eateries.  Having dined there (if partaking in boba smoothies and appetizers counts as dining) there three times in the span of a week, I had the opportunity to explore vast tracts of their extensive menu and came away with a burning desire to replicate one particular dish, which consisted of a whole grilled cuttlefish adorned with a thick black sauce.  Soon after I returned to O'ahu, a friend's visit afforded me the opportunity to try my hand at what I am guessing was probably inspired primarily by an Indonesian dish called cumi kecap.

The results... well, suffice it to say that I rank this as one of the ten best dishes I have ever created.  Two other parties offered similar, glowing reviews.  While the dish did not precisely replicate JoyYee's cuttlefish, all unanimously agreed that it surpassed the dish which inspired it in nearly every way — which given the already high quality of the original, is high praise indeed.  But enough vaunting: let's get to the recipe.

The Squid:

• 1 whole medium squid
• ½ tsp. soy sauce
• ⅛ tsp. salt
  

The Sauce:

• 3 Tbsp. gluten-free soy sauce
• ¼ tsp. fish sauce
• 2 Tbsp. water 
• 1 Tbsp. cooking sherry
• ½ tsp. sesame oil
• 2 tsp. raw cane sugar
• ⅛ tsp. salt
• 1 pinch cinnamon
• 1 pinch cardamom
• 1 small pinch cumin

Set the oven to broil and preheat it to 375° Fahrenheit. Rinse the squid under cold water and remove the eyes, beak, and digestive organs with a knife.  Grease a suitably-sized cookie sheet with sesame oil.  Place the entire squid on it, sprinkle half of the salt and soy sauce over it, and broil for 15-20 min.  While the squid is cooking, combine the soy sauce, fish sauce, oil, cardamom, cumin, and cinnamon in a small saucepan and simmer on medium heat, stirring frequently, until the mixture attains the consistency of molasses.  Remove the squid from the oven, flip it over with a spatula, and sprinkle the remaining soy sauce and salt on the newly exposed side.  Return the squid to the oven for another 15-20 minutes or until the exterior is browned but the flesh is still tender.  Add the remaining ingredients to the sauce and continue to reduce the mixture, while stirring frequently, until the squid is done.

Place the squid in a shallow bowl or serving dish and pour approximately half of the sauce over it.  Transfer the remaining sauce to a small bowl for dipping the rings and tentacles in.  Serve with rice (which can also benefit from the use of the remaining sauce as condiment).               

Dates Wrapped in Hickory-Smoked Chicken Skin [GF]

This monstrosity is easily the unhealthiest culinary creation I have ever described on this blog, and will likely remain so for a long time.  Like its close cousin and primary inspiration dates wrapped in bacon (a dish which appeared among the hors d'ouvres offered at a reception during a conference I recently attended and has been lingering in my thoughts ever since), it is essentially an excuse to clothe a cloyingly sweet dried fruit morsel in a raiment of "meat candy" — one of those segments of animal flesh into which the Creator has, in his infinite wisdom, elected to concentrate both flavor and fat.  (And yea, the Lord saw that it was good; at least until he who consumeth it dieth of a massive coronary.)

One quick disclaimer before I narrate the recipe: my primary motivation for preparing this dish was that I happened to have recently engaged in smoking a chicken, and therefore had a substantial quantity of chicken skin lying around that I didn't really know how else to put to good use.  To be honest, I still deem that the bacon-based version of this hors d'ouvre to be the superior specimen: while the hickory-smoke flavor of the chicken skin provides a sublime compliment to the flavor of the dates, the texture leaves a bit to be desired.  The skin of smoked poultry tends to be a tad tough, and as a result these morsels tend to be a bit on the chewy side.  Nevertheless, I believe the principle of wrapping dried fruit in the skins of fowls has merit, and am looking forward to an experiment in dressing figs in turkey skin this Thanksgiving.    

• Skin from a hickory-smoked chicken, cut in 1" × 1" strips
• 15 - 20 large, pitted medjool dates
• 1 Tbsp. orange-blossom honey
• 1 Tbsp. pecan pieces
• 1 Tbsp. potato starch
• ½ tsp. salt
• ½ tsp. ground cinnamon

Preheat an oven to 300°. Take each date and make a small hollow in the center by inserting the tip of a wood or bamboo skewer into the hole from which the pit was removed.  Pack a few pecan pieces into this hollow.  Wrap the chicken skin around each date and secure it by tanspiercing the date and the chicken skin with a bamboo skewer.  After assembling skewers of 5-8 dates each, place them on a cookie sheet or baking pan for five minutes or until warm.  Remove the skewers from the oven, coat the warm dates evenly with the honey, and then sprinkle them with the cinnamon, salt, and potato starch (in that order).  Return the skewers to the oven and bake for 15-20 min. until brown.

As a final note, if you intend to serve this item as an hors d'ouvre at some soiree you're putting on, I might suggest using a toothpick to secure the covering to each date individually rather than attempting to bake them  on skewers en masse and serve them from those skewers churrascaria-style at your gathering.  They tend to be a bit sticky and frequently fall apart when removed from the skewer.      

Breakfast on Ice: a Survey of Fruits (Part 2)

Here's yet another update on some rather unusual fruits that one can find in Honolulu farmers' markets (and specifically, the Kapiolani Community College Farmers' Market just north of Diamond Head, where I encountered a phenomenal fruit stand specializing in unusual specimens from Asia, Central America, and God knows where else).  Anyhow, the question remains: how do these specimens fare in fruit smoothies?  Well, I'm glad you asked...

Canistel

The canistel is one of the oddest culinary specimens I've run across in local markets to date.  Yet another Mesoamerican specimen, the canistel has a flavor (and a texture) eerily similar to that of pumpkin, only sweeter.  However, its flesh is creamier than a baked pumpkin's, and perhaps the overall experience of eating a canistel is roughly a midpoint between eating pumpkin and eating pumpkin pie.  So yes... they're a bit starchy, and a canistel smoothie can be pretty filling, but it can also be practically ambrosial if done correctly (with a little brown sugar added).  So starnge, yes, but the canistel was one of the most pleasurable produce discoveries for me in many months.  Two enthusiastic thumbs up!  

Mamey Sapote

Similar to the chiku in texture (creamy), flavor (custard-like with chocolate overtones), and provenance (Mexico and Central America) but larger, the mamey sapote is a fruit I learned to love during repeated sojourns in Mexico city, but have seldom if ever encountered since.  However, upon seeing them for sale at this last weekend's KCC farmers' market, I knew I couldn't pass up the chance to conver them into liquid breakfast — and the result surpassed even my high expectations.

Mamey Apple 

The mamey apple takes a while to ripen, but when it finally does, it provides a bright flavor halfway between that of an apricot and that of a nectarine, but with a little bit of extra ascorbic acid flavor.  Not bad in a fruit smoothie (especially when lehua honey is added), but not quite strong enough that I'd recommend this method of consumption over simply cutting pieces off with a knife and eating them. 

So once again, that's it for this week's roundup.  Stay tuned for further updates as a new set of autumnal fruits begin appearing at a stand near you (or at least near me).

Soy-Custard Flan Tarts [GF]

With a plethora of eggs in my possession and an invitation to a garden party imminent, I finally had a perfect opportunity to attempt the soy-milk-based custard imitation I had long been hoping to turn into a flan-like reality.  As the guests at said garden party would certainly attest, the tiny pies which resulted from this experiment are yet another testament to the ability of soy milk to serve as a magnificent substitute for actual cow's milk in situations in which it really has no right to do so.  Indeed, while the consistency of the filling is admittedly more flan-like than creamy, this is actually an asset in terms of longevity: these tarts retain their consistency and flavor after refrigeration for a few days (or perhaps longer, but it's difficult to refrain from consume them for any longer duration).   

The recipe given here yields enough crust and custard for four tarts.  These can be flavored in the same manner if you prefer, or you can easily flavor the portion of custard that is to become into each tart independently.  Some suggestions for combinations of flavorings and icings/toppings for the tarts are provided below, although I'm sure you can imagine plenty of other possibilities which would be just as tasty of better.   

For the pie crust:

• 1½ cups white rice flour
• ½ tsp. salt
• ½ cup vegan butter substitute
• 4 Tbsp. water

For the custard:

• 3 eggs
• ½ cup white sugar
• ½ tsp. salt
• 2 cups vanilla soy milk
• 1½ Tbsp. flavored liquer or ½ tsp. flavor extract

To make the crust, preheat the oven to 425°.   Mix the dry ingredients, cut the butter substitute into the mixture, and form the resulting mixture into crusts in four tart pans.  Bake the crusts for 10 minutes at 425°, remove from the oven, and allow them to cool to nearly room temperature.  Immediately upon removing the crusts from the oven, reduce the temperature to 350°.

To make the custard, place the eggs, sugar, salt, and soy milk into a medium-sized mixing bowl and beat well with a wire whisk.  If your goal is to flavor the whole quartet of tarts in an identical manner, stir in the liqueur or flavor extract and partition the mixture into the crusts.  However, if your goal is to flavor each tart differently, you can also divide the custard mixture into four equal parts (each of which turns out to contain almost precisely 1 cup) and flavor each with a different extract or liqueur.  Once the temperature of the oven has decreased to around 350°, place the tarts on a rack in the center of the oven and bake for 35-45 min. until the custard has set into a flan-like consistency.

Remove the tarts from the oven and place them on a rack or trivet on a countertop to cool.  Once they've cooled to slightly above room temperature, cover them with icing, jam, fruit, or whatever else you choose.  Ideally, these tarts should be served within about 30 minutes of preparation, if the goal is to serve them warm (they don't stand up terribly well to reheating).  However, if the goal is to serve them cold (which, given the similarity to flan, is actually a very good idea), they retain their initial consistency quite well even after refrigeration.

Some of the topping and flavor-infusion combinations which I've either tried and deemed successful, or else which am sure would work brilliantly if I had had the ingredients on hand when I'd had the inclination to make a batch of these tarts, are listed below.

Chocolate-peanut-butter icing:

• ½ cup roasted peanuts
• 3 Tbsp. unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 Tbsp. sugar
• ¼ tsp. almond, hazelnut, or vanilla extract
• ½ tsp. salt
• ¼ cup water

Place the peanuts in a food processor in process until the mass clumps and has the consistency of peanut butter (this may take several minutes).  Add all additional ingredients excepts for the water and process again.  Add the water incrementally while processing until the icing has a creamy consistency.  After spreading the icing on top of the tart, garnish with chopped medjool dates.  This icing is complemented well by infusing the flan with hazelnut liqueur, almond extract, or coffee liqueur.

Blackberry icing:

• ¼ cup fresh blackberries
• 1 Tbsp. water
• 1 Tbsp. sugar
• ⅛ tsp. salt
• ½ tsp. corn starch
• 1 pinch nutmeg

In a small saucepan, heat the blackberries on low heat with the water and mash them into bits with a fork.  Add the salt, sugar, and nutmeg and stir the mixture.  While stirring, sprinkle the corn starch into the mixture and continue to stir until its viscosity perceptibly increases.  Remove from heat and allow to cool before spreading over the custard.  This icing is complemented well by infusing the flan with blackberry liqueur.  Variants of this recipe are easy to imagine in which blackberries are replaced by raspberries, peaches, strawberries, mangoes, etc.

Gnocchi Florentine with Tomato-Basil Sauce [GF]

Rice flour may be a fit substitute for what flour in many foodstuffs, but as much as one might want to convince oneself otherwise, Italian pasta is not one of them.  Indeed, those familiar with the foibles of commercial rice pasta know that to achieve that sought-after al dente texture requires monitoring the noodles like one would a nuclear reactor, awaiting that sixty-second window within which, if promptly rescued, it will best approximate the desired texture.  Withdrawn from the pot a moment too soon, they're wooden dowels; withdrawn a moment too late, a limp mush whose most appealing attribute is that it imparts to the water enough flavor that it can be converted, without too much ado, into a batch of consolation horchata.  However, fortunately for the gluten-free gourmet, rice flour suffices far better as a wheat-flour substitute in many other Italian dishes.  Pizza is one such delicacy, and, thanks to the high potato content, gnocchi are another.

The gnocchi recipe which appears below is extremely adaptable, and while this specific version is far from vegan, it can be easily be made so by a substitution of pine nuts for chicken bits and the use of some sort of egg substitute to hold the dumplings together.  Others who favor consuming the flesh of beasts may find ground beef or minced bacon pieces to their liking.  In any incarnation (and so seldom do I get such mileage out of that Latin root), it's a fine repast: pleasing to the eye, nutrient-rich (thanks primarily to the spinach), and quite filling.   

Sauce:

• 1½ cups fresh basil leaves
• 4 small vine-ripened or roma tomatoes, quartered
• 1 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
• ⅛ cup balsamic vinegar
• 1 Tbsp. dried oregano
• 1 Tbsp. ground black pepper
• ¼ tsp. ground cayenne pepper
• 2 tsp. salt (or to taste)
• 1 large bunch fresh spinach
• 2-3 Tbsp. finely minced roast chicken meat, finely minced

Gnocchi:

•  1¾ cups white rice flour
• 5 medium-sized russet potatoes
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 Tbsp. dry basil
• 2 tsp. dry oregano

To prepare the gnocchi, set a pot of water on to boil.  Prepare another pot as an ice bath by filling it a third of the way full with ice and then filling the rest of it with cold water.  Peel the potatoes, chop each in half, and boil them for 30 min. or so, until they're soft.  Once they are, immediately remove them from heat and while they're still warm, dump thim into a food processor, add 1 cup of rice flour, the salt, and the egg, and process until a smooth dough forms.  Transfer the dough from the food processor to a mixing bowl, add the spices, and stir in the remaining rice flour incrementally until the dough forms a ball solid enough to stick together in reasonably solid clumps.  Using a metal soup spoon or similar utensil, scoop up a dumpling-sized wad of dough and scrape it off the spoon into the pot of boiling water with a butter knife.  Continue to do this with the remaining dough, in batches about 8-10 dumplings at a time.  As soon as each dumpling floats to the surface of the water (a minue or two after immersion), remove it with a small strainer and transfer it to the ice bath.  After 2-3 minutes in the cold water, transfer it to a plate to dry off.           

To prepare the sauce, begin by  placing the tomatoes, basil, spices, vinegar, and oil in a blender and puree until smooth.  Set the spinach simmering in a small amount of water on low to medium heat.  When it has softened, add the chicken pieces and continue to cook for 5 minutes or so.  Add the tomato-basil puree to the pot and cook for five more minutes or until the mixture is reasonably hot.

To serve, place the gnocchi in bowls and ladle a generous portion of the sauce over each set of dumplings.