Category: Legumes

Adzuki and Sesame Cookies …My Legume Love Affair 10

Anybody that knows me well enough knows that I love to stray from the normal. I probably could have been way more popular or understood if I didn’t try to be so different . I guess that’s the artist in me always trying to recreate and interpret. This month I have the fortune to host the fabulous Susan’s of the Well Seasoned Cook, My Legume Love Affair 10. I chose to place a theme on this popular event for Starters and Desserts. I know that may stump some regular participants, but that’s what I view what events are for, challenges.

This year I have been fascinated with the Adzuki bean. I used in a Daring Bakers Challenge as an ice cream flavor. In most of Asia, particularly Japan you will find Adzuki beans boiled to a a paste, sweetened with sugar, and used in all types of desserts and sweets. I decided to use the starchy and moist Adzuki paste I made from scratch,
you can but it ready made, with rice flour and rolled in Sesame seeds, This is a grown folks cookie. Not overly sweet , and a nice shortbread like texture with the nuttiness of toasted sesame . Enjoy with a cup of tea and relax.

Adzuki and Sesame Cookies
makes about 40 cookies
recipe can be divided in half
3 cups Rice Flour
1 cup sweetened red bean paste * can be purchased ready made in Asian food stores.
1 1/4 cup brown sugar
1 egg
12 tablespoons butter or 1 1/2 sticks
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
sesame seeds to roll
In a mixing bowl cream brown sugar,butter, vanilla, and egg. Add red bean paste to creamed mixture. Gradually add in increments the dry ingredients( rice flour, baking powder, baking soda). Mix until well incorporated but not do over beat as you don’t want to much air in the dough. Take mixture and roll into two logs. Take a sheet of wax paper and sprinkle sesame seeds. Roll the cookie dough logs on the wax paper until well covered with the Sesame seeds. Wrap securely in wax paper and chill in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 350F . Line cookie sheets with parchment or a Silpat. Slice cookies about 1/2 inch thick. Place on cookie sheet. These don’t spread so much in baking but still leave space between cookies. Bake fr 10-15 minutes. Remove from oven and let the cookies sit on pan for about 2 minutes. Carefully remove and let them cool on wire rack.
* Red Bean Paste
I made my own Adzuki Paste.
Soak a small bag of small red beans ( Adzuki) in water overnight. Drain and rinse. Boil beans for about 1 hour or more if needed until soft enough to mash. About the last half hour of boiling add brown sugar to taste ( about 1 cup) and more water if necessary. If water goes down add more as needed . Cook down until beans are soft and water is low. Take an immersion blender and puree. Add about 1/2 cup vegetable oil to keep mixture moist. Store in airtight container.

You still have time to submit you enteries for My Legume Love Affair 10… Starters and Desserts. My Legume Love Affairs Deadline is April 30.Enter to win the great book !

Coconut Curried Goat With Rice and Red Lentils

One of my favorite treats as a child growing up in diverse Washington D.C was when my father brought home takeout of curried goat and Roti from some hole in the wall. That was good eating. He was a man that didn’t stray from his staples of Nigerian food, but he did like good Caribbean food. Lately I have been hankering for goat meat. In the Bahamas I was disappointed with their Americanized fare and didn’t see any. I must have been asleep at the the foodie radar to realize goat meat has gone mainstream and is now served in many a restaurant and featured in magazines. Last time I had some goat was at a dumpy Indian restaurant and it was good but had more bone than meat for my tastes. But the sauce was spicy and thick. I purchased my goat at Pete’s Fresh Market a great chain that has a large Mexican and Asian clientele. Any sort of exotic produce or meat is available and they have it at pretty fair prices. I eyed a goat leg in the butcher case. To big for just me, but I need to get one one day for a BBQ. The goat on display looked like rib cages and me not knowing cuts was perplexed. But the butcher told me he could cut it down into pieces for me, I was hoping for a boneless type of cut to cook down, but started off with 6 pounds of pieces. expertly cut up for me. The pieces he gave thankfully had a lot of meat.
6 pounds is a lot and my aim was to cook it down in the pressure cooker and eat of it all this over the weekend. It gets even better the next day.Here is my ‘recipe’. Its not formal, just what I did.

Clean goat meat and pat dry. In an uncovered pressure cooker brown 2 large onions, some tablespoons of curry powder to your taste, cumin, salt, pepper,turmeric ,chili powder, and the meat with a bit of oil. Note the goat has fat, and I didn’t want it to greasy. Cut up and seed about 3 jalapenos or a lesser amount of Scotch bonnet peppers if you can get them( depends on your heat tolerance). Add some cilantro and a cleaned sliced leek , and some leftover chopped tomato to the mix. Mix up . Add about 2 cups of water ( next time I would add less as it creates more liquid). Cover , seal, and cook at a pressure of 15 lbs for 45-50 minutes. Cool down with cold water method or naturally until lid releases. Drain off any excessive liquids and fat( I had about 4 cups I drained off , so next time add less liquid. But I left enough in). Stir in one can of coconut milk to finish. Serve with rice boiled with red lentils and garnish with more fresh cilantro and maybe a some jalapeno if you desire it more spicy.

You can cook this a normal stove top method but the cooking time will be between 2-3 hours. Pressure cooking cuts the time down and yields really tender and succulent meat.

Grand Bahama and Some Pigeon Peas and Rice

Well I’m back. I don’t want make this a wordy post so I’m going to let Certain Someones pictures speak for most of the trip to Grand Bahama. We stayed at the the Westin Our Grand Lucaya. This is a wonderful resort that allowed us to just chill and do nothing. Unfortunately Certain Someone could not escape work and spent the first half of the trip working. But he did manage some beach time and a round of golf on one of their several golf courses. I was amazed at how easily Certain Someone could become a beach bum. I like to see him relax.

Isn’t this beautiful? These are debris from a earlier hurricane . The photo was taken at a beach in the Grand Lucayan National Park. We took these pictures after a visit to underwater caves across to road. If you were a diver you could dive between the cavernous caves which housed Arawak Indian remains.The path to the beach was a lesson in flora and fauna. Who knew walking mangrove could be so beautiful. Reminded me of a tropical vineyard with all the gnarled branches. I was startled by the depth and life down there.But it was nice to come up and take in this beauty. A Victoria Secrets Photo shoot was going on a few miles down the sand bar.
I like this shot Certain Someone took. It doesn’t make me look fat.

After our excursion we went to this lovely sea side restaurant and beach, Banana Bay. I had my first real Bahamian lunch of cracked conch( like fried calamari) and pigeon peas and rice in which I will give you the recipe at the end.Certain Someone regretted his fries and took to my rice. Unfortunately the Bahamas let me down with the food. Cynthia explained its not really the Caribbean because of its close proximity to the United States. And at the resorts its a lot of tourist fare.The Port Lucaya marketplace across the street was the got to place if you didn’t want to pay an arm and a leg for hotel food. Thinks bars, pizza, Greek , Italian , etc.Stuff I can get at home. Conch is huge in the Bahamas. You will find this shell fish in Chowders,fritters,pasta, pizza, fries, steamed, etc. Its on every menu and pretty cheap. I liked it, Certain Someone not so much.Fish Fry’s are big too. Grouper rules, but Barracuda can be found. A local told me not to fear it. A test to see if Barracuda is poisonous is to see if the flies come to it. If so, its good!But the drinks were plentiful and excellent wherever you went.Rum Runners was our favorite hangout. Drinks averaging $5 and great fun staff. I was sure to bring back my allowed liquor allocation. One of our favorite drinks was this retro Bahamian cocktail called a Gully Wash. Its Gin, Coconut Water, Condensed milk, with cinnamon and coconut meat shavings. Its great for the hoildays and even better served up in a coconut and allowed to brew. Its packs a punch for sure.
My final thoughts are of the locals. The dependence on tourism is huge in the Bahamas and the economic hardships we are all facing will really trickle down to to places like this where tourism employs a lot of the island. Even though it was still coming off season, there were a lot of empty tables and shops.I loved that they really thankful for each and every guests business. You don’t get that lot and it makes you feel appreciated. In same token we were conscious of where we spent to be sure to visit everyone. The high season is about to begin and hope it goes better than expected. But as one retailer told me, we are all in this together.
I leave you with this Pigeon Peas and Rice I recreated at home today. Its full of island soul.

1 can Pigeon Peas( 1 lb)

2 cups rice
2 slices salt pork( soaked in water for a few hours and chopped up)
1 small can tomato sauce
1 red bell pepper
1 small onion
3-4 cloves garlic
3 cups water
black pepper to taste
In a large skillet fry up salt pork, onion, pepper for a few minutes. Add chopped garlic. Cook a few more minutes. Add sauce and pigeon peas. Add rice and water. Cover and cook until rice is done. Approx 30 minutes.
*Due to the salt in the salt pork, no extra salt is needed. Bacon is used more commonly.

Cooking With Salt Cod… Flamenco Stew

A few weeks ago I saw a show with Andrew Zimmerman. He was in Iceland and profiling a chef who was re known with he could do with salt cod, a valuable commodity in Scandinavia. I then got to thinking of a delicious Brandade de Morue I had and was determined to make it. Until I saw all the cups of olive oil involved in making this heavenly codfish paste like dish. So then I took I out my books on Spain. The Spanish should thank a fish merchant named Gurtubay from Bilbao whose order was mistaken for 30-40 bundles of salt cod/Bacalao to 30,040. Stuck with this excess inventory he thought he was screwed. But a Carlist War broke out, food ran low, and the population turned to the merchant for his dried salt cod.Needless to say he racked up! I read this fact in my Culinaria Spain. The Spanish had used salt cod before going back to the 16th century. It was well preserved , could travel, and adapted for dishes during Lent. I remember my Nigerian father incorporating stock fish, or salt cod in his stews and soups. As a child I didn’t get it, but know see that flavor that the adults relished.

The trick to using salt cod is to soak it for at least 24- 48 hours and change the water frequently. Its not so widely used in the US, but one can find it in Hispanic or Italian stores. I found mine in the local Treasure Island. For a poor mans fish, it can be awfully expensive. More so than fresh fish. It normally comes in a wooden crate.Don’t let the initial smell deter you.

I decided to make a dish I got from Spain and The World Table by the Culinary Institute of America. I won this book a while back from Andrea, and this is the first recipe I made. Flamenco stew is based on the classic Lenten Soups and stews of Spain. I figured I had most of the ingredients. There is a a lot of prep involved but what I got was one of the best fish based stews/ soups I have ever tasted! The house had a fragrant, yet non fishy aroma. What I loved were the salt cod balls that reminded me of matzo balls. Perfect as this weather turns to fall for us here in Chicago.

Flamenco Stew adapted from a recipe from Kisko Garcia, Spain And The World Table, the Culinary Institute of America

serves 8
12 oz salt cod
2 cups dried chickpeas
For the Stew
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 cups chopped onion
2 1/2 tablespoons chopped garlic
2 teaspoons sweet paprika
Pinch of Saffron
1 bay leaf
2 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 lbs potatoes
1 lb fresh spinach( stemmed ,washed, and chopped)
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Salt Cod Balls
2 eggs
2 tablespoons chopped flat leaf parsley
2 teaspoons minced garlic
shredded salt cod from above
4 cups breadcrumbs
2 teaspoons salt
1/4 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
Desalt the salt cod. Soak in water, refrigerated for 24-48 hours. Change water at least 5 times. Drain well. Soak chickpeas overnight.
Place salt cod in medium sauce pan with 10 3/4 cups of water. Bring to a simmer. Remove the fish and save the water! Allow fish to cool and pick out any bones if any.Do not throw out the water!
Heat oil in a Dutch Oven. Cook until tender for 5 minutes and then add garlic, and paprika. Stir and cook for 1 minute until fragrant. Add the chickpeas and reserved water from the salt cod. Bring to boil. Add saffron and bay leaf. . Reduce to medium heat m cover, and simmer 1 hour. Add salt and cook for another 30 min- 1 hour until chickpeas are tender. Add potatoes and simmer for 30 min. Stir in spinach and pepper and remove from heat. Let stand while you make the salt cod balls.
Beat eggs in a bowl. Add parsley, garlic, shredded salt cod, and breadcrumbs. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Shape into 1 1/2 inch balls and set aside.
Taste the stew and adjust seasonings to your tastes. Bring back to simmer on a low heat . Add the salt cod balls and poach gently for 5 minutes or until cooked.