Tabouli

Tabouli

Today’s tabouli is using what is in the fridge. Fennel bulb and a ramp.

1/2 cup bulgar wheat, soaked in 1 cup water and drained
1 cucumber, peeled and diced
1/2 red onion, finely diced
1/4 fennel build, diced small
1 ramp, finely chopped
2 plum tomatoes, diced
2 celery stalks, diced
1/2 bunch parsley, chopped
Juice of 1 1/2 limes
Salt
Pepper

Cucumber

Chopped Cucumber and Red Onion

Diced Fennel

Ramp

Chopped Ramp

Adding the Celery

Parsley

Adding the Chopped Parsley

Adding the Soaked Bulgar

Tabouli

‘Feijoada’ Light

Black Beans

Today’s beans split the rib stock with the soup, and used a little bit of the rib meat. (See the other recipe on cooking the ribs.)

It’s inspired by a Brazillian dish, feijoada, but I want way less fat than would be typical. Feijoada often has pig tail, snout and ears cooked in the beans, and Liz wouldn’t be to keen on that in the beans either.

Black Beans

2 cups beans
1 cup rib stock
2 bay leaf
3 cloves garlic
4 cups water

1/4 lb rib meat

Soak beans overnight. Rinse and cook with bay, garlic stock and water. Salt to taste when done.

Serve with, rice, farinha de mandioca (toasted cassava root), sliced oranges and fried collard greens.

Rinsing the Beans

Farinha de Mandioca

Beans with Rice and Mandioca Flour

Sliced Oranges to go with the Beans

Black Beans

Vegetable Soup With Smoked Ribs

Simmering the Soup

Irene and Bill love their smoked ribs (Liz likes them too). As usual when cooking for Irene, cabbage and beans are out, even though they are the most traditional uses for the ribs. These ribs came from the Hungarian meat store in Yorkville (upper east side), which so far, have the best smoked flavor I’ve found.

Vegetable Soup With Smoked Ribs

2 tablespoons fat (I used what came off the rib broth)
2 small onions, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 plum tomatoes, diced
1 granny smith apple, peeled and chopped
1/2 bulb fennel, diced
1 bay leaf
2 parsnips, peeled and diced
3 carrots, peeled and diced
2 potatoes, peeled and diced
1 tbsp paprika
1 cup rib stock
3/4 pound diced rib meat (from boiling the stock)
Parsley, chopped

Roux
1 tablespoon fat
1 tablespoon flour

Simmer the ribs in water to cover for about 1 hour, until he meat is tender. Remove the ribs from the pot and when cool enough to handle, remove the meat, returning the bones, fat and everything else to the pot. Simmer another couple hours. Strain and cool in refrigerator until the fat hardens on top. Remove fat and set aside.

Sweat onions in 1 tablespoon fat until they start to get translucent. Add the fennel and sweat a little more. Add the tomatoes, garlic and apple. Cook until the tomatoes dry out and start to brown a little. The apple should be soft as well.

Add the paprika, rib stock with additional water to cover, bay leaf, carrots, parsnip, and celery and simmer until the vegetables are tender.

Make a roux with any rib fat, bacon grease (I had some leftover, and didn’t have enough fat from the ribs), or butter. Add water or broth to the roux to thin it to a gravy like consistency.

Stir the roux into the soup and bring to a boil to thicken. Chop the rib meat and add, along with the parsley. Salt and pepper to taste (the rib stock should provide a significant amount of salt).

Simmering the Ribs

The Cooked Ribs

The Rib Meat

Simmering the Bones

Not a Beer (Rib Stock)

The Fat Removed from the Stock

Fennel

Tomatoes

Onions and Fennel

Adding the Tomatoes

Simmering the Soup

Vegetable Soup

Egg Pizza

Fritatta

The goal of today’s breakfast was to use up some extra peppers and eggs. A fritatta is an adaptable dish that can use up most anything. I kept the oil to a minimum and used only one potato to keep the points down for Liz (3 points a slice).

I often put grated cheese on top, but left it off today to limit the points. Any herb or spice combination is good. I tend to favor the herbs du provence.

The trick on the ingredients is to have them cooked before adding the eggs. Once the eggs go in the pan, the ingredients don’t cook much.

This recipe works best in a non-stick skillet that can be placed in the broiler.

Liz’s first comment on seeing the fritatta was “egg pizza.”

Fritatta

1 potato, peeled and sliced
1 tsp oil

Brown the potatoes and remove from the pan.

1 small onion, sliced
1 tsp oil
1 cherry hot pepper, seeded and sliced
1 cubanelle pepper, seeded and sliced
1 plum tomato, sliced

Soften the onion in the same pan. Add the peppers and cook until the peppers are soft and the onion starting to brown. Add the tomato and cook to evaporate some of its moisture and let it get slightly soft. Return the potatoes to the pan.

6 eggs
3 tbsp water
Salt
Pepper
2 tsp Herbs de Provence, coarsely ground in a mortar and pestle

Beat eggs, add water, salt and pepper and herbs. Spread the filling evenly in the pan and pour the eggs on top.

For the first stage, as the egg starts to coagulate, lift the cooked part to allow liquid egg underneath. If simply left alone the bottom will be overcooked and rubbery by the time the top sets. At some point it will be difficult to allow uncooked egg underneath without breaking the fritatta.

This leads to the second step. Leave the fritatta alone for one minute. The egg needs to set before moving on.

Next, work a spatula underneath to loosen the egg from the pan. It the fritatta breaks, you probably didn’t let it set long enough in the second step–wait a half a minute more. Try to loosen the entire fritatta so that it will slide around in the pan. Now you can carefully lift it to see how brown it is on the bottom.

When the bottom is brown, and the top nearly set, finish setting the egg and brown the top in a broiler.

Remove from pan, cut into wedges and serve.

Potatoes

Potatoes

Browning the Potatoes

The Onions

Adding the Peppers

Tomatoes

Adding the Potatoes Back

Herbs de Provence

Herbs de Provence

Beating the Eggs (and Herbs)

Frying the Vegetables

Ready for the Eggs

Adding the Eggs

Starting to Set

Ready for the Broiler

After Broiling

Ready for Cutting

Fritatta

Palacsinta (Hungarian Crêpes)

Palacsinta

When we visited Hungary, we went to a shop that served all forms of crêpes. Just about anything you can think of, is used as filling, both savory and sweet.

Liz’s parents have more specific preference for fillings (all sweet). Jam, slightly thinned with a little water; pot cheese; and ground walnuts are the main fillings. Poppy seed filling is another that they mention, but Irene likes it less, so I don’t make it as much.

To save time I halved the recipe. The amounts I used are in brackets []
 
 
 
 
Palacsinta
 
3 eggs, beaten [2]
(1 or 2 egg whites leftover form the filling)
1 1/4 cup flour [1/2 cup]
1 cup milk [1/2 cup]
Pinch salt
1 cup carbonated water [1/2 cup]

Melted butter for cooking

Mix flour, eggs, milk and salt with a wire whisk. Let batter rest for at least 30 minutes or up to 2 hours in the refrigerator. Mix in the carbonated water just before cooking.

Heat a small non-stick frying pan (8 to 10 inches). Use a basting brush to put a thin film of butter in the pan.

Use ladle to put a small amount of batter in the pan. Tilt and swirl the pan to cover the bottom. The goal is to have as thin a layer as possible, but still evenly cover the bottom of the pan. The trick is to remember how much to fill the ladle each time to get the same amount of batter. For each new pancake, grease the pan, quickly add the batter, and quickly swirl to cover the bottom.

When the batter bubbles, turn the pancake and cook very briefly on the other side.

Remove from the pan and set aside. (the palacsinta may be stacked, while waiting to be filled)

Spread filling over half, roll from the filled side and place in a baking dish.

Brush melted butter on top and bake 15 to 20 minutes at 375.

Filling
Today’s filling was prune paste from the Hungarian market. It was thinned slightly with water.

It Should Have the Consistency of Heavy Cream

Mixed Batter

Ready to Flip

After Flipping

Ready to Fill

The Last of the Batter

Adding the Filling

Palacsinta

Palacsinta

Palacsinta

Vegetable Soup

Vegetable Soup

Irene likes soup made with the leftover boiling water from the Easter ham. Cabbage is a favorite, but she can’t tolerate the gas anymore. My solution is to use her other favorite vegetables.

I use one of my ‘secret’ ingredients in the soup–a little peeled apple. It falls apart, making the broth a little sweeter. It may not fall apart by the time the tomatoes are pulpy, but it should vanish by the time the soup is cooked.

Vegetable Soup

1 parsnip, sliced
3 carrots, sliced
5 stalks celery, diced
1 onion, diced
2 Potatoes, peeled and crossly chopped
1/2 teaspoon paprika
black pepper and salt to taste
Ham, 1/2 cup diced
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1/2 apple, peeled and chopped
2 plum tomatoes, chopped
Stock to cover
3/4 cup chopped parsley
1 tablespoon fat (used bacon fat)

Cook onions in fat until translucent. Add chopped apple. Let it soften. Add plum tomatoes and cook until pulpy. The goal is to have the tomato brown a little and the apples disintegrate. Add the parsnip, carrots and celery and sweat. Add stock, paprika and black pepper. Simmer until vegetables are tender. Add parsley at end. Adjust salt to taste

The Veggies

Apple

Chopped Vegetables

Onions

Onions, Tomatoes and Apples

Adding the Root Vegatables

Adding the Parsley

Vegetable Soup

Hungarian ‘Dal’

The Dal

I’ve tried giving Indian food to my mother in law. This has a couple of problems. She’s hesitant to try new things, and she hates turmeric and cilantro (among other spices).

She does know and like red lentils. I’ve made several versions of red lentil soup.; usually starting with a dal recipe and making several changes.

Turmeric is replaced with paprika. Bay leaf and garlic are included (these were included when boiling the smoked ham for the cooking liquid). If I have the cooking water for smoked ham or ribs, I’ll use it. I’ll include parsley and celery root or celery. Sometimes I’ll include other vegetables.

Today she only thought this one was OK (she liked the vegetable soup better).

Hungarian ‘Dal’

1 2/3 cups red lentils, picked and washed
5 cups water
1 tablespoon paprika (good quality, sweet, Hungarian)

Bring to boil and simmer for 45 minutes, partially covered.

3 stalks celery, diced
2 green onions, sliced
1 tablespoon ghee

1/3 cup chopped parsley
Juice of 1/2 lemon

Heat oil in hot skillet. Add celery and cook a minute or two. Add the green onions and let them brown slightly. Mix into lentils with parsley and lemon juice.

Adjust salt to taste.

The Lentils

Simmering the Dal

The Simmered Dal

Celery and Green Onions

Celery and Green Onions

Sautéing the Vegetables

Adding the Sautéed Vegetables and Parsley

The Dal

Rösti (Swiss Hash Browns)

Rösti

Some time ago, I learned about some of my mom’s traditional foods from growing up in Switzerland. Rösti quickly became one of my favorites. It is best described as Swiss hash browns–similar to regular hash browns, only bigger and thicker. It also has a crisper crust and is creamy inside.
 
This is NOT a low-fat food.
 
There are many variations to this recipe. For example, the onions can be omitted. Chopped tomatoes and rosemary can be added as well.
 
This recipe was halved, and made in an 8-inch non-stick frying pan. Double this recipe and use a 12-inch pan.
 
Rösti
 
1 pound waxy potatoes (like yukon gold)
1/2 onion, sliced
2 tablespoons oil, butter, or bacon grease (used bacon grease this time)
Salt
Pepper
2 teaspoons milk

Boil the potatoes in their jackets for 15 minutes. Remove from heat and transfer to a bowl of cold water (to stop the cooking). At this point, they can be refrigerated overnight.

Peel and coarsely grate the potatoes. Add salt and pepper and mix.

Heat frying pan and add 1 tablespoon of the fat. Add about 1/2 of the grated potatoes, layer the onions on top (and any other fillings), and cover with the rest of the potatoes. Pat down with a spatula to form a compact pancake.

Cook at medium heat for 20 minutes. While it’s cooking, lightly sprinkle the milk on top. The goal is to wet the middle while minimizing the amount of milk that goes through to the bottom of the pan (where it will burn).

Place a lid over the pan and invert the pancake onto the lid. Add the rest of the fat, melt, and slide the pancake back into the pan (to cook the other side). Fry for an additional 10 minutes.

Slide onto a cutting board, slice into wedges and serve (ideally with a fried egg on top).

Boiled and Peeled

Grated Potatoes

Sliced Onions

Adding the Onions on Top of the First Half of the Potatoes

Compressed into a Pancake

Ready to Flip

On the Lid, Ready to Cook the Second Side

The Finished Rösti

Rösti

Bloody Orange Salad

Orange Salad

This is yet another variation on an orange salad. I used 2 blood oranges (either that, or I cut myself when is was chopping the oranges:).
 
For Liz, the olives are the only thing adding points to her diet.
 
Blood Orange Salad
 
2 blood oranges
2 oranges
1/2 onion, finely chopped
8 green olives, pitted and chopped coarsely
2 or 3 tablespoons parsley, chopped
Salt
Pepper
2 or 3 teaspoons red wine vinegar

Cut the peel and pith from the oranges and dice. Mix together all the ingredients.

Diced Onions

Diced Oranges (with a little blood)

Olives

Parsley

Onions and Olives and Oranges

Orange Salad