Monthly Cooking Thread - April 2022

[Jamestown1630]

My grandmother made a wonderful navy bean soup, and my husband makes a good one, too. Beyond those - besides a very good canned black bean soup that Goya makes - I don’t have a lot of experience with beans.

But I’ve recently discovered heirloom beans, and want to broaden my bean horizons. They are supposed to be far superior to the mass-produced beans available in supermarkets, and two companies that offer many varieties are Zursun Beans in Idaho:

https://www.zursunbeans.com/

And Rancho Gordo in California:

https://www.ranchogordo.com/

I’m especially interested in the various Black Lentils offered, and the French Flageolets; and I found a couple of recipes for those:

Karen Tedesco at Family Style Food.com, has posted this Black Lentil Salad with Feta:

Black Lentil Salad with Feta and Cucumber

 Dressing:

1 cup each Italian parsley and cilantro leaves loosely packed (or 2 cups of either herb)

1 jalapeño pepper chopped (leave the seeds in if you like it spicy)

1 clove garlic

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon ground coriander

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup (125 ml) olive oil or avocado oil

1 tablespoon (15 ml) red wine vinegar

Salad:

1 cup black or French-style lentils

1 teaspoon salt

2 baby Persian cucumbers, cut into small dice

1/2 red onion thinly sliced (1/2 cup)

1/2 cup fresh mint or Italian parsley leaves

1/2 cup (125 g) crumbled feta or goat cheese

Make the dressing:

Combine all ingredients in a high-speed blender or small food processor until very smooth.

Make the salad:

Bring 4 cups water to a boil with the salt. Add the lentils and cook 20-25 minutes. Taste-test: They should be tender but not mushy. Drain well and allow to cool to room temperature.

Put the cucumbers, onion and lentils in a serving bowl. Add 1/3 cup of the dressing and toss gently. Sprinkle the salad with the mint or parsley leaves and goat cheese and toss again.

Serve the salad with additional dressing spooned over, if you like.

NOTES Pick through the lentils before cooking to be sure they don't contain an errant stone or twig (lentils are all-natural and plant-based and sometimes that happens) Substitute French lentils if you can't find black ones. Refrigerate leftover dressing for up to 3 days. It's delicious on any salad or as a sauce all on its own.

https://familystylefood.com/black-lentil-salad-2/

A recipe for Flageolets in Lemon Dressing is at the Rancho Gordo site:

https://www.ranchogordo.com/blogs/recipes/flageolet-beans-with-lemon-dressing

Both of the companies mentioned above have a lot of good recipes at their sites.

These days, with prices for food – and especially meat! – rising so much, beans are a good way to stretch our budgets, and they don’t have to be boring. Even the heirloom dried beans seem reasonably priced, considering their nutrition and flavor value.

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One thing I noticed during the whole Covid thing was my boredom with food – including many things I’ve always liked a lot and made routinely. I began looking for unusual and more flavorful things that I’d made in the past, and one of the first things that came to mind was a recipe for Indonesian Gado Gado.

Gado Gado is one of the national dishes of Indonesia, and consists of raw or slightly cooked vegetables in a peanut sauce. There are probably as many variations on it as there are households that make it - many contain hard-boiled eggs - but here is a good ‘beginner’ one, adapted from Alastair Hendy’s ‘Cooking for Friends’:

Gado Gado

¾ C. peanuts, salted or unsalted, and coarsely crushed

1 clove garlic

¼ to ½ tsp. Salt

1 or 2 small red chili peppers, seeded and chopped

6 tablespoons brown sugar *

1-1/2 tsps. granulated sugar

4 limes,

2 large green apples – or you can substitute green mangoes, or papayas, peeled and seeded

2 sprigs each of fresh mint, cilantro, and basil, torn into small pieces

Toast the peanuts in a skillet over medium heat, shaking the pan now and then, until the peanuts are lightly toaste/flecked. Remove from heat.

Crush the garlic and salt in a mortar and pestle until a paste is formed. Add the chilies and mash into the garlic paste. Add the brown sugar, and pound until everything is incorporated. Now add the crushed peanuts and pound them in, leaving some in little chunks. (Add a little lime juice if your mixture becomes too thick.) Scrape the mixture into a bowl, add the juice of 2 limes, stir to combine, and set aside.

In a large bowl, combine the granulated sugar with the juice of 1 lime.until the sugar dissolves. Cut the apple or other fruit into julienne strips. Place the herbs and fruit in the bowl with the granulated sugar and lime, and set aside.

Cut the remaining lime into sections. Place portions of the salad on individual serving plates, spoon some of the peanut dressing on top, and serve with lime wedges.

* You can also use Palm Sugar, more authentic to the recipe, if available to you.

-JT

[KC Burke]

Did an interesting past week working with a family member guest that is using the FODMOP diet to fight IBS.

https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-prevention/fodmap-diet-what-you-need-to-know

Similar to dealing with Celiac Disease and lactose intolerance.

I enjoy coming up with recipes that help people enjoy food.

[caww]

I had it once - at the Deleware Water Gap up at a Mountain Restraunt overlooking it all. It was suppose to be one of the Best soups there. ...and it probably was for those who like it. My male companion and I were touring the area and he talked me into trying it as i never could get past the idea it was ONION soup...and at the time I seldom used them in cooking.

[FamiliarFace]

In my family we took the lid off of the whole tomatoes and used the sharp edge of the lid to cut the tomatoes while they were still in the can. Just had to be careful not to get cut!

[FamiliarFace]

On another thread someone mentioned cooking with spam. I have a little on hand that I should use sometime. If anyone has any recipes they’d like to share, or any certain techniques, I’d love to have a few great ones sometime.

[Jamestown1630]

In theory, I like the idea of a French Onion Soup with the crouton floating on top, but I’ve never been moved to try making it.

[Jamestown1630]

One of the first things we learned to make in Jr. High Home Ec. was Spam in barbecue sauce over rice. It was the mid-1960s in a largely working-class neighborhood, and Spam was still big.

I think we made the sauce from scratch, and just fried the spam and then simmered it a while in the sauce; plopped it on rice.

I had never had Spam, and it was pretty good.

This looks good:

https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/52413/barbecued-spam-sandwiches/

[Covenantor]

Instead of hot sauce I use a recently discovered Hot Hungarian Style Paprika sold under Pride of Szeged label. Control of hotness is much easier when just some mild zip is desired up to real heat.

I sorely miss the Hungarian Spice store in Yorkville... Open barrels of different paprikas...wonderful aroma wafting out the doors.

[FamiliarFace]

Actually, that looks pretty good! Thanks!

My mom used to just pan fry it. I think we would have hash browns and applesauce with it. Those were the days!

[Jamestown1630]

Szeged is the one that Freeper Nopardons directed me to. (she has a Hungarian background).

This is her recipe for a Liptauer Spread. I tried it, but didn’t have at the time the Szeged, and it was good but I don’t think it turned out as it would have with the authentic Paprika:

“This cheese is made from goats’ milk in Hungary, but you can’t get that here so the following is an Americanized version of this spread.

Cream together
1 8 oz. pkg. of cream cheese

1/2 cup butter

3 tablespoons THICK sour cream

Mash together, with a fork, 2 anchovy fillets and 1 drained teaspoon of capers and then add that and the following to the to the cheese mixture, blending thoroughly...

*1 tablespoon of finely chopped chives

1 tablespoon of mustard

1 1/2 teaspoon of sweet paprika

1/2 teaspoon of salt

optional...1 teaspoon of caraway seeds

Transfer the cheese mixture to a plate and shape into a
smooth mound ( dome shaped )and sprinkle with paprika.
Chill slightly before serving with crackers or small rounds of pumpernickle and/or rye bread. You can just fill the celery with this and serve it as is or garnished with halved cherry tomatoes, slices of black olives, and/or a small piece of anchovy.

*If you don’t like chives you can substitute VERY finely chopped Vidalia sweet onions...or just omit this ingredient completely.”

[Grammy]

"Tell us how you make it, say, for a roast turkey.

My grandmother was a great cook, and I watched and remembered many things, but I never figured out gravy."

When my turkey is done I remove the fat and measure it according to how much gravy I want. I put back in even amounts of fat and flour, several tablespoons of each but accuracy is not important here... and cook to slightly brown the flour. Then I stir in turkey stock (simmered from gizzards and neck with celery, onion and carrot while the bird is cooking) and stir up the fond from the bottom of the pan. As you are cooking, the gravy will begin to thicken. Stir in milk to thin it to the consistency you like. The most important "secret"? Add a splash of black coffee.

[Jamestown1630]

Thanks. Now I remember that she did simmer the innards. The cat got them, and the broth went into the gravy.

[nopardons]

When a recipe calls for paprika( pronounced : POP-rika ), ALWAYS and ONLY use the imported from Hungary brand that you have bought! All others are from other places and will more than likely turn whatever you use it in brown and it doesn't taste right at all.

I'm not sure where the Hungarian Spice Store is/was in Yorkville; however there was a VERY famous ( at least amongst the Hungarian/those of Hungarian ancestry ) store in Yorkville called Paprika Weiss, That fits your description of the store you once frequented. If you'd like to know more about that store and the family that owned it, pleased FRmail me, as I don't know if others would find the history of Hungarian spices and goods, in America, interesting.

[nopardons]

Thanks for the PING!

Have you tried the recipe with REAL paprika ( Szeged )yet?

[Jamestown1630]

Not yet, but now that I’ve been reminded of it again, I will!

[leaning conservative]

It’s funny how you can love something so much & others find it meh or awful. My husband is not a fan ; )

[leaning conservative]

Weirdly SPAM is on my bucket list. Those new commercials for spam always make me hungry! I recently read an article about Spam & was surprised to learn it’s really just pork shoulder & seasonings. I just assumed it was all kinds of nasty things.

Our first home ec recipe was Waldorf salad. Gag. P.S. thanks for the posting tip😊

[Jamestown1630]

Spam isn’t too bad.

At least it’s not scrapple...

[nesnah]

At least it’s not scrapple...

---

That’s some seriously nasty garbage.

[Jamestown1630]

My father loved it. I thought it was revolting.

[Covenantor]

gleaned from web search:

"I grew up on imported paprika, somehow ferreted into the USA despite draconian bans on all Hungarian products after 1956, and sold in two stores in the Hungarian neighborhood in NYC (Yorkville) whose sole reason for being, more or less, was paprika: Paprikas Weriss [sic](my family's favorite) and H Roth (also known as Paprika By The Barrel)."

"Both stores have since passed on to The great Hungarian Neighborhood In The Sky..."

I recall dining at the restaurant back in mid 70's but that was north of 86th street. So the Paprika by the barrel, H.Roth (bit of mobster sounding name, ;>) was the store I was thinking off maybe E79th or so.