plentiful persimmons

Winter fruits. Good thing they last real long on the counter, in a cold house that is. We have had persimmons now for over a month, so when cousin Rohan dropped by and saw them (Bloody hell, is this another of your "biodegradation experiments?") he insisted that we take immediate action. He grabbed four of the softest, arranged them on a pillow and put them in the light in order to better contemplate our next order of business.

After a few moments of warming our faces in the sun, staring at the leathery looking orange skins and dried leaves, he announced "go clean out that mortar and pestle." I jumped to action moving toward the kitchen, allowing me to get most of the way out of earshot before he continued "I hope your arms are nice and rested cause its time for a workout!" After giving the mortar a cursory rinse, Rohan got down several bottles of whole dried spices, threw various amounts into the mortar and told me to get to work, while he arranged the rest of the ingredients on the counter and began outlining our plan. With my arms now numb with fatigue, he placed the ground mixture next to our produce and started giving directions. "Okay, now I'm gonna grind some almonds, so we can have a creamy component for our sauce......oh, and we're gonna need some dahl to go with this korma."

"Did you just say korma? But I thought we were doing something with these persimmons?"

"We are. Or will, that is."

I looked at our collection. Onions, garlic, tomato sauce, bell pepper, potato, rutabaga, mushrooms, and persimmons. I was struggling with just how this was going to come together when Rohan asked for a food processor. He peeled the fuyus, plopped them in the cuisinart and blended them to a bloody pulp (or so he said). With this done I chopped the onions and mushrooms and started cooking them in some olive oil over medium heat. When these were just starting to turn translucent, Rohan stirred in the spices and the kitchen came alive with aroma. With the sauteed mix looking sweet and just beginning to brown it was time for the fuyu fun.

We loaded on the tomato sauce and ground almonds while we were at it, adding a bit of veggie stock to get the right thickness for simmering without acting like a boiling mudpot. "Now we let these flavors meld together, for maybe two hours, while I enjoy your sourdough."

"And what shall I do?"

"Make us some dahl. I saw some leftover cilantro, an onion, and some oranges. I think you can make do with those. Oh, any chance you scored a used tandoori oven recently?"

"No."

"Then I guess I'll make this dough into pita instead......that is, providing you have a baking stone around here."

"Yeah, which one?

".......and an oven that it fits in."

Funny guy that Rohan.

I chopped the cilantro and sauteed it in a small pan with a small white onion. After five minutes of cooking, I squeezed an orange worth of juice into the pan and deglazed it, setting it aside until the lentils were boiling. The lentils were started in a mix of about 3/4 water to 1/4 veggie stock, so with the added onion mixture I was hoping they were tasty. Rohan asked how the sauce was looking. I thought it was still a little lumpy, maybe the almonds weren't ground finely enough or something. "Nothing a wee osterization can't fix now, hmm?" he suggested.

We blended it in batches until rather smooth. Now was time for the veggies we had leftover, and a block of tofu from the fridge. I cubed a potato, rutabaga and the tofu, then sliced up the carrots and bell pepper. With everthing added and simmering, we rolled out some dough balls, and put the stone in the oven, cranking it up to 500 degrees.

With the dahl done, the veggies in the fuyu korma tender, and the stone hot, Rohan baked some pocket pitas. I just couldn't help myself: "So Rohan, how is it you can make pita for this dish and still call it Indian."

"I never called it Indian my friend. Besides, like us eating seasonally I have to make do with what is currently available, and right now your home is lacking the proper oven for naan."

"Okay, I get it. And just because you had to bring it up again, you get to serve."

"Fair, bloody fair."

So eating it again, as lunch the next day with the monkey, I looked at my meal and laughed out loud. That cousin may be a pain sometimes, but I just love it when I'm part of one of his experiments in my kitchen. But I was left wondering, and I suppose I'll have to ask him next time, why it is he abhors all animal products in his food, yet freely and enthusiasticly uses the term bloody? What gives, it's not like he's from India, or any other former colony of England for that matter.

For now though, I'm thankful for getting some of those persimmons off of my counter, and for Rohan encouraging me to take them from the sweet side of my brain and place them firmly in the savory. Now in theory, I have twice as many opportunities for keeping them from sitting around for so bloody long.

FUYU KORMA

Grind together the following:
1 T coriander
1 t cumin
6 cardamom pods
4 cloves
1 cinnamon stick
1 t black peppercorns
1 t turmeric
2 t ginger
2 t poppy seeds
1 t brown mustard seeds
When finished, toast for a few minutes in a dry pan and set aside.

3 onions (red, yellow, white)
5 large cloves garlic
6 baby portabellas
4 soft fuyu persimmon (I imagine Hachiya would also work as long as they are plenty soft)
1 cup tomato sauce
2 cups almonds
2-6 cups of veggie stock
Saute onions, mushrooms and garlic together. Add spices and cook until onions begin to brown. Skin the persimmons and puree. Grind almonds (blend, chop, whatever) and add to saute along with tomato sauce and persimmon goo. Adjust the consistency with some veggie stock and/or water. The almonds will "soak" up a bit of liquid and you may need to adjust the thickness in order to attain a nice, smooth simmer. No flop, flopping, or pflapt pfoothing, think Don Ho, think Tiny Bubbles, and you'll get what I mean. Cook this together for at least an hour and feel free to blend it further if it is not smooth enough for you. After desired mouthfeel is achieved, cube up whatever root veggies you have on hand, and tofu if you like and add, cooking at a low simmer until the veggies are tender. We used:
1 russet potato
1 rutabaga
1/2 lb carrots
1 bell pepper
1 lb tofu

BLOODY ORANGE DAHL (Is not actually orange in color please note)

1 cup pink lentils
1 small onion
1 small bunch cilantro
1 blood orange (Cara cara actually, not quite the same thing, but Rohan insisted)
5 cups water
2 cups veggie stock
Saute the onion and cilantro. Squeeze the orange juice and add. Remove from heat before all of the liquid has evaporated and set aside. Boil the liquids together and add lentils and onion/cilantro. Lower heat to a simmer, and cook uncovered, checking frequently until lentils are tender. Give them a slight mashing if you prefer, before serving (with that fresh chutney you have just for this occasion of course)

ROHAN'S NON-NAAN

1/2 cup starter (active)
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup water
Combine these ingredients into a large bowl and leave covered for several hours in a warm place.
An hour before baking add:
1 t baking powder
1 t salt
1-2 cups more flour (as needed, 1/4 cup at a time) until dough is no longer sticky.
Separate into a dozen or so balls and set aside to rise for an hour. Put pizza stone (or similar baking stone, I use a 12x12 inch, unglazed paver I got at the tile store for 3 bucks) into the oven and heat to 500 degrees. Flatten the dough balls, a few at a time, and toss onto the heated stone. After a few minutes the "pita" will puff up, and are more or less done, you can flip it over to bake some more but it is not necessary. Place into a basket with a towel to keep warm and serve with large scoops of korma and dahl. Oh, and as Rohan always suggests, a nice hoppy beer. Cheers.

pumpkin moon fun (blasphemous, please be warned)

I have been wanting to feature a guest for some baking fun and the other night complied with my wishes. This guest has been invited several times but has a very tight schedule so he did this one on a fill-in from a previous cancellation. You may know him from his other work as a carpenter, but some of the information lost with unknown gnostic texts revealed him to be a baker, with how do we say, that "special touch." Considering leavening agents are a more modern invention, it is my theory that the J-man must have been a sourdough master, so when he agreed to drop by for a guest appearance on such short notice, I was floored. I thought "holy s___! the big heavy himself!" The timing was a little weird, being Halloween and all, but also being El dia de los muertos, it seemed perfect. So I cleaned up the kitchen and tried to look like I've had it together lately, and fed our grape starter in anticipation of his preferences (rumor has it that JC actually prefers his sourdough on the sweet side, go figure).


When he arrived (a touch late, he complained that the URW coalition {ultra-right-wing angels} had recently passed legislation that cut into the saviors promptness, despite being designed to do precisely the opposite), he gave us his trademark greeting and we soon got down to work. Flour, starter, water, oil, salt. He likes it simple, and employed a gentle kneading technique (involving throat singing) that he admittedly picked up from some zen buddhists on his last trip to the bay area. I thought it was pretty cool that even he sees room for improvement, and that in the working with the dough of life, he is willing to learn from other master bakers. It only makes sense. Mankind was making bread long before there were ANY saviors or the like.

After 20 minutes of kneading (no toddlers at home, so J-man is used to taking his time), we put the dough in the oven to rise once, and then shaped them into baguettes. I asked his opinion on fennel versus anise as a topping and he said something like "split the dough and I am there" which indicated to me that our selection of spice in life is special for its similarity, not its differences, which to me also implied that if the meal in question is savory then you usually go with fennel, sweet........definately anise. This settled, we painted the loaves with melted soy garden and seeded one of the baguettes with sesame, fennel and celery seeds.

I slashed the loaves when we went to put them in the oven, closed the door and heard a strange buzzing come from somewhere inside his tunic (which seemed synthetic when I was close to him; do today's use of animal products disgust him? Is he vegan, right down to his clothing, I thought at the time) He put his elbow up to his mouth and mumbled something that sounded like "thanks Cynthia, I'll get right on it" then turned to me and said he had something important to go attend to. "What about baking our bread, our shared dough of life," I whined. He made for the door, flashed his departure greeting and was gone.


I was honored to have the sourdough tutorial, however brief it was. I turned for the oven door and saw something strange, or didn't see something that is. The oven was empty, save for a 425 degree baguette pan, one side lightly sprinkled with seeds. I was pissed. All that work, and all I get is a few lousy pictures of him coming and going. No warm, fresh bread and the intoxicating aromas that come with the baking. Wait, something was different when he left, besides his hair being pulled up from the work in the kitchen............I have the technology, let's investigate.


There they were. Baked (now how did he do THAT?) Looking great I might add, with a nice color and shape. I felt a smile break across my face as I thought about whoever was now enjoying them, probably under the impression that HE, not I actually had performed most of the labor involved in their creation. I laughed as we went trick or treating as planned, and scored plenty of nasty corn-syrup filled candy, that seems to be the norm for today.


When I awoke on Wednesday morning and went down to the kitchen, it looked like someone had been there. I looked at the bread board in front of our toaster in response to the lingering burnt smell. A morning-after note from the man himself, how pathetic. Have a good x-mas, cheee-yaw..........I BETTER, after that stunt he pulled last night. Now, what to do with this loaf?

Smoke some salmon, get a good cream cheese, and get on with it. Like granny always said: when life (read JESUS) gives you lemons, you can choose to make lemonade, or you can mope.



Or in this case, you can brew some coffee to go with that fish and cream cheese, and get to constructing yourself a killer breakfast to go with that loaf, brought to you by our lord, of sorts.......

navarathna korma with a side of alter-ego

In my dream our mortar and pestle was grinding away without me. It didn't need me to define it. It knew what its purpose was in life, so it merely performed it. It was calling out for a garam masala. It wanted hot and sweet and I had a recipe in mind......we have had Reedley produce still lying around so I got to work on a butternut and a few eggplant, and added tomatoes from our garden. Also a sweet potato that needed cooking. These were roasted on a pan in the oven at 400 for about an hour while I ground 1Tcardamom seeds, 1T black peppercorns, 3 sticks of cinnamon, 1t coriander, and 1t fennel. To this I added 1t ground cloves and called it good.
With the garam masala ready for takeoff I needed to work on some veggies to saute. Two huge onions were chopped, about 10 mushrooms, plus an inch or two of fresh ginger and cooked in olive oil. I added 1/2t chili powder and about 1/2 of my masala and stirred well. Next came a large can of diced tomatoes and some lentils I had boiled earlier. When the roasting veggies were done, they too were added, plus some diced carrots and frozen peas. Then a top for the pan was found and this concoction was put on the back burner for a while. I served this with pita and sticky white sushi rice, of all things, cause I was in the mood. It was very satisfyingly spiced and I derived great pleasure from the garam masala in particular.



The next day my cousin Rohan dropped by. Upon hearing of the leftover spices and veggie korma as well as the lingering butternuts, he suggested that we make some of his authentic Indian calzones......huh? Yeah, Cousin Rohan! Give him a beer and he can make anything!
We made up a half whole wheat sourdough and let it rise once before shaping into calzones. The filling consisted of roasted butternut combined with mushrooms, onions, garam masala, cumin and mustard seed, and a can of coconut milk. This was all cooked together for a while and then the sauce was reduced slightly, leaving what you see here. It ended up being enough for 4 huge calzones, which is good because Rohan is a big kid who can really pack em' down, especially after working up an appetite kneading dough.



After baking them for near half an hour at 400 degrees, we pulled out the leftovers and got to plating up. Rohan poured the stout and procured the chocolate dipped, candied ginger cashew biscotti, while I heated the korma and chose two of the pretty calzones to eat. We discussed the latest book he's been reading, once again drifting toward the merits of vegan eating, and how our geography no longer dictates our eating habits (as it once righftully did, in the not too distant past). We talked how this may be a boon for veggie-headed lovers that comes with sometimes conflicting problems of transport that can seem to negate the good you are trying to propagate by going organic with your selections........we thought these things until we realized that the beer was from a town kinda close. This made us feel so good about supporting our local brewers that we finished it off, reasoning that the need for more would contribute to the local self-sustaining market right here in the bay area.