The Post-90: Gluten-Free Bialys

I ran into a friend at the gym.  She was kicking a habit she no longer felt served her. "I'm at Day 56."


"Wait, didn't they say it was 21 days to lose a habit?  Now they've upped it to 56?!"  I'm always the last one to receive the memo.

"Actually, it's been increased to 90 days.  They say it takes 90 days for us to see something differently."

They say.  They say.  I guess one ought to really do than accept what they say sometimes.  So what did I do in terms of giving up things?  I'd given up TV over a year ago.  Or maybe it's been two.  Now,  I don't miss it.  My approach to passive viewing has changed.  I derive much more pleasure from TV because it's occasional, conscious, and more social.  I have to watch it at other people's homes.

And the same thing seems to apply to food.  I believe it's been over 90 days since I had a bialy or a bagel.  My long work commute had ended and there was no routine to go into Grand Central to grab one. 

And living in an area with no deli to roll out of bed to (if you're in the 60's between Mad and Fifth, you know what I mean), getting a morning bagel or bialy takes focus and planning.  I need to channel my morning focus for other things so bagel/bialy fell out of routine.

So how did I find myself approaching the bialy differently after 90 days?  I wanted to make a homemade bialy.  I upped the ante.  I wanted it homemade and gluten-free.

I don't have Celiac's but seeing a friend not be able to eat a baked good because it wasn't gluten-free made me realize this holiday baking would have to include GF items to my sleeve of tricks.  It just seems to be necessary to stay relevant in the kitchen.

An amazing find was Bob's Red Mill Xanthan Gum.  Plant-derived, it replaces gluten's job of giving a dough its elasticity and rise.  

Loving the onions in the middle of the bialy, I decided to raise the bar again and make it an onion/potato/leek bialy with mango chutney.  Hot out of the oven, I took a bite and I don't think I'll ever be the same again.  It was that good.  It was worth the 90 days of doing without.

The Post-90  Gluten-Free Bialy Recipe

You will need:

6 three-inch diameter tartlet pans  (can be found at Williams - Sonoma)

1 cup of Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free (wheat free, dairy free) All Purpose Baking Flour 

2 teaspoons of  Bob's Red Mill Xanthan Gum

1 teaspoon of Aluminum-free baking powder (can be had at Whole Foods)

1 cup of lukewarm water

2 tablespoons of olive oil (and a little more for greasing the tartlet pans)

1/2 an Idaho potato

1/2 cup of chopped leeks (some from the base and some from the top)

1/4 cup of chopped onions

2 cloves of garlic

olive oil - q.s. (quantity sufficient) to sauté the vegetables

Himalayan pink salt - q.s. to make it tasty but not salty

optional - a little mango chutney to dab on your bialy

Instructions:

1)  Chop up the potato, leeks, onions, and garlic.  If you have a mandolin slicer with a wide tooth, it's easier to run the potato through it as if you were making latkes.  I prefer to smash my garlic through a press.  But you can easily get by without these gadgets if you just stick to chopping finely.

2)  Sauté the vegetables with olive oil until the onions become translucent.

3)  Put the flour, the xanthan gum, the baking powder, lukewarm water, and 2 tablespoons of olive oil into a Vitamix.  Turn the dial slowly to 10 and keep it there until you feel resistance from the blades.  There should be a small, smooth ball if you look into your Vitamix.  If not, set the dial back to zero and swish around the lumpy things with the tamper and turn the dial back up.  The end result of Vitamix effort should look like this:

 

The dough feels a little gummy.  And that's okay.  It's supposed to feel gummy.

4)  Pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

5)  Grease the tartlet pans with olive oil.

6)  Using a spatula, fill and spread the gummy paste of dough into the tartlet pans.  If the tartlet pans look like the outer paper mold of a large Reese's Peanut Butter Cup, fill and smooth the dough so that the top of the paste looks as even as the top of the chocolate cup confection.

7)  Add a little bit of the potato / leek mix in the middle of each "tart".

8)  Bake for 25 minutes.

9)  They will rise like popovers but once out of the oven, they will fall again.  Out of the oven and a bit cooled, they are ready to flip out of the pans.  Using a metal spatula or a knife, gently separate the bread from the edges of the tartlet pans.  Turn it upside down and have the bialy gently fall off.

10)  Dab a bit of mango chutney onto the center and you have an incredible bialy.  This is fabulous. 

And what was more fabulous was how easily I digested this bialy.  This is the bialy that'll love you back.

Happy Post-90! ~e

Red Red Wren

Another lifetime ago I was with Voice-Over Guy.  We met at a UB40 concert in Irving Plaza.  Between "Red Red Wine" and the noisy crowd, all I heard him say was "voice-over" in describing his occupation.  And the rest that flowed out of his mouth was a river of velvety Bordeaux.  

Months into dating him, I realized he was actually a voice-over engineer.  But with his lovely warble, he could have easily been a voice-over actor.

He was a redhead and I was surprised at the chemistry.  Let's call him Red.  Red was the first and so far, the only person who has made me believe that Howard Roark (The Fountainhead) could be a redhead.  Gary Cooper doesn't count.  Even if they did dye his hair, the film was black and white.

Red had a best friend who was also a carrot top.  I'll refer to him as Rusty since his hair was well... more rust in shade.  And Rusty had a partner I'll call Wren.  They had a brownstone in Brooklyn and a newly purchased country home in Connecticut.  That Fall, when the leaves were ablaze in all shades of red, Rusty invited us out to their bucolic haven for the weekend. 

It was just before sunset.  Outside, Red and Rusty were having cocktails and cracking more inside jokes than I cared for.  I left and went back into the house.  The sole entrance being the kitchen, it was easy to catch Wren making dinner.  He was a House Wren. 

So fastidious was his attention to the meal prep, I perched on a wooden stool to look on.  He periodically referred to a tome of a cookbook propped on a counter stand to make his fabulous quinoa.  This was long before gluten-free became a household name.

When he gave me a taste, it was so divine, I knew I had to add it to my grain repertoire.  And it has never failed to delight and provide quick solutions in entertaining.

So today, I share with you this recipe.  It is easy and elegant.  Compatible with anything - fish, poultry, meat, tempeh...  And because quinoa is a complete source of protein, it is just as perfect going solo.  A complete source means it has all 9 essential amino acids.  Essential, because our body cannot produce these building blocks for protein. 

Whether you're a meticulous little house wren or just a rusty old bird in the kitchen, you will love this quinoa.

Wren Quinoa, the Recipe

You will need:

1 cup of quinoa

2 cups of water

1/4 cup of roughly chopped cilantro

1/3 cup of roughly chopped salted pistachios

1/3 cup of roughly chopped dried cranberries

A small drizzle of olive oil

Instructions:

1)  Pour the quinoa and water into a 1¹/₂ quart saucepan.

2)  Bring to a boil.  Then lowering the heat to simmer, place the lid on the saucepan and cook for about 15 minutes - or until all the water is absorbed.  The quinoa should look fluffy with little tails.

3)  Add the chopped pistachios and dried cranberries.

4)  Drizzle just enough olive oil and toss so that there is a glistening effect.  We do not want to drench this beautiful mixture in oil. 

5)  Add the cilantro and toss once more.

Servings: 2

Enjoy! ~e

Zucchini Gets Inspiralized

Passing through the post office, I spied a neighbor of mine.  His face was unusually shiny and radiating youth.

"Paul,  you are positively glowing.  What have you done with yourself?"

He smiled and said he'd been eating raw zucchini "pasta".  He had purchased a spiralizer and made all the raw, vegan "spaghetti" with olive oil and garlic because the commercial ones were just too costly.  And he was quite happy as he found himself losing some weight in the process.

A solution came to mind.  I knew what to do with all that zucchini in my dad's garden.  They always grow so abundantly and it's almost as if one can't eat them fast enough.   

a real beauty

I congratulated him on his new program and made my way to Williams - Sonoma to buy my own.  I mused how this thing that used to be such an odd item made its way to mainstream cookery - or uncookery, shall I call it.  When beauty is at stake, raw cuisine is the prescription.

The Paderno Spiralizer was light and easy to assemble.  Minutes, later, I was cranking out the squash noodles.

And it was quite fun, seeing how long and wavy this angel's hair was flowing through the blade.  I hadn't had this much fun since my Play-Doh Factory days.

Now I needed to dress my "pasta".  Pesto was on my mind.  I went to a 24-hr deli to look for fresh basil.  No basil.  They were out.  How could they be out of basil?  I could have easily dropped the project but being a bit ambitious, I started to look for an alternative.

Arugula made eye contact.  I love greens who are bold and direct.  Arugula will be in my pesto.  Arugula also makes for a good aphrodisiac.  According to a cab driver from Cairo, some Egyptians would sleep with a bunch of Arugula under the pillows.

I pulled out the mini KitchenAid and whipped up a recipe for Arugula Pesto.

You will need:

1 bunch of Arugula (a small handful is fine)
juice from 1 whole lemon
2 cloves of garlic, pressed
1/3 cup of pine nuts
1/3 cup of cold-pressed olive oil
1/3 cup of filtered water
1 teaspoon of fermented bean paste (miso)

Now, a word about the miso.  One of my favorites is South River's Sweet White.  It is creamy and not as overpowering as the other brands.  If I were to make a cheese analogy, the Sweet White is the brie of miso.  I want creamy here because the Arugula is sharp already.

Sweet White is made with organic brown rice, organic soybeans, sun-dried sea salt, organic sea vegetables, and koji culture.  There is no gluten ingredient in this product.   It is also unpasteurized so I am keeping in form with the rigors of raw cuisine.  Excellent.  I am delighted when I find myself consistent on occasion.

Now, throw and mix all these ingredients into the mini KitchenAid.

So whiz, whiz, whiz, until you are sure there will be no Arugula piece big enough to get stuck in between your teeth.  If you're looking to get social with this dinner, that smile with greens wedged between your central incisors just might ruin the moment.  Don't ruin the moment.

And don't worry about the garlic.  He'll have some, you'll have some - it's okay.  Garlic is also an aphrodisiac.  Tibetan monks were not allowed to eat them because they made them a little too excited for monastic living.  Gosh, with everyone doing a lifestyle magazine these days, I wouldn't be too surprised if there was one called Monastic Living.

But back to the pesto... The mixture should have this sort of smooth consistency.

Go ahead.  Stick your finger in there (after you pull out the electrical cord) and try a taste.  I don't add salt because there is sea salt in the miso paste.  And the acidity from the lemon juice makes one think it's saltier than it is.  But if you'd like, do add a pinch of Himalayan pink salt to suit your taste.

Not only is this stuff gorgeous, it will, in turn, make you gorgeous.  This is a good way to hydrate the skin (after Summer, your body is badly in need of rehydrating - note the lack of turgor in the bonier parts of your flesh).  The zucchini also has a lot of collagen which aids in rebuilding skin - elasticity, tone, texture.  Hence, my neighbor's glow.

It's full of Vitamins A and C to keep your hair shiny and the hair follicles strong.  Not many know this, but it has a vitamin that is infused in some shampoos -  Pantothenic Acid.  This is extremely important to ward off hair loss.  Known as Vitamin B5, it is also essential for reducing stress.

In community pharmacy, I'd once had a patient walk in and tell me she would never work in the fashion industry again because the stress caused her to lose her hair.  So if you are losing an inexplicable amount of hair and attribute it to stress - this may likely be the truth.  Either find a way to manage the stress - or avoid it altogether - or eat a ton of zucchini.

In addition to Vitamin B5, the zucchini, on the whole, provides a good B-complex profile (B1, B2, B3, B6) to regulate sugar metabolism.  Highly recommended for those with Diabetes Type II.

So make the best of Autumn's harvest and get inspiralized with zucchini spaghetti.  Truly, it's the Pasta Courgette you won't ever regret. ~e

21 Club ~ The Secret Sauce

We had a power seat in the corner.  The ceiling was crowded by toy mobiles.  Corporate memorabilia, I am told.  Well then I pretend to admire them.

To our left was a Dutch family.  We welcomed them to New York City and they happily spoke of their travels and the good fortune of seeing an old friend,  André Rieu, perform up north.

They said he was internationally acclaimed as the world's greatest musician, and they simply loved the fact that he was their André, a friend and neighbor raised in the same village.  I didn't know who he was.  But I welcomed their enthusiasm.  My dining companion was a mind-numbing bore.

He had a Roman numeral III to his name and I was yawning Roman numeral ZZZ's.  Blah, blah, blah was what he said most of the time.

The food came with a waiter who looked like the butler from Sunset Boulevard.  The fare was alright, usual suspects for a legend.  But the sauce!  It came with the hamburger and took my breath away.  I dipped everything into it - the fries, the bread, even the decorative vegetables.  I was dada for it.

It was a strange pink.  Not a pretty shade - unless you called it cardamom rose or something like that.  And it had such a delicious sharpness to it.  The waiter asked how everything was.  Perfunctorily so.

I had to ask.  What was in the sauce?  No, no.  Don't tell me.  It's ketchup and something wasabi.  It's ketchup and horseradish!  Yes,  it's ketchup and horseradish!  I was completely bonkers.  Very undignified.  But it worked.

The snobby waiter glared at me and sneered with a low Austrian accent, "No. It. Is. Not.  That is ketchup and Colman's mustard."  And then he walked away.

Candy from a baby.  So easily given, it would have to be shared:

Heinz  +  Colman's  =  The 21 Hamburger Sauce.

There you have it, my condiment fanatico.  Grace Kelly and Jimmy Stewart have nothing on you now. Whether you're a desperate socialite who prey on invalids or just a sick pup watching the lives of others, you too, can bring home '21'.  Make the sauce and order in.  That, and a bottle of Montrachet for two might be a very good way to slip into the new year.

 Happy 2014!   ~e

It's All Alimentary, Part 1: Gluten-Free Socca

For those amber waves of grain, there is a winnowing of sorts.  America, the Beautiful is sifting through its cereals.  Amaranth is good.  Barley, not so much.  Quinoa is in, rye is out.  Wheat fields are being looked upon in a pernicious hue as people take more note of Celiac's and gluten sensitivities. 

Is gluten intolerance actually climbing or are we just getting better at diagnosing and disseminating information? Is hybridized wheat to blame?  One can mull and stew on this phenom endlessly.   Epidemiology is better left to the WHO*  to figure out the WHY's.

But the HOW of cooking gluten-free was a personal quest for a a food editor of Bon Appétit.  Kristine Kidd discovered she had celiac disease and decided to change her lifestyle.

She shook a fistful of bread sticks and swore, "As God is my witness, I'll never eat gluten again!"

No, that part never happened, but as food editors have standards, she did vow to always eat well.  Hence, her new cookbook:  Weeknight Gluten Free.

And who could breathe life to a cookbook better than the chefs at Williams-Sonoma on E. 59th.  Ms. Ivana Giuntoli took the helm in the lesson while Ms. Wendy James took note of additional dietary restrictions the guests had.  This could be a chef's nightmare.  Gluten-free, dairy-free,  sodium-free, sugar-free - all reasons for a chef to walk over to a guest and suggest he/she dine at the Mayo Clinic.  Attitudes have changed.

Of course I was skeptical.  How fabulous will this meal be?  Manager Garrett Williams laid out yet again, an impressive tablescape - unusual red coxcomb flowers and a gray-linen runner so the event was visually inviting.   But how was one to break bread with another sans the bread?  How would conversation begin?  Given the subject matter, wouldn't a question lead to disclosures on personal health issues? 

It turned out that everyone was open on matters of digestion.  There was a remarkable man who shared his journey from diagnosis and beyond.  The gentleman was working full-time in a business environment and committed to never putting a gluten product in his mouth.  When there was nothing to eat, he drank water to stave off hunger.  He has become a more resourceful person through this ordeal.  And 3 years into changing his diet, his clinical outcomes improved dramatically.  Compliance is key.

Well, compliance didn't appear to be a problem when the chefs brought out the gluten-free chili, cookies, and socca.  The soft socca dish with its particular toppings sent me straight to socca heaven.  If I could compare it to anything, it was like a pizza.  It's really an inadequate comparison as it is light years ahead of pizza.  Even a person with no gluten issues would be delighted by this dish.

The texture of soft socca is similar to that of an uttapam (an Indian flatbread) and a pita - without the tough chewiness of a pita.  Uttapam is made of lentil flour; socca is made of garbanzo bean flour.  And a soft socca is elementary in building delicious socca "pizzas".

So as much as I'd like to jump to the dish that made my heart skip, one must learn to make a basic socca.  I know, boring.  But it is no different from having to learn Bach fugues before one can compose like Pachelbel.  


                           Soft Socca
Recipe from Weeknight Gluten Free, by Kristine Kidd



 You will Need:

1 3/4  cups of garbanzo bean flour (use Bob's Red Mill Gluten-free Garbanzo and Fava Flour)
Olive oil
1 1/2 teaspoons of minced fresh rosemary
Kosher salt
Freshly ground pepper
2 cups of water

                                                           Instructions:

 1.  In a bowl, combine the water and flour with 1 1/2  tablespoons of oil, the rosemary, 3/4 teaspoon of salt, with a generous amount of pepper.

2.  Whisk until smooth.

3.  Pre-heat the oven to 325〫  F.

4.  Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper and brush with oil.

5.  Lightly brush a medium-sized frying pan with oil and warm over a stove until very hot.

6.  Add a fourth of the batter and swirl to coat the pan.

7.  Cook until air bubbles appear on top and the bottom is brown (2 minutes).

8.  Using a silicone spatula, turn the socca over and cook until spotted brown on the other bottome (1 minute or so).

9.  Slide onto the parchment.  Repeat 3 more times until there are 4 rounds in total.

10.  Bake in the oven for 5 minutes.  Now you have socca to add your toppings.

Summer's harvest has begun.  Stroll to the farmer's market for ideas on building your socca masterpiece. ~e

*  WHO:  World Health Organization

 
 






                                           

 

Mon Petit Chou

"It calms me down right away, the quietness and the proud look of it; nothing very bad could happen to you there...  If I could find a real-life place that made me feel like Tiffany's then I'd buy some furniture and give the cat a name."

                                                                                   - Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany's

As Tiffany is to Holly Golightly, Willams-Sonoma is to me.  When the mean reds rear their ugly little heads, off I go to the venerable house of cookware.  Nothing is more soothing than seeing order in its merchandise and civility in its salespeople.

So wasn't I thrilled to be invited to attend a cooking class at the E. 59th St. location.  And it was to feature a new cookbook -- Paris to Provence.  How could I say no.  Bien sûr,  save me a seat, s'il vous plaît.  Simply j'adore the idea. Just j'adore it.

Lesson plan was laid out on a chalkboard. Curious page numbers were written next to the items to be covered.  They were recipe pages from the recently published cookbook (our textbook for the class).  I marveled at the touch of academia in a retail setting.

The smell of puff pastry shells straight from the oven floated like sirens to weary sailors. They would be led to an island.  Yes, it was just a kitchen island, but a banquet table was placed before it - a lovely summerscape of sunflowers, lemons, and linen.

Seated to my left was a pretty, soft-spoken research veterinarian.  I asked her what brought her to such an event.  She smiled and said a friend of hers suggested it.  The friend thought she was a terrible cook.  Is it just her or do you hear it from other friends?  She confessed, "It's pretty unanimous."  Her ability to accept criticism so well amazed me.

When I think of French cooking lessons in France, I imagine very critical, ruthless professors depicted in movies from Sabrina (original) and Julie and Julia.  Would I have survived Le Cordon Bleu, in 1912, 1954, or even now?  Would I have a meltdown and scream, non Monsieur, you are mad! I cannot crack zee egg in zee way you want me to.  I prefer zee guillotine! 

So let us be grateful for our American French cooking instructors  ~  Ivana Giuntoli and John Ochse.  The harmony they worked in was noteworthy.  I was to later find that this was the first time they had taught a class together.  It was calming, engaging, and enjoyable.  Even when one unwittingly took another one's Gruyère, there was no awkward who-stole-my-French cheese moment.  They laughed it off as Jacque Pepin would.  Seamless.

It helped that there was a good deal of attention to their mise en place.   A delightful phrase, mise en place, was explained as an integral way to prepare for the cooking.  It is the process of measuring out the ingredients, arranging them, as well as pre-heating the ovens, and so forth.  One's mise en place can be the very thing that determines if the cooking will be enjoyable or misérable.  

Effortlessly, we glided from savory puff pastry, to Pistou a la Provençal (imagine French minestrone), back to another savory pastry dish.  And what would be a French dinner without crêpes.  We are told that the famous Crêpe Suzette was named after a girl dining with the Prince of Wales in 1896 at a Monte Carlo restaurant.  

There is little question that the dish was made purely by accident as the chef himself made an account of it in his autobiography.  It was an accident waiting to happen anyway.  If one is handling a pan with Grand Marnier over a hot stove, some of the liqueur will jump into the fire, creating a fantastic flame.  Add an ability to quickly recover and improvise with showmanship, and voila! ~ Crêpe Suzette is born.  

However, there is a gray area on the namesake.  1896 was during the Belle Époque.  So it is plausible to think Suzette was a courtesan.  Some stories say she was a mistress, some note her merely a child -- perhaps a daughter of the Prince (future King Edward VII).  I'll take the latter because the real flame in his life was Alice Keppel.  

It does make one wonder.  If Alice had dined with him on that particular night at Café de Paris, the dish would've been named Crêpe Keppel.  So lesson to be learned:  never decline a dinner invitation from your sweetheart - it could change history.  

And speaking of sweethearts, a term of endearment used by the French is brought to light.  "Mon petit chou" is often lost in translation and thought to mean "my little cabbage".  But there is another "chou" which refers to a type of pastry.  As far as affection is concerned, that is the only chou that fits. 

But I demur.  "My little cabbage" sounds adorable.  Terms of endearment are endearing because they sound so silly.  So what if Americans run around tweeting and texting, "my little cauliflower", "my little brussel sprout" ?  Where is the harm?

Ready to shrug off the distinction between chou this and chou that, I bite into my first savory puff pastry, the gougère, and I gasp.  Oo la la.  It is like a cloud of yumminess I cannot explain.  The unbearable lightness of chou.  

Because I can see myself trying very hard to resist eating them all.  I cannot get enough of chou, you, mon petit chou!  I changed my mind.  Calling someone "my little cabbage" is no way to treat a person so exquisite, so rare... so divine as the chou of all choux.  

For your next cocktail party, try serving gougère and look for the reactions in your guests' faces.  You chou'd try it at least once.

Gougère 

Recipe from Paris to Provence, by Ethel Brennan and Sara Remington 

You will need: 

1 cup of water

6 tablespoons of unsalted butter

4 large eggs

11/2  cups of grated Gruyère 

1 cup of all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon of water, lightly beaten with 1 egg

1 teaspoon of salt

1/2  teaspoon of pepper

Instructions:

1.  Preheat oven to 425°F.

2.  Combine 1 cup of water, the butter, salt, pepper and stir in medium heat until the mixture comes to a boil.

3.  Add the cup of flour and mix with a wooden spoon into the sauce until a paste forms.

4.  Remove from heat and make a well in the center.  

5.  Crack an egg and incorporate into the mixture.  Repeat with the other eggs.

6.  Blend in 1 cup of Gruyère until the mixture is smooth.  Reserve the half cup.

7.  Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or nonstick mats.

8.  Dip a spoon in a glass of cold water and scoop a generous teaspoonful.

9.  Push each dollop onto the baking sheet with fingertips.  Repeat, dipping the spoon in the glass of cold water in between scoops.

10.  Brush the top of each mound with a little of the eggwash and sprinkle with the reserve Gruyère.

11.  Bake for 10 minutes, then reduce to 350°F.

12.  Bake for another 15 minutes until the choux pastry turns golden brown and crunchy.

13. Pierce the gougères with a wooden skewer (to vent) and turn off the oven.

14.  Leave them in for 10 minutes and serve warm or at room temperature.

  Happy Bastille Day! ~e