Wednesday, October 17, 2007

 

Fragrant Rice

Do you have days when you know exactly what you want to eat but almost scoff at the craving because it is ludicrously simple to access? No? Just me, then. Well, I am going to talk your ears off anyway.

All I have wanted for the past week is spinach quickly sautéed in olive oil with garlic and a rice pilaf cooked in chicken broth. I meant to ask mum to get the ingredients when she did the shopping on Friday (how sad am I to have relegated food shopping to someone else when I am the foodie in this household?!), so there was neither spinach nor organic whole chicken to be found. I didn't have time to go out; lunchtime is a scheduled break from writing my thesis. Rice. I had it. I made do. What you see in the above photo is not just any old bowl of white rice. Noooooo. Innocuous it may seem, but on a typical Spring day in Auckland (read: the lightest of blue skies one minute, adverse conditions the next) this filled a void and brought great comfort.

Rice was not a staple in my household when I grew up, so having it as a component of any dish was always rather exotic. I always knew that it was going to accompany a dish redolent of spice and heat. Appealing to my inner Aladdin or Jules Verne, those nights were always my favourite. Of course, then, I didn't know the creations were Westernised or "quick" versions of murgh makhani, caponata or beef rendang. In any case, rice was never really treated as something to have on its own, but as a neutral carbohydrate background to the spice or heat of the protein.

Living with Eric taught me that rice could be incorporated into a main dish, not just to act as a neutral base. I was introduced to aromatic rices like basmati and jasmine. It was with him, too, that we would get a craving for rice only, which we would cook, lazily, with only chicken stock. Today I was not feeling so lazy, but I couldn't go the whole hog.

Nevertheless, I found inspiration in one of my favourite preparations of rice, which comes in the form of a pilau or pilaf. With its roots in Persian cuisine, a pilau is sometimes cooked with a reduced broth after poaching chicken, and it is often studded with nuts, fruit and/or spices and herbs that have been added to an aromatic, like onions, cooked in a fat, typically oil. Variations of pilau using white rice, aromatic rices and bulgar are found throughout the Middle East, North Africa and Turkey. They are innumerable, but all of the ones I have tried have been delicious and restorative.

A word of note: the amount of liquid to rice often varies. I often find that most plain white rices need 1 1/2 times the amount of liquid per cup of rice. For bulgur, you may need 1 3/4 cup liquid per cup of bulgur wheat. Keep an eye on how the liquid is being absorbed. If the liquid is absorbed before the rice is tender, you will need to add more liquid.

Fragrant Rice
(Inspired by my angelheart Eric and by Nigel Slater's Appetite)

1 scant tablespoon olive oil
1 small onion, peeled and cut into thin half-moon slices
1 clove garlic, bashed to release oil and to remove papery casing
2 bay leaves, preferably fresh
4 cardamom pods, either whole or lightly smashed to release aroma
2 cloves, whole
3/4 cup white rice, or an aromatic rice (basmati or jasmine), if you prefer
2 1/4 cups chicken stock, or other light broth or water
salt
pepper

1) Heat olive oil in a wide saucepan.
2) Add onion and cook until soft but not colored.
3) Add garlic, bay leaves and spices. Stir into the onion and oil.
4) Once aromatic, stir the rice into the spiced onion.
5) Add the chicken stock. Bring it to a boil, then simmer, covered, for ten minutes. Halfway through, check for seasoning.
6) Off the heat and keep covered for around eight minutes.
7) Fluff the rice with a fork, then remove the bay leaves and spices, or leave them in if it does not bother you to check for little seeds and what not before each mouthful.
8) Serve with an extra crank of freshly ground black pepper.





Yes, this is enough for a satisfying though not over-whelming lunch for one. If you are using a store-bought stock, check for saltiness and potency. If it is quite strong, you may not want to add the cardomom, which is better suited to and more noticable when cooking the rice in a light broth or water.

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Tuesday, October 09, 2007

 

Cardamom Cream Cake

The first time I ever used cardamom was for Hamam Mahshi bil Burghul, an Egyptian preparation of stuffed small birds that requires marinading in spices (principally, cardamom and cinnamon but also a bit of allspice), onion and a combination of oil and lemon juice. I was first surprised by the inclusion of cinnamon since I had only ever had it in desserts, but I got over that when I first smelled cardamom. I did not know what to expect of it because I had had no known experience with the pods (I say 'known' because it has probably appeared in its ground incarnation in many curries I have eaten in Indian restaurants). I was soon entranced during the process of pulling the seeds from their pods and of grinding them, a process which releases an aromatic transformation at every step.

I am a fan of spices and herbs decidedly and judiciously used to either give flavour to or augment the flavours of protein. However, for the longest time I have wanted to put a niggling question to bed: Why do Scandinavians use cardamom in their breads, cakes and pastries? Understanding that my worldview is affected both by my upbringing and education, I did not ever pass judgment on this baking norm, but I could not but help think it an intriguing thing to do. But the Vikings and the Scandinavians, centuries on, could not be wrong. Clearly, there was something in this application to be learned.

When buying cardamom pods, look for tight ones with papery husks the lightest of olive greens (though in Europe and the North America they are sometimes bleached). You may want to bear in mind the green cardamom is more commonly used for Scandinavian baking, as opposed to black cardamom, which is closely related and is used in African cookery. Once removed from their husky capsules, the dark pellets immediately smell of ginger, which is no surprise given they are from the same family. Once ground, the specklings are redolent of Eucalyptus. And while this might not sound appetising, another transformation occurs once heated.

The usage of freshly ground cardamom is imperative in order to get the lingering lemon flavours of the cardamom that imbue baked goods upon the introduction of heat. Pre-ground cardamom will leave too little trace, potentially nullifying its addition in the first place. And since it is one of the most expensive spices in the world (third to saffron and vanilla), it is not something you should want to waste.

A pretty tube pan is suggested for this cake, ostensibly to give it some presence, for this is, at the end of the day, a plain cake - at least only in terms of appearance. I used a bundt pan, not having a tube pan on hand. If you do not have a cake pan with a hole in the middle, do not lose sleep over it. I would use a loaf pan instead, which is what I did for Toasted Ginger Cake.

Cardamom Cream Cake
(from Beatrice Ojakangas' Scandinavian Feasts)

2 cups flour, sifted
1 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon cardamom, freshly ground
1 pinch salt
3 eggs, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups/12 fl. oz heavy/double cream
icing sugar, optional

1) Preheat oven to 180 C/350 F.
2) Butter and flour a 24cm/9" cake pan.
3) Combine flour, sugar, baking power and cardamom in a bowl.
4) Using an electric mixer, blend in the eggs on low speed.
5) Add cream and beat on high speed, scraping down the sides of the bowl to ensure the mixture is incorporated. Look for the texture of softly whipped cream.
6) Turn the batter into the prepared pan.
7) Bake until done, approximately 50-60 minutes. A toothpick/skewer test is a good way to assess this.
8) Cool in the pan for 5 minutes before inverting onto a rack.
9) To dress up the cake, lightly dust with icing sugar before serving.

The cake has a dense centre, which I suppose is attributed to the fact that there is no creaming required to make it. The crumb is quite closed, dense, as opposed to the open crumb of sponges and some pound cakes. The texture is yielding in the mouth on account of using so much cream.

It occurred to me while eating this cake that citrus fruit is not widely grown in Scandinavia, so including cardamom as an ingredient allows one to get a mild yet uplifting citrus hit, which is what some of us crave for from time to time.

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Friday, January 12, 2007

 

Arabic Coffee Pot de Creme

I wake up every Wednesday morning in great anticipation. I bolt out of the bed and head to the newstands specifically for the Los Angeles Times' Food section, a hump day highlight. The cookery book, restaurant, and focus ingredient/personality reviews are well-written and informative, as one would expect for one of the country's leading newspapers. Though other sections of the paper, once read, have been used to clean glass, pad valuables in storage, or go immediately into the recycling bin, my pile of the Food section is verging on the scale of the Coit Tower. Because I am concerned about "death by collapse of newspaper tower", I have decided to go trawl through the editions, make clippings, and actually test the recipes.

At the end of the year, the Los Angeles Times reviews the recipes given throughout the year and compiles a top 10 list. On 2006's top 10 is Ana Sortun's Arabic Coffee Pot de Creme, taken from her cookery book Spice: Flavors of the Eastern Mediterranean. I was intrigued by the Bedouin tradition of combining cardamom and coffee beans - we drink Guatemalan beans (usually French or Vienna roast) that have been roasted by the folks at Jones Coffee Roasters in Pasadena, where my angelheart Eric stops by before the weekend for the next week's coffee supply. Though cremes de pot are served cold, I thought that the coffee would give a warming feeling, perfect for the onset of Winter.

Arabic Coffee Pot de Creme
(first sighted in the 27 December 2006 edition of the Los Angeles Times; original source: Ana Sortun's Spice: Flavors of the Eastern Mediterranean)

1 cup espresso beans
2 tablespoons whole green cardamom pods
2 cups heavy cream
1 1/2 cups whole milk
6 egg yolks
3/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons brewed espresso, cooled
1 1/2 tablespoons very finely ground espresso
1 cup heavy whipping cream (1/2 cup suffices, really)

1) Crush the espresso beans and cardamom pods by placing them together in a plastic bag of sorts and bashing them with something heavy, like a rolling pin. Make sure the beans have the consistency of coarsely chopped nuts and the cardamom pods have been split open.
2) In a medium saucepan, bring the cream, milk, and crushed espresso beans and cardamom pods to a boil, then remove from heat, cover, and let steep for one hour.
3) Heat oven to 300 deg. f. (150 deg. c.).
4) In a small bowl, whisk the egg yolks and sugar together.
5) Strain cream (now infused with the coffee and cardamom) into the yolk mixture with a fine mesh sieve.
6) Stir in the brewed espresso and coffee grounds. This is now the coffee creme.
7) When combined, strain again with a sieve to ensure cooked or lumpy yolk is removed.
8) Place eight 4oz ramekins or espresso cups (or, let's be real, whatever size ramekins or oven-proof cups you have) into a baking dish, and then fill the ramekins with the coffee creme.
9) Pour lukewarm water into the baking dish (NOT the ramekins) until it comes halfway up the ramekins.
10) With a teaspoon, skim off any fine bubbles that appear at the top of the coffee creme to ensure a smooth and creamy pot de creme.
11) Cover baking dish tightly with foil and bake for 50-55 minutes.
12) Carefully pull back foil to test for doneness, which is done by shaking the ramekins to see that they are set around the edges but not quite firm in the center.
13) If done, immediately remove ramekins from the baking dish and set aside to cool for 5-10 minutes before placing them in the refrigerator for several hours before serving.
14) When ready to serve, whip the cream, and spoon and smooth out 1 teaspoon of cream per 4oz ramekin over the coffee creme.

As you can see in this photo, I have carved out the creme so you can get a feeling for its dimensions. Though the finely ground coffee beans are numerous, you do not feel their texture at all. The Arabic Coffee Pot de Creme is smooth, floral and coffee-ish in aroma, making for a complex and delicious experience on the palate.
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