Feral Cooks

Good food shouldn't be tame

Graham-cracker Bites

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Here’s a great recipe from that trusted site, Serious Eats. They rarely steer you wrong, and these sweets are no exception.

I don’t have a lot to say about them, except that it’s weird that they don’t call for tempering the chocolate before dipping (not that I could successfully do it). Although they do add that you can use candy melts for the coating, which set to a glossy finish.

You’ll be glad you tried these.

What you’ll need:

  • 2.5 cups graham crackers, finely crushed
  • 14 oz. can sweetened condensed milk
  • 0.5t vanilla extract
  • 0.25t fine sea salt
  • 1 bag dark chocolate chips or whatever chocolate, for dipping
  • Coarse sea salt or kosher salt for sprinkling

What to do:

Grind about 2 packages of graham crackers in a food processor to form fine crumbs—enough for 2.5 cups. Transfer the crumbs into a medium-size mixing bowl.

Add the sweetened condensed milk, vanilla extract and salt to the graham cracker crumbs, and mix until thoroughly combined.

Scoop the mixture using a tablespoon or something and roll into balls—maybe Ping-Pong sized, but any size within reason will work.

Place the balls on a parchment-lined baking sheet, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate until firm.

When they’re firm, melt your dipping chocolate until smooth. Remove the balls from the fridge and drop them, one at a time, into the melted chocolate—use a fork to completely coat each candy.

Place the coated bites on parchment paper, and immediately sprinkle with kosher or sea salt before the chocolate sets. Let ‘em sit for a bit, then eat at will.

If you want an easy way to decorate these, melt some white chocolate and drizzle lines over the dipped bites. This is what I tried, to a decent effect.

Carrot Greens Pesto

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In the spirit of using parts of plants that normally get thrown out, this pesto is made from carrot-top greens. Coming home from the farmer’s market with a bunch of carrots, I was wondering if the greens were edible. Turns out they are, and the most likely thing to do with them is make a pesto.

Yumi actually made this pesto, and I think the recipe is a bastardized version of something she found on a vegan site. It’s pretty good, but not as good as regular pesto. I think it would have turned out even better if the greens had been chopped with an immersion blender, instead of our food processor because the pesto seemed a little “grassy” in texture. And maybe some pine nuts wouldn’t hurt. I guess adding some Parmesan would be good, too. Hard to say.

Either way, give it a try. It makes for a good topping for crackers, and I suppose you could use it with pasta, too.

What you’ll need:

  • Carrot tops from a large bunch of carrots
  • 1-2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 2T lemon juice
  • 0.25 cups mint leaves
  • 4 scallions, green part only, medium chopped
  • 0.5 cups walnuts or cashews (or even pine nuts!!)
  • 3T extra-virgin olive oil
  • Salt and pepper, to taste

What to do:

Remove the thickest pieces of stem and blanch the carrot tops in boiling water for 3 minutes. Immediately drain the hot water and plunge the tops into an ice water bath.

After they’ve cooled, drain the greens and wring out the excess water. At this point, they’ll look like blanched, shredded spinach—limp, green and kind of disgusting.

Put the tops, garlic, lemon juice, mint and nuts into a food processor and chop the hell out of these ingredients until they’re as fine a paste as possible.

Gradually add the olive oil—if you can while processor is running is best—until well blended.

Season to taste with salt and pepper, and serve.

Sweet Caramelized Pork

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Looks dry and tough, but it was actually moist and tender.

I found this recipe on a site called Berry & Maple, and their photo of the dish made it irresistible to cook. Outstanding photo and presentation!

Well, my version sure didn’t look like that. In fact, what I made, as you can see here, looks really boring, and even dry. It tasted great and wasn’t dry, but the presentation left a lot to be desired. I must have done something wrong.

Oh well, give it a try, it makes for a great meal served over rice or with stir-fried noodles.

What you’ll need:

  • 2 lb pork butt or boneless ribs
  • 0.5 onion
  • 3T brown sugar
  • 2 cups water
  • 2T fish sauce
  • 1T soy sauce
  • 1t olive oil
  • Chopped green onions as a garnish (which I didn’t have on hand)

What to do:

Coarsely chop the onion, and cut pork in small pieces. Heat the olive oil in a large skillet or wok and cook onions and pork for about 5 minutes, until the meat is well browned.

Add the water, soy sauce, sugar and fish sauce, and bring to a light boil, then simmer for 30 minutes. Over this time, the water should cook down into a thick sauce. I gotta tell you, that didn’t happen with mine. WTF.

Serve over rice, sprinkled with green onions for a garnish.