Feral Cooks

Good food shouldn't be tame

Red Lentil Curry with Coconut Milk

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My wife and I recently got together for a great meal with a couple who are really good friends and vegans. Why point out the vegan thing? Because they’re strict vegans, and my wife’s and my diet are pretty much the antithesis of veganism. So, out of respect, any food I cook and serve to them must be free of animal matter.

This can be a bit of a dilemma because, while you’ll find a lot of vegan food on this site, very little of it is actually a main dish. So, I went hunting for a good vegan main dish to bring to their place. I actually found a new-to-me vegan lentil dish in the December 2006 edition of Gourmet magazine, so I made that, plus this vegan lentil dish and veganized naan.

The beauty of this dish is its simplicity: only a few easy preparation steps. And, aside from the coconut milk, it’s super good for you and goes well with basmati rice or naan.

Here’s what you’ll need:

  • 1 medium onion, finely chopped
  • 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
  • 1 tablespoon finely chopped peeled fresh ginger
  • 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
  • 1 teaspoon ground cumin
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
  • 1 teaspoon turmeric
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 (2 1/2-inch) fresh jalapeño or Serrano chili, finely chopped, including seeds
  • 2 cups water
  • 1 1/2 cups dried red lentils (10 oz)
  • 1 (14-oz) can unsweetened coconut milk
  • 1 lb zucchini, cut into 1/4-inch pieces
  • 1 cup loosely packed fresh cilantro leaves

What to do:

In a large, heavy pot or saucepan, cook the onion in oil over moderate heat, stirring occasionally, until edges are golden, about 6 minutes.

Add the ginger and garlic and cook, stirring often for a minute.

Add cumin, coriander, turmeric, salt, and chili and cook, stirring for another minute.

Stir in the water, lentils, and coconut milk, simmering for 5 minutes, covered, stirring every minute.

Stir in zucchini and simmer, covered, until the lentils and zucchini are tender (about 15 minutes).

Season with salt and serve with cilantro sprigs scattered on top.

 

Chocolate-dipped Honeycomb with Peanut Butter

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Here we’re back to honeycomb, this time, with chocolate and peanut butter. No matter how you try to spin it, there is no way to portray these as a “healthy” snack. Quite the opposite, really. There is more refined sugar in these than most things you can make at home. I suppose you could say they’re “all natural,” though that’s kind of a stretch.

Before I slag these off too much, though, the real lesson here is in tempering the chocolate. I’ll explain the easy, quicker method,* leaving it up to you to look at other, more complicated methods.

The magic of peanut butter.

So, how do you make these? Easy:

  1. Make the honeycomb and break it into pieces.
  2. Smear peanut butter (creamy, not chunky) across the pieces, filling in the holes. You don’t need to be too carful. Just slather it on.
  3. Temper the chocolate and dip the peanut-smeared honeycomb in it, before placing the pieces on wax paper.
  4. Let cool and enjoy.

Here’s how to temper chocolate the quick and easy way.

  1. Start out with about 12-16 oz of good quality chocolate.
  2. Melt about .75 of the chocolate in a bowl over simmering water (bowl not touching the water), stirring often.
  3. When the chocolate reaches 115 degrees F, remove from the heat and gradually add pieces of the un-melted chocolate (3-4 at a time), quickly stirring after adding the pieces. As they melt, this will gradually lower the temperature, which should get down to 81 degrees.
  4. When cooled to 81 degrees, reheat the chocolate, constantly stirring, until it reaches 89 degrees. Do NOT let it get hotter than 91-92 degrees.
  5. Now you’re ready to dip.

*This was a disaster for a number of reasons:

  • I got distracted during the heating process and letting the chocolate get too hot
  • Not using enough chocolate to effectively dip the pieces, which ended up being far too big. Next time I’d break the honeycomb into smaller pieces
  • I used cheap chocolate, instead of a high-quality brand

 

3-2-1 Pastry: Painless & Perfect Every Time

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When I ran my food business, I was often called upon to make massive amounts of pastry for quiches, pasties or its latin counterpart, empanadas. I could not afford the time (or effort, frankly) to mess around with chilled butter and rubbing butter into flour to make a crumb-like consistency. That is a lark for French pastry chef’s and domestic engineers with plenty of time on their hands. I needed a recipe/method that was going to work in my 20 gallon Hobart mixer (Hobart are the commercial end of KitchenAid). Today, I have a 6 gallon KitchenAid (with a super-heavy-duty motor). However, this recipe/method is scalable and the title rather gives the game away.

Good pastry requires only 3 ingredients.

3. Flour
2. Fat
1. Liquid

If you can remember this and the fact that this is a weight ratio and not volume, you can make quick, easy and satisfying pastry in no time with minimal effort. The US habit of doing things in cup is a unit of volume. Dust off the scales or invest in a new digital set (preferably one that uses metric units too) and you are all set.

I never “sift” my flour, nor add salt. I will however, “whip” the flour with the mixer beater and use salted butter, DO NOT ADD SALT AND USE SALTED BUTTER – Phhhhbbtt!

Now the ratio says Flour-Fat-Liquid and I am serious. You can use any flour, fat and liquid here. I like use half whole wheat and  half white with EVOO as my fat. Remember to weigh it and add the rest of the liquid slowly so that you can back off if you need to. Crisco is a fat and you could use it – but why would you? Milk is a liquid and you might use milk in some instances. Play with it. See what You think.

I cut my butter (fat) into small cubes, straight from the fridge, lob it into the flour and hit the mixer switch on a medium speed.

Mix for a couple of minutes and you will see…

The same crumb-like consistency that the pastry books are always on about.

Add the liquid – in this case, water – and you will get a softish, but still firm, pastry that clings to the beater.

Peal it off the beater and turn it out of the bowl onto a floured surface and add enough flour to make a firmish ball.

Cover in plastic wrap and place in the fridge for 30 minutes or until you are ready to use.

Enjoy!