Shredded Tofu Stir Fry

Shredded tofu, a delicate creamy slightly sweet & spicy dressing, wilted pea shoots and the crunch of toasted pepitas and sesame seeds. Reminiscent of a warm salad, it makes a brilliant lunch and takes all of 5 minutes to make.

The genius of this one dish meal lies in shredding the tofu. All those miniscule tears open up endless craggy bits and holes that soak up the light, lovely dressing like a sponge. The pea shoots and pepitas add loads of texture and crunch. I have to say, I'm a big fan. 

SHREDDED TOFU STIR FRY

— from Near and Far: Recipes Inspired by Home and Travel by Heidi Swanson (Ten Speed Press, 2015)

INGREDIENTS

• 1 small serrano chile, seeded and minced
• Fine-grain sea salt
• 1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
• 1 teaspoon runny honey
• 4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 tablespoon creme fraiche, buttermilk, or sour cream
• 2 cups pea shoots
• 8 oz extra-firm tofu, shredded on a box grater
• 3 tablespoons black sesame seeds

METHOD

Start by making the dressing; you'll want it ready when you start to cook. Whisk together the chile, 1/4 teaspoon of salt, the vinegar, honey, and 3 tablespoons of the olive oil, until emulsified. Add the creme fraiche and whisk again. Taste and adjust to your liking. Set aside.

Just before serving, heat the remaining tablespoon of olive oil in a large skillet or wok over medium-high heat. When hot, add the pea shoots and a pinch of salt and saute for just 5 seconds or so. The shoots will quickly begin to wilt. Immediately transfer them to a plate and place the tofu in the hot skillet with most of the pepitas and sesame seeds and two-thirds of the dressing. Turn off the heat and toss gently to distribute the ingredients without breaking down the tofu too much -- you just want to warm the mixture a bit. Taste and stir in more salt if needed. Transfer to a serving platter and top with the pea shoots and remaining sesame seeds and pepitas. Serve the extra dressing on the side.

Savory Popovers

Popovers from Heidi Swanson's Near and Far cookbook. Secret bonus inside the batter...freshly cracked black pepper and sesame seeds!

Popovers, for me, have an allure similar to that of soufflés, or the fireworks show on the 4th of July, or Michael Jackson doing The Moonwalk. A good amount of work, much anticipation, and maybe even the planets, all come together so that we may experience this short-lived but very glorious moment of sensory pleasure. The secret about popovers that I hesitate to reveal is that, unlike the Moonwalk, they don’t take hours of technically rigorous training to master. Popovers are actually pretty easy to make. Whisk up a bunch of eggs, add some warm milk, mix in the dry ingredients, pour the batter into a pre-greased pre-heated pan, put it all in the oven, and wait. The most difficult part of making them is probably denying the urge to open the oven door to check the height of the slowly rising beauties.

Once ready, they are a blank slate, well a steaming, egg-y, temptingly hollow blank slate, screaming to be filled with Jam! or Honey! or Butter! I can never seem to remember to wait for them to cool down before ripping open one of those golden crusted steam chambers and I inevitably end up burning my mouth or fingers, or on those days when I’ve completely forgotten I’m an adult, both.

But, as much as I love them, I’ve always had a twinge of guilt making popovers. Do they have any redeeming nutritional qualities on their own? Wait, stop! Do not even attempt to answer that question. No one wants to know the answer to that. Ear muffs everyone! But when I read Heidi’s recipe for Popovers I knew she had wiped away my last line of defense, I’d no longer be able to resist making these regularly. She had deftly resolved my only moral qualm against popovers by adding a sprinkling of millet and some whole-wheat pastry flour. Let the games begin.

POPOVERS

— adapted from Near and Far: Recipes Inspired by Home and Travel by Heidi Swanson (Ten Speed Press, 2015)

INGREDIENTS

• 2 cups whole milk

• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter

• 2 cups whole wheat pastry flour or all-purpose flour

• 1 1/4 teaspoons fine-grain sea salt

• 3/4 teaspoon non-aluminum baking powder

• 1 1/2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper

• 5 eggs, at room temperature

• 1/4 cup raw millet or sesame seeds

METHOD (ABRIDGED) 

Preheating the oven to 425 degrees, with a rack in the low center. Butter your pans and place on a rimmed baking sheet. Feel free to use muffin tins if you do not have popover pans or timbales.

Warm the milk and butter until it is warm but not hotter than 115 degrees. Remove from heat and set a side. Sift the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, salt) together and stir in the black pepper.

Using an electric mixer whisk the eggs on medium high speed for several minutes. Slow the speed and pour in the milk mixture. Slowly add the flour mixture and beat for an additional minute. If your bowl does not have a pouring spout transfer to a pitcher.

Preheat the buttered popover pans in the oven for a few minutes, not more than 3, and then remove from the oven. Be careful not to let heat escape from the oven when you are taking these in and out. Fill each 2/3 of the way full with the batter and sprinkle with the millet or sesame seeds. Put the filled pans back in the oven and turn down the heat to 400 degrees. Bake for 30-45 minutes, depending on your oven.

The trick here is not to open the oven while the popovers are baking. Peek through the window if you can and let them bake for as long as you can stand it. The goal is golden crusts that have risen about 2 inches out of the pans.

Notes from Leslie

• I have one popover pan with 6 wells. This recipe would easily fill 2 of these pans. I ended up using 4 additional ramekins to make use of the extra batter.

• Don’t be a dingbat like me and put your buttered pan in the oven for 10 minutes instead of the prescribed 3. I’ll kill the suspense for you. The butter burns and you have to start over. Not fun.

• Her recipe calls for a topping of a few tablespoons millet or sesame seeds, offering a welcomed textural garnish. Given that my constitution is 50% curiosity, I therefore needed to know what both options tasted like, so I did a 50-50 split. Half the batch got sesame, half millet.

• While it doesn’t sound like a lot, 3 TBSP of seeds went pretty far, and in some cases seemed to weigh down the top of the popover. Next time I will try a smaller quantity of toppings to see if I can get more of that coveted height.

• At 30 minutes mine were very, very brown. About a smidge from burnt. Next time I’ll check in at 25 minutes and tomorrow I’ll be checking my oven’s temperature gauge.

• Diving into this my first-ever savory popover I was instantly struck with visions of future batches… Everything Popovers with Onion, Garlic, Sesame, and Poppy Seeds. Toad in the Hole Popovers with a tear of thick country ham bobbing about. A few shreds of Asiago or Gruyere flecked with fresh Rosemary.

Aloo Bhaji and clarified butter

A cauliflower version of Aloo Bhaji from Near and Far ready for the oven.

I'm so glad cauliflower is not on the endangered species list. If it were I'd feel total guilt for having single handedly put it there myself. The way my husband and I hover over the roasting pan when we pull those golden brown clusters out of the oven, vying for the perfectly caramelized bits, you'd think those cruciferous crumbles were laced with dopamine. 

On my first flip through Near & Far I was anxious to try Heidi's recipe for Aloo Bhaji which foretells of the most unctuous, pillowy, spice-laden roasted new potatoes. But when I read further and saw her suggestion to try a version of it with cauliflower, well it jumped right to the top of my "recipes-I-must-cook-immediately" list. Given the fact that I'd be sharing the spoils with my husband, I decided doubling it would be wise. The 2 pounds of florets fit splendidly into my 12" cast iron skillet. (pictured here)

With a quick stir the florets are dressed in a few diced chilies, mustard and cumin seeds for spice, fenugreek for earthy, piquant goodness, some clarified butter, shallots, and garlic. About 60 minutes in a 375 degree oven and you are there. Oh, even though cauliflower has my heart, I have to say the shallots and garlic heads were like a one-two punch, a double whammy, Beyonce and Bruno Mars on stage. Incredibly gorgeous going in the oven and powerhouses of flavor coming out. Transformed by the roast, each softened tooth of garlic slips out of it's papery wrapper, which I'll admit is too much fun. Let's be real, I know I'm not the only adult who likes to play with her food.

Though I loved this hearty satisfying dish, and enjoyed eating it immensely, the real moment of wonder and delight came from making a subsidiary ingredient.  As you will see, Aloo Bhaji, like several other dishes in her book, has a recipe within the recipe. This nestled one is for Clarified Butter. And 7 tablespoons of it. My penchant for practicality would normally have had me just whiz on ahead, substituting vegetable oil without a qualm. But, at curiosity's beaconing, I reached for the butter and set about my first ever clarification. Clarified butter is made through a process of gently heating the butter to separate the milk solids from the oil, which are then siphoned off, leaving behind a shelf stable fat with a higher smoke point. Ghee is clarified butter taken a step further where the milk solids are allowed to brown, lending a more toasted, caramelized flavor profile. My local market sells jars of ghee, and granted, I could have just run out and purchased one but then I would have foregone the rich, caramelized butter smell that swirled around me as I made it...this may be how heaven smells folks.  And I would have remained ignorant of the other lovely and useful by-product of this process -- my own little jar of browned-butter milk solids. These are a treasure to later find in the fridge and drizzle on some lucky little tidbits.

So, moral of the recipe is - make the ghee! Breath deeply, swirling the golden foaming pot, and relish in the buttery goodness. Oh I haven't even told you yet about the buttered lettuce recipe from the Paris section of the book! I tried that the next day using the browned-butter milk solids and it was a magical revelation .... one to share next time!

ALOO BHAJI

SERVES 4-6

— from Near and Far: Recipes Inspired by Home and Travel by Heidi Swanson (Ten Speed Press, 2015)

INGREDIENTS

• 1 pound small new potatoes
• 7 tablespoons clarified butter
• 1 1/2 teaspoons cumin
• 2 serrano chiles, seeded and minced
• 1 1/2 teaspoons whole yellow mustard seed
• 1/2 teaspoon ground fenugreek
• 8 small shallots
• 2 whole heads garlic, top third cut off
• fine grain sea salt
• 3 tablespoons toasted sesame seeds

Preheat oven to 375F. Give the potatoes a good scrub and place them in a large pot of boiling salted water. Simmer until just tender, about 10 minutes. Drain well and set aside.

In a large cast iron skillet or casserole, melt the butter over medium heat, and when hot, stir in the cumin, most of the serrano chiles, and the mustard and fenugreek. Saute until fragrant, barely a minute, and carefully add the potatoes to the skillet, in a single layer if possible. Toss gently to coat with butter and spices and remove from the heat. Nestle the shallots and garlic alongside the potatoes, sprinkle with 1/2 teaspoon salt, and move to the oven. Roast for 60 minutes, tossing once or twice along the way, until the potatoes are deeply golden and the garlic and shallots are perfectly soft. Serve sprinkled generously with the sesame seeds and the remaining serrano chiles.

Notes from Leslie

• I used cauliflower instead of potatoes, skipped the boiling, and roasted for an extra 10 minutes.

Sag Paneer

Heidi's recipe for Sag Paneer from Near & Far. Homemade paneer really makes this dish shine.

One of my favorite Indian dishes is sag paneer. Unfortunately, finding a deliciously satisfying version, either in recipe form or at a local restaurant, is quite a challenge. That is until I made Heidi's Sag Paneer. The recipe calls for homemade paneer, loads of fresh spinach, a bit of onion, a few spices, and a good squeeze of lemon. The paneer is totally worth the bit of effort it requires and a hand blender makes whizzing the spinach into a chopped state a breeze. 

After only a few minutes of sauteing and stirring it all comes together. As I put the finishing touches on mine and took a taste, I pronounced "This is how I always imagined it could be!" and waltzed, spoon in hand, around my husband in the kitchen. Bright, earthy, warming, a touch spicy and yes, actually green. The paneer tastes like fresh delicious cheese and oh it is a glorious moment when you find there's a piece of it on your fork! The toasted cumin seeds, enshrouded in the gnarly gorgeous sludge of spinach and onion, are reminders of how lucky you are to be eating this. And guess what... no grease pools! Heidi, being the beauty lover that she is, tops hers with chive blossoms. I hope to do that one day soon too, if I can ever find those precious purple pom poms. But until then I'm reminded to always be hopeful and to keep seeking. Those bright, delicious, satisfying recipes are out there!  

SAG PANEER

— from Near and Far: Recipes Inspired by Home and Travel by Heidi Swanson (Ten Speed Press, 2015)

Makes about 3 cups

INGREDIENTS

• 3 tablespoons sunflower oil or ghee
• 1 1/2 pounds baby spinach, well washed
• 1 teaspoon whole cumin seeds
• 1 teaspoon fine-grain sea salt
• 1 scant teaspoon red chili flakes
• 4 medium cloves garlic, smashed
• 2 small white onions, minced
• 2 teaspoons garam masala
• 1/2 cup buttermilk
• Lots of fresh lemon juice
• 6 oz fresh paneer
• Chives or chive blossoms, to serve (optional)

METHOD

Place 1 tablespoon of the oil in a large pot over medium heat-high heat. When hot, add the spinach and stir until it begins to collapse. You may need to add it in tow or three additions, but get all the spinach in the pot as quickly as you can. Once it has collapsed, but is still bright, a couple of minutes, remove from heat, drain, and blend to a puree with a hand blender. Set aside.

Give the pot you cooked the spinach in a quick rinse, and the place it over medium-high heat with the remaining 2 tablespoons of oil. Add the cumin seeds, salt, red pepper flakes, garlic and onions. Cook until the onion is translucent, a couple of minutes. Stir in the garam masala, dial back the heat, and stir in the spinach. Gradually stir in the buttermilk and bring to a simmer. Stir in a couple of big squeezes of lemon juice. Taste and adjust the seasoning, fold in the paneer (or sprinkle it on top), and finish with a sprinkling of chives or chive blossoms.

Notes from Leslie

•  

Detours are delicious

View fullsize

Fresh paneer made from 1 gallon of milk. Half of this is what is needed for the Sag Paneer recipe in Near & Far. The other half's fate is up to you, you lucky dog.

Setting out to cook my first recipe from Near & Far, Sag Paneer, I inadvertently met a real mind bender. Fresh, homemade PANEER. You know, paneer. The elusive ingredient you've always seen on the menu at your local Indian restaurant but never seen in any grocery store. They say it's cheese, but it looks like raw tofu and tastes like nothing. It's more likely a structural support so the saggy paneer you ordered doesn't appear to be a pile of 100% overcooked spinach, cause who would order that again? Well, turns out fresh paneer is SIMPLE to make and it's fluffy unfussy warm dairy nuggets (aka curds) taste so good that when you turn those steamy gems out of the pot you feel you are a famous chef.  Yeah, I just made that.

So Heidi's Sag Paneer recipe, the completion of which was my goal for the evening, sent me on a detour to the back of the book. Here were the instructions for making PANEER.  I say instructions because something this simple probably doesn't qualify as a recipe. As with any dish that has only 3 ingredients, Quality is Queen. I heated my gallon of organic pasteurized (not ultra-pasteurized) Straus whole milk + 1/2 pint of the same whipping cream in a pot until it almost boiled. Turned off the heat and added 1/2 cup of fresh lemon juice. Within 10-20 seconds stealthy white coagulating lumps began to congregate at the surface in rapid succession. Woah! Was it happening? Just like that? Where were the problems? I was so ready to spend 30 minutes Googling "paneer problems" but here I was, already scooping out curds and stirring in the salt. That was easy. I had to taste. Prepared for a faceful of stale waxy cardboard flavor I was hit with De. Li. Cious. It's possible I wanted to spend the rest of the evening nibbling that mountain of fluffy springy goodness. I may have fantasized about it. BUT I tumbled and chased and wrangled those beauties into a Pyrex dish as instructed, put a sheet of parchment paper over the top, and weighted down the mess with a flat heavy object. So sorry to do that to you little lovers. We'll meet again.

After some time in the fridge I turned the chilled pressed paneer out onto a cutting board. Very similar to feta. Firm but not hard. Solid but riddled with vacant nooks and crannys. This was giving me A LOT of ideas. Pan fried with capers... Haloumi... Goat or sheep milk in place of the ubiquitous cow... What about a brine... More salt... More lemon... More fun! These are adventures I want to go on -- in the very PA-NEAR future folks.

Starting out

When I first saw Heidi Swanson's new cookbook, Near & Far: Recipes Inspired by Home and Travel, on a shelf somewhere I quickly walked past, purposefully ignoring it's call. The next time I saw the bounded pages I took the briefest dip in, just to confirm what I already knew to be true. Yes, I was certain to fall in love with this book. But with the then current whirlwind of getting married, and packing for our far flung honeymoon, and the holiday maelstrom impending, I did not have time to fall in love completely. Not is the way one wants to fall in love, with languorous afternoons spent together, savoring tidbits of this delicacy and that, sharing memories, hopes, inspirations. I do sound like a strange bird here I'll admit, but this is the way I felt and what I knew. I would wait until I could.

Then, what did I unwrap on Christmas morning? My own full color copy of Near & Far. My husband. Without me telling him. He always knows. And so with all of the dust having settled, I set out, curled up, cozy with tea, as if starting a novel or meeting a new best friend. Slowly, every bit noticed and remembered.

Let me back up here to say that I am a perennial cookbook devourer. My favorite weekend activity for quite a few years was reading, studying, and searching out cookbooks. No stranger to the tomes of MFK Fischer, Madhur Jaffrey, Jane Grigson, or Fuschia Dunlop I have cooked my way around the globe. The way I cook, whatever the dish, is influenced by my upbringing. Homegrown sprouts, granola bars, and the bounty of roadside farm-stands have left their impression. I love to make delicious, traditional comfort foods from the far reaches of the world but I can't help but look for ways to make them a little bit healthier. My usual learning process is to find a respected cookbook, read it through, absorb the techniques and flavor pairings, and pick a few recipes to try out. If I'm lucky enough to hit upon 2-3 good ones, real heavy hitters, those become my go-tos whenever I pick up that particular book. Unfortunately, these yummy dishes stop me in my tracks and I stop exploring that book right there.

All this to say my meeting with Near & Far was destiny. Or something as equally cheesy. After cooking my first recipe from Near & Far, I knew this experience was different. The flavor profiles were spot on and unexpectedly delicious, true to the tradition they had come from, yet in a bright and clean way. You can feel it, each dish is definitely good for you. I was hooked and incredibly curious to know what new wonders the next recipe held.

Thus inspired, with one dish under my belt, I've set out to cook my way through the entire cookbook. Yes. All of the recipes. Each one. And I can't wait.