RogueChef
“It IS all about the TASTE”
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Okra With Onions
Quite a funny dish, it is a memory memory of my youth, fresh okra from the garden, washed and cut, then fried in bacon drippings along with a rough chopped onion. Add a bit of seasoning and you have a quite tasty dish, substitute a bit of vegetable oil instead of the bacon and you have a tasty vegetarian meal.
I made this for one of my associates, who commented that “You had finally mastered one of the most basic of Indian dishes.” It would seem the okra is almost ubiquitous in use.
Okra also known in many English-speaking countries as lady’s fingers or gumbo is a flowering plant in the mallow family. It is valued for its edible green seed pods. Originating in Africa, the plant is cultivated in tropical, subtropical and warm temperate regions around the world.
The products of the plant are mucilaginous, resulting in the characteristic “goo” or slime when the seed pods are cooked; the mucilage contains a usable form of soluble fiber. While many people enjoy okra cooked this way, others prefer to minimize sliminess; keeping the pods intact and cooking quickly help to achieve this.
To avoid sliminess, okra pods are often briefly stir-fried, or cooked with acidic ingredients such as citrus, tomatoes, or vinegar. A few drops of lemon juice will usually suffice. Alternatively the pods can be sliced thinly and cooked for a long time, so that the mucilage dissolves, as in gumbo. The cooked leaves can also be used as a powerful soup thickener.The immature pods may also be pickled.
In Syria, Egypt, Greece, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, and Yemen, and other parts of the eastern Mediterranean, including Cyprus and Israel, okra is widely used in a thick stew made with vegetables and meat. It is one of the most popular vegetables among West Asians, North Indians and Pakistanis alike. In most of West Asia, okra is known as bamia or bamya. West Asian cuisine usually uses young okra pods and they are usually cooked whole. In India, the harvesting is done at a later stage, when the pods and seeds are larger.
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Black Bean Taco’s
It’s too hot to cook, (actually it’s too hot to think), but I need to get something on the table anyway. Looking at the pantry I have a number of canned black beans, and I know I have some tortillas in the fridge. Really all I need is some cheese, spices, and maybe a sauce to bring it all together.
This is a quick and simple little dish that is tasty, textured, and very, very fast to complete. The simple slightly spicey and smokey flavor of the beans, with the tang of the sauce, creaminess of the cheese, crunch of the hard taco, and the mouth feel of the soft taco provide an experience in each bite.
Given recent comments:
Well, It had to happen.. The loyal fan club has started kvetching that I am introducing too many new foods, too many new ideas, too many new tastes. Seems they like boring.. (To me boring is only good in a combat zone…)
I’ll try to keep this simple, but still provide a decent dish.
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Peach, Strawberry Crumble
Crumble:
In a crumble, the fruit is baked under a crumbly topping, usually made with flour, butter, and sugar, and sometimes oats, nuts, and spices.
All that said, I still think of a crisp when you say a cobbler. The difference in my mind is the fruit used and the time of the year your make it.
As for today’s post I’ll hazard the slings and arrows of culinary fortune and look at another late summer fruit.
With all the late summer stonefruit arriving and the last bit of the berries still producing berries, it is time to look at the wonderful fruit combination of peaches and strawberries. The sweetness of the peach, and the sweet tang of the strawberry coaxed out into a luscious syrup with a combination of brown and white sugar, topped with a sweet and crisp crumble topping.
This is a simple desert that will take all of 10 minutes (excluding baking), to prepare
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Recession Food – Chili Mac
I was looking for a fast and filling meal as I have a number of things to accomplish tonight. A quick check at the larder showed I had some rigatoni, and a sneak peak in the freezer produced a quart of frozen Texas Red Chili… Add a little cheese, some Frito corn chips, maybe some onion and some jalapeno, and you have a right tasty and very hearty meal.
The really funny part happened when I did a wikipedia search for “Chili + Macaroni”, expecting to find some historical reference. What I did find was …
The Meal, Ready-to-Eat — commonly known as the MRE — is a self-contained, individual field ration in lightweight packaging bought by the United States military for its servicemembers for use in combat or other field conditions where organized food facilities are not available. The MRE replaced the canned MCI or Meal, Combat, Individual rations in 1981 and is the intended successor to the lighter LRP ration developed by the United States Army for Special Forces and Ranger patrol units in Vietnam.
I KNEW there was a reason I liked this stuff…
Seriously, I have several hours of online courses to review and various chances to demonstrate my proficiency at the drivel contained within said online courses. So will get on with the post and thence back to my online, at will, self-lead, torture…
The key to good chili mac is the chili, and I make some of the best, see my article on Texas Red – Chili, the pasta while a part of the name just adds filling to make sure there is enough meal to fill all the plates.
About that chili …
Texas red if it walks the thin line just this side of indigestibility: damning the mouth that eats it and defying the stomach to digest it, the ingredients are hardly willing to lie in the same pot together.
If one looks at all the legends of how chili was discovered, there is one thing in common…. ABJECT POVERTY, so the meat involved is not going to be the best, but since it will be close to the horn or the hoof, I am sure it will have flavor beyond compare
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Meatless Monday – Pimento Cheese
While having brunch this weekend, I noticed an item on the menu that brought back memories of my early days. A creamy cheese spread stuffed with things like pimentos, dill pickles, and as my tastes matured jalapenos, bacon. Once a after school snack and more than infrequently part of a school lunch, this cheese spread has been a true taste of my youth.
Background
Pimento cheese is a common food in the Southern United States. The basic recipe for most pimento cheese spreads has few ingredients: sharp cheddar cheese, mayonnaise, pimentos, salt and pepper, blended to either a smooth or chunky paste. There are a multitude of regional ingredients, which include but are not limited to: Velveeta cheese, Worcestershire sauce, paprika, jalapeños, dill pickles, onions, or garlic.
Pimento cheese can be served as a spread on crackers or celery, mixed in with mashed yolks for deviled eggs, or over hamburgers or hotdogs.
The primary way pimento cheese is eaten, however, is as a sandwich on soft white bread, and is considered a Southern comfort food. A pimento cheese sandwich may be a quick and inexpensive lunch for children, or it may be served as a cocktail finger food (with crusts trimmed and cut into triangles). Pimento cheese sandwiches are a signature item at The Masters Tournament.
The pimento or cherry pepper is a variety of large, red, heart-shaped chili pepper that measures 3 to 4 inches long and 2 to 3 inches wide. The flesh of the pimento is sweet, succulent and more aromatic than that of the red bell pepper. Some varieties of the pimento type are quite hot.
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Spaghetti, Butter and Herbs
It is cooler but still rather hot to cook, so where ever I can, I’m doing quick, simple, and cool. Pasta is a Mediterranean dish, and is suited for warm humid climes, (similar to NYC in late August.)
This is a very simple, very light sauce, that has massive flavor. Simply small garlic cloves sauteed in butter until they turn golden brown and infuse the butter with their sweetness, then drained fresh pasta is added to the pan and tossed to coat, as a finishing touch, a handful of mixed / minced herbs are added and the whole is tossed to mix. Add a dusting of fresh grated Parmesan, a side salad and some garlic bread, a complete meal, quick, simple, and spectacular.
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Ultimate Grilled Cheese
It’s much cooler upstate, but the several hours long trek to get there and then the inevitable traffic jam to get to the grocery store and then to my house on the hill has left me rather ravenous.
Food is called for and it is needed quickly, but I just refuse to do one more set of hot dogs on the grill, I want something with a bit more taste, almost like comfort food.
Classic comfort food is grilled cheese and soup, I’ll pass the soup today, but a good grilled cheese sandwich is a work of art.
Considering the construction of a perfect grilled cheese, I turn to my trusty chill box, where I found sour dough bread, Munster cheese, bacon, Prosciutto, bacon drippings, pickles, and of course butter… This looks like heart attack al la grilled cheese…
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Bacon, Peppers, Spaghetti
A quiet night with no denizens / crowd / roaring crowd, time for a simple meal, with maybe a bit of healthy tossed in
Instead of my usual butter I’ll use olive oil, and my standard bacon but one can use prosciutto, (one can replace the meat entirely with mushrooms, say chopped / sliced portabello for a vegetarian meal.)
Just because this is “healthy food”, does not mean using “low fat / low taste” products. High quality ingredients are essential to a good and satisfying taste, and a good and satisfying taste is essential… I.E. Go Cheap and weep …
Snap Shots