Chili garlic sauce

Before our move out east, we gave away an ungodly number of condiments. When you cook and eat and can't keep the contents of your fridge, it makes unloading those things an enormous task. We hope they all found happy homes and happy stomachs, but in the meantime, we have to rebuild some of our stores! (There will be bacon, oh, there will be bacon. My bacon stores are empty. But I digress...)

We start with a hot sauce. Simple and tasty. I modified this from a blog I follow, Viet World Kitchen.

6 oz hot chiles, stemmed and chopped
4 cloves garlic, chopped
½ tsp salt
1 ½ tbsp sugar
1 ½ tbsp white wine vinegar

I used a mixture of chiles raided from a local grocer.



Remove the stems from the chiles. Toss in a food processor with the garlic, salt, sugar and vinegar.

Pulse to make a nice, coarse goop.



Andrea at Viet World Kitchen suggests tasting at this point, and adjusting the seasoning. One tiny tidbit of this lovely mess burned my mouth. Three servings of yogurt, a glass of water and an entire bottle of beer didn't make me feel better. I'm not sure I had the seasonings right.

Simmer on the stove for five to ten minutes. Add water as necessary to maintain consistency.

Remove from heat and save as a condiment to add a nice touch of heat to your dishes. But be careful. This is hot!



By Bbq Dude

Shakshuka

So, as it happens, we've moved about as far as you can between two major cities in the U.S. San Diego to Boston. Southern Cali to New England. Fish tacos to lobster. So, I suppose even Indirect Heat has to make a few changes.

Well, I'm semi-bbq-less for the summer (I have access to a hibachi, but I've been too lazy to get charcoal and use it in our limited-space-sublet thus far). So I'm exploring my non-bbq options for a few days. And while I'm doing that, why not explore my meatless options. Yes. It's true. I'm cooking vegetarian tonight.



I found this book Plenty in the Harvard COOP (incidentally, the best food section of any bookstore ever - just sayin'). It's a vegetarian book. But it's my kind of vegetarian book. In the intro it says:

The New Vegetarian (the author's column) ... made some Guardian readers extremely unhappy to learn that the new vegetarian wasn't a vegetarian at all. A couple of angry letters to the editor stick in my mind and an incident where I suggested serving a salad with some barbecued lamb chops.

A vegetarian cookbook that suggests serving vegetarian fare next to lamb chops? This is my veggie book. Yes, yes it is. This is a book with bold flavours and fun dishes. I've already cooked several dishes out of this book, and will blog about them soon. This is a book of deliciousness.

Tonight, we serve Shakshuka. A delicious Tunisian mix of tomatoes, herbs and eggs. This one seems like it's going off the rails right up until serving time, when it comes together into a delicious mess of eggs and veggies. Yum.

We start with:

¼ tsp cumin seeds
¹⁄₃ cup olive oil
1 large onion, sliced into rings
1 red bell pepper, cut into strips
1 yellow bell pepper, cut into strips
2 tsp muscovado sugar
1 bay leaf
3 thyme sprigs, leaves picked and chopped
1 tbsp chopped parsley
1 tbsp chopped cilantro, plus extra for garnish
3 large ripe tomatoes, roughly chopped (or 6-7 small tomatoes)
¹⁄₈ tsp saffron threads
large pinch cayenne
salt and pepper to taste
water
4 eggs

Toast the cumin seeds for 2 minutes in a dry pan over high heat until fragrant. You don't want them bitter, so take care not to over-toast. Pour in the oil and toss in the onion.



Cook the onion 3-5 minutes. Add the peppers, thyme, parsley and cilantro and sugar. Cook over high heat for 5-10 minutes, or until the peppers and onions start to take on some colour. The browned onions and peppers will flavour this dish.

Turn down the heat to low. Toss in the cayenne, saffron, salt and pepper.



Toss in the coarsely chopped tomatoes and the bay leaf.



Simmer over low heat for 15 minutes. Add water to keep the consistency about a thick pasta-sauce consistency. Taste and adjust the seasoning as appropriate (I added a lot of salt to this to get it right).

Remove the bay leaf, and transfer to a shallow pan over low heat. Make 4 wells in the sauce and put one egg in each well. Cover, and continue to cook until the eggs set (about 8 minutes for me).



Garnish with chopped cilantro, and serve with a bright white wine..



This was surprisingly good. I've adjusted it to dial back the saffron a bit, but otherwise this is a fantastic dish. Bright and flavourful. Rich from the soft egg yolks. And messy. Really, really messy to serve.

We'll be serving this again.

By Bbq Dude

Chocolate panna cotta with vanilla rice pudding

Scientists move around. A lot. You do your graduate training in one city. Your post-doc in another. And finally you look for work, in a third city. Or fourth. Or fifth. And with super-specialized skills, at any one time there might be half a dozen jobs in the world that you're qualified for. Now, marry a scientist, and you've got a problem squared. You both have to find jobs, in super-specialized fields.

Many scientists spend their early careers living in different cities from their spouse. We didn't do that. We picked the three cities where we thought we both had a reasonable chance of getting jobs. San Diego. San Francisco. And Boston.

Naturally, many of our friends and colleagues have done the same. So when we arrived in Boston, despite the fact we've never lived here, we had friends here. And friends of friends here. So we've had more than a few invitations for dinner. Including an invite to a friend of a friend who had a pool (yay!). And celiac disease (doh!). We offered to bring dessert. Gluten-free dessert. Courtesy of Tartelette. We had a lovely time having dinner with our new friends, and look forward to having more good times with them.



We brought chocolate panna cotta with vanilla rice pudding. Slightly modified:

For the rice pudding:
1 cup rice (really the kind you like best)
1 ½ cups (315ml) whole milk (I used raw)
½ vanilla bean, split open
½ cup (60ml) heavy cream
¼ cup (50gr) sugar
Pinch of salt

Rinse the rice under cold water for a minute or two to remove the excess starch. Mix the milk, cream and rice in a heavy pot, and heat over medium until it starts to simmer.



Continue simmering, stirring occasionally, until the rice softens. If required, add water to the mix. You don't want this to turn into a cement mixture, you want a nice, soft consistency.

In the last minutes, chop the vanilla bean lengthwise.



Scrape the seeds into the rice pudding. Add salt, and remove from heat.



Pour the rice puddings into the bottoms of a few ramekins. Or if you're staying in a furnished sublet in Somerville, MA, add them to the bottoms of 6-8 coffee cups.



Now make the panna cotta.

1 tablespoon powdered gelatin (2 sheets gelatin)
¼ cup water
1 cup whole milk
1 cup heavy cream
¹⁄₃ cup honey
8 oz bittersweet chocolate
½ cup goat yogurt

Cocoa nibs, dusting of cocoa powder and fresh whipped cream (optional garnish)

Soak the gelatin sheets in ice water, or rehydrate the powdered gelatin in the ¼ cup water. I really prefer sheet gelatin. Even though it's slightly harder to get, it's really more reproducible and easier to use. You'll never screw up sheet gelatin. You might screw up with powdered. It's a crutch I approve of.

Okay. So while they're soaking, mix the milk, cream and honey.



Heat over medium heat until it starts to simmer. Squeeze the sheet gelatin to get out the excess water, then add to the milk mixture. (Alternatively, if you're using gelatin powder, pour in the hydrated mess). Stir until the gelatin dissolves.

Chop the chocolate. Or use chocolate bits. I like the bits, but I also chop. Another crutch.



Add the chocolate to the warm milk, a bit and a time. Stir until melted and mixed. Stir in the yogurt until blended.



Pour on top of the rice pudding. Let cool a bit on the counter, then wrap and place in the fridge, a good four hours is required to solidify these guys. (If it's not fully solid, tell your guests it's chocolate pudding on rice pudding - they'll never know).

Whip up some whipping cream as a topping.



Top with whipping cream, sprinkle on some cocoa. Serve. The kids hated it. But the adults ate the kids' leftovers.



A hit. A palpable hit.

By Bbq Dude

Raspberry-streusel bars

We made it! Indirect Heat has crossed the country! I've started work (a month ago now) and the family has arrived (going on 7 days now) and we are on the hunt for animal parts. We are now getting our bearings in sunny Somerville, Massachusetts. And it is HOT. We're staying in a cute little sublet, and the main renters have left us a completely tricked out kitchen, complete with 1950s-era cooking technology. I think we're going to have some fun here this summer, while we find a real home, a school for Bbq Jr, a job for Mrs. Dude, and generally get settled in. No problem.



In the meantime, to calm us down (yes, I was hyperventilating there briefly) we return to comfort food. Food from our past that we associate with happy memories. Raspberry bars. This is a recipe that comes to us from a great friend from our days in Baltimore (hi, Cara!). I confess, I sometimes begged for these bars in a manner that was quite undignified. And in a time of stress, nothing is as calming as familiarity.

2½ C unbleached all-purpose flour
⅔ C granulated sugar
½ tsp salt
16 tbsp (2 sticks) plus 2 tbsp unsalted butter, cut into ½ inch pieces and softened to room temperature
¼ C packed brown sugar
½ C old-fashioned rolled oats
½ C pecans, chopped fine
¾ C raspberry preserves
¾ C fresh raspberries
1 tbsp juice from 1 lemon

Line a 9" x 16" pan with foil, and grease up the foil with butter. Preheat your oven to 375°F. If it's 95°F outside, wait until the last minute to preheat the oven. Really.

Chop the warmed butter into 1 tbsp chunks.



One tablespoon at a time, mix 2 sticks of butter with the flour, sugar and salt. I used the old school egg beater, and while it was a teeny bit messy, it was pretty fun to work with.



Mix the buttered up flour goop until it is moist all over. Save 1¼ cups of the moist goop. With the remaining goop, press it into the greased pan until it makes a nice even layer of goop.

Bake this in the oven 15 to 18 minutes, or until the edges just start to brown. While it's baking, go on to the next step.

Mix the raspberry preserves, the raspberries and the lemon juice.



Mix just enough to mash the raspberries a tiny bit, but not so much so it's a homegenous goo. You want some chunk to this.



Meanwhile, mix the 1¼ cups of crust with the rolled oats, brown sugar and finely chopped pecans.



Add the remaining 2 tbsp butter, and combine into a lovely streusel.



When the crust is cooked, remove from the oven and immediately smear on the raspberry goop in an even(ish) layer. It can't be totally even, as you left big raspberry chunks in it. Be gentle, the crust can be torn. When done, sprinkle on a layer of the oat streusel you created.



Bake in the oven 20-25 minutes, or until the raspberry goop is bubbling up through the streusel, and the streusel has taken on a nice golden brown consistency. To speed things along, I fired up the broiler for the last 3 minutes to add colour to the streusel.



Remove from the oven. Let cool 2 hours. Remove the foil from the pan, and slice into individual servings.

Serve, by itself or with ice cream. AAAAaaaaaa...



By Bbq Dude