Bison + Been Busy

It's been a crazy autumn. But now that Daylight Savings has kicked in, and the sun is going down at 4:30 in the afternoon, no one on the East Coast will ever leave the apartment again. Including me.

Anyway, I honestly and truly cooked the bison pictured above -- kosher and procured from Wegman's (what don't they sell?). Though it must be said that the store's excesses of the Christmas season are a bit loathsome -- the kosher deli counter is the only part of the Dewitt store that isn't festooned with wreaths, ornaments, and the like.

Then again, they have a kosher deli.

To cook the bison, faithful companion diced garlic (several cloves per steak) and tossed on some soy sauce. The demands of such starving creatures as this one



forbade long marinating.

No matter; it tasted great nevertheless.

Directions

Broil for five or so minutes per side; serve with roasted squash and wilted greens.
Change into stretchy waistband pants.
Repeat the next time you have 30 bucks to spend on meat.

One Cake, Two Ways: Sour Cream Coffee Cake

Growing up, we visited with my father's relatives almost every weekend. These visits revolved around eating. On some visits -- if the cake, lunch, snacks and treats weren't enough -- my great uncle would send us home with a sour cream coffee cake, carefully wrapped in foil, and tucked neatly into an empty cereal box.

This, along with his vegetable soup, was one of his iconic recipes. No one knew how to make it.

Going through his apartment this past fall, I looked for recipes. I found a few of them -- though not for the soup, which he'd learned to make in the Russian army. There were variations on variations on variations for the sour cream cake -- handwritten and clipped from the New York Times Magazine, among other publications. Of course, the handwritten version lacks any direction; it's a list of ingredients only.



This past Yom Kippur, I made two versions of the cake. One came out super flat and buttery -- that was the New York Times's version. The other, pictured above, was puffy the first day, but sank somewhat the next. Partly that's because it calls for baking powder and baking soda, but also because I substituted tofu for some the sour cream. The point is, both versions were tasty, but need further refining -- especially as I'm trying to turn this parve.

Stay tuned for further experiments with the sour cream cake this fall. The roadblock -- as with all cooking experiments -- is that one must literally eat one's experiments. (My faithful companion/photographer isn't one to shy away from dessert -- this is the person who orders six (6!) cider donuts at a time, and finishes them on the way home -- but even he has his limits.)

Batter:
2 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup butter
2 eggs
1/2 pint sour cream (** I substituted soft tofu for part of this)
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla

Topping:
1/2 cup crumbled walnuts
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 cup sugar

Directions:

Combine dry ingredients

In a separate bowl, cream the butter and sugar. When well blended -- you can do this by hand, people -- add eggs and vanilla.

Add about half the dry ingredients to the butter, sugar, egg, and vanilla. Stir. Then add part of the sour cream. Alternate between the sour cream and the dry ingredients until it's all mixed together.

Butter a 9 1/2 x 11 inch baking dish; pour in the batter.

For the toppping, combine the nuts, cinnamon, and sugar, and spread evenly over the top.

Bake at 350 for 40 minutes (ish) -- but keep your eye on it, and be sure to take it out of the oven as soon as a testing fork comes out clean.

Chana Punjabi; Kosher Ghee = Glee

I am not going to lie.

This summer and autumn have been busy as all get out.

For Yom Kippur -- that is, to break the fast on Yom Kippur -- I'll be preparing my great uncle's famous sour cream cake. (Recipe TK.)

For now, exciting news in hecshered land: Purity Farms makes organic, kosher ghee -- which is pretty readily available in any good-sized supermarket, or via the Internet. Even more exciting: I recently bought some.

I can't wait to use it to cook the New York Times's recipe for Chana Punjabi, which the Grey Lady ran back in March 2009 (Elaine Louie adapted it from Heather Carlucci-Rodriguez at Lassi, a shoebox-sized restaurant on Greenwich Ave in the Village. I used to go there all the time during graduate school, and the food is delicious.)

Here is my version:

Ingredients

1 tablespoon butter or ghee
1 medium onion, chopped
2 teaspoons minced garlic
1 teaspoon minced ginger
1 16 oz can tomatoes
1 1/2 teaspoons paprika
1 teaspoon salt, or as needed
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon garam masala
1/4 teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon juice OR champagne vinegar
2 15-ounce cans chickpeas, drained
2 tablespoons minced cilantro

Sides: yogurt, rice

Directions

1. In a medium saucepan over medium-low heat, heat oil and add onion. Sauté until translucent and soft, about 5 minutes. Add garlic, ginger and chili, and sauté until soft and fragrant, about 3 minutes. Add tomatoes. Cover and cook until tomatoes are very soft, about 5 minutes, then remove from heat.

2. Purée mixture -- I use an immersion blender -- then add paprika, 1 teaspoon salt, coriander, the garam masala, turmeric and lemon juice/vinegar. Add chickpeas and bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low.

3. Cook for 5-10 minutes; add the cilantro. Remove from heat and enjoy!

Borscht by Choice

photo courtesy joe lingeman. **we ate the soup before we took the picture.

Friday night, I did the unthinkable.

I made borscht.

By choice.

Worse, I made my boyfriend eat it.

For Shabbos.

Having recently reinstalled myself in the great white north, and anticipating the famously long and cold winters, I decided to experiment with this oft-dreaded dish.

I followed the Bittman recipe, which calls for boiling three pounds of chopped beets and one onion in six cups of water.

After the mixture softens, Bittman says to beat in two eggs. I used one. Then he says to add the juice of one whole lemon.

I upped the acid Bittman suggested, using champagne vinegar instead of lemon juice alone. I also served it with mini creamer potatoes and sour cream mixed with champagne vinegar and dill.

On the next go-round, I'm going to experiment with adding turnips to the broth. And I'll serve it warm, instead of as a vichyssoise. I'm also thinking -- per the advice of my collaborator and friend -- to substitute the traditional potatoes with a blue cheese crostini.

I'm also thinking about putting horseradish (homemade, from the root) into the stock. Is this suicide? Or worth a shot?

Garlic Scapes

courtesy jayirwin via flickr

Peppery, garlicy, crunchy, divine. I cut mine up and sauteed with onions and MORE garlic, then added green squash and tinned tomatoes to make a sauce. Per a friend's advice, I got rid of the bulbous bit at the end, which looked something like an artichoke heart.

They taste fresh, like a hit of spring. The feeling you'd think you'd get if you carried around mint leaves in your mouth. Adventerous and 100 percent yum.

The Flip Side of Eating: Orthodoxy and Exercise

courtesy wallyg via flickr

For me, growing up, exercise was important. But not in the way that it seems to have been in secular, Christian, or non-Orthodox communities. Rather than working out, the emphasis for us was on the brain.

For evidence, I offer that, when it came to sports, my Jewish school competed in a so-called yeshiva league. That was the rule for basketball, soccer, and hockey. By contrast, we faced secular schools for such "brain"-oriented competitions as mock trial, model UN, and the like. You'd have an ice cube's chance in hell at seeing my yeshiva compete against Dalton in track.

You can see the evidence of this kind of hard living -- really, hard eating -- in the faces, skin, and bodies of many an Orthodox or charedi person. Making too much of the body in traditional cultures has been taboo, understandably so. Often, in the U.S. at least, vanity is antithetical to modesty.

But there seems to me nothing about not taking care of yourself that honors God.

Today -- some 15 years later -- it's different. Attitudes seem beginning to change. In Prospect Park, I see Orthodox and charedi women out walking, rollerblading, riding bikes for exercise. Sometimes, they're accompanied by another female friend. Other times, women are accompanied by their husbands.

The still-surprising and wonderful times are when charedi women are out on their own. Walking, skating, huffing it through the park. Grasping a water bottle in one hand. Striking out, on behalf of their bodies, alone.

Fruit soup 2.0

They say it will be 98 degrees tomorrow. The only thing keeping me from throwing up is my beloved box fan and the vat of fruit soup I just made.

A lot has changed over the past 12 months. Soon I'll be departing Brooklyn for greener pastures. And colder winters. And a horrible mall called Destiny.

Most important, I'm now making the fruit soup with plums.

Which sound like a vaguely Shakespearean term for testicles.