Archive for January, 2008
A Ruta What?
I toyed with calling this post “Oops, I Did It Again” but thought better of it, considering what little I know of pop culture seems to indicate now is not the time to be bringing up Britney-esse. That girl’s got issues. But that’s beside the point. The real point is that I’ve once again found a tasty way to serve up turnips, the one vegetable that seems to typically throw my taste buds a curveball.
But this post isn’t about the turnips. No siree. It’s about the rutabaga. “A ruta what?” is exactly the response I got from D when I started peeling it. I just love saying it. Rutagbaba. Rutabaga. Rutabaga. Okay, I’ll stop. It’s a fun name, don’t you think? I personally think Volkswagon should call their next cute little convertible model Rutabaga. After all, if you’re willing to name one after a furry little woodland creature, surely it’s not too much of a stretch to delve into the vegetable realm.
The inside joke here though is that I’ve never cooked a rutabaga before. I have eaten it. Just didn’t have the pleasure of making a fresh rutabaga’s acquaintance until working at the Headhouse Market (quick plug here for official opening market day, May 4th. Mark your calendars!). A starchy root vegetable much like all the others, the rutabaga draws its distinction by being an old Celtic symbol for a damned soul when hollowed out and carved with a face. Creepy, eh? It also fell out of favor in war-torn Europe when it was all that was left to eat. I guess people just got plain sick of it.
Superstitions and bitter history aside, this particular root vegetable is, in my mind, a very interesting cross between a sweet potato and a turnip. Its orange flesh is high in beta-carotene and potassium, just like the sweet potato. But it is not nearly as sweet, though definitely sweeter than a turnip, and retains some of the lighter turnip-y taste. I find sweet potatoes to be occassionally overwhelming with their flavor, so for me this balance in the ill-reputed rutabaga is perfect.
If you haven’t tried a rutabaga, there’s no excuse not to since it’s extremely versatile – it’s good raw or, when cooked, in a hundred variations of roasted, mashed, boiled, baked, stuffed, or fried. Anything you can do with a potato, you can do with a rutabaga and then some. In fact, I bet anything you can do with a butternut squash you can do with a rutabaga too. This time around, I combined it with turnips in a lovely herb-infused-browned-in-butter dish.
Buck Up
So, I’ll be honest with you. I was feeling pretty gloomy yesterday. Maybe it was the cold snap here in the Northeast. Maybe it had to do with the Week of Soup being so much fun that my creative mojo was sapped. Maybe it was the realization that I only have about three locally grown fresh vegetables left in my fridge and no source for getting more now that we’re about to hit February bang on the nose. Whatever it was, I was pretty low, and I needed some inspiration.
My collards were starting to languish in a similar fashion. It was crucial that I buck up my lagging culinary juices and figure out something to do with them before their slightly yellowing leaves lost all appeal. I owed it to these hardy greens to make something of them instead of letting them go to waste. After all, they’d stuck it out in my crisper drawer for three months, perky and lovely green up until about last Friday. I guess every vegetable has its breaking point too.
I scoured my cookbooks for ideas. Nothing. I turned to some of my favorite online resources. Nothing. Don’t get me wrong…there were plenty of recipes to be had but nothing was appealing to gloomy lil’ ol’ me. I was looking for something with a little more umph that the standard soup (hey, one week of nothing but soup was enough for a while) or sauteed or braised greens just didn’t have.
In the end, I hit up good ol’ Google and came upon this recipe for Creamy Collards and Rice on about.com, of all places. I don’t know how traditional it is when it comes to southern cuisine, but this recipe was just the ticket to get my wooden spoon wielding again. Turned out that preparation was so fast and easy, my inner cook was somehow unsatisfied. I decided to add the coconut milk to jazz it up a bit. That addition of the creamy sweetness was, if I dare say so, downright inspired! This preparation is by far the best I’ve ever had for collards.
Yea, baby! The mojo’s back!
Week of Soup: Anything Goes
Wow, I can’t believe it’s Friday. Know what that means? We’ve reached the end of SFTF’s Week of Soup – already! I have to say this has been one of my favorite weeks to date here on the blog. I mean, how could it not be? I love soup. And many of you do too, it seems, from all your great feedback!
Back on Monday, when this whole affair started, I mentioned that I’d be ending the week with a little self-challenge to prove that making soup doesn’t require a fancy recipe as long as you have the basic blueprint for building your own. While I observed that anything can go into soup from watching my mom, I really learned this basic soup blueprint from a wonderful woman named Mary. About a decade back (gosh, writing that makes me feel old), I did a stint in Northern Ireland – Belfast to be exact. I was studying at Queen’s University and just soaking up life in my favorite part of the world (I’d been there before and I’ve definitely been back since…there’s just nothing quite like it).
Since renting a flat there wasn’t cheap and my savings were meager, I needed a job and set out looking for one right away at some of the cafes with “help wanted” signs in their front windows. I guess my accent turned them off as I didn’t get a single bite. Dejected, I walked the 20 or so blocks back home to save the cab fare. Just across from the university’s campus where I’d be studying in a few weeks, I saw what I thought was a used book store. Nothing, save for a good piece of chocolate cake, cheers me up like browsing the dusty shelves of a used book store. I pushed open the heavy red door and entered a world that would, over the coming months, literally re-shape who I was.
Bookfinders, as it turned out, was really a tiny bookstore in the front and a cave of a café in the back, presided over by Mary, a chain-smoking, outspoken, aged-beyond-her-years, passionate-as-heck cook/owner. I sat down for a bowl of her Five Spice and Courgette Soup and, even though there was no sign in the window, immediately knew I had to work there to learn how to make that soup.
Back then, I was a timid country mouse, not used to going after the things I wanted with the same bull-headedness I possess today. I shyly approached Mary, who was obviously in charge, and hesitantly asked if she might be looking for some help. I’m not sure why she hired me. I came to find out she didn’t need the help. I think she wanted to see what I was made of…to see if she could put some fire in my bones. Or maybe it was just because she, unlike the rest of the Belfast population, enjoyed hearing the American accent.
Someday I’ll write the novel that my time at Bookfinders deserves, including its entire cast of characters – Jo (crazy Aussie trying to find her way home), Neil (ridiculously talented concert pianist gone slightly mad), Maeve (second-tier British royalty with the most lovely personality) and the other Mary (wizard behind finding the most obscure old books for the operations up front). But all you really need to know about now is the way my time in the tiny kitchen in the back changed my cooking habits forever.
Week of Soup: Zesty Zinger
I find myself giggling over here, tucked behind my computer monitor. What’s so funny, you ask? I’m just realizing as I type in this post for Citrusy Cream of Carrot Soup that I’ve already discussed the two things I was planning to this time…
I was going to rave about A Good Day for Soup.
PBeen there.
I was going to talk about how adding the parsnip gives just a hint of extra sweetness.
PDone that.
And here I was trying to get a really diverse group of soup recipes together for you. Now I’m starting to feel a bit sheepish…
But, wait! This recipe is unique! How many of you have managed to mix the three distinct flavors of sweet, tart, and creamy all into one bowl of vitamin C and beta-carotene overload?!? Hands in the air, people! Yeah, that’s what I thought. I only saw two hands. The rest of you will find this recipe refreshing, both on the page and in your mouth.
I’ll step aside now and let the pretty pictures do the rest of the talking. See, carrot soup is good for your eyes!!
Week of Soup: Sweet Heat
Let’s ponder the humble parsnip for a moment, shall we? For starters, I’ve always been a little disturbed by its phallic appearance. Still, if that were enough to stop me, I’d have quite the limited vegetable repertoire without carrots, cucumbers, zucchini, yellow squash, slender eggplant, and even some radishes and potatoes. I guess it’s the color of parsnips that makes them just a tad bit more disturbing than the others… Okay, enough pondering on that aspect of the humble parsnip.
Parsnips, to me at least, are highly underrated. They’re the unsung hero of the root vegetable world with their uniquely sweet flavor. Add just a chunk of parsnip to any dish, and it transforms something like a run-of-the-mill Thanksgiving side dish into a Bon Appetite recipe worthy of clipping. Parsnip in soup has been a long-standing affair in my kitchen, especially in winter squash or potato based varieties.
But honestly, I’ve always hesitated to make soup, or any dish for that matter, with parsnips flying solo. As much as I liked their flavor, I labored under the presumption that, on their own, they’d just be too sweet for a savory dish. That’s not to say I haven’t on occasion pondered putting them in a dessert and just might still with the few locally harvested ones I have left. Anyone have any clever ideas to share?
As you might have realized by now, here in the SFTF kitchen, we (and by “we”, I mean “me” since D most definitely does not abide by this) have a creed. It’s not ground-breaking, but it certainly steers the creative cooking juices in the right direction: Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained. A recipe for parsnip soup in one of my cookbooks caught my eye, and, while parsnip soup recipes are a dime-a-dozen, I decided it was time to give it a shot since this particular recipe seemed to waylay any concerns about overwhelming sweetness by piling on the spicy heat.
Nary a doubt will I have about letting parsnips take center stage in future dishes. Served with a rustic grilled cheese sandwich on the side, this soup was sublime. The fried garlic and mustard seed garnish was just the thing to add a little punch and really must be included when you serve it. What a great combination – I wish I’d thought of it myself!
What I did think up myself was a second ingenious (parsnips may be humble, but I am not) and delicious use for this soup. After eating it for both lunch and dinner the day before, I was interested in something a little different to make it more of a complete meal. I sautéed some soy chicken strips in a large skillet, added some frozen shelled peas, and simmered it all with enough soup to make a nice thick sauce. I added a pinch of my newly acquired garam masala spice mix (thank you, Santa) and served it all over some Israeli couscous. Lip smacking, I assure you. In fact, I have altered the recipe below to include a pinch of the Indian spice mix. It’s not necessary by any means, but it did add a greater depth of flavor that shouldn’t be missed if you have garam masala on hand.
What’s your favorite recipe for parsnips?
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