Harissa, Here I Come

My favorite day of the week is Wednesday.  Not because it signifies the half-way point of the work week, but because it is the day the newspaper contains the Food Section.  Not that there aren't plenty of online places to get good  food information and news, but there is just something I love about holding the newspaper in my hand and breathing in that print smell. 

My recipe file is full of recipes I have cut out of the newspaper over the years.  It's fun to every once in a while go through them one by one and reminisce, almost like you would with a stack of photographs, because for me each recipe has a memory or story tied to it:

The 3 Tres Leches cakes I baked for my students one year because I truly believed that there was no better way to learn about a region than to taste its food.  (And selfishly, this is one of my favorite cakes.)

The failure that was the Rum-Glazed Spiced Pecans. What can I say about this one other than the best part was that we were left with an almost full bottle of dark rum to kill the nasty flavor of the spiced pecans.

The Pumpkin Cheesecake that I managed to convince my mom to let me make one year for Thanksgiving. For holiday meals it is hard to get permission from the family to deviate from the norm. If it's not pumpkin, cherry or pecan pie, it typically does not go on the table.

The Japanese Pork and Shrimp Pot Stickers that I made on a whim this fall and turned out to be fabulous!

Sorry, got a little off topic there. Back to today's Food Section. The planets must all be aligned or something because the main topic this week is soup (blogged about it yesterday), there is a recipe for a Tunisian soup (studying Africa in class this month) and best of all, it contains harissa (an ingredient I have been dying to try for a long time). I need to go buy a lottery ticket because this is obviously my lucky day.

                                 (Lebhar-Friedman)

The soup is called Hlelem and is a Tunisian vegetable and bean soup.  I plan on making it over the upcoming three day weekend.  That should give me time to track down some of the ingredients I don't already have in my pantry.  

Recipe from the Houston Chronicle:

HLELEM    (Tunisian Vegetable and Bean Soup)

From The New Book of Soups by the Culinary Institute of America

½ cup dried lima or butter beans

½ cup dried chickpeas

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 teaspoon minced garlic

½ cup diced celery

¾ cup minced onion

1 quart chicken broth

1/3 cup tomato paste

4 large Swiss chard leaves, stems removed and cut into 1-inch pieces, leaves shredded

1/3 cup angel hair pasta, broken into bite-sized pieces

2 tablespoons harissa

Salt to taste
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
1/2 cup chopped parsley

Soak dried lima beans and chickpeas separately overnight in three times their volume of water. Drain and cook them separately in two times their volume of fresh water until they are tender, about 45 minutes. Drain and reserve cooking water from both . Combine lima beans and chickpeas; set aside. Combine cooking waters and set aside.

Heat olive oil in a soup pot over medium heat. Add garlic, celery and onion. Cook, stirring occasionally, until onion is translucent, 4 to 6 minutes.

Add broth, reserved bean cooking liquid and tomato paste. Mix together until well blended and bring to a simmer for 10 minutes.

About 10 minutes before serving, add cooked beans and chickpeas, Swiss chard and pasta. Simmer until pasta and chard stems are tender, about 10 minutes.

Add harissa and stir until blended. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve in heated bowls, garnished with chopped parsley.

Note: Harissa is a Tunisian hot sauce or paste usually made with hot chiles, garlic, cumin, coriander, caraway and olive oil. It's available at Middle Eastern markets and specialty stores.

Makes 8 servings, each 150 calories (26.5 percent calories from fat), 4.5 g fat, 5 mg cholesterol, 590 mg sodium, 22 g carbohydrates, 5 g fiber, 7 g protein.

I Thought "Tartar" Referred To A People Group...

This was originally written back during the first week of October... forgot to post it. Oops!

School started and things got a little busy. I have been cooking, just not doing a great job blogging about it.

My most recent adventure was the result of an impetuous, last minute Sunday Dinner invitation I extended to some dear friends. I wasn't too stressed because I knew I had most of the meal under control. Appetizer ... piece of cake - had a beautiful head of Romaine in the crisper, some tangy pepperoncinis and a delicious Balsamic Walnut and Blue Cheese dressing I picked up at Berry Town Produce (a farmer's market) in Hammond, LA two weeks ago. I also had the main course all planned out - a simple Italian dish. Seasoned chicken breasts browned on both sides, then topped with an artichoke ricotta cheese mixture, covered in an carrettiera sauce and finished off in the oven. Oven-roasted garlic broccoli would serve as a healthy side dish.

But what to do for dessert? I needed something I could (for the most part) prepare ahead of time and just add finishing touches to as the chicken finished up in the oven. But I also wanted something with that WOW factor. Long story short - after flipping through several cookbooks I found a recipe for a Decadent Flourless Chocolate Cake that had to be made well ahead of time so it could be chilled. It also suggested serving it with Berry Coulis. I adore berry sauces, so that cinched it for me!

Cake was pretty straightforward - melt butter and chocolate in double boiler and then whisk in egg yolks (taking care to make sure they do not curdle). Meanwhile, and here is where the NEW ingredient comes in to play, you whip the egg whites with cream of tartar until they achieve soft peaks and then add in a T of sugar until you get stiff, but not dry peaks. (Kitchen-Aid stand mixer made it all possible - thanks, R!) Fold in 1/3 of the egg whites (sacrifice the few for the sake of the many) and then fold in the remaining egg whites. Bake at 325 for 30 minutes. Cool thoroughly and then chill for a minimum of three hours.

So what's the deal with this Cream of Tartar stuff? Why did I need to add it? I mean, I have whipped egg whites before and never used cream of tartar. And I thought the Tartars were a people group, so why the heck are they showing up in my recipe?

According to http://www.ochef.com/, it is potassium hydrogen tartrate, an acid salt. Come to find out, milk, egg whites and baking soda are the only alkaline foods we have, so it makes sense to pair an acid with the egg whites. It stabilizes and gives extra volume to egg whites when they are being whipped. I will admit that it made my eggs whites almost cloudlike. Another technique I had read about recently in Cook's Illustrated was to start out whipping egg whites on a lower speed (medium) and only much later in the process switch it to high. I found that also helped to increase the volume of the egg whites.

To accompany my chocolate cake, and cut some of the richness, I settled on a berry coulis. I had planned on making it from only raspberries, but as I was going through my fridge I found a carton of forgotten strawberries. While the majority were sickly and a bit moldy, there were a few jewels in there, so I threw them in as well. Turned out to be a stroke of genius!

After pureeing the berries, lemon juice and sugar in the food processor, I spent the next 30 minutes forcing fruitpuree through a fine sieve. At first progress was almost non-existant. What the heck was I thinking??? This was proving to be an incredibly fruitless (ha ha) endeavor. A few minutes later, however, a magical liquid began to appear in the bowl below the sieve. Seedless puree was dripping through and my, oh my, was it ever heavenly!!! I wimped out on the whipping cream and substituted Cool Whip (insert disgusted groan here).

We all enjoyed dessert after the meal - very rich, but very good. The guys both ate two servings... I have no idea how. I will definitely be making this one again!

Next adventure - cooking while camping. Heading to Garner State Park with my Earth Girls for 5 days... fun stories and pics to follow!