Burst of color and flavor: red curry with tofu

Maybe it’s the continuation of winter that’s making me long for crisp, bright vegetables with lots of color. I’m also finding myself cooking simple, quick meals and cutting corners wherever possible. Browsing through Donna Hay’s latest magazine, my exact thoughts were responded to from the other side of the world in the form of a quick, zippy dinner: red curry with tofu.

I know tofu is not for everyone. It’s really not the star of this meal anyway. It could easily be omitted or replaced with some sliced chicken or beef sautéed with a little salt and pepper. If the star of this little drama is a flavorful red curry paste and coconut milk sauce, then the unexpected plot twist is how quickly it all comes together. In fact, the first time I made this, I picked up two takeout cartons of jasmine rice from the local Malaysian restaurant and didn’t even make the rice. How long did it take me all together? Ten minutes at most. In a fraction of an hour, we had a spicy, crunchy, (mostly) healthy meal that was incredibly satisfying. Not only is it rather scrumptious, but also it’s quite pretty on the plate. Have a try.

I’ve adapted the recipe by adding a trick I learned from Thomas Keller’s tomes: to blanch the vegetables prior to cooking. You can certainly skip this step, but it’s what helps the vegetables retain their vibrant color. It’s quick to do, and you can blanch everything ahead of time if you like and the throw everything together in a few minutes when you are ready to cook the meal.

Red curry with tofu (adapted from Donna Hay magazine, issue 37)

If desired, blanch (30 seconds in heavily salted boiling water, plunge into ice bath immediately. If not blanching, slice vegetables and proceed):
1 handful green beans, ends trimmed, cut into ~1-2 inch pieces
1 sweet red pepper, julienned

1 brown onion
1 Tbs red curry paste
2 cups cooked jasmine rice
1 cup coconut milk (light works fine)
200g chopped firm tofu (I like silken)
salt

garnish:
1 scallion, sliced thinly
Thinly sliced red chilli pepper to taste
1 handful bean sprouts
Optional: mint leaves

Cook onion with 1 tablespoon red curry paste in a little vegetable oil (note: I like to slice the onion in half lengthwise and then slice thinly along the grain). Add 1 cup coconut milk and 2 cups jasmine rice and stir until well combined. Add 200g chopped firm tofu, green beans and red pepper and cook until warmed through. Season with salt to taste. Top with chopped red chili, bean sprouts, mint and scallion.

Warm and hearty winter soup: minestrone

I have a secret to share. I’m not sure why I’ve kept this to myself for so long. It is the ultimate recipe for warm and hearty minestrone soup.

Believe-it-or-not, I’ve been making this one minestrone soup recipe since college. And that, friends, was a long time ago, but we won’t get into that.

The recipe comes from my friend Alison, and before that, her dad. Well, actually it comes straight out of Len Deighton’s Cookstrip Cook Book. I have a photocopy of the recipe that is many, many years old, and that I keep in a recipe book with plastic sleeves that I use for hand-written recipes that pre-date the days of electronic bookmarking.

Because Wikipedia seemingly has information on everything, I was able to learn a little bit about Len Deighton. Not only is Len Deighton a novelist, but also, among other things, he is an illustrator and wrote and illustrated a weekly cooking comic strip in London's The Observer newspaper called “Len Deighton's Cookstrip.” He also wrote and illustrated a series of cookbooks.

What’s great about this recipe is it’s straightforward and unfussy. It’s a bit of a choose your own adventure: there are basic ingredients which form the basis of the soup but you can “add on” whatever you would like. As such, you can have a slightly different soup every time – and it’s always wonderful, flavorful and hearty.

I love sweet corn in mine. I always use a large can of crushed tomatoes (slightly higher in quantity than the weight suggested in the recipe) in place of fresh, as it’s simpler and easier to get high quality canned tomatoes year round. This last time, I added cubes of parsnip which were nice. Give it a try!


Minestrone (from Len Deighton's Cookstrip Cook Book)

To prepare ahead:

Soak overnight, 1/4 lb dried white beans, strain and then cook until tender (or use canned equivalent)
Prepare some light stock from veal, chicken or beef (use meat extract or tinned consommé if you must)

1 Tbs chopped parsley (plus extra for garnish)
2 large onions (or 1 onion + white part of 1 leek)
1 cup shredded cabbage
1/2 cup green beans
1/2 cup celery
thyme, salt, pepper, basil
2 cloves crushed garlic
5 tablespoons olive oil
Some tiny pasta
3/4 lb tomatoes
1 cup peas
A pinch of sugar
6.5 cups stock
Parmesan for serving

Optional extras:
Potato, turnip, tomato purée, sweet corn (tinned will do)

Chop all ingredients small

Stir gently over low heat for five minutes: parsley, 2 large onions (or 1 onion and white part of one leek), cabbage, green beans, celery, thyme, salt, pepper, basil, garlic, olive oil

Add stock, tomatoes, peas, sugar and simmer 45 minutes

Add the cooked beans and some tiny pasta (CC note: the pasta will puff up significantly after cooked, use very small pasta). Cooked 'till pasta is done (15 mins?)

Serve with a sprinkle of chopped parsley. Pass lots of grated parmesan cheese.

Send me your photos: DMBLGIT, March 2008

This month, I am the very excited host of the monthly food blog photography contest, Does My Blog Look Good in This (fondly known as “DMBLGIT”). I have a particular passion for food photography and am so excited to be the event's host this month. I only recently started participating in food blogging events and have found it to be a terrific way of getting exposed to new bloggers and blogs, and having fun in the blogging community. I'm looking forward to your submissions, and to discovering some new fellow bloggers!

Here's how it works:

Each food blogger can submit one photograph that was posted to their blog during the contest month (February). Photographs are reviewed by a panel of judges, who score them in three categories: edibility, aesthetics, and originality. The host then compiles the scores to determine the winners. The specific things the judges will be looking for are as follows:

• Aesthetics: composition, food styling, lighting, focus, etc.
• Edibility: “does the photo make us want to dive in and eat the food?”
• Originality: the photograph that catches our attention and makes us want to say “wow!”, displaying something we might not have seen before.
• Overall Winner: top overall scores in all three categories combined
  

There are three overall winners for photographs with the highest point totals in all three categories combined, and one winner in each of the three individual categories.

This month, we have a very exciting panel of judges, most from non-food blogging backgrounds:

• Melina Hammer is a professional food stylist, photographer, and metalsmith.
• Thorsten Kraska is a food photographer and co-founder of the Food Photography Club, one of the best food photography critique groups on flickr.
• Martha Larson is a Seattle-based professional child portrait and maternity photographer. She has a daily “everyday life” photo collaboration with another photographer that can be seen here.
• I am so excited to include Lou Manna as an esteemed judge. Lou is an award winning Olympus Visionary photographer whose work has appeared in national ad campaigns, major magazines, and more than thirty cookbooks. He is also the author of one of the few digital food photography “how to” books, Digital Food Photography.
• Dayna McIsaac (December 2007's DMBLGIT host) is a fellow food blogger with not one, but two blogs: Food + Photography and Vegan Visitor.
  

A very warm thank you to these special guest judges!

How to enter your photograph:

• Only one entry per person (a single photograph, no diptychs)
• The photograph must have been taken by you.
• The photograph must have appeared on your blog during the month of February.
• Entries must be received by March 25, 2008 6:00 pm.

Send your entry to skrockodile at gmail dot com, with the DMBLGIT as the subject. Please include the following:

• your name
• your blog’s name and URL
• your photograph’s title
• the URL of the post containing the photograph
• type of camera used
• Please send photos of no more than 350 pixels in width

I will be posting submissions to this gallery. If you don't see yours posted within three days of submission, please email me to let me know.

Good luck everyone! Bring the photos on!

Thank you Andrew from Spittoon Extra (founder of the event), for passing the baton to me this month.

P.S. The results of last month's event can be seen on Bake or Break. Guess who placed first, getting her first ever DMBLGIT award? I did! For Grown Up Graham Crackers. Yipee! I'm still in shock. Thanks for hosting last month Jennifer, and thank you very generous judges!

Fresh from the earth: Jerusalem artichoke soup

Ok, so we are all just about fed up with winter and the endless supply of root vegetables we’ve been living off for the past few months. I can’t wait until a trip to the farmer’s market reveals the first peak into the new season.

In the meantime, however, it is what it is, and rather than complain, I thought I’d truly embrace the earth’s winter feast by trying La Tartine Gourmande’s recent recipe for Jerusalem artichoke soup. La Tartine Gourmande is one of my very favorite blogs. Bea is a wonderful writer, photographer and enthusiastic cook (and by the way, not only does she publish her recipes in English but she also translates them into French as well). As far as I can tell, everything she touches becomes more beautiful and delicious, and I figured her soup recipe, which is decadently topped with, among other things, a drizzle of truffle oil, would be a safe bet.

Of course, no self-respecting food blogger would be content just to leave a recipe well enough alone. Although I’m sure her soup is divine exactly as written, I just couldn't resist fiddling to suit my own preferences. So I made some substitutions: thyme for rosemary, celeriac for fennel, and some additions: garlic in the soup, and sautéed mushrooms for the topping. The result: magnifique! So good, in fact, that R & I ate the entire portion between the two of us in one decadent lunch and then were driven to make the entire thing again a couple days later because we just couldn’t get enough.

Jerusalem artichokes (or sunchokes), if you are not familiar with them, are not at all artichokes, but rather the tuber of a flower in the aster family (related to the sunflower). They are readily available in farmer’s markets (or at Whole Foods) at his time of year. Why they are called artichokes (or sunchokes), I have no idea – but probably the same reason that the Patagonian toothfish sells better when called Chilean sea bass. If you haven’t had them, they are like a cross between a potato (the shape and the heartiness), a parsnip (the texture and less starchiness) and an artichoke (a hint of the artichoke’s sweetness and delicate flavor). The soup, with Jerusalem artichokes, celeriac, celery, potato, garlic, truffle oil, and mushrooms sings of the earth’s bounty, and reminds us of all the things that are good about the winter. For Bea’s unadulterated version, see here.

Jerusalem artichoke soup (adapted from La Tartine Gourmande)
(serves two for lunch, double for dinner or to have leftovers)

1 lb Jerusalem artichokes, peeled and diced
2 shallots, chopped
2 large cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
10 coriander seeds
2 sprigs thyme
1 large potato (3 oz), peeled and diced
2 celery stalks, diced
½ large bulb celeriac, peeled and diced
3 cups good vegetable broth (or water)
3 Tbsp olive oil
2 Tbsp crème fraîche
Italian flat-leaf parsley, chopped
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper

For the garnish:

~1 oz mixed mushrooms per bowl (about 5 ounces total), lightly brushed clean and sliced thickly
minced garlic to your taste (1-2 cloves)
Italian flat leaf parsley, chopped
White truffle flavored olive oil
Fleur de sel

Heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in a large heavy bottomed pot (such as a dutch oven). Add the shallot and garlic and cook with the coriander seeds and thyme on medium heat for a few minutes, until shallots and garlic are golden.

Add the root vegetables and celery and cook on medium heat for about 8 minutes

Add the broth (or water) and bring to a boil. Season with a few generous pinches Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper. Cover and simmer for about 20 min, until the vegetables are fork-tender.

While broth and vegetables are simmering, heat one tablespoon olive oil in a small sauté pan and sauté ~1 teaspoon garlic for ~30 seconds. Add mushrooms and ~1 tablespoon chopped parsley and salt and pepper to taste, and sauté for another minute or two.

Remove the dutch oven from the heat and use a stick blender to purée (or puree in your food processor).

Add the cream and adjust seasonings to taste.

Serve soup topped with a couple tablespoons of the mushroom mixture, and a drizzle of truffle oil, a couple pinches of chopped Italian parsley, and a pinch of fleur de sel.