In the newest issue of Cooking Light, Michael Ruhlman (a food writer of the first order) wrote an article about the new ingredients, dishes and techniques that have the attention of foodies, mostly the leaders of the top chefs. And starting off the lineup was a word I didn’t even recognize:
1. Chaat. Okay? Not chai (tea). Chaat. It’s Indian street food – a variety of small plates, using a mixture of spicy and acidic, salt and sweet, soft and crunchy. According to Krishnendu Ray, assistant professor of food studies at New York University, “chaats carry lively, fresh flavors, overflowing with chiles, cilantro, coconut, and tamarind.” An example in the article suggested boiled cubed potatoes with a topping of spring onions, lime and tamarind sauce. Hmmm. Or a salad of avocados, strawberries, plums, cucumbers and pineapple with a squeeze of lemon or lime and a sprinkling of chaat masala (Indian spice blend).
2. Heritage Meats. Those derived from old strains of rare breeds of livestock (which produces better intra-muscular marbling and enhances taste). Whole Foods is one source. Others: Heritage Foods USA, Hoye Brothers Farm in Missouri (no website, but email: hoyebrothersfarm at gmail dot com), La Cense Beef in Montana (grass fed), Lava Lakes Lamb (Idaho grass-fed); and Local Harvest (a web directory of small sustainable farms that lets you search for heritage meat purveyors in your area. My only experience, really, is with the Berkshire (Kurobuta) ham I ordered last Spring. It was stupendous. I can’t say enough superlatives about it.
3. Agave Nectar. A substance much like honey, but is the sap from the agave plant. Its most notable feature is that it’s a low-glycemic carb. It’s sweeter than sugar, so you can use less (generally 25% less than sugar). Comes in three varieties: light, amber, and raw (the latter two taste more like maple syrup). Most supermarkets carry this now (at least they do in my area).
4. Allspice & Nutmeg. Oh, good. I like those a lot. But the new twist, if you can call it that, is to use it in savory dishes rather than sweet (like gnocchi, game meat, pork). All of these ideas are coming from the exposure to world cuisines.
5. Heirloom Beans. Why, you ask, are heirloom beans so popular? Experts say they taste better. Some varieties actually have a kind of potato-like consistency, or creamy. Beans like borlotti, Christmas limas, runner beans. You may have to grow your own, or seek out farmer’s markets to find these. They’re not all that common . . . yet.
In the article there were a couple of other trends to watch: pressure cooker and induction cooking, plus natural food preservation (dry curing, salting, pickling).
All information above from Cooking Light, March 2009. Photo at top of borlotti beans from beanieswholefoods.co.uk
The recipe also included a number of variations (raisin and spice, dried fig and almond, apple and walnut, and vanilla). Those are in the PDF recipe you will get if you print it out from the link at the bottom. But for the first time around I wanted to make this true to the original. The coffee cake was plain. Good kind of plain. A very tender crumb. Next time I make this I’ll try one of the variations.
molcajete, (pictured right, from Wikipedia) that big, round stone mortar and pestle used all over Mexico to mash things (spices, beans, or whatever). Not owning a molcajete, I turned to my food processor instead. Kennedy suggests using a blender for the base mixture (white onion, chile peppers and cilantro), but no way would my blender grind up a bunch of dry-ish ingredients like that. My food processor did a fairly adequate job of mincing up the base, then I chopped in the avos by hand, added some salt and pepper. Then, because I was making this ahead, I added some lemon juice. Not much, and that isn’t in Kennedy’s recipe at all.
You can cut it into different shapes. It can be used in sushi rolls, a cole slaw, or as in crunchy little wisps in a sandwich wrap (these ideas I got from a Cooking Light article). I have one recipe for a jicama slaw that is wonderfully flavorful with citrus and citrus juice. I haven’t posted that recipe, but maybe I’ll need to do that. Perhaps I’ll make it with the leftover jicama I have on hand.
The recipe here was from the vanilla class I attended last week. The chef thought it came from a Nancy Silverton cookbook. I couldn’t find it online, nor anything close to it, so I couldn’t verify its origin. Nevertheless, it’s a very nice use of either peaches or plums (or apricots, for that matter, but they’re such a tender fruit I’m not sure they’d hold up). The fruit is roasted in a sugar-vanilla-chamomile syrup until tender and golden. This time of year we used imported peaches from the Southern Hemisphere. Meanwhile, you make a cookie dough using olive oil, and bake them in tartlet molds (big enough to hold the fruit), or in Madeleine pans, coated lightly with additional olive oil. Unfortunately, at the class, the instructor had forgotten to get the chamomile for the syrup, so we ate it without. I’d try it with, however, since it sounds like such a gentle combination.
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