Eggplant Salad with Miso

Whenever I head back to the Phoenician homelands I have a few restaurants on my "must visit" list. One of these, the Cherry Blossom Noodle Cafe, is perhaps the best thing since sliced bread, serving a wonderfully eclectic blend of sushi, Asian soups, Italian soups, and freshly baked banana bread served with every meal. Yes. That's right. With every meal. It's like someone downloaded my mind and created a restaurant menu from it. This place is heaven.

Anyway, on their menu they feature a fairly standard Asian eggplant salad. Silky cooked eggplant with a soy miso dressing. Fabulous. I've never been able to figure out exactly how they made it, but when I saw a recipe that looked similar in Bittman's "How to Cook Everything Vegetarian", I knew I had to try it.

Alas, it wasn't exactly the same as Cherry Blossom's salad o'glory (I blame my lack of white miso for this), but, hey, you can't imitate heaven. And, that being said, this version is still pretty good. The walnuts make for a good addition, providing a nice crunch against the softness of the eggplant. My quest for the perfect eggplant salad continues, but until then, this recipe will do nicely.

Serves 4


Ingredients
About 1 lb eggplant
2 tablespoons olive oil 
Salt
1/3 cup white miso (mine was a dark miso, if using it, I'd recommend no more than 1/4 a cup)
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon mirin
1 tablespoon rice vinegar or freshly squeezed lemon juice
Cayenne (to taste)
1/4 cup chopped walnuts


Method
Trim the eggplant and cut it into 1-inch cubes. If the eggplant are large, soft, or especially seedy, sprinkle the cubes with salt, put them in a colander, and let them sit for 30 minutes, preferably 60. Rinse, drain, and pat dry.

Put two tablespoons of the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. When hot, add the eggplant, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and cook, stirring occasionally, until soft and golden, about 10 minutes. Remove from pan and drain on paper towels.

Whisk together the miso, soy, mirin, and vinegar in a serving bowl. Thin with a tablespoon or so of water if necessary. Add the eggplant, sprinkle with salt and cayenne, then toss. Taste and adjust the seasoning. Serve topped with the walnuts.

Olive Oil, Salt, & Rosemary Flatbread

I've already waxed lyrical on the glories of flatbread. The speed! The convenience! The deliciousness!
Well, if previous posts hadn't convinced you, let me add another piece of evidence to the argument.
Behold: the awkwardly-titled "Olive oil, salt, and rosemary flatbread".
This masterpiece is another recipe of ease from Mr. Bittman in "How to Cook Everything, Vegetarian".
Although, to be honest, this recipe had me worried. Sure, he said it was easy as pie. Sure, this recipe allows for infinite combinations (this one just happens to be my favorite). But I was worried about the plague that haunts the seemingly failproof method of flatbread. Tough dough. Unlike yeast bread, which you can knead and manhandle (up to a point), the doughiness of the flatbread (just flour and baking powder) lends itself far more quickly to toughness if it's over-handled.
Now, I had been as gentle as I thought appropriate, but when pulling pieces apart to be thrown on the pan, there were the seemingly tell-tale signs of toughness. They were thick. Apparently too dense.
Had I lost the charmed flatbread ways?
No!!
I had doubted in vain. Despite the seemingly touch texture in the pan, as soon as I was able to tentatively tear into a piece, the same soft and chewy warmth was a welcome sight/taste. And so, I offer yet another example of why yeast breads are horribly over-rated. Seriously, try these. You'll thank me.

NB: This recipe (as mentioned above) is merely one of a thousand possible combinations. I added rosemary and olives to the mix, but for the basics all you need is the olive oil, four, baking powder, and salt. All other ingredients are completely up to you. Bittman recommends adding spice blends, pesto, chiles, cheese, minced herbs, sauteed onions, dried fruit, basically anything you want. The choices are endless. Did I mention how awesome flatbread was? Oh, I did. Ok.

Ingredients
1/3 cup olive oil
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt, preferably sea salt, plus more for sprinkling
1/2-1 cup chopped pitted kalamata olives
3 tbsp chopped rosemary (fresh or dried)

Method
Combine the flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl. Add the 1/3 cup olive oil and then most of 1 cup of warm water. Stir/mix until the dough begins to come together. Knead in the bowl for 30 seconds. The dough should be in a well-defined, barely sticky, easy to handle ball. If it is too dry, add water 1 tablespoon at a time. If it is too wet, which is unlikely, add a tablespoon or two of flour.

Heat a griddle or set a heavy pan over medium heat. Have extra olive oil handy for greasing. Divide the dough into 8 to 12 pieces and pat them into patties between your hands until they're about 1/2 inch thick. When the griddle/pan is hot, use enough olive oil to film the bottom and put in as many breads as will fit comfortably without crowding. You will probably have to work in batches. Cook undisturbed, until they begin to brown around the edges and they begin to puff up, about 3-5 minutes. Turn and cook the other side, until crisp and golden.

Pumpkin Ginger Bread with Hazelnuts

England needs to get on the pumpkin bandwagon. Yes, yes, we all know it's a "new world food" but that hasn't stopped the joys of tomatoes, turkey, sweet potatoes, etc. from making their way back across the pond. Pumpkins should be included in the list. And no, I don't just mean for Halloween purposes. Every year Tesco gamely puts out a crate of pumpkins right around October 31st. And from what I can deduce, no one buys them.
They sit there quietly rotting.
And weeping.
Also quietly.
Every once in awhile someone buys them for jack-o-lantern purposes but you can hear the poor pumpkins whimpering because they know their glorious tasty guts are being wasted. And once Halloween is past, the pumpkins disappear and Americans, come Thanksgiving time, search for them in vain.
No pumpkin pie for you.

And, really, that's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what pumpkins can provide in terms of deliciousness. For some reason, don't ask me why, English Starbucks have yet to realize the true joys of the pumpkin spice latte. Everyone in America (so far as I can tell) looks forward to autumn for this precise reason. The appearance of pumpkin spice lattes (and pumpkin spice muffins) at Starbucks. Parades are held. Parties thrown. Why? Because they are delicious.

Ah well, allow me to add yet another reason why England needs to figure their pumpkin issue out. Pumpkin bread. With hazelnuts (which are uber-British and therefore I deem this recipe "fusion food"). And ginger. And cinnamon. And nutmeg. How can this ever be wrong?
This recipe is simple. And delicious. Coming straight from Mark Bittman's "How to Cook Everything (Vegetarian)". I don't know why this particular loaf ended up in this version rather than the meat-eating one (do you put bacon in that version?) but regardless, it's phenomenal. If this doesn't get the Brits onto the pumpkin-eating bandwagon, nothing will.


Ingredients
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) cold unsalted butter, plus butter for the loaf pan
2 cups all purpose (or plain) flour

Grated pumpkin, not as hard as you might think.

1 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup apple juice (or non-alcoholic cider)
1 1/2 tablespoon minced fresh ginger
1 teaspoon fresh nutmeg
1 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 egg
1 cup grated pumpkin (raw)
1/2 cup hazelnuts, chopped

Method
Preheat the oven to 350F. Grease a 9 x 5 inch loaf pan.

Stir the dry ingredients together. Cut the butter into bits, then use a fork or 2 knives to cut it into the dry ingredients until there are no pieces bigger than a small pea.

Beat together the juice, ginger, and egg. Pour into the dry ingredients, mixing enough just to moisten; do not beat and do not mix until the batter is smooth. Fold in the pumpkin and hazelnuts, then pour/spoon the batter into the loaf pan.

Bake for 50 minutes to an hour, or until the bread is golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool on the rack for 15 minutes before removing from the loaf tin.

Spicy Stir-Fried Japanese Eggplant and Cucumber

I admit it. Stir-fries can be boring. Oil. Vegetables. Some protein. Cook. My life as a college student was defined by this simple recipe. It was easy, fast, and relatively healthy. After about 1000 of these dinners, and after I had done all the permutations of veg + meat I could think of, I abandoned the stir-fry, thinking I had moved on to much grander, more sophisticated meals.

How silly. Stir fries can be amazing. You just have to think a little creatively. And you have to know how to manipulate your herbs and spices. But really, they can be just as complex and "grand" as anything else on offer.

This certainly goes for the eggplant and cucumber stir fry I discovered on the Recipes for Health column (obviously Martha Shulman made the same conclusion I did about these kinds of dishes). Now, cucumber may not be the most obvious vegetable for stir-fries, but it works beautifully. If cooked just long enough, it retains just a bit of a firm crunch, but soaks up flavors and spice beautifully. And eggplant? Well, anything that has it usually gets my thumbs-up. This was no different. After just a few minutes in the pan, it'll soften into that wonderful silky texture, absolutely more-ish.

This dish probably works best as a side; however, I turned mine into a main (and it probably could have benefited from some tofu or shrimp to bulk it out as such). Feel free to experiment with the flavors on this one; you can't go wrong with boosting the ginger or spice content.

Ingredients
2 long Japanese eggplants (about 1 1/2 pounds)
Salt
2 long English cucumbers (or the equivalent in weight of Japanese or Persian cucumbers)
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt (more to taste)
2 teaspoons dark sesame oil
2 tablespoons peanut or canola oil
2 tablespoons minced ginger
1/2 teaspoons red pepper flakes (to taste)
3 tablespoons minced scallions or chives

Method
1. Trim off the ends of the eggplants. Cut in half lengthwise, then slice thin (about 1/4 inch). Lightly salt, and toss in a colander. Allow to sit for 15 minutes while you prepare the other ingredients. Squeeze out excess water, then dry between sheets of paper towel.

2. Meanwhile, trim off the ends of the cucumbers. Cut in half lengthwise, then slice on the diagonal into 1/4-inch thick slices.

3. Combine the rice vinegar, soy sauce, sugar, salt and sesame oil in a small bowl. Place all of the ingredients near your wok or frying pan.

4. Heat a 14-inch flat-bottomed wok or 12-inch steel skillet over high heat until a drop of water evaporates within a second or two from the surface of the pan. Add the peanut or canola oil to the sides of the pan and tilt the pan to distribute. Add the eggplant. Stir-fry for three to four minutes until cooked through. Add the ginger and red pepper flakes, and stir-fry for 30 seconds. Add the cucumbers and scallions or chives. Stir-fry 30 seconds. Add the soy sauce mixture to the wok, and stir-fry one minute until the cucumber just begins to wilt. Remove from the heat and serve.

Yield: Serves four as a side dish.

Ground Coriander and Cilantro Flatbreads with Indian Raita

I have already waxed lyrical on this blog about the double-edged sword that is making bread.
Sure, it's amazing. But it takes forever. Who has that kind of time?
Kneading. Rising. Proofing. Baking.
Bah.
I rarely have the willpower for even the unrivaled glories that are fresh-baked loaves straight from the oven.

But that's the glory of bread. It comes in all shapes and sizes, and most importantly, requirements expected of the would-be baker.
Behold: the flatbread.
No stupid yeast to deal with. No needing to let it rise. No hours waiting by the oven. These things are deliciously instantly gratifying. Mix some flour with baking power and soda, throw in a few ingredients. Stir. Roll out. Throw in the pan. Wait 3 minutes.
Presto: fresh baked flatbreads.
Soft, warm, heaven on earth.

I couldn't believe how easy and delicious this recipe was. I went website-diving in search of flatbread recipes when my local flatbread supplier, a woman who literally makes my Saturday at the weekly farmer's market, ran out unexpectedly. This has potentially disastrous consequences. Without my usual supplier to my flatbread fix, I turned to the internet in desperation. I never had an idea that the recipe I stumbled upon (provided by the geniuses at Bon Appetit) would become an instant classic. Combine it with Indian raita (recipe follows the flatbread recipe) they had as an accompaniment?
I may never need the flatbread lady ever again.

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups (or more) unbleached all purpose flour 
• 3 teaspoons ground coriander
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/3 cup chopped fresh cilantro
• 3/4 cup (or more) plain whole-milk yogurt
• Olive oil (for frying)

Method

Sift first 5 ingredients into medium bowl. Stir in cilantro. Add yogurt and stir with fork until small clumps form. Knead mixture in bowl just until dough holds together, adding more flour or yogurt by tablespoonfuls for soft and slightly sticky dough. Turn dough out onto floured surface. Knead just until smooth, about 1 minute. Divide dough into 8 equal pieces.

Roll each piece into ball, then roll each dough piece out on floured surface to 4 1/2-inch round. Brush large nonstick skillet generously with olive oil; heat over medium heat. Working in batches, add 3 dough rounds to skillet; cook until golden brown and puffed, adjusting heat to medium-high as needed to brown evenly, about 3 minutes per side. Transfer flatbreads to platter; serve warm.

Traditional Indian Raita

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup plain yogurt
• 1/2 cup chopped seeded English hothouse cucumber
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
• 2 teaspoons chopped green onions
• 1/4 teaspoon ground coriander
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cumin

Method
Mix all ingredients in medium bowl. Season to taste with salt. Chill raita, covered, until ready to serve.