Category Archives: Recipes

Kashmiri Lamb Stew

My friend Melissa Danielle, a lifestyle coached based in Brooklyn, came over my place a couple of weeks ago and brought with her a pound of stewing lamb from Hudson Valley Harvest. (Truth be told, I thought she was bringing over lamb stew… oops.) I wasn’t really planning on cooking for myself, but the meat needed to be cooked since it was already frozen and thawed. I didn’t even have onions in the house! But, I was saved by this Kashmiri lamb stew recipe in Madhur Jaffrey’s Indian Cooking — because, while I didn’t have any fresh veg in the house, I had 52 jars of spices and a tub of yogurt to work with!

This stew is beautiful in flavor, if not necessarily very exciting to look at. The flavors are warm, aromatic and comforting… perfect for cool autumn evenings. I ate it with plain basmati rice and naan from Whole Foods that I heated in my toaster oven. I did pick up a few vegetables the next day at the Greenmarket and had a tomato, red onion, and cucumber salad (sprinkled with dried mint and dressed with lemon juice and olive oil) as a starter.

 

I had to halve the recipe since it called for three pounds of lamb, and I had just over a pound. But, I’ll give the recipe with the original proportions. The only other adjustment I had to make was that I had Greek yogurt — so I used a little less yogurt than called for and thinned it out with a little water so that it would be runny.

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Kashmiri Lamb Stew (Kashmiri yakhni)
from Madhur Jaffrey’s Indian Cooking
Serves 4 to 6

Ingredients

  • 4 teaspoons fennel seed
  • 6 tablespoons vegetable oil or ghee
  • pinch of ground asafetida (optional)
  • 3 pounds shoulder of lamb, boned or unboned, cut roughly into 2-inch cubes
  • 1 inch cinnamon stick
  • 10 cardamom pods
  • 15 cloves
  • 1 3/4 teaspoons salt, or to taste
  • 3 3/4 cup water
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons dried ginger powder
  • 1 3/4 cups plain yogurt
  • 1/4 teaspoon garam masala

Procedure

  1. In an electric spice grinder, grind the fennel seeds into a powder and set aside.
  2. Heat the oil or ghee in a heavy-bottomed Dutch oven over high heat. When hot, add the asafetida, if using. One second later, put in all the meat, as well as the cinnamon, cardamom pods, cloves, and salt. Stir and cook, uncovered, over high heat for about five minutes or until almost all the water released by the meat disappears and the meat browns very lightly.
  3. Lower the heat to medium and add 1 tablespoon water, the fennel, and the ginger. Stir to mix. Add 3 2/3 cups water, cover partially, and simmer on medium heat for 30 minutes.
  4. Cover completely, turn the heat to low, and simmer for 40 minutes, or until the meat is tender. Stir a few times as the meat cooks, adding a few tablespoons of water of it dries out.
  5. Beat the yogurt in a bowl until it is smooth and creamy.
  6. Remove the lid from the pot and turn the heat to medium-low. Push the meat to the edges of the pan, leaving a well in the center. Pour the yogurt very slowly into this well, all the while whisking it briskly into the braising liquid. (If you don’t do this, the yogurt will curdle.) Keep whisking for a good five minutes after all the yogurt has been poured in. You should now have a simmering, creamy sauce.
  7. Cover partially and cook on medium-low heat for 10 more minutes. Sprinkle in the garam masala and mix.

Challah, part two

I was looking at old photo files, and I came across diagrams of how to braid 3-, 4-, 5-, and 6-stranded challah loaves. I’ve never attempted four or five strands, so I did that tonight! I think five braids is my favorite, but they’re all quite pretty.

 


Challah!

Challah is my favorite thing to bake, hands down. I don’t do it often, but I relish every opportunity to bake a couple of loaves for friends and family. My friend Vered invited me to her family’s Rosh Hashanah dinner, so I decided to bring a couple of loaves of round challah (the traditional shape for starting the New Year), one with golden raisins, one with sesame seeds.

My favorite challah recipe comes from Deb Perelman’s blog, Smitten Kitchen. It’s an adaptation from Jewish cookery guru Joan Nathan. However, I did not follow Deb’s instructions on how to braid a round challah (though, her directions on how to weave a six-stranded challah are perfect). A while back, I researched how to weave a round challah, and I came across this gem from Chabad’s website. That link shows you how to weave the challah, and also how to incorporate raisins into the dough without driving yourself crazy.

The raisin challah. Vered’s mom said it reminded her of her own mother’s challah. The ultimate compliment!

As Deb (by way of Joan Nathan) suggests, I allowed the dough to rise three times — the second rising took place in the fridge overnight. In the future, I’d probably double the raisins because, while I’m not the biggest fan of raisins generally, I do like a very raisiny raisin bread.

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I even made a baby challah wreath for myself.

Blackberry (Pie) Eating in the Month of September

I’ve been craving pie for a couple weeks now. It all started because I had a dinner party gig in Woodstock for which I baked a couple of peach pies. This week, I finally decided to do something about it. And I even remembered that I had lard in my freezer that my friend Nicole Taylor had bartered with me. I’ve never made a lard pie crust before, so I was super excited to experiment. Let me tell you — I’ll never go back to just all-butter crusts again. Now, butter crusts are delicious, which is why I went about searching for a lard and butter pie crust recipe. The butter imparts flavor (and gives the crust its flakiness), but the lard bestows upon it divinely tender texture. Truly a match made in heaven.

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The pies that started it all.

As for the berries… I’ve hardly eaten any berries at all this summer. I don’t know what I’ve been doing, wasting precious summer months without eating berries! And September is generally peak blackberry season, so I went forth to the Union Square Greenmarket in search of blackberries. Phillips Farms did not disappoint me. And so, armed with ripe blackberries and lard, and a couple of solid recipes, I made a pie celebrating the tail end of summer.

A few notes. I made a lattice-topped pie, as you’ll see in the photo, but I think that I ought to have made it a tighter weave or a solid-topped pie to hold the pie together a little better. The recipe as written below is for a solid top, but I’ve also included a link to lattice-top instructions at the end. There was an advantage to the loosely-woven lattice top, however. I didn’t add the optional sugar to the pie before baking it (I always err on the side of less sweet). And, in fact, the pie was a bit too tart even for me. So, the next day, I sprinkled about 3 tablespoons of sugar over the whole thing and put it back in the oven for about 20 minutes, and it was perfect.

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Mmm… pie… (the lard is in that half-pint container)

Blackberry Pie with Lard-and-Butter Pie Crust

makes one 10-inch pie

PIE CRUST
(adapted from Leite’s Culinaria)

Ingredients
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
13 tablespoons cold butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
8 tablespoons cold lard
4 to 6 tablespoons ice water

  1. Mix flour and salt in food processor fitted with a metal blade.
  2. Cut in butter cubes with five 1-second pulses. Add cold lard and continue cutting in until flour is pale yellow and resembles coarse cornmeal with butter bits no bigger than small peas, about 4 additional 1-second pulses. Turn mixture out into a medium-sized bowl.
  3. Sprinkle 3 tablespoons of ice water over mixture. With a fork, fluff to mix thoroughly. Squeeze a handful of dough — if it doesn’t stick together, add remaining water, 1 tablespoon at a time.
  4. Divide dough into two balls, one slightly larger than the other then flatten into 6-inch discs. Refrigerate for 30 minutes before rolling.

BLACKBERRY FILLING
(adapted from Food52.com)

Ingredients
4 cups blackberries
3/4 cup honey (blackberry honey if you can find it)
1 tablespoon fresh lemon or lime juice
3 tablespoons instant tapioca
1/4 teaspoon salt
Optional – 1/4 cup super fine sugar, or to your taste
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes

  1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Wash and drain the berries.
  2. In a large bowl: add the berries, honey, lemon or lime juice, tapioca, and salt. Taste test before adding optional superfine sugar. Stir the mixture and let sit for 15-20 minutes to allow the flavors to blend.
  3. Line a 10 inch pie dish with a rolled out bottom layer of pie crust. Fill with the blackberry mixture and dot with butter.
  4. Roll out the remaining pastry crust and cover the top of the pie. Seal and crimp the edges together. Brush with milk or cream. Sprinkle with a little sugar. Cut a few slits, with a sharp knife, to create steam vents.
  5. Bake for 45 to 55 minutes, until the crust is browned and the filling is bubbling.

Notes:
I recommend covering a baking sheet with foil and baking the pie on top of that — your oven will thank you.

Here’s an instructional video from Saveur magazine on how to weave a proper lattice top.

Salt and Pomegranates

I started a dinner series in May called Salt & Pomegranates. I’ve long wanted to explore Persian cuisine and cuisine from the Republic of Georgia. Since I live alone (and, honestly, don’t like cooking for one), I decided to start a supper club, which would give me the opportunity to explore new recipes and to entertain about a dozen people at a time. Two of my favorite activities on earth!

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Photo: Melissa Danielle

Why the name? The saltshaker, as you know, is the logo for my personal cheffing business. I decided a while back that any endeavor I undertake would have to have salt somewhere in the title. (For example, I used to hold an art and culinary salon that was called Salt Salon.) And pomegranates are a prominent ingredient in Persian and Georgian cooking. You’d be hard pressed to find a Persian cookbook that didn’t have a pomegranate on the cover. Also, I have fond memories of sitting on the floor of my cousin’s living room, newspaper spread on the coffee table, tearing into pomegranates as a kid. I even have two pomegranates tattooed on my back. Salt & Pomegranates also evokes the savory preparations of pomegranates that is pervasive in dishes from Iran, Georgia, and many countries in between. (Plus, I just think the title sounds kind of poetic.)

Feasts take place in Brooklyn, and I hope to bring them to cities around the US where I have friends posted. Please check out the website — SaltandPomegranates.com — and sign up to receive updates on the Contact Page.

I’ll leave you with a recipe that incorporates salt and pomegranates — Basturma of Lamb, a Georgian kebab recipe from one of the inspirational cookbooks I’ve been working out of.

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Photo: Melissa Danielle

Basturma of Lamb
from Darra Goldstein’s The Georgian Feast

Serves 4-6

2 pounds boneless shoulder or leg of lamb, cut into 2-inch cubes
skewers for grilling

Marinade:
2 cups pomegranate juice (see Note, below)
1/4 cup olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1 bay leaf, crushed
2 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed

  1. Thread the cubed meat onto skewers and place the kebabs in a deep baking pan or pot just wide enough to accommodate the skewers.
  2. Mix together all the ingredients for the marinade and pour over the skewered meat. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator. Allow to marinate overnight, and up to 48 hours.
  3. About an hour before cooking, take the meat out of the refrigerator. Remove the skewers from the marinade and dab with paper towels to remove excess moisture. Allow the meat to come to room temperature. In the meantime, prepare the coals for your grill (if you have a charcoal grill). Grill the kebabs for about ten minutes, flipping them to cook evenly on all sides.

Note: I used bottled, not-from-concentrate pomegranate juice. During the winter, when pomegranates are in season, I would suggest using freshly-squeezed juice.