March Daring Cooks Challenge: Risotto

The 2010 March Daring Cooks challenge was hosted by Eleanor of MelbournefoodGeek and Jess of Jessthebaker. They chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make risotto. The various components of their challenge recipe are based on input from the Australian Masterchef cookbook and the cookbook Moorish by Greg Malouf. We were allowed to choose our own flavor variation, including sweets.

I have made savory risotto before, but I'd never heard of dessert risotto. I love rice pudding and the ingredients are similar, so I figured why not? The method is the same as traditional risotto, just with a sweet rather than savory base.

The flavors I chose were inspired by my recent trip to Costa Rica. We visited a sugar cane farm while we were there and saw the pressing and boiling of the syrup to make raw cane sugar, called tapa dulce. After tasting the unique almost molasses-like flavor of the sugar, I knew I had to bring some home to experiment with.

I combined melted butter, cinnamon, banana chunks and the tapa dulce in a baking dish and roasted them until the syrup was dark, thick and coated the softened bananas. While that was cooling, I melted butter in a skillet and toasted the arborio rice until it was coated and many of the grains were translucent. Then I added a little dark rum and cooked until it was evaporated. For the risotto liquid, I heated a combination of milk and heavy cream and gave it a flavor boost by adding toasted unsweetened coconut, vanilla extract and a cinnamon stick - this served as the "stock" to cook the rice. I added this gradually to the rice, stirring constantly to prevent sticking and allow the rice to absorb the liquid. With the last addition of liquid, I stirred in half of the caramelized bananas. To round out the tropical feel, I topped the risotto with the remaining bananas and syrup, chopped toasted macadamias and toasted sweetened coconut. This turned out very well and is definitely something I look forward to playing around with more in the future.

Full disclosure: I also made mushroom risotto for dinner the same night, but forgot to take a picture until we were clearing the table and there was nary a grain of rice left to photograph. :( You'll have to take it from me that it was delicious and a lot of rice to eat in one day.

Caramelized Banana Risotto

Flavor Base:

1/2 stick butter

1/2 cup shredded tapa dulce (can substitute brown sugar - preferably dark or raw cane sugar)

1 tsp cinnamon

4 ripe bananas, peeled and chunked

Preheat oven to 350F. Melt butter in a glass baking dish. Add the sugar and cinnamon and stir until it is thoroughly mixed. Add the bananas and stir to coat. Bake for 40-45 minutes until the syrup is thick and dark and the bananas are soft, but still hold their shape.

"Stock":

3 cups whole milk

1 cup heavy cream

1/4 cup toasted unsweetened coconut flakes

1 cinnamon stick

1 Tbsp vanilla extract

Combine all ingredients in a saucepan and heat over medium heat. Do not let the milk boil. Adjust the heat to maintain a simmer while you cook the rice.

Risotto Base:

2 Tbsp butter

1 1/4 cup arborio rice

2 Tbsp dark rum

Melt the butter in a skillet and add the rice. Stir the rice to thoroughly coat and allow it to toast. The grains should start to appear translucent. Add the rum and let it evaporate completely. Begin to add the dairy mixture just to cover the rice and stir constantly while the rice absorbs the liquid. When it is almost totally absorbed, add more and repeat until the liquid is nearly gone. With the last liquid addition, add half of the banana mixture and stir it in with the liquid. Allow it to cook, but do not let it get too dry. Salt to taste. Serve and top with toasted chopped macadamia nuts and toasted sweetened coconut flakes.

February Daring Cooks Challenge: Mezze

The 2010 February Daring Cooks challenge was hosted by Michele of Veggie Num Nums. Michele chose to challenge everyone to make mezze based on various recipes from Claudia Roden, Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Dugid.

Mezze is a very comforting style of eating, sharing dishes with the entire table. Snowmageddon nearly derailed my plans to share this meal with a group of friends, but in the end, merely delayed it. Because of the delay, everything (except the pita) was made in advance and kept very well in the fridge overnight. The pita were cooked as our guests were arriving and the kebabs were mixed in advance, but grilled last minute (yes, grilled in the aftermath of the blizzard).

The essential recipes to this challenge were homemade pita and hummus and we were free to round out our menu with other recipes of our choosing. I chose to make a cucumber-mint yogurt dip, muhammara, kefta kebabs and a fava bean salad. I rounded out the meal with olives, almonds, falafel from a mix (not great) and veggies for dipping. And dessert could be nothing other than the excellent baklava from a local middle eastern bakery. The result was a delightful snowy afternoon with good friends and delicious food.

The pita recipe was easier than I imagined and all of my breads puffed nicely. I think it was quite warm in my kitchen, because it was a very quick rising dough and I came into the kitchen to find dough spilling over the edges of the bowl. I quickly got it under control, but it had more than doubled in less than 45 minutes. Even so, the bread was quick to roll out and easy to cook. I set my oven to its maximum heat of 550F and used baking sheets to cook them on. I was able to cook 3 pita at a time on my sheets. I also tried cooking one directly on the rack because it was the last one left and didn't quite fit on the sheet, so I drew on my grilled pizza experience and plopped it directly on the lower rack of the oven. It cooked quite nicely, though a little quicker than the others and it was slightly wavy from the rack lines. The bread came out tender and almost fluffy in texture, perfect for dipping. This was quite fun to cook in front of people, it was my new party trick to make bread balloons - no one guessed that the pita would make the pocket on its own!

The hummus recipe we were given was slightly different from what I've been used to making in that it contained no oil. I was initially excited by the calorie savings, but realized after pureeing the beans that I would definitely need the oil to get the texture I was after. My only complaint with the recipe is that it is aggressively lemony. I would cut the lemon back to the just one.

My favorite dish of the meal was the fava bean salad. I'd tried a variation on this recipe previously after trying a different fava bean dish made by a Syrian chef and then impulse buying a bag of frozen beans. Fava beans are a lot of work and fresh beans are difficult to find. Frozen beans are somewhat easier, but the quality suffers a little and you still have to skin them. Canned fava beans are an entirely different creature and should not be used in this recipe. The cheese was chosen quite haphazardly. My husband tried this cheese at the store and immediately was smitten and brought it home for me to do something with. It was fortuitous that I had the fava beans in mind at the time. I made a few additional tweaks in the herbs I used this time and really fell in love with this combination, but it is a very versatile recipe that can use all kinds of herbs and many varieties of cheese.

Pita Bread
Recipe adapted from Flatbreads & Flavors by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid

2 teaspoons regular dry yeast
2.5 cups lukewarm water
5-6 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon table salt
2 tablespoons olive oil

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer, sprinkle the yeast over the warm water. Stir to dissolve. Stir in 3 cups flour, a cup at a time, and then stir 1 minute to activate the gluten. Let this sponge rest for at least 10 minutes, or as long as 2 hours.
2. Sprinkle the salt over the sponge and stir in the olive oil. Mix well. Add more flour, a cup at a time and knead on medium speed for 8 to 10 minutes, until smooth and elastic. Transfer dough to another oiled bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let rise until at least doubled in size, approximately 1 1/2 hours.
3. Place a pizza stone, or two small baking sheets, on the bottom rack of your oven, leaving a 1-inch gap all around between the stone or sheets and the oven walls to allow heat to circulate. Preheat the oven to 450F.
4. Gently punch down the dough. Divide the dough in half, and then set half aside, covered, while you work with the rest. Divide the other half into 8 equal pieces and flatten each piece with lightly floured hands. Roll out each piece to a circle 8 to 9 inches in diameter and less than 1/4 inch thick. Keep the rolled-out breads covered until ready to bake, but do not stack.
5. Place 2 breads, or more if your oven is large enough, on the stone or baking sheets, and bake for 4 to 5 minutes, or until each bread has gone into a full balloon. If for some reason your bread doesn't puff up, don't worry it should still taste delicious. Wrap the baked breads together in a large kitchen towel to keep them warm and soft while you bake the remaining rolled-out breads. Then repeat with the rest of the dough.

Hummus
Recipe adapted from The New Book of Middle Eastern Food by Claudia Roden

1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
2-2.5 lemons, juiced
Salt to taste
4 tablespoons tahini
1 head garlic, roasted at 450 for 45 minutes
olive oil to thin as necessary

Puree the beans in a food processor with the lemon, garlic, salt and tahini, adding the oil as needed until you have a smooth paste. Garnish with additional oil and ground sumac.

Turkish Cucumber, Mint and Yogurt Dip
Adapted from Olive Trees and Honey by Gil Marks

1 large English cucumber, seeded and grated
1 small onion, grated
salt
3 cloves garlic, minced
3 cups plain Greek yogurt
Aleppo pepper flakes
3 T chopped mint
2 T chopped flat leaf parsley
2 T olive oil

Place cucumber and onion in a colander and salt. Allow to sit for an hour to drain. Press out excess moisture.
Mix yogurt, garlic, pepper and herbs. Add cucumber, onion and oil and mix well. Chill before serving.

Muhammara
Adapted from Olive Trees and Honey by Gil Marks

2 jars roasted red peppers, drained and seeded
1 1/2 cups toasted and chopped walnuts
1/2 bread crumbs
1/2 cup olive oil
3 T pomegranate molasses
juice of 1/2 lemon
2 cloves garlic
Aleppo pepper flakes to taste
1/2 t ground cumin
1 t sugar
1 1/2 t kosher salt

Place all ingredients in a food processor and puree until smooth. Chill overnight and bring to room temperature before serving.

Fava Bean and Cheese Salad
Adapted loosely from Trattoria by Patricia Wells

2 packages frozen fava beans (or 2 pounds if you can find fresh), boiled and shelled
Extra virgin olive oil (I used the oil from the cheese)
juice of 1/2 lemon
3 T chopped flat leaf parsley
1 T chopped mint
salt and Aleppo pepper flakes to taste
8 oz marinated goat and sheep milk cheese (Meredith Dairy)

Boil the fava beans, then peel the inner shell. This is a lengthy process, but so worth it, the inner beans are tender and delicate. Toss with lemon juice, herbs and spices. Add cheese and oil and fold gently to combine. Taste and season as desired.

Kefta Kebabs
Adapted from The New Book of Middle Eastern Food by Claudia Roden

2 lbs lean ground beef
2 onions, grated
3 T chopped flat leaf parsley
1 T chopped cilantro
2 T chopped mint
1/4 t ground cumin
1/4 t ground coriander
1/4 t ground ginger
1/4 t cinnamon
salt and pepper

Mix ground beef well with all other ingredients. Chill for at least an hour. Form into kebabs on metal skewers. Grill on high heat for 8 minutes, turning once.

January Daring Cooks Challenge: Thai Inspired Satay with Peanut Sauce

The January 2010 DC challenge was hosted by Cuppy of Cuppylicious and she chose a delicious Thai-inspired recipe for Pork Satay from the book 1000 Recipes by Martha Day.

Satay are fun little skewers of meat, frequently known in our house as meat on a stick. The goal of this challenge, aside from making delicious food, was to explore marinating. Marinades are an easy way to tenderize tougher cuts of meat and add flavor at the same time. For this challenge, we could turn any kind of meat or vegetable into satay, so I chose turkey tenderloins, a meat that is already tender, but lacks somewhat in the flavor department. The night before we planned this for dinner, I put together the marinade in the food processor and it couldn't have been easier, though the turmeric gave it a somewhat radioactive hue that raised eyebrows. Then, the next morning, we put the turkey into the marinade and let it sit in the fridge all day to, well, marinate.

Now, we love to grill and we will do so, even the lowest of low temperatures, snow, ice or rain don't faze us. So, naturally, we grilled our satay, after waiting what seemed like an eternity for the grill to get hot enough (500F). I had reduced the amount of oil in the marinade somewhat, but had no trouble with sticking thanks to our fantastically well-seasoned cast iron grates. We cooked these about 8 minutes on the first side and 6 on the other, I would've let them go longer, but we were quite hungry. While my husband tended the grill, I quickly whisked up the peanut sauce to go with our satay. I only made half the recipe and found it to be more than enough for the pound of meat, but in case you like it saucy, I've listed the original recipe below.

Satay Marinade (with my adjustments)

1/2 small onion, quartered
2 T ginger garlic paste
2 T lemon juice
1 T soy sauce
1 T fish sauce
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp ground turmeric
1/4 tsp dried chile pepper flakes (I used Aleppo, a mild chile)
1 T vegetable oil
1 pound turkey tenderloins (or other meat or veggie, cut into strips)

Puree everything except turkey in a food processor or blender. Pour over the turkey and refrigerate 12 hours for turkey (or 6-24 hours for other cuts of meat).

To cook: You may skewer your meat, if you wish, just make sure to soak wooden skewers 20-30 minutes in warm water so they don't burn on the grill. We did not skewer because we couldn't find our metal skewers and were too hungry to wait the soaking time for the bamboo ones. Discard leftover marinade and grill turkey on a grill preheated to 550F for 8-10 minutes per side, just until you get a little char on the edges.


Peanut Sauce

3/4 cup coconut milk
4 Tbsp peanut butter
1 Tbsp lemon juice
1 Tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp brown sugar
1/4 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp ground coriander
1/4 tsp dried red chile flakes (again, I used Aleppo)

Combine coconut milk and peanut butter in a microwave safe bowl and heat for about 15-20 seconds to soften. Whisk until smooth, then mix in other ingredients until blended together. Serve as a dip or drizzle over your satay.