Mango Meringue Pie

I had two mangoes in the kitchen which were getting soft and I wondered what to do with them, and "mango meringue" popped into my head. I've never baked a mango pie and haven't baked a meringue in a long time, so I found what seemed to be a good recipe. Given my prior pastry crust problems, I was very pleased with how easy this crust was to make and roll and transfer to the pie plate. The pie filling could be a little bit sweeter, but it's still good as is. Making the meringue was the most fun part, and I was very pleased to see the perfectly browned peaks after it came out of the oven.

INGREDIENTS: (Serves 6)

PASTRY:

1 1/2 cups plain flour

Pinch of salt

120gms/4ozs) butter or margarine

1 tbsp castor sugar

3 - 4 tbsps iced water

FILLING:

3 ripe mangoes

4 egg yolks

2 heaped tbsp cornflour (cornstarch)

Juice of 2 limes or 2 tbsp lemon juice

1/4 cup water

1/2 cup sugar

MERINGUE:

4 egg whites (room temperature)

1/2 cup castor sugar

1/4 tsp vanilla essence

1/4 tsp cream of tartar

METHOD:

PASTRY:

Sift flour and salt.

Cut butter or margarine into flour and using finger-tips, rub in until mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.

Mix in the sugar.

Add 3 tbsps iced water and mix to form a firm dough, adding a little more water if necessary.

Roll out pastry to line a greased 24cm/9.5" pie dish.

Fold overhanging pastry dough under itself and crimp decoratively against rim of pie dish. Prick the pastry base and side with a fork in several places to prevent air pockets when baking. Freeze for about 20 mins.

Preheat oven to 200C/400F.

Line pie shell with baking paper or aluminium foil and weigh down with dried beans or uncooked rice.

Bake in middle of oven for 20 mins, remove foil and 'weights' and return to oven to bake for a further 8 - 10 minutes or until golden brown.

FILLING:

Peel mangoes, cut flesh off and discard seed.

In a blender, puree mango flesh. (If using 'stringy' mangoes, strain with sieve to obtain a smooth puree.)

In a medium bowl, whisk together the cornflour, lime or lemon juice and 1/4 cup water until smooth. Whisk in the egg yolks.

In a medium non-stick saucepan, combine mango puree and sugar and bring to the boil over medium heat, whisking constantly.

Remove from heat and drizzle into the cornflour mixture while whisking.

Return mixture to saucepan and continue cooking and whisking until mixture turns from cloudy to glossy.

Pour mixture evenly into baked pie shell and set aside.

MERINGUE

Pre-heat oven to 175C/350F.

Beat the egg whites at high speed with an electric mixer until soft peaks form.

With mixer running, add the cream of tartar, then the sugar, a tablespoon at a time.

Add vanilla essence and beat until stiff peaks form.

Pile onto the top of filled pie and spread with a spatula, making sure to seal the meringue to the pastry edge.

To minimize "weeping", spread the meringue while the filling is still hot.

With the back of a spoon, "pull up" wisps of meringue to form a decorative pattern.

Bake for 12 - 15 mins or until the meringue is lightly browned.

HINT:

Meringue pies cut easier and better if you wet your knife blade before cutting.

Shrimp Risotto

I've never even eaten risotto, must less cooked it, so I decided to turn to a recipe when "shrimp risotto!" popped into my mind for the evening's menu. This recipe turned out to be quite delicious, probably because of the care that goes into making the shrimp stock from scratch. I will definitely start making my own shrimp/fish/seafood stocks for any fish or seafood dishes. Too bad the main grocery stores around here don't sell whole fish or seafood with the heads on. I'm sure that would make the stocks taste that much better.

Anyway, I pretty much followed the recipe as is, except I added some grated parmesan towards the end (anything is better with cheese) and it was really good.

Have to use short-grain, starchy rice

Anything that starts with shrimp and butter is good!

The finished shrimp stock

Slowly adding the shrimp stock into the rice as it is cooking and evaporating

For the stock

• 1 1/2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• Shells from 3/4 pound medium shrimp (reserve shrimp for risotto recipe, below)
• 2 small carrots, peeled and diced
• 2 small onions, peeled and diced
• 2 stalks celery, diced
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 7 cups cold water
• 1 bay leaf
• Salt and pepper

For the risotto

• 3/4 pound medium shrimp, deveined and chopped into small pieces
• 7 tablespoons unsalted butter, divided as specified
• 1 tablespoon yellow onion, finely chopped
• 2 teaspoons minced garlic
• 2 cups high-quality imported Arborio rice
• 1/3 cup dry white wine
• Shrimp stock
• 4 tablespoons chopped parsley
• Salt and pepper

Make the stock

1. In a heavy stockpot, heat the oil over medium-high heat. Add the shrimp shells and vegetables; cook about 15 minutes, until the shells are deep orange.

2. Stir in the tomato paste, and mix well.

3. Add the cold water and bay leaf. Bring the liquid to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer gently, partially covered, for 20 minutes.

4. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve (or a colander lined with several layers of cheesecloth) into a clean pot. Return the strained stock to the stove, and heat to a bare simmer. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Make the risotto

1. In a heavy-bottomed 3-quart saucepan, heat 2 tablespoons of the butter over medium-high heat. When foaming stops, add the shrimp and saute until light pink, 2 to 3 minutes.

2. Remove the pot from the stove. Dump the shrimp in a food processor fitted with the metal blade, and process until coarsely shredded, about 5 to 7 pulses.

3. Return the saucepan to the heat. Add 3 tablespoons of the butter, and saute the onion until translucent. Add the garlic, and cook a few minutes more.

4. Add the rice, and stir until well-coated with the butter. Saute lightly for a few moments until the rice starts to turn translucent, then add the wine and stir constantly until evaporated.

5. Begin adding the stock by the ladleful (about 1/2 cup), stirring constantly until the rice is creamy and al dente, about 25 to 35 minutes.

6. Stir in the shrimp, remaining butter, and parsley. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve immediately.

Deer Sausage Breakfast Casserole

A friend recently gave me some well-seasoned deer sausage, and I noticed I had some onion rolls that were a few days old in the refrigerator. Since the sausage has a sort of breakfast flavor, I decided to make some sort of breakfast casserole using the onion rolls as the filling. This was not meant to be anything super special so I just improvised with what I had available.

• Browned seasoned deer sausage
• Sautéed chopped onion and garlic
• Tomato paste
• 3 onion rolls torn into pieces
• 5 whole whisked eggs
• Cheese
• Oregano, salt, pepper

While preparing the filling, I forgot to include the cheese as I had originally intended, so I used it as a topping. Obviously any breakfast casserole should have lots of cheese INSIDE the casserole!

Cheesy Fresh Tomato Soup

I have never made fresh tomato soup and had no intention of making it but I walked into the kitchen and saw two fresh red tomatoes on the counter and the idea hit me. I do like tomato soup a lot and if it's done right, it's one of the best soups you can have (bye bye Campbells!).

I blanched the tomatoes whole to the remove the skins, then sautéed some white onion, lots of garlic, dried basil and other Italian seasonings, and a little red chile paste in a decent amount of butter until the vegetables were soft and fragant. Purée the vegetables and skinless tomatoes in a blender until smooth, slowly adding back some of the warm water used to blanch the tomatoes. Return to the stockpot and simmer slowly. Add salt, pepper, lemon juice to taste, purée some raw carrot/celery in a little water and add to the mixture, and add some tomato paste for color. If you do add carrots, you'll have to skim quite often to remove that gunk floating on the top that carrots always seem to leave behind. At the end after it had reduced a bit, I added some heavy cream but this is not required.

After I was letting the soup cool, I decided I wanted some intensely flavored crunchy pork for topping. I didn't have any bacon or pork belly/chicharron but I chopped and seasoned some boneless rib meat and fried it until it was crunchy enough.

Serve the soup topped with the pork, croutons, cheese, and garnish with fresh parsley. This was one of the best soups I've ever made.

Cucumber Guajillo Hummus

Okay so I have tried making hummus many many times, with varying results. I have never used any particular recipe other than in the very beginning when I learned that the basic ingredients are chickpeas, tahini, vegetables, and spices. I tried it again today with a few different ingredients. 

 In order of quantity: chickpeas, cucumber (whole with skin on), dried guajillo chiles, olive oil, roasted garlic cloves, peppercorns, yellow curry powder, sambal oelek (my absolute favorite chile sauce), salt, sugar, lemon juice, paprika.

Like usual, it tasted "okay" but I'm not sure if I am just sick of eating hummus, or if I need to get serious and find a good recipe. I think the flavors that I DON'T like are tahini (too much makes it nasty), dry chile skin taste, any raw green vegetable. I feel that it is lacking some substance that maybe a little chicken or seafood base might add (yes, I know this is supposed to be vegetarian). I'll look for some recipes and try again.  

On the bright side, I did learn a few technical things: if you want puréed dried chiles, steam them in some water in the microwave for a few minutes and then purée in the blender until smooth, adding salt, sugar, spices, and whatever else. Once the chile sauce is smooth and tastes good, THEN add it to the other bulky ingredients in the food processor. This way it minimizes the red flakes from the dried chiles in the final product, because the food processor cannot chop finely enough to totally get rid of them.

Chicken Tamales

I've been wanting to make tamales for a while and I bought a pack of frozen banana leaves about a month ago. For some reason I was thinking that they were really hard to make, but it turned out to be super easy. I didn't have any masa to make them the proper way (dough layered on the leaf, then topped with filling) so I just followed some of the easier recipes which have you mix the dough directly with the ingredients. I used corn meal mix. They came out pretty tasty, but slightly drier than I wanted, so next time I will buy some real masa and make a proper dough, maybe even with some lard.

 When I boiled the chicken, I made the broth really flavorful by adding chopped garlic, peppercorns, cumin seeds, a sofrito cube, and salt. But by mixing the corn meal mix directly into the stuffing, I really had no use for the broth. Next time I'll make the masa dough out of the reserved broth from boiling the chicken and do it the proper way. I'd also love to make these with chicharron.

Shredded chicken, pepperjack cheese, peas, and sautéed vegetables (onions, green chiles, jalapeño, garlic). The chicken was super easy to shred in the food processor, even while piping hot.

I didn't see any need to tie them, they stayed rolled up perfectly fine without string.  Into the tamalera! Provecho!

Vindaloo with Papas Criollas

One of my favorites is vindaloo, which usually has cut-up potatoes. I really like the little yellow-skinned potatoes called papas criollas, so I thought about making chicken vindaloo using those potatoes cooked whole. It came out pretty good but next time I'd like to try it with the potatoes dusted with a spicy coating and fried until crispy and then added to the curry at the end.

Divali Nagar and Chana Masala

After slaving all night on the demi-glace, I got out of the house and went to a local Divali Nagar festival, hoping to eat some good Indian food. The festival was pretty small and all of the food booths were Trinidadian and other West Indian foods. Still I managed to try a few things and enjoyed going.

Some fried thing (I don't remember) and a chickpea curry stuffed roti called "doubles". The curry was different from other Indian-style curries I've had before: it was sweet and savory and had lots of cinnamon.

A biryani combo: fried rice, another version of chickpea curry, and a samosa and kachori. Although the chana needed some more heat, it was more what I'm used to than the one stuffed in in the doubles. The rice was really good. The green chiles in the rice had a mild, wilted poblano-like flavor which worked really well. The samosa was just potatoes and spices and could have used some meat texture and richness. But the fried potato was amazing; apparently it was coated in gram (chickpea) flour which gave it a very light crispiness after it was deep fried. I definitely want to try that.

As usual after trying something new or different, I came home and tried it. I've made chana masala before but I haven't been too happy with it. I've tried using raw spices and also boxed chana masalas, but I still haven't been able to capture the flavors I want. This time I asked a friend for advice and tried to follow it:

Frying onions and spices (cumin seed, mustard seed, a few cloves and peppercorns, coriander powder).

Add turmeric, garlic and ginger paste, some spicy raw chili, garam masala, some water, simmer and then purée until smooth. Then return to heat and add the chickpeas and simmer until done.

I ate it with basmati rice, some papadums, and spicy pickle. This was the closest I've come to the flavor I want but I still need to keep trying.

Demi-Glace Weekend

After watching several shows and reading a few recipes, I decided to try making my own demi-glace.  Demi-glace is a rich brown sauce in French cuisine used by itself or as a base for other sauces.  It is traditionally made by combining equal parts of veal stock and sauce espagnole, the latter being one of the five mother sauces of classical French cuisine, and the mixture is then simmered and reduced by half.  I have seen recipes which say you can make it in 4 hours and then some say 12 hours or more.  I kinda screwed up with the quantity of veal stock so I ended up having to make the stock twice (the second roasting/simmering is called a remouillage, so it took about 14 hours.  In the end, I had a zip lock bag of ice-cube size frozen demi-glace hunks. 

10 lbs. of veal bones (I found these at Penn-Dutch):

After roasting the bones for about an hour:

Paint the bones with tomato paste:

Cover with chopped mirepoix and roast for another 45 minutes:

Remove the bones to a stock pot and deglaze the pan with dry red wine:

After simmering and skimming for hours, the veal stock/brown stock is reduced:

Strain out all the impurities and gunk:

Now making the sauce espagnole, start with a brown roux:

Then add more fresh mirepoix, some of the brown stock, a bouquet garni, and let it simmer also.  Then combine the sauce espagnole with the brown sauce and let it reduce and cool.

This was adapted from Emeril Lagasse's recipe, but I found it to be too confusing.  Next time I'll find a clearer recipe.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/emeril-lagasse/demi-glace-recipe/index.html