Nam Prik Pao and Happy Hubby Sauce

However you want to spell it, this is some tasty stuff. A delicious dark paste made from deeply caramelized onions and garlic and chiles, it is seasoned with fish sauce and shrimp paste, tamarind and sugar. Sound Thai? It is. And also, I should say, it is traditionally made with shallots and not onions, but I can't get a reliable source for good shallots, so I use onions with good results.

Anyway, this paste has so many uses. My kids use it instead of that nasty seasoning packet in their ramen noodles. I use it in stir-fry noodles, soups, etc, etc. Just try it and taste it, and you too will find a million and one uses for it. It's that tasty.

My disclaimer- this may not be the most authentic or traditional way to make nam prik pao, I'm not really sure, but I get good results, and I definitely think it's better than store-bought.

Nam Prik Pao

1 very large onion, or use two smaller, or use shallots if you can find them

2 heads of garlic

Dried chiles to taste or a mix of chiles and red pepper

1 cup oil

A few Tablespoons of sugar- you can use coconut or palm sugar as well
1-2 Tablespoons thai-style shrimp paste

few Tablespoons fish sauce

few Tablespoons of tamarind

few Tablespoons of water

Slice the onions very thin and fry them in the oil until dark and crisp and then remove. Then fry the garlic- I've fried them, sliced, chopped, and whole, but smashed and I didn't really detect much of a difference, so it's up to you to decide how you want to process them. Remove from the oil.

Then fry the dried chiles for a bit- depending on how small your chiles are and how many you are using. You don't want them to burn, so be careful. I usually replace quite a bit of the chiles for sweet red peppers that I fry because my family only likes things moderately hot at most. Also, removing the seeds of the chiles will reduce the heat.

Puree the onions, garlic and chiles/peppers in a blender. You may add oil and the tamarind and fish sauce and a bit of water as needed to get lubrication for blending.

In your wok or frying pan, fry the shrimp paste in some of the oil until it begins to release it's aroma. (it doesn't smell all that great, but it really adds a great flavor to the finished product) Then add the blended puree back to the wok, add the sugar and anything else you didn't add and cook until dark and bubbly, the texture loosely thick. The sauce will thicken as it stands. Taste the sauce for seasoning. It should be sweet and spicy- but not overly so, with the sweet tempered with the tang of the tamarind, and dark, caramelized, smokey undertones. Add a bit more sugar, or fish sauce or tamarind to suit your taste.

Happy Hubby Sauce is a sauce I created and it became a hit in our house. I make it from a mixture of nam prik pao, hoisin sauce, soy sauce, honey, water and a bit of chile paste with garlic. My husband loves it so much, I named it Happy Hubby sauce for him- otherwise it didn't have a name and I got tired of hey- can you make me that stuff?...

Enjoy!

Homemade Mayonnaise...easier than you might think

Everyone has a line drawn in the sand. A point at where you just raise your fist to the heavens and shout "No more!". This, my friends, is what has happened to me.  My line was crossed. In the grocery store isles, shopping for mayonnaise, the ugly scene ensued... it went something along the lines of, "Are you freaking kidding me? Over $4 a quart for freaking mayonnaise?"

Freaking indeed.

Now I make my own mayonnaise, because I no longer find it convienant to be fleeced in that particular aspect of my life. Yes I realize I'm fleeced in many other areas that I have no control over. But darn it, I know how to make some darn tasty mayonnaise, and now I'm mad and motivated, and I will share with you :)

First off, I have come to love making mayonnaise. It really is kitchen chemistry at it's finest. It sort of makes me feel like a mad scientist..and not just mad at the cost of store mayo. Anyway, mayo is tempermental ...but only at first. Then it's relatively forgiving. However, you MUST follow the beginning steps or else you will not have mayonnaise. But no worries, I'll get to that.

Mayonnaise is an emulsion of eggs and oil. According to chemistry, an emulsion is "any colloidal suspension of a liquid in another liquid." Thank you dictionary.com. Good eggs are important for taste and also because we're going to use them raw- as in uncooked. You can use pasteurized eggs, and if you're at all sqeamish about raw eggs, that's what you should do. You can use any oil. The Spanish love to make mayo with olive oil for the taste, but in this post I'm aiming to reproduce store-bought mayo, so we want to use a neutral-flavored oil. Pick your favorite.

I like to make mayonnaise in my kitchenaid with the whisk attatchment. It's easiest for me, but you can adapt to a hand beater or a whisk if you're determined to get an arm workout.

Basic Recipe for Mayonnaise

(all seasoning will be tasted for and adjusted up if needed at the end, so you can go lightly)

3 eggs- separated and reserved

1.5-2.5 c. oil approximately

1-2 T. of acid (lemon juice, lime juice, assorted vinegars)

.5-1 t. salt

pinch of sugar if desired

a squirt of prepared mustard or some mustard powder if desired

also: some people enjoy a few drops of hot sauce or pinch of cayenne. It's up to you.

Start with eggs that have been out of the refrigerator for a few minutes. 

Ice-cold ingredients can doom your mayonnaise.

We start with the egg-yolks only.

This is the fairly runny mixture of egg-yolk, acid, mustard and salt/sugar.

Now this is where I get serious. With the mixer running,

or you whisking away, start adding the oil to the egg yolks

1/4 teaspoon at a time. 

This is literally a few drops at a time, a dribble, a wee bit.

You must do this for at least the first 1/4 cup of the oil

if you want the mayonnaise to form properly.

If you over-dribble, stop oiling and let it beat in for a bit

and pray for the best!! 

You can see it starting to thicken some more here.

Yes, it is very yellow at first, but will gradually get

lighter as you keep adding oil. You don't have to be

quite so precise after the first 1/4 cup, but do add

slowly and let it mix in before you add more.

Keep going, but you can see it getting lighter and thicker.

Here I'm scraping down the sides. The downside of

my mixer on high speed is that it likes to kick stuff

onto the sides of the bowl.

It's really gelling here. You can see that the texture is

definately thick. I'm going to add a bit more oil.

Ok, so we're going to stop for a bit. We need to chat mayonnaise. What we have here is called "heavy mayonnaise". Obviously, you can tell from the picture that it is very thick and saturated stuff. It's used in the food industry quite often. It is better for foods like mayonnaise salads that are going to be made ahead of time. It doesn't get as weepy or icky since the moisture content is minimal, it coats very well and doesn't get absorbed as easily as regular mayo. This is useful to know, especially if you are going to make something with mayonnaise and need to hold it for awhile.

Here you can see the very custard-y texture of the heavy mayonnaise. Like I said, heavy mayonnaise has lots of uses. However, this is not quite the product that we buy in the supermarket when we pick up a jar. (or not if it's $4!!!!) For that type of mayonnaise, we must do a final step.

See what happened?  We went from gloopy to creamy, yellow-y to ivory in a single bound by simply adding 2 of the reserved egg whites back into the mix. It's magic, I tell you! See how pretty it is? Now you can taste it and check for seasonings...does it need more lemon juice? more salt? Add it in and mix it up. It's quite forgiving at this point.

So now, all that's left to do is put the delicious, homemade, preservative-free (and cheap, did I mention cheap? as in not $4 a jar?) mayonnaise into a jar and into the fridge.  With all the sandwhiches that get made at my house for school lunches, it goes pretty fast and I haven't had a problem with spoilage.  However, you can easily make a smaller batch if you have a smaller group to feed.

Enjoy!

Tortilla Española

I was sitting in class a few weeks ago, and found out a classmate of mine was from Spain originally, and she told everyone about one of her favorite foods, the Tortilla Española. More importantly, she explained to us how to make one, and I'm so glad she did!

Now first off, this is a Spanish tortilla, not a Latin American tortilla, so it's not bread. It's technically an omelet. However, a Tortilla Española is not just a plain old omelet. Somehow, the method of cooking seems to raise it light years above the regular omelet in status and stature. I don't pretend to get it. Ingredient-wise, it's really not that different from the omelet you've been making for years. However, and this is the miracle part of it,  it just tastes so good! It IS different. It's delicious eaten hot, I think it's even better warm, and a wonderful snack at room temperature. Can you imagine an omelet as a picnic food- and it being great?! I know, it's weird. The only temperature it doesn't like is cold, as in out of the refrigerator cold. However, if you have a microwave with a warming function, you're back in the game.

Now, I've made this quite a few times since I learned how to, and now again for this post...I know, I know, I sacrifice for this blog. I've diced my potatoes small dice because my friend said to "chop them up" and that's what I thought of. However, if you do a little internet snooping, you will find that in Spain, what chopping means really, is to cut the potatoes in half, and slice them thinly. Since it tastes awesome to me both ways, I'm not sure if the potato shape makes much of a difference, so the preference is yours. However, some people seem to think that letting the already cooked potatoes rest in the beaten raw egg allows the potatoes to soak up some egg and makes for a better tortilla. So, with this school of thought, technically the larger surface area and thinner depth of the thinly sliced potato would facilitate this, which is perhaps why in Spain the slice thin variation seems to win out over the small dice. I will have to say that I've let the potatoes and eggs soak for a varied amount of time, and I really did like how it turnes out when it soaks for an hour or so, and as such, I've started slicing more and dicing less.

There is a tricky thing with this tortilla that seems to freak some people out. You have to flip it. Yep, as in with a plate and then put it back in the pan to cook the other side. Honestly, it was easy, so I don't know why it seems to cause so much consternation. I used a cast iron skillet too, not non-stick, and had no problems. If you put the eggs into a pre-heated skillet, you won't have a problem either. That's the real trick.

Maria's Tortilla Española

2 potatoes "chopped"

1 small onion

8 eggs

olive oil -with a bit of butter if you like, as per Maria

salt and pepper

Optional Sauce:

mayonnaise

sour cream

chives

After "chopping" your potatoes and onions, cook them in olive oil until soft, but keep the heat low, because we're not looking for browning here. You can be a bit generous with the oil if you want to retain some to cook the tortilla in. I seasoned the potatoes, but to do it or not is your call.

Beat the eggs. I used a little milk.

Remove the potatoes and onions and add them to the beaten eggs. I kept stirring as I did this, because I didn't want to really start cooking the eggs in the bowl. If you want to let them rest to absorb some egg, do it now.

Put the pan back on the fire to get it hot again, and then turn the heat to pretty low. Add olive oil if you don't have any in the skillet. Add the egg mixture. Let this cook slowly. I think that's a fairly key step. I used a temp-resistant spatula to make sure it was loose about the edges, and to lift corners now and again to allow liquid egg to run off the top, down under, and cook. 

When it's pretty well set, grab your plate and flip the tortilla out of the pan and onto the plate. 

Return the pan to the stove, and slide the tortilla back into the pan. I remember Maria saying to let it cook on the other side for "oh, 10 minutes or so", so that should give you an idea of just how slowly this thing should be cooking.

That's it.

You can see I lost a little bit that stuck in the pan, but oh well, it happens to the best of us, and when you flip it again, you won't see it. So there is a chance for redemption!

Then, cut into wedges and serve.

Maria said that in the Catalan region of Spain, a sauce of mayonnaise, sour cream and chives is popular to serve with this, and even though that's not where she is from, she loves it. I love it too. Here, I'm making a sauce with fresh cracked black pepper and sun-dried tomatoes. Another delicious variation I stumbled upon was to use chopped up marinated artichoke hearts. Sigh...divinity. 

When I made the tortilla, I played with it, as I always do, can't help it, so I added some fresh red pepper to my potatoes and onions, which was awesome. The second time, I used some chopped tomato. I've since used bacon, mushrooms, ham. They're all great.

Sorry this is a bad photo, but you get the idea.

Tortilla Española is now my favorite semi-quick and easy food fix. And talk about economical! It's cheap, beyond simple, but just so marvelous and versitile! It fits the bill for breakfast, lunch, snack and dinner. What's not to love?

Enjoy!

Gravad Lax

So recently I bought this cookbook entitled Swedish Cooking- from where else? Yes, Ha. Ikea. However, upon flip-through, I could tell this was not a commercial giant watered-down frozen meatball cookbook! It was also not dumbed-down Swedish cooking for Americans (I HATE books like that!). It has a recipe for Blood Soup. YES! Blood Soup! Any cookbook that has enough culinary gumption to include a recipe for blood anything must be bought -at once.

So now I am the proud owner of Swedish Cooking that includes Svartsoppa, but that's not what I feel like talking about today. What I feel calling to me today is...Gravad Lax.

I love Salmon. I think I started loving Salmon when I lived in Alaska and people kept giving me free Salmon for my freezer which I found to be infinitely better than the free moose-meat that started taking over my freezer. I have discovered though, that I prefer the variety of non-cooked salmon dishes to cooked. Give me smoked salmon lox, gravad lax or salmon sushi rather than a cooked fillet any day of the week. So, it is in homage to raw and semi-raw salmon, that I present the following recipe from my wonderful new cookbood entitled Swedish Cooking that has Blood Soup, (printed in Germany by Naumann & Göbel Verlagsgesellschaft mbH). I'm going to paraphrase the instructions and my comments are in *stars*

Gravad Lax (serves 4) *that's about 1/2 lb fish per person, which seems like alot imo*

3 bunches fresh dill, chopped fine
4 T salt
5 T sugar
2.25 lb or 1kg salmon, boned and filleted, with skin on. *This equals 2 pieces*
1 T. peppercorns *grind*
mustard seed to taste *grind*
allspice to taste *grind*

Spread half of the dill on a plate and lay one half of the fish skin side down in the dill. Using half the salt and sugar, rub into the fish. Then season with the black pepper, mustard and allspice. Repeat with the remaining half. Fold up both pieces with the skin on the outside, wrap up and chill in the fridge for 3 days.

*One point is a little obscure with the recipe...do you put any fresh dill on the flesh of the fish? I think that according to the recipe, the dill might solely be for the skin of the fish- which doesn't get eaten, by the way. However, I love dill, so I think I'd use some on the flesh as well.*

After 3 days of marinating in the fridge, you "extract the marinated salmon from its skin and the spices" (love it!) and slice thin. It is recommended to be served on crispbread with mustard-dill sauce. The sauce is as follows:

Dill-Mustard Sauce
5 T sweet swedish mustard *substitute spicy brown and add sugar to taste, it's sort of a honey-mustard taste- that would work too actually :)*
4 T. vinegar
3 T sugar
1 t salt & .5 t pepper (or to taste)
3/4 c oil
2 bunches dill, chpd fine

Blend the mustard, vinegar, sugar and salt and pepper together and beat until the sugar is dissolved. Add the oil slowly and whisk to incorporate. Stir in the dill and keep cold.

Well, that's that. If you ever wanted to make your own gravad lax, now you know how. It's very tasty, I love it. No, I'm not doing photo today. I'm in an anti-camera mood, mostly because I'm redoing the kitchen and it's a total disaster area- no floors, walls, counters, stove, nothing. Makes cooking interesting! Sorta like camping- but in your house and no s'mores.

I need to find out how to make smoked lox. I know that you use a cold smoke, - hot smoke would cook the fish and you'd have jerky, but I'm sort of a noob when it comes to the ways of do-it-yourself smoking. I'll have to research it further. One day, I'm going to own my own smoke-house where I will be able to produce all sorts of smoked delicacies! One day! Oh, speaking of smoked fish, have you ever had smoked trout? or smoked whitefish? Delicious.

Enjoy the Gravad Lax!

Nutella

Ah, nutella. Elevating the humble hazelnut into a thing of beauty. Transforming boring lunchbox sandwiches into a serious bartering tool and popularity booster. Giving chocoholics everywhere yet another reason to nip o' wee bitty. Makes a pretty darn good dessert sauce too...which is what I'm going to talk to you about.

The other day I was given a pound cake as a gift. Fairly random, but always welcome. I was telling my Mother about it, who instantly told me to try a nutella chocolate sauce for the topping, because she really liked it and Oh by the way, can you have it ready for dessert at 7 with some Earl Grey? Ah, yes ma'am!

Nutella will seize up like other chocolate if you melt it first and then try to add milk or cream to it. The trick is to put the nutella and cream or milk together first and then heat it up, which you can do in the microwave by zapping it for 15-20 seconds at a time and then stirring. This is how you can easily melt chocolate chips as well, especially if your recipe calls for the chocolate to be combined with butter or cream.

Giada de Laurentiis in her book "Everyday Italian" recommends this ratio for nutella sauce: 1/3 c. nutella and 3 T. cream microwaved until melted for about 1 minute, stopping and stirring every 20 seconds. A fine sauce, a fine sauce indeed.

OK, for those of you who meticulously read labels like me and will not eat high fructose corn syrup in any shape or form, or other nasties, nutella stands up pretty well- considering it is a sweet chocolate concoction. It uses sugar, so bonus points for no artificial sweeteners, modified palm oil, so no trans fats- though I want to find out exactly what the "modified" means, cocoa, so no added chocolate fat, and skim milk which completes the nut protein and makes me happier when my little bunchkins want some "atella". Reduced minerals whey- pretty much what it says, produced by drying whey with some of the minerals physically separated out, according to ADPI- the American Dairy Products Institute by "precipitation, filtration, or dialysis" It has a whey, hence, dairy flavor, but I'll bet it's used because of cost factors, IE: it's cheaper than milk. Soy Lecithin, I've heard some debate on this one, concocted from soy, a common emulsifier in chocolate, and a good surfactant, which is the nerdy way to say it helps it spread well. Some extol it's virtues, some say it's horrible, I say research it yourself. The old way to get this sort of emulsification and spreadability was to use an egg yolk, which yes! you guessed it, contains naturally occurring lecithins. Granted, it's also very perishable, so I don't know how viable an option it is in commercial production of an unrefrigerated product. But, now, if you want to make homemade nutella yourself, you know what to use. They do get a ding on using vanillin- come on Ferrero USA! Real vanilla extract is the way to go! But all in all, I'll eat it. Most likely because I can't help myself!

So open that jar of chocolate hazelnut wonder and start cracking.