Quick and easy fish

I've been working pretty hard on my math recently, so last night when I left my office at 10:30pm(yes... it was Sunday...) I needed something to distract me from mathematical thought. Cooking always does that well, but I was pretty tired. So I decided to go to the M2M (a local Asian convenience store) to get some sushi. The prepared spicy Tuna I like was sold out. After searching around a little I decided to pick up some sole (it cost 2$ for three nice fillets). I prepared the fish as simple as possible. I first ground some pepper and scattered a little salt onto the fish. Then I dredged it in a little cornmeal (flour would work too, but I figured I'd give this a chance) and added a little garlic powder for extra flavor. Then, I remembered back to my days of Ellington fancy dinners and recalled that people would sometimes serve fish pinenut encrusted... so I crushed some pinenuts with the side of my knife and diced them and added them as a crust.

I heated up my second favorite castiron and put a little butter on and quickly placed the fish in the melted butter. The fish took just a few minutes on each side and when done (I ate it with rice) was wonderful tasting. The pinenuts were not too strong but really went well with the fish's flavor. For just a little over 2$ and about 20 minutes of cooking and prep time you kind of need to wonder what is the point of getting this as a restaurant.

Sorry... now picture. I was too hungry to get my camera. Maybe next time.

Tamales

A few months ago I purchased a bag of Masa Harena --- not sure why though. This past week when Allison visited me I found a reason. Her first suggestion for what to cook with me was tamales. At first I was confused as to why she wanted to make a small red candy you buy in a box. However, after a little internet searching I remembered that they are, in fact, more than just candy.

We started to cook yesterday at about 5pm. The first step was to create a suitable vegetarian version of the Masa dough. Traditionally this is made with lard, but the local lard salesman was out of vegetable lard, so we needed to resort to a substitution of oil and a little butter. The recipes we looked at online suggested that it is best to use some chicken stock, but we wanted to use cheese in the filling (and my pots and pans are mostly dairy...) so we began looking for a suitable substitute. In the spirit of laziness, We didn't feel like going to the store to get vegetable stock, so after some poking around the cabinets we found a box of matzoh ball soup mix.

For the dough I used:
5 cups of Masa Harina
1 Tbsp baking powder
1 Tbsp salt
A few dashes of paprika, garlic powder and black pepper
1/2 a package of dried (vegetarian) chicken soup mix
4 cups or so of water
a little under 1 cup or so of oil (I used olive, but any kind probably does)



Mix together the dried goods. Slowly add in the water, making sure to mix with all of the masa. When all of the water is added, add in the oil and work with a fork until everything is mixed. The dough (perhaps not the best name for it, since its nothing like bread dough) should be a little grainy and fluffy and certainly not soupy.

After making the dough we needed to purchase some corn husks. I suppose that you can just save corn husks from summer corn purchases... but I didn't have any so we went to a local mexican food store and got few packages. To soften the husks we boiled some water and poured it over them and let them sit and soak for a few minutes.



Meanwhile we prepared a bean filling by sauteing a head of garlic and a large onion and then adding in a can of beans. It turns out that we probably should have doubled this part of the recipe since we ran out of the beans after making about half of the tamales.



Besides beans, we purchased three types of cheese (Queso Fresco, Mozzarella and cheddar) and some Jalapenos and green peppers for filling. We sliced the peppers into thin strips and tried not to get too many seeds from the Jalapenos into the tamales.





To assemble a tamale, place the corn husk on a flat surface with the pointy part facing away from you. Take the dough and place a small handful on the left closest section of the husk. With you fingers spread out the dough until its pretty thin and covers all but the right one-third and furthest one-third (near the pointy part) of the husk.




Now place some cheese and some pepper and some beans on the left-middle part of the dough. Taking the left side of the husk in your hand roll tightly over the filling and bring the left edge of the husk down to meet the end of right end of the dough.



This part reminds me a lot of rolling sushi... Then fold the pointy part in (towards you) and finish rolling the tamale towards the right. Finally take the tamale in hand and pinch off the top, open section (adding a little more dough if needed) so that you get a nice point of dough.



We used a vegetable steamer insert and a large pan to steam the tamales. I suppose anything which creates hot steam would do the job. The tamales really need to cook for a while, though they can be piled up a fair amount. As always, when steaming make sure not to run out of water, or else you will loss your pan. The key here is to let the cook for a while... at least 40 minutes or so.



The dough shouldn't be wet at all when the tamales are done. You should be able to slice the tamale (after unwrapping it) with a fork and it should keep its shape.




Our tamales came out really well. I think the recipe yielded about 30 or so, so we ended up freezing a good portion. If you freeze them I've read that you are not supposed to defrost them. Rather just steam them from frozen, or you can probably microwave them until hot.

Cat food or me food?

Anyone who was cracked open a thing of canned salmon and asked this question is not alone. Driven by some invisible force (mixture of a desire for more protein and a culinary curiosity) about a week ago I decided it would be a good thing to make use of two of the cans of salmon I had purchased roughly a year ago during a canned salmon sale at my local cheapo market.

I've had a rough history with canned salmon. My original introduction to it was through salmon latkas which my Bubbie (grandmother) would serve during dairy meals when we visited. Despite how good anything was at one of these dairy meals, as a kid who loved to eat meat and looked forward to the meaty delights of my Bubbie's kitchen, I was always a little discontent. It took me a while to develop a taste for things fishy, so as a young kid I stayed away from the latkas and always assumed they were pretty gross. A few years ago, however, I was taking a bus back from Bubbie's to boston and she decided to pack me a lunch for the trip. In a roll (I think it was an onion roll) she put some salmon latka and dressed it up like a hamburger (for those who don't know what a salmon latka is, its essentially a burger made from canned salmon). To my utter surprise I really enjoyed this way of eating the salmon latka.

Still, in the time since I've realized a liking for canned salmon, I had been pretty scared to actually use it. I had one good experience making pasta with chunks of the canned fish and some creamy sauce... but generally the cans have been pushed further to the back of my cupboard, unused and unwanted.

My first thought, upon opening the two cans of salmon last week, was to make salmon latkas. I had on hand some carrot, pepper, onion and garlic. After dicing these up with some chopped frozen ginger (freezes really well) I sauted these vegetables for a few minutes so they wouldn't be too tough in the latkas (it was my plan to pan fry them and hence vegetables would not get cooked too well). The salmon went into a large bowl where I worked hard to mix it all together. I added in some salt and pepper (I could have done without the salt since the canned salmon was pretty salty to start with) and then added in the vegetables, after having let them cool for a little. To bind this together I added about two or three eggs and a good portion of chickpea flour (any type is fine... but I like the color this gives to things when fried). In the end I have a nice thick batter of fish and vegetables. Tasting it (which I probably should not have due to the egg) I realized it needed a little sweetness, so I added in a few squirts of honey.

A hot cast iron pan did a pretty good job of cooking up three midsized latkas which served as my dinner. I was not that happy though since pan frying tends to leave the insides a little mushy and requires lots of oil. At this point it was pretty late in the evening and I had a large bowl full of slightly fishy smelling batter sitting in the kitchen. Not wanted to spend the hour to fry up another 30 latkas, and not that happy with the results of such frying anyway, I did what anyone sick of cooking, yet with ingredients leftover, would do --- I made a kugel.

You ask what it means that I made a kugel? If it sounds impressive it is not. All I did was grease up a glass pan and pour all of my batter into it and then throw it in the oven for 45 minutes (for part covered with tin foil). After cooking the moisture which plagued my fried prototype latkas had cooked out and I was left with a nicely browned, and very mild (on the fishy scale) tasting kugel. The flour and egg helped it hold together nicely, and the honey give it an extra nice sweetness (after all it is the season of Rosh Hashana where we wish people a Happy and Sweet New Year). The great thing about a kugel is that once its made, you can cut it into individual sized pieces and freeze. In my experience, reheating in the microwave works really well for these single portions.

So, what is the lesson to be learned here? If you start making something and then get sick of it or disillusioned with it just turn it into a kugel.

Food and beer this summer

I did a fair amount of traveling over the summer and I'd like to briefly recount the highlights and lowlights of that which I ate.
Lets starts with a low. Berlin, a vegan restaurant called Cafe V -- after spending the entire day wandering through the city seeing the sites I was in dire need for a nice relaxing meal. I found my way to a nice restaurant my cousin had mentioned (a friend had told her about the place). I found a seat outside of the place and considered my menu options. It was nice to have so many options, especially after having been in Prague where my options were generally limited to one or two things on the menu. I settled on a tofu curry with zucchini. Despite sitting outdoors, I could not escape the annoying cigarette smoke which wafted towards me from the other few patrons outside. There were probably three people sitting outside, yet at any given moment at least one was smoking --- makes you wonder how they had time to eat. Besides gripping about the smoke, my other distraction while waiting for the food was the occurrences going on a little further up the block. I was convinced that there was going to be a mafia hit in the apartment building next to the restaurant. These really smarmy looking fellows kept going in and out, and going to the trunk and looking at some envelops and inside a duffel bag... But, thankfully, no hit occurred (to my knowledge).
These mob fantasies were abruptly interrupted by the arrival of my food. The dish looked very nice -- and the waitress also brought me a free order of garlic bread. Great! Well, maybe not. Upon tasting the sauce and tofu I immediately realized why I was compted the garlic bread. The tofu tasted, well, like tofu --- plain, unmarinaded, uncooked tofu. As far as the curry sauce, there are many varieties which exists but I'm pretty sure that turmeric and water does not constitute a curry sauce. The sauce was so thin and flavorless. The only redeeming elements of the meal were the zucchini and the garlic bread. But then again those are probably two of the easiest things to not mess up. As I was alone at the restaurant and had noone to gripe about it to I had a running inner monologue in which I berated the food and came up with craftier and craftier ways to insult the quality of the restaurant. Someone should really tell them that they suck --- but my German is... well... as bad as their tofu.

I had another bad food experience in Berlin, but enough bad. Despite not being able to eat much of the local fare, I had a pretty good culinary experience during my visit to Prague. First of all, I was happily surprised to discover that Prague has wild pears, apples, plums and even some figs.
[Insert photos]
The wild fruit was not as impressive as in Berkeley where the plums are super ripe and incredibly ample, as are the figs. A moment more of bashing Berlin with respect to fruit -- the last day I was there I decided to go to Potsdam which is outside of the city and where there are gigantic palaces and parks. One of the palaces had a terraced garden leading up to it. At each level of the garden were about 20 recessed sections of the terrace wall and in each of these recessions were two fig trees. In totally there were roughly 200 fig trees. Between these recessions, the wall was covered with grapes. I was hungry for a fig was had some time to spare so I decided to look at each tree until I found a fig. To keep my mouth busy during the hunt I made sure to have a constant supply of grapes (nice and sour ones). After roughly an hour of looking I had inspected every fig tree and come to the conclusion that there were no rip figs in Berlin. Such a shame considering that in Prague I had eaten some wonderfully rip figs at the Wallenstein gardens.

Beyond found fruit, Prague offered some wonderful beer and also some pretty yummy preserved fish and cabbage. The beer was super cheap and I made sure to have at least one with lunch and one in the evening every day. Half a litter of the beer cost about $1.50. Not too bad. It was always cheaper to get beer with a meal than water (which is not free there and always comes in bottles owing to old pipes which evidently make the water undrinkable). I've been lucky enough to try a lot of good beer (most recent before Prague was in San Francisco which has excellent local brewing). I thought that the Czech beer was very refreshing and smooth and drinkable, but not as interesting as Belgian or even some local American beers.

Since most of the restaurant food was patently unkosher I didn't eat out much but rather went to the super market and purchased the following wonderfully cheap and tasty items: Crusty brown rolls, Edam cheese, preserved fish (salmon or trout or sardines), arugula, sweet red pepper, watermelon and chocolate. The deals were great for these items -- more than enough smoked fish to fill me up cost something like 40 cents, and the watermelon was cheap as cheap can be. I ended up eating these items for most of my days and enjoying every bite of it.

I did have a few nice restaurant visits. At one place I bought herring (for maybe $2's) and was brought a plate with a fist sized rolled up chunk of herring with shredded onion and three bread dumplings. The herring was really fishing and really good and I definitely smelled like fish for the rest of the day. Another nice "meal" I had was a plate full of red and white cabbage which had been dressed with a nice acidic dressing. I think I surprised the waiter by getting this side dish and then eating it all myself (other groups split one of these plates among many people).

There was a kosher restaurant which I did go to one night called King Solomon's. For, by Czech standard, a fortune ($30) I had a nice three course meal there which started with a slightly nicer version of hotdog soup (it had some kosher sausage and a tomato base) and focused on a braised turkey chunk served on a tomato, zucchini, onion ratatouille. The turkey was probably the best preparation of turkey I've ever had. It was incredibly flavorful and juicy and went really well with the ratatouille.

To sum up ---
Berlin = crappy food;
Prague = limited but good food;
Fish = ate too much;
Fruit = always makes a place better in my book;
Beer = good, especially when cheap.

Have I been fasting for the last two months????

No -- thankfully I have not been fasting, but I have been generally away from my kitchen and, more recently, have been overly involved with my math. Its hard to think of math and cooking as really being mutually exclusive, but they have been for me. The main reason is that when I'm working hard on math I go into my office at 9 or so, and then don't leave, generally, until 9 or 10 in the evening. The result of this is that I can't go shopping in the cheap stores I like to frequent, and also when I get home I'm super hungry and want something immediately. A sad state indeed, but it should improve as the school year begins again and I recover the semblance of a schedule.

Enough gripping though. This is a food blog not a complaining blog, and I write today to report on progress in the battle between math and food. I today, due to hunger, cheapness, a desire to cook, and a bag of eggplants from Chinatown, decided to do some morning cooking. As my parents were visiting this weekend I ended up wandering with them down to Chinatown. There is a very strong magnetic force between me and the outdoor markets along the Manhattan bridge, so once I was within a few blocks I couldn't fight the attraction. Having only seven dollars in my wallet I needed to be careful. After surveying the deals I bought 3lbs of leeche nuts for $3, 2 lbs of eggplant for $1, 10 plums for $1, 2 lbs of Chinese broccoli for $1 and an ample amount of garlic for my last dollar.

My morning task was to make use of all of the non-fruit ingredients, plus some leftover carrots from a previous Chinatown trip. The first project was to make eggplant parmigiana. This was inspired by a friend who mentioned that he had made this a few days ago and it had been really good. I was dealing with Chinese eggplants which are long and skinny, so I sliced them at a pretty sharp diagonal to yield large enough pieces. These went into a drainer with a lot of salt and dessicated for about an hour. More on this in a moment.

While the eggplant was loosing water weight I decided to make use of the Chinese broccoli and prepare a dish which is a mix between something my mom loves to make with any dark leafy green, and a dish which I had prepared for me when I was visiting with a professor in California earlier in the summer. The general idea is to cook the green with some garlic, ginger, raisin, hot pepper, and soy sauce until it is nice and tender. It works best to use a little oil and cook the non-greens for a minute and then to add the tougher, stems of the greens, and a few minutes later the leaves. The cooked out liquid and soy sauce makes a nice thin liquid. Along with the cooked greens I toasted some pine nuts and then grated some parmigiana cheese. These are for sprinkling over the greens. Finally, a great way to serve this is to cook some soba noodles and in a bowl put a base of the soba, then the greens, nuts and cheese and some of the liquid. This constituted the second dish I prepared this morning.

But back to the eggplant. Once enough water was drawn out I wanted to bread and fry the pieces. My technique here was lacking, but due to the power of cast iron it ended up alright. Ideally one would pat the pieces dry and then dredge in flour and then fry in a heavy skillet with some oil. I guess I forgot to pat dry, because the flour got pretty clumpy when I was handling it. None-the-less the breaded eggplant still managed to get nice and browned. All the meanwhile I had been preparing a simple tomato sauce from crushed garlic, diced onion and pepper (hot and green) and crushed tomatoes which simmer for 20 minutes of so. Part of the sauce went in the bottom of a large rectangular glass pan, then a portion of the eggplant, a portion of slice mozzarella, some more sauce, some more eggplant, some more mozzarella, some more sauce and finally some grated parmigiana. Sounds like a lot of layering, but I imagine it doesn't actually matter. I baked this for about 25 minutes, or how ever long it took me to clean up from all of the cooking. Turned out pretty good in the end.

The third dish, which has gotten lost in the narration, was a quinoa recipe suggested in the comments of an earlier post on quinoa. I've made it before and enjoyed it, and this time it turned out just as well. I'll leave it to the interested reader to track down the old post (hint: just search for quinoa on my blog).

In any case, I'm happy to say that I'm back in my apartment with my trusty cast iron, so there should be plenty to post about. Also, at some point I will need to give my culinary opinion about food I eat during my travels this summer. Preview: I ate a lot of dried and smoked fish when in Prague since everything else is meat.

Another roasted egg plant dip

I'm heading out of town for most of the month of July. One of my most difficult culinary tasks every time I leave the city for an extended period of time is to use up all of the perishable items which I happen to have accumulated in the fridge. I think of it as some version of balancing a checkbook, or perhaps like the game Rummikub (where I would often try to use all of my pieces in some sort of miraculous combination of moves --- often failing).

In any case, as my travel date approached I realized that I had an excess of yogurt -- much more than was necessary to finish of my latest batch of granola. Along with the yogurt, my fridge has recently been haunted with an eggplant in desperate need of cooking. The necessity to use these two items precipitated the following eggplant dip recipe (plus I had a lot of garlic which needed using too!).

As with my last eggplant escapade, I decided to roast it over the open flame. This time I covered the surface more completely with foil to help with cleanup. The roasting took about 10 minutes afterwhich I left it in a bowl for another 10 minutes, then sliced it in half and let it drain through a colander for a little while. During this draining I took three heads of garlic and, with boredom mounting, peeled every single clove (probably 50 or so in all). These went into a cast iron pan with ample olive oil and roasted until nice, brown and soft. By the point that these were done my eggplant was drained and I had transferred it to a large bowl and mashed it up. The garlic also got a good mashing. Enter the yogurt! I spooned maybe 5 large spoonfuls of yogurt into the mixture and then mashed it all together some more. To this I finally added some more oil, and a fair amount of salt, pepper, ground cumin, smoked paprika, chili powder, and a little tumeric. The taste was nice --- the eggplant and yogurt flavors started strong and then the spices gave an after flavor. However it lacked something in the middle, so I add to it a little balsamic vinegar and some honey and mustard. Now it was good.

So, last night I had this with some large pretzels. Right now I am envisioning myself eating it with some crispy cast iron toasted tortilla as well. Well... to tell the truth I'm mostly thinking about eating watermelon when I get home -- but this dip is good too.

A better way to have a dinner party

The last time I had people over for dinner was Shavuot --- I made Blintzes. I started gathering ingredients at roughly 1pm and ended my cleanup a little after 11pm. During the 10 hours in between I was pretty much working the whole time.

Even for me, 10 hours in the kitchen is just too much time. That is why I was very happy when a college friend of mine emailed me a few weeks ago with the idea of jointly having people over at her apartment.

So, yesterday my friend and I met up at the Wholefoods at 6pm to get our ingredients. The plan for dinner was to have salmon as the main dish. Seeing the price of salmon at Wholefoods, however, I started to wonder if, perhaps, another type of fish might be a better choice. At between 13 and 16 a lb, salmon was just too much. We did not give up on salmon though, as we still had a secret weapon --- Chinatown. After purchasing the rest of our ingredients we walk down Mott street (near my friend's place) and looked at the fish markets. There were some salmon steaks (we wanted fillets though) and then there were some really gross looking cuts of salmon with the bone in it. We asked one of the mongers if we could buy 3 lbs of salmon fillet --- he responded that we could buy a side of salmon which would be seven pounds!

Finally, we wandered into an indoor market which was nice and clean, and actually had some really nice looking salmon fillets. We settled on a little over 3 lbs of the fish and returned back to my friend's apartment.

Since I'm on the subject of Chinatown fish markets, its worth mentioning some of the weirder things you see there. At one of the outdoor markets there was a gigantic barrel of live frogs hopping around. Then, inside of the indoor market, there was a large display of alligator's legs. I'm sure if I had look a little more I would have seen some other oddities as well.

Back to the dinner -- we got to my friend's place at about 7:30. Dinner was set for 9 so I delayed cooking the fish for some time (knowing also that people would be late). The menu was as follows:
~Oven cooked salmon covered with chopped dill, honey, mustard, ginger, balsamic vinegar, lemon juice, olive oil and some salt / pepper. To go along with this was a sour cream based sauce with dill, mustard, honey, lemon juice, curry powder and paprika.
~Over roasted potato chunks, tossed before cooking with olive oil, rosemary, paprika, a little curry powder and some pepper (salted after cooking).
~Fresh spinach salad with chopped red pepper, carrot, strawberry, craisin, almond slivers, and some balsamic vinegar.
~Cooked string beans with ginger, garlic, almond slivers, honey, curry powder and balsamic vinegar (I've posted on this before).
~Fruit salad desert.

I need to admit that the inspiration for the fish and for the salad recipes was from one of my aunts. During holidays when my family congregates in Springfield Mass, we often have lunches at my aunt's and we have wonderful dairy/fish dishes there. The salmon and salad both are very similar to things which we often have there. I'm sure that the recipes which I have eaten there will continue to influence much of my cooking.

The food turned out well, and the time of it was just right. People came a little late, and the fish finished just as they were coming. We moved everything up to the roof of the apartment building, where there was a beautiful table and a bunch of chairs (most of which were dry). The lighting was a little tricky, but we managed to use to lanterns to cast just enough light to see what you were eating. I was happy with the way the food tasted. The salmon was cooked well, but not dry (in fact it was quiet juicy) and the sauce went well with it. A friend of mine mistakenly thought the sauce for the salmon was a dressing for the salad, causing her some confusion and discomfort (I don't think the mix of spinach salad and sour cream sauce is all that good). The potatoes had a nice skin and the rosemary had infused them with a nice flavor. In all I was happy about the outcome of the food.

And the best part of the whole night was that when everything was done and people were ready to leave, I was able to leave too! Having done the cooking I was spared the work of clean up. All of the good and fun of cooking, and none of the wrinkled hands of washing dishes and cleaning up. This is definitely the way to do dinner parties.

Middle Eastern party

Two days ago (friday) I went to a dinner shindig at my friends' apartment in the upper west side. The theme was middle eastern. My contribution was an eggplant dip (more later about this). The meal was very yummy. We started out with some bread / cut pita and my eggplant dip, as well as a hummus dip which the hosts made (http://www.recipezaar.com/green-herb-hummus-359660). There was also a large chunk of cheese and some really yummy turkish bread a friend brought.
The meal was very well balance --- there was a super yummy Israeli cous cous boiled up with a cinnamon stick for flavor, and then tossed with roasted butternut squash, browned onions, chopped greens, and some nuts and dried fruits (cranberries and raisins). I'd need to say that the cous cous was my favorite dish at the dinner simply because it had really interesting flavors, plus the squash and onions made it a little more substantial than is usual for cous cous. See (http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Israeli-Couscous-with-Roasted-Butternut-Squash-and-Preserved-Lemon-102250) for the recipe.
The other main dish at the dinner was homemade falafel. The host sent me a link to the recipe he used (http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/My-Favorite-Falafel-231755), though he substituted canned for dried chickpeas. These falafel tasted really good --- I think that the red pepper gave them a nice kick, plus the herbs in them did a nice job cutting down on any oily taste. I think it would be worth trying it with the dried and then soaked chickpeas, and also aiming for a less pureed and more grainy consistency pre-frying. Still, the falafel were packed with flavor and went really well with all of the different sauces which were made to accompany them.
As far as the sauces are concerned, there was a traditional tahini, a tzadziki sauce, a hot pepper sauce and a mint chutney (slightly less traditional this was originally intended for some lamb which was eventually deleted from the menu --- thus leaving everything on the menu eatable for me).
To accompany all of this was a nice spinach, goat cheese, and pine nut salad.

Now, my one contribution was this eggplant dip. I had a lot of fun making it, since it was the first time I really ever successfully used an eggplant. That said, it was my second time trying. My first time was at a BBQ with some NYU friends about two months ago. Someone brought an eggplant, and everyone thought I would know what to do with it. I had no clue, but I pretended to know, so I chopped it into a some slices and threw it on the grill with some salt and pepper. This did not work so well and I eventually denied all connections with the alleged eggplant.

Well, this time I consulted the collective knowledge base of the peoples of this fair planet and the internet told me I should roast it over my stoves gas flame. I actually had two eggplants, so I lined two burners with foil and using some long tongs, I placed both of the eggplants on top of the flames. At first nothing seemed to be happening, but eventually the skin began to peel and the eggplant got softer. Every few minutes I turned them some so that eventually all of the skin was peeling and charred. I'd say I spent about 15 minutes roasting, though they could have even stood for a little more time (the inside of the bigger one was not entirely soft). It was good that I used some foil, though still there was plenty of clean up to do on my stove top from the liquid which had seeped out of the eggplant.

From the fire to a bowl for about 10 minutes went the eggplant. After they had cooled some I pulled off the skin, cut them in half and tossed them with ample kosher salt, and then let them drain off excess liquid in a metal colander. When all was said and done, I mushed them (seeds and all) together into a large bowl and then added a few cloves of garlic finely diced, a few large splashes of olive oil, some squeezes of a lemon, some more salt and some freshly ground pepper. The result was really yummy. The flame roasting of the eggplant really did give it a nice smokey flavor. The two eggplants made enough dip to fill a medium sized pickle jar (not the large one, but one maybe 6 inches high and 4 inches in diameter. Oh, and just to be safe and not give anyone botulism, I even blanched the garlic for 30 seconds in boiling water (and the iced it). I've seen that if you put raw garlic in an oily environment, it is possible to develop botulism (which can kill).

My canada trips

After an extended hiatus of traveling, I am back (for a week before more traveling). I would have written something while traveling, except my entries would have read something like this: Today (and the past three days) I had a wonderful dinner of smoked and spiced Mackerel eaten on slightly stale french bread with a bowl of fresh spinach, a handful of baby carrots, and an ample serving of BBQ potato chips for that extra little umphf.

Well, at least that would have been my entry from my last week in Montreal. I was attending a week long math conference at CRM at University of Montreal. It was a very nice conference. I generally enjoyed Montreal, but I do have one major bone to pick with the city. The day after the conference ended, I had a chance to explore the city. I brought with me some fixins for a sandwich, and figured I would make a purchase of a baguette in the city (I was staying on the other side of the eponymous mountain). I assumed, since there were two nice bakeries near my apartment, that there would be a similar or great number of bakeries in the city. Yet, in three hours of wandering the streets of the city, I came upon ZERO. Dejected I resorted to eating the sandwich fillings without any bread. Later in the day I did make my way to an outer region of the city where I knew there were bakeries, and I made a bread purchase --- but come'on??? And they call themselves a french speaking regions??

My first summer trip to Canada was about three weeks ago and was to Toronto (via North Carolina). There I stayed with my mom's cousin and his family --- which was awesome. It has been many years since I have had my lunch packed for me, but my mom's cousin's wife was super nice and packed me a lunch every day to take into the University of Toronto (where I was working on some math). Each day I was surprised by a new goody -- a chocolate granola bar, a jello and various other yummy things I haven't had in a long time. And if the lunch's were not enough, every day when I got back to their house, she had an awesome meat dinner ready. I definitely eat better there than I have in years.

Anyhoo... I'm back now. I'm planning on making a bunch of blintzs this weekend for Shavuot and will certainly post on that. Next weekend I'm going to LA for a wedding with food which promises to be very yummy.

Tangy Dal

The past few weeks / months I've been working pretty hard to study for two oral exams for my Ph.D. program in Math, which will be held tomorrow. As such (and due to passover) I've been pretty lax about posting and cooking. However, I did manage to make a nice dal a few days ago which I figure I will share (I think I'm done with studying and now I get to relax). I call this a tangy dal since the key flavors enhancing the dal are ginger, tomato paste and a little apple cider vinegar (plus some brown sugar). I decided to try to make something tangy since I remember my old roommate's girlfriend telling me that in Bangladesh cuisine, curries and dals are often tangy, and this sounded interesting to me.
The dal I chose to use was Mong Dal. Its a very small whole lentil which results in a pretty thick consistency when fully cooked. I soaked a cup or so of these over-night. The next day I heated some oil in a pot and added a few bay leaves, and some finely diced dried hot pepper (often people use this whole, but I decided to experiment with dicing it this time), plus half a stick of cinnamon and a few cloves. After about a minute and once the bay leaves began to brown (not burn) I added in some mustard seeds and some cumin seeds and gave them about a minute also. When the mustard seeds started to pop (and when I managed to finish dicing a large onion and some garlic) in when the onion and garlic. Mostly out of forgetfulness, but did not add any ginger at this point. However, in retrospect, my later method in including the ginger worked well, so I might just go with that again in the future.

Once the onions got translucent I cleared a spot on the bottom of the pot and add a little more oil and then the drained dal. The idea was to roast them a little (but it didn't see to work since they were pretty water-logged). I'm not really sure how much water I ended up using, but I would need to guess over two cups. The key was to make sure that the lentils didn't burn on the bottom. After cooking for about an hour and a half, the dal separated and became a thick sauce.

It was also at about this point when I remembered that I should have used some ginger. The difference between a bad dal and a good dal comes in the last minute of cooking. There is only so much flavor which can be imparted to a dal which cooks for about two hours. Solid spices work --- powder spices lose their flavor over the long cooking time. The way to spice dal is, in the end, to add an oil and tomato based spice sauce to the dal. I had run out of onion, or else I would have used some in this, but what I ended up doing is dicing some garlic, and ginger. Then I heated up about two tablespoons of oil, and added some garam masala powder plus a little curry powder to the oil and after a few second of sizzling I added the ginger and garlic. I gave it just enough time for the garlic to begin to brown, before I added in a little over half a can of tomato paste, and mixed this together thoroughly. This mixture then went into my dal and got mixed until well distributed. The final touch was a little brown sugar and a few dashes of apple cider vinegar. The spice level was a little high, so I added a few spoonfuls of yogurt directly into the pot and mixed it up.

This dal keeps for a long time, and can be microwaved in two minutes for a great meal. I had bought a loaf of rye bread from the Jewish bakery nearby, so I used toasted slices of the bread to dip into the dal (though more traditional Indian breads probably work well too).

I think that the tangyness worked well with this type of lentil, though I'm not sure why.

Good points to remember with dal is that a little acid after cooking works well. People often squeeze some lemon into the dal -- I didn't have lemon so I used some vinegar (just a little). Also remember to only use solid spices during the cooking, and afterwards to include the powder spices in the form of a tomato/oil mixture. Also make sure the lentils are fully broken down before adding this mix.

Master Chef NYU Premiere, April 13th, 6pm

Here is the advertisement for the Master Chef NYU Premiere:

The Master Chef Premiere and Smart Cooking Expo is on Monday, April 13 in the Palladium Multi-purpose room from 6-8pm.
You can:
* Taste the Winning Team's 3-course dinner
* Meet with the SHC Dietitian and the Peer Health Awareness Team peer educators to have your healthful eating questions answered
* Enjoy a refreshing fruit Smoothie
* Watch the competition unfold and see who wins during the screening of Master Chef 2009 an NYU-TV production.

I will be there (not eating anything due to passover). Let me know if you want to come and I can make sure we all find our way there together. I imagine that I'll be second most featured in the video they make, plus you'll get to see me receive my prize.

Big pot of food

Every once in a while I make a large quantity of food, enjoy it for a few days, and then get sick of eating it. I am not one to waste, so I instead improvise and create a big pot of food, including this previously made dish, with a variety of other food stuff, so as to change the flavor enough so I can resume enjoying the content. A little while back I made a very nice black beans dish which, after realizing that eating any non-trivial amount caused excess expulsion of gas, I abandoned eating. On Wednesday I resolved to turn this fart food into something I could eat safely (by amply diluting the beans with other material). Thus was born my most recent big pot of food.

Most people, I imagine, have the experience of food accruing in the fridge, without any clear destination. In addition to my black beans, I had some odds and ends of vegetables, an old cheese rind, and two Yuenging Light beers (I mistakenly bought these rather than regular ones and immediately regretted it). The key rule in this game is to cook stuff for a while and too be careful about overloading with flavors. When I started out I was unsure whether I was making a soup or what. After chopping the veggies and adding the beer, plus a little cider and cider vinegar, I determined that make this a full meal in its self. So I added some pearl barley and threw in the cheese rind.

A thought crossed my mind, somewhere after the cheese rind began to cook into the mixture -- if I made a soup, how would I be able to bring it to my office? I have never invested in a soup carrying device, so this would be utterly impossible. What happened next, I can not alone take credit for --- I am but acting as any one would who stands on the shoulders of food giants. I decided that to both thicken up the mixture and to improve the nutrients, I would add an ample amount of oatmeal and cook it until the oatmeal was totally broken down. The result was thick enough to be stored and brought to NYU. The oatmeal made for a really nice thick sauce which carried the flavors quiet well.

I will need to keep this in mind as a good way to thicken a soup (just be sure to cook it enough that it fully breaks apart).

Quinoa kosher for passover

I learned this nice fact yesterday. Evidently since the grain was not known in the olden times, it is not prohibited. This might make things a little easier this year. Last year I used my passover crockpot for chicken soup for 6 days straight. This year, probably the same, but maybe I'll add some quinoa to make things a little more healthy. I've actually never cooked with the grain before, so it will be a nice learning experience.

Second place is not bad

So I came in second in the NYU Master Chef competition. The other team did a phenomenal job with their dishes and I believe squarely beat me. My food was praised too, though I think my first dish (the dal) was perhaps a little too spicy (which is often my problem with Indian food). I'm very happy to have competed and am looking forward to seeing the video which they will show of the competition. If anyone wants to come the video showing will likely be April 13th at the Kimmel center in NYU. I'm sure I will show up on the video a good amount, so it might be fun.
Anyway, I'll need a few days to decompress after the cooking marathon today, but I should be back at it posting in the not distant future.

I won't get fooled again

George W Bush once said: Fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again. We'll I've been fooled two times about beans at a Mexican restaurant (and maybe more times unwittingly). When I was visiting in San Antonio I ate at a nice Tex-Mex restaurant and midway through eating the beans I noticed a small piece of something which didn't look quiet like onion and didn't have the right consistency to be carrot. It was pale and thinly slices without much flavor. It took me a little to realize (or perhaps I quickly realized and it took me a while to admit) that the piece was some sort of animal flavoring with which the beans had been cooked. Needless to say I stopped eating those beans and felt kind of bad about myself. After all, I purport to eat kosher, or at least vegetarian when out and this was in clear opposition of that claim.

This past week I was fooled again. I was spending the week in Salt Lake City Utah for dual purposes of skiing and attending a math conference at the University of Utah. One of the evening of the conference a bunch of us got together and hunted for a famous Mexican joint called Red Iguana. After wandering we eventually found the place, and despite the scores of people waiting outside, eventually got in and ordered. I picked chili rellenos. Like most Mexican restaurants, they were served with ample rice and beans. The beans, however, had a taste which after two spoonfuls was very easy to place. Chicken stock or chicken fat permeated the otherwise wonderful beans. WHY???? I had even ordered the dish on the vegetarian section of the menu.

What I have come to realize is that it is often easy to find a main dish which is purely vegetarian, however the trickier points are when the restaurant gives you side dishes (often without telling you exactly what they will be). This happened to me a few weeks back when I went out with my brother to a sushi place and got a salmon bento box. Little did I know that the box would be accompanied by chicken wings and some sort of shrimp dumpling. Most people would take this as a gift, but for me it was just a waist (they ended up going to my brother's dog).

Unfortunately I can not expect to be able to eat out completely vegetarianly without ever encountering meat or meat flavoring. Risotto, rice, beans, salads, soups all will occasionally come with some sort of meat or meat flavorings. Even if I am super paranoid, I may not always catch this. I can not have things both ways --- I can not expect to be wholly kosher while still eating out.

In any case, I decided today, that because I did not get to eat those beans in Utah, I would make some black beans of my own. So last night I set soaking a pound of little black beans. By morning they had roughly tripled in size and absorbed the whole thing of water. These beans take much longer to cook than larger beans and even after about 2.5 hours of cooking, there are a few that are still a little tough. The aim of this dish was to have a thick mixture of black beans in a sauce mostly composed of black bean's which had burst open. I made a few untraditional choices in flavor which give this dish a kind of tart and also slightly sweet taste.





Recipe:
1 lb dried black beans (soaked over night in lots of water)
3 bay leaves
3 dried red peppers
1 jar salsa
1 carrot
1 large sweet potato
1 large head of garlic
2 onions
cumin powder
paprika
mustard powder
salt / pepper
beer / vinegar / apple cider / wine

Dice the garlic and onions and cook with some canola oil with three bay leaves and dried red peppers. After about 5 minutes add in the carrot and sweet potato and cook for a few minutes. Add in the beans, their water and a jar of salsa. Cook until some of the water has cooked off then add in cumin, paprika, mustard powder, salt, pepper and any other powdered spices you desire. Also, start to add in some beer or vinegar or cider or wine to replenish the liquid. I used all four and it made the sauce very interesting. Make sure that there is always ample liquid. It will take about 2 hours for the sauce to get nice and thick. The target is to have a thick bean sauce with a number of well cooked black beans floating around in it. Be careful - the bottom of the pan may burn if you do not stir it every once in a while.

Master Chef finals menu

I needed to submit my menu for the finals for the nyu master chef today. I've included it below. In other news, I'm at a conference in Salt Lake City, and after eating out for a few days straight i have reaffirmed my many reasons to seldom eat out and if i do to be very selective in my choice of venue. Anyway, here's the menu and recipe.

1. (Kheer - rice pudding; 1 sauce pan, 1 wide pan, 1 cast iron pan) Boil ½ cup rice and one cup water in sauce pan. Simmer 3 cups almond milk with whole cardamom pods and ¼ cup coconut milk in wide pan. Before adding basmati rice, remove the cardamom pods. When rice has cooked for about 15 minutes add into the almond milk and simmer at low heat. Add 1/3 cup brown sugar, 1.5 tsp vanilla extract, cardamom powder. Near the end of cooking heat oil in cast iron pan and add crushed cashews and almond slivers plus more cardamom powder and golden raisins. Add to the pudding. Chill for as long as possible before serving.
2. (Dal porridge; 1 large pan, 1 sauce pan for boiling water) In large pan heat veggie oil and brown cumin seeds. When popping add dry red pepper flakes and two bay leaves. Add in crushed garlic, chopped onion, green chili and ginger. Cook until onion has caramelized a little. Then add 2 diced potato, 1 diced carrot and 1 cup of peas. Spice with salt, pepper, turmeric and red chili powder. After a few minutes clear an area on the bottom of the pan and add a little more oil and then ½ cup of red dal. Roast dal for about two minutes and then add in two cups of pre-boiling water. Cook until it is half cooked and separating then add in ½ cup basmati rice and a little more hot water. Cook on medium heat until dal is fully broken down and rice is cook done. Spice to taste with more salt, turmeric, chili powder, cumin powder and pepper.
3. (Chapatti; large bowl, rolling pin, 1 large cast iron pan) Sift 1 cup of whole wheat flour with a pinch of salt. Mix with 1 Tbs olive oil and 1/4 cup water. Add more flour if dough is too wet. Put aside for 30 minutes. Split into small balls and with some flour, roll until flat. About 10 minutes before serving time, heat medium cast iron and with a little oil brown both sides, but do not cook until fully crisp. Cover before serving.
4. (Curry sauce; 1 deep pan) Heat oil in a deep pan. Add bay leaves and dried red pepper and let sizzle for 30 seconds. Add mustard seeds, sizzle another 30 seconds, then add turmeric, garam masala and crushed cardamom. After about 15 seconds add medium sized pieces of chopped onion and garlic and hot pepper. Cook for a few minutes until onions start to get a little translucent, but not browned. Add in ½ cup peas and 1 chopped carrot and cook until they get a little tender. Meanwhile take 1 large can of unseasoned tomatoes puree and pour into the pan. Cook for 10 minutes or so then add in goat cheese and mix until smooth. Add salt and pepper and any additional spice to taste.
5. (Vegetable kofta; grater, medium bowl, 1 large cast iron pan, draining rack with paper bag) Add 1 cup chickpeas to a large glass bowl with 1 cup goat cheese and 2 eggs and ½ cup crushed cashews. Peel and julienne 1 carrot, 1 zucchini and 1 long hot thai pepper. Mix in with 1 thinly sliced onion and well crushed garlic (4 cloves). Spice with red pepper powder, cumin/ coriander, tumeric, curry powder, and salt/pepper. Then add in a few spoonfuls of chickpea flour to thicken up the mixture. Let sit for a little. Take you favorite cast iron skillet and cover bottom with oil. Heat and then shape into latka like patties (maybe 2-3 inches in diameter) and place into the pan. Let these get browned before flipping and repeating. Occasionally add more oil, and when cooked place them on paper bags for draining.
6. (Cabbage curry; large pan) In a large pan heat oil and add in black mustard seeds and cumin seeds. Roast until popping and then add in crushed garlic, sliced onion and green chili. Then add in ½ cup peas and ½ of a cabbage finely shredded. Add salt and turmeric as well as some garam masala. Cook until cabbage has taken on the color of the turmeric but is still semi-crunchy.

Course 1: In a medium sized bowl spoon out a portion of the dal porridge.
Course 2: On a small side plate put two, freshly cooked, chapatti. On a large plate place three vegetable kofta, covered with curry sauce, and a side of cabbage curry.
Course 3: On a small plate chill a few spoonfuls of kheer.

Lucky for me

I competed today in the semi-finals of the Master Chef NYU competition and to my surprise I did well enough to make it to the finals! As my previous post indicates I made pierogi and borscht, plus a little pastry type dessert. It just so happened that of the three judges, each one of them had a special place in their hearts for both pierogi and borscht, so that worked out pretty well for me. Their comments were very nice, with really no criticisms. I would have made one criticism of my pierogi's though --- I felt that the skin was a little too sticky (which was probably because I cooked them in water I had used to boil potatoes). Otherwise I was very happy with the day. In fact, two of the judges asks to bring home portions of both of my dishes, so I felt really good about that.
That said, I will need to compete again in three weeks in the finals. The challenge is to create a full three course meal, again in only 1 hour of cooking time, but with 30 minutes (instead of 20 minutes) of prep time. My preliminary thoughts are to make an Indian feast! We are afforded one special ingredient, not on the list, and we are allowed to bring in one tool from home. I don't think I'll bring in any time because I don't want to unkosher it by using it along side their tools. For the special tool, maybe I'll use paneer, or if they don't have basmanti rice (they say white rice) I may ask for that. I will also need to look into the types of lentils I can get from them. A menu I've made before which works well is a dal and rice stew, malia kofta type indian patties with a sweet vegi sauce, and cabbage curry. I'm not too crazy about trying to make any sort of bread, though possibly I could find a flat bread which doesn't take that much time to make... probably not though. As far as dessert goes, I could try to make a rice pudding with cardamom and coconut milk.
The competition for the finals looks pretty good. The other team is of two people who both came with their own chef-type uniforms on, and who were both talking about their cooking experience, which seems rather extensive. They made some really good looking meat dish this round. Anyway, I look forward to competing again in three weeks, and for anyone interested, on April 13th there will be a showing of the competition show at the Kimmel center. Win or lose it will still be fun to go and watch.

My dinner menu - a tribute to streechas

I need to submit my dinner menu for the semi-finals of Master Chef NYU by tomorrow at noon. For much of today (basically from 6pm till now, midnight) I've been working on my menu. I'm pretty happy that I spent this time because had I blindly written the menu I can assure you it would have sucked. The theme of the dinner is an early dinner at Streecha's. Streecha's is a Ukrainian eatery which is located near my apartment and is only open Friday through Sunday. I've blogged about it before, but in short it is the best place in Manhatten for fresh pierogi and borscht. So, my menu is exactly that, homemade pierogis and borscht, plus a little desert offering made from the same dough as the pierogis. The dishes are not made to be complex or original, but rather it is my attempt at authenticity -- the simple and enjoyable meal which has been enjoyed for generations before us. In my original plan I also included stuffed cabbage in the mix, but after making a batch I decided it would not work properly in the allotted time. I also tried to make it with brown rice, which I'm pretty sure is a horrible idea.
Pierogi's or Vareniki as they are known in Ukrainian are dough stuffed with potato and onions and boiled. They may also be made stuffed with sauerkraut or just cooked cabbage, or even desert like fillings of cheese and fruit. In my case I decided to go simply with the potato and onion filling, and then to prepare a caramelized onion sauce (really just onions and a little butter cooked until golden) to go on top. My basic dough and filling recipe came from this random web search result (http://home.comcast.net/~dyrgcmn/Pierogi/pierogi.html). To make the dough sift 2.5 cups of flour (a mix of wheat and white would be good) and then add in two tablespoons of sour cream, 1 egg, 1 teaspoon salt and half a cup water. Work this until it sticks into a ball and then put aside for 30 minutes. To make the filling peel chop and boil a few russet potatoes. Meanwhile take a large yellow onion and dice it and then saute it for a while with some butter and oil. Be sure to add a fair amount of salt and pepper too. When the potatoes are done, drain fully and then mash in with the onion to form the filling. To assemble the pierogis roll the dough as thin as possible. Then cut circles the size of a top of a cup. Roll these circles until as thin as possible and fill with a spoonful of filling and wet half of the circumference. Fold one side to the other and make sure not to let any of the filling get onto the seal. These should go into already boiling water for about 10 minutes. When done plate and cover with an ample amount of some more golden onion sauce.
While the pierogis came out pretty well in my first attempt, the borscht needed a lot of work. This is a cabbage and tomato based borscht (no beets). Heat some oil in a deep soup pot and in another pot heat some bouillon to add later. Into the oil goes a significant amount of onion, carrot, celery and potato all very thinly sliced. At this point a bay leave or two would be good as well. Cook this until tender then add in a good portion of very thinly sliced and diced cabbage. Cook this with some salt until it has lost some of its water then add in the bouillon. Also at this point add in some celery salt and a bouquet of herbs including thyme, rosemary, oregano and dill stems. You can also add in a little more cabbage at this point. After a few more minutes add a large can of tomato puree and with only a few minutes before serving, add the juice of one lemon, some brown sugar, and enough balsamic and red wine vinegar to give the borscht a nice tang. Serve in a large bowl and top with ample diced dill.
The final aspect to my meal is a dessert similar in some ways to to rugelach. Use the same dough as for the pierogis and roll a very thin strip about 6 inches wide and 4 inches deep. Make a line of cast iron roasted walnut chunks (crushed pretty well) and raisins and brown sugar and red apple bits. Then roll this up and use a little water to seal the seam. In a cast iron pan lightly pan fry this until both sides are golden in color. Serve warm.
Well, I must admit I have mixed feeling about this menu. It may go over well as authentic and quality flavors, but it may just as well flop for being kind of bland and unimaginative. I'll update on which of these outcomes occurs Friday evening (the contest is from 1pm-4pm this week).

You win some, you lose some

Today I competed in the quarter finals for Master Chef NYU. Unfortunately my summary of this morning's events will be relatively brief since I have suffered a great setback --- I broke my index finger nail. Not all of it, and it doesn't hurt, but when picking up a box of leftovers from today's competition, my soap and water weakened nail (too many dishes to wash) crack on the top leaving a little bit of finger tip exposed. No fun. But, like the title says, you win some and you lose some. This broken nail was my loss. The competition was my win. I will be advancing again to the semi-finals next Friday. I'm happy to have made a well praised dish (the tuna / couscous /coleslaw lunch), however I regret the amount of time it takes to prepare and compete... so many numbers to think about and this is certainly cutting back on my numbers time (I study math). In any case, the competition did go well. The first batch of couscous I made had too much seasoning (I used bouillon and used too much.. so I remade a second batch which came out much better. I think I used a little too much of the spice rub on the fish, but otherwise it was very well received. I know need to conjure up a dinner recipe by Monday at noon for the semi-finals which will be held next Friday. Oy! My first thought is Chinese stirfry with my perfect tofu (see previous blog on the perfect tofu). I'll need to give this some serious thought though, and I'll likely post on Sunday with my ideas.

As a post thought (that is a thought post posting) I do want make clear that doing well in this competition is in many ways no great feat of culinary prowess. I am mostly competing against college students who are far better at cooking than I was then (for instance in the summer before my Junior year I attempted to make apricot chicken and ended up with a horrible mush). In any case, I am confident that if my Mother, sister, sister-in-law, aunts, or Bubbie were to compete in this with me, my best dish would be a rough approximation for their worst dish. Having cast doubt on the culinary abilities of my competitors, I now will likely lose in the next round (hows that for karma).

Possible menu for round 2 of NYU Master Chef

Tomorrow at noon is when I must submit my ingredient list and recipe for the second round of Master Chef NYU, which will be held Friday morning. The recipe must be for a lunch menu, and the meal must be capable of being made by me, with only 20 minutes of prep time, and one hour of cooking time. I thought a fair amount about this yesterday and today I did some recipe experimenting. I am proud to say that I am pretty much settled on the menu which I'll be explaining briefly.
I should note some of the basic ideas on which I am judged:
1. Seasonality of ingredient. There is a lot of focus on using winter ingredients (which works in well with my winter diet).
2. Healthy ingredients. Read: no butter or cream sauces...
3. Presentation and flavor / complexity.

The theme which I am looking for in my lunch menu is a healthy, non-meat take on a NY street lunch. The flavors I focus on can generally be associated with Moroccan cuisine. Cilantro, green onion and parsley figure in as the main greens, and cumin and coriander, as well as cinnamon are the main spices. Lemon provides a tangy acidity to complement and freshen the flavors, while brown sugar adds a mild sweetness. The main dish is marinaded (in a dilute lemon, herb and brown sugar mixture) tuna medallions seared with a Moroccan spice rub and diced greens (cilantro, green onion and parsley). Depending on the quality of the tuna (I'm not sure if its sushi grade) the centers will either be left raw or cooked just enough --- also the amount of marinading time will vary. The spice rub and greens will also serve as the base for a light sauce, which will be mixed with just a little greek yogurt, and served on top of the plated tuna medallions. Under the tuna will go a simple couscous, likely prepared with a vegetable bouillon cube and maybe some raisins and parsley. This will be plated on the right side of a long oval shaped plate. In the middle I will place two lines of pan roasted chickpeas, prepared with ample cumin and a little kosher salt. To the left of this will go a coleslaw of carrot, cabbage and finely sliced onion. The carrot and onion will marinade in the same type of marinade as the tuna (in a different bowl though). With a little time left I'll mix this in with the cabbage and toss with some olive oil. To this I'll add some roasted sliced almonds, and serve.
The portion size will be six tuna medallions (roughly 5 ounces of tuna), about 20 chickpeas, a few spoons of couscous and a few spoons of the coleslaw (after all this is supposed to be lunch). What makes this a lunch menu? To me, this is a healthier, more seasonal take on NY push-cart lunches. I think that using the same types of flavors throughout helps bring out different elements of each spice and herb --- in the tuna you get the highly heated, moist version of cumin and the herbs, while in the sauce things are much lighter and more refreshing. In the chickpeas the flavors are dry and the texture is crunchy, while the coleslaw is again lighter and tangier....(yea, this is a bunch of bs.. but it does still taste good).

Here are the exact recipes.

Marinade (for tuna, for sauce and for coleslaw)
Finely dice cilantro, parsley and green onion. Mix equal parts of lemon juice and water and add enough to cover the greens. Add in a few small lumps of brown sugar plus a little red chili powder.

Spice rub (for tuna, for sauce)
1 part cumin powder and brown sugar
.5 part coriander powder, cinnamon powder, sweet paprika, kosher salt
.25 par onion powder, red chili powder
.1 part (or less) nutmeg
Mix together!

Tuna medallions
This depends on the quality of the tuna (I'm not sure what quality the competition has... in fact I have a vague fear that when they write tuna, they mean canned tuna fish...). If sushi tuna, do not marinade as long and do not cook as long. If not sushi tuna, marinade longer and cook until mostly done.
Slice half inch thick medallions (2" by 1.5" rectangle in the other dimensions) and add to a portion of the marinade. When ready to sear, remove from marinade and brush off the greens. Roll in the spice rub until mostly coated. Then take some of the greens and push onto the top. Heat a cast iron skillet with a little vegetable oil until just about smoking. Sear the greens side down first, cooking variable amounts of time for the grade of the fish. Flip when half cooked and sear the other side, cooking for only a little while. Remove and plate. Serve 6 medallions (about 5 ounces) with the greens side up.

Sauce
Dice green onion bottoms and cook in a little oil until browned. Add in a portion of the spice rub, and then deglaze with some of the marinade. When cooked down, take off heat and add in a little greek yogurt. Mix and let relax. When tuna is plated, place a small dollop on each piece of the fish.

Couscous
Here I assume they are using the fast cooking (pre-steamed) couscous. Dice half and onion and cook until translucent with a little olive oil and a few chopped raisins. Add in a cup of couscous and saute for just a moment before adding in some already hot (but not boiling) vegetable bouillon base. Cook tightly covered on very low heat for 7 minutes and when done, pour into a bowl and mix it with some diced parsley. Plate as the base for the tuna.

Chickpeas
In a cast iron skillet heat some olive oil. Meanwhile drain, wash and dry some chickpeas. Add ample cumin and some kosher salt to the oil when hot, and then add the chickpeas. Cook, every few minutes shaking the pan, until the chickpeas are browned and crisp. Remove from heat and plate two lines of these.

Coleslaw.
Add a fair amount more lemon to a portion of the marinade. Add a few thinly sliced pieces of onion, plus a carrot or two, peeled and coined. Chop a cabbage and add a little kosher salt to draw some water out. Add the carrot, onion and marinade to the cabbage and toss with olive oil. Add some roasted and cooled almond slivers or slices.

Plating
The plate is long oval. The coleslaw goes on the left, with the chickpeas between it the couscous. On the couscous goes the tuna and sauce. Cut a few sprigs of cilantro and parsley and arrange near the chickpeas and in the middle of the couscous.

Thoughts?

NYU Master Chef, Round 1

I competed this morning in the first round of NYU Master Chef. As I mentioned in earlier posts, my menu was composed of blintzs three ways (plain cheese, greens and mushrooms, and caramelized onions and sweet potato). The competition was held in a very nice kitchen classroom in the nutrition department of NYU. I quickly found a small cast iron pan worthy of blintz shell making --- whew! I had 20 minutes to prep (find pots and pans and utensils and chop stuff), and then one hour to cook. Everything went smoothly, and to my surprise I was finished with all of the fillings and making the shells with about 15 minutes to spare. I should have waited for about 10 minutes before frying the blintzs, but instead I cooked them, leaving about 10 minutes for them to sit around and cool off (this is not optimal). I plated six of them (two of each type) on a large plate, with a small plate of sour cream in the center, surrounded by six apple slices. The plate looks pretty good.
After explaining the dish and the idea behind it to the three judges, I left the kitchen to let them deliberate. Returning ten minutes later I proceeded to finish cooking the rest of the blintzs... in case other people wanted to try them.
The judges called the teams together and first gave their opinions of our dishes. Overall they thought mine was delicious. The complemented the use of winter/seasonable ingredients, and thought the flavors worked well. They did complain about the cheese only blintz, saying (as I also agree) that it was too plain and it didn't make that much sense (farmers cheese makes a much better filling). They also thought that something a little snazzier than sour cream could have been the sauce to go with these.
But..... they also told me that I had done well enough to advance to the next round!
That entails coming up with a lunch menu by Monday noon, which I will then need to cook next Friday morning. A blessing and a curse.
I purposely did not think much about this lunch menu, but now I'm going to need to do some good thinking. I'll try to post on my ideas at some point this weekend and get some feedback.

Beets and bubbly things

This past weekend I took a break and relaxed a little. As the weekend draws a close, I'll use my last breath of relaxation to record some food experiences and thoughts of the last week or so.
I would like to begin by updating on my dosa making project. A week and two days ago I made a batch of dosa batter. Over the course of a few days it fermented to a very nice level of tangyness. For the first two days I eat the dosas along with some spinach and potato mixture (not really much to speak about there), however when that ran out I resorted to a rather unconventional, and what I imagine, untraditional accompaniment for a dosa --- smoked salmon. A few months back I had picked up two 8 ounce packages of Springfield Smoked Fish Company smoked salmon. This is the company which makes salmon bacon, and in my estimation, they are the best smoked fish company around. This smoked salmon is cut in strips and even after having been frozen for a few months, was extremely soft and smooth in texture, and rich and creamy in taste. In any case, every morning for the past week or so I have been eating three strips of the smoked salmon along with my dosa. The tangyness of the dosa counters any hint of fishiness from the salmon in a way similar to a splash of lemon juice on a bagel with lox. I imagine that most people who include dosas as a daily meal in their diet would not eat fish, but that does not have to stop me from enjoying it.
Going with the theme of fermentation, I have made it a goal of mine to constantly be fermenting something. At this point this does not include brewing beer (though some day it will), but it does include dosas and cider. A college roommate of mine who is stationed abroad picked up on my love for apple cider during a conversation over the computer. He decided to ship me (not from Japan where he is located) three jugs of apple cider. The cider is very good, though I have decided to spice it up a little. Using the remainder of my previous batch of bubbly, fermenting cider, I created a starter last night began to ferment the first of these new jugs. Already the complexity of the cider has evolved, and it is excellent! Two cheers for bacteria.

Changing gears a little, while my parents were visiting, we stopped off in Chinatown. I tried not to buy too many non-winter items (I have been good about this for the past two months or so), though I did make some non-seasonal purchases. One of these was a pound of cilantro. The problem with cilantro is that it goes bad very quickly and can not effectively be frozen or dried. One use which I tried tonight was to mix (after blending it) in which some of the dosa batter. This tasted alright, but I probably won't repeat the experiment. The other use was as part of a jellied beet and ginger (I also bough 2 pound of ginger) dish I made. Too often my ginger goes bad before I can finish it, so this time around I decided to skin and freeze almost all of the ginger. In the process of preparing the ginger for freeze I ended up with a number of little pieces of ginger, which would not last in the fridge for long and which were not worth freezing. They say necessity is the mother of invention and tonight was no exception. I have a few cans of beets which I've been meaning to use, so I decided to make a ginger and beet mixture and to try to gel it up with some agar-agar and some cornstarch. I started by finely dicing a few chunks of ginger, along with a few cloves of garlic and half of a jalapeno pepper. Then I chopped and finely grated some carrot (I did both for some odd reason), along with some orange and grapefruit zest. This all got sauted in some olive oil for a few minutes while I opened a can of beets. I removed the beets, and poured the juice into the pan, and also added a cup or so of my fermenting apple cider and a little sugar. Meanwhile I boiled a little water and added what I thought would be enough agar-agar to gel up my mixture. I chopped the beets into slices and threw them into the mixture which had been sauteing. When the agar-agar was dissolved this went in with everything else, and finally, fearing that I had not used enough agar-agar, I added some corn starch. I poured the mixture on a cookie sheet and carefully moved it to a flat surface to cool. A little while ago I moved this to the fridge. The mixture seems to have gelled pretty well. I'm not sure if it will hold up under cutting that well though (it seems to break pretty easily). The flavor is pretty nice, with a nice spicy kick from both the pepper and ginger. I'm not sure what to eat it along with, though I could imagine having it served with some very thinly julienned carrots and maybe some alfalfa sprouts and a sweet vinaigrette. We'll see if its worth repeating.

Is fermenting not a winter activity?

Last Sunday I bought a gallon of apple cider. After drinking a few glasses of it (over the course of two days) I decided that it was no where as good as I remembered apple cider being. It was from a farm, and it looked nice and dark, but it just tasted like very sweet apple juice --- no kick. So I decided to leave it out near the window sill (where it was still pretty cold) for a few days. Forgetting about it until Friday, I was very surprised that when I went to open up the plastic jug, I heard a loud hiss of air (CO2 more likely). When I pour the cider, it bubbled and when I tasted it, my taste buds jumped for joy. Just a few days of fermentation (completely uncontrolled) had given me a tangy, slightly hard, cider. The overwhelming sweetness was gone, as the fermentation had surely consumed much of the excess sugar. I think I remember the cider at the right time. Had I left it much longer, it may have become a little too strong, though who knows.
Inspired by my inadvertent success with fermenting cider, I decided to reattempt Dosa making. Months ago I had some difficulty getting the right consistency and right texture to my Dosas. I repeated the same recipe, mixing Urad dal, a little Chana dal, some short grained rice (sushi rice this time) and some Methi or Fenugreek seeds (which made headline recently as being the smell behind a chemical/gas scare in New York a few years ago). I soaked these in water overnight and then blended them to a course pulp in the morning. In the evening I tried to make a Dosa. It came out rather plain and lacked a crunchy texture and contained too much of the original courseness of the ingredients. This evening, after another day of fermentation, I approached the bowl of Dosa batter. The change was marked. It had begun to foam and the course grains had somehow been consumed and changed by the fermentation. The fermentation (though slowed from the cold) had certainly transformed my mixture. A cast iron pan and a little oil quickly yielded my first very successful Dosa. It was crispy but not grainy and the bottom was nicely browned, though the top stayed a little spongy. Still not as good as the Dosa cart, but I have enough batter to experiment for another few days. Who knows, maybe in another day or two, the batter will have evolved further. Though, I had refrigerated the batter since there is a lot left.

A loss of New York life

My sister just sent me an obituary for Joe Ades, a man whom many referred to (or knew as) the peeler man. For the last year and a half I have been a big promoter of the vegetable peeler which Joe sold to me on the upper west corner of Union Square park. On nice days, when I would have some extra time, I would often walk through the greenmarket in the park, and end up watching his demonstrations. In fact, any time I brought friends through Union Square park I would always bring them to watch him. To me, he represented the aspect of New York life which most enthralls me --- that with a critical number of people completely amazing phenomena emerge. I see this every week when I got to Streeka's for perogis, or when I go to Chinatown for their massive outdoor market, or when I go to my neighborhood kosher bakery, or to the Dosa cart, or Ess-a-bagle...
Every time I saw the peeler man he was doing the EXACT same spiel, explaining how his peelers were swiss made, and nothing made in switzerland is cheap, and how the peeler will cut so easily that even your grandmother can easily use it (my Bubbie was in fact impressed by the peeler I brought over Thanksgiving to give to my Mom).
A few months back I bought a few peelers to give as gifts. I have two left now, and I think, given that I may never have a way to get these again, that I will keep them both.
I really do feel that New York has lost one of its great characters, not to mention an excellent provider of entertainment, and peelers (the BEST available --- I really mean it).

For more about Joe read his obituary in the NY Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/03/nyregion/03ades.html?emc=eta1)
To see a video of Joe check out this link (thanks Kari) http://newyork.seriouseats.com/2009/02/video-legendary-nyc-vegetable-peeler-guy-salesman-joe-ades-dies.html

Superbowl party

I had some friends from grad school over tonight to watch the superbowl. Since I've been rather busy (and since I ate the same food I cooked a week ago, all of last week), this was my first time in a while to be a little creative kitchen-wise. The spread I put out was pretty simple, and some of my friends brought some chips etc to compliment it. One dish which a friend from Turkey brought was particularly good -- it was bulgar prepared with some spices (cumin in particular), chopped parsley, chopped green onion, tomato paste and chopped tomatoes. I imagine there was some olive oil drizzled into it too. This was certainly my favorite dish and lucky for me there was some left over!
As far as my contributions, I put out some chopped carrots and red peppers accompanied by a homemade sour-cream and onion dip. I also made some cast iron fried potato chips, which people seemed to like.
The potato chips were really easy. Just chop slices about a quarter inch thick and cook in a little oil until each side is starting to brown. Then put on paper towel, and try to get any excess oil off. Don't add salt or seasonings until right before serving.
The dip was equally easy. I diced two onions and caramelized them until very sweet. I let this cool and then added it in with a container or so of sour cream (left over from my Hanukkah party), plus some chopped green onion, garlic powder, dried parsley and dill, and a little salt. Mixed together this was popular for the vegis and the chips.
So, even though the Giants did not play this year, I still had a good superbowl.

A Spinach Pie out of Necessity

I read very little when it comes to cookbooks. In fact, aside from the cookbook my Bubbie (grandmother) gave me a few years back, I only look at pictures in cookbooks. I think this is mostly because I don't like following written directions. After reading (yes, I do read other things) an article in the the New York Times a few days ago about a cook book called Cookwise (Corriher), I decided to give that book a shot. This book piqued my interest because it was described as attempting to explain the purpose or techniques and ingredients in cooking --- think "Good Eats", but in book form.

The first section I started into was about the role of fat in making pie crust. With my new oven and its controllable temperature, I felt inspired to learn a little about baking and pie making. After reading that the key to pie crust is a 1:3 ratio of flour to fat, I decided that there were more reasons than just a lack of temperature control, not to bake pie! If I were to make a pie with a top and bottom crust, I would probably need a stick of butter, or lard (which I don't use) or Crisco. Oil, a slightly better fat, supposedly yields bad crust. So much for pie.

Well, maybe not. As I read on I had an epiphany. I realized a way to make pie crust with very minimal fat, while maintaining all of the desired properties. Or at least in theory... For the past two days I have been doing some initial experiments into my new crust making method. My first attempt did not employ the exact ingredients I theorized were necessary, and hence yielded an inferior crust. Today, I had some initial success. It will take a few more experiments before I know whether my method is actually worthwhile. As a control I will need to try to make a full fat crust and see if I can even make that successfully (if I can't do that, then my experiment is not too meaningful). In any case, at this point I am keeping my new crust technique under lock and key.





One of the positive side effects of making lots of pie crust is that I needed to make some pies. I've never made a pie before, and I don't have much as far as fruit in the apartment right now, so I decided to make a savory quiche type pie with spinach, onion, egg, feta and a little mozzarella. I baked the bottom crust blind (that is, I shaped it and put foil on it covered with dried beans for weight and cooked for 15 minutes). Meanwhile I sliced a large onion and sauted it with some pepper flakes and sage. When it started to caramelize I added a package of spinach and cooked this until a fair amount of its moisture had boiled off. This mixture when onto the cooked pie bottom. Onto this I sprinkled some small chunks of feta and mozzarella cheese, and then spread out two well beaten eggs. The top crust just sat on this (no precooking). This went into the oven at about 400 for about 20 (or until the top crust started to brown a little). It turned out pretty good and the crust, though not everything a crust should be, work well for this savory pie.

Master Chef NYU

Yay! I got accepted to compete in Master Chef NYU. The preliminary round for me is February 13. I am going to make Blintz's three ways: Traditional farmers cheese, savory mushroom and dark greens, and creamy sweet potato, caramelized onion and goat cheese. I have twenty minutes to prep and one hour to cook. I will need to have a few practice runs before the actual competition. That means that I will invite friends over and time myself at making this meal for them. Well, this is just an update and I don't have much more to say about it now, but I will post again when I have done my first practice run through. Also, if I pass the first round, I will need to design some new recipes, and may bounce ideas off people using the blog.

A new stove, and my winter diet

Upon returning from Texas I was greeted with the best present a man in his 20s can receive --- a new oven and range. It looked almost the same as my old one, however, this new GE (YAY!) stove is a million times better. Firstly, it has four working burners. Also the dials for the burners are clearly labeled and are not sticky. This means that I can smoothly control the intensity of the flame --- something which previously required great luck and hand strength. Perhaps the biggest change however is that the oven has actual temperature control. If I set it to 400, the gas will go until it gets to about 400, then it will turn off/on as necessary to maintain the right temperature. My previous oven had two temperature settings: On and as hot as ovenly possibly; and on without a flame, filling the room with gas. I appreciate the new settings available to me. Its also pretty and clean (for the moment).

Having a working oven is going to open up the whole new world of baking to me. This is slightly unfortunate because I really suck at baking. I am unable to carefully follow the directions, resulting in pretty bad products. Still, the moderate temperature oven was very convenient for making granola last night.

The other thing I wanted to address in this post is my winter diet (just what I'm eating, not my attempt to lose any weight). Yesterday I walked down to Chinatown to make my monthly (in fact is been about two months since my last trip) trip to purchase vegetables. I braved the 10 degree weather and wind and walked the mile or so with my hiking backpack tightly hung from my back. Just before my outside marketplace came into view a scary thought crossed my mind --- what if there was no market today? What if it was too cold, or if the vegis had all frozen? I resolved that if this was the case, I would buy a lot of frozen cabbage and make sauerkraut (or, as my aunt pointed out, I could use the frozen cabbage to make stuff cabbage). Upon actually reaching the marketplace, my worst fears turned out to be bested. Where there were usually ten stalls, there were only two; one of the stalls was essentially just oranges; and the one reasonable stall had a line of about a hundred people.

After just a few minutes in that line I had a realization: Why should I expect to be able to make the same purchases of fruits and vegis in the middle of January as I do in the other seasons? It is true that basically any fruit or vegetable is available year round (for the right price) but this doesn't mean that I should eat them year round. Eating foods which need to be grown in other continents due to the season is pretty wasteful (or at least I think it is). So I realized that in the winter I should try to eat more traditional winter food.

This realization actually had been percolating for a few days before surfacing. In fact, over the two days before my Chinatown trip, I had made a number of large purchases of winter food. At Trader Joes I purchased about ten pounds of dried fruit and twenty pounds of dried nuts. At the Associated market I bought about twenty five pounds of dried beans, plus a few pounds of oatmeal and some canned beets for what will be my first attempt at Borscht (stay tuned to a later post once I've done this). At the Indian store I bought some new bulgar and quinoa to complement my store house of rice and grains. At the MET market I bought a number of boxes of frozen kale (for soups).

My winter diet will mostly draw on those things which can be dried, canned, or frozen. In addition I'll use tubers and root vegetables. But I'm really going to shy away from foods which are not easily grown or stored during the winter. This is partially precipitated by the cost of these non-winter foods, but also due to my interest in exploring winter foods. Only recently have I begun making my own soup. I want to try to learn some new soups (probably from my mother). I want to work on baking, maybe make some nut/grain breads. I'm not sure how strictly I will be able to follow this diet. Luckily I seldom go shopping for single ingredients, so since I don't have any non-winter food in my apartment, I can't imagine I will make much with it. Maybe... I will even get into cooking with dried or salted fish... When in Chinatown I was very tempted to buy a large salted Mackerel. Perhaps this diet will open up new (cost/energy-effective) types of cuisine to me.

Any advice on winter meals?

If Rubashnik meat is kosher, why can't Jews hunt?

A warning for those faint of heart not to read on. However, if you are faint of heart and eat meat, I would encourage you to read on in any case.

I got back from Texas two days ago fully reminded of what I consider the biggest flaw with the laws of Kashrut (the kosher laws in Judaism). Jewish dietary law concerns itself to a very large extend with restrictions about what meat can be consumed and how it should be killed / prepared. The intent of many of these laws is to keep sacred the life and death of an animal. The process of killing an animal must be careful and under strict supervision to assure that the animal's death is according to ritual.

I wholly agree with the principle that an animal's life is sacred and that if it must be killed for food and clothing, then its death should be sacred as well. So in that way I agree with the laws of Kashrut. However two contractions in the kosher laws have become apparent to me recently: The horrible treatment of animals and humans by the Rubashnik's; and the fact that hunting is not kosher.

To first address the question of hunting, I must include some person experience. I have visited my girlfriend's family in Texas twice and both times I have had extensive discussions about hunting with her father, an avid hunter. He has not (save at family occasions) eaten bought food for the last thirty years (basically since returning from his air-force service overseas). He grew up in North Dakota hunting for food and has been doing it ever since. Every year he kills about two or three deer, as well as a few scores of birds, and an occasional wild hog. This constitutes all of the meat he eats. He is an excellent shot, and on the rare occasion that his bullet does not immediately kill the target animal, he tirelessly hunts down the dieing animal and finishes it off. An animal which has been wounded like that has meat which is rendered rather distasteful by stress hormones, yet he will still butcher and eat that animal because it is not fair to waste its meat.

I have a great deal of respect for this try of subsistence hunting. An animal which he kills lives its entire life free, roaming the hills near his ranch. Then, when fully grown, it is killed in a swift manner, and immediately butchered (see photo).

The meat is free from antibiotics and very low in fat. In fact, animals in the wild tend not to have any fat within the muscles (they have it between and around muscles) as opposed to farmed animals. On my most recent visit I was offered the opportunity to consume some of the hunted deer, as well as to go hunting. I declined both offers, though reluctantly, because of issues of Kashrut.

The argument often made in Judaism against hunting is that because the death of an animal is sacred, one should not take sport in killing it, such as with hunting. Furthermore, it is emphasized that the only hunters in the bible are characters such as Esau and Nimrod, both rather unsavory. From a technical stand point kosher hunting is impossible simply because you must kill an animal in a very particular manner (slit its throat), which can not be done with a wild animal such as a deer.

I can accept the historic prohibition against hunting, since I imagine that methods of hunting used to be much more brutal thousands of years ago. I do not imagine, though, that many people engaged in sport hunting at the time of Moses. In fact, aside from food and clothing, animals were widely used for sacrifice. So perhaps, like many other laws in Judaism, the laws about animal slaughter were to make sure that methods of killing were distinct from those of non-Jewish sacrifice.

Times change and guns get better. I have fired very few guns, but with the help of an excellently calibrated rifle and a high powered scope, I was able to hit the bulls-eye on a target 50 yards away a number of times.


Therefore, if I want to sanctify the life and death of an animal, how better to do that than to hunt it? Of course you must take great care in being extremely prepared in killing and butchering the animal (if you rupture the stomach of a deer while eviscerating it, the HCl in the stomach renders much of the meat unpalatable), plus you must make complete use of its meat and hide.

Its true that allowing Jews to hunt would not create the artificial separation between Jews and non-Jewish ways, and would do away with some of the ritual aspects to kosher killing. However, my second topic really makes you wonder if that is such a bad thing. About a year ago news broke about certain practices going on at the Pottsville Iowa factories of Aaron Rubashnik's eponymous line of meat produces. More has come out since then and as things stand, the major practices which have been exposed are: Inhumane (and in some cases unkosher) treatment of animals; illegal and abusive worker practices; and an overall high level of complacency by Jewish authorities in the Rubashnik practices.

To see some of the kosher practices just go to youtube.com and search for "agriprocessor slaughterhouse". Watching a few of the videos really makes you wonder whether there is anything at all to the claim that kosher killing, in practice, is about sanctifying the animal's life and death. These animals live in feedlots, are fed corn rather than grass (as they evolved to eat) and become grossly overweight to the point that they have difficulty moving freely. When it comes time for their slaughtering, they are brutally flipped upside down by a machine and then their throat is cut. The machine then lets their body roll out onto the ground into pools of blood from that animal as well as other previously slaughtered animals.

Many of the workers at the Agripro slaughterhouse were mistreated plus many workers were illegally working in the US and others were to young to legally work at a slaughterhouse. Lastly, all of the religious authorities responsible for oversight of this plant were blind to the practices which were going on within.

I will not get into the ethical issues which this case brings up (my uncle spoke about this a week ago to the Society for Jewish Ethics), however I really can not see any legitimacy left in the actual practical application of the Jew laws of Kashrut with respect to killing animals. How can you claim to sanctify an animal's life and death if you deprive it of its freedom, its natural nourishment, and then you kill it in an manner which anything less than the most humane method? Moreover, how can you trust an establishment to certify your meat as kosher, if is was so ready and willing to turn a blind eye to practices occurring at the Agripro plant?

It seems like hunting, and if that is not possible, free range slaughtering, is the only real way to observe the spirit of Kashrut. It is true that meat killed in this manner would be harder to come by and more expensive. However if you really want to sanctify an animal's life and death, you should probably just let it occur naturally --- that is, don't eat meat.

As I've been considering these ideas I have progressively cutback on my consumption of meat and poultry. I eat red meat about once every three months, and chicken or turkey maybe once every week or two. I am not ready to give up animal flesh entirely. Still, I would much prefer to be eating hunted meat on those occasions that I do consume it. I would know that the animal had a better life and death than the kosher steak I could otherwise buy.