Baba Ganoush Update

Just made a batch without the Tahini and I must say I like it a lot. So you can save some $$'s and skip the Tahini.

Better than Hummus -- Baba Ganoush!

I love Hummus but it has legumes which I think aren't so great for me. During my Hummus period my arthritis really flared up. So I went off in search of something more Paleo and someone recommended Baba Ganoush. It has all the same ingredients but is made with eggplant instead of chickpeas.

Here's my latest recipe:

1 - 1.5 # Eggplant
Tahini (5 Tbls or to taste)
Lemon Juice (1/8 - 1/4 cup)
1/2 tsp citric acid (optional but really good!)
2 regular sized cloves of garlic
Salt -- to taste

You can optionally peel your eggplant first and de-seed it if you want. Depends how much work you want to do. I suppose it is slightly more attractive, paler color, without the skin. But I suspect there are a lot of good nutrients in that deep purple skin. I leave the seeds in and the skin on generally. But I like to minimize my time spent cooking.

Slice the eggplant into circles. 1/4 inch to 1/2 inch thick. Roast the eggplant for about 30 minutes in a 300 degree oven or until slightly browned. Turn once during that time.

Put the roasted eggplant into your food processor and process until pretty much a paste. Add the other ingredients tasting as you go.

You can use this in place of the Hummus in the Avocado/Hummus Omelet recipe I posted recently.

First time I made this I used 2 giant garlic cloves and that was too much. This time I cut it down to one giant sized clove and I think that would be about 2 normal sized cloves. I love garlic but I prefer the lemon and tartness to shine through a bit more than the garlic.

One of these times I'm going to try this without the tahini. I actually don't like the taste of tahini plain, so I'm wondering if it really is adding anything to the Baba.

I never would have thought of adding citric acid (which comes from lemons) but it really does give it a nice flavor than just lemon juice alone. The video for Hummus from Dedemed.com suggested using citric acid. I found citric acid in bulk at the local Henry's (health food store). You can also buy it from Wine making supply stores, or online.

Hummus Avocado Omelet

Straying a little away from Paleo, legumes not being allowed, I have a luscious new treat.
Makes one generous omelet which keeps me full for 4-5 hours.

Ingredients

Ingredients
2 Large eggs
Fish Sauce (or Soy... but recommend Fish sauce)
1.5 - 2.0 oz of Hummus (whatever brand you love)
1/2 Avocado
[Optional] Spring onions or green onions, something mildly onion-y

Step 1:

Crack the eggs into a bowl and whisk briskly with a fork. Add a little fish sauce (1-2 tsp) and add about 2 tblsp of water. This thins down the omelet so it'll spread out wide, like a crepe.

Cooking

Step 2:

Heat some oil in a pan and let it get nice and hot. Pour in your egg mixture and let it spread out and entirely cover the bottom of the pan. Let it cook and set. I usually gently push the cooked part back and let the uncooked part flow through. Once it gets mostly set I flip it (over something easy to clean in case I miss my flip).

Assembly Required

Step 3:

Carefully slide the omelet out of the pan onto a waiting dinner plate. Put the hummus in the middle of the omelet/egg-crepe and then dice up your avocado and add it. Sprinkle with mild, sweet onions. Wrap the sides of the innards and enjoy!

Ready to Eat

Fish or Soy Sauce?

I have to say that fish sauce is vastly better for this than soy. I think soy would be too over powering and fish sauce works very well with eggs. You can find fish sauce almost anywhere nowadays, in the regular grocery store it should be in with the Asian foods, right next to soy sauce. Or you can buy it in big, vastly cheaper bottles at any decent Asian market.

In Thailand the street vendors there make an omelet similar to my basic egg crepe I make here but sometimes they put peanut sauce on it.

Anyway, in case you're repulsed by the idea of fermented fish let me reassure you it is very mild tasting and you don't really taste the fish at all, just a sort of flavor that should be very familiar to you if you enjoy Thai food... a touch of salt, a bit of umami. It really makes eggs come alive.

Chicken Soup

I got quite sick in the early part of February. It started as a nasty sore throat, the worst I've ever had, then developed into a nasty sinus infection. After suffering for over a week I saw my doctor and got a prescription for antibiotics to attack the sinus infection. I've had issues with clearing sinus infections in the past so I didn't want to go through that again.

Anyway, after I got to feeling better (I felt like a truck hit me) I decided to make some chicken soup. I've never really liked my soups in the past but this one came out just fine. I was still sick so I didn't want to work too hard.

Equal parts Celery, Carrots and Onions, chopped into soup-sized pieces.
Fat for cooking the veggies
Chicken (I pulled left-over rotisserie chicken off the carcass and used that)
Chicken broth -- Store bought, didn't have any made. Enough to cover the veggies and chicken and a bit more.
Herbs ( I used sage, thyme and a little basil)
Garlic: A few cloves either chopped well or pressed.

Optional: I used some left over compound butter (Garlic and Marjoram) to saute my veggies in a second batch of soup I made. This turned out even better!

Cook veggies in fat until they get as soft as you like. I don't like crunch in soup personally. Add chicken. Add stock. Allow to cook at low simmer about 20 minutes. If you use raw chicken that should be fully cooked by then.

This makes a hearty and filling soup!

Asian Marinade (Bulgogi-like)

I've been buying flap meat from Costco. Kind of pricey at 4.99 a pound but it sure is delicious.

I made this marinade which I like to think is inspired by Korean Bulgogi.

1/4 Cup soy sauce (or Wheat free Tamari)
1/4 Cup water
1-2 tsp seasame oil
1 tsp of onion powder
The equivalent of around 2-3 tsp of sweetener (sugar, honey, splenda, whatever)
3-4 cloves of freshly crushed or chopped garlic
6 or so slices of fresh ginger (don't bother chopping or peeling)
Red pepper flakes (to taste)

Put the beef in the bag with the marinade and let it sit for at least a few hours. I usually take my 2-3 pounds of beef and chop it up into 4-5 oz servings and divide the marinade between two bags, along with the meat. Then one goes in the freezer for later. The other, I start using the meat from after it has had a bit of a soak.

I cook this meat about 2 minutes on each side in a pan of the stove top. The marinade will pretty much evaporate so after the meat is done, I add a bit of water to the pan and let some of the water boil off until the marinade is reconstituted. Then I pour it on top of the meat, or perhaps over a vegetable side dish.

Coconut Flour Crust

I have been making a lot of desserts lately for holidays and parties and my usual low carb, Paleo-ish choice is almond meal. However almonds don't really agree with me all that well and I've never been all that crazy about how the crusts turn out. So on a whim I thought to try coconut flour, which I had bought online. The brand was "Aloha Nu". I've heard bad things about certain coconut flours which you can buy in health food, I think the brand was Bob's Red Mill. It is orange colored (from what I've heard). I can't imagine why coconut flour would be orange. Anyway, I've only used Aloha Nu and it seems to be pretty good stuff.

I have worked with coconut flour before, it is quite challenging stuff. It absorbs moisture like nothing I've ever seen and can turn into a crumbling, dry sponge that sucks all the water out of your mouth, if you're not careful. So I had my doubts about using it as a crust. However I do love to experiment!

So I experimented and I'm actually quite pleased with the result. Out of the oven it was a bit crunchy and I can only describe it as flaky, almost like a wheat crust. When I put the filling in it lost the crunchiness but still retained it's shape nicely and had a great taste and remained flaky. It's only oddness was it expands in the mouth. But I didn't mind, it just lent to that flaky texture feeling. I love the little bit of salt added, I think it makes a big difference in the taste of the crust.

Unfortunately I can't give exact measurements on some things because I just added them until the texture was right, but I think I can tell you what to look for.

1 Cup of coconut flour (Aloha Nu)
Lard -- right out of the fridge
2 Tbl Butter -- Room temperature is ok
Salt -- 1/8-1/4 tsp
Sweetener -- about 1/8 - 1/4 cup depending how sweet you like your crust

Put coconut flour, sweetener and salt in your food processor and whiz until mixed.

Now start to add lumps (roughly 2 Tbsp) of lard at a time. I also added about 2 Tbl of butter, because I love the taste. Whiz.

Continue adding the cold lard and processing until the dough just begins to look like it will soon want to clump. Don't put too much in! You really want to be able to pour it into your pan and spread it out easily and press it into place. If you add too much, the dough will be too sticky.

After placing the dough and patting it into place beat an egg white until foamy and paint the crust with it. This will help it get crisp and waterproof it a bit. Try to use the entire white.

Bake the crust at 350' for 10-15 minutes until golden brown.

I have to say Alton Brown inspired the idea to use lard instead of butter. He used it in his wheat pie crust recipe (along with butter) saying that the lard has a higher melting point and helps keep things flaky.

Update:  Be sure to bake this crust before filling, like you would a graham cracker crust.  The egg provides a kind of waterproof seal (sort of) and it should help keep the filling from soaking in too much. 

Stock Scum or Chicken Foam

We had a lively debate over at http://lowcarber.org about the properties of the scum floating on top of stock and whether it really needs to be skimmed. I bravely volunteered to taste the scum during my next stock making, which happened to be the poaching liquid for yesterday's Succulent Chinese chicken. There were predictions it would taste off, bitter, pollute the soup with nasty flavors. I was concerned that it was perhaps a lot of nutrition being skimmed off.

At any rate, I skimmed it off dutifully and tasted it. Pardon the cliche but it tasted like chicken. No off flavors that I could detect however I'm not a super-taster. I am also not someone who is so revolted by the looks of something it translates into how I taste it (generally). To me, ugly food can taste good. I think I get this from my Mom through early childhood training. Our food was rarely pretty or especially appetizing to look at. Sometimes it was pretty awful looking and on occasion, it tasted pretty awful too. Mom was an experimental cook, as I am, but during a time when people first started experimenting with soy and stuff like that. I'll never forget those awful green soy/cashew burgers she made once.

The stock scum forms really early in the stock making process, like before a boil even starts so I doubt that it involves marrow and good stuff. It's just proteins that decide to clump together. Probably in the same way that beach scum forms. Perhaps it is the precursor to life! Amino acids bumping into one another, one day forming a simple organism.

At any rate the scum didn't taste off at all. No bitterness, no nastiness, just good old chicken flavor bundled into an unappealing looking gray, floating scum. Or I guess if we want to be more gracious we could call it "chicken foam".

So, if you're not overly concerned about the look of your stock, don't skim.