update to XHTML November 2000
I've got a cool granité recipe for you.
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- Pick through, rinse, and cook several handfuls of good lentils in four or five times their volume of unsalted water until they are quite soft. An hour will do for most varieties.
- Wash a small bunch of collards and separate the leaves from the thicker stems. Chop the stems and add them to a litre of boiling lightly salted water. After ten minutes, add the chopped leaves.
- Add three cloves of garlic, a couple of slices of ginger, and a scotch bonnet or other strong capsicum, all finely minced.
- Add a large pinch of ground cumin, the same of ground coriander seed, and a lesser pinch of ground cinnamon.
- Add a dollop of blackstrap molasses and half a glass of wine. Use boiling water to adjust the consistency if necessary.
- When the collards leaves have been cooking for a quarter hour, add a parsnip, sliced.
- Ten minutes later add a sweet potato, peeled and sliced.
- Adjust the seasoning, and serve over hand-cut noodles when the sweet potato is done.
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- This is the way to do it; take a quantity of semolina made from hard red wheat and, in a bowl, add enough water to it to make a stiff paste. Mix until the mass leaves the sides of the bowl and then knead with your hands until silky and smooth.
- Wrap the paste in plastic to keep it from drying out, and let it rest in the refrigerator for a couple of hours to relax the elasticity of the proteins.
- Dust your rolling surface with a little cornstarch. Take up a manageable portion of the paste and roll it out, dusting with cornstarch, until thin and even. Gently, without pressing, fold and pleat the rolled out paste over on itself on a very flat cutting board. With a sharp straight-bladed knife slice the noodles to the width you prefer.
- Gently separate the results from each other and hang them over a wooden spoon handle to dry for a half-hour or so.
- Cook these in a vast quantity of boiling salted water for just a few minutes. Check often for doneness. Quickly refresh any that you are reserving for later use in cold water. A bit of muss and fuss but the result is worthwhile.
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- Soak a small handful of dried mushrooms, shiitake (Lentinus edoides), tree's ears (Auricularia auricularis) or whatever else you can find, in a little cold water. Mycophagists will find just about any favourite bolete suitable for this dish. Gently squeeze them when they are fully reconstituted, and reserve both the solids and the soaking liquid, if you like the way it smells. Most don't bother with the soaking liquid from the Lentinus, though.
- Wash, trim and cut into small sections a handful of snap beans or long beans.
- Wash three handfuls of good rice in several waters, and put to boil with the amount of cold water appropriate to the type and quantity of the rice. (Roughly, one-and-a-quarter times the volume of the rice in the pot if polished, and one-and-a-half times if brown.) Use the soaking liquor from the mushrooms as part of this liquid. Add a pinch of salt. Maintain a 'rolling' boil for three minutes or so, then turn the heat down to the minimum and cover the pot.
- In ten minutes or so, depending on the shape of the vessel, the level of the water in the pot will be below that of the rice. At that point arrange the sliced fungus and the beans atop it. Do not stir! Sprinkle with another pinch of salt, cover, and allow to steam until all the water is absorbed and the rice is done.
- Leave the lid on the pot for ten minutes after removing it from the heat, before serving. This will allow the moisture in the rice to redistribute more evenly. Sprinkle with chopped parsley or coriander. If you've used brown rice, the amount of liquid necessarily will be greater, and a longer time required for it to recede below the level of the rice, so the timing will still work out.
- Good, fast, and cheap.
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- Peel and chop a large onion and add to it a spoonful each of honey, vinegar, salt and olive oil. Add two cloves of garlic minced, and mix well. Cover and chill overnight.
- Pick over, rinse, and soak overnight a cupful of dried black beans. The next morning, set the beans to boil in fresh water and cook them until they can be easily crushed between tongue and palate. Drain the beans while still hot and add them to the onion mixture. Mix well and cover. Let stand for the flavours to marry; two hours will do.
- Warm a large bowl, and add half a cup of tepid water and a spoonful of honey. Pitch a spoonful of active dry yeast to it, mix and leave them to begin reproduction. When the culture is good and foamy, add two cups of hard unbleached wheat flour, into which you have mixed a quarter-teaspoonful of salt. Turn out when you can, onto a flour-dusted board, and knead well. Set into a warm, oiled bowl, turn it over, cover with a moistened towel and leave in the proverbial warm place to double in size.
- Punch down the dough, and divide it into eight pieces. Roll each one out into a circle, and put some of the bean mixture off center. (If the bean mixture has any liquid standing in the bottom of the bowl, crush enough beans to take it up.) Fold the other side over the beans, and starting at one corner, pinch and fold the open edges together until you reach the other end. Brush with oil, slash the tops with a razor or very sharp knife, sprinkle with paprika, and set to proof while you heat a moderate oven.
- Bake the turnovers until golden brown, serve hot or cold.
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