Eggs... good for everything

So I love eggs!!!  They are easy, versatile and they take a really long time to go bad (this is a very important quality for me in food, because I never know when I am actually going to have a chance to cook)

So this post is all about eggs!  Three different recipes... 

Shirred Eggs with chervil and goat cheese

This I made this morning for my husband who has feeling a bit rundown.  I happen to be a strong believer that most ailments can be cured with or at least assuaged with a good meal!  So I decided to make him a hearty meal to help bring him a little energy and umph for the rest of the week!

Eggs
Ramekins
Chervil
Butter
Salt
Pepper
Goat Cheese

This is a super easy recipe.  This is a good one, that you can start, then hop in the shower, and when you get out you can put on the finishing touches.

You butter a small ramekin by just rubbing a stick of butter in it, don't be stingy with the butter, you don't want your eggs sticking to the ramekin.

Crack a whole egg into the ramekin, and salt and pepper it accordingly. 

Put the ramekin in the oven, or a toaster over, set to about 400 on bake.   Let them cook for about 7-10 minutes.  You may need to play around with your oven setting and time. 

After about 7 minutes check on them, if the whites look cooked and the yellow is still soft, you have succeeded.  Top them with a little chopped chervil and grated or diced goat cheese, and then broil the whole thing for another minute or two!  And voila you have shirred eggs. 

They whites taste really baked and fluffy and the yellow is yummy and gooey.

Obviously you can substitute the type of cheese and herb that you use.  You can make your own bacon bits and add those on top.  Also if you can get a bigger ramekin or other baking type stoneware then you can put more than one egg in each dish.

Here is a picture of the finished product

Eshkene (Persian Egg Drop Soup)

This is a great recipe! It is so easy. If you have turmeric in your house, you probably have all the ingredients you need, and it is really hearty.  For those cold winter nights you can eat this for dinner and feel completely satisfied. Its vegetarian, and can be made kosherly as well!  So super easy, super hearty, and for me an ultimate comfort food.

Butter
Flour
Turmeric
Salt
Pepper
Eggs


In a saucepan, melt the butter on low heat, then mix in some flour and some turmeric to make a turmeric flavored roux.  Now how much butter and how much flour you ask.. in a 4-5 qt sauce pan, I would use about 2 tablespoons butter, 1 heaping tablespoon of flour and one almost full tablespoon of turmeric. Play around with it.  Don't let the roux burn.  Once you have a nice paste, fill your saucepan 3/4 of the way with water, turn the heat to high so that you get a rolling boil.  Add the salt and pepper to taste, while awaiting the mixture to boil.  Once you have a rolling boil, take as many eggs as you like (I would not do more than 4 in 4-5 qt sauce pan), and crack them whole right into the boiling water.  Let it boil for about 4-5 minutes after the last egg is in. Then turn off the heat and take the pot off the stove.

You can scoop out just an egg and eat just the egg, or you can serve it like a soup.  If you served it like soup, after you have eaten all the egg out of the soup, then you can make chilit chilit, which is when you cut up some pita, lavash or other flat bread, soak it in the broth and eat it!  It will warm your soul! This is a really good recipe for vegetarians who want a hearty winter dish. 

Also I am putting a plug in here for turmeric. It is an amazing spice, makes everything taste better, and also has anti-inflammatory properties according to ayurvedics.  In fact turmeric is used to treat all kinds of ailments!  It should really be a staple in all kitchens (clearly my Persian roots, intertwined with my husband's Indian ones do cause some bias here)

Here is the finished product:  Noosh-e-Joon

Last but not least...

Deviled Eggs

I don't know why we don't eat these more often. I feel like they are super elegant, or eggelant :),  and super delicious, and really easy to make.  My recipe is the basics, but you can make so many variants of deviled eggs, and top them with all kinds of goodies, fresh herbs, or homemade bacon bits.... play with them! They are great for parties, and look so nice! I recently made them for a baby shower.

Eggs
Mayonnaise
Lemon Juice or White Vinegar
Salt
Pepper
Paprika

Hardboil your eggs, (remember each egg produces two deviled eggs),  let them cool and them peel them.  If you are having a party, you can always hardboil your eggs the night before. 

Cut each egg in half, and scoop out the yolk, and place it in a separate bowl.  Then cut a tiny sliver off the bottom of each side of the egg white so it can sit flat on a serving tray.   Some people preserve the egg whites for garnish at the end.  You will also mess up on some of the eggs, and so you can keep those egg whites for the garnish.

Once you have cut all your eggs up, and laid them flat of a baking sheet, serving tray or whatever surface you like, then focus on making the filling.  Whip some mayonnaise into the yolks, go slowly and keep tasting until you get a nice fluffy and creamy texture.  Add lemon juice and salt and pepper to taste.  I go slow with the mayonnaise because its always easy to add more, but hard to take it away.

Also another littler disclaimer about mayonnaise. Not all mayonnaise is equal. Most mayonnaise that you buy in the grocery store is made with soy bean oil... which I am convinced will at least harm you if not kill you.  Soy has a lot of phytoestrogens, people with breast cancer are not supposed to eat it, and they say if you are trying to get pregnant you should not eat much of it either. Some say it is linked to polycystic ovarian disease.  Soy beans are also one of the most processed foods in the market.  So check the labels, Hains makes a great safflower oil mayonnaise and there are the french companies that make ones out of olive oil.  Soy is literally in 90% of everything that comes in a package at the grocery store. I love tofu, I love edamame, and soy milk too but I do limit myself. 

Okay back to cooking.  Once you have created the filling to your satisfaction, then put it in a ziploc bag, and snip a tiny little corner of the bottom of the ziploc bag, so that you can fill each egg white individually. Here is a demonstration:

Then finish by garnishing with some paprika, and if you like the chopped egg whites.  So easy and not to mention delicious! 

If you need inspiration for a good deviled egg, go to the Clover Club in Brooklyn and order them there! They garnish theirs so well! If you do go there, you must have the drink the clover club... it is definitely my favorite drink I have ever had!!!

Well I hope you guys try some of these egg recipes!  I am planning to learn some more egg recipes... my next endeavour with eggs will be Shakshuka ... but for now I will just go to the Israeli breakfast place and get it there whenever I am in the mood!

Have an eggcelent day!

Fake it til you make it Indian

I love Indian food, but rarely go out for it since I get homemade Indian whenever I visit my in-laws. But sometimes we have long stretches without a visit and the craving hits...

Now my disclaimer here is that this is fake Indian, because the spices are based on what I have in my kitchen and not on what actually goes into these dishes if made correctly. But it does the job!

My daal:
Red lentils
Garlic
Ginger
Turmeric
Garam masala
Salt
Peppercorns
Coriander seeds
Cumin seeds
Diced tomatoes
Bay leaves

Cook your lentils in plenty of salted water until soft.
In a coffee grinder or with a mortar and pestle, grind the coriander seeds, cumin and peppercorn.
In a frying pan, fry some minced garlic, ginger, your ground spices with plenty of turmeric and garam masala. If you want to make it spicy, add some diced chillis. Then add in some diced tomatoes (canned is fine). This should form a nice and well spiced paste, which you can then transfer to your cooked lentils. Add a bay leaf into the mix. Then let the whole thing simmer for about 10-20 minutes to let the taste settle in.

The paste in formation looks like this:




Play with the recipe, change the amount of water you cook the lentils in, the amount of spice... Just remember it's always easier to add more than take away after it's been added.

The finished product:





Serve it with bread or rice, and I always like to eat it with plain yogurt!

Turkey kabob koubideh

If you know me well, and have been to my parents' house, you have had my father's kabobs! He makes a lot of different kinds, but one of his best is kabob koubideh, which is a Persian kabob made with ground meet grilled on flat skewers over a fire!
Now, me living in New York City means I have no grill and no place to store skewers, but I still love my kabobs. So after talking to my dad he taught me how to make a similar kabob in my oven using a cookie sheet.

What you need:
Lean ground meat (turkey, beef or chicken)
Onions (1 for each pound of meet)
Turmeric
Paprika
Chili powder
Salt
Pepper
Egg yolks

In a food processor grind the onions to a fine pulp. In a large mixing bowl, mix the ground meat and the onion pulp, add turmeric, salt, pepper, paprika and chili powder to taste. Then for each pound of meat add to egg yolks and mix everything together with your hands, really working everything into the meat. You can also add in other spices, my mother adds in saffron, I have added spiracha, and you can try minced fresh herbs.
After thoroughly mixing the meat, pulse the whole mixture in the food processor for about 10 seconds, you don't want it to be too fine, just really well mixed.
Then press out the meat into a half inch layer on a nonstick cookie sheet.
Place the sheet in the top rack of your oven and broil on high for about 10 minutes. After ten minutes, take the sheet out of the oven, cut the meat into 1 inch wide strips, space them out and flip each one over and broil again for about 10 minutes.



You can serve it with pita bread, rice, salad, or whatever you like.





Also featured in this picture is kabob joujeh ostkhan, which may make a recipe appearance on this blog soon!

Also FYI... this winter I will be focusing on making Persian and Indian food, so look out for those recipes!


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Festo

The other night I had one of my a favorite couples over for dinner! The hubby from the couple and I are watching our carbs, but the wife is pregnant, I also had a half bag of strozzapretti (that's the name of the pasta I used with the eggplant sauce) so I decided to make her a pasta dish aside from the proteins and greens her husband and I were having.

Being Persian I always have pistachios in my fridge, and I had a bunch of fresh mint too. And so I decided to make a fake pesto inspired sauce which the hubby called "festo"
To make festo you need:
Mint
Pistachios
Coffee grinder
Pecorino Romano (could substitute with any other dry aged cheese like Parmesan)
Olive oil
Garlic
Crushed red pepper
Pasta

I used my coffee grinder to grind about a half cup of pistachios into coarse particles. If you are Indian or Persian I know you have an exclusive spice coffee grinder. Others out there you can try the same grinder you use for coffee but it may taint the taste a lot so you could try a food processor or even a mortar and pestle!
After you have your pistachio powder, then sauté some chopped garlic along with the crushed red pepper in olive oil, add the pistachio powder, after about a minute of cooking the pistachio powder (constantly moving it so it doesn't burn) then add in some chopped mint, just barely letting it wilt. Then toss the pasta into it and grate the pecorino cheese to taste.
Remember to salt your pasta water well since you are not adding any additional salt in the sauce.
I had the leftovers of this dish cold the day after and it tasted just as good cold as it did warm.
I am planning to try a different festo in the winter, using sage, walnuts and gorgonzola.
I think this is fun recipe so choose a fresh herb, a cheese and a nut and experiment! Or try an Asian flare, use kaffir lime leaves, peanuts, rice noodles and green mango shaving, with some sesame oil or fish sauce. (i definitely have not tried that one yet, so if you try that let me know how it goes)

Kale, eggplants and heirlooms oh my!!

So this week I got my hand on some beautiful baby eggplants, kale and heirloom tomatoes. What to make?



So I decided to make a kale appetizer inspired by things I have eaten at Franny's (my favorite restaurant in Brooklyn, btw they are coming out with a cookbook soon). And as for the eggplants and tomatoes I made a gorgeous sauce for pasta.

For the kale appetizer I used:
1 bunch of lacinto kale
1 can of cannelinni beans (Eden brand)
1 leek
1 lemon
Olive oil
Salt and pepper
Pecorino romano

I sautéed some thinly sliced leeks with the kale, which I left whole. I used a normal olive oil for sautéing. As soon as the kale was wilted and cooked, I added in the cup of beans and cooked it all together for a minute. Then I chilled the whole concoction, dressed it with lemon juice, fancy olive oil, salt and pepper, and of course some pecorino romano. It made a delicious appetizer.



For the pasta sauce I used
8 baby eggplants
12 heirloom medium sized tomatoes
4 cloves of garlic
1/2 a can of tomato paste
Red pepper flakes
Salt and pepper
Olive oil
Parmesan cheese

I sautéed the garlic and chunks of cut up eggplant in olive oil, then added diced tomatoes and the tomato paste, covered the whole thing and let it simmer, until it turned into a thick chunky sauce. I then grated a ton of parmesan cheese into it!
I put it on some pasta called spagiatelle or something like that. I think you could do it on a fusilli or ziti or penne!

Coq au Vin

In the interest of being completely forthright, this is not actually a recipe for Coq au Vin, but more of a fake coq au vin created by me!
So I had a half stalk of leftover celery, and some mushrooms in the fridge, and a 2 month old (since opening) bottle of red wine sitting in my fridge... that's the beginning of this recipe.
I began by sauteeing the celery and mushrooms for a minute in a big pan, I then lay the chicken pieces on top, added the wine and some more olive oil and baked it for about 45 minutes.
This is what the finished product looked like

I use drum sticks because I like them best, but you could just as well use chicken breast.  I first baked for about 40 minutes and the last 5-10 minutes I put the settings on high broil.
This recipe turned out excellent, we could not get enough of it. 
I think it is more of a winter recipe though we ate it in the summer... I think you can make it with butternut squash, or parsnips.
The celery and the mushrooms cooked in the wine broth became so creamy and delicious.  Don't be stingy on the salt in this recipe because you need it to balance the acidity of the old wine.  I am sure it might be even more delicious if you use wine that is not so old.
Bon appetit!

Kale salad

This recipe is actually from my brother! It's super healthy and super delicious!
Kale
Radishes
Red onion
Cilantro
Avocado
Soy sauce
Lemon juice
Olive oil

So you chop up the kale! Mix in some chunkily chopped radishes, some hand plucked cilantro, and some finely chopped onion! Then add in some chunky chopped avocado. To dress add in some lemon juice, soy sauce, and olive oil.
Note that there are no proportions! Just mix it how you like it! A lighter version that I like is to leave out the olive oil, since the avocado adds the yummy fatty taste!
Another plus of this salad is that if you dress it in the morning and take it to work, the kale does not wither like lettuce or mixed greens!
Also per my acupuncturist the kale will make you more fertile because it thickens your cervical fluid! Try it! You will love it!



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