Pan fried tomatoes

When we lived in Canada, good tomatoes were pretty much impossible to come by. Even in summertime, there was no comparison with dry farmed tomatoes we get in California, or the famed Istrian tomatoes. Necessity does seem to be the mother of invention - when Jasna and I went to the Shaw festival, we stayed in a bed-and-breakfast in Niagara-on-the-Lake. The breakfast were somewhat overdone scrambled eggs, and the best tomatoes I had had in years. I could not believe how good they were - and tomatoes were definitely not in season.

We learned that the tomatoes were beyond trivial to make:

• Wash the tomatoes and cut out the stem
• With a sharp knife slice the tomatoes about 1/2 inch thick
• Heat non-stick pan with some oil at a medium high-heat
• Place tomatoes on a hot pan, salt very lightly
• Flip the tomato slices carefully in a 3-5 minutes, again add a touch of salt
• When cooked, use a spatula to transfer on a plate
• Optionally: sprinkle with some fresh thyme or basil
• Eat with a big grin

Tips: Watch the heat so that the tomatoes don't burn. Cooking the tomatoes a bit more or less is entirely your call. I have this recipe in non-stick pans, and in cast iron pans. Both work, and I didn't taste any iron/metal when cooking in cast iron. Maybe because the cooking time is so short.

I like to make the tomatoes this way, especially for breakfast. When one starts with sun-dried tomatoes, the result is stunning. Even when the tomatoes are not at their peak, this quick recipe helps quickly caramelize whatever sugars are in the tomato and converts them into sheer goodness on a plate.

Baked falafels

Falafels are sheer goodness, definitely one of the best ways to consume beans. Traditionally, they are deep fried, which would stop me from making them often. Even if you deep fry them properly, they do contain more fat than I would prefer to consume. The sheer thought of heating up a vat of oil and then having to dispose of the oils makes me want to make something else.

Luckily there is absolutely no need to deep-fry falafels. Pan frying works very well, and with a non-stick or cast-iron pan, one can reduce the amount of oil used to a minimum. That approach is good when you are in a hurry, or when you are in the middle of a heat wave and the last thing one wants to do is heat the kitchen by turning on the oven. However, baked falafels do taste great and are even less messy to make than pan-fried ones.

Baked falafels

Ingredients:

• 1 15-19 oz can chickpeas, drained. I actually always cook my beans from scratch, the result is infinitely better. See the instructions below.
• 1 chopped onion, preferably sauteed. No need to sautee if you are using the sweet onion, which is what I always do.
• 2 cloves of finely chopped garlic 
• 1 tablespoons of chopped fresh parsley. I like to up the parsley to a cup, and I chop it in a small food processor.
• 2 tablespoons all purpose flour 
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder, mixed into the flour
• 1 tablespoon coriander. 
• 2-3 tablespoons of cumin
• pinch of salt and a grinding of pepper 
• 2 tablespoons of oil - olive, corn, canola, avocado, it all goes

Preparation:

Turn the oven to 350F.

Line a baking sheet with the parchment paper, and brush or drizzle the parchment with some oil.

Mash chickpeas in a food processor or with a mortar and pestle.

Combine all the ingredients in a bowl or in the food processor. If you use the food processor you will get a thick paste like consistency. If you just mix things together, you will still be able to press the mixture together and get your falafels formed.

Shape into ping-pong sized balls, or small patties, and arrange those on the baking sheet.

Optionally brush the falafels with a bit of oil.

Bake for 15-20 minutes. You can turn them over midway, but I don't so that the oven doesn't cool down.

Alternatively, pan fry falafel patties for about 5-8 minutes per side on a medium to medium high heat, on a bit of oil. Make sure falafels don't blacken, so don't rush and turn the heat way up.

Serve with tahini-yoghurt sauce - see the recipe below. They also go very well with our best tomato sauce.

Pan fried falafel on a bed of a thick tomato sauce

Tahini-yoghurt sauce:

1-2 cups of greek yoghurt

2 garlic cloves, chopped finely

1 tablespoon of cumin

2 tablespoons of tahini

juice of one lemon

salt to taste

Mix all the ingredients and eat. If prepared ahead, refrigerate. 

Freshly cooked chickpeas:

1-2 cups of dried chickpeas AKA garbanzo beans

1 tablespoon salt

1 tablespoons of dried or fresh onion, optional

1 tablespoon of coconut oil, very optional

In a container with a lid, cover chickpeas with cold water. The volume of the water needs to be at least 3 times the volume of the beans. Close the lid and refrigerate at least for 24 hours, up to three days. The beans will expand, and the soaking will also help to reduce flatulence.

Drain the beans and rinse them well. In a pot, cover the beans with water, hot or cold. Again, the amount of water should be at least 3 or 4 times the amount of the beans. Add the salt and optionally the onion. Cover the pot with a lid and bring the water to a boil, on a medium high heat. Watch out, foam will form in the pot, and the liquid may overflow, so pay attention when the beans are close to be boiling. Reduce the heat so that the water is barely simmering, and cook for 30 minutes. Taste the beans at 25 minutes to adjust the cooking time if needed. When the beans are cooked, drain them and put them into a container. Taste and add some salt if needed - you may be surprised with how no salty the beans would be after cooking.

I love to eat the beans straight when they are freshly cooked. You can splurge and add a bit of pumpkin seed oil, or butter, or olive oil, or avocado oil.

Store the uneaten beans in a fridge for up to 3 days.

Sous vide pork loin chops and roast

Pork loin is my favorite part of a pig. And I say that with the utmost respect to pork belly and pork tenderloin, which are right up there. Cooked sous-vide, pork loin gains an incredible amount of flavor from the spices that it cooks in, yet the low-temperature cooking makes sure the loin is not dried out. In fact, pork loin is a very non-trivial piece of meat to cook without sous vide. Chops are a bit easier, but I frankly do not have the skills to prepare a juicy loin roast without using a sous vide machine.

This was evident last summer when we had friends over for a visit, and we made a loin roast in sous vide. The sous vide setup was hidden from the view, so the guest had no idea how the meat was cooked. They thought we used some kind of a foil to prevent the meat from drying out. We explained that the critical factor is the temperature - at around 140 the proteins start squeezing the moisture out, and the meat becomes tougher and tougher.

I highly recommend buying an entire boneless loin - surprisingly inexpensive in the US. Then you are facing a choice - to chop or not to chop. I slice off two longer pieces for the roast, and I cut the rest of the loin into chops, just under an inch thick seems to work well.

I put a piece of meat in a metal bowl using tongues. This way my fingers stay clean and I can reach for spices freely. I season quite liberally with salt, then I grind pepper, sprinkle some gochu, the driend korean chili, some garlic powder, and some cumin. I make sure all sides of the the meat are seasoned. Clearly, I use more spices for the roast than for the chops. Because the chops are smaller, I usually season three at a time.

The meat then goes into a bag, and I add a tablespoon of dried onion flakes. Of course, one piece of the roast goes into one bag. For the chops, I put three in a bag - two for a dinner, and one for lunch the following day. I lay the chops flat next to each other - this way I get one rather thin layer that cooks much faster. Optionally, one can also add some coconut oil to the bag. The coconut oil is a good choice, because it is not liquid and will not make vacuum sealing more challenging than it should be. At the end, I vacuum seal the packages at a normal setting - with nothing wet in the bags, there is no need for special adjustments.

We usually use one package right away, the rest go in the freezer. So when we want to have some delicious pork loin, we first defrost the meat in a bowl of cold water. It goes really fast that way - or one can leave the meat in the fridge for a day or so.

With sous vide, one has to decide how long and at what temperature to cook, and it all depends on your preferences. Here are ours:

Pork loin chops: 45 to 60 minutes at 139F
Pork loin roast: 4-5 hours at 139F

After the pork is cooked, one can torch it to sear the outside, or one can sear the outside quickly in a hot pan with some high-heat oil, such as avocado oil.

There will be some liquids in the bag. These are tasty and can be used as an ingredient in a sauce.

Ricotta sourdough almond pancakes

I call this much too neglected blog "trivial food". What do I really mean by that? Definitely not the food that you prepare by opening a box. That does not even qualify as trivial. The point I am trying to make is that most of the food we eat in our life time is, in fact, trivial to make. The level of skill required is not out of reach, all that is is needed to pay attention and decide that it is worth while to invest some time into food prep. The funny thing is that, with some practice I'll admit, one can prepare a gourmet meal faster than what it takes to drive to a restaurant, order the food, and get it on the table. Yes, it takes a bit of effort, though by using things like sous vide, the effort is going down, rapidly.

Which food is not trivial, then? Stuff that requires advanced technique and training. Soba noodles from scratch. Consomme from scratch. Tender potato gnocchi. Consistency in grilling steak. Fluffy and non watery scrambled eggs. Poaching salmon without drying it out.

Why do I talk about trivial? I was wondering whether these pancakes qualify as trivial food. I think they do, though they require a longer list of ingredients than your regular pancakes. I found the result tasty and super tender, with very little effort.

Dry ingredients:

• 3/4 cup all purpose flour
• 1/2 cup almond meal
• 1-2 TBS sugar
• 1/2 to 1 tsp baking powder
• a pinch of salt

Wet ingredients:

• 1 cup ricotta
• 1 cup sourdough starter
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1 tsp orange flavoring, or a couple of drops of edible orange essential oil
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 3 egg yolks

For egg whites:

• 3 egg whites
• 1/2 tsp cream of tartar, optional
• 1.5 TBS sugar

Depending on your griddle or a pan, start preheating so that it will be hot when the egg whites get folded into the rest of the batter.

Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl.
Separate the eggs, put the egg whites in a clean, preferably copper bowl. Egg whites will not beat well if your bowl or your beaters are greasy.
Mix egg yolks and the rest of the wet ingredients in a somewhat larger bowl.
Beat egg whites, when the peaks start to show sprinkle with sugar, finish to a soft peak meringue.
Mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients.
Fold in egg whites, gently, not to deflate the whites completely.

Cook pancakes on a greased griddle at medium to medium-high heat, a couple of minutes per side, until golden. I like to use somewhat heaping 1/4 cup of the batter for a pancake.

Eat with butter, or even better orange butter (whip orange zest, orange juice, sugar, and unsalted butter), and honey or syrup of your choice. I like to add fresh fruit. Whipped cream or even ice cream are optional, so are chopped nuts.