Modern take on Slovenian refried potatoes AKA renstan krompir

 "Renstan (or tenstan) krompir" translates as roasted potatoes or better as pot-fried potatoes. I prefer refried potatoes in an homage to refried beans as the basics of the preparation are similar. Just that we go easy on spices - salt and pepper only - and we don't really mash the potatoes. We could play in both areas, but not in this post.

Ingredients:

• Potatoes: 1 medium per person. In Slovenia we would use at least 3 potatoes per person. I prefer Yukon/yellow style waxy potatoes.
• This dish can work very well with russet potatoes, but those need to be steamed whole.
• Onion: 1 per person, or more.
• Extra virgin olive oil
• Salt and optionally pepper

Method:

1. In parallel steam the potatoes and fry the onions so that they are well on their way to caramelization:
2. I start with the onions:
1. Slice onions thinly, or chop them to a small to medium dice. 
2. Add a few TBS of olive oil to your cooking vessel. I prefer my ceramic wok or a carbon steel pal, but really any decent pan will do
3. Heat the oil on medium heat, add the onions and season with a good pinch of salt
4. Stir periodically as the onion soften and start changing the color. Reduce the heat if the onions are burning. Add more oil if the onions are drying out.
3. Prepare potatoes while the onions are cooking:
1. Add a cup of water to the pressure cooker, eg. Instant Pot
2. If you use waxed potatoes
1. Peel and cut potatoes to 1/4 inch cubes, or more traditionally into 1/4 inch slices.
2. Put potatoes into a steaming basket
3. Steam the potatoes under high pressure for 4 minutes. 
4. Use quick pressure release for the potatoes
5. Uncover the pot and take the steaming basket from the Instant Pot
3. If you use russet potatoes:
1. Wash the potatoes and add them, whole, to the steaming basket
2. Steam the potatoes under high pressure for 10 minutes. 
3. Let the pressure drop naturally, or for at least 10 minutes
4. Take the potatoes out of the steaming basket and let them cool sufficiently so that you can handle them by hand easily
5. Peel the potatoes - the skin should mostly just come off - and cut them into 1/4 inch slices
4. When onions are soft and brown, add the potatoes cooked, add the potatoes to the onions.
5. Season with salt to taste, and optionally a little pepper - note that potatoes steamed without salt.
6. On a medium heat, keep frying and folding the potato-onion mixture. 
7. Be patient, after a while the potatoes will start browning and the mixture will start resembling a nicely made potato pancake. 
8. Stop cooking before the mixture starts to burn. You can get the potatoes reasonably crispy and onions even more caramelized, but there is no need to push this too far and burn the dish.

Notes:

As with every traditional recipe there are variations, and everyone knows best what is truly traditional. In this case, variations seem rather limited - one either uses pork fat/cracklings or onions, or both. Our household was of the onion variety, and Jasna's was into cracklings.

In the modern days when common feeding methods reduced omega-3 in pork we tend to avoid pork fat despite the undeniable fact that pork fat rules and that it is tasty. Hence we switched to extra virgin olive oil, which gives the good old refried potatoes a nice flavor kick, while also likely being the healthiest oil to cook with. 

The second variation is how we cook potatoes. Our moms would cook the potato whole, then peel it, and then fry it. Since we discovered the deliciousness of potatoes steamed under pressure in Instant pot, that has been our go-to potato-cooking method.

The cooking vessel for onions and potatoes matters, though one can use pretty much anything if there are no other distractions. That is, the potato-onion mixture takes a while to cook. If I want to use less fat, I resort to my ceramic non-stick wok. With some more fat, a carbon steel or a cast iron pan works well, as well as a stainless steel pan. I tend to go with the wok because it gives me additional safety, and yes I can caramelize onions in that wok very nicely.

Tomato sauce notes

I think making tomato sauce has to be one of the cooking topics that may approach religious beliefs. Hence I have some trepidation to share my notes, though I do want to have the notes recorded, the result has been consistently evoking "WOW!" reactions. 

This is how we make tomato sauce. Notes are added below the recipe.

Ingredients:

• Onion, chopped finely. 
• Optionally: carrots and celery, chopped finely
• Tomatoes, whole, washed. We use organic dry-farmed tomatoes we procure from our CSA farmer.
• Extra virgin olive oil
• Salt.

WHAT, NO QUANTITIES? Yes, that is true. You develop your own preferences. Besides, I never measure. Here is an approximation: For 10 lb tomatoes we would use 1 super large, or two large, or 3 regular size onions. A handful of carrots, and a handful of celery. Two large pinches of salt. Probably 1/3 cup olive oil.

Method:

1. In a food processor, chop up onions finely. Add carrots, and celery if you are using them. 
• Pause a few times and scrape the walls of the food processor. Do not worry if you get a mush, in this case it doesn't matter.
• You can do the chopping by hand if you prefer. If your food processor is too small, do it in batches.
2. Add a good amount of olive oil to a deep pan, heat it at medium high, be careful not to get to a smoking point.
3. Add the mirepoix mixture, stir, add a large pinch of salt, stir again.
4. While the aromatics are softening up, fill up your blender with washed tomatoes. Blend them finely.
• No need to panic when the blended tomatoes get the ugly pink color. They will soon return to the ever so satisfying deep red color.
5. Stir the aromatics periodically until they start turning yellow.
6. Add the blended tomatoes to the pan.
7. Blend more tomatoes, and add them to the pan, until you have used up all the tomatoes that you plan to use.
8. Add another large pinch of salt, stir the sauce.
• The amount of salt is your choice. Remember that simmering will reduce the sauce, so use less salt than what you may think is necessary. Plus, you don't want the salt to overpower the flavor of tomatoes.
9. Bring the sauce to a simmer, and simmer slowly for as short as 30 minutes to as long as you want, we do it for about 3 hours. 
• IMPORTANT: Stir periodically, e.g. at least every 20 minutes or so, depending on your pan and stove. Burned tomato sauce is a giant disappointment. I set an alarm as a reminder every time I stir.
• Lower the heat gradually as the sauce gets thicker. This will minimize splashing, and will also reduce probability of burning the sauce.
• Shorter simmer yields more sauce with a fresher taste
• A long simmer produces a much smaller yield, but a super rich deep flavored thick sauce. We prefer that.
10. Consume it fresh, preserve the rest, share with friends.

Notes

Tomato sauce has uses far beyond pasta dishes and pizza - though those present excellent opportunities for application of the red goodness. Below are a few examples: Flat bread with tomato sauce and sauteed pappers, with a poached egg. Shakshuka takes a new dimension when one uses a really good tomato sauce. Ground beef with padron peppers takes on tanginess and sweetness from tomato sauce. The simplest of all, which I don't even have a picture of, a slice of bread with tomato sauce, roasted garlic, and maybe a touch of mozzarella. Then there are soups and stews...

Clearly, one always needs to have a supply of tomato sauce ready. Should one buy it in a store? Make it from canned tomatoes? Make it from tomato paste? This is what we have chosen, simply because the result beats by a large margin everything we have been able to procure, and because this way we have full control and can use the best ingredients possible.

One may ask whether the choice should be freezing or canning. If you have sufficient freezer space, the question is answered - freeze. The reason is simple - when canning, it is recommended to add a touch of citric acid to prevent botulinum toxins being formed. Which is sad. One works so hard to create sweetness in the tomato sauce, and then takes it down a notch for the sake of safety. We freeze some tomato sauce, but we don't have enough freezer space to freeze it all, so we turn to canning. To be honest, the end result still beats anything we have purchased by a healthy margin.

Blending is a big time saver with no negative effects

Making tomato sauce takes the time as is, but at least while the sauce is simmering, one can do other things, and an alarm can remind you when to stir the sauce. We used to peel tomato skin, deseed the tomatoes, chop them by hand or smash them with a cooking spoon. All of that takes the time and effort and is messy. 

Eventually I gave up and simply threw the whole tomatoes into our blender and gave it a go. The result was a terrifyingly pink tomato liquid  - the picture really does not do the ugliness the justice.

I panicked appropriately, turned to my old friend Google, and quickly learned that there was nothing to worry about. At the sauce cooks, it really does turn into the satisfyingly deep red color. We have a powerful Vitamix blender and run it at the highest speed. That blends the skin properly, and also blends the tomato seeds. The end result is indistinguishable from the method when one peels and seeds the tomatoes - a decisive win for the blender.

We use a ceramic wok!

The slow simmer evaporates the water, and I believe it also caramelizes tomatoes to a point, they become much sweeter. To evaporate the liquid, one needs a vessel with a large surface. We started out by using a roasting pan, and we even tried roasting the sauce in the over for hours and hours, and we also tried using the pan over two burners. It all worked, but the runaway winner is a 14-inch ceramic (non-stick) wok. The shape of the wok maximizes the evaporation surface. The usual carbon steel wok would not like being exposed for hours to a simmering acidic tomato mixture - at best you'd need to reseason the wok. At worst, the tomato sauce may take on some metal taste - I have read about that, thought my experience has been that cooking tomato sauce in a cast-iron pan works just fine. So we turned to ceramic non-stick woks - a 14-inch wok is good for 10lb of tomatoes. They don't burn easily - a huge plus - and the cleanup requires no effort.

We add spices when we use the sauce

We don't add any spices or garlic to the sauce. This way the sauce stays generic and can be used for anything. We add garlic, herbs, or dry spices such as smoked paprika and cumin when we use the sauce. For example, for shakshuka, we fry smoked paprika and cumin on a bit of olive oil, then add the tomato sauce and bring it to the simmer.

If you have a thick sauce, you can dilute it

The sauce we make is quite thick. Not quite tomato paste thick, but much thicker than anything we have ever purchased. This makes it great for a topping for bread, or even with pasta, there is only concentrated flavor.

But sometimes one needs more liquid: Back to the shakshuka example. We like to cook some greens in the tomato sauce, and when we use collard greens, or red-beet greens, or lacinato kale, one needs more liquid to cook the vegetables and not burn the sauce. So we add some water, or dashi, or bean-cooking liquid, any kind of stock, and dilute the sauce enough to get the greens cooked without burning.

What tomatoes to use?

I believe the tomatoes we get are Early Girl, dry farmed. Meaning that the irrigation they get is from the morning mist. Those tomatoes are smaller, and pack an amazing flavor as is. Many recipes recommend using Roma or other plum tomatoes because those tomatoes are less juicy. I'd say get the best tomatoes you are able to buy and you can afford them.

Purchased sauce is cheaper, and inferior

Making your tomato sauce is not necessarily a money saving measure. For us, I think it comes to about $5 per 16 ounce jar just for the ingredients. Admittedly, one can buy tomato sauce for way less money and with way more convenience.

Radish kimchi - with or without scallions

We became more familiar with Korean food through our several Korean friends, and that of course includes developing the taste for kimchi. One of our favorite stories from our fantastic vacation in Korea is from a simple eatery in Seoraksan national park where the owners could not believe we were not only able to eat their spicy kimchi, we asked for an extra serving, which is quite customary in Korea. That made a shockingly positive impression on the unbelievably kind people running that eatery. And yes, the food was simple yet so good that we went back to the same place.

It is very easy to buy kimchi almost anywhere, and kimchi we can buy is very good, but... One day we were having a dinner with a friend in one of the local Korean restaurants. Their kimchi was out of this world, I think it was by far the best part of a very good meal. So we asked what their source was, and, with a smile, we heard they made it themselves. I resolved instantly to challenge myself and see what I can do.

Radish kimchi is slightly simpler to make than napa cabbage kimchi, so that is what I have been working on first. I need to give credit to My Korean Kitchen web site that I used as the baseline for what I do - my adjustments are minor. 

Note that green onion is a part of every kimchi recipe that I have seen. Once I did not happen to have any green onions, so I made kimchi with radish only, and it was very good. Since then I have been treating scallions as optional.

Ingredients - radish:

• 2.5 pounds (1 kg) radish - any korean, daikon, any variety of white radish will do.
• 2 TBS coarse salt, or rock salt
• 2 TBS sugar
• 2 TBS Korean chili flakes (gochugaru)
• Optional: 3-4 green onions

Ingredients - Kimchi base:

• 1/2 to 1 onion roughly diced
• 1/2 to 1 apple, cored and diced
• 3 TBS fish sauce (Korean, Thai, anchovy sauce all work well), or you can use brined shrimp if your Korean friends bring them for your from Korea
• 1 TBS garlic, minced
• 1/2 TBS ginger, minced
• 2 TBS Korean chili flakes, or more or less, depending on your taste
• 1/4 cup water
• 1 Tbsp rice flour (grind some rice in a coffee grinder if you don' have rice flour)

Method:

1. Peel the radish and cut it into 1/2 inch (1cm) cubes. I prefer smaller pieces many of my Korean friends make the pieces a bit larger. 
2. Mix the radish, salt, and sugar in a bowl and let stand at the room temperature for an hour. A few hours is just fine.
3. Make the rice porridge: Boil the water and the rice flour in a microwave, about a minute tends to work well, I whisk the mixture mid way. The result should be a somewhat runny porridge.
4. Blend all the kimchi base ingredients and the porridge in a blender or a food processor
5. If using, chop roughly the green onions
6. After an hour or so, drain the radish and rinse it a few times, then let is sit in a colander for a few minutes to drain
7. Transfer the radish into a large mixing bowl, and mix it with Korean chili flakes.
8. Add the kimchi base, and if using, the green onion, and mix it well so that the base sticks to the radish cubes
9. Transfer kimchi into an air-tight container - I prefer glass, but use whatever you have.
10. Leave the kimchi at the room temperature for 6 hours to 2 days to ferment. My preference is 2 days.
11. Transfer the kimchi to the fridge where the fermentation will slow down. Wait at least a day before eating it.
12. Share with friends. That what makes kimchi particularly tasty.

Gluten-free Danish Apple and Prune Cake with a less memorable amount of butter

I have not really watched Food Network since I was a grad student, apart from a show here and there when I remembered to turn on a TV in a hotel room, which I often do not do. From what I can see, the programs on the Food Network have tilted towards competitions and explorations. In the early days, most of the shows focused on how to make things, with lots of instruction, and revealing many cooking principles. I learned tons from the daily "Cooking live" - not the recipes, but what was behind them.

The show that I remember with the biggest smile was called Two Fat Ladies. I wonder whether these days such a name would even be possible for a TV program. The hosts were indeed two ladies, and I was sure they had never seen a recipe with too much butter or too much bacon.

That show was where I first came across the Danish Apple and Prune cake. I baked one following the recipe they shared, and the amount of fat was so high that it was hard to eat. But it was memorably tasty, enough that I decided to make some adjustments, and that turned into a resounding success. The dish is still far from light, but reducing the amounts of butter and sugar, and increasing the amount of prunes, I believe led to an improvement. I also started to use millet four to make the cake gluten-free, and we find that to be an improvement as well.

Ingredients for the batter:

• 2 eggs, beaten
• 3 oz (90g) unsalted butter at room temperature - the butter has to be soft
• 4 oz (110g) sugar
• 4 oz (110g) almond flour or ground almonds
• 3 oz millet flour (or any neutral-tasting flour including all-purpose flour)
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• pinch of salt
• 1/2 to 1 cup of milk - your call, with more milk the cake will rise more, but I kind of like it denser.
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Ingredients for the topping:

• 12 or so roughly chopped prunes. Scissors make chopping prunes very easy.
• 4 oz (110g) chopped walnuts or pecans
• 1-2 TBS sugar
• 1-2 apples, cored and cliced

Ingredients for the final phase of baking:

• 1-2 TBS sugar
• ground cinnamon
• optional small cubes of unsalted butter, about 1 TBS

Procedure:

1. Preheat oven to 375F
2. Butter a 10 inch round pan. I use a 10-inch cast-iron skillet
3. Cream all ingredients for the batter. I use a whisk, a few pulses in a food processor are OK too.
4. Pour the batter into the baking pan and spread it evenly.
5. Scatter the prunes evenly across the batter.
6. Mix the sugar and the walnuts (or pecans) and spread the mixture evenly on top of the batter.
7. Arrange apple slices on top of the nut-sugar mixture.
8. Bake for 40 minutes
9. Take the cake from the oven, sprinkle it with sugar and cinnamon, and if you really want to, dot with some butter.
10. Bake for additional 20 minutes, or until the skewer comes out clean.
11. Cool, slice, and eat.

A variation I want to explore

Sometimes apples sink into the batter, especially when one uses 1 cup of milk. I wonder what would happen if I used more apples and cut apples into small chunks. That still needs exploring.

Chocolate from cacao paste

Chocolate. It really is what makes the world go around. Not much more can and should be said.

My taste in chocolate has evolved towards the dark side, now definitely going above 70% cocoa, and more usually at 85%. I've been intrigued by making chocolate from scratch, starting from cocoa beans. I have not reached that point yet, but I did finally manage to try what happens when one starts with cacao paste and cocoa butter. The result was an incredibly deep and pure chocolate flavor, which makes me wonder about ingredients in the chocolate we purchase.

Raw cacao paste, also called cacao liquor is made by crushing raw cacao beans into a liquid. This liquid quickly solidifies at room temperature and the result is cacao paste. Cocoa butter is the fat that makes up about a half of raw cocoa beans.

I watched a number of YouTube videos, read a few blog posts and finally settled on the following:

• 100g cocoa paste, chopped roughly
• 200g cocoa butter, chopped roughly
• a pinch of salt - ground as finely as possible
• 1/4 cup powder sugar

Procedure (updated on June 7, 2020)

Step 1: Melt the ingredients:

• Put all ingredients in a metal bowl and place it over a pot of simmering water to form a double boiler.
• While stirring and scraping continuously, melt and mix the ingredients.
• Heat only until 120F. Use instant thermometer.

Step 2: Optionally, temper the chocolate - this will give you a snappy and shiny chocolate. Skip to the next step if you do not want to fiddle with precise temperatures.

• Put the bowl into cold water, and make sure no water drips into the chocolate.
• Keep stirring and scraping until the chocolate reaches 82F.
• Place the bowl back over the double boiler, and, while stirring and scraping, raise the temperature to 90F.
• Note: Chocoley has a good in-depth write-up about tempering chocolate.

Step 3: Fill the mold(s) and cool:

• Pour the liquid into a container or molds and let cool solidify at the room temperature.
• Refrigerate if you wish, but only after the chocolate has solidified.
• Consume.

Alternatively, one can use coconut oil instead of cocoa butter. In this case, chocolate will not solidify at the room temperature, so one should keep it in the fridge.

Here is what the chocolate looked like after being poured into molds:

Seasoning a carbon steel skillet

As a proper cooking geek I have gravitated towards carbon steel skillets. For a long time I was not even aware of that option, and was muscling my cast-iron pans around after ditching teflon, and after never warming up to stainless steel. After experiencing carbon steel, I gave away a number of my excellent-but-heavy cast iron pans, making space for carbon steel. The generated happiness was a nice bonus.

TLDR:

• Remove wax with boiling water, hot water and mild soap
• Dry the pan and heat it up
• Wipe the pan with an oiled rag to create a thin film of oil.
• Wipe the pan with a cleaner rag to remove any excess oil.
• Heat the pan on high heat, with a fan running, until all surfaces turn deep brown.
• If the pan is large, moving it around may speed up the process.
• Alternatively, bake the pan, upside down, in a preheated 500F oven for an hour and let the pan cool in the oven.

What is seasoning?

No, it has nothing to do with spices! It s a process of converting a raw steel or iron surface into a practically non-stick cooking surface that is also rust-proof.

The process of seasoning is what may keep a number of people away from carbon steel, or cast iron. I, too, was at first unsure how all of that will work out. I am happy to report that the feat has long been gone and that seasoning really should not be a reason for avoiding this superb, non-stick, ultra durable, and inexpensive cookware.

Basically, one coats a porous cooking surface with a very thin film of oil, and then applies high heat to essentially burn the oil. The oil dries and polymerizes and sticks onto the surface and in the pores, forming a protective surface that is practically non-stick. The beauty is that this surface is very sturdy, so one doesn't need to worry obsessively about protecting it.

Sheryl Canter's blog post is often referred as an authoritative source of science behind pan seasoning. Having a research background, I read the post, found it interesting, but I will admit that I prefer to keep things in life a bit simpler.

If the seasoning does get damaged or if you didn't season the pan properly, there is nothing to worry about. You simply season the pan again, as many times as you want. And of things go really badly, one can use steel wool to strip the old seasoning away and start again.

It is quite refreshing that these days carbon steel and cast iron are making such a comeback. Rarely does one come across items that are practically indestructible. I wonder what the business model of producers is - once you buy a carbon steel or a cast iron pan, it will last you for your life time, and it will outlive future generations as well.

Which oil to use?

Which oil should one use when seasoning a pan? This is a much debated question, and everyone seems to have their opinion. Sheryl Canter in her blog argues that flax seed oil is the way to achieve the hardest and the slickest seasoning possible. She also acknowledges that one can get a usable pan with other kinds of oil. When one purchases seasoned pans, manufacturers tend to disclose what oil they use - I have seen mentions of canola oil, bran oil, coconut oil and who knows what else.

The one consistent message I have seen is not to use extra virgin olive oil, or any other oil that contains impurities. Even Sheryl Cantor states that for flax seed oil, one needs to read the label and make sure that it contains no additives.

So what should one do? I don't claim deep expertise in chemistry of oil, and I have tried a number of options: canola, grape seed, corn, walnut, coconut, flax seed come to mind. I managed to get a usable seasoning with all of them, and frankly, I find it hard to tell the difference. I think it boils down to what you have at home. For example, flax seed oil is finicky - it is rather pricey, and one needs to store in the fridge. If you don't use it in smoothies or in some other way, do you really want to keep a bottle of oil in an already packed fridge just for occasional seasoning? Likely not.

What do I use? If I use straight oil, I go with either grape seed or walnut, or flax if I have it. But I like to play, and I read that adding beeswax to the seasoning helps with the process - but I have not seen a good explanation why. So I made myself a few seasoning pucks which I have been using lately.

Making a seasoning puck is, of course, trivial. One takes a clean tin can, and adds in there 1 part of beeswax, and two parts of oil. The proportions are by weight. The can goes in a hot water bath to melt the wax, then into silicone molds for the mixture to cool down. In a couple of hours, the pucks slide easily from the molds and are ready to use. 

For oil, I have used grape seed and flax seed, or walnut and flax seed. I find these pucks easy to use, the seasoning appears strong, and I find it easier to control how much seasoning I use - a quick touch of a hot surface melts just the right amount of the puck away.

Procedure

Carbon steel pans come coated with beeswax! How retro and how amazing! The wax is applied to protect the pan against rusting. Here is a brand new, still waxed Matfer pajella 14 inch carbon steel pan that I have been eyeing for a while - for the large cooking surface, and for its use as a roaster.

It looks nice and new, does it not? First we have to remove the wax. That is SUPER easy. Simply boil water in a kettle and pour boiling water in the pan, then swirl the hot water around. Then wash the pan with hot water and mild detergent - both the cooking surface and the bottom. If you are still not sure you removed all the wax, pour some water in the pan, bring the water to boil, and swirl it around.

I think it took me under 10 minutes to remove the wax from this large pan. So please, fear not, it really is easy. The washed pan looks like this.

No real visible differences!

The next step is fun. You need two old cotton or linen rags - I use old dish cloths. It really best to use these, but you can get away with paper towels. The lint free variety is best, but I have done this successfully with regular paper towels as well.

Dab some a little bit of cooking oil on one of the rags, or rub a rag with a seasoning puck.

This rag will be used to apply the oil on the pan. I keep such a rag in the kitchen under the sink. Sometimes I use it after cleaning a pan to wipe it with just a bit of oil. That is often recommended and it is really not required. You seasoning will protect the surface, and if you don't use the pan frequently enough, the oil will simply go rancid.

So now we have a rag with a bit of oil or seasoning wax, and a rag that is clean, or at least has much less oil in it.

Put the pan on the stove and heat in on medium for a few minutes. The goal is to open pores in the metal a bit more. Once the pan is nice and warm, or even really hot if you lose track of time, wipe the whole pan with the oily rag. leaving as thin a film on the pan as you can possibly imagine.

Then take the clean rag and wipe the pan some more. This is a most important step - the pan will look practically dry. Excess oil will simply pool in the pan into sticky spots. You can remove those of course, but why give yourself additional work.

Then set the heat to medium high or high and let the pan heat up and smoke of 5-10 minutes. Run your fan and open the windows if the fan cannot handle the smoke. This is what starts to happening:

You see that a part of the pan was starting to turn brown. This is a good thing, that is the oil starting to polymerize.

After a bit longer, the pan continues to transform, and the polymerization is starting to happen on the side walls as well.

Notice that this pan is very large and even though I used a large and powerful burner at full heat, I still had to move the pan around to get the heat distributed enough. If I waited longer, I think I would not need to move the pan, but my approach worked just fine.

At the end, the entire pan got a really deep patina and it looked like it was 100 years old! Well, almost. A well-used pan does darken with time. 

The pan was ready for cooking. I think this patina looks great, and I prefer it over the clean stainless steel look as carbon steel does not nag me to keep the pan shiny and new looking.

Because I am who I am, I did the seasoning twice, even though it was not needed. I pre-heated my oven to 500F and I wiped the cooking surface and walls with the oily rag again. The pan was super hot and started to smoke right away, Then I wiped the pan with the clean(er) rag to remove the excess of oil. I baked the pan in the oven for almost an hour and let it cool. There was no visible difference, but I felt good about being diligent. But I admit that I almost never do the seasoning in the oven as it takes more time, energy, and I don't think it is any better than stove-top seasoning.

The moment of truth

The same day, I used the newly seasoned pan to make pancakes. To my great satisfaction, I needed to use only a little bit of cooking oil - about as much as I would have used anyway on a non-stick pan. Cooking on medium heat, pancakes seared nicely and the pan required only a wipe to be clean and ready to be used again.

Cooking on medium heat is one adjustment one needs to make when switching to carbon steel or cast iron - these materials conduct the heat so much better than teflon of ceramics that one needs to cook at a lower heat.

Because these pans are so much more substantial than teflon or ceramic coated pans, one needs to preheat them for a bit longer. My carbon steel pans need about a minute or two on medium heat to preheat. It is much better to preheat on medium, because this gives the heat an opportunity to distribute more evenly and one avoids possible hot spots. 

Gluten free pizza

For the last two years we have been advised to avoid gluten. We found gluten-free life surprisingly easy to adjust to. We do miss the sourdough bread that we used to make regularly we I have no idea how to replicate, convincingly, the magic crust. We replace the bread with gluten-free muffins, which are equally amazing, so there is no looking back now that our restrictions are less strict.

Another dish that is impossible to replicate is pizza. Good dough requires gluten, it is as simple as that, I do not know how to replicate the texture. I did discover, however, that one can make a very tasty pizza from chickpea flour. No, the dough will not look the same, but the flavor will defeat wheat-based dough any day.

The trick is to make a pancake-like thick batter from chickpea flour. Fry the pancake at a medium heat on the stove, on both sides. A carbon steel skillet, or a cast iron skillet work very well. This is what the done base looks like.

Once the pancake is cooked but not burned, I add the toppings, and stick the pan into a preheated 400F oven for about 10 minutes for the toppings to heat through and for the cheese to melt. Here is a recent result  - I used our home-made tomato sauce, sauteed peppers and shiitake mushrooms, goat cheese, and a touch of red pepper flakes. Along with a salad, this was a fabulous meal for two.

Procedure:

• I make make chickpea flour with a grain mill. It goes much faster if I break down the beans in a coffee grinder and then transfer them to the grain mill. 
• About a cup or so of beans yields two pizza's made in a 10-inch carbon steel skillet with the cooking surface of 8-9 inches.
• To prepare the batter:
• Add a good pinch of salt to the flour
• Add 1 tsp of baking powder.
• Optionally, add some dry oregano and marjoram. 
• Mix the four and the seasonings well.
• Add a few TBS of olive oil
• Start adding water slowly, maybe 1/4 cup first, and stir well. The batter will be too dense to even mix.
• Keep adding water in small quantities and mix the batter until you reach a consistency of a thick pancake batter. One can still pour it, but it is pretty thick.
• To cook:
• Preheat a carbon steel skillet on medium to medium low.
• When the skillet is hot, add a TBS or two of cooking oil
• Add in enough batter to form a thick pancake - the thickness is your choice.
• Cook slowly until cooked on one side, about 4-5 minutes, but keep checking to avoid burning the base. It's important to keep the heat low enough.
• Flip with a large spatula, and cook on the other side.
• Flip again, top with the toppings, and cook for another 8-10 minutes in a preheated 400F oven.