Meatballs I always hoped for

I always found meatballs somewhat of a letdown. After hoping for a taste explosion from these deliciously looking morsels, my experience is that the flavor tends to be somewhat flat and plain. Maybe with an exception of Indian koftas or Swedish meatballs, and even there it seems the sauce takes most of the credit for the taste. Well, I can definitely claim a letdown for meatballs I had made - they had been in an OK-but-nothing-special category. 

Recently he store across the street has been carrying really excellent ground venison. Super lean, organic, grass fed, whet else could one ask for. I wanted to use the venison in a Thai curry, so I started to look for recipes, I found one that looked appealing, and it was definitely an inspiration for what I actually ended up doing. Basically, I ended up throwing a kitchen sink of Asian tricks at the meatball, finally getting the texture and the flavor I wanted. I can easily see replacing asian spices with other combinations, for example sage and cumin work really nicely and have a super pungent flavor I like  in my food.

That recipe also opened my eyes that one does not finish the meatballs in the sauce, which is something that was seared in my mind from how meatballs in tomato sauce were made when I was growing up. In reality, one can sear the meatballs in a pan, and then finish them in the oven. A large carbon steel roaster or paella pan surely helps here, so that one can work in one batch without overcrowding the pan:

 Ingredients:

• 1 lb ground meat. I used venison.
• 1-2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 - 1 tsp baking soda
• 1-2 tsp granulated garlic
• 4 TBS oat flakes, ground in a food processor. Bread crumbs would work, too.
• 1 TBS gochugaru (korean dried chillies, mild and sweet flavor)
• 1-2 TBS soy sauce
• 1-2 TBS fish sauce
• 1-2 TBS sesame oil
• 1 smal to medium onion, chopped finely
• a pinch of salt
• 3 garlic cloves
• 1 TBS finely chopped or grated ginger
• olive oil

Method:

1. If the meat was vacuum packed, unpack it and let it rest for 10 minutes at room temperature
2. Preheat the oven to 350F.
3. Heat some oil in a skillet at a medium-low to medium heat. Fry onions with a pinch of salt, until the onions soften and start changing color
4. Add the chopped garlic and ginger. Fry for 30 seconds. Place the mixture in a bowl and let it cool for a minute.
5. Add the rest of the ingredients to the bowl. mix all the ingredients well
6. Make 16 meatballs, or whatever size you like. Note, the cooking time may vary with the size of meatballs.
7. Optional but useful: Let sit for 10 minutes
8. In an oven-safe large pan, heat some oil at a medium heat. Brown meatballs on all sides, or at least two sides, if you have a hard time having the meatballs stand on a side. Do this in batches if needed.
9. Return all meatballs to the pan if you used several batches, and finish them in the oven for 10-12 minutes. Adjust the time if you have many more or fewer meatballs than the 16 used in this recipe.
10. The meatballs are done when cooked through. Test by cutting through a meatball and check that it is no longer pink inside.

 Notes:

• You can finish meatballs in a sauce. 
• You can cook the fully cooked meatballs some more in a sauce. 
• Pink ground meat can be hazardous for your health. Bacteria grows on the meat surface, this is why steaks are OK to cook and eat rare. In ground meat, the bacteria gets mixed into the meat, so ground meat should be cooked through.

Transatlantic potato salad

Potato salad is a big deal in Slovenia. We make it simply, and eat it proudly. The potato salad is also a big deal in the US, where it seems to be a must at almost any gathering. 

American

The American recipe involved more ingredients, and mayonnaise is used as dressing, along with possibly olive oil and vinegar.  Here is a "recipe" for an American-style potato salad that I found quite delicious:

• Potato, cubed, salted, and steamed
• Finely chopped onion, celery, carrots, sautéd in olive oil
• Finely chopped celery and parsley
• Mayonnaise
• Olive oil
• Rice vinegar

Slovenian

If one searches for Slovenian potato salad, many recipes are pretty much the same as the American version above. This was a surprise to me as what I grew up with differs in several ways. Maybe what I call a Slovenian version is really a version from Prekmurje, the flatlands of Slovenia. The cuisine in Slovenia differs quite significantly across the region, despite the country being quite tiny. 

Here is what we do: The secret is to let hot cooked and sliced potatoes soak up some rich broth. It is a neat way to generate deep flavor without adding fat. Tip: If you do not have tasty broth available, miso dissolved in some hot water works really well. For dressing we use good pumpkin seed oil and some vinegar or lemon juice. The pumpkin seed oil takes the flavor to a new dimension. I like to steam the potatoes instead of boiling them, as the potatoes retain so much more flavor. Here is the "recipe":

• Steamed potato, or boiled whole, peeled, and sliced
• Rich broth (bone, beef, chicken, vegetable, miso - it all works)
• Onion - soaked in water or sautéd
• Pumpkin seed oil
• Lemon juice or vinegar
• Salt to taste

Tarta de Santiago with a honey twist

Today a colleague at work called into a meeting from a room named Tarta de Santiago. I was curious, looked up Tarta de Santiago, and learned it was a pretty simple but tasty looking almond cake from middle ages, and that it represented Spain in Café Europe. My colleague claimed it was delicious. I baked the cake tonight. My colleague was right, the cake was delicious, it is definitely a keeper, hence recording the recipe here.

The knife-and-fork pattern is all I could come up with in a hurry, and it indicates how eager we were to dig into the cake. The cake tends to be decorated with a stencil of Cross of Saint James. I will try at the first opportunity.

I mostly followed the recipe from here, but made a few changes: I used honey instead of sugar and I reduced the amount from 200g to 150g. The cake was still plenty sweet, but the sweetness was not overpowering. I also added a tablespoon or two of Amareto to enhance the almond flavor. We liked the result.

Ingredients:

• 4 eggs
• 150g honey (the recipe I started with used 200g or 1 cup of castor sugar)
• 200g almond flour or ground almonds (2 cups)
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• grated rind of one lemon (I used a Meyer lemon)
• Optional: 1-2 TBS Amaretto
• Powder sugar for dusting

Procedure:

1. Preheat the oven to 350F (175C)
2. Grease a 8 or 9 inch spring form cake pan with butter, and line the bottom with parchment paper.
3. Crack the eggs into a bowl, and add the honey. Whisk until foamy and some air is incorporated. I used an electric handheld mixer.
4. Add cinnamon, lemon rind, Amaretto if you are using it, and almond flour. Mix carefully with a whisk so that some bubbles remain in the mixture.
5. Pour the mix into the cake pan, and bake for 30 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean.
6. Take the cake from the pan - I inverted it on a large plate, and let it cool for 10 minutes.
7. In the mean while prepare a cross stencil, or whatever shape you will use for the decoration.
8. Put the stencil on the cake and dust liberally with powder sugar.
9. Carefully remove the stencil and the cake is ready to eat. I like it best at a room temperature.
10. The cake can be stored covered at room temperature for a day or so.

Yeasted ricotta tarragon pancakes

 It seems I love pancakes, both savory and sweet, and I keep making up different combination. This one was inspired from a call with my mom who told me she made the potica with a tarragon filling. I remembered we had a good amount of dried tarragon in our pantry, waiting to be used. I also just acquired a new package of active yeast, so I decided to put the yeast to work.

Ingredients:

• 1 tsp yeast, 1 TBS flour (I used eincorn), a pinch of sugar, and 1/4 cup of lukewarm water
• 1/2 -3/4 cup of rolled oats
• 2-3 TBS buckwheat flour (or any other gluten free flour, or just regular flour)
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1/2 cup ricotta
• A handful or raisins
• A pinch of salt
• 1 TBS honey or sugar
• 2 tsp or so dried tarragon
• milk as needed

Procedure for the batter:

1. Activate the yeast by mixing the yeast, 1 TBS flour, a pinch of sugar, and 1/4 cup of lukewarm water. Let it stand for 5-10 minutes for the mixture to become frothy. I tend to use a smallish bowl for this, but you can also save on doing dishes and use the bowl that will be used for mixing the batter.
2. Mix all the ingredients in a bowl. Add a bit of milk if the batter is very thick and dry. 
3. Cover with a wrap, foil, or a lid, and let stand for at least 30 minutes to a couple of hours for the mixture to rise and become frothy.

Procedure for cooking pancakes:

1. Preheat a griddle or a pan (carbon steel is my preference) on a medium low heat.
2. Add a couple of tsp of oil or butter. I prefer Avocado oil or clarified butter, but really any cooking oil will do the job.
3. Add a heaping soup spoon of batter to the pan, and spread it out so that it is about 1/2 inch thick. Keep adding more pancakes to the pan until you run out of space, but do not overcrowd.
4. Cook for about 3-5 minutes per side, depending on the thickness of the pancake, and on how hot your burner is set. Lower heat is better so that the pancakes cook through.
5. Serve with fresh fruit and maple syrup.

Easy dosa

 I encountered dosa for the first time as a grad student in Waterloo. An Indian restaurant opened in a former fast-food joint, really without any redecorations. The food, however, was fantastic, and the star of the menu was this giant thin crispy sheet with a bit of tasty filling - it was called dosa. It took me years before I even contemplated to make dosa myself. Then I hesitated because I heard one needed to ferment the batter, and the recipe I saw asked for spice called "hing", which I didn't have. I purchased a batter a few times, and finally got the courage to make it myself. 

It turns out, dosa is a very versatile lentil-based pancake. One can use it in a traditional way, with any of the many fillings that came from Indian cuisine. One can also use it as a savory pancake - cheese, ham, mushrooms, scrambled eggs... Any of those filling make a wonderful addition to dosa. One can also use it as an ultra thin base for a pizza. Your imagination is the limit.

Making the filling is also super trivial. All one needs is some lentils and rice, water, and maybe some salt. Everything else is optional. Fenugreek, cumin, sage powder are among the spices I have tried. Each gives dosa a bit different flavor. I also learned that one does not need to ferment the batter. Of course, the sourness from fermentation makes a better dosa, but if one doesn't want to wait, the batter works very nicely even without being fermented.

I think there are a few things that help making dosa easier. One is adding rice - I use the same amount as for lentils. I have made dosa with lentils only - tasty, but much more fragile and hard to make. Two, there is no need to soak rice and lentils separately. Soaking them together eliminates some complexity from the recipe. Three, keep your batter thick enough, but not too thick - it still needs to be pourable. If the batter is too thin, the dosa is more sticky, so one needs to use more oil, and it is also much more fragile. Four, use a carbon steel pan. The pan needs to be quite hot, but not super hot. Then the dosa cooks and crisps nicely, without sticking. Non-stick pans should be used at a lower heat. Five, take your time before flipping dosa. When the dosa cooks sufficiently, it will easily separate from the pan surface and it will be nicely crispy.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup dal /lentils. Urad dal is what I prefer to use, but any skinless lentils will do
• 1/2 cup brown rice.
• salt, a pinch or two
• 1.5 cups water
• Optional: additional spices such as fenugreek, hing, sage, cumin,...

Procedure to make the batter:

1. Mix rice and dal in a bowl, and wash them mixture until the water stays mostly clear.
2. Cover the dal and rice mixture with at least 3 cups of filtered water, and let the mixture sit at a room temperature for 4-8 hours.
1. If you let the mixture sit for longer, some fermentation may take place.
3. Drain the water from the rice/dal mixture.
4. Add dal/rice mixture to a high-speed blender, and add 1.5 cups of filtered water.
5. Season with salt and any of the optional spices.
6. Blend until the mixture is completely smooth and has a consistency a bit thicker than the batter for crepes.
7. Transfer the batter into a container that you have a lid for. I like using a glass container.
8. Optionally, leave the batter at a room temperature for 8-16 hours and let it ferment a bit. In that case bubbles will start forming on the surface.
9. Store the batter in a covered container in a fridge for up to a week.

Procedure for cooking dosas:

1. Preheat a carbon steel or cast iron skillet or a griddle on a medium to medium-high heat - you'll need to figure out what setting works on your stove.
1. I usually use a 9.5 inch carbon steel crepe pan. If you use a larger pan and want to make a larger dosa, you need to adjust the volume of the batter used.
2. Add a teaspoon or two of avocado oil (or any high-heat oil) to the pan and swirl it around to cover the entire cooking surface. You can use a silicone brush here, but then you need to use a bit more oil.
3. Fill a 3 oz ladle with the batter, and pour about 4/3 of the ladle worth of batter in the center of the pan.
4. Gently spread the batter around the pan with the bottom of the ladle, using a circular motion in increasingly large circles.
1. Be gentle with the ladle. If you are pressing down, you will create holes in the batter and will not be able to create a uniform paper-thin dosa.
5. Cook until the batter starts to separate from the pan. Use a metal spatula to flip the dosa and cook on the other side for a another 2 or so minutes.
1. In India I saw a cook spread a bit of oil on top of the dosa before flipping it. I have tried that and it surely helps with non-stickiness and crispness of the dosa. But I usually don't do that as my pan is super well-seasoned and this extra oil is not needed.
6. Take the dosa out of the pan, and repeat for more dosas.

Addendum January 2024

After making the dosa with some regularity for a while, I realized a few things: 

One does not need any oil to make dosa. We verified that when we accidentally added batter to a dry pan, which is what we normally do for flatbread. All was well, the dosa was tasty, and we actually liked it better when it was made without oil. Maybe the name dosa did not apply any more, but that is not our focus.

Once I started seeing dosa as just another kind of a flatbread, more experimenting happened. Most notably, instead of soaking and using rice, we tried other grains, in a flour form. Millet and buckwheat are our standards, and they worked well. I tried adding some tapioca starch, and it also worked very well. Ground flax seed is now a standard. For each combination, one needs to adjust the amount of water to get the right consistency, and by now we have built up enough intuition that we do not measure any more.

The other area ares spices: Herbs de provence, granulated garlic, granulated onion, even gochugaru or cayene pepper, everything bagel spice mix and so on, each of those, or a combination, worked really well.

Finally, fermenation is great, but optional. For example, I used red lentils, washed, soaked in hot water for maybe 30 minutes, and then blended. To that I added a combination of flours and water, and made "dosa" immediately. Again I am not sure one can call it dosa at that point, but it surely looks like one.

Apple galette or is it a tart?

One of the few cookbooks I open repeatedly is Julia and Jacques cooking at home. The book shows variations by two phenomenal cooks, helping one understand that there are many ways to go about making a dish. The book exudes such care and such joy in cooking that one cannot help but love it.

I made their recipe for apple galette many times. Even though I don't really need to go go back and look it up, I always do, mostly to enjoy the careful instructions for making a flaky crust.

One day, however, I rebelled and started to adjust the recipe to our current needs. No white flour was the main restriction. I learned quickly that freshly milled wheat flour worked great. I could use either soft (preferable) or hard wheat berries, and the crust was still amazing. At the end I settled on using freshly milled einkorn flour, both for the flavor and for working around gluten sensitivity. Namely, einkorn has a much simpler gluten than the regular wheat, and that seems to make einkorn much easier to digest.

My other change is to use a tart pan. I press the dough into the pan and avoiding rolling it. If I do want a more proper galette, I roll out the dough directly on parchment, make the galette on top of parchment, and then transfer the parchment with the galette directly on a baking sheet. This avoid so much mess and reduces the difficulty by an order of magnitude. 

Ingredients:

Crust

• 6 oz (170g) wheat flour. My recommendation is freshly milled whole einkorn, but almost any wheat flour would do. I recommend agains the awful store-bought whole wheat flout. 
• 1/2 (2.5 ml) tsp salt 
• 1/2 (2.5 ml) tsp sugar
• 3 to 4 oz (85g - 115g) cold unsalted butter cut into small chunks
• Optional: a pinch of ground cinnamon
• 2-3 TBS (30ml - 45ml) ice water

Filling:

• 3-4 apples, cored and cut into small chunks
• A pinch of ground cinnamon
• a handful of raisins and/or dry cranberries, optionally soaked in rum
• 1-2 TBS (15ml - 30ml) sugar
• 1/2 (120ml) cup apricot jam
• 2 TBS (30ml) or so Grand Mariner
• 1 TBS (15 ml) unsalted butter, cubed

Method    

1.  In a bowl of a food processor, pulse all ingredients for the crust apart from the water. Pulls about 5 times, just enough to make the dough look like a fine crumble.
1. The careful pulsing is needed to avoid waking up the gluten creation.
2. Add 2 TBS water, and pulse the food processor  3-4 times, a second per pulse. The dough should stuck together when pressed. For this recipe you can add some more water to the dough, but do not make the dough wet.
3. The dough is usable right away, and will be even nice after an hour in the fridge.
4. When ready, preheat the oven to 400F. 
5. Core and chop the apples. In a bowl, mix the apples with cinnanon, sugar, and (drained) raisins.
6. Take the dough out of the fridge and press it into a tart pan. I use either a 9 inch round pan, or a 14 x 5.75 inch rectangular pan. Use your fingers and make sure that the dough goes all the way up the tart pan.
7. Warm up the jam and mix it with Grand Mariner to make the glaze.
8. Spread about 1/2 of the glaze on the bottom.
9. Distribute the apple mixture over the crust, and dot with the 1 TBS butter
10. Bake for 50 minutes or until the crust is done and the apples are soft.
11. Reheat the remaining glaze and spread/brush it over the tart.
12. Take the tart/galette out of the pan and let it cool. A rack or even a wooden cutting board works well for me.

Explorations of Žganci Koroška Way AKA Flour Crumble

Žganci is a traditional Slovenian, and likely not only Slovenian, side dish, which is essentially flour boiled in salted water, crumbled, and then covered with zabela - pork cracklings sometimes mixed with cream. There is also a koroška way of making them. One ever so slowly heats flour in a pan, adds water gingerly in small quantities, and stirs the flour until the flour is cooked and forms small crumbles. Then one adds zabela. The flours used traditionally are wheat, buckwheat, or corn.

Jasna taught me how to make žganci the koroška way. She started to experiment with great success by replacing the water with a broth or even miso broth. We then started to use healthier kinds of fat, and we really liked the taste that olive oil brought to the dish. The next step was to add the oil before žganci were cooked, which contributed to a chewier and very satisfying texture. Finally, we realized that one can depart from the traditional flour selections. Millet flour has been a particular success.

Note that žganci are not most visually appealing on their own. Do not be fooled, the satisfying texture and flavor are likely to win you over. This is an old-style peasant side dish that really has the goal to add calories to one's day. The modern version presented here is much lighter and can add tremendously to a plate, combined with a sauce, hummus, scrambled eggs etc. Žganci make a terrific leftover, another good reason to make them.

I will admit, grudgingly, that I started to make žganci in a non-stick wok. I thought this would allow me to add the liquids much faster, and I can use much less olive oil. One day I mustered the courage and made žganci in a reasonably well seasoned carbon steel wok - no sticking, easy clean-up. Guess how I make them these days...

Ingredients:

• Flour: millet, buckwheat, corn, you can try whatever you want. Freshly milled is of course the best. I usually use about 5 heaping tablespoons for two people and have nice leftovers.
• Broth: vegetable, beef, miso, or salted water. About 1/2 cup - I always eyeball it.
• A pinch of salt, unless your broth is very salty.
• Olive oil, or any other tasty fat that you like.

Procedure:

1. Place a pan or a wok on a burner and set it to a low to medium-low heat.
2. Immediately add the flour. 
3. Mix occasionally until the flour heats up. Be careful not to burn the flour. You may sense a wonderful aroma coming from the flour.
4. Bring the broth to a simmer.
5. Add some oil to the flour and stir well, breaking apart large chunks. 
1. I find this step really enhances the flavor, and makes clean-up easier.
6. Add some broth and mix and stir immediately with a stiff spatula or cooking spoon. The flour will first form a few chunks, but will soon start breaking into pieces as you work through it.
7. If the flour mixture is still dry, keep adding the water/broth until all of the four has received some liquid. Make sure you do not drown the flour - you will then have cook the liquid out, and that will take quite some time, and you will be unlikely to get the crumbly texture.
8. Add a tablespoon or two of olive oil and keep stirring and breaking down the flour into small crumbles.
9. Žganci is done when the crumbles are small, they are cooked through and have a bit of a chewy texture. 
10. Optional: When the žganci is pretty much done (see below), you can add another TBS of oil and toast them a bit more for added texture.

The video below shows how I made žganci in a wok, with the commentary is in Slovenian. I think this was my first attempt at a POV video, with no script and with super amateur editing 🤣