Other people's comfort food

Comfort food is a very culture-specific thing.  Not always the healthiest food, not always the most decadent food, not always the most complicated food, it's usually simple and hearty and makes you feel like your mom just called you in to dinner after a long day playing outside.

For me, comfort food can be many things: macaroni and cheese, chicken noodle soup, tomato soup and grilled cheese, oatmeal, peanut butter and jam sandwiches with a glass of milk, apple crisp.  The idea of "soul food" comes pretty close, too--fried chicken, green beans simmered all day with bacon and onions, mashed potatoes and gravy. 

Over spring break, my best friends from undergrad and I met up in Chicago for a weekend.  We went to Chinatown and ate dim sum, and as we were leaving one of my friends realized that every Chinese family in the restaurant had a big steaming pot of rice porridge on the table.  

"This place must be known for their jook!  We should have had some," she lamented. By this point, though, we were stuffed and resolved to use the jook as an excellent excuse to come back to Chicago.  I asked Gena, whose heritage is half Chinese, half Japanese,and Inez, who is from Singapore, what exactly went into making jook.

Finished jook: all it takes is a handful of rice, lots of water,
bouillon paste, some mushrooms, and plenty of time.

Jook, also known as congee, is just rice porridge: much the way Americans eat oatmeal, or oat grains cooked in plenty of water until they soften into mush, most Asian cultures have a name for rice cooked the same way.  It sounded easy and nourishing and hearty, and I resolved to try to make some once I was home.

All the rest of the week, I made jook just about every morning.  Not just because it was easy, not just because it was new, but also because it's absolutely delicious.  And here's how you do it:

• First, decide how much you want to make.  It's easy to scale up, and a little bit of rice makes a LOT of jook.
• Measure out the rice in a pan.  Add water, about 8:1 water to rice (yes, 8:1.  So if you use a quarter cup of rice, add 2 c. water).  Add any seasonings you might want, or maybe some leftovers (chicken would be yummy, or I just chop up some raw mushrooms and toss them in to stew a bit).  Bring to a boil, then cover and cook on low until the rice has swollen up and completely softened, maybe half an hour or more.  

  

  Raw egg in the bottom.

• To serve, I eat mine the way Inez says she used to get hers at her school cafeteria: a raw egg in the bottom of the bowl, jook on top, some soy sauce and sesame oil sprinkled in, and a generous helping of chopped scallions.  Take your spoon and stir the egg into the jook, it makes it rich and sort of creamy, a bit like custard.  (The heat from the porridge cooks the egg, no worries.)

Chopped scallions, a few drops of sesame oil, soy sauce go in next.

• A few caveats: white rice is best for this, it gets nice and soft (I used jasmine, which is excellent).  If you can't stand it and have to have brown rice (or if brown rice is all you have), it works fine, but be aware that the resulting jook will be chewier and nuttier-tasting and won't get that creamy, soft consistency.  Also, sticking to traditional Asian flavors really go well with the rice, but I'm sure you could use other flavor combinations, too (get creative!).

Stir it all together, then the best part: eat it!

Sometimes, all you really want is your favorite comfort food: when it's rainy, when it's been a bad day, when you're sick, when you miss home...any and all of the above.  But it's nice to branch out once in a while and try on other cultures' comfort foods: jook is definitely a new member on my list of favorites!

bisous,

Lindsey

Ooey gooey brunch: Monkey Bread

Post-exams is always a daze, but especially after finals.  To celebrate being done (and to nurse our inevitable hangovers), some of my friends and I got together and made brunch on Friday morning.  At my house growing up, you can't have holiday brunch without Monkey Bread, also known as pull-apart bread, also known as the best breakfast treat ever.  My mom would make this every Christmas Eve because it was easy to just throw it in the oven while we opened presents.  Then, the warm, cinnamon-sugar smell would remind us that we were starving and we would cluster around the counter, sneaking pieces before they cooled and snacking on them loudly to cool them even as we gobbled them down.

My mom always made ours in this special pan--a white ceramic loaf pan with a little tray to turn it out onto after it baked.  She also used frozen roll dough cut into pieces and dipped them in butter, cinnamon, and sugar.  Since I like to bake bread from scratch (and since it's actually cheaper), I used the recipe found here at Eatin' on the Cheap to make Monkey Bread from scratch.

The recipe is not too complicated if you're familiar with yeast breads: the dough is enriched (milk for liquid, plus some melted butter and some sugar) and also contains some cinnamon.  The sugar mixture for coating contains cinnamon and nutmeg mixed with brown sugar, and then the bottom of the pan gets a mix of melted butter, brown sugar, and chopped walnuts.  Then it's just a matter of assembly (and patience)!

The dough has to be mixed, kneaded, and left to rise for about an hour before you can really start the rest of the recipe.

Get everything set up first: melted butter, sugar-spice mixture, and dough chunks.

The dough gets divided into quarters.  Each quarter is rolled into a log and then cut into 16 pieces.  (Here's a great way to practice your fractions if you're rusty.  I cut the log in half, then each half into halves, then each of those into four pieces.)

Roll a quarter of the dough into a log and cut it into 16 pieces.

The dipping part is definitely the messiest part.  I suggest having the sugar/spice bowl right next to the bundt pan so there's minimal sugar all over afterwards.  I also thought it was easier to plop the buttered dough piece into the bowl and scoop some sugar over it rather than actually rolling it around.

Dip the pieces in butter and then into the sugar-spice mixture.
Then arrange the pieces over the bottom of the bundt pan.

Repeat for all four quarters of the bread dough, layering as you go and smushing the dough as necessary to make it fit tightly in the pan.  Toward the end I ran out of sugar for rolling, so I just dipped the dough in butter and threw them in there (luckily the top ones turn into the bottom ones once you flip it).

Add more pieces in layers until you've used them all up, about 3-4 deep.
I ran out of sugar and spice at the end so these last few are just dipped in butter.

Now you can cover it and put the pan in the fridge overnight.  In the morning, take the pan out an hour before you want to bake it.  Bake in a 350 degree oven for 40-50 minutes (mine was perfect at 40 minutes), then let it cool for five minutes in the pan.  Don't let it cool too much longer than that, though, or else it will stick in the pan.  Put a plate or platter over the top of the bundt pan and flip the whole thing over and voila! You're ready to go.

Ooey, gooey, caramely goodness!

This was so delicious and really not complicated--totally worth it.  If you're pressed for time, frozen roll dough or (as per other recipes I saw on the internet) biscuit dough would probably work okay, too...but the extra oomph from the bread being cinnamony was pretty delicious.

Happy holidays!

Pumpkin Pie Smoothie

The autumn air is cool and leads me to daydream of pumpkin pie. This pumpkin-pie smoothie is a slimmer, quicker version of a pumpkin pie. Delicious way to start the day. I prefer not to measure and rather to eyeball.

Combine in Blender:
- Equal parts plain yogurt and canned pumpkin
- 1 splotchy-brown banana (this seems to be the most sugary sort)
- dash of milk--enough to liquify smoothie,
- 1 Tablespoon brown sugar
- A few dashes of pumpkin pie spice (cinnamon, ginger, allspice, nutmeg)

I will admit, it seems a bit strange or perhaps innovative to drink a pumpkin concoction, but delightful all the same.

End-of-summer galette

Nothing says summer like stone fruit: peaches, plums, nectarines--as soon as they hit rock-bottom prices at the store (and once the air hangs heavily with summer humidity), it's time to make pies or smoothies or just eat as many as you can out-of-hand.  My favorites are plums and nectarines.  (Peach fuzz still kinda weirds me out, you know?  But really good peaches are a mess to try and peel...thus, the nectarine.)  I was trying to find something easy to do with some nectarines because I just had tons of them and--much as I love them--I wanted to do more than just quarter them and munch on them as a snack.

My first creative use: salsa.  I forgot to take a picture of it.  (Shame on me, I know.  But I'm new at this!)  My summer research project involved working at a community garden, where they have a weekly cooking demo.  Last week's was fresh salsa, and I was inspired to make a fruity-spicy combo that went really great with plain tortilla chips.

Nectarine salsa (makes 1 bowl, serves 1 for dinner or a crowd at a party)

1 nectarine

1-2 banana peppers

half an onion

half a lime

salt

herbs of your choice

Method:

-Quarter the nectarine, remove the pit, and peel.  Dice medium to fine, depending on how you like your salsa.  I like this one pretty chunky.

-Dice the banana peppers the same size as the nectarine.  Be sure to remove the seeds before you dice them!

-Dice the onion and add it to the nectarine and peppers.  You can use red (a little sweeter, probably better) but I used white in a pinch and it worked fine.

-Juice the half a lime into the bowl of diced fruit and veg and add a pinch of salt.

-Mince some fresh herbs and add to the salsa.  I used a green onion and a few leaves of mint because that's what I had on hand, but the next time I made it I used a little basil and some chives--still good!  They just add some freshness and a brightness to the salsa.

-Mix everything up together and let it sit for a little if you can, or if you're like me just go ahead and eat 2/3 of the bowl right away with chips.

After I made the salsa (twice in two days), I decided it was time to go a little more traditional and make a dessert.  Pie always sounds like too much work, but I remembered that galettes are like pie but without the pan and are a little more forgiving.  I borrowed the base recipe for pie dough and general method from smitten kitchen, but I skipped the complicated parts (the ground almonds and the flour on the galette before I added the fruit).  

So...I couldn't wait.  I had to try a slice right away.

This galette used 2 1/2 nectarines...so almost 3, but I snacked on the scraps.  Basically, I think galettes are my new favorite dessert.  You make a pie dough, you roll it out, and then you slice and arrange your fruit in a pretty circle in the middle.  Leave about 2 inches or a little less around the circumference of the fruit so you have enough to tuck over the sides.  Then, I drizzled some honey over the top of the fruit, folded up the sides into pleats, and brushed the crust with egg.  A quick sprinkle of vanilla sugar and the whole thing went into the oven for I think 45 minutes.  

The directions said to transfer the galette right away to a cooling rack, which I did--the crust stayed nice and firm, with a hint of crackle as I bit into the sugared pastry.  It also said to wait 20 minutes before slicing, which I only barely managed to do.  But then I definitely had a slice.  Or two.  And I may or may not have eaten a big chunk of this for breakfast the next day.  (What?  It was around brunch time when I got up, anyway...)

This was the perfect way to end the summer.  But now it's off to school again...second year and the board exams looming!  

Enjoy the stone fruit while you can!

~Lindsey

A little bit of this, a little bit of that

Pan-fried toast with fresh tomato slices, an over-easy egg, and mustard sprouts.

I went to a family medicine conference at the end of last week.  It was in my hometown, so I got to stay at my mom's house and be pampered by her.  While I had a lot of fun--scoping out all the residency displays and picking up a farm's worth of animal-shaped stress squeezie-things, hanging out with a friend from far away--it was still nice to come home to my own apartment.  However, knowing that I would be gone for a couple days, I had let my groceries dwindle pretty low.  So when I woke up for breakfast this morning, I found one egg and a weird assortment of veggies in the fridge.  A paw through the freezer turned up a little frozen bread buried in the back.  With a pat of butter in the pan, I managed to turn fridge leftovers into a pretty passable breakfast.  In other news--I definitely need to go to the store today.

~Lindsey