ingredient: tomatillos

Few things excite me more than a new ingredient.

Most people tend to discover new edibles by reading and following recipes to a T.  This has happened for me, on occasion (See: TastingTable’s fantastic okra recipe or David Lebovitz’s take on Ottolenghi’s Fried Beans w/Sorrel & Sumac), but my habit of mix-and-matching recipes or using them for “inspiration” means that obscure ingredients like sherry vinegar tend to get the shaft.

On the flip, I’m an impulsive ingredient explorer.  I eagerly purchase new varietals of familiar ingredients (fairytale eggplant, heirloom tomatoes of any shape or size) and splurge on items I’ve never before seen (long beans and purslane are two of my found-on-the-fly favorites).

My zeal for new flavors hasn’t always worked out to my advantage.  Once, in Paris, I bought a piment antillais (a habanero pepper), thinking that - since Parisians cannot tolerate any level of spice - it must be safe.  I was wrong.  And furthermore, I was most wrong in deciding to crunch into a morsel of that pepper raw to “see how spicy it was”.  One liter of milk and a whole baguette later, I finally stopped crying.

Needless to say, I’m less experimental with foreign spicy substances these days.  But that doesn’t mean that I don’t enjoy a good spicy salsa from time to time.

Cue the tomatillos.  I had never consciously consumed a tomatillo until one week ago, when my CSA bag arrived full of these little green, cloaked, tomato-like creatures.  Assuming they weren’t spicy, I cracked into one and was surprised by the seedy, dense interior.  After a bit of research, I learned tomatillos are a key component in  salsa verde.

Since I’m always up for an adventure involving my blender (which, yes, I use in the place of a proper Cuisinart on many occasions), salsa verde it was.  While I like spicy, I prefer something a bit milder than your typical salsa verde, so rather than jalapeno, I opted for a pickled Anaheim chile I already had on hand.

Salsa Verde (for the Cuisinart-deprived)

Ingredients:

A dozen or so tomatillos ½ a red onion De-seeded, pickled Anaheim chile A chopped handful of cilantro 1/4 cup lime juice A good squeeze of honey (I used alfalfa honey) salt to taste

1)  Chop tomatillos, onion, chile and cilantro – add to blender. 2) Add honey, salt, and lime juice to blender. 3) Use the ice/pulse setting to chop and a “poker” (usually a high-quality chopstick in my case) to push down the unchopped chunks in between pulses. 4) Patience, my friends. 5) And voila! After 3 minutes or so, you have an amazing, medium/mild salsa verde.

Note: Salsa verde is a great condiment for any leftover frozen turkey scraps you still have from Thanksgiving – turkey enchiladas!

recipe revisited: cranberry sauce

There are certain foods you grow up with that will forever evoke nostalgia and comfort.  And while we've all got our favorite from-scratch food memories, there's usually a few boxed, canned or processed guilty pleasures that delight us, despite our now "knowing better". For many Americans - my mother included - this includes jellied cranberry sauce.  Straight from the can, with the ridges of course, and perhaps best enjoyed smashed into a leftover-turkey sandwich.  Needless to say, it took some fighting on my part to impose the glory that is homemade cranberry sauce on our family Thanksgiving feast.

Last year's batch was a resounding success (I really do not like super-sweet anything, so I used about 1/3 the sugar suggested in the recipe I found, and just upped the OJ quotient).  However, being the ever-curious and instinctual cook that I am, I didn't write down the recipe.  So much the better! - because that means more experimenting this year.

Note : I don't usually measure when I cook - so I provide estimated measurements, which you should play around with!

Homemade Tart & Spiced Cranberry Sauce

Ingredients: 1 bag of cranberries, maple syrup, OJ, 1 pomegranate, 1 cinnamon stick, 1 tsp  allspice (optional : turmeric, orange zest, lemon juice)

1. Put a centimeter of water in the bottle of a medium-sized pot.  Start to heat the water, and add your bag of cranberries. 2. Add your OJ (about a cup) - almost enough to cover the cranberries, but not quite. 3. Swirl in some maple syrup (I used about 1/4-1/3 cup, but you can add more if you like it sweeter). 4. Stir the mixture and let it come to a simmer. 5. Meanwhile, wash your pomegranate and slice it in half.  Grab a large bowl and hold the cut pomegranate, seed-side-down, in your non-dominant hand (fingers spread, but gripping the pomegranate).  Use a large spoon to whack the seeds out of the pomegranate into the bowl.  Hint : Don't wear white. http://youtu.be/8lH47Oorrdk 6. Add your pomegranate seeds, cinnamon stick and allspice to the pot. 7. Once a good number of the berries have popped, taste the sauce.  Add fresh lemon juice for acidity, orange zest for savory "zing", and turmeric for a more robust spice palate (turmeric is strong, so start with a 1/4 tsp and taste before adding more) . 8. Let your sauce boil down a bit (the whole process should take no more than 20-30 minutes) to thicken. 9. Fish out and throw away the cinnamon stick.  Pour the sauce into mason jars or serving bowls to cool (it will thicken as it cools) 10. Impress your family and friends at holiday gatherings!

A second opinion: - Like your flavors more traditional?  Here's a great step-by-step cranberry sauce recipe by The Pioneer Woman.

cuisine à la carly: leafy greens

As an avid cook and culinary experimenter, a question I get asked often is "how do you find the time to cook"?

The answer isn't exactly simple.  Like all projects worth doing - cooking starts with a considerable investment of time and effort (namely, familiarizing yourself with different techniques and buying good equipment).  But once you've put in that initial chunk of time, day-to-day cooking becomes fairly easy - it's just variations on a theme.

That said, I know the question people really want answered is : "What is a  short-cut to healthy, home-cooked meals"?  And while most people will tell you no such thing exists, I disagree.   The answer is leafy greens.

Leafy greens are great for detoxification, extremely versatile, and fast to cook.  The vast majority of my warm weeknight meals are based off these nutritious plants (kale, mustard greens, collard greens, spinach, turnip greens...) and fall into one of two easy variants : braised and soup('ed).

Braised Greens:

Ingredients: greens, garlic (onion/shallot), olive oil, salt, water/stock (+ optional extras)

1) Heat up olive oil in a pan. 2) Slice 1-2 cloves of garlic (and/or you can use shallots, red onion, etc.) and add them to the pan.  Note: if you use both an onion/shallot and garlic, add the onion first and then the garlic, as garlic burns very quickly and the onion will need to soften. 3) Wash your greens and chop into inch-wide ribbons.  Note: Do not dry the greens after washing, the residual moisture will help them wilt. 4) Add greens to pan with a pinch of salt and cover.  Note: be careful of splattering, as wet greens and hot oil can create a "spitting pan" situation.  Keep an eye on the pan.  Add extra water or stock as necessary to wilt greens without drying them out. 5) Spruce it up:

• Catalan Greens: add golden raisins to pan (at same time you add spinach so that they plump up a bit) as well as chick peas or nuts.  Optional: squeeze of lemon or splash of balsamic vinegar.  Note : Chick peas can be added at same time as raisins, for nuts : add slivered almonds, toasted pine nuts, or soy nuts 1-2 minutes before you remove the greens from the pan.
• Simple Greens: Dress with a squeeze of lemon or a tsp of balsamic vinegar.  Note : add vinegar while still over flame, so it caramelizes a bit as it cooks down.
• Indian Greens: add curry or an Indian spice mix to the pan at the same time as the greens.  Note: you may want to add a splash of extra water to help create a "sauce" of sorts.  You can also add golden raisins and nuts, as with the Catalan version.

6) When greens are wilted and all other ingredients heated through, remove from heat and serve promptly.

Soup'ed Greens:

Ingredients: 1 bunch of greens, olive oil, garlic (onion/shallot), chicken (or other) stock (+ optional extras)

1) Heat up a small amount of olive oil in a pot. 2) Slice up 2-3 cloves of garlic (as well as some shallots/onions if you like). 3) When garlic is slightly browned, add 4 cups of chicken (or other) stock. 4) Wash and cut greens into inch-wide ribbons. 5) When stock has reached a gentle simmer, add greens, cook for 15-20 minutes. 6) Spruce it up:

• During cooking:
• add fresh diced tomatoes or chopped sundried tomatoes
• add herbs and spices, such as rosemary, thyme or bay leaf or spicy red pepper flakes
• add legumes, like white beans (northern beans, cannelloni beans) chick peas, or lentils
• After cooking:
• toast stale bread and add small cubes to soup
• grate Parmesan cheese over finished soup

Once you master these two classics, you may feel inclined to add some new leafy green recipes to your regimen, so check out this list of 246 cheap, healthy leafy green recipes.