Flashback Friday - Gazpeacho

This post originally appeared on Minxeats.com on August 25 2014.

We've been getting some fabulous peaches from the local farmers' markets this summer, big juicy beauties. Sadly, I'm allergic to peaches (plums, apricots, cherries....). It comes from an overdose when I was a kid. My Dad used to work in Philadelphia, and on his way home from the office, he'd stop at a PA roadside stand and bring home half bushels of luscious peaches. Mom wasn't a baker or canner, so we ate the peaches raw by the bowlful. After two or three summers of indulgence, I could no longer eat stone fruits without feeling weird. My eustachian tubes would feel swollen and my eyes would itch, and I figured it was best to just give up the fruits rather than risk potential anaphylaxis.

Thankfully, it turns out my allergy is to raw fruit. Once it's cooked, even a little bit, I'm good. Because of my allergy, I nuked the sliced peaches for 2 minutes and let them cool before putting them in the blender. You, of course, can use raw peaches. White or yellow will do. White peaches are a bit sweeter than yellow, which can be a little tangier. I used yellow because I thought white peaches (which become pink when cooked) + cilantro = the color of barf. Yellow peaches and yellow peppers work much better with the green of cilantro. Of course, you may choose the omit the cilantro, if you're one of the unfortunate who think that it tastes like soap.

By this point, after I've posted so many tomato-less variations on gazpacho, you probably think I'm allergic to tomatoes, too. I am happy to say that's not the case. I just like variety.

Gazpeacho

2 yellow or orange bell peppers
1 pound ripe peaches
2 medium cucumbers
1 handful cilantro
3 green onions, white and green parts, chopped
2 teaspoons sherry vinegar
2 teaspoons fresh lime juice
1/4 teaspoon ground coriander
Pinch cumin
Salt and pepper to taste

Roast the bell peppers over an open gas flame, under the broiler, or on a grill, until skin is blackened all over. Place peppers in a paper or plastic bag, close bag, and allow to steam. When cool enough to handle, remove the blackened skin, stem, core, and seeds, and chop peppers into chunks.

Peel peaches and cut into chunks.

Peel cucumbers and chop.

This recipe makes about 2 quarts, so you'll probably want to make this in two batches. Put half of the ingredients into a blender and puree. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Do the same with the remaining ingredients.

Refrigerate for several hours or overnight to blend the flavors. Eat chilled or at room temperature.

Serves 4-8.



Posted on Minxeats.com.

Cranberry Quince Sauce

Normally we don't have it together enough to make holiday dishes in advance merely for the purpose of blogging about them. Perhaps if people left comments here, requesting such things (or even if people left comments at all...ahem.), we'd try. Ordinarily, the cranberry sauce doesn't get made until the day before Thanksgiving, but this year, the three of you lucked out.

There are quince at the farmers' markets. We can hear you now, "I thought quinces were birds?" "What the hell is a quince?" Quince is a relative to pears and apples and looks like a cross between the two. Unlike pears and apples, they can't be eaten out of hand--they are far too hard, astringent, and acidic. But they smell wonderful. The two quince we picked up at the UMB farmers' market perfumed the car and made the evening commute far more pleasant than usual.

The last time we did anything with quince, the result was quince butter flavored with star anise and vanilla. Delicious stuff, especially as a side for roast pork. But there was a bag of cranberries in the freezer begging to be combined with quince. After discarding the idea of a chutney, we went with our usual cranberry sauce-making technique: throw stuff in a pot until it tastes good.

The quince and cranberry combo is wonderfully aromatic on its own, but even more so when a healthy dose of rosemary is added. Be sure to crush the rosemary needles in your hand before adding them to the pot, to ensure all the yummy essential oils can be dispersed through the sauce.

Cranberry Quince Sauce

2 quince
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
1/2 cup fresh orange juice
1/2 cup amaretto or bourbon (optional)
1/2 cup water
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon dried rosemary
1 lb cranberries
Pinch salt
2 tablespoons maple syrup

Peel and dice the quince. Add them to a 2-quart saucepan with the brown sugar, orange juice, amaretto, and water. Bring mixture to a boil, then turn down heat and simmer, uncovered, for twenty minutes, until quince are softened. Add the spices, cranberries, and salt. Cook until cranberries pop and mixture thickens, about 10 minutes. Stir in the maple syrup and remove from heat.

Makes about a quart.

Posted on Minxeats.com.

Gluten-Free Mango Lychee Crisp

One evening after dining at Hunan Taste, we popped into H Mart (since it's in the same shopping center) and picked up a few odds and ends from the produce department. There was a big bin of lychees that was being swarmed by women who seemed to be digging around for particular fruits. I had no idea what they were looking for, but put ten or so lychees in my bag and left them to their digging.

Lychees are weird fruits. When I was a kid, they were occasionally served as dessert in Chinese restaurants. They came straight from a can, preserved in syrup. They were oddly eye-ball-like and had a strange fleshiness. I wasn't sold.

Fresh ones are better. They're small and spiky, easy to peel, with a white fruit (and pit) inside. Still on the eyeball-ish side. I bought them green, which is apparently immature, although they were plenty sweet and juicy already. The texture of the fruit is similar to that of a grape, but more, I don't know...sinewy? Fibrous, I guess. The flavor is not far off from that of passion fruit and is very perfum-y. They're tasty, but I'm not big on the texture.

I had a mango left over from my Ananda chutney experiment and thought I'd make a fruit crisp with the mango and the lychee. Why not? It actually worked really well, especially with a scoop of ice cream on top.

You might have noticed the "gluten-free" label in the title of this post. I'm not going all special-diet on you, believe me. I still like gluten and eat plenty of it. But I figured I could use oat flour along with the oatmeal and make a gluten-free crisp as tasty as one with wheat flour.

Because lychees are oddly fibrous, it's best to chop them fairly finely. They are also juicy as heck, so make sure you add those juices to the crumble. You can sop 'em up with some cornstarch so the resulting crisp is actually crisp and not soggy.

Gluten-Free Mango Lychee Crisp

1 ripe mango
10 lychees
2 teaspoons sugar
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1/2 cup oatmeal
1/4 cup oat flour
1 tablespoon roughly chopped nuts (I used pistachios and walnuts)
1 tablespoon brown sugar
Pinch cardamom
Pinch cinnamon
Pinch salt
1 tablespoon butter, melted

Preheat oven to 375°F.

Peel and dice the mango. Peel, deseed, and chop the lychees finely. Toss the mango, lychee, and lychee juices with the sugar and cornstarch and divide the mixture between 4 half-cup or 2 one-cup oven-safe ramekins.

Combine the oatmeal, oat flour, nuts, brown sugar, and spices in a bowl. Pour over the melted butter and mix well. Sprinkle the oat mixture evenly over the mango/lychees.

Place ramekins on a baking sheet and bake for 30 minutes, until bubbly around the edges. Allow to cool a bit before eating.

Posted on Minxeats.com.

Gazpeacho

We've been getting some fabulous peaches from the local farmers' markets this summer, big juicy beauties. Sadly, I'm allergic to peaches (plums, apricots, cherries....). It comes from an overdose when I was a kid. My Dad used to work in Philadelphia, and on his way home from the office, he'd stop at a PA roadside stand and bring home half bushels of luscious peaches. Mom wasn't a baker or canner, so we ate the peaches raw by the bowlful. After two or three summers of indulgence, I could no longer eat stone fruits without feeling weird. My eustachian tubes would feel swollen and my eyes would itch, and I figured it was best to just give up the fruits rather than risk potential anaphylaxis.

Thankfully, it turns out my allergy is to raw fruit. Once it's cooked, even a little bit, I'm good. Because of my allergy, I nuked the sliced peaches for 2 minutes and let them cool before putting them in the blender. You, of course, can use raw peaches. White or yellow will do. White peaches are a bit sweeter than yellow, which can be a little tangier. I used yellow because I thought white peaches (which become pink when cooked) + cilantro = the color of barf. Yellow peaches and yellow peppers work much better with the green of cilantro. Of course, you may choose the omit the cilantro, if you're one of the unfortunate who think that it tastes like soap.

By this point, after I've posted so many tomato-less variations on gazpacho, you probably think I'm allergic to tomatoes, too. I am happy to say that's not the case. I just like variety.

Gazpeacho

2 yellow or orange bell peppers
1 pound ripe peaches
2 medium cucumbers
1 handful cilantro
3 green onions, white and green parts, chopped
2 teaspoons sherry vinegar
2 teaspoons fresh lime juice
1/4 teaspoon ground coriander
Pinch cumin
Salt and pepper to taste

Roast the bell peppers over an open gas flame, under the broiler, or on a grill, until skin is blackened all over. Place peppers in a paper or plastic bag, close bag, and allow to steam. When cool enough to handle, remove the blackened skin, stem, core, and seeds, and chop peppers into chunks.

Peel peaches and cut into chunks.

Peel cucumbers and chop.

This recipe makes about 2 quarts, so you'll probably want to make this in two batches. Put half of the ingredients into a blender and puree. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Do the same with the remaining ingredients.

Refrigerate for several hours or overnight to blend the flavors. Eat chilled or at room temperature.

Serves 4-8.



Posted on Minxeats.com.

Peach Mostarda

The farmers's markets had a plethora of peaches in July, and I was happy to buy them. Sad thing is--I am allergic to stone fruits. Fortunately, the allergy is peculiar in that if I cook the fruit, even for a short time, whatever compound within it that makes me itchy is neutralized. This means microwaved peaches, but once they cool down, I can barely tell they've been cooked. And they're still tastier and fresher than canned peaches. (I chop them and put them in a bowl before cooking them...I don't recommend microwaving a whole peach. I haven't tried it, but I can imagine an explosion might ensue.)

Sometimes I buy more fruit than we can eat out of hand (or out of the microwave), so that means getting creative. One batch of white peaches inspired me to make a mostarda, an Italian chutney-like concoction of fruit flavored with mustard. After checking out several mostarda recipes online, I decided to concoct my own. What I really wanted to do was make the pickled mustard seeds I had read about in David Chang's Momofuku cookbook. Since prepared mustard has vinegar in it, Chang's seeds (which he confesses to have stolen from Tom Colicchio) are like the ultimate whole grain mustard. Why couldn't I combine them with peaches to make a savory-sweet condiment?

So that's what I did. I made the pickled mustard seeds first, then I combined the peaches with more vinegar, some sugar, and powdered mustard to make a quick-and-dirty mostarda. Added the mustard seeds to the mostarda and voila! a lightly crunchy condiment that adds a bit of punch to a simple grilled chicken breast or pan-fried pork chop. That's how I served it the first time, as a sauce over a simple salt-and-pepper-seasoned pork chop.

Peach Mostarda

1/3 cup yellow mustard seeds
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup seasoned rice wine vinegar
2 tablespoons sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt, divided use
3 firm ripe peaches
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
1 tablespoon powdered mustard

Combine the mustard seeds, water, vinegar, sugar, and 1/2 teaspoon salt in a small heavy saucepan and bring to a simmer over low heat. Cook, stirring often, until the mustard seeds are plump and tender, about 45 minutes. Add a bit more water if they look like they're going to dry out. They'll be plump and resemble caviar when they're done. Remove from heat and set aside.

Cut an X in the skin of each peach and blanch them in boiling water for a minute or so to loosen the skins. Peel peaches and cut into large dice. Combine the brown sugar, apple cider vinegar, and powdered mustard in a small saucepan and bring to a simmer. Add the peaches and remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt. Simmer for 10 minutes, until peaches are tender. Remove from heat and set aside.

When both are cool, add 3 tablespoons of the pickled mustard seeds to the peaches. The remaining pickled mustard seeds can be stored in a covered container in the fridge indefinitely. Both can be served with meats and cheeses, or used as a sandwich topping.



Posted on Minxeats.com.