Rasgulla

I'm not into the whole idea that one simply eats to live, because I live to eat. That has made me an adventurous cook. While I love meatloaf and spaghetti and meatballs as much as the next person, I almost never cook them. (Besides, Neal does a much better job at both dishes than I do.) I prefer to make things that are a little more unusual than what one would expect a second generation Polish-American to make: octopus; egg foo yung; b'stilla; rasgulla.

Rasgulla is an Indian dessert, basically cheese balls cooked in a sweet syrup. I found the recipe in Chetna Makan's book The Cardamom Trail. Chetna was a contestant on the 2014 season of the Great British Bake-Off and an even more recent Christmas special. Trained as a fashion designer in Mumbai, she moved to the UK a decade or so ago where she honed her already keen talent for baking. She's known for incorporating exotic spices and international flavors into her bakes, and her creativity quickly made her my favorite contestant of the four seasons of the Bake-Off that I've seen so far. I purchased her book as a Christmas gift to myself but so far haven't made anything other than the rasgulla. Why? Because most of the recipes call for self-raising flour, and I've been too lazy to look up the conversion to regular AP flour. Plus, the house has been full of holiday baked goods and food show samples and there hasn't been room for one more pie or cake or cookie in our already oversized bellies. That said, I'm hoping to try something before it gets too warm to turn on the oven.

In the meantime, however, I did find time to make these cheese balls. No self-raising flour required, and they sounded pretty simple otherwise. They're rather unusual, in that the cheese becomes very firm and "squeaky" after cooking. I find them most pleasing when warm, but they can also be eaten at room temperature or chilled.

Rasgulla (adapted from The Cardamom Trail)

1-2 tablespoons lime juice
1 3/4 pints whole milk
Pinch saffron
1 cup sugar
2 teaspoons rosewater
1 tablespoon cornstarch

Mix 1 tablespoon of lime juice with 1 tablespoon of water in a bowl and set aside. Bring the milk to a boil in a large saucepan, then turn off the heat. Add the saffron. Pour in the lime juice and stir well. Let stand for 5 minutes - the milk should curdle. If it hasn't curdled enough, add the other tablespoon of lime juice and wait a few more minutes until there's a definite separation of the curds and whey.

Place a layer of cheesecloth in a fine gauge strainer and place over a bowl. Carefully pour the curdled milk into the strainer, catching the curds in the cheesecloth and allowing the whey to drain into the bowl. Gather the ends of the cloth together and wring out as much liquid from the curds as you can. Drain the whey from the bowl, set the strainer back on top, and place the bundle of squeezed curds back in. Place a small plate on top and weight it down with a can or two to help press out any excess liquid. Allow to drain for 15 minutes.

In a wide pan, heat the sugar with three cups of water until the sugar has dissolved. Remove the syrup from the heat.

Remove the curd from the cloth. Place it on a clean surface, sprinkle with the cornstarch, and knead with your palms for 10 minutes. It will go from crumbly to soft and smooth. Roll the dough into a fat log and cut into 20 pieces. Roll each piece into a smooth ball.

Once the balls are ready, bring the syrup to a boil and add the rosewater. Add the balls, then cover the pan and cook over medium heat for 15 minutes. The rasgulla will double in size and become spongy. Turn off the heat and keep the balls in the syrup until ready to serve.

Serve warm with or chilled with some of the syrup. Leftovers can be stored in the syrup in an airtight container for up to three days.



Posted on Minxeats.com.

Runamok Chicken and Waffles

One of my favorite parts of the Summer Fancy Food Show is the new products aisle. Some of the products are truly tasty and seem promising, others not so much. My favorite of the "truly tasty" variety was Runamok Maple. Maple syrup is a bit of a mini-trend at the SFFS - there were at least twice as many maple vendors this year as last, but the total number was still very small.

I grew up eating Mrs Butterworth's on my pancakes, and trying real maple syrup for the first time was a bit of a revelation. Not only is the real stuff not as thick as the fake stuff (which gives tar a run for its money), but the flavor is also much more subtle. (Imitation maple gets its flavor from the lactone soloton, which is found in the herb fenugreek, used widely in Indian cooking. If you've ever found a curry to taste like maple syrup, it's actually the other way around - your "maple" syrup tastes like curry.)

Runamok Maple is definitely the real thing. It's hand-tapped maple sap, concentrated to remove much of the water, then boiled into the golden elixir that many of us know and love. And while Runamok Maple sells this "plain" syrup, which they bottle as the Sugarmaker's Cut, they also flavor their maple. Some are aged in barrels recently used to hold rye, bourbon, or rum, which imparts a distinct boozy taste to the syrup. They also have a line of syrups infused with things like hibiscus flower or elderberries. And then they do an amazing pecan wood smoked syrup that might be odd on pancakes, but works great in a cocktail or in place of bacon in our maple bacon chicken and waffles.

We fiddled around with the original recipe, substituting Runamok Pecan Wood Smoked Maple Syrup for the bacon. Because not everything needs to have bacon in it. No, I'm serious.

Runamok Chicken and Waffles
Serves 4-6

For herbed cornmeal waffles:
1 cup yellow cornmeal, preferably stone ground
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 ½ cups 2% milk
½ stick melted butter, cooled
2 scallions, finely chopped
8 sage leaves, finely chopped

For chicken:
4 skinless, boneless chicken thighs
1 cup chicken broth
1 cup water
2 stalks of celery, finely chopped
2 bay leaves
1 tablespoon salt
1 teaspoon black peppercorns

For gravy:
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 tablespoons flour
2 cups of the stock left over from cooking the chicken (if there's not enough left, add regular chicken stock to make up the difference)
1/4 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons Runamok Maple Pecan Wood Smoked maple syrup
1 tablespoon Runamok Maple Bourbon-Barrel Aged maple syrup
Salt and freshly ground pepper
2 tablespoons chopped scallions for garnish

To make waffles: Preheat waffle iron. Preheat oven to 250°F and place a baking sheet in the oven.

Combine cornmeal, flour, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. In another bowl, beat the eggs, then whisk in the milk and butter until combined. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and stir until combined. Stir in the scallions and sage.

Spoon batter into waffle iron according to manufacturer’s directions. Cook until golden and crisp. Place cooked waffles onto the baking sheet in the oven. Repeat until all waffle batter is used.

To make chicken: Combine all ingredients in a pot. Bring liquid to a boil, then turn the heat down and let simmer until chicken is cooked through, about one hour. Set chicken and the resulting stock aside.

To make gravy: Melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat and whisk in the flour. Cook for about 5 minutes, stirring regularly, to create a light blonde roux. Raise heat and whisk in chicken stock; bring to a boil. After a minute or two, when stock has thickened to gravy consistency, lower heat to medium and stir in the cream and maple syrups. Season with salt to taste and lots of freshly ground pepper.

* Any products in this post that are mentioned by name may have been provided to Minxeats by the manufacturer. However, all opinions belong to Minxeats. Amazon links earn me $! Please buy!



Posted on Minxeats.com.

Annie B's Caramels

Caramels are a homey sort of snack that makes one think of a simpler time. One that we never actually lived in but that we all like to romanticize about, like looking at a Currier & Ives painting. There's something about the rich, buttery texture and pure sweetness of a caramel that makes you pause to savor the moment. Every Christmas, I help the Minx make dozens of caramels of various flavors that we give away as gifts to our family and friends. They are always a big hit and makes all the trouble of boiling the caramel, cooling the trays, cutting up the sugary slabs into bite-sized morsels, and wrapping them in wax paper well worth it.

As for the rest of the year, going through all that difficulty doesn't seem quite as worthwhile. Thankfully, Annie B's sells a line of tasty caramels that can be had with just a few clicks of the keyboard. Annie B’s is a small family-owned caramel and popcorn company based in Kellogg, Minnesota. 

They take pride in using natural ingredients, free of gluten and high fructose corn syrup. Each individually wrapped caramel is made using local products including brown sugar, water, corn starch, butter, corn syrup, sweetened condensed milk, and inverted sugar. Annie B’s caramel is slow cooked in copper pots using a small-batch method. Each piece is hand crafted with the exception of cutting and wrapping of the caramels.

There's over a dozen flavors from your traditional caramel to exotic concoctions like amaretto, huckleberry, black licorice, and coconut. The pieces are quite large, so one caramel can satisfy a quick sugar pang, and they are creamy and soft.

As I mentioned, Annie B's caramels can be purchased from their web site, but they are sold at hundreds of locations throughout the US. Take a gander at the retailer locator on their  web site to find a location near you.

* Any products in this post that are mentioned by name may have been provided to Minxeats by the manufacturer. However, all opinions belong to Minxeats. Amazon links earn me $! Please buy!



Posted on Minxeats.com.