Giant in the Woods: Fire Roasted Sweet Corn
Okay, so I wasn't exactly in the woods. Actually I was just in a backyard, but there was no kitchen involved so it was kind of like the woods.
It's corn season still, and the corn is terribly affordable. I ate fresh sweet corn 4 or 5 days in a row last week when I was in Ohio and I think we were only paying around 2.50 for a bakers dozen at a local farm stand. If this isn't struggling artist food, I don't know what is.
There's nothing better than a dose of fantastic sweet corn everyday. The recipe here is simple to do in conjunction with whatever else you are grilling and will make the whole meal delicious. It really brings out the flavor of good local sweet corn and only takes about 15 minutes, including prep. Try to make this recipe while you can get fresh corn. There's almost no point in using the out of season stuff from the grocer.
I'm going to assume that you know how to start a grill. I prefer charcoal grilling, but gas works fine. Just make sure that it is HOT. The corn is being roasted here, but since it is sweet and fresh, you don't need to cook it for long. Good sweet corn can be eaten practically raw (like in the Crispy Corn Salad Recipe), so you are just browning it with a quick dry heat. In the pictures I have the corn roasting on the sides of the grill, but they would do well placed right in the middle of the rack, taking the direct heat.
Take an ear and peel back the husk as if it were a banana. You aren't shucking here, so be careful. Don't tear off the husk. Remove the silk completely from the exposed ear, following the example of the pictures below. It doesn't really matter if you have a strand or two left, but you want to get rid of as much as you can. When you have the silk cleared away, fold the husk back up so that it is loosely covering the entire ear. Toss it on the grill for 10 minutes, turning occasionally, and you're done. That's it. Dash clever, right?
Giant in the Kitchen: Odd Sushi Fillings
My friend Tory had a sushi making party last night. It was mostly filmmakers at the party, and we ended up having some pretty interesting filling combinations. You should try some of these out following the basic sushi recipe.
I brought over roasted red peppers and homemade sweet potato fries. These actually worked really well. For the fries, I just sliced some sweet potato into strips and sautéed them for about 2 minutes. Take a look at the pictures - it's dead simple.
Initially I was attempting to make some sort of sweet potato tempura strips. I tried to bread the fries in whole wheat panko bread crumbs, but that didn't work at all. It ended up being a hot, delicious, mess. I used scrambled egg as an adhesive, but the panko bread crumbs are a bit too chunky to get a good grip on the thin slices of potato. Next time I make the fries, I want to try baking them. I don't really like frying food, and I bet the potatoes will crisp up nicely in the oven.
We also had red cherries and a couple jalapeno peppers. The cherries were awesome paired with cream cheese and sweet potato. I know it sounds strange, but it was a very subtle flavor - it kind of tasted like summer.
The jalapenos were just a pain in the ass. In the rolls, they looked just like green onion, so it was always a surprise when you got a bite of one. I definitely tried to wash away a bit of the heat with my drink. The thing is, all we had to drink was wine, so I think the jalapenos led to a bit of drunkenness for all involved.
Giant in the Kitchen: Let’s Talk Tortillas
I'm a huge fan of tortillas. I like corn tortillas. I like flour tortillas. I like those green wraps that are labeled spinach but are probably flour tortillas with green food coloring. I used to go through about a pack of whole wheat tortillas a week until I started to read the labels. It turns out that store-bought tortillas have about 10% of your daily recommended intake of sodium. Those giant (and delicious) wrap style tortillas are closer to 25%. Now don't get me wrong, I love salt. It is the single most important spice, but you can only eat so much of it.
Consider a typical day for me. I'm a big guy with a two burrito for dinner kind of appetite. With the store bought wraps, I've just eaten half of my sodium for the day. And, you know I've put salt in the fillings, so considering the beans, rice, chicken, sour cream, shredded cheddar, I'm at 80, maybe 85% of my daily salt intake. Add that to the 30% I had at breakfast and lunch, and I'm way over. I'm screwed. I know I'm gonna have stove top popcorn for a snack later on, and there's no way to eat that without a dash of salt. This is the kind of thing that will crawl into the back of my head, and slowly piss me off. My day is ruined, (RUINED!) because I'm all salty from the damn tortillas.
A few months ago I decided to show the tortilla companies who's boss by no longer procuring their tasty consumables. Three days later I woke up in the woods completely naked with no recollection of what had happened. Withdrawal is a hell of a thing...It was then that I decided that I needed to make my own low-sodium flour tortillas. I haven't looked back since.
What Ingredients You'll Need:
- Flour
- 2 cups unbleached white (preferably organic)
- 1 cup whole wheat (you could probably use any non white flour, but ww is the most low-key as far as flavor)
- Salt
- Your pick of style. I use 1 tsp of ground sea salt. This is optional, but I'd put in at least ¼ of a tsp.
- Oil
- A scantly filled ½ cup
- Water
- 1 cup at room temp.
This really is a simple recipe. I've adapted it from The Well-Filled Tortilla Cookbook. The book is decent if for no other reason than the flour, corn, and hominy tortilla recipes. It's also selling used for 46 cents on amazon, which is basically free (if you round to the nearest dollar...).
The How To:
Mix the dry ingredients together in a bowl. Stir in the oil with a wooden spoon. Large clumps will form, this is normal, just break them up with the back of your spoon. Add the water. Stir until you get a gooey ball. Knead the ball on a floured cutting board until it comes together. It should be a very manageable ball of dough (maybe 4 minutes). Stick the dough back in the bowl and let rest, tightly covered on the counter, for at least 30 minutes. At this point you can stick the bowl in the fridge and it will keep for a couple of days.
After the dough has rested, heat a big dry skillet, preferably cast iron, on the stove over medium high heat. I use cast iron because the tortillas are cooked dry, and the dough doesn't stick to the cast iron. You can probably also use a non-stick skillet. I'd avoid aluminum because the tortillas might cook onto it.
Take out the dough and use your hands to shape it into a 1 inch thick oblong squareish shape - i.e. a rectangle (Check the pictures). Cut into 10 to 12 even sized pieces. If you want bigger tortillas go for 10, if not, you know, do 12. The choice is yours. Make each piece into a small ball and roll it out with a rolling pin (or a clean wine bottle), making them as thin as possible. If you are careful, you will get nice round circles, if you aren't careful you'll have amoeba looking tortillas. I like the variety of making both. This dough is really forgiving, so if you mess any part of this up you can just reball it and roll it out again. Keep in mind that there isn't any leavening agent, so it's not like you're going to slaughter the yeast by not being caring enough.
Take a rolled out piece of dough and carefully lay it out in your hot skillet. Cook for about 40 seconds on the first side and 30 seconds on the second side. You want to get little brown spots, but you don't want to burn it. (Again check the pictures) The tortilla will have bubbles puff up. This is normal, just press them down with a spatula.
The process of cooking the tortillas takes about 20 minutes, but you can cut that time in half by using two skillets. The tortillas will keep for a few days if wrapped well in foil or tupperware. Just reheat in the microwave covered with a wet paper towel. The tortillas freeze well, so once you get the hang of the recipe, double it up and you'll have enough for a couple of weeks.
Giant in the Kitchen: Cool Summer Sangria
I forgot to mention the sangria! We made some awesome sangria to go with the sushi…because Spain is kind of close to Japan, right?
Sangria is a great way to have a classy summer drink when you have no money. You can make it as extravagant as you like, but basic sangria is just cheap wine, and some citrus fruit. The wine can be cheap because the fruit flavors overpower any subtleties in the wine. I used a bottle of cheap shiraz that I got off of a clearance shelf at Target. (I’m talking 3$ here)
Here is a simple sangria recipe:
Wash two oranges and a lemon. Cut into bite size pieces and place all of the lemon and 2/3rds of the orange into a large pitcher. Press the pitchered fruit with a wooden spoon to release some of the juices. Pour in a single 750 ml bottle of wine and stir together. Put this concoction in the fridge for a couple of hours, garnish with the remaining orange slices and you have basic sangria. I like to mix in about 6 ounces of frozen limeade concentrate. This makes it a bit sweeter and really gives it a punch of citrus.
Try some of these variations:
- Mix in a cup of dark rum with the wine.
- Make it a fizzy drink by filling a glass 1/3 with seltzer and 2/3 sangria.
- Use a white wine and substitute peaches, apples and grapes for the citrus fruits. Sprigs of crushed mint can be delicious here as well.
- Withhold the limeade concentrate and use a cup of simple syrup instead. For simple syrup, mix 1 cup sugar with 1 cup water in a sauce pan over medium-low heat. Stir until the sugar dissolves. Let cool before mixing into the sangria.
- Grate 2 tablespoons of fresh ginger into the sangria.
- Use a cup of orange or apple juice as a sweetener.
Giant in the Kitchen: Sushi
Arianna's friend Kajsa is in town visiting this weekend. We had a sushi night last night which turned out to be kind of awesome. I doubt that someone from Japan would recognize it as sushi, but we all dug it. We used brown rice and whatever else was lying around in the fridge. This included speck (kind of a smoked prosciutto, I guess...it was cheaper than real prosciutto) and salami which, while decidedly un-Japanese, was pretty tasty. We also used smoked salmon, avocado, cucumber, and cream cheese in varying combinations. I never do raw fish, not because I don't like it, but simply because I don't think that I can afford fish that is good enough to eat raw. Imitation crab meat is always a good alternative.
For me, sushi is a great hangout-let's-make-dinner-as-a-group sort of deal. It gets everyone involved and you end up knowing the people you're with a little better - and everyone likes knowing people! I figured out how to do sushi from my pal Tory a few years ago, so this is basically her approach.
Here are the basics:
Use short grained brown rice, it tastes good and brown is better for you. Make sure it is short grained or else it won't get sticky. You need ½ a cup of rice and 1 cup of water per person. Put it all in a sauce pan, cover, and bring to a boil. When it begins boiling, reduce to a simmer and leave it to do it's thing for about 50 minutes. You'll know it is done when it is no longer soupy and is somewhat sticky. At this point remove the cover and let it rest and cool off for at least 10 minutes. While it is cooling mix together about half a cup of white wine vinegar and a few tablespoons of sugar (this is what we did for three people, adjust to your numbers). These proportions are really up to you, if you want it a bit sweeter add more sugar, if it is too sweet, you know, cut back on the sugar. Remember, this is completely Americanized, so make it your own. Mix the vinegar mixture into the cooling rice.
While the rice is cooking, give everyone a knife and a board and get your fillings sliced into thin strips. You can really use whatever you want in whatever combination you like. Just try to go for texture variety - something crunchy with something soft.
To make the sushi rolls, take a sheet of nori (you can get this at the grocery store in the foreign foods section - it's probably next to the Mexican salsas and below the soy sauce) and lay it, smooth side down, on a sushi roller or a large piece of plastic wrap. Cover the nori with a thin layer of rice, leaving about an inch clear on the top and bottom of the square. You want to be able to see the nori through the rice so get it spread really thin with the back of a spoon. Pick your fillings and line them up on the rice near the bottom strip of unriced nori. Wet the clear strips of nori with a bit of water, and roll the bottom up to the top using the roller or plastic wrap. You want a tight roll so take your time and use the roller to really tuck it in. This isn't the easiest thing in the world to do and it takes a bit of practice to get it right, but keep at it
I tend to accidentally overstuff the first roll and it always ends up looking like an ugly burrito. We ended up with about 6 or 7 rolls and most of them looked even and normal. Once you've used up your ingredients, slice the rolls with a sharp, wet knife. Rewet the knife often to help it cut through the dry nori. Try to cut the slices about 3/4ths of an inch thick. If you get to the end of a roll and the last piece is a bit thicker, don't try and halve it. You'll just end up with two rounds of goop.
When you've sliced the rolls, break out the wasabi and soy sauce. You've made sushi!
