All posts filed under: Food Musings

Misunderstood Macadamias

Published by Kathy Hunt

Compile a list of misunderstood foods and macadamia nuts would undoubtedly rank near the top. For years I’ve heard them called everything from macadamien and macadam to plain old mag nuts. Then there’s the issue of origin. Although macadamia trees hail from Northeast Australia, many folks insist that they’re native, if not exclusive, to Hawaii. Get past those misconceptions and you face the question of consumption. How do you cook with macadamia nuts? More than a handful will argue that you don’t cook these plump, buttery jewels; you eat them straight from the vacuum-packed can. Uncultivated in Australia until the late 1800’s, these nuts initially were called Queenslands nuts. Botanists later changed their name to macadamia to honor the chemist, John McAdam, who had promoted their cultivation. In the 1890’s macadamia nuts traveled to Hawaii. Because they prefer moist yet well-drained, fertile soils and moderate temperatures, the trees and nuts thrived there. In fact, today the state produces close to 90% of the world’s macadamia nuts. What do you do with macadamia nuts? Most people …

Squash!

Published by Kathy Hunt

Stop to admire a friend’s flourishing fall garden and you may walk away with an armload of autumn vegetables. This happened to me two weekends ago when I visited college friends in Lancaster County, Pa. Although I had gone to Amish country empty-handed, I returned home with bags of homegrown pumpkins and butternut squash. Unquestionably, I was grateful for the unexpected gifts but I was also at a loss for what to do with all this food. Considered by many cooks to be the best winter squash, the bowling pin-shaped butternut possesses a tough, smooth, tan skin. Cut into the skin with a heavy, serrated knife and you’ll find creamy, orange, fragrant flesh. Some compare its sweet, rich flavor to sweet potatoes while others liken it to roasted chestnuts. To me it tastes like butternut squash. A versatile vegetable, this squash goes nicely with savory foods such as bacon, anchovies, cheese, garlic and onions. It also compliments such sweets as brown sugar, coconut, maple syrup, vanilla and yams. In spite of its versatility I tend …

When in Singapore, Sling It!

Published by Kathy Hunt

To me, no trip to Singapore could ever be complete without trying a deliciously fruity, ever-so potent Singapore Sling. Face it. If you’ve been shoe horned into your economy class seat for 25-plus hours — or a paltry 19, if you can swing a non-stop flight — then you’ve earned a vibrant and strong chilled cocktail. You’ve earned a Singapore Sling. Drop by Raffles Hotel and you’ll get not only the colorful drink but also its history. As the lore goes, it was here, in the hotel’s Long Bar, that bartender Ngiam Tong Boon whipped up the first Singapore Sling. Although the exact date remains unknown, it’s believed that he created his ‘cocktail for ladies’ sometime between 1907 and 1910. The sling itself had been around since the turn of the 19th century. A fairly generic term, sling referred to a beverage containing brandy, gin, vodka or whisky, confectioner’s sugar and fruit juice. What Boon had invented contained far more than just three ingredients. While the original recipe was lost in the 1930’s, notes from …

Sizzlin’ Satay

Published by Kathy Hunt

Over Labor Day weekend I invited few friends over for Singapore Slings and chicken satay. You know how it goes. I visit a foreign country, buy and lug home 20 pounds of cookbooks and then have to justify my aching back and sagging bookshelves with exotic drinks and noshings. Depending on where you’re from, you may refer to what I grilled as a kebab, souvlaki, yakatori, espetada, shashlik or brochette. Then again, you might skip the fancy name and just say, “meat-on-a-stick.” However, if you’re eating Southeast Asian cuisine, you can only be talking about one thing — satay. Some historians attribute satay to the Indonesian island of Java. There Muslim traders from India reputedly introduced the islanders to kebabs. Indonesian cooks transformed these grilled hunks of skewered meat into the marinated and grilled strips of chicken, fish or meat known as satay. While Indonesia may lay claim to its creation, many Southeast Asian countries feature satay in their cuisines. It’s especially popular in Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore. Served with a dipping sauce made from …

Pizza! Pizza!

Published by Kathy Hunt

For years I had a problem with pizza. What I liked and what I ended up eating were two vastly different things. I wanted crunchy yet chewy thin crusts with fresh, flavorful toppings. What I got were gummy, limp slices with bland and greasy cheese that oozed onto my hands, shirt, jeans . . .. Turned off by floppy, oily take-away, I periodically tried to make my own pies. While the recipes in The Joy of Cooking, Fanny Farmer and Marcella Hazan’s Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking made perfectly respectable pizzas, none resulted in the crisp, wafer-thin crust that I craved. Around the time that I had resigned myself to mediocrity my husband and I had dinner at the home of our friends Rob and Brande. On that fateful night we ate Rob’s ethereal, homemade pizzas. With their firm yet light crusts, hearty sauces and fresh, wholesome toppings these pizzas ranked among the best that I’d ever consumed. With one amazing meal I rediscovered my love of this food. After months of badgering Rob for …

The Versatile Mr. Catfish!

Published by Kathy Hunt

After graduating from college and moving to suburban Philadelphia, what I wanted, more than anything, was to adopt a dog. What I got was a cat, Andy Peabody, who came with a homemade, nondescript toy called Mr. Catfish. The gentle, gray tabby became my doorway into pet ownership. His beloved, yellow-and-gray pipe cleaner toy became, in its own weird way, my introduction to catfish. Over the weekend I was reminded of Andy and his quirky sidekick when I went fishing in Marietta, Ohio. There the catch of the day was the benign, whiskered channel catfish. Of the 28 varieties of North American catfish, channel remain the most commercially important. Fast-growing and highly sustainable, they thrive in rivers, lakes, reservoirs and ponds. Although they can reach 50 pounds in the wild, the Ohio channel cats that we caught – and released – were closer to one and a half pounds. Had we kept these fish, we could have expected a meal with an earthy tang to it. Because wild catfish happily potter about in murky waters, …

Feast from the Forest and Field

Published by Kathy Hunt

Last week I owned up to my dearth of gardening skills. What I lack in ability, I more than make up for in my enthusiasm for others’ horticultural handiness. So, when a friend invited me on a foraging walk last weekend, I jumped at the chance. I mean, really, who has a greener thumb than Mother Nature? As you might expect from someone who blundered through gardening, I struggle with identifying wild edibles. Set set me loose in the forest to collect stinging nettles or chanterelles, I’m likely to pull out a clump of poison ivy or toxic jack o’ lantern mushrooms. Obviously, these are not the ingredients of a lovely soup or sauté. However, if you put me in charge of foraging, these are what you might receive. Yeah, I need to learn a bit about harmless versus deadly wild plants. Led by naturalist Steve Brill, the ecology walk featured such wholesome plants as garlic mustard, wild ginger and purslane. Things that I had dubbed “worthless weeds” and yanked from my overgrown garden likewise …

What to Do with All That . . ..

Published by Kathy Hunt

After years of kidding myself that one day I’d grow bushels of pert tomatoes and eggplants at our suburban Philadelphia farmhouse, I’m finally throwing in the towel on gardening. It’s never helped matters that I’m not there enough to consistently weed and water a garden or that every vegetable planted feeds not my family and friends but those of groundhogs and deer. There’s another reason, though, behind my bailing out on horticulture. Truthfully, I’m a lousy gardener who can’t even keep the lowest maintenance plants—garlic, onions, potatoes—alive. In spite of my black thumb each August I find myself wondering what to do with all the season’s produce. Gardeners can’t seem to give the stuff away. Well, actually, they can and do but, as the overwhelmed recipient, I often find myself wanting to give it back. Such is the case with corn. The problem with corn is that I never receive just four or five ears. Whether I drop by my favorite farmer’s market or a friend’s backyard garden, I invariably leave with at least a …

Pop on over!

Published by Kathy Hunt

They’re airy! They’re crisp! They’re buttery! They’re one of the best foods adapted from English cooks. They’re popovers! Derived from Yorkshire pudding, that puffy mainstay of the British Sunday roast, popovers date back to 19th century America. Unlike their English forbearer, which was baked in a rectangular pan with a layer of meat drippings, popovers were cooked without beef fat in individual cups. As a result, instead of a fluffy souffle-like dish, you ended up with golden, crusty yet velvety rolls. Similar to Yorkshire pudding, popovers come from a simple combination of eggs, milk, butter and flour. The ratio of liquid to dry ingredients gives the batter its levity or “popover-ness.” In the oven the liquids create steam, which causes the rolls to puff up. Tear into a popover and you’ll find a perfect hollow center, the lovely side effect of all that steam. Steam also provides these baked goods with their name. As the steam increases, it pops the batter over the sides of each individual baking cup. Hence the moniker “popover.” Although some …

Soba at Home

Published by Kathy Hunt

Last week I owned up to my obsession with and quest for great soba in Japan. Prior to this trip, I’d been satisfied with dried soba from the Asian section of Fairway Market. Now, however, I’m like those Italian food snobs who shun anything but handmade pastas. I want my noodles fresh and unprocessed. I want my noodles made by hand. With a copy of Takashi Yagihashi’s Takashi’s Noodles spread out on my kitchen counter I set out to create soba. Yagihashi’s clear directions and illustrative, color photographs made it seem easy. After all, the recipe only required three ingredients and a bit of kneading. How hard could it be? I quickly realized that, as with pasta, soba making is an art that I wouldn’t master on the first or second try. Ingredients were one obstacle. Buckwheat flour is not as elastic as other flours; it doesn’t contain gluten, a necessary component for stretchiness. To compensate for this absence, cooks often use a ratio of 20% gluten-rich whole wheat flour and 80% buckwheat flour in …