Ninecooks

Thanksgiving weekend odds and ends (and a turkey meatloaf recipe)

A few quick items to get you through the holiday weekend, and one of my favorite recipes.

While Thursday may be for turkey, Friday is notoriously for shopping. In the way-back days, the Friday after Thanksgiving was the traditional start of the Christmas shopping season, and when we were in Boston, Cousin Martin and I would trek to Filene's basement, where he would shop and I would follow him around with armloads of his basement finds.

These days, the Christmas shopping season seems to begin in July, or at least before Halloween. But, still, for some of us, a bit of in-person or armchair shopping on this Thanksgiving weekend just feels right.

Discount on food and dishes from Spain

If you've been following the Gifts for Food Lovers series on The Perfect Pantry, you already know about the discount offer from one of my favorite food sources for all things Spanish.

The nice folks at La Tienda are offering a 10% discount on any product in their catalog or online store, now through December 31, 2008, to all readers of The Perfect Pantry. That's right, 10% off olive oil and sherry vinegar, lomo and chorizo, cheese, peppers, dishes, cookware, beans, smoked paprika, almonds, gift boxes and bomba rice. Anything!

To claim your discount, click on the link above, shop to your heart's content, then enter the code PERPAN08 in the Promo Code box on the checkout page. It's that easy.

The discount is good only until December 31, so plan ahead for Thanksgiving, a tapas New Year's Eve party, or holiday gift giving. And don't forget to stock your own pantry, too.

Discount on cookbooks

Jessica's Biscuit, based out of the New England Mobile Book Fair in Newton, Massachusetts, has one of the largest online inventories of cookbooks, anywhere. They're having a huge sale -- great cookbooks for 50% off! Start here.

TURKEY MEATLOAF WITH FIG GRAVY
My all-time favorite Thanksgiving recipe, if, like me, you don't want or need to make a large turkey. Adapted from a Franklin Café recipe reprinted in the Boston Globe, January 2006. Serves 6.

Vegetable oil or canola spray for the pan
1 small onion, chopped
1/2 tsp salt
2 lbs ground turkey
2 scallions, chopped
2 Tbsp hot sauce
1 Tbsp tomato paste
1 egg
1/2 cup dry bread crumbs
1 Tbsp low-sodium soy sauce
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1/2 cup dried cranberries or cherries, soaked in hot water for 10 minutes
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil

Preheat oven to 400°F. Lightly spray a 9x5x3 inch loaf pan.

In a large skillet, heat the oil. When it is hot, cook the onion and salt over low heat, stirring often, for 8 minutes or until the onion softens. Let the mixture cool.

In a large bowl, combine the onion and all remaining ingredients. Mix lightly, until just combined, with your impeccably clean finger tips. Press mixture into the pan. Set it on a rimmed baking sheet. Bake for 55 minutes or until it reaches 165°F on a meat thermometer.

FIG GRAVY

1 Tbsp vegetable oil
1 small onion, finely chopped
2 cups apple cider
1 cup chicken stock
1 bay leaf
1/2 lb dried Turkish figs, coarsely chopped
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

In a large saucepan, heat the oil. Add onion and cover the pan. Cook for 8 minutes or until the onion softens. Remove the lid. Add remaining ingredients. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer 35-45 minutes or until the figs are very soft and the mixture has reduced by half.

Slice the meatloaf thickly and serve with the fig gravy.

More recipes in The Perfect Pantry:
Spicy turkey rolls
Turkey-green chile chili
Turkey-escarole soup
Chicken with prunes and almonds

Digging for ginger, and beef-and-radish curry

Yesterday morning I braved the heat and humidity to visit the Cambridge garden of my friend Julia: chef, food blogger, and consultant to restaurants, farms, and businesses.

Yes, I was tempted by the delicious iced coffee, and fresh vegetable tartlets, and the promise of lively conversation, but what I really wanted to do was see a successful urban garden -- and dig ginger.

Julia had left a comment during Ginger Week on The Perfect Pantry about how she stores her ginger in the ground during the summer months.

This I had to see -- and in this photo, you can see it, too. That's Julia's hand holding a "hand" of fresh ginger, which has sent out new roots. In the front are three "fingers" of new ginger growth, brighter white than the old part, and with new green shoots coming out the top.

Buy a large "hand" of ginger at the supermarket -- look for one that's fresh, not one that is already completely dessicated and shriveled -- and bury it in your garden (or flower pot) in a sunny location. Eventually it will send down roots, and where there's a new "finger" forming, you'll start to see thin green shoots above the surface (a big help if you've forgotten where you planted the ginger!).

Whenever you want to use some ginger in your cooking, dig up the whole clump, break off as much as you need (old root or new growth -- the taste of the new is slightly milder and sweeter than the original part of the root), and return the rest to the ground.

It's weird and wonderful!

Julia grows a whole range of herbs, plus cauliflower, tomatoes, eggplant, scallions, and flowers in her small back yard garden. There's room for a compost bin, too.

BEEF AND RADISH CURRY
Instead of the typical sliced radishes eaten raw in salads, this recipe treats radishes like turnips, cut into chunks and stewed. A lovely recipe if you have radishes in your garden! Serves 6.
1 onion, minced
6 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
2 tsp chopped fresh ginger
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp paprika
3 Tbsp corn oil
1/2 tsp cumin powder
1-1/2 tsp ground coriander
1 lb stew beef or lamb, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1-1/2 tsp salt, or to taste
2 Tbsp tomato puree
2 cups water
12 oz radishes, trimmed, cut in half

In a large frying pan, cook the onion, garlic, ginger, paprika and turmeric in the oil over medium-high heat. When the mixture is sizzling, add cumin and coriander, and then the meat; continue to sauté, stirring constantly, for a few minutes until the meat is browned. Add salt, tomato, water and radishes, and cook, covered, until the meat is tender and the radishes are cooked, approximately 30 minutes.

First stop: Senegal

Bonjour, and welcome to Senegal, World Cuisines Cooking Group style!

After our get-to-know-each-other cooking last Spring, we gathered this week for our first official group cooking adventure. On the menu, the cuisine of Senegal, a country whose food culture bears the strong influences of local tribal populations as well as the French, whose presence was strong until the mid 20th Century.

Our menu began with a West African peanut soup, made with sweet potatoes, carrots and peanut butter. (See the recipe at the end of this post.) After the vegetables simmered for 15 minutes or so, we pureed the soup base — an opportunity for some of our group members to have their first encounter with an immersion blender. Then the peanut butter, vegetable juice, and seasonings went in. We enjoyed our first course while the main dish finished cooking.

Poulet Yassa, a stewed chicken and rice dish often served to special guests, was our main course. It starts with 9 pounds of onions, peeled, sliced, and sauteéd. By the time we got those onions into the pot, we were all in tears! But the onions cooked, the chicken pieces got their start on the grill, and the rice boiled in another pot. At the end, we combined the three elements into a beautiful, garlicky stew.

Usually it would be the host's duty to pick the chicken off the bones (with the right hand only — the left hand is used for personal hygiene, and never for eating), and assemble the serving platter. Instead, we all worked together, picking the chicken and piling the meat atop the rice. Then we ladled onions from the pot onto the chicken. A beautiful presentation.

In traditional Senegalese fashion, we gathered around the large platter of Poulet Yassa and, with our right hands only, each scooped a small bit of chicken, onion and rice, forming it into a ball against the side of the platter. And that's how we ate, with our hands....well, at the beginning, until some people decided to use their forks. It was delicious. Perhaps a little more hot pepper next time, we all agreed. (We'll have to find our mutual heat tolerance as we continue to cook together. That's the fun of group cooking!) We also decided it would be a great dish for entertaining, because it benefits from overnight cooking and longer marination.

Just before sitting down to dinner, we chose our next culinary destination. We decided to let random selection guide our travels. I wrote 25 countries and regional cuisines on little pieces of paper. Lee did the honors, and our next stop is:

For homework, we all agreed to watch Dr. Zhivago again — no arm twisting was necessary! And I'll be working on a menu of Russian foods that can be made in less than three hours, using ingredients available to us, and that we might want to incorporate into our home cooking repertoires.

WEST AFRICAN PEANUT SOUP
Adapted from Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant. Serves 8.

2 cups chopped onions
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 tsp cayenne, or more to taste
1 tsp grated peeled fresh ginger root
1 cup chopped peeled carrots
4 cups chopped sweet potatoes
4 cups chicken stock
2 cups V8 juice
1 cup smooth peanut butter
1 Tbsp sugar or honey, if needed
1 cup chopped scallions or chives

Saute the onions in the oil until just translucent. Stir in the cayenne and fresh ginger. Add the carrots and sauté a few more minutes. Mix in the potatoes and stock or water, bring the soup to a boil, and then simmer for about 15 minutes, until the vegetables are tender. With an immersion blender, if you have one, purée the vegetables with the cooking liquid and tomato juice. Return the purée to a soup pot. Stir in the peanut butter until smooth. Taste the soup. Its sweetness will depend on the sweetness of the carrots and sweet potatoes. If it’s not there naturally, add just a tiny bit of sugar to enhance the other flavors. Reheat the soup gently, using a heat diffuser if needed to prevent scorching. Add more water, stock or tomato juice for a thinner soup. Serve topped with plenty of chopped scallions or chives.

Put it on pasta

Pasta, pasta everywhere, and not a drop of room left on the stove! All six burners were cooking with gas as the Family Cooking Group tackled pasta sauces in their first cooking session after summer vacation.

In fact, we were so busy making sauces and running back and forth to the herb garden for more fresh basil, parsley and mint, that I forgot to take photos while we were cooking!

With our pasta boiling away, we easily created four sauces, two of which were suggested by our readers:

• Penne bruschetta, with tomatoes, garlic and basil  — gutsy and full-flavored
• Sausage, pepper and onion — like a great Italian sandwich, without the bread
• Lemon cream with asparagus — elegant and delicate
• Chicken lo mein — spaghetti with a Chinese twist

Then, with time to spare and some odds and ends of squiggly pastas in the "junk jar", we decided to improvise one more sauce. Actually, it was the kids who invented this, by rummaging through the fridge and pantry, tasting and testing. They named it "The Autumn Leftovers", and it's a winner.

While we're relaxing over dinner, I always ask the group what they'd like to cook the next time. In November I want to teach latkes, and maybe have a bit of a dreidl game just for fun (we always play with chocolate coins, so it's kind of dessert, too). But for October's menu, they've chosen meatloaf. And apples or pears.

Meatloaf with an apple side dish? Or maybe meatloaf with apples inside. And, you know me... I'm thinking we should make two different kinds of meatloaf, done in mini size so they'll cook in the time we have.

Favorite recipes, anyone?

THE AUTUMN LEFTOVERS
Serves 4.

1/2 lb pasta of your choice: rotini, gemelli, macaroni, or a mix from your pasta "junk jar"
A few tsps of olive oil
2-3 roasted piquillo peppers, or any roasted red peppers from a jar
A handful of fresh basil, roughly chopped
2-3 Tbsp goat cheese
2-3 Tbsp feta cheese
Zest and juice of one lemon
2 tsp fresh mint, roughly chopped
1-2 Tbsp pine nuts
A few Tbsp fresh chopped parsley
1/2 lb fresh mozzarella, cubed
A few Tbsp bruschetta topping, or fresh chopped tomatoes, or roasted tomatoes with a bit of the roasting oil
Salt and pepper to taste

In a large frying pan, heat the olive oil, and add the peppers and basil. Stir for one minute, and add the goat cheese and feta. When the cheese begins to melt, add lemon zest and juice, mint, pine nuts and parsley. Stir for 2-3 minutes, then add the mozzarella and bruschetta topping or tomatoes. Stir for one minute, then add the cooked pasta. Continue stirring until the cheeses are melted and everything is well combined. Serve hot.

Colorforms for dinner

Shape is everything.

Think about it. Without the concept of shape, the whole premise behind Colorforms, my second-favorite childhood game, goes out the window. Colorforms' three basic shapes — circle, rectangle and triangle — allow you to create any object in the universe, if you add a bit of imagination.

The Japanese bento box is all about shape, too, as well as color and texture. The box itself is a rectangle; the norimaki roll, round; the gyoza dumpling, a half circle. Add a triangular piece of fish or meat, some rice and salad, and it's just like playing with Colorforms. And then you eat it.

The #1 Cooking Group created bento boxes in their final cooking group session of the season (except for Le Grand Aioli, our annual summer fete).

We began by steaming lots of medium-grain Nishiki rice: one cooker for the sushi rice, the other for the plain rice that forms the backbone of the bento.

We prepped ingredients for the potsticker dumplings, which we filled with a tofu-veggie mixture bound with peanut butter and soy sauce. Using small plastic dumpling molds, we crimped our potstickers, crisped the bottoms in a frying pan, and added chicken stock and mushroom-soaking liquid to steam them.

With the teriyaki salmon in the oven, ginger dressing made for the salad, rice bloop-blooping away in the cookers, and potstickers finishing on the stove, we got to work on the norimaki sushi rolls, finger bowls of vinegar-seasoned water and glasses of wine (for courage!) at the ready.

Rolling the sushi is easier than it looks. After a brief demo by me, everyone got the hang of it right away, and we filled roll after roll with Gold's wasabi- and hoisin-seasoned strips of red pepper, asparagus, avocado, cucumber and scallion.

Using some smoked salmon left behind by the Wednesday Lunch Group, and a bit of the remaining seasoned sushi rice, Cathy made a little treat for the cooks in the rectangular wooden sushi press: beautiful squares topped with a sliver of lemon!

With fifteen minutes to spare before our spouses arrived for dinner, we filled the bento boxes, adding a bit of pickled ginger here, some black sesame seeds there. And when we ran out of boxes, we used a couple of melamine trays, proving once again that the #1 Cooking Group knows how to think outside the box.

TERIYAKI MARINADE FOR SALMON OR CHICKEN

1/2 cup reduced-sodium soy sauce
4 Tbsp oyster-flavored sauce
3 Tbsp orange or pineapple juice
3 tsp sugar (or sugar substitute)
Water as needed to achieve a thin consistency

Combine all ingredients in a screw-top jar, and shake. Marinate salmon for 30 minutes, chicken for up to 4 hours.

Cook salmon (or chicken) in the marinade in a sauté pan. When the fish is almost, but not entirely, cooked through (about 5-6 minutes), remove from the pan and set aside. Raise heat to high, and reduce the remaining marinade by half to make a more robust sauce.