Tsuivan (Mongolian noodle stir-fry)

I have a friend who is SUPER into Mongolian stuff, he has a Mongolian persona in the SCA and his home is adorned with many Mongolian accouterments as well. So when I wanted to make some traditional Mongolian food to bring over to his house (To go with some Kefir/Airag) I stumbled across a recipe for Tsuivan, which is more or less Central Asian tasting lo mein. It's super super easy and I can't see many people not liking it, I know we do. I would also venture to say that this dish is most likely acceptable to use for SCA period Mongol cuisine, though I am open to any arguments against it.

(I put a little homemade (absolutely not medieval) hot oil on there too)

My version here is well within the spirit of the dish, but with a few changes to suit our tastes. In Mongolia they will use slices of meat, but here I used ground beef and it was great, also they often eat it with ketchup, but since I feel like that's pretty far away from my general idea of Central Asian food, we eat it with a mix of sour cream and yogurt, and mine has a MUCH higher percentage of veggies to noodles because we live on the edge of a diet at all times, and love vegetables anyway haha.

Yield: 6 big plates worth

Ingredients

1 lb fettuccine broken into thirds and boiled until tender

1 ½ lbs ground meat (fatty ground beef or lamb is the best)

5 cloves of garlic minced

2 onions in thin 3 inch long slices

2.5 lbs of cabbage cut into very thin (like coleslaw) 3 inch slices

3 carrots thinly julienned to match the cabbage

2 tsp cumin seeds

2 tsp cumin powder

2 tsp coriander powder

1 TBS black pepper

salt to taste

1 bunch of green onions in thin diagonal slices

Method

Fry the meat until browned at med-high in a nice big thick bottomed pot

Add garlic and cumin seeds and fry for 20 seconds

Add onions and cook for a minutes

Add cabbage and carrots with salt, coriander and cumin powder

Fry this mix until all the veggies are very tender

Add your cooked noodles and mix well

Continue to cook until the noodles are hot again

Add your green onions, pepper, and salt to taste

Eat it with sour cream, or try it with ketchup if that's your kind of party.  

Hungarian Inspired Mushroom Stew with Smoked Salmon and Bacon, and Creamy Cucumber Salad with Dill

My wife is from Alaska, and so far our consistent Christmas present her dad sends us is the Alaskan version of a Hickory farms basket with sausages, and cheeses, and crackers, and sauces but most importantly these little packets of delicious greasy smoked salmon. I can only eat so much of the stuff alone but recently I have been experimenting with using it in some recipes and I'll tell you straight up: it's awesome.

I have been taking it in an Eastern European direction just because I think that the flavor of the Salmon lends itself nicely to elements like dill, marjoram, garlic, sour cream, paprika etc. I also think that it's an excellent ingredient paired up with mushrooms so here is my latest creation. Slices of nice bread with butter are a must with these dishes too!

Hungarian Inspired Mushroom stew with Smoked Salmon

Serves 4

Ingredients

¼ lb bacon finely chopped

¼ lb hard smoked salmon (not the cold smoked raw seeming variety but the hard smoked firm kind)

24 oz of cleaned sliced mushrooms (cremini, portabello, button etc.)

1 carrot finely diced

2 med onions finely diced

2 stalks of celery finely diced

1 TBS tomato paste

2 C cabbage finely diced

½ C red wine

4 cloves of garlic minced

1 tsp marjoram
1 tsp red chili flakes

1 tsp black pepper

2 tsp paprika

salt to taste

2 TBS finely chopped fresh parsley

Method

Fry the bacon until crispy at med then add ½ of the garlic and stir for 20 seconds

Add in your onions, and red chili flakes if your using them, and fry until golden

Add the carrots, celery, cabbage, and tomato paste and sautee stirring for 5 minutes

Add ½ C red wine and deglaze for 2 minutes

Add 1 C water and half your paprika, stir, reduce to simmer, then cover and let simmer for 20 min stirring occasionally until everything is very tender

Add in smoked salmon and mash into mixture

Add mushrooms with a little salt, marjoram, the remaining paprika and garlic, and black pepper, raise heat back to medium and stir together then cover for 5 minutes or so.

Remove lid and let mixture cook until the mushrooms are tender and the sauce has thickened to your desired consistency

Add salt to taste and garnish with fresh parsley

Creamy Cucumber Salad with Dill

Serves 4

Ingredients

2 cucumbers, ½ peeled into stripes and cut into 1/3 inch cubes

1 clove garlic mashed into a fine paste

½ tsp salt

1 TBS dried dill

1 TBS sour cream

¼ Greek yogurt

Method

Mix all ingredients together and let sit at least 30 minutes before serving

Eat it!

Sarson ka Saag and Makki ki Roti (Indian greens with corn flatbreads)

At least 3 of my top 10 favorite foods are some form of cooked greens, and among them is definitely and inarguabley Sarson ka Saag. It's a North Indian preparation that takes a little time to cook, unless you have a pressure cooker, but is well worth it. Paired up with some Makki ki Roti (Indian arepas) and a little bit of Indian pickle, it makes a WONDERFUL and very healthy meal.

When making this you can definitely use fresh spinach, and its ….probably... better, but we eat this kind of stuff so often that it would ruin us financially, well not really but it would be like 4x more expensive which is a stab to my miserly heart. Overall the recipe is flexible and the one below is just the last version I made which we enjoyed immensely.

I use a trick for all of my curries that have a gravy, and even stews: I remove some of the total mixture, blend it up and return it to the pot. This thickens the sauce and gives it that cooked yesterday kind of flavor.

Lastly, makki ki roit isn't made of normal corn meal, its a corn flour that is finer ground. I find that the Colombain arepa corn flour (in the Latin section of the grocery) works great! You can use 100% corn or mix it with a little wheat which makes them easier to roll out. Also, when cooking the roti you can also cook them on a greased pan at a slightly lower temperature to give them more of a crispy quality, I usually don't because I like a little more control of my caloric content, and I like a flexible soft roti. 

Sarson ka Saag

Serves 4

Ingredients:

2, 12oz blocks of frozen chopped spinach, thawed

1-2 lbs greens of some variety. (traditionally it's mustard greens which are the best anyway, but collards, turnip greens, and kale will all work)

2 TBS mustard oil

2 onions cut into 1 inch long, very thin slices
1 jalepeno finely chopped (optional)

2 tomatoes chopped

2 TBS ginger garlic paste

1 tsp cumin seeds

1 bay leaf (Indian tej pata are the best)

1/8 tsp hing

2 tsp cumin powder

1 TBS coriander powder

2 TBS corn flour ( I use Pan brand masarepa)

½ tsp garam masala

¼ C milk (optional)

¼ C chopped cilantro

2 TBS butter

Method

Heat up your mustard oil to med high and add your bay leaf until lightly browned

Add cumin seeds, then hing, then garlic ginger paste and stir for 30 seconds

Add onions, and jalepeno if your using it,and sautee until golden brown

Add tomatoes with cumin and coriander powder and fry until they break down into a mash

Add spinach and greens with enough water to cover them and reduce to a simmer until all everything is very very tender. Usually around 1 hour. You can also pressure cook it for like 15 min on high if you have one.

Take ½ of the mixture and blend it up with your corn flour until smooth and return to the pot

Add butter, garam masala, salt to taste, and milk if you're using it and stir for a minute or so.

Serve it garnished with fresh cilantro and makki ki rotis on the side.

Makki ki Rotis

Serves 4, makes 8 rotis

Ingredients

1 ½ C corn flour (Pan brand masarepa)

½ C atta (whole wheat flour) (optional, you can just replace this with more corn flour)

¾ – 1 C hot water

½ jalepeno minced finely (optional)

2 TBS finely minced cilantro (optional)

2 tsp coarsley ground cumin seeds (optional)

½ tsp salt

Method

Mix salt, jalepeno, cilantro, cumin seeds, and flour

Add water bit by bit and mix until you have a SOFT dough

Knead for 2-5 minutes until smooth

Cover and let sit for at least 15 minutes

Preheat Tawa/pan to med high

Cut into 8 pieces and make balls

Flatten ball and heavily coat with flour

Roll to thickness of a tortilla

Cook on ungreased pan for 1-2 minutes on one side, until there are small brown spots

Flip and cook another 30 seconds until brown spots form

Place on grate over hot burner, or directly over gas flame moving constantly until roti puffs up

Place in bowl with towel over the top while you cook the rest

Top them with some butter and eat them!

Japanese inspired liver with green onions

I was watching a show I like last night called "Midnight Diner" on Netflix, each episode tells a little quiet story in the life of a various eccentric person who goes to this late night diner. Well..... I saw the cook in the show throw together a dish of thin sliced liver with what looked like green onions (the whole shot was maybe 5 seconds) and I was immediately motivated. Upon a little research, it looks like the green onions I was imagining were actually garlic chives, and as much as that would be f-ing delightful, they just don't have them in the local markets all the time so I settled with my original plan, and the results were delicious!

Here we're eating it with a mix of 1 part red rice to 3 parts short grain white rice.

Serves 2 as a nice lunch.

Ingredients:

¾ lb calf or pork liver cut into very thin bite sized pieces

3 bunches of green onions cut into 2 inch pieces, whites and greens separated 

(or ideally garlic chives!)

2 cloves of garlic thinly sliced

1 inch of ginger julienned

3 TBS soy sauce

3 TBS rice wine

1 TBS rice wine vinegar

1 TBS cornstarch

salt and pepper to taste
1 tsp toasted sesame oil

Method:

Make your marinade by mixing the soy sauce, rice wine and vinegar, then set ½ of it aside

Put your liver into the remaining ½ of the marinade and let it sit for at least 20 minutes

Preheat 2 TBS of oil in a skillet to medium-medium high

Put your cornstarch onto the marinaded liver and toss to coat

Lay your liver bites into the oil and quickly fry for a minuted or so until brown on both sides, do this in batches and set the cooked liver aside when done

When all the liver is cooked add the whites of your green onions, garlic and ginger and sautee for 2 minutes

Add the liver back in with the remaining onions and other ½ of the marinade

Sautee for 2 minutes or so until the greens of the onions slightly wilt

Remove from heat add salt, sesame oil and fresh cracked pepper to taste

Eat it! It goes well with rice.

Indian Cooking Class

As I have said before, we eat Indian food constantly and I get requests for recipes and so forth constantly as well, so I have decided to teach a class on some basic Indian dishes. This is the kind of stuff we (and probably a billion other people) eat on a day to day basis, rice or roti, dal, raita and sabzi. I am including naan in the class because people go crazy for it, but that is more of a special occasion dish for us at home.

Anyway, here are the recipes I used. 

Cucumber Raita

4-6 servings

Ingredients:

1 C plain yogurt (full fat is best)

1 tsp ginger paste

¼ – ½ cucumber minced or shredded with the water squeezed out

1 TBS finely chopped cilantro

¼ tsp cumin powder

salt to taste

Method:

Mix all ingredients and let rest at least 20 minutes

Serve with rice, or bread

Lime pickle:

About 20 servings

Ingredients:

4 limes cut into 16ths

¼ C lime juice

2 TBS salt

½ tsp turmeric

2 TBS oil (not olive)

½ tsp mustard seeds

1/8 tsp hing (asofoetida)

2 tsp ginger garlic paste

 Method:

Mix limes, lime juice, salt and turmeric and put into a covered jar

Let sit in the sun for 1-2 weeks, mixing everyday until the limes are soft and more yellow than green

Heat oil in small pot to med-high, add mustard seeds until the splutter, then hing and gin/gar paste

Remove from heat and let cool, then mix with salted limes and serve

Make sure to only use clean utensils to serve the lime pickle and the mixture will last for many months in a sealed jar in the fridge.

Simple Jeera rice

2-4 servings

Ingredients:

1 C basmati rice

1 tsp salt

1tsp cumin seeds

1TBS butter/ghee/oil (not olive)

1/8 tsp cardamom powder

1 bay leaf

1/8 tsp cinnamon powder, or 1 2 inch piece cinnamon

2 C Water

Method:

Heat butter to med in a small pot and fry spices for 1 minute

Add rice and sautee for 2 minutes to coat with butter

Add water and bring to boil

Cover and reduce to low for 15-20 minutes

Remove from heat, fluff and serve

Roti

4 flatbreads

Ingredients:

1 ¼ C Flour

½ C water

½ tsp salt

1 TBS butter/ghee/oil (not olive oil) (optional)

Method:

Mix salt and flour

Add fat and incorporate into the dough

Add water bit by bit and mix until you have a SOFT dough

Knead for 2-5 minutes until smooth

Cover and let sit for at least 15 minutes

Preheat Tawa/pan to med high

Cut into 4 pieces and make balls

Flatten ball and heavily coat with flour

Roll to thickness of a tortilla

Cook on ungreased pan for 1-2 minutes on one side, until there are small brown spots

Flip and cook another 30 seconds until brown spots form

Place on grate over hot burner, or directly over gas flame moving constantly until roti puffs up

Place in bowl with towel over the top while you cook the rest

Eat them!

Basic Naan

4 Naan

Ingredients:

1 ¼ C flour

1/2 C water

1 TBS butter, or oil (not olive)

2 tsp yeast

1 TBS sugar

Method:

Mix salt, yeast and flour

Add fat and incorporate into the dough

Add water bit by bit and mix until you have a SOFT dough

Knead for 2-5 minutes until smooth

Cover and let sit for 1-1 ½ hours until the dough doubles

Preheat Tawa/pan to med high

Punch down dough and cut into 4 pieces and make balls

Flatten ball and heavily coat with flour

Roll to thickness of a tortilla

Cook on ungreased pan for 1-2 minutes on one side, until lots of bubbles form

Flip and cook another 30 seconds- 1 minute until brown spots form

Place in bowl with towel over the top while you cook the rest

Butter the tops of the warm breads

Eat them!

Dal Tadka

4 Servings

Ingredients:

1 C Lentils (moong dal is what I used but anything will work)

3 C Water

½ tsp Turmeric

3 TBS oil (not olive)

1 tsp cumin seeds

½ tsp mustard seeds

1/8 tsp hing (asofoetida)

1 stalk of curry leaves

1 TBS ginger garlic paste

1 onion

Salt - to taste

2 TBS lime juice

Garam Masala - 1/2 tsp

Cilantro - 1/4 bunch chopped

Method:

Boil lentils in water with turmeric until soft and mushy adding more water until desired texture is achieved, set aside.

Heat oil in small pot to med-high, add mustard seeds until the splutter, then hing, then curry leaves and gin/gar paste

Sautee for 30 seconds

Add onions and sautee until soft

Add your boiled lentils with salt to taste, lime juice, and garam masala

Return to a boil

Remove from heat, garnish with cilantro and serve.

Brinjal Fry

Serves 4-6 as a side dish

Ingredients:

1 1/2lbs eggplant cut into 1x1x2 inch pieces

2 onions, cut into 1 inch matchsticks

¼ C oil (Not olive)

2 TBS ginger/garlic paste

1 tsp mustard seeds

1 tsp cumin seeds

1/8 tsp hing

1 sprig curry leaves

1 TBS cumin powder

1 tsp black pepper

1 TBS coriander powder

¼ C chopped cilantro

Method:

Heat oil in large frying pan to med-high, add mustard seeds until the splutter, then hing, then curry leaves and gin/gar paste

Sautee for 30 seconds

Add onions with some salt and sautee until soft

Add eggplant with cumin, pepper, and coriander powder with some salt and mix

Reduce heat to medium and continue cooking, stirring occasionally until eggplant is tender to your liking

Add in cilantro and taste for salt, stir and serve.

Indian-ish hot sauce

Makes about 1 cup

Ingredients:

1 C chopped serrano peppers
1/2 C Oil
1/2 tsp salt
1 TBS achar masala
1 TBS red chili powder

Method:

Blend up your chilis with 1/4 C of the oil
Heat the remaining 1/4 oil in a small pot
Add blended chilis with salt and fry for 5 minutes stirring
Add masala and red chili powder
Stir, let cool and serve

Medieval Cookout: Chickpea and cabbage potage, wheat/barley flatbread, and pork steaks with a wine and garlic sauce.

I have a demo coming up and it will be my first exercise cooking in that sort of venue, so I wanted to give my setup a trial run. I am pretty pleased with how things worked out overall and only had to tweak them a little bit.

The potage was delicious, the powder fort and fried onions gave it a very rich and savory flavour. I mixed a couple of recipes from “The Forme of Cury”, one for chyches and the other for caboches in potage. The only thing I would have done differently is to grind ½ of the chickpeas up a little finer to thicken the broth. I also used vegetable oil, which I wouldn't recommend but I am trying to keep this stuff vegan for the faire. If this was for you and yours, throw in some butter/bacon fat/lard!

The flatbreads were pretty boss. The recipe is posted elsewhere, this time I rolled them a little thicker than usual and they we're great.

The pork steaks were sirloins and not fatty enough, I rolled the dice and lost. They were still pretty good, just not tender enough for me. The sauce had a delicious flavour and just needed to be thickened somehow, so I looked into period ways to accomplish that and found that making a rice flour roux made it spot on. I am NOT serving these at the demo, but since friends were coming over I though I would class things up with some meat haha. 

Chickpea and cabbage potage

Yield: 6 stand-alone dinner sized portions

Ingredients:

1 medium cabbage cut into ½ x ½ inch pieces

2 large onions finely diced

4 large cloves of garlic minced

4 carrots in ½ x ½ inch thin slices

1lb of dry chickpeas, soaked and pre-boiled until very tender

(Canned chickpeas simply don't taste as good, and that's a fact Jack!)

¼ C fat of your choice

(Bacon fat would be pretty prime)

1 heaping TBS powder fort

(Mine was 3 parts ginger, 1 part black pepper, ¼ part cinnamon, ¼ part cloves)

3 TBS minced parsley

Salt to taste

Method:

1. Heat up your fat to med/high and fry 2/3 of your garlic until golden.

2. Add your onions with some salt and fry until golden

3. Add your cabbage, carrots, and ½ your parsley with enough water to cover them and let it boil until the cabbage nice and tender.

4. While your cabbage is boiling, grind up ½ of your chickpeas into a fine paste, then add your whole chickpeas and let it boil for 5 minutes or so.

5. Finish it off by adding your chickpea paste, powder fort, remaining garlic and parsley.

6. Pull it off the heat and eat it!

Pork steaks with garlic wine sauce

Yield: As many pork chops as you buy

Ingredients:

Pork chops

(Whichever cut you like the best, I like them fatty.)

Salt, ginger powder and pepper to taste

1 C Sweet to medium bodied red wine

2 tsp Powder fort

2 TBS butter

2 cloves of garlic finely minced

¼ C almond flour

Sugar to taste (Depends on how sweet your wine is, I used 1 TBS)

salt to taste

1 tsp minced parsley

Method:

1. Season pork chops with salt, pepper, and ginger powder

2. Fry until cooked to your preference, I like mine sauteed at a med/high heat in some kind of fat until brown and removed while they're still a little pink inside so they finish cooking while resting.

3. Make the sauce: Fry garlic in butter until golden

4. Add almond flour and sautee until golden

5. Add wine and reduce heat and let simmer for 2 minutes

6. Add sugar, powder fort and parsley with salt to taste

7. Let it sit for a few minutes to thicken

8. Serve over pork, or any white meat of your choice.  

The updated thickened sauce

#medieval #pork #potage #cabbage #chickpeas #sauce

Medieval flat breads aka: "Griddle Cakes"

I'm getting ready for a demo at our local medieval faire, so I wanted to practice making some “griddle cakes” to pass out with the pottage I will be cooking. We make these breads on a griddle because in period most folks didn't have ovens at home, so they would have to either buy their bread or cook it on a griddle. 

This time I used 1 part home ground barley flour to 1 part whole wheat, though you can really use any flour you would like 1 to 1 with wheat flour to get a similar result. Often times griddle cakes are pretty dry, dense, and kind of crumbly so this time I used a high hydration dough to quench that standard and it worked out great!

Next time I want to try rye, but I was NOT about to pay $5 for one lb of the stuff at the grocery when I could get 1 lb of barley for $1.

Yield: 5, 9 inch flat breads

Ingredients:

¾ C whole wheat flour

¾ C barley flour

¼ C brown ale

½ C warm water

½ tsp salt

1 TBS butter

1 tsp yeast

1 tsp honey

Method:

1. Mix your warm water with honey and yeast, let it ride for a minute

2. Mix your dry ingredients up and work in the butter.

3. Pour your water mixture and your beer into the dry ingredients and knead for 5 minutes. It should be smooth and very soft.

4. Put your dough into a bowl and cover it with a damp towel, let it rest for 1 hour.

5. Pre-heat a griddle to med-high
6. Curt your dough into 5 pieces, roll them into balls then into flat rounds (see video below)
7. Cook it on each side until there are pretty little brown spots, but don't over cook it so it will stay nice and flexible. (Check the video out)

8. Eat them with some butter if you know what's good for you.   

Here's how I roll them out:

And the cooking process:

#bread #barley #wheat #griddle #medieval