Market tales from Goa

Spice seller at the market in Vasco de Gama, Goa, India

I came to India for some work meetings and wasn't going to come all this way and not stay and experience a bit of the country for at least a few days. And what better way to experience it all than through food, of course! I found a cooking course in Goa (on the west coast in what is the top of what is considered South India). And in case you weren't aware, South India means cooking with coconut!

Vasco de Gama at the pin!

But before cooking began, it was time for a trip to some of the local markets in Vasco de Gama. There are five main markets: vegetables and staples; fish; chicken and eggs; beef; and pork. With the varying beliefs of the Hindus, Christians, and Muslims -- the largest religious groups in the area -- the meat markets needed to be split up to keep everyone happy and able to shop for their necessities.

It's pretty dry at this time of year and fresh herb prices are at a premium.

The first stop was the rudimentary "farmers' market" for veggies. Almost everything sold here is grown in Goa or neighbouring states. There's the occasional imported piece of fruit but it's more the exception than the rule, so people buy what's in season. The prices are fair and the produce fresh daily from the farmers.

The local garlic is tiny and sold both by the head and the clove. Lots of tumeric and ginger.

Almost all of it is pretty recognizable but with a local twist. The garlic here, for example, is extremely tiny. Tomatoes and onions are also much smaller than we are used to seeing in North America. The cucumbers are a very light shade of green and the gherkins for pickles are tiny and look more like little marrows than cucumbers. The pumpkins are slightly different (and the one we used, at least, was very sweet) and there is a very wide selection of gourds ranging from big and round to long and skinny.

Bags of dried spices, whole and ground, dotted the aisles along with a variety of rices including a brown rice found almost exclusively in South India.

Bergi chiles on the top and the fiery little kankons in the bottom basket.

Of course, for me, the icing on the cake is always discovering new chiles and Goa did not disappoint. A fiery little devil called kankon is used in both its fresh green form as well as dried. The other is a larger and longer one called bergi, a medium spicy chile that gives an orange tint to food when used in its dried format. Kankons are just coming into season and there aren't a lot of them around yet.

These are mostly dried bergis and Kashmiri chiles

I was also told that right now in the couple of hot months before the monsoon, the ladies are out buying dried chiles by the bucket load in order to grind and make their various masalas. During the monsoons, fresh chiles are hard to find so the dried and ground versions are used a lot more.

Veg purchased and never tried before but got cooked, eaten, tried, and likely won't be eaten again: bitter gourd (it's name is no exaggeration).

Bitter gourd takes centre stage.

Only visited the fish market, which is quite small but boasts catch made by local fishermen that day. Apparently the best time to get the optimal fish is early evening but we were there in the morning so had to settle for what was around. It did not smell delightful and took quite a bit of mind of matter to get me in there.

Some good sized prawns at the fish market.

The sellers were mainly women with a variety of prawns, crabs, squid, and mostly really small fish (including baby sharks!). Kingfish is the most popular fish in these parts. We left with prawns, crabs, and a kingfish. Got out just before a tidal wave of fishy water was about the wash over my feet. I don't think I would have survived.

Lots of little fish, that in my opinion shouldn't be legal to catch, but I don't make the laws.

We did get to walk down the street with a fish in a bag, mostly tail to the wind as the bag was a bit too tiny. Luckily there was a bucket in the trunk of the car to contain it on the way back to cooking school. Unfortunately I did not take a picture of the absurd fish tail.

Ingredients purchased, it was back for some cooking action. More on that later.

Mexican egg cups with roasted tomato and chile sauce

Sometimes you want something a little flavourful for breakfast (or even breakfast for dinner). Some members of our household (never me) go running on Sunday mornings and I tend to take that time to whip up a breakfast/brunch that’s a bit heartier and more complicated. Also if you’re just hosting friends for brunch and want a dish that will impress, give this recipe a try. These eggs in a spicy tomato sauce served in a crispy tortilla bowl look nice and offer up some delightful Mexican flavours.

As with many chile sauces, the chile you use defines the flavour. I’ve provided a few options below. You can really use any dried chile so explore something new. I like to use costeño amarillo, which I brought back from Oaxaca, Mexico. This doesn’t work as well with fresh chiles.

Yield: 2-4 servings

Ingredients

Chile sauce 

Makes 1.5 cups sauce

chiles*
1/2 onion
3 roma tomatoes or 2 dozen cherry tomatoes
2 cloves of garlic
1 tsp Mexican oregano
1/4 tsp freshly ground cumin
1/2 tsp of sugar
juice of half a lime
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp olive oil

* I used 3 costeno amarillo chiles (med spicy) – this would also work with 3 dried red chiles that you find in the stores (spicy), 2 guajillo chiles (fruity not too spicy), 1 pasilla chile (earthy not too spicy), 2 chipotle chiles (smokey and medium spicy)

4 fresh corn tortillas
4 eggs
1/2 cup grated cheese (cheddar, jack, queso fresco)
1/2 avocado, thinly sliced
Bit of finely chopped tomatoes or pico de gallo


To make tortilla bowls:

Preheat the oven to 350F.

Make sure your tortillas are soft and pliable so they don’t crack. If they are a bit dry, sprinkle them with water, wrap in a damp paper towel, and microwave for about 30 seconds.

Spray each tortilla all over with some cooking spray. Then manoeuvre the tortilla into an oven-proof dish (I used some onion soup bowls) so they’ll create a bowl. Bake for about 10 minutes until lightly browned and crispy. Set aside when ready. Don’t remove from the bowls.

To make the sauce:

Stem and seed the dried chiles. If using larger chiles, splitting them open so you can flatten them. Heat up a comal or a non-stick frying pan and dry roast the chiles in the pan. Heat them for about 20 seconds on each side, flattening with a spatula, so they get soft. Be very careful not to blacken the skin otherwise your sauce will be bitter. Wispy smoke is okay, more than that they’ll be burnt and bitter. Place the roasted chiles in a small bowl of boiling water for 20 minutes so they can rehydrate.

Thickly slice the onion. Put it along with the garlic with its skin still on, onto the comal or frying pan. Roast them until they are blackened on both sides. Put the tomatoes on as well. If you’re using larger ones, they’ll take a bit longer to roast. Turn them frequently until blackened all over. The cherry tomatoes won’t take very long. Let them get black on one side then roll over so they get another blackened area. Don’t let them burst open because it’s messy and you’ll lose most of the meaty good stuff.

With the garlic, once it’s ready put to the side and let cool, then slip off the skin. Put the other roasted ingredients as they’re ready into the jar of a blender. Add the cumin, oregano, salt, and sugar as well as the rehydrated chiles and 1/2 cup of the chile water. Blend it all together until you have a smooth, yet fairly thick sauce, about 3 minutes. If it’s too thick add a bit of plain or the chile water to thin it out a bit. Squeeze in the lime juice.

In a small sauce pan, heat the oil to a high heat. The sauce needs to really sizzle when you pour it in so test with just a drop to see if it’s hot enough. When it is, pour the sauce from the blender jar into the pot. It’ll sizzle and sputter a bit so watch out. Turn the temperature down to med-low and simmer the sauce for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. The colour will darken and the simmering allows the flavours to all blend together. If it begins to dry out and stick to the bottom of the pot, just add a bit of water.

Check for seasonings and let rest a few minutes while you bring it all together.

Bringing it all together:

Put the oven back on to 350F. Sprinkle the bottom of each tortilla cup with a pinch of cheese (or more if you desire). Put them back in the oven for 7 minutes or so until the cheese melts.

Cook the eggs. If you are an egg poacher, then knock yourself out and poach four eggs. If you prefer to fry them, then make it so. Cook them so the yolks remain soft and runny.

Once the cheese has melted, take the tortilla cups out and, if you prefer, remove them from the bowls you’ve cooked in and put on a plate. Gently place your soft eggs in the cup. Top with a generous dollop of the spicy tomato sauce. Garnish with the sliced avocado and tomato/pico.

Serve them up and enjoy.

© Gail J. Cohen 2017

Let's cook (and eat) together

There really are few things in the world that give me more pleasure than cooking and sharing interesting and delicious food with friends. A couple of years ago, I decided to host a dinner party at least once a month. It worked out fabulously and gave me the opportunity to cook some great stuff and connect with lots of friends. The only downside: lots of cleaning up.

A few months ago, someone mentioned the idea of a cookbook club, so I checked it out and thought it would be a great way to once again indulge in my love of cooking and sharing the table with friends, new and old. As you can see from the picture above, there's a lot of cookbooks in this house (most of them belong to my partner and this isn't even all of them....) 

So, for 2017, I am launching a cookbook club. 

The first rule of cookbook club is: Everybody cooks and everybody eats.

My plan is to have us meet once every couple of months. Pick a cookbook to discuss and make recipes out of. Then have a potluck type together and hang out and eat and drink. 

If you live in Toronto, especially the east end, and you're interested, leave a comment or find me on Instagram @ohcanadagail. Hoping to launch later this month or early February.

4 chile chili

Chiles: chipotle, guajillo, ancho, pasilla

It’s winter time, comfort food time. And if you’re me and have a cupboard full of chiles, what else is there to do but make chili. So here’s one that’s a bit different than the usual. I can’t eat beans which is what most people put into their ground beef chili. Texas-style chili is often iade with big chunks of beef. I’m taking a middle road by using stewing beef cut up into really small pieces.

If you can’t find dried chipotles, you can always use canned ones. The chiles in this recipe are now fairly widely available either in local latin grocery store or most higher end chain grocery stores. It’s about a 6/10 on the heat scale.

Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients:

1 chile ancho
1 pasilla chile
2 chipotle chiles
1 guajillo chile
4 garlic cloves
1 small onion
2 tomatoes
1 tsp mexican oregano
2 whole cloves
1/4 tsp ground cumin
1/8 tsp ground coriander seeds
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
1/4 cup beef stock
1 tbsp olive oil
1 pound stewing beef, cubed very small
1 heaping tsp sugar
1-1/2 tsp salt

Stem and seed the dried chiles, splitting them in half so you can flatten them. Heat up a comal or a non-stick frying pan and dry roast the chiles in the pan. Heat them for about 20 seconds on each side, flattening with a spatula, so they get soft. Be very careful not to blacken the skin otherwise your sauce will be bitter.  Place the roasted chiles in a small bowl
of boiling water for 20 minutes so they can rehydrate.

Thickly slice your onion and place it and the garlic cloves with their skin on in the pan or on the comal and dry roast them until they are nicely blackened. The garlic will get all soft and sweet. Remove from the heat and let cool then peel and put into the jar of a blender along with the onion, cut up tomatoes, oregano, spices, beef stock, softened chiles and about 1/2 of a cup of the chile soaking water (do not throw the soaking water away yet!).

Blend it all together for 2-3 minutes to ensure you have a smooth but not very thick paste.

Heat the oil in a medium sized pot and brown the meat.

Turn the pot back up to hot and add a bit more oil, then pour in the chile mixture. You should get a nice sear. Bring to the boil. You’ll need to add up to a cup more of liquid – water, stock, or chile soaking liquid (which will make it spicier) – so there’s sufficient liquid to simmer. Add sugar (to take away any bitterness) and salt. 

Bring to the boil, turn heat down to low, and simmer partially covered for an hour, checking frequently to make sure there’s still enough simmering liquid. Add more if it’s getting too dry, it should be saucy but not soupy.

Serve in bowls with tortillas or rice, some slices of avocado and sour cream. I ended up making some cheesy grits and it was super delish together. The chili is  lovely if made a day ahead so all the flavours have a chance to meld together. It’s easy enough to reheat just before serving.

© 2016 Gail J. Cohen

Avocado paletas

I adore Mexican paletas. They are so simple and make use of just a few simple ingredients to create lovely and light desserts. Mostly I go for the pure fruity ones but using the blessed, beautiful avocado makes for an incredibly rich and creamy taste treat without any added fat or dairy. Here's the super simple recipe.  You'll need some popsicle molds.

Yield: 6-10 popsicles

Ingredients:

1 cup water
1/2 cup sugar
2 ripe avocados
2 tbsp freshly squeezed lime juice

Put the water and sugar in a small point and gently heat until all the sugar is dissolved. You're basically making a simple sugar solution. Let it cool.

Cut and pit the avocados and put them into a blender along with the lime juice and cooled sugar water.

Waz it up until it's smooth. Then pour the bright green mixture into the popsicle molds and freeze for at least two hours.

To serve, run a bit of hot water on the outside of the mold and gently remove the popsicle. Let the oohing and aahing begin.

10 things to tickle your tastebuds: Mediterranean edition

Recently returned from two weeks visiting the European countries along the Mediterranean. Beautiful seafood, everything so fresh. We ate in lots of markets, restaurants, bars, and on the street. Of course, wine and coffee are amazing practically anywhere so I don't touch on those but here are a few food highlights and suggestions in no particular order!

1. Lemon-based foods in southern Italy. The lemons that grow in Sicily, Naples, Sorrento and other areas in the south of Italy are just amazing. Even had a dish of meatballs wrapped in the leaves of lemon trees that was out of this world. But a real standout was a candy store  called Confettie e Agrumetti that we happened on in Sorrento that makes in-house “confetti alla crema lemoncedro,” which is basically a beautiful little sweet that is lemon cream wrapped in lemon candy shell. OMG!

2. Something with squid ink, just because black teeth at the table are sexy! And those who live in seaport actuallly know what to do with squid ink. In Valetta, Malta, there’s a little family run spot that serves a wicked tagliatelle neri agli scampi. It was super seafoody and definitely a unique flavour. In Barcelona, squid ink risotto was much the same but with a lot less chance of getting squid ink all over your shirt when you’re eating it.

3. Cured meats: I am sure for all time there will be a debate over whether prosciutto di Parma ham, or jamon Iberico is better. I’m putting my vote in for the Spanish version. Every time I ate the jamon, it melted in the mouth. In Italy, it was a lot more varied and often quite tough. Spanish salami also won the day for me over its Italian counterparts although to be fair I probably only tried a dozen or so of the hundreds of types of salami available in Italy.

4. Fresh cheese: ricotta, mozarella, buratta. Some are made with cow’s milk and some with the milk from water buffalos. Either way, fresh cheese anywhere in Italy is spectacular. One of the best was a little pat of ricotta that we were given as the amuse bouche before lunch at a Roscioli in Rome. But it doesn’t matter where you get it from if it’s made fresh because it will be simply amazing.

 
5. Calissons in Aix-en-Provence. Marzipan is a beautiful thing and the confectioners of Aix have been making these traditional sweets since the 15th century. The method for making them, like champagne, has been made “official” since 1991. The almond-shaped sweet has a base of almond-and-dried fruit paste topped with a layer of royal icing. A one-bite wonder that is surprisingly not too sweet.

6. Olive oil: Every country along the Mediterranean makes its own olive oil and claims its is the best. Again, I vote for Spanish olive oil over most of the others European nations but it’s worth trying some of the local organic olive oil no matter where you are. They are all different and you never know when you’ll hit on a spectacular one as we did in a small little shop in Arles, France where we found one from the Vallée des Baux de Provence that was made with mature black olives and had a very unique and deep flavour. Oh yeah, also just eat lots of olives.

7. Shrimp/scampi: Particularly in the tapas bars of Barcelona, you can have these gifts of the sea prepared many ways. One tapas bar served  whole fried spicy red shrimp. Now they were a bit finicky because they were deep fried with the head and shell on but the flavour was out of this world. A good tapas place will likely offer up a whole lot of shrimp options. Likely none will disappoint.

8. Ocotopus. The more tentacles the better my friend Michael always says. Often when you order octopus, it ends up being very rubbery but when the experts who live by the sea make it, you won’t be disappointed. Char grilled with just a bit of lemon and garlic sauce is my favourite.

9. Gelato. It’s good almost anywhere in Italy, where there are also a whole lot of artisinal gelaterias that have popped up. In Rome, there was one worth a long, long walk in the rain: Romana, which is quite near the Termini Station but not near to much else! Perhaps the best pistachio gelato I’ve ever had, and I have had a lot. Amorino Gelato in Valetta serves its gelato in the shape of a flower, which is darn cool.

10.  Gyro sandwiches, or as we like to call them, french-fry sandwiches. Beautiful, herby lamb or chicken cooked on the upright spit, sliced off, and made into a pita sandwich with tomatoes, garlicky tzatziki, and, of course, a few french fries. They’re available from street side vendors all over Athens. Follow it up with a bit of luscious baklava from a local bakery. It’s just better because you’re buying it in Greece.

I'm smokin' hot (sauce)

Every year I plant hot peppers in my lovely little garden. I tend to have a bit of a variety but every year I put in cayenne peppers because they never disappoint. This year I only had one plant but supplemented it with some serranos and jalapenos, so had a good variety of hot peppers. And at the end of the season, there are always lots left over. So what to do with lots of fiery little chiles?  Well make them into hot sauce, of course! 

Here's my quite simple hot sauce recipe from the archives:

Yield: about 100 ml

Ingredients:

1 dozen cayenne peppers
2 heads of garlic
3/4 cup of vinegar
salt
pinch of sugar

I had a lot of cayenne peppers and the others that I also grew, so threw a few of those in the mix, and made 4x the recipe.

.

First cut off the stem, slit, and remove the seeds of each pepper. Please do this with gloves. And don't touch your eyes, nose, or mouth while you're doing the deed. The burn is fierce.

The traditional Tobasco Sauce has "aged" peppers but in the age of instant gratification, I deepened the flavour by roasting the peppers a bit. I used my favourite Mexican style of dry roasting on the comal, but you can do it in a large non-stick frying pan or by broiling them in the oven until the skin turns a bit black. Some people suggest taking the skins off after the roasting but seriously, that's a bunch of fiddling around that takes up time I'll never get back. So I just tossed them, the garlic (which I also roasted but there's no need to), and the vinegar into the blender and wazzed it all up.

Once it's all lovely and liquidized, simmer the mix on the stove for about 20 minutes. At this point, the whole kitchen, if not house, will start smelling like hot sauce. There may be some burning eyes. It's all for a good cause.

Once the simmering of the flavours is done, run the whole thing through a sieve to clear out the pulp, seeds, and skin.

This, I would say is the time to add the salt, if you're not too busy forgetting to do it like I did, and sugar.

You need to prepare some jars to put this lovely concotion in. I didn't have any traditional style bottles so I used small jam jars (125 ml each). They need to be washed out with boiling water and new lids prepared in boiling water. Once that's all ready, pour the sauce in, seal and you're ready to go with some smokin' hot sauce!