sel et sucre

Tag: gluten-free

  • Chaat Masala

    Chaat Masala

    I recently had the pleasure of dining at Rasika, a very popular DC Indian restaurant, and trying their famous palak chaat. This dish is an amazing medley of textures and flavors, with crispy spinach playing off a sour-sweet chutney and sweetened yogurt, and I knew almost immediately that I had to try my best to recreate it. I’ve dedicated this week to a series of posts on recreating all the pieces of Rasika’s palak chaat. This post is the first in a series of three. See post 2: Date Tamarind Chutney and post 3: Palak Chaat.

    Chaat masala is a classic Indian spice mix with some unusual ingredients. Along with the more familiar coriander and cumin, black salt features prominently in the mix, adding an interesting mineral taste, while amchur, a powder made from dried unripe mangoes, imparts a tartness. The resulting mix is sour, spicy, and very flavorful. It is great on nuts or fried chickpeas, mixed into yogurt, on a salad, or over fresh fruit.

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  • Zucchini Chard Gratin

    Zucchini Chard Gratin

    I’ve declared this week Zucchini Week. Harvest those last zucchinis in your garden or buy them up at the farmers market and grocery store on sale, and make these delicious recipes! Come back on Wednesday and Friday for more zucchini recipes.

    This gratin is almost like a quiche, but the egg here is just enough to hold together the zucchini, swiss chard, bacon, and cheese packed into the dish. The flavor, upped by the inclusion of herbs and garlic, is amazing, and when I made this, I lamented not having made twice as much. So this recipe is twice the amount that I made; expect your gratin to be about twice as thick as mine – and you won’t be sorry.

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  • Summer Succotash

    Summer Succotash

    I love the abundance of fresh high-quality produce that’s available in the summer.  The farmers’ market sets up shop one block from me every Sunday, and I like to spend my morning strolling through, sampling peaches here and heirloom tomatoes there, not to mention cheese from Keswick Creamery, bacon from Truck Patch Farms, and gelato from Dolcezza Gelato.  Yes, I’m very spoiled (from May to November, at least).

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  • Vietnamese Pickles

    Vietnamese Pickles

    My refrigerator is absolutely packed with homemade condiments and sauces. I love having lots of building blocks to add to the flavor of even the most basic meals. These Vietnamese pickles are a great addition to my stockpile, allowing for a twist on basic sandwiches and salads, and enabling me to create more authentic Vietnamese dishes like vermicelli noodles and banh mi sandwiches (recipes forthcoming). The carrots and daikon radish hold their crunch and are complemented by the sweet and vinegary pickling liquid. Since I like my food with a kick, I’ve also added jalapeno peppers to this recipe for a faint spicy note.

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  • Homemade Vanilla Extract

    Homemade Vanilla Extract

    This recipe is so simple it hardly seems worth posting.  But this little recipe has enormous value; imagine never having to buy vanilla extract again!  Once you’ve whipped up your first batch, you can simply add more bourbon as the extract dwindles, but remember to also occasionally toss in another bean.  Every time I use vanilla beans for another purpose, instead of discarding the used beans, I simply rinse them and add them to my vanilla extract.

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  • Vegetarian Moroccan Tagine

    Vegetarian Moroccan Tagine

    Three years ago, in the summer of 2008, I spent two weeks traveling around Morocco with a friend. We had both been studying Arabic and thought this would be a good chance to practice; of course, once we arrived, we quickly realized that Moroccan Arabic is so different from Modern Standard Arabic that we were better off falling back on our knowledge of French! Luckily, my friend was practically fluent and I had five years of middle school and high school French classes under my belt – not that it did me all that much good, as this trip was probably the only time I’ve had people ask me why I’m so quiet and shy.

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  • Strawberry Vinegar Reduction

    Strawberry Vinegar Reduction

    This is a jewel of a syrup, a deep ruby red reduction with the rich thick consistency of honey.  Take a taste and the intense strawberry flavor plays on your tongue, the sweetness balanced by the complex tartness of red wine vinegar. This syrup is incredibly versatile, allowing for a little bit of customization at each step along the way. You can make it with different berries or fruits (or combinations of fruits even), you can add in fresh herbs, you can reduce the syrup only slightly (a thinner consistency works best for mixing in drinks or vinaigrettes) or cook it down until it’s the consistency of honey, and once you’ve made it, there are an endless amount of possibilities for using it! I’ve listed some suggested uses after the recipe.

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