we carry on
the laziest bread, a variety of comfort foods, and cast iron
I hope all you lower mainlanders have been enjoying the sun this week. Double digit temperatures? How spoiled we are! I almost considered taking the cover off the barbecue the other night to grill asparagus (mostly what stopped me is the fear of losing one between the grates). I’ve also been seized with the desire to go to the forest, now that it might not be just a cold, dim, mud pit, but I’m still too scared that there will be more people there than I’m comfortable with, and I don’t want to go someplace where NVSR might end up having to look for me by helicopter. I guess I’ll settle for the trail near my house, or maybe a bike ride to Ambleside if I’m feeling more adventurous.
This week I haven’t been feeling too inspired creatively, but I have been energized to work hard and get things done in a way that I found difficult most of the winter, so I definitely understand why “spring cleaning” is such a thing. And I can’t wait to be able to sleep with the window open again.
“The Stew” experienced a viral fame around this time last year largely due to the fandom of Alison Roman and the marketability of whiteness. I had the recipe recommended to me by a friend early in the pandemic and it was delicious, although whenever I make it I do think about the strangeness of calling what is really just a simple curry “spiced chickpea stew with coconut and turmeric” (or using “smoky eggplant spread” for what is quite clearly baba ghanoush) in order to make such things seem more appealing to white palates. However, I keep on making it because it is easy, tasty, and I almost always have greens that need to be used up. I got home from work later than usual because I had books due back at the library which I hadn’t finished, so I sat in my car for an hour reading in the library parking lot, and I still managed to have this ready by 7:15 without too much frantic energy.
Although they do get browned, I’ve never been able to get the chickpeas crispy, and I don’t really see how that would be possible when you’re adding them to a pot already full of frying onions. But the dish doesn’t suffer for it (I think if I really wanted them crisp, I would fry them first and set them aside), because chickpeas are already good, and most things becomes exponentially better with the addition of coconut milk. Compared to other curries, this using just turmeric and chili flakes as its only seasonings might seem insufficient, but it’s very good as it is. I love the textural contrast of the greens and chickpeas with the sauce, and fragrant garnishes of mint and/or cilantro work really well. This is nicest with flatbread (we had pita this time) but also good with rice as a base.
On Tuesday, I made a warm potato salad with a grainy mustard dressing, another Isa Does It star which I tend to forget about and then remember with fondness while flipping through the book looking for something else. I love mustard, and the dressing here uses it to effectively create a nicely tangy sauce that doesn’t disgust you with the idea of warm mayonnaise. Sautéed onions add a bit of sweetness, and I sometimes add celery for a little extra crunch depending on what I’m eating with it. This time, I made roasted asparagus, and a tofu marinated with even more mustard and some broth, hot sauce, and garlic. I also used the leftover marinade in the dressing instead of vegetable broth, saving me having to decide whether it’s worth keeping in the fridge when it’s not enough for another batch and has little tofu crumbs in the bottom. Alone each element of this dinner would have been decent, but they complemented each other wonderfully and created a beautiful plate at the same time.
This past weekend, I finally made the trip to my favourite Italian deli to restock on some of the top-tier pasta shapes, canned tomatoes, aged balsamic vinegar, the big jar of capers, and of course make a few impulse buys. One of these was a piece of pancetta, which I don’t pick up too often, and I didn’t have any plans for it right away. But on Saturday we found a big container of tomato sauce in the freezer that I made back in September when we had too many fresh tomatoes, and after using half of it that day to make a basic dinner of casarecce pomodoro with a caesar salad, I decided to use the other half later in the week with the pancetta to make bucatini all’amatriciana.
Italian cooking, as far as I’ve observed, isn’t about ‘less is more’ (even though the number of ingredients in a dish can often be very few), but about trying to make something delicious that really features the flavours of the things you’re using. Amatriciana is a prime example: you could taste the sauce and probably name all the ingredients in it right away. This immensely satisfying pasta showcases lovely crisp and smoky pieces of pancetta in a tart and spicy tomato sauce, with plenty of garlic and a few fresh basil leaves for colour and depth. It’s really nice with a thicker noodle like bucatini— happily, the deli had a few packages— to get good sauce coverage and so all the pieces of pancetta don’t end up at the bottom of the bowl.
Seeing as my drive to make food this week has been borne solely of trying to use things before they go bad and not due to any actual inspiration or desires, I surprised myself by making no-knead bread dough at 10pm simply for the joy of having freshly made bread the next day. This was something I did a lot at the start of the pandemic when I lost my job(s), and it was really rewarding to end up with a crusty, chewy loaf of bread after expending almost no effort. The most difficult part of no-knead bread is remembering to make the dough hours beforehand, because the fermentation time is what gives it the airy, crusty quality you want. There are a lot of variations out there depending on how long you want to ferment it: I’ve settled on 1 pound (a little over 3 cups) of flour, 2 teaspoons salt, ½ teaspoon instant yeast, and 1½ cups lukewarm water for a 12-hour rise, because I find it easiest to set up the dough before bed and bake it the next morning.
After the initial ferment, the dough is lightly shaped into a ball and rises for one more hour before baking at 450° in a dutch oven for 45-55 minutes, the final 15-20 with the lid off to brown the crust. It always comes out perfect: soft and chewy interior, and a beautifully crisp and brown exterior. In pre-pandemic times I killed two different sourdough starters, one that went moldy due to poor storage in the feeding phase, and one due to sheer neglect after I made my first loaf with it and it was neither as light nor as sour as I expected— so I just figured making bread wasn’t for me. Maybe there will be a sourdough starter in my future, but for now I’m happy to make one of these practically foolproof loaves, even if they do deprive me of the joy of kneading dough.
Media:
About me: I am a Cast Iron Pan Guy, so I enjoyed this piece detailing the cast iron discourse of a few weeks ago, and the almost religious passion with which some people share their love of, and opinions on, the classic cooking vessel. Says Todd Richards of the rampant mansplaining and pearl-clutching when people have differing opinions on cast iron use or care:
“Everyone wants to be right. Maybe cast iron is one of those things where there isn’t a wrong answer, there is just a lot of personal preference.”
Cast iron is versatile, provides excellent heat distribution, and is almost impossible to destroy, so it’s well worth the tiny bit of extra work involved, in my opinion. In case you trust me more than other internet randos, here I bequeath to you the cast iron care that has worked for me, if you are wary of getting one or are still getting used to using yours.
You do have to clean it. I had a friend who thought cast iron was disgusting, because her roommate’s boyfriend just left the pan on the stove all the time and never washed it because “it would ruin the seasoning”. The seasoning refers to the blackened surface of the pan, not the flavour of every food you’ve ever made infusing each dish you cook. If you’ve only made a grilled cheese or toasted some nuts or something you can maybe get away with just wiping out the crumbs with a paper towel, but otherwise, wash it!
The zealots will tell you otherwise, but soap won’t ruin your pan. If you’ve cooked something that might leave a lingering flavour, you can wash it with a bit of soap, then rinse and dry as usual. But most of the time you can just put a couple centimetres of water in the bottom, heat it on the stove until it bubbles, and then scrub with a stiff dish brush. The article mentions the idea of washing a pan by hand versus throwing it in the dishwasher might be a dealbreaker for some, but I really hope no one reading this considers any pots or pans dishwasher-safe.
After you wash it, dry it off and heat it up with a little bit of neutral oil. Spread the oil around the bottom and sides of the pan and dab off the excess with a paper towel. It’s a good idea to heat it up again after every wash, but you don’t necessarily need to oil it every time— use your judgement about whether the surface of the pan looks overly dry or uneven.
If you’re buying a new pan, buy pre-seasoned. Starting from scratch is an effort, but keeping a seasoned pan in good condition isn’t hard. If you have a metal or glass pan you use in the oven to roast vegetables, you know how hard you’d have to scrub to even begin to make a dent in those blackened spots, which are galvanized oil, the same as what seasons your cast iron! I’ve also found pans at thrift stores that someone got rid of because they had a bit of rust, but you can remove this with steel wool and little baking soda, and then re-season to have a pan practically as good as new.
Thanks for reading— if you enjoyed this newsletter, please share it with someone new! I like providing this to you for free, but it does still involve time and effort, so donations I can use towards cookbooks or future treats are much appreciated. And a reminder that sometimes, retail therapy actually helps.