Vindaloo Lamb and Farro Salad

I picked up some Vindaloo Seasoning awhile back and thus far had only used it in some stirfries. I also was in possession of some high quality ground lamb from Brookfield Farm in Walpole, NH thanks to Mom. I was looking for something to do with the ground lamb that wasn't meatballs and wasn't saucy (i.e. requiring one to be at the table with a napkin). The dish I've created here is a one dish meal, something you can eat in comfort on the couch without worry about a mess, or in Matt's case today, munch on while brewing beer.  In terms of this being a dish with a traditional Indian seasoning, this dish is in no way traditional, however I used some classic combinations to piece it together, lamb and farro pair well, as do lamb and mint, and the almonds and golden raisins align nicely with the vindaloo seasoning.  The dish is good for leftovers if heated up slightly (cold ground lamb can get a bit greasy), and this is also super fast.  If you use pearled farro, you can have this dish ready in about 20 minutes.The quantities below create about 4 servings.

Ingredients

• 1 1/4 cup farro
• olive oil
• 3/4 pound ground lamb, preferably local and sustainable
• 1 TBS Vindaloo Seasoning (I like Penzeys)
• 1 cup celery, diced
• 1/2 cup red onion, small dice
• 1/2 cup golden raisins
• 1/2 cup slivered toasted almonds
• 6-8 leaves of fresh mint, sliced into thin ribbons (aka...chiffonade)
• 1/2 tsp kosher salt

Process

• Cook your farro according to package instructions to a doneness of al dente, adding a teaspoon of salt to the water.  Depending on what sort of farro you have (regular, pearled, semi-pearled), this could take between 15 and 30 minutes of cooking time.
• When farro is cooked, drain and place in a bowl, add a TBS of olive oil and toss.
• Meanwhile, while farro is cooking, brown the ground lamb over medium high heat in a little bit of olive oil.  Half way through browning, mix in the vindaloo seasoning.
• Combine lamb, farro, celery, red onion, golden raisins, almonds, mint and salt and toss well.
• Serve warm, or refrigerate and reheat slowly in microwave before serving.

Pasilla Chile, Pork and Mushroom Tacos

As it seems to be lately...the dishes aren't always the prettiest, but oh the flavor is amazing. Rich, bold, layered with earthy flavor, you'll wonder why you haven't been eating tacos like these for years.  Just enough heat to know you're eating chile-infused pork and mushrooms, but not so much that you can't taste all the other components. Don't forget the sweet onion and cilantro as garnishes, those two touches really bring the dish together. This is not a quick dinner, except that it makes great leftovers which make a super fast meal, so if you invest a little time when you can, you'll be reaping the benefits for a few meals. You can also stop after making the pasilla paste, refrigerate and then continue making the tacos anytime during the next week. I created this recipe by adapting and combining a couple Rick Bayless methods and recipes. This recipe now rivals a beer braised turkey (I subsitute 2 pounds chicken thighs) taco recipe for our favorite tacos.

Recipe makes enough for 12 tacos, serving 4-6 people

For the pasilla paste:

Ingredients

• 12 good-sized garlic cloves, skin on
• 4 ounces dried Pasilla chiles, stemmed, seeded and cut open
• 2 tsp Mexican oregano
• 1/4 tsp ground cumin
• 1/2 tsp fresh ground black pepper

Process

• Heat a dry cast iron pan to medium heat, place garlic cloves in pan and dry toast for about 15 or 20 minutes, turning a few times, until soft, fragrant and blackened in spots.  Set aside to cool, remove skins, and roughly chop.
• Using same cast iron, toast chiles a couple seconds per side, pressing down with a potato masher or flat metal spatula, then add to a bowl of hot water.  Continue toasting all chiles until done.  Then let chiles sit in hot water for 30 minutes, and then drain chiles, reserving 2/3 cup of liquid
• Put chiles, garlic, spices and reserved soaking liquid into food processor (or blender).  Process until you get a smooth puree (you'll have to scrape down the sides a few times).
• With a rubber spatula, work puree through a size to remove any bits of skin or seeds.
• At this point, you can continue to make the tacos, or seal the paste in a container and refrigerate up to a week.

For Tacos

Ingredients:

• 1 TBS olive oil
• 1 1/2 pounds boneless pork shoulder/butt, cut into 1/2 inch pieces, seasoned with salt and freshly ground black pepper
• Pasilla Paste from recipe above
• 1 1/4 cups beef broth, low sodium
• 8 ounces white button mushrooms, sliced
• 1/3 cup cilantro, chopped
• corn tortillas

For Garnish

• sweet onion, very thinly sliced
• chopped cilantro

Process

• Heat olive oil in deep saute pan or dutch oven over medium high heat.
• Brown pork pieces in 2 or 3 batches so you don't crowd the pan.
• Set aside browned pork.
• Add Pasilla Paste to hot oil, and cook for 5 minutes or so over medium high heat, stirring regularly, until pasilla paste is reduced and thickened.
• Add beef broth and stir in.
• Add mushrooms, pork and cilantro.
• Simmer for 45 minutes to an hour, until sauce is thickened to a degree where it won't be sloppy in tacos, and the pork is tender.
• Check for seasoning.  Likely you will not need to add salt, but if you used homemade beef broth, you might.
• Serve in corn tortillas with plenty of sweet onion and cilantro.

Spicy Cheese Biscuits

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you know that in addition to bacon, some of the other recurring themes are: spicy and cheese.  Lately, our spicy of choice has been sriracha.  These biscuits are drop biscuits, which means no rolling or cutting or anything involved.  All you need is a bowl, measuring utensils and a mixing spoon.  Also, since you cook these atop parchment paper, you don't even have a baking sheet to scrub.

Now, some measurements you'll have to guesstimate.  For example, I've never seen a 2/3 tsp measuring spoon.  What I do is use a heaping 1/2 tsp, and it works just fine.  Although this is baking and usually that means precision, in this recipe you have some wiggle room.  For sour milk, simply measure out regular fresh milk and put in a splash of cider vinegar and let sit while you prepare everything else.  I use gorgonzola crumbles, but any blue cheese will work.  If you aren't a fan of blue cheese, then use an equal amount shredded gruyere, young provolone or young cheddar.  In fact, if you want a simple and deliciously airy cheese biscuit, but aren't a fan of spicy, then just omit the sriracha, everything will be fine.

I usually make 4 biscuits for us two for either a snack or along with soup, and those are the proportions listed first in the recipe.  I've put in parentheses proportions for making (8 -or- 12) biscuits.

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup flour (1 1/2 -or- 2 1/4)
• 1/2 tsp baking powder (1 -or- 1 1/2)
• 2/3 tsp sugar (1 1/3 -or- 2)
• 1/4 tsp baking soda (1/2 -or- 3/4)
• 1/3 tsp salt (2/3 -or- 1)
• 2 TBS cold unsalted butter (4 -or- 6)
• 2 ounces gorgonzola crumbles (4 -or- 6)
• 1/3 cup sour milk (2/3 -or- 1)
• 1 1/2 tsp sriracha (1 TBS -or- 1 1/2 TBS)

Process

• Preheat oven to 450.
• Stir together dry ingredients.
• Cut butter into a few pieces, and using fingers cut the butter into the dry ingredients by smooshing the butter between your fingers and the dry ingredients.  You want to achieve a pebbly texture, where there are still tiny pockets of butter.  It is important that your butter be refrigerator cold when doing this step.
• Stir in cheese
• Whisk sriracha into sour milk, and pour into other ingredients.
• Stir until just incorporated.  
• Drop onto a parchment paper lined baking sheet (or two sheets if making 8 or 12) in 4 (or 8 or 12) equal mounds.
• Bake for 15-20 minutes, until nicely browned and golden.
• Cool on a rack for about 3-5 minutes before eating.

Mushroom and Farro Soup

Sounds boring, right?  Just a bowl of brown healthy things. And well, the reason there isn't a photo is that it looks like a bowl of brown healthy things.  This is not a visually stunning soup, and I couldn't get a photo that made it look like anything but brown.  But oh the flavor!  This is a savory, mouthwatering, umami bomb.  And healthy and simple to boot.

This recipe calls for beef stock/broth.  I don't cook enough beef with bones or use beef broth/stock often enough to make cooking it at home a cost-effective measure.  I used Swanson's low sodium beef stock (comes in the tall carton).  I then used a a cup of water to cut it.  However, if you have homemade beef stock that isn't too rich, just add a fourth cup of stock instead of the cup of water.

I used pearled farro, which cooks much faster than regular farro.  But you can use either kind.  If you use regular farro, extend simmering time to about 40 minutes, or what the package suggests for cooking time.

This soup pairs wonderfully with Spicy Blue Cheese Biscuits, the baking time of which is the same as the simmer time on the soup.

This serves four, but you can easily double the recipe.

Ingredients

• 1/3 cup dried porcini (they will sit loosely in the cup, use about 1/3 of a 1 ounce package)
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/2 cup white wine
• 2 TBS butter
• 1 onion (size of a baseball), diced
• 1 large carrot, diced
• 2 fat garlic cloves, minced
• 12 ounces white button mushrooms, rough chopped into 1/2 to 1 inch pieces
• 1/2 TBS tomato paste
• 3 cups low sodium beef stock plus 1 cup water
• 1/3 cup pearled farro

Process

• Bring 1/2 cup water and 1/2 cup white wine to a boil.  Pour over dried porcini and let sit for at least 30 minutes.
• Melt butter in a 4 quart pot over medium heat.
• Add onion and carrot and saute until onion becomes a little golden.
• Add garlic and cook for about a minute, being careful not to brown it.
• Add chopped button mushrooms, and cook, stirring regularly until most of the liquid is thrown from the mushrooms.
• Meanwhile, drain the porcini mushrooms through a coffee filter (this removes any grit).  Reserve soaking liquid and finely chop the porcini. 
• Push ingredients in pot to sides and add tomato paste into center of pot.  Cook for a few minutes, to caramelize tomato paste, thus adding layers of flavor.  Stir into other ingredients.
• Add beef stock plus water and the reserved soaking liquid from the porcini and bring to a strong simmer.
• Add pearled farro and porcini, and simmer strongly for about 15 minutes.

Chicken with Mustard and Mushrooms

Invented this tonight, and we are two happy happy people having eaten it.  Tangy and uplifting, with a brightness from fresh herbs, but grounded to the earth from the mushrooms...this dish has it all.  It also has flexibility.  Don't have dill?  Use some thyme.  Don't like dark meat? We like chicken thighs, but you can make this with whatever chicken parts you like, although if using breasts, you will likely need to lower the simmer time, and make sure they don't dry out.  You could also cut up a whole chicken and multiply the sauce by 3, and make this for a crowd.  For speed's sake I usually serve dishes like this over a quick cooking pasta (mini farfalle cook in 7 minutes), but you can serve this easily over rice or cous cous or quinoa, or...you see my point.  By cooking a significant amount of mushrooms in the sauce, you also gain a vegetable serving without an extra pan or effort.

The important components to this dish, aside from buying quality chicken from a responsible source, are the choice of mustard, the choice of wine and using fresh herbs to finish the dish.  The mustard I use is one of my favorite go-tos: Raye's Winter Garden.  This is a stone ground brown mustard with dill, garlic and celery.  To echo the dill, I used fresh dill as my finishing herb.  If you use a dijon-style mustard, you might prefer thyme as your finishing herb.  You have lots of flexibility here for flavor profiles.  Also remember the rule about cooking with wine:  If you wouldn't drink it, don't cook with it.  Make sure you pick a dry wine, that you enjoy the taste of.

Serves 2 for a light dinner (easily multiplied, although back off on the water by half when multiplying)

Ingredients

• 2 large or 4 small chicken thighs, bone-in, skin on (or other chicken parts that you like)
• flour
• 1 1/2 TBS olive oil
• 8 ounces white button mushrooms, quartered
• 1 large shallot, small dice
• 1/2 cup white wine
• 1 1/2 TBS brown or dijon mustard
• 1/2 cup water
• salt and pepper
• 2 tsp chopped fresh dill (or thyme)

Process

• Dredge chicken thighs in flour, and season with salt and pepper.  Shake off excess flour.
• Heat 1 TBS olive oil in large skillet over medium high heat.
• Place chicken thighs in skillet, skin side down first, and brown deeply on both sides, and then set aside on a plate.
• Add mushrooms to pan and cook until browned and all moisture is thrown off.
• Add 1/2 TBS olive oil and shallot to pan, saute until shallot starts to soften.
• Add wine, mustard and water to pan and scrape up any browned bits.
• Return chicken to pan, skin side up, and bring sauce to a simmer.
• Simmer for 20 minutes, or until chicken is cooked through and sauce is reduced and thickened.
• Serve over pasta, sprinkled with fresh dill.