Tag: winter weather warmers

Keema Beef Curry

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It is officially cold.

Really cold today. Not as cold as yesterday night (which was the coldest day of the season so far), but still very nose-nippy outside.

It is also officially dark at 4:30pm.

When the weather takes a sharp turn like this, I often start to crave something spicy and bright. This recipe is from the current issue of Food and Wine, and suits my tastes and my mood perfectly. The spices are so warming; they make me dream of locales where the sun shines all the time. The coconut milk makes the curry smooth and creamy, and the spritz of lemon juice makes the whole dish sparkle.

Another great thing about this recipe? It’s something new and delicious to make with ground beef that isn’t hamburger, meatloaf, or meatballs!

Adapted by Grace Parisi from the amazing Julie Sahni, this recipe strangely seems to have not been uploaded to the magazine’s website yet. I have basically kept the recipe as published. However, I have reduced the amount a liquid a bit so it isn’t so watery (you might choose to reduce it even more). Even though Parisi’s recipe doesn’t call for lemons, a hit of acid just seems like such a natural addition to make the flavors pop.

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon of canola oil

1 pound of lean ground beef

1 large onion, finely chopped

2 tablespoons of ginger, finely grated

2 large cloves of garlic, finely minced

1 1/2 tablespoons of Madras curry powder

Salt and pepper

1 large Yukon Gold potato, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch dice

1 cup of chicken stock

1 14-ounce can of unsweetened coconut milk

1 14-ounce can of diced tomatoes

1 1/2 cups of frozen baby peas

Fresh cilantro

Lemon wedges

How to prepare:

1. In a large Dutch oven, heat the oil over medium-high heat until it begins to shimmer. Add the ground beef. As it cooks, use the edge of your wooden spoon to break up any lumps. Continue to brown the meat until there is no longer any pink, about 5 minutes.

2. Add the onion, the ginger, the garlic, and the curry powder. Season everything with salt and pepper. Continue to cook the meat mixture until the onions begin to soften and become translucent, about 3 minutes.

3. Add the potato, the stock, the coconut milk, and the diced tomatoes and their juices. Stir everything to combine. Bring the everything to a boil, and then turn the heat down to a simmer. Cook the curry until the sauce has thickened, and the potatoes are tender.

4. Using the back of your wooden spoon, lightly crush some of the potatoes against the side of the casserole. Adjust the seasoning. Add the peas, and continue to simmer the curry until they are heated through. Adjust the seasoning for a final time.

Top the beef keema with cilantro and a squeeze of fresh lemon juice. Serve with either basmati rice or naan.

Pumpkin Butter

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This is Cheese Pumpkin Project #2, using up the second half of the cheese pumpkin that I used in the Pumpkin Soup with Chipotle Chili Purée.

Pumpkin butter is terrific smeared on toast, or bread. This particular recipe is moderately adapted from Serious Eats.

Ingredients:

1/2 a small cheese pumpkin, seeded, peeled, and cut into 1-inch cubes

Apple cider

1/3 cup of maple syrup

1/3 cup dark brown sugar, packed

1 1/2 teaspoons of ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon of ground ginger

1/2 teaspoon of freshly ground nutmeg

A pinch of ground cloves

A pinch of salt

2 tablespoons of unsalted butter

Special equipment:

A hand-held immersion blender

A fine-mesh splatter screen*

How to prepare:

1. Place the pumpkin cubes in a large Dutch oven. Add enough apple cider to barely cover the top of the pumpkin cubes. Bring everything to a brisk simmer over medium-high heat, before lowering the heat to medium-low. Cook the pumpkin until it is very tender, about 30 minutes. You should be able to easily crush a pumpkin cube against the side of the casserole with a wooden spoon when the pumpkin is done.

2. Turn off the heat and using an immersion blender, purée the pumpkin until it is smooth. Add the maple syrup, the brown sugar, and the spices to the puréed pumpkin. Stir everything together to evenly distribute the spices throughout the mixture.

3. Turn the heat back on to low. Simmer the purée uncovered until it is thick and spreadable, and has reduced by about more than half. This can take anywhere between 1 to 2 hours. Be sure to carefully stir the mixture occasionally, scraping the bottom of the pan as well to ensure that your pumpkin butter is not burning or scorching. If it is burning or scorching, turn the heat down even more.

* At a certain point, you may want to cover the casserole with a fine-mesh splatter screen. As the mixture cooks down, thick bubbles will form and burst on the surface that can make a bit of a mess on your stove, and potentially burn you. Be sure to use a screen that allows most of the steam to pass through it so that your pumpkin butter can cook down properly.

4. Once the pumpkin butter is nice and thick, stir in the butter. Turn off the heat, and let the mixture cool completely before transferring it to another container and storing it in the refrigerator.

Pumpkin Soup with Chipotle Chili Purée and Pumpkin Seed Oil

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A few weeks ago, I was possessed with the urge to buy an entire cheese pumpkin. Cheese pumpkin is somewhat of a misnomer as it is neither made of cheese, nor does it taste remotely cheese-like.

Cheese pumpkins actually have nothing to do with the cheese-making process.

Instead, the cheese in cheese pumpkin actually refers to its appearance as it resembles an old-fashioned cheese box. Okay, sure, boxes are square or rectangular, and cheese pumpkins are clearly not. But they are buff-colored, low and squat — just like unfinished wooden cheese boxes.

The cheese pumpkin is the classic Cinderella pumpkin. That wasn’t a sugar pumpkin that got turned into a carriage!

Cheese pumpkins are awesome. They have sweet, soft flesh that is hardly stringy at all when you cook them. They make amazing purées, soups, and smooth-as-buttah’ custards.

They are also huge. About 5 to 7 pounds for a small one, 6 to 10 pounds for a large one. Often at farmers’ markets, cheese pumpkins are cut up and sold in halves and quarters.

But I just had to have a whole one to myself.

So consider this Cheese Pumpkin Project #1, as I only used half of a small one for this recipe.

Ingredients:

For the chipotle chili purée:

1 7.5 ounce can of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, reserving 2 peppers and 2 tablespoons of sauce

1 red bell pepper

1 teaspoon of sherry vinegar

1 tablespoon of honey

For the soup:

2 tablespoons of olive oil

1/2 a small cheese pumpkin, seeded, peeled, and cut into 1-inch cubes

1 medium onion, diced

2 cloves of garlic, minced

2 sprigs of fresh thyme

2 bay leaves

1 quart of chicken stock

1/2 cup of heavy cream

The reserved pair of chipotle peppers + 2 tablespoons of sauce

Salt

Pumpkin seed oil

Special equipment:

A hand-held immersion blender

A fine-mesh sieve*

How to prepare:

1. Heat the olive oil in a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat until the oil starts to shimmer. Add the onions. Sauté them until they lose their opacity and begin to turn translucent. Add the garlic and sauté everything together for about another minute. Toss the pumpkin cubes in the onion-garlic mixture for another minute or two until they are evenly coated. Add the stock to the vegetables. Tuck the thyme sprigs and bay leaves under the pumpkin cubes. Bring everything to a boil, and then reduce the heat so that the liquid is at a steady simmer. Cook the pumpkin until it is soft. You should easily be able to mash a pumpkin cube against the side of the pot with a wooden spoon.

2. Remove the thyme and the bay leaves. Add the 2 reserved chipotle peppers and 2 tablespoons of sauce. Using an immersion blender, blend everything together until smooth.

* If you, like me, prefer the look and mouthfeel of a perfectly creamy and even-colored soup unmarred by any specks of green from the thyme, or any red from the peppers, you can pass the soup quickly through a fine-mesh sieve. By sieving your soup, you improve the texture immensely. Cheese pumpkins are much less fibrous than other pumpkins, but they can still have some.

Stir in the heavy cream, and adjust the seasoning. While the soup is cooling a bit, prepare the chipotle pepper purée.

3. If you have a gas range, set the red bell pepper directly on the gas burner with the heat on high. Turn the pepper periodically to make sure that the skin chars evenly.

If you have an electric range, rub the bell pepper with olive oil and place it on a cookie sheet set underneath the broiler. You can also rub the pepper with olive oil and pop it into a 450° oven. Remove it when the skin is blistered and blackened.

4. When your pepper is nice and charred, put it in a clean plastic grocery bag or a small pepper bag and wait for it to cool. When it is cool enough to handle, you should be able to gently rub off all the charred skin from the pepper. Seed the pepper, and discard the seeds and stem. Cut the pepper into 1/2 inch pieces.

5. Using the immersion blender, combine the remaining chipotle peppers, adobo sauce, the roasted red pepper, the sherry vinegar, and the honey together until smooth.

6. To serve, top each bowl of soup with a dollop of chipotle purée and a drizzle of pumpkin seed oil.