Aloo Mattar Deconstructed (Or, one more thing to do with mashed potatoes)

I'm always interested to hear from people if they have, historically, been food separators or food mushers. Food separators are those who observe strict boundary lines between food on their plate; they may go so far as to reject those impure motes of food which may have absorbed traces of the others. Food mushers, on the other hand, tend to take a more integrative, Gestalt approach, seeing divisions between the food on your plate as totally constructed and unnecessary, swirling it all into a cohesive whole.

Kids tend to be much more hardline about their separation/mushing practice, though it is certainly not limited to young folks. Interestingly, despite any value judgment I may have implied in my descriptions, I know great cooks who grew up in each camp. It truly is interesting to see how it's an indicator of one's approach: Separators tend to take a more measured, scientific approach. They're more likely to do careful research before cooking, even if they're creating a new recipe. You want one in your kitchen the day you get that perfect first bunch of asparagus in the spring. Mushers tend to play a little more fast and loose in their recipe creation, coming up with uncanny combinations on the fly and making the most of what's at hand and reimagining ingredients. You want one in your kitchen when you have a fridge full of leftovers that need to get used up.

That said, this one goes out particularly to those other folks who ever got excited about swirling together mashed potatoes, peas and ketchup. Doubly for anyone who would add hot sauce.

Aloo Mattar is a hearty North Indian dish featuring potatoes (aloo) and peas (mattar) in a spicy, tomato-based sauce. I first made this on a cold, damp day I really wanted mashed potatoes, much more than I wanted rice or flatbread, so I pulled the recipe apart so as to put the curried peas over the potatoes. Since then, I've used the curry over mashed potatoes idea in a few other ways, but this is still my favorite. It also leaves broader possibilities for using the leftover mashed potatoes.
The dish comes together quickly (I've done it in less than 30 minutes), is vegetarian, and could easily be vegan: make whatever mashed potato recipe you like, and omit or replace the (sour) cream. You can even make your own: one of my vegan friends swears by this recipe for cashew sour cream.

Aloo Mattar, Deconstructed

vegetarian, gluten/grain-free, easily veganified
serves 4, start to finish in 30 minutes.

Super-Basic Mashed Potatoes

• 5 med.-large potatoes
• 1-2 tsp. salt
• 2 T. butter
• 1/4 c. milk

Masala Mattar

• 6-7 cloves garlic, finely minced
• 1" piece ginger, peeled and finely minced
• 2 c. tomato puree (about ⅔ of a 28 oz. can)
• 1 tsp. red pepper flakes
• 1 med. onion, med. dice
• ½ T. butter
• ½ T. oil
• 1 2" cinnamon stick (if you don't have it, add another tsp. of ground cinnamon later)
• 2-3 cloves
• 2-3 green cardamom pods
• 1 tsp. cumin seeds
• ½ tsp. methi (fenugreek) seeds (optional)
• 2 tsp. turmeric
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 1 lb. (3½-4 c.) frozen peas
• ¼-½ c. light cream or sour cream
• fresh cilantro

Start with the mashed potatoes. You can use whatever mashed potato recipe you like, but this is a good basic one. It's just a base, anyway. Wash potatoes and slice into chunks about ½ to 1 inch large (you can peel them, if you prefer). Place in a large saucepan, cover with water and add about a tsp. of salt. Cover with a well-fit lid and bring to boil over high heat. Let boil until potatoes are fork-tender, then add butter, milk and salt to taste as you mash. I don't like mine perfectly smooth, and find that having some intact pieces of potato helps back this as an interpretation of aloo mattar, but it's up to you.

I made the whole peas thing in my cast iron dutch oven, but this would also work in a large, heavy-bottomed saucepan.

First, prep the garlic and ginger. You have two options here: you can chop them roughly, then throw them in the food processor with the tomato and red pepper or you can mince them both finely and add them at the same time as the tomato.

Put your large, heavy-bottomed pan over a med-high heat and start toasting the whole spices: the cinnamon stick, cloves and cardamom. let them get fragrant but don't let them burn. Add the butter/oil, cumin and methi (if using) and stir/toast until the cumin seeds get sizzly and fragrant. Add the onion and let it cook for 2-4 minutes until it starts to soften. Add the turmeric, ground cinnamon, peas and tomato/garlic/ginger/chili mixture. Let simmer for 5-10 minutes, then add cream or sour cream and cilantro. Adjust salt/spicy to taste and serve over mashed potatoes.

Spicy Tomato Peach Jam: Convergent Evolution?

One of my favorite writers, magical realist godfather Jorge Luis Borges, has a short story, "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote" (in Spanish; in English), which describes the efforts of a writer to rewrite the classic Don Quixote. Menard wishes not simply to reinterpret the story in his own words, but to cause himself to produce Cervantes' exact text, even if only a few pages thereof. He rejects his initial approach, "[to] know Spanish well, recover the Catholic faith, fight against the Moors or the Turk, forget the history of Europe between the years 1602 and 1918, be Miguel de Cervantes," as too simple, and decides instead, "to go on being Pierre Menard and reach the Quixote through the experiences of Pierre Menard." For additional absurdity, the story is presented as an obituary of sorts for Menard, who never actually existed.

I was put in mind of this yesterday when I spontaneously recreated a recipe I had merely skimmed during initial research for a tomato jam I decided to make after coming home from the farm with an entire flat of tomatoes. Given, this is a much less onerous task than recreating Quixote; there's a reason you can't copyright a list of ingredients. And, in truth, a list of ingredients is not a recipe.

Russian Eggplant "Caviar"

I recently lost my main Russian grocery hookup when the last of my stepmother's family pulled up roots from their largely Russian Northeast Philly neighborhood. Our shared background in Russian Studies has been a major bonding point for us. I first met her shortly before I started studying Russian towards the end of high school and she was a big part of my reassuring my parents that it was perfectly fine to send me off to Central Asian parts of the former USSR back in 2002, based on her own experiences in the USSR in the late 70s/early 80s (my parents have never leaned towards being overprotectively alarmist, but anywhere ending in -stan raised a high eyebrow that close to 9/11 and the beginning of US involvement in Afghanistan). A couple times a year, she'd call to say, "Hey, I'm going to visit my mom for a few days. You want anything from Bell's?" (referring Bell's Market, the go-to Russian store in Philly). We'd go on for a few minutes about all the different kinds of frozen dumplings, smoked fish, cold salads and baked goods available there, which inevitably turned into reminiscences of particular meals and dishes from our travels. Every culture has its notable culinary adventures, but Russian culture in particular seems to keep the kitchen table at its heart. I'm reminded of a toast in honor of the kitchen table from Dennis Danvers's novel, The Watch:

"The Kitchen Table...is the site of all that's best in Man—his sociability, his intellect, his good humor, and his generosity—not a monument to death but a celebration of living, not the theft of life but its sharing, not the jingoistic cant that generally passes for history but here and now, together in solidarity, this very moment! I give you: The Kitchen Table!"

This toast is delivered by none less than Peter Kropotkin, or at least a fictional, time-traveling version of him, though I could imagine a similar proclamation coming from the man himself.

In any event, one of the Russian specialties that we always lingered over was баклажанная икра (bak⋅la⋅zhan'na⋅ya i⋅kra'), which literally translates as, "eggplant caviar." For all that it's called "caviar," baklazhannaya ikra is a totally vegan "salad" (Russian salads rarely involve leaves) made of eggplant, tomato, pepper, onion and carrot slow-cooked together to savory perfection and seasoned with the only two herbs that really matter in Russian cuisine, dill and parsley

Freedom Eggs: Protein, History and Good Karma, together at Last (Kunming Tomato and Egg)

We recently started getting eggs from a family at the school where I teach. Local eggs are something I'd been meaning to catch up with for a while, but despite my good intentions driving by "Fresh Eggs" signs alongside the road, it hadn't happened yet. So when I saw a flyer in the school lobby advertising weekly delivery to the school, I was sold. Someone's going to bring me a dozen eggs every other week at school? Awesome.

The family farm in question is an interesting place. It's on the site of the Ross Farm in Florence, MA, the last remaining building of a center of 19th century abolitionist and civil rights activism and stop on the Underground Railroad. At various points in that epoch of its history, it played host to such historical figures as Sojourner Truth (one of Florence's most celebrated historical residents) and Frederick Douglass, who was a frequent lecturer there.

These days, the farm is the family homestead of the Walker/Hammarlund clan, and also plays host to an herb farm run by another couple. I first caught wind of their project shortly after a play about local abolitionists by the class of one of their kids used a field trip to their house as a narrative framework. Someone mentioned that they were gearing up to start doing egg delivery by donkey cart. As if this operation needed to be any more stylish (donkey cart delivery is only available within Florence).

Shortly before the beginning of the school year, the farm was impacted by flooding of the Mill River caused by Hurricane Irene, which came up fairly suddenly and found them literally tossing chickens out of the barn to keep them away from the rising floodwaters.

In any event, we've been enjoying the eggs. I cracked open a double-yolker earlier today. However, going through a dozen eggs in two weeks is a quicker pace than we're accustomed to. It will pick up when I get into serious soup for lunch season and start including eggs in my lunch more often than not. In the meantime, this very simple dish has saved the day from the cranky hungries (or "the hangries" as we call it) a few times over the last few weeks. While any number of cultures have their own simple dishes focused on egg and tomato, this is one Maria learned from her Chinese professor in college, who was from Kunming in the southwestern Yunnan province (fun fact! in Mandarin, the word for tomato directly translates as "barbarian eggplant"). It's little more effort than plain scrambled eggs, but so much more satisfying.

Kunming-style Tomato and Egg

vegetarian, gluten-free
serves 1, 10 minutes start to finish

• 2 eggs
• 1 small or ½ large tomato, large dice (or a small handful of cherry tomatoes, halved or quartered)
• 1-2 scallions, sliced into rounds
OR
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 tsp. soy sauce
• ½ tsp. sugar
• ¼-½ tsp. salt
• a drizzle or spritz of oil to grease the pan

Crack eggs in a bowl and whisk with a few pinches of salt and about half the sugar. Prep the tomatoes and scallions/garlic. Heat pan on med-high heat. Add oil and the garlic or half the scallion. Give it about 30 seconds to start smelling toasty, then add the egg. Start cooking it in an undisturbed sheet, as for an omelet. Pull up the sides every so often and tip/swirl the liquid egg out to the edges to cook. Once it's mostly set, break it up and add the tomato, soy sauce and remaining scallion and sugar. Serve hot on its own, over a little rice or with a piece of toast.

Quick Hits: Panzanella

We have kind of a unique problem - we have too much artisan bread hanging around on a regular basis. Maybe it sounds a little less whiny if I tell it like it really is: we have too much half-stale artisan bread hanging around. Maria works most of the week as a farmstand muffin and cookie-slinger, but one night a week, she puts on her cape and cowl and takes on her real passion: bread. Every Monday, after working a full shift at the regular baking job, she heads out at 11 o'clock at night to go shape bread at El Jardín, one of a few local bakeries that focus on wood-fired, sourdough bread. She returns, half-delirious, at about 9 o'clock in the morning, often towing several loaves of day-old sourdough, and proceeds to sleep for most of her Tuesday off (and then wakes up in the afternoon and commences cooking again for her weekly pot luck).

Bread, especially sourdough, is kind of a family legacy. We grew up with perpetual sourdough. Mom began baking when pregnant with me, and, for several years, plied her bread at the Brattleboro Farmer's Market out of the back of the 1970s Volvo with her spokesbabies. When I was about 5, she got a job baking in the kitchen at The Putney School, where she was encouraged to further develop her sourdough wiles. We also grew up in the back of that kitchen, warming ourselves against the huge, ceramic-lined ovens and sampling whatever came down the pipeline. As such, we grew up with the idea the sourdough wasn't a big deal. Folks' ability to normalize their childhood is remarkable sometimes. All that said, we only eat so much bread before it becomes almost unslice-ably stale. I guess it's better than it going moldy, with which you can do very little, but we store it at room temperature and not in plastic, which will get you stale over moldy most days. For better or worse, once bread has gone totally stale and lost all its moisture, it really won't go moldy.

So, we end up swimming in stale sourdough, and having to find creative ways to use it up outside of making breadcrumbs in quantities of epic proportion. Leading up to the end of summer, here's a quick favorite: Panzanella, a quick, Italian bread-tomato-basil salad full of simple, fresh, summery flavors that we always have trouble not picking to death before it makes it to its destination (the same can be said of another favorite stale bread usage, a savory bread pudding, but that's a story for another, cooler day).

Panzanella

vegan, about 20 min. start to finish
serves 4-6

• 1 loaf half-stale bread, large dice
• 2 med-large tomatoes, large dice
• 3-4 cloves garlic, slivered
• ¼-½ c. olive oil
• 1-2 tsp. salt (this is a good opportunity to break out the good salt)
• 3-4 stems (15-20 leaves) fresh basil, chiffonaded
• fresh ground black pepper to taste

Optional:
• 1 chile, seeded and minced

After prep, toss all ingredients save the garlic. Toss garlic in a skillet with some of the olive oil over med-high heat until it starts to smell toasty, then sprinkle on top. Let sit for as long as you can stand it, or at least 15 minutes. Crank black pepper to taste over the top.

Pasta Ricotta: What Summer Tastes Like

Since the last post didn't contain any actual recipe, here's a quick one to keep you going. I read about this dish years ago at a friend's house in a cookbook that I couldn't pick out of a lineup of Italian cookbooks if my life depended on it at this point. The book's long-winded description of it essentially boiled down to: this is an ideal food to make during a long night of drinking. Its appeal is actually wider than that, though. Its precious few ingredients and simple composition mean that not only can you make it when you're half in the bag, but that each of those few ingredients shine.

Much of New England had a cool, rainy spell at the end of May/beginning of June this year, which means that tomatoes have been a little slow coming in. While we've been picking cherry tomatoes for almost a month now, the big slicers from the farmshare just started coming in last week. Et puis, la déluge: We brought home nearly a dozen big slicing tomatoes this week. The basil's been going strong for a while now, both at the farm and in our specialized home herb planter (right). Finally, they get to come together. The dish is as simple as this: pasta, tomato, basil, garlic, ricotta. It's hard to get closer to the taste of summer without just eating a slice of tomato with a basil leaf on top.

Pasta Ricotta

vegetarian
Serves 2-3

• ½ lb. pasta, shape of your choice, cooked
• 1 med-large tomato, large dice (1½-2 c.)
• 1-1½ c. basil, washed and torn
• 2-3 cloves garlic, minced
• drizzle of olive oil
• 1-1½ c. ricotta
• salt & pepper to taste

A few variations that don't meaningfully increase the amount of effort:
• Replace all or part of the ricotta with chèvre.
• Add red pepper flake or sliced fresh hot pepper.
• Mash a few anchovies in with the garlic.
• Include toasted, rough chopped pine nuts or walnuts, à la pesto.
• Toss in a little chopped fresh spinach.

Cook pasta. All other prep can be accomplished while pasta is cooking. Prep tomato, basil and garlic as indicated. Mix those three in a bowl and drizzle with olive oil. When pasta is cooked and drained, empty in to large bowl and add vegetables and ricotta. Toss until combined and add salt and pepper to taste.