South Indian Spiced Purple Cabbage

Now that it’s warming up, I’m returning to cooking with seasonal produce and doing so simply and minimally so as to let the vegetables shine. I’m on a current kick of cooking vegetables in a South Indian style, which involves just a few light spices and short cooking times. The result is a meal that is not only quick, but tastes fresh and delicious.


Unlike North Indian dishes, which frequently contain onion, ginger, garlic, and garam masala, South Indian food frequently utilizes roasted lentils, mustard seeds, and dried red chilis to provide a light yet distinctive flavor. The mustard seeds are popped in hot oil to release their characteristic flavor, and the lentils are then added to impart the oil with a nutty flavor. Red chilis provide a bit of heat, and asafetida provides an earthy flavor that is reminiscent of but not quite as pungent as leeks or shallots.

Carrot Cupcakes with Golden Raisin Cream Cheese Frosting

I’ve never been a huge fan of carrot cake, but Matt absolutely loves it – it’s what he gets for his birthday cake every year – so I decided to make some carrot cupcakes for his committee meeting the other day. I’ve eaten plenty of carrot cakes, and I’ve made carrot cake one or two times before, but I wasn’t too thrilled with the end result (I will admit that I am very picky about baked goods). I think my main problems with it are that it is frequently too dense, sweet, and/or oily, and it usually contains nuts and raisins, which makes the cake seem more muffin-like than cakey. Also, the frosting is almost always too sweet for my taste, but that’s usually the case with any frosting on any baked good I’ve ever eaten.

To remedy these problems, I added lots of carrots to the batter to give it natural sweetness and moisture, thereby reducing the amount of oil I would need to use. In a non-traditional move, I added golden raisins (which I hate in the cake itself) to the frosting to give it sweetness and texture without having to use a ton of confectioner’s sugar. It came out way better than I expected and the frosting doesn’t taste like raisins at all; it simply tastes sweet, but not in a cloying sugary way. Also, these are the easiest cupcakes to make – no creaming of butter and sugar and no need for a mixer of any kind (although you will need one for the frosting).

Review: Woodberry Kitchen

Matt has been working really hard for his committee meeting (which was yesterday), so I decided that I’d treat him to a nice dinner at Woodberry Kitchen, about which I have heard many great things. Their mission statement (from their website): Woodberry Kitchen features the seasonal best from local growers and emphasizes organic meats and sustainable agriculture. Our goal is to nourish and delight our guests with cooking grounded in the traditions and ingredients of the Chesapeake region.

All photos from Woodberry Kitchen website

The restaurant itself is stunning. It is situated in an old foundry, and the soaring ceilings, exposed brick, wood, and metalwork give it a rustic yet wholly modern feel.

South Indian Green Beans

I really did not like green beans when I was younger. My mom made them two ways: French cut ones with garam masala and chopped ones with roasted lentils and coconut. My brother loved the former and I recall seeing them on the dinner table very often, but I didn’t like them – they were too spicy for me. She made the latter version less frequently, and I don’t recall really liking them, either. But, like most people, my taste buds grew up along with the rest of me, and now I love them. (Although, oddly enough, I used to really like broccoli but now I won’t eat it, ha!).

My mom has been teaching me how to make more South Indian dishes recently. I feel like an idiot for not having learned to do so earlier because not only is it really delicious, but it’s incredibly easy and quite healthy. My mom gave me the instructions for this one a few weeks ago and I think it is now one of my favorite things to eat.

Irish Car Bomb Float

Who needs dessert and an after-dinner cocktail when you can have both in one glass?

An Irish Car Bomb is a half pint of Guinness into which a shot glass filled with Baileys and Jameson is dropped and then chugged before it curdles. I was introduced to this drink a few years ago on St. Patrick's Day by a friend of mine who happens to be half-Irish. I love Guinness so I knew it would be good - and it was.

Old photo (September 2004) of me in front of a gate to the
Guinness brewery in Dublin - I told you I love the stuff!

I wanted to make something for St. Patrick's Day but traditional Irish fare was out of the question and I had no desire to put green food coloring in frosting and call it a holiday cupcake. I was perusing the Ben and Jerry's website the other day and when I came across Dublin Mudslide (Irish Cream liqueur ice cream with chocolate chocolate chip cookies, and a coffee fudge swirl), I remembered the Irish Car Bomb float that I had made a few years back after having tried the cocktail version. (I used Haagen Dazs Baileys Irish Cream ice cream last time so I thought I'd try a slightly different flavor this time.) The ice cream is a great stand-in for Baileys, and the chocolate in it works great with the rich flavor of the Guinness. Grab a straw and a long spoon for this float - unlike the original drink, this version is best enjoyed slowly.

Irish Car Bomb Float
(serves 1)

1 ounce Irish whiskey (preferably Jameson)
4 ounces (a big scoop) Irish Cream ice cream (I used Ben and Jerry's Dublin Mudslide but Haagen Dazs Baileys Irish Cream would be really good, too)
1 11.2 ounce bottle of Guinness

***************

Pour the whiskey into the bottom of a pint glass. Add the ice cream to the glass. Slowly pour the Guinness over the ice cream, making sure that a head forms. Serve immediately.

Mini Key Lime Pies for Pi Day

Today is 3.14 and that means that today is Pi Day! Yes, my recognition of this makes me a nerd, but this is something I have known for a long time and I fully embrace it.

I almost forgot about Pi Day but Kate reminded me. I recently had a conversation with her about Key lime pies (particularly the ones from Steve’s Key Lime Pies in Red Hook, Brooklyn) so I decided that’s what I would make for today’s “holiday.”

Highbrow Meets Lowbrow: Salted Caramel and Dark Chocolate Covered Peeps

In a fit of extreme boredom, my dear friend Kristen challenged me to a food blog throwdown of Jerz (her) vs. Lawnguyland (me). The first challenge: Peeps.

Why Peeps? Because...

• it’s almost Easter and Peeps are everywhere
• I think Peeps are simultaneously disgusting and awesome
• I got an email from Jacques Torres the other day (ok, not really from Jacques himself) advertising chocolate covered Peeps bunnies and I thought “I could totally make those at home, Jacques! Why should I give you my hard-earned cash when I can make mine for mere pennies and use classic Peeps chicks instead of making Cyclops bunnies

Baked Egg Gratin

I was supposed to post this a month ago, but clearly I forgot about it. After my weekend trip to NYC, where I had not one but two brunches with my friends (one of which was in fact at Five Points, and at which I indeed ate baked eggs and drank morning punch), I remembered this old post…

Brunch is an institution in NYC, and I have discovered that it’s not so much a big deal anywhere else. I suppose it has a lot to do with the fact it’s so easy to just hop on the subway and meet your friends within a half hour, regardless of where you’re going and regardless of the weather. But even if it weren't so easy, sunny Saturdays were definitely made for brunch and pavement pounding.

I'm still here...

...I just haven't been up to any new cooking lately.

My parents came down to Baltimore this past weekend and my mom stayed here to hang out with me for a few more days. I've been doing my fair share of cooking, but I haven't made anything new - I wanted to make my mom some stuff that she had seen on here! And I'm going to NYC this weekend, so I definitely won't be doing any cooking for the next few days.

(I totally love this photo of light graffiti on the Brooklyn Bridge)

This is what I've been up to in the kitchen:

• Sunday: Pizza bianca with portobello mushrooms and taleggio cheese (yes, it was this month's Cooks Illustrated test recipe) and a deconstructed blueberry cheesecake (from Elizabeth Falkner's Demolition Desserts - I totally love her work and I love that book)
• Monday: banh mi chay
• Tuesday: my mom made an awesome South Indian dinner for me, my bro, and the bf - she made dosai, sambar, coconut chutney, vada, dahi vada, and bhel puri (not South Indian, but whatever).(These two photos aren't of the food she made, but they're pretty good approximations of it!) I made a dessert that will get posted on here sometime next week - it was a take on a pavlova and consisted of a saffron-cardamom meringue, blood orange cardamom custard, and fresh blood orange slices.
• Wednesday: Khao Soi (photos courtesy of Austin Bush) This is the third time I've made Khao Soi in the past two months and I have yet to photograph it before it gets devoured! It is just that good. One of these days I will manage to do so. Khao Soi is a Northern Thai curry noodle soup; the base (pictured above) is a sourish curry and coconut broth in which flat egg noodles and protein (usually chicken, as it is a Muslim dish, but I use tofu or mock duck) float, and it's topped off with fried egg noodles. It is served with lots of condiments that are stirred in right before eating: fried shallots, fresh shallots, cilantro, pickled bok choy, chili paste, and wedges of lime.
• 
My mom and I had some awesome Khao Soi at Pok Pok in Portland and she really loved it, so I decided to recreate it for her while she was here. Since I have not yet managed to photograph it, I will leave you with many the many incarnations of Khao Soi in NYC: the guy who writes this blog is on a quest for the best version of it in NYC. I also made pumpkin bao for dessert and the recipe I used was pretty bad, so I'm going to have to come up with my own for it; I loved the concept but the final product wasn't up to my standards and the recipe required way too many alterations along the way, so the final (mediocre) product was basically a product of my own recipe.

My mom is cooking up some stuff for me today before she heads back to NY (including some baby eggplant curry) so I'm set for tonight and tomorrow, and tomorrow night I'm off to NYC, where I'm still trying to figure out where to eat this weekend (brunch on Saturday is at my old school fave, Five Points, but dinner on Friday and Saturday are still undecided).

I'll be back in the kitchen with some new stuff next week!