A most civilized affair

Sarah’s off at a silent retreat until tomorrow, and as is my custom, I hosted a civilization game, which was a blast.

I successfully managed to navigate a large variety of food allergies without killing any of the guests, and even got to make chocolate (not so) salty balls, which were a huge hit. Now “balls” might not quite be the right image: my ineptness as a confectionary baker was quite clear, and they looked more like either UFOs or Amish hats, but in any case they were extremely tasty. I had to watch out for both salt and soy (!) which is a typical pareve margarine ingredient.

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David’s chocolate (not so) salty balls:
1 jar natural valencia peanut butter (Trader Joe’s)
2T Earth Balance soy-free buttery spread
1c confectioner’s sugar
1.5 bags dark chocolate chips (365 brand is pareve)
wax paper + cookie sheet

Melt the chocolate in a double boiler (or jury-rigged equivalent), and while that’s going on mix the other ingredients by hand in a bowl. Make 1″ diameter peanut butter balls, and dip them in the chocolate, and then set them on the wax-papered cookie sheet. Once all of the peanut butter has been used, put the cookie sheet with the balls in the freezer until ready to serve. These will melt in your hand, so be prepared for that.
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We had decided to use the Western expansion, but when one player did not show up that meant that the board was relatively sparse. The pay was extremely non-aggressive – for example, at no point did I have a conflict with another player.

Michael (Africa): 2984
Me (Illyria): 2942
Shoshana (Asia): 2761
Avidan (Babylon): 2337
David (Iberia): 1921
Rebecca (Assyria): 1565
Josh (Egypt): 1510

A good and fun game all around. For a full history of the civ games so far, check out my old livejournal.

But the best part of the week while Sarah’s away is that she left me a whole bunch of affectionate notes around the house, and I got all warm-fuzzy when I’d find one.

Beef Stock + Israeli Onion Soup

I had planned on making chicken soup for the Seder, but we read on the kol foods brisket cooking tips site that brisket is particularly absorbent, and that it’s a waste to cook good meat in bad beef stock.

So we ordered a whole passel of bones from kol – mostly beef with a few lamb (I needed a couple for the shank bones anyway), and made homemade beef stock. I was guided by the stock recipe from simplyrecipes.com, and here’s how I did it:

6 lbs beef bones
2 lbs lamb bones
2 onions
2 carrots
5 cloves garlic

a bunch of peppercorns
parsley
a couple of bay leaves
(note: no salt!)

I did need to buy a bigger stock pot: I got a 16 quart stock pot, which includes a lid with a small vent hole in it – this is a critical component, because a regular pot (a) won’t be big enough and (b) tilting the lid to vent is a huge PITA.

First, roast the upper-half of the list in a 400° oven until the bones are browned, turning once or twice – it took me about an hour. After roasting, put all of the roasted stuff, along with the lower half list into the pot and cover with water. Simmer on very, very low heat (barely simmering is ideal) for ~8 hours. If it goes long, that’s fine. Occasionally skim the surface for fat or scum. After it’s done, remove the bones & vegetables with tongs and discard (or give a bone to a dog, who will like it a great deal). Strain the stock through cheesecloth+colander and let cool. This will require several very large containers – it took 3 13cup containers and a small one. Refrigerate the stock overnight. After refrigeration, imperfectly remove the fat that has congealed on the surface of the broth (i.e. don’t worry about missing a little bit, but get rid of most of it).

In the morning, I started to make onion soup – I was guided by the obviously non-kosher simplyrecipes french onion soup recipe. Obviously, cheese & bread were right out, and I didn’t have the little oven-crocks, so here’s how I did it (I’m calling it “Israeli Onion Soup” to differentiate it from the cheese-loaded French Onion):

Passel of onions, very thinly sliced (about 5 medium-sized ones)
garlic, finely minced
olive oil
fresh thyme, minced
bay leaf
8c homemade beef broth
2.5-3 teaspoons salt
pepper
1/2c dry white wine

Caramelize the onions & garlic in the olive oil (medium heat, minimal stirring, they should be a nice dark color) – this will take ~35 minutes or so. Add the white wine, and use that to pick up any of the bits of onion that are stuck to the sauté pan. Add the beef broth, thyme and bay leaf. Salt and pepper to taste – I was concerned about a guest who has to track salt, so that’s why I measured it. 3 teaspoons is about right for most tastes, but it could easily be reduced to 2.5 without much loss. 2 would taste like a “low-salt” recipe, without actually being “low-salt.” Typical Jewish soup salt levels are probably about twice the salt content of this recipe.

I made this in two batches and then joined them. Cook them on the stove for ~ an hour and serve as desired. This soup refrigerates well, although the stock is pretty gelatinous, so don’t be too surprised.

Couscous or quinoa (gluten-free/passover) pilaf

I often make a pilaf as a starch side-dish, and this is how:

pine nuts (pinoli)
1 large or 2 medium onions, finely minced
2 peppers (red/yellow/orange), finely minced
chicken broth
quinoa or Israeli couscous
pepper
rubbed sage

Toast a handful of pinoli in olive oil over low heat until half of them are deep brown. Remove the nuts from the oil, and add the onions – sauté until they are almost clear, and then add the peppers. Add sage and fresh ground pepper , and sauté until the onions are transparent. Add the quinoa or couscous, using chicken broth for about half of the required liquid (1.5:1 for couscous, 2:1 for quinoa), and re-add the nuts. Simmer on low heat until the liquid is absorbed. Fluff and enjoy!

Provincial chicken

This is a very useful recipe if you don’t have a lot of time or need to make vast quantities. The biggest key to it is the quality of the spices. I prefer Penzey’s spices. According to the opinion of RDBF, spices which are not themselves ḥarif (sharp) only need supervision due to drying agents and the like. Penzey’s doesn’t use those, and brags agout it, and thus he said they were fine when I asked.

Several chickens, cut into eighths.

skin and flense the chicken parts
brush lightly with olive oil
spinkle heavily with herbes de Provence (“from Province” => “provincial”)
bake at 350 for around 45 minutes, check temperature of several pieces: chicken needs to be at or above 165 at an absolute minimum.

Applesauce

12-15 apples of various varieties (I tend to get 4 granny smith, 4 gala, and then the rest whatever happens to look good at the instant – recently it was fuji/honey crisp/braeburn)
crock pot
ground cinnamon
ground cloves, ginger, allspice, nutmeg

Peel the apples and coarsely chop them (not the cores, because cyanide isn’t your friend). Toss them into the crock pot, add several shakes of cinnamon and a pinch of the other spices.

For those of you who like precision, it should be three parts cinnamon, and one part each of the other spices.

Add about a shot of water (just enough to wash a little of the spices to the bottom), and cook on “low” overnight. DO NOT OPEN THE LID. After the time has elapsed, remove from heat, stir well, and enjoy.

Gluten-Free Hallah

One of my popular recipes is gluten-free “hallah”, which I make for Sarah regularly. It freezes well, and is pretty tasty. If you’re used to regular bread recipes, the only surprise will be that the bread tends to fall apart during kneading etc – gluten is the protein which provides the strength to most breads, so that is to be expected. I put “hallah” in quotes because this has no ingredient which qualifies as mezonot, and so to anyone who is not koveah seudah on it, it would just be shehakol, and there is no quantity where one would need to take hallah from it (per the opinion of RDBF, although that’s normative halakhah.

I used to use Namaste Perfect Four blend, which is a mix of tapioca, rice, arrowroot and xanthan gum, but then learned that the hashgaha (kosher supervision) which it has (square-K) is not considered reliable in my community, so I changed over to Bob’s Red Mill Gluten-Free All-purpose Baking Flour. There isn’t a huge difference in the use of the products, but the BRM comes in smaller packages – about one bag makes 9 rolls.

First proof yeast: heat some water to a bit over yad soledet bo (but not boiling or extremely hot). Put one packet of yeast in a good-size bowl with 1/4-1/2 cup sugar, mix a bit, and then add about 3/4 cup water. Stir a bit, and wait for about 10 minutes – the yeast should get good & foamy.

While waiting, beat three eggs (eggs need to be checked for blood spots individually), and add about 1t salt to the eggs. Once the yeast has proofed, add the eggs, about 3 cups of flour, 2t white vinegar, 1/4 c oil, and some honey (maybe 8 squeezes or thereabouts). Mix very well with a paddle or spoon. The dough should be relatively stiff.

Take a piece of plastic wrap, and put a bit of oil in it. Put this plastic wrap over the dough in the bowl (the oil is just to keep it from sticking), and cover the bowl with a towel or apron. Let rise for about an hour.

Beat another egg.

Preheat the oven to 325°. Take the dough out, and knead on a breadboard. You’ll need to add a bunch more flour to keep it from sticking – that’s normal. After kneading, slice off a 1″ thick piece, and roll a snake of it. Tie this piece into a simple overhand knot, and place on an oiled baking sheet. Do this with all of the loaf, brush the knots with egg, and bake for about 20 minutes (until deep golden).

If you want to add seeds, do that after brushing with egg. If you want to add cinnamon and/or raisins, do that during the kneading. If you want to add cardamom, add that during the initial mixing.

Cholent Min-haShamayim

Josh received cholent from Heaven and transmitted it to Charlie; Charlie to Daniel; and Daniel handed it down to David. David said three things: be careful with peelers and sharp objects, transmit the recipe to many people, and make sure to start the cholent well before shabbat.*

2 fleshig kishkes
1 lb stew meat, rinsed
2 onions, chopped
2 medium potatoes, peeled, chopped
1/2 bag cholent mix beans or baby lima beans
1/2 bag barley
chili powder
handful of kosher salt, dissolved in a bowl of water
pepper

Put the ingredients in this order:

1 onion
1 kishke
chopped stew meat
potatoes
beans
barley
chili powder
pepper
1 onion
salt water (cover everything with water)
1 kishke

Put it on about 11AM-1PM or so for it to be ready at lunchtime. Serves most of a minyan.

* If this paragraph doesn’t make much sense, try reading Pirkei Avot 1:1.

Chicken Vegetable Noodle Soup à la David

Inspired by an approach used in The Joy of Cooking:

One mutant, three-legged chicken, rinsed and eighthed (but not skinned)
two to four parsnips (I prefer more)
four carrots
five stalks celery
two large onions
fresh dill
very fine egg noodles
small amount of white wine
2 cloves garlic, unchopped
thyme, salt, pepper
roasting pan, colander, soup pot, very large bowl or second soup pot, large sauté pan, another pot for noodles

coarsely chop half of the vegetables and roast them, along with the chicken @ 425 until they’re just past golden-brown: in my case, 1:15. (Note: another variation is to add all of the parsnips here). Stir the roasting pan a couple of times in that period.

chop the other vegetables VERY finely: .25cm2 -> these are going to be sautéed and turned into mirepoix, but that comes later. Keep the onion separate from the others.

After the chicken has finished roasting, put it and the roasted vegetables into the soup pot. Deglaze the roasting pan with 1c water and add that to the soup pot. Deglaze it again with the wine and another 1c water, and add this to the pan (basically deglaze it really thoroughly). Cover the chicken and vegetables with water – should be about ~16c. Add most of the fresh dill (reserve a sprig or three) and the garlic (these are the bouquet garni). Also add a small amount of salt, pepper, and dried thyme.

Simmer this for ~ 3 hours or thereabouts, stirring occasionally. This should be quite dark, and the meat should be falling off of the bones.

Sauté the mirepoix – first the onions, and then the rest of it, until the vegetables are quite soft.

Strain the soup through the colander into the large bowl. Put the strained soup back into the pot, and add the mirepoix to it. Pick the chicken meat out of the strained vegetables and stuff. After you’ve gotten as much meat as you can (this takes quite a while), throw out the skin, bones and the rest of the boiled vegetables (by this point, you’ve gotten all of the flavour out of them). Finely chop the rest of the dill, and add this, along with salt and pepper to taste.

Cook the egg noodles in a separate pot – they are added to the bowl at serving rather than put directly in the soup. Serve and enjoy!

This makes a very hearty soup – the vegetable :: chicken ratio is high, but the soup is very filling.