09/25/11 - A Farmers' Market Recipe

• 3 cups finely shredded cabbage
• 1/2 cup finely shredded carrots
• 1/3 cup thickly sliced green onions (including tops)
• 2 teaspoons chopped garlic
• 1/2 pound ground beef or pork, browned w/ salt & pepper to taste
• 1 thick, light-textured baguette, cut into 4 sections
• 1/4 cup fresh cilantro leaves

• 1/2 cup rice vinegar, divided
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 tablespoon lime juice
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon Chinese five-spice powder
• 8 teaspoons of garlic chili paste

1. In a bowl, mix cabbage & carrots with 1/4 cup rice vinegar, the salt, and sugar; let stand about 30 minutes.
2. In a food processor or blender, combine remaining 1/4 cup rice vinegar with green onions, lime juice, ginger, garlic, and five-spice powder. Whirl until smooth
3. Split baguette sections lengthwise almost all the way through, leaving halves attached at one side. Spread about 1 tsp. chili paste on 1 cut side of each. Add on top, then add cooked pork on cabbage mixture and cilantro leaves.

09/07/11 - Pickled Tomatoes

The recipe is pretty simple. There is the pickling liquor made by boiling 5 liters (or quarts) of hot water, 8 tablespoons of kosher salt, 2 cups of white sugar and 2 cups of white vinegar. For each one to two quart jar add 4-5 cherry tree leaves, 2-3 currant bush leaves, 2-3 tablespoon chunks of fresh horseradish root, 1-2 horseradish leaves, 5-6 cloves of garlic, 1 dill flower "umbrella", 10 black peppercorns, 4-5 whole allspice berries, and 2-3 cloves. All right, maybe it's not that simple.

Bring a big pot of water to boiling. Stuff as many tomatoes as you can into each jar. Feel free to squeeze them a bit, but don't reduce them to a pulp. Then, pour boiling water into each jar to sterilize the tomatoes and the pickling spices. Then, using a strainer to catch anything that tries to escape, drain each jar and top it off with the hot pickling mixture. Be careful to shake the jar around a bit to get out any air bubbles. Quickly screw on the lid and flip the jar over.

Store all the jars, upside down, wrapped in a heavy blanket. They'll stay hot for at least two days, cooking and ripening all the time.

08/29/11 - Watermelon Salad Recipe

• 1/2 a small watermelon, just the meat, cut into mouth sized chunks
• 1 large purple onion, thinly sliced
• 1 big fistful of fresh coriander, chopped
• 4 oz mozzarella cheese cut into 1/2" chunks
• 1 large or 2 smaller tomatoes, cut into 1/2" chunks
• 2 tbsp sesame oil
• 2 - 4 tbsp rice wine vinegar, to taste
• black pepper

1. Mix all the ingredients together in a big bowl.
2. Serve.

07/03/11 - Orange Cardamom Cookies

We like to use freshly ground cardamom, and often use a bit more than the 1 1/2 tsp recommended. It's great stuff. Our recipe goes something like this:

INGREDIENTS

• 1/2 pound unsalted butter
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 large egg yolk
• 2 tablespoons heavy cream
• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 tablespoons grated orange zest
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cardamom
• 1 teaspoon salt

1. Work the butter until it is soft. Then work in the sugar.
2. When the mixture is creamy and a bit fluffy, work in the cream and egg yolk.
3. Add the flour, orange zest, cardamom and salt. (Don't leave out the salt.) WOrk the mixture into a grainy dough.
4. Make the dough into four "pancakes", rolling them to about 1/4". Wrap them in plastic and let them rest in the refrigerator for at least an hour.
5. Roll the pancakes out to about 1/8" thickness and either cut them into cookies with a knife or use cookie cutters.
6. Bake on parchment covered cookie sheets at 350F for about 8-10 minutes.

06/06/11 - Moroccan Meatballs

• 2 lbs of ground beef, grind it finely if you grind it yourself
• 1/4 cup chopped parsley
• 1/4 cup chopped coriander
• 1 medium sized onion or 2 small ones, finely chopped
• 2 pinches of cayenne pepper
• salt
• olive oil for cooking the meatballs

• 2 medium onions, chopped
• 1/4 cup chopped parsley
• one large can of tomatoes
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 2 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
• 6 or 8 eggs

1. Combine all the meatball ingredients (except the oil) and mix them well. Form them into one inch meatballs and pan fry them in the oil.
2. Combine all the sauce ingredients (except for the eggs) in a large pot or pan. Pour in any juices from the meatballs. Cook uncovered for about 30 minutes until it is reduced to a rich gravy.
3. Toss the meatballs in the sauce and continue cooking for another 10 minutes.
4. Break the eggs and gently pour their contents into the sauce between meatballs so they poach. When the eggs are cooked to your taste, the dish is ready to serve. (It took our eggs about 20 minutes to cook through.)

04/12/11 - Halibut Pot Pie With Fennel

INGREDIENTS

• 1 1/2 lbs skinless halibut filets
• 2 tbsp butter
• 2 fairly large heads of fennel or more smaller ones
• 1 cup peeled and sliced shallots
• 2 tbsp flour
• 1 lb spinach leaves (or more if you really like spinach)
• 1 - 2 lbs potatoes, suitable for mashing (e.g. not hard red ones)

1) Boil the potatoes in a pot of water until they are tender. When they are ready, drain, mash in a big bowl adding salt and pepper to taste, and set aside. You can go ahead with the other steps while the potatoes are cooking.

2) Cut off the fennel tops and slice the bulbs into 1/4" (roughly) slices. Slice the shallots, if you haven't already.

3) Melt the butter and saute the fennel and shallots until they start turning a bit golden. This caramelizing gives them some sweetness. (It usually takes us 10-15 minutes, but your stove may vary.)

4) Sprinkle with flour, salt and pepper. Toss and cook for another 2 or 3 minutes.

6) Cut the fish into 2 inch squares. If the spinach is in big, broad leaves, you might want to cut them up a bit, but it doesn't really matter. Add the fish and spinach. Cover and cook for about 10 minutes.

7) Preheat the broiler. Put the fish, fennel and shallot mixture into an oven proof baking dish. Spread the mashed potatoes across the top.

8) When the broiler is ready, put the baking dish on an upper shelf in the oven and let bake until the potatoes start to turn golden brown, usually about 10 minute, though this will vary with your oven and your potatoes.

03/23/11 - Country Captain Chicken

• Lightly floured and seasoned (with paprika) fried chicken thighs
• Curried red and green peppers with bacon, red wine, tomatoes, currants, mango chutney, onions and garlic
• A topping of coconut, almonds, butter and lime jice

12/21/10 - Christmas Party

Our Godzilla Christmas angel was aglow with atomic fire. Our cookie tree aglow with candles, and our guests aglow with choucroute garnie, bourbon sodden fruitcake, brie en croute with cranberry chutney and, of course, our thermonuclear egg nog. It's the same recipe we use for Godzilla's atomic fire.

Yet another magical, i.e. blurry, Kaleberg Christmas.

09/16/10 - Oxtails

• 6 cloves
• 1 small cinnamon stick (from a jar)
• 1 teaspoon black peppercorns
• 1 tablespoon coriander seeds
• 2 tablespoons of cumin seeds
• 1 1/2 tablespoons mustard seeds
• 1 small dried red chili (sold in glassy packets at the supermarket)
• our oxtails - about four pounds
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 4 cups chopped onions
• 10 whole garlic cloves
• 2 cups or more chopped celery
• 2 cups or more chopped carrots
• 1/3 cup sliced peeled ginger
• 1 cup dry red wine
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar
• 6 tablespoons red wine vinegar
• 6 sprigs of thyme (or about 2 teaspoons)
• 2 five inch sprigs of rosemary (or about 2 teaspoons)
• 2 bay leaves

2) Then we got our big 39 liter Le Creuset oven ready pot. We got this on sale in Seattle and carried it home in our backpack on Kenmore Air. We heated up the olive oil in it and browned the oxtails. This meant turning them every minute or two to get all the sides.

3) We put the oxtails aside and dumped in the carrots, onions, garlic, ginger and celery and cooked them for ten or fifteen minutes. We wanted them all soft and the onions browning a bit.

5) We ground up all of the spices, the cloves, peppercorns, cinnamon stick, coriander seeds, cumin seeds, mustard seeds and red chili in our extra whirling blades of death coffee grinder and mixed them into the pot.

6) Next in were the tomato paste and brown sugar.

7) The oxtails. We haven't forgotten the oxtails. They've been sitting on our cutting board for a while now, oozing juices. At long last, it was their turn, into the pot with them and their ooze.

9) With all the ingredients in the pot, fire up the oven to 375F, put the lid on the pot and bring everything to a boil. Pop it in the oven for three or four hours. Check every hour or so and add water if it has dried out too much, but otherwise you're all set. It's ready when the meat is falling of the bones.

As with many Kaleberg dishes, it doesn't look like much in the picture, but it's mighty good eating.

05/14/10 - French Fry Folly

04/06/10 - Sephardic Gefilte Fish

03/08/10 - Sefrina

We made this version with a 3lb 10oz pot roast from the Clark Family Farm. It had a nice big marrow bone which you can see floating there in the photo. The potatoes were from the Johnston Farm and the eggs from Westwind Farm, so this qualifies as a Port Angeles Farmers' Market dish. We also used dried chick peas, but they weren't from the Farmers' Market. You can make this dish with canned chick peas, but this is obviously not a dish you can throw together in a hurry, so why bother with time saving conveniences?

1. The night before, soak a cup of dried chick peas in water overnight.
2. Start boiling six cups of water in a tea kettle.
3. Preheat the oven to 375°F.
4. Take a big casserole with a lid and dump in the chick peas.
5. Add 3 or 4 pounds of beef cut into big chunks. Pot roast is great, but it is better if there is a bone or two.
6. Add six potatoes.
7. Gently tuck six raw eggs into the ingredients so far.
8. Chop up four cloves of garlic and sprinkle them on top.
9. Sprinkle with a few pinches of salt, 1/2 teaspoon black pepper, 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger, 1/4 teaspoon of saffron or turmeric.
10. When the water comes to a boil, pour it on.
11. Cover and put it in the oven for an hour.
12. Lower the heat to 250°F and let it cook for another five hours.

10/31/09 - Something To Grouse About

Cut up the apple into eight pieces. Put a piece of apple, a chunk of butter and as much of the cabbage mix as you can into each grouse. Put the remaining cabbage mix into a flat roasting pan. Put each grouse, breast side up, on a cabbage leaf. Drape two rashers of bacon over it and cover it with another cabbage leaf.

When the birds are basically cooked, remove the upper cabbage leaves. Slide the bacon down to the sides of each bird so it doesn't burn. Raise the oven temperature to 450F and give the grice another 10 or 15 minutes. This should brown the birds nicely. They can be served straight from the oven along with the cabbage.

09/15/09 - Filet of Beef Lucien Tenderet

08/07/09 - Scalloped Oysters

INGREDIENTS

• one BIG loaf of sourdough bread (or two smaller ones)
• 4 10 ounce jars of oysters
• a half gallon of the best milk you can get (we use milk from Dungeness Valley Creamery)
• worcester sauce
• a stick of butter

1. Tear up the bread into crumbs and toast them in the oven on a metal tray. Keep a close watch so they don't burn.

2. Put half the oysters into the baking dish to form the bottom layer. Add a few shots of Worcester sauce.

3. Put half of the bread crumbs on top of the oysters to form another layer. Add a few more shots of Worcester sauce.

4. Put the other half of the oysters into the dish to form a second oyster layer. Add a few more shots of Worcester sauce.

6. Pour in enough milk to wet everything but the topmost bread crumbs of the top layer.

7. Dot the top with chunks of the butter.

8. Bake at 350F for about an hour. Add milk if it is getting dry too soon and to keep the top bread crumbs from burning.

05/24/09 - Deep Fried Chick Peas With Wilted Greens

For the recipe, you will need:

• a pint or so of olive oil
• eight cloves of garlic, thinly sliced
• two cans of chick peas - pour off the liquid in the can and dry them a bit with a paper towel for less spattering
• salt and black pepper
• about a pound of escarole, mixed greens, kale, lettuce, seaweed or such

Deep fry the garlic slices for maybe 30 seconds, until they turn golden. This cooks the garlic and flavors the oil.

Deep fry the chick peas a handful at a time. Give them about two minutes. They'll turn golden brown and shrink. Remove them from the oil and let them cool on a paper towel. Keep deep frying batches until they're all deep fried.

Heat two or three tablespoons of the deep frying oil in a pan. Clean the greens and toss them all in. Toss them around a bit until they wilt. You want to cook them as little as you can, but the cooking time will depend on what you are cooking.

Serve the chick peas and garlic on top of the cooked greens. How's that?