Another Month...

• Recipes discussed:
• Pancake mix: The King Arthur Flour Baking Companion
• Cheese latkes: The Washington Post
• Fish Salad: mal
• Sambal Soup: probably from The Madhur Jaffrey Cookbook

Well into December I pick up some more note making.

This morning I read a note from earlier in the current year in which my primary interest seemed to be food although it was in the context of other activities I had become involved in, e.g. the Slavery Reconciliation Walk. Similarly, I find that, although preparing now to work with Leonard Blackshear to get Study Circles going here in Annapolis, it is proving difficult to start up.

Anyway, food on Friday:

In the morning I made up a batch of pancake mix from the King Arthur baking book, and then, when Nancy came in from the opera, made a batch of pancakes using the mix. The mix, once made, is simply added to one beaten egg and a cup of buttermilk or half milk, half yogurt. In the event I had and so used buttermilk. The resultant batter was not as thin as the recipe had suggested, so I added additional liquid. The pancakes were light and excellent.

In the evening, for dinner, I had found another pancake recipe, this from the Washington Post for cheese latkes. They were made using ricotta cheese which we had in house left over from Thanksgiving. Once cup ricotta, two tb each of all-purpose flour and whole wheat flour, and two eggs, together with some flavorings - sugar, vanilla, nutmeg, salt - constituted the whole recipe. Beaten together - oh, and a tb of melted butter - a thickish batter appeared. The pancakes were cooked on hot griddle onto which 1 tb of batter was poured. I tried to spread the batter a bit, then let it cook. The little "silver dollar sized" pancakes were tasty but too sweetish and "traditional" in vanilla land flavor for me. But, per a recipe suggestion of serving them with fruit, jams, or sour cream with caviar, I offered them with applesauce I had made from leftover cooked apples and cranberry sauce.

Also, thinking fish, I found a quantity of left-over rockfish which I shredded and mixed with a variety of ingredients to make a very good fish salad. Ingredients included shaved finocchio, grated apple, grated carrot, onion half slices and diced, lightly browned pignole nuts and pecans, all mixed with a vinaigrette of lemon juice, Dijon mustard, minced garlic, fruity olive oil, salt and black pepper. As the apple shreds began to brown from oxidation I also sprinkled them with some fresh lime juice, so there was a bit more fruity sourness to the dressing. The salad was served on a bed of lettuce, all alongside the little pancakes; very delicious, the unctiousness and sweetness of the pancakes nicely blending with the sharp oceanic character of the salad.

Sambal Soup: I cannot fail to mention, also, that we had first had a soup I had prepared. On Thanksgiving Day I had made a rasam as the soup from which there was left over the dal that provided the stock for the rasam. On possible use of the dal is to make a sambar, which I had been wanting to do since Thanksgiving. I had found some pretty golden turnips at David's Natural Market on Tuesday which I decided to use. I peeled one and diced it and cooked it in a pan with some salted water. Meanwhile, I had also put on a half cup of basmati rice to cook to serve with the soup. I sliced an onion thickly, got a cup or so of Trader Joe's frozen french style green beans, peeled, chopped the last two tomatoes from Anne Arundel County, and made the sambar paste per instructions from various tomes - Madhur Jaffrey's three in one volume, and others. This involved roasting spices in a pan until fragrant, cooling and then grinding to a powder - black pepper, cumin, coriander seeds, cinnamon, cloves, red pepper; making up some tamarind juice from about two tbsp of tamarind; then sauteeing some black mustard seeds in ghee until beginning to smoke, also, roasting a couple tbsp of shredded coconut until golden; and putting all together into the blender with a tbsp of minced ginger and blending until smooth. The tricky part that almost threw me happened, as always, near the end of making the soup. There was guidance to put a tb of ghee or oil in a pan, put in a tsp or so of black mustard seeds, then, when they had begun to pop, to put in the onions. I used too small pan and so had to maneuver the onions into a pan which they almost o'ertopped. I heated the dal, added water to think, added and stirred to keep from sticking or burning, then added the onions, tomatoes and turnips, then poured in the blended spices together with a bit of salt and sugar. As it was finishing up it seemed too sweet and not hot enough, so I added a couple of pinches of cayenne pepper. Served in soup plates with a mound of rice in the center and sprinkled with freshly chopped cilantro, all came together at last and it was delicious, nicely balanced, hot enough but not too hot, well-seasoned with salt but not salty.