Taking Breaks and Catching Up ~~ Thai love forever~~

Now it is summer vacation.  I decided to wait until Summer to do Thai cooking.  Thai food is my favorite.  I have a fear of cooking with chilies and hot peppers.  I am learning it is ok to let go of that fear, the peppers are not as hot as I think they are, especially when they get cooked.  I picked up a Thai recipe book a while ago- it describes recipes rather than just listing them, it describes what the "authentic" ingredients are vs. the usual substitutions.  I have made some Thai dishes before.  I learned that palm sugar is an important flavor in sweet sticky rice.  I also learned that Kaffir lime leaves smell like fruit loops and what Galangal is & how Tamarind paste is made... Thai cooking has a definite philosophy.  I love it when a country has a cooking philosophy.  They believe in balancing and hitting 5 different taste centers with each dish.  Balancing acidity and creating a nice texture are also important.  I find their cooking style so connected to the Eastern Medical/Religious ideologies.  They talk about elements and balance and it is almost as if preparing food was a spiritually motivated practice- as we say in the west, "Good food comes from the heart."  How divine: to cook from the soul, with passion and understanding and respect for ingredients.  I honestly feel like I'm a fool in the kitchen- haphazardly putting foods together and hoping for the best.  To cook with a real understanding of ingredients, their flavor and acidity and what magic they might infuse into a dish when balanced appropriately... that's my goal. I have found Thai food is the most philosophical food I have met, and therefore, it is also probably the best place for me to find the love and respect for ingredients that I have been seeking.  I suppose cooking is like many other hobbies, to really get into it, you have to go in through your favorite door.  Anyways, enough love poetry to Thai cuisine.  I hope Thai month unlocks my inner cooking genius.  Bring on the coconuts, lime, lemongrass, Thai chilies, fish sauce, and jasmine rice!

Potato Sausage

Potato Sausage

This is my second time making sausage.  The first time it was a Lithuanian meat sausage which I made for a potluck picnic with the Portland Lithuanian Group.  Making Sausage is very fun or maybe I'm just weird. The only part of sausage making which I'm not a huge fan of is any time I accidentally smell the casings. They just smell preserved and they smell like organic tissue. I discovered after much struggle with the mechanical sausage stuffer, that it only assists you properly when you're making a sausage with a fairly high meat content. What you don't see in these pictures is my kitchen covered in potato & me covered in potato- That is the mess you run into when you try to use the machine.  I cleaned up to take the pictures below. I felt somewhat silly when I discovered how easy it was to stuff the casings without the machine.  I got my casings from Cabelas. It is the cheapest/only distributor I could find.

This recipe makes the sausage filling and the gravy-- I highly suggest you make the gravy to go along with it.

Sausage 

12 Russet Potatoes (Riced or Food Milled)

1 Large finely chopped onion

3 strips chopped bacon (or 3 Tbsp butter)

2 eggs

1/2 tsp marjoram

Salt & Pepper

Hog casings- rinsed 3 times (check the instructions on the bag containing the casings- it will likely tell you about rinsing and letting them rest in water for a while {a couple hours} to aid in their regaining elasticity & rinsing clean)

Bacon/Sour Cream Gravy

1/2 lb Bacon, diced

1 large chopped onion

1 cup sour cream

black pepper to taste

Directions

1. Make the sausage: cook the bacon & Saute onion with it in it's fat.  (if using butter- just saute onion in the butter).  In a large bowl, combine riced/milled potatoes, onion, bacon, eggs, marjoram, salt and pepper. Once Mixed, I found my potatoes to be very liquidy, so I used a piece of cheese cloth and squeezed out the moisture.  You may also add flour if you still feel it is too loose.

2. Stuff the mixture into the cleaned Hog casings. (be sure to salt and reseal leftover casings- they will be good for about 2 years preserved like that).  

Stuff the casings in this manner: 

     1. Grab a funnel with a wide opening (2 cm- 4 cm), slide the casing onto the thin funnel end.  This might be difficult at first- I used bacon grease to make it easier- but I'm not sure that was necessary. Be careful not to rip the casing as you put it on- they are pretty sturdy/elastic, but they will rip if you stress them out too much.  

    2. Once the casing is all on the funnel, slide some off and knot it.  Then take some filling and push it through the funnel.  You will be able to stuff it pretty tight- but don't use all the elasticity here; it will need some elasticity to hold it together when things expand as it is cooking.  If you stuff it too tight, the casing will break off when it's cooking.

    3. You can twist portions to make links or make a long sausage (as is traditional).  Make sure to leave enough casing on the end to knot it off.

    4. Gently prick the casing in a couple areas so it can let steam escape.

3. Bring a pot of Salted water to a boil.  Boil the sausages for 45 minutes, then drain & bake on a greased cookie sheet in a 350 degree oven for 15 minutes to brown the casing.

4. Make the Gravy: Pan fry the bacon & onion until tender.  Add sour cream and black pepper & heat thoroughly.  You may thin the gravy with a bit of milk.

~Enjoy!~

Struggling with the machine- it wouldn't push the filling through & when I used the plunger, potato splatted up and almost nothing came through the other end- this amount of sausages took about 20 minutes to produce.

Two minutes after deciding to do it manually, I was finished!

Because of all the spillage this is how much I was able to make- you will likely have more than this.  Also, my biggest sausage was stuffed too tight and I did not prick it well & it fell apart in the boiling pot.

Zeppelins ~ Cepelinai ~ Lithuanian Potato & Meat Dumpling

Zeppelinis

I took a lot of pictures with this one- this is my second attempt at Zeppelini.  I think I grated my potatoes wrong the first time.  See, In Lithuania, when they say grate the potatoes- they usually mean something less like grating cheddar cheese, and more like putting the potatoes through a food mill or using the strange side of the box grater.  A lot of people like to use a juicer at this point.  I, sadly, have no juicer.  However, I have a food mill and my kids love it every time it comes out.  I put most of the pictures of the process at the end for easier copy/pasting without the pictures.

  

Dumpling Mixture

8 large potatoes (peeled & milled)

2 Large potatoes (peeled, boiled, and mashed or riced)

1 medium onion (finely grated)

1 tsp salt (more or less)

Meat Mixture

1 lb ground pork

1 medium onion finely chopped

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 tsp pepper

1 large egg

Gravy:

1/2 lb bacon 

1 large chopped onion 

1 cup sour cream

black pepper to taste

Directions

1. In a large bowl, mix all the meat ingredients together and refrigerate until ready to use.

2. Mill the potatoes- add a few drops of lemon juice to them so they don't brown & place them in a fine mesh cloth- I used a muslin cloth.  and squeeze the juice out of the potatoes into a bowl or pot.  Set the bowl aside to let the starches settle to the bottom.  Once it is settled, pour the juice off the top and with your hand, pull up the starch from the bowl and add it back into the potatoes.  Mix all potatoes and dumpling mixture ingredients.

4. Put a large stock pot to boil on the stove.  Add to it 3 Tbsp cornstarch and salt.  

5. Wet your hands & take about 1 cup of Zepplini dumpling mix, flatten it in your hand, put about 1/4 cup of meat in the center, and seal the dumpling mixture around the meat.  (At this point, I worried about the starch content of the dumpling and how it would hold up in the pot.  I think it might be good to use extra starch next time.  I also used the piece of Muslin I used earlier and I squeezed the dumplings into form.  I liked how that improvisation went). Repeat with remaining dough and meat.

6. Carefully lower the Zeppilinis into the boiling water.  Make sure the water returns to a boil, then simmer for 25 minutes.

7. While that's simmering, make the gravy- cook up the chopped bacon and onions in a pan, add sour cream.  You can thin it with milk if you want to. Serve this warm over the zepplinis. 

8. Carefully remove dumplings from the boiling pot and let them drain briefly before serving

~Enjoy~

Koldunai ~ Lithuanian Meat Dumplings (And Bonus: Sour Cream Bacon Sauce recipe)

Koldunai

I've made about three types of Lithuanian Ravioli.  One was filled with a Beet & Ricotta mixture, another had an onion & mushroom filling, and this is one filled with meat.  They were each something I would do again.  Note- this picture shows an improper shape to my Koldunai.  Normally, the edges of the half circle raviolis meet together to make a tortellini like shape.

Noodle Ingredient:

3 Eggs

2 Tbsp Water

3 cups Flour

Meat Filling:

1/2 lb beef

1 pinch of salt

1 pinch of pepper

1/2 an onion

2 eggs

Instructions:

1. Prepare the Filling: beat the eggs with salt and pepper, and add chopped onion.

2. Prepare the Noodle Dough: 

       A. Make a mound of flour & make a well within the mound.  Pour 3 eggs and water and a pinch of salt into the well.  Beat the egg with a fork & start to incorporate the flour with the fork.  Incorporate as much as you can that way, then kneed it with your hands until it picks up most of the flour.  You may add more water (1 Tbsp at a time) as needed to incorporate the flour.  You will have a stiff, somewhat un-smooth, not very incorporated hunk of dough.  Form the dough into a log shape and cut it into about 1/4 cup portions.  

     B. Get out a pasta roller & put it at the thickest setting.  I like to put a plate with 1/4 cup flour at the end of the pasta roller so that I can dip it easily if the dough gets too sticky.  Roll a portion of dough through, dip it in the flour and fold it in half and run it through, repeat this process until the dough comes through smooth and not sticky or broken.  Then thin it out in the roller on the thinner settings.  I rolled mine out to the 1/7" setting.

3. Cut 3" circles into the dough and place a Tbsp of filling on each circle.  Seal the edges.  You can dip a finger in water & run it along the inside of the circle to help it seal.  Then, to make the proper shape, take the corners of the semicircle & pinch them together (sort of like Tortellini).

4. bring 3 quarts of water to a boil, pour in some salt, and drop the dumplings in.  cook them for about 5 minutes & they're done.

5. Serve hot, with onion and sour cream.

Note: Lithuanians have a great love of sour cream- I personally prefer a white sauce with onion, mushroom, Parmesan, &/or Bacon pieces.  You can also make a nice Bacon sour cream sauce by chopping up your bacon (about 2 pieces), then cooking it in a pan, then add some sour cream to the pan you cooked the bacon in, & heat thoroughly.  You can put this sauce on almost any Lithuanian dish- Kugelis, Zeppelinis, Koldunai, Kibinai, 

Kibinai ~Lithuanian Empanadas~ Chicken Pillows

Kibinai

Making these reminded me a lot of making chicken pillows with my mom.  It was one of our favorite recipes growing up... but my mom is not Lithuanian (my dad is).  I decided to use chicken as my meat- I think that a ground beef would make the best flavor in this dish.

Ingredients

3 lb meat

2 sticks of butter

3 lb flour

3-4 onions

3-4 eggs

200 gr sour cream

Marjoram

Salt & Pepper

Directions

1. Separate eggs into a bowl, reserve yolks in a separate cup.  Mix 1 tsp Salt and almost all of the sour cream into the whites.

2. In a separate bowl, use a pastry blender to cut room temperature butter into the flour.  Add the egg white mixture to this and mix it well.  This dough should be sticky.  Put it in the fridge overnight (or just an hour or 2).

3. Shred meat & onions, add to them the remaining cream and spices, salt and pepper.

4. Roll out pieces of the dough.  I found that what you want here is a relatively thin sheet of dough- I cheated towards the end and used my pasta roller to roll it to about 1/6-1/7" thick strips. If you have trouble with the dough being sticky & you're using a rolling pin, I suggest using more flour- you don't want your empanadas to be very sticky at this point.  You could use Saran wrap beneath and on top of the dough to prevent it from sticking to things. Cut out 3"-4" diameter circles with a tumbler.  Put a hunk of meat on each circle and crimp them together.  The crimping process is my favorite part- it's beautiful & you should watch people do this on youtube- it's quick and elegant. 

5. Beat the yolks and baste the pastries.

6. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes.

~I will be trying a meatless version soon- it has a cabbage and hard boiled egg filling~

-Enjoy!-

Spurgos (Lithuanian Doughnut Holes) A Fat Tuesday Treat

Spurgos! This is actually my second time making these (Sarah dusts the powdered sugar dust off her shoulder like a pro).  The first time, they were wibbly shaped because I had a recipe of words which did not include the part about shaping them.  I made one 'oops' in making these, but it was partly influenced by the start of Italian Month... so We'll blame the Tirimisu for it.

Ingredients
2 lb flour
3 oz Yeast (it's a lot of yeast- some people make the dough the night before for this reason)
2 Cups Milk
8 egg yolks
1 cup sugar
pinch of salt
2 tsp vanilla
Powdered Sugar
Oil for Frying

Directions
1. Use 1/3 of the flour (about 10 oz), the milk, sugar, and yeast.  Blend well & let it rise for 30 minutes (it will double).
2/ Beat yolks and salt, add it to the dough.  Add non-scaldingly hot butter, vanilla, & remaining flour (Here, I added rum flavoring because I so liked it in the Tirimisu that I thought- hey, let me not measure here and just throw some in because the original recipe for this called for rum. This addition did not make the doughnuts yummy- it made them a little odd tasting so don't do that thing I did).  Mix well & cover to rise for about an hour.
3. Take rounded Tablespoons of dough in your floured hands and roll them into balls.  Let them rise while you heat the oil.  The crazy people that wrote the original recipe tried frying these for 8 minutes at 375- well, they were crazy, that's either too high or too long.  at 375, the outside turns black while the inside is doughy.  so take it down to the 350 range and watch your first few doughnuts, once they are golden, take them out of the pan and pull them apart to see how long it takes them to cook at that temperature.  you should get somewhere under 2 minutes per side.
4. 2 options of coatings: Cinnamon sugar & powdered sugar.  To coat- roll the spurgos in cinnamon sugar or dust them with powdered sugar (I used a wire mesh strainer to do this).

~Enjoy!~

Lithuanian Gira ~ Kvass ~ Lightly Fermented Rye Bread Drink

Cup of pre-bottled Gira: no foam (there's supposed to be foam)

Rye bread getting ready to hit the boiling pot

At first glance at this type of recipe, the Molly Mormon in me cringed and wondered about whether a fermented drink was in keeping with the WOW.
Well, justification #1. The WOW encourages us against strong drinks- technically, at .05%, this is not even hinting at being a strong drink... it's the same percentage of alcohol you get when you use mouthwash or drink homemade root beer, how alcoholic is my bread?  It is fermented after all.
Justification #2. .05% is never ever ever going to impair a person's judgment.  It is simply making a natural soda.
Justification #3. I have on good authority that the missionaries in Russia drink this stuff all the time.
Now... The second thing I had to tame was my uneasiness about eating things that count as science experiments and kitchen experiments at the same time... leaving something out in order that the bacteria will congregate is working against the grain for me.

Gira
14 oz black sourdough rye bread
3 liters water (about 3 quarts)
130 g sugar (1 1/8 c)
4 Tbsp Honey
1 Tbsp Natural Ferment or 1/2 packet yeast
optional sprig of mint (I didn't use this)
a few raisins

1. Chop up your bread and stick it in the oven at 300F for about 20-30 minutes. (sugars are caramelizing)
2. Pour the bread into boiling water.  Let it seep for 4-12 hours.
3. Strain the liquid through a cloth (I used a piece of muslin over a wire strainer) & add warm water to make 3 liters.  Stir in the sugar, honey, and fermenter of choice.  (If using dry yeast: Activate it for about 10 minutes in 1/3 c warm water & a tsp of sugar.)
place it on the fridge for 12 hours... you will see foam when it's ready.  You can taste it along the way to see how quickly the yeast is eating up the sugars.  I got impatient here and also started to discover that I don't like yeasty flavored things... they make my bowels worry about yeast burps.  So I cut things short & I ended up with a rye/yeast flavored, slightly carbonated, sweet drink.  It wasn't supposed to be sweet.  It's supposed to be bitter.
4. Skim the foam and strain the kvass into bottles.  Put a raisin in each bottle and let the bottles sit in the fridge for 2-3 days as the yeast continues eating sugar.

By the end, the smell of everything made me uncomfortable. It tasted pretty good though- I liked my sweet and lightly fizzy drink (sparingly of course).  I consumed about 1/2 of a bottle & the rest hit the sink. It smelled just like beer & I couldn't handle that.  I think this was a one time cooking adventure... I like discovering things about food as I cook and I felt I learned a lot in this experiment.  My Gira, you will notice pictured above in the cup, is pre-bottling & fridge fermentation & is without foam.  Usually, there is foam.  Now that I know & have seen how the foam on the alcoholic beverages is created by yeast, I am even more happy not to drink them.  I might try Gira again if someone else makes it.  I think that will be the extent of my wimpy trying of yeasted beverages though.

~You will likely do better than I did if you try making this!~

~Enjoy!~