Flavors

I’ve been under the weather, and so it’s been All Soup All the Time around here. I wanted a change from my usual chicken-vegetable, and a sturdy lentil soup sounded appealing. Red lentils have a milder flavor than their green or brown cousins, and are frequently used in Middle-Eastern soups because they soften fast and make a thick, homey soup. I’ve had red lentil soups in Turkish and Middle Eastern restaurants, usually with rice or bulgar which boosts the protein. For this soup, I used red lentils; with chicken stock, onion, garlic, tomato, mint, Aleppo chile pepper and lemon from the Flavor Bible. Aleppo pepper is a medium-hot chile often used in Middle-Eastern cooking for its good flavor and gentle heat. I adore it, and buy it in flakes from Penzey's. I got the idea for the chile-mint drizzle from a restaurant in Boston that tops it's soups with something similar.

You must, must not forgo the drizzle of paprika-Aleppo-mint butter, it adds a sexy swirl of flavor and richness.

Red Lentil Soup with Mint
6 servings--freezes well

1 tsp. olive oil
1 onion, finely diced
3 cloves garlic, finely diced
2 Tbs. tomato paste
1 tomato, diced
1 Tbs. sweet paprika
1/2 tsp. ground red chile--I used Aleppo, which is subtly spicy
1 cup red lentils
1/4 cup rice
7-8 cups chicken broth
1 Tbs. dried mint (make sure your mint is good quality and fragrant)
salt and pepper to taste
juice of 1/2 lemon

Topping:
2 Tbs. unsalted butter
1 tsp. dried mint, crumbled
1/2 tsp. paprika
1/2 tsp. Aleppo Pepper

Lemon wedges

In a heavy medium saucepan, heat the oil. Saute the onion until just golden, then add the garlic, tomato paste, tomato, paprika, and chile pepper. Mix well, then add the lentils and rice, then stock. Bring to a gentle simmer, and cook for about an hour, or until the lentils and rice are very soft. Let cook some more if the lentils aren't dissolving into the broth. (older lentils may need additional time).

Add the mint, salt and pepper. If the soup is too thick, add more broth or water. Let cool, then puree the soup with an immersion blender or other device. Squeeze in lemon to taste. Refrigerate until serving--it tastes better the next day.

For the topping, melt the butter in a skillet, add the mint and paprika and stir well. Pour the soup into bowls, and drizzle a bit of the flavored butter on each. Swirl with a knife, add a lemon slice, and serve. Nice with toasted pita or hearty bread.

This tasty and hearty stew is perfect for "greens season" which is all winter long in the deep South. Remember to rinse the lentils and check for little stones. Serves 8

12 ounces of lentils, rinsed.
3 carrots, sliced thin
1 large onion, chopped
3 stalks of celery, sliced thin
4 cloves garlic, chopped
2 Tablespoons olive oil
1 Tablespoon tomato paste
1 bay leaf
1 14 oz. Can of diced tomatoes
1-quart chicken stock
1-cup water
1 parmesan cheese rind
1 pound bunch of collards, chopped and rinsed but not dried
1-teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

Sherry vinegar
Celery leaves roughly chopped

Cook the onion, carrots and celery in the olive oil with the bay leaf (I used a fresh one) for about 10 minutes, over medium- low heat until they are quite soft.

Add the chopped garlic and tomato paste and continue to cook for about 3 minutes more.
Add the diced tomatoes and the liquid with some salt and pepper and the cheese rind. Turn up the heat and bring the liquid to a boil.

Add the lentils and salt and pepper. Cook, on low, for about an hour and a half, until the lentils are soft.
Add the collards to the top of the pot. (To prepare the collards, wash them well and remove the tough inner stem)

Let them cook for a few minutes until the collards begin to wilt. Then you can incorporate them into the lentils. (I used tongs for this part) Cook the greens for about 15 minutes.

Before serving, remove the bay leaf and the cheese rind.
Garnish each plate with a little sherry vinegar and the chopped fresh celery leaves.

This week our Flavors ingredient was lentils. I love lentils and fix them quite often. They're healthy, filling, and I love that I don't have to soak them overnight and they cook quickly.

When looking at the complimentary ingredents I saw salmon listed. I often serve salmon along with lentils, but this time decided to make a lentil salad that could be served at room temperature (or cold) and topped with salmon. I was originally planning on using a jar of salmon (we can salmon every year) but instead I thawed out a fillet and cooked it on the grill.

I really enjoyed this salad. The sherry vinegar and dijon mustard gave the right tang to the dressing. Then you have the bite of the shallots and green onions. Be sure and add the toasted walnuts, and the earthiness and crunch added a lot to this salad.

Lentil, Walnut & Salmon Salad
2 1/2 cup dried lentils
3 carrots, peeled & quartered
1 onion, peeled & sliced in half
1 1/2 quarts chicken broth (I used half chicken broth and half water)
1 bay leaf
2 teaspoons dried thyme
1/3 cup sherry vinegar
2 shallots, peeled
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
1/2 cup oil-walnut, hazelnut, or olive oil (I used half hazelnut and half olive oil)
Salt & pepper to taste
1 cup thinly sliced green onions
1 cup toasted walnuts, coarsely choppe
Salmon-can use 1 fillet or 1 can (I used one fillet)

1. Rinse lentils. Place in a large pot and add the carrots, onion, chicken broth and water, bay leaf and thyme. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer, cover, and cook until lentils are tender but still firm (about 25 minutes).
2. Combine the vinegar, shallot, and mustard in a food processor. Then slowly add the oil until emulsified. Set aside.
3. Drain lentils and discard the carrots, onion and bay leaf. Pour into a large bowl. Pour the dressing over the hot lentils and toss to mix. (I used the entire amount of dressing, but you could use less.). Season with salt and pepper. Let cool.
4. If using salmon fillet, rub with olive oil, season with salt and pepper, and place on a sheet of foil. Place on a med-low grill and cook with lid closed, until salmon is just barely cooked through. If using canned salmon, drain.
5. When ready to serve, add the green onions and walnuts to the salad and toss. Top with salmon.

From day one of this project, I've known that when the week for lentils rolled around I was going to proselytize for my breakfast pucks. I started making these a few years ago. They are a delicious, blood sugar friendly hot breakfast when microwaved with a little rice milk, honey, berries and nuts. Here I've opted for blueberries and pistachios.

But there was one little problem. As you can see from this photo of ingredients, I don't use a single one of the complimentary flavors in the book. So, how do I adjust and still tell everyone about this fantastic breakfast food?

My answer was in the method that must be used to make them. It's a two step cooking process. The lentils, rice and grain blend are cooked in one pot. The steel cut oats are cooked in the second pot. They are combined after cooking.

So, if I triple the recipe for the lentil/rice/grain portion, I can freeze 18 breakfast pucks as usual, and freeze another 18 without the oatmeal. Then when it's time to publish this post, I'll take some of the oatmeal-free pucks and create some sort of side dish using the appropriated flavors from the list.

Here are the ingredients for the lentil/rice/grain mixture.

4 Cups, Sawat-D Healthy Grain multigrain mixture. (It comes in 2kg vacuum sealed blocks. I buy it at Global Foods. It is made by UniversalRice company in Thailand. You should be able to buy it at a well supplied Asian foods market.)
2/3 cup red lentils
2/3 cup wild rice
12 cups water

Bring to a boil then lower heat, cover and cook until moisture is absorbed. Stir occasionally.

Cook the steel cut oats in a second pot. Choose a pot large enough to add one-third of the lentil/rice/grain mixture after the oats are cooked.

1 cup steel cut oats
3 cups water

Cook according to package directions.

Mix one-third of the lentil/rice/grain mixture into the pot of oatmeal and reserve the other two-thirds.

Spray three dozen muffin tin cups with cooking spray. Tightly pack the oatmeal mixture into half of them and the lentil/rice/grain only mixture into the other half.

Put in your freezer until completly frozen. Once frozen, turn pucks out of tins and transfer to individual baggies to go back into the freezer until you need them.

Now, to the assignment. Lentils. Here are my complimentary ingredients:

Two oatmeal-free pucks, thawed.
2 Tbs - diced CELERY
2 Tbs - shredded CARROTS
2 Tbs - diced red ONION
2 Tbs - diced green peppers
SALT & PEPPER to taste
1/4 cup red WINE VINEGAR
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup fresh squeezed orange juice
orange zest

Combine all ingredients in a bowl, toss and refrigerate for several hours to blend flavors.

And that is how we find ourselves with this light, refreshing lentil, grains, & wild rice salad. I have 10 more pucks left in the freezer. Next time I think I'll try an Asian flavor profile. Some pineapple maybe? Some almond slivers? A little cilantro?

Now here we are at the end of rabbit week . . . the gang has made some great dishes. The main commonality has been cooking that bunny long and slow. Rabbit is a lean meat (all of that incessant hopping will do that to you apparently) and it benefits from a long, slow cooking with plenty of liquids.

Like Amy, I have a titch of trouble compartmentalizing the tasty treat on my plate with those fluffy things that some folks keep as pets. Mind you, the compartmentalizing has gotten easier since the bunny population in the woods has exploded and the damn things wreak havoc on my garden. Besides, cows, pigs, and baby chickens are cute and I have no trouble chewing on any of those!

Because of the need for a long, slow cooking in plenty of liquid I decided to make a rabbit sugu (Ragu is another word to describe a nice meaty sauce but I can NOT bring myself to use the phrase since it was appropriated by a giant food conglomerate for a crap jarred pasta sauce).

Heck, we decided to go all out and make our own garganelli pasta to serve with this ragu. I had learned how to make this when we took a cooking class in Bologna. Garganelli are a type of pasta formed by rolling a flat, square noodle into a tubular shape. They can be made from smooth pasta or a ridged variant reminiscent of corduroy.

While garganelli are very similar to penne, they differ in that a "flap" is clearly visible where one corner of the pasta square adheres to the rest, as opposed to a perfect cylinder in penne. We learned to make them by rolling them on a dowel and then running it across a small frame with ridges to leave the marks. When cooked, the pasta and sauce adhere brilliantly because of both the hollow centre and the ridges.

Here we are making the garganelli:

The pasta recipe we used was dryer than I'm used to. I think I'll need to go back to the 2 cups of flour and 4 eggs that produces a lovely, soft, eggy pasta. Given that this was our first attempt at making garganelli and it had been almost two years since the cooking class I was pleased with the results:

We were impressed with the dish. It made far more than we could eat which was great because I know it will freeze well - another benefit from making a big pot of sugo . . . it is around for a while! *smile*

Rabbit Sugo

1 rabbit, about 3 lbs, cut into 8 pieces
2 cups dry red wine
1/2 cup plus 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 clove garlic, minced
2 sprigs fresh thyme
1 bay leaf
7 or 8 whole peppercorns
1 carrot, peeled, finely chopped
1 stalk celery, finely chopped
1 onion, finely chopped
flour for dredging
3 cups chicken stock
2 cups crushed tomatoes (I used one of those tetra containers of Pommi crushed tomatoes imported from Italy)

In a non-reactive container or zip-lock bag combine the wine, 1/2 cup olive oil, thyme, bay leaves, garlic, and peppercorns. Add the rabbit pieces, making sure they are well-covered with the marinade. Put in the refrigerator for 2 hours or overnight.

Bring rabbit to room temperature (about 30 minutes) before you start cooking with it.

Remove the rabbit from the marinade being sure to preserve the marinade. Gently pat the rabbit dry with a paper towel.

In a large sauté pan head the remaining olive oil over medium heat. Add the carrot, celery, and onion. Sauté for about 7 minutes or until the onion is a golden brown.

Dredge the bunny pieces in flour (I put flour and bunny pieces in a zip lock bag and shook it up). Add to the pan and brown on each side for about 5 minutes.

Add the reserved marinade to the pan and stir to scrap all of the delicious browned bits at the bottom of the pan. Cook for about 15 minutes in the marinade.

Add the stock and crushed tomatoes.

Decrease the heat, cover, and cook slowly for 1 1/2 to 2 hours or until the meat is tender and falling off the bones.

Remove the rabbit from the sauce. When cool enough to handle shred the meat from the bones. Return the rabbit to the pan. Adjust the salt and pepper to taste.

Serve.

now on to lentils . . . .

I had lots of different ideas floating through my head for rabbit but nothing I could really latch onto. I kept coming back to rabbit fricassee until I realized that was stuck in my head from the old Bugs Bunny, Donald Duck routine.

Then, last night, while sitting at a bar waiting for some friends, the bartender and another patron were trying to remember the name of the dish served in Italy, that's usually veal served with a salad. I chimed in, "Veal Milanese" and they both replied, "Yes!" And I thought, yes, indeed.

So here we have Rabbit Milanese.

Now some of you may quibble that most of my "flavors" are really in the arugula salad (and actually arugula is one of the "flavors") but you're supposed to eat the rabbit and salad together, so to you all, I say, "tough!"

Ingredients

12 oz rabbit loin - I trimmed this and pounded it thin
1/2 C seasoned bread crumbs
1/4 egg beaters
2t olive oil
2 slices BACON
1/2 shallot, minced
1t honey
juice of half a lemon
bunch of arugula

Directions

1. Cook the bacon in a small pan, reserving 1t of the rendered oil. Set the bacon on paper towels to drain.
2. Dredge the flattened rabbit in egg and bread crumbs and then cook in a hot pan, coated with cooking spray and the 2t of olive oil, until lightly browned on both sides. This was pretty quick - a couple of minutes on each side.
3. Saute the shallot in the remaining 1t of bacon fat, add lemon juice and 1t of honey (I forgot the honey in the ingredient picture). Toss with the arugula.

Voila!

Easy peasy man and it came in at 7 weight watcher points, for 3 servings.

Only because of Flavors . . . we are branching out with rabbit.
Just this once.
The only reason I could even do this . . . is because it came in a cellophane wrapper from Piggly Wiggly. I just pretended it was chicken.
Rabbit in Mustard Thyme Sauce
1 lb Rabbit
2 Tbs OLIVE OIL
1 cup flour
2 Tbs cracked PEPPER
2 Tbs fresh THYME
1 Tbs fresh TARRAGON
1 BAY LEAF
2 cloves GARLIC
1 cup WHITE WINE
1 cup chicken stock
1 Tbs MUSTARD
1/2 tsp MUSTARD seed
Drench boneless rabbit pieces in flour and sprinkle with pepper. Brown in olive oil. When browned evenly: add diced garlic, and herbs. Allow to cook for another minute, then remove from heat and add white wine. Continue to cook covered over low heat for another 45 minutes-1hr. Turn up the heat and add Dijon mustard and extra broth if needed to make a smooth sauce. Serve with RICE . . . and just pretend it's chicken.
Y'all enjoy~
Sandi