Wheat

Tabouli

May 14, 2020

Tabouli (.تبولة‎ also tabbouleh, tabouleh, tabbouli, taboulah) is a Levantine vegetarian dish made mostly of finely chopped parsley with tomatoes, mint, onions, bulgur (that is soaked not cooked), and seasoned with olive oil, lemon juice, salt, and sweet pepper. Some variations add cucumbers, lettuce, or use semolina instead of bulgur. Tabouli is traditionally served as part of a mezze (small dishes served as appetizers) in the Arab world, but its popularity has grown tremendously in Western cultures.

Originally from the mountains of Lebanon and Syria, tabouli has become one of the most popular salads in the Middle East. The wheat variety salamouni was cultivated in the Beqaa Valley region in Lebanon and was considered, in the mid-19th century) as well-suited for making bulgur, a basic ingredient of tabouli.

In the Middle East, particularly Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan, Egypt, and Iraq, it is usually served as part of a meze. The Syrian and the Lebanese use more parsley than bulgur wheat in their dish. A Turkish variation of the dish known as kisir and a similar Armenian dish known as eetch use far more bulgur than parsley. Another ancient variant is called terchots. In Cyprus, where the dish was introduced by the Lebanese, it is known as tambouli. In the Dominican Republic, a local version introduced by Syrian and Lebanese immigrants is called Tipile.

“Work With What You Got!”

©Tiny New York Kitchen © 2020 All Rights Reserved

In Season Potatoes

March 6, 2019

I don’t know what’s more comforting than potatoes. A staple food in many parts of the world, potatoes are an integral part of much of the world’s food supply. Potatoes are the world’s fourth-largest food crop after maize, wheat, and rice.

There are currently over 1,000 different types of potatoes.

White Potatoes: These all-purpose potatoes are moderately starchy with a dense, creamy texture and can be roasted, baked, boiled, or steamed.

Russet Potatoes: Starchy and fluffy, these potatoes are ideal for mashing and baking, as well as French fries and latkes.

Fingerling Potatoes: Small, knobby fingerlings have thin, delicate skin that doesn’t need to be peeled. Their firm texture stands up to roasting, boiling, and pan-frying.

Baby Potatoes: Also known as new potatoes, these tiny potatoes come in a rainbow of colors (another reason to leave the skin on). They are best cooked whole and boiled, steamed, or roasted.

Gold Potatoes: These thin-skinned potatoes (also called yellow potatoes) are beloved for their buttery flesh. They’re fluffy enough to be smashed yet firm enough to be used in soup or stew.

Red Potatoes: Ruby skin gives these potatoes visual appeal, and their firm and waxy texture means they soak up flavor without turning too soft. They are ideal for salads and gratins.

Look for potatoes without any bruises, cuts, wrinkles, or soft spots, which can all be signs of age or poor handling. If they smell like soil, that’s typically an indication of freshness. While fresh is best, potatoes keep for quite some time. Store them in a spot that’s cool, dark, and dry. If eyes sprout, simply cut them off and use the potatoes as normal. Potatoes provide vitamins C and B6, plus iron and potassium. While the whole potato contains fiber, you will get an extra boost if you leave the skin on.

“Work With What You Got!”

©Tiny New York Kitchen © 2019 All Rights Reserved

How To Spot A Whole Grain

January 14, 2017

To help you when shopping for whole grains, here are the words you should look for in the ingredients list:

It’s A Whole Grain If It’s Called:

Brown (Also Black, Red, Purple) Rice
Buckwheat
Bulgur (Cracked Wheat)
Millet
Quinoa
Sorghum
Triticale
Whole-Grain Corn
Whole Oats And Oatmeal
Whole Rye
Whole Spelt
Whole Wheat
Wild Rice

It’s Not A Whole Grain It It’s Called:

Corn Flour Or Cornmeal
Enriched Flour
Multigrain (This Means Various Grains, Not Necessarily Whole)
Pumpernickel
Rice Or Rice Flour
Rye Flour Or Rye
Stone-Ground Wheat (It Needs To Say “Stone-Ground Whole Wheat”)
Unbleached Wheat Flour
What Or Wheat Flour
Wheat Germ (Not A Whole Grain, but Very Good For You)
Whole Barley (Pearl Barley; Not A Whole Grain, But Very Good For You)

“Work With What You Got!”

© Victoria Hart Glavin Tiny New York Kitchen © 2017 All Rights Reserved

Rye Breads

December 12, 2016

Along with wheat, rye is the other cereal that is widely used to make bread. It is extremely hardy and does well in climates that are too inhospitable to grow wheat. Because of this, rye is a very popular grain for bread making in eastern and northern Europe. There are a countless number of different loaves and the use of rye flour gives them a unique characteristic and tangy flavor.

Kastenbrots are the familiar box-shaped rye breads, and the name actually translates as box bread. The bread is steam-baked for some 20 hours in an enclosed pan, which results in a dense and heavy loaf that is both moist and crumbly with a chewy texture. It has a sour flavor, but with a certain sweet and malty overtone. They are best eaten with strong tasting foods and malty types of drinks such as beer. Among the best-known varieties is pumpernickel, the darkest of the rye breads, vollkornbrot, another strongly flavored rye bread, and roggenbrot.

Weisenkeimbrot, another variety that translates as wheat germ bread, and is made using the wheat germ along with rye grain.

Sonnenblumenbrot is made using a small proportion of wheat flour along with the rye meal and has a distinctive sharp flavor of rye.

Krustenbrot is the popular square rye bread from Germany and is a crusty-style loaf. It is often just known as German rye, but unlike other rye breads it has a pleasant, gentle flavor, owing partly to use of a blend of rye and wheat flours.

Rossisky is made from a sourdough starter, using 100 percent rye flour. It has a distinctive, yet pleasant flavor and is one of the most delicious of all Russian breads.

Borodinsky is another classic Russian bread and is flavored with crushed coriander seeds. It can be made entirely with dark rye or with a blend of rye and wheat meal. Barley meal is also often used, giving an earthy flavor, while buttermilk or yogurt is occasionally added, both of which enhance the naturally tangy sourdough flavor.

Russian Black Bread is a substantial looking loaf flavored with molasses. It is usually made with an equal blend of rye and wheat flour and has a pleasant sweet and sour flavor that is characteristic of many rye breads. The combination of molasses and rye give it a wonderfully dark and moist crumb.

“Work With What You Got!”

© Victoria Hart Glavin Tiny New York Kitchen © 2016 All Rights Reserved

Paleo Diet

January 18, 2016

Paleo Diet

The Paleo Diet (short for Paleolithic) is fashioned around the eating habits and available foods of our hunter-gatherer ancestors. These ancestors had to nourish themselves with the meat, fish, fruits, vegetables, nuts, and fats available to them in nature. With the benefit of large supermarkets, it’s easy today to mimic these foods in wider variety. Specific recommendations for eating Paleo will vary; however, the main ideas are the same: Reduce the risk of debilitating diseases and optimize health by eating whole, fresh, unprocessed foods and avoid foods that were not available prior to the advent of modern agriculture.

Research studies looking at the Paleo Diet have noted that eating a Paleo Diet for a short term improved the glucose control and lipid profiles in people with type 2 diabetes, compared to eating a diet containing low-fat dairy, moderate salt intake, whole grains, and legumes. Additional research indicates similar results may be possible in people without type 2 diabetes as well. The Paleo diet may result in higher levels of satiety (fullness) throughout the day when compared with a low-fat, low-calorie diet.

Paleo Do’s
Eat plenty of non-starchy vegetables and fruits.

Make fresh meat, poultry, fish, and seafood your primary sources calories.

Avoid highly processed meats that contain preservatives, artificial flavors, and sugar, such as some sausages, bacon, deli meats, and smoked fish products.

Consume nuts and seeds.

Use coconut oil, grass-fed butter, olive oil, avocado oil, nut and seed oils, and animal fats, such as goose fat or duck fat, for cooking and eating.

Balance the intake of acid-producing foods (meats, fish, salt, and cheese) with base-producing foods (fruits and vegetables) for optimal health.

Use sea salt to season foods, but try to decrease sodium intake in general.

Paleo Don’ts
Consume highly processed packaged foods.

Get heavy handed with the salt shaker.

Eat grains of any kinds. Quinoa, bulgur, rice, wheat, bread, pasta, etc., are all out.

Consume sugar (including honey and maple syrup), sweets, candy, or desserts.

Use artificial sweeteners, such as monk fruit extract, stevia, NutraSweet or Equal (aspartame), Splenda (sucralose), or sugar alcohols, such as xylitol, sorbitol, or maltitol.

Eat legumes, beans, peas, lentils, or soy, or foods make from soybeans.

Use canola or soybean oils or consume hydrogenated oils (trans fats).

Consume dairy, with the exception of fermented dairy or raw milk cheese on occasion.

“Work With What You Got!”

© Victoria Hart Glavin Tiny New York Kitchen © 2016 All Rights Reserved

Gluten-Free Baking

December 17, 2014

Gluten-Free Baking

Baking can be tricky when you throw gluten-free into the mix, even the most skilled cooks can be challenged. Here are some tips that can make Gluten-Free Baking less challenging.

Gluten-Free flour mixes can generally replace wheat flour cup for cup. Nut and bean flours may need extra experimentation to find the exact amounts to use.

Consider using smaller pans when baking gluten-free. It’s easier to get the center cooked without the edges burning as can happen with larger pans. 

Keep a close watch on baking times. Some gluten-free recipes may take longer to bake than their wheat-containing counterparts. 

To help gluten-free recipes taste their best, consider boosting flavor with extra nuts, herbs, spices, and flavor extracts such as vanilla and almond.

If converting a recipe to gluten-free, increase the egg amount by one extra egg to help ingredients bind together.

Gluten-free flours can be dry. You may need to increase a recipe’s liquids.

Xanthan gum keeps gluten-free baked goods moister and less prone to crumbling. Add 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum for each cup of gluten-free flour.

"Work With What You Got!"

© Victoria Hart Glavin Tiny New York Kitchen

Constitution Week – Foods of Our Forefathers Part II

September 18, 2013

Patriots

Constitution Week – Foods of Our Forefathers Part II

The standard grains included wheat, barley, oats and rye.  Finely ground wheat flour, “boulted” or sieved through a fine cloth, was used to make white bread for the rich early in the fifteenth century.  Most of the gentry ate what we would call cracked or whole wheat bread.  The poor ate bread of coarse-ground wheat flour mixed with oats, ground peas or lentils. 

During the ocean crossing to the New World, immigrants subsisted on an even more monotonous diet for weeks.  The Mayflower provisions were typical – brown biscuits and hard white crackers, oatmeal, and black-eyed peas, plus bacon, dried salted codfish and smoked herring for animal protein.  The only vegetables on the trip were parsnips, turnips, onions and cabbages.  Beer was the beverage. 

As pilgrims set foot on their new homeland, they hardly knew what to expect.  Each brought a stock of basic foods to get them through the first year, as well as a variety of basic utensils and kitchen tools.  Also included were the essential accompaniments for whatever they found or could raise when they arrived – a bushel of coarse salt, 2 gallons of vinegar, a gallon of “oyle” and a gallon of aquavite. 

Nothing they had been told, however, prepared them for the staggering variety of totally unfamiliar plants that were being used as food by the Indians – corn, sweet potatoes, peppers, pumpkins, squash, sunflower seeds and cranberries were examples.  In addition to the strange food, there were strange ways of cooking.  In Europe, meat was boiled; the Indians, lacking iron pots, roasted theirs on a spit over a fire.  The Indians also had a long, slow cooking process that yielded what we now call Boston baked beans, and they used a fire-heated, rock-lined pit for what we would now call a clam-bake.  Where the pilgrims were accustomed to raised wheat bread, the Indians introduced them to corn based spoon bread.  Corn also provided hominy, used as a vegetable, and later, of course, as grits.  For sweetening, the Indians used maple syrup and honey, as sugar was unknown. 

Although many of the food the Pilgrims and other colonists found were totally strange, others had travelled the route before them.  The Spanish had brought pigs, which thrived especially in areas where peanuts grew.  Peaches and oranges were also native which spread throughout climatically suitable areas in a short time. 

Even the white potato was an early migrant to the New World, following a zig-zag route, from its original home in Peru to Spain in 1520, from Spain to Florida forty years later, from Florida to England in 1565, always being treated as a culinary curiosity.  By the 1600’s they had become a popular food staple in Ireland, and were carried by Colonists both to New England and Virginia, where they quickly established themselves.  There they served as a valuable source of vitamin C, protein and trace minerals, in addition to the starch. 

Potatoes, incidentally were significant in another, later migration to America: the climate in Ireland proved so amenable to their culture, and their nutrient content was so high, that many poor Irish farmers grew only potatoes on their small farms.  In fact, as fathers subdivided farms for their sons, many found themselves supporting whole families on the potatoes grown on less than an acre of ground, while the family itself lived in a roofed-over ditch.  When blight struck in 1845, the sole food source of millions of people literally withered away before their eyes.  A half-million of the 8 1/2 million population died of starvation or disease, and 1 1/2 million emigrated to England or America – following the “Irish potatoe.”

Spices were in short supply in America’s earliest days.  The English pretty well monopolized the trade with the New World.  Within a few years, however, settlers had planted the seeds they had brought or imported, and most had adapted to the climate and were flourishing in orderly rows and patterns in kitchen gardens all along the Atlantic Coast.  There were a few – ginger, pepper, cloves, mace, cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice – that simply couldn’t cope with the weather or soil – and were scarce.  Olive oil, lime juice, prunes and saffron were available, but only at high prices. 

To Be Continued…

 

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