Uchiki kuri squash

My new favorite squash, the uchiki kuri (also called red kuri), is a Japanese cultivar with a teardrop shape and a beautiful reddish-orange skin. Near as I can figure out, the name uchiki kuri translates as bashful chestnut. Awwww. Not sure why bashful, but I definitely get the chestnut part, because the squash has a nice, mild, nutty flavor.

Not having cooked with it before, I wasn't sure what to do about the skin. But I know from years of writing about phytochemicals that there were certainly some important antioxidants hanging around in that deeply colored shell. I compromised by just taking off some of the skin so it wouldn't be a total loss either way. The peeling exposed the beautiful juxtaposition of green and orange you see in the photo at left. There is a similar greenish tinge in the flesh that holds the seeds in the seed cavity.

Turns out that the skin is perfectly edible, or at least in the exemplar that I roasted. The seeds, on the other hand, were encased in what I imagine dragon skin to be like. I roasted some of them with the squash and they were inedible. I will try some more roasted all by themselves, but I'm not sure the game is worth the candle, as my mother used to say (though I never knew what game she was talking about that involved a candle...was it Colonial kids playing a nighttime game of hide-n-seek?).

In the course of researching the kuri squash, I stumbled across several gardening sites with heirloom squash seeds*. In addition to the uchiki kuri, you can also get seeds for a squash called the potimarron, described as the "famous winter squash from France." The potimarron is in fact the same squash (C. maxima) but by another name. In French, potimarron is a mash-up of the words for pumpkin (potiron) and chestnut (marron). Voilà, chestnut squash. But it's not bashful, cuz, you know, it's French.

*Try this website: Seed Savers Exchange.

Beluga lentils

In the past couple of years, as research into the phytochemicals in food has really taken off, it has become clear that the foods with the deepest, darkest colors have more healthful compounds than their pale counterparts.

Enter the beluga lentil--a small, shiny black lentil named for its resemblance to caviar. Recent research at the Agricultural Research Service (the in-house research facility of the USDA) has discovered that beluga lentils' deep hue comes from natural pigments called anthocyanins. Anthocyanins, which are currently being studied for their health potential, are a group of compounds responsible for the reddish-purple color of certain foods, like raspberries, red cabbage and pomegranates.

The specific anthocyanin identified in beluga lentils bears the memorable name of delphinidin-3-O (2-O-beta-D-glucopyranosyl-alpha-L-arabinopyranoside). Quick, say that three times fast.

Science aside, beluga lentils are just neat to eat. They have all the other established benefits of legumes and are also quick-cooking because of their size. You may be able to find them at a gourmet store, or you can find them online at Indian Harvest (though they sell in bulk amounts) or Purcell Mountain Farms ($3.95 a pound).

Grow your own morels

There are thousands of people out there with a mushroom obsession. Specifically an obsession for a wild mushroom called a morel, and the hunting thereof.

Morel hunting--which occurs in the spring--inspires contests to find the most or the biggest (or the smallest) morel. It inspires artists to carve morels out of wood or cast them in resin. For example, check out a store called Morel Mania where you can buy a morel-topped walking stick to use when you're in the forest looking for morels.

So, why am I talking about morel hunting in November? Because this is the time you need to order a tree that has been inoculated with morel fungus for planting in early winter. This way, when morel hunting season hits in the spring, you'll have your own personal morel orchard.

The trees--which are elms--are inoculated with a process patented by an avid morel hunter and are available from a company called Morel Farms. The trees cost $15 each, with a minimum order of 10 trees.

While you're waiting for your morels to mushroom in the spring, read this extremely informative book called Morels by Michael Kuo (University of Michigan Press).

How to crack an egg

When I learned to cook, I was taught by my mother, and her mother, to crack an egg on the side of the bowl (or pan). Sometimes, with a particularly unstable bowl, the corner of the counter came into play.

So there I was having breakfast with a bunch of food professionals and the topic turned to how to crack an egg (I guess because we were all having eggs for breakfast). I was surprised to discover that half the folks there cracked eggs flat on a counter--the theory being that this way you minimize the shardage (ooh, I like that phrase).

This made me wonder how other people crack eggs, which is why I ran a little poll to see. It turns out that it's about 50-50, flat-crackers to rim-crackers.

Feeling a little like the last one to learn a secret, I decided to start flat-cracking. The method definitely cracks the shells in larger pieces that are less likely to fall into the bowl, but (and maybe because I'm not adept at it yet) it also left small pools of egg white on the counter.

I consulted Howard Helmer, who has the distinction of having been in the Guinness Book of World Records three times as the world's fastest omelet maker*. (I think he might also be in the book for being the most enthusiastic person in the world.) Here's what Howard explained:

When I'm on the road doing my omelet-making demonstrations, I put on 3 shows a day for three days, and for each show I crack three dozen eggs. That's 324 eggs!

For me, because I have to work so fast, cracking eggs flat on the counter slows me down (and what a mess it makes, too). So I'm an edge-of-the-pan/bowl man. I crack my eggs on the edge of a bowl two-at-a-time in both hands and I do it by bringing the eggs down to the lip of the bowl hard. The real trick is to not do the "wussy" rap, rap rap method, because then you're guaranteed to end up with unwanted eggshell shards.

Watch Howard making an omelet:



*427 omelets in 30 minutes

The world's hottest chili pepper

New Mexico has a huge chili pepper industry, so I guess it's not unusual that New Mexico State University would devote itself to the search for the world's hottest chili pepper. In 2007, scientists at NMSU announced that they had found a chili pepper in northeastern India that claims the title. It is a pepper called Bhut Jolokia, which translates as ghost chili.

The heat in any chili pepper is measured by something called a Scoville Heat Unit (SHU). It is an index that measures the amount of capsaicin (the substance that makes chilies taste hot) in a pepper.

• At the low end are cherry peppers (500 SHU), poblano (1,500) and pasilla (2,500).
• In the middle range are jalapeños (10,000), cayenne peppers (50,000) and tabasco peppers (75,000).
• Chilies with very high SHU scores include Thai chilies (100,000), habaneros (300,000) and red Savina (500,000).

The Bhut Jokolia pepper weighs in at over 1 million SHU!!!!

If you're actually crazy enough to want to eat one, you can grow your own bhut jokolia peppers from seeds sold by NMSU's Chili Pepper Institute Chile Shop. A packet of 10-15 seeds costs $5.

Couscous Salad with Dates & Almonds

I don't know about the rest of you, but I grew up with date-nut bread spread with cream cheese. It's a flavor combination that rockets me right back to my childhood. But much as I actually like their wonderful, smokey-sweet flavor, I've never bought dates just to have around the house, because they always seemed like little pellets of pure sugar.

Well, here's the good news. Dates are actually very high in antioxidants. In fact, they are high in some of the same compounds that are found in red wine. A group of scientists at the Agricultural Research Service and UC Davis ran antioxidant tests on the 6 types of dates grown in California. The antioxidant winner was the Deglet Noor date, which is the most common type found in supermarkets.

So this inspired me to make a couscous salad with dates--they're from the same part of the world after all. I also went for whole wheat couscous, which I had not noticed before at the market. At first I thought it might be just hype, the way food manufacturers are tacking "whole grain" and "wheat" onto everything in sight. But when I compared the nutrition for regular couscous versus whole wheat, I was pleasantly surprised. The whole wheat version has almost 4 times the fiber.

Couscous Salad with Dates & Almonds
When you cut sticky dried fruit, like dates, you should lightly oil the knife to make cutting easier. For a main course, add 2 cups chopped cooked meat or cubed tofu.

2 cups water
1/2 teaspoon + 1/4 teaspoon salt
1-2/3 cups (10 ounces) whole wheat couscous
1 navel orange
3 tablespoons olive oil
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon cumin
2/3 cup chopped pitted dates (6 large, 4-1/2 ounces unpitted)
1/2 cup slivered almonds, toasted
1/2 cup minced cilantro
1/2 cup minced scallions

1. In a medium saucepan, bring the water and 1/2 teaspoon of the salt to a boil. Stir in the couscous, remove from the heat, cover and let stand for 5 minutes. Transfer to a large bowl and fluff with a fork. Set aside to cool slightly.
2. Meanwhile, grate the orange to get 1 teaspoon of zest and place in a small bowl. Cut the orange in half and squeeze the juice from one half into the bowl. Peel and chop the remaining orange half and set aside.
3. To the bowl with the orange juice, whisk in the oil, lemon juice, pepper, cumin and remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt. Drizzle the dressing over the couscous and toss well with a fork.
4. Add the chopped orange, dates, almonds, cilantro and scallions, and toss well. Let stand at room temperature for at least 30 minutes and up to 2 hours.

Makes 6 servings

Oddball flours

If you've ever had a reason to seek out a nontraditional flour--such as garbanzo bean flour (used in both Italian and Indian recipes) or flax meal (because of its health benefits) or other nonwheat flours (for anyone avoiding gluten)--then you have probably run across Bob's Red Mill brand. This Oregon-based company sells more than 400 grain products nationwide, and not just in little health-food stores but in supermarkets, too.

The other day I happened to be looking for coconut flour (this will show up in a later post), which eventually led me to Bob's Red Mill website. This got me poking around to see what other oddball flours were there, and I found black bean flour. I love the flavor of black beans, but what could I do with flour made from them?

Well, the answer (from Bob's database of recipes) is kind of cool: Almost-instant black bean dip.

Here's how it works. In a small saucepan, you whisk together black bean flour with chili powder, salt and cumin. Then you whisk in hot water and cook for about 5 minutes. Stir in some picante sauce and chopped scallions and you're done. The recipe for the bean dip as well as recipes for Black Bean Burritos and Black Bean Taco Pizzas are on the back of the bag of flour.

Pimpinella?

The name Pimpinella probably conjures up a couple of things for you. Perhaps a fictional 18th-century hero? Or maybe an inner-city entrepreneur? An early Jane Fonda role?

Actually Pimpinella is a botanical genus that includes the anise plant, which produces licorice-flavored seeds used primarily in baking.

A study conducted by scientists at the USDA's Agricultural Research Service (ARS) has shown that anise is more than just a pretty spice. The researchers identified 22 compounds high in something called phenylpropanoids. Although these compounds are found in lots of plants, the chemical structure of those found in Pimpinella plants suggests they have anti-inflammatory potential as well as phytoestrogen properties.

Although anise is not all that common an ingredient in most American kitchens, anyone of Italian heritage has probably had (or even made) waffle cookies called pizzelle. Most recipes for pizzelle call for anise extract or anise oil (a highly concentrated form of the good stuff found in the seeds). Who knew pizzelle was health food?

If you're interested in making your own pizzelle, you need to check out the collection of irons (from $17-$50) at the Fantes Kitchen Wares Shop. They also sell both anise oil ($6 for 2 ounces) and anise extract ($3 for 2 ounces), and they have an old family recipe for pizzelle.

Star anise

If you read the Flavor Trends post on December 18, then you will have noticed that Asian five-spice powder is being predicted as one of the trendy flavors for 2009. A key spice in five-spice powder is star anise, which are the seeds of a Chinese evergreen tree. The seeds are housed in a star-shaped seed case, hence the name.

Star anise and five-spice are used a lot in Asian and Indian cooking, but I am more intrigued by nonAsian uses of the spice. For example, I have a friend from the Netherlands who uses star anise in tomato sauce. It was a revelation to me. The flavor that the star anise adds to the sauce is out of this world.

You can buy star anise at Asian or Indian groceries, or online at Penzey's Spices or Mountain Rose Herbs.

And to experiment with the taste of star anise, I would throw a pod into any tomato sauce-y thing, into rice as it's cooking, into a coconut-milk-based curry, into beans as they cook, into any recipe that calls for tarragon, fennel or anise (but not measure for measure, because star anise is quite strong).

Wild and crazy apples

A couple of weeks ago I got a small box of apples in the mail from Melissa's Produce (great place). I thought that the person who had sent me the apples might possibly have lost his mind. Why would you send 5 apples in the mail??

Well, then I took a bite. Of course you already have the punchline to this story because you can see a picture of the apple at left. But imagine my surprise when I bit into a perfectly normal apple and found red flesh on the inside.

The apple is called Hidden Rose and it's an apple that is grown organically in Oregon. It's a hybrid of an heirloom and a common variety of apple and currently the orchard only produces about 800 apples a year. But keep an eye out for these apples, because they could potentially be hitting the market in a couple of years.

There are also a number of European efforts to make red-fleshed apples. Check out the Swiss apples at Next Fruit Generation.

Raspberries, yum

My raspberries bushes have gone crazy. It seems like a good year for these luscious little fruits, at least in my neck of the woods. So time to indulge in the real (locally grown) thing.

For inspiration, I recommend checking in with the Oregon Raspberry & Blackberry Commission. They really know their stuff. You'll find the latest research on the healthful compounds in berries and you'll also find a collection of cool-sounding berry recipes, like Chocolate Raspberry Napoleons, Key Lime Cheesecake with Raspberry Sauce, Berry Empanadas, Raspberry Tiramisu.... But here's the one that I'm saving up (my berries) to try:

Raspberry–Blackberry Cobbler with Triple Ginger Biscuit Topping

FRUIT
1 cup sugar
6-1/2 tablespoons cornstarch
2 teaspoons grated lemon zest
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
6 cups fresh or frozen blackberries
6 cups fresh or frozen raspberries
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

TOPPING
1 tablespoon finely chopped crystallized ginger
1 tablespoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

BISCUITS
2 cups flour
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup finely chopped crystallized ginger
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
3/4 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons chilled unsalted butter, cut into pieces
3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons chilled heavy cream

1. Prepare the fruit: Preheat the oven to 375°F. Butter 9 x 13-inch glass baking dish.
2. In a large bowl, combine the sugar, cornstarch and lemon zest. Add the berries and lemon juice, and toss to blend. Transfer to the baking dish and dot with the butter
3. Bake for 30 minutes or until the mixture begins to bubble.
4. Meanwhile, make the topping and biscuits:In a small bowl, blend all the topping ingredients and set aside.
5. In a medium bowl, mix the flour, sugar, crystallized ginger, baking powder, fresh ginger, ground ginger, lemon zest and salt.
6. Using fingertips, rub in the chilled butter until the mixture resembles coarse meal (or process in the bowl of a food processor for 30 seconds). Add the cream and stir until a dough forms.
7. Turn the dough out onto floured surface and knead gently until smooth, about 6 turns. Roll out to 3/4-inch thickness. Using 2-inch shaped cookie cutter or round biscuit cutter, cut out biscuits. Re-roll dough scraps; cut out additional biscuits.
8. After the fruit has been baking for 30 minutes, place biscuits atop hot fruit, spacing closely. Sprinkle the reserved topping over biscuits. Bake cobbler until fruit is tender and biscuits are golden, about 25 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Good luck fruit for Chinese New Year

Chinese New Year--which starts today and goes for 15 days--has many foods that are meant to be eaten to bring good luck. One of them is the grapefruit-like pummelo (also called pomelo, Chinese grapefruit or shaddock).

A pummelo looks a good deal like a grapefruit (no particular surprise since the grapefruit is a cross between a pummelo and an orange), but has a greener skin and is sometimes pear-shaped. However, the real difference between a grapefruit and a pummelo lies on the inside. The skin of the pummelo is extremely thick and very cottony. And the fruit segments are further protected by tough membranes that need to be removed.

However, once you've done the work, you will be rewarded by the intriguing fruit inside. The segments are filled with sturdy, individual flavor cells that taste something like grapefruit, but sweeter. Your best bet for finding a pummelo this time of year would be in an Asian market, especially if you live anywhere where Chinese New Year is celebrated.

Australian finger limes

Australian finger limes are just the coolest fruits. They are rainforest fruits that grow in certain subtropical regions on the Australian continent. They look like 3- to 5-inch-long sausages with a green-to-brown rind. Their flesh can range in color from pale green to pale pink to a deep red, depending on the variety.

But here's the cool part. When you cut them open, the individual flavor cells come out as separate jewel-like beads that look for all the world like caviar. And when you eat them, they "pop" in your mouth, also like caviar.

Unfortunately, the finger lime is not exported to this country. You can read about it on the website of the Australian Finger Lime Company. Or, if you're planning a trip to Australia, you can taste finger limes (and other native Australian foods) at Banrock Station Wine & Wetland Centre. Banrock Station is devoting much money and time to protecting wetlands worldwide. When you buy one of their wines, a certain portion of the proceeds goes toward funding their wetland conservation efforts.

Wah-sa-bee!

I happen to be a fan of mystery novels, especially on the beach or in an airplane. And if you add recipes or cooking to the plot, I'm yours. This is why I like the series of mystery books by Jerrilyn Farmer whose ongoing character, Madeline Bean, is a Los Angeles-based caterer.

Of course she solves mysteries, but along the way you get to hear about the cool recipes she's making. In the book I read most recently, called Flaming Luau of Death, Maddy (as she's called) makes an hors d'oeuvre of fried Asian-flavored chicken "lollipops" on sugar cane sticks. Farmer actually posted the recipe on her website.

But the real reason I'm mentioning this is that the plot of the book involves the growing of fresh wasabi. The wasabi root, which is actually a rhizome (a part of the stem that grows underground), is notoriously tricky to grow. It needs to grow in cool mountain streams and requires a lot of love and attention. This makes it a rarity, and an expensive one.

The wasabi that shows up in most sushi bars, in Japanese restaurants or in packaged products, is most likely not true wasabi. It's usually a mixture of horseradish, mustard and green food coloring (the true wasabi flesh is a beautiful pale green).

If you're at all curious to get your hands on real wasabi, you should check out a company called Real Wasabi. This South Carolina-based company imports true wasabi and turns it into various products, including wasabi powder. They also sell fresh wasabi rhizomes in 1/2-pound to 3-pound boxes.

Honey for your health

I read a little science news item the other day about the antioxidant content of honey. Apparently, some honeys have greater antioxidant properties than others. (Just to remind you, antioxidants are compounds that work to counteract the effects of free-radicals, oxygen molecules that are responsible for all sorts of damage to our bodies.)

According to a group of Spanish scientists, who studied 36 local honeys, the antioxidant content depends on what the bees have eaten. Certain bees collect nectar from flowers and others collect something called honeydew. The honeydew honeys are the ones with more antioxidants. I got all excited at the thought of honeydew honeys (sounds delicious, doesn't it?). Except here's what honeydew actually means: a fluid exuded by plants in response to a visit by a plant-sucking insect. Euuuuwww. Well, let's not think about it.

Anyway, I'm not sure how this translates into useful information for the consumer, but the study appeared in a trade journal for the food science industry. So you can be sure that as soon as they can figure out how to slap a "high-antioxidant" label on honey, they will.

Greek elephant beans

I have a friend named John Vasiliadis whose family is from Kastoria in northern Greece. Most of his family now live in this country, near Manhattan, in a heavily Greek neighborhood where the grocery stores are stocked with wonderful Greek ingredients like my new favorite beans: Elephant beans.

These delicious beans--which look like white kidney beans on serious steroids--actually come from Kastoria, where they've been cultivated since the 17th century. It's hard to describe their meaty, buttery taste (wait, I just did), but you will have to taste them to see what I mean.

The brand that my friend John brought for me to try is called Arosis. On their packaging it very sweetly states "In the villages of Kastoria, life goes on peacefully with faith in human values. Taste a product made with respect to nature and to the consumer."

I encourage you to look for Greek elephant beans (also called gigantes) wherever you might find Greek or Mediterranean groceries.

UglyRipe tomatoes

Santa Sweets, a tomato grower in Plant City, Florida, won a court battle this past January to be able to market an heirloom hybrid tomato called UglyRipe outside of Florida. The UglyRipe had not been allowed to show its face outside Florida because the state's Tomato Committee (there's a committee for everything, isn't there?) declared that the tomato just didn't measure up to their beauty standards and was thus ruining Florida's reputation for pretty tomatoes (?!?).

This has now been resolved and the UglyRipe can be sold in grocery stores--including Whole Foods--outside Florida. However at the moment UglyRipes may be hard to find because, with all the hoopla about them, the growers are having trouble keeping up with the demand.

From all accounts--and I have not been able to find one myself--the UglyRipe may be ugly, but it is extremely tasty. The same grower also sells Santa Sweet grape tomatoes, and if they are any indication, I can't wait to actually get my hands on an UglyRipe. In any case, Florida stops shipping tomatoes out of state by June 15, so we still have a couple of weeks to see if we can locate the elusive UglyRipe.

Grade B maple syrup

Maple syrup is one of my favorite ways to sweeten things (honey being the other), because it isn't just sweet--it actually has flavor. And because I like the flavor, I want my maple syrup to be really maple-y. This is why I prefer Grade B maple syrup.

Grade A maple syrup, as I'm sure you're now wondering, is the commonest, most widely available type of maple syrup. It can range in maple flavor from quite delicate to somewhat robust. The more robust versions are usually labeled "amber," though this is a label designation that you will only find in high-end markets or if you visit a sugarhouse (the place where they boil down maple sap to make the syrup).

On a side note, visiting a maple sugarhouse during the "sugaring off" season is a lot of fun. The normal maple season lasts 4 to 6 weeks, sometimes starting as early as February and lasting into late April, depending on the specific area. Vermont is perhaps the best known maple-syrup producing region in this country, but the rest of New England, New York State and the Great Lakes states also produce maple syrup.

But back to Grade B maple syrup. This is the strongest and darkest "table grade" of maple syrup. I use it for everything, but it is generally regarded as the best option if you're baking, because the maple flavor will really punch through. There are a lot of places online that sell maple syrup, but not necessarily Grade B. Here's one place I found that does sell it in case you want to give it a try: Carmen Brook Maple & Dairy Farm.

Tomato paste rant

How many times have you made a recipe that called for 1 or 2 tablespoons of tomato paste? You scoop out what you need, put some plastic wrap over the can, stick it back in the fridge and then discover it weeks later all covered with a scary black substance. So then you throw the can away.

I once wrote to Hunt's (or maybe it was Contadina) to ask them why they had to sell their product in steel cans. I wanted to know if there wasn't some packaging that would allow the consumer to keep the leftover tomato paste without it turning nasty colors. Well, no surprise, nobody wrote back to me.

There is actually an interesting solution to this: tomato powder. Tomato powder can be reconstituted to tomato paste (or to sauce, if you add more water). You just spoon out what you need, mix it with water and voilà. The downside to tomato powder is that it is more costly than canned tomato paste, but if you factor in all the cans you throw away, it might actually end up a savings.

If you're interested, you can check out a place called Barry Farm Foods. They have a lot of other interesting dried fruits and vegetables, too, like artichoke powder. I wonder what you can do with that?

(P.S. I do know about the trick of freezing tablespoons of leftover tomato paste, but it still annoys me that I have to do it.)

Sweet onions like Vidalia (from Georgia) and Walla Walla (from Washington) were once a somewhat esoteric ingredient. These crisp, sweet (well, relative to other onions anyway) vegetables were available locally in the regions where they grew, but they didn't travel much. Part of this was because of their perishability (sweet onions do not keep as well as other onions) and part of it was because there was no consumer demand.

Well, that's certainly all in the past, because most supermarkets now routinely carry sweet onions. Starting in the spring, there is a big influx of sweet onions from places in North America, but in the winter, sweet onions come from South America.

If you really know your onions, you are already familiar with the OsoSweet onion, which grows in the Andes in Chile. But if you haven't ever had an OsoSweet, then hurry up, because the season for this winter onion lasts only through the end of March.