Author: Kathy Hunt

The Always Delightful Dal Tadka

Published by Kathy Hunt

Thanks to a Sunday evening spent eating platefuls of homemade Indian curries and watching Ritash Batra’s charming The Lunchbox, I’m shifting gears this week to share one of my favorite meals, dal tadka. In India dal is both an ingredient—legumes such as split peas, beans or lentils—and a savory dish. Regarding the dish, at least 60 types of dal exist. What differentiates each are the combination of legumes and spices, the cooking times and the final consistency. Some dals are soupy while others are thick and stew-like. In the case of dal tadka I’ve made and eaten both types. Although turmeric injects its rich color into dal tadka, legumes likewise imbue it with a golden hue. Wondering which legume to use? In northern India I was instructed to buy yellow lentils. However, the staff at New York’s Kalustyan’s swear by chana dal or split black chickpeas. Following their advice, I use chana but, when I don’t have that on hand, I substitute the smaller toor dal or split pigeon pea. With the latter you get …

Sailing away in Raspberry Meringue Boats

Published by Kathy Hunt

Sometimes my timing is off. During the last days of summer I collected and baked a rare autumn treat, ground cherries. On the first day of fall I took a field trip to a community supported agricultural garden and picked a quart of a beloved summer delicacy, raspberries. That they had not already been scavenged by birds, bees and other berry fiends amazed me. That they retained their brilliant ruby color and sweet, juicy flavor at the end of a long growing season was even more shocking. How lucky could I get? Although I’d spent much of the summer simmering, pureeing and swirling fruits into desserts, I didn’t want to toss these fresh-from-the-vine beauties into a blender or pot. Such gorgeousness should be showcased and not transformed into a lumpy, red mass. Rather than just serve them whole with a dollop of homemade whipped cream, I turned to an old family favorite, the meringue. A simple sweet, it would be the perfect foundation for these exquisite berries. If your ancestors are French as a smattering …

Dishy and Delicious Pistachio Coconut Creams

Published by Kathy Hunt

Over the summer I became infatuated with the English syllabub. Velvety and light, this simple dessert consists of only three ingredients—cream, sugar and a smidgen of alcohol. If you’re a traditionalist, you add sweet wine or cider. If you’re more of a rebel, you may include a splash of rum, brandy or any other liqueur or flavoring that strikes your fancy. Whip it all together and you’ve got an ambrosial syllabub. As winter creeps closer to my doorstep, I start to crave desserts heartier than flavored whipped cream. I still like the idea of a creamy treat that I can spoon into and out of elegant Moroccan tea glasses. However, instead of stuffing these delicate souvenirs with cream, I’m filling them with a far more common and filling Moroccan ingredient, yogurt, and a few other tasty things. The end result? The easy, dishy and delicious Pistachio Coconut Cream. Reminiscent of the English syllabub, Pistachio Coconut Creams feature yogurt whisked together with confectioner’s sugar, dried coconut and thick and sweetened cream of coconut. Don’t confuse cream …

Bewitching Black Currant Palmiers

Published by Kathy Hunt

A few Sundays ago I lucked out and found fresh, plump red and black currants at the Rhinebeck Farmers Market. Unlike the red currants, which I’d churned into sherbet, I took a fairly traditional approach with the larger, purplish-black fruit and cooked up a batch of black currant jelly. Why jelly? Like their red relation, black currants contain a large amount of pectin, the substance that causes foods to thicken and gel. To make black currant jelly, I simmered the fruit with some sugar and lemon juice. Once the berries had softened and the sugar had dissolved, I strained the reddish-violet syrup into a glass bowl. I allowed it to cool and set and — voila! — I had black currant jelly. Because I’d wanted to do more with currants than just make preserves, I came up with a twist on an old family favorite, palmiers. Made from puff pastry, this simple French cookie gets its name from its palm leaf-like shape. Depending on where you live and how you perceive its appearance, you may …

Elderberries and Cream

Published by Kathy Hunt

A little over a month ago I spent a morning picking elderflowers at my friends’ farm in Southeastern Pennsylvania. Last weekend I returned to find one lone cluster of white flowers and an inordinate number of reddish- to blackish-purple berries drooping from the limbs of their elderberry trees. Since my last visit those pert, little flowers had transformed into August’s big bounty, tart and spicy elderberries. As with all of this summer’s foraged fruit, elderberry collecting is a new undertaking for me. Sure, I’ve been the beneficiary of others’ wild berry gathering, adding elderberries to mini apple pies and boiling them into violet-colored sauces. However, this would be my first venture into harvesting them. Thankfully, the task turned out to be quite easy. Just look for the darkest fruit, snap off the sprays of berries and shake them into a big bowl. As I said, easy! Berries picked and shucked, I took my share home and tried to think of creative ways to use two pounds of this fruit. After washing and removing any remaining …

Rockin’ Red Currant Sherbet

Published by Kathy Hunt

This week I’ve got a great farmers’ market find—currants. In season from June to August, these petite relatives of the gooseberry come in three colors and two sizes. The smaller red and white berries possess a moderately sweet and tart taste and bright, glossy skin. The larger black currant is milder in flavor and duller in color but still has a visual and gustatory bite. All are high in pectin, making them rich in fiber and quick to gel. British cooks often turn red currants into jams, jellies and sauces. Pop a handful of these little guys into your mouth and you’ll see why. As small as they are, these berries are chocked full of seeds. Although I have munched on fresh currants, I find them far more enjoyable after they’ve been cooked, pureed and strained as the British do. Freed from the currants’ crunchy seeds, I’m left with a thick, ruby syrup that can be made into the aforementioned specialities or into a cotton candy pink sherbet, sorbet or ice cream. What’s the difference …

Masterminding Moroccan Carrots

Published by Kathy Hunt

Think of all the controversial topics that could come up between family and friends. For most people slender, knobby, orange root vegetables wouldn’t be among them. Yet, in my household carrots have long been a source of contention. Until recently, the only way that I could convince my husband to eat these vegetables was if I shredded and made them into a carrot cake. Smart guy, huh? Rather than rely on cake alone to provide us that burst of Vitamin A, I look for ways to make carrots more palatable to the picky. So far, Moroccan Carrots, which I featured in Fish Market, are the favorite.When teaching a class, holding a talk or just sitting around the dinner table, I’m frequently asked how I and other food writers create recipes. While I can’t speak for my colleagues, I can explain the rationale and process behind Moroccan Carrots. All dishes begin with the question “What foods go well together?” If I’m working with a versatile ingredient such as a carrot, that’s easy to answer. From a …

The Blackberry Fool

Published by Kathy Hunt

This week in the world of seasonal fruit I’ve got a bumper crop of blackberries. The largest of all wild berries, blackberries have long been both treasured and trashed. Give me a bowl of these dazzling, violet-black orbs and I’ll rave about their gorgeous color, plump shape and tartly sweet, purplish juice. Invite me to pick and eat them from a backyard copse and I’ll grumble about their brutally thorny, trailing vines that leave my fingers bloody and their copious seeds that wedge in between every tooth. I’m not the least bit surprised that the British have dubbed this fruit “bramble.” This is one prickly drupe. In spite of its drawbacks I do adore blackberries. Along with consuming them straight from the stem I like to feature them in a fool. A classic British dessert, a fool is as simple as its name sounds; it consists of mashed raw or cooked fruit folded into homemade whipped cream. Spoon this concoction into delicate, etched glasses or bowls and you have the elegant and ethereal English sweet. …

What to Do with a Boatload of Bananas? Banana Ice Cream-Banana Date Bread Sandwiches!

Published by Kathy Hunt

What can I share about bananas that hasn’t been said a zillion times already? They’re curved, yellow-skinned and white-fleshed with microscopic, black seeds running through their centers. They’re high in potassium and Vitamin B6 and more or less fat-free. They’re also soft, tasty and perishable. But I bet you already knew that. If you’ve ever eaten one in the tropics, you realize how spectacularly sweet and rich locally grown bananas taste. You likewise understand that this tropical fruit doesn’t come in one color and size only. Red, orange, golden yellow or green-striped, they vary in size from around 2 1/2 to 12 inches. Bananas originated in Southeast Asia. Perhaps this is why the best bananas I’ve eaten have been along the Mekong Delta in Vietnam. The length of a pen, their diminutiveness belies their powerful, candy-like flavor. As much as I love dessert, I’d happily skip ice cream, cake or pie and cap off my evening meal with one of these little gems. Why all this talk of bananas? Thanks to over a dozen ripe …

What to Do with Wineberries? Wineberry-Orange Gelée!

Published by Kathy Hunt

This seems to be my summer for foraged foods found on my friends Frank and Jane’s farm. First it was elderflowers. Now it’s wineberries. Never heard of wineberries? Until a few weeks ago, I hadn’t either. What I had done, though, was nibble on the small, scarlet, raspberry-like fruit on countless walks through the woods. Introduced to American soil in the 1890s, the prickly wineberry shrub flourishes along roadsides, in forests and fields and any other place with moist soil and moderate sunlight. Hence why I’ve encountered them on hikes and in thickets around Frank and Jane’s farm. The shrub’s firm, juicy berries resemble raspberries in flavor and appearance. They are, in fact, a type of raspberry. Their scientific name, Rubus phoenicolasius, means ‘raspberry with purple hairs,’ undoubtedly a reference to the hairy stems to which the berries cling. Bestowed with a bowl of these little berries, I wanted to use them in a dish that would show off their beautiful color and compact size. Putting them in a cake, pie, crumble or ice cream …