Menu for Hope

After the tsunami hit a month ago, the extent of the disaster made us realize how much our help is needed now , for reconstruction . The survivors have the energy and the will to go on with their lives , and take a new start . They just need to feel the rest of the world is there to help and assist .
Thank you for the many friends who helped build this Menu for Hope , especially Alder and Pim ...

Here are the wine pairings I ( with the help of oenophiles ) suggest for the desserts :
For Julie Sahni's Jalebi :
Banyuls Cellier des Templiers Vieille Reserve , a red sweet wine . Should go with the crispy-spongy dessert from North India .Cherry flavor ; some coffee . Mighty and mineral, with a long lasting in the mouth .
For Lamingtons :
Macon, Domaine de la Bongran , cuvee botrytis 2000 . Nose : Crystallized citrus . A lot of freshness . This is a bet, but it may suit well to this dessert .

Menu For Hope
Appetizers:
___1. Samosas (from Amy) Makes 16, but you can make 1/2 this recipe if you prefer
2 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
4 Tbsp oil
6 Tbsp water, more if necessary
Filling:
1 onion, finely chopped
2 T oil
4 large potatoes, cooked and cubed
1 cup green peas
1 t cumin
1 t garam masala
1/2 T fresh grated ginger
1 T lemon juice
4 T water
1 t salt
pinch cayenne
For the filling--saute the onion, toast the spices in the same pan and add the rest of the ingredients, tasting for seasoning and adding a few tablespoons of water if dry.
For the pastry--Rub the oil into the flour then slowly mix in the water, knead for 10 minutes then let the dough rest for at least a half an hour. The dough will be VERY stiff. Knead the dough again and divide into eight balls which you then roll flat to about six inches in diameter, cut in half and forming a cone shape, fill with 2 T of filling. Use water to seal the pastry on along all edges. Shallow fry in oil until golden brown. Serve with chutney, especially a fresh mint and cilantro type.
___2. Mini Summer Rolls (Clotilde)
- 24 rice-paper rounds or rounded triangles, roughly 20 cm (8'') across (make sure you have more in case one or two tears)
- 100 g (3 oz) rice vermicelli noodles
- 2 Tbsp rice vinegar
- 1 C shiitake mushrooms, chopped
- 1 carrot, peeled and grated
- 1 cucumber, deseeded and grated
- 1 zucchini, grated
- salt, vegetable oil, peanut oil
- two handfuls of fresh coriander leaves, chopped
- two handfuls of fresh basil leaves, chopped
- 100 g (3 oz) shrimp, cooked
- 1/3 C peanuts, finely chopped
Dipping sauce
- 3 Tbsp Thai fish sauce (nam pla)
- 3 Tbsp lime juice
- 1 Tbsp water
- 1 tsp chili sauce
(Serves four; 6 mini-rolls per guest.)
Heat a little vegetable oil and peanut oil In a skillet. Add the vegetables and mushrooms, and cook over medium heat until softened but not completely limp. Set aside. Cook the vermicelli according to package instructions. Drain, and toss with the rice vinegar and a little salt.
Put a double layer of paper towel on your work surface, and set all the ingredients (shrimp, vegetable mixture, peanuts, cooked vermicelli, herbs) around you within arm's reach. Handling them carefully, soak the rice paper rounds two at a time in a wide and shallow bowl of cold water, until completely softened.
Transfer a rice paper round onto the paper towels. Place a few shrimps in a row in the middle, cover with a little of the vegetable mixture, a little peanut, top with vermicelli, then herbs, and roll into a tight log (fold the sides over first, then one flap, then roll unto itself). The first one or two will be awkward, but you'll soon get the hang of it. Don't try to put too much stuffing inside the rolls, it only makes them harder to roll and more prone to tearing. Repeat with the rest of the ingredients.
Whisk together the sauce ingredients, pour into four small cups, and serve with the rolls.
___3. Khari Poori with Cilantro and Mint Chutney (Derrick)
For the Khari Poori:
1 cup finely ground whole wheat flour
1 cup unbleached all-purpose white flour
1 tsp. salt
1 Tb coarsely crushed black pepper
3 1/2 Tb fruity olive oi plus canola oil for deep-frying.
Sift the whole wheat flour, white flour, and salt into a bowl. Add the black pepper as well as the olive oil. Rub the oil into the flour with your fingers until the flour resembles coarse oatmeal. Slowly add very hot water--about 1/2 cup plus 3 Tb--and begin to gather the flour together. Squeeze the dough into a ball. It should just about hold. Do not knead.
Break the dough into 50 balls. Keep them covered with plastic wrap or a lightly dampened towel while you work.
Heat canola oil to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Begin to roll out the pooris. Take each dough ball and flatten to a disk about 2 inches across. Place pooris in frying oil, and fry for approximately 2-3 minutes per side. Pooris should be a nutty brown color on each side. Remove pooris from oil and place on a plate lined with paper towels. Allow to cool and then serve. Pooris may be kept at room temperature in an airtight container for several weeks.
Cilantro and Mint Chutney
Note: Use chiles to increase the heat of this chutney.
3/4 cup tightly packed cilantro leaves
1/2 cup tightly packed spearmint leaves
1 Tb lemon juice
3/4 cup yogurt
salt to taste
Place cilantro, mint, lemon juice, and 3 Tb water into a blender. Pulse the blender until the herbs are pureed. They will be dark,dark green. Beat yogurt in a bowl until it's creamy. Add the herb puree and fold into the yogurt. Add salt to taste, probably 1/4 to 1/2 tsp.
To Complete:
Pour some chutney onto a plate, and tilt the plate to spread the chutney in an even layer. Place a stack of pooris onto the chutney. Diners should use the pooris to pick up some of the chutney.
(note to wine bloggers: Tell your wine folks that the poori were almost meaty from the high proportion of wheat flour, and not nearly as peppery as you might imagine given the high quantity of pepper in the cookie. The chutney has a clean, fresh herby taste. We drank a 2001 Tribaumer Sauvignon Blanc from Austria and it worked fairly well. I'm sorry I didn't get to make a second relish. Suddenly we are overwhelmed with things going on.
Soup:
___1. Malaysian Cabbage and Peanut soup (Kate)
-1 lb dry roasted peanuts
-2 Heads Napa Cabbage
-4 Tablespoons soy sauce
-2 Tablespoons lime juice
-3 teaspoons kosher salt
-1/4 teaspoon ground pepper
-2 garlic cloves
-1 Tablespoon minced ginger
-2 Tablespoons peanut oil
-1 large onion. diced
-1 Tablespoon sugar
-2 teaspoons curry powder
-2 teaspoons ground coriander seeds
-1 teaspoon turmeric
-1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
-1 28 ounce can of whole tomatoes, diced
-6 cups water
-1 medium-sized Idaho potato, peeled and cubed
-2 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed
-2 Tablespoon fish sauce (found in most asian groceries)
-1 teaspoon hot pepper sauce
Chop 1/2 cup of the peanuts and set aside.
Puree the remaining peanuts until paste-like. Set aside peanuts for later use.
In a shallow baking dish, combine cabbage, 2 Tablespoons of soy sauce, 1 Tablespoon of lime juice, 1 teaspoon of salt and pepper. Coat the cabbage and place the baking dish in refrigerator for 30 minutes. Turn the cabbage once or twice while in the refrigerator.
While cabbage is chilling, preheat your broiler. Remove baking dish from refrigerator and place under broiler and light char the cabbage on all sides. Cut into 1 inch pieces and set aside.
Puree the garlic and ginger. Heat peanut oil in a large stock pot over medium heat. Add garlic and ginger puree, onion and sugar. Sweat onions until translucent (about 4 minutes). Add the curry, coriander, turmeric, remaining salt and cayenne and stir, ensuring the onions are coated.
Add the tomatoes to the stockpot and bring to a simmer (185 degrees F). Then add the water, potatoes, remaining soy sauce and fish sauce. Bring to a boil and immediately reduce heat. Simmer for 20 minutes. Stir in the charred cabbage, pureed peanuts, remaining lime juice and the hot pepper sauce. Simmer for two minutes.
Ladle into soup bowl and top with chopped peanuts.
___2. Tom Kha Gai (Adam)
Tom Kha Gai (Chicken in coconut soup) serves 4
14 oz can of coconut milk
4 cups of chicken stock (cut into bite size pieces)
1 pound chicken
1 cup mushroom (sliced into thin pieces)
4 stalks lemongrass (Use only the bottom part of the lemon grass, up until about 6 inches from the root, cut into 2 inch pieces and smash them a bit to release the oil.)
1 handful of lime leaves
5 limes
1 galangal root (peeled and sliced into 0.5 cm rounds)
3 heaping tablespoon Thai Roasted Chili Paste (optional)
fish sauce to taste
thai birdeye chilies to taste
1. Cut the chicken into bite size pieces, then marinade them in 4 tablespoon of fish sauce while you do the stock.
2. Heat the chicken stock with the lemongrass, about 1/4 cup of galangal rounds, and a handful of lime leaves (reserve some lemongrass, galangal, and lime leaves for garnish later). Heat the stock, covered, for about half and hour. Strain.
3. Add the chicken to the strained stock, add the coconut milk, then let simmer gently until the chicken is nearly done, add the reserved lemongrass and galangal, and let the chicken continue to cook until done.
4. Add the rest of the lime leaves and season the soup, begin with the juice of 2 limes and add more lime juice or fish sauce as needed. Finish the soup with optional chili paste and/or birdeye chili.
Rememer to remind your guest not to eat the lemongrass, galangal, or lime leaves, they are there only as aromatic garnish and not to be eaten!
Main Course:
___1. Wild Mushroom Salad (Heidi)
It was sour, spicy, and a tad sweet. It was heavy on the sour though (I'm going to recommend people scale back a bit on the lime juice).
The ingredients: wild mushrooms, roasted chile powder, red shallots, mint, cilantro, toasted rice (ground), salt, sugar, lime juice, touch of stock, green onions...As you know it is basically a saute.
___2. Indonesian Squid Curry (Louisa)
8 small red chillis, deseeded and finely chopped
6 shallots, finely chopped
4 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
2 cm of curcuma, grated
2 cm of galanga, grated
½ tsp of shrimp paste
2 tbs vegetable oil
1 tbs brown sugar
3 stalks of lemongrass, whole but crushed
3 kaffir leaves
1 cup of coconut milk
Mix the chilis, shallots, garlic, curcuma, galanga, and shrimp paste into thick paste. Heat the oil and cook the paste until fragrant. Add squid to curry paste then sautee for about 2 minutes. Remove to warm plate. Add lemongrass, kaffir leaves, and coconut milk. Reduce over medium-high heat. Pour curry sauce into bowl. Serve with squid on separate plate with steamed white rice.
___3. Bamboo shoots in coconut milk (Wena)
1/2 kilo of bamboo shoots
1 packet of dry coconut milk powder (no need to dump everything.
should be added based on people's tastes as too much may seem too rich)
some belachan @ dried prawn paste (cut a small piece 1 cm x 2 cm)
hot water
1-2 chillis
3-5 peppercorn
salt to taste
1. boil the bamboo shoots in water until the color becomes yellow and bamboo is soft. Throw away the yellow water. If you intend to store the bamboo shoots in the fridge for cooking thenext day, put it in a bowl of water and store in fridge.
2. pound the belachan, cillis and peppercorn together.
3. mix coconut milk powder in hot water.
4. mix everything into a pot and boil.
5. add salt to taste. note : do not add coconut milk all at one go but enough that you like what u taste.
___4. Coconut Rice Balls from Hillel
1 large egg
½ tsp salt
½ tsp sugar
¼ cup coconut milk
5 cups of cooked jasmine rice
fish sauce
sugar
lime juice scallions, minced
cilantro, minced
chili, minced
peanut oil (for frying)
Mix the egg, salt, sugar, and coconut milk together in a bowl. Once the mixture is integrated mix it well with freshly cooked or leftover jasmine rice. You don't want too much gloppiness as these balls need to stick together in the deep fryer. hold back some liquid or add more rice to get a good consistency. (If you have grated coconut use that instead of coconut milk and you can use only 4 cups of rice.) Let the entire mixture sit in the fridge for 30 minutes. While the rice mixture gets more suitable for making into balls, make the sauce. Everyone has their own particular preference when it comes to the following type of classic Thai dipping sauce. I list the ingredients here and let you decide what quantities to use. Mix together: thai fish sauce, sugar, lime juice, minced scallions, minced cilantro, and minced chilis. When the rice has been in the fridge long enough, heat enough peanut oil in a deep pot to cover the balls you'll form by at least a half inch. In the meantime, form the rice into 1 inch balls. When the oil is hot, gently drop the rice balls into the oil. Cook them for 1-2 minutes. They will start to turn brown. Remove them with onto paper towels and serve immediately with the sauce.
___5. Tod Mun Pla, fried fish cake From Pim
Tod Mun Pla
1 pound white fish filet, any kind will do
3 eggs
1 tbsp flour
long beans (if you don’t have Chinese long beans, French green beans of haricots verts will do, but you need to blanche the haricots first)
a handful of lime leaves, chiffonade
4 tbsp fish sauce
4 tsbp panang curry paste
oil for frying
1. In a food processer, blend together the fish filet, eggs, flour, fish sauce and curry paste together until well blended. Remove the fish mixture into a large bowl. The curry paste flavor will vary, so you should check the seasoning of the fish paste by cooking a spoonful quickly in a microwave, add more seasoning if needed.
2. Cut Chinese long beans (or other green beans) on bias into thin slices, cut lime leaves into thin strips or chiffonade, mix the long beans and lime leaves strips into the fish mixture by hand, knead well for a few minutes
3.. Heat the oil in a pan, making sure the pan is well heated before adding the oil. Drop a fingertip size fish paste into the oil, if it puffs and bubbles up right away, the oil is ready.
4. Pat about a 2 inch ball of fish mixture into a thin round, about 2 cm thickness, drop into the oil, repeat until the pan is full
5. Fry the fish cake on each side until well brown. Serve warm with the cucumber ajaad.
Cucumber Ajaad
1/3 cup rice vinegar
1/5 cup sugar
½ tbsp fish sauce
1.5 cup thinly sliced cucumber
2 shallots, thinly sliced
ground peanuts, to taste
chili, chopped, to taste
1 tbsp chopped cilantro (optional)
1. heat the rice vinegar and sugar together until dissolved, add fish sauce, let cool
2. when the vinegar syrup is cooled, add the cucumber, shallots, peanuts and chili, toss and serve on the side with the fish cakes.
Dessert:
___1. Julie Sahni’s Jalebi (Viv)
crisp pastries in saffron syrup
(Utar Pradesh region)
Jalebi, a syrupy sticky dessert from North India are best eaten freshly made, when the interplay of the crisp, hot exterior against the spongy, syrup-soaked inside is quite extraordinary. They can be prepared ahead then set aside, covered, at room temperature. Just before serving, warm them in an oven preheated to 425 F (220 C) for six minutes, or for thirty seconds at full power in a microwave oven.
1 cup (8 oz/250 g) plain yogurt
½ cup (4 fl oz/125 ml) hot water
1 cup (5 oz/155 g) all purpose (plain) flour
½ teaspoon baking powder, sifted
¼ teaspoon salt
1 cup (8 fl oz/250 ml) water
¼ teaspoon saffron threads, powdered
vegetable oil for deep frying
Place the yogurt in a bowl. With a fork, whip it while slowly adding the water. In a small bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and salt and add to the yogurt mixture. Whisk to form a smooth, lump-free batter. Set aside while you make the syrup.
In a small saucepan over medium heat, combine the sugar and water and cook, stirring, until the sugar dissolves, about 3 minutes. Increase the heat to medium-high and cook until the syrup is lightly sticky, about 3 minutes longer. Stir in the saffron and remove from the heat.
In a wide saucepan, preferably nonstick, pour in vegetable oil to depth of 2 inches (5 cm) and warm over medium-high heat to 375 F (190 C) on a deep frying thermometer. Pour the batter into a squeeze bottle, such as a ketchup dispenser. When the oil is hot, squeeze a few spirals of batter, each about 3 inches (7.5 cm) in diameter, directly into the oil. Fry the pastries, turning once, until golden and crisp, about 1 minute. Using tongs, remove each pastry from the oil and immediately dip it in warm syrup, immersing it fully, then transfer to a plate. Cook the remaining batter in the same way. Serve the pastries hot or at room temperature.
This recipe comes from the book Savoring India (256 pages), published by Williams-Sonoma, authored by Julie Sahni with photographs by Andre Martin and Michael Freeman
___2. Lamingtons (Anthony)
Blocks of day-old sponge cake, dipped in chocolate sauce and coated with desiccated coconut. Named after the fleckled shoulders of Baron Lamington, governor of Queensland (1896-1901), their roots are the resourceful salvaged failure of a sponge cake and reluctance to waste. They are uniquely Australian and our version of the fundraising brownies. So apologies, not a dish from the most affected countries but in these times we must ask the question, who is my neighbour?
(makes 16)
Cake:
[Note] The cake is made a day in advance and put in the fridge. A fresh cake will crumble when cut.
- 3 free-range eggs
- 3/4 cup caster sugar
- 2 cups of self-raising flour – sifted and sifted
- 1 tablespoon of butter
- 1/2 cup of warm milk
- 1 teaspoon of vanilla essence
Place the butter, sugar, and vanilla together in a bowl and cream until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, while beating well. Fold in the flour gradually, alternating with the milk.
Grease a rectangular cake tin (15x 27cm) with butter and pour in the mixture. Bake in a 160°C (325°F) oven for 50 to 60 minutes, testing with a skewer. Allow the cake to stand for a few minutes before turning out. Refrigerate.
Chocolate Sauce:
-500gm of icing sugar
-1/3 cup of cocoa
-1 tablespoon of melted butter
-1/2 cup of warm milk
Beat together well, adjusting milk to get a smooth consistency.
Cut the lamingtons into 5cm cubes and then dip each cube into the chocolate sauce, allowing a little time to absorb. Now roll in a tray of desiccated coconut and then do the same with the lamingtons.
You may, if you wish, serve with the excess chocolate sauce.

Comments

[hkl]

nice idea. I will donate little. I didn't know there were so many nice food blogs that I can't read it all.

[Viv]

Salut Bertrand! Okay, you've peaked my curiosity! ;-) I've been looking forward (all day long) to reading your thoughts on the Banyuls & Macon you suggested as the pairing for our dessert course. The topic of Burgundy dessert wines is very appealing to me and that Domaine de la Bongran sounds right up my alley. So, what's the dish? Thanks in advance. Viv

[anthony]

My date's arrived! : )

Have to agree with Viv, I'm eagerly awaiting a bit more on my virtual accompaniament.