cucinare coi semi: il riepilogo / cooking with seeds: the roundup

September 3, 2012 | Simona

Last month, I had the pleasure of hosting Cooking With Seeds, a monthly event started in January 2010 by Priya of Priya's Versatile Recipes. The theme I chose was rye or millet. Both rye and millet are available in several forms: as whole grains, flours, or flakes, and you will see them featured in the recipes contributed to the event. In terms of millet, the two most widely cultivated and used types are Pearl millet and Foxtail millet. (and you will see both referenced in the recipes).

Hosting an event means having the pleasure of collecting and then sharing the collection — of savoring in solitude each dish as it comes into my mailbox, and then inviting everybody to the final banquet.

I am presenting the contributions in the order I have received them — however, multiple posts by the same author are grouped together. For each submission, I will give you the official information (author, blog name and post title) and a brief description that summarizes it — a tiny morsel that will entice you to follow the link and read the details.

Now, please, make yourself comfortable, then follow me on a journey of flavors, colors, traditions and culinary creativity.

Akheela of Torviewtoronto prepared Millet flour steamed meal (known as pittu or puttu)
A crumble of dry-roasted millet flour and grated coconut gets steamed and then can be used in various ways.

Jagruti of Jagruti's Cooking Odyssey shares Kuler~ Bajri (millet flour fudge)
"My mum used to prepare Kuler early in the morning with just three ingredients, so simple and easy to make but can stand out with any Indian sweet."

and also Bajri na Vada – millet flour pakora
Typical Gujrati dish! They do look like puris but they are not thin as puris also they are patted out to be as a patty, not rolled with rolling pin.

Jaya of Spice and Curry prepared Millet Flour and Spring Onion Paratha (Flat bread)
"The paratha is part of a mixed platter that also includes: aloo gobhi ki sabzi (or aloo phulkopr torkari in Bengali: potato/cauliflower stir-fry), Met'er jhal (or Spicy goat liver)… and boondi raita."

Swathi of Sanjeevani shares with us Pearl millet and Spinach pakoras
"Spinach is a big ‘No’ in our home… I just disguised this bundle of healthy millet and spinach as pakoras,they indeed made a good combo."

Sharanya of Sara's tasty buds contributed three dishes:

Foxtail Millet (Thenai) Idly
"Foxtail millet is rich in fiber. This grain was widely used in ancient days. Nowadays it is rarely used," but here we see it used in a nice dish.

Foxtail Millet Pongal
"Pongal is a frequent dish in south Indian breakfast. I had foxtail millet, so I tried Pongal with that. It tastes great with coconut chutney and sambar. It is a healthy, fiber-rich pongal."

Foxtail Millet Dosa
"This grain was used in the olden days as our ancestors knew about its benefits. Many don’t know about this small grain." Here is another nice way to use foxtail millet flour.

Priya of Priya's Versatile Recipes, creator of this lovely event, contributed a set of five recipes:

Millet Pongal
"You will definitely love this healthy pongal and I am sure that using foxtail millet instead of rice is definitely a healthy twist to this most favourite South Indian breakfast."

Millet Kheer
"I used as usual condensed milk for making this kheer more delicious and we couldn't stop ourselves having this irresistible healthy millet kheer."

Multigrain Sweet Dumplings
"Simply prepared this multigrain sweet dumplings with a combination of healthy flours like whole wheat, rye, barley, brown rice and oats along with jaggery syrup and sesame seeds."

Millet Savoury Crepes
"What all you need is to soak the dals and millet together for 4 hours and grind them as batter, make them as this fantastic crepes and enjoy with spicy coconut chutney."

Foxtail Millet Dal Bath
"I loved this fantastic healthy dal bath with papads, definitely a healthy and fantastic twist to usual rice-dal bath… A quick, delicious, comforting and a super satisfying meal to enjoy without guilt."

Brii of Briggishome: prepared Crumbled Vegetables with Pears
"I love crumbles. With few breadcrumbs you can change the look and taste of a simple plate. I use crumble both made of old bread and made of flour." In this case, it is made of a flour mix.

Simona of briciole (your host) prepared Beans with Sage and Millet
"These beans were excellent, an example of minimalist perfection." An important step if to toast the millet before boiling it.

and also A Peachy Breakfast
which includes rye flakes (made in her kitchen by flaking rye berries using a tabletop mill), soaked in water for 24 hours, then cooked until desired softness.

Thank you so much to all who participated and made this edition of Cooking With Seeds a success!

I believe all the submissions I have received are presented in the roundup. However, mishaps are part of life, so if you find anything missing or in need of amendment anywhere in the roundup, please do let me know.

A beautiful set of seed-centered dishes awaits you. I am sure that you'll be inspired by the recipes presented. Foodomania is hosting Cooking With Seeds: Chickpeas and will be happy to receive your contribution(s) to the event. The deadline for submitting of your contribution is September 30.

pane di segale ai fiori di timo e di erba cipollina / rye bread with thyme flowers and chive blossoms

July 25, 2011 | Simona

For the current edition of Cook the Books, we are reading Sarah Addison Allen’s novel Garden Spells. Not unlike a book I discusseda few months ago (Blessed Are the Cheesemakers by Sarah-Kate Lynch), Garden Spells is a fairy tale, and like all good fairy tales, it is a satisfying reading.

My favorite character of the novel is the good fairy, a.k.a. Evanelle. She accepts herself the way she is and also accepts other people the way they are, without trying to change their attitudes, actions or beliefs. What she does is giving them "things they may need" and she does so in the open. There is no hidden meaning in her actions, because she has no idea what specific need the "thing" will answer.

From the garden of the title, Claire, one of the two sisters who are the protagonists of the novel, gets herbs and flowers. She uses them in the preparation of dishes for her catering business and of drinks and preserves. Some of this products are meant to influence the eater/drinker. In this, then, Claire is different from Evanelle.

I am not a gardener, but I have a small space where I conduct experiments with varying degrees of success. Small and irregularly tended as it is, my garden is always a place of magic, though not of spells.

I have a set of foxglow plants (digitale) that are taller than the house^₁, a dark pink sweet pea (pisello odoroso) that is blooming with enthusiasm, sprouting radishes and red Russian kale, leaf lettuce, various members of the allium family, red and purple poppies (papaveri), a number of other culinary herbs (erbe aromatiche)

and chocolate sunflowers (girasoli)

I have never really used flowers in my dishes and reading Garden Spells made me want to perform a small-scale test. As I mentioned in my most recent post, I am trying to become better at using rye flour (farina di segale), which I get as part of my share in a grain CSA. My first rye bread adventure, a few months ago, did not go well, but as I was perusing a recent King Arthur Flour catalog, a recipe caught my attention: Canapé Pumpernickel Bread. I halved the quantities and shaped the dough into a 13-inch baton. I really liked the result: the flavor is complex, the texture rich with whole grains but still smooth.

I thought that this rye bread would lend itself to be enriched with flowers, so I harvested and added the following to the dough: the flowers of three sprigs of my lemon thyme, two chive blossoms and a few flowers of winter savory (santoreggia).

Chive Blossom — ensures you will win an argument. Conveniently, also an antidote for hurt feelings.

flowering lemon thyme

I don't know if thyme flowers have any special power (the Waverley Kitchen Journal at the end of the novel does not include an entry for thyme), but I am officially in love with the bread I made. The flavor of thyme is there and a light hint of onion. I think that next time I will be a bit more daring and increase the quantities.

This is the list of ingredients I used to make the bread. I am reporting the "volume" version, but I actually looked at the "weight" version, converted ounces to grams, then halved the quantities and weighed the ingredients accordingly.

3/4 cup [80 g] whole-grain rye flour (see my previous post)
3/4 cup [90 g] all-purpose flour (I used King Arthur all-purpose flour)
1/2 cup [55 g] whole-wheat flour (I get this also as part of my CSA grain share)
1/2 cup [30 g] large flakes of rye bran that I sift off the stone-ground flour (see my previous post) [note that this is not the same as rye chops, but my approximation using an ingredient I have at hand]
1 tablespoon [14 g] gluten flour
1 teaspoons instant yeast
3/4 teaspoons sea salt
3/4 cup [175 ml] lukewarm water
1 1/2 [22.5 ml] tablespoons olive oil
flowers from three springs of lemon thyme, two chive blossoms (florets separated) and a few flowers of winter savory

I followed the instructions as stated in the original recipe, except that I made one baton and let it rise on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. I heated the oven to 375 F with an empty baking sheet inside and when the bread was ready to be baked, I sprinkled its surface with a bit of water, moved it with the parchment paper on the hot baking sheet and put it in the oven.

Slices of this rye bread are great served with spreads (like my roasted pepper and almond dip in the top photo) and cheese.

Back to Garden Spells, towards the end of the novel, there is a sentence that I really liked and I hope I won't forget:

When you're happy for yourself, it fills you. When you're happy for someone else, it pours over.

I think the same can be said about sadness. I spent a fair amount of time in my garden during the weekend, trying to focus on small tasks, as a reaction to the pouring over of sadness caused by reading news and watching images coming from Norway. As I mentioned in a previous post, I love Norway, I think that nature-wise it is the most beautiful country in Europe. Many times during my two visits, I felt like I was in a magical kingdom. It is difficult to grasp the reality of such an enchanted place being visited by unspeakable horror. I hope what happened will not change Norway. The country and its people are special and they will always have a special place in my heart.

¹ As Lori Lynn mentions in her comment, foxglove is poisonous. It is very common around here and reseeds itself. I keep it for two reasons: it's a beautiful plant and deer don't like it.

This is my contribution to the current edition of Cook the Books, hosted by Rachel of The Crispy Cook. You can find the guidelines for participating in the event here, and here is the announcement.

This post contains the roundup of the event.

I am also contributing this post to the July edition of Healing Foods, the event created and organized by Siri of Cooking with Siri and hosted this month by Simona of briciole (that would be me). I chose the theme of the month to be whole grains and whole-grain flours.

This post contains the roundup of the event.

Click on the button to hear me pronounce the Italian words mentioned in the post:

pane di segale ai fiori di timo e di erba cipollina

or launch the pane di segale ai fiori di timo e di erba cipollina audio file [mp3].

[Depending on your set-up, the audio file will be played within the browser or by your mp3 player application. Please, contact me if you encounter any problems.]

rye flour, bread, thyme, chives

torta di segale e mela / rye apple cake

July 24, 2011 | Simona

As member of a grain CSA, I receive a monthly share that includes various stone-ground, whole-grain flours, like wheat, barley and rye flour.

Rye is a cereal grain that looks like wheat but is longer and more slender and varies in color from yellowish brown to grayish green. It is generally available in its whole or cracked grain form or as flour or flakes that look similar to old-fashioned oats. Because it is difficult to separate the germ and bran from the endosperm of rye, rye flour usually retains a large quantity of nutrients, in contrast to refined wheat flour. (source: the world's healthiest foods)

I have been admittedly slow at taking up rye flour (farina di segale), but recently I have found two recipes that are fantastic. This is the first one, and it comes from Dan Lepard, whose book The Handmade Loaf is one of my most used bread baking books. You can tell by the amount of flour that hits your face when you open it on certain pages.

When I read his recipe for rye apple cake, I knew immediately that it would be great. I have made it three times and three times I managed to take so-so photos of what is really a nice, moist, deep-flavored cake. On the other hand, I like the photo of the rye flour.

I made a few adjustments to the original list of ingredients, mostly to reduce the amount of sweetener, and the end result is as follows:

1 apple (about 175-180 g) [I have used Gala apples, since this is the best quality I am finding now: I will switch to using locally grown apples as soon as the new crop arrives]
ground cinnamon (cannella), for dusting the apple pieces
50 g / 1/2 cup minus 1 tablespoon almond meal
25 g / 3 tablespoons sliced [flaked] almonds (mandorle)
150 g / 1 1/2 cup minus 2 tablespoons whole-grain rye flour [see note 1 below]
2 tsp baking powder
70 g / 2.5 oz. unsalted butter
25 g / 1 tablespoon and 1 teaspoon agave nectar
25 g / 1 tablespoon honey (miele) [see note 2 below]
25 g / 2 tablespoons sugar (zucchero)
75 ml / 1/4 cup + 1 tablespoon milk (latte)
1 egg (uovo)

Note 1: the original recipe does not specify the type of rye flour. The flour I get is stone ground and some of the bran is in large flakes. I sift them out, toast them and add them to yogurt.

Note 2: I weighed the ingredients and made the conversion to volume for the post. One tablespoon of agave nectar or of honey is less than 25 g, so I added 1 teaspoon of agave nectar to balance out the weight.

I followed the instructions as stated in the original recipe except that I did not need to grind the almonds, since I had almond meal and did not dust the cake with sugar before putting it in the oven.

A great cake for a sweet breakfast or to go with a cup of tea (una tazza di tè).

This is my contribution to the July edition of Healing Foods, the event created and organized by Siri of Cooking with Siri and hosted this month by Simona of briciole (that would be me). I chose the theme of the month to be whole grains and whole-grain flours.

This post contains the roundup of the event.

Click on the button to hear me pronounce the Italian words mentioned in the post:

torta di segale e mela

or launch the torta di segale e mela audio file [mp3].

[Depending on your set-up, the audio file will be played within the browser or by your mp3 player application. Please, contact me if you encounter any problems.]

rye flour, apple, cake