pseudo single lady eggplant caponata

Posted on September 30, 2011 by hilary924

i do a lot of pseudo-single-lady cooking. forget rachel ray, if the somm is out of town, dinner needs to take about 15 minutes to get from the fridge into my mouth. this tends to limit the repertoire to, well, zucchini hash and a fried egg if i can muster the energy to chop something. or olives and a very large glass of wine if it’s been one of those days.

yeah. classy. i’ll be sure to get that recipe up here one of these days.

anyway, when i’m a pseudo-single-lady who has her $%*! together and isn’t too hangry at the world to cope with cooking, i’ll make a big pot of something that’ll last all week to use in various forms for lunch and dinner. like a big pork tenderloin or a pot of braised chicken that’ll go in salads or on pasta. mmm.

this is one of those type of recipes.

eggplant caponata is kind of like the italian version of ratatouille. but it has more eggplant than tomato. and you chop the veggies up into smaller pieces.

and unlike tomatoey ratatouille, which i melt into almost a stew, the eggplant in caponata tends to hold its shape and texture even as you saute and simmer it. and it ends up more as a dip. or like salsa? do you know what i’m getting at here?

the type of caponata i like to make is pretty tangy. lots of capers and olives and some red wine or sherry vinegar to zing it up.

the secret ingredient? pine nuts.

no one would call a pine nut crunchy. but against the silky smooth texture of the eggplant, tomato, and red pepper, they give the caponata a much needed bite. and a nice toasty, nutty layer of flavor to the dish.

don’t be like me and totally forget about your pine nuts and let them get slightly too toasty on one side while staying oddly nakedly blonde on the other.

just keepin’ it real, folks.

so, i’ve made caponata for family dinners when the somm’s home. i made a huge batch, and it just got better all week. the yogi came over and we spread it on french bread, crumbled some feta on top, broiled it and had it in our faces in under 15 minutes, FTW.

look, here i’ve served it with pork.

shocking, i know. i pretty much have served everything i’ve made this summer with pork. thank god it’s dropping into winter weather this weekend so i can give my old friends the short ribs some love.

Eggplant Caponata

Adapted from the New York Times

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
3 large garlic cloves, minced
2 red bell peppers, diced
1 1/2 pounds eggplant, chopped into 1/2ish cubes or close enough (see note)
2 medium to large ripe tomatoes, diced (and peeled if you’re feeling fancy), or half a 14-ounce can diced tomatoes
3 heaped tablespoons capers, drained
3 tablespoons coarsely chopped pitted kalamata olives
2 tablespoons tomato paste
3 tablespoons red wine or sherry vinegar
1 good splash of red wine
Salt and Pepper
1/3 cup pine nuts, toasted

Heat your oil in your skillet, add the onions and saute for a few minutes. You probably don’t want to let them brown because they’ve got some more cooking to do, but I can never remember to stir and I’m usually chopping the eggplant or garlic and forget, and it works out ok.

Add the garlic and red bell pepper and saute for another few minutes to get the pepper softening. Then add your eggplant and cook until it gets a little brown – maybe 10 minutes or so.

Add your tomatoes, olives, and capers, cook for a few minutes then add the tomato paste and liquids. Cook until the liquid is just gone and the sauce holds together. Taste it and see if the balance of tart and savory is right for you or if it needs more vinegar or maybe even a pinch of sugar. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

You can either add the pine nuts now, or you can reserve and garnish as needed. This helps keep them from going too soft in my opinion.

Caponata is best served warm or room temperature, but it’s pretty darn good on crackers straight out of the fridge too.

A note about eggplants: Many people find eggplant to be bitter if you don’t salt it first. I usually buy the lighter purple eggplants. Or the funky streaky looking ones. In part, if I’m being honest, cause they’re kind of prettier. But I also think they’re sweeter and less bitter than the darker ones. And I’m lazy and that’s my excuse to not salt my eggplant. Feel free to salt yours if you have the patience or desire. Also, the New York Times has you roast your eggplant. I like the firm bite of a non-roasted eggplant, and didn’t really want to add the prep time, but I’m sure it’s lovely either way. Aren’t you so glad you came for all this (not) helpful (completely subjective, not tested) advice!

kettlecorn ice cream

Posted on September 27, 2011 by hilary924

um, why did i wait until the end of summer to get the ice cream cookbook du jour? (du summer? du l'été? sorry aunt k.)

let me just say, better late than never. i got my mom on the bandwagon too, and she's the real homemade ice cream artisan in the family.

everyone in foodie blog land loves this cookbook. jeni's flavor combinations are really amazing: sweet corn & black raspberry; basil & honeyed pine nuts; cucumber, honeydew & cayenne. i seriously considered just working my way through the damn thing: one ice cream a week! for a year! then i remembered my thighs. hi friends. we don't really need that much for reals ice cream around, right?

but the best thing about the cookbook is the basic ice cream recipe. the recipe is, SERIOUSLY, a revelation. especially for dorks like me who tend to produce scrambled eggs instead of ice cream custard no matter how much tempering and whisking occurs.

pre-jeni, the land of homemade ice cream was a choice of philadelphia-style cream and sugar ice cream or the richer french egg-based custards. jeni has use science, SCIENCE! to move us beyond this. the secret ingredients are cream cheese, corn starch, and corn syrup.

sounds weird, i know.

but, the result? the ice cream really is creamer and smoother than most ice creams i've made, and lasted longer in the freeze.

if you buy jeni's cookbook . . . which you should if you ever plan to make homemade ice cream . . . she has a long, interesting explanation of why her recipe version works. the short version is that it balanced the water, fat, protein and air to make ice cream taste like the best thing you've ever put in your mouth. not gritty. not cloying. just right.

kettlecorn isn't actually a flavor from jeni's ice cream book. it was inspired by a recipe for popcorn ice cream that i've been dreaming about for a month.

we're big popcorn fans around my house. you can usually tell whether the somm is home or not by the level of popcorn detritus on the floor.

sweeping: one of my favorite household tasks. if only i'd do it with any regularity.

isn't kettlecorn the best type of popcorn? sweet and salty and buttery. this ice cream does all of those things.

did you know you can pop popcorn in a brown lunch bag? for reals. turns out, there is nothing magical about the orville redenbacher bag, no matter what criss angel says.

pop some up, melt it into your warm ice cream base to infuse it with popcorn goodness. proceed with your ice cream recipe, but amp up the salt.

sprinkle some more sea salt on top (maybe that fancy flowerpetal sea salt you picked up in spain? yes? no, you don't keep that on hand?) and you'll have the sweet-salty goodness of kettlecorn, but with the creamy-cold goodness of ice cream.

mmm. stay tuned because the ice cream flavor that is next up is goat cheese and drunken figs courtesy of my momma.

Kettlecorn Ice Cream

Using Jeni's recipe & Inspired by Dash & Bella's Popcorn Ice Cream

2 cups whole milk
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon cornstarch
1 1/2 ounces cream cheese, softened
1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon salt, plus more for sprinkling
1 1/4 heavy cream
2/3 cup sugar
2 tablespoons light corn syrup
4 cups air popped popcorn (about 1/4 cup unpopped) without salt or oil

WARNING: you need approximately 15 large bowls and various other accoutrement. This recipe relies on mise-en-place. I hope you have a dishwasher. Trust me, it's worth it. Also, you need an ice cream maker. They aren't that expensive. I have a Cuisinart that's about 4 years old and it's fantastic.

To pop your popcorn, put 1/4 cup popcorn kernels in a brown paper bag, fold over the top several times and microwave for a few minutes, listening for the popping to stop. Put the popcorn into a large bowl.

Fill a large bowl with ice water.

In a small bowl, mix 2 tablespoons of the milk with the cornstarch.

In another large bowl, whisk the cream cheese and salt until smooth.

In a saucepan, bring the remaining milk with the heavy cream, sugar, and corn syrup to a boil and cook over moderate heat until the sugar dissolves, about 4 minutes. Don't let it scald!

Take the warm mixture off the heat, and add it to the popcorn gradually. Stir until the popcorn mostly melts. I didn't get it to totally melt. Strain the mixture back into the pan, pressing on the popcorn solids to get all the liquid out.

Gradually whisk in the cornstarch mixture. Return to a boil and cook over moderately high heat until the mixture is slightly thickened, about 1 minute.

Turn off the heat, and slowly whisk the cream cheese mixture into the milk until it's smooth. Pour your ice cream base into a big plastic ziploc bag and seal. Set the bag into the ice water and chill for about an hour, adding ice if you need to to get it nice and cold.

Follow your ice cream maker's instructions to freeze, then cure your ice cream in the freezer until firm.

end of summer dinner

Posted on September 21, 2011 by hilary924

when i’m trying to decide what to cook or bake, i don’t usually start with a recipe, i start with an ingredient.

i mean, those peaches were macerating in bourbon in my head (while lurking despondently in my fridge) for WEEKS before i found the recipe (recipes!) to make it happen for reals.

case in point – if there are lima beans at the farmers market, there will be succotash. you know how i feel about food with fun-sounding names!

however.

i have a three-foot stack of old bon apetits and gourmets (RIP gourmet, RIP) and cooking lights. which i’m slowly going through, ripping out the dog-eared pages to fill what is likely to be a series of three ring binders.

this binder lives on a shelf. next to my growing collection of cookbooks.

and i LOVE my cookbooks, and most were gifts. my godmother sent me off into my first apartment with a set of classics. (barefoot contessa. silver palate. joy of cooking.)

my current cookbook-fairy is also my mother-in-law (ad hoc at home . . . i didn’t post-it every page, but mostly just beacuse i skipped the fish section).

my cookbooks are like my wedding gifts. they aren’t just objects, they’re the presence of the love of my friends and family. in my kitchen, where that kind of love always feels strongest.

and even though i’m far from having as many cookbooks one of my favorite food bloggers, i’m trying to follow her advice: stop buying, and start cooking!

so, let’s get on with business.

two recipes today: on-the-fly succotash, and david tanis’ pork scallopine.

poor lima beans are one of the somms favorites even though i think their reputation is on par with anchovies.

to be honest, i’m still working on the anchovies. (ok, well, i’ve purchased a can of anchovies and i’m just getting used to it’s presence in the kitchen. maybe someday i’ll actually open it and consider cooking with the little fishies.)

but limas, limas are great.

you don’t really need a recipe for this – melt some butter. add your corn and limas. season and saute. add your tomatoes, if you’re using them.

cook till tender! squeeze in a little lemon juice to tart it up. top with goat cheese and basil. delish. and you really don’t need any more of a recipe than that.

succotash is so simple, i paired it with pork from an actual recipe. from an actual cookbook. this one:

this was a christmas gift from my mom that had a good run over the winter (braises! blood orange granita!) and i’ve now made at least three recipes from the summer menus. his recipes range from a whole suckling pig (seriously people?!?) to simple, good food. green beans with red onions. this pork with lemon and capers.

the recipe was supposed to be for scaloppine – which is a fancy italian way of saying thinly sliced meat often lightly dredged in flour, and if you were wondering, wondra flour is the best for that cause it’s super fine so you can actually lightly bread stuff before sauteeing it. this is how the pros get that nice brown crust on meats.

i had pork chops. so i just wondra-ed them up and got to work.

while the pork rests, you saute parsley, lemon zest, capers and garlic in olive oil and those wondra-fied porky leavings until it sizzles.

spoon over the pork. serve with lemon wedges, and a scoop of late summer succotash.

let’s go in for a close up.

The irony of course, is that you don’t really need the recipe for the pork any more than you do for the succotash. but it was a great idea, and for that i’d like to thank both david tanis and my mom.

My Version of David Tanis’ Pork Scaloppine

Adapted from Heart of the Artichoke and here

Wondra flour
4 pork chops
2 Tbsp. roughly chopped parsley
2 tsp. thinly sliced lemon zest
1 Tbsp. capers , rinsed and roughly chopped
2 cloves garlic , finely chopped
Lemon slices

Heat olive oil in a skillet. Sprinkly both sides of your chops with salt, pepper and a light dusting of Wondra. Brown chops on both sides for a few minutes until 135 or 140 degrees in the center. Or until desired level of done-ness.

Remove pork from skillet, add another splash of olive oil. Add parsley, lemon zest, capers and garlic. Saute until it sizzles. Spoon over pork chops and serve with a wedge of lemon on the side.

honey bourbon peach brown bettys

Posted on September 15, 2011 by hilary924

so, i had some subpar peaches.

well, i'm sure they were fine peaches. but i have become a total peach snob. i like autumn glo peaches from kuhn orchards. they're the essence of peach. the flavor is perfectly sweet and round. there is none of that undercurrent of acid you get with other peaches sometimes.

you can buy them saturdays at the u st farmers market in dc between 9 and 2 for the next two weeks. i bet that is super convenient for you. you're welcome.

luckily, i also have a recipe for how you should use the subpar peaches available in your own local grocery or farmer's market. it even works if you have perhaps forgotten them in the crisper bin for a week or two.

or, even if you haven't forgotten them, but it just takes you a week or so to get your hands on bourbon because you live on the east coast and they don't sell booze in your local CVS or even GROCERY STORE like civilized people.

because you're gonna need some bourbon. i went jack daniels tennessee honey. just seemed like the right thing to do.

you know what makes peaches awesome? a good soaking in bourbon, with a little thyme. and bourbon whipped cream, but we're getting to that soon.

this recipe is a riff on a smitten kitchen brown betty recipe. the appeal of other fruit desserts like crisps and cobblers is easy to understand: sugary, crunchy streusel topping! light, flaky biscuits!

but the brown betty elevates humble sandwich bread to yummy new heights.

you start with a layer of butter and a sprinkle of sugar in the muffin tin. this is going to brown-up and get caramel-y like no one's businesses. more butter, and then the peach-breadcrumb-bourbon-brown sugar goodness will seal the deal.

according to my friend wikipedia, brown bettys date to colonial times. also, they were nancy reagan's favorite dessert. who knew?

they – or at least the bourbon whipped cream – are even manchego approved.

baby betties! ready to par-tay!

Honey Bourbon Peach Brown Bettys

Adapted from Smitten Kitchen

3 cups peeled, chopped peaches
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons honey bourbon (I used Jack Daniel Tennessee Honey because the nice liquor store clerk said it was less sweet than other honey bourbons, and I figured the recipe would be otherwise sweet enough.)
2 tablespoons fresh thyme leaves
Melted butter
Granulated sugar
6-8 slices white sandwich bread, crusts removed
1/3 cup packed dark brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup panko
Whipping cream

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Stir together your chopped peaches, bourbon, and thyme leaves. Let hang out in the fridge for a few hours macerating and getting yummy. This mix also goes great in sangria with white wine. Maybe with some thyme or mint simple syrup. Mmmm.

Mix your macerated peaches with the panko, salt and sugar. I bet some nutmeg would also be delightful in here if you're feeling fancy.

Flatten the bread slices with a rolling pin. Or a clean wine bottle if that's what you've got.

Brush some butter in your muffin tin, and sprinkle with granulated sugar. Line the tins with the bread. I used both full size muffin tins (full slice of bread) and my mini muffin tin. For the mini muffins, I tore the bread into four pieces and two pieces for each tin. Just play with it, it doesn't have to be perfect. And, like with pie crust, you can use bits of bread to plug and holes.

Once you have your crust, brush with more butter. Fill with peach filling, pressing slightly to pack it in. This will help with the integrity of your bettys, especially if you've got a lot of hole filling that has gone on in the crust creation.

You're going to bake these guys first with foil on top (10 min for regular muffins, 7ish for minis), then uncovered to get them brown (15-20 for big guys, 10-12 for minis). I also then broiled the top of mine because I wanted the tops to brown more. Cause I was taking them to a party and I thought looks mattered, and there there was no light on the rooftop deck. But you're going to cover them in whipped cream, so maybe you don't have to be OCD like me. Or maybe Smitten Kitchen is wrong and they should just be baked uncovered the whole time? Maybe I'll have to make 5 more batches to see!!!!

While the bettys are baking, whip some cream with a little sugar and some bourbon. Let the bettys cool just a smidge, top with cream and enjoy!

banana muffins

Posted on September 13, 2011 by hilary924

usually, ripe bananas mean just one thing to me: chocolate chip banana bread.

it's the standby classic. made it a million times. have totally convinced myself that since it is a cooking light recipe and contains yogurt, it is healthy even when i add nearly an entire bag of chocolate chips. MMMMMM.

but, sometimes you just need a muffin, you know?

this muffin is lighter, but somehow less virtuous than banana bread. more purely banana. but with butter.

plus, it has that crispy muffin top you know you crave. this is why you must bake and consume muffins on the same day.

and muffins take way way less time to bake. a total win.

Banana Muffins

Not at all adapted from a Spilled Milk podcast

10 ounces (2 cups) unbleached all-purpose flour
7 ounces (1 cup) sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon table sat
13 ounces mashed very ripe banana (about 3 bananas)
3 ounces (1/3 cup) buttermilk
2 large eggs
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 375°F. Spray a muffin tin with nonstick spray. (I like Baker's Joy or another spray with flour in it.)

Whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a bowl. Stir together the mashed banana, butter, egg, buttermilk, and vanilla in another bowl. (I like to mash the banana in a large bowl and then stir in the rest of the wet ingredients.) Add the dry ingredients and fold in gently until just combined.

Drop the batter into the muffin tin cups and bake until you get a nice brown ring around the edge of the each muffin top, about 22 minutes. Check for doneness with a toothpick. Cool 5 minutes in the pan, then turn out onto a wire rack and serve warm.

Yield: 12 muffins

romesco sauce

Posted on September 8, 2011 by hilary924

we can do this the easy way or the hard way.

no, seriously.

there are a lot of steps here.

there are lots of ingredients to toast or roast and peel. soak and chop. saute and puree. here are some of them. the photogenic ones! also the ones i didn’t forget to pose.

note to self: do not become a wedding photographer. although, who ever looks at those lined up photos anyway??? sigh. two years later, i still have post-traumatic bridal stress disorder.

back to the romesco. it makes everything better. we even served it at the wedding. at the meats on sticks station! yum.

and don’t worry. about the wedding or all the steps to the romesco sauce. they’re worth it. and they’re (generally) a great way to spend a saturday afternoon. and i’ll tell you when you can cheat – in the sauce, not the marriage.

are we done with that metaphor? i hope so.

romesco is a spanish sauce that is mostly peppers, tomatoes, nuts and bread. sounds weird but it is deeply satisfying. it’s smoky, with a nice balance of sweet and bitter peppers, a touch of acid, a little chunky. it’s a substantial sauce. there are lots of ingredient and lots of steps, but don’t be intimidated. that just means lots of ways to make romesco the way YOU want it to be.

here’s how i make romesco. i roast something.

i take a break and go sweep the cat litter in the bathroom. i wash my hands. thoroughly. gross. i come back and toast something. something like hazelnuts.

then i go wipe down a counter or water a plant. i have house cleaning ADHD.

back to the kitchen! we’re going to take the skins off stuff!

roasted red pepper. after you thoroughly blacken the skin – either on the stove or under the broiler, turning constantly! – let it hang out in a ziploc and get steamy. then the blackened skin slips right off. super easy. but you know what? the stuff that comes in a jar works too! and looks slightly less creepy than this denuded red pepper.

the secret to taking those skins of the hazelnuts is rubbing them in a dishtowel. a nubbier towel would have worked better than this, but isn’t it pretty?! thanks mom.

hazelnuts are a traditional ingredient for romesco. toasting them offers deeper flavor – and taking the skins off will make a prettier sauce. i mixed them with marcona almonds (fancy pants spanish almonds that are super salty and a little oily but in a good-put-more-in-my-mouth-right-now kind of way) but you could just use marcona almonds. or just regular almonds. whatever floats your boat.

also going on during my toasting/roasting/prep/cleaning time is soaking some ancho chiles. nora chiles are traditionally the central ingredient in a romesco.

my whole foods doesn’t carry them, and grocery stores are limited here in the urban metropolis that is NW DC. i’m pretty sure i couldn’t pick a nora pepper out in a line up. ancho chiles, according to my “extensive” research, are a common substitute in romesco.

but, here’s the “secret” to my romesco.

it really is more of a glorified red pepper sauce. i like the sweetness. i add the ancho for a little bit of that smoky bitterness. but whenever i try to go old school and use mostly dried peppers, i am just disappointed.

and, there are way too many steps here to not luuuuuurve the results. because once you’ve roasted and toasted and soaked and chopped, you need to saute the ingredients together. let them meet and mingle. cocktail hour style.

in this stage, you’re adding the bread, tomatoes, and garlic.

they’ll really get to know each other in the food processor.

in a nod to the somm, i don’t add oil to make it saucy. i used some chicken stock and some spanish white wine . . . this time a viura-chardonnay blend. viura. the somm and i spent our whole trip to rioja making people say it for us and failing to replicate the sound. the v . . . not a v. some weird v/f hybrid. the inflection . . . much more nuanced than the american tongue is prepared to take on. who would have thought txakolina would be easier to say! sigh.

luckily, romesco is SUPER easy to pronounce. and super easy to make, if you can stick through the roasting-toasting-soaking-chopping.

and good on so much stuff. burgers. roasted potatoes. crudites. a spoon. dig in!

Roasted Red Pepper Romesco

Super loosely adapted from the New York TImes. Read the article about the awesomeness of romesco!

Smitten Kitchen has a good recipe too.

2 red peppers
3-4 peppadew peppers (or just use more red pepper or piquillo, like the NY Times)
1 dried ancho chile
1 medium to largish tomato
6 cloves garlic (I am garlic CRAZY. use as much as seems reasonable to you)
Handful hazelnuts (NY Times called for 15. Hilarious. Please, do not bother counting out your hazelnuts)
Larger handful marcona almonds (or, you know, 25)
1 cup cubed baguette, stale or slightly toasted
1/3 cup white wine
1/3 cup chicken stock
1 tablespoon sherry vinegar
1 healthy sqeeze of lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika (This is Spanish paprika. I bought mine in Spain. You don’t need to, they sell it here, but don’t use regular paprika, it won’t get the job done.)
Chopped fresh thyme

Soak ancho chile in hot water for about half an hour until soft. Remove seeds. Roughly chop.

Blacken the red peppers over a gas flame or under the broiler. Place in a ziploc bag for 5 to 10 minutes, then slip off skins. Coarsely chop.

Toast hazelnuts until dark brown but not black. Fold into dish towel and rub to remove skins.

Slice slight X in bottom of tomato – just enough to break the skin. Blanche in boiling water for a minute, then peel. Or skip this because you just can’t handle peeling ONE MORE THING. Use canned tomatoes. Or just leave the skin on. It’ll add some fiber, that’s good, right?

Saute bread, nuts, garlic for a few minutes, until you can start to smell the garlic. Add the tomatos. Then the peppers.

Throw the mixture into the food processor. Start the processor. As it runs, add the liquids. Season to taste with paprika, salt and pepper. Garnish the with fresh thyme. The sauce will have texture. Delicious texture.

watermelon rind pickles for today

Posted on September 1, 2011 by hilary924

do you ever feel like you live two lives? i feel constantly caught between the realities of today and the someday i want to have. i'm not wishing it closer or trying to speed up time. i like today. i just like someday too.

so, where does your someday live?

mine lives in a little house in california.

with his and hers freezers. one full of cookie dough and corn kernels and pesto and celery tops waiting to become stock. the other full of ben & jerrys and lean pockets and ice packs.

it has a garden that will grow more than 10 cherry tomatoes in one season.

there are going to be lots of lazy sunday afternoons in that garden with mimosas and the new york times.

it has a live-in husband, and hopefully is full of lots of friends and family who live at least in the same dang time zone.

and, it has proper pantry i can fill with mason jars. mason jars filled with jam, and salsa, and pickles, and love. and hopefully no botulism.

because, someday, i'm going to make fig jam with my mom and her neighbor evangeline, who is pretty much anyone's hero for how to grow old. feisty! independent!

and, someday, i'm going to make the somm's best woman susan teach me how to make salsa. her dad is a legit tomato farmer and every year at harvest her whole family gets together to put up tomatoes.

i'm going to need some shelf space.

but today, i'm all about quick pickles. emphasis on the quick.

especially since they usually need to be quickly gone to make room in the poor overcrowded fridge for my next adventure!

spicy pickled onions are usually my quick pickle of choice. they are a surefire way to tell your taco night diners that you're serious about your tacos. but they're good on pretty much anything. except maybe cheesecake. maybe.

but this time, i branched out. watermelon rind pickles are trending hard in the foodie world right now, as are all kinds of preserves.

i bought the darlingist yellow watermelon at the farmers market. the somm had concerns about the yellowness. it was good, though. juicy.

aren't watermelon rinds pretty?

you lose all that lovely stripyness for the pickle though. sadly.

looks like cucumber. appropriate.

now it gets juicy again. and spicy, sweet, sour and all that good stuff.

Watermelon Rind Pickles

These last about a week, so I didn't make a lot. I also used less sugar because I don't really like sweet pikcles. It's an easy recipe to scale, and super easy to change up the flavorings. A quick Google will give you lots of other ideas like cardamon, star anise, allspice. I basically just used what I had.

1/2 small watermelon
3/4 cup apple cider vinegar
3/4 cup water
1/2 cup sugar
2 strips lemon peel
1 tablespoon ground ginger (that's what I had – fresh ginger would be better)
1 tablespoon mustard seeds
1 tablespoon pink peppercorns
1 small red chile, roughly chopped

Separate the watermelon flesh from the rind, then peel the rind. This leaves you with the unpretty, cucumber-looking pale flesh. Slice this up or chop it up in chunks, whatever floats your boat. Remember that if it looks the same, it cooks the same, so try to keep your pieces similar. I am not sure what I was thinking when I took the rind off my watermelon the day before I made these and hacked it up into crazy pieces, so I ended up with same sized slices of rind for about a third of the small-mediumish sized watermelon, which was about all the rind I wanted.

Put all the other ingredients in a pot on the stove. Bring to a boil and stir until the sugar disolves. Add the rinds – the liquid should slightly more than cover the rinds. Simmer for about 8 to 10 minutes or until the rind chunks are tender.

Store in liquid in tupperware in the fridge for up to a week. Longer than that and the pickles start to get a bit soft.

Manchego's Kitchen

it's his kitchen. i just cook here.

Monthly Archives: September 2011