Madhu Knits and Cooks

A Very Bad Attempt at Using the Instant Pot as a Slow Cooker - Undercooked Black Bean Chili

The title of this post says it all.  Almost. 

Yes, I tried to use my Instant Pot as a slow cooker for the first time. 

Yes, it was an uncooked disaster. 

But did I utilize a poor approach to adapt the Instant Pot to slow cooking?  Yes.  

I think I committed three fatal errors on this first attempt.

First, I used a random glass lid which "seemed" to fit over the inner Instant Pot stainless steel pot, but it was not a perfect fit. 

Second, I opened the pot to stir the mixture once or twice because it seemed to my naked eye that water had evaporated too much from the pot.  It hadn't.  I subsequently read that removing the lid during a slow cook can disrupt the cooking process by letting too much heat escape from the pot.  Oops.

Third, I used Rancho Gordo's Chiapas Black Beans which I have found require a VERY long cook time compared to other black beans.  

Unfortunately, even though I halved the recipe, the beans just weren't that cooked after 8 hours.  So then I did two rounds of pressure cooking, at 5 minutes a piece, but the beans were still not that cooked!

So maybe I will attempt a slow cook again, but only with a proper fitted lid and perhaps with non-dried beans (either canned or at least soaked overnight). 

And/or a 10+ hour cook time.  Just to be safe.

Solid Classic Egg Salad

Egg salad, egg salad - how you have entered our lives!  Building on the success of my first homemade egg salad, I decided to try a more traditional, mayonnaise-based egg salad from the Cook's Illustrated team.   

This egg salad was pretty good - the eggs cooked better this time (less dry) and the inclusion of mayonnaise didn't result in too bland of a flavor.  Instead, the herb, red onion, and celery flavors came through pretty well.  I added some leftover tarragon to this recipe as well. 

And while the dijon mustard added a nice tang, I think a slash of champagne vinegar would have also helped add more diversity of flavors to this otherwise tasty egg salad.  I look forward to making this recipe again! 

My First Chili! Instant Pot Mixed Bean and Sweet Potato Chili - Filling and Slightly Sweet

With an embarrassing amount of Rancho Gordo beans in our pantry, I finally decided it was time to make my first chili.  I turned to Cook's Illustrated to find just the recipe, which their Instant Pot Bean and Sweet Potato Chili turned out to be.  Slightly sweet from the sweet potato, onions, and tomatoes; great depth of additional spice and flavors from the medley of dried spices; and a varied texture from the different beans and creamy sweet potato.  The flavor was almost like baked beans.  

I halved the recipe, and ended up cooking the beans for 4 minutes more than called for - I think because I used some of the Rancho Gordo Chiapas beans which require a much longer cook time than most black beans.  Some of the beans were still not cooked.

I also used fire roasted tomatoes (14.5 oz. can) because it's what I had on hand, fresh ground ancho chile powder, and no coriander.  I would make this again for a cold week.

Madhur Jaffrey Can't Stop, Won't Stop - Bengali Kale / Collard Greens + Punjabi-Spiced Roasted Cauliflower

I recently checked out Madhur Jaffrey's Vegetarian India from the library, and after making these two recipes, I went ahead and bought it.  The book seems full of simple recipes, but unique and canonical, that I look forward to mainstreaming in our kitchen. 

I made these first two dishes the same night -  a Roasted Cauliflower with Punjabi Seasonings and Stir-Fried Baby Kale Cooked in a Bengali Village Style.  

I largely followed the marinated cauliflower recipe as is, though I omitted the ground coriander to meet my personal preferences.  I really liked the tart lemon and ginger marinated cauliflower.  It was a savory and spicy dish with a pleasing mouth pucker.  And because it's a largely hands off prep via oven roasting, it's a good side dish to add into any meal.  

The kale - in which I've twice substituted collard greens, and once curly kale - was nothing short of outstanding.  I would make this with every meal if I could.  The kalonji adds a nice herby flavor to the greens, and the chile adds a wonderful fresh spice flavor.  I really like the approach of steamed the greens in the pot with some water after sautéing with the flavored oil. 

No need to use Bengali mustard oil - though I recently bought some - and the slightest bit of sugar seems to do wonders as well to reduce the inherent bitterness in these dark greens.  Perfect, simple greens for any meal!

My First Egg Salad - Sans Mayonnaise, Slightly Tart, and Full of Herbs

I don't know if I had ever consumed egg salad prior to a few years ago.  Why?  I wasn't a big fan of cooked eggs growing up (hence 2018 for my first hard boiled eggs attempt), and I also have similarly never been a huge fan of mayonnaise.  So you can tell why egg salad hasn't been that appealing.

How did that change?  Well, ever so slowly, I have been trying egg salad sandwiches, largely because vegetarian sandwich options can sometimes be very limited.  This includes during a driving trip we took to Nova Scotia last summer.  As it turns out, limited options can lead to great discoveries, including a truly marvelous, herby egg salad sandwich at the Bread Gallery in West Hants, Nova Scotia.

While tasting that remarkable egg salad, not heavy on mayonnaise and very heavy on fresh herbs, I thought I was a full egg salad convert.  Sadly, in the months that followed, I largely ate mushy, bland, and too mayonnaise-filled egg salads.  So when I finally decided to make an egg salad at home, I searched for recipes that would be heavier on the herbs and light on the mayonnaise.

I was quite surprised to ultimately find an entirely mayonnaise-less, herb-heavy recipe on Milk Street.  Thankfully, the result was great - not quite what I remembered from the Bread Gallery, but very good with tarragon, chives, parsley, red onions, and ground turmeric.  And the best part - some light tartness from some champagne vinegar.  

Halving the recipe was great for 3 - 4 servings. The only modifications I would make moving forward are to chop the eggs a bit smaller than the recipe calls for and perhaps experiment with a bit of vegenaise for slightly more creaminess.  Otherwise, I loved that the eggs weren't pulverized into a mushy, dry paste like too many egg salad sandwiches and that the fresh herb flavors came through.

Food Processor Pizza Dough Take 3 - Over-proofed but Decent

I recently tried to adapt my standard, no scale (gasp) pizza dough recipe to a food processor version, to experiment beyond my first two food processor pizza dough attempts. 

The main changes I made to the original recipe were to combine the dry ingredients before slowly pouring in the bloomed yeast / warm water + cold water mixture to the running food processor.  

While all seemed to go well in producing a smooth, glossy dough, the challenges started pretty quickly during its fridge cold rise.  The dough balls just over-proofed by tripling if not more (quadrupling?) in size.  I tried to resuscitate the dough by deflating it and letting it rise again.  The crust did still rise nicely in the oven, but I found it to be ultimately too chewy.  That was a similar result to our first food processor dough attempt.

What's my diagnosis?  My early theory is too much yeast.  This recipe calls for 1 tsp. of yeast for 2 dough balls, and a number of other recipes I've used call for smaller amounts of yeast, even for fridge cold rises.  With the proper kneading from the food processor, which is probably more than I do by hand, I think yeast just activated more quickly and then led to the result? 

But...who knows?  After nearly 20 years of pizza dough making, I still feel like a novice in a lot of ways!

A Simple, Excellent Weeknight Salt and Pepper Tofu

Tofu, tofu, tofu.  How you have come back into favor, especially via quick recipes suited for a work night.  My latest attempt - Milk Street's Salt and Pepper Tofu.  This recipe required a cornstarch and five spice coating on the tofu, to get a nice crisp texture, and then a simple tossing with the recipe flavorings.

This recipe is so good that even with my multiple modifications, due to my limited pantry, it turned out wonderfully. 

I halved the recipe; eyeballed the cornstarch, black pepper, and five spice measurements; and substituted garlic powder and crushed red pepper for the fresh garlic and chiles.  I also pressed the cut block of firm tofu for more than an hour, with a change of paper towels, for a fairly dry tofu pre-cornstarch.

Yum!  A perfect weeknight meal with savory, spicy, tangy, and lightly sweet elements.

Milk Street's Ndambe - A Sadly Bland Attempt at a Senegalese Sweet Potato and Black-Eyed Pea Stew

Sometimes meals can taste too healthy.  And while I generally strive for the intersection of healthy and flavorful, today's recipe, Milk Street's Ndambe, illustrates how easy it is to veer too far in one direction or the other.

It's particularly sad given how pretty this soup looks, with its bright orange, red, and green colors.  My guess is that I should have probably used vegetable broth instead of water to add more flavor, and also lots more herbs beyond the 1/2 cup of chopped parsley and lemon juice added at the end? 

I don't know if I will make it again, but at least I know with its sweet potatoes, black-eyed peas, and fresh vegetables, it's a recipe for longevity!

Simple Lightly Spiced Red Lentil and Coconut Soup

In this increasingly cold winter of ours, I have been turning more and more to lentil and bean-based soups to get us through these dark days.  Thankfully, with my love of Rancho Gordo and Indian grocery stores, I have no shortage of legumes in our cupboards.

Today's recipe featured red lentils, which unlike many of my other staples, requires a very short cooking time.  This Goan-inspired Milk Street recipe was further dressed up by coconut milk, spinach, and a variety of spices.  

I made a few modifications based on personal preferences or what I had on hand.  Notably, I used slightly less ginger and lime juice which was a mistake as both added complementary sweet and tart flavors to the soup. 

I used whole coriander and fennel seeds, grinding them with a mortar and pestle before adding them to the soup.  I will do this again for more pungent flavors than pre-ground spices.  I will also again substitute low fat coconut milk for whole fat because I think whole fat coconut milk would have diluted the soup flavors too much.  The spinach also diluted the soup flavors, so I think it's truly an optional addition.

The soup also benefited from cooling to have all of the spices become perceptible.  I did not find the soup spicy, as some commentators stated, but I will make this easy weeknight soup again.

Ginger, Pea, and Egg Fried Rice - A Likely Pass in the Future

The days of Hetty McKinnon have turned into weeks of Hetty McKinnon.  The obsession continues, even with a misstep of late, namely the egg, pea, and ginger fried rice.  

The fried rice wasn't as much as a misstep, though I had some during the preparation, as it was just bland.  The ginger flavor didn't come through that much, and I very much overcooked the egg.  I think I should have added more flavorings - garlic, other herbs besides the fresh scallions - to jazz it up a bit.  I reduced the recipe by about 1/4 to fit the amount of leftover rice I had.