Showing posts with label black. Show all posts
Showing posts with label black. Show all posts
Panko and Black Sesame Seed Crusted Tuna Burger with Wasabi Mayonnaise
Tuesday, May 20, 2014
Being born and raised right on the Chesapeake Bay in Baltimore, MD means that you are genetically predisposed to engage in a lifelong love affair with seafood. My best memories of Bmore (as its affectionately known) are of those quintessential steamy summer Saturday afternoons spent in the back yard hunched over an old picnic table covered with yesterdays edition of the Baltimore Sun while bushels of live crabs, receiving an Old Bay steam bath, clang around inside an old stock pot and friends and neighbors mingle over icy cold Natty Boh (National Bohemian beer, hon).
Oh, how times change! Living in Northern Indiana for the past 5 years, the closest I ever get to salt water is when I am trying to soothe an irritated throat with a good gargle. Fortunately, the distance from my home on the east coast does not completely eliminate my chances of enjoying some other of the seas bounties. I have grown to adore to the meaty consistency and mild sea-like flavor of fresh tuna. My favorite way to prepare tuna, until last night, was just seared on the outside, thinly sliced and served ice cold with traditional sushi accompaniments. Now, (though admittedly a late bloomer) I am tuna burger obsessed. It contains the best of two world. All of the elements of a succulent beef burger (except the cheese, that would be really gross!), and the fabulous flavors reminiscent of your favorite sushi bar.
Inspired by watching Rachael Ray (the self described queen of burgers) yesterday, here is my version of:
Panko and Black Sesame Seed Crusted Tuna Burgers
1 pound best quality tuna, minced
2 green onions, finely chopped
2 tablespoons chives, finely chopped
1 tablesspoon Asian chili garlic sauce
2 tablespoons Tamari
1/2 cup panko bread crumbs
2 tablespoons black sesame seeds
Mince the tuna either in a food processor or by hand and place in a large mixing bowl. Add green onions, chives, chili sauce, and tarami. Stir to combine. Form tuna mixture into patties (I made two 1/2 pound burger from 1 pound of tuna). On a plate, place the panko bread crumbs and the sesame seeds and combine. Press both sides of each burger into the bread crumbs. Fry until still pink in the center, about 2-3 minutes per side, in a preheat skillet over medium high heat with about 2-3 tablespoons of oil. Serve on a soft roll with crunchy iceburg lettuce, pickled ginger and wasabi mayonnaise.
Wasabi Mayonnaise
1/4 cup good quality mayonnaise
1 teaspoon wasabi paste
Place mayonnaise and wasabi in a mixing bowl and stir to combine. Adjust the hotness to your liking.
Ildi Black Cherry Tomatoes
Friday, April 18, 2014
More tomatoes! Heres another pair of tomatoes from our garden this year. The little yellow ones are Ildi, and the brownish-red ones are Black Cherry. This is the first year we have grown both of these, and I can defnitely see growing them again.
The Black Cherry, as with most "black" tomatoes are nowhere near it. Their colour is their least attractive feature; dark red skin over green seeds and gel combine to give a muddy, brownish effect. They look more attractive when mixed with other cherry tomatoes in a range of colours. The tomatoes - large for cherry tomatoes - grow in cordons of about 8, and they are prolific, starting to produce after about 75 days in the garden. The plants are indeterminate, and the tomatoes just keep coming and coming. Ive picked close to 200 tomatoes per plant - so far. The plants get pretty big too; ours have tipped over the tomato cages they were in and are still just rolling along.
Like a lot of black tomatoes they are rather soft and juicy, and I have found them prone to splitting, although others have described them as split-resistant. They have a rich, sweet classic tomato flavour well balanced with tartness and a hint of that smoky quality that so many black tomatoes have, and a lot of people really, really like these very much. Weve been drying them, and they are fabulous, having a lovely scent and a rich, fruity flavour with hints of anise and apricot. They hold okay on the vine, but not nearly as well as Ildi.
Ildi is what is called a multiflora tomato - tomatoes are formed in large bunches, rather like grapes. They are advertised as forming 50, 80 or even 100 tomatoes in a bunch. Mine didnt get anywhere near that - more like 15 to 20 per bunch - but the bunches were plentiful, and since Ildi is also indeterminate, they are still coming. The tomatoes are small, about the size of a gooseberry and a similar elongated lemon shape, with a strong golden colour. At 60 to 65 days to maturity, they are quite early. The plants are reasonably bushy, but not nearly so rangy as the Black Cherries.
They often get confused with Yellow Pear tomatoes, which are another old variety of yellow cherry tomatoes, which have a neat pear shape but are not nearly so prolific and are milder (blander) in flavour; I wouldnt grow them if I could get Ildi.
Ildi are sweet and rich, with a lighter, fruitier flavour than the Black Cherries. Weve been drying them too, and while they dont have the amazing scent of the Black cherries they are so sweet and fruity they could be taken for dried apricots. So far our crop is heading for over 250 tomatoes per plant, and Im pretty sure they arent nearly done yet. One seed supplier suggested that "trusses (of Ildi) can be picked, hung in a cool garage, and kept for weeks without fruit dropping." I havent tried that, but I have noted that they hold on the vine (or off of it too) very well indeed.
Black Forest Gateau Special Request
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
Back in November 2009, I posted about a great little magazine I used to buy in the early 1980s called Home and Freezer Digest, it was one of the few home cooking magazines about at that time and I learned a lot from its pages. You can read the post HERE
Although I gave most of the magazines to a charity shop, I did keep the four little books that you could buy at various times from Home and Freezer Digest:
I think this little book was the first one that I got from H&F Digest, it was invaluable for looking up how to freeze different foods, whether they needed blanching and how long you could keep them in the freezer.
This was the first Christmas from the freezer book and it has lots of great ideas to help you get ahead , I certainly made quite a few things from this book.
This little book is well thumbed and has some great recipes that I have made a few of them a number of times, the Apple Pickle recipe is particularly good.
Going by the price this is the last of the books, it has some of the same recipes as the first Christmas book, but lots of different ones too.
And so to the Black Forest Gateau, there are two different recipes in the two Christmas books, so I am including them both and hope that one of them is the one that Diane6 is seeking.
Black Forest Gateau from
Christmas from the Freezer
Serves 8
4oz (100g) plain chocolate
4 eggs
4oz (100g) self-raising flour
1 oz (25g) cornflour
pinch of salt
7ox (150g) butter, softened
4oz (100g) caster sugar
1/2 pint (300ml) double cream
3 tablespoon black cherry jam
Decoration
4oz (100g) plain chocolate
black cherry jam
1. Break up chocolate and melt in basin over hot, not boiling, water
2. Separate eggs. Sift together flours and salt.
3. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
4. Add melted chocolate and egg yolks, beat well.
5. Whisk egg whites stiffly. Fold four into mixture, then the egg whites.
6. Put into a 7in (17.5cm) greased and lined tin. Bake (325F, 170C, Gas 3) about 55 mins
7. Cool cake in the tin, then turn out. Whip cream. Split cake in two.
8. Spread with black cherry jam, then a third of the cream.
9. Sandwich cake together. Spread a second third of cream smoothly over top.
10. Fill remaining cream into piping bag and pipe 8 rosettes on top of the cake.
To serve now: grate block of chocolate on cheese grate to make curls and arrange on cake. Take 8 cherries out of jam if possible and place each on a rosette.
To freeze: freeze until solid, then pack in a container, seal, label. Use within 3 months.
The recipe in
The Complete Freezeaway Christmas Cookbook is different, here it is:
Black Forest Gateau
Serves 8-10
Shortbread base:
2oz (50g) butter, softened
1oz (25g) caster sugar
3oz (75g) plain flour
Chocolate sponge:
3oz (75g) self-raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
1oz (25g) cocoa powder
4oz (100g) caster sugar
4oz (100g) soft margarine
2 eggs, size 3
Fillings and decorations:
15oz (425g) can red cherries, stoned
1 teasp arrowtot
3 tabsp kirsch or cherry brandy
200g bar dark chocolate
1/2 pint (285ml) double cream and 1/4 (140ml) singel cream
2 tablsp red jam
8 rose or strawberry leaves
1. Make base: cream butter and sugar. Stir in flour. Knead lightly till smooth. Press 3in (7.5cm) wide strip of shortbread into the length of a greased 7 x 10 3/4 in (18 x 27cm) tin. Prick over with a fork. Bake (325F, 190C, Gas 5) 15 mins. Cool 5 mins in tin. Turn out on a wire rack.
2. Make sponge: sift dry ingredients into a bowl, add fat and eggs. Beat together till smooth. Spread in same tin, greased, lined. Bake as above 25 mins. Turn out on to wire rack.
3. For filling: drain cheries, reserving juice. Blend 4 tablesp juice with arrowroot in a pan, boil till thick and clear. Add 1 tbsp kirsch and all but 8 cherries, cool. Mix remaining kirsch with 3 tabsp reserved juice, set aside.
4. Make decorations, grate half the chocolate into curls, using a potato peeler. Reserve.
5. Melt remainder in a basin over a pan of hot water. Dip leaves in chocolate to coat the leaf tops only. Leave to set. Cool remaining chocolate.
6. Whip creams together to a soft peak.
7. Assemble cake, spread jam over the shortbread base. Cut the sponge in half lengthwise, then split each piece and trim to give four 3 x 10 in (7.5 x 25 cm) strips.
8. Place one strip on top of shrotbread. Sprinkle with half juice mixture. Spread some cream over. Place second strip on top. Spread with cherry mikxture. Place third layer on top, sprinkle with remianing juice mixture, then spread with more cream. Place final layer on top. Trim shortbread.
9. Add cooled chocolate to rest of cream. Place 3 tbsp in a piping bag fitted with as star tube. Smooth remainder over top and sides of cake. Pipe a zig-zag rope down the centre of the cake.
10. Coat sides with reserved grated chocolate
11 Carefully peel leaves away from chocolate arrange with the cherries down centre of cake.
To serve now: place on serving plate. Slice.
To freeze: open-freeze till sold. Pack in a polybox. Label, use within one month.
To serve from freezer: place on serving plate. Thaw 3 hours in a cool place.
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