Pataniscas

Pataniscas are cod cakes. Very economical and quick to prepare, these were traditionally a way of transforming leftover boiled cod into a meal.

The ingredients:

• 1/2 cup all purpose wheat flour
• 1/2 cup milk, preferably room temperature, or the same volume of the cooking liquid of boiling the cod
• 2 whole eggs
• salt, freshly ground white pepper to taste
• 1 small onion, finely chopped
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 cup loosely packed of finely chopped parsley 
• 1 portion of boiled cod, around 200 g, skin and bones removed, flaked, about two cups loosely packed

In a large bowl, start by making a batter: slowly incorporate the milk into the flour, baking powder and baking soda mix, using a whisk or  a fork, being careful to not create any lumps. Next, add the eggs, mixing to create a batter. Then, add the onion and parsley, season with salt and white pepper. The cod may be salty, so be careful with the salt. Do not over mix. Incorporate the cod. Then we have to evaluate the consistency in order to decide whether we need to add flour or milk in order to get to the consistency of cake batter. It should be pourable but not liquid.

Frying the cakes is tricky and the secret to a light and fluffy result. Cover the bottom of a frying pan with 1/4 inch of oil and let it get hot. Dump a spoonful onto the oil and let it fry. Turn to the other side with a spatula as soon as this side is lightly golden, and fry it. Lower the heat to allow the fritter to cook through. One may need to turn the fritters a few times to ensure that it is cooked through. Remove onto a paper lined tray and let them drain the excess oil. During the frying process, one may need to lower the heat ti avoid burning the fritters. Anytime the frying pan is empty, or anytime the volume of oil seems to low, add a bit more oil. In the end, they should look like this:

Sardines

Eating sardines in Portugal is a national endeavour. It starts when the fishermen are finally given permission to catch sardines and it ends when the fish disappears from our shores. Sadly, at the end of the season, when they are most flavourful, most people are already a bit tired of eating them.

Sardines are almost always eaten grilled on charcoal. Which means that you eat them at the restaurant or you have some place outside where you can grill them. If you live in an urban area, you most likely will annoy your neighbours, but no-one seems to care.

It's very hard to see beautiful sardines at the fishmonger but not being able to grill them. The recipe I found solves that conundrum. Apparently this is a modern take on a old technique: people used to sprinkle flour on roof tiles, the old kind that are basically shaped like a half cylinder, place the gutted and clean sardines on top, sprinkle more flour and bake them in a wood oven after having baked bread. This is essentially the same thing, but using a household oven:

• gut and carefully clean the sardines;
• generously sprinkle them with coarse sea salt and let them absorb it for half hour or so;
• line an oven tray with baking paper, which you liberally sprinkle with a layer of flour -- I used wheat flour but some people recommend corn flour;
• coat each sardine with flour and place them on the tray, making sure they do not overlap; alternating the orientation of each sardine helps;
• sprinkle with olive oil and bake at 200C for about 15-20 minutes - the sardines should gain a nice golden color but be careful not to overcook them.

It is amazing how satisfying these turned out. If you remove the skin, the actual flesh tastes very much like charcoal grilled sardines!

Melanzane sott'olio

A number of years ago, I used to buy an Italian eggplant preserve, but hadn't thought about it in a while. In Italian, it's called "melanzane sott'olio", literally eggplant submerged in oil. Suddenly, it came to my mind how good this is: the texture, the vinegary aftertaste, the concentrated eggplant flavour, etc. It's wonderful on a piece of toasted bread. I could probably find it for sale if I looked hard enough, but I decided to try my hand at making it.

The usual drill: internet searches, look up recipes in books, come up with a plan based on a all the--- sometimes incompatible--- information gleaned.

All the recipes start by peeling and slicing the eggplants, most proceed by cutting the slices into strips. Most, but not all, salt the eggplant and press it with a heavy weight to extract the water and, arguably, the "bitterness" from the vegetable --- or should I say fruit? This procedure ranges from a few hours, to overnight, to a full 24 hours, depending on who you ask. There is always a vinegar solution involved, and some seasoning --- garlic, oregano, chile peppers --- but some recipes request that you boil the eggplant in the solution for different amounts of time, and others that you simply soak it in the solution.

Another difference is the concern for botulism: the acidic environment, the boiling and the salt should take care of that, but some people suggest that one should also boil the seasonings --- the garlic, peppers and any herbs --- in the vinegar solution, and some add these components raw to the eggplant.

Then, the type of oil used: vegetable oil, mostly corn oil, or extra virgin olive oil?--- which is also a vegetable oil but with rather different characteristics. One could expect extra virgin olive oil to be the norm, but some argue that it is too imposing, especially if one wants to keep the preserve for a long time. Also, if one does not consume the jar in one sitting, it has to go to the fridge and the olive oil will coagulate and the corn oil won't.

Finally: once the jars are filled, is it necessary to process them in a hot water bath, and for how long? One might think this is related with the botulism concern mentioned above, but the spores that cause botulism won't kill those, one really needs to pressure can the jars.

Some people worry about the discolouration of the eggplant so they submerge it immediately after cutting in a vinegar solution. I did not explore that option, perhaps next time.

With all these possibilities, there is a large number of different preserving procedures! Does it make a difference? Probably not that much, so let's use common sense here!

A note about the eggplants: of course, the less seeds, the better. It's hard to figure that out before cutting into them, but there is folk wisdom about that: choose fruits that at the round end have a dot rather than a slit; prefer eggplants that are slightly soft over the ones that are very hard. These are not foolproof rules, and it's hard to assess if they work at all.

My recipe:

- 3kg of eggplant
- coarse sea salt
- 750 ml of vinegar
- 1500 ml of water
- about 10 cloves of garlic
- 2 or 3 chile peppers, fresh or dry
- 750 ml bottle of corn oil, but you will not use it all

Start by peeling the eggplants with a peeler, slice them lengthwise about 2cm thick, then stack them and cut 1.5 cm with strips. If the eggplants are large, you may want to cut the long trips into more manageable sizes. As you cut the strips, layer them on a large bowl and apply salt. Not too much, enough to help draw water out of the eggplant. Apply pressure. Let the eggplant sit for a couple of hours and them place them on a colander with large wholes, put a plate on top of it and on top of the plate put a heavy weight, like a 5 litre bottle of water. The purpose is to draw as much liquid as possible out of the eggplant, as moisture is one of the enemies of preserving food. Leave it overnight or even 24 hours to drain, removing any accumulating liquid if it's touching the strips.

The eggplant the day after

The next day, peel the garlic and cut it into slices, do the same with the peppers (not the pealing, only the slicing!) and collect these slices inside a broth bag. Put the water and the vinegar and the water in a large pot and bring it to a boil. Working in batches, place the eggplant in the pot, bring again to the boil and remove to a colander to drain. Do the same with the bag containing garlic and peppers. I pressed it again overnight, using the same process.

Have the jars boiled for about 20 minutes and dry ready to pack. Don't use large jars, mostly 200 ml jars. In a large bowl, mix together the eggplant strips, garlic and peppers. Add a bit of oil just to aid in the mixing process. Fill the jars with this mixture and press to remove air pockets. Add oil as you fill the jars. Use a spoon or a chopstick to help the oil permeate to the bottom of the jar, leaving no air pockets. Wait a few hours, perhaps even overnight before advancing to the next step. In the meanwhile, do not close the jars.

The mixture ready to be packed into the jars

When ready, make sure all the eggplant is submerged in oil and close the jars. Have a large pot with water and a tea towel at the bottom. Ease the jars into the pot and boil for 10 minutes. Remove the jars from the pot and let them reach room temperature without touching them. I used old jam jars with old lids and all the jars formed a vacuum. Label and store the jars in a dark and dry place. People say to wait at least two weeks before consuming.


I did not process in the hot water bath one of the jars and, despite the fact that I kept it in the fridge, it was clear that it was fermenting because, when I opened it, there was a pop sound and the actual eggplant was sort of fizzy. When I opened one of the other jars, that did not happen.

All in all, I am quite happy with the end result. The eggplant is firm, not mushy at all. I would perhaps add more garlic and hot peppers, or a herb like oregano, but as it is the eggplant really shines through. The salt level is not high at all, and this is one thing that we need to keep in mind when salting the eggplant at the beginning. When consuming, one can always correct the salt and add more herbs.

When opening a jar, keep it in the fridge and top it with more oil to keep the eggplant submerged.

Vegan mayo and aquafaba

Aquafaba is a recent discovery in an area where one might think there is nothing fundamentally new to discover. Aquafaba is the name given to what is essentially the leftover cooking liquid when one boils chickpeas, and what has been recently discovered  is that it can replace egg whites in a variety of culinary preparations, but sweet and savory. This post is about its use in preparing mayonnaise.

Let me tell you: before you try it, you will be very skeptical; when you actually make it and taste the final product, you will feel as if you had performed a magic trick. Not only the mayo does not have the faintest taste of chickpeas but it may taste better than the egg-based alternative. Let me take that back: it does not necessary taste better, it's just different. But if you were given the mayo to eat you would never guess how it was made. You'd probably say it's an incredibly light spread, much easier to digest, with virtually the same creaminess and mouthfeel that we associate with mayo. Additionally, you don't have to worry about than potential dangers associated with using raw eggs and the mayo keeps for a much longer time. It's also much easier on your cholesterol!

I've always used the cooking liquid that comes with canned chickpeas not from legumes I've cooked myself. I try to look for cans that in the list of ingredients only have chickpeas, salt and water, ie, no additives. Some brands use kombu seaweed to cook the legumes, and that aquafaba probably results in an interesting mayo, although I haven't tried it.

My experience is that you can use essentially the same technique for preparing mayo with eggs, just replacing the eggs with roughly the same volume of aquafaba. There are two basically different approaches: by hand and using a blender/food processor, and they both work with this egg substitute.

By far, the most foolproof method I know is the immersion blender technique:

- 1/4 cup of aquafaba
- splash of vinegar or lemon
- 1/2 tsp of of yellow mustard
- 1/4 tsp of salt
- freshly ground black pepper, to taste
- 1 cup of light tasting vegetable oil, eg sunflower

Make sure all the ingredients are at room temperature. Use the cup that comes with the stick blender, or something similar, ie, tall and roughly with the same diameter as the blender. Add all ingredients to the cup, then the oil. Let the oil rise to the top and carefully insert the blender until it touches the base of the cup. Then, start pulsing: short intermittent pulses. Once you notice that the mixture is thickening, start slowly pulling the blender up as you pulse. At some point, you can push and pull the blender to fully emulsify the ingredients. Once you reach your preferred texture, adjust the seasoning. Only when the mayo is chilled you can really tell if it's properly seasoned, so don't overdo it. Sometimes, the mayo is too thick and one can dilute it with a few drops of water.

Tofu

Lord, was I craving tofu. Tofu, of all things!

• 500g package of firm tofu
• garlic scapes
• two small bok choy, about 1 kg
• garlic and ginger, minced
• sesame seeds
• sesame oil
• soy sauce
• steamed rice

I pulled this one together without following any recipes, and it tasted quite well. 

Wrap the tofu block in paper towels and place it on a plate. Put another plate on top and a heavy can on top. This is to squeeze as much water as possible from the tofu.

Trim the ends of the garlic scapes and chop them into 5 cm lengths. Later (as I was munching on these!), I realized that these things are like asparagus in that there is a point at which they will become fibrous and tough. Next time, I'll use the same method as I use for asparagus: see where they naturally snap and assume that from there on the vegetable is too tough to stir fry.

Cut the ends on the bok choy, separate and wash the leaves and cut them in half lengthwise. Quickly blanch them in boiling salted water, drain and reserve. Heat the wok, add garlic and ginger, fry until golden. Add the blanched bok choy and stir fry. Season with soy sauce to taste and remove from heat. Sprinkle with sesame seeds and coat with a tablespoon of sesame oil. Ready.

Cut the block of tofu in half transversely, then into 5cm lengths crosswise and in half lengthwise. 

Wipe the wok clean. Heat it, add oil. Place the tofu chunks in the wok to fry undisturbed until it forms a crust. Flip to the other side and repeat. Once the tofu is golden, reserve. Add a bit more oil if necessary, fry some garlic and ginger until fragrant and then add the garlic scapes. Stir fry. Put the lid on and allow the vegetables to steam. Once the scapes are cooked - slightly wilted but still crunchy - return the tofu to the wok and incorporate. Season with soy sauce to taste and place on a serving platter.

Eat with steamed rice and jasmine green tea.

Harvest (Moon)

Pesto

This worked:

• 85 g of basil leaves
• 30 g pine nuts
• 1 garlic clove
• 60 g grated Parmigiano Reggiano
• 150 ml olive oil
• (coarse) salt to taste

I've used a granite mortar and pestle that was too small for this quantity of pesto, but things worked out in the end. Start by grinding the garlic clove with a bit of salt into a smooth paste. Then add the basil leaves a handful at a time and grind them into a paste as well. Do not pound, use the sides of the mortar. I had to add the basil leaves in two stages. There is a bit of a discussion about how you dry the leaves once you wash them. This was not a issue in my case, as the basil came from a plant I have in my balcony. Then, add the pine nuts and grind them into the paste. The cheese should be half pecorino half parmigiano, but this is what I had on hand. Incorporate that into the paste. Lastly, the olive oil. This quantity of oil may be reduced, 100 ml should be enough. Add salt to taste and mix well.

What strikes me in this preparation is the balance. None of the components stands out. And this is a good thing.

PS: Most recipes will call for much more garlic. I have a problem with raw garlic and only used one.