Dairy Free – Page 5 – Alice the Cook

September 17, 2012September 17, 2012

Field Mushrooms with Hazelnuts

Another recipe from this past weekend. A delicious side dish that compliments the entrée nicely. I prefer to use this recipe with wild game.

Ingredients:
2 garlic cloves
grated rind of one lemon
6 tbsp olive oil
6 large field (button) mushrooms, diced
1/2 cup hazelnuts, coarsely chopped
2 tbsp chopped parsley
salt and ground black pepper

Crush the garlic cloves with a little salt using a mortar and pestle or on a chopping board. Place the crushed garlic in a small bowl and stir in the grated lemon rind and the olive oil. Allow the items to steep for one hour. In a large fry pan, place the mushrooms in the pan and drizzle 4 tbsp of the garlic and oil mixture on top of the mushrooms and sauté for 5-10 minutes.

Add the hazelnuts and the additional oil mixture to the pan and sauté for another 5-10 minutes or until the mushrooms are tender. Add salt and pepper and sprinkle with chopped parsley. Serve immediately with the quails or game hens. Serves 4

September 17, 2012

Orange and Rosemary Game Hens

final 5th weekend dish — Final dish of the orange rosemary game hen (cut in half), field mushrooms with hazelnuts, and port wine poached pears. Created September 16, 2012.

A very simple dish to make. We created enough for 4-8 depending on the size of the rest of the meal and the appetites of your guests.

Ingredients:
4 game hens
2 cups of orange juice
1 tsp garam masala (can be found in most ethnic food sections)
4 oranges
1 large leeks, diced (a very mild onion flavored vegetable)
2 sprigs of fresh rosemary
Black pepper (to taste)

Marinate the hens in 2 cups of orange juice for at least 4 hours. While marinating, remove the zest and juice from the oranges. In a large pot or Dutch oven, place the hens with a trivet at the bottom to prevent sticking.

Add the majority of the zest (reserve 2 TB of orange zest) and fresh juice along with 1 cup of water. Tear the rosemary in half and add to the mixture.

Cook until the hens reach 160 degrees. Pull off the heat and let set for 5 minutes before serving, sprinkling the 2 TB zest and garam masala to the dish and serve family style along with some rustic bread and red wine.

September 17, 2012

Port Poached Pears

This past weekend was Wine, Romance, and Chocolate weekend at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival. We created quite a few recipes and this is one of many.

The Port Poached Pears continue to be one of my favorite recipes, and yet it is fairly easy to make:

Ingredients:
4-6 Pears, peeled (recommend Bosc or Anjou)
1 1/2 cups of red wine (recommend Merlot or Port)
3/4 cups of granulated sugar
2 tbsp of lemon juice (can also add lemon zest if desired)
2 tsp vanilla
2 tsp of ground cinnamon or 3 sticks of whole cinnamon
1/2 tsp of whole cloves
1/4 tsp of ground nutmeg

Combine all ingredients, except pears, and bring to a boil. Once the wine mixture is boiling, turn heat down to a simmer and add the pears. Simmer pears for 10-12 minutes and then turn pears and simmer for an additional 8-10 minutes – until they are tender. Remove pears and let them cool. Boil wine sauce until the liquid has been reduced by half. Pour sauce over pears and serve.

August 28, 2012

Traditional Food Preservation Techniques With A Modern Twist – Part II

Part II: Flavored Salts and Sugars, Oils, and Extracts
In the previous issue of Renaissance Magazine, I wrote about how a well-stocked pantry or larder was essential to any kitchen. It doesn’t matter the size of the kitchen, but food preserving helped keep food longer. In this issue, I will focus on flavor enhancements including flavored sugars, salts, oils and vinegars as well as making your own extracts. Although some of the enhancements were not widely used until well after the Renaissance period, they can complement any dish from any time period. In addition, they make lovely gifts to your loved ones.

Flavored Salts and Sugars
Many of us are familiar with cinnamon sugar that topped our toast. This is a similar process, but instead of blending powdered spices with sugars and salts, an older method is to let the sugar or salts absorb a lot of the essential oils from the fresh herbs and spices.

This is a fairly easy process. You will need a ceramic dish such as ramekins. Place a layer of salt or sugar at the bottom of the dish. Sweet things should be applied to the sugar (nutmeg, ginger, vanilla, clove, citrus zest, or cinnamon) and savory things would be applied to the salt (garlic, rosemary, chilies, etc.) Place the chosen flavor on top of the bottom layer of salt or sugar and begin layering.

Once the layering is finished, place the dish in a low heat area so the flavor infuses with the salt or sugar. Salt requires a higher heat (200 degrees) for an hour and sugar requires a lower heat (100 – 150 degrees) for two hours. The flavoring would need to be stirred occasionally within the sugar or salt to ensure thorough blending. Place in an airtight container and serve as needed; it is important that the flavored sugars and salts are not cooled, as it will halt the flavor from disbursing evenly.

Extracts
Like the sugars, extracts are easy to make. Finding a sweet spice (nutmeg, ginger, vanilla, clove, citrus zest, or cinnamon) and placing it into a clean bottle that can be sealed. The ingredients will need to be either cracked (cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, or ginger) or sliced thinly (vanilla and citrus zest. Add a strong flavorless liquor such as Everclear or Vodka and seal shut in a dark place. The longer the combined ingredients sit sealed with occasional shaking, the stronger the extract will become. Through this process, I have made vanilla, ginger, and various citrus extracts.

Flavored Oils & Vinegars
Flavored vinegars and oils require heating the liquid before adding the herbs or spices. By using savory herbs such as rosemary, basil, thyme, or peppers, one can create a wonderful addition to their kitchen. To begin, slowly heat the vinegar or oil. While it heats up, chop the herbs into large pieces and add them to the mixture. It is important that you do not let the pot boil. By simmering it and bottling it in small amounts, it prevents waste. The flavored oils should be chilled as they spoil very quickly and should be used within 2 – 3 weeks. The acids in the vinegars will keep longer than the oils and can be kept for months. The flavored vinegars make a nice addition to olive oil for dressings and marinades.

August 20, 2012August 21, 2012

Wood-Fired Pizzas

This past weekend was the opening weekend for the Minnesota Renaissance Festival. It was the Italian Carnivale themed weekend and we broke-in our new wood fired oven discussing the history of pizza and how it developed as well as demonstrated how to make pizza from scratch. Many of those who attended the lectures requested the recipe for the pizza dough and I said I would comply.

Below is the recipe that my assistant Olaf provided. It is very easy to do and use and made a very tasty pizza. This is a pizza dough recipe that worked in our wood fired oven, but it is tailored for a standard oven. Beneath this recipe is a pizza dough recipe ideal for wood fired ovens.

Pizza dough (yields two 14” pizzas)
4 cups of flour (extra for rolling out)
1 tsp sugar
2 tsp salt
¼ cup oil (we used olive oil)
1 oz of yeast
½ cup warm water

Place the flour in a bowl and mix the water and yeast together in a separate cup. Once done, add the sugar to the yeast water (this will feed the yeast). Pour the yeasted water to the flour and begin to mix. Add the oil and the salt to the dough. The dough should be somewhat sticky, but not too much. If it is very sticky, add more flour. Knead the dough and prep it for rising.

To raise the dough, do not roll it into a ball. Press down on the dough and have the loose ends tucked under the dough and place the tucked side down. You can place the dough in a bowl and set aside for a couple of hours at room temperature to rise. After a couple of hours, separate the dough as needed (we made smaller 5-6” pizzas). Use your hands to flatten out and place your desired toppings on the dough to cook.

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