Entries tagged "paleokitchen"

Shifting your dietary framework is psychologically stressful. Food has such powerful cultural and personal contextual association. We eat when we're around family, and what we eat with family helps us define our culture. We eat when we're celebrating, when we mourn, and when we come together after a long absence. The foods we eat create a sense of home and a sense of identity. They make us feel safe.

So naturally, adopting Paleo (or vegetarianism, veganism, kashrut, or any other diertary framework) means more than shopping for different foods in the grocery store. It means confronting fears about whether we can have stuffing and mashed potatoes at Thanksgiving, whether we can eat some of our own wedding cake, whether we can break bread on the sabbath, and even whether we feel like we belong when we share meals with family and friends.

Admittedly, I had less of a struggle with this. I had previously been vegetarian for years. I had limited my meat consumption to Certified Humane meats that I have good-faith reason to believe lived a happy life and faced a dignified death. My family and friends are used to my diet shifting, and they've been amazingly accommodating. My Grandmère saw making matzoh ball soup with humanely raised chicken as a way to show her love, and at pot luck suppers in my circles of friends people include a little sign next to their dishes to make sure people know it's "gluten-free, soy-based, non-dairy, contains nuts." I'm not the norm.

My girlfriend is Cuban. That means rice and black bean soup - neither of which are Paleo. In her mother's house, that also meant Campbell's Chicken with Stars or ramen noodle soup any time she felt ill - she still craves those comfort foods even though she's moved out. Since we've both gone Paleo (and her brother too), her mom has been amazing at making sure there's always "dinosaur diet" compatible food around. But still the transition was more psychologically stressful for her than for me.

So usually when considering a dietary framework, the first thing people see are the things you can't have - the things you're giving up. "I have to give up bread? But I have a bagel every morning!" "I can't drink my coffee black - I need cream and sugar!" "But we go out for sushi every Sunday night - now you're saying I can't have rice?" Within that mindset, we approach new diets in ways that emphasize our dissatisfaction. When I was vegetarian, I looked for meat substitutes, and certainly there's a whole sector of the food industry that's spawned veggie burgers, veggie dogs, veggie sausage, veggie bacon and more. I've generally found the more we try to live with these substitutes, trying to cram our new dietary framework into our old recipe book, the more dissatisfied we are with the change. Veggie bacon just can't compete.

Cooking is one of my arts - not to say I'm any good, but it's certainly something I explore with passion. I love the kitchen, and I love how food has this incredible potential to be a medium of love. Every time I craft a dish and arrange the food delicately on the plate in a crudely amateurish attempt at skillful presentation, it's my way of saying to my family I love them. And seeing them plow through a meal I've made because it's so delicious to them floods me with a sense of fulfillment and purpose.

The way to see yourself to happiness in a new dietary framework is to learn how to cook all over again - not the mechanics of it, but the approach to creating flavor combinations. A traditional western kitchen has in its flavor arsenal sweet, creamy, savory, and salty as its mainstays. Mix any two of them together and you've got a crowd pleaser - a pork loin in an apple honey glaze, tequila lime shrimp in sour cream, candied bacon. In Paleo, you can't rely on sweet or creamy the same way. My first week cooking strictly Paleo involved a lot of savory and a lot of salty. It got boring really fast.

So I had to start over. I had to reapproach flavors, relook at different cultural traditions for inspiration, and come up with a new set of flavor families I could rely upon - ones that aren't used as regularly in more mainstream kitchens. So this series is my way of sharing some flavors and ingredients I've discovered (and rediscovered) that keep my cooking interesting and my family sending clean plates to the dishwasher. You can track this series by the tag paleokitchen.

Vinegar and the Joy of Acidity

Most vinegar comes from over-fermenting a sugary liquid. The sugar is fermented to ethanol, then the ethanol is fermented into acetic acid. Paleo is agnostic on vinegar - obviously the sweeter the vinegar the more problematic is becomes nutritionally. Balsamic vinegar is made from fortified wine, and the less they let the sugar acidify, the sweeter the vinegar but the less Paleo it is. But vinegar doesn't have to be sweet to be delicious. Vinegar's acidity helps us explore the tart spectrum of our flavor palate. It can be used in marinades to tenderize meats, in salads as part of a dressing, or on vegetables as part of the core flavor mixture.

Asparagus and Mushroom Tapas

Tapas provide a safe haven for both Paleo cooks and diners. Most dishes are prepared in olive oil, rich in monounsaturated fats. Garlic is used liberally, and most plates can be composed entirely from meats, vegetables, and spices. While portions may be small, the flavors are always rich and varied. In this vegetarian tapas dish, the dill weed brings out the flavor of the asparagus while the mushrooms soak up the olive oil and vinegar, complementing the otherwise mild vegetable with an accent of tart acidity.

The recipe:

• 1 bunch of asparagus, trimmed and quartered
• 1 pint of cremini mushrooms, quartered
• 1 tsp of fresh dill weed, chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic, sliced thinly
• 1/8 cup of olive oil
• 1/8 cup of white wine or champagne vinegar
• sea salt and pepper to taste

Heat the olive oil in a skillet on medium-high heat. Add mushroom quarters and sauté until they begin to brown, about 2 minutes. Add asparagus and garlic, and continue to sauté until cooked tender, about 2 minutes. Toss dill weed into the mix, then drizzle vinegar onto vegetables while turning them to coat evenly. Simmer for about a minute. Once most of the excess liquid has been absorbed or evaporated, pull the skillet off the heat and serve immediately.

This is part of a series on relearning how to cook Paleo, exploring different flavor bases to work from.

The general supermarket advice given to the Paleo shopper is to "stay around the edges" - meat, produce, and eggs are usually in refrigerated areas of the supermarket surrounding the aisles of grains, legumes, sweets, and juices in the middle. Be that as it may, enjoying eating Paleo requires some trips to those aisles. When we do, it's very important to get into the habit of reading ingredients. You'd be astonished at the places that corn, wheat, and soy derivatives show up in products that have nothing to do with grains.

The basic mustard has four ingredients - ground mustard seed, vinegar, salt, and water. That's it. Varieties of mustard may have additional ingredients that distinguish it. Yellow mustard often has turmeric for color, spicier mustards may have garlic or horseradish for flavor, and Dijon mustards generally have white wine in them. For the most part, all of this is deliciously Paleo.

Mustard was a ancient Roman invention. They would mix unfermented grape juice, in latin mustum, with ground mustard seed, releasing its characteristic spicy flavor. They called it burning grape juice, or mustum ardens, from which the name mustard derives. It quickly spread through the Roman empire, and after its fall, as the fragments of the empire independently developed their own customs and languages, they also developed their own mustards. In England, mustard seed was blended with cinnamon and water to make dried mustard balls that were sold for consumers to add their own vinegar to. In France, mustard cultivation in the Dijon region took on the same sophistication as wine-making. Though now a brand owned by Kraft Foods, the Grey-Poupon line of mustards had been made in the same style for over 200 years before its sale.

For the Paleo eater, mustard makes an excellent condiment - I love to eat my pork chops with coarse, brown mustard on the side. But we can also use it in our cooking as a bark around meat or fish or as part of sauces for a little tangy bite. Here are two examples.

Mustard Dill Salmon

We used dill weed before in our tapas recipe. It's really a versatile herb that has such a subtle flavor of its own but enhances the flavor of so many things. Simply adding dill weed to eggs, salmon, or cucumber enhances the natural flavors, and the fresher the better. In this recipe we mix dill weed in with a garlic mustard to encrust wild-caught salmon filet. My girlfriend, who otherwise hates salmon because it tastes too "fishy" to her, loves this particular dish and doublechecks any time I say that I'm cooking salmon that it's the mustardy one.

When shopping for salmon, wild-caught salmon will generally have a better fat profile - more of those long-chain omega-3 fatty acids we need. Farms raise their salmon on corn and soymeal, and just like grain-fed livestock, grain-fed fish are less healthy. Be careful picking a filet by color - many times salmon farmers and fishermen will dye their cuts in order to give it that richer, orange hue. And buy the fish right before you leave the supermarket - that way it spends as little time as possible outside of refrigeration.

• 1.5 lbs of wild-caught salmon filet
• 3 tbsp coconut oil
• 1/4 cup of garlic mustard
• 1 tbsp chopped fresh dill weed
• sea salt to taste

Pre-heat your broiler to full temperature and line your broiling pan with aluminum foil. Spill 1 tbsp of coconut oil on the foil and spread it around to keep the fish from sticking. In a small bowl, mix the remaining coconut oil, dill weed, and mustard and mix until it has an even consistency. Lay the salmon filet, skin-side down, on the greased foil and salt it lightly. Then spoon the mustard mixture on top and spread evenly, coating the entire filet. Put the salmon under the broiler's heat for 8 minutes for every inch of the thickest part of your filet. Remove from broiler and serve.

Mustard Thyme Rubbed Eye Round Roast

The fats in grass-raised beef are far more beneficial for your health than grain-fed, and pastured cattle generally lead happier lives than their feedlot counterparts, so in our house we do our best to eat grass-fed, humanely-raised meats. Those standards come with a price, and it shows up very clearly on my credit card statement. To try to save without going to grocery store meat, we select cheaper cuts of meat and simply have to cook them better.

So look for chuck roast or eye-round roast. Both of these cuts are tough as leather if you cook them too quickly, but if you slow roast them right, they get a nice even color, succulent juices, and a rich flavor without getting too overly tough. It's still no prime rib, but it's also half the price per pound.

Dry rubs are a great technique for making flavorful roasts. Take off all of the surface juices and then massage a rich blend of spices into the meat's surface and let it be for 24 hours. The flavor of the spices permeates the roast and seals the natural juices inside. In this recipe, crushed mustardseed and thyme give this eye-round roast an aromatic spicy edge, and in our house we generally find ourselves eating the leftovers with our eggs the next morning as well as lunch the next day.

When you are selecting your roast, look for one with a nice crust of fat on one side - when combined with the dry rub, the fat will liquefy and seep into the meat as it cooks.

• 2-3 lb grass-fed eye-round roast
• 1 tbsp sea salt
• 1 tsp ground pepper
• 1 tbsp mustard seeds, crushed (or pre-ground mustard powder)
• 3 sprigs of fresh thyme

Crush the mustard seeds and strip the thyme sprigs of their leaves. Combine the thyme leaves, mustardseed grounds, salt, and pepper in a small bowl. Using paper towels, pat your roast dry of any residual juices. With your fingers massage the spice mix into all surfaces of the meat evenly, including the fatty sides. Wrap the roast in plastic wrap and refrigerate for as long as you can up to 24 hours.

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees, and when it's at full temperature, place your roast fat-side up on a roasting pan and put it in the oven. Immediately turn the thermostat down to 400 degrees and bake for 7 minutes per pound. When that time expires, turn off the oven but do not open the door - leave the roast in the hot oven for 2 hours. No matter how much you may be tempted, keep that oven door shut.

After the two hours, pull the roast, slice, and serve - it should have an even medium to medium-rare color and running with juices. Enjoy.

Relearning to cook Paleo gives us the tremendous opportunity to engage our other senses in food preparation. Relying on aromatic smells and vibrant colors before we even taste our food heightens our sense of anticipation, and our food will automatically taste better. The best way to do this is to selectively include fresh herbs and spices into recipes.

The key word here is fresh. Your spice rack does not qualify. Dehydrated basil, oregano, dill, cilantro, and thyme are no match for the fresh, living herbs, and pre-ground pepper, cumin, or mustard seed lacks the punch of freshly cracked varieties. I used to only include fresh herbs and spices on special occasions when I made grocery store trips to shop specifically for a meal and a recipe. Now I barely touch my spice rack.

If you're relying on your grocery store's produce section for your fresh herbs, you're doing it wrong - not that those herbs aren't fresh, but they're obscenely overpriced and particularly so for the little plastic clamshell encased varieties. Far more cost-effective is to get your herbs from your local garden nursery. Keeping an herb garden gives you a plentiful supply of the freshest herbs possible, and it also fills your home with their fragrance. If you must buy your herbs from the grocery store, hunt among the leafy produce for bunch herbs - it's a far better value than the clamshell containers. Once you get home get a full-sheet dry paper towel, wrap your herbs, and seal them in a ziploc bag for freshness. I recommend keeping a supply of basil, oregano, thyme, dill weed, cilantro, parsley, and mint around at all times.

For spices, a set of grinders or a mortar & pestle is key. Grinding whole seed spices ensures you get the sharpest flavors and most aromatic smells. Try buying whole cumin seed, pan roast it with a little olive oil for several minutes, and then crush it with your mortar. Compare to pre-ground cumin from the spice aisle. You'll be amazed at how much more potent and pleasant the fresh varieties are.

Once you have your herbs and spices, figuring out how to use them comes next. My best recommendation is to experiment. Herbs and spices have such synergetic influences on food it's difficult to imagine how the final result will turn out until you've tasted them. Try making adding some fresh spearmint leaves to your salads, particularly if there are tomatoes and/or cucumbers involved. My morning eggs usually get spiced with dill weed or with cilantro & ground cumin. Fresh basil and oregano together automatically make for an Italian accent to a dish. Try roasting your pork with some fresh apple slices and thyme sprigs.

Beyond the flavor and aromatic sensations, fresh herbs have nutrients and phytochemicals that are antioxidant and anti-inflammatory. Recent research has even shown herbs to be one of the best natural sources of anti-angiogenic chemicals which that research suggests can prevent cancer growth.

Lime Cilantro Flank Steak with Herb Chimichurri

Chimichurri is a sauce made from finely chopped fresh herbs and vinegar, originally from the steppes of Patagonia. When I make this recipe I tend to make extra sauce, just because it's so good - you can spoon it on eggs, other meats, or even vegetables long after you've eaten the flank steak. We particularly love to bring along a couple of these flank steaks to outdoor grilling parties with some chimichurri made in advance. Cooking the steak over charcoal and then serving it with the vibrantly glowing green herb sauce comes as a welcome shock to people expecting ordinary hot dogs and frozen burger patties. And there's nothing quite like the smell of the chimichurri right after you finish puréeing it.

For the steak

• 2lb of flank steak
• 4 cloves of garlic
• 3 limes
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1 tbsp chopped cilantro
• sea salt and pepper to taste

For the chimichurri

• 2 tbsp chopped cilantro
• 2 tbsp chopped parsley
• 1 tbsp chopped basil
• 1 tbsp chopped oregano
• 1/2 small vidalia onion, chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1/2 tsp freshly ground cumin
• 1/8 cup olive oil
• 1/8 cup red wine vinegar
• sea salt and pepper to taste
• Optional: a few splashes of your favorite hot sauce

Pound the flank steak with a meat tenderizer (or the back of a skillet) to soften it a bit. Put it in a gallon ziploc bag with crushed garlic, squeezed limes, olive oil, salt and pepper and seal tightly. Shake and massage the bag to mix the ingredients and spread them around the flank steak. Marinate for as long as you can, up to 24 hours, turning and massaging occasionally.

Heat the broiler to full heat with the broiling pan inside for 5 minutes. Pull the pan while hot and put the steak flat onto the broiling pan. Broil about 6 minutes each side, turning once. Slice the flank steak perpendicular to the grains of the meat.

Combine the ingredients for the chimichurri into a food processor and purée to a bright green sauce. Pour a moderate amount over each strip of the flank steak and enjoy.