(Not So Great) Honey Lemon Oat Scones

I've been on a quest for the "perfect scone" for quite some time, and I don't consider "perfect" the way one might think. That is, I'm not looking for a texture or taste that is heavenly. I'm looking for a scone which is pretty good without requiring tons of fat to make it that way. After all, you can make anything good with enough butter (or bacon). It's no great feat to make a fabulous scone if you ply the dough with fat in the form of cream or butter.

I've probably tried a dozen or more low-fat recipes or recipes which use less fat than most. So far, no good. I found this recipe through a link on Foodgawker (I think) and it had a lot of appealing elements. For one, it doesn't use too much butter. For another, it uses oatmeal and it uses no refined sugar. The only question was whether or not it was going to come together as a decent scone.

I mainly kept the recipe as is. The only difference is that I didn't brush the tops with butter and sprinkle them with sanding sugar. This was mainly because I didn't have a brush or the right kind of sugar. I also split the dough in half and cooked half of it immediately, and put the rest in the refrigerator to bake the next morning. I wanted to see if leaving it to rest overnight would have an effect on the texture and how well it rose. Mainly, I wanted to see if the oatmeal would be altered by leaving it to absorb more moisture.

The ingredients and recipe are:

• 2 cups white flour
• 1 1/2 cups oatmeal
• 2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/4 cup butter

• lemon zest from one lemon (the original said 2 tsp.)
• 1 medium eggs (the original used a large, I didn't have one)
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1/2 cup whole milk with 1/2 tbsp. vinegar in it (the original had buttermilk)
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1/4 tsp. salt (not in the original)

Mix the dry ingredients together then grate the butter with a cheese grater so that it forms long strings. With a wooden spoon, break up the butter strings and mix evenly into the dry ingredients. Mix all of the wet ingredients and lemon zest together well. Add them to the flour and butter and moisten everything. Try not to knead it, though it may be necessary to do so a little to get everything wet. The dough will be very sticky. Pat the dough into whatever shape you prefer then cut into shapes. I followed the same format as the original recipe and made a circle and cut it into wedges. I put the dough on a plastic cutting board to do this so I could avoid using extra flour. Bake for 10-15 min. (mine went 10) at 425 degrees Fahrenheit (220 degrees C.).


The flavor and smell of the scones was quite good. The main problem was the texture. I don't think the problem was that there was too little butter so much as far too many oats. I think that a half cup of oats might work far better. I also think that in making my faux buttermilk that I should have used lemon juice instead so that I could infuse these with more lemon flavor. I could smell the lemon a bit with these, but not taste it at all.

The main difference between the ones that I made immediately and the ones that I made overnight was that the overnight ones seemed coarse and tough and the ones I made right away were oddly chewy. Both of them rose just fine so the baking powder didn't lose its punch overnight. I also wonder if the honey may be contributing to the overall texture problem. I'd like to try these again, but next time with 1/2 of the oats (possibly toasted - see the next paragraph), more lemon, and possibly with about 1/2 of the honey and perhaps a bit of sugar. I don't think the oats affect the moisture balance much so I'm not likely to do anything in an altered recipe to change the amount of flour.

I'm also wondering if toasting the oats a bit in a pan might help. My guess is that 10-15 minutes at a high temperature isn't enough to really cook the oats at all. They're essentially raw when you're eating them in the scone which is why they're chewy and tough. If they're precooked a bit, their texture might be better.

When I try a different version, I'll post it here.

Update: I found that the oatmeal texture mellowed a bit after freezing the scones (and allowing them to rest in the kitchen for about a day). As is often the case with baked goods with a lot of whole grain in them, they were better the next day, though I still will make a modified recipe in the future.

by Shari (Orchid64)

Inauthentic Chicken Pulao/Biryani

Note: Yet another transfer recipe from my old blog.

One of my favorite Indian dishes is chicken biryani. Prior to coming to Japan, I had never sampled Indian food because I was born in a rural area and there were no ethnic restaurants in the area during most of the time I lived there. In fact, there wasn't even a Chinese place within reasonable distance of my home until a few years before I moved to California and married.

I've had biryani at several Indian places in Japan and though it is often different, it's always been good. Unfortunately, it is also quite expensive, so I rarely have it from restaurants these days. Now that my income is about 1/3 of what it was when I worked full-time, I have to be mindful of these things.

I've been trying to create something close to the biryani I enjoyed at restaurants for some time and have been messing around with a chicken pulao recipe on Quick Indian Cooking for months and months trying to get it to come out somewhere in the neighborhood of the tasty dishes I've had from the kitchens of actual Indian cooks. I made the recipe pretty much as it was given at first, but I think none of the spices I can buy locally are fresh or potent enough to really do a good job. I've tinkered with it and finally come up with something I believe works with the quality and type of spices one can buy in Tokyo. By the way, the reason this is pulao and not biryani is that the rice is cooked with everything else. In biryani, it is cooked separately. If you're interested in authentic Indian cuisine, then I strongly recommend Quick Indian Cooking. The recipes are excellent and easy.

My recipe is quite good, though it certainly is not easy. This is probably the 7th or 8th time I've made this dish and this is the last version. I'm quite pleased with it. The tomato paste really brought something to it and I think this was the best mix of spices considering my limits in terms of freshness and options.

Absolutely Inauthentic Chicken Pulao

for marinade and meat:

• 2 cups low fat yogurt
• 1/4 inch fresh ginger
• 2 small garlic cloves (or 1 big fat one)
  
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1/4 tsp. coarse black pepper
• 2 large raw chicken breasts (1/2 breasts, actually) cut into bite-size pieces (or use 4 breasts if you have a pan big enough to cook everything and want a meatier biryani)
  

for cooking:

• 1/4 inch fresh ginger
• 2 small cloves garlic (or 1 big fat one)
  
• 1 cinnamon stick broken into 4 pieces
  
• 1.5 star anise (mine are fragmented such that all the points are broken off, so about 8 "tips")
• 2 small bay leaves (or 1 large one - though I prefer 2 small)
  
• 2 cardamom pods
• 2 tbsp. tomato paste (in Japan, you can buy this in individual packets with 1 tbsp. in each)
• 1 tsp. cumin seeds
  
• 1 tsp. turmeric
• 1/2 tsp. hot garam masala (use regular if you're sensitive to hot spices)
  
• salt to taste
• 2 large thinly sliced onions (or 3 small ones)
  
• 2 cups uncooked rice
• 4 cups chicken stock
• vegetable oil (any unflavored oil) or ghee (clarified butter) as needed (I used Canola oil - but I bet ghee would be tastier and give it that restaurant greasiness)
  
• 1 very small diced green pepper (optional)
• cashews (optional, as garnish)

Marinade instructions:
Put the yogurt into a bowl with a lid. Add the salt and pepper. Blitz all of the garlic and ginger in a small bowl food processor (or mince the garlic and grate the ginger). Add half of the ginger and garlic to the marinade and set the other half aside to use in cooking. Whisk the spices into the yogurt. Add the chicken, cover with lid, and allow to marinate in the refrigerator for 2 hours to overnight.

Cooking instructions:
Add about 1-2 tbsp. oil to cover the bottom of a large, deep skillet. Heat the oil over medium-high heat then fry the bay leaves, cardamom pods, star anise, cumin seeds and cinnamon stick pieces until they become fragrant. Create a little free space in the pan and add the ginger and garlic that you previously set aside. Fry the fresh spices until they are aromatic and lightly brown. Be careful not to burn any of the spices. If they start to cook too quickly, turn down the heat.

Add the sliced onions to the spices and stir. Cook the onions until they are golden brown and translucent. They should reduce in size to about half their original volume as you cook. If you want green peppers, add the diced peppers and cook them about halfway through the cooking of the onions. The peppers don't have to be soft, but they should be a little wilted before you move on to adding the chicken.

Push all of the vegetables and spices to one side of the pan. Move the pan off center on the burner such that the vegetables and spices aren't getting much of the main heat from where they have been pushed to the side. Add the chicken and yogurt marinade to the empty side of the pan. Stir the turmeric into the yogurt/chicken mixture. Cook with medium to high heat until slightly browned. A lot of the moisture from the yogurt will boil off, but all of it does not have to. Add the chicken stock (omit if you are not cooking the rice with the chicken, see below), hot garam masala, and tomato paste. Stir these in gently and carefully until they are dissolved. Allow this to simmer for at least 15 minutes, longer is okay, but if too much liquid boils off, you'll need to add in some water to make sure there is enough moisture for cooking the rice.

Add the uncooked rice, stir to distribute the rice evenly and cook over medium heat until it just starts to bubble. Cover the pan and turn the heat down as low as possible while still allowing the dish to simmer. Allow to cook until most of the water is absorbed and the rice is tender. This should take around 40 minutes, but it depends on the kind of rice you use and the type of pan. You'll have to test the rice for doneness by tasting it or cutting it with a fork.

Not cooking the rice with the meat: Note that you can just cook the vegetables and chicken without cooking the rice if you'd like to have the rice on the side. Just do not use the rice and chicken stock and cook until the chicken is cooked through and tender. Be careful not to overcook the chicken - it should be "just done" inside.

Note: You can salt this at any stage of the cooking or wait and add salt when you eat it. In my experience, it will need to be salted again at some point. The salt from the marinade will not be enough.

For serving, I usually take tongs or chopsticks and pick out all of the bits of whole spices just so we don't have to take them out as we eat or don't accidentally bite into a bit of star anise or a cardamom pod. Also, I don't want stronger spices permeating the finished dish in select spots (esp. the cinnamon) when the leftovers are stored in the refrigerator so I like to get them out before storing.

I think this would also be good if about a handful of raisins were added at the same time as the rice, but my husband doesn't like raisins in these types of dishes so I've never tried it (though all of the biryani I've ever had in restaurants has included raisins). Also, the pictured version does not have green peppers in it, but I have used green pepper in this dish before. It's good, but you have to be careful not to overdo it or the green pepper flavor will be too strong and dominate the dish.

Finally, keep in mind that my spices are crap. I think they're old because most of them are not typical in Japanese cuisine and spend a lot of time on store shelves before being sold. If you are using better quality spices, you may need to scale back to avoid making things too intense.

by Shari (Orchid64)

Homemade Tomato Soup

(Note: This is another transfer of a recipe from my old personal blog with some small modifications.)

Back when I was a child, my mother used to buy huge amounts of tomatoes when they were in season and "stew" them for canning. I'm not sure how she did this as the process was of no interest to me, but I only knew the result was vats of smelly, wet, over-cooked tomatoes and jar after jar of them which were put in the cellar for later consumption. When she used those tomatoes, it was always in a manner which pretty much ended up with us simply eating the tomatoes as they were right out of the jar. I think one of her favorite ways was to slop some of them on bread with nothing else.

I love tomatoes and I eat fresh ones with a little salt and pepper several times a week. They're very good for you because they're full of vitamin C. When I was a kid, I'd eat them like apples (and without salt). However, my mother's methods of preparing and serving canned tomatoes put me off of them for decades. Since fresh tomatoes are relatively expensive in Tokyo (about 80-100 yen each unless you get a good deal and buy them in bulk), using fresh ones for cooking can get really pricey. Last week, I saw a can of "Frana" Italian tomatoes imported for Meiji for 100 yen and decided that I'd make a soup recipe I ran across via the Kitchn web site.

As is so often the case though, modifications were necessary because of differences in ingredients in Tokyo, free time, my personal tastes, and expenses. I'm not a fan of celery, and it costs a fortune here anyway, and I can't buy canned chicken soup stock nor get my hands on a whole chicken to make some (or even chicken with bones other than tiny little pigeon-sized drumsticks). I decided to omit the celery and substitute chicken consomme soup for the stock. I think it may actually have turned out more flavorful for using the dehydrated cubes instead of real stock. I used Knorr (the type sold in green and yellow boxes with a white chicken graphic on it), but any type will probably do.

One of my students bought a case of Campbell's tomato soup at Costco awhile back and gave me two cans because it was too sweet for her. I'm not a big fan of Campbell's soup, but at least I have sampled it recently enough to compare this homemade stuff to the usual dreck and this is much, much nicer. We had the soup with grilled sandwiches, but I think it'd be really tasty with bread or toast for breakfast.

Tomato Soup:

• 1 tbsp. Canola oil
• 1/2 large onion or a whole small one
• 1/2 medium carrot
• 1 can crushed tomatoes
• 1 tsp. dried parsley
• 1 large garlic clove, peeled, and sliced into quarters
• 2 cubes chicken consomme
• 2 cups water
• dash (about 1/4 tsp.) coarse black pepper
• 1 fresh tomato, cut into quarters or eighths
• salt to taste
• 1/2 tsp. sugar (optional)
  
• cream to garnish (optional)

Heat a heavy bottom sauce pan over medium heat, add the oil and saute the onion and garlic clove until just softened. Add the carrot and fresh tomato (if using) and cook for about a minute. Stir in the parsley and add the tomatoes. Add the water, sugar (if using) and consomme cubes to the pot. Add the black pepper and simmer the soup until the carrots are tender. This should take about a half hour.

Remove the pot from the stove and use a hand mixer or food processor to purée the vegetables to an even consistency. A hand mixer is better because you can directly work in the pot and it's not as messy (and the soup stays hotter). Taste the soup and add salt as you feel is necessary (I added 1/2 tsp.). Depending on how potent you like your soup, add cream directly to the soup or stir in just a bit as a swirl garnish when you serve the soup (I usually don't bother). I added two tablespoons of cream, but the original recipe called for up to 1/4 cup. Frankly though, the cream isn't necessary and can be omitted to save calories.

The fresh tomato adds a nice dimension to the flavor and ramps up the relative tomato flavor, but isn't necessary. I usually make this only with canned tomatoes because that's what I have on hand. That being said, it is a little nicer with a fresh tomato added in.

I stand by my original conclusion that drinking this helps one fight off a cold! And I don't need to tell anyone that this is fabulous with grilled cheese sandwiches.

by Shari (Orchid64)

100% Whole Wheat Bread

I've got a whole lot of recipes scattered across three blogs now, and I'm going to slowly start moving all of them over to Carl's Kitchen because I think it'd be easier not to have to search my two former blogs every time I want to track down a recipe. Also, I can reach the voluminous audience that reads Carl's Kitchen. Why, I'm certain that there are a plethora of wombat and yak chefs out there just waiting to learn about my recipes. After all, Carl's Kitchen is the number one blog read amongst wombats and yaks!

This is a recipe for whole wheat bread that I've made many, many times. I cobbled it together from research and trial and error with other recipes. Mainly, I wanted something that was not dense, but also did not employ the use of white flour in the mix to make it less dense. This uses a little oatmeal, but no white flour. I've modified it slightly since the original recipe appeared on my old Monster Flower blog because it included more honey than necessary for the yeast to do its thing. The main problem with all of that honey wasn't that the bread was too sweet, but rather that it got incredibly dark when used for toast due to the excess sugars in the honey.

Here is the original post, with some of the commentary trimmed and the recipe modified to reflect how I currently make it:

After years of bread so dense I'm surprised it didn't form its own singularity, I finally stumbled upon what seems to make the difference in getting bread made with whole wheat flour to rise, wheat gluten. If you add a couple of tablespoons of vital wheat gluten to the dough, it seems to puff up and make a much lighter whole wheat loaf. With a little help from a random recipe I ran across on the web and some experimentation on my part, I finally have a recipe for what I'd consider about the best bread machine recipe for whole wheat bread.

Whole Wheat Oatmeal Bread (for ABM):

• 1 1/3 cups water
• 1/4 cup Canola oil
• 2 tbsp. honey
• 2 tbsp. vital wheat gluten
  
• 3 1/4 cups (regular) whole wheat flour
  
• 1/2 cup oatmeal (regular rolled oats - not quick)
• 1 tsp. salt
• 2 tsp. yeast

Place the liquid ingredients in your bread machine, then the oatmeal, and then the remaining dry ones (add the yeast last, making sure it doesn't touch any wet ingredients). Allow the flour and oatmeal to sit in the bread pan and absorb moisture for about an hour. You can also just leave it sit overnight if you'd like, though you should watch the moisture level if you do this. You may need to add a little more water to the dough if too much is absorbed overnight. You may also want to wait and add the yeast just before starting the bread machine if you're going to allow it to set overnight so it doesn't get wet. Set the crust color to light and choose the whole wheat setting on your bread machine. Press start.

by Shari (Orchid64)