Who Cooked It Better? -

by BS

Last Chance Pine Nuts

JoeHoya started out strong, but Matt and Lisa are giving him a run for him pignolis. Voting is open through Monday–make your voice heard below. Check out all the recipes here.

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in Contests 5 comments

by BS

Who Cooked it Better? Pine Nut Contest

You’ve read the recipes. You’ve salivated all week. You’ve wished I would never mention goddamn pine nuts ever again. Now it’s your turn. Which of our four very inventive pine nut recipes is the very best of all?

Will the winner be:

Lisa’s Bacon-Wrapped Date ‘Cannolis’ with Pine Nuts,

Natalie’s Herb Grilled Salmon with Seared Heirloom Tomatoes and Toasted Pine Nuts,

Matt’s Pan Seared Scallops, Red Onion Confit, toasted pine nuts and sage oil, or

JoeHoya’s Pine Nut Butter and Gelee?

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in Contests 7 comments

by gansie

Who Cooked It Better: The Spice Master

After a long journey of identifying spices, declaring a tie, and performing a spice-off, we have finally come to the end of our Spice Master contest. And it’s up to Endless Simmer readers to decide who will be the Spice Master (and win a few packets of spice blends – exactly what these creative contestants do not need…) You’ve already seen what our contestants bobby and JoeHoya have to offer in the way of Tunisian cuisine. So, it’s time to vote.

Will it be bobby and his Tunisian Coucha and Vegetable Couscous with Harissa (left)
Or JoeHoya‘s Shrimp and Riso Tomato-Curry Soup (right)

Some election pointers: you must vote, voting is the only way you can bitch about the outcome, get familiar with the issues, your vote does count, and do judge by what dish you’d like to have a beer with.

[poll id=”23″]

in Contests 15 comments

by gansie

Spice Master: Contestant #2

Editors Note: Yesterday you got to see how a pack of 12 spices inspired bobby to create an intricate lamb and couscous dish. Today, you’ll find out how JoeHoya reinterpreted those same Tunisian spices. And tomorrow – we’ll leave it up to ES readers to pick the Who Cooked It Better: Spice Master.

Spice Master Contender: JoeHoya

“It’s a walk-off.”

When the Who Cooked It Better gauntlet was thrown down, I couldn’t help but smile. As anyone who knows me can tell you, most of my kitchen improvisations involve cumin, paprika, chili powder, or a combination of the three. Working three of the spices from the Tunisian fun-pack wouldn’t be the problem – editing would. I needed to find a dish that highlighted the spices without going overboard.

And I wanted to do my best to incorporate that elusive Tunisian flare, so I did some reading and found out that Tunisian cuisine involves a fair amount of seafood (I also found a recipe for a pine nut pudding and a garlicky chickpea soup, but I figured both would be dismissed as obvious pandering to BS and Gansie).

In the end, I turned to John Ash’s “From the Earth to the Table,” a cookbook my wife and I picked up after we saw it in a winery in Temecula, California. We’ve found some real winners in this book before, and Elizabeth reminded me that one of them is a delicious tomato-curry soup served with riso (a rice-like pasta, similar to orzo only smaller and easier to overcook.)

Full disclosure – I’m not really a recipe person. I like to use them more as inspirations than blueprints, adding ingredients that make sense (or that I happen to have on hand.) In this case, however, I tried to stay relatively close to the original recipe and then supplement or replace with the Tunisian spices we had to work with.

Click through: full recipe, another pic, serving suggests

Spice Master: Contestant #1

Editors Note: I’ve got to be honest. So I hadn’t cooked in a while and was trying to think of something I could post on ES. And then I remembered those kick-ass spices that I got from Gypsy‘s travels to Tunisia. Contest – now that’s an easy post. I had no idea that people would actually try to figure out that impossible 12. Especially for the lame prize of pre-made seasoning packets – basically the most opposite item anyone savvy enough to enter the contest would actually want.

Regardless, after checking the entries, we had a tie. And without even asking the co-winners, we decided to ride out the enthusiasm of the Spice Master Contest. So here we are, we demanded that ES readers guess spices they couldn’t even smell and now we’ve demanded that the co-winners give us recipes based on those same foreign spices. Luckily, both bobby (aka bobbyc) and JoeHoya took this opportunity to send in breathtaking recipes. Thank you to both.

So here we are with bobby’s Tunsian recipe. Tomorrow we’ll post JoeHoya’s recipe. And on Wednesday we’ll offer you a chance to vote for the winner in a special Who Cooked It Better: Spice Master Edition. Stay tuned.

Spice Master Contender: bobby

Typically when I cook a new dish, I look at a bunch of different recipes, get an understanding of the basic concept of the dish, keep the essential ingredients the same, and play around with the rest. For Coucha (spelled Koucha in some references), I couldn’t find any recipes — only descriptions. Odd, since most references describe it as a “Tunisian favorite.” The basic idea seems to involve cooking a young lamb shoulder smothered in oil and spices at low heat in a sealed earthen vessel — similar to a Moroccan tajine. The low heat for an extended period of time breaks down the fat, making everything delicious, and the sealed vessel keeps everything super-moist.

I built my own clay vessel out of flower pots at Lowes — just had to make sure everything sealed fairly well.

From the rest of my reading on Tunisian cuisine, I gathered that nearly every meal is served with couscous. It is prepared in a special couscoussière, which steams the grains while you cook a stew of meat, vegetables and spices below. I didn’t have one of these, so I put the couscous in boiling chicken broth, then mixed in an assortment of spiced vegetables.

To finish everything off, I mixed up some harissa — spicy pepper & garlic sauce. From what I gather, harissa is the ketchup of Tunisia, only with flavor.

Click through: full recipe, more pics, serving suggests

Will the Real Sarah Palin Recipe Please Stand Up?

Earlier this week, Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin was forced to deny a vicious family rumor by admitting another, slightly less vicious rumor. But we here at ES could care less how many babies and/or grandbabies the guv did or didn’t have; we’re more concerned with a much more dangerous rumor. So let’s clear the air Mama Palin, what exactly are you putting in those hockey mom lunch boxes?

By now, everyone with half an Internet connection is aware that Sarah Palin hunts moose, spears catfish, and can strangle a polar bear with her own hands. But for some reason (possible Cindy McCain’s cookie fiasco), the McCain-Palin campaign has yet to release a single Sarah Palin recipe! And now the hungry hungry internets are filling up with creative recipes that claim to be from Sarah Palin, but there’s no way to know for sure. So it’s up to you readers: Which purported Sarah Palin recipe is the real deal?

– Sarah’s Reindeer Cupcake recipe has been making the rounds on the web quicker than Barack Obama can drown a newborn baby in a bizarre Muslim rite overseen by his crazy Christian pastor. According to the recipe, SP takes 1 pound of fresh ground caribou meat, mixes it up with flour, salt, sugar & egg to a doughy consistency and bakes at 375 for 45 minutes or 25 minutes if you like ’em rare. Then they’re topped with crunchy sprinkles: “Cut the antler and hooves into chunks and then put in blender and grind until it looks like ground walnuts…Coat each cupcake with the frosting and then decorate with the crunchy sprinkles…Serves 12.”

– Over at Yahoo Answers, one writer is claiming that Palin is more partial to the Northern delicacy of Fried Polar Bear Liver, seasoned with onions and buffalo chips. This one veers more than a little over the deep end, but hey, it could be the new foie gras.

– On the slightly more believable front, Cakespace is running with “Sarah Palin’s Alaskan Crab Wrap,” which I must declare sounds delicious, but then again, so do most things that combine crab and bacon. But ripe, diced brie? Could this red-blooded conservative really be a lover of such a lefty, Francophile, elitist ingredient? Now I don’t know what to believe.

– Meanwhile, everyone is all up on the reports that Sarah loves the Moose Burgers. Moose meat is illegal to sell so, it’s assumed, she kills and prepares her own moose. Supposedly. But we have yet to see a convincing burger recipe from Gov. Palin. Ireport has one recipe that calls for Walla Walla onions and fat from 3 Alaskan legislators or 1 Washington insider. But seriously, Sarah, if this moose burger thing is real, I wanna see some photos. You know the burger porn drill. Slice in half and get me a shot of it all red and runny with the cheese dripping over the top. Mmm….moose meat.

Remember, Sarah: this can all stop if you just tell the truth and give us one, certifiably real recipe. But for now, we’ll let you readers determine the truth:

[Poll id=”22″]

Photos: Alaska Seafood, via So Good, Guylaine2007, longhorndave, Ian Ransley, Vigour

in Bacon / Fish / Food Travel / Politics / Red Meat 10 comments