Sticking a recipe in this space every week keeps out some just plain good cooking ideas. Not everything we do in a kitchen follows a recipe; at least, I hope not. I’ll bet a lot of you open the refrigerator door, ponder the contents and assemble dinner from what you see.
I’ve had people tell me that they don’t cook, but when I ask them what they do, they say that they just put things together, and don’t follow recipes out of the magazines or from cookbooks or from the television. I think it’s all cooking as long as you aren’t subsisting on takeout or ready-to-eat frozen stuff.
Most cooks have some little trick that they picked up along the way; a way to prepare a particular dish, or some flavor enhancer. Some of you have sent these ideas to me from time to time, and others I have picked up in conversations. So here we go: a few good ideas.
Lemon and sugar glaze. Lin Hallowell in Waterville described this idea as part of a blueberry cake recipe we featured awhile ago. Since then I have tried this out on other unfrosted cakes, such as pound cake, sponge cake and even gingerbread, and find that it works beautifully. Lin wrote, “I mix a combination of lemon juice and sugar together. When the cake comes out of the oven, I stab holes into the cake and gently pour the lemon-sugar over the top. It gives the cake a bit of a tart flavor that adds to the otherwise sweet cake!”
When I make it, I use about equal quantities of sugar and lemon juice and heat it slightly just to dissolve the sugar.
Toasted cumin seeds: My island neighbor Norma Pendleton, a fine cook who used to run a restaurant in Northport, told me how she toasts whole cumin seeds to add to various dishes. Cumin is a terrific seasoning, and the whole seeds, which look a lot like caraway, benefit, as do most whole spices, from a brief visit to a hot pan before being added to a recipe. Toasted cumin is great on a green salad, in potato salad, sprinkled over a dish of chili, or added to a taco of almost any sort (chicken, beef, bean). I have added them to black bean salad. Prepare them in advance by sprinkling them on a fry pan and putting it over a high flame, shaking the pan to keep the seeds from burning. When you can begin to smell the flavor, remove and cool them before storing in a tightly lidded jar.
Speaking of cumin: I was visiting in Connecticut for Thanksgiving and one of my hostesses told me about cooking carrots with cumin. Madeline McClave in New Hartford, Conn., who summers on Deer Isle, says she cuts carrots into chunks, puts olive oil or vegetable oil in a pan, and slowly cooks the carrots in it with ground cumin sprinkled all over them. They come out a gorgeous color, and the cumin adds the nicest flavor.
Carrot and baked beans: Speaking of carrots, a few weeks ago, we had a recipe here for good old baked beans. After it appeared, Brenda Bowden, of Holden, wrote with the most astonishing idea: “For those who cannot eat pork but want the taste, use a CARROT. It sounds crazy, but it is true. A man my husband works with is a former chef and he told him about it. It really works.” Whodathunkit?
Goat cheese and mashed potatoes: I don’t know where I picked up this idea, but it is a good one. Use goat cheese in mashed potatoes in place of cream or butter. Not everyone likes goat cheese, but most goat cheeses are mild and smooth and have the benefit of fewer calories, lower fat and more calcium than most cow’s milk products. In mashed potatoes, the goat’s cheese, also called chevre, adds just the right bit of richness. Put in as much as you like, tasting as you go, and start by replacing the amount of butter you usually use with the same amount of cheese.
Evaporated milk: My friend Myra Rolerson’s mother-in-law, Mrs. Jesse Rolerson, always uses evaporated milk in her mashed potatoes, said Myra, so I thought I would give it a try and found it was very good. Evaporated milk is, I think, an underappreciated food item, and you can use it in place of milk or cream. Traditional cooks here use it in chowder, and I have always used it in pumpkin pies. You can even acquire a low-fat evaporated milk, and you’ll find you still get a creamier result than if you use plain low-fat milk.
Curry powder in nearly anything: Here is a good idea out of the past. A historic cookbook I was looking at from 1824, Mary Randolph’s “The Virginia Housewife,” contains several recipes that called for a spoonful of curry powder, even if the dish wasn’t a curry. I thought it sounded like a good idea, so I have added a bit of curry powder — anything from a few shakes to a tablespoon — to all kinds of dishes: almost any kind of gravy, chicken-based soups, egg dishes, vegetable casseroles, and potato or pasta salads. It deepens the flavor just a nice little bit.
Send queries or answers to Sandy Oliver, 1061 Main Road, Islesboro 04848. E-mail: tastebuds@prexar.com. For recipes, tell us where they came from. List ingredients, specify number of servings and do not abbreviate measurements. Include name, address and daytime phone number.
