urbanfoodie

*20-something, filipina american urbanite
(Minneapolis via NYC, SF, & the Chicagoland area)
*creator, consumer, and all-around enthusiast of food
Nov 4

Moussaka Polenta

moussaka-polenta

Perhaps you read my last post and are thinking that you may be gluten-intolerant. The first reaction is usually, “But, but…I love [insert glutenous food]!” Well, it’s like life. You can’t have it all, and the more you focus on your limitations and what you can’t have, the more miserable you are likely to be. (Still working on practicing what I preach*cough*).

There are a lot of foods out there that are naturally gluten free, and the market continues to meet the increasing demand for gluten-free menus and products. (Thanks to Patrick for his comment pointing out the joys of gluten-free eating at Brasa). Fruits, vegetables, legumes, and tubers are GF. (Hallelujah, potatoes are safe!) When I cook at home, it’s quite easy to be GF, with the main concern for meal planning involving starches. The following grains are all naturally gluten-free and serve as filling starch substitutes:

  • Amaranth
  • Buckwheat (really, the name is misleading)
  • Corn
  • Millet
  • Quinoa
  • Rice (phew!)
  • Sorghum
  • Teff (note: injera is often made with a blend of teff and wheat flour)
  • Wild Rice
  • Oats, if they’re labeled gluten-free. Many oats are cross-contaminated with wheat due to crop rotation and processing.

This is a recipe I made recently one Sunday night in preparation of the rest of the week (plus a few for the freezer that I pulled out when I was too tired to cook). In reality, it was a way for me to salvage a pan of tasteless polenta pizza I experimented with a few days before and use up some eggplants and peppers from the market. The inspiration is a cross between the Turkish imam bayildi (braised eggplant stuffed with tomatoes, garlic, onion) and moussaka (I posted about a veggie version of a while back). Both dishes often have ground meat, but I found it filling from the polenta and the eggplant (plus, good meat is expensive, yo).

Moussaka Polenta

  • Polenta (you can use store bought or make the polenta yourself from cornmeal)
  • 2-3 large eggplants, sliced in 1/2 in. rounds
  • 1 28-oz. can of crushed tomatoes
  • Olive oil for sauteeing
  • 1 large onion, chopped
  • 2-4 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 c. carrots, chopped
  • 1 c. green pepper, chopped
  • 1 c. celery, chopped
  • 1 tsp. oregano
  • Salt, pepper
  • Optional: 1/2-1 c. cream cheese, soy cream cheese, or ricotta
  • 1 c. grated Parmesan, or another cheese that melts well and is a little salty

1. Preheat oven to 425F. Salt the eggplant slices, and let sit for at least 30 minutes to draw out water and accompanying bitterness. It looks like this. Use paper towel or clean cloth towels to pat the eggplant dry.

2. Cook the sauce. In olive oil, saute onions, garlic, then the celery, carrots, and green pepper with oregano, salt, and pepper. Add crushed tomatoes. Simmer until vegetables are tender and the sauce slightly reduced. Taste, adjust seasoning to taste.

3. Assemble. Layer 1/2 in slices of polenta at the bottom of a lightly greased 13X9X2 or larger baking dish (you might need two dishes, like I did). Pour a thin layer of tomato sauce. If you want to add some creaminess, you can dab on some cream cheese or ricotta at this point (usually, moussaka has a bechamel sauce). I used soy cream cheese that I had left over from a previous experiment. Then layer on the eggplant slices. More tomato sauce over the entire thing. Sprinkle cheese.

4. Bake for about 45 minutes-1 hour, making sure that the sauce is heated through, the eggplant tender, and the cheese is melted. I covered mine with foil. You may want to place a baking sheet under the dish you use, in case the sauce boils over. Let cool before serving. This is also good with extra rice.

moussaka-polenta


cooking | recipes | gluten-free | vegetarian | eggplant | Comments (View)
Oct 17
Filipino from the Market: Pinakbet Pinakbet (also called pakbet, originating from the word pinakkebet which means “shriveled” in the Ilocano dialect) is one of the rare dishes that I grew up with that highlights veggies (and coincidentally doesn’t give me food coma). This was always one of my favorite dishes, a melange of bright vegetables cooked with shrimp and eaten with rice and pungent bagoong (fermented shrimp fry). My dad always liked his veggies to be on the soft side, so it was a surprise for me to learn that the “authentic” Ilocano preparation keeps the veggies crisp. I read about the dish’s origins and found a more traditional preparation in the  Filipino cookbook, Memories of Philippine Kitchens by Amy Besa and Romy Dorotan (chefs/owners of the former SoHo restaurant, Cendrillon, and the forthcoming Purple Yam in Brooklyn). If you are interested at all in Filipino cooking, I highly recommend this for pure educational value. Besa and Dorotan travelled to all the major provinces of the archipelago, highlighting local dishes, ingredients, and techniques. I digress. Well, all throughout September, I saw the major ingredients of pinakbet at the farmer’s market: tomatoes, japanese eggplant, okra, chinese long beans, bittermelon, and squash. I finally got around to making it a couple of weeks ago and did a pretty good job of a completely Market-centric dish, save for the shrimp (I know, so not ethicurean…).  My freestyle pinakbet was another Mom-by-phone consultation, with some information from the Memories recipe. Mom always includes fried pork belly, but I didn’t have time to go get some from another store, boil it, and then fry. Bittermelon is also usually included, but I just cannot get myself to like it. Believe me, I’ve tried. Pinakbet 3 Japanese eggplant, sliced about 1.5 inch thick on a diagonal 1/2 lb. okra, ends trimmed 1 bunch chinese long beans, cut in 2 inch pieces 3 tomatoes, roughly chopped (one time I made this, I actually tossed in the tomato skins and seeds leftover from my tomato sauce milling) 1 onion, sliced 2-3 garlic cloves, chopped 1 small squash (try to find calabaza - I used acorn, which was fine but not nearly as tasty), peeled and cut up in 1.5 inch pieces 1 lb. whole shrimp bagoong (in the Cendrillon recipe, the whole jar is cooked w/ the veggies. In my house, it was used as a condiment) Peel the shrimp, and save the peel and heads (so much flavor in the heads! my favorite!). Boil the peel and heads in some water to make a broth that you can use to flavor the pinakbet. In a large pot or wok, saute the garlic, then onions, and then shrimp. To avoid overcooking, you can remove the shrimp and add them in later (alternatively, cook the shrimp after the veggies). Saute tomatoes until they are broken down. Season with salt. Layer the rest of the veggies in the pot, starting with the squash, then okra, eggplant, beans. Pour some of the shrimp broth into the pot. Cover tightly with lid and let steam for at 15-20 minutes, until vegetables are desired tenderness. Add back / cook shrimp. Serve with rice and bagoong, if you’ve got it. A few times, I ate this with pasta and leftover tomato sauce. Good, though I’m pretty sure my mom would call me weird for the combo.

Filipino from the Market: Pinakbet

Pinakbet (also called pakbet, originating from the word pinakkebet which means “shriveled” in the Ilocano dialect) is one of the rare dishes that I grew up with that highlights veggies (and coincidentally doesn’t give me food coma). This was always one of my favorite dishes, a melange of bright vegetables cooked with shrimp and eaten with rice and pungent bagoong (fermented shrimp fry). My dad always liked his veggies to be on the soft side, so it was a surprise for me to learn that the “authentic” Ilocano preparation keeps the veggies crisp. I read about the dish’s origins and found a more traditional preparation in the  Filipino cookbook, Memories of Philippine Kitchens by Amy Besa and Romy Dorotan (chefs/owners of the former SoHo restaurant, Cendrillon, and the forthcoming Purple Yam in Brooklyn). If you are interested at all in Filipino cooking, I highly recommend this for pure educational value. Besa and Dorotan travelled to all the major provinces of the archipelago, highlighting local dishes, ingredients, and techniques.

I digress. Well, all throughout September, I saw the major ingredients of pinakbet at the farmer’s market: tomatoes, japanese eggplant, okra, chinese long beans, bittermelon, and squash. I finally got around to making it a couple of weeks ago and did a pretty good job of a completely Market-centric dish, save for the shrimp (I know, so not ethicurean…).  My freestyle pinakbet was another Mom-by-phone consultation, with some information from the Memories recipe. Mom always includes fried pork belly, but I didn’t have time to go get some from another store, boil it, and then fry. Bittermelon is also usually included, but I just cannot get myself to like it. Believe me, I’ve tried.

Pinakbet

  • 3 Japanese eggplant, sliced about 1.5 inch thick on a diagonal
  • 1/2 lb. okra, ends trimmed
  • 1 bunch chinese long beans, cut in 2 inch pieces
  • 3 tomatoes, roughly chopped (one time I made this, I actually tossed in the tomato skins and seeds leftover from my tomato sauce milling)
  • 1 onion, sliced
  • 2-3 garlic cloves, chopped
  • 1 small squash (try to find calabaza - I used acorn, which was fine but not nearly as tasty), peeled and cut up in 1.5 inch pieces
  • 1 lb. whole shrimp
  • bagoong (in the Cendrillon recipe, the whole jar is cooked w/ the veggies. In my house, it was used as a condiment)

Peel the shrimp, and save the peel and heads (so much flavor in the heads! my favorite!). Boil the peel and heads in some water to make a broth that you can use to flavor the pinakbet. In a large pot or wok, saute the garlic, then onions, and then shrimp. To avoid overcooking, you can remove the shrimp and add them in later (alternatively, cook the shrimp after the veggies). Saute tomatoes until they are broken down. Season with salt. Layer the rest of the veggies in the pot, starting with the squash, then okra, eggplant, beans. Pour some of the shrimp broth into the pot. Cover tightly with lid and let steam for at 15-20 minutes, until vegetables are desired tenderness. Add back / cook shrimp.

Serve with rice and bagoong, if you’ve got it. A few times, I ate this with pasta and leftover tomato sauce. Good, though I’m pretty sure my mom would call me weird for the combo.

Filipino | cooking | eggplant | okra | pinakbet | shrimp | squash | cookbooks | Comments (View)
May 29

veggie moussaka

as some of you know, my brother is a vegetarian. in a filipino household, that is like the equivalent of saying that you come from the planet mars. my parents, thus, put me in charge of the vegetarian offerings at W’s big graduation party (they were busy cooking for the rest of the 80+ visitors).

inspired by our wonderful dinner at istanbul the week before, my brother asked if i could make some veggie moussaka, essentially a greek eggplant lasagna that incorporates a bit of french with a rich bechamel sauce. so i found this recipe on epicurious and set forth on the epic journey that is making moussaka. wow, this was labor-intensive. here are the major steps and the final product at the end:

1. Draw out moisture from eggplant.

after reading many a google hit, it seems the consensus is that salting the eggplant and letting it sit (about 30 minutes) to draw out the water is a must. it helps with the cooking so that can properly roast, as well as gets rid of the bitterness. check out all that water!

moussaka

2. Cook filling.

the epicurious recipe calls for onion, garlic, carrots, celery, portobello, and canned crushed tomato. i added in some fresh oregano left from the orzo salad. i also used canned whole tomatoes and crushed them by hand to make it chunkier. i’m sure it would’ve been fine w/ the crushed and saved a heck of a lot of time. oh, and the cinnamon in the sauce is a really interesting note!

 moussaka filling

3. Make bechamel sauce.

no pictures of this step, but i did run into a bit of a snag which was not a huge deal. since i was whisking the melted butter, flour, cheese, and milk mixture, parts were not reached on the curved sides of the pan. that means that some got burned on the bottom. oops. no big deal though, i just didn’t scrape too hard and tried to fish out the brown bits.

also, you are going to be tempering egg yolks with the hot milk mix, which might be tricky for the novice cook….two VERY important tips (screw up either of these, and you will end up with scrambled eggs):

1) make sure that you are adding the milk to the eggs and not vice versa, and
2) whisk in the milk mixture into the eggs VERY SLOWLY.

4. Layer.

start with eggplant, then the tomato sauce, then a layer of grated/cheese. the recipe asks for parmesean. i used parm-reggiano b/c that’s what we had. (yes there is a difference but that’s for another blog). repeat eggplant and tomato sauce. top with bechamel and then a sprinkling of cheese. i added some snips of flat italian parsley for presentation. 

moussaka before baking 

5. Bake.

if baking it right away, do it for 40 min. but this can be made up to a day ahead of time and chilled. in that case, it’ll take a bit longer (about 50-60 min). bake until golden brown on the top.

6. EAT!

this was delicious and a huge hit among meat eaters and veggies (i.e., a party of one -  my brother) alike. very hearty! i’d definitely make this again, but make sure that you are planning with enough time because, as you can see, it is quite the endeavor. but a tasty one.

veggie moussaka 


W grad party | cooking | eggplant | vegetarian | Comments (View)
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