Cooking tips, tricks, and advice from professional kitchens
Posts tagged Garlic
Fresh, home made chili powder
Jan 19th
Chili powder, commonly found in the grocery store, often isn’t simply powdered chilies. This Tex-Mex seasoning is a blend of dried ground chilies, garlic powder, onion powder, powdered cumin and coriander seed, oregano, allspice, and salt. As with most spice blends there are countless variations on chili powder.
I am guilty of buying this premade, but only because I go through so much of it. In a pinch, chili powder can be easily made at home, and it will be more aromatic and flavorful than the blends on grocery store shelves. If you can get your hands on powdered chilies, you can make a wonderful, smoky and rich spice mix. If not, simply use cayenne and paprika.
Recipe for home made chili powder. Yield about 1 cup (250ml):
| 4 tbsp / 60ml | Ancho chili powder |
| 2 tbsp / 30ml | Chipotle chili powder |
| 2 tbsp / 30ml | Paprika |
| 2 tbsp / 30ml | Ground cumin seed |
| 2 tbsp / 30ml | Onion powder |
| 2 tsp / 10ml | Ground coriander seed |
| 1 tbsp / 15ml | Mexican oregano |
| 1 tbsp / 15ml | Garlic powder |
| 1 tsp / 5ml | Ground allspice |
| 1/2 tsp / 2.5ml | Ground cloves |
Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)
- Related posts on chili powder
- Tex-Mex BBQ Beef Ribs | Lovely Recipe
- Steak with Chile Spice Rub | Lovely Recipe
- Spicy Rib Roast with Black Bean Salsa | Lovely Recipe
Spaghetti squash and vegetable ragout, confit garlic and roast tomatoes
Jan 18th
It’s cold, it’s rainy, and I’m tired. I also have virtually no groceries in the house. Now I need to be a little creative.
Here’s what’s in the fridge:
Spaghetti Squash
Zucchini
Carrots
Garlic
Artichokes
Tomato sauce
Garlic Mushrooms
Caramelized onions
Grape Tomatoes
These grape tomatoes are grim looking. They’re wrinkled and dry, so what better way to use up than roasting. Preheat your oven to 325F, put the tomatoes on a baking sheet. Drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper. Roast for 30-45 minutes or until somewhat dry.
Grape tomatoes drizzled in olive oil and seasoned. Ready for roasting.
Cut the ends off the squash – carefully. Cut it lengthwise, and scoop out the seeds and pulp. Place it on a microwave safe plate cut side down, and microwave on high for 7 minutes. Remove when done, let cool, and with a fork, scoop out the strands of squash.
Place a few garlic cloves and olive oil into a small pan or pot. Cover, or nearly cover the garlic with oil. Heat over medium low heat for about 15 minutes. Do not let burn. Remove when garlic cloves are soft and golden brown.
Shread carrots and zucchini, or cut into spaghetti like strips with a mandoline.
Cooked spaghetti squash, julienne zucchini and carrot
Heat your tomato sauce in a pan, add carrots and simmer briefly. Add zucchini after about 2 minutes. Simmer 30 seconds, and add precooked mushrooms, roasted garlic.
Heat up a little butter in a pan, toss in the squash, season. Sautee to reheat. Add your ragout. Garnish with basil, confit garlic, roast tomatoes, and garlic oil.
Spaghetti squash and vegetable ragout, confit garlic and roast tomatoes
Related Blogs
Make your own fresh Cajun seasoning and rub
Jan 4th
Cajun seasoning can be purchased in basically any grocery store or supermarket these days, but if you have a well stocked spice cupboard there is no reason to buy a prepackaged mix. Using freshly ground mustard seeds, freshly ground oregano, thyme, and cumin seed along with paprika and cayenne that isn’t stale will give you a much more fragrant blend than what’s been sitting on store shelves for months.
There are literally limitless variations on the standard Cajun spice blend, with ingredients added and omitted, and combined in various ratios. Here is a simple recipe that can be tweaked to your tastes:
| 3 Tbsp / 45ml | Paprika |
| 2 Tbsp / 30ml | Salt |
| 1 tsp / 5ml | Mustard seed |
| 1 tsp / 5ml | Onion powder |
| 1 tsp / 5ml | Garlic powder |
| 1 tsp / 5ml | Cayenne pepper |
| 1 tsp / 5ml | Ground black pepper |
| 1 tsp / 5ml | Thyme |
| 1 tsp / 5ml | Oregano |
If you’re using this recipe as a dry rub, add 1 Tbsp brown sugar. As a marinade, add 2-3 tablespoons vegetable oil and substitute onion powder and garlic powder for fresh onion and garlic. Use 3 tablespoons minced onion.
For the freshest tasting Cajun blend, crush red pepper flakes and substitute for cayenne, crush mustard seed rather than using powdered mustard, and crush dried thyme and oregano rather than using powdered.
Cajun spice mix. From top, clockwise: mustard, paprika, oregano, thyme, black pepper, cayenne, salt, onion powder. Garlic omitted.
My New Favourite Thing: Peeled Garlic Cloves
Dec 5th
Recently I discovered that my favorite veg store in town sells garlic in the way we get it at work; in whole peeled cloves. These are well priced and seem to, for some reason, keep better than all the other garlic I’ve ever bought before. In some shops, garlic cloves can be purchased IQF (individually quick frozen), but freezing isn’t necessary. The garlic will keep for several weeks in the refrigerator. If you’re worried about the odor, don’t be. Since the garlic still has the thin outer membrane intact, there is absolutely no smell at all.
While you’ve saved the time it takes to peel a clove, which is significant, you still have to chop it. For minced garlic, simply grate the cloves on a Microplane Grater/Zester.
The whole cloves are also perfect for tossing in oil and salt and roasting.
Delicious honey garlic pork ribs
Mar 30th
Pork is some of the cheapest meat on the market right now, and pork ribs are among the cheapest cuts of pork. A side of pork ribs, also called spare ribs, is easy and not at all labor intensive to cook, either.
You may come across a cut called “side ribs” as well. The only difference is that side ribs often lack the belly portion and are just an 11-13 rib strip.
Being an apartment dweller, I won’t touch on the much loved barbecue ribs – but here’s a simple way to make some delicious honey garlic ribs.
As usual, this recipe is more about the method rather than quantities of ingredients, so add more or less of whatever you please. I’d recommend going light on the star anise though.
Ingredients:
A white onion or two, coarsely chopped [or quartered]
2 star anise
4 cloves garlic, smashed
for every
2 strips of spare ribs or 4 strips of side ribs
Scale as necessary
Add the pork ribs, onion, star anise, and garlic to a pot and cover with cold water. Bring the water to a low simmer and skim the top as necessary. Simmer but do not boil the ribs until the meat is tender – this will probably take 1 to 1 1/2 hours. Boiling the ribs will cause the meat to toughen and become stringy rather than tender with that melt-in-your-mouth quality. The ribs will be infused with the flavour of the garlic and onion, and the star anise will enhance the pork flavour.
Remove the ribs and let them cool until you can cut them into portions, or leave them whole, whatever you choose.
For the sauce, eyeball it to suit your tastes. Mince some garlic into 2-3mm size pieces and mix with some honey, a dash of soy sauce, and a little sambal olek. The large size of the garlic pieces means that they’re more likely to caramelize rather than burn.
Preheat your oven to 375F and place your rib portions on a silpat or aluminum foil on a baking sheet. Sauce the ribs [reserve a bit of sauce], and bake until the sauce turns sticky – depending on a lot of things, it could be anywhere between 5 and 15 minutes – flick on that oven light and check, as long as the sauce isn’t burning, you’re good. Take the ribs out when the sauce is sufficiently sticky.
Add more sauce and glaze again if you like, otherwise eat.
