What I've Been Cooking

I've been really busy with homeschooling, so I haven't had nearly as much time for blogging as I would like.  I'd like to spend so time getting caught up.  Here's a rundown of what I've been cooking of late in the native vein.  

First up a really easy and delicious way to make native salmon cakes.  This recipe comes from The Art Of American Indian Cooking by Jean Anderson and Yeffee Kimbal.  I've served these with two sides this week:  Southern Cheese Grits and Slaw.

Native Northwest Style Salmon Cakes

Two cans of Salmon, flaked with can liquid

4 Juniper Berries*, crushed well in mortar and pestle

1/3 cup plain cornmeal

2 eggs, beaten

1/3 cup whole milk or powdered milk whisked with 1/3 cup water

Native oil or other for greasing tins

Two muffin tins or individual cupcake molds

Simply mix all ingredients together well.  Grease the tins and in spoon mixture and bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.  These may be served hot or cold.

*Truly edible juniper berries grow wild in the northwest and usually come from the Juniperus communis subspecies depressa.  They were, and still are, used as both a food and as a medicine.  They commonly are found in salmon recipes and can be easily ordered on-line.  I got mine from a vendor selling on Amazon.

Basic Cheese Grits

There is really nothing to making grits, or cheese grits for that matter.  They are a real southern comfort food and solidly have their origins in Native America.  Here in the south you simply cannot have a fish fry without cheese grits!!  But they do go well with other fish dishes as well.  They are also sometimes served at breakfast.

Grits

Water

Pinch Salt

Grated Cheese

Measure out however much grits that you will need according to package directions and add the appropriate amount of water, add only a pinch of the salt though (you can always tweak this later).  Allow to fully cook (it will depend on what type of grits you have as to how long that will take, mostly people use the instant type these days), add more water as needed, don't let them become too thick, as cheese is a natural thickener.  Add in at least 1 cup of shredded cheese, add more if you are making a large batch.  Traditionally the orange cheddar is used in the south, but I really like the white cheddar; but really, used what you like!  Smoked cheese makes an interesting dish!  I will also admit to using pregrated cheese from time to time as well.  It's just convenient.

For the slaw, a truly native take on it is made with jicama and cabbage.  Food writer Dale Carson (Abenaki) who is the food editor for the online Native American newspaper Indian Country Today.  The recipe that I used was hers published in the above newspaper and can be found here.  I like to increase the amount of cilantro, I also used bagged slaw mixed and added extra carrot, you can tweak it any way that you like.  The dressing is also good for a mixed green salad as well.  I haven't tried the Celery Root Slaw yet, but it looks good.  If you don't want to got the trouble of making a slaw from scratch, just buy a bag of slaw and some slaw dressing a mix it up.  Coleslaw is another southern must have for a fish fry.

Low Carb Turkey Taco Wrap

This is not a strict low carb house, but every once and a while I like to try out low carb recipes in the Native American vein so that I can properly post them with relevant information for people who are on a low carb diet and still want something New World.  They are made the way I really like my homemade soft taco, with the shell being lightly fried.  I ran across these in the Good Cook Brochure.  It is a completely modern recipe, and does use prepared taco seasoning, but you could just as easily use chili powder or pure ground chile with some salt.  The recipe is still in native vein and made with the native turkey, and really it beats fast food!

1 tbsp. olive oil (it doesn't need to be the expensive stuff)+ Extra

1 lb. turkey cutlets

Taco seasoning

1/2 cup sour cream

1/4 cup red onion, sliced

1/2 cup cilantro, roughly chopped

4 Low carb tortillas (these days they come in flavors, I used sun dried tomato shells)

1/2 bell pepper (any color), cut into strips

Fresh or jarred salsa (sugar free)

1.  Season the cutlets with the taco seasoning.  Heat 1 tbsp. of oil in a large skillet.  Add the turkey and cook two minutes per side.  Transfer to a carving board.

2.  Add the onions, cilantro,  and sour cream to the skillet.  Cook 1 minute.  While this is cooking, slice the turkey into strips and add to the pan (be sure to add any juice from the cutlets as well).  Cook the mixture over low while to tend to the tortillas.

3.  Meanwhile heat more olive oil in another skillet, when it is hot, fry the tortillas one at a time as you prepare the tacos.  

4.  To assemble the tacos, place some of the turkey mixture in the middle of the fried tortilla.  Add some of the fresh bell pepper strips and top with salsa.  I just used some homemade Salsa Fresca and blended it (consisting of peeled tomato (canned tomatoes work great for this!), white onion, seeded jalapeno, cold water and salt).  Wrap up the mixture like a package, cut in half and serve with extra salsa.

Variations:

Of course you can vary this in any way that you like.  Change the meat, add fresh slices of avocado, sliced radish and/or Jicama slices.  

Use a low carb whole wheat tortilla

If you are not worried about carbs, tuck the filling into corn or regular flour tortillas.

If you like spicy, replace all or part of the bell pepper with slices or seeded jalapeno or add pickled jalapenos.

Let the filling cool, then lay on a bed of shredded lettuce, top with the bell peppers, sliced black olives and some slice fresh tomato.  Nice lunch idea.

Easy Jicama With Chili

Traditional Jicama With Chili

This is as easy as it gets; but it is also very traditional and very old!  It pairs great with tequila and mezcal and goes well with mixed drinks made with either. This goes all the way back to pulque drinks times!

1/2 to 1 Jicama, peeled

Powdered Chili of choice (most often this is the chile tepin, a little wild, some call "vicious" chili that is hotter than cayenne, but cayenne will do fine, or a powdered milder chili works too, even modern powdered green jalapeno is nice.)

Lime wedge (optional)

Cut the jicama in half, cut into slice, sprinkle with the powdered chili, serve with lime wedge for an appetizer, palate cleanser or snack with drinks.

Variations:

Cut the jicama into sticks or into various shapes.  Cookie cutters work well for this.

Serve with chopped fresh chiles or pickled chiles

These make a great addition to barbecues and picnic if they are put on skewers and dressed.

Serve dressed this way as dippers for salsas, guacamole or taco dips.

Dress with a prepared Chili/Lime condiment like Tajin, Pueblo Chili con Limon or Valentina brands.

Dress with the pure chili and sprinkle on some Lime Salt.

Harvest Ingredient 12: The Jicama

Up until very recently this versatile Mexican tuber was not well known outside of it's native range, except in Asia, where it has been popular for centuries, owing to it's early introduction there by way of the Philippines, again because of those Spanish galleons out of Acapulco.  In many Asian countries, along with a few other New World plants in the Pachyrhizus family, is often called a "Yam Bean."

 Though in the Philippines it is still mostly referred to as "Jicama," another Spanish corruption of a Nahuatl word Xicamatl (pronounced Shee-cah-mat(l), or the indigenous Tagalog corruption of that word singkamas.  It is also sometimes called a "Mexican turnip." In fact, the largest jicama ever to be harvested was said to have been grown in the Philippines 2010, it apparently weighed in at 23 kilos.

The reason for the name "yam bean," is because all of the plants in the family not only produce edible tubers of various sizes that are most prized for food, the so-called "yam" part of the plant.  They also produce beans in papery looking pods, that are, like the rest of the plant save the tuber, is very poisonous.  This classifies the plant as a member of the legume family....weirdly like peanuts!

In recent years Jicama has become much more well known and much easier to find in the everyday supermarket produce scene.  They keep well at room temperature and thus, easily transported.  So more and more markets have them in climates where they can't be grown outside of green houses.  Now debating the merits, or mostly lack there of, of long range food transport, the fact is that most Americans now at least know what this vegetable looks like, even if they don't know what it is or what to do with it because of such transport.  Having said all of that, let me also say:  they are super easy to grow at home!

Like sunroot (aka sunchokes), with whom they are sometimes prepared, jicamas get their uncharacteristically sweet flavor from inulin, which makes them another great food for people with diabetes.  As with sunroot, this compound is not a "net neutral" food when it comes to blood sugar levels, it has been proven to actually aid in naturally lowering blood sugar levels.  It is also low in calories, which makes it an ideal "diet" food, since it does have such a sweet taste and it filling.  Nutritionally, it is extremely high in dietary fiber that is easily pushed through the digestive system.  They have trace amounts of protein and lipids.  It should be noted, that Inulin is prebiotic, meaning that it can't be digested, and just like in sunroot, this can cause some people to have gastric gaseous build up until they get used to consuming the tuber.  This is not nearly as pronounced as it is in sunroot, and only the most sensitive people have this when consuming jicama.

As to what to do with them, well an extremely ancient way to consume them is raw with or without powdered chile and/or salt.  In post-contact times, a squeeze of lime has been added.  In Mexico, a very popular lime/chile spice mixture called tajin, which is named, in Tontonac, for the ancient "pyramid" (Teocalli in Nahuatl) complex in their native Veracruz they call El Tajin.  It is often also put into salad.  The Yucatec (a Maya people of southern Mexico) are fond of tossing it with oranges and cilantro and dressed with red hot chili pequin, a mixture they sometimes call "Pico de Gallo" or rooster's beak in Spanish (not to be confused with the popular national salsa of the same name).  In mercados, they are sold on sticks with seasonings for snacks.  Some salads pair them up with Sunroot.  They are also popular vegetable dippers (crudites), alone or with other vegetables.  Grated they make a great slaw.  In the Philippines they are popular in the fresh vegetarian native Lumpiang (Lumpia).

Cooked it goes into mashes, soups, sautés and stir-frys.  Filipinos are fond of serving it with the native Bagoong--as shrimp paste.  In southeast Asia it goes into various types of spring rolls and egg rolls, both fresh and fried.  They can be part of a tempura platter, and, like regular turnips, they seem like they are ideally suited to carving.  In Muslim area, they used as a stuffing for wheat flour rolls during Ramadan.   It has also become popular to serve it with hummus.  I north American native circles, Jicama has become a popular native food, even showing up in various incarnations at Powwow food vendor stalls.  For example, they make an interesting additions to Indian Taco toppings.