The Kitchen Scientist

Crazy about beetroot

2011-11-28T16:17:00.009Z

Yes. I know. It's becoming obsessive. Beetroot here, beetroot there... Today I'm trying a beetroot bread.

240ml beetroot juice

(I put a whole cooked beetroot in my smoothie machine with its cooking water; you can also put it in the juicer, which is the more orthodox way of doing it)

1 tbsp oil

(I use olive oil for almost everything in the kitchen, including bread)

1 tbsp sugar

1 tsp salt

400gr bread flour

(ordinary hard spring flour is what I use for all my baking)

2 tsp dry yeast

The ingredients are listed in the order in which they are added in the breadmaker. Since I discovered that the bread looks better (raises more) with the "wholewheat" programme, I seldom use the "normal" programme anymore.

Beetroot dough does look crazy, doesn't it? The above picture was taken after the first rise.

During the second rise (above)...

And just out of the machine. It seems I got it right this time! I'm delighted. They say the proof of the pudding is in the eating... See how it looks inside? Not pink throughout, but quite interesting nonetheless. Crazy ideas are bubbling up in my head! So many interesting things we could do with pink bread...

Cake for 50 - Debriefing

2011-11-28T15:15:00.008Z

The least I can say is: baking for 50 when you are not quite equipped for it is a time-consuming, frustrating process. However, on the bright side, the 10 cakes I baked (5 cream coloured, 5 moringa green coloured) were layered, alternating green and cream, and a delicious jam to keep the slices together and add a little pink (strawberry) colour and texture (the strawberries were left whole).

One may question the choice of strawberry jam instead of, say, pineapple, mango, or any other more tropical fruit. I do agree, as a (usually) purist myself. However, this was intended for an occasion where 100% of the attendants were locals and, as much as mango or pineapple are "exotic" fruits for a European palate, strawberry is, indeed, rare, exotic and much appreciated by people here. We aim to please... and it makes a lot of sense too!

People enjoyed the cake, the lady of the house kept some for herself for a little post-excitement and crowd indulgence, and that's what baking is all about. Mission accomplished.

Cake for 50

2011-11-13T17:21:00.005Z

Last time I posted on my blog I challenged myself to come up with one recipe a week made with purely local ingredients.

While I still love the challenge, I learned in the meantime that the naming ceremony for my namesake will be held next Saturday, 3 weeks before the previously appointed date. The young mother asked me to bring cake for about 50 persons...

This is yet another challenge, because 50 is quite a lot, and I'll have to carry the result over about 6 hours of a very bumpy, pot-holey and warm to hot ride. This takes care of any fantasy of a layer cake or anything with a creamy, buttery filling.

My first idea was something still somewhat layered, rounds of cake of different colours, cut with a cookie-cutter and held together with jam. I could have a pink (beet) layer, a green (moringa leaf) layer, a cream (grated lime zest?) layer, and possibly a reddish brown (cocoa + beet, as in red velvet cakes, or just cocoa brown). After testing the cookie-cutters, the size proved too small, and it generated a frustratingly vast quantity of waste.

The second idea is to go back to the Battenberg cake idea, and choose only 2 colours, or make an 'harlequin' 4-colour cake, or have several 2-tone Battenberg-style cakes.

A third idea, which would be a variation of the first two, would be to cut the cakes horizontally and reconstruct them with jam, alternating as many colours as I see fit.

I started with the basic recipe, and found in one of my books something promisingly called "week-end cake". The explanation given for this name was that it can be baked ahead of time, is easy to carry and an ideal choice for a week-end or picnic event. It does look exactly like what I need, doesn't it?

60 gr butter

180 gr flour

1 tsp baking powder

3 eggs

zest of 3 lemons

230g sugar

100 ml double cream

1 1/2 tsp rum

100 gr icing sugar

a few drops of lemon juice

I used lime instead of lemon, evaporated milk instead of cream, no rum, and didn't bother with the icing, since it was just a trial run. It did come out quite nicely, both appearance and taste are appealing, and I'll be able to start baking on Wednesday or Thursday, to travel with the whole lot on Friday.

It looks like I have my challenge for the week, even though it doesn't look exactly like what I was getting myself prepared for...

Drinking our way to development?

2011-11-10T22:47:00.005Z

Today my younger sister drew my attention to a couple of articles that left both of us interested, yet doubtful. Both had to do with a staple Africans know well: cassava. And, also, a beverage that seems to be quite sought after: beer.

From staple food to beer: SABMiller launches cassava lager tells us, on a website titled "How we made it in Africa (Insight into business in Africa)", how cassava can and will replace 70% of the (imported) barley in the production of Impala, a new Mozambican beer. The Guardian too, in Cassava beer debuts as commercial brew in African bars, extols the economic virtues of a beer that will cost only 75% of the price of other lagers for the African thirsty. The health benefits too are praised: buy your cassava beer instead of brewing it yourself, as industrial production is less harmful to your health; and, the G*** content will be reduced too. To this day, it's not clear to me why, all of a sudden, or so it seems, gluten has become bad language and even people with no known history of allergy to it or caeliac disease are wary of consuming it.

The Guardian also gives us the good news of how the youngest state in the world, South Soudan, will develop. After years of fleeing war and finding refuge in camps, South Soudanese small farmers are introduced to the crop -and drink- of the future: cassava, and its beer.

Although it is undoubtedly good news that industries using a well-known locally-grown crop are now interested in moving to very poor African countries and work hand in hand with smallholders, the news leaves a somewhat sour aftertaste. Call me ungrateful, but is an alcoholic beverage the best way out of poverty and towards development that could be found for Mozambique, South Soudan, or other African countries?

This piece of news reminded me of some research I'd done a couple of years back on an all-purpose, gluten-free flour using only locally grown ingredients. The result was quite convincing, in terms of appearance, texture, and taste. The recipe was:

6 volumes of rice flour

2 volumes of maize (corn) starch

1 volume of tapioca (cassava) flour

I tried it with both a sweet and a savoury cake. Both were equally good. I haven't tried a bread yet, but will do so very soon, and will report on my findings here. I remember baking a millet bread, using 25% of millet flour to 75% of wheat flour, that was quite tasty. I think a good project would be to challenge myself to post one recipe a week using locally grown ingredients only.

I'm sure there are a lot of other uses that can be made of cassava or other local staples, without the intoxicating effects enthusiastically promoted by SABMiller et al.

Beetroot saucepan cake

2011-11-08T18:21:00.003Z

My previous attempt at a pink cake didn't quite turn out the way I was hoping, so I decided to give it another try today.

Remember Ms. Clarkson of The Old Foodie.com fame? Her saucepan cake recipes gave me an idea: what if I replaced the water in her recipes with the very deep pink water remaining after cooking my beetroots? And what if, instead of grating the said beetroots, I mashed them thoroughly?

Here is my beetroot saucepan cake recipe:

2 oz (60 gr) lard (I used margarine)

2/3 cup sugar

1 cup water (remaining from boiling beetroots)

2 medium boiled beetroots

1 lb flour

2 tsp baking powder

I used my smoothie machine to thoroughly blend the cooked and peeled beetroots in their cooking water. The result was stunning.

Then, in a saucepan, I poured the beetroot smoothie, the lard and sugar, brought it to a boil until all the ingredients had dissolved, and let cool a bit. (I'm not sure I let it cool enough, I was so eager to see what would happen next!) By then, the texture was similar to that of a fruit jelly.

In a large bowl, I measured the flour and baking powder, then poured the pink mixture and worked at blending it all. The result had a slightly disconcerting putty texture and feel.

Because I now bake in a big saucepan on the stove top, with a little water in it, I don't pay too much attention to the time, and it's a good thing too, since Ms. Clarkson's recipes don't say anything about it. When I stick a knife in the cake and it comes out clean, I assume the cake is baked...

It does look pink, doesn't it? Slightly orangey-pink, but pink nonetheless.

I think this calls for some sort of layer treatment, with confectioner's custard between the layers...

Express carrot cake

2011-11-08T07:48:00.004Z

200 gr grated courgette (I used carrots)

150 gr caster sugar

1 egg

125 ml vegetable oil

200 gr plain flour

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1/4 tsp baking powder

1 tsp cinnamon

2 tsp lemon zest (or grated ginger)

Granted, the recipe was initially for courgette (zucchini) cake - which is brilliant by the way -, but I didn't have any, so I used carrot instead. Also, I didn't have lemon or lime, so I used ginger.

Now that I've gotten the hang of baking on the stove instead of in the oven, I rather like it better for everyday cakes, and that's what I did again with this recipe.

It turned out to be more than just OK, despite the change of 2 major ingredients. Appearance, texture and taste are just great and the recipe is so simple and cheap (only one egg, and vegetable oil instead of butter) that this cake can definitely make it into anybody's list of "everyday cakes".

I like the idea of vegetable (sweet) cakes. Although I wouldn't fool myself into believing it contributes healthily to the five-a-day target, it could be used to introduce some reluctant kids to vegetables they wouldn't be attracted to otherwise. Try this cake, then why not try the same vegetable in a savoury dish, then as a side dish of its own?

A quick follow-up on beetroot and okara

2011-11-07T20:09:00.004Z

Sunday I tried to bake a cake using up the okara residue from my homemade soymilk and incorporating the much intriguing beetroot. After reading a little on the topic (see my previous post here), I opted for a pudding made of:

Okara (what remained after preparing my soymilk)

same weight of sugar, eggs, fat, flour

1 grated cooked beetroot

baking powder

The mixture looked quite interestingly pink,

but somehow, during the baking, the colour sort of "retracted" to the grated beetroot only and the bulk of the cake looked like any ordinary cake. I guess I will have to mash the beetroot or even mix my ingredients in the food processor next time. I won't be defeated! Someday, I'll produce a 100% naturally pink cake.

Also, I'll have to remember that whatever is baked with okara won't keep long. I left the cake outside overnight and it was already mushy and unedible in the morning. Granted, the weather here is warm, but a lot of my other cakes keep for 2, even 3 days (if they don't disappear in someone's stomach earlier than that, of course!) without problem. I didn't think of putting it in the fridge, and it was my loss...

I still have my nice beetroot leaves growing, though. I gave the vase pride of place in the sitting room and I can tell, from the polite/interested way people look at it, that it confirms to them, if need be, that I'm a little barmy.

Of soymilk and other surprising experiments

2011-11-05T07:08:00.005Z

Do you like soymilk? I don't. Or didn't. Difficult to say.

Like everybody else, I've heard a lot about how cow milk is for calves and not for human adults, and it does seem to make sense, even though slightly against the grain of my intuitions, which rather lean towards "the less diversity you allow in your food, the less tolerant your system will be", both in terms of taste and actual allergies or digestive discomforts.

Still, since I will try everything edible at least once (why, I even had fried locusts in Cameroon; once!), and although I have not forfeited dairy products completely, I decided to acquire a vegetal milk machine. I was rather expecting to use it for oat milk (I love oats!), or various nut or almond concoctions, but felt I should give a fair chance to soymilk too, and after a couple of disappointing experiences (my fault completely, since I hadn't read the user manual properly), found out that what people said about homemade soymilk as opposed to industrial soy beverages, is true: (1) industrial soy drinks bear only a very distant resemblance to the homemade recipe; (2) my own production is much more palatable than whatever I can buy.

The homemade route has other advantages: soybeans are easy to come by and cheap, and take up little space. You can stock them in your pantry until you need them. You need only 90gr of beans to produce 0.8-1.3 litre (1 1/2 - 2 1/4 UK pints) of soymilk. Although you can add ingredients according to taste or whim (sugar, salt, oil, flavouring...), the basic recipe is beans + water. It's easy and fast to prepare. All you have to do is to soak 90gr (3oz) overnight, pour into the soymilk sieve implement of your machine, add water up to somewhere between the 0.8 litre and the 1.3 litre marks, press the "milk" button and wait until the beep tells you it's ready.

With the residue, called okara, I bake a very pleasant bread:

Okara resulting from the above (90gr of dry beans)

1/2 cup of water

Pinch of salt

450g (1lb) plain flour

1 sachet of brewer's yeast

In that order, in my bread machine, using the "wholewheat" programme (the extra kneading will make it lighter).

I just realised I don't have any yeast left, and I now have fresh okara. Fortunately, bloggers come in all shades and hues, and one of them offers a recipe that will fulfil all my needs and dreams for today: Chocolate-Beet Muffins.

What is it with beetroot these days anyway?

Of saucepan cakes, and beetroot

2011-11-04T23:37:00.004Z

Don't you like it when you have an "aha" moment, with two ideas all of a sudden coalescing to create one, potentially brilliant, new project?

Yesterday I marveled at Janet Clarkson's post on saucepan cakes. Today, I got reacquainted with beetroots and wanted to bake a pink/red cake.

Now, my 'problem' with the 3 recipes found on yesterday's installment of The Old Foodie is that (1) I don't have raisins, dried currants, etc. at home; (2) I'm not overly fond of coconut cake; (3) an orange cake seems a bit too tame for me.

The idea: why not use the orange cake recipe, using beetroot juice instead of orange?

To be continued...

How red this beetroot is and other tiny pleasures

2011-11-04T17:10:00.010Z

A few weeks ago, I had to spend a night in Lomé, Togo, on one of these almost-return-trips which usually end up being wall-to-wall frustration. I decided that the only way for me to feel better about it was to have a meal in a French restaurant. I had something I love: sautéed frog legs Provençale (garlic, parsley, peppercorn, breadcrumbs, olive oil). (Yeah right, friends, I can see your disgusted faces, but (1) I'm French, and (2) there is not much I won't eat.)

Back to my topic here, which was not frog legs at all. Actually, it was another French tradition I do enjoy a lot: having a "menu" comprising starters, main course, and dessert. I therefore had a "salade du jour" or "salade du chef" (can't remember which, but basically whatever they could put together with minimum sweat and expense to fit in the lump-sum format of this lunch menu) to begin with, which was grated beetroot, carrot, and white radish. It looked wonderful, the dressing was "just so", and I ate beetroot probably for the first time in my adult life. Oddly enough, it's not that I dislike beetroot. Rather, I never think -thought- about it. I found it so pleasant that I promised myself I would buy beetroot and eat some now and then.

Today, I had an opportunity to buy beetroot. I decided to complement it with carrot and radish, to be eaten in a salad. Easy. Salt, pepper, a dash of balsamic vinegar, a spoonful of olive oil, a crushed clove of garlic, and a crushed mini-onion (which I thought initially was shallots, sold at the roadside close to my hometown, but is rather tiny red onions, about 3/4in to 1in long and slightly narrower). It was as good as the Lomé one, even though my dressing was a little less tame than theirs, and I wondered why I never thought of it before.

An additional tiny and unexpected pleasure was that some of the beetroots had sprouted in the bag, and I could see beautiful dark red and light green leaves developing. I chose one and put it on a glass of water, with only the root immersed. I already know that every morning, I'll check how much it has grown and how beautiful it is. This is exactly the kind of surprises I love: they give a boost to my positive energy, and will boost it again each time I get an opportunity to marvel at the miracle of nature.

Now that I have an almost full bag of beetroots (I only ate 3 today), I find myself with new material with which to try a few recipes. One is something I've been fantasizing about for a very long time: my own version of a Battenberg cake, with one part beetroot coloured, and the other half moringa tinted. Another one may be red velvet cupcakes, which I'm told are the rage in New York these days.

I also read a bit about how good beetroot is for you and came up with interesting nutritional facts, all pointing to an important source of antioxidants. Some claim that it can reduce the risk of cancer, others that it can reduce blood pressure... It makes it all the more interesting to add to your five-a-day palette.

The beautiful leaves, the versatility, taste, and potential health benefits led me to wonder how easy it would be to grow beetroots. In Oz as elsewhere, people seem to consider it extremely easy, fast and rewarding. I'll definitely give it a try!

Have you ever wondered about this beautiful colour? Can it be used to dye fabric? Will it be true to the original colour? Will it last? I found a few (disappointing) answers to these questions online. It seems that like my recent attempt with Hibiscus sabdariffa (roselle, sorrel, karkady, bissap, sobolo,...), a good part of the beauty of these vibrant colours is that they are ephemeral, and must be enjoyed for a fleeting time, like a rainbow that no human effort can capture, tame and put in a display window, a jewellery box or a bank vault, however beautiful, rare and precious it is. This, too, I think is one of the secrets of happiness: the ability and willingness to appreciate what is beautiful, rare, for what it is, and not for any particular usefulness.

Breakfast at House-of-Mine

2011-11-03T06:34:00.005Z

I thought you would want to see how good the easy brioche recipe I posted a couple of days ago actually looks.

Does it look good? It tastes good too!

Janet Clarkson, I love you!

2011-11-03T00:06:00.003Z

Don't worry. I haven't changed my sexual preferences. This wonderful lady writes every day about food as it used to be in the 19th century. Her blog, http://www.theoldfoodie.com, is an ode to the unusual, forgotten, quaint and sometimes, quite often, actually, useful tips for the DIY, daring cook I am.

Today's post was of particular interest to me. As (a little too) often, I started reading it thinking I knew what it was all about and that I wouldn't learn much. As (mercifully) often, I discovered a technique I had never heard about, that should allow me to use less fat, less or no eggs, no milk... It is so much in agreement with the way I think nowadays, not trying to "make do" with less, but rather to find novel, enjoyable ways of consuming less.

It's too late tonight, at 00.15am, to try any of the recipes provided in this post, but I'll definitely try tomorrow (er... later today). I love cakes, but often find them too sweet, too rich, too fat, too...

For the time being, I have another brioche (sweet bread) going in the bread-maker and will enjoy it for breakfast and snacks.

Simple, foolproof brioche

2011-11-01T07:17:00.010Z

150 ml evaporated milk (or thick soymilk)

1 egg

70g butter

60g sugar

350g flour

1 packet yeast

One of my many kitchen gadgets is a bread machine. Actually, I don't quite like the word "gadget", because of the undertones of superfluity and uselessness it often carries. This one (like all the kitchen appliances I own) is really useful if, like me, you are very particular about how bread and sweet breads should be, can't spare the time to do it traditionally and yet enjoy your daily fresh bake.

I bought my first bread machine when I was living in a tiny village in France and considered it an unnecessary waste of time and energy (my energy, plus fuel) to go to town to buy my bread. Then when I moved to Cameroon, it became all the more necessary since we were living in a small town without a proper bakery (well, what a Frenchwoman would call "proper", that is, selling only bread baked the previous night). Since then, I've never looked back. I do buy bread and sweet breads, buns, etc. now and then but always find mine much tastier. And fresher!

Now that I'm preparing to move to the bush, my (now fourth) bread machine will undoubtedly have pride of place in my kitchen. To me, the above recipe is ideal. Of course, I've tried (and liked) other recipes, some of which I'll no doubt post here sometime or other, but this one is just sweet enough, rich enough for me not to be tempted to add butter, jam, or anything. All in all, it's much healthier than other, leaner recipes.

Getting ready to move

2011-10-31T20:43:00.006Z

When? September 2012, if everything goes according to plan (which it seldom does, of course). Why a post on "getting ready" that early? And why in a food-oriented blog?

Well, I decided a year ago to leave the big city behind and go to live in the bush. By "bush", I mean 50+km from the big city, outside of any kind of village or group of houses. This will imply a few adjustments but, considering the way I've lived for the last two years, avoiding unnecessary outings because I don't relish the hustle, bustle and never ending traffic jams, it may not be such a big step to take.

What I'll have to do, mostly, is to get or-ga-ni-sed. I intend shopping once or twice a month only, so I'll have to stock my pantry efficiently, with items that don't spoil in a hurry, don't take too much space, don't generate too much environment-unfriendly waste, and that are versatile. Tall order!

I've recently started using my soymilk machine in earnest. The pluses: soybeans take little space, keep long and are much cheaper than buying cartons of industrially-made soymilk. No waste packaging. Plus, the result tastes better. Drawback: it doesn't keep long in its milk form, 2-3 days at most, meaning that I have to prepare 0.8-litre batches. I tried freezing it: no joy, it separates once thawed. I guess what I now have is some sort of tofu, which could find its way in a vegan cheesecake or something, but mightily difficult to get out of the recycled water bottles I used for it. But then again, I can use them in everything: my breakfast cereals, instead of cream in cooking, and diluted or undiluted, in place of milk or cream, in all my bread and pastries. I've found it preferable to aim at a somewhat thick soymilk (90g soybeans soaked overnight, add 0.8 litre of water, press the "milk" button of the machine; it's ready!) and dilute it with water if need be.

Back with other "getting ready to move" ideas and my own crop of wild or tame recipes soon!

Making do as a fine art

2010-05-11T17:42:00.005Z

What would you do if you hadn't been able to buy wheat flour for a couple of weeks (somehow, the various shops I patronise were all out of stock) and were craving something, anything, homebaked?

It took me a few days to remember that I worked out a recipe for a gluten-free flour using only products available on the (traditional) local market. I couldn't remember whether the dough would rise, so I decided it had to be a cake, not a bread. I didn't feel like eating anything sweet. Why not a savoury cake?

Second problem: although I have numerous recipes, none of them ever satisfied me fully. Thanks to the Internet (can you believe I used to snigger at those of my friends who seemed to use it mostly to exchange recipes?), I found something several apparently knowledgeable contributors commented very positively. Here I was with flour, and a basic recipe.

Now what? Flavour. I didn't have much in that department either, except a few sun dried tomatoes, olives, and onion.

Here is the result:

It's brown, because I used brown rice flour. The colour (outside) is excellent, as you can see from the first slice. The inside is airy, with nicely formed bubbles. The filling was lightly fried to remove the water and did not yield more moist than necessary. The taste... you'll have to take my word for it. I'm quite pleased!

Altogether, a fine attempt. Here are the recipes:

All-purpose gluten-free flour:

6 volumes rice flour

2 volumes maize flour

1 volume cassava flour

Savoury cake dough:

200g (7 oz) flour

3 whole eggs

10 cl (3.5 fl. oz - UK) milk

5 cl (1 3/4 fl. oz - UK) olive oil

baking powder

Filling:

1 whole onion, chopped and lighly fried in 1 tbps olive oil

2 heaped tbps sliced olives in brine, drained

2 sun dried tomatoes, chopped

seasoning to taste

Bake for 40 min, th. 7 (210°C, 410°F)

Enjoy!

Yes, you can diet in style!

2010-05-09T18:18:00.004Z

Whoever said that dieting is boring? It can be fun, with all these new recipes to try and the old ones to revisit to reduce unhealthy ingredients or combinations.

Although I don't think a diet based on salad only is sustainable (it does feel hollow in the stomach after a quite short while, and when you feel hungry, you're more prone to break your diet), I find it refreshing to replace a more filling dish by something raw and fresh.

Tiger Prawn Salad.

10 large cooked and peeled prawns,
4 medium tomatoes, cut in 8,
Crushed garlic and hot pepper (to taste),
Salt, black pepper, fresh coriander leaves
1tsp of olive oil
A dash of balsamic vinegar

It's a feast for the eye and the taste buds (and of course, salad being somehow associated with dieting, we feel virtuous too!)

Note: the better the quality, the more fragrant the oil, and the less you need to use to flavour your dish, so it makes a lot of sense, both economically and in a diet perspective, to buy excellent virgin oil.

Enjoy!

Back in the kitchen

2010-05-09T17:57:00.003Z

Mind you, the reason why I'm back in my kitchen is because I'm on a diet. With unpleasant figures showing persistently on my scale, I've decided to cut down on unhealthy food and be kinder to my body.

The challenges (not all negative!) are:

1. severe food restrictions due to non-weight related concerns;

2. a philosophy of least carbon footprint (yet taking into account considerations like healthiness and diversity);

3. a congenital curiosity for new foods, recipes, and innovations.

So... let's do it! you'll read here my ramblings about food, my tasty test recipes, some blander stuff too when I feel like boring everyone to tears with dietetics...

Feel free to drop a note, unless it's offensive or unnecessarily nasty.

Parboiling red rice

2009-05-15T19:03:00.007Z

I have been reading about food self-sufficiency, rice imports, local production of rice, etc., for quite some time now and think it helped me to better understand some of the reasons why the red rice (Oryza glaberrima) grown and sold here is less appealing to the average Ghanaian.

I am not sure its colour is the only reason, although the fact that we've been made to believe that the whiter, the better, for decades, is not to be discounted too hastily. In terms of nutrition, it may not be right but this kind of subliminal message hammered in our minds for so long won't go away fast or easily. A second reason is the price: local rice is actually more expensive than most imported rices, which are heavily subsidised and/or benefit from industrial techniques and economies of scale unknown in the Ghanaian small farming system.

Another reason is one people who have actually tried to cook it can rightfully argue: red rice is more difficult to cook. It takes forever and then part of it is mushy while other grains remain almost crunchy. Once cold, the mass is a solid, unappealing mortar.

This puzzled me. I very much want to eat local, for all the reasons I've already given, mainly less fuel involved in the transportation from field to mouth, and to support the local economy. However, I have to acknowledge that nobody in my household wants to eat this rice.

After much reading, I realised that maybe the reason why this rice was different when cooked was as much due to the pre-processing as to the different species. All imported rice we can buy is parboiled, meaning "partially boiled", in effect pre-cooked or steamed. Unless I'm mistaken, our local red rice isn't. I therefore decided to try a recipe I found on the Internet, with a cup of rice, which I boiled for 15 min in salted water, then rinsed in cold water and put outside in the sun on a cheesecloth to dry thoroughly. The idea is that I should be able to store it for any length of time, like white commercial rice, before I use it. Then it should cook quite like white rice.

Unpolished red rice after parboiling and drying

I intend to keep it for a week in a plastic jar similar to those I use for rice, fonio, millet, etc., before part 2 of the experiment: the cooking proper.

"To be continued..."

Cashew nut cake

2009-05-09T17:02:00.003Z

Today I took a trotro (public transport) and was stuck in a traffic jam on Spintex road. Traffic jams are a nuisance when you have something urgent to do somewhere, but they have their unexpected advantages too: I had been thinking of buying local rice flour for a few days and the 'go-slow' gave me an opportunity to alight in front of a lady who sold exactly what I was looking for (I walked the rest of the way and reached my destination before the trotro). I have known and used this rice, but not the flour derived from it. Whereas Asian rice (Oryza sativa) is white, the indigenous African one (Oryza glaberrima) is red.

Until today, I had always bought white rice flour, which I suspect might be ground from imported white rice. I used this new flour (slightly off-white, below) to top up my homemade local, gluten-free, all-purpose flour.

Since my aim is to obtain the best taste possible with the least quantity of imported supplies, I decided to use half wheat flour and half local, gluten-free mix. The latter can be used one for one instead of wheat flour, so caeliac disease sufferers and others who would rather avoid gluten can omit the wheat flour altogether.

The tasty touch today will be provided by cashew nut paste, produced, processed and sold locally. The label says "Goody - Creamy and tasty" and it really fulfils all its promises.

My recipes are more and more a mix of my many experiences. Although I always use a scale, my proportions are very personal and I often jot down what worked after the fact.

100 gr. sugar
100 gr. margarine
100 gr. cashew nut paste
3 eggs
75 gr. gluten-free mix + 75 gr. wheat flour (or 150 gr. gluten-free mix)
1 tsp baking powder

My (gas) oven is terribly unreliable. The first few attempts at baking anything were burnt disasters, and I now just use 2 different settings: minimum for muffin-size cakes and a little more, without the flame being visible from the outside, for cake tin or pie pan size cakes. I therefore cannot give precise temperature indications, although I would say by rule of thumb that the first one (minimum) is around 150°C (300°F) and the second one around 180°C (350-360°F).

Generally speaking, I like cakes not to raise too irregularly (if the temperature is too high, the cake will raise to a hump) and not too 'tanned'. Different persons have different opinions on these matters and many others, so it's really up to you to adjust the temperature depending on the result you want.

After about 45 min, here is what my cake looked like:

It was blond and a knife stuck in it came out perfectly clean. These are my only tests. Well, not quite: tasting the cake has its importance too!

Based on my two experiments with the local, gluten-free mix so far, I would say it lends the cakes a slightly crunchy/caramelized crust and taste which I find an improvement over wheat flour. I didn't quite like that the inside was a little crumbly with 100% gluten-free mix, but this inconvenient was not discernible with half and half. I intend to make another experiment soon with 2/3 gluten-free and 1/3 wheat flour, in order to determine how much local flour I can use without organoleptic loss.

Moringa and groundnut stew

2009-05-08T09:10:00.005Z

Several months ago, when I started exploring the various possible uses of Moringa oleifera, I came across an excellent website, which included a very interesting brochure explaining, through simple, easy-to-follow graphical instructions, how to produce Moringa leaf powder. The last page offered a Moringa leaf powder and groundnut stew recipe, which I decided to try. Here is what the result looked like:

I used chicken breast this time, but beef or bushmeat would have been nice too. I intend to try it with smoked fish some day. It was very easy to cook, had a quite novel appearance and a very agreeable taste. It will definitely not be a one-off experiment. I fully intend to include it in my collection of household recipes, with variations.

Kids choc' cake

2009-05-08T08:09:00.005Z

Last night I decided to try and use some locally made chocolate spread to bake a simple cake.

As usual, my basic recipe is that of a pound cake; to allow for the fat and sugar in the spread, I reduced both fat and sugar by a third.

The result is good looking, moist and tasty, maybe a bit too sweet for me, but then I have to confess my sweet tooth has its limits. Overall, it's easy to put together, and I think it would definitely hold its ground on a kids' party table.

My own all-purpose flour

2009-05-07T23:05:00.000Z

I am always surprised when I read about all the various food allergies and sensitivities that seem to be so much on the increase lately. One of these allergens is gluten, which is contained in our plain old wheat flour. I don't have any problem with it and don't think it wise to avoid a potential allergen if one's sensitivity to it is not proven. Quite the contrary: exclusionary diets seem to make people rather more prone to allergies than less. My approach, with this new experience, was a bit different: Since wheat is not grown in Ghana and flour has to be imported, I was interested to find an alternative to wheat flour that would use locally grown produce.

Browsing the Internet, I found on several websites and blogs dedicated to gluten-intolerant persons and caeliac disease sufferers that wheat flour could be replaced by 6 volumes of rice flour, 2 of potato starch and 1 of tapioca flour. It was still not exactly what I was looking or, since potato is not a staple here. Focussing my research on substitutes to potato starch, it appeared that maize (corn) starch was the closest I could find.

I then had the basic recipe for a 100% local all-purpose flour. My first trial production was a plain pound cake. The cake coloured more than with wheat flour, which was quite eye-flattering. The crust was more... crusty and the inside moist than a wheat flour pound cake. The taste was very pleasant and very slightly nutty. The only minus was that the inside was a tiny bit more crumbly, yet not to the point of making it difficult to handle.

Basically, although finding wheat flour is not a problem here and I have no issues with gluten, I find it a good idea to at least mix it with locally available substitutes, my idea being always to reduce imports as much as possible, to satisfy myself that we can live off locally produced food as well as to reduce our environmental impact wherever we can (we are talking environmental cost of transporting foodstuffs around the planet here). Besides, I also believe we should buy locally grown ingredients to support our farmers instead of buying cheap heavily subsidised imports and reading about Ghanaian farmers committing suicide because they cannot sell their production.

Enjoy your environmentally- and socially-conscious slice of cake!

A fresh eye's view on traditional foodstuffs

2009-04-25T15:28:00.001Z

One thing I'm passionate about, apart from Ghana and her well-being, is experimenting with foodstuffs. Nothing delights me more than a new idea crossing my mind or found on the Internet, inspiring me to try yet another recipe.

My kitchen has always been a laboratory of sorts, where I find enjoyment only when I can try something new. The daily grub bores me more than I can even begin to express. Being in Ghana, I've become very sensitive about eating local food, using resources available with minimum fuel-miles involved, while being an active contributor to Ghanaian farmers subsistence. I started replacing imported foodstuffs by local ones as often as possible. Then I found it was not enough, both to be a conscious consumer and to have real fun.

Another hobby-horse of mine is nutrition. I started researching the various local foodstuff grown locally and how one could have a balanced, nutritious diet using mostly local products. A couple of years ago, I discovered a series of 3 books where I found most of the basic information I have on local crops. This series is "Lost Crops of Africa". Volume 1 deals with Grains, Volume 2 with Vegetables, and Volume 3 with Fruits. The series is published by National Academies Press, who apply a differential treatment to readers located in poorer countries, allowing them to download any title free of charges.

What a discovery it was! These books opened a wealth of ideas for me and my little kitchen experiments. Two of the foodstuffs that impress me most to this day are bambara beans and moringa, for the many nutrients they are packed with. I read that you could live off bambara beans only for ages without nutritional deficiencies. Of course, you would die of boredom, but not of nutritional imbalance. Likewise, moringa is a proven valid addition to the diet of nursing mothers and babies (and of the general population too) because of its unparalelled cocktail of nutrients.

Now to my topic of today (or is it just an excuse for the long digression above?). Anyone dares to guess what this could be?

Chocolate cake with custard? Think again. This is a yummy small red bean (asedua kokoo) cake with tigernut (atadwe) yoghurt. No kidding. Doesn't it look good? And it tastes likewise. Moist consistency, delicate taste, no bean-y taste at all... Next time I'll try to add a little cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, and/or ginger, to add a little zest to it.

I also experimented with butter-less, egg-less cakes yesterday. Butter was replaced by cooking oil and eggs one-to-one by small bananas. The result was scrumptious. So much so that I didn't get a chance of taking a picture of it. The idea was to use mostly locally produced ingredients. I used wheat flour however, but will try again with bambara bean flour soon. Unfortunately, and inexplicably (to me at least), sugar is still imported into this country, so no pastry can really be made using 100% local ingredients.

A creative baking experience

2008-06-26T06:13:00.002Z

The current international food crisis had me thinking again about the various things a common household consumes and how we could make our whole lifestyle more environment-friendly, healthier, and cheaper to maintain too.

My idea was therefore to try and reduce the share of imported foods in our daily consumption. In particular, we buy bread every day, and since no wheat is grown here, it has to be considered imported food, even though the bread is of course baked locally.

On a previous occasion, I had tried baking bread with 15% millet flour, and it was too dense and sticky and globally not such a good experience. You know, the kind of thing you're trying hard to find wonderful because you know it's good for the environment, the national economy, and whatnot. Besides, although 15% millet flour is 15% wheat flour you don't use, which is better than nothing, the percentage was not high enough in my opinion. Here is the result of this first attempt:

A few yahoogroup friends suggested that I should start fermenting the non-wheat flour, whatever it is, before incorporating my other ingredients. I got bold and tried with 25% millet flour. The result is dark, so whitebread buffs won't like it, but the taste is good and, above all, the consistency is (in my opinion) perfect, similar to, say, a rye bread.

The millet flour bread is on the left. On the right, a white bread with rolled oats (not a local crop) I baked the day before.

I've also tried the same method (fermentation of the non-wheat flour before incorporating the other ingredients) with 25% bambara beans (Vigna subterranea), soaked and ground, but I forgot to measure the water and it was too liquid, but convincing otherwise. I will try again soon and show all the pictures here.

I also made an attempt with 25% rice flour. Here are the pictures:

Above is the rice flour nicely fermenting in water.

Above, the loaf as it came out of the breadmaker, and below, after having cut a few slices. The result is as white as the average wheat bread. Of all my trials, I think this recipe is the one that would be most readily accepted commercially. Actually, I don't think the average consumer would even notice it's not wheat only.

I have to say though that I think the rice flour I used was Oryza sativa (Asian rice), which is very white. I'll have to try it with Oryza glaberrima (African rice), which is reddish, as shown below. Another experiment to look forward to!

Go green!

2008-06-07T22:49:00.005Z

Today was a grand day: I had decided to bake another batch of Moringa cakes, but since I found some starfruit (Averrhoa carambola) on the market, which is a beautiful but perfectly useless fruit (looks good, smells good, but with virtually no taste and a bit acidic too), I wanted to find some use for it.

The bright idea was to candy slices of the fruit. The acidic taste was effectively neutralised.

I decided to use a muffin pan, which is a format I find particularly convenient. The recipe was extremely pedestrian: basically, a pound cake with 200 g (7 oz) each of shortening, sugar, eggs, and flour; to which I added 100 g (3 1/2 oz) akatiwa (or agushi, shelled and crushed pips of an African bitter (non edible) melon, Citrullus lanatus ) and 20 g (3/4 oz) Moringa dried leaf powder.

Here is the result:

It does look nice, doesn't it?

I was less lucky with another concoction I tried today: I wanted to try and give a reddish colour to another batch of Krobonko pound cake by using very concentrated sorrel (Hibiscus sabdariffa) juice. Unfortunately, it didn't work out as expected and the result is greenish-gray. Too bad, but it is what experiments are for, isn't it? The thrill, the expectation, the surprise. It wouldn't be half as much fun if the result was predictable 100% of the time.

Green experiments

2008-05-15T12:06:00.004Z

Remember my previous experiences with Moringa oleifera (leaf powder, brewed like tea) and Cyperus esculentus (a/k/a tigernut, or atadwe; vegetal milk + powdered almond-like residue)?

Since I like experimenting almost as much as eating, an idea crossed my mind: why not bake a cake that would be almost-but-not-quite a Matcha green tea almond cake?

Here we go then. Let's start with the ingredients:

175g (6oz) soft butter or margarine
125g (4 1/2 oz) sugar
3 eggs
250g (9 oz) self-raising flour
100g (3 1/2 oz) powdered almonds (I used half grounded atadwe (tigernut), half grounded akatiwa (or agushi, shelled melon pips) instead)
2 tsp Matcha green tea (I substituted Moringa leaf powder)
5cl milk (atadwe (tigernut) milk, of course)

Brew your tea in the hot (but not boiling-hot) milk. Mix all the ingredients in the order above, adding the tea+milk mixture last.
Bake in a pre-heated oven for 15 min at 180°C (356°F), then 40 min at 160°C (320°F).

Here is the result:

The kids found the colour so off-putting that they wouldn't taste it. Too bad for them, hurrah for me! One thing puzzles me though: they don't seem to believe we are of the same species. I mean, they don't really expect me to drop dead eating my concoctions but they won't believe that what agrees with me won't poison them either. Life with teenagers is so strange at times...

Recycling is fun... and yummy too!

2008-04-26T21:24:00.001Z

...Especially when what you recycle is the residue resulting from the atadwe (tigernut) milk experience!

Enjoy! (I'm sure I will).

My first homemade atadwe milk

2008-04-26T17:33:00.001Z

Today I tried a recipe I found on the Internet. It is "horchata de chufa", a Spanish (very) sweet drink, quite similar to barley water, albeit using tigernut, which is the tuber of a papyrus (Cyperus esculentus).

Here in Ghana, Cyperus esculentus tubers are eaten dry, as a snack, and are found everywhere. This is what the tuber looks like (sold at the roadside for 0.50 Ghanaian cedis, that is €0.34; £0.27; $0.54 for a 90g/3oz snack pouch).

Then I used my brand new blender to blend the tubers (cleaned and soaked for 2 days) to the same weight of sugar. With a tea strainer, I pressed the mixture (with a little water added to it to blend it, then through it to strain) into a bowl. I put the mixture back in the blender 3 times and strained it 3 times too.

The resulting vegan milk is pleasant but far too sweet for my taste. However, when I try a recipe for the first time, I always use it exactly as it is given.

The residue I intend to use in tomorrow's muffins. They should taste good and nutty.

Isn't it nice to know that mother nature offers so many resources? In particular, I'm looking for alternatives to dairy products and, if at all possible, local ones. Mission NOT impossible (except the sugar, which I'm told is imported, although Ghana is all excited with the idea of making bioethanol out of sugar cane soon. It sounds definitely odd to me that we should grow so much sugar cane and still import our sugar but what do I know...).

The ultimate cake tin shop

2008-04-07T09:55:00.001Z

One of my hobbies is baking cakes. I even toy now and then with the idea of a change of career. Of course, I do use state-of-the-art silicon cake "tins", but if I had to revert to the old aluminium ones, I know where I would buy them:

It's just opposite the place where I pay my broadband connection. This is a true Ghanaian business. A few years ago, there was only corrugated tin available here and cake tin makers had to hammer the sheets flat before giving them their final shapes. I am not sure it's still the case, but even starting with a flat sheet, it's skilled and inventive work.

Ovens are also built locally. I'll post a picture here soon.

The Miracle Tree

2008-03-28T14:55:00.001Z

A lot of things happened in my life lately, not all very happy. Now I feel very down, down, down and have been looking for things to, not cheer me up, but at least help me overcome my huge fatigue and its attendant ailments.

Then in a (I thought) completely unrelated quest, I found myself browsing the Internet, looking for uses of something that is touted everywhere here in Ghana as the "miracle tree", a/k/a Moringa oleifera.

Believe it or not, this is a tree that grows unattended virtually everywhere in tropical Africa and on the Indian subcontinent too. The Indians claim it can cure 300 different ailments (including malnutrition, arthritis, osteoporosis, immune system deficiencies, gastric ulcers, tumours, diabetes and high blood pressure). That's folk lore, but it seems that most of those claims which were scientifically investigated proved to be true.

This morning, while walking back from an errand (I know, you are supposed to "run" an errand, but see above: I feel too tired for that), I saw a little unassuming sign taped on the door of a pharmacy: "Moringa leaves and seedlings sold here". What I discovered, once inside, is that the seedlings were not available (but I got the phone number of the person who could allegedly provide them) and they had the one remaining pack of Moringa leaf powder.

Back home, I decided to try it as a tea: a teaspoon of powder in my French glass coffee press, boiled water...

The good news is: it doesn't taste bitter or anything unpleasant. Actually, seeing the green, leaf-like colour of the powder, I was reminded of Japanese green tea (which, I am sorry to say, I don't like tremendously. Vacant, verging on bitter (depending on water temperature, as I discovered recently) would be my description of it), I put rather more sugar in my mug than usually, and found it superfluous. Moringa leaf tea bears no resemblance to green tea (Camilia sinensis). After this first, positive experience, I think I'll stick to the recommendation provided on the side of the pack:

"To prepare Moringa Leaf tea, add 1 tablespoonful of powder to 1.5 litres boiled water and stir. Cover preparation for twenty minutes and drink within a day. Alternatively, add 1 teaspoonful of Moringa Leaf powder as a condiment to any cooked food."

I intend to use the dregs in food, after I've prepared my tea. If it doesn't do any good, it won't be harmful either, I guess.

What do you say? Heh? Doesn't mother Nature love us?