chocolate raspberry whole-wheat biscotti

Instead of saying that I do this occasionally, I'll be honest and say that I do this often, more so than necessary. Whenever, I walk into the grocery store, I'll invariably stumble upon some ingredient that will pique my curiosity and of course, I'll end up picking it without really giving much thought to what I would/could do with it. This is exactly what happened when I saw a bag of these freeze-dried raspberries at the store last week, I just had to have them! 

Eaten straight up, they can be quite tart! However, I still had a bag of dried berries to deal with. For a while, I've been wanting to try baking berry flavored biscotti. The problem was the liquid content, biscotti needs to be dry and crisp, and fresh berries would be too moist and they would reduce the shelf-life of the cookie. But these freeze-dried raspberries could avoid all of these complications! 

There I was sifting flour and mixing a batch of biscotti batter. The batter got colorful while I folded in the crunchy raspberries with bits of dark chocolate and walnuts. Baking biscotti is fun, you get to do it twice! You can cut the loaves to any thickness you desire, I normally waiver between 3/8 to an inch, just make sure you use a sharp serrated knife to get a clean cut. This to me, is fateful perfection; chocolate, raspberries and walnuts wrapped in whole-wheat flour all of which would end up getting dunked in hot tea or coffee at some point over the next few days. 

chocolate, raspberry and walnut whole-wheat biscotti

yields: about 40-46 cookies

ingredients

2 1/4 cups whole-wheat pastry flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup packed brown sugar

3 large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup freeze-dried raspberries

1/2 cup dark chocolate chips (58.5% cacao)

1/4 cup chopped walnuts

1. Preheat the oven to 350F. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.

2. In a mixing bowl, sift the flour, baking powder, and salt and keep aside.

3. Using an electric mixer, whisk the sugar, eggs and vanilla on medium speed until light yellow. Add the sifted dry ingredients into the batter and combine until a sticky dough is formed. Fold the raspberries, chocolate and walnuts carefully into the dough. Take care to prevent the dried raspberries from crumbling by folding gently. 

4. Transfer the dough onto a clean floured surface and divide into two equal parts. Form each half into a rough log about 10 X 2 inches in length. (The dough is sticky and it is helpful if you flour your hands while working with it). Transfer each log onto the prepared cookie sheet and bake for 30 minutes until they turn golden brown. Rotate the cookie sheet halfway through baking to ensure even cooking. 

5. Remove the logs and let them cool for 12 minutes. Reduce the oven temperature to 300F. Using a serrated knife, slice each log diagonally into 3/8 inch thick sections. (The thickness of the sections are entirely up to you, if you like them thicker you can even go up to an inch). Transfer the cut slices back onto the parchment paper and bake until golden and crisp on both sides for about 10 minutes on each side. Rotate the cookie sheet halfway through baking. Once cooked, transfer the biscotti from the cookie sheet onto a wire rack to cool completely. Store in an air tight container. 

rhubarb lentil salad

Last weekend, we visited Grayson County in Virginia which is also home to the picturesque Mount Rogers. Now for some reason, I have always had a little bit of a love affair with the sign that marks the camping site, it's absolutely gorgeous and I finally realized why. The sign always reminds of the camping signs in the old Yogi Bear cartoons! Our trip was fun, judging by the way I ate several homemade farm-fresh bread rolls every morning that I loaded with cream cheese. I'm the kind of guy that loves dunking things like buttered bread and cookies into my coffee or tea and it seemed completely justified at the time, since we were at the Sells' farm for the entire weekend. 

This is rhubarb season and instead of focussing on the many traditional rhubarb desserts (which I do love), I opted for a light and refreshing rhubarb lentil salad. By the way, strawberry rhubarb cobblers are still one of my favorite rhubarb-based desserts. I was lucky to convince Shelly to give me some of her fresh rhubarb stalks that she grows besides several other wonderful things, down at her farm.

Perhaps, since summer is at hand, salads are on my mind a little more than usual. I've been eating almost everything I can, as a salad. So here's my rhubarb-based lentil salad seasoned and spiced with coriander and fresh mint. The rhubarb gives a delicious acidic and tart flavor to the lentils. To keep with the theme of using farm-grown produce, I tossed in some fresh sorrel leaves that I planted a few months back.

rhubarb lentil salad

yields: 2-4 servings

ingredients

1 cup black lentils, cleaned and rinsed

2 cups water

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 teaspoon coriander (cilantro) seeds, freshly ground

1/2 teaspoon red chili flakes

1/2 teaspoon dried oregano

1/2 cup red onion, finely diced

1 clove garlic, finely minced

1 1/2 cup rhubarb stalks, diced

kosher sea-salt and pepper to taste

2 tablespoons fresh mint leaves, chopped

a few fresh sorrel leaves to garnish

1. Bring the lentils and water to a boil in a large saucepan on a high flame. Reduce the flame to a simmer and cover with a lid. Cook for about 25-30 minutes until the lentils are tender but not mushy. Drain the excess liquid from the lentils and keep the lentils aside.

2. Heat the olive oil in the same saucepan on a medium flame for about 40 seconds. Add the coriander, chili, and oregano to the hot oil and stir for about 20 seconds. Stir in the onions and garlic and sauté till translucent for about 10 minutes. Add the drained lentils to the saucepan along with the rhubarb. Cover with a lid and reduce the flame to a low-medium. Cook for another 10 minutes until the rhubarb pieces are tender. Remove from the stove and season with salt and pepper.

3. Allow the lentils to cool to room temperature and then fold in the fresh mint leaves. Before serving the salad, garnish with the sorrel leaves.

kumquat ginger sorbet

Thank you so much for all the kind birthday wishes, I had a wonderful and fantastic week. The celebrations began early last weekend over brunch with some of my closest friends in the city. Later towards the end of the week, we celebrated for one last time with my friend Tyler's family at a delicious French restaurant in Bethesda called Mon Ami Gabi. The food was great and the company spectacular. What more could one ask for on a special day (week) than to spend some time with people that I care about dearly!

Each year around birthday time, I get myself a special gift, something that I really want but I could do without. This year was no different and I picked myself an ice cream maker that I have had my eye on for a very long time. It was one of those things that I know I certainly didn't have place to store but felt that it might be useful appliance to own. My opinion changed quickly after my first experiment with it, to hell with kitchen space economizing theory, I did indeed need an ice cream maker, its divine delicious abilities made up for any space that was lost! A personal ice cream churner in the kitchen is amazing, it takes away the crazy moments when you keep opening your freezer at different intervals to churn the ice cream and break the ice crystals. It was definitely a worth investment.

When it comes to kumquats, I'm not a big fan of eating them raw, the skin is pleasantly sweet but the flesh is tart and sour which makes my face cringe and pucker, every time I take a bite into these little guys. However, I do enjoy kumquats when they are cooked as preserves or spreads and in desserts, such as this sorbet. The first frozen dessert that I made many, many years ago was a lime sorbet. I didn't have an ice cream maker then and I almost crashed my mom's freezer by opening it every fifteen minutes to break the ice crystals that were forming. Based on this personal history, it only seemed fitting to have a sorbet as the first recipe from my new ice cream maker.

To get rid of some of the harshness of the fruit, I trimmed the tops and bottoms of each kumquat and brought them to boil in water a few times. This also helps to make the skin of the fruit much more tender and easy to puree. I also added in a little bit of crystallized ginger to give the sorbet a little texture and bite. By boiling the ginger in the simple syrup, the ginger flavor mellows down just enough and also imparts a light flavor to the syrup. Once the ginger was infused into the syrup, I let the kumquat puree rest with the syrup, before passing it through a fine meshed sieve. Once the ice cream maker did its thing, the resultant sorbet was delicious, it was creamy, soft, tender and citrusy with little bits of ginger and little strands of orange kumquat zest.

Instead of using plain mint leaves to garnish this sorbet, I used some fresh chocolate-mint leaves that I planted a few weeks ago. This mint variety goes amazingly well with the citrus flavors of the sorbet. The leaves have a light chocolate flavor when you first taste it before the mint kicks in.

kumquat ginger sorbet

yields: 6-8 servings

ingredients

12 ounces/ 340gm kumquats

6 cups water to boil the kumquats

2 cups water

2 cups sugar

1/2 cup crystallized ginger

1 teaspoon ginger root, freshly grated
a few fresh chocolate-mint leaves to garnish

1. Rinse the kumquats under running cold water. Cut each fruit in half and trim and discard the tops and bottoms along with the seeds. Place the trimmed fruit in a medium sized saucepan. Add two cups of water to cover the kumquats completely and bring to a boil on a medium flame. Once the water boils, discard the water and repeat the boiling process twice with the rest of the water.

2. Process the kumquats in a food processor to a smooth puree. 

3. With regular stirring bring the 2 cups of water and sugar to a boil along with the ginger. Remove the syrup from the flame and pass the syrup through a sieve to collect the ginger bits. Keep the ginger aside. 
4. Put the syrup in a glass mixing bowl and keep over an ice water bath. Stir in the kumquat puree and allow to cool to room temperature. This will take about 30-40 minutes. Pass the syrup through a sieve and with a large spoon press the fruit pulp against the sieve to extract as much of the fruit as possible. 
5. Chill the syrup in the freezer for another 45 minutes before adding it into the ice cream maker. Follow the instructions that came with your ice cream maker, they vary a little by brand. Carefully drop the ginger bits, a few at a time during the last five minutes of churning. The sorbet is done when it is frozen and gets a light milky orange-yellow color. Transfer to a clean freezer-proof storage container and freeze for at least another 1 to 2 hours before serving. Serve a scoop or two of the sorbet with fresh chocolate-mint leaves.