Munch Magazine is a quarterly, independent, online food magazine produced in Oklahoma City.
Our magazine features recipes, essays on foodstuffs, and local Oklahoma restaurants
It’s been a while since we’ve posted anything, but we’ve been working on a new project we just finished up and wanted to share it with our fellow blog readers.
Hope you enjoy MunchMag
It’s Biscuit Time… (I’ve included a link here to a song I love, because I think it’s fun to replace the word ”business” with “biscuit” whenever possible)
It has been a long hiatus, hopefully at least two people besides Lacey and I, still read our hibernating food blog. I could give excuses for my inconsistency, (I just started and new job, the holidays and such), mostly though I’ve just been lazy. Not so lazy though that I haven’t been baking. If you check out my instagram you’ll see proof: mac and cheese, milk-crumb blueberry cookies, raspberry bars, calzones and more… Well this bake-fest I’ve started all begin with these biscuits. My friend Liz was an assistant baker at a local bakery so I asked her to show me a few of her biscuit baking techniques: (I could not find my biscuit cutter, so that’s why there heart-shaped, but I think it is kind of cute.)
The biscuit recipe:
13.71 oz flour
.13 oz salt
.86 oz baking powder
3.47 oz butter
8 oz buttermilk
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. Combine flour, salt, baking powder (yes this seems like a lot of baking powder, but hey these biscuits are fluffy.)
3. Blend in the butter on a medium speed for 4 minutes
4. Next add the buttermilk and the dough should come together wait for the bits at the bottom of the bowl to get mixed in
5. Once combined knead in bowl for 1 minute
6. Then with floured hands take the dough and ball up into a cabbage tuck the ends in slightly without ripping the dough (picture example)
7. Roll out the dough on a floured surface and cut into 6-8 biscuits
8. Place biscuits on baking sheet covered with parchment and put them in oven
9. Wait 10-14 minutes, in the mean time melt some butter and when the biscuits are done take them out and brush with melted butter immediately.
10. Serve piping hot, with gravy, eggs, butter or plain, it’s time to eat!
More Biscuit photos:
1. Measure ingredients (3/4 cup semolina flour, 3/4 cup unbleached all purpose flour, 1 tbs. sea salt)
2. Mix dry ingredients into a pile on your work-top with a well in the center
3. Add 2 eggs to the well in the middle of the dry ingredients.
4. Use a fork to gradually mix flour from the edges of the well into the eggs in the center. Add a small bit of the dry ingredients as soon as the last dose of flour is absorbed into the egg mixture.
5. Mix until the eggs and flour come together into a loose clump of dough. Start to knead the dough ball with your hands. If your dough becomes sticky add more flour as needed.
6. Knead by folding the dough into itself and rotating between folds for about 3 to 5 minutes. After kneading you should have a smooth ball of dough. It should not stick to your palms and it should feel dense! You’ll need to put some muscle into kneading, but if the dough ball gets so hard that it cracks as you knead, you’ve added too much flour. To fix cracking dough sprinkle the dough ball with tepid water and keep kneading until the mixture comes together into a smooth ball.
7. Smooth out the ball of pasta dough and let it rest under a bowl or towel for 30 minutes.
8. You’re ready to roll! Follow your pasta roller’s instructions, or roll the pasta by hand. At this point you can create wide pasta that you hand cut. You can also create sheets of pasta for ravioli, cannelloni, or lasagna.
9. Once you’ve created your preferred pasta shape, you can cook immediately in lots of salted water at a rolling boil, or you can allow your pasta to dry. Let the pasta sit or hang in an area with lots of air flow and then carefully transfer to freezer bags for storage. Keep in the fridge for up to 24 hours or freeze for up to about a month.
10. Eat it up! We tossed our pasta with arugula, fresh garlic and extra virgin olive oil. Delicious! This pasta is perfect to use in place of store-bought pasta and easy! Just remember, you barely need to cook the pasta because it’s so fresh.
Hatch 22 is a simple salsa with complex flavors. It is a great dish for chip dipping or add to any dish that calls for some “salsa verde.”
Roast: 7 Hatch Chilies (mild, medium, hot or a mixture) + 5 Tomatillos + 2 roma tomatoes (you can use other tomatoes but I like their flavor)+ 2 poblanos, put all this on a baking sheet under the boiler on high and flip in about 5 minutes, and do the other side. Allow time for the ingredients to steam and cool. Then peel them all, de-seed the peppers and add to a blender or food processor. Then add 5 sprigs of cilantro (stems not included) + the juice of 1 lime or about 2 tablespoons of lime juice and blend.
Use it:
Serve with chips.
Take a pound of beef short ribs or other good stew meat cook it in the crockpot on low for an hour then add about 1/2 cup of Hatch 22 salsa and let the whole thing stew for another 8 hours, salt and pepper to taste and serve with warm corn or flour tortillas. (super yummy)
Take your favorite enchiladas verde recipe and substitute the regular verde for Hatch-22
Make a simple cheese quesadilla and add a couple of tablespoons for extra flavor.
- kim
The “How to Cook Everything” app for ipad I’ve recently fallen in love with. I’ve flipped through the book which seems about as extensive, but the ipad app has amazing detail. Mark Bittman is a food journalist and critic for the New York Times. He stats his mission on his website as wanting to to “get people cooking simply, comfortably, and well” which is something he’s helped me to do. His app offers an incredibly impressive list of recipes and wonderful variations on those recipes, but really what most helpful for me is the technique section, when I click on it I get helpful drawings of basics like “how to cook gnocchi” or “pasta” or various knife techniques. It kind reminds me of Jacque Pepin’s book on technique although much more practical, because I’ve never needed to know how to cut a radish into a flower (although it did teach me some bad ass omelette skills), but it probably doesn’t hurt for me to even get a brief look at the simplest things like “measuring dry ingredients.”
My last day in Santa Fe, New Mexico we had brunch at Tecolote Cafe before heading out, they don’t serve toast there, just delicious baked good to go with an awesome breakfast. Their green chile cornbread muffins were fluffy, spicy and I’m still craving them a week later. So I thought I’d give my own a shot and have to say that I came pretty close to rivaling their distinctive flavor.
I pretty much just followed a basic cornbread muffin recipe with one added ingredient a cup full of freshly roasted peeled and diced hatch chilies.
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Then in a bowl mix 1 cup of cornmeal, 1 cup all purpose flour, 1/3 cup of white sugar, 2 teaspoons baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon of salt together. Takeout a measuring cup pour in 1 cup of milk, 1/4 a cup of canola oil, 1 egg and mix together till the egg is blended. Then pour the liquid mixture into the bowl of dry ingredients and mix together. Lastly add 1 cup of hatch or green chilies and blend and pour into your lined muffin pan. I use silicone cups and they work perfectly.
Place them in the oven and wait 15 minutes and they should be ready, let them rest for a few minutes then they should be ready to cut open butter and eat.
My recent trip to Santa Fe has me thinking about throwing a southwestern themed dinner party.
I could put out some of these blankets for color and theme.
If money was no object I could use some serveware from Nambe, which has an outlet store located in Downtown Santa Fe.
I’d definitely serve some Happy Campers, from Southwestern Brewing Company, because it’s a great tasting beer in a fantastic looking can.
The Santa Fe Farmers Market was the best I’ve ever been to and had plenty of bright zinnias that would make for a perfect centerpiece.
Since it is August I’d be sure to include plenty of Hatch Chile dishes: appetizer, entree, side dish and dessert.
-kimberly
One of my favorite scenes from Curb Your Enthusiasm:
Larry: I think I am just going to get a Cobb Salad. I’d like to make a few substitutions, if that’s OK. I’ll get… no bacon. No eggs. Blue cheese on the side.
Here’s my version of that salad, with substitutions: deli turkey instead of chicken (because I like turkey) and sunflower seeds instead of bacon.
Blue Cheese Dressing (refrigerate overnight or use right away.): 2 tablespoons of buttermilk, 4oz blue cheese, 1 teaspoon of tasty olive oil, 1 crushed garlic clove, salt and pepper put in a sealable container and shake it up.
Ready to eat? Combine: 1/2 head of living lettuce, 1/2 avocado, 1/2 hard boiled egg, , 2 oz deli turkey, 1 cup of cherry tomatoes sliced, 1/4 cup of roasted sunflower seeds. Then shake and pour the dressing over the salad and your done.
-kimberly
I first heard about “What We Eat When We Eat Alone: Stories and 100 Recipes”, on Splendid Table and I’ve been intrigued by the idea ever since. The book explores what people eat when know one is around.
So here’s my food confession: One of my favorite things to eat when I’m alone and cooking for myself is: jasmine rice ¾ cup cooked, wasabi peas 1oz, sriracha sauce 2 tsp and ½ cup of plain yogurt.
If I’m feeling like I need some protein, I’ll add an egg a few minutes before the rice is done cooking, if I feel like I need some vegetables, I’ll sauté some red peppers, broccoli or zucchini to go on top. Then I mix it all together in a bowl and enjoy all its spicy, creaminess and crunch, which I love.
So what’s your food secret?
I’ve read the last 2 issues of Lucky Peach, both the cookbook for Momofuku and Milk Bar (which are great reads, by the way) however, this is my first attempt at a David Chang recipe. Of coarse I’m not very good at following directions exactly so I read several variations on the recipe and here’s the nosh I ended up with:
Dressing (you can make a day a head of time, do not refrigerate.)
Combine 1/4 cup Asian fish sauce, 1/4 cup water, 1/4 cup sugar, 1 garlic clove, minced, 1 red Thai chile in a sauce pan until sugar is dissolved.
Rice Krispies (make up to 3 days ahead store in airtight container)
Coat pan with 1/2 teaspoon of vegetable oil over med/high heat and 1 teaspoon of red crushed pepper, 1 cup of Rice Krispies. Toss in the pan for about 3 minutes until they start to brown.
Sprouts
Preheat oven to 425. Take about 4 cups of fresh Brussels sprouts, trim and cut in half toss with 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil roast in the oven for 15-20 minutes just till they start to char.
Toss the sprouts with dressing and put on a serving plate and garnish with the Rice Krispies, chopped mint and cilantro.
Serves 2 main dishes or 4-6 side dishes.
Notes: It was really freaking delicious and it was fun to cook with Rice Krispies. Hopefully David Chang would be proud though I did cheat a bit by replacing Togarashi, (a Japanese blend of chiles and sesame) with red crushed pepper. However I do believe I achieved the out come of spice-crunchy-goodness in the end. The fish sauce dressing and “Spice Krispies” I could see being applied to any number of foodstuffs that could be complimented by a kick and a crunch!
-kimberly
