Spring (Apr–Jun) 2024 Quarter Cookbook of the Month: TENDERHEART

[CaitlinM]

Welcome to the reporting thread for one of our Spring Quarter 2024 COTMs, TENDERHEART: A Book About Vegetables and Unbreakable Family Bonds by Hetty Lui McKinnon.

To report on a recipe, put the name of the recipe in ALL CAPS and include the page number, if it’s available to you. If you are the first to post about a recipe, please reply to this post. If someone has already posted about the recipe, reply to their post so all the posts about each recipe are linked for easy reference.

To respect the author’s copyright, please don’t post photos or verbatim copies of recipes. Links to recipes online are welcome, and you may post ingredients and summarize instructions in your own words.

[MelMM (Mel)]

CHARRED CAULIFLOWER AND CRISPY TOFU WITH SWEET PEANUT SAUCE - p. 156

I made a few changes in the cooking method. The cauliflower is supposed to be charred in a skillet, but I air-fried it. The tofu is dredged in seasoned chickpea flour and is supposed to be pan-fried in the same skillet as the cauliflower, but I deep fried it. I dredged the shallots in the remainder of the chickpea flower and fried them right behind the tofu. The peanut sauce is supposed to be cooked in a saucepan, I used less water and just whisked everything in a bowl, no cooking. I also tweaked the ingredients in the sauce a bit. Used ground chiles instead of flakes, and upped the amount. There is supposed to be a hard boiled egg served with this dish, but I just skipped it. The remaining two components are just some cucumber and sprouts - those are raw. Next time I might broil the cauliflower in the oven, and air fry the tofu in the Breville SmartOven. We liked this, but I feel I could play around with it a bit and get it more dialed in to my taste.

[MelMM (Mel)]

ZUCCHINI AND KIMCHI STEW - p. 499

I’m not going to go back and post all the recipes I’ve already made from this book, but I am going to hit on the ones that I remember well enough to comment on. This one definitely left an impression. A good one! It’s kind a hybrid Korean stew. We’ve got kimchi, gochujang, and gochugaru providing the flavoring. I used my homemade kimchi (from an Edward Lee recipe) that was well-aged. Soft tofu, zucchini, onion, garlic, and scallions provide the bulk. This is really simple to make, if you have the ingredients, and absolutely delicious.

[MelMM (Mel)]

MAPO EGGPLANT - p. 178

I mentioned this recipe in the nomination thread. In this ingenious riff on mapo tofu, eggplant cooked soft plays the role of silken tofu, while crumbled firm tofu plays the role of ground meat. I really liked this, but thought the seasoning was not quite on par with my normal versions of mapo tofu, so I’d tweak it a bit going forward.

[MelMM (Mel)]

ZUCCHINI AND YUZU BREAD - p. 490

I made this last June when I had zucchini out the wazoo, and I was on the zucchini-with-every-meal plan. It has a gluten-free and vegan option written into the recipe, so I didn’t have to worry about converting it. Yuzu juice in the cake and in the glaze made this cake just different enough to be special. The cake worked beautifully and I enjoyed it. It made a great first breakfast when I had to get up early for the first test firing of my kiln. Picture is horrible, but it was taken at 5 am.

[MelMM (Mel)]

CAULIFLOWER AND KALE PESTO PASTA SALAD WITH(OUT) BURRATA - p. 152

I didn’t have high expectations for this dish, I just slapped it on the to-make list and bought the ingredients because I figured there would be a night when things got out of hand and I would need something quick and easy. Last night was that night. I closed up the studio early enough and was all set to cook a couple dishes from Dakshin, but I had an unplanned phone call, and a long and not very pleasant discussion, so after that, I just wanted something simple. So I was glad to have this recipe ready to go.

I changed the cooking order a bit. I never understand why an author will have you cook pasta before make the sauce for said pasta. Even for a pasta salad, it doesn’t make sense. So I started with the pesto. You oil and season some cauliflower and roast it in the oven for 10 minutes. Add some similarly oiled and seasoned kale at that point and roast for another 10 minutes. You put a portion of the cauliflower and kale in a blender or food processor along with some toasted walnuts, garlic, lemon zest, lemon juice, salt, and olive oil, and blend to make a pesto. I used the mini processor attachment for my stick blender. While the cats were getting fed, I boiled the pasta, drained it, and rinsed under cold water. To serve, you mix the pasta with the pesto, some more lemon zest and juice, and the remaining kale, cauliflower, and toasted walnuts. You are supposed to plop a ball of burrata on top, but I omitted it.

Turns out, this recipe is more than the sum of its parts. It was delicious. I did not miss the burrata at all, it isn’t needed here. I feel like the walnuts do enough that the dish doesn’t want any kind of cheese - it would just muddy the flavors. One change I did make was to put more of the kale than called for into the pesto. Not sure it made that much difference, but the recipe had you only put 30 grams of the cooked kale into the pesto, which is not much at all. And I just wanted a greener pesto. This was garlicky, and with a great contrast of textures from the walnuts and just tender cauliflower against the pasta. Not the prettiest dish, as you can see from the photo, but tasted much better than it looked.

[MelMM (Mel)]

RED-BRAISED BRUSSELS SPROUTS AND TOFU - p. 86

I’ve made red-cooked tofu before, but it has usually been a bit disappointing (the version in Phoenix Claws and Jade Trees comes to mind), so I approached this recipe with modest expectations.

You cut tofu into triangles and pan-fry it. Set aside. Add more oil to the pan and put some sugar in. Swirl the pan around and let the sugar partially melt. Then add Brussels sprouts, and cook until coated and starting to color. Add dark soy sauce and cook a minute more. Add water, soy sauce, Shaoxing wine, star anise, ginger, scallion, and a dried chile or pepper flakes. Bring to a simmer, cover and cook until the sprouts are completely tender. Serve garnished with more scallion, with rice.

I’m not sure what the difference was, but this version was great. Brussels sprouts were kind of unexpected here, but they were good. I think I’d like this with broccoli rabe or gai lan as well, and may try that in the future.

[MelMM (Mel)]

GRILLED BABY BOK CHOY WITH MISO-GOCHUJANG BUTTER AND CRISPY CHICKPEAS - p. 45

I was a little shy of the quantity of bok choy called for, so my ratio of greens to beans was off. I went ahead and made the full amount of all the other components. You toss chickpeas with chickpea flour, gochugaru, salt, and pepper, then toss in a little oil. These get roasted. Make the miso-gochujang butter by combining those three ingredients in a saucepan along with some grated garlic and ginger, and heat until everything is melted and combined. Cut the bok choy in half lengthwise and toss with the gochujang butter. Then cook it in a skillet or grill pan until charred. As it comes out of the pan, put it back in the bowl with the gochujang butter. You serve this by plating the bok choy with yogurt, the roast chickpeas, some cilantro, and toasted sesame seeds. Serving with rice is suggested as optional.

This was full of flavor and quite spicy. I served with rice, which I feel was necessary - this wouldn’t have felt like a complete meal without it. Because I had less bok choy, I didn’t use quite the full amount of gochujang butter, although proportionately, I used more than what the recipe suggests. The small amount left over should be good tossed wtih noodles, or maybe fried rice.

[MelMM (Mel)]

CARROT AND CANNELLINI BEAN SHEET-PAN DINNER WITH YUZU VINAIGRETTE - p. 134

I’ll preface this write-up by noting that I am not a big fan of roast carrots. At best I find them OK, at worst, inedible. I rate them higher than roast sweet potatoes, but that’s a very low bar. So I’m not sure why I chose this recipe. I guess it was my contrarian nature, challenging the author to make me like roast carrots.

So you roast some carrots, and after 15 minutes you add to the sheet pan some cannellini beans, leek, and sliced lemon. All of this has been tossed with oil, salt and pepper. Roast the whole shebang for another 15-18 minutes (I chose the longer time). Meanwhile, you make a dressing of yuzu juice, EVOO, maple syrup, garlic, salt, and pepper. When the roasting time is up, you toss with the dressing and some toasted sliced almonds and some cilantro.

This is pretty good for a carrot dish. I found myself wishing for more of the yuzu dressing, or at least more yuzu in the dressing - it was specifically the yuzu that I wanted more of. The other change I would make would be to dress the beans and carrots in a bowl, rather than directly on the sheet pan. I feel like the food doesn’t get fully coated when you dress or season it on the sheet pan. I appreciate that the author is trying to minimize bowl-dirtying, but you’ve already dirtied a bowl for seasoning the beans and leeks, so that one could be reused at the end. Anyway, minor quibbles. I don’t know if I’ll actually make this again, but the yuzu was a nice combination with carrot, so that’s my takeaway from this exercise.

[GretchenS]

Where did you get yuzu juice? I love that taste but it’s almost impossible for me to find.

[MelMM (Mel)]

I got this from Amazon. I have zero time right now for tracking down specialty items, I’m hardly even going to the store. But one click and I had it the next day.

[GretchenS]

Thank you! Just added it to my cart.

[MelMM (Mel)]

ROASTED BROCCOLI AND CRISPY CHICKPEAS WITH SICHUAN DUKKAH - p. 68

For this recipe you roast seasoned chickpeas and broccoli (separately). For the “Sichuan dukkah,” you crush toasted coriander seeds and Sichuan peppercorns in a mortar, then crush in some roasted cashews and finally sesame seeds and salt. To assemble the dish, you simply toss the broccoli and chickpeas with the dukkah, and some sesame oil and black vinegar. Super easy. Throw on some green onion to garnish.

This Sichuan dukkah is brilliant. I’m not even that big a dukkah fan, but I just love the Sichuan peppercorns in this. I could put it on anything. I had this made as written one night and liked it, then another night I skipped the chickpeas and tossed the broccoli and dukkah with red lentil pasta, and that was good too. The recipe makes more dukkah than you need, but I went waaay heavy on it, and I recommend you do the same. I got two meals (each for two people) out of the full amount of dukkah.

[MelMM (Mel)]

ROASTED POTATO AND LENTIL SALAD WITH BLACK SESAME AIOLI - p. 312

Neither my picture below nor the one in the book accurately portray this recipe if one made it according to the directions. The pic in the book is made to look prettier, and mine is made to look uglier. I’ll start by describing the black sesame aioli, because that’s what is responsible for the degree of prettiness/ugliness. You are supposed to take some black sesame seeds and grind them to a powder in a high-powered blender, spice grinder, or small food processor. You then mix them with mayo, grated garlic, EVOO, sesame oil, salt & pepper. I replaced half the mayo with a vegan greek yogurt, for a slightly lighter dressing with a little more nutritional value. The thing is, if you really pulverize the sesame seeds, your dressing will be gray. Not slightly gray, but about the color of a photgraphic 18% gray card. That’s what my dressing looked like. The one pictured in the book looks remarkably white, with mostly intact sesame seeds floating in it. The food stylists won the day with this one.

As for the salad itself, you roast some potatoes and cook some lentils on the stove, two things that take a similar amount of time and can be done simultaneously. A clove of garlic gets boiled along with the lentils, and is supposed to break up upon stirring once the lentils are drained. It didn’t, so I mashed and chopped it with my knife. You mix the lentils and potatoes with some grated carrot, green onion, toasted black sesame seeds, and half the black sesame aioli. This is all supposed to be folded together, then you garnish with additional sesame seeds and green onion and dollops of aioli. The food stylist did not do this. What is shown in the book is a salad that was composed on the plate, with potatoes that show not a hint of dressing on them, and the non-gray dressing poured over the top. I went to the opposite extreme and mixed the full amount of dressing in from the get-go. I did hold back a little bit of green onion and sesame for garnishing, but mostly everything was mixed in the bowl. When you do that with a gray dressing, the result is, visually, less than lovely. But this is food, so the important part is how it tasted. And it tasted great. That gray dressing is actually delicious, and I would happily make it as a dip. Ugly for the win here, because I don’t think you would get such great flavor in the dressing with the sesame seeds intact.

ETA that the strange background in the photo is due to my having my dining table set up for photographing my pottery. So this dish just went right on to that backdrop.

[MelMM (Mel)]

INSPIRED BY CHANA SAAG - p. 391

I can’t recall the last time I bought frozen spinach. It has been decades. But with my cooking very sporadic and limited at the moment, planning for a recipe that called for frozen and canned produce and pantry staples seemed like a good bet. It was the same thinking that went into choosing the lentil and potato salad upthread. You start by making a paste of onion, garlic, ginger, and green chiles (I used serranos here). You fry that paste in a saucepan, then add to it some cumin seeds and garam masala. I cringed a bit at the addition of garam masala at this stage. You then add a whole 18 oz of thawed, previously frozen, spinach. That’s a lot! And add some salt and pepper. Mix everything up and cook for a bit. Then you are to purée the lot of it - I employed a stick blender for this. You are supposed to add liquid (stock and coconut cream) after puréeing, but I added most of it during in order to get a good purée going. Also, having no coconut cream on hand, I substituted one can of lite coconut milk, to which I had added a tsp of Better than Bouillon paste, for both. You are also supposed to hold back a bit of the coconut cream for a garnish, but I didn’t do that, I just added all the liquid to the pot. You then add some ground chile and canned chickpeas to the pot, and season to taste with more salt and black pepper. You are supposed to simmer for 10 minutes once the chickpeas are added. Mine sat on low heat for quite a bit longer, while the cats ate their dinner and I cooked the rice. I appreciated the extra cooking time, because it gave the chickpeas a chance to soften up a bit more. The recipe didn’t call for it, but because the garam masala was added so early, which really kills the flavor, I added more at the very end of cooking.

I have mixed feelings about this dish. It was fine, but the “inspired by” in the title is key here. I can make much, much better Indian dishes. Adding the extra garam masala at the end saved it from outright blandness. But it did get me thinking about frozen greens, and how I should make better use of them, so it was a worthwhile exercise.

Lousy picture in lousy light on my countertop, because the dining table is still a photo studio for pottery.

[MelMM (Mel)]

PEA AND KIMCHI FALAFEL WITH PEA TAHINI - p. 300

Here it is two days before my show, and I did not expect that I would be posting right now, and I didn’t expect that it would be this recipe. But somehow, miraculously, I got everything done early. The pots are finished and are all priced and packed in bins for transport. Point of sale system has been tested. I’ve even done a trial loading of the truck to make sure everything fits (I’ve got the information booth for the show in addition to my own booth, so it’s a lot).

Most of the recipes in this book are of the very easy, weeknightable sort. This is the exception. But one glance at this falafel recipe and I knew I had to make it. The falafel are loaded. Dried chickpeas are soaked, and go into a food processor with kimchi, frozen peas, green onions, garlic, walnuts, fresh herbs (I used cilantro and dill), and salt. You process this to the right texture for falafel. I don’t have a great food processor, and this recipe filled it to capacity (9 cups), which hindered it even more. I ended up having to do this in two batches. Next time, I will skip the processor and grind the ingredients in my usual way, which is to use the meat grinder attachment on my KitchenAid mixer. If you have a larger capacity/better food processor, you should be fine, but for me the food processor was not an easier way to do it. Once the ingredients are ground, you add in some rice or chickpea flour (I used chickpea), baking powder, and white sesame seeds. The recipe then has you form the mixture into balls, and refrigerate for 30 minutes. I didn’t do this. I put the whole bowl of the mixture, in the fridge, and shaped the falafel afterwards, right before frying. I would recommend doing it my way. The falafel are easier to form with a cold mix. I didn’t shape them into balls, as directed, but did my usual thing, which is to use a spoon and the palm of my hand to form a quenelle shape. I just find this easier/more efficient. I might be weird. Fry up the falafel.

At some point, like while the falafel are chilling, you make the pea tahini and a tomato herb salad. The salad is just chopped tomatoes tossed with herbs, olive oil, salt, and pepper. My herbs were mint and dill. The pea tahini is really more of a hummus, if you ask me. It’s frozen peas with some tahini, garlic, lemon juice, parsley or mint (mint here, of course!), and salt, whizzed in a blender, with some water added to loosen it up. The amount the recipe makes is nowhere near enough. Triple it, at least. Trust me on this.

To serve, you are to put some of the tomato salad on flatbread, then add some falafel, and drizzle the pea tahini on top. That didn’t seem like the easiest way to eat this, and did seem like a shortcut to soggy flatbread. So I served flatbread on the side, and put the falafel on top of the pea tahini. The flavors here are just great. I wouldn’t say that it’s obvious that there is kimchi in the falafel, but it just has a lot of flavor - some spice, some umami, that it wouldn’t otherwise. The pea tahini/hummus is great as well, and the tomato herb salad complements both. I would make this entire meal again, and would also make the individual components.

[MelMM (Mel)]

Join us in nominations books for July - September:

Summer 2024 Cookbook of the Month nominations - Jul, Aug, Sept

Let’s continue this experiment of quarterly nominations for COTM, and nominate some books for the July-September quarter. The nomination process is as it always has been: To nominate, put the title of the book in ALL CAPS in the comments below. Titles not in all caps will not be counted. You can nominate as many books as you like. Please nominate with the intention of cooking along should your nominee be selected. At the end of the nomination period, the nominations will be tallied and three se…

[MelMM (Mel)]

SOY-PICKLED TOMATOES WITH SILKEN TOFU - p. 450

Here is a no-cook recipe perfect for summer. You start by making the tomatoes. Cherry tomatoes cut in half are mixed with grated garlic, soy sauce, black vinegar, sesame oil, chili oil, and a bit of sugar. You just mix it all up and set aside for 10 minutes or longer. For the dish, you take a couple blocks of silken tofu, and cut into cubes without cutting all the way through the block - so cubes that are attached at the bottom. Slap the tomato salad and its sauce on top of that, and garnish with scallions, cilantro, shiso, and sesame seeds. I served this at room temperature with some warm rice.

Really simple, light, cooling meal. I feel like maybe there is something better than rice to serve this with (as much as I love rice). Maybe noodles. Or maybe a cold rice salad. But we enjoyed the dish and I would make it again.

[MelMM (Mel)]

SALTED TOMATOES WITH TOMATO AND WHITE BEAN DIP - p. 458

For the tomato salad portion of this, you put halved or quartered small tomatoes in a bowl with grated garlic, salt, and pepper. Set that aside. You finish the salad before serving by adding fresh basil and some EVOO.

For the dip, you take some more tomatoes, and roast them with some garlic and thyme or oregano leaves (I used thyme). You then transfer all that to a blender, and mix with canned white beans, tahini, salt, lemon juice and harissa powder or paprika. I happened to have the harissa spice blend from Mourad already mixed up, so that’s what I used, and I went heavy on it. You blend this up to a smooth dip, like hummus. Spread it out on a plate and top with the tomato salad. I served this with za’atar flatbread and fresh corn.

The dip was very good, and the tomato salad made it even better. It was all garlicky and tomatoey and I could have eaten a lot of it. I did eat a lot of it.

[MelMM (Mel)]

DAIKON WITH COLD SPICY NOODLES - p. 480

Super easy dish. The hardest part is shredding the daikon radish. You make a sauce of chili crisp or oil, soy sauce, black vinegar, sesame oil, sesame seeds, Sichuan peppercorns, sugar, salt, and grated garlic. Just mix it all up. Bring salted water to a boil. Blanch julienned daikon for 1 minute and bean sprouts for 30 seconds. Scoop out and drain. Then boil rice noodles until tender, drain, and rinse under cold water. Mix the noodles, sprouts, and daikon with the sauce and chill. Cilantro is supposed to be tossed in, but I just put in on top at serving.

This was great. Flavoful, spicy without being incendiary, nice texture. I think I’d like a little more crunch, and will probably throw a handful of roasted peanuts on the leftovers.