Continuing with the wild rice recipes from the Bois Forte Band of Chippewa, I next tackle the fine art of that most classic of modern Native American foods: the frybread.
Official Name: State of Minnesota State Nicknames: The Gopher State; The Land of 10,000 Lakes; North Star State Admission to the US: May 11, 1858 (#32) Capital: St. Paul (2nd largest) Other Important Cities: Minneapolis (largest); Duluth (4th largest); St. Cloud (8th largest)
Region: Midwest; Great Lakes; West North Central (US Census) RAFT Nations: Wild Rice; Bison
Bordered by: Manitoba & Ontario (Canada) (north); Lake Superior (northeast); Wisconsin (east); Iowa (south); North & South Dakota (west) Official State Foods and Edible Things: milk (drink); walleye (fish); honeycrisp apple (fruit); Northern wild rice (grain); blueberry muffin (muffin); morel (mushroom) Some Famous & Typical Foods: Eastern and Northern European - especially Scandinavian (Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish, etc) - foods, especially lutefisk; Native American (Dakota, Ojibwe/Chippewa, etc) food traditions; dairy products
I tried to make frybread once before, a few years ago. It didn't go so well. Far from being light and lush, it was dense and a bit hard. I must have done something wrong. And I was offered help by one commenter, though I didn't make it again until now. I only hope that Cassie sees this new post, to see that I got much closer to doing it right. At least right enough for me.
The recipe: Wild Rice Frybread (from the Bois Forte Band of Chippewa)
For this frybread, the recipe for which comes from the Nett Lake Wild Rice website, you will need a few ingredients that are probably lying around, plus the already-cooked wild rice.
* wild rice (of course)
* flour (had it)
* baking powder (same)
* cornmeal (the recipe does not suggest white or yellow. I used white in this case)
* water and salt
* oil for frying
Combine the dry ingredients and the wild rice.
Add some of the cornmeal - see the Nett Lake website for exact amounts.
Add the water and stir until thick and kneadable. If too sticky, add some more flour and cornmeal.
Still adding the water.
This is what the dough should look like.
Divide the dough into equal parts, depending on how much you make (I did a half recipe). Sprinkle generously with flour and the rest of the cornmeal to keep from sticking to the rolling pin.
Or in this case, the parchment paper I put between the rolling pin and the dough. You should roll it out to about a 10 inch thickness, and either fry the whole flattened round or tear into pieces.
I did the latter, getting something kind of naan-shaped. Fry in oil that has reached the smoking point for about 45 seconds on a side.
Transfer each piece to a towel to absorb the oil - all that oil! Serve with butter and/or powdered sugar.
I must say my second attempt at making frybread worked out very well. This tastes best fresh out of the pan, not reheated, though heating it up in the toaster oven will likely work better than in the microwave. The wild rice adds a nice texture and a slightly nutty flavor. It's a great way to use up some extra wild rice.
We are done for now with the Great White North that is the Upper Midwest. We next head down to the opposite end of the Mississippi River, and explore some of the very Southern dishes of Mississippi.
I gotta say I am loving those seaweed snacks. Annie Chun's apparently makes one version, and Trader Joe's wasabi-flavored ones (see a rave from Trader Joe's Rants and Raves, a TJ's fan blog) is where I am getting my current supply. They charge $1 for one small package. Of course, I've been seeking recipes online so I can make them at home. It's not that difficult: just take sheets of nori, brush them with sesame oil and sprinkle with sea salt and if you want some black sesame seeds, put them in the oven for 5 to 10 minutes at 250°F and you're done. A wasabi version is at TheKitchn website.
Some of Minnesota's signature official foods are native foods - wild rice, morels. Minnesota's Native American communities have been using these ingredients for millenia, and are creating recipes with them today.
Official Name: State of Minnesota State Nicknames: The Gopher State; The Land of 10,000 Lakes; North Star State Admission to the US: May 11, 1858 (#32) Capital: St. Paul (2nd largest) Other Important Cities: Minneapolis (largest); Duluth (4th largest); St. Cloud (8th largest)
Region: Midwest; Great Lakes; West North Central (US Census) RAFT Nations: Wild Rice; Bison
Bordered by: Manitoba & Ontario (Canada) (north); Lake Superior (northeast); Wisconsin (east); Iowa (south); North & South Dakota (west) Official State Foods and Edible Things: milk (drink); walleye (fish); honeycrisp apple (fruit); Northern wild rice (grain); blueberry muffin (muffin); morel (mushroom) Some Famous & Typical Foods: Eastern and Northern European - especially Scandinavian (Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish, etc) - foods, especially lutefisk; Native American (Dakota, Ojibwe/Chippewa, etc) food traditions; dairy products
Minnesota has many bands of Native peoples, primarily Dakota and Chippewa/Ojibwe. The last part is not a typo - the Chippewa are the Ojibwe, just with a differently pronounced name. It is not difficult to find Native American recipes from the Upper Midwest. Take the Bois Forte Band of Chippewa, who sell wild rice at the Nett Lake Wild Rice website, harvested "the traditional way":
...by two persons in a canoe. One person uses a long pole to push the canoe slowly through the rice beds. The other person, seated in front of the poler, uses a pair of smoothly-carved “knocking sticks” to pull the rice stalks toward the canoe and gently knock loose the ripened grains of rice. This technique ensures that only ripe grains fall into the canoe while unripe grains can continue to ripen for later harvest. [Bois Forte Band 2011]
I attempted two recipes from the Bois Forte Band's Nett Lake website, unfortunately not with their own brand of wild rice. One recipe incorporates wild rice into one of the most common Native American foods in the US - frybread (that post goes up soon). The other is a side dish incorporating another native Minnesota food, the mushroom. In this case, I went all out and used something truly Minnesotan: the morel.
The recipe: Morel Mushroom Wild Rice (adapted from the Bois Forte Band of Chippewa)
For this pilaf you will need the following:
* wild rice (it's easy to find wild rice pilaf in the supermarket. It's much more difficult to find bags of just wild rice. I had to go to Trader Joe's for this. A bag will run about $5. Note: for this recipe you will need to prepare the wild rice first. Follow the directions on the bag or at the Nett Lake recipe website)
* mushrooms (I got morels - see below for a little more about this)
* wheat germ (to give it a little bulk. This set me back about $3 or $4)
* onion (bought one at the store, not expensive)
* parsley (from the garden)
* cumin and basil (had them)
* olive oil (had it too)
The recipe doesn't specify, but I wanted as complete a Minnesota experience as possible so I hunted down morels, the official state mushroom of Minnesota. These are not cheap: Melissa's popular brand of dried goods is available at Wegman's. A small box of morels will run - gasp - $9. Since I saved money on the salmon from the previous recipe, I splurged on this. But feel free to use any mushroom - fresh or dried and rehydrated
So I had these morels, right? And I had to rehydrate them.
Chop or slice the mushrooms, and sauté them in a pan with the onions - sliced - and parsley - chopped - in the olive oil.
Next, add the wild rice and continue to sauté.
Add the remaining ingredients and cook for a few more minutes.
I thought this recipe needed a little salt, which you should do to taste. Apart from that, this is a simple and filling dish to make. You get a lot of mileage out of the nutty wild rice. I have to admit: I didn't taste the morels too much. Were I to do this again, I would use a cheaper mushroom.
I wish I could show the whole thing in full size here but I fear I will be violating some sort of copyright if I do that. But do check out this flowchart graphic (a taste of which - pun intended - is above) from the Information is Beautiful website. British infographic artist David McCandless combs the recipes at Epicurious.com and 1000 Recipes on BBC Food to find the most common ingredients that go with main ingredients in recipes. He calls this his "infoodgraphic". It covers meat and vegetarian offerings, too. Plus it's just a fascinating piece of work.
You can also buy a hi-res version of his graphic at his online store for $7.50. (H/T Andrew Sullivan at The Daily Beast)
Continuing my tour of the Upper Midwest, it's just a hop, a skip and a jump to Minnesota. It is a state well in touch with its Native American food traditions - wild rice, the morel mushroom, and so on - as well as its rich Scandinavian heritage - erm, ummmm... lutefisk anyone?
Official Name: State of Minnesota State Nicknames: The Gopher State; The Land of 10,000 Lakes; North Star State Admission to the US: May 11, 1858 (#32) Capital: St. Paul (2nd largest) Other Important Cities: Minneapolis (largest); Duluth (4th largest); St. Cloud (8th largest)
Region: Midwest; Great Lakes; West North Central (US Census) RAFT Nations: Wild Rice; Bison
Bordered by: Manitoba & Ontario (Canada) (north); Lake Superior (northeast); Wisconsin (east); Iowa (south); North & South Dakota (west) Official State Foods and Edible Things: milk (drink); walleye (fish); honeycrisp apple (fruit); Northern wild rice (grain); blueberry muffin (muffin); morel (mushroom) Some Famous & Typical Foods: Eastern and Northern European - especially Scandinavian (Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish, etc) - foods, especially lutefisk; Native American (Dakota, Ojibwe/Chippewa, etc) food traditions; dairy products
As with much of the Great Lakes region, Minnesota was settled by internal and foreign immigrants, coming into an area already well-populated by native peoples. Today food traditions from the Dakota Sioux, Chippewa, Ojibwe (or Chippewa/Ojibwe - they're the same people) and other Native American nations are still an important part of Minnesota's modern culinary landscape. It shows, since foods such as the morel mushroom and especially wild rice have been eaten in Minnesota for thousands of years.
Tied in with those traditions are foods from all over Northern and Eastern Europe, from Ireland and Wales to Estonia and Poland. Most importantly, of course, are Minnesota's Scandinavian food traditions. Norwegian, Swedish and other Scandinavian immigrants flocked to Minnesota. Not only Minneapolis (a contrast to heavily Catholic St. Paul [Adams 1991: 124]) but also throughout the state we see perhaps America's largest concentration of Scandinavian-Americans. Minnesota's Scandinavian heritage is even immortalized in that most American of TV shows, The Golden Girls. To wit:
Okay, I assume there's no such thing as "pigs in a svengebløten". Really, I wonder just how many of Rose's strange recipes were based on real things.
So back to real food. Perhaps that most Scandinavian of dishes is the fabled lutefisk. For months now I had been trying, in vain, to track down and obtain lutefisk, that most Scandinavian of seafood dishes. Those of us who aren't in the know are hard-pressed to say much about it. It most certainly isn't easy to find in the Mid-Atlantic. Or the South, or the Northeast, or the West, or much anywhere else in the Midwest for that matter. And from what many Scandinavian-Americans have to say about it, why in my right mind would I? One Swedish-American gentleman told NPR's Audie Cornish last December about his experience with the jellied fish:
[MR. JOHN ANDERSON, OF WASHINGTON, DC]: Lutefisk is a dried whitefish soaked in lime. And as the song goes: oh, lutefisk, it looks like glue and tastes like a shoe. By the time we had it for a fourth consecutive Christmas, I asked everyone in the family at the dinner table if anyone really liked it. Even my grandfather, a die-hard Swede and for whom the dish was prepared, a man who once ate carp and liked it, confessed to having trouble getting past the third bite. [Cornish, for National Public Radio 2010]
Uh, yum?
I may be a bizarre foods kinda guy, but I can never have too little cod (not my favorite fish, sorry), and I'm not quite sure just how to make the lye solution in which to soak the dried fish. The internet is surprisingly light on recipes for actually making the lutefisk. The best I have come up with is how to prepare this Jell-O-like reconstituted cod, which so many people describe as tasting like shoes. Shoe-flavored Jell-O is not my idea of a fun time. No matter: I could not find it anywhere in Baltimore or DC - not even at IKEA. The closest thing: their tin of ready-to-eat fiskeboller (Norwegian fish balls).
So to represent Scandinavia, I had to give up the pipe dream of finding and trying lutefisk. My thoughts scanned past the obvious second choice - Swedish meatballs, already an American classic in its own right - and swerved to treated salmon. Lox (smoked salmon) and gravlax (cured salmon) are such an important part of the American culinary landscape today, but I've rarely ever thought to make them myself. Apparently, it is easier than I thought to do at least the gravlax. Making its own sauce (or sås - see how similar Norwegian and English are?) saved me the extra trip to IKEA, where I would probably end up buying some more plates and maybe a coffee table or something else that I didn't need.
This is not the first time I had the inkling to cure my own salmon. Stefan Gates, the Gastronaut of UK television fame, made his own. His took three days to cure, and he called it "deeply satisfying". The recipe for gravlax I used for this post comes from Swedish-African-American chef Helene Henderson. Her book The Swedish Table pulls recipes from her own childhood in Luleå (that å is pronounced more like an OH). Her gravlax recipe is the very first listed in the "Fish and Shellfish" chapter, page 61)
The recipe: Swedish Gravlax with Norwegian Mustard-Dill Sauce (or Gravlaxsås)
To make gravlax, you will need at least 48 hours to let the salmon cure, plus the following ingredients:
* salmon (make sure you have at least two pieces, skin on, to put together - as you will see later on during the recipe. You should use fresh but in this case I used frozen from Trader Joe's. It was substantially cheaper. I am not sure how this affected the texture, though several recipes say it is fine - even preferable - to use frozen salmon, since it kills any possible parasites. Of course, thaw it. But I would like to try this with fresh fish the next time to see. Note: some sources say you can also use mackerel if you want)
* equal parts granulated sugar and kosher salt (the more fish you have, the more of each you will need)
* fresh dill (lots of it)
* aquavit, cognac or vodka (this is optional, but I wanted to use a Scandinavian liquor. I found a Danish brand of aquavit at the Wine Source for $18)
Also make sure you have a large piece of aluminum foil, plastic wrap and a large ziploc bag.
First, mix the salt and sugar. This is what you will use to cure the salmon and make it into gravlax. In retrospect I think I should have used more salt and sugar, but the amount I used did work.
Generously cover the salmon with the sugar-salt mixture.
Both sides, please.
Next, place generous amounts of the dill on the salmon.
If you are using aquavit or some other liquor, douse the fish with it.
You will place the salmon pieces on top of each other, sandwiching the dill between them (I think I was supposed to put the meat inside now that I think about it).
Tightly wrap the salmon in the aluminum foil.
And then wrap that in the plastic wrap.
Place it in a dish, or as I did, a gallon-size zip top bag. Turn it every 12 hours, for a total of 48 hours in the refrigerator (note: some sources such as Cooking for Engineers note that they get just fine results from not turning it and not keeping it pressed down with something heavy - this is something else I forgot to do!)
Two days later you will get this. Or if you do it the right way, something a bit darker.
Wash off the salt-sugar mixture and the dill, and slice. Use something sharper than the IKEA knife that I used. You will get it thinner than I did, but even at this thickness it was quite wonderful.
Traditionally, you eat gravlax with a gravlaxsås. Many of these are some variation on mustard, lemon juice and more dill. It's not terribly difficult to make.
The recipe I used came from the Seafood from Norwaywebsite. I only used the sauce part of the recipe.
* fish stock (I used a few small pieces from the salmon plus a few bits of dill to boil my own)
* dill (it's not like I didn't have it lying around)
* whole seed mustard (had it)
* lemon juice (same)
* shallots (two will do you)
* cream (you won't need more than one half-pint)
* butter (had this too)
Sauté the shallots in butter until soft.
Next, add the fish stock, cream and mustard.
And bring to a simmer.
Then add lemon juice.
Oh, and dill.
Just as Stefan Gates said, this is a deeply satisfying dish. True, I had no knife capable of slicing it thinly, and the gravlax was probably not supposed to be lighter on the outside than on the inside. Still I wound up eating almost half of what I had cured, almost as soon as I pulled it out of the bag. This is a surprisingly simple recipe if you have the time and the patience for it. I will be doing this again, and probably will be experimenting with other things as well: maybe onions, pepper, cumin, even Old Bay.
UPDATE (October 28, 2011)
I recently tried this again, realizing some of my old mistakes. This time, I weighted the gravlax down, and I also put the skin sides out instead of in. This led to a denser texture, saltier flavor and much more deeply red color. These are pluses all around. I also decided to throw a little alder-smoked sea salt in for flavor, and it is really noticeable.
Amidst all the Bawlmer Beer Week festivities, don't forget that tonight is the fourth Food Truck Gathering around 5. This time the location is Fells Point. I admit: I was scratching my head the first time I heard this. One rarely can find parking on an uneventful day in that part of town. But the organizers swear that the 901 S. Wolfe Street location will have ample parking. Check out the BmoreFoodTrucks website (linked above) for more information about who's going to be there.
Bawlmer Beer Week is comin' soon, hons! It's my most favorite beer-related time of the year, and events run from the 6th through the 16th. Granted, I mostly indulge in beer tastings, but whatever you're looking for is easily found at the BBW2011 website. It looks like all the free tastings at the Wine Source fit into my schedule this year, too!
Few food items are more American than the hot dog, and there are so many regional variants - the Chicago Dog with its banana peppers and pickle spear, the Carolina Dog covered in sweet cole slaw, the LA Dog (also the Mexican Dog) wrapped in bacon, even the Baltimore Dog, wrapped in fried bologna (you have eaten this too, right?) - easily found at Zack's Dogs. And of course, there's the Michigan Dog, very popular in upstate New York and Québec but not in Michigan, where there is a similar hot dog named, of course, the Coney Island Dog.
Official Name: State of Michigan State Nicknames:The Wolverine State; The Great Lakes State
Admission to the US: January 26, 1837 (#26)
Capital: Lansing (5th largest) Other Important Cities: Detroit (largest); Grand Rapids (2nd largest); Ann Arbor (6th largest)
Region: Midwest; Great Lakes; East North Central (US Census) RAFT Nations: Wild Rice
Bordered by: Lake Michigan (west and southwest); Indiana & Ohio (south); Lakes Erie & Huron (east); Ontario (Canada) (north and east); Lake Superior (north); Wisconsin (northwest)
Official State Foods and Edible Things: brook trout (fish); whitetail deer (game mammal) Some Famous & Typical Foods: immigrant cuisines, especially German, Irish, Welsh and Middle Eastern/Arabic; Coney Island dog; pasty (in the Upper Peninsula); morel mushrooms
The Coney Island Dog - or simply, the Coney Dog - originated in 1914 in Jackson, Michigan, created by George Todoroff for his restaurant (according to Wikipedia anyway). Almost 100 years later the phenomenon has spread all over southern Michigan, with many places claiming to make the best. It's a very simple recipe at that, though you need some ingredients.
The recipe: Coney Island Dog (Detroit Style)
To make an authentic Coney Island Dog, you probably have to buy most of the ingredients in Michigan. Here in Baltimore, we have to settle for reasonable substitutes.
* natural casing all-beef hot dog ($5.50 or so for a package of seven. Many Michiganders insist this be a Koegel's Vienna, which we do not have anywhere in a 100 mile radius of Charm City. I should know; I checked Koegel's website. And I don't have the money to order perishable hot dogs through the mail, so my only other option was to find something else. As several websites suggested, I ended up using the always-popular Hebrew National Beef Franks. Please note: despite their popularity at the actual Coney Island, many people from Michigan insist you must never use Nathan's Famous hot dogs.)
* beanless all-beef chili (a special variety of this is called "Coney sauce" in Michigan. Again, I don't have this near me, so I bought a few cans of beanless all-beef chili made in North Carolina, for $1 a can. No corn syrup in this one.)
* yellow onion (those are quite easy to find here)
* yellow mustard (the same)
* soft hot dog rolls (I bought store-made rolls from Harris Teeter)
As so many websites point out, the Coney Island dog is assembled thusly:
First, grill your dog. You must never boil, steam or fry it. It has to be grilled.
While grilling the dogs, chop the onion and heat the chili or Coney Island Sauce (ambitious? Make your own Coney sauce with this recipe from eHow - it's for the sauce as well as the entire hot dog).
Now assemble the Coney Island Dog, first with your hot dog.
I didn't know if I should have put the mustard on before or after. In retrospect, I think it went on after the chili...
...which was next.
And then finally the onions, and you are done! This is quite the hearty hot dog, though not as messy as I assumed it would be. Yes, one of the rolls fell apart so I had to resort to a fork, but this is still a lovely way to top a hot dog.
- - - - -
It's just a short hop from Michigan to our next state. It's the land that gave America lutefisk. Whether you consider that a plus or a minus, it's time to head to the US's own little slice of the Great White North. Ya, you betcha! It's Minnesota.
Sources:
ArabDetroit.com. "Arab Americans". Much information contributed by Rosina Hassoun, (Arab Americans in Michgan, 2005). Copyright ArabDetroit.com, 2011. All rights reserved.
Farah, Madelain. "Falafel: Chickpea Patties". Featured on the episode "Late Night Sandwiches" of the show Sara's Secrets (Sara Moulton, host). Food Network, 2004.
My oil was low today. I stopped at the Midas to get it changed, and headed along Route 40 to find something to eat. I didn't want to spend too much, but the promise of dim sum drew me in to Asian Court. It's tucked away from the Baltimore National Pike so you have to know where to find it - namely, somewhere in the Giant shopping center.
Apparently, I am the last food blogger in the area to have found out about this place. No worries. I know about it now.
No menu is posted, but you will be filled up on about $15 of dim sum. The warm colored dining room is covered with murals that evoke China, excepting the bar which has a flat screen TV playing Chinese telenovelas (when I was there anyway). The place was pretty busy, and filled mostly with Chinese-American diners, a sign that this is probably a good place to be. There wasn't a whole lot of room for the wait staff to navigate around the tables with their dim sum carts. The first waitress to come to me had to stop across from my table, and I needed to get up to choose my plates (small ones are $3, with higher prices ranging from $4 for medium plates to $8 for the largest ones).
I don't remember exactly what I ordered, but the waitress was very keen on recommending the rice (I've had better, especially with the thin and chewy prawns, but it was still flavorful and I ate most of it). I also got some fried pork dumplings (very tasty - my favorite thing), another type of steamed dumpling whose contents I can't quite place (also tasty, though I came back to this plate less often) and a set of taro dumplings with a delicious and delicately crispy fried batter on the outside. They were just beautiful but difficult to pick up with a set of chopsticks - easier to cut in half with them, and then pick up each half. By the time the second cart had come around with shu mai - my most favorite type of dim sum - I was regretting having ordered so much. They will let you take home the leftovers, however, so if you order too much you won't be wasting it. I was going to be adventurous and order the chicken feet, but with so much food in front of me, I needed to conserve what was in my bank account and not stuff myself.
With all that dim sum plus a pot of piping hot jasmine tea, my total came to $17.50, a pricier lunch than I had planned to get today, but about right for all the food that I got.
I'm just a guy from Baltimore who likes to try out old and new restaurants and recipes. That's all you really need to know. Hopefully you'll enjoy reading about my escapades as much as I enjoyed being on them! If you would like to contact me, please use the Comments feature - it's so fast! You can also click here if you have Outlook on your computer. Thanks!
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Official Name: State of Minnesota
