Hummus with Spicy RED Skhug Sauce

One of my all-time most popular recipes on this site is my Spicy Green Skhug Sauce. Two whole forking years after I published it that recipe is still the most viewed. Basically Skhug sauce is a Yemenite Middle Eastern Hot Sauce made of hot peppers, garlic and spices. Skhug is used to zip things up. Skhug is also considered to add health benefits to food.

In case you don’t know skhug is also a “flavor bomb” It’s scorching hot, complex and flavorful. Since it;s a bomb a little goes a long way.

Skhug is made in three varieties, red -made with red peppers, green – with lots of cilantro, green peppers and parsley and brown with tomatoes, peppers and herbs.

Hummus with Spicy RED Skhug Sauce

In the past year or so I’m liking different fresh hot peppers that I can purchase here in Arizona.

At the moment the most flavorful pepper I’ve found is the banana pepper because they are not just very hot but have a lot of delicious flavor. I would convert most of my earlier recipes using hot peppers to include the banana pepper since the ones I buy here are hot and flavorful.

Banana Peppers

The banana pepper comes in a rainbow of colors and the ones sold in Arizona are extremely hot and flavorful unlike the banana peppers grown back the east cost where they are milder.

I made this recipe with red jalapeño peppers that were milder and fruity and that one red banana pepper. I also added roasted red bells peppers and the sweet liquid they gave off from roasting.

Skhug must have a good amount of garlic so I used my garlic confit that added refinement, a special sugary sweetness and a more delicious and more soft roasted garlic flavor. This hot sauce came out forking delicious.

I wasn’t in the mood for cilantro so I added a little fresh mint instead. I note that you are free to add cilantro for a more traditional taste.

Skhug is a very hot but delicious sauce. You might want to use it to flavor dressings, dips, sandwich spreads or hummus.

Traditional Skhug is  minced or relish like in texture. I choose to blend it because I didn’t want to get too much hot pepper in a bite.

Ingredients makes about 12 Servings

6 red jalapeno peppers – core and stem removed – pepper chopped

1 red banana pepper – core and stem removed – pepper chopped

2 roasted red bell peppers – core and steam removed chopped and include sweet liquid released from roasting

3-4 Tablespoons garlic confit – roast garlic cloves covered at 350 degrees F with sprinkle of extra virgin olive oil till soft 1-1 1/2 hour and whip till like butter

1/4 teaspoon cumin

1/4 teaspoon coriander

1/4 teaspoon cardamon

pinch cloves

1/4 teaspoon caraway

1/2 teaspoon kosher or sea salt

1 lemon – just the fresh squeezed juice

2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 Tablespoon fresh mint –  chopped

1 Tablespoon fresh parsley –  chopped

Directions

Blend and your ready to serve.

Enjoy

Hummus with Spicy RED Skhug Sauce

This is Great and that’s The Forking Truth

Biscotti

Biscotti is a sliced double baked cookie.

Biscotti is a loose term because true biscotti are free of butter and oil. Leaving out the butter or oil makes them very hard and crunchy and not the best for eating but wonderful for dunking in certain libations or coffee. Old world true biscotti are made with almonds and pine nuts and are free of butter or oil.

I liked one of Chef Giada De Laurentis’s recipes for biscotti and it a very good recipe but I tweaked it slightly. The biggest change might be using bread flour instead of regular all-purpose flour. I like the crispier texture that you get with the bread flour and I also double cooked the cookie longer. I also chose to change the flavor by not using chocolate chips and using anise seed as the flavor. These cookies aren’t too sweet and have half the butter in the recipe as a typical cookie. The texture is crisp but not too dry and wonderful for eating.

This recipe makes about 33 cookies they last for weeks in a sealed bag or container and they also freeze well too.

Ingredients to make about 33 cookies about 33 servings

2 cups bread flour

1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon kosher or sea salt

3/4 cup sugar

1 4oz. stick unsalted butter (at room temperature)

2 XL eggs beaten

1 teaspoon anise seeds

Directions

Set oven to 350 degrees F.

You will need a baking sheet and silicon mat. (I hand mix everything with a fork)

In a medium bowl mix the butter and sugar well. Add beaten eggs and mix well again.

Add all remaining ingredients and mix well.

Set in the refrigerator at least half an hour up to the next day.

Mold the dough into two logs on your silicon covered baking sheet.

Bake 25 minutes at 350 F

After 25 minutes they should look like this.

Pull them out of the oven and let them cool. (about a half hour)

Now get a bread knife and make 1/2 inch slices. (I think it’s easier if you are very gentle and lightly glide the knife threw in a sawing motion)

Lay the cookies going the same way in three rows on your baking sheet and turn your oven down to 300 degrees F.

Put the cookies in for 15 minutes.

Turn down the oven to 275 degrees F.

Take the cookies out and let them cool a little till you can handle them and turn them over to crisp the other side. Put the cookies in for another 15 minutes. Pull them out and enjoy!

Biscotti

These are forking great! I think every one will love them.

The Forking Truth

Stacked Ratatouille Inspired

Ratatouille is a French Stewed Vegetable dish that’s usually made of tomatoes, onions, zucchini, eggplant, bell peppers, garlic and herbs.  Each Vegetable is sautéed before layering in the dish. I thought I’d cook most of my vegetables separately because that is the idea about ratatouille. You want to bring out the best of each vegetable. To me squash taste the best broiled and charred. Condensing the tomatoes instead of making them into a sauce because removing the skin. Condensing the tomatoes really elevates them.  I also used tasty slightly spicy Anaheim chilies instead of bell peppers because I had a bunch of them and they also have more flavor than bell peppers with mild heat to cut threw the other vegetables. This recipe is very easy but also very time consuming.

Ingredients I used

Yellow Squash Broiled with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and fresh ground salt and pepper

Roasted Anaheim Chilies with most skin and cores removed. (I usually broil them ..just tried something different)

Eggplant, first salted and squeezed to release water and then lightly drizzled with extra virgin olive oil and then broiled on both sides.

Tomatoes that were peeled, drizzled with extra virgin olive oil and then condensed. (250 degrees about 6 hours)

Peeled and Concentrated Tomato

Zucchini  drizzled with extra virgin olive oil and broiled on both sides. Fresh ground salt and pepper.

Slowly cooked thinly sliced sweet onions- roasted in a 350 degree F oven for over an hour loosely covered and drizzled with extra virgin olive oil when ready sprinkled with fresh ground salt and pepper.

Fresh thyme was sprinkled over the zucchini and yellow squash.

Fresh marjoram was sprinkled over the tomatoes.

For all the vegetables I had I grated two garlic cloves over all the pans and now assembled stacks of vegetables.

Depending of the size and shape of your vegetables you might want to stack them different. I went on bottom yellow squash in an x then chili, eggplant, tomato, zucchini and then sprinkled a little more fresh marjoram on the top.

I froze my leftovers and if they are too soggy then I can turn them into a more traditional Ratatouille Stew. The fresh marjoram and fresh thyme really are delicious with these vegetables.   It would be a crime to use dried herbs here. This combination of vegetables and fresh herbs are really forking delicious!

  This is delicious and that’s The Forking Truth

Classic Boule

I got this recipe from the Tasting Table. This recipe is adapted from Adam Leonti of the Brooklyn Bread Lab. You only need an oven, a baking stone, water, active dry yeast, salt and bread flour. This bread is very easy to make but you have to start it maybe 4-5 hours before you go to bed and then leave it covered in the refrigerator for 12 hours. It makes a very tasty flavorful bread.

The Forking Truth is that I had some trouble with the recipe. I don’t know if some of the directions were omitted or if there was some sort of typo. It is a possibility that I had an oven problem ?(because my oven is a GE Monogram ((The Corvair of Appliances to me in search box search Monogram for my Story if Interested) and it’s always possible that it  was just an Arizona Climate related problem because good bread is seldom found in Arizona. Is it the water? The Climate? The elevation? Or did I run into trouble for using off the shelf bread flour instead of the recommended  Hayden Mills Flour?…….I don’t forking know!

Well anyways after one failed batch of bread that was raw in the middle I made another batch and simply made two loaves instead of the one loaf that the Tasting Table says this recipe makes.

First batch after 30 minutes (the recipe says it’s done in 25 minutes)

FIRST FORKING BATCH after 30 minutes in oven

I figured that if I made two loaves the recipe would work out and it did.

Ingredients for two loaves.

6 1/2 cups bread flour – Hayden  Mills is recommended but the Brooklyn Bread Lab grinds their own flour.

2 1/2 Tablespoons salt

3 1/2 cups water

1 Tablespoon active dry yeast

Directions

In a large bowl add your dry ingredients and slowly add the water mixing. Mix for about 4-5 minutes until the dough is like elastic.

Transfer to a floured surface and let it sit at room temperature covered for four hours.

Punch down and shape dough into a ball. Dusting as needed and place dough in a heavily floured bowl then cover a refrigerate twelve hours. The next day I punched it down after it warmed up and let it rise again and shaped the dough into two round loaves.

Preheat oven with a stone on middle shelf at 500 degrees F. Make slits in the bread about 1/8 inch deep.

I went a little deeper than the 1/8 an inch

Bake until golden on a pre-heated stone. this is after 20 minutes from my oven. (500 degrees F on a stone)

My second try at the Boule came out Forking Good!

The Forking Truth

Peeled and Concentrated Tomato

Peeling a tomato is very easy and anyone can do this quickly. Concentrating a tomato is also easy but it takes all day.

Anyone can make peeled tomatoes- Put a sauce pot on and bring it up to boil.

Drop your tomato or tomatoes in the boiling water. No matter what size the tomatoes are they will need very little time in the boiling water. About 1/2 a minute or a little less is all any tomato will take. Be careful not to cook them too long or the tomatoes can get mushy. Remove the tomato(s) with a slotted spoon and put them in an ice-bath.

Cut a not too deep “X” on the bottom of your tomato and also remove the core.

After the ice bath the skin comes off very easily.

Now you might have a bunch of peeled tomatoes.

Many dishes would be elevated if you concentrate the tomatoes.

To concentrate tomatoes –

Cut the tomatoes into thirds, place the tomato slices on sheet trays and drizzle with extra virgin olive oil. (unless you want to stop and de-seed first)

Put in a 250 degree oven F . The time will vary with the size and moisture of your tomatoes. They usually take 5-7 hours.

The above 4 quarter pans of tomatoes cooked down to 2 quarter pans when I was finished.

These are great for many of your recipes and fish.

The Forking Truth

Cook’s Country Potato Cheddar Pierogi

I thought I’d try out Cook’s Country Pittsburg Potato Cheddar Pierogi Recipe because it seemed easy and you don’t need a pasta machine for the dough.Cook’s Country tells a nice little story about how they learned about the pierogi from Pittsburgh’s Polish Hill Neighborhood. According to about Pittsburg.com the Pierogi is eaten there 11 times more than anyplace else in the country and many Pierogi shops are in business there. I thought the dough recipe was very unusual because it uses bread flour and sour cream so I thought wtfork I’ll give it a try. I didn’t make any changes to the dough and I thought the filling was a little bland possibly due to not using a better sharp cheddar instead of the store brand I used. I grated in 1/2 of a banana pepper to add some flavor and a tiny bit of heat to the filling. After I boiled the pierogi I took them one step further and crisped them up in a pan a little with some butter with some onions.

I’ve read that not always but often most people will eat the fresh made pierogis just boiled and often it’s the leftover pierogi that get eaten fried. In the past I worked with a Polish Cook at a restaurant and he always served the pierogi deep fried with crispy onions and they are very tasty that way too.

Cook’s Country say’s this recipe makes about 30 pierogi but I got 44 and would have gotten maybe another dozen but I wasn’t about to re-roll out the scraps thin. I did however use the rolled out extra dough and made thick chewy tasty noodles.  I had about one cup of extra filling left too. I summed up the directions to simplify.

Filling

1 lb russet potatoes cooked and pealed

4 oz sharp cheddar cheese shredded

2 Tablespoons butter

salt and pepper to taste.

Directions

While potatoes are hot mix everything together till smooth and set to the side.

Dough

2 1/2 cups bread flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 cup sour cream

1 large egg

1 large yolk

salt

Directions

Whisk dry ingredients together. Get your stand mixer out and the dough hook on. Mix on Medium high for 8 minutes. Transfer to a floured bowl cover with wrap and refrigerate.

Roll dough and 1/8 inch thick. (I found it was much better to roll the dough in maybe thirds because the faster you work with the dough the better it seals) Use a 3 inch cutter and add a small spoon full to the center of each circle. Then seal shut and keep going.

Get a pot of water on with salted water and boil your pierogi and enjoy. You can freeze pierogi that might want to save for latter or you might want to boil them all freeze leftovers and fry what you want for dinner. Either way serve with some caramelized onion and a little sour cream.

Cook’s Country Potato Cheddar Pierogi

Thank’s to Cook’s Country that is a good recipe!

This is a great recipe but I recently figured out that they come out EVEN BETTER if you chill the filling. I had leftover cheesy potatoes that I wanted to make into Pierogi. The cold hard filling scooped out with my meatball scoop was just right. The pierogi were much easier to fill and look much better too.

This post is too old for me to add a photo.

This is really Good and That’s The Forking Truth