♪ ♪ - It's got a little heat
from the harissa, it's got
the lemon juice in there, a little squeeze at the end,
as well. The fresh herbs, the potatoes and the chickpeas, the turmeric,
and what I love is, there's balance here,
but there's also contrast. And the meat's there,
but it's not overpowering. - The miso makes this soup,
for sure. It adds so much complexity. It has so many just
pops of flavor to it. And then you've got the texture from the mushrooms
and the silken tofu. And then that egg, when you
crack that yolk in there, adds all of this richness. It's just a perfect
little bowl of soup. - This seasoning technique
is one of the most fundamental flavoring methods in
Indian cooking. So you learn this once, you can use it on
lots of different things. The onions hit great. There's some heat
from the chili, all that earthy spice from the toasted cumin seeds, of course, that little dash
of lemon on top, and the turmeric
binding it all together in a delicious creamy bowl. ♪ ♪ Let's get started. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ - You know, stews are
a fabulous teaching tool, since almost every culture
has stew recipes, but they approach them
very differently. So we start in Morocco
with harira, which is a beef, tomato,
and chickpea stew. Then we go on to make
a miso soup with shiitake and poached eggs,
which is based on a simple miso broth. And then finally,
we do a lentil stew, obviously from India,
called dal tarka. Please stay tuned. - Funding for this series was
provided by the following. - That meal. You sautéed, you seared,
and you served, cooking with All-Clad, bonded cookware designed,
engineered, and assembled in the U.S.A.
for over 50 years. All-Clad: for all your
kitchen adventures. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ - (speaking Arabic): ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ - (speaking Arabic): ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ - You know, what I love about
traveling around the world is going into people's homes. We tend to get cooking lessons
from home cooks, less so in restaurants. Because you find recipes
that are very common, let's say in Morocco, like the harira
we're about to make, which is a beef stew. But, you know, most of us know
tagine, but we don't know that. So you find out how people cook,
and what they cook, and it really opens up
the possibilities for us here at Milk Street
and you at home. So this is a beef stew,
which starts out with a typical sofrito, you know, carrots, onions,
and celery. But then it takes a few turns. It has some more interesting
flavorings in it, and some techniques. So it's a way of thinking about
how to expand your notion of what a beef stew is. So we're going to start off with the typical
sauté the sofrito, a couple of
tablespoons of olive oil. By the way,
when you cook onions, for example, as a first step, you don't actually have to
preheat the pan. The oil is not going
to get into the onions because the onions are
full of water. So you can put it in
and then heat up the pan. That's fine. A little bit of salt,
half a teaspoon. So the next thing we're
going to do is take cilantro, and take the stems--
put the leaves aside. This is a great technique,
by the way, for parsley stems or
cilantro stems. We very often use them
in cooking for flavoring. They have a lot of flavor. (pan sizzling softly) Give it a stir. (sizzling) And we'll cook
that six or seven minutes, really, to sweat the vegetables
and start to soften them. We cooked this recipe
with two people. We went to Fez in Morocco,
Houda Mehdi, who also taught us to make
a great flatbread recipe, and Adi Bourachdi--
and both of them showed us how to do it at home. And we learned so much,
as I said, about flavors and textures. So we'll be back in
a few minutes. We'll add some tomato paste,
some spices, some grated tomato, and get on with our harira. So we're going to add some
tomato paste and some spices. But first we're going
to finish grating tomatoes. Grated tomatoes is just a great
way to cook them in a stew. And the skin
is obviously still on. Okay. This has been
six or seven minutes. We sweated the vegetables. And here's a tip: very often, to
add some depth of flavor, umami, tomato paste has
a ton of it. We put it in, and we're going to cook it
for just a minute. So browning tomato paste
is a good way to add, you know, foundational flavor. So, so far, this has been
your typical beef stew. You know, sofrito,
do a sauté, soften the vegetables,
add a little tomato paste. That's not that unusual. But now we're going to start
to make it a harira, a Moroccan stew. So we're going to add
turmeric. We're going to add harissa, which originally came from
Tunisia. It's dried chilies, spices,
some olive oil, sometimes some vinegar. Some recipes use
peppers or sweeter ingredients. Stir that in. And then we have
our four grated tomatoes. (sizzling) Scrape up the bottom
a little bit. And we're going to cook this
over sort of medium-high for just a few minutes,
about five minutes. We want to see this start
to thicken up before we start adding
the stock, and the meat,
and the other ingredients. So this is a nice base, but again, it's got the
turmeric, it's got the harissa. So it definitely has
a Moroccan feel to it. So let's just
take a look at this. It has that nice, rich color. It's from the tomato paste that we briefly sautéed,
and the harissa, as well. I'm going to move on
to the Yukon Golds go in. This is a dish that's going
to have, by the way, potatoes and beans, chickpeas,
which is a common combination. And a quart
of low-sodium beef broth. You know, a lot of places in
the world just use water. They don't use broth--
you could use water here. We're going to turn up
the heat a little bit, bring this up to a simmer,
and then we'll add the meat. And then we're going to
cook this for about an hour and a half. So this is at a simmer,
obviously. And now we're
going to add short ribs, three-inch pieces of short ribs. Now, notice that we haven't
sautéed the meat. And that's because, you know,
I've traveled a lot. I almost never found a culture
outside of Northern Europe that sautés meat. And there's a good reason
for that. The question is, in a stew, do you want
meat on meat on meat? And so by sautéing meat,
you get more Maillard reaction, you get more depth of
meat flavor. What most people do, including this recipe
from Morocco, is, they want to balance it. They don't want any
one ingredient to overpower the whole dish. So by not sautéing the meat, meat's a component,
but it's not just meat. It has lots of other things
going on, which is why we love getting these kinds of recipes
from other countries. So we'll bring this up
to a simmer. I'll cover,
have it a nice low simmer, and cook it for about
an hour and a half. Now, in Morocco,
as in many places in the world, they do use pressure cookers. So this might well be made
in a pressure cooker, which would take about
half the time, which you can do, as well. Just follow the recipe
to this point and then set
the pressure cooker. Probably take about
40 minutes or so to cook. And so we'll be right back. ♪ ♪ So the meat has come out. It's been about
an hour and a half. It's obviously tender. I just want to reiterate
that this is a dish where the meat's almost a flavoring
in the stew. You know, we don't have
a huge pile of meat, but it's just
one of the ingredients. So there are two ways
to thicken this. You could use flour. Houda Mehdi, one of the people
we cooked with, likes to mash the vegetables
to, to thicken, which is great. And you could do
that right in the pot. I think that's enough. So it's plenty thick. Now we have the meat,
and we cooked the meat in three-inch pieces. And we did that so
it wouldn't dry out. But obviously, they're a little
bit too big for eating. Okay, we're good. We'll add that back. Give that a stir. Now, we're going to also add in
the chickpeas at this time. You don't have to rinse these. You drain off the liquid,
the aquafaba, but a little bit is
still on the chickpeas, and that's also going to act
a little bit as a thickener. Now, the other thing you want
to do is, you want to check for texture, and... I think that's pretty good,
but you know what? We're just going to add
a little bit of water. And you can always do this
with a soup or stew towards the end. You can just adjust
the amount of liquid. I think that's good. We're going to bring this up to
a very low simmer for about 15 minutes, just to heat through
the meat again and also to warm up
the chickpeas. So everything's warmed up. Here's a tip I got
from, actually, a Boston chef. She said, "When you cook,
listen," right? So when you're listening to,
let's say, a stew cook, you can hear it
when it's at a nice low simmer, it's sort of gentle. (chuckling):
If it starts to sound angry, then you need to get back and look at the pot, and
probably turn the heat down. So hearing, you know,
the audio part of cooking, is actually really important. So this is done. We're going to add
a little lemon juice to brighten things up. Which is another great tip. You know, if you're making
a soup or stew, at the end, you want to add
some bright notes. Cilantro-- the leaves. And people often ask, you know,
what are the two or three most important things
in cooking? First is to use enough salt, because it makes all
the difference. But then taste the food,
especially a soup or a stew, just before you serve it, because inevitably,
it's going to need something. This definitely needs salt. We haven't-- I think we've put
half a teaspoon in so far, so... I'm a big fan of salt. And now we can go ahead
and plate it. ♪ ♪ A little extra harissa is nice. So that's it, that's the harira. It's a Moroccan beef
and tomato chickpea stew. It's a great teaching recipe
to take sort of an everyday beef stew and make
it something really special. Mm. It's got a little heat from
the harissa, got the lemon juice in there, a little squeeze at the end,
as well. The fresh herbs, the potatoes
and the chickpeas, the turmeric. And what I love is,
there's balance here, but there's also contrast. And the meat's there,
but it's not overpowering. So a Moroccan beef and tomato
chickpea stew. Not hard to make. You can do it a pressure cooker,
take about half as much time. It's a great way to experience
another culture-- in this case, Morocco. ♪ ♪ - Miso goes back millennia
in Japan, and it's a true
powerhouse ingredient. It's the backbone in this quick
and easy broth with just water, red miso, garlic, and
tomato paste that we're going to use in our miso soup
with shiitake mushrooms and poached eggs. So we're going to start with
some tomato paste. And just
smashed cloves of garlic. And these are just
going to cook together. We're going to really get some
concentrated flavor on these. So we're calling this miso soup,
but it's not true miso soup. It's really more soup
with a miso broth. True miso soup would be made
with a dashi, which is made with kombu and dried bonito flakes,
which are fish flakes. All right, so the tomato paste
is stuck on the bottom, which means
it's nicely caramelized. So we can add the water. And the red miso. And we're using red miso here. It's typically fermented longer. It usually
has more grain to mold, and it has a much more
intense flavor, and that's really
important here, so don't use white miso paste. And you really
want to whisk this up and scrape the bottom,
because you want to make sure you get all of that tomato paste
off the bottom of the pan. I'm going to bring this
to a simmer and then let that sit
for about five minutes, and then I'll strain it
and put it back in the pot. We want to strain it because, A, we want to strain out
those garlic cloves, but also,
miso doesn't fully break down, so it might have a few clumps
left in there. That will remove those clumps. ♪ ♪ All right. I strained the broth
so you can see the solids here. Just going to get rid of those and then we'll put this broth
back into the pan. Oh, that smells so good. Just, miso has a smell that is
like no other. And now we can prep
the mushrooms. So these are
fresh shiitake mushrooms. You do not want to substitute
with dried mushrooms here. The whole purpose, really, of
these mushrooms is for texture. Obviously, they're going
to add a lot of umami flavor, but we really want the texture
of the mushroom in the soup. So dried mushroom really
doesn't add that great texture. All right, and we can add these
to the soup. And we'll bring those to
a simmer and let those cook for about ten minutes, just
until they're nicely softened. In the meantime,
I'm going to poach the eggs. So I've got
a ten-inch skillet here. You want to bring this up
to a simmer. You don't want a
real vigorous boil, because when you add
the eggs in, they're just going to
completely fall apart. We always recommend, when
poaching eggs, adding the egg
to a little cup first. It makes it so much easier
to put them into the water. You can get really close
to the water. You don't lose as
much of the white that way. Then we turn the heat off. And cover. And you want to let that steam
in there for about three to five minutes, depending on how runny
you like your yolk. I like mine on
the very loose side, so I'm only going to go
probably three minutes. This is a time to
really set your timer. Okay,
I think our eggs are poached. It's the moment of truth
to take them out. All right, there's the last one. Everything is together
except for our last ingredient, and that's silken tofu,
it's soft silken tofu, which is very delicate. So when you cut it,
you want to put it on a plate, and then just cut it into
little cubes. So I'm going to add this
to the soup. This soup smells so good. That red miso is
just amazingly intense, and we're going to bulk up our
soup with a little bit of rice. So I cooked some white rice. And you want the rice to be warm
when you add it to your bowl. Otherwise, it's going to lower
the temperature of the soup. Those mushrooms
look really good. Okay, so now I can
add the egg very carefully. And then we'll garnish
with some scallion. And this is shichimi togarashi. It's a Japanese spice blend. It has a little bit of
chili pepper, some citrus peel,
nori, garlic, some seeds. Adds a little bit of heat
and definitely some more complex, umami flavor. And then drizzle with
a little bit of sesame oil. All right, the first thing
I'm going to do is crack open this egg and let that yolk run into the soup. It's going to
add a lot of richness. ♪ ♪ Oh, that's so good. The miso makes this soup,
for sure. It adds so much complexity. It has so many just
pops of flavor to it. And then you've got the texture
from the mushrooms and the silken tofu. And then that egg, when you
crack that yolk in there, adds all of this richness. It's just a perfect
little bowl of soup. This is miso soup with shiitake
mushrooms and poached eggs, a great
vegetarian weeknight meal. ♪ ♪ - Why eat boring old lentils
when you can have dal tarka? Today I'm going to show you
a simple way to spice up your lentils. It's a little more work
and a lot more flavor. Let's get started. I'm using
for this recipe red lentils. They cook quite quickly,
and they break down to become very, very creamy. I'm going to put my lentils in. Add to that some turmeric. A generous pinch of salt. A little extra for good measure. And some water. I'm going to
bring this to a boil, turn it down, keep stirring it
for about 20 minutes until the lentils
are broken down and are creamy. ♪ ♪ So my lentils
have finished cooking. Look at this. They've broken down into this
lovely creamy texture that is perfect. Now, to season them,
I'm going to make the tarka. This is the spice bloom
in oil. I'm going to heat some oil. You can also use ghee
if you prefer the flavor. I'm going to heat this
on medium-high. When that's nice and hot,
my spices go in. Now, a tarka moves very fast, so it's important that you keep
your ingredients ready on hand so your spices
don't burn. My oil is hot,
and in go the cumin seeds. You'll see them
start to sizzle and crackle, and I want this just for
a few seconds, until they get fragrant. (pan sizzling softly) This is smelling great. It's a lovely earthy flavor
of cumin. I'm going to add some shallot
in here. You can also use onion. (pan sizzling) And some chopped chilies. I'm going to stir this
and cook it until the onions have
just started browning. This is super-fragrant,
very aromatic, and it's going to add so much
oomph and flavor to the dal. This seasoning technique is
one of the most fundamental flavoring methods in
Indian cooking. So you learn this once,
you can use it on lots of different things. Okay, I'm going to cut
the heat and add some tomatoes. In go some
fresh chopped tomatoes. And that's it. Fresh and flavorful,
my tarka is ready, and I am ready to serve my dal. Okay, let's see how
this turned out. And topping it off
with some tarka. That is gorgeous. I like to add a little bit of
cilantro for color and flavor. And I like to finish it with
a generous squeeze of lemon. And now my favorite part. ♪ ♪ So, here it is, our dal tarka. So much better than
plain boiled lentils. The onions hit great. There's some heat
from the chili. All that earthy spice
from the toasted cumin seeds. Of course, that little dash
of lemon on top, and the turmeric binding it
all together in a delicious creamy bowl. And this recipe is
a vegan recipe, so it is great for anybody
you have coming over to visit. You can get this recipe and
all the recipes of this season at MilkStreeTV.com. - All episodes
and recipes from this season of Milk Street Television
are available for free at our website,
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or order online. - Funding for this series
was provided by the following: - That meal. You sautéed, you seared,
and you served, cooking with All-Clad, bonded cookware designed,
engineered, and assembled in the U.S.A.
for over 50 years. All-Clad: for all your
kitchen adventures. ♪ ♪
