FitFare

I have a post up on FitFare today on Decadent Double-Chocolate Cake. Stop by and check it out. It may be the next post here, but until I can get a write up done, you can get your chocolate fix there.

Simple Things: Ricotta Cheese

If you have the following in your house:

6 cups of whole milk (the higher the quality the better, although plain old milk will be fine)
2 tablespoons of white vinegar
A little salt
A pot big enough for the 6 cups of milk
A large spoon (slotted is better, but if you don’t have one, it’ll still be fine)
A candy thermometer (or an instant-read thermometer and two wooden spoons)
Some cheesecloth
A colander
A bowl large enough to hold the colander

You have the makings of the most amazing, most wonderful, most incredible thing you’ve ever eaten. It's absolutely simple, yet people will marvel that you made it. Fresh homemade ricotta cheese.

I’ve read about people making their own ricotta and always threatened to try it. In the last couple of weeks I’ve read in two different places about making cheese in general, and ricotta specifically as one of those. The first was in the spring issue of Donna Hay magazine, which I was rereading since spring is standing on the threshold. The second was in Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. He has a section on Cheese & Eggs, and part of that section includes instructions for making one’s own cheese of various kinds, including ricotta.

I stuck more closely to Donna Hay’s method, because she was more specific with things like temperatures and overall instructions. Mark Bittman’s method was to heat the milk on medium for 10 or 15 minutes until it took on a certain appearance and then add the acidifying ingredient to make cheese. Having never done this before I was more comfortable with Donna Hay’s very specific instruction to heat the milk to 176 degrees F and then add the acidic component.

Donna Hay did call for a candy thermometer, which I didn’t have. Instead I had an instant read thermometer that I rigged up a suspension device for using two wooden spoons.



I heated the milk over a fairly gentle flame, and it did take quite a bit of time to reach the right temperature—probably 10 or 15 minutes. I never let it actually boil, or even simmer, but just heat. From Mark Bittman I did learn that a pinch or two of salt wouldn’t hurt the finished product, so I added that during the heating process. When the thermometer read 176 degrees F, I removed the pan from the heat, poured in the vinegar, and held my breath. The milk immediately took on the appearance of curdled…well, milk, of course.

I let it sit for several minutes, then began scooping the curds gently out into the cheesecloth-lined strainer (funny, to actually use cheesecloth for cheese) to drain. The gentle touch is needed, Donna Hay explains, to keep the curds intact. After a few minutes in the strainer, I moved the cheese to an old jar (I keep old jars of likely sizes—jam, pickles and the like—for just this sort of project).

With trepidation I tasted the result. Would it be any good, or would I have just trashed 48 ounces of milk for nothing?

Well. I cannot tell you how wonderful it was. Silky and smooth with the faintest milky flavor, but with the proper cheese flavor too. It was pillowy, I tell you. It looked like soft fluffy clouds as I spooned it into the jar.


I immediately added “whole milk – 2 gal.” to the grocery list I was making. Having bought it, I made another batch of ricotta.

This time I was making my children’s lunch at the same time—home made pizza. My attention was divided, I was less devoted to the ricotta-making process than before. Now I used a medium flame, but checked the thermometer (which was by now a candy thermometer that I bought at the grocery store with the milk) only when I happened to think of it. By the time I was able to focus my thoughts on cheese and cheese alone, the temperature was probably closer to 200 degrees F. I don’t even really know. I swirled the skin that had formed over the heating milk into the mixture with the probe of the thermometer, noticed that the gauge immediately shot up, and crossed my fingers as I dumped the vinegar into the milk. It curded up just the same as before.

Then I got involved with some disaster involving flour and a two-year-old and it sat in the pot for really quite some time. At least twice as long as the five minutes originally called for. Once again I carefully scooped the curds out into the prepared colander. In fact, it turned out better this time. The first time I’d felt like I was throwing away quite a bit of milk. This time the liquid left was just yellowish whey.

It also strained longer the second time, again having to do with my children’s lunch preparation schedule, and again, I felt the result was more successful than before. The ricotta was dryer this time and more closely resembled that which I could buy in the store, but with that fresher, more immediate flavor than store bought gives. This also taught me that if all I had was a regular spoon that I could let as much of the whey as possible run off as I scooped it up, and then let it drain longer, possibly turning it carefully a time or two as it drained in the colander.

I now have two jars of this wonderful stuff in my refrigerator, and bought the ingredients for lasagna at the same time I was buying the additional milk. In fact, the only disappointment in this whole experience was that it didn’t occur to me to make lasagna with the finished product. It had to be pointed out to me that it would probably make fabulous lasagna. After I made the first batch, and raved about it, Alex said, “Wow, if it’s that good, think how good a lasagna made with it would be…”

I could only smack myself in the forehead and add to the grocery list.

Ricotta Cheese
adapted from Donna Hay magazine #35, and Mark Bittman’s “How to Cook Everything Vegetarian”

makes about 1 and 1/2 cups of cheese

6 cups whole milk
2 tablespoons white vinegar
1 teaspoon salt (or more to taste)

Line a colander with cheesecloth and place over a large bowl.

Heat milk over medium heat until a candy or instant read thermometer reaches 176 degrees F.

Remove pan from heat, and add vinegar to milk. Allow to sit at least 5 minutes as curds form.

Using a slotted spoon, gently scoop curds into prepared colander. Allow to drain until fairly dry, five to ten minutes at least.

Springing: Lemon Tart

It’s almost too much to hope that spring is here. We got conflicting reports from groundhogs, and which one was to be believed? But sitting in my living room yesterday afternoon with the French doors wide open, the gentle breeze wafting around the room, and the setting sun tiptoeing across the floor as I sipped a glass of Chardonnay that could have been its sister, I was inclined to believe the “four more weeks of winter” prediction. It’s been sunny and tragically beautiful (tragic in a “How can they insist we work in a stuffy office on a day like this?” kind of way) since last weekend.

Perhaps as a way of wishing spring had really arrived, or perhaps as a sort of magic charm to bring it on, we made a lemon tart last weekend. Citrus is one of those ingredients that straddles the seasons, much like squashes, potatoes, mushrooms and onions do between fall and winter. When few other fruits are particularly nice, lemons and limes are little splashes of warmth and cheer. They’re so accomodating and flexible too, lending a hand in sweet dishes with as much enthusiasm as they do in savory ones.

This particular recipe is from Donna Hay magazine. Donna Hay is less well known in this country, although she certainly has her followers. Because she’s Australian, and antipodean seasons are exactly opposite of ours, I always look longingly at the (incredibly beautiful, amazingly styled) pictures of warm, homey roasts in July, and summery berry concoctions offered as dessert options for Christmas dinner.

But because I subscribe to the magazine (at exorbitant rates, but an addict must pay the price) I can just reach back two issues and find the right season and be browsing through crisp salads and picnic fare. For those who would prefer to support their local magazine retailer, the issue on the newsstand is usually the correct one for the North American season (I checked my local bookstore last weekend, and indeed, issue 35 Spring, Oct/Nov 07 is the one currently available). The downside to not subscribing is that most stores only get a few issues, so you do run the risk of missing out if you don’t show up pretty promptly when the shipment comes in. It was the disappointment of missing out that urged me to subscribe. I also bought all the back issues all the way to issue 1.

This lemon tart comes from a column called Inspired, in which the recipes are generally centered around a concept, rather than an ingredient. “Folded,” for instance, or “paper thin.” Folded consisted of recipes for things like crepes, and paper thin featured home made potato chips, and things made with phyllo. In issue 35, the theme is Citrus. How timely and convenient, since decent citrus is available pretty much all year. This lemon tart seemed like an excellent way to usher in (or beg for the arrival of?) spring.

Like almost every recipe I’ve ever made from Donna Hay, this one was outstanding. The only change we ever have to make is in the cooking times. I’m not sure why, but our cooking times always seem to be about twice as long as hers, regardless of the cooking method. The tart said to cook it for 20 minutes, but in the end it was in the oven for closer to 40 minutes. No matter, it was terrific, a well balanced sweet-acidic filling with a lovely biscuity crust. The filling was smooth and creamy and tart and wonderful. This is not a fast recipe, but well worth the time spent, and an excellent reminder that, no matter what the groundhogs say, it can be spring inside, even if it’s not quite spring outside.

Lemon Tart
from Donna Hay magazine, issue 35
serves 8, or 2 people really anxious for spring to arrive

1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
3 ½ oz cold unsalted butter, chopped
1 tablespoon caster (superfine) sugar*
1 egg, lightly beaten
¼ teaspoon vanilla extract
Lemon filling
1 cup (single or pouring) cream**
2 eggs
3 egg yolks
½ cup caster (superfine) sugar
½ cup lemon juice

Place the flour, butter and sugar in a food processor and process until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Add the egg and vanilla and process in short bursts until the pastry just comes together. Turn out and bring together to form a ball. Flatten the pastry, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 15 minutes.

Preheat oven to 360 degrees F. Roll out pastry on a lightly floured surface until 1/8” thick. Line an 8 2/3” (we used a 9”) round pastry ring (we used a tart pan with a removable bottom) with the pastry, trim, and prick the base with a form. Refrigerate for 30 minutes. Line the pastry with non-stick baking paper, fill with baking weights and bake for 15 minutes. Remove the weights and paper and bake for a further 2-3 minutes or until golden. Set aside.

Reduce the oven to 285 degrees F. To make the lemon filling, place the cream, eggs, egg yolks, sugar and lemon juice in a bowl and whisk to combine. Pour the mixture into the tart shell and use the back of a metal spoon to skim the surface to remove any bubbles. Bake for 20 minutes or until just set. Allow to cool and refrigerate until completely set.

* caster or superfine sugar is available at some grocery stores, but you can make your own by whizzing regular granulated sugar in a food processor until fine. The benefit of superfine sugar over regular granulated sugar is that it dissolves more quickly.

** we used heavy cream; Donna Hay gives fat content comparisons in several of her books, but the problem I find is that most of the milk sold in this country doesn’t include information about percentages of fat on the labels. Australia, like England, has products like double cream that we can only dream of here (or pay huge sums for at specialty stores). Our heavy cream is approximately equivalent to their single cream.

Making It Myself: Ethiopian Food

I think I’ve mentioned several times that we live on an island. Contrary to my husband’s grandmother’s perception of a sort of Robinson Crusoe scenario with indoor plumbing, it’s a pretty well-populated island. We’re just a short ferry ride from Seattle, but putting that water between us and the metropolis makes it seem farther away, more remote. I work in Seattle so I have access to lots of the comforts of an urban lifestyle, but every evening I get on the ferry and watch the city slide away. On the island side, a “traffic jam” is a line of more than five cars. “Downtown” is four blocks long and four blocks wide. We have seven traffic lights, and two of those are just constantly flashing red lights at intersections with four-way stops. Nothing is more than 20 minutes away from anything else.

Sounds pretty nice, doesn’t it? Where I came from, a “traffic jam” meant at least an hour sitting on the highway, barely creeping along, and it took 20 minutes just to get out of my neighborhood, onto the main road, and over to the grocery store (if you walked, which I did once or twice, it was about a mile as the crow flies, but there were no sidewalks, few cross walks, and the whole layout was pretty unfriendly to pedestrian traffic).

While this is island has a significant population, and that population generally quite well-educated and possessing fairly sophisticated tastes (generally speaking, of course), what we don’t have is a vast selection of restaurants. As these things go, we have a pretty good roster to choose from: a café that serves what I suppose would be termed “New American cuisine,” an Asian fusion restaurant, a couple of Mexican places, a couple of Thai places, a couple of seafood places, and a Chinese, and an Indian restaurant. There are a few more, including a couple of wine bars and pizza places, but those are the highlights as far as sit-down restaurants go.

However, you’ll notice that there are some omissions there. No Italian (although there is a little pasta shop). No steakhouse. No French. No tapas. All these things are available on the other side of the water, but sometimes we just want to stay on our little island. That means we either go without, or shop for unusual ingredients on our lunch hour and try our hand at making things at home.

This is a somewhat roundabout way of explaining how it is that Ethiopian food became part of my cooking repertoire. There are only a few Ethiopian restaurants in Seattle that I’m aware of (and if your awareness is guided by Zagat, there are none). I wasn’t really craving Ethiopian, but then I stumbled on a series of recipes in the March 2006 issue of Sunset magazine while I was at the hairdresser. They even had a recipe for bread (injera). Suddenly, I was dying for Ethiopian. The hairdresser let me tear out the page, and off I went.

These are only two of many dishes you’re likely to find at a true Ethiopian restaurant, but they’re representative of the things I love best about it. The stew is beef in a zingy tomato based sauce that thickens up to the point where you can pick it up with the injera. The lentils are a little different from what I used to get back east. The recipe calls for yellow lentils, rather than red, and they’re scented with lemon, which is actually a perfect foil to the warm spices of the beefy stew. I’ve made the injera, and it even turned out as I remembered it in the restaurant, but it wasn’t such a hit with *ahem* other members of my family, and since it takes a little time and effort to make and wasn’t appreciated, I stopped making it. However, just the beef and the lentils alone make a very filling meal, and the bread is not critical. What you get is a bowl of soupy sunshine with a spicy, beefy sauce on it.

This makes a lot of food. I take the leftovers the next day for lunch. The lentils aren’t all that pretty when they’re reheated, but they’re still delicious. The smell when it’s reheating will have your coworkers asking, “What is that? It smells great.” And you say, “Thanks, it’s Ethiopian food,” and they’ll ask where you got it, and you’ll respond, “Oh, I made it.”

You’ll impress them, but more importantly, you’ll impress yourself that you can make something so warming, so wonderful, and so seemingly exotic. You’ll start wondering what other culinary challenges you’re up for. The next hideous rainy afternoon when you’re thinking that you just can’t face another casserole, you won’t hesitate to consider some previously intimidating cuisine. After all, you’ll think, that Ethiopian food was really wonderful!

Beef Stew in Spicy Berbere Sauce
from Sunset magazine, March 2006
serves 6

If you can get the fenugreek, it really does add a little something. I’ve made it with and without, and there’s just a little more authentic flavor if you do use it. You can reduce or increase the amount of cayenne to suit your preference for heat. I’m not a huge fan of super spicy things, so I usually cut it down to a teaspoon or so.

2 medium onions, quartered lengthwise
1/4 cup butter
1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger
1 tablespoon each ground paprika and cayenne
1 teaspoon each ground cumin and fenugreek
1/2 teaspoon each ground turmeric, cinnamon, and cardamom
1/4 teaspoon each ground cloves and allspice
1 can (14 1/2 oz.) crushed tomatoes in purée
1/4 cup dry red wine
2 1/2 pounds boned beef chuck, fat trimmed, cut into 3/4-inch chunks
Salt

1. In a food processor, pulse onions until very finely diced (almost puréed).

2. Melt butter in 4- to 5-quart pan over medium-high heat. Add onions and stir until browned, about 10 minutes.

3. Add ginger, paprika, cayenne, cumin, fenugreek, turmeric, cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, and allspice; stir until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add tomatoes, wine, and beef; bring to a simmer, then cover, reduce heat, and simmer, stirring occasionally, until beef is very tender when pierced, about 2 hours. Add salt to taste.

Lemony Lentils
from Sunset magazine, March 2006
serves 6

I always use yellow split peas for this, which I have to believe are the same thing as yellow lentils because I’ve never seen truly yellow lentils anywhere. Green, brown, red, yes; yellow, no. Even if I’m wrong and there really are yellow lentils, the yellow split peas work just fine and taste great.

2 tablespoons butter
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 cups yellow or brown lentils, sorted for debris and rinsed
4 cups chicken broth
1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger
Grated peel from 1 lemon (yellow part only)
1/4 cup lemon juice
Salt and pepper
Chopped cilantro and lemon wedges

1. Melt butter in a 3-quart pan over medium-high heat. Add garlic and stir until just beginning to brown, about 1 minute.

2. Add lentils and stir to coat with butter, then add broth. Simmer, covered, until lentils are tender but not mushy, 20 to 30 minutes. They will thicken as they cool.

3. Stir in ginger, lemon peel, juice, and salt and pepper to taste. Serve with chopped cilantro and lemon wedges on the side.

Injera
from Sunset magazine, March 2006
serves 6 (12 flatbreads)

You can use buckwheat flour, which is more widely available than the traditional teff flour. However, I found teff flour at my local grocery store after I’d already made the injera and it had been indifferently received, so I’ve never made really authentic injera. If you do, let me know how it turns out. It was fine with buckwheat flour. At least, I thought so. Humph.

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups buckwheat flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 eggs, beaten
About 3 cups club soda

1. In a large bowl, whisk together the flours, baking powder, and salt. Add eggs and club soda and whisk until batter is smooth. It should have the consistency of pancake batter; add more club soda if needed.

2. Spray a 10-inch nonstick frying pan lightly with cooking oil spray and set over medium heat. When hot, pour 1/3 cup batter into the pan, tilting to coat most of the bottom. Cook until flatbread appears bubbly and dry on top, 2 to 3 minutes; do not turn.

3. Slide bread onto a serving platter. Cover with a kitchen towel and keep warm in a 200° oven while you cook remaining breads.

4. Place one injera flat on each of six dinner plates and top with stew. Serve with remaining injera to scoop up the food.

Well Fed Network

I have a couple of posts today up on the Well Fed Network. For a summary of the Jam Crumb Cake debacle, see this post. For some interesting uses for parchment paper, see this post.

The Oat Affair

I can’t even begin to explain it, but I have been completely obsessed with oats lately. I’ve been making anything and everything with them. This weekend alone I made oatmeal (a given), failed bar cookies (which got broken up and are currently being used as granola, and the recipe for them will be the foundation for my own granola recipe), and oatcakes. Still waiting in the wings are a baked oatmeal recipe, the aforementioned granola, and two loaves of oat bread (one maple flavored, one plain).

Oats are so friendly, so innocent. They can be sweet or savory, and are happy whole or chopped up. They’ll play a staring role, or share the limelight. Oats are just so darned nice.

This weekend I happened to remember an oat recipe from Jill Dupliex’s Simple Food (which is now sadly out of print). I was trying to think of snacks to take with me to work, and reading the ingredients on the box of Ritz crackers my children were consuming sent me running as fast as I could for a recipe that had as few ingredients as possible.

These little cakes take almost no time, are an excellent vehicle for cheese, and are buttery and nutty at once. The food processor does all the work. They could be jazzed up with some herbs or cayenne or even black pepper, but I like them plain. They make a wonderful blank canvas for anything you want to have stand out boldly. And they’re so forgiving—you can manhandle the dough all you like, kneading and re-rolling to maximize the output from the recipe, and they won’t toughen up or get in a snit the way biscuits will.

The original recipe was for oatcakes with tomatoes and goat cheese, which I’ve included below, but the oatcakes can be made and used as a base for just about any other snacky or nibbly thing you cared to top them with.

These don’t actually brown up in the oven. They’re a bit pale and wan looking, which is why they’re good topped with things. However, if you were concerned about appearances, you could add a touch of sugar to the dough, or paint them with a little cream or milk to help encourage them to color up. If you decided to add cayenne pepper, that would give them a bit of a tinge right there.

I can recommend these with blue, cheddar, and manchego cheeses. They also have my daughter’s seal of approval. It doesn’t get much more official than that.


Oatcakes
from Jill Dupliex’s Simple Food
makes approximately 20 oatcakes

1 ½ cups rolled oats
2/3 cup all purpose flour
6T butter, softened
2-4 T cold water

Preheat oven to 350. Whiz oats, flour, butter, and salt in a food processor. Add water, 1T at a time until mixture starts to come together. Turn dough out onto a floured board, and push together into a mass. Gently roll or pat out to ½” thick. Cut into 2” rounds with a cookie cutter or glass. Re-roll scraps and cut out more. Bake on a baking sheet covered with parchment for 10-12 mins. Cool on a wire rack and store in an airtight container.

For the original recipe:

Toss 20 cherry tomatoes with 1T olive oil and bake for 15 mins until soft and squidgy. Cool to room temperature.

Top each oatcake with one round of goat cheese (cut from a 7 ounce log) and one cherry tomato.

Now is the Time: Potato Gratin Gruyere

It’s getting to be that time of year. The time of year when it feels like winter is endless, and spring will never come. The holidays are long over, Martin Luther King, Jr’s birthday has passed (for some of us the only day we get off between New Year’s and Memorial Day). The 5-day forecast keeps showing a little grey cloud with streaks underneath it. Is that a mistake? Isn’t that the same graphic they printed last week? Five little grey clouds in a line? It has to be a mistake.

Oh sure, there are a few daffodils pushing through here and there, but mostly everything looks leaden grey; sky, water, mountains.

The remedy for this is the warm stews and comfy baked dishes we were all anxious to make as soon as the air took on the slight nip of fall. All we could think of was making beef stew, roast chicken, and soup, soup, soup. We made some of them, and then the holidays were upon us, and we all started a baking frenzy. Cookies for Santa, cinnamon rolls for a family brunch, rolls to accompany the holiday dinner. Our houses smelt of frankincense and myrrh, chocolate and cinnamon.

But now we’ve all recovered from the holidays, and yet it’s still cold, and still dark. I’ve been making a point of buying fresh flowers for the house, to remind myself that winter can’t last forever. But tulips, while cheering, aren’t very warming, so I’ve also been exploring in magazines, finding things to make that are comforting, but new and exciting.

I recently stumbled on a recipe for gratineed onions, and thought the sauce sounded wonderful. While searching for something to go with our Saturday night steaks, I remembered it. But we had already chosen a vegetable, and what we were really in need of was a starch. I looked at the ingredients and thought, why not make potatoes out of it? And that’s how this version of Potato Gratin Gruyere came to be.

It’s homey and filling, thick with a creamy sherry-spiked sauce, given a zingy twist with some mustard (the original recipe called for both Dijon and whole grain, which you could use in this dish; I chose to use all Dijon for a smoother consistency). The melted Gruyere over the top browns up to a wonderful crust and makes the whole a thing of cheesy goodness.

Make up a big pan of this and serve it with one of those roasts you spent all of September dreaming about. Now is the time!

Potato Gratin Gruyere
adapted from Gourmet magazine, January 2008
6-8 servings, depending on how cold, dark, and/or rainy it is

2 tablespoons flour
2 tablespoons butter
1 cup stock
1 cup milk
3 tablespoons sherry
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
Salt & pepper
1 ½ cups shredded Gruyere or Comte
4 potatoes, about 3 lbs, cut into approximately 1/4 “ thick slices

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.

Melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Add flour and cook, stirring, for 2 minutes. Add stock and milk and cook about 8 minutes, or until thick. Whisk in the mustard, salt & pepper and cook 3 minutes more. Taste sauce and correct seasoning.

In a large ovenproof casserole, arrange ½ of the potatoes. Spoon ½ of the sauce over the potatoes, making sure to cover them well. Season with salt and pepper, if desired. Add the remaining potatoes and top with remaining sauce. Add more salt and pepper, if desired.

Bake for 45 minutes or until potatoes are tender when pierced with a fork, and sauce is bubbly. Top with cheese and bake 20 more minutes, or until cheese is golden.

Jam Crumb Cake Third Attempt: The Charm

The springform pan and melting the preserves seem to have done the trick. I have, at last, a successful version of this cake. I feel like I’ve just finished my first marathon. I’m exhausted, but proud of my accomplishment.

This recipe has drifted pretty far away from the original, mostly in technique, rather than ingredients. To ensure success I now have everything ready to go, then combine it all, and get it in the oven within 5 or so minutes. The original instructions for this cake called for mixing up the batter, plopping in some preserves, then mixing and scattering the crumb topping over it and baking. I’ve managed to complicate this process somewhat.

Here, at last, is the recipe, with my notes:

Jam Crumb Cake
adapted from Gourmet magazine, December 2007
serves 6-8

For Cake
1 cup all-purpose flour
½ cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder (I use single acting homemade baking powder)
¼ teaspoon salt
¾ stick unsalted butter, melted
½ cup milk
1 large egg
1 teaspoon real vanilla extract
½ cup raspberry jam or preserves
Juice of ½ a lemon

For Crumb Topping
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
2 tablespoons packed brown sugar
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
½ teaspoon cinnamon
Pinch of salt
½ cup + 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

Make Cake: preheat oven to 350 degrees F, with rack in middle. Generously grease an 8 ½” or 9” springform pan, line the bottom with parchment paper, and spray parchment paper with cooking spray.

Whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl.

Whisk together butter, milk, vanilla, and egg in a large bowl, then whisk in flour mixture until just combined. Pour batter into cake pan.

In a small pan over medium heat, heat preserves with the juice of ½ a lemon until almost completely melted. Remove from heat and stir until all jam is melted, then drizzle over batter. Using a knife, stir preserves into the batter until well incorporated, but not completely combined (some streaks of jam should still be visible in the batter).

Make Crumb Topping:
Whisk together butter, sugars, cinnamon, and salt until smooth. Stir in flour, then blend with your fingertips until incorporated. Sprinkle crumbs in large clumps over top of the cake.

Bake until a wooden pick inserted in the center comes out clean, and sides begin to pull away form the pan, about 30 minutes. Let cool for 10 minutes, then remove outer ring of springform pan and let cool to room temperature.

I’d probably add even another teaspoon of vanilla to this the next time I made it. And I combine the dry ingredients in one bowl, the wet in another, melt the jam, and then make the topping. Then I mix the wet and dry ingredients, pour them into the prepared pan, add the jam and swirl, then top and bake to get the whole thing into the oven as quickly as possible.

The end product is not too sweet, has a nice shot of fruit from the preserves, and a firm, moist texture. The reason I was so devoted to this thing is because I think it’s a nice change from the usual sour cream coffee cake, or variation on sticky buns that calls for pecans or other nuts. I think this cake would be good with any kind of preserves stirred through it (I’m intending to make it in the summer when the blackberries are ripe and I can make a variation on blackberry preserves to use), lemon curd, or for kids with melted peanut butter and jam mixed in. The basic cake is so simple that it would be a good blank canvas to play with.

Phew!

Jam Crumb Cake: Second Attempt

After reviewing what may have been my mistakes in my previous attempt, I gamely gave this cake another go. This time I was careful to follow not only the recipe instructions to the letter, but also my own modification intentions.

I did some reading on the single acting baking powder I make from scratch. Everything I’ve read cautions that you must be sure to get the batter into the oven quickly quickly because the baking powder starts to act as soon as the liquid hits it. Too much delay results in a flat product. Check.

My own modifications included making only a half recipe of the crumb topping, and reducing the baking powder to 1 teaspoon. Check, check.

And the result was…still a flop. After 35 minutes I pulled it out of the oven and let it cool. It looked beautiful, as you can see. When I tried to cut it, I discovered that the preserves I used settled to the bottom of the pan, making it difficult to get the pieces out whole. Because the thing was cooked in a 9” round cake pan, it was impossible to flip the cake out without destroying the topping (later it occurred to me that I might have been able to do the two-dinner-plates flip flop thing, although the topping still would have suffered somewhat).

This time I called in a consultant to help me assess the damage and identify a mitigation plan. Alex looked at the heap of crumbs on the cutting board and suggested using a springform pan and lining it with parchment paper. We have a small problem, because I don’t think I have a 9” springform pan (just a 10”), but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

My thought is that the preserves are too solid and that’s why they’re sinking. Next go around I’ll melt them, possibly with a little lemon juice, on the stove, then drizzle them into the batter. We also agreed that the batter itself could use a shot of vanilla.

By the time I’m done with it, the only remnants of the original recipe will be the flour and the preserves.

Jam Crumb Cake: First Attempt

My initial intention was to publish the full story about this in one entry. However, it's spinning out rather longer than I anticipated, so I'm going to "serialize" it to avoid having a painfully long post.

I tried to make a recipe from a magazine, and it failed utterly. As in vastly undercooked, woefully overtopped, horribly overleavened failed. It was really heartbreaking. This recipe looked so tempting, so alluring. The batter tasted amazing—perfectly balanced, clearly it was destined to be an outstanding finished product. In my experience if the raw batter tastes good, you’re golden.

And yet, there was something that nagged at me as a made the topping. When I scattered it on, it filled up half the pan. That didn’t look right. In the picture the topping didn’t completely obliterate what was underneath it—the underneath peeped out coyly, giving a glimpse of the glorious within. But I decided that this was a magazine of long standing, with top notch recipe developers, so I would forage ahead and assume that they knew best.

As the oven door shut, I nearly clapped my little hands with joy and anticipation. In a mere 25 minutes, I would be reveling in my concoction. I could hardly wait.

And then I started to smell The Smell. That acrid, black-brown smell that can only mean one thing. I opened the oven door and sure enough, the batter was oozing out of the pan, over the sides, and down onto the cookie sheet that was (thank God) on the bottom rack of the oven. The outer edge was foaming and frothing like a rabid raccoon, while the center looked to be serenely untouched by the surrounding heat.

I shut the oven door and said a little prayer, hoping that a miracle would occur in the next 12 minutes, and perhaps it would work out after all. Or maybe the face of the Blessed Virgin would be visible when the timer went off, and I’d be able to auction it on eBay.

To make a long story short (too late), I was bitterly disappointed. Not only was the resulting goo undercooked in the middle and overflowing its banks around the edge, but there wasn’t even a suggestion of the Blessed Virgin. Not even an apostle! The thing was a complete and utter failure. I tasted part of the outside cooked part, and it had potential; it wasn’t a complete throw away (well, that one was, but the recipe itself wasn’t).

And so, like a heartbroken girl at the end of a bad relationship, I went over in my mind everything I’d done, torturing myself with what I could have done differently, how I could have saved it. The two things that sprung to mind were the baking powder and the topping—next time I’m halving the topping, end of discussion. The baking powder, however, is a discussion in itself.

Many years ago I read Edna Lewis’s A Taste of Country Cooking, in which she proclaimed (correctly) that commercial double acting baking powders leave behind a metallic and often overly-salty unpleasant taste in baked goods. Having noticed this myself, I took to heart her recommendation that homemade single-acting baking powder was a cheap luxury, and one worth having.

It was some years before I went ahead and made my own according to her recipe of 1 part baking soda to 2 parts cream of tartar. I had one interestingly similar experience to the present one with some blueberry muffins just about the time I made the first batch. Since then, however, I have made many, many baked things with my homemade baking powder (including a lemon cake that took two days to make) and never had a problem.

And then I ran out of baking powder. And then I made another batch. And then this overflowing thing happened again.

About the only thing I can think of is that maybe I didn’t mix the two ingredients well enough, and there was too much baking soda in what I used. According to my research this could have caused the Mount Vesuvius result I achieved, except that there were no acidic ingredients in the batter. From what I’ve read, it’s an acidic component (such as buttermilk or yogurt), combined with the heat of the oven, that causes the chemical reaction that produces the carbon dioxide bubbles to form.

So I’m a bit stumped. But I am determined! This recipe is too good to let get away. I will reduce the amount of topping. I will remix my baking powder. I will tinker with the amount of baking powder. I will prevail! I will not be beaten down by a Jam Crumb Cake!

In the Bag: Pecan Crusted Roast Pork Loin with Qunice Glazed Pears

I’m not really a competitive person. I didn’t play team sports as a child, and I generally don’t get involved in competitive situations as an adult. But I’m willing to make an exception for certain “food challenges.” These aren’t so much about competition as they are about seeing who comes up with what interesting ideas. No one “wins” and yet everyone wins, because ideas are proliferated, and we all benefit from the creativity of others.

In this case, the challenge (a link to Julia’s homepage is here if you want to look around further) is to take three seasonal ingredients and create a dish using them. The ingredients for January are pears, nuts, and lemon. I considered the combinations that immediately occurred to me—a pear crumble or crisp with chopped nuts in the topping, or a salad with candied nuts and pears. But I kept thinking, wanting to create something a little more unexpected.

I worked around the idea of coming up with a savory dish, something for a nice weekend dinner. That’s mostly when I have the opportunity to cook these days. We’ve been eating a lot of steak lately, so I was hoping to find something that we could have instead. Since I love pork loin, and pork and pears go nicely together, that was the direction in which I moved. I’m not usually much of one for chutney or fruit relish with meat, so I made the pears more of a side dish, cutting them into slices instead of cubes.

The first time I made this, I used Bocs pears. The second time I used Asian. My husband said he preferred the Bosc, but I felt the Asian added a wonderful undertone of honey to the whole dish that was a sparkling surprise dimension. Either type of pear would be fine, but I highly recommend the Asian if you’re feeling adventurous. I had never had an Asian pear at all before this, but now I’m on my way to the grocery store to buy some more to eat out of hand. And I love the idea of using quince paste. It’s seasonal and quite underappreciated in this country. Generally you see it recommended as an accompaniment for cheese, and that’s about it. It has so many potential uses in a more starring role; it’s a shame to relegate it to a supporting player in every instance.

I mixed my own honey mustard, but prepared honey mustard could be used for those in a hurry. I also used bread crumbs that I made from old bread and stored in the freezer. I wouldn’t recommend the finely powdered store bought variety. They really do need to have some heft to them. I specified either all stock or a wine and stock combination in the pears. It’s really a matter of preference.


Pecan Crusted Roast Pork Loin with Quince Glazed Pears

1 pork loin roast, approx 2 lbs
¾ c pecans
2 c fresh bread crumbs
3 T Dijon mustard
1 T honey

1 T butter
4 Bosc or Asian pears
1 T quince paste
¼ c white wine
½ c chicken stock
(or ¾ c chicken stock)
Juice of 1 lemon
Salt & freshly ground pepper, to taste

Preheat oven to 475 degrees F.

Toast pecans in a skillet over medium heat until just starting to brown. Allow to cool slightly, then combine with bread crumbs in the bowl of a food processor. Pulse 10-12 times until pecans are in fairly small pieces and well incorporated into bread crumbs. Turn crumbs out onto parchment on the countertop, or into a large rimmed baking sheet.

Combine mustard and honey in a bowl (commercial honey mustard could also be used). Brush top and sides of the roast with honey mustard and roll in crumb mixture until well coated. Press extra crumbs to the surface of the roast to ensure it’s coated all over.

Place roast on a rack in a roasting pan. Roast at 475 for 20 minutes. Reduce oven heat to 400 and continue cooking for another 40 minutes, or until internal temperature reaches 160 degrees F. Remove roast from oven and allow to rest 10 minutes. Carve into slices and serve with pears.

For pears, peel, core and slice pears into wedges. Melt 1 tablespoon of butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Sautee pears in butter for 8 to 10 minutes, until just turning golden brown. Add the quince paste and stir to let it coat the pears as it melts. Add wine (if using) and stock, and reduce heat to medium. Continue cooking over medium heat until pears are soft, but not disintegrating, and quince paste is completely melted. Add the juice of 1 lemon, salt and pepper to taste. Serve with pork.

I served this first with oven roasted potatoes and sautéed Brussels sprouts, and the second time with mashed potatoes and a very disappointing sauté of spring onions. Next time I’ll have to consult the Fine Cooking in which I originally saw the article on using scallions as more than just an oniony garnish, and find an actual recipe, of which there were several, if I recall correctly. The end result of my efforts in this case was limp and bitter, so I need to see what I may have done wrong.

In both cases, however, the pork and pears went beautifully together and made for a very pleasant Saturday night dinner.

Lovely Lemon Cake

I never want to see another lemon. That may sound like a strange wish, but there you are. I have spent the last two days grating lemons for their zest, leaving the shriveled fruits on my bench like so many faceless naked little rodents. As to why I was spending so much time denuding lemons and leaving them to wrinkle up on my countertop, I must offer a little background.

We have a tradition in my commuting group: we celebrate birthdays with completely inappropriate foods at 7 a.m. Since we’re on a ferry, we don’t have to actually drive the thing (as with a car), or even pay attention to where we are (as with a bus), other than knowing when we arrive so we can get off, but they’re kind enough to announce that, so our commuting time is spent reading, working crossword puzzles, chatting, and sometimes eating. Whenever someone’s birthday comes along, we use it as an excuse to consume as much sugar as possible prior to sunup (noting that sun rise this time of year in the Pacific Northwest is around 7:50 a.m.).

One time it was blood plum jam tart with whipped cream from the Italian-themed issue of the Australian version of delicious. magazine. I had lent a friend that particular issue for some research on restaurants and towns (they were going to Italy that October). She had flipped past several recipes and ohed and ahed and when she came across the blood plum tart she said “Ooo, make that for me.” Knowing her birthday was coming up in two more weeks, I agreed, although I think she thought I was kidding about making it for her. I couldn’t find blood plum jam, so it was just made with regular plum jam, although I did make sure to get an exceptionally high quality jam from Delaurenti in the Pike Place Market. This was also at a time when all my rolling pins were packed, so I had to use various other tools (a wine bottle, my hands, etc) to roll and press out the pastry, which was a typical tart dough and therefore not one that takes kindly to being fondled and fussed with by someone with warm hands. Still, it seemed to turn out fine, if a little spreadier than it should have been.

Yesterday was Jana’s birthday, and the celebratory sugar fix was actually chosen by two other of our regular crowd. Last week I was reading the special issue of Fine Cooking currently on the newsstand, 101 Tips. In addition to all sorts of great ideas and hints, it includes 12 “classic” recipes, including oven braised chicken (which was Sunday night’s dinner). And there was a lemon cake. I showed it to the two crossword puzzlers and remarked that it looked good, and that I needed to think of something to make for Jana’s birthday.

“That!” they both cried.

And so I became as one with the lemon.

Mostly this cake was a mad success. I declined to make the lemon curd from scratch, on the grounds that there’s an outstanding brand of lemon curd available in my local market. Also, I didn’t really have time. I also came rather up against it because my cake pans are 9” and the recipe called for 8”. Perhaps someone could rectify that situation and get me some 8” pans? The cake itself had fabulous lemon flavor, attributable to the two tablespoons of lemon zest in the batter.

And the height of the cake did matter, because the layers are sawed in half like a magician’s assistant and reassembled with all that lovely sticky lemon curd between them. One of the two layers sliced through a little thin, and there was quite a gob of lemon curd in the middle of the cake toward the bottom. Not that anyone complained, mind.

The frosting was a butter cream I actually liked, if you can imagine. Of course, two sticks of butter, two tablespoons of lemon zest, and 3+ cups of confectioners’ sugar, thinned down with a little lemon juice makes a butter cream that anyone could cozy up to. And one that would be amazing on gingerbread, I might add.

So after two days of zesting, squeezing, and generally consorting with lemons, I feel I’ve had my fill of them for a little while. In a week I’ll be back to loving them again, feeling they can do no wrong and that they’ll always have a treasured place in my kitchen.

Yes, the cake is crooked in the picture. Yes, the frosting is uneven. That’s the beauty of a homemade cake—it reflects all the imperfections of its creator.

A Few Notes:
Using the larger cake pans reduced the cooking time by about 10 minutes, it seemed. I didn’t have cream of tartar, but the egg whites turned out fine without it. Since I bought lemon curd, I had 22 oz, all of which I used, and at room temperature. I think that the cup it calls for is perhaps a bit on the low side. Personally I’d rather have too much than too little, and I think if it had been chilled, it would have been hard to spread too.


A Lemon Layer Cake
From Fine Cooking’s 101 Tips

This makes a really puckeringly lemony cake, a condition to which the lemon curd adds significantly. If this just seemed like too much lemon, a simple vanilla butter cream could be substituted for the lemon curd, and the lemon icing used on the top and sides of the cake. This cake could also be made in an orange, or even lime variation. The making of this cake is a fairly lengthy process, but it’s well worth it, and for a friend’s birthday, why not?

For the Cake
9 ¼ oz (2 1/3 cups) cake flour; more for the pans
2 2/3 teaspoons baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
1 ¾ cups granulated sugar
2 tablespoons lightly packed finely grated lemon zest
6 oz (3/4 cup) unsalted butter, softened at room temperature; more for the pans
1 cup whole milk, at room temperature
5 large egg whites, at room temperature
¼ teaspoon cream of tartar

For the Frosting
½ lb (1 cup) unsalted butter, completely softened at room temperature
2 tablespoons finely grated lemon zest
3 ½ cups sifted confectioners’ sugar
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

Position a rack in the middle of the oven and heat the oven to 350 degrees F. Generously butter and flour two 8x2 inch round cake pans. Sift the cake flour, baking powder, and salt together into a medium bowl. Pulse ¼ cup of the sugar with the zest in a food processor until well combined.

In a large bowl, beaet the butter and lemon sugar with an electric mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy (about 1 ½ minutes). Add the remaining 1 ½ cups sugar and beat until smooth (about 1 ½ minutes). Beat in a quarter of the milk until just blended. On low speed, add the flour mixture alternately with the milk in three batches, scraping the bowl with a rubber spatula; beat just until blended.

In another large bowl, beat the egg whites with an electric mixer (with clean beaters or the whip attachment) on medium speed until foamy. Add the cream of tartar, increase the speed to medium high, and beat just until the whites form a stiff peak when the beaters are lifted. Add a quarter of the whites to the batter and gently fold them in with a whisk or a rubber spatula; continue to gently fold in the whites, a quarter at a time.

Divide the batter evenly between the prepared pans. Smooth the tops with the spatula. Bake until a pick inserted in the centers comes out clean, 35 to 40 minutes. Let cool in the pans on a rack for 10 minutes. Run a table knife around the inside of the pans and carefully invert each cake out onto the rack. Flip them right side up and let cool completely.

With the palm of one hand pressed on top of a cake layer, cut each in half horizontally, using a long serrated knife. Put one of the four cake layers on a serving plate, cut side up. With an offset spatula or a table knife, spread a generous 1/3 cup chilled lemon curd on top of the cake layer. Lay another cake layer on top, spread it with another generous 1/3 cup lemon curd, and repeat with the third cake layer and the last 1/3 cup lemon curd. Top with the fourth cake layer.

Make the frosting: Beat the butter and lemon zest with an electric mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy. Add the confectioners’ sugar in batches and beat until light and fluffy. Add the lemon juice and beat for 1 minute. (The frosting may be kept at a cool room temperature, covered, for 2 hours).

Frost the cake: Up to a few hours before serving, spread a thin layer of frosting on the cake, filling in any gaps as you go. Chill until the frosting firms a bit, about ½ hour. Spread the remaining frosting decoratively over the top and sides of the cake. Scatter with bits of lemon zest, or other decoration.

Eggplant Remorse

I could just weep. I love almost all vegetables, but there are a couple that just don’t call out to me. Asparagus, okra, avocado, eggplant. I’ve never felt impaired by these preferences, never felt deprived in any way. Until now. I’ve started to feel that my lack of love for eggplant is lessening my food experience. I actually feel like I’m missing something.

And the frustration is, I’ve tried eggplant. I really have. I’ve bought it, I’ve salted it, I’ve cooked it, and I’ve ordered it. I even tried it recently, at an excellent restaurant in my husband’s hometown, when we were visiting this summer. There was a lamb entrée that came with eggplant, and, as I told my sister-in-law at the time, if you’re going to try something that you have previously disliked, a really good restaurant is the place to do it. Well it was fine, but nothing special. I didn’t hate it, but it didn’t strike a chord, the scales did not fall from my eyes, I saw no angels dancing around the edge of my plate. I was, in short, unmoved.

Then I received as a Christmas present Simon Hopkinson’s Roast Chicken and Other Stories. His chapters are about a foods he admires, and appear in alphabetical order, along with recipes. Thus it is you find engaging discourses on the anchovy, chicken, chocolate, olive oil, pork pieces and bacon and so on. When I came to the chapter on aubergine (which of course is what the British call eggplant—I have the British edition, not the US imprint) I read with a little shrug, sure that once again I would finish the recipes and think, “Well, fine for those of you who like it, but not for me.” This has always been the case.

By the time I got through with his brief essay and the recipes themselves, I was in a deep state of depression. Tell me how anyone could hate something called Creamed Aubergines, or Aubergines Baked with Herbs and Cream, or even the more restrained-sounding Vinegared Aubergines with Chili and Spring Onions. Why, these recipes sounded positively…yummy!

And yet, this whole overwhelming emotion did not take me completely by surprise. I felt a twinge of it the day after Christmas. Our holiday visitors were leaving on a late plane, so we took them out for lunch rather than dinner. Since they had never been to Seattle before, we decided to take them to a restaurant I had been to for the first time only recently, and which my husband, based on my descriptions, was anxious to try. I made reservations at Serafina, which has a very local neighborhood feel about it.

There we had a delicious lunch, sharing appetizers of Pancia (pork belly), Crostoni della Enoteca Trimani (slices of bread served with bubbly hot fresh mozzarella and topped with an arugula salad—this was enough for two people, or even a whole meal), and the Zuppa del Giorno (which was creamy garlic on this day). We moved on to Plin (agnolotti filled with braised pork shoulder, savoy cabbage, and Reggiano), two orders of Gnocchi di Semolina, and the Melanzane alla Serafina, described as their signature dish, which my sister-in-law ordered.

I confess it sounds outstanding: thinly sliced eggplant rolled with ricotta cheese, fresh basil, and parmesan; baked in a tomato sauce, served over cappellini aglio e olio. She declared it to be wonderful, and my brother-in-law, who also tried it, agreed. It was then I felt the first faint prick of remorse over my feelings for eggplant. It looked so good, and I adore all of the ingredients except the eggplant.

I’m a little afraid to rush out and buy an eggplant and try a recipe, even one of Hopkinson’s, as amazing as they appear to be. It has been my experience that when people who haven’t ever made a thing before (or haven’t ever made a thing before successfully) try to make it, they often manage to muck it up and end up disliking the thing (or continue to dislike it, as the case may be). I think the best thing I can do is go back to Serafina and try the Melanzane alla Serafina, and then turn to the cookbooks I own that were written by reliable authors and see what I can find. Because even if I were to try to make my own eggplant, I just don’t have a proven recipe right now that I know of. I’m sure the likes of Deborah Madison, Donna Hay, or James Beard somewhere in their works have an infallible combination of ingredients, but I just don’t know for certain. I’m going to have to see what eggplant is capable of before I try to prepare it myself.

For those of you who like eggplant, or who haven’t tried it and aren’t afraid of making it, or who don’t like it and want to try it again, just to see, here’s one of Hopkinson’s recipes.

Aubergines Baked with Herbs and Cream
from Roast Chicken and Other Stories by Simon Hopkinson

4 small aubergines
50 ml/2 fl oz olive oil
8 ripe tomatoes, skinned and coarsely chopped
Salt and pepper
50g/2 oz butter
2 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped
1 tablespoon each of finely chopped tarragon, parsley, chives, and basil
450ml/3/4 pint double cream

Cut the aubergines into 1 cm/1/2 inch slices and fry on both sides in hot olive oil until pale golden. Drain on absorbent paper and leave to cool. Season the tomatoes and stew with the butter for 5 minutes. Stir in the garlic and pour into a 5cm/2 inch deep oval baking dish. Cover with overlapping slices of aubergine, and season lightly with salt and pepper. Stir the chopped herbs into the cream. Pour over the aubergines and bake in the oven at 375 F/190 C/Gas Mark 5 for about 20 minutes until bubbling and lightly browned.

Serve with a crisp green salad dressed with lemon juice and walnut oil, mingled together with some garlic croutons. A good accompaniment to grilled lamb chops.

Hopkinson doesn’t say how many servings this makes. Perhaps it depends on how much you like eggplant.

ARF/5-a-day Round Up

Pop over to Sweetnick's to see the ARF/5-a-day Round Up. One of today's submissions should look familiar if you read yesterday's post here. Check out all the delicious offerings!

Ringing in the New

New Year’s Eve seems like it’s just designed for a meal made out of appetizers, or heavy hors d’oeuvres. Everything I’ve heard about how other people spent New Year’s Eve suggests that everyone seems to be of the same mindset. I guess when people throw New Year’s Eve parties, they tend to be more mix-and-mingle affairs, with some people possibly attending multiple functions. Well, this year we were no exception. We had another couple over with their kids, let the kids run around until they dropped (8:30 p.m. for mine, closer to 11:30 p.m. for theirs, possibly because of the unfamiliar environment), and ate lots of nibbly things through the evening.

Alex made the whole menu because, he insisted, I did all the cooking when his brother and sister-in-law were here, so it was his turn. Unlike me, he managed to have only one minor disaster when he burned a couple of batches of pot stickers, which he blamed on the cooking method given in the recipe (instead of on the fact that he was cooking on a gas stove instead of on the electric ones he’s been using for the last 12 years).

In choosing the menu we tried to pick things that would be easy to eat if you were forced to run after a child mid-bite. Pot stickers aren’t really in that category, but everything else was: empanadas, asian slaw lettuce wraps, white bean spread on baguette toasts, meatballs.

While there were no major disasters this time, I think we could safely title the whole experience The Improvisational Menu—with one or two exceptions, every item had some ingredient that was swapped out for another one because of lack of planning on someone’s part. I name no names, but I would merely point out that if you demand to do the cooking, it is at least in part your responsibility to ensure that you are familiar with the recipes and know what needs to be bought to prepare them. That’s all I’ll say.

I’ve said before that I don’t like to deviate from a recipe the first time I make it, because if for some reason I don’t like it, it’s impossible to tell if it was the recipe itself that was flawed, or if my changes were the cause of my dislike. Alex feels no such compunction to follow recipes to the letter, the first or the fiftieth time he makes them. As a result, he decided to “wing it” in a couple of the New Year’s Eve recipes.

As an example of a modification that I feel was only partially successful, I submit to you the empanadas. When I make these, I use ground beef, and season it with sort of Mexican seasonings. They are, after all, of South American origin. The version that was made for New Year’s Eve used lamb and more Indian spices. They were OK, they were just a little odd to me. Of course our guests, never having had empanadas made by us before, wouldn’t necessarily think there was anything odd about them. Also, they weren’t salty enough. This is an argument that we’ll probably have until the day one of us draws our last breath—I just like things saltier than he does.

All of this is really just a very roundabout way of getting to the white bean spread that we served with toasted baguette slices. Our guests, who are far less critical than I am (or at least, much more polite, or possibly both) enjoyed everything, and since the white bean dip was tinkered with successfully (in my opinion), as opposed to some things which were not, I thought I would provide the recipe for everyone's reasonably healthy snacking pleasure.

This comes from Eating Well magazine. Not the version that’s being published today, but the one that was published back in the 1990s. I tore out recipes and saved them in notebooks, and still have a great many of them. Now I wish I’d just saved the magazines, but I guess we all have these culinary regrets. Of course, the “Eating Well” aspect of this spread was completely negated by the three slices of crumbled bacon that were added to it, but since the bacon added a great deal in terms of flavor, and hell it was New Year’s Eve, I’d say that was a successful addition. If you leave the bacon out, you have a spread that's pretty good for you, and tasty as well.

White Bean Spread with Sage
Eating Well magazine c. 1997

1 clove garlic, crushed and peeled
½ teaspoon salt
1 15 ½ or 19-ounce can cannelloni beans, drained and rinsed
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
Pinch of cayenne pepper
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
1 teaspoon chopped fresh sage

With the side of a chef’s knife, mash garlic with salt

Transfer mashed garlic to a food processor. Add beans, oil, lemon juice, cayenne, and black pepper. Puree until smooth. Scrape into a bowl and stir in sage

Will keep covered in the refrigerator for up to four days, or frozen for up to six months. Makes about 1 ½ cups.

We added three strips of cooked crumbled bacon with the sage.

Holiday Comedy of Errors

My, it is hard to get back to real life after the holidays, isn’t it? The last three weeks have been trying because a) we moved, b) we had company, and c) it was the holidays. The moving wasn’t horrible, but it was still moving. The company was my brother-in-law and his wife, who knew full well that we had been in our house for one week and one day prior to their arrival, so they were prepared for pretty much anything. And of course Christmas was Christmas, complete with last-minute present wrapping (see “moving,” above) and small children getting up at 4:30 a.m.

In some ways the season was a sort of comedy of errors. My new stove is a lot more high-strung than the Kenmore-types I’ve previously had, and I’ve never had a brand brand brand new stove before. The refrigerator is fairly docile. Its only oddity is that if you hold the door open too long, it starts beeping at you. Putting groceries away was somewhat trying until Alex found the “off” switch and subdued it. The dishwasher is just a delight—quiet, efficient, and not the least bit temperamental. In fact, it’s quiet to the point that you can’t even tell it’s running—more than once we’ve opened the door to find it in full cycle, whereupon we hastily shut the door in the manner of someone who has walked in on a roommate entertaining a romantic guest.

But the stove. The stove is somewhat arrogant, as befits an appliance of its pedigree. It has both convection and non-convection capabilities. It has racks that look like they could be used as structural supports in a skyscraper. And it has power. So much power, in fact, that our hood isn’t really quite strong enough to deal with the potential output from it. If we had both ovens going, plus all six burners and the griddle, I don’t think the hood would be able to keep up. Fortunately it’s unlikely that we’ll ever find ourselves in need of that kind of BTU production, but it’s worth keeping in mind, in any event.

And it’s quirky. I realized this when I made the French Onion Soup the Saturday night before Christmas. My brother-in-law and his wife were getting in on an early evening plane, which meant they’d be getting to our house about 8:30, when you factor in the drive from the airport and the 35 minute ferry ride. I was sure they would want something filling and warming, but not heavy or rich, so I spent quite some time caramelizing thinly sliced onions, simmering broth, and toasting baguette slices. When they arrived, I dished up the soup, topped it with the croutons, and sliced up Gruyere cheese to melt over the whole.

I needed to move an oven rack to get the bowls in the right position under the broiler. I popped them in and waited. When they were perfectly golden and bubbling, I pulled the rack out and watched in horror as it tipped forward with the weight from the bowls and dumped the entire contents plus the bowls themselves on the inside of the open oven door. I stood there in shock and disbelief while my husband, his brother, and my sister-in-law sprang to action. They scooped the soup into a mixing bowl, and did their best to wipe out the oven. When it was confirmed that none of the scalding hot soup had splattered on me, and none of the bowls were actually broken (although I did discover later that one was chipped, but no one broke a tooth on the shard, or at least, they didn’t say anything if they did), we dished up the sloppy mess into new bowls and ate what could only be called Upside Down French Onion Soup. It tasted fine, but it was a far cry from the elegant presentation I had planned.

I’ve now been shown four times exactly how to get the oven racks in and stable, but I still have trouble remembering the three step process. The Range Police are going to come and take my beautiful new oven away from me for being completely inept and unworthy of such a magnificent appliance.

And my children are going to go deaf from the smoke detectors. Our smoke detectors are hard-wired into the house, and all networked to one another (of course; too bad there's no way to visually imbue a word with sarcasm, because this is a case that calls for it). The result of this is that when one goes off, they all go off in a cacophony of ear-splitting beeping and chirping that gives me a headache and lasts until the offending miasma has dissipated.

The first time this happened was at lunchtime on Christmas Eve. We’d been to the grocery store to stock up on cheese (the larger of the two grocery stores near us has a fantastic selection of cheeses, and we all plead guilty to being total cheese freaks), and I was making grilled sandwiches on the new griddle. Ciabatta with Manchego cheese, proscuitto, arugula, and the slightest wisp of homemade mayonnaise to moisten them, each brushed lightly with olive oil and grilled until golden, toasty, and melty. Well, that was the plan, of course. The reality was that they were grilled until golden, toasty, and melty, but with the blare of the smoke detector’s siren as an accompaniment. We opened windows and blasted the hood to its highest setting. My husband maintains the griddle hadn’t been properly seasoned, which is entirely possible. Fortunately, by the time I broke out the sweet potato chips, the green salad, and the blue cheese dressing, the concert was over and we could eat in peace.

The second time this happened was at dinnertime on Christmas Eve. Yes, twice in one day I managed to generate enough kitchen pollution to set off the smoke detectors. This time the baby was asleep (and slept through it, if you can imagine; I guess this is what happens when you’re accustomed to the screaming of three small boys—you learn to sleep through smoke detectors, earthquakes, and other acts of God and Mom). My husband was getting the twins ready for bed, and discovered that if you go into the bathroom that adjoins their room, the shrilling noise is muffled because there’s no detector in there to serenade you. My oldest son danced up and down on the front porch, asking me when it would stop and begging me to go get him his shoes so he could run down into the front yard to get further from the noise. I assured him it would soon end, which it did.

The catalyst for this second bout of aural mayhem was the prime rib we were having for Christmas Eve dinner. My aunt had invited everyone over for light snacky things on Christmas afternoon around 4, so we decided to have our really nice meal on Christmas Eve, and have something more casual on Christmas night. Prime rib was our protein of choice on Christmas Eve, and I proceeded to cook it according to the gospel of James Beard. The instructions said to roast it at 500 degrees for 30 minutes, then turn the heat down to 350. I dutifully cranked the oven up, turned on the hood, and put the roast in.

The roast setting on my oven activates both the broiler and the heating elements. When the fat from that beautiful piece of meat slipped down and hit the superheated roasting pan in which it rested, it was immediately vaporized, and wafted up into the path of the hood. But either the smoke overpowered the hood, or there was too much “overdrift” (if you will) in the direction of the smoke detector. Either way, within 15 minutes, we were in shrieking hell again. Once again we sprang to open windows and doors and generally encourage complete replacement of the fouled air with fresh. Once again within about ten minutes the noise had ceased. The meal continued uneventfully (although I did think the gravy was a tad on the greasy side, but I was so thrown by having set off the smoke detectors twice in one day that I probably didn’t skim the fat well enough; no one else mentioned it).

With those occurrences, you’d think that the entrée I made for our Christmas dinner would just spontaneously combust and save me the drama and the pain. Well I have delightful news—no such thing happened. I made Beef Bourguignon from an old issue of Martha Stewart Living, and it turned out beautifully. I was forced to use bacon scraps instead of salt pork, and complained to my sister-in-law about the inability to get salt pork in this part of the country. They live in Atlanta, so salt pork is readily available, as it was in the part of the country in which I used to live. We served the stew over mashed potatoes, and everyone went to bed full, happy, and humming “You’re Easy to Dance With” from Holiday Inn (although admittedly still with a slight ringing in our ears, not from the jingling of sleigh bells, but from the wail of the smoke detectors. Oh well, no holiday is ever perfect).

I’ve promised the recipe for the Beef Bourguignon before, so now here it is. I love this recipe because it has all the advantages of beef stew—beef slow cooked until tender, a lovely flavorful gravy, caramelized pearl onions—but none of the other things about beef stew that always make me shy away from it, like carrots and potatoes cooked to a gray and indistinguishable mush (I know that if you add them later they don’t get as bad, but let’s face it, even then they can still be somewhat unappealingly discolored). If you can’t get salt pork you can substitute bacon scraps, or bacon cut into really small pieces. Also, I left out the rosemary because my sister-in-law can’t eat it. I’ve made it with and without, and it’s fine both ways.

Boeuf Bourguignon
recipe from Martha Stewart Living, February 2003

1 large onion, roughly chopped
2 carrots, roughly chopped
1 head garlic, cloves separated and lightly crushed (unpeeled)
10 sprigs flat-leaf parsley, cut in half, plus 3 tablespoons chopped for garnish
6 sprigs thyme
4 sprigs rosemary
2 dried bay leaves
½ teaspoon whole black peppercorns
2 tablespoons olive oil
6 oz. salt pork, trimmed of rind and cut into ¼ -by-1 inch pieces
Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
3 cups homemade or low-sodium canned beef stock
1 750-ml bottle red wine, preferably Burgundy or another Pinot Noir
1 teaspoon tomato paste
1 pound frozen pearl onions
½ cup water
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 tablespoon sugar
10 oz. large white mushrooms, trimmed and quartered

Cut two 12-by-22 inch pieces of cheesecloth; lay them on a clean work surface, overlapping each other perpendicularly in the center to form a cross. Pile the chopped onion, carrots, garlic cloves, parsley sprigs, thyme, rosemary, bay leaves, and peppercorns in the center.

Gather the ends together to enclose contents completely, and tie the top with kitchen twine, Place in an 8 quart Dutch oven, and set aside.

Preheat oven to 300 degrees F. Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add salt pork, and sauté until brown and crisp, about 7 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer pork to Dutch oven, leaving rendered fat in skillet.

Season beef cubes with salt and pepper. Working in two batches, place beef in skillet in a single layer; cook until dark brown on all sides, about 6 minutes total.

Using tongs, transfer beef to Dutch oven, reserving fat in skillet.

Whisk the flour into the fat in the skillet. Slowly whisk in beef stock, and bring to a simmer over medium heat, stirring frequently until thickened.

Pour mixture into Dutch oven around cheesecloth bundle. Add wine and tomato paste, and season with salt and pepper; stir to combine. Bring to a boil over high heat. Cover; transfer to oven. Cook until beef is very tender, about 2 ½ hours.

Remove pot from oven, and transfer cheesecloth bundle to a large sieve set over a bowl. With a wooden spoon, press on bundle to release as much liquid as possible. Discard bundle, and pour accumulated juices into Dutch oven.

Remove beef and pork from Dutch oven; reserve. Return liquid to a boil over high heat; reduce to 4 cups, about 10 minutes. Skim surface as needed with a large metal spoon. Reduce heat to low; return beef and pork to Dutch oven.

While sauce is reducing further, set skillet over high heat. Add the pearl onions, the water, butter, sugar, and a large pinch of salt. Bring to a boil, and reduce heat to medium; simmer until almost all the liquid evaporates, 5 to 8 minutes. Raise heat to medium-high, and add the mushrooms. Cook, stirring occasionally, until vegetables are browned and glazed, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat. Transfer contents to Dutch oven, and simmer over medium heat until heated through. Adjust seasoning with salt and pepper as desired, and serve at once. Garnish each serving with chopped parsley.

Serves 8; makes 2 ½ quarts.

I Suspect This May Be What's for Dinner Tonight...

I received an email from my husband with this attachment:

Hey, there are worse things to have for dinner, I guess. Glad he's putting his time at home to good use!

Soon to Return!

WOW it's really hard to post when you have no internet access! Comcast comes tomorrow to set everything up, and we're all moved in (details on the First Meal coming--it was prime rib--but no pictures, as the camera was packed of COURSE).

I'll be back this weekend with a holiday post. I've spent the last few days unpacking cookbooks, and planning what to serve my holiday guests, so I've spent a ton of time thinking about food.

Dinnertime at My House

The Scene: Interior, dining room, night. Three CHILDREN are eating dinner. Their FATHER is in the kitchen nearby, performing various cleaning tasks. Their MOTHER (me) has just taken their baby SISTER to her room to ready her for bed. The MOTHER can be heard returning to the dining room area as the scene opens.

ALEX: Patrick, what are you doing?

PATRICK: (rubbing cucumber slice over the dining room table) Cleaning.

ALEX: Please don’t clean with the cucumber slices

Brief pause while PATRICK eats a chicken nugget. MOTHER enters the room and sees PATRICK, now with a banana in his hand.

ME: Patrick, please—we don’t clean the dining room table with a banana.

PARENTS exchange a glance, rolling their eyes at one another.

I must have spent 15 minutes scrubbing dried banana crud off my dining room table last night.

A Nice Little Lunch

I was finally able today to eat lunch the way I like to. I’m home, you see, and so I had access to my stove, my refrigerator, and the grocery store. Sadly, what I don’t have much access to is equipment. I have two skillets, one stock pot, and one mixing bowl (and that’s the one to the stand mixer) left unpacked. Also, I don’t have a ton of food in the house. We’re trying to keep shopping to a minimum to avoid having to move more than we already do (I believe the three containers of cocoa powder we currently have must have been mentioned four times to date, and not by me).

So I made a quick stop at the grocery store for fresh vegetables. Leeks and mushrooms sounded nice and fall-to-winterish, so I picked those up. In the cabinet I had part of a bag of polenta, so I thought that might be good with the vegetables.

Of course, with all but three cookbooks packed, I had no recipe for polenta. (And for the record, those three books are Marcella Hazan’s Italian Kitchen, Williams-Sonoma Entertaining, and The Art of Simple Food by Alice Waters, which it just occurs to me would have the ratio of liquid to polenta, but I didn’t think to look in it; it’s not that any of those books are so treasured and loved, it’s just that two of them were acquired after I packed all the other books, and one of them happened to be in an obscure place in the kitchen and was overlooked). Recipe? I can hear you rolling your eyes, You need a recipe for polenta? Come on, that’s lame. Well not a recipe, per se, I can just never remember how much liquid goes with how much polenta. The generally accepted answer is 3:1, it seems, based on the internet search I did.

And I’d like to wander off topic here for a second and talk about people who rate and comment on recipes on recipe sites. The polenta recipe was on epicuirious.com, and it was for “polenta.” Not polenta with anything in it or on it, just polenta. Cornmeal, water, salt. People made comments like “it was bland,” and “it needed something more.” Um, duh? Anybody who reads cornmeal, water, salt, bring salted water to a boil, add corn meal and whisk until thickened and thinks that’s going to be exciting needs to turn over their spatulas right now. And one woman used what was clearly finely ground cornmeal, dumped it all into the water at once, and got a lumpy goopy mess. The recipe clearly states “coarsely ground cornmeal” although it does go on to say that fine cornmeal could be used. I’m always one to err on the side of caution with substitutions—I prefer to make a recipe exactly as written the first time, because my rationale is that that’s the method that was tested most rigorously. At the very least people who comment on recipe sites need to learn to spell. The herb is marjoram, not marjorim.

Sorry, that’s a subject about which I’ve always felt the need to vent. Back to lunch. I think I got the tenderest, least woody leek in all of North America. It may be a cliché to say I was able to cut it like it was softened butter, but that’s just what I did do. I rinsed it carefully (it was also the least sandy leek in North America, bless its heart), sliced it into little pale green rainbows, and sautéed it in ½ tablespoon of butter and a ½ tablespoon of olive oil until it was just starting to color. Then I slipped some sliced crimini mushrooms in with it, and let that all cook down.

But what, I thought, am I going to do to season this? I was vaguely reminded of a recipe of Amanda Hesser’s from her wonderful book The Cook and The Gardener: A Year of Recipes and Writings from the French Countryside. My husband got it for me for my birthday one year, and while I was disappointed at the time, I later read it through and found it to be delightful, full of good ideas, and very charming. In what I believe was a Fall recipe, she made creamed leeks on toast. And with creamed leeks on toast, could creamed mushrooms on toast be far behind? I think not. Only we have no bread in the house worthy of creamed-really-nice-fresh-vegetables-on-toast. But since I was already sold on polenta, this was something of a moot point anyway.

And in checking to confirm that I had heavy cream, and that it was still good, my attention was grabbed by the huge jar of Grey Poupon Dijon mustard in the refrigerator. I had been kicking myself, you see, for not buying any fresh thyme at the grocery store, because a thyme-scented creamy sauce is quite a heavenly thing, but one with a little jolt of Dijon would be just as good, I told myself.

I also noticed that there was even some white wine left over. This is so rare an occurrence in my household that I can count on one hand the number of times that’s probably happened. It’s like that old joke that went around the internet many years ago, offering the “real woman’s” response to certain “Martha Steweart-ish” housekeeping and cooking tips. The last one read: “Freeze leftover wine in ice cube trays, then empty into a plastic bag and keep frozen for use in cooking.” And the “real woman” response was “What leftover wine?” Ha! I resemble that remark! (But I confess I’ve always wanted to be the type who had things like stock, wine, and tomato paste frozen in my freezer for any need; and just think—a white wine ice cube would be perfect in a glass of warmish white wine. It wouldn’t dilute it!)

So with those ingredients at my elbow, I slugged a glug of white wine into the pan with the now-golden leeks and mushrooms, scraped up the brown bits (as they say), added a dollop of Dijon mustard, and poured a little heavy cream over the whole, stirred away for a minute or two, then turned my attention to the polenta.

I made the polenta in the usual way, except I made a half recipe (1 ½ cups of liquid to ½ cup of polenta), and I used half milk, half chicken broth. In retrospect, I might have upped the liquid just a tad. I found the resulting product to be just a shade on the crunchy side. To be fair, I did cook it up and then scarf it down, so it didn’t have any time at all to “rest.” Still, another ¼ to ½ cup of liquid wouldn’t have hurt. I also debated stirring blue cheese into the polenta, or draping a slice of it over top of the mushrooms and leeks, but abandoned this idea as being lily gilding.

I dished the polenta into my one remaining bowl, pulled out a spoon, and ate the whole thing in one sitting. This really is enough for two people, especially if it were a side dish. I didn’t even stop to take pictures of it, although there were two reasons for that. First, I didn’t have the camera (my husband has it with him). Second, it’s not a very photogenic dish. The sauce is kind of a grayish-brownish color, and while the polenta is a pretty yellow shade, it’s really just a bowl of undefined mush. However, here’s the recipe for my nice little lunch (which, because I used it in the dish, I did not have with a glass of wine; I had water instead).

Creamy Leeks and Mushrooms Over Polenta

½ tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon butter, divided
1 leek, cleaned and sliced crosswise
Approx. 1 dozen mushrooms, cleaned and sliced
Salt
Freshly ground pepper
¼ cup white wine
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
3 tablespoons heavy cream
¾ cup chicken broth (or slightly more—1-2 tablespoons additional)
¾ cup milk (or slightly more—1-2 tablespoons additional)
½ cup polenta

Heat olive oil and ½ tablespoon butter in a skillet large enough to accommodate all vegetables comfortably. Sautee leeks for 3-5 minutes over medium heat until just starting to brown. Add mushrooms to leeks and cook down until mushrooms have released their liquid and are coloring nicely. I added salt and pepper to taste right after I added the mushrooms, although you could wait until after adding the mustard, since that may change the amount of seasoning required.

Add white wine to pan, stirring to deglaze. Add Dijon mustard and stir through vegetables. Pour cream into pan and stir to distribute. Do not let the mixture return to the boil after adding the cream.

Bring chicken broth and milk to the boil, add polenta in a slow stream and whisk until liquid is absorbed and polenta has reached desired consistency (I like mine somewhat dry). Add ½ tablespoon of butter to the polenta.

To serve, spoon leek and mushroom mixture over polenta.

This makes two side dish helpings, or one single serving for a somewhat piggish, but hungry, person.