Hel(en)'s Kitchen

Curried Carrot Salad

2010-07-13T16:22:00.005-05:00

This is short and photoless, cause the last one was long and had lots of pictures, and this one isn't pretty to look at. But it's pretty damn tasty.

Waste not, want not. I still had at least a large bag (probably more) of baby carrots sitting in a tub of water in my fridge from doing the food for the We Are Family benefit last month. (Check them out. They rock in more ways than one.) I was trying to get through them, but there's only so many baby carrots and hummus a person can eat. (And I ate a lot of baby carrots and hummus. Didn't seem to be making a dent.) So, heat be damned, I roasted those suckers. With some garlic, ginger and curry powder. When they cooled down, I coated them in Greek-style yogurt. They won't last long now.

1 largeish bag baby carrots (or similar amount of regular carrots - remember those? - peeled and chopped into big-ish pieces)
1 tbsp minced garlic
1 tbsp minced fresh ginger
1 tbsp curry powder
1/3 cup olive oil
1/4 tsp salt
fresh ground pepper
1 cup Greek-style or strained plain yogurt

Preheat the oven to 75. Put the carrots in a largeish roasting pan. Mix the garlic, ginger, curry powder and olive oil into a loose paste and coat the carrots with it. (Cmon... just use your hands. It's so much easier.) Roast the carrots, stirring occasionally until they're sweet and tender and beginning to caramelize, at least an hour. Cool to room temperature and coat with yogurt.

Hard as Pie

2010-07-05T20:54:00.058-05:00

OK, pie isn't really _that_ hard. Especially not once you get the hang of it. But there's a lot going on in there. Family recipes are highly individualized (not to mention closely guarded). Family pie standards are just as idiosyncratic. Everyone seems to have strong opinions on the ideal degrees of flakiness, tenderness, butteriness, brownness, sweetness and the amount (and even presence) of the decorative outer edging. It seems that the kind of crusts someone likes (and the kind of crust they make) is almost as individual as a fingerprint.

Yet the actual ingredients remain fairly constant. In his book, Ratio, Michael Ruhlman describes the proportions -- 3 parts flour, 2 parts fat, 1 part water (all by weight) -- to which most pie dough recipes conform, more or less. The type of fat, rather than the amount, is usually the biggest variable. Butter, shortening, margarine, lard and even cream cheese all have devoted factions. (Other ingredients pop up from time to time as well, like vinegar or other acids and eggs.)

I grew up accepting the standard kitchen lore that the type of fat determined the texture of the crust, the gold standard being "tender, flaky crust." In my accepted version of crustology, the whole idea of "tender AND flaky" was an unachievable fallacy. Tender and flaky were opposites, and you had to choose one direction or another, or come to some compromise in between. Butter led to more cookie-textured (and more flavorful) crusts and shortening led to flaky crusts (that were often a little tough). My mother, after much tinkering, settled on a formula 2 parts butter to one part Crisco. It's a wonderfully flavorful crust, not terribly flaky, but tender and broadly useful, and it was the pie crust in my house growing up, for ever and ever, amen.

Except that I'm kind of a good idea slut. I have no particular faithfulness to doing things my way. If your way works better, then, hey...

One day I was making blueberry squares without the benefit of a Cuisinart and I noticed that mixing in the fat using a pastry cutter seemed to yield flakier results, even with the usual ingredients. Hmmm... Then, a few years ago, Gourmet [sob] published a recipe for sour cherry pie that included pie dough with almost the same butter-Crisco ratio as my mom's, but with a very different method. It used a technique called fraisage that I was familiar with because my mom had used it to make her famous shortbread, but never her pie dough. Basically you blend the fat in by smearing the dough with the heel of your hand, creating pastry layers almost as if you're making really quick and dirty puff pastry. Instead of mixing up your ingredients and hoping for the best, you build flakiness right in. You don't give your pastry a choice.

So, all this sort of implied that the type of fat was not the only thing, or even the main thing, determining the texture of my pie dough. As usual, the madness is in the method. Is this why people consider pie dough so tricky? Perhaps that's also why everyone's pie dough is so unique. From the same basic 3-2-1 ratio of flour to fat to water, everyone becomes comfortable with their own process, and these are the kinds of things that make it into written recipes imperfectly, if at all.

This really became clear to me the other night. I had been thinking about a pie dough blog post, and invited a friend to a head-to-head pie comparison. Still focused on the types of fat being used, I had sort of planned a dairy vs non-dairy crust competition, but, what with one thing and another, at the last minute we both ended up using some combination of butter and Crisco, only with the proportions just about reversed. (My pie had more butter.) But while our ingredients weren't really that different, our methods definitely were. Having grown up with Cuisinart pie dough, I'd never seen a stand mixer used... Interesting! The motion of the paddle attachment actually comes closer to the motion I use with my fingers. ("Hey... are you stealing my secrets?!" my friend asked. Absolutely.) But what I noticed was that the pieces of butter in the machine-mixed dough, like my mom's Cuisinart-mixed dough, ended up much smaller, the texture much more even than my hand-mixed dough. Once baked, my friend's crust was, by design, much more cookie-like and less flaky in texture than mine, and the bottom crust stood up particularly well to the juicy sour cherry filling.

One further experiment confirmed what I'd been thinking. I made a non-dairy pie with about 2 parts Crisco and 1 part margarine (Earth Balance Buttery Sticks), using my hand-mixed/fraisage method. The dough itself felt much more supple than butter dough, but, when baked, the texture was nearly identical to my butter crust. Both were... tender and flaky. Only the flavor differed significantly. The Crisco crust had a more neutral flavor, whereas the butter crust, unsurprisingly, was richer.

At this point, having come to the conclusion that the texture is mostly a result of method, I rather unscientifically set out to bolster my conclusion with research. Michel Suas's encyclopedic Advanced Bread and Pastry did not let me down. Suas explicitly divides pie dough into "mealy" and "flaky". ("Mealy" is not meant as a pejorative here. It's what I've been calling "cookie-like".) The difference? It's all about the size of the fat left by the mixing process. If you want flaky pastry, leave some particles the size of a pea or larger. (For industrial mixing processes, the recommended size is walnut sized!) If you want cookie-like pastry, cut the butter into the flour more thoroughly, to the point where the mix resembles cornmeal. Apparently, it's that simple. Since it's easier to mix the flour and fat to a more even point in a machine (either Cuisinart or mixer) the less flaky results my mom and my friend both get make a lot of sense. As does the fact that I started getting flakier crusts when I started mixing by hand. I'm not patient enough to hand-mix flour and butter to completely even and tiny pieces.

Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking was similarly illuminating. Apparently, shortening has a reputation for making a flakier crust because it is more forgiving to work with than butter, but given the right conditions, butter can make just as flaky a crust. Temperature is the key. According to McGee, "butter has the right consistency for making pastry in a relatively narrow temperature range, between 58 and 68 degrees F." I'd been on the right track, using cold (usually frozen) butter, working quickly, and chilling the dough once mixed.

McGee also points out that butter contains water (regular American butter has about 15%, European-style butters have less) while shortenings do not. Too much water in the fat can both "glue adjacent layers together" -- presumably a bad thing for flakiness -- while just the right amount can provide steam to push them apart. So the ancient kitchen wisdom wasn't all wrong. I think this probably means that you have to be more careful when adding water to butter pastry than you do with shortening pastry, since too much water will make for tougher pastry.

So, for the record, here's my all-important method for flaky butter crust.

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon sugar (or to taste)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, preferably frozen, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1/4 cup Crisco, preferably frozen
4 to 7 tablespoons ice water

Add flour, sugar and salt to a bowl. Use a pastry cutter to cut the fat into the dry ingredients. OR Quickly, with your fingertips, pinch the fat into the dry ingredients. OR use a mixer with a paddle attachment at low speed (I think this would be my preference now, over the Cuisinart: at least one good idea successfully stolen!) or Cuisinart to mix. MIX ONLY UNTIL ALL FAT CHUNKS ARE THE SIZE OF PEAS - HAZELNUTS OR SMALLER.

If you're mixing by machine at this point, stop. Slowly add 3-4 tablespoons of ice water. Mix the water in with a fork. Use only as much water as is needed to get the ingredients clumping together. Add a bit more water if needed. (If you're going for flaky, err on the side of less water.) The amount of water you need will vary based on the humidity (flour absorbs moisture from the air). Take a handful of dough and squeeze it together. If it doesn't crumble, you're good.

Next step, Fraisage: Start with a couple of handfuls of the dough on a clean work surface. With the heel of your hand, quickly smear the dough together.

With a pastry scraper, pick up the smeared dough and start a pile. Work through the rest of the dough the same way, until you have a pile of soon-to-be flaky layers.

REFRIGERATE THE PILE FOR AT LEAST AN HOUR. Put it in the freezer if you're in a hurry.

This is the longest blog post ever and we haven't even talked about the part that gives most people fits: rolling it out. This is just not that big a deal once you get the hang of it. I use plastic wrap. It makes things a lot easier, plus you're not adding more flour to the dough, which would change the consistency.

Wet down your work surface. This will help the plastic wrap stick to it. You'll need two pieces of plastic wrap to accommodate a 9-10 inch pie.

We're making a 2-crust pie here, so we're starting with the bottom. Take 2/3 of your dough. Cover it with two more pieces of plastic wrap.

Use your rolling pin to flatten it out a bit.

Then roll it into a circular thing. Start from the middle and push away from you, or pull toward you, in all directions. Periodically sweep along the edges. You don't have to worry too much about the edges being pretty. I roll mine fairly thin, maybe 2 mm. One advantage of plastic wrap is that you can run your hand over it and feel which parts are thicker than the others.

Peel the plastic wrap off the top to make sure it releases (if it doesn't, it needs more time in the fridge) but then put the plastic wrap back on and flip it over. Peel the plastic wrap off the other side. (Save the plastic wrap to roll out the top crust.) Use your rolling pin to pick up the crust and help you center it in the pie plate.

Make sure the dough gets down into the corners of the pie plate.

Fill the pie. (What? You want to know what to put in it? I dunno. Fruit. Maybe 5-6 cups for your average pie. Depending on how juicy the fruit is, add a few tablespoons of--in order of thickening ability--flour, cornstarch or crushed tapioca. Depending on how sweet your fruit is, add anywhere from a third of a cup to a cup or more of white or brown sugar. You can also add flavors like lemon juice, a splash of your favorite liquor or extract, cinnamon, whatever. This is not the hard part.)

Roll out the top crust the same way. Once the top crust is draped over the top of the pie, go around the outside of the crust and remove as much as you like. Some people like to take off all the excess crust. I like to leave about an inch. My mom likes to leave as much as possible. She's all about the decorative edging. I don't like too much because the inside of the edges never quite bake. Then roll the edges up. This seals the insides of the pie and prevents leaks.

Crimp the edges. It's decorative, and it also helps make sure the edging cooks all the way through.

Cut vents on your pie. You can be as decorative as you want, but they also serve a functional purpose in letting out steam from the filling as it cooks.

Some people like to use pie shields to keep the edges from getting too brown. Sometimes I do this at the beginning and take them off after about 15 minutes. Other times I only do it after the fact if the edges look like they're getting too brown. Here is my mom's patented aluminum foil pie shield. For a 9-10 inch pie, you'll need 4 strips of foil, rolled together.

Start your pie at a higher temperature, about 425 to 450, for about 15 minutes. This helps make sure the fat in your pie actually sets instead of just slowly melting, according to Harold McGee. (Note: if you've forgotten to pre-heat your oven, put the pie in the fridge while it heats up. It's all about keeping the pastry cold until it's ready to go.) Then turn it down to 350-375 and finish it for about 45 minutes, or until the crust is nice and golden brown.

Don't be tempted to take it out until the crust is really cooked. There's nothing worse than uncooked pie dough. You'll know your crust was underdone if it gets soggy by morning and starts to look raw. Not good.

I like glass pie plates because you can see the bottom crust, too. Check your pie about 15 minutes before it's done. If the bottom isn't browning enough, you can move the pie to a lower position in the oven (another observation we made during the pie-off, that was later supported by Harold McGee, though baking the pie in the lower part of the oven for the whole time will probably make the bottom crust a bit too brown). Flaky pie dough in particular needs to be well browned on the bottom in order to stand up to juicy fillings like fruit. Cookie-like dough is naturally heartier.

Nick Malgieri's Rhubarb and Orange Tart

2010-06-03T20:36:00.003-05:00

I've taken long enough with this post that rhubarb is just about out of season. Just about, but maybe not completely. I think, though, this recipe, from Nick Malgieri's How To Bake, is so neat and adaptable that it may not matter. Other, more seasonable fruits may inspire you.

I originally made this for Easter, in an effort to find an alternative to strawberry rhubarb pie, a family favorite that I--heretically--find a bit too sweet. And while this tart isn't actually that, um, tart, at least the sugar that's needed to take the edge off of the rhubarb doesn't end up in the final product. Rather, the rhubarb is very gently candied in syrup and the syrup is drained off (the better to make fancy cocktails or sweeten iced tea with). Not only does that keep things from getting too sweet, it also, as Malgieri points out, keeps the richly orange-scented custard nice and creamy since it's not watered down by rhubarb juices.

The whole thing comes together with a crumb topping. Lovely as it tasted, though (and the rhubarb and orange were really good together) it got me thinking about what else could be done with citrus- (or something else-) custard and lightly candied fruit. The nice thing about the how gently the fruit is candied/sugar poached is that it would work with all but the most delicate fruits. Sugar syrup is brought to the boil, and then the fruit is added off the heat. While the syrup cools, the fruit trades a bit of excess juice for just the right amount of light sweetness. So it might not work with, say, raspberries (though maybe it would) but I bet blueberries or cherries would be just perfect. Pair whatever fruit strikes your fancy with orange, lemon or even grapefruit zest in the custard, and you have a tart for all seasons.

CRUST

1 cup all purpose flour
3 tbsp sugar
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt
4 tbsp cold unsalted butter, cut up in small pieces
1 large egg, lightly beaten

Mix the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt together. Add the butter and pinch the butter into the dry ingredients quickly with your fingertips (or pulse it briefly in the food processor) until it's well combined. Add in the egg and mix with a fork. Turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and fold the dough 3 or 4 times, then form into a disc. Refrigerate for at least an hour.

FRUIT

1 to 1 1/2 lbs fresh rhubarb (or blueberries, or cherries or whatever) cleaned and cut into smallish pieces
1 cup sugar
2 cups water

Bring the sugar and water to a boil in a shallow pan large enough to hold the fruit as well. Remove the pan from the heat and add the fruit. Cover the pan and let it cool to room temperature. Drain the fruit well, saving the syrup for some other good purpose.

Preheat oven to 350

CUSTARD

2/3 cup heavy cream
scant 1/4 cup sugar
zest of 1 medium orange (or lemon or grapefruit or maybe ginger?)
1 tsp vanilla
4 egg yolks

Whisk the custard ingredients together. If you feel like making it extra smooth, strain it through a mesh strainer before adding the zest.

CRUMB TOPPING

1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1/3 cup white or brown sugar
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1 stick unsalted butter, melted

Combine dry ingredients. Stir in melted butter and combine. Form into a ball.

ASSEMBLY

Roll out the dough and line a 9-10 inch tart pan with it. Spread the fruit in the pan and pour the custard over it. Break the ball of crumbs into pieces and scatter them across the top.

Though it probably won't overflow, it's not a bad idea to put a cookie sheet underneath the tart pan. Bake the tart for 40 minutes or until the filling is set and the crumbs have browned.

Ode to Escarole

2010-03-02T23:50:00.002-05:00

I’ve been contemplating escarole lately, lettuce’s slightly more bitter, significantly more tasty cousin. (Its siblings, apparently, are chicory, endive and radicchio.)

Escarole used to be a once a year thing in my family. Every Easter Saturday it’s time for Sunday Soup (I know, just go with me here) a soup so delicious, so amazing, it feels a little sacriligious to have it at any other time of year. To me, at least. My sister makes it on a regular basis. Life is too short, she says. She’s got a point. Sunday Soup is an example of that kind of Italian cooking that takes a few intense, simple, perfect, perfectly complementary ingredients, and allows them to become even more than the sum of their parts.

Sunday Soup starts with a very simple but strong beef broth. Take about a 5 or 6 pound brisket or chuck roast, sear it on all sides, and cover it with water. Keep it on a very low simmer until the broth is delicious, then salt and pepper to taste. Remove the meat and serve it separately with mustard. (Or make Marcella Hazan’s delicious boiled beef salad, sliced thin, and dressed with –in its simplest version—salt, pepper, olive oil and vinegar. Another version adds mustard, anchovies, cornichons, capers, onions and herbs. Both are excellent excuses to make and freeze lots of extra beef broth.)

Then come the tiny meatballs, made with 2-3 pounds of ground beef (or some combination of beef, pork and veal), 3-4 eggs, freshly chopped parsley, generous salt and pepper, and maybe a couple of cups of bread crumbs. The meatballs are usually rolled about ¾ of an inch in diameter. If you’re good, you can roll them 2 or even 3 at a time. We long ago stopped frying them, since this required so many batches that the task of standing in front of the stove and dealing with them tended to artificially, unacceptably, limit the number of meatballs. Instead, we found they’re just as good if you bake them at high heat. They usually fill about 2 half-sheet pans, and bake at about 400 degrees. Turn them over once. (Don’t pack them so tightly on the sheet that you don’t have room to turn them.) Once they’re done, put them in with the finished beef broth. Refrigerate the meatballs and broth overnight and remove the fat from the top the next morning.

All that’s left to do is heat up the de-fatted soup and add a couple of heads of chopped up escarole. (Save some back to add at the last minute, so it’s still a little crunchy.) Something amazing happens to the beef broth with the addition of the escarole. The broth was rich and delicious before. But the little bitter, fresh kick from the escarole cuts the richness a bit, and adds a whole new dimension.

The fourth and final element is not added to the soup pot but to the bowls. A handful of small cubes of hard mozarella (fresh mozarella works, too, but I prefer the way the hard stuff melts) goes into each bowl just before the piping hot soup. By the time you take your first bite, the cheese has melted enough to give you an appreciable string from your bowl, and adds a counterpoint of richness to the broth, still perfectly offset by the escarole. The still-slightly-crunchy escarole wraps in and around the little meatballs in each spoonful. It’s one of the most perfect things I’ve ever eaten.

So, how close to Sunday Soup can I come without anticipating and spoiling this once-a-year ritual? One soup experiment with turkey meatballs and no mozarella flirted with danger, but ultimately did no harm, I think. But I’ve also been making various other, non-soup things with escarole.

Turning first to Marcella Hazan (of course) I found, in Marcella Cucina, a recipe for Apulian-style bitter greens, blanched and then sauteed with olive oil, garlic, anchovies, a bit of chili pepper, and finished with homemade croutons. The crutons, made with a few slices of homemade bread, and fried in canola oil added the rich note that so nicely offsets the slight bitterness of the escarole. There was just a touch of garlic—whole cloves cooked just to golden and then removed from the scented oil, and then the magic deliciousness of the anchovies. I had a bit of an uh-oh moment as I added the finely chopped anchovies. They gave off the last of their fishiness as they hit the oil, but that was the end of it. Once the blanched escarole was added, the fishiness was gone. The result was incredibly good. I might actually use a few fewer croutons next time. And—I confess to an occasional difference of taste with the great Marcella on the subject of vegetable doneness—I might not blanch the escarole first. I think I might just wilt it in the pan. (Though greens with more bitterness would probably still benefit from blanching.)

The next experiment, from Food and Wine, while delicious, was, well, almost cheating. It’s an example of what I think of as lazy cooking—relying on cream and pork fat, not to mention a spike of homemade veal stock, to make its point. I mean, yes. It was yummy and comforting. But it’s the exact opposite of the magic that happens with the few perfectly balanced ingredients in Sunday Soup. And the escarole almost gets lost in this dish. I would up the quantity by at least 50 percent.

Not sure what awaits the head of escarole remaining in my crisper, but it may be another shot at soup while it’s still Winter.

Farrotto

2010-02-01T19:42:00.022-05:00

The blog... It's alive! After almost two years, the blog is back. So yeah. Um, anyway, farrotto, or, farro, prepared like risotto...

Farro is a very trendy grain lately, despite the fact that no one seems to be totally sure what it is. I got mine in a package thoughtfully marked "FARRO" at Whole Foods so I didn't have to do too much thinking on my own. Farro is apparently an "ancient grain" (I don't know, either) often used in the Veneto region of northern Italy, where they work risotto-like magic upon it. (Speaking of risotto magic, anyone who has not seen the episode of Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations from Venice (season 6) should hurry up and stream it from Netflix to watch what the expert risotto chefs on Murano do instead of stirring. It will blow your mind. OK, it blew my mind. Maybe your mind is not quite as susceptible to blowout-by-risotto as mine seems to be. But it makes spectacularly clear what is meant by the Venetian preference for risotto "all'onda" or wavy.)

The interest in farro seems to stem from the idea that farro is capable of making a sort of wholeier-grainier type of Italian comfort food than the (I guess now passe) Arborio rice. Comparing the labels, farro did, indeed, appear to have approximately twice the protein per 50g as the Arborio in my cupboard, and approximately 3g of dietary fiber, which is 3g more than Arborio has. And there are probably other nutritional goodies hiding out in the little farro kernels that were not apparent from the limited info on the label. So, I see the appeal from that angle.

I made my farrotto more or less the way I would have made a risotto. I initially turned to the internet for guidance. I wasn't sure whether it was going to need overnight soaking or something. (It didn't.) The only real difference was, based on a suggestion I found here, I whizzed the farro around in the Cuisinart for a few pulses before starting, to crack some of the grains and make them cook more easily. This didn't seem to have much effect on the hard little grains, and I have absolutely no idea whether it made any kind of difference at all to the final product. On this particular day, I had a small head of radicchio in the fridge, so I shredded that, and sauteed it down thoroughly (it was pretty bitter starting out) with some caramelized shallots (I had forgotten I'd used my last onion... I don't know how that happened... but it was OK, because the radicchio really needed the extra sweetness from the shallots). The total cooking time might have been a little longer than it would have been for risotto, but I definitely didn't cook it for anything like the 1 1/2 hours suggested in the link above.

How did it stack up against risotto? As a more nutritious alternative to risotto (which I lately tend to prefer over pasta for weeknight what-do-I-want-to-do-with-what's-in-the-fridge? type meals) it's very, very promising. I'd definitely say it's an alternative, rather than a substitute. That's a good thing... it's a thing in its own right, not a nutritionally spruced-up version of something else you'd rather be eating, like, say, whole wheat pasta (which I'm still having a hard time getting behind, frankly).

First, the flavor. It's somewhere in the barley family. It's more assertive than risotto. I've seen it referred to as "nutty" but I think "earthy" might be more apt. I didn't happen to use any mushrooms, but there was a definite mushroom-y note. I used beef broth, and I'm glad I did. Basically, think anything that would work well with a hearty beef barley soup would be welcome. Mushrooms, absolutely. Maybe a little anchovy. Red wine or vermouth. Squash. Rosemary and/ or sage. Pancetta. Smoky flavors would work. This is not to limit things, really, but more to say that I bet subtle flavors could get lost if you didn't think it out carefully. Risotto is a base for the flavors you add to it (and serve with it). With farotto, you'll need to consider the farro flavor as a partner for the other flavors.

Secondly, there are big, significant differences in texture. Here's the really important thing to know about farro: unlike Arborio rice, FARRO WILL NOT GIVE OFF STARCH AS IT COOKS AND IS STIRRED. As you stir risotto, the grains of rice release starch. This is what gives risotto its lovely creamy texture, even before you've added cream or butter or cheese. For farrotto, on the other hand, this means several things:

--It means there's not much point in stirring it as often as you would risotto. So, that means somewhat less effort for those anti-stirrers among you (of whom, people who have cooked with me will know-- I can hear them snickering now-- I am not one).

--BUT it also means that the texture of your farrotto will not be thickened by starch the way risotto's is. So-- important point-- as you get toward the end of adding your broth, YOU'LL WANT TO SLOW DOWN and add it a very little at a time. When you're making risotto, if you add a little bit too much broth, it sort of absorbs into the rice and into the starchy/creamy "sauce" that makes up the risotto. If you add a little too much broth to farrotto, you'll have barley soup. The liquid isn't going anywhere unless you cook it off, and it won't be thickened by starch, because there isn't any.

--BUT BUT that means that your farrotto is ultimately a little more forgiving. If you don't serve it instantly, it's not as much of a big deal. It's not going to get gummy and sticky like risotto. It also means you can heat it up the next day for lunch a little more successfully. Though that also means if you tried to make farrotto arancini (the fried risotto balls that are the traditional Italian solution to the lousy sticky risotto leftovers problem) they'd just fall apart in the pan since there'd be nothing holding them together.

--BUT BUT BUT that means if you want your farrotto to be creamy, you're going to need to impose the creaminess from without. I added about a tablespoon of creme fraiche (not strictly traditional I realize) and that made the texture very nice. The whole pot (1 cup of farro) made about about 4 servings, so I figured... eh... a quarter of a dollop of creme fraiche (ok, plus the Parmigiano I grated over it) wasn't going to completely wipe out the nutritional advantage of the farro (especially since I probably would have added it to risotto as well). But it's something you'll want to be aware of. It would, for example, make a vegan farrotto less texturally appealing than a vegan risotto.

As for the texture of the individual grains, farro retains more bite than risotto rice. Again, it's definitely more forgiving. Risotto has a fairly brief perfection point, where the grain is no longer hard in the middle, but it's not yet too soft to have any bite at all. If you pass the ideal point with risotto, the grains get too soft, and the whole thing is just kind of mushy. Farrotto retains a nice almost elastic bite that didn't seem to be hurt by a little extra cooking (I was trying to get rid of the extra liquid I'd mistakenly added) or even by microwaving the next day. I'm sure it's theoretically possible to cook it to the point of mush, but the danger certainly didn't seem imminent.

So, I guess I'm on the farrotto bandwagon. Whatever. It was delicious. There's plenty of scope for having fun with. Definitely something to explore in more depth, even at the risk of foodie hipness.

Colomba di Pasqua

2008-03-29T22:18:00.008-05:00

(or, Panettone by any other name would taste as good)

Susan's BreadBakingDay #8, on celebration breads, kept me from just wimping out on this one despite my work schedule the week before Easter. This was really just an excuse to resurrect (no seasonal pun in questionable taste intended, I swear) my Christmastime panettone obsession. Easter gave me the opportunity for further "research," using the Italian tradition of dove-shaped Colomba di Pasqua as my excuse to present panettone again in dove's clothing. I used Peter Reinhart's panettone recipe from The Bread Baker's Apprentice this time. It's a bit drier than the panettone I made at Christmas from Susan's recipe, and starts with a milk-based wild yeast sponge. The process is a bit abbreviated, as well. But the butter/egg bakers percentages are not too far off.

I followed the recipe even more faithfully than I had planned to. It calls for all-purpose flour, and I was planning to use the King Arthur High Protein (14%) flour that had been so successful at Christmas, but by Saturday morning (Easter Eve) I was practically brain-dead, and, well, I _think_ I used all purpose. I definitely didn't use the High Protein. And there wasn't enough bread flour gone. So, yeah, I think it must have been the all-purpose. But it didn't seem to affect the outcome.

Fortunately. Because there was a point after I added the rum, fruit and butter, when I would have put the chances of this dough ever passing the windowpane test close to nil, but it was ok. I did add just enough (definitely high-protein this time) flour to get it to clean the sides and bottom of the bowl (probably about 1/4 cup). And I also didn't add much of the 4 tbsp of water the recipe instructs you to add to get it to form a dough. I think total kneading time (in the mixer... I definitely didn't do this by hand) wasn't really much more than 10-12 mins, and the gluten ultimately developed just fine.

It ended up being softer and tackier than, say, Reinhart's cinnamon roll dough, but not quite as soft and wet as the panettone dough from Christmas.

Shaping was sort of seat-of-the-pants. I was happy just to get it to kind of look like a bird of some kind. It definitely didn't have any kind of surface tension.

I definitely needed a larger pan, though. After transporting it (during fermentation) to my parents', and picking up my sister and her fiancee on the way (and discovering that my sister had, not entirely unreasonably, mistaken the box on the back seat for just another of the random pieces of junk that tend to decorate the interior of my car and put her purse down on top of it... :) ) it needed a little poking back into shape. It was just kind of a big, puffy mass by that point (with a bit of an... indentation... in the middle from the purse) and would not really have been recognizably avian without the strategically applied almond "feathers". I just kind of re-shaped the head, dug the cherry "eye" out of the middle of the dough and put it back where it belonged, and stuck it in the oven (where it puffed up even more).

It was pretty delicious. Comparing it to the Christmas panettones, the results were closer to the panettone from Settepani in Brooklyn than the panettone I made, which was much softer and more ethereal. This had a more distinct chew and rope to it, but it met with the Mom Seal of Approval. So I think this is what I'll go with. It did dry out more quickly, however (and definitely picked up an odd metallic taste when stored in aluminum foil, which I think is kind of a Bad Idea anyway). But I guess that just means we'll have to be sure to eat it right away, which, let's face it, shouldn't be a problem.

I Missed My Bran Muffins

2008-01-22T22:03:00.002-05:00

Update 3/30/08: Here's the thing about baked goods without much fat (preferably animal)... they don't keep that well. These tasted good for about 24 hours. Charitably, 36. After that they just tasted kind of... eh. And then they started to grow green whiskers. I think my preferred everyday-type breakfast bread is now my mom's Date and Nut bread. Recipe to come shortly. And I'll probably continue to tinker with the muffins. Maybe they can be frozen and baked to order...

Original Post:
Ever since my run-in with the nutritional info in the Starbucks Bran Muffin, I've been avoiding them, and I've missed the nice nutty breakfast-y thing to go with my occasional cup of morning coffee. A couple of recipes for low-fat bran muffins from various sources that I can't remember (and so shall undeservedly remain nameless) resulted in vile, vile little glop pellets.

Those of you who will judge me for using margarine (no matter how chi-chi, organic and appropriately omega-3 balanced) or egg-replacer need to just stop reading right now. We both know who you are. Yeah, I know they're processed foods. They're most definitely not "whole". But whatever. I had egg replacer and Earth Balance Buttery Sticks in my house because of some vegan baking I'd been doing for friends. And it's actually fine. You have to choose your applications, but in this case, with all kinds of other flavors going on, it's just not going to be an issue. In a situation where their function is primarily baking chemistry, that is, to get the texture of the muffin to turn out right, and the flavor is primarily concerned with the nuttiness of the grains and the kick of the ginger and spices (not to mention the nice lemony undertone) the lack of real buttery goodness is much less of an issue than it would otherwise be in, say, blueberry muffins.

That being said, if you don't do much vegan baking, and you want to add an egg, 1/12 of an egg actually doesn't add much cholesterol (17-20 mg) or saturated fat to your morning muffin. 1/4 cup of butter instead of the Buttery Sticks would add more saturated fat (1.3 g) and cholesterol (10mg) to each. Using both would just give you a little bit less flexibility throughout the rest of the day, and one of the whole points of the better bran muffin was not to have to skip dessert because you had a bran muffin for breakfast. It's about choosing your battles, people. Buttery Sticks where you won't taste 'em and they don't really matter so you can have the nice creme fraiche-enriched pan sauce for dinner.

I compared a lot of muffin recipes (because I didn't want these to end up in the trash). Delores Casella's A World of Breads (now out of print but available used from Amazon) had a great section on building your own muffin recipe. She had an idea about substituting nut butter for part of the butter, which I think worked really well.

Anyway... these are really good by any muffin standard. I might cut down the sugar next time.

1/2 cup Bob's Red Mill 8 Grain Cereal
1 cup Lowfat Yogurt
1/2 cup 1% Milk

3/4 cup Whole Almonds

1 cup White Whole Wheat Flour
1/2 cup Wheat Germ
1/2 tsp Baking Soda
1/2 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 tsp Salt

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) Butter or Earth Balance Buttery Sticks
1 cup Brown Sugar (firmly packed)
1 Egg or Egg Replacer
1 tsp Cinnamon
1/2 tsp Nutmeg
1 tbsp Vanilla
Zest of 1 Lemon

1/2 cup Crystallized Ginger (small pieces)
1/2 cup Dried Fruit (I used Bing cherries)

Preheat oven to 400. (Don't forget, because you don't want your muffins sitting around once the baking powder/soda has been activated by the wet ingredients.)

1. Add the 8 Grain Cereal to the yogurt and milk and mix around. Let it sit and get soft while you're doing the other stuff.

2. Toast the almonds. Optional but tasty. I put them on a little cookie sheet in my toaster oven on "medium toast" but you could also put them in the oven on 375-400 for about 5 minutes. You really need to watch them so they don't burn.

3. While they're toasting, combine the dry ingredients (wheat flour, salt, baking soda and baking powder) except the wheat germ (which you're going to toast and then add to the dry ingredients... again, optional).

3. Put the almonds in the Cuisinart, and get them as close to butter as you can. Mine mostly just got really finely ground. Not a big deal. Then add the butter/y sticks and beat it with the almonds for 30 seconds or so. Then add the brown sugar... another 15 seconds or so. Then the egg/replacer, cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla and lemon zest... couple of pulses til mixed.

3. Toast the wheat germ (same deal as the almonds, but for about half the time). Add to the dry ingredients. Add the ginger and fruit to the dry ingredients.

4. Add the almond stuff to the yogurt and cereal and mix.

5. Add the wet and dry ingredients and mix just until all the dry ingredients are wet.

6. Divide among 12 lined muffin tins. Bake for 25 minutes or until golden brown. (Don't be tempted to underbake.)

Nutritional Info (calculated by nutritionsource.com):
Calories: 282
Fat: 8.8 g
Saturated Fat: 1.5 g
Cholesterol: 2mg
Sodium: 224 mg
Carbohydrate: 46g
Dietary Fiber: 4.4g
Sugars: 28.9g
Protein: 6.5g
Calcium: 11%
Iron: 9%

MUCH better than Starbucks (and, of course, tastier). And definitely better than a quarter pounder.

Adventures in Panettone

2008-01-17T16:07:00.000-05:00

I guess I'm now sufficiently recovered from the holidays and caught up with work to FINALLY brain dump about all the panettone goings-on that led up to Christmas morning. (Also the debut of PICTURES! I'm still getting the hang of the whole taking pictures of food thing, so bear with me.) I've been making panettone at Christmas for about 7 or 8 years now, generally using a recipe from an old Cucina Italia. It's always been spectacularly delicious (mounds of egg, butter, rum, candied fruit... what more do you need to know, right?) but it's also always been a bit dense, reluctant to rise, unhappy at being retarded in the fridge overnight (cause you gotta have warm panettone on Christmas morning, apparently) and, more than once, returned to the oven in a panic after finding the middle wasn't done.

Obviously this couldn't go on.

Two or three years ago, I actually embarked on my adventures in sourdough bread baking (I'll post those too, maybe, when I feel like I've worked out some of the kinks) when I read about natural yeast panettone in Peter Reinhardt's The Bread Baker's Apprentice. Hey, I wanted "world class" panettone, too. But I spent a couple of frustrating Octobers in a row failing miserably to get a starter started in my apartment (while succeeding beyond my wildest dreams in getting said apartment to smell like baby puke). And then early last year, I ordered some starter from King Arthur, and my sourdough bread baking odyssey began. Then I saw the pandoro from Bruno's Bakery (now Settepani) in Brooklyn in Maggie Glezer's Artisan Baking... more inspiration. I sought guidance on TheFreshLoaf.com and Susan over at WildYeastBlog came through big time with a spectacularly detailed and illustrated post about making outstanding panettone (follow the link for the recipe I used). Yay Susan! Thanks again!

In the meantime, I'd asked my sister, who conveniently lives in Brooklyn, for "research loaves" of panettone and pandoro from Settepani. She came through, too. We tore into the panettone and the pandoro a couple of weekends before Christmas while on a family holiday-visiting tour of New England. (The fact that we, four adult people stuffed into a Toyota Camry for an entire 4-day weekend with what seemed like several months worth of luggage, did not just flat out kill each other, must, in part, be due to the outrageous deliciousness of this panettone.) Sorry about the dark picture.

The Settepani panettone was rich and fragrant with lovely open crumb structure and a distinct chew. Mine (previewing here for a moment), following Susan's instructions was anything but dense, and SO airy as to almost melt in your mouth. Two rather distinct categories of bread, really. Since I was so obsessed with getting it to lighten up, it's a little odd that, for what I think of as panettone, I preferred Settepani's more substantial loaf. Maybe it's just force of habit and all those years of dense-but-yummy have ruined me for the airy goodness of the new version. Though how I'd copy it, I'm not quite sure... maybe a drier dough, I think. A quest for next October/November, clearly.

Settepani's pandoro (left) was quite something as well, airy-er than the panettone, but, texture-wise, still another thing entirely from what I made this year (or in previous years). Definite ropy texture and a lovely buttery flavor with a very faint almost almond-y or nutty undertaste (though there aren't any nuts in the recipe).

So, inspired by Settepani's masterpieces (and desperately craving more buttery goodness) the moment of truth came on Christmas Eve. I had been hard at work turning my liquid starter into a firm "Italian" (or, maybe more accurately, Italianate) starter according to Susan's instructions. I've experimented a bit with firm starters and Maggie Glezer says they're supposed to quadruple in 4-8 hours or less. It always had before. But, just to be difficult, it was only doubling... and a half, or so. I briefly considered going the yeasted route, but decided to brazen it out. (Thank you again, Susan and Dolf for answering panicked posts on CHRISTMAS EVE!) And it worked really, really well.

A couple of things I did differently from Susan's recipe:
--Based on a recommendation in the Settepani pandoro recipe, I decided to use high-gluten flour (ie, beyond regular bread flour) so I used King Arthur's Organic High Gluten Flour, which I'd ordered from their website. And, man, this stuff was high-protein. But the downright weirdest thing about this (very, very wet) dough was that it had this texture sort of like the green slime that used to come in plastic eggs when I was a kid. Straight offa Nickelodeon, being dumped on someone's head. And I could feel the little cells of bread... little bubbles that popped in my fingers as I touched it. I don't know whether regular bread flour would have had this effect or not, but, anyway, it was fun at the time.

--Along with some of the water (I used about 1/3 to 1/2 of the liquid specified) I did add the rum the fruit had been soaking in. The yeasties (natural and SAF Gold) had already been giving off a boozy aura all on their own... like their little office Holiday party gone a little bit too far... but once I added the rum, it started to smell a bit like, well, cleaning up the morning after the party, when you find all the half-finished bottles of beer and melted frozen fruity drinks abandoned and beginning to take on their own funk. I was a little worried. But once it baked, it definitely had the nice rummy, buttery, rich flavor I was craving, so all's well that ends well.

--I didn't really decorate them. I also realized too late that I was out of razor blades. I considered going into a CVS, just to see what would happen when I walked up to the checkout counter late on Christmas Eve with nothing but a packet of straight-edged razor blades, but, fortunately or unfortunately, the opportunity didn't arise. I made do with a reasonably sharp knife, but I don't think the technique of the slash was as important with this bread as it is with regular sourdough bread.

--I added about 100g more fruit than Susan's recipe. It didn't seem to hurt the height at all. My family still wanted more. (Though, there was this odd effect in which the fruit seemed to hide in the texture of the bread. Like, you'd cut into it, and it wouldn't seem to be a fruity piece, and yet you'd get a mouthful of fruit nevertheless. Oh, it was so good...)

--I also didn't get the diastatic malt powder, so I think you can see how the crust is somewhat paler that it might be otherwise, but still quite nice.

Here they are on Christmas morning, the best present a girl could ask for, unlike in previous years, happily risen above the lip of the paper.

Here they are, cooling on my mom's old Gourmet magazines. Dolf... thanks for the tip about the singed skewers... aluminum foil to the rescue.

I managed to stave off the hungry hordes for about45 minutes before tearing into the first loaf. Didn't seem to hurt it any. I mean, before it was devoured.

I think this bread has the best crumb structure of any I've ever made. I think I've been too casual about gluten development previously. This had the extra boost of the high-protein flour and I also folded twice during the bulk rise, since it seemed so wet and formless.

There you have it, folks. Fantastically satisfying bread event.

My Mom's Scones

2007-12-11T11:39:00.000-05:00

Preheat oven to 450.

Pulse in Cuisinart until most butter pieces are smaller than a pine nut:
2 cups flour
3 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
1 stick butter, cut in small pieces (preferably very cold... frozen works well, but not required)
If using unsalted butter (which I do but my mom doesn't) add about 1/4 tsp salt

Combine the wet ingredients separately:
1/2 cup cream or milk (more fat will make them more tender, but you can use anything from skim to heavy cream)
1 egg
1+ tbsp scotch (or brandy or grand marnier or whatever)

At this point you can add a handful of dried or candied fruit (candied orange rind, currants, whatever you feel like). You could also add lemon or orange zest. You could even add fresh berries. I've also had some really good savory scones recently. I had some in Seattle from Macrina bakery that seemed to have grated cheddar (possibly though not necessarily replacing some of the butter) a small amount of sun-dried tomato and some dill. People also add bacon, herbs. If you wanted to do savory scones, you'd cut out the sugar and the alcohol, or make sure the alcohol flavor complemented your choice of ingredients.

Add all but a drizzle of the wet mixture to the dry mixture (save a tiny bit to pat on the top of the scones before baking). Mix just to combine. Turn out onto a surface (or I use a large, shallow mixing bowl) and sort of flatten it all out and then fold it over and flatten again. Do this maybe 5-10 times. This traps air and creates layers. (A pastry scraper makes this whole process easier.)

(UPDATE: This folding part seems to be the most difficult for people. Depending on how big your egg was, or how humid it is outside, your dough may be more or less wet. In general, just try to go with it. If you don't have a pastry scraper, you could use a spatula. But definitely use something to help you fold it over (and scrape the dough off your hands) without adding flour. If it's really outrageously wet, go ahead and sprinkle some extra flour. But you don't really want to end up with something resembling bread or cookie dough. Also, if you're having trouble adding the fruit or whatever, try sprinkling whatever you're adding before you fold. Do this enough times and it'll be well distributed through.)

When you're done folding, you can either flatten the dough till it's about 1/2 inch thick and cut with biscuit cutters or do what I did, which is divide the dough in 2, make each portion into a roughly round flat disc (again, about 1/2 inch thick) and then cut the disc in quarters. (If you use biscuit cutters, and you've folded correctly, you should hear a little hiss of air escaping as you press quickly down. This was one of my favorite sounds as a kid.)

Find the drizzle of wet ingredients you saved and brush the tops of the scones with it. The easiest way is just to use your fingers. If you feel like it, you can top with a sprinkling of sugar, cinnamon sugar, whatever you want. Or leave it off.

Bake for about 12 minutes, or until the scones are nicely browned.

Beware the Starbucks Bran Muffin

2007-07-03T11:14:00.000-05:00

So, procrastination has its uses. Like, this morning as I was working myself up to getting down to work, I figured I'd check out the nutritional info on the bran muffin I'd just scarfed with my morning coffee. I actually like bran muffins. I'm not just eating them because they're supposed to be good for me. They're not too sweet, kinda nutty. You don't feel like you've just eaten dessert. On the other hand, you also don't feel like you've just eaten a McDonald's Quarter Pounder, either. So, I was surprised when I saw what was actually in my bran muffin. I mean, I'd seen the info on the Frappucino, and I can't say I was all that surprised to see that they're caloric and fatty. I knew my bran muffin wasn't health food, exactly. I expected some fat and a fair amount of sugar. Still and all...

	Starbucks Bran Muffin	Quarter Pounder
Serving Size (g)	128	169
Calories	410	410
Fat (g)	22	19
Sat Fat (g)	7	7
Trans Fat (g)	0	1
Cholesterol (mg)	90	65
Dietary Fiber (g)	5	3
Protein (g)	8	24
Calcium (% RDA)	2%	4%
Iron (% RDA)	15%	20%

Does that mean that the bran muffin is just about as bad for you as the Quarter Pounder? Doesn't make sense, but it sure looks like it. The Quarter Pounder _did_ have 1g of Trans Fat that the bran muffin didn't have, and less dietary fiber. Perhaps the difference is in antioxidants or the polyphenols or some other new kind of nutrient I've never heard of or in the way it's metabolized or something.

I guess the moral of the story is buyer beware, especially when it comes to prepared food. I'm kind of afraid to think about the Whole Foods salad bar...

Anyway. Make of it what you will.

Everyone's Favorite Salad Dressing

2007-06-22T12:33:00.000-05:00

I am salad dressing-impaired. I don't know why. I have no trouble with things that notoriously give people fits. World-class hollandaise? Pie crust? No problem. But for some reason I can't make a simple vinaigrette that doesn't taste like I just shouldn't have bothered.

In this I am the shame of my family. My father makes outstanding salad dressing. And his father is the acknowledged salad master of our entire extended family. But my grandfather has a secret... an old and treasured copy of "Salads for the Gourmet" circa the Eisenhower administration. What's more, my grandfather is a recipe-follower. We're talking about a man who once scaled a marinade recipe by 7/8 because the leg of lamb he was going to marinate in it was 7/8 the weight called for in the recipe, bless his obsessive-compulsive heart.

So, though I wasn't going to hunt down a copy of my grandfather's salad bible, I figured I could still find some salad dressing recipes (I know, I know... a strange concept) and actually follow them. And now I can eat salad.

This recipe seems to be everyone's particular favorite, since it has been demanded after the first bite each time I've served it. I found it on epicurious.com, from Gourmet, May 2003.

It's creamy and well-balanced. It's actually a good substitute for mayo in things like potato salad and sandwiches (though it does have a looser consistency).

1/4 cup whole milk yogurt (I think lowfat Greek yogurt or regular lowfat yogurt strained to remove excess liquid would also work)
1+ tbsp olive oil
1+ tbsp lemon juice
1+ tbsp minced shallot
1 tbsp finely chopped chives
1 tbsp chopped tarragon (optional)
1 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tbsp Pommery mustard (This actually might be the secret... if you don't have it, you can substitute regular whole grain mustard, but really, even though you'll pay $20 for a crock of it, you won't regret having some of this in your fridge. You'll find it becomes your secret ingredient in just about everything. Don't forget to lick the spoon.)

I put everything in a jar with a tightly-fitting lid and shake.

The salad recipe it came with includes a lot of herbs, including a goodly amount of fresh flat-leaf parsley and some sorrel. I like parsley in salads, so you may want to try that, though I found that the sorrel got a little overwhelmed (which is sort of strange considering it has such a nice lemony-tart flavor by itself).

In my search for good salad dressing recipes, I also came across these in last month's issue of Food and Wine. The Dijon vinaigrette is especially good, though I haven't tried the other two yet.

Corn & Tomato Chowder

2007-06-05T20:08:00.000-05:00

This was a fridge clearout soup, but it just happened that I had the makings for something fairly coherent in there. It's hard to go wrong with cream _and_ creme fraiche. So I was thinking about something kinda creamy, with some fresh tomatoes (I really had that slightly pink tomato creaminess thing on my brain) and corn, and I found this recipe (Corn and Tomato Bisque from Food and Wine) and then just changed it so that it more closely conformed to what I was craving. I finally got around to making some chicken leftovers into broth today (one of the many advantages of working at home) added some veggies from the farmer's market (though obviously the corn isn't quite in season here yet). It totally hit the spot.

2 tbsp butter
2 shallots, diced
1 large garlic clove, minced
1 tbsp sherry vinegar
2 cups raw corn (about 3 ears)
3 cups chicken stock
2 Yukon Gold Potatoes, cut in small dice
4 small (3-4 in) summer squash, cut in 1/4 in coins
3 tbsp creme fraiche
2 fresh tomatoes, diced
1/2 cup heavy cream
about 1/2 tbsp finely chopped chives or to taste

Saute the shallots in the butter until translucent but not brown. Add the minced garlic and saute barely 1 minute longer. Add the sherry vinegar and the corn, and saute for 2-3 minutes more.

Add the stock and the potatoes simmer until the potatoes are almost tender. Taste for salt and salt and pepper to taste. If you have an immersion blender, stir it around a little, but make sure a majority of the corn and potatoes remain unblended. The original recipe recommends taking some out of the pot and blending it, but I think this is unnecessarily labor intensive (though if you feel like it, it will make things a little creamier).

Add the squash, creme fraiche and tomatoes, and simmer about 3-4 minutes longer.

Finish with the heavy cream and the chives and serve.

Mole

2007-06-02T14:54:00.000-05:00

Yet another backlog... And this doesn't even begin to cover my recent adventures in sourdough baking. But it's a start.

(June Supper Club: fruit and chocolate)
This was pretty close to what I had in my mind's palate, so I'm pretty happy with it. I combined approaches in a couple of different recipes I found online, one the Ancho and Chipotle Mole from Food and Wine, the other a "Oaxacan Black Mole" from fiery-foods.com. This wasn't overwhelmingly spicy, since I took out all of the chile seeds. If you like it hotter, you could reserve some of the seeds and toast/grind them in the manner of the dried spices, and adjust the heat to taste that way.

3 large dried Ancho chiles
1 large and 3-4 small dried Chipotle chiles

2 large fresh Pasilla (or Poblano) peppers... the large, shiny, dark green ones
2 red bell peppers

1 cinnamon stick (if you can get Mexican cinnamon, that's ideal... I just used what I had)
4-5 whole cloves
1 1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1/2 cup sesame seeds
2 whole peppercorns

2-3 tbsp olive oil
1 small onion
1 small can tomato paste
8-10 smallish tomatillos
1 small ripe banana or plantain
10 garlic cloves
2 discs Ibarra Mexican chocolate
1 heaping tbsp cocoa

salt to taste

1. Preheat a gas broiler and broiler pan (or a gas grill).

2. Soak the dried chiles in about 2 cups of boiling water for about 30 mins. You may need to weight them down a bit so they don't just float to the top. (Save the soaking water in case you need to adjust the consistency of the mole.)

3. Remove the seeds and cores from the fresh peppers and cut into pieces that lay flat. Put them on the preheated broiler pan (or grill) skin side toward the flame. Broil or grill for 10 minutes, until the skin is charred. Remove the skin (this should be easy) and put them in a covered bowl to steam for a few minutes.

4. Toast the spices (cinnamon, cloves, cumin, sesame seeds and peppercorns) in a dry skillet until fragrant and golden brown. Be careful not to burn them... watch carefully and shake the pan. Grind in batches in a mortar or spice grinder.

5. Remove the tomatillo husks and puree the tomatillos, garlic and banana in a food processor. (You could also mince the garlic and add it to the onion once the onion starts to get translucent. Either way.)

6. Saute the onion and ground spices in the oil on medium-high heat until the onion is just beginning to brown. Add the tomato paste and saute another 2-3 minutes. Add the tomatillo puree and cook until slightly reduced, about 5-10 minutes, stirring periodically. Remove from heat and add Ibarra chocolate discs and stir until melted.

7. Remove the stems and seeds from the soaking dried peppers, puree with the fresh peppers, and add to the pot.

8. Blend the mole in a blender (or with a hand blender) until smooth. (The food processor doesn't quite get it smooth enough.)

9. Add salt to taste (about a tsp). If it's not chocolatey enough, you can add some of the cocoa.

Slather on the sauce vector of your choice. This stuff should keep in the fridge for a few weeks at least.

Mojitos

2007-05-05T11:36:00.000-05:00

(May Supper Club: Cinco de Mayo)
Yes, I know Cinco de Mayo is a _Mexican_ holiday celebrating a victory over the French. Yes, I know Mojitos are Cuban. I even (aak!) used a Mojito recipe from the very French (or, actually, Alsatian) Jean-Georges Vongerichten. People liked them anyway.

The definite favorite were the grapefruit Mojitos. These were pretty damn tasty.
http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/pomelo-mint-mojito

For pitcher-quantities, here's my adaptation:
5 cups fresh squeezed grapefruit juice from Whole Foods
1 1/2 cups golden rum
1 1/2 cups club soda
a bunch of mint leaves, chopped (I'd guess about 2/3- 3/4 cup)
about a cup of mango-tangerine sorbet (cause that's what I had in the freezer)

Put everything except the sorbet together and leave it in the fridge for a couple of hours. Run it through a strainer to remove the mint pieces. Add the sorbet and dissolve. Add ice, and, if you like, serve with a garnish of mint leaves and lime wedges.

Regular Mojitos:
5 cups limeade (in the juice aisle at Whole Foods)
1 1/2 cups golden rum
1 1/2 cups club soda
mint leaves

Same deal as above, though you don't need the sorbet.

Vegetable Crepes

2007-04-14T11:38:00.000-05:00

(April Supper Club: Tapas)
Adapted from Penelope Casas's "Tapas: The Little Dishes of Spain." The secret weapon is the (almost classically French) reduction cream sauce in which the crepes get bathed. The leafy greens and carrots balance out the richness really well.

Crepes:
1 egg
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup water
1 cup flour
1/8 tsp salt
3 tbsp butter

Melt the butter in the pan you'll use to make the crepes. The crepes should be about 5 in round, so ideally you want a small, non-stick pan. Combine all the ingredients and the melted butter from the pan in a blender. Re-heat the pan to medium high. Use only enough batter for each crepe to coat the pan. Each crepe should take less than 30 seconds a side. Pile each crepe on a plate as you finish. They shouldn't stick together.

Vegetable mixture:
1 large bunch dark leafy greens like collards or chard
4-5 medium carrots, diced
3 tbsp olive oil
2 medium onions, minced
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tbsp parsley, minced
1/4 tsp thyme

In a pan large enough to accommodate the carrots and the greens, saute the onions in the olive oil over medium heat until just golden brown. Add the minced garlic and saute a minute or so more. Add the diced carrots and cover the pan. Cook until the carrots are just tender, stirring often enough to prevent over-browning (adjust heat if necessary). If things are getting too brown you can add a little bit of water.

Chiffonade and wash the greens. (Chiffonade: Stack the leaves, and then roll them into a long roll. Cut 1/4 inch slices off of the roll.) Add the greens to the pan, and cook until wilted. You may need a little more water. Add the parsley and thyme and remove from heat. Add the whole thing to the food processor and process until it seems like a good texture for crepe filling. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Sauce:
2 tbsp butter
1/2 cup white wine (original recipe calls for dry, but I think I used a Riesling that wasn't quite as dry as I would have liked for drinking purposes, and it was pretty good)
1 1/2 cups vegetable or chicken broth
1/2 tsp whole grain mustard, preferably Pommery
1 1/2 cups heavy cream

Melt the butter in a medium skillet. Add the wine, broth, and mustard and boil down to reduce by half. Salt and pepper to taste. (Be sure to salt and pepper _after_ you reduce, since all flavors will become more concentrated in the process.) Stir in the cream and simmer until the sauce thickens noticeably.

Mix 1/2 cup of the sauce with the vegetable filling. Fill crepes (a couple of spoonfuls of filling per crepe) and lay them seam side down in a greased baking dish. Cover with the remaining sauce and bake at 350 for just about 5 minutes to heat through.

Yummy!

Spinach Tart

2007-02-24T14:09:00.000-05:00

Kinda made this one up as I went along.

1. Make the tart crust (or get one at the store... I like the cornmeal crusts they have at Whole Paycheck). This is one I like from Nick Malgieri's How To Bake (another terrific reference). In Cuisinart, pulse the following until combined:
3/4 cup flour
3/4 cup yellow cornmeal
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
6 tbsp unsalted butter

When combined (and resembling a coarse meal) add 1 egg and pulse until it forms a ball. Press the dough evently into a 10-inch tart pan. Chill in the fridge while making the spinach mixture. Preheat oven to 350.

2. Make a veloute in which to coat the spinach... Saute a large shallot in a couple tbsp butter until just translucent. Add a couple tbsp flour to make a roux. (If there's still butter unabsorbed, add more flour, but it shouldn't be so thick it can't "bubble.") Cook until light brown. Gradually add a cup or so of very hot chicken or veg stock while constantly stirring. If you need to whisk to get out the lumps, go ahead. Salt and pepper to taste (keeping in mind you'll be adding olives later). If you felt like adding an egg, you could. (In a separate bowl, beat the egg, beat in a little bit of veloute, and then, off the heat, add the whole mix to the pan of veloute and combine well.)

3. Add a package of fresh or frozen baby spinach and stir to combine. Add feta crumbles to taste (maybe half a package?).

4. Put spinach into tart pan. Add kalamata olives, toasted pine nuts, toasted pecans or walnuts, and anything else that strikes your fancy.

5. Bake for 30-40 minutes.

Creamed Hedgehog Mushrooms on Toast

2007-02-24T14:00:00.004-05:00

Adapted from Food and Wine, Nov 1999

I made this all (or mostly) with stuff I found at the Dupont farmer's market one Sunday, and it was damn tasty. Makes 2 servings.

1 little bag of hedgehog mushrooms (the amount they sell you at the farmer's market... 1+ cups?) Hedgehog mushrooms are a lot like chanterelles.
1 tbsp butter
1 small shallot, minced
1 garlic clove, minced
3 tbsp cognac
1/4 cup heavy cream

1. Saute the shallot in the butter until softened. Add the garlic and saute just 1-2 mins. Add salt and pepper, and then the brandy, and reduce until syrupy (won't take long with this much). Add the cream and simmer until thickened.

So here's what I discovered about real cream at this point... the stuff from the farmer's market... the non homogenized, minimally processed stuff with no additional ingredients (no carageenan or whatever like you get in even organic cream from Whole Foods)... It's freakin' indestructable! No worries about breaking this sauce. Better even than creme fraiche. Wow. (Panna cotta would be no problem... you can boil it to your heart's content.) I also discovered (later) that it whips if you just ask it nicely. Don't take anything motorized to this stuff. You'll get butter.

2. At the same time as step 1, in a separate pan, saute the mushrooms in a little bit of butter.

3. Combine. Spoon onto toast. Eat.

Yum.

Beef Braised with Onions

2007-02-24T14:00:00.002-05:00

From Marcella Hazan's Essentials of Italian Cooking, which has become my favorite cook book of all time. The one cookbook I would take with me to a desert island. If I thought the island would have a reasonably good grocery store. This is super yummy, and great for leftovers.

1/4 lb pancetta
2 lbs boneless beef roast (ideally brisket or similar)
5 cloves
4 medium onions
salt
pepper

1. Preheat oven to 325.

2. Find a heavy-bottomed pot that will go in the oven, has a tight cover and is big enough for the roast (but not too much bigger than the roast). I used an oval Le Creuset Dutch oven and it worked great. Slice (into slices, not dice) the onions very, very thin. Spread the onions on the bottom of the pot.

3 . Cut the pancetta into matchsticks. Distribute half of the pancetta over the onions in the pot. Then Marcella says to use a larding needle, or, failing that, a sturdy Chinese chopstick (not the pointed Japanese kind) to "lard" the meat with half of the pancetta. That is, stick the pancetta into the meat at various intervals. I guess I don't have any chopsticks, or a larding needle, and had some trouble finding an implement that would make this work as described. I finally ended up just making little incisions with a knife and sticking the pancetta in that way.

4. Insert the cloves in 5 of the "larding" holes. You might want to note where these are and remove them before serving.

5. Put the meat in the pot on top of the onions and pancetta. Season liberally with salt and pepper. Cover the pot (if it doesn't cover securly enough, cover the pot with foil first, and then put the cover on top) and put in the uppermost rack of the preheated oven.

6. Turn the meat every 30 minutes or so. Marcella says to cook it for 3 1/2 hours, and it needs the whole time. I tasted after about 2 because I was hungry and hadn't planned very well. It was good, but nothing like the delicious caramelized stuff in the pot after 3 1/2 hours. So be patient.

Pretty Amazin Sticky Buns

2007-02-24T14:00:00.001-05:00

These are from Peter Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice, my go-to bread book, and a must-have if you're at all interested in bread making. The recipes are as dead-on reliable as Marcella Hazan's. (Though I haven't succeeded in making sourdough starter yet, but I think that's more to do with whatever local yeasts may or may not be living in my apartment...)

A favorite for weekend morning quartet rehearsals.

Peter Reinhart notes in the intro that the dough itself isn't really that rich, which is true (one egg, and just over half a stick of butter). But once you add in the sticky stuff, it's pretty decadent. The alternative would be to drizzle a glaze over the top, which would add plenty of sugar, but at least no more fat (and would still be pretty yummy). Both recipes are here.

6 1/2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
5 1/2 tbsp unsalted butter (or shortening)
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla (orig calls for lemon extract or grated lemon zest... that'd be good, too)
16 oz (3 1/2 cups) unbleached bread flour
2 tsp instant yeast
1 1/8-1/4 cups milk (orig recipe says whole or buttermilk, but I've always used skim or 1%)
1/2 cup cinnamon sugar (6 1/2 tbsp sugar plus 1 1/2 tbsp cinnamon)

The butter, egg and milk should all be at room temperature or the yeast won't perform as well. If you haven't had a chance to leave things out, you should definitely heat at least the milk in the microwave until it's no longer cold to the touch (but not more than about 110 degrees). Depending on your microwave, it might take 30-45 seconds. You could also take the chill off the butter in the microwave. If you want to warm the egg, you could stick it in some warm water for 10 minutes or so.

If you don't have a scale, note that for 3 1/2 cups of flour to be equivalent to 16 oz (or roughly 4.5 oz per cup) you need to use the "sprinkle" method of flour measuring (use a second cup measure to lightly sprinkle the flour into your main cup measure and don't pack it in or tap the cup). If you just scoop the the flour into the cup measure, you'll end up with roughly a 5-5.5 oz cup of flour.

I always use the mixer to make this, because it makes the whole process pretty trivial. But you could always do it the old fashioned way if you felt like it or wanted the kneading workout. Or if you wanted more time playing with the dough. This dough is beautiful dough to work with... just enough fat to make it smooth and silky and not at all sticky, but not so much that it's greasy.

1. Mixing: 20 mins Start with the paddle attachment in the mixer. Cream together the sugar, salt and butter. Add the egg and vanilla and whip until smooth. Add the flour, yeast and milk. Mix on low speed until combined. Switch to the dough hook and increase the speed to medium. You'll be mixing for about 10 minutes. The dough should come together in a ball more or less right away. If not, you may need to add more flour. After a minute or two, dough should have cleaned the sides of the bowl, and be sticking only slightly at the bottom of the bowl, if at all. If not, gradually add more flour. I've never seen it be too dry, so I don't know what that would look like, but you could add more water or milk.

You know you're done mixing (or kneading) when the dough passes the "windowpane test." Grab a hunk about the size of an egg, and see if you can stretch it so that it's translucent without any rippage (not even a little bit). The best way to figure out what I'm talking about is to try the test at various points in the mixing. You'll see how it rips early on, and gradually gets closer to the goal of a nice thin membrane. Don't worry about over mixing. Nothing really terrible happens if you mix for 12 minutes instead of 10. But if your dough doesn't pass the windowpane test, it means the gluten isn't fully developed, and your bread won't have the right texture. You can actually use this test in most bread recipes.

At this point, if you're not giddy about how beautiful and fantastic this dough feels, you've either done something wrong or I'm a little weird about these things.

2. First rise (ferment): 1-2 hours Cover the mixing bowl lightly and wait until the dough doubles in size. I don't bother oiling the bowl... the dough isn't going to stick. Depending on whether your ingredients were at room temp, and the temperature in the room, and the potency of your yeast, this could take anywhere from 1-2 hours. I've never had it take longer than that, but if you need to wait longer, maybe your kitchen is just cold.

3. Shape the buns: 10 mins I use a 9 x 9 brownie-type pan, but sometimes when the dough is really active, that seems a bit small. I may look for a slightly larger pan. Butter or oil the pan, even if it's non-stick. If you're making sticky buns, take the sticky bun carmel yumminess (recipe below) and spread it about 1/4 inch thick on the bottom of the pan. Put the dough on a clean surface. You shouldn't need flour... it won't stick. Flatten it out into a rectangle about 18 inches wide and a half inch thick. (I just use my hands, but you could use a rolling pin.) Spread the cinnamon sugar over the dough (at this point you could also add a judicious sprinkling of raisins, nuts, dried fruit, whatever) and then roll the dough up away from you into a log. I usually make 9 rolls, so cut the log into 9 roughly equal pieces (about 2 inches thick) and arrange them in the pan. If you're not going the caramel yumminess route, you can also just plop them on a baking sheet lined with parchment.

4. Proof: 75-90 mins at room temp, or overnight in the fridge If you're proofing at room temp, just be sure they've doubled in size again. Otherwise, you can keep them in the fridge (which slows the final proofing) for up to 2 days. If you go this route, they need to sit at room temp for 3-4 hours before baking, first to come up to room temp, and then to finally get a chance to proof.

5. Bake at 350: 30-40 mins Be sure to preheat the oven. I've just noticed that the recipe says to put the sticky buns in the lowest oven rack. I generally put them in the middle. NOTE: If you're going the non-caramel/baking sheet route, bake them for 20-30 mins, and in the middle of the oven.

Be sure the middle one(s) are really done before you take them out of the oven. The outer ones tend to brown before the middle ones, so don't be tempted to take them out too early.

6. If you can possibly stand it, let them sit at least 20 minutes before serving. If you didn't use the caramel sauce in the bottom of the pan, now would be the time to drizzle them with glaze.

Caramel Yumminess
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 stick unsalted butter
1 tsp vanilla or lemon extract
1/2 cup corn syrup, Lyles Golden Syrup, honey... whatever

Cream the sugars, salt and butter for a minute or 2. Add the syrup and extract and beat until fluffy.

This makes a little more than you need, but keeps well in the fridge or freezer.

Glaze
2 cups powdered sugar
1/4 cup warm milk
1 tsp (or to taste) vanilla, lemon extract, rum, grand marnier, whatever

Mix it all up.

Ribollita

2007-02-24T14:00:00.000-05:00

Adapted from Rogers/Gray Italian Country Cookbook.

This is basically vegetable soup with bread. It's hearty and yummy... good winter comfort food. I first had it when I was visiting my sister in Florence. Since the version in Rogers/Gray is vegan, I traditionally make it for my vegan friends, but I know the stuff I had in Florence had meat. If you're serving omnivores, you could definitely start this off with some pancetta, and then add maybe some ham or sausage.

1 bunch flat leaf parsley, chopped
4 garlic cloves, chopped
most of a bunch of celery (orig recipe calls for 2 whole bunches... this seemed... excessive)
1 lb carrots, chopped
2 medium red onions, chopped (orig recipe calls for 4)
olive oil
1 28 oz can whole plum tomatoes, juices drained
couple of big bunches of dinosaur kale (the really dark green kind) and/or Swiss chard and/or finely chopped Savoy cabbage (orig recipe calls for 4 1/2 lbs, so kale/chard/cabbage should weigh about that, total)
3 cans of cannelini or borlotti beans, maybe some chick peas (orig recipe says cook your own, which you should feel free to do if that floats your boat)
1-2 loaves of day-old ciabatta
salt and pepper

This is a big soup, the orig recipe says for about 10 people. You'll need a BIG pot. My 13 quart stock pot is generous, but not overly so. So you may want to cut it back a bit.

1. Saute parsley, garlic, celery, carrots and onions in olive oil for a good 30 mins. Add the tomatoes (break them up into small pieces) and cook another 30 mins. Add the kale/chard/cabbage and 2 of the cans of beans and simmer another 30 mins.

2. Puree the last can of beans and add to the soup. Cover all with hot water. Check seasoning and add salt and pepper. You can make up to this point ahead.

3. To serve, add ripped up pieces of bread and simmer until the bread is soft and the soup is thick. Serve with good olive oil drizzled on top.

Holiday Open House Recipes

2006-12-11T13:43:00.000-05:00

Someone jokingly suggested this last night, and I suppose it's yet another sign of this crazy world we live in that this seemed almost easier than emailing everyone all the recipes. I really did think that me getting a blog would be one of the signs of the apocalypse. (Hey... people now have RFID credit cards implanted in their arms, so perhaps the end is, in fact, near. But I digress.) I may even update it once in a while. Who knows. Watch this space...

By far the most requested recipe was the PISTACHIO DIP.

http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/crudites-with-creamy-pistachio-dip

I 'only' used 1 cup of creme fraiche. I also noticed a lot of olive oil breaking out of the emulsion... possibly because I didn't whisk it enough or because of the reduced amount of creme fraiche, but if I were making it again, I might only use 1/4 cup of olive oil. I also added about a tablespoon of the Champagne vinegar instead of draining it all out of the shallots. I made it a day ahead and it kept fine in the fridge.

3-LAYER VEGAN TERRINE:
(adapted from multiple sources)

Make each layer and spread into loaf pan lined with plastic wrap (or something) to make it easier to unmold it. The sun dried tomato layer was the firmest of the layers... If I were making it again, I'd make it the bottom layer (instead of the top) which means you'd need to make it last, since when you unmold it you turn it upside down. Be sure to refrigerate the finished thing for at least 3-4 hours before serving so that it can get firm enough to cooperate when you unmold it. Also... If you make the white bean layer first and set it aside, you probably wouldn't need to wash the cuisinart between layers.

Pesto Layer
2 garlic cloves
1 1/2 cups fresh basil leaves
1 cup fresh Italian parsley leaves
1/4 cup toasted pine nuts
3 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 cup silken tofu (recipe originally called for ricotta... that would be nice, too)
salt and pepper

Blend in cuisinart until smooth. I would add more basil and less parsley next time... I thought this could have been basil-ier. I also added 2-3 slices of toasted white bread to get it to a sturdier consistency.

White Bean Layer
2 15-ounce cans cannellini (white kidney beans), rinsed, drained
thoroughly
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon minced fresh oregano or 1 teaspoon dried
2 garlic cloves, pressed
salt and pepper

Blend in cuisinart until smooth

Sun Dried Tomato Layer
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 tsp sherry vinegar
4-5 slices toasted or stale white bread
1/2 cup walnuts (toasted... bake for about 5 mins at, say, 350)
1/2 cup sun dried tomatoes packed in olive oil (with the oil)
1 garlic clove
salt and pepper

Blend in cuisinart until smooth. You may need to add more bread or olive oil to get your desired consistency.

SMOKED SALMON CANAPE THINGS:

I used the filling from this recipe: http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/mini-smoked-salmon-croque-monsieur, with a shallot added. Obviously, I didn't dip them in egg and fry them (that, like tempering chocolate, was the "there" to which I wasn't going to go for this particular event). I spread a bit on the cocktail rye, and then added additional grated cheese on top. This amount of filling used up about 1 1/4 loaves of cocktail rye. I also used Parrano instead of Gruyere this time.

I'm happy to share other recipes, too... these were specifically requested.

There. Now I have a blog, too.