Gingerbread

Usually I find a reason to make gingerbread once or twice a year.  There are a lot of good recipes out there, and I’ve tried quite a few over time – from James Beard, to Joy – but I think the version I’m going to use for a while is adapted from Dolores Cassella’s World of Baking, which I praised a year or so ago in one of my cookbook gazetteers.   Cassella followed up by producing another stunning baking book, A World of Breads.  I have relied on both of these fine volumes believe it or not for almost 35 years.

I’ve only made a couple small changes, which I’ll note.  This is very dense, satisfying and keeps extremely well.

1 c boiling coffee (you may use water or orange juice)

1 c butter

1 c dark brown sugar

1 cup dark (not blackstrap) molasses

3 large eggs

2-1/2 c flour – I have been substituting 2 Tbsp cocoa powder for an equal amount of the flour

scant tsp salt

1-1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp ginger

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp nutmeg

and I like to add the grated rind of one orange

I also like to add 1/3 c of chopped crystallized ginger, which gives a nice warmth, and some added texture

Combine the butter, brown sugar and molasses in your mixing bowl and pour the boiling liquid over all, stirring until everything is melted and amalgamated well.  I let it cool to room temperature before beating in the eggs.

Blend the dry ingredients together and add all at once to the wet mixture, beating simply until smooth.  This batter goes into a greased 9 X 2 X 13″ baking pan, and bakes at 325F for 1 hour.

You don’t need to dress this bread up with anything – not even butter, it’s so rich.  However, people do serve this with all sorts of accompaniments.  At the Riverside Cafe in Minneapolis, gingerbread was always a favorite when we served it- our customers often ordered it with a scoop of honey-sweetened, vanilla-scented whipped cream.   It’s also good with ice cream, cream cheese frosting, lemon sauce- you name it.  It is comforting in cold weather, and homey all year ’round.

Sicilian bread: Mafalda

Last year I went on an expedition with Citty Katt to an estate sale in Minneapolis, at a grand old brownstone house near the Art Institute.  It was there I found a book entitled, The Italian Baker, by Carol Field- and it’s a really great guide.

Here is a good recipe for a typical bread from Sicily, and it makes a very enjoyable  loaf, which is made with durum or very fine semolina flour.  You can shape the bread one of 3 standard ways – the Mafalda (like a curled snake with a baton laid across the top); a scaletta (ladder); or a Corona (crown).

I made a couple of substitutions to make this today – using part milk as liquid, as well as butter instead of olive oil – and I reduced the salt by half, which I think is still plenty salty.

But here are the ingredients as they appear in Ms. Field’s book (makes 2 loaves):

2-1/2 tsp dry yeast

1/4 cup warm water

1 T olive oil

1 tsp malt syrup

1 cup water, room temperature

~ 2-1/2 cups (350 grams) durum flour or very fine semolina for pasta

1 cup plus 1 T (150 grams) unbleached all-purpose flour

2-3 tsp salt

1/4 cup sesame seeds.

Proof the yeast in the warm water for 10 minutes before whisking in oil, sweetening and 1 cup water.  (For reference, the author said to pulverize the semolina flour in a food processor until it is silky, if you use American semolina, which is coarser than its Italian counterpart – I did that and it worked just fine).  Mix the flours together and add 1 cup at a time along with the salt, beating vigorously, and when it is ready to knead, put your heart into it.  Semolina is a hard wheat with a very high gluten content, which makes it ideal for breadmaking.

Allow to rise for about 1-1/2 hours before punching down and shaping into loaves.  For my Mafalda, I shaped the dough into a long rope, probably 2+ feet long, and formed it directly on the baking pan, which was lined with parchment and sprinkled with cornmeal.   I misted some water over the top, followed by sesame seeds- which are very characteristic in Sicilian breads.

This will be one more rising of 1 to 1-1/2 hours.   In a 425F oven mist some water when you place the loaves in the center rack.  In the first 10 minutes, spray additional water in a total of 3 times, before reducing the heat to 400.  Continue baking for another 25 minutes or so before cooling on racks.

Ma Po Dofu

When I was living in Taipei about 25 years ago, my landlord was kind enough to walk me through his recipe for Ma Po Dofu (known among other names as Stinky Tofu, because of the unmistakable  pungency  of fermented black beans.  They’re like micro- truffles).

I always order this dish in restaurants when it is available anywhere in the country, but I have never had the courage to try and prepare  it myself.  I always thought it was complicated, and it’s not.

I made MaPoDofu today for the first time in my home-wok and it was almost as good as my landlord’s version, cooked on a hot-plate in the northern suburbs of Taipei City.  Shih Lin District, Section 6.  It’s a rich dish, with lots of fire.  You’re going to be using Szechuan peppercorns, and they are no joke.  They also define the dish, if it’s an authentic recipe.  You have to roast them and then grind them – and the amazing thing is they retain their flintiness, as well as the heat.  Also, find DaBanJyaon (a bean and chili paste, spelled in a few highly confusing variations), and some hot chili oil.

I referred to two fine recipes online to cook this dish to the best of my memory-, and consulted a couple of good Chinese cookbooks.  One version included fresh ginger, and the other didn’t.  I include ginger in my version.

20 oz silken tofu

1/4 # ground pork

3 T Spicy bean paste (Toban Djan, see above)

2 T ground chili (I used 1/2 ancho and 1/2 Hungarian Paprika)

2 T cooking oil

3 T chili oil

1 T Szechuan peppercorns (roasted and ground)

1 T soy sauce

1 tsp fermented black beans (rinsed and pounded)

2 stalks of leeks/scallions for garnish- cut them at a sharp fine angle

2 cloves minced garlic

an equal amount of minced ginger, and 1/2 cup of water.

I cut my tofu into cubes, about 3/4″, and set them in a sieve to rest and become firmer.  Meanwhile, heat the cooking oil and chili oil over medium heat, adding the garlic, pork, spicy bean paste stirring well with a good, metal wok-spatula (this  tool makes your job as a cook much easier).  If you’re using a skillet or a deep skillet instead of a wok, a regular spatula or metal spoon may work equally well.

Now add in your ground chili (something from a good Asian market is better than my short cut, but I think I was still coloring inside the lines), the soy sauce, and your black bean paste.  Now you have something special.

Add the dofu and water, incorporating everything carefully into the stew,  decreasing the heat and simmering no longer than 5 minutes more.  Serve this with steamed white rice.  This dish helps define an entire province in China, as a minor player on a much larger stage.

Sure-bet Sherbet

A friend gave me a gorgeous cantaloupe and I thought about all the things I wanted to do with it. Usually I would make 2 or 3 different things, including fruit salad, maybe a smoothie, maybe wrap slices in wedges with a little prosciutto… mixed it into a summer salad.

However, we are kicking off a stunning heatwave in Minnesota, so I regrouped under the circumstances and made a frozen version of one of my favorite combinations of fruits – Cantaloupe, Blueberries (both of which are Superfoods) and fresh mint.  This is light on the dairy, but it does use a little heavy cream.

It’s nice to be back food-blogging again after being away for a good part of the past 2 months on travel: I’ve been to Chicago, North Dakota, Washington DC, Idaho, Denver, South America, and I think I’m forgetting one or two places. Michigan at the end of the month. I gathered cattail pollen this year, so if the pollen survived the trip back from the northern plains, that might very well be my next recipe. Here’s how I made the sherbet:

Cantaloupe Sherbet
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
Pinch salt
1 cantaloupe (about 2 1/2 pounds), seeds and rind discarded and the flesh chopped (about 3 1/2 cups)
1/4 cup heavy cream
2/3 cup frozen blueberries, wild if you have them
1 Tbsp fresh mint, minced or chiffonade

In a blender or food processor purée the first 4 ingredients, scraping down the sides with a rubber spatula, until it is smooth.  Pour the mixture into an ice-cream freezer and process according to manufacturer instructions, adding now the cream and mint. When the sherbet has frozen, remove to your serving or storage container & scatter and fold-in the blueberries, not over mixing.
Freeze to temper further, or serve at once.

Apple Blackberry Buckle

Here is something tasty for a Sunday morning brunch, or weeknight dessert, or any possible excuse you can think of.  A fruit buckle can be made from any fruit, and belongs to an interesting branch of baking geneaology that also includes:  Cobbler, Crisps, Crumble, Brown Betty, Grunts, Slumps, Bird’s Nest Pudding, Sonker, and Pandowdy (according to http://whatscookingamerica.net/History/CobblerHistory.htm)

A Buckle- presumably- buckles as the rich topping of butter flour & sugar melts and bakes with the steam rising up from the baking fruit.  It is quintessentially American fare, going back to well before the Industrial Age, and it has always no doubt been welcome on the table of farm kitchens and Boston Brahmans alike.

Here is a recipe I adapted to use up some apples I had on hand, and some beautiful blackberries that a friend gave me yesterday.

1/2 c butter
1 c sugar
1 -1/3 c. flour
1/2 tsp. cinnamon

a couple gratings of nutmeg

1 egg
1/2 tsp baking powder
2 c diced apples

1 c blackberries
pinch of  salt
1/3 c milk
1 tsp vanilla

Combine 1/4 cup butter, 1/2 cup sugar, 1/3 cup flour and cinnamon mix. Cream butter and sugar well. Beat in egg add dry ingredients add milk and vanilla. Spread in buttered and floured pan -I used a pyrex pan, a little smaller than 9 x 13  (no reason why you couldn’t use a good 9″ cast iron skillet)- add fruit over batter,

Now mix the remaining 1/4 cup butter, 1/2 cup sugar, pinch of salt, and 1 cup of flour with your fingers, or a pastry blender (or give it a whirl in the food processor) and scatter the crumb mixture over all.   This is very good served warm, with a little ice cream or whipped cream…or just cream!

375F degrees for 45 minutes.

Foods from India

photo courtesy C. Katt

An Indian menu for non-Indians:

Spicy, Pan-fried Fish Chettinad, from  Madame Jaffrey’s cookbook, ‘Flavors of India’ (Carol Southern Books, 1995)

Cauliflower/potato/cashew curry, adapted from *Joy

[* 1975, p 361-62, Joy of Cooking, Irma Rombauer, et al]

Fragrant rice (basmati) (cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, black pepper)

Tea

Fresh Raita (also Jaffrey)

Paratha bread, from the local market & heated in the oven

Three Pickles:  Tamarind, bitter lemon, green mango

We ate ocean perch in a spicy marinade, sauteed,  with fragrant saffron rice, and cauliflower & potato curry with cashews, cooked in Ghee.  Also, various pickles, from bitter lemon, and hot mango-, to sweet tamarind.  Everything was brought together with a fresh mint and cucumber Raita.

Indian cuisine has close connections with The Ayurveda tradition, which means that food is also medicine, hewing closely to  Chinese beliefs.  Turmeric in particular is a potent purifying agent, and key to many basic curry blends.  Here are the recipes we used:

Spicy, Pan-Fried Fish Steaks Chettinad

For 2 fillets:

1 Tbsp ground coriander

1 Tbsp cayenne pepper

¼ tsp ground dried turmeric powder (very purifying)

½ tsp ground cumin (preferably roasted whole & ground)

1 tsp salt (or less)

3-5 tsp lime/lemon juice

An equal amount of water (I ignore this)

2 nice fish fillets, or steaks

2-3 Tbsp any good vegetable oil

Make a paste with all these ingredients and let the fish marinade in the paste for at least 15 minutes, up to 3 hours.  Eventually saute them 4-5 min on a side, depending on the thickness of the cut, It will be spicy, sharp and pleasant.

Fragrant Rice

1 c dry Basmati Rice (essential that it  is Basmati)

A 2” stick of true Cassia cinnamon, broken

One whole pod of cardamom- black or green- depending on your preference

Several (4-9) grains of Black Pepper

½” piece of fresh ginger

2 generous pinches of dried saffron

½ tsp salt (I often reduce salt proportions)

Rinse the rice in several changes of water, taking out the starch.  Then add a small can of coconut milk into a measuring cup, and add sufficient water for a total of 1-1/4 cups, and bring everything together up to a boil.  You can also substitute plain water with an equal measure of stock, for added richness and flavor.  Allow to simmer for an additional 12-14 min, with a lid over everything.  It’s done.  Let it relax before you fluff it all with a fork, and cover it with a tight lid, or some foil until service.

Cauliflower & Potato Curry

This is an adaptation of a preparation from *Joy.  I have taken liberties with a traditional recipe, but it is still very recognizable.  We used to prepare something very close to this at The Riverside Cafe, many years ago.

½ head cauliflower, de-stemmed & broken into medium florets

A large red potato, cut into generous cubes (maybe 1”)

Steam each vegetable separately until al dente and shock in cold water.  Drain.  This is a short-cut, but useful.

Meanwhile, add to a wok over medium-high heat:

2 Tbsp Ghee (clarified Indian butter.  It has a higher than average smoking point)

2 tsp grated fresh ginger

2 tsp grated garlic

2 c minced onion

½ a jalapeno pepper, or one fresh red cayenne

(I spun the onions and fresh pepper in a food processor until it was a light pulp)

Add the cauliflower and potatoes to the mix and add:

1 big Tbsp good curry powder (I used a hot blend)

1 scant Tbsp all purpose flour

Stir-fry everything for 3-5 minutes, and then add:

1 small can of coconut milk

¼ cup chicken stock, or any good stock

½ tsp salt

½ cup broken roasted and salted cashews

Continue cooking until everything boils gently (important, because of the flour), stirring frequently.  Turn the heat down to a simmer and it will be ready to serve in about 4-5 minutes.

Raita

This is a cooling condiment, also improvised for our lunch:

½ peeled, de-seeded and coarsely grated fresh cucumber

2 Tbsp minced fresh mint

1-1/4 cups natural (plain) yogurt

½ tsp salt, to taste.

Whisk or stir all of the ingredients together.

Mares eat oats & does eat oats & little lambs eat ivy

A Kid’ll eat Ivy too, wouldn’t You?   Have you ever heard that song?

“Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divey. A kiddley divey too, wouldn’t you? (sung with colloquial pronunciation “wooden shoe?”)”

-courtesy of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mairzy_Doats

I blindly grabbed for a cookbook this past weekend and basically turned to the cookie section (my cookie jar was empty, and therefore ready to be filled) and I made oatmeal cookies.  Not just any oatmeal cookies either.  I didn’t realize my mistake until well after the fact– these were reduced fat cookies, and I was gob-smacked, they were so good.

This means that they are not only heart healthy because of the oats, but they are also designed to have an overall higher healthfulness-quotient.  Honestly, they are one of the best cookies I can remember, and they have chocolate, which only makes them better.  The recipe comes from the Joy of Cooking.

Oven:  375F

Mix the dry ingredients:

1-1/4 c flour

1/4 tsp baking soda

3/4 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

Beat together

1/4 c corn or canola oil

2 Tbsp butter, softened

1 c dark brown sugar

1 large egg

1 large egg white

1/3 c light or dark corn syrup (I used light, but dark could only be better)

1 Tbsp milk

2-1/2 tsp vanilla

Combine the wet and dry ingredients and add:

2 c old-fashion rolled oats

1 c  chocolate chips.

Let the mixture stand for 10 minutes, to allow the dry ingredients to hydrate.  It will be a soft dough, and this recipe will make 3 dozen cookies, if you portion them at one tablespoon each.  I pushed them down slightly with my fingers dipped in water.   Make sure you space them well apart and bake them for 7-10 minutes on lightly greased baking sheets, rotating them half-way through baking.  After you remove the baking sheet from the oven, allow the cookies to cool slightly on the baking sheet for 2 minutes before transferring them to cooling racks.  These might become one of your favorite cookies too.

Come to think of it, next time I make these, I will substitute 2 Tbsp cocoa for an equal amount of flour.  More later.

new pegboard!

Gratitude to Gary B for helping to procure and mount a pegboard next to the stove, which will improve my ability to cook- mainly because I will not have to sort through 2 junk-drawers of specialized cooking utensils.

 

You all know exactly what I’m talking about.  You have a junk drawer too 🙂

Ebelskivers

When we lived in the upper peninsula of Michigan, an energetic Moravian preacher’s wife introduced our family to Ebelskivers.  I have one of those heritage, cast iron cooking vessels in my kitchen to this very day.  The Danish word means apple pancakes, or something close to that.  We spent entire Sundays stuffing our faces with these spherical pancakes, until nearly comatose.  We ate them, but we were also expected to spend time at the stove.

Recently I made a batch and asked my friend Debbie to taste the recipe.   She was already familiar with them, and happy to help out.  They’re small apple pancakes, either baked on the stovet0p with a slice of apple in the batter- or filled with applesauce in the middle, as they’re cooling.  We ate them with jam in the middle, dusted with confectioners sugar.

It’s a ridiculously rich, yeast raised batter, spiced primarily with cardamom and lemon peel, and therefore recognizably Scandinavian.  You spoon the batter into a special skillet with deep indentations.

They cook fairly quickly, but if you only have one pan and a crowd of people, someone, or a small team will have to be a martyr and simply do nothing but make the ebelskivers, but in the end your sacrifice will earn you unfailing appreciation.

If you haven’t made them before, the only real trick you have to master is actually flipping the little cakes in the pan neatly.  It takes practice, sometimes quite a bit of practice- so you have to be patient with yourself at the beginning.  I use a little spatula and a dessert fork- that method works well for me; you could probably also use a nice long wooden skewer to just catch the edge in order to make the process a little easier.

Sprinkle with a dusting of confectioners sugar, and at the table, split them open with a spoon and fill them with a little preserves or applesauce- anything that you like as a sweet filling actually.  But be careful- you can easily lose count how many of them you eat!

Danish Aebleskivers- I’ve been using this recipe for 35 years

3-1/2 c flour

5 large eggs, separated

1/4 cup sugar

2 c milked, scalded and cooled

1/2 c butter, melted

1 cake of yeast (or 2-1/4 tsp dry, proofed in 1/4 c of the milk, with a pinch of sugar)

grated rind of 1 lemon, or 1 tsp vanilla (I always use the lemon)

optional crushed cardamom

Put flour in a large bowl and make a well in the center, and place the egg yolks, sugar, 1-3/4 cup milk and melted butter.  Work together well with spoon.   Add proofed yeast, flavoring and salt.  Beat everything until smooth.  Now beat the egg whites till stiff and fold into mixture.  Set aside until doubled.  Heat the well seasoned and greased ebelskiver pan over medium heat until hot  and put a spoonful of the batter in each well and carefully check to see if they are browning after about 2 minutes or so.  They actually bake fairly quickly, so when you turn them, try to do that quickly as well.  They will  be done in another 2-3 minutes.  Regulate the heat carefully on the pan, because sometimes it will get too hot.  Between batches brush a little more oil or melted butter in the pan to prevent sticking.

Put a little powdered sugar on top, fill with your favorite filling and enjoy!

Welly, welly, welly, welly, welly, welly, well

Four of us got together a couple of weekends ago. (Catherine, Jon & Gary and me) and we baked a small brace of pheasants that my brother in law harvested before Thanksgiving.  Pheasants are Asiatic in origin:  Excellent, extremely lean game birds.  I had supper 30 years ago with a Native friend at a famous  Austrian Minneapolis restaurant (I’ll remember the name of the place at 2AM this morning), and I was jealous and excited when his Pheasant Wellington arrived.  Later I learned that it was based on the classic Beef Wellington preparation.

That evening, I had a stew of wild mixed fowl, so I had no reason to complain.  We tasted each others’ entree, but I honestly never imagined that I’d get a chance to try and recreate his Wellington thing. The Dubious Citty Katt- and her international food conspiracy- was the one who made the whole Pheasant Wellington a reality.

I told her on a Friday that I had a Xmas present of frozen fully -dressed-out, wild pheasant from my sister’s husband (he is an excellent hunter), & remembered out-loud the Pheasant Wellington idea to her.  In only a day or 2, we were making  liver pate and duxelles (a rich mushroom paste) , according to her instructions.

Gary and Jon joined the project, so we had the birds, some salad and a mess of dandelion greens sauteed with green apples, and we ate it all with Anna’s expert crab apple jelly and ginger preserves, instead of a a rich sauce.

If you’re lazy like me, go to the store & buy some frozen puff-pastry dough.  Don’t be scared of it, even though you have every right to be scared.  I was at first.  Buy a box of it for $3.99 and let it thaw in your fridge overnight.  Consult your Beef Wellington recipe collection and look up Pheasant Wellington online.  (*I looked at the Joy of Cooking, and James Beard’s American Cookery too).

Now, make some chicken liver paste.  This is what you’re going to spread over the top of the seared and cooled pheasant, before you place it on a blanket of duxelles ( please continue reading) over an expanse of puff pastry, to within 1″ of its edges.  I rolled out the pastry to probably 14 x 9, and cut off the top 5th with a pizza cutter, and reserved it for show-off filigrees of vines and leaves.

After all this, heat a 9″ cast iron skillet with a spoonful of olive oil, 2 Tbsp of Bacon fat and 2 Tbsp of butter.  Melt it altogether and throw in a good sized, minced shallot, along with twice that amount of minced onion.  Don’t stop there:  Add a generous grind of black pepper, some grey salt,  and pulverize dried thyme between your fingers.

Catherine brought a few spoonfuls of Grand Marnier (a French, cognac-based orange liqueur) and we added that.  Let the chicken livers cook until done,  10 minutes or less, and then let them cool as quickly as possible.  There is more to be done with them soon.

Now you will need a pound of mushrooms, trimmed, brushed and minced  into atoms in a CuisineArt, before you place them a generous iron or stainless steel skillet over medium high heat.  There are versions of making duxelle that instruct you to put the minced mushrooms in a kitchen towel and you have to wring the moisture out of them before sauteeing, but we didn’t go to that extreme.  Your skillet will have a spoonful of olive oil, a couple of Tbsp of butter and a couple more Tbsp of either duck fat or (chicken) schmaltz.  Remember, pheasant is very lean.  So throw in a 1/4 cup of cream too.  1/2 & 1/2 is fine.

Mince a large shallot and a small onion, with a couple bay leaves, a generous grind of black pepper and let everything start to sweat and sizzle in all that hot fat.  Grind a little nutmeg in there too- the pheasant will benefit from it, which is probably not as true if you were making the beef version.  Cool the duxelle as quickly and completely as possible.   Your duxelle must be completely cool when you spread it over the pastry, otherwise you’ll have a big mess.

Conventional Beef Wellington preparations use a whole beef tenderloin, but this blog entry is a jazz improvisation.  So I used probably 2 small, deboned birds, approximately equal to 2 small game hens (which are in truth very youthful chickens).  I quickly seasoned and seared them brown- for just a couple of minutes on each side- and they cooled, along with everything else.

We made 2 small pastry coffins of pheasant, liver pate inside on top, mushroom paste on the bottom.

Everything was surrounded with the super rich puff pastry crust on the outside, and the birds inside were completely encased by the duxelle and pastry, vented with the 3 traditional round vent-holes and baked first at 425F for 10 minutes, and then 375 for another 1/2 hour.

So there you are.  A collection of novices experimenting with a justly famous dish.