Posts filed under 'easy'
Once upon a time there were only a few Europeans scattered along the eastern coast of the United States and Canada, and those few were all British or French. There was no pasta, there was no pizza, for that matter there were no stoves. Everything they ate had to be cooked over an open fire and made from the few things they’d carried across the Atlantic and what they could find where they were. Slowly, slowly, the toughest among them survived and were joined by more adventurers from back home, and slowly, slowly what they ate became something not quite like home but not at all like the food of the native population, either. Something in between. That is still true today. 
Italian food is not quite the same as it is in Italy, nor is Chinese nor French and after almost 400 years, even the original American food is very changed from what it was. The advent of the stove, the oven, the refrigerator and the microwave has widened the possibilities. Modern science has brought new techniques and chemicals into the mix. It’s not all bad, but it equally is not all the kind of progress we were promised.
The foods that our early settler ancestors made were easy to cook, cheap and practical. As more ethnic groups came, their foods came with them, and more flavors, more spices, more herbs became ordinary. American food marched across the centuries farther and farther from those early British and French peasant roots, so that even the oldest New England family ate things that would have puzzled its antecedents. As Americans grew richer, they ate more meat and sauces and separate vegetable courses, but the backbone of the kitchen was still the one dish meal made of ingredients that were cheap and easily available. The potpie is only one of those dishes and it represents the idea very well.
By now there are a couple of generations who might think that Chicken Potpie comes from the freezer, mostly in single serving size, nestled in an aluminum dish. In truth, pot pies of all kinds are one of the more successful frozen foods. If they are made with good ingredients and if the manufacturer doesn’t rely on monosodium glutamate and high fructose corn syrup for flavor instead of meat and vegetables and herbs, it’s a product that it would be safe to rely on. I can’t tell you whether there remains a single brand that has a clean label, but don’t buy one without checking.
Even better, make your own at least once so that you know what potpie should be. Certainly any Italian readers will have to do that, because potpie, frozen or otherwise, is rarer than caviar in Italy.
When I made this potpie, it was at least thirty-five years since the last time. I really don’t remember when I last made it. I do remember making lobster potpie for Christmas Eve one year, quite another kind of thing with puff pastry and sherry and cream involved. Potpie originally was a way to use leftovers. Mum would make chicken stew or chicken fricasee and then the leftovers some days later would become potpie. The crust on top made the meat stretch farther so that half a chicken could serve five or even six. The crust might be pastry, like mine, or it might be biscuits baked on top of the bubbling casserole. I like both. As a matter of fact, I discovered that I love potpie. As soon as I finished eating this one, I started to remember beef potpies, meatball potpies, pork potpies and fish ones. I quickly put that out of my mind and photographed a serving for posterity. The calorie load in potpie is ideal for a teenager who is just in from practicing football.
Why is it so good? It’s the gravy. If you go to the trouble to get the stock reduced enough and seasoned enough, you will make a splendid gravy and your potpie can’t fail. So how does that happen? Pick the right fowl and cook it long enough. That’s it.
You may be surmising that you can buy cooked chicken and use instant broth—cubes, powder, canned or “Better than Bouillon”. Wrong. To get the depth of flavor that really pays off, you must really reduce the broth. All those purchased broths are too salty to reduce much. In the end it would taste way too salty.
The right fowl is a stewing hen or an old rooster. A mature fowl has many times the flavor of a young one. I don’t know what happens to old roosters in the United States. There are not so many of them as there are hens, and the hens aren’t so easy to find either. In Italy I can walk into any supermarket and find a whole or a half hen. She has spent her life making eggs and will finish it making soup. When I was in the US I used sometimes to find them frozen, but even more often I had to use a roasting chicken, which isn’t right, but is better than those juvenile fryers. They also run about 5-7 pounds, so you only need half to make this potpie, and you can roast the other half if you like. Ask the service man at the meat counter to cut it in two for you.
Potpie isn’t something I make all in one day, but like the generations before me, I make the meat and broth one day and the pie another day. It does cook for a long time, but almost all of that time you are ignoring it as you go about your day. I even went grocery shopping while the chicken simmered away on the cooker, and she didn’t mind a bit.
Chicken Potpie
For 6 servings
.
Stewed chicken
2-3 pounds of stewing hen or roasting chicken
1 leek, cleaned and sliced or one onion with 2 cloves tuck into it (if you use a yellow one, leave the papery skin on)
1 leg of celery chunked
1 carrot chunked
1 teaspoon dried thyme leaves or 3 teaspoons fresh
1 teaspoon salt
3 peppercorns
water to cover
Put all of those ingredients into a large pot and bring to a simmer. Lower the heat so that the surface moves gently, but does not bubble or boil. Simmer gently for at least two hours, checking to be sure the water covers the chicken, until the meat is tender, then remove the meat from the broth and allow to cool a bit. I use surgical gloves so that I can handle the meat quicker, but you don’t have to.
Remove the meat from the bones, fat and skin. Put the bones, fat and skin back into the simmering broth. Cut the meat into bite-sized pieces and chill.
Continue to cook the broth until it is reduced by at least half. Taste the broth to see if it is strongly enough flavored of chicken, and if it is, salt it to your taste, then strain all the pieces out using a fine mesh strainer. You can now put it into a container and chill it.
Pastry
1 cup regular flour
.5 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup lard or 1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon vegetable shortening
2 tablespoons ice water
Cut the fat into the flour and salt until it looks like peas, then sprinkle the water over and using a fork, mix until it gathers together. Pull it into a ball shape using your hands, then press it firmly together. Wrap in plastic and chill until ready to roll it out.
To make the pie
If you made a stew, you will already have what goes into the potpie. If you did not, you must now cook the vegetables that go into it.
For 6 people, pare and chunk 6 medium potatoes, pare and slice 4-6 carrots, clean and slice 2 legs of celery and clean and quarter 2 medium onions. Cover them all in water in a pot of the right size and bring them to a boil. Add 1.5 teaspoons of salt to the water and cover, allowing it to simmer until the potatoes are tender. Drain, then toss in the pieces of meat that you saved after the stewing. Add a handful of fresh or frozen peas.
The gravy
In a frying pan, melt 2 tablespoons of the fat that rose to the top of the broth you chilled. Add 4 tablespoons (1/4 cup) of flour, stirring it in as it foams and bubbles. Remove the pan from the heat and slowly, slowly, whisk in 2.5 cups of the reserved broth, making it smooth. Cook for a minute or so over low heat. Taste and correct for salt and pepper. It should need little because you reduced the broth considerably. If your other ingredients are not already hot, you can heat them now in the gravy. If you’ve just cooked them, they should already be hot.
Heat the oven to 425° F. (220° C)
Choose a deep casserole that will hold 3 –4 quarts/liters. Measure the top diameter. Remove the pastry from the fridge and roll it out to that size. Unlike dessert pies, it doesn’t need to be very thin and is nice thickish. At this point I also cut vent holes into the pastry—this time I made them shaped like leaves, reserving the shapes that I remove from them.
Put the mixed meat and vegetables into the casserole, then pour the gravy over it. Add the pastry over the top, trimming to fit, then add the decorative shapes as you like.
Put it into the oven and cook for 25 to 35 minutes, until golden and bubbling hot. It will fill six mouths with flavors not often tasted in the last 40 years.
In Italiano
Di solito quest’ é un piatto fatto dei resti di un altro piatto di pollo in umido o stufato. La cucina americana era da secoli una cucina povera, e questo piatto pratico conteneva le calorie e le vitamine che ci vuole per il lavoro duro che hanno fatto tutti, dal bambino al papà. Ha tutto il gusto ricco che domanda un giorno tempestoso. Provatelo!
Pasticcio di pollo americano
Serve 6 persone
Un piatto unico
La gallina
1 gallina di circa 1.5 chili
1 porro pulito e tagliato a fette
1 gamba di sedano in pezzi
1 carota in pezzi
3 file di zafferano
circa 1 cucchiaino di sale
2 chicchi di pepe nero
1 cucchiaino di foglie secche di timo (o 3 di fresche)
acqua di coprire tutto
Mettete tutto in una tegame grande a portatelo a prebolle. Abassate il fuoco e lasciarelo cuoce molto lentamente almeno 2 ore, controllando che rimane abbastanze acqua per coprire la carne. Quando é cotta la carne, toglietela a una ciottola e seperate la carne dagli ossi e la pelle. Tornate la pelle e gli ossi al brodo. Continuate la cottura del brodo fino a é ristretto almeno la metà. Assagiatelo e coreggiate il sale. Passatelo tra una rete fine in un contenitore e mettetelo in frigo per rinfrescare.
La pasta
130 g farina 00
75 g strutto
.5 cucchiaino sale
circa 2 cucchiai di acqua ghiacciata
Tagliate lo strutto nella farina con due coltelli da tavola, e quando somiglia piselli, aggiungete l’acqua, qb per fare una pasta abbastanza compatta. Fatela in pellicola e mettetela in frigo per almeno 30 minuti.
Il Pasticcio
Riscaldate il forno a 220° C
6 patate spellate e tagliate a pezzi di circa 3-4 cm
4-6 carote sbucciate e tagliate a fette
2 gambe di sedano a pezzi grandi
2 cipolle medie, tagliate a 4 pezzi
1.5 cucchiaino di sale
In una tagame, fate bollire tutti le verdure fino alle patate sono tenere. Sciogliete l’acqua. Aggiungete i pezzi di carne avete preperato prima.
Aggiungete una mancia di piselli freschi o scongelate.
Scieglete una casseruola addata al forno, capacità 3-4 litri e misurate il diametro. Togliete la pasta dal frigo e distendetela alla misura del caseruola. Fate delle bucche per scappare il vapore nella forma di foglie, mettete aparte le foglie.
La salsa
In una padella larga, sciogliete su un fuoco medio 2 cucchiai del grasso di pollo dal brodo freddo. Aggiungete 4 cucchiai di farina, mescolando bene bene. Togliete la padella dal fuoco e aggiungete man mano circa 625 ml del brodo, mescolando in continuo per fare una crema liscia. Tornatela al fuoco basso per circa un minuto. Questa é la salsa, e tutto la bontà di questo piatto dipende della salsa.
Mettete la carne e le verdure nella casseruola, aggiungete la salsa. Aggiungete la pasta sopra e poi le foglie riservate.
Infornatelo per 25 – 35 minute fino é colorato oro biondo ed é bollente. Servitelo caldissimo.
March 28th, 2008
March 23rd, 2008
but she is not and she is also not really a soup.
When something tastes this good and is this easy to make, looks shouldn’t count. I even threw a rosemary sprig at her, but it didn’t help, and I didn’t want to sprinkle something all over that would alter the flavor. This is a traditional dish of Sardinia again, and again it is just the kind of thing you need to know how to make if people come in for meals at intervals or at odd hours. It takes five or ten minutes to put it on the table if the ingredients are at hand.
I hope someone will try making it with lavash, because I think that will work but I can’t buy lavash here.
This is another dish made with Pane Carasau– see below. It sounds a bit unpromising, but once you have the box in the kitchen, you really do have to try all the ways to use it. Don’t you? It turns out that this first course vegetarian main dish is delicious enough to warrant buying the box in the first place. The most difficult part of making it was deciding which cheeses would work the best. The ones I used were terrific and I suspect that anything you choose may be terrific too. Recipe after the
Zuppa Gallurese
Pane Carasau, about 1 to 1-1/2 sheets for 2 portions
formaggio fresco/fresh cheese, anything from Kraft Philadelphia on up, about 2 ounces (60 g) for two
Pecorino not very aged, grated on the big holes of the grater (about 2 ounces for 2)
Pecorino stagionato quite aged and gratable like Parmigiano, or use any grana including Parmigiano– about 1 ounce or 30 g for two
a few leaves and sprigs of herbs, such as bay, rosemary, thyme or sage
boiling hot reduced broth or stock, enough to cover, about one pint for two.
In a pot that will hold the amount you want to make, make a layer of pieces of Pane Carasau on the bottom. Using a spoon, add a few dollops of the fresh cheese on top, then sprinkle with the grated soft cheese, then grate the hard cheese over that. Add a few pieces of herbs. Continue with another layer of everything, in the same order, but you must end up with a layer of the crispy bread.
Now pour boiling hot broth over it until it is just covered. Let it sit for a minute or so until it is moistened, then serve. This is the step that gives her her name. Soaking the dish in broth is to inzuppare, and so it is called zuppa even though as you can see, it is not soup. Black pepper is a very nice addition. You really won’t believe what this tastes like!
I gave you an estimated amount for two portions, but that could change if your pot were wider or narrower. My pot was about 7″ wide and I made 3 cheese layers surrounded with bread layers. By simply layering up more I could have made many more servings. In a 10″ pot I could easily have made servings for 10 people. I could have made it richer by using more cheese. I could have made it less rich by using stronger cheeses but less of them– although you do need the soft cheese to combine with the broth, so don’t alter that one. The broth both melts the cheeses and becomes milky itself, and that is why there are two fairly young cheeses in the dish. If you were to use more aged cheeses, that effect would lessen. It would probably still be mighty good, however. I don’t really see how it could ever fail as long as you use tasty cheeses.
I picked the herb bits out as I ate this. They definitely flavored the dish, so I would never leave them out, but all the herbs mentioned are woody and stemmy and I can’t see eating them. All in all, this is another surprising dish from Sardinia, a place that has a talent for surprising me in the nicest possible ways. Let’s see if we can surprise Ruth at Presto Pasta Night with it. 
March 16th, 2008
We begin with this. It’s an inconveniently large, flat box filled with thinnest and crispest stuff called Pane Carasau or Carta di Musica
or music paper. It’s from Sardinia and in Sardinia it’s used in so many ways I may never work my way to the end of them. For me the only problem is how to store it, because 500 grams, or about a pound, can last a long time. Once you’ve broken into the plastic covering it is vulnerable to humidity, dust and critters. Fortunately, most uses require that it be broken into pieces, so you can stick it into a big sealable bag if you do that.
I can buy it at any grocery store and I know it is available at a horrific price in the UK, but I’m not sure how widely available it is across the Atlantic. The various labeling on the back of my brand is in German, French, English and Spanish, so do look for it. Otherwise, I am convinced you can use lavash bread instead, and that really is widely distributed in the US. If you are very ambitious, you will find a recipe for making it from scratch at home at The Ingredient Store. Please let me know if you do that! N.B. I think a pasta roller could help you get this thin as paper and who cares if it’s round?
OK, so why would you want this product? For its extreme usefulness and flexibility, say I. It’s delicious and crunchy as a bread or cracker, really tasty with baba ghanouj and hummus, just nice tucked in among other breads. But even more, it makes a series of traditional Sardegnan dishes that are perfect for how a lot of people live nowadays. You can make them in moments of few ingredients and for as many diners as there are. It can even be used to make a lasagna.
Today’s dish is Pane Frattau or just Frattau. I’ve made it and eaten it three times this week because I could not convince myself that was all there was to it. (OK, also because my poached eggs kept coming out warped.) I used the recipe on the back of the package and I can’t wait to get to the rest of them now. Each time I varied the cheese a bit, or how much I poached the egg, but no matter what, I couldn’t ruin it. 
Jump to the recipe:
Pane Frattau
tomato sauce (purchased or homemade)
Pane Carasau in the amount you want to eat
about 1 ounce per person/30 g of grated Pecorino (because that’s what they make in Sardinia which is very far from Parma!)
1 poached egg per person (crack it into a cup or a small bowl at this point)
I shall give you a simple recipe for the tomato sauce I used below. Whatever sauce you will use, you must gently heat it while you do the rest of this.
Grate the cheese you’ll use and set it aside. Start a pot of water to boil for poaching the egg(s) and put salt and a little vinegar in it. Put some water into a large pot and put it onto the flame. Make sure to have a slotted spoon or spatula for removing things.
When the egg water boils, stir it into a whirlpool and slide the egg into the vortex. This is how I wrecked my eggs. I broke them from the shell and couldn’t aim them, so they didn’t go into the center and became sort of sea slug shaped. Let the water return to a simmer while you drop the pieces of carasau into the big pot of hot water, a few pieces at a time, immediately removing them with the slotted spoon to a serving plate. When they are all dipped and drained, your egg will probably be done just right, with a firm white and a liquid yolk.
Pour tomato sauce over the wet carasau pieces, toss the grated cheese over that, top it all with the poached egg. Done. Yummy, too.
Oh, and the cleanup report is super easy, because although there are three pans, two have only had water in them, and a quick wash and rinse is all it takes.
The Tomato Sauce I made is simple and quick.
1/2 cup finely minced onion, celery and carrot
2 cloves of garlic cut up
2 tablespoons of good olive oil
1 28 ounce can of peeled Roma tomatoes, or others you like
salt to taste
You may add oregano or basil or any herb you like, but you don’t have to every time.
Sauté the vegetables and garlic in the oil until they soften, then add the tomatoes, stirring them in. Using a stick blender, puree the sauce and then heat it, tasting to correct salt, for ten to 15 minutes. Once cooled it can be kept covered in the fridge for many days or frozen in portions for almost forever.
And now, let’s slide this past the folks at Presto Pasta Night and see if they buy this idea for “instant” pasta.
March 6th, 2008
Today alisonk came to lunch. She is doing a low carbohydrate regime, so I had to whip up some flour-free goodies. For a first course in place of pasta or risotto, we had a mushroom soup. I made the basic soup a day ago because most soups get better for sitting. When I reheated it I added the part that might not have refrigerated well.
As you can see, it is very dark and filled with mushrooms. The following recipe made soup for two.
No Carbohydrate Mushroom Soup
1 pound (.5 kilo) champignon or button mushrooms, cleaned and sliced. stems chopped
2 tablespoons butter
about .75 quart or liter of strong beef broth
salt to taste
heavy cream to taste
In a heavy pot I sautéed the mushrooms in the butter until they were quite browned and almost dried. Then I added the beef broth. I allowed this to cook and cook down several times, adding water to bring it up to level each time. Because I used “Better Than Bouillon” for the broth I added and needed no salt. When the whole thing was thoroughly infused, I poured it into a container and refrigerated it.
Today, a few minutes before I needed it, I warmed it up almost to a simmer and then added heavy cream, stirring it in, until it tasted balanced and rich. I ladled it into two deep bowl/cups and this is what happened. 
The verdict was “Good!”
For main course, or secondo, we ate Pollo fra Diavolo from this page.
With it we ate a cabbage dish from Puglia that I once had made into a pasta, but today served it as it was meant to be. Because there is no chance at bread, pasta or dessert, I changed the fat used from oil to duck fat, but it will be good without it if you are not as lucky as we are.
Cavolo Pugliese or Pugliese cabbage
This would have been enough for four people normally, but this was a slender menu indeed.
about 3 cups of slivered fresh cabbage
2 small hot red peppers peperoncini
about 2 tablespoons oil or fat
salt to taste
5 cherry tomatoes, quartered
Heat a big frying pan with the fat you will use. Crumble the pepper into it (or take a pinch from a jar of crushed red pepper.) Add the cabbage and toss it about a bit to get the fat distributed. Continue to cook it, stirring once in a while, until some of the edges start to brown and there are no really hard parts left. Add about 1/2 teaspoon or a decent sized pinch of salt, stir and taste. Add salt until it seems right to you. Toss in the tomato pieces and stir until they wilt a bit. Serve.
I had prepared a salad, but there was no room left for it. We had eaten well.
March 4th, 2008
I vacated my house two weekends in a row. I become so cooped up through winter and believe me, gray and drippy and cold are not tempting me out, that I start to get tunnel vision. So I’m getting a new look around lately.
This past weekend I went to Civitacastellana. That’s in northern Lazio, somewhere on the shin of the boot, almost at the foot. To get there I drive south to Terni in southern Umbria, then streak off southwest toward Viterbo and eventually south toward Rome. Civitacastellana used to be one day from Rome and so it was a stop off point for travelers north. It perches on a plateau with a rather dramatic gorge that runs through it now, but used to separate it for safety’s sake.
I probably wouldn’t even know it if a friend didn’t live there. Similarly, nearby Otricoli, to which I also went and where another friend now lives.
It’s just different. The terrain, the people, what they eat, the way the light looks, the architecture. It’s all just different. I’m jammed into the Apennines that run along the eastern side of Italy. They’re stuck into the western ones. It’s something like the difference between New Hampshire and West Virginia, only not so far apart.
My refrigerator wasn’t working as I left, so I dragged along a sack of things that wouldn’t be any good if it didn’t switch on while I was away. (It did and I was very happy.) Alison and I decided to make supper of that sack for our friend in Otricoli and her visiting art school student daughter. I played with Alison’s very cute cat. I watched satellite television a bit. I slept late.
The sun shone both days. Sunday we drove to see the house near Otricoli and ended up making lunch together. Alison grilled sausages in the fireplace, Lisa grilled bruschetta in the wood stove and I whipped up some vegetables that were lying around. It was very good and lots of fun to cook so effortlessly with friends, which really doesn’t happen here.
I left a bit early because I am not so crazy about driving after real dark descends. It meant driving through sunset, twilight and evening.
When I turned eastward, all the eastern Apennines were rosy with light coming from the sun sinking into the Mediterranean. Mile after mile the mountains, rocky and gray or whitely snowy, lay bathed in pink and looking like an illustration in a book of fairy tales. I was almost reluctant to turn north toward home, but as I did I saw that the western Apennines were deeply violet from the same sunset and for at least half an hour of the northward travel they slid by on my left like a thousand postcards.
All that pleasure and beauty affected the way I thought over the next couple of days. A bit of change is good for me. There is beauty all over this country if you just open your eyes and go out to meet it. It’s probably true where you are, too.
Cavollini di Bruxelles alla Lisa (Brussels Sprouts for Lisa)
1 Kilo (2.2 pounds) Brussels Sprouts, trimmed and washed
3 tablespoons (cucchiai) good extra virgin olive oil
1 big handful of roughly chopped walnuts
salt to taste
about 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
Heat a large pot of salted water and when it is vigorously boiling, toss in the brussels sprouts and cook briefly to set the color. They should still be crunchy. Drain them.
Heat the oil in a wide frying pan and toast/fry the walnut pieces for a few minutes, then add the drained brussels sprouts and sauté, stirring/tossing to dry them a bit. Some of the outer leaves may brown and that’s OK. Taste for salt and correct it. When ready to serve, add the balsamic vinegar and stir to coat the sprouts and nuts with a glaze then scrape all into a serving dish. Pretty good!
February 20th, 2008
This was one of the best things I have eaten in months. It owes a little bow to Sicily where the North African way with dried fruits and nuts takes on an Italian sensibility.
It was what I was daydreaming last Sunday when I roasted the little leg of lamb and then made a stock of all the bones and trimmings. Nothing but the lamb, its seasonings and water, cooked a long, long time until I had almost a liter of strong broth.
This will serve two for a first course or one very hungry person <--- as a one dish meal.
almost a liter of lamb stock, simmering
1 ounce butter
1 small onion, chopped
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup of rice for risotto
1 tablespoon fortified wine (sherry, marsala, etc.)
about 1/2 cup julienned cooked lamb
1 tablespoon raisins
1 dried apricot diced very small
1 ounce butter
about 1 ounce hard aged cheese (pecorino my choice) freshly grated
2 tablespoons thinly sliced almonds, lightly toasted
Start the stock simmering before doing anything else.
In a heavy bottomed pot, melt the butter and add the chopped onion and salt. Sauté until the onion is transparent, then add the rice and stir until it turns opaque. Splash in the wine and stir until it is absorbed.
Add 1 cup of simmering stock and stir until almost absorbed. Continue to do this for about 15 minutes, then add the lamb, raisins and apricot, stirring in. Continue to stir in hot stock until the rice is creamy outside with a "bite" inside. Check for salt, recalling that the cheese will add a bit of salty flavor.
Toss in the last amount of butter and the grated cheese, remove from heat and stir in to make a thick, creamy risotto. Ladle into a serving plate and sprinkle the toasted almond slices over the top.
This is a dish that is more than the sum of its parts. Believe me, if you like lamb, you will love this risotto.
February 8th, 2008
The other day I was discussing the many traditional Carnevale and Lenten sweets that people make around me. I think they are supposed to quit making them once Lent starts, but they don’t. You almost can’t walk into a home this time of year without the perfume of hot oil and sugar winding around you and wrapping you up for the fat farm.
Everybody is making them and posting about them except me. I am cajoled and teased and blackmailed into tasting them constantly and I can’t bear to have them at home as well. I’m asking around for someone who is willing to be followed and photographed so I can publish it for you, but if you look around the blogging world for Cenci, Castagnole, Fiochi, Chiaccherare, and the hundreds of other words used to describe the hundreds of versions up and down the boot, you will definitely find them.
I remembered then that I loved a seasonal sweet traditional to my culture. The mighty Hot Cross Bun! I was immediately told that it is not the season until Good Friday. Uh! Something that good eaten only three days of the year? Not in my world! I decided that if I didn’t put the frosting crosses on until Good Friday I could have them right away and even take them to my hosts this weekend for an easy breakfast.
I looked at loads of recipes on line and in old cookbooks. The cookbook recipes were way too simplified for me. They wouldn’t produce what I remembered from decades ago. Delia of British fame has a good looking recipe, but my scale is broken so I needed a US recipe that doesn’t need weighing.
The recipe I used in the end was from Bella Online where they also have the nursery rhyme and the story behind this old fashioned sweet roll. If you agree that mine are prettier than theirs, it’s because I added an egg yolk wash before raising the formed buns. I think mine are a bit too big, too. I would make 16 of them from this recipe instead of 12.
The above is how they look in the very welcome sunshine that is pouring over my counters today. I have already eaten two and given one to Olga. We are agreed that these are the best we’ve ever had– mind you she’s never had them before.
February 7th, 2008
If there are real truffles around, you can count on me. I can’t sniff them out underground like a dog, and I don’t have any favorite patches where they can be found every year, but I am never at a loss as to what to do with them once they get past that stage and into someone’s pocket.
This is another kind of truffle and one which I rely on when there must be a sweet and I’ve no time or oven space to make one. The chocolate truffle can be made anytime and kept sealed in the refrigerator or the freezer until you need it. No one has ever felt neglected by being given a chocolate truffle.
They are not difficult to make, but you do need patience and a bit of spare time. I wouldn’t start them after dinner on a week night, but might shape them then, after having made up the chocolate earlier. I also recommend thin surgical gloves for shaping. Most say to use a bain marie, or double boiler, for melting the paste. I use a super heavy copper pot, moving it onto and off the heat as needed. I suppose that works best if you’ve done this enough to know when the heat is needed. Use a double boiler!
These are all the same inside, but the beige ones have been rolled in hazelnut meal and the white ones in dried coconut. They need to be rolled in something so they won’t formlessly fall into a big chocolate puddle as they were before you shaped them. I made them from a 75% bittersweet chocolate by Perugina because it was on sale. My usual 65% Valrhona is better, but I am almost out of it.
Ingredients:
Equal weights of heavy cream or panna da cucina and bittersweet chocolate
butter
liqueur (I used coffee liqueur this time, but will try raspberry grappa the next time.)
something to roll the truffles in, which can be finely chopped nuts, superfine ground espresso, cocoa or anything fine, dry and edible.
This batch was about 4 ounces each of the chocolate and cream. I used 2 ounces of sweet butter for that amount, and 2 tablespoons of liqueur.
Chop the chocolate up so that it will melt more readily. A big knife will do this just fine. Put the cream into the warmed double boiler and heat it, then add the chocolate, stirring it while it melts. Just as the last small bits of chocolate are melting away, add the butter and stir in off the heat entirely.
Add the liqueur, stirring it in. Allow the mixture to cool to room temperature, stirring once in a while, then refrigerate it. Remember to stir it occasionally while it is chilling. Eventually, it will become a firm, shiny paste and it is ready to shape.
For each thing you want to roll the truffles in, get a soup plate and fill it partway. You will not want to touch things once you begin rolling truffles, so be prepared. Prepare a plate or a platter on which to put the finished truffles after rolling them. Get a teaspoon, the kind you set the table with. Put on your latex surgical gloves. You don’t have to wear them, but it will save you half an hour of cleanup time if you do.
Using the teaspoon, scoop out a small amount of the truffle paste and put it into your palm. Make it about 3/4″ in diameter. Using both hands, roll the paste between your palms, then drop the ball into the soup plate, rolling it around to get it covered, then lift the truffle away and onto a plate. Just keep doing that until you run out of material. Then strip off the gloves and toss them away. Put the pot into the sink with the teaspoon and soap and hot water. Put the plate of truffles into the fridge for a few minutes to firm up well.
When the truffles are thoroughly chilled, put them into a sealable container and keep them either in the refrigerator for up to several weeks, or in the freezer where they will keep almost forever. Take them out and bring them to room temperature to serve them. A small glass of grappa or brandy followed by a cup of espresso, and no guest will ever think you took it easy on dessert.
Buon appetito!
January 30th, 2008
OK, it is two days later and there was, of course, some spoonbread left over. Today I made a chicken gravy with some stock made from trimmings, heated in it some slices of leftover roast chicken and served it over slices of the spoonbread heated over very low heat in a bit of butter. It was really good! Not that much like grilled or fried polenta. Lighter, fluffier. Not at all lacking in great taste and it had a very pleasant texture. Some linginberry jam from Ikea took the place of cranberry sauce.
I wonder why no one seems to make spoonbread any more? Even I, known for digging out dishes whose day is long past, haven’t made it in more than a decade. It’s so creamy, warm, smooth and it loves butter or sauces.
I made this one just a few minutes ago. This is the quick and easy version, and it isn’t as luxurious as the more complicated version. It is, however, ready in less than 30 minutes from the thought.
Preheat the oven to 200°C or 400°F. Put a 1 quart/liter baking dish in to warm.
1 egg
3/4 cup cornmeal
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon soda
1-1/2 cups of buttermilk, or if you are an expat, 6 tablespoons of buttermilk powder and 1-1/2 cups skim milk
1 tablespoon of butter melted in a heated 1 quart/1 liter baking dish
Using a whisk, beat the egg in a bowl. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix them thoroughly. Carefully scrape all of the batter into the pre-heated baking dish and cook for 20-25 minutes or until it is just set.
Spoon out servings topped with melting butter.
I actually ate my piece with chili, but those photos were even worse than these. The camera focuses on everything but the bread.
January 14th, 2008
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