Recipes to try again later

I promised to share recipes that were successes and failures when I set up this blog. Spectacular failures often come with a good story, which is probably why I've been hanging onto this group of recipes without posting them. They were not highly impressive dishes (or haven't been tested yet) and they don't come with good stories. Despite that, I'm posting them here today because the blog entry is easier to find (and read) later than a little slip of paper with pencil marks on it. Hopefully in the future there will be revisions with photos and more exciting tales. Perhaps someone out there will try them out with the suggested "note to self" revisions and let me know how it goes.

Choco-cherry Smoothie

1 cup cherries from cherry bounce
1 1/2 cup seltzer water
2 cups homemade kefir
1 Tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 Tbsp cocoa powder

Blend until smooth. 
NOTE TO SELF: try with 1/2 cup seltzer next time, possibly less kefir. Great chocolate and cherry flavor, but beverage ended up too thin to be a good smoothie. The tanginess was nice, but perhaps less kefir and/or a teaspoon more sugar would bring taste into better balance. Booziness of the alcohol-preserved cherries sneaks up on you, so warn people if you serve this to others. 

Lemon-Chicken Pasta

3/4 pound thin spaghetti, cooked in boiling salted water
2 cups shredded leftover roasted chicken with lemon-pepper-garlic seasoning
75 g bunch parsley, chopped
juice and zest of 2 Meyer lemons
5 Tbsp olive oil
grated Parmesan cheese to taste

Whisk together the lemon juice, zest and olive oil. Toss with chicken and pasta and parsley. Sprinkle each serving with grated Parmesan. 

NOTE TO SELF: I'm sure that this dish could be done with plain salt-and-pepper roasted chicken with just the addition of a minced clove of garlic and some pepper to the sauce. Next time, consider using at least 1 Tbsp less oil. This version was a little too oily. 

The Large-Crowd Meatball Experiment

5 pounds ground beef (85% lean/15% fat ratio)
1 large onion, minced
2 Tbsp minced garlic
4 oz fresh bread, processed into fine crumbs
3/4 cup vegetable stock or milk
3 eggs, beaten
2 oz (by weight) sour cream
1 1/2 Tbsp kosher salt
2 tsp freshly-ground black pepper
2 Tbsp dried Greek oregano
2 Tbsp dried basil

Place ground beef in large mixing bowl. Saute minced onion and minced garlic in olive oil. Moisten breadcrumbs with vegetable stock/milk in a small bowl. Add sauteed onion/garlic and moist breadcrumbs to meat along with all other ingredients and mix thoroughly. Form into meatballs and fry in oil or bake.
NOTE TO SELF: These would taste great with ground lamb or beef-lamb mix. Salt was not quite overpowering, but could easily be cut to 1 Tbsp plus 1/2 tsp. Dried basil and oregano amounts (especially oregano) should probably be cut in half. Devote another blog entry to this experiment and its theoretical variations with Korean, sweet-sour, American meatloaf and Middle Eastern flavor profiles. 

Bloody Mary Meatballs

3 pounds ground beef (85% lean/15% fat ratio)
1 1/2 cup rolled oats
2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp freshly-ground black pepper
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup minced onion
1/4 cup Bloody Mary Mix
1 Tbsp prepared horseradish

Saute onion and garlic in olive oil and mix thoroughly with meat and other ingredients. Form into meatballs and fry in oil or bake. Serve in a Bloody Mary sauce I haven't written a recipe for yet or make Bloody Marys and eat meatballs as snack with cocktail.
NOTE TO SELF: Mixed parts of three different recipes together to create this one, can't try it out until there is a sharing occasion to make this with a Bloody-Mary-inspired tomato sauce to serve them in.

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How much more awkward-sounding can the name of this salad be?

A mixed-bean salad with garbanzos, kidney beans and green beans and a pickled-tasting sauce is a common player on potluck tables in my area. It's an old standby, everyone sees the contents and knows what the salad is going to taste like. I felt like making one that had a bit more crunch, no obvious sweetness (my least favorite part of some versions of bean salad) and used the spicier pickle flavor of my own home-canned green bean pickles. 

The bean pickles are one of my favorite recipes from the Bernardin Guide to Home Preserving, one of my souvenirs from living in Canada. The original recipe is called Dilled Beans, but I use the variation called Hot 'n Spicy Beans, skipping the red pepper strips and the dill. The recipe also worked this year with purple beans, which make me sad by doing the same thing purple asparagus does: turn green when cooked.

When asked at the potluck supper what name this dish has, I responded, "Bean, uh ... bean and bean salad." There are three beans, but do you think my brain could add them up in the necessary moment to say something succinct like Triple-bean Salad? Uh ... nope. 

Bean, Bean and Bean Salad with Carrots
serves 6 to 8

1 15-oz can garbanzos (chickpeas)
1 15-oz can Great Northern beans
3 small garden carrots, julienned (about 1/2 cup julienne)
1/2 pint home-pickled spicy green beans with garlic 
1 clove pickled garlic from the jar of home-pickled beans
4 to 5 Tbsp pickle juice from the jar of home-pickled beans
4 Tbsp olive oil
2 pinches dried epazote
salt and pepper to taste

Place all beans and carrots together in a bowl. Whisk together pickle juice with minced pickled garlic, olive oil, epazote and some salt and pepper. Pour over beans and mix thoroughly. Add more salt and pepper if required. Allow salad to sit overnight in the dressing before serving.

Note: the epazote could be replaced by dried basil, savory or thyme for a different flavor.

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Henne en Bokenade

For the Thanksgiving feast this year, I used my friends as guinea pigs took the opportunity to get some immediate feedback on a stew recipe I was dying to try, but needed some help in eating the large quantity of food produced. I experimented with a recipe from the compilation by John L. Anderson called A Fifteenth Century Cookry Boke, a collection of recipes from several manuscripts written in England in the 1400s, and carted the results along in a big pot to reheat at the home of the hosts.

This chicken dish (in addition to two other meats) was substituting for turkey, since our hosts, who grew up in Sri Lanka, have never acquired a taste for that bird. My dinner offering was definitely standing on the far side of tradition among the foods at our Thanksgiving table. It was more like a tagine or a curry rather than the typical glorious platter of roasted poultry.

As per normal with these 15th-Century recipes, very little guidance is given in quantities or cooking times. The method is laid out with regard to what order things should be done and what mode of cooking should be used, but nothing more detailed than "take these and put them together," "cut it in pieces," "temper with this/allay with this" or "sethe (simmer/boil) it." Sometimes the recipes are written a little out of sequence when the writer goes back to add something that should have been earlier in the list. In this case, I had my choice of two different ways to make the same dish called "Vele, Kede or Henne en Bokenade" or "Autre (another) Vele en Bokenade." They are wildly different from each other, one being made with fresh herbs like parsley and sage and thickened with egg yolk, the other being flavored with warm spices and onions and including some dried currants and other thickeners. But, they are both "en bokenade," meaning a sort of one-pot main dish or potage.

The original recipe is for "Autre Vele en Bokenade," using veal. Since the recipe beforehand offered "henne" or chicken as an option, I decided chicken would be an acceptable option for the second recipe as well.

The original text:
Autre Vele en Bokenade
Take Vele, and Make it clene, and hakke it to gobettys, an sethe it; and take fat brothe, an temper up thine Almaundys that thou hast y-grounde, and lye it with Flowre of Rys, and do there-to gode powder of Gyngere, & Galingale, Canel, Maces, Quybybis, and Oynonys y-mynsyd, &Roysonys of coraunce, & coloure yt wyth Safroun, and put there-to thin Vele, & serve forth. 

My quick-and-dirty version for modern cooks:
Take veal and clean it and cut it into small pieces and simmer it. Take that broth and thicken it with ground almonds and rice flour. Add powdered ginger, galingale, cinnamon, mace, cubebs. Add minced onions and dried currants. Color it with saffron, put the veal in the sauce and serve.

The recipe I devised:
Henne en Bokenade 
Cut up a whole chicken so you have wings, breasts, thighs, drumsticks and a back piece. Place the chicken pieces in a large pot with the wings and legs and back on the bottom and the breasts sitting on top. If you have a young chicken, use stock for simmering. If you have a stewing hen, simmer in water. Simmer the deboned chicken in 3 cups chicken stock (or 4 cups water and a much longer cooking time for stewing hen) with 1 tsp salt, 8 white peppercorns and a dash of powdered ginger. Remove the meat when it is cooked through and make a sauce with the broth. Skim fat from the broth if desired.

Mix 2 heaping Tbsp of rice flour with at least 1/4 cup water until it becomes a thick slurry that looks like cream. Use more water if needed. Whisk the rice flour slurry into the hot broth. Add 1 minced onion, 1 tsp ginger powder, 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon, 3/4 tsp ground mace. Grind 10 cubebs and add them to the sauce. Bring the sauce to a simmer and cook until thickened, whisking occasionally. While the sauce is simmering, remove the meat from the bones and discard the skin. Pull the meat into smaller pieces that would fit on a spoon. When the sauce is close to the desired thickness, add 1 cup dried currants and a generous pinch of saffron. Add the cooked meat to the sauce and add a little salt if desired. The finished dish looks like chicken pieces and currants swimming in a fragrant yellowish-brown gravy.

Notes:
1. I did not have ground almonds or the time and desire to grind almonds on my own in a mortar and pestle on Thursday, so my sauce is thickened only with the rice flour this time.
2. I skipped the galingale because I had just run out, but I used more ginger than I otherwise might have.
3. This sauce thickens considerably as the dish cools. Serve immediately (just like the original recipe says) for the best presentation.
4. For those who are asking, "What's a cubeb?" A cubeb is a a dried berry from a plant related to black pepper. It is somewhat similar to pepper in flavor but also has a tangy, clove-like flavor. I got mine as a gift from a friend, but I know of a source in my area: Spicewell's Essentials. http://spicewells.us/Home.html
5. When I try this one again, I'd go for the ground almond and change up the spice mix to blend more successfully with the saffron; possibly, I would use less saffron than the approximately 1/4 tsp I had when I just dumped the rest of my saffron in the stew. Mine had a bit of an overpowering saffron flavor that blended well with the ginger, but left the other spices far less present.

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Successfully avoiding a trip to the grocery again

You know the scenario: You're pressed for time to get that dish done by dinnertime or in time to leave with it for someone else's house and you realize you don't have as much of one ingredient as you thought you had. The recipe won't turn out the way you have come to expect. You're not sure whether you can fudge it with using less, but you have to try anyway because you've already started mixing the other parts.

This recipe is about embracing the unexpected and foisting it off on your friends at a potluck, which I did. And about avoiding a trip to the grocery for which there is no time, which I also did and made it to that potluck on time. And it's about finding another tasty use for backyard rosemary and other gardeners' summer tomatoes that show up unannounced at our place or appear in our Henry's Farm CSA box.

Running-Out-of-Cornmeal Cornbread (with bell and whistles)
alterations to Cook's Illustrated "All Purpose Cornbread" recipe
at least 6 servings

5 ounces unbleached all-purpose flour
4 ounces whole-wheat flour
3 ounces cornmeal
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp table salt
1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
3 1/2 ounces fresh cooked corn kernels (or thawed frozen corn)
1 cup unsweetened kefir (or buttermilk)
2 large eggs
8 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
large pinch dried rosemary, crushed (this is the bell from my backyard plant)
one to two ripe garden tomatoes (this is a whistle)
a pinch of kosher salt or sea salt (this is a whistle)

Heat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Spray 8x8-inch glass baking dish with nonstick cooking spray. Whisk flours, cornmeal, baking powder, baking soda, salt in a bowl until combined and set aside.

In food processor or blender, process sugar, corn, kefir and eggs until combined. 

Make a well in the center of dry ingredients and pour in wet mixture. Fold together for a few turns of the spatula/spoon. Add melted butter and rosemary and fold until dry ingredients are just moistened.

Pour batter into baking dish. Smooth the top. Slice the tomatoes thinly and lay the slices on top of the batter so they just touch each other. Sprinkle with kosher/sea salt.

Bake about 25 to 35 minutes until golden brown and a toothpick inserted it the center comes out clean. Tomato slices will look as if they have sunken into the top. Take directly from oven to potluck and serve cornbread still warm out of the baking dish.

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Mushrooms roasting on an open fire

On my birthday, I invited some friends over for a patio party, featuring food cooked on sticks over the fire in our chimenea. Of course, we roasted marshmallows and made s'mores, but we were also pleasantly surprised by how well some less-obvious foods turned out. People were holding their skewers both down at the usual front opening and also over the top of the chimney part. We discovered both spots are at the right temperature for cooking foods.

Experiment 1: Mushrooms
Thread several whole washed white button mushrooms on a skewer, brush with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Patiently hold over an open fire, turning frequently, until they start to exude some liquid and get browned. I ate several skewers of these.

Experiment 2: Rather large beef kebabs
Big chunks of marinated beef, held at the right distance from the fire and frequently turned, cooks up to a juicy medium-rare right around the same time as the vegetables start to really soften. Careful not to hold so close to the hottest part of the flames that things scorch before the meat is cooked.

Experiment 3: Halloumi cheese
The label on this cheese claimed it was "the grilling cheese," so I decided to take it at its word and cut it into cubes to toast on my skewer. It does not really melt, so that keeps it on the skewer long enough to brown the outside and make the cube puff up a little. Crispy texture on the outside contrasts with fluffy center.

Try these yourself the next time you're building a fire!

In other fantastic flame-cooking news, the indoor barbecue grill is working great!

 It was a huge success for making s'mores and toasting strawberries and angel food cake bits at a party on a rainy day the week before my birthday. Hooray for whoever installed that ventilation system when the outdoor barbecue was enclosed in the addition!

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Bunny Buns

I'm on attempt #3 to make the perfect sweet bun to stuff with marzipan, shape like a bunny and serve up at the local Shire of Baile na Scolairi event at the end of the month.

The concept: make bunny-shaped buns and display a few of them on a platter at lunch with some piles of raisins, making it look like "the rabbit's revenge" on lunch is some rabbit droppings left behind as the bunnies hopped around the plate. The buns have to taste good, though, because those bunnies not on display will be served up as food.

I've finally arrived at a bread recipe I'm happy with, so I'm ready to share that here.

Advantages of this recipe:
1. sweet, but not as sweet as the marzipan, so there is some contrast
2. tastes great (not dry or stale) as day-old bread, which it will be on the day of the event
3. easy to shape
4. variable for multiple purposes -- I may end up using this recipe some other time with other stuffings or with dried fruits or other spices in the dough.
5. one recipe makes more than 12 buns -- good, because I have to make at least 50
6. does not require me to buy milk -- great because we didn't have any at home yesterday

Bunny Buns
makes about 20 small buns

1/2 cup lukewarm water
1 package active dry yeast
1 tsp granulated sugar
1 cup lukewarm water
1 egg
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup whole-wheat flour
prepared marzipan (preferably a brand with sugar as the only sweetener)

Proof the yeast: pour water into a large bowl, sprinkle on yeast and 1 tsp sugar. Let stand until foamy, about 10 minutes.

Mix in the remaining water, the egg, 1/2 cup sugar, oil, salt, cinnamon. Whisk in 1 cup all-purpose flour, then 1 cup whole-wheat flour. Use spoon to mix in the remaining all-purpose flour. Knead with well-floured hands until well combined. Dough should be soft and pillowy and a little sticky.

Clean out bowl with soap and hot water and coat with vegetable oil. Return dough to bowl, turning to cover dough with grease. Cover with plastic wrap or thin towel and leave in a warm place until doubled in size. (see note below)

Punch dough down and knead with floured hands for 1 to 2 minutes. Divide into 20 portions of equal size. Place a small ball of marzipan on each portion, wrap the dough around it, and roll dough between hands into a round ball. Shape the balls into teardrops, leaving the marzipan in the fat end of the teardrop. Place on greased baking sheet or baking sheet covered in parchment paper. Let rise, covered by thin towel, for about 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit and brush dough with egg wash (see note below). Use scissors to cut long rabbit ears near the narrow end of the teardrop of dough. Bake buns for 15 to 20 minutes, until they are golden brown and sound hollow when the bottom is tapped. Be careful not to burn the tips of the ears too much. Cool on a wire rack. 

Note on rising: if the weather is chilly, bread dough does not rise quickly. Try one of these tricks:
1. Place covered bowl of dough in a closed oven with just the light on
2. for winter days only: turn the oven on to the lowest possible temperature for five minutes. Turn off and then let the bread dough rise in the oven with the door closed.
3. Boil water in a pan slightly smaller in diameter than your mixing bowl. Remove the pan from the heat and put the covered bowl on top of the pan.
4. Boil a cup of water in the microwave oven. Remove cup, place covered bowl with dough in it inside the microwave and let the dough rise with the door closed. Don't microwave the dough, it gets too hot and will kill the yeast.

Note on egg wash: egg wash is one egg beaten well with a little water. Use a pastry brush to brush the wash on the dough. It adds a pleasant sheen to the dough.  Egg wash can be used to help seeds stick to the top of breads (e.g. sesame seeds, poppy seeds, etc.). Some recipes will use a wash made only with egg yolks to add yellow color to the dough, or only with egg whites to prevent yellow color. This site has an interesting table of the different properties of different egg wash recipes: http://www.piemaven.com/egg_wash.html

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Playing with 15th-Century pork pie again

Not only are pork pie recipes available in the Harleian manuscripts from 15th century England, there is also a pork pie recipe in the 14th-century collection called Forme of Cury. The last time I tried to recreate a pork-and-fruit pie and described it in this blog, I was going with a 15th-Century source, but the recipe I used most recently from the prior century isn't much different. It's still ground/minced pork inside a crust with fruit and spices, although this one also includes some fowl, as did the first Tarte de Chare recipe I found.

This latest experiment with pork-and-fruit pie was a big hit at the local Society for Creative Anachronism shire's holiday party potluck, where a few of us took the challenge I'd posed to bring pre-1600 food to the party.

Here's the recipe I worked from this time (with special characters replaced with "th" where they appear):
Tartee
Take pork ysode. hewe it and bray it. do thereto ayrenn. Raisouns sugur and powdour of gyngur. powdour douce and smale briddes theramong and white grece, take prunes, safroun & salt, and make a crust in a trape & do ther Fars therin. &bake it wel & serue it forth. 

That is, take cooked/boiled pork and grind it, mix in eggs, raisins, sugar and powdered ginger, powder douce (sweet powder, a spice mixture). Add small birds and white grease (fresh fat, not drippings). Take prunes, saffron and salt. Make a crust in a trap (a pie dish) and put the farce (meat mixture) in it. Bake it well and serve it forth.

I departed from the original recipe's instruction to grind previously cooked pork and used fresh ground pork, easily available these days from the butcher shop. I also decided to do a double-crust pie that would stand on its own instead of putting a single-crust pie in a pie plate, because I wanted people at the potluck to be able to easily eat pieces of pie with their hands. As it turns out, the fresh pork may have been an unwise choice because the pie's juices steadily bubbled over through my vent holes in the crust and created quite a mess on my baking sheet. Cooked pork may have been more well-behaved and stayed in its crust.

I can only hope that entire small birds would have baked up to a safe temperature when mixed in with the rest of the meat. I didn't have the time the day I was baking to go looking for quail or doves, so I used 1.5 to 2 pounds chicken thighs, which for the convenience of my potluckers I deboned before cooking. And to be sure I'd get fully cooked fowl, I fried the chicken pieces in oil until browned before adding them on top of the pork mixture in my pie.

My recipe for the rest of the pork-and-fruit mixture:
1 pound ground pork
2 eggs
3 oz prunes, chopped
2 oz currants
1/2 tsp powdered ginger
1/2 to 3/4 tsp salt
2 whole cloves, crushed to powder
dash cinnamon and nutmeg
pinch saffron, crushed
2 tsp sugar

Once again, I used the "good white crust" recipe from A Temperance of Cooks that was their version of Gervase Markham's crust described in The English Housewife, a manual from 1615. It is sturdy, but just fatty enough to be a little flaky. The flavor is appealing, especially when the pie is still warm, and it bakes to a nice golden color at 375 degrees Fahrenheit without threatening to burn before the pie filling is done and bubbly in the center.

I should mention that I was instantly won over by the Project Gutenberg e-book version of Forme of Cury by Samuel Pegge, which I acquired for my iPod through iBooks, for the simple reason that it has every recipe listed individually in the table of contents, so I can just look for the title I want and go directly to that recipe without having to page through the entire book. A big win over the HTML version on the Project Gutenberg website because the recipes in the book are not organized alphabetically or even necessarily by course in the meal.

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Schwarzwälder Kirschtrifle and a bonus cocktail

Now that the cherry bounce I made in May has had several months to mellow out in the bottles, its character has changed greatly. In June, it was very harsh and pretty tart, especially if I ate one of the cherries that had been steeping in the liquor. Now, it's sweeter and has the full flavor of cherries in it, but it still packs a boozy punch.

A boozy punch is exactly what's on order when making a Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte (Black Forest Cake). The cherry filling in the traditional German preparation includes a couple shots of Kirschwasser (a schnapps made with cherries), also known as just Kirsch.

This story starts back a couple Saturdays ago, when I decided instead of Kirsch to use my homemade cherry liquor to make a Torte to take to a housewarming party. I also figured it would be something productive to do with the strained-out whiskey-soaked cherries.

I was using a recipe for the cake that I'd never tried before, one that had fewer ingredients than the one in my baking cookbook from Germany and seemed to have a promise of being less dry than the traditional recipe that included almond flour in the cake. I was excited while watching it bake to see it puff up, since it was a cake leavened mostly by beaten egg yolks and whites, and I feared it might fail to rise. I beamed proudly as I pulled the finished cake from the oven, then cried out in wordless shock as the pan slipped from my hands and hit the floor. The cake fell out of the pan and folded in half, leaving a smear of chocolate everywhere it touched.

A few unkind words and a few minutes of cleaning up the floor later, I decided there was nothing else better to do with the quart of whipping cream in my refrigerator, so I'd better get started on a new cake. Another hour later, I was pulling out Cake Number Two at the end of its baking time. It wasn't quite as tall as Cake Number One, but I hoped I could still manage to get two layers out of it.

As it sat on the cooling rack, the cake looked more and more discouraging as the center of it kept sinking. When the time came to cut the layers, it was very clear that the center of the cake was an underbaked, gooey mess that wouldn't have anything to do with layers. I had a two-layer doughnut on my hands with chocolatey sludge for a doughnut hole. Tasty sludge, but not suitable for Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte.

What to do now? The eggs are gone, there's still a quart of whipping cream that needs to go into something for this party, the filling made with whiskey-steeped cherries is ready and waiting, there's not enough time to bake and cool another cake, and the one I've got is fantastic around the outside, but impossible to use the inside. What else uses bits of cake and has pretty layers with fruit and whipped cream? Trifle! The Schwarzwälder Kirschtrifle was born.

Here it is, complete with the garnish of chocolate shavings and chocolate chunks, ready to go to the party. Those who grew up with trifle, please excuse the Pyrex bowl standing in for a proper trifle bowl, which I don't have and never thought I would ever want.

Both layers of cake have cherry filling, I soaked the cake with a bit more cherry bounce, and of course there are thick layers of whipped cream on top of each cherry layer.

This solution to cake disaster was a big hit at the party. This past week, the partying with boozy cherries continued with an experiment to use the leftover cherry juice I had from making the filling and the Kirsch I've had hanging around the house since a trip to Vom Fass in Madison, WI in June but hadn't had occasion to use yet.

Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte (Black Forest Cake), a cocktail

1 part Kirschwasser/Kirsch
2 parts Mocha Kahlua (perhaps another chocolate liqueur would work, this is what I had around)
2 parts cherry juice (100 percent tart cherries, and not a juice blend)

Mix Kirsch, Kahlua and juice and serve out into glasses. To finish off just like the traditional cake, garnish each glass with a dollop of whipped cream and sprinkle with chocolate shavings.

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Roasting, baking and blanching on the fire

This weekend at my local SCA shire's event, we had a potluck lunch. I decided to challenge myself a bit by trying recipes and techniques that could have been used in Italy during the 16th Century. Only one recipe was an original from an Italian cookbook, the other two were more based on known ingredients and techniques from the time period.

I wish I had made some arrangements for photography, because I probably looked delightfully goofy standing over this large open-fire grill outside the event all morning, standing in the smoke, wearing my apron over my coat and with a very-not-appropriate-to-period Polartec fleece hat for warmth. The day was quite windy, so starting the fire was difficult and keeping it at a constant temperature was impossible.

The plan: get to the event site to unload the woodpile and start the fire at about 8 a.m., have three items prepared for lunch by 11 or 11:30. Planned items: spit-roasted leg of lamb, blanched asparagus with dressing and herbs, bread baked in a pot in the coals. And if anyone showed up to watch me cook, I intended to ask that person to roll marzipan stuffing to put inside dates for something to do while we chatted.

Considering the setbacks with the fire and the fact that I've never tried to cook over an open fire on a deadline before, I was pleased that my plan worked. It only did because I had an assistant, who turned up without being asked, who could watch the fire while I did a few last-minute preparations or who could deliver plated items while I continued cooking the last item. She also stuffed the majority of the dates.

Spit-roasted leg of lamb
recipe inspired by Buon Appetito, Your Holiness: Secrets of the Papal Table by Mariangela Rinaldo and Mariangela Vicini
four-pound leg of lamb, organic and free-range (mine also happened to be certified halal, which becomes irrelevant when you see the next ingredient)
1/2 pound pork fat (I used a very fatty bacon)
1 Tbsp dried rosemary leaves
5 cloves garlic
salt and pepper
2 cups red wine

Mince the pork fat and cut it together with rosemary and garlic that have been minced. Cut lamb into two nearly-equal pieces. One piece will likely have the bone in it. Make deep incisions on the side of each pieces of meat and stuff with the pork-garlic-rosemary mixture. Meat may need to be tied with kitchen twine so the stuffing does not fall apart while loading it onto the rotisserie spit. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and roast indirectly over hot coals that are still sending up a little bit of flame. Turn occasionally while the lamb roasts at a temperature that is hot enough to cause some sizzling, but not hot enough to quickly burn the lamb. Baste by brushing occasionally with wine.

The leg of lamb was the item that got the most effusive praise from eaters, and it proved to be the most difficult. Lesson one: spit-roasting is to be done with indirect heat, not flames leaping up to the food. On the other hand, having a bit of an overbrowned (okay, blackened) crust did add lots of flavor until I figured out how far away from the flame to place the spit. Lesson two: bring a secondary cooking vessel in case roasted meat needs finishing in a pan or covered pot. So glad I had that cast-iron skillet handy so I could pour in the rest of my wine for basting and just cook off the lamb in pieces in the skillet. The wind was cooling off the lamb leg on the other sides while it cooked on one side over the fire, so the very center never came up to temperature on the spit. If I'd had an extra hour to leave it over the fire, it eventually would have cooked fully, but I didn't have the time to wait. If the fire hadn't been constantly blown around by wind, I think the 2 1/2 hours the lamb roasted on the spit would have been long enough.

I was very excited about the bread for its flavor and texture. It came out of the baking pot with a black bottom, a caramelized-looking top and springy texture. I have learned quite a bit about bread from another shire member, Simon, in the past year or two, plus I have received tips whenever I ask from Laura, who bakes where I work. A bit more practice with baking hasn't hurt me either. Simon got me started with using sourdough starter instead of always relying on packaged yeast. Finding motivation to start sourdough is simple when Simon hands out little packets of dried sourdough starter from his own collection at a class. Sourdough starter is a pre-1600 technique, as is baking in a pot buried in hot coals. To accentuate sour flavor and add a bit of beery yeasty taste that could have come from using ale barm for yeast, I followed the recipe for Almost No-Knead Bread from Cooks Illustrated. That recipe uses beer and vinegar for part of the liquid. Instead of the instant yeast called for in the recipe, I added some of Simon's sourdough starter. The bread dough sits in a bowl at room temperature overnight to develop flavor. The pot I used for baking was not made of the correct materials, being a cast-iron pot instead of the more-likely-for-pre-1600 Italy clay baking pot, but it was the only heavy covered pot I have that I'd be willing to put in a fire. Lesson from this experiment: the bread probably only needs half as much baking time as in the oven at home. I checked it after 45 minutes of the expected hour, but I think I could have gotten away with only 30 minutes of baking time and had less burnt crust to cut off.

The part I know would turn out fine in this experiment even if nothing else did was the asparagus. I found some directions from a Renaissance Italian cook indicating that asparagus should be boiled until just tender, then dressed with oil and vinegar and fresh herbs. Even at my worst with outdoor cooking, I can manage to boil water as long as I have enough fuel. The vegetable was perfectly crisp-tender the way I like it, then I dressed it with a simple red wine vinegar-olive oil vinaigrette (with a dash of sugar), salt, pepper, and chopped fresh parsley. No need for the cold-water shocking after blanching. The air was brisk enough that the asparagus cooled off right quick after I put it on the serving plate. I was pleased to see that the plate of vegetable disappeared just as quickly as my other dishes. I guess the people who like asparagus ate it enthusiastically.

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Deviled eggs in 25 minutes or less

Once again, preparing my dish at the last minute before a potluck lunch. I had boiled the eggs yesterday, but left it till this morning to peel and fill them. Today's trick: make something that is truly slopped together look like you cared for it.

Step 1: hard-cook a dozen old eggs, then procrastinate about finishing the dish till tomorrow.
My favorite method for hard-cooking: place eggs in a pot, preferably in one layer on the bottom, cover with cold water, put the lid on the pot, bring to full boil on high heat, then immediately turn off the heat and allow the covered pot to sit for 15 minutes.  Pour off the hot water and replace with ice water. Peel eggs when cool.

Step 2: peel the eggs.
This should have been done yesterday while the eggs were wet and freshly shocked in the ice water. Because I put the unpeeled eggs in the refrigerator for a day, peeling today was accompanied by considerably higher amounts of frustration with peels/shells sticking to egg white and a few swear words. Some of the whites were a little pocked because parts of the egg white came off with the shell.
During this step, don't forget to worry about whether you'll be done on time because each egg is taking twice as long to peel as you estimated.

Step 3: cut the eggs in half lengthwise and scoop out the yolk into a bowl. Set the whites on a plate.
Don't forget to look worriedly at the clock a few more times.

Step 4: season the egg yolks and moisten with mayonnaise.
Today's easy-peasy 15-second seasoning: grab a quick pinch of parsley leaves from the bag in the refrigerator, slap down on a cutting board and take out your frustration on them by mincing and remincing with a chef's knife, spin the lid off the seasoning salt so quickly it nearly flies off onto the floor and throw a few dashes of salt with the parsley onto the egg yolks. Groan when you realize you have to take a few more seconds to rip open a new jar of mayo when you use up your last tablespoon in the old jar but still need more mayo. Yank open the silverware drawer, grab the first fork you see and quickly mash the yolks together with the mayo, seasoning and parsley.

Step 5: spoon the yolk mixture into the little well in each egg white and arrange on a plate or in a portable food storage container. 
Check the clock and continue worrying. Scoop up a couple teaspoons or so of filling and smear it quickly into those egg whites. Try not to be too wistful about missing your chance to try out using a Ziplock baggie as a piping tool. No time for love, Dr. Jones! Eat the egg white that is covered on all sides in messy egg yolk after you drop it onto another filled egg.


Step 6: garnish with powdered paprika.
Wrench the lid off your paprika, rejoice that there is a sprinkle section on the inside lid, and sprinkle away till the paprika starts to distract attention from the lopsided egg yolk fillings. Smack the lid on that portable food storage box and carefully run out the door. Don't let the box tip from side to side! You'll ruin the fillings!

Step 7: proudly deliver the finished dish at the potluck table.
Silently hope no one notices the stray bits of egg yolk mixture on the outsides of the egg whites because the box shifted and tipped while you were getting out of the car with it. Smile when your friend says, "ooh! Deviled eggs! Yum!"

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Are krumkaker still good after being frozen?

The Christmas baking experiment results are in: frozen krumkaker get a little moist upon thawing and the texture is undesirable, but keeping them tightly wrapped or sealed in an airtight container will allow for continued crispiness into early February. I had a chance to taste these leftovers from three days before Christmas at the beginning of this month, and they tasted like they were, at most, two or three days old. Still well-flavored by the cardamom and vanilla, still light and somewhat crunchy. The samples I brought home were gone in about five minutes.

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To good fortune in 2012

For our New Year's Eve party, the most fun part about party preparation was baking our own fortune cookies and filling them with homemade fortunes! Ever since Andrew's grad school roommate and friends made their own fortune cookies for a mathematicians keg party, we've been very attached to the idea of making better fortunes (and possibly better cookies!) than the ones in Chinese restaurants.

I dug out a recipe I've been hanging onto for a few years in anticipation of just such an opportunity: the recipe from Sara Perry in Holiday Baking. The interesting flavoring element is one-and-one-third tablespoons Grand Marnier. Also surprising was finding out that these fortune cookies are pretty low-fat since they are made with just a little oil and just egg whites.

The finished products:

Here are some of my favorites from our list of 40 unique fortunes:


You will be disappointed by all other fortune cookies this year
You will gain fame and fortune when a ton of gold is dropped on your head
You will learn what the Higgs Boson is and why everyone cares
Zeno’s paradox will fail to stop you from kissing your sweetheart
Starting tomorrow, your farts will create alternate universes
Dec. 22, 2012 will be the end of your dominance of the pop charts
Your next fortune cookie will drip with sarcasm
This time, having another drink will make you smarter and more attractive
Your skills will be useful to many – in bed
Mass murder will prove to be an unsuccessful election strategy

Part of the glory of making our own fortunes was having the chance to totally dork out with the science references and to make light of bad luck -- because really, how could it be the case that everyone opening a fortune cookie will have a great year with no unpleasant surprises, stupid accidents or days that are just really awful?

And if bad luck should find you this year, if you want to kick back and burn out some bad memories or take a breather from burning the candle at both ends, try out this punch I made that really knocked our socks off this New Year's Eve.

Burnt Embers Punch

3 parts añejo rum
1 part apricot brandy
2 parts pineapple juice
12 parts club soda (I only used six parts at the party and the punch was stiffer than an overstarched shirt)

Depending on the size of your vessel, make the base measurement of one part an appropriate size. For a couple of drinks, use a shot glass and make the punch in a small pitcher. To fill a big punch bowl, use a one- or two-cup measuring cup. Serve over a couple ice cubes in each glass or put a frozen ice block with pineapple chunks/apricot nectar in it in your punch bowl.

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On the 14th Day of Christmas, my true love sent to me / An updated blog entry

Sorry for the unexpected one-month hiatus, all. This past December was a time of action, not written words. Much baking and cooking took place, but none of it was documented here at the time it was happening.

Some highlights of the Christmas season in my kitchen:
1. Testing out a household favorite, tofu-carrot scramble, on a potluck group. Positive comments from people who liked the gingery taste. The basics of how Andrew and I make this recipe come from the recipe in the Vegetarian Times Complete Cookbook. We just don't measure things anymore and I think I dropped an ingredient or two from the recipe long ago before I taught it to Andrew. I'm still debating on whether I should make this dish at work. Its appearance is not as good as its taste, I'm afraid. It's a bit like chunky yellow-orange vomit on rice. Maybe a nice garnish of chopped cilantro and using julienned carrot instead of grated would make it look more appealing.
2. The 15th-century pie recipe that looked doomed to fail until the moment I put some in my mouth. Another potluck experiment, going from a historical recipe that gave zero amounts or proportions, just a list of what ingredients to add when (and I think even these were out of order, so I adjusted based on the order of instructions in similar recipes from other sources from the same country). This pie was like a savory custard with dried fruit for sweetness. I messed up baking the crust blind (forgot the parchment paper under the pie weights), the crust shrank considerably, the custard took much longer than expected to even start pretending to set, I used far too much beef marrow so the filling looked a bit greasy while baking, I added the spices during the wrong step of the process (no matter, it seems). I couldn't believe how good it tasted after all those mistakes and how ugly it looked. And the crust was the flakiest I've ever made. Gives a whole new understanding of a "foolproof" recipe. However, my version needs some serious revising before putting it out here for others to try.
3. Are krumkaker still good after being frozen? This year's batch of Norwegian Christmas cookies was donated to science. I have also learned that the plural of krumkake is krumkaker. I packed the cookies in a box and gave them to one of the owners of the cafe/kitchen store where I work so she could experiment with how long they are still delicious when wrapped tightly in plastic (she reports the batch from two days before Christmas was still good on New Year's Day) and whether they could maintain crispness after being frozen and thawed. Still waiting on the lab results from the frozen portion of the batch.

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Spanish Tortilla

This one's not a flat, floppy bread. Tortilla in Spain is a thick, eggy dish fried in a skillet, filled with potatoes and possibly other vegetables and meat. It is reminiscent of an omelette in that it's eggs filled with whatever you think would taste good, but it isn't an egg wrapped around the filling. It is reminiscent of quiche in that it's solid and served in wedges, but it does not have a crust and isn't baked. Tortilla has commonalities with other dishes, but it isn't really exactly like anything else.

To treat my friend Laura yesterday for lunch, I improvised a tortilla, made in the spirit of one that I've made before at work. Not having a photo of the whole thing, I'll describe it in words. My tortilla was a thick, seasoned "cake" of eggs holding together a lot of potatoes and parsley, browned on all sides by the frying pan. Here's how the recipe works:

Spanish Tortilla
serves 6 as main dish, 8 to 12 as tapas dish

7 large eggs
4 medium-sized potatoes, diced
1/4 cup chopped parsley
1 tsp smoked paprika (Spanish pimentón)
seasoned salt to taste (the kind with garlic and spices mixed w/the salt)
fresh-ground pepper to taste
4 Tbsp olive oil

Heat olive oil in a nonstick 10-inch skillet with sloping sides. Fill the bottom of the pan with diced potatoes and fry until golden brown on most sides. While potatoes are cooking, crack the eggs into a bowl and whisk until yolks are fully incorporated. When potatoes are browned, sprinkle with paprika and stir until oil is red. Season with salt and pepper. Sprinkle with parsley, then pour over the eggs. Cook over medium heat. When eggs start to set, use a heatproof spatula to pull up edges and lean the pan so egg mixture that is still liquid gets to the edge of the pan. When eggs are fully set and starting to get a bit of a crispy skin on the bottom, put a large plate over the skillet. Flip the pan upside down, depositing the tortilla on the plate. Slide it back into the pan to cook the other side. When the second side also gets a crispy skin, cut the tortilla into 6 wedges and serve hot.

Serve in smaller wedges if you are making the tortilla as a tapa (appetizer to go with drinks). I served the tortilla with a salad for a light lunch. More fillings to go with the potatoes might include chickpeas, Spanish chorizo sausage, greens, cooked mushrooms, cooked garden vegetables, anything that tastes good with eggs and isn't going to give off a bunch of liquid to make the tortilla lose its texture.

I'm told that the tortilla tastes good cold as leftovers, but I'm more excited about eating it hot.

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Crisis averted: apple cake

Problem: Potluck is in two hours, I have no idea what to make, and the only food of large quantity in the house is apples.
Solution: Apple coffee cake, chock full of organic Cortland apples sold by Teresa Santiago of Sunny Lane Farm and Teresa's Fruit and Herbs, from her family's apple picking in Wisconsin at an old orchard (hence why it's organic -- no one has sprayed for years because no one has been tending the crop for commercial sale)

Second problem: The recipe I found uses lots of apple, but has a few flaws, starting with having more than a cup of sugar for a little 8x8-inch cake.
Solution: Make up a new recipe, changing everything except fat (maybe I'll change that next time) and leavener.

It occurred to me while creating this recipe for a baked item that my creative efforts in the kitchen usually tend toward cooking instead of baking. It's in cooking where I feel I can be more flexible, whereas I'm not as easily able to tweak a baking recipe and still get a good outcome. However, much as I liked the recipe I started out with for this dish, I knew that if I didn't change some things I'd find this coffee cake sickeningly sweet and sticky. I figured I'd feel bad about eating it instead of something with more fiber.  Also, I didn't have the nuts called for in the recipe for the topping. I had to buck up and believe that l wasn't making a huge mistake and making my friends eat it.

I'm very happy with the results of this experiment, as were the eaters at the potluck lunch to which I took the cake, straight out of the oven. It's moist enough to be great even without the side of coffee, it's at just the right level of sweetness, and I found another use for the almond flour waiting in my fridge for me to pay it some attention. I could probably get away with using less fat in the cake next time, perhaps even substituting some homemade applesauce.


Potluck Pleaser Apple Cake
at least 8 servings

Dry ingredients:
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup white whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon

Wet ingredients:
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup softened unsalted butter
1 beaten egg
2 cups finely chopped peeled apples

Topping ingredients:
1/3 cup sugar
2 Tbsp butter
handful of roasted salted almonds, chopped
1/3 cup almond flour (finely ground almonds)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease 8x8-inch baking pan. Mix dry ingredients in one bowl. Use another larger bowl to cream butter and sugar, then add egg. Mix dry ingredients into wet, then fold in apples. Spread batter into baking pan. Rub topping ingredients together until butter is well incorporated. Sprinkle topping over cake batter and bake 35 to 45 minutes until cake is baked through and topping is golden brown.

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Yup, I'm definitely not from around here

(repost from my other blog, http://hbevert.livejournal.com/)

This week's example: until this week, I didn't know what a Texas sheetcake is. I also don't know how it's different from a sheetcake when I'm talking to a customer at work who wants to make a special order of salads and cake for a party. My locally-raised co-worker insists that all sheetcakes are Texas sheetcakes, but I know that the sheetcakes on our price list are the kind I'm used to and not what the customer is describing. I tell the customer that I'll ask the baker to call her back the next day.

When I ask the baker, "so what's a Texas sheetcake anyway?" the next day, other co-workers filtering in and out of the kitchen during the conversation all indicate that for them, the Texas sheetcake is a family-gathering staple. I get this feeling everyone in Illinois and Indiana knows what this thing is except me, and they can't wait for the next time they'll eat it after this conversation. Clearly this is yet another Southern dish that didn't make it across the Cheddar Curtain (the border between Illinois and Wisconsin).

Here's a description for any of you readers who have never heard of Texas sheetcake either:
1. Texas sheetcake is very flat because it is made with a pretty runny cake batter.
2. This cake is usually a chocolate cake made with cocoa.
3. The frosting is a cooked frosting a la Red Velvet cake, but once again it is chocolate. (Yeah, I had no idea what Red Velvet cake tasted like or how to make it before I got here either, but I'd at least read about it.)
4. There are actually baking pans sold as "Texas sheetcake" pans. They are basically just a larger-surface-area jelly roll pan, perhaps slightly deeper.
5. Very important for a proper Texas sheetcake: spread on the frosting when the cake is straight out of the oven. It will melt all over and make the cake fudgey.

Illinois is a place where the northern smelt fry meets the southern cheesy grits, where the local tastes may vary in the same town on whether hockey puck-style or fluffy biscuits are the vehicle for the sausage gravy, where you have to ask whether the tea is "sweet" or "unsweet" because it could be either. Where we are just far enough south to grow peaches but just a little too far north to see many black-eyed peas. It's a place of regional food fence-sitting, where the sheetcake is from Texas, and the fried cheese curd is from Wisconsin.

I don't have to always feel like an out-of-sorts northern transplant who likes weird "foreign" foods. My Canadian-American co-worker and I can wax poetic about the joys of the Nanaimo bar or poutine. One of the owners grew up in Minnesota, so she knows what I mean when I talk about hotdish, krumkake and lefse. She brought me back some smoked trout from her trip to the North Shore of Lake Superior this summer. It's divine on an English muffin for breakfast. Reminds me of Fischbrötchen Andrew and I ate on the Baltic Sea shore on our honeymoon.

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Colorful winter potluck dish

This dish garnered many positive comments at a potluck today. The original recipe comes from the cookbook Local Flavors: Cooking and Eating from America's Farmer's Markets by Deborah Madison. Here, I have adjusted the amounts of just about everything to make the dish for a larger group.

Sweet Potatoes Braised in Cider

Also good for winter squashes, perhaps yams, and carrots

4 medium-sized sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into bite-sized chunks (prepared weight is about 3 pounds)
4 Tbsp unsalted butter (for vegan version, use vegan margarine)
1 Tbsp finely chopped fresh rosemary
2 c or more of apple cider, enough to nearly cover vegetables in pot
salt and pepper if desired (I used none)
apple cider vinegar to taste (optional, I also used none)

Melt butter in a large pot, cook the rosemary on medium heat about 3 minutes to flavor the butter. Toss the vegetables in the butter, add liquid until vegetables are nearly covered. Cover pot with lid and bring to a boil. Turn heat down and simmer 20 to 25 minutes until vegetables are tender. If the juices have not reduced to a glaze yet, uncover and boil quickly on high heat until liquid reduces. Season with salt, pepper, vinegar to taste.

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Cupcake party photos

For a friend's birthday, the theme was a cupcake contest. A wide variety of cupcakes showed up, from box mixes with packaged frosting to sweet and spicy to the winning display of artistically laid out cupcakes with props and dyed sugar/salt rims like margarita glasses (see below).

I didn't win the contest with the "Irish car bomb" cupcake, but I thought it was mighty delicious because it combined some of my favorite things: double chocolate with Guinness and whiskey. It received honorable mention from the birthday girl, our contest judge, for most chocolaty cupcake and best use of beer in baked goods.

For the recipe, see http://smittenkitchen.com/2009/01/car-bomb-cupcakes/
I didn't bother with making the extra Irish cream frosting because there was more than enough whiskey/chocolate filling to also frost the cupcakes.

And here's a shot of the chile/chocolate cupcakes -- which were my second-favorite and the ones that I most enjoyed taking home (mine were all gone at the end of the party) -- and the s'mores cupcakes, with broiled marshmallow topping.

The birthday girl was thrilled with the cupcake turnout for her birthday bash. I had a noticeable sugar rush after the initial tasting, a feeling that I put lower on the enjoyment scale than a rap on the knuckles with a ruler. But the company was fun and so was the contest.

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