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Regina Schrambling’s Mushroom Ragout

January 10, 2008

For the past week, I've been elbow-deep in flour and boiling potatoes and yeast (dried, instant, fresh, you name it), trying like mad to get this potato focaccia recipe figured out for you all. And you know what? I'm totally enjoying it. It's slow-going, yes, but it's fun, too. Plus, Ben seems to enjoy all the doughy, not-salty-enough, sunken-in-the-middle test specimens. Who knows. More on this later.

In the meantime, while we all wait for my oven to finally produce The Right Version of La Focaccia, I need to quickly tell you about this mushroom ragout I made last weekend that, literally, is good enough to eat from the pan with a spoon when no one's looking. (If you want to be a little more dignified, I'd suggest you boil some rice and spoon the ragout over it. While we're at it, you could also eat this over pasta, or pan-fried chicken paillards, over steak, or straight out of the pan.)

It's so simple that I almost feel silly writing about it, but it's so darn delicious that I just have to urge you to make it. You basically saute a bunch of wild mushrooms with a few aromatics, deglaze them with stock and wine, and give the whole dish some body with a nice dollop of creme fraiche. Yeah, yeah – see what I mean? Easy-peasy and deja-vu. Except is it? Have you made this lately? Get to it.

~~Russ (because of course it's his recipe)~~ Regina (sorry!) calls for wild mushrooms, but after getting slightly worked up about the state of even the standard Portobello caps at my local grocer (seriously, I'm thinking of lodging a formal complaint with the manager there about the piles of rotting vegetables I see on a regular basis – I mean, I don't want to be shrill, but come on. I should take pictures of the place and show them to you – it's appalling.), I marched off to the organic grocer and ended up with plain old champignons de Paris, little cremini (yes, I know they're the same thing), and shiitake mushrooms.

I also used less butter and less creme fraiche than the original recipe because it's January and I'm just not in the mood for gilding lilies. The dish turns out fabulously nevertheless – the mushrooms are each napped in a lovely little cloak of winey, brothy, herb-scented cream without being bogged down with fat, and their woodsy flavor shines right through.

And for those of you who can't get your hands on creme fraiche in the grocery store? Make your own instead of substituting sour cream or whatever else – creme fraiche has its own lovely flavor profile and reacts uniquely with heat, which is why cooking with it is such a pleasure. Plus, making your own is beyond easy. Here's what you do:

Pour 2 tablespoons of buttermilk and 2 cups heavy cream (do not use the ultra-pasteurized, additive-filled kind or this won't work) into a clean glass jar. Screw the lid shut and let stand at room temperature (between 65 and 75 degrees) for 8 to 24 hours, or until thickened. Stir and refrigerate at least 24 hours before using (this helps to continue thickening the cream). It will keep for about 2 weeks in the refrigerator.

Mushroom Ragout
Serves 4

1 1/2 pounds mixed mushrooms (I used white button, little cremini, and shiitake mushrooms)
2 tablespoons butter
2 leeks, white part only, thinly sliced (about 1 cup)
1/4 teaspoon coarse sea salt, plus more to taste
1 sprig fresh thyme
1 bay leaf
Pinch of cayenne pepper
1/4 cup dry white wine
1/2 cup stock (chicken or vegetable)
1/4 cup creme fraiche (plus a little more if desired)
Freshly ground black pepper to taste

1. Clean the mushrooms and cut them into chunks of roughly even size.

2. Melt the butter in a large shallow saucepan over medium heat. Add the leeks, sprinkle with salt and cook, stirring often, until softened, 5 to 8 minutes.

3. Add the mushrooms and stir to mix well. Add the thyme, bay leaf and cayenne pepper and mix well. Add the wine and cook, stirring, until the liquid is reduced to a glaze.

4. Add the stock and bring to a simmer. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the mushrooms are tender, about 15 minutes (cooking time will depend on variety and age of mushrooms).

5. Stir in the creme fraiche and heat through. (Add more if you want more liquid.) Taste and add more salt if needed. Season well with pepper and serve.
Marcella Hazan’s Rice and Smothered Cabbage Soup

January 7, 2008

More patience.

Less anxiety.

More seizing-the-day, more exploration, more adventure.

Less routine, less ruts.

Oh, and more vegetables.

* * *

New year, new resolutions. Every January rolls around and I feel mildly twitchy and on edge about any number of things I'm meant to be improving Right Now (the state of my cuticles, the number of times a week I find myself gyrating to a hopped-up 80's music in a class full of other Spandex-clad ladies, the amount of letters I hand-write to my acquaintances, and my determination to make this year the year I finally join a choir).

I try not to get too caught up in the clean slate, fresh page thing, but it's hard. After a month of excess – too many truffles from gift baskets at the office, too much alcohol from one too many holiday parties, too many heavy meals that mark each celebration at the end of the year – it seems a given that January become an ascetic month. Early-to-bed, early-to-rise, frequent visits to the gym, main-course meals made of nothing but plants, and wholesale rejection of anything sweet… oh, it's all so dour.

(Except that while I was in Brussels with my family, eating meal after meal of amazing vegetables (my Sicilian uncle, man, he has his sources – boiled broccoli rabe, braised artichokes (every day!) filled with seasoned breadcrumbs, tender slices of raw fennel, and spunky little puntarelle (which sparked a discussion about the various kinds of endive/chicory were best and things got a little heated, I won't lie, because people have their favorites and you can't go around impugning someone's favorite green, you really can't), just to name a few, I realized that, if vegetables are as delicious as the things I ate there, it's not exactly deprivation.)

(Swear to God and I hope that doesn't make me a total nerd.)

(Tragically, and somewhat predictably, the fare available to me at my local Key Foods, and (to be honest) even at the somewhat more upscale organic grocer in my neighborhood is a pale, pale comparison to the tasty shoots and leaves we ate in Europe. Everything there was sweeter, greener, more tender, more flavorful. Why? I don't know. It just was. And I promise it's not because someone else was cooking either.)

(Okay, enough of this.)

In Berlin last week, I appalled some friends by admitting that Ben and I routinely polish off an entire head of cabbage in one sitting. I was thinking, specifically, of Marco Canora's braised cabbage, but then the other night, fueled by Marcella Hazan's urging and my determination (my trousers, they are snug), I turned an entire head of Savoy cabbage into soup and – zing! – it was gone in a minute. Hey, presto! Think of it as my version of the cabbage soup diet. (Ba-da bing.)

It's so much richer, though, and delicious than it sounds. You shred cabbage and braise it within an inch of its life with a bit of vinegar (a Venetian treatment, this is). Then you take the whole lot of it (I know, it's rather wan. But so tasty!) and boil it with broth and rice into a soupy, sludgy stew. You beat butter and Parmesan into it, kind of like with risotto, let it sit for a few minutes and then you eat it.

It fulfills quite a few January requirements – some low, slow cooking; a goodly amount of vegetables and just a wee bit of fat; and has the stick-to-your-ribs quality that you simply need when the wind howls around the corners and your pipes threaten to freeze. It's not much to look at, that's true, but who said January was pretty, anyhow?

Rice and Smothered Cabbage Soup
Serves 2 if that's all you're having for dinner

Smothered Cabbage:

2 pounds Savoy cabbage
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon chopped garlic
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon wine vinegar

1. Detach and discard the first few outer leaves of the cabbage. Shred the remaining head of cabbage very fine, either with your food processor's shredding attachment or by hand. Be sure to remove the cabbage's inner core.

2. Put the onion and olive oil and a large saute pan and turn the heat to medium. Cook the onion, stirring, until it's softened and taken on some color. Then add the garlic. When the garlic has turned a pale gold, add the shredded cabbage. Turn the cabbage over 2 or 3 times to coat it well, and cook it until it has wilted.

3. Add salt, pepper, and the vinegar to the pan. Turn the cabbage over once, completely, then lower the heat to minimum and cover the pan tightly. Cook for at least 1 1/2 hours, or until it is very tender, stirring from time to time. Add 2 tablespoons of water, if needed, during the cooking if the cabbage becomes too dry. When done, taste and add salt and pepper to taste, if needed. Allow it to settle a few minutes off heat before serving.

Soup:

The smothered cabbage
3 cups homemade meat broth or 1 cup canned beef broth diluted with 2 cups of water or 1 1/2 bouillon cubes dissolved in 3 cups of water
2/3 cup Arborio rice
2 tablespoons butter
1/3 cup freshly grated Parmigiano
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper

1. Put the cabbage and broth into a soup pot, and turn on the heat to medium.

2. When the broth comes to a boil, add the rice. Cook, uncovered, adjusting the heat so that the soup bubbles at a slow but steady boil, stirring from time to time until the rice is done. It must be tender, but firm to the bite, and should take around 20 minutes. If while the rice is cooking, you find the soup becoming too thick dilute it with a ladleful of homemade broth or water. The soup should be on the dense-ish side when finished.

3. When the rice is done, before turning off the heat, stir in the butter and the grated cheese. Taste and correct for salt and pepper. Ladle the soup into individual plates and allow it to settle a few minutes before serving.
Riccardo Cosentino, 1909-2008

January 4, 2008

On Christmas, we talked about spending the holidays next year in Italy – in honor of my grandfather’s 100th birthday. But this morning Nonno died, two days before he turned 99.

Ben always talks about how lucky my grandfather was to have enjoyed many meals with four generations of his family at the table with him. I can’t – don’t want to – yet imagine our next meal in Urbino with his spot at the head of the table empty, but I know Ben is right. Nonno Riccardo was a lucky man.
New Year’s Digest

January 3, 2008

We flew back from our vacation today only to find frozen pipes in our wall (and then had to watch how two gaping holes were sledge-hammered into said wall by our kindly super), an unpleasantly loud carbon monoxide alarm, and air colder than it was in Berlin – which makes the airing out of a possibly carbon monoxide-filled apartment almost entirely impossible without freezing to death.

Ah, home – there’s nothing like it, is there?

So! A photo essay it shall be.

Tea the day before Christmas in Brussels. Well, tea and Champagne. It’s always the right time of day for Champagne, isn’t it? Especially when you get to have your tea and Champagne with Belgian gaufres, warm and yielding and studded with crunchy pearls of sugar.

The potato focaccia that is making the rounds in my family right now (a recipe soon, I promise). Roughly: you boil a potato, let it cool, then mash it into a fresh yeast-flour-olive oil dough. Let it rise, top with tomatoes, dried oregano, and that gorgeous salt and bake until browned and puffy. From Puglia to Modena to Brussels to Berlin – now it’s my turn to bring it to New York.

Then, because, as I was saying, you can never have too much Champagne, oysters and pink Champagne on Christmas Eve are very fine indeed.
They are even better when eaten in the company of family; family I have
not celebrated Christmas with since I was five years old. Taste-testing British oysters versus French ones with my cousin’s nine year-old daughter was even more fun.

Our friends in Berlin kept some of their Christmas dinner warm for us so we still got to eat some leftover goose and red cabbage when we got to Berlin a few days later. I think Father Christmas navigates his way through northern Europe by the scent of braising cabbage alone.

And then, be still my beating heart, Ben flew all the way to Berlin to surprise me – to walk through the cold city and visit with my friends and drink milky tea with me and my mother and celebrate the advent of the new year and keep me company when I said goodbye and flew back to New York again. How did I ever get so lucky? God only knows. Really.

Happy New Year, dear readers! May it be a healthy, happy, joyful 2008 for you. I cannot even wait for all the surprises that this year holds in store.
Karen DeMasco’s Cashew Brittle

December 18, 2007

It's been five days since I turned 30. It'll be four days until I leave for Brussels. Seven to Christmas, nine to when I get to Berlin, thirteen until 2008, and sixteen until I'm all the way back here again, sitting at my desk, waiting for Ben to come home. I've got a lot of numbers on my mind these days.

The end of December: it's artificial, in a way, but it really does feel like the end of something. You start, inevitably, looking back over the year, over everything that happened or didn't happen to you. But you've also got a fair dose of excitement in you for what lies ahead. Yeah, sure, when January 3rd rolls around and you've worked off your hangover and you're back in your daily routine and the sky feels somewhat oppressively gray, you might think January is just as stinky as any year, but right now you're still thinking that January is 2008! And 2008 is something new! A clean slate! A fresh start! And that's pretty nifty.

I didn't even realize how big 2007 was for me until the past few days. I got a new job, a challenging, interesting, fulfilling job; I moved in with Ben, discovering that one can indeed grow more love in one's heart for a person at the same time as wanting to throw that person's every last pair of sneakers left haphazardly around the house entirely out the window; I left Manhattan – my sacred space – for Queens, realizing only that I should have done the move sooner; and I turned 30, with no gray hairs and plenty of laughs in sight.

So I didn't make apple butter or chutney or homemade Christmas cookies as I swore up and down (again) that I would. That's okay. I'm totally fine with it. Part of me thinks it's because I'm 30 now and I am actively learning to Just Let Some Things Go, but the other part of me knows that's total bollocks. The real reason why it's okay? Is because I made cashew brittle instead.

Brittle is the world's easiest gift. It requires one trip to the store (for cashews and corn syrup, since I assume you've got the rest – sugar, baking soda, kosher salt, and unsalted butter- lying around), about half an hour of your time, perhaps some pretty bags for packaging, and That. Is. It. Cool, no? Very cool. Especially when you drop little bags of it, tagged nicely, off for people who think candy-making is very complicated and difficult indeed, and who, in addition, think brittle is the best thing to nibble on in the whole wide world. (They would be right, you know – about the second part, I mean.)

The recipe comes from pastry goddess, Karen Demasco of Craft and Craftbar fame (remember that chocolate cupcake I told you about ages and ages ago?) and seems absolutely foolproof. You need to be careful around boiling sugar, yes, but a calm head, oven mitts, and long-handled spoons will help. You don't need a candy thermometer and though she calls for cooking spray, I just buttered parchment paper to line the baking sheets and it was perfect.

The one thing I found tricky was calibrating the flame under the pot. Too low and you'll evaporate too much moisture off while waiting for the boiling sugar to caramelize. Too high and the molten sugar will boil over, leaving you with a disaster to clean up. But don't let this discourage you – I just want to give you a heads up that you'll want the flame at about medium high and if you feel like it's taking the sugar too long to get golden-brown (Karen says it should take around 10 minutes), then turn up the heat, keeping a careful eye on the bubbling mass and its proximity to the edge of the pot. Yes? Yes!

The brittle is delectable – buttery and crispy-crunchy and sweet-salty all at once. The cashews are rich and yielding – far better than peanuts in this incarnation – and the shiny brittle snaps pleasingly. Try to stretch the brittle with the forks (as directed below) as much as you can, because that results in a thin, refined brittle that fairly shatters under your teeth. Thick is fine, too – I doubt you'd kick chunky brittle this good out of your bed – but I find it somewhat less alluring. To each his own, I think. Or hers.

Best of all, you'll feel all the satisfaction of making your own edible presents and yet none of the stress that usually comes accompanies it. Which feels like a gift in and of itself. Wouldn't you agree?

Cashew Brittle
Makes 3.5 pounds

4 cups sugar
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
2/3 cup light corn syrup
1 1/4 cups water
1 teaspoon baking soda
3 tablespoons kosher salt
1 1/2 pounds salted, roasted cashews

1. Line two baking sheets with lightly buttered parchment paper or lightly coat the sheets with cooking spray. Do not use wax paper or plastic wrap.

2. Combine sugar, butter, corn syrup, and water in a large saucepan and stir together. Cook over moderately high heat, stirring occasionally, until the caramel turns a medium-golden color, about 10 minutes. Remove from the heat. Carefully whisk in the baking soda and then the salt. The mixture will rise and bubble. Using a wooden or metal spoon, stir in the nuts, then immediately pour the brittle onto the prepared cookie sheets, using the back of the spoon to spread the brittle out. Allow the brittle to cool for a few minutes, then, using the sides of two forks, pull and stretch the edges of the brittle to create a thinner candy, about 3/8-inch thick.

3. Once brittle is completely cool, break it into bite-sized pieces using the back of a knife or your hands. The brittle can be stored at room temperature, in an airtight container, for up to two weeks.
Amanda Hesser’s Beet Salad with Horseradish and Fried Capers

December 11, 2007

Close to six months of eating beets on a nigh-weekly basis will have you praising the heavens when the harvest season is over and you can finally go back to your supermarket ways, trolling the aisles for slim little green beans and heavy-stemmed broccoli, slinky sacks of frozen baby peas and the occasional lacy frond of kale. I love my CSA, I do, but its limitations are often evident; hard medicine to swallow for this seasonal evangelist. Still, relief from the never-ending supply of beets was much needed around here.

So it felt supremely odd, I tell you, to be in the grocery store the other day, picking out a nice little bundle of nothing other than beets. In fact, I'd say it felt much like a cosmic joke. Oh, bloggy blog, the things I do for you…

Truth is, I quite like beets, and miraculously, I've convinced Ben that they're pretty good things to eat, too. He used to think they tasted like sweat (his words, not mine), but not anymore. I take full credit for that, of course. Small victories must be celebrated, wouldn't you agree? But I've grown tired of my usual treatment (lots and lots of vinegar, a drizzle of olive oil, Maldon salt and perhaps some dried savory). And I've never really fallen in love with the whole toasted-walnut, slivered-blue-cheese-or-perhaps-feta thing that seems to be a staple now on so many restaurant menus. (I sort of wonder if beets get such a bad rap because of the things they're often combined with…but that's a discussion for another time.)

This recipe, which I plucked out of the pile back in 2004, offers a slightly different twist. You roast your beets, of course, and cut them into wedges, but then you dress them with a creamy dressing made of mustard, white-wine vinegar, horseradish, olive oil, and a little spoonful of sour cream. The dressing is, without the sour cream, quite something – an aggressive sauce that threatens to overpower the sweet little beet. But the sour cream rounds it out; gives the dressing some finesse – a calming hand, if you will. The beets, tossed in the stuff, turn an absolutely lurid shade of pink – no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get the real color to come through in the pictures. Trust me, it was downright silly.

But the flavor? Far from it. A Franco-Russian collaboration, if you will, by way of the Mediterranean: this dish simply sings. It's got spunk and elegance and textural depth. Those fried capers are fussy, yes, but they provide a welcome saline crunch against the silky, creamy beets. Between Ben and I, this dish that supposedly serves four was gone in an instant – nothing left but a hot pink smear.

****

I was stuck home yesterday, sick with a cold and a pernicious sore throat and a teeny case of self-pity, when I got word that I'd been nominated for a Food Blog Award for Best Writing. Readers, seriously? I'm just speechless. And thrilled. Red-faced with bliss, if you're wondering. If you'd like to vote for me, click on this link – you've got until the end of this Friday for your vote to be counted. Thank you!

Beet Salad with Horseradish and Fried Capers
Serves 4

1 1/2 pounds small beets, trimmed and scrubbed
1/4 cup olive oil, plus more for beets and frying capers
2 tablespoons salt-packed or brined capers
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 1/2 tablespoons horseradish, more to taste
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
1 tablespoon sour cream
Sea salt to taste
1 clove garlic, crushed (I'd do without this next time)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place beets on half of a large piece of aluminum foil. Drizzle with a tablespoon of olive oil. Fold the foil and seal the edges. Lay package on a baking sheet and place it in the oven. Roast until beets are tender, 45 to 60 minutes. (Test by poking a fork through the foil into a beet.) Remove from the oven. Be careful when opening the foil; steam will race out. While still warm, peel beets, then slice into wedges and place in a bowl.

2. Soak salt-packed capers for 10 minutes, drain, rinse, then pat dry. (If using brined capers, drain and pat dry.) Pour 1/2 inch olive oil into a small saucepan over medium-high heat. When oil is hot enough to toast a bread crumb in 30 seconds, add capers. Be careful; oil may sputter. Fry until capers fluff and begin to brown on edges, 30 to 60 seconds. Drain on paper towels.

3. In a small bowl, whisk together mustard, horseradish and vinegar. Whisk in 1/4 cup oil, followed by sour cream. Pour half the dressing over beets; mix. Taste, adding more dressing or salt, if needed. Rub a platter with crushed garlic, then spoon on beets and sprinkle with fried capers.
Amy Scattergood’s Bruleed Pumpkin Pie

December 4, 2007

Oooh, the frustration! It burns, it burns. Man! Here I was, absolutely inundated with beets, I mean, beets coming out of my ears, beets in the crisper, beets on the stove, beets in a Tupperware hidden in the office fridge, beets, beets, beets. My CSA had a glut of beets, you see. They actually called it the Year of the Beet. And so we ate a lot of beets. For most of September and October, we ate beets every time we had dinner at home. In November, I staged a little protest. I let those funky, rooty things hang out in the fridge for a while – our farmer told us the beets would store just fine in the crisper drawer and so I took her at her word. Bah. Tonight, I come home, armed with a new recipe for beets that was sure not only to taste delicious, but also be interesting enough to tell you all about (none of that toasted walnut/feta-or-is-it-blue-cheese/mint/been-there-done-that stuff), and furthermore, finally rid me of the last pound or two of beets ghosting about my fridge – and what happens? The beets went soft. Soft and wrinkly and totally grody-to-the-max, as my seven-year-old self would have told you. I stood in front of the fridge, stamped my foot, and threw the beets in the trash. So long, beets. 2007 is coming to a close anyway. May 2008 be the Year of the Something Else Entirely, please.

So, anyway, while I try to figure what else I can have for dinner tonight, I'll tell you about the pie I made for Thanksgiving. Yeah, yeah, I know – snooze. Who cares about Thanksgiving when there's Christmas to look forward to? (No roast goose for me this year as we're celebrating in Brussels – with oysters!) Well, some people, like the person I happen to share an apartment with, think that it's an abomination and a personal affront that pumpkin pie is associated with only one holiday a year. And you know, I actually tend to agree. Okay, so eating pumpkin pie would probably be strange in late June, when all you should be doing is eating soft, swollen, juicy fruit out of hand – but I don't really see why the third Thursday in November is the only Thursday in the year that really gets to own pumpkin pie.

And if you're making this pumpkin pie, the one that Amy Scattergood contributed to the LA Times's absolutely gorgeous Thanksgiving spread this year (color-coded – totally genius!), then I think you'll agree it could stand to be eaten on quite a few more Thursdays per year. And Fridays. And Saturdays, too.

First of all, the crust? A marvel. Amy credits it to Deborah Madison and I have to say it's absolutely wonderful. Faintly lemony and speckled with nutmeg, it's flaky as all get-out and a delight to eat.

Then the filling. First of all, you know that anything with Armagnac in it will turn out deliciously, don't you? You should. So that's a relief. Then, you can totally make this with canned pumpkin because that's, more relief, what the recipe calls for. (Though you should know, too, that it works out very well with freshly roasted and pureed pumpkin as well – which is what we, because we are apparently total over-achievers, did on Thanksgiving. Like there wasn't already enough stuff to do.) Thirdly, it has cardamom in it! Any pie (or bread or cookie or pudding, let's be frank) that has cardamom in it is destined to be a hit; it's simply written in the stars.

The only small (ish) problem is that you kind of have to plan ahead, like, make the pie the day before you're going to eat it, because it has to chill sufficiently before you can sprinkle sugar on top and brule it into glamly burnished perfection. We may roast our own squash for pie, but we do not plan ahead – at least not when we are at my father's house. But that's okay (yes! this pie rules), because if you are like us and can't make that happen, just add the final 1/4 cup of sugar, meant for the bruleed crust, to the filling and no one will ever know the difference. Your pie will be balanced and flavorful and delicious, with that softly yielding inside and that delicately crisp outside.

Oh, and one more thing: Do yourselves a favor when you make this, and be sure to have seconds. Because otherwise the pie will be gone in one fell swoop around the dinner table and there will be nothing – no cold slice in the morning for breakfast, or the next evening as a soothing dessert – left. But of course, that ends up making the very point I started with, that this pie shouldn't just be for that one night a year. So, buy two cans and plan ahead. Who cares that Thanksgiving's over? What are you doing this Thursday night?

Bruleed Pumpkin Pie
Serves 8

Pie crust
2 1/4 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1 tablespoon freshly grated nutmeg
1 tablespoon grated lemon zest
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) plus 2 tablespoons cold unsalted butter
1/2 teaspoon vinegar
1 egg, separated
Scant 1/2 cup ice water

1. Place the flour, salt, nutmeg and lemon zest in a food processor and pulse to combine. Cut the butter into 1-inch cubes and add the cubes to the flour, pulsing 4 to 6 times to break up the butter.

2. Combine the vinegar and egg yolk in a measuring cup and add enough ice water to bring the volume up to one-half cup. Add the liquid in a steady stream to the food processor, while pulsing, until the flour looks crumbly and damp, 25 to 30 pulses. The crumbs should adhere when you gather them together with your fingers.

3. Turn the dough out and divide into two equal pieces. Wrap each in plastic wrap and press into a disk; refrigerate for 30 minutes to 1 hour.

4. Roll out one piece into a 12-inch circle, one-eighth-inch thick. Trim the edges flush with the rim of a 9-inch pie pan, place the dough circle into the pan and gently press the bottom and sides to fit. Roll out the other piece to a one-eighth-inch thickness and cut leaf shapes out of it. The leaves can be cut using a leaf-shaped cutter, or by hand using a stencil (ours was 1 inch by 3 inches) and paring knife. Using the back of a dinner knife, press a pattern into each leaf: Press one crease down the center, and 5 or so on each side of the crease. Mix a little water into the reserved egg white and, using a pastry brush, brush a little of the mixture around the edge of the pie crust. Press the leaves around the edge of the crust, overlapping them slightly and using the wash to adhere them, then brush the assembled crust with the wash. Freeze the pie crust for at least several hours and up to overnight.

Pumpkin pie filling and assembly
1 (15-ounce) can pumpkin puree
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup milk
3 eggs
1 egg yolk
2 tablespoons Armagnac
1/3 cup light brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon white pepper
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/4 cup superfine sugar for bruleeing

1. Heat the oven to 450 degrees. In a mixing bowl, whisk together the pumpkin puree, cream, milk, eggs, egg yolk, Armagnac, light brown sugar, white pepper, cloves, cinnamon, allspice and cardamom until blended. Pour the mixture into the frozen pie shell and bake for 15 minutes, turning once for even browning. After 15 minutes, reduce heat to 350 degrees and continue to bake 25 to 30 minutes more, rotating again. Remove and let cool until room temperature. Chill overnight.

2. Just before serving, carefully fold strips of aluminum foil over the leaf-covered edges of the pie, being sure not to cover the custard. Scatter the superfine sugar evenly over the top of the pie and brulee under a hot broiler until the sugar caramelizes. (Or use a brulee torch if you have one.) Serve immediately.
Irene Kuo’s Stir-Fried Celery in Meat Sauce

November 27, 2007

I never met a vegetable I didn't like. Zucchini, with its sweet, creamy flesh; swiss chard, thick and papery to start, then soulfully silky to finish; kohlrabi, with its refreshing, vegetal snap; eggplant, spongy in one moment, melting the next. Green beans and Brussels sprouts, cauliflower and broccoletti, artichokes and spinach – I love them all, truly madly deeply.

But there is one little exception to the rule that I must confess doesn't exactly knock my socks off. In fact, I usually find it downright disappointing. Perhaps because my first encounters with it were when it appeared, chopped up fine, in alarmingly mushy tuna-fish sandwiches (the filling mashed down wetly into a hot dog bun, of all things), or as a stubby little vehicle for palate-gumming peanut butter at my elementary school cafeteria. When I learned to cook, the only time I ever came in contact with celery was in the base for meat sauce and I quickly learned that leaving it out rarely, if ever, harmed the sauce at all.

There's just something so strange and awkward about celery, isn't there? Its stalks flail about like a gangly boy's legs. I never seem able to finish a bunch of it before it goes all limp and wobbly in the fridge. And the taste, well, it's never been something I've craved. But after the spate of baking I did over the past few weeks and a run of days in which turkey, stuffing and more turkey featured largely in our daily meals, I took one look at my recipe clippings last night and plucked this one straight from the top.

If anyone could get me to like celery well enough to make it my entire meal, I figured, the Chinese could.

First, I had to wrestle my way through the thicket of celery lying on my counter. And you know what I found out? Peeling celery, folks, must be right up there with training fleas as one of the jobs I'd least like to have on this Earth. But I soldiered through, convinced that celery nirvana awaited me on the other side of that swiftly growing pile of slimy, stringy peels lying in my sink.

A quick plunge into the hot, oily depths of my frying pan softened up the celery before it got tossed with a smashed garlic clove, a smattering of minced ginger, ground pork, and the pungent combination of chili sauce and soy sauce (my nostrils are still smarting). I gave the pan a good toss (there is something so satisfying about lifting a pan off the stove and shaking it so hard that everything flies up in the air and neatly falls back down again, just where it should, isn't there?) and then put the lid on to steam the celery into submission. White rice cooked away, plainly, on the stove.

As I waited for the celery to finish, I stood back and contemplated my apartment. It smelled like a Chinese restaurant. That in theory is better than in real life, truth be told. A few minutes later, I turned off the heat and stirred toasted sesame oil into the panful of pork and celery, fragrant and spicy. Then I stabbed around in the pan with a fork and brought a forkful to my lips.

And holy God, was it ever salty. And spicy. But mostly salty. And actually a whole lot spicy. Salty, spicy, salty, spicy, help, help, help – oh wait, what about that white rice? Man, it was like a cooling balm, that good white starch. The first bowl I ate had me mostly in pain with all that spice and salt. But then I found myself hankering after a second bowl, which was tastier and calmer than the first. I have a feeling this stuff will really shine tomorrow, after an overnight rest. The celery was muted, tamed – its stringiness gone, but its assertive crunch still there and its bold, grassy flavor tempered by all that heat, oil, and salt.

I'm still not sure I'll ever really love celery, but this brought me a whole lot closer to liking it.

Stir-Fried Celery in Meat Sauce
Serves 3 to 4

1 large bunch celery
1 tablespoon soy sauce
2 tablespoons sriracha or other hot chili sauce
1 tablespoon dry sherry
¼ teaspoon sugar
¼ cup canola or peanut oil
¼ teaspoon salt
1 large clove garlic, peeled and lightly crushed
2 teaspoons minced ginger
¼ pound ground pork
½ cup chicken stock
1 teaspoon sesame oil

1. Using a peeler, remove the strings from the outer layer of the celery stalks. Trim the leaves, then slice the stalks into ¼ -by-1 ½ -inch sticks. (You should have about 4 cups.)

2. In a small bowl, combine the soy sauce, chili sauce, sherry and sugar.

3. Heat a wok or a large, heavy skillet fitted with a lid over high heat. Add 2 tablespoons of the oil. Add the celery and stir a few times; then add the salt and cook for 1 minute. Transfer the celery to a dish; clean and dry the wok.

4. Reheat the pan and add the remaining 2 tablespoons of oil. After about 30 seconds, add the garlic clove, flipping a few times; then add the ginger and the pork, stirring to break up the lumps. Stir in the soy-sauce mixture. Return the celery to the pan and toss. Add the chicken stock, cover and reduce the heat to medium-low. Steam to reduce the liquid, about 2 minutes.

5. Remove the lid, increase the heat to high and stir until the liquid has evaporated. Add the sesame oil and toss well. Discard the garlic clove.
Jeff Hertzberg’s Simple Crusty Bread

November 21, 2007

Yes, I know this recipe was just published this morning, and I know that you’re all plenty busy as it is with turkeys and pies and stuffing, and if you’re not cooking then you’re probably on your way out the door (we’re leaving in half an hour and I haven’t even packed yet), but I couldn’t exactly not post about this right away, could I? Come on, now.

If the response to Jim Lahey’s No-Knead Bread is any indication, then I feel like I’m practically contractually obligated to.

Almost exactly a year ago, The New York Times published that lovely no-knead recipe which had thousands of people baking deliciously flavorful, easy-as-pie, artisan bread in their own homes at last. The response to the recipe was phenomenal and well-deserved. The first no-knead loaf I made was devoured by two young men I know in less than an hour. The second no-knead loaf I made was devoured by a few young women I know in less than an hour. The third no-knead loaf I made…well, you get the picture. It was a big hit.

Today, The New York Times published a new recipe for "crusty", "flavorful" bread – perhaps almost an heir to the no-knead mania – that will, no doubt, have just as many people in a bread-baking frenzy as Mr. Lahey did.

Here’s the thing, though: This bread? The one published today? It’s not as good. It’s simply not. In fact, it’s not that great at all. There you have it. Oh sure, it’s fine, in the way that most homemade bread is, because it’s fresh and it’s homemade and your house smells pretty darn good while it’s baking. But compared to Jim Lahey’s No-Knead Bread? Well, there’s just no comparison.

The article accompanying Jeff Hertzberg’s recipe seemed to almost chastise (gently) No-Knead Bread for a few of its characteristics, like having such a long fermentation process (18 hours or more – of course, you don’t have to do much during that time, in fact, you can all but ignore the dough) and the need to bake the bread in a cast-iron pot. But the former, combined with the fact that No-Knead Bread starts with a tiny amount of yeast, is where the bread gets its wonderful flavor, and the latter is how the very wet dough is able to create its own little steamy environment, which is exactly how you end up with a gorgeously thin and shattery crust that lasts and lasts.

It’s true that Hertzberg’s recipe will give you your bread in a fraction of the time that it will take you to make the No-Knead Bread, but your loaves won’t have those appealingly craggy holes in the crumb or that indescribably delicious flavor. Because of the quick rise, Hertzberg’s bread tastes overly yeasty and somewhat two-dimensional. Almost a little bitter. The crumb looks good, but more generic. The crust is crisp when you first take the loaves out of the oven, but as they cool, the crust becomes softer, the crunch less assertive.

I made turkey sandwiches out of this bread – they’ll sustain us on our trip up to Boston today. And I’ll take another one of the loaves with us for breakfast toast over the next few days. The remaining dough I’m refrigerating to see if a little rest can’t coax a bit more flavor into it. But the next time I’ve got a hankering for homemade bread? I’m going back to the tried-and-true. No-Knead Bread it is.

Update: November 30, 2007

After eight days of rest in the fridge, I took the Tupperwared dough out last night, shaped it into a ball, let it come to room temperature and rest for about an hour and 20 minutes, and then baked it. The dough rose and browned beautifully in the oven, just like last time. This morning I sliced off a piece – the crumb looked nice, much like it does in the photo above – and toasted it very gently, just to a creamy buff color. Then I took a bite, plain, and found that it really didn’t taste much different from the first time around. It didn’t have that faintly bitter aroma anymore, but it was still yeasty as all get out and had this sort of odd, flat flavor – I can’t really put my finger on it. Spread with apple butter, it was a good breakfast, but I didn’t find the bread nirvana that I was so hoping for after a week in the fridge.

Simple Crusty Bread
Makes 3-4 loaves

1 1/2 tablespoons yeast (active-dry)
1 1/2 tablespoons kosher salt
6 1/2 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour, more for dusting dough
Cornmeal

1.
In a large bowl or plastic container, mix yeast and salt into 3 cups
lukewarm water (about 100 degrees). Stir in flour, mixing until there
are no dry patches. Dough will be loose. Cover, but not with an
airtight lid. Let dough rise at room temperature 2 hours (or up to 5
hours). Here’s what it will look like after rising.

2. Bake at this point or refrigerate, covered, for as
long as two weeks. When ready to bake, sprinkle a little flour on dough
and cut off a grapefruit-size piece with serrated knife. Turn dough in
hands to lightly stretch surface, creating a rounded top and a lumpy
bottom. Put dough on pizza peel sprinkled with cornmeal; let rest 40
minutes. Repeat with remaining dough or refrigerate it.

3. Place
broiler pan on bottom of oven. Place baking stone on middle rack and
turn oven to 450 degrees; heat stone at that temperature for 20
minutes.

4. Dust dough with flour, slash the top with serrated or
very sharp knife three times. Slide onto stone. Pour one cup hot water
into broiler pan and shut oven quickly to trap steam. Bake until well
browned, about 30 minutes. Cool completely.

Variation:
If not using stone, stretch rounded dough into oval and place in a
greased, nonstick loaf pan. Let rest 40 minutes if fresh, an extra hour
if refrigerated. Heat oven to 450 degrees for 5 minutes. Place pan on
middle rack.
Alice Medrich’s Whole-Wheat Sables

November 19, 2007

I made a bunch of cookies on Saturday afternoon, when it was cold outside and my oven and I were indulging in a little love affair. They were delicious, the cookies, all sandy and and buttery and wholesome and it was so calming, the process, making the simple dough and chilling it in a long, thin rope.

The small discs of dough turned golden brown in the heat of the oven, a frilly edge forming around the base of the cookies that crumbled deliciously under my fingers as I lifted the cookies off the sheet to cool. We ate them, dunked in tea, as we sat on the couch and at the desk in the waning daylight. Billie Holiday was on the radio and all I could think about was that the sound of her voice, on these cold, autumn days, just sounds so exactly right. You can't really listen to Billie in the summer, not with the same melancholy longing that you get when it's slowly growing dark outside and Manhattan glows coolly, gently on the horizon.

You might think that adding whole wheat flour to a regular little butter cookie might toughen it a bit, or make it too grainy, but I promise that it doesn't. In fact, you barely notice that these cookies are different – they're as delicious as their classic cousins. I chopped up a handful of lackluster dried dates to add to the dough, but I wouldn't do that again (they get too hard and chewy, lodging unpleasantly in your teeth) – do as Alice Medrich says and add cocoa nibs or toasted hazelnuts, chopped, of course. In fact, I imagine you could even add a little shower of chopped bittersweet chocolate and produce an elegant, Gallic version of the chocolate chip cookie.

With Thanksgiving around the corner, one could mistakenly think that cookies aren't exactly what the doctor ordered, but I've got to pipe up here and nudge you, delicately, because it's often exactly these kind of days that require a simple cookie and a hot cup of tea to bolster you. You could be stuck in traffic or stranded at an airport on the way to where you'll be celebrating: a couple of these cookies might make you feel a little less helpless. If you're hosting the feast this year, and you're suddenly overwhelmed by the kitchen prep that awaits you, a sable or two could make you stand up straight again, suddenly sure of your menu. And if you're just making a side dish or two and bringing them to a potluck, well, then you've already got the oven going – is it really that much more work to pop a few of these in the oven? Go on, go ahead. You'll be happy you did.

Whole-Wheat Sables
Makes 3 1/2 dozen cookies

1 cup (4.5 ounces) flour
Scant 1 cup (4 ounces) whole wheat flour
1/2 pound (2 sticks) butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/4 cup cacao nibs or chopped toasted hazelnuts

1. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour and whole wheat flour and set aside.

2. In another medium bowl, using the back of a large spoon or with an electric mixer, beat the butter with the sugar, salt and vanilla until smooth and creamy but not fluffy, about 1 minute. Add the cacao nibs and mix to incorporate. Add the flour and mix just until incorporated. Scrape the dough into a mass and, if necessary, knead with your hands a bit, just until smooth.

3. Form the dough into a 12-by-2-inch log. Wrap the log tightly in plastic wrap; refrigerate for at least 2 hours, or preferably overnight.

4. Position the oven racks in the upper and lower third of the oven and heat the oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.

5. Using a sharp knife, cut the cold dough log into one-fourth-inch slices. Place the cookies at least 1 1/2 inches apart on the baking sheets. Bake until the cookies are light golden brown at the edges, 12 to 16 minutes, rotating the baking sheets from top to bottom and front to back halfway through baking. Allow the cookies to rest on the sheets about 1 minute to firm up, then transfer them to a rack using a metal spatula. Let them cool completely. Store the cookies in an airtight container.

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