Lemon Ginger Shortbread with Hazelnut “Crust”

Posted on February 10, 2013 by Chelsea

Inspired by numerous sources, but mostly the deep golden orbs on my backyard lemon tree and a winter-blues-banishing post from Hannah at Inherit the Spoon, this post had to be about shortbread. This is a cookie of the most basic sort, crisp and sandy, with only the three essentials: flour, butter, and sugar. No leavening to worry about, no eggs to tussle with (incidentally, do you know how hard it is to crack eggs without making a mess when you’ve sliced the tip of your thumb and it’s therefore awkwardly bandaged?), just the base, the sweetener, and the fat.

These are, as Ruhlman points out in Ratio, an “adult” sort of cookie. Dry, unadorned, plain, but equally ideal for a dunk in tea or chocolate ganache, and amenable to all sorts of attempts to “play dress-up,” which makes them not just easy and tasty, but suitable for kids-at-heart.

Recently I’ve become obsessed with the combination of lemon and ginger. Hannah’s citrus shortbread and my tree with its laboring, weighty boughs all but begged me to try this combination. When a quick web search turned up only recipes featuring one or the other, I knew I had to insist on their marriage in my version.

Then insanity struck. I got the ridiculous notion that I wanted to create a hazelnut “crust” for these cookies. Yes, that’s right, I decided to add a crust to a cookie that is commonly used itself as a crust. I’m not sure where this idea came from, although if I must place blame it’s going to be on my sister, who commented at Thanksgiving that I should pursue the lemon-ginger-hazelnut flavor combo because it sounded so outstanding. So really, R., these are for you.

I scoured multiple recipes to put this dough together, checking the likes of Martha Stewart, Ina Garten, Paula Deen (who I was surprised doesn’t have more sweet versions), and of course Deb Perelman. But with the exception of a few technique ideas, I came back to Ruhlman’s basic 1-2-3 cookie dough as my backbone (1 part sugar, 2 parts fat, 3 parts flour).

The butter, I decided, needed to be browned (another recent obsession). This would add depth and nuttiness in case the crazy hazelnut idea didn’t work out. The ginger would be candied and minced into a sticky pile, and the lemon would be zested into mild spritzy confetti. This made for a dough that, while delicious, was perhaps not the easiest to work with – I refrigerated it too long and was then impatient to roll it out, so there were cracks. I rolled it quite thin, which made the cracking worse, and created a painfully delicate cookie. The chunks of ginger, too sticky to mince very finely, stood up like carbuncles through the buttery dough and made slicing difficult.

The hazelnuts I pulverized in the food processor with some ground ginger (in case the candied chunks didn’t come through) and a healthy sprinkling of turbinado sugar. Faced with a bread board of delicate cookies on one side and a pie plate full of hazelnut crumbs on the other, I almost opted to forget the whole “crust” idea altogether, but I’m glad I didn’t. You can transfer crumbs to cookie in a number of ways, including pressing the cookie into the crumbs, which I don’t recommend (they adhere only reluctantly and the raw dough tends to break), or mounding crumbs on top of the cookies and pressing them in with a rolling pin, which I do recommend. Then you can gently lift the cookie and flip it quickly and firmly onto a parchment lined baking sheet so the hazelnut layer is on the bottom. The crumbs will try to scatter. Don’t let them! Press the cookie down lightly but firmly back into the crumbs, and they will adhere as they bake.

When they came out of the oven, they were too soft to move. They needed a good five minutes alone on their baking sheet, undisturbed, to cool and crisp. But once crisp, they were perfectly sandy and satisfying, tasting of – I can’t think of a better description – powdered butter. At first I couldn’t detect the ginger or lemon, aside from the now chewy bits of candy distributed through the dough, but a day later, and then two days later, the more delicate flavors started to shine past the overwhelming richness of the brown butter. The hazelnuts, with their earthy crunch, were perfect the whole time. You could probably mix the nut crumbs in with the rest of the ingredients and save yourself a bit of time and frustration, but I loved the way they looked as a crisp layer on the bottom. Cookies with their own crust. Glorious. My sister got to taste them during an unexpected visit, and pronounced them delicious. The lemon-ginger-hazelnut trifecta is a triumph. And the leftover ginger-spiked hazelnut crumbs make an excellent topping for oatmeal.

Lemon Ginger Shortbread with Hazelnut “Crust”

8 oz. butter (1 cup, or 2 sticks)

4 oz. sugar (1/2 cup + 1 TB)

12 oz. flour (2 – 2½ cups)

½ cup chopped candied ginger

Rind from 1 lemon, finely chopped (some pith is okay) (about ¼ cup)

1 cup hazelnuts

1 TB ground ginger

2 TB raw sugar, like turbinado or demerrara

Melt the butter in a small saucepan, swirling gently on occasion, over medium to medium-low heat. Once melted, the butter will foam up, then clear slightly, and then the magic: the solids will sink to the bottom of the pan and begin to brown slightly. At this point, turn off the heat. You want this beautiful browning, but you don’t want those solids to burn. There is only a small window between browning and burning, so watch carefully as the butter reaches this stage.

Pour the melted butter and browned bits (which you may have to scrape off the bottom of the pan) into the bowl you will use to make the cookies. I used my stand mixer bowl. Stow it in the fridge for 10-15 minutes, or until the butter gets sludgy.

When the butter has solidified a bit, pull it back out and add the sugar, then cream (or goo) well until everything is incorporated and has become a beautiful flecked mixture the rough consistency of frosting.

Add the flour and mix until crumbly.

Add the lemon zest and the ginger and mix again. First the dough will become large crumbs, then come together into something more like wet sand. This takes a minute or two. If it isn’t coming together right away, don’t worry. The wet sugar and butter mixture needs some time to moisten the flour.

Once the dough is the consistency of wet, packable sand, dump it out of the bowl onto a sheet of plastic wrap. Using the plastic wrap to help you, shape the dough into a rectangle of 5×8 inches or so, wrap up securely, and refrigerate for about 30 minutes.

While the dough chills, pulverize the hazelnuts, ground ginger, and raw sugar crystals in a food processor (or chop finely with a sharp knife) until some of the hazelnuts are reduced to powder and some remain in very small bits. Don’t overprocess – you don’t want this to turn into nut butter. Stop before it becomes moist.

When your dough has had a chance to chill, unwrap it onto a floured board and roll or press out to about ¼ inch thick. This takes a bit of patience, especially if you, like me, let it chill for too long and try to roll it out before it’s ready. Cold rolling results in cracking. Just relax, let the dough warm up a tiny bit, and roll gently with a floured rolling pin, patching cracks as you go. This would also be a good time to preheat your oven to 350F.

Once you’ve achieved even thickness (minus the odd tall chunk of ginger), use a pizza cutter to trim off uneven edges, and slice the remaining rectangle into smaller rectangles the size of your choosing. Mine were probably about 1×3 inches, which seemed like a nice sized cookie.

Now it’s time to add the hazelnut crust. As noted above, you can do this in a number of ways. You can, if you wish, lift the cookies, place them into a dish of crumbs, and press down, hoping for adherence without breaking the cookie itself. This method requires almost excruciating gentleness. You can also press handfuls of the hazelnut crumbs down on top of the cookies on the board, applying firm but gentle pressure, and then lift the cookies one at a time and invert them onto a parchment lined baking sheet. As you flip, some of the hazelnut crumbs will loosen. That’s okay. Just get your cookie settled on the baking sheet and then press down again gently but firmly to re-stick the crumbs. They will adhere better as they bake.

Once you have a full baking sheet (mine each fit 15-18 cookies in various arrangements), pierce the cookies gently with a fork to achieve that pricked look so popular in shortbread, and bake for 18 minutes. The cookies will become lightly golden all over, and the hazelnut crumbs will darken and get a bit toasty.

At 18 minutes, take them out of the oven, set the baking sheet on a cooking rack, and walk away. The cookies need 4-5 minutes to set before you try to move them. They are much too soft at their moment of emergence to transport intact. As they cool, they will deflate and crisp up a bit, and you can move them to a cooling rack or a marble countertop or surface of your choice.

You can certainly eat these warm, but I liked them better completely cooled. In fact, I liked them better the next day, once the flavors had melded and developed.

Stored in an airtight container, these keep deliciously for over a week. They even, wrapped carefully, stay crisp and fresh through the mail.

This recipe probably made about 3 dozen cookies, and could have made more if I had eaten less of the dough scraps. I, alas, didn’t make a count before I started sampling, which is always a tasty, tasty mistake.

Rolling in Dough

Posted on January 6, 2013 by Chelsea

Okay, 2013, here we go.

This year, I have a few changes to announce. First, you may have noticed that we’re at a new address. Update your bookmarks, if I’m lucky enough to be there, to http://blackberryeating.com. As I understand it, the old address will still work, it will just redirect you here. As I mentioned a few days ago, I’ve been wanted to upgrade to an address that makes more sense for what I’m doing here. Blackberries, their mystery and decadence, remind me of all that is good about food: what is sweet, what is juicy, what is challenging, what is delicate, what is persnickety and strong. The Galway Kinnell poem from which the title of this blog is taken celebrates juxtaposition and excess, likens these jeweled fruits to words and the consumption of those fruits to the search for meaning and significance. This is a little piece of significance for me – this collection of words thrust with crossed fingers and squinted eyes out across the internet – and so I wanted to make it more connected, more applicable, but really, more mine.

Who ever thought so much consideration could go into a new address?

With the Bittman project over and a new address settled, it’s time to submerge myself in a new challenge. As you know if you’ve been reading for a while, dough – particularly pie dough and yeasted dough – is one of my big fears. What if it doesn’t rise? What if it crumbles apart? What if it tears or burns or collapses or comes out tough or doesn’t bake right? What if it’s (gasp) imperfect?

I decided I need to get over this.

This year, each week, I will make something out of dough. It might be pie crust. It might be cookies. It might be pizza or foccaccia or flatbread. It might, as terrifying as this is to me, be a real, honest-to-goodness loaf of bread, bloomed and kneaded, baked until crusty in a loaf pan. I have a crazy notion that I want homemade bagels. I have a yen to make doughnuts, and not just cake doughnuts, but the beautiful puff and chewy crumb of a good yeasted twist.

I don’t – and this is important to note – promise absolute success. You’re going to see what crumbles along the way. You’re going to see the scraps and scrapes and disasters I produce. I think this is an important part of learning, and that’s part of what this blog is for me.

I have a few guides in this project, one hoped for and long awaited, one unexpected but delightful. From my in-laws, I received Michael Ruhlman’s genius book Ratio. This isn’t a cookbook. It’s more than that. It’s more exciting, it’s more foundational, and ultimately, I think, it’s more useful. It doesn’t tell you how to make cherry pie, it tells you the essential equation of pie dough. Three parts flour, two parts fat, one part water. That will always equal pie dough. Suddenly, you can use any kind of flour – more than one kind, if you want. You can use lard instead of butter. You can make one pie or you can make thirty-five pies, and you don’t have to think as hard about multiplying or adding or fractioning. You have a ratio, and it is always going to work.

That’s the theory. And I believe it, but I haven’t tried it out just yet.

From my parents, I received a bread machine. I’ve never used a bread machine before, and while my immediate thought is that to really master dough, I will also have to make it by hand so I understand the kneading and the cycles of rising, and so I will come to know the feeling of the right kind of stretch and the windowpane test and the knowledge beneath my fingers that yes, this is bread, having a machine help me along the way is going to be nice. The idea of dumping, in pajamas at 10pm, a series of ingredients into a pan, plugging in a machine, and telling it I want a fresh, hot loaf of bread at 7am, delights and astounds me. I want to understand, but I also want the magic.

So that’s the plan. If all goes well, it will mean more of this:

It will certainly mean more of this:

It may even mean some of this:

I don’t expect it will mean all dough, all the time, just as the past two years were not exclusively Bittman concoctions. If something amazing comes along that doesn’t involve flour or eggs or butter, I will still report on it. But the goal this year – the resolution, if you will – is to conquer this dough thing. I want to have conversations with you about it. I want your feedback and advice and experiences. And I hope you enjoy.

Happy New Year!

Posted on January 1, 2013 by Chelsea

Oh friends, it happened. I made it. Yesterday I made the last two Bittmans on my list and completed, albeit a year later than I’d originally intended, my project. I have reflections to share, certainly, and I have changes and excitement and promises for the new year, but first, I think, let’s work with the program. Two Bittmans. Two reports:

“14. Steam or poach 2 cups of pumpkin cubes until tender. Meanwhile, sauté 1 cup sliced shiitake mushroom caps in vegetable oil with a few drops of sesame oil. Boil 4 cups water and whisk some of it with ⅓ to ½ cup of miso. Stir miso mixture, pumpkin and mushrooms into water and heat everything through, then serve, drizzled with more sesame oil.”

Because we were planning to reach midnight by ~~eating as many snacks as possible~~ ~~eating our way to midnight~~ snacking, I wanted a light dinner to precede the countdown. This seemed to fit the bill. And it had to, after all, since it was the only soup left and the calendar was screaming December 31^st.

2 cups peeled, cubed butternut squash (I had some in the fridge, and suspected pumpkin would be hard to find)

1 1 oz. package dried shiitake mushrooms

1 TB vegetable oil

¼ tsp (or to taste) toasted sesame oil, plus some for drizzling

3 packets instant tofu miso soup mix (all I could find at my grocery store)

water

white wine

To reconstitute my shiitake mushrooms, I soaked them in a mixture of white wine and almost boiling water for 15-20 minutes, until they were plump and soft.

While the mushrooms soaked, I cubed up my butternut squash and submerged the pieces in a pan of salted water. I brought this to a bare simmer and cooked it just until the squash pieces were tender – 10-15 minutes – then drained the pieces in a colander. Don’t overcook them, because they will start to fall apart. Set the squash pieces aside.

When the mushrooms were tender, I scooped them out of their bath and decided the remnants shouldn’t go to waste. I poured the soaking broth into a little pot to bring to a boil, so I could use this already flavored liquid as the base for my soup. While it heated, I stemmed and sliced the mushrooms.

Since the shiitakes were now basically cooked, I probably could have skipped Bittman’s sautéing step. But honestly, I’m not one to pass up the opportunity to ingest sesame oil, so I dutifully dribbled vegetable oil with a few (or a few more than a few) drops of sesame oil in the (drained and dried) pan I’d used to simmer my squash and sautéed the mushroom slices over medium heat until they dried out a bit and started to take on some color.

While this colorization happened, slowly and so aromatically, I made the broth. I poured all three miso soup seasoning packets – tofu and seaweed and all – into a small dish, then mixed in about ½ cup of my heated mushroom soaking liquid and whisked gently to dissolve the powdery soup mix. This created a slightly thickened slurry, which I poured with the rest of the liquid and the butternut squash cubes into the mushroom pan.

After a few moments of reheating, we dipped up bowlfuls and ate.

N. wasn’t sure (he sometimes takes issue with the texture of reconstituted mushrooms), but I inhaled it with devotion. I love the flavor of miso soup, and the mild sweetness of butternut squash against the salty umami and fleshy squish of the mushrooms was lovely.

It was light but still satisfying, and the tofu and vegetables from the soup mix were so welcome that I’d advise you, if you are using straight miso rather than a pre-mixed, additive laden packet, to consider adding some tofu or seaweed or green onion just to contribute a little substance and contrast to the soup.

Dinner done, we moved on to the second stage of the evening.

“89. Vegetable crackers: Slice beets, sweet potatoes, plantains or parsnips or all of the above into 1/8-inch disks (a mandoline is helpful) and toss lightly in olive oil. Spread the slices on baking sheets, sprinkle with salt, pepper and, if you like, other seasonings and bake at 400 degrees for 10 to 12 minutes. When browned, flip the chips over and bake for another 10 minutes or so.”

This sounded tasty, and I’d always intended to make it for a party. With a dear friend coming over to ring in the new year with us, and since hunks of cheese alone might be deemed a slightly imbalanced offering (though so, so delicious…), this seemed like a perfect opportunity. Beets were out of the question (N.’s nemeses since childhood), and I couldn’t find plantains in my grocery store’s produce section, so we were left with the nutty herbiness of parsnips and the always dependable earthy sweetness of sweet potato.

3 medium parsnips, peeled

½ large sweet potato, peeled

generous dose of olive oil (maybe ¼ cup?), plus more to grease the cookie sheets

1 tsp each (or to taste) salt, pepper, and garam masala

To prepare for roasting, preheat the oven to 400F and line two cookie sheets with aluminum foil. Drizzle with olive oil and spread to cover the surface of the foil evenly.

While the oven preheats, tackle the vegetables. I don’t have a mandoline, but I do have a ruler, and I must confess I did bring it to the kitchen to give myself a better idea of what 1/8 inch looks like. My slices were not quite even, but they did verge on passable. I tossed them – big coins of harvest orange and speckled white – in a glass bowl with the olive oil and the spices until they were evenly coated.

Spread the vegetable coins across the cookie sheets in a single layer, not overlapping, not in piles. If they cook in a stack, they will soften but not brown or crisp. Stow them in the oven for 12-15 minutes, or until they are just beginning to brown.

This next step is a true exercise in patience. Unless you are far more talented with a spatula than I, you will have to flip each piece over individually. You have to, because otherwise one side will burn and the other side will flutter limply into cooked-but-not-crisp status. Trust me on this one. When you have laboriously flipped each coin, shove the tray back into the oven for another 10-12 minutes.

At this point, you’ll have to use your judgment. My offerings were, after this additional time, cooked through but not remotely cracker-like in texture. Another five minutes in the oven might have done the trick. Putting them back in, failing to set a timer, and heading to the couch to eat dinner (I was trying to multitask) is not advisable. I didn’t remember them until I smelled the slightly spicy aroma of parsnips, and by then it was too late – many of the little coins had gone from crackers to briquets.

I decided to pick out the worst offenders – Lucy reports that she didn’t mind a bit of charred flavor – and eat the salvageable ones anyway.

To make them a bit more exciting (and disguise any lingering burned taste) I made a little dipping sauce. You’ll need:

juice from 1 lime

2 TB honey

1 tsp garam masala

½ – 1 cup Greek yogurt

Whisk the first three ingredients together with a fork until they are smooth. In increments, add Greek yogurt until your sauce reaches the desired thickness. Mine was about the consistency of ranch dressing, but much more interesting in flavor.

These crackers (with and without the sauce) were – if you were able to overlook the overcooking – a nice alternative to crudites or store-bought crackers. They weren’t quite as crispy (except the ones that were too crispy), but they had a lovely deep flavor and none of the powdery, processed taste some crackers can have. They are also a gluten-free offering and, minus the yogurt and honey sauce, vegan as well.

I served them alongside a cheese platter,

Joy the Baker’s chili spiced sharp cheddar cheese crackers,

assorted sweets,

and my appetizer version of Bittman’s “Marshmallow Topping for Adults” dish: thick discs of sweet potato roasted until tender, topped with a dollop of cream cheese and sprinkled with a pecan brown sugar blend before being broiled until the sugar bubbles and the cheese slackens toward melting.

And champagne, of course.

Happy New Year. I hope you celebrate your achievements, meet your goals, and find happiness in your own self. I’ll be checking in again later this week with some reflections and announcements. Welcome to 2013.

Truffling

Posted on December 23, 2012 by Chelsea

At our house, a box of See’s chocolates was standard holiday fare. They were special – the white box, the ruffled, rustling brown wraps that made it all but impossible to sneak a selection without someone overhearing – and all too quickly gone. But they were special for good and for bad reasons. As Forrest Gump so wisely told us, you never knew what you were going to get. It might be a luscious square of soft, fudgy dark chocolate studded with walnuts, or it might be the dreaded maple nougat. My cousin J. loves caramel, and when she was little she developed a surefire way to determine which mysterious See’s square to choose: bite the bottoms off, and if you don’t like the filling inside, put it back in the box. No one could see the intrusion, at least not until that piece was selected again.

For the past few years, I’ve made truffles for my officemates at the end of the term. Squares of ganache flavored with fruits, nuts, and liqueurs, robed lovingly in melted chocolate and stuffed carefully into pretty little boxes make excellent, always well-received holiday gifts. I’ve experimented with ginger, apricots, amaretto, peppermint, almond butter, dark, white, and bittersweet chocolate. To my delight, Bittman has a truffle (or at least a truffle-like) recipe among his 101. With no officemates to share with this year, I decided to make a selection of truffles for my husband to give his department at his school.

I went a little overboard.

“Cranberry Truffles: Heat ½ cup simple syrup and ½ cup bourbon or water; add 2 cups dried cranberries and steep until soft, 10 to 15 minutes. Drain, reserving the liquid. Pulse the fruit in a food processor, adding just enough liquid so the mixture comes together. Roll spoonfuls of the cranberry filling into balls, then roll them in cocoa, mixed with pulverized nuts if you like.”

This sounded decadent and very adult – an excellent addition to truffle flavor combinations I was planning like Chambord with dried raspberries and Grand Marnier with candied orange peel. I used:

½ cup bourbon (I used Knob Creek)

½ cup simple syrup (I had some ginger syrup kicking around, so why not?)

2 cups dried cranberries (use reduced sugar, if you can find them)

½ cup cocoa powder

½ cup hazelnuts (optional)

I was pleased to find reduced sugar Craisins to use here – the bourbon has its own kind of sweetness, and the ginger syrup I was using instead of a simple syrup was tooth-twingingly sweet. I heated the liquids together in a small pot over medium heat until they came to the barest simmer.

As Bittman directs, I steeped the Craisins in the bourbon and syrup for fifteen minutes or so. I wasn’t sure what temperature “steeping” actually is, so I decided on a barely bubbling simmer. The syrup seeped into the cranberries, giving them a slightly fleshy texture. The bourbon wafted headily through my kitchen, making me think 10am might have been on the early side to take on this project so clearly meant for a Friday evening.

Fifteen minutes of simmering down, and I dumped my swelling craisins into a strainer over a pot to catch the liquid. Don’t lose all the liquid; you’re going to need a tablespoon or two of it later. Let the craisins drain and cool for at least ten or fifteen minutes. While they cooled, I put half a cup of hazelnuts in my food processor and let it rip until they were almost all pulverized into a powder.

When they were cool and had (emitted) plenty of bourbon infused syrup, I moved the craisins to the clean-scraped food processor and let it run. The little ruby jewels came together into a whirring relish of red, and as the bits began to clump in the bowl of my food processor, I added a tablespoon of the bourbon syrup, and then another. The cranberry bits now clung stickily together and I decided they were stable enough to scoop.

I mixed my powdered hazelnuts with cocoa powder in a shallow bowl, then laid out a piece of wax paper for the finished balls. I spooned out rounds slightly smaller than ping-pong balls and rolled them gently in the nut and cocoa mixture, then set them gently on the wax paper to set or firm up or whatever it was they were going to decide to do.

When I let myself taste one (I waited until after lunch, out of respect for the bourbon), I was glad to have waited. These, folks, are strong. They are utterly delicious, but extremely intense. The cranberries absorb all the flavor and warmth and musty floral overtones of the alcohol, and the cocoa adds just the right hint of matte bitterness to combat the sweetness and tartness of the cranberries. I set them gently in mini cupcake wrappers.

Once completed, the bourbon balls joined the rest of the bejeweled collection, which consisted of:

Apricot and almond bits in white chocolate, spiked with amaretto and then dipped in dark chocolate.

Bittersweet ganache with orange liqueur, threaded with candied orange peel, dunked in white chocolate and garnished with a piece of sugared rind.

Dark chocolate with candied ginger and ginger syrup, dressed with semi-sweet chocolate and topped with a piece of ginger.

Chocolate ganache flavored with chambord and studded with freeze dried raspberries, which contributed a really intriguing crunchy intensity.

Crunchy flaxseed and almond butter cups, topped with a sprinkle of sea salt.

Happy Holidays!

Cold Comfort

Posted on December 18, 2012 by Chelsea

Tragedy, when it strikes, whether it be national and sweeping or personal and held tight against you – and I have experienced both this week – plunges you into strangeness. There is shock, there is disbelief, there are weighty moments of contemplation, there is knowledge of helplessness. There is the feeling of being alone.

When I feel the chill and the incomprehensible wounding of tragedy, I want my belly full of warmth and familiarity and comfort. And while it may seem trivial or even juvenile to want to write about food in the aftermath of gut-twisting pain, I think there is an important connection to be made. As Shauna said shortly after Hurricane Sandy, one of the ways food is important is that it brings us together. Her post moved me deeply, and made me feel that it’s not trivial or disrespectful to feel the need to talk about humble little food in the aftermath of disaster. The loneliness and helplessness of pain can be beaten back by community. When we come together, we are able to offer one another comfort, even if it is slight, and the metaphorical warmth of our togetherness can often eclipse physical heat. Food bridges that gap. It offers a physical warming, yes, in that it nurtures us and fills us and helps us carry on as individuals. But it also links us – we eat together, we break bread, and in eating together we share ourselves with each other in meaningful ways, even if we didn’t realize that sharing took place. It binds us in communities, however small, and having fellows in a bad situation, whether they are fellow mourners or whether they are comforters and supporters, gives us the opportunity for light and warmth, if we are able to feel that connection.

So when I talk about food today, I want to talk about food that warms us. I want the fullness of soup and the richness of dessert. I want the clinking of spoons and the sprinkling of spice that stabilizes and relaxes and envelopes us. I want us to be able to feel the warmth of love which, to me, is most easily expressed through a transfer of food: if I feed you, it’s a good bet I care about you. It’s a small thing, and you may think it’s a silly thing or an unimportant thing, but it is perhaps the only thing I can do in this moment to reach across the feeling-less blips of the net-scape and offer you warmth. But I mean it. Take this warmth.

“95. Indian Pudding: Combine 3 cups of milk and 1/3 cup of cornmeal in a saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a simmer; stir in 1/3 cup of molasses, 1 tablespoon sugar, ¼ teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon ginger and ½ teaspoon cinnamon and simmer, stirring occasionally, until thick. Add 1 tablespoon of butter and stir until melted. Pour pudding into buttered baking dish and bake at 300 degrees for about 2 hours, uncovered, until golden brown and set in the middle. Serve with ice cream or whipped cream.

Stirred sternly, this mixture took on the texture and the color of pumpkin pie filling. It began to spit and burble like a pot of grits (which, in a somewhat removed way, it was), and I decided it had done its time. Into the oven with it.

I think I overbaked this. Just the barest firmness across the top, like a good cheesecake, is what is needed. Mine was stiffly set. I also think I chose the wrong cooking vessel. I used a glass pie dish. Serviceable, sturdy, but too wide. The pudding came out an odd inch or so thick. A deep mass of wobbly richness would have been preferable.

Despite these fallbacks, it was still very, very good. Perhaps it was the color and the texture, but it really did remind me of crustless pumpkin pie. The cornmeal and milk became a custard, and the rich deepness of molasses and autumnal spices left me wanting to douse this with a healthy dollop of Reddi-whip. I settled for vanilla ice cream instead.

“18. Hot and Sour Vegetable Soup: Sauté chopped onions and garlic in vegetable oil until soft. Add chopped or shredded carrots, cabbage, and daikon or turnip, frozen corn, chopped boxed tomatoes with their juice and stock to cover; bring to a boil. Simmer for 15 minutes, then finish with about a tablespoon of rice wine vinegar per 2 cups of soup and loads of black pepper.”

Soup warms the belly like very little else. This one, with the copious quantities of black pepper and the inevitable sour burn of the rice vinegar, promised a cauldron of comfort. Quantities listed here make enough for two large bowls – quite enough for a deep December lunch.

2 TB vegetable oil

¼ large onion, diced

4 cloves garlic, minced

1 carrot

½ medium turnip

8 napa cabbage leaves

½ cup frozen corn kernels

14.5 oz can of petite diced tomatoes

2-3 cups chicken or vegetable broth

2 TB rice vinegar

½ tsp salt

½ pepper to start – add more to your liking

Heat the vegetable oil over medium heat and sauté the onion and garlic for a few minutes, until the onions just begin to pick up color.

Meanwhile (or beforehand, if you are not speedy with your vegetable prep), peel the carrot and turnip. Once you have disposed of the scraps, continue to peel the carrot into thin strips with your vegetable peeler. Cut the pile of ribbons in half or in quarters to create bite-sized pieces.

Cut the turnip in half from root to tip, then crosswise into thin slices. Julienne each thin slice so you have slim matchstick pieces.

Stack the napa cabbage leaves, then roll into a thick cigar and slice as thinly as possible.

Add the vegetables to the onion and garlic.

Add the corn kernels and the broth and simmer the whole pot for 15-20 minutes, or until all vegetables are tender and everything is warmed through.

Add the rice vinegar, salt, and pepper, stir gently, and serve.

I loved everything about this soup except the tomatoes. They weren’t a bad addition, there were just too many of them. Were I making this again, I might decrease the quantity, or just drain the can and add only the liquid for the color and acidity. The strings of carrot and turnip kept a minimal bite, and the combination of vinegar and pepper was near perfect. The puckering sourness played against and contributed to the bland crunch of the vegetables, and alongside a hastily prepared hunk of garlic toast, this was a satisfying lunch on a chill day: it was heat, and comfort, where both were needed.

Be well, all.

Fading light. And bourbon.

Posted on December 2, 2012 by Chelsea

My home office – the room where grading, blogging, photo editing, and general work happens – has the most wonderful light in our house. A huge sliding glass door lets sunlight pour in during the morning hours, and in the afternoon I get brightness mediated by the roof of the house. Even when it’s overcast, there is still so much natural light that it makes for wonderful food shots.

But winter is a problem. I’m discovering that if I make a dish for dinner, I’m not going to be able to photograph it from my office because it’s too dark by 5pm. And wedded to this blog and this project as I am, there’s no way we’re having dinner at 4:30 in the afternoon just so I can get the best light in the house. So I’m trying out new angles, and new placement, and new adjustments. I’m learning more about artificial light: which arrangements I find glaring and which I find acceptable. Bear with me, and look forward to the return of Daylight Savings Time!

“17. Sauté chopped onion in butter, then chunks of sweet potato and stock or water to cover. Simmer until the sweet potatoes can be pierced with a knife, then add chopped kale and cook until wilted.”

This was easy, and quick, and tasty. I made a few additions to Bittman’s recommendations and think the soup really benefited from them. I used:

4 TB butter

½ a medium onion (mine was yellow)

1 big sweet potato, peeled and cut into small chunks (the smaller the chunks, the faster they will cook, so make your decision based on how much time you have and what size is most pleasing to you)

Salt, pepper, ground nutmeg to taste

4 cups broth – vegetable or chicken, depending on your preference

6 oz. kale

1 tsp red wine vinegar

Heat the butter in a pot over medium heat. When it has melted, add the onion and cook gently, stirring occasionally, until the onion is soft and translucent but not bronzed.

Add the sweet potatoes and seasoning, stir to combine for a minute or two, then add the broth. The quantity of liquid you need will depend entirely upon the size of your sweet potato. You may need more or less than the 4 cups listed here.

Let the soup simmer until the sweet potatoes are tender but not falling apart. Mine took about 15 minutes.

Add the kale and stir to combine. You will be bewildered by how quickly it collapses on itself, wilting from smoky green to a brighter, more vibrant hue as it is immersed in the liquid. Cook just until it reaches the texture you like against your tongue – I let it simmer for about 5 minutes, because I like my kale to still put up some resistance and retain its bright color.

I tasted and thought this needed something. Extra salt to heighten the flavor of the kale, certainly, but there was a kind of dullness about the whole concoction. Remembering my soup lessons from Alton Brown, I sprinkled in just a hint of red wine vinegar, and the difference was amazing. The whole thing was brighter, somehow, even though you couldn’t taste anything harsh or stringent.

We consumed this happily with freshly toasted, garlic-rubbed slices of pugliese. It was good, but could have been stuffed with even more flavor: I’d consider adding garlic, ginger, maybe even rice or ramen noodles.

“4. Onion jam with bacon and bourbon: Thinly slice red onions and cook in olive oil with chopped bacon until soft. Add a little bourbon and brown sugar to taste and cook until the jam thickens.”

Bourbon is new for me. N. has been enjoying the occasional scotch for a few years now, but we recently acquired a bottle of Knob Creek and I’ve been appreciating the floral notes of it – so much less musty and boggy than its British cousin.

4 slices thick-cut bacon, halved lengthwise into long strips, then sliced into small rectangles

½ large red onion, thinly sliced

¼ cup bourbon

2 TB brown sugar

Freshly ground black pepper

1 small sprig rosemary

I used about a tablespoon of olive oil to start the pan, but I don’t think you really need it. Just toss in the bacon slices over medium heat and let them work for about 5 minutes. You will get a shimmer of fat across the bottom of the pan that is more than enough to start the onions sizzling in.

Add the onions and cook over medium or medium-low for at least ten minutes, until the onions soften and the bacon is mostly cooked. Stir with some frequency to ensure even cooking.

Off the heat (especially if you are using a gas stove) add the bourbon and the brown sugar. Stir to combine, then return to medium heat and simmer slowly for about 20 minutes, to let the flavors mingle and the bourbon soak into the onions and bacon.

After a few minutes of cooking, I added pepper and rosemary for additional flavor components, and I think they were a good choice. The rosemary’s woodsy flavor was a nice contrast to the fatty bacon and sweet onions. Everything cooked down into a sticky, caramelized jam that I draped across some baked rounds of polenta.

This was delicious, but misplaced. The meaty, smoky bacon was intensified by the bourbon, and the brown sugar and onions had a nice note of molasses. It didn’t belong on polenta. It belonged, I think, on a freshly toasted piece of crostini, possibly smeared with a thick slice of brie. The funkiness of the cheese could stand up nicely to the sweet smoky strength of this jam.

We paired our misguided polenta with green beans, lightly blanched and then seared in a hot pan and deglazed with a bit of red wine. These, too, were delicious, but not the ideal pairing for the sweet saltiness of my jam. Apples, maybe, or red grapes would make better pairings. Regardless, we ate with joy and returned to the pan once or twice for a final sweet chunk of sticky, gooey jammy bacon to sweeten our palates, even though dessert was still to come.

“91. Pears in Red Wine: Simmer 2 cups red wine with ½ cup sugar, 2 cloves, a cinnamon stick and a few slices of ginger in a pot for a few minutes, then gently poach peeled and cored pears (use a spoon to hollow them from bottom), until soft. Cool or chill, and serve with a bit of the poaching liquid.”

This is supposed to be one of the most sophisticated desserts you can offer: not overly sweet, laden with mulled flavor, perfect for a gourmet adult party in celebration of autumn. Pears, with their temperamental habits and signature grainy texture, are perhaps the same kind of acquired taste as wine or coffee or any of those other “adult” tastes. As dessert for our onion-jam-crusted dinner, I decided to attempt these.

I used 2 pears, but followed the rest of Bittman’s quantities exactly.

Well, one exception to note: I thought about getting fancy and adding things like citrus peel or rosemary (apparently I’m hooked on the stuff these days). But in the end, I just splashed in a bit of bourbon to link the flavor profile back to our dinner: red wine from the beans, bourbon from the jam, and this dessert would fit right in.

After the first simmer, in which I stirred gently to let the sugar dissolve and the spices mull gently into the wine, I prepared the pears.

The issue with pears is that inside their tender skins they are slippery little beasts. You can’t grasp them too firmly or they sigh into bruises. You can’t hold them too delicately or they slide out of your hands and threaten to slip from the edge of the kitchen counter.

I dove into my attempt to core the pears only after peeling them. This, and the attempt to do so with a spoon, may have been a mistake. The spoon tore through the tender flesh of the pear but was too wide to remove only the core. Further, I wasn’t sure how much core I was supposed to be removing, so I ended up with two pale, naked, slightly mutilated pears, which I slid into their (hopefully) healing bath of alcohol.

I let them simmer, turning them occasionally to dye all sides a lovely burgundy, for about 15 minutes. Then I turned off the heat and let them sit a further 20 minutes until we were ready for dessert.

Surrounded by a moat of spiced wine, these were achingly tender and nicely flavored. I would choose pears that were less ripe if I attempted this dessert again, because a bit of additional texture might have done them good. As it was, though, much of the graininess disappeared in the poaching, and the soft floral flavor was really nice against the wine and assertive spices. A scoop of vanilla ice cream on the side would have made this a richer endeavor, but I think the creaminess would have matched well with the fruit and the wine. Or maybe I just need the extra comfort as we roll into December…

"blackberry-eating in late September"

food, in so many words.

Category Archives: Desserts