Go-To Dough 2

Posted on February 17, 2013 by Chelsea

Because my little house sits smack between the concentrated skyscrapers of downtown Santa Monica and the constant ascent path from LAX, because I can hear the freeway from my backyard and see, from just down the block, the Hollywood sign in the distance, it sometimes slips my mind that I only live a few miles from the ocean. Los Angeles is a funny place: loud, boisterous, urban, crowded, and yet along its edges it’s a beach town, where it’s just as loud and crowded, but people seem to move just a little slower.

Hard to remember, sometimes, but this past week we were treated to afternoons that reminded me I’m only a few minutes from the water. Warmth gave way to brisk, fresh breezes heavy with the smell of salt. Fog rolled over and it felt like a summer day on the Oregon coast. These reminders of the Pacific Northwest made me want to call on ocean flavors: smoked salmon, crunchy salt crystals, and the grassy headiness of fresh dill.

There are so many different methods for making bread that it’s a wonder anyone becomes a master at it. This week I decided to try a process slightly more complex than Ruhlman’s basic boule, working with a recipe for French Boule from the Feburary 2009 issue of Cuisine at Home. The process for this round loaf starts the night before, with a sticky, soggy, tasteless combination of flour, yeast and water called a poolish. C@H tells us this came from the French pronunciation of “Polish,” from whom they learned this technique (19). The long, slow fermentation time allows for plenty of yeast development and supposedly contributes a nuttier flavor to the end product. It is supposed to look like pancake batter, and when you pull it out the following morning and add more water, it is supposed to be very thin. Mine was, when I put it in the fridge for its overnight chill session, more like the texture of silly putty. When I added water the following morning, it refused to combine evenly, its sticky strands getting soggier and stickier at the same time. I was skeptical about this, but followed procedure anyway, and once it had been kneaded aggressively into my dough it didn’t seem to matter.

With the starter crises resolved, I considered flavorings. Thanks to the overcast coastal feeling of our afternoons and a recent episode of Top Chef, dill sprang to mind as the most logical choice. It would pair perfectly with our dinner: gemelli pasta draped with smoked salmon and vodka cream sauce. Black pepper sounded like a nice foil for the dill – pungent and dry where the dill was fresh and mild. I sprinkled them onto the flattened dough, then rolled the whole thing up into a long tube and kneaded through before letting it rise. You could certainly add other flavor combos – kalamata olives and cloves of roasted garlic sound incredible – and gently roll and then knead them through the dough.

The usual procedure followed: rise, shape, rise again, and prepare for baking. Olive oil, mustard seeds, and a good sprinkle of coarse salt seemed like the right things to add.

This time, instead of using a Dutch oven, I opted for my cast iron pan. I was nervous about the bread sticking, which is probably silly, but what can I say? I’ve lost several chunks of flatbread to that pan because I get anxious and rush the cooking process, so I took out some insurance and settled my loaf onto a layer of parchment paper sandwiched between it and the surface of the pan.

My recipe called for a heavy misting of water over the bread and into the inside of my preheated oven. I didn’t have a spray bottle on hand with which to mist, so I just flicked droplets in with the tips of my fingers. The sizzle was tremendous, but seemed to work well. The resulting loaf was not as big as my first boule attempt, but it was lighter and not overbrowned on the bottom. The crust was thin but crisp, and we loved the flavor combination. The mustard didn’t do much besides providing a fun crunchy-pop texture on the edges, but the dill and black pepper were the right contrast of fresh and sharp and incredibly aromatic. We each took a slice to eat in the car on the way to a soccer game at my husband’s school – had to make sure it was suitable for dinner, after all. We ate thick slices with our pasta, running them around our plates to pick up every drop of sauce. We ate more the next day, spread with salted butter, and were surprised and saddened the following morning to find that the loaf was nearly gone. Dreaming of this bread again, I could see it toasted lightly, smeared with artisan goat cheese and topped with a luscious slice of smoked salmon: the Oregon coast in one bite.

Dill and Black Pepper Boule

(adapted from Cuisine at Home, February 2009)

For the poolish starter:

1¼ cups bread flour

¾ cup room-temperature water

¼ tsp yeast (I used active dry yeast)

Rehydrate the yeast by combining it in a small dish with 1 TB of the water you’ll be using for the starter. Let it sit for a few minutes.

Combine the flour, water, and yeast mixture in a bowl or a large measuring cup. Stir well; the mixture should come together into a texture somewhere between pancake batter and silly putty.

Cover your mixture with plastic wrap and let it sit at room temperature for 3-4 hours, then move to the refrigerator and leave it alone overnight.

The next day, take it out about an hour before you intend to start, so it can return to room temperature and the yeast can wake up a little.

For the bread:

2 cups all-purpose flour (I’m not sure what the advantage is of combining bread flour and AP flour here, but I followed the directions anyway…)

1½ tsp salt

½ tsp yeast

½ cup room temperature water

Poolish starter

2 TB chopped fresh dill

½ tsp (or to taste) fresh ground black pepper

1 TB mustard seeds

1 TB coarse salt

Olive oil for drizzling

Fit your stand mixer with the paddle attachment and use it to combine the flour and salt (you could likely add the dill and pepper here too).

Rehydrate the yeast with 1 TB of the ½ cup water. Add the remaining water to the room temperature poolish starter and combine. Mine did not become very thin, as my recipe said. In fact, mine refused to combine particularly well (read: at all) with the poolish, but it seemed to work out just fine anyway.

Add rehydrated yeast and poolish mixture to the dry ingredients and stir with paddle attachment until the whole mess comes together a bit. It will be quite sticky.

Scrape sticky mass of just-barely-dough onto a well-floured board and work it with a bench scraper, adding more flour in small sprinkles until some of the stickiness abates and it seems like it could be worked by hand.

At this point, let the dough rest for 10-15 minutes. The recipe suggests turning a bowl over it (I presume to prohibit drafts), but I think draping on a clean, dry kitchen towel would work just as well.

After the dough has rested, it’s time to knead. You can do this by hand for 10-15 minutes, or in a stand mixer with the dough hook for 8-10 minutes, until it passes the windowpane test.

When the dough is smooth, elastic, and stretchy enough to pass the test, if you haven’t added your flavor extras already, flop it onto a floured board and push, pull, or roll out into a rectangle. Sprinkle on the toppings, then roll up lengthwise and knead together until the dill and pepper are distributed; you’ll be able to see green and black flecks throughout. I don’t think it matters much when you add something finely chopped like dill, but if you are using a more delicate addition like olives or even sundried tomatoes, be sure to add it this way so it doesn’t get bashed up during the kneading.

Set the dough in an oiled bowl and let it rise for an hour in a warm, draft-free place (like a briefly heated, then switched off oven). It should double in size.

Once the dough has risen, remove it from the bowl and shape it into a boule by spinning it away from you with one hand and tucking the dough under with the other. Let it rise for another hour.

While the dough rises, preheat your oven to 475F and put a cast iron skillet inside (mine is a 9” skillet). If you are worried about the loaf sticking or getting too brown, prep a piece of parchment paper by cutting or tearing it to cover the bottom and sides of the skillet (don’t be too fussy about this – mine was a square that protruded above the sides of the pan and it was just fine).

Turn the dough out onto the parchment paper, then pull the skillet out from the oven and set the loaf – on parchment paper if you are using it – into the center. Slash the top, drizzle with olive oil, and sprinkle liberally with mustard seeds and salt. Using the tips of your fingers or a spray bottle, mist or dribble the top of the loaf with water.

Place the laden skillet back into the oven, spritz the inside of the oven with ten flicks or so of water, and shut the door. Wait 30 seconds and repeat the spritzing process.

Reduce heat to 450F and bake for ten minutes.

Reduce heat to 425F and bake for ten more minutes.

Finally, reduce the heat to 375F and bake another twenty minutes. Remove from oven and cool on a rack for 45 minutes before slicing and devouring.

Go-To Dough 1

Posted on February 3, 2013 by Chelsea

Grading weeks are always busy. This week my students turned in a paper examining local Farmers’ Markets, questioning this business model’s relationship to sustainability, and assessing whether, in practice, it seems to meet its own perceived goals. They talked to vendors, they talked to shoppers, they peered at and smelled and tasted local fruit, and they shared their experiences during class. And now I have to grade their work. It seemed like a good idea, as I contemplated sitting down with a pen in hand and my editor glasses on, to have the smell of fresh bread in the background.

Bread is, if you’ll excuse my torturing a metaphor for a moment here, a bit like how writing a paper should be. You poke around a bit at your idea to see if it is viable – this is the yeast proofing stage. You mix together your ingredients: idea, observations, quotes and facts from outside sources, and then you work and work and work your thoughts. You knead them together until they are smooth but still elastic: one of the great and the frustrating things about writing is that you’ve got to be willing to see room for change in your product, always. Your ideas need to stretch and flex as you read and understand more, or your work will never be as deep or sophisticated as you want it to.

And then, like dough, you have to let it rest. You have to be patient, and plan ahead enough that your little work in progress has time to sit and develop. When you return to it, hours or days later, if you’re lucky your perception of it will have shifted. This gives you fresh perspective and lets you see what new avenues could be pursued, or what new angles need examining. And so you work with it again, reshaping and adjusting, pulling and folding. And then you let it rest again.

When it’s finally ready to submit, kneaded, shaped, risen, baked, you’ve spent time on this project. It is yours. Your voice rings out, your thoughts are fully developed, and the flavor is something original and pure.

Things don’t always happen that way, especially in college. There’s not enough time or the ideas don’t flow or the method isn’t perfect. But they don’t always happen for bread either. You have to have patience and time, and you have to know how to work with your materials.

I wanted to a go-to recipe – a standard to work with. I can play with additions and flavors and quantities all I want, but to become a good bread baker I think I need to solidify my technique. So I’m auditioning basic recipes. This week I decided to go with Ruhlman’s ratio for a boule, one of the most basic-sounding in his book. But because I can’t leave well enough alone, I added some honey for the yeast to gobble, and some crushed dried rosemary for a little wake-up in flavor. I also, at his suggestion, baked my loaf in a dutch oven (well, my non-stick 5 qt. version of a dutch oven – I suspect the original or enameled cast iron incarnation would be far superior), which made good sense. It’s exactly the right shape, and having walls to hold in the diameter probably makes the resulting loaf climb a little higher.

But somewhere in the mix things went awry. My loaf, though it was beautifully golden and crusty on top, got a little dark on the bottom. I suspect the non-stick cookware along with the layer of olive oil I doused on anyway had something to do with this.

Once the unfortunate burnished bottom was removed, this loaf was delicious. It was crusty and chewy, though a little bit dense, and a very welcome accompaniment to pasta. It sops up alfredo sauce like a champ. It also worked well as leftovers, toasting up beautifully and offering no resistance to my demands that it be slathered in butter, drizzled with honey and then sprinkled with lemon zest.

It wasn’t perfect, but if I can figure out the singed bottom problem, this loaf would certainly be in the running for a go-to dough recipe.

Basic Boule, adapted slightly from Michael Ruhlman’s Ratio

12 oz. warm water

1 tsp active dry yeast

2 tsp honey

(I might add a few tablespoons of olive oil for additional flavor and fat, but I haven’t tried this yet)

4 cups flour (or 20 oz., if you’re doing this properly)

2 tsp salt

2 tsp dried crushed rosemary

Combine the water, yeast, and honey in a small bowl or measuring cup and set aside for 5 minutes or so. This is the proofing stage. The yeast comes out of hibernation and starts to foam and smell beer-y. Supposedly it likes the extra hit of sugar to chomp on, and I thought the honey might be a welcome background flavor. It’s not necessary, but it’s nice.

While the yeast is waking up, combine the flour, salt, and rosemary in a medium bowl. I used my stand mixer with the paddle attachment.

With the paddle attachment still in place, pour in your yeasted water mixture and run the mixer on low speed just until things start to come together.

Replace the paddle attachment with the dough hook and let the mixer do its thing for 10 minutes, or until the dough is smooth, elastic, and passes the windowpane test. I kept mine on a medium-low speed, because my dough kept poking up above the edge of the bowl, and I was afraid of it escaping and rampaging the counter, blob-style, if I increased the speed. If you are kneading by hand, this will take at least 10 minutes.

Once the dough has undergone this change in character, becoming a smooth ball with the barest remnant of stickiness, move it to a lightly oiled bowl and stow it in a warm, draft-free place for an hour. I like to set my oven at 200F for five minutes, then turn it off and wait five minutes before putting the dough inside with a clean kitchen towel draped over the bowl.

After an hour, check the dough – it should have doubled or be close to doubling in size. When it has doubled, remove it from its bowl and punch it down gently on a floured board. I’m coming to realize that “punching down” is more like “softly press your fist into the dough, which will deflate like a feather pillow as the gas releases from inside it.” It’s like the punch you give a friend you’re pretending to pummel, where the action begins quickly but ends with a relaxed push against his shoulder.

Let the dough rest for a few minutes, as if to get its strength back.

Shape the dough into a round. Ruhlman explains this procedure as “pushing the dough back and forth on the counter in a circular motion until you have a round, smooth ball” (10). I tried this, unsure of exactly what I was doing, but really my dough was in almost the right shape already so I decided to leave well enough alone.

Oil the bottom of a dutch oven and pop the ball of dough inside. Cover it with a towel and let it rise for another hour. Depending on the size of your dutch oven (mine is a 5 qt.), your dough will expand to cover the bottom of the pot and maybe even begin to push its way up the sides.

When it has risen again, carefully score the domed top of the bread with a very sharp knife, drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with coarse or flaky salt. I used Maldon.

Place in a preheated 450F oven with the lid on for 30 minutes. This holds in some water vapor and creates a crisper crust. Remove the lid and continue baking for about 20 minutes, or until the internal temperature reaches 200F. The loaf will slip easily out of the pot and the bottom will sound hollow when you tap an inquisitive knuckle against it.

Let cool at least until it is comfortable to handle, then slice and serve as desired.

This is best on the day it is made, but it makes very good toast a day or two later.

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.

Veganize it!

Posted on December 10, 2012 by Chelsea

I must admit to getting nervous. Counting this week’s offerings, I’m down to 8 Bittman selections, and just over 3 weeks in which to complete them all. If I face the honest fact that it’s unlikely I will attempt any of these concoctions during Christmas or the days that surround it, as family and I insist on old familiar dishes, reality tells me I in fact have just over 2 weeks left.

But I have a determined set to my jaw, sometimes, and I can feel it approaching. This must be done. It can be done. It may mean making soup for lunch from scratch sometimes, but as I’m learning, soup doesn’t have to be something that simmers all day long. It can be a quick meal.

It can be delicious, too. This week’s selection is proof positive.

“Thai Squash Soup: Simmer cubed winter squash, minced garlic, chili and ginger in coconut milk, plus stock or water to cover, until soft. Puree if you like. Just before serving, add chopped cilantro, lime juice and zest, and toasted chopped peanuts.”

This was a lunchtime experiment, because N., in one of his tragic shortcomings, doesn’t like coconut. At first I thought it was something I could break him of. I have, after all, in under a decade, convinced him to eat everything from sushi to quinoa to kale chips. He is, as an eater, unrecognizable as the man I met in college. But the coconut sensitivity is the food analogue to ESP. He can eat a granola bar with coconut oil hidden deep in the ingredient list and say “I’m not sure I like this.” If I don’t choose my sunscreen carefully and it happens to have that delightful coconut aroma that means it’s well and truly summer, N. tells me I smell funny. So a coconut milk based soup had to be consumed in his absence.

½ big butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and cut into small cubes

1 13.5 oz. can coconut milk

½-1 cup water or vegetable stock

½ tsp red chili flakes

3-5 cloves garlic, minced

1-2 tsp ginger, minced

salt to taste

2-3 TB cilantro, roughly chopped

2-3 TB peanuts (if you have a nut allergy, consider using the butternut squash seeds instead), toasted and chopped. I used dry roasted peanuts for mine.

zest and juice of ½ a lime

Put the squash, chili, garlic, and ginger into a pot. Add the coconut milk and, if necessary to cover the chunks of squash, water or stock. Bring to a boil, then simmer over medium heat for 20-25 minutes, or until the squash is tender.

During this simmering process, don’t forsake your kitchen completely. Coconut milk boils over, just like regular milk. If you leave to, say, comb out your hair, do your makeup, and put a few things away, you might return to a stove swimming in chili infused coconut milk sludge sitting underneath your burners. One of which isn’t working anymore. Just saying…

Once the squash cubes are tender, you can choose to puree or not to puree. I, feeling lazy, took my potato masher to them and ended up with a slightly chunky, rough textured soup that I liked the look and feel of.

Top with garnishes and eat!

Alternative: I liked this, and the simmered squash had a nice, fresh flavor. But I missed the caramelized depth you get when you roast it. Were I making this again, I would roast the squash with olive oil and salt until it was tender.

While the squash roasted, I would add the spices to the coconut milk and simmer for 10-15 minutes. Then, when the squash was cooked and the milk was hot and flavorful, I would add the chunks of squash and proceed as above.

This bowl of soup was surprising. It awoke flavors of sweet, sour, spicy, and bitter. The squash was tender and freshly vegetal. The coconut milk added this incredible unctuous creaminess that felt round and thick against my tongue, but the squash itself and the lime flavor kept it light and fresh and delicate at the same time. The peanuts were the right crunch, and I surprised myself by finished an enormous bowl and feeling quite satisfied but not overly full.

The soup wouldn’t have been right without the lime juice. I’m learning, as I continue to cook, that acid is a seasoning just like salt or nutmeg. This new understanding, and a little bit of experimentation, saved the next dish from being muddy and boring.

“56. Cook lentils, thyme sprigs and chopped carrots in a pot with water to cover until tender; drain and remove thyme. Cook chopped onions in oil until soft; add chopped kale and allow to wilt. Add lentils, stir to combine and cook until kale is tender. Add chopped parsley.”

With the holiday season practically upon us, this seemed like a sobering, “healthy” dinner choice which would, against all the logical reasons for eating healthy, permit us to have cake for dessert.

1 cup lentils

12-15 baby carrots, quartered lengthwise, chopped into small rounded triangles

6 sprigs thyme

4 small whole cloves garlic

½ red onion, chopped

2 cups kale

2 TB parsley

sprinkle of red wine vinegar to taste

I put the lentils, carrots, thyme, and – in a flash of inspiration – garlic in a pot and added water according to the lentil package directions (depending upon what color lentils you use, you may need more or less water). I added a bit extra, since I realized the carrots might benefit from some bubbling too. I let them simmer for about 35 minutes, at which point the lentils were just barely still resistant between my teeth.

Never enthusiastic about using multiple pots, I dumped the lentil mixture into a strainer and then, with a bit of olive oil to lubricate the surface, sauteed the chopped onions in the same, now-empty pot. When they were just beginning to turn golden around the edges, I added the kale and a sprinkle of salt. Softening the onions and wilting the kale took about ten minutes.

After the kale had collapsed a bit, I dumped the lentil mixture back in, folded it gently in with the greenery, and let them stew over low heat until the kale was the texture I like. I tasted and felt the muddiness of the lentils and carrots: winter vegetables are wonderful, but sometimes the heaviness they impart is reminiscent of the dirt from which they were pulled. Lentils, though they aren’t root vegetables at all, tend to have a similar effect.

This was my inspiration point. Only a few drops of red wine vinegar pulled the flavors up out of the garden ditch they’d been wallowing in and made them interesting and individual again. Add the vinegar and chopped parsley at the last moment.

I mounded this on our plates and topped it with a tuna steak (I know, that’s not vegan. But the Bittman is, and that’s what matters here!). It would have been better with salmon – the more delicate meatiness would have contrasted nicely against the lentils and carrots. The tuna was almost too dense a pairing, calling back to the muddiness of the pre-vinegared dish. Lamb rubbed with harissa, or maybe even a grilled portobello or a big steak of tofu, pressed, dried, and rubbed with a marinade that involved roasted red peppers, are other potentially promising pairings.

* As the year draws to a close, I’m thinking a lot about friends I’m now physically far from. This title celebrates two of them: M. and Ph. Both became unintentional vegans due to food allergies, and M. is fond of exclaiming, of dishes she likes the sound of but cannot eat thanks to its animal product ingredients, “I’m going to try to veganize it!” So here you go, ladies: these are pre-veganized. And gluten-free. And yummy. What more could you ask for?!

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…

Chatterbox

Posted on November 18, 2012 by Chelsea

I’ve just begun rereading Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett’s genius collaboration Good Omens for perhaps the sixth or seventh time. One of the characters introduced early in the novel is a Satanic nun named Sister Mary Loquacious from the Chattering Order of St. Beryl. In looking back through some recent posts, I’ve noticed myself falling a bit on the loquacious side, with posts extending perhaps a bit longer than you’d like for a casual evening read. So today, with three Bittmans to report on, I’m going to try to keep this brief.

54. Cook onion, curry powder and chopped ginger in oil until onion is soft; meanwhile, steam cauliflower florets until nearly tender. Add cauliflower to onion mixture, along with raisins; cover and cook until the cauliflower softens.

Two of my most hated food items as a child were cauliflower and curry. Cauliflower was drab and slightly bitter – worthless unless smothered in sharp cheese sauce, and even then a bit suspect. Curry powder was musty and unpleasant, and the two of them together sound like one of my youthful nightmares. I kept this selection on the list because N. loves the flavor of curry. But I knew that I would have to doctor up Bittman’s procedure to give this dish even a fighting chance.

1 head cauliflower

1 tsp curry powder, divided

½ tsp salt

½ tsp black pepper

generous glugs of olive oil (quantity will depend upon the size of your cauliflower)

¼ of a red onion

¼ cup golden raisins

2 TB fresh ginger, grated (this is easiest to do while it is mostly frozen; you keep your ginger in the freezer, don’t you?)

Brush a layer of olive oil on each of two cookie sheets and preheat the oven to 400F.

Core the cauliflower and slice it across into flat steaks of about ½ inch thick. Some will collapse into florets. That’s okay, but ideally you want nice long, horizontal pieces of cauliflower. They look like flattened sprigs of Queen Anne’s Lace. Toss the cauliflower with ½ tsp of the curry, salt, pepper, and more olive oil, then place on the tray in a single layer. Don’t crowd them too much – the more space they have, the better they will brown. Roast for 40 minutes, pausing at the 20 minute mark to flip each piece.

While the cauliflower roasts and caramelizes and browns, sauté the red onion in a little more olive oil. When it begins to brown, toss in the raisins, the ginger, and the other ½ tsp of curry powder. Cook together for another 2-3 minutes until the raisins plump and the curry aroma mellows a bit.

When the cauliflower is just tender and darkly golden, take it out of the oven and toss it with the onion and raisin mixture.

We had ours alongside some roasted chicken breasts I’d marinated in yogurt and garam masala. It was delightful – if you favor a strong curry flavor, add more to both the cauliflower and the onions. I was happy to have just a mild hint of earthy spiciness, and the unexpected sweetness of the raisins cut even this dankness in a very pleasant way.

16. Sauté equal amounts chopped, peeled apples and onions in butter until soft. Add stock or water to cover, then simmer for 10 minutes. Cool and puree. Serve sprinkled with Stilton or other blue cheese.

We weren’t sure about this one. Nevertheless, we bravely decided to make just a small portion and see what happened. These quantities will serve two.

1 medium apple, peeled and cored

1 medium onion

salt and pepper to taste

2 TB butter

1 ½ cups chicken stock

blue cheese

Melt the butter in a small pot over medium heat. When it foams, it’s ready.

Meanwhile, dice the apple and onion into small chunks. You want equal sized piles – we probably ended up with just over a cup of each. Add them to the pot and cook over medium, stirring occasionally, for 10-15 minutes. You want softening and tenderizing, not aggressive browning.

When the apples are tender and the onions soft and translucent, add the broth and seasoning (though we didn’t make any additions, some thyme or sage might be very nice here – try 1 tsp of finely minced fresh herbs) and simmer for 10 minutes.

Remove from heat and cool slightly, then puree and serve with 1-2 TB blue or gorgonzola cheese sprinkled on top. We had a nice blue stilton.

It wasn’t that we didn’t like this, it was that it seemed odd as a soup. It was slightly reminiscent of a butternut squash soup, but the apples were slightly sweeter than a squash, and the combination of their sweetness with the sharpness of the onion made this seem like an applesauce with too many ingredients. Left chunkier, this might be nice draped over a roasted pork tenderloin – a meat that goes nicely with both sweet and sharper, savory flavors. It might also be a good base for a butternut squash soup – the one additional player in this game could be the additional complexity it might have needed.

6. Cranberry-Corn Sauce: Cook a bag of fresh cranberries with about a cup of corn kernels, some chopped scallions, ¼ cup brown sugar (or to taste) and a splash of water, just until thick.

Our third Bittman this week was part of a pre-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving dinner. When you grow up with a set collection of dishes that come to equate to this holiday, it can be hard to make a change. When N. started having Thanksgiving dinner with my family, he missed his mashed potatoes and green bean casserole. So I try, in the weeks that surround the holiday, to make up for these omissions. I make several smaller dinners featuring the dishes that don’t quite fit onto our holiday menu. This seemed like the perfect side – not traditional enough for our Thanksgiving table, but satisfying in the mean time.

1 bag cranberries

1 cup fresh or frozen corn

3 green onions, thinly sliced

¼ cup brown sugar

¼ cup water

I tossed the cranberries, corn, water, and brown sugar together in a saucepan and set them over medium heat. I added the green onions at this point too, but were I making this again I would add them later – the 15-20 minute simmering time resulted in a slightly adulterated color, and the fresh greenness would be so much nicer. I advise adding them during the last five minutes of cooking time.

I let this simmer for about 20 minutes, until most of the cranberries had popped and the whole pot was a sticky, almost syrupy texture. I let them cool off the heat with the pot uncovered for a few minutes, both because I like the flavor of cranberry sauce better the cooler it is, and because I wanted to let it gel up a bit further.

These weren’t as sweet as your typical cranberry sauce. At least, they were not as sugary sweet. The corn added a beautiful vegetal sweetness that seemed at once the perfect fit and a strange accompaniment. We talked through this dish as we ate it, appreciating the maple overtones of the brown sugar and the tender crunch of the sweet corn, but thrown off slightly by the same qualities. What we finally decided, as we sampled second helpings, was that they were a delicious side dish, but they didn’t feel like Thanksgiving. Since the rest of the meal (garlic mashed potatoes and the old standard green bean casserole, slathered with cream of mushroom soup and the salty, salty crunch of french fried onions) was so traditional, having this difference, even in its subtlety, felt wrong. If you’re a stickler for tradition, this cranberry dish would have a better chance as a chutney for grilled pork or maybe even lamb.

Next week is the big feast. Oddly (odd because the entire Bittman list was conceived for this single day), I had some trouble figuring out where to fit his ideas in. I’ve come up with a pair of selections to try out, and I will report back. In the mean time, what dishes will grace your menu on Thursday?