Category — Cookbooks

Thanks to Luisa Weiss of The Wednesday Chef, I learned of the writing of Laurie Colwin.  I got these wonderful books used, and I’m so glad I got them.

Two great books by Laurie Colwin

Laurie Colwin was a great food writer, with a lovely voice,  and an encouraging, anything but snobby personality, who unfortunately is no longer with us.  These books are collections of her essays that she wrote for Gourmet magazine, and are great bedside reading.  It’s amazing how forward  looking she was, mentioning the importance of knowing where your food comes from, how much better organic chickens taste, and skepticism of agribusiness in 1987.

Ready to bake

This weekend, while breezing through Home Cooking, I re-read the Gingerbread essay.  I was hooked.  I’m quite partial to those molasses/ginger/allspice flavors from my New England childhood, which included gingerbread, Indian Pudding, and baked beans.  Laurie discusses English recipes for gingerbread, and cites Steen Cane Syrup from Louisiana as the King of Molasses in the United States.  Crosby’s Molasses was the brand of my childhood in Maine.  We didn’t bother getting it in the little jars.  We always had a gallon of it in the cupboard.  Crosby’s is a Canadian brand, so I’ve provided a link for people in the USA.  I can get neither without the aid of UPS here in Minnesota, but at least I can find jars in the stores.  This was not so easy when I lived in Colorado.

Gingery Glory Completed

Laurie Colwin’s Gingerbread recipe makes a single nine inch cake.  I doubled the recipe, and used a Kugelhopf pan (made by NordicWare, of Minneapolis, MN) that I got at my local Ace hardware store.  I didn’t bother icing mine (Laurie provides a couple icing recipes).  I’d rather have mine with whipped cream.  This recipe is the original, for a nine inch cake pan.  I’ll let you do the doubling yourself.  Laurie would probably not use an electric mixer to make this cake, but do it with a bowl and spoon, which is perfectly good exercise for your forearms.

Equipment

• nine inch round cake pan
• mixing bowl
• spoon (or electric mixer)
• rubber spatula
• measuring cups (liquid and dry)
• measuring spoons
• cooling rack
• oven mitts or potholders

Ingredients

• 1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted (sweet) butter, softened
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup molasses
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup buttermilk
• 2 tsp. vanilla extract or lemon brandy (lemon extract WON’T DO)
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1 Tbsp. ground ginger (Laurie calls for a very generous Tbsp.  I agree.)
• 1 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp. ground cloves
• 1/4 tsp. ground allspice

Procedure

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Butter your cake pan (I would line the bottom with parchment paper to ease removal, but go with what works for you.)
3. Cream the butter and brown sugar together.  Beat until it’s fluffy.
4. Beat in the molasses, then the eggs, beating well after each addition.
5. Add the dry ingredients and the vanilla, and mix to incorporate.
6. Add the buttermilk, and mix in.
7. Turn the batter out into the cake pan, spreading where necessary to even out the batter.
8. Bake for 20-30 minutes.  Test for doneness after 20 minutes by inserting a toothpick in the cake.  If it comes out clean, the cake is done.
9. Cool on a rack. Remove from pan and frost (optional) or serve.

Some basic tools, a basic result

Here are the keys to Mr. Ruhlman’s Ratio-  you need a scale, the formulas, and you can learn how the ratios work, WITH PRACTICE.  Here is my result from my Friday night after work bread effort.  The loaf is not beautifully formed, but I did get a little oven spring that I wasn’t expecting, so all the better.

This is the basic bread dough described in the first chapter, with part whole wheat, part all-purpose flour.

The ratio is 5:3 flour:liquid, plus some salt and some yeast (2 tsp. and 1 tsp., respectively, for the 20 oz of flour (16 white, 4 whole wheat, a 4:1 ratio, of course) and 12 oz of water.

My scale is an OXO, from Target, which has a 5lb. limit, and cost about $30.  Others are recommended by Mr. Ruhlman, and by America’s Test Kitchen (the OXO 11lb. scale for $50), but this one was easily available, and works fine.

Mr. Ruhlman’s Basic Ratio Bread

Equipment:

• scale
• mixer with dough hook
• oven
• loaf pan
• bowl for mixer
• measuring cups (liquid and dry)
• measuring spoons

Ingredients:

• flour (all-purpose or bread flour)
• water
• salt
• yeast

Process:

1. Put bowl on scale.  Zero the scale (tare) to subtract the bowl’s weight.
2. Add flour until you reach the right weight.  Zero the scale again.
3. Add water until you reach the right weight. (Water is actually volume/weight equivalent in ounce measurement, so this was 1.5 cups -  “A pint’s a pound the world around”)
4. Add 2 tsp. salt (for flavor), and 1 tsp. yeast (I used SAF instant).
5. Mix with mixer, knead with dough hook for 10 mins plus or minus.
6. Let rise in warm place, covered, until doubled.
7. Deflate, shape, put in loaf pan, let rise again.
8. Bake until internal temp is 200 degrees F. (I baked this at 375 degrees F for about 45 min.)

Here are the process photos I remembered to take (though I missed the excitement of measuring, which is quite fun with the big digital readout):

Kneading the bread with the New KitchenAid

Yes, I have read the owner’s manual on this one, and I dutifully kept the mixer on 2 for the kneading process.  I think it went for about 12 minutes.

Ready for a rise

I covered it with plastic wrap, and set it inside the oven, which I’d let heat for 5 min. at about 185 degrees, then turned the oven off.

(Snacks and chatting with DH in between here)

After the first rise

I didn’t watch the clock for how long this was, but I’d guess about an hour and a half.  I formed the loaf and put it in a standard loaf pan, and let it rise again, for another amount of time.

(DH and I agonize through Friday NY Times crossword puzzle.  Really, it’s fun.)

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F,  pop in the loaf, and about 45 minutes later, here’s the result:

I think this is its best angle

I expect I will need to be a little more concentrated when I work on other batters/doughs  (I’m hoping the basic cookie recipe will help change my bad cookie karma), but I can see myself making this bread weekly, or at least some variation of it.  Thanks to Mr. Ruhlman, and Mr. Del Grosso for their fine work.

A rainy spring weekend is a great excuse to stay inside, read, and putter in the kitchen. I picked up my awaited copy of Michael Ruhlman‘s latest book (Ratio, The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking) at our local bookstore.  Over about my third cup of coffee, I curled up in a comfy spot and proceeded to read half of the book straight.

***Start of fawning aside about Michael Ruhlman as an author***

I’ve read several of Michael Ruhlman’s previous books about professional chefs and the Culinary Institute of America, and his cookbook collaborations.  Charcuterie is one of my home cookbook Canon.  I like his writing style. He has been through the trenches in cooking school and cooking professionally, and it gives me more confidence in his opinions.  The fact he’s passed Skills and can communicate the details clearly mean more to me than that he’s collaborated with Thomas Keller, though that’s probably why he collaborates with such lofty people in the first place.

Reading his books about chefs and my experience at JPH many moons ago make going to a restaurant like Fore Street even more fun, since I observe and more deeply understand the level of detail in the way the chef and staff work. This made my experience there much more enjoyable as an eater, cooking nerd, and former restaurant employee. Especially since I know that the level of detail is something most of their diners won’t even notice.

*** End of fawning aside, back to Ratio ***

Ratio is a book based in his experiences at CIA, and from his experience as a home cook.  The premise is that if you know the basic ratios of ingredients (by weight) that make up the foundational recipes (for batters, doughs, sauces, stocks), and understand how the ingredients work together, it frees you as a cook/chef.  You have a reliable foundation for the dish, and can improvise at combining flavors or sizing up or down the number of servings, as long as you maintain the ratio of base ingredients.

This is the kind of cooking that appeals to the engineer in me- the hows, the whys the ingredients do what they do, and how your technique of combining the ingredients can change the way the ingredients work together.  And the Harold McGee references are always a plus.

I pulled out a scale and mixed up the basic bread dough (5:3 flour:liquid), giving the new mixer’s dough hook a whirl.  I used part whole wheat flour and part all-purpose, with a little salt and a teaspoon of yeast.  I successfully made a lovely large loaf of bread.  Yes, the ratios work (and despite recent failures, I am still a cook!).  I’m looking forward to exploring them more.  I may need to frame the book jacket, and hang it in the kitchen.  It even goes nicely with the paint on the walls.  Form AND Function.  Love it!

Last month we went to Oklahoma to a wedding, and to visit some long time friends of DH’s family.  One of these friends is Adelia H, who has been a foodie much longer than being a foodie has been chic.  I think you could say Adelia’s been at it since they were referred to as gourmands.

Adelia H, foodie and historian

Adelia now considers herself as much a food historian as a foodie, and from the amount of reference work and knowledge I picked up in the few hours we were together, I can tell this is really her passion.

Besides the terrific breakfast she made for us, I learned all about Aunt Bill’s Brown Candy (including tasting), something that Molly Wizenberg of Orangette has written about for Bon Appetit.  I’m sure my Mum would love Aunt Bill’s Brown Candy- it’s like penuche, but more caramelized, and with pecans.

Adelia was finalizing some details for an exhibit at a local Historical Society on food and cooking in the Depression era in Oklahoma, and she shared lots of interesting information about some of the formidable cooks in Oklahoma’s past, including Aunt Susan, who had a long running column in the Daily Oklahoman, who is mentioned in Wizenberg’s article, and the fascinating story of Cleora Butler, who was raising the bar for gourmet food in Tulsa for several decades, despite humble upbringing.  Adelia had found some artifacts from Aunt Susan’s tenure, and let me look at Cleora’s cookbook.

One of Aunt Susan's Recipe Books

These were going to be part of her exhibit, as well as photographs, recipes, and other information about cooks in Oklahoma in the twenties, thirties, and forties.    She was also planning an appropriate menu for the opening reception.  I sure hope it went well.

Besides the information about the exhibit, and history of cooking in Oklahoma, I also was given several recipes to take with me and try.  As we were walking out to where Adelia has her desk and copier, I saw her gelato maker.  Since one of the recipes she was giving me was for ice cream, the machine caught my eye.  Instantly jealous, I asked about it, and found out she got it for $5 at a yard sale where no one else knew what it was!

I have to admit, that the gelato maker was the reason I’ve been looking at eBay, and ended up bidding on the pasta attachments.  And while it took three tries, I am pleased to say I now have a machine similar to Adelia’s.  It did cost more than $5.  Enough said. So I needed to try it out.

The New to Me Toy

The maiden voyage for Il Gelataio was  with Lucy Baker’s recipe for Cinnamon Ice Cream, modified from a recipe by Gail Gand.  I chose cinnamon as the flavor because it was always one of my favorites at Jordan Pond House, where I worked summers during college.  It’s amazing what kind of taste memories stick with us, isn’t it?

This recipe doesn’t disappoint.  But more on Il Gelataio soon, as I learn the nuances of making the custard base correctly.

Photo credit to DH, copyright 2009

I am the type of person who would like to move to Emilia Romagna for a month to have some elderly woman teach me the proper way to make homemade fresh pasta by hand, and to spend a month or so making it at least once a day to be sure I can actually do it correctly.  While I have a passport, and can speak Italian, the likelihood of this happening soon in my life is remote.

I do, however, have good cookbooks, access to eBay, and some lovely KitchenAid appliances at my disposal.

First, the cookbook:  Marcella Says…, by Marcella Hazan.  Marcella has made a career teaching Italian cooking to Americans and others, in the USA and in Italy.  This book is one of the first cookbooks I bought when I moved to the midwest.  I read through Marcella’s description of making homemade pasta, and I read that she herself, in her advanced age, no longer uses the hand crank pasta machines one often sees.  She uses the pasta roller and cutter attachments made in Italy for Kitchen Aid.  So, the pasta attachments became a wish-list item for me.

Five Years Later….

I was  perusing eBay looking for a used ice cream maker (thanks to a wonderful visit with Adelia and Burt in Stillwater, OK), and ended up bidding on the KitchenAid pasta rollers.  I’m pleased to say I won the auction, and got them for less than retail.

Pasta Roller on Mixer

This weekend, I took the lovely rollers out of their box, and checked it all out.  It was time to refer back to Marcella for the basic recipe.  She doesn’t tell you how easy it is, as Jamie Oliver does, and show you how much fun it is to energetically mix it with your hands.  She’s much more direct.  I will paraphrase/embellish the directions here.  For enough pasta for 2-4 people (2 as a generous main dish or 4  primi piatti (first course), IMHO):

1. Put your metal blade in your food processor.  Add a heaping cup of all-purpose flour and two eggs.  Process until it clumps together.  If it’s sticky, add flour by the tablespoon, pulsing between until it isn’t sticky.  If it’s too dry, add water by the tablespoon until it comes together in big clumps.
2. Gather the dough into a ball and knead it for one minute, pushing it away with the heel of your hand against the worksurface.  Turn, fold, and repeat.  The heat of your hands and the pressure will make the dough smooth.  Cover the dough with plastic wrap or foil and let rest (15 min. to 1 hr.)
3. Roll and cut with the pasta roller and cutter, according to the manufacturer’s directions.  Either cook the pasta immediately in boiling water (2-4 minutes), or let the pasta air dry on tea towels, and store for later.

Doesn't this dough look well rested?

Okay, so there’s none of the romance of making it completely by hand, of a special skill gained learning to roll the pasta with a dowel.  But it is fast, easy, and delicious in the way that dried pasta can never be.  It’s tender, tasty, and has a texture all it’s own.  You can understand why this has a special place in the hearts of Italians by taste alone.  The fact that it’s made with love by mamma, well, books have been written about that.

We made this pasta twice this weekend.  (First to try out the tools and a quick sauce recipe, and the second time to avoid the mistakes of our first effort, cutting too-sticky pasta by hand. And to use up the sauce.  And because we were hungry.)

Roller in Action

Honestly, it IS possible to go from eggs and flour to cooked pasta in about 35 minutes (15 min. of resting time) with the food processor and the KitchenAid pasta roller and cutter. If you add another 20 minutes on the front making a quick tomato sauce, in an hour it’s a really great dinner.  OK, we’re aided by some sophisticated machinery.  But it does pass Michael Pollan’s test for real food.  We can identify all ingredients, and we combined them together at home.  And Michael Pollan never said sophisticated cooking machinery was not allowed. (Imagine the backlash…)

I can see why this might be too much effort for some people.  But I am pretty sure this is not a flash in the pan gadget for us.  Tonight, while we were cooking the pasta pictured here, DH mentioned that this might be a great first course at a dinner we’re cooking for a silent auction.  Or that we might want to do this at another dinner party.  Marcella would be proud.  I’ve introduced another person to the joys of homemade pasta all’uova, and he can tell how good it is.

Being sideswiped in your car is an unpleasant experience.  But this kind of a sideswipe will make your baking life better.

A Good SideSwipe

When I saw this reviewed in Cook’s Illustrated, I knew I wanted one.    It’s a blade for your mixer that scrapes the sides and bottom of the bowl WHILE IT IS MIXING.  No need to stop the mixer and scrape down the sides!  Improved mixing action AND less effort.  How cool is THAT?

I went to the SideSwipe website to order one.  Unfortunately, the demand was so high, they sold out VERY quickly (All the other Cook’s readers beat me to the punch).   I had to wait until mid January before they were back in stock.  I impulsively ordered one for myself, and as a present for B, my pal who also appreciates cool tools and has a tilt head KitchenAid mixer.  The blade that fits my mixer costs $25.  It arrived, and then, of course, I needed an excuse to bake something.

I was fortunate enough this past week to use this tool twice.  Once, to make a version of the Great Yellow Cake  from The New Basics for DH’s book club, and once to make a coffee cake from the Joy of Cooking.

SideSwipe On the Mixer

I can attest that the blade works as advertised.  It made the cake batter seem fluffier than with the regular paddle blade, I thought, and it does incorporate the ingredients better.  There was not even a trace of a flour pocket in the bottom of the bowl with this new blade- everything got incorporated nicely.  It made the cake even quicker to mix, not that it needs to be (Preheating the oven takes longer than prepping pans and mixing batter for the Great Yellow Cake).

The manufacturers state on the packaging that this will NOT work well with stiff butter or very stiff doughs.  I made sure the butter was softened for the coffee cake, and had no problems at all with that batter, either.  Since the coffee cake got more verbal response, that’s the recipe I’m including.  Make it with or without a SideSwipe. 

Sour Cream or Yogurt Coffeecake, adapted from the Joy of Cooking

Makes 1 13×9 inch coffeecake

Equipment:

• Bowls (2 regular, 1 for electric mixer)
• 13 x 9 inch baking pan
• measuring cups
• measuring spoons
• electric mixer
• food processor (or pastry blender or fork, if you want to do it manually)
• spatula
• spoon

Streusel Ingredients:

• 1 1/3 cups all purpose flour
• 2/3 cup light brown sugar
• 5 Tbs unsalted butter
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. cinnamon

Streusel Procedure:

1. Melt the butter. (I do this in the microwave)
2. Blend all ingredients together, either by pulsing in the food processor, or by mixing with a pastry blender or fork, until it resembles coarse crumbs.
3. Set aside until ready to put it on the coffeecake.

Coffeecake Ingredients:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1 1/4 cups sour cream or yogurt  (or some of each if you’ve got both as leftovers)
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 4 Tbs. (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 large eggs
• non-stick cooking spray, or extra butter for greasing the pan

Coffeecake Procedure:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.  Put the oven rack in the lower third of the oven.
2. Grease the 13 x 9 pan.
3. Prepare the Streusel, if you haven’t already.
4. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a bowl. Whisk thoroughly, if you follow rules, absently if you don’t.
5. Combine the yogurt or sour cream with the vanilla extract in another bowl, and set aside.
6. In the large mixer bowl, beat the butter and sugar on high speed until lightened in color and texture, about 4 minutes.
7. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, allowing the first to be incorporated before adding the second.
8. Add the flour mixture in 3 parts, alternating with the yogurt/sour cream mixture in 2 parts.  Keep the mixer on low speed while doing this, scraping down the sides as needed (or not scraping, if you have the SideSwipe!).
9. Pour the batter into the pan, and spread evenly.  Sprinkle the streusel on top.
10. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 30 minutes.  Let the cake cool briefly on a rack.  Serve warm (or cold, or however you like it!).

As someone looking for “real” food, i.e. not processed food, but yet someone with a life outside my kitchen, I’m always looking for recipes and techniques I can fit into my life.   The No-Knead Bread craze, altered by Cook’s Illustrated in the last post to Knead Only 10 times Bread is one of those techniques that now fit nicely in my life.

Artisan-In-Five loaf ready for baking

While trolling Amazon to decide how to spend a gift certificate, I happened across Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes A Day, by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois.  The authors are from Minneapolis, so they’re almost locals.   I found a copy at my local library, and checked it out.

It is important to remember that the “5 minutes a day” refers to the active time you are working with the dough, but that the elapsed time of the process is longer.  Again, the idea is to make it workable with your life.

The techniques are simple. The basic idea is that mixing a lot of dough in a few minutes and keeping it in the fridge allows you to bake off a loaf when you want it. As someone said (I wish I knew whom),  “If you’re going to be lazy, you need to be efficient”. How can you not like a way to have fresh bread for dinner every night for a week that requires very small amounts of work each day?

So far I have only mixed one recipe- a 100% whole wheat bread.  The results have been tasty, though I think I need more practice before I will have the technique perfected.  One of the things I like about this book is that the authors don’t just make the basic white bread.  There are recipes for brioche, for rye breads, for multigrain breads, and recipes for sandwiches, salads, etc. to have with the breads. The book also explains how to partially bake loaves, so you can freeze them.  More nifty ways to fit good homemade bread into modern life.

Bread After Baking

If you click on the link above, Zoe shows how to use the basic doughs in other ways, too.  The Bacon and Eggs In Toast from January 6th looks like a real winner.  From reading the blog, it looks like they have a second book in the works, so their technique IS taking off.

The fact that we have a second fridge allows me to keep a big dough bucket cold without any problem, so I think this book will be one I’ll try many recipes from.   I’ll try and get pictures of some results to post next time, too.

From Happy Days with the Naked Chef, by Jamie Oliver

Serves 6

Equipment:

• Dutch oven
• tongs
• chef’s knife
• cutting board
• corkscrew
• measuring spoons
• cotton kitchen string and scissors
• wax paper

Ingredients:

• 1 3.5-4 lb boneless pork loin
• 1 fennel bulb (also called anise in some grocery stores)
• half a 750 ml bottle of Chardonnay, your choice
• 1 handful of fresh rosemary, leaves removed from stem
• 8 cloves of garlic, skins left on
• 1 Tbs fennel seeds
• 4 bay leaves
• butter
• olive oil
• salt
• pepper

Prep:

1. Preheat the oven to 400 F. Tie the pork with 2 or 3 pieces of string, so it will hold its shape in the pan (Not crucial, but nice).
2. Season the meat generously with salt and pepper. Roll the meat in the fennel seeds until covered. Cut the fronds off the fennel bulb and slice it.
3. Open the wine.

Cook:

1. Melt a large pat of butter with a little olive oil in the Dutch oven on medium high heat, and brown the meat on all sides until golden. Throw in the garlic, herbs, fennel, and wine.
2. Cover the Dutch oven with a piece of wet waxed paper, and put in the oven for 75 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow the meat to rest on a plate for 10 minutes.
3. Finish the sauce by scraping up any bits that have stuck to the bottom of the pan, and add another pat of butter. Taste and correct the seasonings. Squash open a few of the garlic cloves- when cooked they go nice and sweet and add a lovely taste to the sauce.

Serve:

Slice the pork, and serve with some of the sauce. This is nice with roasted potatoes, rice, or buttered noodles.

Insalata Palermitana, with Blood Oranges and Navel Oranges

Orange and Fennel Salad from Palermo

I got this recipe from a lovely book by Susan Simon called INSALATE: Authentic Italian Salads for All Seasons.  It’s in the winter section.  I served this to the family as part of Christmas dinner.  Comments from diners were about the nice balance of flavors, and that this is subtle.  It’s perfect now that we’re getting the seasonal citrus.  Fennel is sometimes called anise in the produce section, and is getting easier to find in grocery stores now.  This is the time to practice making your orange supremes.  For a how-to, complete with pictures, look here.

Serves 6

Equipment:

• cutting board
• paring knife
• chef’s knife
• large bowl
• small bowl
• measuring spoons

Ingredients:

• ½ red onion, thinly sliced
• 3 Tbs extra virgin olive oil
• 2 tsp fruity vinegar such as blackberry or raspberry
• 1 tsp salt
• ¼ tsp freshly ground black pepper
• 1 bulb fennel (reserve fronds), halved lengthwise, and cut into thin crosswise slices
• 4 navel oranges (or blood oranges), peeled and cut into ¼ inch thick slices, then halved crosswise
• ¼ cup coarsely chopped pitted black olives, such as kalamata

1. Soak the onion in a small bowl of salted ice water for at least 30 minutes, or up to 1 hour to remove the bite.
2. In a large bowl, combine the olive oil, vinegar, salt, and pepper. Whisk until emulsified.
3. Coarsely chop the reserved fennel fronds. Add the oranges, fennel, fronds, and olives to the dressing. Drain the onions and squeeze them dry. Add the onions to the bowl. Toss to thoroughly combine. Serve immediately.