This is a rough transcript of the internal monologue that followed a semi-last-minute decision to take dessert to a friend’s house for dinner yesterday (scroll down to “results” if you just want to know what the heck Ozark pie/Huguenot Torte is and aren’t interested in the documentation of my neuroses):

The Process

“I should just buy something. I don’t have time to bake. But how do you even do that? I can’t just buy a bag of Oreos or something, can I? A grocery store bakery pie? I don’t even want to eat that. Is there anywhere else I can buy a pie? Why are there a half a dozen stores that sell cupcakes and nowhere I can buy a goatforsaken pie…

My goat, my goat, why have you forsaken me pie?

“Is it okay to show up at someone’s house with a pint of ice cream? What if they don’t have any freezer space? Is that offensive—like a suggestion that they are incapable of purchasing ice cream or perhaps that if they did have ice cream on hand it wouldn’t be as good as whatever you brought? Oh, this is so stupid. [Generous host] specifically said there was no need for me to bring anything. What is wrong with me that I don’t know how to be a dinner guest without bringing something I made “from scratch”? This is why I am not done with my dissertation and will obviously fail at everything forever. Thanks, superego, helpful as always. sigh Surely there is something I can make that won’t take very long and will make me happier than showing up empty-handed or with a bag of Oreos…

filters Delicious tags by “recipe” and “dessert” and opens these four links

“What was Huguenot Torte again? Oh, right, some kind of sunken apple-pecan meringue thing. Huh. Maria del Mar Sacasa of Serious Eats says it’s simple, ugly, and delicious, which sounds about perfect. But she also gave it a “makeover” with sour cherries and hazelnuts in place of the apples and pecans. I was not impressed with the canned sour cherries I got for NYE. Maybe I should just make the original…

opens these three links

“Egad, that sounds awfully sweet. And Amanda Hesser of the NYTimes says she likes it warm and that when it’s cold ‘you have to do battle to cut it.’ That does not sound like the best thing to make in advance and take somewhere. I wonder if I could make individual portions? Hey, the 2009 Recipe Redux by Sarah Magid is for ‘boozy apple-thyme meringue cookies’—maybe that would work?

“Curses! This recipe is so much fussier. You have to caramelize the apples separately and then use a piping bag to make individual meringues and it calls for both superfine and confectioner’s sugar…guh. The whole point of this recipe was that it was going to be simple. Hm. I wonder what the internet thinks about ‘individual Huguenot tortes’…

googles “individual Huguenot tortes,” and opens these four links

“Balls. None of these are actually for individual-sized portions, although Up Chef Creek came to the same conclusion because the caramelized crust, which is the best part, sticks to the pan & becomes impossible to serve after it’s cooled. So it would probably be better to bake it in individual ramekins. But who knows how that would affect the baking time? Or how full I should fill the cups? And do I really want to cart a bunch of individual cups of ugly apple-pecan meringue business to someone’s house? That seems stupid. I should just make the original. ‘Golden oldie’ Maria del Mar Sacasa, said. ‘I cooked it fairly often,’ she said. That is not something you do with a recipe that sucks…

“Wait, didn’t Amanda Hesser say this wasn’t actually related to the Huguenots at all and actually descended from something called Ozark Pudding? I wonder what the internet thinks about Ozark Pudding…

googles “Ozark Pudding,” and opens these three links Read more »

“Nacho” typical cheese sauce

J. Kenji Lopez-Alt from Serious Eats did all the work on this one. His mission: a homemade cheese sauce with real cheese that’s satiny smooth and stays that way.

Apparently, his wife’s a huge fan of the kind of cheese sauce you get with fries or nachos at burger shacks & sporting events—the gooey, tangy stuff that food snobs turn their noses up at because it’s so obviously processed (although I suspect a good number of them would be all over it if it was coming out of the kitchen at WD-50 or Alinea). Kenji agreed that there was something about the texture of the processed stuff better suited to fries & nachos than a traditional Mornay sauce, which is just a Béchamel with cheese—like the sauce in most homemade macaroni & cheese recipes. Using the ingredients on a box of Velveeta for inspiration, he tried a number of different methods and found that the two keys to preventing the cheese from breaking and clumping were 1) milk proteins and 2) starch.

The method he arrived at could not be simpler: you grate some cheese and toss it with a little cornstarch, and then  heat it along with some evaporated milk until it’s smooth, adding some hot sauce if desired. I made two batches for a Superbowl party yesterday with some of the modifications suggested by Kenji and people who commented on the recipe. For the first, “Nacho,” I used half sharp cheddar and half pepperjack cheese with about a teaspoon of hot sauce. For the second, “White Cheddar,” I used 3/4 sharp cheddar and 1/4 Monterey Jack, added 1 t. dry mustard  along with the cornstarch and used Worcestershire sauce in place of the hot sauce.

The reason I used some jack cheese in both instead of all cheddar was that a few people who commented on the Serious Eats recipe said they had problems with the sauce getting grainy, especially after cooling. In my experience, jack cheese is way less prone to breaking & clumping than cheddar in applications like white chili, so I thought it might be a way to guard against the texture issues. But that didn’t really work—the sauce was impressively smooth when it was hot, but as it cooled, it became grainy, and basically a lot like a Mornay. A good Mornay, but definitely not a substitute for processed cheese sauces. When I reheated it in a larger pan of simmering water, double-boiler style, it smoothed out again.

I suspect that the problem was that I used a super sharp, hard, and relatively dry aged cheddar—the kind that has tiny calcium crystals in it, like parmesan—and as it returned to room temperature, the cheese started to re-solidify. Next time, I’ll use a younger, softer, creamier cheddar. But the technique definitely worked—while the sauce was hot, it was silky smooth and gooey, and tasted exactly like awesomely sharp aged cheddar cheese.

 I have no annoying puns for “White Cheddar” Read more »

 Pizza stone version on the left, Covered pot version on the right

Bread That Takes Time, but Not Your Time

A recent e-mail reminded me that I promised ages ago to share my sourdough version of the Sullivan St. “no knead” bread popularized by Mark Bittman in the NYTimes. Part of the reason I didn’t get around to it sooner is because it’s basically the same as the recipe I posted for crusty, shaped loaves—although that one uses just enough flour to make the dough kneadable. But the no-knead method probably deserves its own post.

Over time, I’ve developed three basic formulas to work with my sourdough starter: slow, medium, and fast. All three, even the “fast” version, work by letting time do the work that kneading normally does. A longer-than-normal rise enables long chains of gluten to form, and gluten is what forms stretchy membranes that trap the gas produced by the yeast, which is what causes bread to rise. The lack of kneading also means the dough can be wetter, because you don’t have to worry about it sticking to you. When that wet dough is baked it in a covered pot, it creates a steamy environment not unlike a professional steam-blasting oven, and that’s what produces the thick, crispy crust people associate with European-style or artisanal bakery bread. However, I’ve also had pretty good success with a baking stone and a splash of water thrown in a preheated dish on the oven floor (which often gets on the oven floor too, but that’s fine—more water in contact with more hot surface at one time = more steam).

The loaves above show the differences between the two methods—the covered pot method rises a little more and has a slightly nicer crust. Using a pizza stone enables you to make different shapes and slash the top in decorative ways. They were baked at the same time like so:

   I couldn’t fit the pizza stone & pot side by side on the rack,
so I used the lid of the small dish to level the pot

The “fast” version takes a minimum of 6 hrs for the first rise. The “slow” version, which is the most similar to the original “no knead” recipe, takes at least 18 hrs for the first rise. However, those are 6-18 (or more) hours during which you don’t have to do a thing. Much like the no-knead pizza dough, this recipe virtually effortless. Five minutes to measure out the ingredients and stir them together, another minute or so to shape it, 30 seconds to throw it in the oven and another 30 seconds to add a splash of water at the beginning or remove the lid of the pot mid-way through baking. Even if it takes another few minutes to refresh the starter, the whole process probably takes less active time than making a trip to a bakery where you could buy something comparable.

And, of course, as with anything you make yourself, you can customize it however you want. Here are a few versions:

 The Classic

 Cranberry, Apricot & Walnut

Garlic, Tomato, & Herb Knots

 Multigrain, Flax, & Honey Read more »

Incidentally vegan (which is not incidentally my favorite kind of vegan)

Soup Season is ON

I think the worst thing about January in Michigan is knowing even after we survive it, we still have to deal with February. Would you like some soup? I would like some soup.

I first discovered this recipe sometime during the year or two I ate (mostly) vegan. In many ways, it’s just a standard vegetable soup. It starts with garlic & onion, and then you add some vegetables—it doesn’t really matter what kind. Top with canned tomatoes and enough broth to cover, cook until the veggies are done, season with salt & pepper to taste, and that should be pretty tasty, even if you don’t add anything else. But it’s probably nothing to write home the internet about.

It’s the three elements in the name that make this something worth sharing—a hefty scoop of cayenne pepper, a couple of tablespoons of minced fresh ginger, and a few heaping spoonfuls of peanut butter. Together, they transform this from just your average vegetable soup into a spicy, hearty, creamy stew. A hint of coconut, which you can get either by sweating the veggies in coconut oil, adding some coconut milk with the nut butter, or garnishing the soup with a sprinkle of unsweetened dried coconut curls adds another layer of flavor and richness, but it’s also great without the coconut.

To make it more filling, I sometimes add potatoes or rice. In this batch, I used sweet potatoes because I think they’re especially nice with ginger, cayenne, and coconut. Sometimes I throw in a bell pepper or some hearty greens. Carrots would be a welcome addition, too. I actually have a hard time thinking of anything that wouldn’t be good in this—cabbage, peas, corn, winter squash, white potatoes. And although I’ve never tried it, I imagine it would also be good with some beans, shredded cooked chicken, or diced ham if you wanted to add more protein or had leftovers hanging around that you wanted to use up. 

This is a 12-qt pot so as written below it makes ~8 quarts of soup?
Easily scaled down—the original recipe makes 4-6 servings. Read more »

The most remarkable thing about my mother is that
for thirty years she served the family nothing but leftovers.
The original meal has never been found.
-Calvin Trillin

 
Image Credit: She Knows.com

Every few months, someone publishes another article claiming that the “family meal” is dead or dying, and that if we could only revive it, it would help us fix a laundry list of societal ills from obesity to teen pregnancy. These stories usually make four main rhetorical moves:

1) Invoking Tradition and History: They universally portray the family meal as a long-standing tradition that Americans lost sometime in the recent past. For example, a post on Epicurious last week was titled “Radical Call To Take Back The Family Dinner,” which not only implies that it’s something we had at some point but also that something or someone took it from us, possibly without our consent. Frequently, these articles conflate cooking from scratch, eating at home, and eating with the members of your nuclear family, which makes it difficult to pinpoint exactly which behavior they think has declined, or what counts as a “family meal” in the first place—if a nuclear family eats together at a restaurant, does that count? What about eating take-out at home? Is eating in a car an automatic disqualifier, even if the food is homemade and everyone talks about their day?

The historical timeline is also usually pretty fuzzy. It’s almost never clear when the author thinks the “family meal” supposedly prevailed or when we “lost” it—the 1920s? the 1960s? The 1980s? And yet they’re sure it existed at some point. Much like the missing “original” meal in Calvin Trillin’s joke about leftovers, it’s an absent referent.

2) Explaining Why the Family Meal Is a Panacea: Whatever they think it was, and whenever they think we lost it, the authors are clear about at least one thing: family meals are a good thing and we need to get them back. That’s often exemplified by the titles, like the Huffington Post article linked in the Epicurious post: “How Eating at Home Can Save Your Life” or Miriam Weinstein’s 2005 book, The Surprising Power of Family Meals: How Eating Together Makes Us Smarter, Stronger, Healthier and Happier. The authors often point—or at least gesture vaguely—towards studies that have shown correlations between how often children eat with their parents and higher GPAs, lower BMIs, lower rates of alcohol & drug use, and a decreased likelihood of developing an eating disorder. Because everyone knows correlation = causation, right?

3) Blaming Individuals Instead of Structural Changes: Authors sometimes initially point the finger at structural changes like the increasing reliance on industrial-scale agriculture and processing to feed a growing & urbanizing population (dated either to the post-Civil War or post-WW II era) and growing numbers of women in the workforce after the 1960s. However, they all find a way to shift blame, and thus responsibility, back onto individuals. That’s rhetorically necessary, because the goal of the articles is usually to change individuals’ behavior. Also, it would be futile and/or offensive to suggest that the “answer” is a massive population cull, giving up city living, and/or  women leaving the workforce en masse. Indeed, many feminists were rankled by Michael Pollan’s article “Out of the Kitchen, Onto the Couch,” even though he specifically notes that the amount of time spent on food preparation has declined dramatically even for women who don’t work outside the home and specifically calls on women and men to “make cooking a part of daily life.”

The factors they end up blaming instead are nonsense or, at best, totally un-measurable. My favorite is when they claim that the problem is that Americans are busier than ever…but also lazier than ever. From Epicurious:

We're certainly at a lazy point in history, though ironically, for all the conveniences at our disposal, we seem even shorter of actual time.

We’re working more hours than ever, but as a culture, we’ve gotten lazy. American kids are running around trying to do more extra-curriculars than ever, especially if they’re college-bound, but they also spend all their time on passive, mind-slushifying electronic entertainments. Chefs, farmers, and food writers have achieved celebrity status, the Food Network and shows like Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution and Bravo’s Top Chef achieve stellar ratings, and there’s never been more interest in eating organic, natural, fresh, local food…but we’re a fast food nation addicted to HFCS and cheap, industrially-processed, “empty” calories. Yadda yadda, a dozen other unsubstantiated, contradictory clichés that tell us nothing about what is responsible for Americans cooking and/or eating together less (if indeed they are cooking and eating together less).

4) Calling for Change: All of which leads up to the same old rallying cry: Even if you think you don’t have time, you should make the time! If you don’t know how to cook, you should learn to cook! If you and/or your kids prefer fast food and convenience foods, you’re basically a failure at life and you should learn to roast Brussels sprouts and grow an adult palate, stat. Then they make perhaps the stupidest claim of all: not only is cooking at home and eating together a moral obligation to your children, family, and nation, the real reason you should do it is because it will make you happier. After all, there is no greater joy than sharing a home-cooked meal with the people you love.

 American Beauty dir. Sam Mendes 1999 (from Orange Crate Art)

The “family meal” lecture would be annoying enough as it is—smug, hectoring, and totally unoriginal—but worse, it’s almost entirely based on myths, lies, and logical fallacies. Read more »

Before

Hey, 2011

Welcome to the new blog austerity. Rather than write out special feature posts for all the recipes I used for our fourth annual New Year’s Eve party, I’m just going to post pictures and links with brief annotations about how I modified them (if I did) or how I’d do them differently if I make them again. They’re all finger foods, so they’re perfect for entertaining or taking to an open house party where people will be grazing rather than sitting down with plates & silverware.

Clockwise from the bottom right:

Marshmallows with Toasted Coconut
Smoked Trout Pâté
Bacon-Wrapped Dates Stuffed with Almonds (represented by the empty dish)
Goat Cheese & Pine Nut Canapés
Spinach-Artichoke Pinwheels
Spiced Nuts
Bourbon Balls
Assorted Cheesecake Bites
Fig and Blue Cheese Crackers
Scallop Mousse in Phyllo Cups
Chocolate-covered Buttercreams
Candied Cranberries
Crudité Platter with Harissa Dip

After

More pictures and recipes after the jump. Read more »