improvising

The Case for Tomatoes as Dessert and Four Recipes: Fresh Tomato Juice, Tomato Curd, Shortbread Squares, and Candied Basil

Posted by Margot | Filed under:
Aug 28 2010

not quite enough basil to go around, but that way the squares were basil-optional

The Legal Exception: Green Tomato Pie

When the Supreme Court decided in Nix v. Hedden that tomatoes couldn’t be legally considered a fruit because  they weren’t customarily eaten for dessert, there was only one real exception: green tomato pie.Paula Deen's green tomato pie, which includes raisins; click for the recipe The green tomatoes left on the vine at the end of the growing season aren’t especially palatable, at least when they’re raw. They’re hard, and contain substantially less of the sugar, acids, and aromatic compounds that give ripe tomatoes their distinctive flavor. Thanks in part to the 1991 Academy Award-nominated film based on Fannie Flagg's novel Fried Green Tomatoes and the Whistle Stop Cafe, many people are familiar with the idea that green tomatoes can be eaten breaded and fried. Fewer people know that green tomatoes are such a blank slate that they can just as easily be used in sweet preparations. Sliced or minced and cooked in a pastry crust with lots sugar and some cinnamon or other spices, tomatoes make a sweet-tart fruit filling reminiscent of apples. The dessert was common in the American South by the mid-19th C.

However, it specifically relies on tomatoes that don’t taste like tomatoes. While it might seem like ripe tomatoes would be the more obvious choice for desserts because they’re so much sweeter, the savory meatiness imparted by the high glutamate content makes the flavor seem inappropriate for sweet applications.

At Least It’s Not Raw Trout

Still, if there’s anything the age of salted caramel and bacon chocolate should have taught us, it’s the fact that sugar plays well with salty, meaty flavors traditionally confined primarily to savory appetizers and main dishes. Indeed, dessert ice cream made with traditionally-savory flavors has become one of the hallmarks of avant-garde cuisine. Smoked bacon and egg ice cream is one of Heston Blumenthal’s most celebrated creations—and, notably, served with a sweet tomato jam as part of the breakfast-themed dessert that’s a fixture on the menu of his three-Michelin-starred restaurant The Fat Duck. A San Francisco ice creamery named Humphry Slocombe recently profiled in The New York Times offers many savory-sweet flavors including foie gras, “government cheese,” and salted licorice. And the competitors on Iron Chef America have presented the judges with ice cream desserts using secret ingredients ranging from abalone to the infamous raw trout.

a tomato ice cream written about a couple of years ago in the NYTimes, click for the recipe Tomato ice cream may sound like just another novelty or oddball flavor, but in fact, it may have preceded all this recent nouveau frippery, possibly even dating back to the very origins of ice cream in America. In the 18th C., when ice cream was still a relatively new invention and hadn’t yet become common in England or America, Benjamin Franklin got his first taste of the churned, frozen custard while visiting Paris. He liked it so much that he wrote in a letter home: “I am making an effort to acquire the formula so we may sample this lovely fare upon my return to Philadelphia.” French and American cookbooks from the era suggest that the most popular flavors back then were apricot, raspberry, rose, chocolate, and cinnamon, but it has been rumored that the flavor Ben Franklin liked best was tomato.

Given the lack of documentary evidence for the existence of tomato ice cream in the 18th C. and in light of the Nix v. Hedden decision, the Franklin rumor is improbable. However, after making something very akin to tomato ice cream last year for Battle Tomato, I feel like it’s not entirely impossible. Prepared with enough sugar, tomato is a perfectly plausible dessert flavor—like strawberry’s slightly funky cousin or a less-tart gooseberry. It’s a tiny bit peculiar, perhaps, but also really alluring, a savory-sweet combination reminiscent of salt-water taffy or yogurt-covered pretzels or anything else that simultaneously hits sour, salty, and sweet tastes. It can be really delicious.Read more

Artichoke and Roasted Garlic Chick Pea Dip

Posted by Margot | Filed under:
Feb 23 2010

this picture gives you basically the whole recipe

Belated epilogue to last week’s posts about artichokes: a recipe you can use to test the “sweet” effect of preserved artichokes that’s not the typical, creamy spinach affair. While I was trying to figure out what to call it, I got into a little debate about what counts as “hummus,” hinging on the importance of tahini. I was initially pro-“hummus,” arguing that you can buy “hummus” labeled “tahini-free” (why on earth any sizable number of people would desire tahini-free hummus I have no idea—are there really that many people with sesame allergies? Is it a fat-phobia thing?). But I had to concede that the label implies that hummus would normally be expected to have tahini, and indeed wikipedia defines hummus as “a dip or spread made from cooked, mashed chickpeas, blended with tahini, olive oil, lemon juice, salt, and garlic.” On the other hand, it also says the full name in Arabic is “حُمُّص بطحينة (ḥummuṣ bi tahnia) which means chickpeas with tahina,” which simultaneously implies that hummus always has tahini and that hummus qua hummus is something separate from tahini.

Ultimately, I decided that the rosemary and artichoke made it sufficiently distinct from hummus to merit a different name, but it’s definitely hummus-like. However, that’s no reason to feel wedded to the chick peas. If I’d had cannellini beans, I probably would have used those instead. Cranberry beans or black-eyed peas would probably work as well. And of course, if you have sufficient foresight, you can use dried beans instead of canned.

The “sweet” effect is definitely more pronounced before you add the acid, but like most bean-based dips/soups, you’ll probably want the acid in there to brighten the flavors. So f you really want to play with taste perversion, try it without the acid first. Let the dip really coat your tongue, give it a minute, and then drink some water. See if it doesn’t taste at least a little bit sweet.

Serve with bread, chips, crackers, cut vegetables, or as a sandwich spread. Makes a little more than 2 cups.

Recipe: Artichoke and Roasted Garlic Chick Pea Dip

  • 1 head garlic, roasted
  • 1 12-15 oz. can artichoke hearts, drained
  • 1 16 oz. can chickpeas, drained
  • 3-4 T. olive oil
  • 2 t. kosher salt (might want to start with 1 t. regular salt and adjust to taste)
  • 1 t. black pepper
  • 1/8 t. cayenne pepper
  • herbs (optional and flexible—I used about 1 t. fresh rosemary and 1 t. dried “Italian seasoning. I wish I’d had about 1 T. fresh parsley; any combination of rosemary, oregano, thyme, and/or parsley, fresh or dried would be great)
  • 1 t. white wine vinegar and/or 1 T. lemon juice 

the lazy person's roasted garlic1. Roast the garlic. Some people say you should slice the head in half and brush it with olive oil or some other kind of fanciness, but I never bother with that. I just wrap the whole head in foil and throw it in a 350-400F oven for 45-60 minutes. If I’m not using the oven for something else, I do it in the toaster oven to save energy. And basically anytime I’m going to have the oven on for 45+ minutes, I throw a head of garlic in too because why not? It’s delicious on its own, just mashed up with a little salt and spread on bread or crackers, and it’s awesome in a million other things—bean dips, composed butters, bread, mashed root vegetables, squash puree, salad dressings. You can do this up to a week in advance and store it in the refrigerator until you’re ready to use it.

2. Once the garlic is cool enough to handle, peel the cloves into a blender or food processor. Add the rest of the ingredients, except for 1 T. of the olive oil and the acid.

once it's roasted the peel just falls away

3. Puree, adding more oil or water if necessary to make the mixture smooth and creamy. Adjust seasoning to taste, including adding lemon juice and/or white wine vinegar if desired.

not much to look at, but you could pretty it up with a drizzle of olive oil and sprinkle of paprika just like hummus if you were so inclined

Ground cherry galette and no-churn vanilla bean soft serve

Posted by Margot | Filed under:
Sep 4 2009

this "ice cream" melts so fast it's only by the grace of autofocus it survived plating and posing

I've never made a galette before, but it seemed like a good idea because pies are one of the primary traditional applications for ground cherries, and I didn't have nearly enough to make a traditional double-crust pie filling. Since galettes are free-formed around their fillings, they can be as big or little as you want to make them. And so much easier than pies—there's no delicate procedure to get the crust into a pie pan without cracking, no par-baking and hoping the sides don't droop or shrink. No crimping or lattice.

But I was wary of just following a normal ground cherry pie recipe and changing the shape, because the lack of shaping and par-baking means the crust can get soggy if the filling is too wet, which is why fruit galette recipes often call for a layer of crushed cookies or cubes of pound cake or a frangipane to help soak up the juices. Rose Levy Beranbaum's suggestion to let cut fruit sit with sugar for 30 min and then drain off and reduce the syrup sounded like a good idea, but unnecessarily fussy. Instead of going to the trouble of draining off the juice, I just simmered the halved ground cherries with some brown sugar and limoncello (a desperation substitution when I realized I didn't have any lemons) until the liquid had reduced a bit, basically making a quick ground cherry jam. And then I entirely forgot to add the butter most of the pie recipes called for. C'est la vie.

It turned out like a big ground cherry pop tart, basically. Just a simple buttery pastry crust filled with a thin layer of rich, sweet ground cherry preserves. Lovely with ice cream, perfect for breakfast. I may still try to pick up enough at the market this weekend to do a proper pie, but this galette definitely sated my somewhat-batty obsession with the fruit, which is good in case the two pints from last week are all I get for the summer. It probably goes without saying you could do this with any other kind of berry, and most stone fruits too, but there. I said it anyway.

simultaneously rustic and bejeweled

Recipe: Ground cherry galette

(crust adapted from Alton Brown's I'm Just Here for More Food, filling adapted from Allrecipes and Vesey's)according to The Yuppie Handbook (published 1984), I get 4 points for owning a marble rolling pin

For the crust: 

  • 8 T. butter (Alton uses 6 T. butter and 2T. lard, I don't usually have lard around and didn't feel like digging out the shortening)
  • 1 1/4 c. (6 oz) all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 t. salt
  • 2 T. sugar (optional—leave out for a savory galette)
  • 2-3 T. ice water

For the filling:

  • 1 1/2 cups ground cherries, husked and halved
  • 2 T. brown sugar
  • 2 t. tapioca
  • 1 T. limoncello or the juice of 1 lemon
  • a pinch of grated nutmeg
  • 2 T. butter (also optional, apparently)

Cut the butter into 16 or so chunks and freeze while you get the other ingredients together. Combine the flour, sugar, and salt in a food processor bowl and pulse (or just whisk together). Add the butter and pulse 10 or so times (or cut in with a pastry blender or two crisscrossing knives) until the biggest lumps are the size of small peas.

 also a reason why forgetting to add butter to the filling wasn't a big deal though not quite the *shape* of peas

I decided to try Alton's recommendation of using a spray bottle to distribute the ice water evenly, but it also misted the sides of the bowl (and I can't imagine how that could be avoided entirely), so when I hit "pulse" again, the mist attracted flour and formed a thin layer of moist paste on the side of the bowl, which is about as awesome as most things you describe as "moist paste." So I gave up on that and just fed the ice water through the opening in the top, pulsing until the dough just barely started to come together.

 thumbs down  thumbs up!moist paste. say it quickly and it starts to sound like "myspace" with a slight brogue: "moispace"

Then, dump the contents of the food processor onto a piece of plastic wrap (or into a large zip-top bag). Use the plastic to help you press it into a disk about 5" in diameter and 1" tall. Chill for 30 min.

Meanwhile, husk the cherries and slice them in half into a sauce pan, setting aside any that are still tinged with green. Sprinkle with brown sugar, tapioca, and lemon juice or limoncello. Grate in a pinch of nutmeg. Stir over medium heat until the cherries release their juices and the juice thickens into a glaze.

filling3 filling1

Preheat the oven to 400.

Roll out the pastry on a piece of parchment paper—leaving the plastic wrap on top helps. Doesn't have to be a perfect circle because the whole idea here is a rustic, uneven sort of charm, but the best way I've found to get a roughly even circle-like object is to roll from the center of the dough directly away from your body, or up towards 12 o'clock. Then, turn the parchment about 30 degrees and do it again, and repeat, turning it in a circle and always rolling in the same direction with roughly the same amount of pressure.

Spread the filling in the center, leaving at least a 2" border or up to 4". Then, fold the edges up, letting them pleat naturally or attempting to bend them to your will or some combination of the two.

galette3 galette4

Bake for 35-40 min.

A few minutes after I'd put it in the oven, I remembered that I'd seen Thank God It's Pie Day sugar her galettes before baking, which gave them sparkle and a little crunch. So I pulled it out of the oven and did that. Bonus for being forgetful: I didn't having to brush the pastry with water to get the sugar to stick.

Recipe for the no-churn, no-whisk, ice-cream-or-semifreddo-like dessert object will have to wait. I'm tired.