Recently on a stay in Idyllwild (the mile-high village in California’s San Jacinto mountains where Gene and I lived for twenty years), my friends and I walked each morning to have breakfast at Café Aroma. Café Aroma seems to be THE gathering place these days, Frank Ferro--the café’s heart and soul--is an inspired chef and charming host. How I wish his establishment had been in place when we were.
First morning with my coffee, I ordered a blueberry scone. First bite, I knew I was in the presence of something extraordinary.
Until now, James Beard’s Cream Biscuits have been—to my taste—the measure of biscuit/scone heaven. Frank’s are better—they crumble on the way to your mouth and in the mouth, they melt, their flavors of butter/flour/fruit in perfect balance. Frank adds dried currants or cranberries or blueberries to the dough. I thought my preference would be blueberries until I ate a currant scone…until I ate one with cranberries.
Café Aroma serves these beauties not with butter but lemon curd, a delightful conceit. Truthfully, being so rich, they need no topping—and I find I can taste the fruit more clearly when plain. But for a special occasion, you can buy a good lemon curd where good preserves are sold (or stand over a double boiler whisking eggs, sugar, and lemon juice for 10 long minutes…).
I asked Frank if he would share his scone recipe and he graciously gave it to me for this page. His amounts, naturally, are industrial strength. I made one-third the recipe, one dozen. Ate two before they cooled (the scones should be served warm, by the way).
Frank calls for an ingredient I was unfamiliar with (Mrs Hattie Childs, my Senior English teacher, would want me to say, ‘with which I was unfamiliar’…), Manufacturing cream. I discovered it’s a commercial product with 40% butterfat…happily it’s available as Trader Joe’s Heavy Cream. Or use your favorite “heavy whipping cream” (probably 36% butterfat) and add an extra ½ tablespoon butter for every 1 cup cream.
I had to bake the scones longer than his recipe…my apartment oven is surely not the equivalent of Frank’s restaurant range. Too, Frank bakes his scones way cooler than any recipe I’ve seen—Beard uses 425 degrees, Myrtle Allen, the maven of Ballymaloe House, uses 400, the incomparable Jim Dodge uses 375 degrees. But I wouldn’t touch it…
I also ended up with more egg mixture than I needed, so I cut down a tad on the cream. And I used my hands rather than a mixer. Easier clean-up.
I will give you Frank’s recipe for Café Aroma verbatim first—you can divide the dough the way he does, using different fruits—then my household adaptation.
Café Aroma’s Scones—makes 36!
6 cups Flour
1/2 tablespoon Salt
3/4 cup Sugar
3 tablespoons Baking Powder
1/3 pound Butter
1 cup Curants
3 Eggs
4 cups Manufacturing Cream
Sift flour, salt sugar and baking powder into a mixing bowl.Thinly slice butter and add to flour mixture. Mix in Hobart on speed one until butter pieces are about the size of small peas. Currants can be added during this step, but if making other fruit flavors, wait until after eggs and cream are added and you have set aside enough dough for the other flavors. In a metal bowl, whip the eggs and cream together. Slowly add the egg mixture to the flour mixture in the Hobart until a firm dough forms. Using an ice cream scoop, measure out each scone, making sure there are no air bubbles. Place on a sheet pan lined with parchment paper and brush with remaining cream/egg mixture. Bake at 300 degrees for 11 minutes then turn pan around and bake for 12 more minutes.
ST’s Café Aroma Scones—makes 12
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
3-1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cool but not ice cold (or 4-1/2 tablespoons, if using 36% cream)
1/3 cup Zante dried currants or fresh blueberries or fresh cranberries
1 large egg
1-1/4 cups heavy cream, preferably 40% butterfat
Heat the oven to 300 degrees; set the rack in the middle of the oven and use a baking stone if you have one. Line a 14- by 16-inch baking sheet (or 2 smaller sheets) with parchment paper. Sift flour, salt, sugar, and baking powder into a 2-quart mixing bowl—if using kosher salt, add it to the cream instead to dissolve.
Make the dough using the same technique as for short pastry (see the galette, August 12, 2009 entry): Cut in the butter in thin chips. With the tips of your fingers, rub butter and flour together until the butter is in small-pea-sized chunks. In a smaller bowl, with whisk or egg beater, beat the egg and cream together until slightly frothy. Measure out 1¼ cups (reserve the rest) and drizzle over the dough. Use a fork to quickly blend in—about 12 strokes. Add the fruit (using currants, crumble them in to separate) in 3 or 4 strokes.
With a 3-tablespoon-capacity ice cream scoop, measure out dough, smoothing the top, making sure there are no gaps, and place as far apart on the baking sheet as you have room. Brush each all over with the reserved egg mixture. Bake for 15 minutes then turn the pan around and bake another 15 minutes, or until the center is thoroughly baked (only way to find out is to break one in half...then you have to eat it ...pity). Cool on a rack, they will keep at least one day. Warm before serving.
(Incidentally, I find the present crop of Sun-Maid’s “Zante currants” finer quality and more flavorful than I can remember.)
And, oh yes. Is this recipe for high altitude? I neglected to ask, but having baked for decades on the mountain, I'm fairly sure Frank adjusted his recipe for those of us who visit Cafe Aroma for a few days, request the recipe, then go home and bake on the flats.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Oh, Yogi!
Tonight putting together my supper, watching the recording of last night’s Charlie Rose—an hour with Rahm Emanuel—I heard one of those remarks that makes you laugh aloud with delight and gratitude, a quote to last forever:
Speaking of Iran and its choices, Emanuel quoted Yogi Berra: “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.”
Divine.
Speaking of Iran and its choices, Emanuel quoted Yogi Berra: “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.”
Divine.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Roasted Fennel Medallions, Sweet Red Pepper Strips and Carrot Slices, A Cool First Course
I was back in the mountains recently and cooked supper for half a dozen friends, using the electric stove that I’d used a few weeks before. The oven ran REALLY hot, and the fruit galette I made the first time cooked in 15 minutes instead of 40. So this time I made sure to test the temperature, set the dial to where it would be 400 degrees when I baked the mushroom galette I was preparing...and preparing...and preparing...five sorts of fresh mushrooms, dried wild mushrooms, onions and shallots, rich sauce, plus the pastry, damn glorious thing took me hours. The oven temp turned out to be fine. What wasn’t was that, in my rush to get it into the oven, I forgot to brush the surface with beaten egg, so that, when I opened the oven door, instead of burnished, the galette looked ghostly. That was the first thing I noticed. The second—How on earth?!*#@%! oh no! was that fully a fourth of the galette was sliding/had slud off the buttered rimless baking sheet and precious chunks of mushrooms and shards of pastry lay on the oven floor. Nightmare. Then I saw that, in my haste, I’d set the oven rack on two different levels! one higher than the other… I felt like an idiot.
What did work beautifully in my supper, though, and made me feel redeemed a bit, was the first course. I had come to the mountain expecting to cook for four friends, but then wanted two more to join us. I planned to serve hors d’ouvres of slices of raw fennel, Moroccan black olives, Genoese salami, and pistachios, was going to serve pattypan squashes with the galette. But I didn’t have enough squash. So I decided to roast the fennel and…what else? At the market I’d grabbed a couple of lovely sweet red peppers and a bunch of long skinny carrots. Because the cabin’s dinner plates were smallish--everything would be too crowded--I decided I’d serve the vegetables as a cool first course.
I brushed two baking sheets with olive oil, set the oven to 400 degrees. I trimmed off the fennel stalks at the top of the bulb (reserved the stalks for leaves), and sliced the bulb top to bottom a little more than ¼-inch thick, taking care to keep the pieces intact. I arranged the pieces (there were 8) on a baking sheet and brushed them lightly with oil. I cored the two sweet peppers, cut them into strips about 3/8-inch wide, then cut the strips in half (a more manageable size). Put the strips in a bowl, drizzled them with olive oil, and tossed with my hands so every piece was moistened, then spread the strips on the remainder of the fennel sheet. I roasted these vegetables until the fennel was tender crisp and had taken on color but before the peppers got limp, not very long. Meantime I peeled the 8 carrots and cut them on the diagonal in pieces about ½-inch wide. Tossed them with olive oil as I had the peppers and arranged them on the second baking sheet. Roasted them until they were also tender crisp—but they didn’t look roasted, so I put them under the broiler and shook the sheet until the slices had hints of brown.
Now I sprinkled the warm vegetables with lemon juice—one lemon was enough—a bit of coarse salt and a few turns of the white pepper mill. Tossed very gently to blend, covered with waxed paper, set aside. I snipped feathery leaves from the fennel stalks—minding not to catch even the tiniest bits of stems (it should look like dill from the Dill Weed jar), about ¼ cupful.
At serving time, I re-tossed the strips and slices to glisten again. I set a medallion of fennel on each salad plate, arranged carrot slices at the base, then divided up the sweet red peppers, half a portion on each side of the fennel. Sprinkled with fennel snips and served. This much would make 8 servings, but I distributed it to 7.
I will make this combination again…it could not be simpler, the colors are gorgeous, and, to my delight, everyone exclaimed how delicious it was.
Still I wonder who it was that first observed, "Haste makes waste..."
What did work beautifully in my supper, though, and made me feel redeemed a bit, was the first course. I had come to the mountain expecting to cook for four friends, but then wanted two more to join us. I planned to serve hors d’ouvres of slices of raw fennel, Moroccan black olives, Genoese salami, and pistachios, was going to serve pattypan squashes with the galette. But I didn’t have enough squash. So I decided to roast the fennel and…what else? At the market I’d grabbed a couple of lovely sweet red peppers and a bunch of long skinny carrots. Because the cabin’s dinner plates were smallish--everything would be too crowded--I decided I’d serve the vegetables as a cool first course.
I brushed two baking sheets with olive oil, set the oven to 400 degrees. I trimmed off the fennel stalks at the top of the bulb (reserved the stalks for leaves), and sliced the bulb top to bottom a little more than ¼-inch thick, taking care to keep the pieces intact. I arranged the pieces (there were 8) on a baking sheet and brushed them lightly with oil. I cored the two sweet peppers, cut them into strips about 3/8-inch wide, then cut the strips in half (a more manageable size). Put the strips in a bowl, drizzled them with olive oil, and tossed with my hands so every piece was moistened, then spread the strips on the remainder of the fennel sheet. I roasted these vegetables until the fennel was tender crisp and had taken on color but before the peppers got limp, not very long. Meantime I peeled the 8 carrots and cut them on the diagonal in pieces about ½-inch wide. Tossed them with olive oil as I had the peppers and arranged them on the second baking sheet. Roasted them until they were also tender crisp—but they didn’t look roasted, so I put them under the broiler and shook the sheet until the slices had hints of brown.
Now I sprinkled the warm vegetables with lemon juice—one lemon was enough—a bit of coarse salt and a few turns of the white pepper mill. Tossed very gently to blend, covered with waxed paper, set aside. I snipped feathery leaves from the fennel stalks—minding not to catch even the tiniest bits of stems (it should look like dill from the Dill Weed jar), about ¼ cupful.
At serving time, I re-tossed the strips and slices to glisten again. I set a medallion of fennel on each salad plate, arranged carrot slices at the base, then divided up the sweet red peppers, half a portion on each side of the fennel. Sprinkled with fennel snips and served. This much would make 8 servings, but I distributed it to 7.
I will make this combination again…it could not be simpler, the colors are gorgeous, and, to my delight, everyone exclaimed how delicious it was.
Still I wonder who it was that first observed, "Haste makes waste..."
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Friends
Here’s something you know but that I wish to set down: If it weren’t for friends, we would not get through it.
Right?
Right.
In recent weeks I have been privileged to spend some days traveling with a close friend, a wonderfully deepening experience.
Then I went to a warm laugh-filled reunion with high school friends, re-discovered special people. (I met my best friend in Uni High as we turned sixteen. Diane and I have been through almost sixty years together, love, loss, surprise, dismay, the beauty of a sustaining friendship...)
Next I reconnected with dear friends from a later period in my life, those of the twenty years when Gene and I lived in the mountains. To my delight, old friends introduced me to new friends. So pleased!
Last weekend, on Saturday I shared a cozy supper at Beacon (delicious pan-Asian cuisine) with old close friends, one of the rare couples who has not let go of this old-girl-on-her-own. Sunday, I was invited by a new friend to a potluck picnic in Rustic Canyon, introduced to more new friends. Splendid eats, splendid company under enormous old oaks.
In the midst of this shower of friendship, my eldest child gave me an extraordinary gift…his understanding and insight lifted a burden from my shoulders, one I had been slogging beneath for years. What better friend could a woman have than a clear-eyed son?
And then this morning. Uber-painful. Another’s anger and unhappiness splashed all over me, etched into my mind and heart, made me ill. I had planned to go off tonight with the first of my season tickets to the opera, third row center of the Front Loge to see Donizetti’s “The Elixir of Love.” But I could not. I only wanted to be home with little Cakes, my work, the solace of my terrace garden.
I thought about making myself a martini…it was one in the afternoon, but then I realized that was a bad idea. Instead Cakes and I went for a walk and I called a close friend. I confess I enjoy chatting on my cell when I’m walking if I’m not listening to a book. I reached out, burbling, prattling, dumping, not wanting not to, wanting to shut up. Of course my friend was empathetic. Of course I felt better.
Ah then in my email came the unexpected invitation from a young friend to a Mac Cook-Off in October. Wowiezowie. I adore mac and cheese! I was charmed and grateful to be included. My spirits lifted the more.
Late this afternoon, I called another old close friend. She has just hied herself into a retirement community and is having a bit of a rough patch getting acclimated. Still hurting, I muttered about what happened this morning, couldn’t help it. My dear friend buoyed me with her incomparable Yankee brand of comfort and in return I murmured the most optimistic words of encouragement I could think of.
By tonight, on Cakes’ and my evening walk, I was pretty much healed and I walked along envisioning Nemorino pouring out his love for Adina…I will hear them next week…
For supper I polished off the last of the slow-roasted Roma tomatoes I’d taken to the picnic (the recipe given me long ago by my dear Susan). I piled them on thick rounds of toast, sprinkled them with grated Gruyère, sat down with my kir, and watched Charlie Rose with E.L. Doctorow. Learned something about writing fiction. Felt even better.
Gene was fond of saying, “Old friends are best.” Indeed. But new friends, young little dogs, clear-eyed sons, the prospect of buckets of mac and cheese, slow-roasted tomatoes, and Charlie Rose can also be the best while enriching one’s life, not to mention coming to one’s rescue…
Susan’s Slow-Roasted Plum Tomatoes
Oil a pizza pan or cookie sheet. Cut firm but ripe plum tomatoes in half lengthwise (remove the stem scar or not). Arrange close together cut sides up. In a saucer, blend olive oil with minced garlic (more or less garlic according to taste) to make a thin slurry and brush each half very lightly with this. Sprinkle with coarse salt and set in the oven. Roast uncovered at 300 degrees until velvety soft, about 3 hours…or turn off the oven after about 2 hours, prop the oven door open, and let finish. Grind over pepper and sprinkle with thyme leaves or fine ribbons of sweet basil or bits of rosemary, any herb you like—or none. Serve at room temperature as a side dish, mixed with pasta, or on toasts as a sandwich or hors d’oeuvre. They’ll keep beautifully in the fridge until eaten. Allow 2 tomatoes per serving.
Right?
Right.
In recent weeks I have been privileged to spend some days traveling with a close friend, a wonderfully deepening experience.
Then I went to a warm laugh-filled reunion with high school friends, re-discovered special people. (I met my best friend in Uni High as we turned sixteen. Diane and I have been through almost sixty years together, love, loss, surprise, dismay, the beauty of a sustaining friendship...)
Next I reconnected with dear friends from a later period in my life, those of the twenty years when Gene and I lived in the mountains. To my delight, old friends introduced me to new friends. So pleased!
Last weekend, on Saturday I shared a cozy supper at Beacon (delicious pan-Asian cuisine) with old close friends, one of the rare couples who has not let go of this old-girl-on-her-own. Sunday, I was invited by a new friend to a potluck picnic in Rustic Canyon, introduced to more new friends. Splendid eats, splendid company under enormous old oaks.
In the midst of this shower of friendship, my eldest child gave me an extraordinary gift…his understanding and insight lifted a burden from my shoulders, one I had been slogging beneath for years. What better friend could a woman have than a clear-eyed son?
And then this morning. Uber-painful. Another’s anger and unhappiness splashed all over me, etched into my mind and heart, made me ill. I had planned to go off tonight with the first of my season tickets to the opera, third row center of the Front Loge to see Donizetti’s “The Elixir of Love.” But I could not. I only wanted to be home with little Cakes, my work, the solace of my terrace garden.
I thought about making myself a martini…it was one in the afternoon, but then I realized that was a bad idea. Instead Cakes and I went for a walk and I called a close friend. I confess I enjoy chatting on my cell when I’m walking if I’m not listening to a book. I reached out, burbling, prattling, dumping, not wanting not to, wanting to shut up. Of course my friend was empathetic. Of course I felt better.
Ah then in my email came the unexpected invitation from a young friend to a Mac Cook-Off in October. Wowiezowie. I adore mac and cheese! I was charmed and grateful to be included. My spirits lifted the more.
Late this afternoon, I called another old close friend. She has just hied herself into a retirement community and is having a bit of a rough patch getting acclimated. Still hurting, I muttered about what happened this morning, couldn’t help it. My dear friend buoyed me with her incomparable Yankee brand of comfort and in return I murmured the most optimistic words of encouragement I could think of.
By tonight, on Cakes’ and my evening walk, I was pretty much healed and I walked along envisioning Nemorino pouring out his love for Adina…I will hear them next week…
For supper I polished off the last of the slow-roasted Roma tomatoes I’d taken to the picnic (the recipe given me long ago by my dear Susan). I piled them on thick rounds of toast, sprinkled them with grated Gruyère, sat down with my kir, and watched Charlie Rose with E.L. Doctorow. Learned something about writing fiction. Felt even better.
Gene was fond of saying, “Old friends are best.” Indeed. But new friends, young little dogs, clear-eyed sons, the prospect of buckets of mac and cheese, slow-roasted tomatoes, and Charlie Rose can also be the best while enriching one’s life, not to mention coming to one’s rescue…
Susan’s Slow-Roasted Plum Tomatoes
Oil a pizza pan or cookie sheet. Cut firm but ripe plum tomatoes in half lengthwise (remove the stem scar or not). Arrange close together cut sides up. In a saucer, blend olive oil with minced garlic (more or less garlic according to taste) to make a thin slurry and brush each half very lightly with this. Sprinkle with coarse salt and set in the oven. Roast uncovered at 300 degrees until velvety soft, about 3 hours…or turn off the oven after about 2 hours, prop the oven door open, and let finish. Grind over pepper and sprinkle with thyme leaves or fine ribbons of sweet basil or bits of rosemary, any herb you like—or none. Serve at room temperature as a side dish, mixed with pasta, or on toasts as a sandwich or hors d’oeuvre. They’ll keep beautifully in the fridge until eaten. Allow 2 tomatoes per serving.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Two Ripe White Peaches
I just ate most of two ripe white peaches standing at the sink.
I remember the first white peach I ever saw. I can’t imagine how it was, but I was in my twenties…maybe even thirties. It was a shock, this exotic, like discovering my first pluot. Something about the snowy whiteness of the flesh raised this peach to a higher order, isn’t that silly. But it did. It was as though the fruits were virginal, merited respect. Silly again, but not really. There are some achievements in nature one ought honor.
This afternoon, I bought a clamshell package of four organic white peaches at Trader Joe’s. I examined them carefully from the outside, and when I sniffed at the little open slot of the box, the fragrance was divine, so they clearly were wonderfully ripe. Unfortunately, tonight when I took them out of their box to put them on the epergne, I realized two were beginning to lose ground…a hint of mold appeared on one and the other had an unhappy brown spot. I whipped out my small paring knife and nicked out the offending spots, the while thinking, How’m I going to preserve these? keep them from deteriorating more?
I know, just add sugar. Sugar is, of course, a preservative sine qua non. So I cut the peaches into a blue glass bowl, bite sizes, and sprinkled them copiously with sugar.
Then here I was with a blue glass bowl full of fragrant, juicy, sweet, ephemeral—that’s the key word, they were not going to last—white peaches. What to do with them?
I’ve learned over the years that refrigerating peaches is a bad idea…the flesh can become grainy, woody. Actually, the first peaches I bought this summer—also organic, also smelling of the ripe fruit—were a misery. Woody as hell, clearly they had been refrigerated. I had to throw them out—there was no rescuing them…could not turn them into jam, could not keep them in brandy, could not frame them in a galette, there was no way the woodiness would not be noticed.
I reached for one of the large silver spoons my Russian great-grandmother brought over on the boat from Rostov-on-the-Don. I have three, they are oversize, thin, bent, with fiddle-back handles, and I eat just about everything from my morning oatmeal to my lunchtime yogurt to my evening risotto with one of these precious spoons. Stirred the sugar a bit to dissolve it, spooned up the morsels.
Sublime.
My husband used to be annoyed at my eating standing at the sink. He’s not around to get cross at me, but if he were, I’d do it anyway. He said it was a sign of undue haste. Maybe. Maybe instead it’s a sign of being comfortable in one’s kitchen, of feeling easy just leaning against the sink, daydreaming, not wanting to pick up a napkin and go to the table or the counter or anywhere…that sometimes feels like a sign of undue fussiness. Why not simply be straightforward and plunge in to eating the lovely treat at hand with pleasure and no nonsense?
And so I did.
The other two peaches are in the epergne I carried on my lap on the plane home from Orvieto forty years ago. I will eat them the same way tomorrow.
I urge you: go and get a handful of fragrant ripe organic white peaches and eat them wherever it feels happiest, at the sink or under a tree or sharing with a good friend.
Too soon the end of summer will take all the possibilities away.
I remember the first white peach I ever saw. I can’t imagine how it was, but I was in my twenties…maybe even thirties. It was a shock, this exotic, like discovering my first pluot. Something about the snowy whiteness of the flesh raised this peach to a higher order, isn’t that silly. But it did. It was as though the fruits were virginal, merited respect. Silly again, but not really. There are some achievements in nature one ought honor.
This afternoon, I bought a clamshell package of four organic white peaches at Trader Joe’s. I examined them carefully from the outside, and when I sniffed at the little open slot of the box, the fragrance was divine, so they clearly were wonderfully ripe. Unfortunately, tonight when I took them out of their box to put them on the epergne, I realized two were beginning to lose ground…a hint of mold appeared on one and the other had an unhappy brown spot. I whipped out my small paring knife and nicked out the offending spots, the while thinking, How’m I going to preserve these? keep them from deteriorating more?
I know, just add sugar. Sugar is, of course, a preservative sine qua non. So I cut the peaches into a blue glass bowl, bite sizes, and sprinkled them copiously with sugar.
Then here I was with a blue glass bowl full of fragrant, juicy, sweet, ephemeral—that’s the key word, they were not going to last—white peaches. What to do with them?
I’ve learned over the years that refrigerating peaches is a bad idea…the flesh can become grainy, woody. Actually, the first peaches I bought this summer—also organic, also smelling of the ripe fruit—were a misery. Woody as hell, clearly they had been refrigerated. I had to throw them out—there was no rescuing them…could not turn them into jam, could not keep them in brandy, could not frame them in a galette, there was no way the woodiness would not be noticed.
I reached for one of the large silver spoons my Russian great-grandmother brought over on the boat from Rostov-on-the-Don. I have three, they are oversize, thin, bent, with fiddle-back handles, and I eat just about everything from my morning oatmeal to my lunchtime yogurt to my evening risotto with one of these precious spoons. Stirred the sugar a bit to dissolve it, spooned up the morsels.
Sublime.
My husband used to be annoyed at my eating standing at the sink. He’s not around to get cross at me, but if he were, I’d do it anyway. He said it was a sign of undue haste. Maybe. Maybe instead it’s a sign of being comfortable in one’s kitchen, of feeling easy just leaning against the sink, daydreaming, not wanting to pick up a napkin and go to the table or the counter or anywhere…that sometimes feels like a sign of undue fussiness. Why not simply be straightforward and plunge in to eating the lovely treat at hand with pleasure and no nonsense?
And so I did.
The other two peaches are in the epergne I carried on my lap on the plane home from Orvieto forty years ago. I will eat them the same way tomorrow.
I urge you: go and get a handful of fragrant ripe organic white peaches and eat them wherever it feels happiest, at the sink or under a tree or sharing with a good friend.
Too soon the end of summer will take all the possibilities away.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Mediterranean Pasta Salad for Eight
In Idyllwild, when I learned friends were coming up from the desert, I offered to make supper. Because I had brought most of the ingredients from town, I decided on a pasta salad. Not having any cookbooks with me, I went online and read about pasta salads. Picked up some pointers…sweet peppers are more flavorful roasted than raw (I hadn’t done that in my last salad, but I think it’s a worthy idea). Lemon juice in the dressing is preferable in lightness for both flavor and color to a dark vinegar like balsamic. Creamy feta is preferable to crumbly Parmesan. Chopped raw red onions and green scallions add point. More delicate-flavored herbs like Italian parsley, sweet basil, and cilantro are preferable to aromatic rosemary and sage. And so on. But don’t forget that rules are made to be broken…
Having just put together the seafood pasta salad (August 26th entry), I composed the following. Oh. I happened to have a tub (9 ounces) of Trader Joe’s Artichoke Lemon Pesto in the fridge and I used it as the base for the salad dressing. It made a yummy dressing, but truth to tell, I couldn’t taste artichoke in the salad—it just was there, adding its warm notes. A simple olive oil and fresh lemon juice dressing would be excellent. I mixed and served the salad in/from the broiling pan of the cabin’s oven…we ate by the roaring creek (there was a thundershower that afternoon). It was a splendid evening and my salad was a success.
NB: Should you be serving very hearty eaters, you could mix in chunks of oil-packed tuna or cooked chicken or good salami.
Moisten about 1 tablespoon dried sweet basil leaves in a saucer with a little olive oil, stir, and let the leaves reconstitute—this can be done any time.
Add 1 to 2 tablespoons sea or kosher salt to 4 to 5 quarts water in a big pot and bring to a boil. When the water boils, add 1 pound strozzapreti pasta (priest choker—longish rolled pieces, or fusilli or any pieces that hold up well), and stir occasionally for two minutes. When al dente, lift out (reserve the water), drain and shake well, turn into a big bowl, drizzle with about ¼ cup olive oil, add the basil, and stir gently with a wooden spoon to moisten every piece. You can cover and set this aside now for hours, but every hour or so stir with your hands so pieces don’t stick together.
To the hot pasta water, drop in the contents of a 10-ounce bag of frozen organic baby peas, stir, and drain—all the cooking they need. Lay on a paper towel in a dish, cover, and keep in a cool place.
A few hours in advance, brush your oven’s broiler tray with olive oil. On it arrange 6 to 8 Roma tomatoes quartered lengthwise. Core and seed 1 red and 1 green sweet pepper, cut into strips a scant ½-inch wide, then cut strips in half (slice on the diagonal, for handsome’s sake). Put 3 large garlic cloves through a press or mince finely (about 1 tablespoon) and daub smidges over the pieces. Sprinkle lightly with sea or kosher salt, a few turns of the pepper mill, drizzle with olive oil, and roast at 350 degrees (the oven needn’t be preheated) until tender-crisp, less than an hour. Cool (set in the fridge if there’s room).
At any point, over the cooled tomatoes and peppers, distribute 5 scallions thinly sliced, white and green parts both…½ large red onion, finely chopped …1 cup pitted kalamata olives…3 to 4 ounces (about ¾ cup) toasted (shake in a dry heavy skillet till lightly browned) pine nuts. Cover to keep moist.
An hour or two before serving, strew over 4 ounces feta cheese cut in small cubes…the peas…the leaves of a most of a bunch of Italian parsley snipped with scissors or chopped…and the pasta. Prepare ¾ cup salad dressing made with pesto as a base or simply ½ cup plus 1 tablespoon hearty olive oil and 3 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice, plus a little salt—bear in mind the salty feta and olives. Pour over evenly and stir with your hands, gently blending blending blending. Cover and keep at room temperature until serving, at which point, blend one last time. Garnish with the rest of the bunch of parsley.
Having just put together the seafood pasta salad (August 26th entry), I composed the following. Oh. I happened to have a tub (9 ounces) of Trader Joe’s Artichoke Lemon Pesto in the fridge and I used it as the base for the salad dressing. It made a yummy dressing, but truth to tell, I couldn’t taste artichoke in the salad—it just was there, adding its warm notes. A simple olive oil and fresh lemon juice dressing would be excellent. I mixed and served the salad in/from the broiling pan of the cabin’s oven…we ate by the roaring creek (there was a thundershower that afternoon). It was a splendid evening and my salad was a success.
NB: Should you be serving very hearty eaters, you could mix in chunks of oil-packed tuna or cooked chicken or good salami.
Moisten about 1 tablespoon dried sweet basil leaves in a saucer with a little olive oil, stir, and let the leaves reconstitute—this can be done any time.
Add 1 to 2 tablespoons sea or kosher salt to 4 to 5 quarts water in a big pot and bring to a boil. When the water boils, add 1 pound strozzapreti pasta (priest choker—longish rolled pieces, or fusilli or any pieces that hold up well), and stir occasionally for two minutes. When al dente, lift out (reserve the water), drain and shake well, turn into a big bowl, drizzle with about ¼ cup olive oil, add the basil, and stir gently with a wooden spoon to moisten every piece. You can cover and set this aside now for hours, but every hour or so stir with your hands so pieces don’t stick together.
To the hot pasta water, drop in the contents of a 10-ounce bag of frozen organic baby peas, stir, and drain—all the cooking they need. Lay on a paper towel in a dish, cover, and keep in a cool place.
A few hours in advance, brush your oven’s broiler tray with olive oil. On it arrange 6 to 8 Roma tomatoes quartered lengthwise. Core and seed 1 red and 1 green sweet pepper, cut into strips a scant ½-inch wide, then cut strips in half (slice on the diagonal, for handsome’s sake). Put 3 large garlic cloves through a press or mince finely (about 1 tablespoon) and daub smidges over the pieces. Sprinkle lightly with sea or kosher salt, a few turns of the pepper mill, drizzle with olive oil, and roast at 350 degrees (the oven needn’t be preheated) until tender-crisp, less than an hour. Cool (set in the fridge if there’s room).
At any point, over the cooled tomatoes and peppers, distribute 5 scallions thinly sliced, white and green parts both…½ large red onion, finely chopped …1 cup pitted kalamata olives…3 to 4 ounces (about ¾ cup) toasted (shake in a dry heavy skillet till lightly browned) pine nuts. Cover to keep moist.
An hour or two before serving, strew over 4 ounces feta cheese cut in small cubes…the peas…the leaves of a most of a bunch of Italian parsley snipped with scissors or chopped…and the pasta. Prepare ¾ cup salad dressing made with pesto as a base or simply ½ cup plus 1 tablespoon hearty olive oil and 3 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice, plus a little salt—bear in mind the salty feta and olives. Pour over evenly and stir with your hands, gently blending blending blending. Cover and keep at room temperature until serving, at which point, blend one last time. Garnish with the rest of the bunch of parsley.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Heaven In Your Spoon
Sabayon—thick frothy custard, France’s version of zabaglione (just yolks, sugar, and spirits)—chilled and lightened with whipped cream, oh my! This is the confection my friend Julia brought to enjoy with champagne on the occasion of my mother’s 99th birthday. I was fascinated because I’ve only tasted sabayon that was rushed from stove to table. Whipped cream not only tempers the sweetness but lightens the already ethereal texture. Could not wait to make it.
I was in the mountains when I got the chance, back in my beloved Idyllwild where Gene and I lived for twenty years. Old friends got together for supper and I brought along the cold sabayon. It took a sturdy whisking arm, but was easy enough to make even in the kitchen of a small mountain cabin. An advantage was that custard and cream had to chill so I could prepare both in advance and go for a long walk with Cakes. It was an ideal dessert to carry to a party.
The recipe I used for the custard was in an old “Joy of Cooking.” I looked up others on the Net just now and found one of Julia Child’s/Jacques Pepin’s…Nigella Lawson’s…Tyler Florence’s…and several magazine sources. Some use prosecco in place of marsala or sherry and everyone’s proportions are different. I discovered cold sabayon is fashionable served with large strawberries for dipping. I would think that would put the focus on the berries when I think the sabayon’s the thing. It occurred to me that, were I to add one element, it would be shavings of dark chocolate on top—Nigella Lawson suggests this—but it’s awfully close to gilding the lily. At any rate, so many versions are proof that this is a foolproof mixture—you can use more or fewer yolks, more or less sugar and marsala (or sherry or prosecco) in the custard and fold in as much or as little whipped cream as you like and it will work. More sugar and it will be sweeter. More spirits and it will be thinner—but have more flavor. I opt for flavor. I seem to have used more whipping cream than most, but, hey, the lighter and creamier the better by me.
More than proportions of ingredients, it is the gentle cooking of the custard—to insure the yolks won’t curdle or be grainy—and the whisking—to insure all will be billowy—that creates the heavenly texture. I wondered why one can’t use an egg beater, but recipes uniformly want a whisk, so who am I to question authority? Some recipes call for testing at the end with an instant-read thermometer, and the required temps vary from 140 to 170—funny. I didn’t have such a thermometer in my kit bag, just used the good old coating-the-back-of-a-wooden-spoon trick.
A few steps will insure success: use a double boiler (no cheating)…be sure the water beneath barely simmers and that the bottom does not touch the water…cool the thickened custard rapidly (whisk over ice water and the bottom SHOULD touch the water)…have not just the cream but the bowl and beaters chilled before whipping…fold the whipped cream into the custard no more than a couple of hours before serving—whipped cream thins out and would start to thin out the custard.
However. The custard can be prepared a day in advance, the surface covered with plastic film and refrigerated. Whipped cream will hold for several hours if you place it in a sieve lined with a damp cloth, set it over a drip-catching dish, cover with film, and refrigerate.
This is the way I made the sabayon…um, with one exception. I packed a bottle of sweet marsala by mistake. The sabayon was delectable but the flavor would have been nuttier, more complex, with dryer wine.
Cold Sabayon (6 to 8 servings)
In the large top of a double boiler or a big stainless steel bowl, whisk together 8 large egg yolks and ½ cup granulated sugar. Whisk vigorously until light. Whisk constantly while drizzling in 1 cup dry marsala or sherry. Set over barely simmering water and whisk constantly, vigorously, reaching every part of the mixture, until the custard has increased many times in volume and coats a wooden spoon so that it makes a track when you run a finger through it. Allow 10 to 15 minutes (enough time to compose a limerick or haiku). Place the pan or bowl over a big bowl of ice water and continue whisking till cool. Lay plastic film on top and refrigerate.
Whip 2 cups best quality heavy whipping cream until soft peaks hold. If more than 2 hours before using, chill as described above. Up to 2 hours before serving, fold the whipped cream into the cold custard and smooth into a chilled 6-cup serving bowl. Cover with film and keep cold until serving in small bowls in beautiful billowy dollops.
I was in the mountains when I got the chance, back in my beloved Idyllwild where Gene and I lived for twenty years. Old friends got together for supper and I brought along the cold sabayon. It took a sturdy whisking arm, but was easy enough to make even in the kitchen of a small mountain cabin. An advantage was that custard and cream had to chill so I could prepare both in advance and go for a long walk with Cakes. It was an ideal dessert to carry to a party.
The recipe I used for the custard was in an old “Joy of Cooking.” I looked up others on the Net just now and found one of Julia Child’s/Jacques Pepin’s…Nigella Lawson’s…Tyler Florence’s…and several magazine sources. Some use prosecco in place of marsala or sherry and everyone’s proportions are different. I discovered cold sabayon is fashionable served with large strawberries for dipping. I would think that would put the focus on the berries when I think the sabayon’s the thing. It occurred to me that, were I to add one element, it would be shavings of dark chocolate on top—Nigella Lawson suggests this—but it’s awfully close to gilding the lily. At any rate, so many versions are proof that this is a foolproof mixture—you can use more or fewer yolks, more or less sugar and marsala (or sherry or prosecco) in the custard and fold in as much or as little whipped cream as you like and it will work. More sugar and it will be sweeter. More spirits and it will be thinner—but have more flavor. I opt for flavor. I seem to have used more whipping cream than most, but, hey, the lighter and creamier the better by me.
More than proportions of ingredients, it is the gentle cooking of the custard—to insure the yolks won’t curdle or be grainy—and the whisking—to insure all will be billowy—that creates the heavenly texture. I wondered why one can’t use an egg beater, but recipes uniformly want a whisk, so who am I to question authority? Some recipes call for testing at the end with an instant-read thermometer, and the required temps vary from 140 to 170—funny. I didn’t have such a thermometer in my kit bag, just used the good old coating-the-back-of-a-wooden-spoon trick.
A few steps will insure success: use a double boiler (no cheating)…be sure the water beneath barely simmers and that the bottom does not touch the water…cool the thickened custard rapidly (whisk over ice water and the bottom SHOULD touch the water)…have not just the cream but the bowl and beaters chilled before whipping…fold the whipped cream into the custard no more than a couple of hours before serving—whipped cream thins out and would start to thin out the custard.
However. The custard can be prepared a day in advance, the surface covered with plastic film and refrigerated. Whipped cream will hold for several hours if you place it in a sieve lined with a damp cloth, set it over a drip-catching dish, cover with film, and refrigerate.
This is the way I made the sabayon…um, with one exception. I packed a bottle of sweet marsala by mistake. The sabayon was delectable but the flavor would have been nuttier, more complex, with dryer wine.
Cold Sabayon (6 to 8 servings)
In the large top of a double boiler or a big stainless steel bowl, whisk together 8 large egg yolks and ½ cup granulated sugar. Whisk vigorously until light. Whisk constantly while drizzling in 1 cup dry marsala or sherry. Set over barely simmering water and whisk constantly, vigorously, reaching every part of the mixture, until the custard has increased many times in volume and coats a wooden spoon so that it makes a track when you run a finger through it. Allow 10 to 15 minutes (enough time to compose a limerick or haiku). Place the pan or bowl over a big bowl of ice water and continue whisking till cool. Lay plastic film on top and refrigerate.
Whip 2 cups best quality heavy whipping cream until soft peaks hold. If more than 2 hours before using, chill as described above. Up to 2 hours before serving, fold the whipped cream into the cold custard and smooth into a chilled 6-cup serving bowl. Cover with film and keep cold until serving in small bowls in beautiful billowy dollops.
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