Vichyssoise

 This is probably not the most traditional vichssoise you will ever have, but it was pretty good! We served about 1/2 of it to a partof 6 and the rest we just dipped into as and when we felt like it. The major differences are:

• No onions - just leeks
• 1/2 chicken stock and 1/2 water
• Crunchy salt and chives to decorate

Ingredients

1 1/2 lbs leeks - white and light green parts only. Washed and cut into small pieces

2 Tbs butter

3 lbs russet potatoes cubed into 3/4 inch pieces

20 oz  chicken stock (we used home made, concentrated)

20 oz water

1/2 t ghost pepper vodka (home made)

Salt

White pepper

12 oz whipping cream

Finely chooped chives

Sea salt crustals to finish

Method

Split the leeks lengthwise and chop across the grain into a salad spinner bowl. Fill the salad spinner with water and swirl. Lift the leeks out. Discard the water and repeat. This is a handy techniquefor getting all of the grit out of the leeks.

Melt the butter in a large pot, and add the leeks and a generous pinch of salt. Cook gently for about 15 minutes withot letting them brown.

Add the potatoes, stock mixture, white pepper, ghost pepper vodka. Bring to a simmer, cover,  and simmer until the potatoes are cooked (about 12 minutes). Note, the iquid should just cover the potatoes

Blend with an immersion blender until very smooth. Adjust the seasoning, rememberig that you will also be using sea salt when serving. Chill the soup and refrigerate for 4 hours.

Just befor seving, stir in the heavy cream. Serve in small bowls with chopped chives and sea salt crystals.

We served this with an Oregaon Pinot noir.

A "Quick" Vegetable gratin

Vegetable gratins are full of pitfalls. The vegetables cook unevenly, there is too much liquid so they end up sloppy, toppings are uneven..

So to overcome these we need to think about cooking in "layers" or stages. This recipe details the stages and techniques.

Ingredients

1 Medium Italian eggplant (aubergine), peeled in stripes and cut into 1/2" thick rounds

1/4 Cup extra virgin olive oil (divided use)

1 Tbs Aleppo pepper

2 Medium yellow onions coarsely diced

1 Red bell pepper cut into 1/2" pieces

1 1/12 lbs cherry tomatoes

1 Russet potato (coarsely grated - lke for hashbrowns)

4 Oz Melty hard chese (Cheddar/Gruyere) grated

Salt/Pepper to taste

Finely chopped chives for garnish/decoration

Method

Preheat the oven to 425F (Fan). Rack in the middle

Microwave the eggplant slices until they are soft and much of the water has been driven off. Meanwhile lighly oil a gratin dish.

Seperately saute the onions and red pepper using a little oil, Aleppo pepper, and salt ad pepper. The onions should become translucent, but not browned.

Place the eggplant slices in a single layer in the bottom of the gratin dish. 

Rinse the grated potatoes to remove the surface starch. Microwave the grated potatoes to mostly cook and dry off as much water as possible. 

Meanwhile, cover the eggplant with the sauteed onions/peppers. Sprinkle the tomatoes over the onions. Place the gratin dish into the oven, uncovered, for about 20 minutes. This will cause the tomatoes to wrinkle and soften.

MIx the grated potatoes with the grated cheese. Salt the gratin and then cover with the grated potato/cheese.

Return to the oven and cook until the internal temperature of the gratin reaches 200F.

Switch the oven to broil, and brown the potato/cheese topping until it is nice and crunchy. Sprinkle the gratin with the chopped chives.

Serve with a crisp dry wine and a side salad

Experiments with dough

I have long wondered about what happens when you make really high hydration doughs. Two events inspired me. One was the excellent cold "pizza" sold here in the Dallas area by Popolo Reds - a focaccia style bread with an intense red sauce topping. The other was an episode of Milk Street, where Christopher Kimball mae a "pizza" with a high hydration dough. Because I like to tinker, I though I would mess with some ideas and see what happens.

The key to all of this was using a very wet dough (anything up to 100% hydration) and working the dough hard. Because it almost a batter, rather than a normal bread dough, I decided to use the paddle beater in my stand mixer and not the dough hook.

I found that following the Milk Street version, the tomatoes really didn't cook enough, so I modified that recipe by roasting the cut tomatoes for 15 minutes before topping the dough and baking.

I ended up making 2 different kinds - both of which still need some tweaking for the toppings. But I am very happy with the technique. So thank you to Bob Shema and Christopher Kimball for the inspirations.

Ingredients - Dough

600 gm Bread flour

600 gm Water at room temperature

8 gm Active dry yeast

13 gm salt ( i make this a little saltier than the usual 2%)

30 gm Extra virgin olive oil (divided use) - rough measure

Method - Dough Preparation

Put the flout into the bowl of the stand mixed, with the paddle beater attachment. Activate the yeast by adding to the water. If you use instant or bread yeast, this step is unnecessary - the yeast can be added directly to the flour. Add the salt to the flour and mix thoroughly. Gradually add the water and oil while mixing slowly. Once the water is all added, increase the speed of the mixing to medium. The dough will look awful for a long while (10 + minutes). Then it will start to come together and leave the sides of the bowl. Once it has left the sides, continue mixing for 10 more minutes. It should be smooth by now, and fully kneaded.

Leave the dough in the bowl, and cover to rise. Anything up to 2 hours depending on kitchen temperature. 

Once it has risen, gently degas it by oiling your fingers and running your fingers around the bowl releasing the dough. It will sink.

Once you have degassed the dough, cover again and place the bowl in the refrigerator. Leave the dough in the refrigerator overnight

When you are ready to bake, remove the bowl from the refrigerator. Tip the dough into two oiled 1/4 sheet pans and spread it as best you can into the corners. The dough will shrink back, but that is OK. It will sit in the pan for a while and gradually spread. When working the dough, always oil your fingers. The dough is incredibly sticky. The oil will help prevent sticking.

Ingredients - Topping 1

I of the 1/4 sheet pans of dough (above)

16 oz  (450 gm) Cherry tomatoes (Note the switch to imperial measurements - that's how things are sold in the USA for the most part)

16 oz (450 gm) Sweet seedless black grapes

2 tsp Dried oregano

1 tsp Kosher salt

1 tsp Black pepper (coarse grind, fresh)

2 tsp Aleppo pepper

Oil to drizzle

Method - Topping1

When the dough has warmed to room temperature (an hour or so after coming out of the refrigerator), stud it in rows with the cherry tomatoes and grapes. Push the tomatoes ad grapes into the dough. Preheat the ovent to 450F (with fan assist).

Sprinkle the tomatoes/grapes evenly with the organo, salt, pepper, Apeppo pepper, and some olive oil. Allow the dough to puff up around the tomatoes/grapes. Once the dough has puffed up, put the pan into the preheatedoven. Turn the heat down to 400F and bake for around 30 minutes.

Slide the focaccia out of the ban onto a cutting board and allow to cool for a few minutes before cutting. Eat hot or at room temperature.

Ingredients - Topping 2

1 of the 1/4 sheet pans of dough (above)

16 oz (450 gm) Cherry tomatoes

16 oz (450 gm) mushrooms

12 sprigs Thyme

2Tbs Unsalted butter

2tsp Kosher salt (divided)

1 tsp Black pepper (coarse grind, fresh)

Oil to drizzle

Method - Topping 2

Slice the mushrooms. Microwave for a few minutes to drive off the moisture. Mix the thyme leaves into the mushrooms, add the butter, half the salt. Microwave again until the butter is incorprated.

Decorate the dough with rows of cherrytomatoes and mushrooms (as above).

Proceed withthe baking and serving as above.

Caramelized nectarine, pecan, and Feta salad

Instruction from Madame, "I need a salad to take to a ladies evening, please". These ladies like to eat, so just plucking a few leaves from  our Gardyn (hydroponic veggie grower) and knocking up a qhick vinaigrette wasn't going to cut it. Hence this salad - a way to really boost up the flavor of the nectarines. The basic thought came from this recipe

Ingredients

2 Nectarines, cut in half lengthwise, pitted and then cut into 12 pieces each.

1/4 cup Sherry vinegar

1 t white sugar

salt and pepper to taste

Simple vinaigrette 2 parts good quality oil/1 part suitable vinegar - I used red wine vinegar. Sherry would have been too strong. 

Handful of pecan halves, halved

1/2 jalapeno sliced very thinly

3 T red onion diced finely and soaked in water to remove bitterness

Lettuce greens washed dried, and torn into small, bite sized pieces

3 or 4 oz Feta broken into large pieces (i.e. not crumbled)

Method

Place the sherry vinegar, sugar, salt into a non stick skillet over medium heat. Bring to a boil, and then add the nectarines. Stir to coat. Continue to stir as the pan dries. The nectarines should be coated on all sides. The pan should end up dry and sticky, leaving some light caramelization on the nectarines.

Chill the nectarines.

To serve, place the vinaigrette in the bottom of your serving bowl, and pile the greens on top. Then add all of the rest of the ingredients, except the Feta.. Just before serving toss the sald, bringing the dressing up from the bottom and over the salad. Serve individually with a small block of Feta on top.

Tomato "Tarte Tatin"

 This dish is taken (and only very modeslty adapted from America's Test Kitchen's recipe). It is the first recipe in the linked video here. I used more tomatoes than the recipe called for. And at my local store, the Romas were bigger than Elle used in the video. Also, I used the convection feature of my oven, so the first time the tomatoes were a little overcooked. But I have not made it half a dozen times, and I think it is a keeper.

The whole skillet (handle and all) will go into the oven, so make sure you use an oven safe one. Even though the dish has tomatoes, my carbon steel skillet is sufficiently seasoned that the mixture can go in to it. 

Ingredients

A bit more than 1/3 cup of sherry vinegar

2 T white sugar

1/2 t kosher salt

1/2 t finely, freshly ground black pepper

8 sprigs of thyme, minced very finely. I have also used dried Greek Oregano.

1T butter

2 medium shallots, minced very finely

2 1/2 lbs Roma or plum tomatoes. As Elle says, do not attempt to use beefsteak or other large round varieties

Store bought puff pastry (I use Dufour), rolled/shaped to a 10" round and chilled

Method

With shelf on a middle rackm start the oven to preheat at 400F (conventional, 375F fan assisted). I keep a pizza stone permanently in the oven.

Place the sherry, sugar, salt, pepper into a 10" oven proof skillet. Heat over medium heat to dissolve the sugar and salt. Reduce a bit (Elle says, about the same consistency as maple syrup).

Meanwhile, prep the tomatoes. Core them, cut them in half lenghtwise and remove and discard the jelly and seeds. You should have just the flesh and skin.

Once the sherry has thickened sufficiently, add the butter and allow to dissolve. Then the shallots and thyme. Allow to cook for a few minutes until the shallots have softened a bit.

Put the prepared tomatoes into the pan, and toss to coat. Arrange the tomatoes skin side down in the pan. You want it to be quite crowdwed in there.

Bake the tomatoes in the preheated oven for 45 minutes - 1 hour. At least check at 45 minutes. The tops will have shrivelled and darkened and there should be no liquid. Do be careful when opening the dooor of the oven as there is a lot of steam.

Take the skillet out of the oven. Drape the pastry round over the tomatoes. Dock the pastry with a fork (I didn't do this one time and it way over puffed!)

Place the skillet back in the oven for 15 minutes. Rotate the pan as much as possible - and bake for 15 more.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool while still in the pan. (Elle says 8 minutes, mine varied from 10 - 20 minutes).

Turn out onto a cutting board or servimg plate. Serve hot or at room temperature.

Avocado ginger coconut soup

 This is a recipe based on this month's Fine Cooking magazine. The result was very good, but I used too much lime juice, so it got the "We can serve this to people if you reduce the lime juice" accolade from Madame. The texture is very thick and creamy. It is best served cold - after being in the fridge overnight. 

We had it for dinner one evening, and then I had it for lunch the next day - where I tweaked it to tne down the lime juice. The tweaks will be in the description at the end, not in the main recipe

Ingredients

2 Cans full fat coconut milk (equivalent amount of home made - i.e. 3 1/2 cups #1)

1 stalk of lemon grass, roughly chopped

1 Makrut leaf (Thai Lime) roughly chopped

3" knob of ginger, washed and sliced very finely. No need to peel as it will be discarde

Handful of basil leaves

1 Thai hot pepper

Juice of 4 small limes

4 Avocados - dual use

1 Peach, diced

Salt to taste

Croutons or other crispy things to garnish

Method

Place the coconut milk, lemon grass, makrut leaf, and ginger into a saucepan and bring to a simmer. Simmer for a couple of minutes, and turn the heat off. Add the basil and allow the mixture to cool (ideally at least an hour).

Strain out all of the solids and discard them. Slice the hot pepper and add to the liquid. Peel and deseed the avocados. Mash 3 1/2 of the avocados and add to the coconut liquid, along with the lime juice. Blend until smooth. Add salt to taste at this stage. Chill the soup in the fridge for at least an hour, preferably 2 or ovrnight.

Serve the soup garnished with the remaining avocad, diced and the diced peach and coroutons.

The Promised Tweaks

If, as ours was, your soup is too acidic tasting (i.e. too much lime in our case), then that can be mitigated with some mirin and (surprisingly) balsamic vinegar. Even though balsamic vinegar does add some extra acidity, it also adds sufficient sweetness to counterbalance the lime. Weird, I know. 

Arnabeet (Lebanese "Fried" Cauliflower)

 We had this at a Lebanese themed dinner last week. It was so good that we just had to recreate it. Instead of frying it, we did it in the oven - a rocking hot oven at that.

The home version was (almost) as good as the version we had out. In this posting, I am going to describe what we did, and where we might make an adjustment.

Ingredients

3T Tahini

2T Olive oil

2T Tomato paste (we used a home made smoked pepper/tomato mixture)

1 T smoked paprika

1 t corn starch

1 medium head of cauliflower cut into florets. The larger florets shold be halved, 

Juice of 1 lemon

Small bunch of cilantro

Arils from 1/4 pomegranate

A little more tahini for drizzling

Salt and pepper to taste

Method

Preheat the oven to 500F. I used the fan setting in mine, but realized that I needed to turn it off while the cauliflower was in the oven. 

In a large bowl combine the tahini, olive oil, tomato paste, paprika. Then mix in the corn starch.  

Toss in the cauliflower and work by hand to make sure it is thoroughly coated. This mixture was actually too much for our 1 3/4lb Caulflower. We could have coated 2. That meant that the cauliflower didn't crisp up quite as nicely as w weould have liked, so I suggest that you play a bit with the proportions.

Wrap a sheet pan with aluminum foil - to make for easier clean up. Spread the coated cauliflower onto the pan, grind some pepper over it, and place in the preheated oven. Check for domeness after 15 minutes. If not to your liking (in our case with a little char), put back in the oven for a few more minutes

To serve, pile onto a plate, toss with lemon juice and garnish with minced cilantro and the pomegranate arils. Sprinkle some finishing salt (e.g. Maldon), and serve piping hot. In our case with a Gewurtztraminer.

Ginger Glazed Carrots

 This is a kind of hybrid dish. Glazed carrots can be pretty good (as long as they aren't overly sweet). Ginger goes well with carrots too. So why not use crystallized ginger as the sweetening base for glazed carrots? So we did.

Ingredients

2T Olive oil

1 large (3 oz) or 2 small shallots sliced

2 lbs carrots sliced into rounds about 1/2 inch thick

4T Finely chopped crystallized ginger

Salt and pepper to taste

Method

Into a 4 quart (that's what I had handy, it doesn't need to be quite that big) saucepan, heat the olive oil until shimmering. Add the shallots and carrots. Saute for a few minutes (about 5, time isn't terribly critical here). Make sure thaough all of the shallots and carrots are coated in oil.

Add enough water to the pan just to cover the carrots. You will be evaporating all the water, so you don't need a lot. Simmer for about 5 minutes with the lid off. The carrots will have started to soften. Turn the heat up, and add the crystallized ginger. Keet the heat high and stir while the water is being driven off. You want the contents to be glossy and almost dry.

Serve to accompany lamb chops, beef or even dark meat chicken.

Gazpacho

This is not your standard, boring blended salsa Gazpacho. It has stale bread. It has olive oil. It has a touch of sherry vinegar. Nothing is heated. The trick is to get as much flavor as possible out of raw vegetables, blending them, and then pushing the soup through a fine-meshed strainer.

The idea and techniques come from Serious Eats (where technique rules). However, when you get to the freezing step do make sure that you freeze the vegetables (especially the onion) in a freezer safe bag. Otherwise you end up with a very smelly freezer - the only thing to do then is to defrost and refreeze. Don't ask me how I know this!

Ingredients - these don't need to be terribly precise

2 or 3 slices of stale bread, sliced. We used a homemade sandwich loaf with 80% bread flour 20% whole wheat.

4-5 lbs ripe tomatoes, cored, cut into chunks. We typically use seconds and cut off any ugly/squashed bits.

2 Cucumbers peeled, cored and sliced into chunks

2 Red bell peppers cored and seeded, sliced into chunks

1 Medium red onion, peeled and cut into chunks

1 1/2 tsp kosher salt 

4 garlic cloves, peeled and smashed

1/2 cup high quality extra virgin olive oil (first cold press, preferably Spanish)

8 tablespoons Sherry vinegar

Method

Tear the bread into chunks into a small bowl. place the chopped vegetables into a large bowl, sprinkling with the salt as you go. Leave the vegetables for 30 minutes to allow the juice to drain. Drain the juice over the bread to soften it. Set this aside, at room temperature, covered.

Gather the vegetables into 2 one gallon freezer bags. Lay the bags flat to even out the vegetables and press the air out. Freeze the vegetables until slightly mushy feeling. Not frozen solid, but not as firm as they were when they went in. If you let them go too long, that's fine - you will just need to let them thaw prior to the next step

Remove the vegetables from the freezer. Transfer liquid from the bottom of the bags over the bread.

Working in batches, place some of the vegetables, bread, olive oil and sherry vinegar into the blender. Blend on high power for at least 60 seconds. Transfer to a fine strainer and strain the pureed soup pushing it through with a metal spoon. There should be very little residue in the strainer, but what is left in the strainer will tend to clog it up. So you will want to clean the strainer between batches.

Chill until you are ready to serve.

Serving

When serving the soup, use chilled bowls, and some garnishes including chives, avocado, grated egg. We often freeze some of the gazpacho in ice cube trays (there go the freezer smells again). This helps keep the soup chilled, although the texture of the frozen pieces is a bit coarse. The ice crystals, are not ideal. Pour a little more olive oil and a few drops of Sherry vinegar onto the soup, and sprinkle some coarse crunch salt.

If you happen to have baguettes or other crusty bread handy, now would be a good time to serve them too. As you can imagine, we did and we did!

Pineapple and Ancho marinade and sauce

This marinade/sauce is part of my summer project - using dried chillies in all sorts of interesting ways. It is adapted from Milk Street's episode on Tcos al Pasteur. Adapted because their recipe uses ancho powder - and I was using whole anchos. The proportions are slightly different too - because I was doint it from memory. It came out really well - I would definitely do it again. And as a by product, any left over sauce can be added to other salsas to give some extra sweetness and earthiness.

Ingredients

4 Ancho chilis

3 Chipotle chilis in adobo with the sauce that clings to them

4 garlic cloves, peeled but left whole

3 tsp whole cumin seads, toasted and then ground

2T Dark brown sugar

2 1/2" thick pineapple rings, cored. If using canned then either use sweetened and omit the sugar or use water based

1/4 cup neutral oil.

Salt and pepper to taste

Method

Cut the tops off the anchos and deseed the peppers. Toast them over medium heat in a dry skiller until they become fragrant. Pressing them against tha bottom of the pan so that as much of the surface as possible gets the heat. Make sure you flip them over to get both sides done.

Remove  the peppers from the heat and add the whole cumin seads to toast them lightly too. Grind the anchos and cumin in a spice grinder (or use a pestle and mortar) until you have a fine powder. 

Put all the ingredients into a blender and pulse several times until you have a smooth paste.

Before use as a marinade, add a teaspoon of lime juice.

For use as a sauce, warm it through and add a tablespoon of limejuice and some chopped cilantro.

Tomatoes, mushrooms, charred romaine - oh my!

On a trip around our local "Central Market" grocery store the other day, we had a snack of mushrooms/tomatoes/parmesan, etc. It was delicious. Having just seen this post from Dan Souza  I was intrigued with an approach to cooking mushrooms. So merging the two ideas, I came up with this. Well, not quite. Normally I would serve this on grilled bread - as a bruschetta, but for last night I wanted something lighter, so I served it almost as a dressing for a charred Romaine lettuce heart. It came out really well, I am glad to say.

Ingredients

2T high quality olive oil (divided use)

1 1/2 lbs mixed cherry tomatoes, halved

8 oz mixed mushrooms (I used white buttons, and creminis), thinly sliced

3 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced thinly

3 oz grated parmesan

Some hot pepper flavor (I used vodka infused with cayenne), but pepper flakes would work

1 bunch parsley, chopped fine

4T sherry vinegar (divided use)

4t high quality olive oil for plate decoration

salt/pepper to taste

3 hearts of Romaine, cut into 3 inch lengths, using only the trimmed root, halved lengthwise

1T Olive oil 

Coarse sea salt for crunch

Method

Make the topping first:

In a skillet heat 1 T of the olive oil. When shimmering, add the halved tomatoes and let cook for a few minutes - until soft and the juices have run out. Add the mushrooms and garlic and cook until fragrant. The liquid stops the garlic from burning, but you do want to give it time to cook through and remove the bitterness. Add in the parmesan, stirring to stop it clumping. Then the hot pepper and allow to cook down some more. Finally add the parsley and 1 T of the sherry vinegar. Turn off heat and allow to come to room temp. Check the seasoning and add salt/pepper if needed.

Now for the lettuce:

Heat a lightly oiled griddle (ridged side up if you have that option) until it is just smoking. While the griddle is heating, oil the Romaine halves on the flat sides, season lightly with salt and pepper. When the griddle is hot, sear the romaine hearts, ut side down until well charred and (if using a ridged griddle) with definite markings.

Pu the grilled romaine, flat, charred side up onto a small plate. Top lightly with the tomato miture. Drizzle oil and vinegar over the topping and onto the plate. Grind some black pepper onto the topping and the plate. Finish with coarse sea salt.

We served this with the excellent, "On the White Keys" - the 2011 from Arietta 

Testing creativity

Madame is . just back from Europe and decided to have a creative time at the supermarket. Masses of green beans, red peppers, ginger showed up. So what to do?

Looking in the fridge, I found some pepitas, shallots, sesame oil, soy sauce. And then there was sherry in the wine cellar. So it was off the stove.

Madame pronounced it, "We can serve this to people", so I guess it turned out OK.

Ingredients

1/2 cup of raw pepitas (pumpkin seeds)

1 1/2 lbs green beans, top, tailed and cut into 1" lengths

1 T bacon fat (or olive oil if a vegan option is desired)

1" knob of ginger finely grated

1 small shallot, finely minced

1 red pepper diced into 1/4" dice

3T soy sauce

1T toasted sesame oil

2T dry sherry

Some hot sauce or hot peppers (to taste)

Method

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Mix together the soy sauce, sesame oil, and sherry, and hot sauce/peppers).

Meanwhile toast the pepitas in a hot skillet (about 5 minutes, tossing frequently). Salt the pepitas and set aside. Wipe the pan and add the fat (or oil). When the water has come to the boil, steam the beans for a few minutes (until they are cooked, but still crunchy). When the fat/oil is hot, add the  ginger, shallots and red peppers. Soften the shallots/ginger/red pepper gently. 

When the beans are cooked, empty the water from the pot, place the beans into the pot. Add the pepitas and immediately toss the beans with the soy/sesame/sherry/pepper mixture.

Serve immediately in a heated bowl with a little crunchy salt and freshly ground pepper.

Potato Rolls

This recipe makes soft rolls that are really good as sandwich bases. As usual, when baking I weigh things, so it may be tough to convert to volume measures. This really is best done using a stand mixer. Working butter into a sticky dough is a chore by hand.

Ingredients

12 oz water

1 oz honey

1 tsp instant yeast - yeah I cheated and didn't weigh this

16 oz bread flour

3 oz semolina

1.5 oz powdered dry milk

1 oz instant mashed potato flakes (easier than baking a potato for the small amount needed)

1/3 oz salt

1 oz unsalted butter at room temperature.

Method

Combine the water, honey, flour, semolina, potato flakes, yeast, dry milk into the bowl of a stand mixer. Using the dough hook knead until the dough is smooth and stretchy. Add the salt, and the butter gradually. Knead until the dough is shiny and elastic.

Lightly oil a bowl and turn the dough out into the bowl. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let the dough proof for at least an hour - until it has doubled in size.

Once the dough has risen, turn it out onto a floured board and shape into 12 rolls (~4oz dough per roll(. Lay them out onto a parchment lined sheet pan, sprinkle with a little rice flour, cover with cling wrap and refrigerate overnight.

In the morning, remove the sheet pan from the fridge. Turn the oven to 350 and allow to heat up. Give the oven at least 15 minutes after it has achieved its target temperature.

Uncover the rolls (they will have been out of the refrigerator for about 40 minutes) and bake for about 25 - or until they are well browned.

Cinnamon buns - again

My sister has been raving about some cinnamon buns that she had from a bakery in Cornwall. I have posted about these before. But whatever I did, they didn't measure up to her exacting standards. She finally sent me a picture of what she was after. So I figured that I would try to replicate them. Not an easy task as it turns out. But over the weekend I had a cinnamon bun from "The Village Baking Company" here in Texas and I now understand what Alison was going on about. I set to re-recreating the buns. Who in their right mind would attempt to make a laminated dough in the Texas heat? No one that I can think of!

The brioche dough seems to be a bit weird. It is incredibly dry - until the butter is added. Then it comes out beautiful and silky. But I was a bit worried looking at the liquid ratios.

There is lots of butter in use. Butter in the dough, butter in the laminations, butter in the cinnamon....

Sorry about the metric measures, folks. I do all my baking that way.

 Sinful Cinnamon Bun

 Just out of the oven

Ingredients - The Dough

1 Kg Bread Flour

70 g 2% milk

5 g half and half (approximates whole milk - very approximate - I eyeballed the calculation)

4 egg yolks (of course the whites went into macaroons)

6 whole eggs

20 g salt

15 g rapid rise yeast

150 g unsalted butter cut into 12 cubes

A further 375 g unsalted butter for lamination

Method - The Dough

Warm the milk and half cream to about 90F. Add the sugar and the yeast, to allow the yeast to hydrate. Whisk the milk/sugar mixture with the eggs until completely combined.

Whisk together the flour and salt. Stir in the egg/milk mixture to make a shaggy dough. Turn out on to a board and knead gently. It is too stiff for my Kitchenaid mixer at this point. Stretch and fold four times over the next hour until the gluten is well developed.

Place the dough into the bowl of the mixer, fitted with the dough hook. Knead slowly, adding the butter one cube at a time. It will take about 20 minutes to get all the butter mixed in and for the dough to become smooth again.

Leave the dough to rise at room temperature for an hour and then refrigerate overnight.

Method - Lamination

The key to lamination is to make sure that everything stays cold. Hard to do in a Texas kitchen in the summer.

Pound the refrigerated butter flat between 2 sheets of cling wrap - or inside a plastic bag. The butter must not become warmer than about 60F.

Roll the cold dough out into a large rectangle. Place the butter into the rectangle and then fold the rectangle over the butter into thirds. Roll very lightly and immediately wrap the dough and return it to the refrigerator for an hour. 

After an hour, chill the work surface with ice bags/freezer packs. Remove the dough from the fridge. Roll into a rectangle again and then rewrap and refrigerate - 1/2 hour should be adequate.

Repeat the chilling, unwrapping and rolling twice more, resulting in a 30" by 10" (75cm x 25 cm) rectangle. Now ready for the filling and baking.

Filling - Ingredients

3T finely ground cinnamon

8T granulated sugar (I used Bravetart's toasted sugar). I didn't want brown sugar's flavors

100g melted butter

pinch of salt

Method

Grease 2 12 muffin pans with non-stick spray. Spread the butter/sugar/cinnamon mixture over the rolled out dough. Using a pizza wheel cut the dough into strips about 1 1/4" in width (10" lengths). Roll each strip into a wheel and place into the muffin pan. It should be quite crowded. Cover the tins and refrigerate while heating the oven to 350F. Again keeping the butter from premature melting is key.

Once the oven is heated, place the prepared muffin tins into the oven and bake for about 30 minutes - until the tops of the rolls are browned and the internal temperature is 205F.

Note, if I were to do this again, I would make much more cinnamon/butter/sugar and put some in the bottom of each. These weren't quite as gooey cinnamony as I would have liked. Nut not too bad for a first attempt! 

Ajvar - red pepper and egg plant spread

An article about the Balkan dish called ajvar appeared in the New York Times recently. It looked insanely good, so of course I had to make it. I didn't exactly follow the NYT recipe, but I knew what I was trying to achieve, so went for it with gusto. And I am glad I did. It is amazingly good. Concentrated, smokey - one of those things that would make shoe leather taste good.

Ingredients

10 large red peppers

1 large Italian eggplant

1 garlic bulb

1/2 cup high quality olive oil (cold pressed extra virgin if possible)

Salt

Method

Over a very hot grill (charcoal in my case because I was cooking dinner at the same time) roast the peppers and eggplant until their skins are completely black. After the peppers and egg plant have been on for about 10 minutes, put the whole garlic bulb on too. Put the peppers into a bowl and cover to allow them to steam - this helps when it is time to peel them.

Peel the peppers, discarding skin and as many of the seeds as possible. Scoop the flesh out of the eggplant. Squeeze the roasted garlic out of the bulb. Place these ingredients into the food processor and pulse until slightly chunky.

Add the oil and salt to taste and process until almost smooth. Transfer to a saucepan and reduce the mixture by driving off some of the water. Do this over low heat to make sure it doesn't burn. When the volume is reduced by about 1/2 (probably 30 minutes), transfer to a heat proof container. Cover, allow to cool and then refrigerate overnight. 

Cauliflower Soup

This soup is adapted from a recipe on Americas Test Kitchen. We made/served it for a major dinner party. This is a scaled back version, so the water may be slightly out of proportion. It can be adjusted at the end as necessary.
The beauty of this soup is that it has all the richness of a cream based soup - but with no cream. There is some butter in the recipe, but I suspect that it could be made vegan with the use of a neutral oil. I haven't tried that though.
You don't need to be very precise with the cutting, it all goes into the blender at the end, anyway.

Picture Courtesy of Jim Brewer

Ingredients

2T butter (substitute oil perhaps)

1 large leek, white and light green parts only. Sliced finely and thoroughly washed

1/2 yellow onion (NOT Vidalia or 1015) sliced thinly

1/2t kosher salt (there will be more salt later)

1 large head of cauliflower (divided use - 2/3 and 1/3)

4 cups water

Kosher salt to taste

Chipotle in adobo for garnish

Jalapeno corn bread/pepita croutons (or any other crunchy croutons)

Very coarse sea salt for crunch.

Finishing oil for drizzling

Method

Soften the leeks/onions in the butter/oil over medium low heat. Add the first salt as they begin to soften. Do not allow them to brown.

While the leeks and onions are softening, divide the cauliflower, making sure that there are no green leafy bits. Slice the stalks thinly and put them with the 2/3 side. 

When the leeks and onions have softened, add the 2/3 cauliflower and the water. Bring to a simmer and simmer for 15 minutes - until the cauliflower is cooked through.

Then add the remaining cauliflower to the pot and simmer for another 12 minutes (take the time from when the pot reaches simmering temp).

Transfer the contents of the pot to your blender and blend until very smooth. Note, of course that this is hot and will probably attempt to splash out of the blender, so make sure you have a towel around the blender and press the lid on tightly through the towel. If in doubt blend in batches for safety.

Strain the soup through a fine mesh strainer - to remove any lumps that the blender missed.

Adjust the texture using boiling water. Adjust the seasoning, remembering that you will be adding coarse salt later.

Serve in warmed bowls with croutons and chipotle. Add a little  swirl of olive oil and the crunchy, coarse salt.

Take a bow!

We served this with a nice Chardonnay from Nickel and Nickel.

Spicy Pecan Brittle

This was to be part of the dessert for a formal dinner - if it lasted that long.  Fortunately it did. It turned out a most tasty, more-ish candy with a perfect texture. Definitely will be made again. It does have a little butter so it is not vegan.

Ingredients

2t kosher salt

2t ground cinnamon

2t smoked paprika

pinch of cumin (fine ground)

pinch of cayenne (more to taste depending on heat of cayenne pepper and desire to store

2t baking soda

2 cups granulated sugar

1cup corn syrup (I used 2/3rds plain, and 1/3rd from Rockwall.)

1/2 cup water

8T (1 stick) unsalted butter

2 cups pecans (raw, roughly chopped)

1T Vanilla essence

Method

Warm a rimmed baking sheet in a 250 oven for about 30 minutes ahead of time.

Whisk together the salt, cinnamon, paprika and cayenne until well combined

In a sauce pan whisk together the sugar, water, corn syrup and vanilla and bring to the boil (medium low). and heat to 300 degrees as measured by a candy thermometer (after about 15 minutes)..

Stir and remove from heat. Add the water and stir again.Add the butter and allow to dissolve. 

Put the pan back on heat with the thermometer visible. 

Add the chopped pecans and stir thoroughly.

Pour the brittle onto the warmed baking sheet and allow to cool (about 6 hours).

Break into small pieces and garnish appropriately.

Rotkohl - Allow lots of time

This sweet/sour red cabbage dish was part of a formal dinner party that we had last Saturday. It made enough for about 16 people as a side. The proportions are not exact (sadly) because there was some improvisation needed. But here it is approximately. You can tell by the color if you have enough vinegar.  The dish needs to stay bright red looking. If it goes too dark or faintly purple, there isn't enough acid.

Ingredients

1 head red cabbage (about 4lbs, shredded)

1 1/2 yellow onions (about 1lb) sliced thinly

2 Granny Smith Apples, peeled, cored and sliced

8 cloves inside a spice bag to make them easy to find in the finished dish

3/4 cup rice wine vinegar (Ideally you would use apple cider vinegar and a bit less, but we were out!)

10 T sherry vinegar (optional n- unnecessary if using apple cider vinegar)

1/4 cup of sugar (to taste)

3 t kosher salt

Freshly ground black pepper to taste

Method

Combine all the ingredients in a large pot (these fit into a 7 quart dutch oven). Bring to a simmer gently. Cover and simmer for at least 90 minutes. By all means crack the lid and taste to make sure the balance is how you want it.

After 90 minutes, uncover and allow some of the liquid to evaporate (another 30 minutes). By this time the cabbage should have softened but should still be slightly firm.

Remove the spice bag and serve hot as a side dish with your main course.

A "Chopped" candidate

This evening's dinner felt like something out of the TV program "Chopped". A bunch of ingredients and a timer - make dinner. The ingredients this time were 1 butternut squash, cherry tomatoes, pepitas and goat cheese. There was some fresh oregano lying around too, and the usual pantry staples. Turned out absolutely delicious!

We used this recipe as one of the dishes in the knife sharpening party. Mostly because the butternut squash needs sharp blades.

It is better to toast the pepitas than to buy the ready toasted variety. Sometimes the pre-toasted pepitas can taste a little rancid.

Ingredients

1 Butternut squash, peeled, seeded and cut into 3/4" cubes

2T vegetable oil

5 sprigs of fresh oregano

12 cherry tomatoes

2 oz pepitas, toasted

2 oz fresh goat cheese, crumbled (can substitute cambozola or even brie) 

Salt/pepper to taste

Method

Toast the pepitas in a hot skillet until they brown. This takes about 5-7 minutes. You could also do them in a 350F oven for about 15 minutes. Salt them liberally while still hot.

Pre-heat the oven to 450F. Toss the butternut squash pieces in the oil, then salt and pepper them liberally, adding the oregano. Spread the squash pieces over a rimmed baking sheet. Place them in the preheated oven for about 20 minutes.

After 20 minutes add the tomatoes. Let cook for 10 minutes. Then add the pepitas. Cook for 10 minutes, then add the crumbled goat cheese (or other soft cheese if using) and place the pan back in the oven for the cheese to melt.

Serve piping hot with a nice red wine - in our case a Chianti.

Baked Vacherin Mont d'Or

Vacherin Mont d'Or is a French washed rind cheese from the Franche-Comte region of France. It is traditionally made from raw (unpasteurized) milk. It is typically made in the autumn/winter months when there is not enough milk to make Comte. It goes on sale in September each year.

The cheese itself is made in rounds of 400gm (14 oz) which are in spruce boxes. Often hard to get in the USA - you have to have an outstanding cheese monger (like the amazing Scardello in Dallas)

A way of serving it is to bake it with some of the local wine (Macvin) and a few slices of garlic. Macvin is a bizarre almost wine. It is a mixture of barely fermented grape juice and marc (a liqueur made from the left over skins, seeds and stalks resulting from pressing the grape juice).

The Macvin that we used is a Chateau D'Arlay - typically sold in 1/2 bottles. We also made a variant of a Vacherin Mont D'Or using a Jasper Hills Farms Winnimere cooked the same way. 

Ingredients

1 400g Vacherin Mont D'Or 

2 garlic cloves, sliced very thinly

3 T Macvin

Method

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees

Remove the lid from the cheese, leaving the cheese itself in the box. Lay the box on a sheet of aluminium foil. Fold the foil tightly up the sides of the cheese box. This makes sure that the box does not come unglued.

Create slits in the cheese in various places with the point of a paring knife. Go as deep as the cheese, but take care you don't go through the bottom of the box. You want about 16 slits overall evenly spaced. I do them in concentric circles, with the outer circle starting about 1/2" from the outer edge. 

Insert a garlic sliver into each slit, pushing down until the top edge of the garlic sliver is below the top of the cheese.

Once you have filled each slit, pour the wine over the top surface of the cheese, allowing it to top off the slits.

Place the cheese on a baking sheet and put into the pre-heated oven on the middle shelf. 

Bake for around 20 minutes (check at 16) until the top is bubbly and the inside gooey.

To Serve

There are a couple of ways to serve this. My favourite is to serve with some charcuterie and awesome baguettes. But it is also served as a main course with a salad and boiled potatoes. The gooeyness of the cheese coats the potatoes making a sublime pairing. To drink, serve the remaining Macvin (remember it comes in 1/2 bottles so you will need more than one) .