02.05.10
Posted in Cuisines, Dinner, Fish, French, Leftovers, Seafood at 9:48 am by julie
When we buy a salmon fillet from Costco, I can usually spread it out for about 4 meals. I cook two-thirds of it fairly simply like that above, roasted in foil packet at 500F with some caper-anchovy butter for about 15 minutes, or just until cooked through. The inevitable leftovers from these simple recipes then go into salmon salads, croquettes, and chowders, and et cetera.
But it can be pretty boring working primarily with leftover cooked salmon, so I always try to save at least a little of the fillet to try out a new technique. So here are two slightly more interesting salmon recipes, both incorporating herbes de provence as a flavoring agent. The first is seared salmon with a beurre rouge sauce. I’ve made beurre blanc before; this is essentially the same thing using red wine. I served mine with muffin cup gratins.
Salmon with Beurre Rouge
2 T minced shallots
1 tsp herbes de provence
2 C fruity, not-too-tannic red wine
2 T balsamic or red wine vinegar
1½ to 2 lb salmon fillet
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 stick butter, cut into 6 or 8 pieces
Combine shallots, herbes de provence, wine and vinegar in a small saucepan and turn heat to high. Cook until it is reduced to about ¼ cup, 10 minutes or so. Strain if desired.
Meanwhile, put a nonstick skillet over medium heat; no fat is needed in pan. Sprinkle salmon with salt and pepper and place it, skin side up, in skillet. Cook over medium-high heat until nicely browned, about 5 minutes, then turn.
When red wine mixture has reduced, turn heat to very low. Add butter a piece at a time, stirring after each addition until it is incorporated. When all butter has been added, taste and adjust seasoning.
Use a sharp knife to peek inside thickest part of fish to judge doneness. When done to your liking, about 3 to 5 minutes after you turn, remove it to a platter or serving plates. Spoon sauce over fish, garnish if you like, and serve.
Source: Slightly adapted from Mark Bittman, NY Times.
For the other recipe, I took inspiration from having randomly watched an episode of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives in which a gentleman cooked salmon encrusted with hash browns. I’ve used a similar technique on halibut, which relied on a mayonnaise mixture and the starch from the potatoes to stick them onto the fish. This guy used what he called “salmon glue” to attach the potatoes, essentially a simple salmon mousse made with trimmings, seasonings, and cream. As I was trimming away the thin parts of my fish, I flashed back to this episode and decided at the spur of the moment to give it a shot, and it worked beautifully. I served my crusted salmon with a grainy mustard vinaigrette and a quick salad garnished with disks of fried goat cheese. The recipe is more of a method than anything, as I don’t include amounts.
Potato-Crusted Salmon
I think this method would also work with halibut or other fish; possibly even chicken cutlets, though I’ve not yet confirmed this with testing. If you don’t have scraps from trimming because you used steaks or already uniform fillets, you might be able to use raw shrimp or bay scallops as the base of your glue. It would work with shredded russet potatoes, zucchini ribbons, or virtually any thin layer you want to stick onto the fish. If I try out any of these variations, I’ll make a note of it here.
Boneless skinless salmon fillet, trimmed into rectangles of even thickness and scraps reserved
Red potatoes, thinly sliced (about 1/8″—I used a mandoline)
Cream
Herbes de provence (or other herbs, such as dill, that compliment the fish)
Shallot, diced
Salt and pepper
Olive oil
Place the salmon scraps in a food processor with some shallot, herbs and cream. For our two portions (plus a baby piece for Nolan), I had enough scraps to use 2-3 T cream, 1-2 T shallot, about 1/2 tsp herbes de provence, and a pinch of salt and pepper. Run the processor; you want to end up with a light, fluffy, spreadable, but not runny consistency, so add a bit more cream if necessary. Season the salmon fillets with salt, pepper and another sprinkle of your herbs, then smear on one side with about a 1/4″ of your glue; layer with potato slices, making sure each one has some contact with the glue. Flip fillets over carefully and repeat on the other side.
Meanwhile, heat some olive oil in a non-stick skillet over medium heat. Carefully lower in the salmon, ensuring that the potatoes stay in place, and cook for about 5-7 minutes, until the potatoes are golden brown. Flip gently and cook on the other side until the potatoes are again golden and the salmon is cooked through to your liking; if you, like us, don’t care for medium salmon, you may need to turn the heat down at the end and lid the pan for a few minutes to finish cooking through. Serve with the sides and/or sauces of your choice.
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10.27.09
Posted in Chocolate, Cookies & Candies, Cuisines, Dessert, Foodblog Events, French, Nuts, Grains & Legumes at 12:58 pm by julie
The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe. I knew it was coming, sooner or later, and I’ve always been nervous about baking macarons, with very good reason. I made a batch of pistachio macarons once, before I really knew what they were; Nigella Lawson’s description was irresistible, but they came out sticky, lumpy, and so sweet that my husband wouldn’t eat more than one bite. I could barely remove them from the sheet pan. I’ve never tasted a real macaron, or even seen one outside of photographs, so I’d like to think that had some effect on the outcome.
My food, savory and sweet, has come a long way in the four or five years since that incident, in part thanks to taking part in 23 Daring Bakers challenges now. But when it comes to macarons, apparently I’m still at square one.
I decided to try my hand at chocolate macarons, mostly to divert my husband from eating all the Halloween candy before the trick-or-treaters get a shot at it, and my post is a little late because I was holding out to get parchment, almond meal and powdered sugar at the grocery store. When I finally got there on Tuesday, however, they didn’t have almond meal in stock and I totally spaced out the powdered sugar, so I ended up having to make both in the food processor anyhow. Superfine sugar, cocoa, and almonds all went in, and a fine brown powder came out. I sieved it to remove the larger bits of almond and lighten the texture before folding into my egg whites.
I made the cocoa-almond meringues in Baking: From My Home to Yours a month or two back, and they had a similar ingredient list and process, although they aren’t neatly piped. My meringues looked like airy rocks and had a large air pocket between the crisp shell and chewy base.
The macaron batter seemed to deflate even more than that meringue batter did, which didn’t seem like a good sign. Still, I carefully piped out row after row of neat little rounds… which promptly spread to twice their size and threatened to merge into sloppy amoeboid shapes. Not a good sign.
I baked them off anyway according to the recipe, and they set up into bumpy brown pancakes: no frilly foot, no dome, no nothing. Clearly something went awry. Was it my ingredients? My folding technique? The fact that I flavored them with chocolate? I’ll only know with further experimentation and lots more practice.
Anyhow, I filled my little bellyflop cookies with a simple ganache of 3 oz Valrhona chocolate and 1/3 C heavy cream, and gave some to my taste testers. Nolan instantly recognized them as chocolate and ate a whole cookie without sharing with his dad. He usually crams food into his mouth whole, but these had just the right tender texture for him to practice taking big-boy bites. And my husband has been mostly distracted from the Halloween candy. So even if I can’t call these cookies macarons, I’d still call them a big success. Thanks so much to Ami S. for choosing this very challenging challenge, and check out the infinite variety of real macarons baked up by our Daring Bakers at the blogroll.
I am a member of the Theta Class of Daring Bakers, inducted in July 2007. Below is a list of previous challenges:
Strawberry Mirror Cake – July 2007
Milk Chocolate and Caramel Tart – August 2007
Cinnamon Rolls and Sticky Buns – September 2007
Bostini Cream Pies – October 2007
Tender Potato Bread – November 2007
Traditional Buche de Noel – December 2007
Lemon Meringue Pie – January 2008
French Bread – February 2008
Perfect Party Cake – March 2008
Opéra Cake – May 2008
Danish Braid – June 2008
Filbert Gateau – July 2008
Chocolate Éclairs – August 2008
Lavash Crackers and Dip – September 2008
French Yule Log – December 2008
Tuiles – January 2009
Chocolate Valentino and Ice Cream – February 2009
Lasagne of Emilia-Romana – March 2009
Abbey’s Infamous Cheesecake – April 2009
Apple Strudel – May 2009
Bakewell Tart and Homemade Jam – June 2009
Chocolate Marshmallow Cookies – July 2009
Dobos Torte – August 2009
Vols-au-Vent – September 2009
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09.28.09
Posted in Bread, Breakfast, Cuisines, Eggs, Foodblog Events, French at 12:01 am by julie
The September 2009 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Steph of A Whisk and a Spoon. She chose the French treat, Vols-au-Vent based on the Puff Pastry recipe by Michel Richard from the cookbook Baking With Julia by Dorie Greenspan.
This post will have to be short and sweet. The challenge was essentially to make a classic puff pastry dough, bake it off into charming, flaky little cups, and then fill them with whatever our hearts desired, sweet or savory. I wasn’t too concerned about this particular challenge, having already participated in the Danish braid challenge back in June 2008, which used a slightly different method to create a laminated yeast dough. The biggest difference seemed to be that the danish dough called for beating the butter before spreading it onto the dough, while this recipe called for beating four sticks of cold butter into a uniform block. Although smacking butter with my rolling pin elicited grins from my toddler and helped me work out a little aggression, in the end it was the most difficult step in making the puff pastry dough. I got my butter block encased in dough and went through the various rolling, folding, and chilling phases, and before I knew it, I had a block of homemade puff pastry ready to shape and bake. The dough did tear and dry out a little in the process, but I forged ahead.
I used two biscuit cutters to shape my vols-au-vent. They were a little too close together in size and their edges weren’t as sharp as I would have liked, but beggars can’t be choosers, and they did the trick nonetheless. I used just a third of my dough, and produced enough shapes for 5 vols-au-vent and their little caps. One had to be Frankensteined together from the scraps, so it came out pretty flat and on the ugly side, but I gave that one to the baby, and he didn’t seem to care. 
All told they puffed up alright as they baked (I think they just about tripled in height), but seemed to lose a lot of butter in the process, and I think my dull cutters crimped their edges a bit.
I gave Jeremy a choice of fillings between chicken dijon stew and a riff off of eggs florentine, and he immediately chose the latter—possibly because I just made chicken pot pies last week (post to come, hopefully). So I made a simple mornay sauce of gruyere and parmesan, sauteed some onions and spinach, and scrambled a few eggs. My vols-au-vent were on the small side so they couldn’t hold much filling, but two of them were nevertheless plenty for dinner, and very tasty. I’ve still got two-thirds of my puff pastry dough in the fridge, and, thanks to my fellow Daring Bakers, infinite possibilities of what to use it for. A sweet variation is definitely in our future. Thanks so much to Steph for choosing the challenge, and please check out all the daring pastries at the Daring Bakers Blogroll.
I am a member of the Theta Class of Daring Bakers, inducted in July 2007. Below is a list of previous challenges:
Strawberry Mirror Cake – July 2007
Milk Chocolate and Caramel Tart – August 2007
Cinnamon Rolls and Sticky Buns – September 2007
Bostini Cream Pies – October 2007
Tender Potato Bread – November 2007
Traditional Buche de Noel – December 2007
Lemon Meringue Pie – January 2008
French Bread – February 2008
Perfect Party Cake – March 2008
Opéra Cake – May 2008
Danish Braid – June 2008
Filbert Gateau – July 2008
Chocolate Éclairs – August 2008
Lavash Crackers and Dip – September 2008
French Yule Log – December 2008
Tuiles – January 2009
Chocolate Valentino and Ice Cream – February 2009
Lasagne of Emilia-Romana – March 2009
Abbey’s Infamous Cheesecake – April 2009
Apple Strudel – May 2009
Bakewell Tart and Homemade Jam – June 2009
Chocolate Marshmallow Cookies – July 2009
Dobos Torte – August 2009
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01.01.09
Posted in Cake, Chocolate, Cookies & Candies, Cuisines, Dessert, Foodblog Events, French at 12:01 pm by julie
The cake was a big hit at the party. I sliced it almost straight from the freezer, and it could have benefitted from a few more minutes of thawing. A large sharp knife for better leverage, warmed with hot water, helped make the slicing easier. Everyone seemed to like how it tasted too, but it’s hard to go wrong with so much cream, sugar and chocolate! I was pleased to note that the finished cake wasn’t overwhelmingly sweet. The milk chocolate mousse was pretty darn sweet on its own and in the little parfaits I made up with the leftover cake scraps and coconut crisp. But in its frozen state, surrounded with dark chocolate icing and ganache, it all seemed pretty well balanced.
As I mentioned above, I had leftovers of many of the elements. I made four little mousse parfaits, and the next day I used my leftover ganache to make truffles, rolled in coconut crisp crumbs.
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12.30.08
Posted in Chocolate, Cuisines, Dessert, Foodblog Events, French at 9:34 pm by julie
As you may have guessed, I have not been doing much cooking lately, at least of the variety that anyone would care to read about. December was an especially lean month for us financially, and I’ve not even been to a proper grocery store since Thanksgiving. Then we had over a week of snow and ice storms leading up to Christmas, a nearly unheard-of phenomenon in Oregon: it left us housebound, and I had to do some seriously creative pantry-diving to come up with meals for Christmas, sans onions and potatoes. We had chicken piccata over couscous for Christmas Eve, with no-bake cookies for dessert so that I could save my last three eggs for Belgian waffles in the morning. Our wafflemaker disagreed with that plan, however; it died on the first attempt, and I ended up using the batter for pancakes instead. Christmas dinner was an Asian-inspired beef stew made with two small tri-tip steaks and all my remaining root vegetables: 2 tiny carrots, a huge shallot, and a daikon radish. I seasoned it with soy, garlic, sesame oil, and 5-spice, and it was actually very good; I didn’t miss the potatoes at all.
Anyhow, we got rain on Christmas Day that washed away most of the snow, so the next day we finally ventured out into the wide world again to pick up a few essentials. In my case, that meant ingredients for this month’s Daring Bakers recipe, which I was determined not to miss out on. This month’s challenge is brought to us by the adventurous Hilda from Saffron and Blueberry and Marion from Il en Faut Peu Pour Etre Heureux. They have chosen a French Yule Log by Flore from Florilege Gourmand, a rather more stylized variety than last year’s traditional genoise-and-buttercream sculptures. These consist of several different layers—dacquoise, ganache, crisp, and creme brulee—all frozen together interlaced with mousse and coated with a chocolate glaze. We were given a range of flavoring options to choose from for each layer, and I decided to go with an Almond Joy theme maximizing the bits and bobs of dark, milk, and white chocolate I had in supply. My cake is still in the works, as it will be the centerpiece for a New Year’s Eve get-together at our home, but I’ll do a supplemental write-up with photos of the sliced cake after the fact.
I started on Sunday with the creme brulee. In keeping with the Almond Joy theme, I decided to flavor my cream with toasted almonds, which I chopped and steeped in the hot cream for an hour. While it infused, I kept myself busy toasting unsweetened coconut and making the lace crepes for the coconut feuillete (crisp) layer. I’ve never had authentic French gavottes, and mine certainly didn’t look like the photos provided, but they were crisp and lacy, so I think they fit the bill, generally speaking. I used a rolling pin to press the feuillete mixture as thin as possible between waxed paper and my Silpat, but it was still a fairly solid slab of about 1/4″ thickness, so I ended up chopping it into crumbles for easier slicing in the finished product.
My creme brulee layer mixed up very easily, but took much longer in the oven than the recipe indicated. After an hour in a water bath at 210F, it had not set at all, and I ended up raising the temp to about 250F and adding half an hour or so to the cooking time. In the end, I may have overcooked it a bit, but I was concerned about it liquidizing in the completed yule log, so I wanted to err on the cautious side. The cream also seeped around the edges of my parchment and stuck to the loaf pan a bit; once it was frozen and ready to be layered, I had to do quite a bit of prying with a hot knife to release it from the pan, but it came out intact.
The next day I made the milk chocolate chantilly cream for my mousse layer, and a coconut-almond dacquoise, using equal parts almond meal and unsweetened coconut. I used a loaf pan as my mold, and decided to try lining it with dacquoise, since the sheet pan I used turned out to have the exact measurements I needed. My cake was a little sticky releasing from the parchment, and required a little finessing to insert into the loaf pan intact (especially since I lined the mold with parchment that kept shifting about). I didn’t bother with piping my mousse—a spoon seemed to work out just fine and cleaned up much more quickly. I did have to trim one edge of the brulee layer to get it to fit, but the rest of the layers filled up the mold just right. Then I wrapped my remaining dacquoise cap while the layered portion chilled in the freezer, and made little layered desserts with the cake scraps and leftover chantilly and coconut crisp.
This morning, before Nolan woke up, I made the dark chocolate ganache to finish assembling my log. I’ve never made ganache that incorporated caramel before, and it came out shiny and silky smooth with a nicely complex flavor. Then I gave the finished cake several more hours to freeze before attempting the glaze and decorations this evening.
For my decorations, I decided to go fairly simple and use chocolate leaves, which I’ve never made before. They were incredibly easy to make: wash some fresh camelia leaves from my front yard, paint their undersides with melted chocolate, and pop them in the fridge to harden. The only remotely tricky part of the operation was removing the leaves from the delicate chocolate without melting it all over my warm fingers.
I chose to make the dark chocolate glaze, but found that the recipe did not make remotely enough to cover my entire log. I spread it around as well as I could, but the ends were still totally bare, so I threw it back in the freezer and made a second batch of glaze. If I make this again, I will certainly double the glaze recipe from the start. Because my glaze went on in two applications, it was rather lumpy and dull, but nothing a liberal application of sliced almonds and chocolate leaves couldn’t fix.
I’ll amend with a few more photos of the sliced cake on New Year’s, to show the layers and give our verdict on how it tastes, so check back! In the meantime, be sure to look at all the other French yule logs on the Daring Bakers’ blogroll.
I am a member of the Theta Class of Daring Bakers, inducted in July 2007. Below is a list of previous challenges:
Strawberry Mirror Cake – July 2007
Milk Chocolate and Caramel Tart – August 2007
Cinnamon Rolls and Sticky Buns – September 2007
Bostini Cream Pies – October 2007
Tender Potato Bread – November 2007
Traditional Buche de Noel – December 2007
Lemon Meringue Pie – January 2008
French Bread – February 2008
Perfect Party Cake – March 2008
Opéra Cake – May 2008
Danish Braid – June 2008
Filbert Gateau – July 2008
Chocolate Éclairs – August 2008
Lavash Crackers and Dip – September 2008
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08.31.08
Posted in Chocolate, Cuisines, Dairy, Dessert, Foodblog Events, French at 12:15 am by julie
I’ve just been waiting for another Daring Bakers challenge to feature pate a choux, ever since the remarkable gateaux St. Honore that inspired me to apply for membership last year. So when this month’s challenge was announced to be Pierre Hermé’s Chocolate Éclairs, I couldn’t be happier: my first pate a choux, my first pastry cream, and actually my first éclairs period. In view of all these firsts, I decided to stick with the recipe, despite the creative leeway permitted by our hosts, Tony Tahhan and MeetaK, and make both chocolate glaze and pastry cream.
I’m still not sure what happened to August, but before I knew it, the challenge posting date was looming, so I stocked up on whole milk, eggs and bittersweet chocolate, and looked for an open time slot in the baby’s schedule. Jeremy sat down to watch a Red Sox game with Nolan a few days ago, so I pounced on the opportunity and set to it.
Chocolate sauce: check. (I still don’t quite understand why this step was necessary, but oh well.) I cut the sauce recipe in half and still had too much. Next came the pate a choux. I wasn’t sure how long to cook the dough to dry it out, but it came together really quickly without incident. I stuffed the resulting dough into my pastry bag with no tip attached, and piped my éclair shells. They seemed really small. I was tempted to try different shapes or sizes, but worried about differing bake times, so I restrained myself.
Into the oven they went, and I fastidiously followed the instructions about rotating and switching the pans, and cracking the oven door. After 20 minutes, as called for, I proudly pulled my beautifully golden, puffy éclair shells from the oven—and watched them turn into sad little pancakes. I recalled having read some comments that this could be caused by underbaking, so they went back in the oven for several more minutes, with another tray switch to keep them from cooking unevenly. They puffed up again, felt hard and sounded hollow, but flattened again after a minute or two out of the oven. I was worried about overbaking them, so I ended up just calling it good enough, and moving on to the pastry cream.
By this point, Nolan was sleeping like a little angel on Jeremy’s chest. The pastry cream turned out to be oddly familiar. Am I crazy, or is it basically just pudding? I think I made pretty much this same stuff for a chocolate cream pie a week or two back. Anyway, it tasted good, but never got quite as smooth as I would have liked, despite sieving it. It was also still a tad loose for piping after its ice bath, but would have firmed up a little better with some fridge time.
I started making the chocolate glaze and slicing my shells, finding the end in sight and optimistically thinking I could finish the whole project before the baby woke up again. Then Dustin Pedroia hit a grand slam, Jeremy yelled excitedly, and Nolan instantly woke and started crying. Sigh. The rest of the assembly was a blur: I frantically sliced through the impossibly thin shells, then dipped their top halves into the runny glaze, a messy proposition because it dripped everywhere and took its sweet time setting up. I then shoveled cream into my pastry bag with the star tip, hurriedly piped out the filling, sandwiched everything together, and gave two to my husband for sampling while I calmed Nolan down. The rest went in the fridge, where I hoped the glaze would set up a little more firmly.
It was the first time since I joined the Daring Bakers that I have completed a challenge with a sense more of frustration than accomplishment. My pate a choux shells were nothing like what they should have been. My pastry cream was essentially chocolate pudding. The chocolate glaze had the seemingly extraneous step of making chocolate sauce first, leaving me with tons of leftover sauce, glaze, and pastry cream—and 4 stranded egg whites as well. The glaze was too runny to spread with an icing spatula, and dipping them made a mess. For that matter, I managed to dirty half the dishes in my kitchen making this recipe, partly because I was rushing to get through it and didn’t have time for my usual practice of washing up as I went. All I got for my trouble was a trayful of small, flat, sloppy éclairs, and my husband ate the two I brought him with a fork and a shrug, and said they tasted right but éclairs aren’t really his thing.
Once I got Nolan fed and napping again, I went back to the kitchen and tried one of my éclairs from the refrigerator. The glaze had set, and the pastry cream firmed up as well, melding together the halves of the shell so they no longer slipped to and fro. The flavor was good, the pastry tasted properly cooked, and the cream filling was delicious. They still weren’t pretty, but at least each éclair appeared as a single unit. I ate another one, and another, and my frustration faded. Jeremy decided they were much better cold as well, and I caught him standing behind the refrigerator door eating éclairs surreptitiously later that day.
So thanks to Meeta and Tony for choosing this recipe. It was an excellent learning experience, if not an out-and-out success, and that’s what the Daring Bakers are all about. I don’t know that I would make this particular recipe again, but I definitely still want to master pate a choux, so I’ll continue playing with it in the future. At least now I have a baseline to start from. Next time I need to do a chocolate glaze, though, I’ll go back to Alton Brown’s no-fuss recipe, which has worked beautifully for me. Now please go check out the Daring Bakers blogroll to see some fantastically puffed and stuffed éclairs in every possible flavor combination.
I am a member of the Theta Class of Daring Bakers, inducted in July 2007. Below is a list of previous challenges:
Strawberry Mirror Cake – July 2007
Milk Chocolate and Caramel Tart – August 2007
Cinnamon Rolls and Sticky Buns – September 2007
Bostini Cream Pies – October 2007
Tender Potato Bread – November 2007
Traditional Buche de Noel – December 2007
Lemon Meringue Pie – January 2008
French Bread – February 2008
Perfect Party Cake – March 2008
Opéra Cake – May 2008
Danish Braid – June 2008
Filbert Gateau – July 2008
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07.09.08
Posted in American, Cuisines, Dinner, Eggs, French, Lunch, Salads at 9:53 am by julie
We had a good 4th of July weekend. For me, that constitutes getting to leave the house a glorious three times, including trips to the grocery store and farmer’s market. Nolan had never been to either place, and he was quite a champ, looking around quietly from his sling while we shopped. At the grocery store, we picked up fixings for an all-American sort of dinner: New York strip steaks, baby spinach for a classic salad with hot bacon vinaigrette, and (at Jeremy’s request) Boston baked beans. The steaks were coated in a mixture of oil and clarified butter and seasoned aggressively with salt and pepper, then cooked to a perfect medium on our cast iron grill. The salad was a tasty complement, with crisp bacon, sweet shallot, and hard-boiled egg.
At the farmer’s market the next day, our score included white asparagus, three kinds of wild mushrooms, dinosaur kale, and a big head of frisee lettuce. I would have liked to get more, but I couldn’t carry much with the baby, and Jeremy had his hands full with Freyja, who was in rare form trying to keep our little herd together. (Every time I went into a booth to buy something, she whined something fierce. Everyone stared at her, and several people commented on how protective she was being of me. She just wouldn’t let me out of her sight.) Anyway, I decided to use the frisee to make us another classic salad with eggs and bacon for lunch that day: a bistro salad with poached eggs and a sherry vinaigrette. Its similarity to the spinach salad was not lost on me, but the overall effect was quite different, mostly due to the extreme bitterness of the frisee. Tasty as it was, I think I prefer this salad in its fried egg sandwich incarnation, which cuts down on the volume of frisee.
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12.10.07
Posted in American, Bread, Cuisines, French, Lunch, Nuts, Grains & Legumes at 11:56 am by julie
(Some days a creative title is just too much to ask…)
This weekend continued to be all about the breads here at the Persnickety Palate (or quasi-breads, as you may prefer to categorize my holiday quick breads and the biscuits I’m about to rave about below). Once again, we found ourselves sans milk and bread and perilously low on eggs, so I had to get creative with our meal options on Saturday. We ended up having lentil salad with bacon, and thanks to the half-full carton of buttermilk staring back at me from the fridge, a batch of hot buttermilk biscuits to go along with it.
I’ve now tried a few different recipes for biscuits, but when I have buttermilk to use up, this recipe is the clear winner. It is very easy to make, if a bit messy; I’m thinking a quarter-cup cookie scoop
would be the perfect tool to streamline this recipe…I’ve been wanting one for doling out muffin batter and big wads of cookie dough anyway. 
Back to the subject at hand, these biscuits are super-fluffy and light inside, with a perfectly crisp golden-brown exterior. I adapted them slightly, as has been my wont lately with most baked goods, to use 50% white whole wheat flour instead of just AP. This results in a minor difference in color and absolutely no change in taste, while making me feel slightly less guilty about the melted butter you slather all over the dough before it goes in the oven. No wonder these taste so good!
Buttermilk Biscuits
1 C unbleached AP flour
1 C white whole wheat flour
1 T double-acting baking powder
1 T sugar
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
4 T cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/4-inch cubes
1 1/2 C cold buttermilk
1 C unbleached all-purpose flour, distributed in rimmed baking sheet
2 T unsalted butter, melted
Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 500F. Spray 9-inch round cake pan with nonstick cooking spray; set aside. Generously spray inside and outside of 1/4 cup dry measure with nonstick cooking spray (or get out a large cookie scoop).
In a food processor, pulse the flours, baking powder, sugar, salt, and baking soda to combine, about six 1-second pulses. Scatter butter cubes evenly over dry ingredients; pulse until mixture resembles pebbly, coarse cornmeal, eight to ten more pulses. Add buttermilk to dry ingredients; pulse a few more times just until incorporated (dough will be very wet and slightly lumpy).
Using 1/4 cup measure and working quickly, scoop level amount of dough; drop dough from measuring cup into flour on baking sheet (if dough sticks to cup, use small spoon to pull it free). Repeat with remaining dough, forming 12 evenly sized mounds.
Dust tops of each piece of dough with flour from baking sheet. With floured hands, gently pick up piece of dough and coat with flour; gently shape dough into rough ball, shake off excess flour, and place in prepared cake pan. Repeat with remaining dough, arranging 9 rounds around perimeter of cake pan and 3 in center. Brush rounds with hot melted butter, taking care not to flatten them.
Bake 5 minutes, then reduce oven temperature to 450F; continue to bake until biscuits are golden brown, about 15 minutes longer. Cool in pan 2 minutes, then invert biscuits from pan onto a rack or towel; turn biscuits right side up and break apart. Cool 5 minutes longer and serve.
Source: Cooks Illustrated, via The Amateur Gourmet.
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07.17.07
Posted in Aussie, Breakfast, Cuisines, Eggs, French, Sides at 8:50 am by julie
We really need to hit the grocery store for supplies. Guess that means it’s time for another eggy post, eh?
But what could I possibly write about scrambled eggs? You take some eggs, beat them with a fork, and stir them about in a hot skillet with some butter. Nothing to it. Well, there is a pretty wide range of things done with scrambled eggs all over the world, and they’re some of our favorite easy meals.
French: Low and Slow
One of our go-to recipes for eggs is a simple slow-cooked scramble on toast. I don’t do my slow scramble quite as low and slow as French-style eggs would dictate, but they still take a good 10-15 minutes, and end up with a soft, creamy texture. If I’m in a hurry, I bump the heat up to medium at the beginning to get the eggs heating up, and as soon as they start to cook, turn it down to low or medium low again, adjusting it to keep things moving forward but not too quickly. The touch that puts them over the top is a drizzle of white truffle oil and a pinch of fleur de sel at the very end. Although there is very little butter in these eggs, the manner of cooking makes them seem far richer and more decadent than the usual scrambled eggs.
Slow-Scrambled Eggs on Toast
1 T unsalted butter
5 eggs
2 T water
Pinch of kosher salt and fresh ground pepper
4 pieces of bread or English muffins
White truffle oil
Fleur de sel or another high quality sea salt
In a nonstick skillet, melt the butter over medium low heat. Meanwhile, break the eggs into a small bowl, add the water, and whisk thoroughly. When the butter is melted, add the eggs and salt/pepper, and stir continually over low/med-low heat until eggs become creamy, with a consistency akin to loose oatmeal.
Meanwhile, toast the bread or English muffins (or English muffin bread, as we used in this case) and spread with butter or margarine if desired. When the eggs are ready, spoon them evenly over the prepared toast. Drizzle a few drops of truffle oil over each piece of eggy toast, followed by a pinch of fleur de sel. The fleur de sel adds an intermittent salty crunch to the creamy eggs, and the truffle oil makes everything fantastically fragrant and decadent.
If desired, you can combine this open-faced egg sandwich with cooked vegetables of some variety. Molly suggests leeks cooked slowly with butter and swirled with a dab of creme fraiche, a lovely combination that felt so rich I couldn’t even finish eating it. Another excellent option, and one we’ve employed many times, is the long-cooked broccoli from Nancy Silverton’s Sandwich Book, but any tender vegetable that you could imagine pairing with eggs could stand in.
Australian: bills breakfast
For dinner the other night, I decided to make an Australian breakfast. Time-wise, it probably wasn’t too far off, come to think of it. I’ve been wanting to try Bill Granger’s corn fritters for quite a while, so I made up a batch of those and a skillet full of Bill’s scrambled eggs to go with them. The main element that sets these eggs apart from your run-of-the-mill scrambled eggs is the addition of heavy cream, which makes them incredibly fluffy and tender.
bills Scrambled Eggs
2 eggs
1/4 C cream
Pinch of salt
1/2 T butter
Whisk together eggs, cream and salt. Do not put more than two servings of eggs in one pan, or the eggs will get over-cooked.
Melt butter in a non-stick skillet over medium-high heat. Pour in egg mixture and after about 20 seconds, using a spatula or wooden spoon, push the egg mixture on the outside of the pan to the center in a folding motion. Let eggs set for an additional 20 seconds, then repeat. When all the eggs are just set in the center of the pan, looking soft and somewhat wet, turn them out onto a plate. Serves 1.
Source: Slightly adapted from Baking Bites and Bill Granger
My Way: Lazy Eggs
Just for good measure, when I just don’t feel like fussing over my scrambled eggs, this is how I do it: Tablespoon of butter in a nonstick skillet, melted over medium heat. Turn the heat down to low and crack the eggs (usually 4-5 for the two of us) into the skillet, add a splash of milk, and as quickly as possible, stir it all around vigorously with a wooden spoon until moderately mixed up. Return the heat to medium and continue stirring, giving it a few seconds to set between stirs. Cook just until all the egg is barely set but still moist. This method means no extra mess in a bowl, and produces your standard fluffy scrambled eggs.
I sometimes mix it up by cooking some veggies or whatnot in the butter before adding in the eggs. A favorite is kielbasa: We sometimes pick up sandwiches from a barbecue place on the walk home for lunch, but they’re too big for me to eat all at once. I save my leftovers with their accompanying sauteed onions and peppers, dice it all up, and scramble it with some eggs and cheddar cheese for another day’s lunch.
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03.28.07
Posted in Breakfast, Cuisines, Dessert, Dinner, French, Lunch at 3:24 pm by julie
Crepes have never been my favorite. Perhaps it’s because they are too much like pancakes, which are not my first preference; perhaps it’s their skin-like flabbiness or the speed with which they cool; or perhaps it’s their intimidating orneriness and delicacy when cooking.
At any rate, since Jeremy is gone at a workshop in California, I decided to give crepes a chance. I figured that if I messed them up horribly, I should still be able to get enough edible crepes to feed one. As it turned out, they were incredibly easy to make, even if the first few were seriously pale. I used my 8″ fry pan because that is my only non-stick skillet, and it made small crepes, but they were easier to handle because of it. I had absolutely no problems with sticking or tearing, but then, I wasn’t going for the world’s thinnest crepes.
I ate several crepes smeared with the chocolate-pear jam that I made last year from Mes Confitures, and it had thickened up nicely into a perfect filling. (It is also delectible dolloped onto vanilla yogurt, which may be my new favorite “healthy” dessert.) I also had a few crepes with cashew butter, banana slices and honey, which sounded good but was not my favorite; and one with Nutella, because I just couldn’t resist. The rest of the crepes went in the fridge layered with plastic wrap, and I’ll see how they taste tonight.
So, the verdict on crepes? Not so bad after all, and definitely not scary to make. I’m still leery of the idea of savory crepes, which seems fussily strange and French to me, but maybe I’ll call them crespelle and try some Italian recipes at some point. Oh, and might have to try this one as well.
Crepes a la Alton Brown
2 large eggs
¾ cup milk
½ cup water
1 cup flour
3 tablespoons melted butter
More melted butter, for coating the pan
*Savory Variation: Add ¼ teaspoon salt and ¼ cup chopped fresh herbs, spinach, green onion, or sun-dried tomatoes to the egg mixture.
*Sweet Variation: Add 2 ½ tablespoons sugar, 1 teaspoon vanilla extract and 2 tablespoons of your favorite liqueur to the egg mixture.
In a blender, combine all of the ingredients and pulse for 10 seconds. Place the crepe batter in the refrigerator for 1 hour. This allows the bubbles to subside so the crepes will be less likely to tear during cooking. The batter will keep for up to 48 hours. You can thin it out with more water for a thinner, more delicate crêpe, or use cornstarch, or a different type of flour (rice, buckwheat, quinoa, etc.)
Heat a small (8-10″) non-stick pan over medium heat until a drop of water tossed in sizzles; using a silicone brush, brush sparingly with melted butter to coat. Pour a small of batter into the center of the pan and swirl to spread evenly; you should put in just enough batter to thinly coat the bottom of the pan; immediately pour any excess batter back in the blender. Cook for 2-3 minutes (until golden brown underneath—the top will appear matte with lacy browning edges that pull away from the pan) and flip. Cook for another 15 seconds and lay them out flat to cool, or let hungry diners start assembling personalized crepes. Continue until all batter is gone.
After the crepes have cooled, you can stack them between layers of plastic wrap or parchment paper and store in sealable plastic bags in the refrigerator for several days or in the freezer for up to two months. When using frozen crepes, thaw on a rack before gently peeling apart.
Source: Adapted from Good Eats with Alton Brown.
Update 3/30/07: They worked just fine straight from the fridge, and it was nice to have some in there for snacking. Lasted at least two days, and the edges have only dried out a bit. I wouldn’t leave them much longer than that, but since I ate them all, that experiment will have to wait for another time.
Update 4/16/07: I made another batch of these for breakfast last weekend. Jeremy was happy to taste test, but he didn’t like them as well as he expected. Crepes seem to be one of those things he doesn’t really care for, but keeps thinking he does (like Cream of Wheat). I made half of them at once, and he ate them fresh off the skillet, but seemed to like them a bit better when I rolled up a batch after turning the burner off. We had them with strawberry jam, quince jelly, pear-chocolate spread, and Nutella. I cooked up the rest of the crepes the next afternoon for a snack, and the batter held well, though it needed some stirring because of the liquid gathering on top. They make an easy utensil-free meal or snack, so I think they’ll find an occasional place in my repertoire.
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