05.28.09
Posted in Cuisines, Dessert, Foodblog Events, Fruits, German at 8:59 am by julie
I’m a little late with my DB challenge this month, but better late than never, right? The May Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Linda of make life sweeter! and Courtney of Coco Cooks. They chose Apple Strudel from the recipe book Kaffeehaus: Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Cafés of Vienna, Budapest, and Prague
by Rick Rodgers. I was pretty excited about this challenge because I’ve never made a classic strudel before, and I’ve had my eye on this book for some time now. But I still ended up waiting until the last possible moment to make it, possibly because my 14-month old finally decided he was tired of sitting around and learned how to crawl. I’ve spent the last month chasing him around and trying to keep him from upending the dog’s water bowl. Anyway, last night I finally buckled down and made my strudel. I stuck with the filling called for in the recipe, just because we love apple strudel, but now that I know it isn’t that intimidating to make, I hope to experiment with other varieties also.
I started out with the dough, which was lovely and soft and made a tiny amount. I think I hand-kneaded it longer than the recipe suggested, just because it was so agreeable to work with. Then I wrapped it up in plastic wrap and left it alone for probably two hours while making and eating dinner.
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Finally I couldn't put off the stretching portion of the recipe any longer. I used my portable dishwasher as a little table---it is about 2.5 feet square---and a large flour-sack towel as a tablecloth. The dough rolled out pretty darn thin just using the rolling pin, and I gently stretched it over the edges of the table by sliding my hands under it. I ended up with a few small holes around the edges due to my long fingernails, but it actually went much more smoothly than I could have expected, and I was pleased with the thinness I was able to achieve.
I left the rum-soaked raisins out of the filling, just because I don’t like them. My apples were Cameos, so I cut down the sugar a bit to make up for their lack of tartness. They were starting to get juicy from contact with the sugar, so I drained them a bit before spreading over the dough. My dough ended up more square than rectangular, so I just picked an end and got to it.
Rolling up the strudel was the other part that had me worried, but it worked out alright. I didn’t really get the need for the cloth while I was stretching it out, but it totally made sense once it came time to roll. More difficult was the transfer from the cloth to the baking sheet—I was really afraid that I would tear holes in the dough trying to get the cloth out from under it, but it survived all the tugging.
After 30 minutes in the oven, my strudel came out looking golden brown and delicious. Difficult as it was to wait, we gave it a good 45 minutes before cutting into it, and it was still piping hot inside. I had hoped to serve it alongside some vanilla or cinnamon ice cream, but the timing just didn’t work out. However, it was delicious all on its own—the strudel dough came out paper-thin and crisp, just as it should, and the filling was pure apple, not too sweet or spiced. I was a little worried about sogginess, but the bread crumbs certainly seemed to take care of that issue.
This was a really fun challenge, so many thanks to the hosts. Maybe now I’ll be brave enough to try out one of my Italian strudel recipes too. Be sure to take a look at the Daring Bakers Blogroll to see all the amazingly creative strudel variations out there!
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
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06.10.07
Posted in Baby Food, Cuisines, Dinner, German, Pastas, Sides at 1:35 pm by julie
This post is as much for my own future reference as anything. A few weeks back, I made a batch of spätzle to serve with jägerschnitzel and sauteed green cabbage. I’ve made spätzle before, using the slice-off-the-cutting-board method, which is very slow-going, tedious, and practically cooks my fingers in steam by the time it’s ready. Tastes great, but not worth the aggravation.
When Jeremy got me a potato ricer
a month or two back, I immediately started scheming to adapt a spätzle recipe to use with it. This recipe did just that, and it has already made this ricer not just a useful kitchen implement for me, but an essential one. Spätzle is the best! My only problem the first time around was when the plunger (sticky with batter) grabbed the hole screen and pulled it up without my noticing; when I went to refill the ricer, the batter just fell straight through in a big inedible blob. This time I just loaded all of the batter up at once in a larger pot of water. I made my spätzle a bit before the rest of the meal was ready, so they sat in the colander and waited until the last few minutes, when I sautéed them with a bit of butter to reheat and flavor them. Absolutely wonderful, and very authentic looking and tasting. Last night’s spätzle went with a roasted chicken and some asparagus, and we’ll definitely be eating more of it in the future.
Ricer Spätzle
This batter worked perfectly in the ricer, though you may have to adjust the amount of water and flour in the batter to give it more or less body, depending on the humidity. It seemed to work best when still loose but with the gluten developed enough that the remaining batter on the spoon elastically sprang back up after a blob dripped off.
1 C all-purpose flour
2 large eggs
1/2 tsp salt
Pinch freshly grated nutmeg
1/2 C cold water
Combine the flour, eggs, salt, and nutmeg in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on medium speed until combined and slowly pour in the water, mixing until the batter is smooth. Mix for about 5 minutes more, until the batter is elastic. You may need to add less water or additional flour depending on the size of your eggs and the humidity of your environment. You want a “snotty” batter that will drip blobs and spring back elastically to the spoon. (Last time I made this, I added close to half a cup of additional flour.)
Bring 2 quarts of lightly salted water to a boil in a large saucepan over high heat. Scrape some of the dough into a potato ricer with large holes and gently press the dough into the boiling water. Don’t crowd the pot too much, and make sure the plunger of the ricer doesn’t grab the screen and pull it up. Cook until the spätzle are tender but still firm, stirring occasionally, about 3 to 4 minutes. They will rise to the surface when done.
Lift the cooked spätzle out of the water with a large slotted spoon, and shake off the excess water. (You can also drain the spätzle in a colander.) Serve immediately, or make in advance and sauté in butter to reheat before serving. If doing the latter, it may be preferable to cool them in an ice bath and toss with some oil before sealing so they don’t dry out. To reheat, either shock them in boiling water or sauté them in butter until golden brown.
Update 7/7/08: Every time I made this, I like it more. It’s about the easiest possible homemade noodle. The batter comes together in moments and doesn’t need to be attended while it beats, so I can boil the water and prep the rest of dinner in the meantime; I load the batter into the ricer and gravity drips it down into the boiling water; and when it’s cooked, I can leave it in the colander until the rest of the food is nearly done and saute it quickly in butter to reheat it.
Update 2/10/09: I made brats and apples with spätzle for dinner last night. Nolan had tastes of everything, and we determined that spätzle is an ideal finger food for babies. Here he is feeding himself spätzle that I mixed with some broken-up broccoli florets (frozen ones, just microwave covered for a few seconds to thaw and steam) and tossed with a little parmesan.
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05.19.07
Posted in Cuisines, Dessert, Dinner, German, Ice Cream, Italian, Pastas, Spanish at 5:08 pm by julie
It’s funny how one thing leads to another. For instance, because Jeremy stayed home from work last Wednesday, I got to have wonderful memories of making snow ice cream as a child in Colorado winters.
You see, we’ve been going home for lunch every day since we got Freyja… just one more way she’s turned our lives upside down. That meant that I missed the first Wednesday farmer’s market in downtown Salem. We walked down to the Saturday market with the pup the following Saturday, and she had an awesome time meeting folks and other dogs of all shapes and ages, but there wasn’t much in the way of foodstuffs for sale yet. We did get some bags of lovely fresh oyster, shiitake, and maitake mushrooms for $10, which was very exciting (and with which I made the jagerschnitzel above), but I wanted more. So when Jeremy stayed home last Wednesday, I happily scurried off to the farmer’s market to see what I could find.
The Wednesday market is definitely the place to find local fruits and veggies in Salem. I immediately snapped up some fresh leeks, gorgeous ruby red rhubarb, the requisite bunch of asparagus, and a pile of pea shoots for $1, which I’ve never eaten before. After work I lugged my pounds of organic booty home, along with a lemon thyme plant that is now safely tucked into my herb garden, and paged through cookbooks until I came up with a plan. The leeks and asparagus would go into a prosciutto-tinged risotto I’ve made before for my parents; the rhubarb (or at least part of it) would turn into rhubarb custard bars; and the pea shoots would be tossed into an orecchiette carbonara with bacon and blanched peas, from Sunday Suppers at Lucques.
I’ve never made pasta carbonara before. It’s right up my alley in terms of flavor: creamy, eggy sauce with lots of Parmesan and, of course, bacon (plus, it kind of cracks me up that spellcheck suggests coronary as the best alternate spelling to carbonara). But the bit where the sauce is made of raw eggs that basically get cooked by stirring them into the hot pasta… that was a little intimidating. What if it didn’t work and the pasta ended up just covered with nasty slimy raw egg? I needn’t have worried, though I might have drained my pasta a bit more. The sauce came out creamy and not at all raw-looking, though a bit thin. It was delicious, with lovely little bits of crisp bacon, onion and peas nestled into the orecchiette, one of my very favorite pasta shapes. The pea shoots didn’t particularly impress in terms of flavor, but I certainly got my dollar’s worth of enjoyment from them, just by smelling their peapod aroma as I snapped off the larger leaves and stems.
Jeremy threatened to boycott dessert when he saw me with an armful of rhubarb, which he doesn’t care for, even when I brought out a plate of cooling rhubarb custard bars. His tune changed once he tried them, though, and later that evening I caught him sneaking back into the kitchen for seconds. These bars tasted like pie on top, with a much quicker (and I have to say, equally satisfying) shortbread crust underneath. I added vanilla, cinnamon and nutmeg to the custard filling, and it hit a nice balance with the gentle tartness of the rhubarb, especially when still slightly warm from the oven.
Don’t worry… I’m still getting back around to the snow ice cream. To encourage you, here’s the recipe for the rhubarb bars.
Rhubarb Custard Bars
Crust:
1 1/4 C AP flour
1/2 C sugar
1/2 C butter (1 stick), room temperature
Filling:
1 C sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 C AP flour (more as needed)
4 eggs, beaten
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
Hefty pinches of cinnamon and nutmeg
4 C rhubarb, thinly sliced into small pieces (about 4-5 large stalks)
Preheat oven to 350F. Spray a 9×13 inch baking pan with cooking spray.
Put flour and sugar in a food processor and pulse to mix, then add the butter and pulse until thoroughly combined. Press crust into baking pan. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until lightly browned. Prepare filling while crust is baking.
In a large batter bowl, blend sugar and flour, then add eggs, vanilla, spices, and rhubarb and blend well. If your rhubarb is especially juicy, you may want to add some additional flour to thicken the batter. Pour this mixture over the partially baked crust and continue baking for 30-35 minutes, until set and lightly browned. Serve warm or cooled. Store leftovers in the refrigerator.
Moving along, that orecchiette carbonara required more egg yolks than whites, so when I was looking into rhubarb options, I considered making a pie or bars topped with meringue. I’m not the hugest fan of meringue, though (give me whipped cream instead anytime), and meringue doesn’t keep all that well. Since I wasn’t convinced Jeremy would help me eat up the rhubarb, I didn’t want to be stuck eating soggy meringue for a week. I decided to look at other options for my whites, and perhaps make some vanilla ice cream to go with the rhubarb bars.
With no heavy cream on hand and no car to make a quick grocery trip, however, I was having problems finding something that would work…until, that is, I looked in the sorbet section of David Lebovitz’s The Perfect Scoop book and saw his recipe for leche merengada. I’d never heard of it, but made with whole milk, two meringue-ified egg whites and hints of cinnamon and lemon, I thought it was the perfect solution for my ingredient and accompaniment needs. It took me a few days to find enough time to pull out the ice cream maker, but that asparagus-leek risotto afforded just enough idle time in the kitchen between ladling and stirring to get it going, and the next day we had frozen meringue sorbet with our rhubarb bars.
What a lovely, unusual recipe. My whole milk sat in the fridge for an extra day or two after heating with the cinnamon and lemon, so I strained it before mixing in the meringue, but the flavors come through beautifully. After all that, Jeremy didn’t care for the merengada in conjunction with the rhubarb bars, preferring each separately, but I thought they made a great light pairing for spring. The thing that really struck me about the recipe, though, was how much it reminded me of the snow ice cream I used to make as a child. (There it is! Patience rewarded…) You know the stuff—a bowlful of absolutely fresh snow, scooped into a big bowl while the snow was still falling, then mixed with milk, sugar and vanilla extract until you ended up with a sweet, soupy concoction that had to be gobbled up at top speed before it completely melted. Leche merengada is what I always wanted snow ice cream to be: Snow white and lightly sweetened, not too hard out of the freezer, and with an almost crisp texture that melts instantly on your tongue.
The weather here is just starting to warm up, though for the most part the mercury is hanging right at 70F. I can’t wait to make more of the ice creams and sorbets from David’s book this summer, but I’m having one heck of a time deciding what to make next. Chocolate hazelnut, roasted banana, frozen yogurt, olive oil, or peanut butter? I’d better hurry up and choose, though, because it’s getting close to strawberry season, and I don’t think I will be able to resist making that strawberry sour cream ice cream…
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