Jellied Borscht

See, this is the problem when you have a backlog of recipes. What to write about when you can finally snatch a quiet moment to compose a post? Tripe? The triumph of grilled margarita pizza? The promised post on sauterne-soaked cake?

If I followed my methodical approach, I think I'd be writing about blue cheese-stuffed hamburgers, but I find myself wanting to tell you all about jellied borscht instead.

Yes. Jellied Borscht.

One of the things that absolutely delights me about The Gourmet Cookbook is when I make something beyond my realm of experience that turns out to be amazingly good. Of course, you have to enjoy the key components here, namely: beets, radishes and gelatin, but if you're down with those things you'll love jellied borscht.

It's not on epicurious, so here we go. It's so simple I can even recite it from memory.

You'll need:
a jar of borscht
fresh lemon juice
unflavored gelatin
radishes
sour cream
fresh dill

Strain the solids from the jar of borscht, and save those for something else. Put the liquid in a bowl and add 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice. Sprinkle 1 1/2 envelopes of unflavored gelatin on top and let it soak in, then put it in a pot on the stove, bring to a boil and let simmer for five minutes.

Pour into a pyrex dish and put in the fridge.

When it's set (it'll take at least 2 hrs), chop it up and put it in a bowl. Put some diced radishes on top, a dollop of sour cream, and a sprinkle of fresh, minced dill.

Here's what mine looked like. Forgive the tupperware; I was taking it to work.



Should you be wondering, borscht jello tastes like a deep, complex cherry jello. Adding radishes, sour cream and dill rounds out the flavor. I used daikon radish--that's why they're completely white.

I have to confess part of my pleasure in making this dish was chortling over imagining O'Malley coming home from school and digging into the jellied borscht (which didn't happen, alas). I DID get him to take a bite of the whole thing, ensemble, only to discover that apparently he hates both beets and radishes, and was very sad that I had put that stuff in his mouth. Oh, the face!

And it turns out that some people hate gelatinous stuff. I was going on and on about this dish to my friend Elizabeth, and all she could do was shudder in horror.

But Don and I loved it, and one of my cooking clients was so keen on the idea when I described it that she wants me to make it for a dinner party next Thursday.

As the weather gets warmer (and for some of you it's damn hot already) keep this one in your toolbox.

Lemon-Marinated Turkey with Golden Raisins, Capers, and Pine Nuts (and Poached Whole Turkey Breast that looks like the Loch Ness Monster)

On the whole, I think of turkey as a not-so-interesting form of protein, unless you count turkey SKIN, which I adore and could make a meal of. I mean, you do not want to leave me alone in the kitchen on Thanksgiving next to the turkey that just came out of the oven, especially not with a little kosher salt at my elbow. Because naked turkey is just sad, and stripping that sucker is what I'd do unless held back by the social convention of not sending turkey to the table with out its clothes--er, skin--on.

Mmmmm.

But it's really sort of odd that I'm not such a pal with turkey, considering that we cook with chicken all the time and it's not so different. Perhaps it's because turkey is so BIG, and it wasn't until recently that you could buy just turkey breast, or even turkey tenders. I guess the turkey farmers are getting good marketing people, finally.

And before I launch into the way the good old Italians prepare turkey, can I just mention that wild turkeys abound here in Rockport? And that every time I see one I think, "Dinner"? So fear not, KC (that's my brother who's preparing for the post-peak-oil societal crash) wild turkey is a potential food source as long as we can catch them, and considering the saucy way they take their time crossing the road all we have to do is speed up a little. Oh, we won't have cars, so we'll have to just go fast(er) on our bikes.

So let's get down to turkey business, which is that the first step to making Lemon-Marinated Turkey with Golden Raisins, Capers and Pine Nuts is to prepare a Poached Whole Turkey Breast. Which is where the Loch Ness Monster comes in. I couldn't decide which picture looks more menacing so I'm giving you both and you can decide.



RAWR!



I kind of like the side view--the top one looks like it would eat your hand if you got too close. I mean, not as scary as the monkfish down below, but scary in kind of a if you had smoked too much dope you might be a little freaked out. NOT that I do that sort of thing, seriously I don't. MaryJane was never my drug, I'm too much of a control freak.

But drugs and monsters aside, poaching the turkey was a pretty straightforward poaching experience, which is that you simmer your protein in water with aromatics until it's cooked through. Which in the case of turkey is a little more than an hour, which seems like a long time but for something that large it's really just right.

After it cools, you can do what you wish with it, and what I wished to do with it was proceed to step number two which was the above-mentioned Lemon-Marinated Etc., which the headnotes helpfully tell us is a typical Italian agrodolce treatment. That's "sweet and sour" for those of us who studied a language that we thought would help advance our careers. Italian just helps you seduce the ladies. Although, sometime remind me to tell you how I talked my underage way into a nightclub by feigning a complete lack of English, whereupon the manager (who had taken a few years of French) was hauled out to try to understand pauvre moi who had lost her luggage, including the passport which confirmed her legal drinking age of 21. Ha! All for crappy American beer, bad disco music and loutish fraternity boys.

Anyway, should you be in the mood to marinate your turkey, Italian-style, what you do is soak some raisins until they're plump, remove the zest from a couple of lemons, and the squeeze the juice out of said lemons. Then make a little vinaigrette out of the juice, some balsamic vinegar, salt, pepper, and olive oil. Combine it with the lemon zest, the plumped raisins, and about 1/4 cup capers, pour it all over the turkey and stash it away in your fridge for about half a day or up to 12 hours..

When you're ready to serve, take the turkey out and let it warm up on the counter, then slice and put on a platter. Strain the marinade, and sprinkle the zest, raisins and capers over the sliced turkey. Whisk chopped parsley and mint into the marinade, and spoon it over the top and then sprinkle the whole thing with pine nuts. I don't usually go into so much blow-by-blow with the recipes (thinking that maybe you might have the book yourself, or at least might find it at Epicurious) but this one isn't online.

For a gal who usually eats her turkey at Thanksgiving with cranberry sauce, this was a tasty, welcome change of pace. I really loved this treatment, even though the poaching step was kind of a pain in the ass. But still--summer is coming, and who wants to cook a turkey in their oven when it's 95 degrees? Not me. Although let it be noted, there IS a recipe for Grilled Turkey in here, so maybe this summer is the summer I experiment with large poultry on the grill. All this to say that cold poached turkey with lemon, raisins, capers and pine nuts might be just your speed when it gets sultry.

P.S. and I have it on expert authority that Adam is going to be trying this dish soon, so keep your eyes open for his take on it.

Monkfish Medallions with Tomato Lemon Coulis

Monkfish. Poor man's lobster. That's how I see this fish described, over and over and over again. Did you know, way back when this country was colonized by the English, that lobster could be picked up off the beaches and were so plentiful that there was actually a LAW ON THE BOOKS stating that prisoners couldn't be fed lobster more than once a week? That's because it was considered trash food. Yep.

This monkfish actually cost about the same per pound as live lobster so don't go rushing out to the fish store thinking you're gonna get a bargain on this fish. Try skate or mussels if you want cheap seafood.

Another thing about monkfish--they is fugly.



Or maybe terrifying is a better word--I would not want to get my ankle bitten by one of these guys. Can't you just see the oceans of prehistoric earth populated with fish like this? Yipes!

Fortunately, cooking Monkfish Medallions with Tomato Lemon Coulis doesn't involve any contact with live monkfisk. Just a kind of odd looking fillet that had to be de-membraned:



I had never worked with monkfish and found this part to be kind of gyicky, which is a combination of gross and yicky.

But once you get that stuff off you cook it in butter, in a skillet, then set it aside while you make the coulis. Here's my mis en place:



The coulis is pretty simple--it's just sauteed garlic, tomato, lemon juice and thyme--cook it down a little bit in your fish-frying pan, and then spoon it over the monkfish.



Looks good, right?

Well, I'm sorry to say that the coulis was so acidic, what with the tomato and lemon juice, that to me it tasted kind of like...bile. I know, gyicky!

And I am a HUGE fan of citrus, in all its forms, but here it just didn't work.

So if you're going to try this at home, I'd say leave the lemon juice out of the coulis, and just do tomatoes, garlic and herbs. THAT would be some kick-ass dinner.

This is Why Microwaves Fall in Love, or Melissa Tells a Story

Readers, I want to share something with you.

I'm in the process of making Sauternes-Soaked Cake with Candied Kumquats and Toasted Almonds for Easter, but this is not the first time I've used this recipe.

I mean, it's the first time I've BAKED, using this recipe, but Sauternes-Soaked Cake with Candied Kumquats and Toasted Almonds and I have a history together.

Allow me to explain.

I belong to an online writer's workshop called Zoetrope. Within this site are many smaller offices, where people gather for specific things. Could be poetry, screenwriting, horror, or even how to get an agent. Some of the offices I belong to focus on flash fiction, which is generally defined as fiction under 1000 words. And in one of these offices, the Flash Factory, the fellows who run the office host a weekly contest.

The winner from the week before thinks of a prompt, and a sets a word limit. Writers have five days to post a story, then a few days to read and review the stories others have posted. By noon Friday, you vote for what you think are the top three stories, and the moderator (lately the amazing Rich Osgood) tallies the votes and posts the winners. The author of the number one story picks the prompt for the next week, and round and round it goes.

The week that I joined the Factory, I won the weekly contest, so I got to pick the prompt for the next week.

And this was MY prompt: using at least ten words from this recipe, write a flash of 1000 words or less. And what followed was the recipe for Sauternes-Soaked Cake with Candied Kumquats and Toasted Almonds.

Now, if you look at a recipe and think about fiction you'll see that there are some pretty sexy words in there, if you've got a dirty mind. I was fully expecting my own flash to be borderline erotica.

What came out was entirely different.

I will tell you all about making and eating Sauternes-Soaked Cake with Candied Kumquats and Toasted Almonds very soon, but first I want to share the fiction this recipe inspired.

So without further ado, I give you





This Is Why Microwaves Fall in Love


The toaster and the blender are having a romance. Inter-appliance dating is strictly against Kitchen Policy, but there’s really nothing I can do after the lights go out except install security cameras, and more often than not they side with the lovers and delete the incriminating files.

It’s not that I mind the dating, don’t get me wrong. It’s when they break up that the problems start. The endless bickering over who was flirting with who. The toaster oven cheated on the standing mixer with the microwave because they have so much in common.

“She really gets me when I talk about convection!” he tried to explain, but the mixer just stood in the corner and cried. For days.

“Jeez,” said the blender, “would you relax? Whadja want with that square anyways?”

The toaster and the blender are in the lovey-dovey stage of their relationship.

“Hey,” I said, tugging on the toaster’s cord, “how ‘bout some service over here?” He had muscled the coffee grinder aside and was murmuring sweet nothings to the blender, who was looking particularly trim. She must be on a diet.

“English muffins again?” he asked me as I pushed the lever down. “With peanut butter? I thought you were trying to lose weight.”

“I’m carbo-loading,” I said.

“Shyeah, right,” said the can-opener, “peanut butter is protein.”

“Not if it has sugar in it,” said the food processor, “that makes it carbs.”

“It has both, you idiots,” said the refrigerator. That shut everybody up for a second. The refrigerator is the last word on nutritional matters.

“Well, so what are you carbo-loading for?” asked the toaster. “Running a marathon?” This brought titters of laughter from all corners of the kitchen.

“I don’t appreciate your tone,” I said, and popped the English muffin up before it was done.

“Well, you don’t have to be like that,” the toaster said, while I spread peanut butter—lightly—across the split halves.

I sat at the dinette and pretended to read the paper in miffed silence.

“Oh, c’mon,” said the blender, “he was just kiddin’.”

I folded the paper, got up, and put my plate in the sink.

“It just so happens,” I said, “that I have a date.”

“A date?”

“She hasn’t had a—“

“Do you remember—“

“Will you bring him—“

“Is he good with—“

“Can he cook?” the stove and the mixer asked at same time.

“Jinx!” the mixer said. “Owe me a Coke!”

“Finally!” said the coffee maker, “all these short pots of coffee, day after day. I’ve been dying to have somebody fill my pot.”

The other appliances dissolved with laughter.

“He’ll put a bun in her—“

“He’ll butter her pan and—“

“He’ll beat her cream—“

“He’ll peel off her rind—“

“Is that all you guys ever think about?” I asked. “As a matter of fact, we’re going hiking.”

“And then,” I added, “we’re going out to eat.”

There was complete silence while I rinsed my coffee cup and put it into the dish rack.

“Where are you going?” the refrigerator finally asked.

“Olive Garden,” I said.

“I hear they have ten Viking ranges!”

“So what?” said the stove. “Stupid Vikings.”

“Espresso machines!”

“Bread-warming drawers!”

“A credit-card machine,” purred the telephone.

“Why cantcha eat here?” asked the blender. “I could mix you up one-a them pina coladas!”

“And I can play Grand Funk Railroad!” yelled the stereo from the other room.

“What, to go with their frozen dinners?” asked the microwave.

“Good point.”

“That’s true, it’s—“

“She wouldn’t want—“


I went upstairs to put on my hiking shorts and got my sports watch out of the top drawer.

“Have fun,” said the vibrator, “I’ll be here to pick up the pieces.”

“Why do you always have to be such a pessimist?” I asked, and slammed the drawer shut.


I got home later that night.

“How’d it go?” the stove asked.

“He wasn’t my type,” I said, “too machismo.”

“Told ya,” murmured the blender.

“Pay up—“

“She never—“

“But,” I interrupted, “I have a surprise. I won something in their charity raffle.” I pulled a slender box out of a fancy embossed bag. “It’s a milk frother. For cappuccino.” I plugged it in by the sink, next to the coffee maker.

“ ‘aloo!” she said, in a silky accent. The appliances whispered approvingly amongst themselves, except for the blender.

“Hey baby, what’s your voltage?” I heard the toaster say, and I climbed the stairs to bed.

Catfish Fillets with Tahini Sauce

Readers, I have to make a confession to you, which is that I've had a jar of tahini sitting in my pantry for, oh, probably about three years. Unopened.

You know, one of those nut butters (ok, technically tahini is from sesame seeds but I'm trying to make a point here) with about half an inch of oil sitting on the top? That you have to stir? And you know you'll get oil down the side of the jar and on your fingers and probably also on the knife that you're stirring with and also the counter?

Oh, and have I ever mentioned my odd fetish about not getting my fingers icky? Or greasy? I am the queen of gloves. I didn't used to be like this--in fact I used to delight in digging my hands into whatever it was to mix it up--green salad, chicken salad, the makings for pie crust.

But about three or four years ago, having grease (or anything) between my fingers just suddenly seemed extremely gross and...well, icky. Enter gloves. I should buy stock in Care One.

So the reason I'm sharing all of this information with you is to make the point that I KNEW stirring the tahini was going to be messy, and that one small single issue was enough to keep me from ever opening and using that tahini.

BUT. I was down at Connelly's Seafood and they were selling ocean catfish, which made me think of this recipe, which made me think that I should just get over myself and open the damn tahini jar.

Was it messy? Eeeek! Yes, but not as bad as it could have been, because after a few passes with my steak knife (for some reason a serrated knife works pretty well penetrating the density of nut butters) I chunked out enough to make 1/2 cup and dumped it in the Magic Bullet along with the other sauce ingredients--water, lemon juice, garlic, cumin, salt and pepper.

Oh Magic Bullet, how I love thee.



We were bequeathed one from an elderly neighbor, and after my initial suspicion of anything sold via infomercial I have fallen in love with this little gadget. In fact I need to add it to my sidebar of kitchen items I can't do without.

Anyway, the Magic Bullet took care of the tahini chunks in no time flat, and soon enough I had a smooth, lemony, cuminy sauce with the distinctive flavor of sesame seeds and IT'S TOTALLY AWESOME!!

Forget the freaking catfish--this sauce would be good on anything except, you know, dessert. Although, hmmm. No, just kidding.

The fish was normal fish, except there was this odd direction to sear the fish on one side, then turn it over and sprinkle crushed coriander seed AROUND it...then take the fish out of the skillet, wipe the pan and do your next batch.

I was deeply puzzled by this direction, because the coriander never actually gets on this fish--is the idea that the coriander aroma is ever so gently scenting the fish? The last batch, you're supposed to take the fish out, then instead of wiping out the pan, you spoon the coriander and oil out and over the fillets.

So here's my best guess--this is an example of multi-tasking. Somebody thought that crushed coriander sauteed in oil would be good over the fish so why not use the oil that the fish is frying in? Only one pan to clean! Yippee!

And when the recipe got translated, the person writing the recipe obeyed the letter of the recipe and not the spirit (so to speak) and so we're directed to sprinkle coriander around each batch and then throw it away until the last batch gets cooked.

My advice--save all your crushed coriander for the last batch.

This is a very tasty, quick dinner (especially if you've already made the tahini sauce, because you'll probably have leftovers) and also yes I know ocean cat is not the same fish as catfish but the catfish we get up here from the south tastes terrible for some reason.

Italian Chicken Soup with Egg Strands and Parmesan

I must confess I had high hopes embarking upon this soup recipe, and here's why:

When I was head chef at As You Like It, I made Stracciatella (that's Italian Chicken Soup with Egg Strands and Parmesan) one fine day, using a recipe from Joy of Cooking. Now, don't get huffy--this was years ago and before our beloved Gourmet Cookbook was in print.

We used to have a regular customer, an artist from Rocky Neck. He was clearly a man who enjoyed his food, and he especially loved my soups, and he just FLIPPED over this one. Said it was just like when he was a kid--the "rags" of egg especially. It's not that hard to make, but you don't really see it around that much on menus.

This recipe, which is not online, is one of the super fast ones--you whisk together eggs, grated parm, parsley and scallion, bring your stock to a boil, then add eggs in a stream, whisking constantly.

If you look closely at the photo above, you'll see that the eggs were hardly "strands". Little tiny egg curds were more like it.

I think the error lies in the direction to "whisk constantly". If the eggs were stirred gently with a spoon in a clockwise motion while you were pouring them in, you'd get some cohesiveness instead of that scrambled eggs effect.

It wasn't bad. But with a soup this simple, texture and flavor become all-important, and the texture of the cooked eggs was (I thought) unappealing. Unfortunately I made this at work--no chance for a re-do--it had to go out for a small luncheon, and it did.

Damn.

Celery Root Bisque

I used to know a woman who said that she ate plenty from the four food groups--salt, fat, alcohol and chocolate.

She would have loved Celery Root Bisque.

Why? Because in spite of its bland-sounding name, this soup is a celebration of duck confit--not just the meat, but the cracklings. If you don't know what cracklings are, it's this--duck skin peeled off and sliced, then rendered in a pan over low heat until golden, crispy brown. Drain grease off on paper towels, and salt to your little heart's content. People who talk about heaven on earth surely must be including duck cracklings in their equation.

I made Celery Root Bisque for the below-mentioned (Profiteroles! Hot Fudge Sauce!) birthday luncheon, and it was a smash hit. It's actually a perfect make-ahead soup--the bisque itself is nothing more than celery root, celery and shallots sauteed in butter, then simmered in water until tender. Puree, puree, puree, add lemon juice, salt and pepper, and you've got your bisque.

The duck confit can be shredded ahead of time, and likewise the cracklings, if you can keep yourself from eating them. All that's required is a gentle rewarming with the confit, and a sprinkling of cracklings on top.

You know, I'm looking at this recipe and seeing that it also calls for an optional garnish of (unsweetened) whipped cream. I must have been so overcome by the duck that I completely ignored that suggestion, but thinking about it I'm not sure what it would add. Hmm.

Oh, and save your pennies if you want to make this soup. My one and only source for duck confit (The Fruitful Basket) sells those babies for $11/leg.

In the flavor department, here's why this recipe is a home run. You've got a smooth, lemony-neutral soup base, with slightly ropey, chewy, meaty duck leg, with crispy, greasy, salty cracklings on top. You can't go wrong.

Mocha Fudge Sauce

Lest you think I'm rolling around in a heaven of ice cream, sauces and luscious desserts (I try to limit that to once a month) let me assure you that my string of dessert posts are more to do with my new organizational technique, and less to do with order of manufacture.

In other words, with 10-15 recipes waiting to be written about, how does one choose the order? Most memorable? Chronological? I finally decided to just pick a point and make my way to the back of the book, after which I would start at the beginning again.

And so here is the last waiting recipe in the "Frozen Desserts and Sweet Sauces" chapter, Mocha Fudge Sauce.

I was so keen on that Hot Fudge Sauce from the last post that I could hardly wait to make this sauce. And I LOVE mocha--in fact, I used to make my first husband crazy when we would go out to eat breakfast with my mocha phase (this was before the proliferation of Starbucks and its ilk)--I would very carefully tell the waitress that I wanted hot chocolate, but made with coffee, not water, and could they add a little milk? Ha! Yes, I'm one of those customers, or at least I used to be. Poor waitresses.

But I'm sorry to say I wasn't crazy about this sauce, and it's only because it just can't measure up to Hot Fudge Sauce. I actually made it because I was trying to get O'Malley to eat the vanilla ice cream languishing in the freezer, but he found the sauce to be too bitter for his taste.

This could also possibly be because I used



instead of



Possibly. I'm willing to try it again, because it IS chocolate after all, and it's more to my taste than, say, Strawberry Sauce, which is the recipe right next door and who knows when I'll make that. Although it is coming up on strawberry season...and I do have my bookgroup coming up...

Profiterloles, Burnt Orange Ice Cream & Hot Fudge Sauce

This recipe has special significance for me because it's the last special occasion dessert I created for my estate job as a private chef. Mrs. S.'s birthday luncheon! Yay, Happy Birthday! One of the things I think I did very well during my four-year stint at her house was holiday/special occasion cooking, especially desserts, and I am pretty proud of this one.

Why? Because when emailing back and forth with one of the daughters, the conversation went something like this:

K: ...for dessert, something easy to eat and serve, maybe custard-filled rolls?
M: (thinking, always thinking about what I can cook from the book) How about profiteroles with burnt orange ice cream and hot fudge sauce?
K: yes--coned and candled?

When K. saw the platter of profiteroles she actually jumped up and down and clapped with delight. It was exactly what she had envisioned, and THAT is one of my greatest pleasures, as a chef. Getting it right.

So here's how I did it.

First, the ice cream. I've made this ice cream before and knew it was a winner with chocolate. What I didn't have last time that I did have this time was the Kitchen Aide ice cream maker attachment, and while it's not a perfect thing it's better than what I have at home, which requires a lot of elbow grease and a sturdy wooden spoon. I made the ice cream a week ahead of time. It doesn't hurt to plan ahead!

The profiteroles were as easy as I remembered them being when I made them at the Emerson for some reason (probably a Rotary dessert). It's almost impossible to screw them up. If you've never made them, here's how you do it:

Bring to a boil butter, water and salt. Dump in the flour all at once, and beat the dickens out of it until it forms a ball, which takes about 30 seconds. Take off heat and go pour yourself a cup of coffee. When you come back, beat in three eggs one at a time with a hand mixer. Gloop it into pastry bags (or my variant, zip lock bags with the corner snipped off), squeeze little mounds onto a baking sheet and bake for about 20-25 minutes.

That's it.

Once they're cool (and you can store them for a day, just re-crisp before filling), you cut them in half and put in your filling, which in our case was the burnt orange ice cream.



I had to go back and forth between crisping the profiteroles (because I had made them the day before), letting them cool, filling them, and getting the filled ones in the freezer--all without letting the ice cream melt.

Now, the Hot Fudge Sauce. Can I just stop right now and swoon with the memory of how much I love this hot fudge sauce? For some reason I've made a lot of the sauces in the Frozen Desserts chapter and this is the best one, bar none. They say in the head notes that you can scoop it, cooled, right out of the bowl (to eat) and I can attest to that.

I know corn syrup is something of a food villain to some, but I think it's the 1/2 cup of light corn syrup that gives this sauce its delightful texture. The incredible flavor is thanks to the dark brown sugar and bittersweet chocolate.

I had to do a little problem solving with this dessert, which is that K. wanted it coned (no problem), and candled. I was worried that the hot fudge sauce would sort of loosen things up too much for candles to stay erect so my solution, after piling the profiteroles high and drizzling them with hot fudge sauce, was to put the whole platter back in the freezer while everyone was eating. I figured that would unify the dessert enough to let me stick candles in it, and it did. Somewhere somebody took some photos of the dessert with the candles lit--hopefully they'll send them to me so I can share them with you.

Readers, this dessert is a showstopper, as Gourmet promises. Since you can do it in components at your convenience, it's a pretty big payoff for the time and energy spent.

Guest Blogger: O'Malley bakes Apple Brown Betty and Hamantaschen

Folks, I'd like you to give a warm welcome to my son O'Malley, who has been following along with this project with a great deal of interest and enthusiasm. Well, sometimes he's more enthusiastic about the idea of what I'm cooking than the finished product but for sure his favorite part is when I write about it. It's possible O'Malley is one of my biggest fans.

He came home this week with a container of hamantaschen (beautiful AND delicious) that he had baked at his dad's, and reports of an Apple Brown Betty he had baked for Li's (his girlfriend) family. Now, neither of these recipes come from The Gourmet Cookbook--they came from Sundays at Moosewood--a book that opened my horizons during my vegetarian years. But O'Malley was so enthusiastic about blogging about them that I decided to give him the floor anyway.

So without further ado, I present O'Malley Bach, a ninth grader at Rockport High School.





So, what to do on a lazy Saturday when the rest of the family is out of the house? Reading? Already read all my books. TV? Please. Go outside? Get the hell out of my office. Saturdays, in my opinion, are meant to be spent either doing absolutely nothing or doing something really exciting, preferably a trip into Boston with a significant other.

I sat at the table in the kitchen, wondering precisely what I should do with my time. Should I spend hours on the phone with Li, should I go for a quick bike ride, should I feed the cat because he's meowing and clawing the heck out of my right leg? Well, I did do that last one, but after that, I had a pretty awesome revelation.

"THAT'S IT! I'll put hours of labor into a dish that I'll eventually burn both of my hands on and will never taste, all for my girlfriend's parents who don't even like me anyway!"

Or something like that.

I found the Sundays At Moosewood cookbook in a hidden alcove ("hidden", here means "in plain sight") and began leafing through the book to find a nice recipe that didn't require ingredients unique to four different continents. Of course, this eliminated about 82 percent of the recipes in that book, so I perused the remaining eighteen percent to find a recipe for Apple Brown Betty, an Irish dessert that I'd never heard of and wasn't sure exactly what it should look like.

"'Kay, I'll do that one."

It turned out that we really did have most of the ingredients in the house already. It was pretty simple, and you can find the recipe here if you're inclined to try it.

The biggest problem I ran into while I was making this dish was my inexperience with exactly how finely shredded the bread crumbs should have been. I didn't really finely shred the bread, so I just tore it, really, and that was a mistake. I didn't have enough crumbs to cover even 1/2 of the area the crumbs were supposed to.

It's supposed to look like this:





It didn't.

Looking back, I believe the mistake I made was not cooking it long enough and not putting enough filling in between the apple slices (granny smith apples work best for this, by the way). I eventually came out with a decent dish, but I'm not sure it was true to the spirit of what it should have been. Maybe I need to move to Ireland.

Start time: 12:00 PM. End time: 2:00 PM.

Li and her mother picked me up that night at 5:30 to go and see Watchmen. Readers, I have to tell you, that movie was really great. It may seem like a superhero movie, but don't be fooled. The "heroes" in that movie are depressed at best and psychopathic at worst. Don't see it with the kids. Truly, though, the movie raises some serious philosophical questions; the most prominent one being about whether the end justifies the means.

Also, Ozymandias looks totally cool.




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Hamantaschen. Say that 20 times quickly. Delicious, too!

For anyone who doesn't know, Hamantaschen is a type of Jewish pastry that looks a little like this:




Looks good! Unfortunately, I misread the directions a little bit and folded the seams a different way. This resulted in cookies that looked more like those big three-pointed hats that the British used to wear.

But never mind that.

The original recipe (also from Sundays at Moosewood) called for prunes and prune butter, along with raisins, all completely mashed up and obliterated, to be the filling. I decided to ignore that part of the recipe for the express reasons of:

1.) We didn't have any of the above ingredients,
and
2.) I friggin' hate prunes.

Satisfied in my little act of rebellion against the authority of the book, I made the filling with honey and poppy seeds instead. This, I've been told, is how they're actually supposed to be made. Hey, maybe I have a little Jewish part of me in the culinary section of my heart.

The next real mess-up came when I was making the dough. I had the wet mix in one bowl and the dry mix in the other bowl, and decided to save some time by pouring it all together at once, instead of gradually adding in the dry mix to the wet mix. Big mistake. I had to add about 3X as much water as I normally needed just to locate the wet mix under all that flour. I couldn't have sworn, in a court of law, that the wet mix still existed.

After that fiasco was over, I managed to roll out the dough onto a flowered surface and begin the painstaking process of cutting out the cookie shapes. They need to be perfectly round so that they can be folded correctly. As I've already said, I totally messed up on that part, so I'll skip that part.

After the cookies, however they look, are shaped, they need to be put in the oven at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes. the full recipe can be found here.

These, actually, turned out really well. They were a big hit with Li and her family, and they went over well at my house too. On Sunday I went over to Li's house for the day, and we were served my own Apple Brown Betty when dessert time rolled around.

There's no greater feeling than that.

I'd like to thank my mom for letting me use this blog to post these cooking experiences. Thanks for making all the cool food, mom. You're the best cook in town.