sidecar - hitch along for food

Chocolate Cake with Port

After a week of gloom and rain it seemed like time for comfort food.  This recipe has been tempting me, sitting on my kitchen counter in the cookbook holder since I visited my family back in August.  The siren song of chocolate cake finally got to me.  The cake is one that my best friend's Mom used to make for birthdays.  They called it wine cake (or who knows maybe it was whine cake, since we clamored for it so regularly).  I asked if I could have the recipe for my Mom, gave it to my Mom, and then never ate it at my house.  I guess my Mom didn't love it as much as I did.

But the cake stuck in my memory.  So I pulled out my Mom's wooden recipe box to see if she still had the recipe.  It was buried deep, but it was there.  She remembered it, but said she has never made it (what, she never had a gloomy week?) 

It calls for port, and I guess that is where the wine part of the cake came in.   I have had to make some changes to the recipe.  The original was too gooey (which can have its advantages as a comfort food, but twice the center of the cake collapsed).   

It is a chocolatey antidote to gloom.  The port gives it a rich quality.  My memory did not cheat me, and I am happy to have this cake back.  Maybe I will even make it for my Mom.

Chocolate Cake with Port (Wine Cake)

1 cup butter

2 cups sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/4 cup water

1/2 cup tawny port

1/2 cup buttermilk

2 cups flour

1/4 cup cocoa

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

Heat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease a bundt pan thoroughly.

With an electric mixer, cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition.  Add vanilla and mix well.  

In a separate bowl, mix together water, port and buttermilk with a fork.  Set aside.

Sift together flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

Add sifted ingredients and port mix to butter and sugar mixture, alternating between well and dry ingredients and mixing well after each addition.  

Pour cake mix into pan.  Bake for approximately 45 minutes, or until a toothpick stuck into the cake comes out clean.  Place cooking pan on a cooling rack for 10 minutes and then remove cake from bundt pan and cool on rack thoroughly.

You may notice in the picture that I frosted the cake.  But, I think next time I would not frost it, and recommend dusting with powdered sugar instead.  It was almost too fudgey with the frosting.  But for any fudge lovers, I am providing the frosting recipe.  You may want to drizzle just some of the frosting and use the rest for another purpose (like eating straight from the bowl with a spoon, my preferred alternate).

Cake Frosting

1/2 cup butter

1/4 cup cocoa

2 cups powdered sugar

6 tablespoons milk

1 tablespoon port

Melt butter with cocoa in a small pan.  Place butter/cocoa mix in mixing bowl.  Add sugar, milk and port and mix thoroughly.  Add additional milk as necessary to get a pourable texture.  Drizzle frosting over cooled cake.

Pistachio Rice

I love this time of year when we still have enough warmth to go jacket less but the leaves are beginning to turn.  We are still grilling outside, but at the same time, I am starting to crave comfort food, red wine and more aromatic spicing.  This dish bridges the gap.  We ate it alongside grilled pork tenderloin.  

The idea came from the Grand Diplome series I wrote about a couple of months ago.  It was a suggested stuffing for a Christmas dinner featuring Roast Suckling Pig. Seriously, if anyone reading this has ever prepared a roast suckling pig at home, you have to leave a comment and tell me about it.  I once went to Poland for a wedding and they wheeled out a spit roasted pig at midnight with sparklers in it.  That was an amazing experience in more ways then one, but still, can't imagine procuring a whole baby pig here in the 'burbs and putting it in the oven, much less setting it in the middle of the table with a lemon in it's mouth, as it appeared in the Grand Diplome.

But do try the rice.

PISTACHIO RICE

1 onion, finely chopped

3 tablespoons butter

2 cups rice

3 1/2 cups chicken stock or broth

1/2 cup raisins

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1 cup shelled pistachios

1/2 cup thinly sliced green onions

salt and pepper

Heat oven to 350 degrees.  In an oven proof casserole, melt butter on stove top.  Add onion and cook over medium heat until soft and translucent.  Add rice and stir a minute or two, until coated with butter. Add stock and spices and bring to a boil.  Cover and place in oven.  Bake for approximately 25 minutes, adding additonal stock during baking if the pan becomes too dry (I did not find that I needed to add any additional stock).  Remove from oven and cool slightly.  Add pistachios and salt and pepper to taste. Sprinkle green onions across the top for serving.  

Fava Bean Puree on Crostini with Red Onions

I have never tried cooking with fava beans, but I was recently helping test cookie recipes for a cookie contest being sponsored by The Sugar Association at CulinAerie , and they were setting up for a class on Sicilian cooking which included this recipe.   Maybe I was just sick of cookies after making eight different recipes, but this sounded worth trying.

The instructor was kind enough to give me a couple of cups of frozen favas to take home since they aren't currently in season.  I left them in the refrigerator to thaw for a few days, until I had time to try this. As I started making the recipe I realized I really did not know how to "peel and cook" them as called for.  I boiled them in a couple inches of water for about 10-15 minutes (till they seemed soft and the shells began to split) and let them cool down.  Then I popped them out of the skin by squeezing it on the end opposite the end which had split.  Is this the "right" way?  I have no idea, it worked for me.

This would be a great party appetizer, because it can all be made ahead of time and then assembled just prior to serving.  That, and it is great with a glass of champagne.

Fava Bean Puree on Crostini with Red Onions

1 baguette, sliced 1/4 inch thick, brushed with olive oil and toasted in the oven

For the fava bean puree:

1 cup peeled and cooked fava beans (see cooking note above)

1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil

1 clove garlic

Juice of one lemon

2 tablespoons grated parmesan 

salt and pepper to taste

Combine the beans, olive oil, garlic, lemon juice, and parmesan in a food processor.  Puree until smooth. Season with salt and pepper and process to mix.

For the onions:

2 red onions, peeled and cut into 1/4 inch thick slices

3/4 cup balsamic vinegar

2 tablespoons sugar

Grated zest of one orange

Juice of one orange

Salt and pepper to taste

Combine all ingredients in a medium bowl.  Cover and refrigerate for at least three hours.  Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Place onions flat side down in a baking dish and cook for eight minutes on one side, turn and cook an additional six minutes on the other side, or until they are tender but still hold their shape. Season with salt and pepper.  

Serve the baguette slices with fava bean puree and onions.

Thai Beef Salad

I have been ignoring my blog while I struggle to keep up with a food writing course, recipe development for a weird colonial fruit that has roughly a three week season, and the usual insistent clamor of my day job.  A week where something simple was called for in the kitchen.  

With summer winding down, I am going to be dreaming of pulling out the Le Creuset for long braises soon, but for now, we are still enjoying grilling.  I love the economy of cooking once and eating twice, and skirt steak is my favorite grilling cut. However you choose to prepare the skirt steak (or whatever cut you like), double up the amount and save a pound to throw in to this quick salad of beef and buckwheat noodles.

 Salad

1 eight ounce package buckwheat soba noodles

2 English cucumbers

1 cup sprouts

1 thai style red chili

1 pound of grilled skirt steak

1/2 cup torn basil leaves

Dressing

3 tablespoons rice wine vinegar

2 tablespoons soy sauce

1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger root

1 garlic clove, finely minced

1/2 cup canola oil

Cook the soba noodles according to package directions. Rinse in a colander with cold water and drain. Thinly slice beef across the grain in roughly 1/8 inch slices. Peel cucumbers, scrape out seeds and cut in half the long way, then further slice into 1/8 in slices (or however thin you like). One red thai style chili, cored and seeds removed, then finely diced.  

Mix noodles, beef, cucumbers, sprouts, basil and diced chili together in a large bowl.  A note on the sprouts.  I like thick sprouts over thin for this salad generally.  I found a great sprout mix in my local Whole Foods, called Moon Salad.  It is from Pennsylvania, so may not be available everywhere, but if you see it, try it. The sprout mix is a little unusual and along with more common alfalfa, had garbanzo and adzuki bean sprouts.  The adzuki were delicious in the salad and added a nice crunch.

Mix all the dressing ingredients together and pour over the salad.  Give it a stir and it's ready. 

Blackberry Clafouti

I have been blackberry crazy all summer.  I am not sure why, but it has been the summer of blackberries. I have made blackberry jam, mint infused blackberry syrup, blackberry ice cream, and frozen several containers of strained blackberry juice to make more jam, syrup and ice cream if the inspiration hits me mid-winter. I mentioned a few posts back that blackberries always grow wild around my parents neighborhood, and while we were there visiting a couple of weeks ago, we filled two small buckets in about 15 minutes and walked home to make a cornmeal crusted blackberry tart with lavender whipped cream. Tasty and recession worthy, considering we got them at the fabulous price of just 15 minutes of our labor plus the random scratch on the arm.

Yesterday, we were back at a local farm to pick up some fruit for another project. Blackberries were still available for U-pick and I couldn't resist one last go round before the season ends. It was tougher to fill our buckets than on our last trip out in July, but we were still able to get enough to give us a last taste of summer. The berries were markedly smaller than the July berries and not quite as sweet. Today I have to figure out what to do with several more pints, but yesterday I just wanted to do something simple and made a clafouti.  Kind of like a big fruit crepe or European style pancake and best eaten warm from the oven.  My recipe here is from The Art and Soul of Baking by Cindy Mushet, with a few tweaks for a little extra sugar and no lemon, since my berries were on the tart side.

1 half-pint fresh blackberries - rinsed, stemmed and patted dry

4 large eggs

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

5 tablespoons all purpose flour

pinch of sale

3/4 cup whole milk

1/4 cup heavy whipping cream

Confectioners sugar, for powdering the top after cooking

Preheat oven to 400 degrees and position oven rack in the center.  Lightly butter a 9 or 9 1/2 inch ceramic tart pan and coat it with granulated sugar.  

Arrange berries in the bottom of the tart pan.  

Place eggs and granulated sugar in a medium bowl and whisk to fully blend.  Add vanilla extract and blend again. Add flour and salt and whisk briskly until most of the flour lumps have blended into the eggs.  Add milk and cream and whisk until mixture is completely blended.

Pour the batter over the blackberries in the dish and move berries around if necessary, to evenly distribute.  Bake for 35 -40 minutes, until the clafouti is set and firm in the center, the top is browned and the edges look crispy.

Cool 5-10 minutes, dust with confectioners sugar, and serve warm.

I Eat Oysters

I just returned from a week of vacation visiting family in the Pacific Northwest.  It's a great place for seafood lovers.  Growing up my Dad would head out with his buddies and a six pack of beer and bring home salmon, crabs and buckets of clams.  My sisters and I were in side stitches when he brought home giant spitting clams which spouted over the sides of the bucket.   Don't even get me started on the year he decided to bring home smelt and can it. Since my dad doesn't know his way around a kitchen, he can only have been motivated by my Mom's absolute refusal to get involved in the smelt canning process.

One of the things I crave when I am home is oysters, which are farmed in large quantities in the Puget Sound.  There are two oyster farms I am aware of in the Samish Bay, which lies just to the East of Fidalgo Island in the northern Skagit Valley area.  I like Taylor Shellfish Farms (which is not to say I dislike the other farm, I have just never been there).  The tide lands are beautiful, though the farm store is little more than a shack lying at the bottom of a steep, one lane track.  Despite its slightly remote location, the store was packed on a Sunday afternoon when we stopped by for Kumamoto oysters.  Taylor is not limited to oysters.   They also farm mussels and clams, and in the store they sell dungeness crabs and other seafood related products. They have several large farms around the Puget Sound and have been in business since the 1880's (in 2006 they were even featured on the Discovery Channel's Dirty Jobs) . 

And as for that oysters only in months with an R, it doesn't really apply in the Northwest, with its cold Pacific waters.  The San Francisco Chronicle did a recent article on the topic, which singled out Kumamoto oysters as being a perfect summer oyster because spawning season (which often signals the decline of the oyster's texture) doesn't start until late August or early September.  There are undoubtedly all sorts of nuances around these rules, but all I can say is that mine were excellent.

You can even feel good about your farmed domestic oyster consumption.  According to the Seafood Watch Guide produced by the Monterey Bay Aquarium, farmed oysters are a "Best Choice" for seafood.  This is due to the minimal impact that aquaculture techniques have on marine resources, the low risk of pollution and habitat effects (as a filter-feeding organism, they can even benefit coastal waters), and the overall management effectiveness techniques of the farming industry.  All of the normal cautions apply, of course.  Our Kumamotos came from a reputable supplier, were harvested the day before, were kept on ice (both there and on the ride home) and were consumed the same day.

We chose not to go raw with this bunch.  In our company were seafood lovers and grudging seafood eaters, and I find that the grudging crowd usually seems more amenable to a grilled oyster.  We placed them cup side down (Kumamotos have a nice deep, scallopy cup shell) over a hot gas grill just until the shells opened.

That's all you have to do.  A couple minutes and you're done.  Kumomotos are known for a firm, creamy consistency and the slight briny after-taste is all delicious, puckery goodness (puckery in the sense that you want to suck in your cheeks to get the last of the brine...like a cat licking its whiskers). I like to eat them simply, with a dash of tabasco or a touch of cocktail sauce (my Dad swears by two drops of gin), all rounded off with a cold beer.

Food Bits

"The Vicar, thought Laura, the traditional butt of kindly comedy, the chevalier of spinsters, crowned with the wilting cucumber sandwiches of a thousand garden parties."

- From One Fine Day, by Mollie Panter-Downes, first published in 1947

Praline Crunch

I found an old recipe for Praline Powder in the Grand Diplome series.  I have renamed it Praline Crunch. Who wants to eat Praline Powder?   Speaking as a woman who has at least a 100 cookbooks (my daughter says it's more than 200, but who's counting), I have seen many praline recipes, but have not run across a recommendation to grind to a powder.  And how much easier today than in 1971 when the series was written and there were no food processors.  It's a great idea, super simple, and I can imagine a number of ways to use it for a punch of depth and crunchiness.  Stay tuned, I will be experimenting more with it myself.  

You barely require a recipe.  Take equal part almonds (I used thin sliced) and sugar, cook to liquefy the sugar, then cool and process in a food processor.  In the original recipe it was used in a custard cream puff filling.  It's reinvented here as an ice cream add-in, using the basic ice cream custard recipe from a recent Fine Cooking article by David Lebovitz.  But use any ice cream base you prefer.

Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately because now I have an excuse to buy a new one) my ice cream maker failed on me and I had to hand stir the ice cream inside the frozen bucket to chill it.  I now have the forearms of a lumberjack and you can tell in the photos that the ice cream was a little drippy and soft.  

Praline Crunch - Makes about 1 1/2 cups when ground.

Mix 1 1/3 cups thinly sliced almonds and 1 1/3 cups sugar in a medium sauce pan.  Heat over low heat, stirring constantly until sugar has liquefied.  Keep stirring until the mixture takes on a light brown, caramelized shade. Please remember, hot sugar is like molten lava.  Resist any temptation to taste or touch the mixture.  Spoon the mixture over foil which has been greased with a little butter.  Allow to harden and cool.  Peel from the foil and process in a food processor until the mixture has the consistency of a powder.  I also saved some prior to processing to add to the top of the ice cream.

Praline Crunch Ice Cream

2 cups heavy cream

1 cup whole milk

3/4 cup granulated sugar

Dash of table salt

5 large egg yolks

1 whole vanilla bean, scraped

1 tablespoon Frangelico liqueur

3/4 cup praline crunch powder

In medium saucepan, combine one cup of cream and milk with sugar and a pinch of salt.  Warm the mixture over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until sugar dissolves and tiny bubbles begin to form at edges of pan.  Remove pan from heat.  Scrape the vanilla bean into the pan and add the scraped pod to the pan as well.  Allow vanilla to infuse for half an hour.  

While infusing, prepare an ice bath.  Fill a large bowl of water with several inches of ice water.  Set a smaller metal bowl in the ice water.  Add the remaining cup of cream to the inner bowl.  Set a fine mesh strainer on top.  In a separate bowl, whisk the egg yolks together.  

Rewarm the infused ice cream mix over medium heat until small bubbles form again.  In a steady stream, pour half of the warm mixture into the egg yolks, whisking constantly so that eggs will not curdle.  Pour the egg mixture back into the pan and cook over low heat, stirring constantly with a spatula or wooden spoon.  Cook until the custard thickens slightly, and a finger drawn across the back of the mixing spoon or spatula leaves a line.  Do not overheat or allow mix to boil.  Once thickened, pour through the strainer into the remaining bowl of cold cream in the ice bath.  

Stir the mix over the ice bath until the temperature cools to 70 degrees.  Place in refrigerator until completely chilled (the mix must be completely chilled before placing in an ice cream maker).  When chilled, add the tablespoon of Frangelico and the praline crunch powder and stir to distribute throughout the mixture.

Process per the instructions of your chosen ice cream maker.

Eat.

No, GE did not pay for me to add a subliminal logo.  I must have had the dish sitting on my oven, which yes, is a GE.

Food Memories - The Golden Lion

In 1992 my husband and I traveled to the Netherlands on vacation.  We were young, it was only our second trip outside the United States, and I think half the decision was made upon the belief that it seemed like an un-intimidating country to visit, with a high probability of finding English speakers.  All these assumptions proved to be true.  Never the less, we determined that we should learn to speak at least some limited Dutch before departing.  In the strange way that serendipitous events often unfold, the decision to learn to speak Dutch led us to one of my most memorable meals.

Dutch in 3 months....that's what the class (and the text) promised us.  The class was undertaken to introduce us to those key phrases we would need as intrepid travelers.  That very first lesson we learned one particularly important phrase that all travelers to the Netherlands find themselves rapidly in need of.  That phrase was "I have a lion."  We laughed on our way home that we would certainly prepared if we encountered any lions on our trip.

About a month later while reading a cast off magazine in the doctor's office waiting room, I ran across a short article on traveling in the Netherlands.  It referenced the small town of Bronkhorst and highlighted an inn and restaurant called De Gouden Leeuw, or The Golden Lion.  I wrote down the information and we decided that whatever else we did in the Netherlands, we must stay at The Golden Lion.  Surely that first Dutch lesson was meant to propel our attention toward this out of the way place.

And so we did visit Bronkhorst and De Gouden Leeuw.  Bronkhorst is in a beautiful area.  I remember everything cloaked in a soft bluish mist that seemed to rise up from the water in the evening and hang in the air.  There was a mildness that extended from the weather to the people themselves.  We did not find that everyone at the inn spoke English, but we did find that it didn't matter.  

On our only night there, we visited their rustic dining room for a pre-fixe dinner.  Our waiter was tall, bald and wore a mischievous smile.  And he was a wonder.  Between his broken English and our broken Dutch we forged a bond.  Rarely have I been served by someone who seemed to so truly want us to find pleasure in our meal.  Either he faked it superbly or got tremendous joy from seeing others find delight.  He was the teacher and we his eager students.

Our first course was squab, raised by the inn themselves.  I admit that the youngster I was would not ordinarily have ordered what many Americans look at as nothing more than avian rat and I approached it with skepticism.  It was served medium rare and carried just a hint of gaminess.  My husband found it a bit livery for his taste, but the adventure was on. 

We eventually moved on to springbok, flown in from South Africa.  Was it wild?  Was it farmed?  I don't know.  My concern for the welfare of the world's animal resources was not terribly developed at the time.  But it was delicious, served in a rich red wine sauce and the one and only time I have ever seen springbok on a menu.  From one course to the other we floated through our meat, combined with what seemed like round after round of savory accompaniment.

By the time we got to dessert, we could barely move.  We couldn't imagine how we were going to make it through the final course.  Our gentle friend approached with the dessert tray, which had eight desserts to choose from.  We began to eye the possibilities.  With a grin and a flourish, he set the whole tray before us.  It took a moment to realize we were not intended to make one selection, we were meant to enjoy all eight desserts.  And we did.  I don't entirely remember today what the desserts were, and I wish now that I had written down everything that passed my lips.  But I will never forget the fun he had in presenting it to us, and the warmth of the experience.  And I have learned to follow serendipity, wherever it takes me. 

Weekend in the Hudson Valley

I took my first trip to upstate New York this past weekend for my cousin's wedding.  The wedding was beautiful, taking place in Shushan, NY, at the Georgi Museum, which has a 9 acre park along the Battenkill river.  It is a little off the beaten path and since we stayed a half hour to the west in Saratoga Springs, we had the chance to do a little looking around while we drove back and forth to the various wedding festivities. 

We went to the revolutionary battlefields outside Schuylerville, on which the Battle of Saratoga was fought, and on to the Schuyler House, which was owned by General Phillip Schuylerville.  The Schuylers were an influential family in the area in early Hudson Valley history, and among other things, General Philip Schuylerville was a successful businessman, a figure in the Revolutionary War, and claimed Alexander Hamilton as a son-in-law.  We only had a day to explore this beautiful area, and there was much left for a future trip. 

Coming back along Route 29 from Schuylerville we spied one of those little gems I can never pass by.  The Farmer's Daughters' Drive In was a must stop for me.  It reminded me of the Kow Korner drive-in, which was the place to hang out if you were ever a teenager in Oak Harbor, Washington.  I could do another post just on Kow Korner, its long history, and its many devotees, but unfortunately, it was razed several years ago to make way for a really dull bank branch (progress through the looking glass).  So it made me feel good to know the Kow Korners of the world have survived out there somewhere, in the form of The Farmers Daughters', and are open to 9pm every night serving homemade ice-cream, burgers and fries.