Gourmet, all the way

219 through 222. Three Holiday Pies

2010-12-27T13:33:00.008-05:00

Holidays are all about traditions and getting together with family and friends. This month, we had the chance to have a Hanukkah-themed dinner party with our good friends, Travis and Jodi, a pre-Christmas lunch with my family, and Christmas dinner with my wife's family. For each of these celebrations, I made a pie from The Book.

Cranberry Walnut Tart (p. 786). Ever since I made Potato Latkes for the first time two years ago, my wife and I resolved to celebrate Hanukka every year, we liked them that much. I thumbed through the Jewish cookbooks at Borders to come some menu ideas for building a meal around latkes. One of the Hanukka dinner menus I found suggested a cranberry walnut tart for dessert. I have no idea whether it's a traditional Hanukka dish, but I'm glad I made it anyway. This tart has a shortbread-like crust of Sweet Pastry Dough (p. 791).* The filling is a less-cloying cousin of pecan pie, with chopped fresh cranberries cutting through the sweetness and giving the tart a beautiful, jewel-studded appearance. This tart was delicious with a scoop of good vanilla ice cream (I like Brigham's). I'll make this one again, for sure.
Date Cooked: December 11, 2010
Rating: A

Mincemeat Pie (p. 766). When I was a kid, we always went to my Aunt Connie's house for Thanksgiving dinner. The turkey, stuffing and mashed potatoes were good, of course, but I always looked forward to the pies. Aunt Connie always had the whole array: apple, pumpkin, and mincemeat. Mincemeat pie, with its assertive spices, slight sourness, and its off-putting name, is hardly appealing to most kids, but, for some reason, I loved it. I've been celebrating Thanksgiving with my wife's family for years, so it's been a long, long time since I've had a mincemeat pie. I decided to make one for my family's pre-Christmas lunch. The mincemeat is a rich and spicy combination of chopped Granny Smith apples, golden and dark raisins, dried currants, sweetened with dark brown sugar and punched up with a good glug of brandy, some lemon and orange zest, and nutmeg and allspice. The traditional recipe calls for beef suet in the mix, but, thankfully, The Book gives the option of substituting butter, which I did. (I don't know whether Aunt Connie used suet in her recipe...I'll have to ask her.) I made the filling a week ahead of time, since it needs at least three days in the refrigerator for the flavors to come together, and can keep for up to three months. The finished pie was just as good as I remember it being (even if I used a store-bought pie crust ... don't tell Ruth Reichl). I may have re-kindled an old tradition.
Date Cooked: December 5, 2010
Rating: B+

Maple Syrup Pie (p. 773). The Book says that this pie is a traditional French-Canadian recipe. My wife and I are both of French-Canadian descent, but none of our relatives had ever heard of this pie before. No matter, I decided to make this pie for the Christmas dessert buffet and discover part of my cultural identity. The best way to describe this pie is that it's pecan pie without the nuts and with a bold shot of maple flavor. The filling is light brown sugar, eggs, heavy cream, melted butter, and dark amber maple syrup (I used pure Canadian syrup for the full effect -- and because that's all they had at the grocery store). As the filling cooks, a thin, crisp maple-candy-like crust forms on the top, and underneath it's all gooey goodness. The word "sweet" can't even begin to describe this pie. The Book suggest serving it with a dollop of creme fraiche on top. This is not optional, since you need something to cut the intense sweetness, or else this pie would be overwhelming. I liked this pie, and I'm glad I made it, but I don't think that I'll make it again any time soon.
Date Cooked: December 24, 2010
Rating: C

Has the cook-through blog jumped the shark?

2010-12-09T21:38:00.004-05:00

Julie Powell started it all when she launched the Julie/Julia Project, in which she set out to cook all 500-plus recipes in MtAoFC over the course of the year and blog about it.

Julie's blog begat a book which begat a movie, which has now begat (begotten?) what has to be the most meta web phenomenon...The Lawrence/Julie & Julia Project.

For reasons unknown, a Northwestern University student named Lawrence Dai, has resolved to watch Julie & Julia every day for a year and to chronicle his quest on a blog.

Bon Appetit, dude.

218. Spicy Cranberry Relish (p. 903)

2010-11-27T14:01:00.000-05:00

Every year at Thanksgiving, I'm responsible for two things: pumpkin pie and cranberry sauce. If you've read my last post, you know that my attempt at mixing it up with the pumpkin pie was a bit of a bust. I wasn't taking any chances with the cranberry sauce, though. I decided to make this recipe as "something new," but I also made a batch of traditional whole-berry sauce using the recipe from the back of the Ocean Spray package.

This recipe is very easy. I pulsed some red onion, raw cranberries and a whole serrano chile together in the food processor with some lime zest and juice and a bit of sugar. The result is a tasty relish that is lively, fresh and spicy-but-not-too-spicy. It's not really the ideal match for a traditional thanksgiving meal, though. The lime flavor is pretty bold and a bit out of place with mashed potatoes and gravy. It's great spread on a sandwich of leftover turkey, though.

Date Cooked: November 24, 2010
Degree of Difficulty: Easy
Rating: B

217. Pecan Pumpkin Pie (p. 768)

2010-11-26T16:17:00.003-05:00

Sometimes, when you try to do two things at once, you end up doing neither very well.

The Book calls this recipe "the ideal solution for people who can't decide whether to bake pecan pie or pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving." The result, however, was less than impressive, I'm sorry to say.

This pie is basically the turducken of pies. It starts out with a single-crust pie shell, which has been blind-baked. Then there is a thin layer of pumpkin pie filling, which is a bit thicker than the traditional filling recipe. Finally, it's topped off with a layer of pecan pie filling, spooned over the pumpkin. The finished pie was, as I said, a bit of a disappointment. The flavor of the pumpkin pie filling was a little bland. Maybe not enough salt, or not enough spices. The textures of the two fillings didn't work that well together, either.

Next year, I'm going to make a pumpkin pie and a pecan pie, and have a slice of each. It's Thanksgiving after all, a day when there's no such thing as too much dessert.

Date Cooked: November 24, 2010
Degree of Difficulty: Easy
Rating: C

216. Pecan Pie Bars (p. 694)

2010-11-07T15:07:00.005-05:00

Has it really been six months since my last post? Six months! Really?

Being a dad to an almost-two-year-old, and a young lawyer has been pretty hectic these past few months. I have been cooking, but not nearly as much as I used to. I have a backlog of lots and lots of recipes cooked, but not blogged. I'll probably have to do a list-type-post soon. But today, I've managed to find a few minutes to myself while both my wife and son are napping. So, while I watch the Pats lose to the Browns, I'll tell you about something that I made this week.

My office had its first annual dessert bake-off on Friday. Several people at work know about the project, so I have a bit of a reputation to protect when it comes to cooking. I picked this recipe as my entry because it looked like a winner: Crispy shortbread crust with a sticky, sweet nutty topping. How could I go wrong? Well, it went very, very wrong, and alas, I didn't even place in the contest.

There were two problems with the finished product. One was my fault -- I forgot to add the salt. The other problem -- they were a bit overcooked -- I'm blaming on the Book. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The crust is very easy. Just throw some flour, butter, and light brown sugar in the food processor and blend until it starts to clump a bit. If you're actually paying attention to what you're doing, following the directions, and want the bars to taste good, you'll also put in a 1/2 teaspoon of salt. I, of course absent-mindedly forgot this last ingredient, and wow, what a difference it made in the finished product. The crust had a very odd, flat taste. Salt makes all the difference in the flavor of baked goods.

The crust gets pressed into the bottom of a baking dish and baked until golden. While the crust is cooking, make the topping. Melt some butter in a saucepan and add some light brown sugar, honey and a little cream. Bring it to a simmer and add some chopped pecans. Spread the topping over the crust and bake some more.

The Book says to "bake until bubbling, about 20 minutes." Well, it was bubbling after about 2 minutes. I figured that it couldn't be done yet, so I left it in the over and kept watching and smelling to make sure that it didn't burn. It didn't burn, but it got a bit darker and harder than I think it was supposed to. In fact, after it cooled, the edges were so hard that I was only able to get the middle out. The edges were fused to the baking dish and I had to soak it overnight to get the pan clean.

The bars that I was able to salvage were fine. Like I said, the crust was definitely missing "something," and the topping wasn't great.

I'm thinking about the Pecan Pumpkin Pie for Thanksgiving dessert. Maybe that will go better?

Date Cooked: November 4, 2010
Degree of Difficulty: Easy
Rating: C-

215. White Butter Sauce with Cream (Beurre Nantais) (p. 882)

2010-05-04T22:41:00.009-04:00

While rummaging through our freezer a while ago, I came across a stash of lobster and shrimp ravioli. How could we possibly have left these little frozen gems in cold storage for months and months without eating them? Well, we just couldn't figure out what kind of sauce to serve with them. A tomato-based sauce didn't seem like a good match. That's where this recipe came in.

The Book says that this sauce is traditionally served with fish, so it seemed like it would be a good match for the seafood ravioli.

To make this sauce, I brought some white wine, white wine vinegar and finely chopped shallot to a simmer and reduced it quite a bit. Then I added some cream and simmered it some more to thicken it. Then I added a stick of cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces, a bit at time. Once the butter was all melted, I poured the sauce through a fine mesh sieve to remove the shallot solids. Finally, I finished the sauce with a little bit of lemon juice, salt and pepper.

The Book describes this sauce as "velvetized," and the term is apt (even if it isn't really a word). It doesn't get much smoother, richer or more sumptuous than this sauce, all without being heavy like an alfredo sauce. And this was the perfect match for the seafood ravioli. A little bit went a long way, but it did leave us wanting more. When the ravioli was all gone, we couldn't keep ourselves from sopping up whatever sauce was left with some bread.

I'll definitely make this sauce again. The Book says that, in addition to fish, it also works well with vegetables or a steak.

Date Cooked: April 2, 2010
Degree of Difficulty: Easy
Rating: A-

213. Crispy Oven-Fried Cod (p. 301) and 214. Tartar Sauce (p. 885)

2010-04-02T15:27:00.008-04:00

For a lot of folks, Fridays in Lent means fish for dinner. In fact, the seafood place in my neighborhood does so much business on Fridays in Lent that they need to hire a police detail to direct traffic. I'm not kidding. And it's with good reason ... they make the best fish and chips this side of the beach. Or, at least I used to think that they did. Thanks to this recipe, though, I think that honor goes to me now.

The secret to this dish is that the fish is double-coated, and you start it on the stove top and finish it in the oven. It gets just the right amount of crispiness, but it's not as greasy as deep fried.

First, I combined some plain store-bought bread crumbs and some yellow cornmeal in a zip-top bag with a little bit of salt and a tiny bit of cayenne pepper. I lightly beat a couple of eggs in a shallow dish. Then working one piece at a time, I put good-sized pieces of fresh cod into the bag, shaking gently to coat. Then I dipped the fish in the egg, and shook it to coat a second time.

To cook, I heated a few tablespoons of vegetable oil in my big cast iron skillet. Once it was good and hot, I arranged the fish in the pan. After just a couple of minutes on each side, the fillets were nicely browned. (I got to use my fancy new fish spatula! Having the right tools makes all the difference.) To finish the cooking, I added a bit more oil, and put the skillet in a very hot oven (500 degrees) for a few minutes more.

This fish was excellent. Crispy and flaky, without being greasy. The breading was just right, too. Sometimes, batter-dipped fried fish can be just too much.

I served this with some Roasted French Fries and Creamy Slaw (both repeat recipes) and this recipe* for Tartar Sauce to create the complete fish and chips experience.

The Book says that "if you've never had homemade tartar sauce, this will be a revelation." I'm not so sure about that. I used to think that tartar sauce was nothing more than a little bit of pickle relish mixed into mayonnaise, and for all I know, the tartar sauce at the seafood place down the street is just that. This tartar sauce was a bit more involved, and not as good. It starts out all right....mayonnaise mixed with finely chopped sweet and dill pickles. The finely chopped onion and capers are unnecessary, but unobjectionable. The chopped hard-boiled egg yolk gives the sauce a bit more richness and substance, which I did like. Where The Book lost me was with the addition of the herbs. Parsley, dill, and tarragon. The last of these, the tarragon, was so strong that it overpowered all of the other flavors in the sauce, and turned me off a bit. I'm not saying that this tartar sauce was bad ... it wasn't. It just wasn't the "revelation" that it was sold as.

Overall, though, this was one of my favorite meals of the project so far. And, who would have guessed ... my little foodie baby gobbled it right up!

Date Cooked: March 27, 2010
Degree of Difficulty: Pretty Easy
Rating: Fish: A; Tartar Sauce: B-

* The recipe for Tartar Sauce is not on epicurious.com ... no big loss, as far as I'm concerned.

212. Pasta Primavera (p. 211)

2010-03-28T21:46:00.006-04:00

The first day of Spring was last Saturday, and it was an amazingly beautiful day here in New England. We're talking sunny and in the 70s. To celebrate the return of the nice weather, my wife and I took our son for his first trip to the zoo, and for dinner, I made Pasta Primavera. (In true New England fashion, however, this Saturday, the temperatures had dropped back into the 30s. Oh, well, the warm weather was nice while it lasted.)

According to The Book, this recipe comes from Le Cirque, a paragon of the NYC dining scene. (If you've never seen the HBO documentary about the restaurant, Le Cirque: A Table in Heaven, it's worth checking out for an interesting insight into the high-end restaurant industry.) I've had several different versions of Pasta Primavera, and some of them have been pretty awful. If this recipe is really the original, as suggested by The Book, it proves that a copy is never quite the same as the masterpiece.

The first ingredient in this list is one ounce of dried morel mushrooms. Not surprisingly, dried morels is not a regular inventory item at your basic suburban supermarket. So, I used dried porcinis. I know that they're not even remotely the same as morels, but according to my research on the Cook's Thesaurus, they were close enough.

To get started, I began soaking the mushrooms in some boiling water to reconstitute. Next I prepped all of my vegetables: I cut some fresh asparagus and green beans into one-inch pieces, I chopped some fresh basil and parsley, I grated some lemon zest, and I halved and quartered some grape tomatoes. Last, I set out some frozen peas to thaw. (I'm totally with The Book on this one. I don't know why, but frozen peas are 100% better than either fresh or canned peas. I use them all the time.)

Then, I got to cooking. I boiled the asparagus, beans and peas in a large pot of salted, boiling water for just a few minutes. Then I scooped the vegetables out with a slotted spoon and transferred them to a bowl of ice water to stop the cooking. (The Book says to save the vegetable cooking liquid to use to boil the pasta -- a nice unexpected bit of conservation.) Once the vegetables were cooled, I drained them, and sauteed them for just a couple of minutes with some olive oil, garlic and red pepper flakes.

Wile the pasta boiled (The Book calls for spaghettini), I made the tomato sauce. I cooked some garlic and red pepper flakes in oil, and added the quartered grape tomatoes, cooking them down into a sauce. Then I added some salt and pepper, balsamic vinegar, a bit of water and the halved grape tomatoes and cooked it a bit more.

When the pasta was al dente, I drained it into a colander. Then I added some butter, cream, lemon zest and the reconstituted mushrooms (which I had roughly chopped) to the pasta pot. I simmered it for a little bit and added a ton of grated Parmigiano-Reggiano. I added the drained pasta back to the pot and tossed it with the sauce. I thinned out the sauce with a bit of the mushroom soaking liquid ... just enough so that the sauce would lightly coat the pasta without being too wet. Finally, I added the vegetables, the herbs and some toasted pine nuts. I served the pasta topped with some of the tomato sauce.

This dish was pretty labor-intensive, but it did come together pretty quickly once I got started. The effort was worth it, though. The flavors were excellent. The cream sauce was rich without being overwhelming. The mushrooms (even though I didn't use the prescribed morels) gave the dish a certain earthiness. The vegetables and herbs contributed freshness and gave the dish it's namesake "spring-ness." The real star, though, was the tomato sauce. It was rich and deeply flavorful. Very, very good.

Date Cooked: March 20, 2010
Degree of Difficulty: Medium, with a bit of prep work and a fast-paced cooking
Rating: A-

211. Orecchiette with Cauliflower and Lacinato Kale (p. 213)

2010-03-15T22:44:00.006-04:00

I learned something surprising from making this recipe*: My fourteen-month-old son will eat cauliflower ... and kale ... and ANCHOVIES!

To cook this dish, I first made some fresh breadcrumbs by tearing up an Italian loaf and pulsing the pieces in the food processor until they were coarse crumbs. I toasted the crumbs in the oven for a few minutes, stirring occasionally, until they were nice and golden.

Then I cut up a head of cauliflower and cooked it in boiling water until it was very tender. I removed the cauliflower from the water with a slotted spoon, and scooped out about a cup of the cooking liquid and set it aside. Next I coarsely chopped a bunch of kale and boiled it in the remaining cauliflower cooking liquid. The Book says to use Lacinato kale. The sign at the mega mart just said "Kale," so I don't know whether what I bought was Lacinato kale or not, but The Book's Glossary says "Regular kale can be substituted," so I guess it doesn't really matter what kind of kale I ended up with. Once the kale was tender, I drained it and set it aside with the cooked cauliflower.

Then, I put the pasta in to boil. I couldn't find any orecchiette, so I used medium shells since they're the closest I could find in terms of size and shape. While the pasta cooked, I made the sauce. I heated a whole bunch of olive oil over medium-low heat in my largest skillet. I cooked some thinly sliced garlic and some anchovy fillets for just a couple of minutes until the anchovies broke apart. Then I added the cooked cauliflower and mashed it lightly, but leaving some chunks still intact. I stirred in the cooked kale, some chopped fresh parsley and some of reserved cooking liquid. After it just came to a boil, I seasoned the sauce with salt and pepper, and took it off the heat.

To finish off the dish, I stirred the drained pasta into the sauce and I added some more fresh parsley and some grated Parmigano-Reggiano. I scooped the pasta into bowls and topped each serving with a generous sprinkling of the toasted breadcrumbs.

This was the perfect Sunday night supper. It's an easy enough recipe that making it is not a big production, but it's still unusual enough that it's "something special." The mashed cauliflower gave the dish an almost creamy texture. The kale was just slightly, but pleasantly bitter. The breadcrumbs were an excellent, crunchy touch. And the anchovies were barely detectable in that there was no fishy flavor, but I'm sure that the dish's briny savoriness was all due to the little fishes. Like I said at the beginning of this post, my son loved this meal ... at it by the fistful! The Book calls for the addition of a Serrano chile, but I left it out since I was going to be serving this to my son, I didn't want it to be too spicy. The Book notes that cooks in Italy use red pepper flakes in this dish instead of the Serrano, so I sprinkled a little over my serving, and it gave it a nice spicy bite.

Date Cooked: March 7, 2010
Degree of Difficulty: Pretty Easy
Rating: A-

* This recipe isn't online.

210. Buttered Baby Spinach (p. 578)

2010-01-31T21:16:00.003-05:00

It doesn't get much easier than this recipe. Melt some butter, add some baby spinach and toss for a couple of minutes until slightly wilted, bright green, and coated with the melted butter. Add a little salt and pepper to taste, and that's it.

This is exactly what you want from a vegetable side dish. I served this with some Chicken Piccata that I'll blog about soon. It was tender and tasty, not at all soggy or bitter. And the amount of butter was just right. A nice coating without overpowering the spinach.

I forgot to take a photo of this dish, so please enjoy this picture of Popeye instead. "I fights to the finish, 'cause I eats me spinach!"

Date Cooked: January 31, 2010
Degree of Difficulty: Very easy
Rating: A-

209. Golden Cake with Chocolate-Sour Cream Frosting (p. 725)

2010-01-22T21:58:00.000-05:00

My son's first birthday was on December 30th (Wow, that was fast!), and we celebrated with a party on New Year's Day. I was determined to have a homemade cake for my son's very first birthday ... no store-bought cake would do. But, we had invited about sixty relatives and friends, so I was in a bit of a quandary about how I was going to handle cake for a crowd.

The Book came to my rescue. As I flipped through the cakes chapter, I noticed that the Cook's Note at the end of this recipe says that instead of a layer cake, you can use the same batter to make cupcakes. A-ha! That's it ... I decided to make one cake and enough cupcakes to go with it so that there would be plenty for everyone.

Because I knew that things would be pretty hectic leading up to the party, I decided to make the cake and cupcakes ahead of time so that I'd only need to make the frosting on party day. So, a week before the party, I sifted together some cake flour, a ton of baking powder, some baking soda, and salt. Then I creamed some softened butter and granulated sugar in my KitchenAid. I added some eggs and vanilla extract. (Speaking of vanilla extract, because I haven't posted in about six weeks, I haven't had the chance to mention that I got a 32-ounce bottle of Madagascar vanilla extract for Christmas...thirty-two ounces! That's a whole quart!) Then I added the half of the flour mixture followed by a container of sour cream ... yeah, I know, I wasn't expecting that either ... and then the rest of the flour mixture. I divided the batter into two nine-inch round cake pans that I had buttered, floured and lined with wax paper. I baked the cake layers for about forty minutes. I repeated the whole process to make the cupcakes. I scooped the batter into a muffin tin (using an ice-cream scoop ... thanks for the tip, Ina Garten!), cooking the cupcakes for about 25 minutes per batch. (One recipe makes about three dozen cupcakes.) Once the cake layers and cupcakes were cooled, I put them in the freezer. I wrapped the cake layers in plastic wrap and then foil, and I put the cupcakes in zip-top bags. The day before the party, I transferred the cakes and cupcakes from the freezer to the refrigerator to thaw slowly.

The morning of the party, I made the frosting. First, I melted some milk chocolate and semisweet chocolate together in a metal bowl over simmering water. I took the chocolate off the heat and whisked in some more sour cream. Again, I would have never expected that.

While the frosting cooled to room temperature, I unwrapped the cake layers and, very carefully, using my biggest serrated knife, cut the layers in half to make four layers. I frosted the cake and put it on a platter. The Book suggests decorating the cake with Brown Sugar Buttercream. I had made this frosting before, and it is delicious. Also, I knew that the dark chocolate frosting and the light brown buttercream would be the perfect color combination to decorate the cake with the monkey design that we'd chosen as the theme for my son's party. But for some reason, the buttercream was a total failure. It turned into a gloppy curdled mess. Plan B was to decorate with some giant pastel-colored sprinkles that I found in my mother-in-law's kitchen cupboard. I think that it looked pretty good just the same. I made another batch of frosting and slathered it on the cupcakes.

This cake was really very good. It was light and sweet and moist. I think that the sour cream has a lot to do with the cake's moist tenderness. The frosting was excellent, too. It was fudgey, creamy and tangy and not too sweet. I know that The Book calls the All-Occasion Yellow Cake "the cornerstone of every cake baker's repertoire," but, as you'll recall, I thought that it was awful. This cake, on the other hand, could easily be my go-to classic birthday cake.

My son's birthday party was a lot of fun, except for the fact that my poor little guy was as sick as a dog that day. When I got him out of bed that morning, he was burning up. When we found out that he had a temperature of 102.6, we called the on-call pediatrician for help. He calmed our fears a bit by telling us to give our boy some Tylenol and let him take it easy. We were all set to call the party off, but the doctor said that we should go ahead anyway. While my son wasn't his happy-go-lucky, fun-loving self, (as you can tell from the less-than-enthusiastic expression on his face), I think that he still had a pretty good time. At least I know that he enjoyed the cake...the frosting he smeared all over his face was evidence of that.

Date Cooked: December 27, 2009 and January 1, 2010
Degree of Difficulty: Medium
Rating: A

208. Honey-Glazed Wax Beans (p, 523)

2009-12-12T10:11:00.001-05:00

This summer's CSA was a non-stop parade of fresh vegetables, and my (and my wife's) challenge was to find interesting ways to use all of the vegetables that Farmer Dave could cram into the weekly box. Every day this summer was like an episode of Chopped. Just try to make a menu using beets, dandelion greens and purslane.

Sure, we could have just steamed, grilled and sauteed the vegetables. But that would have gotten old pretty quick.

So, that's why I was glad to find this recipe for an easy, but somewhat unusual treatment for the one-pound bag of yellow wax beans that I found in the box one week. There's not much to it. Just boil the beans for a few minutes until tender, and then immediately toss with a tablespoon of honey, and a little bit of lemon zest and salt.

Now, my prior experience with wax beans is limited to memories of bland, wiggly yellow-gray wax beans from the lunch line at St. Monica's grammar school. These beans are nothing like those cafeteria beans of yore. They are crisp and sweet (but not too sweet) with a bright zip from the lemon zest. Well done!

Date Cooked: September 12, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Easy
Rating: A-

207. Shrimp and Corn with Basil (p. 322)

2009-12-11T22:35:00.004-05:00

There are some meals that you remember for your whole life. (Dinners at Morimoto, Prune and the White Barn Inn come to mind.) And then there are the meals that, while perfectly fine meals, are forgettable. This recipe, unfortunately, falls into the latter category.

That's the real problem with the backlog of cooked recipes that I've amassed in the last couple of months of less-than-active blogging.

By all objective measures, this is an excellent recipe. It's got only five ingredients, and there are only three steps: 1) melt butter; 2) cook corn and shrimp; and 3) stir in scallions, basil and salt and pepper. And just look at that picture! Looks pretty tasty, no? The problem is that I have absolutely no memory whatsoever of eating it. I can only assume that means it didn't make a big impression one way or the other ... not terrible, but not amazingly good either.

Date Cooked: September 12, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Easy
Rating: I honestly don't remember

Top Chef Finale Tonight!

2009-12-09T11:49:00.000-05:00

My little sous chef can hardly contain his excitement!

206. Stained-Glass Teardrops (p. 681) (Gourmet, unbound, December 2002)

2009-12-01T07:14:00.000-05:00

This post is my first contribution to what I think is a really wonderful project. In the wake of the shuttering of Gourmet Magazine a couple of months ago, a few food bloggers--Olga from Sassy Radish, Maggie from Pithy and Cleaver, and Jennifer from In Jennie's Kitchen--decided to launch a collaborative project to keep Gourmet's spirit alive. It's called Gourmet, unbound, and the concept is pretty simple: each month they will publish a roundup of posts from food blogs about recipes that appeared in an issue of Gourmet from that month in any of the six decades of the magazine's run. So, the inaugural roundup this month will feature recipes that were published in any of the magazine's sixty or so December issues.

For my first Gourmet, unbound post, I chose this recipe for Stained-Glass Teardrops that appeared in the December 2002 issue. Actually, these cookies are doing double duty as my contribution to Gourmet, unbound, as well as my contribution to the bakery table at my church's Christmas fair. I chose them because they are festive, seasonal and attractive, all traits that I hope will make them good sellers.

The idea of these cookies is to roll out the dough nice and thin and cut out shapes -- as indicated by the title of this recipe, The Book intends for teardrop shapes -- and then to cut out a smaller shape in the center of the cookie and fill it with crushed hard candy. As the cookies bake, the candy melts and liquefies. As it cools, the candy hardens and forms a colored "stained-glass" window in the center of the cookie. It's a neat little bit of kitchen alchemy.

I made the cookie dough a day in advance. First, I whisked together some all-purpose flour and salt in a bowl. Then I put a stick-and-a-half of softened butter and some granulated sugar in my Kitchen Aid stand mixer. I beat it until it was light and fluffy and then beat in an egg and some vanilla extract. I slowed the mixer and added the flour and salt bit by bit. Interestingly, there's no leavening agent like baking powder or baking soda in this recipe, so, the resulting cookie is very flat and dense. There's also not a whole lot of moisture in this dough, and it gave the Kitchen Aid a real workout. No way a handheld mixer could manage this dough. Once the dough was all mixed, I divided it into three pieces, flattened them into five-inch disks, wrapped them in plastic and put them in the refrigerator to chill overnight (The Book says to chill for at least two hours.)

The next morning, I got ready to make the cookies. First, I unwrapped some sour balls and divided them by color (red, green, yellow and orange) into small zip-top bags. Then, I got some of my frustrations out by smashing the candy to bits with a rolling pin. I put my candy dust aside and moved on to cookie making in earnest.

I took one of the dough disks out of the refrigerator and put it between two pieces of wax paper and rolled it out to about a ten-inch circle. I couldn't find any teardrop cookie cutters like the ones called for in The Book, so I used a three-inch circle cookie cutter to make the outer cut. I placed the round cookies on a Silpat-lined cookie sheet and made the smaller cutouts in the centers of the cookies. I found some Christmas-themed mini cookie cutters at the grocery store, so I used them to cut a Christmas tree, candy cane, gingerbred man or bell out of each cookie. I filled each cutout with some of the candy dust: green for the Christmas trees (duh!), red for the candy canes (ditto), yellow for the bells and orange for the gingerbread men (close enough, right?).

While these cookies were easy enough to make, they were still very time consuming because of equipment limitations. You absolutely have to make these cookies on a silicone baking sheet liner like a Silpat, otherwise, you'd never get the melted candy off the baking sheet. You also have to allow the cookies to cool completely before removing them from the Silpat to allow the melted candy to harden. I only have one Silpat (those things are expensive!), so between cooking and cooling, it took about a half-hour per batch, and with four batches, that's a half a day right there.

The finished cookies were really very pretty, or at least most of them were. Some of the cookies browed too quickly and were a little more "golden" than I would have liked. I also put a little bit too much crushed candy in some of the cookies and it either bubbled over the top of the cookie or seeped underneath, giving less-than-attractive results. But the ones that came out right really did look like little stained glass windows. The Book suggests that these cookies would make lovely Christmas tree ornaments, and I'm sure that they would, but, we've been down that road before, and I'm not going there again. The flavor of the cookies, though, was just ... meh. The sugar-cookie base was tasty enough, but nothing to write home about, and the cookie and hard candy tastes and textures don't really compliment each other all that well. In all, I'm glad I made them to have learned a new technique, but I don't think that I'll make them again any time soon.

Date Cooked: November 28 & 29, 2009

Degree of Difficulty: Medium (time consuming without two Silpats)

Rating: Appearance A-; Flavor B-

200 through 205: Adam Cooks a Feast!

2009-11-27T21:43:00.000-05:00

I'm sorry that I haven't posted anything in a few weeks. I've been incredibly busy at work. So, to thank you for your patience, faithful readers, and to celebrate reaching the milestone of 200 recipes, I thought that I'd take a few dishes out of order and tell you about the pull-out-all-the-stops feast I cooked to celebrate my thirty-fifth birthday last month.

Here's the menu:
Brandied Chicken Liver Pate (p. 22)
Baby Greens with Warm Goat Cheese (p. 131)
Twenty-First-Century Beef Wellington (pp. 418-20)
Buttermilk Mashed Potatoes with Caramelized Shallots (p. 559)
Pan-Browned Brussels Sprouts (p. 526)
Devil's Food Cake with Brown Sugar Buttercream (p. 742)

Up first was the Brandied Chicken Liver Pate. The Book describes this as a "simple, classic pate" with a twist: currants, which The Book calls "a delightful surprise." To make the pate, I started by melting some butter in a skillet and adding some finely chopped onion and garlic. Then I added a pound of chicken livers to the onions and garlic. I've never cooked with chicken livers before, but I've always wanted to try. The first thing that took me by surprise was the price...they are dirt cheap. Ninety-nine cents per pound. The other thing that surprised me was the rich, meaty and decadent flavor. I'll definitely seek out some more chicken liver recipes. Back to the recipe. I gently sauteed the livers for about ten minutes, and then added some cognac to the pan and simmered until it was almost evaporated. It was really starting to smell amazing. Then, I put the liver mixture in the food processor and added some spices: nutmeg, allspice, salt and pepper. I processed the mixture for about a minute until it was nice and smooth. After it had cooled a little bit, I stirred in some currents that I had plumped-up in some boiling water. I packed the pate into a large ramekin and chilled it for a few hours. About an hour before our dinner guests (our good friends Travis and Jodi) arrived, I took the pate out of the refrigerator to come to room temperature. The recipe doesn't make very much, but that's OK, since it's so rich. A couple of canapes is just about all a person can handle. The flavor of this pate was excellent, but unfortunately, I didn't love it. I'm not sure if I overcooked the livers, of it something else went wrong, but it was a little dry. If it had been smoother, it would have been excellent.

For a first course, I chose a salad of Baby Greens with Warm Goat Cheese. I was looking for something light, elegant, and most important, something easy, since the rest of the menu was pretty aggressive. This was a really excellent salad. In fact, it just might have been my favorite part of the meal. First, I prepared the goat cheese rounds by mixing together some egg whites and a little bit of water in a shallow bowl. Then I put some panko breadcrumbs in a dish. Next I cut a log of goat cheese into 1/3-inch rounds. I took The Book's advice to use dental floss to cut the goat cheese. It worked a lot better than a knife, which would have mashed it down. Instead, the floss just sliced through the log, leaving perfect little rounds. I dipped each round in the egg mixture and dredged it in the crumbs. I put the rounds on a tray and refrigerated them until I was ready to cook them. I made a simple vinaigrette of cider vinegar, Dijon mustard, salt, pepper and extra-virgin olive oil. I tossed some pre-mixed salad greens with the vinaigrette and arranged them on four plates and stashed them in the refrigerator for a few minutes. When I was ready to serve the salad, I heated a bit of oil in a small skillet and cooked the cheese rounds until they were golden on both sides. I arranged three cheese rounds on each plate, and we enjoyed. This was a very simple and delicious salad. The cheese was warm and creamy and the crust was crisp and tasty. I always love recipes like this that are easy, but that make a big impression in terms of flavor and presentation. I'll certainly make this one again.

The main event was the stunning Twenty-First-Century Beef Wellington, which I served with Buttermilk Mashed Potatoes with Caramelized Shallots and Pan-Browned Brussels Sprouts. Since my wife doesn't eat beef, I don't get the chance to cook it very often. Since this was my special day, I was going to make the most over-the-top beef dish in The Book. First, I needed to get the beef. The recipe is written for 12, but since I was planning a dinner party for 4, only three of whom eat beef, I cut the recipe in half and counted on leftovers. So, instead of the 4 1/2 to 5 pound center-cut tenderloin called for in the recipe, I got a 2 1/2 pound tenderloin. I was taken aback, but not surprised, by the price of the beef: $15 per pound. Expensive, but still cheaper in the end than dinner for four at a fancy restaurant. This recipe includes two sub-recipes: the Cilantro Walnut Filling that surrounds the meat, and the Sour Cream Pastry Dough that encases the whole thing. The filling wasn't too difficult. I blanched some spinach, cilantro and parsley and squeezed out as much moisture as I could. I pulsed the greens in the food processor with some walnuts, garlic, breadcrumbs, egg whites, honey and spices: cumin, coriander, salt and pepper. The pastry dough was fairly straightforward, too. I combined some flour, a little salt and some cold butter (cut up into cubes) with my fingertips until it was crumbly. Then I added some sour cream and a little bit of cold water. The dough was very sticky, but it was workable. After a little bit of frisage, I shaped the dough into a flat rectangle, wrapped it in plastic and put it in the refrigerator to chill. With the dough and filing done, I was ready to assemble the roast. First, I seared the roast on all sides. Then I rolled out the dough into a large rectangle. Using a rubber spatula, I spread some of the filling in the middle of the rectangle and placed the seared beef on top of the filling. I then spread more of the filling all over the roast. I wrapped the pastry around the beef and sealed the edges with an egg wash. I cut a few steam vents on top of the wrapped roast and brushed it with more egg wash. The Book wanted me to decorate the roast with shapes cut from the scraps of the pastry dough. But, because I cut the pastry dough recipe in half, I didn't have any scraps left, so I had an unadorned Wellington. No matter, it was still a show-stopper. Once fully assembled, the whole thing went in the refrigerator to chill for an hour. Then I baked the wrapped roast for about an hour until the pastry was golden and the meat registered 115 degrees on an instant-read thermometer. (My new Themapen digital instant read thermometer, which was a birthday gift from my wife!) I let the roast rest for a few minutes before slicing it. This was really an amazing dish. First, it was beautiful. But beyond that, it was also delicious. The pastry was flaky and tender. The sour cream gave it a nice lightness and tang. The filling was excellent, too. The cilantro was a bright and unexpected note that really updated what you would otherwise expect to be a very staid, traditional dish. The beef was wonderful, too. It was perfectly cooked: very tender and nice and rosy inside. A real special-occasion meal.

For the sides, I chose a couple of simple, but sophisticated accompaniments. For the Buttermilk Mashed Potatoes with Caramelized Shallots, I caramelized some thinly-sliced shallots in a little butter and then stirred them into some Yukon gold potatoes mashed with buttermilk. The Pan-Browned Brussels Sprouts were very easy. First, I melted some butter in a cast-iron skillet and cooked some thinly sliced garlic until it was golden (OK, it burned on the first try.). Then I removed the cooked garlic and lowered the heat. I cut the Brussels sprouts in half lenghtwise and put them cut side down in the skillet and sprinkled pine nuts over the top. I let them cook undisturbed for about ten minutes until they were nicely browned on cut sides. I removed the Brussels sprouts from the pan with tongs, leaving the pine nuts to cook a little longer with the garlic, which I added back to the pan. These Brussels sprouts were excellent. They were not at all soggy or bitter as Brussels sprouts can get with some cooking methods. The crispy seared edges and the pine nuts were a nice touch.

And the finishing touch? Devil's Food Cake with Brown Sugar Buttercream. After last year's less-than-impressive birthday cake, I was reluctant to make another cake from The Book for my birthday. But, this year's cake was a real success. Because I knew that I'd be so busy cooking the main meal on dinner-party day, I decided to cook the cake layers a week before and freeze them. The cake batter isn't too difficult. First, I mixed some cocoa powder and boiling water and then added some milk and vanilla. In a separate bowl, I mixed some all-purpose flour, baking soda and salt. Using my Kitchen-Aid stand mixer, I beat two sticks of softened butter with some dark brown and white sugar. I added in some eggs and then the cocoa and flour mixtures, a little bit at a time. I appreciate The Book's occasional warnings about what to expect when you're cooking. For example, The Book helpfully notes that the batter for this cake might look curdled. If it hadn't been for this little note, I might have assumed that my batter was a failure, and been driven by desperation to throw the batter away and go with a store-bought cake. I divided the batter into three cake pans and baked them for about a half hour, switching positions half way through. Once the layers were cool, I wrapped them in plastic wrap and foil and put them in the freezer until the day before my dinner party, when I transferred them to the refrigerator to thaw slowly.
For the brown sugar butter cream, I started by putting three room-temperature egg whites and a bit of salt in the bowl of my Kitchen-Aid. Then, I heated some dark brown sugar and water in a pan until it began to boil. While the sugar syrup boiled, I turned the mixer on and added some lemon juice once the egg whites started to get frothy. When the sugar syrup reached 238 degrees, I very slowly poured it into the hot sugar syrup into the egg whites, constantly beating at high speed. Once the meringue was nice and cool, I began adding three sticks of softened butter, a tablespoon at a time. By the time about half of the butter was added, the frosting broke and looked very curdled and unappetizing, but thanks to another comforting warning from The Book, I knew to soldier on because it would be fine in the end. When all of the butter was in and the frosting had come back together, I added some vanilla and beat it for two final minutes.
I frosted the cake the morning of the dinner party, covered it loosely and put it in the refrigerator until that evening. After dinner, I took the cake out of the fridge and let it sit on the counter to let the frosting come back to room temperature. This was an amazing cake. The cake layers were rich, moist and chocolaty. It kind of reminded me of those Suzy-Q cakes I used to eat as a kid. The frosting was really rich and creamy, and its flavor was very unique. It had a very sweet, caramely taste that I've never had in a birthday cake before. It was a real winner.

It was a huge amount of work to make this feast, but I couldn't think of any other way I'd rather spend my birthday. Good food, good friends, my wife and son ... a good day!

Date Cooked: October 24, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: It took ALL DAY! But it was worth it!
Ratings:
Pate: B-
Salad: A+
Beef: A
Potatoes: A-
Brussles Sprouts: B
Cake: A-

199. Grated Potato Pancake (Pommes Paillasson) (p. 566)

2009-10-31T12:53:00.002-04:00

Ididn't really set out to make this recipe. Instead, I had planned on making The Book's recipe for Rösti. But, when I set out to cook the potatoes about an hour before we wanted to eat, I noticed that the Rosti recipe calls for the potatoes to be cooked and chilled for four hours. Scrach that, and move on to plan B. And what a delicious plan B it was.

First, I peeled a couple of potatoes (The Book calls for Russets, but I had bought the Yukon Golds called for in the Rosi recipe, oh, well), and grated them with the largest holes on my box grater. The Book says that you can also use a food processor, but grating potatoes is easy enough that I didn't think it was worth the effort of taking out the food processor and cleaning it afterward. I put the grated potatoes in a dishtowel a handful at a time and squeezed with all my might to get as much moisture out as I could. It's really amazing how much water you can get out of something so dense as a potato.

While I melted some butter in a nonstick skillet, I tossed the grated potatoes with some salt and pepper. I spread the grated potatoes on top of the melted butter and pressed down gently on the top with a spatula to compact it a bit. Then I left it alone for about twelve minutes to cook and get nice and crispy on the bottom.

Then, I carefully slid the pancake onto a plate (thank goodness for good nonstick pans). I placed another plate on top and flipped it over so that the browned side was facing up. I set it aside for a minute while I melted some more butter in the pan. Then I carefully slid the pancake back into the pan, browned side up. I cooked it for another twelve minutes or so until it was just as crispy as the first side. Finally, I slid the pancake onto a cutting board and cut it into six wedges.

I served this potato pancake with the Grilled Chicken Palliards and Nectarine Chutney that I made some time ago. It was really delicious. Crisp and buttery on the outside. And on the inside, nice and tender, but not quite mashed potatoes. Think McDonald's hash browns taken to the next level.

The Book notes that this dish is also known as Pommes Paillasson in France, loosely translated as "straw mat potatoes." I can see the comparison in terms of appearance and crispiness, but I can guarantee that this dish is a heck of a lot tastier than munching on a welcome mat.

Date Cooked: September 6, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Pretty Easy
Rating: A-

198. Lattice-Crust Peach Pie (p. 762)

2009-10-28T23:07:00.000-04:00

The one good thing about having a backlog of recipes to write about is that it lets me pretend that it's still summer, and not cold and rainy out like it actually is.

I made this recipe* to bring to a pot-luck picnic at a co-worker's farm back in August. It came out pretty well, and that's not just me boasting. Someone at the picnic, who didn't know what I brought, told me that I should save some room for dessert because "someone brought a great-looking peach pie." I just smiled.

A lot of pies in The Book call for the standard Basic Pastry Dough for the crust. This recipe, however, has its own special crust recipe. What's so special about it, you ask? Well, that would be the lard, which makes the crust extra tender and flaky. It really makes a difference compared to a butter or vegetable shortening crust.

To make the crust, I blended together (using my fingertips) some flour, a little bit of salt and a half-pound of cold lard cut into bits until it started to look like beach sand. Then I mixed in a little bit of lemon juice and some cold water. I turned the dough out onto a floured pastry mat and did a little firsage action to fully incorporate the fat into the dough. I divided up the dough into two pieces (one slightly larger than the other), wrapped them in wax paper and put them in the 'fridge.

Meanwhile I peeled some fresh peaches by cutting a small "x" in the bottom of each peach and plunging them in boiling water for a few seconds and then into ice water. That loosens the peels just enough that they come off pretty easily. I pitted and sliced the peaches and tossed them with some lemon juice, flour, sugar, salt and a pinch of ground mace. What is mace, anyway? It turns out that it's the lacy, outer covering of the nutmeg seed. It's removed, dried and turned into a powder and used a lot like nutmeg, but some say that it's flavor more delicate and less sweet.

To assemble the pie, I rolled out the larger piece of dough into a 12-inch circle, and put it into a 10-inch disposable pie plate (since I was bringing it to a pot luck picnic, I didn't want to have to worry about getting my pie plate back). I put the shell in the 'fridge while I worked on the dough strips for the pie top. I rolled out the smaller piece of dough into an 11-inch circle. By the way, my flexible, non-stick pastry mat (from Target of all places!) is printed with a handy one-inch grid that makes it easy to roll dough out to any size you want. I put the dough circle on a wax-paper-lined baking sheet and put it in the 'fridge for a few minutes to firm up a bit. Meanwhile, I took the shell out of the 'fridge, filled it up with the peach mixture and dotted it with some butter. I took out the dough circle and cut it into strips (about 3/4 inch wide. Then I arranged half of the strips on top of the pie in one direction and then I arranged the remaining strips in the other direction. I interlaced them in a basketweave pattern. Not as hard as it sounds. The Book says to crimp the edges of the crust "decoratively." I used the end of a wooden spoon to create a fluted edge. Finally, I brushed the top of the pie with an egg wash made from an egg beaten with a tablespoon of water.

I baked the pie at a high temperature for about twenty minutes, and then lowered the heat and baked it for another forty-five minutes or so. When the edges of the crust started to brown a bit too much, I put my foil pie shields on the pie to keep the edges from burning.

Not only was the pie beautiful (the picture doesn't really do it justice, it was state-fair-blue-ribbon pretty), but it was really delicious. As I said, the crust was tender and flaky. The filling was sweet and tart, and just thick enough so that it wasn't runny or gelatinous.

The picnic at the farm was one of the best days we had this past summer. It was my son's first time seeing horses and cows. I didn't know how he'd react to big animals. He wasn't a bit afraid. He petted the horses, and called out to the cows until they came over to see him. Lots of fun.

Date Cooked: August 29, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Medium
Rating: A

* This recipe isn't on epicurious.com.

197. Vodka-Spiked Cherry Tomatoes with Pepper Salt (p. 26)

2009-10-21T23:04:00.001-04:00

OK, it's time to stop sulking. Gourmet's gone, and it's not coming back. (But if you believe Ruth Reichl, the death of every other magazine isn't very far behind. It sounds a little like sour grapes, but she just might be onto something.) So, it's time to move on and get back to blogging. And boy do I have a huge backlog of recipes to get through!

But before I do, I have to comment on something I saw on EatMeDaily.com today. Every year, there are a few "big" cookbooks that are released around the holidays. This year, those books are David Chang's Momofuku, and Thomas Keller's Ad Hoc at Home. In what I think is a wonderful development, two intrepid bloggers have already stepped up to take on the challenge of cooking through these two ambitious books. EatMeDaily isn't so sanguine. Here's what they have to say about the cook-through phenomenon: "this schtick is starting to get old." Well, folks, the snarky food blog is a schtick that's not all that original either. That said, I just can't hate you, EatMeDaily. Can't we all get along?

Now that I've got that off my chest. Back to the food. This recipe, which I made as an hors d'oeuvre for my family's Labor Day cookout (I told you I had a backlog!), could easily be renamed "Bloody Mary Bites." These boozy, zesty, spicy and salty nibbles were a nice surprise, even though they weren't my favorite recipe from The Book.

For the last few weeks of August and the first few weeks of September, my CSA box included some delicious red and yellow cherry and grape tomatoes. Sweet and flavorful, they were great on their own by the handful as a snack, but I was happy to sacrifice a pint to this recipe. First I peeled the tomatoes. I made a small "x" on the bottom of each tomato and blanched them in boiling water for just a few seconds before shocking them in ice water. Just like magic, the peels slipped right off. A little bit of a pain, but necessary for the vodka to permeate the tomato flesh.

Next, I combined some vodka, white wine vinegar, lemon zest and some superfine sugar. I marinated the tomatoes in the vodka mixture for about an hour, and I served them with a small bowl of mixed kosher salt and coarsely ground black pepper for dipping.

These hors d'oeuvres were potent little bites. There's a lot of bold tastes here: vodka, lemon zest, salt and pepper. They made quite an impression, although I didn't really love them. I think that had a lot to do with the fact that I'm not a big vodka fan.

Date Cooked: September 5, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Easy
Rating: B-

Post Mortem

2009-10-09T23:46:00.000-04:00

Now that the initial shock of Gourmet's closure has worn off, people are starting to ask "what happened?," and "what's next?"

There's been plenty of Monday-morning-quarterbacking in the past few days, most of it focusing on the Internet, and food bloggers especially (gulp!), as a primary cause of Gourmet's demise. As Amanda Hesser put it, there was "nothing wrong" with Ruth Reichl's "stewardship" of Gourmet. "What was wrong with the magazine," Hesser says, "was its medium: print." Hesser says that people want content fast, and they want it on the Web. But, more importantly, "they don't want the master talking to the servant." They want to be part of the conversation. Chris Kimball, of Cook's Illustrated, disagrees. He says that "the world needs fewer opinions and more thoughtful expertise," and they're willing to pay for it. That's why, he says, his no-advertisement, subscriber-financed business model is doing just fine, thank you very much.

There's even been a fair amount of not-so-nice "I told you so"-ing, including a cutesy piece in The Boston Globe, a "Recipe for Obsolescence." Talk about the pot calling the kettle obsolete! Only a few months ago the Globe's parent company, the New York Times, came dangerously close to shutting down the Globe for very much the same reasons that Conde Nast closed Gourmet.

But no amount of hand wringing and second-guessing will bring Gourmet back. Or will it? Venture capitalist Kylie Sachs has started a one-woman campaign via Twitter to resurrect Gourmet under a Cook's Illustrated-like business model. It seems like a long shot, but, as of today, savegourmet has 648 followers (including yours truly).

Barring a Lazarus-like resurrection, what will become of Gourmet's current subscribers? According to a notice on Gourmet's web site (which will go dark after a "transitional period"), subscribers "can look forward to receiving Bon Appetit magazine for the remainder of their subscription." I, for one, plan to say "Thanks, but no thanks!" to this offer, and in fact, I also intend to cancel my subscriptions to other Conde Nast magazines (GQ and Details).

A little birdie has told me that I can expect to recieve a subscription for Cook's Illustrated for my birthday, which is right around the corner (hint, hint). It won't be the same, but Cook's Illustrated, will fill at least part of the hole in my mailbox left by Gorumet's passing.

Laughing through the tears

2009-10-07T13:37:00.006-04:00

They say a picture speaks a thousand words. This picture, from Gawker, says only one: gone.

Apparently, the rumors are true: almost immediately after Conde Nast's announcement on Monday that it was closing Gourmet, the offices were packed up. Now, just two days later, the offices are empty and quiet.

As sad as this is, Jon Stewart has, thankfully, given us something to laugh at through our tears. On last night's Daily Show, Stewart made the suggestion (which is no more ridiculous than killing a 68-year-old-icon) that, instead of shuttering Gourmet, Elegant Bride, Modern Bride, and Cookie, Conde Nast should have colsolidated them into a single publication: Pregnant Gourmet Bride Magazine! Here's the clip, props to Eat Me Daily.

The one bit of silver lining in Gourmet's closure, if there is one, is that it paves the way for Ruth's next book: Ruth Reichl: The Condé Nast Years, or something like that. It ought to be good reading. In the meantime, I'll be watching my mailbox for the November issue, and I'll savor every bit of it.

R.I.P. Gourmet Magazine 1941 - 2009

2009-10-05T18:15:00.003-04:00

Today is a very sad day for the food world. It was with complete shock and dismay that I read the news this morning that Conde Nast was discontinuing four magazines, including Gourmet. The November issue will be its last.

It's no secret that newspapers and magazines in general have been having a rough go of it over the past few years, and the current recession has been particulary tough on magazines, like Gourmet, that depend heavily on advertising for revenue. In fact, Gourmet's January issue and Bon Appetit's March issue had so few ads that they were barely over the 98-page minimum necessary to even glue the magazines together. There have been rumblings during the past couple of months that there would be "frequency reductions" and severe budget cuts at several Conde Nast magazines. But no one expected today's news that the 68-year-old grand dame of epicurian journalism would be shuttered. The news surely surprised Bon Appetit's publisher, Paul Jowdy (who's keeping his job), who said back in February that the roumors that Conde Nast would close Gourmet or Bon Appetit were "ridiculous ... They would never do that." Apparently, when bean-counting management consultants are involved, you can never say never.

Conde Nast says that it "will remain committed to the brand, retaining Gourmet's book publishing and television programming, and Gourmet recipes on Epicurious.com." This is cold comfort for Gourmet's subscribers -- some of whom have been loyal readers for decades -- not to mention Gourmet's staffers, who, if you believe the stories, are being treated very, very badly by Conde Nast. The reports are that all of Gourmet's staffers, including Ruth Reichl, have been let go, and have been given only 48-hours to pack their things and leave the building. Ruth's Twitter post from today seems to confirm this. "Thank you all SO much for this outpouring of support. It means a lot. Sorry not to be posting now, but I'm packing. We're all stunned, sad."

I'm stunned and sad, too, Ruth.

(Thanks to Eat Me Daily, Eater, Gawker, and The NYT Media Decoder for their excellent coverage of this unfolding story.)

196. Twice-Baked Potatoes with Basil and Sour Cream (p. 570)

2009-10-01T21:43:00.001-04:00

Continuing with the left over theme from the last post about Tarragon Lobster Salad, here's a recipe for Twice-Baked Potatoes with Basil and Sour Cream that I made using some baked potatoes also left over from the Labor Day shindig.

This was another easy recipe made even easier by the fact that I didn't have to bake the potatoes first.

I cut each of my leftover potatoes in half and, using a spoon, I scooped out the flesh, leaving a shell. I put the shells on a baking sheet, brushed them with some melted butter and put them in the oven until they turned golden and crisped up a bit. Meanwhile, I mashed the potato flesh together with some butter, milk, salt and pepper, and some chopped fresh basil, and warmed it up on the stove. Then the potato shells were ready, I spooned the mashed potatoes into the shells and put them back in the oven for a few minutes more. To finish off the dish, I topped the potatoes with a dollop of sour cream and some more fresh basil.

These potatoes were pretty good. (They're potatoes, after all. How could the not be good?) I liked the combination of potatoes and basil, a pairing that I don't think I've had before. But, even so, these weren't the best twice-baked potatoes I've had. To me, twice-baked potatoes are all about melted cheese, and lots of it. But there's not one bit of cheese in this recipe ... a glaring omission from my perspective.

If you read this recipe carefully, you'll note that the potatoes actually go into the oven three times, not two. First, you bake the potatoes, next to bake the empty shells, and finally you bake the filled shells. So, a better name for these spuds would probably be "Thrice-Baked" Potatoes. Maybe in the next edition of The Book?

Date Cooked: September 6, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Easy
Rating: B+

195. Tarragon Lobster Salad (p. 157)

2009-09-30T10:31:00.000-04:00

Back on Labor Day, my in-laws had a huge family lobster-fest. Everyone was there: my wife's grandparents, her aunt and uncle, her cousins, and her sisters and their families. And to feed everybody, my father-in-law got more lobsters than I think I've ever seen in one place at one time. He boiled them up in the back yard in a huge pot over gas burner. When everyone had their fill of lobster, melted butter and corn-on-the-cob, there were a few lobsters left over. Left over lobster!?!? Who ever heard of such a thing?

Well, I took full advantage of this windfall and I made this recipe for Tarragon Lobster Salad for lunch the next day. This is a very simple recipe, and since my lobster was already cooked, it was even easier. First, I made a simple dressing of finely chopped shallot, lemon juice, a little bit of mayonnaise, some chopped tarragon and a little salt and pepper. Then, I broke down the chilled lobster by taking the tail and claws and joint meat out of the shell. I cut the lobster meat into bite-sized chunks and tossed it with the dressing.

This was a great lobster salad. The dressing was light and bright, and it let the lobster -- the real star of the dish -- shine through. There was just the right amount of mayonnaise, which is key, since a lot of lobster salads have way too much mayonnaise. And what can I say about tarragon? It's one of my favorite flavors, and it's slight anise flavor goes perfectly with the lobster's sweetness.

This lobster salad would be great on a toasted hot dog roll, but The Book suggests serving it in a hollowed-out tomato. As you can see from the picture, this is a pretty elegant way to eat lobster (as if lobster wasn't already elegant). But in addition to being pretty, the tomato shell and the bed of lettuce added some substance to the dish, which was good, since my wife and I were sharing one lobster's worth of meat between the two of us. (The recipe intends for one-lobster-per-person.)

If you ever have the good fortune of a left over lobster, you must make this salad, but, even if you don't, this recipe is good enough that it's worthwhile to buy lobster just for this purpose.

Date Cooked: September 6, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Very Easy
Rating: A

Gourmet Today: One Last Thing

2009-09-28T22:13:00.006-04:00

So, last Thursday, I opened my Gourmet Weekly email newsletter just like I do every Thursday. But, unlike every other Thursday, on this Thursday the Gourmet Weekly email newsletter included this...
That's right, the folks at Gourmet featured my blog and Melissa's too, and our preview of recipes from Gourmet Today as part of their blitz to promote the new book. I appreciate the recognition, and if you've found Gourmet, All The Way through Gourmet Weekly, thanks for stopping by. I hope you'll stick around.

And, really, just one more thing about Gourmet Today ... if you're disappointed that I'm not going to be cooking through the new book, you can get your Gourmet Today cook-through fix at one of the two (that's right, two!) blogs that have jumped into the fray. First, there's Derrick, who's taking on what he calls the BGB (Big Green Book) Challenge. Then, there's Annie who's re-named her blog from Bon Appetit to You Too to It's Gourmet Today! Good luck, guys. I can't wait to see what you're cooking up.

Gourmet Today: Elvis Presley's Favorite Pound Cake

2009-09-26T17:52:00.000-04:00

Just as every good meal should end with dessert, I decided to wrap up my preview of Gourmet Today with something sweet. And as I flipped through the Cakes chapter, this recipe practically jumped off the page at me. Elvis Presley's Favorite Pound Cake? How could I not make it?

The provenance of this recipe is a little unclear. Gourmet Today's headnote for the recipe doesn't offer any clues about where it comes from, and my research on the internets was inconclusive. So, I don't know if this recipe was something that The King's mom cooked up for him when he was just a prince, or whether it was something that he ate at a favorite restaurant. Wherever the recipe comes from, one thing is for sure: it's good. And by good, I mean really, really good. Like "Sara-Lee-is-drowning-her-sorrows-in-Entenmann's" good.

That this cake is so rich, moist and tender is no surprise considering what's in it: two sticks of butter, seven eggs, and a cup of heavy cream. And, the secret to this cake's amazing texture is sifting and beating ... a lot of it. The recipe says to "sift together sifted [cake] flour and salt. Sift again." This instruction has a bit of a "drop and give me twenty, soldier!" tone, but, after tasting the finished result, I'm not going to argue with sifting the flour three times. Nor am I going to complain about having to beat the batter for an additional five minutes just before it goes in the pan.

Next week, we'll be back to our regularly-scheduled programming. I've got a huge backlog of recipes from The Book to blog about, so stay tuned. I'm obviously focusing my efforts on The Project, but I'll keep cooking recipes from Gourmet Today, and every now and then, I might share one that I think is particularly good.

Date Cooked: September 20, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Medium
Rating: A

Gourmet Today: Zucchini Curry (p. 331)

2009-09-24T23:04:00.000-04:00

Anyone who's ever had a backyard garden (or for that matter, even known anybody who's had a backyard garden) knows that zucchini is the most resilient and abundant of Summer's produce. Regardless of drought, disease or pests, there will always be tons of zucchini come July and August, and people will always be looking for creative uses for it. And with at least a couple of zucchinis in my CSA box each week, I was in need of some inspiration.

Now, I don't have many complaints about The Gourmet Cookbook, but one thing that I wish it had more of is zucchini recipes. There are just nine, and I've already made four of them. Gourmet Today, on the other hand, has twenty (!) different zucchini recipes. And for my first taste of the Vegetarian Main Courses chapter, I chose this recipe for Zucchini Curry.

The first thing I did was to toast some mustard seeds and cumin seeds in a small skillet. The recipe says to heat the seeds "until cumin seeds are fragrant and a shade darker and mustard seeds pop, about 2 minutes. Cool." Once I saw the mustard seeds popping, I thought that the recipe should have said "Cool!" instead. These things were popping all over the place like little exploding bbs.

Next, using my mortar and pestle, I pounded some garlic and a chopped serrano pepper into a paste with some grated fresh ginger and salt. The recipe calls for a jalepeno, but I had some serranos leftover from the CSA box, so that's what I used. Even with that substitution, I thought that the finished product could have been even hotter. I added some curry powder and the toasted cumin and mustard seeds to the paste and set it aside.

Then, I cooked some thinly sliced onions in oil until they were golden brown. I added the curry paste and cooked it for a few more minutes. In with the zucchini (cut into good-sized chunks), and cook for a few minutes "until it begins to look moist." Then I added a can of coconut milk and a bit of salt. After simmering for a little while, it was ready to eat, served over Basmati rice and sprinkled with some chopped cilantro and cashews.

This was a very good curry. Fragrant, flavorful and creamy. It was almost like an Indian risotto. It was quick and easy to make, another good weeknight meal. My semi-veg wife, however, had a complaint about this dish. A lot of "vegetarian" dishes are nothing more than "regular" dishes without the meat. This dish, she said, was basically a chicken curry without the chicken. She's a little bitter after one too many meals at banquet halls when, after flagging down a waiter to ask for the "vegetarian dinner" and waiting while everyone else eats their stuffed chicken breast or petite filet, only to be given a plate of plain cold steamed vegetables. A really good vegetarian meal isn't about what it doesn't have (i.e., meat), it's about what it does have ... substance, interest, flavor (and a little bit of protein wouldn't hurt, either). In this dish, even a can of chickpeas or a handful of lentils would have been an improvement in my wife's opinion. That said, this was a tasty dish, and we devoured it.

As I finish writing this post, I just noticed, that without even realizing it, the first three dishes I picked from Gourmet Today are all Indian-inspired dishes. A coincidence? Or am I maybe subconsciously taking advantage of the increased emphasis on ethnic recipes in Gourmet Today? Either way, it's good eats.

Date Cooked: September 7, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Easy
Rating: B+

Gourmet Today: Grilled Chicken Palliards with Nectarine Chutney (p. 525)

2009-09-23T07:15:00.000-04:00

I wanted to make a recipe from each of Gourmet Today's new chapters. But, since my gas grill is under the weather, the Grilled Dishes chapter presented a bit of a challenge. I chose this recipe because I knew that I could cook the chicken in the broiler. That, and it seemed like an excellent use for all of the nectarines from my CSA box.

First, I cut up some nectarines into one-inch pieces (no need to peel them), and I chopped a tomato (didn't peel that, either), and some garlic. I put the nectarines, tomatoes and garlic in a pot with some vinegar, brown sugar, curry powder, and salt. I simmered the chutney for about twenty minutes.

While the chutney bubbled away, I made the chicken palliards. I put each of the boneless, skinnless chicken breasts in between two sheets of plastic wrap. Normally, when I make palliards, I bang the heck out of them with a meat pounder. Very effective, but also very noisy. It just so happened that when I was cooking this, my nine-month-old son was asleep, and my wife would kill me if I woke him up with all the noise. What to do ... what to do? Ah-ha! I put a big, heavy frying pan on top of the wrapped chicken, and pressed with all my might. I didn't get it as thin as I could have with the pounder, but it worked reasonably well. I patted the chicken dry, brushed it with some olive oil and seasoned it with salt and pepper.

Now, if my gas grill weren't sick (It just won't get hot. I think that the gas gets are clogged or something.), I'd have put the chicken on the grill. But instead, I cooked them under the broiler. It worked just fine, but of course, there's really no substitute for grilling.

I served the chicken with the chutney (topped with some chopped fresh cliantro), along with some fresh grean beans and a potato dish from The Book that I'll blog about soon. The chicken was good, but the star was the chutney. It was sweet and sour and tangy with an excellent punch of Indian flavor and aroma. The cilantro on top was a nice bright, clean note that contrasted with the richer, spicier chutney.

Gourmet Today says that the start-to-finish time is 25 minutes. It took me a bit longer than that, but certainly less than an hour. This really is a delicious, and really do-able weeknight meal.

Date Cooked: September 6, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Pretty easy
Rating: A-

Gourmet Today: Mango Lassi (p. 30)

2009-09-22T07:53:00.000-04:00

In recognition of what the book's editors call "the return of the cocktail," Gourmet Today includes a "Drinks" chapter. Most of the chapter is dedicated to potent potables, including classic cocktails like the Manhattan, the Old Fashioned, the Martini and the Gimlet. There's also some of the more obscure gems like the Rob Roy and Pimm's Cup. There's some innovative cocktails, too, like a Limoncello and Mint Sparkler, and a Cucumber, Gigner and Sake Sangria. I'm sure that I'll come back to this chapter again and again.

But, for my first taste from the Drinks chapter, I chose this recipe for Mango Lassi from the non-alcoholic drinks section. I've never had lassi before, but I've learned that it's a very popular Indian drink made with yogurt. There are savory varieties made with cumin, and sweet varieties, like this one, flavored with fruit.

I really liked the flavor of this drink, but I wanted it to be thicker and colder -- more like a smoothie. And as I sit here typing this blog post and re-reading the recipe, I see that I made it wrong, and if I had made it correctly, it would have had the texture I wanted it to. You see, the ingredient list includes the following items: sweetened mango puree, sugar, whole-milk yogurt, crushed ice, lime juice, a pinch of salt, and ice cubes. The recipe says to blend all ingredients except ice cubes. Somehow, I interpreted this to mean that I wasn't supposed to blend any ice at all, and just simply serve the blended drink over ice cubes. I should have blended the crushed ice in with the other ingredients before pouring the mixture over the ice cubes. Oh, well, it was good anyway.

The other thing I wasn't too sure about was the sweetened mango puree. The closest thing I could find at Stop & Shop was this Goya sweetened mango nectar. My wife said that it's not the same thing, and she's probably right, since it was a bit thinner than what I'd expect a puree to look like. Again, it was good anyway.

So the bottom line on this one is that even with my omission of crushed ice and my substitution of mango nectar for the puree, this was still a very delicious and very refreshing drink. Now that I know what lassi is and how good it is, I'm going to seek it out. I'm looking forward to trying one of the savory varieties.

Date Cooked: September 13, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Easy
Rating: A-

A new day for Gourmet ...Today

2009-09-21T07:55:00.001-04:00

About ten years ago, Ruth Reichl and the editors of Gourmet Magazine set out to "gather the cream of the crop" of sixty-plus years of the magazine's recipes and put them together in a single cookbook with "every recipe you would ever want." The result of these efforts, as you know, was The Gourmet Cookbook.

If Ruth & Co. thought their work was done when they published their 1040-page, 1,300-recipe book, they thought wrong. It's a different world now than is was six decades ago when Gourmet magazine first appeared. And a lot has changed even in the short time since The Book's been on the market. Words like "foodie," "flexitarian," "locavore" and "mixologist" have entered our everyday vocabularies. Television shows like "Iron Chef" and "Top Chef" have raised people's standards about what they want to eat, while shows like "30 Minute Meals" have made people less willing to wait around for good food.

In light of these changing attitudes, the folks at Gourmet thought that the time was right to publish a new collection of recipes for the way that people are cooking today and will cook in the coming years. Gourmet Today doesn't replace The Gourmet Cookbook. Instead, the new book picks up where the other one left off. If The Gourmet Cookbook is about the best of food's past, Gourmet Today is about its future. It's a lot like the two-volume Gourmet Cookbook the editors published in the 1950s. Each of the two books compliments the other, but can stand on its own as a complete cookbook.

So, what's different about Gourmet Today? The most immediately noticeable difference is the color. The bright green cover nicely complements the sunny yellow cover of The Gourmet Cookbook, but stands out as something new and different. The rest of the design and layout is very similar to the older book, making it easy to use for cooks familiar with The Gourmet Cookbook. The other major change is the addition of three new chapters designed to meet the needs of today's cook: Drinks, Grilled Dishes and Vegetarian Main Courses. There's more emphasis on ethnic foods (Asian foods in particular), taking advantage of the wider variety of ingredients that are now more and more available in supermarkets. Also, in a nod to the Rachel Ray faction, more than half of the dishes in Gourmet Today can be cooked in a half-hour or less. There are also a couple of new features that really make this a very usable book for planning meals and parties: first, each chapter includes a recipe index (or a "checklist" if you're a cook-through blogger), next, the book's general index is one of the most comprehensive I've seen (it's 66 pages long!), and my favorite new "usability" feature is the addition of suggested menus composed of recipes from Gourmet Today. Often, as I'm cooking my way through The Book, I'll pick a great-looking recipe, but I'll have no idea what to serve with it. Well, in Gourmet Today, the editors have offered suggested menus for everything: seasonal quick weeknight meals, vegetarian menus, holiday meals, cocktail parties, and even weddings.

I was thrilled to get an advance copy of Gourmet Today from the nice folks at Gourmet. And the best part is that it's autographed by Ruth Reichl! The inscription says, "To Adam - From one cook to another, Ruth Reichl, August 2009." And tucked inside the book was a nice note from Ruth. "Dear Adam - Couldn't wait to share this with you. I really hope you like it!" Thanks, Ruth!

As I flipped through Gourmet Today, I was really impressed with the great variety of delicious sounding dishes. I was also pleased to see that the editors took the opportunity to fill some of the gaps in The Gourmet Cookbook. As I said, the editors of The Book aimed to provide "every recipe you would ever want." Well, that was a very tall order, and of course, there were bound to be some omissions. No baklava? No classic Christmas fruitcake? No spanakopita? Thankfully, Gourmet Today provides those missing recipes (pages 803, 735, and 61, respectively). It's hard to find anything to complain about in Gourmet Today. If pressed, I'd have to say that while my "no-red-meat-thank-you-very-much" wife and I are glad to see the addition of vegetarian main courses, it would also have been nice to have more gluten-free options. Many of the vegetarian mains involve pasta, bread, or pie crust (quiches and tarts). That's a small criticism, though, for a book that doesn't bill itself as being allergy-friendly.

Since I know you're wondering, no, I'm not going to attempt to cook through Gourmet Today. Even though I've got almost 200 recipes under my belt, I've really only just begun to cook through The Book. I'd be crazy to add another 1,000 - plus recipes to The Project. But, for the next few days, in honor of the release of Gourmet Today, (in bookstores September 22!) I'm going to do some blog posts about recipes from the new book to give you a bit of a taste. I hope you enjoy it as much as I know that I will.

193. Corn Relish (p. 902) and 194. Fresh Corn Soup (p. 99)

2009-09-12T23:33:00.000-04:00

Has 2009 been some sort of bumper crop year for corn, or what? For the last several weeks, there have been at least a dozen ears of fresh corn in my CSA box. Don't get me wrong. I'm not complaining. It's delicious! Crisp and sweet, but, seriously, that's a lot of corn. And while plain old corn on the cob is one of the true joys of summer, I've also been taking advantage of the corn surplus by focusing on The Book's many corn recipes.

The first recipe* for Corn Relish brought me back in time. When I was a little kid, summer cookouts at my grandparents' house usually involved something called piccalilli. This sweet, tangy brightly-colored relish was always a real favorite of mine. It's been years since I've had it, but one taste of this corn relish brought me right back. Now, traditional piccalilli has cauliflower in it, but it's the seasonings in this relish ... the tumeric and dry mustard ... that are classic piccalilli flavors.

To make the relish, I started by cutting the kernels off eight ears of corn to get four cups of kernels. If you've never done it, cutting the kernels off ears of corn is really easy. First, get a great big bowl and a serrated knife. Stand the corncob on its end in the middle of the bowl, and with a sawing motion, cut the kernels off the cob. As you cut them off, they'll fall into the bowl, and if the bowl is big enough, it will catch any wayward kernels (they tend to scatter a bit as you saw them off). Next, I finely chopped some celery, white onion, and green and red bell peppers. I tried to chop the vegetables to about the same size as the corn kernels, so that everything would be of uniform size. (Excellent knife skilz practice!) The Book calls for green pepper only, but I decided to add a red bell pepper for some nice color.

I mixed the corn and chopped vegetables with some white vinegar, sugar, water, dry mustard, salt, tumeric and celery seeds. I brought it all to a boil and then reduced the heat and simmered it for about 15 minutes. I cooled the relish at room temperature and then transferred it to some plastic containers and put it in the refrigerator to chill.

This stuff is delicious. It's crunchy and sweet with a nice vinegary bite and the bold mustard and celery flavor. And the intense yellow color from the tumeric is bright and sunny. The recipe made about two quarts. The Book says that it keeps for a month in the refrigerator, but I didn't get to test that theory. My wife and I polished off a quart of the relish in about two weeks, enjoying a little bit of it as a condiment with sandwiches and salads for lunch. Another pint disappeared at our family's Labor Day cookout, and I gave the last pint to my sister-in-law. This is an easy and delicious recipe that could easily become a summer tradition.

The second recipe for Fresh Corn Soup was good, but not great. The Book calls it "pure simplicity" and says that it's "all about the corn." This is an incredibly apt description. There's really only one ingredient: corn. (Yeah, you also need water, a bit of salt and some chopped chives as a garnish.)

First I cut the kernels from a dozen ears of corn. As easy as it is to cut the kernels off corncobs, I won't lie, it took some time to do it to a dozen ears. Next, I brought the corn, six cups of water and some sea salt to a boil. Then, I reduced the heat and simmered it for about 20 minutes.

Then comes the pureeing. The Book says to do it in the blender, but I decided to use my immersion blender. It seemed a lot quicker and a lot less messy. Once it was all blended, I poured the soup through a fine-meshed sieve, pressing on the solids to get all of the liquid out.

The Book says that the soup can be served, sprinkled with chopped chives, either hot or cold. I tried it both ways, and while I liked it a lot, I didn't love it. This soup was pure corn essence. The flavor was excellent, and somehow, it was buttery and creamy even though it has not a bit of dairy in it at all. The problem I had with this soup was that it was too light. It had no substance. If I were to have a small bowl of this as a first course before a big meal, I'd be very impressed by it. But, eating this as my main lunchtime meal left me wanting more. I think that this soup could have been improved by adding some more fresh whole corn kernels at the end to give it a bit of crunch and some more heft.

(As I mentioned recently, I have a pretty big backlog of recipes that I've cooked and haven't blogged about yet. For some reason, I did't take a picture of the corn soup, and, for the life of me, I can't even remember exactly when I cooked it.)

Corn Relish
Date Cooked: August 29, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Easy
Rating: A

*The recipe for Corn Relish isn't on epicurious.com.
Fresh Corn Soup
Date Cooked: Early August, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Very Easy
Rating: B+

192. Plum and Almond Crisp (p. 816)

2009-09-11T23:52:00.001-04:00

OK, now I'm confused. At first blush, this Plum and Almond Crisp looks a lot like the Fruit Crumble I made when I was on vacation last month. After a closer examination of the two recipes, and a little Internet research, I thought I had figured out the difference between crisps and a crumbles (not to mention cobblers, slumps, grunts, bettys and pandowdys). Both are fruit desserts topped with a crispy, crumbly topping. According to one source I read, a crisp is the richer American cousin to the British crumble. But all of that went out the window, and I went right back to square one when I found out that this recipe is called "Plum and Almond Cobbler" on epicurious.com. What gives? I thought that a cobbler was a "fruit stew" topped by spoonfuls of biscuit dough. Ugh, this is so confusing. At least one of the commenters on the epicurious recipe challenged its status as a cobbler "Good, quick and easy to make. Wonderful topping, although I would challenge calling it a cobbler." Maybe that's why the Gourmet editors changed the name? Well, anyway, whatever it's called, this is one tasty dessert.

The Book says to use prune plums for this recipe if you can get them. I lucked out because Stop & Shop just happened to have some. Prune plums are smaller and sweeter than the usual reddish skinned, yellow-orange fleshed plums that I'm used to. The also have blue-purple skin and dark reddish purple flesh.

First, I made the filling. I pitted and quartered the plums (no need to skin them) and mixed them with some brown sugar, cornstarch, cinnamon, lemon juice and butter. I poured the plum mixture into a shallow oval baking dish.

Next, I made the topping. I mixed together some sugar, flour, salt and sliced almonds in the food processor and whizzed it until the almonds were ground. I added a beaten egg and whizzed some more until the topping came together. I spooned the topping over the plums and sprinkled some more sliced almonds over the top. (I made this dessert to bring over to my in-laws' house one Sunday afternoon. I also made a single-serving, gluten-free version for my wife using gluten-free baking mix in place of the flour.) Once it was all assembled, I baked the crisp for a little less than an hour.

I really enjoyed this dessert. It was better than the Fruit Crisp because the fruit was sweeter thanks to the brown sugar, jammier thanks to the luscious, juicy prune plums and the cornstarch to make it thicker, and spicier and more fragrant thanks to the cinnamon. This recipe is also great because it's quick, easy and very adaptable to whatever fruit you want to use. Several commenters on epicurious.com wrote about variations that they made using apples, peaches and raspberries.

So whatever it is -- a crisp, a cobbler, a crumble, or even a grunt -- it is delicious.

Date Cooked: August 24, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Easy
Rating: A-

191. Fresh Tomato Sauce (p. 207)

2009-09-11T08:07:00.001-04:00

Tomatoes have been having a rough go of it over the past couple of years. Last year it was a salmonella scare, and this year, it's an attack of late blight. I had pretty much resigned myself to another summer without tomatoes. But for whatever reason, Farmer Dave (my CSA farmer) and Mann Orchard have been spared the blight, and I've been able to get plenty of beautiful, fresh ripe tomatoes. And I'm loving it.

So, when I got a load of tomatoes in my CSA box a few weeks ago, I decided to make this recipe* for Fresh Tomato Sauce. This sauce is a lot of things. It's easy to make, it's uncomplicated, and it's fresh and light tasting. But, there's one thing this sauce isn't. It's not your Nonna's Sunday Gravy. Now, I'm not Italian, and I don't have a Nonna. But my wife is part Italian, and her family's recipe for Sicilian tomato sauce is a big part of our culinary lives. When we were first married, we carried on her family tradition that "Wednesday is Prince Spaghetti day."

So, if I'm comparing this recipe for Fresh Tomato Sauce to Grandma Leone's recipe from the Old Country, this recipe loses. But, if I can separate the two and keep in mind that they're two completely different things, this sauce is very good, and a nice change of pace.

To make the sauce, I peeled six pounds of fresh, ripe tomatoes. Peeling tomatoes sounds like a pain, but it's really easy and worth the effort (despite what I've said before). All you need to do is bring a big pot of water to a boil. Meanwhile, cut a little X in the bottom of each tomato. Plunge the tomatoes into the boiling water for about 10 to 20 seconds (the more ripe the tomatoes are, the less time they'll need in the boiling water). Immediately plunge the tomatoes in a big bowl of ice water to stop the cooking. Once the tomatoes are cool enough to handle, you should be able to pull the skins off without any problem. Next, I removed the seeds. This sounds like a pain, too, but it's really easy. Just set a sieve over a large bowl, cut the tomatoes in half and gently squeeze them to release all of the seeds and juice. The seeds get trapped in the sieve, and the juice collects in the bowl so that it can be added back to the sauce. Then I chopped the peeled, seeded tomatoes.

With the heavy prep work done, I moved on to the cooking. I heated some olive oil in a stock pot and added five cloves of thinly sliced garlic. Once the garlic was golden, I added the chopped tomatoes, reserved juice, and a little bit of sugar and salt, and simmered it for about an hour. I stirred in a big handful of chopped fresh basil and I served it with some sauteed sliced Italian chicken sausage over rice pasta (my wife is back on dairy and some soy, but gluten is still off limits).

Like I said, this sauce doesn't hold a candle to my wife's family recipe. It doesn't have the substance, spice, and subtle flavors that you can only get from slow cooking and a few family secrets. But, when viewed for what it is -- a simple celebration of fresh, summer tomatoes -- this sauce is really very good.

Date Cooked: August 30, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Easy
Rating: B+

* I couldn't find this recipe on epicurious.com.

190. Roasted Beet Salad (p. 147)

2009-09-06T10:31:00.000-04:00

A lot of people don't like beets. I can't understand why. They're sweet, earthy, and luxurious. They look, and taste, like red velvet. So, as soon as I got a bunch of beets in my CSA box, I didn't hesitate to make this recipe for Roasted Beet Salad.

First, I roasted the beets by wrapping them in foil and putting them in the oven for about an hour and a half. Then I let the beets cool, still in their wrapper, for about a half hour longer.

While the beets cooled, I cooked some sliced almonds in olive oil until they were lightly golden. I took the pan off the heat and let the almonds cool in the oil for a while. Then I took them out with a slotted spoon, put them in a small bowl and seasoned them with a little bit of salt. Usually, when I cook, I'm a clean-up-as-you-go kind of guy, but out of a momentary stroke of laziness, I left the oil in the pan on the stove rather than pouring it down the drain and rinsing the pan. It was a good thing that I didn't, because, even though The Book says nothing at this point in the recipe about reserving the oil, it turns out to be an important component in the salad dressing.

Anyway, while the oil sat in the pan, I whisked together some finely chopped shallot, lemon juce, red wine vinegar, sugar and salt. I added the almond-infused oil, and set the dressing aside.

Next, I peeled the beets. The Book says to "slip skins from beets." No way is it going to be that easy, I thought ... but it was. I turns out that as the roasted beets cool in their foil packet, the steam loosens the skins, and they really do just slip right off. Pretty cool! I sliced the beets, and added the slices to the dressing, tossing to coat. At that point, I did resume my neat-kitchen ways, and rinsed off the cutting board and wiped down the counter to prevent any permanent beet juice stains. Then, I cut a pear into matchsticks and prepared to plate the salad. I arranged the beets on top of a bed of greens (I used some baby spinach that I had in the fridge instead of the baby arugula or mache that The Book calls for). I topped the salad off with the pear matchsticks and the toasted almonds.

I enjoyed this salad. The beets were delicious, the dressing was light and had a really nice flavor. Cooking the almonds in the oil gave it a nice rich nuttiness, and the lemon and shallot were just the right light notes to round it out. The pears and almonds gave the salad a good crunch, and were a nice counterpoint to the soft, silky beets. The only thing I can think of that would have improved this salad would have been a nice bit of soft goat cheese on top.

August 8, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Medium
Rating: A-

189. Italian Lemon Ice (p. 860)

2009-09-05T11:29:00.001-04:00

It's Labor Day weekend, which means that the summer's over. I can't believe how fast it's gone by, and more importantly, I can't believe how little I've used my ice cream maker this summer.

One of the few times I did use my ice cream maker was to make this recipe* for Italian Lemon Ice.

This refreshing treat was really east to make. All I did was make a simple syrup by boiling some sugar and water, and then adding copious amounts of lemon juice and zest, and just a pinch of salt. I chilled the syrup in the refrigerator and then froze it in the ice cream maker. Finally, I put it in the freezer for a couple of hours to firm up.

This Italian ice was pretty good. It was cold and clean, and its intense puckery lemon flavor was a real wake-up call to the palate. The texture was very nice, too. I was afraid that it was going to be too much like a sno-cone, or worse, like a block of ice, but it was smooth and scoopable.

One of the other times I used my ice cream maker this summer was when I made the Sorbetto di Uva (Concord Grape Sorbet) from the September issue of Gourmet. When I saw the picture of this sorbet in the magazine, it grabbed me immediately. And the recipe looked so simple, I decided that I just had to make it the next time I came across Concord grapes at the supermarket. Well, wouldn't you know it, the very next time I went to the store, there they were! (I don't think that I've ever seen Concord grapes at Stop and Shop, so I think it was destiny.) All I had to do was puree the grapes, put them through a fine mesh sieve to remove the skins and seeds, and mix the puree with some super-fine sugar. I chilled the mixture and then froze it in the ice cream maker. The resulting sorbet was smooth, silky with an intense grape flavor. I thought it was just great!

Now, even though summer's coming to an end, that doesn't mean that the ice cream maker's going into mothballs. No sir, there are plenty of fall and winter ice creams in The Book: maple walnut, Grape Nuts, rum currant, eggnog... I can't wait.

Date Cooked: July 27, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Easy
Rating: A-

*This recipe is not on epicurious.com.

188. Fresh Apricot Upside-Down Cake (p. 718)

2009-09-03T23:50:00.001-04:00

I can't believe how far behind I've fallen in posting about the recipes I've cooked. I cooked this recipe more than six weeks ago! I took a few recipes out of order when I went on vacation last month, and now I've got a pretty sizable backlog of recipes to work through. Well, stick with me, and I promise that you're in for some tasty treats.

I made this cake to bring with us when we visited our friends Travis and Jodi in their new place. Upside-down cakes are the best. They are sweet, moist, and they look great. Of course, pineapple is the traditional upside-down cake topping, but it's not the only one. There are three different kinds of upside-down cake in The Book. This one uses fresh apricots, which are plentiful and tasty in late summer.

To make this cake, I started by melting a stick of butter in an oven-proof skillet. Once the foam subsided, I sprinkled some brown sugar over the melted butter and let it cook for a few minutes without stirring. Then I arranged some apricot halves (cut sides down) on the bottom of the skillet. I took it off the heat and set it aside while I made the cake batter, which is a pretty straightforward, traditional cake batter. I creamed together some softened butter and sugar, and then I added some vanilla and almond extracts and some eggs. I finished the batter off by adding some buttermilk and some flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt, a little at a time, alternating between the dry ingredients and the buttermilk.

I carefully spooned the batter over the apricots and smoothed the top with a rubber spatula and baked it. I let the cake cool for a few minutes before I placed a serving plate over the skillet and very carefully inverted the pan and lifted it off the cake. The Book says that some of the fruit may stick to the pan and need to be put back in place on the top of the cake. No such problems here, the cake released perfectly, and the jewel-like apricots stayed firmly planted in the top of the cake where they belonged.

This cake was a real winner as far as I'm concerned. It is stunningly beautiful with its bright orange fruits and its glossy, caramel-y glaze. And the flavor is wonderful. The topping is sweet and buttery, and the interplay of all of the other flavors is just great: the tart apricots, the tang of the buttermilk and the hints of vanilla and almond come together in perfect harmony.

Date Cooked: July 18, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Medium
Rating: A

187. Chilled Sour Cherry Soup (p. 821)

2009-08-25T22:31:00.000-04:00

When I made the Sour Cherry Crostata for the Fourth of July, I felt bad that my wife couldn't eat it because of the flour and butter. I decided to make it up to her by making this recipe* for Chilled Sour Cherry Soup so that she could enjoy all of the great cherry flavor without any of that pesky dairy and gluten.

The whole idea of this dish is a bit strange. First, it's a cold soup, which some people find unusual. But even more unusual is that it's a sweet dessert soup. That's something you don't come across every day. But you know what? It was actually pretty good.

First, I brought some water, sugar, lemon zest and cinnamon to a boil, stirring it until the sugar dissolved. Next I added some frozen sour cherries and boiled the mixture for a few minutes more. Meanwhile, I whisked some cornstarch with some cold water. I stirred the cornstarch mixture into the cherry mixture and boiled it for a final few minutes. I took the soup off the heat and allowed it to cool to room temperature before putting it in the refrigerator to chill.

I served the cold soup in small bowls after dinner. The Book says to garnish the soup with a drizzle of sour cream mixed with heavy cream. I skipped this step because I was making this dessert dairy-free.

At first taste, I wasn't sure what to make of this soup. It tastes a lot like cherry pie filling, and that's kind of strange. It's a bit thinner than ordinary pie filling, and the lemon zest and cinnamon make it a bit zippier. As I ate it, though (and as I ate the leftovers the next couple of nights), the soup started to grow on me. I don't think that I'd ever crave this dish, but it was a nice change, and I'm glad I made it.

Date Cooked: July 11, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Easy
Rating: B

*This recipe isn't on epicurious.com.

186. Grilled Summer Vegetables with Pesto (p. 591)

2009-08-23T20:34:00.007-04:00

When you're on vacation at the beach, staying at a rental house with a deck and a grill, you just have to grill something, right? Of course you do!

Before we left, I flipped through The Book, picked out this recipe* and packed up all of the zucchini and squash leftover from the week's CSA box, and looked forward to an easy, tasty dinner.

Well, at least it was easy. Tasty, not so much. And it was probably the least attractive thing I've ever cooked. But, the dish's shortcomings were all my fault. I should have known better than to leave the veggies unattended on an unfamiliar grill. But, I'm getting ahead of myself.

This is really a very straightforward and simple way to prepare grilled vegetables. First, I sliced each of the following in half lengthwise: an eggplant, a zuchini, a yellow squash, and for good measure, a cousa squash. I also cored and seeded a red bell pepper and cut it into quarters. I marinated all of these veggies in a simple marinade of garlic, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, oregano, thyme and salt and pepper. Then I put the veggies on a pre-heated gas grill.

The Book says to cook the veggies for a total of 18 to 22 minutes, turning once during the cooking. So, I figured that I could leave them alone for a few minutes while I went back into the house. Big mistake. Apparently, even though I turned down the heat, the grill was still way too hot. By the time I came back, the veggies had a pretty good char on them. The poor red peppers were incinerated beyond recognition. I was able to salvage the situation somewhat by scraping off most of the burned parts, but the veggies were still overcooked.

I cut the eggplan, zuchinni and squash into pieces, and put them in a large bowl and tossed with some store-bought pesto. The Book suggests using homemade pesto, and refers to the recipe on page 889. I have made this pesto before, and it's far superior to store-bought pesto, but for the sake of simplicity and convenience while on vaction, I opted for store-bought.

I served the veggies with some grilled Italian chicken sausage and some potato wedges I cooked on the grill, with a little extra pesto on the side. It tasted fine, even though the veggies were too soft and a bit smoky from the overcooking. If my execution had been better, and if I had used some fresh-tasting homemade pesto, this dish would have been much better. I'm sure that I'll try this one, or some other variation of it again some day when I'm looking for something quick and easy to go with some grilled chicken or steak.

Well, my vacation is over, and it's back to reality. We had a great week of wonderful weather, and I was so glad to have the opportunity to make some great family memories of my son's first trip to the beach.

Date Cooked: August 20, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Easy
Rating: B-

*This recipe isn't on epicurious.com.

185. Colombian Chicken, Corn and Potato Stew (Ajiaco) (p. 370)

2009-08-21T21:39:00.009-04:00

I don't know what I was thinking when I decided to make this recipe on my Cape Cod vacation. Maybe it was the corn on the cob, or the avocado in the ingredient list that made me think this was a light, summery dish. Don't get me wrong, this stew is delicious. In fact, it's probably one of my favorite dishes in The Project so far. But this ain't beach food.

This is a hearty, filling stew of chicken, corn and potatoes, with a thick, rich gravy. The only way I can describe its flavor is "Thanksgiving in a Bowl." What I really liked about this recipe was that, with almost no effort (but a little bit of time - almost two hours start to finish), it turned some pretty modest ingredients - a sad-looking store-brand chicken, a few ears of corn, and a few potatoes - into a really satisfying meal.

First, I cut a whole chicken up into serving pieces and sprinkled them with salt and pepper. I browned the chicken pieces in some butter in the stew pot. I had to do it in a couple of batches so that it wouldn't crowd. For some reason, I brought my tall stock pot with me to the Cape. If I had brought my Dutch oven instead, I could have browned the chicken all at once. No problem, it just added about ten minutes to my cooking time. I transferred the chicken to a plate, and cooked some chopped white onion in the rendered chicken fat with some salt, pepper and a good amount of dried oregano. As the onion cooked, I grated some potatoes, and then added them to the pot along with the chicken, some store-bought chicken broth, and some water. I brought it to a simmer and then cooked it for a little less than a half hour. When the chicken was completely cooked, I removed it from the pot and set it aside to cool a little bit. Meanwhile, I added some Yukon Gold potatoes (that I had cubed and soaked in cold water) to the pot and cooked until they were almost tender. Then, I added three ears of corn that I had shucked and cut cross-wise into one-inch pieces, and cooked for a few minutes. Finally, I removed the skin and bones from the chicken, shredded the meat and added it to the pot.

The Book gives a list of accompaniments that can be served with this stew: cilantro, heavy cream, capers, and avocado. I'm sure that they'd all be good, but for ease of grocery shopping in a vacation rental, I chose to go with just the avocado.

As I said, I really liked this stew. Browning the chicken at the start gave the stew a nice rich "chicken-y" flavor. The oregano made the stew taste and smell wonderful. The real stroke of genius in this recipe is the addition of the grated potatoes which gave the gravy a nice thickness and body. My only complaint was the corn. It was really difficult to eat the corn pieces. First you need to fish them out of the gravy and then nibble the kernels off the too-small and too-hot pieces of corncob. I like my wife's suggestion for solving this problem: cut the kernels off the cob before cooking and add the kernels and the cobs to the pot. That way, you get the flavor from the cobs without having to deal with the difficulty of eating the corn in the finished stew. I'll try it this way the next time that I make this stew, and I will be making this stew again, often ... but when it's not so darned hot out.

Date Cooked: August 17, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Easy
Rating: A

184. Risotto with Peas and Prosciutto (p. 255)

2009-08-19T09:26:00.008-04:00

Maybe it's because she's had such a restrictive diet for the past seven months, or maybe it's because we're on vacation, and she's decided to let her hair down a bit, but, almost out of the blue, my wife - who hasn't eaten beef or pork in years - said to me, "You know, I think that I'd be willing to eat prosciutto."

Prosciutto? Really? Not a nice ribeye? Or bacon? But hey, I'm going to go with it because, after all, prosciutto is a gateway meat.

So, I went straight to The Book and picked this recipe for Risotto with Peas and Prosciutto.

Risotto is one of those dishes that has a reputation for being difficult or fussy. But it's really easy, and doesn't take a whole lot of time. All it takes is a little bit of attention and some stirring. But, it's actually kind of relaxing to spend about twenty minutes gently stirring Arborio rices and watching it get creamy and delicious-looking.

The preparation is very easy, too. First, I put some store-bought chicken broth in a pot and brought it to a simmer. I measured out a cup of frozen baby peas and set them aside to thaw. I chopped a small yellow onion. I cut up some sliced prosciutto and grated some Parmigiano-Reggiano and set them aside.

Then, I melted some butter in a pan, and cooked the onions for a few minutes. I added the rice and cooked it with the butter and onions for a minute. Next, I added some white wine and simmered it until the wine was absorbed. Then, I started adding the hot chicken stock, about a half cup at at time, stirring until absorbed before adding some more. After about twenty minutes, I had used all of the stock, and the rice was al dente and nice and creamy. I stirred in the peas, cheese, a bit more butter and some salt and pepper.

The Book also calls for a 1/2 teaspoon of lemon zest and three tablespoons of chopped parsley. I forgot to pick these two items up at the grocery store. As I mentioned, I'm on vacation this week, and a little out of sorts. Lemons and parsley are the kinds of things that I always have in my kitchen, but of course, I'm not in my kitchen. I'm sure that the lemon and parsley would have given this risotto a nice bright clean note, but even without it, it was delicious. Rich and creamy, with the sweet, crisp peas, and the salty bite of the prosciutto. An excellent weeknight meal, vacation or not.

And now that we've breached the no-meat border, the possibilities are endless. I'm going to keep on working on her. Who knows, I might have her eating The Book's Beef Wellington before you know it.

Date Cooked: August 15, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Medium
Rating: A-

183. Fruit Crumble (p. 815)

2009-08-18T10:15:00.012-04:00

Greetings from Cape Cod! My wife, son and I are spending the week in Wellfleet on the Outer Cape. When most folks go on vacation, the last thing they want to do is cook. For me, though, I'm always so busy with work and life that I usually only get to cook on the weekends. So, I'm taking advantage of the relaxed pace to do a little mid-week cooking. D0n't worry, we're also making the most of the excellent seafood restaurants here in Wellfleet, too. The other night, I had some great Wellfleet oysters and just about the best fisherman's platter I've ever eaten.

We rented a house right near the center of town and just a short drive from about five different beaches. It wasn't until we got here that we learned that the house we're renting belongs to the captain of the HMS Rose, which played the role of the "HMS Surprise" in the Russell Crowe film, Mast er and Commander. I feel like I'm staying in a movie star's house! (That's The Rose in the background.)

But even if it is a celebrity's house, it still is someone else's house, which means I don't have my stove, my utensils and my appliances. I did bring a couple of essential pots, pans, bowls, spoons, etc., with me since I didn't know what I'd find waiting for me at the rental house. The good Captain's kitchen is pretty well stocked (he's even got these nifty bowls with little anchors on them, check it out in the photo above). After a little while, I managed to get my bearings. (Get it? That's a nautical joke.)

Before we left home, I picked a few easy but hearty recipes from The Book that I'd make during the week. I knew that we'd also want something sweet to eat, and I also knew that I had a ton of peaches left over from last week's CSA box. So, I picked this recipe for fruit crumble, and packed the peaches along for the trip. The Book says that you could make this with a single fruit, or with "a jumble of fresh, in-season fruits." I liked the sound of that, so I picked up some nectarines and a couple of different kinds of plums to go with the peaches.

By now, you're probably sick of hearing about my son's food sensitivities and my wife's dietary restrictions. Well, there's some good news on that front. It looks like dairy is back on the menu! My wife has been gradually re-introducing it without any ill-effects. That means that butter is A-OK. Gluten is still off-limits, so I tried to make this recipe gluten-free. It worked, more or less.

First, I mixed together some gluten-free baking mix (instead of all-purpose flour) with some sugar, sliced almonds and a little bit of salt. The Book says to pulse it in a food processor with a stick of butter until it clumps. I wasn't about to lug my giant food processor all the way to the Cape. The good Captain doesn't have a food processor, but he does have pastry cutter (go figure!) and so I was able to do it by hand. Once I had the topping made, I move on to the fruit.

I cut the peaches, plums and nectarines into wedges and piled them into a buttered glass pie plate. No need to peel them or anything like that. I crumbled the topping over the fruit and baked it for about a half hour. It turned out pretty good. The fruit was, for the most part, tender, sweet and jammy. I think that one or two of the plums were a little under-ripe, and a few of the slices had a little bitter taste. The topping was sweet and buttery, crisp and crunchy, but it didn't brown totally evenly, and it didn't hold together all that well. I knew that the gluten-free baking mix and all-purpose flour weren't a one-to-one substitution, but I was taking a chance. But heck, with a great big scoop of Brigham's vanilla ice cream on top, just about anything is delicious.

Well, I gotta go ... my son wants to go back to the beach!

Date Cooked: August 16, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Easy
Rating: B+

182. Sole Meunière (p. 284)

2009-08-09T23:29:00.001-04:00

Could a single meal have changed the entire course of America's culinary history? If any meal can be said to have been so momentous, surely it would have to be the meal that Paul and Julia Child shared at a small restaurant in Rouen upon their arrival in France on November 3, 1948. It was during that meal that Julia's lifelong passion for French cooking--the passion that she shared with generations of chefs and home cooks through her books and television shows--was born. And the dish that sparked the fire that's been burning brightly in kitchens everywhere for the past sixty years? This recipe* for Sole Meunière, which Julia called "an opening up of the soul and spirit for me."

Since that meal was where it all began for Julia, it is fitting that the new film, Julie & Julia starts there, too, with a wide-eyed Julia breathlessly exclaiming "Butter!" as the opening credits roll. The movie opened this weekend, and I didn't waste a minute in getting to see it. More about the movie in a moment, but first, let's keep talking about food. I thought that it was only fitting to mark the occasion of the movie opening by eating, what else? Sole Meunière. According to The Book (the Gourmet Cookbook, that is, and not MtAoFC), meunière means "miller's wife," and refers to anything dusted in flour. And that's exactly what this dish is: a fillet of sole, dusted in flour, sauteed in butter and parsley, and topped with a butter and lemon juice sauce.

The first step in making Sole Meunière is obtaining the said sole. Without a doubt, the sole that Julia ate at Rouen in 1948 was a Dover sole. Unfortunately, Dover sole is a European fish that is hard to find in the United States. And while The Book says that it's worth seeking out the real McCoy for this recipe, it also says that gray sole or lemon sole are acceptable alternatives. I was able to find some gray sole at Hometown Seafoods in Andover, and that was good enough for me. The Book calls for two six ounce fillets for two people. The fillets at Hometown were much smaller, and so I got four fillets totaling twelve ounces.

The rest of the recipe couldn't be easier. I patted the fillets dry and dredged them in some flour. Then I heated three tablespoons of butter on medium-high heat until it started to brown. Next, I added some chopped parsley and shook the pan for just a few seconds to distribute the sizzling parsley throughout the golden butter. I added the sole, and lowered the heat slightly, I cooked it for just a couple of minutes on each side, turning it very carefully with two spatulas (it's very delicate). When the fish was golden-colored and slightly crisped at the edges, I transferred it to a plate. Finally, I added some more butter, lemon juice and salt to the pan and cooked it for just a few seconds before pouring it over the sole.

So, how was it? It was really, really good. The fish was light and flaky, with just a bit of crispiness. The sauce was buttery without being heavy. Browning the butter gives it a sweet and nutty flavor, while the touch of lemon brightens the sauce and cuts the richness of the butter. There's nothing "extra" or fancy in this dish. Just a couple of simple ingredients combined so perfectly together to make a truly sublime, yet uncomplicated dish. In MtAoFC, Julia refers to Potage Parmentier (Leek and Potato Soup) as "simplicity itself." Sole Meunière could be described in the same way, and it's no surprise that this dish was an eye-opening experience for Julia.

Now, the movie. It was everyting I hoped it would be. Meryl Streep is amazing. She's not so much "playing" Julia Child as she is channeling her. My money is on her for a Best Actress Oscar. But, with all of the fawning over Meryl and Julia, I think that the critics have been unfair to Julie Powell. As a cook-through blogger, I'm biased, but I can't help but feel the need to come to Julie's defense when the New York Times places all of the blame for the movie's few shortcomings squarely on Julie's shoulders. The Times calls Julie's book "rambling," and says that "the deck is stacked against" Amy Adams, who plays Julie because of "the discrepancy between Ms. Powell’s achievement and Ms. Child’s." Ouch! Even Judith Jones (Julia's editor, who stood Julie up on a dinner invitation during the Julie/Julia Project, by the way) is talking smack about Julie. Judith told Publisher's Weekly that Julia didn't want to "endorse" Julie's project because she thought it was a "stunt" undertaken by someone who wasn't a "serious cook." Courage, Julie! There are an enlightened few of us who understand what it was that you were trying to accomplish, and we appreciate your efforts. Don't listen to the haters.

One last point about the movie. At it's core, its a love story. There's the love affair we all have with food, of course. But, this movie is really about two couples who love, support, and understand one another. Without Paul Child and Eric Powell, there wouldn't be a Julia Child or a Julie Powell. This film was a wonderful reminder to me of just how lucky I am to have found someone who is, as Paul said of Julia, "the butter to my bread and the breath to my life."

Date Cooked: August 8, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Easy
Rating: A-

*This recipe isn't on epicurious.com, and, strangely enough, it's not in Mastering the Art of French Cooking, either. Curious that Julia didn't include the dish that started it all in her classic book. Julia's recipe for Sole Meunière, does appear, however, in Julia's Kitchen Wisdom, and was recently reprinted in The Chicago Tribune.

181. Scallops Provencale (p. 319)

2009-08-06T20:43:00.000-04:00

There are meals that rock your world, like Julia Child's first taste of Sole Meuniere. There are meals that are just absolutely awful. And then there are meals that, while not life-changing, are exactly what you wanted at that particular moment in time. This recipe was one of those meals.

I was looking for something for something fresh, satisfying and quick. This dish fit the bill perfectly.

First, I seared some sea scallops in a little olive oil, and transferred them to a platter and kept them warm in a 200-degree oven. Next I sauteed some thinly sliced garlic just until it started to turn golden. Then I added some diced, seeded tomatoes, and fresh thyme. I cooked it for just a few minutes and added some salt and pepper. I spooned the sauce over the scallops and sprinkled a liberal amount of chopped fresh basil on top.

It really was that easy. The Book says that this recipe has a start-to-finish time of 30 minutes, but I think that it took half that in reality.

As I said, this was a simple dish that isn't going to change your life, but it made my night just the same. The scallops were excellent. Sweet and tender with some nice caramelization from the searing. The sauce was fresh and bright. There's no reason not to try this recipe ... like tonight.

Date Cooked: July 11, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Medium
Rating: A-

180. Sauteed Purslane with Garlic and Balsamic Vinegar (p. 573)

2009-08-05T21:54:00.002-04:00

A few weeks ago, I had a UVO in my CSA (an unidentified vegetable object in my community supported agriculture share). Thick reddish stalks with chubby dark green leaves and tiny little buds. It almost looked like seaweed. Was it a mistake? Did some wayward farm kudzu find its way into my CSA box?

Well, after a little bit of good guessing and some internet research, I positively identified the green as purslane, a leafy green common in European, Asian and Mexican cooking. I also learned that purslane is known by another name, portulaca, and is considered by many to be an invasive weed. And then it hit me. When we moved into our house almost ten years ago, these little weeds were running rampant among the shrubs. After about two or three years of dogged weeding, I finally eradicated the portulacas. And now, a big bunch of purslane/portulaca was staring up at me from my CSA box. I'm supposed to eat this stuff?

Always up for something new, I went to The Book's index, and, sure enough there is a single, solitary recipe* for purslane. The recipe is very simple, and has only four ingredients: olive oil, garlic, purslane, and balsamic vinegar (take that, Michelle!). All you do is heat the oil, sautee the garlic, and then add the purslane, and cook if for just a few minutes, turning it with tongs until just wilted. Add the vinegar, and salt and pepper to taste, and that's it.

This was just OK. I liked the texture. Purslane is a pretty sturdy green. The stalks are crisp, and the leaves are plump and tender. The flavor was not my favorite, though. Purslane is a little on the bitter/astringent side, and I think that the balsamic vinegar enhanced the bitterness and gave the dish a pickled vibe. It wasn't awful, but not great, either.

The next week, I got another bunch of purslane in my CSA box. This time, I decided to make this recipe from the August 2008 issue of Gourmet for Purslane and Parsley Salad. I liked it a lot better. The purslane had a much fresher taste and crunchier texture as an uncooked salad green. It reminded me of watercress (which I love). I also never think of using fresh herbs as more than a garnish. Here, the parsley gets equal billing with the purslane. And it's great. Fresh, hearty and grassy tasting. The tomatoes (I used little grape tomatoes) were sweet and delicious, and the dressing (just a little olive oil, lemon juice and chopped shallot) was simple and light.
Date Cooked: July 11, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Easy
Rating: (Sauteed Purslane) B- (Purslane Salad) A-

*This recipe isn't on epicurious, but there are a handful of purslane recipes there, including the recipe for the Pursland and Parsley Salad.

Who said there's no such thing as a "free" lunch?

2009-08-01T22:37:00.010-04:00

As I've mentioned a few times before, my seven-month-old son, Jack, has a sensitivity to wheat, soy and dairy. It's likely that he'll grow out of it, and we're hopeful that he will. But, in the meantime, Jack's sensitivities mean that my wife, who is nursing, has a very limited diet. No wheat, soy and dairy for Jack means no bagels, tofu or ice cream for my wife. But, as anyone with food allergies is well aware, it's not that easy. Today's grocery stores are minefields of hidden allergens. Once you start reading labels, you'll be amazed at how many soy-, wheat-, and dairy-based ingredients are present in even minimally processed foods.

But, it's not hopeless. I don't even think I knew what Celiac Disease was a few months ago, now, it seems like gluten-free is everywhere. Every week, my local mega-mart adds new gluten-free, soy-free and dairy-free items to its shelves. Now, there's gluten-free rice flour bread, corn-based pizza crusts, rice pasta, coconut milk yogurt, and even gluten-free donuts! Elizabeth Hasselbeck, from Survivor (and some little show that my wife and mother-in-law are always kibitzing about ... I think it's called "The View" or something like that), has come out with a new book billed as a "Gluten-Free Survival Guide."

I've also learned that food allergies and sensitivities don't mean that you need to say goodbye to good food, you just need to be a little more resourceful. As I've mentioned, my wife and son's food limitations haven't prevented me from continuing to work on The Project. There are tons of recipes in The Book that are wheat-, soy- and dairy-free. Even Carol, from Alinea at Home, is a newly-diagnosed Celiac Disease sufferer. But, she's still cooking through Grant Achatz's amazing cookbook with a few slight modifications. Even restaurants aren't off limits. There's a local pizzeria that makes gluten free pizza. And my wife and I had a great anniversary dinner at Blue Ginger in Wellesley, Massachusetts. The chef, Ming Tsai, whose son has serious food allergies, is passionate about the issue, and the staff at the restaurant went out of their way to make my wife a delicious and special dinner that accommodated all of her dietary needs.

Well, it was my wife's birthday on Wednesday, and I wanted to make her a cake. With all of the butter and flour, all of birthday cake recipes in The Book were out. But, I knew that a gluten-free, soy-free, dairy-free cake had to be possible. I'd heard great things about a gluten-free bakery in Manhattan called Babycakes. I tried to borrow their cookbook from my local library, but there's a waiting list (a testament to the prevalence of gluten-free diets). Next, I turned to Google for help, and I landed at the website for Living Without magazine and their excellent recipe section.

I decided to make their Gluten-Free, Dairy-Free, Egg-Free Vanilla Cake with Gluten-Free Lemon Filling, and Gluten-Free "Buttercream" Frosting. The differences between these recipes and a "regular" cake is that they call for gluten-free baking mix instead of wheat flour, palm or coconut oil shortening instead of regular vegetable shortening, margerine instead of butter, and some xantham gum and extra baking powder to make up for the lack of leavening. The preparation time and difficulty was the same as just about any other cake I've made, and the taste was really amazing. My wife really enjoyed her birthday cake, and I was glad to be able to make her something special.

This has been a real learning experience for me. So, while it may be true that there's no such thing as a free lunch, with a little bit of tenacity, there just might be a gluten-free, soy-free, dairy-free lunch.

179. Maple Apricot Granola (p. 626)

2009-07-30T22:03:00.001-04:00

After I made the Oatmeal Coconut Raspberry Bars, I had a lot of old-fashioned oats leftover, and I was looking for something to do with them. Since I haven't cooked much from the Breakfast and Brunch chapter yet, I decided to make this recipe.

The hardest part about this recipe was gathering all of the ingredients. Some of the components, like the aforementioned oats, and and some green pumpkin seeds (leftover from the Green Bean Salad with Pumpkin Seed Dressing), I already had on hand. For the rest of the ingredients, I went to the bulk aisle at Whole Foods. I bagged up a little scoop of flax seeds, a big bag of sliced almonds, some unroasted, unsalted hulled sunflowers seeds, some dried apricots and crystallized ginger.

The rest of the recipe is really easy. Just whiz up the flax seeds in a spice grinder, and mix them with the oats, almonds, sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds. Next, I added some canola oil, pure maple syrup, and a little salt. I spread the mixture evenly on two baking sheets and put them in the oven for about a half-hour. About halfway through the cooking time, I stirred the granola and switched the position of the pans. While it cooked, the kitchen was filled with a great toasty, maple-y aroma. I was getting hungry already. I took the granola out of the oven, and while it cooled, I chopped up the dried apricots and the crystallized ginger and then mixed it in with the granola.

This was delicious granola. It was crunchy, chewy, sweet, but not too sweet. The Book says that the ginger is optional, but I couldn't imagine this granola without it's sparkling spicy kick. The maple flavor is subtle and a nice change of pace. We enjoyed this on yogurt (dairy- and soy-free coconut milk yogurt for my wife) for breakfast or a snack. Excellent. It was so easy, that I'll definitely try it again, and next time, I'll mix it up. Maybe I'll use dried cranberries instead of the apricots. I'll use walnuts or pecans instead of the almonds. The variations are pretty much endless.

This recipe makes a lot of granola, about ten cups. The Book says that it can be frozen, so I divided it into two large zip-top bags. One to eat now, and one to go in the freezer for later.

Date Cooked: July 11, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Easy
Rating: B+

178. Oatmeal Coconut Raspberry Bars (p. 692)

2009-07-28T07:51:00.000-04:00

A few weeks ago, it was my wife's turn to host playgroup. In theory, the purpose of playgroup is for the babies to get to interact with each other. But, I have a suspicion that it's at least as much about the moms getting together to gossip ... and to eat. So, I wasn't surprised when my wife asked me to make something for her to serve to "the girls." I picked this recipe, and hoped they'd like it.

These were great, and pretty easy to make. In fact, I made them on a weeknight, which is a pretty good measure of how simple a recipe is. I usually get home from work pretty late, so, if I'm going to make something before bed, it's got to be quick and easy.

First, I toasted some sweetened, flaked coconut. After some less than stellar results in the past, I'm finally getting the hang of toasting coconut in the oven. The key is to stir it a couple of times while it toasts, and to keep a very close eye on it, since it can burn in a matter of seconds. Next, I pulsed together some flour, brown sugar and white sugar in the food processor. I added some cold butter, cut up into pieced, and pulsed it until a dough began to form. Then I transferred the dough to a large mixing bowl, and using my hands, kneaded in some old-fashioned oats and the toasted coconut.

To assemble the bars, I pressed the dough into the bottom of a baking dish, reserving some for the topping. I spread some seedless raspberry jam over the dough, and then sprinkled the reserved dough over the jam.

After the bars were baked, I removed them from the pan. The Book says to "loosen from sides of pan with a sharp knife, then lift out in 1 piece and transfer to a cutting board." Hmmm, sounds like a disaster in the making. So, to make it easier to remove the bars from the pan, I made an aluminum foil "sling." Before I put the dough into the pan, I lined it with the foil and let the foil overhang the edges of the pan. I was able to just lift the foil sling out of the pan and then cut the bars into 24 pieces.

These bars were delicious. Very sweet, and with a nice crunchiness from the oats and coconut, and a rich gooeyness from the jam. I think that the moms at playgroup liked them. I brought the leftovers to work, where they were gobbled up in a matter of minutes.

Date Cooked: July 6, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Easy
Rating: A

177. Papaya Pineapple Salsa (p. 897)

2009-07-27T07:34:00.001-04:00

I used to think that I didn't like fruit salsas. But, this recipe* is the second fruit salsa I've made from The Book, and they were both better than I thought they'd be. (The other one I've made is the Strawberry Salsa that I made last summer.)

The recipe's instructions are deceptively easy. "Stir together all ingredients in a large bowl." That's it. But, that's not really all there is to it. You have to peel, seed and dice two pounds of papayas (be careful, they're slippery!), and you have to peel, core, and cut a pineapple.

The Book calls for a scallion and a half of a garlic clove. I'm generally suspicious about recipes that call for raw garlic, it can tend to overwhelm the dish. That's why I decided to try to substitute chopped garlic scapes for both the garlic and the scallion. The flavor is similar to, but milder than, garlic and onions. But it was not a success. The flavor was very bland. So, I tried to salvage it by adding a little bit of minced garlic and some chopped white onion. That seemed to do the trick, but something was still missing. What this salsa really needs is some heat to offset the sweetness of the fruit. If I were to make this again, I'd add a minced serrano chile, or at least a jalepeno to, as Emeril would say, "kick it up a notch."

I served it with tortilla chips, but as The Book suggests, I'm sure it would also be good as an accompaniment to grilled pork or swordfish.

Date Cooked: July 5, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Easy
Rating: B

* The recipe on epicurious.com is the same as the one in The Book, except that The Book's recipe has twice the papaya.

176. Sour Cherry Crostata (p. 779)

2009-07-24T22:42:00.000-04:00

Nothing says Fourth of July better than cherry pie. I decided to make this recipe for our family's Fourth cookout with some sour cherries I had kicking around in my freezer since last summer. But this isn't your usual cherry pie. In fact, it isn't a pie at all. It's a crostata, a tart made with Italian pasta frolla, a shortbread-like dough that's sweeter, and more cookie-like than regular pie crust.

First, I made the pasta frolla. I beat some softened butter and sugar in my Kitchen Aid for a few minutes. Using a fork, I lightly beat an egg and put all but one tablespoon of it into the batter (the reserved tablespoon is for an egg wash on the top of the crust after the pie is assembled). Then I beat in some vanilla extract, flour, salt and lemon zest. I stopped beating once it formed a crumbly dough. I gathered it up into a ball, divided it up into two pieces, flattened them into discs and put them in the refrigerator to firm up.

Next, I made the filling. I heated some butter in a deep skillet and added the frozen cherries and some sugar. (The Book calls for either fresh cherries or frozen ones that are not thawed.) I cooked the cherries until they were soft but still intact, and had exuded a lot of their juices. Then, I mixed together some cornstarch and water and stirred it into the hot cherries and brought it to a boil. The cornstarch had the desired effect of thickening the filling, but it also had an undesired effect of making some big congealed chunks of cornstarch. (Maybe I didn't stir it enough or fast enough while it boiled?) Anyway, I was able to pick out most of the clumps, so it turned out OK. I spread the filling into a shallow dish and put it in the refrigerator to cool while I rolled out the dough.

I took one of the dough disks out of the fridge and put it between two pieces of wax paper and rolled it out into about a 12-inch circle. I really liked rolling the dough out this way. I didn't have to mess with flouring the board or rolling pin. It didn't stick to the work surface, and it didn't crack or break. I don't see why you couldn't roll out regular pie crust this way, too. I'm going to give it a try next time. After I rolled out the dough, I peeled off the top layer of wax paper and inverted the dough into a removable-bottomed tart pan. I folded the overhand over and pressed it into the sides of the tart pan to reinforce the edge. I put the tart shell back in the fridge and took out the other dough disk. I rolled it out the same as the first, cut it into ten one-inch wide strips, and put it back in the fridge for a few minutes to get them nice and firm.

Meanwhile, I put a foil-lined baking sheet into the oven and pre-heated it. I filled the chilled tart shell with the cherry filling and arranged the pasta frolla strips in a diagonal lattice. I brushed the lattice with the reserved egg and sprinkled the top of the tart with sugar. I baked the tart for about an hour. The long cooking time meant that there was a little over-browning on the edges of the crust (hello pie shields!) and some bubbling over of the filling (hence to baking sheet).

The Book says that this crostata tastes best the day it's made, but I made it the day before our Fourth of July cookout, and it was great. The crust was sweet and crisp and light. The little bit of lemon zest in the crust gave it an unexpected zip. The filling was excellent. Sweet and thick and full of delicious cherry flavor. And it looked great. It was a real hit at the cookout. Even my nephews, who never eat dessert (kids who don't like dessert? go figure), were all over it.

Date Cooked: July 4, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Medium
Rating: A-

175. Braised Radishes with Raspberry Vinegar (p. 574)

2009-07-19T20:58:00.000-04:00

If you're like me, you usually eat radishes raw, either sliced up in salads or with a little butter and salt, like the French eat them. But when I got a nice big bunch of fresh radishes in my CSA box, I decided to try this recipe* for braised radishes.

First, I washed and trimmed the radishes and arranged them in a single layer in a skillet. I mixed together a little sugar, some water, raspberry vinegar, and a little bit of salt and olive oil (The Book calls for a tablespoon of butter, but I used olive oil instead because my wife still can't eat dairy. I don't think the substitution harmed anything.) I poured the mixture over the radishes and brought it to a boil. Then I reduced the heat, covered the pan and simmered it for a little while. I took off the cover and simmered for a bit longer until the radishes were tender enough to pierce with a fork. I removed the radishes from the skillet and put them in a bowl. I boiled the cooking liquid until it was quite reduced and then poured it over the radishes. I seasoned them with a little bit of salt and pepper and sprinkled some finely chopped garlic scape tips on the top. The Book calls for chives, but I was looking for things to do with the garlic scapes I got in the CSA box, and the fine, tender tips of the scapes reminded me of chives in flavor and appearance.

This isn't a bad way to eat radishes. They look beautiful. The braising rounds out the sharp edges of the radishes' flavor. The raspberry vinegar give the dish a bit of a sweet and sour effect but they tasted a little pickle-ish. Not my very favorite dish, but certainly not bad.

Not part of the recipe, but I thought that I'd mention that I made a little salad from the radish greens. (Thanks for the tip, Ryan!) Since I knew the radish greens would be pretty bold (peppery with some bitterness), I wanted to pair them with a substantial dressing. So, I adapted the blue cheese dip I made for the buffalo wings I made a while back. I made it more of a dressing and less of a dip by adding extra yogurt. It was delicious. The creamy tang of the dressing was a nice pairing for the greens, and made for a nice change of pace for lunch.

Date Cooked: July 3, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Easy
Rating: B+

* This recipe isn't on epicutious.com

174. Dandelion Salad with Warm Pecan Vinaigrette (p. 137)

2009-07-14T22:17:00.000-04:00

There's been a lot of talk lately about the benefits of locally-produced food. Heck, they just added the word "locavore" to the dictionary. And while the jury's still out on the environmental superiority of local food, I still prefer to buy local whenever I can. First, I like to support local small businesses. Next, there's something to be said for knowing the people who make your food and where it comes from. Finally, local food is fresh and in season, it has to be, and that means that it tastes better, which really makes all the difference.

Some people have taken the "eat local" movement to the extreme, like Barbara Kingsolver, whose Animal, Vegetable, Miracle chronicles her family's year of eating only food they produced themselves or obtained from local producers. I loved the book, but I can't bring myself to follow in her footsteps all the way. (I'm sorry, but I just can't give up bananas and oranges. Import the stuff that's worth importing, I say.) And I don't have the space, sun, or time to grow my own vegetables. But, I still do what I can to eat more locally-produced food. I patronize my local food producers, Mann Orchards and Raymond's Turkey Farm. I visit the Manchester Farmers' Market near my office. And this year, I'm participating in a CSA.

If you haven't heard, CSA or "community supported agriculture" is an agricultural business model in which people purchase "shares" of a local farm's seasonal production. Each week during the growing season, the CSA members get a box full of whatever's growing on the farm. The CSA members share in the risks and rewards of the farm. The amount and variety of the produce in the week's box will depend on factors like weather and pests. CSAs have grown in popularity in the last couple of years, and in my area, there are many to choose from. Local Harvest is a good source for information on finding CSAs near you.

My CSA share is arleady paying dividends for The Project. Some of the ingredients called for in The Book are hard to find in the grocery store. In the first two weeks of the growing season, my CSA share has given me two such ingredients: purslane (watch for the post coming soon), and the dandelion greens I needed for this recipe.*

First, I washed the dandelion greens, trimmed off any thick stalks and chopped them into large, bite-sized pieces and put them in a bowl. Then I cooked some chopped garlic and chopped pecans in some olive oil, stirring until the garlic was golden. I stirred in some balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper, and drizzled the hot dressing over the greens.

This was a delicious salad. The greens were crisp and fresh with a nice peppery bite, but not at all bitter. The dressing was excellent. The nuts and balsamic vinegar gave the dressing a nice sweetness and depth. The garlic was just right, fragrant but not overpowering. I also liked the interplay between the cold greens and the warm dressing.

Date Cooked: July 3, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Easy
Rating: A-

*The recipe on epicurious.com is very similar to the one in The Book, but it uses hazelnuts instead of pecans.

173. Peanut Butter-Coconut Bars (p. 693)

2009-07-13T21:54:00.000-04:00

This is the third peanut-butter-based dessert recipe I've made from The Book, and I'm sorry to report, that this recipe was nearly as disappointing as the other two.

First, I creamed some softened butter and sugar. Next, I added some Skippy regular creamy peanut butter, an egg, some vanilla, a bit of salt and some flour. Finally, I stirred in some sweetened flaked coconut.

I spread the mixture into a buttered baking dish and sprinkled some chopped, salted, dry-roasted peanuts on top. I baked the bars for about 20 minutes and then put them on a rack to cool.

The Book says to cut the bars into 24 pieces, and then to cut each in half diagonally to make 48 small triangles. After I cut the pieces in the picture above, I stopped cutting because they kept falling apart. That's right, just like the two different kinds peanut butter cookies I've already made from The Book, these bars were pretty dry and crumbly. But, maybe it's just me. I brought the bars to work and they disappeared quickly. A lot of people said that they were good, and not dry at all. Either I'm too picky, or my co-workers are too polite.

The flavor was pretty good, though. Plenty of peanut taste. I think that they would have tasted better, though, if the coconut had been toasted a little bit before it was stirred into the batter.

Date Cooked: June 26, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Easy
Rating: C

172. Baked Figs with Grand Marnier and Whipped Cream (p. 804)

2009-07-11T23:48:00.001-04:00

I don't usually see fresh figs in the stores, so, when I spotted some a couple of weeks ago at Mann Orchard, I picked up a pint and figured that I'd find something to do with them. I picked this recipe because I it looked quick and I had all of the other ingredients on hand.

First I pricked the bottoms of the figs with a fork, then I arranged them in an ovenproof skillet. I sprinkled the figs with a good amount of sugar and added a bit of water to the pan. I put them in the oven and baked them for about a half hour, spooning the juices over the figs a couple of times while they cooked.

I moved the pan to the stovetop, added some Grand Marnier and brought it to a boil. And now for the dramatic climax of this recipe. The Book says to "Remove from heat and carefully ignite pan juices." Well, wouldn't you know it, my flambe wouldn't flame. I tried to light it a couple of times, and nothing. Not sure what the problems was. I've flambeed before. Maybe I boiled the Grand Mariner too long and too much of the alcohol cooked off. A bit dejected, I transferred the figs to a serving bowl and boiled down the juice until it was quite reduced and nice and thick and syrupy. I spooned the syrup onto the figs and set them aside while I made the whipped cream, which is heavy cream, sugar and a bit of Grand Marnier.

This is an impressive and elegant dessert. Just look at that picture. The colors are stunning. And the flavor is just great, too. Figs are luxurious and rich. Baking them gives them a nice softness without being mushy. The syrup is sweet, rich and silky with a hint of orange flavor from the Grand Marnier. It was a bit boozy, but I think that had something to do with my flambe failure. The whipped cream was excellent. It was creamy and sweet with an unexpected orangy-boozy kick. This whipped cream would even be excellent with some plain berries.

Date Cooked: June 26, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Medium
Rating: A-

171. Mexican Corn Soup (p. 86)

2009-07-07T22:09:00.001-04:00

Summer's here, and that means a bigger selection of beautiful fresh (and sometimes local!) vegetables at the grocery stores and farm stands. One of the greatest summer vegetables is fresh corn, and this recipe* lets it shine.

First, I cooked some garlic, chopped onion and jalapenos in some olive oil. I added some cumin, coriander, salt and pepper, and chopped carrots and celery and cooked it for a while longer.

I shucked eight ears of corn and cut the kernels off the cobs. I put the cobs, some water and chicken stock in the pot and simmered it for a few minutes. This step seemed a little unusual to me at first, but when I thought about it, it made perfect sense. The corn cobs gave the finished soup a boost of corny flavor and a nice creaminess. I added all but one cup of the corn kernels and simmered it for a few minutes more. After the soup was finished simmering, I fished out the corncobs with some tongs and discarded them.

While the soup was simmering, I put a red bell pepper under the broiler, turning it frequently until it was nice and charred. I put the pepper into a zip-top bag to steam for a little bit, and then peeled off the skin (it slips right off), and chopped it and set it aside.

I blended the soup in batches in my blender. (I'm getting pretty good at the whole hot-soup-in-the-blender thing. All it takes is some self confidence. Put a towel over the blender cover, clamp down on the cover with your hand, and hold on for dear life!) The Book says that for an even smoother soup, you can force the blended soup through a fine-mesh sieve. I was pretty happy with the texture, so I skipped this optional step.

I blanched the reserved cup of kernels in some boiling water for just a couple of minutes, and then added the corn to the soup along with the chopped roasted pepper, a dash of cayenne, and a nice handful of chopped cilantro.

This was an excellent soup. It was sweet and creamy with just a suggestion of heat from the jalapeno and cayenne. The whole corn kernels and chopped cilantro gave it a very nice and bright freshness. Summer in a bowl.

Date Cooked: June 26, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Medium
Rating: A-

* This recipe isn't on epicurious.com.

170. Buffalo Chicken Wings (p. 54)

2009-07-04T22:11:00.001-04:00

I've seen a buffalo or two at a zoo somewhere along the way (nothing like Teena's recent experience of getting stuck in traffic as a herd of them crossed the highway). But as best as I can remember, they don't have wings. Or do they?

Of course they don't. Everyone knows that Buffalo wings are chicken wings, but not just any chicken wings. This recipe comes from The Anchor Bar in Buffalo, New York, the place that claims to have invented them in 1964. Not surprisingly, in Buffalo, they're just called "wings." Makes sense. Here in New England, we just call it "chowdah," not "New England Clam Chowder."

First, I made the blue cheese dip. (What are Buffalo wings without blue cheese dip?) I whisked together two parts mayonnaise and one part plain yogurt and then stirred in some crumbled blue cheese. I used twice as much blue cheese as The Book called for. What can I say, I love the stuff. This was an excellent dip. Just the right consistency, not too thick, not too thin. Nice and creamy with the tang of the yogurt and the bite of the blue cheese. This dip would also be excellent on a wedge salad. Yum!

Next, the wings. The Anchor Bar deep fries them, but The Book gives the option of frying or grilling. I chose to grill mine. I cut the wings in half (after I cut off and discarded the wing tips). I grilled them for a few minutes on each side on a preheated, lightly oiled gas grill. As the wings were grilling, I mixed some melted butter, Frank's Red Hot sauce, and cider vinegar in a great big bowl. I put the grilled wings in the bowl and tossed to coat them with the sauce.

I served the wings, with the traditional celery sticks, at my niece's middle-school graduation cookout (congratulations, Alex!). They were great! I'm sure that all of the Buffalo wings I've had at restaurants have been fried. I really prefer them grilled. They have a nice crispiness and that great grilled flavor. The little bit of butter in the sauce gives them just that extra richness and smooths out the flavor. These wings weren't too spicy (actually, they weren't spicy enough for my tastes, but they're good for a mixed crowd).

Date Cooked: June 25, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Easy
Rating: A

169. Frangipane Tart with Strawberries and Raspberries (p. 778)

2009-07-03T16:46:00.001-04:00

It's strawberry season, and my go-to source for locally-grown produce, Mann Orchards, has been carrying beautiful fresh strawberries lately (the smallish, vibrantly red ones, not those humongous white-fleshed genetically-altered monstrosities that they sell at the mega-mart). I bought a few pints and went straight to The Book to find a good strawberry dessert and decided on this recipe.

The last strawberry tart I made, from Julia Child's MtAoFC, had a sweet, sugar-cookie-like crust and was filled with pastry cream. This tart, however has a Basic Pastry Dough crust and a frangipane filling. Frangipane, an almond-flavored pastry filling, is named after a 16th century Italian nobleman, the Marquis Muzio Frangipani, who was famous for his almond-scented glove purfume. Glove purfume? Really?

First, I made the tart shell. I rolled out the dough, fit it into a removable-bottomed fluted tart pan, and ran the rolling pin over the pan's rim to make a nice edge. (I actualy had to roll out the dough twice. For some reason, it fell apart the first time. I decided to ball the dough up and start over again. Worked out much better on the second try.) The Book says to put the tart shell in the refrigerator for an hour to chill it. I was in a hurry, so I put it in the freezer for ten minutes (same thing, right?). I pricked the tart shell with a fork, put some foil over it and filled the foil with some dried kidney beans that I use (and reuse) as pie weights. I baked it for a while, removed the foil and weights and baked it for a bit longer. I set the tart shell aside to cool for a bit and made the frangipane.

I beat together some sugar and softened butter in my Kitchen Aid stand mixer. That's right, folks, my wife gave me a 5-quart Artisan Series mixer as a tenth-anniversary gift. Sure, she got a diamond ring, but I still think that I made out pretty well. I've wanted a stand mixer for a long time, and I know that I'm going to give it a real workout. Once the butter and sugar were creamed, I added an egg, some almonds that I'd ground up in the food processor, a bit of almond extract, and some flour and salt. (I didn't have any amaretto on hand, so I skipped this optional ingredient.) Once the frangipane was all nicely blended, I spread it in the tart shell. I put the filled tart in the oven and baked it for a while until the frangipane was golden and a little puffy.

Once the tart was cool, I sliced my strawberries and arranged them in concentric circles on top of the frangipane. Finally, I melted some seedless strawberry jam and brushed it on top of the tart. Now, you're probably saying, "this recipe is called Frangipane Tart with Strawberries and Raspberries. Where are the raspberries?" I left them out. You got a problem with that? I'm sure that they would have been delicious, but I really wanted to let my fresh, ripe strawberries be the star of this dessert.

This was a delicious tart. The crust was crisp, flaky and buttery. I was a little concerned that the rolling and re-rolling was going to make it less flaky, but no worries. The frangipane was sweet, rich and almond-y. And the strawberries? Perfect. Nothing better than fresh, local fruit in season.

Date Cooked: June 21, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Medium
Rating: A-

The Book before The Book

2009-07-01T20:57:00.018-04:00

A few weeks ago, I was flipping through The Book looking for something to make for Father's Day. I absent-mindedly stopped at the Preface. Now, I'm sure that I read Ruth Reichl's introductory essay before I started The Project, but the first few lines apparently didn't register with me until now.

"The book that taught me to cook was a big brown leather-covered tome with The Gourmet Cookbook stamped in gold on the front. I called it 'the Book,' but to a little girl in the fifties, it was more than that."

What? But I thought that I was reading The Gourmet Cookbook? The Book was published in 2004, not the 1950s. It's yellow, not brown. Was Ruth mistaken? I needed to get to the bottom of this, so I put The Book aside and pulled up Google. I typed "Gourmet Cookbook 1950s" in the search window. After a few minutes, I had learned that, in 1950, as Gourmet Magazine was approaching its tenth anniversary, the magazine's editors decided to publish a cookbook "based on the cream of the recipes that had appeared in the magazine during the first decade of its existence." A few years later, in 1957, the editors published a second volume of The Gourmet Cookbook, meant to be a companion to the 1950 book, but at the same time "a complete and independent cookbook in itself." Whereas Volume I is a broad-based general cookbook, Volume II delves deeper into "pastry making a la francaise, outdoor cookery, and the accouterments of the grand buffet." After a number of printings, the editors undertook a complete revision, and in 1965, they published a second edition of the two volumes. (The early 1960s also saw the publication of a couple of other Gourmet books: The Gourmet Menu Cookbook and The Gourmet Basic French Cookbook.)

I had to get my hands on these books. My local library was no help. But e-bay came through. I found a set of the 1965 second edition available in an auction set to end in a couple of days. My first instinct was to lunge and make a "buy it now" offer, but I decided to play it cool. There were no bids yet, and the minimum bid was $9.99. I stalked the auction, checking it almost hourly as the end-date approached. A few hours before the auction ended, there were still no bids. I could smell victory. With only minutes left in the auction, I typed my bid into the dialogue box. After a few tense moments, and for the bargain price of $9.99 plus shipping, I was the proud owner of The Book's mama and papa.

A few days later, a great big brown-paper package (not tied up with string, but that's OK) was waiting for me when I got home from work. I tore the package open, and there they were. The pages were slightly yellowed and had that faint, mildewy high-school library scent. They are both big, heavy, and more than 700 pages each.

If The Gourmet Cookbook is the food Bible, the 1965 edition is the Old Testament. The pages are crammed with recipes written with an economy of words. The recipe for French Onion Soup, for example is only six sentences long. Notably absent, however, is the list of ingredients that precedes recipes in modern cookbooks. The recipes in Volume I and II are written in paragraph form, in the style of the classical cookbooks like Escoffier's. Apparently, ingredient lists, like those printed in the margins of Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking (1961), were still innovative in the 1950s and 60s. The books are also liberally illustrated with red ink line drawings, and lush, if somewhat corny, technicolor photographs. For instance, the photo of Caneton a la Orange au la Bigarade (Duck with Orange) includes a creepy prop ceramic duck sitting uncomfortably beside its cooked cousin. And the photo of Chocolate Bavarian Cream is decorated with a statute of Napoleon and a model of the Arc de Triomphe.

As I sat on the sofa flipping through Volume I, my wife asked me, "So, are you going to cook through that book, too?" Just then, I happened to stop flipping at page 473. I looked down at the page, and without hesitating for a moment, I answered, "No, I am not going to cook through this book." The recipe I had stopped at was for Ours Grand Veneur, or "Bear Huntsman Fashion." That's right, a recipe for roast bear loin. Apparently, "bear flesh is rich, sweet, and delicious." I don't think that they carry it at Stop & Shop, though. But if you don't like your bear "huntsman fashion," perhaps one of the three other bear recipes will appeal to you. What's that, bear's not your thing? That's OK. There are six pages of recipes for venison, two recipes for woodchuck, and six for frog's legs.

So, while I won't be making Brunswick Stew any time soon ("Cut 2 plump young squirrels into serving pieces..."), I know that I'm going to enjoy flipping through the pages of these books for ideas and inspiration.

168. Summer Fruit Salad with Mint Sugar (p. 167)

2009-07-01T07:45:00.000-04:00

I made this recipe to bring to a cookout with my wife's "moms group." It's just a simple fruit salad of cherries (pitted and sliced), peaches (pitted and sliced) and green grapes (seedless and sliced). But being a Gourmet recipe, it has a special touch that takes it from ordinary to extraordinary. That special touch is the mint sugar.

I took about a quarter-cup of packed whole fresh mint leaves and three tablespoons of granulated sugar and whizzed it up in the food processor. The mint leaves got finely chopped and fully incorporated with the sugar. When I opened the food processor, I was pleasantly surprised by the intense, sweet mint aroma. All of the mint's essence was released by the processing with the sugar. It had the smell of those LifeSavers Wint-O-Green mints, but it was a fresher, and even more intense scent. Awesome!

Right before we left for the cookout, I sprinkled the mint sugar over the fruit and gently stirred it to coat all of the fruit. As the fruit sat, the sugar combined with the fruit's juices to make a light, sweet and minty syrup. This was a delicious and simple fruit salad, and just the thing if you're looking for something a little different. The only drawback is that at first glance, the fruit salad looks like it's been sprinkled with dried oregano.

Date Cooked: June 14, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Easy
Rating: A

167. Old-Fashioned Potato Salad (p. 148)

2009-06-30T07:42:00.002-04:00

My sister-in-law makes the best potato salad in the world. I'm serious. It's death-row-last-meal good. The potatoes are tender but not mushy. The vegetables (carrots, celery, green peppers, and onion) are crisp and sweet. The layer of sliced hard-boiled eggs on top is sunny and bright. And, most important, the mayonnaise ratio is exactly right. No family cookout is complete without her perfect potato salad.

I had great expectations for this recipe. Maybe I set my hopes too high, because it just didn't measure up to my sister-in-law's potato salad.

First, I peeled a couple of pounds of Yukon gold potatoes and cut them into one-inch pieces. I boiled them for a while until they were tender but not too soft. I'll admit that I cut a corner here. The Book says to cook the potatoes "in their jackets," and peel and cut them after they've cooled a bit. I usually try to follow The Book's instructions exactly, even if I think that they're fussy or a waste of time. But the day I made this recipe, I was a bit overwhelmed. I attempted to make six recipes from The Book for the same meal, and as lunchtime came and went with food still not on the table, I had to compromise. The Book says that its cooking method results in a better texture. But in my opinion, the texture of the potatoes was not the problem with this salad.

After the potatoes were cooked, I tossed them with some cider vinegar and salt. Next I added some chopped celery, white onion and a cup of mayonnaise. I topped it off with some sliced hard boiled eggs.

This potato salad could have been good. The potatoes, even though I didn't cook them the way The Book wanted me to, were good. The eggs gave it a nice richness. The celery gave it a nice crunch. The white onions (which are a lot milder than yellow or red onions) gave it a nice sweetness and bite. But, there was way too much mayonnaise in this salad. It was swimming in the stuff. The next time I make this salad, I'm going to use about half as much mayonnaise, and I'm going to add more vegetables, like carrots and green peppers.

Date Cooked: June 13, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Easy
Rating: B-

166. Foolproof Grilled Chicken (p. 363)

2009-06-29T08:04:00.001-04:00

I have a little bit of a problem with The Book's use of "foolproof" in the titles of several of its recipes. It's the same problem that I have with the "... For Dummies" and "Idiot's Guide ..." Books. You see, by calling this recipe Foolproof Grilled Chicken, The Book is telling me, "this recipe is so easy, not even a fool like you could botch it." I don't appreciate being called names.

But, after tasting this chicken, I got over myself. It's good enough to endure a little bit of name-calling.

The key to this recipe is brining the chicken. I know, I know, brining sounds like a pain in the neck--and it is--but, in this case, it made some pretty darn good chicken. First, I boiled a whole lot of salt and some sugar in a large pot of water for fifteen minutes. Then I cooled it compltely. Maybe some food scientist (are you out there Harold McGee?) could explain why it was so important to boil salt and sugar for fifteen minutes only to cool it completely. I figured I'd just trust The Book on this one. I put six pounds of chicken parts (I cut up a whole chicken rather than buying pre-cut parts) into the brine, covered it, and put it into the refrigerator for six hours.

Remember how I was saying that brining is a pain in the neck? Yeah, well, The Book says that you can brine the chicken a day in advance, but you still have to remove the chicken from the brine after six hour. I suppose leaving the chicken to soak in a saltwater bath for longer than that would be a bad thing. Well, I finally got the chicken into the brine at 10 o'clock on a Friday night. So, all you need to do is count to six to realized that, when my wife got up at 4 o'clock on Saturday morning to feed Jack, I had to get up, too, to take the chicken out of the brine. The things I do for The Project!

The Book gives instructions for cooking the chicken on either a charcoal grill or a gas grill. I've been wanting a nice Weber charcoal grill for a while, but for the time being, I've been using a gas grill (also a Weber, and we're pretty happy with it). I cranked the heat up all the way to pre-heat the grill for about ten minutes. I seared the meat for a little while, and then turned the heat down just a bit to cook the rest of the way.

There's another thing, besides the brining, that makes this recipe different from other grilled chicken recipes. The Book says to coat the cooked chicken in a Asian-inspired vinaigrette made with cilantro, mint, garlic, red pepper flakes, lime juice and fish sauce. I didn't make the vinaigrette and I didn't coat the cooked chicken with it. To be honest, I just ran out of time and decided to skip it. There may be some sticklers out there who'll say that I don't get to check this recipe off the list because I didn't make the vinaigrette. Well, this is my Project, and I get to say what counts as a recipe. I got out of bed at 4 o'clock in the morning to take the chicken out of the brine, so gosh darn it, I'm counting this one. (But, grilled chicken coated with Asian vinaigrette sounds pretty good, and I'm sure that I'll come back to this recipe some summer day.)

The chicken was excellent. The brining really did make a difference and was worth the extra effort (although I could have timed it better.) The chicken was nice and crispy and grill-makred on the outside, and tender and flavorful on the inside. Even the wings, which are usually the last parts to go after every grabs the drumsticks and breasts, were really good. Since I had no vinaigrette, I served the grilled chicken with the Manchamantal Sauce I made to go with the pork kebabs. Like I said, the Manchamantal Sauce was like a tropical barbecue sauce, so it worked just as well with the chicken as it did with the pork.

Date Cooked: June 13, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Medium
Rating: A-

165. Grilled Pork Kebabs with Manchamantel Sauce (p. 483)

2009-06-27T09:35:00.002-04:00

Becky, my good friend from college, and her boyfriend, Brian, came over for lunch a couple of weekends ago to visit with my son, Jack. I haven't seen Becky in months, and I wanted to make something special for her and Brian. That, and I was really excited to have an opportunity to cook for meat-eaters. I've been wanting to make this recipe ever since Teena made it last month. It was not a disappointment.

This recipe was a fair amount of work spanning over two days because it required marinating the pork and making the sauce.

First, the marinade. I started by toasting some dried chilies in a cast iron skillet for about a minute. The Book calls for dried ancho chilies, but I used the dried red chilies that I had leftover from the Shrimp in Adobo Sauce I made a while ago. (That recipe called for anchos, too, but the dried red chilies worked out fine in that dish, so I figured they'd be OK in this dish, too.) It's really amazing how just a few seconds in a hot skillet makes the dry, brittle chilies plump and pliable. I slit the chilies up the middle, removed the seeds and ribs, and covered them in boiling water to soften them up some more. (I prepared enough of the dried chilies for the marinade and for the sauce, which also calls for them.)

I combined the chilies, which I had coarsely chopped, with some water, chopped onion, garlic, thyme, oregano, cumin, salt, crushed peppercorns, olive oil and lemon juice in the blender. I ran out of ground cumin when I made my Green Bean Salad with Pumpkin Seed Dressing, but I was relieved to find some whole cumin seeds kicking around in my spice rack. Since I needed to crush the peppercorns anyway, I pulled out my mortar and pestle and ground up the cumin seeds old-school. Pre-ground spices are a real convenience, but there's nothing like fresh-ground for intense flavor and aroma. I don't know that I'd do it all the time, but there really is a difference.

I poured the marinade in a zip top bag and added the pork kebabs. The Book calls for 2 1/4 pounds of pork tenderloin, cut into 1 1/2 inch cubes. After wandering around somewhat aimlessly in front of the pork case at McKinnon's butcher shop, I asked for some help. The butcher I talked with told me that I wanted to use thick-cut, boneless pork chops and cut them into pieces. Not sure if he sold me a bill of goods, but the pork chops worked out well, and I was satisfied. The Book says that the pork needs to marinate for at least six hours and up to 24. I put the pork in the marinade the day before and left it in the refrigerator overnight.

Next, I moved on to the manchamantal sauce. According to The Book, manchamantel is Spanish for "tablecloth stainer." With its deep rust color, I'm sure that the name is well deserved. We ate outside, however, and the tablecloths were safely tucked away in the linen closet.

The Book suggests making the sauce in advance because it takes a little bit of time. Considering that most of the recipes take me longer than the start-to-finish times listed in The Book, I wasn't going to ignore a suggestion like that, and I made it the night before. First, I cooked some garlic and chopped onion in oil until the onions were golden. I added some sugar and vinegar and cooked it a little while longer. Next I put the onion mixture into the blender with the rest of the chilies, some water, some chopped fresh pineapple (yeah, I cut up a whole fresh pineapple ... it's a little bit of work, but worth it), a banana, and some cinnamon, cloves and a bit more sugar. I blended it up until it was smooth (crossing my fingers the whole time in hopes that the noisy blender wouldn't wake my sleeping son). I put the sauce in the refrigerator.

The next day, I drained the pork and discarded the marinade. I threaded the pork kebabs on bamboo skewers, alternating with large pineapple chunks and wedges of red onion. I put the kebabs on the grill and cooked them until the pork was done.

This wasn't the quickest recipe, but it wasn't hard and it was pretty tasty. I think that I overcooked the pork just a bit ... it was a little tough. But, just the same, it was good. The grilled pineapple was excellent. The red onions, though, didn't cook as quickly as the pork and pineapple, so they were a little underdone. The machamantal sauce was great. I was a little apprehensive about combining chilies, onions, pineapple and banana, but it really works. The sauce was sweet and sour and a little spicy and smoky. The flavors all blended well, but I was still able to sense a hint here and there of the pineapple and banana flavor. It was like a tropical barbecue sauce. It was a perfect match for the pork, but it also worked well with the grilled chicken that I'll post about next.

Date Cooked: June 13, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Medium
Rating: A-

164. Green Bean Salad with Pumpkin Seed Dressing (p. 143)

2009-06-25T21:33:00.000-04:00

When my sister was little, she hated green beans. She'd do anything she could to avoid eating them. I don't know if she's changed her view on green beans now that she's an adult. If not, this recipe might just bring her around.

What makes this salad so special is the dressing. The Book calls it "Mexican Pesto." The key ingredient in the dressing is green pumpkin seeds. First, I toasted the seeds in a dry skillet for a few minutes. I set aside a handful of the seeds for a garnish, and whizzed up the rest with some extra-virgin olive oil, water, fresh lemon juice, garlic, ground cumin, and fresh cilantro. The result is a surprisingly smooth, creamy and delicious dressing.

Next, I cooked some fresh green beans in some salted, boiling water for a few minutes until just tender (don't let them get mushy!). The Book says to drain the beans and plunge them into ice water to stop the cooking. I drained them and ran them under cold water instead and I think that it worked just as well. I let the beans drain completely and I dabbed them with some paper towels to get rid of any extra moisture.

I tossed the beans with some of the dressing, spread them out in a dish, arranged some tomato wedges on top, and drizzled on the remaining dressing and sprinkled some chopped cilantro and the reserved pumpkin seeds on top.

I really liked this salad. First, it was a really attractive dish. The bright green and red colors are very appealing. Next, the flavor was excellent. The beans were crisp and fresh tasting. The dressing was creamy and delicious. The combination of the garlic, lemon and cumin is really nice, and the pumpkin seeds are a very mild component ... very similar to the pine nuts that, according to The Book, are an acceptable substitute.

Date Cooked: June 13, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Medium
Rating: A-

163. Lemon Pound Cake (p. 703)

2009-06-23T21:43:00.007-04:00

According to Merriam-Webster Online, "nonstick" means:

1: allowing easy removal of cooked food particles (a nonstick coating in a frying pan) 2: having a nonstick surface (a nonstick frying pan).

My nonstick bundt pan, however, gives the word a whole new meaning. If you've been following The Project, you know that I've had trouble with my nonstick bundt pan before. This time was no different. But even so, this recipe* makes one fine cake.

Just about every recipe I've seen for pound cake is accompnied by a quaint story about how, back in the days of yore, pound cake was made with a pound of flour, a pound of butter, a pound of eggs and a pound of sugar. But, then the recipe will proceed to give you a list of ingredients that doesn't resemble the traditional recipe at all. What gives? Besides the fact that you're left with a four pound cake, it must be a pretty rotten cake if all of the modern recipe writers have seen fit to tweak it.

The Book is no different in this respect. Instead of a pound, a pound, a pound, a pound, this recipe calls for a couple of cups of cake flour and sugar, a half pound of butter, a half-dozen eggs. There's also a little bit of salt, baking powder and milk. And because this is a lemon pound cake, there's a healthy dose of lemon zest and juice.

The Book says to spoon the batter into a kugelhopf pan. Well, I don't have a kugelhopf pan. So, I used my nonstick bundt pan. They're both German. Close enough, right? Maybe, but my nonstick bundt pan is out to get me. I even treated it like a non-nonstick pan this time. I buttered and floured the pan before putting the batter in. It still stuck. Oh well. But once I put the glaze on, it wasn't as ugly. The glaze is really easy, it's just some confectioner's sugar and a little bit of lemon juice whisked together.

Despite it's cosmetic problems, this was a really good cake. It was dense and moist. Substantial and sweet with a real zing of lemon flavor. Paired with some sliced strawberries, this is a bright and sunny summer dessert.

Date Cooked: June 6, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Medium
Rating: A-

* This recipe isn't on epicurous.com.

162. Moroccan-Style Roast Cornish Hens with Vegetables (p. 392)

2009-06-22T07:28:00.000-04:00

I don't know about you, but I usually associate Cornish hens with fussy, fancy, dainty dinners. Well, this Moroccan-inspired recipe ain't that. This is a bold, fragrant, hearty and flavorful meal that you'll love. I know that I did.

First, I made the marinade. I ground some caraway seeds in my electric spice grinder (The Book says you can crush them with a rolling pin or a heavy knife, too.) Then I mashed the caraway seeds into a paste with some minced garlic. I whisked the garlic-caraway paste together with some honey, lemon juice, olive oil, lots of paprika and even more cumin, some ginger, cinnamon, cayenne and black pepper.

I divided the marinade and tossed half of it with some zucchini, turnips, red pepper, butternut squash and onions, all cut up into chunks. I spread the veggies out into a roasting pan and set it aside for a while.

Then I rinsed and patted dry three 1 1/2 pound Cornish hens. (The Book calls for four hens to serve eight. I decided to make six servings for dinner two nights in a row and some leftovers for lunch.) Using some kitchen shears, and with much crunching of bones, I cut the backbones out of the hens and then cut the hens in half. After plunging live lobsters into boiling water, cutting small birds in half with scissors was nothing. (The Project is not for the faint of heart.) I coated the hen halves with the rest of the marinade and arranged them on top of the vegetables.

The Book says to cover the pan tightly with foil and roast for an hour. It was a really nice day out, so as soon as the birds went into the oven, my wife and I took my son out for a walk around the neighborhood. When we came back about a half hour later, I was pleased to see that the house hadn't burned down, but I was a little bit confused by the large can of tomatoes and the carton of chicken broth on the counter. Now, what did I buy those for? D'oh, I was supposed to stir them in with the vegetables before the hens went on top. So, the roasting pan came out of the oven, the hens went onto a baking sheet, and the tomatoes and broth were mixed into the vegetables. Better a half-hour late than never. Hens back into the roasting pan, roasting pan back in the oven. After an hour of covered roasting, I took the foil off and put the pan back into the oven for about another half hour.

This is a great dish. It looks great, it smells great and, even in spite of my mistake, it tastes amazing. First, the aroma. There is a lot of spice in this dish. The caraway, cumin, cinnamon and ginger fills the house with such a warm, inviting scent that you just know you're about to eat something delicious. And then there's the look of this dish. It's just gorgeous. The hens' skin is crispy and brown and the vegetables are a great blend of vibrant reds, oranges and greens. Finally, there's the taste. Amazing. The hens were moist and tasty, and the vegetables were tender and flavorful. The sauce could have been a bit thicker, but that was probably my fault because of the delayed addition of the tomatoes and broth.

The Book says to serve this over couscous. That would have been excellent, but rice (gluten free) worked just as well as "a vehicle for the flavorful broth." This would be a perfect dish for company. It'll make your guests rave, but it's pretty easy to make and most of the work can be done ahead of time. (The leftovers were tasty, too.) This is one of my favorites so far.

Date Cooked: June 6, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Medium
Rating: A

161. Yellow Split Pea Soup (p. 111)

2009-06-19T08:02:00.000-04:00

When I sat down to Easter dinner a few months ago, I was more than a little distracted. Sure there was a lot of great food and lively conversation in the dining room. But, my mind was back in the kitchen, where a great big, meaty ham bone rested on a cutting board, just begging to be turned into pea soup. I knew that I'd have to arm-wrestle my sister-in-law over the ham bone. Somehow, I persuaded her to let me take it in exchange for some pea soup.

With the zip-locked ham bone in hand, I left my sister-in-law's house on Easter Sunday a happy man. I put the ham bone in the fridge, and made this recipe the following weekend. Now, even though it's been a couple of months since I made this soup, I'm just writing about it now because I hadn't actually eaten any of it until about a week ago.

First, I rinsed some yellow split peas. Next, I combined the rinsed peas, some water, chopped onion, and the ham bone in a big pot and brought it to a boil. I skimmed off the yucky stuff, and reduced the heat and simmered it for about an hour.

Meanwhile, I sauteed some more chopped onion and some chopped leek in some butter. I added these sauteed vegetables to the soup with some fresh chopped chives, some dried savory, and salt and pepper. After another hour of cooking, I removed the ham bone, picked off whatever meat hadn't fallen off and added it to the soup.

Once the soup cooled, I divided it into four large containers. I gave one to each of my two sisters-in-law, and I put the other two in the freezer. Other than a spoonful to taste, I didn't eat any of the soup until I pulled one of the containers out of the freezer for lunch last week.

This soup was excellent. Thick, hearty, silky, salty and meaty. I'm sure that I'm going to fight for the ham bone next Easter, too, so that I can make this soup again.

Date Cooked: April 19, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Medium
Rating: A

160. Honeydew (and Canteloupe) in Rosemary Syrup (p. 806)

2009-06-18T07:10:00.002-04:00

When I think about rosemary, I usually think of chicken. And Simon and Garfunkle. But mostly chicken. Before I made this recipe, I would never have thought of pairing melon with rosemary and peppercorns.

This is probably one of the simplest of The Book's fruit dessert recipes. First, I made the rosemary syrup. I mixed some white wine, water, sugar, orange zest, fresh rosemary leaves and black peppercorns in a small saucepan. I brought it to a boil and cooked it for a few minutes. I strained it into a bowl (discarding the solids) and put it in the refrigerator to chill.

Meanwhile, using a melon baller, I cut melon balls from a honeydew and a cantaloupe. It's hard to make perfect-looking melon balls without wasting a lot of melon. So, a lot of the melon balls were somewhat misshapen. Oh, well.

When the syrup was chilled, I stirred some freshly-squeezed orange juice into it and combined the syrup with the melon.

I served the melon balls in small bowls garnished with little sprigs of rosemary. This dessert was a real surprise. I didn't quite know what to expect from mixing sweet melon with seasonings usually associated with savory foods (rosemary and black pepper). The fragrance of the rosemary was wonderful. The flavor was subtle and pleasant. The hint of rosemary and the barely noticeable bite of pepper nicely highlighted the melon. The syrup was light and not too sweet.

A nice, simple dessert for a sophisticated but healthy meal.

Date Cooked: May 30, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Easy
Rating: A-

159. Grilled Lobster with Orange Chipotle Vinaigrette (p. 338)

2009-06-17T07:54:00.000-04:00

I was flipping through the grocery store sale flyers a couple of weeks ago, when I saw that Market Basket was having a sale on lobstah! (I'm from Boston, in case you didn't know.)

I don't usually do my shopping at Market Basket, but I made an exception for cheap lobster. Whenever I go into Market Basket, I feel like I've entered a time warp. Sure, they sell Dora the Explorer Fruit Snax, and all of the other "current" food items, just like the Stop and Shop down the street. But, there's somthing different about Market Basket. Maybe it's because the bag boys still wear aprons over a white shirt and tie. Maybe it's because they still use sawdust to sop up spills on the floor. Maybe it's because their stores are still decked out in '60s decor. Or maybe it's just because it's where my mom did the grocery shopping when I was a kid. Anyway, bag in hand (with two 1 1/2 pound lobsters wriggling away inside), I stepped back into the twenty-first century to make to make this recipe.
I've eaten lobster hundreds of times. (I even ordered it in a restaurant when I was five years old!) But, I've never eaten it grilled, and I've never actually cooked it myself before. So, this was a new experience for me.

First, I par-cooked the lobsters. Now, I know that this is a touchy subject for some people. In fact, I recently read The Face on Your Plate, so I fully understand the need for the humane treatment of animals. But, I'm not ready to swear off meat, and I see little difference between quickly and efficiently dispatching a lobster in boiling water yourself and buying a steak made from a cow that met its maker at someone else's hands. So, I plunged the lobsters one at a time into the pot, and in a few minutes, they turned bright red. I only partially cooked them in the boiling water. They would finish on the grill.

Next, I made the Orange Chipotle Vinaigrette. I blended together some orange zest and juice, vinegar, chopped canned chipotle peppers in adobo, with some salt and sugar. With the motor running, I slowly poured some olive oil into the blender's top opening. Once it was nice and creamy and emulsified, I whisked in some chopped basil and divided the vinaigrette into two bowls (one for basting the lobster as it grilled, the other for drizzling on the final product).

While the grill preheated, I broke the claws and tails off the lobsters. Using kitchen shears, I cut the tails (still in their shells) in half lengthwise, and removed any nasty bits. First I put the claws on the grill, cooking them for a few minutes until liquid bubbled out of the ends. Meanwhile, I brushed some of the vinaigrette onto the tail meat and put the tails on the grill, shell side up. After a few minutes, I flipped them over, admired the nice grillmarks, and brushed some more vinaigrette onto the meat.

When the lobster was done, I served it with a green salad and more of the vinaigrette (to dress the meat and the salad). The lobster claws were awful! I don't know if it was the grilling, or if it was the lobsters themselves. The meat was dry, spongy, and pretty much inedible. The shells were incredibly hard, too, so I wonder if these were just tired lobsters who were due for a molting. The lobster tails, on the other hand, were excellent. The meat was tender, sweet and delicious. The grilling and the vinaigrette (with it's nice blend of the smoky heat of the chipotles, the citrus zing of the orange, and the slight licorice flavor of the basil) gave the lobster an excellent lift over the usual ... steamed with drawn butter.

The vinaigrette, however, was too heavy and overwhelming for the salad. (I can't blame this on Gourmet, since it was my idea to pair the lobster with a salad and to re-purpose the vinaigrette.)

The lobster tails were amazing, but that's really about all I liked about this dish. And even on sale, it was a lot of money to spend for a grilled lobster tail.

Date Cooked: May 30, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Medium
Rating: B+

It's my blogaversary!

2009-06-15T07:06:00.001-04:00

There are a lot of ways to measure a year. 12 months. 52 weeks. 365 days. About 8,700 hours. As for me, this past year was, among other things, 158 recipes.

A year ago, I set out to cook all 1,300-plus recipes in The Gourmet Cookbook. My wife thought I was crazy. I was optimistic, but unsure whether gourmetalltheway would end up as a one post wonder or one of the millions of orphaned blogs out there on the web (according to this New York Times story, approximately 95% of blogs haven't been updated in the past 120 days).

When I set out on this project, I had some expectations. I knew that I'd learn a lot about cooking, and that I'd eat a lot of good food. But, there were a lot of things that I didn't expect.

First was the food. Since I've determined to cook everything in The Book, I started out with some recipes that I would never have made otherwise. Strange sounding things like strawberry salsa, pickled carrot sticks, and watermelon rind chutney all turned out to be pretty good. Next was The Book's flexibility. When my son was born in December (the other, and by far most amazing, thing that happened to me over the past year), I thought that parenthood would mean the end of The Project. How would I ever have time to cook fancy food and help take care of a newborn? Well, The Book has so many great cook-ahead recipes that that I was able to spend a couple of hours in the kitchen on the weekend and we could eat like royalty all week (we still have some mushroom barley soup in the freezer). And then, when my son developed a food sensitivity that caused my wife (who is nursing) to swear off wheat, soy and dairy, I was again surprised by the number of recipes in The Book that work with my wife's dietary restrictions. But that biggest surprise of the project has been how it's helped me build and strengthen friendships. Through the project, I've become part of a community of food bloggers. I've met and befriended Melissa. And, my wife and I have gotten better about having friends and relatives over for dinner or a visit. Of course, having a new son to show off helps, too. But there's just something about sharing good food that brings people together.

At the rate that I'm going, about three recipes per week, it'll take me another eight years to finish The Project. And, you know what? That's OK. This Project is all about the journey. The destination is incidental.

Now, let's get cookin'.

157. Basic Polenta (p. 264) and 158. Broiled Polenta with Tomato Sauce (p. 266)

2009-06-09T07:23:00.001-04:00

According to The Book, Mediterranean cooking authority Paula Wolfert developed a "no stirring" method for making polenta. When I read this recipe* for basic polenta, with its instructions to stir the polenta for one minute every 10 minutes of the 45 minute cooking time, I assumed that The Book hadn't adopted Ms. Wolfert's method. But, considering that the traditional method would have you stir the polenta constantly for the entire cooking time, this method is, relatively speaking, "no stirring."

The polenta was really very easy to make. It just takes a bit of time. All I did was boil some water and salt and then whisked in some cornmeal. I reduced the heat, covered it and, as I said, stirred it for one minute every 10 minutes until it was very thick and creamy.

After I finished cooking the basic polenta, I moved on to this recipe for broiled polenta with tomato sauce.

First I divided the polenta in two. I stirred some grated fontina cheese into half of it (the other half was for my wife, who can't eat dairy for the time being). I put the polenta into two small rectangle plastic containers that I had brushed with some olive oil, and put it in the refrigerator to set. The Book says to use a bowl, but it seemed to me that the finished dish would work out better with rectangle slices than with dome-shaped wedges.

Next I made the sauce. First, I heated some olive oil and cooked come chopped onions and garlic. Then I added some canned Muir Glen organic whole tomatoes and cooked it until it they had broken down into a thick sauce.

By then, the polenta had set. I turned it out of the containers, and cut it into 3/4 inch slices. I put the polenta under the broiler and waited for it to get golden around the edges. I waited, and waited, and waited. The Book says that it should take about three minutes per side. But after more than ten minutes, it still hadn't browned. I don't know that the problem was, but it was late, I was hungry, and I couldn't wait any more, so I took the polenta out of the oven. Before I made this, I thought about grilling the polenta instead of broiling it. I wish I had.

Even though the polenta wasn't crispy, this was still a tasty simple supper. We ate it with some spicy Italian turkey sausage. The polenta was tender and flavorful. The fontina gave it a nice creamines and saltiness without being "cheesy." And even though my wife's polenta had no cheese at all, she still liked it very much. The sauce was pure and simple. If I were to make this in late summer, I'd use fresh local tomatoes for the sauce, but canned were good.

Date Cooked: May 25, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Medium
Rating: A-

*The recipe for basic polenta is not on epicurious.com. The recipe for the broiled polenta with tomato sauce includes its own recipe for basic polenta, but it's not the same as the one in The Book, and it does call for constant stirring.

156. Rhubarb Roulade (p. 720)

2009-06-07T21:44:00.000-04:00

I was a little nervous about making this recipe. I've never made a jelly roll before, and I was sure that it was going to be a disaster. But just look at that picture! I don't mean to brag, but I think it came out pretty darn good.

The other thing that surprised me about this recipe (the first thing being that I could actually pull it off) was that I learned that the thing that I've been calling a cookie sheet all these years is actually a jelly roll pan. Who knew?

The Book says to make the cake first and to make the filling while the cake cooks. But, because I was so nervous about the cake, I decided to make the filling first and get that out of the way.

Rhubarb is in season now, so I knew I'd be able to find some. I looked first at my usual source for local produce, but they had just run out of rhubarb. The mega-mart had it, though. The filling is very simple. It's just some finely chopped rhubarb and sugar cooked down into a sweet/tart puree. Once that was ready, I put it in the refrigerator to cool while I made the cake.

First, I prepared the pan but buttering it, lining it with wax paper, and buttering it again and dusting it with flour. Next I beat together some egg yolks, sugar and vanilla. I cleaned the beaters and beat some egg whites and sugar until they held stiff peaks (or at least a close approximation of stiff peaks). Then in alternating batches, I folded some flour and the egg whites into the yolk mixture until it was all incorporated.

I spread the batter out onto the jelly roll pan. At first it didn't look like it was going to be enough batter to cover the pan, but with a little bit of patience and some gentle spreading with a rubber spatula, it worked out. I cooked the cake until it was "pale and dry to the touch."

Now the scary part. I took the cake out of the oven, covered with a kitchen towel (to keep in some of the humidity?) and let it cool for just a few minutes on a rack. Next I spread the filling on the cake (I took the towel off first ... duh). Then, very carefully, and with my wife's assistance, I began rolling the cake. As I rolled, I peeled the wax paper off the bottom of the cake and used it to help me roll the cake as tightly as I could without breaking it. I gently lifted the rolled cake off the pan an put it on a platter and let it cool completely.

The Book says that you can make the filling a day ahead of time. I actually made the whole cake a day ahead of time. I wrapped it in plastic wrap and kept it in the fridge over night, sprinkled it with confectioner's sugar just before serving, and it was great.

This was a delicious cake. Perfect for a spring or summer meal. The cake is light, tender and airy (and relatively low-fat! no butter). But the filling is the real star of this cake. It's bright and sweet with that distinctive rhubarb puckery-ness. And the color! A really nice cake, and not that scary after all.

Date Cooked: May 23, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Medium
Rating: A-

155. Spicy Lemon-Marinated Shrimp (p. 45)

2009-06-04T21:31:00.001-04:00

How is The Book like Pvt. Benjamin Buford "Bubba" Blue? Well, as Bubba explained to Forrest Gump in one of the most memorable movie scenes ever, "shrimp is the fruit of the sea." And both Bubba and The Book know that shrimp can be prepared in innumerable delicious ways:

You can barbecue it, boil it, broil it, bake it, saute it. Dey's uh, shrimp-kabobs, shrimp creole, shrimp gumbo. Pan fried, deep fried, stir-fried. There's pineapple shrimp, lemon shrimp, coconut shrimp, pepper shrimp, shrimp soup, shrimp stew, shrimp salad, shrimp and potatoes, shrimp burger, shrimp sandwich. That- that's about it.

But, wait, there's more ... so far in The Project, I've made Cilantro Lime Shrimp, Shrimp in Adobo Sauce, Pad Thai, and now this recipe* for Spicy Lemon-Marindted Shrimp. And that's just the beginning. According to The Book's index, I've got twenty-five more shrimp recipes to make.

The Book says that this recipe is a new take on the classic Southern pickled shrimp. I've never had pickled shrimp, so this was new to me. But this spicy, tangy, briny preparation might just be one of my favorite ways of eating shrimp.

First, I took all of the zest off of a large lemon with a vegetable peeler. Then I squeezed the juice from the lemon and put it in a bowl with the zest. Next, I ground some coriander seeds in a spice grinder and added them to the bowl. I whisked it all up with some white wine vinegar, olive oil, water, sugar, and a whole lot of salt. Finally, I added some pepper flakes. The Book calls for Aleppo chili flakes, but says that "plain old red pepper flakes" are fine, too, so that's what I used.

Next, I added some pickling spices and a whole lot more salt to a pot of boiling water, and boiled some shelled, deveined shrimp for about 90 seconds until they were cooked through. (By the way, thanks for the advice on deveining. I bought "deveined" shrimp from the grocery store, but this time, I didn't remove the vein along the inner curve of the shrimp. I didn't notice any difference in the flavor, and it was a lot less work.) I drained the shrimp and let them cool a little bit.

Then, I put the shrimp in a zip-top bag with the marinade and let it sit in the refrigerator overnight (The Book says to marinate for at least eight hours and up to three days.) I drained the shrimp, put them on a platter and served them as a appetizer at my family's Memorial Day cookout. These shrimp were very tasty. Salty, but tasty. The flavors of the lemon and all of the pickling spices combined in zesty, sweet and sour, puckery deliciousness. I really enjoyed this one.

Date Cooked: May 23, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Easy
Rating: A

* The recipe on epicurous.com feeds fify and calls for ten pounds(!) of shrimp. Unless you're a caterer, go with the recipe in The Book.

154. Cranberry Pistachio Biscotti (p. 685)

2009-06-02T21:29:00.000-04:00

Before I made this recipe* from Italian baking authority Carol Field, I didn't know that the word biscotti was descriptive of the cooking method for these popular Italian cookies.

You see, biscotti comes from the Latin word biscoctum, meaning "twice-baked," and wouldn't you know, that's just how these cookies are made. For the first bake, the cookie dough is formed into a log and baked. For the second bake, the log is sliced into pieces and baked again until crisp and browned.

I started by soaking some dried cranberries in some boiling water to soften them a bit. Meanwhile, I buttered and floured a large baking sheet. To make the dough, I whisked some flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Then I beat in some eggs and vanila extract. Finally, I mixed in the cranberries and some shelled pistachios. I missed the part of the recipe that said to pat the cranberries dry after draining them. They were still pretty wet when I added them to the dough. It gave the dough an odd, wet, sticky texture. I was worried that I had ruined it, but it all worked out OK in the end. The Book says to turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead. But because of the dough's stickiness (and my impatience) I just kneaded it right in the bowl.

I divided the dough in half and formed it into two logs. I brushed the logs and baked them until golden. I let them cool a bit and, with a serrated knife, cut the loaves into half-inch slices. I arranged the slices on a baking sheet and put them back in the oven for the second bake.

These biscotti were very good. Just the thing to go with an afternoon cup of coffee. The dominant flavor was the vanilla, which really came through. I would have liked even more cranberries and pistachios to make them even more flavorful. The texture was nice, but I agree with Teena that the second baking could have been longer, since these biscotti were not as crunchy as others I've had. All in all, these were delicious and easy to make. I would definitely make these again.

The Book says that the biscotti keep in an airtight container at room temparature for up to a week. According to Wikipedia, Pliny the Elder said that biscotti would last for centuries. I think that the reality is somewhere in between. I took a few of these biscotti with me to work every day for almost two weeks, and the last one was just as tasty as the first.

Date Cooked: May 17, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Medium
Rating: A-

*This recipe is not on epicurous.com.

153. Malaysian-Style Chicken Curry (p. 359)

2009-05-30T21:36:00.001-04:00

Like a lot of people, when I go to Thai restaurants, I often go with the old standby, and order Pad Thai. Recently, I've ventured further afield in the menu choices, and I've become a fan of various curry dishes, especially green curry.

This recipe, from Malaysia, Thailand's neighbor to the south, reminded me of some of the better curries I've had at Thai restaurants.

First, I roughly chopped a whole lot of shallots, some garlic and ginger root. I pureed all of these ingredients in the food processor with a little bit of water to make a paste. A very pungent paste! When I took the lid off the food processor, the "fumes" from the shallots and garlic filled the kitchen and made my eyes water a little bit.

Next, I browned some boneless, skinless chicken breasts in my large Dutch oven. I transferred the browned (but not yet completely cooked) chicken to a plate. I turned the heat down and added the shallot/garlic/ginger paste, cooking for a bit and adding some curry powder. I returned the chicken to the pot and added a can of coconut milk and chicken broth. I also added a whole jalapeño chili, which I had made four slits in. Presumably, as the curry simmers, the jalapeño's heat gets infused into the sauce. I also added a cinnamon stick and one whole clove. The Book calls for one star anise, but my wife couldn't find any at the grocery store. She brought home some anise seed instead. At first, I said, it's not the same, but then I checked The Cook's Thesaurus, and learned that a 1/2 teaspoon of anise seed and a pinch of allspice will approximate a single star anise. I simmered it all together for a while until the chicken was cooked through. Then I took out the chicken and simmered the sauce for a bit longer to thicken. When I was done, I served the chicken and sauce over rice and sprinkled it with some fresh clinatro.

This is one of the best meals I've made from The Book so far. The chicken was so tender and flavorful. The sauce was fragrant and delicious. The coconut milk gave it just a touch of sweetness and a rich, velvety texture. The jalapeño and the other spices gave the dish a multi-layered flavor with just the right amount of heat (OK, I wouldn't have minded just a bit more heat). Even the cilantro on top wasn't just for looks. It perfectly finished off the dish with a bright clean note.

This dish remineded me of an excellent green curry that I get at a local Thai restaurant called Sweet Basil in Andover, Massachusetts. I will certainly make this dish again. It's a real keeper.

Date Cooked: May 17, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Medium
Rating: A

152. Prosecco and Summer Fruit Terrine (p. 811)

2009-05-28T19:01:00.002-04:00

When I first flipped through The Book, I spotted this recipe and decided that it would be a perfect Mother's Day dessert, so I filed it away in my memory bank. Well, this Mother's Day, we had a party for my son's dedication ceremony, and this fruit terrine fit in just right with the lunch buffet, and it was a nice alternative to the cake that we got from the bakery down the street.

First, I arranged four cups of mixed fruit in a 1 1/2 quart glass loaf pan. The Book suggests berries, peaches and grapes. I planned on using blueberries, peaches and white seedless grapes. It used to be that you could only get fresh "summer fruit" in, well ... summer. But, these days, you can get pretty much anything at pretty much any time. For the past few weeks, I've seen fresh peaches at my usual grocery store. But, of course, when I did my shopping for this recipe ... you guessed it, no peaches. (And, wouldn't you know it, the next week, they had hundreds of fresh peaches! Go figure.) So, with no fresh peaches, I had to improvise. I scanned the produce section to try to find a combination of fresh fruit that would go well together with each other and the prosecco. I wasn't really happy with any of the options, so I decided to go with canned peaches. I also decided to use some canned pears, too.

Next, I sprinkled some unflavored gelatin over some prosecco and let it stand for a little while in a small bowl. Then I boiled some more of the prosecco with some sugar and mixed it until the sugar is dissolved. I took it off the heat and added the gelatin mixture and stirred until dissolved. I added yet some more prosecco and some lemon juice and transferred the whole thing to a metal bowl set over a larger bowl full of ice. I allowed the mixture to cool to room temperature, stirring every now and then. This sounds like a lot of steps, but it was really easy and only took a few minutes.

I carefully poured the prosecco/gelatin/sugar mixture over the fruit, covered it with plastic wrap, and put it in the refrigerator overnight to set (The Book says that it needs at least six hours to set). The next day, just before serving, I unmolded the terrine by dipping the glass loaf pan in a larger pan of hot water to loosen it. It took a few tries, but eventually, the terrine slid out of the pan and onto the serving plate.

This dessert makes a stunning presentation. It is a colorful, mosiac of jewel-like fruit. Unfortunately, I wasn't as impressed with the serving and eating. First, there was so much fruit in the terrine and not enough of the prosecco gelatin that it didn't really keep its structural integrity when sliced. It wasn't a matter of the gelating not setting, it's just that there wasn't enough of it to hold the slices together. But worse, the flavor was only ho-hum. I had such great expectations for this dessert, and it didn't really live up.

Date Cooked: May 9, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Easy
Rating: B+

151. Hummus with Toasted Pine Nuts, Cumin Seeds, and Parsley Oil (p. 14)

2009-05-25T09:24:00.000-04:00

The Book introduces this recipe by saying that "Hummus is so common these days it's become almost pedestrian." To me, this sounds a bit snobbish. It's kind of like those hipsters who claim not to like bands like Coldplay now that they have top-selling albums and sell out big arena shows. If you liked the band before they were popular, it's OK to keep on liking them once everyone else catches up to your superior trend-spotting skills. You don't have to apologize for liking something that everybody else likes. And you certanly don't have drizzle parsley oil all over your Coldplay CD and sprinkle toasted pine nuts, cumin seeds and parsley on it. You'll just wreck it.

At its core, this is just a basic recipe for very good hummus. First, I whizzed together some canned chickpeas and garlic in the food processor. Then I added some well-stirred tahini paste, water, lemon juice, olive oil, salt and more chickpeas, and whizzed it all together until it was smooth. Delicious! This is where I'll stop the next time I make this recipe.

The rest is all gilding the lily, especially when you do it all at the same time. Any one of the following accouterments on its own might be a nice little change, but all together, it's a bit much.

First, I blended equal parts of olive oil and chopped parsley in the blender. I poured this into a fine-mesh sieve and pressed the bright green oil from the solids. This parsley oil was was really good. It had a very fresh, almost grassy flavor. I'm sure that I'll find a use for this in some other dish that I make somewhere along the way.

Next, I toasted some pine nuts and cumin seeds in the oven. Toasting nuts and seeds is alwys dicy. They go from toasted to incinerated in the blink of an eye. The pine nuts were just a smidge "toastier" than I would have liked, but they were OK.

I sprinkled the toasted pine nuts and seeds over the hummus and dirzzled the parsley oil over the top. I didn't even take the last sept of scattering parsley leaves over the top of the whole thing. It was all just too much. This is an excellent basic hummus recipe. All of the "tarting-up" is good, but completely unnecessary. I just think that the editors of Gourmet "out-Gourmet-ed" themselves on this one.

Date Cooked: May 9, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Easy
Rating: A-

150. Potato and Thyme Salad (p. 148)

2009-05-23T21:46:00.001-04:00

I made this potato salad as part of the lunch buffet for my son's dedication ceremony celebration on Mother's day. I was looking for an easy, make-ahead side dish that would go with the marinated turkey breast that I was making, and that would work with my wife's current dietary restrictions (no dairy, soy or wheat). This fit the bill.

The Book says that this is "no suburban backyard potato salad." Instead, this recipe,* which comes from the Ballymaloe Cooking School in Ireland, is simple, understated and totally unfussy. It's so simple that there are only three ingredients: small red boiling potatoes, fresh thyme leaves, and olive oil (plus salt and pepper to taste).

First, I washed and dried some fresh thyme. I plucked the leaves and buds off the woody sprigs. This what kind of tedious, but not too hard since you can sort of zip the leaves off the sprigs by running your fingers against the direction that the leaves grow. Once I had gathered a respectable amount of leaves, I put them in a little bowl and set them aside.

Next, onto the potatoes. I washed them well and put them (whole) into a pot of salted water. The Book says to cook the potatoes for 15 to 20 minutes until "just tender." I've had my fair share of undercooked potatoes (they're pretty much inedible) so, I made sure that they were good and tender. In retrospect, I wish that I had taken them off the heat just a little bit sooner, since what you're looking for here are potatoes that are cooked, but still just the slightest bit on the firm side.

After the potatoes had cooled just a bit, I cut them into quarters, sprinkled them with the thyme leaves, drizzled on the oil and tossed to coat. I seasoned it with some salt and pepper, and that was it.

My wife didn't like this dish at all. She called it "the worst potato salad I've ever had," and demanded that I give it a "C" rating. (Geez, tell me how you really feel.) I didn't have quite as negative reaction to this recipe. I just thought that it was kind of "meh." I suppose that "understated" and "boring" are two ways to look at the same thing.

(Oh, by the way, in all of the hustle and bustle of getting ready for the lunch, I forgot to take a picture of this dish. The photo at the top of this post comes from Teena's blog. I hope she doesn't mind me borrowing her picure ... because I'm going to do it again with my next post, too.)

Date Cooked: May 9, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Very easy
Rating: B-

* This recipe is not on epicurious.com.

148. Poached Whole Turkey Breast (p. 386) and 149. Lemon-Marinated Turkey with Golden Raisins, Capers and Pine Nuts (p. 383)

2009-05-19T22:28:00.000-04:00

This is the first of several posts about food that I made for a lunch buffet for my son's dedication ceremony on Mother's Day. Since the ceremony was on a Sunday morning, and lunch was going to follow immediately afterward, I wanted to make things that I could cook ahead, and that could be served cold.

This recipe for poached whole turkey breast, and this recipe for serving the poached turkey in a lemon marinade* seemed like the perfect choice for a cold lunch buffet.

First, I made the poached turkey breast. I started with a seven-pound fresh whole turkey breast from Raymond's Turkey Farm just down the street from my house (here's to locally-produced food!). I put the turkey breast in my biggest stock pot, which as it turns out isn't that big after all. I filled the pot up to the brim with water and it barely covered the turkey. It looked even more like the Loch Ness Monster than Melissa's turkey. The creepy Scottish loch vibe continued as the water, which was precariously close to the top of the pot, kept boiling over as the turkey cooked. Anyway, I added some chopped carrots and onion along with some vinegar, bay leaves, salt and peppercorns. The Book says to simmer for 1 1/4 hours, but because my turkey was a bit larger than the five- to six-pound breast called for, and because I'm unreasonably afraid of undercooking poultry, I cooked it for about 1 3/4 hours. Then I let it cool in the cooking liquid for about a half hour before draining it, removing the skin and bones and cutting the breast into two large pieces for the marinated turkey dish. (I was also able to pick a good amount of meat off the bones, which I chopped up and made into a simple turkey salad. Pretty good!)

Next it was on to the marinade. I soaked some golden raisins in some boiling water to plump them up. Meanwhile, I took the zest off a couple of large lemons with a vegetable peeler, and squeezed the juice from the lemons. I whisked the juice together with some balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper, and quite a bit of olive oil. I mixed in the zest, raisins and some capers which I had drained and rinsed. I poured the marinade over the turkey, which I had placed in a large bowl. I marinated the turkey overnight, turning it a few times.

The morning of the ceremony, I sliced the turkey and arranged it on a platter. I strained the marinade and sprinkled the zest, raisins and capers over the turkey along with some pine nuts that I had toasted and some chopped parsley and mint. Finally I drizzled the marinade over the turkey, wrapped it tightly with plastic wrap and put it in the refrigerator until lunch.

This was a very nice way to eat cold turkey. The marinade was delicious with a nice interplay of the different flavors of the zesty lemon, the sweet raisins and the salty capers. The pine nuts gave the turkey a nice toastiness and crunch, and the chopped herbs contributed a light freshness. There's a lot going on here, but it didn't seem like too much. The only thing that there was a little too much of was the olive oil. The marinade did seem just a little bit greasy. But over all, I liked it, and it got good reviews from our guests.

The dedication ceremony was very nice. It was also very touching to mark this special occasion on my wife's first Mother's Day, and to visit with my parents (up from Pennsylvania), and the rest of my and my wife's families.

Date Cooked: May 9, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Easy
Rating: B+

*Neither of these recipes are on epicurious.com

147. Shrimp in Adobo Sauce (p. 322)

2009-05-16T08:12:00.000-04:00

I decided to make one of The Book's Mexican dishes in honor of Cinco de Mayo.

The Book says that this recipe* is from Elisabeth Lambert Ortiz, who was a frequent contributor to Gourmet. She was also the British-born wife of a Mexican UN diplomat, who along with others like Diana Kennedy, is credited with introducing many British and American cooks to Mexican and Latin American food in the 1950s and 1960s.

The foundation of this recipe is the adobo sauce made with dried ancho chiles. Before I get to the chiles, I just have to comment that the term "adobo sauce," as used in the name of this recipe and on cans of chiplote peppers "in adobo sauce," is redundant since "adobo" can mean "sauce" in Spanish. So, saying "Shrimp in Adobo Sauce" is like saying "Shrimp in Sauce Sauce." That just gets on my nerves, like saying "ATM machine" (automated teller machine machine) or "PIN number" (personal identification number number).

Now that I've got that off my chest, back to the "sauce sauce." As I was saying, the sauce is made with dried ancho chiles, which I swear I've seen at my usual grocery store. But of course when I did my shopping for this recipe, there were no anchos to be found. So, I bought some Aji Panca Seco (dried red peppers) and decided to take my chances. Just to be safe, I decided to look my peppers up on the internet, to make sure that they weren't atomiclly hot on the Scoville Scale. I found this cool website called The Cook's Thesaurus which has all kinds of helpful information about food substitutions. I'll use this site again for sure. The Cook's Thesaurus says that ancho chiles (at right) are dried poblano chiles. The Book says that they are sweeter and milder than many other dried chiles. Aji panca chiles (at left) are described as fruity and mild, so I figured that it just might work out OK.

First, I toasted the dried chiles in a hot cast iron skillet for just a couple of seconds on each side. I was really surprised what a difference this made. That little bit of heat made the brittle dried peppers pliable enough to slice open and remove the stems, seeds and veins. Then I broke the chiles up into small pieces and soaked them in some warm water for about a half an hour.

Then I drained the chile pieces and put them into the blender with some garlic, onion and oregano. The Book says that Mexican oregano is preferred for this recipe. The Book's glossary explains that Mexican oregano is not oregano at all, but rather a relative of lemon verbena. Apparently, it tastes like regular oregano without the bitterness. But, after spending $16 on cardamom pods for my Garam Masala, I had already blown my spice budget for the time being, and I decided to go with regular oregano. I blended all of these ingredients with a little bit of water until it was a thick puree.

Next I heated some olive oil in a skillet and added the sauce, cooking it for a few minutes. I added some white wine, white vinegar, sugar and salt, and cooked for a few minutes longer until it was a nice, thick sauce.

Finally, I added the shrimp, stirred to coat and cooked, covered for a few minutes until the shrimp were done.

I served the shrimp and sauce over white rice, and topped it with chopped avacado and cilantro. This was a really delicious meal. The sauce was thick, sweet, smoky and flavorful. Even though there were no tomatoes in the recipe, it reminded me of a hearty arrabiata sauce. The flavor of the white wine came through as a noticible and pleasant element. I was a little dissapointed by the lack of heat in this dish. That, of course, is probably entirely attributable to my chile substitution, and could have been corrected with a sprinke of dried red pepper flakes or a dash of tobasco. The other thing that I was dissapointed by was the underripeness of my avacado garnish. That, also, is not the fault of The Book, but rather my own poor produce selection skilz.

Date Cooked: May 2, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Easy (but this isn't a quick weeknight meal due to the extra time required to toast, seed and soak the dried chiles)
Rating: A-

*This recipe isn't online.

146. Indian Baked Rice (p. 258)

2009-05-13T22:56:00.000-04:00

I don't think that I ever had Indian food until I was in college, but since then, I've loved it. Chicken tikka masala is definitely on my short-list of death-row meals. So, I'm glad that The Book has a number of Indian dishes for me to try as I work through The Project. This recipe was the first of The Book's Indian recipes that I've made, and I was pretty happy with it for the most part.

First I rinsed and drained some basmati rice in a few changes of cold water, then I set it aside to drain for a while. Next I heated some canola oil in my large Dutch oven and cooked some slivered almonds until they were golden. Or at least that was the goal. As usual, I let the almonds cook for just a few seconds too long, and many of them got overcooked. This is becoming a routine whenever The Book calls for toasting or frying anything. I always over-do it. I'll get the hang of it, eventually. I took the nuts out of the hot oil, and let them drain on some paper towels.

Next I cooked some onion in the hot oil, and added some garlic, jalapeno, grated fresh ginger, salt, and some of the garam masala I made. Then I added the rice and cooked it with the onion and spices for a little while. I added some chicken broth and cooked it on the stove for a bit and then covered it and moved it to the oven for a while longer. Once all of the liquid had been absorbed, I removed the rice from the oven and let it sit for a while. I sprinkled it with the fried almonds and served it with some garam-masala-rubbed grilled chicken breasts and some braised leeks.

This dish was good, but not great. The rice was a little dry, which might have been my fault. But the flavor wasn't as intense as I would have liked it to be. The scent and flavor of the garam masala was there, but it was a bit more subtle than it could have been. If you make this, I'd suggest using a heavy hand with the seasonings.

Date Cooked: April 26, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Medium
Rating: B+

145. Garam Masala (p. 932)

2009-05-07T22:34:00.000-04:00

I made this recipe as a component of the Indian Baked Rice that I'll write about next.

Garam masala is a traditional Indian spice mixture that has many variations. The Book's version combines cardamom, cinnamon, cumin seeds, whole cloves, peppercorns and nutmeg.

Normally, I wouldn't go to the trouble of grinding my own spices, mostly because of the hassle. But after I smelled and tasted the results, I can certainly appreciate the difference between freshly ground spices, and a pre-ground spice mix that's been sitting in your cupboard for who knows how long and languishing on a supermarket shelf for who knows how much longer.

The preparation is pretty easy, just put all of the ingredients into a coffee/spice grinder (I had forgotten that I have one of these. Nice!) and whiz it until finely ground. The first ingredient is the cardamom. I'm sure that I've had foods that contain cardamom, but this was my first experience with the whole seeds and the pods that the seeds are packaged in. The first obstacle in dealing with cardamom is the price ... $16 for a jar of seed pods. I'm going to have to find some other cardamom recipes to make good use of leftovers. The next obstacle is getting the seeds out of the pods. Most of the pods were pretty papery and I could just peel them. Others were tougher and I needed to crush them with the side of a chef's knife to get the seeds out. But once that part was done, it was smooth sailing. Next I broke up a cinnamon stick, and added in the cumin seeds, whole cloves, peppercorns and nutmeg, and whizzed it all up.

The garam masala smells sweet, fruity with citrus and cedar notes. You can sense the individual scents of the cinnamon and cloves in waves, but no one single spice dominates. The smell is really out of this world. I was thinking that it would make a great scented candle. Are you listening, Yankee Candle Company?

Like I said, I made this garam masala for the Indian Baked Rice, but I also took The Book's advice to rub some of the leftover spice mix onto some boneless, skinless chicken breasts and threw them on the grill. They were great! A quick and delicious dinner.

Date Cooked: April 26, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Easy
Rating: B+

144. Taco Salad with Salsa Vinaigrette (p. 164)

2009-05-05T22:46:00.001-04:00

Let's be honest here. Taco salad is something you'd expect to find in an Applebee's menu, not in The Gourmet Cookbook. But there it is in The Book, and so, I made this recipe.*

This being Gourmet, however, The Book calls for you to make your own tortilla chips (although the headnotes say, with a bit of a judgmental sigh, that store-bought chips are "perfectly fine"). Really, though, the chips couldn't be easier. Just heat some vegetable oil (I used canola) until it's good and hot. While the oil is heating, cut up some corn tortillas into wedges with your kitchen shears. Then pop a handful of the wedges into the hot oil for a few seconds until they crisp up and start to change color (they go from golden to brown very quickly, so resist the temptation to wait just one more second). Drain the chips on some paper towels and sprinkle them with a little bit of salt. There's nothing better than fresh, warm tortilla chips. These could be a recipe on their own in The Book, and I could see myself making these again some day.

Other than the crisp tortillas, the other thing that makes a taco salad a taco salad is the seasoned taco meat. The Book calls for ground chuck, but because my wife "don't eat no meat" I used ground turkey. First, I heated a little bit of oil in a pan and added some chopped onion, garlic, cumin and chili powder and cooked until the onions were soft. Then I added the turkey and some tomato paste and cooked until the turkey was done.

While the meat cooled a little bit, I made the salsa vinaigrette. I blended together some garlic, vinegar, lemon juice, cumin, salt and pepper. With the motor running, I poured some olive oil through the top opening of the blender until it was nice and emulsified. Then I added some chopped tomatoes, chopped jalapeno and cilantro and whizzed it up some more. The result was a creamy-looking, celadon colored dressing.

To plate the salad, I laid out some romaine lettuce on a couple of plates, topped it with a mound of the taco meat, some fresh tomato wedges and a handful of the homemade tortilla chips. I also added some shredded cheddar cheese to mine (my wife is stil dairy/soy/gluten free), and drizzled the vinaigrette on top of the salad.

I liked this salad. The meat was good, but the dressing was the real star. Bright and pungent with the cumin and jalapeno, with a nice creamy texture. My wife said that the salad was good but, "basic." For crying out loud, I made homemade tortilla chips, and she called it "basic"?!? What she meant, was that the lettuce and tomato combo was "basic," and she would have liked to have seen some avacado and diced red and green peppers. Oh, yeah. That would have been a nice touch.

Date Cooked: April 25, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Easy
Rating: A-

*This recipe is not on epicurious.com.

Just a taste...

2009-05-03T13:35:00.003-04:00

Mark your calendars. Julie and Julia, the Nora Ephron movie that combines Julia Child's My Life in France and Julie Powell's Julie and Julia, comes out on August 7.

The movie trailer just came out a couple of days ago, and it's our first glimpse of Meryl Streep channeling Julia Child. This is gonna be good.

143. Cilantro Lime Shrimp (p. 46)

2009-05-02T10:10:00.001-04:00

OK, I think I need a little lesson in shrimp anatomy, or at least in shrimp preparation. In order to make this recipe,* I bought a pound of frozen "deveined" shrimp. I thawed them in a bowl of ice water, and then I started to peel them. That's when I noticed the dark vein running down the inner curve of each shrimp. But wait, I though I had paid a couple of bucks extra to get "deveined" shrimp. What's the deal? Turns out that shrimp have two veins. One website I found called the vein on the outer curve the "sand vein" and the vein on the inner curve the "blood vein." Another website said that many people only take out the vein on the outer curve.

My shrimp had a slice down the outer curve of each shrimp, and the outer vein had been removed. The inner vein was still intact. I decided to take that one out, too. To I took a sharp, pointy paring knife and did some shrimp surgery. I made a thin slice down the inner curve of each shrimp and pretty easily removed the inner vein. But my question is, did I have to? I'd appreciate your thoughts about deveining.

With my shrimp fully deveined, I made some marinade. I mashed some garlic and salt together with my chef's knife to make a paste, and whisked that together with some fresh lime juice, orange marmalade, finely chopped fresh cilantro, olive oil, red pepper flakes, and salt and pepper. (The Book also calls for a little bit of soy sauce, but I left it out due to our current soy/wheat/dairy ban.) I reserved some of the marinade for a dipping sauce. I tossed the rest of the marinade into a zip-top bag with the shrimp. I let the shrimp marinate in the refrigerator for a little while.

Next, I drained the shrimp and patted it dry with a paper towel. I heated some oil in a skillet and sauteed half of the shrimp for a few minutes until they started to brown. I transferred them to a plate and cooked the rest of the shrimp.

This was a delicious way to eat shrimp. The citrus and cilantro flavors are bright and clean. The marmalade gives the shrimp a touch of sweetness and the red pepper flakes give just a hint of heat. We thought that they were just a bit greasy. Maybe the amount of oil in the recipe could be reduced?

This recipe is in The Book's hors d'oeuvres chapter. I could see these shrimp being served as a passed hors d'oeuvre at a cocktail party, but only if there were plenty of napkins. This is definitely a "finger lickin' good" shrimp. I think that a better use for this dish might be as part of a meal of "small plates" (i'm thinking non-Spanish tapas). It would also be great for dinner, served over rice, drizzled with the reserved marinade and accompanied by some crisp steamed vegetables, like snow peas. However you serve it, and you should, you'll enjoy this one.

Date Cooked: April 19, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Medium
Rating: A-

*On epicurius.com, this recipe is called "Coriander Lime Shrimp." Same thing.

142. Chocolate Truffles (p. 696)

2009-04-29T22:05:00.001-04:00

Secretary's Day was last week, and I wanted to do something a little bit out of the ordinary for the person who helps me keep it all together at work. So, while other folks in my office gave their secretaries flowers and wine, I made these home made these chocolate truffles for my secretary.

This recipe comes from Robert Linxe of La Maison du Chocolate in Paris.

There are only three ingredients in this recipe: chocolate, cream and cocoa powder. The Book is very particular about the particular brand of chocolate and cocoa to use. Apparently, Linxe uses Valrhona chocolate, and editors of The Book "didn't even think about substituting a more widely available chocolate." Well, I couldn't find Valrhona, and anyway, I've noticed that in recent years, grocery stores have been stocking more and more varieties of premium chocolate with various percentages of cacao. So, I went with Ghirardelli, and I was still very happy with the results.

First, I finely chopped some of the chocolate and put it in a Pyrex bowl. Then I brought some cream to a boil and poured it over the chocolate. I slowly stirred it until the chocolate melted and it was a smooth genache. The Book says to be careful not to stir too fast to avoid incorporating any air into the mixture. I let the genache stand for about an hour until a spoonful scooped from the bowl kept its shape. Then I lined a baking sheet with parchment paper and spooned the ganache into a pastry bag. I piped little mounds of the genache onto the baking sheet and put it in the freezer for a little while.

After the genache set, I melted some more chocolate in a metal bowl set over a saucepan of boiling water. I put some Ggirardelli cocoa powder in a bowl and got myself organized for some candy making. First I put on a pair of disposable plastic gloves. Next, I smeared some of the melted chocolate on one of the gloves. Working one at a time, I rubbed each of the ganache balls with some melted chocolate and dropped them into the bowl of cocoa. I gently lifted the truffles out of the cocoa with a fork and put them into a sieve and carefully tapped off the excess cocoa. I kept working until I had finished all of the truffles and until I was up to my eyebrows in chocolate. Seriously, these truffles are are not particularly difficult to make, but they are messy!

Since I made these as a gift, I was only able to sample a couple of them. And the few that I did eat were amazing. The first thing that you taste is the intense, earthy flavor of the cocoa power. Next, there's the slight crackle of the thin layer of hardened chocolate surrounding the filling. And finally, there's the cool, creamy, rich and velvetly genache. This is a truly luxurious treat. Well worth the effort for a special occaion or a special person.

Curiously, The Book specifically says that you should not try to double this recipe. If you want more, and I do want more, you should make two batches.

Date Cooked: April 19, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Medium
Rating: A

141. Roasted Cauliflower with Garlic (p. 530)

2009-04-28T22:06:00.001-04:00

I've been hearing a lot about Twitter lately. It seems like just about everyone's on it. Now, I've jumped in with both feet into blogging (obviously), and I'm a fan of Facebook for keeping in touch with friends and family. But, I just don't "get" Twitter. Well, today, I came across an interesting article in the New York Times about a woman in Ireland who's come up with an entertaining, if not entirely practical, use for Twitter's 140 character posts: micro-recipes.

Maureen Evans condenses her favorite recipes down to their barest essentials and somehow manages to get all of the measurements and directions crammed into just a few words. For example, here's her recipe for biscotti:

Biscotti: mix 1/3c sug/3T oil/egg/t anise flavr; +c flour/t bkgpwdr. Roll log to fit bkgpan; pat down. 30m@375/190C. Slice~14; brwn+6m/side.

So, I got to thinking, could I "tweet" this recipe? Here goes:

Roasted Cauliflower: Toss 6lb cauliflower florets/ ½ olive oil/ 4 cloves garlic/ s&p; spread on baking sheet; Roast @425F ~30m.

Nothing to it! 127 characters. In case you didn't get all of that, I cut 3 pounds of cauliflower (I halved the recipe) into florets. Then I tossed the florets with some olive oil, garlic and salt and pepper. I spread it all out on a baking sheet and roasted it for about a half hour. It really was that easy.

This was an excellent vegetable dish. The flavor was awesome. Nutty, sweet, garlicy, and buttery (even though there's not butter). Even if you think that you don't like cauliflower, you've got to try this one. It's that good!

Date Cooked: April 26, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Easy
Rating: A

140. Sushi-Roll Rice Salad (p. 151)

2009-04-27T21:20:00.000-04:00

The Book calls this recipe a "deconstructed sushi roll." It could also be called a "California Roll in a Bowl."

First, the rice. After all, "sushi" means vinegar rice. I rinsed some sushi rice (medium-grain Japanese rice) in a few changes of water, and then I put it in a sieve to drain. Then, I combined it with some water in a pot, brought it to a boil, cooked it for a few minutes, and then took it off the heat to stand, covered, for a while longer. The short cooking time, plus the longer steaming time off the heat results in a tender, chewy sushi rice with just the right amount of stickiness. While the rice was sitting, I brought some rice vinegar, sugar and salt to boil in a small saucepan just long enough to dissolve all of the sugar. Then I spread the rice into a shallow baking dish and sprinkled the vinegar mixture over it and tossed it with a little wooden paddle that someone gave us in a "sushi kit." The step of spreading the rice in a baking dish and gently sprinkling it with the vinegar might seem like unnecessary overkill, but I remember seeing something on TV once about how sushi is made, and the cooling and seasoning of the rice is apparently a very important part of its taste and texture. I think that it would be a mistake to just dump the vinegar into the pot of rice and start stirring away.

Next, the vegetables. First, using a vegetable peeler, I made some very thin carrot slices, which I then cut into diagonal strips (sounds like a pain, but it only took a couple of minutes). Next, I chopped some scallions and seedless cucumber. (The Book's instruction to "seed" the "seedless" cucumber struck me as a bit odd, but maybe that's just me.)

To make the dressing, I whisked together some wasabi paste, water and canola oil in a large bowl. (As I've noted a couple of times, I'm cooking dairy/soy/gluten free these days. I made my own wasabi paste using wasabi powder and water because the prepared wasabi paste contained "lactose." Also, The Book calls for "vegetable oil," but if you read the lables, every brand of "vegetable oil" is 100% "soybean oil." So, I used canola instead.) Then I added the rice, carrots, cucumber, scallion and some chopped pickled ginger and toasted sesame seeds. I tossed it all together and topped it off with sliced avacado, and a sprinking of nori "confetti" that I cut with kitchen shears from a sheet of toasted nori.

The Book suggests using fresh shiso leaves to plate the salad. That would make a dramatic presentation, but this was just a casual Sunday night dinner at home, and it probably would have required a trip to the Super 88 Market in Boston's Chinatown (the only place I know of to get Aisan produce). So, I skipped them.

This dish was a nice surprise. It was delicious and pretty, too. We really liked the taste of the rice with the nice crunch of the cucumbers and carrots. The rich and creamy avacado (perfectly ripe!) was the perfect contrast to the crispness. The rice was tender with the right mix of sweet and sour (sugar/vinegar balance). It really tasted like an unrolled California roll. The only thing missing was the imitation crab meat, but that's my least favorite part of California rolls anyway.

Date Cooked: April 19, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Medium
Rating: A-

139. Matzo Brei (p. 630)

2009-04-25T18:06:00.000-04:00

A few months ago, I read Ruth Reichl's book Garlic and Sapphires. It's the story of Ruth's time as the restaurant critic at The New York Times. Like a lot of people, I've fantasized about being a food critic, but as Ruth's book shows, it's not as glamorous as it seems. Sure, you get to eat out at fancy restaurants like Le Cirque and Daniel (and somebody else pays for it!), but eating out almost every night means that you miss a lot of meals with your kids. And as a new father who usually gets home after my son is asleep, I understand how difficult that can be. There's a touching scene in the book when Ruth gets home after a lousy meal at a highfaluten restaurant, and for some reason, her son is still up. She whips up a batch of Matzo Brei and has, what I think she might agree was the best meal that she wrote about in the book.

Ever since I read that book, I've been looking forward to making this recipe. I had some matzos leftover from the Haroseth that I made, so, last Saturday, I decided to make this for breakfast. First, I broke up a matzo into a sieve. (The Book calls for four, but I was only making half of the recipe, and my matzos were huge, about 7 inches square, so I couldn't see using two of them for one person.) I ran some cold water over the pieces to moisten them just a bit. Then I put the pieces in a bowl and added a couple of eggs and some salt and mixed it up with a fork. I heated a generous amount of butter in a pan and then added the egg and matzo mixture and cooked for a few minutes.

Now, as you can see from the picture above, this is not the prettiest thing that I've cooked so far in The Project, and I wasn't too impressed after the first bite. But, as I kept eating, I liked it more and more. The eggs were tender and buttery and the matzo gave it some substance and a nice crispiness.

Speaking of Ruth Reichl, her new book, Not Becoming My Mother: and Other Things She Taught Me Along the Way, was published last week. The description on Amazon calls it "a clear-eyed, openhearted investigation of her mother’s life" drawing from her mother’s letters and diaries. Ruth sometimes talks about her mother, and her cooking, in her letters from the editor in Gourmet, so I feel like I already have a little bit of a sense of what Ruth's mother was like. I'm looking forward to reading the book and getting to know her better. Ruth's going on a book tour to promote the book, and it'll be bringing her to a few cities in my neck of the woods. I'm hoping to make it to one of the events, and who knows, maybe I can even convince her to sign my copy of The Gourmet Cookbook.

Date Cooked: April 18, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Easy
Rating: B+

138. Deviled Ham (p. 496)

2009-04-21T20:55:00.000-04:00

Please don't read anything into the fact that I've done two posts in a row about "deviled" foods. I haven't lost my moral compass or gone over to the dark side. It's just that I ended up with a ton of leftover ham from Easter dinner, and needed to find something to do with it. This recipe* was a perfect fit.

This is a very short recipe. Just four ingredients and only 27 words of instruction. Because I only skimmed those 27 words instead of reading them carefully, I made this simple recipe even easier by combining two of the steps. And do you know what, the finished product was none the worse for it. First I cut up the leftover ham into smallish chunks. I tossed them into my food processor along with some butter, Dijon mustard and mango chutney (The Book calls for Major Grey's, but I could only find some generic mango chutney). I whizzed it all up until it was finely chopped and a spreadable consistency. After I made this, I realized that I was supposed to chop the ham and whiz the dressing separately and then stir them together. Points for me for increased effeciency.

I spread some of this on crackers as a snack, and I've also been enjoying it on sandwiches for lunch this week. All in all, this was a pretty good use for leftover Easter ham. Another good use for leftover Easter ham is the Yellow Split Pea Soup that I'll post about next.

Date Cooked: April 18, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Easy
Rating: B+

*This recipe is not on epicurious.com