39. Apricot Raspberry Pie (p. 763)

On Saturday, we had dinner with our good friends Tricia and Kenny, and their adorable, thirteen-month-old son, Jack. We ate at Amrhein' s, an upscale neighborhood joint in South Boston where they serve comfort food on crack. My wife had a an outrageous chicken pot pie and a rich clam chowder garnished with a clam fritter. I had macaroni and cheese with ... wait for it ... lobster! The food was excellent, and it almost made up for the huge piece of broken glass at the bottom of Tricia's beer glass (Eeek!). After dinner, we went back to Tricia and Kenny's place to enjoy pie and good conversation on their deck.

I wanted to make this recipe while apricots and raspberries were still in season. I went to my local mega-mart to pick up the fruit I needed for the pie, but much to my dismay, they didn't have a single apricot. Not even one. But, you'll never guess what they did have ... the sour cherries I was looking for last week for my cherry pie. How's that for timing? But now that I know how hard they are to come by, I decided to buy all that they had, three pints. Here, I have to make a little aside about my glorious cherries.

I took the cherries home, washed them, pitted them, and froze them. So, I was going to tell you how much I love my cherry pitter. This seriously is the best kitchen invention ever. I've never used a kitchen gadget that was so perfectly suited to its task. There are lots of kitchen tools that don't work that great, or that do something that you just don't need a separate tool to do. But pitting an cherry or olive without one of these babies would be an impossibly frustrating job. Even if you only pit cherries once in your life, it's well worth it to have a pitter. As I worked my way through my three pints of cherries, I developed a nice rhythm, and it was a pretty pleasant and zen-like chore. In the end, I had over nine cups of frozen sour cherries packed away full of promise and possibility.

OK, back to the pie. I went to another grocery store in search of apricots, and ... success! Eight juicy apricots wrapped in that uniquely velvety skin. The filling for this pie is made up of apricot wedges, raspberries, sugar, cornstarch and just a bit of salt.


I put it into a pie plate with a rolled-out round of The Book's Basic Pastry Dough. This is the second time I've made pastry dough in just as many weeks, and you know what they say about practice making perfect. Well, I wouldn't say that it was perfect, but it was better, and easier to make and roll. I topped the pie with an egg wash and a generous sprinkling of sugar and popped it in the oven. Even though the oven temperature gets turned down after the first few minutes, the edges of the crust were still browning too fast. To keep them from burning, I pulled out my trusty pie shields. These little wonders have been knocking around in our kitchen junk drawer for a few years. I'm not even sure where they came from, and I only just recently learned what they were for.

As you can see from the photo at the beginning of this post, the finished pie wasn't going to win any beauty contests. The filling oozed out onto the top crust, and I was a couple of minutes late in putting the pie shields on, so the crust was a little dark around the edges. But what it lacked in good looks, the pie made up in taste. The crust was flaky and delicious. The sprinkling of sugar gave the crust a nice sweetness and just a little bit of crispiness. The flavor of the filling was an intense combination of sweet and tart, and it had a beautiful magenta color. It reminded me of the strawberry rhubarb pie that my grandmother made when I was a kid with rhubarb from her garden. This was an excellent and unusual celebration of some of summer's best fruits. A real treat.

Date Cooked: August 10, 2008
Degree of Difficulty: Medium
Rating: A-

38. Watermelon, Tomato, and Feta Salad (p. 145)

What's with Gourmet's obsession for putting watermelon in places it doesn't belong? Before starting The Project, the most exotic thing I'd ever done with a watermelon was to make watermelon sorbet from Alice Waters's cookbook. That, and playing the greased watermelon game at Boy Scout camp when I was a kid ... but that's another story. So far this summer, however, I've already made Watermelon Gazpacho and Watermelon Rind Chutney. Now, I've made this strange recipe for a savory salad featuring watermelon. And I'll be darned if it wasn't half bad.

The recipe is simple enough: just combine diced watermelon, diced tomatoes, crumbled feta and chopped cilantro, along with some oil, vinegar, salt and pepper. I cut the recipe in half since it's just me and my wife, and after the Watermelon Gazpacho incident, I didn't have high hopes for leftovers. Turns out, I was wrong, and the salad held up pretty well in the refrigerator for a day or two, and I enjoyed some with my lunch today.

The recipe calls for white Balsamic vinegar. I've never heard of such a thing before. According to this site, white balsamic vinegar is:

A version of Balsamic vinegar that is made with white wine vinegar and grape must (fresh pressed juice with seeds and skins). Traditional balsamic vinegar is made with red wine vinegar, thus providing a deep reddish color which may add a undesirable tint to the food being dressed. The white variety is often used when the color of white sauces or foods will be adversely affected by the dark brown color of traditional balsamic vinegar. White balsamic vinegar is milder and less sweet than regular Balsamic vinegar and is often considered more suitable for use with salad dressings, since it does not have a strong flavor that can be overpowering when used on salad greens.

I was impressed that my local mega-mart not only carried it, but even had it as a product in its in-house line of "fancy food." Way to go mega-mart! I tasted some of the vinegar on its own before I put it into the salad, and it certainly is milder and thinner than regular balsamic. I thought that it was actually a little sweeter than regular balsamic, and reminded me of cider vinegar. (Hey, wait a minute. Did the mega-mart pull a fast one on me? If so, shame on you mega-mart!)

As was the case with the Watermelon Gazpacho and the Watermelon Rind Chutney, it was hard to find a perceptible watermelon flavor in the finished salad. I sensed a glimmer of watermelon every couple of bites, but for the most part, I couldn't tell whether I was eating watermelon or tomato, or both. What I did sense was refreshment and a nice melding of cool flavors and different textures. The feta gave the salad a nice saltiness and tang, but if I had it to do over again, I'd add more feta. Not surprising, since I always want to add more feta to any recipe that calls for feta. What can I say, I like the stuff.

My wife put it well when she said that this salad was very good, but it wasn't a "revelation." She also accused me of "grade inflation" with my ratings, and suggested that I should reserve "A" ratings for dishes that are revelations. So, it's for that reason that this recipe gets a B.

Date Cooked: August 10, 2008
Degree of Difficulty: Easy
Rating: B

37. Parmesan Chicken (p. 356)

A few weeks ago, my wife was craving "mustardy" chicken. I looked through The Book for a recipe that fit the bill, and came up empty. So, I modified the recipe for Pork Chops with Mustard Crumbs by cooking it with chicken breasts. I'm not sure how I missed this recipe in my search, but I'm glad I found it now.

The "Gourmet twist" in this recipe is the use of English muffin crumbs as the coating. This is one of those little tricks that seems odd at first, but in the finished dish, it makes perfect sense. The crumbs were crispy and moist at the same time, and they were a nice compliment to the mustard and cheese flavors.

The recipe is pretty easy. First you coat boneless, skinless chicken breasts with Dijon mustard, vinegar, salt and pepper. Then you dredge the chicken in the English muffin crumbs, patting them into the surface to make a nice crust. Finally, the chicken goes onto a parchment-lined baking sheet and bake. That's it. As you can see from this picture, I set up a little assembly line for the chicken, crumbs, and baking sheet. Aren't I efficient?



The Book says to bake for 15 to 20 minutes, but that's probably because the Gourmet test kitchen doesn't use the genetically-altered, giant chicken breasts that they sell at my local mega-mart. If I had it to do over again, I'd pound them out a little bit to make them flatter.

The flavor of this dish was great. The chicken was very moist with a nice crispy coating and a good parmesan-mustard flavor. It was nice an light. Nothing dramatic. Just really good, week-night chicken.

One last thing. If you make this recipe, you might not want to make more than you can eat at once. I was less than impressed with the leftovers. The crumb coating got a little soggy in the microwave. I suppose that I could have kept the crispiness if I reheated it in the oven. But who's got time for that?

Date Cooked: August 3, 2008
Degree of Difficulty: Medium
Rating: B+

36. Parsley-Leaf Potatoes (p. 568)

The Book calls this recipe a "party trick." The essence of this dish is a simple recipe for basic roasted potatoes. But a clever twist and a few minutes of extra work turns them into something that will impress the pants off the guests at your next dinner party.

The "trick" is a single parsley leaf fused onto each potato half. It doesn't add anything to the flavor of the potatoes (not that they need it, they're buttery and crispy on the outside, and soft and creamy on the inside), but the individual leaf is like a little golden seal on each potato. What a neat way to turn a lowly side dish into something really fancy!

I made sure that I selected a bunch of parsley with large, pretty, flat leaves. I washed and dried the parsley, and plucked off the appropriate number of leaves. I also lined them up in little rows and took this picture. That part's not in the recipe. I'm just a little bit obsessive-compulsive, that's all. Then I melted the butter (Six tablespoons! I guess I take back what I said about the Gourmet folks using sensible amounts of butter.) and poured it onto a foil-lined jelly-roll pan.

Working on a couple of potatoes at a time, lest they turn brown from being exposed to air too long, I sliced the potatoes in half, pressed a parsley leaf onto each half and put it cut-side-down onto the buttered pan. I roasted the potatoes for about 45 minutes. As the potatoes cook, the parsley leaves fuse onto the potato halves, so when they're done, and you transfer them to the serving dish, they're just so impressive to look at. And they taste great, too.

The Book calls for eight russets for this recipe to feed eight to twelve. But, we were in the mood for red potatoes, and so I used most of a three-pound bag of baby red potatoes. The result was a bit more labor-intensive than what The Book has in mind (There are 16 potato halves if you do it their way. I had about 40 potato halves my way.) But I was really happy with the result.

Of course, if your in a rush, you can skip the parsley leaves and just use this as a basic go-to roasted potato recipe.

Date Cooked: August 3, 2008
Degree of Difficulty: Medium (Easy without the parsley leaves)
Rating: A

35. Peas with Spinach and Shallots (p. 555)

I just love this picture. You can actually see the steam rising off the dish. And if you try really hard, you might even be able to smell the buttery shallot-and-garlic-scented aroma. (Ouch! I think I just hurt my arm patting myself on the back.) But seriously, folks, this was one tasty side dish.


I've always been a fan of peas. Frozen ones, that is. (Don't get me started on canned peas. Yeah, sure, they come in a spiffy silver can and have a fancy French-sounding name. But none of that changes the fact that they're mushy and have that dingy-looking army-green color.) And while I used to think that frozen peas were low-brow, I've recently been gratified to learn that many of the pea recipes in The Book allow for frozen peas as a substitute for fresh, and in some cases, even call for them specifically. And while it seems like the "foodie" thing to do to use only fresh peas, let's face it, sometimes there just not that good. They can be hard, dry and mealy. So, for me, it's frozen peas.


Now, I like peas on their own just fine, but this recipe was just the thing to take them to the next level. And it couldn't be easier to make. Start by melting one tablespoon of butter in a 12-inch skillet. (Kudos to the folks at Gourmet for using a sensible amount of butter in this recipe. It's easy for recipe writers to go all "Paula Deen," and put a whole stick of butter in every dish just 'cause. But here, the one tablespoon of butter was just enough to give the dish a pleasant buttery flavor without making it too rich or seem like the peas were floating in butter.) Quickly cook some sliced garlic and shallots. (Or "charlottes" as the cashier at Stop-and-Shop called them. That's another point for me in "Stump The Cashier.") Throw in the frozen peas and a little bit of water, cover and cook for a few minutes. Then stir in the baby spinach until just wilted. That's it.

For some reason, I felt compelled to follow this recipe precisely as it was written. The recipe calls for 10 ounces of frozen peas and 5 ounces of baby spinach. I bought a 16 ounce package of peas and a 6 ounce package of spinach and carefully weighed out the required amounts and packed away the rest. No need to be so persnickety here. The next time I make this, and I will make it again, I'll just throw in the whole package of peas and spinach.

Date Cooked: August 3, 2008
Degree of Difficulty: Easy
Rating: A

34. Basic Pastry Dough (p. 790)

My wife is a bit of a culinary non-conformist. As I've already mentioned (and much to my dismay), she doesn't eat beef, pork or lamb. Nor is she a big cake-and-frosting fan. She'll always pick a fruit dessert over cake, ice cream or chocolate. So, for her birthday last week, she told me that instead of a birthday cake, she wanted a birthday pie ... a cherry pie, no less. While I am a huge cake fan, I also love a good pie, so I was more than happy to oblige the birthday girl's quirky request.


Much to my surprise, however, The Book doesn't have a recipe for a good-old-fashioned cherry pie. Sure, there's the Cherry Almond Pie, and the Sour Cherry Crostata, both of which I'll make in good time, but what my wife had in mind was a classic cherry pie.


So, for the filling, I turned to my well worn 1975 edition of The Joy of Cooking (on permanent loan from my mother-in-law's kitchen library). But for the crust, I decided to try The Book's Basic Pastry Dough. For most of my cooking life, pie crust looked like this ...


But, in the spirit of trying new things and learning to become a better cook, I resolved to make my wife's birthday pie completely from scratch. The Book's pastry dough is easy enough to make, and it tasted great. As you know, I've already sworn off boxed brownie mix. And after making this pastry dough, I'm ready to say so long to the Doughboy for good. It's been good knowing you, man.


The Book says that this dough can be made either by hand or in the food processor. I used my trusty Kitchen Aid food processor and I was very happy with the results. Maybe I'll do it by hand one of these times, but for the first try with this recipe, I wanted to make it as easy as possible. You start by pulsing together some flour, butter and vegetable shortening (My wife's not going to be happy when she reads this ... butter's bad enough, but shortening? That's pure fat, right?) until it resembles coarse meal. Then you add some ice-cold water, a little bit at a time, until it just comes together.


The dough then gets turned out onto a surface, and divided into eight pieces. Then comes the frisage, the very chef-y sounding, but easy-to-do process of fully incorporating the fat into the dough by smearing each of the eight pieces across the work surface a couple of times with the heel of your hand. After that, the dough is formed into two five-inch disks, wrapped in plastic, and chilled for at least an hour.


After chilling, you can roll the dough. I could be better with a rolling pin, and with practice, I'll get there, but, nevertheless, the dough is easy to work with. It's not too sticky, and any tears or cracks are easily repaired.


I rolled out two large circles and placed one of them in the bottom of the pie plate. I filled it with the filling (more on that in just a second), and then I cut the second circle into strips and made a pretty lattice top. I brushed the pie with a lightly beaten egg, and cooked it according to Joy's cherry pie instructions.

The filling was not all I hoped and dreamed it would be. First, I didn't have the foresight to get enough sour cherries for an entire pie. A few weeks ago, I picked up a pint of beautiful sour cherries at the Downtown Manchester Farmers Market. I guess I never realized that pie cherries and the sweet cherries you get in the grocery store aren't the same thing, and I never knew that sour cherries had such a short season and are hard to come by once the season is over. Well, next year, I'll know better and I'll stock up when I get the chance. I was about two cups short, and I made up the difference with sweet cherries, and reduced the sugar a little bit. (Remind me to tell you sometime how much I love my new cherry pitter. What a great invention!) The filling's flavor was fine, but it was very liquidy. I'm sure it had something to do with the cherry substitution. That, and the fact that I used tapioca flour as a thickener rather than the quick-cooking tapioca called for by Joy. The bottom crust was a little soggy, but I'm not going to blame The Book for that ... it was all Joy's fault (and I suppose I bear some of the blame for my modifications to Joy's recipe).

The filling aside, the crust itself (and that's what this post is about, after all) was delicious. Crispy, flaky and buttery without being greasy. It's everything you want a pie crust to be.

The Book has lots of pie and tart recipes - many of which call for this dough - so I know that I'll get lots of practice making it as I work my way through the project. I wouldn't be surprised it I'm able to make it by memory before long.

Date Cooked: August 3, 2008
Degree of Difficulty: Medium
Rating: B+

33. Udon Noodle Salad with Grilled Chicken and Asian Dressing (p. 247)

This tasty noodle dish starts with the chicken. First, you marinate four skinless, boneless chicken breast halves in soy sauce, garlic, grated fresh ginger, and rice wine vinegar. I had to make the marinade twice, though, because I threw in the entire "1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon" of the vinegar before I realized that I was only supposed to put one tablespoon into the marinade. For a second, I thought about leaving it, but I was a little worried that I'd end up pickling the chicken (can you make chicken ceviche?). I figured that it would be better to do it over correctly, rather than risk it. After marinating for about an hour in the fridge, the chicken breasts go onto the grill. After that, you let them cool a bit, slice them into strips and set them aside for the final dish.

Then there were the noodles. The Book calls for 3/4 pound dried udon. I'd never heard of such a thing. I've only seen udon in shrink-wrapped shelf-stable packages like those pictured here. I suppose I could have found them at an Asian specialty market, but I decided to go with what was available at the mega-mart. The result was good, but as I'll explain later, I think that I needed more noodles. (I should have figured that dried udon weighs less than the "fresh" noodles that I got.)

The dressing consists of chicken stock (my own homemade stock from my freezer! hooray for me!) simmered together with an obscene amount of cilantro and parsley. This is transfered into the blender to be pureed until smooth. Now, I've heard all of the warnings about putting hot things in a blender. I read and followed The Book's instructions on the topic on page 97. But, nevertheless, once I flipped the switch on my Oster-izer, a geyser of hot, green soupy liquid shot into the air and sprayed all over my counter and cabinets. It didn't look as bad as this ...

... but it was shocking just the same, and a pain in the butt to clean up.

The Book says to "Toss noodles with dressing in a large bowl." At this point, I knew I had done something wrong. I had so much dressing and so little noodles, that it was more like broth than dressing. I really needed about twice as much noodles, but, oh well, I'm learning as I go, here.

The finished dish was really good. The huge amounts of cilantro and parsley gave the noodles a very fresh, almost grassy taste (I mean that in a good way). It was vinegary, but not too, vinegary. The chicken was very moist and tender with a very mild and enjoyable soy, ginger flavor.

Date Cooked: July 27, 2008
Degree of Difficulty: Medium
Rating: B