Not Derby Pie

Gnocchi with Butternut Squash and Shiitake Mushrooms

rivka — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 18:14:13 +0000

As you probably already know, I’ve had a pretty big food week. For one thing, I managed to roast a whole fish in a big pile of salt. I also made 2 loaves of bread, and 4 pizzas — pizzas that actually tasted as good as something I could buy, which has never happened before. If that’s not enough, I decided to take advantage of my already gutsy week and try a Thomas Keller recipe. People, the sky is falling.

Thomas Keller is the renowned chef of The French Laundry, Bouchon Bakery, and a handful of other spots. He’s certainly one of the most famous chef in America. He’s known for his particularity, his precision, and his meticulousness. Every recipe of his — even the simplest, most elemental — consist of countless steps, involve several pans, and have you running around the kitchen in a mental state that’s pretty much the opposite of the low-key way I like to cook. See why I was nervous?

If you read Carol Blymire, you probably think TK recipes are no biggie. After all, she made a whole book of them. And now she’s working her way through the only cookbook I can think of that seems more intimidating than Keller’s: Alinea at Home, Grant Achatz’s documenting of the molecular-gastronomy-heavy dishes at his Chicago restaurant Alinea. Not all of us are as adept at guestimating weights in grams, using products like methocel F50, and generally rocking out. But we’ve gotta start somewhere, now don’t we.

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Whole Fish Roasted in Salt Crust

rivka — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 18:23:30 +0000

There’s a certain amount of risk involved in cooking. Many times, I spend all day prepping for a recipe that’s a total clunker. I’ve shelled out lots of cash on “novelty” ingredients that end up being nothing special. And I’ve definitely made my share of rookie mistakes that, if I were the type of normal cook that makes something more than once, probably wouldn’t happen nearly as often. Yes, D thinks I’m crazy. She’ll never understand why I’d pass up chocolate chip cookies to try my hand at chocolate-dipped hazelnut shortbread. Or why, instead of making my tried and true recipe for lemon curd, I insist on blowing 2 whole meyer lemons on a whole-lemon tart that was so saccharine, so unpleasantly textured, I nearly threw it out. But such is the life of a blogger: constantly in search of the next internet-worthy recipe, making plenty of duds along the way.

So imagine my delight when my hard work actually paid off. This wasn’t just any old success. On the contrary: it was a complete and total knockout.

I’ve been wanting to roast a whole fish for quite some time now. I’d been told it wasn’t particularly difficult, but pfff — it’s a whole fish! With a tail! And eyeballs! And it’s a whole fish. You get the point. But after a rough week at work, I decided hell! If other people can do it, why can’t I? And thus began the most fearless, the most exciting, and by far the most successful adventure I’ve ever had in my kitchen.

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Maple Yogurt Pound Cake

rivka — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 22:09:21 +0000

I rarely make the same thing twice. If something truly blows me out of the water — as this did — I’ll make something like it again. Something like it, mind you; never identical. I like recipes, but I don’t really like following them. I’d rather just take an old idea and riff on it. That’s what I do best. So when I take out my pen, when I actually skip over to the fridge every ten seconds to scribble how much maple syrup I’m pouring into the bowl, you better believe whatever it is I’m making will absolutely knock your socks off.

Such is the case with this cake.

Chalk it up to the weather, but I’ve been on a serious maple kick recently. I guess it all started two Sundays ago, when I was whacked square across the face with the world’s biggest craving for maple syrup. This was no small itch: I’m serious, people. I just wanted to shmear maple syrup all over my face. I could’ve tipped the jug and drunk it straight. It was that kind of craving.

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Beets with Fennel, Orange, and Walnuts

rivka — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 14:05:56 +0000

It’d be unfair if I didn’t confess to you that as I try to write about beets and fennel and orange and walnuts, I’m watching Lydia Bastianich add home-cured mackerel to cannelini bean bruschetta and red onion salad, and all I can think about is how delicious that oily, vinegary cured fish must taste. Holy dear, I need to turn this off.

Where were we? Ah, yes. Beets.

By now you know it’s winter here, I certainly don’t need to tell you that. And surely you’re also aware that I’m having a bit of a fennel moment. But stay with me for a second. Fennel is crunchy and bright, the perfect antidote to February (not that I have anything against my birthday month, but holy bejeezus, it’s cold out there!). Fennel’s also a lovely addition to roasted beets, helping them feel less like a mid-winter consolation prize and more like an antidote to that cold weather. Ditto oranges, one of the few fruits that not only is readily available all winter long, but actually hits its peak right around this time. (Granted, they’re shipped in from Florida and elsewhere, but until you find me a job and an apartment squarely in California, I’m stuck with airplane citrus.) Put those flavors together on a plate, along with some toasted walnuts, and you’ve got yourself a nice looking winter salad.

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Preserved Lemons

rivka — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 14:37:09 +0000

I like sour things. I don’t mean tart or citrusy or with a faint hint of brightness; everyone likes that. I mean sharply, brightly, eye-squintingly mouth-puckeringly sour. I’ve been known to suck on the end of a lemon wedge on occasion. I love lemon-based vinaigrettes. Basically, if something’s a bit on the tart side, squeeze that lemon a couple more times, — op, maybe once more — give it one last little shake, yep just like that, and I’ll take it, thankyouverymuch.

But lemons aren’t the one-note that my sour obsession might suggest. They’re among the more versatile ingredients in your fridge, actually. In fact, when the kind folks at Washingtonian asked me if I had any advice for new cooks, I suggested keeping fresh lemons on hand, because they very often end up being the finishing touch to whatever it is I’m making. You’ve got the juice, fruity and sour and just a bit sweet at times; then there’s the zest, more mellow in tartness but fully present in aroma and flavor; and if that’s not enough dimension, there are endless things you can do to lemons to radically change the flavors they bring to the table, such as grill them, braise them, candy them, or….preserve them.

So what are preserved lemons, you ask? I’ll tell you this: their name is quite deceiving. If you’re thinking preserves, think again. This ain’t no jam. It’s not even sweet. It’s completely and utterly savory, in the most wonderful sense. Instead of preserving lemons with sugar as in marmalade, here you’re preserving them in salt. The lemons are either sliced, quartered, or packed whole into jars layered with plenty of salt and enough lemon juice to fill the jars, then allowed to sit about on the countertop for several days (or weeks) until the salt and lemon and time work together to do their magic. The result is at once vigorously tart and deeply aromatic. It hits sour and sweet and salty, yes salty, and then it opens up and hits you with floral, spicy notes. If fresh lemons are the finishing touch to many recipes, preserved lemons are the cornerstone to some truly spectacular food.

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Hamentaschen

rivka — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 18:00:04 +0000

from the archive, just in time for the holiday.

Among the many traditions associated with the quickly-approaching Jewish holiday of Purim, perhaps the most widely-kept one is the consuming of copious amounts of ~~alcohol~~ hamentaschen. Are you surprised that it’s my favorite holiday in the calendar?

Fashioned after Haman’s pocket, hamentaschen are cookies filled with anything from poppyseed to raspberry jam to Nutella, and folded up to resemble a triangle. They’re not too sweet, flavored with vanilla and lemon zest, and perfectly crunchy outside while soft within. Everyone has a favorite filling, and mine — poppyseed — is, unfortunately, hated by many folks. I appeased the masses this year by making a large batch of raspberry-chocolate filled ones. I’ll save the poppyseed for myself. I also scored a tub of halvah (sweet sesame paste), so that should make for some interesting cookies as well.

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Ginger Fried Rice

rivka — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 18:34:58 +0000

It’s a rare day that I get to make lunch for myself at home. When I do, I tend to steer clear of the fancy in favor of those simple things that simply don’t work in my office toaster. Especially in winter, when I put a premium on warm, cozy meals and crusty, toasty bread, I feel especially lucky on those rare occasions that I can make a pot of something or other, pour it straight from the stove to my plate, and eat it piping hot.

Quite often, lunch at home amounts to a bowl of leftover soup, topped with some grated cheese and browned under the broiler, that I eat alternately with a big ole’ spoon and thick slice of toasted bread for dunking. But it’s not always soup that wins my vote when I’m home. Sometimes I prefer something I can really sink my teeth into, like a big bowl of long fusilli, my new favorite pasta. But other times, it’s neither soup nor pasta that does it. It’s something simpler, more elemental. It’s rice.

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Fennel and Apple Salad

rivka — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 00:19:40 +0000

If you’re like me, the snow isn’t the only thing that’s making you crawl the walls a bit this February. White stuff or not, it’s pretty hard to find a good lookin’ salad in these parts. Restaurants are peddling beets and potatoes with a very erstwhile passion, with nary a leaf in sight. Okay, I’m exaggerating, but the greens are endangered these days. And snowpocalypse didn’t help; at some point, a friend pulled out a bowl of lettuce, and someone at the table actually squealed with enthusiasm. If you’re listening, internet, I could really use some salad.

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Snowed In Means….No-Knead Bread

rivka — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 21:35:25 +0000

The first morning after the snow started, I woke up in a bit of a frantic state. I knew there’d be no way to get to work, so rushing to the office was off the table. I had plenty of work to do, but the commute downstairs to my couch is about the length of President Obama’s. So why the rush? It was entirely the kitchen’s fault. The kitchen was packed solid with groceries, Y2K style, and I, in a way that only other cooking-obsessed people can understand, felt a sudden urge to cook it all.

Reader, I have cooking neuroses.

When cooking panic hits, there’s only one thing to do: get something started. And that’s just what I did. I pulled a big bowl off the shelf, added a few cups of flour, an itsy little bit of yeast, some salt, and a couple glugs of water. I stirred. I covered.

I’m sorry, did you want more steps?

Really, that’s all there is to this bread. It takes 2 minutes to start, and afterward, you have that wonderful sensation of having done something with your day. Works like a charm every time. As the name suggests, you don’t knead this bread; instead, you leave it alone to rise for about 18 hours, which develops both the flavor and the gluten that obviates the need to knead (hehe). To cook it, you heat a heavy pot in a very hot oven, then drop in the dough and listen to it sizzle. You bake it in that very hot oven mostly covered — the steam aids the bread’s rise — and then uncovered at the end, to achieve that crackly crust. It’s pretty much foolproof, and it yields a wonderfully flavorful loaf, every single time.

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Raspberry Streusel Coffee Cake

rivka — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 17:06:27 +0000

So…yea. It’s been pretty snowy here, as you no doubt have heard. It’s not the kind of weather that makes you eager to jump off the couch and run to the grocery store. Fortunately, I subjected myself to supermarket hell before last weekend, when the first blizzard was on its way, and fortunately, I’m a typical Jewish woman and totally overshopped, so I’ve got plenty of food in the fridge.

If getting off my lazy derriere to go outside isn’t really in the cards, spending copious amounts of time in the kitchen most certainly is. The snow storm(s) provide an opportunity to make something complicated, something with steps, something luxurious, something you otherwise would flip past in favor of baked ziti. Raspberry streusel coffee cake was that thing for me.

I’ve been eyeing Rose Levy Berenbaum’s streusel coffee cake from her fantastic book The Cake Bible for quite some time. It’s easy to understand why: she’s an expert baker, and she says it’s one of her favorite cakes, so I assumed it’d instantly become one of mine. The recipe is a classic sour cream coffee cake that’s layered with a walnut streusel. It calls for 2 sticks of butter for the cake, another half stick for the streusel, 4 egg yolks, loads of sugar, and a few other things. Needless to say, this one ain’t gettin’ tagged “good for you.” But delicious? Oh yes.

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Caramelized Apple Crepes

rivka — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 23:17:00 +0000

As I write this, the view outside my window is largely white. It’s been snowing for 29 straight hours here in DC, and over 30 inches have piled up on the ground. The sky is blue for the first time in two days, and people are just starting to move about outside, however cautiously. But not me. I was out last night for dinner, and out again early this morning; twice is enough for the time being. I’ve got oxtail stew cooling in the fridge, my sixth straight loaf of weekly no-knead bread undergoing its first rise, and raspberry streusel coffee cake on the counter. Yep — I’ve been cooking up quite a storm in here. But I’ll have to tell you about those another time. Right now, I can’t get my mind off caramelized apple crepes.

I first made these crepes the morning D and I left for Israel, and I’ve been dreaming about them ever since. It’s well known in these parts that I have a bit of a romance with luxurious breakfasts. From blueberry hotcakes to Dutch babies to stuffed french toast and more, I’m crazy about the kind of edible Sunday morning projects that remind you, no — you’re not at work today. I’ve often overlooked crepes as an at-home breakfast option, but I won’t be doing that anymore.

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Spinach Bourekas

rivka — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 14:24:24 +0000

At some point last year, I fell off the puff pastry cliff. It all started with this onion-date tart, one of the best and easiest recipes I’ve ever written. I made it once, twice, three times, and more; I couldn’t stop. I’d tweak a thing or two every time: I’d add mushrooms, swap the goat cheese for feta, add some roasted red peppers, etc. The tart never failed to please, so I just didn’t stop making it.

From there, I branched out to other similar tarts, like this one with zucchini and olives. Why hadn’t I thought of this sooner? Why had it taken so long to realize that when you pile delicious stuff on a buttery piece of dough and bake it off, the results are…delicious?

Just when I thought I’d had my revelation, D had had just about enough. She finally confessed that she hated all these tarts — these big pieces of flaky dough meant to pose as entrees — and that if I could stop making them, forever, that’dbegreatthanks. I was bummed: had I reached the end of puff pastry heaven so quickly? Without it, what else would I make? There was NOTHING else to make! Nothing but puff pastry! AACK!

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Bursting Hot Tomatoes with Cheesy Breadcrumbs

rivka — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 14:05:15 +0000

There’s a little game I play as fall wanes into winter. It’s about tomatoes. In summer, when tomatoes are at their peak, I want nothing but to eat them — lots of them, all the time — in preparations as simple as can be. Don’t make me pasta with tomato sauce when bursting, juicy, raw tomatoes can be had in abundance; slice up a couple, drizzle a little olive oil on top, share a pinch of salt, and I’ll be on my way, thank you.

The fall tomatoes in these parts aren’t half-bad, either. Some farmers — Toigo, notably — do a great job with the late-season fruit. But December and January (and beyond) are murky tomato territory, where the red ones are all found beneath the fluorescent lighting of your nearest grocery store, and the farmers market tomatoes tend to be green, for frying or pickling only.

Now before you let anyone tell you that supermarket tomatoes are good for nothing, I’ve got to chime in. I’ll agree wholeheartedly that January beefsteak tomatoes are about as mealy and flavorless as they come. However, the grocery store’s cherry tomatoes are passable when you really, really need them. Furthermore, there are ways to enhance supermarket tomatoes to the point that they’re not just edible, they’re actually kinda tasty. This is one of those ways.

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Down and Dirty Pasta e Cecci

rivka — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 14:00:01 +0000

Anything that has the words “down and dirty” in the title is something I will, sooner or later, make. “Down and dirty” suggests a rough-and-tumble version of the refined original, something you’re more likely to eat on your front stoop than in a dining room. When I hear down and dirty, I see myself in cutoff jean shorts and one of those ribbed white tank tops, sitting outside on a balmy summer day. There are mosquitos in the air, bangs in my face. I’m eating from a clay bowl I threw in the pottery studio down the street. When lunchtime rolls around, I notice some chickpeas in the cabinet, so I decide to throw them in with some chili, anchovies, and pasta, and call it lunch. Down and dirty lunch, that is.

Surely you can understand how, when I saw a recipe for “down and dirty pasta e cecci” on Food52’s website (via Jennifer Steinhauser of NYT, via her friend fisheri — that’s his username, not his real name — oh, the confusion!), I simply had to make it. Mind you, I didn’t even know what “cecci” were. I don’t speak Italian. But down and dirty pasta is something that best be coming out of my kitchen, like, pronto.

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Moroccan Salmon with Curried Yogurt

rivka — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 14:00:33 +0000

Though it doesn’t appear very often on this site, fish — salmon in particular — is a staple in the NDP kitchen. I like it because it’s a substantial cornerstone of a meal without being as heavy as meat often is. I frequently host lunch on Saturdays, and I almost always cook for these lunches in advance; salmon can be served cold with a dipping sauce, obviating the need to carefully par-bake it before reheating the next day to serve. Also, it’s delicious.

Last year, I frequently cooked fish “en papillote,” each filet wrapped with care in its own little parcel of parchment paper. It’s a very healthful way of cooking fish, in its own juices and little else. Sometimes I’d add slivers of thai bird chillies or slices of peach, but the method was always the same. This year, I’m planning to broil my fish more often. That little spot at the bottom of my oven doesn’t get enough airtime, and considering its ability to make sugar into caramel and turn anything that beautiful shade of brown, it really should.

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Lynn Rossetto Kasper’s Thai Cabbage Salad with Cashews and Chili-Coconut Dressing

rivka — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 14:54:34 +0000

Not everyday is as productive as last Friday. In about 2 hours, I made a fantastic salad, discovered a new cooking technique, and finally learned how to achieve that elusive sweet-salty-tangy-spicy balance in a Thai vinaigrette. It’s all thanks to Lynn Rossetto Kasper. As if I’m surprised.

I am a huge fan of Lynn Rossetto Kasper. I’m a loyal listener to her “The Splendid Table” podcast, and I absolutely loved her pithy and clever “How to Eat Supper” podcasts, which she co-hosted with TST producer Sally Swift (until recently, when they suddenly stopped coming out…) So I’m sort of embarrassed to admit that it took me until last week to sign up for Lynn’s “Weeknight Kitchen” newsletter. Now maybe it’s too soon to pass judgement, seeing as I’ve only gotten two issues. But this is Lynn Rossetto Kasper. Every recipe is a run-to-your-kitchen recipe. As expected, just one day after the email landed in my inbox, I was at the counter, surrounded by heaps of green cabbage.

The recipe in last week’s edition was for a Thai cabbage salad with tofu, cashews, and pineapple. D was quick to point out that I cut my pineapple slices so large as to intimidate my guests (sorry, ya’ll! Hope the yellow didn’t scare you away) so in the future, I’ll make my pineapple more….welcoming. But aside from that, I found this salad delightful. It’s got really well-layered flavor: the bitter freshness of cabbage, the tangy sweetness of pineapple, a generous handful of cashews, scallions and herbs, and a biting vinaigrette rounded out with fish sauce (one of Lynn’s favorite ingredients: it’s got tons of umami, or glutamate, which helps give that extra something to…well, almost anything.)

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Syllabub

rivka — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 22:11:46 +0000

To Amanda Hesser’s list of foods whose names alone command that you make them, I add this quirky dessert. Syllabub! Every time in the past two weeks I’ve called it by name, it’s been met with total crack-up laughter. Don’t you want to make it too, just to be able to say you whipped something up and it’s called Syllabub? Ha.

Now that I’ve made it, I can tell you the name shouldn’t be your only motivation for giving Syllabub a whirl. I came across the recipe in an old issue of Saveur (1996, maybe?) that I was reading last weekend at a friend’s lake house in Wisconsin. The picture caught my eye: a big, heavy-bottomed glass was filled to the brim with what looked like vanilla custard, topped with a bit of lemon zest and a sprig of rosemary. Intrigued, I read the piece: turns out, syllabub is basically whipping cream combined with sherry and some flavorings. Something about the alcohol or the acid of the lemon juice (or maybe both) thicken the cream without much whipping — it’s very bizarre! — so very little, if any, work is necessary.

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Graham Crackers

rivka — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 13:00:13 +0000

D’s stepmom, Terri, has an absolute weakness for graham crackers. She says they’re the one thing she absolutely can’t keep in the house, because once she opens the package, she’ll eat every last one. I learned this on our recent trip to Israel, and was pleased to be able to reply that in my bag, I just so happened to have two homemade graham crackers that I’d packed as a plane snack. Naturally, her eyes bulged. I bounded up the stairs and grabbed them immediately.

It had all started innocently enough: having given in several times the previous week to sugary, buttery shortbread and chocolate chip cookies and really so much more, I was determined to bake a snack that would satisfy my sweet tooth without pushing me over the edge. That whole “new year, new habits” thing has nothing to do with it, promise.

Graham crackers were the perfect choice. (They’re called crackers — how bad could they be?) I made a batch a couple days before we left; I gave a few away as holiday presents, and the rest I played around with. Some got a one-sided dunking in chocolate, others became sandwiches.

The cookies were just perfect. They were addictively crunchy, and the addition of whole wheat flour gave them a rustic, graham-y quality. And don’t forget the generous dusting of cinnamon sugar to finish them off.

Now Terri wasn’t all that enthused by the graham crackers, because the particular pair I’d brought were sandwiching a thick layer of intensely brown caramel, which overpowered the rather subtle flavor of the graham crackers. I liked ‘em just fine, but I probably won’t make them again. Graham crackers are meant to be simple, the kind of thing you munch alongside a steaming cup of tea. They satisfy a sweet craving just perfectly, no caramel or chocolate needed.

Graham Crackers
adapted ever so slightly from The Washington Post

For the graham crackers

9 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon unsalted butter, at room temperature
3/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar
3/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon flour, plus more for rolling
1 1/3 cups whole-wheat flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons whole or low-fat buttermilk or milk

For the topping (optional)

1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

Combine the butter and sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer or hand-held electric mixer. Beat on medium speed until light.

Combine the flours, baking powder and salt on a sheet of parchment paper or wax paper.

Reduce the speed to low; add the flour mixture, then the buttermilk, in several increments, ending with the flour; beat to form a soft dough. Divide the mixture in half, then wrap each portion in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for 1 hour or until well chilled.

For the topping (if using): Combine the sugar and cinnamon in a bowl.

Position oven racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven; preheat to 325 degrees. Line 2 rimmed baking sheets with parchment paper.

Lightly flour a work surface. Working with 1/2 portion at a time (keeping the others chilled), lightly flour the top of the dough. Roll out to a rectangle with a thickness of slightly less than 1/4 inch. Use cookie cutters to cut into shapes, or use a sharp knife and a ruler to cut the dough into 2-by-3-inch rectangles. Alternatively, use a scalloped cutter to give your cookies a wavy edge. (I did this on batch number 2.) Prick each cookie two or three times with a fork, and place the unbaked crackers on the baking sheets, spaced 1/4 inch apart. Sprinkle evenly with the topping, if using.

Bake for 6 to 8 minutes, then rotate the baking sheets top to bottom and front to back. Bake for 6 to 9 minutes, until golden brown and baked through. Let cool on the baking sheets before serving or storing.

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Crispy Kale Chips

rivka — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 02:35:43 +0000

Hello there readers, and hello 2010! I’m back from Israel and hope you enjoyed the dispatches from abroad. In truth, there’s so much more to tell: a dear friend took D and me on a fabulous tour of the Old City’s Christian Quarter, where we ate amazingly fresh hummus, climbed down to secret underground cisterns, and visited a tucked-away Austrian hospice for excellent cappucinos and Jerusalem’s best apple streudel. And that was just one morning!

But now we’re back to the grind, and besides, you must be tired of my rants about my travels. You come here for recipes, and I aim to please. So let’s talk about kale chips, shall we?

I think I first read about crispy kale in the late Gourmet Mag. The recipe was as simple as they come — kale, olive oil, salt, pepper — and accompanying it were stunning photos of long, evergreen-colored leaves shooting out of a tall glass. Gourmet said the kale was the perfect cocktail party food, and looking at the pictures, I had to agree. I could envision these beautiful vases of kale chips placed on a long table, giving height to the usual array of flat cookie platters and cheese plates. Yum.

One evening, I had a bunch of kale to use up and decided to give the recipe a go. If it was a success, I figured, I’d make it at my next dinner party; the beautiful chips were certain to impress.

But then I ate one.

Can we discuss the fact that my entire mouth, like every single tooth, had green flecks all about? And flecks is an understatement. I might as well have colored my smile with green marker, it was that bad. Cocktail party food my #$@*^%!!! Kale chips are absolutely delicious — they’re crispy, and salty, and perfectly peppery, utterly addictive in short — but they’re something to be eaten at home alone, or with someone who really, really likes you. Either way, be prepared to laugh.

Don’t let me green teeth scare you away completely, though: these kale chips truly are delicious. If any of you have made New Year’s resolutions to eat more vegetables, consider this recipe a belated holiday gift. You can easily polish off an entire batch of kale this way.

Kale Chips
adapted from Gourmet

These chips are delicious just so, but they really pop with a last-minute squeeze of lemon, if you have it handy.

1 bunch kale, cleaned and dried, center stems removed
olive oil
salt
pepper
wedge of lemon, optional

Put the kale in a large plastic bag, drizzle about 1/8 cup olive oil inside, and shake and massage to combine. Add more oil to the bag as needed until all leaves are coated in the oil. Spread kale leaves in a single layer on as many baking sheets as you need, and sprinkle generously with salt and pepper. Bake at 300 for 20-25 minutes, until kale is crispy all over. Cooking time depends on age and dryness of kale, so watch carefully and remove when every piece is crispy. Serve immediately, and squeeze lemon overtop just before serving, if desired.

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Morduch

rivka — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 19:46:23 +0000

Judging by its exterior, Morduch has developed its reputation entirely by word of mouth. The sign outside is small and dirty, and the restaurant is not much more than a hole in the wall, overshadowed in size and grandeur by its neighbor, the shuk (open air market). It’s not the kind of place you notice just walking by; for Morduch to be full as consistently as it is, people must be talking about it. And I can assure you, they are. I actually sat down on the bus the day after I started writing this post, and sure enough, the two women next to me were discussing Morduch.

Morduch serves classic Israeli comfort food: warm hummus with whole chickpeas and ground beef, and kabobs with rice and tomatoes, are both menu staples. But they’re known for their soup — kubbeh soup, in particular.

There are three varieties of kubbeh soup at Morduch. The first is called “marak kubbeh adom,” or red kubbeh soup. It’s a mildly-spiced tomato broth with celery, a couple other vegetables, and big kubbeh, or meat-filled semolina dumplings that have been boiled in the soup. Marak kubbeh adom is generally regarded as the most basic soup; it’s what your friend orders when it’s his first time at the restaurant and he’s still skeptical about the whole kubbeh thing.

The second variety is called marak kubbeh hamusta, and it had me at hello. I first ate kubbeh hamusta in 2004, and was immediately addicted to its mouth-twisting tartness (from sorrel leaves) and rich spicing (from the beef in the kubbeh). There are few things I adore more than hamusta soup.

Given my love of hamusta, I generally don’t look at the menu — I just sit down and order. As I was slurping the last of my bowl last week, I glanced at the menu for blog-reporting purposes and noticed a third soup on the menu: marak kubbeh siskeh. As it’s described by the restaurant, siskeh is hamusta soup for the advanced palate: its spicing is more aggressive, its tartness more pronounced. Basically, an amped up bowl of the already-wonderful hamusta. I had in mind to head back and give it a shot, but there was too much else to do and not enough time, so siskeh will have to wait until my next trip. If you have it, you must let me know how it is!

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The Shuk

rivka — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 08:45:31 +0000

The central attraction of the downtown area is, without a doubt, the shuk, or the open-air market. Occupying two long square blocks, it has everything you could possibly want, from fresh fruit and vegetables to prepared foods to hundreds of kinds of cheese to fresh-squeezed juice to full-service cafes and restaurants…and more. It’s one of my favorite places in all of Jerusalem, and I make a point to come at least once or twice every time I’m here.

The produce at the shuk alone makes it worth the trip. Fruit and vegetables of every variety are available and shockingly affordable prices. You know those Middle Eastern cucumbers that cost $3 or $4/lb at your local farmers market? It’d be difficult to spend $2 on them here: they cost about 75 cents/kilo, or about 35 cents/pound. Aside from the prices, the variety is refreshing. It’s not everywhere that you can get beautiful red tomatoes and even strawberries (!) in December. For those with an exotic streak, there are also sabras (mild-tasting fruit with hot pink exterior and innards ranging from white to purple), pumelos (a cross between a grapefruit, a lemon, and an orange with a hefty pith, a light yellow tint, and a sweet, tart flavor) and many other things.

Smack in the middle of the shuk’s indoor strip is my favorite cheese shop. It’s perpetually swarming with people angling for their tub of fresh ricotta, goat feta, Bulgarian cheese or labne (a thick, tangy yogurt). And in addition to the over 20 kinds of fresh cheese, the stand also has an unusually large assortment of imported cheeses, which can be hard to find in Jerusalem. Next door, the same folks own a meat stand, where they sell great hummus, meat cigars, and kubbeh (fried semolina dumplings stuffed with ground meat), as well as an assortment of ready-to-eat main dishes and sides. The fun never ends.

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Home Sweet Home

rivka — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 08:52:30 +0000

I don’t know what it is about this place that gets me every time.

Partially, it’s the food. There’s hot, sweet challah in the oven right now, some really beautiful fruit on the counter, and onions and garlic browning on the stove.

It’s also the scenery. It’s 65 degrees, there’s not a cloud in the sky, and the view from our window is enough to make anyone swoon.

It all boils down to this: I’m only here once a year or so, but for some inexplicable reason, Jerusalem feels like a second home. I don’t make itineraries like I do when I’m in other countries; I don’t plan to see special exhibits or even make reservations at fancy restaurants. What’s important to me here is seeing the people I love, soaking in the beautiful weather, eating as much fruit and vegetables as I can get my hands on, and walking around my old neighborhood for as long as my feet will stand. And of course, I’ve got my camera here with me, so I’ll do my best to document my time here and share it with you.

I can promise some really, truly good eats — the kind of local food whose recipes involve measurements by the handful and simply can’t be matched. If I’m lucky, I’ll even have some recipes to share. So tune in, enjoy, and to those of you celebrating today, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

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Brussels Sprouts with Sriracha, Honey, and Lime

rivka — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 20:59:27 +0000

When the New Yorker lands in my mailbox each Tuesday, the first thing I read is the weekly restaurant write-up, Tables for Two. It’s short and sweet, and usually contains a brief description of one or two stand-out dishes. Every once in a while, I hear one of the descriptions and think, that sounds like something I should try to make. Even more rarely than that, I actually get off my derriere and try to make one of the recipes. This is one of those times.

The idea came from The Vanderbilt, a restaurant in Prospect Heights. According to the New Yorker, “the best dish might be the roasted Brussels sprouts, dressed with sriracha, lime, and honey, each bite a perfect combination of sweet, spicy, and tart.” They really did sound perfect, and given a) how simple the ingredient list sounded and b) the fact that I happened to have all four aformentioned ingredients in my house, I decided to give it a go. What better use of a snow day than turning dish descriptions into great food?

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Goat Cheese Caramel Cheesecake

rivka — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 18:12:39 +0000

The last several times I saw cheesecake on a restaurant menu, it always listed some cheese other than cream cheese as its defining ingredient: ricotta, farmers cheese, and goat cheese seem to make regular appearances.

This is with good reason: traditional cheesecake is overly sweet and very dense. It feels to me like a 1980’s-era dessert, something that no one really serves anymore. I can eat only a couple bites of it before needing a break from the sugar shock, and while the texture is initially nice, it wears me out after a while. I suppose this is why I’ve made it only once or twice, ever. Inexperience notwithstanding, something about being a food blogger makes me foolish enough to believe that I’ll master a recipe immediately, and so when I got a hankering for cheesecake this weekend, I was determined to make the perfect version.

As often as my culinary hubris has backfired, this time, I’ve gotta say, I think I pretty much hit the nail on the head. I auditioned several recipes beforehand — everything from toffee crunch to chocolate-coffee to key lime — just to make sure I considered all the possibilities. Ultimately, I settled on something akin to New York cheesecake, with lemon juice and zest to offset the sugar. I also drew inspiration from all those restaurant menus, using goat cheese in lieu of much of the cream cheese called for in classic recipes. I like goat cheese’s tanginess, and I also find it lighter and thus more bearable than cream cheese.

I decided to top off my goat cheese cake with a coat of dark, smokey caramel. I added a bit of lemon juice to the caramel topping to echo the lemon in the cake and cut the sweetness, and included a generous amount of salt because I find caramel is no good unless it’s equal measures sweet and salty.

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Chocolate-Dipped Hazelnut Shortbread

rivka — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 15:51:24 +0000

If it wasn’t obvious from my cookie page, I’ve got something of a permanent craving for bite-sized crunchy/chewy treats. Hanukkah isn’t really a cookie-focused holiday — it’s more a celebration of your deep fryer. But Christmas is just around the corner, and every year, I get swept up in the holiday spirit. This year is no exception, and I’m more than happy to bake off a few batches in honor of the holiday cookie season. Just doing my duty, people.

Tonight’s first batch was my favorite chocolate chip cookies. Everyone’s got a favorite recipe: mine are pretty close to the NYT recipe, only I don’t mess around with the two different types of flour, I use natural sugar instead of bleached white stuff, and I use a mix of ghiradelli chocolate chips and chopped bittersweet chocolate for textural contrast.

After a few of those were in the oven — for D, of course, just wanted to please my lady — I moved onto batch number two: hazelnut shortbread. Less sweet but just as buttery and full of toasted nuts, these shortbread are chocolate chip cookies’ sophisticated sibling. They come together in a flash, and can be baked in any number of ways. If you’re in a rush, roll the whole pile of dough into a log and stick them in the freezer for slice-and-bake action later. If you have more time, form them into little individual log cookies. Either way, dunk the finished shortbread into shiny melted chocolate (or just drizzle the chocolate on top using a fork), and roll in toasted nuts on top for some truly elegant December desserts. Oh, and by the way: they make a lovely holiday present.

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My Hanukkah Wishlist

rivka — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 16:30:25 +0000

Christmas season is upon us, and the obsessing about presents is underway. I’ve seen about 15 gift guides, some food-specific, some not, with ideas for the food lover, the wannabe foodie, the horrible cook, the cool-chef-dad, the apron-clad mom, and everyone in between.

This isn’t really a gift guide — it’s really just a haphazardly-compiled list of things I’d love to have. But all the same, here goes:

Cookbooks

Michael Symon’s Live to Cook

This is the first cookbook from Cleveland chef Michael Symon. I haven’t seen the book, but the one recipe I made from it — tomato blue cheese soup — was hands down the best tomato soup I’ve ever had. If the rest of the book has recipes like that one, I’m sold.

David Chang’s Momofuku

By now you’ve all heard me wax poetic about David Chang’s New York restaurant empire, Momofuku. The food at these restaurants — and I’ve been to three of them — is some of the best I’ve had in New York, and you know it’s good when, in a city with as cut-throat a restaurant culture as Manhattan, the man’s managed to open up five joints in no time, all of which frequently have lines at the door. This cookbook (which I’ve peeked at several times) brings Chang’s mastery of flavor into the home. His proportions are spot-on, and he makes deliciousness from such simple ingredients. I made his soba with scallion dressing, and what looks like a big pile of scallions with brown sauce all over them turns out to be a phenomenal bowl of noodles. I’m hungry for more.

Canal House Cooking, Vol. 1

This is the first in a series of what will be four cookbooks, one for each time of year. The books are written by Christopher Hirsheimer & Melissa Hamilton, who are as skilled in the art of food photography as they are at developing damn good recipes. I’ve peeked in these cookbooks at BN, and they’re just gorgeous. The book evokes that feeling I get toward the end of a lazy summer weekend afternoon, when the sun is setting over my neighborhood and the air is cooling off, and the most important thing I have to do is sip a good glass of wine.

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Brussels Sprouts with “Bacon” and Pears

rivka — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 01:15:24 +0000

Yet another installment of my Weekday Lunch series, where I share recipes suited for home or the office.

Last Wednesday night, a colleague of mine had a pre-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving party. The idea is brilliant. Since most of us spend Tday with anyone from parents and siblings to in-laws and cousins twice removed, might as well take the night before to be with friends and surrogate family members, and to toast the holiday in style. And that’s just what we did. We ate butter chicken (spicy!) and Brussels sprouts with apples and the most trashy-chic tater tot casserole; we pigged out on pecan bars (from yours truly) and bread pudding and phenomenal ricotta cheesecake; and we washed it all down with lots and lots of bourbon. There truly is no better way to usher in Thanksgiving.

The next day, having landed in Detroit to spend the weekend with D’s family, those Brussels sprouts were still on my mind. They were perfectly caramelized, much softer in the middle than I usually make them, and speckled with little chunks of roasted apple, which provided the perfect sweet, tangy contrast to the smoky and just-barely-bitter sprouts.

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Cauliflower with Brown Butter

rivka — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 14:15:53 +0000

Part of the fun of food blogging is that my kitchen rarely sees the exact same dish twice. Driven by the need for new content, I’m always in search of the next great recipe. I abide some serious duds along the way, but they’re a necessary evil in this business, and well worth the pain when you consider that experimentation is the only way to unearth the new best recipe.

Folks, this is the new best recipe.

The minute I started to make it, I knew it’d be something special, and frankly, I’m a little shocked that in 26 years of eating mostly vegetarian food, 8 years of cooking for myself, 5 years of being really interested in food, and over 2 years of food blogging, I never came across this sublime combination. The minute the cauliflower hit the heat, I knew I’d struck the jackpot. Consider the nutty, sweet sides of cauliflower; you can imagine how brown butter might amplify that nuttiness. It plays the perfect foil to the sweetness as well, letting it come out without overwhelming you. A hit of lemon zest at the end of cooking brightens the flavors and cuts the richness, and a quick confetti of grated Parmigiano Reggiano adds that perfect amount of salt. Seriously, this is the best tasting thing I’ve had in so, so long. I made it twice in the two weeks before Thanksgiving, and I just bought more cauliflower to make it again. It’s perfect. If you don’t trust me, you can check out this NYT recipe and be just as weirded out as I am that Julia Moskin and I had the lightbulb moment at the same time. How bizarre.

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Eggnog Ice Cream

rivka — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 13:15:23 +0000

A couple weeks ago, I went to a midday workweek lunch at Vidalia to take advantage of what was an excellent deal: $19.90 for app, main, and desserts — a large selection that included their signature lemon chess pie and pecan pie, for which they’re known. (By the way, the deal is no longer that good: $24 for lunch, and classic desserts aren’t included. A real shame — if they’d only keep offering that pecan pie I’d keep coming back.)

But I digress. The pecan pie at Vidalia truly is one of Washington’s great desserts. Its texture was smooth and silky, not at all jiggly, and both the crust and the filling are perfumed with toasted pecan. And if the bar wasn’t enough to please on its own, the clincher was a generous scoop of dark brown bourbon ice cream. My colleague and I couldn’t stop eating it.

When the ice cream was still on my mind two weeks later, I decided I had to give it a go in my own kitchen. I poked around online for a good recipe, but all I found was one that called for sweetened condensed milk. Why anyone would ruin the best dairy treat with sweetened condensed milk is beyond me; back to the drawing board.

How hard could it be? I figured I’d follow my usual formula for adding alcohol to ice cream, 3 tablespoons per quart, which seems to be enough to improve the texture without preventing proper freezing. I’d make a straightforward vanilla custard base, chill it, add the bourbon, and chill it in the machine. Easy enough. But right before freezing the custard, I dunked a spoon in to taste and adjust the flavors, and it was only then that I realized what I’d made: eggnog.

oops.

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Thanksgiving Menu Planning

rivka — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 02:10:24 +0000

This year, I’ll be out in Michigan for a turkey-filled T-Day with D’s family. However, longtime readers of this site know that I grew up in a vegetarian household, and as such, am accustomed to a turkey-less (but no less festive) holiday. Before you scrunch your face into a frown and get all judgmental, let me sing my annual chorus of “it’s the sides that really count!” I’m a side-dish gal. I invest my gastronomic pennies in the yams and the stuffing, the mushrooms and onions and pretty red-orange hued fall salad; for me, the sides are the main event, the turkey playing a supporting role (if that). Also, given that I’ve never actually made a Thanksgiving turkey, you’ll have to look elsewhere for that recipe. However, I think it’s fair to say I have a proven track record of producing great vegetarian Thanksgiving menus, and that will hold true this year as well, Detroit excursion notwithstanding.

Here are some of my favorite Thanksgiving-friendly vegetarian mains and sides from the NDP archives:

Wheatberry Salad with Cranberries and Mint
Broccoli with Capers and Olives
Broccoli with Pine Nuts and Raisins
Braised Pearl Onions
Braised Sweet and Sour Cabbage
Polenta with Tomatoes, Shallots and Goat Cheese: a nice alternative to cornbread. Tomatoes and shallots lend a savory kick, and goat cheese gives that finishing tang.
Roasted Brussels Sprouts: a simple preparation of one of my favorite fall vegetables.
Squash stuffed with quinoa, pears, and cranberries: it’s hard to imagine a vegetarian main dish that’s more Thanksgiving-appropriate. This has the wow-factor I’m always looking for.

If that list isn’t quite enough, I’ve also compiled a bunch of great ideas from across the web that I thought you might like:

Washingtonian featured a great piece this week on vegetarian recipes for Thanksgiving. The list includes a mouthwatering broccoli dish, among others, from Rasika chef Vikram Sunderam.
NYT has pulled together a very nifty guide on Thanksgiving cooking, which includes this year’s compilation of sides (many of which are vegetarian and delicious-looking) as well as some all-star posts from previous years.
Heidi Swanson, over at 101 Cookbooks, has compiled two very useful lists: one of vegetarian Thanksgiving recipes, and the other of Vegan recipes for T-day. As usual, Heidi is an endless source of ideas. Definitely check out her compilations.
Chow weighs in with a list of its top 10 vegetarian Thanksgiving recipes.
And finally, the recipe pictured at the top of this post: an awesome stuffed pumpkin number, filled to the brim with a rich bread pudding-like stuffing and baked until fall-apart tender. Don’t miss this.

Hopefully you’ll find these resources useful. And if all else fails, remember — Thanksgiving is about more than perfect turkey and delectable sides. It’s about relishing fall before winter sets in, enjoying family and all the drama involved in these get-togethers, playing board games until when you blink you see Monopoly money, and soaking up a rare four day weekend. The food is only part of the game — don’t sweat it.

Wishing you all the happiest of holidays!

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Chewy Toffee Blondies

rivka — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 02:55:13 +0000

Can I just say how touched I am? You all left the sweetest congratulatory messages on the last post, and I’m really just tickled. We’re told this is a pretty exciting time in our lives, and if the last two weeks are any indication, exciting is quite an understatement. We’re floating.

But I digress: this is a food blog, not a get-all-mushy-about-my-engagement blog, and I think it’s about time I passed along some recipes! I was in Chicago on business for the past few days, and in New York with friends to celebrate before that, so the kitchen’s been dark lately, but in the past few weeks, I’ve made some pretty tasty things, including one thing I probably haven’t made in years…

When it’s mid-July and summer’s taken up residence here in Washington, the fruit are at their peak. With ripe peaches and juicy plums in abundance, there’s no good reason to make anything but fruit desserts. That’s why, for the past 10 years, I seem to have forgotten about blondies. They just fell of my radar entirely; when I think of dessert, I think of crostadas and pies and fruit crisps galore. Chocolate? Chocolate who?

The other day, I was moments away from making Dorie Greenspan’s Brown Sugar Bundt Cake (from her book Baking From My Home to Yours). I had the bundt pan out and ready to go, the stand mixer fitted with the paddle, and then, suddenly, had a second thought. Didn’t the recipe say that the bundt was better the next day? I wanted something sweet now. Maybe I should stick to something I know, something comfortingly chewy and chocolatey and altogether delicious, that’d be delicious in under 30 minutes. I flipped a couple of pages and there, staring back at me, were some thick, unctuous-looking blondies. I was sold.

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No Better Reason to Celebrate

rivka — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 17:05:33 +0000

I’ve never been an early adopter. I came to this food blogging thing way after it had taken off; by the time I got a dSLR camera, food photography had already become a professional sport. And while other folks share whole chunks of their life online, the virtual snapshot I’ve created on this here blog is vague at best — taken in dim light, say, without a flash. And a low battery. I’m not one for full exposure, and D’s even less keen on it.

Well, today I take the plunge.

D and I have been together for almost five years. We met in college, spent a year together in Israel, and have made a pretty awesome life for ourselves in DC.

Since moving here together, our kitchen collection has probably tripled in size. I’m constantly buying just one more colorful plate or artfully decorated utensil. I don’t even try to resist the pull of exotic spices and salts, and we recently indulged my many powdered purchases by building an awesome under-cabinet magnetic spice rack.

I insist on making the house smell like sauteed onions and roasted garlic just about as often as possible, and D abides the smell in the early morning and the late evening way more often than she’d like. I keep this blog, which demands that I cook new, exciting, sometimes altogether strange recipes, on a regular basis. I’m sure she’d rather just eat pasta and sauce, but she always encourages me to further develop this site and add bells and whistles, and is my #1 supporter when I go off to “industry events” to try to meet other folks as crazy as I am.

In short, D rocks my world. But all that’s just prologue: this past weekend, in a fashion that couldn’t have been more “us” — think back of our neighborhood, amid heaps of fall foliage, on an uncharacteristically beautiful November afternoon…we got engaged!

Readers, I couldn’t be happier. I’m literally sitting up here on cloud 9. Care to join? It’s nice and cushy.

As if the engagement itself wasn’t adequate cause for thrill, we spent that first night at the newly-renovated Sushi Taro, and indulged in a 10-course kaiseki tasting dinner. This being a food blog, surely you’d like to hear about what we ate.

Normally, when we plunk down lots of cash to eat luxuriously, we do so at Mediterranean or Italian restaurants. We’re suckers for those big, bold flavors. Taro offered pleasure of a different sort entirely. Taro’s interior is quiet and clean, even austere. Its waitresses speak in hushed voices and glide across the room, seemingly without ever taking a step. It’s an airier space than it once was, the tables each on their own little islands. We sat next to a window in the front hallway, with a nice view of both the street below and the back room of the restaurant, which envelops an awesomely large yet oddly light chandelier made of white lantern paper.

Many of the tables around us had ordered kaiseki tastings, and that’s part of the fun: looking to your left, you’ll see a couple dipping wide brushes into bowls of brown sauce and giddily painting pristine slices of fish; you wonder what that sauce is, whether you’ll be painting fish a couple courses down the road. Look ahead, and you can enjoy a young woman’s surprise as she bites into that braised tuna you just polished off and discovers, as you did moments earlier, that it’s not piping hot as she’d expected, but thoroughly chilled. The meal is a game, and everyone’s at a different stage. Stealing glances at nearby tables lets you relive the excitement of earlier courses and anticipate surprises to come.

After the tuna, whose soy marinade aids its likeness to beef, further delights await. Take the soup course, which we’d assumed would be a bowl of dashi. Make no assumptions here; our adorable waitress perched at our table with two small teapots. Each was covered by a lid and a teacup; we removed the teacup, lifted the lid, squeezed a slice of key lime into the pot, replaced the lid, and began doling ourselves petite portions of that lovely, simple broth. When all the liquid was gone, we opened our teapots once again, and reached in using chopsticks to capture the maitake mushrooms and slices of fish that had flavored our soup. That course was so simple, and so perfect.

Just when we thought we were winding down, our waitress approached again, this time with an open menu in hand. “The 9th course is sushi by request. You may ask the chef for any 3 pieces you like.” At this point, we were both on the brink of stuffed. Notwithstanding, I reached for some inner strength and requested, among other things, a piece of toro. It’s not every day that I get to try the fatty underbelly of the bluefin tuna, and I wanted to sieze the opportunity when it presented itself. The marbling on the pink sliver of fish was truly marvelous, as was its silky, smooth texture. To paraphrase Frank Bruni, biting into that piece of toro made my cheeks flush.

And you know what else made my cheeks flush? Sitting on a stoop, on a beautiful fall day, surrounded by pretty red and yellow leaves, with the person I’ll be spending life with. There simply is no better reason to celebrate.

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Broccoli with Capers and Olives, Two Ways

rivka — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 13:43:44 +0000

Finally, the next chapter of “Weekday Lunch,” where I offer recipes for food that fits in tupperware and warms in the office microwave.

This dish happened completely by accident. D had decided to order a pizza for dinner, and I decided to do something else, seeing as it would have been my fourth pizza meal of the week. (Ugh.) I did a quick scan of the fridge and saw a bag of nice-looking young broccoli that I’d picked up at the weekend farmers’ market. I also had the last of a tub of greek olives that I’d recently replaced with a new tub and wanted to use up, and the end of a jar of summer’s tomato sauce. There was about 1/4 of a box of macaroni left in the cupboard, so I figured I’d throw the last little bits of each of these to make a nice pasta dinner.

I started by finely chopping a shallot and heating a tab of butter in a large, shallow pan over medium-low heat. When the shallot was translucent and fragrant but not brown, I added about 1/2 teaspoon of red chili flakes and 2 cups of broccoli. I knew I planned to cook the broccoli just until al dente, but I wanted to use the stems as well as the florets, so I sliced the stems pretty finely — about 1/3-1/2-inch thick — so that they’d cook pretty quickly. I added a hefty pinch of salt and tossed the pan a couple times to combine.

Soon after adding the broccoli, I tossed in what was left of the olives, probably about 1/2 cup worth. I also added about a tablespoon of capers. At this point, the broccoli was heating up and had turned a vibrant shade of green. I wanted to preserve this color, so I added a very little bit of water from the pasta, which had already started to cook. Non-pasta water would have been fine as well, but it helps to have the water be hot, so that it doesn’t slow down the cooking.

After about five minutes, the broccoli was almost perfect; still that beautiful green shade, mostly cooked but still with a bite. I ended up adding several ladlefuls of my tomato sauce, and eventually some hot pasta, to make this dinner. But before tomatoes ever hit the pan, I looked down at the broccoli with its briny accompaniments and thought, gosh, this’d make a fantastic side. So there you have it; broccoli with capers and olives. I’d probably squeeze a bit of lemon if I were serving this alone; hitting it with some acidity would compliment the vegetal and salty flavors. I could see it served atop israeli couscous, or as an accompaniment to chicken. It was also pretty great mixed with tomato sauce and tossed with the end of the box of macaroni. Just sayin’.

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Buttermilk Country Cake, Homemade Creme Fraiche

rivka — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 15:51:12 +0000

In my minds eye, a good cake is at least two layers high. It’s fluffy and moist and laden with chocolate and, if I’m lucky, coated from head to toe and all in between with cream cheese frosting. Or better yet, chocolate cream cheese frosting. In a word, decadent.

It’s easy to pass up simpler cakes in favor of the sky-high versions I make for birthdays and such. But when a more casual occasion comes along and I have good reason to make a cake that’s not coated in frosting, I jump at the chance. Much like the toasted flour sables I made in my last post, this cake is very girl-next-door. It’s the epitome of rustic simplicity, a simple batter flavored with just buttermilk and vanilla. The resulting cake is clean and pure, its texture at once moist and airy. It’s a cake made for brunch or a picnic in the park. A slice would also be the perfect accompaniment to a cup of tea, which is a ritual for me on winter mornings.

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Sugar High Friday: Toasted Edition, the Roundup!

rivka — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 13:15:39 +0000

It always takes me a while to get over the end of summer’s abundance; I spend a good part of September missing peak tomatoes and fretting about corn’s impending end. But once October comes around, I’m fully ready for fall, which brings pleasure of a different sort.

Once I’ve left summer behind, I’m ready for the reds, oranges, and deep golden yellows of the leaves in Rock Creek Park. I’m ready to put on one of those big, chunky sweaters, a pair of my favorite jeans, and my steadfastly loyal black riding boots, and take a walk through the park. I love the crunch of those leaves beneath my feet. the crisp chill of the air that sneaks between my scarf and the neck of my sweater, the smell of my favorite lip balm that makes its annual debut this time of year. It’s fall, people.

When the air is as crisp as the leaves, I often find myself standing over the stove, watching walnuts toast and inhaling that intoxicating smell, and occasionally sneaking my hands out of my sweater sleeves for a quick toasting of their own over the hot pan.

Fall is the perfect time for all things toasted. Toasting can intensify the flavors of nuts and spices, caramelize the natural sugars in fruits and even some vegetables (like onions), and bring out rich, nutty undertones that might otherwise remain dormant in the food we eat.

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On the Occasional Chicken Dinner

rivka — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 16:14:48 +0000

I’ve been thinking a lot about Jonathan Safran Foer’s article in the New York Times Magazine’s recent Food Issue about why he stopped eating meat. If you haven’t read the article, take a look. Safran Foer tells the story of his long-time struggle with vegetarianism and the ways in which fatherhood helped him strengthen his convictions to not eat meat. The question with which he grapples has been posed many times before: how do we reconcile our appetites for meat with the ethical questions of animal cruelty and environmental damage that are part and parcel to the process by which 99% of American meat is produced? While Safran Foer’s insights and answers aren’t new, not everyone reads The Omnivore’s Dilemma and shops at farmers’ markets. I imagine that given the wide circulation of NYT, the author’s message reached a wider, less “in-the-loop” audience. I’m glad for that.

Still, I struggle with something he said, one sentence in particular:

According to an analysis of U.S.D.A. data by the advocacy group Farm Forward, factory farms now produce more than 99 percent of the animals eaten in this country. And despite labels that suggest otherwise, genuine alternatives — which do exist, and make many of the ethical questions about meat moot — are very difficult for even an educated eater to find. I don’t have the ability to do so with regularity and confidence. (“Free range,” “cage free,” “natural” and “organic” are nearly meaningless when it comes to animal welfare.)”

That sentence about how alternatives to factory-farmed meat are hard for even the most educated eater to find? That’s just not true. Now, there certainly aren’t enough alternative sources out there to feed Americans’ insatiable appetite for meat and poultry, and the price-point of said alternatives may make meat and poultry consumption cost-prohibitive for many families, but alternatives most certainly do exist, and they’re as accessible (geographically) as the nearest farmers’ market. Yes, they require some research to discover, but they’re there. The issue isn’t that they’re hard to find, it’s that people simply aren’t looking.

About a year ago, just around the time I got back from our cruise to Alaska, I started looking for those alternative sources. Remember that in addition to the various ethical concerns I had, I also needed the meat to bear a kosher certification; that notwithstanding, I managed to find a source of meat and, eventually, poultry, that was both ethically and technically “kosher.” If I didn’t keep a kosher home, it would have been as simple as hitting up the Polyface stand at the Dupont Circle farmers’ market. Rumor has it their chicken is out of this world.

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Eating with Grandpa

rivka — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 12:56:20 +0000

My grandfather loved to eat. He and my grandmother went to restaurants about three times a week as far back as I can remember. For them it was never about trying the newest place or getting a coveted table at a popular joint; it was about old haunts. They had their usual spots — hell, they had their usual tables at those spots — and after years of frequenting the same Chicago institutions, they earned recognition as regulars. The maitre d’ always came over to say hi and schmooze. Grandpa was a classy guy, and he always chatted up our server. My brother and I both remember feeling proud at Grandpa’s easy way. Grandpa and Grandma loved restaurants; they loved the company, the nostalgia of it all, for certain. But they came for the food.

I vividly remember the first time I realized that food was a love we shared. We were sitting at Kiki’s Bistro, which has been around for almost 20 years. Grandma was eating a caramelized onion torte, and Grandpa and I were digging beneath the Gruyere-cloaked croutons in a bowl of piping hot onion soup. I asked Grandpa what he thought. He said, “there’s no such thing as bad soup. There’s only good soup and very good soup. This is very good soup.” He then went on to explain that Kiki’s has one of the best baguettes in the city, with the crispiest crust — he broke off a piece to show me how the crust shattered just so — and the best flavor. Grandpa was a food lover, through and through.

Sometime midday on Tuesday of this week, my grandfather passed away. As my brother so eloquently said, it’s hard to call his death at the age of 96 a tragedy. His life was not cut short. But without him, nothing can ever be the same again.

I’ve mentioned many times on this site that I owe my love of cooking to my mother. But it was Grandpa who opened my eyes to the pleasures of eating. By the time we started dining out together, Grandpa’s appetite was, well, petite. He usually made a meal of two appetizers. At Hugo’s, he ordered a small plate of frog’s legs, which I’d never seen before. After a few visits, I worked up the guts to try one. As I bit in, Grandpa looked up, eagerly awaiting my response. I ventured that they tasted a lot like chicken; Grandpa cracked up.

At Coco Pazzo, an Italian joint, I remember Grandpa swooning over a squid-ink spaghetti and insisting that I try some. Well, not insisting, exactly: every few bites, Grandpa would push his plate a couple inches in my direction, catch some strands of spaghetti on his fork, and nudge them toward me. I looked up, and he’d start looking at me, then at his plate, signaling for me to take a bite. Finally, I consented. He looked up at me with inquisitive eyes: did I like it? I nodded, equally focused on the smooth noodles and their delightfully garlicky sauce as I was on letting Grandpa know I approved.

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Soup of Fresh Shelling Beans and Sorrel

rivka — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 18:04:40 +0000

Is it Monday? I’m pretty sure it’s Monday. The last two weeks have been a blur of sniffles, tissues, and gallons (I mean it) of chai. I came down with a cold just around the start of the month. Chalk it up to a late recovery from August’s crunch time at work. I took a couple of days on the couch to recover, and when it started to fade, I headed back to the office. But the cold wasn’t finished yet, and by trying to rush it, I only invited it to extend its stay. Sure enough, it hung around, bringing a sinus infection to the party, and before I knew it, two weeks passed. Well now I’m better, but in anticipation of the many unwelcome colds sure to pay visits this summer, I’ll share a godsend of a recipe with you. It’s for a soup so simple, yet so restorative, that I probably wouldn’t have made it through the past half-month without it.

One morning when I was feeling unusually chipper, I shelled some fresh cranberry beans and threw them in a pot. I added a couple teaspoons of olive oil, half an onion chopped, 2 whole cloves of garlic, water, and, about 20 minutes in, a big bunch of sorrel leaves (NOT the stems, which, I learned the hard way, separate into sharp spindles that are incredibly NOT fun to eat, especially when glands are swollen. Ouch.) I let the whole thing boil away for 25 minutes total; by then, the beans were pretty soft but not mushy, the sorrel was fully cooked, and the broth was incredibly fragrant and a bit tart from the sorrel.

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Sugar High Friday Reminder: Get Toasting!

rivka — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 18:35:46 +0000

Just reminding anyone who’s interested that the deadline for Sugar High Friday should bake, photograph, post, and email their toasted recipes to me by MIDNIGHT MONDAY, OCTOBER 26th. I’ll do the round-up at the end of that week, so if you want in, get baking! I know I’ve already baked up a pretty delicious and unique recipe for this month’s fun. I may even squeeze in one more round of baking if I get better in time.

To enter, email me at Rivka [at] Not Derby Pie [dot] com with “SHF-toasted” as the subject. Please include:

-your name
-the name of your blog
-a link to the post about your submission
-the name of your submission
-any other info about why you made what you made
-a thumbnail image of your creation. It should be no wider than 100 pixels, in jpg format, and should be named the same as your blog. For example, my image would be named notderbypie.jpg.

If you do not have a blog, please post your recipe, and a link to a photo if you’d like, in the comments section either here or in the round-up post.

Hope to see you back here, recipe in hand, by October 26th!

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For What Ails You

rivka — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 12:44:20 +0000

What you see there is what’s left of my breakfast (some baguette with ricotta, avocado, and sea salt — crostini, anyone?), my lifeline (tissues), and my constant companion (a steaming cup of chai). I’m down for the count right now and need some serious R&R. Hopefully I’ll be better and back in a few days.

Meanwhile, humor me: when you’re sick, what are your creature comforts? Are there things you absolutely can’t live without? See you in the comments, everyone.

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Rebecca’s Red Velvet Birthday Cake

rivka — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 19:28:10 +0000

What cake to bake for the girl who bakes birthday cakes?

Back in September, we had our friend Rebecca over for dinner right around her 25th birthday, so I decided to make her a birthday cake for dessert. Problem is, Rebecca’s basically known for her cakes and cupcakes. She makes them all the time, and in so many different flavor combinations, it’s hard not to be intimidated. She even wowed us all at her super bowl party a couple years ago by cutting out a strip from the middle of each cupcake, putting the two halves back together, and injecting some frosting in between, to make oblong, football-shaped cupcakes, complete with frosting to look like the laces. Show-stopping, for sure. I’m sure you wouldn’t blame me if, after remembering those cupcakes, I reneged on the idea of baking for Rebecca and just served a fruit crisp.

But I didn’t. Not content to balk at the challenge of baking for a baker, I settled on red velvet cake, a crowd-pleaser if ever there was one and a cinch to make. I used a recipe from The Hummingbird Bakery that my friend Sara from work always raves about. I don’t have the Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook, but I’ll expose my inner nerd and tell you that I actually went to Barnes and Noble, found the book on the shelf, and copied the recipe into my iphone. I told you, big nerd.

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Crostini of All Sorts

rivka — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 17:23:31 +0000

During a recent stop at the bookstore on my street, Idle Time Books (which, btw, had a cameo in A Few Good Men), I was thumbing through cookbook author Deborah Madison’s latest book, What We Eat When We Eat Alone, which she co-wrote with her artist-partner Patrick McFarlin. WWEWWEA (liberally abbreviating the long title here…) is a funny and shockingly intimate account of the ways in which, in the absence of others, food becomes our animated companion. It’s a book that draws you in, and before I knew it, I had plopped down on the floor to dig in, and was reading about pouring sardine juice onto cottage cheese and eating it on one foot at the open refrigerator. I laughed out loud as I thought about similar moments I’ve had, grabbing a bite standing up while I peer into the fridge for my next little nibble.

In the spirit of celebrating this wonderful little book, I’ll tell you about one thing I invariably eat lots of when it’s just me in the house: crostini.

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Carrot-Zucchini Bread

rivka — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 00:30:26 +0000

This is the kind of recipe I live for. It reminds me of those really good bran muffins you find at local coffee shops, with the nutty, wholesome flavors and tops that crust around the edges and never are perfectly round. It’s got a more well-defined crumb than carrot kugel, but it’s not as sweet as carrot cake, and grated zucchini lends it sophistication. Not that this is a snobby loaf — just the opposite. It takes about 5 minutes to mix together, and the 80-minute baking time lets you actually get something else done while you wait. I brought it to our pre-Yom Kippur meal on Sunday afternoon, but it’d make a phenomenal breakfast or afternoon snack.

special thanks to reader Catherine for pointing out that I failed to mention the eggs in the ingredient list. Sorry everyone! Three eggs.

Carrot Bread
adapted loosely from Bon Appetit

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup white whole wheat flour
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. baking powder
1/2 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup cane sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup applesauce
3 eggs
2 cups grated carrot
1 cup grated zucchini

Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter and flour 9×5x3-inch loaf pan. Sift first 5 ingredients into medium bowl. Beat sugar, oil, eggs, applesauce, and vanilla to blend in large bowl. Mix in zucchini and carrot. Add dry ingredients and stir well.

Transfer batter to prepared pan. Bake until tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 1 hour 20 minutes. Cool bread in pan on rack 15 minutes. Cut around bread to loosen. Turn out onto rack and cool completely. (Can be prepared 1 day ahead. Wrap in foil and let stand at room temperature.)

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Pickles!

rivka — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 22:30:48 +0000

Folks, I’m finding it hard to contain my excitement about NDP’s second-ever guest post. Guess who wrote it? MY MOM!

That’s right: in the post below, NDP Ima tells you all about easy-to-make, hard-to-stop-eating pickles. You’ll see from her intro paragraph where I got my taste buds. These pickles are salty, tangy, and really bright from the addition of fresh dill. So read up — then go make some pickles!

I am really not a salt lover. I don’t use much when I cook, and in restaurants great food that’s well-seasoned is often too salty for my taste. I don’t care for chips or french fries, and I prefer nuts spicy or au naturel. Nonetheless, I do love briny salty things – olives, capers, and sour pickles. So when I was leaving town for a long weekend and had a lot of small cucumbers that wouldn’t last until my return, I decided to try my hand at some pickles. I wanted spicy, garlicky, dill pickles that would make themselves in the refrigerator while I was gone. I remembered the ones a family friend used to make with cucumbers from his garden and my dad’s. He didn’t use shortcuts, though – he put his pickles in huge crocks of brine and alum in the basement for weeks.

I cut the cukes into thick, chunky slices and placed them in a quart jar with pickling spices and garlic. I didn’t have any fresh dill, so my first batch just had dill seed from the pickling spice, but it still tasted authentic. I prepared the vinegar brine and filled the jar, leaving it upside down on the counter overnight. The next morning, before rushing to the airport, I put the jar in the frig. When I returned four nights later, the pickles were done to perfection!
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Sugar High Friday…Toasted!

rivka — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 18:37:19 +0000

Now that NDP is a whopping two years old, I think it’s time she and I finally hosted a blogging event. I’ve been a sporadic participant in these sorts of things, mostly because between keeping up with my day job, getting bloggable food on the table, and taking decent pictures of said food, I can’t find much time to keep up with the various blogging events out there. But one of my resolutions for this third year of blogging is to dip my foot into new networks of eaters, cooks, and bloggers. I’d like to be more in touch with folks who do what I do on this site. So here’s my first attempt: I’m hosting October’s Sugar High Friday.

Sugar High Friday (SHF) is a blogging event to satisfy the mother of all sweet-tooths (sweet teeth?). SHF was created by Jennifer Hamilton, i.e. The Domestic Goddess, and every month, SHF participants cook, photograph, and submit desserts on a theme. Past themes include desserts from your childhood, sweets containing alcohol, chilled desserts, and last month’s edition, “locavore treats.”

For the October 2009 edition of SHF, we’ll be making desserts in which something (or everything) is toasted. Toasted almonds and toasted coconut come to mind, but it doesn’t stop there: toasted spices can really perk up an ordinary recipe, toasted oats in fruit crisp add a lovely nutty flavor…I could go on. I’ve got something pretty unique planned for my entry, and I know you’ll all submit some really interesting things as well. (Ahem, I mean you!)

Speaking of submissions, here are the guidelines for submitting an entry:

Cook and photograph something toasty!
If you have a blog, post about your toasted dessert. (If you don’t have a blog, see below.
Email me at Rivka [at] Not Derby Pie [dot] com with “SHF-toasted” as the subject. Please include:
- your name
- the name of your blog
- a link to the post about your submission
- the name of your submission
- any other info about why you made what you made
- a thumbnail image of your creation. It should be no wider than 100 pixels, in jpg format, and should be named the same as your blog. For example, my image would be named notderbypie.jpg.
If you do not have a blog, please post your recipe, and a link to a photo if you’d like, in the comments section either here or in the round-up post.
Submissions must be in by midnight (EDT) on Monday, October 26th, or they will not be included in the round-up!

I’ll post the roundup on Friday of that week, so please do check back here to see everyone’s delicious creations!

Looking for inspiration? Check out these recipes, all of which rely on toasted ingredients:

As always, thanks to Jennifer, the Domestic Goddess, who created the whole Sugar High Friday concept back in 2004. Now get cookin’!

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Moroccan Chicken with Olives

rivka — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 23:22:58 +0000

Today was seriously busy — fortunately for me, D’s stepmom Terri came in a couple days early to help cook, finish up grocery shopping, and see to it that the house was clean. That last bit she takes more seriously than you can imagine; when D and I moved into our apt, in a 100-year old building, the stove was caked with some hard-core black stains that I assumed were there to stay. I tried a couple of times to get them out but made no headway whatsoever, so I just got used to them. Terri doesn’t give up so easily; she’s got a big back of tricks up her sleeve when it comes to cleaning things, and I could swear she also pulled some sort of voodoo hex thing while I wasn’t looking, because folks, my stove is crystal clean. If you only knew the sort of filth I’ve been cooking with — it’s the sort that builds up over many many years — I can’t believe it’s actually all gone. amazing!

Meanwhile, on the cooking front, today I made (among other things) a delicious chicken recipe that I’ve just gotta share with you all. It’s a braised chicken dish with Moroccan flair. It starts with lots of onion that’s been cooked to the point of soft, caramelized translucence; punchy green olives are then added along with preserved lemon, which is both uber-tart and floral from the cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves in which it’s preserved. I was on the phone while I was cooking this dish, and after sampling a bit of the sauce, I added a splash of apple cider on a whim to cut all the salt, which worked very nicely. It’s not in the recipe on which this is based, but it adds depth and balance so I’d recommend adding it. If you’re looking for a chicken dish, I can assure you — this is the one.

Meanwhile, I don’t think I’ll have a chance to post between now and the start of the holiday, so…

To all those celebrating Rosh Hashana, may you all have a sweet New Year, filled with joy, laughter, and wonderful eating. I feel lucky to have you all in my ‘life,’ and I hope that you’ll continue to read, enjoy, and cook from NDP!

Also, though it’s been a busy little month here, I don’t want to overlook the fact that this weekend marks my 2-YEAR BLOGIVERSARY! That’s right: exactly 2 years ago, I had the quirky little brainchild to hatch Not Derby Pie. I worried at the time that I’d be too bored to keep a blog, not talented enough to cook and photograph my way through it, and not lucky enough to draw readers; fortunately, I’ve made it thusfar! You’re the best readers (and commiserators!) I could ask for, and I feel exceptionally lucky to have you all hangin’ out around here. So cheers to all, happy birthday to NDP, and here’s to many more years together!

Moroccan Chicken with Olives

8 wedges or slices preserved lemon*, rinsed
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 large onion, halved, thinly sliced
2 garlic cloves, pressed
1 tablespoon paprika
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
2 cups chicken or vegetable broth
1/2 cup apple cider
1 4 1/2-pound chicken, cut into 8 pieces, skin removed
1/2 cup green olives

Heat oil in large skillet over medium-high heat. Add onion and sprinkle with salt and pepper; sauté until golden brown, about 8 minutes. Add next 5 ingredients; stir 1 minute. Add broth; bring to boil. Sprinkle chicken with salt (if not kosher or brined) and pepper; add to skillet. Add preserved lemon and olives. Cover, reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer until chicken is cooked through, turning occasionally, 25 to 30 minutes. Transfer chicken to platter. Add apple cider to skillet. Increase heat to high; boil uncovered to thicken slightly, about 5 minutes. Season with pepper. Add chicken back into sauce, and serve together. I guarantee people will lick their plates clean.

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Day 1: Challah and Lots of it

rivka — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 13:47:25 +0000

It’s not even 9 am and I already have 6 loaves of challah rising on the counter. What’s wrong with this picture?

I got a headstart on cooking this morning thanks to a 6:30 workout session with Julia. I was back home at 7:40 and by 7:50, I was covered in flour. Awesome.

Also on the agenda for today: thawing and making one of two briskets. My largest pot only fits one at a time. I’ll be making the briskets with a Separdic-style sauce that has pomegranate molasses and tamarind puree, among other things. It’s a hybrid of the two recipes that were featured in this week’s Boston Jewish Advocate article (found here). It’s a little sweet and a lotta tart and really, really tasty.

If brisket and challah aren’t enough, I’ll also be making a filling for my spanikopita, consisting of spinach, ricotta, feta, dill, salt, pepper, and onions. Not too difficult, right? I’ll make the filling today and then layer the filling and filo dough into a pan on Friday. Step by step, people.

And lastly, just to get a head start on some of the other prep, I’ll be baking some eggplant for babaganoush (the easiest recipe on earth, below). Wish me luck!

Babaganoush

3 eggplants
3 cloves garlic
1/2 cup yogurt
salt
pepper
lemon

Prick eggplants in several places. Make a slit in the bulbous end of each eggplant and slip a garlic clove inside. Wrap in tin foil and bake in a 350-degree oven for 60-75 minutes, until soft all the way through.

Let cool until you can handle the eggplants; using a spoon, scoop flesh off of skin into medium mixing bowl. Add yogurt; stir to combine. Add salt, pepper, and lemon to taste. For a more rustic style, simply mix with a fork. If you prefer a smoother texture, take an immersion blender to the baba until it’s as smooth as you like it.

Enjoy warm, cold, or room temperature.

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Rosh Hashana Menus

rivka — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 01:09:19 +0000

The Jewish New Year is fast approaching, and here at NDP we might just be in over our heads; we’re having lots of D’s family for the holiday and very excited to host them all!

With so many people to feed and not much time to prep, I’ve drawn up menus to keep myself on track and to make grocery shopping, prepping, and cooking as streamlined as possible.

Now, I haven’t started yet — the big cook commences tomorrow — so no pictures so far, but right now, I’ll share my menus with you as promised.

Keep in mind: I’m only making two of the meals entirely from scratch. We’re being hosted elsewhere for one dinner (but I’m making the brisket), and we’re doing a potluck for another (so I’m making only challah and a side dish). But I’m still cooking brisket, chicken, and 2 full meals — one meat, one dairy. Hopefully this will provide you all with a head start — or a kick in the butt — for menu-planning. Enjoy and please share your menus in the comments!!

Also — can’t resist this one little shout-out: my friends at KOL Foods, the only purveyors of local, organic, grass-fed kosher beef and chicken, were published in the Boston Jewish Advocate this week — and the article includes quotes and recipes from yours truly! Be sure to check it out — you’ll find 2 really yummy brisket recipes there: https://www.kolfoods.com/pdf/BrisketArticle.pdf

And now, menus.

Meal 1: Rosh Hashanah Dinner

Challah
Minestrone soup
Mesclun salad with hearts of palm, persimmons, and pomegranates
Tagine-style chicken with preserved lemons and olives
Roasted chicken with dried fruit and wild rice
Simple sauteed green beans and peas with lemon and almonds
Saffron rice
baklava and fresh fruit

Meal 2: Rosh Hashana Lunch

Challah
Watermelon-feta salad with pickled red onions and kalamata olives
Spanikopita
Sauteed shelling beans with tomatoes, oregano, and garlic
Orzo salad with fennel, dill pesto, feta, and lemon
Greek honey-almond cake
Greek yogurt with honey and poached fruit

Recipes are, for the most part, taken from epicurious, gourmet.com, and a couple other places. A quick search on epi will reveal recipes for lots of these dishes, and though I haven’t hammered out the final recipes I plan to use, these sites are where I plan to start. I’ll likely pull a few recipes and pull together the elements of each that I like to make whatever I’m making. I’ll do my best to blog the process as I start cooking tomorrow, so stay tuned!

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Salmon with Herb Butter and Various Roasted Vegetables

rivka — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 20:01:05 +0000

D and I had people over Friday night. As of Thursday, I not only had done no cooking, I hadn’t even figured out my menu. Now, I’m not one to plan these things all too far in advance — but 24 hours is not much time to plan, shop, and make food for a dinner party. Not impossible, but not ideal.

When I’m cutting it close to the wire, I tend to keep it as simple as possible. I picked up a bunch of salmon fillets and all the good-looking vegetables that TJs had to offer. Without much time to contemplate interesting recipes and a lingering fear of making the whole house smell like fish, I wrapped each piece of salmon individually in parchment paper and tucked a bit of herb butter inside. The herb butter infuses the salmon while it steams, and the end result is both healthy, flavorful, and much less potent. No fish smell whatsoever in the house as of Saturday morning.

I made a vinaigrette with the herb butter, some capers, and lots of lemon and lime, and served it alongside the fish. In retrospect, I should have just made the vinaigrette first and skipped the herb butter step entirely; that’s the recipe I provide below. It’s a simple presentation that almost always pleases.

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Granola with Tahini

rivka — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 16:25:52 +0000

Ahh lovely readers, I’ve missed you! I’ve been posting sporadically at best for the past month, because work has been absolutely insane and I haven’t had time to even enter the kitchen, let alone write about it. That last post on zucchini soup was my lame attempt to give you reading material while I was at work, so as not to abandon you completely — but I unwittingly passed along a post from last year, just before my Alaska cruise, and let you all think I was headed on a fabulous vacation. Not so! I spent Labor Day…..well, laboring. At the office. Until very late. But now all that should be behind me because we signed off on our research yesterday, and all that’s left to do is write the accompanying speech. I’m hoping today is the beginning of my re-entry into my favorite room of the apartment. Cross your fingers for me, will you?

Busy times at the office need to end with something restorative. Sometimes it’s a big bowl of pho, with its etherial broth and slurp-tastic noodles. Other times it’s a piece of good toast with some homemade jam. This morning, the first in a month that I haven’t had to start a 15-hour day at 8:30 am, I made my own granola.

I once was in the habit of making granola every week. It’s a good thing to have around for breakfast in the morning, and it pairs great with that super-tart yogurt in the fridge. But lately there’s been no time for such simple pleasures, and breakfast has consisted mostly of whatever I grabbed the night before at Trader Joe’s. Needless to say, I was more than ready to put my own labor hours back into the food I eat.

My usual granola has almond butter, which I find creates clumps better than water or oil and whose flavor doubles down on the granola’s nutty flavor. This morning, though, I was out of almond butter, so I went with tahini (sesame butter), which has a similar texture, instead. To balance the flavor of tahini, which can be overwhelming if not used sparingly, I added a splash of walnut oil, as well as a bit of chopped crystallized ginger, which paired well with the sesame flavor and gave a little punch. A generous pinch of cinnamon and a whisper of cloves brought the granola squarely into fall’s territory, which I suppose is appropriate, given that the weather is dreary and it’s dark when I wake up these days.

I was still concerned that the tahini might overwhelm, but it totally doesn’t: because the granola cooks until golden, the other flavors in there — almonds, oats, ginger, cherries, raisins — get a chance to toast and intensify, bringing the sesame flavor into balance. I LOVE this batch and plan on making another one, some other not-super-early morning.

Hope you all had great weekends, and I look forward to seeing you around here more regularly!

Granola with Tahini

2 1/2 cups oats
1/3 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup tahini
1 Tbsp walnut oil, optional
2/3 cup pepitas (pumpkin seeds), either salted or unsalted, depending on preference
2/3 cup sliced almonds
2/3 cup chopped pecans
2/3 cup raisins, cranberries, or other dried berry (I like half raisins, half cherries)
2 Tbsp chopped crystallized ginger
1/2 tsp salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon cloves

Preheat oven to 325.

In a small bowl, mix syrup, tahini, oil if using, salt, and cinnamon until incorporated. In a large bowl, mix all remaining ingredients until well-distributed. Drizzle the syrup-tahini mixture overtop, stirring with a fork until all dry bits are at least slightly wet and clumps have started to form.

Spread granola on a large rimmed baking sheet in a thin layer and bake at 325 for 10-12 minutes. Remove from oven, stir with a fork to move pieces from edge to center and from top to bottom. Make sure pieces that have started to brown are in the center and well-surrounded. Return to oven and bake 10-12 more minutes, until golden brown throughout. Granola will not be crunchy when it leaves the oven; don’t worry — it’ll crisp up as it cools. Once cool, transfer to air-tight container; granola will keep this way for up to 1 month.

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Smoky Corn Salad

rivka — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 02:42:28 +0000

So sorry that posts have been so few and far between (and so short) lately. I’m doing my best to offer some great summer suggestions between work and work — bear with me; just two more weeks of this insanity, and I’ll be back on track.

Meanwhile, hopefully you’re taking advantage of the last of summer’s produce more than I am. If you find yourself swimming in corn, this smoky number is a great variation on the corn salad theme. It combines raw corn that’s charred in a smoking castiron pan, poblanos that are cooked over an open flame to remove the skins and intensify their flavor, a bit of red onion, and of course, some of those delightfully plump and round cherry tomatoes that are so good this time of year. The method is so simple it’s a joke: just char everything in the castiron pan all together, and add the tomatoes just before serving. It’s just the way to take advantage of summer’s abundance. Have a plate in my honor, and once I crawl out from under this rock, I’ll be back in the kitchen in no time.

Smoky Corn Salad

3 ears of corn, husks and fibers removed
1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
1/4 of a red onion, diced
2 poblano peppers
1/2 a jalapeno, diced, optional
1/4 tsp. smoked spanish paprika
olive oil
salt
pepper
1 lime

Roast poblanos over an open flame, turning to blister skin on all sides. When fully blistered, turn off heat and transfer peppers to a paper bag or roll inside tinfoil. let steam for 5 minutes, then run under water to remove skins. Chop roughly and set aside.

Heat castiron or heavy stainless steel pan over high heat. Remove corn from cob, and combine with chopped onions and jalapeno, if using. Add 1 tablespoon olive oil to pan and immediately add corn mixture. Toss to coat, then let sit for a 30 seconds at a time just to develop a real char on the kernels. Add smoked paprika, and add salt to taste. Keep tossing and charring, tossing and charring, until there are enough brown spots to give some serious smoky flavor. Remove from heat, add tomatoes, and toss to combine. Transfer to a plate, and squeeze 1 fresh lime overtop. Serve warm or at room temperature.

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Marcella Hazan’s Pesto

rivka — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 22:04:52 +0000

Basil is aplenty at DC’s farmers’ markets. This week, my favorite farmer was selling massive bags of the stuff for just $3.99. I probably came home with a good 2 pounds of basil — hard to imagine considering how light it is. There was only one thing to do: make pesto.

The last time I blogged about pesto, I largely focused on the method. Heidi at 101 Cookbooks had written about making pesto like an Italian grandmother, and I was inspired enough by her post to give the old fashioned knife-on-board method a try. The result was wonderful — chunky and rustic, with plenty of the irregularity that’s the hallmark of handmade things. But given how busy I’ve been at work lately, standing in the kitchen slaving over chopped basil just wasn’t in the cards for today. Instead, I followed the sage advice of another Italian grandmother, Marcella Hazan. I pulled her Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking off the shelf and set about to make pesto using her (apparently sanctioned) food processor method.

Before you roll your eyes and call me a fraud, it’s in her book: Pesto, food processor method. Apparently the Italian goddess is fine with it. Plus, if that’s not enough evidence for you, I once heard Lynn Rosetto Casper, the formidable chef and host of APM’s radio show The Splendid Table, say that if you go to the Liguria region of Italy, to Genoa, where pesto originated, and follow the tips from the locals to the actual neighborhood in Genoa where pesto was actually invented, the Italian grandmothers there use food processors! That was the last time I had a second thought about whizzing the stuff together.

I think Hazan’s recipe is the best one I’ve ever made. The balance between basil, pine nuts, raw, pungent garlic, and Parmigiano Reggiano and Romano cheeses is just teetering in equilibrium. I also used a truly olive-y olive oil that I got on a twitter rec (Aria, available at Whole Foods), which may have made the difference. In any event, it’s a recipe I wouldn’t hesitate to make again. So hurry out to your market while basil’s still available, and try this pesto. It’d even make Marcella proud.

Marcella Hazan’s Pesto
I doubled the recipe and got about a pint, so this makes about 1/2 a pint

2 cups tightly packed basil leaves
3 tablespoons pine nuts
1/2 cup olive oil
2 garlic cloves, chopped fine before being added to the processor
1/2 cup grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese
2 tablespoons grated Romano cheese
3 tablespoons butter, softened

Blend all ingredients except cheese and butter until relatively smooth. Fold in cheese by hand to give that chunky, rustic texture. Fold in softened butter, incorporating it evenly into the pesto.

If freezing, do not add cheese and butter; add to thawed pesto just before serving. Top with a thin layer of olive oil, which will help keep pesto green.
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Getaway Sour Cherry Pie

rivka — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 23:17:14 +0000

The dog days of August are no time to hang out in DC. That’s why D and I spent the first week of the month with her parents in Douglas, MI, a beach town on the eastern side of Lake Michigan, where every day is 75 and sunny and there’s a constant breeze rippling through the air. If I didn’t have east coast blood in my veins, I’d have been so swept away by the perfect Michigan summer weather that I might have packed up my things and moved.

Our cottage in Douglas was downright luxurious. The beds were plush, the couches were comfy, and there was a beautiful patio out back that was perfect for a lazy afternoon of reading, eating, and gazing aimlessly into the sky.

There was a grill, too — a brand new grill that the owner generously bought after we inquired. Needless to say, kabobs and grilled chicken were in order.

Our days effortlessly took on a routine. In the morning, we moseyed onto the patio for some coffee and our first glimpse of sun. K and I alternated on breakfast duty — I cooked a batch of blueberry buttermilk pancakes one morning, she made buttery biscuits the next. Some mornings, we stayed on the lighter side and spooned out some yogurt and berries. D and I lazed around until breakfast was ready, then took clean-up duty once our stomachs were full.

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Not So Potato-y Salad

rivka — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 08:42:11 +0000

From a vege-mostly-tarian’s perspective, spring and summer are the seasons to beat. Fresh fruit and vegetables are available in abundance, and the variety, especially in summer, is simply unmatched. I make at least one salad a day; using anything from the usual lettuce and Israeli cucumbers to radishes to carrots to tomatoes and nectarines, mushrooms and garlic scapes and beets and even raw kale (my newest addition), I rarely repeat ingredients two days in a row.

It’s in this light that barbeque food confuses the hell out of me; why, when there are so many beautiful fruits and vegetables available, do we resort to coleslaws and potato salads that are literally choking on my gloppy, quivering, nemesis, the devil named Mayo? Those thick, white dressings are a “no, thanks” for me, but if we’re going to use them, why not when we’re on our 20th batch of kale and need to get creative about masking the taste of winter? I simply don’t get the desire to coat delicious summer vegetables in all that goop. …And the Mayo gripes resume.

While I almost always serve a leafy green salad with meals these days, I did buy some really beautiful tiny tomatoes at the Foggy Bottom market last week, which gave me an occasion to reconsider the merits of potato salad. I’m not a huge potato person, but I get the appeal of having a side dish that’s got some starch and substance but isn’t the same old rice or other grain. However, instead of putting the potatoes front and center, I decided to make room for other vegetables to share the limelight. Happily, the market provided many options. I settled on some pattypan, small summer squash that are shaped somewhat like a flying saucer, as well as some nice-looking green beans.

After boiling, shocking, and slicing the potatoes, I sliced and blanched the zucchini. I left the green beans raw, for crunch, and I’m glad I did — they provided a much-needed contrast to the softer vegetables. I coated the salad in a light, tangy, slightly spicy shallot-mustard vinaigrette, which complemented the slight bitterness of the zucchini and gave otherwise boring potatoes some real character. All in all, this is the type of potato salad I’d actually go for: it highlights summer produce instead of masking it, and its tangy flavors will make a great addition to any barbeque.

Not So Potato-y Salad

1 pound small (like, really small) red and yellow potatoes
2 long summer squash (yellow or green), sliced into 1/2-inch slices
1 pound green beans, halved
2 shallots, diced finely
2 teaspoons coarse dijon mustard
1 teaspoon honey
1/4 cup sherry or white wine vinegar
1/8 cup olive oil
1 teaspoon walnut oil, optional
salt and pepper

Boil potatoes in 4 cups water until soft but not mushy, about 10 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, remove potatoes and transfer to serving bowl. Let cool 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, blanch squash slices in potato water about 2 minutes, just until soft. Drain and run under cold water for a couple seconds to stop cooking. Transfer to serving bowl.

Slice potatoes into rounds, and transfer to serving bowl. Add green beans and toss to mix.

In a small bowl or dressing jar, combine all remaining ingredients except oil. Pour oil in a slow stream, whisking to combine. If using jar, shake vigorously to emulsify. Add dressing to salad and toss about 10 minutes before serving. Serve at room temperature.

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Tamarind-Cherry Meatballs

rivka — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 12:23:24 +0000

Short post today, but I wanted to offer a recipe that puts the tamarind puree I recently posted to good use. These meatballs are really a cinch to make; they’re studded with rich, nutty pine nuts, and the sweet-tart sauce, with fresh and dried sour cherries and plenty of tamarind, is downright addictive. The recipe is a combination/adaptation of two recipes, both from Aromas of Aleppo, that beautiful Syrian Jewish cookbook I mentioned in my post on tamarind puree.

Sour cherries are done for the season here in DC; if they’re over in your area as well, you can substitute frozen sour cherries, available at some grocery stores, or replace the fresh ones with more dried cherries, and add a bit of extra apple cider or wine or even water to compensate for smaller amount of cherry juice.

I served these with saffron rice, which provided both flavor and color contrast to the meatballs. The combination was perfect, and I highly recommend it.

Sour Cherry Meatballs
adapted from Aromas of Aleppo

1 pounds ground beef, preferably NOT lean (if lean, add a couple Tbsp. olive oil)
1/2 cup chopped pinenuts
a couple sprigs of parsley, leaves removed and chopped
1 1/2 teaspoons allspice, divided
3 onions, diced
1 pound sour cherries or 2 cans/jars pitted cherries, including liquid (NOT pie filling!)
3 tablespoons tamarind puree
juice of 1 lemon
1 tablespoon sugar
1 cup red wine
1/2 cup crushed tomatoes
3 tablespoons vegetable or olive oil, divided

Combine beef, pine nuts, parsley, and 1/2 teaspoon allspice in a medium mixing bowl. Using a fork and a light hand, break up ground beef and incorporate other ingredients; do not overmix or press too hard, as you want beef to stay light and airy.

In a medium saucepan, saute meatballs in 2 tablespoons olive or vegetable oil over medium heat, until lightly browned, turning gently to brown on all sides. Remove meatballs and set aside.

Using the same saucepan, saute the onions in the remaining tablespoon oil over medium heat until translucent, about 5 minutes. Add liquid from cherries (if fresh, use 1/2 cup water or apple cider instead), lemon juice, tamarind puree, red wine, 1 teaspoon allspice, and crushed tomatoes. Stir to combine; bring to a boil. Add meatballs and cherries back into the pan. Cover, reduce heat to low, and simmer for 1 hour, or until sauce has thickened.

Serve hot, either over pita or over saffron rice.

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Tamarind Puree

rivka — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 12:59:56 +0000

The single best thing (the single good thing, actually) about pulling late nights at work is ordering Indian on the firm’s tab. The office coordinates with one of those online delivery systems where you can order dinner and have the bill automatically charged to the company, but frankly, the pickins are slim and they charge you a delivery fee which really cuts into your allotted budget. I almost never order off the site, opting instead to be my own middle man. A bunch of us go in on a big order from Heritage India up the street, and I usually volunteer to take care of ordering and submitting receipts for reimbursement. My colleagues seem to think it’s because I embody the spirit of generosity; the truth? I like to ask for lots of extra tamarind chutney.

You’ll rarely find my fridge without tamarind concentrate. Tamarind is slightly sweet, but it’s the zippy tang that elevates the flavor of meats, pad thai, and even tomato sauce. It’s used in many Indian and Thai dishes, and you’ll often get some as a dipping sauce for samosa. Perhaps lesser known, tamarind is a key ingredient in Syrian cuisine. Ever since snagging an invite to a dinner party at a Syrian friend’s place while I was in college, I’ve been fascinated by Syrian food. For starters, there’s so damn much of it! I ate until I was stuffed at that dinner, and just as the food coma set in, out came the main course. But beyond the copious quantities, I just can’t get enough of the interplay between sour and sweet that’s fundamental to Syrian cooking. We’re talking tamarind-laced tomato sauce, or meatballs cooked in a sweet-tart cherry sauce. It’s some pretty good stuff.

I bought my first jar of tamarind concentrate at an Indian grocer near my old office, and it lasted me for nearly a year. It was good, but its texture was similar to pomegranate syrup, and its flavor was somewhat harsher than the tamarind chutney I’m used to eating with my samosas. I thought to get more, but since I no longer work out in the boonies and also don’t have a car, Indian groceries aren’t exactly accessible. So this fearless blogger decided to make her own.

I didn’t go it alone, though: I took on tamarind puree armed with Aromas of Aleppo, one of my new favorite cookbooks to read and ogle over. It’s a tall, heavy book, written by a woman named Poopa Dweck (Poopa! What a name!), and it’s all about the food of the Syrian Jews. (The book really is stunning, and would make an amazing gift – Julia, who lent it to me, got it for her wedding.) The emphasis is on meat, and when I say emphasis, I mean there is nary a recipe for vegetables on their own; every last one is stuffed with the classic Syrian meat-and-rice filling. Not that I’m complaining. In addition to meat, every single recipe calls for tamarind puree. I’ve been planning to make something from the cookbook for a while, but until last week, I hadn’t gotten past the ogling stage. They just all look very complicated. So imagine my surprise, when I finally bit the bullet and made my own tamarind puree, that the process was really much more painless than I’d anticipated.

Tamarind is relatively hard when it’s dry, the pulp having gathered and solidified around those smooth, center seeds — but let it soak in water overnight, and it becomes as soft as applesauce. At that point, you can easily separate out the seeds and fibrous membranes from the pulp. After a good strain or two through some cheesecloth, all you need to do is boil the puree down and add some sugar, and that’s it. Plus, once the puree is made, it’ll keep in a jar at room temperature for upto a year. If it lasts that long.

Tamarind Puree
Adapted from Aromas of Aleppo

3 pounds tamarind or tamarind pulp (sold in a hard block)
1 1/2 pounds sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons freshly-squeezed lemon juice
2 Tbsp. citric acid

If using whole tamarind, peel the hard outer shell away. Submerge tamarind (or tamarind pulp block) in about 6 cups of water, and let sit about 8 hours, until pulp has the texture of applesauce and is easily separated from seeds and membranes.

Line a colander with cheesecloth, and set over a large mixing bowl. Pour tamarind mixture into colander, and press firmly against the sides of the colander to extract the tamarind liquid and leave behind the seeds and membranes, as well as any pieces of shell.

Transfer the strained pulp from the colander into a clean mixing bowl, and submerge in more fresh water (about 3 cups). Work to pull it apart again, releasing any remaining pulp, then strain again and transfer the extracted liquid into the bowl that holds the liquid from the first straining.

Pour the reserved liquid through the cheese cloth one last time, wringing out cheesecloth to extract as much liquid as possible.

Pour the tamarind liquid into a large saucepan and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat to low and simmer liquid until reduced by half. Then add sugar, lemon juice, and sour salt to the tamarind liquid.

Increase heat to medium and boil slowly until the mixture develops a silky, almost shiny consistency. Let the mixture cool some, then transfer to a large glass jar. Puree will keep several months — refrigerate after opening.

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Perfect Blueberry Buttermilk Hotcakes

rivka — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 01:41:54 +0000

The NDP kitchen is swimming in blueberries. They were a mere $1.25 a pint at today’s market, so I couldn’t resist buying just ~~a few~~ 5. I ate half a pint on the way back from the market, because they’re so sweet! And I’m a grown up so I can! So there! I’ll freeze 2 of the pints, and the other 2 (er, 1 1/2) will work their way into salads and crisps and maybe even some hand pies. After trying Sarah’s bourbon peach and sour cherry hand pies at our office bakeoff, I’m dying to try my hand at making them. I’m pretty sure her recipe was from Deb at Smitten Kitchen, and no surprise there — the crust was perfectly flaky, and the sprinkling of rock-sugar on top of the not-really-sweet crust made all the difference. And those cherries! I’m still mourning the end of sour cherry season, so you’ll have to bear with my whining. If anyone sees sour cherries this week, pullease leave a tip on the blog about where one can find them.

But I digress. Because here I go, planning where all my blueberries will find themselves, when in truth I’ve already put 1/4 pint toward a very noble cause: perfect blueberry hotcakes. I don’t make pancakes often, so when I do, I tend toward the luxurious end of the pancake spectrum. My go-to recipe calls for 6 Tbsp. of melted butter that are then incorporated into buttermilk and egg yolks for a tangy, rich batter. Whipped egg whites are folded in just before cooking to lift the batter and make the hotcakes uber-light, and fresh blueberries lend color and zing that contrast perfectly with the sweet, sloshy puddles of maple syrup. These hotcakes were the antidote to my very busy week. If Friday night partying isn’t your way to ring in another weekend, let these be the sign that Saturday is finally here.

Perfect Blueberry Buttermilk Hotcakes
adapted from Beltane Ranch, via Food and Wine

serves 4-6

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups unbleached flour — I use half whole wheat
2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
2 cups buttermilk
6 Tbsp. unsalted butter, melted and cooled
2 large eggs, separated and at room temperature
1/4 pint fresh blueberries
maple syrup

In a medium bowl, mix flour, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk together buttermilk and egg yolks. Add butter and stir until well incorporated. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stir just until combined. Add blueberries and fold into batter to incorporate.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment or in a medium bowl using a hand mixer, whip egg whites until stiff peaks form. Using a rubber spatula, fold in egg whites gently, and stir just until combined.

Heat a lightly buttered castiron or heavy stainless steel skillet over moderately low heat. Using a ladle or a 1/4-cup measure, put two-three pancakes in the pan.

Let hotcakes cook for about two minutes, or until top begins to set around the edges.
Flip and cook 1 minute longer, then transfer to a 280-degree oven to keep warm while you cook the rest of these beauties.

Serve with good maple syrup and a big appetite.
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Summer Succotash

rivka — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 14:20:55 +0000

Round next of my weekday lunch series, where I post about dishes that’ll put PB&J to shame.

I love the flavor of buttery, salty, corn on the cob. I love it even more now that I’ve discovered the sweetest corn ever, from Toigo Orchards. Toigo sets up shop at the Dupont farmers’ market; their corn has apparently won “best at the market” several years in a row. The last time I bought it, I was told it was picked the day before; it doesn’t get much fresher than that. And having tried other ears, they really don’t compare. Some are too starchy, and others have a thick, almost leathery skin around the kernel, whereas Toigo’s ears are sweet, the thin-skinned kernels practically bursting with juice.

Having bought quite a few ears last week, I was searching for new things to do with them come week’s end. For dinner on Friday night, I served this succotash dish — a very simple play on that classic Southern staple. It’s got the flavor of sweet, salty cob corn but with just a drizzle of olive oil instead of the usual butter. I bulked up the succotash with some chopped green beans, which I left on the raw side, and panfried zucchini, which I essentially seared in a smoking but oil-less castiron pan, then allowed to soften in the serving bowl. The succotash gets a boost from freshly-squeezed lemon juice and a bit of the lemon’s zest, but other than that, olive oil, salt, and pepper are its only seasoning. When the produce is this good, you don’t want to doctor it up much more than that.

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Cherry Pistachio Crisp

rivka — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 16:22:42 +0000

Dear readers, as you are my witnesses, I’m hereby confessing a minor addiction to sour cherries. After a year-long wait for sour cherry season, I’ve put up a pitcher of sour cherry liqueur that’ll be ready in a few short months (and early tastes have been very, very promising) and I’ve made a couple pies as well. It seems I can’t get quite enough of them. I’ve even fancied myself the sour cherry connoisseur: when a (rather gruff) farmer declared last Sunday at the market that no one could taste her sour cherries because they’re too tart to eat raw, I happily (and loudly) piped up that I eat them raw all the time and had no idea what she was talking about. As you may have guessed, we made fast friends. Needless to say, I scurried right along to the next stand.

After two juicy, bursting weeks of our very short sour cherry season, I’m still high on the cherries, but less excited at the prospect of another pie-dough endeavor. The result is mighty tasty, but it involves just a few too many minutes hovered over the counter piecing together shards of butter-flour and hoping for a semblance of evenness. This time, with a pound of sour cherries in the fridge and an appetite that was burgeoning by the minute, I opted for the easy route: cherry crisp.
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Andalusian Gazpacho

rivka — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 12:34:54 +0000

Please welcome my friend Jeremy, who was bold enough to suggest guest-posting on my blog and kind enough to follow through. He brought over a jar of this gazpacho and when I dunked a spoon in for a taste, I ended up finishing half the jar. It’s the perfect summer soup, and I’m thrilled to be featuring it on NDP.

The height of summer means the height of tomato season, and in our house that means gazpacho season. Now, this means different things to different people. Some are partial to a soup that could easily be mistaken for salsa. Others are all about the cucumbers or the bell peppers. I’ve even heard people refer to a perfectly lovely watermelon soup as gazpacho, though I’d like to think any self-respecting Spaniard would scoff at this. For my money — and we’ll get to how it doesn’t need to be a lot of money in a minute — this easy-to-make gazpacho is the way to go. My spouse and I came upon the basis for this recipe (from Epicurious) some years ago, and over time we’ve adapted it and turned it into a staple of our summertime repertoire.

All in you’re talking about 15 minutes of work for a gazpacho that puts the tomatoes right where they belong: front and center. It’s substantial enough with a hunk of fresh baguette to make for a great mid-week meal just sitting at the coffee table. It’s refined enough, topped with fresh chives, to lead off a small dinner party. And it’s casual enough to serve spoonless in teacups or shot glasses for larger gatherings. It’s just about a perfect summer soup, which is why we perpetually have a big jar of it in the fridge until tomatoes go out of season. And did I mention it’ll keep for close to a week?
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Maple Walnut Oatmeal with Peaches

rivka — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 22:54:55 +0000

My breakfast habits usually vary from season to season. I tend to alternate between Terri and Kendall’s go-to oatmeal recipe (oats, water, agave syrup, wheat germ, and flax seeds) and toast with an egg and fake bacon during the winter. During summertime, though, it’s all about yogurt. There are few things I love more than yogurt — especially that uber tart and rich stuff that I make at home — and I eat it very, very often during the hot months. Until this week. See, I bought a little container of good organic yogurt and a gallon of organic whole milk, stepped up on a stool to pull down my yogurt maker from its above-the-fridge hiding place, and set out to make some yogurt, but for some reason, the batch emerged looking nothing like yogurt and everything like watery curds. My big yogurtFAIL kind of killed my buzz. That’s when I remembered the half tub of oatmeal leftover from wintertime, sitting on the fridge all by its lonesome. So I threw some in the microwave and called it a morning.

But then I decided, as long as I’m breaking my breakfast routine, I may as well go nuts. I remembered something a friend once told me, about how oatmeal can actually be a thoroughly luxurious food. Channeling her mention of luxury, I added a generous tab of butter I got at the farmers’ market last week to my oats and water. After heating the oatmeal through, I tossed in some fresh cut peaches, a glug or two of really good milk from the market, a teaspoon or so of maple syrup, and — wait for it — just a slight drizzle of walnut oil. The result was simply divine. The walnut oil played up the nutty sweetness of the maple syrup, while the subtly sweet richness of the butter and milk provided contrast for those perfectly bright peach slices. I don’t usually do double-flips over oatmeal, but this is one recipe that’ll have me reaching for that tub of oats, even when there’s edible yogurt in the fridge.
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Feta Phyllo Torte

rivka — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 14:43:03 +0000

Feta Phyllo Torte

Of all the incredibly culinary feats out there (and there are plenty), one of which I’m truly in awe is the ability to consistently serve vegetarian food that fees like a main dish. As I’ve written before, one of the challenges to purely vegetarian cooking is that often, everything on the table looks like a side dish, and there’s no one thing that, when brought to the table, elicits the oohs and ahhs of, say, a whole roast chicken. There are a few people who are particularly excellent at this. One is Deborah Madison, author of Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone (one of my favorite cookbooks to read; I often find myself leafing through it while killing time at Barnes and Noble). Madison understands the challenge of creating a “wow factor” when serving vegetarian entrees, and she conquers that challenge seemingly effortlessly. Her books are endless sources of inspiration for meatless entertaining.

Another, though she may not intend to be (given her well-publicized love of meat) is Melissa Clark, a food columnist for NYT and recipe writer extraordinaire. Reading Melissa’s column, I not-infrequently stumble upon a really new idea for a vegetarian entree. One excellent example is her cornbread and broccoli rabe strata, a vegetarian Thanksgiving main that doubles as a side for the turkey eaters. Another, for a phyllo feta torte, was published just a couple weeks ago, and after reading her recipe, I had an undeniable urge to rush into the kitchen and make it, immediately.

Originally called “No-fear Phyllo Torte,” Clark’s recipe originates in a dinner party hosted by a lauded French literature professor and his Greek wife, for whom phyllo is second-nature. Clark claims intimidation, but her recipe proves her an equal master of this domain. In the torte, made in a bundt pan for a particularly impressive presentation, thin, crisp layers of butter-soaked phyllo cloak a tender filling of feta, cottage cheese, dill and nutmeg. Sound like a spinachless spanikopita? Think again: the finished product is drizzled with honey before serving, for an irresistible hit of sweet to balance the rich, salty torte. Stop me from drooling.

Clark was intimidated when she first saw the torte emerge from the oven, and wondered whether she needed to be Greek in order to make it successfully; I had an all-out panic attack when, just before serving the torte, I realized that I had used salted butter in place of the unsalted butter called for in the recipe. It didn’t matter; I had used less salty Greek feta in the filling, which offset the extra salt in the crust. Other changes I made to Clark’s original recipe include swapping out some of the cottage cheese for extra feta (since cottage cheese generally gives me the creeps, and 3 cups sounded like a lot), upping the level of dill and nutmeg for added kick, and cutting the butter from 3 sticks to 1 (because who needs 3 sticks of butter in anything? and 1 was more than enough to coat the whole torte and make the insides crispy). Other than those changes, I found this recipe absolutely to die for and would make it again in a flash. I actually served it with some homemade rhubarb chutney, which I’ll blog in a future post, and I was really pleased with the combination. The tanginess of the rhubarb brought out the acidity in the feta and the chutney provided a nice textural contrast to the torte. An all-out thumbs up from this happy eater — I recommend you give this a go; your guests will be thankful — and maybe even intimidated.

Sonia’s Phyllo and Feta Torte with Dill and Nutmeg
Time: An hour and a half, plus cooling
adapted from Melissa Clark, inspired by her husband’s friend’s wife Sonya, via The New York Times

Time: An hour and a half, plus cooling

1 1/2 pounds Greek feta cheese, crumbled (I used feta from a local Mediterranean market, but TJ’s carries Greek feta that’s pretty good)
2 cups cottage cheese
3 large eggs
1/3 cup chopped fresh dill
1/4 cup grated Romano cheese (I used Parmesan, which was what I had on hand)
1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 1-pound box phyllo dough, thawed overnight in refrigerator if possible
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted

Greek honey, for serving (Clark says this is optional but I say it’s a must).

1. Heat oven to 375 degrees. combine feta, cottage cheese, eggs, dill, 2 tablespoons Romano, the nutmeg and pepper in a food processor and pulse just to combine (Clark says you can also use a large bowl and a fork). Clark also says the mixture should be chunky, but I made mine smoother.

2. Sprinkle remaining 2 tablespoons Romano into a Bundt pan. Drape a sheet of phyllo on top of Bundt pan, poke a hole into phyllo with your finger where center tube is and push phyllo into pan to line it. Do this with another phyllo sheet, but place it perpendicular to first sheet. The first couple of sheets will seem disorderly and may collapse some, but as you start layering them, the process will get easier and the sheets will keep their shape. Continue adding phyllo sheets in alternating directions until all sheets are used. Edges of phyllo should hang over edges of bundt.

3. Scrape cheese filling into pan, and fold edges of phyllo over filling. Using a sharp knife, poke many holes (at least 20) in dough that reach all the way to bottom of pan. Then pour melted butter over the torte; some will seep into holes, but a fair amount will pool on top of torte, which is fine. I actually poured the butter before poking the holes, and my torte tasted perfectly delicious, so fret not.

4. Place Bundt pan on a baking sheet and bake for about 1 hour 15 minutes, or until torte is puffy and golden brown. Allow torte to cool in pan for 1 to 2 hours before inverting onto a plate and slicing. Serve warm or at room temperature, with honey and/or sweet chutney.

Yield: 10 to 12 servings.

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Sour Cherry Liqueur

rivka — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 14:51:57 +0000

Want to do something awesomely cool and really flippin’ easy along with me? Make sour cherry liqueur. It’s the height of sour cherry season, and markets are bursting with those tart little bubbles of juice. The season’s pretty short: I was thinking of hitting up a u-pick next week to get some sour cherries out in the countryside for cheap, but they said they’ll be gone by Sunday. So grab some now, like, now now, and put them to use in a way that’ll keep well into the fall.

My dear friend Dellie had D and me over for an early Thanksgiving dinner last November, and her mother served this liqueur as an aperitif. I was totally blown away: it was sweet, very sweet, but also tart and zingy. It tasted strongly and distinctly of sour cherries, and sipping it sent waves of summer nostalgia down my spine. I sauntered into the kitchen where I found the always-graceful Mrs. S pulling a whole turkey out of the oven to rest. What better time to bother someone for a recipe? She said to come knocking again when it was sour cherry season, and she’d give me the rundown. Unlike most other things, I didn’t forget this promise, and last week, I emailed Mrs. S begging her recipe. She graciously obliged, and her instructions were so thorough that I can easily share them with you. Granted, you won’t be tasting the fruits of your labor until the fall — but if you feel like preserving some of summer’s bounty in this unusual way, I can promise that your patience will be well-rewarded.

That's a knife jutting out of the pitcher -- I used it to stir the stuff, and I did fill it to the top after taking the pic.

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Sardine and Fava Bean Bruschetta

rivka — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 20:05:47 +0000

I can’t remember if I’ve ever written a love song to favas on this blog. I mean, I’ve written about them, but I probably haven’t sung their praises as much as they deserve. Starting in late May, I bother the farmers at my local market every Sunday, trying to subtly nudge them to pick their favas as soon as they’re ready so I can dig in. The first few weeks, I’m met with transparently frustrated replies of “they’re not ready, lady!” but around the second week in June, out they come. From them on, you’ll find me and my tote bags by the fava bin. That’s right.

Favas come double-wrapped, so to speak; they’re tucked in a waxy coating that’s nestled inside a pod. To eat favas, you pop open the pods, scoop out and blanch the beans, and then remove the outer shell. Work intensive? Yea, but you won’t find me complainin’. Favas are sweet and green and, with a little salt and not much else, the delicious essence of early summer.

While I usually just toss my favas in a salad or mix them with some pasta and other vegetables, I also really like fava bean spread. Mine is smooth enough to spread but still quite chunky, and laced with a whole lot of garlic and a squeeze of lemon. If I don’t finish it all before using it, I’ll spread it on a baguette and eat it just so. Or, if I’m really feelin’ it, I’ll top my bruschetta with some vinegar-and-oil-cured sardine fillets. The idea came to me from an Epicurious recipe for cannellini and sardine bruschetta. I love cannellini, but I don’t stock my pantry with dry or canned beans when fresh ones are so readily available during the summer, so I subbed in favas for the cannellini the recipe called for. The combination worked perfectly: the headiness of the garlicy fava spread stood up well to the sardines, which added just the right amount of richness and tang. Toasted baguette, more than a vehicle, was crunchy and light, a fine contrast for the favas and sardines perched atop it. I finished off the bruschetta simply, with a bit of olive oil and a grind of the pepper mill. It didn’t need much else.
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Linguini with Artichokes and Sweet Peas

rivka — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 22:25:50 +0000

Here’s another round of my “weekday lunch” series, where I offer recipes that’ll make your colleagues green with envy.

Peas are one of those foods that have completely changed for me since I started shopping at the farmers’ market. In regular grocery stores (that aren’t Fairway, Whole Foods or Dean and Delucca), it’s pretty rare to find whole peas in the pod. If you want peas, you’re likely headed for the frozen section or even the canned section (though I really think that frozen peas are 100x better than canned). The first time I saw peas at the farmers’ market, I was mystified: peas come in a pod, with a couple of teeny leaves on one end — and unlike canned or frozen peas, they’re completely raw.

I’ve now made this recipe twice, and I can assure you that raw peas really make all the difference. These pictures are from the time I made it with frozen peas, and you can see that the peas are kind of shriveled in places; that’s because frozen peas are already cooked, so even a quick blanch or a toss in the pan makes them soften and shrivel. When using raw peas, you can do a super-quick blanch or saute and still keep the integrity of the peas shape. And that’s not to mention how much sweeter fresh peas are! They actually taste like….peas. It’s wonderful.
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Cherry Pit Ice Cream w/Caramelized White Chocolate Ribbon

rivka — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 19:56:24 +0000

Well, you’ve caught me red-handed. Not two weeks after I confessed my inclination toward only the purest of ice cream flavors when making it at home, I’ve gone stir crazy. First, I went nuts on vanilla by adding drizzles of chocolate; then I made maple ice cream (which, alas, was devoured before I could even get out my camera, but I’ll pass along the recipe at the bottom of this post for interested souls). Now I’m really pulling out the big guns. Cherry Pit Ice Cream? What exactly was I thinking?

I’ll tell you what. I was thinking that I’ve been reading about cherry pit ice cream since last year, and the strangeness, the sheer absurdity, piqued my curiosity and eventually won me over. People say it’s the best flavor of ice cream they’ve ever tasted, and all it is is milk, cream, sugar, eggs, and crushed cherry pits. Tell me you’re not curious! Who even knows what a cherry pit innard tastes like?

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Classic Mac and Cheese

rivka — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 12:39:18 +0000

As you all know by now, D’s made lots of culinary concessions for the sake of our relationship. In the four-plus years we’ve been together, she’s become someone who appreciates good food far more than I ever thought she would. So this past week, I felt inspired to acknowledge that by taking a couple of steps in her direction and finally trying my hand at macaroni and cheese.

I’ve been meaning to make mac and cheese for quite some time. After seeing Ina Garten make it several months ago on her FN show, Barefoot Contessa, I knew it wouldn’t be difficult to make. Then I saw that show rerun like four or five times (ok, Ina, I get it!) and decided to give it a go. The method is simple: heat flour and butter to make a roux. Add milk and mix to combine, then continue stirring until the milk is thickened. Add lots of cheese, stir until it melts, then incorporate cooked and drained macaroni. Optional step: transfer macaroni to a gratin, add some very optional tomato slices, top with buttered bread crumbs, and broil until bread crumbs are golden and crunchy.

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Pesto Streudel and Panzanella Salad

rivka — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 13:41:12 +0000

Now that it’s summer, my counters are teeming with beautiful red tomatoes and my fridge is packed with brightly-colored produce of all sorts: radishes, favas, beets, strawberries, you name it. It’s a welcome change from the endless supply of potatoes, yams, potatoes, and kale, oh, the kale. Thank goodness I’ve got some red back in my life!

Of course, with beets and radishes come a whole new type of greens — the kind attached to the stems of the beets and the radishes, of course. Both are too often overlooked — especially radish greens, for which I’ve never seen a recipe. Until now.

Here’s the thing. Pesto? It doesn’t just have to be basil in there. Stick in some cilantro and call it chimichurri or — better yet — send some radish greens under the knife and start to enjoy what too often ends up in the disposal (or, in my case, the compost bin. Yay!)

Radish greens are best used within a couple days of buying or picking them, so they’re a bit more finicky than basil. But they’re spicy and a little bitter like arugula, and quite flavorful. They’re also almost always attached to the radishes you buy, so why not use them? I’ve blended them up with walnuts and pinenuts, and they pair beautifully with both. But I’ve got a lingering curiosity about how they’d play with pecans, so if you try it, lemme know.
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Avocado Tomato Salad

rivka — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 23:12:02 +0000

It’d be a shame to spend too much of this day indoors, because it’s beautiful outside and I have an all-day pool pass — so I’m going to keep this short: It’s summer, people! That means I’m barely to be seen at the grocery store, stocking up on fruit and veggies almost exclusively at the three nearby farmers’ markets to supplement my CSA. I’m high on summer produce.

Avocados and tomatoes are especially excellent right now. Tomatoes haven’t quite hit their peak, but I picked up some beautiful heirlooms this morning and we enjoyed them in salad, with a bit of salt and not much else. Last week, I had some beautiful on-the-vine tomatoes in the house, as well as some perfectly ripe avocados and some baby lettuce from a friend’s garden, so I threw together a really simple salad that’s definitely going to be a staple on my plate this season. It’s just lettuce, avocados, tomatoes, a crumble or two of my usual Keswick Creamery feta, and some lemon, salt, and pepper. It doesn’t get much simpler or better than that.
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Wisdom: How to Build a Cheeseplate

rivka — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 00:48:05 +0000

When summer rolls around, the heat in Washington DC can be rather prohibitive. Almost nothing is worth touching that oven dial, especially in our loft apartment that gets a whole lot of hot air and nary a breeze. Dinner most frequently comprises an easy salad like this broccoli slaw or this Mediterranean orzo salad, or maybe even a cold soup like this quick-and-easy zucchini number I made last summer. Tie that all together with some crusty bread and I’ve got an easy supper.

Salads and cold soups are definitely an antidote to the heat and humidity, but when the weather is so debilitating that I want to just crash when I get home, a cheeseplate is really the way to go. Cheeseplates are easy to assemble but elegant enough for company, and while people seem to think they go best with red wine, I’ve found (and had more authoritative sources corroborate) that a chilled (but not too chilled) glass of white wine makes even better company.

Recently, I was reading a great post from Mr. Amateur Gourmet, Adam Roberts, about his trip to the famed Murray’s Cheese in Greenwich Village and his quest for the perfect cheese plate. He asked the man behind the counter for help selecting his cheeses, and the man gave him a mild but interesting goat cheese, a sharper cow-and-sheep cheese, and a stinky washed rind cheese. Lost yet? Don’t despair. You can do as Adam did — and as I often do — and ask the advice of the person behind the counter. My favorite cheese spots here in DC are the wonderful Cowgirl Creamery, where cheese nerds come to play, and Calvert Woodley, which has a great selection and some really helpful folks behind the counter. That said, even the folks at Whole Foods can help steer you in the right direction. Meanwhile, whether you’re enlisting a team of advisers or going at this alone, there are a few basic things that are helpful to know before embarking on your cheeseplate expedition. This post will shed some light on how to build a cheese plate, how to cut and serve each of the cheeses, and what sorts of breads and spreads make the best vehicles and complements for enjoying the cheese.
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Biscotti, the even-healthier way

rivka — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 03:35:43 +0000

Just thought you’d all like to know that we’ve been tinkering around here at NDP and I’ve managed to make some biscotti that are better for you and equally delicious. After some tinkering, I made the same ones I made the last time — cherry almond — with half white whole wheat flour and half turbinado (unrefined) sugar. I’m willing to bet you can even do all unrefined sugar with great results. For the eggs, I used 1 egg and 2 egg whites this time, and it produced a crunchy cookie that wasn’t too much of a tooth-cracker. Just a little FYI for the weekend. I’ll be back with an actual post soon…

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Wheatberry Salad with Cranberries, Feta, and Mint

rivka — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 01:32:34 +0000

Yet another installment of my weekday lunch series; you can never have enough recipes for midday workplace eats.

I don’t have anything to share about this recipe that’s particularly exciting. It’s just another rendition of my standard grain+bean+berry+herb salad formula. But I realized as I made this salad that it was my first time making wheatberries. At least, I’m pretty sure it was my first time — in any event, it definitely won’t be my last. Wheatberries are pretty underrated, so much so that when I served them last Friday night, most everyone around the table asked what they were. “Wheat,” I replied. No one got it; “What part of the wheat? Like, they’re really just wheat? Are they some sort of berries that grow off the wheat crop?” No, I replied, it’s really just wheat. Funny that we don’t know what the food we eat most often actually looks like, but that’s a story for another time.

Wheatberries are sweet and nutty, with a nice solid texture. They’re probably super versatile; I can envision them in a variety of salads, soups, and stews. Writing that line, I just remembered that I’ve actually used wheatberries before, when making the Sephardic version of cholent, the rib-sticking stew made on Friday and cooked at a low temperature through the night. Unlike the Eastern European recipe of barley, beans, potatoes, beef, and eggs, the Sephardic version, called “Hamin,” is made with wheatberries, chickpeas, and dates in addition to the beef, chicken, and other leftovers. The wheatberries are cooked inside cheesecloth wrapper within the dish, so they can be piled separately onto the plate as a bed for the rest of the goodies.
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Pickled Cauliflower

rivka — Thu, 28 May 2009 11:46:47 +0000

I absolutely love sour things. I’ve been known to suck on a lemon slice once in a while, just for kicks (though my dentist scolded me for doing it, so I reluctantly put the habit to rest). When it comes to pickles, I’m a full-sour kinda gal. None of that dill or bread-n-butter stuff; I like’em super super sour. I’m into cucumber pickles, but I can’t say that they’re my favorite — not by a long shot. No, my absolute favorite pickle is a pickled green tomato, especially if it’s from Guss’ Pickles on the Lower East Side. My first time at Guss’ was on an 8th grade class trip, when we stopped there very briefly on our way back from grabbing knishes, bialys, deli, and other LES specialties. I remember watching friends get themselves just one pickle, or two. When I looked deep into the plastic tub in front of me and saw green tomato quarters, bobbing up and down in the brine, I knew that’s what I had to have. Sadly, Guss didn’t sell the tomatoes by the single back then — only by the pound. Obviously, I bought myself a pound of pickled green tomatoes. Reluctant to waste, I ate them all. Boy were they good.

Not to dismiss cukes, but compared to the tomatoes and other exotic pickled things, they’re kind of ordinary. I can promise you that this cauliflower recipe is anything but. I originally published this recipe in an article I did for My Jewish Learning on Israeli Independence Day, but these sour, cardamom-spiked florets are great year-round.

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Vanilla Ice Cream with Stracciatella

rivka — Mon, 25 May 2009 22:31:37 +0000

Recently, I discovered something of an oddity in my ice cream-eating habits. When I buy ice cream, I’m pretty particular about how I like it: Ben and Jerry’s coffee heath bar toffee crunch. It’s really that easy. I’ve never been one to order vanilla, chocolate, or any other flavor that’s that simple. When I order chocolate, it almost always has some swirl, ribbon, or maybe even some of those little chocolate-filled bits. Cheesy, I know, but I like my ice cream with lots of stuff in it, what can I say?

That affinity for add-ins rapidly fades when I’m making ice cream. When I’m making the stuff from scratch, I’m a total purist. Vanilla is my most frequent concoction, and in my mind, it’s pretty hard to beat. If hard pressed, I think I’d probably pick my homemade vanilla over a pint of B&J’s Coffee Heath. Though not without some serious deliberation.

Why is that, you’d like to know? I think it has something to do with the sheer quantity of egg yolks and cream and not-so-cheap vanilla beans that go into a good quart of frozen. (That’s six egg yolks, 1 cup of whole milk, and 2 cups of heavy cream, thank you very much.) It’s also got everything to do with fear of failure — or, better put, fear that the cherry pit ice cream you were so curious to try is actually a total flop. When you’re working with farmers’ market eggs and organic cream, you’re spending a pretty penny; I guess I want to make sure I get my money’s worth. Call me a pincher, but you know what? Vanilla comes out just perfect, every single time. It also tastes so pure, so much like the ingredients that are used to make it, that I find it difficult to veer far from it.
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