Hello, Fall. Come here often?

Finally summer is behind us, and this one turned out to be a long, hot summer, the hottest on record in Baltimore. I hate hot weather (“hate” is a strong word; but so is “loathe”) not just because it keeps me out of my much-too-hot, much-too-little-air-conditioned kitchen but then I’m forced – forced! – to make bad food decisions daily.

I knew it was fall when I made tomato sauce last Thursday night for dinner, which became the basis for lasagna on Saturday night (and you know what? If you’ve got the sauce, lasagna comes together pretty easily.). The weekend was capped off with a pot of chili on Sunday.  For all three meals I turned to a trusted resource:  The New York Times Cook Book.

Each of these recipes in my copy has been flagged with a sticky note or a scrap of paper so I can find it easily. Each one has notes about changes (for the chili I substitute a mix of ground turkey and turkey sausage in place of the ground beef), and my copy of the book in general is worn out. The spine is broken, the cover is torn and the food stains are like a treasure map across the pages to the most-used recipes in the book.

When I make biscuits from scratch, it’s from a recipe in this cook book (page 640). Once for New Years I made a kind of beef Wellington (beef topped with creamed spinach and wrapped in puff pastry). I almost bought prepared creamed spinach at the super market, but instead I used the NY Times’ recipe (page 422,) and creamed spinach has been a favorite ever since. So has John Harper’s Banana Nut Bread (page 649) and scones (page 644).

More than just about any other cook book I own, there are notes I’ve written throughout, not because the recipes need improving, but because many of these are comfort foods  that offer the chance to personalize them.  

One page shy of 800 The NY Times Cook Book is primarily – if not solely – a collection of recipes. There are no instructions on techniques, no pictures or illustrations, and the cover itself looks like old wallpaper. This classic is true to its mission: to provide well-written and flavorful recipes that cover any home cook’s needs, from breakfast to dinner and dessert, from week night meals to meals for entertaining.

It was originally published in 1962, a year after Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking. If Julia was trying to elevate the American home cook’s taste level and abilities, The New York Times Cook Book was encouraging American housewives to step away from the tin cans and box mixes and truly become home cooks again. The 1990 update by Craig Claiborne – admittedly the only edition I’ve cooked from – has updated about 40 percent of the recipes (after all in 1962 who’d heard of pesto or quiche lorraine in the U.S.? ).

The recipes are clearly laid out for ease of use, and each step of the instructions is numbered to make them easier to follow. Titles are straight forward (honestly, “John Harper’s Banana Nut Bread” is about as exotic as the titles get) so you know exactly what recipe you’re looking at. (Pet peeve: recipe titles that don’t really tell you much about the food; and I have the same pet peeve for restaurant menus.)

It’s not the kind of book you’d give as a gift – except maybe to someone who’s moving into their first house – but give a copy to yourself. The New York Times Cook Book – at least my copy – is well worn from many uses and I wouldn’t want to be without it.

The New York Times Cook Book, Revised Edition, by Craig Claiborne
(Harper & Row, 1990)

Italian Spinach

From The New Times Cook Book, Revised Edition, by Craig Claiborn.

(This isn’t the creamed spinach recipe I mention in the review – although I’m happy to share that too – but this quick and easy recipe for spinach gave me one more way to enjoy my favorite leafy green.)

4 Servings

3 pounds spinach, well washed and trimmed

1 tablespoon butter

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 garlic clove, finely chopped

Salt to taste

¼ teaspoon cayenne

Coarsely grated Parmesan cheese

1.       1  Cut the spinach into coarse shreds. Plunge into boiling salted water to cover and parboil 30 seconds. Drain well and place in a baking dish.

2.      2  In a skillet heat the butter and olive oil. Add the garlic, salt and cayenne and cook over low heat 5 minutes. Combine the oil mixture with the spinach and sprinkle with cheese and additional butter, melted. Brown quickly under a broiler.

The Blog About My Mother

No, not exactly about my mother, but Mom did email me the other day to say, “You haven’t blogged in a while.” (Exactly when did I develop a modern relationship with my mother?)

Well, Mom, it has been as hot as James Franco lately and spending time in the kitchen has become a low priority. Trust me, there are still plenty of old and new cookbooks waiting to be reviewed (hello, Ad Hoc, sitting on my dining room table because you’re too big to fit on a book shelf!).

But for now, Mom, I thought I’d ask a question you’ve most likely heard a million times before: What’s for supper? When it’s hot like this – triple digits this week – and your kitchen – like mine – is not air conditioned, what do you eat?

Here’s mine to share. Let’s call it a deconstructed guacamole chicken salad.

Ingredients
One broiled chicken breast (seasoned with just salt & pepper) cut into bite size pieces
One avocado cut into bite size pieces
A Roma tomato, diced
A can of black beans, rinsed and drained
A jalapeno pepper, diced
Fresh juice from one or two limes, depending on taste and the juiciness of the limes
Fresh ground pepper and coarse sea salt to taste
Chopped cilantro, about a tablespoon

Mix all the ingredients in a bowl and adjust seasoning. I think corn could also be added.

I ate it cold and it was delicious and really light and healthy!

So, that’s what’s for dinner at my house. Now how about you? What’s for dinner?

Half Baked

Bread baking is not to be entered into lightly. To become even a halfway decent baker of bread takes more than a little dedication, but it’s an endeavor worth pursuing. Without a doubt, a loaf of homemade bread is far superior to anything you can find in the grocery store, even the fancy loaves that looked like they popped out of the oven earlier that morning.

When baking bread at home there are too many factors beyond my control – the humidity outside and the room temperature, for instance – that can work against me. In other words, a bread recipe that may work for me on a sunny day in the fall may fail miserably on a wet spring day. And honestly, making bread can be physical chore. It makes it pretty tempting to lean on fail-proof recipes, but most recipes that claim to be “simple” just don’t produce bread with much appeal. Sure, technically it's bread, but then again, technically Jim Carrey is a comedian.

So a few years ago when Mark Bittman wrote about Jim Lahey’s no-knead bread-making method in the New York Times, carb hounds rejoiced. Not only could we produce a beautiful loaf that rivaled any artisan bread, but we could do it without the labor of kneading and babysitting a lump of dough through its various life stages.

Now Lahey has written his own book, aptly named, My Bread (and it’s a good thing he’s taking credit for the technique; if you Google “Mark Bittman no-knead bread” 1.2 million listings come up!). His cookbook goes beyond his basic bread recipe to include some pretty amazing breads. Read it from the beginning and learn how Lahey fell in love with baking (who brings a homemade loaf of bread on a first date as a gift?) and you’ll also see his years of dedication to his art.

The 220-page book is well written and engaging, and many recipes include step-by-step photography to illustrate. The photos of the finished bread are beautiful, dark and moody and raise bread to the level of art.

But does the no-knead recipe work? When Bittman first published the basic no-knead recipe my sister and her husband Louis set out to master it. (Trust me, those two, especially Louis, do nothing half-heartedly!). Soon after its publication, Cook’s Illustrated and America’s Test Kitchen took up the challenge to improve on this basic recipe by producing their own no-knead (well, almost no-knead) bread, which is the one I started baking for myself. Louis and I put our respective breads to the test last Thanksgiving when they hosted dinner for 35 people. It may have been the fact that 30 of the people at dinner were Louis’ relatives, or it may have been the arm-twisting Louis did, but his bread – Lahey’s bread – won. (As far as I’m concerned, this just proves that blood is thicker than bread.)

When I got my hands on My Bread I decided to tackle the basic bread recipe, but my first loaf, while pretty, was flat. Too little water and not enough stickiness, I decided. Second try produced similar results: pretty to look at but a dense loaf. I gave it one more shot, adding more water than called for and got the loaf I was looking for.

The moral? Don’t confuse “no-knead” with “simple.” Good bread requires dedication and skill. Lahey’s book is a great teaching tool, but give yourself the chance to fail and learn from your mistakes.

And maybe by Thanksgiving you can put your brother-in-law’s bread to shame. Now that’s something to be grateful for.

My Bread: The Revolutionary No-Work, No-Knead Method
By Jim Lahey with Rick Flaste
(W.W. Norton & Company, New York, 2009)

Brittle Battle

After my failure with the almond brittle in Christie Matheson’s Salty Sweets (see post on May 10, 2010), I decided to look at some other recipes to find out where I might have gone so wrong. Alton Brown of Food Network’s Good Eats is usually a good go-to man – a food nerd who's entertaining. Sure enough he had a brittle recipe (traditional peanut instead of almond) with the added bonus of cayenne pepper to spice it up a bit.

Wouldn’t you know, based on reader comments, many of them had the same problems with Alton’s brittle that I had with Matheson’s. Following the directions, they ended up with “a gritty, cloudy praline-like mixture” (I feel your pain, sister!). But expect those results with Alton’s brittle only if you follow the printed recipe that appears on the website. If you watch the video, he has a few more clues that became the turning point for me in the battle for great brittle

The web recipe doesn’t say anything about the desired temperature of the sugar mixture but he does mention it in the video (350 degrees give or take 10 degrees). And he also offers a nifty tip on using a cast iron pan to diffuse the heat for even cooking. In neither case does he mention the amount of estimated time to reach stage of the cooking process – and it took a while.

Here’s Alton Brown’s recipe as it appears online with my note about the use of the candy thermometer to reach the right temperature and therefore the right hue of amber.

Peanut Brittle (from FoodNetwork.com)
Ingredients

1 1/2 cups lightly salted, roasted peanuts
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
3 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups water
Vegetable oil, for coating the saucepan
Softened butter for spatula

Directions

In a small bowl combine peanuts, cinnamon, and cayenne. Set aside.

Brush the inside of a medium sized heavy saucepan with vegetable oil. Add the sugar and water to the saucepan, cook over high heat, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon, until it comes to a boil. Stop stirring, cover and cook for 3 minutes. Uncover, (NOTE: Here’s where you insert the candy thermometer, careful to not rock the boat) reduce heat to medium, and cook until the sugar is a light amber color (NOTE: Or until it reaches 350 degrees +/- 10 degrees, which took me almost an hour). Stir in peanuts. This will greatly reduce the temperature of the sugar so work quickly. Once evenly mixed, pour mixture onto a sheet pan lined with a silicone baking mat or buttered parchment paper. Using a buttered spatula, spread thin. You will have to work quickly when pouring out and spreading the mixture in the pan. If necessary, in order to achieve single layer of peanuts, top with second sheet pan whose underside has been buttered. Cool completely and then break into pieces.

How did it taste? Pretty awesome. A nice peppery bite without being overwhelming. Makes me think about trying other variations, such as curry or cracked pepper, or maybe try it with cashews.

The Sweet Life

“Salt is the new black,” or so declares Christie Matheson in her new cookbook, Salty Sweets. In the 75 recipes she takes some familiar sweets – chocolate chip cookies, carrot cake, and even ice cream – and turns them up a notch with “a sublime kiss of salt.”

That’s fine by me. Salt seems to add a bit of sophistication to sweets. Salt in sweets isn’t new, of course, since it has a chemical function in most baked goods, but in Matheson’s recipes the taste of salt is noticeable without being overwhelming. Think chocolate-covered pretzels. Or in Matheson’s hands, peanut butter ice cream with a hint of salt to complement the nuttiness. Or toffee cookies with dark chocolate glaze with a sprinkle of salt.

The 144-page hardback book is divided into seven chapters with recipes plus a couple of  prelude chapters on baking tips and an overview of the types of salt used in the recipes, most of which are now available in any decent grocery store. However some salts, like fleur de sel, are a bit harder to find – and a bit more expensive. But like everything else, you can always buy it online. (Search Amazon.com for fleur de sel.) Since you asked, fleur de sel is French for “flower of salt,” and it’s slightly sweeter than sea salt.

The chapters with recipes cover little treats, cookies and bars, cakes and cupcakes, puddings, fruits, ice cream, and sauces. I wish the author had not spread herself thin over so many chapters – there are only eight recipes in the cakes and cupcakes chapter – and instead offered more recipes on a smaller range of topics.

Most of what I’ve made has been wonderful. Matheson’s directions are clear and concise, and her ingredients – with the exception of some of the fancier salts – are probably in your pantry now. Some of the recipes are accompanied by beautiful photographs by Joyce Oudkerk Pool.

The one exception I had was her recipe for almond brittle, which failed miserably. Candies are tricky to make and in some of the other “little treats” recipes Matheson advises the use of a candy thermometer, but not in this one. Following her directions for the temp, the cooking time, and the color the melted sugar should turn, I ended up with a gritty and crumbly lump that was far from brittle. Obviously the sugar hadn’t melted and the directions for the use of a candy thermometer would have been a huge help.

I do like the fact that Matheson encourages readers to cook with organic products, especially chocolate. (It’s good to know that eating chocolate can help save the rainforest, because I needed one more reason to eat chocolate.) She also recommends buying locally produced honey and supporting local beekeepers. More bees mean better local crops all around.

There are more recipes flagged for me to try so I’ll definitely be back to satisfy my salty sweet tooth.

Salty Sweets: Delectable Desserts and Tempting Treats with a Sublime Kiss of Salt
By Christie Matheson
(The Harvard Common Press, Boston, 2009)

Toffee Cookies with Dark Chocolate Glaze

(from Salty Sweets: Delectable Desserts and Tempting Treats with a Sublime Kiss of Salt, by Christie Matheson, The Harvard Common Press, Boston, 2009)

Makes 20 to 24 cookies

“I first made these cookies seven or eight years ago, when I was just starting to learn about the merits of really, really good chocolate. And, wow, do these showcase what a difference good chocolate can make. The cookies are sweet and rich, the perfect foil for an intense layer of dark chocolate.”

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup packed dark brown sugar
2 large egg yolks
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon fine sea salt
4 ounces bittersweet chocolate
¼ cup chopped toasted pecans
Fleur de sel

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
2. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream together the butter and brown sugar. Add the egg yolks, one at a time and mix well.
3. Combine the flour and salt in a small bowl, then add the flour mixture to the butter-sugar mixture, mixing until well combined.
4. Shape the dough in a disk, wrap it in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 10 minutes.
5. Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface to about ¼ inch thick. Cut out circles with a 2-inch round cutter and place the cookies on the baking sheets.
6. Bake for 11 to 13 minutes, until the edges are golden brown. Let cool completely on the baking sheets.
7. Bring water to a simmer in a double boiler, or set up a heat-proof bowl over a small saucepan with water simmering in the bottom. Melt the chocolate over the simmering water. When cookies are cool, spread them gently with a thin layer of melted chocolate. Before the chocolate dries, sprinkle lightly with the pecans and a few grains of fleur de sel. Let the chocolate set. The cookies will keep in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days.