Keeper of the Recipe: Persimmon Cookies

I bear the sacred mantle. It was not really given to me, but somehow I seemed to have accepted it, lo, those many years ago. At some point in time, I became The Keeper of the Recipe. I may not have been the only one to have had it handwritten, stuffed in a drawer or a binder, but I was always able to come up with it when I would get the call. “Carolyn! Have you got Grandma’s Persimmon Cookie Recipe! I need it right now!”

I looked back over my blog posts, and although I see that I mentioned these cookies, I couldn’t see a post dedicated to them. So if I already did, well then, here it is again.

These were the cookies that my Grandma Giva (say “GUY-vuh”) always made. I don’t remember her ever making any other kind. I helped her make them whenever the stars lined up, and I was always in awe of how particular she was at each step. I value speed a lot when I’m making something, and when I decide that some step “doesn’t matter how I get that part done,” then I leave it out or do it the quick way. So I’m going to tell you how to make these, inserting her special ways.

Now, you may say, What? I don’t need another persimmon cookie recipe. I’ve got a bunch already, I can look on the internet, and besides, they aren’t all that great, anyway. Well, these are! They are not “cakey” like muffin mounds, and I suspect there is a bit of caramelization happening to improve the flavor. They aren’t sticky and soft, more chewy, yet not crisp.

Here is how you make them (recipe below):

First, take the persimmon pulp and stir the baking soda into it, then set it aside while you make the batter. 

If you know anything about persimmons, you know you have to use Hachiyas, NOT Fuyus. Fuyus are shaped like apples. They are crunchy and edible, and don’t get nice and squishy. Hachiyas are too astringent to even taste before they get really soft. If you need to hurry up the softening  process, you can stick a firm one in the freezer and then thaw it. But really, you need to just have some on the counter getting soft until you need them. Pull the peels off, and the cap. Once in awhile there will be seeds. They look like long skinny date seeds. Discard them. There will probably be some firm jelly-like sections. A stick blender can mush those all in, but try to leave it a little chunky. 

Cream together the butter and the sugar. 

Beat in the egg. 

At this point you need to add in the nuts and the raisins. Grandma always called them “nutmeats” which feels so quaint and memorable that I always say it when I make these. She would prepare them ahead of time. The raisins got the once-over, checking for stems. And the nutmeats got sliced. That’s right, not chopped or ground up in nut grinder, but sliced with her razor sharp paring knife that I think was really a utility knife of some sort. Each walnut got the treatment, sliced into the perfect sized pieces. I like the bigger chunks of nutmeats like this better than the way a chopper or grinder leaves them, but what I do is just break them up with my fingers. So stir them in now.

Now you sift in the dry ingredients. (but not the baking soda, which has already been added to the pulp) I love the spiciness of these cookies, so I always heap my cinnamon. But Grandma was always a very careful measurer, so you must just do as you are led. Grandma did NOT like cloves. I think it is possible that her original recipe called for cloves, and she just left it out. Because she did NOT like it. But I do, so I have added cloves in the amount that seems best. 

By now you have a crumbly mixture that doesn’t seem much like cookie dough. But it is time to add the pulp. And the pretty orange pulp has changed! The baking soda has stiffened it. So when you mix it in, it is less like a liquid and more like a jelly. Once everything is homogenous, it is ready to bake. 

You need to make big honkin’ cookies. If they are small, you can’t leave them in the oven long enough to cook to the right level of brownness and chewiness. Scoop out a wad of dough and spread it out with a fork. You MUST use a fork and nothing else. Because that’s how Grandma did it. They will be about the size of your palm (if your palm isn’t huge) and a half-inch thick before cooking. Don’t let them touch each other. (Grandma never did, and even though I get hasty and shove other cookies together sometimes, I don’t with these. Out of respect) 

Grandma had one of those big, ancient, wonderful, mysterious gas ovens of older times. There were simmering burners hidden in the regular burners. There were two ovens, and other stuff I don’t remember much. She did not feel like her oven baked evenly, and so the pans got shuffled around inside a couple times during the baking process. You can do that if your oven bakes unevenly, or you can do that just to honor the recipe, but the most important thing is to let them bake until they are done properly. And that means very brown. Brown enough so that they won’t be sticky and soft. But NOT brown enough to end up crunchy when they cool. And that, my friend, you and your oven will have to figure out yourselves.

Grandma’s Persimmon Cookies

1 cup persimmon pulp

1 teaspoon baking soda

½ cup butter

1 cup sugar

1 egg

1 cup nutmeats (walnuts)

1 cup raisins 

2 cups flour (please use white flour!)

½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon cinnamon (or more)

¼ teaspoon nutmeg

¼ teaspoon cloves

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375°.

Dissolve baking soda in persimmon pulp. Set aside.

Cream butter and sugar. Add egg. Mix.

Stir in nutmeats and raisins.

Sift together dry ingredients, add to creamed mixture, stirring in.

Add persimmon pulp (with baking soda dissolved in it) Mix until blended.

Drop by large spoonfuls on ungreased cookie sheet (I use parchment paper), then, with a fork, spread the cookies out.

Bake until cookies are golden brown, with fairly dark brown edges. 

From Grandma Give Brokaw Roberts

Soups of January - Enchilada Soup

Enchilada Soup was an experiment that turned out quite well indeed! It is fun to think of the things we like to eat, and then figure out how to make it a soup.

I used a pound and a half of ground chuck, browned in a cast iron skillet. In the meantime, I pulled out one of my 1/2 cup jars of chile puree and a plop of tomato paste from the freezer, (see my previous soup posts for that info) and dropped it into a cup of simmering chicken broth (because it was leftover in my 'fridge). I spooned out a quarter cup of leftover canned corn into the mix also. Then I dumped in the browned meat and let it simmer and heat.

I cut up a half of a yellow onion and lightly browned it in the remaining traces of grease from cooking the beef (If your beef is more fatty, you'll want to drain most of the grease off). When it was done, I stirred in a couple of large, chopped garlic cloves and cooked until they were fragrant. (over browning garlic makes it bitter). Then into the soup pot they went, along with a generous pinch of dried oregano. The skillet was still a little bit wet with grease and onion juice. I stirred in about a scant tablespoon of ground cumin and toasted it until it was fragrant but not browned. I slightly deglazed the pan with some water and dumped it into the soup. A half a can of drained, pitted black olives followed that.

Now it was just fine-tuning it with some salt, a splash of balsamic vinegar, and some more hot water.

I served it with some shredded cheddar cheese, a scoop of our version of sour cream--whole milk greek yogurt, and tamed jalapeño nacho slices. It was incredibly delicious, and healthful!

I did serve a couple of sides, a fresh cucumber and onion relish, and "squaghetti," spiralized zucchini seared briefly in the still-spiced skillet with a little more oil, adding paprika and garlic powder also.

Maybe this one gets my week's vote!!!

Soups of January-- Italian Sausage Soup

I made Italian Soup for one of last year's SOJ, and I'm sure I didn't use all the same ingredients this year. But I was too lazy to go back and see what I did, so I just handled this one as I saw fit.

I didn't have any chicken Italian sausage this time. I had shopped at Walmart, and they don't have the kind I like, so I just figured I'd make some with my handy Kitchen Aid meat grinder and a portion of my boneless skinless chicken thighs.

I ran the meat through the coarse-sized grinder, like I always do, and figured about a pound and a quarter would be enough. I stirred in pinches of Italian Seasoning (Penzy's of course!), cayenne pepper, red pepper flakes, dried basil, black pepper, salt, and garlic powder. I made the mixture into balls and fried them up in a non-stick skillet with a little oil. I didn't worry about cooking them all the way through, since they would be going into the soup to finish cooking.

Meanwhile I cut up half an onion and 2 cloves of garlic. When the meat was finished, I used the hot oily skillet to sauté the onions until they were lightly browned. I added the minced garlic and cooked only until it was fragrant, about a minute. Then they went into my broth.

Here is my broth: A can of S&W petite cut canned tomatoes and a half can of tomato paste, with chicken broth to thin it to how I like it. Whenever I open a can of tomato past to get a spoon of the red glop, I scoop out the rest of the can in spoonfuls onto plastic wrap and freeze them. When they are frozen, I drop the whole thing, plastic wrap and all into a ziplock baggie and store it in the freezer. Tomato paste whenever I need it!

This whole way of cooking, with cans and pre-made stuff may seem like cheating sometimes, but honestly, the Soups of January are about everything to be kind to the harried cook and the over-fed family!

Meanwhile I was cooking up one of our family's favorite starches: gnocchi. I'll take a pile of gnocchi over noodles any day! They only take a few minutes to simmer done, and I had them in a separate pan, ready to add at the finish.

I cut up a zucchini and boiled it into the soup until crisp-tender, and then I added the Italian meatballs and more Italian seasoning. A couple spoonfuls of leftover canned corn also went in. The gnocchi was last into the pot, and then I tasted it. It seemed to lack a certain zest. I decided a couple splashes of balsamic vinegar and a squirt of Worcestershire sauce would cure that, and it did.

This soup was absolutely delicious! Unfortunately, I am sure it won't win the favorite soup of the week poll because my husband isn't particularly fond of tomato-based dishes. But I like it, and I know it is very healthful, so it gets my vote!

Soups of January - Chile Colorado

Well, perhaps this is not really a soup. But it is sort of like one, so there! It is incredibly rich and has extreme dried red chili presence. (By the way, I periodically educate myself on when it is "chili," and when it is "chile," and then I forget. So do your best to ignore it if I get it wrong here.) It is very warm, but not so spicy-hot that you have to keep drinking milk to calm the fire on your tongue.

I don't even keep chili powder mix in my cupboard anymore. I do use dried chipotle, dried ancho powder, smoked spanish paprika, and regular paprika as random spices, but when I need to create a real authentic red chili personality, I fix up a sauce from whole dried chile peppers. Always choose peppers that are pliable and leathery. They they are more fresh and flavorful. You just pull off the stems, rip them open to dump out the seeds and pull the membrane if it is prominent. Rinse them because sometimes they are dusty. Pour very hot or boiling water over them, cover, and let rest for 20-30 minutes. Drop them in the blender with enough soaking water to process them, and blend until pureed. They should be like applesauce. One thing I do is make more than I need and store it in 1/2 cup sized canning jars in the freezer.

I found this recipe online, and I really like it!
You can play with the spice amounts, but be careful with the salt until you are able to taste it at the end when it is all cooked down and about done.

Chile Colorado

7 ancho/pasilla dried peppers
2 guajillo dried peppers
(you may have to toy with these numbers when the peppers are small or randomly sized)

Cover with 3 c. boiling water and let steam 30 minutes. Puree.

2 lb beef, cut in 1/2 inch sized pieces
salt, pepper
6 garlic cloves, chopped
2 bay leaves
1 Tablespoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon dried sage
1 teaspoon dried oregano
5 cups beef broth

Brown meat in a little oil. Add spices, Stir around until fragrant. Add 5 cups beef broth. Simmer uncovered one hour. Stir in chile puree. Simmer another 45 minutes.

Soups of January-- Chicken with ushrooms and Wild Rice

I had bought a nice-sized tray of boneless skinless chicken thighs ("No antibiotics ever") and figured that I could make several soups out of the lot. I'd been thinking about the jar of dry wild rice I had bought for Christmas dinner and had a bunch left over. I could just imagine cooking a chicken soup using it!

I used Swanson's chicken broth from a carton to simmer a few tablespoons of wild rice until it was just tender, but still quite chewy. I knew from past experience that overcooking wild rice makes a disappointing, broken up finished product. This took about a half hour. I added the cut-up chunks of chicken meat and a snack-sized bag of baby carrots. When everything was done and tender, I added a big pile of sliced mushrooms. I knew that the rest of the ingredients would be more forgiving for overcooking than I wanted for my mushrooms.

A few thin shreds of cabbage were then stirred in for the texture and nutrients. I didn't want to make a cream based soup, but I know that my husband doesn't care as much for the thin broths and he does the thicker, starchier ones. So I thought I would finish it off by adding just a few splashes of half and half. The pot went off the heat for this step, and then it was ready to serve. Surprisingly for me, I didn't feel the need to add any further seasonings. It was rich and savory. A perfect Soup of January!

The Soups of January '18-- Thai Red Curry

Well yes, it's been awhile, but there's nothing so inspiring as my annual "Soups of January" to motivate me to post. I started this tradition several years ago when post holiday reflection on our eating and waist expansion seemed to strike a glum note in our souls, and raised the bar on our bathroom scale. You can't go too wrong with soup, as long as it isn't cream and starch-based. Lots of hot liquid to fill you up and you can pile on lots of vegetables to meld into the savory broth.

This is a new one for me. We love the curry dishes, which are more like soups and stews, at Thai restaurants. Every since our favorite restaurant closed down, we have been adrift, looking for just that right Thai place. Even though I know I'm not doing it totally right, ethnically speaking, this incarnation is close enough to work.

I didn't use a recipe, I just thought about what I wanted to put in, added it, and then tasted as I went along. One of the ingredients I really like in my curry is the sliced pieces of pumpkin. I just happened to have a large butternut squash in the cupboard, so I peeled and sliced a 2" section of the top. I simmered the pieces in water until they were tender, but not mushy, and then set them aside.

Into the soup pot went a cup or so of chicken stock and about a pound or less of sliced boneless, skinless chicken thighs. When they were more or less done, I dumped in a whole can of coconut milk. I never bother with the "Lite" stuff. This is the whole fatty coconut stuff. Yum! I had a couple tablespoons of Thai red curry paste left in my little jar (Thai Kitchen brand) and added that to the broth. As it gently simmered, I cut up one smallish-mediumish zucchini into small quarter slices and stirred them in, along with sliced mushrooms. I added the butternut squash to the soup and added in a small handful of very finely sliced cabbage, for the texture and nutrients. At the last minute I remembered the Thai basil from my garden that I had dried and put into my spice cupboard. I rubbed a couple generous pinches in my palm and mixed that in too.

When I tasted it, it was warm, but just not quite hot and spicy enough for my tastes, so I added about a quarter teaspoon of cayenne pepper. I dressed it with a few lime slices and served it with hot jasmine rice.

I told my husband that he would be voting on his favorite of the week soon, and I suspect this one might be a finalist!

MOG - Smoky, Spicy Jamaican Chicken, pg. 248

It seemed like a good time to grab my Master of theGrill cookbook and look for a good way to handle these chicken thighs I had, and do it in time for dinner. It was a little late to be brainstorming, a little over an hour before I wanted to serve dinner, but I was optimistic. My spice cupboard was full, and boneless-skinless almost always turn out well.

At first I had planned on a Thai green curry. But that was before I realized I had not bought that extra can of coconut milk like I had mis-remembered. As I was muttering about what to do with my chicken pieces, my husband said, “Try something Cajun.” I thought he said “Jamaican,” which made me think of Jerk Seasoning, which I hadn’t really done before. So I dug around in my cookbooks and pulled an interesting one out of my “America’s Test Kitchen– Master of the Grill” book. The list of spice ingredients was exhaustive and looked interesting, so I figured I would try it out, and in the process add another entry to this series!

I laid out my plan. The subjects were: spice paste, side dishes, grill readiness. First the spice paste, so the pieces could marinate a bit.

I have made a great peace with substitutions. Although I didn’t need many, I made a few, but all in the spirit of the original recipe.

Grind up in a spice grinder or mortar and pestle: ( I have a Krups blade coffee grinder specifically for spices, and I just wipe it clean with a damp paper towel after use)

1 ½ Tablespoons coriander seeds

1 Tablespoon allspice berries (I used 1 teaspoon ground allspice)

1 Tablespoon black peppercorns

Put these in a blender container and add the rest of the paste ingredients:

1-3 habanero chiles, stemmed, seeded and quartered (seriously!? No, I don’t have those fellows just hanging around. I used 1 teaspoon chipotle powder and 2 small fresh sweet peppers. Orange, to honor the habaneros)

8 scallions, chopped ( I guess scallions are green onions. Didn’t have any, but I did have some young shallot sprouts in my poor neglected garden, so I made do)

6 garlic cloves, peeled (no fresh stuff at hand, so I used the equivalent freeze-dried chopped garlic, Penzy’s brand)

3 Tablespoons vegetable oil (I used grapeseed oil, my new choice for higher heat oil instead of canola)

2 Tablespoons soy sauce

2 Tablespoons grated lime zest- 3 limes (I had been wondering what I was going to do with that lonely shriveled lime left in my crisper drawer! I got a respectable amount of zest from it, and then added the juice to try to make up for the missing zest.)\

2 Tablespoons yellow mustard

1 Tablespoon dried Thyme

1 Tablespoon dried ginger

1 Tablespoon packed brown sugar

2 ¼ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon dried rosemary (didn’t have dried, but I do have a bush with the fresh stuff on it!)

½ teaspoon ground nutmeg (ever since I discovered grinding myown little nutmegs, I have never bought the pre-ground stuff again)

Run all this in the blender until smooth, about a minute or two.  Get your chicken up close and personal with the paste, and shove it in a gallon ziplock, or do as I did and just mash it into a baking dish.

Now, the recipe called for 3 pounds of bone-in, skin-on chicken pieces, but I used what I had, 2 ½ pounds of boneless-skinless thighs.

I got the grill ready, with briquettes over the starter flame and hickory chips in the water bucket.

While the coals were heating, I got my sides ready. Basmati rice went into the microwave. I knew from experience that it would cook in less than 20 minutes, but stay hot for another hour in there. I cut up some pre-cooked butternut squash pieces into a dish and set near the microwave. (One big honkin’ squash, baked whole for about 2 hours the other day in the oven) Then I was ready to grill.

I got the coals set for indirect heat, piled on the soaked chips, and laid a couple sprigs of rosemary on top. The chicken cooked off to the side with periodic turning, and then I finished them directly over the hot coals. The platter went to the table with the bowl of hot rice. I nuked the squash for 2 minutes, and then set it out with butter and Penzy’s Brady Street Cheese Sprinkle. A formidable companion to the meal was a bottle of Paso Robles “Roustabout” Meritage 2014 red wine.

This meal will definitely be repeated. It was totally excellent. Everything went wonderfully together, and the spiced chicken was complex and delicious!

Should I Get a Sous Vide Machine?

 

Well, I think the answer is yes. Because according to my research, it will mash wort at a perfect temperature. And also cook things.

I had heard about Starbucks Sous Vide Egg Bites, that they were fantastic. And expensive, like all Starbucks food. Since I already had a sous vide machine on my mind, from a running thread on my Brew-in-a-Bag Facebook group, I decided to see whether they could be as good as all that. I decided to set up a sous vide situation on my stovetop with a large stockpot, lid, instant-read thermometer, and 4 little half-cup canning jars.

I hunted down a copy cat recipe online (http://www.copykat.com/2017/02/20/starbucks-sous-vide-egg-bites-bacon-gruyere/). This one seemed to have the most positive comments on the finished product. The ingredients are pretty basic to a quiche-like dish. It called for a tablespoon of cottage cheese for each egg. I used four. The cottage cheese is to help lighten the egg and keep it from being too dense when it's cooked. It called for a quarter cup each of shredded Gruyere and Monterey Jack cheeses. But since I decided to use what I had, that ended up being an Italian blend of cheeses like mozzarella, Parmesan, Asiago, etc. You are supposed to press a piece of thin crispy bacon at the bottom of each jar, but since I only had thick-sliced, after I fried it, I snipped it into little pieces with kitchen shears. Just a little salt, and then it was time to blend. The blender is an important part of making the finished egg bites smooth and creamy. So I blended the heck out of my egg mixture.

A squirt of pan spray went into each jar, and a big pinch of the bacon snippings. Each jar got just enough mixture to go to the fill line, and then the lids went on, only lightly tightened. In the meantime I had heated my stockpot full of water to just a little over 167 degrees, which was my target. A couple crocheted pot holders went into the bottom, and I set the jars on them. The water covered my jars by an inch or so. Now came the hard part, keeping the water temperature as stable as possible for 35 minutes.

It wasn't easy. My temperature started out low because of the heat loss by sticking the jars in. I was confused that the temperature wasn't rising in spite of me bumping up the heat on the electric burner. Until I realized I was turning the wrong knob. I didn't want to put too much heat at the bottom of the jars, so I tried to raise it very gently. Every five minutes or so I would give the water a little swirl and then slap the lid back down to save the heat. I gave them another ten minutes to make up for the low temp at the beginning. Finally I called them done.

I slid my egg bites out of their jars. Perfect! Not tough and rubbery, not runny, but tender and smooth. I packaged three of them into the fridge, but decided I needed to eat one for my research. I wished I hadn't had that second piece of pizza, but this second supper was for a good cause. I sprinkled some cheese on top, and then used my little torch to melt it and give it some pretty brown touches. It was really, really good!

The picture I used here is actually one I reheated up this morning and had for brunch. I wanted to be sure not to overcook it, so I decided to warm it by slipping it into a ziplock sandwich baggie and dropping it into some almost simmering water for a few minutes. It was enough to bring it to a just-right temperature. After torching the cheese sprinkled on top, I dressed the plate with fresh tomatoes, sugar snap peas, and sweet fig balsamic vinegar. Superb!

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Cheesecake, er... Cheese Blintzes for Breakfast

Ever since I had a delicious French Toast Cheese Blintz casserole at my friend's house, I wanted to see what actual Cheese Blintzes were like. I've never had them and never made them. And I knew I wouldn't be able to get them out of my mind until I tried my hand at it.

One of my go-to recipe sites for those categories of food, i.e. Mediterranean, Jewish, Mid-Eastern, is Tori Avey's. I've never been disappointed. She had a few versions, all similar, but this one looked good, since I do like citrus and orange flavors. These were Citrus Vanilla Blintzes.

In preparation for making them, I bought a package of cream cheese and a carton of Ricotta cheese. I'm not crazy about Ricotta, and had thought about substituting drained cottage cheese, but the regular blintz recipe I had in mind (on her site) suggested that it might not come out the same. The next day, when I searched for the recipe again, I saw a new entry, Citrus Vanilla Blintzes! Now THAT sounded really good! Turns out, she now has Clover Dairy as one of her sponsors, and created the recipe with Clover cottage cheese instead of ricotta. So I got to use the cottage cheese in my fridge (Crystal brand) and leave the ricotta sealed up for future lasagne.

Reading through the recipe, I realized that it was mostly identical to her other blintz recipe, only with a splash of orange juice and a bit of vanilla. I didn't need to make up the crepe batter, since I already had a cup of leftover batter in the fridge from making dinner crepes. I just dropped in a little orange zest to help the flavor along.

I halved the recipe, since this was really just a test run for one- me.  Of course the cottage cheese didn't want to get smooth with a whisk, and I didn't want to dirty up the processor for just a bit of batter, so I pulled out the immersion blender and made short work of the lumps. I had just enough crepe batter for two crepes, so I cooked them up and set them aside while I put a piece of butter in the hot pan. They were surprisingly easy to assemble. Crepes are so flexible, yet sturdy. The filling was thick enough to stay put, and the blintzes did not unwrap themselves when I fried them. Towards the end, the filling wanted to ooze out of some small cracks, but that was about when they were supposed to be done anyway.

They were indeed very tasty. Lightly sweet with a light orange flavor, and rich with the vanilla. The crepes lose any crunchiness very quickly, so if you want that, you need to start munching right away. But I did find myself wondering, after a couple bites, why in the world would this be considered breakfast food? I guess the same reason people eat muffins (aka cupcakes) sweet rolls, bread drenched in butter and syrup, and Lucky Charms for breakfast. I actually find that an egg and a glass of milk are a better breakfast meal for me. But I digress.

So what do I think? Will I make them again? Were they worth the trouble? Considering how very like cheesecake they were, and that I like cheesecake better, I would probably pick that option first. The fact that they don't likely hold over well is a strike against them. One would make them up as their hungry customers held plates out near the skillet. Which would be sort of ok, since they are kind of fun to make once you have the components all prepared.

I'm thinking the next thing I'll try is that breakfast casserole my friend made. It was more complex in the flavors, and it had a lot more egg in it, which makes it more nutritious.

I'm not going to write out the recipe, but you can click on the links and go to her site, which has very nice photos and interesting comment on the food.

My New Kitchen Toy and Creme Brûlée

Was the torch the excuse for the creme brûlée, or the creme brûlée the excuse for the torch? I'm not sure, but I'm enjoying both!

I have made flan a lot, with the melted sugar at the bottoms of the custard cups that drizzles over the tops when you upend them on plates. But when I had creme brûlée at a restaurant once, I was taken by the similarity, yet elegant differences. I liked the rich silky texture, but the crunchy sugar top was so cool!

Tristan and I decided we wanted to do creme brûlée enough to buy a torch for, and so he got this one at Harbor Freight, and with coupons and sales, it worked out to about 12 bucks. We already had a little can of butane for filling the fuel tank, the same stuff you fill lighters with.

Creme brûlée is basically heavy cream and egg yolks, with some sugar and vanilla. I decided that I wanted to feel a little better about my ingredients, so I used half cream and half half-and-half. It was still excellent, and I would do it that way next time, unless I was trying to royally impress someone with all that whipping cream. My recipe called for a vanilla bean. Not going to happen. I used high quality real vanilla extract.

The tedious thing about making baked custard/flan and creme brûlée is the need to bake it in a water bath, to keep the outer edges from over-cooking before the center is set. I couldn't find one baking dish the right size to fit all four of my ramekins in, so I had to use 1-9x13, 1-9x9, and one round pie plate. A dishcloth went in the bottom of each, then the ramekins, then fill them with the custard, then put them on the oven rack, and then fill up around them halfway with boiling water. The hard part is sliding the rack in to the pre-heated oven without spilling anything! My racks scrape and rock when I push them in.

For the sugar topping, my recipe called for turbinado sugar, which I just happened to have, from making up a pork rub last fall. It is like raw sugar, coarse granules and traces of the cane syrup on it.

And then the fun!

Tristan was the best at it because he had that "welding technique" perfected. Finally, when it was melted enough for me, I cracked into it.

They said to stick it back in the fridge to chill, because the torch heats up a section of the top layer, but I like it like this. The contrast of the warm stripe of custard with the cold part at the bottom, the silky smoothness with the crunchy top. It was delicious!

(Small batch)

1 cup heavy cream, 1 cup half-and-half, 1/3 cup white sugar, 1 tsp. Real Vanilla

Mix together, ensuring the sugar is dissolved.

6 egg yolks, beaten up.

Pour the cream mixture into the egg yolks, whisking as you do. Strain mixture through sieve. Preheat oven to 300 degrees.

Line a baking dish with a kitchen towel and set ramekins on the towel. Fill ramekins or baking cups (I filled four dishes halfway full) with custard, and then set baking dish on middle rack. Pour boiling water in dish, being careful not to get water into custard cups. The water should come to around halfway up the ramekin. Slide rack into oven and bake for about 25-35 minutes. Center will be lightly set. Best of all, use an instant read thermometer and test the centers for 170-175 degrees.

Remove from water bath, let cool somewhat on counter. Cover tightly with plastic and refrigerate. When you are ready to torch them, peel off plastic and blot any condensation with a paper towel.

Strew a couple teaspoons of turbinado sugar on top, shake around, and then pour off excess. Torch it. Eat it. That's it!

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Rueben

And now, back to the sandwiches!

I like hot sandwiches better than cold ones, usually. (exceptions: peanut butter and jam, tuna fish) And the Rueben is one of my very favorites. It has all the good stuff in it. And I even make an exception to my usual non-interest in rye bread for this goodie.

I was reading through the book Make the Bread, Buy the Butter, (Jennifer Reese) when I decided to follow her directions for making some for dinner. I've only had them while eating out, but this time I'd make them myself. What was interesting was her recipe for Russian Dressing, which apparently is supposed to be used, not Thousand Island. But NOT the commercial stuff, a recipe that turned out to taste a lot like Thousand Island, but way better.

Unfortunately, We scarfed them up before I remembered to take a picture.

All gone. But to make up for it, I'll tell you what to do and give you the recipe for the Russian Dressing!

1/2 cup mayonnaise
2 Tablespoons Catsup
1 1/2 teaspoons horseradish
1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1 Tablespoon sweet pickle relish
Fresh ground black pepper
Salt
Stir everything together and taste for salt.

You can use corned beef or pastrami.
Warm a pile of thin slices in a skillet. Butter one side of a slice of rye bread and put it butter side down on a hot skillet or panini pan. Pile some drained sauerkraut on the bread. (And if you want a great rueben instead of just a good one, use homemade kraut!) Spread a generous dollop of dressing on the kraut, pile the meat on that, and then top with a slice of swiss (I used provolone) cheese. Lay another slice of rye, buttered side out, on it all, and when it's brown or crispy on the bottom bread, flip it. You can lay something sort of heavy on the sandwich to press it down on itself.

You'll like it, believe me!

The Best Ever Lettuce Keeper

There are many ways to try to keep lettuce nice for several days in the 'fridge. When I buy "floppy greens," I like to get them in the plastic clamshells if I'm going to be dipping out of it over the week. Many years ago, I had a Tupperware brand Iceberg lettuce bowl. It was rounded, with a domed lid that snapped on over the top. It was ok, but it was sort of tall, and didn't seem to fit well in some of the shelves, plus you couldn't stick anything on top of it. And since the lettuce went down in the bowl, you always felt you had to wash it after use, even if it seemed clean. It was expensive.

Sometimes I use plastic twist-tie "bread sacks" for my cleaned lettuce. But a head of iceberg is just a bit too big, and sliding romain in and out isn't as nice as all that. There is always some moisture, and you don't want the leaves lying in that.

And then I had the serendipity of finishing the last piece of a grocery store bakery cake at the same time I was looking for something to put my head of lettuce in.

I'm telling you, it couldn't be more perfect! The groves in the bottom piece collect moisture and keep it off the leaves. It's like a little terrarium, keeping the atmosphere damp enough to keep the leaves crisp. There seems to be a lot less browning of the cut ends too. The size is perfect, the lid snaps on securely enough, but pops right off when you work it. You can stash a small plate on top if you need to, and the dome never touches the lettuce inside. And it's free, if you buy a cake! A good reason to buy cake. If you need one.

 

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Soups and Sandwiches - BLT!!!

I am going to postpone more "Masters of the Grill" blog entries until I have my winter grill set-up accomplished. Until then, I think I will turn my attention to Savory Soups and Succulent Sandwiches.

What is your favorite sandwich?

When I was a kid, we used to stop by the little grocery on the way home from church and buy stuff for lunch. Usually, that was a loaf of bread, a pound of bologna from the meat counter, a quart bottle of Pepsi, a bag of mini-tacos (bygone tortilla chips), a foil pack of French onion dip mix, a carton of sour cream, a package of cookies (either Hey Days, Nut Goodies, Lorna Doone, striped shortbread, or Mother's Iced Oatmeal), and the Sunday edition of the Fresno Bee, with the color comics. I used to make a sandwich with two slices of white bread, mustard, a slice of Bologna, and a layer of chips pressed next to the bologna.

Probably the best thing that ever happened to me and sandwiches is my discovery of Real Mayonnaise. I used to think Miracle Whip was mayo, and I didn't like it. I thought it tasted sickly. And then when I had my first mayo, it was like an angel choir sang! I dumped mustard and took to slathering mayonnaise on everything.

But, back to judging what the Best Sandwich Ever could be. And one contender, that is somewhat lowly, but is sublime, is the Bacon, Lettuce, and Tomato Sandwich.

I know that lots of people start adding extra stuff, like pickles and cheese, to this little masterpiece, but I say, Nay! It is perfect the way it is. And yes, that is iceberg lettuce. I went the floppy greens route, sneering at that "tasteless iceberg" for many years, until I realized I was just being a snob, and that I really did like iceberg lettuce, the mild flavor and the great big crunch.

I used center-cut, thick, peppered bacon, but it really doesn't matter all that much what type of bacon you use. Bacon is good. All bacon is good. Bacon is the King of Meat. Bacon makes everything else taste better. Unless it is rancid. When we bought a pound of bacon, when I was a kid, we COOKED that bacon! We fried that bacon up! Maybe if only one person was eating, a few pieces would be left in the package for a pot of beans the next day, but there was no such thing as leftover bacon from one shopping trip to the next. My grandmother, however, hoarded her bacon. When we stayed over, and we were to be blessed with bacon and eggs, or a BLT, the flat package would come out of the meat drawer, opened up, and one or two thin pieces would be carefully peeled off and laid to fry in the black cast iron skillet. It might be several weeks, a month, or more when the bacon came out again. I began to notice that Grandma's bacon had a different flavor than our bacon. More, well, oldish tasting. Mom suggested that it might be "rancid." Although the bacon didn't taste nice, the word did, and I relished adding it to my vocabulary.

It is a sad day when you have used up the last one of your homegrown tomatoes, because that is the last day that you can make a BLT. It is too much a waste to go to the effort when the tomatoes are less than homegrown-good. Summer's tomatoes, straight from the vine to the cutting board are required. I like to get about two thick slices out of an average size tomato, red, juicy, and exploding with acid-sweetness, lightly salted with kosher salt. Also needed, a big napkin for the juiciness and a fork for getting the pieces that fall out.

I think I lean towards sourdough bread for a BLT. Usually, I just have part of a sourdough french loaf from the day before, so I cut a couple of round pieces off the end, thicker or thinner, depending on my hunger level. And then I treat the bread specially for my tastes. I toast one side very lightly. That is the outside. I toast one side darkly. That is the inside. I like crunchy toast, but if it's one the outside, it scrapes the inside of my mouth.

So there you have it! What do you think? How do you make a BLT?

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MOG - Lexington Pulled Pork, pg. 384

All the other messing around with recipes is really just a prologue to the real stuff - Pulled Pork. Ahh, the delicious smokiness of a pile of shredded pork, random pieces of the well-seasoned, salty, black bark strewn about like flakes of gold in a pan of black sand, and two choices of homemade sauce to slop over your portion of steaming goodness! Enough salivating; let's get to work.

The reason I am interested in this recipe is the shortened time needed. I have made smoked, pulled pork in my old Webber before, taking the full 10 hours to cook it. It was divine, but I want to see if making it easier cuts down on quality. This recipe has you finish it in the oven. I have read from several sources that say to put your smoke in at the front end, that after the first couple hours, it doesn't necessarily help, and can hurt the flavor.

You can see that I have laid everything out on my newest kitchen helper - wide freezer wrap, shiny side up.

It calls for a "4-5 lb boneless butt roast." What's the deal with the boneless part? Bone-in, baby! This one was 5.5 lbs. It called for a fairly simple rub; 2 parts paprika, pepper, brown sugar, and one part salt. I like to use disposable gloves to handle this part of the process. I HATE getting the moist rub (especially when there is paprika and chili powder) in and around my fingernails! Yuck!

Again, the book calls for the wood chips to be soaked, packeted in foil with slits cut across the top. Then you lay them across the coals. The meat goes on the cool side.

After an hour, I wasn't all that happy with the amount of smoke I had seen curling out of the vents. It just didn't seem like enough, to suit me. After two hours, about when they say to put it in the oven, I ripped a packet open, and saw..... Unburned wood chips!!! Grrr! So that is that with the chip packets. I don't trust them, I don't like them, a waste of foil, unpredictable, even if they are more tidy. From now on, it's wood on coals! I dumped the chips on top of the (still hot) briquettes.

Now that's what I'm talking about! I left it in place for almost another hour, keeping an eye on the lid thermometer. When it dropped down below 250, I pulled out the roast and put it in a 325 oven, in a pan tightly covered with foil.

I left it there for about another three hours.

The smoky aroma filled the house. The bark was beautifully dark, but not burnt.

The meat fell apart, succulent and juicy.

I set out the condiments. (Plus some grilled vegetables.)

The recipe came with two sauce recipes. The mustard-based South Carolina one was such a hit with my husband, that I suspect I will have to just keep a jar in the fridge for topping various foods; meats, zucchini, pancakes, frosted mini wheats, whatever. I liked best the Lexington Barbecue sauce, which is a mostly vinegar base sauce, with a bit of ketchup, pepper flakes, pinch of salt, pepper and little sugar.

I have to say, that for me, I see no reason to fiddle with the Webber all day long to do pulled pork any more. This is the way to do it!

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MOG - "Wood-Grilled Salmon without a plank" pg 82

Well, enough of salmon on the grill! Ok, just one more. (When I think of the word "Salmon," I have a word association with "Samlon," the aquatic species in the book, Legacy of Heorot. If you like SciFi, you'll like it."

This recipe looked cute, so that's why I decided to try it. I've never planked a fish before. This one looked more accessible to me. I bought some flash-frozen wild sockeye, enough for the three of us. I also decided to cook it on my little Q Webber gas grill. No reason to haul out the big guns for a little project like this one.

Instead of using lemon zest and pepper, I minced up pieces of my preserved lemons to go along with the pepper and oil.

I made up the little foil boats and cut slits in the bottom. Soaked wood chips were to go in them, with the fish nestled on top.

Right away, a meat bee approached and became obnoxious!

I electrocuted him.

I treat fish like soufflé. Everything else waits on the fish. So I went ahead and skewered some mushrooms and zucchini (inspired by a previous MOG recipe), and took some leftover cooked corn on the cob and slathered it with ranch dressing to sear a little. A little sourdough boule wrapped in foil awaits its turn.

 

The fish is on, the heat is high. So where's the smoke?

Waiting for some wisps of smoke.

The chips never got with the program. I guess it was just too short a time to get them going.

The dinner was delicious. We also had steamed fresh spinach with sautéed onions. The fish was... Ok. Honestly, I like baked salmon. And it's a breeze to do, and get cooked perfectly. So from now on, I'll stick to other critters, like shrimp, if I want to grill seafood.

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MOG - "Wrapping up Great Grilled Chicken: Chicken Souvlaki"

I remembered about halfway through making this chicken recipe that some time back I had decided not to make kebabs any more, and why. I am sure there are reasons why one would go through the process of cutting up pieces of food, thread them onto metal spears, flip them around trying to cook them evenly, and then just slide them off onto a plate to eat them, when one could throw big chunks right on on the grill and then cut them up on the plate. Perhaps you are camping and there is no grill handy, so the food goes on a stick, or perhaps you are camping and forgot the plates and have to eat the food directly off the stick. Anyway, this recipe looked good, and fairly quick and easy, and I forgot what I decided about not doing kebabs.

The problem with the effort these took mostly lay in the fact I had determined to follow the recipe in the book. If I had been making this up as I went, I would have decided to go Greek, and said, "Tzatziki sauce, ok, a bunch of Greek yogurt, some lemon juice and garlic and salt to taste, and then stir in some cukes. Hmm, let's see, what sounds Greek for a marinade? Olive oil, lemon juice, and let's see what green herbs sound good. Guess I better light the coals!" Instead I was jumping around all over the page following the specific instructions for each part of this recipe. Plus going back to the the "why this recipe works" intro for those specific little bits that aren't tucked into the recipe itself.

I had never brined anything before, and this looked like an easy way to check it out. It called for boneless skinless breasts, which I wouldn't have used because they would likely have gotten dry and maybe overcooked on the grill.

After they had almost been in the required 30 minutes, I saw that they were supposed to already be cut up in 1" chunks. So I did that and threw them back in the brine for a while longer. Meanwhile, I made up the oily marinade.

It called for minced parsley. I went ahead and got Italian flat parsley since I already knew I didn't much care for the regular stuff. Turns out I don't care for this either. The odor is sort of strong and medicinal, and bitter. Just like the other parsley, only a little more tender. So I measured out and put in the small amount it called for, even though I had a big bunch that was going in the trash after this.

Mixing up the sauces, re-checking which ingredients went into which one, handling the raw chicken like toxic waste to keep from contaminating anything with germs, and my kitchen was getting pretty messy. Plus my lemon kept squirting juice from the squeezer on the pages of my cookbook. I had to wipe it down with a damp rag so that when I closed the book they wouldn't stick together. So now I'll always be able to find this page, since it's wrinkly and curled.

One thing I retained from my previous kebab days was the habit of putting the different things on different skewers. I like the better control of the cooking process. Even if the book says to do it the other way.

Onto the hot coals! Instead of piling them on one side, I left the hot spot in the middle and moved the sticks off to the side when they needed slower heat. I used an instant read thermometer to make sure I didn't cook them a minute longer than necessary.

Aren't these skewers the cutest? Plus, they are flat so the food doesn't twirl around when you turn them over.

My sister gave them to me, and each one is different.

I had more chicken than I needed for the recipe, so I did a second batch slathered with leftover home made pesto.

The pita bread is wrapped in foil. I followed the instructions to sprinkle a bit of water between two of the four breads to soften them as they steam. Grocery store pita can be sort of inflexible and dry.

I made the dressing following the recipe, except I couldn't bring myself to use chopped mint. I like mint in mojitos and tea. Not food. I pinched in a little oregano to make up for the omission.

In the end, they were very delicious. The chicken was moist and tender, and the seasonings all complemented each other. And I used little foil squares like the illustration to keep the Tzatziki off my hands.

See? Looks just like the picture! (Except I used yellow onions instead of red. Always changing something!

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MOG - Glazed Salmon

My aim is to have fish on Fridays. Fish is supposed to be good for you, especially salmon, and we have a great meat market, so I like to try to do that. This little recipe seemed worth a try. Fish wants to fall apart on a grill, so the method the book comes up with makes me want to try it.

You make little foil pans for each piece of the fillet to ride in as it sizzles and makes grill marks through the foil.

I went to R&R Meat and Seafood Market and got a nice fillet of fresh coho salmon. The directions said to pull out the pin bones, which I usually do anyway, and to skin it. It was not as easy to cut the fillet off the skin as I'd thought it would be, especially since I was trying not to abandon even a sliver of $10 a pound salmon on the discarded skin.

The thin edges, I just left the meat on the skin and planned on cooking them on a foil, as is.

The sauce, I found intriguing. I called for 1/2 c jalapeño jelly, 1/2 c packed cilantro, 2 scallions ( I used a shallot, since that is what I had) 2 garlic cloves, 1 t grated lime zest, 2 T lime juice, and 2 T butter. You blenderize everything except the butter, heat it to barely a simmer, take out a quarter cup of sauce and set aside, then stir in the butter to the rest of the sauce. The small amount of sauce gets spread over the fillets as you lay them in their little foil boats.

The grill gets a pile of hot coals in the middle.

The boats get laid. On top of the coals, of course!

They cook and sizzle smartly for about five minutes, supposedly getting crispy and brown on the bottom. Then you are supposed to turn them over with tongs, coat them with half the rest of the sauce and move the boats to the cooler edges to finish cooking.

It didn't go as smoothly as I'd wish. Fish is so delicate and quick-cooking. Because of the sugar in the glaze (from the jelly) it did want to blacken a bit, so when you saw the burned edges under the fish, you wanted to check the underside. But then you saw it wasn't crispy yet, just steamed looking. And the coals were really hot for hanging over it with tongs. So I moved them around and messed with them until I was as satisfied as I thought I could be.

So I pulled them off the grill and served them with a mushroom and homemade pesto linguini my son fixed up for me.

They were ok. I wasn't prepared for how sweet they would be. We all agreed that the cilantro came through loud and clear. They were nice and we ate them all up. But my personal opinion was that they were too sweet for my taste, the flavors in the sauce were too busy arguing with each other to meld and get along on the palate. And the fuss of making them on the grill was much more than the reward was. I think I'll try one more salmon recipe I see in this book, and then I'll probably go back to just cooking my salmon fillets in the oven.

 

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MOG - Alabama Barbecued Chicken

"Introducing White Barbeque sauce."

Well, that sounded intriguing. And I had one chicken left from the twin pack I had bought the day before. I liked the idea of the smoke too, so I bit.

Page 242 in Masters of the Grill, from America's Test Kitchen.

There were a few new things to do in this recipe. One was to halve the chicken. I have butterflied one before, but not cut it completely in half. It was a cinch. I went ahead and removed the keel bone along with the backbone.

I went ahead and made up the "White Barbecue Sauce."

Guess what, it is basically creamy salad dressing. I love mayonnaise and could eat it out of the jar with a spoon, but I'm iffy on creamy salad dressings. 3/4 c. Mayo, 2 T cider vinegar, 2 t sugar, 1/2 t horseradish, salt, pepper, and cayenne (again, I used chipotle powder). Blenderize it and stick it in the fridge while you get everything else ready.

Now here's a thing I hadn't really done before (well, maybe once years ago, but I don't remember it well). You make a smoking packet. Soaked chips get folded up in foil and and then you poke a couple slits in the top only, not the bottom. When your coals are ready, you drop it on top of one side of the briquette piles.

For the chicken, you rub the halves over with a small mixture of spices. Salt, pepper, cayenne (chipotle). Now the idea is that the chicken, having more exposed meat by being split in half, will absorb more seasoning and smoke.

Here's where we use that "disposable foil pan" otherwise known as a piece of heavy duty foil with the sides turned up under the chicken, in the "cool" area. Put the chicken skin side down and cook until you get about 120 degrees at the thigh, about a half hour.

Uh Oh. I was supposed to open the bottom vents half way. The view from the top was all covered with foil and flames. The bottom was pretty hard to make out, with all the stuff in the way. I need to get a sharpie and make a mark where half way is, since I am sure I will forget to check it in the future also.

The recipe actually called for two chickens, but I just used the one I had. So now I have sauce ( otherwise known as "creamy salad dressing") left over.

So you are wondering, where does the sauce come in? That's where we have a glitch in the recipe, I believe. The actual directions don't even mention it until the very end, where you "brush chicken with remaining sauce, carve, and serve." You have to read back to the intro to the recipe where it says they "coated the chicken with (the sauce). The chickens were basted in this sauce two times during cooking..." I wasn't sure. Was I supposed to coat the chicken before I even put it on the grill? Well, I didn't because at first I was following the recipe directions.

 

So now I'm gettin' some sauce on. I flipped the chicken halves and slathered them. The sauce is kind of melty and boily on the surface. For the first half hour the smoke steadily poured out of the foil pack, and now it seems about petered out. I used mesquite chips. I am most fond of hickory, but I feel that is pretty strong for chicken, and prefer mesquite over hickory here.

I didn't care for the look of the sauce on top of that once crispy skin, so I briefly laid them over directly on the coals to get a quick sear.

I slathered again and kept them skin side up, still on indirect heat until the instant read thermometer read 175 at the thigh, about another 15 minutes. Seemed a shame to waste the coals, so I split some Chinese eggplant, oiled and seasoned them, and cooked them up on the hot briquettes.

 

Don't they look incredible?

And they were the most delicious little poultry pieces I think I've ever had. Juicy, smoky, savory.

I think that I won't worry too much about what sort of white creaminess I use next time; some mayo, some vinegar, salt, pepper, etc, but the way I cooked them was really a success. And next time I'll slather it on before I even put them on the grill and see what that does.

I will definitely put a star on this page!

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