A Writer Afoot » recipe

Release day!

Barbara Samuel — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 12:00:43 +0000

HOW TO BAKE A PERFECT LIFE

by Barbara O’Neal

Available TODAY in trade paperback from your local retailer, or these on-line venues

Also available as an ebook for Kindle, and Nook and other formats.

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The Deconstruction of Fish & Chips

Barbara Samuel — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 23:34:30 +0000

At CR’s urging, I decided to give the deconstruction of fish & chips a try. (For background on the Top Chef deconstruction challenge, read about it here.)

My challenge was to create a dish that would deconstruct fish & chips and end up tasting like the original. Since the only ingredients in the traditional offering are white fish (usually cod or haddock, depending on your locale), and potatoes, both fried and heavily salted, then served very hot, it wasn’t easy. But it was intriguing.

THE PLAN

Really good fish and chips are served very hot, very greasy, and very salty. There’s a good crisp breading on the fish, and the chips (fries) are thick and tender, not like McDonalds, but like your mother’s best home fries. I decided to bake the fish, and use potatoes to create the crispy texture of the fried version of both fish and chips (fries). I had the luxury of two days to think about it, and arbitrarily made a rule that I had to use the fish in the house, which was halibut. The challenge in my mind was to get the simple, satisfying flavor of that very, very simple food and not add much of anything to the ingredients to try to make it upscale. I decide to bake the fish, mash potatoes, and try two different crispy potato pancakes.

By happy accident, I was in the English Home Goods store (where we buy stupidly expensive imported PG Tips for $26 for 250 bags, but trust me, if you get used to English tea, American is very pale in comparison). While I was there, I happened to spy a small bottle of malt vinegar. Eureka! Everyone knows you can’t eat fish and chips without malt vinegar!

THE PROCESS
(Note: always remember that I am at 7000 ft altitude, so shorten your cooking times if you decided to try anything I post!)

I started with Yukon Gold potatoes for the mash. The fish was simple, 7 oz frozen halibut steaks. The chefs on Top Chef had two hours, but that seemed excessive, so I started 90 minutes out. Peeled and boiled the potatoes, leaving them a tiny bit undercooked so they could rest in the hot water while I readied the fish and made the two pancakes. The fish was very simple prep: olive oil in the pan with plenty of kosher salt, in the oven at 350 for 20 minutes.

To get ready for the pancakes, I grated two medium size potatoes and a very small onion. (Onions are not standard here, but I just couldn’t do potato pancakes without it!) For the first set of potato pancakes, I mashed about 1-1/2 cups of cooked potatoes with 2 tablespoons butter, enough milk to make a good paste, then blended it until the potatoes were smooth. Added 1/2 a beaten egg (save the other half), a tiny bit of grated onion, roughly 2 tablespoons of flour, and for some body, about a quarter of the grated potatoes, and salt and pepper. Because I wanted a very thin, crispy cake, I added milk until the batter was fairly thin.

Since time would be short, I also made the second batch of potato pancakes, which were a hashbrown with a little egg to hold them together. Mixed the grated potatoes, grated onions, salt, pepper and the other half of the egg together.

I used an electric grill and poured a generous amount of canola oil on it (this was the greasy element), then added a couple of tablespoons of butter and heated it until it was medium hot. On one side, I poured the mashed potato pancakes, on the other, the hashbrowns, and let them cook.

Meanwhile, I poured the water off the remaining boiled potatoes, put them back on the burner on low, added 4 tablespooons butter, milk (my mistake is always adding too much milk, so I do it in small amounts) and mashed the potatoes, keeping an eye on the potato pancakes at the same time, and turning them about 3 minutes in. They were nicely brown and by this time, I was getting very hungry, so I was beginning to look forward to eating this experiment, however it turned out!

CR was in charge of setting the table, and now, the timing was critical. I took the fish out of the oven, and on the plate I had already sprinkled with malt vinegar, the fish was settled in the middle, it with the two different pancakes in a circle around it, and a nice mound of mashed potatoes to one side. It was rather bland looking, all that white, so I put the lemon rounds on top of the fish, even if they are not traditional (“You’re American,” said CR. “We make allowance for you.”)

The layering was, pancake, fish, mash, all in a single bit, with a dip in the little pool of vinegar. We both tried it, blinked, and looked at each other in happy pleasure. He tried one kind of pancake, I tried the other, and—it worked!

Honestly, it was wonderful, and a faithful deconstruction/recreation. For the sake of the experiment, I thought the hashbrowns gave the layers the right greasy crispness, but CR preferred the pancake. Both of them were delicious and very greasy and the kosher salt sprinkled on top added just the right layer of brine.

But I must admit that the malt vinegar was the crowning touch, pulling the flavors together just the way it does when you go to the chip shop.

WHAT I WOULD DO DIFFERENTLY NOW

–I would cut the fish into smaller pieces and grill it rather than bake it, just to give it some color.
–I would layer the pancakes, fish, and mashed potatoes like a tiny lasagna

I will definitely be making those little potato cakes again. It was fun to make this dish just to find something we liked so much.

Slow cooked apple butter

Barbara Samuel — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 01:08:11 +0000

I actually thought I’d posted this recipe already, but I must have posted it on a private loop somewhere.

As promised on Twitter: the recipe I’ve been following for slow-cooked apple butter. It’s a joy to make because it fills the house with its heady fragrance for hours and hours and hours. Easy, too, aside from the time-consuming angle of peeling and cutting up the apples. I found the recipe on the Internet somewhere, but can’t find the original anymore, and the printout is gone. I’ve tweaked it a bit anyway, as you must feel free to do, of course.

CROCKPOT APPLE BUTTER
makes approximately 6 cups

About 5-6 pounds apples (I like organic Delicious for the sweetness, but have also used Granny Smith)
1/2 cup raw sugar
1 Tablespoon cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
Crushed tops of 7-8 cloves
1/3 vanilla bean, scraped
Dash kosher salt
Juice of half lemon
6 oz (half a bottle) hard apple cider if you have it, or apple juice if not.

Peel, core and slice apples and put them in the crock pot. Stir in other ingredients, pouring the cider over the top. Let cook on low setting for 24 hours, stirring now and then to make sure the spices permeate the whole stew.

For a smooth texture, purree the mixture in a blender; for chunky, simply use a ricer or potato masher. You can freeze it or process in a water bath as per usual instructions.

It’s one of my favorite things this winter. What is one of yours? What have you been cooking a lot of?

flickr creative commons photo by beta karel

An evolving recipe for pomegranate baklava (with pictures)

Barbara Samuel — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 20:55:45 +0000

In The Lost Recipe for Happiness there is a recipe for Pomegranate Baklava. It is the invention of a surly, beautiful gay chef who is Elena’s nemesis for much of the book. I’ll be serving it at booksignings and wanted to be sure I remembered how it all went together (of course I tested it several times during the Major Winter of Cooking, which you may remember from blogs here). So, yesterday, I gathered all the ingredients and my camera, my Ipod and Santa Fe Cooking School apron, and made a fresh batch, documenting it for you, faithful readers.

Every book eventually reaches a place where it is no longer revised (even if that moment only arrives when it’s ripped out of our clutching hands), but that is not true of recipes. As anyone who has ever tweaked a recipe over time knows, a recipe is an adventure. By the time I sent the book to my editor, I was pretty happy with this recipe. Buckwheat honey was important to the plot, so I went with it.

For singings this time, I am bringing the baklava, and last week, I made batch to test it (as it has been more than a year since I finished the book). It seemed the buckwheat was overpowering the pomegranate, so I switched to a lighter honey, cut the water and instead used entirely pomegranate juice. Because I was having trouble with the pomegranate arils on top scorching, I added the final nuts and arils at the end of baking.

REALLY good. So, in a web exclusive, here is the revised version, with illustrations. (Don’t tell Ivan.)

FIRST, the pomegranate

I adore pomegranates. They are absolutely luscious, packed with great nutrients, and very low in calories. I bought a couple for the baklava and a couple to nibble on between bouts of extreme cookie baking.

hey’re intimidating, but I found a handy-dandy flyer at my grocery store that illustrates how to get those danged seeds (called avrils) with a very small amount of fuss. Cut the top off about an inch or so from the crown:

Then find the sections, four to six, and score the skin, and break the fruit open:

Next, bend the rind to release the seeds over a bowl of water. The inner skin will float to the top and you can skim it off with your fingers. Drain the water and you have a delectable bowl of arils.

As you see, you will probably need to open two pomegranates, one for eating, one for the baklava.

Now to the recipe itself:

POMEGRANATE BAKLAVA, revised

1 1/2 cups light honey
1 cup sugar
1 T rosewater
1 cup plus 2 T pomegranate juice
Seeds of one pomegranate, divided in half
2 tsp whole cloves
1 tsp ground cardamom
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp grated nutmeg
1 cup slivered almonds
1 cup chopped walnuts
1 cup chopped pistachios
½ vanilla bean, scraped
2 sticks unsalted butter, melted
1 pkg phyllo dough

Syrup: Combine the sugar, honey, juice and rosewater in a heavy small pot. Stir constantly while bringing to a boil over medium heat. Remove from heat at let cool, then add ½ pomegranate seeds.

Preheat the oven to 425

Mix spices, nuts, and vanilla bean seeds into ½ stick of melted butter.
Butter a 13 x 9 inch glass pan.

On a clean work surface, unroll the phyllo and generously butter one layer at a time and lay it in the pan, then repeat until you’ve used half the dough. Spread the nuts and other ½ of pomegranate seeds evenly over the pastry, reserving about ¼ (mixed nuts and seeds) for the topping.

Continue buttering and layering the dough on top of the filling until all the dough has been used. Brush the top with remaining butter. With a small sharp knife, cut the pastry layers into diamonds, then bake for 50-60 minutes until golden, watching carefully to see that it doesn’t burn. Toward the end of baking, scatter leftover arils and nuts over the top.

When baking is finished, pour the syrup over the hot pastry, and serve when cool.

This was a big hit at the signing. You’ll have to let me know if you try one version or the other.

Autumn beauty: roasted vegetable stock

Barbara Samuel — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 15:53:25 +0000

Obviously, the girls have been taking some pleasure in shooting photographs of everything around us, mostly the reds and yellows of the season. This was an image that let me play for a solid half hour. For a writer, photos provide a garden full of color for the off-season, no words required.

I am also on a cooking streak. Last winter, I spent endless hours perfecting a chicken stock I can make and save easily. This year, I seem to be wanting the Ultimate Vegetable Stock. Today, I have a lot of necessary but tedious work to do, and it is a cloudy day, promising snow. To feel better about the boring tasks awaiting me, I gave myself permission to cook while I work. This morning I’m adapting a recipe from the How to Cook Everything Vegetarian Cookbook.

Roasted Vegetable Stock

In the oven at the moment are these vegetables, filling house with a desperately heavenly aroma:

1 large russet potato, washed and cut into cubes
1 large yam, also washed and cubed (don’t bother to peel anything–there are lots of nutrients in the skins)
1 head of garlic, with the top lopped off
Two handfuls of baby carrots (mainly because that is what I found in the crisper)
1 large sweet onion, cut into eighths (I do peel onions, don’t ask me why)
7 or 8 baby orange, red and yellow sweet peppers
1 small zucchini, cut into eighths

If you like you can mushrooms, parsely, winter squashes (I meant to add butternut squash, but forgot).

They’re now roasting for about an hour, then they all go into the crockpot with:

A handful of celery tops saved for stocks
10-15 peppercorns
1-2 teaspoons kosher salt
A couple of sprigs fresh thyme and sage leaves
Water to cover.

Cook for most of the afternoon. Freeze into ice cubes for easy use later.

Anyone else have a great vegetable stock recipe to share? I have a vegetarian coming home at Christmas.