The perfect homemade soft pretzel: the research continues

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The nice folks at King Arthur Flour, in their most recent catalog, posted a recipe for pretzel sandwich buns.  I made them, and they were very nice, but I thought: well, why sandwich buns? Why can’t I make nice soft pretzels at home?

I can, as it turns out.

But not a single batch has turned out perfectly yet. Some have a nice sourdough flavor, but lack consistency. Some are too bready. Some are too tough.

I’ve made at least four batches so far. They’re all good, but none has been perfect.

I’m still working on it.

Here’s the best version so far:

Combine –

·        2 cups flour (white, or a mix of white and whole-wheat)

·        1 tsp salt

·        1 T instant dry yeast

·        1 T butter

·        A scant cup of warm water

·        A pinch of sugar, or a scant teaspoon of honey

Mix, and knead for at least five minutes, using enough extra flour to make a nice smooth non-sticky dough. Put down in a greased bowl, covered with a dampened cloth, in a quiet place, for at least an hour (preferably more), until the dough has doubled. (A longer rise gives a yeastier flavor, which I like.)

Punch down the dough, divide into eight pieces, and roll each into a long rope about 15 inches long. Tie into a pretzel shape. Here’s a video to show you how:

(You can tie a double knot too. But practice a bit first.)

Place your eight pretzel children on a greased surface, cover with a dampened cloth for 15-30 minutes, and let them rest. While that’s going on, prepare for the end of the process as follows:

·        Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

·        Prepare a water bath: a saucepan with about a quart of water and about ¼ cup baking soda, heated to boiling.

·        Also break an egg into a large bowl and beat it.

·        Also line a baking sheet with parchment paper, or (second best) grease a baking sheet heavily.

Carefully drop your unbaked pretzels one or two at a time (depending on the size of your saucepan) into the boiling-water bath. Flip after 30 seconds or so. Take out of the boiling water after a minute.

Let the boiled pretzels rest for a few seconds. Give them a bath in the beaten egg (both sides), place them on the baking sheet, and dust them with coarse salt. (Coarse sea salt is inexpensive and easily available, at least locally.)

Bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden-brown.

Cool, and serve with butter or mustard. If there are any left the next day, reheat them in the microwave for (literally) ten seconds or so, and they’ll be almost like new.

Still not perfect, I know. Something’s missing.

But I’ll figure it out. I’ve got lots of time on my hands.

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Barilla pasta, homophobia. and my recipe for faux Fettucine Alfredo

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The CEO of Barilla Pasta, last week, made some very angry remarks about gay marriage, and said that he would never allow gay couples to appear in advertisements for his pasta. I paraphrase: “If people don’t like it, they can just buy another brand of pasta.”

Is he seriously out of his mind?

How many brands of pasta are there? I can think of six without stretching my brain too far. I generally buy what’s on sale, or what’s cheap, because – let’s face it – there’s not much difference. De Cecco is excellent (Mia Farrow and I agree on that); if I see it on sale, I buy it immediately, because it’s very certainly better than any other brand.

But is Barilla really better than Prince, or Bertolli, or Buitoni, or store brand, or Ronzoni, or anything else? Not really. Pasta is pasta, and I don’t need to buy pasta from a homophobe.

(Notes: the CEO of Barilla has sort of apologized, now that he’s realized how stupid he was. Also, other brands – like Buitoni and San Remo – have welcomed gay people to eat their pasta. Here’s a recent Buitoni advertisement:)

Now: who wants fettucine Alfredo a la Futureworld?

-         Cook 1 lb pasta (preferably fettucine, but any other pasta will do, so long as it’s not anything made by Barilla) al dente. Drain.

-         While cooking the pasta, mix up the following:

o   ½ - ¾ cup ricotta cheese

o   ½ cup Parmesan cheese

o   1 egg

o   2 T prepared chopped garlic (sold in jars)

o   2 T dried (or, better yet, fresh) parsley

o   Salt and pepper

-         Add ½ cheese mixture to empty saucepan over medium heat. Stir for a minute or two. Add pasta slowly, still stirring. Add remaining ½ cheese mixture. Taste, and correct salt / pepper / Parmesan / garlic.

-         Enjoy, with warm Italian bread and maybe a little extra Parmesan.

-         (And don’t buy Bertolli.)

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For Ramadan: Harira

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Ramadan began last week. I have some Muslim friends on Facebook, so I see lots of “Ramadan kareem!” messages going back and forth.

The Islamic months don’t correspond to the seasons as ours do; their year is roughly 354 days long, so Ramadan happens roughly twelve days earlier every year. In 1984, my first year in Morocco, the first day of Ramadan was roughly the first of June. (There was some trouble that year. It’s not officially a new month until the new moon is sighted in Mecca, and the weather was bad that year in Saudi Arabia. Finally, around the third or fourth of June 1984, Ramadan was declared to be officially begun, almost by default.)

Summer is a bad time for Ramadan, and June is the worst of all, because June days are the longest days of the year. Muslims are enjoined to fast from the time in the morning when it’s light enough “to distinguish a black thread from a white thread” to the prayer-call at sunset. “Fasting,” in this sense, means no eating, no drinking water (very devout Muslims won’t swallow when they’re brushing their teeth, and there’s a lot of spitting in the street going on, because swallowing your own spit might qualify as drinking), no sex, no smoking (tragic in a culture like North Africa where everyone smokes).

That first year, in 1984, I tried to fast. I couldn’t do it. I realized, after two or three days, that no one could see me eating during the day if I just closed the window blinds.

Later, in Tunisia, I was more casual. I knew I was a “kouffar” (unbeliever), and so did everyone else, so I closeted myself in my office and smoked and drank water and coffee to my heart’s content. One of my Tunisian coworkers, who’d studied extensively in Europe and who was very worldly, joined me.

Then, a day or two later, someone else joined us.

After about two weeks, the whole office was smoking with me, on and off. It was okay, because they were with an unbeliever, and I was exerting an undue irreligious influence on them.

Ah, kids, those were the days.

There was a restaurant in Tunis not far from our house, which was also not far from the az-Zeituna mosque, one of the most famous mosques in Tunisia. During Ramadan, about fifteen minutes before sunset, we’d go there. They’d seat us and serve us soup.

But no one ate.

We waited for the boy at the mosque to give us the signal that the evening call to prayer was complete.

Then, in unison, we all dipped our spoons into our delicious thick chicken / tomato / chickpea soup, and broke our fast.

Here’s a recipe for harira, the traditional Ramadan fast-breaking soup:

Harira

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Makes about 12 cups

·         1 whole chicken breast, halved

·         4 cups chicken broth

·         4 cups water

·         a 28-to 32-ounce can whole tomatoes, drained and puréed coarse

·         1/4 teaspoon crumbled saffron threads

·         2 medium onions, chopped fine

·         19-ounce can of chick-peas, rinsed

·         1/2 cup raw long-grain rice

·         1/2 cup lentils

·         3/4 cup finely chopped fresh coriander

·         3/4 cup finely chopped fresh parsley leaves

·         dried chick-peas, picked over water

In a heavy kettle (at least 5 quarts) simmer chicken in broth and water 17 to 20 minutes, or until chicken is just cooked through, and transfer chicken with a slotted spoon to a cutting board. Add to kettle tomatoes, saffron, onions, chick-peas, rice, and lentils and simmer, covered, 30 minutes, or until lentils are tender. Shred chicken, discarding skin and bones, and stir into soup with salt and pepper to taste. Soup may be prepared 4 days ahead (cool uncovered before chilling covered).

I find this recipe incomplete. It needs ras al-hanout, the traditional North African seasoning (you can buy it online, or make it yourself from regular ol’ supermarket seasonings), and some eggs (Ramadan harira usually has pieces of hard-boiled egg in it).

Also: if you make this soup, serve it with lots of Italian or French bread, for scooping and dipping.

And if you don’t feel like cooking soup the long way, especially during this long dismally hot summer, I’ve discovered that Campbell’s makes some very nice soups in plastic bags, which are pretty authentic. Their “Moroccan Chicken with Chickpeas” is a very passable Moroccan shorba, verging on harira.

Pinch a penny and spend a couple of bucks and buy a packet of it, and enjoy it.

With some Italian bread, and a lemon wedge to squeeze into it.

Ramadan kareem.

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For Sunday: Edward Abbey’s recipe for Hardcase Survival Pinto Bean Sludge

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I have not posted a recipe for yonks.  This is because I haven’t found or cooked anything really new or interesting.

 

 

This recipe (from the fabulous website Letters of Note) is a little exceptional. It answers the question: What does a penniless curmudgeon loner poet cook for himself while living in the American Southwest?

 

 

 

I’ve never prepared this recipe. It sort of fascinates me, however, and I think I may someday make a scaled-down version of it, minus the tennis shoes and saddle blankets.

 

 

1. Take one fifty-pound sack Colorado pinto beans. Remove stones, cockleburs, horseshit, ants, lizards, etc. Wash in clear cold crick water. Soak for twenty-four hours in iron kettle or earthenware cooking pot. (DO NOT USE TEFLON, ALUMINUM OR PYREX CONTAINER. THIS WARNING CANNOT BE OVERSTRESSED.)

 

2. Place kettle or pot with entire fifty lbs. of pinto beans on low fire and simmer for twenty-four hours. (DO NOT POUR OFF WATER IN WHICH BEANS HAVE BEEN IMMERSED. THIS IS IMPORTANT.) Fire must be of juniper, pinyon pine, mesquite or ironwood; other fuels tend to modify the subtle flavor and delicate aroma of Pinto Bean Sludge.

 

3. DO NOT BOIL.

 

4. STIR VIGOROUSLY FROM TIME TO TIME WITH WOODEN SPOON OR IRON LADLE. (Do not disregard these instructions.)

 

5. After simmering on low fire for twenty-four hours, add one gallon green chile peppers. Stir vigorously. Add one quart natural (non-iodized) pure sea salt. Add black pepper. Stir some more and throw in additional flavoring materials, as desired, such as old bacon rinds, corncobs, salt pork, hog jowls, kidney stones, ham hocks, sowbelly, saddle blankets, jungle boots, worn-out tennis shoes, cinch straps, whatnot, use your own judgment. Simmer an additional twenty-four hours.

 

6. Now ladle as many servings as desired from pot but do not remove pot from fire. Allow to simmer continuously for hours, days or weeks if necessary, until all contents have been thoroughly consumed. Continue to stir vigorously, whenever in vicinity or whenever you think of it.

 

7. Serve Pinto Bean Sludge on large flat stones or on any convenient fairly level surface. Garnish liberally with parsley flakes. Slather generously with raw ketchup. Sprinkle with endive, anchovy crumbs and boiled cruets and eat hearty.

 

8. One potful Pinto Bean Sludge, as above specified, will feed one poet for two full weeks at a cost of about $11.45 at current prices. Annual costs less than $300.

 

9. The philosopher Pythagoras found flatulence incompatible with meditation and therefore urged his followers not to eat beans. I have found, however, that custom and thorough cooking will alleviate this problem.

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The truffle crisis

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As you may or may not know, there is a truffle crisis in Europe.

 

 

The European black truffle, Tuber melanosporum, is cherished by gastronomes everywhere. It has an indescribable flavor and aroma. It is rare and cannot be cultivated easily. It is hunted by dogs and pigs, which dig them up, but which are not allowed to eat them. (Apollonia tells me that the pigs are given acorns as a reward. Do you call that justice?) It grows symbiotically with the roots of certain trees, usually the oak.

 

 

(There are also white truffles (Tuber magnatum), and pecan truffles, and Oregon truffles. Go read about them on Wikipedia.)

 

 

The European truffle crop has been much smaller lately, partly due to climate change. Given how much demand there is for them, this is a problem.

 

 

There are also Chinese truffles (Tuber himalayensis / Tuber indicus). They grow much more easily than their European cousins. They have little or no flavor. They are being brought to Europe, and mixed in with European truffles, the way cocaine dealers mix flour or sugar in with their product.

 

 

Also: the spores of the Chinese truffle are beginning to escape into the local environment, and Chinese truffles are now growing in Europe. It is feared that, like kudzu, the Chinese truffle will crowd out the aristrocratic European varieties.

 

 

(I have never knowingly tasted a truffle. I think I’ve had things with truffles in them, but I have no clear recollection. Apollonia tells me that her Italian relatives have whole rooms full of them, and eat them like apples, but I am never sure how much faith to put in her little stories.)

 

 

I have given before the recipe for salade Rossini.  I have never made it. Perhaps I never will. But I like reading (and thinking about) the recipe:

 

 

·       Potatoes cooked in chicken stock;

·       Mussels (a third less than the potatoes);

·       “As many truffles as the budget will allow, sliced and cooked in champagne”;

·       A nice fruity vinegar and olive oil and salt and pepper and some tarragon over all. 

 

 

It sounds delicious.

 

 

Children: don’t allow the Chinese truffle to ruin our imaginary salade Rossini. Insist on the black European truffle.

 

 

Western culture depends upon it.

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For Saint Patrick’s Day: Irish soda bread, my way

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I started making this a few years ago.  I’m not Irish, but Partner is one-half Irish, and he and I have been to the Auld Sod together, and we had a wonderful time there. 

 

 

I try to be a good wife, and it’s a traditional recipe, so –

 

 

But the original recipe is dry and uninteresting.  So I livened it up.  (Speaking of lively: you should hear my friends Apollonia and Cathleen go at it over whether or not to include caraway seeds.)

 

 

The result: Partner’s godmother’s sister, a full-blooded Irish-American, judged my version “the best Irish soda bread she’d ever tasted.”

 

 

(I’ve changed the recipe so much, it barely resembles the original.  But at least it still has some baking soda in it.)

 

 

**

 

For one loaf (recipe can easily be doubled and divided into two loaves):

-        Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

-        Sift together two cups flour, ½ tablespoon baking soda, a pinch of salt, and six tablespoons of sugar. 

-        Add 1/3 cup shortening (or a bit more) to the flour mixture and blend with a fork until thoroughly mixed (it should look mealy and grainy when it’s ready).

-        Add at least 2/3 cup raisins, or golden raisins, or dried cranberries, or even chopped prunes, along with ½ cup cold milk and a teaspoon of caraway seeds.  (I like them; some people don’t.  See the above comment re Apollonia and Cathleen.)

-        Mix, but don’t overdo it, or the dough will toughen.

-        Roll out on a floured surface into a round loaf.  Make a big X on top of the loaf with a sharp knife, and sprinkle the top heavily with sugar.  (You might even want to drizzle some honey on top.  Not too much.)

-        Bake on a parchment-paper lined sheet for 20-25 minutes, until it’s lightly browned and sounds hollow when you tap on it.

-        Wrap in a tea towel when you take it out of the oven. (I don’t know why, but my original recipe calls for this, and I always do it, and I think it’s cute.)

-        Cool before serving.

 

 

 

And think of me as you enjoy it.

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Jell-O

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Back in January, I shared my New Year’s resolution to follow in Vanna White’s footsteps and try at least one new recipe a week. 


I managed it, for a while.  Then I got a little lazy, and made something I’d made before, and decided to rephrase the resolution as follows: “I will make at least one recipe (from scratch) every week – preferably something I’ve never made before – but an old and well-loved recipe is okay too.”


Now we are into March, which is the month in which moribund New Year’s resolutions generally die and are forgotten.


I made Jell-O last week.


Yes, I know.  Little box, boiling water, cold water, put it in the fridge.  But let me ask you: when’s the last time you made Jell-O?  (I’m lying, actually; it wasn’t Jell-O, it was Great Value Lime Gelatin Dessert, which I bought at Walmart for fifty-five cents.)


We were in Walmart – I needed black socks, and a picture frame, and isopropyl alcohol.  And Partner said: “What about groceries?”


I never think of grocery shopping in Walmart, but I began looking down the grocery aisles, and my goodness how cheap everything was!  We did pretty much our entire weekend grocery shopping right there, plus lots of impulse items.  The gelatin was one of these; I was darting down the aisle and saw those demure little boxes there, and I had a quick flashback to my childhood, and they were fifty-five cents!, and –


Well.  Naturally I made it with mini-marshmallows.  (These were ancient, and hard as rocks, but I put them in the microwave for a few seconds and they puffed up and became young and soft and fresh again.)  My mother used to put mandarin oranges in her Jell-O; I only wish I had some.  I need to stock up.


And I’d forgotten the wonderful smell that rises out of the bowl when you pour the boiling water over the gelatin powder: sweet and fruity, really heavenly.  Then you stir it slowly, and it seems to thicken before your eyes.


The instructions on the box told me to stir for two minutes.  I did, while meditating.  I thought about a story one of my college professors told: gelatin, while mostly protein, is not a “complete protein,” in that it doesn’t contain all of the amino acids human beings require in their diet.  This was not known until after the First World War.  Sadly, many WWI refugees were given a diet high in gelatin, because it was known to be protein; many became very malnourished, and some died.


Also: you know what they make gelatin from, right?  Hides. Hooves.  Yum!


(I ate it on Sunday evening.  It was very refreshing.)


(I also accidentally spilled some on the rug. I tried to clean it up, but I missed one blob, and Partner stepped right on it, and shrieked. You can only imagine what it feels like to step on a blob of cold Jell-O.)


I still maintain that I’m keeping my New Year’s resolution.


Next week maybe I’ll make Gorton’s Fishsticks.

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The pioneer way

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The other day I found myself thinking about homemade baked goods.  So, that evening, after half an hour on the treadmill at the Boston Sports Club, I popped down to the supermarket and bought a pack of Betty Crocker Rainbow Chocolate Candy Cookie Mix.  Approximately forty-five minutes later, Partner and I were sharing a nice plate of warm homemade cookies.

 

 

Yes, I know, “homemade” is one thing, and “from scratch” is another.  I do lots of baking from scratch: pancakes, banana bread, real homebaked bread, pies, pound cake, genoise, fruitcake.  But sometimes I just want it quickly, and I don’t want to fool around.

 

 

I am just WASPy enough to feel vaguely guilty about this.  My grandmother, after all, was a Washington Pioneer, born in Washington Territory six months before statehood in 1889.  Grandma grew up in a shack, and did everything from scratch, or not at all.  

 

Even when I bake “from scratch,” I still use an electric oven.  I don’t fire up a wood-burning stove.  I don’t gather eggs from the backyard, or churn my own butter.  I don’t have the right ingredients to capture the distinctive flavor of the Betty Crocker Rainbow Chocolate Candy Cookie, like carnauba wax and soy lecithin and beeswax.  (I kid you not, they’re listed right there on the packet.)

 

 

I do not think Grandma Williams brewed up her own carnauba wax.  Her cookies were very good nonetheless.

 

 

Would Grandma have turned up her nose at my instant quickie cookie-dough mix? I think not.  She did not, after all, turn up her nose at electricity and automobiles and indoor plumbing when they came along.  She was very conscious of time-saving and labor-saving devices; she had eleven kids, and she seemed always to have a house full of people, all of whom expected to be fed on schedule.

 

 

She needed all the help she could get.

 

 

As do I.

 

 

So: Grandma Williams and I are both pioneer women in our way, aren’t we?

 

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Recipe: Huguenot torte

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The following is an indispensable recipe, good for using up apples that are maybe a little past their prime.  You could also use pears, I think, though I've never tried it.  And certainly you could use walnuts instead of pecans. I’ve reduced the amount of sugar in the original recipe (New York Times, 1965), and I often use wildly different proportions than those given here.  Feel free to use a lot more chopped apple and a lot more ground nuts (my last torte used about 1 ½ cups apple and almost two cups of pecans).

 

 

 

It’s different.  It’s not a pie, or a cake, or brownies, or cookies.  It is its own creature.  It is somewhere between meringue and crumble and pecan pie.  It evolves during the baking process: if you open the oven door about fifteen minutes after putting it in, you’ll see it has risen considerably (emphasizing the importance of using a dish at least two inches deep).  At some point it collapses inward, and slumps, and becomes gooey and interesting.  Take it out when it’s almost (but not quite) burnt around the edges, and it has a nice uniform brown bubbly crust on top.  My oven’s fast, so this only takes about thirty-five minutes; yours may take longer.

 

 

It’s especially nice warm.  Let it sit about fifteen minutes after it comes out of the oven, and serve it with ice cream or whipped cream or Cool Whip or whatever you like.   It’s difficult to serve in neat square pieces, but that’s okay; as one food blogger wisely states, “that’s its nature.”

 

 

 

Huguenot Torte

·       2 eggs

·       1/2 teaspoon salt

·       1 1/4 cups sugar

·       1 cup peeled and chopped apples

·       1 cup ground pecans

·       1 teaspoon vanilla

·       4 tablespoons flour

·       2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

 

 

1.     Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

2.     Beat the eggs and salt with a rotary beater until light and fluffy. Gradually beat in the sugar.

3.     Fold in the apples and pecans. Add the vanilla, flour and baking powder; fold and mix until blended.

4.     Pour into a well-greased baking pan (8-by-12 or 9-by-9 inches, and at least 2 inches deep). Bake for 35-45 minutes, or until sunken and crusty.

 

Serve room-temperature or warm, with whipped cream or ice cream, or both. 

 

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Recipe: Ricotta cookies

 

 

 

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It’s nice to add a new recipe to the repertory.  This is a nice pleasant cookie – soft, sweet but not too sweet, with gentle overtones of vanilla and lemon – and a nice sugary (but not overbearing) glaze on top.  (You can decorate them with colored sugar if you are so moved.  I thought about it, but didn’t bother.  They’re very good as is.)

 

 

I found this recipe in one of those local magazines that you pick up for free – something like “Rhode Island Local,” I forget.  It was in an ad for Supreme Ricotta, a local brand.  It looked interesting and simple, and like nothing I’d ever made before.  I made a batch for Partner and myself as a test – and, believe me, Partner pulls no punches where baked goods are concerned – and these passed the test.  I will bake more of these in future.

 

 

(Postscript: I described this recipe to Apollonia and she cried, “Egg biscuits!  You moron, you’ve rediscovered the recipe for egg biscuits!”  Yes, of course they are, I knew I recognized them from somewhere.  They’re a traditional Rhode Island recipe.  It’s nice to be able to make them at home, though.)

 

 

Herewith the recipe:

 

 

-        ½ cup (one stick) butter, softened

-        1 cup sugar

-        1 egg

-        1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract

-        1 cup ricotta (I used Stop & Shop, but use what you like, or what you can find)

-        The zest of one lemon (the original recipe called for lemon extract, but the zest is nicer, and gives you a chance to scrape the skin off several of your knuckles)

-        2 cups flour

-        ½ teaspoon baking powder

-        ½ teaspoon baking soda

-        Powdered sugar

-        Milk

 

 

1)     Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2)     In a large bowl, cream butter with sugar.

3)     Add egg and vanilla, and mix thoroughly.

4)     Add ricotta and lemon zest.  Mix for one minute.

5)     In a separate bowl, combine flour with baking powder and baking soda.

6)     Add flour mixture to ricotta mixture, and mix well.

7)     Drop in teaspoonsful on a cookie sheet.  (Do yourself a favor, invest $2.49 in a roll of parchment paper.  Line your cookie sheet with parchment paper.  You’ll never regret it.  Nothing will ever stick again.) 

8)     Bake for 9-11 minutes, or until cookies are brown on the bottom (they took almost exactly nine minutes in my (very fast) oven). 

9)     Allow to cool for at least 15 minutes.  Ice them with a mixture of powdered sugar and milk (only a few drops of milk for maybe two or three tablespoons of powdered sugar, mixed in a small bowl).  A few drops of icing are enough for each cookie; it’ll spread around.

 

 

 

Makes 3-4 dozen cookies, depending on how generous you were with the cookie dough.  I like them a little smaller; they’re easier to deal with later, and you can get more of them on a cookie sheet.  (By the way, I’ve reduced the original recipe by half.  What were those people thinking of?  We don’t have ten kids each anymore!  However: Partner and I polished off a plate of 30+ cookies in about two days . . . . )

 

 

Also – hippie alert! – I used soy milk in the icing.  It was very nice.

 

 

Don’t say I never done you no favors.  This recipe is one.

 

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A recipe a week

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Partner and I watch “Wheel of Fortune” and “Jeopardy!” almost every night.  “Jeopardy!” is one of our retirement plans: I’m supposed to go on the show and do a Ken Jennings and win a million dollars.  As the years pass and my mind turns to coleslaw, however, this is becoming less and less of a possibility.  Then there’s “Wheel,” with the genteel Pat Sajak and the lovely Vanna White.  One of my favorite moments of the show is the very ending, where Pat tries to make conversation with Vanna; she is amazingly obtuse in a Gracie Allen way (without seeming to realize it), and says the most charmingly silly things.

 

 

But I respect her for this: just before the New Year, Pat asked Vanna for her New Year’s resolutions, and she said that she was going to try a new recipe once a week, every week.

 

 

What an excellent idea!

 

 

I collect cookbooks. I rip recipes out of magazines and newspapers.  Sometimes I go online just to see how one prepares stewed dog or roasts a gazelle hump.  But do I make these recipes?  I do not.  I just allow them to accumulate.  For a while I was pasting them in a big notebook (yes, I know, I’m an elderly housewife, I do things like that), but that got tiresome too.  Now I just keep piling them up in a big heap.

 

 

But if Vanna can do it, so can I!

 

 

I made ricotta cookies (AKA egg biscuits) at Christmastime, and they were very nice.  I will make them again.  They have definitely joined the regular rotation.  (I will post the recipe soon.  I recommend them.)

 

 

In search of the next interesting new recipe, I pulled out the Ladies’ Society cookbook distributed by the Methodist Church in Overton, Nebraska circa 1950.  (I think I got it on eBay; I bought one cookbook, and the person I bought it from asked if I wanted a whole bunch more, and I said “Why not?”, and she sent me about twenty bizarre and wonderful cookbooks from all over the USA.)  The Nebraska cookbook was well-loved by its previous owner; it has little notes like “Good!” and “Needs sugar” and “Try with black walnuts” written over some of the recipes.

 

 

One – a recipe for lemon refrigerator cookies – was marked “TRY.”

 

 

Who am I to argue?  I tried.

 

 

Mmph.  A little too lemony, if anything, and the second batch burned to a crisp.  Apparently “ten minutes at 400 degrees” meant something different in 1950 than it does now.  But they had a nice light texture (they reminded me of my mother’s refrigerator cookies, but they were better, if anything), and I brightened them up with a little powdered-sugar-and-milk glaze.  I will refine them further and let you know when the recipe is a complete success.

 

 

Next week: who knows?  Sachertorte?  Tarte tatin?  Sand tarts?  Fairy cake?

 

 

Ideas are welcome.  So are recipes. 

 

 

Write me, kids.  And make it interesting.

 

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Thanksgiving offering: Sweet potato pie a la Haggers

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 I didn’t know what to post for Thanksgiving until I suddenly remembered this recipe.  It was featured on a 1970s Norman Lear show called “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman,” which was Norman’s salute to the soap-opera format.  It was on five nights a week, and it hit every theme: sex, violence, deviant behavior, death, illness, marriage, love . . . And it was very funny.

 

 

So anyway: Mary Kay Place played a character named Loretta Haggers, a sweet little ol’ thing married to a much older man.  Loretta wanted very much to be a country singer, and kept almost breaking through, but something always got in the way.  This recipe comes from an episode in which Loretta actually gets on the Dinah Shore show, sings a song, and does a cooking segment; sadly, however, she makes some unfortunate comments, and she’s booted from the show.

 

 

SWEET POTATO PIE A LA HAGGERS

 

• About a pound of potatoes
• Half or a cup of sugar
• A tap of nutmeg
• Two taps of cinnamon
• A half tap of cloves
• Three big eggs or four littler ones
• A wee bitty glug of vanilla
• Half a big stick of butter (or margarine)
• A cup of sweet milk

1. Mash the heck out of your potatoes.
2. Throw in your sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, eggs, and vanilla extraction.
3. Pour the melted butter and sweet milk right into that.
4. Beat this with a beater.  Whip the daylights out of it.
5. Pour it all into a ready-made pie shell.
6. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. 
7. Bake for 1 hour and 25 minutes. It will be done to a nice turn.  Once the smoke clears, it’ll be some dandy eatin’.

 

 

 

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North African food: Chakchouka

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Writing about North African food a few weeks ago made me hungry.

 

 

So I made chakchouka. And it was delicious.

 

 

Here's my speeded-up American version of the Tunisian recipe:

 

 

• Heat a tablespoon of olive oil in a saute pan.

• Add chopped sweet peppers, onion, tomato, etc.: about two or three cups' worth. Also some garlic. Also some salt and pepper. Also something hot: a can of chopped green chilies, a finely diced jalapeno pepper, or (if you have some) a teaspoon of Tunisian harissa. (Actually, Partner and I have been using Ro-Tel tomatoes lately, and I have to say that they're pretty good, so you could add a can of those.)  Lacking any of the above, add a tablespoon or so of goyishe hot sauce.

• Saute the above for about five minutes, until the onions are translucent.

• Add about a cup of storebought marinara sauce, or a small can of tomato sauce, and allow to cook for about another five minutes.

• Now: carefully break three eggs into the simmering sauce. Don't mix them in; just let them insinuate themselves into the mixture.

• Reduce the heat, cover, and let the eggs poach in the vegetable/sauce mixture for about ten minutes. Check from time to time for over/undercooking. Spoon a little of the sauce onto the eggs. Try not to break the yolks, but it's okay if you do.

• Prepare and eat a green salad while you're waiting for the eggs to poach. (This is a very civilized recipe; it allows you to dine while cooking.)

• When the eggs are cooked, serve your chakchouka piping hot, with a fresh loaf of French or Italian bread for dunking.  (In North Africa, the bread is actually the eating utensil.)

   

 

See how nice?

 

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