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Food, restaurants and cooking

Lemons in the souk
Food, restaurants and cooking

Peter Morwood on Moroccan preserved lemons

by Diane Duane

Via the Man Upstairs:

Here are half a dozen recipes and a few observations.

I can provide Indian lime pickle recipes as well if there’s a real glut of fruit; they work perfectly for lemons, since “nimbu ka achaar” uses either or both.

However they’ll require more ingredients than preserved lemons, which at their most basic don’t need any other ingredients than Lemons, Salt and Time™ (Not Thyme!)

I’ve seen “fast preserved lemons” and “7-day preserved lemons”, but none will be as good as lemons left to mature and macerate in the salty acid for 3-4 weeks or longer.

Various preserved lemon recipes.

(1)    Plain – just lemons and salt – can be used in more ways than spiced, and not restricted to North African recipes either; the most I put in mine are a few dried Thai bird’s-eye chillies.

(2)    Try to remove all the pips when doing the initial quarter-cut; definitely remove all the pips if planning to make a purée.

(3)    Traditionally the only part used is the peel; I’m non-traditional and use the lot.

(4)    If making more than one jar, turn the contents of one into preserved-lemon purée with a processor or stick mixer. Either rinse the preserved lemon pieces and add fresh lemon juice as required, or just whizz everything. Obviously once this is done you can’t rinse off the salt and brine, so adjust the salt content of recipes where it’s used accordingly. A teaspoonful is great in sauce for fish or chicken, or mixed with mayo for sandwiches, or adding a salty tangy zing to a pot of soup, or…

Three recipes for plain salt and lemon:

https://www.daringgourmet.com/how-to-make-preserved-lemons-moroccan-middle-eastern-cooking/  This recipe adds water to top up.  Don’t dilute the preservative. Use more lemon juice instead.

https://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-make-preserved-lemons-110714

https://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/how_to_make_preserved_lemons/

Three with spices:

https://www.thekitchn.com/recipe-preserve-5236

https://foodnetwork.co.uk/recipes/preserved-lemons/ This also suggests topping up with water. As before, use lemon juice.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/how_to_make_preserved_01545

Hope this helps!

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From the cover of PATISSIERE DES PETITS MENAGES
BakingFood, restaurants and cooking

A project in progress: translating “La Patissière des Petits Menages”

by Diane Duane

Those of you who follow me on Twitter or Tumblr, or who dip in here from time to time, will know that cooking and cookbooks are issues of interest in our household. Particularly the cookbooks. There are a couple hundred of them in the living room at the moment (and that’s after we weeded out some unnecessary ones and sent them off to the library at the end of last year). They span all kinds of cuisines and approaches to cooking, and a nontrivial percentage of them are pre-20th century.

I have to confess that the older ones are some of my favorites (and not just for the recipes: often because of the advertising that appears in them, or because of other associations—regional, historical, linguistic. For example: a covey of cookbooks in (Sursilvan) Romansch, bought as much for the language/dialect or vocabulary as for the regional specialties). US and European “community” cookbooks of the 1800s and early 1900s are also favorites of ours. And some such cookbooks get added to the collection due to having come up on the local radar by other means, often obscure.

Right now, for example, I find myself looking at a project I wasn’t expecting to need to add to my TBW pile: a full-blown translation of a French cookbook. This one has a bit of a resemblance, in approach anyway, to one we’ve had available for download at EuropeanCuisines.com for a while: Mrs. de Salis’s fabulous Savouries a la Mode. 

Savouries, like the many other guides and cookbooks Harriet de Salis wrote during the late 1800s/early 1900s, was aimed at the “New Woman”—the lady of the house whose circumstances, for whatever reason, rendered her unable to afford the staff / extra hired help that were in some classes taken for granted in an earlier time, and without whom it was thought impossible to “keep house properly”. So recipes that might have otherwise been lost to us (except by the former household staff themselves writing cookbooks, which fortunately also happened) are preserved, in full detail, in de Salis’s works. And old recipes of this kind—dishes or treats that one might have expected to be able to readily have at home, once—are always welcome.

Now let’s veer briefly sideways. While researching Belgian waffles for our page on that subject at EuropeanCuisines.com—and particularly the Liège waffle that often falls through the cracks somewhat for North Americans, since a (non-yeast-raised) version of the Brussels waffle tends to be more popular there—I went looking for French- and Vlaams-language online waffle resources, and came across the venerable website GaufresBelges.com and its recipe page. Their recipe for a beer-based waffle caught my eye, and I was pleased to see that they’d credited the cookbook.

Having tested the recipe—and finding it not at all bad—I started wondering what else might be in that cookbook that was worth knowing about. So I went looking for it, and soon enough found references to “La Patissière des Petites Menages” online: but the book itself turned out to be not that easy to find. As usual, this made me more interested in getting my hands on it, not less. Finally I found a copy available through a listing similar to this one at the French version of Rakuten, and sent off for it.

Cover of LA PATISSIÈRE DES PETITS MENAGES
What arrived was a solid little paperback, old but very well made: the kind of thing you would have picked up from a kiosk or newsstand / newsagent of the time. The type is beautifully bitten into the page. The binding is sewn in signatures (and provoked immediate nostalgia for the long-ago days before paperback binding was universally done with glue). The 20-centime price tag translates, in modern buying power, to the equivalent of about a Euro. The book is 175 pages long: an introduction, a glossary, 140-odd pages of relatively brief and simple recipes for all kinds of baking that can be done in the home oven, a comprehensive index, an ad for other books from the publisher (A. -L. Guyot), and an ad for a company selling accordions and zithers.

…As you page through it, it becomes obvious that in this cookbook’s recipes the emphasis is on being able to make your own slightly-specialized goodies at home, without having to go down to the shops (or the baker’s) for them. (Which is perhaps why the lady on the cover isn’t wearing traditional baker’s togs, but bicycling bloomers.)

Peter, who has a university-level French course under his belt, kindly took a run at translating the introduction.

TO OUR READERS

As we announced, this “TREATISE ON PATISSERIE” completes our “COOKERY FOR SMALL
HOUSEHOLDS”, and we hope it will receive the same favorable reception.
Even in the most modest homes, wives and mothers will doubtless thank us for
providing means to treat their loved ones by enhancing the daily menu with
appealing delicacies to delight young and old.

At family reunions, or where groups of parents and friends are invited to a party for a wedding, a baptism, or other happy occasion, it will be a pleasure for any housewife to make by herself and inexpensively (without resorting to the baker’s oven), some tasty appetisers: PASTRIES, PIES, VOL-AU-VENTS, succulent SWEETS: DONUTS, CHARLOTTES, MERINGUES, TARTLETS, or fine DESSERT CAKES: BISCUITS, WAFERS, MACAROONS, FANCY COOKIES; even aristocratic ICE CREAMS, SORBETS etc. …

Finally, ladies, thanks to the recipes contained in this volume it will be easy to create
a domestic pantry abundantly supplied with LIQUEURS, SYRUPS, JAMS, FRUIT PRESERVES
and CANDIES, which will be all the more most appreciated when prepared by your
caring hands.

We have done our best to offer you a useful and pleasant manual in clear and
practical form: we hope we have succeeded!

The biscuits (cookies, a North American would say) and wafers particularly have my interest: but everything else looks good too. I look forward to getting to grips with the work of translation, a little at a time (because baking is one of the ways I get some of my writing work done. You’d be surprised how much character work you can deal with just while kneading bread…). When everything in the book has been translated, we’ll make it available in unadorned form for download at European Cuisines, and possibly bring it into e-print at Amazon as well. (And I’ll post about it here as well.)

So. Onward…

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Today's bread
BakingcookingFood

Weird bread

by Diane Duane

Well, a little weird.

Ireland is on COVID-19 lockdown (and will be for the next couple/few weeks, it looks like), and our next grocery delivery isn’t until nearly the middle of next week, and there’s no telling whether there’ll be baking yeast in it. And yesterday we were down to our next-to-last packet of it. So I sighed and got ready to start employing stopgap measures. 

…And a quick note here: if you’re presently drawing breath to say “But I saw a post about how to make your own…” or “No one is ever really out of yeast, let me tell you how…!” — then please don’t, because there’s no need. I’ve been baking bread casually since my twenties and much more intensively over the last decade (Peter and I simply decided in unison that we’d had it with supermarket bread, and when we found the most dependable recipe imaginable, that was that). At one time or another I’ve built levains and starters from scratch, worked with sourdough starters more than a hundred years old, and have caught and cultured wild yeast on two continents. I’ve even written fiction about yeast, Thoth help me.

Anyway, right this minute—as a busy longtime-work-from-home small-businesswoman who is usually hip-deep in several universes at once while also doing website management—my preference for day-to-day baking is plain old active dry yeast of the Fleischmann’s, Red Star or SAF type. These have been genetically tailored for their work and suit my needs perfectly—being predictable, reliable, and in no need of coddling or extra attention. To be told “All you need to do is mix together some flour and water and let the natural yeasts…!”, etc etc, is for me (at the moment) too much like someone kindly offering to replace my missing Lotus Turbo Esprit with a Trabi. I will cope just fine, but I won’t sing paeans of praise about the alternative strategy. So let’s not go there, yeah? As KP says, “Please and thank you.”

Anyway. What was plain when I got the urge to bake yesterday afternoon was that I was going to have to throw together a preferment, because the thought of actually using up that last packet of yeast was giving me anxiety. Fortunately, when doing the last bake I’d used only 3/4 of the package of yeast, and had set aside the rest for this very purpose. So: 

(Stage 1) Find favorite handled soup cup. Spoon in a tablespoon or two of flour and that yeast, and stir it about well to get combined. Add about a quarter-teaspoon of sugar just to let the yeast know that, momentarily anyway, Life Is Unexpectedly Good. Add a quarter cup of water, or a little more if necessary, to make a thick paste. Then cover the cup (or other vessel) and put this whole business aside somewhere warmish for a couple of hours. (Note that no salt is involved in this procedure until making the actual bread dough, because the salt acts as an inhibitor and the last thing you want to do with the yeast at this point is get it feeling inhibited.)

(Stage 2) In a couple of hours there should be some bubbling going on. Stir the bubbles down, add half a cup of lukewarm water, enough flour to make another thick paste, and another quarter- to half-teaspoon of sugar, because keeping the yeasts extra happy/active at this point is smart. Mix it all up until it’s smooth and put the whole business aside for another couple of hours.

(Stage 3) Repeat the above routine one more time with about twice the ingredients, except for another half-teaspoon of sugar for the yeasts. Then off you go and spend another hour or so doing something else. If the bubbles aren’t pretty active in the bowl or cup or whatever when you get back, give it another hour. 

(Stage 4) And now we finally start actual breadmaking. Measure out about 200g of wholemeal/whole wheat bread flour and 400g of white bread flour. Stir in 10-12 g of salt (usually about a scant tablespoon). Add to this about 2/3 of the starter and about 350ml of water, and knead by hand or in a mixing bowl with a bread hook until it comes together and is smooth and silky-ish. 15 minutes or so by hand: in a mixer, six minutes on low speed and six minutes on high. Add more flour if necessary. Grease or oil a big bowl: put the dough in it and turn it so it’s evenly coated: cover it with plastic wrap and put it somewhere warm and comfy to rise. (I wrap mine up in a foam throw from Ikea. Works great.)

Because of the lowered raising capacity of this yeast—which is still getting up to speed—the rise takes significantly longer than usual. In this case it took something like four hours for the sponge to fill my raising bowl, which was fine, because I was binging The Rise of Phoenixes (while oblivious to the potential pun, don’t mind me, I catch on slow sometimes) and the plotting and backstabbing had seriously sped up from the previous ten episodes’ everybody-is-poisoning-everybody-else-with-slow-poisons-while-snarking-at-them arc.

At this point I hit pause long enough to punch the dough down… or actually, smoosh it down: it was very soft and sloppy. It was also larger than my normal loaf, because I’d had a put a fair amount of extra flour in to stabilize it. It became plain that (a) it was realistically too late to wait through a second rise and bake last night—which meant an overnight “cool rise” out on the sink in the boot room—and (b) if I put it in a regular loaf pan / tin to do that, it would overflow the thing in the middle of the night and make all kinds of mess. So I oiled a three-liter Les Cousances casserole, dumped the sponge in there, covered it with a tea towel, and left it to its own devices for the night. Then I went back to my binging, though not before adding more water and more flour to what was left of the preferment, and just a few pinches more of sugar, because so far at least the yeasts had been behaving Very Well and deserved a treat.

When I got up in the morning and came downstairs, here’s what the casserole looked like:

The risen bread splonge

So it was plain that it was now time to bake, yay! Oven up to 200C, then (when preheated) slid the casserole in and for good measure threw about 150ml of water into the roasting pan at the bottom, to make some steam. Timer set for 50 minutes, and off to do some email and other stuff.

When the timer went off, this is what we wound up with:

The finished loaf

It took another couple of hours for the loaf to cool and stabilize enough to slice safely. It’s a peculiar looking thing, but Peter came along and pronounced it one of the best bakes of this kind ever. (He’s fond of the pot-baking end of things: he’s quite good with the New York Times no-knead recipe.) Having had a couple of slices, I’m inclined to agree. Light: a delicate springy crumb, nice and open in the usual manner of slow-and-cool rises: definitely tasty. The crust’s a bit aggressive, but a night in a bread bag will sort that out.

…So that’s one way to do it. That said: I still want my damn active dry yeast. Meanwhile, the preferment is sitting in the office window, enjoying the warmth from the wood-burning stove, and it’s getting to be time to feed it a little again. (Because an online associate caused me to think of the torture-a-cinnamon-roll concept just now, and a yeast-raised cinnamon roll can be pretty good. We’ll see what tomorrow brings.)

…See, it’s even got a hat! 

The preferment and its hat

And for the moment, that’s all she wrote.

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Peter's Isolation Goulasch
Food, restaurants and cookingHome liferecipes

Peter’s Isolation Goulasch

by Diane Duane

(Appearing here because his own site is down for restructuring at the moment.)

Himself says:

This is a “what was available in the house” reduction from my main goulash recipe, based on a combination of Gyorg Lang, Karoly Gundel, a few Hungarian things run through Google Translate and some tweaks by me…

Ingredients

  • 2 tbs lard or sunflower/corn/ ordinary olive oil. (Not Extra Virgin, you’re wasting it.)
  • 2 large onions, chopped coarsely
  • 4 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 tbsp caraway seeds, crushed (mince the garlic and caraway together with rocking knife technique – the sticky garlic keeps the seeds from flying about. A bit, anyway.)
  • 1 lb / .5kg stewing beef in 1 inch / 30mm cubes (which is usually how it’s sold)
  • 3 tbsp Hungarian paprika,  if possible 1 tbsp Hot, 2 tbsp Sweet (or 2 tbsp regular Supervalu paprika and 1 tbsp Cayenne. Don’t use smoked paprika unless using European sausage like kabanossi or kielbasa instead of beef, then go for it, the result is yummy.)
  • 2 tins chopped tomatoes and ½ tin water
  • 1 green pepper, seeded and cubed
  • 4 potatoes, peeled and cubed

Method:

Melt the lard in a heavy pot and sweat the onions until soft, glossy and turning golden. Add the garlic and caraway and stir-fry for a few more minutes. Add the beef and stir-fry until all the cubes have changed colour.

Remove from the heat and let sit for a couple of minutes, then add the paprika (paprika + excess heat = bitterness.) Stir well together, add the tomatoes and water, return to the heat, bring to a very gentle simmer, cover and leave for about 2 hours.

Check the beef for tenderness. It should be at the “a bit more will be perfect” stage, so add the pepper and potatoes and give it a bit more; about 20 minutes should do.

Serve topped with a dollop of sour cream (ours was 30% fat Lithuanian from Eurospar, delish!) over buttered noodles, rice, mashed potatoes, tarhonya (Hungarian “egg barley”, a very small pasta similar to orzo)…

Or what we did tonight: “Bratkartoffel” – potatoes cut into ½ inch dice and slowly pan-fried until crunchy outside and soft inside, then sprinkled with salt and pepper. We finished ours in the oven – 20 mins at 180° C/ 355° F – for less greasiness; NB that this also makes a great snack by itself (try sprinkling with curry powder, spice bag mix, sea salt & cider vinegar, whatever) and using the oven makes them far less trouble than deep-frying home-made chips.

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Food, restaurants and cookingrecipes

Not Really Hungarian Pork Chops

by Diane Duane

Every now and then, in the work surrounding the slow retooling of the EuropeanCuisines.com website, I wind up doing some casual detective work to try to find the source of a recipe that, though I’d like to include it, just doesn’t feel… right somehow. This week’s case is a recipe that’s labeled “Hungarian”, but isn’t a genuine traditional recipe. It’s nice, though, and a good supper dish or easy-to-throw-together entree, so it’s worth keeping around and sharing even if I can’t put it on EC.com as a true product of its purported culture.

Backstory: The site’s previous image for our tarhonya recipe was crap, and I wanted to reshoot it. So this we did. But a bowlful of plain pasta isn’t all that interesting: I preferred to show it plated up as a side. As it happens, there were a couple of pork cutlets in the fridge… so (with an eye to the gradual approach of dinnertime) I went looking for some Hungarian recipe in which to use them, but came up empty. In fact I couldn’t find anything Hungarian that was pork-cutlet-oriented except for one recipe that made me suspicious by its rarity. It appears in an eating-for-one cookbook by the redoubtable Delia Smith.

In the back of my mind as I looked the recipe over was the thought that probably every cuisine has ingredients that are used so frequently that a casual observer would be tempted to automatically associate them with it when used in combination. That looks like what’s happened here, as the only Hungarian thing about this recipe is that it uses paprika, caraway and sour cream together. So I’m tempted to think that Delia either invented this, or had something like it elsewhere and decided to publish the recipe with the “Hungarian” label.

Delia’s version in the One Is Fun cookbook calls for the cooking to be done in a roasting tin. Since it involves preheating the cooking fat/oil, this struck me as a great way to cover the inside of the oven with a lot of spattering that would need cleaning up after. So—besides altering amounts so that this recipe works for two people instead of one—I did it in a lidded casserole. I think this works better because it also helps the pork stay a little moister/juicier than otherwise: not a bad idea if you’re working with pork that’s fairly lean.

The ingredients:

  • 2 thick pork chops or a single piece of pork loin (about 500g / 1 pound)
  • 2 tablespoons vegetable oil (though you could use lard if you have any, and feel like edging even closer toward a Hungarian approach: it’s very much the preferred fat in their cuisine)
  • 1 large potato or a couple of medium-sized ones, peeled and sliced maybe 5mm or 1/4 inch thick
  • 2 medium onions, peeled, one sliced 5mm / 1/4 inch thick, the other one halved
  • 2 tablespoons mild paprika, or (if you like it a bit hotter) 1 tablespoon hot paprika, one tablespoon regular (Note: smoked paprika works fine for this)
  • 1 teaspoon caraway seeds: more like a tablespoon of them, if you’re a caraway fan
  • 2-3 teaspoons butter
  • 100 ml (or more) of a good thick sour cream: or yogurt if you prefer it. Thin with a couple of teaspoons or a tablespoon of water or milk, if necessary, to make it a little bit pourable.
  • Salt and fresh-ground black pepper

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F / 180C. Find a heavy lidded casserole and put it (without the lid) n the oven to preheat along with it.

Peel and slice the potatoes: peel and slice/halve the onions. If you (like me) suffer from Onions Make Me Cry syndrome, do yourself a favor before you start work on this recipe and stick the onions in the freezer for twenty minutes or half an hour. This lowers the vapor pressure of the gas they’ll release when you cut them, and gives you a fighting chance to get the work done before the gas warfare starts to impair your functioning.

On a plate or in a shallow bowl, combine the paprika, caraway seeds, and some salt and pepper. Dry your pork steak or cutlets off with paper towels and press each side of the cutlets or pork steak into the spice mixture to coat them.

When the oven’s ready, remove your casserole, pour in the oil or fat you’re going to be using (give the lard a moment to melt if you haven’t already melted it in the microwave) and arrange the sliced onions in the casserole; then add the sliced potatoes. Snug those two half pieces of onion down into this business, and perch the pork on top of them. (This stratagem holds the meat a little out of the cooking juices and helps those juices rise up and steam the bottom of it.) 

Top the piece(s) of meat with the butter, give everything another grind or so of pepper, and sprinkle the remaining spice-coating mixture over the meat and the layers of potato and onion. Sock the casserole into the oven and bake for 30 minutes. 

At this point, pull the casserole out of the oven and pour the sour cream over the meat; then return the casserole to the oven, lidded again. Bake for another fifteen minutes.

And that’s it! Get it out of the oven and serve it forth. If you feel inclined, garnish the servings with a little more sour cream and paprika, and a sprinkle of caraway. 

Enjoy!

 

 

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Tweo kinds of cracknel
BakingCuisines and Foods of the Middle KingdomsFood, restaurants and cookingMiddle KingdomsWriting

From the (theoretically forthcoming) CUISINES AND FOODS OF THE MIDDLE KINGDOMS: Cracknels

by Diane Duane

Using the vestigial English term “cracknel” to define this common snack food format of the Middle Kingdoms may at first seem a strange choice, considering the weird peripatetic course the word has charted across this world’s linguistic landscape over the last century or so. Having started out as a 1400s-period descriptor for a twice-baked savory-or-sweet biscuit, it then became gradually attached to all kinds of sweet and savory crunchy things, from pretzels (hard and soft) to commercially-produced crackers to (in southern US usage) the little bits of pork crackling left over after rendering lard. Various wafers, candy bars and nut-brittle-type sweets also use the term. (Check out this aggregation of Instagram posts including the hashtag #cracknel. Your head will spin at some of the things that turn up.) There’s even a Biblical reference, where “cracknel” turns up to render a Hebrew term suggesting biscuits that have been pricked with a fork before baking.

The connection seems, logically enough, to be the concept of crunchy things, which makes sense considering the term’s English etymology. According to the OED, it comes to us from the French craquelin, which is derived from croquer/”to crunch”. These days craquelin can mean (in general usage) a cracker, or (in more specialized usage) a pastry dough used to produce a crackly finish.

The cracknels that turn up in the earliest-preserved Tudor cookbooks, though, most closely match the Middle Kingdoms approach — a twice-baked biscuit, the first baking being of a long thin roll of seasoned dough, and the second baking of thin bits sliced off that roll. By the late Tudor period on our Earth, the second bake had been dropped out of the process, and the dough was simply rolled out very thin and cut out into rounds (see the recipes here reflecting this technique). But during the period being covered by the present Middle Kingdoms works, the preferred cracknel style closely matches the Tudor one… and is easily recognizable to a modern this-Earth baker as the normal method for making biscotti.

The words best used to render “cracknel” in the major languages of the Middle Kingdoms are surprisingly close (Arlene and N. Arlene kechte, Darthene chekech, Steldene emekch, even Ladhain kchhe). This, along with the words’ age — all of them are archaic — tempts one to think that they jointly preserve a common root word in what we may as well call the “late Medioregnic” dialect: the little-known common language/lingua franca spoken by human beings during the long terrible period when the phenomenon known as the Dark overshadowed the world. During this time much knowledge, even of languages of discourse, was lost in the near-extinction of humanity. So there’s an odd satisfaction in thinking that so small, homely and enjoyable a thing somehow persisted through the long disaster and (along with humanity) made it out the far side, back into the light.

The technique for making Middle Kingdoms-style cracknels is simple, and very close to the modern this-Earth biscotti method. Make a fairly firm dough with flour, a leavening agent (though some regions forego this), enough eggs to hold it all together, some honey if you like, and whatever herbs and seasonings (or in some cases cheeses) you favor. Roll this dough into “logs” and bake these until they color and firm up. Remove from the oven and allow to cool enough to cut them into small thin slices. Then return the sliced pieces to the oven at a lower temperature and bake them again, turning once during the process. The this-universe-Italianate cutting method of slicing on a sharp diagonal is sensible (in that it exposes the maximum amount of surface area to the gentle heat of the second baking) and attractive, but not mandatory. …Though there are regions of the Kingdoms where, if you had no other clue, you could tell where you were within thirty leagues or so by how the locals cut their cracknels.

Flavorings for Kingdoms cracknels are a matter of seasonal availability and the whim and affluence of the baker or cook. Steldenes favor putting chopped fresh or dried whitefruit in them (because of course they do: Steldenes are well known to put whitefruit in everything) and numerous other fruits as well, ideally dried; also fruit pickles and syrups, nuts and nut creams, especially almond and chestnut, and metahnë or weeproot, a close analogue to Armoracia rusticana, our common horseradish. Mid-latitude Arlenes tend to favor mellower spicery (yellow berry-pepper, capsicums, green onions and garlic, the various wild and tame parsleys) and grated hard cheeses, from the very mild to the very sharp. Western and “upper” Darthenes lean toward warm-country flavors: sweetbark, yellow citron (identical to our Citrus medica) and green citron (a local analogue to Citrus ichangensis, the Ichang papeda); anise, ginger, caraway, honey-rush (a relative of Saccharum officinarum, our sugar cane), and mint-grass. People from cooler, wetter climates (“lower” Darthen and Arlen, upper Steldin) prefer hotter or “darker” spicery in their cracknels: whitefruit again, dark berry-pepper (similar to our Piper nigrum), poppyseed, various nuts (walnut, chestnut) and smoked honey. But even inside these general areas of preference there’s endless variation, influenced by whatever local ingredients are felt to suit cracknels particularly well.

(There are also regional differences in preparation. The most extreme of these would possibly be native to North Arlen, where, as a substitute for the second baking, some people deep-fry their cracknels. Up south in the more conservative parts of mountain country, mentioning this behavior will inevitably start a discussion about the naughtiness and perversity of the decadent North. Brawls have occasionally started over this issue. Let the tourist beware…)

In the towns and cities of the Kingdoms, every bakery of any note makes cracknels to their own recipe and seeks to lure customers away from other bakers by unique combinations of flavors or superior baking technique. Competition (both informal and formal) is intense. In both Prydon and Darthis there are annual contests for the best cracknel in the city, and it’s not unknown for judges in these competitions to be bribed. In Prydon, for some years since the enthronement of the new King—when people started having time or inclination to be thinking about this kind of thing again—there has been a push to require competitors to formally swear in one or another of the Goddess’s City temples that they will not accept gratuities or otherwise seek to influence the contest outcomes. But so far no formal action has been taken… King Freelorn perhaps having wisely decided to keep his (and the Lion’s) nose out of it.

Fortunately one doesn’t need to have a Middle Kingdoms commercial bakery in the neighborhood to experience cracknels. They’re easy to make at home. Here are two representative recipes. One is in the Steldene style, with Jalapeño and chipotle chilies standing in for the inevitable whitefruit (and adding not only smoked paprika but Cheddar cheese, which the more hidebound Steldenes might look a bit askance at… but ask me if I care. They won’t be eating them). The other is more northern Darthene in its flavoring, using caraway as an aromatic and substituting lemon for the ubiquitous green or golden citron of the warm North.

Savory Hot-Spiced Cracknels

  • 350g / 2 cups all-purpose flour, plus extra for dusting
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 60g / 1/4 cup granulated sugar (or golden granulated/caster sugar if you can get it)
  • 3 large eggs, beaten
  • 70g / 1/4 cup pickled Jalapeno chilies, drained, patted dry, chopped
  • 2 small bottled or canned Chipotle chiles, split, drained, patted dry, chopped
  • 1 teaspoon smoked sweet paprika (or regular if you can’t find smoked; but smoked is better. The heat of the paprika in question is up to you. Hot paprikas are entirely in tune with the Steldene cuisine style.)
  • 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
  • i/2 teaspoon salt
  • 40g / 1/4 cup finely grated Cheddar cheese (or substitute Parmesan if you like)

Preheat the oven to 180C for a regular oven, 160C for a fan oven.

Because of the chilies in this dough, it makes sense to wear disposable gloves for this next stage of preparation. If you choose to work bare-handed, please be extra careful about washing your hands thoroughly before touching your eyes or any part of you that features mucous membrane. Jalapeños and chipotles may seem innocuous in your mouth, but getting capsaicin from them in your eye (or onto/into other sensitive area) is an experience better avoided. 

Mix the flour and all the dry ingredients together. Beat the eggs well, add them to the dry ingredients, and mix and knead together until the ingredients start to come together into a dough. Add the chopped chilies and grated cheese and knead until well combined into the dough. (If you can do all the above in a mixer bowl using a dough hook, so much the better; it’ll be a lot less work for you.)

Prepare two cookie sheets by lining them with baking parchment. Lightly flour a work surface and tip the dough out onto it.  Divide the dough into four pieces and roll each one into a log of dough about 30cm long. Place the logs on the prepared cookie sheets, two per sheet, well separated. (They may spread a lot, or they may not, but it’s wise to give them room.)

Put in the oven and bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until the dough has risen and spread a little, and the outsides of the dough logs are slightly browned and firm. Remove them from their cookie sheets to a rack, and allow them to cool for a few minutes. Meanwhile, lower the heat in the oven to 140C for a regular oven, 120C for a fan oven.

With a sharp knife, slice the dough logs on a sharp diagonal in slices about 1cm thick. Lay the slices out flat on one or more of the prepared baking sheets (you may only need one) and put them back in the oven for twenty minutes. At the end of this time, pull the baking sheet out and turn all the slices over: then return to the baking sheet for another twenty minutes. 

Remove to a rack to cool completely. When cool, store them in a tin until ready to serve. They will keep well in the tin for up to a month… assuming you can stay away from them for that long. If you can, stay away from them the first day of baking as well: after a day or so the flavors intensify somewhat.

Lemon / Caraway Cracknels

  • 350g / 2 cups plain flour
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • ¼ tsp salt
  • 240g / 1 cup sugar
  • 3 whole eggs, well beaten
  • 2 tablespoons caraway seeds, ground in a mortar
  • 2 tablespoons freshly grated lemon zest
  • 2 tablespoons lemon juice if needed

Preheat the oven to 180C for a regular oven, 160C for a fan oven. Prepare two cookie sheets as above. 

In your mixer’s bowl (assuming you’re using a mixer), combine the flour, baking powder, salt, sugar, ground caraway seeds and lemon zest and mix well. Add the beaten eggs and knead well, using the mixer’s dough hook if you can. If the dough is reluctant to come together, add lemon juice teaspoonful by teaspoonful until it does. 

This dough will be stickier than the previous one, and will probably have to be scraped out of the bowl onto your floured surface. Additionally, it may need some more flour added to it so that you’re able to work it into logs — once again, four of them, each about 30cm long. Place on the prepared baking sheets, well separated, and bake for 25 minutes. The top of each log should be firm and just slightly colored.

Remove the once-baked logs from the oven and place on a rack to cool for 15 minutes or so. Reduce the oven heat to 150C for a regular oven / 130C for a fan oven. Slice the logs up in 1cm-wide slices, on the diagonal, as previously. Lay the slices flat on one of the baking sheets and return to the oven for twenty minutes. Then as before, remove from the oven, turn all the slices over, and put back in the oven for a final twenty minutes. When finished remove to racks and cool completely. 

Store in a tin or other tightly-closed container when completely cool. Like their spicier variant, these too will keep for a month in a tin. 

A few process notes:

Make sure to have your knife very sharp before beginning work on the once-baked rolls.

When cutting, do not be tempted to press straight down with the knife: the cracknels will inevitably break in half (or smaller) and not be pretty. Slice each slice and take your time. Resharpen the knife if and when necessary.

As in most Earth-analogues inhabited by human beings, the broken or irregular ones are for the cook. Just which ones are irregular (and how many…) is the cook’s call.

Serving suggestion: With the cold drink, beer or wine of your choice. Disclosure: I haven’t yet tested these with beer. Results will be forthcoming on or around New Year’s.

One caution: Crunchy and delightful as these are, they can sometimes bake up very hard. If you have any concern about the strength of your teeth, please be careful about how you bite into these. 

Enjoy!

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booksFoodFood, restaurants and cookingrecipesWriting

Ludwig Bemelmans’ NY Oyster Bar Shellfish Pan Roast Recipe

by Diane Duane

I love Ludwig Bemelmans for many reasons that usually have more to do with writing and his challenging career arc than with food (more details here). But this post’s about the food, and a specific favorite recipe.

In his collection of “slice-of-culinary-life” writings La Bonne Table,  Bemelmans passes on a bit of info that many New Yorkers, or visitors to the city, would be glad to have: the original recipe for one version of the famous shellfish pan roast served at Grand Central Terminal’s venerable Oyster Bar and Restaurant (a venue much appreciated by the cats in the Feline Wizardry series, as well as by the series’s author, who ate there as often as she could afford to while living and working in Manhattan).

So here’s the image of the page in La Bonne Table where the recipe/method appears, and a transcription of the method. He gives the version for the clam pan roast: for an oyster one like the one in the header image, I just substitute canned oysters and enough fish stock or consommé to equal the amount of clam broth Bemelmans quotes. All kinds of shellfish work brilliantly in this (and if you’re actually in the Oyster Bar some time and feel inclined toward this dish, you might like to order the combination one, which has a little bit of everything). I’ve broken up the original block of his text for readability’s sake: may his kindly shade forgive me.

 

We went to rake for cockles, which are like our clams, except for their globular structure, and they taste like Little Necks. I gave the hostess a recipe, which I found in Grand Central Station’s sea-food bar, where a Greek chef who makes it wrote it down for me and showed me how it’s made. It is one of the best things to eat, simple to make– in fact, nobody can go wrong. It’s a meal in itself, and it costs very little.

You need paprika, chili sauce, sherry wine; also celery salt, Worcestershire sauce, butter according to your taste, and clams. I use cherrystones, which are washed and brushed, and then placed in a deep pan with their own liquid. For each portion of eight, add one pat of butter, a tablespoon of chili sauce, 1/2 teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce, a few drops of lemon juice and 1/2 cup of clam broth. Add a dash of celery salt and paprika.

Stir all this over a low fire for three minutes. Then add four ounces of light cream or heavy cream, according to your taste, and one ounce of sherry wine, and keep stirring. When it comes to the boiling point, pour it over dry toast in individual bowls. Add a pat of butter and a dash of paprika and it is ready to serve.

If you have made too much of it, put the remainder in a container in your refrigerator. It will be as good, warmed up, a week or a month* later. It’s called Clam Pan Roast, if you ever want to order it at Grand Central Station’s Oyster Bar. I understand the recipe originally came from Maine.

(This post originally appeared at the author’s Tumblr, and is reproduced here so people who [correctly] aren’t wild about their ToS as regards data sharing don’t have to go over there.)

*I love his enthusiasm here, but frankly I wouldn’t leave this in the fridge for any month. A few days maybe. (Though it must be said, I couldn’t leave it alone that long anyway. It’s really good.)

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Chicken with forty cloves of garlic
cookingFood, restaurants and cookingrecipes

Two Recipes for Chicken With Lots Of Cloves Of Garlic

by Diane Duane

I had an ask-box message from AislinnSiofra on my Tumblr a while back pointing out that both Peter and I have sometimes mentioned making these dishes on our blogs, but never actually given the recipes. Time to remedy that omission.

Both these recipes come from Richard Olney’s fabulous classic cookbook Simple French Food, which I think everybody should have in their collection if they’re interested in cooking at all. It’s not just because Olney’s recipes are wonderful (and they really are). For me, it’s partly a stylistic issue. All through the book he throws away, casually, effortlessly, not so much recipes, but methods for turning out terrific dishes. More than that, though: this was the man who went to court to determine once and for all what part of a recipe was copyrightable, thereby doing all cookbook writers since a signal service. (Short version of the story: it’s not the ingredient list that’s copyrightable, but the description of what to do with the ingredients–the method, and the language of the method. Olney was really tired of his recipes being being ripped off, and with good reason, as his voice as a cookbook writer is unique. So he stood up and went to law over the issue, and all cookbook writers after him should be grateful.)

Anyway! The chicken. These recipes appear back to back on a single page of the Penguin paperback edition of Simple French Food, and though they both have lots of garlic in them, they are as different as night from day. One of them is what you expect of a Garlic-With-Forty-Cloves recipe on first hearing: something brash, rustic, rambunctious, and unapologetically in-your-face. The other is a far subtler business — the first chance most people ever get, I think, to experience garlic as a root vegetable, with its aggressiveness tamed but not entirely banished. Both recipes are really good. I encourage all readers of this post to try both and find out which they like better.

Here’s the first one, which in Olney is simply entitled:

Garlic Chicken / (Poules ‘aux 40 gousses d’Ail’)

Ingredients:

  • 1 chicken, cut up as for a sauté (or 4 legs, thighs and drumsticks, separated)
  • 4 heads firm garlic, broken into cloves, cleared of loose hulls, but unpeeled
  • 15cl / 0.25 pint olive oil [this is a UK pint: so, 5 fluid ounces for the US readership, or 150ml)
  • Salt, pepper
  • 1 tsp finely crumbled mixed dried herbs (thyme, oregano, savory)
  • 1 large bouquet garni: large branch celery, parsley and root (if available), bay leaf, leek greens, small branch lovage (if available)
  • Flour for dough

“Put everything except the bouquet into an earthenware casserole, turning around and over repeatedly with your hands to be certain of regularly dispersed seasoning and an even coating of oil. Force the bouquet into the centre, packing the chicken around and filling all interstices with garlic cloves.

“Prepare a dough of flour, water and a dribble of oil, roll it into a long cylindrical band on a floured board, moisten the ridge of the casserole, press the roll of paste into place, and press the lid on top. Cook in a 350F, 180C oven for 1 hour and 45 minutes and break the seal at the table.”

It couldn’t be simpler. Olney adds, “The garlic, squeezed from its hull and spread onto grilled crisp slices of rough country bread as one eats the chicken, will be appreciated by all who do not share the mental antigarlic quirk; if the bread can be grilled over hot coals, the light smoky flavor will be found to marry particularly well with the garlic puree. …For variety’s sake, turn, quarter and choke 3 or 4 tender young artichokes, coating them immediately in the recipe’s olive oil before mixing all the ingredients together.”

…I love the way he just adds that afterthought.

Now the other one:

Braised Chicken Legs with Lemon (Poulet au Citron)

“The lemon and garlic alliance,” Olney says, “is borrowed from French Catalan cooking. Were the dish prepared in that country, Banyuls, a fortified wine vinified in much the same way as Port, would replace the white wine in this recipe.

“To create tidy shapes that cook evenly and do not sprawl in the pan, cut the knob-ends from the drumsticks and, pulling the skin to one side so as not to cut into it, partially sever the joint between each thigh and drumstick, cutting through the tendons without separating the two pieces.

“Serve a plain, uncondimented pilaf or parboiled and steamed rice as an accompaniment.”

Ingredients:

  • 20 to 25 large, firm, crisp garlic cloves, peeled without crushing, parboiled for 5 minutes, and drained
  • 60cl / 1 pint veal or chicken stock
  • 4 chicken legs (thighs and drumsticks attached)
  • Salt, pepper
  • 50g / 1.5 ounces butter
  • 1 lemon, peeled (all white inner peel removed), thinly slices, seeds removed
  • 2 tablespoons flour
  • 15cl / 0.25 pint white wine

“Poach the parboiled garlic cloves for about 40 minutes in the stock, covered, kept at a slight simmer.

“Color the seasoned chicken legs in butter over medium heat (20-25 minutes) and transfer them to an oven casserole. Strain the stock to remove the garlic cloves, taking care not to damage them. Scatter the garlic over the chicken pieces, distribute the lemon slices, and put the casserole aside, covered, until the sauce is prepared.

“Remove any excess fat from the pan in which the chicken was browned (leaving just enough to absorb the flour), add the flour and cook, stirring, over low heat for a few moments. Deglaze with the white wine over high heat, stirring and scraping with a wooden spoon; add the stock, and pour into a small saucepan: this is important, the small surface permitting a more rapid and complete skimming and degreasing of the sauce while preventing, at the same time, an exaggerated reduction. Skim for about 15 minutes, removing any traces of loose fat from the surface with absorbent paper. Pour the sauce over the chicken and its garnish and cook, covered, in a 375F / 190C oven for 40 to 45 minutes. The lemon will have completely disappeared into the sauce; the garlic cloves should be absolutely intact with a consistency of melting purée; the sauce must be tasted to be believed.”

…He’s not kidding.  This dish is sublime. When you press one of these garlic cloves between your tongue and the roof of your mouth, it just kind of goes away in a little soft explosion of the mildest and subtlest imaginable garlic flavor.

Just one warning note about this dish, though. It will almost certainly give you the most aggressively garlicky farts you have ever experienced. (“Technicolor farts,” Peter calls them.) If you’re going to be in an enclosed space within eight hours or so with someone you want to torment, this is the recipe for you. …Otherwise, just make sure everyone in the area gets some, and you can all tease each other about the results when enough time after dinner has gone by.

Enjoy!

(PS: Apologies that we don’t seem to have any shots of either of these dishes in the digital image collection — I think what ones we had were caught in a disk crash some time back. We’re going to be cooking both of these next week so we can get new shots of them. Meanwhile, please bear with the stock photography…)

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Whitefruit
Cuisines and Foods of the Middle KingdomsFood, restaurants and cookingMiddle KingdomsWriting

From the (theoretically) forthcoming CUISINES AND FOODS OF THE MIDDLE KINGDOMS: Whitefruit

by Diane Duane

(Since in the wake of TOTF2: The Landlady people have already started noodging at me for a MK cookbook, I guess I’m going to have to start making notes. Might as well start here…)

The whitefruit (Darthene andénne, Arlene and N. Arlene onten, Steldene emdenet) is instantly recognizable as a member of genus Capsicum – part of the Solanaceae or nightshade family, in which the Earth-based chilies / chiles are all included.

If we stick to Terran-style taxonomy (and why not, for the time being), the main Middle Kingdoms-based whitefruit species (Capsicum albifructans medioregnis) would likely most closely correspond to Capsicum annuum x chinense – a naturally hybridized species sharing traits of the jalapeño and the Habanero. The heat of the main species can vary wildly between not too horrific (Scoville 2500-5000) and it’ll-fry-you-like-an-egg (Sco 500,000 and upwards).

The original wild whitefruit species come from the colder mountainous regions of the Middle Kingdoms’ south, and it’s generally agreed that the best ones are grown in southern Darthen and Steldin; the closer to the Highpeaks, the better. The plant prefers poor soil – glacial if possible – and a somewhat adversarial climate featuring bright sunshine (though not necessarily heat) and cold winters. They prefer a bit of altitude and tend not to grow well in the milder north, giving rise to the very old saying “No [white] fruit north of the Road” – suggesting that the Kings’ Road marks both the upper edge of the area for successful cultivation, and that southerners transplanted to the [politically and meteorologically] hotter climes of the North may not necessarily prosper.

The white color of these chiles – a bit unusual on our Earth – is the normal color in the Kingdoms, with light greens reminiscent of mild Hungarian chiles, and darker Jalapeño-ish greens, being not quite as common. Yellow, red, purple and black cultivars are rare, and prized as much as ornamentals as for culinary use; but generally they don’t match the heat of the white breeds.

Naturally, in the Kingdoms as here, there are people who prize the fruit more for its heat than its flavor… with the result that some whitefruit cultivars have almost no flavor left at all, but make their way in the markets by their names: “tonguefire,” “Dragonbreath,” et cetera and ad infinitum. The single flame-colored cultivar able to match the hottest of the whites (heading for the low Sco 1-millions) commands high prices at market. But unscrupulous stallholders are known to take advantage of careless buyers by substituting milder lookalike fruits, giving rise to another saying: “Don’t see red without tasting first”.

At the culinary end: Steldene cooking favors whitefruit so strongly that it’s hard to find any food east of the Stel and south of the Road that doesn’t contain it. (Pastries layered with whitefruit-laced honey are one of the national passions: think of a baklava that bites back.) They also routinely appear in many other sweet dishes, and every kind of meat preparation imaginable, both as cooking ingredient and independent condiment. The present King of Arlen picked up a serious taste for whitefruit during his outlaw days on the run in Steldin, and is constantly badgering his spouses to bring him some home when they’re out that way on business, or near the better market towns in southern Darthen. (TDISu, TOTF1, TOTF2)

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French toast with berries
Food, restaurants and cookingTravel

French Toast As Served On Five Railroads

by Diane Duane

(I was hunting around for the below quote from James D. Porterfield’s classic cookbook/research book Dining By Rail, and found that its original online location had vanished. This post appears at my Tumblr as well, but because of the change to data management permissions over there, I’ve reposted it here.)

(PS: this is a real passion for me. When Peter and I are on the rails over on this side of things, we always head straight to the dining car and spend most of the trip there. The windows are bigger, for one thing. But the people-watching is also superior, and the food on some European railways – especially on the SBB, the Swiss National Railways – is always at least really good, and often superb, even in these days of cutbacks. Anyway, I collect old railway recipes from both sides of the Atlantic, and cook them when I can. These are fabulous — especially the Santa Fe’s recipe — and the Northern Pacific’s dedicated French toast bread is worth making at any time.)

A predominantly male ridership, in a time when dietary health concerns were not voiced, assured beefsteak its perennial place as the most popular food item on dining-car menus of transcontinental trains. Aside from the quality of the cut, however (where the Union Pacific, with its ready access to the stockyards at Omaha, Nebraska, surely prevailed), distinction could only be established with cosmetics. Thus, the Cotton Belt Route topped its steaks with a pimento cut to the distinctive shape of its logo, and the Union Pacific – leaving nothing to chance – served its steaks with a large fried onion ring, unique for its coating of potato flour and potato meal.

 

In meeting the demand for the second-most-requested item, apple pie, the railroads played up whatever apple of the season was grown by their shippers. Beyond that rather important distinction, only a pie’s crust and toppings could differ, as the nutmeg sauce that topped Fred Harvey’s French apple pies and the sweet pastry crust of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad attest.

 

It fell, then, to French toast to become the most popular menu item that was both common to the various railroads, yet creatively distinctive. And as the samples below demonstrate, chefs responded with some dazzling variations on the classic formula of stale bread soaked in an egg-and-milk wash, then fried. These frequently requested recipes were distributed to patrons to share with others, giving special meaning to the concept of “word-of-mouth” marketing. The Northern Pacific Railway went so far as to develop a flavorful bread used for its French toast, one suitable for use with all the recipes provided.

TOAST BREAD (NORTHERN PACIFIC)

BEFORE YOU BEGIN

You’ll need: large mixing bowl, medium mixing bowl

two 8″ x 4″ bread pans

Preheat oven to 375 degrees

Preparation time: 21h hours

Yield: 2 loaves

  • 2 pkgs. active dry yeast
  • 3 Tbsp. sugar
  • ¾ cup warm water
  • 1 & ½ cups warm milk
  • 1 Tbsp. dry malt
  • 2 Tbsp. shortening
  • 5-5 ½ cups all purpose flour
  • 1 Tbsp. salt

In large bowl, combine yeast with sugar and warm water and let stand for 8-10 minutes. Add milk, salt, dry malt, and shortening. Mix at low speed until blended.

Add 3 cups of flour and beat thoroughly. Using a wooden spoon, gradually stir in enough of remaining flour to make a moderately stiff dough. On floured surface, knead dough until smooth and elastic. Place in greased bowl, turning to grease top. Cover and let rise until doubled, about 40 minutes. Punch down dough, divide in half, and let rest for 10 minutes. Form loaves and place in the greased bread pans. Let rise again until doubled, about 35 minutes. Bake for 40 minutes.

For the best French toast, allow bread to become stale by storing in a paper bag at room temperature for 2-3 days. If bread is still moist when sliced, expose each side to air for up to an hour before using. Slice as directed by the individual recipes.

NORTHERN PACIFIC FRENCH TOAST

BEFORE YOU BEGIN

You’ll need: shallow dish, large skillet, Heat oil for frying to hot

Preparation time: 20 minutes

Yield: 1 serving

  • 2 slices bread
  • 2 eggs, slightly beaten
  • ½ cup milk
  • 1 Tbsp. sugar
  • ¼ tsp. salt
  • ¼ tsp. cinnamon butter or shortening to fry

Cut bread into ½-inch slices and cut slices in half diagonally. Mix eggs, milk, sugar, salt, and cinnamon well in a shallow dish. Dip bread into mixture. Fry it in a little butter or shortening until golden brown on both sides. Serve hot with topping of your choice.

SOO LINE SPECIAL FRENCH TOAST

BEFORE YOU BEGIN

You’ll need: deep fryer, shallow dish

Preheat frying oil to hot

Preparation time: 30 minutes

Yield: 1 serving

  • 2 slices bread
  • 1 egg, well beaten
  • pinch salt
  • 3 oz. light cream

Cut bread in ½-inch slices and cut slices in half diagonally. In a shallow dish, make a batter of well-beaten egg, salt, cream, and sugar. Dip bread in batter and fry to a golden brown in hot, deep fat. Remove and drain. Sprinkle with fruit, maple syrup, or honey and serve immediately.

PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD FRENCH TOAST

BEFORE YOU BEGIN

You’ll need: electric mixer, mixing bowl, large skillet, paper towels

Heat oil for frying to hot

Preparation time: 30 minutes

Yield: 4 servings

  • 8 slices white bread, cut 3/8 inch thick
  • 1 & ½ cups milk
  • pinch salt
  • 2 oz. butter, at room temp
  • 3 Tbsp. powdered sugar
  • ¼ tsp. vanilla or cinnamon
  • 6 Tbsp. strawberry preserves
  • 3 eggs
  • oil for frying

Spread one side of 4 slices of bread with butter. Spread one side of the other 4 slices of bread with preserves. To make sandwiches, press well together a buttered slice of bread onto a slice spread with preserves. Trim crust carefully and cut each sandwich into four triangles. In a mixer, beat eggs and sugar well together for at least 10 minutes. Add salt, milk, and vanilla or cinnamon and beat well again. Lay small sandwiches in this mixture, carefully turning them over to soak well. Drain on paper towels. Fry in a very little hot oil. Remove when of nice golden brown color and drain. Dust with powdered sugar and serve hot with maple syrup.

FRENCH TOAST, UNION PACIFIC STYLE

BEFORE YOU BEGIN

You’ll need: shallow bowl, large skillet. Heat oil for frying to hot

Preparation time: 15 minutes

Yield: 1 serving

  • 2 slices white bread
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 Tbsp. light cream
  • 1 Tbsp. clarified butter
  • 1 Tbsp. lard
  • powdered sugar

Cut two slices of bread ¾-inch thick and trim crust. Cut diagonally, making four triangular pieces. Beat eggs and cream together well. Dip bread triangles in mixture and fry until golden brown in hot butter and lard. Serve hot and well drained. Top may be sprinkled with powdered sugar if desired.

FRENCH TOAST A LA SANTA FE

This special and renowned recipe, perhaps the best French toast of them all, was perfected by Fred Harvey chefs in 1918 for the Santa Fe Railway’s dining cars. It produces a puffy, golden brown delicacy. The Santa Fe Railway dining-car service, at its peak, provided nearly 1 million breakfasts a year. This item perennially topped the “most popular” list.

BEFORE YOU BEGIN

You’ll need: small mixing bowl, whisk, 12-inch cast iron skillet, paper towels, baking sheet

Preheat oven to 400 degrees

Preparation time: 20 minutes

Yield: 2 servings

  • 2 slices white bread, cut ¾ inch thick
  • 2 eggs
  • pinch salt (optional)
  • ½ cup light cream
  • ½ cup cooking oil

Place cooking oil in skillet, heat to hot. Meanwhile, cut each bread slice diagonally to form four triangles, and set aside.

In small bowl, combine eggs, cream, and salt and beat well. Soak bread thoroughly in egg/cream mixture. Fry soaked bread in hot oil to a golden brown on both sides, about 2 minutes per side. Lift from skillet to clean paper towel and allow to absorb excess cooking oil.

Transfer to baking sheet and place in oven. Bake 4-6 minutes, until bread slices have puffed up. Serve sprinkled with powdered sugar and cinnamon and apple sauce, currant jelly, maple syrup, honey, or preserves, and bacon, ham, or sausage if desired.

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Dave Gemmell's Brownies
Absent friendsBakingFood

Dave Gemmell’s Brownies

by Diane Duane

The recipe isn’t his, but I think of him whenever I make it (which is way too often. Not in terms of thinking about David Gemmell, but in terms of eating the brownies…).

This recipe closely parallels one I always used when Dave would come to visit us in the house on the hill that we were then renting (from Harry Harrison) in Avoca, further east in County Wicklow. Along with the memory of the visits (always delightful: long walks, late nights, a lot of laughing) and the brownies (the record for baking them was four times during one visit) comes the memory of how we “lost” Dave in the bathroom for an hour on one visit, because the household’s complete collection of Calvin & Hobbes books was in there and he’d never come across the characters before. Only the cry of “There are brownies, Dave!” was able to cut the session short.

The recipe is easy and quick to make — the phrase “thrown together” would suit it: just mix everything together, pour into pan, bake —  and produces a result very much like the much-loved “brownies from the box” that the Betty Crocker people used to make in the US. (Maybe they still do? But [assuming they do] I haven’t had more modern ones and don’t know what they’re like these days.)

This recipe is similar to one from AllRecipes.com, but mine is heavier on the cocoa (which is as it should be, if you ask me) and a bit lighter on the flour, producing a brownie a bit on the “squidgy” side. (That’s my preference, and Peter’s. Like yours more cake-y? Add another 1/4 cup of flour to start with and see how that behaves.)  Also: I add conversions to metric  measurements-by-weight for those who like more predictably even results. 

The ingredients:

  • 3 eggs
  • 3/4 cup / 180 ml vegetable oil
  • 1 1/2 cups / 150g sugar
  • 1 tablespoon / 15ml vanilla extract
  • 3/4 cups / 120g flour
  • 1 cup / 60g cocoa
  • 1/2 tsp baking powder
  • 1/4 tsp salt

First butter a 9-inch square baking pan and preheat the oven to 350F / 175 C.

Sift or stir together well the flour and salt…

Measure out the cocoa and baking powder and stir together.

Then combine them with the flour and salt and stir together until the dry mixture has gone a uniform color.

Put the dry ingredients aside for the moment, and measure out the sugar and oil. Beat well together; then add the vanilla and beat that in.

Sugar, oil, vanilla

Add the eggs and beat them in too.

Then dump the dry ingredients into the egg / oil / sugar / vanilla business (or the other way around, if you prefer; it makes absolutely no difference as far as I can tell, I’ve done it both ways, both on purpose and by accident…) and mix mix mix mix mix…

…until it’s all gone pretty and glossy and shiny. It doesn’t have to be absolutely smooth; don’t beat it so much that the gluten in the flour starts to develop. You don’t want that.

Pour the whole business into the baking pan.

And that’s it! Shove it into the oven for 30 minutes and bake.

At the end of half an hour, test it for doneness if you believe in doing such things. (I’ve never bothered. If the brownies rise, they’re done enough for me.)

…And you can see what they look like in the picture at the top. Peter likes sour cream on them, so that’s what we’ve got a pic of. Me, I just cut them up and stuff them in my face.

So go thou and do likewise: and think of Dave Gemmell, perhaps, if you do so. A lovely, dry, funny, talented man. Lost to us too soon, dammit.

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Mycroft's Delight
BakingFoodrecipesSherlock Holmes

Mycroft’s Delight: the cake

by Diane Duane

There’s a widespread headcanon among the writers of Sherlock fanfic (and others in the fandom) that Mycroft Holmes — possibly as an associated phenomenon of an old or longstanding weight problem — is very fond of cake. For some reason, chocolate cake is the favored candidate in these theories. So in 2012 or so, when without warning I  turned up the notes I’d made on this cake when I ran across it in Switzerland in the very late 1990s, my thoughts turned to Mycroft, and the idea that he’d have really liked this one.

I got busy recreating the cake as accurately as I could. In the neighborhood of Sedrun — the tiny town near the Oberalppass where I ran into it — it was referred to simply as an Urner brenntweintorte, suggesting that its ancestor-cake originally came from over the border. (Andermatt is in Canton Uri: Sedrun is in the Graubunden.) I had no luck in getting the recipe from the little confiserie where it was one of the star items, and with reason: I think they suspected me of being a spy for another bakery.

But over time I’ve learned how to pretty accurately analyze what I’m eating, and my notes from my two visits to the little confiserie were pretty detailed… so I don’t have too many qualms about sharing it here. (It’s kind of overdue for that, anyway: it’s been up in a couple of different versions on Tumblr since 2012, but not at my main blog until now.)

I’d say it’s a cake worthy of a Mycroft’s attention. It’s nowhere near as pretty as the original, for which apologies. (I can still see that lovely cake in my mind’s eye. The glaze on top was smooth enough to skate on, and their version had six significantly skinnier layers. It was a beautiful thing.)

So here’s the recipe. I add one caveat in passing. Others who’ve baked the cake have sometimes found the initial batter overly thick / dry. There’s a more extensive note about this here, but the problem seems to have been something to do with egg size. In  particular, Irish eggs run larger than US ones: so get the biggest “extra large” eggs you can find.)

The recipe:

Double Chocolate Courvoisier Torte with Brandied Buttercream Filling and Two Icings (Brandied Nutella Frosting and Cream Cheese & White Chocolate Ganache Glaze) ...otherwise known as Mycroft’s Delight

Note please: this cake will take the guts of an afternoon to make. Don’t attempt it as a last-minute thing. In particular, there’s no harm in baking the layers, soaking them in the syrup, and then refrigerating them overnight – you can then pick up where you left off with the fillings and icings.

Ingredients come first: directions after.

Also note: this recipe is set up for three 8-inch layers. You can, of course, if you like, do what I did here – bake two 9-inch layers in a springform, then cut them in half crossways and stack them.

Ingredients:

For the cake proper:

  • 6 large eggs
  • 1 cup superfine granulated sugar or fine caster sugar
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract or essence
  • 4 ounces unsweetened baking chocolate, melted and slightly cooled
  • ½ cup good quality cocoa
  • 1 cup flour, sifted
  • ½ teaspoon baking powder
  • ½ teaspoon powdered cinnamon
  • ¼ teaspoon mace
  • ½ teaspoon orange extract and 1 teaspoon orange zest, crushed as smooth as possible in a mortar (or if you’re lucky enough to have access to it, a half teaspoon of orange zest puree)
  • A few grinds of fresh nutmeg (about 1/8 teaspoon if we’re being picky about it)

For the soaking syrup:

  • ¼ cup sugar
  • 1/3 cup water
  • 2 tablespoons Courvoisier cognac (alternately, you can substitute a good brandy: Hennessey, etc)

For the buttercream frosting base / filling:

  • 3 cups confectioners’ sugar / icing sugar
  • 2/3 cup unsalted butter
  • 2 large egg yolks
  • 4 tablespoons Courvoisier or brandy (whichever you used above)

(A note in passing: you will be dividing this in half. Half goes in between the layers; the other half gets Nutella mixed into it and goes on the sides of the cake.)

For the brandied Nutella side-frosting:

  • 4 ounces Nutella, warmed
  • 2 ounces melted milk or dark chocolate
  • 1 tablespoon Courvoisier or brandy, as above
  • 2 teaspoons cocoa powder

For the ganache / cream cheese glaze:

  • 1 recipe white chocolate ganache (see below)
  • 3-4 ounces Philadelphia or similar cream cheese (plain Neufchatel will also work)

The white chocolate ganache proper:

  • 4 ounces premium-quality white chocolate, finely chopped
  • 1/3 cup heavy cream
  • ¾ tablespoon unsalted butter, at room temperature and cut into 3 pieces

…So let’s take this one thing at a time.

First of all, make the cake layers.

Butter and flour three 8-inch cake pans/tins, even if they’re nonstick. (To prevent the cake acquiring pale patches during baking, you can mix a teaspoon of cocoa with each couple of teaspoons of the flour you use to prep the pans.)

In a mixer with the whisk attachment, beat together the eggs, sugar, vanilla, orange extract and orange zest, until this business is light and fluffy – usually ten to twenty minutes. At the end of this process, slow the speed down and add the dry spices.

When these have been combined, stop the mixer and alternately fold in by hand the combined, remaining dry ingredients and the melted chocolate.

Preheat the oven to 350F / 175C. Bake the layers for about fifteen minutes until done (check for doneness with a skewer if you have any doubts). Remove the layers from the oven and allow to cool for at least 15-20 minutes: then bang the pans on the worktop to loosen things up, and turn the layers out onto a rack to cool completely (usually 30-45 minutes).

When completely cool, use a skewer to poke twenty or so little holes in the top of each layer. Do your best not to go all the way through the bottom of the layer. Put the layers on a cookie sheet or other waterproof surface to prepare for the next stage.

Now make the soaking syrup:

Boil the sugar and water together for five minutes. Remove from heat and allow to cool. When cool, stir in the cognac or brandy (whichever you used) and set aside until the layers are ready.

When they are, pour the syrup carefully over the tops of the layers so that it soaks in through the holes. Use a pastry brush to paint any excess syrup evenly over the tops of the cake layers.

Now set the layers aside while you work on the filling and icings.

Make the buttercream filling:

In the mixer bowl, using the “normal” beater or paddle, combine the butter, icing sugar, egg yolks and brandy, and beat like crazy for about ten minutes until perfectly smooth (beat longer if you need to).

Scoop out half the buttercream and use it to “butter” the bottom and middle layers of the cake: then stack them. Press down evenly and gently on them (I usually use a cookie sheet for this) to even out the layers and the filling.

Now make the Nutella-and-buttercream side frosting

Add the cocoa, melted chocolate, brandy and Nutella to the remaining buttercream mixture, and beat very well. Since the goal is for this mixture to stick to the sides of the cake and not run straight off onto the serving plate, check the texture and beat in some extra cocoa if necessary to thicken the frosting until it’s tractable.

Smooth the sides of the cake with the flat of a knife if necessary to deal with any buttercream that’s oozed out the sides. Use the Nutella frosting mixture to coat the sides of the cake. Also frost the upper edge and a little ways up onto the top surface of the cake with the Nutella mixture if you can. If you have enough to frost the whole top without the side frosting being too thin, that’s great: it’ll look better.

Finally, make the white chocolate ganache and cream cheese glaze

Prepare a large bowl with some cold water and ice cubes in it. Then break up the white chocolate into as many pieces as possible, and put them in a heatproof bowl that will fit comfortably in the bigger bowl that contains the cold water and the ice cubes.

Bring the heavy cream to a boil. Then pour it over the white chocolate. Working with a whisk or spatula, gently stir the chocolate and cream together until the white chocolate is completely melted. When the ganache is smooth, stir in the butter.

Now cool the ganache by putting the its bowl into the larger one and stirring constantly so that it doesn’t harden. After about five minutes of this, start beating in the cream cheese by forkfuls. You’ll probably need to whisk it at the end of this process to get rid of the last few lumps. Finally, add a tablespoon or so of brandy to make it easier to work with. (You can correct the thickness of the ganache back and forth by beating in more cream cheese or a little more brandy until it reaches the consistency you’re after.) Spread and/or drizzle this mixture over the top of the cake until it’s evenly covered.

Once all this craziness is finished, you may want to refrigerate the cake for half an hour to stabilize everything a little.

Serve in thin slices. A shot of brandy on the side (to cut the incredible richness) and a double espresso wouldn’t hurt, either.

Enjoy!

And by the way: there’s fanfic to go with the cake.

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