Pierogi

Hi folks,

I made pierogis today and I was cooking from 1pm to 6pm, so...I won't be making these again--too labor intensive--but in any case, here's what I did:

(this is a Martha Stewart recipe from her April 2010 issue--her mother's recipe)

Whisk together 1 egg and 2 tbs sour cream until smooth.

Whisk in 1 c water and 1 c whole milk.

Stir in 5 c flour, one cup at a time

Turn dough out onto a lightly floured work surface and knead for 10 minutes, until the dough comes together. The dough will be quite sticky...try not to over-flour, though..

Let dough rest underneath an overturned bowl for 1 hour while you make your fillings:

Potato

Peel and quarter 2.5 lbs yukon gold potatoes and put into a pot of cold water, season with salt and bring to a boil and boil for 10 minutes until fork tender. Pass the potatoes through a ricer (or do what I did and mash with a fork) and add 4oz cream cheese and 2tbs butter, salt & pepper to taste.

Cabbage

Core and quarter a 3lb head of green cabbage and steam in an inch or so of water until very tender, 30-40 minutes. Let cool and pass through a meat grinder. If you don't have a meat grinder like most people, do what I did and just chop finely with a knife. Add 4oz cream cheese and 2tbs butter and salt & pepper to taste.

Roll out your dough to 1/8inch thick and cut out with a 3-inch biscuit cutter or cup. Fill with about 1tbs of filling and pinch to seal. It often looks like you have too much filling to put in such a small amount of dough, but it stretches and holes can be easily patched up with scraps. Put your finished pierogis on a rimmed baking sheet lined with a kitchen towel dusted with corn meal and cover loosely with plastic wrap. Be sure to cover your unrolled dough with plastic wrap too so it doesn't dry out.

Martha says that her mother never reused scraps, but I can't stand throwing away food, so if you haven't used up all your filling and have "run out" of unrolled dough, by all means just re-use.

I like the potato most and now I have a week's worth of lunch and dinner pierogi.. Serve with sour cream. Martha says to serve the cabbage pierogi with brown butter, but I was too exhausted and had enough dishes to clean for the night (including the table I rolled on), so I used sour cream and as far as I'm concerned, sour cream goes with anything.

In conclusion, the pierogi were delicious, but too time consuming for a student like me to make.. especially since finals are just around the corner. Also, I'm not too sure I'm a huge fan of pierogi..I like the things they're filled with, but the dough is always just too stodgy for my taste. This could be attributed to the fact that I grew up on the thin dough of Chinese dumplings and won tons..Maybe they'd taste better wrapped up in pre-made dumpling wrappers (and less time consuming too)...not sure, but I think I'm set with pierogi for the next few months..

much love,

Patty

P.S. David is in Deutschland, and appears to be MIA from the blogosphere. Here's to hoping he gets internet soon.

L'chiem Day 2

Matzo ball soup, day two:

-Skimmed off all the fat on the chicken soup--it's disgustingly easy how it peels off when chilled..

-And I ground a generous (for me, at least) amount of tolicherry pepper (merci, David :> It is indeed very fragrant and wayyyy better than the crap I usually use--I actually like pepper now!) over the top.

>>Tastes much better and cuts the richness and eggyness of the soup indeed.

-Patsy

Mazel!

Just made some matzo ball soup. It didn't turn out as well as I thought it would...kind of bland. The raw matzo ball dough smelled better than it tasted, however, it was a nice foray into the world of Jewish cooking. Here's what I did:

Chicken Soup:

Put two chicken thighs in a large pot, cover with water and 1 tbs salt and bring to a boil. Skim the foam and put in 5 peeled, sliced carrots, and 3 crushed garlic cloves. Boil for 70 minutes, skim the fat and remove the meat off the bones. Return the meat to the pot.

Matzos:

Mix two eggs, 1tbs chicken fat, 1tsp salt, 1tsp ice water, and 1/2 c matzo meal. Chill 15 minutes. Bring a saucepan of water to a boil, drop in 1 inch balls and boil for 35 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon and balls may be kept in an airtight container for up to 3 days.

Things I should have done:

-Bought celery for the chicken soup

-Not put the carrots in for the whole time--I was supposed to put it in after 30minutes of cooking

-Put in a chopped onion in the chicken soup--the onions I had at home were molded, which I found out after I had already started the soup; I cut one open and it smelled like POO. BEWARE OF ROTTEN ONIONS!!

-Used plain matzos--I used egg matzos, which taste better for eating as a snack than the plain, but I think they made the matzo balls overly egg-y.

-Added some pepper to my bowl of soup, I think I needed something fresh/zesty tasting to cut the fatty-ness/chickeny-ness of the soup

All in all, this has been a nice lesson in the world of chicken soup. Now I am going to try and make my soup work, as I have a couple days worth of leftovers..

-Patricia

Crepes

Bonjour tout le monde!

I just made a batch of crepes:

(recipe courtesy of Jacques & Julia)

1c flour

1 egg

2 egg yolks

3/4 c milk

3/4 c water

1tbs sugar

1/3 c melted unsalted butter

a pinch of salt

whisk or blend in a blender all the ingredients and let sit at room temperature for 30 minutes.

Heat a tablespoon of butter in a wide bottomed skillet over medium high heat. Ladle 1/3 c of batter into the skillet and shake vigorously to coat the bottom. Cook until nicely browned and flip and cook other side until nicely browned. Crepes may be frozen.

My phone no longer sends images, so I can't take pictures anymore, but I'm sure ya'll know what a crepe looks like. I just filled mine with some peach jam and rolled it up, but you can fill a crepe with whatever you like--ice cream, whipped cream, custard, etc.

stay classy,

-patsy

Our Sundae Best

It's a really wonderful thing, thinking of a decadent ice cream sundae: one with tons of toppings and whipped cream, drizzled with warm chocolate, caramel, and butterscotch sauces. For most, the assemblage of a sundae involves a trip to the local grocery store for the purchase of canned chocolate sauces and mass-manufactured, preservative-laden ice creams.

Now don't get me wrong, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. The kids love DIY-sundaes, and it gives party guests tons of agency to do what they want with their dessert. I wanted to take my two favorite elements, the ice cream and caramel sauce, and do them at home my way. And let me tell you what, folks, these two fairly simple recipes have lit the pilot light for future exploration in the sundae toppings and construction department, so stay tuned. These two recipes are only the beginning of greater, more decadent confections on the horizon.

Let's start with our ice cream, since it will take the most amount of time:

Batterie de cuisine:

• Small saucepan, heavy grade
• Ice cream maker
• Sieve or other fine strainer

For the ice cream:

• 1 C heavy whipping cream
• 4 large egg yolks
• 1/2 C sugar, divided
• 1 C buttermilk
• 1/2 C creme fraiche
• 1 T fresh lemon juice
• 1/4 t salt

Dissolve half the sugar into the cream in a small heavy saucepan and scald. Meanwhile, whisk together remaining sugar and egg yolks in a medium bowl until blended.



Temper the egg yolks by gradually adding the hot cream and sugar mixture and quickly whisking it, a bit at a time. After fully incorporated, add the mixture back into the saucepan and heat on medium-low, stirring constantly.



After about three minutes on heat, the custard should be able to coat the back of a spoon. Remove it from heat and pour through a fine strainer into a clean bowl. This is a crucial step that ensures you won't have any scrambled eggs in your final product, often a by-product of the hot cream and egg tempering process. Cool the custard to room temperature. (This is an essential step! You must wait for the mixture to cool completely before adding the buttermilk, or the buttermilk will curdle.)



When the mixture is around room temperature, whisk in the buttermilk, creme fraiche, lemon juice, and salt. Reserve about a 1/2 C of the custard in a small, freezer-safe bowl. Chill the remaining custard in the refrigerator, covered, anywhere from six hours to overnight. Cover the smaller portion of custard with plastic wrap and place directly into the freezer.

To prepare the custard for the machine, remove both bowls from the refrigerator and freezer. With a small paring knife, dislodge the frozen custard and incorporate into the chilled custard until there is no further evidence of frozen particles. Process mixture in ice cream machine according to manufacturer's instructions. With the self-freezing units like the unit pictured below, I like to leave the machine running for about five minutes before I add the mixture.



Chill in the freezer after processing at least an additional six hours. I've found that chilling the near-frozen, soft serve-like custard in a 9"x9" pan and tightly covering the very top layer with plastic wrap helps in the freezing process. After that anxious six hours, you can transfer your ice cream to a more permanent, sealable vessel. Taking an ice cream out of the machine and freezing it directly in the vessel will result in a rock-hard. icy iced cream that's certainly not appealing in texture.



Serve after a minimum of two additional hours in the freezer and make sure to consume within five days of initial freezing.

Yield: scant 1.5 pints

And now for the sauce!

I wanted to create something inspired by recent rumblings from the food world: the almost yin/yang-ness of salt and sugar harmonized in dessert form. Incarnations of such pairings include chocolate-covered pretzels, bacon chocolate, and salted caramel. I consider these pairings to be some of the most marvelous things on the menus of today's happening restaurants. It's as if somewhere along the paths of Candyland, Princess Lolli met up with her long lost Prince Umami and together they bore a love child.



At any rate, I chose to do a salted caramel sauce adapted from one of my favorite lipid-laden recipe tomes, the aptly-titled Fat, by Jennifer McLagan.



A homemade salted caramel sauce takes only a bit of your time, notwithstanding a certain amount of patience. Remember that when you're dealing with sugar and butter, it takes only a few moments to scorch! (This isn't the time to watch Guy Fieri playing with his squirt bottles while you impatiently wait for sugar to melt)

Batterie de cuisine:

• Small, heavy grade saucepan
• Wooden spoon

For the sauce:

• 3/4 C granulated sugar
• 1/2 C plus 2 T whipping cream, room temperature (the 35% butterfat variety)
• 2/3 C salted butter, diced*

*NB: While Chef McLagan has recommended the use of salted butter to provide the salted flavor for the sauce, I prefer to use unsalted and to add sea salt near the end, to taste. This ensures that you have your own agency in the sauce's nuanced saline profile.



Chop the butter up. Don't worry--it needn't be pretty. It's quite an odd measurement of butter that doesn't fit neatly into the demarcated tablespoon measurements. Consider it to be between 10 1/2 T and 11 T.



Start to heat the sugar on medium-low heat in the saucepan until the sugar is completely melted. This takes practice and constant vigilance. A few, gentle swipes of the spoon will ensure that the sugar more uniformly melts, while too many vigorous schlags will spatter sugar on the side of the saucepan and cause unsightly browning and crystallization. Discretion is the better part of valor, I'll say that much on caramel. Take the sugar off the heat and dip the bottom of the saucepan in cold water to halt the cooking process. Next, add the cream slowly. It will foam and spatter, so add it slowly. Like really slowly. You will be left with a substance similar to the following if you get too excited and add the cream too quickly:



I wish I could explain to you gastronomically what is occurring in the photo. All I can say is that cold cream will quickly harden the sugar syrup, which is busily transferring its heat to the cream. Assuming you did alright with that last step and you began with room-temperature cream, we'll continue by adding in the marvelous quantity of butter which I've evaluated to be completely appropriate for this recipe. (Any stalactites on the whisk can be remedied by low heat and a bit of stirring)



It should resemble Anne Burrell's skin tone to some extent, but a little less orangey. For those that may be unfamiliar with my favorite Food Network star's obsession with the Mystic Spritz, see below:



Once all the butter is melted, you can either sprinkle a few dashes of sea salt to taste or leave it be if you've used salted butter. Allow it to cool a bit before pouring it on the wonderful "cultured" ice cream we made beforehand. The combination of something tart, and something that's both sweet and salty comprise a wonderfully-decadent flavor profile sure to wow any discerning palate.



I hope you've enjoyed this foray into the world of sundaes. You can apply the techniques applied in making homemade ice cream to other flavors as well. Simply remember that the extra time you spend on homemade products will always manifest good things in your life and on your tongue.

Keep it classy, y'all!

-Davey <3

Absinthe Minded

So perhaps you've heard that Absinthe, the famed liquor harvested from the grand wormwood, has made its return into the United States after legislature lifted a more than 90-year ban on the hooch in 2007. I might also add, on the day I turned 21, I made it a specific point to purchase my own bottle of the stuff no matter the horrific cost. I wanted to relive the Absinthe Parisienne experience of Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Pound, and the other expats during the '20s and '30s. I wound up choosing La Fée. It kinda sweetened the deal that the bottle also included an Absinthe spoon suited to traditional pouring service.



While the lore and legend of seeing green fairies may be taking it a bit too far, Absinthe is definitely a very sensory experience. It's reminiscent of licorice, with anisey, herbaceous notes. While vodka, rum, tequila, and gin are generally around 40% alcohol by volume (80-proof), Absinthe is generally goes far beyond. La Fée Absinthe Parisienne is 68% abv or 136-proof. Discretion is the better part of valor, folks. But if you're keen to enjoy this wonderfully-pungent libation, it's best to start with the basic preparation.

It's best to use a slotted spoon and a goblet. Pour about a shot of Absinthe into the goblet and suspend the spoon on the top of the glass. Lay one or two sugar cubes along the slots. You'll also need some chilled bottled water for the service. Alternatively if you've got great tap water in your area, use that. Regardless of what kind of water you use, it needs to be COLD. Here's what your set up will look like, minus the Absinthe in the glass:



Next, pour the water over the sugar cubes and watch the sugar absorb the water and slowly begin to crumble into the water. The absinthe, sugar and water mixture will look cloudy and green. The French refer to this clouding as "la louche" in an almost ritualistic manner. After you have diluted the absinthe sufficiently, you can go ahead and add the remaining sugar that has not seeped through the spoon slots and give it a healthy stir. Enjoy plain and simple, with no garnish or further additions.





While many are beginning to come up with formulations for cocktails involving Absinthe, I think it is best that one experience Absinthe in its traditional form diluted in water with sugar first. It's surprisingly easy to drink for those who enjoy the flavor of anise. Drinking absinthe in a shot form will certainly offer a far different experience, which I would believe to be more reminiscent of battery acid than of expatriate literature.

One application:
David Lebovitz' Absinthe Cake

I found this recipe after Patsy did her Rolos and recommended this blog to me. Chef Lebovitz was at the Helm of Chef Alice Water's Chez Panisse for a number of years doing the pastries and sweets. In my eyes, he required no further qualifications. It didn't hurt, though, that he spent a number of years in France and isn't afraid of taking our American sweets and giving them a bit of a gourmet touch.

While I haven't really heard much of putting alcohol in cakes aside from the rum in [kind-of-cake but not really] tiramisu, this sounded like a fun one to try. I really like the anise flavor and I've never really used the whole seeds to bake with before. It sounded almost like a nice, light breakfast bread with a glaze. So let us begin!

Batterie de cuisine:
9" loaf pan
spice mill, coffee grinder, or mortar and pestle
electric mixer, free-standing or stand variety
wooden skewer or toothpick
citrus zester or grater
parchment paper

For the cake:
1 1/4 t anise seeds (whole, to be ground)
1 1/4 C cake flour (Davey loves King Arthur-brand unbleached cake flour!)
1/2 C plus 2 T pistachio or almond meal (good luck finding pistachio meal--Bob's Red Mill of Oregon makes Almond Meal that is commercially-available at most specialty or gourmet food stores)
2 t baking powder (Chef Lebovitz recommends aluminum-free varieties)
1/4 t salt
8 T unsalted butter, softened
1 C granulated sugar
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1/4 C whole milk
1/4 C Absinthe
1 orange

For the glaze:
1/4 C granulated sugar
1/4 C Absinthe

And into battle we go!

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Butter the loaf pan and line with parchment paper along the bottom. Line the parchment paper with butter to ensure an easy release as the cake cools after baking.

Next grind the spices using your preferred method, either by mortar and pestle or machine, until relatively fine. Whisk together the cake flour, meal, baking powder, salt, and anise seeds. Set aside.



Beat the butter and sugar in a separate bowl until light and fluffy, about a minute or two. Next, add the eggs one at a time until completely incorporated. In a small measuring cup, mix the milk and Absinthe together and dust with a few swipes of an orange zester or fine grater.



Next, blend half of the dry ingredients into the beaten butter mixture, and then the entirety of the milk and absinthe mixture. By hand, add the remaining portion of dry ingredients to the wet and blend until no dry pockets of flour remain, being careful not to overmix.



Pour into prepared, parchment-lined loaf pan and bake for 40 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean and the cake resists slightly when pressed. Allow to cool for 30 minutes.



To prepare the glaze, stir the Absinthe and sugar until just mixed, adding orange zest if you care to.



Unmold the cake onto a cooling rack and gently poke 50 holes evenly spaced throughout the top of the cake with a skewer or toothpick. When ready to serve, spoon glaze over top and allow to drizzle into drilled holes and down the sides. Slice and plate. Because this is an uncooked glaze with raw alcohol, it is probably not the best dessert for children, nor is it the best for cheap dates.



A final word of warning as I close this oh-so-lengthy blog on Absinthe: it will indeed IGNITE. In other words, know how such a fluid will behave around an open flame.



Keep it classy, y'all!

-Davey <3

Hoecakes Part II

So, since I have eaten all the hoecakes I made on Sunday, and had no food left to eat in the refrigerator except a slice of bread, two eggs and a bag of oranges, I decided to make more hoecakes, but this time with Martha's recipe, and sans bacon fat (I need to cut it out with all the animal fat for a few days; butter, bacon--it's too much for me).

I must say, I enjoyed these hoecakes much more than Paula's recipe. They have more sugar, so they're sweeter (duh..), but I'm a "northerner" (more like a Californian, but I digress) and I like my cornbread sweet, so sue me. They were moister because they used all buttermilk (and no water). I made these from memory because I was too lazy to take my computer out of my backpack and turn it on, so I used 1 1/4c buttermilk instead of 1 1/2c, so my batter was quite thick, but it still tasted good, my hoecakes were just a tad on the thick side.. and I only used 1/4 c. sugar, which I think was quite enough.

So there you have it, Go Martha.

-Patty Lu

p.s. where is david?