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May 16, 2012
Recipe for Torchy's new avocado sauce
Last month, for the first time in three years, Torchy’s Tacos, the rapidly growing Austin-based restaurant company that now has about a dozen stores (with almost as many in the works in Dallas alone), added a number of new tacos to the menu, including the “Reservoir Dogs”-inspired Mr. Pink and Mr. Orange, which is filled with blackened salmon, grilled corn and black bean relish, queso fresco, cilantro and avocado sauce.
We persuaded owner Mike Rypka to let go of the recipe for the avocado sauce, but the rest of the taco is up to you to re-create.
Torchy’s Avocado Sauce
2 cups oil, divided
1 jalapeño pepper
1 serrano pepper
4 tomatillos, husk removed
2 tsp. diced garlic cloves
1/4 cup lime juice
2 avocados, peeled and seeded
2 1/4 tsp. kosher salt
3/4 tsp. black pepper
1/8 cup diced onions
In a cast iron skillet, heat 1 cup oil to about 350 degrees. Fry whole jalapeño and serrano peppers for two minutes or until golden brown. Set aside on paper towel.
Put remaining ingredients in large blender or food processor and purée. Add peppers and blend until mixed well. Makes 1 quart. Refrigerate for up to 5 days.
— Mike Rypka
Photo by Aimee Wenske.
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February 14, 2012
Contigo's alternate take Valentine's Day dining
In last week’s 360 entertainment tab, freelancer Claire Canavan gave us a glimpse at the friendship, world travels and culinary aesthetic that went into Contigo, the mostly outside restaurant near Airport Boulevard in East Austin that taking a slightly different approach to Valentine’s Day, which is easily one of the busiest eating-out nights of the year.
Instead of offering prix-fixe menus or candle-lit dining, the restaurant owned by Ben Edgerton, left, and Andrew Wiseheart will serve a communal, family-style dinner. “Singles, couples, or larger groups can socialize with their friends or meet new people while passing plates of roasted chicken with turnips and greens, preserved lemon ricotta gnocchi, or creme puffs with lavender honey ice cream,” Canavan writes. “It’s an event that makes perfect sense for Contigo. The name — “with you” in Spanish — reflects the restaurant’s constant focus on community and hospitality.”
Like many parents with small kids, we’ll be rocking Valentine’s Day at home tonight, but I have a head of cauliflower in the fridge that’s just begging to be cheesed up in a cauliflower gratin. Thanks for Contigo chef Andrew Wiseheart for sharing the recipe.
Cauliflower Gratin
For the cream reduction:
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 Tbsp. olive oil
1/2 cup white wine
2 cups cream
For gratin
2 cups cauliflower florets, blanched
1 Tbsp. sliced almonds
1 tsp. capers
1 Tbsp. Parmesan cheese, plus more for garnish
1 tsp. currants, rehydrated in white wine
1 tsp. reduced balsamic vinegar
In a small saute pan over medium high heat, saute garlic cloves in olive oil, add wine and reduce until almost dry. Add cream and reduce by a third.
In a medium sauce pan over medium heat, combine the cream reduction with the rest of the ingredients until cheese is melted and cauliflower is glazed. Spoon into a cast iron serving dish and top with Parmesan.
— Chef Andrew Wiseheart, Contigo Austin
Photo by Ralph Barrera.
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January 11, 2012
Pizza soup, anyone? Recipe for David Bull's pepperoni soup
In today’s food section, I explore the world of main-course soups that are inspired by main courses, such as lasagna, enchiladas, pumpkin ravioli, curry and pizza.
Yes, pizza soup.
David Bull doesn’t call one of his most popular soups at Second Bar and Kitchen “pizza soup,” but he’s not offended if you say his grandma’s pepperoni soup tastes like pizza in a bowl.
You can find recipes for lasagna soup, yam curry and noddle soup and Kielbasa, kale and potato soup in the story online, and here’s the recipe for Bull’s pepperoni soup.
Pepperoni Soup
2 Tbsp. butter
3 Tbsp. canola oil
2 cups pepperoni, cubed
2 cups yellow onions, diced
1 cup celery, diced
1 Tbsp. fresh garlic, minced
1/4 tsp. garlic powder
1/2 tsp. garlic salt
1/4 tsp. celery seeds
1/8 tsp. red chile flakes
2 Tbsp. fresh basil, chopped
1 Tbsp. fresh oregano, chopped
1 1/2 Tbsp. fresh parsley, chopped
1 cup tomato puree
1/4 cup Sauternes wine (a sweet white French wine)
2 cups tomato juice
1 cup tomato sauce (Bull uses pomodoro)
1 cup water
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
For garnish:
Shredded mozzarella cheese
Grilled garlic bread croutons, for garnish
In a medium sauce pot over medium heat, add the butter and oil and cook until butter is melted. Add pepperoni cubes and cook to render the fat and flavor out of the pepperoni, about 8 minutes. Add onions, celery, garlic, garlic powder, garlic salt, celery seeds and red chile flakes.
Add the herbs, sweat all the spices/aromatics/vegetables until they are tender, about 10 minutes.
Add the tomato puree. Stir to mix, very well, and continue cooking to toast the tomato puree slightly. Add the Sauternes and deglaze the pot. Continue to cook until the liquid is reduced by half. Add tomato juice, tomato sauce and water. Bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer. Simmer for 20 minutes. Adjust seasoning with salt and pepper. Top with mozzarella cheese and serve with garlic croutons for dipping. Serves 4.
— David Bull, executive chef of Congress, Bar Congress and Second Bar and Kitchen
Top photo by Laura Skelding for the Austin American-Statesman.
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December 16, 2011
Gluten-free thumbprint cookies so good you won't miss the gluten
Cookies, cookies, cookies! I can’t believe I didn’t get a chance to blog about the story I did last week about a cookie swap in Elgin that has been going for more than 15 years and draws about 45 participants and some 4,000 cookies.
That remains the biggest cookie swap I’ve ever been to, but in the past few years, I’ve been to a food blogger cookie swap that isn’t too shabby. I dropped the ball at this year’s swap and didn’t take a single picture, not even of the gluten-free thumbprint cookies I made using homemade Meyer lemon marmalade.
The recipe came from Karen Morgan, the owner of Blackbird Bakery whose first (and beautiful) cookbook came out a year ago. Luckily, her photographer, Knoxy, took the lovely photo at the top of this post so her recipe wouldn’t have to stand alone.
Karen says that these are her favorite holiday cookies, and though they do contain a number of out-of-the-ordinary ingredients, but another gluten-free baker in town, Kate Payne, tells me that Pamela’s Gluten-Free Bread Mix and Flour Blend, which is available at natural food stores like Wheatsville Co-op, is a pretty good substitute when you come across a gluten-free recipe that calls for a number of alternative flours.
Gluten Free Thumbprint Cookies
1/2 cup glutinous rice flour
1/2 cup tapioca flour
1/4 cup potato flour
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/4 cup sorghum flour
1 scant cup confectioner’s sugar
3 Tbsp. packed light brown sugar
1 tsp. guar gum
11 Tbsp. unsalted butter, diced
3 egg yolks
1 1/4 tsp. almond extract
1 tsp. vanilla extract
selection of preserves and marmalades for filling, like blueberry, raspberry, fig,
orange, apricot, strawberry and ginger
Preheat oven to 400 degrees and line two cookie sheets with either parchment paper or silpats.
Combine all the dry ingredients in the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on the lowest setting to combine. Add the diced butter continue to mix on the lowest setting until the mixture looks like damp sand. Add the egg yolks and the extracts and mix on high until the dough folds in on itself.
Using a 1 1/2 retractable ice cream scoop, spoon out the dough and roll into a ball. Repeat until all your dough is transformed. Place on your cookie sheets with an inch in between them, staggering the rows for a nice even bake.
Using your index finger, press an indention into each round. Then carefully fill each indentation with a variety of fillings. Fill just to the top of the cookies.
Bake for 7-10 minutes and the cookies have just taken on a hint of color. Makes 36 cookies.
— Karen Morgan, Blackbird Bakery
Photo by Knoxy.
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November 21, 2011
Cuneo's rum cake is light on the booze, heavy on the nostalgia
It’s been 50 years since Cuneo’s Bakery on Guadalupe Street closed, but people can’t seem to forget the bakery’s legendary rum cake.
Monica Kass Rogers, a longtime food writer in Chicago who digs up long lost recipes for her site, LostRecipesFound.com, received a request for Cuneo’s rum cake earlier this year. She was able to track down Rita Bruton and James Kennedy, whose dad, Ray Kennedy, was the production manager at Cueno’s for many years. After Kennedy left Cuneo’s in the early 1950s, he worked another 25 years at Ms. Johnson’s Bakery. Ray Kennedy was in his 60s when he retired, says his son, James. “A lot of people tried to get him to open a specialty shop, but when we retired, he was ready to be done.”
Ray Kennedy died in 2003, but his children still had the recipe for the famous cake, which the Statesman ran in 1977 and Kass Rogers adapted for home cooks who aren’t baking on a commercial scale.
When Kass Rogers served the cake to guests at her house, she realized why memories of the cake outlasted the bakery. “People were going crazy over that cake,” Kass Rogers says. “It really has something to do with that syrup. … One of my sons says this is now his favorite cake ever.”
Next year, the site will evolve to allow readers to help one another track down lost recipes, but for now, it’s Kass Rogers who gets to hunt down almost forgotten favorites. “Everybody has a recipe that they’ve loved, but lost,” she says. You can read more about Kass Rogers’ hunt for the rum cake - and find stories about other recipes and tell her about one you’ve always wanted to find - at LostRecipesFound.com.
When I got to work this morning, I had an reader email about this article, which ran in Food Matters, that made me laugh.
Thanks so very much for the historic article about Cuneo’s Rum Cake.
My mother was chief deputy county clerk in Longview, Gregg County. She had to come to Austin during the first week of December every year for a conference concerning new laws which would become effective or other such matters pertinent to county clerk operations statewide. I remember it was always the first week of December because she was never home for my birthday.
She always took orders from other courthouse employees for the famous Cuneo’s Rum Cake for upcoming Christmas parties. Every year she would “bootleg” 30 to 40 cakes back to Gregg County. She often commented that if she ever had a wreck with all those rum cakes in her station wagon and their attendant aroma, the highway patrol would lock her up so far in a back cell of the jail they would have to pump her sunlight.
Sterlin Barton Thrall, Texas
Cuneo’s Famous Rum Cake
For cake:
4 cups cake flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
4 cups sugar
3/4 cup butter, room temperature
1 cup shortening
6 eggs
1/2 tsp. lemon extract
1/2 tsp. orange extract
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup milk
For butter-rum syrup:
1 cup sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 cup water
2 Tbsp. corn syrup
2 Tbsp. butter
2 tsp. rum extract
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Generously grease 10-inch angel-food tube pan. Trace and cut out a paper liner for the bottom round of the tube cake pan. Place in the bottom round and grease again over the paper.
Sift together cake flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
In bowl of a standing mixer, beat sugar and butter and shortening together. Slowly (one or two at a time) add eggs in, beating between additions. Beat for three minutes. When batter is fluffy, add extracts. Mix in dry ingredients in two batches, alternating with the milk.
Pour batter into the prepared tube pan and bake for 1 1/2 hours. Test for doneness by poking a toothpick into the center of the cake. When the toothpick comes out clean and crumb-free, the cake is done. (Be sure to bake this for a full 1 1/2 hours at 325 degrees. The cake forms a crust as you bake so touching the top won’t indicate doneness.) Remove cake from oven and let rest for 15 minutes.
While cake is resting, make butter-rum syrup. Stirring constantly, mix sugar, salt, water,corn syrup and butter in small saucepan and heat until syrup begins to thicken and bubble. Remove from heat. Let cool slightly. Mix in rum extract.
Using a sharp knife, loosen cake from sides of the pan. Invert pan onto a foil-covered plate and remove pan center, using a sharp knife as needed to separate pan center from what is now the top of the cake. Remove paper from top of cake. Brush or pour syrup all over cake. Remove cake to a clean platter and serve. Cake keeps well wrapped in foil.
— Adapted from a recipe by Ray Kennedy
Photo by Neal Douglass, Austin History Center.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: Chewing the fat, Cooking, Recipes
June 29, 2011
Lago Vista burger gets national attention in Wall Street Journal
It’s not quite Hatch chile season yet, but a reader alerted me to a burger that people who live in Lago Vista know well: the Hatch chile burger (far left) from Bam’s Roadhouse Grill.
And now, after a big burger spread in the Wall Street Journal earlier this month, people outside the small lake town west of Austin know about it, too.
Toronto-based food writer Chris Nuttall-Smith calls it a “beautifully trashy central Texan contender,” which Bam’s Roadhouse owner George “Bam” Look took as a great compliment.
“What I loved about it was the other four burgers were from chef so-and-so from Boston, Atlanta, Vegas and New York and then there’s little old burger from Lago Vista, Texas,” Look says.
(That’s Michael Schlow, Linton Hopkins, Bradley Ogden and April Bloomfield, who was recently profiled in the New Yorker, if you’re keeping tabs on which so-and-so chefs he’s talking about.)
Look says he’d actually forgotten that anyone with the Wall Street Journal had called until his chef called him one Saturday and said the article was in print. A regular brought in a copy as proof. “I cracked up,” he says. “I couldn’t believe it.”
Stuffed burgers, like the cheese-chile-bacon-filled one featured in the WSJ, are a specialty, but Look says the chicken-fried steak and catfish are just as good. The 66-year-old West Texas native lives in Austin and commutes to Lago Vista to run the restaurant, his first, which he opened eight years ago.
Like many business owners in Lago Vista, Look says he’s fighting the drought and the economy. “If there’s no lake, it hurts. If there’s a flood, it hurts.”
Hopefully, a little love from the Big Apple will help him out a little this summer.
Screen grab from the WSJ.com.
Permalink | Comments (3) | Categories: Cooking, Recipes
June 27, 2011
Eating a big slice of Whoopsy Pie
No reporter likes to have a run a correction, but I’ve never had to run one that tasted as good as this one.
In May, we published a recipe for a Texas Caramel Apple Crunch Pie from Leah Tackitt, an Austinite who had won a pie contest with this dessert. Due to a series of miscommunications, we not only misspelled her last name (sorry about that, Leah), we also printed a recipe that had several errors.
With all the variations on abbreviating teaspoon and Tablespoon — our style calls for using tsp. and Tbsp., respectively — and the inherent complexity of cooking, it’s a wonder we don’t have to run more corrections on recipes, but it still sucks when we do.
With something like this, I wanted to double check that even the corrected version was correct, so I got to make Leah’s Texas Caramel Apple Crunch Pie this weekend.
After burning the caramel on the first try, I successfully caramelized the sugar on the second try and made what turned out to be a lovely pie that would make a very nice Fourth of July treat. Be forewarned, however: Don’t serve this pie without vanilla ice cream. It’s reminiscent of apple crisp on a pie crust, and the homemade caramel is just begging for some cold ice cream to go with it.
Texas Caramel Apple Crunch Pie
1 frozen pre-made pie shell
1 cup sugar
2 Tbsp. water
1/2 cup (1 stick), plus 2 Tbsp. butter
1/2 cup cream
5 tart apples, peeled, cored and cut into 1-inch dice
1 tsp. nutmeg
4 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. vanilla
Pinch salt
For topping:
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup dark brown sugar
1/4 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
1 tsp. cinnamon
Pinch salt
1/4 cup butter, chopped in 1-inch cubes
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Pre-bake the pie crust according to directions on the package, about 10 minutes. (You can also use a homemade or refrigerated pie crust, but pre-bake before filling.)
Place sugar in a heavy-bottomed sauce pot and fill with enough water to cover, about 2 Tbsp. Use your fingers to stir the sugar, ensuring there are no dry spots. Heat the sugar on medium heat, without stirring, until a candy thermometer reads 335 degrees. (Once the temperature hits 300 degrees, the temperature will rise very quickly, so be ready to pull the pot off the heat as soon as it gets close to 330 degrees to starts to smoke. There’s no saving burnt caramel, so if you cook it too long, you’ll have to start over.)
Stir in 1 stick butter and cream carefully by hand with a wooden spoon until all lumps of butter have melted. (The temperature difference may cause popping and will cause some clumping of the sugar. If this happens, just stir over low heat to melt clumps.) Set aside.
Melt 2 Tbsp. butter in medium skillet over medium heat. Mix together nutmeg and cinnamon in a small bowl. Add apples and spice mixture to pan and cook for about 3 minutes. Stir apple mixture into caramel and pour into pie shell. (You might have extra filling, depending on the size of your pie shell and apples.)
To make topping, mix flour, sugars, oats, cinnamon, salt and butter together, using fingers to work butter into dry ingredients until chunks are slightly larger than pea-sized. Pile crumble on top of the filling.
Put pie on sheet pan and bake in oven until the crumb topping looks toasted on top, approximately 20 minutes.
— Adapted from a recipe by Leah Tackitt
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May 31, 2011
IACP Highlight: Mollie Katzen and walnut marshmallows
Katzen is here this week with the California Walnut Board, which will have a booth at the culinary expo on Friday, and she’s the special guest of a walnut-themed media dinner at Olivia on Friday night.
I don’t usually write about special dinners at restaurant, but the recipes for Olivia chef James Holmes’ walnut marshmallows and walnut brittle, which he’s serving for the dinner with Katzen on Friday, was just too good to pass up. (Need a primer on homemade marshmallows? Check out this story from Memorial Day last year.)
If making homemade marshmallows seems out of your culinary reach, check out Katzen’s (much easier) recipe for
walnut butter.
Walnut Marshmallows
1/2 cup cold water
14 sheets gelatin or 3 packages gelatin
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup corn syrup
1/4 tsp. salt
1 cup ground toasted walnuts (pulsed into a powder in a blender)
2 egg whites
1 tsp. vanilla
1/4 cup powdered sugar, for dusting
Lightly oil a 13- x 9- inch dish or pan. Pour the water into the bowl of an electric mixer and sprinkle over the gelatin powder to bloom the gelatin.
In a small pan, slowly bring the sugar, corn syrup, hot water and salt to a boil, stirring. When the sugar has dissolved stop stirring and cook until it reaches 240 degrees on a sugar thermometer. Immediately drizzle the hot sugar mixture down the side of the bowl over the gelatin as the mixer is running. Beat continuously on high speed until white, thick and tripled in size. Fold in the walnuts. In a second bowl, beat the egg whites to soft peaks; fold into the gelatin mixture with the vanilla. Pour into the lightly oiled dish or pan.
Sift powder sugar over the surface of the marshmallow and chill until set. Unmold and cut into any size rectangles or cubes, a pizza wheel works well for this. In order to get the suggest 102 servings, cut the marshmallows into cubes 3/4-1 1/2 inches. Brulee marshmallow with a torch for a “campfire” effect.
Spicy Walnut Brittle
2 cups sugar
1 cup water
1/2 tsp. salt
2 cups lightly toasted walnuts, roughly broken into pieces
4 Tbsp. butter
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 tsp. cayenne
Lightly oil a quarter sheet pan with canola oil. Slowly bring the sugar, water and salt to a boil; stirring. When the sugar has dissolved, stop stirring and cook until the mixture changes to an amber color, but is not smoking; you can swirl the mixture occasionally but do not stir. When the sugar reaches the desired color, immediately add the walnuts, butter, vanilla and cayenne; stir to combine. Working quickly, pour the nut mixture onto the oiled sheet tray. Spread to about a 1/4- inch thick; allow to cool until very firm. Break into bite size pieces to serve.
— Taff Mayberry, pastry chef at Olivia
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March 1, 2011
Nothing says spring like a fruity meringue dessert
Any time I’ve tried to make meringue, usually on top of a lemon or lime tart, the whipped egg whites fall flat.
But after reading this pavlova primer from the Minneapolis Star Tribune that we’re running in tomorrow’s paper, it seems I have no excuse for runny or deflated egg whites any more.
This recipe for a meringue nest is a perfect idea for a spring dessert. Fresh fruit, light clouds of airy meringue, tart lemon curd and whipped cream. It makes me want to start dyeing Easter eggs even though Fat Tuesday isn’t until next week.
Meringue Nests with Tropical Fruit
1 cup plus 2 tbsp. superfine sugar
1 Tbsp. cornstarch
4 eggs, room temperature
1/2 tsp. cream of tartar
Pinch of salt
1 tsp. vanilla
1 pint heavy cream
Lemon curd, either homemade or commercially prepared. Can substitute sherbet.)
Selection of fruit, such as mango, kiwi fruit and pineapple, diced
Preheat oven to 300 degrees and place rack in middle position. Place a sheet of parchment paper on a baking sheet. (You can also cut open brown lunch bags and smooth them flat on a baking sheet.)
Whisk together sugar and cornstarch in a small bowl. Separate eggs and set yolks aside. In a large mixing bowl on medium-high speed, whisk egg whites with cream of tartar and salt until the beater leaves soft tracks in the foam. Begin adding sugar mixture 1 tablespoon at a time, gradually, but steadily. Once the sugar has been incorporated, add the vanilla and increase the speed to high until the meringue looks glossy and holds a stiff peak when the beater is lifted.
Drop a large spoonful of meringue onto the parchment paper and shape into a circle with a slightly depressed center. Repeat with the remaining meringue to make 8 (3-inch) shells. Or place meringue in a large pastry bag with a fluted tip and pipe 8 nests onto the paper, working from the center and raising the sides. Make little “kisses” — small dollops — with any leftover meringue, to top the finished meringue or to eat separately.
Place in the oven. Reduce heat to 200 degrees. Bake for 1 ½ hours. Turn off the oven and leave meringues inside to cool completely, another 3 hours, or overnight.
To serve, whip cream. Place a spoonful of lemon curd (either homemade or commercially prepared) or sherbet in each shell, then top with whipped cream and fruit.
Photos by Tom Wallace for the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
Permalink | | Categories: Desserts, Recipes
November 10, 2010
Splattered card carries recipe for a fall favorite -- apple cake
Although fall in Texas is just about the nicest six weeks of the year, I really miss Missouri this time of year.
Maybe you, too, came from a part of the country where fall means crisp afternoons and even crisper leaves to crunch through on a walk through the neighborhood.
Harvest means something different everywhere you go, but in the part of Missouri where I’m from, fall’s greatest harvest is apples from the nearby orchards in Marionville (home of the white squirrels. I’m not kidding).
During an October visit to see my family, I hit one of the last farmers markets of the year and made an apple cake with my grandmother.
(If you’ve been following along, she’s the grandma with the 150-year-old knife, not the one who gave me the juicer.)
This recipe came from Mary Lou Holmes, a friend of my grandmother’s and the wife of local notable and author Wayne Holmes.
‘1/4 c shortening, 1 ” sugar. Cream tog. Beat then add 1 egg. 1 c flour sifted with 1 tea soda, 1 ” cinnamon, 1 ” allspice. Put in 5 chopped apples and nuts. Bak 350 for 35 min’
Just as no one’s handwriting looks quite like my grandmother’s, and no ones hands, not even cooks 60 years younger, can peel an apple quite so quickly.
She relies on the recipe card, but these dishes that have comforted her and her family and friends through the years are made by feel as much as by following directions. She knows exactly the consistency she’s looking for in the dry and wet ingredients and how thick the batter should be going into the dish.
She knows her oven well enough to know that this particular cake will have to cook for nearly an hour in her 50-year-old oven.
Some might call this less of a cake and more of an apple bake, but it’s a cake in my vernacular. Texas apples are almost up for the year, but you might be able to find a few at area farmers markets this week.
Apple Cake
1/4 cup shortening
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 cup flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. allspice
4-5 apples, medium chop (my grandmother uses Jonathans)
1/2 cup pecans, chopped
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream together shortening and sugar. When blended, add egg. In another bowl, sift together flour, baking soda, cinnamon and allspice. Combine wet and dry ingredients. Fold in apples and nuts. Bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes.
— Mary Lou Holmes
Permalink | Comments (3) | Categories: Cooking, Desserts, Eating locally, Recipes
September 16, 2010
Austin band wins over fans, venues with brown sugar cookie
Bright Light Social Hour might be the only Austin band with a reputation for making a mean cookie.
The Austin band that beat out 1,500 other bands for the opening slot at last year’s Austin City Limits Music Festival is about to release its first full-length album, and for an article in Thursday’s 360 magazine, guitar player Curtis Roush gave out the recipe for his famous brown sugar cookies.
Music writer Patrick Caldwell reports that Roush isn’t always able to make big batches of cookies before the band’s shows these days (after all, bigger clubs mean more hungry fans), but back when they were desperate to snag gigs at clubs like Red 7, Roush promised cookies to at least one booking guy who was smart enough to take him up on his offer.
Apparently Roush has several wicked cookie recipes up his sleeve, but this brown sugar cookie is tops. “This is the more special of the ones I do,” he says. “The ingredients are top quality. It’s delicious, butterscotchy stuff.”
Plus, you’ve got to love an all-guy band that appears on the cover of the Statesman’s entertainment tabloid in a kitchen. That’s Curtis donning an oven mitt and an apron.
Rock on and keep on cooking, boys.
Bright Light Brown Sugar Cookies
14 Tbsp. (1 3/4 sticks) butter, unsalted and divided
1/4 cup granulated sugar
2 cups dark brown sugar, divided
2 cups and 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. kosher salt
1 full egg
1 egg yolk
1 Tbsp. vanilla
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Melt and brown 10 tablespoons of butter in a skillet; this takes 3 to 5 minutes or until butter is dark golden. Transfer brown butter to one large bowl. Add four more tablespoons of butter. Set aside for 10 to 15 minutes.
Combine 1/4 cup granulated sugar with 1/4 cup brown sugar on a plate. Set aside to roll cookies before baking. Whisk together flour, baking soda and baking power in a medium bowl. Add 1 3/4 cups of brown sugar and the salt to butter mix. Add egg, yolk and vanilla; mix. Add flour mixture; mix.
Roll 1 1/2-inch balls of dough in reserved sugar. Place on cookie sheets, lined with parchment paper. Bake 12 to 14 minutes.
— Curtis Roush, guitar player for Bright Light Social Hour
Photo by Rodolfo Gonzalez for the Austin American-Statesman.
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September 8, 2010
Mexican Food 101: Diana Kennedy's Black Oaxacan Mole
In honor of Mexico’s bicentennial this month, we’re dedicating the Sept. 8 food section to all things gustatory about our neighbor to the south. This Mexican Food 101 series will highlight a few traditional dishes you might want to make at home.
At an event at the Blanton earlier this year, the 87-year-old Kennedy said that this cookbook will likely be her last but that her efforts to preserve the culinary traditions of her adopted homeland will continue. In today’s food section, we ran a profile of Kennedy but ran out of room to print this Black Oaxacan Mole recipe.
This dish doesn’t exactly fit into the “Mexican Food 101” category in terms of cooking. Mole is infamously complex, and Kennedy herself reprimanded me for wanting to print the recipe for readers. In response to an e-mail question to clarify part of the directions, she admonished me for picking a recipe that only aficionados or chefs would be interested in making.
Well, aficionados or not, I know that Relish Austin readers will enjoy having this recipe on hand. After all, you never know when the impulse to make such a traditional mole a la Ms. Kennedy will strike.
Black Oaxacan Mole
This black Oaxacan mole and that of Puebla are the most famous of all the moles in Mexico. This version is served with homemade tortillas and platters of white rice, and you can freeze any paste that you don’t end up using.
Note: The recipe printed in Kennedy’s book makes 5 pounds of mole paste, which is enough to serve more than 100 people. We’ve reduced the recipe by a third, which will still leave you with enough mole to serve about 35 people. No matter how much you make, the mole paste freezes well.
For mole paste:
3 oz. chilhuacles negros
3 oz. mulato chiles
3 oz. pasilla chiles
5 chipotle mora chiles
Approximately 3 oz. melted pork lard
3 oz. sesame seeds
3 oz. shelled peanuts
3 oz. almonds
1 1/2 oz. walnut
1 1/2 oz. pecans
3 oz. raisins
3 oz. plantain, peeled
1/2 small semisweet roll (pan de yemas), sliced and dried
3 oz. white onion, cut into wedges and toasted
1/2 head garlic, toasted, cloves separated and peeled
1 inch of a cinnamon stick
1/2 tsp. black peppercorns
3-4 whole cloves
1/2 tsp. cumin seeds
1/3 tsp. Mexican oregano
1/2 tsp. dried thyme leaves
1/2 tsp. dried marjoram leaves
1 bay leaf
3 oz. Oaxacan drinking chocolate
3 oz. sugar
Salt to taste
Remove seeds and veins from the chiles, reserving the seeds and leaving the chipotles whole. Toast the chiles carefully on a hot comal or cast-iron skillet. Cover with warm water and leave to soak for about 1 hour, no longer. Strain. Toast the chile seeds in an ungreased pan until very dark brown but not charred. Rinse in two changes of water and strain.
Heat a small quantity of the lard in a skillet and fry the following ingredients one at a time, removing from oil after lightly frying: sesame seeds, peanuts, almonds, walnuts, pecans, raisins, plantain, bread. (Add more lard as necessary as you fry each ingredient.) In a mortar or blender, grind these ingredients with the onion, garlic, spices and herbs to a paste. (Add little water at a time if the ingredients aren’t coming together.)
Heat the remaining lard in a heavy casserole, add the paste, and fry, adding a little boiling water from to time to time to prevent sticking. Stir continuously over medium heat for about 20 minutes. Add the chocolate, sugar and salt and continue cooking for about 1 hour more. The consistency should be that of a thick paste, and you should be able to see the bottom of the pan as you stir. Makes 11/2-2 pounds mole paste.
For mole sauce:
2 Tbsp. lard
18 oz. tomatoes, roasted
18 oz. mole paste
5 cups chicken or turkey broth
Salt to taste
Heat lard in a casserole. In a blender, puree the tomatoes until smooth and heat in a skillet until reduced, about 10 minutes. Add the mole paste with 3 cups of the broth and cook over medium heat, stirring and scraping the bottom of the pan to prevent sticking, for about 20 minutes. Add salt to taste and more broth, if necessary, for the mole to be of medium consistency. Makes enough mole sauce for 24 portions.
— Adapted from ‘Oaxaca al Gusto: An Infinite Gastronomy’ by Diana Kennedy
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Mexican Food 101: Enchiladas
In honor of Mexico’s bicentennial this month, we’re dedicating the Sept. 8 food section to all things gustatory about our neighbor to the south. This Mexican Food 101 series will highlight a few traditional dishes you might want to make at home.
Americans are fairly familiar with enchiladas, but before you crack open another can of generic “red” or “green” enchilada sauce and pour it over rolled-up tortillas lined up in a baking dish, here’s a quick lesson in what makes an enchilada an enchilada.
Enchilada comes from the Spanish word enchilar, which means to surround in chiles. To chilify, if you will, a tortilla, Mexican cooks dip each tortilla in a chile sauce before filling with an innumerable array of combinations of meat, cheese and vegetables.
The “tortilla enchilada” is then served right away with more sauce poured on top. Don’t pull out the 9-inch-by-13-inch Pyrex baking dish unless you’re serving more than two or three people and you want the enchiladas to all be hot and ready to serve at the same time.
What kind of sauce and filling is most traditional in Mexico? Ask 100 Mexican cooks and you’ll get 100 different answers. Shredded chicken with a jalapeño tomatillo sauce with crema is popular, but tortillas coated in a simple guajillo chile-based red sauce and filled with queso fresco or cotija are just as well-loved.
Don’t get too caught up in the filling. Use what you’re in the mood for and what you have on hand: spinach and mushrooms, cheese and raw onions, shredded beef, roasted vegetables, etc. Enchiladas are meant to show off the the sauce and the tortillas as much as what’s rolled up inside them.
To ensure that your tortillas don’t get soggy from all that delicious sauce, fry them briefly in hot oil before coating in sauce and filling with ingredients.
Enchiladas verdes
For sauce:
1 lb. tomatillos, husks removed
3 or more serrano or jalapeño chiles
1/2 cup cilantro, roughly chopped
3 garlic cloves, chopped
2 Tbsp. white onion, chopped
Salt to taste
For enchiladas:
2 cups shredded chicken
2 roasted poblanos, cut into strips (you can also sauté raw poblanos cut into strips)
Vegetable oil, for frying
12 corn tortillas
For topping:
2/3 cup sour cream, thinned with a little milk
1 1/2 cups shredded lettuce
1/2 cup queso anejo, cotija or crumbled queso fresco
1/2 cup white onion, finely chopped
1/2 cup cilantro (optional)
In a small saucepan, place tomatillos and peppers and just enough water to cover. Bring to a simmer and cook for about five minutes until the tomatillos have softened. Drain, but reserve cooking water.
In a blender, place the cilantro, garlic, onions, salt and about 1/2 cup of the cooking water. Blend until well combined. Continue blending ingredients by adding a few tomatillos, peppers and a small amount of cooking liquid at a time. Salt to taste.
Once all the ingredients have been combined, pour the sauce in a large skillet and cook over medium-low heat until the sauce has reduced to about the consistency of tomato sauce for pasta.
To assemble the enchiladas, have filling (shredded chicken and roasted or sautéed poblano strips) and sauce already warmed and ready for use. In a small skillet over medium-hot heat, warm 1 Tbsp. of oil. Using tongs, quickly fry one tortilla for about 45 seconds. (You don’t want the tortilla to become brittle, but frying lightly before dipping in sauce will prevent tortilla from getting soggy.)
Remove the tortilla from the oil and dip into tomatillo sauce, coating generously. Place tortilla on a plate and fill with a small amount of chicken and poblano. Roll and either serve right away with a little sour cream, lettuce, cotija cheese, onions and cilantro, if using, or place in a baking dish.
If serving all the enchiladas at once, heat oven to 300 degrees and continue assembling tortillas and filling the dish. Pour remaining sauce over tortillas and place in oven for 10 minutes to reheat. Top with garnishes and serve. Serves 6.
— Addie Broyles, adapted from ‘From My Mexican Kitchen’ by Diana Kennedy
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September 7, 2010
Mexican Food 101: Quick and easy flan
In honor of Mexico’s bicentennial this month, we’re dedicating the Sept. 8 food section to all things gustatory about our neighbor to the south. This Mexican Food 101 series will highlight a few traditional dishes you might want to make at home.
Just like all recipes, there is the traditional way to make flan and then there’s the shortcut way that Ahora Si editor Josefina Villicaña swears by. In working on this Mexican food story for Wednesday’s paper, I made both Diana Kennedy’s flan a la antigua recipe and Josefina’s quick and easy flan. I set them out side-by-side in the newsroom to find out which version my colleagues preferred.
The short answer? Tradition be damned.
Almost every single one of them preferred Josefina’s sweeter, more dense flan. Kennedy’s had a silkier texture, but it wasn’t nearly sweet enough to please everyone’s palates, including mine.
Flan
1/2 cup raw sugar
4 eggs
1 can condensed milk
1 can evaporated milk
1-3 tsp. Mexican vanilla
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a nonstick saucepan, boil sugar just until it starts to turn an amber color. Pour on bottom of several small ramekins, a nonstick bread pan or a square glass baking dish and move around to coat the bottom.
In blender, combine eggs, both cans of milk and vanilla. Pour into pan. Place in a large pan filled with water to go halfway up the side of the baking dish.
Bake in oven for about an hour. It is done when the center doesn’t wiggle too much and a knife inserted into the center comes out clean. Run a knife around the edge of the pan to loosen flan, cover with a large serving dish and flip the flan upside down to release from baking dish.
— Josefina Villicaña
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Mexican Food 101: Traditional flan
In honor of Mexico’s bicentennial this month, we’re dedicating the Sept. 8 food section to all things gustatory about our neighbor to the south. This Mexican Food 101 series will highlight a few traditional dishes you might want to make at home.
When the Spanish conquistadors arrived in Mexico in the 1500s, they brought with them cows, cinnamon, sugar cane and a traditional egg custard that is now as beloved in Mexico as it is in Europe. Flan can be flavored with vanilla, coconut, cinnamon, mint, rum, chocolate or even coffee, and many home cooks use evaporated or condensed milk to shorten the cooking process and reduce the number of egg yolks required to thicken it.
This recipe from Diana Kennedy creates a not-so-sweet, eggy flan, so if you prefer a sweeter version, increase the sugar added to the milk by at least1/4 cup. For a super sweet shortcut flan, try this version from Ahora Si editor Josefina Villicaña that uses sweetened condensed milk and only four eggs. (In fact, in a taste test in the Statesman newsroom last week, most people preferred the shortcut version of the flan to the traditional method. Did I mention the shortcut method is super sweet?)
A few flan-making tips, no matter which recipe you use: When making the caramel, remove the melted sugar from the stove just after it has melted and has turned an amber color. Quickly coat the bottom of the pan or ramekins, because the caramel will start to harden within seconds.
To test whether the flan is done, insert a knife into the custard, but not all the way through or else you’ll ruin the appearance of the dish. Making the flan a day ahead and dipping the pan in warm water will make it easier to flip onto the serving dish.
Flan a la Antigua
1 cup granulated or raw sugar, divided
1 quart milk
1 vanilla bean or a 2-inch stick of cinnamon
Pinch of salt
4 whole eggs
6 egg yolks
In a small, heavy-bottomed saucepan, heat a half-cup sugar over medium heat and stir until the sugar has melted and starts to turn amber. Pour the caramel into small ramekins, a square baking dish or even a bread pan and turn the mold to coat the bottom and halfway up the sides. Set aside.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Heat the milk and add the remaining sugar, vanilla bean or cinnamon and salt and let it simmer briskly for about 15 minutes. The milk should be reduced by about a half-cup. Set it aside to cool. Beat the eggs and egg yolks together well. Add them to the cooled milk and stir well. Pour the mixture through a strainer into the coated mold or pan.
Set the mold or pan in a water bath on the lowest shelf in the oven. Cook the flan for two hours and insert a knife to see if it is done. When flan has set, let cool completely before serving or store in the fridge overnight. Serve at room temperature. Serves 8.
— Adapted from a recipe by Diana Kennedy in ‘The Cuisines of Mexico’ (Harper and Row, 1972)
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Mexican Food 101: Pozole
In honor of Mexico’s bicentennial this month, we’re dedicating the Sept. 8 food section to all things gustatory about our neighbor to the south. This Mexican Food 101 series will highlight a few traditional dishes you might want to make at home.
Traditionally, home cooks remove the pointed end or germ from each puffed-up kernel, which allows the corn to unfold like a flower when cooked into the stew. You can use canned hominy, but try to find dried hominy at a Mexican market. You’ll have to soak the kernels overnight before cooking them like beans, but the kernels are much more tender and plump than what comes out of a can.
Stock and shredded meat from two whole chickens is an easy alternative to pork, and you can even use the green tomatillo sauce from the enchiladas instead of the ancho arbol puree. Only have dried chipotles, pasilla or guajillo peppers? Feel free to swap them for the anchos or arboles.
Don’t let the pigs feet in the ingredients scare you off. You can use store-bought stock or bouillon, but the result won’t be as hearty as if you go for the real thing.
A Mexican soup like pozole just isn’t the same without a variety of garnishes added right at the very end. They add a burst of crunch and flavor to each bite, so don’t think of serving pozole without them.
Red Pozole with Pork
1 1/2 cups dried hominy or 2 29-oz. cans hominy (about 5-6 cups)
3 lb. pork shanks or ham hocks, cut into 11⁄2 inch thick pieces
1 1/2 lb. pigs’ feet
1 1/2 lb. bone-in pork shoulder, cut into 3 or 4 pieces
3 Tbsp. salt, divided
2 large white onions, chopped and divided
8 (about 4 oz.) dried ancho chiles, stemmed and seeded
4 dried chiles de arbol, seeded
1 medium head garlic, cloves broken apart, peeled and chopped
3 Tbsp. dried Mexican oregano
For garnish:
3/4 cup cilantro, chopped
3 limes, cut into wedges
4 cups shredded cabbage
10 radishes, thinly sliced
8 corn tortillas, cut into strips and fried lightly (you could also use store-bought tostadas)
If using dried hominy, soak the kernels in water overnight and boil for 2-3 hours until tender. Place the meat in a 10-quart pot and cover with about 4 quarts water. Add 2 Tbsp. salt and half the onions and bring to a boil. Skim off any foam that rises to the top, reduce heat to simmer, partially cover and boil for about two hours. Remove the meat from the broth and let cool, or, if you have time, let the stock and meat cool together for a richer flavor.
While the stock boils, rehydrate the chiles by placing them in a saucepan with enough water to cover. Bring to a boil and let simmer for about 15-20 minutes until soft. Remove pan from stove and let cool for 30 minutes. In a food processor or blender, purée garlic with the chiles and rehydrating liquid. Reserve.
Once the meat has cooled and been removed from the stock, separate the meat from the bones and shred or chop the meat. (You should have about 2 quarts broth and about 5 cups meat.) Skim the broth to remove any unwanted ligaments or fat, add the meat back to the pot and bring to a boil. (You can roast the bones and feet to make more stock for another dish or you can just throw the excess skin, bones and feet away.)
Add the hominy, chile garlic puree, remaining Tbsp. salt and oregano and simmer soup for at least 30 minutes. (Strain the puree if there are visible pieces of chile skin still present.) While the pozole is simmering, place the garnish ingredients (remaining onions, cilantro, limes, cabbage, radishes, tostada pieces) in small bowls. Serve soup in bowls and top with desired garnishes. Serves 12.
— Addie Broyles, adapted from a recipe in ‘Mexico One Plate at a Time’ by Rick Bayless
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Ahead of UT football home opener, author shares healthy tailgating tips
Banks, who is teaching a healthy tailgating class ($45) at 6:30 p.m. at Whole Foods on Thursday, suggests using ground turkey, bison, venison or chicken instead of ground beef in chili and burgers, like these teriyaki sliders, and doing most, if not all, of the prep work ahead of game day so you can enjoy the time with your friends and guests.
Teriyaki Turkey Sliders with Pineapple Chutney
2/3 cup low sodium soy sauce
4 Tbsp. mirin
4 Tbsp. dark brown sugar
2 Tbsp. fresh ginger, grated
2 Tbsp. fresh garlic, grated
2/3 cup green onions, finely chopped
1/2 cup fresh cilantro, finely chopped
2 lb. ground turkey
3 cups red cabbage, shredded
1 large carrot, shredded
12 whole wheat dinner rolls, split and toasted
For chutney:
4 cups golden pineapple, diced
1 medium red onion, finely chopped
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup rice wine vinegar
1 serrano, finely chopped
4 whole star anise
1 tsp. kosher salt
In a small bowl, combine soy sauce, mirin, sugar, ginger, garlic, green onions and cilantro; mix well. In a medium bowl, combine turkey and half of soy mixture; gently mix to incorporate.
Divide mixture into 12 equal portions. Using wet hands, form each portion into patties about 1/2-inch thick. Place on a parchment-lined baking sheet, cover with plastic and chill for at least 1 hour or up to one day before cooking. Place cabbage and carrots in a medium bowl, add reserved soy mixture; mix well. Set aside until ready to serve. May be made up to 6 hours in advance.
While burgers chill, make the chutney. Combine all chutney ingredients in a medium sauce pan; bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low, cook, uncovered, for about 30 minutes or until thick. (Chutney can be made up to a week in advance. Cool completely, store covered, in the refrigerator.)
When ready to cook, heat grill to high heat. Place burgers onto well-oiled grill; cook for 2-3 minutes per side, turning once. To serve, spread buns with about a tablespoon of chutney, top with burger, add about a tablespoon of cabbage mixture on top. Serves 12.
— Yolanda Banks
Burger photo by Yolanda Banks.
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Mexican Food 101: Gorditas de Piloncillo from 'My Sweet Mexico'
In honor of Mexico’s bicentennial this month, we’re dedicating the Sept. 8 food section to all things gustatory about our neighbor to the south. This Mexican Food 101 series will highlight a few traditional dishes you might want to make at home.
“Handcrafted desserts based on oral traditions are being threatened,” Gerson says. During a yearlong “scavenger hunt” across the country, she found cooks who were as resistant to sharing secret family recipes as they were to taking shortcuts. “They are still laying the pumpkin seeds out in the sun for five day,” she says.
From polvorones to pastel-colored jamoncillos, Gerson says the desserts of her native country are unlike any other because of the enormous variety. “When the Spaniards came, they brought with their nuns, ingredients like nuts, milks and spices and recipes, including the Arab recipes.” Gerson says she hopes her book will help preserve these unique creations. “When you find these handmade treats, they are incredible,” she says.
Gorditas de Piloncillo (Sweet Fried Masa Cakes)
2 oz. finely chopped piloncillo (a cone of Mexican brown sugar available in most Central Texas grocery stores)
3 oz. queso añejo or ricotta salata
1 tsp. freshly ground cinnamon
1 lb. fresh masa, or 1 2/3 cups masa harina mixed with 1 cup hot water
Lard or vegetable oil, for frying (about 2 cups)
Combine the piloncillo, cheese and cinnamon in a bowl and knead in the masa until uniformly distributed. Add a bit of water if it feels too dry or a little masa harina if it’s too sticky. Shape the dough into 12 even balls.
Place enough lard in a heavy pot to reach a depth of least 3 inches and heat to about 365 degrees. While this heats, flatten the masa rounds between your hands (you can dampen your hands very lightly so they don’t stick or press down on top with a piece of plastic wrap) to about 1/8-inch thick. Slide them into the hot fat and bathe them with a spoon so they are covered with fat at all times, and turn often, frying until they are golden on all sides and make sure not to overcrowd the pan. Drain on paper bags or towels and enjoy warm. (You can keep them in a warming oven for 15 minutes.) Makes 1 dozen.
— From ‘My Sweet Mexico’ by Fany Gerson
Photo by Ed Anderson for Ten Speed Press.
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September 4, 2010
Mexican Food 101: Flour and corn tortillas
In honor of Mexico’s bicentennial this month, we’re dedicating the Sept. 8 food section to all things gustatory about our neighbor to the south. This Mexican Food 101 series will highlight a few traditional dishes you might want to make at home.
You can’t talk about Mexican food without starting with tortillas. Although tortillas made with wheat flour are more popular north of the border, corn tortillas made from masa (dough) are used in nearly every corner of Mexico. (Corn masa is also the base for dozens of other dishes including tostadas, sopes, totopos, gorditas, tlacoyos, tamales and even desserts like the gorditas de piloncillo.)
Unlike many parts of the U.S., you can buy above-average corn and flour tortillas in many grocery stores and markets in Austin, but, like bread, it’s worth making your own for special occasions or if you’re entertaining guests who will appreciate a freshly made tortilla.
Some stores, such as Fiesta, sell prepared masa for tamales, but El Milagro, the tortilla factory at 910 E. Sixth St., sells some of the best masa ground specifically for tortillas for 55 cents a pound from 5:30 to 11 a.m. Mondays through Saturdays. You can also prepare your own masa by using store-bought masa harina (one popular brand is called Maseca).
Flour tortillas
2 cups flour (bread flour will result in a better texture)
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1/3 cup lard or shortening
2/3 cup hot water
Stir together flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl. Cut in the lard or shortening with a pastry cutter, a fork or your fingers under the mixture is crumbly. Slowly pour in hot water, stirring to combine. Lightly knead dough for 30 to 45 seconds, until the dough isn’t as sticky, but don’t let it get tough. Cover with a towel and let rest for about 30 minutes.
For both flour and corn tortillas, roll dough into golf-ball sized spheres and cover with a towel. While the balls of dough are resting, heat a comal or cast iron skillet over medium-high heat. In a tortilla press or with your hands or a rolling pin, flatten one of the balls of dough until it is less than 1⁄8-inch thick but not too thin that you can’t pick up with your fingers. Place on the hot pan and cook on each side for 30-40 seconds. Remove when tortilla is still soft and dotted with brown spots but not smoking. Start a pile and cover with a towel to keep warm.
Top photo by Alberto Martinez for the Austin American-Statesman.
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August 16, 2010
'Eat Pray Love'-inspired pumpkin soup
Most of the recipe-focused stories written about “Eat Pray Love,” including this piece we ran last week, have to do with Italian section of the movie that came out last weekend.
It’s not quite pumpkin or soup season yet, but I certainly won’t be waiting for fall to try it out.
Thai Pumpkin Soup
2 Tbsp. vegetable oil
1 onion, finely chopped
1 Tbsp. brown sugar
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 small pumpkin, skinned and chopped into 1-inch chunks (or 2 cans of pumpkin)
2 1/4 cups chicken broth (or vegetable broth for vegetarians)
1 2/3 cups canned coconut milk
1 Tbsp. hot sweet Thai chili sauce
1 Tbsp. lemongrass, finely chopped (grated lemon peel can be used as a substitute)
1 Tbsp. fish sauce
Fresh ginger, mined or grated with a Microplane
Freshly ground pepper
1/4 cup fresh cilantro, chopped, plus more for garnish
In a large pot, heat oil and gently cook onion with brown sugar and garlic over low heat until softened (8-10 minutes). Add chopped pumpkin, broth, coconut milk, chili sauce, lemongrass and fish sauce. Season with ginger and freshly ground pepper. Simmer for about 25 minutes until tender (less if starting with canned pumpkin).
Remove and, if using fresh pumpkin, puree until smooth. Just before serving, adjust seasoning to taste. Mix in chopped cilantro. Ladle soup into bowls and garnish with fresh cilantro.
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November 10, 2009
Are you ready to swap cookies?
We’re only in week two of the Statesman’s virtual Holiday Cookie Swap, and readers have already submitted more than 30 recipes for their favorite cookies to the Austin360 recipe database.
Just like a real-life cookie swap, the goal of this virtual project is to 1) share recipes for holiday treats 2) narrow down all of the submissions to five finalists, whose cookies will then be judged by a panel of area celebrity bakers and one guest judge (see below) at an open-invite holiday party on Dec. 17 name Austin’s Best Cookie of 2009.
So here’s where you come in: Of course readers should continue submitting recipes and photos, but I’d really like to utilize the commenting and rating feature of the database. Even if you don’t get a chance to bake a recipe, I’d love to hear your thoughts on the cookies.
Are you a peanut freak? Beth Solomon’s Triple Peanut Oatmeal Cookies might be just the cookie recipe you’ve been looking for your entire life. If a certain recipe, say MeMaw’s Pinwheels, reminds you of your MeMaw’s special cookie (or maybe she’s a HeHe, GaGa or YaYa), share the connection in the comment section.
We’ll take comments into consideration when picking the finalists, and as an extra incentive, I’ve got a stack of baking books to give away to a commenter selected at random.
If you’d like to be a guest judge at the holiday party, @reply me on Twitter or reply to one of my status updates on Facebook about why your cookie qualifications, and I’ll pick a winner the week of Thanksgiving.
So many good cookies, so many rich stories, including anecdotes coming from readers whose mothers and grandmothers developed the recipes for their kids’ favorite teachers or when sugar was rationed during World War II.
It’s a good thing I’ve stocked up on baking supplies; it’s going to be a sugar-filled month!
Photo by Bret Gerbe for the Austin American-Statesman.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: Desserts, Playing with your food, Recipes
February 2, 2009
Some recipes for feeling better
I was too delirious to take proper notes when Ian was preparing the soup, but I did help tweak my grandmothers’ dumpling recipe I posted a while back.
That recipe was stumping me for the longest time because I’d follow her simple directions to the tablespoon and couldn’t get them to turn out like I did the first time without adding more milk. Was it me or the recipe?
I concluded that maybe it was neither. Perhaps it was the humidity or type of flour or some other mysterious glitch in the universe that made it so that I was getting different results from the same recipe.
So when I tried to make the dumplings again last week — Ian has a lifelong fear of making dumplings, so I peeled my sick self off the couch to help — I threw in an egg and just added milk until the consistency was close to mashed potatoes.
Dumplings
2 cups Bisquick (see note below about making your own)
1 egg
8 (or more) Tbsp. milk
salt and pepper to taste
Homemade Bisquick: 1 cup flour, 1 tsp. baking powder, salt and sugar.
Voila! Hearty dumplings to go with Ian’s awesome chicken, corn, green bean, paprika soup. After a few days of soup, an allergy tea from The Herb Bar and this special gargle my mom gave me, I was feeling up to speed. Halle-freakin’-lujah.
Mama’s gargle
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. Karo syrup
6 oz. water
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January 12, 2009
The best bread you'll ever bake
OK. Let me rephrase. This recipe by Jeff Basom, the chef at Bastyr University in Washington state, makes the best bread I’ve ever baked.
I haven’t been baking my entire life; I started with recipes in the beautifully crafted Enchanted Broccoli Forest by Mollie Katzen when I was in college, and although I loved the idea of baking my own bread, I couldn’t find a recipe that actually worked well enough for me to forgo buying loaves at the grocery store.
Fast forward a few years. I’m so enamored with Basom’s bread that I’ve already made it half a dozen times since my friend Shannon passed the recipe — from her copy of “Feeding the Whole Family” by Cynthia Lair — to me in November. The bread freezes well and even though it requires the extra step of cooking, blending and fermenting grains, the texture you get in the end makes it worth it. Plus, by making it with quinoa, you can add protein to what is usually just a carbohydrate-filled loaf.
Here’s the original recipe. My own tweaks and tips are in bold.
Homemade Whole Grain Bread
Starter dough:
2 cups cooked whole grains (rice, quinoa, millet, barley, etc.)
2 cups water
1/4 cup cold-pressed vegetable oil (cold-pressed if you have it. Don’t stress about it if you don’t.)
1 Tbsp. sea salt
1 Tbsp. dry yeast
1 cup whole wheat flour
Blend grains and water in a blender or food processor or with a hand immersion blender until creamy; pour into a large mixing bowl. Mix in oil, salt and yeast. Add enough flour to make the mixture look like thick cooked cereal. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a damp towel and leave for 12-24 hours at room temperature. Once the dough is fermented, it can be refrigerated for up to a week before using to make bread.
To make the bread:
1/4 cup sweetener (such as barley malt, maple syrup, agave nectar, honey or molasses)
2 cups whole wheat flour
3-4 cups unbleached white flour or whole wheat flour
After the 12-24 hours, add sweetener to starter dough and stir. Add whole wheat flour, stirring it in. As you add the white flour, the mixture will be too difficult to stir. Knead it by hand in the bowl and continue to add white flour. When dough is less sticky, transfer it to a floured surface and knead 10-15 minutes or until dough is soft and springy, but not too sticky. Wash and dry mixing bowl and oil it. Place dough in bowl, cover and let rise in a warm place 1 1/2 to 2 hours.
(This is where I deviate. First, Basom’s technique:) Lightly oil two loaf pans. Divide dough in half. Punch down and loaf the dough in the following way (children love to help with this part): Flatten half of the dough in a square on your working surface. Press all of the air out by vigorously slapping Fold two corners into the center and press again. Fold the top point into the body of the dough an press it down again. Pick up the dough with both hands and begin rolling it into itself. This stretches the outside of the dough and creates a tight rolls with no air pockets. Seal the seam by flattening it with the heel of your hand. Shape the dough into a nice loaf and place in the pan seam side down. Repeat with the other half of dough.
Here’s what I do after the dough has risen the first time: After the dough has risen, punch down and divide in two. Knead slightly on a floured surface and add any herbs or garlic. (I made loaves this weekend with rosemary from our living Christmas tree crushes with minced garlic and olive oil.) Shape dough into a loaf and put into a lightly oiled loaf pan. Repeat with the other dough.
To bake the bread:
1 tsp. water
1 tsp. barley malt, maple syrup, honey or agave nectar
1 tsp. cold-pressed vegetable oil (any oil will work)
1/4 tsp. sea salt
if you want a harder crust, try:
1 egg, beaten
1 tsp. water
1 tsp. oil
pinch of salt
Mix water, syrup, oil and salt (or egg, water, oil and salt) in a small cup or bowl and coat the top of each loaf with this mixture. Cover and let rise in pans for 45-60 minutes until the loaves have doubled in size. Test the bread for readiness. If you press the dough and it wants to stay in, but still has a little spring, it’s ready to bake. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Bake 45-50 minutes. Bread will come out of pans after 5 minutes of cooling. Let it cool 30 minutes before slicing.
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January 5, 2009
You say poppy seed loaf, I say moosebread
I’m not sure the origin of moose mania on my mom’s side, but it’s likely to be my 6’4” uncle (her younger brother, the only person — besides his two strapping offspring — above 6’ in the whole clan). Predictably, he was a football player in high school, but he was one of the few who stepped out of the locker room to play piccolo in the marching band. (He later turned down football scholarships to study dance.)
Uncle Moosie, as he became known to, led moose-calling contests and gave out moose ride on his back when the family would get together. He’s still Uncle Moosie, but now he’s giving moose rides to my little one instead of me.
Moosebread is a favorite any time of the year. My grandmother, GaGa, says it freezes well; I’ll add that it travels well, too. She wrapped up a half loaf for our long drive back to Texas. I nearly ate the whole thing.
Moosebread
3 cups flour
2 1/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/2 Tbsp. poppy seeds
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
3 eggs
1 1/8 cup oil
1 1/2 cup milk
1 1/2 tsp. butter flavoring
1 1/2 tsp. almond flavoring
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
For glaze:
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup orange juice
1/2 tsp. almond flavoring
1/2 tsp. butter flavoring
1/2 tsp. vanilla
Mix flour, sugar, salt, poppy seeds and baking powder in a bowl. In another bowl, mix eggs, oil, milk, vanilla and flavorings. Combine with dry ingredients until smooth. Pour into greased pans and bake at 350 degrees for 60 minutes. While the bread is baking, mix together ingredients for glaze in a small bowl. When the bread is done and still hot, poke small holes in the top of the loaf with a fork and pour glaze over. Cool before serving.
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December 15, 2008
Cancer-fighting jam will keep the Grinch away
I’ve tasted the jam and can vouch that is has a little bit of a kick, just enough to remind you the glory of jalapeños but not enough to overpower your morning cup of coffee. Texas Oncology also suggests using the jam as a glaze for pork loin or as a spread for a turkey sandwich.
Jingle Jam
6 cups fresh or frozen cranberries, rinsed and picked over
3 cups sugar
1 cup orange juice
1 cup water
1/4 cup jalapeñ os, minced with seeds removed
1 tablespoon orange zest
Combine all of the ingredients in a large stockpot. Bring to a rolling boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 20 to 30 minutes, stirring occasionally until thickened. While jam is on stove, prepare half pint jars and lids according to manufacturer’s directions.
When jam is ready, ladle into prepared jars, allowing 1/8-inch headspace before sealing. Follow manufacturer’s directions for processing in a hot water bath for 5 minutes. Remove carefully and do not disturb jars for 12 to 24 hours. Makes five half pints.
If you’re not into canning, here are a few other things you can do this holiday season to give holiday recipes and food choices a flavor-forward nutritional makeover:
- Use healthy oils, such as olive, canola, or other vegetable oils instead of butter or lard.
- Add chopped nuts, such as pecans, walnuts, or hazelnuts for added fiber, crunch, flavor, “good” fats, and a host of phytonutrients, vitamins, and minerals.
- Make salads colorful, using dark, leafy greens and a variety of seasonal fruits and veggies.
- Serve whole grain bread with meals.
- Incorporate seasonal fruits into desserts.
- Choose dark chocolate with at least 60 percent cocoa, which contains antioxidant polyphenols.
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December 8, 2008
From leftover rotisserie to chicken and dumplings
Rotisserie chickens are a cheap, hearty staple of just about every busy family household. Most grocery stores sell them for about $5, and there are a million things to do with the chicken. (There are so many things, in fact, that Janet K. Keeler, food editor of The St. Petersburg Times, has a weekly “Rotisserie Chicken Wednesday” post on her blog, Stir Crazy.)
You can turn one cheap meal into another with this easy chicken and dumpling recipe I created this weekend.
Chicken and dumplings
for chicken soup:
1 leftover rotisserie chicken
1 onion
1 carrot or a handful of baby carrots
1 celery stock
chicken bullion cubes to taste
enough water to cover chicken
for dumplings:
1 cup Bisquick (see note below about making your own)
3 Tbsp. milk
salt and pepper to taste
Cut off all the meat you can from the leftover chicken. Pull apart into bite-size pieces and set aside. In a large pot, cover the chicken carcass with water and add onion, carrots and celery. Simmer, but do not boil, for at least an hour. Strain bones and vegetables through a colander and put the stock back in the pot. You can cut up onion, carrots and celery and put back in the pot if you want. As the stock cools, remove some of the fat that rises to the top. Taste the stock, and if it isn’t strong enough, dilute a few cubes of bullion in a cup of water or add commercial chicken stock.
In a bowl, mix the Bisquick or flour mixture with a little milk at a time, mixing in the eggs halfway through, until it reaches desired consistency. (see note below about knife-cut versus drop dumplings)
Add the chicken pieces back into the pot and bring to a rolling boil. Drop dumplings into pot, season with salt and pepper, cover and reduce heat. Do not lift the lid or stir. Simmer for 7-10 minutes.
Serve with a big glass of milk and saltine crackers.
My grandmother is the queen of dumplings in our family and, like most cooks from a certain generation, she uses neither a recipe nor measuring devices. I called her up for dumpling guidance and, as you can see from my notes, there are several ways of doing it:
She uses Bisquick, which I didn’t have, but it’s easy to recreate the mix at home with a cup of flour mixed with a teaspoon of baking powder and a pinch of salt and sugar.
If you want knife-cut noodles instead of drop dumplings, add less milk and roll out the dough on a powdered surface and then cut into pieces. The cut noodles look nicer but take up more time and dishes, two things I rarely have to spare.
The drop dumplings don’t look as pretty, but just think of them as rustic, not ugly. Try to get the Bisquick/flour and milk mixture the consistency of mashed potatoes and then, using a spoon, drop into boiling stock. The dumplings expand a little, so aim for quarter-size drops.
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October 23, 2008
Tex-ify your next batch of pesto with pecans
Elaine DiRico, a subscriber to Johnson’s Backyard Garden CSA, sent out this recipe for a Texas-style basil pesto this week that uses pecans instead of pine nuts, which will add a lovely flavor and save you a few dollars (pine nuts are twice as expensive as pecans!).
2 large bunches fresh basil (2 cups packed)
1/4 cup chopped pecans
3 medium garlic cloves (unpeeled)
1 cup extra virgin olive oil (an approximate measurement)
1/4 cup grated parmesan
a few grinds of black pepper to taste
Bring a saucepan of water to boil, and quickly immerse the basil, counting to five seconds, remove and dunk in an ice water bath. This blanching will keep the basil green and prevent your pesto from becoming black. Drain and pat dry.
In a small skillet, toast the pecans over medium heat until just fragrant and changing color slightly. Remove to a bowl to cool, and add the garlic cloves to the skillet, toasting them until they begin to brown. Peel and set aside.
Combine all the ingredients except the oil in a blender, mortar and pestle or food processor and work until you reach the desired texture. In Genoa, where basil pesto began, the mortar and pestle are traditional. Once it begins to smooth out, begin to gradually add the olive oil, letting it form a thick paste. I usually add a bit of water towards the end, which my grandmother in law taught me to do — saves calories and oil both.
Pesto can be frozen, but keeps well refrigerated in a jar as well so long as you pour a bit of olive oil across the top to seal it.
After the jump, Elaine’s recipe for basil ice cream, which she says is good with a dollop of blue cheese.
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October 9, 2008
Squash and Pepper Summer Farewell or:
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Heat
My happy culinary tale of realizing how wonderful really spicy food can be must start by telling you about joining a community-supported agriculture (CSA) program two weeks ago.
If you’ve never heard of a CSA, think of it like investing or buying shares in a farm. You pay for several weeks’ worth of fruits, vegetables and herbs (sometimes eggs, honey or other locally sourced products are included).
Then at a specified time and day of the week, you pick up a box or bag at some location around town of whatever the farm is harvesting and then take home with you the freshest of fresh produce that’s likely grown less than 30 miles from where you live. It’s always a grab bag of things, but most CSAs e-mail you a newsletter with what you can expect to receive in your box that week.
Mine costs $30 a week if you buy four weeks and $28 if you buy 10, and I’d say I’m getting my money’s worth. It would help if a certain someone in my house helped me eat all that eggplant, but the basil, squash, peppers and tomatoes are certainly not going to waste.
It was those peppers grown five miles from my house that led me to a major life revelation last night:
I’m not afraid of spicy heat anymore!
The spiciest food I’ve ever been able to handle is the equivalent of what a typical Texas-bred toddler, heck even my Texas-bred toddler, can handle. I have always enjoyed the Chuy’s salsa kind of hot (the fresh one, not the ketchup one).
But it was this bright, buttery and HOT squash pepper dish — paired with black beans, enchilada leftovers and some of that saffron rice in a bag that H-E-B sells for about $0.75 — schooled my wimpy palate. And, like any straight-from-the-garden dish should be, it’s s-i-m-p-l-e.
Squash and Pepper Summer Farewell
(Remember, the ingredient amounts are flexible. I think any garden-y dish depends on the level of heat in your particular peppers and the woodiness of your squash. Or zucchini, which of course would be a delicious substitute.)
2 Tbsp. butter 2 small hot and sweet peppers, de-seeded and minced 1 big clove garlic, minced 2 cups chopped squash (the stranger the variety and shape, the better) coarse salt pepper
Melt the butter in a large saucepan. Add the peppers and garlic and saute for one minute, then add the squash and continue cooking until squash soften, about six minutes. Season with salt and pepper.
(Optional, for newbies: Pour glass of milk.)
Enjoy!
Permalink | Comments (4) | Categories: Eating locally, Recipes
September 15, 2008
Seduction by casserole
Because the cool(er) weather in Austin has everybody jumping for joy in their wool socks and trying to remember where they stashed the tea bags last February, I thought a killer casserole dish might be a good way to honor the break from the Texas heat. (I made the mistake of baking last week, forgetting that it raised the temperature of my entire house by about 10 degrees.)
Seduction
1 pound cavatelli pasta
1/4 cup olive oil
2 cloves garlic (you might want to skip if you’re actually trying to seduce someone)
1 large white onion
1/2 cup milk (low fat or skim is fine, not that it really matters at this point)
1/2 pound sharp cheddar, cubed or shredded
1/2 pound white cheddar, cubed or shredded
1/2 pound Gruyere, cubed or shredded
1/2 pound fresh mozzarella, cubed
1/2 cup grated Parmesan
1 bag (10 oz) Cascadian Farm frozen organic sweet corn
2 plum tomatoes, thinly sliced
salt, pepper
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Parboil the pasta, drain and set aside.
In a large pot over medium heat, saute the garlic and onion in 2 to 3 tablespoons of the olive oil. When the onions begin to brown, reduce the heat to low, add the milk, and stir. Add both of the cheddars and the Gruyere while continuing to stir. When the cheeses begin to melt, add the pasta, stirring until the pasta is well coated. Add half of the Parmesan (1/4 cup) and stir. Add the corn while continuing to stir (it should go in frozen). Salt and pepper to taste. Add the mozzarella and stir.
When thoroughly mixed, transfer to a 2 3/4-quart buttered or greased casserole dish and bake, uncovered, for 35 to 40 minutes or until bubbly.
Remove from oven and cover with the sliced tomatoes and the rest of the Parmesan cheese. Bake for about 15 more minutes. Let stand 10 minutes before eating.
Who else has a seductive dish to share?
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August 26, 2008
Do these beans make me look fat?
Finally, a book celebrating the oft maligned crown jewel of the food pyramid.
The book, which is by author Jennifer McLagan and comes out September 16, goes into far more detail about fat than most people would enjoy, but the fabulous recipes will cure your hankering for bonafide refried beans (see recipe below), brown butter ice cream and, should you so desire, whole roasted veal kidney.
Fat is beautiful in so many forms, but lard in particular is a food darling right now. I grew up using Crisco in cookies and such, but can’t recall cooking with the real deal. You can get lard everywhere and, if you keep it in the fridge, it will last a long time. Pie crusts made with lard are legendary in their flakiness and taste, and we all know that refried beans aren’t really refried beans unless they are made with lard.
Lard — and, let’s face it, fat altogether — have gotten the short end of the butter stick for decades. No fat, low fat, good fat, bad fat have taken over our culinary vocabulary, replacing responsible fat consumption, which people were exercising for hundreds of glorious food years before the f word became so cursed.
So, to get you started thinking about how you can use lard in your own kitchen, here’s the official “Fat” recipe for refried beans. (I particularly like the last instruction.)
Refried beans
1 1/2 cups pinto beans
2 onions
generous pinch of dried epazote
2/3 cup plus 2 Tbsp. lard
sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
Soak the beans overnight in cold water to cover. Drain the beans, discarding the soaking water, and place them in a saucepan. Cut 1 onion in half and add it to the saucepan. Add the epazote and cover with water. Bring to a boil over high heat, cover, lower the heat, and simmer until the beans are very soft, 1 1/2 to 2 hours.
Drain the beans, reserving 1 cup of the cooking liquid. Using a potato masher, mash the beans. Finely chop the remaining onion. In a large, heavy skillet over medium heat, melt 2/3 cup of the lard. When it is melted, add the chopped onion and cook, stirring, until softened.
Add the beans to the onion and gradually stir in 1/2 cup of the cooking liquid to make a soft puree. Continue stirring until heated through, adding more of the cooking liquid if the beans become dry, and season well with salt and pepper.
Serve drizzled with the remaining 2 tablespoons of fat, melted, if desired.
Did you know? According to “Fat,” epazote, an herb available at many area grocery stores and Latin markets, is a carminative, meaning it relieves flatulence, as if you needed another excuse to try this particular bean recipe.
Permalink | Comments (4) | Categories: Cookbooks, Cooking, Recipes
August 11, 2008
Thank you, sweet beverage gods, for agua fresca
My friend Corey brought some slightly over-ripe watermelon the other day and the texture just wasn’t ideal for eating straight, so we decided to make agua fresca.
The concept is easy: Squeeze as much juice out of the fruit as you can, then add a few other ingredients to make it even tastier (as if plain watermelon juice weren’t delicious enough!). We added water and a hint of lime juice, but it didn’t need any sugar or agave nectar because the watermelon was plenty sweet by the time we juiced it.
You can juice watermelon in a juicer if you have one, but you can also use a blender or food processor and then strain the pulp. (We used one of those As Seen on TV quick choppers. Why do I have one of those? It’s a neighbor’s, I swear. :)) I froze the watermelon pulp in little containers and gave it to my kid as a cool afternoon treat.
Cantaloupe, honeydew, pineapple, mango, grapes and strawberries work well with this method. Traditional jamaica and tamarind flavors and horchata, an almond rice milk often served alongside aguas frescas, aren’t too difficult to make, but we’ll cover those on another day.
Permalink | | Categories: Drinks, Recipes
July 24, 2008
On the hunt for jalapenos?
If you’re in Austin and missed last night’s market, look forward to Saturday’s markets downtown and in the Burger Center’s parking lot in Sunset Valley. Georgetown’s market is today, as is Smithville’s. There are lots of farm stands and individual farmers with peppers, so if you are determined, you can get your hands on some salmonella-free jalapeños despite the recall.
Fresh out of jalapeños recipes? Here’s a rough approximation of the delicious creamy jalapeños dressing they serve at Chuy’s. Put it on a salad or use it as a dip for chips or veggies.
Creamy jalapeño ranch dressing
1 quart Kraft mayonnaise
1 cup low-fat* buttermilk
1 cup jalapeños w/juice (The recipe calls for HEB Harvest Moon, 12 oz jar, hot sliced, but use fresh if you’re feeling adventurous.)
1 cup green tomatillos w/juice
1 small bunch cilantro
3 packs buttermilk ranch dressing
*The original recipe does not use low-fat ingredients.
Put the buttermilk in the blender. Measure out one cup of jalapeños and juice. (Spoon out the jalapeños from the jar and pack down one cup and pour the juice over to fill the empty space. Jalapeños and juice together should equal one cup!)
Dump jalapeños into blender and blend on high until they look like the crumbs in the buttermilk.
Measure out one cup of tomatillos and juice the same way you did the jalapeños. Add to blender.
Pull cilantro leaves off of the stems and dump into blender. Blend on high until tomatillos are gone and cilantro is finely chopped.
Add mayo and all three packets of ranch dressing. Blend on high until blended together.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: Eating locally, Food in the news, Recipes
July 21, 2008
In case you can't get enough Key Lime...
Jessica Maher of Spoon and Co catering and Dishalicious meal delivery says this Key Lime ice cream is even better than Key Lime sorbet.
Maybe we should make both, plus a pie and some ‘ritas and throw ourselves a Key Lime party…
Key Lime Ice Cream
Makes 2 quarts
4 whole eggs 8 egg yolks 2 1/2 cup sugar 1 cup key lime juice 1/2 cup lemon juice 5 key limes, zested (more for really intense flavor) 2 1/2 cup heavy cream 2 cup whole milk
Combine cream and milk in medium sauce pot and bring just to scalding point (just starting to boil). Turn off and set aside. Meanwhile, combine eggs, juice, sugar and zest in bowl over double-boiler. Whisk egg mixture continually over medium heat until mixture starts to thicken like a curd (about 85˚C).
Turn off heat, and slowly liaison cream mixture into egg mixture until just combined strain through fine mesh strainer, pressing to make sure all the ice cream base has passed cool down over ice bath (put bowl of ice cream mixture over another bowl of ice and water to help cool internal temperature quickly).
Rest overnight in refrigerator, covered, then spin then next day in ice cream machine according to manufacturer’s instructions. Put in another container to set up in freezer. It’s best to allow to sit overnight, but at least let sit for several hours before eating. Can be stored for up to a week.
This ice cream makes great ice cream sandwiches. Just pull ice cream from freezer and allow to temper until just soft enough to scoop easily. Use your favorite sugar cookie or vanilla snap cookies to sandwich the ice cream, and then allow to set up briefly in freezer again before serving.
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July 18, 2008
How to make: Key Lime Pie
Grab yourself some key limes and make a sweet treat!
Key Lime Pie
1 9” graham cracker pie shell
1 14 oz. can sweetened condensed milk
3 egg yolks
1/2 cup key lime juice (about 15 limes)
Combine milk, egg yolks and lime juice. Blend until smooth. Pour filling into pie shell and bake at 350F degrees for 15-17 minutes. Let cool and serve.
And here’s a sorbet recipe in case you don’t want to heat up your house…
Key Lime Sorbet
Recipe by Alton Brown
1 cup sugar
1 cup key lime preserves
1 lemon, zested and juiced
1 lime, zested and juiced
4 cups lime flavored club soda or seltzer
Kosher salt
Combine sugar, preserves and 1 cup of the soda in a medium saucepan and stir over low heat until sugar and preserves are melted. Add citrus juice and zest. Stir in the remaining soda, move to a clean, lidded container and chill thoroughly, 2 to 3 hours.
Turn mixture in ice cream maker per maker’s instructions or until mixture reaches the consistency of a firm slush. Return mixture to lidded container and harden in freezer 1 hour before serving.
If sorbet is to be held frozen for longer than 2 hours, move from freezer to refrigerator for about half an hour before serving. If you’d like a more assertive sorbet, double the amount of citrus zest.
Yield: 1 1/2 quarts Prep Time: 15 minutes Cook Time: 3 hours 15 minutes
Permalink | Comments (4) | Categories: How to video, Recipes
July 15, 2008
Z'Tejas wants your dessert on the menu
Z’Tejas is looking for a few good recipes.
Dessert recipes to be more specific.
Dessert recipes that use chiles to be exact.
It’s never to early to start looking forward to the chile season, which for the beloved Hatch chile is just around the corner, and Z’Tejas is planning a three-week chile celebration September 2-21.
The restaurant, which has three Central Texas locations, will have a special menu for the three-week Chile Bash, and on that menu could be your very own recipe!
Send your recipes to recipes@ztejas.com and include the following information:
— Number of servings
— List of ingredients and measurements in order of use
— Step-by-step preparation and cooking instructions
— Name, address, phone and e-mail
A portion of the sales from Chile Bash menu will go to the Sustainable Food Center, the nonprofit in charge of the downtown and Triangle farmers’ markets and several programs providing access to food to low-income families.
You have until July 28 to submit a recipe. You’d better get cookin’!
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July 12, 2008
What to do with all these recipes?
I admit it; I’m a pack rat, especially when it comes to magazines. I have magazines piling up on the dining room table, leaving us hardly enough room to have dinner, and my slightly OCD husband is quickly tiring of the ever-growing mess.
I’m a magazine freak, subscribing to many and collecting the local free ones wherever I go. I’m obsessed with what’s inside: the front-of-book tips, the photography, the fashion spreads, the profiles, the design, and, most importantly, the recipes.
I’d like to start going online to fetch the recipes I find in print, but then I’m stuck without a way to collect them all in one place.
So here’s my problem: The recipe clutter online and on my computer is already overwhelming! I have recipes stored on del.icio.us, Google Reader and, of course, my inbox. I’ve tried to stick with Epicurious, AllRecipes or one of the other recipe sites, but that only lasts a day or so. I’ve even started Word files to cut and paste recipes in! (You can guess how long that lasted…)
With so many recipe databases out there, there’s bound to be one that lets me input, import and collect recipes easily.
Maybe I just am out of the loop, but I haven’t found a site that works for me. What do ya’ll use to find recipes online and keep ‘em all straight?
Permalink | | Categories: Cookbooks, Cooking, Recipes
July 7, 2008
What to do with Fourth of July leftovers
I’ve always treated leftovers like gold. Probably stems from the leftover-only diet I consumed at lunch in high school. My loathe of turkey sandwiches and the availability of a cafeteria microwave meant that I was always concocting various ways to spice up the previous night’s dinner.
After this weekend’s grill binge, I imagine you, too, might have some leftovers just dying to be thrown together with some eggs for a Leftover Tortilla (the Spanish omelette tortilla, not the flat ones made of flour or corn).
Don’t do it for you, do it for the planet.
Why? Because eating leftovers is just way one to cut down on the amount of food we waste each year. Would you believe that, according to the government, we waste 27 percent of the food available for consumption?
Hungry people ‘round the world wouldn’t sniff twice at that pasta dish you made last weekend. Jonathan Bloom wouldn’t either. He’s in the midst of writing a book on wasted food in America, and he keeps a really interesting blog at www.wastedfood.com.
Bloom gives five tips on reducing your food waste:
Plan meals ahead and make a detailed shopping list. If you have a purpose for every item you buy, you’re less likely to waste food.
Stick to your list and avoid impulse buys. The majority of home food waste comes from buying items not on your list and unfamiliar foods. While that chayote is tempting, you may not get around to it before it gets overripe.
Beware bargains that beget waste. Sometimes “buy one, get one free” deals and bulk purchases are like fool’s gold. True Alpha Consumers know that saving a few bucks is useless if you throw away those savings later.
Shop for your real life, not your ideal one. If you find yourself getting takeout and tossing fresh foods, plan fewer home-cooked meals.
Save (and eat) your leftovers. There’s nothing better than leftovers for lunch, or you can set them aside for a smorgasbord dinner. Call it “Loco Leftovers Night” and the kids will love it.
Loco leftover night sounds like a sweet deal to me. Here’s a quick recipe to spruce up this weekend’s leftovers.
Leftover Tortilla Española
The basics:
6 eggs, beaten
1/2 tsp. black pepper
Pinch salt
1 tsp. butter or oil
The leftovers:
1 cup total chopped leftovers — You can use anything hanging around in a Tupperware or wrapped in aluminum, but I’ve found that sausages, chicken, hamburgers, potatoes, kebabs and especially grilled vegetables work really well.
(If consuming leftovers isn’t appealing to you, try adding a little cheese in the mix. One ounce of anything from Parmesan to Muenster to even Camembert will do wonders to make even the most disgusting combination of leftovers taste pretty darn good.)
In medium size bowl, using a fork, beat the together eggs, cheese, pepper and salt. Heat 12-inch non-stick, saute pan over medium high heat. Add butter to pan and melt. Add leftovers to pan and saute for 2 to 3 minutes. Pour egg mixture into pan and stir with rubber spatula. Cook on low for 4 to 5 minutes or until the egg mixture has set on the bottom and begins to set up on top. Do not stir.
(Now this is when it can get tricky, but once you perfect la vuelta — the flip — you’ll be making these Spanish tortillas every week.)
With the heat on low, the eggs will have been cooking from the bottom up. After 6-8 minutes, when the top of the eggs are still just a little runny, loosen the edges of the tortilla with a knife and place a plate on top of the pan. With your hand firmly on the plate, flip the saute pan over and the tortilla should come out on the plate. Slide the tortilla back in the pan and finish cooking for another few minutes.
(You can watch a video of the basic Spanish Tortilla here, and the flip occurs at 3:20.)
Photos courtesy of adraskoy and Juliet_ via Flickr.
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July 2, 2008
Get your meatless grilling on
Today’s lead story about grilling on the cheap for the Fourth of July struck me as being quite meat-heavy, so I wanted to get some information out there about vegetarian grilling, for our non-meat-eating friends who also want to grill up something nice for the upcoming holiday.
I’m doing a video with local vegetarian chef Cristina Carolan this morning, which should be up later today, along with several of her fabulous recipes.
Now, a few tips to get you started:
You can grill fake meats (which, even as a meat eater, I find incredibly delicious when well-prepared), but Carolan says you should marinate a few hours or even overnight so they absorb the flavors. As for the marinade, just make sure it has some oil in it so whatever you’re grilling won’t stick. Tofu, tempeh and seitan are some examples of protein-rich foods that Carolan says grill up nicely.
Over at Chowhound, “The New Vegetarian Grill” cookbook author Andrea Chesman says to leave the lid up when grilling veggies in order to keep them from losing their crunch. There’s also a whole thread dedicated to vegetarian grilling ideas in case you get stuck. Someone suggested grilled portabello mushrooms marinated in balsamic, olive oil, salt and pepper, topped with a white bean, garlic, sage puree. Mmmm, makes my mouth water just thinking about.
Check back later for more tips, ideas, recipes and a video showing you how to make Grilled Fennel and Radicchio on Grilled Polenta.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: Cooking, Recipes
June 25, 2008
Reader recipe: Career Girl Cobbler
We’re already getting some great recipes in the Statesman’s recipe database, which you can search or submit recipes of your own to. Reader Kay Marley gave us this recipe for Career Girl Cobbler earlier today. Where does the name come from? Kay tells us…
My grandmother passed down this recipe from the 1920’s, when she first went to work. She called it Career Girl’s Cobbler because even though she worked she was still expected to provide a full meal to the family.
Career Girl Cobbler
Ingredients 1 c. milk 1 stick butter or margarine, melted 1 c. flour 1 1/4 c. sugar, divided 1 tsp. baking powder 1 tsp. cinnamon 1 can peaches with juice 1 can drained peaches
Heat oven to 375 degrees. Pour butter into 9x13 pan. Mix together flour, 1 cup of sugar and baking powder. Slowly add milk & mix until smooth. Pour evenly over butter in pan but do NOT mix together. Add fruit & juice to pan but again, do NOT mix. Just try to place the fruit as evenly as possible. Mix together remaining sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle over top. Bake for 45 minutes until golden on top.
—Kay Marley
Can’t wait to try this one out! Thanks for the recipe, Kay!
Permalink | | Categories: Recipes
Adventures in recipe-making and calimochos
Today’s Relish Austin column about making (and sharing) recipes got me thinking about recipes that I should put in the Statesman’s new — and easily searchable — recipe database.
I always use recipes as a base, adding or subtracting ingredients based on personal preference and what’s available in the fridge or pantry, but I don’t think I’ve ever written down one that’s all my own. Most of the time, I just throw ingredients together “by guess and by gosh,” as my grandmother says. But there’s something to be said about granting longevity to your favorite dishes by writing out how you make them and then sharing them with others. Recording when, why and with whom you enjoy the dish enriches the recipe even more.
If you’ve never made a recipe before, I encourage you to try it out. If you do and submit it in our database, send me an e-mail or Twitter @broylesa and tell me about it!
So I’ll start off this recipe-making nice and simple, with instructions for one of my favorite drinks. Don’t get me wrong: I didn’t invent the calimocho — in fact, it’s one of Spain’s most popular street drinks — but I have made them enough to share how I prefer them.
Calimochos
1 part red wine 1 part Coca-Cola splash of fresh lemon juice ice
Combine ingredients. Drink on hot summer days. Be pleasantly surprised at the results.
I can hear it now. “What?! Red wine and Coke?” I know; it sounds awful, but the sweetness of the Coke pairs nicely with the oak and vanilla of a Rioja or similar wine. Calimochos are also a great way to finish the previous night’s leftover wine. You can even blend different wines if you have several already-opened bottles. Feel free to adjust the ratio of Coke to wine to your desired sweetness.
The only steadfast rules, in my book, are plenty of ice and an 85+ degree day. Enjoy!
Photo by FunKa-Lerele via Flickr.
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May 21, 2008
Lickity lavender, that's good ice cream
Gary Ackerman and his chef students from the Texas Culinary Academy whipped up a fabulous meal Saturday night at a fundraiser for the Austin Discovery School, which I wrote about in today’s food section.
Lavender ice cream ended the meal, and Ackerman couldn’t have picked a better dessert to get guests talking at the end of the night. Everyone at my table couldn’t get enough of this sweet, fragrant ice cream, which wasn’t too heavy on the easily overpowering lavender.
Amy Osborn of the Texas Culinary Academy let him use this recipe, which she’s graciously shared with us.
P.S. If you haven’t cooked with culinary lavender before, you can get the dried herb at many of the local lavender fields including Villa Texas in Fredericksburg, and in the bulk food section at both Central Market locations in Austin.
Lavender Ice Cream
1 quart whole milk
1 pint heavy cream
12 oz. sugar, divided
2 tsp. culinary lavender
8 egg yolks (from fresh farm or free range) eggs with good color
1 tsp. vanilla extract
In a heavy pot, combine milk, cream, half of the sugar and the lavender. Stir often over medium heat to 180 degrees.
In a large mixing bowl, whisk the yolks, with the other half of the sugar and the vanilla, until sugar is dissolved.
Pour the hot liquid, while stirring, into the cold yolk-sugar mixture. Return the mixture to the pot, place over medium fire, and heat, stirring, to 170 degrees.
Pass the hot mixture through a strainer and into a bowl big enough to hold it with some room for stirring. Lavender flavor, but not the petals, will remain.
Place ice in a larger bowl and place the bowl of hot liquid on top of this, with the hot bowl directly contacting the ice. Chill, stirring, to below 70 degrees.
Freeze the custard in a home or commercial ice cream freezer, following manufacturer’s instructions. Turn out into a prefrozen container, cover immediately and place into freezer. Freeze 24 hours, then temper at refrigerator temperature about a half hour before serving.
Photo courtesy of GourmetSleuth.com.
