You may have let this little jewel slip by, but recently Bon Appetit published a huge dessert recipe book.  It can be found at most major bookstores or on Amazon at:

http://www.amazon.com/Bon-Appetit-Desserts-Cookbook-Wonderful/dp/0740793527/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1295127505&sr=8-1

I’ll go on record as saying I think this book is going to be a classic dessert book.  There are so many great recipes that cover a huge range of tastes.  I think it will be a go-to book for many cooks for many years to come and I expect to turn to it often.

I’ve had the photos from this recipe done for a few months now, but haven’t had the time to write it up.  I originally did this as the birthday pie for my wife Nedda.  We both like the taste of cardamom as it lends an exotic flavor, one that she grew up with.  Of all the cooking I’ve done I can honestly say I haven’t made a lot of pies.  So I expected this to be a learning experience, particularly since marzipan, the almond paste flavoring, is in the crust.  Great pies always look so good, but I wasn’t sure how mine would turn out.  I’m happy to say I was pleased with the crust and the flavors of this recipe.

Epicurious.com publishes Bon Appétit recipes and this one can be found online at:

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Pear-Cardamom-Pie-with-Almond-Crust-100327

Ingredients

For crust

• 2 3/4 cups all purpose flour
• 1 7-ounce package marzipan or almond paste, coarsely crumbled
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
• 5 tablespoons chilled solid vegetable shortening, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
• 5 tablespoons (about) pear nectar
• 1/2 teaspoon almond extract

For filling

• 1/3 cup (packed) dark brown sugar
• 1 vanilla bean, coarsely chopped
• 3 tablespoons cornstarch
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
• 3 pounds firm but ripe Bartlett pears, peeled, halved, cored, cut into 1/2- to 3/4-inch-thick wedges
• 2 tablespoons pear nectar

• 1 egg, beaten to blend (for glaze)
• 1 tablespoon sugar

Most of these ingredients can be found at your grocery store, including cardamom.  It’s just not a spice that we normally use day in and day out.  But if you look close at the spice rack in your grocery store you’ll probably find it.  I was unable to find pear nectar, but ended up substituting apricot nectar instead.

If there was one thing I would do differently next time it would be to make sure the pears were perfectly ripe.  The ones I had were a little firm and I thought they would soften up a lot during baking, but they turned out to be on the soft side of crunchy.  I’m sure it would have been more flavorful if they had been more ripe.  That’s not a fault of the recipe, just a fault of my impatience to try this dessert.

In a food processer, blend the flour, marzipan, and salt together.

Next, add the butter and the shortening and blend together until it’s a course meal.  Make sure the butter is chilled again after you have cubed it prior to placing in the food processer.  As most any good dessert chef will tell you, cold butter is the key to making a flaky crust.  If you put it in too warm or work the dough too much then it won’t be as flaky.  Because the food processer blade is putting a lot of energy into the dough to get it mixed up, the dough will also start to rise in temperature.  This is one reason why you want to start with chilled butter.

In a small bowl, combine the 3 tbsp of pear nectar and almond extract.  Begin to add this liquid mixture to the dough and as you continue to work the dough it will begin to come together in clumps and balls.  When you see this happening, stop and take off the lid and use your fingers to squeeze a small bit together.  You want it to stay together and not crumble otherwise when you try to roll it out it will not stay together.  You want to stop just when the dough hangs together to the pinch.  If it doesn’t, then add a little more liquid and a little more processing until you’re there.

Remove the dough to a board.  Divide it into two pieces and wrap each with plastic wrap.  Flatten each piece into a round disk and refrigerate for at least two hours.  The recipe says that you can do these steps up to a day ahead of time.  I’m sure that could work well if you’re looking to offload some work from the day you cook.

Next, chop up the whole vanilla bean into 1/4″ segments.  This is just breaking the bean down so it will be easier to break up with the food processer and combine with the brown sugar.  Depending on how hard the vanilla bean is, this could take a minute or more in the processer.

After the vanilla bean is cut up really well, add the corn starch and ground cardamom.  Process the mixture until it is very fine.

Peel, core, and chop up the pears into 1/4″ to 1/2″ pieces.  Add them to a large bowl along with the brown sugar, cardamom, and vanilla bean mixture.  Add the pear nectar for moisture and toss to coat all the pear.  Set aside.

After the marzipan dough has had time to chill again and rest in the refrigerator, remove one disk from the plastic wrap on top of a floured piece of parchment paper.  Begin to roll out the dough into a roughly circular shape.  It might be easier if you place a second piece of parchment paper over the top as that can help keep the roller from sticking to the dough.  Of course you want to coat your roller with flour to help control any sticking.

This might be a good time to preheat your oven to 400 degrees F.

Carefully place the rolled out dough in a 9″ pie plate and center it.  If you happen to tear it while putting it down simply press a little dough on each side toward the tear and merge it back together.

Use a simple butter knife or other implement with an edge on it to trim the crust to the edge of the baking dish.

Pour the pie filling on top of the bottom crust and spread it out evenly in the dish.

Roll the next disk of dough out on parchment paper just like you did for the bottom layer.  Position the top layer over the pie.

Trim the excess dough off by using a knife around the edge of the pie plate.  Using your fingers, press the outer edge and two layers of dough together in a decorative shape similar to what you see below.

Beat one egg in a small bowl and brush the top of the crust, but not the edges, with the egg and sprinkle the entire top with a little layer of sugar.  Between the egg wash and the sugar you will get a nice crispy top to your pie.  With a small prep knife, cut several slits into the top layer.  This helps let the steam from the pears escape during the baking process.

Bake the pie for 15 minutes at 400.  Then cover the edge with a layer of aluminum foil to keep it from browning too much.  They make special crust protection rings for this purpose and after I did this one I went out and got a crust ring because it’s a pain to fashion one on top of a pie that has already been in the oven at a high temperature.  Continue baking the pie at 400 degrees for approximately 40 more minutes until the crust is golden brown.  This hopefully happens at the same time that the pears get tender and if you have selected ripe pears then you don’t have to worry about them getting tender enough.  Just watch the crust and pull the pie when you like what you see.

Remove the pie from the oven and let it cool for 1 1/2 hours.  This will let the pie filling set up a little bit and of course you can’t bite into a 400 degree pie right away anyway.

When it’s time, whip up some of your favorite cream or a nice rich scoop of vanilla ice cream to go along and enjoy it.  Let me know how it goes.

The recipe calls for rib-eye steaks and I’m sure that would have worked well.  I love rib-eye and if I hadn’t had the filet mignon in the freezer I would have gone to it in a heartbeat.  I think a lot of us never really have filet mignon as often as we would like primarily because when prepared it can turn into a very expensive meal.  The little cuts that I had leftover, in my local market, would have cost nearly $40 to buy from the meat case.  If you pick up a tenderloin from a warehouse store like Costco, you can get an entire tenderloin that will make 7-9 cuts for perhaps $5 per cut.  When cooked properly (read not over-cooked) you barely need a knife.

Here’s the official recipe from the magazine:

http://www.bonappetit.com/recipes/quick-recipes/2010/11/seared_asian_steak_and_mushrooms_on_mixed_greens_with_ginger_dressing

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons seasoned rice vinegar
• 4 1/2 teaspoons vegetable oil, divided
• 1 tablespoon minced peeled fresh ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon Asian chili-garlic sauce
• 1/8 teaspoon plus 2 teaspoons Asian sesame oil, divided
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
• 2 12-ounce rib-eye steaks
• 2 tablespoons toasted sesame seeds
• 8 ounces crimini (baby bella) mushrooms, quartered
• 8 cups mixed greens

Pre-heat your oven now to 190 degrees.  We’re going to use this low heat to pre-warm the steaks.  One of the keys to getting a nice rare steak, but not have it be raw or to not have the outside overcooked while trying to get the inside done, is to warm the meat slowly and gently before you sear it.  We’ll put these steaks in the oven for about 15-20 minutes and this will make it so that you don’t have to cook the outside of the steak so long to get the center temperature up.  A steak whose internal temperature is 90-100 degrees before it ever hits the pan will be much easier to cook correctly.  Go ahead and lay out the steaks in a baking dish, blot them dry with a paper towel on both sides, and place them on the center rack of the oven *after* it has preheated.  Some methods I’ve seen will have you put the steaks in a 250 degree oven.  I’ve found that this can be too warm and the steak will start cooking on the bottom before it has come up to an internal temperature of 95-100 degrees F.  You would like to get the steak up to temperature and still have it be red on both sides.

Now it’s time to toast the sesame seeds.  I was a little reticent about putting any heat on them knowing that they would be the crust for the steak that would be hitting an extremely hot cast iron pan.  I didn’t want them to be scorched.  So I brought up the heat slowly and toasted them slightly.  Remember that the pan will retain heat and continue to toast the seeds unless you remove them from the pan.  Use your judgment as to whether you need to remove them or just leave them in the pan to cool down.  I took them off the cook top early enough that I just let them cool in the pan.

If I were you this is where I would seriously depart from the recipe.  Baby bellas, otherwise known as crimini mushrooms, are a wonderful addition to any steak and salad.  The recipe calls for 8 oz.  If you saute down 8 oz of mushrooms you will be left with enough for one good helping on one plate.  I bought 16 oz and wished I had doubled that.  If you are cooking as much steak as the recipe calls for, 2 x 12 oz rib-eyes, and slicing it up to split amongst several salad plates, you will have much more steak than mushrooms and will come up very short.  So don’t follow the recipe.  Get a bunch of mushrooms and hope that you have some left over.

Gently clean the mushrooms and then slice them vertically into 1/8″-1/4″ slices.

Bring your saute pan up to medium heat.  Add just enough oil to the pan to be able to coat the mushrooms and add them to the pan and toss to get them coated.  You don’t want the pan too hot because the mushrooms cook by giving up steam from the moisture inside.  That moisture needs to escape and if the pan is too hot you will burn the mushrooms before they’re cooked.  There’s no precision to when it’s done.  It will smell wonderful as it gets going.  The more you cook them the smaller they will get.  You want them to have some tooth, but not to be cooked so much as to be leathery.  Go ahead and snitch one out of the pan to test it.  While it’s finishing up give it a few turns of fresh ground black pepper and a pinch of salt and stir it around.

Next, turn your attention to making the ginger dressing.  I have to admit I made a mistake at this point.  The recipe calls for 8 cups of mixed greens that this dressing will go with.  I was making dinner for two and we weren’t about to need 8 cups of salad.  I went ahead and made the dressing according to the recipe, sampled it and thought it so good that I just added it to a smaller amount of salad.  It turned out much too salty with the soy sauce.  But at the same time I wanted all of the flavor of the ginger and the garlic chili sauce.  I think next time I would cut back some on the soy and replace what I pull out with a bit of water and some more canola oil.  There’s no doubt you would still taste the soy, but it would also allow some of these other flavors to emerge.

Chop the cilantro.  In a mixing bowl mix the soy sauce, rice vinegar, vegetable oil, minced ginger, chili garlic sauce, and sesame oil.  Add the chopped cilantro and mix and set the dressing aside to marinate.

You’ll have to monitor your timing with the steaks.  If you’re slow with a knife then you may want to wait to preheat the steaks until you have more of the prep for the salad and mushrooms done.  If you have been warming up your steaks you should periodically check their temperature and pull them out when they are between 90-100 degrees.  This should be a temperature that will give the steak a head start when it hits the pan, but it will not have started cooking or turning brown.

Blot the steaks dry again with a paper towel.  We do this so that the steaks will sear better in the pan.  If they are wet then you won’t get the nice color or texture of a nicely seared steak.  The moisture will simply steam the steak with less satisfying results.  Salt and pepper them on one side and then sprinkle them with the toasted sesame seeds and press the seeds into the steaks with your hands or the back of a spoon.  Carefully flip them all over and salt and pepper and coat the next side with sesame seeds.

If you have a cast iron pan then there is no better time to use it.  In fact, the best thing to do, if you have a double oven, is to preheat this pan to 500 degrees before putting it on the cook top.  I keep a high heat safflower oil on hand for searing like this.  When the pan is super hot then hitting it with a lower temperature oil that will seriously smoke and break down is not good.  Safflower oil is one of the best oils to use for high temperature cooking.  Add a tablespoon or two to the pan and let it heat.  Then nestle each steak on top of some oil in the pan.

From the side you will begin to see the steak cook from the bottom.  When that brown layer is about a quarter of the way up then it’s a good time to flip the steak.  Of course, if you want it done more then just keep cooking it at your own peril.  I would expect to cook these for no more than about 3-4 minutes per side.  Remember that at super high pan temperatures the steak will continue to cook after you pull it from the pan.  Once you’ve cooked them on both sides, remove from the pan to a plate or cutting board and cover with aluminum foil to allow them to “rest”.

Resting the steak after it is cooked is very important.  For starters, you really don’t want to put piping hot steak slices onto a salad unless you want wilted salad.  So you have some time to let it cool down.  But more importantly it gives the juices that have been driven toward the surface of the steak time to reabsorb into the steak making it juicier.  The same concept applies to cooking a chicken or turkey.  If you cut into meat too soon after it has come off the heat, all the good juices will come out and the meat will be drier.

While the meat is resting, go ahead and toss the salad along with the ginger dressing and place a pile of salad onto a plate.  Spoon some of the mushrooms alongside.  With a sharp knife, cut the steak into slices that are not too thin, but not so thick as to make a tough cut with a knife.  If you’ve cooked the steak right it will be very tender and easy to cut.  Let the knife do the work without pressing too hard.  Extra pressure simply forces more juice out of the steak and is not desirable.  Lay slices of the steak over the salad greens.  If you have any leftover chopped cilantro or toasted sesame, feel free to garnish the dish by sprinkling both over the top of everything.

Next time

I’m happy to say I’ll make this again.  I would even make the dressing separately just for a nice twist on salad when you need it.  But next time I think I will cut back on the soy so that the ginger and chili garlic sauce can have more of the stage.  Also, make sure you cook plenty of mushrooms.  They are so good that you’ll be snitching them while you’re cooking and dreaming about them the next day if you don’t have any leftover.

I’m going off script with this post in that I’m not doing a celebrity food chef or magazine recipe.  This time I’m documenting a pasta dish that I put together one night when standing in front of the refrigerator.  Neither Nedda nor I felt like going out and so the heat was on to figure something out.  We had been to a farmers market that day and picked up some really interesting flavored dry pasta.  The flavor we picked was lime cilantro because it sounded unique and we were sure that something good could come of it.  It turned out so well that the first thing I did after dinner was to go to the computer and write it down.  A week later I repeated it with the camera so I could add it to dinnerdot.com and share it with you.

I keep large Vietnamese prawns frozen and ready to go.  They thaw quickly with a little help from a water bath.  The herbs were a collection of herbs that I had in the refrigerator and I knew if I didn’t use them in the next day or so that I would be throwing them out.  So I put on the board Italian parsley, basil, and to echo the cilantro flavor of the pasta I pulled out some fresh cilantro too.  I had some scallions and some tomatoes that seemed lonely and so they went on the chopping block as well.

For dishes like this, with the exception of the pasta, it’s important that you get all your prep done first as things move quickly once you start cooking.  Go ahead and get a salted pot of water boiling while you prep the herbs and vegetables.  In case you still adhere to the old wive’s tail that you need to put oil in your water, please don’t waste the oil.  It doesn’t help.  Just get the water good and salty which will impart some additional flavor into the pasta.  The pasta itself will get drained and added directly into sauteed garlic and olive oil.  There is no chance it will stick together.

The ingredient amounts are really up to you, but I found roughly equal parts basil, parsley, cilantro, and scallions worked really well.  You can see my prep board below and I would guess that it was about 1/3 cup to 1/2 cup of each of the herbs.  I chopped up several tomatoes to get roughly 1 1/2 cups of chopped tomatoes.  Put the tomatoes in a colander or sieve and make sure they are well drained.  Squeeze and seed the juice of 1/2 of a lemon.  Shuck two cloves of garlic and reserve them to mince directly into the saute pan.

The pasta I had was a fettuccine which was locally made, but still dried.  It came in 18″ long strands and if yours is that long I would suggest cracking the bundle in half before adding it to the pot.  The first time I did this I misjudged the cook time on the pasta.  Even though it was “fresh”, it was still dried and took 12-13 minutes of boiling.

When the pasta has been in the water about 8-10 minutes, go ahead and get your saute going.  Pour a generous amount of your favorite olive oil into a large saute pan.  What you see below is probably about 3/4 cup of olive oil.  The oil is a major part of this sauce and it’s not going in the pan just to keep things from sticking.  It’s going in to be infused with all the flavors and become an integral base to the sauce.

Don’t get the oil too hot or it will burn the minced garlic you’re about to put in.  Mince the garlic into the oil and adjust the heat so it is bubbling, but not turning brown or burning right away.

After about 30 seconds of sauteing the garlic, place the shelled and dried off prawns in the pan.  They should be simmering, but not spattering and will immediately begin to turn that wonderful prawn pink/orange color on the bottom.

It’s easy to overcook shrimp and prawns.  So don’t walk away now.  Remember that the pan will have a lot of residual heat as will the oil itself that is hot.  So before the prawns are cooked half way through go ahead and turn them and shut off the heat.

By now your pasta should be done.  Test it by pulling a small fragment out and testing the old fashioned way, with your teeth.  Drain it in a colander as soon as it is done and then add it back to the pot that it boiled in.  The pasta pot should also have a fair amount of residual heat.  Take the saute pan with the shrimp cooked in garlic infused oil and pour it all over the pasta and use some tongs or a pasta fork to get the oil and garlic moved around and coating the pasta.  The reason I do this now instead of after everything is together is because the extra work to get the oil onto the pasta can tend to beat up the rest of the ingredients.

Transfer the pasta and prawns back into the saute pan.  Toss in all of your chopped herbs, scallions, and tomatoes along with the juice from a half a lemon into the saute pan.

Use a pair of kitchen tongs to turn and toss the ingredients together and you are almost there.

In a dish like this where the herbs, tomatoes, and scallions all contribute to a fresh, bright flavor, it’s important to not be tempted to cook them all ahead of time.  In reality it’s just the lingering heat of the pasta and the pan that will wilt the herbs and warm the tomatoes.  By the time you plate, the tomatoes will be warmed up and still have structural integrity.

Contrary to the precision with which I do a number of the other blog articles, you can see this one was done with abandon and without measuring.  You can wing many pasta dishes like this because precision is usually not the thing that makes the dish.  Fresh ingredients that work well together and look good together will give you a winner.  Use your imagination.  The underlying theme I used in this dish was a tasty lime cilantro pasta and then I echoed those flavors with fresh chopped cilantro and fresh squeezed lemon juice to give it bright fresh flavors and depth.  The chopped red tomatoes add more visual interest and a little bit more acid that works with the lemon juice to cut through the olive oil base and helps the overall balance of the dish.

The dish itself is three parts.  First is the Harissa sauce, a roasted red pepper and chile pepper base with a mixture of cumin, coriander, caraway, garlic, chiles, salt, olive oil, and lemon juice.  This sauce alone is worth repeating and using as a companion to almost any protein.  The chiles give it some pop, but they are not overwhelming.  It’s just a really refreshing addition to many meals.  The second part of the recipe is cooking the lamb.  The recipe calls for lamb chops.  My store wasn’t carrying lamb chops at the time, but did have some nice lamb t-bones which I gladly tried and it was a very suitable substitute.  The third part of the dish is a bulgar wheat salad with figs reconstituted with warm water and honey, cilantro, Italian parsley, almonds, mint, and other seasonings.  You will feel like you had dinner in Marrakesh!

You can find the recipe online at the Food Network at this address:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/pan-fried-lamb-chops-with-harissa-recipe/index.html

Harissa Sauce:
2 red bell peppers
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 tablespoon coriander seeds
1 teaspoon caraway seeds
1 garlic cloves
2 small fresh red chiles, chopped
1 teaspoon kosher salt
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 lemon, juiced

Bulgur Wheat Salad:
2 1/2 cups boiling water
1 cup medium-grind bulgur wheat
1/2 lemon, juiced
Kosher salt
1 cup dried figs
1 tablespoon honey
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1/4 cup hot water
1/2 cup smoked almonds
1/2 cup chopped green onions
1/2 cup chopped cilantro leaves
1/2 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
1/2 cup chopped fresh mint leaves
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
Ground black pepper
Lemon juice, if needed

Lamb
Extra-virgin olive oil
6 double lamb chops, frenched
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Harissa Sauce

First thing I would do is take the lamb out of the refrigerator so it can start warming up.  We’ll get to it later in the article.

Then we’ll start one of the three parts of this recipe by working on the Harissa sauce.  I’m showing on my board two Fresno chiles and two red bell peppers.  Depending on your market you may find any number of chiles and picking between them can be daunting if there is a big selection.  The recipe just says “red chiles” which leaves the field wide open these days.  First, I would say to make sure you’re getting a fresh pepper.  If you chop up a dried pepper then you’re likely to have tough bits of skin in the sauce which would not be appetizing.  I chose these red Fresno peppers which turned out to be  great choice.  Not only do they have great color, but they also had just the right amount of heat for me.  I don’t like things too mild or too hot.  So if you have access to these and are trying to make the sauce hit the middle of the road taste for heat then pick Fresno’s.  Sometimes red peppers aren’t in season.  If you don’t have them in the market I would suggest going after one of the good jar varieties of roasted pepper.  In fact, if you’re looking to save some time you could jump right there.

We’ll start by roasting the red peppers over an open flame.  You can do this on your cooktop like I am or this could also be done on a baking sheet under the broiler too.  I think it’s easier to get an even roasting when you do it over an open flame because you can use your tongs to turn the pepper as needed.

Don’t worry about this pepper looking like it has been scorched within an inch of its life.  That’s what is supposed to happen.  We’ll be peeling away this tougher outer skin later.  The skin imparts the intense heat to inside of the pepper without the meat of the pepper burning.  In fact, if you don’t get this level of cooking onto the pepper you will not be able to skin it.  So don’t be afraid.  You can always toss it in the sink if it catches on fire.

After you’ve roasted both peppers to look like the photo above, place both inside some plastic wrap or a plastic bag.  This will retain the heat and further steam the pepper making it easier to pull the skin off.  Let the peppers steam and cool down for at least 10 minutes or until they are cool enough to handle.

Measure out the cumin, coriander, and caraway seeds and spread out in the bottom of a skillet and put it on the cooktop over low to medium heat.  This is what they call “toasting” the spices.  It’s a process that helps to release all the goodness and also imparts a bit of nutty flavor to it in the process.  No need to get these really hot.  When you can start to smell them you are done.  Make sure you remove them from the pan to your spice grinder or mortar and pestle right away so they don’t continue to toast and then burn with the pan heat.

I use a dedicated Krups coffee grinder to grind spices, separate from another coffee grinder.  They’re about $20 at most department stores and you’ll want to make sure you don’t grind coffee in here after you’re done or your spouse will switch coffee brands every day for a month wondering what has happened to the coffee or the water.  But believe me when I tell you that when you pull the lid off this after it has been ground that you’ll want to take a deep whiff to take in all of those wonderful smells.

Seed and chop the Fresno chile peppers.  This is much like seeding and chopping a regular green or red pepper.  The inside structure is the same, just longer.  If you are into more heat from your peppers you can keep a few of the seeds and toss them in too since much of the heat of a pepper is actually sitting in the seeds.

By now the roasted peppers will be cool enough to handle.  Take them out of the plastic wrap or plastic bag and begin to peel the pepper by using your fingers.  If it’s roasted well enough and thoroughly around the whole pepper, the skin should just slide or peel off with ease.  You don’t need to worry about getting every last speck of black char off the pepper.  There is some good flavor in those specks as they ride along.  You just can’t take them all because of the texture and color they would impart on the sauce.  Cut the top off the pepper, seed it, and then chop it into pieces to make it easy to go the rest of the way to a puree in the food processor.

Load the food processor with all the ingredients for the Harissa sauce, roasted bell peppers, Fresno chile peppers, garlic, toasted spice blend, tsp kosher salt, 3 tbsp of extra-virgin olive oil, 1/2 lemon juiced.

Pulse the mixture in your food processor until it has been pureed. Depending on the colors of your peppers your sauce may have a slightly different color than what you see below.

Pour this into a serving bowl or dish if you want your guests to serve themselves.  Otherwise, just set the processor bowl aside and retrieve it when you’re ready to plate the whole meal.

Wheat Bulgar Salad

As you can see, there are a lot of great things in the bulgar wheat salad.  The instructions below are pretty much as the recipe has them.  But to be honest I think next time I might do the trick I was taught by my mother-in-law and sister-in-law which is to squeeze the moisture out of the bulgar after it has steeped.  I thought the salad turned out a little sticky overall and was looking for ways to lighten or fluff it up (see thoughts and suggestions below).

First, place the bulgar in a dry skillet pan and toast  over low to medium heat for about 5 minutes.  Then add the juice of 1/2 lemon and stir.

Transfer the bulgar and lemon juice to a medium bowl.

Pour 2.5 cups of boiling water over the bulgar and stir in 1/2 tsp of salt.  Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let the bulgar absorb the hot water.

Tyler’s recipe uses quite a lot of water for the bulgar and my bulgar did not soak it all up.  So I drained it after it looked like it had pulled in all the moisture it was going to (20 min).  As I was shown by my Middle Eastern cooks, next time I will take handfuls of it and squeeze any excess water out of it as well, similar to the tabouleh recipe earlier in the blog.  I think that will give this a fluffier texture.

The recipe calls for figs.  If you live in an area like California where you can get lots of fresh figs then you won’t have to do the reconstitution that I did and the recipe calls for.  I have dried California figs and put 1 cup of figs into a small bowl.  Add 1 tbsp of honey, 1 tsp of lemon juice, and 1/4 cup of hot water.  Stir and try to submerge the figs as much as possible.  Circle back every now and then and stir again.  The figs will gradually soak up some of the hot water and tasty liquid and become plump again.  If you already have fresh figs I would think that you could cut them in half and then combine them with maybe a tablespoon or two of room temperature water, honey, and lemon juice and have roughly the same idea.

Chop the scallions, cilantro, parsley, and mint.  Drain and fluff the bulgar wheat.  Strain the figs and keep the juice if you want a nice sweet liquor to enjoy later or pour on some ice cream.  I confess I just swigged it on the spot….gooodddd.  Add the figs and almonds to the bulgar and stir.  Then add all of the chopped herbs to the bowl along with the olive oil and stir together.

Take a sample of the mixture.  Add more salt, pepper, and lemon juice to taste.  I ended up adding quite a lot of lemon juice and some more salt.

You should end up with a salad mixture that looks something like this.

Okay, we’re getting close now.  Hopefully you took your lamb out of the refrigerator before you started so that it’s already coming to room temperature.  A regular lamb chop is not usually going to be as thick as these t-bones are.  I wanted to have medium rare meat, but I didn’t want to overcook the outside.  Therefore, it’s key that you begin to raise the temperature of the meat before you actually pan fry it.  The same technique can be used on thick cuts of beef steak and even thick chicken breasts.  This works best if you have a good thermometer that you can test the inside temperature of the meat before you start cooking.  For beef and lamb I will go ahead and put the meat in a baking dish like the one above and put it into a 200 degree oven.  What you want to do is gently bring the inside of the meat up to 90-100 degrees without really cooking the outside.  Go ahead and drizzle olive oil over the lamb and give it a liberal amount of salt and fresh ground black pepper and place into a pre-heated 200 degree oven.  Make sure your oven is pre-heated to 200 first even though that is a low temperature.  That’s because you don’t want the coils of your oven providing so much infrared heat that it cooks the outside of the lamb before it ever goes to the pan.

Keep an eye on it in the oven.  The outsides should never go brown from the heat.  The brown you see on mine below is from the seasonings dissolving into the meat.  I raised the internal temperature of these t-bones to about 100 degrees F before going to the pan with them.

The recipe that is for lamb chops says to cook them for 8.5 minutes per side for medium rare.  If you pre-heat the meat as we’ve done here, it should not take that long…maybe 4 minutes per side, max.  Use your finger to press into the cooked side of the meat after you’ve turned it.  It should not be really soft nor should it feel like a stiff book either.  Cook it until it starts to give some resistance and then transfer to a plate or cutting board and let it rest with a sheet of tin foil over the top for about five minutes.

I tried out a few plating ideas.  The two that seemed to work the best were the one at the top of the article and this one below where I snuggled the Harissa sauce around the lamb.  It’s really up to you and I would love to hear any suggestions you might have.  Don’t go easy on the Harissa sauce.  You’ll want some with every bite and then you’ll want to mix it in with the bulgar salad and maybe even lick the spoon and the serving bowl when no one is looking.

Would I make any changes?

- The Harissa sauce was wonderful and so I wouldn’t change a thing.
- The recipe calls for and I would definitely keep in the fresh chile peppers in the Harissa sauce.  Don’t go with dried chile peppers or flakes.
- I would definitely wring out any remaining moisture from the bulgar by taking a handful and literally squeezing any water out of it like the Middle Eastern cooks do.
- I might even consider lowering the amount of bulgar in this dish so that the grains don’t have a chance to stick together as much.
- I definitely would not hesitate to add more lemon juice to the salad after it has been mixed.

I would love to hear how this turns out for you.

If you’re like me, sometimes you want to spend the time to make a real quality restaurant style salad.  I picked up this recipe from my America’s Test Kitchen Live cookbook for their series in 2005.  Even though it’s now five years later it’s still just as relevant and still just as good.  You really don’t want to do this when you’re trying to whip up a Wednesday night dinner for the family, but if you have guests coming over or if you just want to spend some extra time for a really fancy meal then doing a baked goat cheese can really give that salad the extra taste and texture you want.  America’s Test Kitchen went to the work of figuring out how to make a crisp outer coating without turning the cheese inside into a gloppy mess.  The shallot vinaigrette dressing that goes along with this is a wonderful balance of flavors as well.  I’m happy to say I had no problems repeating the technique.   Surprisingly, the tasty fresh thyme and chives that the cheese is rolled in still come through despite the strong lettuce flavors and vinaigrette.

You can find the web recipe on America’s Test Kitchen site (you may have to sign in to access this):

http://www.americastestkitchen.com/recipes/detail.php?docid=6301&extcode=M**ASCA00
Herbed Baked Goat Cheese

* 3 ounces Melba toasts , white (about 2 cups)
* 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
* 3 large eggs
* 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
* 1 tablespoon minced fresh thyme leaves
* 1 tablespoon chopped fresh chives
* 12 ounces goat cheese , firm
*   extra-virgin olive oil

Vinaigrette and Salad

* 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
* 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
* 1 teaspoon minced shallot
* 1/4 teaspoon table salt
* 6 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
* 1 tablespoon fresh chives
*   Ground black pepper
* 14 cups hearty greens (mixed), washed and dried

I can honestly say this is the first time I may have ever bought Melba toast.  ATK chose it because of how extremely dry it is.  It’s able to soak up the egg/mustard coating and come out crisp out of the oven where regular crackers or bread crumbs might become soggy.  The goat cheese is from Haystack Mountain, a well respected local Colorado cheese maker.  You’ll want to pull out your good olive oil for the vinaigrette.

Grind up the Melba toast in a food processor.  Because of how dry and hard these crackers are I would break them up into smaller bits before placing in the food processor bowl.  And be prepared to run it for a while, up to a minute and a half before you get it to a fine grain.  I literally had some dust coming out of the top of my bowl by the time I got it down to this granularity.

To create the egg batter that will coat the goat cheese, crack the three eggs, add two table spoons of Dijon mustard, and whisk together.

Remove the thyme leaves from their stems and pile up a couple of tablespoons.  Cut chives from green onions or from a pre-prepared package and chop to a fine consistency.

If you have a wire cheese slicer, it works good to prepare the goat cheese.  If you don’t have a nice slicer like this, then pull 12-18″ of dental floss for the job.  You want a very small cutting edge so that you don’t end up smearing the cheese all over the side of a knife blade.  The 8 oz log I used was cut in half and then into 16 pieces.  The ATK recipe had you create cheese portions that would have been quite a lot larger.  By the time I was done I was quite glad I didn’t go that large.  Ultimately it’s up to you about how big you would like the baked disks.

Take each individual cheese portion and roll it up into a ball and then roll it into the herbs.  Once you have some herbs coating the ball, roll it again to push the herbs into the cheese.

You can toss 6-8 of the cheese balls into the egg/mustard mix and then with a slotted spoon, drain each one and drop it into the Melba toast crumbs.  Repeat until all of the cheese portions are covered.

Collect the breaded cheese onto a baking dish or sheet.  Press each one back into a disk by using your hands to contain and reform the edges as needed to make a nice “puck” or disk.

Now comes one of the secrets of this recipe and that is to place the breaded cheese disks onto baking pan and place the whole pan into the freezer for at least 30 minutes.  You’re firming up the goat cheese so that when it goes into the hot oven then the outside will bake and crisp up before the cheese completely melts into a gooey mess.  Go ahead and preheat your oven to 475 degrees, a very hot oven, while the cheese is in the freezer.

Once the disks are frozen, remove them from the freezer.  Brush the tops and sides with a little bit of olive oil.  I used an olive oil spray which worked well to get a nice even coating without soaking the crumbs too much.

In a 475 degree oven it won’t take long…somewhere around 7-9 minutes.  Keep a close eye on them and don’t let them burn or melt into a puddle.

While the disks are in the freezer you can go ahead and make the vinaigrette.   Chop or mince the shallots and add them to the red wine vinegar, mustard, and salt.  Whisk together and then slowly add the six tablespoons of good olive oil while continually whisking the mixture.

Add the vinaigrette to the mixed greens at the quantity that you like.

When the goat cheese comes out of the oven, move the disks to a plate with a paper towel and allow to cool for a few minutes.  After the disks are cooled and a bit more rigid and you are able to pick them up with your fingers, go ahead and place the salad in bowls and put 2-3 baked goat cheese disks on top.

What did I learn?

• This may still be the one and only reason I ever buy and use Melba toast.  That stuff is nasty by itself, but it sure makes a good breading for baked goat cheese.
• Don’t be afraid to adjust the amount of cheese portion you would like.  You may have to watch it bake carefully to make sure you don’t melt it too much.

Editor’s note:  I’m pleased to offer this guest blog entry of a great Arab dessert recipe prepared by my sister-in-law, Lama Kamal (prounounced like Lem-uh).  Qatayef is a classic dessert most often served during the Muslim month of Ramadan.  Those observing Ramadan will fast from dawn to sunset.  The fast is intended to teach patience, humility, and spirituality.  After the fast is broken then a major meal is served for the day and it is often followed by a wonderful dessert such as this along with Arabic coffee (think of a strong roast coffee infused with cardamom spice).  Qatayef is an accepted English spelling, but it sometimes begins with a K.  The common pronunciation is best described as dropping the Q with a soft ‘a’ at the first syllable.  In Arabic there is often a formal pronunciation and spelling and then the way that most people say it which can sound quite a lot different.  I’ve personally sampled this goodness and can vouch for how delicious it is.  In American terms you might say this is a very small but fluffy pancake cooked on one side, filled with walnuts and cinnamon and then pinched closed after being folded in half.  After baking or frying to crisp up the shell, you top that off with a very sweet syrup made from sugar, water, a little lemon juice, and a little dash of orange blossom water.  A real treat.  With the exception of the orange blossom water, these ingredients are readily available at your local grocery store.  Here in Colorado it’s possible to get orange blossom water at the local Mediterranean deli which carries a variety of products from the Middle East, Egypt, Turkey, and other locales around the Mediterranean area.  No doubt it could be ordered online as well.  Please enjoy as I have.  A special thanks to my lovely wife for her photography.

Ingredients
1 cup Aunt Jamima original pancake mix
1 cup flour
1 tsp of all natural yeast (Fleischmann’s)
2 cups warm water
Filling:
2 cups walnuts
½ tsp cinnamon
1 tsp sugar
1 tbsp orange blossom water
Syrup:
2 cups sugar
1 cup water
1 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp orange blossom water

Stir the yeast with 1 cup of warm water.

Mix flour and pancake mix in a bowl.
Add the yeast and water to the flour/pancake mix.
Add another cup of warm water to the mixture.  Wisk well until smooth.

Cover with a cloth towel and leave in a warm place for half an hour.  This lets the yeast do its work to make the batter fluffier.

While waiting , prepare the filling by grinding the walnuts in a food processor coarsely.

Add cinnamon, sugar, and orange blossom water.  Set aside.

Heat a griddle (if electric to 350, if not on medium heat).

Stir the pancake/flour mix a little then start pouring it onto the griddle as you would for regular pancakes.

The top will start bubbling. Cook until all the moisture bubbles dry and remove right away.  This doesn’t take very long so don’t step away and accidentally overcook it.  The bottom will be a light golden brown.  Remember that you only cook this on one side, but it is cooked long enough for the bubbles to dry and set up.  Leaving one side uncooked gives the pancake the flexibility it will need later when filled and folded.

Remove using a spatula and put onto a baking sheet.  You can double them up on the sheet (bubble sides together) if you need more space only after they cool down so they don’t stick to one another.

After they all cool down, start filling them into half moon shapes as shown in the picture by pinching around the edges to close them well.   Don’t over-fill or they might break or it will be too hard to seal them shut.

Spread them on a lightly buttered baking sheet and add a dab of butter on top of each one.  Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 15-20 minutes (until golden brown).

While they are baking you can prepare the syrup by mixing sugar and water in a small pan over medium heat.  Stir a little until the sugar starts dissolving.

When it boils, add lemon juice and lower the heat and let it boil for 5 minutes.  Then pour the orange blossom water and turn off the heat completely.  Set aside.

Remove the Qatayef from the oven when ready.  Some people dip each one in the syrup and serve them that way.  Otherwise you can put them as is on each plate and let everyone pour their own syrup on top according to their liking.  They are served hot right from the oven.

Bon Appetite!

One thing that many cooks don’t think about is that load of spices in their spice rack and what can be done with it.  Also, as many cooks know, it’s convenient to always have a few standard spice blends on hand to make getting a meal on the table quicker, not to mention easily adding some more interesting flavors.

My most often used spice blend is a creole seasoning that works well on chicken prepared all sorts of ways,  particularly grilled on the BBQ,  fish, and occasionally beef.  It’s great to spice up steamed or sauted vegetables or even spice up a baked potato.  I found myself going through several supermarket blends like Tony Cachere’s Creole Seasoning, Cajun’s Choice,  prepackaged Emeril’s Essence, and a local blend from Savory Spice.   If I had to choose a supermarket brand I would have to pick Cajun’s Choice.  The Savory Spice blend is really good when I’m near their storefront to pick one up.  Recently I’ve had enough chicken to BBQ that I’ve found that making my own is more convenient and much cheaper than purchasing the blend.  It’s very easy to do and I’m not inclined to skimp on spicing things up in volume.

I found that many of the prepackaged blends are more salty than they are spicy.  Tony Cachere’s falls into this category which is one reason I like Savory Spice’s blend or Cajun’s Choice blend better.  So I set out to find a basic creole blend recipe to see how close it would come to the commercial varieties and adjust the things that would suit my style of cooking.  The recipe below is the Emeril Essence creole blend as published on FoodNetwork.com  I build this same recipe now with just half the salt.  This gives me more flexibility to make things spicier without being overwhelmed with salt.

You may have to restock some of your spice drawer or you may find you already have all of these ingredients on hand.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/emeril-lagasse/emerils-essence-recipe/index.html

2 1/2 tablespoons paprika
2 tablespoons salt  ( I use half this amount, 1 tbsp)
2 tablespoons garlic powder
1 tablespoon black pepper
1 tablespoon onion powder
1 tablespoon cayenne pepper ( you can add more if you want more pop )
1 tablespoon dried oregano
1 tablespoon dried thyme

I tried the full recipe above with one batch when I decided the next batch would would cut the salt in half.  Other than that I think it’s a great place to start for a creole seasoning.  In fact you could leave out all of the salt and just know to do your own salt on any usage.

This couldn’t be easier.  Just get an empty jam jar or small canning jar.  I use individual canning jars that I pick up at my local hardware store.  They come in all sorts of sizes and you can get what works for you.  I have a jar that will hold a double recipe.  Then, simply measure out the ingredients right into the jar and when you’re done put the lid on and shake it up.  You’re all set with your own homemade spice blend.

This fourth and final installment from recipes in the June 2010 issue of Bon Appétit comes from their “Quick Recipes” section.  There is nothing complicated about this meal, but it turned out really tasty.  The breading for the fish sticks was a simple egg coating and panko crumb followed by a saute and the tartar sauce was easily completed with just a few ingredients.  Perhaps the best twist is that we’re doing this with a really high quality fish as opposed to the no-name white fish that you get in a frozen super market fish stick.  Honestly, the target customer of this recipe versus the target of frozen fish sticks is completely different, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t cast yourself back to your youth and enjoy a great tasting fish stick.

http://www.bonappetit.com/recipes/quick-recipes/2010/06/halibut_fish_sticks_with_dill_caper_tartar_sauce

* 1/2 cup mayonnaise
* 2 1/2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill
* 2 tablespoons drained capers
* 2 tablespoons chopped fresh chives
* 2 tablespoons finely chopped cornichons or dill pickles plus 1 tablespoon pickle juice from jar
* 1 1/4 cups panko (Japanese breadcrumbs)
* 1 large egg
* 1 1/2 pounds 3/4-inch-thick halibut fillets, cut into 3×3/4-inch strips
* 3 tablespoons olive oil, divided

As you can see by the price showing in the photo, good halibut can set you back.  This 1.8 lb was right at $30 and it was enough to feed three people, or in my case two people with enough for one serving as a leftover.  The beauty of this recipe is that it could easily be used on a cheaper fish so you can make it as high or low end as you want.

Let’s get started on this really tasty tartar sauce.  Consider doubling the recipe as the recipe makes barely enough.  If you are like me then when you taste it you’ll want some sauce to go with every bite.

Combine the mayonnaise , capers, chopped dill, chopped chives, and chopped pickles in a small bowl and mix together with a fork.

I bought the halibut in one slab and had the butcher take the skin off.  Skinning fish is not one of my favorite things to do and it’s just a lot easier to request the butcher to do it for you.  Lay the halibut slab out on a cutting board and cut the pieces in such a way that they are roughly equivalent thickness on each side.  The reason to make the sides equal is that we’re going to cook the fish an equal amount on each of the four sides.  This allows you to cook the fish thoroughly, but not overcook it and it will turn out nice and flaky this way.  If the halibut is really wide you may want to consider splitting it down the middle to make double the number of shorter sticks.  This also might be more appropriate when you’re feeding more people or those with smaller appetites.

Place the cut fish into a small baking dish and salt and pepper top and bottom.

Now, the fun and messy stuff.  Beat an egg in a small bowl.  Since I had a bit more fish than the recipe called for I went ahead and beat two eggs so that I would make sure to have enough egg batter.  Spread the panko crumbs into a small baking dish or other dish with sides like a pie plate.

If you’ve never cooked with panko crumbs you’re in for a treat.  Panko crumbs are breadcrumbs made from bread without crusts.  They tend to give your crust a lighter and crispier texture.  Most supermarkets now carry panko crumbs near the ethnic food, particularly Japanese products.  If you don’t have panko crumbs available you can also use regular bread crumbs.

I find it’s easiest to dedicate one hand (left in this case) to the egg coating and one hand to the dry crumbs.  This will keep your fingers from building up a lot of crumbs and make it easier to do what you need to do.  So take a fish piece in your left hand and dunk it in the beaten egg.  Lift it up to let it drain off some of the excess.  Then drop it in the panko crumbs without touching the crumbs with your fingers.  Use your right hand to pick up crumbs and toss over the top of the fish and then roll it around in the crumbs to make sure it’s well coated.  Then lift it out to a separate plate where it will await cooking.

When I sautéd the fish I ended up using a bit more olive oil than the recipe called for.  That was because the first side you cook can soak up a substantial part of the oil making it difficult to properly brown the fish on the other sides.  Don’t over-oil the pan or the breading will come out oily and soggy, but make sure there is enough to wet the crumbs so they can crisp up.  You will probably have to do this in two to three batches.  You don’t want to mash as many pieces as you can or what happens is the sides of the fish will get mushy due to the steam that gets trapped.  So don’t overcrowd your pan.

Even though the fish will be coated with panko crumbs, you will be able to see it cook where the underlying flesh will go from a translucent color to white.  It might only take 2-3 minutes, at most, per side and less as you are cooking the last two sides.  I added some more oil to the pan in the middle of cooking and then tilted the pan to move the oil around and under the cooking fish.  Doing it this way I was able to get a nice golden brown on all sides.

I used tongs to grab along the length of the fish to turn it.  The closer the fish gets to done, the more likely it is to flake apart.  If it looks like it’s going to be weak, just use a spatula in your other hand to help take some of the turning pressure off.

Once the fish has cooked on all four sides, remove the fish sticks to a plate with a paper towel.  You can loosely cover the plate with foil, but make sure you don’t make a tight seal or you will end up trapping steam which will make your nice crispy crust a bit soggy.

I blanched some asparagus and then plated up the fish with a little ramekin of tartar sauce.  Very simple.  Very tasty.  And very much better than a frozen fish stick.

If you’ve ever paid $8 to $10 or more for a small bag of gourmet granola then you might have wondered in the back of your mind just exactly why was it so expensive.  After you try this recipe you’ll still be asking that question because this is neither hard to make nor are the ingredients expensive.  It’s not like trying to make a homemade croissant or your own phyllo dough where once you’ve tried once you know why it’s just better to buy them already made.  It’s not that the ingredients for granola are like buying a $15-$20 / lb fish where the meal at home might cost just as much as the restaurant.  So if you think you might actually eat more gourmet granola if only it didn’t cost so much, then you’ll really want to try this recipe.

The good news with granola is that you can really use your imagination when changing it up.  This recipe is the third of four articles I’m doing from the June 2010 issue of Bon Appétit and the author of this recipe is definitely pitching this as a send off point for you to try the things you like to see in a great granola.  I followed the recipe pretty closely to see just what the basic recipe would produce.  Even though she talks about this as basic, the addition of ginger powder sets this recipe off immediately.

http://www.bonappetit.com/recipes/2010/06/everyday_granola

Ingredients

* 3 cups old-fashioned oats
* 1 cup coarsely chopped pecans
* 1/2 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
* 3 tablespoons (packed) brown sugar
* 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
* 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
* 1/4 teaspoon (generous) salt
* 1/3 cup honey
* 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
* 1 cup assorted dried fruit

There is very little prep in this recipe.  You could make it practically zero if you bought the pecans already chopped.  I had uncooked pecan halves on hand and so I did my own chopping.  I would suggest you do the chopping yourself since you can then control the size of the piece.  Really coarse chop will give you a heartier texture.  If you’re looking for a smoother texture then just chop the nuts down a little more.  The same would go for any dried fruit you put in.  I chose raisins, but if you opted for dried apricots or something like that then you would likely want to give those dried fruits a quick chop as well.

I used walnut oil for my vegetable oil to capture just a bit more nutty flavor.

Go ahead and preheat your oven to 300 degrees F.

I was taught this little trick a long time ago when it comes to chopping nuts.  You can see below that I’m using two knives at once.  This not only helps you get through the job a bit faster, but you’ll find that it makes less of a mess because at least part of the chopping is contained between the blades.  It works best if you can find similar length knives.  Don’t worry about it if you don’t have a set of knives that will work like this.  Just use a single knife.

As you can see below, most of the prep of this recipe is simply measuring out ingredients.

In a medium size mixing bowl, mix all of the dry ingredients together with the exception of the dried fruit.  When I do this again I think I will mix the salt, cinnamon, and ginger powder together first because even after I thought I mixed it well I was detecting some pockets of specific taste, particularly salt, in the final product.  I think premixing these fine grained ingredients first would help to get a more uniform dispersal in the dry mix.

The mixed up dry ingredients will look something like this.

Combine the honey and oil in a very small sauce pan, like a butter warmer.  As the mixture heats up it will begin to combine with the help of whisk.  No need to boil this.

Pour the honey/oil mixture over the dry ingredients.  The mixture will still be loose and it should not be so wet as to stick together.

Use a normal size baking sheet and line it with parchment paper or a Silpat.  As you can see below I’m using a Silpat sheet.  I like this better than parchment for this application because it really fits the whole sheet quite nicely.  If you were to bake this directly on the sheet you would probably find the granola sticking to the pan.  Parchment paper serves the same purpose as the Silpat in that it provides for a non-stick surface while still transferring the browning capability of the baking sheet.  If you’ve never baked cookies on parchment paper it’s worth picking up a roll in your supermarket (usually next to the aluminum foil) and giving it a try.  Your baking sheets will love you for it.

Now spread out the granola mixture evenly over the sheet and transfer to the 300 degree oven.

Take the sheet out of the oven every 10 minutes for 40 minutes each time mixing up and turning over the mixture and spread it out again and place it back in the oven.  Over the course of 40 minutes the mixture will get progressively more golden brown.

After 10 minutes

.

After 20 minutes

After 30 minutes

After 40 minutes take the pan out of the oven and place it on a cooling rack.  Go ahead and mix it again so that the mixture on the bottom doesn’t overcook while the mixture is cooling off.

You’ll notice that you can’t see the coconut anymore as it has turned a nice golden brown.  It’s there and crunchy and the way I prefer my coconut.  If you really like it in its white form then you could simply hold back adding it to the mixture that cooks and instead add it in at the end.

When the mixture is mostly cool you can add the dried fruit of your choice and mix it together.

It’s really starting to look good.

At this point it’s suitable as a snack or as a breakfast cereal.  You can pour milk over it or if you want to try something new then place several heaping spoonfuls of plain yogurt in the bottom of a bowl and then pour granola over the top.  You can mix it together for a creamy and hearty bowl of cereal.

Store any leftovers in an airtight container like Snapware or Tupperware.

Next time

I’m sure there will be a next time and I will turn the imagination loose a little bit.  Almost any type of dried fruit would be great with this including dried apples, apricots, strawberries, blueberries, you name it.  An easy add would be to just pick up one of the flavored packages of Craisins you can find at the grocery to get some other interesting flavors in there like orange or cranberry.

The other thing I would do is to find the thickest cut of oat you can.  I used regular Old Fashioned Quaker Oats, but I prefer a heartier texture and so have recently picked up some thick cut oats that I hope will beef up the texture even more.  I will probably also branch out on the nuts as well by including some almonds, slivered or chopped, or walnuts as well.

You can also experiment with the type of oil and honey as well.  I used a wildflower honey and many stores carry several types of honey produced from bees from different regions or from different types of flowers.  Given that most of the sweetness comes from the honey then I would assume that you could make some interesting changes with the type of honey you use.  The same goes for the type of oil you use to get more or less of the oil flavor into the granola.

The last thing I will try is to add just a little more oil/honey mix to adjust how sticky or clumpy the granola is which is also a way to adjust the texture of the cereal.

In summary, with just a little bit of effort you can have your own gourmet granola at a fraction of the cost of an artisan brand and a much healthier version compared to the mass market brands.  The recipe is easy to scale up so you can have more on hand for a big family and perhaps the best feature is that you can adjust the flavors with each batch so no one gets tired of the same old thing.

]]> http://www.dinnerdot.com/?feed=rss2&p=681 0 http://www.dinnerdot.com/?p=643 http://www.dinnerdot.com/?p=643#comments Sat, 03 Jul 2010 15:00:23 +0000 Randy Cox http://www.dinnerdot.com/?p=643

I suppose there comes a time in every cooking blog when you make something and it just doesn’t meet your standards for one reason or another.  I could have faked my way through this one and crafted just enough nice looking photos to make you think this was a great dessert.  Or I could have just left it out of the blog altogether and forgotten I ever spent time on it.  But you’re my friends and I’m not doing this for the web traffic.  I thought I would do something you don’t see in cooking blogs and that is to start a “Dud File”.  That’s right.  I’m going to blog about my duds too and, because one of the purposes of this blog is to educate, what better way to learn than to learn from a failure?  Kind of like picking up the pieces after an airplane crash and figuring out what went wrong.  Fortunately for you (unfortunately for me) there is a lot to learn from this one silly recipe that I thought was going to turn out well.  This was another of the recipes in the June issue of Bon Appétit that sounded great on paper and I could see it in my mind’s eye.  It turned out there were so many things wrong with this recipe that I am compelled to start the “Dud File” with this entry.  Let me tell you why.

Here’s the URL to the recipe on the Bon Appétit website: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Roasted-Apricots-with-Honey-Vanilla-Creme-Fraiche-359249

Ingredients

*  1 cup (packed) golden brown sugar
* 1 teaspoon ground cardamom
* 6 large or 12 small apricots (about 1 1/2 pounds), halved, pitted
* 3 1/2 tablespoons honey, divided
* 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, diced
* 1 8-ounce container crème fraîche or sour cream
* 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

This looked like it was going to be a cinch.  Not very many ingredients…sugar, honey, crème fraîche, butter, vanilla, some fruit and an interesting spice, cardamom.  What could go wrong?

Crème Fraîche is a wonderful thing.  If you’ve never had it you might say it tastes like a smooth cross between sour cream and buttermilk.  In fact, if you’re in a pinch and can’t find it, that is one of the ways to make a crème fraîche substitute.  Some will just use sour cream itself as a substitute, but you do end up lacking a bit of that buttermilk flavor and lose the right to say some French words all shee-shee like when you serve it.  Here’s a Wikipedia article on it if you want more info:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cr%C3%A8me_fraiche People use crème fraîche in mashed potatoes instead of cream sometimes.  It’s often found in wonderfully rich French sauces.  Overall it’s just a really great ingredient and when I see it in a recipe I’m always intrigued.  Combined with honey and vanilla I was ready to be impressed…more on that later.

I first halved and pitted the apricots.

I dutifully packed a cup of brown sugar.  Notice that the recipe says “Golden Brown Sugar.”  Okay…my market sells dark brown sugar and light brown sugar.  What is golden brown sugar?  I had to look that up.  According to http://foodsubs.com, golden brown sugar is equivalent to light brown sugar.  Whew!  One tragedy averted because I didn’t have any dark brown sugar, but a seemingly routine ingredient was momentarily confused.   Perhaps this is just a terminology blind spot I have, but using the words that you find on the labels in a recipe is usually a good place to start.  Foodsubs goes on to give a substitution if all you have is dark brown sugar.  That is 2/3 cup of dark brown sugar with 1/3 cup of white granulated sugar.  Given that the difference between dark and light brown sugars usually comes down to how much molasses is in the sugar it makes sense to just “dilute” dark with regular granulated sugar if those are the ingredients you have.  So at least one good thing came out of this exercise in that I found foodsubs.com.

The recipe has you sprinkle 1 tsp of cardamom into the brown sugar and mix it around.  Easy enough.  I would say though that the cardamom flavor was a bit too strong and if I did this again I would try it again at 1/2 tsp.  It’s a wonderful spice, but just like using most spices getting them in the right proportions is key.

Their next instruction said “Add the apricots”.  At first I thought to add them on top which is what I did, but later wondered whether they should have been tossed with the brown sugar.  Given that they had you mix the brown sugar and cardamom in the baking dish I was left to assume that you added the apricots on top or otherwise wouldn’t they have you toss it all together in a mixing bowl?  I’m not sure I’ll ever know.  So the engineer in me lined up the apricots in nice neat lines and they fit exactly in the baking dish specified.  So I felt all smug and comfortable about how even that turned out.

They have you pour 1/4 cup of water over the fruit and then distribute the diced butter over the pan.  Again, this is where I started to wonder whether this should have all been done in a mixing bowl.  We’re clearly making the beginnings of syrup and the apricots need to take advantage of this syrup while they’re roasting and they’re starting out on top?  1/4 cup of water is not a lot, not enough to easily wet all the sugar straightaway when the sugar is spread out over the bottom of a big flat baking dish that you’re about to put heat underneath.  Shouldn’t this have all been tossed in a mixing bowl first and then distributed in the baking dish?  The recipe has no specifics.

The recipe says “occasionally basting with syrup in dish”.  So about half way through the 12-15 minute roasting time at 425 I used a big spoon to flip and toss the apricots in the syrup and then finished them.

This is one more bright spot out of this exercise in that I got this wonderful photograph of the roasted apricots as they came out of the oven.  It might even turn into some kitchen art suitable for hanging on the wall at some point.

While that is cooling down (they say 5 minutes), I started on the honey vanilla creme fraiche.  Very simple, add an 8 oz tub of creme fraiche into a mixing bowl.  Add 1.5 tbsp of honey to it along with 2 tsp of vanilla extract and whisk it together.  Easy, right?  Here was another breakdown in the recipe that had me confused.  Usually when you whisk ingredients like this together you are simply mixing a number things together.  After I was done whisking this it had a soup-like consistency which didn’t make sense.  I put it back in the refrigerator and it did stiffen up to some extent, but it became clear when I plated the first attempt that this mixture was just too loose.  It really needs to have much more structure.  So I decided to go ahead and pull out my electric mixer with the whisk attachment and whip it in order to get more body.  This more or less worked.  I simply can’t see how on earth simply whisking these ingredients together would ever give you the consistency required to hold up on this dessert without whipping it to at least stiff peaks.  If it needs to be whipped to a certain consistency so it works with the dish then they should say so.

Creme Fraiche, honey, vanilla

Now for plating.  It was easily past the five minute cool down time that they recommended, but if  I was to ever do this again I would let the apricots come down to at least room temperature.  In fact, I would go so far as to say that you should drain off some of the syrup in reserve and refrigerate the apricots.  You see when the apricots are warm they simply melted the honey-vanilla creme fraiche as you can see in the photo below.  Besides making a dud photo this is exactly what it looked like one minute later which means that’s exactly what it’s going to look like when you put it on the table.  It’s not impressive at all and it doesn’t show the contrast between the fruit, syrup, and creme fraiche.  It just looks like some kind of glazed apricot and milk.

Dud #1

My next attempt was with the whipped version of the honey-vanilla creme fraiche.  This turned out better as far as appearances go.  But you can still see the apricots immediately melting the whipped creme fraiche and dribbling down the side of the apricot.  So this one might have worked if I had refrigerated the apricots after roasting while reserving some of the syrup and bring it down to room temperature.

Pseudo Dud #2

Let’s summarize

Despite the mechanical problems with this recipe, which might be fixable, I thought perhaps the taste would save it.  I was wrong.  I already mentioned that I think 1 tsp is too much cardamom.  But I would also say that 2 tsp of vanilla in the creme fraiche is also too much.  The overload of vanilla in the creme fraiche gave the whole dessert a “boozy” flavor which I just didn’t agree with.  The flavors were much too strong.  If you feel like showing me how it’s done on this one I would suggest starting with half or less cardamom and half or less vanilla extract.  Toss the brown sugar and cardamom mixture together in a bowl with the peaches and water and then distribute it in the baking dish and dab it with butter.  Let the whole mess come down to at least room temperature after it has roasted or plan to serve it mostly cold with a warm or room temperature syrup that you set aside from the baking dish after the roasting is done.  Whip the heck out of the creme fraiche and then put it back in the refrigerator to get maximum structure and body to work with and so it will hold itself together until you at least get it to the table.

The last flaw in this recipe, in my opinion, is that it’s hard to eat an apricot, no matter that it was roasted, in a bowl with a spoon which was their serving suggestion.  The skin is just a bit too strong and you end up trying to use your spoon to carve through the skin with it pinched on the wall of your bowl.  If you don’t get that right you end up raising a half cut dangling apricot to your mouth while trying to discretely wolf it down without anyone seeing.  Not my idea of the elegant dessert this is trying to be.  Perhaps it would have been better with a small drizzle of the syrup on the bottom of a small plate with the apricots arranged on top and a dab of honey vanilla creme fraiche on the side.  Then you could serve it with a spoon and a knife and fork.

It was definitely a disappointment given the ingredients and concept which sounded so good.  Hopefully you learned something from this drama as much as I did.  Perhaps I’ll do a “recipe redemption” in the future and see if I can bring this one around to be a stellar dessert.  Maybe Bon Appétit will contact me and fill in all the details that I should have known.  Until then there are plenty of other things I want to try.

As I was thumbing through some recent Bon Appétit magazines, the June issue really caught my attention.  There are at least four recipes I’m going to do for the blog that I think will really be good.  This one, Ginger Cilantro Rice, was the first to catch my attention.  I’m always looking for ways to turn ordinary rice into a great side dish that people remember and I wasn’t disappointed with this one.  It’s obviously a little more involved than just putting rice and water or stock in a pan and putting the lid on, but a little extra work is well worth it.  The first thing you should consider doing is doubling or tripling this recipe.  Anyone that would usually have one helping of rice will want more and a single cup of rice in the recipe won’t go very far.

You can find the full recipe on the Bon Appétit website at:  http://www.bonappetit.com/recipes/2010/06/ginger_cilantro_rice

Ingredients

* 1 cup long-grain white rice
* 2 1-inch-long pieces fresh ginger, peeled, each cut into 4 rounds, plus 1 teaspoon minced peeled fresh ginger
* 1 2/3 cups low-salt chicken broth
* 1 1/3 cups chopped fresh cilantro
* 1 green onion, thinly sliced
* 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
* 1 tablespoon Asian sesame oil
* 1 teaspoon (or more) unseasoned rice vinegar
* salt and pepper to taste

This is really easy to make because there is very little prep.  Just give the cilantro, about one healthy bunch, a rough chop.  Be sure to rinse the cilantro very well because any leftover grit will end up all over the dish if you don’t.  They say to chop one scallion up very thin, but because the cilantro and onion will both go into a food processor later you don’t have to worry too much one way or another.  As you can see below I chopped the onion into little segments.

Peel your ginger root with a vegetable peeler or a spoon and then cut into 6-8 medallions that are about 1/8″ to 1/4″ thick.  Then with a ginger grater mince about another tsp of grated ginger with juice.

Add the rice and ginger medallions to your pot and add the chicken stock over the top.

Bring the pot to a boil and then reduce to low heat and put the lid on.  Somewhere between 15-20 minutes your rice will be done.  Take a peek under the lid to make sure it hasn’t dried out and burning on the bottom.  Once it’s done, take it off the heat and leave the lid on.

While the rice is cooking, add your roughly chopped cilantro, chopped green onion, minced ginger, along with the vegetable oil, sesame oil, and vinegar to your food processer.   At this point you might want to throw in a dash of salt and pepper to start the seasoning process.

Blend this until it’s almost smooth.  You will still see some cilantro flakes and if you know what pesto looks like this should look a little rougher than pesto.

Transfer the cooked rice into a medium sized mixing bowl and add the cilantro oil mixture to the bowl.

Mix the rice and cilantro oil thoroughly.  Take a small sample and see if it’s seasoned to your liking.  Add more salt and pepper as you see fit.

You’re done!  Plate it onto a serving plate and garnish it with scallions or sprigs of cilantro.  Or go direct to your dinner plate.

Next time?

I will guarantee there will be a next time for me with double or triple the recipe.  It would take very little extra time to make more and this is a recipe that should be very good as leftovers given the oils that are mixed in.  It should stay tasty for a day or two and by then it will be long gone.

Be careful not to overdo the minced ginger that ends up directly in the cilantro pesto oil as it can be a bit too tart or sour if there is too much.  You can adjust to your taste, but you want a nice hint of ginger and not be overwhelmed with it.  I love ginger, but I think I might be tempted to cut back a little bit next time for a slightly smoother taste.

This side dish is great paired with chicken or fish.  With the cilantro flavor it could bend toward Mexican or even Indonesian and Thai dishes too where you might want to consider adding some regional spices and substitute some additional vegetable oil in place of the sesame oil when sesame oil is not part of the regional flavors.  I can even see this as a side next to sliced flank steak with some extra cilantro pesto as a dab on the steak.  The possibilities are endless.  I’m just happy to have another great rice dish to serve when the time is right.

It’s that time of year to find great summer side dishes that go beyond the tired picnic fare.  Ina Garten’s Barefoot Contessa cookbook has a number of great recipes that can really make your summer dinner party work.

This recipe is actually an adaptation of two of her recipes that she puts together.  It starts with a French Potato Salad recipe and then improves it with additions you might find from the Provence region of France.  I liked a number of things she did with the Provence additions, but she was also making that into lunch main all of its own by adding in Italian tuna, hard cooked eggs, and even anchovy fillets.  I was more interested in making this a great vegetable side dish for a separate portion of fish.  We paired this with a grilled Chilean Sea Bass on a cedar plank which was great.  So I skipped all of the meat ingredients of the Provence additions below.

The flavors are bright, but not overwhelming, and the variety of vegetables makes for wonderful texture and is very satisfying even for big appetites.  Perhaps best of all, this version is best at room temperature without the need to worry about any egg products going bad in the picnic sun.

Here is a link to the “basic” French Potato Salad recipe on the Food Network site under Barefoot Contessa and Ina Garten.  I could not locate an online version from them for the Provence additions.  I’ll repeat the entire recipe here.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/french-potato-salad-recipe/index.html

French Potato Salad

* 1 pound small white boiling potatoes

*1 pound small red boiling potatoes

*2 tablespoons good dry white wine

*2 tablespoons chicken stock

*3 tablespoons champagne vinegar

*½ teaspoon Dijon mustard

*2 teaspoons kosher salt

*¾ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

*10 tablespoons good olive oil

*¼ cup minced scallions (white and green parts)

*2 tablespoons minced fresh dill

*2 tablespoons minced flat-leaf parsley

*2 tablespoons chiffonade of fresh basil leaves

Provencal additions (including my deletions)

*½ pound haricots verts, stems removed (French green beans)

*1 recipe French Potato Salad (see recipe)

*½ cup capers, drained

*1 cup halved cherry tomatoes

*½ cup small-diced red onion (1 small onion)

*½ cup good black olives, pitted

That would be the ingredients list for those ingredients I used in the two recipes that are put together.  But before we go on I changed enough things that it’s probably worth noting them all in one place.

1. 1/2 cup of capers is quite a lot.  I like capers, but some people do not because of the tart flavor that they can bring.  If I were you I would cut this back to 1/4 cup to start and then add in more to your liking.
2. I also found that 1/2 lb of haricots verts (French green beans) was a little much, both in volume and putting them in without cutting.  Go ahead and prepare the 1/2 lb of beans, but also cut them in half so they’re easier to eat along with the rest of the ingredients.  Also, you can add just the right amount to your liking as well and use any leftovers for another salad or side dish.  In my dish I probably used about 1/3 of a lb.
3. She also suggested putting in pitted black olives.  I chose to cut my olives in half so that they mix in thoroughly with the rest of the ingredients and their flavor is a little more subtle.

I went ahead and did the chiffonade of basil and mince of dill and parsley for this picture so that you could see all of the prepped ingredients in one place.  For you I would suggest doing the minced herbs near the end so that they can maintain their maximum color for the salad.

Begin by boiling some salted water, enough to cover the potatoes and then some.  When the water is boiling, add the potatoes.  Reduce the heat as needed to keep a low to moderate boil.  You don’t need a vigorous boil because it’s not necessary and the extra action from the potatoes rolling around in the boil is that they can beat each other up and their skins can not look as good.

It’s important to not overcook the potatoes, both for eating texture, but also because there are a lot of ingredients added to the potatoes that need to be mixed in.  If the potatoes are over done then they will break down and the skins will start to separate which could make for a mushy salad with chewy skins mixed in.  So after about 15 minutes of boiling, pull one potato out of the pot and poke a toothpick into it.  As soon as you can push the toothpick into the center without too much resistance they are done.  If it’s a little firm that’s okay and actually the way I prefer them.

In the meantime you can start making the vinaigrette that will go over the potatoes.  Combine the vinegar, mustard, 1/2 tsp salt, and 1/4 tsp pepper and whisk in the olive oil just like you were making a salad dressing.

When the potatoes are done boiling you can strain them and pour cold water on them.  Or if they are not quite done you can drain them in a colander and place a dish towel over the top to let them steam a bit more.   Usually any excess water will evaporate or be reabsorbed into the potato and so there is no need to dry them in any way.

Once the potatoes are cool enough to handle, cut them into bite size pieces.  Some of the longer and skinnier ones I cut into three to four pieces while some I just cut in half.  Try to get a consistent bite size and transfer them into a large mixing bowl.

Pour the chicken stock and wine over the top.  Mix the liquid and the potatoes together.  Let the liquid absorb and then mix again if there is still liquid in the bottom until all the liquid is absorbed.

Add the vinaigrette to the potatoes and mix.  Use a large spoon and scoop under the potatoes, lift, and flip the spoon.  This will help to not damage the potatoes and break them up while still getting things mixed up well.

Add the scallions, dill, basil, parsley, 1.5 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp pepper and toss together.

At this point you are done with the first recipe of French Potato Salad.  You could stop here and have a very satisfying dish.

Proceeding on with the Provence additions, in a large skillet or sauce pan, add a small amount of hot water and add some salt to it so the beans will blanch in salty water.  Place the pan on high heat and when you get a vigorous boil go ahead and add in the beans.  Stir them around a little so that the hot water coats them all.  If you don’t have too much water in here the pan should come back to a boil rapidly.

Side note: Blanching is the process of quickly cooking a vegetable but stopping the cooking process well prior to the vegetable being completely cooked through.  This will enhance the color of the vegetable and soften it slightly which makes it a little easier to eat.

Continue to blanch the beans for 3-5 minutes. I will usually stop the process when the color of the vegetables are super bright.  Quickly pour off the boiling water and run cold water over the beans.  If you have ice handy then go ahead and add several ice cubes into the pan.  The reason why we cool this so fast is to stop the cooking process in its tracks.  This preserves the color and the texture right where we want them.  If you walk away without doing this then the beans would continue to cook through, get too soft, and their color would fade to Army green…not nearly as appetizing or fun to eat.

As mentioned earlier I then cut the beans in half to better match their size to the rest of the ingredients thus making the salad less awkward to eat.

Add the beans, olives, capers (to your taste), red onions, tomatoes.

Carefully mix the whole salad together making sure you don’t stab the potatoes.  Put your mixing spoon under all the ingredients and then lift to get the mixing action that will not damage the potatoes.

The time has come to enjoy.  Spoon the salad into a large serving bowl.  If you have put this together all at once the salad may even still be warm from the heat of the cooked potatoes.  That’s okay.  But you can easily get this dished up and set aside at room temperature until you’re ready to serve.

Next time?

• Use about 1/3 lb of French green beans and cut them in half
• Use 1/4 to 1/3 of a cup of capers instead of the 1/2 cup
• Double the recipes…this stuff makes for great leftovers!

As you’ve probably guessed by now, making this salad is not precision cooking.  Ina has created a great foundation, but use your own tastes to make what you think looks and tastes the best for your and your guests.

]]> http://www.dinnerdot.com/?feed=rss2&p=572 8 http://www.dinnerdot.com/?p=537 http://www.dinnerdot.com/?p=537#comments Sun, 13 Jun 2010 23:45:12 +0000 Randy Cox http://www.dinnerdot.com/?p=537

This is another recipe out of the America’s Test Kitchen cookbook, “Restaurant Favorites at Home”.  It was inspired and adapted from a similar dish served at the Beacon in New York.  As America’s Test Kitchen explains this dessert is classified as a “Cook’s Dessert” which is not in line with classic pastry arts….”Driven more by flavor and less by technique”…it is a dessert that doesn’t spend a lot of energy on appearance although it was plenty appetizing for us.

This is basically a classic vanilla yellow cake split horizontally with roasted fruit in the middle.   Leftover sweet juice from the roasting can be used to add more concentrated flavor and moisture when the dish is plated.

I spent quite a little time looking for this recipe online and was not able to locate it on the America’s Test Kitchen website or on the web in general.  I’ll repeat the basic ingredients here with proper credit given to Cook’s Illustrated and America’s Test Kitchen.

6 large peaches, pitted and cut into 1/2″ thick wedges
6 cups fresh blueberries
1.5 cups or 10.5 oz sugar
1/2 vanilla bean, split in half lengthwise.  Seeds removed and seeds and pod reserved.
1/4 cup lemon juice (1-2 lemons)
8 tbsp (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened, plus more for greasing the pan
1 cup (5 oz) unbleached all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting the pan
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup whole milk
Whipping cream- for presentation

My first challenge was that peaches are not in season here right now.  So I thought I would substitute apples instead.  Although it was still tasty, another time I might be tempted to just make this purely from blueberries as the apple was just firm enough, even after roasting, to complicate things more than help.  It might have been a simpler and possibly more elegant presentation with just blueberries.

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.

I cut up some of the apples to mix with the blueberries and then just used my judgment and eyes to see how many apples to put in.  I tossed together the apples, blueberries, 1 cup of sugar, the vanilla bean pod (not the seeds), and the lemon juice.  Per the recipe I then measured out 2.5 cups of the mixed fruit and reserved in a small bowl in the refrigerator.

Then I spread out the fruit mixture in a baking dish and arranged the vanilla bean pod on top.  Split a half stick of butter into four pieces, 1 tbsp per piece, and dot the top of the fruit with the butter pads.  Put this in the oven at 400 degrees and bake until about half the blueberries have burst which will be about 30 minutes.  Don’t over roast this mixture as you still want some of the blueberries intact.  Stir mixture at about 15 minutes into the cook time.

While the blueberries are roasting begin work on the vanilla cake batter.

To make great cake the one thing you need to do is to get your ingredients to the proper temperature before bringing them together.  The eggs need to be at room temperature and the butter needs to be soft and loose.  My sister sent me a great article from the New York Times on all of the science and practical preparation of butter (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/17/dining/17bake.html?_r=1)  It makes a great case for softening your butter naturally by leaving it out at room temperature rather than putting in the microwave, but you already knew that.

If you have just pulled the eggs from your refrigerator you can place them in a small bowl of warm water for about 10 minutes which will quickly bring them to room temperature.  If you use cold eggs with the softened butter, the cold from the eggs will firm the butter back up and make it more difficult to cream together.

In a medium bowl, combine together 1 cup of flour, 1.5 tsp baking powder, and 1/2 tsp of salt.  This will be added to the creamed butter mixture we’re about to make.

Add 4 tbsp of softened butter to your standing mixer with the paddle attachment along with 1/2 cup of sugar.  Mix at medium speed until light and fluffy.

Next, add two eggs, 1 tsp vanilla extract, the vanilla seeds scraped from the vanilla bean pod.  Mix this until smooth and creamy.

Begin adding the flour mixture and milk alternately in two batches making sure each is incorporated at low speed until smooth and creamy.  Doing this in smaller batches will help the mixture come together without any lumps forming.

After 30 minutes with a stir at 15 minutes, the fruit mixture will have roasted, many of the blueberries will have burst leaving some still intact.  You’ll have a wonderful blueberry compote.  Pull it from the oven and begin to cool the mixture to room temperature.

Once the compote has cooled enough you can use s strainer to strain the juice from the fruit.  The fruit will end up as the center layer of the vanilla cake and the juice can be used to drizzle over the cake or as a nice fruity puddle beside the cake in the final plating.  So don’t pour the juice down the drain.

Reduce the oven temperature to 350 to prepare it for baking the vanilla cake.

Use some butter to grease a 9″ cake round.  Then dust some flour over the top of that.  This should give you a pretty good non-stick surface to cook the cake and be able to get it back out.

Carefully pour the cake batter into the round.

Bake the cake at 350 until the top is light golden brown which should take about 25 minutes.  You can test whether it’s done by inserting a toothpick in the center.  It’s ready when you remove the toothpick and it comes out clean.  Transfer the baked cake to a cooling rack.

Once the cake has cooled in the pan it’s time to get it out of the pan and ready to finish.  Slip a butter knife around the edge of the cake to loosen up anything on the side that might be sticking.  Lay a piece of plastic wrap down on your board or counter top.  Do this so that when you turn the cake pan over to remove the cake that it will be easy to flip it right side up again by simply picking up the cake in the plastic wrap and carefully turning it over again.

Now it’s time to locate the longest knife you have in your collection.  If you can find a slicing/carving knife that is several inches longer than the diameter of the cake then that is ideal.  There are specialty cake cutters that are specifically designed to ease cutting horizontally across a cake like this, but I just used my longest carving knife.

Position the knife horizontally midway up the vertical side of the cake.  Begin back and forth motion while carefully monitoring the exit point of the knife so that it doesn’t tilt too high or too low through the opposite side of the cake.  With two hands or with the help of a paddle, carefully remove the top of the cake and set it aside.

Lay a sheet of plastic wrap across the empty cake round.  With another piece of plastic wrap, cross that one at a 90 degree angle so there is plenty to grab all the way around.  If you make these long enough then they will fold nicely right over the top of the cake and it won’t require you to make more plastic wrap cuts in order to cover the top.

Carefully pick up the bottom half of the cake and place it back in the pan over the plastic wrap.  I used a pizza paddle which made the job easier.

Spread as much of the drained fruit compote as you would like on top of this layer.  You will probably use most of the fruit.  Place the top half of the cake over the compote layer.

At this point, the recipe says to cover and place the cake in the refrigerator for a minimum of 8 hours up to 24 hours.  I was a little short on time and was not going to have the minimum of 8 hours before I needed to serve this.   I thought maybe that the fruit compote would be getting its flavors into the cake over a longer period of time.  However, I did have the leftovers 24 hours later and I honestly could not tell any difference.  So I’m still a bit puzzled about why or what the extra time in the refrigerator is actually doing.  The good news is that you are certainly not going to lose anything and possibly gain something by making this cake the day before you need it…perfect for being able to make the dessert way ahead of time for a party.

Go ahead and slice this up in any size that you want.  It hangs together pretty well for even small pieces.  The recipe suggests cutting it into 8 pieces.

I was experimenting around with plating ideas and didn’t come up with anything profound, but maybe you’ll have some good ideas you would like to share.  Go ahead and whip some whipping cream with some vanilla and powdered sugar for a dollop of cream on the side or top.  Retrieve the compote juice and the fruit mixture that you reserved in the refrigerator.  You can place as much extra fruit on the plate as you wish and spoon the compote juice over the top of the cake, on the bottom of the plate, beside the cake…it will all work.  It adds some additional moisture to the cake and pulls some of those colors from inside to the outside of the dish.  I think another time I might put the juice into a small sauce pan and simmer it lightly to reduce it further so it was a bit more of a syrup.  If it wasn’t so loose then you might be able to do a few more things with it on the plate to enhance the look.

Using apples instead of peaches because of seasonality issues did work.  I would say that it gave the dessert a heartier texture and it would be up to you whether that’s something you want or not.  You could use a pear or other similar fruit as well.  Or doing this simply as a blueberry dessert would work well too.  They don’t call it the “Cook’s dessert” for nothing.  It’s making me hungry looking at it and so I better wrap this up.

This dish is something I made a number of years ago, but as spring rolls (no pun intended) in it got me to thinking this would be a nice salad/starter to try again.  I originally saw this recipe in the America’s Test Kitchen cookbook series entitled “Restaurant Favorites at Home”.  This book is interesting because they talked with some of the great restaurants, picked a signature dish, and then tried to simplify it to make it more accessible to the rest of us while maintaining the best of the original character.  This recipe was adapted from the Crab Tower Timbale from the Mayflower Park Hotel in Seattle Washington.

If you have an America’s Test Kitchen membership you can access the recipe at:

http://www.americastestkitchen.com/recipes/detail.php?docid=6447&extcode=M**ASCA00

I hate to see it, but when I did a Google search on this recipe I found many pages with the exact same list of ingredients, the same name, and even the same instructions, but no mention that this recipe originated from America’s Test Kitchen.  I really respect ATK’s work and there should be no question where I got this and I hope that my tutorial can add some value to the great work they have done.  Please visit their site and watch their TV shows which are mostly broadcast on PBS stations.

As you can see, this recipe is broken down into three distinct components.  First, we’ll make the crabmeat salad.  Then we’ll prep the gazpacho salsa.  Finally we’ll do the Avocado Salsa since the avocado is component that will lose its freshness fastest.

Crab Meat Salad

This recipe is a favorite that I haven’t used often enough.  As with most things quesadilla related, there is a wide range of creative things you can do with one.  This recipe is full of flavor and hearty enough to be a meal by itself or fulfill the appetizer role as well.  This article is attempting to follow the Bon Appétit recipe found at the URL below on Epicurious.  My deviations (deviance some might say) comes from either not finding the exact ingredients or just going off course for the heck of it.

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Potato-Greens-and-Goat-Cheese-Quesadillas-241607

The recipe calls for mustard greens which my local stores don’t carry.  I love Swiss chard and so I have substituted this nutritious leafy green instead.  I only noticed now when looking at this photo that I had purchased light sour cream…wow, didn’t mean to do that.  Have to say I didn’t actually notice…hmmm…must be slipping in my old age.

I bought this particular log of goat cheese because by the time I found it I realized the crumbled goat cheese was all the way on the other side of the store and I was just a bit too interested in leaving.  This was a great tasting cheese though and so I wasn’t disappointed.  I’m sure you could use prepared crumbled feta and be quite happy.

I washed the chard very well while it was still in leaf form.  Then I did a rough chop on it and rinsed it again and dried it in a salad spinner.  The recipe called for 4 2/3 cups of coarsly chopped stemmed mustard greens and I’m pretty sure this bunch of Swiss chard, when stemmed and chopped, added up to about that.  I was not short of greens nor did I have any leftover, so it worked out just right.

Shown is about 1 and 1/3 cups of diced Yukon Gold potatoes.  This was almost exactly one potato.  When I do this over again I’m going to add about another 1/2 potato as the quesadilla can definitely handle it and I like the extra filling and texture.

The goat cheese log I had was pretty soft.  Enough that it wasn’t exactly crumbled in this photo.  After I took this shot I actually put this ramekin with the feta into the freezer for about 15-20 minutes.  That was just right to firm it up so that later I was able to crumble it as I wanted.

First, add the potatoes to a steaming basket of some type.  I’m showing one level of a bamboo steamer which I like to use.  You could even do this covered in a small baking dish in the microwave.  Many of you will have a stainless steaming basket and that will work great as well.

Let the potatoes steam for about 8 minutes.  You don’t want to over cook them because having them just a little bit firm adds to the texture of the dish.  Once steamed, transfer them to a bowl and liberally salt and pepper them.  Now you need to let them cool down for a while because as soon as they’re cool we’re going to mix in the grated jack pepper cheese.  If you have room in your refrigerator you could certainly speed the cooling process up by placing the bowl in your refrigerator for a few minutes.

While you’re waiting for the potatoes to cool down, add 1 1/3 cups of jarred tomatillo salsa to a food processor and then add just 2/3 of a cup of the chopped greens in with it.  Process that until the greens are very finely chopped.

After the potatoes have had a chance to cool down, mix in the 2 tsp of chili powder.

Now add the grated pepper jack cheese.  Honestly I can’t figure out why they have you do this.  I don’t really see a good reason for it.  It doesn’t hurt, but it just doesn’t make any sense to me.  It’s not like the chili powder or salt and pepper that use the potatoes as their ride around the dish.  Here’s what I’m thinking next time…skip the cool down process that the recipe calls for and then just add the pepper jack onto the quesadilla when you’re assembling it.  This seems like a superfluous Bon Appétit style step to me making it more complex than it needs to be with no discernible advantage.  Perhaps someone will comment to give me some ideas why they would do it this way.

On a flat surface, lay out four 8″ tortillas.  Divide the remaining chopped Swiss chard onto each tortilla.  Divide the potato/pepper jack mixture over the top of that.

Spoon about two tablespoons of the tomatillo salsa/chard mixture over the top of each tortilla.  You will end up with extra that you can use as a side garnish for those who want more.  Personally I think I will add a little bit more than the two tablespoons next time.

At this point I took the feta that I had chilling in the freezer and then further crumbled it over the top of each tortilla.

It’s almost a shame that we don’t stop here because this is about as good looking as this dish gets.

In their recipe they have you then fold this onto itself.  I would suggest you don’t and proceed to cook this with another tortilla topping it.  It’s going to be a lot easier and the ingredients are already plenty thick so that doubling its thickness will only serve to make it harder to eat.  Because I cooked these flat, I pulled out my dual burner pancake griddle, heated it up, and added some olive oil to it and spread it around on the griddle.  Then I placed two of the filled tortillas at a time on the griddle.  As soon as it was down I placed a tortilla over the top of each one and then pressed firmly down on both.  Then brush a little more olive oil over the top of each one so that when you flip it you will get the top side crispy and brown too.

Don’t use too high of heat as you’ll want the heat from the griddle to make its way into the middle, enough to melt the pepper jack cheese and put some heat on the goat cheese.  If you use the right heat then by the time it’s warm in the middle it will start to have some brown color too.  I don’t quite remember how long I gave it.  Just use your spatula to pick up and edge for a peek underneath.  You’ll know when the right time is.  Go ahead and carefully flip it and let it start to brown up on the other side.

Transfer the heated quesadilla to a cutting board.  Use your long chef’s knife to cut it into quarters or use a pizza cutter to do it.

In the final photos I transferred the remaining tomatillo/chard salsa to a ramekin.  Then I spooned some sour cream into a small bowl and sprinkled a little chili pepper over the top.  And of course the last step is adding the quesadilla to the platter.

What have I learned here?

• Perhaps the hardest thing to do is to actually get a photograph that makes this look as good as it tastes.  The tomatillo salsa is great and it marries well with the potatoes, pepper jack, and chard.  As I mentioned above next time I would consider adding more than the two tablespoons of the salsa inside the quesadilla.
• Chard is not the most tender leaf in the world.  All of the cooking of this leaf happens when you’re warming the quesadilla on the griddle.  I like vegetables and greens like this when they are not over cooked.  However, you could do a quick saute of the greens prior to adding them to the quesadilla if you want them to be more tender.  Also, you can be more aggressive in separating the leaf and stem.  The red part of the chard stem is definitely tougher.  When you’re prepping this you can easily cut the leaf on each side of the stem and remove almost all of the stem if you want to.  You lose some of the nice red color it brings to the dish, but if you don’t like the extra texture then it’s worth it.
• Also, next time I will steam a little bit more of the Yukon potato.  Having a bit more will give you some more flexibility on how hearty you can make each individual one if you have a big appetite in your crowd.

Let me know how yours turns out.