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From Talk
Posted by SaraBir, September 25, 2006 at 11:50 AM
My first restaurant job was at the Levee House Café in Marietta, Ohio. I got all of my best restaurant insanity stories from that place, partially because of characters who worked there, and partially because I was volatile and young at the time. I broke their refrigerator once because I had a fit and kicked it. This says a lot about both my temper and the state of the refrigerator.
The Levee House is still there, and they are still serving the wonderful bran rolls that keep locals returning. They’re soft and tender and lightly studded with bran. Levee House roll fan Pete Hoffman asked me for the recipe months ago, but it was only now that I made a batch and wrote down the measurements, which, true to restaurant style, were previously vagaries like “fill this pot to here with water” and “get a big blob of Crisco…”
INGREDIENTS
- 2 cups water
- 1/2 cup shortening
- 1/3 cup sugar
- 1 tablespoon salt
- 4 teaspoons active dry yeast
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 cup wheat bran
- 6 cups all-purpose or bread flour, more or less
PROCEDURE
1. Bring the water to a boil. In a large bowl, use a sturdy wooden spoon to beat the shortening with the sugar and salt until combined. Pour the boiling water over the shortening mixture and stir until the shortening melts.
2. Sprinkle the yeast over the water. Let sit until the yeast becomes foamy and creamy, about 10 minutes. Stir in 4 cups flour, then the bran. Add the eggs, one at a time. Continue stirring in flour, one cup at a time, until you have a sticky, slightly loose dough. Knead with your hands for about three minutes. Dust the top of the dough with flour, cover with a towel, and set aside to rise until the dough doubles, about 2 hours.
3. Heat the oven to 425 degrees F. Grease a baking sheet. To shape the rolls, gather a blob of dough in floured hands. Flatten it into a rough disc shape. Making a circle with your thumb and first finger, squeeze the disc of dough through this, and pinch it off when you have a ball about the size of a small lemon (2-1/2 to 3 ounces of dough). Repeat with remaining dough, placing rolls on the baking sheet about two inches apart.
4. Cover with plastic wrap and set aside until doubled in volume, about an hour. Bake until lightly browned on top, 20 to 25 minutes. Cool slightly and serve. These are heavenly when consumed shortly after they are baked, with a little butter. Makes about 2 dozen. Note: You can either space the rolls a few inches apart so they bake separately, or closer together so they bake like money bread and you have to tear them apart. Both are nice, but if you like crust, choose the former. Also, if you are not a big fan of shortening, substitute a stick of unsalted butter.
From Recipes
Posted by SaraBir, September 15, 2006 at 2:58 PM
The flavor of barley works especially well with mushrooms. I like asparagus in this, too, but it's out of season; if you want to get your greens on, throw in a few fist fulls of rinsed, fresh spinach during the last several minutes of cooking. Browning the mushrooms over high heat makes them especially meaty; it also keeps them from getting slimy and overcooked.
Ingredients
10 to 12 ounces white mushrooms
4 to 6 cups vegetable or chicken stock
1-2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon butter
1/2 small onion, minced
1 large clove garlic, minced
1 cup pearled barley
½ cup dry white wine
2 to 3 tablespoons mascarpone cheese
Procedure
1. Brush off the mushrooms and separate the caps from the stems, reserving stems. If the mushrooms caps are small, halve them; if they are large, quarter them.
2. In a medium saucepan, add stock and mushroom stems. Bring to a boil, lower heat, cover, and keep at a very gentle simmer.
3. Meanwhile, put a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add 1 tablespoon olive oil and add the mushroom caps. Brown without disturbing for about a minute, then toss and continue to brown mushrooms on all sides. You want the mushrooms to be golden brown; they will shrink a bit in size, but not much, and they will not release much liquid. (It is best to have plenty of room in the pan, so brown the mushrooms in two batches, if needed). Remove mushrooms from pan; set aside.
4. In the same pan, lower heat to medium and melt 1 tablespoon butter. Add minced onion and cook, stirring frequently, until onion is translucent. Add the garlic and cook 1 minute. Add the barley and cook 1 minute, stirring to coat with butter. Add the wine to the pan. Stir until almost all of the wine is absorbed.
5. Meanwhile, remove the solids for the stock; discard solids. Keep stock at a simmer. Add about half a cup stock to the barley mixture and stir until almost all stock is absorbed. Continue adding stock one ladle at a time, tasting barley periodically to check doneness.
6. When barley mostly cooked but still has some bite, add the mushrooms to the pan. Season to taste with salt and black pepper. Cook until barley is fully tender. Add a few last splashes of stock if needed (you want the risotto to be loose but not soupy), remove from heat, and stir in mascarpone cheese. Adjust seasoning, divide between plates or bowls, and garnish with freshly grated parmesan cheese. Serves 4 as a main course.
From Recipes
Posted by SaraBir, September 14, 2006 at 12:40 PM
This easy, sandwich-like appetizer is not particularly refined—it’s messy and buttery—but since it combines cheese and bacon, no one will mind too much. Just be sure to set out lots of napkins so everyone does not muck up their glasses of white wine with greasy fingerprints.
It was only recently I discovered this was not a main course. My overworked mother used to make it for dinner when my father was traveling out of town on business. It’s not very healthful, which is probably why we kids loved it. My brother called it “loaf.” So you could enjoy this before dinner or for dinner, but in any case I wouldn’t recommend calling it “loaf” unless you are serving someone under 10.
Ingredients
1/2 cup (one stick) unsalted butter, softened
1/4 cup thinly sliced fresh chives
1-1/2 teaspoons finely grated lemon zest
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 teaspoons poppy seeds
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 1-pound load unsliced Italian bread
about 12 ounces sliced Swiss cheese
1/2 pound bacon, cooked, drained, and cumbled
Procedure
1. Preheat oven to 350°. Make the lemon-pepper butter: In a large bowl, beat the butter until smooth. Beat in chives, lemon zest, pepper, and poppy seeds. Mix the mustard and lemon juice together and slowly beat in until combined. Season to taste with salt and set aside.
2. Being careful to keep the bottom crust intact, cut incisions in the bread crosswise, making slices about 3/4 inch thick and leaving bottom 3/4 inch of the bread uncut (you’ll wind up with an accordionesque loaf). Place loaf on a sheet of aluminum foil. Reserve 3 tablespoons lemon-pepper butter, then spread remaining butter on all cut surfaces of the bread. Insert one slice cheese in each incision, then sprinkle bacon into each incision. Spread reserved 3 tablespoons lemon butter on top and sides of loaf.
3. Wrap loosely in foil, and bake for about 20 minutes, until the cheese is melted. Unwrap the top and bake an additional 5 minutes. Serves 6 to 12 as an appetizer.
*Note: If you want to be classy, use gruyere cheese. If you can’t find it sliced, grate it instead.
From Recipes
Posted by SaraBir, September 13, 2006 at 9:53 AM
In honor (or rather acknowledgement) of Fashion Week, here’s a recipe from 1955’s Fashion Cooks, by the Fashion Group of Chicago. It was contributed by Patricia Dougherty Boysen, the past regional director of the Fashion Group of Chicago, and it’s the sort of recipe that never goes out of fashion. I’d omit the teaspoon of “kitchen sauce” (Kitchen Bouquet) from the recipe, on the grounds that these days, few people have such an item in their kitchen. If you brown the chicken sufficiently before baking, it should have a lovely color without the kitchen sauce.
Ingredients
(Serves 6 to 8)
2 young, small fryer chickens, each cut into 6 or 8 pieces
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
½ cup unsalted butter
1 cup dry white wine
2 to 3 tablespoons fresh tarragon leaves, chopped
1 teaspoon kitchen sauce, optional
Procedure
1. Preheat the oven to 350°. Season chicken with salt and pepper. Over low heat, melt butter in a heavy skillet, and brown chicken slowly until golden brown, adding more butter if necessary (to avoid crowding the skillet, you may want to do this in two batches).
2. Transfer pieces to a casserole or baking dish, and add wine, tarragon, and kitchen sauce, if using, to the drippings in the skillet. Pour over the top of chicken, cover, and bake 45 to 50 minutes, until the thickest pieces are fork tender.
3. Arrange chicken on a warm serving platter. Skim fat from pan drippings; discard fat, and transfer drippings to a skillet. Over high heat, cook until reduced by at least half. Pour some of the reduced drippings over chicken, and serve the rest on the side. .
Note: Fashion Cooks encourages browning the chicken and placing it in the casserole with the sauce ingredients ahead of time. Cover and chill until baking time. "Pat serves this with a pilaf, a green salad and fruit dessert," the book says.
From Recipes
Posted by SaraBir, September 12, 2006 at 1:19 PM
My friend Bryan asked me for suggestions for utilizing the abundant crop of tomatoes in his backyard (he lives in California, where tomatoes lazily ripen into the early fall). I told him to can them, but not everyone has the energy or equipment to do that. In the meantime, you can always eat lots of fresh tomatoes. It’s your last summer fling.
This pasta dish came about from my last visit to my parents’ house. They had corn on the cob, beautiful beefsteak tomatoes, and fresh basil in dire need of use, so I threw them all together for a simple but flavorful pasta dish. Juicy tomatoes help make the sauce for the pasta, so don’t use plum tomatoes for this. If you don’t have fresh corn, use frozen, which is often superior to out-of-season fresh corn.
Ingredients
(Serves 4)
1/2 pound uncooked pasta (spaghetti, linguine, or fettuccini)
3 to 4 large, ripe tomatoes, cored (the more tomatoes the better)
2 to 3 cups fresh or frozen corn kernels (thawed if frozen)
2 cloves garlic, very thinly sliced crosswise
3 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 bunch (three cups loosely packed) basil, thinly sliced
4 to 6 ounces feta cheese, crumbled
Procedure
1. Put a large pot of salted water on to boil and cook the pasta according to package directions.
2. Meanwhile, chop the tomatoes. Place in a large bowl and set aside.
Toast the corn in a heavy, dry medium skillet over medium-high, stirring occasionally, heat until you see charred spots on the corn, 2 to 3 minutes. Add toasted corn to tomatoes.
3. In a small skillet, heat the garlic and olive oil over low heat, stirring occasionally, until the garlic is a light golden-brown (do not allow to burn). Pour over corn-tomato mixture. Stir in the basil and season with salt and freshly ground black pepper.
4. When the pasta is al dente, drain it quickly, allowing some of the cooking water to cling. Add pasta to tomato-corn mixture, toss with the feta cheese, and season to taste with more salt and pepper.
Note: You can substitute Parmesan cheese for the feta, if you wish.
From Recipes
Posted by SaraBir, September 11, 2006 at 12:54 PM
Per VickyB’s request, here’s a recipe for vitello tonnato, a famous Italian appetizer of cold, sliced veal served with a creamy tuna sauce. Save your beautiful ruby tuna steak for another night, because vitello tonnato is always made with canned tuna. The most labor-intensive part here is cooking the veal, which itself is not very difficult—and feel free to use leftover roast veal instead.
The following recipe is a condensed version of the one that appears in Laurousse Gastronomique, and it’s a bit old-school. If the process of browning veal bones and deglazing a pan just to get a few tablespoons of liquid strikes you as overly fussy, just skip it altogether, and instead thin the sauce with water or chicken stock.
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From Recipes
Posted by SaraBir, September 8, 2006 at 10:48 AM
This was my Grandmother’s recipe. I don’t recall her ever making these, to be honest, but by the time I came along she’d already raised six kids, and I think she’d happily put her baking days behind her.
Molasses cookies are comfortingly simple, and they travel well—perfect for sending in a care package, if you are into that sort of thing. These have just the right amount of spice to compliment, not dominate, the molasses.
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From Recipes
Posted by SaraBir, September 7, 2006 at 12:49 PM
This recipe comes from Judy Chorpenning, who for years worked tirelessly to provide wholesome food to my high school’s crew team when we traveled to regattas. She and other parents of crew team members would set up at tent at the race site and offer us cookies, granola, fruit, and crock pots of vegetable soup. For reasons I’m still unsure of—perhaps in the interest of our athletic performance—white sugar was barred form these foods. Thusly these apple bars, which include a touch of honey, are not terribly sweet, but it allows the flavor of the apples to really come through. Judy Chorpenning passed away a few years ago, but making these now helps me recall both her kindness and her baking skills.
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From Recipes
Posted by SaraBir, September 6, 2006 at 3:10 PM
"Ed’s post last week":http://www.edlevineeats.com/post/1580/ got me thinking about how hard it is to find a really great chocolate chip cookie; the issue is that no one cookie can be the chocolate chip cookie for all people. Some prefer crisp cookies, while others insist on gooey, doughy ones. These cookies tread the happy middle ground between the two.
This is one of the great urban myth recipes—supposedly, years ago, a woman dining at Neiman Marcus asked for their cookie recipe, was told it would cost $2.50, and was later shocked to find a $250 charge on her credit card. For revenge, she shared the recipe with as many people as possible. Even if the story is a fabrication, the cookies are great, and the addition of ground oats adds to their wholesome appeal. This version is from Nancy Baggett’s _The All-American Cookie Book_.
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From Recipes
Posted by SaraBir, September 5, 2006 at 12:41 PM
This time of year always arrives with the bittersweet pang of summer’s twilight mingled with anticipation for the season to come. To ease the transition, all this post-Labor Day week we’ll have recipes for lunchbox-ready cookies.
The dough for chocolate crinkles is remarkably similar to brownie batter, so the key to making these is to think like you are baking brownies—that is, underbake them to yield a rich and fudgy final product; overbaking them results in a dry and crumbly mess. This recipe is based on the classic that appeared in Betty Crocker’s Cooky Book.
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