04.15.2008

having my cake

When a friend has a birthday, I am usually the person who gets volunteered to bake the cake. I usually agree and ask the birthday boy or girl to tell me what kind of cake they want. I'll try and come up with the desired flavor and type of cake and have found some very good cake recipes this way. Last year, other than the plain old white cake with vanilla buttercream frosting or chocolate cake with chocolate frosting, I made a Boston cream pie, a flourless chocolate cake and red velvet cake. I'm still working on a good red velvet cake recipe, if you have a good one, let me know.

I also usually bake the cake for my own birthday and I have one recipe that I've been making since I first found it in the March 2004 issue of Fine Cooking. It's a lemon flavored white cake with a lemon curd filling and a lemon buttercream frosting. If you've been paying attention at all, you probably could have guessed that my favorite cake would be lemon. You probably also could easily understand that one of the things I love about the recipe is that the white cake uses only egg whites, but the lemon curd filling puts the yolks to use so there is no waste. I do love that kind of efficiency. The cake recipe by itself is a winner, light and moist and lush, so if you're not a big fan of lemon, you could also do this with lime or some other fruit flavor or just make the cake vanilla flavored and make the frosting vanilla, but double it and use it in between the layers. There are lots of possibilities.

triple-lemon layer cake (adapted from Fine Cooking)

• 2 1/3 cups cake flour plus a little extra for the pans
• 2 3/4 t baking powder
• 1/4 t salt
• 1 3/4 cups sugar
• 2 T lightly packed finely grated lemon zest
• 3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened, plus a little more for the pans
• 1 cup whole milk
• 5 large egg whites, at room temperature
• 1/4 t cream of tartar
• 1 recipe lemon curd for the filling (see below)
• 1 recipe lemon buttercream frosting (see below)

Position a rack in the middle of the oven: heat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter and flour two 8x2 inch round cake pans. Sift the cake flour, baking powder and salt together into a medium bowl. Pulse 1/4 cup of the sugar with the zest in a food processor until well combined.

In a large bowl, beat the butter and lemon sugar with an electric mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 1 1/2 minutes. Add the remaining 1 1/2 cups sugar and beat until smooth, about 1 1/2 minutes. Beat in a quarter of the milk just until blended. On low speed, add the flour mixture alternately with the milk in three batches, scraping the bowl with a rubber spatula; beat just until blended.

In another large bowl, beat the egg whites with an electric mixer (with clean beaters or the whip attachment) on medium speed just until foamy. Add the cream of tartar, increase the speed to medium high and beat just until the whites form stiff peaks. Add a quarter of the whites to the batter and gently fold them in with a whisk or a rubber spatula; continue to gently fold in the whites, a quarter at a time, being careful not to deflate the mixture.

Divide the batter evenly between the prepared pans. Smooth the tops with the spatula. Bake until a pick inserted in the centers comes out clean, 30-40 minutes. Let cool in the pans on a rack for 10 minutes. Run a knife around the inside of the pans and carefully invert each cake out onto the rack. Flip them right side up and let cool completely.

With the palm of one hand pressed on top of a cake layer, cut each in half horizontally, using a long serrated knife. Put on of the four cake layers on a serving plate, cut side up. With an offset spatula or a table knife, spread a generous 1/3 cup chilled lemon curd on top of the cake layer. Lay another cake layer on top, spread it with another generous 1/3 cup curd, and repeat with the third cake layer, using another 1/3 cup lemon curd. Top with the fourth cake layer.

At least a few hours before serving, spread a thin layer of frosting on the cake, filling in any gaps as you go. This is called a crumb coat. Chill until the frosting firms up, about an hour, and finish frosting the cake with the rest of the frosting.

lemon curd

• 1/2 cup unsalted butter
• 3/4 granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup fresh lemon juice
• 3 T lightly packed finely grated lemon zest
• pinch salt
• 6 large egg yolks

Melt the butter in a heavy medium saucepan over medium heat. Remove the pan from the heat and whisk in the sugar, lemon juice, zest and salt. Whisk in the yolks until smooth. Return the pan to medium-low heat and cook, whisking constantly until the mixture thickens, 5-8 minutes. To check if the curd is thick enough, dip a wooden spoon into it and draw your finger across the back of the spoon; your finger should leave a path. Don't let the mixture boil. Immediately force the curd through ha fine sieve into a bowl using a rubber spatula. Cover and refrigerate until ready to use.

buttercream frosting

• 1 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
• 2 T lightly packed finely grated lemon zest
• 3 1/2 cups sifted powdered sugar
• 2 T fresh lemon juice
• 1 T cream

In a medium bowl, beat the butter and lemon zest with an electric mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy. Add the powdered sugar in batches and beat until light and fluffy. Add the lemon juice and cream and beat for 1 minute.

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04.1.2008

no joke

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03.29.2008

i do requests

In a comment on my Easter post, Anne asked for the recipe for white beans. It's hard to know what to say about these beans, there is so much behind how I came to this particular batch on this particular day, I really don't know where to begin. I guess I could tell you how I've been bean obsessed for a long time and in the last year or so had the epiphany of adding baking soda to the cooking water to make the beans soft, but I've already told you to do that. I could also explain where I buy my beans, the now famous Rancho Gordo, but I already wrote about them as well. I could also talk about my new secret weapon, veal stock, but you've also heard a lot about that and it appears that Anne is vegetarian, so she's probably not going to get too excited about the baby cow juice. Writing about food necessitates a story and I could also tell you about my friend Heather, who is one of those people who turns out fabulous food by shopping for what looks good and then seems to effortlessly throw together a delicious meal without using any recipes. She lived in Greece for a year working in her uncle's olive groves and often cooks Greek fare. It's from her that I picked up the combination of white beans, tomato, feta and parsley, but I can't really tell you her story, it's not mine to tell. So, minus all of that, I'm left with the tomato paste.

I cooked the beans on Saturday with the plan to let them cool and do their special bean thing. If you let them rest overnight, they get softer and creamier. I was planning on making the sauce and finishing them in the morning. I took out a Dutch oven, put in some olive oil, a chopped onion, let that sweat, added a few cloves of minced garlic, some chopped oregano, parsley and mint, some red pepper flakes, because just about everything needs red pepper flakes, right? Then I let that cook for a while and opened a can of tomato paste with plans to let it caramelize and make those tasty brown spots on the bottom of the pot before adding the rest of the ingredients. I opened the can of Contadina, dug into it with a small spatula, turned the tomato paste out into the pot and then it hit me. That awful smell, like cafeteria food or Chef Boy R U nasty. I looked at the tomato paste, it had funny green flecks in it. Then I looked at the can and underneath the big letters TOMATO PASTE were smaller letters with Italian herbs. What? Oh no, quick, quick, scoop that stuff back out of the pot, yuck, ick, ewwww, I'm going to ruin it. Into the trash went that godawful tomato paste and the can it came in. Disaster averted. But now what? I needed tomato paste to get that flavor, needed to coax that umami thing out of the tomatoes in order to maximize the deliciousness of my dish of beans. After a few deep breaths, I asked my husband if he would go immediately to the store and get me some plain tomato paste, but he was already in his running clothes, needing to get in some exercise in order to burn off enough calories in advance to justify eating all those shrimp wrapped in bacon and also all the leftover bacon he'd be putting on the grill as well. Have you ever done that with bacon? If not, try it, you won't be sorry. Just be careful not to burn your fingers.

Left to my own devices with not much time, I also still needed to get the bread from Zingerman's. There's a little market across the street from that famed deli, so I figured I could pop in there on my way to get the bread and everything was going to be ok. Except, duh, the market was closed Easter morning. I dejectedly walked over to Zingerman's, picked up my bread and asked the person at the counter if they had any tomato paste, fully expecting a negative answer. That's when the magic happened. The Zing-magic. A disarmingly charming fresh faced young woman in a white apron appeared as if out of nowhere behind my left shoulder and beckoned me to follow her gaze. She let out an "Oooooo," and then said, "You are going to love this." Her hand moved to a shelf of Italian goods, you know, with the fancy pasta, the expensive Arborio rice, the gazillion dollar an ounce truffles and she pulled out a jar and looked at it with an expression usually reserved for babies and puppies, then she cooed, "This is from Sicily; it takes 10 pounds of tomatoes for just one jar of this stuff. A-mazing." And she really did talk like that, with the semicolon and the hyphen and a breathy voice like she had a crush on the tomato paste. Feeling relieved, I took the tomato paste from her hands and she disappeared into the crowd. I took my goods to the cash register, paid and left. That's when it hit me, I had fallen for it again. The Zing. How is it that they can get away with making a person feel as though it's a perfectly normal thing to pay $9.99 for a jar of tomato paste? That's right people, almost ten dollars for tomato paste, that 79 cent supermarket staple. This had better be good, I told myself.

I got the jar home, opened it up and took a whiff. Oh my. Then I took out a taste on the tip of a spoon and put it to my mouth. Oh geez, was that ever good. It's as though they were able to get the best of the tomato flavor, almost a sundried tomato flavor reduced down to its very essence. And the texture, cleaner, less sticky, than regular tomato paste. And while it's much darker than the usual red stuff, it also has a transparency to it, a not so murky color. And I was a convert. How will I be able to go back to regular old tomato paste? I swear those Zingerman's people should sell drugs, they'd have us all immediately addicted and happily begging for more. Just think, single source organic coca leaves! I looked the tomato paste up later on their website, it's even more expensive if you mail order, so be warned, ordering some of this Sicilian strattu might set you down a dangerous path. But maybe you should try it just this one time, you know, to see what it's like.

I finished the sauce with some veal stock, put in the beans and had my brothers each taste them. More salt, they both said. Okay then, more salt it is. Then they went onto the table topped with crumbled goat's milk feta and a shower of parsley and freshly ground black pepper.

Anne, you said you're vegetarian, the beans will be fine without the veal stock and they'll also be fine if you don't buy Rancho Gordo beans and if you don't want to have to mail order 180 grams of tomato paste for $12 plus shipping. You could easily make all sorts of variations of this, dill instead of parsley or shaved parmesan instead of feta or you could add in some Calamata olives. There are any number of things you could do with them, but really, this is a good basic recipe for beans. I hope you make them.

white beans with feta

• 1 lb dried white beans, the biggest ones you can find, I recommend Giant White Limas or Runner Cannelini
• 1/8 t baking soda
• 2 T olive oil
• 1 onion, minced
• 4 cloves garlic, crushed and minced
• 1 t red pepper flakes
• 1 T chopped fresh oregano
• 1 T chopped fresh mint
• 1 T chopped fresh parsley, plus tons more for garnish
• 3/4 cup tomato paste or 1/4 cup Sicilian strattu
• 2 cups veal stock (optional), reduced to 1/2 cup or 1/2 cup of water
• 6 oz. goat's milk feta
• salt and freshly ground pepper

Place beans and baking soda in a large pot and cover with water, place over high heat until the water just boils, reduce heat to a simmer and cook until beans are just soft, stirring occasionally and adding more water to keep the beans covered if necessary. Let beans cool and chill overnight. Heat olive oil in large pot and add onion, cook 2-3 minutes and then add garlic, red pepper flakes, oregano, mint, parsley and about 1 teaspoon of salt and 1/2 teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper. Cook until onions are translucent and soft. Add tomato paste and cook until it is slightly stuck and browned on the bottom of the pot. Add veal stock or water to deglaze the pan. Add beans and stir to coat them with sauce. Add more water if desired and remove from heat. Once the beans have cooled slightly, taste and add more salt and pepper if needed. Place them in a serving dish, crumble feta and sprinkle parsley on top. Add more black pepper and serve either warm or at room temperature.

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03.25.2008

tempus fugit

I don't know how it happened, but March is almost gone and I really don't know where it went. Okay, I was a little sick, then I had a hard drive problem (don't ask) and some other things going on, but really, that's no excuse for me to have let you all down like this, because you know that in spite of it all, the cravings are there, the dreaming about it, the obsessing and, of course, the eating, which I do every day. I'm giving myself a jump start and I promise to be better about sharing the food with you.

Really now, time does fly, because last year's Easter seems like it was yesterday, and then there's also the matter of my birthday, which had the good sense to fall on Easter this year, so we celebrated them both together with the agnus dei on the grill and my own favorite lemon cake with lemon ice cream.

Our guests seemed to appreciate the food, but the one recipe that was requested was the simplest of them all, shrimp wrapped in bacon. If you don't already make something like this, I suggest you add it to your summer grilling repertoire, as long as you don't mind consuming pork and seafood, this will make you very happy. It's also easy and requires only three ingredients. Unfortunately, I only got the one very fuzzy picture, but here's the recipe and then I'll follow that with the rest of the Easter pictures. I'll share the cake recipe later in the week, if I can find the time.

shrimp wrapped in bacon

• 1 lb. jumbo shrimp, uncooked, peeled
• 1 package Oscar Meyer bacon (or the brand of your choice)
• 1 bottle Stubbs original barbecue sauce (or the brand of your choice)

Cut the bacon in half so that you have strips of about 3 inches long. Wrap each piece of shrimp with bacon and thread the shrimp onto metal or bamboo skewers and place on a plate. Douse the whole mess with lost of barbecue sauce. Grill over medium high heat for about 3 minutes on each side. Remove from skewers and serve with toothpicks.

For the rest of our Easter menu, we had some simple hors d'oeuvres and Marqués Cáceres rosé.

Then lamb on the grill. Two legs!

With cannelini beans in a tomato sauce with goat's milk feta and parsley. Lots of feta and parsley.

And potatoes roasted with oregano and lemon.

And grilled mini peppers. We also had tzatziki with mint, but it didn't get its own photo, you can see it on the plate in the lead photo. We had all of this with Guigal côtes du Rhône

We finished the meal with a lemon cake with lemon curd filling and lemon ice cream. And lots of crémant de Bourgogne.

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03.11.2008

retro French food

In the 1980s in the U.S. we had food fads like pesto, sun dried tomatoes and balsamic vinegar that have stayed with us. Others, like that salad with the almonds and mandarin oranges have not.

When I first went to France in 1985, it seemed that just about everyone served a salade de chèvre chaud as a first course. The version I liked best was with breaded and fried goat cheese rounds served on a bed of frisée lettuce with a vinaigrette of raspberry vinegar and walnut oil. In other version, different lettuce were used, different ingredients in the vinaigrette or the goat cheese was placed on top of a baguette round and put under the broiler. They are all very good, but I found a whole head of frisée at the grocery store last week and set out to re-create this old favorite.

salade de chèvre chaud

• 8 oz log of fresh goat cheese (with no rind and no added herbs or spices)
• 1/2 cup bread crumbs
• 1 egg
• 2 T vegetable oil
• 1 head of frisée lettuce, cleaned and separated
• 1 T Dijon mustard
• 2 T raspberry vinegar
• 4-6 T walnut oil
• salt and pepper

Place bread crumbs in a dish and add a pinch of salt and a little pepper. Beat egg into another dish. Cut goat cheese log into 8 rounds. Heat oil in non-stick skillet over medium high heat. Dip each goat cheese round first into egg then into bread crumbs and place in skillet. Fry until golden brown on one side, flip and fry until golden brown on the other side. Meanwhile, place vinegar and mustard in a salad bowl and whisk until combined. Add oil little by little until emulsified. Add salt and pepper to taste. Put lettuce in bowl and toss to coat with the vinaigrette. Divide lettuce among 8 salad plates and place one goat cheese round on each plate.

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02.23.2008

lucky 7

We moved in September and it took me until this month to finally locate the box with the couscoussier. It was just in time, too, because my mother's birthday was at the beginning of the month and un grand couscous is one of her favorite meals. Plus, I've been promising you this recipe for a while. I finally got around to putting it down on paper, testing it out on my family and taking its picture.

Couscous is traditional to North Africa and refers not just to the miniscule pasta-like specks, but also to the stew that is served over it. I like a combination of lamb and chicken in my couscous and I try to always come up with the traditional number of seven vegetables; I use onion, red pepper, carrots, zucchini, potatoes, butternut squash and garbanzo beans. I'm not superstitious or anything, it's just that seven different vegetables along with the two kinds of meat offer variety in taste and texture that is part of what makes it good. Harissa, the spicy pepper paste that is served on the side is also essential. If you can't buy it anywhere near you it's not hard to make.

couscous aux sept légumes – couscous with seven vegetables

• 1 lb. skinned chicken thighs (optional)
• 1 lb. lamb (optional, use equal parts cubed lamb shoulder and meaty neck bones)
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 medium onion chopped
• 1 red bell pepper, seeded and cut into strips
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• 1½ tablespoons freshly ground cumin
• ½ teaspoon cayenne pepper or red pepper flakes
• 6 cups water
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3 carrots, peeled, cut in half crosswise then into quarters lengthwise (you should end up with 3" lengths like carrot sticks)
• 2 zucchini, cut like the carrots
• 4 large potatoes, skinned, cut into eighths (preferably yukon gold)
• 1 small butternut squash, peeled, seeded and chopped
• 3 sprigs parsley
• 2-3 cups cooked garbanzo beans (you may use canned)
• 2 cups uncooked couscous grains
• 1/4 cup golden raisins
• 1/2 cup cilantro, chopped
• harissa

Heat oil in heavy large Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add onion and garlic; sauté 2-3 minutes on medium heat, until onion is soft and translucent. Add peppers. Cook for 2-3 minutes more, making sure that the onions and garlic do not brown. Stir in tomato paste, cumin and red pepper flakes; stir and let cook about 3 minutes, allowing the tomato paste to change from red to rust in color. Add water and bring to boil. Reduce heat and put chicken and lamb (if using) into pot along. Add salt and the rest of the ingredients except for garbanzos and couscous. Simmer on very low heat for about 1½ hours. Meanwhile, begin to prepare the couscous (see below). Add garbanzos to the stew and allow to heat through. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Place cooked couscous into a large serving dish and arrange meat and vegetables on top using a slotted spoon. Serve harissa, cilantro and some of the cooking broth on the side.

couscous

Place couscous and raisins on a large baking sheet and add one cup of water. Mix couscous with water and spread evenly over baking sheet. Cover with a kitchen towel and let sit for 1/2 hour. Add one more cup of water and mix into couscous and break up any lumps with your fingers. Place couscous mixture in top portion of couscoussier or into a colander lined with cheesecloth, cover and sit atop stew to steam. Fluff with a fork before serving.

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