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Archive for the ‘party food’ Category

Apple Ravioli (cheddar optional)

Too much information: I just read that fall begins on Wednesday, September 22 at 11:09 pm. As a baker I admire such exactitude, but I’m sure we will all be forgiven for not counting down the seconds á la New Year’s Eve. Besides, the passage from summer to fall is (in my opinion) a more psychic one than the passage from old year to new. And yes, as I have written ad infinitum, for me, it all comes back to food.

A large maple tree monopolizes the view from my living room. In the summertime its leaves are a perfect — yes — forest green. In a matter of days the leaves will abandon their summer mufti in favor of more ceremonial attire, a final blushing smile before surrendering to the winter chill. The leaves will leave and the color of the daylight in my living room will reflect their absence. Maybe I am influenced by these changes around me, but whatever the reason, when the weather begins to cool I am drawn to a different palette of flavors.

Enough of my waxy poetry. I’ll just paraphrase Ed Norton, by saying, “Hellooo Fall!”  Out with the barbecue and watermelon, in with the roast beef and apple pie. That’s not bad news: I love the fall.

Wheeling my cart around Whole Foods the other day I spotted local apples for sale. It is still early enough that I was suspicious of their vintage; have these apples been stored since last year? (A common practice.) I was not at a greenmarket, so there was no one reliable to ask. What would have been the point?  I was in the mood for something warm, apple-y, and cinnamon-y, so I cautiously bought a few. What the heck: if ya can’t eat ‘em, cook ‘em, right?

A few aisles later, I found I had somehow landed firmly on the side of cooking the apples. At first I thought of applesauce which is really easy, and when made at home really superior to the kind you buy in a jar. But the beauty–and danger–of planning a meal while still in the market is that inspiration is often just a shelf away. (Danger – temptation—usually takes the form of chocolate for me. Ah, but my lack of will power is not why you called…)

In this case the first bit of inspiration was the market’s sale on extra sharp Farmhouse cheddar cheese. I’m not sure if this is a New England “thing”, but alongside ice cream and whipped cream on the list of acceptable choices for apple pie topping we always had cheddar cheese. You heard right: cheddar cheese on apple pie. Before you dismiss this remember all of the wine and cheese you’ve had over the years. It’s the same basic dynamic. I believe the technical term is “yummy”.

Pie was not on the agenda; I was looking for something a bit lighter and less labor intense. Walking past the frozen foods I noticed frozen blintzes. I paused momentarily to consider making apple blintzes, but I just made crepes—the basis for blintzes—last week. And what would I write here? “Dear Reader: please re-read last week’s posting and add apples.”

Then from somewhere—who knows where inspiration comes from (oh, please!)—came the idea for apple ravioli. Sounds complicated, you say? Don’t worry: I’m not Martha Stewart, so I won’t be making pasta from scratch.

There’s an old trick, one you may have seen on TV, and that I used to see chefs use when making “house-made” ravioli. Wonton skins: the easiest ready-to-use, pre-made pasta on the market. Not perfect, but just right for my use.

Hustling into the kitchen, I peeled and diced the apples, then sautéed them with a bit of cinnamon, sugar, and just the slightest whiff of clove, and set them aside to cool. I grated the cheddar, and combined it with the cooled cooked apples. To mellow the mixture, round out the flavor, and bind everything together into a proper filling, I added a dab or two of cream cheese and cottage cheese. (Perhaps I still had blintzes on my mind?)

Assembling the ravioli was as easy as brushing the wonton skins with water, dropping a generous teaspoon-full of filling on top and sealing another skin on top. I used a fluted biscuit cutter to cut them into rounds – but that’s entirely optional.

To cook them, you have a choice: boil or pan fry. While pan frying isn’t quite as healthy as boiling, the trade off for frying them results in a toasty, crunchy treat with a gooey, cheesy filling. Then I sprinkled them with cinnamon and sugar which makes them sweet and adds yet another layer of crunch. (What is it with me and crunch?) They are deceptively addictive. While a caramel sauce would be nice, or perhaps a blob of vanilla ice cream, none of that is necessary. They are great on their own.

Did I mention they are also portion-controlled?

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Click here for the recipe for Apple Cheddar Ravioli.

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Write to me at the email address below with any questions or thoughts you may have. Thanks!

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Is this dessert...or breakfast? Yes.

I have nothing against gimmicks, especially when they involve food. That’s the good news. The bad news—if you can call it that—is that I may be about to insult someone by calling fondue a gimmick. Does acknowledging that this is just my opinion take the sting off that statement?

I actually like fondue, especially the chocolate variety. I also happily admit that I may be practicing a bit of food snobbery. So sue me. As much fun as fondue can be to eat, the preparation is too easy. Cut up some chocolate (or cheese) (or both), slice some fruit, or cake, or bread, and light a match. Done. I like a bit more of a challenge even if the end result lacks polish. But that’s me.

Up until a few years ago fondue was considered a relic of postwar foodies, or at the very least, a culinary tourist trap for folks visiting Switzerland. Suddenly it was back, rediscovered by gen-x’ers the way they rediscovered the Lava Lamps downstairs at Urban Outfitters. Granted a lot of this has to do with the fact that fondue is so easy to prepare that even a kitchen-less dorm dweller can make it.

As I said, I like something that requires a bit more skill. I don’t want to make food that requires a bit of skill just so I can show off. Like so many home cooks I also want to learn new tricks and techniques. Even if the end result isn’t very good I can still eat it, or in the case of disaster, throw it away. (How many folks have had…uh… “trouble” baking a pie and ended up calling it a “crumble” instead? Yeah, I’m on to your tricks.)

Recently my Baby Niece (“BN”), an angelic, attractive, fashionable fashionista (and gen-x’er), planned a casual family meal. She texted me a request for crepes as dessert – she was having a craving for them paired with some fresh fruit and Nutella. And speaking of gimmicks…

Crepes were huge in the 60’s and 70’s. Flaming Crêpes Suzette was synonymous with fine dining dessert for the first three quarters of the twentieth century. The latter part of that period showed the rise and fall of American chain-crêperies like “La Crêpe” and “The Magic Pan.” Remember those names? If you are a certain age chances are you were towed to one of those early theme restaurants by your parents.

We’ve all heard of Crêpes Suzette but many folks are a bit vague about what this fussy dessert was all about. The gimmick was simple: get a sauté pan, throw in a few thin pancakes and some sugar, pour in some highly alcoholic, therefore extremely flammable orange-flavored liqueur, light a match, stand back and pray you won’t singe your eyebrows. The result—hopefully—was that the flame would caramelize the sugar, and burn off the alcohol, leaving a delicately-sweetened orange-scented pancake. Naturally results varied according to the skill level of the “garçon” waiting on you.

“La Crêpe” and “The Magic Pan” took the gimmick a step further by wrapping the complete meal in a crepe. “Seinfeld” fans may remember an episode where Kramer hired some guys he thought were Cubans to roll the crepes at “The Magic Pan.” Turned out they were Dominicans who rolled the crepes too tightly, a funny “Seinfeld-ian”riff on cigar snobbery.

Prior to BN’s request I had never made crepes, and that is what made the request perfect for me. Gimmick or not, this was a chance to learn something new. After doing a bit of research about recipes and techniques I got to work in the kitchen.

Most crepe recipes require that you refrigerate the batter for an hour before using. The usual explanation for this is that letting the batter rest allows any air bubbles evaporate. I suspect that there is more going on there: the longer you let the batter sit, the more hydrated the flour will get, the advantage being that the crepes will retain a bit of flexibility in the sauté pan, making them easier to flip.

The great mystery of crepes is their reputation for being difficult to remove from the pan; in fact most recipes recommend that you use a nonstick pan. I don’t have any nonstick pans, and didn’t want to buy one just to make crepes, so I used a plain 8” sauté pan. As an alternative to Teflon I used what we’ll call the oil painting method: I poured a bit of canola oil into a small bowl, folded a paper towel into a small square (approx 2” x 2”) and using my tongs, grabbed the folded towel, dipped it in the oil and “painted” a very thin layer of oil in the warm pan. I then ladled slightly less than ¼ cup of the batter in the pan before swirling it around to cover the bottom. The crepes cook very quickly (less than a minute for the first side, even shorter for the second side) and I quickly developed an assembly line rhythm (“oil, ladle, swirl, flip”) that produced about twenty crepes in about twenty minutes.

After letting the crepes cool for a few minutes, I stacked them, wrapped them tightly, and stuck them in the freezer. A few days later: I warmed them in the oven (still wrapped) for ten minutes and they were ready for their Nutella and fruit treatment.

“BN” was delighted. I was inspired. I can see serving the crepes exactly the same way (including Nutella) for breakfast. I don’t see myself making Crêpes Suzette – I am a flame-o-phobe, especially in my small kitchen. But as gimmicks go, crepes are fairly versatile, somewhat easy, and cheap (although I did see some incredibly expensive pre-made ones at the supermarket.) They’re a great make-ahead special weekend breakfast, letting you sleep later.

That’s a gimmick I really, really like.

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Click here for the recipe for Crepes.

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Write to me at the email address below with any questions or thoughts you may have. Thanks!

Let me email you when the blog has been updated! Opt in by clicking the biscotti at right or by sending your email address to michael@butterfloureggs.com

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"Baked Pears Alicia"

It is not often that pears are shrouded in mystery. This past weekend the question, “Did you get the pears?” caused a stir that landed on the many Monday morning message boards that dissect the latest episode of “Mad Men.” (Many viewers could not hear the answer, which was, “We’ll talk about it inside.” But that’s a whooooole other blog.)

One of the first things I wrote about on this blog was my fascination with food used as a prop in movies, TV, and on stage. I have always thought that it was a personal obsession. Most people get lost in the story; I get lost in the food. I can’t slice garlic without thinking of Clemenza’s spaghetti-cooking scene in “The Godfather.”

The Google search that has brought more people to this blog than any other was for a little item named “Baked Pears Alicia,” a dessert served in “The Dinner Party”, a particularly funny episode of the classic sitcom, Mary Tyler Moore. Turns out plenty of people would like to know what “Baked Pears Alicia” was. But the pears have been shrouded in mystery. I had always assumed that the writers just thumbed through the same cook book to find the whole menu. Ah well, wrong again.

Last year when I wrote about the pears I didn’t delve too much into the mystery. The blog wasn’t about the pears, it was about food on screen. But as the year has gone by I have searched high and low and checked cookbooks old and new and come up empty.

A real reporter would have dug deeper, perhaps tried to contact the writers, or at least checked the Library of Congress. Alas, I have done none of the above. You see, I had an ulterior motive: I was hoping all along that there was no such thing as “Baked Pears Alicia”, that the writers made it up because it sounded funny. Why would I hope this? Because I wanted to make my own recipe.

I got my wish.

I have never worked as a food stylist.  The new film, “Eat Pray Love” was styled by Susan Spungen who, as I mentioned last year, also styled the film “Julie and Julia”. She is very skilled and experienced — in fact she’s a Martha Stewart veteran. I don’t know if I have what it takes to do that job; so much of it is just visual. I think I’d get hung up on getting into the character’s “head” (as it were.)

Surely the prop pears we fleetingly see Mary passing around the room were just plain ol’ baked pears. But my head goes right to the question, “What would Sue Ann Nivens do with a pear?” (And by all means go for the double entendre here: she would.)

So, not unlike the way an actor finds a fictional character, I found “Baked Pears Alicia.” I started from the outside and worked in. I knew four things that would inform my final result: 1) How they looked, 2) That they smelled good, 3) Sue Ann Nivens, host of “The Happy Homemaker” on WJM-TV made them, 4) They were pears. (I also knew that the main course in that episode, “Veal Prince Orloff” was straight out of “Mastering the Art of French Cooking.”)

Appearance: they looked simple and unadorned, save for some liquid I thought I could spy in the bottom of the dish. This told me that they gave off a lot of liquid, and that whatever culinary magic Sue Ann wove must have been in the cooking medium.

Smell: I think Sue Ann would have used more than just cinnamon, so I added something that was indulgent, fragrant, and would suit the period: a whole vanilla bean, seeds and pod, plus a good dash of fresh ginger, and a whisper of cardamom. I think these would have been in Sue Ann’s somewhat classical, mid-century culinary vocabulary.

The main and most important ingredient – after the pears, of course – is a really delicious dessert wine. Cost-wise you could really go crazy here, but I stuck with a slightly sane Argentinean Torrontes whose mellow sweetness could easily be mistaken for a Moscado. (For the record, yes, it was redolent of pears. Said so right on the label.)

Keeping in mind that the game here was baked, not poached, pears, I used the spiced liquid (which truly wasn’t far from mulled wine) as a marinade before baking the pears, letting them absorb the flavors of the spices and the wine.

After baking the pears I sprinkled them lightly with a bit of Demerara sugar for sparkle, and some crushed Amaretti cookies for crunch. While the spiced wine boiled and the pears baked, the vanilla and cinnamon perfumed my kitchen. If there is ever a Butter Flour Eggs Scented Candle, (never say never) this is how it will smell. Not icky sweet, just mouth watering.

You’ll notice that the only sugar I added was the small amount sprinkled on the pears after they baked; the wine is so sweet that any further sugar would be overkill, producing a dessert that is way too syrupy. As I write this, we have barely passed mid-August; pear season doesn’t hit for at least another month, so save this dessert for cooler autumn nights. In fact, the warmth and richness of the spices, and the visual of the sparkling pears makes this a really great Christmas dessert. (Is it too early to start talking Christmas?)

How’d I do? I like to think Sue Ann would’ve lovingly stroked my bald head and given me a saucy wink.

And if I’ve whet your appetite for Mary’s dinner party, you can watch the entire Mary Tyler Moore episode on Amazon for $1.99.

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Click here for the recipe for my version of “Baked Pears Alicia.”

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 Write to me at the email address below with any questions or thoughts you may have. Thanks!

Let me email you when the blog has been updated! Opt in by clicking the biscotti at right or by sending your email address to michael@butterfloureggs.com

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Savory Prosciutto Gruyere Cake

Parisians and New Yorkers have an awful lot in common. We both take undeserved hits for rudeness (I’m not rude, I’m just reserved), we both live in congested cities that are often crammed full of tourists (I’ll never forget the day I heard a woman at the corner of 44th and 8th yell at the top of her lungs, “GET OUT OF MY CITY!”), and we both love to eat.

I’ll give the Parisians points here. I’ll concede that, as “head-spinningly” great as New York food can be, Parisian food – especially bread and pastry – may be better. Or am I comparing pommes to oranges?

For New Yorkers, a great deal of entertaining is done over shared meals in restaurants. There are a few reasons why: many New Yorkers have small kitchens — small enough that they were built with the thought of limited use. Also, many New Yorkers do not have space for a dining room table, often making due with couple of stools at a counter, or a table for two folded or pushed into a corner.  (Furnishing a New York apartment is a game of constant tradeoffs where potential pieces of furniture compete for finite space. Dining tables often lose out to sofas. Flat panel TVs have been a boon: hang them on the wall and you’ve gotten rid of a major space gobbler, the TV table.)

While this sounds like New Yorkers are living lives of some kind of dining privation, nothing could be further from the truth. The sheer variety of cuisine just down the block or around the corner more than compensates. Only in a big city like New York can your Monday through Friday dinners take you from Down South to Down East to Vietnam, and back, even if you are a Kosher vegan.

The great New York City home buffet is often served from a coffee table, an arrangement I enjoy, as seconds are never far out of reach. Often, during the week entertaining consists of quick cocktails or wine at someone’s apartment before heading out to a restaurant. It is for the latter type of entertaining that Parisians have come up with a great idea: cake salée.

The English translation of cake salée is “savory cake”, and the implications are obvious: instead of fruit or chocolate and lots of sugar, a savory cake is made with hors d’oeuvre ingredients such as meat, cheese, and herbs. The job of a cake salée is to give folks having a little pre-dinner beverage a little pre-dinner – alcohol absorbing nibble. This frees the host from the bondage of preparing a variety of little cracker-borne nibbles.

A sensible idea, I think, although I suspect that if Americans had thought of it first the French may have turned up their noses; the convenience-over-art factor may have offended them. (Or am I paranoid?)

Of course, this is really just a baking powder or baking soda quick bread, not that far from drop biscuits or muffins. I baked a version of this over the weekend, using a variation of my Asiago Cocktail Bread recipe from last year. My version this past weekend stuck to the meat and cheese formula by using gruyere and prosciutto. It was delicious, although to be honest I think the combination lacked a certain spark of originality.

I think the challenge — and here’s where the French would approve — is to bring art to the convenience by choosing combinations that are not, to borrow a phrase from a friend, “typical.” So while the combination of prosciutto and gruyere was delicious, it was also predictable: a little bacony, a little cheesy, with the richness (heft?) that accompanies a double dose of indulgent ingredients.

Better would have been something with a touch of surprise without the extreme my Dad used to call “baloney and whipped cream.”

Roasted figs and rosemary sound like an unlikely pairing, but the intensity of the roasted figs would more than match the power of the rosemary, especially if roasted with a touch of brandy or calvados and a bigger touch of honey before mixing into the cake salee’s batter.

Of course, unroasted figs pair beautifully with Gorgonzola Dolce cheese, but I’ll have to run this cake salée through the Butter Flour Eggs Testing Lab; I’ll happily make this sacrifice as I have a few concerns about how the cheese will appear in the cake.  I’ll likely stick with a Gorgonzola Dolce with minimal blue veins.

Caramelized onion and black olive would bring a great sweet and salty combo to cocktail hour without a sugary hit, and would bring to mind Pissaladière – the classic French onion tart.

The standard 8” x 4” size loaf pan is fine for this bread / cake, but I also experimented with a 5” x 3” mini loaf pan and I think I prefer using the smaller pan. When the little loaves are sliced, each piece is the perfect size for pre-dinner nibbles.

No one will beg you to share a piece with them.

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Click here for my recipe for Savory Prosciutto Gruyere Cake.

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Write to me at the email address below with any questions or thoughts you may have. Thanks!

Let me email you when the blog has been updated! Opt in by clicking the biscotti at right or by sending your email address to michael@butterfloureggs.com

Chocolate Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Meringue

Like many New Yorkers, my kitchen is air conditioned only on special occasions. As luck would have it, I have several friends and family members whose birthdays fall during the summer. I grew up in a house where birthdays were always marked by a cake, so as an adult I feel compelled to extend the courtesy by baking birthday cakes for my friends. Those are the special occasions when I crank the kitchen a/c to its chilliest setting, which, to my liking, is just short of snowfall.

This weekend as our nation celebrates its birthday (“234?? You don’t look a day over…”) I’m lucky enough to have a friend who has invited me to watch the big fireworks display from her rooftop aerie. I’m using the description “rooftop aerie” more for fun than for accuracy. The truth is, her apartment is relatively modest, although she does have a postcard view of the Empire State Building and shared use of the roof. I’m not sure if her kitchen is air conditioned, even on special occasions. I’m too shy to ask. The question “Is your kitchen air conditioned?” seems a tad too close to “Is your refrigerator running?” for my comfort. I’m a little long in the tooth for what we used to refer to as “chicken calls.”

(You don’t remember “chicken calls?” When we were kids we’d pick folks at random from the phone book, call them, ask, “Is your refrigerator running?” and when they’d say, “Yes” we’d say, “Well you better run and catch it!” and then hang up.)

(Yes, I know it’s not funny. But I was – what – 8 or 9 years old? Where I grew up this was practically considered gang warfare.)

(No, I didn’t learn to cook at the reformatory.)

My second favorite modern convenience, after air conditioning – caller ID – has all but eliminated the scourge of chicken calls.

I am worried about the relative coolness of her kitchen because of the all American menu that has been planned — take out Chinese food and my cupcakes. The Chinese food can take care of itself: I’m worried about the cupcakes. If her kitchen is hot I’ll worry about them sitting out on the counter too long (The frosting will melt.) I also have what they refer to as a scheduling problem, that is, I don’t really have time Saturday or Sunday to bake and frost cupcakes. My only choice is to make them a few days ahead, and then stare fear in the eye by calling ahead to reserve fridge space.

Unlike Mrs. Weasley in the “Harry Potter” books, I don’t have the skills to wave a magic wand and make food appear. So, instead of magic, I’ll let chemistry do the work. I know that many folks insist that you can only bake cookies and cakes with butter. I, however, do not subscribe to such absolutes in baking (or in much else, to be honest.)

Bakers down south have agreed with this tenet for years. True Southern Red Velvet Cake is made with oil, not butter. Aside from making a lighter, springier, cake, oil has the further advantage of solidifying at a lower temperature than butter. What this means for me and you is that we can bake cakes with oil, store them in the refrigerator, and they’ll be light and springy right out of the fridge, unlike butter cakes which need some time to come up to room temperature. In addition, cakes made with oil freeze and thaw beautifully.

All of this got me to thinking about my sister-in-law. One of the “givens” of any chocolate cake made within my family is that it must be large enough for left-overs. After the stress of a long day’s work my sister-in-law eats forks-full right out the box without even removing it from the refrigerator. (And she’s what my Auntie used to refer to as a “mere slip of a thing.”) The point is, sometimes chocolate cake tastes better on the cool side.

On a warm summer Fourth of July night under the stars a nice cool piece of cake would be yummy. Frosting and fireworks. That’s my kind of holiday. Chocolate frosting is okay cold, although I admit it is better when the chill is off. There must be a frosting that tastes good and is the perfect consistency right from the fridge. (Not to mention saving me the round trip down stairs from my friend’s rooftop aerie to take the cupcakes out of the fridge to warm up.) Clearly it was time to get to work in the Butter Flour Eggs Frosting Lab.

I had already decided to bake Chocolate Red Velvet Cupcakes, an oil-based recipe. Red Velvet Cake is usually frosted with a cream cheese frosting but I usually frost Chocolate Cake with Italian Buttercream, which is a cooked meringue beaten with butter. It is smooth and fluffy. Splitting the difference seemed to be the obvious answer, as in Cream Cheese Meringue. I made the meringue as usual, and then beat in the cream cheese. The result was a bit loose, but the advantage of that was that instead of standing frosting cupcakes I merely dipped the tops of the cupcakes in the frosting. Each one came out smooth and perfect, with a little “Dairy Queen” swirly top that drooped as the cupcakes sat a while which lessened the cupcakes’ appeal not a bit.

Yes, yes, I know, Italian Meringue requires you to cook sugar to a specific temperature, and by extension requires the use of a candy thermometer. Never fear. You can substitute a jar or two of Marshmallow Fluff and beat that together with the cream cheese. The result will be a bit sweeter, and perhaps slightly overpower the delicate Chocolate Red Velvet cake, but that fear may be a reflection of my own preference for making things from scratch. Short of a blind side-by-side taste test who’s gonna know?

Either way, they’re Yankee Doodle dandy.

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Click here for the recipe for Chocolate Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Meringue.

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Write to me at the email address below with any questions or thoughts you may have. Thanks!

Let me email you when the blog has been updated! Opt in by clicking the biscotti at right or by sending your email address to michael@butterfloureggs.com

Farinata

The diary would start something like this: “Summer, day 2 / 102 days to go.” My summer travelogue diary would record my grand tour of the world’s “must-see” places, and all the amazing sights seen, sounds heard, and foods eaten along the way.

But the big reveal here is that I have neither the wanderlust nor the time that such a grand tour would require. Oh, there’s also a small detail — money — that I forgot to mention. Ho hum.

Well, that’s okay: I need neither time nor money to paint the globe red. In fact, I can pack a whirlwind summer tour into one hot, sticky, (and air conditioned) summer night. All I need is the right food, and a DVD or two. Full disclosure: none of these movies was made after 1960; Europe may have changed a touch since then.

We’ll start in the hot desert, Marrakech to be specific. Marrakech? “Mmmm, sounds like a drink,” to steal a quote from our first film. James Stewart and Doris Day are travelling with their young son in “The Man Who Knew Too Much.” The desert heat wafting up from the North African sand in this Alfred Hitchcock-directed thriller will make you parched and thirsty, so be sure to have a tall, cool drink nearby – this may be a good chance to crack open an icy bottle of Rosé for those so inclined. If, like me, you find your thirst is quenched by something a bit tamer, then join me for a pitcher of iced Red Zinger tea. Red Zinger is slightly sweet, so use a light hand with the sugar, and a heavy hand with the ice. By the way, Doris Day sings “Que Sera” in this flick, and watch for the scene where Day and Stewart try to eat Tagine with their hands.

Next we’re off to historic Rome for a “Roman Holiday” with Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck. What I have always loved about this film is that it is a lot like a travelogue featuring two movie stars, and – oh yeah—there’s a sweet love story too. If you’ve ever wondered what the big deal was about Audrey Hepburn, this movie will show you. Watch for the scene where she dances with her barber, and he pauses to adjust her bangs: a moment that does nothing to advance the plot, but does everything to advance the charm of the characters. All of this running around sunny Rome will make you hungry for a bit of pasta. I’m craving Orecchiette with Roasted Red Pepper Pesto.

Be careful of too many carbs though, because we’re hitting the beach next; You’ll want to look good in your bathing suit, right? We’re hanging on the French Riviera with Grace Kelly and Cary Grant in “To Catch A Thief.” Possibly the most glamorous movie ever made (c’mon, Cary Grant + Grace Kelly + the French Riviera=glamour) this may also be the most humorous of Hitchcock’s films. I don’t know why, but the aforementioned carb warning aside, this movie always makes me crave ice cream. A dab of gelato anyone? While you are eating the gelato, be sure to watch for the scene where Kelly plants a big kiss on Grant – and listen for the wobbly muted trumpet that underscores the kiss. It’s a hint of the frothy romance to follow, and is Hitchcock’s way of saying, “Don’t take this too seriously, folks.”

All of this makes me think of a conversation I had recently with an associate who just returned from the Southern Italian region of Cinque Terre. A busy executive, she spent an afternoon at her favorite area restaurant making pasta with an elderly Italian woman. The elderly Italian woman has been making the pasta there for countless years, and was laughing, having fun, and full of life. All of this reminded my associate that there’s a whole lot more out there than just the world of business. Cooking a good meal will do that for you.

I have never been to Cinque Terre, but I know the rich, green Ligurian Olive Oil that is pressed there. What I have never had is a local favorite snack called Farinata. Farinata is a flatbread made from chickpea flour, and baked in a well seasoned cast iron skillet in a roaring hot oven. It’s easy to make, casual to serve, and –I think—one of the great undiscovered bar foods. Mixed nuts with your cocktail? No thanks. A wedge or two of this savory, deceptively rich flatbread will make that extra dry martini go down cold and clean on a hot summer night. This is one of those great amalgamations of textures, a toasty crust, a crunchy edge, and a soft interior that will draw comparisons to potato pancakes. Very satisfying.

I don’t have a cast iron skillet, and my apartment-sized oven doesn’t get as hot as a real wood-fired brick oven, but my Farinata came out just fine. Keep this easy treat in mind this summer if you want to serve “a little somethin’” with pre-Barbecue drinks.

Cary Grant would approve.

Happy Summer!

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Click here for the recipe for Farinata.

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Write to me at the email address below with any questions or thoughts you may have. Thanks!

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Blackberry Tart - deconstructed

A trainer at my gym related an experience he had a few nights ago. Just to set the scene, this guy is in tip-top condition; not an ounce of body fat. A seemingly virtuous paragon of discipline and self control.

Until the cookies called his name.

He reported that he woke up in the middle of the night and could not get back to sleep because a package of chocolate cookies was calling his name. He ate the entire package before returning to sleep.

Some of you reading this may think, “Well, if he has such discipline, one slip like that isn’t going to kill him.”

My reaction veers more toward relief: Relief that my struggle with will power is not as abnormal as I think. Relief that even those among us who seem to be paragons of self-control have their own “moments.”

And, relief that I am not the only one on a first name basis with his cookies.

Of course, it is my own darn fault. Nobody puts a gun to my head and orders me to bake cookies.

With that swirling in my mind, a friend called and invited me to a barbecue this weekend. Would I mind bringing dessert? (Is the Pope…?)

Fasten your seatbelts and get ready for the usual onslaught of news stories about how this is the “unofficial first weekend of summer.” For some folks this may mean that it is time to head over to Kmart for a new inflatable pool, but for me it means (and yes, I can tell you’re way ahead of me here) the official first weekend of summer eating.

Everyone loves the warm weather (except for pale, sweaty me.) But, I think there’s an unacknowledged caveat here: in the warm weather we have less material with which we can camouflage our various bodily flaws. So yes, everyone loves the summer, but everyone is self-conscious about this bump or that bulge (or both, in my case.)

Under the circumstances, I feel guilty foisting my usual parade of sweets upon a sun-baked, half naked, will power-compromised audience.  I sympathize: if I eat enough of my own desserts, it’ll be hard to distinguish me from the pool float, so light and easy does it.

A trip to the market answered all doubts about my ability to provide something summery, sweet, and light (ish), but still hit the proverbial “dessert spot.” (I can’t stand getting home from a party and feeling like I need to root through my fridge for a little something, so I want to make sure the other barbecuees will be equally sweet tooth sated. I take the request, “Will you bring dessert?” as a job description, not a social nicety.)

This week, California blackberries and strawberries are in abundance and cheap at the market. There’s the backbone of my Memorial Day dessert right there, yes, but the question remains: what to do with them?

The berries are very sweet and juicy, so it would be a shame to bake them into a pie or crisp. Nevertheless, dumping them in a bowl, even with whipped cream seems anticlimactic. What if I made a pie – deconstructed? Perhaps I’ve been watching too much of the last half hour of “Iron Chef” (the only part of the show I like; that’s when they eat) but here’s an example of what I mean: You and I both know what an Ice Cream Sandwich is, right? But as seen through the lens of a pastry chef, an Ice Cream Sandwich is really just ice cream and cookies. You could serve them in any order and still call it an ice cream sandwich, granted, at times what a pastry chef serves may be stretching the name of the item to the limit.

(Some years back we had a happy family meal with our 90-plus year old aunt at one of “superstar” chef Bradley Ogden’s restaurants. Auntie reveled in the whole thing, giggling like a schoolgirl as the waiter described the ranch from which her Veal Chop was sourced. Dessert time rolled around and the chef presented us with an extra dessert, Fresh Citrus Agar. As we dug in, we all had the same reaction: “Oh! Lemon Jello!” Yes, we are a sophisticated bunch.)

But I digress from my digression. The point is that I can do whatever I darn well please with my berries and crust, and still call it a pie or tart.

I checked my freezer and found some Pâte Sucré waiting for an assignment. (Doesn’t everyone?)

(Pâte Sucré is the slightly sweeter version of pie crust.)

When I was a waiter, I used to see the old cliché berry tarts all the time: fluted crust, frangipane filling, and berries glazed to within an inch of their lives. Delicious, yes. Berries in their natural state? No. For Memorial Day I’m stripping away some of the varnish.

I started by rolling the thawed Pâte Sucré to ¼” thick, and cutting 3” diameter round disks. Before baking I washed them with egg and sanded them with granulated sugar. As they baked briefly in the hot oven, they puffed slightly. The result is like a dryer version of puff pastry, the dryness being desirable because I’m not a fan of puff pastry, which always seems tasteless and greasy to me.

I dabbed a bit of Crème Fraiche on the cooled rounds, and plopped a few chilled blackberries on top. Other rounds got Chambord-spiked whipped cream and sliced strawberries, the latter being too plump whole to fit on the pastry. An ample sprinkling of Demerara sugar added sweetness, a bit of amber twinkle, and a soft crackle in the mouth. Three or four of these little pastries on a plate swiped with very, very soft chocolate ganache should keep everyone happy.

Now the important question: do I really have to wait an hour after eating before jumping into the inflatable pool?

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Ramp Goat Cheese Crostini

When I was a kid my Dad frequently travelled to New York City on business. It was not unusual to see him climb down the stairs from the Eastern Air Shuttle lugging all manner of things that he either couldn’t find in Massachusetts, or thought he could get at a better price in New York. Occasionally my Mom or I will still invoke his promise, “I’ll get it in New York.”

(Yes, he flew the Eastern Air Shuttle, and yes, he climbed down the stairs. I have vague memories of propellers. The whole scene is very “Mad Men.”)

(A shoe textile engineer, it was also not unknown for my Dad to climb down the shuttle stairs lugging a shoe that had been sawed in half lengthwise. Ah, glamorous New York.)

I’ve made New York my home for many years, but I wonder if my Dad’s idea of New York as a great source for any and all things may have become musty with time. Or is it that the rest of the world has caught up?

I should perhaps cut New York a break here as I have been searching for something that is generally considered hard to find under any circumstances: squash blossoms. (C’mon, sooner or later you knew I would bring the conversation back to food.) The problem is that squash blossoms are as rare in New York as garden space. Squash blossoms are exactly what they sound like: the flower that grows on top of the growing squash. Considered a delicacy, they are slightly sweet and “squashy”, and they have a very brief shelf life. You literally need to eat them the day they are picked or “pffft” they’re gone.

Squash blossoms are usually stuffed with cheese and fried, although recently on TV I spied Frontera Grill Chef Rick Bayless chopping them (from his own garden) and mixing them with Queso Blanco, then using the mixture as a loose quesadilla filling. Later, as summer settles in I’ll have to try haunting the local greenmarkets in search of my elusive prize.

This past weekend I found myself in rapt conversation with the mother of a friend of mine. The subject? Gardening, something that to this urban dweller seemed as distant and far away as mining for rocks on the moon. I’m the first to admit that I don’t know if I have the right stuff to be a gardener. I hate bugs flying around my head (cows handle this better me: they swat them with their tail.) I prefer air conditioning (mine has three settings: “cold”, “colder”, and “meat locker.”)

The flip side to this spoiled city boy rant is that folks with gardens eat enviably well, my definition of eating well, in this case confined to flavor. Everyone and their mother know that veggies fresh from the garden taste better. Tomatoes are the prime example of this. I am very happy when friends with gardens shove paper bags full of tomatoes fresh off their vine into my hands. I’ve never found anything comparable at the supermarket, although every now and then the Greenmarket delivers the goods. But how many tomato “frogs” must be kissed before one finds the Prince?

Amongst her other bounty, my friend’s Mom also grows her own Watermelon. Imagine that drippy, chilly seed spitting fest on a hot July Sunday afternoon. If that doesn’t cool you down you’re beyond saving.

She informed me that they are just now coming into lettuce season. Speaking of seasonal items, I gently prodded her about those squash blossoms, my ulterior motive droolingly obvious. (No luck.) Taking a different tack, I asked her if she also grows Ramps.

Ramps are this year’s arugula. That’s not my quote. You can read it in Time Magazine. While it seems that I’m edging into true “foodie” territory here, my interest in Ramps is more due to their seasonality – my inner Alice Waters at work. Ramps are also known as Wild Leeks and have as short a season as squash blossoms – albeit with a longer shelf life. Calling them Wild Leeks is perhaps a bit misleading as their raw flavor favors their close cousin garlic in pungency. Their perfume straddles the fence between onion and garlic.

I’m not a huge raw garlic fan, but sauté it with a light touch so that its sugar caramelizes and its spiky “pepperiness” mellows out and I’m in love. Ditto Ramps. The good news is that due to Ramps’ new found fashion they are easier to find. I happily scored some over the weekend at Whole Foods.

Ramps

I wanted to do something quick and simple with the Ramps so that I could eat them in the aforementioned mellow state, but not drift too far from their natural state. This is just like when you find really good berries: you don’t want to bake them into a pie. A quick, cool rinse and a dab of loosely whipped cream is all you need.

So I sliced the Ramps into rings, and sautéed them very briefly in good Extra Virgin Olive Oil. They have a lot of natural sugar, so the intense heat of the pan gave the smaller pieces a sweet crunch. Store-bought Crostini served as a stage for the sweet, mellow rings, and I used a drip or two of goat cheese thinned with Greek yogurt to glue the Ramps to the Crostini. The goat cheese / yogurt mixture was totally unnecessary, although it added a creamy counterpoint to the sautéed Ramps. A quarter pound of the pricey Ramps (mine were $9.99 per pound) will make enough of these little forshpeisen to keep four cocktail revelers happy.

Anyone got Squash Blossoms?

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Write to me at the email address below with any questions or thoughts you may have. Thanks!

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Coconut Oatmeal Nutella Cookies

As this is a blog devoted to that magic mixture of eating/baking/cooking/eating I wouldn’t blame you for seeing the title of this story and assuming that it is about Angel Food Cake. Apologies: there’s none of that spongy, pure-as-the-driven-snow cake this week, although there is an egg-less cookie. But more about that in just a moment.

I don’t think of myself as angelic; does anyone? But I have a friend who just made it easy for me to be an angel – and I’m still very much alive (last time I checked, anyway.) My friend Brian Hampton is a playwright of some note. He has written two plays which have been successfully produced all around the country. His first, a play named “Checking In” is about a small group of high school friends who reunite for a weekend in Atlantic City ten years or so after graduation.

This play is kind of like his first born child, so he feels a great deal of attachment to it. That’s why he wants to adapt it for the screen and produce it as an independent film. I told him years ago to sell it to Lifetime Movies for TV, but I think he just doesn’t have the stomach to sign away control of his baby and watch Valerie Bertinelli play a 28 year old.

(Who am I to judge? If they made a Butter Flour Eggs movie they’d try to cast Richard Deacon as me – if he weren’t, shall we say, otherwise engaged. But I think if the script is good enough, perhaps Matt Damon would be available? Why are you laughing?)

ANYWAY, I am now an angel, but in the old show biz meaning of the word: a backer, a patron of the arts, a philanthropist. Stereotypically these folks were old ladies who thought of themselves as artistically astute, but as with so many other things, the internet has not only flattened the playing field, it has built a whole new stadium. I am speaking of Kickstarter.

Kickstarter is a new venue for artists and entrepreneurs to put their ideas in front of the public and get them the funding they need to turn their ideas into reality. This is the link to Brian’s Kickstarter profile if you’re interested, but I also recommend the site as a good read.

His other fundraising idea – and the reason we’re here today – is that he is throwing a Prom. Yes, a prom as in: rented tuxedos and sneakers. Like any good benefit there is a raffle planned, and that’s where I (and the cookies) come in. I’ve been asked to prepare a Butter Flour Eggs sweets basket that will go to the highest bidder. Cookies for sale! Going, going, gone…

Keeping with the prom / high school theme my mind went to school lunch – my high school held its proms in the cafeteria, decorated for the night with a special theme. (I think the theme my year was Venice, as I have a foggy memory of one of my less graceful classmates puncturing the cellophane “water” that filled the canals with her stiletto heel. Doh!)

My usual brown bag lunch was some kind of sandwich, so I’m rolling out the sandwich cookies for the prom. Among the planned choices I’m making are PB&J’s, a simple square shortbread cookie filled with the obvious. Kitschy, yes?

The other cookie idea is inspired by a recent walk around midtown Manhattan when I happened on the Street Sweets truck , one of the great trucks roaming New York with upscale sweets that, during my walk, I couldn’t resist. One “Macarella” later I was hooked. Yes, the “Macarella” sounds like a late nineties line dance, but actually it’s a cookie. Two crunchy, pancake-flat coconut macaroons with a layer of Nutella in the middle. That is my inspiration for the second sandwich cookie.

Copycat? Not quite. I wanted a softer cookie to go with the oozing smoosh of Nutella. The big, crunchy macaroons made the Nutella leak all over my hands. A softer cookie will keep the Nutella off the raffle winner’s fancy Prom clothes. The actual cookie recipe – as previously mentioned made without eggs – is an old World War One recipe called ANZAC Biscuits (ANZAC stands for Australia New Zealand Army Corps.) The lack of eggs helped the cookies stay fresh longer.

No, smart aleck, I wasn’t around then, I found the recipe in a cookbook. My contributions? Baking a slightly smaller cookie to use as a sandwich, and substituting sweetened coconut for the original recipe’s dried coconut to make the cookies soft and chewy.

Nutella is very cool again, and yes, it’s good stuff, but I just saw a TV commercial for it that claimed it can be part of a healthy breakfast. Listen, it’s yummy, but let’s be honest: nutritionally it’s not much better than frosting in a can. Don’t give it to your kids for breakfast.

Save it to stuff my cookies.

By the way, I do have a groovy After Prom Party planned. It goes something like this: zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

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Click here for the recipe for Coconut Oatmeal Nutella Sandwiches.

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Write to me at the email address below with any questions or thoughts you may have. Thanks!

Let me email you when the blog has been updated! Opt in by clicking the biscotti at right or by sending your email address to michael@butterfloureggs.com