Chocolate babka

Because I took a recipe for three loaves and converted it into a recipe for one loaf, and the cups and spoons weren't nicely divisible by three, you'll probably want a scale for this.


Chocolate Babka
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen.  Makes 1 loaf.

1/2 cup warm milk (110 degrees F)
4.666 grams active dry yeast (less than 1 packet)
116 grams cups, plus a pinch, sugar
1 large egg
1 egg yolk
2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for work surface
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/6 stick butter, divided use, plus more for bowl and loaf pans
12 oz (1 bag chocolate chips) bittersweet chocolate
1 Tbs ground cinnamon
1 tsp  heavy cream (or half&half, or whole milk)
1 recipe streusel topping (optional, see below for recipe)

Get eggs and butter out to warm up.  Go for a walk.  Come back, and begin:

Pour warm milk into a small bowl. Sprinkle yeast and pinch of sugar over milk and let stand five minutes.

In another small bowl, fork-whisk together 43.5 grams sugar, and 2/3 of one egg, beaten (reserve remaining 1/3 of egg for egg wash), and 1 egg yolk. Add egg mixture to yeast mixture, and whisk to combine.

In large mixer bowl, place flour and salt. Add egg mixture and stir with fork (that you used in previous step) until almost all the flour is incorporated. Add 5.333 tablespoons butter, and use dough hook to mix on low speed until butter is incorporated and you have a smooth dough (5-10 minutes).

Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead a few turns. Butter a large bowl, place dough in bowl, and cover tightly with plastic wrap. Set aside in a warm place to rise until at least doubled in bulk, about 1 hour.  (This took a bit longer for me, my yeast may have been old.)  While dough rises, make steusel topping (if using, recipe at end), and chocolate filling

Chocolate filling: Place chocolate chips, 65 grams sugar, and cinnamon in food processor and grind until chocolate is in smaller chunks.  Then add 4 tablespoons (half a stick) of butter and mix until a homogenous but lumpy paste forms.  Set aside in a cool place.

Butter bottom and sides of loaf pan, then line with a parchment paper strip which runs the length of the pan and up both short sides, sticking up at least 1/2 inch on each end.  Add dash of cream to reserved beaten egg: this is your egg wash.

Punch down risen dough, and transfer back to well-floured surface. Roll out into a 14 x 18-inch rectangle.

With your hands, crumble all but 2 Tbs of the chocolate filling evenly over dough, leaving a 1/2-inch border. Brush edges with egg wash. Roll dough up tightly like a jelly roll along the long axis (the roll will be 13 inches long). Pinch roll ends together to seal, and press down on seam. Twist roll 5 or 6 turns by lifting up and twisting one end/half at a time. Brush top of roll with egg wash. Carefully crumble remaining chocolate filling over the left half of the roll, press it into dough. Fold right half of the roll over onto the coated left half.  Pinch to seal the ends. Twist roll 2 turns and snuggle into prepared pan.

Loosely cover with plastic wrap and let stand in a warm place 20 to 30 minutes.  Heat oven to 350. Brush the top of loaf with egg wash. Crumble streusel topping over loaf.  Don't worry if some falls down around the dough, it will be fine.

Bake, rotating halfway through, until golden, about 45 minutes. Lower oven temperature to 325 degrees and bake until deep golden, 15 to 20 minutes more. Streusel topping may remain white, judge brownness by exposed dough on top.  Remove from oven, and transfer to wire rack until pan is cool enough to touch. Remove from pan, slice and serve immediately for still-warm goodness.  When fully cooled, keep the rest well wrapped at room temperature.

Steusel topping (optional)
1/4 cup confectioner's sugar
25 grams flour
1/4 stick butter
Combine ingredients with a fork or two knives or a pastry blender until you have variously-sized lumps (from crumbs to peas).

Zounds! Pickles!

These were favors at a rehearsal dinner we went to last summer.  They're delicious, and easy.  And shelf-stable.  (And airplane baggage-compartment-stable, apparently!)  And sweet.  And spicy.  And as canning recipes go, incredibly forgiving because nothing has to reduce or thicken and there's no question about the acidity.  And it's cucumber season, right now  Go make them.

Some canning notes:  You can put these in any size mason/ball jars, so long as you have a pot that those jars can stand up in and still have 1" of space above.  You need 2-part lids: rings and flat seals.  Seals are one-time use.  Check your local hardware store for canning supplies: jars, lids, large funnel, jar tongs, etc.  These CAN (ha!) be made without jar tongs, but full jars are very heavy and unwieldy and glass and full of boiling liquid...and jar tongs are cheaper than a replacement foot after you drop a jar on it.  :-)

Sweet & Zippity Pickles

(source: Carter's Aunt Sara, original source unknown to me)

Supposed yield: 3 pints of pickles, actual yield ~4 pints
(9-22-13 Note: I just made a batch without onions (oops) and fit them into just 3 pint jars.  Don't be afraid to really cram 'em in there.)

2 pounds small cucumbers, in 1/8 to 1/4 inch rounds (don't use waxed cukes from the grocery store)

1 medium onion, halved and thinly sliced

2 cups ice

2 Tablespoons salt

Mix these 4 ingredients in a large colander, set it over a bowl, and refrigerate.  Let chill for a couple hours, stirring occasionally.

When your hours are almost up, prep jars:

Wash well all of the jars you think you'll need, plus one.  Lay out a clean dishtowel on the counter for your jars to sit on for filling and cooling.  Fill a large pot (fitting the size requirement in the note above) 3/4 full with water and bring to a boil with the jars and lid RINGS in it.  With a lid on the water will boil more quickly, but not very quickly.

When your hours are up, add to a medium-large saucepan:
3 cups vinegar (apple cider is good, or 2 cups cider vinegar, 1 cup white)
2 1/4 cups sugar

1 teaspoon whole brown mustard seeds

3/4 teaspoon celery seed

3/4 teaspoon whole peppercorns

1/4 teaspoon tumeric

1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes or 3 dried hot peppers (not optional, or you're just making Sweet & Boring Pickles)

Bring to a boil.

While brine heats, rinse cucumbers/onions once and place back into colander.  (Pick out any remaining ice cubes, pickled ice just doesn't work for some reason!)

Once brine boils, add cucumbers/onions.  Stir, and bring to a boil again.

Meanwhile, turn large pot off and add lid SEALS (they need to get hot but not boil).  Pull out jars and lid RINGS, let drain on dishtowel, then stand jars up.

Your pickles have come to a boil, so turn them off.  Ladle pickles into jars, prioritizing cucumbers/onions first, then brine to fit in the spaces.  Mash them down gently with a clean spoon, really pack them in there.  Leave 1/2 inch of space empty at the top of the jar.  If you have more pickles than jar space, leave the extra in the pickle-pot for now.  Wipe jar rims with a clean damp towel.  Fish lid SEALS out of the large pot, set one on top of each jar, and screw down ring until secure-- "finger-tight".  Carefully place lidded jars into large pot.  Add more water as needed so jars are covered by 1 inch.  Cover pot, turn burner back on HIGH.  When water comes to a boil, set a timer for 10 minutes and adjust burner so it stays at a steady boil.

If you had pickles that didn't fit in the jars, put them in a glass container (jar, pyrex tupperware, whatever) with a lid and place in the fridge.  Eat these within a couple weeks.

When the timer goes off, turn burner off.  Carefully pull jars out and set on the dishtowel.  Gently dry off lids.  Listen and watch for the pleasant snap of the lids as they seal and the center sucks down.  Often some jars do this almost immediately, but they're allowed to straggle.  

Let the water in your large pot cool for a couple hours and then use to water plants and trees, they'll love you for it.  Also ladle some still-hot water into the pickle pot to help rinse down the sticky brine-residue.

Check seals after 8-12 hours-- any jars which didn't suck down should go in the fridge and be eaten within a couple weeks.  Fully sealed jars should be stored out of direct sunlight for "up to a year" or "indefinitely" depending on who you ask.

Though good right out of the pickle-pot, these are better after they sit for a couple days.  Enjoy!

Aunt Sara's Famous Toffee

Now you too can use up 2.5 sticks of butter in a few short minutes.   We made this on Thursday but unfortunately we didn't let it get hot enough so instead of snappy brittle toffee we have snappy-ish crumbly deliciousness.  (A tragedy that has not gone unmourned, I assure you.)  The recipe says to go to 280 degrees, which we did, but the current thinking is that 280 degrees is correct for the thermometer of the recipe-author but our thermometer reads lower.  So, either cook your toffee to 280 as directed (make maybe a half batch to test) and see what happens, or cook to 300, which is what we're going to do next time.  Without further ado:


[Carter's] Aunt Sara's Famous Toffee
2.5 sticks butter
1/3 c brown sugar
1 c white sugar
1 T molasses
1/3 c water
2 tsp espresso powder*
1 shake cinnamon

1 c chopped nuts (ideally pecans but we used walnuts--technically nuts are optional).
A couple handfuls of chocolate chips (The recipe calls for a mix of dark and white chocolate...we used half a bag of bittersweet chips b/c I'm stubborn like that.)

*We don't have instant espresso/coffee powder so we ground some coffee beans really really finely, practically down into individual molecules, and it worked great.

Cover a baking sheet in foil (doesn't need sides) and spray with cooking spray.  Get all the ingredients measured and ready.

Melt butter in a medium saucepan.  Add sugars, molasses, water, espresso and cinnamon.  Cook over medium heat, stirring absolutely all of the time, until the mixture boils.  Keep cooking, and start checking the temperature-- aim for between 280 (written) and 300 (our goal for next time).

getting closer

just after sugars, etc. added

When the toffee reaches temperature, remove from heat and stir in the nuts.  Immediately pour onto foil-covered sheet and gently spread into a thin layer.  Sprinkle with chocolate chips.

Wait 5 minutes, then smear chips (melted from heat of toffee) into a pretty pattern.  Slide foil onto cool surface or cooling rack, and let cool for what felt like an eternity (a few hours or overnight).  Snap the toffee into pieces and store in an airtight container.  Yum!

Chocolate Velvet Cheesecake

This recipe courtesy of the Velveteen Rabbit, obviously.  Actually it's from a cheesecake recipe book that my mom has, which has been loved to near-death (just like the Velveteen Rabbit!).  I changed the instructions only very slightly, because I have discovered that the less you (over)beat this cake, the less likely it is to crack in the end.

Crust of your choice, pressed into bottom of 10in springform pan.  (Preferably made with chocolate cookies, ground and mixed with melted butter.  There are many recipes on the internet for this sort of thing, or you can wing it.)

12 ounces semisweet chocolate, in small chunks (if this doesn't say "good chocolate chips" to you, it should)

2 T butter

1.5 lbs cream cheese, chunked, at room temp

1.5 cups heavy cream

1 t vanilla extract

1 c sugar

3 eggs at room temp

2 T cocoa powder

Preheat oven to 350F.  Melt chocolate and butter carefully, stirring until smooth.  Set aside to cool.

Cream the cream cheese in mixer until completely smooth.  Scrape down sides of bowl and add chocolate, beat slowly until mostly mixed.  

Mix on medium speed for the following, and scrape down the sides of the bowl every couple minutes/between additions:

Gradually add cream and vanilla, beat until mostly blended.  

Gradually add sugar, beat until mostly blended.  

Add eggs, 1 at a time, beat until fully blended.  

Sieve cocoa powder over batter, stir in until fully mixed.

Pour into crust, smooth top.  Gently shake pan to destroy air pockets.  Bake 30 minutes, then reduce temp to 325 and bake another 30 minutes.  (KEEP OVEN CLOSED.)  Turn oven off, prop door slightly ajar, and let stand for 30 minutes longer.  Move cake to wire rack away from drafts, let cool for until room temp, then refrigerate until eating.  Cake will likely crack during cooling, which can only be fixed by covering it with fruit/ganache/whipped cream/other disastrous fates.  Cake improves with age (24-48 hours ideal), and is best (IMHO) if it warms up on the counter for a bit before you eat it.

It cracked as it cooled, but was still scrumptious!

Chocolate Pumpkin Chess Pie with gingersnap crust

There will be no pictures because the pie was eaten before I could take them. Seriously. It's that good.
This was the dessert for my father-in-law's surprise 60'th birthday dinner.  It was such a huge hit that they made me leave the table to go write the recipe down before I forgot it.  Needless to say I kinda made the whole thing up as I went along. :-p

Crust:
~1.5 cups crushed gingersnaps
4 Tbls melted butter

Preheat oven to 350. Crush gingersnaps to almost powder. Slowly mix in butter until the mixture, when packed together, will form a loose ball.  Press mixture into 9" pie tin.  Bake for 8 minutes and let cool completely before adding filling.

Pie Filling
4 Large Eggs
2 Large Egg Yolks
1.5c Granulated Sugar
2.5 Tbls Cornmeal
1/4c Whole Cream
1/4c Pumpkin Puree (not pumpkin pie filling)
1/2 tsp Salt
1.5 tsp Vanilla extract
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
3 Tbls Fudge sauce (recipe to follow)

Fudge Sauce
1/2c chocolate chips
3 Tbls butter
1/4c Whole Cream

-Melt Chocolate chips and butter in a small bowl in the microwave on medium power for 1 minute intervals. When mostly melted add cream and return to microwave until able to be stirred smooth.


Filling Directions:
Preheat oven to 350. Mix all ingredients together in a large bowl using electric beaters or a whisk.  Make sure it's all smooth. Add filling to pie crust and bake at 350 for 45-50 minutes or until middle barely jiggles.  You may need to cover it in foil after 30 mins to keep crust edges from burning.

His and Hers Pasta with Pesto

her pesto

This recipe comes from a Mollie Katzen cookbook (The Enchanted Broccoli Forest).  It's easy and delicious.  Simple to scale up or down.  Good for warding off vampires.

Pesto (makes enough for 4-6 servings)
3 c. basil leaves (washed and lightly dried, packed firmly into a cup measure)
1/4 c. pine nuts (or walnuts)
3/4 c. parmesan cheese, grated
5 cloves garlic
1/3 c. olive oil
generous salt and peppering


Add the first four ingredients to a food processor (or lawnmower) and begin processing.  Add olive oil slowly or in batches (if you add it all at once it splashes all over the place).  Whirr to desired consistency.  Sometimes it's fun to have slightly chunky pesto.  Taste and adjust salt&pepper.


Meanwhile, you boiled some noodles, right?  And rinsed them but not cooled completely?  And chopped a beautiful tomato and some fresh mozzarella?

Good.  Stir it together and eat it.

his pesto: fewer tomatoes, more PARM!

Movin' to the country, gonna eat a lot of peaches...

Millions of peaches! Ok, maybe not millions.  Two pints a week for 4 weeks is still a lot for just two people to nom through. So when we got our produce box last week, with two fresh pints, and I was still staring at one, slightly wrinkly now, pint from the previous week; it was clearly time to make cobbler. I mean really, I had no choice.

Now, cobbler, when it's all said and done may look easy, but there's a reason that your grandmother's is the best you've ever had.  She's had 50+ years to perfect not just her recipe, but also her technique.  It takes practice people. Peaches are slippery little buggers.  And before you ask, yes, I still have all my appendages.

 Fastest way to get rid of peaches EVAR!

Onto the Howto:

What you need:
-1/2 Stick butter, room temp
-1/4c Sour cream
-3 lbs peaches, skinned-- see here for easy technique, just below the tomato picture
-1/2c sugar
-1/2c AP flour
-1/2 tsp baking powder
-Smidge salt
-1 Egg
-1/2 teaspoon vanilla

What you do:
Preheat oven to 375F.  Grease a 8- or 9-inch square or round baking dish. Peel, pit and slice your peaches.  Place in bowl with 1/4c of sugar and 1/4c bourbon :) Toss.  Set them aside.  In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt and remaining 1/4c sugar and beat in your butter and sour cream.  I used my food processor which worked great.  Put your peaches in your baking dish and spoon your sloppy batter on top of it.  Don't worry about spreading it, just glop it on there.  Proceed to baking and let it go for 35-45, until golden brown and not soupy in the middle.

And as always, enjoy!

P.S. This makes amazing breakfast.

Fluff cakes for my sweet heart

The thesis is done. I am officially a Master of Food Science. Do you know what this means? I might actually have time to cook again! And cook I have. On this particular weekend morning I woke up with pancakes in mind but a true craving to get creative in the kitchen (something I hadn't done in quite some time). I pondered over this whilst making coffee and it suddenly struck me that what I really wanted was extra fluffy pancakes. But how to achieve that? Well, as any good food scientist worth their salt knows, foam makes for fluff. And what better way to make foam than to use your handy-dandy stand mixer to make meringue out of the egg whites that are already part of your recipe?

Empty meringue bowl.

Batter with meringue *gently folded* into it (must maintain the fluff!)

A cross between pancakes and Soufflé these cakes made for a divine breakfast treat. At the last minute I decided to take half the batter and make them in these silicon heart shells that I got for valentines day. They are officially sweet heart cakes now, all they need is a bit of red food coloring and they'd be almost too 'sweet' to eat. ;)

The results were pretty amazing. Somewhere in the process my wonderful husband (did I mention I got married?) woke up and decided bacon was necessary. Isn't it always? Silly me.

Now, if you are wondering how you might make your very own fluff cakes see directions below.

1) Pull out cook book with pancake recipe (yes you do need to make these from scratch, but trust me it's easy and oh so worth it)

2) In stead of adding whole egg to your batter, separate them and whip your whites into soft peaks

3) Gently fold peaks into the rest of the batter you've prepared in another bowl

4) Cook on in a hot pan just like regular pancakes or in a muffin/cute shaped baking tin*

*if using muffin tins bake a 350 for 15-20 minutes or until toothpick comes clean

5) Serve to your family and listen carefully for phrases like "Oh my god these are the best things ever."

6) Smile and enjoy your awesomeness

Applesauce

Do you know what you need to make homemade applesauce?  Apples.  Water.  Heat+time.  A potato masher.  (Maybe a scale, but if you weighed the apples when you bought them that's close enough.) That's all!!

Peel, core, and slice the apples into small chunks.  Add to a pot with 2 ounces of water per pound of apples (or so).  If you'd like, add some cinnamon and/or a splash of lemon or lime juice.  Bring to a boil and simmer, covered, for about 30 minutes.  Mash.  Eat.

I used two very large apples, which was about 1.5lbs of apple, and got about 2.5 cups of applesauce from them.  Yum, yum, yum.

Chocolate Hazelnut Crinkle Cookies

These are awesome.  One lucky eater dubbed them the best cookies I've ever made.  I agree-- chocolately, hazelnutty, not too sweet, and quite pretty to boot.  They're easy to transport too (they don't crumble or get too soggy or too crisp) and they'll, theoretically, last for about a week in a tupperware.  Unfortunately they require the aid of a food processor (mini one is fine), so if you don't have one yet add this to the list of reasons you need one.  The only mildly annoying thing is that you have to chill the dough two hours (or overnight), so plan accordingly.  P.S. As you might have noticed, I changed the blog format.  Do you like it? Some of the older posts might have some formatting quirks, but I'll work on fixing them...

lightly adapted from: Epicurious.com, originally from Gourmet 2006
3/4 cup hazelnuts
6oz good bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped (or same weight bittersweet chocolate chips)
2 3/4 c. AP flour
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
2 t baking powder
3/4 t salt
1 stick butter, at room temp
1 1/2 c sugar (the recipe calls for brown but I used mostly granulated b/c I ran out...)
2 eggs
1/4 c whole milk
1 t vanilla
3/4 c powdered sugar

Roast hazelnuts on an ungreased baking sheet or cake pan at 350 for 10 minutes, or until they start to brown and the skins loosen.  Dump into the center of a kitchen towel, fold the edges over the nuts, and let cool for five minutes, then rub briskly in the towel to remove skins.  (It's fine if some stubborn skins stay on.)  [Turn oven off.]  When they're cool, whirr in a food processor until finely ground.

 Melt chocolate.  As it cools...

Stir together flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt.

Cream together butter and sugar until, well, creamy.  Beat in eggs, then milk, then vanilla, then chocolate.  Stir in dry ingredients, then ground nuts.  Cover and chill 2+ hours.

Preheat oven to 350 and put one rack in the top part of the oven and one in the bottom.  Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper.  Take half of the dough out of the fridge and sift powdered sugar into a small bowl.  Shape dough by hand into about 1.5 inch diameter balls (meatball-sized), then roll in powdered sugar. I shook them gently to loosen some of the powdered sugar and thought it was plenty, but if you want stark white sugar on your cookies in the end pile it on thick.  I didn't flatten my doughballs at all and ended up with mound-cookies, which were fabulous, but if you want thinner ones, flatten them slightly.

Bake for 15-18 minutes, swapping position of the cookies sheets (top to bottom and bottom to top) about 8 minutes in.  I'm not sure at what point in this business they crack, but trust me, they will.  When they're done a toothpick stuck into a crack should come out mostly clean and the edges should feel firm and dry (tap them with the toothpick to check).  If you have a cooling rack big enough, slide the whole parchment sheet+cookies onto the rack all at once.  (I wish I could take credit for that stroke of brilliance, but, alas, I can't.)  Don't forget about the other half of the dough in the fridge; it is waiting to be rolled once you finish the first half.  Let the sheet cool and then re-paper and continue baking cookies until the dough is gone.  I ended up with 32 cookies.  Eat while still warm and soft in the center with a glass of milk, a cup of coffee, or a glass of red wine.

EAT ME.

Stay tuned...

Chocolate (cheese?)cake recipe coming soon...

Moroccan Lamb Tagine, or How I Forgave the Weather for Being Cold and Wet

Welcome, winter.  Though you mark the end of wonderful things like tomatoes (grrrrr),  you allow me to turn on my oven for two hours and make lamb stew.  Amazing lamb stew.  And thank you, recipe-part-of-the-BBC's-website-which-I-didn't-realize-existed!  I've translated their recipe here, for your non-British enjoyment...  The recipe makes enough for 6-8 people, but did we scale it down? Nooooo.  Instead we have a meal's worth in the freezer, and leftovers for Thursday's dinner!  A word to the wise: you need a very large casserole dish for this.  Or two of them.  Trust us.

Lamb Tagine
spice mix:
1 t. cayenne
2 t. black pepper
1.5 T. paprika
1.5 T. ground ginger
1 T. turmeric
2 t. cinnamon

2 lb lamb stew cubes
2 large onions, grated (really! on a box grater, apparently) or minced
a few T. olive oil
a few T. argan oil (if you happen to have been to Morocco recently, or canola)
3 cloves garlic, crushed/minced/microplaned
2 c. tomato juice*
1 28-oz can diced tomatoes (the large can)
4 oz/.67ish c. dried apricots, snipped in half (a large, sticky handful)**
2 oz/.33ish c. dried dates, snipped in half (a small, slightly-less-sticky handful)
2 oz/.33ish c. golden raisins (a small, minimally-sticky handful)
3 oz/.5ish c. almonds-- flaked, chopped or slivered (a large handful)
1 t. saffron stamens
2 c. lamb or beef stock
1 T. honey
1 small bunch cilantro, coarsely chopped (for garnish)

Stir together spice mix.  Coat the lamb cubes in half of the mix (reserve the rest), and let marinate in the fridge for 6-12 hours.

Cook lamb cubes in olive/argan oil over med-high heat, transferring to your casserole dish(es) when nicely brown on the outsides.  You will probably have to do this in batches.  Deglaze pan with a splash of tomato juice and add this to the casserole.

The oil turns yellow from the turmeric...yum.

Looks can be deceiving-- partially cooked lamb does not make good eating.  (Yet.)

Start saffron soaking in a small bowl of water.  Preheat oven to 300.

Originally...

...15 minutes later!

In a large saucepan***, saute onions and reserved spice mix over very low heat for about 10 minutes.  Onions should turn translucent but not brown.  BEWARE OF NOXIOUS ONION+CAYENNE+PEPPER+ TURMERIC GASES.  Resist the urge to take a deep breath of the fumes.  Add garlic and continue to cook over low heat and breathe sparingly.

Gas mask suggested.

After 2-3 minutes, add remaining tomato juice and/or stock to deglaze this pan, then add this awesomely-colored concoction to the casserole dish.

This was 3/4 of the stew-- smaller casserole dish, also full, not pictured.

Carefully stir in fruit, almonds, honey, diced tomatoes, saffron+its water, cover, and bake for 2 hours.  To check for doneness, remove from oven and fish out a lamb cube; if it is easy to stab with a fork and has the most amazing texture, it's done.  Otherwise, cook for an additional half hour.

Serve over couscous (Bring 1.5 c. water to a boil, add .5 T. butter, remove from heat, add 1 c. couscous, cover pan, and leave undisturbed for 5 minutes.  Uncover and fluff with a fork.  Feeds 3-4, scale up as needed.) with cilantro garnish.  Enjoy!


*Did you know that it is humanly impossible to buy tomato juice in this quantity??  There's 3.5 cups of tomato juice in our freezer now.
**Use a scale if you have one; it's especially nice if you can re-zero it and then weigh all of these things together.  But you don't have to be exact-- tagine will not be ruined by a few extra apricots.
***Ideally, you'd have a really nice enameled casserole dish (maybe in a color that matches your stand mixer) that can also go on the stovetop, and you would just do all of this in that (having set the lamb aside in a bowl, to add back in when you add everything else).

We didn't have any cilantro, but we forced it down anyways.

P.S. The dates will turn golden, look like olives, and taste like slow-cooked lamb....!!!  Prepare yourself for this culinary alchemy.
P.P.S. Turmeric/saffron stain things yellow.  Such as, countertops (so I hear) and tupperware containers (so I see).

P.P.P.S. I swear I was not drinking when I
took this picture but I thought it was level!

Peruvian Chicken and Mexican Corn

How better to celebrate the Fourth of July than with a Latin American dinner? (Okay, so there are probably many ways, but this way was delicious so I don't care.) Peruvian chicken comes from Cooks Illustrated (reproduced here, though it's missing the sugar, see below). The recipe is for a whole roasted chicken, but we had boneless chicken thighs so we used them instead (we halved the marinade for about 1.5 lbs of chicken). Mexican corn is just grilled corn with the addition of mayo (sounds gross but it's not, remember that mayo is just oil and eggs after all), cheese, ancho powder, lime juice and salt. With some brown rice to round it out and a Goose Island Summertime Ale, a good meal was had by all! (All two of us that is.)

Peruvian Chicken Marinade

adapted from Cooks Illustrated

1/4 cup, loosely packed, fresh mint

1 habanero chile (we subbed a jalapeno b/c, guess what, the grocery store was closed)

3 garlic cloves

1 t salt

1 T granulated sugar (sub honey if you like, but don't skip it!)

1/2 tsp of black pepper

1 T ground cumin

1 t pimentón (smoked paprika)

1/2 t dried oregano

2 T olive oil

2 t lime zest

1/4 c lime juice

Mix all ingredients in a small food processor or blender. Marinate chicken (boneless or bone-in chunks, or a whole chicken, or whatever) for 4+ hours. Grill until cooked, outer edges will brown and caramelize and be amazing. Cook time will depend on your chicken choice and grill temperature/temperament. Serve with brown rice or quinoa or potatoes or sweet potatoes or nothing at all.

Mexican Corn

a few ears of corn

mayo

cheese (parm or, ideally, queso añejo)

ancho or other chile powder

lime juice

salt

Prepare corn for grilling: Carefully peel back husks (do not remove!) and pull out all silks. Re-wrap the ear in the husks. Some people like to then soak the ears for 15 minutes in a large bowl of water, but it seems to be totally unnecessary. Either way, grill the corn for 20-30 minutes over moderate heat. Outer husks will char and kernels will be tender (stab with a fork if you're unsure, but it's hard to overcook it.) Once it's barely cool enough to handle, peel back husks and slather in mayonnaise (good stuff please), then sprinkle heavily with cheese, spritz with lime juice, and dust with chile powder and salt. Eat while still warm. Wonder why you haven't moved to Mexico yet.

Dobos Torta (aka Nutella Cake)

Smitten Kitchen lady made this a bit ago, and I just bought myself this amazing cookbook, and two of my friends are going away for a month, and another of my friends says he ate this cake growing up in Serbia, so I just HAD to make this, you see. If this were a real dobos torta I’d've made a caramel-soaked top layer, but I can’t count and thus made too few layers so I skipped that (see the link above for details for how it’s supposed to look). A committee of two decided that a five-layer-cake without caramel is more exciting than a four-layer-cake with caramel. I decided to follow the cookbook’s recipe rather than the Smitten Kitchen one, almost entirely because it requires fewer eggs (6 versus TEN!). And it seemed like an apt way to break in the cookbook—page 72 is now well-marked with sticky batter drips. Luckily the copy I bought is a used ex-library book, complete with plastic-covered-dust-jacket! Since I bastardized it (er, adapted it) by making it without the caramel and covering it in roasted hazelnuts instead, this might get re-named to Nutella Cake. (A tragic occasion indeed.)

Dobos Torta

Batter

6 eggs, separated

1 1/3 c. confectioner’s sugar (divided use)

1 t. vanilla extract

1 c. plus 2 T. sifted cake flour*

pinch of salt

Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

4 ounces bittersweet chocolate (I used Ghirardelli chocolate chips)

3 sticks unsalted butter, at cool room temp (yes, three sticks)

2 T. cocoa powder

1 ¼ c. confectioner’s sugar, sifted

1 t. vanilla

1 large handful hazelnuts, de-skinned** and chopped (I guess this is optional)

*If you don’t have cake flour, take 1 c. AP flour, scoop out 2 T. and replace those 2 T. with cornstarch to make 1 c. cake flour. For this recipe I used 1-cup-minus-1/2-tablespoon AP flour and 2 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch. Or thereabouts.

**Since you already have the oven on, throw the hazelnuts on an ungreased cake pan (or cookie sheet, or whatever), and roast them for about 15 minutes, or until the skins look loose, then let cool and rub vigorously in a kitchen towel until most of the skins come off. I may have over-baked mine as the skins turned almost black, but miraculously they didn’t burn and the nut meats actually got nicely golden brown and roasty.

Prepare pans/parchment:

Unless you have removable-bottom cake pans (thanks Bonnie!), I recommend the parchment paper method. In fact, it was even somewhat of a pain to get the layers off the greased-and-floured removable bottoms, so I’d parchment those too. But really this batter is so thick and foamy that you don’t need cake pans at all. Cut out parchment paper a bit bigger than the layer size you want, trace the circle (or rectangle, or whatever) that you want on parchment and lay the parchment on a cookie sheet (the cookbook notes that you should have the side of the parchment with the graphite/ink on it facing DOWN so as not to pollute the batter). I made five layers, each 9.5 inches in diameter, and supposedly the batter is enough for 6 layers at 9 inches, or you could do some math and make crazy sizes/shapes. Once you have all that set up (you might have to borrow some cookie sheets), turn the oven on to 400 F with the racks in the center and top third of the oven.

Make and bake batter:

Beat eggs yolks, 2/3 c. confectioner’s sugar and vanilla at high speed for 3 minutes, until they are pale yellow and thick (this is a job for the stand mixer).

In a clean, grease-free metal or glass bowl (I used my hand mixer for this), beat egg whites until soft peaks form. Gradually beat in remaining 2/3 c. of confectioner’s sugar until stiff, shiny peaks form.

With a large spatula, stir about ¼ of the meringue into the egg yolks to lighten. Then fold in the remaining meringue until mostly-mixed, leaving some streaks of white. Don’t worry about being overly-gentle, the meringue is pretty sturdy. (This is the perfect time to sample the batter for, er, quality assurance purposes.)

Sift half of the flour/salt over top and gently stir in, repeat with other half of the flour and stir until homogenous in color. Batter will be thick and foamy. Plop approximately equal portions of the batter onto your prepared parchment outlines, and spread the batter to the edge of the circles (push, don’t pull) to make a mostly-even layer, about ¼ inch thick, depending on the size and number of your layers.

Bake each layer for about 5 minutes (mine actually took closer to 7, I think my oven’s a bit cool), or until the top springs back when pressed and the edges are golden brown. Be sure to rotate the layers on the oven racks and turn them once; most ovens have a hotter side which will quickly burn these skinny little guys.

When done, flip the layers onto a rack and peel off the parchment, then flip them back onto the parchment or a rack to cool. The tops are very sticky, so don’t leave them sitting around top-side-down for any period of time. Let the layers cool completely, it won’t take long. Don’t worry if some layers are ugly (one of mine ended up with a hole in it), because they will all be lovely ensconced in chocolate frosting very shortly. Any that are particularly large or non-circular should be trimmed so that they stack nicely. (The cookbook recommends laying the bottom of an appropriately-sized springform pan or plate on top and trimming around...I just eyeballed it. I assure you that taste is not affected.)

Make frosting and frost:

Melt chocolate. Cream butter until smooth (for some reason the cookbook recommends using a hand mixer as opposed to a stand mixer for this—maybe to take advantage of the finer metal blades rather than the stand mixer’s paddle?). Mix cocoa into butter, then confectioner’s sugar, then chocolate, then vanilla. Beat until evenly-colored and frostingey. If your kitchen is 90 degrees, I’d recommend throwing the frosting in the fridge for a few minutes while you drink something cold (or wash the dishes) or you end up trying to spread something that’s the consistency of melted butter. Trust me.

When the frosting is spreadable, start stacking and frosting the layers of your cake. It’s a fancy cake, so use a fancy cake plate (thanks Bonnie!). I alternated the ugly layers with the pretty ones, saving one that was fairly flat and uniform for the top layer. Frost tops of all layers as you stack, then frost top and sides of cake. You don’t have to be too sparing with the frosting, but be modest about it or you’ll end up short for the sides. Sprinkle chopped hazelnuts on the top of the cake and refrigerate until eating time.

As you can see, my frosting layers are a little uneven...but it's good just the same!