Vegetable in Name Only

The similarities between this post and last do not cease at mere geometry of the subject matter. Logic forces me to admit that most quick-breads are hardly deserving of the connotation of nutrition evoked in their names. Zucchini bread is, let us face the facts, cake. Referring to it as such may decrease consumption — an unfortunate affair since this "bread" has come to serve as a zucchini disposal technique as of late. What else to do with the freakishly large specimens sturdy enough to use as columns for a portico? One gigantic zucchini usually affords me two loaves and change — this recipe is generally forgiving in proportions, so a bit of extra plant matter won't perturb the balance.

As usual I've opted to substitute butter where most recipes call for oil. In my mind it's better to consume fat that tastes wonderful than to simply dump in a bunch of tasteless canola oil. It's best to fill loaf pans less than halfway to facilitate proper cooking — a double batch of the recipe below manages well in three pans, while a single batch should probably be done in two. It keeps for what seems like forever, though one is hard pressed to let such a thing age beyond a few days.

Zucchini Cake

The Cake

• 3 Cups Flour
• 1.5 Cups Sugar (raw)
• 0.5 Cups Butter
• 1 Tsp. Baking Soda
• 1 Tsp. Baking Powder
• 1 Tsp. Salt
• 3 Tsp. Cinnamon
• 2 Cups Grated Zucchini
• 3 Large Eggs
• 3 Tsp. Vanilla

Fabrication

1. Preheat to 325F.
2. Melt the butter and bring the eggs up to room temperature. Mix the butter and sugar together vigorously before adding the eggs. Add the remaining wet ingredients, including the zucchini. Mix together all of the dry ingredients in a separate bowl, and then combine the two until uniform.
3. Butter enough loaf pans such that the batter will not go much over half the volume of any individual pan. Pour in the mixture and shake the pans to settle everything.
4. Bake for somewhere around 45 minutes, until something plunged into the thickest part of the loaf comes out clean. Rotate the pans in the oven once or twice, since in my experience burning is a distinct possibility. Let cool before slicing.

NB: More batches make more friends.

Happy Birthday Meg!

Welcome to Meg's virtual cake! Kenya is well beyond the shipping range for perishable goods, so this will have to suffice. Cakes are apparently not my thing, as I can tell from more data points than just this one. Bagels and bread seem more familiar territory, none of these weird ingredients like sugar and fat. Nonetheless I stuck a candle in what amounts to a coffee-cake and declared my attempt celebratory but lacking in finesse. It's better than sticking a candle in a bagel.

So here is to a quarter century, celebrated wandering around rural Kenya (sounds fun to me!).

Another momentous occasion here is that I don't think I've ever actually purchased hard alcohol, no kidding! For some reason it felt like I should be required to produce some identification beyond a drivers license — the equivalent of a commercial license or something. Alas, it was anticlimactic to say the least. I'll have to figure out something to do with this rum — I'm thinking back to Anna's adventurous Bananas Foster Cocktail and wondering whether I could really have more than one of those despite their allure.

The inspiration here is, of course, the bellowing cake-monger at the farmers market. He espouses his butter-rum cake as a cure-all, bound to increase your energy level as well as your GPA. My cake will raise my carbon consumption a hair, but I don't foresee any secondary benefits. The recipe is an amalgam of a few random samples distributed across the internet — buttermilk and baking soda won out as the leaveners.

Butter-Rum Cake

The Cake

• 3 Cups Flour
• 2 Cups Sugar
• 1 Cup Butter
• 1 Cup Buttermilk
• 4 Large Eggs
• 1/2 Tsp. Baking Soda
• 1 Tsp. Baking Powder (not really necessary)
• 1 Tsp. Salt
• 2 Tsp. Vanilla

The "Sauce"

• 1/4 Cup Soft Butter
• 1/4 Cup Water
• 1 Cup Turbinado Sugar
• 4 Tbs. Rum

Fabrication

1. Preheat to 325F.
2. Bring the butter and eggs up to room temperature. Cream the butter and sugar together, preferably with some sort of mixer. Add the eggs (on slow speed at first lest they fly out of the bowl) one at a time. Combine wet and dry ingredients separately and add, alternating between the two until everything is incorporated.
3. Butter a pan, hopefully a bundt pan, and lightly dust with flour as shown in the picture above. Whack the pan a few times to make sure there is an even coating and dump out any loose flour.
4. Bake for about an hour in a large pan or about 25 minutes for several smaller cakes.
5. Bring to a boil all the sauce ingredients aside from the rum and then remove from heat. Now stir in the rum.
6. Poke an absurd number of holes in the top and dump the sauce on slowly so it saturates the cake.
7. Coax out of the pan and enjoy. Perhaps sing happy birthday.

NB: Happy birthday Megan!

Some Representative Crepes

My parents have a crepe pan somewhere, of which I'm quite envious. Even though it looks to have been used as a buckler at some point in history, the thing produced perfect crepes. I've now, with this comparatively fancy non-stick pan, produced more than a few specimens resembling cardboard more than any sort of a pancake. What could be the problem? Apparently butter is as crucial a factor for the texture and appearance as it is for the taste. Don't skimp on the butter in the non-stick, coat liberally.

We never seemed to have this problem in the purple house in undergrad, but in that house we also went through 12 sticks of butter at thanksgiving, case closed. I remember the construction of a crepe cake there — based purely on a passing mention gleaned from some show on the food network. Something like 30 crepes with a pastry cream slathered on top of each. Eating this thing was a chore, and construction was a substantial part of the evening. Crepes have become a less frequent endeavor since.

These latest ones tasted best the first time I made them, after which I failed to write anything down. I think I've worked approximately back to that level now. The crepes will be excellent as long as the batter is thin and there is enough batter in the pan. The filling can be composed of anything one cares to prepare, and here I've opted for some mushrooms, caramelized onions, and spinach. The crepes take by far longer than any other element of the meal unless you have a second pan running. This really isn't an option with the amount of stove real estate I have to work with, so really you may as well just get all the crepes done ahead of time so you don't get distracted by other tasks while churning them out.

Mushroom and Spinach Crepes

For perhaps 20 crepes

The Crepe Batter

• 2 Eggs
• 3/4 Cup Milk
• 1/2 Cup Water
• 1 Cup Flour
• 3 Tbs. Melted Butter with reserves
• 1/2 Tsp Salt

The Filling

• 1 Lb. or more Mushrooms
• A few handfuls of "adult" spinach
• 2 Large onions, sliced thin
• Sour Cream
• Thyme or other spices
• Maybe wine for deglazing
• Perhaps some parmesan for the filling as well

The Crepes

1. Blend the ingredients in a blender or in a bowl with an immersion blender until smooth. Refrigerate for a few hours if possible. The texture should be kind of like that of heavy cream, but a bit more on the thin side.
2. Heat a non-stick pan (or otherwise) until water skips around the surface daintily.
3. Butter the pan so the entire bottom has a nice sheen. Remove from the heat and ladle in some of the batter — quickly gyrate the pan around until all of the batter has set and is relatively even across the bottom. The general method can be seen here
4. Cook until the bottom is starting to get nicely browned, then flip with your fingers or a spatula. Continue cooking until the bottom is slightly brown (it will be more spotty than anything.)
5. Adjust the amount of batter to suit your pan size, and repeat!

The Rest

1. With a liberal amount of butter, saute the mushrooms making sure not to overfill the pan. When done cook the onions slowly until caramelized to some degree (25 minutes maybe.) This would be the opportune time to rinse the spinach, though instead of drying it off just throw it into the pan wet with maybe a dash or two of wine to scrape some bits of the bottom of the pan. Clap on a lid and let the spinach wilt.
2. Add any spices if desired, and return the mushrooms to the pan until they are heated through. Adjust salt and pepper levels.
3. Slap a heaping spoonful or two of the mixture in the center of a crepe and add a dollop of cream to smooth things out — the ratio in the picture above is probably a bit excessive on the part of the cream. Add some grated parmesan and roll up the crepes for completion.

NB: I had to use baby spinach here for lack of another choice, but really it doesn't hold a candle to the taste one gets from the mature stuff. The first crepe always fails, so you may as well just eat it as soon as it reaches tolerable temperatures.

Smoky Strawberries

What to do with so many strawberries? At first they were eaten as is, though more recently they've been robbed of their solid nature by perhaps the loudest kitchen appliance ever created. Some sort of dessert was needed this week, and TJs furnished me with an 18 ounce slab of dark chocolate to this end. I've been slightly obsessed with chili-spiced chocolate ever since having some gnarly concoction in Santa Fe over thanksgiving. I normally find chocolate-covered strawberries somewhat boring, so the anchos are meant to make everything a bit more interesting.

As with most experiments, I decided some cumin would even things out a bit. This apparently satisfied some people and turned others off — not everyone seems to have the same cumin tolerance I've developed. I used to have some ancho powder sitting around, but it got used up long ago. Making chili powder is luckily a pretty easy affair as long as one has an extra coffee grinder sitting around (or doesn't mind a little kick in the morning coffee). I would recommend adjusting the amount of chili powder purely by taste, as my measurements were highly imprecise.

As I said before one can omit the cumin, though I'd be curious to go all the away and shoot for mole-covered berries. That would be interesting!

Strawberries Covered in Ancho Chili Chocolate

For around two dozen large strawberries

The Chili Powder

• Two ancho chilies, stemmed and seeded, torn into smaller pieces
• One, two, or maybe no tbsp. cumin seeds
• 1/2 Tbsp Oil

The Rest

• 2 Tbsp. Butter
• 8 Oz. Dark Chocolate
• Around 4 loose Tbsp. Chili Power, above
• 2 Dozen or more strawberries, washed and dried
• Wax paper

The Chili Powder

1. Heat a skillet to medium heat and add oil
2. Add chilis, torn into smaller pieces, and coat with oil. Allow to toast until very fragrant.
3. Add cumin and toast until its smell can be discerned
4. Remove from heat and let cool before grinding up in coffee or spice grinder

The Rest

1. Put wax paper on a sheet pan and let it chill in the freezer while melting chocolate
2. Set a metal bowl over a saucepan of simmering water to approximate a double boiler.
3. Add the butter, let it melt before adding the chocolate. Stir until the chocolate is completely melted — the length of this process will depend largely on the size of the chocolate pieces.
4. Add chili powder until the desired flavor is arrived at. I think I ended up using a full 4 loosely packed tablespoons or so. A dash of salt may also be desired.
5. Lower heat to almost nothing, dip strawberries so they get a reasonably thick coasting, then place on the wax paper to cool. Place the sheet pan back in the fridge until everything has solidified and cooled back down.

NB: It will be really hard to make this too spicy given the nature of ancho chili, the adventurous soul may try adding some cayenne for a real kick.

Fish in a Bag

The threat of summer has been looming here for some time. One would think that we wouldn't suffer from such a drawn out spring here in Sunny Southern California, but this has been the case. This weekend seemed the starting point of warmer weather, though, with the added benefit of inciting grilling sessions. This particular entree is something I've never cooked outside of an oven, but decided to throw on a grill earlier as an experiment.

A heart-shaped piece of parchment is transformed into a steaming vessel — the moisture in the vegetables isn't necessarily enough to steam everything so I typically throw in some lemon juice and wine. As with most of my recipes, it consists largely of those items that were on hand (fish excluded of course). I opted for shallots and asparagus, but squash would probably be a better summer choice. The couscous is highly optional, but rounds things off in a way. I dripped a few tablespoons of water directly onto the couscous to make sure it didn't dry out during cooking. This seemed to work pretty well though the heat from the grill seemed to give it a bit of crunch in some places. Normally I cook these sorts of packages in the oven at, say, 425F. Today I had next to no idea what clip the grill was going at, and the best indicator of doneness was actually the temperature of the fish as felt directly through the parchment.

Folding the parchment up can be a little tricky, so I urge one to take part in the following visual aid. The most important part of the procedure is keeping the bag relatively steam-tight, so care should certainly be taken when the bag is being closed. Most helpful to one's success is the avoidance of an over-stuffed package.

Pictures of the final product are lacking not for want of aesthetics, but instead because I felt somewhat awkward snapping pictures of my food in the particular circumstances. All I had with me was my phone though, and those pictures would not have benefited from the faux-professionality of extreme depth-of-field.

On to the fish, which is usually referred to as being cooked "en papillote." I will spare you from such pretensions. Simply multiply the recipe by the number of people you want to feed.

Salmon in Parchment

For One Serving

The Crust

• Parchment paper
• 1 Salmon (or other fish) fillet
• 1 Shallot, minced
• Few stalks asparagus
• Few tablespoons couscous, with enough water to hydrate
• Few small bits of butter
• Few tablespoons white wine
• Few slices lemon
• Seasoning

Everything Together

1. Preheat oven to 425F or start the grill and hope for success.
2. Tear a piece of parchment larger than you think is necessary to fold up your ingredients. Fold it in half to easily cut out a heart shape.
3. Start by placing the vegetables: cut fairly small to allow for easy steaming, position on one half of the parchment near the heart's cleft. The point of the heart is soon consumed by folds, so leave this area untouched unless you want to attempt folding asparagus.
4. Add the couscous and enough water to hydrate (just a few tablespoons), then a tablespoon or two of wine. Season lightly and add a pat or two of butter.
5. Stack the fish on top, season, and then add the lemon wedges. Add some more butter or olive oil if you prefer.
6. Roll up in the manner shown here, making sure to keep everything pretty tight.
7. Cook for 12 minutes in the oven, or check frequently around that time on the grill. In either case the fish should be, well, fish temperature to the touch while the parchment becomes somewhat browned.

NB: The visual aid, referenced above, reveals that this can be prepared even more easily by microwaving for 5 minutes on high.

Finally, a Quiche

Food blog I have forsaken thee — to what limited readership exists I issue an apology for this natural stage in the life of a blog. A humbling thought is that more people have probably looked at this site than will ever read my academic papers. All the more reason to photograph my food from time to time — clearly it is fame that I seek.

Let me attempt to ease back into this with a relatively low key post: the quiche. Half a piecrust and a smorgasbord of dairy and other ingredients pulled from the far reaches of the refrigerator. I happen to have a tart pan, though frankly I find the thing more trouble than it may be worth. Magically my crusts retract down the already-short sides, perhaps an artifact of pre-baking. My measurements are for such a vessel, though, so those of you opting for an actual pie dish will need to increase the volume of the filling by nearly half (a complete guess of course). Another irregularity in my measurements will be the number of eggs: these things are enormous. It seems the wealth of Orange County has been invested in chicken feed, since the eggs I get from the farmers market could be mistaken on easter for avocados.

The astute reader will note that the leading photograph contains no chard, but rather spinach and bacon. No matter, the procedure is identical.

A Quiche of Chard or Similar Things

The Crust

• 1 1/4 Cup Flour
• 1 Stick Cold Butter
• Dash Salt
• Ice Water

The Filling

• Several leaves of chard, stems diced and leaves coarsely chopped
• A reasonably sized onion, thinly sliced
• Perhaps some bacon
• Three gigantic or maybe four normal eggs for a tart pan, more for a pie dish
• 1/2 Cup sour cream, more for a pie dish
• 1/2 Cup whole milk, more for a pie dish
• Pinch of nutmeg
• More seasoning

The Crust

1. Either in a food processor or by hand, process the butter, flour, and salt until coarsely mixed with some larger bits. Add just enough water to make the dough cohere when pressed together.
2. A handful at a time smear the dough on your work-surface — ostensibly to increase flakiness.
3. Gather into a fattish pancake and refrigerate wrapped in plastic wrap for an hour. Preheat oven to 375 F before proceeding further.
4. Roll out to the necessary size, and after transferring into your dish build up some extra dough at the edge to avoid shrinkage during baking. Poke the bottom with a fork a few times and line with foil and weight with rice or beans (since who has pie weights, really). Bake for 20 minutes, remove foil and bake for another 10.

The Remainder

1. If using bacon: cook to desired crispiness and remove, leaving a tablespoon or two of fat in the pan.
2. Saute the onion and chard stems slowly in either bacon fat or olive oil, until the onions are very soft.
3. Give the chard stems a quick rinse and throw them in while still wet. Cover and let steam until the chard has cooked down.
4. Meanwhile whisk together the other ingredients, adjusting volume as you see fit.
5. Distribute the chard and onion mixture in the shell and then pour in the dairy being careful to avoid overflow.
6. Bake for 35-40 minutes until browned and puffy.

NB: If the crust browns too much before the quiche is finished, cover the entire thing with a sheet of foil. Pre-baking the shell is probably optional given a slightly longer bake, though I am too adjusted to the procedure to try such a heresy.

The Usual Breakfast

If there is one breakfast food that has claimed a majority among all others in my life, it has been the bagel. Everything, perhaps sprouted, doused with cream cheese — not overflowing of course. At any rate, I go through these things at such a rate that it seems silly to head to the store and buy them every four days. This isn’t to say that biking around with sacks of flour is less annoying, but then there is the satisfaction of making one of those things that seemed at one time unfeasible.

As with my recent baking attempts, the active time in this recipe is some vanishing fraction of the entire process. Mix for two minutes, wait for two hours. Mix some more, then wait overnight (only after poking holes, of course.) There really is nothing obscure about the ingredients aside from the optional malt syrup, of which I stole a few tablespoons during the last batch of beer. Molasses makes a good substitute here, as long as it is used sparingly.

After a few attempts I’ve thought it best to replace roughly a quarter of the flour with whole wheat, a substitution that has had no measurable impact on the final texture of the bagels. On this note, I must confess that have a much airier texture than one’s average bagel — so far I’m undecided as to whether my preference lies with the chewy variety I’ve grown to love or these behemoth fluffy newcomers.

Topping are limited of course by only one’s imagination. While onions and garlic are fun to apply, I find that they end up more as carbon than anything else when toasted. For this reason I will stick to seeds only. I haven’t experimented with any sorts of flavored dough, and see no reason to muck with what has been a very tasty final product.

As for the intended volume: make more than you think necessary. This is a cliché line for baked goods, but bagels have many more justified uses than most. I haven’t yet seen someone attempt to make a sandwich capped by, say, chocolate chip cookies. A dozen to start never leaves more than one or two at the end of the usual Sunday brunches here, though a ravenous lot we are.

At the risk of being the three-thousandth person to blog about Peter Reinhart’s bagel recipe, I will proceed shamelessly with an only slightly modified recipe. Also, a thanks to Greg Jordan, who brought my attention to the bagels and the book they came from more generally.

Slightly Whole-Wheat Bagels

Adapted From Peter Reinhart's
The Bread Baker’s Apprentice
Makes 12 Bagels

Sponge

• 1 Tsp. Instant (Rapid Rise) Yeast (0.11 Oz.)
• 4 C. Bread Flour (18 Oz.)
• 2.5 C. Water, not too cold (20 Oz.)

Actual Dough

• 0.5 Tsp. Instant (Rapid Rise) Yeast (0.11 Oz.)
• 2.0 C. Bread Flour (10 Oz.)
• 1.75 C. Whole Wheat Flour (8 Oz.)
• 2.75 Tsp. Salt (0.7 Oz.)
• 1 Tbs. Malt Syrup or Molasses (0.5 Oz.)
• Semolina flour or cornmeal for dusting
• Parchment paper a must!
• Seeds and coarse-grained salt for topping bagels

For The Sponge

1. Simply stir together until smooth the detailed ingredients. If using active dry yeast, perhaps warm up some of the water and let the yeast proof for a few minutes before adding the rest of the water and flour.
2. Cover and let sit for one hour at room temperature.

For The Actual Bagels

1. Add the rest of the dough ingredients to the sponge and knead by hand or machine until the dough passes the window-pane test. This will be in the 6-10 minute regime.
2. Divide into 12 equal pieces and form into tight balls on slightly dampened counter using repetitive “wax-on” or “wax-off” (but not both) maneuvers. Let sit covered on counter for 20 minutes or so.
3. Poke a hole in the center with thumbs and work into a torus. Make the hole much larger than one would expect, the shape one might have in mind is that of a car tire (without the squareness of course.) Place on a lightly oiled parchment sheet (in a sheet-pan), and let rise for 30 minutes or so, longer if nippy outside.
4. Put in fridge until the next day, or perhaps the day after.
5. Preheat oven to 500F with the racks in the center. Bring to a boil a good sized vat of water primed with a bit of baking soda. Prepare seed and salt mixture ahead of time.
6. Without crowding the vat, boil the bagels for roughly a minute per side. Dust the parchment with semolina or corn meal in the meantime, and return the bagels to the sheet pan when finished. Immediately sprinkle the seed mixture on the bagels in the desired quantity while they are still wet.
7. Bake for 20 minutes, rotating pans and shelves halfway. This may be longer or shorter depending on your oven, just cook them until they look like bagels (malt syrup and molasses make them substantially darker than they would otherwise become during baking.)
8. Let cool and enjoy!

NB: Don’t handle them too much to avoid deflating before baking. Make sure to drain thoroughly before setting back down on the dusted parchment.