Taste Memories

Sticky Slow-Roasted Pears with Orange, Cardamom, and Walnut Oil

Apologies for my absence. I've been trying to get into NaBloPoMo, but I totally misread the acronym. I thought it was NoBloPoMo. So instead of posting every day, I've been not posting every day. It's easy to see how that sort of thing could happen, isn't it? Also, the dog ate my homework. Ahem.

But I know I'll finagle my way back into your good graces with these pears. They are slick, sticky, and soft (but not mushy), and redolent with Middle Eastern flavors – orange, cardamom, walnut oil – that are so much more interesting than the tired old cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice routine.

The original inspiration for this recipe was Molly Wizenberg's post on Sally Schneider's marvelous roast pears. I made the pears this way a number of times, and loved the results; but I couldn't help but agree with Molly that it would be nice if the pears would slump more. Thus, I'm delighted to report that turning down the oven from 400˚F to 225˚F and tripling the baking time was just the ticket.

There was another difficulty with the original recipe, however, which – in order to explain – requires me to confess a bizarre personal quirk. Generally, I don't care much for dessert after dinner, unless it's a nice piece of unembellished fruit. It's not so much that I have a sour tooth rather than a sweet tooth (I'll dispel that hypothesis in a moment); it's rather that I crave clean, tart, fresh flavors after a rich meal. But I happen to adore last night's dessert in the morning, straight from the fridge, for breakfast. (Before you ask, I also have a thing against microwaving leftovers… Look, don't get me started).

The point is: I like desserts that taste good both hot and cold. And dotting these pears with butter (as the original recipe called for) meant that, although they were fantastic hot, they tasted rather greasy and filmy and waxy when served cold. Yet the fat in the recipe was not to be omitted; the extravagance of these pears is integral to their charm.

The solution I dreamt up was to substitute nut oil for butter (I suppose you could also use olive oil; but I'm not sure how I feel about olive oil in desserts yet). After musing on the various possibilities, I fixed on walnut oil, which in turn steered my thinking in a more Middle Eastern direction, and led me to lavish the pears with orange blossom water and cardamom.

And so, last night, a recipe was born. It's the morning after, and I can now confirm that, yes indeedy, it's a keeper (*smacks lips*).

Ingredients:

1lb pears, peeled, halved, and cored (I used seckel pears, which are tiny and precious-looking; but any variety would do)

¼ cup agave nectar (or honey)

Zest and juice of 1 orange

1 tsp orange flower water

1 tbsp walnut oil

1 tbsp whole cardamom pods

A fat pinch of fleur de sel

 

To serve:

Chocolate sauce (I just melted a little dark valrhona with a splash of cream and a little sugar)

Vanilla ice cream

 

Method:

Preheat the oven to 225˚F.

Place a small skillet over high heat, and dry-roast the cardamom pods for a few minutes, or until they are lightly toasted (but not burned). Now grind them in a mortar and pestle, and pass the powder through a fine sieve to remove any large pieces of pod that remain.

Combine the cardamom powder with all the remaining ingredients aside from the pears, and then toss the pears gently in the resulting mixture.

Spread the pear mixture in a large (I used a 9 x 13") glass or ceramic baking dish.

Bake for 3 hours, or until the pears are incredibly soft and sticky. Serve with a drizzle of chocolate sauce and a quenelle of vanilla ice cream – or some Greek yoghurt, if you're having this for breakfast.

Public Service Announcement

Oh dear. Dear oh dear. Dear dear dear. I could go on.

What a disappointing week in cooking it has been! The silence around these parts for the last week is due to the string of (barely) so-so meals that I've been cobbling together. I have lost my cooking mojo, it seems. Picture me hunched in a corner of my kitchen, flagellating myself with a cast iron skillet. I've been so bad.

Last Friday night, for example, I set about making a waldorf slaw to accompany hangar steak. Now doesn't that sound promising? But then I forgot the grated granny smith apples and the walnuts, and the result was bland and soggy and completely forgettable. Also, I soaked my raisins for hours, but they didn't plump up enough, causing me to pout.

No harm, no foul, I thought: until Saturday night, whereupon I failed to get my roast carrot and orange soup right for the second time running (the first time I made it, it was too orangey; this time, it was too insipid). The idea is too delicious to let go of; but the right formula continues to elude me. Next time, I'm roasting the carrots with harissa, and then adding the orange juice when I blend the soup (be warned: do not roast carrots with orange juice and no oil unless you want to spend your Sunday afternoon scrubbing a baking pan. All right, so I may have delegated the task to Daniel. Nonetheless, I feel a change of strategy is in order, if only for the sake of marital harmony).

Finally, I made some sesame-peanut-ginger-cucumber soba noodles on Sunday afternoon. Again, doesn't that sound fabulous? But somehow it managed not to be. The noodles were chewy and chalky, and the sauce was unsubtle and kinda dry (notwithstanding the generous splash of sesame oil in it, I might add). I might try again with better quality soy sauce; then again, perhaps not. Why did I think I would even like sesame-peanut noodles? I am no longer sure. Oh, and I tried putting some pan-seared tempeh in it, which was about as appetizing as wet woodchips. 

Ah well. After such a string of failures, there was nothing for it on Monday but to make the most comforting dish on earth - vegemite toast with a poached egg. I include the above photo as an illustration of how to do vegemite. Please note the generous buttering of the toast in comparison to the tiny uneven smear of the glorious thick yeasty stuff that is Australian ambrosia. For you Americans who think you don't like vegemite, you've been laying it on too thick. Try it again in the illustrated manner, and I dare you not to swoon. 

War: what is it good for?

I declared a war on cereal last month. This month I’m whistling a slightly different tune. Does that make me a hypocrite, or – still worse – a whistling hypocrite? Say what you will, but I prefer to think of myself as flexible, adaptable, pliable even. (I hear Daniel hooting with laughter in the background. Admittedly, I get into a snit when our three remote controls are not positioned just so on the coffee table, but whatever. I shall continue to (a) contradict myself, (b) eat multitudes of granola, and (c) misappropriate Walt Whitman. Still more, I shall do so blithely.)

To return to the (now rather distant) point, I made granola last weekend. It all started when a friend of mine who just moved from Australia to the States asked me why American muesli is so damn sweet (and why the coffee is so bad, but that’s another story). Actually, I’ve found these to be the two complaints most frequently made by Australian expats about this fine land. Anyway, after pointing my friend in the direction of Orangette's three tempting recipes for homemade granola, I began to salivate. I decided, notwithstanding my better judgment, to give granola a go. However, I had to tweak the recipes quite a bit to come up with something that suited my exacting specifications.

 

For one thing, I have an (admittedly rather hippy-dippy) aversion to sugar, so I wanted to see how powdered fructose and agave syrup (which are low-glycemic and all-natural, la la la) would fare in place of sugar and honey (brilliantly, as it turns out). (Let's resist making the inevitable joke about 'being granola,' shall we? Good show.) For another thing, I wanted more nuts than oats in the granola, so as to ensure that the finished product had plenty of protein. Finally, I am strongly against the indiscriminate use of cinnamon (another real problem in American cuisine, I find). So I decided to flavor the granola with ginger and orange, which I declare a delicious combination.

This granola is fragrant, subtle, and almost unreasonably good. The war may not be over yet, but if there was ever grounds for a détente, this is it.

Ginger-Orange Granola (inspired by Orangette's three aforementioned recipes)

 

Ingredients:

Dry ingredients:

3 cups old-fashioned oats

5 cups unsalted nuts (I used an equal amount of whole raw almonds, flaked blanched almonds, whole pecans, and walnut pieces)

1 cup seeds (I used flax)

½ cup fructose (you could also use ¾ cup sugar)

1 tbsp ground ginger

¼ cup ginger nibs (finely chopped crystallized ginger would also work, I’m sure)

a large pinch of salt

zest of 1 orange

Wet ingredients:

1 tbsp orange flower water (optional; you could also replace this with a few drops of orange extract or vanilla extract, if desired)

¾ cup unsweetened apple sauce

½ cup agave nectar (you could also use the same amount of honey)

2 tbsp flavorless oil (I used safflower)

Post-baking additions:

1 ½ cups chopped dried fruit (I used cherries, cranberries, prunes, apples, and apricots)

1 ½ cups unsweetened flaked coconut

Method:

Preheat the oven to 300˚F.

Mix the dry ingredients together in a large bowl, and then combine the wet ingredients in a small one. Now add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, and mix thoroughly (I used my hands for this, which I’ve read helps in creating nubbly little granola clumps).

Spread the granola mixture over two large baking sheets or pans. Now bake for about 30 minutes, checking and stirring every 10 minutes or so (Nuts burn very quickly, so keep a careful eye on it, especially if you suspect your oven runs hot). You want the granola to be crunchy but not too dark.

Cool the granola thoroughly, and then add the dried fruit and coconut.

This makes a huge amount, about 12 cups. But my research indicates that you can keep homemade granola in an airtight container in the fridge for about a week, and in the freezer for a few months.

 

I like to serve the granola with a dollop of fage yoghurt (preferably whole milk, although the fat-free version works fine too), a tiny extra drizzle of agave syrup, and a side of fresh fruit.

Eggs in Purgatory

 

I keep seeing versions of this dish, popping up all over the place on my favorite blogs. Here’s my rendition. It’s another delicious alternative breakfast, and it puts to work my all-time favorite – and yet highly idiosyncratic – tomato sauce, which I created quite by accident.

 

Tomato sauces generally start out with a diced, sautéed onion and some garlic and crushed red pepper flakes. You then add the tomatoes, and simmer the whole thing over low heat for 20 minutes or so. I used to make tomato sauce for pasta in just this way, with excellent results.

 

And such was my plan one unprepossessing evening some years back. But, alas, I found the pantry devoid of the requisite onion, garlic, and crushed red pepper (how is that even possible?), forcing me to dispense with all three. Instead, I simply added the tomatoes directly to the olive oil, hoping for the best. Hungry and impatient, I cranked up the burner all the way, hoping to get the process going a bit quicker. When the phone rang, I rushed off to answer it, completely forgetting to turn the heat down. It was fifteen minutes before I realized that my tomato sauce was still bubbling volcanically over the highest heat.

 

I feared for the worst. Imagine my shock upon tasting the mixture, and finding it to be utterly delicious. But, in fact, it makes perfect sense: the high heat concentrates the flavor of tomatoes, rendering them sweeter and more mellifluous. And without the usual background soffrito, the tomatoes really sing. I’ve tweaked the basic recipe over the years (adding a glug of balsamic vinegar, and a little lump of butter with basil chiffonade at the end). But I’ve never looked back from the basic no onion-high-heat technique, and urge you to try it out too.

 

Ingredients:

6 eggs

freshly ground black pepper

 

For the tomato sauce:

1 tbsp olive oil

1 14.5 oz can diced tomatoes (I like Muir Glen’s); or (roughly) the same weight of fresh tomatoes, chopped

good salt

1 tbsp balsamic vinegar

1 tbsp butter

A handful of basil, cut into thin chiffonade strips

 

Method:

 

Preheat the oven to 375°F while you make the tomato sauce.

 

To do this, add the olive oil to a large, heavy-bottomed pot (or a wok) over high heat. Add the tomatoes, a good pinch of salt, and the balsamic vinegar. Let the mixture bubble furiously for about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

 

Then, when the sauce is as thick as you’d like it to be, take it off the heat. Add the butter and the basil chiffonade. Taste and adjust for seasoning and acidity.

 

Divide the tomato sauce between 6 ramekins, and then crack an egg over it. Bake for about 15 minutes, until the egg white is set, but the egg yolk is still runny. Give each yolk a good grind of black pepper, and serve with a devilish grin, or angelic aplomb (depending on your level of sinfulness).

 

Serves 6.

The War on Cereal, Continued

 

For the latest edition of my non-cereal breakfast ideas posts, I give you my favorite version of devilled eggs, featuring chipotle peppers in adobo in place of the usual mustard or hot sauce. It’s funny, actually: I never had much of a taste for chili peppers, until I discovered the smoky pleasures of chipotles here in the States. Oh, and have you tried chipotle mayonnaise? It’s like crack. You may end up eating the stuff straight out of the jar. At 3am. Only to be discovered by your puzzled spouse. Who then bogarts your supply. And who you then have to strangle. But, hey, at least you'll still have this breakfast to look forward to the morning after...

Chipotle Devilled Eggs

 

Ingredients:

8 hard-boiled eggs (about 8 minutes at a gentle simmer, followed by an ice bath, works for me)

2 tbsp mayonnaise

2 tbsp sour cream (I used light, which was fine)

2 tbsp chipotle in adobo (or to taste)

1 scallion, minced

A small handful cilantro, finely chopped

Paprika

Method:

 

Halve the eggs, and pop the yolks into a small bowl. Mash the yolks with all the remaining ingredients, except the paprika. Taste and add some salt, if necessary. Spoon the yolk mixture back into the egg whites, and sprinkle a little paprika over the top.

 

Serves 4.

 

P.S. As the picture shows, I like to serve these eggs with a finely sliced radish. Another welcome accompaniment is a glass of raw tomato juice (I just whizz up a tomato or two in a blender with a little basil, balsamic vinegar, good salt, and a splash of cold water. A celery stick for garnish is de rigueur, of course).

Down with Cereal, Part III

 

OK, not really. You’re welcome to your cereal, if that’s your thing. But it’s not mine, and this is the third in a string of posts designed to provide some alternative ideas to the usual breakfast suspects. (See also here and here.) I’ve wanted to make this little breakfast dish for what feels like forever, but I had to bide my time until the relevant parabolic function (quality of tomatoes / price of tomatoes, over time) hit its vertex.

 

Fabulous tomatoes are surely one of the best things about summer. Along with candy-sweet corn, grilled in its husk and then gnawed greedily off the cob with lashings of butter; oh, and big white bowls filled with scarlet, tart, lascivious cherries; also, bunches of basil that smell like licorice might in heaven, perfuming the car on the ride home from the store; not to mention peaches that gush sticky ambrosial juices from the first to last bite, making you wonder why you ever bother to make dessert. And, and, and...

 

But summer produce is practically the only thing I like about summer. Despite growing up in Australia (or perhaps because of it), I recoil from the heat. I hate the cloying aftermath of summer thunderstorms, when I’d hoped for a refreshing cool change (as my Father always says, “beware of the weak cool change.”) I hate the way my long hair sticks to the back of my neck when I cook, and the fact that even the most refined hot supper dish ends up tasting sweaty and soggy and altogether disappointing. I yearn for a chill in my bones and the sense of inward stillness that comes to me with the first snow of the season. I think I have Seasonal Affective Disorder, only in reverse.

My only source of solace is the vat of beautiful roast tomatoes and leeks sitting in my fridge, just waiting to be topped with another egg fried in a smidge of butter. I can’t imagine a better breakfast. Or lunch. Or supper.

 

Roast Tomatoes and Crispy Leeks, with a Fried Egg

 

Ingredients:

 

3lb tomatoes (I used a mixture of heirlooms and romas)

2 – 3 leeks, rinsed and halved lengthwise

Olive oil

Kosher salt

A handful of fresh basil

1 egg

1 teaspoon butter

Freshly ground black pepper

 

Method:

 

Preheat the oven to 375°F (190°C).

 

Halve the tomatoes (or cut them into wedges, if they are big).

 

Place the leeks and tomatoes (cut-side up) on lightly oiled baking sheets. Drizzle them with a little olive oil, and give them a good sprinkling of salt.

 

Roast the vegetables (well, fruits and vegetables, but you know what I mean) for about half an hour, until the tomatoes are soft and tinged brown, and the leeks are crispy.

 

Tear little pieces of fresh basil over the tomatoes.

 

Then, add the butter to a small frying pan over medium heat. Add the egg, and baste it with the butter from time to time, until it is fried to the desired degree of doneness. (But I strongly suggest you leave the yolk at least a little runny, if you can.)

 

Serve, with lashings of pepper (if you’ve scrolled through the archives, you’ll notice I prefer not to use pepper in every savory dish. I feel that pepper is a spice, not a seasoning, and should be used with subsequent discretion. But it’s excellent here.)

 

Serves 1 for breakfast, with lots of leftovers for sating tomato cravings.

Another Perfect Summer Breakfast

 

Here’s another of my favorite replacements for cereal. Indeed, calling it a replacement is a bit like calling Obama a replacement for Bush (cross fingers). The basic idea is this: a few tissue-paper-thin crumples of fine, dry-aged prosciutto, sitting beside a fresh artichoke half, lightly steamed and cradling a puddle of melted cheese. What could be better?

A few notes: I'm endeavouring not to be preachy on this blog, but I recommend you get the best prosciutto you can lay your hands on for this. Pre-packaged, supermarket prosciutto (even the fancier stuff from Whole Foods) is usually horrid: expensive but unpleasantly slimy, whereas prosciutto should be quite dry to the touch. (I buy my prosciutto from my wonderful butchers, Jason and Dean, of Savenor’s in Cambridge, MA. They’re so nice, and always want to know what I’ve made with their superb meat.)

Now, for the cheese, you want something with good melting properties, and a fairly placid flavor. A morning cheese, in other words. It’s easiest to define a morning cheese negatively: for example, I love blue cheese, but I couldn’t possibly deal with it in the mornings. (Your tastebuds may dictate otherwise of course, but bear in mind the morning factor.) Typically, I use mozzarella, fontina, or taleggio (which has a strong aroma, but a mild flavor).

As for the artichoke, I tend to prepare it the day before, since there’s nary a morning when I feel like wrestling with one. But they're not that difficult to deal with in the afternoon or evening. I even go the cheat’s route, by microwaving them (actually, I stand by that choice: one of the few things the microwave is good for is steaming vegetables and, uh, thistles).

Anyway, here’s what I do: I tear off the tough, outer leaves of the artichoke, until they are making a satisfying snap when I pull at them (another sign that you’re in tender territory is that the top half of the leaves will be yellow rather than green). Then, I cut off the top third of the leaves, trim the stem, and halve the whole thing. I scrape out the choke (the inedible thisly bits) and remove all the purple leaves. (This is where there’ll be some wrestling, and some swearing, at least if you’re as clumsy as I am. But it’s kind of fun, really.)

Then I dip the whole thing in a (microwavable) bowl filled with water, to which I’ve added the juice of two lemons (to prevent discoloration), a teaspoon of salt, and a few tablespoons of red wine vinegar (for extra flavor). After this, I microwave the halves in their briny bath for about 6 minutes on high. They’re done when the base of an outer leaf is tender. I leave them to soak overnight in their cooking liquid, and then they’re ready to go the next morning.

In the morning, I simply take an artichoke half, and tuck a little lump of cheese into the cavity. I broil it for about five minutes or so, until the cheese bubbles. I grind a bit of black pepper on top, and lay a few strips of the prosciutto on the side. (I typically tear off most of the fat, but only because little Freddy loves it so much. As Jason and Dean demonstrated to me a few weeks ago, the fat from good prosciutto is actually delicious, as long as you rub it between your fingers first, to bring it up to room temperature.)

 

Eating this meal has a sort of ritualistic quality. I take off each artichoke leaf, dip it in the cheese, and scrape it through my teeth to get at the flesh. I pause periodically for bites of prosciutto. Then, after all the leaves are gone, I eat the delicate artichoke heart. Bliss.

The Perfect Summer Breakfast

 

I've never been much of a cereal person. With cereal, you have two options: dry and mealy (if there’s too little milk), or sloppy and slimy (if there’s too much). I like oatmeal, but who eats oatmeal in the summer? So I’ve been trying to devise some delicious summer breakfasts that are cereal-free.

 

Here’s one idea that I picked up from Julia Child via Amanda Hesser: oeufs mayonnaise. You simply take an egg that’s been boiled to your liking (eight minutes at a gentle simmer is perfect for me), and cooled thoroughly in cold water to prevent the dreaded G.Y.S. (grey yolk syndrome). Peel the egg gently, and slice it neatly. Apply a dab of handmade basil mayonnaise (see recipe below) to each half-yolk, and cut up a beautiful tomato to accompany it.*

 

This meal would be delightful as it is, but good red wine vinegar really brings tomatoes to fruition. So, I drizzle some over the tomato slices, together with a few drops of fine extra virgin olive oil. Then I add a sprinkle of my best salt (patriotically, I’m currently in love with an Australian Murray river salt). I let it all sit for a few minutes, to let the flavours get aquainted.**

 

Because I love this breakfast so much, I typically spend a brief interval every Sunday boiling enough eggs to last me the week. I make the mayonnaise while they simmer (it really takes no time at all – less than eight minutes, certainly). The mayonnaise keeps at least a week in the fridge, providing me with many happy, mayonnaise-filled mornings.

 

Handmade Basil Mayonnaise

Adapted from Amanda Hesser and Molly Wizenberg, a.k.a. Orangette

 

Ingredients:

 

1 egg yolk, at room temperature

1 teaspoon dijon mustard

¾ cup safflower oil

¼ cup good extra virgin olive oil, plus two tablespoons

pinch good salt

juice of 1 lemon

1 bunch basil leaves

 

Method:

 

Blend the basil, lemon juice, and salt in a food processor with the two tablespoons of olive oil, until you have a smooth paste.

 

Whisk the egg yolk and mustard together in a large, heavy bowl.

 

Add the remaining oil to the yolk/mustard mixture in tiny drips, whisking constantly. After a short while, you’ll see the mixture start to thicken up to the consistency of heavy cream – at this point, it wants to be mayonnaise.

 

Now add the oil in a steady stream, whisking constantly, until it’s all used up.

 

Stir the basil mixture into the mayonnaise, and adjust for seasoning and acidity.

 

* For those of us who don’t have a garden (sob), heirloom tomatoes are a pretty safe bet. (But remember that it’s important to store them at room temperature, to preserve their flavour.)

 

** I also use tomatoes prepared in this way as the basis for a tomato salad. I’ll add some fresh herbs (basil is the obvious choice, but I love mint too, especially if the accompanying meal features vaguely Middle Eastern flavors), and perhaps some delicate cheese (e.g. fresh mozzarella, chevré). 

 

P.S. I sometimes use tarragon in place of the basil in the mayonnaise, for a little variety.