Pumpkin Ginger Butter

I have to give thanks to Ben for the inspiration for this recipe. I had intended to post it just after Halloween, with the idea that decorative pumpkins could be "reused" as... well, food. But, as is often the case, I was a bit ambitious with my posting and it took a bit longer than I had planned. So it has ended up as a Thanksgiving post, which is not entirely inappropriate given the seasonal pumpkin pie frenzy. Whether you are reclaiming decorative holiday squash or just making good use of this eminently affordable winter vegetable, I think that you will be pleased with the result (you might even like it if you are one of those people who doesn't like pumpkin pie!) The butter is not too sweet, and I think that you'll be pleasantly surprised by how delicious pumpkin is with a simpler, less typical spice treatment (just a dose of spicy ginger rather than the typical pie milieu). The jar in the picture is all gone, now. Whatever had escaped use in a mousse found its way onto hot buttered toast for my breakfast. I know I'll be revisiting this recipe in the long months before spring fruits and vegetables will be back.



2 c. squash- really you can use any combination of winter (hard shelled) squash.
2/3 c. lt. brown sugar
2 T. grated fresh ginger
a pinch of salt
1/2 - 1c. water

Yield: 2 cups

Roast Squash: Cut your squash into quarters, or in smaller pieces if necessary to fit it properly in a baking pan. Cover the pan with foil and poke a few holes in it to let the steam escape. Roast squash in a 375 F oven until a paring knife can easily cut through to the center of the flesh (between 30 and 50 minutes depending on the squash). This step can be done ahead of time, you can also cook more squash than you need for the butter at the same time.

Grate Ginger: I like to keep fresh ginger peeled in a plastic bag in the freezer. Frozen ginger is far easier to grate, and it keeps almost indefinitely. Grate your fresh or frozen ginger finely (I use a microplane grater). If you are using frozen ginger be sure to tamp it down when you measure it as frozen ginger had a crystalline airiness that makes it look like you've grated more than you actually have.

Puree: This step is optional, how you choose to approach it will affect the texture of your finished product. If you skip it all together, you will have a more rustic, textured butter with visible chunks of squash fibers. If you puree your squash in a food processor or press it through a fine mesh strainer, you will end up with a smoother texture.

Cook Butter: Place squash puree along with the rest of the ingredients in a saucepan over medium high heat. You want to add enough water to the mix to allow everything to come together and boil, but after that you are really just trying to get rid of the water, so use as little water as possible to bring all of the ingredients together. Bring the mixture to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium/low and vigilantly stir the butter as it cooks. (Pay special attention to the corners of the saucepan, where puree likes to stick and burn) Continue cooking and stirring your butter until it is thick enough to be mounded and easily scooped up with a wooden spoon. Remove from heat.

Store: in the refrigerator for up to a month, in the freezer if you need to keep it longer.

Serve: Spread onto buttered toast, swirl into oatmeal or pair with a nice, musty cheese on a cheese plate. Or... turn it into an easy, sumptuous mousse... (look for another post later this week).

Storing and Drying Fresh Herbs

From the window of my "cozy" (read: tiny) Brooklyn apartment I often indulge in wistful daydreams about having a little herb garden. I have intermittently made forays into the world of potted windowsill herbs, with uneven results. So, someday I hope to find myself able to stroll out into the herb garden and pick whatever I need for dinner that evening... but until then I am stuck buying the twist-tied bundles of fresh herbs like everyone else. There are a couple of things that make these little bundles a challenge. First, unless you are making a really herb-intensive dish like pesto, you probably have far more fresh herbs than you can use at one time. I find that with a combination of proper storage of the fresh herbs and preservation of the remainder, I can put the whole packet to good use.

First: to store fresh herbs. You can think of storing fresh herbs like you would fresh flowers. Cut the ends off and place your herb bouquet in a glass of water. Place a plastic bag over the leaves and store the whole thing in your fridge. Change the water every day or two. Most herbs kept in this fashion will last about a week and a half. If you want to further extend the life of delicate leafy herbs then you can pluck the leaves off and arrange them in a single layer between two damp paper towels (remember to save parsley and cilantro stems in your freezer, as they make an excellent addition to vegetable stock). Then you can roll or fold the paper towel packet and place it inside a plastic bag. I find that this method will further extend the life of leafy herbs by as much as a week. You might need to periodically refresh the paper towels, making sure to keep them damp.

So, now let's assume that you've chosen the right methods to store your fresh herbs, but you still have more than you can use. A lot of herbs retain their flavor pretty well when they are dried-- rosemary, sage, dill, oregano and thyme come to mind. I will be the first to say that there is a change in the flavor of dried herbs, but the dried herb is not necessarily inferior. And by drying them you are turning your herbs into a useful food product where they might otherwise wilt or degenerate into muck in your fridge. Hang these herbs upside down until they are fully dried. Then store in an airtight container for later use.

Thoughts on Spam and Confit

When my sisters and I were girls, my dad would try to trick us into eating Spam. He would cleverly try to slip it into something that cloaked its bright pink hue like, say, an omelet. But the pink chunks were not the biggest giveaway that something was awry, it was that devilish look on my dad's face, watching with just a tad too much relish as I suspiciously poked at the mysterious omelet. In my family you should never, never relax and dig in if someone is giving you that look (just ask me about the pickle juice incident if you need further proof). The question that I have looking back is: where did I get this spam-hating bias from? Why did I already think that spam was something to look down my little nose at, and my dad thought spam was a perfectly edible, if a bit nostalgic* food?

The New York Times article about Spam in this week's dining section seemed like just the inspiration I needed to delve into a subject which has been on my mind since starting this blog-- that is the fickle nature of food snobbery. It is (obviously) nothing new that the type of food you eat/like/have access to can be a potent status symbol. And it's also nothing new that people often want to emulate the styles of the upper classes. So: not so surprising then, that in the last-- say-- ten year eruption of food magazines, television and blogs there has emerged a food lexicon that permits almost no mention of cost. It is as if everyone has unlimited food budgets. The only times that I can recall seeing cost mentioned in a piece of food writing are to exalt the qualities of some exotic and expensive ingredient like kobe beef or saffron. I, for one, think that leaves contemporary food writing missing a very important point.

Food products can be evaluated entirely separately on different criteria: cost and taste. It is the status symbol territory that conflates the two, and often in a very flimsy way. There are gads of historical examples where one particular food item, due to its exclusivity, carried a high social status and once the economic factors shifted and that food product became cheaper, it's reputation plummeted. Take black pepper: in the early middle ages when pepper was hard to come by, it was prized as a seasoning. As pepper became cheaper, it was seen as an inferior seasoning-- used only if you could not afford the "better" spices. The cheap, everyday oranges and bananas in lunchboxes across America were exotic luxuries to colonial Americans. Oh, and a sad inverse example: truffles in ancient Rome were apparently cheap and plentiful enough that even households of modest means could use them with abandon. The formula seems to be rareness equals exclusiveness equals desirability. And as far as I can see, all of that has only a tenuous (if any) relation to taste.

And this brings me to confit- what is now considered a very fancy, exclusive delicacy was once a way to --ahem-- cheaply preserve meat from the autumn slaughter through the winter. Meat (mostly fowl now, but by all accounts preserving ham in this manner goes back even farther) is salted, slowly cooked in fat, dried and then immersed in fat for storage. With the addition of a few preservatives (yes, nitrite is traditional) the meat would then keep for several months, eventually developing an ever-so-slight rancidity which, I am assured, is part of its charm. Have you figured out where I'm going with this?- cheap meat, preserved with salt and nitrite with a unique "acquired taste", looked down upon by food snobs... not so different from the decidedly proletariat cans of Spam. Now, let me say, I am not arguing that there is no qualitative difference between Spam and confit (there are definitely unique chemical changes that happen to meat when preserved as a confit), but I think that it is a good illustration of how the perfume of exclusivity sways the way that we talk, write and think about food.

What I'm trying to do with my recipes for this blog is provide a ratio: taste as a function of value. While I'm not going to start cracking open a can of spam any time soon (neither will I be eating confit, incidentally), I'm glad that other people are doing so in a spirit of exploration; making something beautiful out of something downmarket. This type of creative reexamining of cheap, maligned foods is good for everyone. So, Dad, it's a few years late, but I hereby raise my glass in salute to the strange canned, pink meat of your boyhood: Spam.

*I know that my dad is not alone in his nostalgia for the tinned boyscout fare of his childhood. In fact, I was intrigued to learn that Korean baby boomers have a huge nostalgia for spam (just look for the kimbap rolls in your local Korean restaurant, they might just have little slices of spam tucked in).

Roasted Beet Borscht with Dill Pickled Apples

Sometimes I start working on a recipe with one thing in mind, and then get completely sidetracked by some curiousity that had nothing to do with the original concept. With borscht: it was the color. I really, truly had not started this recipe with the intention of making the most garish soup on the planet.... I just found myself in line at the coop with yellow carrots, purple potatoes and, of course, gorgeously, vividly red beets. Once I realized what a root vegetable rainbow I had, I knew I had to do something to highlight it. Leaving some of the roasted veggies out of the puree worked splendidly. I think it might be the prettiest little soup I've ever made. But don't think this soup is all style and no substance; it's mighty tasty too. Borscht can get a bad rap, but I think if you temper the sweetness (the pitfall of many a borscht) with the right amount of salt and tartness you end up with a complex and lively bowlful. As it gets colder and the price of greens and tomatoes starts to climb, it makes a lot of sense to start to rely more on root vegetables and winter squash. And I found this soup to be just the right thing for a cold, rainy autumn evening.


1 pound of beets
1 small onion
2 large carrots
2 small potatoes
1 c. vegetable or chicken stock
2 cloves garlic
the juice of 2 limes
salt
black pepper

yeild: 5 servings

to serve:
1/2 c. creme fraiche or sour cream
sprigs of fresh dill
sour apple dill pickles

Prep the Vegetables: Wrap your unpeeled beets individually in tin foil. Place beets on a sheet tray. Peel carrots, potatoes and onion, reserve scraps for another use. Cut onions and potatoes into quarters. Place the peeled vegetables in a baking dish, drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Cover the dish with foil and poke a few holes to let some of the steam escape.

Roast the Vegetables: Preheat your oven to 375 F. Roast both trays of vegetables until they are cooked through -- about 45 min-1 hour (test by inserting a paring knife, you should be able to easily stab through to the center, but still feel some resistance). Test beets and the other veggies separately as they may take different amounts of time to cook. Once the beets have cooled you can peel off their thick skins with a paring knife. You can do your veggie roasting up to a few days ahead of time.

Puree the Soup: Reserve one carrot and one potato. Place the remainder of the roasted carrots and potatoes in a blender along with the beets, stock, garlic and lime juice. Adjust seasoning to taste.

Serve: Place the pureed soup in a saucepan and heat. Add water as needed until the soup is the consistency you'd like it. Slice the reserved potato and carrot into small strips (or even chunks will do quite nicely). Slice the pickled apples. Arrange a small pile of carrots, potatoes and pickled apples in the center of each bowl. Pour the hot soup around the veggies. Add a scoop of sour cream and a sprig of dill.



Sour Apple Dill Pickles:

I was reading different borscht recipes and was intrigued by the many accompaniments suggested. One recipe suggested grated apple, many other suggested chopped pickle or fresh dill. I had a hunch that a tart, dill apple pickle might just be a perfect accompaniment to the sweet, earthy beet base. The resulting pickles were indeed a most satisfying addition to my borscht, just what I was searching for. The apples make a very tart pickle and work best in small doses; either as a contrasting flavor to a more mild base or chopped and mixed in as a tart-dilly seasoning. You can certainly make the borscht and not the pickles, either way I think you'll be glad you made it.


2-3 tart/crisp apples such as Granny Smith or Cortland
scant 1/4 c. white wine vinegar
3/4 t. salt
1 1/2 t. sugar
1 tsp coriander seeds
1/4 tsp black peppercorns
a fistful of fresh dill fronds

Yield: 1 12 oz jar

Prepare the Apples: Peel and core the apples. Slice into 1/8” thick pieces.

Prepare the Brine: Bring vinegar, 1/2 c. water, coriander, pepper salt & sugar to a boil. Turn off the heat. Cover the pot and let the brine steep while you ready the apples in the jar.

Pickle: Arrange the apple slices in a 1/2” thick layer. Then cover the layer with a few sprigs of dill. Continue arranging the apples in layers and alternating with dill until all of the apples are used or your jar is full. Place the jar on a dishcloth. (This precaution slows down heat transfer -- you don’t want to have hot and cold spots in a jar, in the worst case the jar can break.) Slowly pour the brine over the apples. If necessary, add enough water to fill the jar.

Store: Refrigerate the pickles for at least one day before serving (they continue to improve in flavor for at least a week). Taste the pickles, if necessary adjust seasoning (too tart: add a teaspoon or two of sugar, not tart enough: add vinegar). Serve as a side or on sandwiches with a strong cheese.

Bread Scraps

Leaving leftover bread out to stale is actually on of the best ways to preserve it. When my bread has past its prime (usually 5 days for a home-made sourdough loaf-- breads that are not leavened with sourdough will stale more quickly) I cut off the crust and tear the remaining bread into pieces. Leave these pieces out on a sheet tray and they will be completely stale and dried in about a day, depending on the climate you live in. Bread scraps dried in this manner can be kept for a very long time, then used for croutons, puddings, stuffing and breadcrumbs. To make breadcrumbs simply throw thoroughly dried bread pieces in your food processor. Bread crumbs and dried out hunks of bread can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature.

You can also keep your fresh bread in your freezer, wrapped tightly with two layers of plastic wrap-- I'll often do this if I know that I'm not going to be using a whole loaf right away. Or it can be convenient to make two loaves at once and save one in the freezer for later. Refresh your frozen loaf by throwing it directly into the oven for a few minutes. When I make a light sandwich loaf or brioche (even on a budget, I am of the opinion that we all deserve some pastry-related excess) I slice the whole loaf at once and throw it in the freezer. Then I toast individual slices as I need them. I find this method keeps the bread fresh enough that I am excited to eat it even when it gets down to the very last slice.

Labne with Slow Cooked Apples and Honey Caramel

I recently realized that after two months of blogging I have somehow have failed to post any recipes for a bona fide dessert (gasp). So I will do my best to remedy the situation before my pastry credentials are wrested away from me. All of the elements of this dish can be made well in advance, and combined and reused for other dishes. I think that they make a particularly delicious combination all together-- lightly sweetened apples with a velvety smooth texture, simple, creamy-tangy labne and a luscious honey caramel sauce (caramel is actually quite easy to make). Mix and match with whatever you have in your kitchen as you see fit. I think that you won't be disappointed. Yes, this recipe does require some of the rich (and more expensive) trappings of dessert, (cream and butter). But in a sauce these expensive ingredients go a long way. And the majority of the dish (apples and yogurt) is quite affordable indeed. And because each of the elements is so versatile, any leftover components will surely not go to waste.



Slow-Baked Apples:

I adapted this recipe from a Pierre Herme recipe-- I am of the opinion that in cooking, almost everything is stolen, and you will do well to pick carefully who you steal from. As far as I'm concerned if you are a patient and particular pastry person, Mr. Herme is the person to steal from (My understanding is that he adapted/stole the recipe from a colonial cookbook.) Pierre's recipe specifies cooking the apples for ten hours at a very low heat, all the while compressed by a weight. Because I have a gas oven which sometimes behaves erratically, I wasn't about to leave it on all night. So I split the cooking into two shorter segments, and left the apples to cook in the remaining heat (a technique which I was familiar with from poaching pears and leaving them in the hot poaching liquid overnight). What you get from all of this fussing with the cooking temperature is a an unparalleled texture. The flavor will not be that different from a baked apple, but the texture is melt-in-your-mouth smooth, entirely avoiding the mealy and mushy texture of overcooked apples. I do feel compelled to say, though, that if all of this sounds like a bit too much, simply sauteed apples would be delicious with this dish as well. But if you're up for a little kitchen experimenting, then this method puts an interesting spin on cooking something as everyday as apples.

Yield: 4-6 servings

Equipment:
two nesting 9x9" baking pans (or some other improvised situation that will allow you to place weight on the contents of one 9x9 baking pan).
a cast iron skillet or dutch oven
parchment paper

Ingredients:
4-5 Apples suitable for baking (I used some very tasty Mutsus, but there are many varieties that cook nicely)
Sugar
3-4 Strips of Orange or Lemon Peel
2-3 Bay Leaves

Prepare the Apples: Peel and core the apples. Reserve the trimmings in a freezer bag for another use. Slice the apple halves into 1/8" thick sections. Once all of your apples are sliced, arrange them carefully in layers on the base of your baking pan. Start with the slices all stacked together, just as they were when they comprised a whole apple-- then fan the slices out to achieve an evenly spaced covering. Sprinkle each layer with sugar (you make the judgment as to how much sugar the apples need depending on how sweet/tart your apples are). Arrange the next layer in the same manner, but rotate the pan 90 degrees, so the layers will be laying in different directions. Continue layering in this manner until you've used up all of your apples. On top of the last layer toss in a few bay leaves and strips of lemon or orange zest (you can fiddle with the seasonings, of course-- but if you haven't played around with apples without cinnamon, then I highly recommend giving it a try).

First Baking: Preheat your oven to 225 F. Cut a sheet of parchment paper to precisely cover the surface of your apples. Place the second baking pan on top of the parchment and apples. Load the whole assembly into the oven and then place a dutch oven or cast iron skillet on top (the goal is to squish the apples slowly as they bake, I'm not sure exactly how it works, but I'm pretty certain this compression is what prevents them from just turning to mush). Bake at 225 F for one and a half hours. Turn the oven off. Leave the whole assembly in the oven overnight (the apples will continue cooking with the residual heat).

Second Baking: The next morning turn the oven on to 225 F. Let the oven heat for one hour. Turn the oven off and again, leave the apples in the oven to cook in the residual heat.

Serving & Storing: After another six to eight hours the apples will be ready to serve (can you tell that I timed this recipe around my workday?). Remove the bay leaves and zest strips. Use a spoon to delicately scoop out the solid apple mass. Store the apples in the refrigerator for up to two weeks. The apples can be served cold, tepid or warm.



Honey Caramel:

If you haven't ever made a caramel before, then this is the right place to start. This recipe avoids a lot of the big scary things about candy making. You don't need to make a big batch in order for it to cook properly, you don't have to worry about your sugar crystallizing (cooking sugar together with a fat avoids this pitfall) and you don't need a candy thermometer. It's so easy and delicious, you'll never want to buy a caramel again.

Yield 6-8 servings

Ingredients:
Sugar 1/4c.
Butter 1/4c.
Cream 1/3c.
Honey 1/4c.
a generous pinch of Salt

Prepare your ingredients: Toss your butter and sugar and pinch of salt in a saucepan (for one recipe use at least a 1 1/2 qt. saucepan, you'll need a larger pan if you make a double recipe). Measure your cream and have it ready nearby-- the key to cooking a caramel is to cook it to the stage that you want, and stop it. In this case, you will stop the cooking by dumping in your cream, so you need to have it within reach exactly when your caramel is ready.

Cook the Caramel:Heat the butter and sugar over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon. Once the butter is melted stir vigilantly. As the mixture heats up it will look gritty, then start to come together, then it will separate and look a bit oily. Don't worry about any of these textural changes, the texture will come together at the end. What you do want to look for is the color. After a few minutes, the color will start to darken (once it starts to change it goes quickly). When it reaches the color of peanut butter hold the pan away from you (to avoid dangerous spatters) and pour in all of the cream at once. When the bubbling has subsided enough for you to start stirring, return the pan to the heat and stir until the mixture is homogenous-- you might have to bring it to a boil to incorporate some of the firmer caramel pieces. Once the sauce is smooth, remove from the heat. Stir in the honey.

Serve & Store: Once your sauce has cooled, you can store it in a squeeze bottle in the fridge and reheat it in the microwave or in a bowl of hot water as needed.



Labne:
2c. Yogurt Strained for 2 days will yield 4-6 servings as a dessert.



To serve: Scoop some warm apples into a bowl, add a scoop of labne, and drizzle liberally with warmed caramel honey sauce.