PB&J Thumbprints

I wish Martha had featured these in her September issue- as these delicious Peanut Butter and Jelly Thumbprints would be a perfect way to start off a new school year (not that I'm in school anymore...)


Peanut Butter and Jelly Thumbprints
From Martha Stewart Living October 2009
Make 40

1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup smooth peanut butter
4 ounces (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1/3 cup packed light brown sugar
1/3 cup granulated sugar, plus more for rolling
1 large egg
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup raspberry jam

Preheat oven to 350 degree
Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Beat peanut butter with a mixer on medium speed until smooth. Add sugars, and beat until pale and fluffy. Add egg and vanilla, and beat until incorporated. Reduce speed to low. Add dry ingredients, and mix until combined.


Scoop level tablespoons of dough, and form into balls. Roll each ball into granulated sugar, and transfer to parchment lined baking sheets, spacing about 2 inches apart.


Bake until cookies are puffy, about 10 minutes. Remove from oven, and make indentations in centers by pressing with the handle of a wooden spoon. Return to oven and bake until edges are golden, 6 to 7 minutes more. Transfer sheets to wire racks. and let cool completely.


Heat jam in a small saucepan, stirring until loosened, about 30 seconds. Spoon 1/2 teaspoon into each indentation. Cookies can be stored in a single layer up to 1 week.

Ham in Coke with Cabbage

The boyfriend isn't a very religious man, but he is a firm believer in pork products. More specifically ham. I'm pretty sure he would have ham everyday if he could. For several Christmases now I've had the privilege of sampling the yearly Smithfield Ham while visiting the BF's family near Smithfield, VA. While this Ham in Coke might not be as festive or revered, it's easy enough to make on the weekend and you won't have to wait until Christmas either.

Ham with some halved shallots as we were out of onions.

Then add some coke!
Just about a whole bottle of coke and then let it simmer on the stove top for about 2 hours or until your ham reaches an internal temperature of 160 degrees F. Any more, and you'll be left with some dry ham.

Cooked!


Then you want to cut the fat in a diamond pattern and stud each diamond with a clove.

Pat on the rub made of molasses, brown sugar and ground mustard.

The left over ham stock is real tasty for making cabbage. So shred up about 1 head of red cabbage.

Add 2 tbls of red wine vinegar to the stock and bring it to the boil.

Add in the shredded cabbage and cook until tender.

After 15 minutes in the oven, your ham is ready for slicing!

So slice away
And enjoy it with some of the cabbage

Yum!

Ham in Coke with Cabbage
Adapted from Nigella Lawson's Feast: Food to Celebrate

• 5-6lb boneless mild cure ham
• approx 6 12oz can Coke
• 1 onion
• approx. 16 whole cloves
• 3-4 tblsp molasses
• 3 tblsp brown sugar
• 1 tblsp ground mustard
• 1 head red cabbage
• 2 tblsp red wine vinegar
  

Put the ham into a large pot. Add the Coke and the onion, halved, to the ham and if the liquid doesn't cover it then add some water. Put on the heat and bring to the boil, then turn down to a simmer and partially cover the pan. Cook for approx. 2-21/4 hours.

When you are ready to glaze the ham, preheat the oven to 45o degrees F. Remove the ham from the liquid, reserving the liquid for later, and sit the ham on a board. Strip off the rind, and a little of the fat layer if it it's very thick and cut a diamond pattern into the remaining fat with a knife in lines about 3/4 inch apart. Stud each diamond with a clove.

Smear the molasses over the ham and cake on the brown sugar and ground mustard. Sit the ham in a roasting pan on a layer of alumina foil , as the sugar will burn in the oven as it drips off. Put the ham in the oven for about 15 minutes. Take the ham out of the oven and return it to the carving board to rest before your carve it.

To make the cabbage, bring the ham stock back to the boil, add 2 tblsp red wine vinegar and 1 head red cabbage, shredded. Cook for about 30 minutes at a simmer until the cabbage is just soft.

My First Omelet

My dad says that as a kid, my mom fed us omelets and scrambled eggs so often that my brother and I developed an aversion to eggs in any form (well except in cakes, ice cream, custards ect....). I vaguely remember this typical dinner of a simple omelet with a piece of toast cut in triangles, slathered in jam and placed on either side of the plate.

I'd like to think that since my stay in India, I've been pretty open to all kinds of food and have re-discovered many. Eggs are certainly one of them. While staying with a Tibetan family, I was offered scrambled eggs with some kind of processed cheese every morning. Not wanting to offend anyone or be difficult, I ate it up and gradually learned to like it.

Back in the states, Egg in the Hole was my first baby step towards bringing eggs back into my life. A disgusting Fritatta set me back a bit, but I think I've finally come full circle. I made my first omelet successfully and liked it quite a bit. Here's how it went down:

Melt down some butter in oil. You must wait for the pan to be hot enough.

You'll know once the butter stops foaming

Kinda like that.

Then poor in the blended eggs

And let them sit for a few seconds. Shake them loose until most of the egg has set.
Shake the omelet to the edge of the pan and add in the fixings- here we have some caramelized onions and blue cheese.

Then flip the pan over while sliding the omelet onto the plate.

TADA!

Kris got me that Autumn-ey apron :)
I just had to add some walnuts.

Julia Child's Rolled Omelet
From Mastering the Art of French Cooking Vol I

• 2 eggs blended in a bowl
• 2 tbl butter
• 1 tbl oil
• caramelized onions
• blue cheese
• walnuts
  

No real instructions are required here, just watch this clip and absorb what Julia is doing. It's all in the wrist!

Beetroot Brownies

This time last year, I was still living in London which is definitely one of the nicest places in which to enjoy autumn. Between the amazing colors of the trees in Kensington gardens to city-dwellers seemingly dressed for a foxhunt to enjoying a cream tea at a small shop in the Cotswolds; I very much enjoyed my last few weeks in England.

The TV wasn't bad either. The Brits are funny about their 'telly'. It is completely normal for a gardening show to come on a 9pm on a Friday night. And I kid you not, they had a show that came on at 7pm every weeknight for about a month called "Spring Watch" and "Autumn Watch" which was a live nature show. "Autumn Watch" must have been tricky to film since it was already dark by the time they started broadcasting live from some pond outdoors. One of the re-occurring pieces was about a beaver who spent the entire season chewing through a fallen tree. I'm pretty sure he made it trough for their season finally.

And although I'm back in the land of 300+ channels of anything you could ever want to watch on TV (not that I have cable...) I do miss their basic network TV. The BBC's various nature shows definitely win out against ABC's Dancing with the Stars or NBC's Deal or No Deal. One of the shows I particularly miss this season is Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's River Cottage. As he explains in the opening credits each episode, "ever since he left the city and came here to the country he's been producing his own food. Raising livestock and growing vegetables. And the longer he's been here the more he's felt in tune with the seasons."

Although I could do with a little less of Hugh's semi condescending message of "everyone should grow their own food and not shop at tesco because they do bad things to their chickens" I do very much admire what he has achieved at River Cottage. It is something to aspire to, but not something readily available to most people. But damn- I can't wait to one day make my own Elderflower Champagne from the wild elderflowers growing in the surrounding fields!

The BF very sweetly procured last year's River Cottage Autumn and I've been re-watching them all. Episode 1 has the cooks battling it out for best beet pudding (as in desert, not specifically pudding). I can only hope that they had an over-abundance of beets that year, because I can't figure out why else they would think to put beetroot into a brownie. Then again, I can't think of why I was compelled to make them either.

But I'm glad I did. I only wish I had pureed the beets and not grated them, because that was really the only slightly-off putting part of the brownie: the texture. Besides that, they were fluffy yet dense, sweet and chocolatey but also earthy from the beets.

If you're feeling up for something different, do try these- I brought them into the office (almost against my own will- too embarrassed to admit that I made beetroot brownies for the fun of it, but then I'm not about to share a full pan of brownies with the BF) and people actually liked them! Some new what the "secret ingredient" was and other didn't but all in all, these quickly disappeared.


Beetroot Brownies
From this recipe on River Cottage Autumn

• 250g/10oz good, dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids), broken into pieces
• 250g/10oz unsalted butter, cut into cubes, plus more for greasing
• 250g/10oz caster sugar
• 3 free-range eggs
• 150g self-raising flour (we used wholemeal self-raising)
• 250g beetroot, boiled until tender, peeled and pureed
  

1. Preheat oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4. Grease a baking tin of approximately 20 x 30 x 3cm and line the bottom with baking parchment.

2. Break up the chocolate into pieces, cut the butter into cubes then mix them up a bit in a heatproof bowl. As the oven begins to warm up, put the bowl onto one of the shelves for a few minutes until the chocolate and butter starts to melt. Stir, and put back into the oven for a few more minutes to melt completely.

3. Whisk the eggs and sugar together in a bowl until combined, then beat in the melted chocolate and butter until smooth. Gently fold in the flour then the beetroot – be careful not to overmix or it will make the brownies tough.

4. Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and smooth over the top with a spatula. Bake for about 20 minutes. A knife or skewer pushed into the middle should come out with a few moist crumbs clinging to it. Don't be tempted to overcook them! Remove the tin from the oven and leave on wire rack to cool before cutting into squares.

Beouf Bourguignon Vol au Vents Part DEUX

I promise to give you the play by play of this recipe once I get home and have a minute to sit down. Right now, I need to get the heck out of work!!!

Later- You know what? These pictures are a pretty good play by play on their own- So I'm leaving it as is. Kinda like magic!















Beouf Bourguignon
Adapted from Mastering the Art of French Cooking Vol I by Julia Child
For 6 People

• 6 oz bacon
• 1 bt olive oil
• 3 lbs. lean beef cut into 1 inch chunks
• 1 sliced onion
• 1 sliced carrot
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp pepper
• 2 tb flour
• 3 cups full bodied red wine
• 2 to 3 cups beef broth
• 1 tb tomato paste
• 2 cloves minced garlic
• 1/2 tsp thyme
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 recipe of Braised Onions (recipe follows)
• 1 recipe of Buttered Mushrooms (recipe follows)
• obligatory parsley

Preheat oven to 450 degrees

Saute the bacon in the oil over moderate heat to render the fat. Remove and set aside. Heat fat until it is almost smoking. Making sure the beef is very dry, saute it in the fat in a few bacthes so that they can brown. Once nicely browned, set aside with bacon.

In the same fat, saute the sliced vegetables until brown. Pour out the fat.

Return the beef and bacon to the casserole and toss with salt and pepper. Then sprinkle on the flour and toss again to coat the beef lightly with the flour. Set casserole uncovered in preheated oven for 4 minutes. Toss the meat and return to oven for 4 minutes more. Remove casserole and turn oven down to 325 degrees.

Stir in the wine and enough broth to cover the meat. Add the tomato paste, garlic and herbs. Bring to a simmer then set the casserole into preheated oven. Regulate heat so liquid ssimmer very slowly for 2.5 to 3 hours. To meat is done with a fork pierces it easily.

Make the braised onions and buttered mushrooms (recipes to follow)

When the meat is tender, pour the contens of the casserole into a siee over a saucepan. Return the meat and bacon to the casserole and top off with the onions and mushrooms.

Skim the fat off the sauce. Simmer sauce for a minute or two skimming off additional fat as it rises. The sauce should be thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. If it is too thin, boil it down rapidly. If too thick, mix in a few tablespoons of broth. Tasted for seasoning and then pour over the meat and vegetables.

For immediate serving: Cover the casserole and simmer for 2 to 3 minutes, basting the meat and vegetables with the sauce. Garnish with parsley and serve.

For later serving: When cold, cover and refrigerate. About 15 to 20 minutes before serving, bring to a simmer, cover and simmer very slowly for 10 minutes occasionally basting the meat and vegetable with the sauce. Garnish with parsley and serve.

Buttered Mushrooms

(Champignons Sautes au Beurre)

• 2 tb butter
• 1tb oil
• 1/2 lb fresh mushrooms, washed, well dried, left whole if small or quartered if large
• 1 or 2 tb minced shallots or green onions

Place the skillet over high heat with the butter and oil. As soon as you see that the butter foam has begun to subside, indicating it is hot enough, add the mushrooms. Toss and shake the pan for 4 to 5 minues. During their saute the mushrooms will at first absorb the fat. In 2 to 3 minues the fat will reappear on the surface, and the mushrooms will bnegin to brown. As soon as they have browned lightly, remove from heat.

Toss the shallots or green onions with the mushrooms. Sauce over moderate heat for 2 minutes.

Braised Onions

(Ognions Glaces a Brun)

• 18 to 24 peeled white onions
• 1.5 tb butter
• 1.5 tb oil
• 1/2 beef broth
• 1 herb bouquet: 4 parsley sprigs, a bay leaf and 1/2tsp thyme tied in cheesecloth

To peel the onions, boil a large pot of water, drop the onions into the pot for about 30 seconds making sure not to overcrowed the pot. Drain and let cool. Barely cut off the bottom and top, enough to remove the outer layers. Poke a small hole in the root of the onions to ensure even cooking

When the butter and oil are bubbling in the skiller, add the onions and saute over moderate hear for about 10 minutes, rolling the onions about so they will brown as evenly as possible. You cannot expect to brown them uniformly.

Pour in the liquid, season to taste and add the herb bouquet. Cover and simmer slowly for 40 to 50 minutes until the onions are perfectly tender but retain their shape and the liquid has evaporated. Remove the herb bouquet.

Beouf Bourguignon Vol au Vent

I mentioned in my last post (almost a month ago....) that my French grandmother is one of the only people who has been able to make me eat fish- largely due to the incredibly buttery sauce that always came along side it- but every once and a while she'd try to get us to eat shrimp and Coquille Saint Jacques (scallops) too which was a whole other level of gross to my 11 year old self. In comes the puff pastry to dull the pain:


It's pretty hard to turn down puff pastry and a buttery white sauce even if it laced with seafood.

The September 2009 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Steph of A Whisk and a Spoon. She chose the French treat, Vols-au-Vent based on the Puff Pastry recipe by Michel Richard from the cookbook Baking With Julia by Dorie Greenspan. So I was pretty psyched to create my own (meat) version for this month's Daring Baker's Challenge. I spent a very long but industrious Sunday making Julia Child's Beouf Bourguignon to eat in puff pastry vessels but as both recipes are very long, I've separated them into two posts. Here is how we do the puff pastry:


I made half a recipe of Puff Pastry and I have a tiny little food processor so I did the dough in two batches- no biggie! Once you've made your dough in the food processor you want to put it in the fridge for a bit- meanwhile

Pull out your sticks of butter- place them between two sheets of cling sheet and whack them until they smoosh together and flatten to about 1/4 inch. Then you roll out your chilled dough into a largish rectangle and place the butter in the middle. Use the dough flaps to cover the butter and roll the dough out.

You're going to do 6 turns, where you roll the down out really long, then fold it in thirds like a business letter and then roll it out again the other way.


See? Rolled out nice and long- then you would fold it again and roll it again- 6 times in total. Then I should have some picture of me cutting out the rounds for the vessels. I went with a 4 inch round and stacked two layers of rings to make higher walls.

I'd say it turned out pretty well- And it was truly delicious. Didn't matter that we didn't eat until 10pm- it was awesome then too.

Obligatory parsley sprig

Beouf Bourguignon Vols-au-Vent
puff pastry from Michel Richard in Baking With Julia by Dorie Greenspan

• 1/3 puff pastry recipe (see below), well-chilled
  
• 1 recipe Beouf Bourguignon (to be posted soon)
• egg wash (1 egg or yolk beaten with a small amount of water)
  

Assemble the vols-au-vent: 1/3 of the puff pastry recipe below will yield about 8-10 1.5” vols-au-vent or 4 4” vols-au-vent. Line a baking sheet with parchment and set aside. Using a knife or metal bench scraper, divided your chilled puff pastry dough into three equal pieces. Work with one piece of the dough, and leave the rest wrapped and chilled. On a lightly floured surface, roll the piece of dough into a rectangle about 1/8 to 1/4-inch (3-6 mm) thick. Transfer it to the baking sheet and refrigerate for about 10 minutes before proceeding with the cutting. (This assumes you will be using round cutters, but if you do not have them, it is possible to cut square vols-au-vents using a sharp chef’s knife.) For smaller, hors d’oeuvre sized vols-au-vent, use a 1.5” round cutter to cut out 8-10 circles. For larger sized vols-au-vent, fit for a main course or dessert, use a 4” cutter to cut out about 4 circles. Make clean, sharp cuts and try not to twist your cutters back and forth or drag your knife through the dough. Half of these rounds will be for the bases, and the other half will be for the sides. (Save any scrap by stacking—not wadding up—the pieces…they can be re-rolled and used if you need extra dough. If you do need to re-roll scrap to get enough disks, be sure to use any rounds cut from it for the bases, not the ring-shaped sides.) Using a ¾-inch cutter for small vols-au-vent, or a 2- to 2.5-inch round cutter for large, cut centers from half of the rounds to make rings. These rings will become the sides of the vols-au-vent, while the solid disks will be the bottoms. You can either save the center cut-outs to bake off as little “caps” for you vols-au-vent, or put them in the scrap pile.

Dock the solid bottom rounds with a fork (prick them lightly, making sure not to go all the way through the pastry) and lightly brush them with egg wash. Place the rings directly on top of the bottom rounds and very lightly press them to adhere. Brush the top rings lightly with egg wash, trying not to drip any down the sides (which may inhibit rise). If you are using the little “caps,” dock and egg wash them as well. Refrigerate the assembled vols-au-vent on the lined baking sheet while you pre-heat the oven to 400ºF (200ºC). (You could also cover and refrigerate them for a few hours at this point.) Once the oven is heated, remove the sheet from the refrigerator and place a silicon baking mat (preferred because of its weight) or another sheet of parchment over top of the shells. This will help them rise evenly. Bake the shells until they have risen and begin to brown, about 10-15 minutes depending on their size. Reduce the oven temperature to 350ºF (180ºC), and remove the silicon mat or parchment sheet from the top of the vols-au-vent. If the centers have risen up inside the vols-au-vent, you can gently press them down. Continue baking (with no sheet on top) until the layers are golden, about 15-20 minutes more. (If you are baking the center “caps” they will likely be finished well ahead of the shells, so keep an eye on them and remove them from the oven when browned.) Remove to a rack to cool. Cool to room temperature for cold fillings or to warm for hot fillings.

Notes: For additional rise on the larger-sized vols-au-vents, you can stack one or two additional ring layers on top of each other (using egg wash to “glue”). This will give higher sides to larger vols-au-vents, but is not advisable for the smaller ones, whose bases may not be large enough to support the extra weight. Although they are at their best filled and eaten soon after baking, baked vols-au-vent shells can be stored airtight for a day. Shaped, unbaked vols-au-vent can be wrapped and frozen for up to a month (bake from frozen, egg-washing them first).

puff pastry dough

I made a half recipe of the dough and was able to assemble two large vessels with some leftovers which are now in the freezer.

• 2 1/2 cups (12.2 oz/354g) unbleached all-purpose flour
  
• 1 1/4 cups (5.0 oz/142g) cake flour
• 1 tbsp salt (you can cut this by half for a less salty dough or for sweet preparations)
• 1 1/4 cups (10 fl oz/300 ml) ice water
• 1 pound (16 oz/454g) very cold unsalted butter
• extra flour for dusting work surface

Mixing the Dough: Check the capacity of your food processor before you start. If it cannot hold the full quantity of ingredients, make the dough into two batches and combine them. Put the all-purpose flour, cake flour, and salt in the work bowl of a food processor fitted with a metal blade and pulse a couple of times just to mix. Add the water all at once, pulsing until the dough forms a ball on the blade. The dough will be very moist and pliable and will hold together when squeezed between your fingers. Actually, it will feel like Play-Doh. Remove the dough from the machine, form it into a ball, with a small sharp knife, slash the top in a tic-tac-toe pattern. Wrap the dough in a damp towel and refrigerate for about 5 minutes. Meanwhile, place the butter between 2 sheets of plastic wrap and beat it with a rolling pin until it flattens into a square that’s about 1″ thick. Take care that the butter remains cool and firm: if it has softened or become oily, chill it before continuing.

Incorporating the Butter: Unwrap the dough and place it on a work surface dusted with all-purpose flour (A cool piece of marble is the ideal surface for puff pastry) with your rolling pin (preferably a French rolling pin without handles), press on the dough to flatten it and then roll it into a 10″ square. Keep the top and bottom of the dough well floured to prevent sticking and lift the dough and move it around frequently. Starting from the center of the square, roll out over each corner to create a thick center pad with “ears,” or flaps. Place the cold butter in the middle of the dough and fold the ears over the butter, stretching them as needed so that they overlap slightly and encase the butter completely. (If you have to stretch the dough, stretch it from all over; don’t just pull the ends) you should now have a package that is 8″ square. To make great puff pastry, it is important to keep the dough cold at all times. There are specified times for chilling the dough, but if your room is warm, or you work slowly, or you find that for no particular reason the butter starts to ooze out of the pastry, cover the dough with plastic wrap and refrigerate it . You can stop at any point in the process and continue at your convenience or when the dough is properly chilled.

Making the Turns: Gently but firmly press the rolling pin against the top and bottom edges of the square (this will help keep it square). Then, keeping the work surface and the top of the dough well floured to prevent sticking, roll the dough into a rectangle that is three times as long as the square you started with, about 24″ (don’t worry about the width of the rectangle: if you get the 24″, everything else will work itself out.) With this first roll, it is particularly important that the butter be rolled evenly along the length and width of the rectangle; check when you start rolling that the butter is moving along well, and roll a bit harder or more evenly, if necessary, to get a smooth, even dough-butter sandwich (use your arm-strength!). With a pastry brush, brush off the excess flour from the top of the dough, and fold the rectangle up from the bottom and down from the top in thirds, like a business letter, brushing off the excess flour. You have completed one turn. Rotate the dough so that the closed fold is to your left, like the spine of a book. Repeat the rolling and folding process, rolling the dough to a length of 24″ and then folding it in thirds. This is the second turn.

Chilling the Dough: If the dough is still cool and no butter is oozing out, you can give the dough another two turns now. If the condition of the dough is iffy, wrap it in plastic wrap and refrigerate it for at least 30 minutes. Each time you refrigerate the dough, mark the number of turns you’ve completed by indenting the dough with your fingertips. It is best to refrigerate the dough for 30 to 60 minutes between each set of two turns. The total number of turns needed is six. If you prefer, you can give the dough just four turns now, chill it overnight, and do the last two turns the next day. Puff pastry is extremely flexible in this regard. However, no matter how you arrange your schedule, you should plan to chill the dough for at least an hour before cutting or shaping it. Makes 2.5 pounds of dough.