February 16, 2008

Pantry raid

Thursday started much like any other day, and I found myself groggily bending headfirst into the refrigerator, wondering what I would be eating for lunch in six hours time. The pickings, as they say, were slim.

Inside the fridge, I found a couple of half frozen chicken breasts, cream cheese, a bag of two-week old plum tomatoes, a half-bottle of Lactaid, several partially used sticks of butter, an assortment of pita breads and lavash, and various condiments. Nearby sat a grapefruit, also two weeks old - it had been a while since the last proper grocery run - holding his own in an empty fruit basket. Slim pickings, indeed.

I was starting to feel like one of those cartoon characters who, starving in the dead of winter, finds that his friend looks more and more like a roast turkey with each passing day. No offense to my office mates, but none of them are particularly appetizing come lunchtime.

So, still hunched over in the fridge, I found my by now shivering brain ransacked by the memory of various cartoon characters and their food foraging dilemmas. Before long, I was reminded of two cartoon friends, once against starving in the dead of winter - oh February, you are an unrelenting beast - fighting over a single bean. In the end, if I remember correctly, the bean was lost to a crack in the floorboards. Devastating, I shuddered at the thought. I closed the refrigerator door and shifted my sights a little to the right.

A bean. Is it really that time of year? I wondered. That time when even the loveliest winter veggies lose their luster and just can't stand up to the summery images of asparagus and blueberries found fresh and in season? That time of year when I, gulp, start living out of the pantry?

Now, I do have to admit that pantry month is one of my favorites but I always seem to bust in too soon and am left bored and hungry when there is nary a seasonal piece of produce, winter or summer, in sight. I had been determined to wait out pantry month this year, relish it when the time came, then quickly move on to all that is fresh and bright and good with the world come spring.

But, seeing as a sandwich of french onion-flavored cream cheese and mild (who bought mild?) salsa just wouldn't do it for me, I took a deep breath and jumped right in. Pantry country, a rich land of canned, dried and bottled anythings and everythings. Oh, the abundance! The luxury of it!

I scanned the shelves and caught site of a can of chick peas. I used to live on them in college, when I enjoyed a "salad" of chick peas, red wine vinegar, salt and pepper on a near nightly basis. I licked my lips at the memory, but knew that come 2 p.m., I would want something with a little more heft, a little more chutzpah.

I pulled out the can of beans, and dug a little further back. There, in the deepest recesses of the pantry's upper most shelf I spotted my mother's most recent culinary acquisition. I reached for it, the bottle sticky, unmarked and unassuming. It was rob-e narenj, the juice of sour oranges concentrated into a syrup with the consistency of molasses. My dear cousin Hojat brought it for my mom from a recent trip to Iran. I fussed with the bottle cap but was dearly rewarded when I got it open. Inside, the syrup was fragrant, full-bodied, sweet, salty and sour. Perfect. I grabbed the olive oil as well as a tomato and that hardy grapefruit, and got to work on a salad and dressing.

The grapefruit was surprisingly succulent and provided more than enough juice as the base of my faux vinaigrette. I whisked up a bit of olive oil, a gulp's worth of the citrusy syrup, a dash of salt and pepper, then in fell the roughly chopped pieces of tomato, which was surprisingly firm after its sad fortnight in the crisper. The chunks swam around dreamily in the pool of grapefruit pulp and rob-e narenj until, finally, in went the chickpeas, the life of the party.

















Gorgeous. It was all I could do not to declare the concoction my Valentine and devour the soppy mess, which was more like a soup than a salad but who really wants to get into semantics, right then and there. But, I decided that such a display of gluttony was inappropriate for 8:30 on a Thursday morning, even if it happened to be Valentine's Day, a day when gluttony is applauded. Inappropriate, I reminded myself. I licked my fingers in a subtle act of defiance, and packed up.

At 2 p.m., I was ready. And my salad-soup was better than I remembered. The beans and tomatoes had gotten all good and marinated, and the soupiness had thickened and goopified somewhat, perfect to be swiped up by a fold of lavash.

















It doesn't sound very sexy, I know, and I admit, it wasn't exactly a camera friendly dish. But oh how the flavor made up for it its profound state of disarray. It was lusty and soulful in every sense, the supreme Oriental fantasy. I always eat lunch at my desk, but my sour chick peas were enough to make me sit back and take notice.

The best part was slurping down the sweet, acidic nectar left behind by the salad components. It was also the worst part because I instantly wished I had made double the portion with the remaining half-can of chick peas. But don't worry, I made up for it with a midday dessert of four - yes, four! - giant Medjool dates. And by giant I mean I could barely hold them all in one hand. Huzzah for gluttony!

Happy Valentine's Day to me, and to you.

***
Sweet and Sour Chickpea salad
For the salad:
One plum tomato, roughly chopped
One cup chick peas
For the dressing:
Juice and pulp of one grapefruit
One teaspoon olive oil
One tablespoon sour orange syrup (pomegranate syrup, available in Middle Eastern food stores and markets, can also be used)
Salt and pepper to taste
Squeeze grapefruit into a bowl. Add olive oil and syrup. Whisk. Taste. Add salt and pepper as needed. Add tomato. Add chick peas. Swish everything around until covered. Can be eaten immediately or after several hours of marinating. Very yummy with bread that is sturdy enough for soaking and sopping.
Serves one, sort of. Make extra if you have the ingredients on hand. It won't go uneaten. I promise.

February 10, 2008

Lightning, sweet and scary

My mom is really something special. This may not be news to those who know her, but she is. Just. Brilliant.

All my life, I've learned from her. She's imparted some very important lessons. For as long as I can remember, she's stressed the importance of wearing clean underwear, keeping $20 in cash in your wallet at all times and using lemon, lime or other citrus to make almost any food or drink taste better. I've learned the underwear and lemon lessons very well, if I do say so myself. The $20 one, somewhat less so... and I hear my mom's softly accented voice everytime I count out dimes and quarters at the frozen yogurt shop near my office. I told you.




















But some of the wisest lessons I've learned are those that went unspoken. She taught me to take advantage of any opportunity to sleep, especially during a twice daily, two-hour commute from our suburban home to midtown Manhattan, a commute that I barely endured - with much complaining - for three months during the summer of internships in 2003 and that my mom has completed every day for nearly 20 years. It must be the napping.

She also taught me not to let people waste my time. Equally sweet and authoritative, she's not afraid to take matters into her own hands. Yesterday, for example, she commandeered the round brush and hair dryer from the stylist wrestling with her thick, increasingly angry hair. Silly? Yes. Amusing? Terribly so. But atypical? Not at all.

Still, my mom does not cease to surprise me. A couple of weeks ago, I heard flip flops slap their way down the stairs, saw from the corner of my eye a head of rollers bop past. The sound of the fridge opening, a flash of light, the fridge closing. The head of rollers bopped into the living room and sat gently beside me.

Looks good, my mom said. I watched a half of a freshly made eclair disappear.



















I was awestruck. My mom believes in whole, healthful foods. She believes in proper eating, with utensils and napkins and small bites and breathing!

Mmm. In a matter of seconds, the second half followed the first. What ever happened to swallowing before taking another bite?

What? she coughed, trying to talk and chew while smiling. That's how you're supposed to eat them.

I closed my disbelieving mouth. I knew she was right. I mean, goodness, it had been right there in the name all along. In French, eclair means lightning and in Paris Sweets, Dorie Greenspan says some people think the pastry was dubbed eclair so that its name would describe the way in which it is meant to be eaten: lightning fast.

So I guess I couldn't really fault my mom. It was just that, well, they weren't lightning fast to make. In fact, they were quite time-consuming and, if I can admit this here, it was a little stressfull. Scary. To be honest, I had questions:

Step 2: How would I know if my dough were very smooth?

Step 4: What if the thin fingers of dough... about five inches long and one inch wide were slightly more varied and, um, bug-like?




















Step 5: What if my wooden spoon gets so hot that it burns my hand?

Step 5: What if I can't figure out how 8 and 12 add up to 20 minutes and bake one set of pastry bugs for 32 minutes?

Step... I've lost count: Is the pastry cream supposed to smell like an omelette before it cools?

By the end of it all, I was tired, sweaty and on the verge of tears for fear that the eclairs would be rock hard and poisonous, and I decided to forgo the fondant, leaving my chubby little lightning rods naked, on a baking sheet, to chill in the refrigerator.

Doesn't all that deserve to be savored, or at the very least munched on cautiously? I sure thought so.

But not only did my mom not get sick, not only did she go back for a second eclair after dinner, she licked her fingers! If that's not the right way to savor a pastry, I don't know what is.


***

Eclairs
Adapted from Coffee Eclairs, Paris Sweets


Dorie Greenspan's recipe is for Coffee Eclairs, with a coffee fondant. I skipped the espresso flavoring to keep beverage options open - my mom and I like our sweets with tea. The pastry cream is simple but not plain, vanilla. Too add the coffee flavor, lightly whisk 1/4 cup of cooled espresso into the vanilla pastry cream. Below you can also find a fondant recipe based on Dorie's.

For the pastry cream:
2 cups whole milk
1 moist, plump vanilla bean, split and scraped (or one tablespoon pure vanilla extract, which should be added after you stir in the butter)
6 large egg yolks
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup cornstarch, sifted
3 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into 3 pats, at room temperature
1/4 cup espresso, optional

Bring the milk and the vanilla pulp and pod to a boil in a small saucepan over medium heat. Cover the pan, turn off the heat and allow the milk to infuse for at least 10 minutes, or for up to one hour. If necessary, reheat the milk until hot before proceeding.

Fill a large bowl with ice cubes and set aside a smaller bowl that can hold the finished cream and be placed in this ice bath. Set aside a fine mesh strainer, too.

Whisk the yolks, sugar and cornstarch together in a heavy-bottomed medium saucepan. Whisking constantly, drizzle one-quarter of the hot milk over the yolks. When the yolks are warm, whisk the remainder of the milk into the yolks in a steadier stream; remove the pod and discard or save for another use.

Put the pan over medium heat and, whisking vigorously, bring the mixture to a boil. Keep at the boil - still whisking energentically - for one to two minutes, then pull the pan from the heat and press the cream through the strainer into the small bowl. Set the bowl into the ice bath and, stirring frequently, cool the cream to 140 degrees F.

Remove the cream from the ice bath and whisk in the butter. Add vanilla extract now, if necessary. Return the cream to the ice-water bath and keep it there until it is thoroughly chilled.
Add espresso to chilled cream, if desired.

For the dough:
1/2 cup whole milk
1/2 cup water
1 stick unsalted butter
Pinch of sugar
Pinch of salt
1 cup all purpose flour
5 large eggs, at room temperature

Position the racks to divide the oven into thirds and preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and keep them close at hand. Fit a large pastry bag with a large star tip (or cut a small hole into a large Ziploc baggie, though this may be the reason for my hilariously misshapen eclairs) and keep this close, too.

Bring the milk, water, butter, sugar and salt to a rapid boil in a heavy-bottomed medium saucepan over high heat. Add the flour all at once, lower the heat to medium-low and quickly start stirring energetically with a wooden spoon. The dough will come together and a light crust will form on the bottom of the pan. Keep stirring - with vigor - for another two minutes to dry the dough. The dough should now be very smooth (???).

Turn the dough into the bowl of a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment or continue by hand. Add the eggs one by one and beat until the dough is thick and shiny. Don't be concerned if the dough falls apart - by the time the last egg goes in, the dough will come together again. Once the eggs have been incorporated, the still warm dough must be used immediately.

Spoon half the dough into the pastry bag and pipe out thin fingers (or toes, or insect shapes, depending on your bag of choice) of dough that are each about five inches long and about one inch wide (I say these measurements are negotiable) onto the lined baking sheets, making sure to leave about two inches puff space between them. Repeat with the remaining dough.

Slide the baking sheets into the oven and bake for eight minutes before slipping the handle of a wooden spoon (it gets hot!) into the oven to keep the door slightly ajar. When the eclairs have baked for 12 minutes, rotate the pans front to back and top to bottom. Continue baking until the eclairs are golden, firm and, of course, puffed, another eight minutes or so. The total baking time is 20 (20!!) minutes (!!!). Transfer the eclairs to a rack and cool to room temperature. (The eclairs can be kept in a cool, dry place for several hours before filling. Alternatively, pipe out the eclairs and freeze them for up to one month before baking.)

Carefully cut the eclairs horizontally in half and lift off them tops. Using a pastry bag or a spoon to fill each eclair base with cream. (Dorie says there will be cream left over, but I, alas, I had none.) Tuck the filled bases into the fridge, covered lightly with wax paper.

The fondant, for those so inclined:
1/4 cup cooled espresso
3 cups confectioners' sugar, sifter
A squirt of lemon juice

Pour the espresso into a small bowl. Add about two cups of the sugar little by little, stirring constantly with a whisk and trying not to create bubbles. Stir in the lemon juice, then continue to add as much confectioners' sugar as needed to produce a fondant that evenly coats the top of an eclair and stays where it is spread.

One by one, hold the eclair tops over the bowl of fondant and, working with a small icing spatula, spread them with the fondant. Settle each eclair top on a filled base and refrigerate for at least one hour before serving.

February 2, 2008

Six more weeks of winter it will be!

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a wood chuck could chuck wood?

Growing up, I made it my serious business to not just memorize that troublesome tongue twister, but to show up the older girls on the playground by clicking my tongue around those words faster and more precisely than they ever could. You could say I had a bit of a competitive streak. Had. As in, when I was younger. Anyway... Ahem.

For years, I thought nothing of the meaning of the words. But all that changed this morning.

I'm not sure why it came back to me, but lying in bed early this morning, I started to wonder. How much wood would that would chuck chuck? And then it hit me: he CAN'T chuck wood. How incredibly sad. He'll never live up to his name. Now it's not like my name mistakenly predestined me to a life of unfulfillment, but at that still dusky just-dawn hour, I became determined to make the most of my day. After an hour more of sleep.

Five hours later, I was finally up and headed to Campgaw Mountain in Mahwah with Darius, who had planned a lovely outing. Oh, did I say lovely? I meant terrifying. We were going snowtubing. As in somersaulting to our deaths when the tube gets caught on an icy snare, lauching us up and back down a snowchute/death trap of a mountain ready to swallow us up with its forested maw.

I'm all for trying new things. I swear! Take the sweetbreads at Kefi a couple of weekends ago. While the warmed feta meze called to me from beyond the menu, I opted for the crispy pancreas/thymus gland of a lamb/calf (the menu was imprecise and my palate undiscerning) for the simple reason that I had never had it before. It's a raved about delicacy and I had high hopes, hopes that fell flat when I put the first "crispy" piece in my mouth. You know how when you peel off the skin of fried chicken the crunchy batter is lined with a layer of goopy fat? Imagine if that fat goop were spooned off the yummy batter bit, balled up into goopy, rounded cubes, re-crisped in hot fat, and served up in front of you in its goopy glory. Very not yumm. But I was happy I tried it - at least now I know that pancreas/thymus gland is not for me. (I should note that Kefi made up for the lackluster appetizer with a stunning branzino, charred and smoky off the grill, served up with a succulent smattering of roasted potatoes, and a refreshing blackberry port sorbet that was at once innocently sweet and bitingly tart.)

Today, on the way up Route 17, past strip malls and chain restaurants that showed not a trace of precipitation save the remnant puddles from yesterday's torrential springlike downpour, I was pretty sure Campgaw Mountain would turn us away - "No snow today, folks," I exected a jolly mountainman to tell us. We'd head straight for an early lunch and call it a day. No harm, no foul.

But as we pulled into the parking lot, I saw it. Campgaw Mountain. My Everest. Covered in snow, albeit somewhat slushy, somewhat icy snow. Nothing that would warrant turning away paying customers. I was sure Darius was leading me to my doom. He pointed out the small children and their parents zipping down the mountain on skis and snowboard, bopping along in brightly hued, inflatable, donut-shaped tubes. I followed him, unconvinved.

We checked in, selected our tubes (I picked one in burnt orange, probably because it was the one that looked closest to a real donut) and got in line to be hooked onto a small piece of orange plastic that would drag us up the hill. The ride up was the longest four minutes or so of my life. We skidded along, slowly but surely, as other tubers whuzhed by us at high speeds. I felt queezy and very nearly passed out when the teenager at the top of the hill told me to lie face down on the donut. I got off to a slow start, much as I wanted, but the teenager kindly gave me a push. "It's not so bad," he called out behind me.

And then I was flying. I was too scared to scream out as I banged down the hill, swerving side to side and over a small piece of exposed rock. Then, it was over. I bumped to a stop just short of the finish line, awkwardly heaved myself up and pulled my donut the rest of the way. I survived! I was in shock, and unlike the sweetbreads, I wanted more.

An hour and a half later, we were heading out - hunger (Darius's) and sopping wet feet that were threatening to freeze (mine) got the best of us.

After all the excitement of the day, I needed something reassuring and reliable - Applebees. Please don't judge. The French Onion Soup off the restaurant's Weight Watchers menu is satisfying and delicious enough in a very standard sort of way. Reassuring and reliable, with no effort required.

Halfway through the soup, it hit me. It's Groundhog Day! It must have been kismet that I so sympathetically considered his wood-less fate this morning, just as he was being cruelly roused for that annual moment of augury. I immediately wondered if Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow, and immediately after that wondered if I was hoping for an early spring as I had every year for as long as I could remember. I wasn't sure about either.

It turns out that dear old Phil did see his shadow out on Gobbler's Knob this morning, and I can't say I'm disappointed. Today, Feb. 2, we 're technically halfway through the season, but it was the first time in a long time that it really felt like winter. Exciting and familiar and scary and comforting all at the same time. Six more weeks of this doesn't sound quite so bad.

***
While I'm all for the standardized and somewhat sub-par French Onion Soup at Applebees, I feel I only owe it to you to offer up a superior, at-home version of the quintessential cold weather comfort. There are plenty of recipes out there, but this one is from Cooking Light. Spring - and spring clothes! woohoo! - are only six weeks away.
French Onion Soup
Cooking Light, January 2005
2 teaspoons olive oil
4 cups thinly vertically sliced Walla Walla or other sweet onion
4 cups thinly vertically sliced red onion
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup dry white wine
8 cups less-sodium beef broth
1/4 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme
8 (1-ounce) slices French bread, cut into 1-inch cubes
8 (1-ounce) slices reduced-fat, reduced-sodium Swiss cheese (such as Alpine Lace)

Heat olive oil in a Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add onions to pan; sauté for 5 minutes or until tender. Stir in sugar, pepper, and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Reduce heat to medium; cook 20 minutes, stirring frequently. Increase heat to medium-high, and sauté for 5 minutes or until onion is golden brown. Stir in wine, and cook for 1 minute. Add broth and thyme; bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 2 hours.

Preheat broiler.

Place bread in a single layer on a baking sheet; broil 2 minutes or until toasted, turning after 1 minute.

Place 8 ovenproof bowls on a jelly-roll pan. Ladle 1 cup soup into each bowl. Divide bread evenly among bowls; top each serving with 1 cheese slice. Broil 3 minutes or until cheese begins to brown.

Yields 8 servings

And for anyone who's counting, the nutritional information:
CALORIES 290(30% from fat); FAT 9.6g (sat 4.8g,mono 1.9g,poly 0.7g); PROTEIN 16.8g; CHOLESTEROL 20mg; CALCIUM 317mg; SODIUM 359mg; FIBER 3.1g; IRON 1.6mg; CARBOHYDRATE 33.4g