egg obsession

Last summer, I became somewhat obsessed with the farm eggs I was able to purchase at the Government Center farmers’ market. The eggs were beautiful and fresh with bright orange yolks and thick whites. Everything we made with them tasted better, from basic scrambled eggs to cheese puffs. My whole summer revolved around ensuring continued access to these eggs: getting my name on the weekly pick-up list, asking friends and co-workers to pick up eggs for me when I had a meeting on the day of the market or when I was on vacation. Even when we had plenty of eggs in the fridge, I’d buy another dozen, just to be safe. Then, in November, the farmers’ market ended and, with it, my supply of farm eggs.

Going back to grocery store eggs was difficult — the yolks were depressingly pale, the whites a little watery and the flavor lack luster. On my to-do list since the farmers’ market closed for the season was to find a new source of farm eggs that was reasonably close to home. On Friday, I took my first trip to Codman Community Farms in Lincoln, Mass. where they sell farm eggs and humanely raised beef, lamb and pork. The farm store operates on the honor system — take your eggs and leave $2.75 per dozen in the drop box.

The eggs are wonderful, and to celebrate my find, I made a cheese soufflé for dinner Friday night. The thing about soufflé is that it seems daunting, but it’s really not. The only special skill you need is the ability to fold beaten egg whites into the creamy base, and that’s a skill anyone can master with a little practice. The other thing that’s great about soufflé is that it seems like company food, but chances are, you already have all the ingredients you need in your refrigerator. Sure, cheese soufflé is fancy enough to serve company, but I like to make it for dinner on a week night for just Anne and me. With a salad and a glass of wine, it’s a perfect meal and it makes a Wednesday night feel like a special occasion.

Cheese Soufflé
Adapted from The New Basics, Julee Rosso & Sheila Lukins

3 tablespoons unsalted butter, plus more for greasing the dish
2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
3 tablespoons flour
1 cup milk
¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
½ teaspoon salt
3 egg yolks at room temperature
1 cup shredded Gruyère cheese*
2 tablespoon minced chives
4 egg whites at room temperature

Preheat oven to 400º. Butter a 6 cup soufflé dish, sprinkle the buttered dish with 1 tablespoon Parmesan cheese, and turn the dish to coat the bottom and sides with the cheese. Set aside.

Melt butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. When the butter stops foaming, whisk in the flour and cook for 2 – 3 minutes, forming a thick paste. Slowly whisk the milk into the roux. Add the salt and pepper and cook the mixture, stirring often, until it comes to a boil and is thick, about 5 minutes. Transfer this mixture to a large bowl and allow to cool slightly.

Working quickly, whisk the egg yolks, one at a time, into the hot milk mixture. Add the shredded Gruyère, remaining 1 tablespoon Parmesan and chives. This is the base. In another bowl, beat the egg whites with an electric mixer until they just hold stiff peaks. Stir a heaping spoonful of the egg whites into the base to lighten it. Carefully fold the remaining egg whites into the base. You don’t want to deflate the whites too much, but do make sure that the whites and the base are completely incorporated into one, cohesive batter.

Pour the soufflé mixture into the prepared pan. Bake 20 minutes, reduce the oven temperature to 350º and bake about 10 minutes more until the soufflé is puffed and golden. The soufflé will still be a little wet inside, but cooked through. Serve immediately. Serves about 4 as a main dish, and 6 – 8 as a side dish.

* If you don’t have Gruyère, cheddar will also work well.

candy freak

This year, everyone in my office received a bag of this:

Toffee. It was a somewhat daunting prospect because my co-worker, Nancy, is a toffee connoisseur and because, until two weeks ago, I had never made toffee. After searching through my cookbooks and several on-line recipe banks, I decided on this recipe from Epicurious, a play on the contrast between salty cocktail nuts and sweet, caramelized butter.

The results were outstanding and addictive. I predicted that none of the bags I delivered to my co-workers last Wednesday morning would make it out of the office at the end of the day. When I was wrong, I was totally disappointed — had I been blinded by my own candy-making self-satisfaction? It turns out that not everyone is a glutton like me, curiously popping morsels of new food into their mouths regardless of the hour or their own hunger. Although most folks waited until later that evening to sample, everyone loved it. My boss even called me this week from vacation to ask, “Did you make that delicious toffee I found on my desk last week?” Yes, yes I did. And you can too.

Cocktail Nut Toffee

Adapted from Bon Appétit, December 2002

This recipe requires the use of a candy thermometer. If you don’t have one, you can test the temperature of the candy by dripping a few drops of the mixture into cold water. According to Joy of Cooking, 290º is the soft crack stage when “firm strands that can be stretched or bent when removed from the water” appear. Whatever — invest in a candy thermometer. Once the hot butter and sugar mixture gets above 275º, the temperature rises so quickly that you won’t have time to fuss with a spoon and a bowl of cold water to test the temperature of the mixture.

2 ½ sticks unsalted butter
1 cup sugar
½ cup light brown sugar (packed)
1/3 cup water
½ tablespoon molasses
½ tablespoon corn syrup
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon allspice
2 cups coarsely chopped, toasted mixed nuts (I used cashews, almonds and pistachios)
5 oz. bitter or semi-sweet chocolate, chopped (or you can use chocolate chips)

Line a half-sheet pan with buttered wax paper or a silicone baking sheet. (The candy is sticky and the Silpat’s usefulness here outweighed my hatred of cleaning the Silpat, so if you have one, use it here.) If your nuts aren’t pre-toasted and chopped, toast, chop and combine them now. Remove ½ cup of the nut mixture and chop them very fine; set these aside to sprinkle on top of the candy.

Melt the butter in a heavy, 3 ½ quart saucepan over low heat. Add the sugars, water, molasses, corn syrup, salt and allspice. Stir the ingredients to dissolve the sugars. Attach a clip-on candy thermometer to the pan (the bottom of the thermometer should be submerged in the mixture, but should not touch the bottom of the pan). Increase heat to medium and bring the mixture to a boil. Cook, stirring constantly but slowly with a wooden spatula, scraping the bottom of the pan (especially the corners) until the mixture reaches 290 º, about 15 minutes.

Initially, the mixture will look separated, the melted butter floating on top. As you continue to cook it, however, the ingredients will incorporate into a thick and cohesive mixture, looking almost solid (and lava-like) by the end.

When the temperature reaches 290 º remove the pan from the heat and mix in the 1 ½ cups coarsely chopped nuts. Immediately pour the toffee onto the prepared sheet pan, and spread the candy out to about ¼” thickness. The mixture will be EXTREMELY hot.

 

 

 

 

Let the candy sit for about two minutes, then sprinkle with the chocolate. Allow the chocolate to stand for another minute before spreading the now melted chocolate in a thin layer across the toffee with the back of a spoon or a silicone spatula. Sprinkle the remaining ½ cup finely chopped nuts over the candy. Let the candy rest, at room temperature, for 1 hour, then chill the candy in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour more. Once the candy is cool and the chocolate is set, break the toffee into shards and store in an air-tight container, either in the refrigerator (for up to 2 weeks – ha! Like it will last that long) or at cool room temperature.

sunshine for your winter solstice

In my experience, when it comes to dessert, people fall into two categories: the chocolate people and the fruit people. With few exceptions, I feel that dessert is not worth eating unless it involves chocolate. My wife, on the other hand, is a fruit person, and, in particular, she loves desserts involving the resilient lemon.

Winter is a difficult time for the admirers of fruit desserts. The apples are only good for so long, after all. And, on top of that, how many apple pies can one really eat over a three month period? Fortunately, winter is also the season of excellent (if not local) citrus. This lemon tart makes use of both the fragrant, tart lemon and the milder, sweeter orange.

I first learned this recipe almost ten years ago from an episode of Cooking Live. Cooking Live was this great show on the Food Network, in the days before yumm-o and shows about the origins of the Pop Tart. Hosted by Sara Moulton, the hour-long, live show took the viewers step-by-step through dinner preparation with Ms. Moulton answering viewer’s telephone and email questions along the way. My first roommate and I watched it religiously. Sadly, it went off the air a few years ago (I think it was a lot of work for Ms. Moulton), and was replaced by the less-exciting, half-hour Sara’s Secrets.

This lemon tart comes from an old Cooking Live episode, and I have made it dozens of times in the many years since I first saw it prepared on TV. Light and tart with a rich crust, it is a total crowd pleaser. Seriously, I have never met anyone who doesn’t like this tart, and I have made it for company, for family, for dinner at my boss’s house, for dinner with at least two sets of Anne’s co-workers. It is always a big hit, and people frequently ask for the recipe. Plus, it’s probably Anne’s favorite of all the desserts I make.

With the sun setting around 4 o’clock here on the East Coast, I think we could all use a little extra sunshine in our day. This tart promises to deliver. Serve it with a dollop of lightly sweetened whipped cream, and you will make people very happy.

Lemon Tart

(The original recipe called for a crust that involved sugar and an egg yolk. I’ve abandoned that in favor of an un-sweetened, traditional pie crust recipe — in part, because that is what I often have in my freezer. If you have another tart shell that you like, feel free to substitute it, adding the egg-white wash at the end.)

For the Crust:
1 ¼ cups flour
¼ teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons cold, unsalted butter
2 tablespoons cold shortening
3 – 4 tablespoons icy cold water
1 egg white, beaten

Combine the flour and salt in the bowl of a food processor and pulse a few times to combine. Scatter butter and shortening over the flour mixture and pulse (about 8 one-second pulses) until the mixture looks like a coarse meal. Sprinkle 3 tablespoons of water on top of flour mixture and run processor until the dough begins to come together in 2-3 solid masses. If needed, add the remaining 1 tablespoon of water to get the pastry to come together. (If you don’t have a food processor, this can be done in a bowl, by hand, working the butter and shortening into the flour with a fork, pastry blender or two knives.)

Turn the dough out onto a piece of cling wrap and, working quickly, form the dough into a 6” disk. Wrap the dough up and chill overnight (if possible) or for at least 3 hours.

Roll the chilled pastry dough out on a floured surface to about 12” in diameter. (If the pastry dough is really cold, you may need to let it sit at room temperature for 10 minutes or so. It may also help to whack – à la Julia Child – the disk of dough a few times with your rolling pin.) Gently lay the rolled out dough into a 10” tart pan with a removable bottom. Being careful not to stretch the pastry, carefully lift it up and set it down into the corners of the tart pan. With a sharp knife, trim around the circumference of the dough so you have about a 1” overhang. Carefully fold this extra dough back and tuck it against the inside of the tart pan. Gently press the dough up against the edge of the pan and chill the shell in the freezer for about 20 minutes until it is firm. (Save any scraps of dough, wrapped in cling wrap in the refrigerator. You can use this to patch the shell if it tears or breaks during the blind bake.)

Pre-heat the oven to 350º. Set the tart pan on a rimmed baking sheet, line it with parchment paper, fill with pie weights (or dry beans) and bake for 20 minutes. Remove the shell from the oven, remove the parchment and weights. (At this point, if the shell has puffed at all, carefully prick the bubbles with the point of a sharp knife to release the steam.) Return the shell to the oven for 10 – 15 minutes until lightly golden. Upon removing the shell from the oven, immediately brush the bottom of the hot shell with the egg white.

For the Filling:
4 eggs
1 ½ cups sugar
grated zest of 1 orange
grated zest of 1 lemon
½ cup fresh orange juice
½ cup fresh lemon juice
¼ cup heavy cream

While the shell is in the oven for the second baking, whisk the ingredients for the filling to combine. Transfer the mixture to a 1 quart measuring cup or other large pitcher. After brushing the hot tart shell with egg white, return it to the oven.

The easiest way to fill the tart shell is to fill it while it’s on the oven rack, with the rack pulled out a bit so you can pour the filling directly into the shell without burning your hand. Depending upon the size of your eggs and how much your shell may have shrunken during the blind bake, you may not use all of the filling. Pour in as much filling as you can to reach the top of the shell and then slowly slide the rack back into the oven.

Bake the tart for 20 – 25 minutes, until the filling is just set. It’s important not to over-bake the tart, so start checking it after 20 minutes. Cool the tart to room temperature (or chill) before serving. Serve with barely sweetened, lightly whipped cream.

retro chic

My story goes like this: long ago and not so far away, I fell in love with a Jewish girl. We moved in together, bought a house, adopted a neurotic beagle and eventually got married. Somewhere along the way, I stopped celebrating Christmas. For the most part, Christmas was a habit I was happy to kick. Growing up in a totally non-religious house, the holiday didn’t hold a lot of spiritual significance for me. Growing up in America, Christmas was usually fraught with anxiety and stress, most of it related to consumption, both by own and my efforts to enable the consumption of others.

In the years since giving up Christmas, I have found December a much more enjoyable month. Sure, I still love the smell of an evergreen tree or a holiday wreath, but my life is no longer filled, from Halloween until December 25th, with the compulsive need to buy. Anne and I spend most Christmases in the Jewish way — movies and Chinese food. This year, however, my sister decided to stay in town and wanted to spend the holiday, which she still celebrates, with us, and so I was called upon to make Christmas dinner.

Well, really, it was Christmas Eve dinner, because that was always the big meal in our house. For some reason, Christmas dinner, for me, is stuck in some sort of time-warp, and so I made us roast beef, twice-baked potatoes, asparagus and the most nostalgic dessert I could fathom, a refrigerator cake. Every Christmas, my great aunt would whip up a refrigerator cake, plant a plastic poinsettia bloom on top and call it a yule log. Through the genius of refrigeration, Nabisco Famous Chocolate Wafers and heavy cream become a moist chocolate cake frosted in whipped cream — a Christmas miracle!

Maybe I’m blinded by nostalgia, but I could eat the entire cake. The thin, crisp, chocolatey cookies contain coconut as the secret ingredient, and when they swell from the cream, I think the coconut is what gives the cake it’s richer flavor. The resulting cake is super-moist, and the contrast between the dark chocolate “cake” and the light as air whipped cream is dreamy. Honestly, my sister and I fought over the leftovers.

And you should know, the cake works equally well adorned with plastic dreidels. In fact, my friend Liz makes one of these babies (which her son affectionately calls a “zebra cake”) every year for her Hanukkah party.

Refrigerator Cake

1 package Nabisco Famous Chocolate Wafers
2 cups heavy cream
3 tablespoons sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla
chocolate curls or shavings (for garnish)

Whip cream at medium low speed until it begins to thicken. Add the sugar and vanilla and continue to whip until the cream holds medium-stiff peaks. Spread about ½ tablespoon of cream onto a cookie, top with another cookie and continue, creating a stack of cookies layered with cream. When my sister and I were little, we would have a competition to see how high our cookie-stacks could get.

When your stack of cookies begins to get unwieldy, set the cookie stack down, on end, on a serving platter. Repeat, forming two side-by-side rows of cookies stuck together with cream.

Once you’ve used up all the cookies, use the remaining cream to frost the two rows. Completely encase the cookies in whipped cream.

Garnish with chocolate shavings. Refrigerate for at least 6 hours or overnight (my sister swears she’s had success refrigerating for a mere 3 hours, but I don’t believe her; I think she’s just trying to show off).

When you’re ready to serve, slice the cake on a 45º angle.