Food

Trust your recipes

| Green Card Gardener

There is so much gardening to do I had no intention to blog this weekend. But after my cookie mishap this morning (which turned out fine), I cannot help but ranting a bit here.

I woke up early and since it was too chilly to go outside, I decided to try out some cookies with the wonderful Meyer lemon scented olive oil I bought a few days ago. I found a Youtube recipe video that sounded perfect. I did not watch the video but followed the written recipe, modifying it a bit in terms of flavorings but making sure to stick with the ratio of dry and liquid ingredients.

The dough was supposed to be rolled out and cut into desired shapes. There was no way that sticky dough was suitable to be rolled out so I put away my cookie cutters and dropped spoonfuls of the dough onto the baking sheet. The result was rather biscuits than cookies but they tasted good. For the next batch, I used a pastry bag and ended up with perfectly round little cookies.

While the cookies were in the oven, I reread the recipe several times, wondering what mistake I had made. I had made none. Only then did I watch the video. The dough looks as sticky as mine, but then a heap of flour is added during the kneading. I cannot imagine those cookies will taste so nicely light as mine if you add so much flour for kneading. And, at best, the dough could be cut into plain circles, but “desired shapes”? I don’t believe it. The original recipe clearly did not work, at least not for me.

Whether you are an experienced cook or a beginner, it is always a frustrating experience when a recipe does not work, and usually you assume that you did something wrong. But the sad fact is that there are lots of flawed recipes out there, some of them with plain errors, others leaving too much up to luck. I don’t want to sound judgmental, I acknowledge that recipe-writing is not an easy thing. The devil is in the details and there is plenty of room for errors. Of course I’ve made them, too.

No more kvetching! After all I ended up with wonderfully light, lemon-scented cookies that I will surely bake again. But I won’t make a video out of it. Promised.

Lemon Olive Oil Cookies

I used ground steamed poppy seeds that I brought back from Germany. In the US you can find ground poppy seeds (and I do not mean the sticky, gooey poppy seed cake filling) in specialty spice stores, or you can grind your own. If you cannot get your hands on ground poppy seeds, just leave them out. They are a nice addition but not essential to the recipe.

1 organic lemon

½ cup Meyer lemon extra-virgin olive oil

½ cup non-fat Greek yogurt

½ cup low-fat plain yogurt

1 large egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

½ cup plus 3 tablespoons sugar

2¾ cups flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

¼ teaspoon salt

3 tablespoons ground poppy seeds (optional)

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper or with a baking mat.

2. Zest the lemon and set aside 1 teaspoon. Refrigerate or freeze the rest of the zest for another use. Squeeze the lemon and set the juice aside.

3. Mix the olive oil, both yogurts, egg and vanilla extract in a bowl with an electric mixer. Add ½ cup sugar.

4. Put the remaining 3 tablespoons sugar in a food process with the lemon zest and process until the sugar is fragrant and slightly yellow. Add this the olive oil mix.

5. In another bowl, mix the flour with the baking soda, salt and poppy seeds, if using. Add to the olive oil mix and beat until fluffy.

6. Fill about one-third of the dough in a pastry bag with a plain round tip and squeeze small rounds, about 1.5 inch, onto the baking sheet, leaving ample space between them.

7. Bake in the middle rack of the preheated oven for 12 minutes, until the cookies are lightly yellow and set. Proceed the same way with the rest of the dough, which will make 2 more cookie sheets.

8. Cool the cookies on wire racks and store in airtight tins.

Makes 100 cookies

Turning scent into flavor, or: lilac for dessert

| Green Card Gardener

Lilac parfait
Lilacs, I was told a few years ago in gardening class, have so little wildlife value they might as well be made of plastic. Since I love lilacs, especially the Dwarf Korean lilac with its knockout scent, this was bad news. Ever since, I have eyed the lilacs around our house with a mix of doubt – whenever I spot bees swarming around a lilac bush, I am telling myself it cannot be that bad – and a bit of guilt, because every year I transplant lilac shoots and rejoice about them taking off so easily and growing fast with so little maintenance.

To put my scruples to rest, I am telling myself that we encourage a lot of wildlife on our property by providing shelter, food and a pesticide-free and insecticide-free environment. So the dozen or so lilac bushes really don’t matter.

Earlier this week, my favorite magazine arrived in the mail from Germany: Landlust, a stunningly beautiful yet very hands-on magazine about rural living, which The Economist described very aptly in a June 2011 article as the Germans’ “nostalgie de la boue”.

The latest issue had a recipe for lilac-infused ice-cream in it. I had no idea lilac blossoms were edible. After a bit of poking around on the Internet to make sure that lilac blossoms are indeed edible (not that I don’t trust the magazine editors) I decided to concoct my own recipe, a modification of the Honey Parfait from my cookbook Spoonfuls of Germany. I felt the airy consistency of parfait, which is made without an ice-cream maker, is a better match for the ethereal lilac aroma than a heavy, custard-based ice cream.

Now that I am on an edible flower roll, lilac syrup is next. The blossoms are steeping as I write this. It should be ready in about five days.

 

Lilac Honey Parfait

1 cup freshly picked lilac blossoms

1 cup heavy cream

3 large, very fresh eggs, separated

½ cup golden honey

Pinch of salt

Lilac parfait ingredients
1. Wash the lilac blossoms in cold water to remove any dust and insects. Drain in a colander and shake to remove excess water. Spread on a piece of paper towel, gather the edges and gently shake to dry even more. Place blossoms in a small bowl. Pour the heavy cream over the blossoms and push them down so they are fully immersed in the cream. Cover with plastic foil and refrigerate for 24 hours.

2. Strain the cream through a fine sieve. Push down the blossoms so extract as much cream from the blossoms as possible. Set the blossoms aside. Whip until if forms soft peaks. Refrigerate.

3. Beat the eggs whites with a pinch of salt until stiff. Refrigerate.

4. Put the egg yolks and the honey in a double boiler or a metal bowl place over a pot of gently boiling water. Whisk until the mix becomes thick and very foamy. At the end, add the blossoms and stir for another 1 to 2 minutes. Strain through the sieve and again squeeze down on the blossoms until no more liquid comes out.

5. Place the bowl over a bowl of ice water and continue stirring until cooled.

6. Fold the cream and the egg whites into the egg yolk mix. Pour the parfait in a pre-chilled container and freeze for at least 4 hours, or until firm.

Makes 6 servings

All the whey

| Green Card Gardener

Compared to one-third of all food that is being wasted worldwide, cringing over throwing out a heel of home-baked bread because it turned moldy might seem puny. Yet I found myself thinking of ways how I can prevent this from happening again. Yes, I am sort of a relentless food saver. Therefore I of course had to do something with the gallon of whey that I brought back from the instructional and fun mozzarella-making potluck at phoebe’s pure food last weekend.

I wanted to make dulce de leche. When looking for a recipe I found a booklet entitled, “Uses of Whey in the Farmstead Setting” (love that title!) from the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture. It includes some bizarre ideas such as whey wine, whey beer and whey champagne. Whey, so I learned, can also be used as animal fodder. The booklet only mentions cattle, pigs, sheep and poultry, but when I fed our dog his pills with the curds I had strained from the whey, he slurped it up in seconds.

Using whey and sugar in a ratio 1:2 as the recipe said seemed outrageous. I decided to tinker with it and cook down the whey first to get it more concentrated, then mixed whey and sugar in a ratio 2:1 (that is one-quart of the suggested amount of sugar!) It worked – the result is a dulce de leche as sweet as it should be, but no more.

Now that I have recycled all the whey, the next question is: what in the world will the farmstead do will all that dulce de leche?

Dulce de leche

1 gallon strained whey

7 cups sugar, depending on the amount of reduced whey

1. Simmer the whey in a large, heavy pot, uncovered, for about 2 hours, stirring occasionally. It will curd a bit but don’t worry, the curds will disappear once the mix, after adding sugar, turns a caramel color.

2. Measure the liquid (I had 14 cups) and add half of that amount in sugar. Slowly bring to a simmer again and cook, uncovered, for 4 to 6 hours, or until the color turns caramel and the mixture thickens. Increase the frequency of stirring as the color darkens, and make sure to scrape over the bottom of the pot.

3. Towards the end, watch the cooking process more closely to prevent the mix from turning too dark. Keep in mind that it will solidify as it cools. Just like for jam and jelly, spoon a bit on a plate and see if it is still too runny. The more solid you want the end result, the longer it needs to cook.

4. Let cool slightly in the pot, then fill into sterilized jars. Only screw the lids onto the jars after the content is completely cooled to avoid condensation build-up. Store in the refrigerator for up to 1 month or freeze in plastic containers.

Makes 5 13-ounce jars

The balance sheet of a pie

| Green Card Gardener

Today I made Ricotta Wheat Pie, a traditional Neapolitan recipe. I had earmarked it a long time ago but never got to it because it seemed quite involved. It was.

Not counting the components of each, I used 16 kitchen tools and gadgets: a pot to cook the wheat berries, a cooking spoon, a small food processor, a blender, two bowls, an egg separator, two spatulas, a small kitchen knife, a pastry roller, a plastic container to chill the dough, a cookie press, a scoop, a jelly roll pan, and a cake pan. Plus two disposables: a sheet each of wax paper and aluminum foil. If the citron and orange peel had not been so dried out, I would have been able to avoid using the blender but only its ice crush function could chop them up. And, if I had had more time, I could have cooled the wheat in the pot instead of spreading it on a jelly roll pan and set it over ice packs to speed up the process. Even discounting those two, it’s a lot of dirty dishes for one pie.Counting the time I spent on this, the gas for the stove, the electricity for the oven, the hot water to wash all those dishes, and… it would have been probably more economical and ecological to drive into town and buy a cake. But it would have certainly not been the type of cake I would want to eat! And, most importantly, I would not have had so much fun (despite the cleaning up). I also finally got the cookie press to work that I bought years ago and, it turned out, I had always screwed together the wrong way.

In 2010, the average American according to The New York Times watched 34 hours of TV every week. That’s baking 8.5 pies like this if you allocate a generous 4 hours active time from start to finish. I rarely watch TV and rather bake.

Seeing the pie cooling on the counter and smelling it all over the house gives me great satisfaction. If it tastes as good as expected and my family likes it, even better.

The recipe is adapted it from Anna Teresa Callen’s My love for Naples.Ricotta Wheat Pie (Pastiera Napoletana di Grano)

Crust:

2 cups flour

¼ cup sugar

1 stick chilled butter, or 4 ounces Land O Lakes butter with canola oil (first time I tried this)

1½ ounces chilled vegetable shortening

1 large egg

Filling:

4 cups wheat berries

1 tablespoon butter

1 untreated lemon

1½ cups milk

½ teaspoon cinnamon

1½ tablespoons + 1 cup sugar

1 pound low-fat ricotta

2 tablespoons orange flower water

2 tablespoons diced citron

1 tablespoon candied orange peel

6 eggs

1. For the crust, put the flour and sugar in a food processor and process to a coarse meal. Add diced butter, shortening and egg and process until the dough forms a ball around the blade. Transfer the dough to a container and refrigerate.

2. For the filling put the wheat berries in a small heavy pot with 4 cups water and the butter. Bring to the boil, then turn down the heat and simmer, covered, for about 2½ hours. Check for water and stir once in a while to make sure it does not cook dry.

3. Drain the wheat berries and return them to the pot. Zest half of the lemon in one large strip and add it to the pot with the milk, the cinnamon and 1½ tablespoons sugar. Bring to the boil, then turn down the heat and cook, uncovered, for 45 minutes until the milk has been completely absorbed. Stir often to make sure it does not scorch, and reduce the heat even further as necessary.

4. Roll out three-quarters of the dough on a sheet of wax paper to fit a greased 10-inch cake pan plus dough to come up almost all the way up the edges. Fit it into the cake pan and even out the edges with a knife. Roll out the rest of the dough and cut narrow strips for a crisscross pattern, or use a cookie cutter / cookie press to cut out shapes to your liking. Place them on a plate lined with the wax paper and put everything in the freezer.5. Remove the lemon peel from the wheat berries and let cool.

6. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

7. Finely zest the rest of the lemon. Put it in the food processor together with the orange flower water, diced citron, orange peel, 1 cup sugar and ricotta and process until the citron and orange peel are finely chopped.

8. Separate the eggs and add the egg yolks to the mix. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

9. Mix the cooled wheat berries with the ricotta mix. Fold in the stiff egg whites. Pour the filling into the prepared crust.

10. Bake in the preheated oven for 20 minutes. After this time, the filling should be set enough to the top crust won’t sink. Carefully remove the cake pan from the oven. Place the cutouts or dough strips on the surface in a decorative pattern and return the cake pan to the oven.

11. Bake for another 55 minutes, or until the filling is set and the top is golden brown. If the top darkens too much, loosely place a greased sheet of aluminum foil on top. Remove the pie from the oven and cool on a cake rack.