Corduroy Orange

Perhaps it would be more accurate to call this stunningly bright sauce a “Beurre Pourpre” as it most certainly is not white, but it’s made with white wine, so call it what you will.

• 2 ounces brandy
• 1 pint black currants
• white wine to cover the currants
• 1/2 cup white wine (in addition to the white wine already listed)
• 1/2 lb unsalted butter cut into chunks and kept cold

1. Heat a small saucepan.  Add the brandy and flame it.
2. When the flames die off, add the currants and the first dose of wine (enough to cover them).
3. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and let simmer until almost dry (will be fairly syrupy).  Refresh with the 1/2 cup of wine, being certain to use it to get all syrup stuck to the sides of the pan.
4. Strain through cheesecloth.
5. Return to a boil, then let simmer until syrupy.
6. Whisk in the butter over low heat.  Add only a few small cubes at a time, whisk until they are melted and incorporated, then add a few more.  Repeat until the entire half pound of butter has been incorporated and the sauce has a luxurious texture and flavor.
7. Remove from heat and keep in a warm (not hot) place until service.  Whisk occasionally as it sits.  If transferring to a different container for service, make sure that the receiving vessel is warm lest the sauce break.
8. Leftovers of this sauce are best used as a spread—it is very difficult to successfully reheat this sauce without it breaking.

Here is the sauce, in context, as served with steamed Maine lobster.  It would also match well with many other types of fish; french toast, pancakes, or waffles; muffins or popovers; poultry cooked with a cinnamon spice rub; etc.

For a very long time, I have resisted the idea of grilling hamburgers.  It seemed like ground meat was a waste of my charcoal.  A visit from my parents gave me the nudge I needed to make grilling burgers a worthwhile experience.

My father told me about how he and my mother have been grilling onions to go along with their meat patties.  I figured, why not give it a shot? and added onions into my normal grilling repertoire.  That, plus making some homemade buns (recipe follows the photos) was all the nudge I needed to grill some very worthwhile beef patties.

Then, I stacked it all up on a homemade hamburger bun.

And, believe me, the final product was definitely worth my charcoal!

Here’s the recipe for the buns:

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So, Angstrom has a new favorite word: “Spice.”

He says it when he gets home from daycare and sees the spice rack on the wall by the back door, “Spice!” Sometimes he says it when he gets up in the morning and we’re trying to get him ready to leave the house, “spice, spice!”

We’ve brought it on ourselves, and far from discouraging him, we encourage him to explore flavors. Maybe not on weekday mornings as we’re trying to get ready for work, but in the evenings and on the weekends, we’ll pull out several (3-5, typically) while I’m cooking and give him a chance to smell them and taste them. Often, we’ll follow that up with a chance for Angstrom to help me stir.

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The stretch of time between a baby reaches 6 months and when he hits 9 months tends to be a boring culinary scene. We were encouraged by pretty much every expert we read to introduce ingredients slowly, especially at first, giving Angstrom one ingredient at a time, both to acquaint him with the taste and to make certain he wouldn’t have an allergic reaction.

So we went through days of nothing but avocado, nothing but sweet potato, nothing but butternut squash, nothing but peas, nothing but applesauce, nothing but peaches… you get the point. Tedium in action. We were excited when Å’s culinary vocabulary was finally large enough we could mix some of the ingredients.

One of the first combinations I tried was ‘baby guacamole,’ consisting of a mix of avocados and peas. It was a success, enjoyed not only by its intended audience, but his daycare teacher, who sampled a bite when she got some on her thumb and asked that night what was in it because it was so good.

That simple combination was nothing compared to what we could start making him when he hit 9 months. With the introduction of chicken and black beans, a veritable Mexican fiesta was doable.

Baby Mexican Fiesta

• 3 ice cubes frozen avocado
• 2 ice cubes frozen black bean puree
• 2 ice cubes frozen chicken puree

Combine all ingredients in a glass mason jar and heat on power level 6 for 3 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Heat another 1-2 minutes on power level 6 if not completely thawed at the end of 3 minutes.

Yield: approximately one lunch or dinner for a 9-10 month old baby

Many take pride in their grilling skills.  They point to their ribs or their steaks as evidence of their prowess.  I do well with these items, but where I take particular pride is in my ability to grill a perfect potato.  The proper attention can elevate this ‘aristocrat in burlap’ to its proper relevance on the final plate. Follow these tips to craft perfect potatoes every time:

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I like to make square biscuits because there’s no waste, no scrap, no re-rolling and re-cutting (especially because the re-rolled and re-cut round biscuits inevitably wind up tougher than the ones that were cut on the first go round).  I use butter, not shortening, and leave the chunks rather large to help yield a flakier biscuit.  Don’t over-knead the dough or they wind up chewy (like re-rolled biscuits) because the gluten has been over-developed.

For the gravy, I browned links of spicy sausage, then cut them into small chunks and finished cooking them.  Stirred flour into their fat to make a slack roux and whisked in skim milk (no need for anything fattier with so much sausage fat already in the mix) until it reached the right consistency.  Simmered a full 30 minutes to cook the starchy, pasty flour texture out, adding additional milk as necessary.  I probably used about a quart of milk all told, but that ratio has to do with how much roux I made.  If you want to make less gravy, pour off some of the fat before stirring in the flour—or use a lower-fat sausage.  I finished the gravy with a touch of fresh thyme.

The gravy would go equally well on French toast, if you don’t feel like making biscuits.

To reheat leftover gravy, heat a small amount of milk in the bottom of a saucepan and whisk the cold gravy into the hot milk in small portions, waiting for one addition to combine and heat before adding the next.  This method should allow you to get the gravy hot without breaking the emulsion, which would lead to pools of fat rising to the top and makes for an unsightly sauce.

I had this particular plate in April of 2008, wrote down the recipe, snapped a photo of it, and promptly forgot about it.  I discovered the evidence today when I was cleaning out some computer files.  It’s tremendously easy to make, and I hope you enjoy it!

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This sauce is sure to be a hit with anyone who loves coffee.  Drizzle it over ice cream or pancakes; stir it into milk; combine it with seltzer to make a coffee caramel soda… just to name a few uses.  Be creative, and let me know what other uses you discover for this sweet and tasty concoction.  It’s remarkably simple to make and requires very little supervision, so you can make it whilst (and at the same time as) you handle other chores.

Coffee Caramel Sauce yield: approximately 3 cups finished sauce

• 2 cups strong coffee (2 Tbl grounds per 6 oz. water to brew)
• 1 cup brown sugar, packed
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
• 1 dash cardamom
• 1 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream

Combine sugars, spices, and coffee in saucepan and set over medium-high heat to bring to a boil.

Once the liquid comes to a boil, reduce heat to very low and let simmer for 2 to 2 1/2 hours, stirring every 20 minutes or so with a clean wooden spoon to pull sugars from side of pan as liquid reduces (wash spoon between stirrings to help prevent shocking sugars into crystallization).  The acid in the coffee helps to stabilize the sugar and greatly reduces the chances of crystallization, but there’s no sense in tempting fate when it’s so easy to wash the spoon.

Pull from the heat when the top starts to bubble in a very foamy manner, after the syrup has reduced by about half:

Stir heavy cream into syrup (it must be heavy cream!  Using anything with a lower fat content will be inviting your dairy to curdle).

Pour into glass container to cool.

Once cooled, store refrigerated in glass container with tightly fitting lid (such as a jelly jar or a cleaned and re-used maple syrup bottle).

Happy Halloween…

Goat Cheese/ Cream Cheese Eyeballs:

Take stuffed olives and wrap goat cheese or cream cheese around them, and shape into a ball.  The goat cheese is perhaps easier to work with, but the cream cheese would likely have a more familiar flavor profile.

I went to make my quinoa pilaf the other day and realized that my spearmint has all but faded for the year (perhaps helped to its dormancy by my enthusiastic pruning and use of its leaves throughout the summer).  My apple mint, though, still grew abundantly (perhaps helped along by my steadfastly ignoring its offerings throughout the summer, in favor of its mintier cousin).

Apple mint, for those who have never tried it, is a sweeter, less-minty varietal.  I made ice cream with it, once, was disappointed by its lack of sharpness, and have ignored it ever since–until now.  Spurred into action by the challenge of making it work, I contemplated: how can I take advantage of the apple mint’s sweetness and turn its erstwhile weakness into an advantage?

I found my inspiration in the varietal’s very name, apple mint.  I substituted walnuts for the pine nuts I had been using, added apples into the vegetable mix, and supplemented the golden raisins with dried cranberries; in addition to using apple mint for the final garnish.  The result was more pleasing to the eye (as a result of the spark of color provided by the dried cranberries), and was also quite possibly even tastier than the original.

Quinoa Pilaf featuring Apple Mint

• 1 cup quinoa
• 1/2 cup walnut pieces
• 1 medium onion, diced
• 2-4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 carrot, cut to fine brunoise
• 1 apple, cut to fine brunoise (I used a wealthy apple)
• 1/4 cup mixed golden raisins and dried cranberries
• 1 1/2 cups vegetable stock (the apples provide enough moisture that a full 2 cups of stock is a bit more than necessary)
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 12-18 leaves fresh mint (apple mint does a great job, though other mints would work just fine, too)
• cooking oil
• salt and pepper

Rinse quinoa in three or four changes of water to guarantee that all of the bitter seed covering has been washed away (most commercially available quinoas have been pre-rinsed, but it’s worth it to make certain that the entire coating is gone).  Drain in a fine mesh sieve for 3-5 minutes before using.

Toast walnuts in hot, dry skillet, tossing constantly to make certain that they do not burn.  As nuts start to display a golden brown color and release a rich aroma, pour off to the side and reserve as a garnish.

Add thin layer of oil to bottom of pan and saute onion, garlic, and carrot with salt and pepper to taste.  As vegetables soften and begin to display a hint of golden brown, add the diced apples, and follow them up in short succession with rinsed and drained quinoa, dried fruit, stock, and cinnamon stick.  Cover, reduce heat, and let simmer 15 minutes.

Roll mint leaves the long way and slice into thin ribbons (chiffonade).  Stir mint and walnuts into finished quinoa.  Taste, adjust seasonings, and serve.