BOOK/A TABLE - The Bronx Cocktail

 

The Mondrian hotel in Miami Beach used to have a vending machine in their soaring lobby where, with the swipe of a credit card, you could readily purchase various sundries such as an engagement ring, an intimacy kit—or for somewhere around $75K, the keys to a brand new Jaguar or Porsche (I don’t remember exacty which)!

My dealings with that machine were of a more humble nature. I purchased an attractive copy of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s This Side of Paradise and brought it home where it then sat on a shelf for years along with my best intentions of reading it. I was so glad I finally did. It’s beautifully written, often stunningly so in its depiction of the callow Amory Blaine as he tries to sort out things (anything!) in the world of the Lost Generation. I’m guessing Holden Caufield might have found his roots here. 

It’s extraordinary to think that Fitzgerald was only 23 when he wrote this debut novel with such incredible inventiveness of the form—incorporating poems, playscripts, songs, and of course, a fair amount of liquor. 

In one late-night scene, Amory and a bunch of his friends ditch Princeton and head to the Jersey Shore. (None of them, by the way, have so much as a dime on them.)

“They strolled along the boardwalk to the most imposing hostelry in sight, and, entering the dining-room, scattered about a table.
‘Eight Bronxes,’ commanded Alec, ‘and a club sandwich and Juliennes. The food for one. Hand the rest around.’
Amory ate little, having seized a chair where he could watch the sea and feel the rock of it...”

Ever had a Bronx cocktail? Instructions below. Cheers then to a lovely sip for summer and the Great F. Scott!

Bronx Cocktail
Adapted from Liquor.com

Ingredients
2 ounces gin
1/4 ounce dry vermouth
1/4 ounce sweet vermouth
1 ounce orange juice, freshly squeezed
1 dash orange bitters (optional)

Steps
Add the gin, dry and sweet vermouths, orange juice and orange bitters into a shaker with ice and shake until well-chilled.
Double-strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

BOOK/A TABLE - Plum, Raspberry, and Tarragon Soup

I was fairly obsessed with the sheet of four perforated recipe cards included in each issue of Martha Stewart Living, back when the millennium was still new. These recipes could be made individually or used to compose a full meal, such as this dinner I made from a full sheet of recipe cards featuring chicory salad, chicken livers, polenta with bacon, and roasted pears.

Here I present a fine Plum, Raspberry, and Tarragon Soup pulled from one of the cards dating back to June of 2001—I don’t know what happened to the others that accompanied it, but we recently rounded out our dinner by pairing the soup with fresh corn and Shake ’n Bake pork chops!

Although I haven’t been able to find any good blueberries this summer, strawberries certainly have been fantastic and I hope you can find some juicy plums. Bailey White’s witty commentaries on NPR led to her charming debut novel Quite a Year for Plums, where she wrote of a peculiar cast of small town characters in south Georgia and a bumper plum crop...

“‘Quite a year for plums,’ everybody kept saying, but that didn’t begin to describe the plum crop of that early summer...in every household people were eating plums and baking cakes with plums, cooking up plum jam and plum jelly, or just raking up mounds and piles of rotten plums, and getting stung by yellow jackets.”

When making the recipe, try hybrid plums (such as golden plumcot or plumogranate plumcot varieties). The sweetness of the plums, tart raspberries, and added depth of flavor from tarragon all conspire to make this sprightly soup really come alive. I also recommend making it the day before you intend to serve, and let the ingredients get to know each other overnight in the fridge. 

My comments below in italics.

Plum, Raspberry, and Tarragon Soup

Adapted from marthastewart.com
Serves 4

Ingredients

1 1/2 lbs (about 6) ripe red plums, plus one plum, skin on and cut into 1/4-inch dice for garnish
6 oz raspberries, plus more for garnish
1 cup white wine
6 tablespoons sugar (2 tablespoons should be plenty)
3 sprigs tarragon, plus more for garnish
2 tablespoons triple sec, Cointreau, or Grand Marnier (tthis is optional, but I used Grand Marnier. Perhaps try orange zest for something less sweet!)
1/4 cup water

Method
1.  Bring a medium pot of water to a boil. Add plums; blanch until skin begins to peel, 2 to 3 minutes. In the meantime, fill a large bowl (a metal mixing bowl witl help keep the water cold) with ice and water; set aside. Remove plums from boiling water; place in the ice bath until cooled. Once cool, remove plums from ice bath, reserving ice bath.

2. Peel plums, remove pits, cut into chunks, and place in a medium saucepan. Add the raspberries, wine, sugar, tarragon, triple sec (if using), and add 1/4 cup water and another 1/4 cup of the water used to blanch the plums to the saucepan; cover, and bring to a simmer over medium heat. Reduce heat to medium low, and allow to simmer until plums are falling apart, 15 to 20 minutes. Remove from heat, transfer to a clean bowl (again, using a metal mixing bowl will help with the chilling process), and place in the reserved ice bath, stirring occasionally, until cold.

3. Remove tarragon sprigs from cold mixture, and transfer mixture to a blender. Puree, working in batches if necessary. Strain mixture with a fine mesh strainer into a bowl to get rid of those pesky raspberry seeds. Serve (in your favorite soup bowls, glass mugs, or tall glasses) and garnish with diced plum, raspberries, and tarragon.

Sangria & Ceviche

Whether or not you actually do get a kick from Champagne, enjoy sippin’ on gin and juice, or simply prefer wasting away in Margaritaville, a good sangria full of ice and fresh fruit is perhaps the best way to drink up summer. Add a ceviche to the mix and you’ve got not only dinner and drinks, but a seasonal celebration of flavor as well.

The sangria recipe below is courtesy of Martha Stewart, but the ceviche comes from an Ecuadoran woman who works with my husband and often shares her delicious homemade dish with the office!

Sangria
Adapted from marthastewart.com
Serves 6-8

Ingredients
1 ripe Peach, pitted and sliced
1 red apricot, pitted and sliced
5 strawberries, sliced into thirds, new line 1 seedless orange, sliced in rounds
1/4 cup brandy, Grand Marnier, or Cointreau
Pinch of granulated sugar
1 bottle dry red or white wine, such as Spanish Rioja or Bordeaux
2 tablespoons superfine sugar
2 cups freshly squeezed orange juice

Method

Macerate the fruit: soak peach, apricot, strawberries, and orange in brandy, Grand Marnier, or Cointreau and a pinch of sugar for up to one hour. And a pitcher with some ice combine the macerated fruit and liqueur with the remaining ingredients. Mix well, and serve.  


Shrimp Ceviche
Ingredients
1 lb shrimp
1 red onion
1 green onion
4 to 5 lemons
1 orange
Cilantro
1 tomato
1 teaspoon each cumin and oregano
1 celery stalk
Extra virgin olive oil
1 1/2 cups water
Pinch of salt

Method
1. Cut off the shrimp heads and put them to boil with the water. After they boil, add cumin and oregano into the water with a little bit of salt. Cut up cilantro and green onion and add this to the boiling water as well.

2. Proceed to clean the rest of the shrimp with lemon. Devein shrimp by cutting down the middle of the shrimp’s backs and put the clean shrimp to the side.

3. Take off the heads of the shrimp and add the clean shrimp into the boiling water for 10 seconds and quickly take out before they overcook. Leave these to the side.

4. Turn off the heat for the boiling water and add the water to a blender and add the shrimp heads only as well. Pulse this until everything is just liquefied. After, strain the mixture into a bowl, only liquid in the bowl.

5. Afterwards, cut the red onion in fine slices and tomatoes and squares. Put it in a large bowl and add your pinch of salt and lemon juice and the strained mixture from the previous step. Mix these all together well.

6. Once mixed, add in a little bit of orange juice to the mixture. Lastly, add your shrimp into the mixture and mix until well combined.

7. Serve with rice to enjoy (or any side dish you wish to accompany) and—this is essential—top with corn nuts!

BOOK/A TABLE - A Perfectly Eggsecuted Omelette!

 

While visiting family in New Hampshire, I discovered Brandmoore Farm down the road a piece from my cousin’s house. They had, among other things (such as furls of garlic scapes, steaks and fresh ground meats, as well as chunky cheese curds, and ruby kraut), these gorgeous fresh eggs!

My hubs and I safely carted them back to a steamy Manhattan (unbroken) and as the eggs sat in their glistening shells on the kitchen counter, I quickly set forth to undo our careful packing by cracking a few of them open to make omelettes.

My thoughts had turned to Karen Pierce’s excellent cookbook Recipes for Murder (previously mentioned here), which features 66 delicious dishes devised from Agatha Christie’s mysteries. I seemed to remember something about an omelette...to wit, A Perfect Omelette pulled from the pages of Christie’s Mrs. McGinty’s Dead.

In the midst of figuring out how Mrs. McGinty’s demise was executed, the famous Belgian detective Hercule Poirot must also contend with the perilous kitchen of his hostess:

“I have given Mrs. Summerhayes a cookery book and have also taught her personally how to make an omelette. Bon Dieu, what I suffered in that house!”

The wonderful thing about omelettes is that they can be served day or night. An omelette with toast and orange juice—breakfast! An elegant chive omelette served with crusty peasant bread and a sturdy red wine—dinner! By the glow of candlelight, of course...perhaps with a mystery novel in hand?

A Perfect Omelette
Adapted from Recipes for Murder by Karen Pierce

Ingredients

2 tablespoons salted butter
Two large eggs
2 tablespoons whole milk
Salt and pepper
Mushrooms, grated cheddar cheese, fine herbs, or seafood for filling (optional)

Method
1. In a medium frying pan over medium heat, melt the butter.
2. In a small bowl, crack the eggs and beat well.
3. Add the milk to the eggs and salt and pepper to taste. Mix well.
4. When the pan becomes hot enough to make a drop of water hiss, pour into the egg mixture. Do not stir. Cook for one minute, cover, and cook for three more minutes. (I love the idea of covering the eggs and will always cook omelettes this way! No fussy tilting of the pan; the eggs steam up nice and fluffy.) 
5. When the center has set firmly, turn the omelette over and cook for one more minute.
6. Add filling of choice down the center of the eggs, then gently fold half the omelette over, lining up the edges.
7. Cook for one more minute until the filling warms.
8. Slide the omelette onto a plate and serve.

Look to the Rainbow (Salad)

Please forgive if you received an email from me that you couldn’t open! Something zigged when it should have zagged and a post went out in error.

In other news, Happy Pride! 

To honor the month of Pride and all its colors, Baked by Melissa created a Rainbow Kale Salad in an exciting collab with Royal Greens and online site Wonder, the self-proclaimed “new kind of food hall.”  Wonder is a genius idea, gathering a host of restaurants together in one place. Order a steak from Bobby Flay and finish it off with a cheesecake from Junior's!

Wonder offers food delivery in locations across the country, but I thought to throw open the net so you could try the Rainbow Kale Salad wherever you happen to be. 

Collect your ingredients! You’ll need chopped red bell peppers and tomatoes, shredded carrots, roasted corn and broccoli, sliced cucumbers and purple cabbage, and crispy quinoa. Arrange beautifully on a bed of roughly chopped kale and drizzle with Melissa’s miso vinaigrette, below. 

Miso Vinaigrette
Ingredients
1/3 cup olive oil
2 lemons, juiced
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1/4 cup white miso paste
1/3 cup nutritional yeast
1 tablespoon dried oregano
2 garlic cloves, grated with a microplane
1/2 teaspoon salt

Method

Whisk together all ingredients in a jar or bowl until emulsified. 

 

Fried Chicken Salad

 

I suppose I could have stood over a spluttering, scalding pot of oil and fried my own chicken, but who has the summer time? I hightailed it to Popeye’s instead, chopped up a bunch of their crispy boneless tenders and added them to this immensely satisfying salad courtesy of the Food Network Kitchen. Then I served the whole thing to a few friends on our rooftop sundeck, alongside some tomato and biscuit sandwiches. Divine!  

Fried Chicken Salad
Yield: 6 servings

Ingredients
6 pieces cold fried chicken
2 stalks celery, finely chopped
2 scallions, thinly sliced
1 medium dill pickle, finely chopped, plus 1/3 cup plus 2 tablespoons dill pickle brine
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup buttermilk
1 tablespoon yellow mustard
Hot sauce, for seasoning
Kosher salt
Potato rolls, for serving

Directions
Remove and discard the bones from the chicken. Chop up the meat, with the fried skin, into small pieces (you should have about 6 cups).

Set aside 1 tablespoon each of the celery, scallions and pickle.

Whisk together the mayonnaise, pickle brine, buttermilk, yellow mustard and a couple dashes hot sauce in a large bowl. Stir in the remaining celery, scallion and pickle.

Add the chopped chicken to the bowl and stir gently to combine. Season with salt and more hot sauce if you’d like. Transfer to a large serving bowl and sprinkle with the reserved celery, scallion and pickle. Serve on potato rolls with a few dashes of hot sauce.

COOKBOOK/A TABLE - Cool as a Cucumber

This cooling Couscous and Crab Salad with Cucumber and Mint has been one of my summer go-tos for years, thanks to the brilliant former New York Times food columnist Molly O’Neill (who we sadly lost in 2019) and her cookbook A Well-Seasoned Appetite. As you might guess, the cookbook is divided by season, but also includes superb essays celebrating the virtues of eating well, as informed by O’Neill’s conviction that “cooking should nourish life...”  

Do enjoy!

Couscous And Crab Salad With Cucumber Juice And Mint
By Molly O’Neill

Ingredients
Yield: Four servings

1 cup cucumber juice* 
½ cup uncooked instant couscous
2 cups lump crab meat, picked over for shells
15 small cherry tomatoes, quartered
1 small red onion, halved and thinly sliced
1 tablespoon chopped fresh mint
½ teaspoon grated lemon rind
½ teaspoon grated lime rind
1 teaspoon salt
Freshly ground pepper to taste

Preparation
Step 1
Place ¾ cup of the cucumber juice in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Add the couscous, cover and remove from heat. Let stand for 5 minutes. Uncover and stir with a fork. Place in a bowl and set aside to cool.

Step 2
Add the crab meat, cherry tomatoes, onion, mint and lemon and lime rinds and toss to coat. Toss in the remaining cucumber juice. Season with the salt and pepper. Divide among 4 plates and serve immediately.



*If you have a juice extractor...to make one cup of cucumber juice, pass one large peeled cucumber through a juice extractor. OR—cut to the chase, as I do, and pick up a brand of cold pressed juice that contains cucumber, such as Suja. You may also puree a few peeled, seeded cucumbers and squeeze the pulp through cheese cloth for your juice!

BOOK/A TABLE - Tomato Flan in Florence

I brought E.M. Forster’s A Room with a View with me to Florence as the first part of the novel takes place there. What a thrill to read this upon waking, my first morning in town...

“It was pleasant to wake up in Florence, to open the eyes upon a bright bare room...it was pleasant, too, to fling wide the windows, pinching the fingers in the unfamiliar fastenings, to lean out into sunshine with beautiful hills and trees and marble churches opposite...”

And fling wide the windows I did as well that morning, breathing in all the gorgeous Florentine air, ripe with spring jasmine!

We knew we had to return to Florence’s celebrated Cibreo, one of my favorite restaurants in the world that I know. In particular, I was really looking forward to the simple, luxurious tomato flan (a savory spread similar in consistency to the Spanish dessert flan) meant to be slathered on toasted country bread. Alas, I discovered they only serve it during the summertime, when tomatoes are at their best. 

However, fate intervened when a dear friend took us to Osteria della Tre Panche tucked away in The Hermitage Hotel, a few steps away from the Ponte Vecchio. There I spied Il Budino di Pomodoro on the menu, which translates to “tomato pudding.” Served as an accompaniment to sumptuous chicken with truffled cream sauce, mozzarella in corrozza, and pappardelle with boar ragu, the budino turned out to be more than an ample subsitute for the flan. It was terrific!     

A Room with a View asks a question of its young heroine Lucy Honeychurch, who arrives home to England with a greatly changed perspective—what did you bring back from Italy? 

For me, I returned feeling the sunshine over the Piazza di Signorina still streaming on my face and the lingering scent of jasmine everywhere...I snipped a fragrant blossom and pressed it between the pages of Forster’s beautful novel. 

And oh yes, I brought back a recipe for tomato flan!

Tomato Flan
Ingredients
1 8-ounce can Del Monte or other tomato sauce
12 large basil leaves
2 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil, plus extra for garnish
4 teaspoons unflavored gelatin (about 1 1/3 envelopes)
Salt and fresh black pepper to taste
Vegetable oil
12 slices country bread

Method

In a blender or food processor, combine tomato sauce, 6 leaves basil, garlic, ¼ cup olive oil, gelatin and salt and pepper to taste. Blend at high speed for 2 minutes.
Lightly oil 6 small cappuccino or other cups. Divide tomato mixture among cups. Refrigerate 20 minutes.
To serve, dip bottom of each cup in hot water to loosen flan. Unmold onto 6 plates. Garnish with a basil leaf and a drop of olive oil. Place 2 slices bread on each plate.

Yield: 6 servings.

BOOK/A TABLE - Lemon Sandwich Pie Cookies

 

Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself...

So famously begins Virginia Woolf’s visionary novel Mrs. Dalloway, about a single day (in June!) in the life of a woman as she plans a party and falls into memories of a love from long ago. 

But what if Mrs. Dalloway BAKED the flowers herself? That might be a very different story indeed—and the flowers might be a blooming bunch of these Lemon Sandwich Pie cookies that look like daisies and taste like little lemon meringue pies.

Whenever I’m visiting my family in New Hampshire, I like to pick up a copy of fresh magazine at Hannaford, the New England chain of supermarkets. There’s alway something delicious to be found in the pages such as quiche or cassoulet, or these cookies! Perhaps we can call them Dalloways?

Lemon Sandwich Pie Cookies

Adapted from fresh magazine

Makes 12 to 14

Ingredients
All-purpose flour, as needed
1 (15 oz) package rolled pie crust, at room temperature
½ cup marshmallow fluff
¼  cup store-bought lemon curd
2 TB confectioners’ sugar (optional)

Method

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Lightly dust work surface and a rolling pin with flour. Gently roll one pie crust, soothing out any creases. Using a 2” flower-shaped cookie cutter, cut out 12 to 14 cookies. Repeat with second pie crust.

2. Transfer cookies to parchment-lined baking sheets. Using a round cookie cutter ( 3/4” or smaller), cut out the centers from half of the cookies. Bake until cookies are golden, 10 to 12 minutes. Let cookies cool completely.

3. Spread 2 teaspoons marshmallow fluff into an even layer on each whole cookie. Add ½ teaspoon lemon curd to center a fluff on each cookie. Top with remaining cut out cookies. Dust with confectioners’ sugar, if desired.

MY SUGGESTION: Using a sifter, sift confectioners’ sugar over top cookie layer before placing them on each bottom whole cookie.

God bless Mrs. Dalloway—and Hannaford as well! Happy June, everybody!

This Just In...an Apple Cider Shrub from Westville!

A crisply refreshing seasonal mocktail from Westville! They have several fun, fabulous locations serving cozy fare (buttermilk fried chicken sandwich or strawberry spring salad, anyone?) all over NYC. Visit any one of them to chow down and get your shrub on as well—or make the recipe below at home!

Apple Cider Shrub
Ingredients
1/2 oz apple cider vinegar
1 oz honey syrup
1 oz pear puree, homemade or store bought (such as Goya)
Club soda
Ice

Instructions
Fill a Collins glass with ice, add apple cider vinegar, honey syrup, and top with club soda. Stir gently to mix.

Cheers! And enjoy a delicious sip of spring!


Westville is open for lunch, brunch, and dinner. Go to westvillenyc.com for more info!

Gone Fishin'

While I am away on vacation, thought I’d drop you a line...enjoy this fish dish, a marvellous meunière!

Classic Sole Meunière
Recipe adapted by Molly Wizenberg via Bon Appetit magazine 

2 servings

Ingredients
Fish
1/2 cup all purpose flour
4 lemon sole fillets (each about 3 to 4 ounces)
Coarse kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons vegetable oil or canola oil
2 tablespoons (1/4 stick) unsalted butter

Sauce
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, cut into 4 pieces
2 tablespoons chopped fresh Italian parsley
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
Lemon wedges

Method:
Fish
Place flour in pie dish. Rinse fish; pat with paper towels. Sprinkle both sides of fish with coarse salt and freshly ground pepper. Dredge fish on both sides with flour; shake off excess. Place on platter.

Heat oil in large skillet over medium-high heat until oil is hot and shimmers. Add butter; quickly swirl skillet to coat. When foam subsides, add fish and cook until golden on bottom, 2 to 3 minutes. Carefully turn fish over and cook until opaque in center and golden on bottom, 1 to 2 minutes. Divide fish between 2 warmed plates; tent with foil. Pour off drippings from skillet; wipe with paper towels.

Sauce
Place skillet over medium-high heat. Add butter; cook until golden, 1 to 2 minutes. Remove from heat; stir in parsley and lemon juice (sauce may sputter). Spoon sauce over fish. Serve with lemon wedges.

Thanks to deliciousmagazine.co.uk for the photo!

Shouldn't You Just...?

SHOULDN’T YOU JUST...?

Advice on modern etiquette for the not-so-new millennium.

• Outfit your dining table with a bunch of yellow candles to celebrate spring, even after Easter has come and gone?

• Enliven your summertime drinks with these rosy cocktail picks?

                                            

• Keep a jar of cocktail onions on hand when you find yourself needing the occasional onion? They last for such a long time in the fridge and impart a nice flavor to recipes in a pinch!

                                          

• Burn sprigs of dried thyme and rosemary to add a delicious fragrance to your home? Or as a smoky garnish to your steak, the way French restaurants often do? Not only is thyme believed to bring about strength and clarity, rosemary is thought to be helpful in removing negative energy from the air.

BOOK/A TABLE - Vinegar Chicken

While reading P.G. Wodehouse’s devastatingly witty Love Among the Chickens, I was reminded to pull out one of my favorite cookbooks, Simon Hopkinson’s Roast Chicken and Other Stories, and once again try my hand at the Vinegar Chicken a.k.a. Poulet Sauté au Vinaigre therein.

A friend made Vinegar Chicken for me a few years ago and I’ve never been able to make the dish quite as good as hers...but sometimes, that’s just the way it is. Nevertheless, Vinegar Chicken is still pretty tasty and wonderfully fragrant. 

I’m sure you will at least have better luck making this chicken than Jeremy Garnet (the hero in Love Among the Chickens) had in raising scads of them, after being suckered into the scheme by his dear friend Stanley Featherstone Ukridge, a most unreliable flibbertigibbet and one of Wodehouse’s popular protagonists. 

At this point in the story, things aren’t going so well for Jeremy...

“Personally, I feel as if I should never move again. You have no conception of the difficulty of rounding up fowls and getting them safely to bed. Having no proper place to put them, we were obliged to stow some of them in the cube sugar-boxes and the rest in the basement. It has only just occurred to me that they ought to have had perches to roost on.”

Don’t worry if you don’t have any cube sugar-boxes, a perch, or a basement in which to place your chicken—if it has been properly dispatched, a flame proof casserole will do just fine!

Poulet Sauté au Vinaigre

From Roast Chicken and Other Stories by Simon Hopkinson with Lindsey Bareham

Ingredients 
4 LB chicken, jointed into 8 pieces
Salt and pepper
4 oz butter
2 TB olive oil
6 very ripe tomatoes, skinned, deseeded and chopped
Half pint best-quality red wine vinegar
Half pint chicken stock
Two heaped TBS chopped parsley (or tarragon!)

Method 
Season the joints of chicken with salt and pepper. Heat 2 ounces of the butter and the olive oil in a flame proof casserole until just turning nut-brown. 

Add the chicken and fry gently, turning occasionally, until golden brown all over. 

Add the chopped tomatoes, and carry on frying and stewing until the tomato has lost its moisture and is dark red and sticky. 

Pour in the vinegar and reduce by simmering until almost disappeared. 

Add the stock, and simmer again until reduced by half. 

Remove the chicken to a serving dish and keep warm. 

Whisk the remaining butter into the sauce to give it a glossy finish. (My suggestion, add a teaspoon of vinegar at the end!)

Add 1 TB chopped parsley, pour over the chicken and the sprinkle with the remaining parsley. 

Serve with plain boiled potatoes.

BOOK/A TABLE - The Manderley Cocktail

I just caught up with a great documentary—Becoming Hitchcock: The Legacy of Blackmail—which explores Alfred Hitchcock’s early style and defining techniques developed during his transition to talkies. The doc also ventures into The Master’s use of food, such as the sandwiches in Psycho, the ominously illumined, potentially fatal glass of milk in Suspicion and the dinner menus batted about in Rebecca. The novel Rebecca by Daphne duMaurier is among my all-time favorites and once again I have my high school teacher to thank for introducing it to us in our list of required reading, along with A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.

Rebecca is a mystery foremost, but it’s also a tale of romantic suspense surrounding loss—and what is perceived of as love. The memory of Rebecca, the former mistress at Manderley, haunts the newly married bride who is ill-equipped to take her place as head of the great house. It doesn’t help things that there is an evil housekeeper lurking about (in the form of Mrs. Danvers), still obsessed with Rebecca.

Below is an elegant cocktail based on the novel. In composing his drink, the creator has taken references to the rose garden at Manderley and the civilized sherry served to its guests. There’s also a dash of Campari involved, in a sly nod to Mrs. Danvers’s bitter attitude.

Manderley Cocktail
Serves one

First make rosewater syrup; heat 250 ml (about 8 1/2 ounces) of rosewater to the boiling point in a saucepan. Take it of the heat and stir in 400 ml (13 1/2 ounces) of caster sugar stirring until all the sugar has dissolved. Let cool somewhat and then pour into a clean bottle. Will last 2-3 weeks in the fridge.

Ingredients:
4 cl (about 1 1/2 ounces) cognac
2 cl (about 1 ounce) dry sherry
1,5 cl (about 1/2 ounce) rosewater syrup
1 dash of Campari
Lemonade

Method:
Stir the ingredients in a stirring glass full of ice until well chilled. Pour into a chilled cocktail glass and top with a dash of lemonade.

Do enjoy!

 

BOOK/A TABLE - Blackberry Raspberry Cobbler

I’ve always felt exhilarated after finishing a particularly long book, or one that’s taken me a long time to get around to reading. While Stendhal’s The Red and the Black isn’t exactly short, it definitely falls into that latter category—I’d been meaning to read the book for about 40 years, ever since I heard it referenced in a Stephen Sondheim lyric from A Little Night Music, back when I was in high school and cultivating my love of the muscial theater! I’d never heard of The Red and the Black before that and for some reason it stuck, like a raspberry seed in my teeth.

Certainly, I’m glad to have finally checked Stendhal’s epic off my reading list and yes, I did enjoy it. Throughout the novel, the intriguing hero Julien Sorel is in a constant personal battle between a career in the military (symbolized by red) and the church (black) while juggling a few mesdames and mademoiselles thrown into the mix for an unexpected ending.   

This recipe for a cobbler with red raspberries and blackberries struck me as the perfect homage to the book I’d finally finished—as well as a fantastic finish for any adventurous meal. 

Do enjoy!

Blackberry Raspberry Cobbler
By Lori Lange
Servings: 8 servings

Ingredients
FILLING:
½ cup (1 stick) salted butter, melted
2 tablespoons granulated white sugar
1 medium lemon, zested
3 cups blackberries
1 cup raspberries

BATTER:
1 cup self rising flour
¾ cup granulated white sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
¾ cup milk

Instructions
Preheat the oven to 400°F.

MAKE THE FILLING:
To a 9x13 baking dish, add the melted butter.
In a medium bowl, combine the sugar and lemon zest and rub together. Add the blackberries and raspberries, and toss to coat. Spoon them evenly on top of the butter in the baking dish.

MAKE THE BATTER:
In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Stir in the milk (the batter will be thick).
Spoon the batter on top of the berries. There might be spots it doesn’t cover, and that’s okay.
Bake until the fruit in the cobbler is bubbling up at the edges and a toothpick inserted into the cobbler batter on top comes out clean (about 20 minutes).

 
The cobbler will be too hot to eat when it comes out of the oven, so let it cool for about 30 minutes. Serve topped with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.

 

BOOK/A TABLE - Jellybeans for Breakfast

 

I like jellybeans well enough, but they’re not my go-to sugar fix. I’ll get a bag of Brach’s at Easter, but it’s more out of a sense of duty than a preference (like candy corn at Hallowe’en). It’s the Cadbury creme and mini eggs that are musts for me this time of year when I raid my neighborhood CVS for Easter candy.

However, I love Jellybeans for Breakfast by Miriam Young, first published in 1968. I have the copy I adored as a kid, and from the scribbled-on pages, it appears I was still learning my letters. I also, at some point, tore the cover off.

The story is about two wildly imaginative girls and the fun they dream up during a sleepover. They ride their bikes to the moon, run a flea circus, dress up and drink tea out of acorn cups at a woodland picnic. They even meet the President (who gives them medals and jellybeans—years before it became fashionable in the Regan era!). Naturally, they share bags of jellybeans and after a candlelit dinner with strawberry jam as a soup course, they have them for dessert.

When the friends finally return from all their adventures, both sets of parents welcome them back saying, “But won’t you please stay home? We’re having jellybeans for breakfast.”

In tribute to this charming little book, I still put jellybeans out on my Easter table if I’m hosting the celebration. But more often, I’ll sneak away by myself, reach into a bag of these multi-colored jewels and scarf down an illicit handful on Easter morning.

Won’t you join me in having some jellybeans for breakfast?

BOOK/A TABLE - Silky Carrot Soup with Orange

 

Barbara’s back! Barbara Pym, that is. Having just made the beef bourguinon from The Barbara Pym Cookbook, I happened upon her recipe for Carrot Soup with Orange. Carrots remind me of rabbits, which make me think of Easter and naturally too, of springtime. So I thought this extraordinally flavored, silky, and simply made carrot soup would be perfect for the spring season and Easter’s imminent arrival!

I used rainbow carrots and the purple variety made the soup a little darker, but ordinary carrots will shine even more vibrantly on your table. 

“I thought perhaps a cold meal, but I’ve made one of my soups,” Leonora was saying, “just for your first evening back.”  —The Sweet Dove Died by Barbara Pym

Carrot Soup with Orange
Ingredients:
1 lb carrots, chopped
1 onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
4 tablespoons oil or melted butter
4 cups chicken or vegetable stock
Salt and pepper to taste
Juice of 2 oranges
Grated rind of 1 orange
1 teaspoon brown sugar

Method:
Cook the carrots, onion, and garlic in oil or butter until softened, about 10 minutes. Add the stock, season, and simmer until tender. Puree in a blender or put through a sieve. Add the orange juice and grated rind, and return to stove. Reheat, add sugar, taste, and adjust seasoning. Serve quite hot.

BOOK/A TABLE - Barbara's Bourguignon

 

I previously posted a recipe for a classic—and heavy—beef bourguinon here. The French stew is certainly a sumptuous treat, ideal for winter hibernation. But as we tip-toe toward spring, I’d like to offer a lighter version of a warming bourguinon, perfect for those chilly days that pop up occasionally.

This bourguinon is courtesy of The Barbara Pym Cookbook and unique in that the beef is marinated overnight. It’s simple to prepare and just listen to the young clergyman Basil Branche in Pym’s An Unsuitable Attachment wax romantic as he speaks of the dish:

“Imparadised in one another’s arms,” as Milton put it, Basil went on. “Or encasseroled, perhaps—the bay leaf resting on the boeuf bourguignon.”

I hope you enjoy Barbara’s beef bourguinon—or more properly, Boeuf à la Bourguignonne, beef in the style of Burgundy!

P.S. The Burgundy wine I planned to use was wildly expensive, so I went with a more reasonable Côtes du Rhône that did the trick for less than twenty bucks. 

Boeuf Bourguinon

Ingredients:

1 lb braising or stewing beef, cut and cubes
1 onion, sliced
1 carrot, diced
1 bay leaf
Thyme and whole peppercorns to taste
2 tablespoons oil
2 glasses red wine
Flour
Butter or margarine
½ pound button mushrooms
4 oz bacon, diced
12 small onions, peeled

Method:
Marinate meat, onion slices, carrot, and herbs for 24 hours in oil and wine. Strain marinade and reserve it, discarding solids. Pat meat dry, roll cubes in flour, and sauté in butter or margarine until browned. Place meat in a stewpan. Sauté mushrooms, bacon, and whole onions in butter, then add to beef. Pour reserved marinade all over, cover, and simmer 1 1/2 to 2 hours.

 

Charlotte de Chou

Cabbage? Or chou as the French call it? You probably like it or you really don’t. 

But behold the Charlotte de Chou! Isn’t she gorgeous? I have to admit I was so proud of how my Charlotte de Chou turned out. It tasted pretty good too! I saw the dish being hastily mashed together on Instagram and was intrigued enough that I hastened to find a similar recipe I could make in real time.

Charlotte de Chou is basically stuffed cabbage, but instead of a spiced meat filling as in a Chou Farci, this Charlotte is filled with colcannon, a traditional Irish dish of mashed potatoes.

The result is stunning—resembling a small cask of jade perhaps, a tureen of sorts, or something reminiscent of an ancient reliquary—and with a little patience when dealing with the blanching and careful folding of the cabbage leaves, it’s not overly difficult to make.

I served my Charlotte de Chou in honor of St. Patrick’s Day, but imagine this beauty at Easter, preening elegantly next to your ham or served cold at a summery picnic instead of potato salad, waiting to be sliced open...

...so, let’s see what’s inside!

Charlotte de Chou et de Pommes de Terre (Cabbage Charlotte)

By Wendy Klik  

Ingredients:
1 head, savoy cabbage
2 TB butter, and more for coating the souffle dish
1 medium onion, chopped
1 lb potatoes, peeled and quartered
1 egg, beaten
2 TB milk
salt and pepper, to taste

Instructions:
Butter a souffle dish, line the bottom with parchment and butter again. Set aside.

Remove and wash 4-6 large leaves from the head of cabbage. Place the potatoes in a large pot of salted water and bring to a boil. When the water comes to a boil, add the cabbage leaves and allow to cook with the potatoes for a couple of minutes until a bright green color. Remove the cabbage leaves with tongs and immediately submerge into a bowl filled with ice water. Lower the water to a simmer and cook the potatoes until fork tender, about 15-20 minutes.

Meanwhile, chop half of the head of cabbage. Retain remaining cabbage for another use. Melt the 2 T. butter in a large skillet. Add the onion and cabbage and cook, covered, stirring occasionally while the potatoes finish cooking. If cabbage mixture is golden and tender before the potatoes are finished you can remove from heat and set aside.

Drain the potatoes and return them to the cooking pot. Mash them with the milk, salt and pepper. Add a dollop of the mashed mixture to the egg and whisk together briskly. Add this mixture to the potatoes along with the cabbage mixture and stir to combine completely.

Dry the cabbage leave and place one on the bottom of the souffle dish. Place 4-5 leaves around the sides of the souffle dish, overlapping on the bottom a bit. These leaves can reach past the top of the souffle dish. Fill the lined souffle dish with the potato/cabbage mash. Place the last cabbage leaf over the top of the mash and fold the side leaves over onto the top of the leaf covering the mash.

Place into a preheated 375-degree oven for 30-40 minutes, until heated through. Place a serving dish over the mold and turn it over allowing the Charlotte to drop onto the plate. Remove the parchment from the top and serve.

TV/Dinner - Squid Games

Sometimes, if I didn’t enjoy a dish at a restaurant that I felt should have been really good, I’m left unsatisfied to the point where I then play a sort of game and make the dish at home in an attempt to improve upon it. But what I often prefer is trying to recreate a dish I loved.

I didn’t start watching Squid Games until recently (yes, it’s highly addictive, frequently stunning, and probably dangerously subversive) but was reminded of an evening years ago at Milos in mid-town New York—a soaring space draped in splashes of white with glittering ice banks of fish on display, freshly flown in from Greece. I once enjoyed the most delicious grilled squid there, stuffed with goat cheese, basil, and mint. It was rather pricey, so instead of going back to Milos, I headed down to Chinatown for a bunch of inexpensive squid and made a pretty good version in my own kitchen.

I’ve included a basic recipe for grilled squid from Serious Eats (with a little help from Ina Garten) below and tinkered with it to recreate the fabulous squid at Milos.

Unlike Squid Games, there are no rules to this particular squid game. Play however you’d like! For example, I recently stuffed some squid with a ground salmon burger and grilled that. Opa!

Grilled Squid With Olive Oil and Lemon
Serves 4 

(2 stuffed squid per person)

Ingredients
8 medium whole cleaned squid bodies
Extra-virgin olive oil, for drizzling and serving
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

4 oz goat cheese

2 oz feta cheese

1 heaping TB chopped basil

1 heaping TB chopped mint

1 TB lemon juice
Salt and pepper, to taste

Fresh parsely, for garnish

Directions
1. Rinse the squid tubes and pat dry with paper towels. 

2. Make the Stuffing:

In a bowl, combine well goat cheese, feta cheese, basil, and mint with lemon juice, salt, and pepper.
3. Stuff the Squid:
Carefully spoon (or pipe with a pastry bag) the stuffing into each squid tube, filling about 3/4 full. 
Secure the open ends of the squid tubes with a toothpick.

4. Preheat a grill pan to medium-high heat.

5. Brush the stuffed squid with olive oil and season with salt and pepper and grill for 2-3 minutes per side, or until the squid is opaque and has light grill marks. Avoid overcooking as the squid can become tough.
6. Serve:

Transfer the grilled squid to a serving platter, drizzle with olive oil or lemon juice, and garnish with fresh parsley. Serve immediately.  



Thanks to realgreekrecipes.com for the pic!

For Guinness' Sake!

 

The luck of the Irish sure seemed to be with me when I happened upon Nigella Lawson’s gorgeous Chocolate Guinness Cake: I already had most of the ingredients on hand (including a leftover can of Guinness from the Guinness Beef Stew with Horseradish Cream I’d made). Just thinking of an icing that should “resemble a frothy pint of Guinness” sent me into the kitchen to start baking. This cake a stunner for sure. My suggestions to lighten things up a bit are in italics.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day, everybody!

Chocolate Guinness Cake
By Nigella Lawson

Yield: One 9-inch cake or 12 servings

Ingredients
For the Cake:
Butter, for the pan
1 cup Guinness stout
10 tablespoons (1 stick plus 2 tablespoons) unsalted butter
¾ cup unsweetened cocoa
2 cups superfine sugar
¾ cup sour cream (I used Breakstone Light Sour Cream)
2 large eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
2½ teaspoons baking soda

For the Topping:
1¼ cups confectioners’ sugar
8 ounces cream cheese at room temperature (Neufchâtel has a lower fat content)
½ cup heavy cream (try a few tablespoons of condensed skim milk)

Preparation
Step 1
For the cake: Heat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 9-inch springform pan and line with parchment paper. In a large saucepan, combine Guinness and butter. Place over medium-low heat until butter melts, then remove from heat. Add cocoa and superfine sugar, and whisk to blend.

Step 2
In a small bowl, combine sour cream, eggs and vanilla; mix well. Add to Guinness mixture. Add flour and baking soda, and whisk again until smooth. Pour into buttered pan, and bake until risen and firm, 45 minutes to 1 hour. Place pan on a wire rack and cool completely in pan.

Step 3
For the topping: Using a food processor or by hand, mix confectioners' sugar to break up lumps. Add cream cheese and blend until smooth. Add heavy cream, and mix until smooth and spreadable.

Step 4
Remove cake from pan and place on a platter or cake stand. Ice top of cake only, so that it resembles a frothy pint of Guinness.

BOOK/A TABLE - Baked Lemon Pudding with Blueberry Jam

 

I love it when an author gives a character a memorable “monkey”—a truly great trait or accessory that provides them with an identifiable silhouette and makes an imprint on our hearts: Miss Havisham’s rotted wedding dress, Philip Carey’s club foot in Of Human Bondage, Cyrano’s protuberant proboscis, Hester Prynne’s scarlet letter!

When it came to making this Baked Lemon Pudding with Blueberry Jam I became giddy as a kid, remembering when I was one, picking blueberries with my mother along bristling side roads in Maine. And thanks to Roald Dahl, blueberries will also always remind me of Violet Beauregard, that little brat from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory whose inability to stop chewing gum yielded disastrous results. Here’s what happened to her after eating a stick of Wonka’s gum that wasn’t quite ready yet...

“But there was no saving her now. Her body was swelling up and changing shape at such a rate that within a minute it had turned into nothing less than an enormous round blue ball—a gigantic blueberry, in fact—and all that remained of Violet Beauregard herself was a tiny pair of legs and a tiny pair of arms sticking out of the great round fruit and a little head on top.”

Since the first day of Spring is a week away, I’m pretty sure you should make this pudding in celebration—but it’s not exactly a pudding. Perhaps imagine instead a meet-cute where tart lemon curdy custard and an airy soufflé topping have a fling with blueberry jam. 

Whatever you want to call it, start cracking those eggs and fling yourself into Spring with this luscious dessert. I think it’s best served chilled!

P.S. I would be remiss not to mention Robert McCloskey and Blueberries for Sal, of course.

Baked Lemon Pudding with Blueberry Jam
By Melissa Clark
6 servings

Ingredients
2 tablespoons/28 grams unsalted butter, softened
1cup/200 grams granulated sugar
2 large lemons, zested and juiced (about 2 tablespoons zest and ½ cup juice)
½ teaspoon fine sea salt
3 large eggs, yolks and whites separated
¼ cup/31 grams all-purpose flour
1 cup/236 milliliters whole milk
⅓ cup/about 120 grams blueberry jam
Powdered sugar, for serving

Preparation
Step 1: Heat oven to 350 degrees with a rack in the center.

Step 2: In a large bowl, combine butter, sugar, lemon zest and salt, using a wooden spoon to mash together. Mix in egg yolks, then whisk in flour. Whisk in lemon juice and milk.

Step 3: In a small bowl, stir blueberry jam to loosen.

 
Step 4: Using a whisk, electric mixer or electric beaters, beat egg whites to stiff peaks. Fold into batter.

Step 5: Pour batter into a glass pie dish or shallow gratin dish and use a spoon to top with small dollops of jam. Bake until golden brown on top and just set (a wiggle in the center is fine), about 30 to 35 minutes. Cool for 10 minutes, then use a spoon to serve warm or room temperature with a dusting of powdered sugar.