Coeur à la Crème

I saw this on a cooking show a while ago and have wanted to make it for some time. Mostly because I couldn't imagine what it tasted like (and that rarely happens). It's basically a cream heart that tasted like fortified whipped cream, with the consistency of maybe a baked custard, with just a tiny bit of lemon and lots of lovely vanilla. You must not skimp on the vanilla bean!

I made it with my mom when my parents were visiting. We used this recipe, but had strawberry sauce instead of the raspberry.

You do need some special equipment, namely a heart-shaped mold that acts like a sieve.

The cream has to sit overnight and drain so it kind of packs down and begins to set together. It turns from a thick whipped cream to something you can cut and serve with a spoon (i.e., it holds its shape). I was out of cheesecloth but a thin cotton (no terry cloth) kitchen towel worked just fine.

It's pretty sweet but depending on what kind of sauce you make, you can cut that sweetness with sour.

Poached Eggs

I have never made nor have I ever eaten a poached egg. I stick to scrambled. But gws wanted eggs Benedict for his birthday and, since he doesn't ask for much, I had to oblige. I don't have a fancy egg poacher or even one of those silicone poach pod thingies, so I had to do it the old fashioned way: drop an egg into simmering water and, with great speed and delicacy, push the white over the yolk to make a graceful little pillow. To my great surprise, I only screwed up the first one. I spent too much time futzing around with the whites and THEN started the timer for 4 minutes. That yolk was cooked solid by the time it was done. The others were much easier and I received a great big thumbs up when gws cut into his egg and a golden gush of yolk spilled out.

What I didn't realize is that you can kind of make all the components to this dish, save the toasted English muffin, ahead of time. I cheated and made the Hollandaise sauce in the blender because I just couldn't be bothered with another possible failure. But the eggs can basically sit in cold water until they're ready to be reheated (in a bowl of salted hot water). And you can reheat the Hollandaise sauce too. So really, just toast the muffin, throw the ham or Canadian bacon on the skillet for a few minutes, and assemble everything. Not too shabby. I had one to try too and it wasn't that bad! I thought of it more as a sauce rather than a runny egg yolk.

*Both the poached egg instructions and blender Hollandaise sauce are courtesy of Madame Child. Merci!

Grapefruit Meringue

gws and Moses made me this delicious (looking) pie today to celebrate a grant I received. (It has to chill but I'm sure it tastes great.) I've never made lemon meringue pie or anything like it. So when we started it seemed very exotic. But as we went along, I saw behind the curtain and realized it's basically grapefruit curd topped with meringue. There's nothing wrong with that--it's just so simple. I wonder why I've never made it before considering my new found love for meringue. The grapefruit bit is inspired though. Here is the recipe. We took extra care to scallop the top so it looked fancy.

gws is also making vegetable stock. In an effort to save money, resources, the planet, and our waistlines, we are going entirely vegetarian and eat lots of vegetables. So we have lots of vegetable scraps. Turns out you can save those things, add water to cover, a couple garlic cloves, peppercorns, bay leaves and other herbs and make your own stock. Not too shabby. Simmer for a few hours. Strain. Done.

Pavlova

I recently learned this is a popular dessert in New Zealand. It may have even originated in Kiwi country. It's a giant meringue topped with whipped cream and fruit.


I read cookbooks with the same voracity as a 13-year-old boy consumes pulp fiction, and have seen recipes for lots of different versions--passion fruit, raspberry, pomegranate, guava. Today Florida strawberries are in season and plentiful, so that's what we had. You can even miniaturize them, plopping down small, 3-inch rounds instead and choosing different fruit toppings to suit the individual eater. This might be a better option in the future since 4 of us could only finish half of the behemoth pictured above. And once the whipped cream is piled on, it doesn't look like it will hold its cripsy integrity for 24 hours.

Making a pavlova is easy and most can be done ahead of time. I cooked the meringue earlier in the day (but theoretically could have made it decades ago), whipped up the cream a few hours before dinner along with the strawberries and sauce, and assembled everything after the meal in about 2 minutes. The meringue bakes such that the center is chewy and lovely, almost like a marshmallow, while the edges are crisp and dissolve as soon as they hit your tongue, like a delicious, sugary cloud-pillow. It's not alarmingly sweet if you are easy on the sugar in the whipped cream and fruit. Since the strawberries were tart, I added some sugar, lemon juice, Grand Marnier, and let them sit for a few hours. I also made a strawberry sauce to drizzle over that was a happy accident. I left some strawberries on the stove with sugar, lemon juice, and Grand Marnier. And then completely forgot about them while I did laundry. The result was a reduced, thick, pungent, slightly tart sauce that balaced the raw sugar and alcohol taste of the uncooked, macerated strawberries. Not bad.

Here is the recipe I used. It's in How to be a Domestic Goddess by Nigella Lawson. The mini version is in the same book. But really, any recipe would be similar. If you want to be very authentic, look for a version from New Zealand's Edmonds Cook Book. Nigella's serves 10-16 people depending on greediness. One could easily halve the recipe and be fine for 4 people.

Frenchified

It may not look pretty, but its porky goodness will make you forgive its rough exterior (and the unfortunate lack of color saturation in the photo). This is paté de campagne, or French country paté. I've never been big on the meat/liver spreads but this was more like fancy meatloaf so I gave it a try. It's very very good.

It is this recipe. I pretty much trust anything Molly Wizenberg makes. Or writes about.

If I were to make it again--I'd buy more bacon. The way you layer the bacon is a little unclear in the prepration instructions. If you want the bacon to go all the way around the loaf, you'll need more than the 12oz. listed. Likewise, I just cut the pieces in half for the short side and kind of stuck them to the sides of the pan to cover the ends. You need to make sure the bacon overlaps or you'll never get the loaf out. It's pretty fatty and takes some cleaning up to make it look presentable, but I think it's worth the effort.

Never omit the cognac and try to get local, fresh pork. Ours is from a farm in the area called Caw Caw Creek.

Ginger-Choco-Nana Bread

This combination is very very good. You can either follow this recipe at Orangette, or you can make the banana bread recipe below and add 1 cup of chocolate chips and 1/4 cup roughly chopped crystallized ginger pieces. I think I will do the latter when next I make this. I found the Orangette bread recipe to be a bit crumbly, whereas the James Beard version is like floating on a cloud. A lovely banana-scented cloud.

As with all quick breads, it's important not to overmix. So never make this in a stand mixer.


James Beard's Banana Bread recipe
(adapted from Beard on Bread)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter a 12 x 4 1/2 x 2 1/2-inch loaf tin.

1/2 stick of butter
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup honey
2 eggs
1-1/2 cups mashed, very ripe bananas (about 3)
1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup chocolate chips
1/4 cup roughly chopped crystallized/candied ginger pieces

Cream butter with a wooden spoon. Add the sugar and honey and beat till creamy and light. Add the eggs, one at a time, then thoroughly mix in the bananas. Sift together the flour, soda, and salt and blend into the mixture. Fold in the chips and ginger.

Pour batter in prepared loaf tin. Bake for 1 hour or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.

The nice thing is that when it bakes, the ginger gets all warm and soft and loses some of its sharpness. It works very nicely as well with the chocolate. Which I would not have immediately guessed.

Successful Pumpkin Pie

The pie worked. It was delicious. The cooking time exceeded that of the recommended duration in the recipe but it was otherwise very simple and much better than the evaporated milk version. Lighter, more custardy, and not quite as treacly sweet (which is good) but I thought it needed more nutmeg and maybe some cloves. Next time...

I used this recipe. But made it with this pastry pie crust instead. I had lots of left over pastry dough so I cut out some fancy leaves for the top. Very professional.