In-between days

Around here, spring tends to come in dribs and drabs--a splash of sunshine here, a smattering of blooms there. It takes a while for the season to gather momentum, to really come into its own. In some ways, these first few weeks are the ones I like best. The first shoots out of the ground, the first lacy blossoms on the trees--spotting these on walks around the neighbourhood makes me want to skip to the end of the block. Spring! It's here! It's here! There's something so good about the newness of it all. 

But like I said, the season's momentum is slow to gather. Like right now, it feels just about like spring. It's warm enough to throw open all the windows, and when passing through the yard, it's hard not to crush a few violets underfoot. They've got it carpeted. But most of the farmers' markets in town have yet to open, and even when they do in the coming days, it might be a while before there's much more filling the stands than asparagus and pea shoots (which is not to say that I have anything against either). So, yes, I'm being impatient. But after months and months of brassicas--roasted, braised, and pan-fried--how can you not be? There comes a point in the year, however short-lived, when it's hard to even look at another cabbage.

But, in these in-between days, cabbage is what you can count on. So here is something to help you wait out the days--Nigel Slater's chicken broth with pork and kale. Now, I can't go so far as to say that it tastes like spring--that would just be a bit of a stretch--but it doesn't quite recall the depths of winter either. An in-between kind of dish. For, though that ruffled kale afloat in broth has an unmistakable wintriness to it, the meatballs do not. These are rolled together with generous handfuls each of parsley, mint, and scallion, as well as a bit of fresh chile for kick, then seared golden in a hot pan and finished in the broth. The effect is something bright and fresh, something powerfully enlivening--enough to slough off the last of winter's drabness and make you forget (at least for a little while) that you are waiting.

Chicken Broth with Pork and Kale

Adapted from Nigel Slater's Tender

Note: As Slater says, you can substitute the kale leaves for savoy cabbage, and I get the feeling that I might have preferred it that way. I also bulked up the leftovers the next day with some cubes of boiled potato, which rounded things out rather nicely.

PORK BALLS

400 g / 14 oz ground pork

2 small, hot chiles

4 scallions

2 garlic cloves

6 bushy sprigs of parsley

6 bushy sprigs of mint

1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt

A little vegetable oil

SOUP

1 liter / 4 cups chicken stock

125 g / 4 1/2 oz kale leaves (from about half a bunch)

Remove any tough stalks from the kale leaves and tear into rough pieces. Bring a medium pot of salted water to a boil and blanch the kale for a minute or two, then drain and set aside. Give the pot a quick rinse.

Put the pork in a mixing bowl. Finely chop the chiles and add them with their seeds to the pork. Slice the scallions, discarding the roots and the very darkest tips of the leaves. Peel and mince the garlic, and add with the scallions to the pork. Pull the parsley and mint leaves from their stems and chop coarsely, then add them to the pork with the salt. Mix everything thoroughly with your hands and form into about sixteen balls, about 1 1/4 inches in diameter.

Warm a thin slick of oil in a cast-iron pan and cook the pork balls, in batches if needed, until toasty on all sides, about 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, in the same pot the kale cooked in, bring the stock to a boil and season with salt and pepper. Lower in the pork balls and then decrease the heat and simmer for 5-7 minutes, until they are cooked through. Add the kale to the soup and serve immediately.

Serves 3-4.

Breakfast that takes care of itself

Around here, breakfast tends to get the least of our attention. More often than not, it's a rushed affair. What matters is that the steady drip, drip, drip of coffee gets underway and that one of us coaxes Morning Edition from the crackle of the radio (we always seem to be losing our signal). Even on weekends, we don't linger long in the kitchen at breakfast time. I, anyway, feel most pressed in those early hours to tackle something and not let the day slip away. I have patience, enormous patience, for the sometimes slow-going, often messy stretches of making a good meal--just not at breakfast time. I get fidgety, almost anxious, for instance, hovering over the stove, flipping pancakes. It feels like an eternity passes between cracking the eggs and getting to the bottom of that big bowl of batter. So, around here, we stick mostly to buttered toast and the occasional bowl of oatmeal.

But, there are, of course, mornings on which I feel that something a little more special is in order. And lately, that hasn't at all been a problem. I've had a stash of honey-cinnamon scones in the freezer to dig into.

These are not your run-of-the-mill scone. Their texture is a bit surprising, not quite like what you might expect. There's a pleasing heft and crumbliness to them, which is delicate, melting, even. And then there's the cinnamon-honey butter that marbles the scones. The bits that find their way to the edges give those bites a special crackle and sweetness. And, rather conveniently, these scones are meant to be baked straight from the freezer. On pretty well any morning, you can probably manage to get these to the table and do whatever else you need to in order start your day. For the scones, all you have to do is get the oven ready, and they will take care of themselves. I like breakfasts that take care of themselves.

These scones come from Bouchon Bakery Cookbook. I've only had it for a couple of weeks, but I think that it's set to become my new favourite baking book. It is beautiful and staggeringly comprehensive. There is a whole section dedicated to pâte à choux. There are not one but two madeleine recipes. And, most exciting of all, there is a method for generating steam in home ovens (always a problem for bread baked at home) that calls for river rocks, chains, and a Super Soaker. The book, in this way, while certainly detail-oriented and technique-driven, doesn't take itself too, too seriously. Its tone, also, is patient and reassuring. There are lots of explanations and technical advice scattered throughout the book, but none of it feels overwhelming. I, anyway, am ready to fill a hotel pan up with rocks and chains and bake some bread soon.

Cinnamon Honey Scones
Adapted, just a little, from Thomas Keller and Sebastian Rouxel's The Bouchon Bakery Cookbook

Note: The measurements. As Keller explains, the measurements are a bit crazy-looking but only because the recipe has been scaled down for home use. The glaze. Though the scones are better with the glaze brushed on top, I have skipped it when not inclined to add another pan to my pile of dishes.

CINNAMON-HONEY CUBES
30 g / 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
30 g / 2 1/2 tablespoons granulated sugar
4 g / 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
30 g / 1 ounce cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/4-inch cubes
20 g / 1 tablespoon clover honey

SCONE DOUGH
152 g / 1 cup + 1 1/2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
304 g / 2 1/4 cups + 2 tablespoons cake flour
12.5 g / 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
2.5 g / 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
91 g / 1/4 cup + 3 1/2 tablespoons granulated sugar
227 g / 8 ounces cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/4-inch pieces
135 g / 1/2 cup + 1 1/2 tablespoons heavy cream
135 g / 1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons crème fraîche

HONEY BUTTER GLAZE
45 g / 3 tablespoons + 2 teaspoons butter
20 g / 1 tablespoon clover honey

For the cinnamon-honey cubes. Place the four in a medium bowl. Sift in the sugar and cinnamon and whisk to combine. Toss in the butter cubes, coating them with the dry mixture. Using your fingertips, break up the butter until there are no large visible pieces. Using a spatula, mix in the honey to form a smooth paste. Press the paste into a 4-inch square on a sheet of plastic wrap. Wrap tightly and freeze until solid, about two hours or for up to 1 week.

For the scones. Place the all-purpose flour in the bowl of a stand mixer and sift in the cake flour, baking, powder, baking soda, and granulated sugar. Fit the mixer with the paddle attachment and mix on the lowest setting for about 15 seconds to combine. Stop the mixer, add the butter, and then on the lowest setting, pulse to begin incorporating the butter. Increase the speed to low and mix for about 3 minutes to break up the butter and incorporate it into the dry mixture. If any large pieces of butter remain, stop the mixer, break them up by hand, and mix just until incorporated.

With the mixer running, slowly pour in the cream. Add the crème fraîche and mix for about 30 seconds, until all of the dry ingredients are moistened and the dough comes together around the paddle. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl and the paddle and pulse again to combine. Remove the bowl from the mixer.

Cut the cinnamon-honey butter paste into 1/4-inch cubes and add them to the scone dough. Mix them in by hand. They may begin to break up a bit in the dough, but that's okay. Mound the dough on your work surface and, using the heel of your hand or a pastry scraper, push it together. Place the dough between two pieces of plastic wrap and, using your hands, press it into a 7 1/2-by-10-inch block, smoothing the top. Press the sides of your hands against the sides of the dough to straighten the edges. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for a bout 2 hours, until firm.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Using a chef's knife or a bicycle cutter, cut the block of dough along its length into thirds and then crosswise into quarters. Arrange the dough on the parchment-lined sheet, leaving space between them. Cover with plastic wrap and freeze until solid, at least 2 hours, but preferably overnight. The scones can be stored in the freezer for up to 1 month. (If storing them long term, be sure to wrap them well or, once frozen, transfer them to an air-tight freezer bag.)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (or 325 degrees F if using a convection oven). Line a sheet pan with parchment paper. Bake for 27-30 minutes (or 20-23 minutes, if using a convection oven), until golden brown.

For the glaze. Stir the butter and honey together in a small saucepan over medium-low heat until the butter has melted and combined with the honey. 

As soon as the scones come out of the oven, brush the tops with the glaze. Set the sheet pan on a cooling rack and cool completely.

The scones are best on the day they are baked, but they can be stored in a covered container for 1 day.

Makes 12 scones.

You make strides

Things have been a little crazy around here lately. I've started a teaching-assistantship and find the dance of students' pens across paper as I speak a little disconcerting. I'm just not used to having anything I say aloud seem important enough for people to be taking notes. And I've been putting together my dissertation committee, which has also been a little terrifying. See, the dissertation, up until about now, hasn't been much more than a mythical beast. Sure, you start grad school knowing that this is what it all leads up to, writing a small book's worth of sound and original ideas, meticulously argued for. And, sure, you see the people around you, very smart people, muddling through. But, for you, it remains just a smudge on the horizon, like, when you were much younger, the prospect of growing up and leaving home--something you knew you would have to do someday but that for the time being was pretty well unfathomable. And so you're able to assure yourself that when you get there, you'll be ready. You'll be so much better read. You'll have it all figured out. And then one day, you wake up to find that you don't know where the days went, that you still don't feel quite ready, but that someday is now, the very day stretching before you. Like I said, a little terrifying. But a little exhilarating too.

In this way, starting to work on a dissertation is, I imagine, a lot like some of life's other milestones, the ones that we know to expect but never really feel ready for. Like turning 30. I'm not there yet, but a good friend of mine is as of this week. And leading up to it, he was, as far as I could tell, fine with it. But either way, I thought that he might appreciate a few macarons.

For this, I turned to Pierre Hermé's Macaron. I've had a copy for almost two years now (thanks to my friend whose birthday it was, incidentally), and working from it is still for me as daunting, as exhilarating as ever. This, admittedly, has something to do with the fact that I don't make macarons very often. Pastry bag in hand, I always feel like I'm at least a little out of practice. But this aside, making macarons from this book for me always has the feel of something like a high-wire act. You put a lot in at the outset--blanching and grinding almonds to a fine powder, aging egg whites, making ganache, and, in this case, candying some lemon peel--but then it all comes down to just a few moments in the process, and there's the sense that it'd be all too easy to misstep.

So why do it at all? It's not for everyone, admittedly. But I like the challenge. I like the constraints. On that narrow a wire, you only find ways to get better at what you're doing. You make strides. And, in particular, this time around, I just really wanted to know what a macaron avocat-citron would taste like. The avocat part is the ganache--mashed avocado whisked bit by bit into cream and melted white chocolate, then chilled until it attains a luxurious thickness. The citron part is candied lemon peel--bright little gems cooked with vanilla bean, star anise, and sarawak peppercorn, at the centre of each macaron. The overall effect is something marvellous, multidimensional. It starts with the avocado, whose presence is quiet and vegetal, adding a certain softness to the sweetness of the ganache. Then comes the pop of the candied peel--citrusy, bitter, floral. And like any good macaron, it has a way of almost disappearing before you know it, leaving behind just a few bright green shards of shell.

At my friend's party--a sprawling, unhurried sort of Sunday brunch--the conversation at one point turned to what it's like being in your thirties (most of the other attendees were already there). Another friend offered up the following insight--that what was important when turning 30 wasn't so much having everything figured out but being in a good place. And with friends, mimosas, and macarons abound, my friend, I thought, wasn't off to a bad start.

I don't pretend to be a macaron expert. Like I said, I don't make them nearly often enough. (And it shows!) So, if you're looking for pointers, Not So Humble Pie is a good place to start. 

Macaron Avocat-Citron

Adapted from Pierre Hermé's Macaron

Special equipment: scale, candy thermometer, stand mixer, pastry bags, no. 11 piping tip. About the aged egg whites. Hermé recommends that a week before you plan to make the macarons you separate the requisite amount of egg white from the yolks and age them in the fridge. Place them in a small container, cover it with plastic wrap, and puncture the plastic a few times with a sharp knife. After four to seven days in the fridge, the whites will lose their elasticity, making them easier to whip up and less likely to get over-beaten and dry. About the couverture chocolate. By definition, couverture chocolate is chocolate that is at least 32% cocoa butter. For the first time this time, I had some Valrhona Ivoire on hand. I can't say definitively whether it was the Valrhona, but this ganache set up far more nicely than the last Hermé ganache I made with Callebaut. About the food colouring: I've been using this set from Williams-Sonoma for my last few batches of macarons. The colours are pretty limited, but I haven't been dedicated enough to track down a fancier line.

CANDIED LEMON
4 lemons, preferably organic
500 ml water
250 g granulated sugar
1 star anise
5 black sarawak peppercorns
1/2 vanilla bean
2 tablespoons lemon juice

MACARON SHELLS
150 g finely blanched and ground almonds
150 g powdered sugar
55 g aged egg whites
1 g lemon-yellow food colouring
2 g pistachio-green food colouring
+
150 g granulated sugar
38 g water
55 g aged egg whites

AVOCADO-LEMON GANACHE
1-2 ripe avocados
25 g lemon juice
Pinch of sea salt
50 g heavy cream
Zest of a quarter lemon
250 g couverture white chocolate, preferably Valrhona

DAY ONE: Bring a medium pot of water to a boil. In the meantime, rinse and dry the lemons. With a sharp knife, trim the ends and cut off the skin from top to bottom in strips, taking a good centimeter of lemon flesh with them. Put the strips in the water, return to a boil, and cook for 2 minutes then drain. Repeat this blanching process two more times with fresh water each time.
Crush the peppercorns. Place them in a medium saucepan along with the water, sugar, lemon juice, and star anise. Split the half vanilla bean in two along its length and scrape the seeds into the pan. Add the empty pod. Bring the mixture to a boil over low heat. Add the lemon strips. Simmer gently on medium-low for about one and a half hours, partially covered. Pour the zests and syrup into a bowl and let cool. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and leave in the refrigerator until the following day.
DAY TWO: Place the candied lemon in a strainer over a bowl and let drain for about 1 hour. Then cut to a 3mm dice.
Meanwhile, prepare the ganache. Cut the avocados in two and remove their pits. Scoop out the flesh with a spoon and mash. Weigh 150 g of mashed avocado (set aside the remaining for another use) and stir in the lemon juice and salt. Heat the avocado in a small saucepan over a very low flame. Stir continuously until the purée reaches 40-50 degrees C / 104-122 degrees F. Remove from heat.
Unless using féves, give the chocolate a rough chop. Put the chocolate in a heat-proof bowl over a pot of simmering water to melt. Stir occasionally. In a small saucepan, bring the cream to a boil and add the lemon zest. Pour the cream over the chocolate and then begin adding the avocado purée, a little bit at a time. Whisk vigorously to prevent the ganache from breaking. Once the avocado is fully incorporated, pour the ganache into a wide heat-proof dish and cover with plastic wrap, touching it to the surface of the ganache to prevent a skin from forming. Chill in the refrigerator until thick and creamy, 3-4 hours.
Prepare the macaron shells. Sift the ground almonds and powered sugar into a large bowl. Stir together the food colouring and one 55 g portion of egg whites in a small dish. Add these to the almonds and sugar but do not mix them in.
In a small saucepan, bring the granulated sugar and water to a boil. Keep the sides of the saucepan clean to prevent the sugar from re-crystallising by brushing them with a wet pastry brush. When the syrup reaches 110 degrees C / 230 degrees F, begin whipping the second 55 g portion of egg whites using a stand mixer. When the syrup reaches 118 degrees C / 244 degrees F, slowly pour the syrup into the whites, letting the syrup run down the sides of the bowl so that it doesn't splatter. The whites should have barely formed soft peaks at this point. Continue whipping the whites on high speed for one more minute. Reduce the speed of the mixer to medium and continue whipping the whites for about 2 minutes. The whites are ready when they've cooled to 50 degrees C / 122 degrees F. Add the whites to the powdered almond mixture and fold in, running your spatula under the mixture and turning it over onto itself. Continue working the batter in this way until it reaches the right consistency. It will be the right consistency when it falls off the end of the spatula in a thick ribbon and sinks into the batter in the bowl. If the batter holds its shape, it needs to be worked for longer. Batter with this consistency won't produce smooth shells.
Put the macaron batter in a pastry bag fitted with a no. 11 tip. Pipe shells around 3.5 cm in diameter, spaced at least 2 cm apart on a parchment-lined half-sheet (doubled with another half-sheet for insulation). Let the shells stand for 30 minutes, and meanwhile, preheat the oven to 180 degrees C / 356 degrees F. Bake the shells for 12-14 minutes. Let the shells cool for at least 30 minutes before lifting them from the parchment.
Assemble the macarons. Fill a pastry bag fitted with a no. 11 tip with the avocado. Pipe a generous amount of ganache on half of the macaron shells. Add three or four candied lemon cubes to each ganache-topped shell. Sandwich these with the remaining shells. Leave the macarons in the refrigerator for 24 hours. Remove from the refrigerator 2 hours before serving.
Makes about 36 macarons.

The flavours they remembered

A few weeks ago, Luisa wrote about Oma and Bella, a film about two women--best friends, Holocaust survivors, splendid home cooks--and their life in the kitchen. Regina and Bella (the filmmaker, Alexa Karolinski, is Regina's granddaughter, making Regina her Oma) live together in Berlin and spend their days in bright kitchen smocks hovering over simmering pots of borscht, rolling up stuffed, oversized cabbage leaves, and filling tins to the brim with sparkling cream-cheese cookies. The film, though about their lives now, is permeated with their past. The food that they prepare day-to-day is the same food they grew up eating. Now, I don't have any personal connection to any of this--to that very dark part of history, to post-war Germany, to the culture and traditions that survive with Regina and Bella. But you certainly don't need to to appreciate the film or to want to cook everything from the beautiful little book of recipes that Alexa has put together.

What I find most remarkable about Regina and Bella's cooking is that it is all pieced together from childhood memory. They alone from their respective families survived the camps, and they'd been too young at the time to learn to cook. So, after the war, they taught themselves from the flavours they remembered. And this is the same food that they cook today, that connects them to a past of which there are otherwise very few tangible traces. (In the film,  Regina and Bella tell us that any survivors who were able to save family photos were very lucky.) So leafing through the cookbook, having the sweet smell of slow-roasted onions fill my kitchen (these onions are at the heart of Regina and Bella's cooking), feel to me like something of a privilege. I feel terribly lucky to be able to cook this food at all, and I am so glad that Alexa took on the project of turning their handfuls into half-cups so that we might all share in it.

Regina and Bella are firm believers in keeping their freezer well-stocked--as in, they are always prepared to feed a serious crowd with almost no notice. I really admire that. It always feels reassuring to have at least a few goodies stashed away. My own freezer stock was not (and still isn't) nearly as impressive (chicken stock, pork stock, gelatin purée, ground turkey, two sausages, marrow bones), so when my copy of the cookbook arrived in the mail, I decided to start with Regina and Bella's pierogis, with the hope of adding to it.

But I'm afraid that my freezer stock of pierogis is already nearly gone. I made a double batch, hoping that the pierogis would turn out well. But really, I should have made a quadruple batch at the very least. These pierogis are so, so good. The filling is super simple, just onion and potato. You cook down diced onions on gentle heat to a golden, sticky mass. This can take some time--over an hour in my case--but the onions don't need your undivided attention. And in the interim, you can also boil and mash a few potatoes for the filling and pull together the pierogi dough. The dough, by the way, isn't at all fussy. It can get a little dry once rolled out if you don't work quickly enough, but that is easily remedied with moistened fingertips. It will hold shut during cooking with some good, firm pinches and doesn't suffer after being handled a lot. Admittedly, with the onions to cook down, the dough to prepare, and the assembly, making these pierogis can feel like quite the production. But they are definitely worthwhile, especially if you make a big batch to stash away.

The cookbook suggests that you serve your pierogis with meatballs. We ate ours alongside braised red cabbage spiked with apple-cider vinegar and caraway seed. Alexa also says in the book that her Oma has been known to chase her pierogis with homemade pickles and shots of vodka. I just don't have the constitution for that sort of thing, but what women Regina and Bella must be!

Potato and Onion Pierogi

Adapted from Oma & Bella, The Cookbook

Note: You may end up with a little extra filling--I had maybe a 1/4 cup leftover--but I wouldn't expect this to be much of a problem. Even cold out of the fridge a day later, it was very good.

FILLING:

2 large yellow onions

125 ml / 1/2 cup vegetable oil

700 g / 1 1/2 lb starchy potatoes (about 3 medium ones)

Salt and pepper to taste

DOUGH:

380 g / 3 cups all-purpose flour + more for dusting

125 ml / 1/2 cup water

2 large eggs

Large pinch of salt

TO FINISH:

Scallions or chives, thinly sliced

Sour cream

Finely dice the onion and fry it in the oil in a large, heavy-bottomed skillet on low to medium-low heat until dark-golden brown, about 1 hour. Meanwhile, peel and boil the potatoes in a large pot of salted water until tender, about 20-25 minutes, depending on the size of your potatoes. Drain the potatoes and return them to their pot with the heat on medium, then mash them (doing things this way will help to rid the potatoes of excess water). Remove the onions from the oil with a slotted spoon (don't toss the oil--save it to fry the pierogis in or for some other use) and combine them with the mashed potato in a large bowl. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

In a large bowl, mix the flour, water, eggs, and salt with a fork until a rough dough forms. Turn the dough out onto a clean surface and knead for 5 minutes as you would pasta dough, pushing the dough away from you across the work surface with your palms and then balling it up and repeating this, using flour as necessary to prevent the dough from sticking. Cover the dough with plastic wrap or an overturned bowl for 5-10 minutes to let the dough relax. Then roll out the dough until it is only a couple of millimetres thick, again using flour as needed (it helps to have a bench scraper handy and to use it lift the dough from your work surface occasionally to prevent sticking). Use the rim of water glass or a biscuit cutter about 3 inches in diameter to cut circles out of the dough.

On each circle, place a tablespoon of the potato filling. Fold the dough over itself to form a semi-circle and seal the edges with damp fingers, pinching firmly. Place finished pierogis on a flour- or cornmeal-dusted baking sheet. (Be sure to gather up the dough scraps and re-roll them for a second or even third round of pierogis. Just keep this remaining dough covered while you're busy with assembly.) At this point you can either freeze the pierogis on the baking sheet until firm and then seal them in a bag in the freezer for later use or proceed as follows.

Bring a medium-sized pot of salted water to a boil. Place the pierogis in the boiling water. When they float to the surface, they are ready. Drain in a colander.

In a skillet over medium heat, fry the cooked pierogis, a few minutes per side, until golden brown. Serve hot with scallions and sour cream.

Makes about 30 pierogis, enough for 4-6 people as part of a larger meal.

Backwards arithmetic

Sometimes, I daydream about food, about flavours and colours that might well meet on a plate someday, that could just take a liking to each other. But most of the time, the sorts of thoughts about food that occupy me aren't so elevated. They are as practical as can be, driven by questions like `What to do with that neglected crust of bread?', `Is the parsley too far gone?', and `Can that cabbage be stretched to make a little lunch tomorrow?'. These, I take it, are just the sorts of day-to-day thoughts that occupy almost any home cook worth her salt. She does a sort of larder arithmetic to make as much as she can of what she has, especially of the odd scrap or two leftover from meals long cooked and eaten. It isn't glamorous, but there's an art to it (one that mothers and grandmothers seem to have down pat).

Well, that is the sort of arithmetic that I do most of the time. Every now and then, though, I get it a little backwards. I bake a loaf of bread, hoping for a few stale slices at the end of the week to blitz into crumbs. I devise ways of using up egg whites, thinking to add to my stash of yolks in the freezer. That sort of thing. Not terribly out there but still a little backwards. But my most recent round of such arithmetic--I don't think it can be described as anything but very backwards. Up until last weekend, you see, I'd been thinking a lot about whole chickens--about riding across town with them on the bus, about roasting them with garlic and paprika, about braising them with caramelized onion and cardamom rice--but all that, truth be told, was secondary. What I was really thinking about were their backs, necks, bones, and wing tips. I was in it for the stock, you see. I needed five pounds of such bits, and let me tell you, that's a lot of bird to collect, bird by bird. So there was a lot of scheming done on my part and a lot of chicken dinners from January on. (I have to confess--I eventually got impatient and bought some extra necks to supplement what I had.)

But this is not a story about stock. It in fact is about dumplings--soft, pillowy, parsnip dumplings. I first made them back in January with their intended broth. And for a vegetable broth, it was pretty good. Ottolenghi promised depth, and there was some. But I am just not a vegetable-broth kind of girl. For me, vegetable broth just never has enough depth, enough savour, to really hold its own. The carrots, the onion--they add a lot of sweetness, and there's nothing to counterbalance that. But I loved the parsnip dumplings and wanted to make them again. All I needed was a broth to really carry them. So that's how I ended up riding the bus home with whole chickens, how I ended up amassing a freezer full of chicken odds and ends, how I ended up spending most of Sunday morning perched on a stool, peering over a giant, steaming stock pot packed with those odds and ends.

All I can do is hope that these efforts do as much to illustrate how very good these dumplings are as they do how crazy I sometimes get. I won't even try to encourage you to follow my lead as far as the stock goes. I'll just say that these dumplings deserve good broth (vegetable or chicken, whatever pleases you) and that they're worth a little extra effort.

But for those of you curious about the stock, I was following the recipe from The French Laundry cookbook, which makes about 5 quarts (Keller claims 6) from five pounds of bones, an optional pound of chicken feet (that's about 9), and a mirepoix of carrot, onion, and leek. I am not quite sure what the chicken feet added, and given that they weren't exactly a bargain (oddly enough), I might try the stock without them next time. As written, the recipe produces a beautiful, pale gold stock. It is a bit subtle, but that isn't too surprising, given that in the restaurant it's intended to play a supporting role in risottos and the like. You can, of course, reduce it to good effect. This definitely won't be the last you'll hear of stock around here. I have my eye on a couple of other interesting-looking recipes.

Parsnip Dumplings

Adapted, just a little, from Yotam Ottolenghi's Plenty

Note: You can get away with making the dough in advance, but it doesn't keep well past a day. It starts to lose its cohesion and won't hold its shape very well in simmering water. But if you want to get the prep out of the way and cook the dumplings a little later, make the dough as directed and chill but don't add the baking powder until you're just about ready to cook the dumplings. Otherwise, they won't float to the surface.

DUMPLINGS

225 g russet potato (one small one), peeled and diced (half-inch dice)

180 g parsnips (about 3 modest ones), peeled and diced (half-inch dice)

1 garlic clove, peeled

2 tablespoons butter

70 g / 1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 rounded teaspoon baking powder

50 g / 1/3 cup semolina

1 egg

Salt and white pepper

TO SERVE

4 cups good-quality broth, preferably homemade

1 small carrot, cut into half-inch-wide batons and cooked until tender or reserved from homemade stock (optional)

Parsley, chopped

Cook the potato, parsnips, and garlic in plenty of boiling salted water until soft, 8-10 minutes. Drain well. Wipe dry the pan in which the vegetables were cooked and put them back inside. Add the butter and sauté on medium heat for a few minutes to get rid of the excess moisture. While hot mash them with a potato ricer or masher. Add the flour, semolina, egg, and some salt and pepper and mix until incorporated. Chill for 30-60 minutes, covered with plastic wrap.

Heat the broth and taste for seasoning. In another pan, bring some salted water to a light simmer. Dip a teaspoon or small scoop (something with a release mechanism will make things easier--the dough is on the tacky side) in water and use it to spoon out the dumpling mix into the water. Once the dumplings come to the surface, leave to simmer for 30 seconds, then remove from the water with a slotted spoon.

Ladle the hot broth into bowls. Place the dumplings and carrot, if using, in the broth, garnish with parsley, and serve immediately.

Serves 4.

That pâte à choux magic

There are the things that you outgrow, and then there are the things you know you never will. The former, for me, include wild hair colours, teenage crushes, the (over)use of twenty-dollar words, and cookies-and-cream anything; the latter, wooly scarves, long road trips made in the right company, French philosophy, and honey crullers.

The cruller has always been my favourite doughnut. I love its delicate egginess, its impossible airiness, the crackly glaze that clings to its winding, golden ridges. It, for me, is doughnut perfection. So, naturally, I was excited to see that it was among the doughnuts featured in this month's Saveur (for those of you haven't seen it yet, it is a veritable doughnut extravaganza). Before this, it hadn't occurred to me to even try making crullers at home. How, after all, would you be able to reproduce those distinctive ridges, that airy structure, in your own kitchen? Saveur had answers. A star piping tip! Pâte à choux! Actually, now that I think about it, it seems kind of obvious. Pâte à choux is the egg-rich pastry dough out of which éclairs, gougères, and gnocchi parisienne are made. You start, typically, with water, butter, sugar, and salt over the stove and add to that flour and then eggs to pull together a pretty soft, unassuming dough. But when that dough hits heat it puffs, airy, golden, ethereal. So, really, it should have come as no surprise that crullers are made out of pâte à choux. They have that same magical quality about them.

So I was all set to make my first crullers until I looked at the ingredients list. Vodka? Instant potato flakes? Now, I'm not one to baulk at an unusual pâte à choux, but I at least want an explanation. The head notes, however, said nothing, and I just wasn't feeling that adventurous. But I still wanted crullers, so I took this as an excuse to get a book I've wanted for some time, Lara Ferroni's Doughnuts.

Leafing through the book, I almost got sidetracked. There are so many doughnuts in it that I'd like to make. Apple-cider doughnuts made with graham flour, picarones, which are Peruvian winter-squash fritters, crème brûlée doughnuts--they all sounded fantastically good. But in the end, the thought of those swirled ridges, that pâte à choux magic, it got to me.
Deep-frying, admittedly, can be intimidating. That oil, after all, gets very, very hot. But common sense, a deep, heavy-bottomed pot, a deep-fry thermometer, and a spider skimmer are all you really need to keep things safe. And besides, making doughnuts is fun, especially with a friend in the kitchen to help out. For these crullers, one of you can pipe rings of pâte à choux onto squares of greased parchment, while the other takes care of the frying. It's pretty straightforward. Really, there isn't much at all  standing between you and a dozen fine and lofty crullers.

And now that I've made these crullers, I'm really curious about the recipe printed in Saveur. Has anyone tried it out? Can anyone tell me what the vodka and potato flakes do?

Honey Crullers

Adapted, ever so slightly, from Lara Ferroni's Doughnuts

Note: About the piping tip. I used an Ateco no. 846, which is actually a closed-star piping tip. The equivalent open-star tip is the Ateco no. 826, but I couldn't find one of these in time. The only difference between the two, as far as I can tell, is that the closed-star tip produces more pronounced ridges in the pastry, which isn't a bad thing at all in this case. About the frying oil. I used canola oil, but I'm not sure that I would again. Though canola is a fine frying oil for some things, it isn't all that neutral, and with these doughnuts at least, its flavour was more noticeable than I'd have liked it to be. Ferroni recommends safflower oil, and I second that. About the parchment squares. If you end up with enough pâte à choux to make more than 12 crullers like I did, you might find yourself short on parchment squares. I reused a few. They were a little crinkly from the hot oil, but that didn't really pose much of a problem for piping.

1 cup water

85 g / 6 tablespoons butter

2 teaspoons sugar

generous 1/4 teaspoon salt

135 g / 1 cup all-purpose flour, sifted

3 large eggs, at room temperature

1-2 large egg whites, at room temperature and slightly beaten

Vegetable oil for frying

Honey glaze (see below)

Place the water, butter, sugar, and salt in a small heavy-bottomed saucepan and bring to a brisk boil over medium-high heat. Add the flour and stir with a wooden spoon until the flour is completely incorporated. Continue to cook and stir for 3 to 4 minutes to steam away as much water as possible. The more moisture you can remove, the more eggs you can add later and the lighter your pastry will be. The mixture is ready when a thin film coats the bottom of the pan.

Move the mixture to the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Although you can mix the pâte à choux by hand, this can be rather arduous, so use a mixer if you have one. Stir the mixture for about 1 minute to allow it to cool. Then mix on medium speed and add the first egg. Let it mix in completely and then scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add the remaining eggs, one at a time, and mix in completely. Add the egg whites, a little at a time, until the paste becomes smooth and glossy and will hold a slight peak when pinched with your fingers. Be careful not to add too much egg white or your crullers will become heavy. Transfer the batter to a pastry bag fitted with a 1/2-inch star piping tip.
To fry the crullers, heat at least 2 inches of oil in a heavy-bottomed pot until a deep-fry thermometer registers 370 degrees F. While the oil is heating, cut out twelve 3-inch-by-3-inch squares of parchment paper and lightly grease them. Pipe a generous ring onto each square. When the oil is hot, gently place one cruller at a time in the oil, paper side up. Remove the paper with tongs. Fry on each side until golden brown, 2-3 minutes. (Undercooked crullers will collapse while cooling, so observe the first one, and if this happens, increase your frying time and check the oil temperature for the rest.) Remove with a spider skimmer or slotted spoon and drain on paper towel for at least 1 minute. Leave on a rack to cool. Once cool to the touch, the crullers can be glazed.
Alternatively, you can bake the crullers. They will have slightly firmer crusts than fried ones. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and pipe the crullers onto it, at least 2 inches apart from one another. Bake for 5 minutes, then reduce the heat to 350 degrees F and bake for another 15 minutes. Turn off the heat, open the oven door slightly and let the crullers sit in the cooling oven for 5 to 10 minutes. Remove, dip in glaze, and cool on a rack until the glaze has set.
Makes 10-15 doughnuts.

Tips for using a pastry bag. To fill the bag, first fit the bag with the tip and then tuck some of the bag into the wide end of the tip. This will prevent whatever you're filling the bag with from running out the tip as you fill. Second, roll down the sides of the bag a bit so that when you transfer your filling to the bag, it doesn't end up all near the wide opening where your hands will be. You'll just make a mess trying to squeeze its contents towards the tip. If you're working alone, stand the empty bag up in a tall glass to keep it steady as you fill. Regardless, a tall glass can be helpful if you need to put the bag down at any point in the middle of piping. Finally, with the bag filled, twist the wide end of the bag shut and hold it there with one hand (use your other hand to support and guide the bag by holding the bag closer to the tip). With the bag twisted and held this way, you should be able to easily force the filling through the tip.

Honey Glaze
From Lara Ferroni's Doughnuts

150 g / 1 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted
1 tablespoon honey
3 to 4 tablespoons milk water

Place the sugar in a medium bowl and slowly stir in the honey and milk, a little at a time, to make a smooth, pourable glaze.

You have to engage

 

"We're sensorily deprived right now in modern life. Our eyes are engaged--sometimes our ears--but our bodies? Not so much. These aren't just bags of bones we're carrying around." -- Michael Pollan in Lucky Peach no. 6.

Smoked ham hock rillettes. This one might be a hard sell, not because making a few jars is particularly difficult but because--there's no point in trying to hide it--it's messy and time-consuming, a real process as far as a recipe goes. You cannot but get your hands (and your kitchen) dirty. But that's also what I enjoy about making them.

You might roll your eyes. Grad student. Too much time on her hands. But that's not what this comes down to. On weeknights, I'm all for ease and convenience, for meals that practically cook themselves and hardly leave a trace. But those aren't the meals that draw me to the kitchen. They're not the reason I cook. I cook to engage myself, to use my hands, to make messes and learn a thing or two in the midst of making them. These aren't, of course, the most basic reasons for being in the kitchen, but they are the ones that make cooking a pleasure, whatever night of the week it may be. And it's good, I think, to remind ourselves of this once in a while and cook something demanding, something that draws us in. And these rillettes, they do that.

Rillettes traditionally are a coarse-textured, rich spread made from a fatty cut of pork, duck, or goose. The meat is gently braised, finely shredded, and then mixed with fresh herbs, spices, and the flavourful liquid in which it was braised. Pretty straightforward. The result is something like pâté but less fussy. These particular rillettes, however,  come from the good people at Mission Street Food and so, unsurprisingly, part with tradition. 

The hock is pretty lean as far as cuts of pork go. In fact, it's mostly skin, bone, and connective tissue. So that's where things start to get messy with these rillettes. Once the hocks have been cooked, you need to get at what little meat there is. And there's no getting around this, you need to use your hands. Bits of  meat are often tangled up with connective tissue and hard to spot, so what you need to do is break down the hocks by hand and feel your way through them, pulling soft tissue from bone, picking out the meat as you go.

But why use smoked hocks in the first place, why go through all that trouble for so little? Because what smoked hocks lack in flesh and fat they make up for in flavour and collagen. Remember all of that skin, that sticky connective tissue? Even after four hours of simmering, these are still steeped through with woodsy, smoky flavour. And just as important, they're rich in collagen. Collagen is all about texture. It's basically what gelatin is made out of. It's the stuff that gives homemade stocks their satiny, rich mouth-feel. So, naturally, that skin and connective tissue don't go to waste here. You whirl them in the blender with a splash of stock from cooking the hocks and push that through a sieve. And there you have it, smoky gelatin purée.

Now, this, I think, is where things get demanding. It isn't that anything gets difficult. It's just that your attention, your judgement is called for. You have to engage. Let me explain. At this point, you'll have all of your components lined up. From the hocks, you'll have meat, pork stock, and gelatin purée. You should also have some rendered pork fat (yes, lard) on hand to supplement what you have, since ham hocks are so lean. Then there are the seasonings. Quatre épices, a blend of white pepper, nutmeg, cinnamon, and clove, is traditional. Crushed garlic, dijon mustard, sherry vinegar, and fresh thyme leaves aren't out of place either. Salt, needless to say, is important. (As printed, the MSF recipe is loosey-goosey. Very helpfully, it calls for 'spices'.) The meat goes into the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. What happens next is more or less up to you. Each of the components will contribute a particular flavour and/or texture to the finished rillettes. How you prioritize them is a matter of preference. What this means is that you have to taste and tweak as you go. You have to ask yourself: does this need more fat? Is it getting too dry--should I add some stock? Could it use more acidity, more vinegar, maybe? Like I said, you have to engage. And little by little, you'll get to something that pleases you, that makes you beam.

So what I like about making these rillettes is that it's very physical, very involving. It's all about you feel and what you taste. This is no dump-and-stir exercise. There's no crossing your fingers, hoping that things have turned out. How things go is on you. It's a little scary, for sure. But it's also utterly liberating. I don't cook like this very often. I lean a lot on good cookbooks, regimented quantities. And on most days, that's all I feel I have the time for. But once in a while, I think, this is just the sort of thing you need to do.

Smoked Ham Hock Rillettes

Adapted from the Mission Street Food Cookbook

Note: About the seasoning. I stuck with fairly traditional seasonings, but you shouldn't feel limited to these. Look at other rillettes recipes for guidance. It'll be hard to go wrong. For example, I flat-out forgot to add mustard. My feeling is that juniper might be a nice addition. About the pork fat. There's no need to spring for anything as fancy as leaf lard for these rillettes. Save the good stuff for pies. But do take the trouble to find yourself some good, unprocessed fat. Try your favourite butcher. About the quantity of hocks. I got away with using just over 3 lbs of hocks but only because one of them was extra meaty. It would probably be wiser to use closer to 4 or 5 lbs. Shelf life. Sterilizing your jars will help the rillettes keep for longer in the fridge. Both Nigel Slater and Jane Grigson advise pouring a layer (half an inch or so) of melted pork fat over the rillettes if you're not planning on eating them within a few days.

3-5 lbs meaty smoked ham hocks (see above)
2.5-3 quarts chicken stock, pork stock, dashi, or water
1-2 cups rendered bacon or pork fat, plus more to cover (see above)
2 tablespoons or so sherry vinegar
1 tablespoon thyme leaves
1 1/2 tablespoons or so quatre épices
1 large clove garlic, crushed
Salt

Gently simmer the ham hocks in the chicken stock, pork stock, dash, or water.

After about 4 hours, the meat should be very tender. Cool the entire pot until you can handle the hocks. Drain and reserve the stock. (At the end you'll have plenty of stock left for cooking greens, or just for sipping.)

Pick the ham hocks apart by hand. Separate the meat from the skins and soft collagen. Reserve both. (The edges of the ham hocks can become dried out and tough from the smoking process or from not being fully submerged in liquid. Move the hocks around periodically as they simmer, and discard any parts that may be too tough to rillette. Discard any tough skin, bones, and weird gristle.)

Blend the skins and collagen with just enough stock to get the mix going (probably about 1/4-1/2 cup), creating a gelatin purée. Strain the purée through a fine sieve, using a lade or spoon to push it through.

Combine the meat and some of the purée, fat, vinegar, and spices in a stand mixer. (The ratios of fat-to-meat-to-gelatin will vary, depending on how you prioritize richness (fat), unctuousness (gelatin), and moisture (stock). Taste as you mix; add the salt, vinegar, mustard, and your spices, herbs, or garlic until you reach the desired balance.) Mix using the medium-low setting and the paddle attachment of your mixer. For best results, mix the rillettes at the temperature it will be served.

Store in glass or ceramic jars and chill in the fridge until ready to serve. Serve with good bread, pickles, a sharp salad, or even some tart fruit preserves. Consider stuffing any that remains in baked potatoes, as Nigel Slater suggests.

(In addition to the ham-hock stock, there'll be lots of leftover gelatin purée, which you can use to enrich anything from meatballs to gravy. If you're not quite ready to jump into another meat-centric project, it's okay to freeze the purée for later use.)

Serves 12-16 as an appetizer. (Fills about four 200 g jars.)