Friday, March 8, 2013

Backwards arithmetic

Parsnip dumplings
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).
Parsnips and potato Diced vegetables Dumpling dough
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.
Parsnip dumplings in broth
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.

24 comments:

  1. Your dumplings look absolutely incredible!! I love Plenty and have read through this recipe before, but never tried it. Going to have to soon!!

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  2. Parsnip dumplings! What a great idea. (I never know what to do with them.) I'm not much for vegetable broth either. I prefer chicken (probably because I know how to make it!). Great visual of you dragging chicken bodies across the city ...

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    1. I adore parsnips, but it's rare that I find an occasion for them. Good broth and these dumplings, though--that changes things.

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  3. Haha, I am subject to some very "backward" thinking sometimes too. Like I really want to make ribollita but I feel like it lessens the appeal its humble roots by actually making it out of humble leftovers. I would love to be the type of grandmother/mother cook that is resourceful and yet always makes everything delicious... I'm sure we're both on our way!

    And this is awesome. Sounds strange and I don't think I'd ever pick it out (always a good sign that I actually should pick it out and try it haha).

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    1. god if you can understand that first paragraph, you're way more clever than I am. Sorry it's so bad!! (not so coincidentally just had my first draft of my thesis due today-- all out of coherency I guess)

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    2. I think I get the gist of it, maybe? (It's understandable--when I spend long periods writing, I tend to blurt out more silly nonsense than usual.)

      But it is difficult to be resourceful in the kitchen. Oftentimes, I find myself with more odds and ends after trying to deal with the ones I had. It's a terrible cycle!

      Soup dumplings like this (though not made with parsnip) seem to be a pretty common Romanian thing, and I do really like parsnips, so these stood out for me right away. It was just the wrong season for them when I first got ahold of Plenty.

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  4. I saw your post yesterday evening, and picked up a few parsnips at the farmers' market today. I hope they find their way into these dumplings, I'd love to make them.
    I just reread An Everlasting Meal, for the 5th time maybe, and always when I read it it makes so much sense to go buy a bunch of vegetables at the market, bring them home and prepare them all at once. But then I forget to do that, usually after a week or two of actually doing it. (Oh and today I bought parsley mainly to have to stalks to use them in stock. I kind of feel a bit crazy, too)
    But preparing the vegetables ahead might make it more simple to throw together dinner on the nights both Michael and I get home kind of late and just want to eat and not really cook.

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  5. I am always doing that - driving across town to the good bakery to buy croissants...so I can stale them and make bread and butter pudding. Shocking, but who cares when you enjoy your food, right? ....right?

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    1. I get Panettone cheap after Christmas - best bread and butter pudding.

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  6. Hello Katie,
    It's funny, sometime ago I also posted the parsnip dumplings from Plenty on my blog! And I agree, even though the vegetable stock is quite good, there is nothing in the world that beats a rich, flavorsome chicken stock.
    Beautiful post and pictures!

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  7. Just saw you were highlighted on The Wednesday Chef in the Friday Link Love post this week. Yah! :)

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    1. Just between you and me, I maybe did a little dance in my living room when I saw it.

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  8. I can't believe that I've never stumbled across your blog before, but I'm happy that I did today! It's beautiful. I just wanted to let you know that adding chicken feet to your stock lends it a silky texture due to the high collagen and gelatin content. You should try looking for feet somewhere else - my farm sells them for $2 a pound!

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    1. Thanks, Lisa. I figured that that was what the feet were for, but it's hard to discern that with this stock, just because it's a light stock meant mostly for supporting roles, like in risotto, etc. I'm sure that if I reduced it, the gelatinous quality would be more evident. Anyway, I will have to look into another source for chicken feet. I bought them from a butcher who gets his chickens from Gunthorp Farms, so these feet were, from what I understand, from some pretty good chickens, which maybe explains the price?

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  10. I *always* put chicken feet in my stock, but I'm very lucky to have a big market near me that has a few Asian butchers, so they're never expensive. Also good for chicken carcasses, and wing tips (all trimmings from those folks who only ever buy breast meat and such). The feet definitely make the stock jelly up overnight in the fridge.

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    1. Yeah, my neighbourhood is kind of lacking in that department. Keller's stock isn't very concentrated, so the feet don't quite seem to have that effect. However, I do have my eye on another recipe where the stock is definitely meant to solidify overnight, so hopefully I'll get to that soon!

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  11. I totally understand and often practice "backwards arithmetic" myself (thought I was the only one). I'm obsessed with stock; Julia's beef & veal, Lidia's minestrone, Mario's brown broth, multi-day chicken stock made the first day with water & the second day with that broth & another fresh chicken. I know, I'm crazy, but it's fun when you find something great.
    First time visiting your blog (from The Wednesday Chef link). I can't wait to make these dumplings.

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    1. Hm, I will have to have a look at those recipes! Making stock at home is something relatively new to me, since I've only gone back to eating and cooking meat at home somewhat recently (a year and a half now).

      Thanks for stopping by!

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  12. Just found your blog tonight via The Wednesday Chef and love it! I'm also a philosophy grad student (18th century Scottish Philosophy) with a focus on epistemology and so I might have done a little fist pump when I read your "about"-text.
    All the best, Nanna

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    1. Hooray, philosophy! (Being in grad school kind of just lends itself to cooking and the development of other such "crafty" interests, don't you think?) Do you work on Hume? He's the only 18th century Scottish philosopher I can think of, apart from Adam Smith.

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  13. I stumbled upon your blog thanks to the Wednesdaychef's mentioning you in a recent post and I am so glad I came across your blog (I may have just spent my lunch break reading most of your posts!). I love the way you write, I totally identify with the daydreaming and ingredient arithmetics you write about and am excited to hear about more of your kitchen challenges!

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    1. That's very flattering, Sophia. Glad to have you reading along!

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  14. Love it Katie! Love it :) Gongrats on The Wednesday Chef mention!!! :)

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