Two bites

Last night, I had some friends over for a long-due party. Over the summer, if you remember, my boyfriend and I were busy renovating the place we'd just bought. Most of the work was contracted out, but we did our share of priming, painting, patching, and problem-solving--and we couldn't have done that much without the help of our very, very generous friends. They lent us their hands, their tools, and their cars when we needed them. We couldn't be more grateful. So four months after having moved in, we thought it was time that we had them all over for some food and drink.

I took this as an excuse to dive back into Momfuku Milk Bar. Since the party would be a strictly finger-food affair, I thought that this would be the perfect time to make a few carrot cake truffles. The idea is this. Take a heap of carrot-cake scraps (or in my case, bake a carrot cake and set aside the remaining cake for munching), mix them with a few generous spoonfuls of liquid cheesecake (essentially cheesecake underbaked such that it is delightfully spoonable and spreadable), form the cake into rounds, roll the rounds into melted white chocolate, and, finally, give the rounds a nice coating of crunchy, buttery milk crumb (think cookie crumbs but made milkier with a little milk powder and more white chocolate). Think of a carrot cake truffle as a good slice of carrot cake compacted into two heavenly bites.

And your cake truffles don't have to be made out of carrot cake. I think that this method would work with pretty much any sort of leftover (but still good and fresh) cake you might have lying around. Just remember the basics: cake, a few spoonfuls of something to moisten it, plus chocolate and something crunchy to coat. A little messy, admittedly, but not too complicated.

Now, you may have noticed that I'm a little Milk-Bar-obsessed. Ever since the cookbook came out last October, I've been gushing almost non-stop about Milk Bar and Christina Tosi. And this won't be the end of it. There is so much more of the book that I want to bake out of. So, consider this a little side project of mine. I'll still keep up with my regular posts, but every now and then, I might share some photographs from a Milk Bar undertaking like this one.

I'll be back soon to write about another one of the finger foods from last night.

Sumptuousness for the new year

If I'd had things my way, I'd have woken up late New Year's Day to a bowlful of this minestrone--warm, nourishing, vegetal, and earnest. I'm a firm believer in starting the year with a good soup. After all that splendid holiday fare--the roasts, the potatoes, the mounds of sweets--it's exactly what I need. 

And that was especially true of this past holiday in particular. Christmas was one thing, but New Year's Eve was really something else. My boyfriend and I were visiting with his parents, and they'd invited a few people over to celebrate. You have no idea how much we ate. We set the table no less than three times over the course of the evening. We had three dinners that night, each broken up with a few drinks, some cards, and a little pool. First came the meatball soup, the piles of smoked and cured meats, and a kale salad. Then there were cabbage rolls (glorious), sausages, and a luxurious cabbage gratin. Finally, as we rung in the New Year, there was a pork loin, potatoes, and Brussels sprouts on the table. (And of course there was dessert.) The Romanians know how to run a feast (but I should have known that already).

The next day, there were leftovers galore, so I waited until I was back in Chicago to make this much-needed soup. Now, ordinarily, I wouldn't bother making my own vegetable stock. But I wanted this soup to be positively virtuous, so homemade stock it was. And after a string of lazy days, it felt right. All that scrubbing, peeling, and chopping was meditative, renewing--and well worth it, besides. The stock gives the minestrone its depth, sweetness, and complexity. It's the heart of this soup, really. It makes it just about as sumptuous as any humble vegetable soup can be. And at the start of the year, that's all the sumptuousness you might really need.
Happy 2012, friends.

January Minestrone

Adapted from Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone

Note: Make ahead. As with many soups, this minestrone just gets better in a day or two. If you aren't serving it all at once, only blanch as much chard and cook as much pasta as you'll need immediately. You risk overcooking them otherwise. Umami. Don't overlook the parmesan. The vegetables can't do it all on their own. The parm gives the soup the satisfying kick of umami it needs. Vegans, you'll have to make up for it in good-quality soy sauce or tamari. Parmesan rind. You can also improve the depth and flavour of any vegetable broth by adding the rind from a wedge of Reggiano. Think of it as the vegetarian's ham knuckle.

2 tablespoons olive oil, plus more to finish
2 cups finely chopped onion
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1/4 cup chopped parsley
4 garlic cloves, chopped
3 carrots, peeled and diced
1 cup diced celery
Salt and pepper
2 bay leaves
8 parsley branches
6 thyme sprigs
9 cups vegetable stock (recipe below)
Rind from a piece of Parmigiano Reggiano (optional)
3 cups cooked white beans (I used alubia blanca but cannellini would be just fine) 
Soy sauce, to taste
1 small bunch of Swiss chard or kale
2 1/2 cups cooked small pasta (I used ditalini, small and thimble-like)
Thin shavings of parmesan, preferably Parmigiano Reggiano

Heat the oil in a wide, heavy-bottomed pot with the onion. Saute over high heat, stirring frequently, until lightly browned, about 10 minutes.

Add the tomato paste, parsley, garlic, vegetables, and 2 teaspoons salt and cook 3 minutes more.

In the meantime, tie up the aromatics with kitchen twine or bundle them in cheesecloth. Add them to the pot along with the stock, and the rind, if using, and bring to a boil.

Lower the heat and simmer, partially covered, for 30 minutes. At the 15 minute mark, add the beans to the pot.

In the meantime, bring a large pot of water to a boil and salt generously. Blanch the greens until bright, just a minute or two. Drain them and run them under cold water. Remove their stems and chop the leaves finely. Set aside.

Taste the soup for salt and season with freshly ground black pepper. If it needs more depth, stir in some soy sauce, starting with 1 tablespoon. Remove the aromatics.

Just before serving, add the greens and the pasta to the soup and heat through. Serve with extra virgin olive oil drizzled into each bowl, a generous grind of pepper, and the parmesan.

Serves 6.

Basic Vegetable Stock

Adapted from Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone

Note: Volume. My 5.5-quart dutch oven just fits all of the liquid and vegetables. If you don't have something nearly as big, you might try simmering everything in 2 quarts of water to make a more concentrated stock and then diluting it with an additional 3 cups of water for the minestrone.

3 small onions
3 large carrots
3 celery ribs, including a few leaves
1 large bunch of scallions
1 1/2 tablespoons olive or vegetable oil
12 garlic cloves, peeled and smashed
12 parsley branches
9 thyme sprigs
2 bay laves
Salt

Scrub the vegetables and chop them roughly into 1-inch chunks. Heat the oil in a wide, heavy-bottomed pot. Add the vegetables, garlic, and herbs and cook them over high heat for 5 to 10 minutes, stirring frequently. The more colour they get, the richer the flavour of the stock. Add 3 teaspoons of salt and 3 quarts of cold water and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer, uncovered, for 30 minutes. Strain through a fine-mesh sieve lined with cheesecloth.

Makes about 9 cups.

Merry-making

Happy holidays, friends. It's been a good year. We ate well. We laughed hard. Those are the important things around here. I hope that you're all somewhere cozy with people you love and snow on the ground. I've got some merry-making to do, but I'll see you in the new year.

--Katie

Making do

I don't tend to do much cooking when I'm away from home. People seem happy enough to feed me, and I'm a bit particular about where I cook anyway. I'll cook in someone else's kitchen if need be, of course, happily even, but that doesn't mean I won't chide you if your knives are dull or if you don't have any graduated measuring cups. I don't mind improvising, but I don't like surprises. So I tend to leave the cooking to others when I'm only visiting. I hope that's not too prima-donna-ish of me.

I make exceptions, of course, like this caramelized onion and bacon galette. I wasn't going to bother bringing anything to dinner with the extended family this past weekend. My grandmother was taking care of all the important things--the turkey, the stuffing, the pies---and I had been wrapped up in a blanket in front of the TV with a terrible cold for most of the week anyway. But by Saturday morning, I had pretty well recovered, and there were those onions and that bacon to consider--a little something from the very last issue of Gourmet that I'd rediscovered while convalescing.

My thoughts that morning, maybe still somewhat cold-addled, went something like this: a small mountain of onions cooked down until sweet, dark, and jammy! With bacon! And butter! Now, there's a reason to get out of bed! So I got out from under my heap of blankets, made some tea, and nudged my boyfriend toward that mountain of onions that would need chopping.

Now, the recipe as printed is actually for a Zwiebelkuchen, a sort of onion pie of German provenance, traditionally flavoured with bacon and caraway and bundled up in a yeasted crust. But I couldn't quite convince myself to proceed that way. My cold-addled daydreams of onion pie involved buttery, flaky pastry. Nothing less would do. It would happen--with or without a proper pastry blender. So, I turned to an old favourite, a butter-flecked galette dough, and didn't look back.

It paid off. The galette came together like a dream--the jammy onions made lush with sour cream and bacon drippings and baked bubbly and dark, the smoky, salty bacon to balance, all of it nestled in puffed and golden pastry. Not bad at all for having had to make do, I have to say (there were neither graduated measuring cups nor a pastry blender to be found anywhere at my parents' place).

Caramelized Onion and Bacon Galette
Adapted from Gourmet, November 2009 and Smitten Kitchen

Note: Extra filling. I had about a 1/4 cup or so of onion filling leftover that the pastry couldn't quite handle. I was in a bit of a hurry, so I eyed my 12 inches and didn't quite make a proper circle out of the dough. With more care, you might be able to get all of the filling in. If you can't manage it, not to worry. Just scoop the remaining filling into a ramekin and bake it alongside the galette. A few bites that you can set aside just for you. Caraway seeds. In keeping with the Zwiebelkuchen tradition, I think I might add at least a teaspoon of whole caraway seeds to the onions as they cook the next time I make this. I can see the caraway playing well with sweetness of the onions.

For the pastry:
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour, chilled in the freezer for 30 minutes
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
8 tablespoons (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces and chilled again
1/4 cup sour cream
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
1/4 cup ice water
1 egg white + 1 teaspoon water

For the filling:
1/4 pound bacon, finely chopped
3 1/2 pounds onions, thinly sliced
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
1 cup sour cream
2 large egg yolks
Sea salt
Black pepper

Whisk together the flour and salt in a large bowl. Sprinkle bits of butter over dough and using a pastry blender, cut it in until the mixture resembles coarse meal, with the biggest pieces of butter the size of tiny peas. In a small bowl, whisk together the sour cream, lemon juice and water and add this to the butter-flour mixture. With your fingertips or a wooden spoon, mix in the liquid until large lumps form. Pat the lumps into a ball; do not overwork the dough. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour.

Meanwhile, cook the bacon over medium-high heat in a wide, heavy-bottomed pot or dutch oven until crisp. Then, add the onions, butter, 1 teaspoon of salt, and a few generous grinds of pepper to the pot. Give the onions a good stir to coat them evenly in bacon drippings and butter. Cook covered, stirring occasionally, until the onions have softened, 15-20 minutes. Remove the lid and cook, stirring occasionally, until the onions are deeply golden, another 20-30 minutes. Let cool. Whisk together the sour cream and egg yolks and then stir them into the onion mixture.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. On a floured surface, roll out the dough into a 12-inch round. Lay the dough in the center of a half-sheet and spread the onion mixture over it in an even layer, leaving a 1 1/2-inch border all the way around. Fold the edges of the dough over the filling. Whisk together the egg white and water to make an egg wash. Brush an even layer over the dough. Bake the galette until the crust is golden brown and the filling is dark and bubbly, about 50-60 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature.

That's where the ice cream comes in

I've got deadlines to meet and a plane to catch. The end of an academic quarter is always a hectic time for me. I never start writing my papers quite soon enough. And when I do get started, it means days on end of staring at the same sentences and trying to make something of them. I don't mean to complain, exactly. Writing something, working out a view--it's definitely the most rewarding part of all this. I finally feel like I'm getting somewhere. But all the writing and staring, being holed up in the apartment, it leaves me feeling goofy.
I try to fend it off by seeing other people--you know, human interaction. But most of the people I know are busy writing too. That's where the ice cream comes in. Even if you've got a dissertation to plan out, it's hard to say no when someone invites you over for home-made ice cream.
We ended up churning out a batch of the cereal milk ice cream from--you guessed it--the Milk Bar cookbook. I know, I've gotten a bit obsessive. I swear, I'll move on to something new soon. It's just that with the new ice-cream maker, it was something I had to try. You know, just to compare, figure out what I like best in an ice cream. I've mentioned a couple of ice creams that have come out of this kitchen recently, one custard-based and another that was all heavy cream. Tosi's cereal milk ice cream is different. No need for all that heavy cream, and no need to trouble yourself with tempering egg yolks. Gelatin and glucose are supposed to do the trick instead. I figured I'd find out for myself.
So what is there to say about cereal milk ice cream? It's brilliant but in a kind of understated way--milky, barely sweet, and pleasantly reminiscent of cornflakes--every bit like the milk you might find at the bottom of your cereal bowl once you've had the last bite. Some people leave that milk. Others relish it. If you're one of the latter, this is your ice cream. I wouldn't call it luxurious. Comforting is more like it.
Again, I've said enough already about Christina Tosi and Momofuku Milk Bar. I've declared my love. I just had to say something about this ice cream and snap a few shots with the new camera. I'll be back with something new to swoon over soon. Promise. (I'm packing Lucky Peach No. 2 for the trip home.)

You can find the recipe for cereal milk here (I'm sorry, but I've probably already posted one too many Milk Bar recipes). Previous Milk Bar madness from around here can be found here (apple-pie layer cake) and here (peanut butter cookies).

Traditions to stand by

The only thing traditional about Thanksgiving around here this year was the mashed potatoes. You'll have to excuse me. This was the first year in which I was in charge of everything, and I just didn't feel wedded to tradition. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that while growing up, my grandmother did it all--a twenty-pound bird, stuffing, mashed potatoes, three pies, the works. I didn't start contributing to holiday dinners until a few years ago, when I was a vegetarian. And back then, I put some decidedly non-traditional fare on the table alongside the turkey and sweet potatoes (French lentils with ricotta dumplings, this cauliflower cake). So, I guess the precedent was already set.

I envisioned a meal that would be a fun challenge for me to prepare, that would raise a few eyebrows around the table, and that would leave everyone full and happy at the end of the night. So, Thanksgiving for four went something like this:

• roasted vegetable soup: delicata squash and fennel roasted with shallots, garlic, sage and rosemary, puréed with chicken stock and a touch of cream
• Momofuku Ssäm Bar's brussels sprouts (which you can find here with Talley)
• Thomas Keller's mashed potatoes (found here)
• herb-stuffed porchetta from Tartine Bread
• blue cheese and honey ice cream, thanks to The Perfect Scoop and a shiny new ice-cream maker (Yay! Also, here is a variation on the ice cream--not quite what's in the book)

A bit of an eclectic menu, I know, and rather pungent too--but it was great. We all ate more than we should have. We groaned getting up from the table. I may not be wedded to tradition when it comes to what we eat, but eating well, maybe too well, on Thanksgiving--now that's a tradition I stand by.

Leftovers are another of those things that make Thanksgiving what it is. For me as a kid, that meant a few days' worth of hot turkey sandwiches smothered in gravy and some stuffing on the side. This year, though, it's porchetta galore.

Let me explain. When I found out that I'd be hosting Thanksgiving, I was pretty convinced at the outset that I didn't want to do a turkey. A quick flip through Tartine Bread settled it. We were going to make the Tartine porchetta! Here's what you need to know. Slow-roasted pork shoulder. Butterflied and stuffed with sourdough breadcrumbs and a veritable bouquet of aromatics. Rolled up and trussed. Roasted for a solid eight hours, basting in its own fat and juices until unbelievably tender and fragrant. Sliced and pan-seared right before serving. Brilliant. Unfussy. As the book says, "...a regal way to cook a pork shoulder."

We went to The Butcher & Larder Wednesday afternoon and came home with our prized shoulder, fresh off a hog just delivered that day. We trimmed and stuffed and rolled, then let it roast into the night. My kitchen has never smelled so good at four in the morning.

I'm convinced. Holiday feasts and porchetta were made for one another. Roast your porchetta the night before, ease yourself into sweet, pork-filled dreams, wake up and tuck your roast into the fridge to rest, and you won't have to worry about it for the rest of the day. The oven will be free for whatever else you've got up your sleeve. When the time comes, give yourself a few minutes for slicing and a quick pan-sear, then call everyone to the table. Dig into some seriously good pork.

And then there's my favourite part. Unless you've got a crowd of 8 or 10 over, there will be leftovers in abundance. Think about the sandwiches. I can assure you. This porchetta, cold, thinly sliced, will be exactly what you want when you're all cooked-out in the aftermath.

Porchetta
Adapted, just a little, from Tartine Bread

Note: Wrapping. It's important to wrap your porchetta in foil well to keep in the juices and fat. I didn't do quite as good a job as I should have, so the roast had a few dry spots. Don't let it happen to you! Make ahead. I think you can get away with roasting the porchetta 24-36 hours in advance. It will keep splendidly in the refrigerator on the sheet pan you baked it on, once cooled. Because of the long cooking time and the required resting period in the refrigerator, it would be very difficult to do everything day-of. The folks at Tartine recommend roasting it overnight, and that's more or less what I did. Stuffing. All of those herbs do wonders for the pork shoulder, but I found the stuffing itself a little too herbaceous. I'd consider adding some sautéed shallot or maybe even some grated apple to the mix next time.

5 pounds boneless pork shoulder
1 teaspoon sea salt

1 bunch flat-leaf parsley, stems removed
12 fresh sage leaves
1 tablespoon fresh rosemary leaves
2 tablespoons fresh thyme leaves
1 cup fennel fronds, chopped
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 tablespoon fennel seeds
5 cloves garlic
2 teaspoons salt
4 slices day-old rustic sourdough, each about 1-inch thick, torn into small chunks
3-5 tablespoons olive oil

Have your butcher butterfly the pork shoulder to an even thickness of about 1 inch. You should have a long sheet of meat roughly 9 by 14 inches. Lay the pork shoulder out flat on a cutting board. Season with 1 teaspoon salt.

Preheat the oven to 220 degrees F.

To make the stuffing, in a food processor, combine the parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme, fennel fronds, red pepper flakes, fennel seeds, garlic, and salt, and pulse to chop. Add the bread and 3 tablespoons olive oil and pulse to combine. If the stuffing still looks a little dry still--the consistency should be almost spreadable and paste-like--add more olive oil and pulse again.

Spread the stuffing evenly over the surface of the meat. Beginning on one side, roll the meat up tight and secure with butcher's twine.

Place the roll on a sheet of aluminium foil. Fold the sides of the foil up and around both ends of the roast and then roll the roast to enclose it in foil. This helps retain the moisture and fat while the roast is cooking. Place the roast on a baking sheet and bake until the meat is very tender, 8 to 10 hours.

Leave the aluminium foil on the roast while it cools. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours to allow the roast to firm up and hold its shape.

Remove the roast from the foil and cut off the twine. Cut the roast crosswise into slices about 1-inch thick. Heat a heavy skillet over medium heat. When the skillet is hot, add enough olive oil to cover the bottom of the pan, and add as many slices of porchetta as will fit in the pan. Cook the slices until brown, 3 to 5 minutes. Turn and cook until browned on the second side and heated through, 2 to 4 minutes. Serve.

Serves 8-10.

We couldn't resist

This cake, Christina Tosi's apple-pie layer cake, was going to be the dessert at our Thanksgiving table on Thursday. I had it all planned out. There was a schedule, and I stuck to it. I made one of its five components every day starting last Wednesday. I assembled everything on Sunday afternoon. It was beautiful. It couldn't have gone better. I put it in the freezer to set. It could sit there tucked away until Thursday. I would just have to thaw it out early in the day. But on Monday afternoon, we couldn't resist. My boyfriend's parents were going to arrive from New York just in time for dinner. Wasn't that occasion enough to enjoy some cake? We could just whip up a quick apple tarte tatin for Thursday, we reasoned. So we held our breaths, popped the cake out of its metal ring, and peeled off the clear acetate that had been holding it all together.

It really was a thing of beauty. Three six-inch discs of barely brown butter cake stacked high with liquid cheesecake, buttery pie crumb, and apple-pie filling, all of it crowned with pie-crumb frosting and more pie crumb. Glorious. Certainly the most impressive-looking cake ever put together in my kitchen. See why we couldn't wait any longer?

Right after dinner, we dug in, and it was amazing. It was familiar tasting but not. It was like apple pie but not. It was everything you'd ever want in a cake--rich, moist, wildly flavourful, and delightfully unexpected. It was just about perfect. Every bit of it, down to the tiniest nub of pie crumb, was so good. If only it would last us until Thanksgiving dinner.

And it was just as fun to make as it was to eat. Though none of it was particularly challenging, it was eye-opening. Who knew, for example, that a little cream cheese, cornstarch, milk sugar, and egg barely baked would turn into something unmistakably cheesecake-like but totally spreadable? I know that I gushed about Christina Tosi and the Momofuku Milk Bar Cookbook just a few short weeks ago, but I'll do it again. This woman is a genius. Her desserts conjure up childhood in strange and wonderful ways. And all of it is put together with such care--every last little crumb. While making the components for the layer cake last week, I was in constant danger of eating up whatever I'd just made.

I don't think I can share the whole cake with you. I have to leave some of the Milk Bar cookbook for you to read and play with on your own. But I will give you the liquid cheesecake. I could definitely have just eaten the whole batch of it on my own the day I made it, spoonful after guilty spoonful.

Make the liquid cheesecake. Have it with carrot cake. Spread it on slices of vanilla pound cake. Share it with your friends (or not). Taste Tosi's genius and go out into the world for more.

Liquid Cheesecake
Adapted, barely, from the Momofuku Milk Bar Cookbook

225 g / 8 oz cream cheese
150 g / 3/4 cup sugar
6 g / 1 tablespoon cornstarch
2 g / 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
25 g / 2 tablespoons milk
1 egg

Heat oven to 300 F.
Put the cream cheese in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and mix on low speed for 2 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula. Add the sugar and mix for 1-2 minutes, until the sugar has been completely incorporated. Scrape down the sides of the bowl.
Whisk together the cornstarch and salt in a medium bowl. Whisk in the milk in a slow, steady stream, then whisk in the egg until the slurry is homogenous.
With the mixer on medium-low, stream in the egg slurry. Paddle for 3-4 minutes until the mixture is smooth and loose. Scrape down the sides of the bowl.
Line the bottom and sides of a 6x6 inch baking pan with aluminium foil and/or parchment paper. Pour the cheesecake batter into the pan, put the pan in the oven, and bake for 15 minutes. Gently shake the pan. The cheesecake should be firmer and more set toward the outer boundaries of the baking pan but still be jiggly and loose in the dead center. If the cheesecake is jiggly all over, give it five minutes more. And 5 minutes more if it needs it. If the cheesecake rises more than a 1/4 inch or begins to brown, take it out of the oven immediately.
Cool the cheesecake completely, to finish the baking process and allow the cheesecake to set. The final product will resemble a cheesecake, but it will be pipeable and pliable enough to easily spread or smear, while still having body and volume. Once cool, the cheesecake can be stored in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 1 week.