Chocolate Curls

Don’t ask me where I have been the past month. I have been here in Brooklyn and I have been cooking and baking a lot but I have not been posting. I have been busy at my day job making architecture, and prepping for my licensing exams, and helping plan flowers for a wedding, and volunteering at church, and seeing old friends,  and yes, filling the odd cake and cupcake orders. But not blogging.

So accept this bit of eye candy as a peace offering.

My best friend Carmen was visiting for two weeks earlier this month and we had a lovely time eating and gallivanting around the city and filling cake orders. I made a chocolate stout cake for a 50th birthday party that turned out quite well.

The cake is a wonderful recipe that involves cocoa, melted chocolate, Guiness stout, and very strong coffee. It has a full bodied, almost yeasty flavour, and gets oh so much better the day after it has been baked. I layered in a rich bittersweet chocolate ganache (essentially butter, chocolate, and heavy cream melted scrumptiously together).

I then did the crumb coat in chocolate ganache before I spread on the chocolate swiss meringue buttercream, which is a glorious creamy invention that I am one hundred percent in love with. And it forgives all flaws of the cake and in this case, of the decorator.

Decorating ended up being a bit of debacle– I tried a variety of decorating ideas including drizzled chocolate glaze and piped white buttercream dots, none of which came to anything. Thankfully I’d made a double batch of the chocolate buttercream so mistakes were quickly rectified. We settled on a simple design with gauzy ribbon and chocolate curls, which I discovered were extremely easy to make. I had to borrow my neighbour’s microwave to soften the chocolate but what a lifesaver it was.

The final result was quite satisfactory.

p.s. All photos were taken by Carmen with her smashing new camera. Brilliant, yes?

White Foods

“If you want your cabbage chopped, washed, dried, sprinkled with salt or vinegar, there is nothing healthier. To enjoy it more, sprinkle with honey vinegar. Washed and dried, with chopped rue and coriander and sprinkled with salt. It does you good, permits no disease to remain in the body, and does the bowels good. If there was any disease present internally, cabbage will cure all, remove all sicknesses from the head and the eyes and cure them. Take it in the morning before eating.”

Cato (234 BC to 149 BC) from On Farming

I love a good food quote, although I just read some rather asinine things Cato had to say on keeping slaves—he was notorious for his brutal views (ah the Romans)—but I’ll give it to him that his recipe sounds intriguing.

We’re coming to the end of our wonderful CSA (community supported agriculture) deliveries and the lettuce has given way to copious quantities of cabbage, turnips and cauliflower. Did I mention copious quantities of cabbage? I mean… lots of it. And cauliflower. I’ve been thinking out loud about these pale vegetables and the kind of nutrition that they give us, so I did a bit of research into cabbage. Cabbage, apparently is low in saturated fat and cholesterol and high in dietary fibre, vitamins C,K,A, B6, calcium, iron (who knew?) magnesium, manganese, folate, potassium, and thiamin. Cabbage also has a varied history and appears in raw, cooked, and pickled form on virtually every continent—from Chinese versions of bok and napa cabbages, to Korean kim chee, to Russian stuffed cabbage and borscht soups, to Irish corned beef and cabbage, not to mention Indian poriyals and uppama and of course the ubiquitous sloppy coleslaw found all across American diners.
Here is a terrific link to history and lore on cabbages that I found—it made me rethink my current ennui with cabbage. http://www.vegparadise.com/highestperch33.html.

A quick and delicious dish I’ve come up with to eat through my cabbages before the next CSA delivery arrives is as follows:

Sautéed Cabbage

½- 1 head of cabbage (any kind), shredded into long thin bits
1-2 ears of corn cut fresh off the cob.
1 garlic clove grated or minced
1 shallot or small onion sliced in thin rings
1 tsp black mustard seeds
1 tsp fennel seeds
2 curry leaves if you have them
A handful of unsweetened dry coconut or a handful of chopped cashews.
2-3 tablespoons oil

Sauté the shallot and garlic in 1 tablespoon oil till onions start to soften and garlic is starting to brown. Add the shredded cabbage and sauté till beginning to soften, then add in the corn. Sauté till cabbage is cooked, though not soggy. In a separate pan heat 1 to 2 tsp oil and add the mustard and fennel seeds and curry leaves. Heat till the mustard seeds start to sputter, about 3 minutes. Add the coconut or cashews and sauté just until coconut starts to brown. Pour the spice and coconut mixture over the cabbage and corn. Mix well. Season with salt and black pepper and a sprinkle of red pepper flakes.

This is tasty as a side dish or as a light supper served with rice.

Pear and Pecan Bread

Here is my dilemma: I cook an awful lot and I take scads of pictures, but I don’t post them on the blog. Its a lack of discipline or time on my part. So my computer is fast filling up with folder upon folder of delectable food photos, but only one out of every five recipes gets posted. What to do…

Regardless, here is a quick and delicious dessert (or breakfast item) that I have become quite addicted to the past couple years. Its from the Joy of Cooking, my all time favourite cookbook. I’ve often said that if I had to leave my home suddenly and had the choice of only one cookbook to take along, this would be the one. It has EVERYTHING.
Pear bread is in the lovely family of loaf cakes, like banana bread, that whip together quickly since they use oil as shortening and often include some sort of mashed or grated fruit and chopped nuts.

They are ideal for the fall when fruit and vegetables are abundant and a fragrant slice of cake is all you need to compliment a steaming hot cup of tea or coffee. The juicy pears in this recipe are set off by the lemon zest and juice, pleasant surprises in every mouthful. And of course the bread tastes even better the next day.

Pear and Pecan Bread (from the Joy of Cooking, p 775)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9×5 inch pan.
Whisk together:
1 1/2 c flour
1 c sugar (I usually cut back to about 2/3 or 3/4 c sugar)
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg

In a separate large bowl, whisk together:
1 large egg
1/2 c vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp grate lemon zest
1 Tbs fresh lemon juice
1 1/2 c grated ripe pears with juice (no need to peel)

Add flour mixture to wet ingredients and fold just till about 3/4 of dry ingredients are moistened. Add:
1 c coarsely chopped pecans.
Fold just till dry ingredients are moistened.
Scrape batter into pan, spread evenly, and bake in center of oven 1 hr and 15 min till toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.
Let cool in pan 10 minutes then unmold onto a rack and let cool completely.

Pot Roast with Oranges and Dates

I was channeling a little bit of Julie and Julia the other day, and Whole Foods had a sale on boneless chuck, so I bought one and half pounds of beef and made myself a mini pot roast for the week. I am generally not a huge beef eater (although I seem to be eating more of it recently, stay tuned for the beef eaters quarterly news letter featuring beef bourguignon…) Beef has always felt like a luxury to me since I like to get good quality meat that is grass fed and humanely raised—the price is generally out of range for my weekly food budget. The scarcity of it in my diet, however, does make me appreciate it all the more when I have the occasion to cook it. A tasty pot roast or stew will go a long way in my household of one and means lunch for an entire week.

This particular roast is one of my favourite pot roast recipes, discovered a couple years ago when looking for a recipe for a Seder supper. I’ve only added garlic and substituted canned diced tomatoes for tomato paste in an otherwise perfect recipe from epicurious.com. What I love about the recipe is the tangy tomato sauce that cooks down with the dates into an unctuous sweet-savoury pudding. The recipe is nice served with rice and some cooked veg like ratatouille (a zucchini, a small eggplant, a couple of tomatoes, some fresh rosemary-thyme-oregano, garlic, and sliced onions, cooked just till the vegetables start to fall apart.) I also like the meat sliced cold in a sandwich, with a little bit of mayonnaise and the thick tomato sauce used in place of a condiment.

Pot Roast with Oranges and Dates

1 ½- 2 lbs boneless beef chuck roast,
2 teaspoons sugar
2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
2 onions, thinly sliced
2 garlic cloves, grated
3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1 cups chicken broth or white wine
1/2 cup orange juice
1/4 cup diced tomatoes
1 cup pitted dates
1/4 cup chopped fresh Italian parsley

Preheat oven to 350°F. Sprinkle roast on each side with salt, pepper, and 1 teaspoon sugar. Heat 1 tablespoons oil in heavy wide ovenproof pot or cast iron skillet over medium-high heat. Add roast. Cook until brown, about 8 minutes per side; transfer to plate. Add 1 tablespoon oil and onions and garlic to pot. Sauté until dark brown, stirring often, about 10 minutes. Mix in vinegar and allspice; boil until reduced to glaze, scraping up browned bits. Add broth, orange juice, and tomato sauce; bring to boil. Return roast and accumulated juices to pot. Scatter dates around roast; sprinkle with parsley.
Cover pot; place in oven. Braise roast 1 hour. Turn roast over, cover, and braise until tender, about 1 hour. Tilt pot; spoon off fat from top of sauce. Cool uncovered 1 hour or just let rest in pan for 15 minutes before slicing and serving with sauce.

The Conservatory Gardens

On Thursday afternoons I get off from work at 1.30 and I have designated the afternoon as a “Sabbath Day” where I don’t schedule any events or friends, but spend some good quality time alone, in meditation and study, and in prayer. I often go to a park and enjoy the nature, with a cup of tea and a cookie, my diary and some good reading material.

I recently rediscovered the Conservatory Gardens, up on 5th Avenue and 105th Street. They have become my new favourite garden in the City. Located at the north end of Central Park, you pass through an ornate set of gates into a heavenly world of slate stone paths and English country garden loveliness. Flowers spill over borders in waves of texture and colour, breezy statues of children playing drip with the laughter of the fountains, and for a moment the buses rolling by on the avenue are drowned out by the chatter of insects and birds. A tremendous trellis of vines arcs across the western side of the garden, beckoning you to come find solace beneath it. The first time I came to the gardens, four years ago, was with a now very distant boyfriend, to attend a wedding ceremony. I will never forget that evening, the beginnings of a rain storm trickling down through the leaves of the trellis, the sky grey yet bright, and the bride and groom glowing at each other as we all stood around cheering. What a wonderful place to start a marriage.

My current Thursday ritual is to stop in a the Museum of the City of New York, which is across the street, tease the guards to let me down into the café where I then buy a fruit tea and a giant black and white cookie to take with me to the garden. After a leisurely stroll around the grounds, with frequent stops to sigh into the welcoming faces of upturned flowers, I settle myself into a bench for some blissful quiet.

I love black and white cookies. The cookie is light and cakey, and the white glaze on the back is crisp and smooth and just a bit too sweet. The chocolate has a bitter bite to it, with a faint flavour of licorice in each bite. I take much comfort in eating this cookie slowly, bit by bit, letting the glaze melt in my mouth, not taking any one morsel for granted, washing down the sweetness with sips of tea. It is a large cookie so if you eat it too fast, you will ruin the experience with a sugar rush. I think because my favourite desserts tend to involve cake of some sort, that the black and white is one of the most perfect cookies imagined. And it is so New York.

Ajiaco

The best word to describe this wonderful Colombian chicken stew is silky. From the way the grated potatoes disintegrate into the broth to make a rich, thick sauce, to the fresh avocados that melt in your mouth at each bite, silky seems to capture it all. I’ve been dreaming of this recipe since it first appeared in Gourmet’s September 2007 issue (which was a glorious issue on South and Central American cuisine if I may add), intrigued with the idea of avocado and whole slices of corn being part of a soup. The soup is easy to make, and a great way to use a small bony little chicken. It warms up well, and the flavours are fresh and surprising (pops of cilantro and salty capers) at the same time as being homey and soothing (it IS chicken soup after all…) The one difficulty in eating this soup is that you do have to fish the corn out of your soup bowl with your fingers which makes for a messy eating experience. But then there is the delight of slurping the broth from the corn cobs as you eat the kernels.
I’ve modified the recipe a bit, but otherwise it is very much straight from the recipe book.

Ajiaco (Columbian Chicken Stew)– Gourmet Sept 2007, p.74

1 whole chicken

2 qt water

2 cups chicken stock (or 2 cups hot water and one bouillon cube)

1 large white onion, chopped

1 tablespoon oregano

1 lb Yukon Gold potatoes

1 lb red skinned potatoes

3 ears of corner, cut into 1 inch rounds (careful, I broke my knife chopping these up. Use a bread knife and saw instead of hack)

¾ cup chopped cilantro (divided)

½ cup heavy cream (optional)

¼ cup drained capers

2 -3 larger firm rip avocados, cut into cubes (I like the big pale green ones you find in the West Indian markets)

Put chicken in a 6-8 quart pot with water, broth or bouillon, onion, oregano and 1 ½ tsps salt. Bring to a boil, skim off foam, then reduce heat and simmer covered until chicken is cooked through (about 40 minutes.) Transfer chicken to a plate to cool, reserving broth in the pot. Grate the red skinned potatoes (no need to peel) and add to the broth. Simmer uncovered about 20 minutes until potatoes are falling apart and soup is becoming thick. Meanwhile chop up the Yukon Gold potatoes into 1 inch pieces and add to pot. Let simmer another 15 minutes till just tender. Add corn, ¼ cup cilantro and 1 tsp coarse ground black pepper and simmer covered until corn is tender, about 5-10 minutes.

While corn cooks, coarsely shred chicken, discarding skin (I save the bones and wings in the freezer for future stock). Add chicken to stew and cook, stirring occasionally, until heated through. Season with salt.

Serve stew with a drizzle of heavy cream, capers, chopped avocados and remaining ½ cup of cilantro. Add these fresh to each bowl just before serving.

So yum!

On Gardening

“I have given myself to this new garden that I may receive from it the gift of summer tomatoes and sweet potatoes, of scarlet peppers and the purple robed eggplant, of honey-sweet corn and buttery beans. But I do not forget that I alone cannot restore Paradise, not even in my own backyard. ‘Retreat to the garden,’ writes William Cowper, ‘cannot indeed to guilty man restore/ Lost innocence, or cancel follies past/ But it has peace, and much secured the mind/ From all assaults of evil’ (The Task)”
Excerpt from The Fragrance of God by Vigen Guorian, p. 68

I recently finished this wonderful book and have found much joy and peace in the author’s reflections on gardening. Here is some of the summer’s bounty…

I made a quick fried rice with the fresh vegetables in my garden. Lovely Crown Heights, Brooklyn: despite the fact that I must regularly fish out broken glass bottles and chicken bones tossed over the fence into my garden plot, the plants have managed to thrive and given me reward for my pains. It is a blessing to be able to get my hands dirty, to weed and replant, to discover new buds and flowers– promises of good things for the future.

Not much to say in terms of this recipe: purple onions, diced zucchini, corn from the cob, sliced green eggplant, a fried egg, some chinese sausage  all fried up with some leftover rice. I threw in a handful of pine nuts and cilantro and a drizzle of sesame oil and tamari sauce to finish. Simplicity becomes divine.

Of milk and sponges

This is a very British sort of recipe.

I memorized this recipe early on when I was a teenager, growing up in Jos. It was not uncommon for me to show up at the home of a family friend and be greeted with the words: “ah Ruth, we have flour and eggs. Please make us a cake!” A girl learns to have a quick crowd pleaser tucked under her sleeve. I have made this cake under dire circumstances, in Nigeria with no electricity, a dodgy gas stove, armed only with a wooden spoon, powdered milk and a tin of margarine. The results have still been wonderful.
The whole cake takes about 10 minutes to prepare, and is delicious served with tea, or as a light desert after a heavy meal (paired with some fresh berries and cream you can’t beat it).  The recipe has very little oil or shortening and is thus exceeding light and fluffy. It travels well for dinner parties too. I sometimes substitute lemon and lemon peel for vanilla. I served this recently, filled with a bit of apricot preserves that I had sitting in the back of the fridge.

Hot Milk Sponge Cake
1 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
2 eggs
1 scant cup sugar
½ cup milk
2 tablespoons butter
1 tsp vanilla
Preheat oven to 350.
Whisk together flour and baking powder. Beat eggs with electric mixer for 2 minutes till thick and lemon coloured. Slowly add in the sugar and beat another 3-4 minutes. Add dry ingredients and beat just till combined. Meanwhile heat milk in pan till hot, add butter and heat till melted. Do not allow to boil. Add hot milk butter mixture and vanilla. Beat till smooth.
Pour into wax or parchment lined, or just buttered and floured 9” cake pan. Bake at 350 for 25 minutes until golden brown and toothpick inserted comes out clean.
Cool on a rack—invert onto a platter. If desired, split cake in half horizontally and spread a thin layer of your favourite jam onto the lower half. Replace the top half and gently sift powdered sugar over the top of the cake.

chocolate mousse cupcake

The more I bake cupcakes, the more I discover that sour cream is the wonder ingredient that gives moistness and creaminess to these little desserts. I grew up on oil cakes—back home in Nigeria we didn’t eat much butter and certainly my mother would not have indulged us with real butter for baking. Bright yellow, slightly slimy Blue Band margarine was the standard baking fat in our household, and so the light, creaminess of butter cakes was wholly lost on me until I arrived in the States. Back home we instead made oil cakes—lovely pans of golden chiffon which we would cut into squares and serve with steaming hot yellow custard for company dinners. Does anyone remember Bird’s Custard? It came in the blue and red tin and you could whip it up in a matter of minutes on the stove.  I had a craving for custard a few months ago and bought a tin of Bird’s at the West African Grocery store near Port Authority. I made myself a bowlful of custard but I must say, it wasn’t the glorious treat I’d remembered it to be, largely because I realized the primary ingredients in it are corn starch and Sunset Yellow C1 15985. I’ll make a butter cake to go with it next time.

What I have recently discovered with all this cupcake baking is that many recipes call for sour cream in their batter and it really is a wonderful addition, producing cakes that are rich but not overly heavy, better to receive luxurious quantities of delectable frosting.

A Perfect Sunday Lunch

I cooked a raucously delicious Sunday dinner for some friends after church the other day. The setting was our friend Alan’s apartment, overlooking Gramercy Park, and we had our meal looking out over the lovely garden.  I’m not usually privy to such gorgeous views, so I must say, I felt rather fine being able to serve Sunday dinner in such a location. It rained during the afternoon so the cool sweet air blowing in from the balconies made the kitchen bearable and our lunch all the more pleasant.

The great thing about roast chicken is that it is so darned easy to make, and is always a crowd pleaser, even for the pickiest of people (ahem Thomas). In a matter of an hour the two chickens were stuffed with fresh herbs from my garden and lots of garlic, lemon and good sea salt, and tucked away into the oven along with the side dish: a  quick courgette pie made with  a giant zucchini (about the size of my arm!) that I’d harvested the day before. (Just you wait until I take you to see my community garden plot. You’ll be amazed at what the Brooklyn soil can do with just a bit of coaxing, compost, and attention) The courgette pie baked in the upper part of the oven while the chicken roasted. With a green salad and some chilled white wine we were in business. And I had time to sit and socialize with everyone while lunch cooked itself.

Huy had brought a tasty home made apple pie for dessert and we did our best by that as well…

Herb Roast Chicken
One 3-4lb freerange, certified humane, kosher or organic chicken (farmers market, Bell and Evans, Murrays, or anything decent.)
Medium bunch each of fresh oregano, sage, and thyme
6 garlic cloves, peeled and slivered
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
½ a lemon cut into 8 wedges, keep the other half for basting.
2-3 teaspoons of sea salt
12 whole black peppercorns

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Rinse chicken (or not) and pat dry. If using a glass baking dish (9” pie dish works fine) rub about a teaspoon of olive oil into the pan. Rub a heaping teaspoon of salt into the central cavity of the chicken and sprinkle in the peppercorns. Put in 2 wedges of lemon, about 1 clove of garlic, several sprigs of thyme, oregano and sage. Repeat lemon, garlic, and herbs until the cavity is full. Really, just pack it in there. Save equivalent of one garlic clove and a couple sprigs each of the herbs.
Rub the entire outside of the chicken with 1 tablespoon of butter and 1 heaping tsp of salt. Gently loosen skin over the breast and along the thighs and at the neck and slip in a couple slivers of garlic, a bit of butter, and some sprigs of thyme and oregano. In the neck cavity, pack in some chopped sage. . Place the chicken in the pan. Sprinkle any remaining thyme leaves over the bird, grate some fresh pepper, and drizzle the remaining oil. Roast uncovered for ½ hour at 400 then reduce temperature to 375 and roast another 45 – 60 minutes until a fork poked into the thigh produces clear juices and you can see juices bubbling in the cavity. Baste with pan juices and a squeeze of lemon every 15 minutes while roasting.
Remove from oven and set chicken on serving platter to rest. Prick chicken lightly all over with a fork and pour pan juices slowly over the chicken. (Or serve juices in a side dish).

ps. You can add in rosemary as a fresh herb too. Or if you don’t have herbs, substitute all of that for a large bunch of parsley. Omit the herbs beneath the skin and just sprinkle with dried thyme or herbs de provence.

For the courgette pie, you need a very large zucchini, a tablespoon of butter, a couple tablespoons of olive oil, about 6-8 garlic cloves (minced), one small onion (sliced) and generous amounts of fresh herbs (same ones used for the chicken). Slather a bit of olive oil into the pan. Sprinkle in some onions, a layer of sliced zucchini, some dots of butter, some of the minced garlic, some fresh herbs, a drizzle of olive oil and salt and pepper. Repeat this a couple of times till you’ve used up your zucchini. Finish with herbs and onions and a generous drizzle of olive oil. Bake in upper part of oven for an hour. Remove from oven, grate a bit of parmesan over the top and put under the broiler for 5-10 minutes until it browns up and some of the vegetable juice dries up.