Winter Skies, Kitchen Aglow

Against a backdrop of darkening, shifting clouds and a sky of various shades of grey, the kitchen and dining room are aglow with the oven's soaring temperature, candles on the dining table and warm-hued meals (caramelised root vegetables, burnished poultry and red wine-based braises). One can, however, become disenchanted with contorni of roasted potatoes, kumara and parsnip or with honey-coloured puddings of lemons, pears and apples. Just when it cannot possibly get any colder (here, anyway), I switch out golden vegetables and fruit for a shocking display of intense crimson.

Rhubarb appears to have reached a whole new level of appreciation of late. What has always been a winter and spring feature in my household is now a trendy dessert offering. Rhubarb is an unusual vegetable. Its roots and almost lime green leaves are toxic, and its stalk, practically the colour of a cardinal's robe, is so tart that it has to be counteracted with obscene amounts of sugar. (To my knowledge, it is the only vegetable treated wholly as a fruit.) Stewed (best when cooked through but not mushy), vibrant rhubarb is a delightful antidote when the temperature drops.

I used to eat lemons right off the tree as a child, so I guess it is fair to say that I have a proclivity towards sour and tart food. Accordingly, I tend not to add but the least amount of raw/brown sugar to take the sourest edge out of rhubarb. Of course you can add more sugar. That said, I suggest that you be prudent because to oversweeten rhurbarb defies its purpose, and you might as well be having something else instead - add what I suggest here, then add more towards the end of the cooking period after you have sampled the rhubarb.

This particular cobbler is lifted from Jerry Traunfeld's greatly inspiring cookery book, The Herbal Kitchen: Cooking with Fragrance and Flavor. I tried to find angelica for a variation, but I was not so lucky at the weekend. I have, however, tweaked the recipe: lemon zest to complement the rhubarb; rose water to perfume the rhubarb along with mint; and ground almonds in the biscuit mixture to round out the sweetness of the topping with full-flavoured nuttiness (pulverised walnuts and pistachios also work well). When slicing rhubarb wands, peel off any stringy bits that begin to come away because they only amplify the fibrous quality of rhubarb (its principal drawback, to my mind).

Rhubarb and Mint Cobbler
(Adapted from Jerry Traunfeld's The Herbal Kitchen: Cooking with Fragrance and Flavor)

For the Rhubarb:

750g/1.5lbs rhubarb stalks
2/3 cup raw/brown sugar
1/2 cup chopped English mint
1 tablespoon rose water
zest of one small lemon
14g/1 tablespoon unsalted butter

For the Biscuits:

2/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup ground almonds
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons white/granulated sugar, divided use
28g/2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/2 cup heavy cream

1) Preheat oven to 200 C/400 F.
2) Wash rhubarb stalks, then chop off the ends (removing any dry ends).
3) Slice rhubarb cross-wise into 1.25cm/ 1.2" pieces.
4) Put into a baking dish (approximately 22cm/9" x 33cm/13") and mix in the sugar, mint, rose water and lemon zest.
5) Dot surface with the butter and bake for 15 minutes (until it softens and releases bubbling, crimson juices).

Prepare the biscuits as the rhubarb is baking.

1) Put flour, ground almonds, baking powder, salt and 3 tablespoons of the sugar into a bowl. Mix together.
2) Dice the butter and rub it into the flour mixture with your finger tips, as you would when making pastry.
3) When the flour and butter mixture slips through the fingers like granules of rice, pour in the cream.
4) Mix cream with hands until clumps of dough are formed.
5) Put the dough on baking/parchment paper.
6) Divide dough into eight equal pieces and flatten each into a disk 5cm/2" in diameter.
7) Arrange on top of the rhubarb and sprinkle with the remaining tablespoon of sugar.
8) Bake until the biscuits have browned all over, 15-20 minutes.

In all, this is a boon of a dessert - filling yet light. The rhubarb zings across the palate in a complex melange with the rose water, mint and lemon zest, partnered with the pronounced almond tones in the biscuit. Of course, it does not have to end here - a cobbler can be made with practically any fruit, but the choice to use rhubarb elevates the simple cobbler, making it an interesting dessert.

You might want to gild the lily and pair it with ice cream (I poured over some cream). Strawberry ice cream would make a great option, for strawberry is a traditional bedmate (remember, though, I made this in winter, so there weren't any fresh strawberries around for me to make ice cream). Ginger is another interesting partner, so I also recommend that you have a look at this Tamasin Day-Lewis recipe for Stem Ginger and Spice Ice Cream.

While the above recipe is a great way to end the night, a fabulous way to start a dinner party is with dips and pâtés or elements from zakuski, a Georgian tradition of small plates of contrasting temperatures and textures. While I've read a lot about zakuski, I have never hosted such a dining event (probably because I do not have the stomach to wash down shots of vodka between mouthfuls of food). I do, however, take a leaf out of Georgian housewives' books and look to zakuski for inspiration when creating a cocktail-hour menu.

Georgians love to combine coriander/cilantro and walnuts (such as in satsivi, the national sauce). This is an unusual yet intriguing interplay of flavours, realised perfectly in Charkhlis Pkhali - a beetroot, walnut and coriander pureé.

Charkhlis Pkhali
(from Diana Henry's Roast Figs, Sugar Snow)

700g/1.5lbs beetroot (washed and leaves chopped off 4cm/1.5" from base)
150g/6oz walnut pieces
1 teaspoon sea salt
5 cloves garlic, crushed
5 tablespoons coriander/cilantro, finely chopped
5 tablespoons flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
4 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon olive oil
pepper

1) Preheat oven to 190 C/375 F.
2) Wrap beets in aluminium foil, place them on a baking tray and bake until tender, approximately 1 1/2 hours.
3) In the meantime, grind together the walnuts, salt and garlic.
4) Add the herbs and continue grinding until a paste is formed.
5) When you can handle the beets, peel quickly and grate the flesh of the crimson orbs into a bowl (and wash your hands immediately afterwards to remove the stain).
6) Mix in the walnut paste and red wine vinegar, olive oil and freshly ground pepper to taste.

What is great about this dish is that it can be made in advance and kept in the fridge. Bring it to room temperature before serving with pita chips (pita bread cut into triangles, toasted in the oven with olive oil, Hawaiian red clay salt and pepper) or toasted herb bread. You can gild this lily, too, by sprinkling pomegranate seeds once the dish has come to room temperature.

Charkhlis Pkhali and Rhubarb and Mint Cobbler are celebratory dishes. Vibrant in both colour and flavours, these crimson dishes fire up conversation around the dining table, allowing one to forget that it is dark and cold out.

Labels: Beetroot, Beets, Dessert, Diana Henry, Georgian, Jerry Traunfeld, Rhubarb, Rhubarb Cobbler, Zakuski

Berries, stone fruit, and ice cream are generally the chosen sweet treats for Summer. They are luscious and cooling, their juices or creaminess rehydrate the thirsty beings that we become. In the blogosphere, there have been so many great ice cream, sorbet and gelato posts over the Summer. The only one I have posted is by way of my book review of Nigella Lawson's How To Eat: The Pleasures and Principles of Good Food, from which I lifted Marcella Hazan's chocolate ice cream - or, quite simply, The World's Best Chocolate Ice Cream - which has caramel beaten into it, giving the ice cream heft and depth.

I'm surprised, actually, that I have not written more posts on ice cream, for my angelheart Eric and I eat it throughout the year. I don't think in all of my life there has been a time in which at least a quart of ice cream cannot be found in the freezer - except other than when I spent some months living in France back in 1997. New Zealanders are amongst the largest consumers of ice cream in the world, so it is no wonder, then, that ice cream is on the grocery list if I have not taken the little time needed to make it myself.

To understand better the method, I would prefer to devote time to the various techniques and what seems to be changing quantities of liquid. Time, however, is of the essence and is not something I presently have in surplus (and I won't have it until after mid-December, when my Master's thesis is due). In the course of some quick reading here and there, I have come across a method that I had forgotten about. This method involves stirring firm whipping/double cream into a cooled custard. You need the cream anyway (unless you're making ice cream from yoghurt), so it may as well be as luxurious as is possible. The custard is always the perplexing thing, for the number of egg yolks to whole/full fat milk and sugar always varies. Perhaps the only thing that ultimately changes is the volume that is produced at the end, and I have just to work out the formula. Again...next year. What also makes a difference to the volume, and the reason for which I make ice cream at home in the first place, is that too much air provides too light an ice cream, which is the problem I have with commercial ice creams, even the top-shelf kind, however velvety they are. An ice cream maker for home does the job beautifully, saving one on labour, but also ensuring not too much air is whipped into the product.

What should also be whipped into the product is something aromatic. Most of us lovingly use herbs and spices in the kitchen, and the more I spend time cooking, the more intimately I want to know how fragrant flora can be applied to various dishes. In fact, I almost always want to add at least one to any dish I make - even ice cream. The inspiration for today's ice cream comes from a couple of sources. The first is Diana Henry's enchanting Crazy Water, Pickled Lemons in which she offers a custard-base ice cream of Lemon and Basil. The combination of herb and citrus started me off quite squarely. I forgot I was making ice cream and just thought about the herb and citrus combinations I love best: tarragon and orange, sweet basil and lime, thyme and lemon, cilantro/corriander and grapefruit, bay leaf and kumquat. The second inspirational source is Jerry Traunfeld's
The Herbal Kitchen and his soft-set (that is to say, milk and cream-based ice cream) Strawberry Rose Geranium Ice Cream. This made me think to look outside in the garden and find what we have growing there now. How could I have forgotten rosemary? This is the herb that I loved most as a kid (well, that and marjoram, which features prominently in the potato salad that is on the family buffet table at every Christmas lunch). In retrospect, it seems so at odds with my mother's suburban garden of ferns, roses, Birds of Paradise. Perhaps that is why I liked it. Always fragrant and always available, it seemed other-worldly to me. Even now it has the power to transport. Rosemary also has the tendency to taste acrid once it hits hot liquid. The key is to allow it to steep in milk that has already been brought to the boiling point and to not use too much.

Making custard can be frightening all because once the egg yolk looks like it is curdling, one has to act promptly to save it. Either keep beside the stove a bowl of iced water large enough to hold your saucepan or have enough cold water and chunks of ice in a sink to come halfway up the side of your saucepan. Should the egg yolks look like they are curdling, lift your saucepan and place it in a vessel with iced-water and whisk like mad until it comes together again. You could also take the saucepan directly off the heat, dump in a few ice cubes, and, again, whisk furiously. Once stable, put back on the heat until the custard is finished. You may lose some volume because of this, but it is better than having no custard base at all. This stressful procedure can be circumvented altogether by making the custard in a bain marie or by setting the element to medium-low, as opposed to medium, which will mean it could take up to 30 minutes to complete. Remember, you are making a custard base, so it doesn't have to be set solid. A slightly thick set will suffice. The setting can be tested by running your finger down the back of the spoon. If the line left remains clear, like the parted Red Sea, then the custard base is done.

This ice cream recipe makes enough for 1 quart.

Orange and Rosemary Ice Cream

10 fl. oz/1 1/4 cups whole/full fat milk
3 sprigs rosemary, each approximately 15cm/7" long
rind of 1 orange, cut into strips, pith removed
5 1/2 oz/slightly more than 1/2 cup sugar
4 egg yolks
juice of 1 orange, strained
5oz/ 1/2 cup whipping/double cream

1) Bring milk to the boiling point, then take off the heat.
2) Add rosemary sprigs and orange rind to boiled milk. Cover and allow to steep for 40 minutes to one hour.
3) Beat sugar and egg yolks together until pale and fluffy.
4) Strain the rosemary and orange-infused milk into the sugar and yolk mixture. Stir to incorporate. Pour into a saucepan.
5) Make a custard by continuously whisking over medium heat until thickened, then stir with a wooden spoon until the back of it is well coated. Over a medium heat, this should not take much more than 10-15 minutes.
6) Pour into another bowl, cool, then refrigerate for 30 minutes.
7) Stir orange juice into the custard.
8) Lightly beat the whipping/double cream until gently thickened (no stiff peaks), then fold into the custard base.
9) Freeze in an ice cream maker according to manufacturer's directions or still-freeze (whizz in a blender or use a hand-held beater once every hour for three hours to prevent ice crystals from forming).

This is an incredibly mellow, though tantalising ice cream. The rosemary is not at all overly pronounced - in fact, you might have to work at it to guess that it is there at all. One knows, though, that orange is not the sole flavour at work. You could, of course, be more daring and add a few more sprigs, but I personally prefer the rosemary lazing about in the background, letting the warming and zesty attributes of the orange take centre stage. This is dreamy, subtle, and somehow perfectly summery, despite the fact that orange is a Winter fruit.


Other ice cream posts:
Dried Fig and Coffee Ice Cream
Stem Ginger and Spice Ice Cream

Labels: Dessert, Diana Henry, Herbs, Ice cream, Jerry Traunfeld, Orange, Rosemary