Winter Skies, Kitchen Aglow

It can be a bit of an effort to approach the statutory holidays of the new year with the same vigour one has on a workday morning, unless, of course, one is hosting friends and/or family for brunch and mimosas. I did not play host-like roles for any festivities pre or post-New Year's Day, for I knew that I would have too much of a good thing at the home of good friends' the night before (being hosted is always such a treat), and I did. But one must eat after such an evening, and in such a haze, needing sustenance for the day and others to come (festivities are known to continue through January 1), I often turn to eggs or bread, sometimes in combination.

A personal favourite at the start of any weekend or holiday morning is eggs benedict or croque monsieur. The former is more fiddly than the latter, requiring a hollandaise sauce to be made, so the decision to make croque monsieur was a simple one. Croque monsieur is the ultimate in simple Parisian snack food, for it is quite plainly a toasted ham and cheese sandwich (a croque madame is topped with a fried egg). As is particularly true for recipes that need but the fewest ingredients, the better the quality of bread, ham and cheese, the more satisfying the result. Your only choice for cheese is one between emmental and gruyère, both of which melt under the merest heat: emmental (or Swiss cheese, as it is known in New Zealand, Australia and North America) is a hard cheese of cow's milk that is nutty and slightly acidic; gruyère is made from cow's milk and is sweet but slightly salty (overall imparting a somewhat mineral quality to a dish). Both cheeses complement ham's salty notes.

Perhaps she did not have in mind those deservedly inflicted with a hangover, but Nigella Lawson's recipe for Croque Monsieur Bake is ingenious - everything is prepared the night before, so all one has to do is pre-heat an oven before throwing the waiting ingredients into it.

Croque Monsieur Bake
(from Nigella Lawson's Nigella Express)

6 slices light rye bread
75g Dijon mustard
6 slices and 4 tablespoons grated gruyère cheese
6 thin slices of ham
6 eggs
1 teaspoon salt
80ml/3 fl. oz milk

1) Make sandwiches in the traditional manner: spread each slice of bread with mustard, in between each sandwich go the cheese and ham. Cut in half, either straight down or on the diagonal.
2) Press sandwich halves snuggly into a baking dish.
3) In a bowl, whisk together the eggs, salt and milk.
4) Pour liquid over the sandwiches.
5) Cover with clingfilm and keep in the refrigerator overnight.
6) In the morning, preheat your oven to 200 C/400 F.
7) Remove baking dish from the fridge, dispose of the clingfilm, and sprinkle grated cheese over the top (along with a sprinling of Worcestershire sauce, if desired).
8) Bake in the oven for 25 minutes, by which time the egg will have cooked, the bread will have browned, and the cheese will have melted.

This is a great no-fuss way to start any morning, especially one in which stodgy food is a necessity to give one's stomach fortitude after the previous night's/early morning's boozing. Quite rich, there is easily enough to satisfy 4-6.

Later in the day, one might turn one's mind to something slightly sweet. This is not the right moment to go into the grand subject of The Mighty Cheesecake (we have hangovers and are suffering from the inevitable exhaustion that follows the rush to complete business before Christmas, remember?), on which many a book and treatise has been written; however, I will assert my general preference for baked cheesecakes in the style of Central and Eastern Europeans crossed with the Commonwealth and North American enjoyment of a biscuit base. In New Zealand we neither cook nor bake cheesecakes (generally), and often serve them with fruit atop or woven through. I dispense of the fruit, bake the cheesecake and always have a spicy biscuit base.

The following receipe is suitable for a 24cm/9" springform pan. Feel free to use your preferred cookies for the base. I like digestive biscuits, semi-sweet cookies made with wholemeal flour. When in the US, I use graham crackers as they are easier to find when I am not in the mood to make my own digestive biscuits - also, they are the closest approximation to digestive biscuits.

Cheesecake

For the base:

250g digestive biscuits, pulverised to fine crumbs
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1/2 teasponn cinnamon

1) Mix all ingredients together.
2) Press evenly into a springform pan, allowing it to come up the sides to form a shell around the cheesecake filling.
3) Place in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.

For the filling:

500g/1 lb cream cheese
1 tablespoon flour
1/2 cup sugar
4 eggs, separated
1/2 cup cream
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt

1) In a bowl, beat the cream cheese until it is soft.
2) Add flour and sugar, mix well.
3) Add the egg yolks, cream and vanilla extract, mix well.
4) In a separate bowl, combine egg whites and sugar until soft peaks are formed.
5) Fold egg whites into cream cheese mixture.

To complete:

biscuit base, as above,
filling, as above
3/4 cup sour cream
1/2 teaspoon vanilla bean paste (or vanilla extract)

1) Pre-heat oven to 200 C/400 F.
2) Pour filling into biscuit base.
3) Place springform pan into a roasting pan, add hot water, which is to come halfway-up the side of the springform pan (do not get any water into the cheesecake). Creating a bain marie prevents overcooking and keeps the cheesecake from rising and falling too dramatically, creating a smoother, more even-looking cheesecake.
4) Bake for 50 minutes.
5) While the cheesecake is baking, combine sour cream and vanilla extract.
6) Take cheesecake out of oven, spread sour cream mixture over surface of the cheesecake.
7) Bake for a further 10 minutes.

The addition of sour cream to the top (as opposed to folding it into the cream cheese itself) creates a foil to the richness of the cheesecake filling by supplying an overt tangy quality to it. I have a great love of sweet-sour combinations - this addition is also quite popular in the American northeast. I suppose this also acts as a metaphor for the year - to enjoy and accept the fullness and happiness of life, whilst also weathering its tangy, sour moments with as much grace as possible.

Today's results look quite spartan, and this is not without intention. This is a new year, after all. It is best to look forward, with renewed pleasure for life, learned from the previous year's experiences. This is going to be a great year for me, if for no other reason that for the fact that my angelheart Eric is moving to New Zealand.

Happy New Year!

Labels: Cheesecake, Croque Monsieur Bake, Holidays, New Year, Nigella Lawson, Summer

My angelheart Eric and I welcomed in last year with a very simple yet rich lunch of Alaskan Colossal Crab Legs and Eggs Benedict. It made a nice change to dashing around to attend this, that and the other breakfast-brunch-lunch and sipping mimosas (which along with Bloody Marys seem to be the favoured brunch drinks in Southern California). This year, I couldn't even tell you what I ate on New Year's Day. No, I wasn't hungover; I just wasn't in the mood to mark the occasion. I simply ate (maybe a bulgur wheat salad?) and saw the day through. Perhaps the funk rested in the apprehension of the year to come - so many changes, all of which are exciting and nerve-wracking. I have finally decided that it is time to officially accept that the new year has begun, so now I must embrace the changes to come and get on with the show.

I have decided to start with adapting an approach to dish design that I read about in Skye Gyngell's seasonal celebration, A Year In My Kitchen. She has created for her restaurant menu a series of culinary accents that she uses to complement and round out her dishes: a "Culinary Toolbox". The items sit like notes on a scale, from woody herbs at the low end, bright herbs at the top, to agra-dolce (the sweet-sour application in Italian cookery), which sits in the middle. On the low end of the scale also sit Skye Gyngell's staple of Braised Lentils.

Lentils are legumes that develop an earthy and rich flavour when cooked. Making lentils is a fitting way to start my posts for 2008, for many cultures use them as symbolic representations of the year they hope to come. Shaped like a coin, lentils suggest prosperity; circular, they are a symbol of new beginnings and good luck. The most known of new year's dishes is Italy's cotechino con lenticchie - pork sausage and lentils.

Before embarking on any lentil recipe, first tip the amount of lentils you are going to use for your dish onto a baking tray or other flat container. Thus in a single layer, it is easier for you to sort through the lentils for any small stones, fibres and discoloured or misshapen lentils. Place the lentils into a colander or sieve and run cold water through them. For braising, you will need whole lentils, so Puy (sometimes called "French lentils" in New Zealand) or Castelluccio are best - you need them to be cooked through but retain their bite. Red, brown or yellow split lentils will quickly turn mushy; consequently, they are used for soup dishes.

Braised Lentils
(largely adapted from Skye Gyngell's A Year In My Kitchen)

345g/12oz Puy lentils
1 onion, peeled and quartered
1 carrot, peeled and cut into three chunks
1 red chilli, left whole
3 small cloves of garlic, peeled and left whole (use 2 if the cloves are large)
2-3cm/0.7-1" fresh root ginger, peeled (made easy with a teaspoon) and left whole
5 sprigs of parsley
3 bay leaves, fresh
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
1 1/2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons sesame oil

1) Rinse lentils and place in a deep saucepan with all ingredients except the vinegar, tamari or soy and oil.
2) Add enough water to completely cover lentils and bring to the boil over a medium heat. Over too a high heat, the gentle flavourings of all the elements will not be encouraged to be extracted; instead they will be shocked.
3) Lower heat and simmer until lentils are cooked but still retain a bite, approximately 20 minutes.
4) Remove from heat, drain in a colander and tip lentils into a bowl.
5) While still warm, dress lentils with the vinegar, soy and oil.
6) Once cooled, the lentils can stored in an air-tight container in the fridge for up to one week. Bring them to room temperature before using.

The Braised Lentils are to be used when required. They can be scattered over a dish to lend depth and nuttiness when such elements are otherwise missing, or to complement other nutty elements of a different texture. You could also use the lentils as a base onto which you set the rest of the dish, as Skye Gyngell does with pan-roasted chicken supremes (breast with wing still attached), basil oil, slow-roasted tomatoes, topped with aioli.

There are other elements of Skye Gyngell's culinary toolbox, all are items which can be stored for a few days or up to one week. I think this is a good idea for the home cook, like myself, to "finish" or "dress" meals for the home cook. I'm excited to have tried this, and though I'm sure to tweak it further to serve as my own nutty and earthy low-note, the concept is inspiring. I wonder what other seasonal toolbox items I will create throughout the year to have on hand in the kitchen?

I thank Pille of Nami-Nami for recommending A Year In My Kitchen to me as a comforting and inspiring read during a particularly hard time of writing my thesis.

Labels: Holidays, Lentils, New Year, Skye Gyngell

  Happy New Year!

For most westerners, New Year's Day is usually the day in which the point is to rid oneself of his or her hangover. Following that, one usually commits to fulfilling as many of the new year's resolutions made the night before as possible. Remarkably, the fridge is cleaned, the dirty laundry is off the floor, the blinds are dusted...And that's usually where the enthusiasm for the do-good resolutions ends - if not then, certainly within a couple of weeks thereafter. This year I decided not to make any resolutions. In fact, if anything, my angelheart Eric and I had a lunch of utter decadence to celebrate this New Year's Day, the diametric opposite to what the beginning of the new year is for most people: diets and exercise. Truthfully, I do enough exercise for me (yoga four times a week), and though I do not always eat sensibly, I do not usually overeat except on occasions (not the orthodox ones, mind you; usually, the occasions are "because I feel like it", "you're not the boss of me", and "I've been good all week").

Today's special lunch, laissez-faire table-setting aside, was all for the occasion of "because we feel like it". We rarely spend the first day of the new year on our own, so it was a real treat to leisurely play in the kitchen together.

The Alaskan Colossal Sea Crab has the biggest legs you ever did see on a crab with very sweet and substantial meat, which is usually best dipped into a hot sauce or a melted compound butter (ours had chopped parsley). Simply, one need do no more than boil the legs in salted water with half a lemon for approximately 10 minutes.

As for the eggs benedict, they have always been a favorite start to the morning for me. I had never made them before today, but I wanted them anyway. I'm sure no one needs a recipe for these, but I consulted Nigella Lawson's How To Eat for her hollandaise sauce, adjusted the recipe for two, and made the sauce accordingly. I love hollandaise for both its sharpness and richness, but it is fairly flexible in that you can use more or less lemon juice according to your own penchant or dislike for a citrus spike.

Hollandaise Sauce
(from Nigella Lawson's How To Eat)

1 stick of butter (113 grams), cubed
2 egg yolks
juice of 1/4 of 1 lemon
salt and pepper

1) Put egg yolks in a bowl and place bowl over another bowl (or pan) into which 1 inch (2.5cm) of water has been placed. The bowl containing the yolks should not touch the water.
2) As the water is getting to a simmer, whisk yolks constantly.
3) When the water is simmering, gradually whisk the butter into the egg yolks one cube at a time.
4) When the sauce is thick, add the lemon juice, then salt and pepper to taste, whisking all the time.
5) Place the bowl into another bowl or pan, this time containing tepid water, and this time the bowl containing the sauce can touch the water (the purpose is to keep the sauce warm).
6) Before serving, beat the eggs again as it may separate out a bit in the warming process. If curdling occurs, put an ice cube in the sauce and whisk it in to bring down the temperature.

My hint for poached eggs comes from the much adored (by me, anyway) "basics" section at the back of Gary Rhodes' The Cookery Year. Fill up a deep saucepan with water (or replace one-third of the water with vinegar) and bring it to a rapid boil. When it is boiling, use the end of a wooden spoon to create a circular motion in the water. Drop the eggs in one at a time. The spinning water will cause the egg whites to collect and settle around the yolks. If you are a little timid, spiral then drop one egg in, spiral again then drop another egg in, etc. Or you could just do one at a time, transfering each poached egg to a plate as you go. In that case, if you want to reheat them, bring water to rapid boil again, then drop the poached eggs in for one minute.

I do not advocate this as a lunch for anyone on a regular basis. It was all too rich for us, but we didn't care. It may indeed clog our arteries for a while (lots of egg yolks and butter, in addition to whatever cholesterol is increased on account of eating the crab), but that is a consequence with which we can live. The champagne that we had with the crab and eggs benedict made for cleaning and drying the palate between flavorful mouthfuls, allowing for transcendental enjoyment of each decadent mouthful.


May you have a happy, peaceful, and prosperous new year.

Labels: Crab, Gary Rhodes, Holidays, New Year, Nigella Lawson