mix, mix…stir, stir

How often is your dinner plan inspired by a food blog you just happened by? It happens to me all the time and I thought I would share what was served at the Peterman house last night thanks to blog inspiration.

Though this isn’t a blog I just happened upon, I subscribe to the RSS feed for Rouxbe’s Blog and I subscribe to the Rouxbe site so I can access their excellent online cooking school program. This recipe for Chicken Vesuvio  just jumped off the screen and I knew what I’d be making for dinner! Maybe it was the appeal of an entire meal in one dish, or it could have simply been the beautiful photos that got me. Either way, it was delicious and a good choice for dinner.

It’s a simple series of basic steps: browning, deglazing, oven braising, sauteing, and reducing liquid. Though the recipe has six cloves of garlic, it’s not pungent and overpowering because the garlic is émincéd, or thinly sliced. It is remarkable how mild garlic is when it is left in larger pieces. It doesn’t seem logical that biting into a large slice of garlic would be less potent than finely minced garlic, but with a finer chop more enzymes are released from the cell walls and that’s what produces the strong sulfurous flavors and aromas. The recipe also has a link to a great instructional video on how to émincé.

So that’s my suggestion if you just can’t figure out what to cook for dinner tonight.

Delicate shortbread cookies are one of my favorite cookies to make. They are quick, easy, take to all sorts of favor variations, and always impress. This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe is described as being similar to a shortbread cookie, but wafery and lacy. You can see that my cookies are quite classically shortbread-like. I am not sure what happened to “wafery and lacey.”

The recipe includes lime zest, shredded coconut, chopped macadamia nuts, and a pinch of coriander. Not wanting to spend $10 on macadamia nuts, I decided to use sesame seeds in their place. Granted, this change could explain the lack of a wafery, lacey texture, but it would surprise me that the substitution would make that much difference in the texture. I can’t wait to see how these came out for the other TWD bakers.

For a shortbread cookie these were fantastic! The addition of corn starch makes them so tender and crumbly, yet the shredded coconut adds a wonderful chewy texture. I wasn’t completely sure the sesame flavor would work, but it absolutely did. I want to try them again with orange zest, star anise, and sesame.

Dorie uses a great plastic bag technique for rolling the dough that makes working with this very sticky dough trouble-free. Basically, the dough is placed in a gallon-size plastic zip-top bag and rolled to fill the bag. Once chilled, cut the bag open, slice the dough and it can easily be lifted onto a baking sheet. She uses this same technique with other sticky doughs and it always works like a charm.

Jayne of The Barefoot Kitchen Witch picked the recipe for this week and she has it posted on her blog if you want to give it a try, but you should just spring for the whole book so you have all the other recipes too!

I, along with over 350 other baking bloggers are baking our way thorough Dorie Greenspan’s book, Baking: From My Home to Yours. 67 recipes completed 154 to go!

This was the biggest surprise I ‘ve had in my Tuesdays with Dorie baking adventures. This cheesecake blew me away it was so good! Good cheesecake comes down to texture as far as I am concerned. I like creamy-smooth to the point that it almost feels light, which seem like an oxymoron given the cream cheese, sourcream and eggs involved in making cheesecake, but if the texture is right, it is like eating a delicious creamy cloud.

photo by David Peterman

I followed Dories advice to “mix like mad” for a “flawlessly smooth texture” and she did not lead me astray. I let my Kitchen Aid rip until the batter was thick and satiny-smooth. Baking in a water bath is also critical for nice texture, but carries the risk of a soggy crust from water leaking into the springform pan. I have a “no-leak” pan, but it leaks. After years of batteling soggy crusts, I bought a roll of extra-wide foil that I keep stashed away for this specific use. It is wide enough to wrap the outside of a springform pan without any seams. No seams, no leaking, so simple!

It may have been just the extra attention I gave to beating the batter so super-smooth that resulted in the exquisite texture, but the very gentle cooling cycle that Dorie suggests could also be a key factor. After baking, leave the cheesecake in the water bath with the oven turned off and the door propped open for an hour. Then remove it from the water bath and let it cool to room-temperature before refrigerating. This is not a baking project to start late in the evening, which I realized as I was reading the cooling instructions after putting my cheesecake in the oven at 9:00 p.m. I know the first thing to do is read the entire recipe before starting, but this is apparently one of those lessons I need to learn again and again.

A Cheesecake Factory’s menu is proof that you can take the flavor of cheesecake in any direction, but there is something to be said for plain. Well, plain with a warm Spiced Caramel Sauce. Though, I will admit to adding a little ginger powder to the graham cracker crust. It is Anne of AnneStrawberry who gets credit for the recipe selection this week. She has the recipe posted on her blog, but really you should own Baking: From My Home to Yours for the other 500 pages of recipes and baking advise from Dorie Greenspan.

Spiced Caramel Sauce

For the times when you have just shy of a cup of cream on hand

3/4 cup + 1/3 cup+ 1 tablespoon of granulated sugar
1/3 cup + 1 tablespoon water
3/4 cup heavy cream
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon allspice
2 cloves, ground (about 1/16 teaspoon)
pinch of salt

In a small dish combine the spices and salt and set aside.

In a medium pot over medium-low heat, melt the sugar in the water. Stirring initially, but stop stirring once the sugar is dissolved.  Increase the heat a bit and bring the syrup to a boil. Run a clean pastry brush that has been dipped in water around the side-walls of the pan just above the level of the syrup to wash down any sugar crystals. Repeat until the pan walls are clean. Boil the syrup until it begins to turn a dark golden-brown color. Don’t be afraid to let the caramel develop a nice dark color; a darker caramel has more flavor.

Once the syrup is at the desired color, remove the pan from the heat and carefully pour in the cream. The caramel will bubble up wildly and let off a fair amount of steam, so stand clear. Return the pan to a low heat and stir, with a clean spoon or spatula, until smooth. Then stir in the spices and salt. Serve warm.

I am on a bit of a rhubarb kick, so I was very happy to make this week’s Tuesdays With Dorie selection picked by Amanda from Sprinkles on a Cupcake. When ever I make a cobbler, or crisp for that matter, I am surprised at how easy and delicious they are. I am not sure why they don’t remain front and center in my dessert mind. I guess my love for cakes and chocolate work just seems to push the humble cobbler aside, but once again I am reminded that cobblers are fantastic and I should be making them more often.

photo by David Peterman

I thought it would be nice to have picnic cobblers by making them in individual muffin paper molds. I was very pleased with how well it worked, though it was necessary to use two paper molds for each cobbler otherwise a lot of liquid seeped out. The bottoms were a bit sticky, but I think it is a nice presentation none-the-less. I found I needed to fill the cups almost full as the topping doesn’t rise a great deal and because of the small containers I cut the fruit smaller than Dorie instructs. Dorie’s recipe fills about eight of the tall brown paper muffin cups.

I think there is a great fear of rhubarb and sugar is the coping mechanism;generally so much sugar that all the wonderful characteristics of the rhubarb are completely obliterated. No so with this cobbler. The rhubarb was allowed to shine in all its tartness and glory. The cherries added a wonderful contrast in flavor and texture that was easy to distinguish thanks to the restrained use of sweetener. The addition of whole wheat flour to the topping added a nice depth of flavor and the touch of ginger was a perfect accent to both the filling and topping.

Beyond the individual portioning I made very few changes to the recipe. I used whole wheat pastry flour rather than standard whole wheat flour because that is what I had on hand, and the softer flour seemed like a good way to ensure a tender topping. I also dipped into my stash of ginger sugar to sprinkle on the topping before baking them. Ginger sugar is as complicated as saving the sugar at the bottom of a bag of crystallized ginger. It is great stuff, don’t toss it out!

I agree with Dorie’s comment that the cobbler is best served warm. The fruit is fine at room temperature or even chilled, but the biscuits really need to be a little warm to be truly satisfying. One other great thing about cobbler is it makes a darn fine breakfast. What? It’s fruit and a biscuit.

As with all the Tuesday with Dorie recipes, you can find this in Dorie Greenspan’s book Baking: From My Home to Yours.