Just Another Dirty Southern Brunch
Sometimes I just have these cravings…Southern cravings. They come on fast and hard and suddenly I just NEED to recreate something from my younger days. Yesterday I was entertaining friends for brunch. The night before, I was flipping through cookbooks, trying to find something complex and interesting to make. I was feeling particularly uninspired until I passed over a recipe for angel biscuits, which are basically biscuits leavened with yeast along with the more traditional baking powder. My mouth instantaneously started drooling as I recounted the feathery light biscuits the South is known for. And then there was nothing else I could possibly cook. There was no complicated quiche, no perfectly stacked benedict and certainly no fancy-pants pastry that could substitute for that biscuit. Thus, it was on.
And of course, where there’s biscuits, there’s bacon gravy.
But the biscuits. Did I mention they have yeast in them?
And of course, lard. Yes, I keep a block of lard in my freezer.
I rubbed the lard with some butter into my flour mixture.
And then poured in the yeast and some buttermilk.
I mixed (but just barely) that into a dough, pressed it out and stamped out my biscuits.
Then I let them rise by the fireplace until they were nice and puffed.
And then baked them until they had a nice crispy crust. And oh boy, they were yummy. Pretty much the perfect biscuit. So good that it almost seemed like a waste to pour gravy all over them. Not that that stopped me.
But could I stop with the biscuits and gravy? No. I wanted more. I wanted dirty. I wanted pimento cheese. Chances are that if you live on the wrong (or right) side of the mason-dixon line, you’ve never heard of such a thing. Let me tell you, it is kinda gross. And delicious. Think cheddar. Mixed with roasted peppers (In the South they have these jarred pimentos, I have no idea what makes those so special or why you can only get them there). And mayonnaise. Oh yes, I went there.
But since I DO have my limits, I at least made my own mayonnaise. Because that jarred stuff gives me the willies.
In a big bowl I threw in shredded cheddar, finely diced roasted red peppers, paprika, cayenne and some black pepper.
And stirred in my mayonnaise. Like I said, Dirty. It was not a brunch for the delicate eater, and I suspect I actually scarred Tessa (even though I totally caught her dipping a finger in the pimento cheese when she thought no one was looking), but it was worth the heartburn.
ANGEL BISCUITS RECIPE (adapted from Edna Lewis):
1 package (1/4 oz) active dry yeast
1/4 cup warm water
2 cups buttermilk, at room temperature
5 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar
1 TBSP baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 TBSP salt
4 oz lard, cold
4 oz butter, cold
melted butter for brushing the biscuits
- Dissolve the yeast in the warm water, let stand for 5 minutes. Stir in the room temperature buttermilk.
- Put the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt i a large bowl. Mix thoroughly. Using your fingers, rub in the lard and butter, being careful to keep large flat pieces.
- Stir in the yeast and buttermilk and mix until just blended.
- Turn dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead a few times, to make smooth. Roll to a thickness of 1/2″ and stamp out biscuits.
- Place biscuits on a parchment lined baking sheet. Cover lightly with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place for 45 minutes.
- Brush tops with melted but and bake in a preheated 450 oven for about 12 minutes, until golden brown.
Pretzels!
Today I learned something important: Pretzels can be really awesome. Homemade pretzels have been on my list for a while now, and I just kept putting them off. To be honest, I’ve never been a huge fan. And, well, my jaw doesn’t work so good sometimes and pretzels can be a real workout for the ole temporomandibular joint. But yesterday I made them. And they changed everything I’ve ever thought about pretzels. Seriously, I thought that I would take a nibble and then let John work his way through the pile. But after one bite I was ready to fight to the death for my second pretzel. Needless to say, these pretzels didn’t last 8 hours before being claimed by loving tummies. So I now know: T\there is not much better than a hot-out-of-the-oven pretzel, and I thank Sherry Yard a thousand times for sharing this recipe in her cookbook.
And did I mention they’re pretty simple to make? You start out with a dough. 
After the dough proofed I flattened it into a rectangle and chopped it into 8 pieces.
Then came the fun part: shaping. I think I got a tad carried away with the kneading, thinking gluten development was essential for the classic chewy pretzel. It made shaping them into ropes a bit trying, but eventually they got there. It’s important to get the dough fairly thin, because it’s going to be a lot thicker when you’ve finished.
I let the shaped pretzels proof a bit more on some oiled parchment.
Then I boiled (actually simmered) them. I think what made this recipe awesome was the amber beer in the simmering liquid, you could really taste it in the final pretzel!
I put them back on the parchment, brushed them with oil and sprinkled them with coarse sea salt.
Then into the oven they went until they were nice and toasty. And let me tell you, absolute perfection. I highly recommend this recipe to the pretzel fans and skeptics out there.
RECIPE (adapted from Sherry Yard):
Makes 8 pretzels
Dough:
1 1/4 tsp active dry yeast
1/2 cups warm water
1/4 cup buttermilk
2 TBSP light brown sugar
3/4 tsp sugar
1 1/2 tsp vegetable oil, plus more as needed (I used olive oil)
2 cups bread flour
1 1/2 tsp salt
Simmering Liquid:
2 quarts water
1/4 cup amber beer
1/4 cup baking soda
1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
vegetable oil
2 TBSP coarse sea salt
Make the dough:
- In a measuring cup, dissolve the yeast in the water and let sit for 5 minutes, or until cloudy. Add the buttermilk, brown sugar, sugar, and vegetable oil and mix well.
- Place the flour and salt in a bowl. Add the liquid mixture and knead until smooth.
- Brush a large bowl with vegetable oil. Scrape out the dough and place in the bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and let sit at room temperature for 1 hour.
- Line 2 half sheet pans with parchment paper and brush with oil. Lightly oil your work surface and your hands. Remove the dough from the refrigerator and press into a 6-inch square. Cut into 1 1/2 by 3 inch rectangles. One at a time, shape each piece into a pretzel. (Cover the pieces you aren’t working on with plastic.) Roll each piece out into a 24-inch long rope. Shape into a U, then crisscross the ends halfway up, twist them together like a twist-tie, and pull the legs down over the bottom of the U. Place the shaped pretzels onto the lined baking sheets. Cover with lightly oiled plastic wrap and allow to rise for 30 minutes, or until not quite doubled.
- While the pretzels are rising, place racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven and preheat the oven to 450 degrees F. Cut the parchment the pretzels are on into squares to facilitate lifting and transferring the pretzels into the water bath.
- In a 10-inch-wide stainless-steel pot, combine the water, beer, baking soda, and brown sugar and bring to a simmer. Two at a time, lift the parchment square with pretzel and carefully reverse the pretzel off the parchment into the simmering water. Cook for 10 seconds and flip, using a skimmer or slotted spoon. Cook for another 10 seconds, and with the skimmer, lift above the pan to drain. Then transfer back to the baking sheets, rounded sides up. Brush with vegetable oil. Dust with coarse salt.
- Bake, switching the sheets from top to bottom and rotating from front to back halfway through, for 15 minutes, or until the pretzels are chestnut brown. Remove from the oven and serve warm. Be sure and check the bottoms, mine got a little toasty!
Raspberry Jammin
Sometimes I just shouldn’t be allowed near the farmer’s market. Yesterday was so pretty and sunny, it made the raspberries so shiny and pink…how could anyone refuse buying a whole flat? I was so giggly riding the bus home thinking about all the projects I was going to tackle. First up though: raspberry jam. Because it’s my fave…
It’s my first time making raspberry jam, and it’s super easy! I generally go with almost equal parts sugar to fruit (by weight), but with just a tad less sugar. I heated it on low for 10 minutes, to break down the berries a bit and dissolve the sugar. Then I boiled it for about 15 minutes, until it appeared set.
I put it in sterile jars and popped it in the fridge to cool and finish setting, and then got to work on some whole wheat english muffins to spread it on…yummmm…
We are now officially overflowing in homemade jam. But I can’t stop making it.
RECIPE – Raspberry Jam:
2 lbs raspberries
1.75 lbs sugar (but this really depends on how tart your berries are)
- Heat in pot on low for 10 minutes to dissolve sugar.
- Once dissolved, bring to rapid boil and cook for about 15 minutes (this time changes depending on your quantity of berries), or until set.
- Immediately pour into sanitized jars and seal.
RECIPE – English Muffins (adapted from Nick Malgieri):
1 1/2 tsp instant yeast
2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup whole wheat flour (you can just use all-purpose if you like)
2 tsp salt
1 cup warm water (about 110 degrees)
4 tbsp (2 oz) butter, melted
1 tbsp honey
cornmeal for pan
- Whisk together flours, instant yeast, and salt in bowl.
- Mix together warm water, melted butter and honey in bowl. Add to flour mixture.
- Knead for about 5 minutes, until smooth and elastic. If too wet, add a bit more flour.
- Transfer to a floured baking sheet and pat down to be 1″ thick.
- Let chill, loosely covered with plastic in fridge for 15 minutes (or overnight if you wrap tightly).
- Roll out on floured surface to a bit more than 3/16″ thick. Use a round cutter to cut circles. Knead scraps together and place back in fridge to chill for another 15 minutes before rolling out again.
- Let circles rest at room temperature, covered with a towel, until almost doubled in size (the time depends on how hot your kitchen is, crank the heat up and it will go faster).
- When dough is ready, heat up cast iron skillet over medium – low heat. Sprinkle with cornmeal. Cook 1 muffin at a time until you get the heat right. Sometimes it takes a few rounds to get the heat right, but basically you want your muffin to cook through with 8-9 minutes on each side. I get paranoid and always place them in the oven for 10 minutes after cooking on the skillet.
- Let them cool and toast and dig in!
Bagels! and Cream Cheese!
When I see a sticky white bundle of cloth dangling in my kitchen, I know good things are coming.
As I have mentioned a few times, I do love a good cheese making session. Not that there’s much work on my end, I just like seeing that slow curding and draining process going on. Yesterday I made a yummy spreadable cream cheese, because, well, I’ve got some spreading to do. Me and Pantea are throwing a brunch party today, and while she will dominated with her delicious shirred eggs and veggies dish, my contribution will be loads of carbs and fat. Also known as bagels and cream cheese.
I’ve been wanting to make bagels forever, but it just seemed like one of those all day long projects, and then we would have stacks of bagels lying around. Since I’m way to obsessed with working my way through my vegetable box every week, AND I’ve been trying to ease John out of his carb addiction, it just seemed wrong. So I’ve been waiting, patiently, biding my time before pouncing on a good brunch invitation with my (hopefully) beautiful bagels.
So…we begin. bagels. I’m using the recipe from Peter Reinhardt’s “Bread Baker’s Apprentice”, Mostly because I think it’s a rad book, but also because it’s the only breadbaking book I own. I started with a sticky sponge (in breadspeak, a sponge is like a mini batch of your dough that you let rise for a bit before adding the rest or your ingredients, to add flavor) that I let hang out until it was all bubbly and magical cauldron looking.
Then I added the rest of the ingredients: flour, yeast, salt and malt syrup. Bagels are meant to be wuite chewy, which requires a lot of kneading to build up all that gluten. And because they’re going to be boiled, bagels begin as a super stiff dough, which is easier to knead by hand, but can be a bit of work on your kitchen aid mixer. I started the kneading in my machine, but chickened out after 5 minutes or so when it started grunting. I finished the kneading by hand, basically kneading until I could stretch a piece of it out with my hands without it tearing.
Then I portioned it into future bagel sized chunks.
And poked little holes in them! Let us not discuss my shaping skills, they are…er…in progress.
Then I let my little guys rest for a bit, and rise until they could float in water. Once they were nice and floaty, they were ready to spend the night in the fridge.
I got up this morning pumped for my little bagel adventure! I cranked up the oven and brought a pot of water to boil. I boiled my bagels in batches for 1 minute on each side and then put them back on the sheet pan. I sprinkled them with sesame seeds, poppy seeds and sea salt while boiling the rest.
Then I baked them!
So Cute and most definitely brunch-worthy!
Balls Balls Balls
Another night, another 90210. But last night, in celebration of a few males joining the dinner/bad TV fest we decided to serve them a meal of balls. Balls of all shapes and sizes. I just bought a cookbook for Israeli food (yes, they DO have a national food, even if it was all stolen) and I was itching to try some circular things out.
It was an ambitious meal consisting of: lamb meatballs baked in a tahini sauce, homemade falafel, fried fish falafels, fresh baked whole wheat pita pockets, hummus, salad & fried cauliflower with a lemon tahini dressing. As you can see, that’s a lot of balls.
I was cooking at my friends’ house, and things starting going awry almost immediately. I dropped the fish balls (which actually worked out well because Misha, it turns out, is very allergic to seafood). About an hour before we planned to eat, I realized that they don’t own a food precessor, which made homemade hummus and falafel a bit…challenging. Thank you Truly Mediterranean for saving us on THAT one.
But the pitas were yum. And the fried cauliflower, perfect. Alas, that house is also where good food photography goes to die, so I am limited in documentation of our feast of the balls. But here are some pita photos!
I haven’t worked much with whole wheat yet, and this was my first time trying this recipe, so i was fairly happy with the results. They were tasty for sure.
But some of them didn’t expand to create a pocket (what’s up with that?), which meant we had to create our own pockets for stuffing. As always, I don’t think anyone cared besides me.
So we ate. And ate. And Misha REALLY ate. And then we feasted on donut balls (yes, I know how to drive a concept into the ground). And then all the guys CONVENIENTLY snuck away before 90210.
East African Fried Goodness
The lovely people at Party Corps are throwing a fundraiser party for International Pediatric Outreach Project & Heal Africa, to bring physical therapy practice and education to the Democratic Republic of Congo. They asked me to create a simple (and cheap) bite sized treat for the party, preferably an East African recipe. So I’m going with a sweetened up version of Mandazi, basically a spicy East African donut. Today I tested it out on some friends.
I started with a donut dough that I doctored up with some traditional mandazi spices: ginger, cardamom, allspice & cinnamon.
It’s been several hours since grinding it and my kitchen still smells like fresh ground cardamom, which is very much NOT a bad thing.
I let the dough rise and chilled it for a day (mostly because I ran out of time and needed to go to work). Then I rolled it out and stamped little discs.
I fried them up and tossed them with some sugar that was mixed with the spices.
And they were delicious! And so cutsey pie! And we ate all 50 of them! Which we weren’t supposed to do. John showed up and it was “oops” all around. But no worries, tomorrow I get to make 400 of them!
RECIPE:
60-80 doughnut holes (depending on size)
1 ¾ tsp instant yeast
¾ cup whole milk
3 cups + 2 tbsp AP flour
7 large egg yolks
½ cup sugar
¾ tsp salt
4 oz butter, melted
1 tbsp vanilla extract
1/8 tsp of each: ground ginger, ground cardamom, ground allspice, ground cinnamon
tossing sugar: 1 cup sugar mixed with 1/8 tsp of each: ground ginger, ground cardamom, ground allspice, ground cinnamon
- Mix yeast, 2 ¾ cup flour and spices.
- Mix in milk.
- In another bowl mix egg yolks, sugar, salt & vanilla extract.
- Add ½ cup flour.
- Add melted butter.
- Add egg mixture to flour/milk mixture.
- Mix on low with paddle for 1 minute.
- Add remaining 2 tbsp of flour and mix on high for 1 minute. The dough will be very sticky.
- Gather dough into a ball and place in oiled bowl.
- Cover and let rise until doubled in size, about 1 ½ – 2 hours.
- Deflate dough and put in fridge for 1 hour to firm up.
- Roll dough on floured surface to 1/2″ thick.
- Cut out doughnut shapes.
- Let rise for 30 minutes while heating oil up to 370 degrees.
- Fry in batches of 6-10 doughnuts for 1 1/2 – 2 minutes, tossing constantly to make sure both sides fry evenly, until cooked through.
- Toss in tossing sugar.
Lester muffins
Known more conventionally as English muffins.
Today I’m taking Lester out for a spin, to see what kind of flavor he’s packing. John blows through English muffins like no one I’ve seen before, so it seemed like a good project. I KNOW they’ll get eaten. Well, unless they suck.
It seems like a tasty dough, with a cup of Lester, milk, butter & honey. But it’s funny how when I take photos, it looks like every other dough…I promise I don’t just have a closet full of dough that I keep shaping (wouldn’t that be nice though?). I let the dough rise for a couple of hours and then portioned into little discs to rise some more.
And then I get to pull out the cast iron skillet, a favorite in my kitchen that I definitely don’t use enough.
Cook them on low heat for a bit and then flip them and cook the other side.
Let them cool and I’ve got english muffins!
They really LOOK like english muffins!
Introducing Lester.
Let me just say this: I LOVE SAN FRANCISCO. It is home, and it is like no other city. That being said, I can’t afford to live here anymore (Do you have any idea how pathetic the salary is for a pastry chef?). So some day, I will leave. There’s a long list of things that I want to get done before saying my goodbye. I’d like to ride my bike along the California coastline, climb Mt Shasta, spend a summer working on one of California’s amazing organic family farms, eat at Gary Danko, drive through one of those big redwood tree tunnels (do those even exist?). Near the top of that list is to exploit something that the bay area has that no other place can (literally) touch: wild yeast.
For all my friends unfamiliar with sourdough, here’s a quickie – sourdough is made from wild yeast that is “caught” from the air around us and is grown in a container. This is called a BARM. You feed it every day with a little water and flour, a total amount of half your BARM’s weight. I made a sourdough starter last year, nursed it for weeks, and then killed it. Somewhere in that exercise I missed the part about letting it out at room temperature before and after feeding it, to wake the little critters up for dinnertime.
I am now starting anew. I would like to introduce you to Lester, son of Fester, the BARM from my work.
Lester lives in my fridge and will provide me with sourdough bread for as long as I take care of him. How awesome is that?
Pizza! Pizza!
Last night was a pizza sweatshop! 8 pizzas and still not enough…my friends can EAT. Thank you Nir for whipping up one of your delicious salads. And Jimmy, my dear pie apprentice for sharing your gorgeous banana cream pie.
Yesterday was John’s birthday, and we had about 16 people coming over for dinner to celebrate. In an attempt to be armed and ready, I made my dough the night before and let it hang in the fridge until it was needed. Dough is so weird (in a good way OBVIOUSLY). This was an especially wet pizza dough.
Bronson was on team pizza with me, running the toppings bar while I did the shaping. I’ve only made pizza a couple of times before, and Bronson is a veteran (though he’s from Chicago, and I bat for team thin crust). He helped keep things running smooth, saying things like “Add more flour” and “It needs more flour”.
We kept it in freestyle mode with the flavors, in hopes of appeasing the meat-eaters and vegetarians. There was red sauce. And green sauce (A pesto I had made in the summer with fresh basil and then froze). And sausage, peppers, sautéed onions, chanterelles, and of course: homemade mozzarella.
And my self proclaimed “Best in Show”: Pesto, Red Yellow Peppers, Mozzarella & Meyer Lemons.
This was one of those meals that really gets my juices bubbling. I made EVERYTHING: the dough, the cheese, the sauces. All I need now is a farm so I can grow my own veggies…
Today I’m celebrating America
With apple fritters!
I diced up my apples into adorable little cubes.
And then sautéed them in some butter, vanilla bean, apple cider & cinnamon.
I then dumped my apples onto my donut dough that’s been rising in the meantime.
It may look like just another dough, but there’s layers and layers of those apples folded into it, making it very special indeed.
After my apple laden dough rose a bit more, I cut some circles out of it.
I let my rounds chillax while I prepared my glaze.
Being an Alabama girl, I’m no stranger to deep frying.
Oh you… you…doughnut. You kill me. Literally. I need to get rid of these ASAP. Good thing I have a dinner party to attend tonight!
Between Barack Obama becoming president and me learning how to make apple fritters, it’s truly a great day to be an American. Man, haven’t said that in 8 years!
APPLE FRITTERS RECIPE (from Nancy Silverton):
makes 16-20 fritters
Special Items:
10″ to 12″ large skillet
2 1/2 inch round cutter
Heavy-duty, deep saucepan filled halfway with vegetable oil
Ingredients:
2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast
2/3 cup whole milk
3 1/4 cups plus 2 TBSP all-purpose flour
4 extra-large egg yolks
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup sparkling apple cider
1/2 stick (2 oz) unsalted butter, melted
1 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1TBSP pure vanilla extract
For the apples:
1/2 stick (2 oz) unsalted butter
1 vanilla bean
7 firm and tart Granny Smith apples (2 1/2 lb.), peeled and cut into 1/2″ cubes to equal 7 cups
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1 cup sparkling apple cider
For the white glaze:
1/2 cup plus 2 TBSP powdered sugar, sifted
1/4 cup heavy cream
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/8 tsp salt
- To prepare the dough: Place the yeast in the bowl of an electric mixer. In a small saucepan, over medium heat, heat the milk until warm to the touch. Pour the milk over the yeast to soften, 1 to 2 minutes. Add 2 cups of the flour to the milk mixture, without stirring. Cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap and set aside in a warm place until the surface of the flour cracks, about 30 to 40 minutes.
- In a small bowl combine the egg yolks and sugar. Add the cider, melted butter, salt, cinnamon, vanilla extract, and 1 1/4 cups of the flour and mix until combined. Add this mixture to the yeast. Using the paddle attachment of an electric mixer, mix on low for half a minute, then turn up to medium for about 1 minute. Add the remaining 2 tablespoons of flour and mix on low for half a minute, then on medium for another half a minute. The dough will be very sticky.
- Sift an even layer of flour onto the work surface; scrape the dough out of the bowl, onto the work surface. Clean the mixing bowl and lightly coat it with vegetable oil. Gather the dough and return it to the oiled bowl. Cover it tightly with plastic wrap, and set aside in a warm place until the dough has doubled in size, about 1 1/2 hours.
- To prepare the apples: In a large skillet over medium heat, melt the butter. Using a small paring knife, split the vanilla bean lengthwise. With the back of the knife, scrape out the pulp and the seeds of the vanilla bean, and add the scrapings and the pod to the butter. Heat the butter until bubbly. Add the chopped apples, tossing to coat them with butter. Add the cinnamon and sugar, and saute 3 to 5 minutes until slightly softened and the majority of the apples are deep golden. Add the vinegar ad cider, and reduce over medium-high heat. If the apples are becoming too mushy, turn the heat up, so the liquid reduces quickly. If they are still very firm, turn the head down to reduce slowly. The apples should be cooked, but still slightly firm to the touch. Remove the vanilla bean and place the apples on a baking sheet to cool.
- Scrape the dough out onto a floured surface and stretch into a rectangle about 2 inches thick. Spread half of the apples over the dough and fold into thirds by bringing the bottom up and the top down, patting with your hands to flatten slightly. Scatter the remaining apples on top and fold into thirds again. Gather the dough together by tucking under the edges and return it to the oiled bowl. Cover and allow to rise until doubled in size, about 30 minutes.
- Heat the oil to 375 degrees.
- Scrape the dough out onto a floured surface and gently roll or pat it into a rectangle about 1/2 inch thick, flouring the surface of the dough as necessary. Dip the cutter in flour and, cutter as closely together as possible, cut out the fritters. Place them on a floured surface and allow to rest for 10 minutes, no longer.
- To prepare the glaze: In a small stainless steel bowl set over a pot of gently simmering water, combine the powdered sugar, cream, vanilla extract, and salt. Heat until just warm, stirring frequently. The glaze should be thin and translucent; if necessary, thin it down with more cream.
- Dip your hands in flour, and stretch the fritters by pulling them gently elongating the round shape into a 4″ oval. Don’t worry if you puncture the dough as you stretch it. Drop directly into the hot oil and fry according to instructions.
- Brush the fritters with glaze while they are warm.
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