FFwD: Baked Apples Filled with Fruits and Nuts

I've never met a baked apple that I didn't like. It's possible that so much time has passed since my last baked apple that this week's French Fridays with Dorie recipe, Baked Apples Filled with Fruits and Nuts (pg 394) seemed especially wonderful, or maybe it really was that good, but I LOVED this.

I followed Dorie's directions to peel mid-way down the apple, make a shallow cut around the apple, where the peel begins, then rub the cut with lemon. This seemed overly fussy, and I doubt I'd bother in the future. She says it will keep the apple from splitting. Mine did remain intact, but it was an annoying step for a dessert that would otherwise be super-fast to set up.

Thanks to Diane for the tip to use the melon baller to carve out the apple core without breaking through the bottom. I was making a hell of a mess of it with a knife, until I remembered that I do, in fact, own a melon baller. That made life much simpler.

I packed the apples with a mix of honey, raisins, dates, dried cranberries, and chopped almonds, poured apple juice, butter, and the reserved apple peels into the pan. (Why use the peel? Does the pectin in the skin thicken the sauce a little? Is it a flavoring agent? Why, Dorie? Why?) I thought it would be a pain in the butt to baste the apples every 15 minutes, but it wasn't.

Yeah, boyeeeee!

I don't think my apples ever reached the desired consistency. I basted faithfully for the full 75 minutes, and they never quite became "spoon tender." I did need to use a knife and fork. There's only so much time I'm willing to wait for a stinking baked apple. 75 minutes appears to be my limit. They were golden, on their way to brown, by the time I pulled them out, so I'm happy I didn't wait any longer.

In addition to the delightful textural contrast of the nuts and fruit inside the not-quite-spoon-tender, but still soft apple, my favorite part was that some of the honey (or maybe it was the dates? Couldn't tell.) caramelized into stick-to-your-teeth, chewy surprises. Yum.

I revisited last week's Dressy Pasta Risotto for dinner, and used the last two spoonfuls of mascarpone left in the container to top the apples. Perfetto!

In addition, I caught up on the Goat Cheese Mini Puffs. I brought them, along with a lasagne and Dorie's Provencal Olive Fougasse (one of my favorite recipes from the book) to a friend's house on New Years Eve. She was providing the location for a party a mere 3 hours after her plane from Venice touched down. She supplied booze and space, guests brought food. It was an excellent trade.

I'm glad I made the puffs, to cross them off the list. I'd pick gougeres over these any day. They were fine, and the entire tray disappeared quickly, but I won't be making them again.

The Flavor of Pain

The first dish I selected from The Epicurious Cookbook was Indo-Chinese Lettuce Wraps (pg 45). Because of its carblessness, it's ground chicken, and its veg component, it seemed like a nice, light recipe that would still have a lot of flavor (2 tsp each of garam masala, cumin, and coriander, plus a bit of cayenne, jalapeno, garlic, ginger, and cilantro).

I added black beans to the mix, had to use a hot red pepper instead of a jalapeno, and added a splash of lime juice at the end, but otherwise stuck to the recipe.

My eyes hurt just looking at them.

Twenty minutes later, my mouth is still throbbing. Are red peppers spicier than jalapeno? I don't know. I don't know if it's because of the hot red pepper or because 1/2 tsp of cayenne is more than my mouth can stand, but this lit my tongue and lips on fire. The lettuce helped cool it off, ever so slightly, but this could definitely have used some sort of yogurt sauce component, or a lot less cayenne. Or both. Or rice. Or something.

Conclusion: Just okay. I'd try it again, cutting back on the heat, but as written, it's more than I can handle.

If this recipe is any indication, I will not be complaining at the end of this book that its recipes were bland. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to guzzle a gallon of milk.

Update: Matt, who has a very high spice tolerance, reacted thusly: "All this tastes like is hot. It's burning my sinuses."

I'm downgrading this to a Dislike.

Wrapping Up, and Up Next

I'm moving on from Rome. It's a beautiful book, in terms of full page photos of the Eternal City, and lots of information about how and what Italians eat. Lots of information. Lots of information. This book has 192 pages, and only 50 recipes. As such, I consider my preparation of 13 of them to be a sizeable statistic. That's what? 26%? If I'd been a better math student, I'd be able to stake that claim with more confidence.

There are some excellent, easy recipes that I will (and have already) make many times. Favorites are Spaghetti alla Carbonara, Rigatoni con Guanciale e Cipolla, Petti di Pollo in Padella, and the Tozzetti. Apart from the cacio e pepe, nothing I tested was downright bad.

I'd only recommend this book to people who really want to look at pictures of Rome. For a book that only has 50 recipes, they included some pretty lame-sounding ones. Grilled Eggplant? Asparagus Frittata? Salad of Roman Field Greens? Thanks, but I'm not interested.

I'm keeping it, because the recipes that I love, I really love. I begrudge it the space it occupies on my shelf, though.

Next, I'll mosey about with The Epicurious Cookbook: More Than 250 of Our Best-Loved Four-Fork Recipes For Weeknights, Weekends, and Special Occasions. Phew. That was a mouthful.

You probably know this alread, but epicurious.com is a nifty little website and search engine in which you can find user-rated recipes, both professional and home recipes submitted by normal people, for pretty much anything you can think of. This book highlights a selection of their highest rated (Four Fork) recipes.

Off the bat, the broken-down-by-season thing doesn't work for me in this book. I don't mind it in some cookbooks. That type of breakdown is least offensive in books that predominantly focus on produce.

This book does not focus on produce. Why in the world should Soft Scrambled Eggs with Ricotta and Chives be in the Spring section? Yes, chives grow in the Spring, but they're pretty standard in any grocery store year-round, right? Same goes for the Buttermilk Biscuits with Green Onions, Black Pepper, and Sea Salt that can be found on the following page. If green onions are enough to qualify something as a "Spring" recipe, then everything I've ever cooked would belong in that section. Again, with the Cuppa Cuppa Cuppa Dip. Mayo, Swiss, and minced onion are mixed together and baked. How is that seasonal? (Also for Spring, if you were wondering.)

Anyway, that says  nothing about the success of the recipes, but it just doesn't seem like an appropriate layout for these particular recipes. Because of it, it's nearly impossible to find a recipe that you mentally flagged. It could be anywhere. I'd much prefer a standard Breakfast/Lunch/Dinner/Dessert or Appetizer/Soup/Chicken/Beef/etc breakdown. Perhaps, as I use the book, the layout will begin to make sense. We'll see.

On the plus side, this book has a huge variety of recipes for every different meal of the day, and they all sound good to me.

Rome: Cacio e Pepe

My #1 favorite, can't-resist-ordering-it, when-it's-done-well-it's-the-best-thing-ever pasta dish that I've fallen for since moving to Napoli is cacio e pepe. I know damn well that this dish is "simple" and that it hardly costs anything to prepare, as the list of ingredients looks a little something like this: pasta, peppercorns, salt, olive oil, pecorino romano cheese. Cheap, cheap, cheap. Good, good, good.

My favorite restaurant in Rome adds truffles to their version. Mother of God.

I must learn to make cacio e pepe, or else I'll be plunged into a tastebud depression when I move back stateside. It was a no-brainer that I would test out the recipe in Rome (pg 109).

Rome's version taught me that a simple list of ingredients does not mean that it's a simple recipe to get right. My cacio e pepe was a mess.

First, toast the peppercorns, then bash them with a rolling pin until they're coarsely ground. Straightforward enough.

Boil pasta until nearly done. Easy.

Add a ladle of the pasta's cooking water and some olive oil to a pan, add a handful of cheese, and mix vigorously. Add the pasta, then add the rest of the cheese, the crushed pepper, and as much water as is necessary to make a sauce.

Sounds simple, right? Wrong.

Mix as I might, the cheese refused to combine with the water and oil. It clung to the pan, and the oil kept separating from the water. Adding the pasta did not spread things out. I added the remaining cheese, which also, once mixed, stuck to the pan, the spoon--everything but the pasta. Adding water did not help.

Disgracing the name Cacio e Pepe.

Ever eat pasta with globs of intensely peppered, re-solidified cheese scraped on top? Unpleasant. Very unpleasant. 

I refuse to believe that cacio e pepe must be prepared by professionals. I will figure this out. (Amy, back me up if I ask Vera to teach us!)

Conclusion: Hated it. Disaster.

FFwD: Dressy Pasta "Risotto"

I have no idea why Dorie calls this week's recipe "risotto." She doesn't even seem to know why she calls it that, saying up front that "this is a risotto the way that finely sliced apples are a carpaccio." I thought this came out more like an alfredo sauce, but whatever. I don't really care what you call it--it's delicious and easy to make.

I was a bit startled by the direction to cook pasta in chicken broth (why have I never done that before??) for 25 minutes, until most of the liquid was absorbed. 25 minutes sounded like an awfully long time, but much to my surprise, the pasta did not turn into a mushy pile of goo. During the last few minutes of cooking, add cream, then parmesan and mascarpone.

I shredded a rotisserie chicken and stirred it in when I added the cream, because I didn't feel like preparing this pasta as a side to something else.

Yum. This was complete comfort food. Charlie ate his whole bowl.

It's a keeper. An indulgent keeper, but a keeper, nonetheless.

FFwD: Mme. Maman's Chopped Liver (as prepared by someone who can't deal with chicken liver)

The very idea of sourcing, preparing, and eating Mme. Maman's Chopped Liver (pg 32 of Around My French Table) made me want to hide under the table and weep. Then, Cher said that she was swapping the liver out for mushrooms. That's a switch that I could get behind, and the only possible way I was going to participate this week. I'm still trying to figure out how to "adjust" the chicken liver pate the group made several months ago so that I don't have to handle chicken liver. Haven't come up with a solution yet.

While I'm stealing ideas from Cher, I may as well steal from our resident Doristo, Trevor, too, and turn it into what he always calls "stuff on toast." 

Adding the optional hard boiled egg makes it sort of brave, right? No.

This was good. It came together quickly, and was a satisfying lunch. I don't regret using the mushrooms. It's still a list of ingredients--mushrooms, onions, hard boiled eggs, allspice--that I would never have thrown together on my own, so it counts as a recipe. I have declared it!

I've made up two additional recipes this week.

First up, Go-with-everything Celery Root Puree (pg 354). I've been on the prowl for a celery root since the group made this, and I finally spotted one at the supermarket. I've never eaten one before. It smells a lot like celery, but fortunately, doesn't taste much like it. It's a bit sweeter, and after boiling in milk and water with an onion, one potato, and then adding some butter and pureeing it, it was delicious. What does a celery root count as, diet-wise? Is it a carb like a potato, or is it a vegetable? Whatever it is, it's a great option to replace mashed potatoes.

I've tried three times to email this pic to myself, and it keeps not showing up. You'll have to take my word for it that it existed.

Lastly, I've been avoiding Vanilla Eclairs since the group baked them way back in April 2011. I think this was shortly before I joined the group. I've stayed away because I was pretty sure I would single-handedly demolish the entire tray. This is the reason why most of my remaining "make ups" are desserts. I have no off switch.

Matt's office was having a bake-off today. Perfect! I could make eclairs, taste one, then send the rest out of the house while, undoubtedly, winning bragging rights at a bake-off. (I mean, homemade eclairs HAVE to win, right?) I believe that these may not have been so difficult for other people to make, because they're basically gougeres, which I've made dozens of times. However, between the time sensitivity involved in the creation and baking of the pastry, the making and cooling of pastry cream, the piping, then the icing, this was a nightmare for me. Charlie wouldn't leave me alone long enough to just follow through on any part of it. He was asking to turn off the tv to play with me, so I felt like a wretch getting fed up with him. Then he wanted to help. Not a good recipe for 4-year-old intervention. Man, he made this a hard recipe to complete.

No doubt, these are tasty. Not worth the work and aggravation for me right now. Maybe I'll try them again when he goes to college.

Oh, and Matt forgot to bring them to work today. Grrrr.

FFwD: Orange-Almond Tuiles

Dorie says that tuiles are elegant little crispy cookies that offset creamy desserts beautifully.

Argh!

Apparently, I don't do elegant.

I didn't realize until I was already mixing the batter together that I used up all my almonds last week, so I replaced the finely chopped almonds with almond meal. I guess this caused my problem, because I followed all the other directions.

I couldn't get them off the baking sheet without crumpling them completely. Then, they  molded around and through the bars of my cooling rack.

Hey! One looks normal!!

They weren't crispy. They were very chewy. Caramel chewy. Oy vey.

I only made a few, since Dorie stipulates that they don't keep more than a day once baked, but that the batter will last a few days in the fridge. I doubt I'll even bake the remainder. They tasted good, but not good enough to make them worth the effort.

On the flip side, I made up the Compote de Pommes, Two Ways from a few weeks ago. It's apple sauce, but what apple sauce! I tasted the mash at the appropriate time for the "first way." It was fine, but nothing special. I let the apples continue to cook down for another hour.

Mmmmmmm

 That hour made all the difference in the world. The sauce became sweeter as it cooked. I didn't need to add any additional sugar, and omitted the butter Dorie adds at the end, because it was delicious just as it was. No need to add butter to apple sauce. I've been enjoying it in my yogurt all week.