DORIE GREENSPAN

Baking with Dorie: Attention Swedish Visiting Cake Lovers

I think those of you who love the Swedish Visiting Cake in Baking From My Home to Yours, are going to be as excited as I was to make its cousin, the Swedish Apple Cake, from a recipe that my Connecticut neighbor, Ann Brettingen, recently got from her mother in Sweden.  It's as easy as the Swedish Visiting Cake - as delicious, too - but it's got a little something extra: a baked-in apple topping. 

You can find Ann's recipe in this week's Baking with Dorie post on Serious Eats. 

You can find my friend Ingela Helgesson's recipe for the Swedish Visiting Cake here.

Ronnybrook Milk Bar:Soups, Shakes, Salads and More at the Market

There are so many reasons to love the Chelsea Market - among them Amy's Bread, Sarabeth's and the Chelsea Wine Vault - and now there's one more:  Ronnybrook Milk Bar.

Those of you who know the Market may remember the tiny milk bar, where you could get ice cream cones, fresh-from-Ronnybrook-Farm milk and butter churned from Ronnybrook cream.  Well, just a few months ago, the bar was transformed into a modern-day soda shop/luncheonette, a place with enough charm to make us nostalgic for a time most of us know only from books and movies, and enough edge to make you think it would be cool as a club.  (I bet the pumpkin-pie milkshake would be great with a shot of rum.)  Actually, it's already been vetted as cool:  I.D. magazine featured it in a recent issue.

But unless you're a designer and want to see what Mark Sarosi (above), who spent four years with David Rockwell (aka, Mr. Restaurant Design), has done with the space - okay, even if you're not a designer, you should see it:  look at the way the milk crates lining the walls pull out for extra seating:

you need to go for the soda-fountain treats - the shakes and ice cream cones, the lavender-infused milk (yum), the floats - and the food.  The menu is so appealing and the ingredients so terrific - as much as possible, Mark is trying to source his products from other local farms - that it's just not easy to figure out what you want.

Cast-iron eggs with roasted mushrooms, Ronnybrook's farmer cheese (I love good farmer cheese) and herbs?

Country-style turkey meatballs over buttered egg noodles with sweet cream gravy?

Roasted herbed Berkshire pork sandwich with avocade aioli (a great idea) and watercress on 7-grain bread?

If the world were a perfect place, we'd have a Ronnybrook Milk Bar near us no matter where we lived and the adorable Mark to whip up shakes for us at the first sign of an urge to slurp.

Baking with Dorie: Pumpkin-Pie Pancakes

If you're still craving a little something pumpkiny after your Thanksgiving feast, the current Baking with Dorie recipe on Serious Eats could be just what you're looking for:  pancakes with all the spices that make pumpkin pie so delicious.  I think the pancakes are terrific for breakfast with maple syrup and just as great for dessert with ice cream.  I hope you'll make them over the weekend.

For Thanksgiving: Daniel Boulud's Chestnut Soup

I know just how hard it can be to change even one dish on any family's traditional Thanksgiving menu - it took me years to get rid of our dread stringbean-swiss cheese-cornflake-topped casserole even though no one really wanted to eat it anymore.  Traditions can be like that.  So, knowing that, I wouldn't dare suggest that you give up whatever soup you normally make for the holiday and turn to this one, but if you're undecided in the soup department, here's a winner.

As soon as I tasted this soup - which would have been in 1998 when I was working with Daniel Boulud on The Cafe Boulud Cookbook - I knew it was going to knock my traditional carrot soup off the T-day menu. 

The soup is a mix of chestnuts (I used jarred chestnuts), celery root and apple.  It's a great combination and it can be served as is or it can be dressed up with a few add-ins.  Daniel suggests some shredded duck confit, thin strips of prosciutto, sliced truffles or cubes of foie gras, but some nice little croutons tossed with minced thyme would be good too. 

If you don't have room for this soup on Thursday's menu, hold onto the recipe - Christmas and New Year's Eve are just around the proverbial corner. 

Chestnut, Celery Root and Apple Soup

from The Cafe Boulud Cookbook

Makes 6 to 8 servings

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

1 medium onion, peeled, trimmed and thinly sliced

1 medium leek, white part only, thinly sliced, washed and dried

2 McIntosh apples, peeled, cored and cut into 1/2-inch cubes

10 ounces celery root, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch cubes

1 bay leaf

1 sprig thyme

Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg

Salt and freshly ground white pepper

3/4 pound peeled fresh chestnuts (from about 1 1/4 pounds chestnuts in the shell) or dry-packed bottled or vacuum-sealed peeled chestnuts

2 quarts chicken stock or store-bought chicken broth

1/2 cup heavy cream

Heat the oil in a stockpot or large casserole over medium heat.  Add the onion, leek, apples, celery root, bay leaf, thyme, nutmeg and salt and pepper to taste and cook, stirring occasionally, for about 10 minutes, or until the onions and leeks are soft but not colored.  Add the chestnuts and chicken stock and bring to the boil.  Lower the heat to a simmer and cook, skimming the surface regularly, for 35 to 40 minutes, or until the chestnuts can be mashed easily with a fork.  Add the heavy cream and simmer for 5 to 10 minutes more, then remove from the heat and discard the bay leaf and thyme.

Puree the soup until smooth using a blender or a food processor, and working in batches if necessary, then pass it through a fine-mesh strainer.  You should have about 2 quarts soup.  If you have more, or if you think the soup is too thin -- it should have the consistency of a veloute or light cream soup - simmer it over medium heat until slightly thickened.  Taste and, if necessary, adjust the seasoning.  (The soup can be cooled completely and stored in a covered container in the refrigerator for 3 to 4 days or frozen for up to one month.  Bring the soup to a boil before serving.)

Granola Grab Bag

When Kerrin and Olivier Rousset (they of the wonderful wedding) came to spend this past weekend with us in Connecticut, they arrived bearing gifts: Granola, homemade and in three flavors!

It was a great gift, but it also turned out to be a funny one, since when Kerrin was roasting granola on Friday, I was doing exactly the same thing!  I hadn't made granola in years, but it seemed like just the right thing to have on hand when there'd be people in the house for a couple of days.  Obviously, that's what Kerrin was thinking too.

While I'd made a very basic oatmeal-honey-nut granola (more about it and the recipe in a minute), Kerrin played around with hers.  She started with thick-cut oats, assorted nuts (she used whole almonds, pecans and sesame seeds) and carob honey she and Olivier brought back from Morocco, and then, when the granola was cool, she added bits of dried papaya, plump golden raisins and pieces of Moroccan dates, another bring-back from their honeymoon.  The sack Kerrin labeled "au naturel" was this blend, and the little tag she'd tied to it said, "Best with thick Greek yogurt or cold milk"

Batch two was labeled "Melissa Granola" because it contained chunks of Pralus's Melissa chocolate, a spicy milk chocolate, that was a terrific addition to the mix.  Melissa's tag said, "Best out of hand (which is the way I've been eating it), in milk or with ice cream (vanilla or coffee)

The final batch, which was labeled "especially for Dorie," was the most unusual and, just as Kerrin had expected, my favorite:  "Reglisse Granola," aka Licorice Granola.  Mixed in with the oats and nuts and fruits were bits of black licorice cut from licorice wheels.  The tag read, "Best simply eaten out of hand," although it might just as rightly have said, "Best eaten before Olivier sees it," since when the new groom reached into the sack, it clicked that the little black snippets had been snatched from his private stash. 

It was surprising how good the licorice was in the mix and how well the licorice and honey, which are often used together in candies, worked with one another.

Kerrin and Olivier's grab bag was a great success and it made me think about packing up my own granola for the holidays.  As I said, my granola is a basic mix, but it's one that lends itself to lots of additions.  I usuallly add only dried fruits - raisins, for sure, but sometimes I toss in dried cherries or snipped apricots.  It could be spiked with some spices or it could take some Kerrinesque additions, like chocolate or licorice.

If you don't already have a favorite granola recipe, here's mine.  I hope it will get you started on your own house blend.

OATMEAL, HONEY AND NUT GRANOLA

Makes about 4 pounds

1 pound oats, I use thick-cut oats from the health food store bin

3/4 pound honey, preferrably one with some character

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

1 cup coconut, preferably unsweetened (available in health food stores)

5 to 6 cups mixed nuts, I usually make one-quarter of the mix raw sunflower seeds and one-quarter almonds, then I make up the rest with pecans, pistachios,  pumpkin seeds and whatever else looks good

while I usually coarsely chop the nuts, you can leave them whole, especially if you're going to be using the granola as a snack rather than a cereal

Dried fruits (or chocolate, or licorice, or ...), as much and whichever you like, cut into bite-size bits

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F and have ready two large rimmed baking sheets lined with silicone baking mats (my first choice) or nonstick aluminum foil. 

Mix all the ingredients together in a big, big bowl.  Keep turning the ingredients around so that the honey coats everything.  Divide the mix between the two baking sheets and spread it out so that you've got even layers.

Bake the granola for 40 to 50 minutes, turning it with a wooden spoon every 10 minutes or so.  The turning is extremely important because you want to evenly toast and dry out the granola.  If you find that the granola is browning unevenly, rotate your baking sheets front to back and top to bottom (if you're working on two shelves). 

I can't give you an exact baking time, you have to keep looking at it.  You want the color to be dark -the cereal won't have much taste or crunch if it's not - and you might have to sacrifice a few burnt nuts to get it.  Just keep watching, particularly once the color starts to deepen.

Cool the granola on the baking sheets, turning it often as it comes to room temperature.  Stir in the dried fruits and store the granola in a covered container away from moisture.

All Things Considered Considers Packable Sweets

 

This afternoon, Michele Norris, host of National Public Radio's All Things Considered, and I will be talking about packable sweets, goodies sturdy enough to travel.  We've got lots of tips for what to bake and how to pack what you've baked so that everything arrives crumbless whether it's going across the river to grandma's house or across the sea to far-flung family and friends. 

To get more tips and two packable recipes (including one for the Lenox Biscotti in the picture) emailed to you, click through to the ATC site. 

Photo by Alan Richardson

Baking with Dorie: Sour Cream Pumpkin Pie (or Tart)

This week's Baking with Dorie recipe on Serious Eats is my go-to Thanksgiving pie - shown here in tart version.  You can make it as either a pie or tart depending on your whim, the look you're after or  how much filling you want.  And the filling is so good that you might want lots of it: the pumpkin is spiced like eggnog - that means there's cinnamon, ginger, cloves, nutmeg and, of course rum - and made velvety smooth with sour cream.  Can you tell it's my favorite?  Hope it will become yours, too.

This recipe comes from Baking From My Home to Yours and the photograph is by Alan Richardson.

Cafe Salle Pleyel: Listen Up

Helene Samuel, the genie behind Delicabar Snack Chic in the Bon Marche department store has created a new, equally chic spot, Cafe Salle Pleyel, in another mythic location, the newly renovated Salle Pleyel concert hall.  The girl knows how to pick her places.

The Cafe Pleyel is what the French would call a confidential address, meaning it's one insiders know about.  But while it's confidential now - it's on the second floor of the Pleyel building and there is no sign on the street - it won't be for long:  Le Figaroscope just wrote about it.

The room is modern in a deco kind of way; cool in a zen way; and relaxing in every way - the tables are far enough apart that you don't have to whisper secrets and the chairs are so comfortable that a friend of mine wanted to buy one along with her coffee.

And the menu is signature Helene - light, funny, smart and appealing.  (Here's la belle Helene)

For the Cafe Salle Pleyel, Helene (whom I'm sooooooo lucky to have as a friend), created the menu with her Guest Chef for the year, Sonia Ezgulian.  (I love that the restaurant has a Guest Chef just way an orchestra has a Guest Conductor.)  Sonia, the former restaurant critic for Paris-Match, chef of her own restaurant in Lyon and a prolific and very good cookbook author, comes to Paris once a week to change the menu. 

All the dishes at Pleyel are cooked either on a plancha or in a wok and every week there are different gremolatas and fleur-de-sels set on the table, so you can season whatever you want as you want.  It's a great idea.  (Last week, the gremolata was hazelnut, orange and cilantro and the fleur-de-sel was mixed with candied ginger.)

While the Cafe, which serves lunch Monday through Friday and dinner on concert evenings, has only been open a little over a month, there's already a signature can't-take-it-off-the-menu dish:  Le Cafe Salle Pleyel Burger.  Although it looks like a great all-American cheeseburger, a rarity in this town, it's actually got a secret ingredient:  chopped cepes (porcini mushrooms), which make the meat seem even meatier.  The burger comes with housemade pickles, confited tomatoes, salad and more of those delicious mushrooms.  (This picture comes, with permission, from Caroline Mignot's terrific blog.)

It's hard to pass up the burger, but then neither is it easy to ingore the wasabi-marinated vegetables cooked on the plancha and served with a sparkling little herb salad.  And how can you give up the mango-pain d'epices croque for the caramelized baked apple filled with dried fruits and nuts?  Oh, just go with friends and share - it's the only way to have it all.

And speaking of friends, when you see Helene, say "hi" for me.

Baking with Dorie: All-in-One Holiday Bundt Cake

It's not too early to think about Thanksgiving, especially since this bundt cake, this week's Baking with Dorie recipe on Serious Eats, can be made ahead and, sans icing, frozen. 

It's a great cake and it's got all the ingredients and flavors you want for the season: pumpkin, cranberries, apples, pecans, cinnamon and nutmeg, too.  Add the icing and you'll get maple as well.

The recipe is from Baking From My Home to Yours, as is this wonderful photograph by Alan Richardson.

Clarified Butter French Supermarket Style

I'm fascinated by supermarkets (I know you're not surprised) and always make them one of my first stops when I land in a new place.  I feel I can really get a bead on a place by wandering a market's aisles, particularly the ones where the convenience foods are stocked.  Naturally, in France, convenience foods include cassoulet (in a tin or jar), foie gras, microwavable dinners from famous chefs (if you can't get into le Grand Vefour, maybe one of Guy Martin's dishes will make you feel better), rolled-out ready-to-go all-butter pastry and this beurre de cuisson, or cooking butter.

The label says it doesn't blacken and it won't, because what it really is is clarified butter, butter with the milk solids (the stuff that burns) removed.  (Ghee, which is used in Indian cooking, is like clarified butter but, because more or all of the water has been cooked away, it can be kept at room temperature.)  Clarified butter is a chef's staple, an ingredient that helps keep the delicacy and finesse of sauted foods intact.  Now that I've found this butter, I've added it to my ritual carry-homes along with the seawood and salted butters of Jean-Yves Bordier.

Of course, you can make beurre de cuisson at home.  Start with unsalted butter cut into small pieces (and start with at lfew sticks - it doesn't pay to put in the effort for a couple of  spoonfuls).  Put the butter in a saucepan over low heat and gently, gently melt it.  Continue to cook the butter until there's foam on top, a milky white layer on the bottom and, in between, the clear butter you're after.  (How long you need to cook the butter will depend on how much butter you've got - be patient, it can take about 30 minutes.)  Remove the pan from the heat and carefully spoon off the foamy top layer and discard.  Spoon the clarified layer into a clean container and keep it well covered in the fridge; toss away the solids that remain in the pan.

It's not hard to clarify butter, but it is just fussy enough to give you another reason to envy the French and their markets.