Chocolate Sorbet

I'm not the kind of person who has to buy every new kitchen gadget I see.  (There was a recent NY Times article about this kind of person.)  I keep it simple.  I do have a KitchenAid mixer that, while not life changing, is pretty useful to have around.  But mostly I'm happy to chop, grate, knead, and everything else by hand.  I even believe that it gives me a better feel for the food, which is especially important in baking, when ingredients are delicate and sensitive.  Besides, kneading is good for the soul, much like weeding or chopping wood.

So, like I said, I don't go buying appliances that have one use.  Polenta maker?  Salmon poacher?  You can make wonderful things happen with a few bowls, a few pots and pans, and a good knife.  But several years ago, I bought an ice cream maker.  It was with a gift certificate, and it was less than $20, so it seemed worth it, even if it ended up being a bust.  But it wasn't.  Never, not once, have I regretted owning this wonderful machine.  Keep the bowl in the freezer, plop ingredients in when desired, and turn it on.  Let it work its magic.  There you have it.  Ice cream, gelato, or sorbet at your command.

My wife has some major dental issues.  I don't want to go pointing fingers here, but there's a reason Germans eat mushy food.  Anyway, she had a crown put on this week, and I thought she might appreciate some dessert that could be eaten even with a mouth half-numb with Novocaine.  So I made some sorbet.

You can't really go wrong with this sorbet.  It comes from the pastry mastermind known as David Lebovitz, and it is intense.  This is the dessert you want when you are always complaining that there's not enough chocolate in your [fill in the blank].  This is a major complaint of mine (and the reason I double the amount of chocolate chips called for in any given chocolate chip cookie recipe).  But no complaints here.  Cocoa powder and semi-sweet chocolate combine to meet your chocolate needs.  Plus, if you're counting down the days, it is kosher for Passover.  As a bonus, it has no dairy, so you can eat it after a meat meal.  And, with no cream/milk/eggs, this almost feels good for you.  Well, not too bad for you anyway.

Chocolate Sorbet
Makes 1 quart

1 1/2 c water
1 c sugar
3/4 c cocoa powder
pinch salt
6 oz semi-sweet chocolate, chopped
1/2 t vanilla extract

Whisk water, sugar, cocoa powder, and salt together in a large pan.  It's going to boil a lot, so make sure you use a bigger pan than you think you need.  Bring to boil, whisking continuously.  Once it has boiled, let it boil for a minute, and then take the pan off the heat.

Stir in chocolate and vanilla until chocolate has completely melted.  Let cool (or don't, and let your ice cream maker do the work).  Freeze in your ice cream maker according to the instructions (I froze in the machine for half an hour, transferred the sorbet to an empty yogurt container, and let it solidify in the freezer for another two hours).

Six Cheese Skillet Mac and Cheese

I'm sorry.  You don't want me to share this recipe with you, but I can't help it.  You would like to live in a world where macaroni and cheese contains a respectable one or two cheeses.  We can't go back to that world.  I can't, anyway.  I now live in a world in which this dish holds a whopping pound and a half of cheese.  I like this world.

Blame the rain.  I woke up yesterday, and it was raining.  I went to work, and it was raining.  I came home, and it was raining.  So when I started dinner, I wasn't in the mood for the intended lentils and quinoa.  No, this was no time for health food.  This was the time for carbs and fat.  Bubbling over a skillet, forming a perfect golden crust. 

The inspiration for the skillet as a baking dish came from a new pub in Berkeley.  (The inspiration for six different cheeses came from my own genius.)  I went out for drinks on Friday evening, and a friend ordered mac and cheese that came in a (mini) skillet.  Brilliant, I thought.  You can simply make the cheese sauce in the skillet, bake it right in the skillet, and, besides the one pot for boiling the pasta, you just have one dish to wash.  Because you really won't feel like doing dishes after this meal.  Maybe do yourself a favor and serve with a side of salad.

Six Cheese Skillet Mac and Cheese
Serves 4 to 6, but only if those 4 are linebackers

1 lb pasta (I used rigatoni)
1/2 t olive oil
5 T butter
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 c flour
2 c milk
24 oz any cheeses, shredded (I used 8 oz mozzarella, 8 oz Gruyere, and 2 oz each of Parmesan, asiago, fontina, and provolone) 
salt and pepper
1/2 c bread crumbs (optional)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Boil water, and prepare pasta, under-cooking by about 4 minutes.

Heat a large skillet over medium heat.  Add olive oil and butter, and wait until butter has melted.  Add garlic, and saute for 30 seconds.  Whisk in flour, cooking for 2 minutes, or until roux is formed.  Slowing add milk, whisking continuously, and cook for another 3 minutes.  Add cheese and stir until mixture thickens into a smooth sauce.  Season with salt and pepper.

Add pasta to the skillet, and stir to coat evenly.  You can top with bread crumbs at this point, but I figured that was a little overkill.

Bake for 35 minutes.  Top will be golden and bubbly.

Boston Cream Pie

My father is a complex man.  He has a long, grey beard and a habit of dressing in animal pelts.  He taught me to use a chainsaw (and sliced halfway through his own leg with one many years ago).  My wife's aunt gave him the nickname "Famous Dan the Mountain Goat Man" for helping her through a particularly difficult rock scramble.  He enjoys sleeping in the woods in the middle of the winter.  He is, according to some, eccentric.

But the same man who taught me to use a chainsaw taught me how to use a sewing machine.  I made apple pies beside him every fall for years.  He stayed home with me when I was young, cutting my sandwiches into puzzles, and attending every field trip my classes took.  He is certainly the reason I am an accomplished cook.  He is a man who believes he can cook anything better than a restaurant, and he's usually right.  Every occasion is an opportunity for a feast: Saint Patrick's Day, Chinese New Year, him hitting two thirds of a century.

Even though he does (most of) the cooking, he will let my mother bake.  He says he married her for her cream cheese brownies, and if you've had them, you wouldn't be surprised.  The one cake I always remembered my mother making for my father is a Boston Cream Pie.  It's not a pie, but it is from Boston.  It was created at the Parker House Hotel in 1856 and is the perfect dessert if you can't decide if you want pudding or cake, chocolate or vanilla.  Despite my regional pride, I could never get behind Boston Cream Pie as a child.  Something about the texture of custard was weird to me.  But I have gotten over it, and, in celebration of my father's birthday, I have taken on this project.

And a project it is.  There's a custard.  There's a cake.  There's a glaze.  I guess it's the Famous Dan the Mountain Goat Man of cakes.  It has layers.  It's complex.  Don't try to label this cake, just enjoy.

Boston Cream Pie
Serves 8 to 12

For the custard:
2 c half-and-half
1/2 c sugar
pinch salt
5 large egg yolks
3 T cornstarch
4 T butter
1 1/2 t vanilla

For the cake:
1/2 c cake flour
1/4 c all-purpose flour
1 t baking powder
1/4 t salt
3 T milk
2 T butter
1/2 t vanilla
5 large eggs
3/4 c sugar

For the glaze:
1 c heavy cream
1/4 c light corn syrup
8 oz semisweet chocolate, chopped
1/2 t vanilla

Heat the half-and-half, 6 tablespoons sugar, and salt in a medium pot over medium heat.  Stir occasionally until sugar dissolves.

Whisk the egg yolks in a medium bowl, and whisk in the remaining 2 tablespoons sugar.  Whisk until the mixture is creamy, about 15 seconds.  Add the cornstarch, and whisk for another 30 seconds.

When the half-and-half mixture has simmered, gradually whisk it into the yolk mixture to temper.  Return the mixture to the pot, and return to a simmer, whisking constantly.  Remove from heat, and whisk in the butter and vanilla.  Strain through a mesh sieve over a medium bowl to remove lumps.  Cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least 3 hours (I did 1 hour, and the world did not end).

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Grease two 8 inch cake pans.  Whisk the flours, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl.  Heat the milk and butter in a small pot over how heat until butter melts.  Remove from heat, add vanilla, and cover to keep warm.

Separate 3 eggs.  Beat the 3 whites until foamy.  Keep beating, and add 6 tablespoons sugar.  Continue beating until whites form soft peaks.

Beat egg yolks and 2 remaining eggs with remaining 6 tablespoons sugar for about 5 minutes, or until pale yellow.  Add egg white mixture.  Sprinkle the flour mixture over the eggs, and fold gently.  Pour in the milk mixture, and continue folding until everything is evenly mixed, but don't over mix.

Pour batter unto prepared pans, and bake until tops are light brown and firm, about 20 minutes.  Immediately run a knife around pan to loosen cakes.  Invert the pans, and remove from the cakes.  Cool completely.

Bring cream and corn syrup to full simmer over medium heat in medium pan.  Remove from heat, and add chocolate.  Let stand for 8 minutes.  Add vanilla, and stir until mixture is smooth.

While glaze is cooling, place one cake layer on a plate.  Spoon custard onto cake, and spread it evenly up to the edges.  Place second layer on top.  Pour glaze on top of the top cake, and coat the cake completely, letting glaze run down the sides slightly.  Let cake cool until glaze sets, about an hour (or as long as you can wait).

Green Onion Coleslaw

For the past month, I have been hard at work on a cookbook.  It was a project that I felt passionately about last Passover, when I realized that there needed to be a better Passover cookbook out there.  Then some things happened (planned a wedding, started the adoption process, had a wedding, started a new job, opened a cafe - you know, the usual), and the project fell to the wayside.  Now, with Passover looming around the corner, I picked it up again, hoping to have something by the start of the holiday.

The great thing about putting together a cookbook is that you have to try a lot of recipes.  And, since it's a Passover cookbook, I've really had to rack my brain for inventive dishes free of chametz and and kitniyot.  Bright dishes that just scream of spring.  This slaw, for example.

I love this coleslaw.  I didn't think I would ever write that sentence.  Until I took the plunge and made this recipe, I had actually never eaten coleslaw in my life.  My mind was filled with images of soggy piles of cabbage, dripping in mayo, tasteless goop taking up room on my plate full of fries.  This may be an unfair categorization, but it just never appealed.

This salad couldn't be further from my nightmare image of slaw.  Green onions and Serrano peppers make it a bright, spicy dish that is held together by just enough mayo to be considered a slaw.  I make it almost anytime I make shrimp tacos or pulled pork, which obviously would not be the best pairing for Passover.  But it would work just as nicely next to some grilled chicken or fish.

If you're making plans for Passover, stay tuned.  I'll feature recipes from my cookbook in the coming weeks.

Green Onion Coleslaw

Serves 4 to 6

1 medium cabbage, cored and thinly sliced

1 c chopped green onions

2 Serrano peppers, seeded and chopped

2 T mayonnaise

1/4 c olive oil

salt and pepper

Place sliced cabbage in a medium bowl.  Place green onions, peppers, and mayonnaise in food processor.  With food processor on, drizzle oil into the mixture.  Continue blending until dressing is completely combined.  Toss cabbage and dressing together, and season generously with salt and pepper.

Hamantaschen

Purim is a strange holiday.  Sure, it's your classic "the Jews were going to die, and then they didn't" story.  But somehow we end up celebrating it by dressing up, getting drunk, and eating cookies shaped like the ears/hat of the villain.  Delicious cookies.

Hamantaschen are triangular pastries filled with whatever you can imagine.  Haman is the villain of the Purim story, the guy who was planning to massacre the Jews.  Apparently, he had triangular ears, because hamantaschen translates to "ears of Haman".  There are also theories that the triangular shape represents the pyramidal shape of the dice cast by Haman to determine the day of destruction for the Jews, or that he wore a silly three-cornered hat.  It's also quite possible that it's just a version of the Yiddish word montashn or the German word mohntaschen, both of which are poppy seed filled pouches.

Regardless of the etymology, hamantaschen bring back wonderful memories for me.  I have no idea how many cookies my mother baked every Purim, but every surface in our kitchen and dining room was filled with cooling hamantaschen of every flavor, like a colorful mosaic of pastry.  She was kind enough to provide me with her recipe, which creates the most delicious, delicate hamantaschen you will ever taste.  I have to lie whenever I eat someone else's hamantaschen - they are just not as good.  I never have and never will use another recipe.

I completely forget the name of the book, but growing up, I had a book of Jewish stories about a boy who was three inches tall [edited to add: my mother has informed me that the boy's name is K'Tonton].  There was a story for every holiday, and in the Purim story, the boy falls into a bowl of honey.  I remember this story because his mother was making poppy seed filling for hamantaschen, something that I dreamed of when I was a kid.  As good as my mother's hamantaschen are, she always brought home canned fillings from the store.  I now live in an area where I cannot find those cans, so I decided to live my childhood fantasy and make some poppy seed filling from scratch.  I do not regret this decision.  It's less sweet than my childhood memory, a real treat for my (more or less) grown up tastes.

You can fill hamantaschen with just about anything.  I went through a phase when I put chocolate chips in everything, and so, chocolate chip hamantaschen were born.  I've tried cream cheese and blueberry pie filling, and I have to tell you, the classics are classic for a reason.  You want your fillings to be firm - a watery filling will make the hamantaschen fall over while baking.  Jams work best, as well as the ever popular poppy seed.  I've also become quite fond of Nutella in the past few years, as it's more stable than chocolate chips.

A Purim tradition is to gift friends and family with treats, which is why our house was full of them.  They went out the door to neighbors, coworkers, classmates, friends.  This year, I baked up a batch, and out they went again, as fast as anyone could snatch them up.  I challenge you to make a few dozen and not see them gone by the close of Purim.

Hamantaschen Dough
Makes about 3 dozen

1/2 c vegetable shortening
1 c sugar
2 eggs
3 t baking powder
3 c flour
1 t vanilla
1/4 c orange juice
fillings

Cream shortening and sugar.  Add eggs.  Shift baking powder and flour together, and mix vanilla and juice.  Add alternatively to the shortening mixture.

Wrap dough in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Flour a surface, and roll dough out in batches.  Cut out circles, about 2 1/2 inches in diameter.  Fill each circle with a teaspoon of filling.  Fold edges up, and press together to make triangles.

Bake for 15 minutes.  Move to cooling rack to cool.

Poppy Seed Filling
Makes about a cup

1/4 c milk
2 T sugar
3/4 c poppy seeds
3 T honey

Heat milk and sugar in a small saucepan until boiling.  Add poppy seeds.  Simmer for a few minutes, and then remove from the heat.  Stir in honey.  Let cool before using.

Braised Short Ribs

Oh, hi.  It's been a while.  You see, my wife is a PhD student, and one of the perks of the job (apparently) is dinners out.  For three weeks, we had dinner dates on her department.  I guess it was work related.  Anyway, it was delicious.  Indian, Thai, Chinese.  It made me want to go into an Asian food cooking frenzy.  We'll get to that later.  Right now, it's short ribs.

What better way to come back from a three week hiatus than with this recipe?  This is a monster of a recipe.  It's not the kind of thing you can pull together after work, not even the kind of thing you can decide you want mid-afternoon.  This is a planned dinner.  The kind that sits in the oven for three hours, lovingly filling your home with smells reminiscent of a lazy afternoon in southern France.  Because if I lived in southern France, I would probably sit around in lavender fields while short ribs braised in my oven.  All day, every day.

The truth is that this is The Dish That Nearly Killed Me.  Maybe.  I had already made the braising liquid and was pouring it into a glass dish to set in the oven with the short ribs, when boom!  It actually sounded like an explosion, but really it was the glass dish breaking into a million pieces, sending glass and hot liquid throughout the kitchen.  If we go back to middle school science, we will recall that glass expands when heated and is a terrible conductor of heat.  Therefore, boom.  Thankfully no Calebs were harmed in the making of these short ribs.  We may have had to sacrifice the first batch of braising liquid and a few pastries that were sitting out (lest someone get a sharp surprise at breakfast), but all and all, these were a great success.

Now the proud owner of a cast iron Dutch oven (thanks Sesle), I can make these short ribs without fear of death.  Cast iron is great for braising, as is porcelain.  Just try to use something with a lid, and steer clear of glass.

Braised Short Ribs
Serves 4

4 beef short ribs
1 T dried thyme
1 T black pepper
salt
olive oil
1 onion, diced
2 carrots, diced
2 ribs celery, diced
2 T balsamic vinegar
1 1/2 c port
2 1/2 c red wine
6 c beef stock

Cover short ribs on all sides with thyme and black pepper.  Let sit while you heat your pan.

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.  Heat a Dutch oven (to use few dishes) or a skillet over high heat.  Add enough olive oil to generously coat the bottom.  Heat until oil is smoking.  Generously salt short ribs on all sides.  Sear meat in pan until nice and brown on all meaty sides.  Don't rush.  This should take 15 to 20 minutes.  Transfer short ribs to a plate to rest while making the liquid.

Turn down heat to medium, and add the onion, carrot, and celery.  (If you used a skillet for the meat, you will now want to use your braising pot.  Cover the bottom with oil before adding the vegetables.)  Cook 6 to 8 minutes.  Add balsamic vinegar, port, and red wine.  Turn the heat to high and cook down until reduced by half.

Add stock and bring to a boil.  Arrange short ribs in your liquid, bones sticking up.  Cover the pot with aluminum foil first, then the lid.  If your pot does not have a lid, get the foil as tight as possible.  Place in the oven and braise for three hours.

After three hours, remove the pot from the oven, and carefully remove the lid and foil.  The bones should have fallen off the meat, and the meat will be soft as butter. 

Serve ribs over mashed potatoes, ladling some of the liquid over everything.