Saturday, December 26, 2009

Brussels Sprouts

So we’re coming down the home stretch to Christmas dinner.  We made the plum pudding the weekend after Thanksgiving and the brown beef stock for the gravy, which was frozen in 2 qt. plastic bags.  The standing rib roast is waiting in the fridge, and on Christmas day will be going into a hot oven in the late morning.  We’re going to have Yorkshire pudding, herb-roasted potatoes, baby buttered peas, glazed carrots, and a mixture of roasted cauliflower flowerets and Brussels sprouts.


Many people find Brussels sprouts undesirable as a vegetable.  They are often eschewed as “those little cabbages,” and when overcooked they do emit sulfur compounds that are bitter and odiferous, making them unappetizing.  However, if properly handled, they are crisp and tasty, with a mild bitterness that is not displeasing.  Those that have been touched by fall’s frosts are the sweeter for the nipping. 

One way to make them less bitter is to cut them in half, exposing their inner leaves, which will allow the bad flavor elements to leach out.  Another is to give them a preliminary blanching in boiling water for a minute before draining and proceeding with your recipe.


Brussels sprouts provide a hearty winter vegetable to accompany turkey, steaks or liver, but they really love pork, duck or goose.  They pair well with cauliflower, Jerusalem artichokes, leeks and chestnuts, whether as a vegetable combination or in a wholesome fall vegetable pie.

Brussels sprouts, a member of the Brassica oleracea family, are derived from the wild cabbage and, therefore, other family members include collards, kohlrabi and kale.  Something akin to the modern Brussels sprout was cultivated in Italy, but Belgium has recorded evidence of its growing there in 1587, as the vegetable proliferated in northern Europe due to the cool climate in which it thrives.

Rich in vitamin C, Brussels sprouts also have large amounts of vitamin A, folic acid and dietary fiber.  Some of their unappetizing compounds are actually thought to be helpful in preventing colon cancer

Through the fall months, one can purchase local Brussels sprouts on long stems at farmers’ markets.  The little green heads grow up and down the stalk, becoming 1” to 2” in diameter at maturity.  The heads should be tight with bright green leaves.  Any that are over mature, wilted or worm-eaten should be discarded.  Sometimes one or two leaves at the base may have to be removed.  It’s advisable to trim the base of each sprout and, using a paring knife, cut a small X to facilitate even cooking.

After prepping the sprouts, they should be washed and parboiled in salted water for 5 to 6 minutes or until almost tender.  They can be refreshed in cold water and saved for final cooking later.  Whether braised in butter, cooked in cream or cheese sauce, or braised with chestnuts, cook slowly to allow the sprouts to absorb the sauce, but don’t overcook.

Brussels sprouts also lend themselves to roasting in a hot oven.  Toss in olive oil, salt and pepper and scatter on a parchment lined sheet pan before cooking at 425 degrees for 25 minutes, tossing once or twice. 

Sunday, December 20, 2009

Cookies



At our house, Christmas means Rosemary will be baking her wide variety of Christmas cookies that she only makes this time of year.   Her Festive Cherrry-ettes (aka Thumbprint cookies) are a shortbread cookie, studded with a red cherry or fruit jam, that my Mom used to make, and are wildly popular amongst my siblings.  Her rum balls are legendary, and the date and Rice Krispy snowballs with coconut are tops in my book.  The sugar cookies are cut into Santas, Christmas trees, reindeer, bells and other seasonal shapes and decorated with a wide variety of red, green, pink and other colorful frostings along with decorative sugar crystals and nonpareils.  Of course she makes gingerbread molasses cookies as well as toffee bars, date filled sour cream cookies, Baklava, chocolate brownies and a Greek almond crescent cookie known as Kourabiedes.  Her brother Gary loves her divinity fudge, but that more a confection than an actual cookie.

Cookies, known as biscuits in England, can be crisp or chewy depending on how they are made.  There are a numerous kinds of cookies, including drop cookies, formed from a soft dough that spreads out as it cooks (usually with chocolate chips and/or oatmeal), cut-out cookies which are made with a stiffer dough and which retain their shape while cooking such as sugar or butter cookies, hand-shaped cookies which are formed from refrigerated batters that are piped or molded, like ladyfingers or madeleines, bar cookies which are cut from a thin cake-like mass baked in a shallow pan like brownies and date or nut bars, and ice-box cookies which are sliced from a pre-made cylinder of dough stored in the refrigerator until ready to be baked.

Festive Cherryettes
The amount and type of fat one includes in their cookie recipe is one of the key determinants in the final texture of a cookie.  While fat affects the richness and moistness of the final cookie, it also has an impact on the cookie’s suppleness.  Butter melts are a lower temperature than shortening or margarine, allowing the cookie to spread out more before its protein and starches have set.  In shortbread cookies, the 15% moisture content in butter is usually the only moisture included in these low-egg cookies, contributing to shortbread’s crumbly texture.

Normally pastry or all-purpose flours are used for cookies, however bread flour and cake flours are used in some instances where spreading is discouraged by their gluten content.  For the most part, however, gluten development in cookies is not desirable as it tends to toughen the resulting product, although high protein content means more browning during baking.  Low protein flours are often coupled with higher amounts of moisture in recipes, producing a puffed up cake-like cookie. 


Peanut Butter Cookies
For the most part granulated sugar is used in cookies, although moist brown sugars help the dough to spread and confectionary sugar with its added cornstarch prevents spread and keeps the texture dry.  Molasses and honey attract moisture from the air and keep cookies soft.

Eggs soften cookies and help then rise and stay pliable.  When used, they provide the bulk of the moisture in the cookie and bind the flour particles together while cooking.  Their fat and emulsifiers keep the cookie moist and rich.

Toffee Bars

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Plum Pudding


A Christmas tradition in our family is the serving of the plum pudding for dessert after the roast beef and Yorkshire pudding.  My grandfather was from England where this dish is more commonly known as Christmas pudding, and it is reserved for a once a year eating on this holy day.  We have a recipe that has been handed down in the family for years.  We make it right after Thanksgiving and allow it to age in a cool place until Christmas day.  I have read that in some families, they make the plum pudding a year in advance, but that seems a little extreme to me, so we’ll stick with the Thanksgiving day making as my Mom used to do.

Plum pudding contains no plums.  It is a mixture of dried fruits like raisins, currants, dates and sultanas, citron or candied peel, and nuts like almonds.  It includes rich spices such as cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves, brown sugar, brandy or dark rum, eggs, breadcrumbs and suet.  It can also have flour, lemon or orange zest, carrot or apple.  It is very dark, almost black, when removed from its mold, due to the dark sugars used and its long cooking time.  The inclusion of beef suet harkens back to earlier times when English puddings included meat. 

Sometimes cooks secrete a silver coin, thimble or wishbone as a sign of good luck or wealth for the lucky recipient. 




Once all the ingredients are mixed, the pudding is placed in a rounded mold and steamed for 5 or 6 hours.  When it is cool, we wrap our mold in wax paper and store it in the garage.  On Christmas day, we bring it in and steam it for another hour while we eat Christmas dinner. 

Rosemary has previously made and refrigerated the hard sauce by creaming some butter with confectionary sugar, vanilla and brandy.   She also makes the ever popular, in the Palmer family, foamy sauce, which includes similar ingredients plus whisked egg and cooked in a double boiler until frothy and the consistency of cream.  It is quite sweet.


The pudding is removed from the mold onto a serving plate, topped with a sprig of holly, and doused with warm brandy and ignited.  It is brought to the darkened dining room table, flaming, to the gasps of pleasure from the assembled revelers. 

Once the flames die down, it is served with a wedge of hard sauce and a spoonful of the foamy sauce topping the rich, fruity mixture.  It is always a hit at our house, and a holiday ritual that Rosemary and I have carried on from my folks.  It’s not too late to start a plum pudding tradition for your holiday.






                   Plum Pudding

½ c. currants
1 ½ c. raisins
½ c. figs
½ c. dates
¼ c. citron
¼ c. candied orange rind
2 c. ground suet (3/8 lb.)
½ loaf day-old bread
1 ½ tsp salt
½ tsp nutmeg
3/4 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp cloves
1 c. milk, scalded
½ c. brown sugar, firmly packed
4 eggs
2 TB red wine
2 TB Brandy

Look over currants and raisins with a hawk’s eye for stray bits of stem.  Cut up figs, dates, citron, candied orange rind, in tiny pieces with your kitchen scissors or a sharp knife.  Put suet through your food chopper, using medium blade.
Remove crusts from bread and crumble bread into small pieces into your larges bowl.  Now add salt, spices, scaled milk (in other words, milk that has been heated until a film, shows.  Not boiled) and sugar.  Mix these ingredients well and set aside to cool.  While this mixture cools, beat eggs until light and airy in a separate bowl.  Stir into crumb combination along with all fruits, suet, wine and brandy.  Mix thoroughly, pour into two small, ungreased, molds or one large mold (1 ½ qt) and  cover with close fitting lid or several taut layers of waxed paper tied on very securely.  Steam on top of stove for 5 hours.
Easiest way to steam, this pudding is to use our large roasting pan.  Place a roasting rack n bottom of the roaster (pie tins will do or any utensil which keeps pudding from resting on bottom of pan, fill roaster with enough boiling water to cover 2/3 of the mold and put on tight fitting lid.  As water evaporates keep filling roaster with boiling water to cover 2/3 of the mold.
This makes 1 plum pudding large enough to serve or feed 12.  You’ll find pudding keep beautifully in mold steamed in.  Cover top of mold tightly with waxed paper and store in cool, dark place.
When you are ready to reheat plum pudding for your wonderful dinner, heat in same fashion in which you steamed pudding in first place for 1 hr.  Let sit 15 minutes.
Sprinkle granulated sugar on top of hot pudding (sugar plus alcohol gives a brighter flame).  Pour two jiggers of any brandy or whiskey that is at least 80 proof over top.  Touch off with a match to top of pudding and you’ll have a real holiday conversation piece.

Hard Sauce

Work or cream 1/3 c. butter until soft, gradually mix in 1 c. confectionery  sugar and 1 tsp vanilla extract or 2 Tb Brandy.  Serve cold with the hot pudding.  Enough sauce for 6.

Foamy Sauce

Work or cream ½ c. butter then gradually work in 1 c. confectionery sugar until smooth.  Beat 1 egg in separate bowl until creamy.  Stir egg and 1 tsp. vanilla extract or 2 Tb sherry into creamed sugar and heat over boiling water stirring constantly until warm and thick as heavy cream.  This makes enough for 6.    


Thursday, December 3, 2009

Meat stocks




It’s not too early to be thinking about Christmas dinner as it is only a few weeks away.  I have many plans to make, but as Christmas dinner at our house involves roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, most of the menu is preordained.  Hors d’oeuvres can change from year to year, as can the vegetables, but potatoes are required and they call for a rich gravy.

I make my gravy with home made meat stock, so I usually make up a few gallons of stock in advance.  It freezes beautifully, and having some on hand is great for last minute braises, soups or stews.

Meat stocks, beef, chicken or veal, as well as vegetable stocks, have long been part of restaurant cooking, primarily when sauces were used more extensively then they are today.  To make a flavorful stock, it is best to use a combination of bones and meat.  While both will give off gelatin into the stock as their collagen breaks down, bones give off more than meat, but meat gives off more flavor.  While veal stock is the most gelatinous when made, it has a very neutral flavor.  Beef and chicken, on the other hand, if made with some meat, will have decidedly beef or chicken flavor.  


Stocks can be white or brown.  In a white stock, the ingredients are added in a raw state and the stock remains clear to slightly colored, whereas when the ingredients are either roasted in a hot oven or fried in oil to caramelize their exterior, they produce a brown stock. 

A classic stock is clear without cloudiness or gray impurities suspended within the broth.  This can only be accomplished if the cook pays strict attention during the stock’s initial phases of cooking.  First, if making a white stock, it is advisable to wash the bones and meat, place in a pot of cold water and slowly bring it to a boil.  As soon as the water starts to simmer, drain the ingredients into a colander and rinse them well.  This step removes surface impurities and coagulates proteins on the meat and bone surfaces, preventing them from making the stock cloudy.  If one browns their meat and bones first, this step can be eliminated.

The ingredients are again placed in cold water and slowly brought back to the simmer.  The cold water and slow heating allow the soluble proteins to migrate from the solids into the liquid, where they gather together in gray clusters which rise to the surface and are easily skimmed off.  At the same time, fats dissolve and rise to the surface, where the attentive cook removes them.  During this time, the pot is left uncovered, not only to permit evaporation and thus concentration of the cooking liquid, but also to aid in dehydration of the surface scum, making it easy to skim off.

The stock is then simmered at the laziest pace with only an occasional bubble breaking the surface for three to eight hours for beef, ninety minutes for chicken, and only 30 minutes for fish.  When the stock is strained, it should be cooled as rapidly as possible to prevent any bacteria build up. 


Brown Beef Stock


10 lbs beef bones
3 lbs shin of beef
1 lb onions, quartered
1 lb carrots, sliced in large chunks
1/2 lb celery, chopped into large chunks
3 bay leaves
A bouquet garni of thyme and parsley
1 Tbl peppercorns, whole


Brown the beef bones, shin and vegetables in a hot (425 degree) oven for 20 to 30 minutes, turning the ingredients over a couple of times so they are nicely browned.  Place all the browned ingredients into a large pot, cover with cold water and add the bay leaves, bouquet garni, and peppercorns.  Bring to a simmer, skimming any scum that rises to the surface.  After 10 minutes or so of simmering, most of the scrum will have risen, however continue to skim and scum and or fat that accumulates on the surface.  Simmer partially covered for 3 to 8 hours.


Strain the stock to remove the bones and other ingredients.  Cool rapidly and refrigerate.  Any remaining fat will congeal on the surface and can be removed.  Store the stock in 1 or 2 quart containers.  It is best to freeze the stock as soon as possible.  If using soon, it will keep in the ice box for 3 days, but should be re-boiled if kept beyond that time.