Baklava

I think the battered, dog-eared index card with my baklava recipe on it is gone forever. Fortunately I wrote it all out in an email to someone about five years ago, and that email is still in the outbox on my computer, so:

Baklava
1. Defrost phyllo. The sheets typically come in something resembling 11x17 size. Unroll the whole roll of phyllo and cut it in half parallel to the short sides, so you have two portions in roughly 8.5x11 size.
2. Finely chop about 3 cups of nuts. Walnuts work fine.
3. Add to the nuts about 1/4 cup sugar, 1 tsp lemon zest (or 1 tbsp lemon juice) and 1 tsp cinnamon, and mix well.
4. Melt 1 stick of butter.
5. Grease a 13x9 inch pan.
6. Preheat oven to about 325 F.
7. Place two sheets of phyllo in the pan and brush with melted butter. Repeat twice, for a total of six sheets in the bottom of the pan.
8. Spread half of the nut mixture over the phyllo.
9. Place six sheets of phyllo over the nut mixture, buttering every second sheet.
10. Spread the remaining nuts over the phyllo.
11. Place six more sheets of phyllo over the nuts, buttering every second sheet.
12. Cut the contents of the pan into diamonds or squares, using a sharp serrated knife. If I have leftover butter I like to drizzle it on top.
13. Bake for 30 minutes at 325 F, then reduce the temperature to 300 F and bake 45-60 minutes or until golden.

14. During the final 30 minutes of baking, combine about 1 cup sugar, 1 cup honey, 1 cup water, 1 tbsp lemon juice, and the zest of 1 orange (or grapefruit) in a saucepan.
15. Bring to a gentle boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes.
16. Pour evenly over the baked baklava.
17. Let cool 4 hours or so.

Preppy Salad

So named because it's hot pink and fluorescent green. Wash and chop a couple servings of butter lettuce and place in a bowl. In another bowl, chop up a roasted beet or two. Add about a tablespoon of lemon juice, two tablespoons roasted garlic puree, and a teaspoon of mayonnaise. Mix well. Combine beet dressing and butter lettuce. Consume with WASPy gusto.

Pepper and Parmesan Popovers

I modified this from the Joy of Cooking popover recipe. Makes 6 popovers because that's how big my muffin tin is.

0. Preheat oven to 450 F. Put the muffin tin in there to warm up.
1. Whisk together 1/2 cup flour, 1/4 tsp salt, and 1/4 tsp pepper.
2. In another bowl, whisk together 1 egg, 1/2 cup slightly warm milk, and 1 tbsp melted butter.
3. Add the contents of the second bowl to the contents of the first bowl and fold together until just combined but still a tiny bit lumpy. Stick the bowl in the fridge for a few minutes.
4. Grate about 1/8 cup parmesan cheese and divide into 6 tiny little piles.
5. Pull the muffin tin out of the oven and quickly grease each cup. Pour 1/12 of the mixture (very approximately) into each cup, then throw a little pile of parmesan cheese into each one, then cover with more batter.
6. Bake at 450 for 15 minutes and at 350 for 20 minutes.

For some reason my popovers tend to turn out non-puffed and with a little pathetic hole in the bottom rather than a great glorious cavity in the center. I'm wondering if this is because cold batter doesn't interact well with a hot pan, though I read somewhere that cold batter + hot pan makes for poppier popovers. Maybe that was incorrect; maybe it's cold batter and pan + hot preheated oven, or something. It could also be that my muffin tin has pretty shallow cups and my popovers need big deep cups in which to maximize their potential. Maybe my popovers need a life coach.

Frittata with Mustard Greens

I adapted this from a Frittata with Mustard Greens and Fontina recipe from Bon Appetit. I didn't have any fontina so I threw in half a cup of goat cheese instead. Everything in this recipe took longer than claimed; the mustard greens took a long time to wilt, the frittata took a long time to set under the broiler, etc. I also used five eggs instead of four and still didn't think that was enough egg to cover the greens, but maybe my bunch was too large. Other than the fact that I didn't like the taste, it's a good recipe, since it's very easy, uses up a bunch of hard-to-use greens, and the man-thing seemed to like it very much. Next time I'll use even more cheese, that might redeem it for me.

Mieng Kum

Mieng kum is a do-it-yourself Thai appetizer that consists of spinach leaves wrapped around an assortment of fillings. For my mieng kum, I set out an array of little dishes containing the following:

1. Toasted dried coconut shreds, toasted over medium heat for a few minutes until brown
2. Dried fried garlic, the kind that comes in a plastic packet in the "ethnic" grocery section
3. Chopped organic lemon, rind and all, in tiny pieces
4. Chopped roasted peanuts
5. Finely chopped fresh onion, preferably red
6. Several washed and dried large spinach leaves
7. Finely chopped fresh ginger (optional, for me, because I never seem to have fresh ginger)
8. Tiny dried shrimp (also optional, since I never have these either)
9. Sauce: 1/4 cup honey, 2 tsp soy sauce, 1/8 tsp cayenne pepper, a couple drops fish sauce (to compensate for the missing shrimp), a dash of dried ginger (to compensate for the missing fresh ginger) and enough rice wine or white wine to make it runny when whisked together.

To assemble, put a little bit of everything on a spinach leaf, roll it up, and consume in one bite.

Kulfi

I found this recipe here when I was looking for a way to use up the rest of the gallon of milk expiring in our fridge (scroll down to "Kulfi"). It didn't turn out much like I expected. The milk didn't evaporate fast enough and so the end product had too much water in it, I think, which causes too many ice crystals to form when it's frozen. The amount of sugar (8 tsp) was about right. I added about half a cup of chopped pistachios, since I had some that I wanted to use up, but this was a mistake. I also added about a quarter-teaspoon of rosewater, which was also a mistake -- the rosewater should be administered by drops. The result was a sort of half-frozen ice milk, which the chief taster seemed to like anyway.

Hanoi Noodle Soup

This soup was based on a recipe I found here. I used chicken stock and added about six cloves of pressed garlic, a dash of ground ginger, a few thin slices of daikon radish, and the chopped stems from half a head of bok choy and a big bunch of tatsoi. I did not add cilantro at this stage, since it would have been cooked into oblivion by the end of the soup; I don't know why the original recipe adds the cilantro at the beginning.

Instead of bone-in chicken breasts I used chicken breast tenderloins from the freezer, thawed them, chopped them into cubes, and dunked them into the simmering broth with a sieve for about a minute. This cooked them through almost instantly, and I set the sieve-ful of chicken aside while finishing the soup. I then added the leafy parts of the bok choy and tatsoi, simmered them for a couple of minutes, then turned off the heat and threw the chicken back in along with a heap of chopped cilantro. To correct the broth I added a couple of dashes of soy sauce and a couple dashes of Tabasco. 4 ounces of dried rice thread is plenty for two people.

Cinnamon Rolls

The man-critter confessed to a weakness for cinnamon rolls, so I had to come up with some. This recipe is loosely based on one from the March 2003 issue of Cooking Light, which has been reproduced here.

I didn't change the dough part much; I used 2 1/4 tsp of old yeast that I ought to replace, in 1/4 cup warm water, then added 1/2 cup warm milk, 1/3 cup granulated sugar, 1/4 cup butter (melted rather than merely softened), 3/4 tsp salt, 1 tsp vanilla, 1 slightly beaten egg, and about 3 1/2 cups flour. I poured the warm milk and some other ingredients into the egg to warm it up so it wouldn't re-congeal the butter on contact.

I put the dough in a bowl to rise at 7 PM and then went off to a party, from which I did not return until 2 AM. The dough tripled or quadrupled, but still had enough oomph to raise the shaped-and-cut rolls a little bit overnight.

Instead of a pure raisin filling, I used about half a cup of raisins and half a cup of chopped walnuts, mixed with 2/3 cup brown sugar and a tablespoon of cinnamon. I found these awfully sweet, though I was informed that they were on the less-sweet side relative to other rolls. Next time I'd cut the brown sugar down to about half a cup, probably. The filling, along with 2 tbsp melted butter, goes on the stretched-flat dough, which is then rolled parallel to the long side and sliced into about twenty 1/2-inch rounds. These rounds rise on a baking sheet for an hour or so in a warm place (or overnight in my chilly kitchen) and are then baked for 20 minutes at 350.

Instead of a basic vanilla glaze, I mixed about half a cup of powdered sugar with a splash of milk and a healthy splash of maple syrup. This gave enough glaze for each roll to get a little bit, which was enough for me, but probably a lot less than commercial rolls. Next time the rolls should cool down much more before being glazed.

After a few hours these rolls got a bit tough, but came back to life wonderfully with 30 seconds in the microwave. We'll see how they are the next day.

Butternut Squash and Prune Khoresh

This recipe is from New Food of Life and is basically an interesting stew (like all khoreshes). To make it, brown a couple of large sliced onions and a pound of stew meat or chicken legs (I used lamb), and add salt, pepper and a teaspoon of cinnamon. Add water to cover; cover and simmer for 30-60 minutes or until meat is tender. Peel a squash and cut into cubes. Brown the squash for 15-20 minutes in another pan over medium heat. Add the squash, a cup or two of pitted dried prunes, 2 tablespoons sugar, and 1/4 cup lime or lemon juice to the meat. Cover and simmer over low for 30-60 more minutes, or until everything is tender. It's very good and reheats well.

Lemon-Glazed Persimmon Bars

These were yummy and moist out of the oven, somewhat less so the next day. By the next day they had come to resemble a damply mediocre carrot cake. I used extremely ripe Hachiyas instead of Fuyus, peeled and mashed rather than sieved. Worked fine. I cut that cup of sugar right in half, the recipe doesn't need nearly that much with the dates and all. The lemon glaze makes the recipe stand out somewhat instead of just being a sort of boring coffee cake. But all in all, this recipe took too much time, too many bowls and spoons and things, and too much effort, and the end result isn't particularly worth it.

Sweet Potato and Sausage Gratin

This tasted great, actually. I will never make it again. It was the ugliest critter I've seen on my table in a long long time. I had to mess around with the recipe a little bit, but I don't think any of my substitutions can be blamed. I replaced the Italian sausage with a half-pound of TJ's southwestern-esque turkey burger, which has been sitting in my freezer for way too long. I didn't seem to have any actual white wine, so I dropped in some rice cooking wine, and lacking apricot nectar, apricot preserves, or dried apricots, I hacked off a few chunks of tamarind paste and threw them in. The flavor remained very nice and savory.

But the end result was a miserable, non-sticking-together, blackened, pitiful pile of leek shreds and tater pieces and turkey chunks that came out of the pan in a graceless sort of heap. The blackness was from the potatoes oxidizing, rather than burning. I don't know why they darkened so fast, but I could hardly throw them in the pan fast enough. At any rate they came out of the oven pretty dark brown. As the royal taster said, "I wouldn't try feeding this to a two-year-old." I don't know which two-year-old he has in mind, but it sounds like good advice.

Looks Like a Soupy Week Ahead

Some things to try this week:
Lemon-Glazed Persimmon Bars (assuming those persimmons aren't too far gone)
Shiitake and Bok Choy Soup
Sweet Potato and Sausage Gratin with Thyme (use turkey burger)
Potee Lorraine (this is ALWAYS good; needs pork shoulder though)
La Soupe de Louviers (if i make, i will sub in sweet potatoes for the carrot, celery and potatoes)
Portuguese Stone Soup (this is similar)
Sweet Potato Turnip Gratin (dunno about that cream)
Vietnamese Sticky Chicken with Daikon Pickle (can maybe use cabbage leaves?)

Kale, Chickpea, Butternut Squash and Olive Stew

Slice thinly and saute three leeks. Add about a pound of butternut squash, cubed, and four cloves garlic, sliced thinly, and one sausage, sliced into disks. Saute for about ten minutes; add chicken broth to cover and simmer for about ten or fifteen minutes, until squash is tender. Add a big bunch of kale or a small bunch kale and small bunch turnip greens, sliced into ribbons, along with a nice bit of sage. Simmer for 8-10 minutes or until the kale is tender. Add one can of chickpeas, about 1/2 cup sliced olives, and a big handful of chopped cilantro, and simmer until cilantro barely wilts. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve with grated parmesan cheese.

This is loosely based on a similar recipe with squash, kale, olives, and white beans, but this is an improvement, I think. It follows the basic European/Mediterranean soup formula, which seems to be, in order:
1. Member of allium family
2. Something starchy
3. Optionally, something meaty
4. Broth
5. Something leafy
Asian soups seem to omit step 2 and sometimes step 5 as well, and step 3 seems to be less optional.