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Arsip Tag: smitten
cannoli pound cake – smitten kitchen
Why did I make this cake? Was it a birthday, a dinner party, or a pot-luck brunch? Was I testing recipes for a new cookbook or auditioning one that I fell for at a bookstore? Did I see this recipe online and found it irresistible? Was it a Friday treat to relieve the pressure of a long week? For someone who might never run out of “excuses” to make cake in this lifetime, you’d think I’d come up with something more exciting than the truth, which is that I could only find a big tub of ricotta at the store when I made ziti last time, and forced myself to find a clever way to use it up. Alas, I rather enjoy a challenge and so it’s cake o’clock again; rejoice!
But, if I’m being honest, I really wanted a cannoli, I mean, the good kind, the kind that’s in a hand-formed shell that’s been deep-fried to a crackly crisp and is filled only once you order it so the outer crunch remains intact. A proper cannoli, with orange and lemon peel and a whiff of Marsala, chopped pistachios and always, always, always with the miniature chocolate chips.
And so these things happily met up in a loaf pan. If you have my first cookbook, there’s a recipe for a ricotta cake which I created using a French yogurt cake for inspiration, the one that’s classically measured in yogurt cups. Swapping ricotta for yogurt, and olive oil for something more neutral, that one is finished with a concord grape sauce and it’s wonderful this time of year. This might be even better. In a tall pan, it bakes up high and with a cracked top with an excellent crisp to it. Inside, it’s tender and on the second day, even more lush, should it survive so long. It absolutely bursts with cannoli flavor, about as close as you’re going to get in a one-bowl pound cake. And, if you took my hint last time and also “accidentally” bought the big ricotta, you’re definitely going to have enough for two or three cakes, and absolutely no regrets will come of that.
One year ago: Better Chocolate Babka
Two years ago: Miso Sweet Potato and Broccoli Bowl
Three years ago: Quick Chicken Noodle Soup
Four years ago: Apple Pie Cookies
Five years ago: Roasted Eggplant Soup
Six years ago: Breakfast Apple Granola Crisp
Seven years ago: Balsamic-Glazed Sweet-and-Sour Onions, Majestic and Moist Honey Cake and The Best Challah I Know How To Make
Eight years ago: Gazpacho Salad and Hello Dolly Bars
Nine years ago: Winter Squash Soup with Gruyere Croutons
And for the other side of the world:
Six Months Ago: Wild Mushroom Paté and Obsessively Good Avocado and Cucumber Salad
1.5 Years Ago: Asparagus-Stuffed Eggs
2.5 Years Ago: Spinach and Smashed Egg Toast
3.5 Years Ago: Banana Bread Crepe Cake with Butterscotch
4.5 Years Ago: French Onion Soup
Cannoli Pound Cake
Butter or cooking spray to coat pan
1 cup (200 grams) granulated sugar
Finely grated zest from 1 orange
Finely grated zest from 1 lemon
1/2 cup (120 ml) olive oil
1 tablespoon (15 ml) sweet marsala wine or 2 tablespoons white wine (optional)
1 cup (250 grams) whole-milk ricotta cheese
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon fine sea or table salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 or 2 pinches allspice
1 1/2 cups (190 grams) all-purpose flour
1 cup (170 grams) mini-chocolate chips or 6 ounces semisweet chocolate bar, chopped into tiny bits
1/2 cup (60 grams) pistachios, chopped small
Heat oven to 350°F (175°C). Coat a standard (8 1/2-x-4 1/4″) loaf pan with butter or a nonstick spray.
Place sugar in a large bowl, and add zest. Use your fingertips to rub the zest into the sugar, scenting it througout. Whisk in olive oil, wine (if using), ricotta and eggs. Sprinkle baking powder, salt, cinnamon and allspice over wet ingredients, then whisk to combine. Gently stir in flour, then chocolate and pistachios until just combined.
Scrape into prepared loaf. Bake oven for 55 to 65 minutes, until a skewer inserted into the center of the cake comes out-batter free. Let cool on wire rack in pan for 15 minutes, then invert out onto rack to finish cooling. Cake is great the first day, and even more amazingly moist on the second and third, so feel free to plan ahead. Store at room temperature, covered with foil or plastic.
Related
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the broccoli roast – smitten kitchen
One of my probably most annoying insistences in the 15 years that I didn’t eat meat was that I suspected people didn’t really like it as much as they thought they did. Take bacon, no doubt the first thing that comes to mind when some leaf-horfing former vegetarian has the audacity to suggest that you could live without flesh. You love the way it’s smoky and salty and crispy and fatty, right? But how much of that has to do with the actual taste of pork belly, versus the way we’ve treated it to make it even more amazing? How much of Korean short ribs are about the unseemly delicious marinade, how much of Southern fried chicken is about that shattering crust, comprise mostly buttermilk, flour and grandma love? How much of barbecued ribs is about the gloriousness of the meat on the bone versus the long tenderizing, smoking and the sweet-salty-spicy stuff we mop or crust on top? [Sorry, I have to stop this paragraph right here so I can eat it.]
And while it pretty much only took me one pregnancy, the one where I craved burgers nonstop to understand that yes, there is perhaps more to meat than the sum of its seasonings and cooking methods, I still get more excited about vegetables being treated like big ol’ slabs of meat than I do about that what they’ve mimicked. Any restaurant should know how to cook a rib-eye medium-rare; but can they make broccoli steaks?
Thus, when a friend tipped me off — and by “tipped me off” I mean I saw it on her Instagram and commented “GIMME THAT TELL ME EVERYTHING NOW NOW NOW” — to the broccoli roast at the impossibly charming (I mean, that wallpaper, those bathroom sinks, there is literally nothing there that isn’t already on the Pinterest board of dreams) Burnside Biscuit in Astoria, I pretty much went nuts and routed my whole family’s weekend around getting it in my belly. It did not disappoint, which sucks because Astoria is a small schlep from here. They bring it out in a cast-iron pan still hissing from the wood-burning oven, coated in a light dry rub, a little sharp cheddar and a cider vinegar dipping sauce and you attack this thing with a steak knife. A steak knife! Little makes me as happy as vegetables that require a steak knife.
It leaves you with so many big questions to ponder — Are these ribs? Is this barbecue? What if we stopped treating vegetables like side dishes? When a vegetable is the centerpiece, does it need a side of protein? — and I suspect that, like us, you won’t be bothering with any of it because you’ll be too busy shoving forkfuls in your mouth.
One year ago: Fall-Toush Salad
Two years ago: Purple Plum Torte
Three years ago: Pancetta, White Bean and Swiss Chard Pot Pies
Four years ago: Apple Pie Cookies
Five years ago: Apple and Cheddar Scones
Six years ago: Jalapeno-Cheddar Scones
Seven years ago: Mom’s Apple Cake and Beef, Leek and Barley Soup
Eight years ago: Butternut Squash and Caramelized Onion Galette
Nine years ago: Wild Mushroom and Stilton Galette
And for the other side of the world:
Six Months Ago: Strawberry-Rhubarb Soda Syrup
1.5 Years Ago: Dark Chocolate Macaroons
2.5 Years Ago: Bee Sting Cake
3.5 Years Ago: Pasta with Garlicky Broccoli Rabe
4.5 Years Ago: Blackberry and Coconut Macaroon Tart
The Broccoli Roast
Inspired by the one at Burnside Biscuits in Astoria
It’s time we started treating vegetables like big old slabs of meat, don’t you think?
This is not their recipe but my riff on it, inspired by what I ate there; I used a small amount of the dry rub I put on ribs with a little less sugar, and then roasted various stalks of broccoli the way I always do before finishing it with a little cheddar (as they at the restaurant and which can totally be skipped because, honestly, I love cheese but it doesn’t add that much here). The vinegar dipping sauce is like a vinaigrette, minus the oil, and it cuts nicely against the broccoli and rub flavors, the way a squeeze of lemon juice usually does against green vegetables. This is a spectacularly simple and habit-forming way of making broccoli, so you’ll be glad this makes more rub than you’ll need.
Serves 2, heartily
Olive oil
About 1 pound broccoli, although the weight isn’t that important, either in 1 big head or 2 or so “trees”
Grated aged cheddar (optional)
Dry rub
2 teaspoons packed dark brown sugar
1 teaspoon paprika, ideally smoked but regular will also work
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 teaspoon onion powder
Chipotle powder or ground red pepper (cayenne) to taste
1 teaspoon coarse or kosher salt, and more to taste
Cider vinegar dip
1 tablespoon cider vinegar
1/4 teaspoon smooth dijon mustard
Pinch of salt, smoked flaky sea salt is wonderful here if you have it
Pinch of pepper flakes
Shake of smoked hot paprika or chipotle powder
Heat oven to 450 degrees F. Coat a large roasting pan with a glug or two of olive oil. Combine rub ingredients in a small dish. Taste a pinch; it should be flavorful, but more salty than sweet, with a kick. Make adjustments to taste.
Prep broccoli by peeling any knobby bits and outer skin off stalks. Cut smaller heads lengthwise through stem into two “steaks;” cut larger ones a second time into four wedge-shaped “steaks,” if desired. Place cut side down in roasting pan; drizzle tops very lightly with olive oil and sprinkle with rub. Roast for 20 minutes, until deeply brown underneath. While roasting, combine cider vinegar dip ingredients. Flip, coat cut side with more rub and roast for another 10 to 15 minutes, until charred at edges. Remove from oven and immediately grate a small amount of cheese over broccoli.
Serve with cider vinegar dip and, if you’d like to be more like the restaurant, with a little pile of smoked sea salt on the side. Eat with forks and steak knives.
P.S. Looking for a different flavor? Try these stunning broccoli steaks, also inspired by my Burnside obsession, with a red chile-sambal romesco.
Related
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salted peanut butter cookies – smitten kitchen
I have never been particularly interested in recipes — or, if we’re being completely tactlessly honest, people — defined by what they are not, which is probably why you don’t see a lot of recipes with flour/dairy/gluten/meat/sugar-free, no-bake, one-bowl, hand-whisked or the like in recipe titles here, although we have plenty of all of the above. My favorite foods in this category are accidentally what they are; it’s a perk, but not the purpose. I’d rather talk about what a recipe does have, like flavor, or texture or an appeal that makes it almost painful not to make it in the minutes after you read about it.
But I am not immune to the charms of ingredient absences. Many years ago, I assembled some easy after-school snack recipes for a magazine — something I couldn’t have been less of an expert on then, pre-kids, or, frankly, now (an apple and a cookie, maybe?) — and it gave me a chance to audition a three-ingredient peanut butter cookie a friend had told me about that was curiously absent in flour, butter, baking powder or baking soda and even salt. The results were, I mean, okay. It was peanut butter and sugar, it couldn’t possibly not be delicious. But they weren’t exceptional; they merely fit the bill.
So, when the Ovenly Bakery’s cookbook came out last year and a reader emailed insisting I pick it up (I did) and I saw a peanut butter cookie that was similar, I dismissed it as probably not worth it. And then, as these things happen, while walking past a coffee shop on Sunday, I abruptly decided my husband and I needed a re-up, and while in there even more abruptly decided we had to split the last peanut butter cookie at the shop before someone else got to it. It was spectacular: tall, dome-shaped with a crisp exterior and decadently tender center, absolutely intense with peanut butter in a way that invokes peanut butter cups, and topped not with the usual wan flakes of sea salt but tiny coarse boulders. When I realized that it was in fact the Ovenly cookie, it was clear that they knew a few things about this three-ingredient cookie that I did not.
First, they use slightly less sugar and peanut butter per egg, rather than the classic 1 cup, 1 cup, 1 egg ratio. They use light brown sugar instead of granulated white sugar, which I suspect leads to the softer cookie and more dynamic flavor. Finally, it’s scooped tall and chilled before baking so it keeps its height. The result is perfect, and absolutely nothing like the ones I made years ago, in all the best ways.
Meanwhile, the list of absences in the recipe are notably long. There’s no butter, no flour or leaveners; the whole thing is whisked by hand in one bowl and has all of five ingredients, two of which are vanilla and salt. And yet if the recipe dictated that I had to render lard, then roast and blend my own peanuts while standing on my head and singing in tune to make them, I’d probably consider it. They’re that good.
One year ago: Carrot Cake with Cider and Olive Oil
Two years ago: Lazy Pizza Dough + Favorite Margherita Pizza
Three years ago: Pancetta White Bean and Swiss Chard Pot Pies
Four years ago: Apple Pie Cookies
Five years ago: Apple and Cheddar Scones
Six years ago: Apple Cider Doughnuts
Seven years ago: Twice-Baked Shortbread and Acorn Squash Quesadillas with Tomatillo Salsa
Eight years ago: Pumpkin Bread Pudding
Nine years ago: Wild Mushroom and Stilton Galette
And for the other side of the world:
Six Months Ago: Artichoke Gratin Toasts
1.5 Years Ago: Baked Eggs with Spinach and Mushrooms
2.5 Years Ago: Bee Sting Cake
3.5 Years Ago: Pasta with Garlicky Broccoli Rabe
4.5 Years Ago: Heavenly Chocolate Cake Roll
Salted Peanut Butter Cookies
Barely adapted, just a bunch of extra notes, from the Ovenly cookbook
Yield 26 to 28 cookies with a 1 2/3 tablespoon or #40 scoop. (I halved the recipe and regret it so much.)
1 3/4 cups (335 grams) packed light brown sugar
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 3/4 cups (450 grams) smooth peanut butter (see note at end)
Coarse-grained sea salt, to finish
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the light brown sugar and eggs until smooth. Whisk in the vanilla extract, then the peanut butter until smooth and completely incorporated; you shouldn’t be able to see any ribbons of peanut butter. Ovenly says you know the dough is ready when it has the consistency of Play-Doh, but I can tell you as the mom of a Play-Doh fanatic that mine was thinner, softer.
If you’d like to get those pretty striations across the top of the cookies, chill the dough by freezing it in its bowl for 15 minutes, stirring it once (so the edges don’t freeze first), before scooping it. If you’re not obsessed with these markings, you can scoop it right away. Scoop or spoon the dough into balls — Ovenly uses about a 1/4-cup scoop (probably #16); I use a 1 2/3 tablespoons or #40 scoop. Place on prepared pan. For the tallest final shape, place the tray in the freezer for 15 minutes before baking.
Sprinkle the dough balls lightly with coarse-grained sea salt just before baking. Bake smaller cookies for 14 to 15 minutes and larger for 18 to 20. When finished, cookies should be golden at edges. They’ll need to set on the sheet for a minute or two before they can be lifted intact to a cooling sheet. Trust me, you should let these cool completely before eating so the different textures (crisp outside, soft inside) can set up.
Do ahead: You can definitely make the dough in advance and either refrigerate it for a couple days or freeze it longer. However, if I were going to freeze it, I’d probably go ahead and scoop it first. You can bake them right from the freezer.
About chilling the dough: The Ovenly recipe says you can scoop and bake the cookies right away, but they keep their shape better if you chill them in the freezer for 15 minutes first. I tried it with and without and did find a better dome and final shape with the 15 minutes after. However, I was incredibly charmed by the striated marks from the cookie scoop on top of the cookie I bought last weekend, as well as in the photo in their book, and I realized that I couldn’t get it at home with just-mixed dough; you’ll get more of a blob shape from your scoop. So, I also chilled the dough for 15 minutes before scooping it and was then satisfied with the shape. It’s not necessary unless you’re as taken with top pattern as I am.
Two questions I suspect someone will ask very soon: Can you make this with all-natural peanut butter and can you make this with almond or a nut butter? The answer to both is yes, however, the authors themselves warn that you’ll get the best final shape and texture from a smooth, thick processed peanut butter like Skippy (their recommendation; updated to note, thanks to a commenter suggestion, that the 16.3-ounce jar of Skippy is estimated to contain 1 3/4 cups, saving you some measuring). I suspect an almond or cashew butter will have a similar effect as natural peanut butter.
Related
baked potatoes with wild mushroom ragù – smitten kitchen
Prior to last week, I only liked baked potatoes two ways and the first was so weird, I usually had the decency to keep it to myself. Many years ago, I had an internship a couple blocks from a lunch place with a baked potato sub-menu, full of odd and awesome topping combinations. My favorite involved a marinated tomato-pepper salad, avocado, cheese and — yesss — ranch dressing and it was amazing and wonderful and stop looking at me like that because I have missed and longed for it since. The second way I like baked potatoes is equally troublesome, the classic with “the works” involving heaps of cheese, butter, sour cream, bacon, chives and blood pressure medication. I no longer eat them the first way because the sandwich shop is 250 miles from here and also it has since closed; I usually resist eating them the second way because if I’m going to have all of the fat and calories of a golden, glistening and salted pile of French fries, I’d rather have them in said French fry format.
But last Monday, me, my 3 month-old and 73 month-old fell for some gorgeous 18 hour-old oyster mushrooms at the Greenmarket and, on a hunt to do something special with them, I came across a recipe for a baked potato with mushroom ragù in Food & Wine that sounded delicious and a little fancy and I had to.
The recipe was about 15 ways a headache — 4 pounds of mushrooms and adding onions near the end to a dry pan were among my grievances — that I was too sleep-deprived to see coming, but the results made a fine and a little luxurious weeknight meal with crumbled goat cheese and a bonus broccoli roast on the side. I’ve adjusted the steps and volumes to something that would have worked better the first time, which will come in hand the next time, which will be soon, because jacket weather calls for jacket potatoes, don’t you think?
Baked potato iterations, previously Twice-Baked Potatoes with Kale and Baked Potato Soup
One year ago: Homemade Harissa
Two years ago: Lazy Pizza Dough + Favorite Margherita Pizza
Three years ago: Apple Mosaic Tart with Salted Caramel
Four years ago: Cumin Seed Roasted Cauliflower with Yogurt
Five years ago: Cauliflower and Parmesan Cake
Six years ago: Apple Cider Doughnuts
Seven years ago: My Family’s Noodle Kugel and Meatballs and Spaghetti
Eight years ago: Gluten-Free Chocolate Financiers
Nine years ago: Wild Mushroom and Stilton Galette
And for the other side of the world:
Six Months Ago: Maple Pudding Cake
1.5 Years Ago: Baked Eggs with Spinach and Mushrooms
2.5 Years Ago: Bee Sting Cake
3.5 Years Ago: Pasta with Garlicky Broccoli Rabe
4.5 Years Ago: Heavenly Chocolate Cake Roll
Baked Potatoes with Wild Mushroom Ragù
Adapted a little generously from Food & Wine
4 baking potatoes (about 2 pounds)
3 tablespoons olive oil, divided
3 tablespoons butter, divided
1 small white onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves minced
1 1/2 pounds mixed mushrooms, wild are wonderful, but sliced cremini or white mushrooms will also work
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1/2 cup white wine or vermouth, or 1/4 cup sherry or marsala (optional)
1/2 cup vegetable or beef broth, plus a splash or two extra if needed
1/2 teaspoon chopped thyme
4 ounce-log soft goat cheese
1 tablespoon minced fresh chives or flat-leaf parsley, to finish
Heat oven to 425°F. Pierce potatoes all over with a fork and rub with 1 tablespoon olive oil. Place on rack and bake for 1 hour, or until tender in center when pierce with a skewer.
Meanwhile, in a large, deep skillet, melt the 2 tablespoons butter with 2 tablespoons olive oil over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic and sauté until softened, about 8 minutes. Turn heat to high, add mushrooms, salt and pepper and cook until the mushrooms brown, then release their juices and cook them off, about 10 minutes. Add wine, if using, scrape up any bits stuck to pan. Cook until evaporated. Add broth and thyme and bring to a simmer. Stir in final tablespoon of butter until melted. Adjust seasonings to taste.
Slit the potatoes and fluff the insides with a fork. Sprinkle with a little salt and pepper, a few goat cheese crumbles, a ladleful of the mushrooms and chives. Serve with extra mushrooms and goat cheese on the side.
Related
twinkie bundt – smitten kitchen
As one does, I first spied a Twinkie Bundt on Pinterest a few weeks ago and immediately became consumed with making my own primarily because it’s spectacularly fun to say and also call someone, maybe or maybe not as a compliment. [As you can infer, we really like to flex our maturity at the Smitten Kitchen.] The recipe turned out to hail from the talented food blogger and cookbook author Shauna Sever‘s book, Pure Vanilla, but as I am stubborn, I wanted to go in my own direction with it as I have a buttermilk bundt I’m rather fond of and a simple marshmallow frosting that we could use instead of the jarred marshmallow filling suggested.
If only things were this simple! My first step was to find a Twinkie, yes, the snack cake with a reputation for having an indefinite shelf life and I’ve decided that economists need to start something of a Twinkie Index, which measures how fancy your neighborhood has gotten and how hopeless your chances are of ever buying real estate by the presence or absence of this one-time snack aisle staple. I couldn’t find a one, i.e. we are doomed. I went to four bodegas, two drugstores (because in America you buy your candy at pharmacies!) and two grocery stores and found nada. I had to have one ported in from a different part of the city and did you know they contain beef tallow? I digress, I promise this isn’t going to be one of those sanctimonious rants about how gross packaged food is; this isn’t that kind of website and if eating a Twinkie once a decade makes you happy, so be it. This was more of a reminder that some labels are better not read.
So, Twinkie “investigated” and disposed of (or not; I admit nothing/regret everything) I concluded that my plans were on the right path and from there, everything went south. I could not get the filling as thick as I wanted it. Each time I sliced into the cake, loose marshmallow would spill out — yuck, right? Apparently, not. Apparently, I am much more bothered by this than anyone else that tried it or spied a photo of it on Instagram last night and so I’m going to do something I almost never do; I’m going to publish a recipe with a warning: this will not be exactly like a Twinkie! Arguably, this is the whole point and for the best, but should this bother you (don’t worry, you’re among friends), I’m going to include a few directions you might go in instead/paths I might have gone down if the chaos of real life right now didn’t force me to collect my chips and move onto other responsibilities. [Just kidding, we know all I really do all day is devour this bundle of frosting and light.]
One year ago: Cauliflower Cheese
Two years ago: Apple Slab Pie
Three years ago: Butternut Squash Salad with Farro and Pepitas
Four years ago: Pear Cranberry and Gingersnap Crumble
Five years ago: Spiced Applesauce Cake
Six years ago: Cauliflower with Almonds, Capers and Raisins
Seven years ago: Molly’s Apple Tarte Tatin and Cranberry Walnut Chicken Salad
Eight years ago: Pumpkin Butter and Pepita Granola
Nine years ago: Spinach Quiche
And for the other side of the world:
Six Months Ago: Potato Scallion and Kale Cakes
1.5 Years Ago: Avocado Cup Salads, Two Ways
2.5 Years Ago: Ramp Pizza
3.5 Years Ago: Classic Ice Cream Sandwiches
4.5 Years Ago: Crispy Potato Roast
Twinkie Bundt
Inspired by, but not the recipe from, Pure Vanilla
Cake
1 cup (225 grams) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 3/4 cups (350 grams) granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 large yolks (save the 2 whites for filling, below)
1 teaspoon (5 ml) vanilla extract
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon fine sea salt or table salt
2 1/2 cups (315 grams) all-purpose flour
1 cup (235 ml) buttermilk
Filling*
2 large egg whites
2/3 cup (135 grams) granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
1 teaspoon (5 ml) vanilla extract
Heat your oven to 350°F. Generously grease a 10-cup Bundt pan, either with butter or a nonstick spray; I like to use a butter-flour spray and go over the pan twice. Bundts are sticky! Fortuntely, this cake is not.
In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time, scraping down bowl between each, and then yolks. Add vanilla. Sprinkle batter with salt and baking powder and mix briefly to combine. Add about 1/3 of flour, mix to combine, then half of buttermilk, mixing again just to combine, repeating with next 1/3 of flour, remaining buttermilk then remaining flour.
Dollop batter into prepared pan and spread so that the top is smooth. Bake in heated oven for 40 to 45 minutes, or until toothpick inserted into cake comes out batter-free. Let cool in pan on wire rack for 10 minutes, then invert onto rack and let cool absolutely completely. You can hasten this along in the fridge; it will take about 45 minutes.
When cake is completely and totally cool, invert it again. If your cake had domed quite a bit in the oven, you can use a serrated knife to level it a little. Then, using a melon baller (my first choice), small spoon or paring knife, scoop out several mounds of cake through the underside, being sure not to cut through top or sides of cake. If using a traditional bundt shape (as I show), I used the larger bloops in the pattern (there are 8) for mine. What happens to the cake bellies you scoop out is between you and your gods.
Combine egg whites, sugar and cream of tartar in a heatproof bowl and place this over a pot of gently simmering water. Whisk constantly until sugar dissolves and whites are lukewarm to touch, about 3 minutes. Remove bowl from simmering water and use an electric mixer to beat with a whisk attachment on low speed, gradually increasing to high, until stiff, glossy peaks form, about 4 to 7 minutes. Add vanilla and mix to combine.
Scoop filling into a large piping bag fitted with a large, round tip or plastic bag with the corner cut off and fill the indentations of the cake. Center your cake platter over the cake and invert your filled cake back onto it. If desired, dust lightly with powdered sugar before serving.
This cake keeps at room temperature for up to 3 days. I keep mine under a cake dome.
* A few ways to approach the filling:
- Make the recipe as above. The filling will be a bit soft, but very marshmallow-like. Plus, I’ve engineered the cake to give you the spare egg whites you’ll need.
- Go in a different path. The next two things I’d have auditioned as fillings are Swiss Meringue Buttercream, which I know to be fairly stiff (I’d halve the 4 egg white-level frosting, and see if I could get away with just 8 tablespoons butter) or, as suggested by a clever commenter on Instagram, ABC Kitchen via Martha Stewart’s Marshmallow Frosting which is set with gelatin, which is, I think, exactly what this cake would need as you could keep the great marshmallow frosting flavor but not the softness.
- Get real and just buy a jar of marshmallow fluff. Seriously, Sever knew what she was talking about. In her recipe, you beat a 7.5-ounce jar with a 1/2 cup softened butter and 1 teaspoon vanilla and I believe many headaches can be avoided this way. Also: yum.
Related
oven fries – smitten kitchen
I am staunchly of the belief that if you really really crave something — I mean, if you’ve tried very hard to move on or distract that part of your brain/belly that rather rudely interrupts into your thoughts most days at 4 p.m. and screams “CHOCOLATE!” or “CAAAAAKE!” and it’s just not working — you should indulge it. I have no patience for baked doughnuts or sugar substitutes, and you can probably already guess that I cannot abide anything but cream in my hot coffee. Have a salad for lunch the day before and the day after, eat the steel-cut oats for breakfast, make hearty soups a regular part of your dinner rotation, but FTLOG, if you really want that chocolate cake, please, have that chocolate cake and then enjoy every last buttercreamed crumb of it.
For me, said indulgences most often come in potato format. My love of french fries knows no bounds; they are, along with artichokes and bourbon, my desert island foods. Golden, crisp, glistening, glittering with a dusting of fine salt, heaped in a pile, I would eat a mile of baby field greens to have a single plate of the fries we used to get at a restaurant I was convinced used to use horse fat to fry them because I’m a monster and they were otherworldly. And so help you if you serve them with homemade mayo — so help you, because I love you and you will never get rid of me now.
Thus, I’m the last person I’d expect to be showering praise upon oven fries — that is, french fries that are baked instead of cooked as their name demands, but you’d be surprised rarely even someone as pedantic as me rarely actually feels like heating up a cauldron of oil just to have what they want the most. Were what came out of the oven secondary, unspecial, clearly a compromise coming from a vague notion of healthfulness, I’d probably own a deep-fryer by now. But in the very first month of this site I learned a technique for oven fries that made them exceptional. This came up again when we made Fake Shack Burgers earlier this year and you may have seen a glimpse of the 11 fries I hadn’t eaten while taking photos (because: pregnant. although: I would have done that anyway). I directed you to the 2006 post where it was buried but promised a refresh and then I had a baby and now a 5 month and 10 day turnaround is the norm.
Which is too bad, because it takes about 10 seconds to learn. The secret to great french fries is to cook them twice. If you only fry them once, either the outsides get tough or the insides taste undercooked. The reason — as described in one of my favorite french fry essays of all time, that by Jeffrey Steingarten as collected in The Man Who Ate Everything — is that potatoes have a very high ‘thermal inertia;’ it takes a long time for heat to penetrate the center. When cooked twice, the first at a lower temperature to gently warm and tenderize the potato, and the second at a higher temperature to seal and crisp the edges, you get the french fries I dream about. A decade ago, I watched Michael Chiarello on TV emulate this two-step process for oven fries by briefly simmering his potato batons in water before roasting them at a high temperature and I’ve made mine this way since because they’re spectacular, spectacular enough that I get to have french fries in my life as often as necessary without being so calorically indebted and grease-splattered that I’m only allowed to consume water and bone broth for my non-fries meals. Hallelujah.
Something new and wonderful is coming! For the last 9 years, we’ve had a pretty barebones newsletter system on Smitten Kitchen; new recipes/posts arrive in your inbox the morning after they’re published. They’re pretty fugly; little has changed in the last decade. For some time, as newsletter technology has vastly improved, I’ve been dreaming of creating a better email, one that is a true weekly digest of all the delicious new and worth revisiting cookery on Smitten Kitchen and at last, that day is here! The new newsletter will include not just new recipes, but seasonal picks and weekly archive highlights, carefully tailored to what we all want to be cooking right now. Sounds good? Enter your email address below and your first weekly email will arrive next week:.
One year ago: Squash Toasts with Ricotta and Cider Vinegar
Two years ago: Potato and Broccolini Frittata
Three years ago: Roasted Pear and Chocolate Chunk Scones
Four years ago: Pear Cranberry and Gingersnap Crumble
Five years ago: Spicy Squash Salad with Lentils and Goat Cheese
Six years ago: Silky Decadent Old-School Chocolate Mousse
Seven years ago: Pumpkin Swirl Brownies and Deep Dark Salted Butter Caramel Sauce
Eight years ago: Sweet Potato and Sausage Soup
Nine years ago: Pumpkin Muffins
And for the other side of the world:
Six Months Ago: Salted Chocolate Chunk Cookies
1.5 Years Ago: Lamb Meatballs with Feta and Lemon
2.5 Years Ago: Yogurt Panna Cotta with Walnuts and Honey
3.5 Years Ago: Cinnamon Toast French Toast
4.5 Years Ago: Sour Cream Cornbread with Aleppo
Oven Fries
Inspired by Michael Chiarello’s technique
This works with either the classic Russet/Idaho potatoes used for traditional french fries, or with golden potatoes, such as Yukon Golds. The photos here show both. For fried potatoes, I prefer Russets, but for roasting, I prefer the Golds because their waxier state makes a more tender-centered fry with the more complex flavor you lose when not frying.
Yield: fries for 4 people
4 medium Yukon Gold or 3 smallish Russet potatoes (I find these to be equivalent in size, although the specific size isn’t terribly important)
3 to 4 tablespoons olive oil
Fine sea salt
Heat oven to 450 degrees F.
Peel your potatoes if you wish; scrub them well if you do not. Cut potatoes into just-shy-of 1/2-inch batons. Place in a large pot and cover with an inch or two of water. Set heat to high and set timer for 10 minutes. If potatoes come to a boil in this time (mine usually do not), reduce the heat to medium. Otherwise, when timer rings, whether or not the potatoes have boiled, test one. You’re looking for a very “al dente” potato — one that is too firm to eat enjoyable, but has no crunch left. A good sign that they’re not too cooked is when you roughly tumble them into a colander, only one or two break.
Meanwhile, coat a large baking sheet with 2 to 3 tablespoons of olive oil and place it in the oven for a few minutes, so the oil gets very hot and rolls easily around the pan.
Drain your potatoes and immediately spread them on oiled baking sheet in one layer. Drizzle with last tablespoon of olive oil, sprinkle with salt and roast for 20 minutes, until golden underneath. Toss potatoes around to encourage them to color evenly and return them to the oven for another 5 minutes. Repeat this 1 or 2 more times (for me, 30 minutes total roasting time is the sweet spot), until your “fries” are deeply golden, brown at the edges and impossible not to eat.
Season with more salt while they’re hot, pile them on a platter and dig in.
Related
…
chocolate peanut and pretzel brittle – smitten kitchen
Does anyone remember Garbage Pail Kids? Can I go predictably off-course here and admit, as I just did to my husband, who is now cracking up, that I was kind of scared of them when they came out? It was 1985! I was young! I was super into Cabbage Patch Kids and definitely did not have a grasp of parody and was this… something that could happen to a Cabbage Patch Kid? I mean, was it going to happen to mine? Why did everyone find them so funny? Ahem, right, so of course I now find them dark and brilliant, which should be no surprise given that they were co-invented by Art Spiegelman, something I learned exactly five minutes ago from Wikipedia but will now pretend I knew all along.
I bet you’re thinking, as per usual, “What on earth does this have to do with cooking, Deb? Focus, please!” But what I’d wanted to tell you is that for nearly eight years now, I’ve an item on my Halloween To-Cook List called “Garbage Pail Brittle,” which I’d hoped would invoke the chaos of the cards but in a less haunting to elementary school kids format. My theory was that, sure, peanut, almond and fancy seed brittles are lovely and elegant, but you know what would be even more awesome? Rice crispies. Potato chips. Pretzels. Because everyone knows that salt, crispy snacky stuff is aces against caramel, butter and chocolate.
Well, the good news is that I finally got this item off my to-cook list so you don’t have to. The bad news is that potato chips and crispy rice? Just okay in brittle. I mean, nobody hated it, but it wasn’t as special as the eight-year build-up warranted. Pretzels, however… you need to do this. Pretzels are deeply delicious when brittled. They even more spectacular when mixed with salted peanuts. They’re even more insanely good when lidded with melted dark chocolate, smashed into chunks with a hammer and tucked in a container that is, thankfully, about 15 feet outside my reach right now or I’d be one of those wicked, wicked people who lies to children, such as my own, who I lectured this morning about why we can’t have candy for breakfast. I mean, phew.
Something new and wonderful is coming next week! For the last 9 years, we’ve had a pretty barebones newsletter system on Smitten Kitchen; new recipes/posts arrive in your inbox the morning after they’re published. They’re pretty fugly; little has changed in the last decade. For some time, as newsletter technology has vastly improved, I’ve been dreaming of creating a better email, one that is a true weekly digest of all the delicious new and worth revisiting cookery on Smitten Kitchen and at last, that day is here! The new newsletter will include not just new recipes, but seasonal picks and weekly archive highlights, carefully tailored to what we all want to be cooking right now. Sounds good? Enter your email address below and your first weekly email will arrive next week:.
One year ago: Squash Toasts with Ricotta and Cider Vinegar
Two years ago: Potato and Broccolini Frittata
Three years ago: Apple Cider Caramels
Four years ago: Pear Cranberry and Gingersnap Crumble
Five years ago: Buckeyes
Six years ago: Baked Chicken Meatballs
Seven years ago: Pink Lady Cake and Cabbage and Mushroom Galette
Eight years ago: Cranberry Caramel and Almond Tart
Nine years ago: Easiest Baked Mac-and-Cheese
And for the other side of the world:
Six Months Ago: Crispy Broccoli with Lemon and Garlic
1.5 Years Ago: Lamb Meatballs with Feta and Lemon
2.5 Years Ago: Spring Vegetable Potstickers
3.5 Years Ago: Cinnamon Toast French Toast
4.5 Years Ago: Sour Cream Cornbread with Aleppo
Chocolate Peanut and Pretzel Brittle
A few notes: You can replace the peanuts with pretzels if nut allergies are a concern. I have only made this with corn syrup and/or golden syrup but theoretically, honey and/or maple syrup (early comment responses on maple syrup: not positive) as a replacement should work as well because the quantity is so small. I didn’t do it here, but thought it might be fun to play around with replacing the water with beer (you could use up to 1/2 cup) for a more grown-up flavor.
1 cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons light corn syrup or golden syrup
1/4 cup water
2 tablespoons butter
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cup broken-up chunks of thin salted pretzels
3/4 cup roasted salted peanuts
3/4 to 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
Either grease a large cookie sheet or line it with parchment paper or a nonstick baking mat. Get all of your other ingredients ready; you’re going to need to add them quickly in a few minutes, and you won’t have time to hunt and measure.
Combine sugar, corn or golden syrup and water in a medium saucepan, stirring just until sugar is wet. Attach a candy thermometer and heat over medium-high heat, without stirring, until mixture reaches between 300 and 305 degrees F. If you don’t have a candy thermometer, you’re looking for a small amount of the mixture dropped into cold water to separate into hard, brittle threads. This takes exactly 9 minutes on my stove.
Remove from heat and quickly stir in butter (until it melts), baking soda, peanuts and pretzels until all are coated. Pour quickly out onto prepared pan. Use a spatula or, even better, two forks to pull and stretch the mixture as flat as you can get it, working quickly. Sprinkle with chocolate chips and let rest for 5 minutes so that they soften. Once they are all soft, use a spatula to spread them over the brittle.
None of us has time or patience for waiting for these to cool, right? I put them directly in the freezer for 20 minutes, after which point the chocolate is firm, the base is cold and I get to bash the brittle into bite-sized chunks. (I like to lift pieces up onto the rim of the baking sheet and use something heavy to break them from there. I do not advise breaking it up with your hands, the warmth of which will make a mushy mess of the chocolate.)
Store in a container at room temperature, far out of your own reach.
Related
kale and caramelized onion stuffing – smitten kitchen
I have very strong feelings about stuffing, which, for once, I can express succinctly: GIMME. Well, that and a little bit of righteous indignation. Why do we limit our consumption of it to Thanksgiving? Why do we feign interest in all sorts of uninteresting things (dry turkey, thin gravy, occasionally awkward conversations with tipsy distant relatives) just to eat stuffing? Separated into components — croutons, broth, sautéed vegetables — we’d never reject them during all of the months that are not November, but together, for whatever reason, together in a casserole dish, it’s the fourth Thursday of the month or bust. I demand answers.
There are a lot of really excellent stuffing recipes out there, and I would enjoy — possibly with someone else’s metabolism — chomping my way through all of them. But when it actually comes down to picking The One, I get daunted because the best ones have so much going on: homemade cornbread and five herbs, crumbled sausage, plumped dried fruit, toasted nuts — 14 ingredients is totally the norm — plus braising and blanching and frying and simmering, and given that it’s tradition to prepare this along with three other vegetables, dinner rolls, three types of pie and a turkey that’s half the size of a refrigerator, gravy, salad and cocktails, it’s really no wonder that most of us find the prospect of making Thanksgiving dinner overwhelming-slash-excruciating.
My solution this year was to simplify by honing in on the two things I most wanted with my torn-up bread and give them enough flavor that nothing else is needed: onions cooked in butter and olive oil until deeply caramelized, then nudged into the tart-sweet zone with sherry vinegar — these alone would make the meal for me. Then, a heap of kale, slumped in olive oil with salt, pepper flakes and garlic — which are also delicious alone. But together! The onions are sour and a little jammy, the kale is faintly bitter and kicky, the sourdough bread is a crouton dream and they tangle together into something so phenomenal, it would be an undeserved cruelty to keep it from yourself for another 22 days. Not when it’s so good with a crispy egg on top, or a bowl of soup on the side, or even roasted sausages. Not when it’s your right as the cook to pick the best craggy bit off the top before sharing it with anyone else.
More Thanksgiving: Loads of savory recipes here, loads of sweet stuff here, and for those of you just in it for the pumpkin, something for you, too.
One year ago: Smoked Whitefish Dip with Horseradish
Two years ago: Spinach and Egg Pizzette
Three years ago: Granola-Crusted Nuts
Four years ago: Homesick Texan Carnitas
Five years ago: Spaghetti with Chickpeas
Six years ago: Salted Brown Butter Crispy Treats
Seven years ago: Peanut Butter Crispy Bars and Spaghetti with Swiss Chard and Garlic Chips
Eight years ago: Chicken with Forty Cloves of Garlic
Nine years ago: Bretzel Rolls and Stewed Lentils and Tomatoes
And for the other side of the world:
Six Months Ago: Not Derby Pie Bars
1.5 Years Ago: Blue Sky Bran Muffins
2.5 Years Ago: Essential Raised Waffles
3.5 Years Ago: Bacon Egg and Leek Risotto
4.5 Years Ago: Ribboned Asparagus Salad
Kale and Caramelized Onion Stuffing
Technically, this is dressing. Stuffing is cooked inside the bird, dressing, on the outside.
Serves 8
1 1/4-pound (20 ounce) round of sourdough or dense country-style white bread
1/2 cup olive oil, divided
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, divided
3 medium yellow onions, thinly sliced in half-moons
Kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon sugar or honey
2 tablespoons sherry vinegar
1 pound (large bundle) curly kale, center ribs and stems removed, chopped or torn into large chunks
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 cups vegetable, chicken or turkey broth, divided
Red pepper flakes, to taste
2 tablespoons sherry
Heat oven to 400°F. Slice crusts off bread (you can save them for breadcrumbs) and tear loaf into rough 1-ish-inch pieces. Place in a large bowl and drizzle with 4 tablespoons olive oil and toss well. Spread on a large rimmed baking sheet and toast in oven, tossing once or twice for even color, until golden brown and crisp on the outside but still a little tender inside, about 20 minutes. Let cool on sheet, then tip back into that large bowl.
Meanwhile, melt 1 tablespoon butter in 2 tablespoons oil in the bottom of a large saute pan over low heat. Add the onions, toss to coat them in oil and cover the pan and with the stove on the lowest heat possible, let them cook undisturbed for 15 minutes. (The steaming and wilting will help them caramelize much faster, yay.) Remove lid, raise heat to medium/medium-high, add sugar and 1 teaspoon salt and cook onions, stirring frequently, for another 15 to 20 minutes, until they’re a deep golden brown. Add 1 tablespoon sherry vinegar and use to scrape any stuck bits off bottom of pan, then cook off. Taste onions. If desired, add a second tablespoon of sherry vinegar and cook off in the same method. (I prefer them with 2 tablespoons.) Add onions to bowl with croutons.
Add 2 more tablespoons olive oil to pan and heat garlic for half a minute, before adding kale. Get kale coated with garlicky oil, then add 2 tablespoons broth. Cook kale until wilted and somewhat tender, seasoning well with salt and pepper, about 6 minutes. Add sherry to pan and cook until it almost disappears. Add remaining broth and last two tablespoons of butter and bring mixture to a simmer.
Pour kale-broth mixture over croutons and caramelized onions. Toss well to combine. Pour mixture into a 3-quart casserole dish and cover with foil. Bake for 15 minutes, then remove foil, and bake for another 15 to 20, until golden and crisp on top.
Do ahead: Each part of this (the croutons, the onions and the kale) can prepared up to 3 days in advance, and assembled and baked when needed. Keep the croutons at room temperature in a container or bag. Keep the onions in the fridge, as well as the kale and broth mixture.
Related
apple cider sangria – smitten kitchen
For about five minutes — before we remembered that we have an infant, a 6 year-old, two full-time jobs, a not very big apartment, an international business trip this month (sadly, not mine) are now doubting we are actually made of whatever is required to pull this off — we thought we might have a Friendsgiving dinner party this year. I love Thanksgiving and I want more of it in my life, ditto to friends and also dinner parties. Everything about this was going to awesome. I didn’t have to plan the menu to my perfect Thanksgiving dinner because I wrote it in my head probably five years ago and from what I hear, Alton Brown’s turkey recipe is the only one you’ll ever need. (Or should I dry brine? Or maybe this lacquered thing? Or maybe a mash-up of all of them? Or maybe just import a smoked one from Texas and be the most chilled out host in the history of Thanksgiving, ever, amiright?) Right, well, I had everything else planned out:
And this is where the fun began. I decided that a new tradition required a new special cocktail that would forever be tied to a time and place. In general, I’m a classicist about sangria. Like most of us, I’ve endured all sorts of disturbing ingredients masquerading as sangria — Sprite, frozen lemonade, coconut rum, basil, a ton of sugar (whhhy) which are all ingredients I’ve pulled from just the first few Google results for sangria — and try not to mess with what’s always worked. But, it turned out, I didn’t have to upend tradition too obnoxiously to make the apple cider sangria of my dreams. For the red wine, I used a dry white. For the brandy, I used an apple brandy or Calvados. Instead of a splash of juice, I used apple cider, which I’d reduced so it would be more concentrated and flavorful. I kept the less traditional Triple Sec in place, because I like the hint of orange, but you can skip it if you are less of a sangria blasphemist. And for the fruit, we used a mix of apples, because like everyone else, we overdid it at the apple farms in October.
The result was even better than I’d hoped, and apple-y in an adult way: subtle and not terribly sweet. As our kids ran up and down the hallways in an sugar-demonic haze, trick-or-treating through a friend’s building last weekend, we grownups got to sip from glasses of, uh, grown-up candy. (While saving the actual candy-thieving for after they fall asleep, as is our parental privilege, of course.)
One year ago: Sticky Toffee Pudding
Two years ago: Perfect, Uncluttered Chicken Stock
Three years ago: Granola-Crusted Nuts
Four years ago: Baked Pumpkin and Sour Cream Puddings
Five years ago: Upside-Down Cranberry Cake
Six years ago: Moroccan-Spiced Spaghetti Squash
Seven years ago: Pepita Brittle
Eight years ago: Lemon Ricotta Pancakes with Sauteed Apples
Nine years ago: Not Your Mama’s Coleslaw
And for the other side of the world:
Six Months Ago: Liege Waffles
1.5 Years Ago: Fresh Spinach Pasta
2.5 Years Ago: Essential Raised Waffles
3.5 Years Ago: Bacon Egg and Leek Risotto
4.5 Years Ago: Creme Brulee French Toasts
Apple Cider Sangria
Psst, here’s the other reason I rather love having a big pitcher or two of a single, seasonally-perfect, agreeable-to-most cocktail at dinner parties: it saves you a lot of work. Sure, you might still grab a six-pack of beer or a bottle or two of wine or bubbly, but for the most part, most people will drink what you’ve mixed and you won’t spend any time fussing about with tonics and gins and juice and bourbon and vodka. A good cocktail is efficient.
Makes 1 pitcher (about 1 quart) sangria; definitely double for a crowd
1 cup apple cider (the fresh kind, not the fizzy alcoholic kind)
1 bottle dry white wine
1/4 cup calvados or another apple brandy
1/4 cup Triple sec or another orange liqueur
Mixed colors of apples, diced and tossed with lemon juice to prevent browning
Seltzer, sparkling water or sparkling apple cider to finish
Place the apple cider in a small saucepan and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce about 3/4 of the way, until you have approximately 1/4 cup apple cider left; this will take 10 to 15 minutes. Pour into small bowl set over a bowl of ice water and stir; it will cool very quickly this way.
Pour reduced, cooled cider into pitcher. Add wine, apple brandy and triple sec. Add fruit and let sit in the fridge until needed. Add some fizz right before serving; a slotted spoon will help guests hold back the fruit while pouring their glasses, and spoon some on top, if desired.
Related
date, feta and red cabbage salad – smitten kitchen
Sara Jenkins is famous for making the Italian roasted pork street food known as porchetta trendy in New York. She’s also known for her way with pasta (and has a new book out with her famed food writer mom celebrating it). She’s had turns at a handful of great Italian restaurants in New York, earning them stars and accolades and has written at length for The Atlantic about Italian food. And almost all I ever want to talk about here? Her salads.
I can’t help it — they’re riveting, and while I will forever love roasted pork and pasta, in my life, nothing fills the inspiration deficit that accumulates from the daily repetition of cooking that real life requires like chefs that have a way with vegetables — ways we can take back home and eat food we’re more excited about. It began the first time we went to Porsena nearly 5 years ago, when I fell in love with a green bean salad busy with pickled onions, fried almonds, thinly sliced fennel and celery, which I’m of the opinion never gets enough praise. Crunchy and bright, I became obsessed and made it again and again at home. Last week, we were back for an early Sunday night dinner with our menagerie of mini-humans (fine, just two, but it feels like a lot!) and the giant shells with kale pesto were excellent, my son’s thousand-layer deeply broiled duck lasagna was otherworldly, my husband has nothing but good things to say about the linguine with clams, but the only thing I spent the next week babbling on about was the salad I had with dates, feta and radicchio.
I also spent the next week telling myself it was too basic, too boring to warrant mention, which is kind of a shame when these simple ingredients that I already had in the kitchen are so spectacularly good together, the perfect balancing act of sweet and salty on crunchy salad. At the restaurant, they use an heirloom radicchio with tender pink leaves that is absolutely nothing like the bitter-as-lemon-peel heads we get at the store, so I replaced it with red cabbage, which is cheap, hearty and holds up well if you’re trying to plan ahead for that big holiday this month. Everything else was guesswork: I detected a lot of olive oil, a bit of lime juice and Aleppo pepper at the restaurant, but couldn’t resist adding two more things at home, very well toasted sesame seeds and a handful of parsley to finish. You could add even more stuff, I don’t think thinly shaved red onion, a splash of pomegranate molasses or even chickpeas would be unwelcome here, but the good news is that you don’t need them to make a really gorgeous November salad that I’m angling to put on the Thanksgiving table this year, and uh, in my belly at lunchtime today.
One year ago: Pickled Cabbage Salad
Two years ago: Perfect Uncluttered Chicken Stock
Three years ago: Granola-Crusted Nuts
Four years ago: Baked Pumpkin and Sour Cream Puddings
Five years ago: Upside-Down Cranberry Cake
Six years ago: Raisin-Studded Apple Bread Pudding
Seven years ago: Cottage Cheese Pancakes, Cauliflower Salad with Green Olives and Capers and Onion Tart with Mustard and Fennel
Eight years ago: Roasted Stuffed Onions, Simplest Apple Tart and Black Bean Pumpkin Soup
Nine years ago: Indian-Spiced Vegetable Fritters, Dreamy Cream Scones and Shrimp Cocktail
And for the other side of the world:
Six Months Ago: Mushrooms and Greens with Toast
1.5 Years Ago: Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp Bars
2.5 Years Ago: Japanese Vegetable Pancakes
3.5 Years Ago: Warm, Crisp and A Little Melty Salad Croutons
4.5 Years Ago: Leek Toasts with Blue Cheese
Date, Feta and Red Cabbage Salad
If you don’t like your cabbage too crunchy, dressing it as directed and letting it rest in the salad bowl for a while before adding the other ingredients will soften and wilt it a bit.
Serves 4 to 6 as a side
1 to 1 1/4 pounds red cabbage (1 small head or half of a large one), sliced very thin
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons lime or lemon juice (I use lime)
Salt and red pepper flakes (I used the mild Aleppo variety) to taste
About 1/2 cup pitted dates, coarsely chopped or sliced
4 ounces feta, crumbled into chunks
1 tablespoon chopped flat-leaf parsley
2 teaspoons well-toasted sesame seeds
Toss cabbage with olive oil and first tablespoons of lime juice, plus salt and pepper, coating leaves evenly. Taste and add more lime juice, salt and pepper to taste. I do this a few times, making sure I really get this base well seasoned because it will be hard to do it as well later.
Toss dressed cabbage gently with half of dates and feta. Sprinkle with remaining dates, then feta, then parsley and sesame seeds. Dig in.
Do ahead: The whole salad can sit assembled for at least an hour, if not longer in the fridge. Mine is going strong on the second day. You can also prepare the parts separately (feta, chopped dates, sliced cabbage) to assemble right before serving, if you’re planning ahead for Thanksgiving or a dinner party.