Savour Fare » Autumn

Old School Sage Stuffing

Kate — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 01:49:31 +0000

My father didn’t just love tradition, he loved ritual. He wouldn’t just visit the same city over and over again, he would stay at the same hotel, visit the same restaurant, and order the same dishes off the menu. He was especially particular about holidays: not just turkey gravy and stuffing — GIBLET gravy and this bread stuffing. (Although he called it dressing, even though he also insisted on stuffing the turkey with it.) If we were eating Thanksgiving dinner at someone else’s house, my mom always had to roast her own turkey (usually for charity) so we could make giblet gravy and bread stuffing. The man was obsessed.

Thanksgiving morning would see our family gathering around the kitchen table. My father and I would each have a cutting board and a knife — my mother would be standing at the stove, presiding over a large pan of sauteeing vegetables. Dad and I divided up the chopping duties — I took celery and onions, he cubed the loaves of white bread. The kitchen smelled of sage and onions, and we would snitch bits of stuffing — a crust of bread, a cube dipped in the oniony, celery sage butter, before it was ceremoniously added to the turkey, when the smell of poultry and sage would sneak out from the kitchen and fill the whole house.

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Finding Fall in Southern California

Kate — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 00:53:36 +0000

The first time I ever went apple picking was my senior year of college. Ken had his car on campus that year — a little blue Ford Festiva, that had been spray painted, and had no air conditioning or radio. We were celebrating one year of dating, still shiny and happy and young and new, and decided to head off into the wilds of Connecticut to pick apples. I wore my appropriate apple picking attire — a red and green gingham shirt, and we discovered the joys of fresh air in an orchard, of plucking apples off the tree, of cold pressed cider and hot apple cider donuts.

After that first year, we went every year we lived in the Northeast. When we lived in New York, we borrowed my father in law’s car, or rented one (we could barely fit ourselves in our tiny Manhattan studio — where were we going to park a car?), and hit New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut to get out of the city and load up on apples. Apple picking was never about the apples — they’re readily available at the Greenmarket after all — but about simple entertainment, fresh air, getting out of the city. And donuts. Don’t forget the donuts.

When we moved to Los Angeles six years ago, I thought my apple picking days were through. Our climate is too warm to have apple orchards — we can pick oranges in our own back yard, but the autumnal fest was lost to me. Until this year. We piled into the little blue car (now, so many years later, a Prius, with air conditioning and an iphone connection), with the Nuni in tow and headed into the mountains, into the “mile high” town of Oak Glen. Nestled in the San Bernardino mountains just east of Redlands, Oak Glen boast six or seven apple orchards, and the crowds that go with them.
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Fresh Grape Pie

Kate — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 00:10:14 +0000

October is probably my favorite time of year here in Southern California. The days are clear and sunny (and can be hot — supposed to be in the 90′s today!) but it invariably cools off at night, leaving clear skies, perfect for stargazing. October is also one of those magical food times, when we’re still getting a few tomatoes and peaches from the summer, but the cool weather produce is starting to come in — apples, peaches, butternut squash, and grapes.

We get grapes from so many places around the world now that we forget to think of them as seasonal fruit, but anyone who lives in or near wine country knows that fall is the time of the grape harvest, and that applies to table grapes as well. The best, sweetest, most flavorful varieties abound in fall – the red, green and black grapes we see every day, but also the headily perfumed muscat grapes and the classically flavored concord grapes. I had long wanted to make a grape pie, but the grapes with the truest “grape” flavor — the flavor of grape juice and grape jelly — are Concord grapes, which are also famous for their grape seeds.

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Holiday Cheer — the Perfect Manhattan

Kate — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 19:32:04 +0000

It’s crunch time for Thanksgiving. You’ve probably planned your menu, done your shopping and begun cooking. All I can offer at this point is courage. Liquid courage. Chances are, at some point this weekend, between the family and the food and the football and the Friday sales, you will need a drink. And chances are, with the Christmas season coming up, you’ll need more than one. And so I present to you that most hallowed of cold season classic cocktails: The Manhattan.

I tasted my first Manhattan, appropriately enough, in Manhattan, at a tiny Greenwich Village restaurant, and I was hooked. A little sweet, but not too sweet, a little spicy, with warm herbal notes from the bitters — this cocktail tasted like autumn leaves and fireplaces and tailgating and all of the good things about fall and winter. And you can add to that the glamour quotient of drinking a very classic cocktail — you are never embarrassed by ordering a Manhattan, whether you’re on a date, at a client lunch, at a party with friends or meeting your inlaws for the first time. It’s the little black dress of cocktails.

Over the years, I’ve tasted a lot of Manhattans, and I’ve gotten picky enough that I prefer to mix them at home (though if you’re in Los Angeles, Cole’s in Downtown LA has the best classic Manhattan I’ve had in a restaurant in recent memory). I prefer them made with rye whiskey, instead of bourbon (rye is the traditional whiskey for a Manhattan– it’s also more flavorful and spicier, with a finish nicely smoothed by the Vermouth). My favorite rye is Rittenhouse, which has the bonus of being relatively inexpensive, but Piketown, which has a smoother, lighter flavor and is similarly cheap, is a nice alternative. I’ve tried different Vermouths as well — Martini & Rossi is fine, Punt y Mes is good, with a slight bitter edge, but if you can find it, my money is on Vya Vermouth, which has an herbal profile almost more like a fine liqueur than a vermouth. Some people like a “perfect” Manhattan, which has equal parts sweet and dry vermouth, but my personal opinion is that the perfect Manhattan is made with sweet vermouth only. Finish it off with bitters (Angostura, always. I’ve tried orange bitters and they’re just not as good). Many bars serve Manhattans shaken with ice and strained into a martini glass, but I’m a klutz and I like my lowballs, on the rocks.

You can put a maraschino in for garnish, but I prefer amarena cherries in syrup — they are wildly expensive and totally worth it.

This may not be the perfect Manhattan, but I’ve come to realize the perfect Manhattan exists only in my mind. This is pretty darn close. When you’re in need of a little extra holiday cheer, mix yourself a Manhattan. And after a few of them, trust me, EVERYTHING will seem perfect.

Cheers!

Recipe
The Best Manhattan Cocktail

2 oz. rye whiskey (try Rittenhouse or Piketown)
1.25 oz. sweet vermouth (try Vya)
3 dashes Angostura bitters
2 amarena cherries

Combine first three ingredients over ice in a lowball glass. Stir gently, and garnish with amarena cherries.

Gifts from the Kitchen: Pear and Vanilla Preserves

Kate — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 20:13:29 +0000

I was very sad to have missed the summer jam season this year. With all the craziness around buying the house and moving, I never got around to putting up plum jam, or strawberry balsamic, or peach and basil, and my stash from last year is getting dangerously low. Fortunately, I still have a few seasonal fruit tricks up my sleeve. Like this pear jam with vanilla beans, which will make your heart swell with domestic pride and impress anyone you care to give it to.

Jam seems terribly intimidating, but really, it’s not. Yes, there are a few basic steps you need to go through to make sure it’s safe to eat (or really to store) but the risks of contaminated jam are much lower than for canned vegetables because both the acid and the sugar in jam act as preservatives. You don’t need any special equipment, other than jars (I get mine at the local hardware store — you can reuse jars, but make sure to get new lids, which you can buy separately) and a big pot to boil them in. An hour’s worth of effort (and not MUCH effort, really – most of it involves occasional stirring or waiting for the water bath to boil.)

And the result? Golden jars of sunshine, lined up in your pantry, making you proud, waiting to be doled out to deserving friends and family this holiday season.

And if you think that you or your family and friends don’t eat jam, here are some serving ideas:

Stir it into oatmeal
Top crackers with brie and a dollop of pear jam
Spoon it atop ice cream
Plop into pastry shells to make jam tarts
SCONES

And there’s always toast. We’re quite fond of it in our house.

Recipe
Pear and Vanilla Jam

3 lbs ripe Bartlett pears
12 oz. granulated sugar
1/2 vanilla bean, slit lengthwise
Juice of 1 lemon
1 pouch liquid pectin

Peel the pears, core them and cut them into small chunks. Place in a large saucepan with the remaining ingredients. (I like my pear jam chunky to preserve some of that grainy “pear” texture -if you don’t, mash them a bit in the pan). Cook over medium heat, stirring frequently, until the jam begins to gel –test it by dropping a spoonful on a cold dish and dragging the spoon (or your finger, after it’s cooled a bit) through it — if it leaves a trail that takes a few seconds to be filled in, it’s ready.

Meanwhile, heat 4 1/2 pint jars in a stock pot full of boiling water. When your jam is ready, pull the jars out of the boiling water and fill them with hot jam. Leave 1/4 inch space between the top of the jam and the top of the jars, and run a clean (pref sterilized) knife around the edge of the jars to let any air bubbles escape). Wipe the top of the jars with a clean damp towel to ensure a seal. Cover the jars with the lids and the rings, and return them to the boiling water, making sure the water covers the jars entirely. Cover the pan, and let boil briskly for 10 minutes. Remove the jars from the pan, and let them cool to room temperature.

Easy Pie Crust and Maple Walnut Pie

Kate — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 22:26:33 +0000

Fall themed desserts are all over these days – pumpkin bread puddings, cranberry panna cotta, pecan trifle. And those of us with a confirmed fear of rolling pins grasp at these desperately. But now it’s time to get real. You and I both know that Thanksgiving is about pie. Preferably multiple types of pie. The table should be GROANING with pie. Pumpkin pie, mincemeat pie, apple pie … Panna cotta, while a very lovely dessert, just doesn’t cut it.

Which means, fair readers, that if I’m going to do Thanksgiving right by you, I need to get over my fear of rolling. I need to summon the reserves — the wisdom of the elders, nerves of steel, hands of ice, and my own experience of parenting a three year old, and tell that pie dough, “You are NOT the boss of me. I am the boss. And don’t you forget it.” And then I’m going to fill it with something wonderful — in this case, a variation on the Thanksgiving classic pecan pie made with walnuts and maple syrup and no corn syrup in sight. And then I’m going to tell you all about it.

Let’s start with the crust, shall we? I am tired of feeling anxiety about pie crust. I just want to make it and be done. Which means, for me, ignoring the tips and tweaks, and going back to basics. Armed with Michael Ruhlman’s ratio for 3-2-1 pie dough, Julia Child’s food processor method, Amanda Hesser and Dorie Greenspan’s plastic wrap rolling technique (though Amanda might never forgive me for calling her an elder — sorry Amanda!), I made pie crust. And it took about 3 minutes. Freeze a stick of butter, cut it into cubes (I cut it into about 24 cubes (you can reverse these steps), then pulse it in the food processor with flour and some salt until it’s coarse and uneven (about 9 pulses should do it). Add water in one fell swoop, pulse a couple of times more, then dump it all out onto some plastic wrap, pull the wrap around it until it looks like a disc of dough rather than a pile of crumbs, and chill for about 30 minutes. Then roll it out between two sheets of parchment (Amanda and Dorie use plastic wrap, but mine wrinkles like crazy) using your favorite rolling pin (and I will add that the acquisition of a French Rolling Pin has improved my rolling technique immensely). Peel off one piece of parchment, arrange the dough dough side down over the pie dish, peel off the other piece of parchment, press it in, trim the edges, and use the trimmings to replace any holes or divots. Voila. No gimmicks. It might not be perfect, but a) it will taste good (thank you butter, not Crisco), b) it will be tender and flaky and c) it won’t give you a panic attack.

Now the filling. I love a traditional pecan pie, but it is so sweet my teeth ache just thinking about it. I also don’t love all the corn syrup because it’s messy and has a funky flavor and questionable health effects (though frankly, pie isn’t health food.) When I saw the French Canadian maple sugar pie recipe in Richard Sax’s Classic Home Desserts (which is my desert island dessert book (dessert island?) and should be in your library), my interest was piqued. Instead of pecans, it features walnuts, which give it a lovely bitter edge, and instead of corn syrup, the pie gets texture (and a lot of flavor) from maple syrup (use Grade B, which is not only cheaper but more flavorful.) It has a few other additions which cut the sweetness — apple cider vinegar, which adds an acid bite to counter the sweetness, and brewed tea (I used PG Tips), which adds some more bitterness and also flavor. The combination is a little more layered than the traditional pecan, which is just SWEET and nuts. (Not that I don’t love both sweet and nuts.) Plus, my family is French Canadian, so I was just tickled to have a “heritage” pie in my repertoire.

The best thing, too, is that the filling takes no time at all to mix up and dump into your pie crust, which we’ve already established takes no time at all. So this becomes a quick and low stress dessert. And yes, this is pie we’re talking about.

Now for the other six varieties …

Recipe
Easy Maple Walnut Pie
For the Crust:

6 ounces all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 ounces butter, frozen and cut into 1/2 inch cubes
2 ounces cold cold water

In the food processor, combine the flour and the salt. Throw in the butter, and pulse 9 times — the mixture should look like uneven crumbs. Add the water all at once and pulse a few more times until it’s incorporated. The mixture should resemble dough at this point, but a semi-pebbly dough rather than a homogenous mass.

Dump the entire mixture out onto a sheet of plastic wrap, fold up the sides of the plastic to mush it all together so it is a homogeneous mass. Shape it into a thick disc, and chill in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Roll out the dough between two sheets of parchment until it’s about a 12-14 inch circle. Peel off one sheet of parchment and transfer, dough side down, to your 9 inch pie plate. Lay the dough on top. Peel off the second sheet of parchment and press the pastry down into the pie plate. Trim the edges until there’s about a 1/2 inch overhang, then fold that under and pinch it to the pie plate to crimp (the crimping is not just decorative- it helps keep the crust from shrinking down the side of the plate). Use the trimmings to fill in any holes or divots in the dough.

Line the pie crust with foil, then fill with pie weights or dried beans and bake for about 20 minutes. Let cool.

For the filling
(Adapted from Classic Home Desserts)

1 cup walnuts
3 eggs plus 1 egg yolk
3/4 c plus 2 Tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons molasses
3/4 cup Grade B pure maple syrup
6 Tablespoons butter, melted
1/4 cup brewed black tea
2 Tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1/2 teaspoon salt

Toast the walnuts (I use a toaster oven) then roughly roughly chop them.

In a bowl, whisk the eggs, add the sugar, molasses, maple syrup, melted butter, tea, vinegar and salt and whisk until combined. Add the walnuts and stir.

Set the prebaked pie shell onto a baking sheet lined with aluminum foil. Pour the walnut mixture into the pie crust.
Bake at 450 for 10 minutes, then reduce the heat to 350 and bake for an additional 20-25 minutes, or until the center has just a slightl slight wobble. (Watch the top in the last 10-15 minutes of baking – if it seems to be getting too browned, cover with foil.)

Let cool to room temperature and add to your groaning pie board.

Spicy Sweet Potato Gratin — a different sort of Sweet Potato

Kate — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 18:35:44 +0000

Despite having a decent reputation for cooking, a killer turkey recipe and not one but TWO autumnal table runners, I haven’t hosted Thanksgiving since 2004, and I’m thrilled about that. One of the reasons we moved to Los Angeles back in the day was to give our (then unconceived) children the experience of growing up with family holidays, and for Thanksgiving we always have a place at the table at the house of my parents, my grandmother, or one of my aunts. And since family meals in my family are always pot luck, I get the fun of cooking what I want for Thanksgiving without the stress of worrying that I don’t have enough wine glasses, or bringing in extra chairs from the garage.

And while my contribution to the family Thanksgiving varies, I always always make these sweet potatoes. They are not gooey with brown sugar, or covered in marshmallows. What they are is creamy and spicy and sweet and smoky. They’re also easy and practically foolproof and, depending on how liberally you apply the cayenne, almost universally popular.

I never understood why so many sweet potato recipes added additional sweetness, in the form of brown sugar, or orange juice, or marshmallows. Sweet potatoes are already sweet — what I want is to balance the sweetness with saltiness. I like plain baked sweet potatoes with butter and salt, but this dish, with the layers of flavor from the spices, and the richness of the butter and cream and the mellow background of sweet potato, just sings.

Fortunately, making them is a snap. I like to use my Benriner Japanese Mandoline Slicer, which makes the slicing quick and the slices uniform, but PLEASE use the finger guard or you will do what I did LAST Thanksgiving and slice the tip off your finger. True story. Once the potatoes are sliced, you just layer them in a buttered gratin dish, dab each layer with a little more butter (holiday food, not health food), sprinkle with cayenne, smoked paprika, salt and pepper, then pour cream over the whole thing and bake.

A few years ago my grandmother, who is a very, um, traditional cook, hosted Thanksgiving. I told her I was bringing these sweet potatoes and she balked. “My friend Jeannie is coming, ” she said. “And Jean is midwestern. Why don’t you make them with some nice orange juice?” Well, Jeannie is midwestern like Annie Oakley is midwestern, and she had second helpings of sweet potatoes. And even my grandmother enjoyed them.

Recipe
Smoky Spicy Sweet Potato Gratin
3 medium sweet potatoes
3-4 Tablespoons butter, at room temperature
1/2-1 teaspoons cayenne pepper
1-2 teaspoons sweet Spanish smoked paprika
salt and pepper
1 1/2 cups heavy cream

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Peel the sweet potatoes, and using a mandoline, a food processor or a sharp knife and a lot of patience, slice them thinly into even rounds. Set some of the prettiest and most perfect rounds aside for the top layer.

Butter a 14 inch gratin dish. Layer the sweet potatoes in concentric overlapping circles (or ovals) over the bottom of the gratin dish. Dot with a few dabs of butter, sprinkle with cayenne (more is obviously spicier), smoked paprika, a pinch of salt (go lightly on the salt — the smokiness of the paprika adds a salty impression) and a few grinds of black pepper. Repeat with the next layer, and the spices and the butter, until you reach the top, where you’ll use your reserved sweet potatoes.

Pour the cream over the dish, cover tightly with foil and bake 30 minutes. Remove the cover, bake an additional 30 minutes. Serve warm. (I happen to love this cold, but it doesn’t reheat well because the cream tends to separate. You can make it entirely in advance except for the baking part, and pop it in the oven an hour before dinner is served).

Serves 6-8

Pappardelle with Pumpkin Poblano Cream Sauce

Kate — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 16:47:54 +0000

It’s October — the nights are getting cold, the leaves are turning color (on the three trees in Los Angeles that actually change color) and pumpkins are sprouting in our neighbor’s yards like mushrooms. When I do my weekly shopping, those orange cans of pumpkin puree call to me, with their promises of afternoons in the kitchen, the air redolent with the scent of cinnamon and cloves, as we turn out pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread, pumpkin muffins, pumpkin cake. But inevitably, I succumb to the lure of seasonality and planned scarcity, and overbuy on canned pumpkin. And man cannot live on bread (and pie, and cake, and muffins) alone. So I start to search for easy and savory pumpkin recipes — ways to enjoy the season without overdosing on sweet treats.

This pumpkin chile sauce is a perfect use for all that pumpkin. The oldest pumpkin seeds were found in Mexico, and the flavors of Mexican cuisine — the mellow heat of chiles and the smoothness of cream — combine beautifully with the sweet pumpkin. I served it on pappardelle, my favorite pasta — the wide ribbons provide plenty of surface area for a chunky and flavorful sauce to cling to. But this would be equally good on grilled chicken breasts or as a sauce for very rich enchiladas.

It’s easy, too — the hardest part is roasting the chiles, which isn’t very hard at all. You just stick them over a gas flame (or under a broiler) until the skin is singed and leprous, let them steam for a few minutes wrapped in a paper towel, then rub off the black skin until the roasted chile emerges like a phoenix from the ashes. It’s then simple to chop them up, saute them with a little onions and garlic, chicken broth and pumpkin, then add the sweet richness of cream. The poblano chiles are extremely mild (even the Nuni, who thinks gingerbread is too spicy, liked this sauce) and they add a green and toasty flavor more than any piquancy.

Forget pie — there’s a new pumpkin in town.

Recipe
Pumpkin Poblano Cream Sauce
2 poblano chiles
1 T butter
1 T neutral oil (I used grapeseed, but olive oil would be just fine, too)
1 medium onion, chopped
1 clove garlic
1/2 c. chicken broth
1 c. pumpkin puree
1/3 c. cream
Salt and pepper, to taste
Pappardelle to serve, and cilantro and feta cheese to garnish

On a gas burner or under the broiler, roast the chiles until the skin is blackened and blistered. Wrap loosely in a paper towel, let steam for a minute or two, then rub off the blackened skin. Roughly chop the roasted chiles, discarding the stem and the seeds.

In a large saucepan, heat the oil and butter together until the butter is melted, then add the onion and saute until translucent, about 3 minutes. Add the minced garlic and the chicken broth and cook over low heat until the broth is absorbed and the onions are soft, about 5 minutes.
Add the chopped chiles and the pumpkin puree. Cook for about two minutes, until the pumpkin is fragrant. Add the cream, and puree using a hand blender or transfer to a regular blender or cuisinart. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Serve with pappardelle, garnished with chopped cilantro and crumbled feta cheese.

Happy Birthday to Me – Gingerbread Cake with Whisky Frosting

Kate — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 11:37:47 +0000

Last week was my birthday, so I baked myself a birthday cake. I do realize how pathetic that sounds, but baking my own birthday cake is actually something I like to do — I get exactly what I want, I get to bake, which I actually enjoy, and I can milk the pity for all it’s worth (I had to BAKE MY OWN birthday cake!) (and lest you still feel sorry for me, my mother also baked me a birthday cake for the family celebration we had a few days after my birthday.)

I do love all kinds of cakes, but after making both a yellow cake with chocolate frosting AND strawberry cupcakes for the Nuni’s birthday, I wanted something a little more adult for mine. Something a little more complex. Something that wouldn’t be devoured by a little person within minutes of baking. And that something was gingerbread.

Despite promising beginnings, the Nuni has not seen the light on gingerbread, which she currently deems too spicy, which makes it perfect for my evil plan, er, birthday cake. My love of gingerbread is well-documented — I’ve already written about this classic gingerbread and this chocolate gingerbread. For this cake I wanted something a little lighter and cakier, and I found it, once again, in Laurie Colwin’s More Home Cooking. (Colwin reveres gingerbread almost as much as I do, and if you haven’t yet read this book or her other one, Home Cooking, then you should read them. Right now. I’m not kidding. Stop reading this and go get your hands on those books). This gingerbread, titled “Damp Gingerbread”, which Colwin adapts from Delia Smith, the British Martha Stewart (and another featured recipe writer on Savour Fare) is sweeter and less dense than the original gingerbread I posted, and has the added bonus of being flavored not with molasses, but with Lyle’s Golden Syrup, which is a British caramelized sugar syrup that tastes like home and is addictive like crack (and if you know of a cheaper source for this stuff, please let me know. It’s DIVINE on oatmeal).

Much as I love gingerbread all by its lonesome, a cake isn’t a birthday cake for reals until you add frosting. And in the “adult” theme, and the “British” theme, I decided to flavor my icing, a basic and classic buttercream, with scotch whisky, which may just be the best idea I’ve had all year. Like the classic English brandy butter (traditionally served with Christmas plum pudding) only with a deeper, more complex and slightly smoky flavor. The whisky cuts the sweetness that can often mar buttercream, and at the same time rounds it out, making it mellower and more lasting. And the whole shebang complements the spicy richness of the gingerbread.

Happy birthday to me. I’m not sharing.

Recipe
Gingerbread Cake with Whisky Frosting
Cake
Adapted from Laurie Colwin’s More Home Cooking1 can Lyle’s Golden Syrup (about 16 oz. or 1.5 cups)
1 stick butter (8 Tablespoons)
2 cups flour
1 tsp. salt
1.5 tsp. baking soda
1 Tablespoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1 egg, beaten
1 cup milk
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line the bottom of a 9 inch cake pan (2 inches deep) with parchment and spray the sides with baking spray.

Melt butter and syrup together.

Into a bowl mix flour, salt, syrup and spices. Add the syrup and butter mixture and mix well.

Add egg and milk, and stir until the mixture is combined.

Pour into the cake pan and bake at 350 for 45-50 minutes — it’s OK if the cake still seems a bit damp in the center. Let cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then turn out and cool on a rack.

Using a serrated knife, cut the cake in half horizontally. Fill and top with whisky buttercream.

For whisky buttercream:
1/2 cup butter
2 cups powdered sugar, sifted
3 Tablespoons scotch whisky

Combine all ingredients and bake until fluffy.

Luxury Dinner Party — It Began with the Tarte Tatin…

Kate — Sun, 03 Oct 2010 20:39:46 +0000

It started with the smell.

I arrived home from work Friday night, Nuni in tow, and was greeted by a smell, emanating from the kitchen. A TERRIBLE smell. It wasn’t the trash — Friday is trash day, and ours was empty as a result. Knowing that we had four people coming over to our house the next day for a fancy dinner party, Ken and I spent Friday night tearing apart the kitchen, scrubbing every surface, and spraying Lysol with abandon, trying to find and eradicate the source of the smell. An overnight with the windows open and a generous application of Lysol had relegated the smell to the background, but I should have known then that this was a harbinger of things to come.

When I saw the Project Food Blog Round 3 Challenge, throw a luxury dinner party, I thought, “No sweat.” I had just had twenty people over to my house for a three year old birthday party. I was channeling Martha Stewart. How hard can dinner for six be? I invited friends and proceeded to plan a menu.

When it comes to menu planning for a dinner party, the three principles to keep in mind are timing, balance, and cohesion. Timing — You don’t want to spend the entire party in the kitchen, so meals that require lots of last minute fiddling are inadvisable. Balance — although it’s tempting to load up on rich dishes at a fancy dinner party, you don’t want your guests to feel like they have to roll home. Think about finding a balance between heavier dishes and lighter ones — dishes that lull the palate and those that wake it up. Finally, think about cohesion. Unless you have a theme of eclecticism, you might want to think twice before serving miso soup followed by tacos. In a good menu, each course should feel like it belongs together and proceeds logically from the previous one.

I knew from the moment I read the prompt that I wanted to make tarte tatin, the classic French upside down apple tart. It can be made in advance and is always impressive and delicious. Tarte Tatin heavily features butter and apples, two specialties of the Normandy region of France, which led me to decide on a main course — Pork Tenderloin cooked “a la Normande” – with butter, apples and cream. Looking for both balance and cohesion in the rest of the menu, I decided to go with an apple theme, alternating the richer courses (Pork Normande, Tarte Tatin, and hors d’oeuvres of a creamy chicken liver pate and a cheese spread both served on apple slices) with lighter fare (a beet and apple carpaccio with horseradish cream and an endive and apple salad to clear the palate before dessert). Once I had set the menu, I turned to the experts for wine pairing advice — in this case my aunt Suzi, who used to work at a winery and is a fabulous cook to boot. The menu was set.

Saturday morning I woke up early, hoping to hit the road and go shopping. Two and a half hours later (I have a three year old. Have you ever tried to get out of the house with one? It’s a project.) the Nuni and I were on the road, hitting the first of THREE stores. Turns out Cabernet Franc? Not so easy to find. And I’m picky about apples — I miss the New England varieties we used to get in New York, and Washington State apples that have been shipped to California just aren’t the same. I came home with all my ingredients, and a boatload of apples, only an hour or so behind schedule and without wine to serve with the main course. No sweat. I placed an online order at BevMo for Ken to pick up later, packed the Nuni off to her Nonna and Pappi’s, set the table for inspiration, and proceeded to cook.

The next wrinkle popped up when Ken informed me that instead of acting as my sous chef, house tidier and delivery boy, he had work to do. No sweat. I had built in some extra time into my schedule. I sat down with my apple peeler and got to work. Beets roasted, pate made, cheese spread chilling in the fridge. Ken relented enough to pick up the wine. I set the table so I wouldn’t have to worry about it. And I set to making my tarte tatin. Apples peeled, cored and halved, butter and sugar bubbling away. The apples weren’t cooking down the way I thought they should, but I didn’t worry about it. The sugar was looking very, very brown, but I didn’t worry about it. Popped on the pastry top, and popped it in the oven. When it came out, Ken, who thinks I’m a klutz (probably with good reason), offered to flip it onto the plate for me. He fitted the plate to the (HOT) pan, eyeballed it, and did a flip, spraying tarte tatin juices all over himself. Burning hot, caramelized sugar, sticky napalm tarte tatin juices. Which promptly raised huge red blisters on his unprotected foot. Worse than that, I looked at the tarte and my heart sank — the sugar had caramelized too much, the apples had disintegrated and blackened; the tart could not be served.

Now I was starting to sweat. But not panic. I should probably note that if I were sane and this were not a blog dinner party, I would have moved on to plan B for dessert — good vanilla ice cream with dark chocolate over it; my killer chocolate chip cookies, or these gooey chocolate puddings that take ten minutes to make and are perfect for situations like this. But we’re talking Project Food Blog here, so sanity went out the window. Ken was dispatched to the store to fetch more apples; I calmly sliced up the beets for the carpaccio and the endive for the salad. He brought back apples, which I peeled, cored sliced and quartered, and caramelized on the stove, this time watching like a hawk. This time the apples yielded their juice before disintegrating, the caramel cooked the apples before burning. I was ready to put on the pastry lid and pop it in the oven, when I realized the sheet of puff pastry I had bought earlier had thawed to the point that it was stuck together in a block, not a sheet. Knowing it was just laminated dough, I folded it up and rolled it out, and that was that. Only it wasn’t, of course, No matter how well I rolled that dough, the second I tried to remove it from the rolling surface and place it on the apples, it would shrink. I rerolled it; it re shrank. I stuck it in the freezer for a few minutes to chill before rolling; it still shrank.

Now I was sweating in earnest. There may have been tears. I may have thrown a cutting board across the kitchen. When my husband innocently asked if I had begun the main course, he may have been the target of a stream of invective. Ken was dispatched to the store AGAIN to get more puff pastry.

And I turned to the number one principle of throwing a dinner party: NEVER LET THEM SEE YOU SWEAT. I started a load of dishes, took a shower, put on a chic little black dress, gold flats and some mascara, and chugged a glass of champagne (very few domestic crises can’t be vastly improved by a LBD and a liberal application of champagne). When Ken returned, the kitchen was cleaner, the wife was party-ready, and the main course was at least begun.

By the time the guests arrived, the tarte tatin was in the oven (and the old one hidden away), the main course was simmering on the stovetop, the first course was plated, and cocktails and hors d’oeuvres were on the coffee table. And I had a champagne flute in my hand, and was smiling cheerily.
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