From the archives, just in time for my favorite vegetable to hit the market. Enjoy!
The markets are back open, the cherry blossoms are in full bloom, and I can almost forgive the swarms of tourists and the row of port-o-potties that totally block the view along the tidal basin, because spring has sprung! Thrills.
After a long winter of stews and soups, rice dishes and noodle bowls, I crave the fresh simplicity of spring produce. When a Sunday at the market sends me home with asparagus, fresh shelling peas, rhubarb, and (cross your fingers!) ramps, I try to prepare meals in a no-frills manner, letting the vegetables speak for themselves. Why kill fresh peas with a gloppy sauce? Why bury asparagus in soup or risotto? Leave those more involved, less spare recipes for another time. These first spring vegetables should be celebrated, I tell you.
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by rivka
on April 18, 2011
As I’ve said many times on this site, my philosophy of Passover eating is to steer clear of matza meal and potato starch, and keep things as normal as possible. Meringues, mousses, fruit curd of any flavor: these are the ideal Passover desserts. But cookie cravings call, and can’t be ignored, even on Passover. So I’m making good on my promise to share one more Passover cookie recipe before the holiday. Those chocolate cookies sort of can’t be beat — unless you use margarine in place of butter, which I hear can cause problems! — but these amaretti are chewy, flavorful, and pretty addictive in their own rite. They’ve got the golden touch of Passover cookies, which is to say, they weren’t designed with Passover in mind.
The recipe is very lightly adapted from Garrett McCord, who writes his own blog, Vanilla Garlic, and guest posts occasionally for Elise at Simply Recipes. They can be made chewy or crunchy just by fiddling with the baking time. They’re redolent with almond flavor and some vanilla, too. They’re highly scarfable, which on Passover isn’t something to scoff at.
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by rivka
on April 6, 2011
Friends, listen up. This weekend, I went undercover. For you. In search of a perfect Passover cookie that could fool even the most discerning dessert connoisseur, I brought a batch of Passover cookies to the pre-wedding festivities of one of my oldest friends. Now surely you’re wondering why I’d subject some of my favorite people to those little bricks that taste like chalky potatoes and twice-cooked crackers. The answer, of course, is that I’d never do that. Friends don’t make friends eat Passover cookies. Nope. What I did do was treat my near-and-dear to a big tupperware container full of soft, chewy, chocolatey cookies. Also on the menu: muffins, bagels, croissants, and all sorts of other leavened things. And you know what? My chocolate cookies went first.
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by rivka
on March 27, 2011
I may seem delicate, with my ginger-infused biscuits and meyer lemon streusel muffins, and you know what? Maybe I am. But boy, do I love a good chicken wing. Whether battered and fried or sauced and crisped, great wings have become something of an interest. The crunchy skin and juicy meat, the sheer mess of it all, allures me.
I make wings on the rarest of occasions, so I get quite picky about which recipes to try. Last time, I made David Chang’s Momofuku wings. They might have been the best chicken wings I’ve ever made. But they also were the most work-intensive wings I’ve ever made, requiring all manner of pots and pans and way too much time. Frankly, they were too complex to post.
Back to the drawing board I went, in search of savory, juicy, flavorful wings without so much effort. I found one from none other than Cathy Barrow, aka Mrs. Wheelbarrow, a core member and anchor of the DC Food52 crowd and one of my favorite new friends. Cathy has a fantastic blog, and is also at the helm of Charcutepalooza, a yearlong charcuterie-making project. Needless to say, she’s a force.
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by rivka
on March 20, 2011
Sunday brunch used to be my favorite meal. I loved standing over the stove in robe and slippers, flipping pancakes and stirring eggs over barely-there heat with Avishai Cohen serenading me in the background. Friday night was a time for big dinner parties that required hours of advance prep (sometimes even days). But Sunday was a time to mosey into the kitchen, cook something delicious, and feed people. Plain and simple.
These days, Sunday means errands. It means returning things at Bed Bath and Beyond, finding a framer to frame our brit (Jewish marital contract), and visiting my grandmother, who recently moved to town from Chicago. My Sunday breakfasts are even more harried than what I eat on weekdays. We’re talking oatmeal, toast with ricotta and avocado, yogurt and granola, the usual. I haven’t had a pancake in eons.
But then I read Molly’s post about biscuits, and it woke me up. Molly is a wonderful writer. Read her posts, and you’ll want to sneak into her world, be her friend. In this case, boy will you want to eat her biscuits.
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by rivka
on March 14, 2011
from the archive, just in time for the holiday.
Among the many traditions associated with the quickly-approaching Jewish holiday of Purim, perhaps the most widely-kept one is the consuming of copious amounts of alcohol hamentaschen. Are you surprised that it’s my favorite holiday in the calendar?
Fashioned after Haman’s pocket, hamentaschen are cookies filled with anything from poppyseed to raspberry jam to Nutella, and folded up to resemble a triangle. They’re not too sweet, flavored with vanilla and lemon zest, and perfectly crunchy outside while soft within. Everyone has a favorite filling, and mine — poppyseed — is, unfortunately, hated by many folks. I appeased the masses this year by making a large batch of raspberry-chocolate filled ones. I’ll save the poppyseed for myself. I also scored a tub of halvah (sweet sesame paste), so that should make for some interesting cookies as well.
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by rivka
on March 6, 2011
For years, I shied away from making this cake. Almond-flavored desserts tend to be quite polarizing. Most folks are at least satisfied with vanilla ice cream or sugar cookies (even as we maniacal addicts wish we were eating chocolate), but plenty of people, when presented with almond cake, would rather go to bed with no sweets at all, “you-didn’t-eat-your-peas” style.
And yet, the more I read about this cake, the more enticed I was. Adam Roberts, the estimable-if-amateur Amateur Gourmet, called it “the almond cake to save your soul.” In her new and wonderful cookbook, Amanda Hesser says it’s the cake she gifts most often. And countless others have made, and subsequently raved about, this cake. I had to try it.
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by rivka
on February 26, 2011
I’ve already revealed my affinity for curly pasta shapes. With strozzapreti, I’ve found the apex of my obsession. Strozzapreti literally means “priest choker.” Not the type I generally keep in my company, but for these wiry hand-made noodles, I’ll make an exception. They’re thin at the ends, thick in the middle, and tightly curled. Even when fully cooked, they keep a deliciously chewy texture.
I like strozzapreti with tomatoes. (I like everything with tomatoes.) My usual approach to these slurpy little noodles is a take on this dish, an old-school NYT recipe. But sometimes, especially when tomatoes aren’t in season, I opt for something more winter-friendly.
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