Not Derby Pie

I first encountered floating islands at Le Petit Vatel, a quaint little bistro in Paris. is a light and delicate dessert that charmed me as soon as I saw it sailing toward the table. It starts with crème anglaise, a light, vanilla-scented custard. Poached meringue floats on the crème anglaise, and the whole thing is topped with toasted almonds and warm caramel.

The dish is shockingly easy to make; all in all, I used one small pot, one shallow dish, one slotted spoon and one fork. In typical Rivka form, I got sucked into whatever D was watching on TV and totally burned my caramel. As a last-minute substitute, I drizzled a bit of buckwheat honey on top. Most would say that the buckwheat overpowers the delicate vanilla notes. But hey, my palate simply isn’t that refined. I thought it tasted darned good. Let this be a lesson to those who are easily intimidated by scary-looking recipes: this one is REALLY not hard! please, I implore you, try it. Try it, please. 🙂

It’s a simple job, and it’s sure to impress your guests. Mine spend at least five minutes staring suspiciously at me and at their ramekins, finding it hard to believe that they were meant to eat these little balancing acts. I’ll certainly be making these again.

“ÃŽle flottante” or Floating Islands
serves 6

crème anglaise: Meringue:
2 cups milk 2 cups milk
4 egg yolks 4 egg whites
1/2 cup sugar 1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract

Honey of any variety, or caramel.

Crème Anglaise:
Put the milk and the vanilla in a pot, and bring just to a boil. Meanwhile, mix the eggs and sugar until they combine and the sugar dissolves.
When the milk is ready, remove from the heat and add, by the spoonful, to the egg mixture, beating rapidly all the while. This is to “temper” the eggs: if you add them to the milk mixture all at once, little bits of egg will cook. This way, the egg mixture is slowly brought up to the heat of the milk.
Gradually add the milk until it has all been added to the egg, and continue to beat briskly. When all has been added, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate at least one hour.

Meringue:
Bring the milk to a simmer in that same pot (rinsed out) on low heat. Meanwhile, whip egg whites with an electric hand or stand mixer until they form stiff peaks. Add sugar by the spoonful until all has been added and meringue has thickened and is shiny. By now, milk should be hot. Scoop meringue by the spoonful carefully into the milk; allow it to poach one minute; flip, and leave one minute more. With a slotted spoon, remove meringue and put into a shallow dish that can accommodate all the pieces. Do not stack on top of each other. When all meringue has been poached, cover the dish with plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 1 hour.

To assemble:

Divide crème anglaise among 6 cocktail glasses, small bowls or ramekins. Top each with a piece of meringue. Sprinkle toasted almonds over meringue, and drizzle with honey. ENJOY!

Sometimes, simple is best. I’m often inclined to throw every fancy ingredient in the pantry into whatever dish I’m making, in the hopes that a dash of truffle oil and some fancy mirin and a little chili mango and….ugh, what an awful combination!

Point is, I’ve learned that good olive oil, salt and pepper are often all you need to make something great. These potatoes are a perfect example; the tricks here aren’t in the pantry — they’re in the oven and on your watch. Think temperature and time; whenever potatoes come out too mushy or too dry or too something else, it’s because I wasn’t precise in my choices of cooking time and temperature. This recipe is sure to produce the kind of consistent results that will please you and your guests.

Easy-as-pie Roasted Potatoes
serves 4.
10 small purple, red or fingerling potatoes (I like to use a mix)
salt
pepper
good olive oil
chili powder, optional

Preheat the oven to 315 degrees.
(Can you guess the steps?)
Cut potatoes into triangular shapes.
Sprinkle liberally with salt, pepper, and chili powder, if you like.
Put your thumb over the spout in the olive oil so that it drips slowly; drizzle with restraint.
(Alternatively, toss all ingredients in a plastic bag — I don’t like this method because you lose a lot of the olive oil and spices that way.)
Put the potatoes in a shallow pan in a single layer.
Bake anywhere from 1-2 hours, until the potatoes are crunchy but still moist, and the skin is crispy.

“I’m thinking Subway for dinner tonight…is there anything to eat in the fridge besides a little of leftover chicken?”

“Yea, there’s orzo with pesto in the fridge. You could add some tomato sauce from the freezer and top with some fresh mozzarella, that would be yummy.”

“Woah, that was way over my head.”

“Take the tomato sauce out of the freezer. Nuke. Save half. Put on orzo, top with cheese.”

“Is the orzo in the pyrex or the tupperware?”

“It’s in the pyrex. Risotto is in the tupperware.”

“Got it.”

is it like this in your house? 🙂

This southern treat is one of my favorites. It even works when (as here) your very green tomatoes turn more red than you care to admit overnight! People serve them with all sorts of condiments, but I like ’em plain, with just a sprinkling of salt once they’re on the serving platter. They’re super easy to make, and I can’t think of a better way to celebrate the end of [green] tomato season.

Fried Green Tomatoes
serves 3 as an appetizer.

2 tomatoes
1/8 cup milk, cream, buttermilk, whatever
1 egg
1/2 cup flour
1 tsp. cayenne (more if desired)
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/2 tsp. sugar
butter or oil for frying (not olive oil)

Cut ends off tomatoes; slice remaining flesh into 3 or 4 1/2-inch rounds.
Mix egg and milk in one bowl; mix dry ingredients in the other.
Dip each round into the milk-egg mixture, then coat with the flour mixture on both sides.
Place on a baking sheet.
Repeat with all the rounds.
Heat a medium castiron skillet containing 1/2 an inch of oil to medium heat.
When a splash of flour sizzles in the skillet, place rounds 1/2-inch apart in skillet.
Fry 2-4 minutes, depending on heat. If they start to smoke, turn down the heat.
Flip, and cook an additional 1-2 minutes until golden brown and crispy.
Serve immediately.

Really, there’s no such thing as a wrong way to cook.

Yes, there are some exceptions to this rule. Baking is far fussier than cooking, and it’s best to follow a recipe as precisely as one can manage (or at least to follow one of many successful wet-to-dry ingredient ratios when improvising).

But in cooking, this is a truly important rule of thumb. It occured to me this morning while scrolling through the comments that were posted on an entry by one of my favorite bloggers, Danielle over at Habeas Brulee. While most commenters offer compliments and thanks for posting any given recipe, there are always those who offer “corrections” to make a recipe just a bit more perfect.

That’s fine and good — aren’t we all looking to perfect that apple pie recipe or really nail that tomato sauce? — but the “corrections” offered are really nothing more than alternate methods. To one, the latter method may yield a better texture, a finer consistency, a more robust flavor — but as we all know, these things are really matters of individual taste. My favorite chocolate chip cookie may seem to you too crumbly, hard, not big enough, too heavy on the cholocate…and on. But it’s my favorite. Get my drift?

So when it comes to cooking, where proportions are flexible and the food can withstand a fair amount of tampering, a recipe is merely a suggestion. To my very recipe-loyal friends: remember that the cookbook isn’t a rulebook. It’s a guidebook. Change anything you like.

Just label your sugar and salt jars conspicuously.

Happy cooking!

It’s hard to believe that I’ve spent the last 20-something years making whole-wheat, no-fat pancakes. I won’t tell you that they taste bad, because they taste quite good. Especially with some homemade raspberry preserves. But they’re the kind of things you can just pick up and pop in your mouth; they’re pretty firm, pretty small, and pretty…eh. Let’s put it this way: they’re not in the same ballpark as the buttermilk pancakes I’ll be making from now on. These are totally indulgent, not only calorie-wise, but time-wise as well. They involve three separate bowls, which is a definite downside — but even as I’m such the one-pot cook, these pancakes are worth every last moment in the kitchen or at the gym. And the best part is that they taste no less wonderful when you substitute whole wheat for half the white flour, which is my preference. And about the buttermilk — I admit, it’s not something I keep in my fridge on a regular basis, but after today, I’ll certainly be stocking it more often.

The Best Buttermilk Pancakes Recipe
adapted from Food and Wine Magazine, taken from Beltane Ranch
serves 4-6.
Ingredients
1 1/2 cups unbleached flour — I use half whole wheat
2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
2 cups buttermilk
6 Tbsp. unsalted butter, melted and cooled
2 large eggs, separated and at room temperature
maple syrup

In a medium bowl, mix flour, baking soda and salt.
In a large bowl, mix milk, butter and egg yolks.
Whip egg whites until stiff peaks form.
Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stir just until combined.
Using a rubber spatula, fold in egg whites gently, and stir just until combined.
Heat a lightly buttered castiron skillet over moderately low heat.
For each pancake, use 1/4-cup batter.
Let cook for about two minutes, or until top begins to set around the edges.
Flip and cook 30 seconds longer, then transfer to a 280-degree oven to keep warm while you cook the rest of these beauties.

Serve with good maple syrup and a big appetite.

On the first night of Sukkot (the Jewish holiday where we build funny booths and, if we’re good, live in them for a week), I made a brisket so finger-lickin’ that none was left over for sandwiches. Truthfully, I never plan recipes in advance, and I’m not one for precise measurements (as you may have noticed…) so making a brisket consists of taking sauces and spices out of my pantry and adding them to the pan, one by one, until it seems right. I can’t taste the sauce as I go, since I add make it in the pan with the meat, but so far I haven’t had any problems, so be it a flawed method, it’s my method and I’m stickin’ to it.

Anyway, the brisket was so good, I decided to make my chicken in exactly the same way: a mix of homemade tomato sauce, last night’s red wine (a nice cheap cab), a splash of bbq sauce, a dash of soy sauce, sea salt and fresh pepper, and the key ingredient — dried oranges and cranberries. The fruit infuse the sauce as it cooks, leaving you with an orange-scented brisket (or chicken) which deceives your guests with its complexity. Unfortunately, due to the holiday, I have no pics of the meat. Some other time though, promise.

About the salad….I wanted to bring the same orange scents into the salad I was serving, but dried oranges are rather unpleasant to eat, in my opinion, as they can be a bit leathery and slightly bitter. I decided instead to add some of the cranberries, which had absorbed much of the orange scent from being dried and roasted together. Their tart, citric quality complemented my salad of baby spinach, asian pear, carrot, and caramelized nuts. My vinaigrette was super simple: 2 parts dijon, 2 parts honey(I used buckwheat, which has a very distinctive flavor), 3 parts lemon juice, salt, pepper, cumin, and a health drizzle of olive oil whisked in. Try this one at home, folks — it’s a winner.