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Quince and Sweet Gorgonzola Salad

4 Jan

Happy New Year! I hope you said a proper goodbye to 2011, and thank you for continuing to read my blog. I know I only post sporadically, but perhaps in 2012 I will be better about it. I don’t make resolutions (mostly because I never keep them), but if I did I am sure blogging more would be at the top of the list. The good news is that I’m not cooking any less, just really busy with my day job and finding less and less time in my day. But, since I own my own small business I guess being busy is a good thing, especially in this economy.

Since I saw you last I have been cooking up a storm from Plenty, the latest cookbook from London chef Ottolenghi. The recipes are all vegetarian, but they are designed to be filling and hearty and attractive to carnivores as well.  This salad would be an excellent accompaniment to anything, from fish to chicken to beef and pork. Quince are my new favorite fruit, and though they require some cooking time to make them easily edible, they are such a fragrant, delightful treat that I can’t resist any recipe that contains them.

One caveat: quince are only in season through February, and may be hard to find if your grocery store doesn’t have them. We get ours from our CSA, and I just got these last week so I know there are still some out there. Many people actually have quince trees and don’t have any idea what to do with the fruit. Friend one of these people, and “help” take some off their hands.

Quince and Sweet Gorgonzola Salad
From Plenty
Serves 4

1 3/4 cups water
1 1/2 cups sugar
15 black peppercorns
4 strips orange zest
2 bay leaves
juice of 1/2 lemon
3/4 cup red wine
2 medium quinces
1 tsp grainy mustard
2 tsp cider vinegar
4 tbs olive oil
salt and pepper
2 1/2 cups mixed greens
4-5 ounces sweet gorgonzola
1/2 cup shelled unsalted pistachios, lightly toasted, some whole and some roughly chopped

Preheat the oven to 275. Take a medium-sized heavy pan that can go in the oven and for which you have a tight-fitting lid. Place inside the water, sugar, peppercorns, orange zest, bay leaves, lemon juice and red wine. Set on the stove and bring to a light simmer. As soon as the sugar dissolves, remove from heat.

Meanwhile, peel the quinces; keep the skin. Cut the fruit vertically into quarters and remove the core; keep this too. Cut each quarter into two segments. Place the quince segments, plus the skin and cores, in the sugar syrup. Cover the pan and put it into the over to cook for about two hours. After this time the quince should be completely tender. Remove from over and leave to cool, uncovered.

Whisk together until smooth the mustard, vinegar, 4tbs of the quince cooking liquid, 1/2 tsp salt and a good grind of black pepper.

To finish the salad, place some salad leaves on 4 serving plates. Arrange four quince sergments per portion and some hand-broken pieces of gorgonzola on the leaves. Try to build the salad up. Place a few more leaves on top. Spoon the dressing over and scatter over the pistachios. Finish with a light drizzle of olive oil. Alternatively, arrange similarly in a large central mixing bowl and bring to the table.

 


 

English Toffee

15 Dec

Last year around this time I came across a recipe for toffee on one of my favorite blogs.   I don’t  think I had ever thought of making it myself… or that it could be so easy!  All you need is a candy thermometer, and the whole thing is done in 15-20 minutes.  I’m including this recipe now because the toffee is great this time of year for hostess gifts, office potlucks, holiday parties and more.  I had no idea that freshly made toffee would taste SO much better than the kind you get in a package, but trust me that this one will wow ‘em.

I make mine in my Le Creuset dutch oven, which holds the heat well and does a good job of preventing the liquid from scorching.  Any large pot should work, though, and clean up isn’t nearly as bad as you might think.  Just run it under hot water and it dissolves pretty easily.

I use good chocolate (Callebaut, usually) for the top, sprinking on the chips and letting them set for a few minutes until they are melted and will easily spread.  You can use any kind here, but I have found that bittersweet is a nice compliment to the toffee itself.

Feel free to experiment with the kind of nut you like here as well.  The original recipe called for peanuts,  but I really like almonds and find that they are a great addition to the toffee.   Trader Joe’s makes a dark chocolate and pistachio variation that would be fun to replicate if you are feeling adventurous.  After it has cooled you can break it into any sized chunks you want.  Be careful though:  this stuff is highly addictive!

English Toffee
From Gourmet Magazine (via DanaTreat)

4 sticks (1lb) unsalted butter, cut into pieces
2 cups sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
4 cups whole cocktail peanuts, plus 1 cup chopped (1 lb. 10 oz.)
8 oz. 70%-cacao bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped

Equipment: a 15 by 10 by 1 inch baking pan (also called a jelly roll pan), a candy thermometer, a metal offset spatula

Butter baking pan and put on a heatproof surface.

Bring butter, sugar, and salt to a boil in a 4-5 quart heavy pot over medium-high heat, whisking until smooth, then boil, stirring occasionally, until mixture is deep golden and registers 300 degrees on thermometer, 15-20 minutes.

Immediately stir in whole peanuts, then carefully pour hot toffee into center of baking pan. Spread with spatula, smoothing top, and let stand 1 minute, then immediately sprinkle chocolate on top. Let stand until chocolate is melted, 4-5 minutes, then spread over toffee with cleaned spatula. Sprinkle evenly with chopped peanuts, then freeze until chocolate is firm, about 30 minutes. Break into pieces.

Toffee keeps in an airtight container at room temperature for two weeks.

Jungle Cookies

25 Jun

We are a cookie household.  That is to say, there are almost always homemade cookies snugly nestled into a box on the kitchen counter, lid askew (if husband was the last to fetch one).  There is no better accompaniment to coffee in the morning, and lazy afternoons call for tea and (or just) cookies of some kind.  My mom baked cookies all the time, as did my grandmother, so for me, a house just doesn’t smell like home unless cookies have recently been made.

Dough

Because I make cookies so often, I am always playing with recipes to create variations of what we have liked before, and  Jungle cookies came into being one afternoon when I was riffing on traditional oatmeal-chocolate-chip cookies.  I love to add dried fruit and nuts to cookies, and this time of year when fresh cherries are just coming into season I can never resist making just one more recipe with them dried.  So I tossed in dried sour cherries, some over-sized Ghiradelli milk chocolate chips (trust me, size does matter), and chopped up the rest of the Brazil nuts in the cupboard.  Voila!  Jungle cookies.

If you can’t find Ghiradelli chips, I suggest buying a block of good chocolate and chopping it into good-sized chunks.  You can really use any kind of chocolate here– semi-sweet would be a delicious counter to the sour cherries and I debated  about which chocolate to use myself.  I don’t recommend using Nestle or most grocery-store brands, because you do want the rich chocolate to shine through here and to avoid the bitter, alkaline taste of most common brands (a result of the fact that most of those brands don’t even use real cacao in their products). If you can find cacao nibs, toss in a handful here.

Lastly, feel free to use any nut that you like in this recipe.  Walnuts would be great, as would cashews or almonds, even hazelnuts.  I like the richness of the Brazil nut as well as the great texture, but anything would be great.  It is kind of hard to go wrong when we are talking about butter, chocolate, fruit and nuts, right?

Jungle Cookies
La Femme Original

2 sticks butter
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
2 tsp vanilla
1.5 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
2 cups oatmeal
1 cup Ghiradelli large milk chocolate chips
3/4 cup dried sour cherries
1/2 cup – 3/4 cup chopped Brazil nuts

Heat oven to 375 degrees.  Cream sugars with butter, then add egg and vanilla.  Stir in flour, baking soda, salt and spice. Mix well.  Add oatmeal.  Once blended, add chocolate chips, nuts and cherries and stir well to combine.  Drop by rounded tablespoon (I use an ice cream scoop) onto cookies sheets.  Bake 10-12 minutes.

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