Fearless Kitchen

Recipe: English Muffins

Recipe Source: Ingram, Christine and Jennie Shapter.  Bread.  Anness Publishing, London, 2007 p. 144

And so we return to breakfasts.  For a very long time I had eliminated breakfast from my diet, not being particularly hungry in the morning and wanting to shave calories anyway.  Well, the decreased appetite was part of a specific medical issue that was taken care of recently, and now I'm finding that I am absolutely ravenous when I get up in the morning.  Toward that end, I've been trying to come up with tasty morning treats that won't require me to use any equipment before I've had my coffee.  This has largely involved toast, as you've seen with the Vermont Oatmeal Honey-Maple Bread and the Cheese Bread.  I was trying to think of something to make for the coming week when I found this recipe for English muffins. 

I made no changes at all, and I was quite pleased with how they came out.  They lacked the "nooks and crannies" popularized by a certain Mr. Thomas, but they tasted better than store-bought.  They kept decently from Sunday until Thursday, getting a little stale but what did I care I was toasting them anyway.  If I had refrigerated them I have every confidence that they would have lasted the week. 

English Muffins (made 12; approx. $0.48/serving)

4 cups white bread flour

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1 2/3 cups lukewarm milk

1/2 teaspoon sugar

1/2 ounce active dry yeast

1 tablespoon olive oil

Equipment:

• Baking sheets
• Small bowl
• Stand mixer with bread dough attachment
• Rolling pin
• 3" plain cutter or pint glass (guess which I used)
• Griddle or large, dry frying pan

1. Combine 1/3 cup of the lukewarm milk, the sugar and the yeast in the small bowl.  Let sit 5 - 10 minutes or until frothy.
2. Combine the remaining ingredients in the bowl of the stand mixer. 
3. Add the yeast mixture and mix on low speed for 2 minutes, until combined.
4. Increase speed very slightly and knead 4 - 5 minutes, until the dough holds its shape.
5. Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled in bulk, 45 - 60 minutes
6. Turn out the dough onto a floured surface and roll to about 1/2" thick. 
7. Using the cutter or pint glass, cut rounds out of the dough.  I re-rolled the scraps and got 12 out of what was supposed to provide 9 muffins with no noticeable difference in quality. 
8. Cover and let rise 30 minutes.
9. Warm the griddle (or frying pan, which is what I used since I don't have a griddle) over medium heat. 
10. When hot, transfer the muffins in batches to the griddle.  Cook 5 - 7 minutes per side, until each side is brown.  Watch carefully so you don't burn them!
11. Serve, or store and serve toasted.

Recipe: Mustard-Glazed Onions

Recipe Source: Stewart, Katie.  The Times Cookery Book.  Times Newspaper Ltd., London, 1972 p. 158

A while ago, we had an impromptu dinner party.  Some friends called up late on a Friday.  They had gotten a sitter unexpectedly and wanted to get together.  We're always up for that sort of thing, but there was one problem: we'd gotten fresh fish for dinner that night and it wouldn't keep.  That was fine - all I had to do was move a couple of menu items around to round out what we planned to eat anyway.  We had a great time with our friends (we always do), and dinner was reasonably successful.  The onions got a bit of a funny look, but ultimately they were very well received. 

I didn't make any changes to this recipe.  With three ingredients, there weren't a lot of changes to make. 

Mustard-Glazed Onions (serves 4; approx. $0.33/serving)

1 lb onions (4 smallish onions, really)

2 ounces butter

2 tablespoons mustard

Equipment:

• Saucepan
• Colander

1. Put the onions in the saucepan and cover with cold water. 
2. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer until the onions are tender.  This should take about 15 minutes; test them with the tip of a knife to be sure. 
3. Drain the onions.  Return the hot saucepan to the stove.
4. Melt the butter in the hot saucepan.  Stir in the mustard.
5. Add the onions back to the pan.  Toss well to coat the onions in the glaze. 
6. Serve hot. 

Recipe: Sugar Plate

Recipe Source: Heiatt, Constance B. with Brenda Hosington and Sharon Butler.  Pleyn Delit.  University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 1996 recipe 134.  Recipe originally published (untranslated) in Curye on Inglyschfrom a 14th century manuscript entitled God Kokery. 

As I've mentioned, I recently prepared a meal for a large group of medieval history enthusiasts.  It wasn't too difficult to come up with material for the savory part of the meal, but dessert was a little more challenging.  It had to be something that would travel well without refrigeration, wouldn't take up much space, wouldn't take too much time to prepare (my time was really limited this year) and could be reliably dated to the period between 600 - 1600 AD.  I found this recipe and it fit the bill perfectly. 

I made no actual changes.  I made three different batches of the stuff (two photographed, because I wanted to make sure their picture was taken), and each batch turned out differently.  This despite following the recipe exactly, each time!  The first batch is the darker batch on the left.  This one got a little over-caramelized, giving it a stronger caramel and smoke flavor and a weaker rosewater flavor.  People who don't care for rosewater would probably prefer this batch.  I also added food coloring to the batch, as suggested by the recipe (although not required.)  The second batch (pictured on the right) turned out about the way that I wanted.  The third batch was prepared on a very humid day, which may account for the grainy texture. 

I guess my biggest complaint about this recipe, besides the elusiveness of consistency in terms of texture, was the strength of the rosewater flavor.  As a general rule, a little rosewater goes a long way.... unless you're cooking it.  Cooking the rosewater seems to dissipate the flavor.  Most of the time when I use rosewater in something it goes in at the end of the recipe, after the heat has been turned off, but in this case the recipe specifically called for the rosewater to be combined with the sugar before cooking.  According to the translator/redactor, there is a similar French recipe from the same period that calls for significantly more rosewater.  If you like rosewater (and I sure do,) that recipe is probably the one for you.  On the other hand, many people liked this recipe and the subtlety of the rosewater flavor.  So the choice is really yours. 

As a side note, I did not redact this recipe myself.  The above editors did.  Also, I did this in three batches.  I do not know how well the recipe scales up.

Sugar Plate (serves 20; approx. $0.17/serving)

6 cups sugar

6 ounces rosewater

Rice flour for dusting

Equipment:

• Saucepan
• Candy thermometer
• Pastry brush dipped in ice water
• 2 - 3 cookie sheets lined with aluminum foil
• Ice water bath
• Sharp pizza cutter or knife

1. Lubricate the cookie sheet with the lubricant of your choice.  I used cooking spray in this case, which is clearly not medieval.  Lard would have been appropriate, or butter, but neither really appealed to me. 
2. Dust the cookie sheet with rice flour. 
3. Combine the rosewater and the sugar in the saucepan.  Bring to a boil over medium-low heat.  If crystals start to form on the side of the pan, brush them away with the pastry brush dipped in ice water.
4. Boil WITHOUT STIRRING (this will be difficult; it was for me) until the mixture reaches the hard-crack stage (300 degrees on the candy thermometer.)  I personally found that leaving the thermometer in the pan had a better result; I have no idea if this constitutes "proper" technique. 
5. As soon as the hard-crack stage is reached, put the pan into the ice water bath to stop cooking.  (I don't have to tell you not to let the water get into the pan...)
6. Pour the mixture onto the prepared cookie sheets. 
7. Let the mixture cool for a couple minutes, then cut into diamond shapes with the pizza cutter.  
8. Let it cool completely and break along the lines you cut earlier.   

Recipe: Tofu and Paneer Tikka Masala

Recipe Source: Gulati, Roopa.  Curry Cuisine.  Fall River Press, New York, 2009 p. 330

I made this for a recent Sunday open house.  The main dish was ribs, but I still needed to feed one guest who was a vegetarian and one who did not consume pork.  Besides, I'd already posted the ribs recipe (in November, if you're curious) and where would be the fun in that?  I'd just picked up this book, Curry Cuisine, earlier that week and I was really excited to try something from it.  The original recipe for this dish called for chicken, but suggested tofu orpaneer as a substitute.  Since I expected to have a lot of interest in this dish, even from the carnivores, I used both.  (Besides, I had leftover tofu in the fridge, and it needed to leave my fridge.  If it could be in a creative way so much the better.) 

The instructions for making the tofu-or-paneer switch weren't all that clear beyond skipping the step where the protein gets marinated, so most of the changes that I made were procedural.  I did, however, skip all cilantro and coriander, as one of my guests has a cilantro allergy.  I did however serve the cilantro on the side, because it really does make a difference in the dish.  On the whole I was pleased with this dish.  The tofu kind of disintegrated a bit, but the paneer worked remarkably well. 

Tofu and Paneer Tikka Masala (serves 8; approx. $2.88/serving.)

1 block (8 oz) paneer, cubed

1 block (14 oz) extra-firm tofu, cubed and drained

4 tablespoons lime juice

1 teaspoon paprika

1 1/2 teaspoon cumin

2 shallots, chopped

8 garlic cloves, chopped

2 tablespoons ginger

2 serrano chiles, chopped

4 1/2 ounces fat-free Greek yogurt

1/4 teaspoon cumin

1/4 teaspoon chili powder

14 teaspoon allspice

1 14-oz can diced tomatoes

1 teaspoon tomato paste

1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro

2 tablespoons grated ginger

1 teaspoon lime juice

1/2 teaspoon raw sugar

3 tablespoons butter

1/2 cup fat-free Greek yogurt

Equipment:

• Food processor
• Bowl
• Saucepan

1. Put the chiles, ginger, shallots and garlic into the food processor.  Add the lime juice and paprika.  Process until smooth.
2. Pour the food processor mixture into a bowl and add the yogurt, cumin, allspice and chili powder.
3. Combine the mixture from the bowl and the proteins. 
4. In the food processor, combine the tomatoes, tomato paste, ginger and lime juice.  Process until smooth. 
5. Heat the butter in the saucepan. 
6. Add the protein mixture and cook about 3 - 4 minutes.
7. Add the tomato mixture and bring to a simmer.  Cook another 5 - 8 minutes. 
8. Add the remaining 1/2 cup yogurt and mix thoroughly. 
9. Serve, with the chopped cilantro passed alongside. 

Recipe: Califlower in Lemon and Tarragon Sauce

Recipe Source (sauce): Atkinson, Catherine, Christine France and Maggie Mahew.  400 Sauces.  Anness Publishers, 2007 pp. 52 - 3. 

I grew up in a family of good cooks.  We always ate well, and dinner at my mother's house was a coveted invitation in my circle of friends.  That said, our dining habits were in a certain style, and that style was emphatically not fussy.  When we had sauce it was barbecue sauce (a homemade barbecue sauce that my mother no longer makes, much to the disappointment of many) (yes, mom, that's a subtle hint) or my grandmother's Red Sauce with lots of meat inside, served over pasta.  Other types of sauce have always seemed strange and exotic to me, even sauce (like the ubiquitous "white sauce") that seems commonplace to people from other backgrounds.  When I saw this cookbook at Costco, at a good price, I knew that I needed to take this opportunity to expand my education.

This sauce, or rather this combination of sauces, caught my eye at first.  My first encounter with the veloute sauce came from an older English cookbook lent to me by a good friend, and for some reason it appealed to me enough that I wrote it down.  The version of the sauce from this book seems a little less fussy, and was the base for the lemon sauce on the next page that appealed to me more.  I did make a couple of small changes.  I used homemade turkey stock for the veloute sauce, and I increased the amount of wine in the lemon sauce.  I used homemade turkey stock because it was cheaper than storebought chicken stock.  It was probably healthier to boot, although I'm no nutritionist and can't speak authoritatively on the subject.  I used a little extra wine because there wasn't enough left in the bottle to make it worth saving. 

I served this sauce with some steamed cauliflower, because the cauliflower was taking up more space than I wanted in my refrigerator.  There was some sauce left over; hopefully I'll find a use for it before it goes bad.  Anyway, I'm going to present the recipes all together here, which is why it somehow counts for both the original recipe and recipe review categories. 

Cauliflower in Lemon and Tarragon Sauce (serves 4; approx. $1.98/serving)

2 1/2 cups turkey stock

2 tablespoons butter

1/4 cup all-purpose flour

2 tablespoons light cream

Kosher salt and black pepper to taste

1 lemon

1 bunch fresh tarragon, chopped

1 shallot, finely chopped

6 tablespoons white wine

3 tablespoons heavy cream

2 tablespoons brandy

Kosher salt and black pepper to taste

Small to medium sized cauliflower

Equipment:

• 4 saucepans
• Steamer
• Small colander

1. Heat the stock until almost (but not quite boiling.)
2. In another pan, melt the butter.  Stir in the flour. 
3. Cook the butter-and-flour mixture over moderate heat, stirring constantly, for 3 - 4 minutes or until it starts to develop a pale straw color. 
4. Remove the pan from heat and gradually blend in the hot stock.  Stir constantly.
5. Return the pan to the heat and bring to a boil, still stirring constantly, until the sauce thickens.
6. Reduce heat to a slow simmer, stirring occasionally, until reduced by about 1/4. 
7. Skim the surface of the sauce occasionally. 
8. Remove the pan from heat and stir in the cream.  Set aside.  Note: Up until this point you have made a veloute sauce, which is a very nice sauce in its own right. 
9. Thinly pare the rind from the lemon, taking care not to remove any of the white pith. 
10. Squeeze the lemon juice from the lemon and pour it into a saucepan.  Discard the lemon.
11. Add all but 1 tablespoon of the tarragon to the pan, along with the lemon rind and shallot.
12. Add the wine and simmer gently until reduced by half. 
13. Strain the liquid into a clean pan and return to the stove.
14. Add the veloute sauce (steps 1 - 8 above), cream, brandy and reserved tarragon.  Heat through.  Taste and adjust the seasoning if necessary.
15. Meanwhile, prepare the cauliflower by trimming it into florets. 
16. Steam the cauliflower over boiling water for 3 - 4 minutes or until tender.  Do not overcook the cauliflower.  Overcooked cauliflower smells very, very bad and may cause the neighbors to call about toxic chemicals emanating from your home.
17. When the cauliflower is ready, transfer to the serving vessel. 
18. Pour the sauce over the cauliflower and serve. 

Recipe: Cheese and Onion Loaf

Recipe Source: Ingram, Christine and Jennifer Shapter.  Bread: The Breads of the World and How to Bake Them at Home.  Anness Publishing, London, 2007 p. 135

I only recently became comfortable baking my own bread.  I'd always had this kind of nervousness around yeast breads.  I'm not sure why - after all, I've brewed beer and didn't find the fermentation process frightening then.  Still, I'd always avoided it until recently, and I now realize how much I was missing.  I've really come to enjoy baking bread.  I recently had the opportunity to bake a loaf for a group of athletes.  I knew I wanted something with a little more substance than just a basic white loaf, and this is what I found. 

Most of the changes that I made were procedural.  I used a stand mixer to mix the ingredients and to knead the dough.  I also omitted the loaf pan.  My husband has been baking bread for us for years, and he never uses a proper loaf pan.  As a result, I tend to think that bread baked in the traditional loaf pan looks a little too... manufactured, I guess.  At any rate, I shaped the loaf by  hand and really enjoyed the results. 

I must point out that we left the bread in the car when we got to the sporting event site.  The day was beyond cold, and the bread wound up partially freezing in the car.  As a result, the athletes did not eat much of the bread.  When we got unexpected (but very welcome) dinner guests the next day, we put the loaf in the oven with a little bit of water painted on top, heated it up, and it came out just fine. 

Cheese and Onion Loaf (serves 10; approx. $1.05/serving)

1 onion, finely chopped

3 1/2 tablespoons butter

4 cups unbleached white bread flour

2 1/4 teaspoons (1/4 ounce) active dry yeast

1 teaspoon mustard powder

1 1/2 cups grated aged Cheddar cheese

2/3 cup lukewarm milk - I used soy milk, because that's what we had

2/3 cup lukewarm water

Kosher salt and black pepper to taste

Equipment:

• Skillet
• Baking sheet
• Stand mixer with dough hook attachment
• Sifter

1. Melt 2 tablespoons butter in the skillet. 
2. Add the onion.  Saute the onion until it is light and golden.  Set aside and allow to cool.
3. Sift the flour into the bowl of the stand mixer.
4. Add the yeast, mustard, salt and pepper.  Stir well.
5. Add 3/4 of the grated cheese and the onion. 
6. Add the milk and water.  Blend to a soft dough.
7. Knead for about 10 minutes, until the dough becomes smooth and elastic.
8. Cover the bowl with a tea towel.  Let it rise in a warm place for about 45 - 60 minutes, or until doubled in size.  Our kitchen is a little on the chilly side, so this took a little longer than 60 minutes for me. 
9. Punch the dough down.
10. Lightly grease the baking sheet.  Shape the dough into an approximately loaf-like shape on the baking sheet. 
11. Melt the remaining butter and brush the top of your loaf. 
12. Sprinkle the top of the loaf with the remaining cheese. 
13. Cover with the tea towel again and let rise another 45 minutes or so. 
14. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. 
15. Slash the top of the loaf with a knife. 
16. Bake for 40 - 45 minutes, or until risen and golden brown.  It will sound hollow when tapped. 
17. Enjoy! 

Recipe: Roast Beef with Strawberry Sauce

Recipe Source: Diversa Cibaria.  Published initially by Constance Hieatt and Sharon Butler, eds., Cury on Inglysch EETS 8, London, 1985.  This recipe was republished in Constance Hieatt, Brenda Hosington and Sharon Butler's Pleyn Delit:Medieval Cookery for Modern Cooks, Second Edition.  University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 1996.  The recipe is from a collection that dates to the fourteenth century AD. 

As most of you already know, I recently put on a buffet lunch for 325 people.  The luncheon went smoothly.  There were some things that I would have probably preferred to do differently, but on the whole I think that things were decent and I was by no means ashamed of how things turned out.  One of the difficulties I encountered was the weather.  It rained so much that people started making comments about grabbing a pair of each kind of animal and going to find a very large boat somewhere.  Our plan was for my husband to cook the meat for the cold chicken in sage sauce on our Big Green Egg while I used the oven for an additional dessert.  Needless to say, he was uncomfortable running back and forth to the grill in the mess, and I was uncomfortable with the idea of my trays of carefully roasted chicken getting waterlogged (and yes, it was raining hard and fast enough for this to be a concern.)  So the chicken got cooked indoors, the second dessert got scrapped, and the show went on.  Unfortunately, this meant that I needed to find something to do with six pounds of thawed frozen strawberries.  I remembered having seen this recipe in the same book the chicken came from, and decided that this was the perfect opportunity to give it a try. 

Now, naturally, I had to make a few changes.  First, there was no way I was going to boil the meat in order to get the broth.  That was simply not going to happen, and the original did say that sometimes "probably" the meat was roasted.  So I decided to roast the beef.  The beef was to be roasted plainly, which was a challenge for me.  There is one way to roast beef in my family, and that involves a boatload of garlic.  Well, I love garlic as much as, and probably more than, the next person, and I'm tolerably fond of strawberries.  The two together?  Hmm... no.  So what was going to go well with strawberries?  Well, I would have to salt the meat anyway, so there was the salt.  I've seen recipes for strawberry and black pepper ice cream, so there we are with some black pepper.  And garlic, lots of gar - NO!  No garlic.  I'm sure I've seen a recipe for strawberry and thyme ice cream somewhere too, and even if not I can't think why the two wouldn't pare well.  So I added thyme.  I put the garlic back in its little garlic home - again - and added some red wine because that's how beef is roasted.  After a couple more wrangles with that pernicious garlic, I managed to roast the beef.  This left me needing to find some sort of broth or stock.  Fortunately for me, I'd made some duck stock from the carcasses of the most recent duck extravaganza and this is what I used.  I made the recipe following the directions until I saw what the sauce looked like.  The bits of strawberries looked like... well, they didn't look appetizing, let me leave it at that.  The sauce hadn't taken on the strawberry color either.  I gave the sauce a whirl in the food processor to get a consistency I was happier with.  I ultimately followed the authors' recommendation to add some red food coloring to deal with the color issue; I resisted and tried to add more strawberry liquid, then I gave it up when I remembered that this is what they'd have done in period.  It probably wouldn't have come from a little plastic tube, but they would have used some sort of colorant. 

Ultimately, the recipe was okay, although I wouldn't say it's enough to make me forego the traditional method for roasting beef.  I wasn't as impressed with the sauce as I wanted to be.  The flavor of the strawberries and the cinnamon didn't come through very strongly, which was disappointing.  I also saved the juice from the roasting pan and served it on a separate platter.  This was preferred by me, I think my husband actually liked the strawberry a bit better with the beef but loved using his bread to sop up the original juice.  This should also satisfy those of you who have been clamoring for more English ethnic food, and you know who you are.  It may be a fourteenth century English dish, but it is still an English dish so enjoy. 

Roast Beef in Strawberry Sauce (serves 4 - 6; approx. cost per serving not available)

2 lb roasting beef

4 tablespoons thyme

4 tablespoons kosher salt

4 tablespoons black pepper

1 cup ground almonds

2 cups broth - I used duck, beef would work just as well

1/4 cup rice flour

20 oz frozen strawberries, thawed

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

Equipment:

• Small roasting pan with high sides, like a casserole dish
• Food processor
• Strainer
• One medium saucepan
• One large saucepan

1. Mix the thyme, 4 tablespoons kosher salt and black pepper together.  Rub into the meat.
2. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.  Roast the beef in the roasting pan until the internal temperature reaches 140 degrees, about 45 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, prepare the sauce.  Bring the broth just to a boil in the small saucepan.
4. Add the almonds and return to a boil, then remove from heat. 
5. Strain the broth into the larger saucepan.  This is the "almond milk."  It is different from the almond milk you buy in the supermarket so don't think of using it, though you may be tempted! 
6. Mix the rice flour with 1/4 cup water and add to the almond milk.  Stir over low heat until slightly thickened.
7. Add the strawberries, cinnamon and salt.  Keep stirring until thickened. 
8. If you don't like the way the strawberries look, throw the sauce into the food processor and give it a whirl.  Likewise, if the color is unappetizing, add a few drops of red food coloring.  It's okay. 
9. When the meat is done, let it rest for 5 minutes or so.  Then, slice it thinly.  What I did was slice the roast in half and arrange half the pieces on one platter and half on the other.  The first platter got a generous helping of the strawberry sauce in the center; the second platter got a bowl of the roasting juices from the pan.  I did this mostly as an emergency measure in case the strawberry sauce didn't work out. 
10. Serve.

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