Melissa Clark - Food Writer

Sweet and Simple Scampi

I know, I should have posted this last week. But that's how it goes, life gets in the way. Because now, when I write about that modernist dinner party article I had in the Times last week, it's seriously old news. What story? Nathan who?

As a quick reminder, a few weeks ago I had Nathan Myhrvold over to my house to show me some easy modernist cooking techniques that could make my traditionalist home cooking taste better -- without me having to buy any new equipment or weird ingredients. Then, I threw a dinner party and used said techniques to prepare the meal. You can read the whole thing here.

One tidbit that didn't make it into the article was the utterly classic hors d'oeuvres I served along with the celery stick bloody Marys: shrimp and scallop scampi. I sauteed a whole bunch of sweet Maine shrimp (still in the shell) and bay scallops with garlic, butter, lemon and chili. Soul-satisfying, hearty, good food, rustic as hell, and as basic as cooking gets as long as you can find good shrimp and scallops. We all inhaled this standing up in around the kitchen island, gobbling the shrimp shells and all (think of them like soft shell crabs), garlic butter sauce dripping down our chins.

It was a kind of gratuitous to serve the scampi. We didn't need it, the steak and salmon et al would have been plentiful enough. But I was a little anxious that I might botch one of the modernist recipes. So by offering up the surefire scampi first, I knew for sure my guests wouldn't go hungry, and would get something tasty to eat.

Some guests thought it was the best dish of the night, the kind of thing, one said, that Ferran Adria (of El Bulli) might eat on his night off. Exactly.

Sweet Shrimp and Bay Scallop Scampi

Serves 10 guests as an hors d'oeuvres, or 4 as a proper appetizer. Or 2 for dinner.

6 tablespoons unsalted butter

3 garlic cloves, finely chopped

Pinch red pepper flakes

1/2 pound Sweet Maine shrimp, head and shell on (or you can use regular peeled shrimp)

1/2 pound Nantucket Bay scallops (farmed bay scallops are fine too)

Juice of 1/2 lemon, or more to taste

Fine sea salt, to taste

Chopped parsley, for garnish

Crusty Bread, for serving

Melt butter in a large skillet. Add garlic and red pepper flakes, cook until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add shrimp and cook, tossing occasionally, until just beginning to turn opaque 2 to 3 minutes; toss in scallops and cook 1 to 2 minutes more. Remove from heat and season with lemon juice and salt. Turn out seafood and pan juices into a large heated serving dish. Sprinkle with parsley and serve, with crusty bread for soaking up the buttery juices.

Pumpkin Bread with Brown Butter and Bourbon

When my husband Daniel was a child, his mom made pumpkin bread for the holidays every year. He’s often reminisced about it, waxing poetic about how simple and delicious it was -- no nuts, no chocolate chips, just a smooth, moist loaf cake imbued with autumnal spices. At some point he had an index card with the recipe written on it, but it disappeared, and his mother no longer remembers how she made it.

For years, I've been meaning to try and approximate the recipe. Food and love and memory…right up my alley.

Finally, a little too late for Christmas, I made the cake, and I can tell you that although the ingredients scream Thanksgiving, it's a lovely cake that I'd welcome on my plate anytime of the year (okay maybe not in the summer, but anytime when the weather is cold).

A confession: since I made this the weekend of New Year’s, after all the cooking from the weeks before, I took the easy route and used canned pumpkin puree. I did however pick up an organic brand and it was actually better than the standard Libby’s—it was brighter and fresher-tasting.

Any chance to use brown butter is a chance I’ll take, but after all the holiday baking my fridge was a bit low on butter. So I used a half cup of brown butter, and a half cup of olive oil. But any liquid fat will do—you need one cup and could use all olive oil, or canola oil, or all melted butter, or all brown butter.

And about all that yummy butter. Let’s not deceive ourselves. This recipe is for Pumpkin “Bread” but it’s really a cake. A delicious, loaf-shaped cake that would also make perfect “muffins” (aka, cupcakes…with perhaps some yummy cream-cheese frosting). Pumpkin is full of fiber and good nutrition, true, but here it's used in what is best described as a dessert. Or at least a sweet afternoon snack with a nice cup of strong tea.

According to Daniel, his mom used to cut the sugar back every year when she made the bread, and it was always good, so feel free to cut back on some of the sugar if you like.

And as for Daniel, he adored it. And as I watched him cut himself a thick slice, smear it with salty, soft butter, and take his first bite, I felt a warm surge of happiness. I knew I could never replicate his mother’s Pumpkin Bread (even if I did have the recipe), but creating a version for him was my way of including his past in our family’s future. I’ll certainly be making this again.

Pumpkin Bread with Brown Butter and Bourbon

1/2 cup butter
1/4 cup bourbon (or water or apple cider)
1 tablespoon vanilla
1 3/4 cups pumpkin puree, homemade or canned (a 15 ounce can)
4 eggs
1/2 cup olive or other oil (canola for example)
2 cups all purpose flour
1 3/4 cups brown sugar
1 cup whole-wheat flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon fine sea salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom

1. Preheat oven to 350º F, and arrange a rack in the center. Grease the inside of two 8-inch loaf pans with butter.
2. In a large skillet, melt the butter over medium-high heat. Reduce the heat to medium and cook until the frothy white milk solids sink to the bottom of the pan and turn a fragrant, nutty brown, 5 to 7 minutes. Brown butter can burn quickly, so watch it carefully. Another tip: when the frantic sound of bubbling begins to die down, that is when you know your brown butter is almost ready, so use your ears as well as your eyes and nose for this one.
3. In a glass liquid measuring cup, combine bourbon and vanilla and add water until you reach the 2/3 cup mark. In a large bowl, whisk together bourbon, vanilla, water, pumpkin puree, eggs, and olive oil. With a spatula, scrape all the brown butter from the skillet into the pumpkin mixture and stir to combine.
4. In another large bowl, whisk together, all purpose flour, brown sugar, whole-wheat flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, and cardamom. Pour liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir to combine.
5. Divide batter into the two greased loaf pans. Set pans onto a rimmed baking sheet and place in oven. Bake for 50 to 60 minutes or until a tester or toothpick inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean.
6. Allow bread to cool completely before removing from pan.

NOTE: I also made this exact recipe with applesauce instead of pumpkin puree, and used all brown butter and no oil, and left out the spices and doubled the vanilla and it was lovely. In case you happen to have lots of applesauce in the fridge as I did this week.

Kitchen Hip Tip: Cheater's Blanched Kale

Kale’s been getting a lot of love these days. And with good reason. Kale’s deep green goodness is endlessly versatile and adaptable. Raw, baked (crunchy kale chips!), sautéed, simmered…there’s no end to the ways you can use it in your kitchen. It really brightens up a winter meal, especially a pasta-based one, whose heavy starchiness needs a little chlorophyll lift.

One way to make a pasta dish with kale is to simply saute the leaves with garlic and red pepper and what have you to make a sauce (use lots of oil and finish with grated cheese if you like). But raw kale shrinks down considerably once it’s wilted, so you’ll need a mighty big pan if you want an adequate amount of greens with your pasta. And winter kale can run the gamut from silky tender to leathery and sturdy. In other words, sometimes it can cook quickly, and sometimes it can take 15 or 20 minutes to become supple and soft.

So what I like to do for making winter kale pasta is to give my kale a quick blanch. That way, I won’t have to wait for it to wilt while struggling with all those huge raw handfuls - especially when it could take a while for it to cook down if it's tough.

This is the super-simple, lazy person blanching method that I use whenever I have a big pot of pasta water on the boil. Before you add your pasta to the pot, grasp a small handful of whole kale by the stems, and simply dunk them into and swirl them around the bubbling pot for a few seconds. The stems make handles, which obviates the need for dropping the leaves into the pot and then having to drain said pot and then boil even more water to cook your pasta.

Simply stick your blanched kale on a plate or in a colander to cool. You don't need to use an ice-bath — by cooking the kale for such a brief period of time, there’s no harm in letting the leaves sit until you need them.

Then while the pasta cooks, chop up the kale leaves (discarding the stems), and saute them with whatever you're making into sauce. I love crumbled sausage, garlic, kale, and olives. Or kale, garlic, and anchovies. Or stick the blanched kale in the blender with lemon zest, olive oi, garlic, and pine nuts to make a kale pesto. So many kale pasta recipes, so much winter left to go!

Sunday Soups: Navy Bean and Collard Greens

First off, a confession—I made this soup last Monday. But as it was the Monday after New Year’s Day, it still sorta felt like Sunday. The temperature outside finally dropped to freezing, and I wanted a starchy, comforting soup full of dark greens.

This recipe is somewhat inspired by Caldo Verde, a Portugese soup consisting of potatoes, kale, and sausage. In place of the potatoes, I opted for dense, satisfying navy beans. I eat so much kale as it is, I wanted something a little different so I went with collard greens instead. I left the sausage out, but did drop in a chunk of smoked turkey neck while everything simmered just to get some of that rich, meaty flavor into the beans. You could also toss in a ham hock, or sauté some diced bacon along with the onions if you don't have a hunk of smoked turkey neck in the freezer like I did (though how it got there is anyone's guess). Or just swap out half the water with stock of any kind. And go for broke with the garlic — beans can carry loads of flavor on their little beany-backs, so why not?

I started soaking my navy beans Monday morning, and as they were newly harvested last season (I got them at the farmers' market), they cooked up nice and tender in about forty-five minutes. If yours take longer, that's fine too. Larger white beans, such as cannellini, might need more time. To be on the safe side, soaking beans overnight (if you can remember to) is always a good idea. You sleep, they soak. (My kind of cooking.)

Dahlia asked for her soup sans greens and I was happy to oblige — more collards for me, and the beans alone are immensely nutritious. I finished Daniel’s and my bowls off with a generous pour of grassy olive oil and a fresh squeeze of lemon. Soups this good, this simple, and this satisfying seem to draw people closer together…what better way to start off a new year?

Navy Bean and Collard Greens Soup
Serves 6 to 8

1 pound dried Navy Beans (about 2 heaping cups)
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, more for serving
1 small onion, diced
8 cloves garlic, minced
2 teaspoons kosher salt, more to taste
1 small hunk (about 2 inches long) smoked turkey neck or a wing (optional)
1 small bunch collard greens, leaves torn into bite-size pieces (about 8 cups, discard the ribs)
lemon wedges for serving
Flaky sea salt, for serving

1. In a large bowl, soak beans overnight (or at least 6 hours) in plenty of water to cover. Drain beans.
2. In a large pot or Dutch oven over medium heat, warm 3 tablespoons of olive oil. Add onion and cook, about 5 minutes. Season onion with 1 teaspoon of salt, add garlic and cook, about 2 minutes. Add turkey neck, beans, and 10 cups of water and bring to a simmer.
3. Reduce heat to low and cover pot. Simmer for about 45 minutes to 1 1/2 hours, or until beans are tender. if the pot looks dry, add some more water.
4. When beans are about 10 minutes away from cooked, stir in the remaining teaspoon of salt and collard greens. Replace lid and continue simmering until beans are tender and the collards collapsed.
5. Serve soup with a drizzle of olive oil, a generous squeeze of fresh lemon, and a sprinkle of flaky sea salt. A dash of hot sauce is nice here, too.

Sunday Soups: Roasted Butternut Squash and Rutabaga Puree

If you've never had rutabaga, or, if the last time you had rutabaga was so long ago that you can't quite remember if you like it, try this soup. It's a gentle way to get to know this vegetable, which I always think of as a cross between a turnip and a butternut squash. Or, make this with all butternut squash (you'll need one large one, about 2 1/4 pounds), or substitute sweet potato.

But in any case, this is a restorative soup, the kind of thing to simmer together if you're feeling permanently cold, as if the winter has settled into your spine and isn't planning to leave. Or perhaps you're feeling worn out, under-the-weather, fatigued by holiday cheer, or just downright blah. This soup will heal you. (Then again, you should make it if you're feeling perfectly well and chipper because it's mighty tasty beyond all its curative properties.)

In any case, you'll be rewarded with a creamy, deeply-flavored, slightly sweet puree that will warm your bones and fill your belly.

Those who like things spicy might want to spike this with chili powder. But I left it out to play up the sweetness of the butternut squash. The spinach isn't strictly necessary; I always like to stir greens into my winter soups so I can eat my soup and salad at the same time. But you can skip it. Make sure to use some fresh lemon juice at the end. It really brightens and rounds out the flavors. Balsamic would accomplish the same thing if you prefer it. But it isn't as sunny as lemon. And in winter sunny counts for a lot.

 

Roasted Butternut Squash and Rutabaga Puree with Spinach

Serves 6 to 8

 

1 small (1 1/4 pounds) butternut squash, peeled, seeded and cut into 1-inch chunks

1 pound rutabaga, peeled and cut into 1-inch chunks

5 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus more to finish

2 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt, plus more to taste

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

2 large (or 4 small) leeks, halved lengthwise, rinsed, and sliced (white and pale green parts only)

2 shallots, chopped

4 fat cloves garlic, chopped

1 large russet potato (or 2 medium Yukon gold potatoes), peeled and cut into 1/2-inch chunks

2 cups any kind of stock (I used duck stock, made in the wake of this video)

2 sprigs fresh thyme

3 sprigs fresh sage

3 sprigs fresh parsley

1 (5-ounce) package washed baby spinach

1 meyer or regular lemon, sliced into wedges, seeds removed

1.  Preheat oven to 450ºF.  On a large rimmed baking sheet, toss squash and rutabaga with 3 tablespoons of olive oil, 2 teaspoons of kosher salt, and a few good turns of freshly ground black pepper.  Spread squash and rutabaga in a single layer and roast for about 30 minutes, or until there’s some solid browning all over. 

2.  Meanwhile, in a soup pot, warm 2 tablespoons of olive oil over medium-high heat.  Add leeks, shallots, garlic, and 1/2 teaspoon of kosher salt and sauté.  Stir frequently until lightly golden, about 5 minutes. 

3.  Add potato, roasted squash and rutabaga, and 1/2 teaspoon of black pepper to pot, and stir it around a bit.

4.  Using kitchen string, the thyme, sage, and parsley in a little bundle and add to pot (if you don't have kitchen string, you could stuff the herbs into a tea ball).  Add 4 cups of water and the 2 cups of stock to pot and bring to a simmer.  Reduce heat, and continue simmering for 30 minutes. 

5.  Remove herb bundle from soup.  With an immersion blender, puree soup to desired consistency (or puree in batches in a blender or food processor, then return to pot) and adjust seasoning with additional salt and pepper if needed.

 6.  Stir baby spinach into soup and bring to a simmer.  Once spinach is silky and wilted, ladle into bowls.

 7.  Drizzle the soup with a little good olive oil and serve with wedges of meyer or regular lemon.

Flaming Spiced Pork Cake: YUM!

 

I owe everything about this cake to my dear friends Karen & Dave. Karen got me the recipe, a highly spiced Victorian stunner that she clipped from a magazine. Dave (Wondrich, the famous cocktail writer and author) taught me how to set things on fire, safely that is. So together, they spawned this lovely recipe, whether they meant to or not.

First of all, about the cake. Although it is supremely delicious, you do not need to make a pork cake in order to set something on fire. Any old cake will do. Fruit cake works nicely but even chocolate bundt cake will fill the bill.

However, if you're at all interested in attempting this old-fashioned recipe, it's a good one. A little like a fruit cake, a little like gingerbread. It's sort of like the porky, soft counterpart to a crisp beef suet-filled mincemeat pie. The pork needs to contain a good amount of fat - there is no other shortening in the recipe. Pork works well because not only is it naturally fatty, it's also relatively bland, which is what you want in this case. Do not substiute ground turkey. Really, you will be sad.

If you've never flambeed your food, there are a few rules to which you must adhere. The first is to use high-proof (aka overproof) spirits. They flame up more easily than regular proof. Just ask at your liquor store. Dave recommends Lemon Hart rum (151 proof) but I used a 120 proof rum from Jamaica and it was fine (as evidenced from the photos, below).

Ideally the rum should be a bit warm, which helps it flame up. Room temperature is fine but don't store the rum in your fridge (or freezer) and then try to use it directly out of the cold.

Do I need to tell you to keep your face, dangling hair, small children and pets away from the flame? Probably not, you know that. But what you might not consider after some holiday cheer is to remember that although this cake is dessert, you should flame it amidst the oohs and aahs at the beginning of the meal, before the cocktail hour. Don't try it at the end of an evening of toasts. You want to be sober when playing with fire. Then, when the flames die down well, pop the cork and pour forth your libation of choice. And Happy Holidays to you all!

Flaming Spiced Pork Cake

Serves 8 to 10

1 pound ground pork (not too lean)

1 1/4 cups raisins

1 1/4 cups chopped dried apricots

1 1/4 cups chopped candied lemon peel

2 cups sugar

1 cup molasses

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 3/4 cup all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon cinnamon

1 tablespoon nutmeg

1 teaspoon fine sea salt

1/2 teaspoon cloves

Hig- proof (aka overproof) rum, as needed (at room temperature or even a little warm)

Whipped cream, for serving, optional

 
1. Preheat the oven to 300° F. Grease a 10-inch bundt pan.

2. In a large bowl, combine the pork and 1 cup boiling water. Stir in the raisins, apricot, candied lemon, sugar, and sugar. Dissolve the baking soda in a splash of water and stir into the mixture. In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, and clove. Stir the dry mixture into the pork mixture until just combined. Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake until the top is golden brown and the cake begins to pull away from the sides of the pan, about 1 hour 40 minutes.

3. Cool the cake on a wire rack. Unmold and place the cake back on the rack. Place the cake on the rack on a rimmed baking sheet (to contain the flames, this keeps them from spreading). Pour some rum all over the cake until the cake is moistened. Pour some rum into a ladle. Dim the lights. Fill a bowl with water and keep it nearby, just in case. Light the rum in the ladle on fire. carefully pour it all over the cake. The flames will ignite the rum on the cake, and also any drips on the baking sheet so be prepared for this. If things get out of control douse with water. But don't panic, the flames die down on their own in seconds.

4. Eat the cake! It's good with whipped cream.

 

 

Sunday Soups: A Comforting Bowl of Potato Leek Creaminess

As the weather finally turns cold and blustery in a way that seems to want to stick around for the rest of the winter (farewell,  60 degree days, see you in March), soup season officially begins.

For our family, Sunday is the perfect soup day. One reason is that after restocking the fridge at the farmers market on Saturday, on Sunday, I try to use up a lot of stuff left over from the week before. Clean-the-fridge soup is definitely the silent subtitle of every single Sunday soup recipe I'll be posting, which I hope will give you perfect freedom to use that wilted stalk of celery and those soft and wizened carrots. You can bet I will be doing the same.

Another reason I like to make soup on Sunday is that by the time weekend wanes, I'm exhausted from all the running around family time, and seeing friends time, and weekend projects time and whatever else it is we pack into those two hectic days. By Sunday, I just want quiet, easy, soothing food that warms my bones and pats me on the cheek in a there-there kind of way. Soup does this.

Anyway in thinking about all of this, I decided to launch a weekly blog post dedicated to whatever soup I made on Sunday. This means I will be planning on posting a soup recipe every week, all winter long. And if you feel like sharing, I'd love to know what soup you made this week too, if any.

Then when the temperature rises and the lettuces and ramps and asparagus starts to emerge, I'll put away my soup pot and kick off a Sunday Salads series or something like that. Ah, the fleeting, bittersweetness of seasonal cooking. Here today, gone tomorrow.

With no further ado, here is my recipe for Potato Leek Soup to get things going.  It’s one of the most satisfying and simplest soup recipes imaginable, calling for just three basic ingredients—potatoes, leeks, and good stock.  Okay, no…four in fact, because I like to use a generous amount of butter when I sauté the leeks.  I’ve been known to use a whole stick of good butter (you can use much less if you want), but the real trick to spectular potato leek soup is to brown the heck out of the leeks.  It’s ok if there are still some pretty, light green bits here and there, but golden leeks will contribute beautiful depth and layers of flavor to an otherwise uncomplicated soup. If you don't take the time to do this (and I'm talking about a solid 6 mintues), you risk blah soup, and there's really no need in your life for blah soup, right?

The last time I made this Potato Leek Soup I happened to have leftover turkey stock from Thanksgiving, but any variety of quality stock will do. Or use water and just add plenty of salt and a bay leaf to the pot (and lots of butter, you'll need it). I’ll occasionally throw in a stray parsnip, celery root, or turnip into the mix (remember, it's really clean-out-the fridge soup).  So feel free to do the same. I also love to add a really substantial amount of freshly ground black pepper—against the starchy richness it packs a welcome wallop. 

Then, as you can see in the photo, I finish the soup with a drizzle of olive oil and some moist flaky red pepper, in this case Turkish red pepper. You can skip it, or use flaky sea salt or crushed red pepper flakes instead. Or if you want to get fancy, snip some chives on the top and garnish the soup with a little dollop of creme fraiche. Then you will have achieved dinner party soup.

Also of note: I puree my soup with an immersion blender. Sometimes I strive for something perfectly smooth and velvety. Sometimes I leave lots of chunks. The choice is yours.

Potato Leek Soup

Serves 4 to 6

4 medium leeks or 2 giant ones

At least 2 tablespoons butter, sometimes I use up to 8, olive oil works too

Salt and pepper

4 large yukon gold potatoes, peeled or not

1 quart stock or water (add a bay leaf if you're using water, don't forget to remove it before pureeing)

Good olive oil and Turkish or crushed red pepper for finishing if you like

 

1. Clean the leeks by chopping off the dark green stems (leave the white and an inch or two of the light green). Split the leeks down the center vertically to expose all the soil trapped in the layers. Rinse well under running water. Thinly slice the leeks discarding the hairy root.

2. In a soup pot, melt the butter or heat the oil. Add the leeks and saute until golden brown all over, about 6 to 8 minutes.

3. While the leeks are cooking, slice up the potatoes.

4. Season leeks with a good pinch of salt and some pepper and add the potato slices. Add the stock or water. It should cover the veggies by at least 1/2-inch. If not, add more water. Bring to a simmer and partially cover the pot. When the potatoes are tender, about 20 to 30 minutes later, puree the soup.  If it's too thick, thin it down with water or stock or cream. Taste and add more salt and pepper. If the soup tastes bland because you used water or dull stock, you can perk it up by adding some grated parmesan cheese, or some soy sauce, or a squeeze of lemon juice, or all of the above.

5. Serve plain or garnished with olive oil and red pepper.

Pumpkin Pie with Browned Butter & Apple Cider

Maybe I should have waited until next Thanksgiving to share this—maybe Pumpkin Pie fatigue has set in.  But not for me.  I just love the smooth, custardy richness of good pumpkin pies, and I know  lots of people out there like to serve them all through the holiday season (right?). 

Although I bake up a pumpkin pie every year for Thanksgiving, I never make the same recipe twice. It's biologically impossible. I'd implode if I tried. Plus, being the self-proclaimed pie obsessive that I am, I’m all too happy to play with the basic recipe, tweaking it a little here and there.

The last few years I've been trying to make a pie that my milk-and-cream-avoiding husband Daniel can eat (most pumpkin pies are heavy on the milk and/or cream). Last year I used coconut milk and chai-type spices and it was wonderful. But this year I decided to go in another direction and just elimate all the cream entirely. Instead, I substituted a little Calvados (apple brandy) and a generous amount of brown butter—two ingredients that simply scream festive, early winter goodness.  In place of the Calvados, you could also use some fresh apple cider.  But Calvados  is of course apple cider amplified; in this recipe it provides a little moisture, as well as a richly distilled and pleasantly boozy apple kick.  And then there’s the butter.  (Thank goodness Daniel can eat butter.)  Who doesn’t love the gorgeous, nutty flavor of browned butter?  Is there anything better? If you know me, you know that I use it often, in everything from applesauce to rhubarb compote to shortbread cookies.

As the foundation of the pie, I start out with my simple homemade pie crust.  It’s so easy and produces such perfect flakiness, it's actually the one recipe I don't mess with, but use as is.  Then, much like my Sweet Potato Ginger Custard Pie, you simply bake the pie until most of the custard has set but still has the suggestion of a little jiggle in the center.  There is nothing wrong with a little jiggle.  And then you'll know it's baked just right.

 

Pumpkin Pie with Browned Butter and Cider

 

For the pie crust:

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

10 tablespoons unsalted butter, chilled and cut into 1/2-inch pieces

2 to 5 tablespoons ice water

For the filling:

1 1/2 cups pumpkin puree (homemade or canned)

1 stick butter

2/3 cup light brown sugar

5 eggs

1/4 cup apple cider (or 2 tablespoons calvados)

1 tablespoon grated fresh gingerroot

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt

Pinch of ground cloves

Pinch of ground mace

1.  To make the crust, in a food processor, briefly pulse together the flour and salt.  Add the butter and pulse until the mixture forms lima bean-size pieces (three to five 1-second pulses).  Ad ice water 1 tablespoon at a time, and pulse until the mixture is just moist enough to hold together.  Form the dough into a ball, wrap with plastic and flatten into a disc.  Refrigerate at least 1 hour before rolling out.

2.  On a lightly floured surface, roll out the piecrust to a 12-inch circle.  Transfer the crust to a 9-inch pie plate.  Fold over any excess dough, then crimp as decoratively as you can manage. 

3.  Prick the crust all over with a fork.  Freeze the crust for 15 minutes or refrigerate for 30 minutes.  Preheat the oven to 400°F.  Cover the pie with aluminum foil and fill with pie weights (you can us pennies, rice, or dried beans for this; I use pennies).  Bake for 20 minutes; remove the foil and weights and bake until golden, about 5 to 10 minutes more.  Cool on a rack until needed. 

4.  For the filling, pre-heat oven to  325ºF.  In a large skillet, melt the stick of butter over medium-high heat. Reduce the heat to medium and cook until the frothy white milk solids sink to the bottom of the pan and turn a fragrant, nutty brown, 5 to 7 minutes. Brown butter can burn quickly, so watch it carefully. Another tip: when the frantic sound of bubbling begins to die down, that is when you know your brown butter is almost ready, so use your ears as well as your eyes and nose for this one.

5.  In a food processor, combine the pumkpin puree, browned butter and all remaining filling ingredients and run the machine until everything is smooth and incorpated.

6.  Spoon filling into pie crust and spread until flat and even.  Place pie on a rimmed baking sheet. Bake until the custard is mostly firm and set but jiggles slightly when moved, 45 to 55 minutes.  Let cool to room temperature and serve with fresh whipped cream.

Kitchen Hip Tip: To Quickly Warm Up Eggs for Baking, Soak in Warm Water

I don’t know about you, but I’m getting ready for holiday baking.  Every year I look forward to warm goodies coming out of my oven, and to bake quick breads, cookies, and/or cakes successfully, you need to do a little planning.  Aside from getting all your ingredients together and measured, you need to make sure things are the right temperature—especially softened butter and room-temperature eggs. 

Eggs are finicky and marvelous little miracles; properly handled, they can add aerated volume, act as an emulsifier to bind ingredients together, or simply impart some yolk-y richness. But behind that demure and charming oval shell lies a veritable chemistry lab.  I’ll spare you (and myself) all the bits about albumen, long-chain amino acids, electrostatic forces, and the all-towering Maillard reaction.  Just know that there’s a lot going on in that deceptively humble egg; respect its many powers. 

For baking however, at least part of what you need to know is pretty simple. Make sure to use them at room-temperature.  They beat up lighter, fluffier, and mix better with your other ingredients. Cold eggs will cool your butter and make it harder to beat into smooth, supple submission.

Of course remembering to pull the eggs from the fridge an hour or two ahead is fine and easy - if you have the foresight to plan your baking ahead. But what if you want to indulge in, say, some spontaneous, 10 pm post child bedtime brownie baking? Well, then you don't have an hour to wait for your eggs to come up to temperature. (At least I don't if I want to be awake for said baking binge.)

Do not, as I have done, try just putting your eggs on the stovetop while the oven preheats. You will  cook the whites while the yolks still remains cold. No good. I know from experience.

Instead, to bring straight-from-the-fridge eggs to a nice, ambient temperature quickly, submerge them in a bath of warm (not hot) tap water for about 15 minutes.  They’ll warm up in a flash and you’ll wind up with perfectly tempered, affable eggs ready and willing to do your bidding.  And if your bidding happens to be an impulsive batch of gooey, homemade brownies, try these from my book In the Kitchen with A Good Appetite. You won't regret it!

Kate's Impossibly Fudgy Brownies with Chili and Sea Salt

Time: 45 minutes

 

2 sticks plus 2 tablespoons unsalted butter

3 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped

1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon cocoa powder

2 1/2 cups sugar

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper

3 large eggs, lightly beaten

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Maldon salt, for sprinkling

 

1. Preheat the oven to 350° F. Line a rimmed 9 by 13-inch baking sheet with parchment paper.

2. In a microwave or in the top bowl of a double boiler, melt together the butter and chopped chocolate, stirring until smooth. Meanwhile, combine the flour, kosher salt, and cayenne in a medium bowl.

3. Transfer the chocolate mixture to a large mixing bowl and whisk in the cocoa powder and sugar. Add the eggs and vanilla; whisk until smooth.

4. Fold in the dry ingredients and continue folding until no lumps remain.

5. Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top with a spatula. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until the edges just begin to pull away from the sides of the pan and a tester inserted into the middle of the brownie comes out clean.

6. Allow the brownie to cool completely in the pan before cutting into 2 by 2-inch squares.

Makes 24 (2-inch) squares

Spiced Maple Pecan Pie with Star Anise Video on Chow.com

I shot this video for Spiced Maple Pecan Pie with Star Anise when I was in SF last month and had an absolute blast doing it. There were a few mishaps along the way (as in, I had to leave before the pie was finished baking and I burned the nuts and had to redo them), but you'd never know it from this slick and pretty funny video (if I may say so myself). You'll also find the recipe - and it's a keeper: rich and nutty, layered with warm spices and  maple syrup buttery-ness.  You may even find yourself making this pie in February. After all pecans pie tastes good all year long.