Prunes with Walnuts for Tea Time

An upcoming trip to Istanbul (tomorrow!) has put us in a more exotic frame of mind. Also, we are busy packing. But nothing keeps us from a pretty tea-time. These are simple and beautiful and made really with just two things- the prunes and the walnuts, plus tea and sugar which you already have for tea anyway.

We will need:

As many pitted prunes as you like

As many walnut halves as prunes

Brewed tea to cover the prunes- we used Earl Grey

A little sugar

First, a really good trick:

Check the walnuts- are they sweet and fresh, or a little stale? If they could use refreshing, boil some water, put the walnuts in, remove them immediately with a fine-mesh strainer, give them a shake, and dry them in the oven- ten minutes with a fan should do it, and crisp them a little. The water will have turned reddish-brown with tannins, now leached from the nuts, which will be sweet and fresh tasting (though not have the strong rich flavor of a perfect fresh nut). 

All we do now is cover the prunes with tea and simmer until they swell. The tea will become dark and thick with the juice of the prunes. Remove the prunes with a slotted spoon to a platter. Stuff each one with a walnut half, pretty side out.

To the dark prune-infused tea, add a spoonful or two of sugar. It doesn't need any sweetness, but the sugar will add body and gloss as we cook it down. Boil rapidly until it becomes a thin syrup. This should  only take a moment or two.

Pour the syrup over the prunes for serving. If you have it and want a little more exotic fragrance, spritz them with some orange flower water:

And to keep the motif, and also because the colors go so nicely, slice a peeled orange and dust it with cinnamon. Some strained yogurt, clotted cream, or labneh are just the thing if you want something more filling for tea-time.

When we are having these, we usually use our Turkish tea glasses rather than cups and saucers. 

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Rich Pear Brownies Mirror a Crisp Fall Day.

These very simple, very rich brownies with their pattern of swirling leaves are quick and spontaneous. They are a thing of the moment- lots of seasonal fruit (it is nearly impossible to buy a modest amount of produce in abundant Greece), bound with some kitchen staples, in the oven and out in no time. Pears and chocolate are delicious together- the sophisticated version of  the  chocolate cherry  or strawberry, and their inspiration is a lot older. For me, the formal combination of Pear and Chocolate dates from the '80's, with my first of many, many Lindt with Pear Williams bars. Histrorically, it dates from Escoffier's classic (more mysterious by far than the Peach Melba- also Escoffier, and also for a Helen- Opera star Nellie Melba). Escoffier introduced Poire Belle Helene  in honor of an Operetta- La Belle Helene- about Helen of Troy. Classic plated dessert, chocolate bar, brownie-  it is hard to come across a combination of pears and chocolate that is not a rich and little intriguing like a crisp bite of fall.

We will need:
8 medium pears- here, Williams pears the size of a child's fist.
250 g/generous 1 C butter
100 g/ 1 C cocoa powder
425 g/ generous 2 C sugar
4 eggs
160 g/ 1 1/3 C flour
1/4 tsp. salt

Wash the pears, make thin slices from the sides of some, and dice the rest. Put them on parchment in a medium oven (170 C/350 F) with the fan on to let them concentrate and dry out a little as you assemble the rest of the ingredients. Line a large (25 x 28 cm. or 10" x 11") with non-stick parchment and set aside. In a pan large enough to combine everything later, melt the butter over low heat. Remove the pan from the heat, and blend in the sugar, cocoa, and salt.

Whisk to blend very well, and, making sure the mixture is now not at all hot, add the eggs, whisking as you do- it will be a smooth, dark, batter with the texture of a pudding. Add the flour- it will seem like very little. Test for sugar- sometimes it seems to need a little more.  Check the pears- the slices should be slightly browned on the edges, and the diced pieces a little sticky, not juicy. 

Add the diced pear to the brownie batter. Scatter the slices over the top like leaves, and dust with a little coarse sea salt for sparkle- beautiful, and it really brings out the fruit.

Bake for about 30 minutes at 170 C/350 F (without the fan), until a toothpick comes out nearly clean.

They will slice better when cool. They're very lovely, and if you want to make more than a casual snack of them, a triangle with some cream ice cream on the side will bring them from lunch box to dinner party. The gritty texture of the pear breaks up the brownie's rich smoothness, wonderful together.

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Urban Canning: Nectarines, Chet Baker, and a Very Simple Recipe for Fabulously Perfect Jam.

You know how Chet Baker said "You have to be a pretty good drummer to be better than no drummer at all."? Jam is like that. A tartine of just sweet butter and flaky salt is splendor. To earn its place, jam has to be better than good bread and fresh butter, combined. It's unlikely that such a thing can be bought. 

But it can be made, more easily than you might think. Given the intimidatingly large sacks of nectarines I have been bringing home from the weekly market, it must be made (the 4 cakes we baked last week did not make use of them all.) Bounty is not just privilege but obligation- in Greece our season of generosity is full, nothing to take lightly. How to extend the pleasure?- Urban Canning. Classically the province of the homestead or farm, preserving scales down beautifully to a sleeker, more compact urban activity. Small batch (henceforth "Boutique Batch") canning gives excellent results. The lower volume's shorter cooking time makes for a fresher, brighter taste- its chief recommendation. Also, it is an approachable project. The quantities involved in serious traditional preserving are overwhelming for our urban scale- architecturally and above all psychologically. Boutique batch canning, on the other hand, is truly a delight, not as ambitious as it sounds, easily integrated into the urban kitchen. 

The low commitment batch size encourages risk-taking. Were I making 20 jars of jam, I might not be so casual in adding some orange flower water. Making just two or three jars, you can afford to play. I added some when I took it off the boil. I tasted it, and then I added some more. The ethereal perfume of spring in the fullness of harvest captured every nuance of the life of the fruit. It was transcendent- a very big word for jam.

We liked it so much I added orange flower water to the next two batches also. To apricot jam I add the noix- the almond-like fruit in the center of the pit that is a principal ingredient in amaretto. To some peaches I will add ginger and cloves, to watermelon rind, some cardamon and zest of lime.

No special ingredients are needed for assured success- no pectin, no special sugar.

We'll need:
a jar lifter

a wide-mouthed funnel 

a mesh strainer (for dipping the lids into the sterilizing boiling water)

jars short enough to be covered by water in your tallest kettle

freshly purchased lids

a cup to measure with

2 or 3 small white plates

2 tall pots- one in which to cook the jam, the other in which to boil the jars.

And for the jam:

fruit- nectarines

sugar

a lemon

some orange flower water

Begin with barely ripe (almost not ready to eat yet), vividly tangy fruits. You might think that in starting out with ripe fruits rich in natural sweetness, you could reduce the sugar. Alas no- reducing the sugar increases the time it needs to cook down into jam. The extra time on the stove boils the verve out of the fruit, in flavor and color both. Tangy fruits make lively jam.

The proportions could not be simpler, so simple in fact that we do not need a scale, just some kind of cup.
For firm fruits that are cut into small pieces:
1 C sugar : 2 C fruit.

For fruits that are chopped and mashed, such as apricots or berries (no air in the measuring cup):
3 C sugar : 4 C fruit

This is not at all difficult or complicated if we use the following steps:

1. Start by placing 2 or 3 small white plates in the freezer- an easy way to test when the jam is ready. 

2. Fill a large pot 3/4 full of water and put it on to boil- this is for sterilizing our jars before hand and processing them afterward. 

3. Cut up as much fruit as you plan to use. I ended up with 8 C/ 2 liters. 

4. Measure out the appropriate amount of sugar and set it aside- in this case, 4 C.

5. Put the fruit, without the sugar, on to cook until it begins to release some juices, rich with pectin in barely ripe fruits (for a quicker jell).

6. When the fruit starts to cook down, add the sugar. The pot will suddenly seem to be full of liquid, with some fruit floating on op. Do not be concerned.

7. Stir the jam with a wooden spatula- something to make as much contact with the surface as possible.

8. The water should be boiling now. Put the clean jars into it for a few minutes and then set them out on a towel next to the jam. Keep stirring the jam all the while.

9. After perhaps 15 minutes at a full boil, the jam will begin to thicken a bit. Hot jam is always a liquid. To see how close we are to the right thickness, take a plate from the freezer and put a spoonful of jam on it. Let it cool a moment and drag a finger through it.

If there is a clean path, like this, that does not close up, the jam is ready. Taste the jam from the plate. If it is too sweet, which is very likely, add a squeeze of lemon and taste again. Keep adding a few drops until you have a good balance- sweet yes, but lively. Add some orange flower water and taste. I started with one teaspoon, tasted, and added another teaspoon.

10. Ladle the jam into the sterilized jars, leaving a little space at the top.

11. Dip the clean new lids into the boiling water to sterilize for a half minute ad screw them onto the jars, not too tightly, making sure the rims of the jars are completely clean and dry and free of jam (if necessary clean with a folded paper towel dipped in the boiling water).

12. Put the filled and closed jars into the boiling water, making sure they are completely covered by a centimeter or so and adding more water if necessary. Let them boil for 10 minutes.

Remove them from the water with the jar lifter and place them on a kitchen towel. Every now and then you will hear a satisfying "ping!"- this is the sound of the lid sealing- it will go from being almost imperceptibly convex to clearly concave- the center of the lid has no give when you press on it, the sign of a good seal.

I will not say this is fast- you could easily listen to a whole album of Chet Baker for instance- but it is very simple and gives enormous satisfaction. Besides making bread from scratch, there are few things you can do in the kitchen that give you such a clear sense of self-reliance, a connection to the season, and a connection to the agrarian heritage most all of us share. When you see those jars glittering on your shelves, you may find it hard to stop. No matter- sharing is the sweetest of the kitchen's pleasures.

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The Austro-Greque Pavlova

Are the fruits even more succulent this season than in years past? They have stilled ingenuity, silenced conversation. Perfection can be so stifling. We could be baking pies but instead we just gaze, awe struck. At our most ambitious, we make grand arrangements on silver platters and pick from them while reclining languidly on couches, late Roman empire-style. Or we just eat them over the sink.

Finally, a kilo of apricots that were a little tart appeared, waking a little ambition. Such a sensuous season does inspire grandeur, but a grandeur that accommodates dreamy lotus-eating idleness. The Pavlova is nothing if not grand, and a little lazy, and quite economical- perfect for our efforts to let economy interfere in no way with our everyday luxuries.

To all these pluses, add that the oven will be on, but only just barely. Honestly it's so hot during apricot season anyway that you may not even notice.

The Pavlova as made by the Australians (it is their marvelous invention) is a meringue topped with fruit and whipped cream- theirs has the meringue stabilized with vinegar and corn starch. Since I  did not grow up making them this way and I have always liked how these turn out, and because I love recipes with very few ingredients, I have left them out. As to the Austrians? No one has more beautifully captured the apricot's affinity for chocolate. The Austrians are also good with ground nuts. As I had a handful of almonds and a chocolate bar, and some juicy but very tart Greek apricots, it seemed an ideal collaboration. 

We will need:

4 egg whites

300 g/ 1 1/2 C sugar

100 g/ 3  1/2 oz. dark chocolate, chilled

100 g/ 3 1/2 oz. almonds

dash salt

500 g/ 1 generous pound apricots

400 ml/ almost 2 C heavy cream

Break the the chocolate into pieces and pulse it in a food processor until finely ground. Do the same with the almonds plus 1/4 C of the sugar, and set aside.

Set aside another 3/4 C sugar, and beat the egg white in a clean bowl until they become foamy, then start adding the sugar by spoonfuls, beating all the while. Most meringue recipes call for beating until it holds stiff peaks. We want it to be billowy and glossy and thick, but not extra-stiff. It should be easy to fold in the chocolate and almonds without breaking the mixture down in the least.

Turn the oven to 120 c/ 250 f. Place a piece of non-stick baking paper on a pan, draw a circle almost (but not quite) as large as will fit your cake dish or tray, and mound the meringue into the center. (The meringue will swell a little in the oven, certainly gaining a couple of centimeters in diameter). Give it higher sides, an indentation in the middle. It's a proverbial piece of cake to shape it with a spoon.

Bake it for about an hour, until the bottom is dry and it can be lifted from the paper carefully. It is delicious still soft in the center. Keep it on the paper until you are ready to assemble it.

Meanwhile, use some of the remaining sugar to take the sour tang from the apricots.The meringue is quite sweet; it is good to balance that sweetness but also to be aware that the sweet meringue will be a contrast to the tart fruit- too sparing with the sugar, and the fruit could seem sour by comparison. As in all things, let taste guide you.

Demararra sugar is delicious.
White is fine too.

The fruit will bathe itself in its syrupy juices as the sugar melts and draws them out. About an hour before serving, whip the cream, adding just enough sugar to brighten the taste, and stopping short of stiff peaks- we will need it soft. The usual assembly is to pile the fruit and its juices onto the meringue, and to crown it with the cream. The very dry surface of the meringue absorbs moisture beautifully. But cream and meringue is a gentler combination- let the meringue be softened by the softly whipped cream, rather than the tangy juices of the fruit. Spread on half, pile the fruit gently into the center, and frame this with the rest of the cream, mounding it in a ring around the fruit. The apricots glow like a jewel with this treatment, and the cream makes a soft layer of flavor, a welcome creamy barrier between the juice and tang and the sweet dry crispness. 

Play a few hands of cards before you serve it- don't be in haste. It is a mess to dish out after a two or three hours, but the meringue (not unlike a corset) will make for an elegant presentation until you make the first slice. Once it is cut into, collapsing on itself so airy and creamy and juicy and crisp, it is so delicious that no one will mind at all. 

Fit for a Queen.
Even on a peasant budget.

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Jam is the Jewel that Brightens a Gray Day.

Breakfast with the New York Review of Books

piece on Bee Wilson's "Consider the Fork" 

My first introduction to canning was in my Aunt Meri's kitchen. The project- apricot jam to which the delicate inner noix of the kernels add an amaretto perfume. This being Oregon, the bounty is overwhelming, and the canny householder is skilled in preserving it, with some excellent assistance when needed (I've linked to an invaluable resource here- have a look!). The aim of canning originally is preserving bounty- for a short time, we have tons of gorgeous stuff. How do we keep it? Make it last? So of course when canning, one's first instinct is often to go big- flats of fruit, crates of jars. It's a satisfying day, and those jars lined up on the shelf, well, they look like nothing less than prudence and wisdom.

Urban canning has the same spirit to it, but, like much else in our urban lives, it is scaled down. Of course, we can get a flat of fruit and a crate of jars and have at it- but such an ambitious project can start to careen from rewarding to chaotic very quickly, especially if canning is not part of your usual routine. As in farmhouse canning, in urban canning just make good use of what you have lots of on hand. It's easy for enthusiasm to get the better of you at a lovely market and overbuy some beautiful seasonal fruit. Also, late shoppers are often offered ridiculously large bags of fruit (smallish? a little under or over-ripe? slightly blemished?) at a price merely symbolic of commerce. We keep fruit trays quite full- they're so nice to look at- and rotate the ripe out and the freshly bought in. This is where we get dessert- fresh, in pies and tarts, combostas, and of course, jam. These plums are what got rotated out this week- a little wrinkly, yet still curiously firm- not very tempting to eat out of hand:

- yet still quite fragrant. Many say that a top quality result demands top quality ingredients. This may be true, but a little finessing and cajoling brings lusciousness from more humble examples, so much so that the gap between the exquisite and the ordinary- very great in the fresh article- closes considerably when you consider the final product. Is this the best plum jam anyone has ever had? Perhaps technically not, but it is so good it's hard to imagine a better one. Shining a little light on the wallflowers of your pantry is simply the right thing to do- they deserve it.

A stormy day- the perfect occasion.

This small batch, spontaneous 'why-not?' jam making has a lot going for it. Since it's just a jar or two, there's no need to sterilize the jars and lids in a huge pot of boiling water then seal the filled jars by submerging them in boiling water again- this process is for safe storage in a pantry for a long period. We're using this jam right away- so it will go into the fridge, just like supermarket jam that's already been opened up. This means we can skip both the sterilizing and the more arduous water bath sealing of the jars. This also means we need just the one large pot for the jam itself, and not a second one for the jars and processing.

The second advantage is that a small batch comes to the right consistency quickly, and that keeps the flavors bright and fresh. A too-large batch can take a long time to cook, giving the fruit a tired flavor. It's also a dangerous business- jam splatters and sticks and burns, and a shallow batch is easier to manage.

Another huge boon to jam making? It perfumes the house with a sweet delirious scent- forget bread making- jam is a pervasive, lingering fragrance. Two jars sweeten the house as well as twelve. On account of this alone I have made jam twice in one week, the second time to cover the scent of broiled fish.

On to the jam itself then- there's really nothing to it. Before starting with the fruit, put 2 or 3 little plates in the freezer- we'll need them for the easy and reliable freezer test. Then, take whatever fruit you have lots of on hand, wash it, and crush it or cut it into pieces. 

Irregular pieces are fine- leave some large ones in for texture.

Squash these down until they're juicy, leaving some large pieces intact, and measure by volume (leaving no empty space between the pieces). Measure the fruit into a large deep pot, put it on to simmer, and add 3/4 of the volume of the fruit in granulated sugar (4 cups fruit, 3 C sugar)- (this ratio is from Marion Cunningham in the Fanny Farmer cookbook, which in this as in all things had proved completely trustworthy).   

 

Cook over a brisk heat- almost high- and do not leave the stove for a moment. All of that sugar and it burns easily, but a quick cooking result in a vibrant fresh flavor. Stir all the while- I use a flat bottomed wooden spatula which makes it easy to maintain constant contact with the bottom surface of the pan. If you hear a dry, scraping "koosh" as you drag the spoon over the bottom of the pot, turn it down. After about 5 minutes, the steam over the pot will have lessened considerably, and the bubbles will be larger, and perhaps slower. Lift the spoon- if it seems to have thickened a little, you can take out one of the plates. There are of course ways to do this with a thermometer, but this visceral test is more fun. Take the jam from the heat for the moment you need for the test so that it doesn't scorch. Put a spoonful of jam on the frozen plate, where it will quickly become the consistency the final product would be. Drag your finger through the jam, and see if it leaves a clear trail. If the trail starts to close up, like this:

Not quite ready.

-it needs a little more time on the stove. When it looks like this:

Just right!

-it's ready.

Have your clean jars on the counter, and if you have one, a wide-mouthed funnel (very handy for anytime you need to put anything in a jar):

It takes ages to cool, but you'll have it for breakfast the next day or a midnight snack. This batch of plums made 4 cups of prepared fruit, and that made almost 2 450 g/16 oz jars. If I didn't mention- the house smells fabulous and the scent lingers until you cook something else.

                        

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Cherry and Apricot Combosta- Beauty is as Beauty Does

Late cherries from a mountain top, where the summer is slower to peak.

Who would pass up the last of a season's delicacy? Well, not I (to be honest, I rarely pass up anything at all). Only one stall at the market (of 80 or so, including fish and dairy) has cherries. They've been in for weeks, and we've loved them- fresh and cold, in tarts, warmed in the sun... I even skipped a week or two given the space the nectarines are commanding- and I'm relieved to have another shot at them. They're from a mountain, where the seasons hit a week or two later, the vendor explains. And so huge! So beautiful!

And when I get them home and taste them- so fat and lusciously hefty right from their paper sack- they're so... bland! Bland, but- shapely, and firm, and large. What to do, but flatter their comeliness, encourage that faint promise of flavor, finesse them. 

On market days, I rotate the fruits on the enormous 4 tiered tray that dominates the veranda and, in truth, a good portion of my produce budget as well. The apricots on the second tier are firm and tart, but blemished- ideal for a combosta.

The fruits and their towering tray.

Pitting cherries is no trouble at all, provided they are firm:

The stains on your fingertips, entirely worthwhile,
will anyway be gone by the next day.

The pits of the apricots come clean away. Combosta differs from "canned fruit" chiefly in the tremendous amount of sugar used. Before you object, let me speak of the usefulness of sugar in preserving the vividness of color and lusciousness of texture- there is nothing "boiled" or "limp" about the vibrant result, and the fruit- not cooked so much as warmed in its dense glossy bath, is still full of snap and verve, the sugar amplifying its lively flavor rather than masking it. Accordingly, I make a heavy syrup of 2 parts sugar (300 g/ cup and half) to one part water (by volume rather than weight), and simmer in this a vanilla bean (this turned out to be very important- pure vanilla extract would be fine in a pinch too) as I prepare the fruit. First the apricots go in, to soften just for a minute, then the cherries at the very last moment so they keep their lovely shape. As soon as the cherries are bathed and coated, and no later, I pour it into a large clear glass bowl so it doesn't overcook. And that's all there is to it. That, and a capful of dark rum to bring out all their depth and smoothness.

The apircots heating in their glossy fragrant syrup.

I had plans to use the combosta as the jewel of a topping on a Toulouse-Lautrec cake. And so nice would that have been. But the vanilla and luscious sweet fruit filled the house with their scent, and soon had everyone gathered curiously around the bowl on the veranda as it was cooling. There was nothing to do but get out little glass bowls and spoons.

The ample fragrant syrup- now rosy form the fruits- could be set aside for a cocktail.
But we didn't get that far- we just sipped it from the little bowls. 

Not everything and everyone comes to us in their ideal version. A little coaxing, cajoling, finessing, and sweetening can do wonders. It's usually worth it to bring out the best in everyone around us. Taking the same care with our produce though gives results generally more certain, and instantly gratifying.

Just like sometimes works with people, in coaxing the interest out of a shy fruit
just a whisper of liquor can often be useful.

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Watermelon rind Chutney- Trash or Treasure? Virtue or Vice?

One of Roz Chast's most delightful cartoons (of so very many) celebrates the seven deadly virtues:

Of these, "uncalled-for thrift" (at 1 o'clock) has a special place in my heart. Bizarre concessions to economy have been made by my sweet but sometimes truly wacky mother in law over the years; Roz Chast's example is a paltry one (I see your dented cans of peas and raise you a strapless vinyl snakeskin harlot mini dress, in red, obviously, for a 14 year old, but a very good price!). Thrift can be a great source of mirth.

But in the kitchen? Thrift- admittedly virtuous- is sad and small; it has no place in the kitchen. Greed serves us better- it's bold, resourceful, dynamic, and it gets us where we want to be. It's much more akin to hunger than thrift is. It was not some prim 'waste not, want not' thought that prompted me to turn those watermelon rinds- compost by any reasonable measure- into this glistening chutney. It was the memory of the first time I tried it in the Gourmet (how I miss that magazine!), the hand of ginger and a few dried chilies still out on the counter from last night's midnight Chinese noodles (we got homesick watching "Do the Right Thing"), and the fresh mint thriving outside the kitchen window (raita), to say nothing of the heat outside on the veranda. This will turn a handful of basmati into a fine little impromptu meal (chile peppers and lashings of hot tea are so curiously refreshing in the damp August heat). If you want to get the very most out of that chicken/watermelon/bunch of parsley or whatever you have on the counter right now, vice (not virtue) delivers very tasty results.

Trash!

Treasure!

You'll be happy with the result. But, having made it before, I didn't do much measuring at all and I used a few different ingredients. For a chutney you need the fruit or vegetable that is to be the bulk of it, plus tang, heat, and sweetness, plus any aromatics you like. It's enormously flexible- just mix it up to your taste, keeping in mind that it will get more intense, yet also more mellow, as it boils down. It's easy to tweak as you go.

This is what went into today's batch:

4 cups/ 1 liter of diced watermelon rind (dark green skin cut away, some pink flesh clinging to the inside)

1/3 C/large handful finely chopped ginger

4 chile peppers

8 whole allspice berries

a small spoonful of pink peppercorns

a little salt

1/2 C/125 ml vinegar

1/2 C/125 ml water

1/2 C/100 g sugar

a little lime zest after it comes off the heat

This is how to make it:

Slice the wedge of rind into strips 3 or 4 cm wide-
this makes it very easy to safely remove the dark green peel.

The peeled rinds with a pretty strip of red flesh still clinging to them.

The peeled lengths can be cut into narrow strips, then diced-
aim for about 1 cm. or a little smaller.

Carefully cut the ginger into thin slices, then do the same thing.

The ginger will be smaller than the melon, but still large enough
for texture and a nice bite of heat.

Dried red chiles, pink peppercorns, whole allspice berries,
and sugar.

All in the saucepan over medium-high heat

Adding the vinegar-

And the water.

After a moment, the melon releases its juices and it looks like this-
more liquid will come as it boils gently, then it will reduce and become slightly syrupy.
Turn it down and stir it once in awhile. after 20-30 minutes, it will look like this:

Translucent melon chunks still have a bit of crisp bite,
with a jammy spicy syrup through to their core.

Really, it's a bit unfair. This is so vice-quenchingly delicious. And yet, it's hard to suppress the feeling of satisfaction from so virtuously making a beautiful thing from something destined for the garbage can with the help of a handful of spices. Oh, I didn't mention- it fills the house with a sweet exotic perfume as it simmers.

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