Recently in Recipes category

When I was in Mexico last year, after they were able to uncurl my iron-clad grip on the airport entrance door frame because I was having a hard time leaving all those warm, freshly made corn tortillas behind, on the walkway to the departure gate, I realized I had a few extra pesos jingling in my pocket. Thankfully aside from a lot of great Mexican peanut candies and lime-spritzed peanuts that I stuffed into every pocket of my carry-on, the duty-free shop had a pretty large selection of tequilas, where I figured I could spend the bulk of my leftover funds.

I don’t know much about tequila but apparently there are plenty of people who do, judging by the racks of tequilas on offer—and some of their prices.

Continue Reading Frozen Melon Margaritas…

In August, most of the businesses in Paris shut down while a vast number of people take their annual holiday vacations. And in case you think that’s a grammatical error, in French one says les vacances, in the plural. So if you have a problem with that, I would tell you to take it up with them yourself, but right now most of them are unavailable at the moment.

It sounds odd, but I know several business in America that follow the same model of shutting down for a few weeks so everyone can go on holiday at the same time, negating the need for constantly changing schedules the rest of the year to adapt to everyone’s particular vacations. (Although I am awaiting the results of a medical test and it would have been nice of the doctor to let me know that he was leaving for three weeks.)

Bread bakeries, which are an integral part of French life, also close up shop for two- to four weeks. But each shop plans their vacation(s?) in conjunction with the neighboring bakeries, by law, and posts those locations on their door so you can always be assured of fresh bread no matter what neighborhood you live in.

Continue Reading Farro Salad with Tomatoes, Mushrooms and Basil…

When I worked in the restaurant business, if you happened to walk in during staff meal, you could always tell who were the pastry people: we were the ones dousing our food with vinegar and salt. That is, when we had time to sit down and eat. I like sweets, but I like them tempered with something not-necessarily sweet, which is why sometimes you’ll see a squeeze of lemon juice added to a fruit ice cream base or bakers like me include a pinch of salt in batter, to balance things out.

For many years, salted butter was banished from most baking recipes, since the amounts varied by brand and unsalted butter was said to be fresher; the theory was that salt is a preservative adding it to butter may mean the butter is older. In France, you can get the most wonderful salted butter at not just fromageries, but in supermarkets, which usually say on the package that the butter has cristaux de sel de mer, big crystals of sea salt, and they note which region the salt is harvested from as well, giving it provenance.

Continue Reading Salted Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies…

Because the question comes up from time to time, I thought I’d answer some questions about making substitutions in my recipes and swapping out ingredients.

The short answer is: When you substitute or swap out ingredients, results will vary and won’t be the same as mine. Some will work, and others won’t. The most common is folks who want to reduce the sugar or fat in a recipe, but in most instances, people are not happy with the final results. So unless you have health issues, it’s best to stick with the recipe.

However I do realize that people have various dislikes and dietary needs, so here are some guidelines you might find useful when using my recipes on the site or in my Books. If you’re looking for more comprehensive information about baking ingredient substitutions, I’ve provided links at the end where you can find answers. Do remember that these are general guidelines and are not applicable to each and every recipe that exists. Home bakers are encouraged to experiment—especially those on restricted or special diets, because they’re often best educated on how to modify recipes to meet their particular dietary needs.

Spices

Spices are interchangeable in recipes. When I come up with spice amounts, they are to my personal taste and that which I think others will like. Reducing 2 teaspoons of cinnamon to 1 teaspoon won’t alter the way a cake or cookie turns out, but it won’t have the same oomph as the ones I did. However not everyone likes, say, cloves or other spices. So if you see a spice in a recipe you don’t like, you can omit it and perhaps dial up one of the other spices or flavors to compensate.

Gluten and Flours

In recipes that call for flour, I mean all-purpose flour. If I mean cake or bread flour, that will be noted. I’m not an expert on gluten-free baking and there are others who are so can’t advise about substitutions with specialty flours. King Arthur carries a gluten-free baking flour that they advise is a good swap for wheat flour. I haven’t used it so can’t confirm, but people who bake gluten-free likely have their own techniques for substituting wheat flour if you don’t wish to use a gluten-free flour mix, such as:

Continue Reading Baking Ingredients and Substitutions…

A few years ago, I was extremely fortunate to meet Gina DePalma, the pastry chef at Babbo in New York City, thanks to the matchmaking efforts of Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg.

Being bakers, we struck up a friendship and she gave me a copy of her gorgeous book, Dolce Italiano. And after we had dessert and coffee together, we ambled the streets of New York City a little and made plans to meet in Rome, where she was moving to work on her second book. Unfortunately we didn’t get to have our Roman holiday, but I often thumb through her book and dream about how much fun we would have had lapping our way through the gelaterias of Rome and eating all those pastries with little sips of Italian espresso in between bites.

Continue Reading Zucchini Cake with Crunchy Lemon Glaze…

I’d not heard of Eggplant Caviar (caviar d’aubergine), until I moved to France. I’m not sure why that was—perhaps in the states it’s called something different when I was served it? Could it be labeling laws, so I wouldn’t confuse eggplant seeds for fish eggs? Or did I just have my head in the sand for too many years and only saw the light when I moved away?

Whenever I had eggplants lying around, I always made baba ganoush or moutabal. But eggplant caviar is even easier to make and less-rich: it’s a smoky tasting eggplant purée with a squirt of fresh lemon, some garlic, and a bit of heat from a sprinkle of bright-red chili powder.

Continue Reading Eggplant Caviar…

If I had to name one food that I couldn’t live without, chocolate would be right up there. Salted butter is on that short list, too. Seeded bagels, California dried apricots, black and white cookies, osetra caviar (if money, and sustainability, were no object), lobster rolls, French fries, and really good fried chicken would also be on that list. Not as fancy as some of those things, but just as good, another thing that I can never seem to get enough of is crunchy cornmeal.

And the good thing is that I live next to Italy, so whenever I pop over and visit my neighbors, I always bring back not only good coffee by the kilo, but as much polenta as I can jam into my suitcase as well.

A few years ago I was shamed into only using stone-ground cornmeal, but the locals seem to have taken to instant polenta, which I was told wasn’t bad by a well-respected chef. That’s what is widely available here, but I just couldn’t bring myself to agree when I tried it for myself.

Continue Reading Cornmeal Cookies (Zaletti)…

There were various responses on my Strawberry ice cream recipe, requesting a retraction of the moniker ice “cream” since it didn’t have cream in it. And a respected food writer pointed out that pumpkin was obligatory in Soupe au Pistou. I, too, know that folks will sometimes call something hot ‘chocolate’ even though it was made with cocoa powder instead of chocolate. And have been served fried onion rings that were actually broken circles, not neat, closed rounds of onions. And don’t get me started on thinly sliced fruit being called carpaccio.

So I have seen the error of my ways, and you’ll be happy to know that I slavishly followed the recipe for classic Salade Niçoise, as espoused by Jacques Médecin in his book Cuisine Niçoise. (Not this one.) Which everyone in Provence agrees gets the last word on cuisine from their region.

For example, once can not put grilled or seared tuna on the salad and call it a salade Niçoise. Canned tuna or anchovies are acceptable, but not both. And he cautions “”…never, never, I beg you, include boiled potato or any other boiled vegetable in your salade niçoise.”

Continue Reading Classic Salade Niçoise…