Gâteau Anna

A Pear and Apple Cake

This recipe came from the Capital Times, a Madison, WI, daily newspaper, in the early 1980’s.  It was the first cake I ever tried making.

2 large eggs
¾ cup sugar
¾ cup all purpose flour
1 stick plus 1 tablespoon unsalted butter (softened)
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 Golden Delicious apples, peeled and sliced thin
2 pears, peeled and sliced thin (not too ripe; not too firm)
1-1/2 tablespoons light rum
1 tablespoon double-acting baking powder
powdered sugar

In a bowl, beat 2 large eggs (using an electric mixer) with ¾ cup sugar until the mixture is light and lemon colored.  Add flour, butter, salt and baking powder; mix well.  Add the rum and mix.  Stir in apples and pears.  Spoon the batter the batter into a well-butter and sugared 9-inch springform pan, 2-inches deep, and bake it in a preheated moderately slow over (350 degrees F.) for 60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.  Transfer the cake to a rack and let it cool in the pan for 30 minutes.  (Note:  Best if served the same day as baked, otherwise the crisp edges soften.)

The Great Sausage Making Adventure of 2010

Above, home made Chaurice sausages.

The idea of making sausage has been floating around in my head for several years. In September, Carolyn and I had a pizza at a restaurant called Mojo Tapas in St. Louis, MO that had a chorizo sausage that was excellent.  I finally decided it was time that I made some sausage.  Fortunately, I had Carolyn to help.  I think this would be difficult, if not impossible to do alone.

Our project was hampered by the fact that we do not own a meat grinder with a sausage stuffing tube attachment.  Nor do we have the meat grinding attachment for the KitchenAid stand mixer.  Our only alternative was to have a butcher grind the meat for us.  Besides, we needed to buy hog casings anyway, so we headed to Zier’s Prime Meats in Wilmette. We bought a nearly 5 pound chunk of pork shoulder.  The butcher ground it to a consistency equal to typical ground beef used for hamburger.
The second problem, because we did not have the proper equipment, was how to stuff the ground meat into the hog casings.  I had researched sausage-making on the internet and found recommendations to use a cake decoration piping bag.  We happened to have several of these.

Finding recipes was easy (internet).  I realized that I could divide the ground pork and mix it with different herbs and spices to make several different types of sausage.  I decided on Italian Sausage, Spanish Chorizo, and a Creole sausage called Chaurice (which I had never had before).  I didn’t follow the recipes exactly, but rather, determined the proportions of herbs and spices based on a number of recipes.  Not exactly intuition . . . but guessing.

 
Above, hog casing soaking in water.  The casing comes on a strip of plastic to keep it organized.

The hog casing comes salted and has to be washed and soaked for 15 minutes in lukewarm (not hot) water.  (Don’t over soak).  Using the piping bag, with the largest tip we own, we made several Italian sausages. But it was difficult and the piping bag split.  The tip burst out of the next bag and we were frustrated, but Carolyn had the inspiration to try using her cookie press.  It worked like a charm.  We had some leftovers from stuffing and friend them up, right there and then, to sample the sausage. Of the three sausages we made, I liked the Chorizo; Carolyn preferred the Chaurice.  Unfortunately, the Italian was too salty (I reduced the salt by half in the recipe below).  The sausage turned out far better than expected.  Despite all the work and frustration, dare I say it . . . it was worth it.  The sausage tasted better and had a better consistency than any sausage we’ve had in a restaurant or bought at the grocery store.  Now I’m dreaming about bratwurst and Polish sausage!   --jb  December 30, 2010


Above:  I labeled the spices with a water based pen to keep track which was which

Note:  The hog casing broke several times.  I think that’s normal.  I think that the thickness of the casing is not perfectly consistent; it’s weak in places.  Simply take the meat and put it back into the stuffer
.
Spanish Chorizo
 
I read that Spanish Chorizo, made in Spain, is air-cured for up to four months in special high-ceilinged rooms. Some chorizo is smoked; some is not. This recipe does not call for smoking, but because it includes smoked paprika, the sausage has a smoky flavor that is not overpowering.  I didn’t have Aleppo pepper, so I took advice I found on the internet to substitute it with a 4 to 1 mixture of sweet Hungarian paprika and cayenne pepper.

Mix the first six ingredients together:

• Coarse salt: 2 teaspoons
• Garlic:  1/2 teaspoon
• Ground nutmeg: 3/4 teaspoon
• Brown sugar: 1 tablespoon
• Smoked paprika : 1 tablespoon
• Aleppo pepper substitute:  1 tablespoon Hungarian sweet paprika plus ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
• Ground pork: 2 lb.

I spread the ground pork on a large cutting board to an even thickness of about 3/8” and evenly distributed the spices.  Then I turned half of the meat over on to the other half and used my fingers to massage the meat to thoroughly distribute the spices.  Lastly, fill casings.  Push the meat through the casing so you have about 2 inches of casing to tie off the end.  Next, cut the casing at the other end, several inches past the meat, so you have another loose end with which to tie.  Squeeze the meat toward the first tied end before tying the other end.


Above:  Ground pork spread just before applying the seasonings.

Chaurice (Creole Pork Sausage) 

• Ground pork: 2 lb.
• Salt: 2 teaspoons
• Ground cayenne: 1/8 teaspoon
• Powdered thyme: 1/2 teaspoon
• Chili powder: 2 teaspoons
• Hungarian sweet paprika: 1 tablespoon
• Ground black pepper: 3/4 teaspoon
• Onion powder: 1 teaspoon
• Garlic powder: 3/4 teaspoon
• Allspice: ¼ teaspoon
• Cumin: 1-1/2 teaspoons

 Italian Sausage 

• Ground pork: 2 lb.
• Salt: 2 teaspoon
• Black pepper (ground):  1-1/2 teaspoos
• Fennel seeds: 2 tablespoons
• Optional:  Crush red pepper flakes: 1/2 teaspoon (or as you like)

12-30-12 Update:  I adjusted the Italian Sausage recipe (above) with more salt and fennel than the initial recipe. Now it's perfect!  -jb

Cranberry Relish

12 ounces fresh cranberries
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup orange juice
1/3 cup dried cherries
4 tablespoons Grand Marnier
2/3 cup coarsely chopped pecans

Wash cranberries and combine in a heavy saucepan with sugar, water and orange juice.  Bring to a boil over high heat.  Reduce the heat and cook at a gentle boil until cranberries begin to pop.

Remove from heat and stir in the cherries and Grand Marnier.  Chill for up to a week.  Stir in pecans just before serving.

8 to 10 servings

Kolaczki

 

1 lb. salted butter, softened (see note 1)
6 oz. cream cheese, room temperature
3 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
Fruit filling (such as Solo brand apricot, raspberry, etc.)
Powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Using a mixer, whip butter and cream cheese together.  Sift flour and baking powder into the butter/cheese mixture.  Divide the dough into two balls.  Roll out to 1/8" thickness.  Cut into rounds with the open end of a glass and place 1 teaspoon of filling in the center.  Fold two edges together and pinch.

Bake for 12 minutes.  After cookies cool, dust with powdered sugar.

Note 1:  Or use unsalted butter and add 1 teaspoon salt

Carolyn’s Holiday Sweet Potatoes

Christmas dinner isn’t dinner without Carolyn’s signature sweet potatoes.

6 medium sweet potatoes (Garnet variety if available)
1/2 stick of butter plus one tablespoon
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1/2 cup orange juice
salt
2 tablespoons Cointreau or Gran Marnier
2 cups mini-marshmallows

Wash potatoes and cut off the ends.  Cook in oven at 350 degrees until soft; about one hour.  You can cook them in a microwave if preferred. Cool to room temperature.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Cut potatoes into 1/2" thick slices and arrange the rounds in a buttered baking dish so that each round overlaps it's neighbor.

In a sauce pan, melt 1/2 stick butter.  Add sugar and dissolve.  Add orange juice and liquor and stir.  Drizzle over the potatoes.  Dot potatoes with remaining butter and sprinkle with some salt.  Bake for 30 minutes.  Add the marshmallows and broil for 2 minutes, until browned and soft.

Ptaszki (Translation: Little Birds)

Also known, inelegantly but popularly, as Christmas Pork Rolls.  First prepared in 1982 while learning to cook and living in Madison, WI.  -jb

2 large pork tenderloins (will make approximately 20-26 ptaski)
   (tip: buy trimmed tenderloins; cost more but save time)
Bacon, cut strips in half, cross-wise
Green peppers, cleaned and sliced into ½” wide pieces
Onions, sliced into thick ¾” wide pieces
Pickles (Vlassic brand Polish style), spears, cut lengthwise in half and ends trimmed to 4” long (but reserve the pickle juice)
Hungarian Paprika
Salt
Black Pepper
Garlic Powder (see note 1)
Olive Oil
Reserved pickle juice
2 Knorr’s vegetable bullions

Special tools:
Waxed paper
Kitchen mallet
Spray bottle with tap water
large nylon cutting board
round toothpicks
two oven-proof 12” skillets (or work in two stages with one skillet and an oven-proof baking dish) 

Preparation:  Spread waxed paper over a 2’x4’ section of the kitchen counter.  You will be laying out the flattened medallions of pork on this area.  Spray the area with water and keep it moist to prevent the meat from sticking to the waxed paper. Also, cut off a dozen or more sections of waxed paper, 10” long.  You will use these to cover the meat as you pound it flat.  This minimizes splatter of small bits of meat.

Trim off any excess fat from the tenderloin. Cross cut the tenderloin on a slight diagonal, into 1” to 1¼” thick medallions.  Each tenderloin will yield about 12 medallions.

Spray the cutting board with water.  Place a medallion of pork on the cutting board and spray with water.  You want to keep the meat very moist as you work.  Cover the medallion with a piece of waxed paper and pound with the smooth side of the mallet. Carefully pound the medallion until very thin; about the thickness of shirtbox cardboard.  The resulting piece will be about 4” x 7”.  Spray the waxed paper layout area with water and set the meat, flat, on the wet surface.  Repeat until all the medallions are flattened and arranged in rows on the waxed paper.  Remember to spray often as you work to keep the meat moist.

Heat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Sprinkle the meet with about 2-3 pinches of salt, pepper, garlic powder and paprika.  Place a slice of bacon over the each piece of meat.  Place a piece of green pepper, pickle and onion at the end closest to you, perpendicular to the length of the meat.  Have toothpicks ready.  Roll the meat, starting at the end with the green pepper-pickle-onion and spear with one or two toothpicks to hold the roll together.  Place on a plate to free up work space.  Repeat the instructions with the second tenderloin. 

Pour 5-6 tablespoons of oil into a 12” skillet, turn up heat to medium high and add ptaszki  to fill the skillet in one layer.  Brown on all sides (as best you can; the toothpicks are in the way).  If your skillet is not oven-proof, place the browned ptaszki into a large oven-proof baking dish.  Brown the remainder of ptaszki until all are browned.  Add 1/3 cup of pickle juice and sprinkle the rolls with a little Paprika.  Cover with aluminum foil and place into the oven.  Bake for 1-1/2 hours.

Gravy:  Pour the liquid from the baking dish into a skillet and add about ½ cup of water.  In a cup, add 2 tablespoons of flour and 1 tablespoon of cornstarch to 3 tablespoons of cold water.  Mix thoroughly until smooth.  Set aside.  Add the Knorr’s vegetable bullion in the pan and dissolve, breaking it up with the back of a spatula.  Add black pepper, to taste.  Add the flour-water mixture and stir constantly while cooking over a moderate heat until thickened.  Season with salt, to taste.

Above, cutting medallions from a piece of tenderloin

Above, a medallion covered with a piece of waxed paper

A flattened medallion

All ingredients applied and ready to be rolled up.

Ptaszki, ready to be browned.

Browning in a cast iron skillet

Green Beans

Cooking green beans, you might think, is to simple to warrant a post, but this post is more than simply cooking instructions.

When I was growing up my mother served green beans often.  I didn’t particularly like them.  They were bland, soft and tasteless.  They came from a can.

Green beans are easy to grow in your yard or even in a container, although a single bush would probably only produce a handful of beans.   There are pole beans (i.e. a vine that needs to be supported by a pole of some kind) and bush beans.   Purple green beans are fun because, well . . . they’re purple.  When you cook them, unfortunately, they turn green. 

The typical green beans found in supermarkets, called string beans, are larger and thicker than the French Haricot vert beans.  They also tend to curl, whereas the French beans are elegantly straight.  The French beans do have a slightly different taste, but it’s a subtle difference. I prefer the haricot verts for aesthetic reasons, although both varieties are good to eat.

There are a dozen ways to cook green beans.  Here’s how I prepare them:  I bring some water to a boil and then place the basket with trimmed beans into the pot and immediately cover it.  I reduce the heat to a moderate heat and steam them for about 6 minutes ; until they are al dente.  It’s good to check tenderness with a fork because there is nothing worse than overcooked green beans.  Once they are cooked, I quickly dump out the water and put the beans into the pot.  I salt them with coarse ground salt and grind some black pepper over them and then  pour a tablespoon of olive oil into the pan and shake it all about.  The oil helps the salt and pepper to stick to the beans.

Note:  I trim the stem end of beans, but leave the other end alone.  Those little tails are too cute to cut.

Grilled Salmon Steaks with Peach and Mustard Glaze

Grilled salmon is simple to cook and is elegant to serve.  It’s a dish that you can prepare for guests quickly, without having to disappear into the kitchen for 30 minutes because the marinade is made earlier in the day or the night before.

1/3 cup peach marmalade
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup cream sherry
1/4 cup Dijon mustard
2 T ginger powder (shaved and chopped fresh ginger would be ideal)
2 T honey
4 to 8 (8-ounce) salmon fillets

1. Combine first 6 ingredients.   Heat in a saucepan and stir well to mix the ingredient.

2.  Cut the salmon filet into individual steaks.

3.  Place the cooled glaze into a large Ziplock bag with the salmon.  If you have time, seal and marinate at room temperature for 30 minutes.  Drink some cream sherry while waiting.  If you are really planning ahead, do this the night before and refrigerate overnight.

4. Preheat grill for 10 minutes on high.  Place salmon on grill and cook for about 6-7 minutes (uncovered).  Reserve the marinade.  Using a wide metal spatula, turn the steaks once and cook an additional 4 minutes.

Serve  on hot plates and liberally spoon the marinade over each steak.  Garnish with a slice of lemon and a spring of rosemary to dress it up.  Nicely accompanied by green beans and oven roasted potatoes.  Or rice.  Or couscous.  Or whatever you like. 

Notes

1.   Feel free to substitute orange marmalade.

2.  We generally buy the Farm Raised Atlantic Salmon, boneless & skinless, at Costco. 

3.  There are health benefits to eating salmon, but also risks.  Read the following article to be informed.

Wild vs. Farmed Salmon, The Pros And Cons

By Joseph Schwartz
bjs54@cornell.edu
Cornell University News Service
http://www.news.cornell.edu

On the one hand, farmed salmon has more heart-healthy omega-3 fatty acids than wild salmon. On the other hand, it also tends to have much higher levels of chemical contaminants that are known to cause cancer, memory impairment and neurobehavioral changes in children. What's a consumer to do?

In general, a new study shows that the net benefits of eating wild Pacific salmon outweigh those of eating farmed Atlantic salmon, when the risks of chemical contaminants are considered, although there are important regional differences.

Those are the conclusions of Barbara Knuth, Cornell professor of natural resources who specializes in risk management associated with chemical contaminants in fish, and Steven Schwager, Cornell associate professor of biological statistics and computational biology and an expert in sampling design and statistical analysis of comparative data. The two have co-authored a benefit-risk analysis of eating farmed versus wild salmon in the Journal of Nutrition (November, Vol. 135).

Read the rest of this article here: 

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/35370.php