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Wednesday, August 06, 2008

Beet pancakes 

a.k.a. Beet Roesti, from Mark Bittman's wonderful book "How to cook everything"

1 to 1.5 lbs beets
1 teaspoon coarsely chopped fresh rosemary
1/4 cup flour
2 tablespoons butter

Trim the beets and peel them as you would potatoes; grate them in a food processor or by hand. Begin preheating a medium to large non-stick skillet over medium heat.
Toss the grated beets in a bowl with the rosemary and salt, then add about half the flour; toss well, add the rest of the flour, then toss again.
Place the butter in the skillet and heat until it begins to turn nut-brown. Scrape the beet mixture into the skillet, shape it into a nice circle, and press it down with a spatula. Turn the heat to medium-ghigh and cook, shaking the pan occasionally, until the bottom of the beet cake is nicely crips, 6 to 8 minutes. Slide the cake out onto a plate, top with another plate, invert the two plates and slide the cake back into the pan. Continue to cook, adjusting the heat if necessary, until the second side is browned. Cut into wedges and serve immediately.

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// prepared with pure evil by Rachel @ 12:21 PM

Monday, December 18, 2006

Fifty-dollar Hamburger 

This recipe is from the Air Canada in-flight magazine in Novemeber 2006. It is an exercise in gilding the lily. Any two of wild mushrooms, cognac, stilton, foie gras, truffles, and fancy herby salad would be a good addition to a hamburger; all of the above is just plain ridiculous.

Serves 4

Ingredients
2 T butter
2 handfuls wild mushrooms (shiitake, morel, chanterelle), sliced into 1/4 inch strips
1 T fresh thyme, stemmed
1 1/2 oz cognac
3 oz foie gras, divided into 4 pieces
2 lb hamburger
4 oz Stilton, crumbled
4 buns
4 T mayonnaise
1 handful baby herb salad/chervil/arugula
1 truffle or 1 oz truffle oil

Melt butter. Sauté mushrooms and thyme for 10 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Add cognac, warm for 5 s, then flambé. After flames burn out, remove and reserve.
In a separate pan, sear one side of one piece of foie gras for 5 s, then flip and sear the other side; remove and reserve; repeat for other pieces.
Season hamburger with salt and pepper. Divide into 4 8-oz mounds, each with an indentation in the centre. Place a piece of foie gras in the centre, forming a patty around it.
Grill patties, crumbling stilton on each burger as it finishes.
Spread buns with mayonnaise on the bottom and greens on top. Add burger. Garnish with mushrooms. Shave truffle over burger or drizzle with truffle oil.

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// prepared with pure evil by Rachel @ 12:17 PM

Monday, November 27, 2006

Two cold-weather drinks: Feuerzangebowle and Glühwein 

Feuerzangenbowle

(this is more fun than Glühwein, but more work too!)

2 Bottles red wine (ie: Bordeaux)
1 Orange
1 Lemon
4 Cloves
1/2-1 Cinnamon sticks
1 sugar cone (or sugar cubes) (250 g)
1/2 Liter Rum (over 50 Vol. %)

Peel and wash the orange and lemon rind, slice it into spirals and poke cloves into them. Squeeze the orange and lemon and mix this with the red wine in a cooking pot. Add the citron peel with the cloves and the cinnamon sticks. Heat but do not allow to boil, and then keep it simmering. Place fire-proof tongs or a flat, metal grater over the pot and balance the sugar cone on top of this. (If using sugar cubes, try to build a pyramid out of them on top of the metal.) Important is only that the melted sugar can drop into the pot below. Drench the sugar with rum and immediately light it on fire. As soon as the flame is gone, pour more rum onto it and light it again, until all the sugar has been melted down. Remove the grater or tongs, scoop out the rind, cloves, cinnamon sticks and serve hot.

Important: Always use a funnel to pour the rum onto the sugar - pouring right out of the bottle is dangerous.

Tip: If the spices, etc. are bound in a net bag, they are easier to remove later.

Orangen und Zitronenschale (ungespritzt!) heiß abwaschen, spiralenförmig abschälen, die Schalen mit Gewürznelken spicken. Orangen und Zitrone auspressen, den Saft zusammen mit dem Rotwein in den Kupferkessel füllen. Schalen und Stangenzimt dazugeben. Topf erhitzen (nicht kochen) und auf den Rechaud stellen. Feuerzange quer über den Topf legen, den Zuckerhut draufstellen, so das der schmelzende Zucker in den Topf tropfen kann. Zuckerhut mit Rum durchtränken und sofort anzünden. Sobald die Flamme erlöschen will wieder Rum nachgießen bis der Zucker komplett geschmolzen ist.
Feuerzange entfernen, Gewürze herausnehmen. Bowle heiß servieren.

Wichtig: immer mit einer Schöpfkelle den Rum nachgießen, niemals direkt aus der Flasche!

Tipp: Gewürze in ein Mulltuch binden, dann kann man sie leichter rausnehmen.



Glühwein

2 Bottles of Red Wine
1 Lemon
3 Cinnamon Sticks
4 Cloves
30-50 g Sugar
Pinch of Cardamom

Peel the lemon very thinly, and cut into strips. Heat the red wine in a pot, and add the lemon peel, cinnamon, cloves and sugar. Add cardamom to taste and let "marinate" for about half an hour. Before serving, heat it up again.

Zitrone dünn abschälen, in Scheiben schneiden. Rotwein in einem Topf erhitzen, Zitrone, Zimt, Nelken und Zucker dazugeben. Mit Kardamon abschmecken und etwa 1/2 Std ziehen lassen. Vor dem Gebrauch noch einmal erhitzen, heiß servieren.

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// prepared with pure evil by Rachel @ 5:27 AM

Thursday, February 02, 2006

Bread Pudding 

Again with the custard theme. This is an excellent use for stale bread. Some recipes call for slices of bread to be buttered before you put them in. mmm, butter....

Old-Fashioned Bread Pudding
From Diana Rattray, on About.com

INGREDIENTS:

2 cups milk
3 eggs, beaten
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 slices bread (or 4 cups cubed bread)
1/2 cup raisins
1 teaspoon cinnamon
dash nutmeg

PREPARATION:

Heat milk over low heat until hot, but not boiling.
In a bowl, combine eggs, sugar, and salt; stir well. Gradually stir about 1/4 of the hot milk to the egg mixture and stir in. Add remaining milk, stirring constantly. Stir in vanilla.
Place bread slices in a buttered baking dish, about 2-quart size.
Sprinkle raisins over bread. Pour the milk mixture over bread. Combine cinnamon and nutmeg; sprinkle over pudding mixture.
Bake, uncovered, at 300° for about 50 minutes, or until a knife inserted near the center comes out clean. (Some recipes say 350 instead of 300 so the temperature is clearly not critical.)
Serve warm with custard or another sauce. Fruity sauces work well, as do alcohol-based ones if you want to get fancy. (mmm. grand marnier...) A friend also claims that chocolate sauce is v. good with this, and I'm skeptical although the connection to Nutella makes me keep an open mind.
Serves 6. (heh heh. More like 3, in my experience--but then, we were all hungry....)

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// prepared with pure evil by Rachel @ 2:24 PM

Sunday, December 18, 2005

Three-layer cornbread 

Ultra-simple, ultra-delicious. The dry ingredients settle to the bottom, except for a thin crust on top, leaving a custard-like middle. mmm...I'm drooling just thinking about it.

6-8 servings

1 c. cornmeal
1/2 c. whole wheat flour
1/2 c. white flour
1/4 c. wheat germ
2 t. baking powder
1 t. salt
2 eggs
1/4 c. honey
1/4 c. safflower oil
3 c. milk

Combine the dry ingredients.
In a second bowl, combine the wet ingredients.
Mix all together. (The mixture will be runny.)
Pour into greased shallow baking pans.
Bake at 325 F for 25-45 minutes, until the top is springy to the touch.

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// prepared with pure evil by Rachel @ 8:17 AM

Saturday, October 02, 2004

Cookies: Evil-good and evil-bad versions 

How to make Haystacks

2 c white sugar
1/2 c butter
1/2 c milk
1/2 c cocoa

Boil, stirring, for 5 minutes (or 3 minutes for gooey cookies).

Add

1 T vanilla
1/2 t salt
3 c oats
1 c coconut

Mix well. Drop by the teaspoon onto waxed paper. Cool. Eat. Eat more. Put in an airtight container before you eat yourself sick. Try not to lick out the pot while it's still hot--that stuff is sticky and can really burn. (These are evil-good, because they're easy to make and hard to stop eating.)

How to make disgusting, vile, horrifyingly, traumatically nasty Haystacks

substitute Splenda for as little as half of the sugar.

shudder

"Hmm. I'm almost out of sugar," I think. "But here's some Splenda. They talk up how good this stuff is for baking," I think. "How bad can it be?" I think.

You'd think I'd have learned from my brother's Tequila Suicide experience (I'll tell you about it some other time) that if you find yourself asking "How bad can it be?" you usually don't want to know the answer.

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// prepared with pure evil by Rachel @ 9:59 AM