LANGUAGE LESSONS: Bon Voyage

Our bags are packed, we’re ready to go...

We’re off for two weeks in nearby Germany, to improve our German. We’ll be in Bamberg, taking German lessons in the mornings and photos in the afternoons. I have several posts saved and with luck they’ll show up while I’m gone, so come back! I don’t know yet about internet availability where we’ll be staying, but as soon as I can I’ll check in to read and answer your comments. So leave me some, ok?

And I hope you wish me a Bon Voyage in French, 'cause you can't say it in German without making me laugh. I'll tell you why another time.

NOTSO BUCCO

I love Osso Bucco, but sometimes I can’t find the right cut of veal for it. I know too that there are a lot of people who don’t eat veal for a lot of reasons. But that’s no reason to give up osso bucco! Here’s a version made with pork. I added a diced potato because I had one and it fit with the general feeling of the dish. This one cooks long and slow in the oven, so it’s perfect for a long lazy Saturday or Sunday. Because it doesn’t need a lot of last-minute fussing, it’s also perfect for a dinner party. Here I use a cut of pork called “spirling”. I think it’s roughly equivalent to sirloin chop. Basically, you want a cut that you can cook long and slow to make it fall apart.

Ingredients

1 T olive oil
1 leek, cleaned and roughly chopped
2-3 cloves garlic, chopped fine
2 carrots, cut into 1/2 inch dice
2 stalks celery, roughly chopped
1 potato, cut into 1/2 inch dice
4 pork sirloin chops
1/4 cup white wine or lemon juice or stock (to deglaze the pan)
I can chopped tomatoes
Salt, pepper

Preheat oven to 300F / 150C

In a large pan, heat half the olive oil and add garlic. Saute for a minute or two, then add the leek, carrots and celery. Sweat these till they’re soft, then remove to a large oven-safe dish. Add the potatoes to the dish and mix well. Heat the rest of the olive oil in the same pan, salt and pepper the pork chops and brown the them on both sides over medium-high heat. You don’t need flour for this, but you really want to get them seared, with those lovely brown bits on them. When they’re brown, put them on top of the vegetables in a single layer. De-glaze the pan with the wine or the wine or the lemon juice or stock, pour this over the meat. Pour the chopped tomatoes over it all and add 1/2 can water. Put it in a slow oven for 3 1/2 - 4 hours. Check it every hour and add liquid if necessary.


Serves four if the like it and ten if they don’t.

NIGEL'S LEMON CAKE

I just love Nigel Slater, don’t you? I mean, not in a stalker sort of way; rather, in a bloggy sort of way. From afar. From the kitchen, to be exact. His cookbooks are currently my favorites. (NOTE: International Truth in Blogging rules compel me to specify that I can be fickle when it comes to cookbooks. But Nigel is always near the top of my list) I love his no-nonsense approach to cooking: You’re just making something to eat. I also love that he tells us how to do something and then tells us variations on that.

My favorite of his books to date is Kitchen Diaries. Over the course of a year, Nigel tells us what he’s cooking. Not every day, but about three times a week. He speaks about his garden and what’s ripe and what he does with it. He has company and worries a little but not too much about what to serve. He makes wonderful food that I’d like to eat (Nigel: I’m normally available on Friday evenings...) and he writes beautifully about it.

I often pull out this book to get ideas. His ingredients are always fresh, and his meals are always interesting. One of the recipes that I’ve taken from his book is this cake. I love the texture of it and the ease of making it. It has just the perfect crumb to go with ice cream, or raspberry sauce or just a cup of tea. Or nothing. It goes just perfectly in my mouth, thank you! Of course I changed it. Not too much, but some. I think Nigel would approve.

What’s your current favorite cook book?

Nigel’s lemon cake

200 g / 7 oz (1 3/4 sticks) butter

200 g / 1 cup sugar + 2 Tablespoons for the syrup

90 g / 2/3 cup plain flour + more for the pan

90 g / 3/4 cup ground almonds

3/4 tsp baking powder

zest and juice from one large lemon

4 large eggs

1. Preheat oven to 160 C / 375 F.
2. Prepare a large loaf pan by cutting baking paper to fit the length, letting the excess fall over the sides. Grease and flour the ends of the tin.
3. Mix the flour, ground almonds, baking powder, and lemon zest in a bowl.
4. In a separate bowl, beat the butter and 200 g sugar till light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. The mixture might curdle at this point, but don’t worry--keep going. It will be ok after you add the dry ingredients.
5. Gently fold the dry ingredients into the wet ones. Nigel recommends using a metal spoon to avoid knocking the air out. Scrape the batter (it will be thick) into the prepared loaf pan.
6. Bake 45 minutes, until risen and golden brown on top.
7. Remove from the oven and let cool in the pan.
8. While the cake is cooling, make the syrup: mix the juice of your large lemon with 2 Tablespoons of sugar. You want this to be tart but not too puckery. When the cake is cool, pierce it all over with a bamboo skewer and spoon the syrup over it. Let it soak in. At this point, I usually sprinkle a little more sugar over the top to hide the holes.

This is perfect with a fruit sauce or coulis. It positively begs for some cream or ice cream. Or a nice thick Greek yogurt.

Notes: Nigel uses demerara sugar for this, but I can’t get that here. I made it once with brown sugar, and it had a heavenly flavor, but the color was a little gray. So I stick to white sugar, and it has a lovely yellow color.

Variations:

• When I have some nice berries (blueberries, raspberries, blackberries), I put half the batter in the pan and make a layer of berries and then add rest of the batter. It’s important to flour the berries first, though, or they just sink to the bottom.
• You can make a lemon glaze to pour over the top by mixing icing sugar / powdered sugar with lemon juice.

IN PRAISE OF SUMMER

CLASSICS: Waldorf Salad

I grew up in the Southeastern part of the US, where pecan trees abound. I love pecans, and find them difficult to get here in Belgium. However, I have some wonderful friends who send them to me from time to time, and this classic salad is one of my favorite things to make from them. We eat this often at the end of the summer, when the first apples and the first pecans come to the market. Or when it’s just too hot or too muggy to cook. Or when we’re just too pooped. Like today.

This salad reminds me of my grandmother, who used to make it for us. I love its old-fashioned simplicity and its mix of crunches. It’s a little sweet from the apple and the pecans and a little bitter from the celery and the mayonnaise adds just the right touch. I don’t add too many other things to it, though others often to. Why mess with perfection?

All of the measurements are ‘-ish’--you can adjust them for what you have on hand and/or what you like. You can use yogurt instead of mayonnaise, but it’s just not the same...After all, there’s a reason it’s a classic, eh?

Ingredients

2 crisp apples

6-8 large stalks of celery

1/2 cup / 100 g pecan pieces

3 soup spoons of mayonnaise

1. Wash, core and roughly chop the apples. Don’t peel them--the peel adds color to the salad!
2. Wash and roughly chop the celery and add it to the apple pieces.
3. If the pecan pieces are halves, crumble them with your fingers. Add them to the apples and celery.
4. Add the mayonnaise and mix gently. Serve chilled.

Serves 4 if they like it and 10 if they don’t.

Variations -- if you feel the need mess with a classic:

• Add 1 cup red or green grapes, cut in half.
• Serve over freshly washed lettuce.
• Replace the pecans with walnut pieces.
• Add 1/2 cup raisins.
• Chop everything fine and serve on leaves of Belgian Endive as an appetizer.

PANNA COTTA: A Vanilla Revelation

I have seen recipes for panna cotta for years, and frankly, I didn’t understand the point of it. Sweetened cream, set with gelatin? Eww. But when we were in Siena several years ago, I tried it for the first time. OH. MY. This is definitely something whose description doesn’t do it justice. Not at all. It’s just--well, wonderful.

It’s the perfect light dessert after a rich meal. It’s just the right touch of sweetness, balanced by the vanilla. When you add berries as I have, you have a light, sweet/tart dessert, the perfect end to a perfect meal. What more can you ask?

Personally, I can ask more. Call me greedy. I can ask that it be easy, and this is that. It takes only a few minutes to prepare, and I make it in little verrines, so that I don’t have to un-mold it. This presentation is not only pretty but it’s also (even better) almost totally do-ahead. I usually have an Italian almond cookie to put on the side, and maybe a pretty edible flower.

Ingredients

1/4 cup heavy cream

1/4 cup milk

1/4 cup (scant) sugar

1/2 vanilla bean

2 sheets gelatine (3.5 - 4 g total)

To serve:

Strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries or any other tart berry macerated in sugar to draw out the juice.

1. Soak the gelatine sheets in cold water while you prepare the cream. Put the cream, milk, sugar in a saucepan.
2. Cut the vanilla bean in half lengthwise and scrape out the seeds. Add these to the cream mixture, and whisk to break up the vanilla seeds.
3. Squeeze the water from the gelatine and stir it into the pan with the hot cream/milk.
4. Heat gently till just beginning to steam--don’t let it boil! Don’t even let it simmer. Keep it gently steaming for about 5 minutes to allow the vanilla to steep.
5. Pour into 4 small verrines or pretty glasses, and chill for 8 hours or overnight. To serve, spoon berries and their juice over the panna cotta and add a dab of whipped cream if you like.

Serves 4 if they like it and 10 if they don’t.

Variations:

• Make this in a larger bowl and unmold it onto a plate at serving time. Surround it with berries or fruit coulis and serve.
• Make individual servings in small cups and unmold each of them. This is really pretty, especially if you have some pretty dessert plates.
• Use rosewater or lavender instead of vanilla for a delicate, floral perfume.

TWO PESTO PASTA

This is my favorite, easy pasta recipe. This is the recipe I make when I don’t feel like cooking, or whenever we have unexpected company and I want something different but easy to feed them--I always have the ingredients on hand.

For these photos I used cappellacci, which are cute little hat-shaped pasta, but you can use any pasta that will hold a thicker sauce: rigatoni, penne, farfalle, tortilloni, spirelli, even tagliatelli. Basically, whatever you have on hand, but probably not spaghetti or cappelini. This sauce needs something to grab on to. It’s good with plain or flavored or whole-wheat pasta.

The sauce is based on plain yogurt, and I try to use a tangy one. I usually use low-fat yogurt, because that’s what I always have on hand. You could use greek or bulgarian yogurt as well. A word to the wise, though: be SURE the yogurt’s plain. When we lived in DC, Dan’s cousin Dick came to town for a business meeting. I naturally assumed that Dick would have dinner in a fancy restaurant with his colleagues, but he said he’d rather take pot luck with us. I didn’t have much in the house, so I made this pasta for him. I (luckily) had one carton of yogurt left in the fridge, and when I opened it I crossed my fingers that it wouldn’t be cherry or chocolate. Nope, it was white. So I made the dish, and served it proudly. When I took the first bite, I gagged. Really. I actually gagged. The yogurt wasn’t chocolate, it was vanilla. Eewwww. I jumped up and reached for Dick’s plate, explaining red-facedly that it wasn’t supposed to taste like that. But he held on to his plate for dear life (probably afraid of what might replace it!) “No!” Dick said, “I LIKE it”. And he ate it. Every bite. I loved him for that. So when you make this, please double check the yogurt. It should be PLAIN.

Ingredients

1 cup/250 ml plain yogurt

3-4 Tablespoons basil pesto

3-4 Tablespoons red pesto

a generous handful of parmesan, plus more for garnish

1 pound / 500 g pasta

salt

1. Fill a large pot with plenty of cold water, and bring it to a boil. Add a good handful of salt. When it’s at a rolling boil, add the pasta and stir from time to time while it’s cooking.
2. Meanwhile, take a pan large enough to hold the pasta easily (I use a wok) and in it put the yogurt and the pestos and the parmesan. Stir to mix and heat gently. You don’t want this to cook, you only want to knock the cold off it. When it’s barely warm, turn the heat off and wait till the pasta is done.
3. When the pasta is done as you like it, drain it well and dump it all into the sauce. Stir well to mix. Serve sprinkled with more freshly grated parmesan.

Note that because you’re mixing complementary colors (red and green), the color of this will be sort of, well, brown. You can modify the brown-ness by changing the proportions of the two pestos. I sometimes make it redder or greener. In any case, it’s still brown...

Variations--basically you can add whatever you have around that will go with these flavors. Some examples:

• A handful of chopped dried or semi-dried tomatoes.
• Chicken
• Toasted pine nuts
• You can also use pesto made with rocket instead of basil. It’s a different flavor, but it also goes with the tomatoes.

Serves 4 if they like it and 10 if they don’t