Barbecue Sauce

Here's my recipe for barbecue sauce.  It's adapted from "Southern Barbecue Sauce" in Craig Claiborne's The New New York Times Cookbook.

BARBECUE SAUCE (click here for a printer-friendly version)

INGREDIENTS

2 tablespoons unsalted butter
6 tablespoons cider vinegar
1/4 cup water
1-1/2 cups ketchup
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1/2 to 1 teaspoon Tabasco sauce
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder, or 1 teaspoon finely chopped garlic (I usually use garlic powder these days)
3 tablespoons vegetable oil, such as canola
1/4 - 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 bay leaf
1 tablespoon smoked paprika
3 tablespoons molasses
1 lemon
salt (I don't add any) and pepper to taste

DIRECTIONS

In a saucepan over low heat, combine everything but the lemon.  Add the juice of the lemon, then cut the lemon into quarters and toss it into the pan, too.  Heat the sauce thoroughly, but don't let it boil.  You don't have to "cook" this for a long time--just heat it enough to blend everything.  You can make the sauce while the meat is cooking.

Brush the sauce onto chicken or ribs in the last few minutes of cooking; otherwise, it will burn.

To save leftover sauce:  discard the lemon.  Store the sauce in a covered container in the fridge or freezer.

A FEW NOTES:

I have increased the Tabasco and red pepper flakes, which makes the sauce zippier but by no means really hot.  Adjust it to your taste, of course.  The original recipe calls for conventional paprika and much less of it.  I like the character and depth of smoked paprika, which is now widely available.  I think it adds a lot of character to the sauce.

The original recipe called for 2 tablespoons of sugar instead of molasses.  For years, I left that out altogether.  Lately, though, I have liked the Kansas City-style sauces I've had, most of which include molasses.  That too has seemed to add some interesting flavor notes.  After a little futzing, I found that I liked it with 3 tablespoons of molasses, but again, feel free to experiment and add more, less, or none.

Here's a trick with molasses:  warm it briefly--like 10 seconds--in the microwave to make it easier to pour.  (But be sure you've removed anything from the bottle that has foil in it!  I ignited the bottle of molasses the other day because the top of the bottle still had a bit of the foil seal on it.  It was very dramatic.)  To measure the molasses, use the spoon that you used for the oil without washing it in between:  the remaining traces of oil will let the molasses slide easily out of the spoon, and you won't waste any.

I try to be careful to keep this from burning.  Low heat (indirect, if possible) is the key.  Watch it closely.  I often apply the sauce a couple of times, though for ribs, I will usually just coat them once thoroughly.

We usually have bowls of this on the table for people to use to dip their meat into if they choose.

A method for cooking ribs

The title is quite deliberate:  A method.  I would never presume to have the method.  But I have worked on this for a long time, and I am finally satisfied with the results.  Judging by the rate at which they are consumed, I think my family agrees.  I think I've come up with a reliable way to make good, smoky ribs at home that rival most of the ones I've had at barbecue joints.

The Benchmarks

For me, excellent ribs should be juicy and fall-off-the-bone tender.  At the same time, the meat can't be overcooked--it should neither be hard nor mushy.  It should hold its shape and not be stringy or crumbly.  The ribs should have a smoky flavor.  They should be well-seasoned but not overpoweringly so.

I've made ribs by various means:  smoking, baking them in the oven then putting them on the grill, just on the grill, you name it.  But I never quite achieved the balance between keeping the integrity of the meat and having it come easily off the bone that I was looking for, until now.

The Basic Secret

I'll go into excruciating detail in case you want to know exactly what I do, but I'll give you the short version up front (sort of like an abstract in a dissertation--the metaphor is apt):  the key is slow cooking over wood (to get the smoky flavor).  I like to use a barbecue grill rather than a smoker.  The key to the proper use of the grill is indirect heat that is high enough to cook the meat but low enough to have it happen slowly.  That's all there is to it.  Sort of.  I've picked up a lot of tricks and tips along the way.  I will give all the steps here.  Cooking ribs takes about five hours, start to finish.

How I Did It (the Young Frankenstein reference is deliberate)

Here it is.  My step-by-painstaking-step instructions for really good ribs.  I hasten to say that I think what's important here is the method:  slow cooking over a charcoal fire.  The particulars of how you season the ribs, whether or not to use sauce, what the sauce is like, and so on, are up to you.  I will tell you what I do about seasoning and sauce, but don't feel bound by it.  My family and I like them this way (with a dry rub and a Kansas City-style sauce), but you may not.  I think the method will work well no matter how you season and sauce the ribs (or don't sauce at all--a la Memphis).

1.  Prepare the grill.

Coals lighting up.

I start the grill for ribs the same way I do for any other cooking--nothing special here.  I use a Weber kettle, and for a project like this, I start with all fresh coals. (For other applications, I might reuse coals from the previous outing, but since these have to last a long time, I prefer to start with all new ones.)  I also like to remove all the ash and debris from the bottom of the grill before I start.

I long ago dispensed with lighter fluid (too scary) and self-lighting charcoal (just icky).  So I use a chimney, pictured at the left.  You put newspaper in the bottom (two full-sized, double sheets--each sheet is four pages from a big paper like the New York Times, loosely crumpled up) and the charcoal in the top, then light the newspaper.  Be sure all the vents are fully open at the bottom of the grill (this is no problem for me:  the bottom vents on my grill got stuck long ago in the open position and won't budge).  Allow plenty of ventilation and air circulation around the grill, and keep it well away from anything that could burn.  It takes about half an hour for the coals to be ready.

What kind of charcoal?  Kingsford has a line of charcoal with hickory or mesquite wood embedded in it, and I like this a lot.  I think it really does add more smoky flavor. (I bought a bag of the regular stuff recently, because the bag was bigger and it was less expensive.  I thought the flavor was noticeably different and less interesting.)  I know it's not as fashionable, but I prefer briquettes to lump charcoal:  they burn slower and more evenly.  But if you're skilled with lump charcoal and prefer it, by all means, use it.

2.  Prepare the meat.

I emphasize, this is what I do.   You can approach this very differently if you want!  You might like seasoning your ribs earlier (I haven't found that it makes a big difference, but go ahead if you want!).  You might like a different style of ribs.  It's all OK.  I'll note the steps that I think are crucial.

OK, but what kind of meat?

Yup.  Here's the first bone of contention.  I could also have said, "Aye, there's the rub."  All puns are fully intended.  Feel free to rib me about it.

But seriously, there are different styles of ribs, not to mention different meats altogether.  I should probably have said right up front that I'm cooking pork ribs here.  If you want to make beef ribs, you'll have to figure that out for yourself--I've never made them.

There are two basic styles of pork ribs:  baby back ribs and spare ribs or St. Louis-style ribs (more about this in a second).  The baby backs are smaller, leaner, and have shorter bones.  The spare ribs and St. Louis-style ribs are longer and flatter; they're also fattier.  Left to my own devices, I'd more often cook spare ribs:  the greater amount of fat means that they are more likely to be tender and juicy if you cook them properly.  But my family generally prefers the leaner baby back ribs, and I'm proud to say that this method has yielded excellent results with both types.  The ones pictured throughout here are baby backs, and believe me, they were tender, juicy, and succulent.  I liked them a lot.  If your family is indifferent on this topic, you may want to start with spare ribs until you master the techniques, as they are more reliably tender and juicy.

If you buy spare ribs, chances are they will be untrimmed.  It is just fine to cook them just as they are, but if you want a more elegant presentation, you can trim them into St. Louis-style ribs.  There are good directions on how to do this here.  (Personally, I'm not convinced that anything about barbecue needs to be elegant, but again, this is a matter of taste.)  Be aware that packages of meat labeled "St. Louis-style ribs" may actually be untrimmed spare ribs.  If you want St. Louis ribs, you'll need to do a little cutting.  It's easy to tell if the ribs have been trimmed or not:  the untrimmed ones have an irregular (rhomboidal) shape.  If all the bones are neatly the same length, the ribs have been trimmed.

Getting the meat ready for the grill:

First, remove the membrane.

Whichever kind you get, chances are (unless you have a very special and careful butcher) that the membrane will still be attached.  While it's a bit of a nuisance to get it off, I think it's worth doing.  This is the ickiest part of the process.

Removing the membrane.

To remove the membrane, set the ribs meat-side down (the underside of the bones is exposed) on the counter or board.  With a small knife or your fingernail or whatever, get under the membrane at one end.  It will resist you.  Once you get it going, though, it will peel off fairly easily and usually in one long piece, as in the photo above.  (I had the ribs in one hand and the camera in the other.  Kinda tricky.)  Pull it off completely and discard it.

If you're having trouble finding an edge, make one by making a small, shallow slit in the membrane between the bones.  Try not to cut into the meat, though it's certainly no big deal if you end up poking into the meat a little.  Pull the membrane off in one direction, then go back and get the other side.  As I say, this is the messiest and least pleasant part of the whole enterprise.  I've never skipped this step--I feel that the seasonings penetrate better without the membrane and that the resulting ribs are tenderer, but this could be my imagination.  If you find this too hard to accomplish, I don't think it would be the end of the world if you left the membrane on.  Just don't enter your ribs in a competition in that case.  (Frankly, the only prize I need is delicious ribs.  I have no interest in contests.)

Pat the meat dry with paper towel.

Patting the meat dry.

While this too is icky and leaves you with a pile of really gross paper towels, resist the urge to skip this step.  The seasoning will work better if the surface is dry, and the meat will cook better, too.  Just get yourself a big wad of paper towel and pat the meat dry on each side.

I was cooking three slabs of ribs on this occasion.  In the photo, one slab is already seasoned, and I'm drying the second one.  In the upper right corner is the unspeakably gooey towel from drying the first rack of ribs.  (None of this is for the faint-hearted, and it's also why Sue will be a vegetarian once I'm no longer around to deal with the nasty chores involved with cooking meat.)

Season as desired.

I suspect you could just salt and pepper the meat, and it would be delicious.  I like to use a dry rub that I got from Saveur magazine some years ago.  You can find the recipe here.  I keep the rub (which you don't rub into the meat at all--you just sprinkle it on) in a quart-sized plastic container, like from yogurt, then I transfer it to an empty seasoned salt bottle that I use as a shaker.  The seasoning mixture isn't only for ribs; it's also good on things like chicken.  Sprinkle the meat generously with the rub on both sides.  Despite the name, you don't need to rub it in.  And while you want to cover the meat thoroughly, you don't need to bury it in dry rub.  The rub is pretty salty, so keep that in mind.

I haven't found that there's any benefit to doing this way ahead, but I know that some people feel as though they're doing more if they get the meat ready a day or so before.  Go ahead and try it if you want!  My ribs come out fine if I just do this while the coals are lighting.

Three racks of ribs, ready to go.

3.  From the counter onto the fire.

The coals are ready.

By the time you're done cleaning and seasoning the meat, the fire is likely to be ready, or nearly so.  Since you're going for long, slow cooking here, there's some merit to emptying the coals from the chimney a little earlier than you might do if you're direct-cooking steaks or burgers.  My signal that they're ready is that the coals on top are just tinged with ash.  The ones on the bottom will be fully lit, and the ones on the top are getting going.  This will give a fire that is plenty hot but that will burn for a good long while.  For other kinds of cooking, I usually wait until I see flames coming from the top of the chimney and all the coals are fully gray.

Coals on one side, water pan on the other.

At this point, you'll build your indirect fire.  And here's a place where I do something different from what the Weber Company suggests.  They will tell you to scatter coals in two heaps, one at either side of the grill, and to leave the center open for cooking.  But I find it gives more space and is easier if you heap all the coals on one side of the grill:  just dump them out of the chimney right at the edge of the kettle.  You can make a heap that will come just under the grate.  This will give you much more cooking surface--about half the grill or more.  While it's true that it's a little hotter closer to the heap of coals, it's not that big a difference.  Once you've heaped the coals on one half of the kettle, place a pan of warm tap water in the other half.  Since it will get really messy, I like to use disposable aluminum pans for this purpose.  You could also use a pan from your kitchen that you're not too in love with and cover it with several layers of foil.  Set the cooking grate on top, leaving the flap over the coals open, which will make it easier to add stuff later on.

Circulation of heat and smoke is important.

In order for things to cook evenly, there has to be good circulation of heat and smoke under the dome of the kettle, and this took me some figuring to achieve.  If you're just cooking one slab of ribs, it's no problem:  just set them on the grate.  But if I'm going to all this effort, I want to cook a couple of slabs, and this is where some ingenuity is required.

I suspect you can get a gadget that would let you set racks of ribs on their side on top of the grill (I think I've seen this in catalogs).  But that would be a bulky object that wouldn't see much use.  I found that I could improvise something that works pretty well.

A roasting rack can be used to arrange your ribs on the grill.

I just use my roasting rack--the folding rack that I put under my turkey at Thanksgiving.  It will get messy, but you can clean it up pretty easily (the rack in the picture has been used frequently for cooking ribs for years and doesn't look bad).  Soak it for a while in the sink after you use it, then scrub off as much as you can.  If you're still not satisfied, pop it in the dishwasher.  As you can see in the photo, I set the rack to a fairly open angle.  I then set this on top of the grate in the grill and lay a slab of ribs onto each side.  The slab that's closer to the fire slightly risks overcooking, so I make sure that the bone-side of that slab is on the outside nearest the coals.  Since I was cooking three slabs of ribs, I put two on the roasting rack and laid one directly on the grill, bone-side down, behind it.  I'm showing you two views of the ribs on the grill below, right at the beginning of the process.  (Click on the photos to enlarge them if you want.)  Note that the flap on the grate is open.

One more little trick:  add some wood chips or chunks to the fire just before you put the lid onto the grill.  I used mesquite in this case, but I've also had excellent luck with hickory.  You may like a different kind of hardwood--that's all up to you.  No need to soak the wood:  it'll smoke just fine.

Add some wood chunks to your fire for more smokiness.

4.  Now, be patient!

Set the lid on the kettle and partially close the top vents--I keep mine about halfway open.  You can futz with this, since I'm sure a lot depends on the kind of charcoal you're using, the ambient temperature, etc.  You want a fire that is hot enough to cook the meat, but gentle enough to do it slowly.  The water in the pan, which probably helps to keep the meat moist, most likely also keeps the temperature down a bit.  Plan on the meat cooking for 3 - 4 hours.

Try your best to resist peeking.  Every time you open the lid, you're letting heat and smoke escape.  I try to limit my fussing with things to about once an hour or so.  (OK, maybe 45 minutes.)

Here's how they looked after an hour:

After one hour on the grill.

Notice that the meat looks like it's cooking, but it doesn't look that much different from when it started out.  The meat is beginning to shrink from the bones a bit in the middle rack.  You can also see that I added a few unlit coals and some more wood to the fire at this point.  You'll want to replenish the charcoal and wood occasionally.  (I add charcoal maybe once and wood chips two or three times.  Allow the fire to die down a bit towards the end of the cooking to prevent overcooking.) Also peek to see that there's enough water in the pan underneath the ribs and add more water if necessary.  Hot tap water is fine.

After two hours, it's starting to look more like cooked meat.

After two hours on the grill.

But even though the meat has shrunk from the bones even further, they're still not ready.  (Truthfully, you could probably safely eat them now.  It's just that the meat will get softer if they cook awhile longer, especially if the fire is slow.  I added wood but not charcoal at this stage.)  My test?  I try jiggling a bone.  If I can move it or even pull it out of the meat, then it's done.  The slabs will also seem a bit fragile, almost like they'll fall apart when you handle them.  That's what you want!

If you like your ribs sauced (I do), brush them generously with sauce during the last 15 - 30 minutes of cooking.  (Here is my recipe for barbecue sauce, but use any sauce you like--including a good bottled sauce.)  You'll want to leave them on the grill for about 3 to 3-1/2 hours in all.  If it's going quicker, it's not the end of the world--I've never thrown away any ribs I cooked!  It just means your grill was too hot:  try closing the vents down further next time.  If it's taking longer, open them for a hotter fire.  If it's cool outside, which it never is in Arizona, they will take longer, too.  So the time is approximate, but I'm shooting for 3 hours in the smoke.

Here's how they looked when I took them off of the grill.  They're mahogany in color, the meat is soft but still has its shape, and they're glazed from the sauce.

The ribs, fresh off the grill.

I suggest taking them from the fire with as little fanfare as possible, because there's one more step that will ensure total success, and you want to fend off the hungry hordes.

5.  The ultimate secret:  let them rest.

You'll notice that the ribs are in a large roasting pan.  A bit before I took them off the grill, I preheated my oven to 200 degrees.  (What's this???  You're using an OVEN????!!!??? For BARBECUING????!!!)  I know, it's heresy.  But bear with me here.

I cover the roasting pan with aluminum foil and slip the whole shebang into the oven for about half an hour.  This lets the meat rest and probably even steams it ever so slightly, which in my opinion creates just that last bit of tenderness.  You can also use this time to finish your preparations of potato salad, cole slaw, tomato aspic, or whatever else you're serving.  I've even successfully let them cool once they're off the grill, then reheated them in the pan with the foil on, using a very slow oven (200 - 250 degrees) until they're hot and you can smell the smoke.  They'll be terrific the next day, so you could conceivably cook them one day and serve them the next.

To carve the ribs, place them bone-side up on a board and cut carefully between the bones.  They're more on an angle than you think, and you'll need a sharp knife to deal with any cartilage that's between the bones.  Serve them up with plenty of sauce--and plenty of napkins.  Don't worry about leftovers--there won't be any.

It's worth asking:  why go to all this trouble?  Well, for one thing, I actually enjoy it.  For another, I can make the meat just the way I want it:  commercial barbecue is often too something--too salty, too sweet, whatever.  I have always been pleased with how my ribs taste; it was the tenderness, etc., that I found hard to achieve.  And that's the one thing that barbecue places pretty reliably get right.  So once I accomplished that, I knew I'd have something I liked even better than what I could buy.  Which is often the case.

Do what you like, and don't apologize for it.  If it ends up producing yummy food, trust me:  no one will complain.

UPDATE: Lately, find it easier to take the ribs from the grill when they are done, slather them with sauce, wrap them in foil, and leave them in the 200-degree oven for an hour or so. This is easier than saucing them on the grill, and it yields a lovely, soft glaze with no risk of charring. Also, somewhere along the way, I picked up a grill rack that holds four racks of ribs more or less upright. I use this now instead of my improvised one. Be sure to put the meaty end of the ribs downward. (May 27, 2017)

Breaking a long silence

My dad used to tell this joke:

There was a little boy who never spoke.  His parents, who were naturally concerned, took him to every kind of doctor and specialist to try to figure out what was wrong.  No one could find any explanation.

One morning shortly after his eighth birthday, the boy sat down to breakfast.  He took a bite or two and then proclaimed, "This oatmeal is lumpy."

His mother and father were beside themselves with joy.  They hugged the boy, they cried, they called their family and neighbors with the good news.  Finally, when she had calmed down a little, his mother asked him, "Honey, why did you say nothing all this time?"

"Because," answered the boy, "up till now, everything has been satisfactory."

****

OK, so everything hasn't been satisfactory with me for the last year and a half--I mean, when and where is everything satisfactory?

BUT I've been busier than the proverbial one-armed paper hanger, and I haven't either had much spare time or--more to the point--that much to say in the while since I last posted on the blog.

So what changed?  One word:  ribs.  I made some killer ribs a couple of times in the last couple of weeks after years and years of trying different methods.  And in the spirit of sharing, I plan to explain, in excruciating detail, exactly what I do.

So stay tuned.  In the next few days, I hope to have a rib post for you.  In the meanwhile, I hope everything is satisfactory in your world.

Violins, Not Violence (An Open Letter to Wayne LaPierre and the NRA)

Dear Mr. LaPierre,

We are all traumatized by last week's events in Newtown, Connecticut.  We want answers; what's more, we want solutions.  You've proposed one: put an armed guard in every school.

In itself, it's not a bad idea.  You're right when you point out that lots of places and people have armed guards already, so why not our schools?  As a solution, though, it's pretty naive.  As some critics were quick remind us, there was already an armed police presence at many of the places that have seen terrible mass shootings (Columbine, Virginia Tech); it didn't help.  The police can't be everywhere, so how many would we need?  One in every classroom?  One in every store, clinic, and movie theater?  When would there be enough?

You pointed to the culture as a source of the problem, and that may be a better step in the right direction.  (Although I must say that I thought your comments were simplistic, and I was horrified by your notion that we need to register all people with mental illness.  What a terrible, un-American idea--from a group that passionately defends a constitutional right, no less!)

How do we change our culture and make it less violent?  I have a suggestion.  Let's give every kid in the United States a musical instrument.  Let's teach every kid to play them, and let's have every kid play in bands, orchestras, guitar ensembles, steel drum bands, sing in choirs, and make music any way we can think of.

In all the things I've heard about the shooters, I've never heard that one of them was in a musical group at school.  They're loners.  But you can't be a loner in the choir, band, or orchestra--you have to be part of the group, and people will pay attention to you.  What's more, you get to work with others--all different kinds of others--to make something beautiful and worthwhile.  And if you were troubled and starting to go over the edge, I'll bet somebody in that group would notice and would do something to help you.

This isn't just a pipe dream.  It works.  It's worked in Venezuela's El Sistema.  It works in Brazil, where the government has made music a universal requirement in elementary and secondary schools.  In Paraguay, there's a town where the kids care so much about making music that they construct musical instruments out of things they find in the landfill.

Music is a way of directing energy.  It's a way to show kids what they can accomplish by breaking a problem down to its component parts and working on it consistently and systematically.  It's a way of developing the discipline to persevere.  And in the end, you're making music.  You're doing something constructive and beautiful.

Your problem, Mr. LaPierre, is that you can't see past the end of your gun.  The only solution you can see to gun violence is more guns, which seems a bit like saying that the cure for alcoholism is more liquor.  You want good guys to have guns so that bad guys can be stopped.  I want people to be less interested in using guns for violent purposes.

My idea is no more a panacea than yours is, but it's a lot more positive.  We will need a variety of approaches to make our culture less violent and less dangerous.  So put more armed guards in schools if you want, but put more violins there, too.  Maybe then, the only gunfire our kids will hear is the sound of the cannons at the end of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture.

Respectfully,
David Schildkret

(I teach music at Arizona State University and direct choirs in Arizona and Maine.)

ADDENDUM (Corrected version):  The earlier version of this referred to armed military personnel at Fort Hood as an example of a place where people with arms couldn't always help.  A commenter pointed out that soldiers don't carry weapons on military bases.

A Christmas Tradition

One sign of Christmas at our house is the smell of stollen baking.  This sweet, delicate bread is a German tradition, and the recipe we use comes from Sue's family.  It goes back at least to Sue's great-grandmother and is possibly even older than that.

Since I'm the baker/cook, the actual making of the stollen has fallen to me.  It's a bit of a quest, because I make it every year, and I always think that the ones from Sue's family are better.  Best of all are the ones that Sue's Aunt Anita makes.  Anita is now in her 90s and still going strong.  She bakes stollen every year, and hers are the nes plus ultra of stollen--delicious and with a delicate, moist texture that I envy.

We got the handwritten recipe years ago from Sue's mother, but there was an immediate problem:  the recipe called for "1-1/2 pounds of flour (7 cups)."  The problem is that 7 cups is more like 2 pounds of flour, so something was off.  This meant that I was fudging with the amount of flour for years, and I do mean years.  Eventually, I settled on something like 9 cups of flour--much more than originally called for.  But anything less seemed to make a dough I couldn't manage.

Then a summer or two ago, I asked Anita about this.  She mentioned something that wasn't noted in the recipe:  she sifts the flour.  Three times.  It occurred to me that sifting, which would aerate the flour, might affect how much liquid it would absorb.  So I tried it, and while the dough was very soft, I was able to make it with something like the 7 cups called for in the original recipe.  The results were wonderful.

So how much flour should you use?  It depends on your bread-making skills and how you assemble the dough.  If you're an experienced bread maker, and if you mix up the dough by hand (and not with a mixer), you can probably manage with 7 or 8 cups of flour.  If you find this too soft to handle or if you mix the dough in a machine, add more.  The bread will be a little stiffer and more substantial, but it will still be wonderful.

The other secret to great stollen is to bake it until it just done, and no longer.  This year, I baked it at 325 for 1/2 hour (I had been doing 350 for 20 - 25 minutes).  Again, the results were more delicate and delicious.

One last thing:  Sue's mother, Marie, was adamant that the fruit shouldn't be mixed into the dough (as most stollen recipes require).  In her family, the fruit was put in as a filling, with the dough wrapped around it.  The idea is that it resembles the baby Jesus, wrapped in swaddling clothes.  The fruit filling, by the way, can be any dried fruit you like.  We prefer a combination of raisins, sliced almonds, glace cherries, and candied pineapple and orange peel.  Some people like citron.  Whatever fruit you use, be a bit sparing.  If you put in too much, it will just fall out when you slice the loaf.  Here's the recipe.  (Click here for a printer-friendly version.)

BECKER FAMILY STOLLEN

(originally from Sue's mother, Marie Picker Griffin, who got it from her mother, Martha Becker Picker; adapted over the years by David Schildkret)

Ingredients:

7-10 c. flour (I use unbleached all-purpose flour; I do not recommend bread flour in this recipe.  Sift the flour up to three times after measuring; use the smallest amount of flour possible.)

1 c. sugar

1 t. salt

grated rind of 1 large lemon

1 lb. butter, softened

3 eggs

2 c. milk

3 cakes, packages, or 3 T of yeast

1/2 c. warm water

brown sugar, cinnamon, candied fruit, and nuts for filling

           

confectioner’s sugar and milk for glaze

1.  Scald the milk and allow to cool. (I put the milk in a 1-quart measure and heat it in the microwave at 50% power for 4 minutes.)

2.  When the milk is cool, dissolve the yeast in the water.  Add a bit of the sugar, and allow to double in volume.

3.  Combine the yeast and the milk, and add 3 cups of flour to make a sponge.  Allow this to stand until it is puffy and risen to almost double in volume.

4.  While the sponge is rising, cream the butter.  Add the remaining sugar, salt, eggs, and lemon rind.  Combine this with the sponge.

5.  Add remaining flour until the dough is soft, but still substantial enough to knead.

6.  Knead the dough for a few minutes.  It will still be sticky, and it will probably never really be smooth and elastic like sandwich bread dough.

[Let's pause here.  I found a handy tool a few years ago, and it makes dealing with soft dough like this much more manageable.  It's called a bench knife (pictured to the right and available from cooking supply stores like King Arthur), and it's useful for lots of aspects of bread making.  You can use it to lift the dough while kneading--I just keep it in my right hand and scoop up the dough with it, sort of fold it over, and push down with my other hand.  It's also good for scraping up the dough from the work surface and for dividing the dough into loaves.]

7.  Place the dough in a buttered bowl covered with a towel or plastic wrap.  Set in a warm place and let rise until doubled in bulk (2-3 hours).  (One way to get a warm spot is to turn the oven for 30 seconds, then switch it off and put the bread dough in the oven.  Just be careful not to turn it on again for some other purpose!)

8.  When it has fully risen, punch the dough down and form it it into a ball.  Let it rest on the floured counter under a towel for 10 - 15 minutes.  Sprinkle with flour if necessary and knead a few times.  Divide the dough into 4 parts (this number has gradually changed in my wife’s family.  I think they started with 2, then went to 3; we find 4 an ideal size, but we do go to as many as 6 when we are making gifts).  Roll each part into a rectangle and fill.

9.  To fill:  roll the dough into a rectangle of about 3/8” - 1/2” thickness (for four-part dough, the rectangle is roughly 14” x 8” or 9”).  Sprinkle the whole surface with a tablespoon or two of brown sugar, and then with a generous sprinkling of cinnamon.  Spread these evenly over the surface--to the very edge--with your hand.  Now, have the long side of the dough horizontal and imagine it divided into 3 columns vertically.  Sprinkle fruit and nuts rather sparingly down the center column (I use raisins, candied orange peel, candied cherries, candied pineapple, and sliced almonds.  Resist the temptation to be overly generous:  the filling will just fall out when the bread is sliced!  I use only about 3 or 4 cherries on a layer, for instance, and I cut them in half.  Similarly, I use only 2 or 3 pieces of pineapple and slice them each into 2 or 3 bits.  A small container of orange peel easily fills all four stollens.).  Then fold one side over to cover the filling and press down gently.  (You are folding almost like you would a business letter, except that you are doing it from the side.)  Sprinkle the sugar, cinnamon, and goodies over the new top, and fold the second side over.

10.  Place on a greased baking sheet and allow to rise covered with a towel for 1/2 hour-45 minutes.  Proceed to roll and fill the remaining dough.

11.  After they have risen, bake the loaves at 325 - 350 degrees F. for 1/2 hour-45 minutes, depending on the size.

12.  Glaze:  If you prefer a clear glaze, mix 1 c. confectioner’s sugar with a few T of water or milk and drizzle over the loaves while they are still quite hot.  I prefer to see the glaze as white streaks, so I wait until the loaves are cool.  Mix 1 c. confectioner’s sugar with 2-3 T of milk, and drizzle off the end of a tablespoon using a side-to-side motion across the short dimension of the finished loaf.  Sue’s mother adds a dash of vanilla to the glaze, but I do not.  I find that it turns the glaze a muddy color, and it does not add a noticeable flavor.  It is more reasonable to add the vanilla if you are glazing warm loaves.

13.  Store tightly wrapped once the loaves are completely cooled and the glaze has hardened.

As you can tell, this is a bit of a project.  I usually enlist some helpers for filling the dough--everyone has one or two things assigned to them that they sprinkle on.  My oven will only hold two loaves at a time, but that's no big deal--I shape all four loaves, and then I bake them two at a time.  The second two rise an extra half-hour while the first two bake, but it doesn't seem to hurt anything.

The trick will be to keep from eating a whole loaf by yourself the minute it comes out of the oven.  But remember, the holidays are about sharing--so share!

The World's Simplest Pie: Key Lime

A confession:  I wrote this entry months ago, but I wanted a photo.  I took the photo and promptly forgot the whole thing.  Just now, I went to post a holiday recipe and found this lurking.  So here it is.  The holiday recipe (for Sue's family stollen) is forthcoming.

The actual post:  The headline here isn't hyperbole--the only way a pie could be simpler would be if you bought it from the store.  All you have to do for an amazing Key Lime Pie is to combine lime juice with some sweetened condensed milk, stir it up, and pour it into a pie shell.  Then you top it with something.  If you're really cooking challenged, it could be whipped cream.  That's all there is to it.  Really.  And it comes out fabulous.

Of course, I do have a couple of tricks that make it a little nicer, but you could make a perfectly acceptable pie with just the basic steps I mentioned there.  (And if you prefer lemon pie, you could use lemon juice instead of lime.  I've done it.  It's delicious.)  The lime flavor will be more intense and brighter if you put a little grated lime rind into the custard, and stirring in some egg yolks gives it a nice richness.  Plus then you have some egg whites around to make a meringue for the topping, which I prefer to whipped cream for this pie.

That leaves only the crust to be considered.  In a pinch (and I've done this more than once), you can buy a graham cracker crust at the grocery store.  This doesn't seem like much of a compromise to me:  what difference does it make if you crush store-bought graham crackers or if they do?  But after I discovered Galletas Maria in Venezuela and found that they're pretty easy to come by in grocery stores in the US, I decided that those might make a good crust for Key Lime Pie--and they do.  Their flavor, less distinctive than graham crackers, complements the lime better.  So if I have time, I'll take the extra step of making a cookie crust of my own.  You could use a pastry crust if you prefer.  (Click here for a printer-friendly version of the recipe.)

FOR THE CRUST

1 5-oz (140 gram) package Galletas Maria
6 tablespoons butter, melted
1/4 cup sugar

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Pulverize the cookies in a blender, or the bowl of a food processor, or by putting them in a plastic bag and rolling over them with a rolling pin.  Combine the crumbs with the butter and sugar, then press the mixture into a shallow 9-inch pie pan.  (I push it in there roughly with a spoon or rubber spatula, then smooth it out by using a smaller pie pan as a press--I push the smaller tin against the inside of the crust until it's even.  You could use the bottom of a drinking glass to accomplish the same thing.) 

Bake the crust for about 10 minutes, until it is lightly browned.

Cool the crust completely before going on.

FOR THE FILLING

1 14-oz. can sweetened condensed milk
grated rind of two small limes (about 1-1/2 inches in diameter)
1/2 cup lime juice (I squeeze the limes I've grated, then top it off with some bottled Key lime juice--Key lime juice has a more intense flavor than the regular kind.  Using some fresh juice brightens it up a bit)
4 egg yolks

Beat the egg yolks.  Add the milk and the lime rind and give it a stir.  Finally, add the lime juice and stir it with the whisk until it comes together.  Pour it immediately into the cooled pie shell.  (The citrus juice causes the condensed milk to form a custard.  No cooking is needed.)

Once this is done, proceed immediately to making the meringue topping.


FOR THE TOPPING

4 egg whites, preferably at room temperature
generous pinch of cream of tartar (Cream of tartar is tartaric acid.  Acid helps to stabilize the meringue and gives it greater volume.)
1/2 cup sugar (If you can get it, superfine sugar is fabulous for this.)

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

Beat the whites with a mixer until they're frothy.  Add the cream of tartar and beat until soft peaks form.  Add the sugar and beat until the meringue stands up in stiff peaks.

Carefully spread this on top of the custard in the pie.  Be sure to seal the meringue right to the edges of the crust.  Bake in the oven for 12 - 15 minutes to brown the meringue.

Cool on a rack, then refrigerate for several hours before serving.


It's true:  this recipe uses raw eggs.  If you're worried about salmonella, you can omit the eggs and top the pie with whipped cream.  If you do that, wait to put the whipped cream on top of the pie until just before you serve it.

This pie--and the way people scarf it down--remind me that if things are good, they don't need to be complicated.  Early in my cooking days, I favored recipes with lots and lots of detailed steps:  somehow I thought it was better if I did more work.  Along the way, I've learned that quality and complexity are not necessarily connected.  As with so many things, if it's good, it's right.

Yogurt: Simple complexity or complex similicity?

It's hard to imagine anything much simpler than yogurt:  basically, it's sour milk.  People have been making it for millennia without the benefit of elaborate equipment.

If you want to make yogurt, there's not much to it:  add some yogurt to some warm milk and keep it warm long enough for it to turn into yogurt.  That's it.

Unless, of course, you want consistent, reliable results (and you know me, I want consistent, reliable results!).  Because here, you see, is the rub. There are about a million variables:  what kind of milk?  what starter?  How warm should the milk be?  Should you heat it to a relatively high heat and let it cool, or just warm it to the temperature you want?  How long do you let it incubate (the fancy term for letting it sit there until it's done)?

Most people don't worry about all of this.  They just go to the grocery store, buy a couple of tubs of something and eat it, probably while they're heading out the door in the morning.  The thing is, Sue has eaten yogurt for breakfast for years, and I began doing so religiously about three years ago.  (I had eaten it on and off ever since I met Sue.)  With both of us eating yogurt daily, we were going through quite a lot of it.  At one point, we were in Maine, where they don't recycle the kind of plastic yogurt comes in these days, so we were throwing away oodles of plastic.  That rankled.

So I bought a yogurt maker and began the quest for (my) perfect yogurt.  I've pretty much got it down, but you might want your yogurt to be different:  less creamy, more creamy, more sour, less sour--you get the idea.  Even so, my method has to vary depending on external factors:  even the ambient temperature of the room seems to have an impact.

Here are the considerations:

1.  What kind of milk? 

Any kind will produce yogurt, but the yogurt will be different depending on the fat content--that's the biggie.  Other considerations are organic or not, and even the brand of milk can make a difference.  When you find one you like, stick to it.  You'll get the most consistent results that way.  We like organic 2% milk.  (And though the hippie in me would like to think otherwise, I don't think the organic bit is actually what matters.  Most organic milk is ultra-pasteurized, and I think the high heat affects the proteins.  This, I suspect, is why yogurt made from organic milk is different from that made with your ordinary, garden variety milk.)  Some procedures call for adding dry milk.  I have tried this and didn't like the result.  The typical amount of dry milk is usually about 2 - 4 tablespoons per quart of liquid milk.  Use the larger amount if you're using instant dry milk--by far the easiest thing to find.

2.  What kind of starter?

You need a commercial yogurt that advertises that it has "active yogurt cultures."  This means that the little guys who ferment the milk--I fondly call them yogis--are alive and kicking.  You must use plain yogurt as a starter.  Choose a commercial yogurt you like and that is closest to the way you want yours to come out.  (But know that other factors, such as incubation time, will affect the results, so the starter isn't a guarantee that your yogurt will be like the stuff you buy.)  I have successfully used Stonyfield, Fage, and Chobani.  Once upon a time, I used to use Danon.   Note that Fage and Chobani are Greek-style yogurts.  They are very thick and creamy because some of the whey is strained out after the yogurt incubates.  If you make yogurt from them but don't strain it, yours will be thinner than the starter.

3.  How to heat the milk?  To what temperature?  How long does it have to stay at temperature?

You can successfully make yogurt by heating milk to about 110 degrees F and adding the starter.  Because modern commercial milk is pasteurized, there is less risk than formerly of there being stray bacteria in the milk that could interfere with fermentation, so heating the milk to a higher heat isn't strictly necessary.  Yogurt made from milk that has been heated to 110 will take a long time to incubate (as much as 12 hours) and will tend to be runny.  It will also be on the tart side.

Most instructions tell you to heat the milk to 180 degrees F.  This will kill off anything that shouldn't be in there, on the off chance that there's something that isn't yogi-friendly swimming around in your milk.  If you do it this way, you need to cool the milk down before adding the starter.  Anything hotter than 110-115 risks killing the yogis.  Very bad.  (If it's too cold when the starter goes in, it's also likely to be a flop.) Yogurt made from milk heated to 180 will take a little less time to incubate than the previous method--perhaps 8 hours.  It will still tend to be runny and tart.  The dry milk some methods call for is an attempt to get a better, firmer texture for the yogurt.  I find that longer cooking solves this better, so read on.

I like my yogurt smooth, creamy, and only moderately tart.  I especially don't like it when the whey separates from the yogurt in the jar--you know, that watery looking stuff that floats around the top and edges after you spoon yogurt out of the container.  I learned that keeping the milk at a higher temperature for a longer period of time (20 - 30 minutes) alters the proteins.  This means that the yogurt will incubate faster and will have a firmer texture.  Because it will incubate quickly, you can stop it before it gets too tart.  This is my preferred method.  I bring the milk to 180 as quickly as possible, hold it there for for 20 or 25 minutes, then cool it quickly (details about all of this further down).

4.  How to incubate it? 

I've seen instructions for things as low-tech as putting the milk and starter into a thermos and letting it stand overnight.  A time-honored tradition is to put the yogurt into a gas oven with a turned-off pilot light or on top of the gas stove near the pilot light.  (I have an electric stove, so this isn't an option for me.)  You need something that will keep the yogurt at a fairly constant 100 - 110 degrees F--I think 108 is the optimum.  The easiest way to achieve this is with an electric yogurt maker.  It's a simple appliance:  it has a heating element and a thermostat in it so that it keeps things at a nice lukewarm temperature.  You set the jars in it (some use small, individual-serving jars, others make a whole quart in a single container), cover it, and walk away for a few hours.  Many yogurt makers have a timer that will turn the machine off when the yogurt has incubated for the time you've chosen.

5.  How long should it incubate?

Ah.  This is the 64-dollar question.  Basically, the longer you let it go, the more tart it will be.  So you want it to go long enough that it congeals--I think the correct word is "clabbers"--and then you go as much beyond that as you need for the yogurt to be as tart as you like.   Once you've stopped it, you need to refrigerate it for several hours before you eat it.

6.  OK, enough theories.  How do YOU do it?

I thought you'd never ask.

I do have a method that I employ pretty consistently, but even this requires tweaking from time to time.  What works perfectly in Arizona doesn't yield the same results when we're in Maine for the summer--doubtless because of differences in the milk and the ambient temperature in the room.  Some of what I do is based on quirks in my yogurt makers.  I'll explain all of that along the way.

My machine makes up to 14 6-ounce glasses of yogurt.  So the amounts I'm giving here are based on that yield.  You could cut it down proportionately if your machine doesn't hold as much.  I recommend making small batches at first until you get the results you want.  And don't be afraid to make notes.  There are a lot of variables here.

HEATING THE MILK:  For 14 6-oz. jars, I start with 5 pints of milk.  (That's a half-gallon, plus another 2 cups; 10 cups in all.)  I use organic 2% milk, but I've also used 1%.  In Arizona, where I have a relatively new stove that can heat quite gently and evenly, I put the milk into a 5-quart stainless steel pot and set it directly on the stove.  I set a digital thermometer into the pot and turn the heat to high.  Then, stirring constantly, I watch the temperature carefully.  As it approaches 180, I turn the heat down to about medium, start a timer, and stir, adjusting the heat as needed to keep it between 180 and 190 for 20 minutes.  You read that right:  I end up stirring the milk for about half an hour.  It's worth it for the taste and texture of the yogurt.

My stove in Maine is less reliable, so here I use a double boiler.  I have two 5-quart pots that nest into one another a bit.  I put about an inch-and-a-half of water into the slightly larger one, set the slightly smaller one on top, add the milk and rig up the thermometer.  Then I turn the heat to high, adjusting it as needed and keeping the temperature between 180 and 190 for 20 (lately 25) minutes.  There's a plus to the double boiler method:  while you still have to monitor it closely to maintain a steady temperature, you don't need to stir it constantly.  An occasional stir will do.

A note on thermometers:  I use a probe-type thermometer like the one in the picture.  It has a clip that goes on the side of the pot, and you set the probe in the clip--being careful the tip is submerged but not hitting the bottom of the pot.  This then plugs into a little box that sits on the counter and reads out the temperature constantly.

Keeping the temperature steady is easier said than done.  Over time, you learn just when to turn your burner down so that you don't go too far past 180.  You learn how low to turn it so that it doesn't dip too far below 180, and you learn when to jack it back up for a little while.  Be patient.  You will get better at this!

ADDING THE STARTER:  I set the pot--with the thermometer still attached--into ice water.  I usually fill the sink to a depth of an inch or two with ice water and set the pot in it.  In Maine, where the sink is big, I find a bigger pot that will hold the milk pot and a good supply of ice water.  I stir it occasionally and watch the temperature closely: it takes about 10 minutes to cool.  For the starter, I use 2 6-oz containers of Chobani these days.  I used Stonyfield for a long time, and that works, too.  You can theoretically make new yogurt from a couple of glasses you've saved from the previous batch.  I worry that the yogis will start to mutate or something, so I always buy new yogurt for each batch.  I pull the starter out of the fridge right when I start measuring and heating the milk--that way, it won't be ice-cold.  While the milk is cooling, I put the starter into a 1-quart measuring cup and stir it up until it's smooth.  When the milk cools to 115 degrees F, I immediately pull the pot out of the cold water.  (Watch the milk closely, especially when it gets down around 125:  it will go fast from there.  Don't let it go below 110 or you risk a failure.)  With a ladle, I put a scoop or two of the warm milk into the starter and stir it up.  This thins the starter so that it will combine thoroughly with the milk.  I then pour the starter into the milk and whisk it to combine.  The mixture will now be between 100 and 110 degrees, which is perfect.

To fill the jars, I pour the yogurt base from the pot into the 1-quart measuring cup and use the measuring cup to decant the base into the jars. 

INCUBATION:  I have a two-tier yogurt maker like this one.  When I make a full batch, the stuff on the bottom comes out thicker and tarter than the stuff on top:  there's just enough difference in temperature to change the result.  (See what I mean?  There are a lot of variables here, and small variations can make noticeable differences in some cases.)  My solution to this problem is to switch the jars halfway through the process.  It works fine.

So I set my yogurt in the machine and let it incubate for 4 - 6 hours (more about this in a second).  I switch the two layers halfway through the time.  When it's done, I cover the jars and refrigerate the yogurt overnight.

So why 4 - 6 hours?  Well, it depends.  In the summer in Arizona, we keep the house at 80 degrees F.  At that temperature, the yogurt takes 4 hours, with a switch at the 2-hour mark.  In the winter when it's cooler, and in Maine, where it's also cooler, it needs a total of 6 hours.

If I were making only 7 jars (one layer, in other words, without the second tier), I would probably do 3 hours in warm weather and 4 - 5 hours in cooler weather.  Remember that the stuff on the top doesn't get as hot, which is why you need more time overall if you're doing both tiers.

BOTTOM LINE:

1.  Choose your milk.  I use 2% organic.

2.  Decide on a heating method--try different ones to see what you like best and what fits best into your way of working.

3.  Decide on an incubation method.  Electric yogurt makers with automatic shutoffs are the easiest.

4.  Try different incubation times until you get what you like.

If you want Greek-style yogurt, just line a sieve with several layers of cheesecloth.  Put the yogurt in the lined sieve--about twice as much as the final quantity you're looking for.  Set the sieve over a bowl and put the whole thing in the fridge.  It will be creamy in as little as 2 hours.  The longer you leave it, the firmer it will become.  After 8 hours or overnight, it will almost be like a soft cheese.  Save the whey that runs off:  it's good for baking.  Just use it in place of milk in muffins or in place of the milk or water in bread.

A word about flavoring:  I always make plain yogurt.  I'm worried about adding things that might make the yogis unhappy.  I am also glad to eat plain yogurt, straight from the jar, but a lot of people aren't.  If you prefer flavoring, I recommend adding honey and fruit or granola to the plain yogurt right before you eat it.  That way, nothing will kill off the helpful bacteria before they get inside you!  You can also sweeten with maple syrup, brown sugar, or even white sugar.  Wheat germ, ground flax, and other grains can make a nice addition.  Sometimes I throw a little cereal in there.  This is a little moment of creativity in an otherwise routine process--always a good thing!

I'd love for you to try this.  It's more complicated to write about than it is to do:  all it takes is a little patience and some recognition that you'll have to fool with it until it comes out the way you like it.  If you're like me, you'll enjoy that process!

Rising to the Occasion: Fresh, Fresh Eggs

Years ago, when I taught at Centre College, my neighbor, Maryann Ward, used to get eggs fresh from the farm.  There were more than she could use, so she shared them with me.  The first time I used them to bake a cake--a pound cake, as I recall--I was astonished by the results.  Very fresh eggs seem to have a power to raise baked goods almost beyond imagining.

I'm in Maine at the moment, and a friend, Marty Ward (no relation, so far as I know, to Maryann), raises chickens.  When she and her husband, Dave, came to dinner the other night, they brought a dozen eggs from their chickens.  Heaven!  And as some of the eggs were fresh that day, my thoughts instantly turned to pound cake.

Pound cake is deceptively simple.  It uses only the most basic ingredients, and the procedure isn't complicated.  There isn't even a great deal of variation in the recipes.  The one I used to use came with a Sunbeam stand mixer I got years ago.  It was fabulous.  But I'm in Maine, and that recipe is in Arizona.

So I decided to try a little variation.  Some recipes call for buttermilk, and I know that yogurt and buttermilk can be used pretty much interchangeably.  I've got a good supply of yogurt on hand (I make my own and will share the instructions for that one of these days), so I thought I'd try a buttermilk pound cake, using yogurt in place of the buttermilk.

There are various ways to flavor pound cake.  The traditional, purest form is with just vanilla, though some recipes omit that, using only sugar, flour, eggs, butter, and milk.  You can also flavor pound cake quite nicely with almond or lemon.  Lemon somehow seemed summer-like to me, so I chose that.  (Besides, it's nice to serve pound cake with some berries or fruit, and lemon is always nice with that.)

This is a very traditional recipe.  Some more recent ones call for six eggs, but I think four is plenty.  Six, in my opinion, would create something more like a yellow cake; it wouldn't have the close, dense texture I associate with pound cake.  This one, made with yogurt, came out with a wonderfully moist and almost creamy quality.

So here's what I did.

BUTTERMILK POUND CAKE  (Click here for a printer-friendly version.)

INGREDIENTS

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter--get the best, richest butter you can find
3 cups granulated sugar
4 eggs
3 cups white flour (I prefer unbleached)
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup buttermilk or yogurt
1 teaspoon vanilla
pinch of kosher salt

optional:  grated rind and juice of 1 lemon, plus 1 teaspoon of lemon extract (this is what I did today); OR 1 teaspoon almond extract.  You could also omit the vanilla and increase the lemon or almond extract

DIRECTIONS

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.  In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream the butter.  Add the sugar, and cream it thoroughly.  Add the eggs, one at a time, beating thoroughly after each addition.  Add the salt.  Add 1 cup of the flour and the baking soda.  Mix on the lowest speed until moistened.  Add a third of the buttermilk and beat until thoroughly blended.  If using lemon juice and grated lemon rind, add them now.  Then add another cup of flour, stir, then another third of the buttermilk and beat to combine.  Finally, add the remaining flour, stir, and beat in the remaining buttermilk.  Add whatever extract you're using.  Beat for 2 or 3 minutes at fairly high speed until the batter is very smooth and uniform.

Pour into a greased and floured 10-inch tube pan or a bundt pan. (I used a bundt pan, because that's all I had.  It was a little difficult to get it out in one piece, so be sure to grease and flour it thoroughly.  Baker's Joy, a cooking spray with flour in it, works best.)  Bake for 1 hour and 10 minutes to 1 hour and 20 minutes, or until a tester comes out clean.  Allow to cool for 15 minutes in the pan, then turn out onto a rack to cool completely.

Things don't have to be fancy or innovative to be good.  Often the basics are best, if you put care into them and use the best ingredients.  There is nothing wrong with tradition lovingly and thoughtfully followed!  And if you have really fresh eggs, bake. 

In Praise of Peas

When I was a kid, peas were grayish-green, rather mushy, and tasted like the metal can they were packed in.  At some point, we began to get frozen peas:  better color, better texture, but pretty starchy and bland.  Fresh peas, when I finally had them as an adult, were a revelation.

And here's a revelatory way to prepare them.  This comes from Pierre Franey's More 60-Minute Gourmet, a delightful book.

For every 1-1/2 to 2 cups of fresh peas (the fresher, the better), melt 2 tablespoons of butter in a saute pan.  When the foam subsides, add a couple of tablespoons of finely chopped fresh mint and 1/2 teaspoon of sugar.  Add the peas, then salt and pepper to taste.  Give the whole thing a stir or two, then cover the pan.  Cook just until the peas are done--I cooked mine for two minutes.  If the peas are super-fresh (in other words, you have just picked them from your own garden), it can take as little as a minute.

The peas in the photo above came from a wonderful organic farm here on Mount Desert Island called Beech Hill Farm.  It's run by the College of the Atlantic, a rather free-thinking and free-spirited place.

You won't believe how good peas prepared this way can taste.  The dish will completely supplant all childhood memories of mushy, metallic legumes.

If it's summer, it must be popovers

As I've written before, we spend summers in Maine, and that always means popovers.  Here's a batch I baked when my sister-in-law Martha came for a visit.  Taking the photo is a challenge:  you have to fend off the people trying to eat the popovers.

I think they turned out well!  For the recipe, follow the link to the post above, or go here, which will give you a printer-friendly version.