4.28.2010
Hot Browns and Hats (plus a giveaway winner!)
Derby Day is always such fun...whether you are a diehard racetrack aficionado or just like to people watch and peruse the extraordinary hats. I've only been once, but the excitment is something I'll never forget. Now I never miss it...even though it's only on the big screen.
Everyone knows about the mint julep, but how many of you know about Kentucky Hot Browns?
There's a hotel in Louisville called The Brown Hotel. During the 20's it would draw as many as 1,200 guests for its' dinner dance. In the wee hours of the morning, the guests would grow tired of dancing and would want a little something to eat. They were getting bored with ham and eggs, so Chef Fred Schmidt set out to create something new to tempt his guests' palates. His unique creation was an open-faced turkey sandwich with bacon and a delicate Mornay sauce. Enter The Hot Brown!
Now a Louisville tradition, the Hot Brown has been featured in Southern Living Magazine, The Los Angeles Times, NBC's Today Show, The Wall Street Journal, as well as being included in many cookbooks. So if you want to be part of a Derby tradition, here's the original recipe, right from The Brown Hotel.
The Legendary Hot Brown Recipe
Ingredients: (Makes two hot browns)
2 ounces butter
2 ounces flour
1 quart heavy cream
1/2 cup Pecorino Romano cheese, plus 1 tablespoon for garnish
Salt and pepper to taste
14 ounces sliced roasted turkey breast
2-4 slices of Texas Toast (To make your own, a recipe follows)
4 slices of crisp bacon
2 Roma Tomatoes, sliced in half
Paprika, parsley, tomato for garnish
Method:
In a two-quart saucepan, melt butter and slowly whisk in flour until combined and forms a roux. Continue to cook roux for two minutes over medium-low heat, stirring frequently. Whisk whipping cream into the roux and cook over medium heat until the cream begins to simmer, about 2-3 minutes. Remove sauce from heat and slowly whisk in Pecorino Romano cheese until the Mornay sauce is smooth. Add salt and pepper to taste.
For each Hot Brown, place one or two slices of toast in an oven safe dish and cover with 7 ounces of turkey.
Place the tomatos on top of turkey and toast. Next, pour the Mornay sauce to completely cover the dish.
Sprinkle with additional Pecorino Romano cheese. Place entire dish under a broiler until cheese begins to brown and bubble and is heated through. Remove from broiler, cross two pieces of crispy bacon on top, sprinkle with paprika and parsley, and serve immediately.
I can find Texas Toast in my market.
But if you can't here's how to make your own: start with some good bread; smash a couple cloves of garlic and mix them with some butter. Spread on the bread, sprinkle with salt and pepper and then toast it.
And now something just for the ladies. I collected some photos of fun and fabulous Derby Day hats. Pick out your favorite! Which one would you love to wear?
Last, but not least, The Mother's Day Giveaway: The lucky winner is: Faith from An Edible Mosaic. Congratulations! Please email me your address at bsmithw@gmail.com so I can get your cookbook in the mail ASAP!
Hat photo source: http://www.deescrafts.com/hats/
4.22.2010
A Mother's Day Giveaway!
What's your all-time favorite cookbook? Is it on the Beard Foundation's just released list of essential baking books?
In alphabetical order:
1. "Baking: From My Home to Yours," by Dorie Greenspan (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2006).
2. "Beard on Bread," by James Beard (originally published 1973; reprinted by Knopf, 1995).
3. "The Book of Great Desserts," by Maida Heatter (Andrews McMeel, 1999).
4. "The Bread Baker's Apprentice," by Peter Reinhart (Ten Speed, 2001).
5. "The Cake Bible," by Rose Levy Beranbaum (William Morrow, 1988).
6. "Classic Home Desserts," by Richard Sax (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2000).
7. "Cocolat," by Alice Medrich (Warner Books, 1990).
8. "The Fannie Farmer Baking Book," by Marion Cunningham (Gramercy, 1996).
9. "Great Pies and Tarts," by Carole Walter (Clarkson Potter, 1998).
10. "The Italian Baker," by Carol Field (William Morrow, 1985).
11. "Martha Stewart's Cookies," by Martha Stewart (Clarkson Potter, 2008).
12. "My Bread," by Jim Lahey (W.W. Norton, 2009).
13. "The Simple Art of Perfect Baking," by Flo Braker (Chronicle, 2003).
Most of us probably own the first two, but I loved to see Maida Heatter next as she is my dessert guru and I own ALL her cookbooks! (She was also on their Core Collection: 20 Essential Books to Build Your Culinary Library” released in 2007.) And does anyone make a better cake than Rose Levy Beranbaum? And who makes a better cookie than Martha Stewart?
Just in time for Mother's Day I'm giving away a cookbook to one of my readers. And what a fabulous cookbook it is, too! It may not be on the Beard Foundation's list, but it has won a James Beard award. It's one of my favorites: Savor the Moment from the Junior League of Boca Raton, Florida. And you get a CD-ROM to go with it!
Look at the awards it's received:
2001 James Beard/Kitchen Aid Book Award
2001 ForeWord Magazine -2nd Place
2001 Benjamin Franklin Award Finalist
2001 Writer's Digest "National Self-Published Book" Award Honorable Mention
2001 Independent Publisher Book Award-Finalist
2000 AJLI-Honorable Mention
A lovely hardcover book, Savor the Moment is a treat for the visual senses. The Junior League of Boca Raton, Florida published it in January of 2000. Great photography and design are a big part of its' continued success, but let's face it, the recipes have got to be meticulously researched, tested and rated sublime to rack up sales. The photographs by Dan Forer are breath-taking… with rather enchanting and unique mise-en-scènes. And you don’t need to live in Boca Raton to appreciate them either. The book highlights special menus aboard a yacht, playing croquet, in a garden on the grounds of our Morikami Museum, on a polo field, in local homes and a picnic under a beachside gazebo. The vignettes go on page after delightful page- in color and in exquisite taste.
I seem to be rambling on about the visuals rather than the flavors but let me reassure you: while the photography is first class, so are the recipes within. Everything gels perfectly to form a superb cookbook. And what’s really sweet about this book ( and all other Junior League cookbooks) is it raises funds directly benefiting community projects.
All you have to do to enter is leave a comment at the end of this post. Would you like two chances to win? Then become a follower on my blog! It's open to anyone and entries will be closed at midnight on April 27th.
I'll announce the winner on April 28th at the end of my Derby Day post. The winner will be picked out of my lucky Derby Day hat by my totally unbiased son. (Who doesn't even read my blog, let alone yours!)
Good luck!
In alphabetical order:
1. "Baking: From My Home to Yours," by Dorie Greenspan (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2006).
2. "Beard on Bread," by James Beard (originally published 1973; reprinted by Knopf, 1995).
3. "The Book of Great Desserts," by Maida Heatter (Andrews McMeel, 1999).
4. "The Bread Baker's Apprentice," by Peter Reinhart (Ten Speed, 2001).
5. "The Cake Bible," by Rose Levy Beranbaum (William Morrow, 1988).
6. "Classic Home Desserts," by Richard Sax (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2000).
7. "Cocolat," by Alice Medrich (Warner Books, 1990).
8. "The Fannie Farmer Baking Book," by Marion Cunningham (Gramercy, 1996).
9. "Great Pies and Tarts," by Carole Walter (Clarkson Potter, 1998).
10. "The Italian Baker," by Carol Field (William Morrow, 1985).
11. "Martha Stewart's Cookies," by Martha Stewart (Clarkson Potter, 2008).
12. "My Bread," by Jim Lahey (W.W. Norton, 2009).
13. "The Simple Art of Perfect Baking," by Flo Braker (Chronicle, 2003).
Most of us probably own the first two, but I loved to see Maida Heatter next as she is my dessert guru and I own ALL her cookbooks! (She was also on their Core Collection: 20 Essential Books to Build Your Culinary Library” released in 2007.) And does anyone make a better cake than Rose Levy Beranbaum? And who makes a better cookie than Martha Stewart?
Just in time for Mother's Day I'm giving away a cookbook to one of my readers. And what a fabulous cookbook it is, too! It may not be on the Beard Foundation's list, but it has won a James Beard award. It's one of my favorites: Savor the Moment from the Junior League of Boca Raton, Florida. And you get a CD-ROM to go with it!
Look at the awards it's received:
2001 James Beard/Kitchen Aid Book Award
2001 ForeWord Magazine -2nd Place
2001 Benjamin Franklin Award Finalist
2001 Writer's Digest "National Self-Published Book" Award Honorable Mention
2001 Independent Publisher Book Award-Finalist
2000 AJLI-Honorable Mention
A lovely hardcover book, Savor the Moment is a treat for the visual senses. The Junior League of Boca Raton, Florida published it in January of 2000. Great photography and design are a big part of its' continued success, but let's face it, the recipes have got to be meticulously researched, tested and rated sublime to rack up sales. The photographs by Dan Forer are breath-taking… with rather enchanting and unique mise-en-scènes. And you don’t need to live in Boca Raton to appreciate them either. The book highlights special menus aboard a yacht, playing croquet, in a garden on the grounds of our Morikami Museum, on a polo field, in local homes and a picnic under a beachside gazebo. The vignettes go on page after delightful page- in color and in exquisite taste.
I seem to be rambling on about the visuals rather than the flavors but let me reassure you: while the photography is first class, so are the recipes within. Everything gels perfectly to form a superb cookbook. And what’s really sweet about this book ( and all other Junior League cookbooks) is it raises funds directly benefiting community projects.
All you have to do to enter is leave a comment at the end of this post. Would you like two chances to win? Then become a follower on my blog! It's open to anyone and entries will be closed at midnight on April 27th.
I'll announce the winner on April 28th at the end of my Derby Day post. The winner will be picked out of my lucky Derby Day hat by my totally unbiased son. (Who doesn't even read my blog, let alone yours!)
Good luck!
4.19.2010
Third Time's the Charm
Now and then I obsess over a recipe in the kitchen. Here's a perfect example: I made this lemon cake three times!
In the first version, I ground my own almonds in the processor. A mistake. And with the second attempt, I used packaged almond flour. Moi heaves a sigh of relief! Thank you, Whole Foods.
Compare the two versions. Quite a difference; the first one is darker and has itty bitty annoying pieces of almond that get stuck between your teeth. But the second photo looks exactly like the photo in the book so it was a success!
So what's my problem, you ask? I don't like potato flour. It smells ummm....nasty. Nor did I like the texture of the batter in the first two versions. Now, dear gluten free readers, go ahead and make this version. It's good. Tastes fine. Exactly what it's supposed to look and taste like. And you invert the cake anyway so it's smooth on top. But I had to try the recipe one last time, using all purpose flour to see what difference it would make. And the result is the photo accompanying the recipe below. I don't know why I am fussing so over this one recipe, but I can't help it. There's something about this cake that appeals to me and I wanted to give it one more go.
This post is also about a cookbook. Sophie Dahl's. For one thing, she is Roald Dahl's granddaughter. Don't you adore his books? My kids were brought up on them.
Sophie really is a woman of parts, no pun intended! Of course you've all seen the ad for Opium perfume she did ( HERE) which caused such a scandal at the time. She was modeling in NYC at the time. And she IS rather voluptious. Or she was until she went from a size 14 to a size 6. I hope she has some sort of autobiography in the works because her life (and she's still only 33) would make a good read. It's worth the CLICK just to read about Sophie, especially if you know nothing about her.
Some say her new cooking show in the UK is trying to copy Nigella's. Who cares? is what I say. I think her cookbook is fun. And typically British. I've already made a couple things in it which I loved and this lemon cake makes three. Or five, if you want to count my fiddling around with the other versions.
From Sophie:"I wanted to write a memoir about food, a recipe book that gets over the message that you don't have to starve yourself to be reasonably skinny. You can eat quite happily and the more you obsess about it, the more of an issue it becomes. It's an anecdotal book about how to be slim - and still eat. Healthy breakfasts, lunches and suppers, and some fattening puddings. Easy, simple home cooking that's healthy."
Sophie says she got this lemon torte recipe from a taxi cab driver in Sorrento whose wife hated when he made it because he made such a mess in the kitchen. She's right. It's a lot of bowls. And it kind of shoots out of the mixer if you're not careful. I've never made a cake quite like this and while potato flour smells peculiar, I must admit you can't really taste it when you eat the cake. And her idea of mixing lemon curd with crème fraiche is brilliant. It makes the cake. I don't know squat about gluten-free, but this version with potato flour is, isn't it? Which ought to please some of my readers who are very loyal even if most of my dessert recipes use APF. I suppose there are other substitutes for potato flour that are gluten-free, but I'm calling it quits now. Three times is definitely enough.
And my final version? Sheer delight. Still a dense cake, but somehow lighter. I can see serving it with some lovely fresh fruit, or just go with the lemon curd idea. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.
Lemon Capri Torte
Adapted from Miss Dahl's Voluptuous Delights
(My changes will be in parenthesis)
Ingredients:
1-1/2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
1 cup superfine sugar
6 eggs, room temperature, separated
zest and juice of 4 lemons
2 cups of blanched almonds, toasted and then ground (I used Whole Foods almond flour)
1 cup of potato flour ( I used 1-3/4 cups all purpose flour instead)
Method:
Preheat oven to 400°. Grease and flour (using potato flour) a 9 inch springform pan. (I lined the bottom with parchment paper, and then greased the pan. I used fine bread crumbs instead of potato flour)
In a bowl, mix the potat0 ( or all purpose) flour with the almond flour and set aside. Cream the butter and sugar. Add the egg yolks all at the same time. Then add the lemon juice and rind. At this point the batter will look like scrambled eggs. This is OK.
In another bowl, beat the whites until soft peaks appear. Fold the lemon mixture into the whites. It will still look like scrambled eggs and will not combine completely.Slowly add the flour mixture by hand, folding well after each addition. The batter at this point, if you are using potato flour, will be extremely thick with no sign of the egg whites. If you use all purpose flour, the batter will not be nearly as thick.Pour into the prepared pan and bake for 10 minutes at 400°, then lower the oven temperature to 300° and bake an additional 40 minutes.
Cool and invert the cake onto a serving platter. Sprinkle with powdered sugar.You can serve with fresh fruit, or a mixture of crème fraiche and lemon curd.
For a printable recipe, click HERE .
In the first version, I ground my own almonds in the processor. A mistake. And with the second attempt, I used packaged almond flour. Moi heaves a sigh of relief! Thank you, Whole Foods.
Compare the two versions. Quite a difference; the first one is darker and has itty bitty annoying pieces of almond that get stuck between your teeth. But the second photo looks exactly like the photo in the book so it was a success!
So what's my problem, you ask? I don't like potato flour. It smells ummm....nasty. Nor did I like the texture of the batter in the first two versions. Now, dear gluten free readers, go ahead and make this version. It's good. Tastes fine. Exactly what it's supposed to look and taste like. And you invert the cake anyway so it's smooth on top. But I had to try the recipe one last time, using all purpose flour to see what difference it would make. And the result is the photo accompanying the recipe below. I don't know why I am fussing so over this one recipe, but I can't help it. There's something about this cake that appeals to me and I wanted to give it one more go.
This post is also about a cookbook. Sophie Dahl's. For one thing, she is Roald Dahl's granddaughter. Don't you adore his books? My kids were brought up on them.
Sophie really is a woman of parts, no pun intended! Of course you've all seen the ad for Opium perfume she did ( HERE) which caused such a scandal at the time. She was modeling in NYC at the time. And she IS rather voluptious. Or she was until she went from a size 14 to a size 6. I hope she has some sort of autobiography in the works because her life (and she's still only 33) would make a good read. It's worth the CLICK just to read about Sophie, especially if you know nothing about her.
Some say her new cooking show in the UK is trying to copy Nigella's. Who cares? is what I say. I think her cookbook is fun. And typically British. I've already made a couple things in it which I loved and this lemon cake makes three. Or five, if you want to count my fiddling around with the other versions.
From Sophie:"I wanted to write a memoir about food, a recipe book that gets over the message that you don't have to starve yourself to be reasonably skinny. You can eat quite happily and the more you obsess about it, the more of an issue it becomes. It's an anecdotal book about how to be slim - and still eat. Healthy breakfasts, lunches and suppers, and some fattening puddings. Easy, simple home cooking that's healthy."
Sophie says she got this lemon torte recipe from a taxi cab driver in Sorrento whose wife hated when he made it because he made such a mess in the kitchen. She's right. It's a lot of bowls. And it kind of shoots out of the mixer if you're not careful. I've never made a cake quite like this and while potato flour smells peculiar, I must admit you can't really taste it when you eat the cake. And her idea of mixing lemon curd with crème fraiche is brilliant. It makes the cake. I don't know squat about gluten-free, but this version with potato flour is, isn't it? Which ought to please some of my readers who are very loyal even if most of my dessert recipes use APF. I suppose there are other substitutes for potato flour that are gluten-free, but I'm calling it quits now. Three times is definitely enough.
And my final version? Sheer delight. Still a dense cake, but somehow lighter. I can see serving it with some lovely fresh fruit, or just go with the lemon curd idea. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.
Lemon Capri Torte
Adapted from Miss Dahl's Voluptuous Delights
(My changes will be in parenthesis)
Ingredients:
1-1/2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
1 cup superfine sugar
6 eggs, room temperature, separated
zest and juice of 4 lemons
2 cups of blanched almonds, toasted and then ground (I used Whole Foods almond flour)
1 cup of potato flour ( I used 1-3/4 cups all purpose flour instead)
Method:
Preheat oven to 400°. Grease and flour (using potato flour) a 9 inch springform pan. (I lined the bottom with parchment paper, and then greased the pan. I used fine bread crumbs instead of potato flour)
In a bowl, mix the potat0 ( or all purpose) flour with the almond flour and set aside. Cream the butter and sugar. Add the egg yolks all at the same time. Then add the lemon juice and rind. At this point the batter will look like scrambled eggs. This is OK.
In another bowl, beat the whites until soft peaks appear. Fold the lemon mixture into the whites. It will still look like scrambled eggs and will not combine completely.Slowly add the flour mixture by hand, folding well after each addition. The batter at this point, if you are using potato flour, will be extremely thick with no sign of the egg whites. If you use all purpose flour, the batter will not be nearly as thick.Pour into the prepared pan and bake for 10 minutes at 400°, then lower the oven temperature to 300° and bake an additional 40 minutes.
Cool and invert the cake onto a serving platter. Sprinkle with powdered sugar.You can serve with fresh fruit, or a mixture of crème fraiche and lemon curd.
For a printable recipe, click HERE .
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