Category: Food
Hit Me With Your Bo Ssam, Fire Away (Momofuku’s Bo Ssam Slow Roasted Pork)

Hit Me With Your Bo Ssam, Fire Away (Momofuku’s Bo Ssam Slow Roasted Pork)

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Need a dish to feed a big crowd?  A dish that is easy to make and requires little attention?  I have just the dish!

Bo Ssam

Whaat?  The best description I can give you is Korean Pulled Pork.

I have been meaning to try David Chang’s (Da Momofuku Man) recipe for Bo Ssam.  His Momofuku Cookbook is hands down one of my favorites. I actually like curling up in a chair and reading his cookbook.  Great narrative and I can relate to his use of “colorful” vernacular in the book.  When I had my kids I FORCED myself to limit the expletives that normally flowed through my lips.  I did a pretty darn good job until they were all ensconced in high school (or was it middle school?).  Then the flood gates reopened.  Am I proud of this? No, but for me, a verbal flurry of choice words is very cathartic.  I like to think of them as adjectives with emphasis NOT directed verbs.

Back to Bossam.  Actually, traditional Bossam is pork belly boiled not roasted.  The Momofuku twist?  Slow roasting the pork.  Start with a nice FATTY Pork Butt roast (aka Boston butt or shoulder).  Make a rub of Kosher salt and sugar and rub this all over the roast. Discard any excess rub.  Let the roast sit for 6-24 hours in the fridge. Use coarse Kosher Salt Coarse made by Diamond.  Don’t use regular table salt or sea salt, it will be way too salty.  Morton’s also has a Kosher salt but it is actually saltier than Diamond.

Remove the pork from the brine, put it in a pan and roast for oh…SIX HOURS.  I know a long time, but that’s what gives you tender, melt in your mouth bites of pork that you eat with all the trimmings-kimchi, rice, Momofuku’s ginger scallion sauce or ssamjang, and raw oysters (optional) wrapped in lettuce.  A brown sugar, salt and vinegar paste is painted on the roast and broiled for a caramelized, crispy, crust.  Yum.  Its a fun and incredibly delicious.  Perfect to share with family and friends.

I tweaked the Ginger Scallion Sauce a bit.  I actually heated the oil before adding it to the sliced scallions and minced ginger and rounded the soy sauce to 2 teaspoons.  I took the lazy way out and used commercial Ssamjang Sauce and added some sesame oil and seeds.  Ssamjang is made with of doenjang, gochujang, sesame oil, onion, garlic, green onions, and optionally brown sugar.  Packs a flavor punch and is perfect with grilled foods.

Set everything on the table, condiments, veggies and that big beautiful pork butt.  Let everyone make their own wraps.  Take a piece of lettuce add a bite of rice, a dollop of sauce (ginger-scallion or ssamjang or both), a bit of kimchi and of course a nice little chunk of the meltingly tender, pork.

Serve with banchan on the side-cucumbers, potatoes, seaweed, whichever ones you prefer even a nice simple green salad would be wonderful.

Enjoy.

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MOMOFUKU BO SSAM

Delicious slow-roasted pork served with traditional Korean sides, kimchi, ssamjang, rice, and wrapped in lettuce leaves
Course Main Course
Cuisine Fusion, Korean
Keyword Bo Ssam, Slow Roasted Pork
Prep Time 45 minutes
Cook Time 7 hours

Ingredients

Pork Roast

  • 8 to 10 pounds 1 piece pork butt, ideally bone-in with some fat ok lots of fat
  • 1 cup granulated sugar
  • 1 cup coarse Kosher salt preferably Diamond

Topping

  • 1 Tbsp coarse kosher salt
  • 7 Tbsp brown sugar
  • 2 tsp apple cider vinegar

Sides:

  • 1 dozen raw oysters shucked optional
  • 1 cup Napa Cabbage Kimchi plus 1 cup puréed
  • 1 cup Ginger Scallion Sauce see link in post
  • Ssämjang
  • Cooked Short-Grain Rice Count on a bowl of cooked rice per person
  • 3 to 4 heads Bibb lettuce leaves separated, well washed, and spun dry
  • Maldon or other high-quality coarse sea salt

Instructions

  • Place the pork in a roasting pan or baking dish. It should fit snugly. Combine 1 cup of sugar and 1 cup of the salt in a bowl and mix them well. Rub the mixture all over the meat. Cover it with plastic wrap then refrigerate it at least 6 hours or overnight. discard an excess sugar salt mix.
  • Heat the oven to 300 F. Cover the roasting pan with cooking foil. Wrap it around at least twice covering all the gaps. Remove the pork from the fridge and discard any juice. Leave the rub on the pork.
  • Place the pork in a roasting pan (fatty side up), set in the oven and cook it for about 6 hours. (This can vary depending on the size of the pork. See note below) Once cooked, the pork should be very easy to pull apart with tongs and forks. Remove the pork from the oven.
  • Combine the remaining salt, brown sugar and vinegar in a small bowl. Mix well. Gently rub the mixture all over the cooked pork (mainly the top of the pork). Use the back of a spoon to rub paste on pork since the roast will be pretty hot.
  • Turn the oven to 500 F. Place the pork in the oven and cook it until a dark caramel crust develops on the meat. It takes 5 to 10 mins. Serve hot, with the accompaniments.
  • When you first pull off the pork, it’s very moist and tender, but it dries out fairly fast (like within 20 mins)! So serve immediately and eat up. It still tastes good though!
  • For an easy ssam sauce, buy the ssamjang tub instead of making it from scratch. Add a couple of drops of sesame oil and a sprinkle of sesame seeds to the ssamjang if you like.

Notes

If you’re using a smaller piece of pork, reduce the rub ingredients (e.g. sugar, salt) and the cooking time. As a guideline it takes about 4 hours to 4.5 hours to roast 2 kg / 4.4 pounds bone-in pork shoulder.

 

 

 
Consolation Biscuits (Crazy Easy Buttermilk Biscuits)

Consolation Biscuits (Crazy Easy Buttermilk Biscuits)

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.For those of you that could use a big helping of comfort right now (Talking to you Niner Faithful).  Here is my newest biscuit recipe find.

It’s hard to cook when your crying.  Luckily this recipe is extremely easy and doable, even through tears.  You are minutes away from consoling your sports-fan soul with a batch of warm biscuits, slathered with butter and your favorite jam.

What makes these so simple?  A nifty trick that comes from Cook’s Illustrated by way of Serious Eats and the blog, The Cafe Sucre Farine’.

Melted butter.  Yep, biscuits made with melted butter.

The trick is to melt the butter and then pour it into ice-cold buttermilk.  The butter solidifies into little globules mimicking the pieces of butter you get when you cut butter into the flour as in the traditional way of making biscuits.  How easy is that?

Pour the buttermilk mixture into the flour, stir together, voila’ ready to make biscuits!

Gather dough and pat into a square.  It will not be a wet sticky dough.  If it seems wet, add flour, a tablespoon at a time. Knead the dough a couple of times, roll or pat the dough into a square.

Cut the biscuit dough into squares.  This avoids the scraps and rerolling the remaining dough for round cutouts.  If you REALLY like round biscuits, just re-roll the scraps and cut again.

Bake these bad boys and brush with melted butter when they come out of the oven. You will be rewarded with buttery, flaky, tender, biscuits.  Everything you want in a biscuit that will help mend your broken NINER heart.

So, make these biscuits, tonight, tomorrow morning, or the day of the Chief’s victory parade.  That’s what comfort food is for.

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Crazy Easy Biscuits

Course Breakfast
Cuisine American
Keyword buttermilk biscuits
Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 18 minutes

Ingredients

  • 2 cups 10 ounces unbleached all-purpose flour
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 tablespoon sugar you can reduce the amount of sugar to 1 teaspoon
  • 3/4 teaspoon sea salt or table salt
  • 1 cup cold buttermilk chill in freezer for 10 minutes
  • 8 tablespoons unsalted butter melted and cooled slightly (about 5 minutes), plus 2 tablespoons melted butter for brushing biscuits

Instructions

  • Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 450°F.
  • Whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar, and salt in large bowl.
  • Combine cold buttermilk and 8 tablespoons melted butter in a medium bowl, stirring until butter forms small clumps.
  • Add buttermilk mixture to dry ingredients and stir with a rubber spatula until just incorporated and batter pulls away from sides of the bowl. The dough will be stiff, not wet. If it is wet, add flour, 1 tablespoon at a time.
  • At this point, you can make drop biscuits or you can roll the dough and make cut out biscuits.
  • I like cut-out biscuits. Gather dough and place on a floured surface. Knead the dough a couple of times and roll or pat dough into a square approximately 1 inch thick. Cut into squares, you should have about 8 biscuits. For a flakier biscuit. Gather dough and roll dough into a square and then fold the dough over in thirds, you will have a rectangle now then roll dough into a 1-inch thick square.
  • Bake 10-18 minutes until tops are a nice golden brown. Start checking at 10 minutes.
  • Brush biscuit tops with remaining 2 tablespoons melted butter. Transfer to wire rack and let cool 5 minutes before serving.
  • Get out your favorite jam and EAT as MANY biscuits as you want. I know I will.
Kentucky Butter Cake (AVERYbody Should Have a Go To Cake)

Kentucky Butter Cake (AVERYbody Should Have a Go To Cake)

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I hosted a postcard session a couple of weeks ago and as an enticement, I provided “snacks” for it.  Snacks in my book aren’t just a bag of chips and a bowl of dip, nope.  I mean to ask people to write and decorate a gazillion postcards, ya gotta have mouthwatering, lip-smacking, delicious food.  Am I right?

That day the weather was a chilly 55 degrees (remember we are talking California), so I made Sam Kass’ slow-roasted pork.  Just salt and pepper the meat, slide it into the oven and fuggedaboutit.  When it is done, shred and serve.  So darn easy and yummy.  I put out corn tortillas, guac, onions and salsa for taco “fixins” to go along.  For those who didn’t want tacos, I made  CRAZY GOOD OOEY-GOOEY Mac and Cheese.  So hard to pick which way to have my pork and eat it too.

No Dessert?

I didn’t have time to make dessert (I know, blasphemous) but luckily my friend’s daughter called while we were hard at work and volunteered to make dessert for us.  Yippee!  So sweet of Avery!  She arrived with a luscious Kentucky Butter Cake that was moist, buttery, sweet…downright delicious.  Oohs and aahs prevailed from all, including my kids who added: “this is the best cake ever”.  I immediately asked for the recipe.

Impatience got the better of me so I googled Kentucky Butter Cake and quite a few recipes popped up on my feed. I picked a recipe (using the scientific eenie-meanie-miney-moe method) from the blog, Cookies and Cups, and added a couple of tweaks from the blog Spicy Southern Kitchen.

I baked it, I glazed it, I cut it, I served it…to a resounding chorus of…

It’s OK, but Avery’s was much better

Repeated, ad nauseam …

I no longer like Avery.  Actually I no longer like my family, Avery is okay.

Just kidding. I got on the horn and called S (her mom), where’s the recipe?!  Her reply was, “I sent it to you days ago”. Oops, my bad…there it was buried in my inbox.

I noticed Avery’s baked at 325, mine at 350, used sour cream instead of buttermilk, and had WAY more of that delicious butter sugar glaze.

The version I used was like the “cooking light” version.  If you didn’t just have a bite of the original, it was perfectly acceptable.  If you put them side by side, fuggedaboutit.  Hands down Avery’s version comes out on top.

Cooking Light

I have included directions for Avery’s version and my “cooking light” version (for transparency’s sake).  A couple of tweaks could bring mine closer to Avery’s.  But then, you might as well just make Avery’s version. Your family and friends will be eating out of your hand.

Instead of that cup of low-fat buttermilk, use sour cream.  Yep, the start to a richer, moister cake.

Cream butter and sugar, add eggs, then alternate flour with liquid (start and end with dry ingredients).  You’ll end up with a fluffy but substantial batter.

Bake the cake at 350 and you will get a nice brown crust, at 325 the cake will be lighter in color.  I would definitely bake the cake for less time if you use 350 degrees. Take the cake out and let it cool for 10 minutes.  Remove the cake from the pan to prevent sticking and then put it back in the pan for its luxurious bath of butter sugar syrup.  It will be easier to remove later, trust me, no actually, trust AVERY.

Use a skewer or skinny chopstick to poke holes ALL OVER the cake. Pour the sugar-butter glaze over the cake,  don’t be afraid, it will absorb all of it easily.  Let the cake sit a spell, remove from the pan and dig in!

This is a pic of my “cooking light version” which had considerably less glaze and cooked at a higher temp.  With Avery’s (yeah, that cake-baking brat again) you could see the glaze that had soaked into the cake, dreamy and delicious.

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Kentucky Butter Cake

Rich, moist, buttery, everything delicious in a bundt cake
Course Dessert
Cuisine American
Keyword Bundt cake, Kentucky Butter Cake
Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 1 hour 5 minutes

Ingredients

CAKE

  • 1 cup butter cubed at room temperature
  • 2 cups granulated sugar
  • 4 eggs
  • 1 tablespoon vanilla
  • 3 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 cup sour cream or 1 cup buttermilk

BUTTER GLAZE

  • 1/2 cup butter deb version (which really isn't enough syrup) 1/3 cup
  • 1 cup granulated sugar 3/4 cup sugar
  • 1/4 cup water 2 Tablespoons water
  • 1 tablespoon vanilla 2 teaspoons

Instructions

  • Preheat the oven to 325°F/165°C (Deb's version 350, start checking cake at 45 minutes)
  • Grease a 10″ bundt pan with butter or shortening very liberally. Dust the pan with flour and set aside.
  • Cream butter and sugar with mixer until light about 2 minutes
  • Add eggs one at a time and mix well after each addition
  • Add vanilla, baking powder, baking soda, and mix to combine about 1 minute
  • Add flour and sour cream or buttermilk, alternating. Start with flour and finish with flour
  • Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for ~65 minutes until a toothpick entered into the center comes out clean.
  • When the cake is done make the glaze. Combine all ingredients into a small saucepan over medium-low heat. Stir continuously until the butter is melted and the sugar is dissolved. Do not bring to a boil.
  • Remove cake from pan and then put it back in pan to glaze cake. This helps keep the cake from sticking after glaze.
  • Poke holes all over the warm cake using a knife or skewer or skinny chopstick and pour the glaze evenly on the cake while still in the pan.
  • Allow the cake to cool completely in the pan and then invert the cake onto a serving plate.
  • Make this cake a day in advance, so the syrup has time to infuse the cake.
Jack Mac and the Cheese Attack (Crazy Good Mac & Cheese)

Jack Mac and the Cheese Attack (Crazy Good Mac & Cheese)

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Happy National Cheese Day!  Any excuse to make a family favorite, mac and cheese.  I love mac and cheese. I unabashedly admit as a kid, I looked forward to the blue box of Kraft’s “Cheese and Macaroni”.  Pure marketing genius, neon yellow orange sauce. As I got older, my taste grew more sophisticated, the blue box was cast aside in favor of Stouffer’s Mac and Cheese from the freezer section of my supermarket, student life-student food. Come on, you can tell me, your college self loved Stouffer’s too.

When I had kids, my mac and cheese world expanded.  Being one of those crazy moms, I vowed to keep, processed foods and fast foods to a minimum.  I made macaroni and cheese from scratch and avoided my childhood favorites like Twinkies and Ho Hos.   I look back and think maybe I went a little overboard. But I’m pretty sure their time in college more than made up for the lack of processed and fast foods when they were little.

So I spent a lot of years making Mac and cheese from scratch.  I tweaked it to try to make it a little healthier by using 2% cheddar cheese, 2% milk, and substituted broth for some of the dairy. It was perfectly…

Adequate.

Now that the kids are adults, pasta all day everyday is a thing of the past.  Mac and cheese has moved to occasional status-holidays, first day of winter, bowl of comfort day, or of course, National Cheese Day.

You know what that means…

Calorie laden, luscious, ooey-gooey, make you wanna slap your momma, no holds barred, damn delicious mac and cheese.

I adapted a recipe I found on the blog site, Chunky Chef, it’s BEASTLY GOOD.  Soft macaroni, (no al dente noods please), super cheesy (6 cups of cheese in this bad boy), gooey (one of those cheeses is mozzarella), rich (no 2% cheese or milk was involved in the making of this), porkalicious (bacon makes everything better), and just because I can, a crispy, topping of butter toasted Ritz crackers crumbs.  Yes, I went there.

Expect to run a marathon after eating this mac and cheese.  Immediately after.

Start with making a classic bechamel by melting butter, adding flour for a roux and then gradually adding half and half and milk.  You will end up with a sauce that is kind of thick but still pourable.  Add copious amounts of hand-shredded cheese to this and season generously with salt and pepper, and a pinch of cayenne pepper.  Catch the hand shredded?  Yes, don’t start with pre-shredded cheese which has “stuff” added to it so it doesn’t stick together.

Add the macaroni to the sauce, give it a good stir and layer half of the pasta in a buttered 9×13 casserole.  Spread half of the remaining cheese on it and make another layer. Top with remaining cheese and buttery toasted crumbled Ritz crackers.  Bake 15 minutes so the cheese gets all melty and amazing. Serve as soon as possible.

Let’s go crazy…

Infinite possibilities to add your own stamp to this:

To the sauce:

Cayenne or smoked paprika

Mustard for a tangy hit

To the dish before baking:

Add diced chilis to spice it up

Crumbled bacon or pulled pork would be awesome

Shellfish- crab, lobster, shrimp so decadent

For the macaroni:

Substitute blanched or roasted cauliflower for some of the pasta or all of it if you want

Or add your favorite veggie, I like broccoli or mushrooms

File this recipe in the not so back of your mind for the next time you have a hankering for mac and cheese.

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Creamy Homemade Baked Mac and Cheese

Course Main Course, Side Dish
Cuisine American
Keyword Crazy good mac and cheese
Calories 657kcal

Ingredients

  • 1 lb. dried elbow pasta
  • 1/2 cup unsalted butter
  • 1/2 cup all purpose flour
  • 1 1/2 cups whole milk
  • 2 1/2 cups half and half
  • 4 cups grated sharp cheddar cheese measured after grating
  • 1 cup mozzarella shredded Measured after grating
  • 1 cup grated Gruyere cheese measured after grating
  • 1/2 Tbsp. salt Or T Kosher salt
  • 1 tsp black pepper
  • 1/4 tsp. paprika or smoked paprika
  • 1/2-1 Tsp Cayenne pepper

Instructions

  • Preheat oven to 325 degrees F and grease a 3 qt baking dish (9x13"). Set aside.
  • Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. When boiling, add dried pasta and cook 1 minute less than the package directs for al dente. Drain and toss with a bit of butter to keep from sticking.
  • Grate cheeses and toss together to mix, then divide into three piles. Approximately 3 cups for the sauce, 1 1/2 cups for the inner layer, and 1 1/2 cups for the topping.
  • Melt butter in a large saucepan over MED heat. Sprinkle in flour and whisk to combine. Cook for approximately 1-2 minutes, whisking often. Slowly pour in about 2 cups of the milk/half and half, while whisking constantly, until smooth. Slowly pour in the remaining milk/half and half, while whisking constantly, until combined and smooth.
  • Continue to cook over MED heat, whisking constantly, until thickened.
  • Stir in spices and 1 1/2 cups of the cheeses, stirring to melt and combine. Stir in another 1 1/2 cups of cheese, and stir until completely melted and smooth.
  • In a large bowl, combine drained pasta with cheese sauce, stirring to combine fully. Pour half of the pasta mixture into the prepared baking dish. Top with 1 1/2 cups of grated cheeses, then top that with the remaining pasta mixture.
  • Coarsely crush Ritz crackers. Set aside. Melt 1 T butter in a pan. Add cracker crumbs and saute until toasty brown. Kinda optional.
  • Sprinkle the top with the last 1 1/2 cups of cheese and cracker crumbs.
  • Bake for 15 minutes, until cheesy is bubbly and lightly golden brown.

Notes

See comments in post.
Mac and Cheese can be made ahead:
Make as directed (but do not bake), transfer to baking dish and cool completely. Cover tightly with foil and refrigerate 1-2 days ahead.
Before baking, let dish sit on counter for 30 minutes.
Bake at recipe temperature for 25-35 minutes, until hot and bubbly.

Cheesy White Bean Tomato Bake

What to do with all that leftover cheese from your scrumptious mac and cheese.  Note to self, never buy your cheese from Costco, New York Times Cooking to the rescue.  Easy-check. Quick-check. Uses up some of that extra cheese-check. Delicious-check. A riff on Korean Cheesy Corn, this is great dish for a happy hour, lunch paired with a green salad or late night munchie attack. 

This dish is as easy as beans from a can.  Really.  

Taking my cue from NYT Cooking I tweaked the recipe, a lot.  Not as much as everyone else judging from the comments, but enough to make it my own.  I doubled the tomato paste, threw in a sprig of rosemary, sautéed shallots and diced red bell pepper along with the garlic and last but not least, added some bacon. You don’t have to.

Make it your own-add nothing, add everything-sausage, spinach, kale (never me), or use different beans.

Yum.
A Sweet Mash-Up (Helmand Palace Kaddo)

A Sweet Mash-Up (Helmand Palace Kaddo)

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I found myself in the city one evening last week driving down Van Ness Ave.  If you have driven down that boulevard lately, it has been under major construction for what seems like an eternity.  Major swaths of the street have been dug up and walled off with wood barriers and fencing.  I can’t even imagine how the businesses on the street are coping with such a major disruption.

On this night I reached the section near Green and Van Ness and much to my surprise, the walls and giant cranes were gone.  I spotted  the restaurant Helmand Palace, an Afghani restaurant I have been meaning to try for a long time.  A spot opened up (in the City that’s a sign) in front so I immediately parked my car and headed into the restaurant.  Obviously I was meant to have Afghani food tonight!

I zeroed in on the one dish I had to try, Kaddo.  What’s Kaddo, you ask? It’s pumpkin slow roasted in sugar and cinnamon until tender and smothered with a tomato based sauce of ground beef flavored with ginger, coriander and turmeric.  It’s topped with a cold yogurt sauce spiked with garlic and mint. Every bite is a melt-in-your-mouth revelation—soft, satiny, DELICIOUS.  It is mind bogglingly good.

I asked for TWO take-out orders of Kaddo (the fam was at home). While I waited, I told the host I had found their recipe for Kaddo on Epicurious.  His restaurant and their Kadoo, have been on my bucket list for a long time.  It didn’t disappoint.  Their Aushak, a dumpling filled with leeks and scallions layered with a meat sauce and yogurt was equally scrumptious.

A while back we celebrated Mom’s birthday with a visit to  Cala in San Francisco.  The food was delicious but their slow-roasted Sweet Potato with Bone Marrow Salsa Negra had me in a tizzy.  How could something so simple be so delicious?  Smitten Kitchen posted a recipe for slow roasted sweet potatoes that sounded so much like the amazing dish at Cala, it gave me an idea. You know where I’m going with this right?  Beautifully charred, meltingly soft sweet potatoes topped with Kaddo….oh yeah we are so going there.

SWEET MASH-UP TIME

I slow-roasted the sweet potatoes until they were soft, caramelized, and charred on the outside. While the sweet potatoes were roasting, I made the Helmand Palace meat and yogurt sauces. Remove the potatoes from the oven and let them cool so you can handle them.  Brush the roasted sweet potatoes with browned butter and top with sugar/cinnamon before adding the warm meat sauce and cold yogurt.  So good.

You can also set up a SWEET little fixings bar so everyone can choose their own toppings. Have the Kaddo sauces and any of the toppings from Sam Kass’s, Eat a Little Better at the ready for everyone to pick their favorite.

For vegetarians, skip the meat sauce and slather the cool minty, garlic yogurt sauce on the hot, charred sweet potato.

Potatolicious, you’re welcome.

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Kaddo

Delicious appetizer adapted from Helmand Palace in San Francisco. Roasted sweet potatoes topped with a savory meat sauce and a cool mint-garlic yogurt.
Course Appetizer
Cuisine Middle Eastern
Keyword Kaddo
Prep Time 30 minutes
Cook Time 2 hours
Servings 4

Ingredients

  • 4-6 Sweet potatoes
  • butter
  • sugar
  • cinnamon

For the yogurt sauce

  • 2 C plain yogurt
  • 2 garlic cloves minced
  • 1 tsp dried mint
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • For the meat sauce
  • 1/4 C vegetable oil
  • 1 large onion finely diced
  • 1 1/2 lbs. ground beef or mixture of lamb and beef
  • 1 large tomato seeded and finely chopped
  • 2 large garlic cloves minced
  • 1 1/4 tsp ground coriander
  • 1 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp freshly ground pepper
  • 1/2 tsp ground turmeric
  • 2 tbsp tomato paste
  • 1 1/3 C water

Slow Roasted Sweet Potatoes

  • 4 medium sweet potatoes (about 3 pounds), scrubbed clean
  • 4 teaspoons olive oil
  • 2 teaspoons kosher salt
  • 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Instructions

Slow Roasted Sweet Potatoes

  • Heat your oven to 275°F. Arrange sweet potatoes on a large, foil-lined baking sheet. Rub each with 1 teaspoon olive oil, 1/2 teaspoon salt (which will make a quite salty skin, use less if desired) and 1/4 teaspoon pepper until well coated.
  • Bake until very soft inside and caramelized on the bottom, about 2 1/2 hours.
  • Heat your broiler and run the potatoes underneath it — mine is fairly weak, and this took 5 to 10 minutes, but check in regularly, a more robust one might do it in 1 to 2 minutes — until lightly charred on top.
  • Let potatoes cool 10 minutes, then gently crush potatoes with your hands to expose the flesh.
  • Split sweet potatoes, brush insides with melted butter. Sprinkle with sugar and a dash of cinnamon.

Sauces (Make while sweet potatoes are roasting)

  • YOGURT SAUCE: Mix all the ingredients together. Refridgerate.
  • MEAT SAUCE: Brown the onions in the oil in a heavy-bottomed saucepan. Add meat and cook over medium-high heat, stirring, until browned. Add all other ingredients (except for the tomato paste and water) and cook, stirring, for another 5 minutes or so. Stir in the tomato paste, then add the water and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and let simmer, covered, for about 15 minutes.
  • Top each sweet potato with cold yogurt sauce and hot meat sauce. Serve immediately

Notes

The original recipe calls for 2 sugar pumpkins which are prepared as follows:
Make the pumpkin: It helps to have a serious vegetable cleaver for this bit. Preheat your oven to 300º. Wash off the outside of the pumpkins. Cut them in half. Scrape out the stringy stuff on the inside. Cut the halves into 3#-4# pieces or so. Peel them. Get rid of all the green and rind. Find a baking pan large enough to hold all the pumpkin pieces in a single layer. Cover the pumpkin pieces in the oil and place them hollow side up in the pan. Pour the sugar evenly over the pumpkin pieces. Cover the pan with aluminum foil. Bake for 2 1/2 hours, then baste the pieces with the pan juices, cover them up again, and bake for another 45 minutes. The sugar will all melt away and end up partially absorbed. The pumpkin pieces will turn dark orange and translucent. They will have a stunningly novel texture. 
You can substitute butternut squash for either the pumpkin or sweet potatoes.
In a Peanut Pickle with these Cookies (Peanut and Bittersweet Chocolate Cookies)

In a Peanut Pickle with these Cookies (Peanut and Bittersweet Chocolate Cookies)

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I have mentioned this before, when it comes to cookies we are a divided family.  Shortbread cookies are my favorite, crumbly, buttery, crisp, not too sweet, perfect with tea or coffee.

My family disagrees.  Hubs and kids prefer chewy cookies.  While Hubs favors oatmeal cookies (like his Good Cookies), Jorge, freshly back from a year in Korea, will remind me (almost daily) that I have yet to make his favorite chocolate sprinkle cookies or even CCC.  All classic kid cookies-chewy, sweet and deliciously dunkable in an ice-cold glass of milk.

So, much to Jordan’s chagrin, the cookies that came out of the oven the other day were the Peanut and Bittersweet Chocolate Cookies, a slice and bake that is much more similar to shortbread.  I found the recipe in the LA Times (a boss cooking section, the reason I maintain a subscription) a few years ago.  The winner of their holiday cookie contest, it immediately went on my gotta make Cookie Bucket List.  It is delicious, buttery, crisp, not quite as dense as shortbread, and filled with peanut umami.  The cookies contain both peanut butter and finely chopped peanuts, a double nut hit.  Mr. Planter would be proud.  The bittersweet chocolate gives it an adult twist, a not too sweet hit of chocolate, yum.

I knew it was a winner when Jorge unconsciously kept eating the cookies all the while complaining about not liking peanut butter or crisp, short cookies and still asking “When are you going to make Sprinkle Cookies?” as he polished off the last one.

Necessity is the mother of invention and quite often, a good thing.  Stashed in the pantry, a jar of honey roasted peanuts that subbed for the salted peanuts I did not have.  To offset the sweetness from the honey, I sprinkled the cookies with Fleur de Sel before popping them in the oven.

The peanut butter, sugar, and butter are beaten until light and fluffy. Add the dry ingredients and combine, don’t overbeat.  Fold in the nuts and chopped chocolate.  The dough is very soft, transfer the dough to wax paper or parchment and shape into a log.  Place in the fridge and chill thoroughly.  Use a sharp knife or a serrated knife to cut the dough into 1/4 inch slices.  I rotated the dough while slicing to keep the cookies round.  If the dough crumbles, just smoosh it back together. Sprinkle the slices with Fleur de Sel and sanding sugar.

If you wanted to make a kid friendlier cookie, you can use semi-sweet or even milk chocolate for the bittersweet chocolate.  If you like peanuts, you are going to love these cookies.

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Peanut and Bittersweet Chocolate Cookies

Course cookies
Cuisine American
Keyword Peanut and Bittersweet Chocolate Cookie
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 15 minutes

Ingredients

  • 1 1/4 cups flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
  • 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 cup 1 stick cold butter
  • 1/2 cup chunky peanut butter
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
  • 1 cup finely chopped roasted peanuts or honey roasted peanuts
  • 1 cup finely chopped bittersweet chocolate
  • Fleur de Sel for sprinkling
  • Sanding Sugar for sprinkling

Instructions

  • In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl and set aside.
  • Beat the butter until creamy in a stand mixer. Beat in the peanut butter until blended. Beat in the sugar and brown sugar until light and fluffy.
  • Beat the egg and vanilla into the sugar mixture until combined. Add flour mixture and beat until thoroughly mixed. Stir in chopped peanuts and chocolate until evenly incorporated.
  • Divide the dough in half. Shape it into two logs about 9 inches long and wrap each log in plastic wrap, waxed paper. Twist ends to seal. Chill in the refrigerator overnight.
  • Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Unwrap the logs and cut into one-fourth-inch-thick slices. The dough is soft so rotate while slicing. If dough crumbles due to peanuts or chocolate just press it together to reshape.
  • Place the slices on parchment-lined baking sheets, and bake 10 to 13 minutes until lightly browned around the edges.
  • Remove the cookies to a wire rack to cool. Store the cookies in an airtight container.

Notes

Each cookie: 66 calories; 1 gram protein; 7 grams carbohydrates; 1 gram fiber; 5 grams fat; 2 grams saturated fat; 7 mg. cholesterol; 38 mg. sodium.
World Peace Cookies-Let’s Do the Cookie Wrap Now

World Peace Cookies-Let’s Do the Cookie Wrap Now

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Christmas is over, but that doesn’t mean the cookie baking has stopped.

After all, we still need to ring in the new year and what better way than with delicious sweet or salty nibbles? Need a savory bite to go with cocktails, try Parmesan Shortbread or Bouchon’s Gourgeres.  Didn’t finish that bottle of bubbly Rose’, the perfect answer, Christina Tosi’s Champagne Shortbread.

To usher in 2020, I looked for the perfect bite-sized treat when you have a cocktail or a glass of the bubbly in your grasp.  I kept in mind my slice and bake theme and decided the perfect cookie to have for New Year’s Eve or Day, DRUM ROLL PLEASE…

Dorie Greenspan’s World Peace Cookies

A fitting cookie to celebrate the end of a decade and bring in a new one.

This cookie, a Pierre Herme creation,  was originally called the Korova cookie and was published in Dorie’s Paris Sweets. It was the first book of Dorie’s I purchased. This cookie “made me buy it”.  My reaction the first time I popped one in my mouth was, “WOW, this is REALLY, I mean REALLY, GOOD.”

I’m not a big fan of chocolate cookies so it took me by surprise.  So delicious, Dorie’s friend renamed this chocolate wonder, World Peace Cookie.  If everyone shared these we could achieve global peace.  The cookies are chocolatey and sweet with bits of Fleur de Sel providing a surprising hit of saltiness.   The chunks of bittersweet chocolate temper the sweetness and give the cookies a 1-2 chocolate punch. Yep, like a champ.

Ok.  This cookie does pop up on a zillion feeds.  So why am I re-posting?  Well, you can never post the perfect chocolate cookie too many times and more importantly, on the off chance YOU haven’t made these, how could I not?  I would be remiss if I didn’t, a dereliction of blogger duty.

There is another reason. I came across Dorie’s updated version of the World Peace Cookie in her book,  Dorie’s Cookies (of course I own a copy, silly).  Bakers often commented on the original recipe about the crumbly dough and how difficult it was to form a log.  Her updated version has a little more butter, a little more sugar, and a smidge less flour.  I noticed the updated dough was softer than the original recipe and came together easily.  Perhaps her changes came about from baking them in ring molds for their cookie pop-up or maybe to address the crumble rumble.

I think the original recipe is much more like a sable’, a little drier and shortbread-like while the updated version is softer and a tad moister (wow, this was an auto-correct).  I fully intend to bake the original soon for comparison.  The bottom line is both versions are DELICIOUS.

The dough comes together in a snap.  Butter is beaten with sugar, flour, cocoa powder, salt, and baking soda.  Then chopped dark chocolate is folded into the dough.  Natural or Dutch-process cocoa can be used.  I used King Arthur’s Triple Cocoa Blend (all-purpose cocoa) but use your favorite.  For the chocolate, I like Trader Joe’s Pound Plus Dark Chocolate that comes in a big honking bar. You can use fancy designer chocolate to up the wow factor or you can use chips when you are in a hurry.  I like the jagged, rough pieces you get chopping the chocolate.  Use bittersweet chocolate, especially with the updated version which is a little sweeter than the original.

Roll the dough into logs, wrap in parchment or wax paper and chill.  Use a serrated or sharp knife to cut 1/2 inch pieces.  The dough will crumble but it is an easy fix, just smoosh it back together.  No sweat.  See?

Bake the cookies for twelve minutes.  Don’t check them and don’t open the oven door.  Just relax until the buzzer goes off.  “Bake and take” them out-Dorie’s rules.  Let them cool to set. They’re delicious slightly warm or at room temperature.  Get out the milk or get out the bubbly and ENJOY.

Happy New Year!  Wishing for World Peace in 2020!

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Dorie Greenspan's World Peace Cookies

These chocolate cookies will satisfy any chocoholic. Similar to a sable' these cookies are from Dorie Greenspan's Cookie book and are absolutely addicting.
Course cookies
Cuisine American, French
Keyword chocolate cookies, Dorie Greenspan, korova cookies, world peace cookies
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 20 minutes

Ingredients

  • 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour 170gm
  • 1/3 cup cocoa powder Dutch-processed or natural 30gm
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 8 tablespoons plus 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, (1 stick + 3 T) at room temperature
  • 2/3 cup packed light brown sugar 134gm
  • 1/4 cup granulated sugar 50gm
  • 1/2 teaspoon fleur de sel or 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
  • 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
  • 5 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped into small bits 142gm or 5 ounces
  • Fleur de Sel optional, to sprinkle on cookies before baking

Instructions

  • Sift the flour, cocoa, and baking soda together and keep the bowl close. Put the butter in the bowl of a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and beat on medium speed until the butter is soft and creamy. Add both sugars, the salt, and vanilla extract and beat for another minute or two. Reduce the mixer speed to low and add the sifted dry ingredients. Mix only until the dry ingredients are incorporated — the dough will look crumbly, and that’s just right. For the best texture, work the dough as little as possible once the flour is added. Toss in the chocolate pieces and mix only to incorporate.
  • Turn the dough out onto a smooth work surface and squeeze it so that it sticks together in large clumps, don't be afraid to smoosh it together. Gather the dough into a ball, divide it in half, and working with one half at a time, shape the dough into logs that are 1 1/2 inches (4 cm) in diameter. (Cookie-dough logs can end up with hollow centers, so as you’re shaping each log, flatten it once or twice and roll it up from one long side to the other to get the air out)
  • Wrap the logs in plastic wrap and chill them for at least 1 hour. (Wrapped airtight, the logs can be refrigerated for up to 3 days or frozen for 1 month.)
  • Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 325°F (165°C). Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
  • Working with a sharp thin-bladed knife, slice the logs into rounds that are 1/2 inch (1.5 cm) thick. (Don’t worry if the rounds break; just squeeze the broken-off bit back onto the cookie.) Place the cookies on the parchment-lined sheets, leaving about 1 inch (2.5 cm) spread space between them.
  • If you want to up your salt game, sprinkle a tiny bit of Fleur de Sel on each cookie before baking. It adds a tiny wow factor to the look of the cookie too.
  • Bake one sheet of cookies at a time, and bake each sheet for 12 minutes. The cookies will not look done, nor will they be firm, but that’s just the way they should be. Transfer the baking sheet to a cooling rack and let the cookies stand until they are only just warm or until they reach room temperature.
Cultured Club with Girl Deb (Cultured Butter Cookies)

Cultured Club with Girl Deb (Cultured Butter Cookies)

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Last but not least of the trio of slice and bake cookies, Cultured Butter Cookies from Melissa Clark via The New York Times.  On a trip to my neighborhood Trader Joes, I came across Cultured Butter.  What? “cultured butter”, my curiosity was peaked.   As if the planets had just aligned, what should pop up on my feed? An article by Melissa Clark in the NYT on the virtues of cultured butter.   A recipe for Cultured Butter Cookies was included.  Butter Cookies?  A cousin to my favorite cookie, Shortbread?  I’m on it.

Cultured butter is slightly tangy and salty.  Throw out the notion that you should only use unsalted butter to cook and bake.  Cultured butter, from Brittany, wears salt like a badge of honor.  The process of pasteurization kills the live cultures in the milk. Adding back a bacteria culture to the milk gives the butter a nice tang.  So, a live culture, salt, and higher butterfat content, what do you get? Butter on “roids”.

Trader Joe’s carries a very good Cultured Butter (according to Bon Apetit’).  Imported from Brittany, its a bargain.  Not just perfect for Melissa’s cookies, but delicious on toast, spread on a baguette or drizzled on vegetables.

The remaining logs of dough of my trio of slice and bakes are chilling in the fridge.  All I have to do is slice, bake, and arrange them on a festive plate, and I’m good to go…to any holiday party, even yours (hint, hint).

Bout’ the cookies

Beat softened butter with sugar until light and fluffy.  Add egg yolk and combine.  This results in a lighter, crisper cookie.  Blend in the dry ingredients, do not overbeat.  The dough is then molded into a log (helpful hints for creating logs) and chilled.  Roll the logs in sugar, I like white sanding or sparkling sugar which gives the cookies a festive look and provides a bit of crunch.

Slice at least 1/4 inch thick, no less for a nice edge and then bake on parchment-lined sheet until the edges turn a nice deep golden brown.  The cookies taste even better on the second day as the flavors have a chance to develop.

These cookies are lovely.  Light, crisp, buttery perfect with tea, champagne, just about anything.  I’ll be baking a batch for New Year’s Eve too.

The trio of slice and bakes and the stamped Mexican Hot Chocolate Shortbread were the cornerstone of my #f52HolidaySwap box this year.  What’s that you say? Think…

Secret Santa  

Hosted by Food52, this is a wonderful, fun way to share the holiday spirit of giving with a stranger and donate to a worthwhile cause.  For a small donation (this year’s recipient was No Kid Hungry) you are sent a name and address of someone in the world (yep, you read that right-world, although most likely stateside) to send a package of goodies.  My holiday box went to Kim in Ohio, filled with not only cookies but spiced pecans, homemade granola, kitchen towels I trimmed myself (so easy) and a beautiful bowl made by my friend, Snook.  In turn, I received a box from Massachusetts, with cute flour sack towels, homemade cookies, and a festive spatula. 

I am already thinking about next year’s box! 

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Cultured Butter Cookies

Course cookies
Cuisine American
Keyword Cultured Butter Cookies
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 18 minutes

Ingredients

  • 2 cups 250 grams all-purpose flour
  • ½ teaspoon 3 grams baking powder
  • ¼ teaspoon fine sea salt
  • 1 cup 2 sticks salted, cultured butter, at room temperature
  • ⅔ cup 130 grams granulated sugar
  • 1 large egg yolk
  • ¼ cup coarse sanding sugar for rolling

Instructions

  • In a large bowl, sift together flour, baking powder and salt.
  • In an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat together butter and granulated sugar until lightened in color and fluffy, about 3-4 minutes. Beat in egg yolk until combined. With mixer running on low, add flour mixture until incorporated.
  • Divide dough half. On a clean surface, roll each halfinto a 1 ½ inch log.
  • Sprinkle the coarse sanding sugar over a sheet of parchment. Roll each log in the sugar until the outside of the dough is thoroughly covered.
  • Cover logs tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate at least one hour, or overnight.
  • When you are ready to bake the cookies, heat oven to 325°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment. Use large, sharp knife to cut each log into ¼ inch-thick rounds. Place cookies 1 inch apart on prepared baking sheets. Bake until cookie edges and bottoms are deep golden brown, about 15 minutes. Cool 5 minutes on baking sheets, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Store in a tightly covered container at room temperature.

Notes

Trader Joe's has Cultured Butter!
Slice, Slice Baby (Ginger Oat Cookies)

Slice, Slice Baby (Ginger Oat Cookies)

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As soon as slice and bake cookies became my “thang” this year, I thought of The Grand Central Baking Book that has been sitting on my shelf for years. It has an entire section devoted to slice and bake cookies. Time to finally pull it off that shelf and put a dent in my vow to cook or bake at least one recipe from every cookbook I own.  I’m glad I did.  I chose the Ginger Oat Cookie, a buttery oatmeal shortbread with ground ginger in the dough and flecked with bits of candied ginger.  It is absolutely delicious. The oatmeal gives it a rustic texture while the ginger adds sweetness and spice. Paired with a cup of hot tea, they are in a word, addicting.  

For the dough, beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy then add the dry ingredients and mix until just combined.  Fold in the candied ginger.  The recipe calls for 2 tablespoons of candied ginger if you like your cookies “gingery” you can add a smidge more.  Gather the dough with a bench knife (pastry scraper), and divide it in half.  Place each portion on a sheet of parchment paper and pat into a long rectangle.

To form a round log, I fold the parchment over the dough, place a ruler or straight edge on top of it at the base of the dough.  Hold the bottom edge of the paper taut, and push the straight edge into the dough.  To prevent your cookies from having a flat bottom, place each log in PVC tubes (I got mine from Tap Plastic) so they are not resting on a flat surface while chilling.  You could use a paper towel tube, but who keeps those around?

Chill the dough until firm.  The recipe calls for rolling the dough in sugar.  I use just egg white to brush the logs as I’m not a fan of the color imparted by a whole egg wash.  Cut the logs with a sharp or serrated knife.  Don’t worry if it crumbles a little, just smoosh the dough back together. NBD

Since I had two logs, one went in the freezer to save for a rainy day.  Love slice and bake cookies.  Easy peasy.

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Grand Central Bakery Ginger Oat Shortbread Cookies

This buttery brown sugar oatmeal shortbread is a double hit of ginger with pieces of candied ginger and ground ginger infused in the dough. A delicious sweet and spicy cookie perfect with a cup of tea.
Course cookies
Cuisine American
Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 16 minutes

Ingredients

  • 1 -2/3 cup AP flour
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon ground ginger
  • 1 -2/3 cup rolled oats old fashioned
  • 2 sticks unsalted butter room temperature
  • 2/3 cup light brown sugar packed
  • 2 tablespoons candied ginger coarsely chopped
  • egg white wash 1 egg white beaten with 1 tsp water
  • turbinado sugar for rolling

Instructions

  • Combine flour, salt and ground ginger into a bowl and whisk to combine. Stir in rolled oats.
  • Using a stand mixer with the paddle attachment beat butter and sugar together on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes.
  • Add dry ingredients and mix just until combined. Fold in candied ginger with a sturdy spatula and divide dough in half. Place each half on a 12 to 14-inch length of parchment paper or waxed paper. Shape the log into a rectangle by flattening the top and sides with your hands. Use the paper to help roll and shape dough into 2 logs, 10 inches in length and roughly 2 inches in diameter.
  • Twist the ends of the paper to seal the log and chill until firm, at least 2 hours and up to 3 days.
  • (Logs of shortbread dough can be frozen for up to 3 months.)
  • Preheat oven to 325°F and line baking sheets with parchment paper. Lightly brush each log with egg white wash. Roll log in turbinado or similarly coarse sugar, using some pressure so that sugar adheres to the dough.
  • Slice cookies 1/4 to 1/2-inch thick and place 1 inch apart on prepared pans. Bake 16 to 20 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through the baking time. The cookies are done when they begin to brown slightly around the edges and the centers are still light.