Pecan Mudslide Cookies

I spent a few days in New York City in early December to promote* my latest book project, and I happened to stay at a hotel that was very near the Chelsea Market.

I had very little free time in my schedule, but the proximity allowed me to do a little personal shopping (books, utensils, magazines), buy a few things to improvise breakfast in my room** and, moments before I was to catch a ride back to the airport, get a sandwich and a treat to eat on the plane.

The sandwich was a B.L.A.T. on sourdough from Friedmans Lunch; the treat a giant mudslide cookie from the tiny Jacques Torres stand.

What I really meant to get was a chocolate chip cookie, because Torres is one of the experts David Leite consulted for his perfect chocolate chip cookie article, and the devil on my left shoulder was hoping to persuade the angel on the right that it was all in the name of research. But they were out of those, so I simply got the other kind on offer. (As it turns out, my shoulder angel has a weakness for chocolate so he's a bit lax when it comes to that kind of decision.)

I ended up not eating the cookie on the plane but simply brought it home, where it fed Maxence and me over the next couple of days; it was that big.

This cookie was so good, so chocolate-intense, that I credit it for helping me recover from the jetlag and travel fatigue. And because I felt I needed further assistance in that department, I looked for a recipe online. I easily found one in the New York Times archives, and it came with a leetle veedeo in which Jacques himself walks you through the process -- always a bonus.

I two-fifthed the recipe, scaling it down to use 2 instead of 5 eggs, and modified it to use bittersweet chocolate only (unsweetened chocolate is not a staple of the French baker's pantry), a little less sugar, and pecans in place of walnuts. And instead of making eight jumbo cookies, as the recipe scaling would have me do, I made sixteen of a size that is still plenty satisfying, but seemed as if it would go down better with the angel.

The trick to getting these (and many other) cookies right is to time the baking precisely so that the core of the cookie remains fudge-like, in ideal contrast with the crisper edges, the pecan pieces, and the chocolate chunks. The timing I'm giving below is perfect for my own oven, but yours is probably different, so start with a trial batch, watch the cookies closely, and make a note of the baking time that works for you.

At this point, I think I should stress how insanely chocolatey these mudslide cookies are -- after all, they are more than 50% chocolate in weight. This is what makes them spectacular, but it also means that you should think carefully about the chocolate you use in them, because it will have a majority vote in the final flavor. (In Paris, affordable couverture chocolate can be obtained from G. Detou.)

And if you celebrate Valentine's Day -- I belong to category #2 so I don't -- these would certainly make your special someone feel very special.

~~~

* This involved a brief "cooking" segment on CBS's Early Show, if you're interested.

** I broke my own no-hotel-breakfast rule on my first morning there and ordered a so-called "seasonal fruit bowl," only to discover that, in their world, this meant melon and berries. In December. Sheesh.

Posted on 4 February 2010 | 2:17 am

February 2010 Desktop Calendar

At the beginning of every month, I am offering C&Z readers a new wallpaper to apply on the desktop of your computer, with a food-related picture and a calendar of the current month.

Our calendar for February is a picture of a diminutive winter squash poetically named pomme d'or (golden apple) in French; I thought its glow might bring a bit of sunshine to your desktop. (And here are a few winter squash recipes if you need inspiration.)

Instructions to get your calendar are below.

Posted on 1 February 2010 | 7:30 pm

Sourdough Crumpets

I have been wanting to make my own crumpets for about eight years. I can tell you this because that's when I remember placing, in my bulging clipping file, a mauve scrap of paper on which I'd copied a crumpet recipe from one of the ladies' magazines my grandmother used to subscribe to.

But the recipe involved yeast, and back then I hadn't yet conquered my fear of it, so the recipe hibernated in the "miscellaneous" section for years, until it eventually got the ax during a perhaps overzealous pruning campaign.

The project resurfaced in my mind a few months ago, when I learned from the King Arthur Flour website that you could make sourdough crumpets with natural starter.

Better yet, the recipe is the kind that every natural starter enthusiast dreams of: one that offers to use up the excess starter that the natural feeding cycle leaves you with*. All you need to do is store that extra starter in a container in the fridge -- I've recycled an empty tub of yogurt for that purpose -- until it amounts to roughly a cup (270 grams), which, in my case, takes about three feedings. You mix that with a bit of sugar, salt, and baking soda, and cook the foamy batter like pancakes in a skillet.

It took me a couple of tries to get them right -- I had to figure out how hot the skillet needed to be, how much of the batter I should use for each crumpet, and that the crumpet rings needed to be well greased and well preheated to prevent sticking -- but now I can count on fantastic crumpets every time: nicely bubbly at the top, to catch the drippings of whatever you spread them with, crisp around the edges, and lightly doughy on the inside, with a subtle tang to the palate.

I decided to equip myself with proper crumpet rings, which produce straight sides and a neat, stackable shape, but you can do without, or use, as I've seen suggested here and there, empty cans of tuna from which you'll remove the top and bottom with a can opener (make sure you get cans that can be opened on both sides; it's not always the case).

Crumpets are a teatime staple in the UK, served warm and spread with butter, but we also enjoy ours at breakfast, with almond butter and a sliced pear. And because they are, in fact, neither sweet nor savory, I've eaten them with a chunk of fruity comté cheese and a bowl of soup to particularly satisfying results.

In all cases, toasting the crumpet is a must. And because they freeze so well, you can cook a big batch and stash them away for an impromptu crumpet fest.

[Note: crumpets can also be made without a starter, as instructed in the following recipes (untested by me but seemingly reliable). This one is also from the King Arthur Flour website, with step-by-step pictures also, and this one appeared recently in The Guardian.]

* A sourdough starter needs to be fed its own weight in flour and its own weight in water at every feeding -- daily or twice daily if it's kept at room temperature, weekly if it lives in the fridge. If you were to keep all of the "old" starter, it would triple at every feeding and build up to an exponentially large quantity: you would gradually need more and more flour to keep it happy, which would be costly and impractical. The solution then is to remove a portion of the starter before each feeding, keeping just a couple of tablespoons. Some people throw out that extra starter, but many prefer to keep it in the fridge and work it into crêpe, cake, or clafoutis batters, in pizza doughs, in this crumpet recipe, etc. This extra starter can also be given away to another baker. Read more about natural starter bread.

Posted on 27 January 2010 | 2:00 am

6th Annual Menu for Hope: Raffle Winners!

The winners of the Menu for Hope fundraiser/raffle have been announced. Thank you all for your generous participation!

Alice Boussicaut, Tamsin Ballard, Katarina Tierer and Leah Bevington, please get in touch with me to collect your prizes!

Posted on 24 January 2010 | 11:41 pm

Homemade Galette des Rois

If you've ever been in France during the month of January, surely you've noticed the blossoming of galettes des rois in the window of every bakery and pastry shop. A puff pastry pie garnished with a buttery almond filling, it is the traditional confection with which the Epiphany is celebrated*; I have written in more detail about this tradition in this post and later in this one, so I invite you to go and read them first. I'll wait right here.

La galette, and the fun ritual to determine who will be king or queen for the day (allow me to insist you read this post if you don't yet know about the fève thing), bring back many a happy childhood memory for me, and aside from the two years I spent in California, I have partaken of at least one galette a year for as long as I've had the requisite number of teeth.

But the big novelty this year, is that I finally made my own.

My deep attachment to this confection should have compelled me to do so years earlier, but the Epiphany is theoretically celebrated on January 6 -- though this is extended to the whole month of January nowadays -- and I always felt a bit too tuckered out after the holidays to tackle the project.

This year was different: we were celebrating my parents' 40th wedding anniversary on Saturday, my sister, brother-in-law and nephew were visiting from London for the occasion, and my mother had asked if I could bring the dessert for our celebratory lunch. It seemed the perfect opportunity to share a galette with my family, and I had just enough time to make it myself.

My initial intention was to make my own puff pastry, following Mercotte's instructions for feuilletage inversé (inverted puff pastry), a variation on the more common technique that consists -- in a nutshell -- in wrapping the butter around the dough instead of wrapping the dough around the butter, and is said to produce an exceptional texture.

But I couldn't find beurre de tourage in time -- the high-butterfat, low-humidity butter that Mercotte recommends -- so I decided to use store-bought puff pastry. Not just any store-bought puff pastry, mind you, but Madame François' puff pastry, which is produced in Sologne with butter from the Charentes, farine de gruau (fine wheat flour) and zero additives. I got it from G. Detou, where it is sold in slabs of 3 kilos, ready to be divided, shared and/or frozen; it can also be ordered on their website**.

The stuffing was going to be crème d'amande, not frangipane. There is a lot of confusion between the two, so here's the difference: crème d'amande (almond cream) is a simple mix of butter, sugar, ground almonds, and eggs, more or less in equal parts. Frangipane, on the other hand, is a blend of crème d'amande and crème pâtissière (pastry cream), which is made with eggs, milk, sugar, and flour or cornstarch.

Most galettes sold out there are filled with frangipane rather than crème d'amande -- the production cost of frangipane is a lot lower, since the almonds are the most expensive ingredient in there -- but my preference goes to crème d'amande, which makes a more delicate, less eggy, more flavorful filling.

As for the all-important fève (read here to know what that is), I had wisely saved the one Maxence got when we ate a galette des rois at my cousin's a week before: it is a little porcelain tower of some sort that seems like the tip might pierce the roof of your mouth if you're really out of luck, but this is France, and we haven't really gotten into the whole lawsuit thing so far, so that's the sort of thing we do***.

I consulted countless recipes, watched numerous videos, and merged all the things I'd learned into my own version, with a little hazelnut flour in the stuffing.

The making of the galette itself really wasn't difficult at all, at least for someone with a minimum of baking experience: you spread the puff pastry into two circles, spread crème d'amande on the first, cover it with the second, score, eggwash, and bake. The only slightly tricky steps are: 1- not forgetting to place the fève in the filling (a horrifying prospect), 2- placing the top circle precisely over the first, 3- sealing it properly so the filling won't escape, and 4- making sure the eggwash doesn't drip over the edges of the puff pastry, otherwise it might not rise to its full potential.

I did get some guidance from my personal galette hotline, i.e. my friend Pascale, whom I called to ask if she thought I could prepare everything a day in advance and bake the galette on the day of: her response was that I could freeze it overnight, and bake it straight from the freezer in the morning. She even mentioned that puff pastry rises higher if it's been frozen at some point.

It worked perfectly: I woke up, preheated the oven, slipped the frozen galette inside, and tried my best to occupy myself with other things -- watched puff pastry never rises -- until it was ready, golden brown, puffy, and gorgeous.

The bonus challenge I faced was transporting the galette to my parents' apartment -- on Maxence's scooter. I improvised a cake carrier out of two cereal boxes, inserted it in the compartment under the seat, and hoped for the best. Maxence was very careful to avoid bumps and ruts, and although we were practically run down by our squealing nephew upon arrival, the galette made it safely to my mother's kitchen, then to our table, where it was received with enthusiasm and wonderful compliments. My father even declared he'd never eaten such a flavorful galette des rois, and he'd said that about Pierre Hermé's before (I realize he would say that because he's my father, but still).

And as luck (and possibly karma) would have it, I got the fève, which means I can save it for next year, when I make another galette: now that I know how rewarding and fun it is to make my own, there's no turning back, I'm afraid.

Feeling up for the project yourself? You have until the end of January to do so -- at least that's when the French stop eating galettes (and stop wishing those they haven't yet seen or talked to a happy new year). And if it feels too tight, well, the recipe will be right here waiting for you next year!

* Except in the south of France, where the gâteau des rois -- a ring-shaped brioche studded with candied fruit -- takes its place.

** If that's not an option, just use the best quality puff pastry you can find and afford. Ideally, it will be made with just flour, butter, water, and salt (no other type of fat, and no preservatives or additives); in France, the one that is sold by Picard is said to be the best option in its range.

*** I've read that some French-style bakeries established in the US simply place a whole almond instead of a trinket in their galettes, to avoid any choking hazard.

Posted on 20 January 2010 | 1:30 am

Perfect Roasted Potatoes

I believe in striving to master simple dishes. I don't aspire to be a person of whom one says, "what an ambitious cook!" or "she should really open her own restaurant!" First and foremost, I want to be someone who can be trusted to prepare a good, well-rounded, home-cooked meal. A meal that has personality, yes, but one that doesn't try too hard, and relies chiefly on good taste and good technique.

This is why I've always been frustrated by my limited potato roasting skills. Oh, I've roasted my share of potatoes, but I was never able to strike the balance I was after: golden and generously crusty on the outside, moist and tender on the inside. By the time the chunks had developed enough of a crust, the flesh had begun to dry up inside, and I was left with something that was more cardboardy than I would have liked. Not inedible by any means -- it takes considerable effort to render a potato inedible in my book -- but not my platonic image of the roasted potato, either.

And then a few weeks ago, my friend Pascale shared the recipe she uses for pommes de terre rôties, which was in fact taught to her by her British mother-in-law. I have absolute kitchen faith in Pascale -- she has never steered me wrong -- and I was very excited about her technique, which involved a trick I'd never seen before.

Pascale's roasted potato magic unfolds thusly: the potatoes are parboiled for five minutes first, drained, and returned to the saucepan. At this point -- and this is the crucial step, so pay attention -- you grab the lidded pan and shake it vigorously, which not only is fun, but also serves to make the surface of the potato pieces fuzzy from rubbing their hips one against the other.

And wouldn't you know it, it is this very fuzz that fosters the formation of a splendid crust when you then bake the potatoes, while the parboiling step reduces the baking time and ensures that the flesh inside stays moist.

Pascale posted this recipe in late afternoon on a Sunday in December. I read it in early evening, and immediately felt compelled to try it: an hour later, the roasted potatoes were gracing our table, making this a personal TTK (time-to-kitchen) record. The only modifications I made were to reduce the amount of fat used, and to leave a little skin on the potatoes, peeling them in alternative stripes to retain more of the nutrients, and because I like the look and texture this creates.

Barely a month has gone by since that inaugural batch, and I must have made that recipe half a dozen times now, using oil or duck fat and different potato varieties (ratte, roseval, charlotte, vitelotte...) to stupendous results, every time.

It is a company-friendly side, too, since you can parboil and bruise the potatoes before your guests arrive, then slip them in the preheated oven as everyone's settling in. I've served them with Muriel's chicken, with whiskey-flambéed veal paupiettes, and with seared duck breasts, but I think my favorite pairing was with the quails I stuffed and roasted, loosely following a recipe in Thomas Keller's Bouchon.

Posted on 13 January 2010 | 3:52 am

Best of 2009

In the wee hours of a fresh new year, it is a lovely feeling to sit down and reminisce about the one that just ended, trying to squeeze out its essence and single out a few of its most memorable moments.

Among them, and in no particular order, I would list the release of a French classic I helped edit, a Best Culinary Travel Guide award for my Paris book, a trip to San Francisco and our first-ever apartment swap, my thirtieth birthday, and a few other noteworthy things, listed below.

Favorite new kitchen pet

Last spring I started keeping a sourdough starter, which I named Philémon, and this has been the most gratifying, wonder-filled project I have ever undertaken: each starter bread I bake seems an opportunity to learn something new and improve my skills, and the results delight us every time.

In addition to simple loaves, English muffins, and bagels, I have just started making sourdough baguettes and you should hear about these very soon.

Favorite new appliance

After a maddeningly frustrating few months trying to work with an oven that refused to cooperate, I finally threw in the towel and invested in a shiny new one that has (knock on wood) served me really, really well so far.

The contender in this category is the electric steamer I got for my birthday, which opened me to a whole new world of steamy dishes. In 2010, I ambition to use it for homemade dim sum.

Favorite new cookbook

This is not at all a newly published book, but I recently acquired Claudia Fleming's dessert book The Last Course after hearing glowing reviews from several trusted sources. And indeed, it is a beautiful and inspiring book, full of seasonally-sound ideas and useful tips. (The book is out of print and its market value has shot up to absurd heights, but it can be ordered for a more reasonable price through the North Fork Table & Inn, where Fleming works now. Update: the book is now sold out at the North Fork Table & Inn.)

A contender in this category is Nancy Silverton's Breads from the La Brea Bakery, a book about baking with a natural starter, which is, as I think we've established, my current passion.

Posted on 6 January 2010 | 1:30 am

January 2010 Desktop Calendar

Happy New Year! I hope 2010 brings you the rosy cheeks of good health, the heart flutters of happiness, and the warm glow of many kitchen successes.

The desktop calendars are back! At the beginning of every month, I will be offering C&Z readers a new wallpaper to apply on the desktop of your computer, with a food-related picture and a calendar of the current month.

Our desktop calendar for January is a picture of chaussons aux pommes -- or apple turnovers, though the French term literally means "apple slippers" -- these classic confections of puff pastry, folded over stewed apples and dotted with sugar crystals.

You can easily bake them at home if you have a source for high-quality puff pastry -- or the patience to make your own --, but if you'd just as soon buy them, I recommend the chaussons aux pommes à l'ancienne (old-fashioned apple turnovers) from Paris bakery Toro (59 rue d'Orsel, in the 18th, see map).

Instructions to get your calendar are below.

Posted on 1 January 2010 | 9:30 pm

Chocolate-Dipped Hazelnut Marbles

[Billes de noisette au chocolat]

As a small gift to celebrate the holiday season, I give you this recipe drawn from my cookbook. It appears in the mignardise chapter, in which I give recipes for sweet bites to serve at the end of a meal -- in place of, or in addition to dessert, with coffee or tea.

For these particular treats-on-a-stick, you'll make your own hazelnut marzipan (wait, come back! it's really easy, I promise!), shape it into small balls, and dip them in chocolate. They are fun to assemble, and they make a lovely closing note to a festive meal. You could also keep them on hand for nibbling as you decorate the house, wrap up your gifts, or cuddle up with a steaming mug to delve into a good book. (You'll find the recipe at the bottom of this post.)

Speaking of gifts, I hope you'll consider bidding on some of the fantastic items that food bloggers around the world are offering for our Menu for Hope fundraiser. You could also bid in someone's name, and give that person the gift of a good deed, plus a chance to win the item come January. Read on for more information on the campaign, and the prizes I'm offering.

Last year I made a few suggestions of holiday-worthy recipes from the archives, and to those I would now add:

Savory:
~ Cheese thins,
~ Green pea cilantro spread,
~ Jerusalem artichoke soup with bacon,
~ Champagne and saffron mussels,
~ Lamb and orange khoresh (Persian stew),
~ Gratin dauphinois (potato gratin),
~ Spaghetti squash gratin with walnuts,
~ Brussels sprouts with onions and squash seeds,
~ Saffron-roasted cauliflower.

Sweet:
~ Raspberry dacquoise,
~ Green tea and red bean cake roll,
~ Maple pecan ice cream,
~ Vanilla poached quince.

Posted on 23 December 2009 | 1:30 am

[Edible Idiom] Être comme un coq en pâte

This is part of a series on French idiomatic expressions that relate to food. Browse the list of idioms featured so far.

This week's idiom is, "Être comme un coq en pâte."

Literally translated as, "Being like a rooster in dough," it means feeling cosy and pampered, being in a state of absolute contentment, with one's every need catered to. I've seen it likened to the English idiom, "being in clover" or "like pigs in clover," but I understand the latter refer primarily to financial comfort, whereas the French expression implies a more general sense of physical and spiritual well-being.

Example: "Quand il est chez sa grand-mère, il est comme un coq en pâte." "When he's at his grandmother's, he's like a rooster in dough."

Listen to the idiom and example read aloud:

Posted on 17 December 2009 | 10:30 pm

6th Annual Menu for Hope

Today marks the beginning of the 6th edition of Menu for Hope, a fundraising campaign created by Pim and championed by food bloggers all around the world. The funds raised will benefit the United Nations' World Food Programme: it is the world’s largest food aid agency, working with more than a thousand other organizations in over seventy-five countries. In addition to providing food, the World Food Program helps hungry people become self-reliant so they can escape hunger for good.

This year, we are supporting a new initiative at the WFP called Purchase for Progress. This program enables smallholder and low-income farmers to supply food to WFP’s global operation. It helps them improve farming practices, and puts cash directly into their pockets in return for their crops. As a consequence, it also buoys local economy by creating jobs and income locally.

As you may remember from previous editions, this fundraising campaign works as a virtual raffle: every US you donate will buy you a raffle ticket to bid on one of the items contributed by participating bloggers; you can buy as many raffle tickets as you like, and increase your chance to win the item of your dreams. The campaign ends on December 25, and the results will be announced on January 18. We bloggers will arrange for our bid items to be sent to the winners, and all funds raised will go to the World Food Programme.

I am offering four items for your consideration this year:

Posted on 14 December 2009 | 8:30 pm

Carrot and Ginger Quickie Pickle

Pickling means preserving food in a seasoned brine or vinegar mixture, and in case you didn't get the memo, pickles are the new cupcakes.

I sorta kinda doubt it -- try bringing pickles to your nephew's birthday party -- but, as someone who grew up with store-bought jars of cornichons (gherkins) as the single pickled element of the family diet, I am most intrigued by the techniques involved, and the wide range of products they create.

I am a city dweller and it is unlikely that I'll ever have the bumper crop and larder space (or, um, patience) to fill dozens of towering jars with multicolored vegetables biding their time in their sterilized bath, so the method I am most drawn to is the quick pickle: this simply consists in pouring a boiling brine or vinegar solution over pieces of raw vegetables, and letting the mixture cool to room temperature. This type of pickle keeps for about two weeks in the refrigerator, so it is usually done in small batches that you can consume within that time frame -- unless you're giving some away to well screened friends and relatives.

My first near-pickling experience occurred at my friends Braden and Laura's place recently, as I helped Braden prepare the quick-pickled chili peppers he was later to serve with squid ink pasta and fried squid rings. My involvement was limited to the chopping of said chili peppers, which taught me an important, though non-pickling-related lesson: you should protect your hand with a glove or a light film of oil before handling a large amount of hot peppers, otherwise you'll wake up in the morning feeling like it's been dipped in acid.

Scoville scale aside, I had thus been introduced to the quick pickling thing, and was ready for a re-run in my own kitchen. So when I received a copy of Pierre Lamielle's very lovable cookbook Kitchen Scraps, the first recipe I decided to try was the carrot-and-ginger quickie pickle on page 82.

If you don't know who Pierre Lamielle is, head over to his food blog and tell him I said hi: he's a talented illustrator/cook with wit to spare, a definite knack for food-related puns, and a weakness for root vegetables.

His book is a collection of humorously written and illustrated recipes, and I am enjoying it more than a little. It is wacky, irreverent, and funny, yet the recipes are built on solid ground: the author went to culinary school, and this you can tell by his intermittent use of the verb "to blap," a technical term that means sticking something in the oven without making too big a deal out of it. So it's a book you can actually cook from, chuckling privately at the prospect of serving the bear butt-kicking granola, the whirled peas soup (give whirled peas a chance -- get it?), or the angel hair conditioner pasta.

Among the recipes I've flagged are the bread of roses (a bread pudding with chocolate and rosewater), bruno "bloody beets" barbabietola's beets and ricotta risotto (one of five mafia-approved risotti) and, of course, the stinking french onion soup, because that's hard to resist.

The quickie pickle was indeed a breeze to make -- it took about ten minutes, and I was on the phone for most of that time -- and I am delighted with the result: the ribbons look terribly pretty, and we've been eating them as a sweet and sour condiment nested inside tuna sandwiches, as Pierre suggests, or swirled over this warm squash and bean salad, and I can see it bringing a lovely brightness alongside a hearty, brooding stew.

As for the book, it has earned its place on the special bookshelf I reserve for alternative publishing projects from Canada, right between L'Appareil and Au Pied de cochon, and when my little nephew turns 19 years old rather than 19 months old, I have an inkling he'll get a kick out of it, too.

Posted on 9 December 2009 | 1:32 am

[Edible Idiom] Être dans le pâté

This is part of a series on French idiomatic expressions that relate to food. Browse the list of idioms featured so far.

This week's idiom is, "Être dans le pâté."

Literally translated as, "Being in the pâté," it means feeling drowsy and out of it, usually in the morning after too much partying and/or not enough sleeping. It is a slang expression, not vulgar but definitely not elegant, so I don't really suggest you use it -- slang is the trickiest thing to get right in a foreign language -- but I offer it here in case it comes up in conversation.

Example: "Elle était tellement dans le pâté qu'elle est partie en oubliant son téléphone." "She was so badly in the pâté that she left and forgot her phone."

Listen to the idiom and example read aloud:

Posted on 4 December 2009 | 8:30 pm

December 2009 Desktop Calendar

At the beginning of every month in 2009, I am offering C&Z readers a new desktop calendar, i.e. a wallpaper to apply on the desktop of your computer, with a food-related picture and a calendar of the current month.

Our desktop calendar for December is a picture of a freshly popped cork, in anticipation of the holiday celebrations that will keep us all busy this month. I hope you embrace the spirit of the season, enjoy the company of your family and friends, and remember to keep things simple!

Instructions to get your calendar are below.

Posted on 1 December 2009 | 10:40 pm

Spaghetti Squash Gratin with Walnuts and Bacon

[Gratin de courge spaghetti, noix et lardons]

It saddens me when people attemp to pass off food items as something they're not: they're selling those foods short, and setting eaters up for disappointment. No, meatless burgers are not at all like beef burgers, carob chips have nothing to do with chocolate chips, and I don't know in what parallel low-carb universe spaghetti squash is seen as an acceptable substitute for actual, durum wheat spaghetti.

But those food items do have unique qualities of their own -- well, except for carob, which is vile -- so why not simply tout them as such?

Going back to the spaghetti squash, it deserves a lot better than to be treated as a stand-in for pasta. It is a wonderful winter squash in its own right, with a delicate flavor that's not too sweet, and it is therefore a good choice for those who find winter squash a bit cloying.

But its most distinguishing feature -- and the source of the misunderstanding -- is its flesh, which easily separates into soft strands when cooked. The spaghetti comparison ends there, naturally, but those little tufts of filaments do create a delightfully fluffy mouthfeel that sets this cucurbitaceae apart from its peers.

Some recipes suggest cooking spaghetti squash in the microwave, but I no longer own one, so I just roast it in the oven -- a method that is all in all preferable, as it also serves to deepen the flavor of the squash and evaporate some of its moisture, preventing it from getting soggy. All you need to do then is run a fork across the flesh, and the strands will appear before your very eyes, like magic.

In late afternoon on Sunday, as I was pondering what to do with my gourd, I got many great suggestions through a Twitter brainstorm: Kim likes to cook the strands like potato pancakes, with green onions, ginger and soy sauce; Anna eats her spaghetti squash with tomato soup; Yasmin dresses hers with pesto and chili oil; Michelle pointed me to this Gourmet recipe; Ariane suggested brown butter and sage; Lucy likes to layer the squash lasagna-like, alternating with spinach and ricotta and a Moroccan-inspired tomato-lentil sauce.

But, as is usually the case in my kitchen, I ended up devising a recipe inspired by what I had on hand: the thickish slice of smoked bacon that needed using, the bowl of walnuts from our neighbor's sister's garden, and the butt end of a mozzarella log I'd bought for a pizza aux cèpes made with ceps I hunted and captured in the forest last Thursday.

This lineup of ingredients spelled gratin quite clearly: I roasted the spaghetti squash, arranged half of the flesh in a baking dish, sprinkled it with browned strips of the bacon and crumbled walnuts, layered the rest of the squash on top, covered with thinly sliced mozzarella, and topped with breadcrumbs to foster crunch. The whole thing went back under the oven grill for a few minutes, and then dinner was ready.

We had it as our main course, which left room for slivers of salted butter caramel tatin left over from the previous day's dinner party, but it would also be lovely as a side and, come to think of it, a most suitable one if you're cooking for Thanksgiving this week.

Posted on 25 November 2009 | 2:00 am