February 2012
7 posts
1 tag
Tomato and Cheddar Pie
Photo credit: Miklos Pogany
This recipe was originally in the August 2011 issue of Bon Appetit. The guests who ate it for breakfast this morning thought you could also add a little crumbled bacon to the filling …. The recipe called for dill, which I didn’t have, so we did without any fresh herb but I think either dill or basil would make good additions.
Crust:
2 cups all purpose...
1 tag
A Taste of the Past
When I was growing up, the main meal was in the middle of the day. After that came ‘tea’ at about four or five, or whenever you got home from school. Tea featured hot black tea with milk and sugar; sandwiches, English style, meaning plenty of bread and butter, but not much in the way of filling (it could be jam, or Marmite, or perhaps a single layer of cheese or ham), and then...
1 tag
Matcha & Pistachio-Crusted Halibut
Serves four (but you’ll have leftovers of the pistachio topping).
Bon Appetit published this recipe in its October 2011 issue. The recipe comes from Chef Daniel Patterson of Coi in San Francisco.
1/2 cup raw unsalted pistachios
1 1/2 tsp matcha powder
1/2 tsp sugar
2 tbsp dry breadcrumbs
1 tbsp unsalted butter, melted, plus more for parchment paper
1/2 tsp finely grated lemon...
1 tag
The Ladies come to dinner, again ...
It’s my turn, once again, to host the Literary Guild for dinner.
For quite some time, I’ve known exactly what the star turn in this dinner would be - a matcha and pistachio-crusted halibut (or other firm-fleshed white fish).
There’s a story behind this choice. Used to be I subscribed to Bon Appetit, faithfully. It was less intimidating than Gourmet, or Saveur, and served me...
1 tag
Hungarian Mushroom Soup
Miklos’s brother Stefano shared this recipe with us. Just a few simple ingredients, and a comforting flavorful winter dinner. I’d also add this to my list of medicinal soups - it’s the perfect thing to offer someone who’s coming down with a cold!
Two cautions. First, don’t hurry it - give the chicken its full 45 minutes to soften and lend all its flavor. And...
1 tag
Seeing the old year out on Islesford
The usual gang gathered at Dan and Cynthia’s on New Year’s eve this year. Dan had organized us around an ambitious menu of little plates, with the idea that we would nibble our way through the five hours between seven and midnight, rather than sit down to an overwhelming meal. As a strategy, it worked! There was still too much food, of course, but more opportunity to pick and choose, and...
1 tag
Panna Cotta for a New Year's Feast
So here we were, with a multi-course menu, and my assignment was a dessert. But I didn’t get my assignment until we were already on the island, which meant that I was far from all my favorite cookbooks, and momentarily paralyzed. What could I offer that would be a light ending, but still sufficiently special and festive - AND not include any ingredients that would be hard to find in December in...
September 2011
2 posts
1 tag
End of summer - the last lobster dinner
Labor Day weekend was the first time that BOTH Miklos’s sons, Andrei and Alex, with BOTH their women, Deborah and Emily, along with cousin Noah, Deborah’s sister Candice, and assorted other family, were able to come together on Islesford. Put together a whole lot of people who love to eat, and to cook, one group who are coming from New York with access to all kinds of specialty items,...
1 tag
Blueberry Crisp
BLUEBERRY CRISP (Serves 9 - except that it will disappear no matter how few you are serving)
6 cups wild blueberries
1/4 cup granulated sugar
juice of one lemon
Arrange the blueberries in a large shallow baking dish. Sprinkle the sugar and squeeze the lemon juice over them.
3/4 cup unbleached white flour
3/4 cup rolled oats
2/3 cup white sugar
2/3 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp...
August 2011
1 post
1 tag
Island bread making and the Alpine Baguette
I came back from England determined to make the absolutely delicious ‘Alpine baguette’ that has become one of my sister’s signature loaves. While we were visiting she used it to make little thin toast rounds, on which to serve a soft goat brie with just a touch of honey, all gently grilled. Quite an hors d’oeuvre.
The irony was that the recipe was from a book I had...
July 2011
3 posts
2 tags
Fried Red Jasmine Rice with Shrimp (or something!)
Red rice is a relatively new discovery for me - and SUCH a welcome one! It’s nutty, colorful, flavorful, nutritious … what more could one ask for? Sometimes it’s just called red rice, sometimes red jasmine rice, and sometimes Red Thai Jasmine Rice. I’ve found that in our area it’s not so readily available - even Whole Foods doesn’t reliably stock it. I can...
1 tag
Island variations
Islesford doesn’t have a grocery store. In the summer the post office offers some emergency rations: eggs, milk and beer being chief among them. So when you come, you come laden with food, giving thanks for the new reusable bags, sturdy enough to be filled to the brim, tied closed, hurled on to the top of the mail boat/ferry, and tossed down to the dock when you arrive. Note of warning -...
2 tags
Summer eating: Crab Cakes on Islesford
We were introduced to these Thai Crab Cakes in England. My sister made them, hors d’oeuvre size, for my mom’s garden party, with their Chili Lime Mayo dip. Delicious!
On Islesford there’s always freshly frozen crabmeat available in David Thomas’s freezer. He ships seafood all over the country, but if you’re local you just call ahead, and then leave your $16.00 in...
June 2011
6 posts
1 tag
The Guild Comes to Dinner
May was my month to host the Ladies’ Literary Guild. Our book was ‘As Always, Julia’ - the letters that passed between Julia Child and Avis DeVoto, and the history of their friendship.
I briefly considered pulling out ‘Mastering the Art of French Cooking’ and preparing a classic Julia feast, before recognizing that although I love what that masterpiece represents,...
1 tag
Chardonnay Poached Salmon with Dill Dijon Whipped...
6-8 servings
The Poached Salmon
3 cups Chardonnay
3 cups water
1 lemon, sliced
1 tablespoon black peppercorns
12 juniper berries, crushed (the hardest ingredient to find, but I DID find them at Whole Foods, in the spice section)
3 bay leaves
1 stem fresh basil
3 fronds fennel
1 (2 1/2 to 3 pound) salmon fillet, skin on
olive oil
2 lemons, sliced, for garnish
1 bunch dill, for...
2 tags
Camargue red rice salad with feta and pine nuts
This recipe serves 6 to 8, as one dish in a meal that also includes another protein source and a salad or vegetable, or both.
2 cups Camargue or wahani red rice
6 ounces feta cheese
1/4 cup toasted pine nuts
3 carrots, peeled and shredded, or coarsely grated
1 small red onion, sliced really fine
generous handful of flat leaf parsley (or cilantro/coriander), finely chopped
And for the...
1 tag
Green Beans with Lemon, Rosemary and Pistachios
1 1/2 pounds small slender green beans, ends trimmed
4 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon chopped garlic
1 tablespoon grated lemon peel (or more, to taste!)
2 teaspoons minced fresh rosemary
1/4 cup chopped natural pistachios
1/4 cup fresh squeezed orange juice
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
fresh rosemary sprigs
Cook green beans in a large pot of boiling salted water until just...
2 tags
Scallop Ceviche
Scallop ceviche
This is a great hors d’oeuvre or starter for the summer. The combination of textures is interesting, and the flavor is tart and sweet and intense. Serve with tortilla chips - personally I love the blue corn ones, both for the color contrast, and because I harbor the hope that the blue ancestral corn has a lower glycemic index than yellow - American yellow corn has been bred for...
2 tags
Flourless Almond Torte
OK - so right after a post about the perils of sugar, I’m writing up a recipe for a cake with a whole cup of it ….
BUT - the cake has NO white flour. Grated carrots and ground almonds, along with eggs, are the main ingredients. The lack of flour made it my favorite Passover dessert contribution for many years of family Passover gatherings. And since there’s also no dairy...
April 2011
1 post
1 tag
Is Sugar toxic?
I know, it’s a downer, especially in the week of festivities and special meals for Passover and Easter, but here’s an article - from the New York Times Magazine this past Sunday - worth reading.
It gathers the evidence against sucrose and high fructose corn syrup, and explains why it’s not just how many calories we eat, but of what, and how they are metabolized, that puts us...
February 2011
2 posts
1 tag
Peg's Scones
We ate these for breakfast at the Inn at Sweet Water Farm near Great Barrington in the Berkshires, [http://www.innsweetwater.com/] but Lynda, our wonderful hostess, said we could only have the recipe if we attributed it properly to Peg, in New Jersey. So these are Peg’s scones, as adapted by Lynda.
What makes them irresistible? They are NOT DRY. I don’t usually eat either scones...
1 tag
January, Resolutions and Miso Soup
Miklos and I came home from a holiday adventure and promptly came down with THE COLD. Burdened by the germ, and also by our resolution to eat less, and eat better, in the new year, we settled on miso soup as our comfort food of choice. We lived on it for about a week, and even now that the germ is banished, it remains a staple.
Steaming savory broth, guaranteed to open your sinuses and your...
January 2011
8 posts
1 tag
Sweet potato, quinoa and garlic soup
This is a Cynthia Lief special - served as a first course to a cold and hungry group on Little Cranberry Island in Maine (otherwise known as the town of Islesford) early in January. Cynthia and Dan own and manage the sole restaurant on Little Cranberry. It’s down at the dock, and is called, appropriately enough, ‘The Islesford Dock.’ It’s the only restaurant I’ve...
2 tags
Olive Oil Crackers
This recipe was originally on the 101 Cookbooks website, but came to us from Kaitlyn Duggan, a potter and cook on Little Cranberry Island in Maine. You can see her pottery at http://kaitlynduggan.com. She and jewelry maker Barbara Fernald, http://barbarasfernald.com, had a holiday bazaar together, with treats to entice us out into the weather, and Miklos fell in love with these crackers. Lots...
2 tags
Rosemary crackers
We’re having folk over for dinner tonight, and have some good cheeses to start the evening off with, but I didn’t buy crackers, and I’m not about to increase my carbon footprint with another trip to the store for one item. I DID, however, have fresh rosemary in the bin, and now I have home-baked rosemary crackers to offer - significantly more appetizing than the ones I would...
1 tag
Cromarty Cob
This post belongs with the ones from months ago that talked about developing a rye starter for bread. To refresh your memory … the basic technique is that for four days in a row you add 25 grams of rye flour and 50 grams of hot (well, very warm) water to a small bowl, stir, and then tuck the bowl, as its contents gradually increase, into a nice warm place (about 80 degrees). After those...
1 tag
Shepherd's Pie
This one is for Sam. It has nothing to do with Christmas - but when I was chasing down the Christmas recipes I found it, and I know it’s one he remembers as perfect winter comfort food.
The difference between Shepherd’s pie and Cottage pie is that Shepherd’s pie uses ground lamb, and Cottage pie ground beef. For both, the crowning glory is the mashed potato topping, nicely crisped and browned on...
1 tag
Bread Sauce
Bread Sauce is to an English Christmas dinner what Cranberry Sauce is to an American Thanksgiving. It’s a creamy mildly sweet sauce, flavored with onion and clove, the consistency of smooth oatmeal. It may sound odd, but it’s a wonderful accompaniment to a roast bird with gravy and all the trimmings, and unlike Cranberry Sauce it doesn’t have to be cordoned off from the gravy -...
1 tag
Mincemeat Tartlets with Lemon Cream
Mincemeat is such a confusing name for this seasonal English ingredient. Traditionally it’s actually mostly a combination of raisins and chopped candied peels (orange, lemon, citron) together with the spices that combine to be called “mixed spice” in England and “pumpkin spice” in America, and dark rum. But the original version does use minced beef suet as the glue...
1 tag
Ann Dalton's Christmas Parcel Cake
This is a moist, succulent version of a Christmas fruit cake - simple and not too dense - courtesy of my mom. There’s really no need to limit it to Christmas, except that it feels traditional.
1 pound Thompson raisins
4 oz dark soft brown sugar
6 oz butter or margarine
1 level tablespoon molasses
1 level teaspoon baking soda
1 level teaspoon pumpkin spice (mixed spice)
3/4 cup (1/4...
December 2010
1 post
1 tag
Ah, it's the holidays ...
When I grew up in England, one of my father’s Christmas gifts to my mother was that he “took charge” of the Christmas meal. Needless to say, it was still she who had prepared the Christmas pudding (although we made one every Christmas, the one we ate, as I remember it, was the one that had been made the year before - and matured for a year in a cool place until its time had...
August 2010
4 posts
1 tag
No-Knead Breads
The basic recipe for all the no-knead breads we make is the one from Jim Lahey of the Sullivan Street Bakery, published in the New York Times as long ago as 2006. Here’s the link:
Recipe: No-Knead Bread - New York Times
That said, we’ve done a lot of experimenting, all along the lines of using different flours, so that we can have a heartier experience. In all probability our...
1 tag
A ciabatta recipe that works
OK - first, a confession. In general, I’m a great believer in the proposition that breads should be given plenty of time to develop before baking - at least the 16-20 hours allowed by a no-knead bread, if not the 3-5 days involved in cultivating a sourdough starter, using it to make a production leaven, and so forth. BUT, on the other hand, I really wanted to have a foolproof and not too...
1 tag
French Toast Casserole from the Sweetwater Branch...
Miklos and I first tasted this decadent french toast casserole in Gainesville, Florida at the Sweetwater Branch Inn. I was there looking for a place to live during my clinical training year at the Academy of Five Element Acupuncture, feeling a little disoriented and apprehensive, needing comfort. This is the epitome of comfort food - and so good that the staff have printed recipes ready to...
1 tag
Sam and Elaine came to Islesford...
And we cooked!
So I’m inspired to come back to the blog, after lo these many months, and add some of our weekend recipes. The most decadent by far was a french toast casserole, which got more complicated than usual because we had to make our own challah before even getting started. But bread baking was already on the agenda - both ciabatta and no-knead breads of a hearty variety. Read...
May 2010
6 posts
1 tag
Smoked Tuna and Bean Salad
This recipe became my standard spring/summer dinner-in-one-bowl for guests one year - until I began to worry that I was serving it to the same people multiple times! It’s so easy to prepare, so tasty, and so flexible - because you’re serving it at room temperature it can sit waiting to be served while you enjoy a drink or hors d’oeuvres with your guests, and won’t show...
1 tag
GREEK SALAD
A great summer lunch, with some crusty multigrain bread or toast. if you want to make it a bigger meal, you could serve a plate of cold cuts alongside
Tomatoes (good ones!) cut into pieces
Cucumber, cut into smallish cubes
Red and yellow bell pepper, cut up
Avocado (if desired!)
Kalamata olives - or your favorites
I suppose you could add other veggies too — I tend to like it simple
...
2 tags
Santa Fe Shrimp Salad with Pasta (or Quinoa)
This one is for anyone who loves the ‘southwestern’ combination of cilantro, lime juice and jalapeno pepper. It’s hard for me to imagine anyone NOT loving it - but I do know there are folk for whom cilantro, just about my favorite herb in the world, doesn’t work….
Dressing
4 small green onions (scallions), chopped
1 cup chopped fresh cilantro ...
2 tags
Are you wondering?
Why the sudden activity, after such a long silence? Yes, Sam asked for summer recipes. So I’m back to hunting down old favorites, and passing them along.
What have I been doing in the meantime? Many things, including finally acquiring my acupuncture license, and teaching my last law school course, perhaps, ever. But on the food front too, heading in some new directions. First there was...
2 tags
Pasta Twists with Tomatoes, Mozzarella, Basil,...
What could be simpler – or more delicious, providing the tomatoes taste like tomatoes? Go for vine picked, or even the little cherry ones that are still on the vine when you buy them. Assuming that we’re not yet at the season where you can find for real tomatoes right out of the garden, or field. Matched with a green salad, with perhaps some sprouted lentils or avocado to beef it up, this...
1 tag
Lentil salad with Mint, Roasted Peppers and Feta...
Before Montignac, many of my favorite summer recipes were pasta salads. It’s not as if I’ve given them up - but I did find myself searching for other alternatives when I was trying my hardest to keep my glycemic average down. This lentil salad became a new favorite - the mint and other fresh herbs, along with the lemon vinaigrette and the feta cheese, makes it ‘bright’ in...
March 2010
3 posts
1 tag
Bread update
OK, so now I’m a bona fide member of the fish-tank crowd (see previous post).
I have two plastic tubs that sit one on top of the other, with water in between. In the water, attached to the side of the tub, is a cheap fish-tank heating element, with a temperature range between about 75 and 85 degrees, depending on how cold the air is outside. Stuck to the outside of the bottom tub is a...
1 tag
Cod and Prosciutto Rolls with Spiced Cabbage
We’ve been experimenting with recipes from Michel Montignac’s “SLIM FOREVER, THE FRENCH WAY” lately. I begin to understand better why he hasn’t become an American favorite. Even though his recipes in this book are less obviously French in inspiration, they are still decidedly French in their assumption that you would like to eat three courses for lunch and dinner,...
2 tags
Caribbean-style seafood stew
Back in action, I hope ….
First, a couple of fish recipes … beginning with this one, which is an old favorite, but got itself a new twist when I made it again recently. Like the green lentil soup, it’s very simple, but full of flavor, and interest.
Why the new twist? Because it calls for black beans, and couldn’t properly call itself Caribbean without them, but Miklos...
January 2010
15 posts
Bread update
Are you wondering what happened to the bread starter experiment? Good things. Watch this space.
1 tag
Pavlova
I’m on my way to California for a week to hang out with Adam, Teresa and baby Ella. Adam doesn’t do well with lactose (we think the genes come straight from his paternal grandfather, since they clearly don’t come from my side of the family - I suspect my ancestors must have been dairy farmers going back centuries, given how blissfully I relate to anything with milk in it).
Since...
1 tag
Yogurt with cucumber and mint ... or dill
I’ve suggested serving Moroccan chicken with a yogurt and cucumber and mint sauce. So here’s the recipe for that.
This is another technique post - although I’m not sure I quite have the technique down, because I know I always approach this recipe with a little anxiety.
The basic issue is having the final product be creamy, not runny, and not too salty. The salt is where I get...
1 tag
Toasted nuts: a bit of technique inspired by the...
Sometimes I know I take too much for granted. Like those toasted almond slivers. How do YOU toast your nuts?! Toasted pine nuts for a pasta salad … pecans or walnuts for cookies or a cajun salad dressing … hazelnuts … almonds ….
The safest for me, especially if I’m toasting quite a lot, is to use a sturdy baking tray, spread them out in a single layer, and toast...
1 tag
Moroccan Chicken with Eggplant, Tomatoes and...
Sam is working out (it’s the New Year, after all), craving protein, and wanting meals that can stay in the fridge and be dinner for two or three nights in the same week. I think this recipe will fit the bill.
It’s a version of a tagine, the classic Moroccan stew. It calls for dark meat because it stays moist when braised. If you prefer white meat, use chicken breast (6-8 halves)...
1 tag
Mulligatawny Soup
This soup was called “pepper water” by the Brits, who introduced it to Europe from India. It’s basically a curried chicken soup. You could decide it amounts to a shameless appropriation of culinary culture by shameless colonizers (that is, after all, why the Brits were in India), or a bow in the direction of multiculturalism by colonizers who knew a good thing when they tasted it (and...