Not Quite a Blog

As I said a while back, I'd heard that my Aunt Catherine's Waffle Recipe wasn't working out for some people.

I had made the recipe a few times before, so I hadn't a clue as to what the potential problem was. Yesterday, I made the recipe again and had very good results. In that spirit, I've written up a more verbose version of the recipe, trying to give a few clues about the more tacit elements of the recipe.

A verbose version of my aunt Catherine's waffle recipe...

Ingredients:

(makes 6 large waffles)

• 2 c. flour
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 2 tbsp. sugar
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 2 eggs, separated
• 2 c. milk
• 4-6 tbsp. oil or melted butter, margerine

Directions:

1. Add dry ingredients to a medium bowl, whisk to combine thoroughly with a wire whisk. Pour the dry ingredients into a sifter on wax paper and then sift dry ingredients onto the wax paper.
2. Get a large bowl and your mixer ready. Separate the eggs by cracking the whites carefully in the mixer bowl and placing the two yolks at the bottom of the large bowl. In the large bowl, beat egg yolks until well beaten, add milk & oil. Whisk well.
3. Turn on mixer with whisk attachment at a few stops less than high speed.
4. Grab the edges of the wax paper and pour dry stuff into wet stuff, mix (do not overmix).
5. When egg whites are stiff, gently fold into batter. You can tell when egg whites are stiff by stopping the mixer and seeing if the peaks the mix holds when you pull the whisk out are stiff (stand straight up without any droop). This is key. When you go to fold this into the batter, it will not want to combine with the batter. That's ok. Just fold gently for a minute or two until it combines a bit.
6. Drop these with a measuring cup onto a hot waffle iron that sizzles when you dribble water on it. You'll want to drop enough batter so that it reaches the edges before you close it and then let the top iron gently fall on the bottom. It will take about 3-4 minutes for the waffles to cook. They should be golden and springy with no batter uncooked in the middle.

What do you do when you have tons of eggs and butter? Well, one option is eggs benedict with hollandaise sauce (which requires 7 eggs and 2 sticks of butter). Yum.

I can't tell you how many times I've tried different hollandaise recipes at home and come up short... mine either don't taste right or separate (it is an emulsion, after all). I finally found a recipe that rocks. (pictured with perftatoes 2.0)

Poached Eggs and Hollandaise

Ingredients (serves two):

• Toast:
  • 4 slices of good bread (~3/4" thick)
  • pat or two of salted butter
• Hollandaise:
  • 8 oz of unsalted butter (two big sticks)
  • 3 large egg yolks
  • 2 tbsp hot water
  • 2 tsp lemon juice (you can go as high as 3 tsp, but I find that a bit too lemony)
  • pinch salt
  • pinch cayenne pepper
• Eggs:
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 2 tbsp white vinegar
  • 4 large eggs, each cracked into a small condiment cup
  • salt and black pepper

Directions:

1. Turn your oven's broiler on. Lightly butter one side of bread slices and place on foiled cookie sheet under broiler. Toast until just golden brown, about 1-2 minutes. Remove from broiler and set aside. (If you're making potatoes, you should make this toast before you start roasting the potatoes.)

2. In saucepan, melt butter over low heat. Remove from heat.

3. Fill 8" to 10" skillet with water to about 1/2" from the top; add vinegar and tsp. salt and bring to boil over high heat.

4. In a small bowl, add egg yolks and whisk together until well incorporated. While whisking, add lemon juice, salt and cayenne.

5. Very slowly add butter and two tbsp. of water to egg mixture. Continue to whisk constantly. Add mixture back to saucepan and place on low heat. Whisk gently occasionally until it thickens, then be careful that it doesn't get too hot (or it will curdle or separate).

6. When you get a chance for a short breather while making the hollandaise, ask a friend to come over and help you drop the four eggs into the boiling water. Remove from heat, cover and let stand for 3-5 minutes depending on how done you want the eggs.

7. If you're adding cheese or bacon or spinach and mushrooms to your benedict, you should add that to the toast now and melt any cheese in the broiler.

8. Place two toasts on a plate. Remove eggs from water with slotted spoon, drain over water and place on toast. Season lightly with salt and pepper. Add any side dish like potatoes. Spoon hollandaise over eggs in an amount according to diner's taste. Crack pepper over it all and serve.

Someone wrote recently to say there was something funny with my white rice recipe ("White Rice: simple food for the recession"). Turns out I had a major typo in the water amount! Sigh.

And there were some recent disasters with the Waffle recipe I posted a few weeks ago... so, don't cook that one until I get a chance to check it out!

Seems just like "running code" is a good rubric to code by, I'm going to make sure I actually cook exactly from my recipes before posting them publicly here.

My aunt Catherine's waffle recipe... (note this is the original 3"x5" index card version of this recipe. For a more verbose version of the recipe, go here.)

Ingredients:

(makes 6-8 large waffles)

• 2 c. flour
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 2 tbsp. sugar
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 2 eggs, separated
• 2 c. milk
• 4-6 tbsp. oil or melted butter, margerine

Directions:

1. Sift dry ingredients onto a sheet of wax paper.
2. In large bowl, beat egg yolks, add milk & oil.
3. Mix dry stuff into wet stuff (do not overmix).
4. Beat egg whites until stiff and gently fold in.
5. Cook in waffle iron that sizzles when you dribble water on it.

White rice.

It's an important and yummy food. Contrary to what most people seem to think, it is exceedingly easy to make and only takes 30 minutes (from when rice hits boiling water). Plus, it's cheap and can enhance boring foods like leftovers.

Here's how easy it is to make:

(serves 2-4)

Ingredients:

• 1 c. white rice
• 1.5 c. water

Directions:

1. Rinse the rice well under cool water in a fine mesh strainer.
2. Put water and rice in a medium saucepot (keep lid handy), bring to boil over high heat (stir!).
3. Drop heat to the barest it needs to be to keep it at a lazy simmer. Cover and let cook for 10 minutes.
4. Remove from heat (without disturbing cover!) and let sit for 15 minutes to steam.
5. Remove lid, fluff or stir the rice and serve.

(This is unsalted, so you'll want to add a yummy topping or add soy sauce or salt. You can keep the lid on for an extra 5-10 minutes if other food isn't ready. If you increase this recipe, you need to decrease the proportion of water.)

It's just that simple folks. Go buy a large bag of rice and cook it often.

UPDATE [2009-02-02T16:30:56]: I've heavily modified the recipe a bit with some input. First, I had a serious typo (1.5 c. water balooned to 2.5 c.!). Why such little water, you ask? Well, first when you rinse the rice, there will be some left on the rice. Anyway, I'm going to try this tonight, verbatim, and see what's up.

UPDATE [2009-02-03T07:06:50]: I tested this recipe last night and it works great!

About a year and a half ago, I thought I had the perfect roast potatoes recipe, and I blogged it ("Perfect Roast Potatoes"). After some critical feedback, I've improved the recipe considerably:

These are amazing roast potatoes and very easy to make... they have a creamy texture inside and slightly crispy shells with a robust, but not overpowering, garlic flavor, with whole roast garlic cloves and a hint of citrus. The cornstarch is the secret; it traps water and promotes crispiness, but we only use a little so these aren't hard as rocks. (Leave out the garlic powder at the beginning if you don't want garlic to be as central to the dish.)

Perfect Roast Potatoes

Ingredients:

• 2 lb. red or russet potatoes, washed, dried and then cut into largish chunks (1/2" - 1" on the side)
• 1 tsp. cornstarch (optional, a whole tbsp. makes them unbearably crunchy)
• 1/2 tsp. garlic powder (optional)
• 3/4 tsp. table salt
• freshly ground pepper
• 3 tbsp. olive oil (olive oil cooks at a lower temp, if using other oil, might need to shorten roasting times per side)
• 1 head garlic, cloves separated but unpeeled (optional)
• 1 tbsp. butter (don't add salt at the end if using salted butter)
• 1 tsp. minced fresh parsley or cilantro (optional, you can use a smaller amount of dried basil, etc. I like a bit of fresh dill when we have it.)
• 1/8 tsp. grated lemon zest (optional, be careful here, lest you have overly lemony potatoes. If using more than one fresh herb, leave this out.)

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven and a large, rimmed sheetpan (cookie sheet) or roasting pan at 425° F. (this recipe was developed using a gas oven, which sucks. If using an electric oven, you might get away with shorter roasting times.)
2. In a large bowl, combine cut potatoes, cornstarch, garlic powder, salt and pepper. Make sure that the spices and cornstarch are well-distributed. You can toss with clean hands for about a minute until everything is well-distributed.
3. Take pan out of oven, add the oil and evenly coat the pan.
4. Evenly distribute the potatoes on the pan, carefully toss in the oil with spatula and roast for 25 minutes or until potatoes are browned on bottom. (Now is a good time to wash and dry the bowl in which you mixed the potatoes, you'll need it later.)
5. After 15 minutes of roasting, throw the garlic cloves into roasting pan (do it quickly as we don't care much about their distribution and don't want to let too much heat out of the oven).
6. Take potatoes out of oven 10 minutes later, flip potatoes over with spatula, distribute garlic evenly and roast for an additional 15 minutes (if you have time, you can individually flip the potato pieces to get more even browning, but that's not essential).
7. Add the pat of butter, parsley/herbs and lemon zest to the bottom of the large bowl and let sit until potatoes are done.
8. When done roasting, add potatoes to the large bowl and toss until evenly coated with butter mixture . Adjust seasonings as desired. Serve hot.

UPDATE [2009-09-26T12:56:00]: The best plan seems to be 15-10-15 for a total of 40 minutes roasting. Put the potatoes in, after 15 add the garlic, after 10 more flip potatoes, then roast for a final 15 minutes. This allows the garlic to get super mushy and roasted while allowing for a total of 40 minutes of potato roasting time.

This is a shortening-based gingersnaps recipe... for ALV.

Cherry's Gingersnaps

(makes about 4 dozen)

Ingredients:

• 3/4 c. shortening
• 1 c. sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/4 c. molasses
• 2 c. AP flour
• 1 tsp. ground ginger
• 2 tsp. minced fresh ginger (you can up the ground ginger to a tbsp. if you have no fresh ginger)
• 2 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp. table salt

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375°. Beat shortening and sugar until smooth, add egg & molasses
2. Mix in dry ingredients.
3. Roll balls of dough in hand, roll in sugar, place on parchment lined cookie sheet and press twice with fork at 90° angles to make a cross-hatch design.
4. Bake at 375° for 8-10 minutes (try 9 at first), they should be puffed up, soft but with the slightest hints of browning.
5. Let cool on cookie sheet before transferring to wax paper placed on newsprint. Store in tupperware for softness.

This is my variation of Cook's Illustrated "Almost No-knead Bread"... which, in turn, is a variation of Bittman's "No-knead Bread". I'm going to rebel and just call it Simple Bread. It's so easy, you can't frak it up... especially if you have all the right materials and ingredients.

Simple Bread

Makes one round loaf

Materials

• 1c., 1/4 c., tbsp and tsp measures
• Large bowl
• Wire whisk
• Rubber spatula
• Plastic wrap
• No-stick spray
• Parchment paper
• 10" skillet or large shallow bowl
• Bread or pizza stone
• Dutch oven
• Instant-read thermometer

Ingredients:

• 3 c. bread flour (King Arthur's)
• 1/4 tsp. rapid rise or instant yeast (not active dry)
• 1 1/4 tsp. table salt (not kosher)
• 3/4 c. + 3 tbsp. water
• 1/4 c. + 3 tbsp. beer (light lager)
• 1 tbsp. white vinegar

Directions:

1. Measure flour, yeast and salt into a large bowl. Whisk them to evenly distribute the yeast and salt. Pour in the wet ingredients and then mix with rubber spatula to form shaggy doughball. If there isn't enough cohesion to form a shaggy dougball, add water 1 tbsp. at a time. If it is too wet, add flour 1 tbsp. at a time. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise 8-18 hours.

2. About two hours before you plan to put it in the oven, place a large piece of parchment in the skillet and spray the top with non-stick spray. Take the doughball out of the plastic-wrapped bowl and turn onto a lightly floured surface. Knead dough 10-15 times adding flour as needed. Pick the dough up with your hands and form into a rough doughball by pulling the dough away from itself and turning while forming a squat ball. Turn and pinch the seam more until the seam slightly closes. Place the dougball seam-side down on the parchment in the skillet. Spray non-stick spray on the top and cover loosely with plastic wrap. Let rise for two hours.

3. About one hour later, place your bread or pizza stone on the lowest shelf in your oven and turn it to 425° F (220° C). Place the next shelf on the next level up and place covered dutch oven in the oven.

4. When doughball has risen for two hours, remove plastic wrap. Dust top lightly with flour and cut a large 1/2"-deep slit into top of dough. Remove dutch oven from the oven and remove top. Using sides of the parchment as a sling, place doughball in the dutch oven and replace cover. Place in oven for 25 minutes. Remove cover and bake for an additional 15 minutes. Check temperature and heat in 2-3 minute intervals until center reads 210° F (98° C). Remove bread from oven and place on wire rack. Let cool for 2 hours.

To go with my dough recipe -- which I believe is close to perfect -- comes this sauce recipe. It's a combination of a fast-cooked red sauce and the uber-raw red sauce of Peter Reinhart. It's great when the sauce is reduced to where it just starts to stand on the spoon. Cooking it down slightly allows the flavors to blend and mellow a bit while removing some of the water from the tomatoes.

Joe's Pizza Sauce

(makes plenty of sauce for 3 14" thin pies.)

Ingredients:

• 2 Tbsp. olive oil
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 28oz can crushed tomatoes
• 1 tsp dried basil
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• a pinch of sugar
• 1 tbsp red wine vinegar or balsamic vinegar
• salt and black pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Heat oil and garlic on medium heat in saucepan.
2. When garlic starts to sizzle, add tomatoes.
3. Simmer, uncovered, until sauce is thick enough to mound or "stand" on the sauce spoon, about 15-20 minutes.
4. Add basil, oregano, sugar and vinegar. Season to taste.
5. Let cool at room temp and then refrigerate.