Tag Archives: Peter

July 15, 2018 · 4:56 pm

LEMON RICOTTA PANCAKES AND FRUIT SAUCE

Our local farmers market is moving into high season. The market is just a couple of paths in a high school parking lot lined with a couple of dozen or so stalls. It is modest compared with the vibrant green market in New York City’s Union Square or the wondrous carnival at the Ferry Building in San Francisco; it pales next to the huge market in nearby Torrance. But visiting the various stalls and merchants has become a Sunday ritual for our family.  By this time of season, green peas are gone, and asparagus is just hanging on as the weather gets warmer. Sweet cherries have given their last gasp. Plump ears of corn are on limited display. Tomatoes have made a tentative appearance; it’s still too early for the big, juicy specimens of late summer. Right now, the stars of the market are berries of all sorts and stone fruit of every variety.

This last week, the family met at the market in search of ingredients for our Sunday meal – all, that is, except the recent high school graduate who has taken to sleeping late and enjoying the days of summer before she heads off to college. The plan was for her mother to find some fruit for a fruit sauce so that on our return the graduate would arise and prepare pancakes for all of the exhausted shoppers. That plan served a secondary purpose: a crash course in basic cooking skills before the fledging leaves the nest. Everything worked as planned, and we enjoyed a delicious late breakfast. In fact, I liked them so much that I made my own batch a few days later and topped the pancakes with maple syrup that Peter and René had brought to us a gift from their recent trip to Montreal.

Lemon ricotta pancakes with blueberry sauce
Whipped egg whites
Finished batter
Lemon ricotta pancakes
Lemon ricotta pancakes with Canadian maple syrup

RECIPES

Lemon Ricotta Pancakes

Ingredients

  • 1½ cups flour
  • ¼ cup sugar
  • 1½ teaspoons baking powder
  • ½ teaspoon baking soda
  • ¼ teaspoon salt
  • 2 eggs, separated
  • 1 cup ricotta cheese
  • 1 cup buttermilk
  • 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
  • juice of 1 lemon, strained + zest from the lemon

Method

  1. In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
  2. Separate the eggs and set aside the whites.
  3. In a larger bowl, beat together the egg yolks, ricotta, buttermilk, butter, lemon juice, and zest.
  4. Stir the dry ingredients into the liquids, making sure they are well combined but taking care not to over-beat
  5. Whip the reserved egg whites to form stiff peaks. Then by thirds, gently fold them into the batter mixture.
  6. Let the batter rest for about 15 minutes while you heat a griddle over medium heat.
  7. Pour ½ cup of batter onto the griddle for individual pancakes. Do not crowd, and work in batches. Turn the pancakes when bubbles have formed on the surface and the edges are golden brown. When both sides are browned to your liking, serve immediately or transfer to a warm oven until all the pancakes have been prepared.

Fruit Sauce

Ingredients

  • ½ cup water
  • ½ cup sugar
  • 1½ teaspoons lemon juice
  • 1½ teaspoons cornstarch
  • 2 cups fresh blueberries (strawberries would also work)
  • Or, you can make it 2 cups of your favorite fruit

Method

  1. In a small sauce pan combine the water, sugar, lemon juice and cornstarch, stirring to make sure the sugar is dissolved and the corn starch is completely dispersed. Place the pan over medium-low heat and, stirring frequently, bring the mixture to a gentle boil. Reduce the heat to simmer. Add the fruit and cook until the mixture has thickened and the fruit has begun to release its juices, about 5 to 10 minutes.
  2. Remove from the heat and serve over the ricotta pancakes.

 

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January 8, 2018 · 1:51 pm

CHALLAH

Our son, Peter, is one of the bakers of the family. It was he who learned to make biscuits at his grandmother’s side. He also built a brick-lined oven in the kitchen stove, to the consternation of his wife, René. Peter and René and their two daughters visited for a few days from the Bay Area. The girls brought a candle, paperweight, and some art work that they had made. Peter brought a beautiful loaf of challah from a batch of twelve loaves that he had made as holiday gifts for friends and neighbors. It was a beautiful loaf, lightly golden and topped with sesame seeds. I use the term, “was” because it disappeared the first morning, toasted and buttered, along with a cup of tea or coffee.  None was left for the excellent French toast it would make. René spent some of her time working on my pronunciation “challah”. Peter says his recipe came from Baking with Julia, Dorie Greenspan, William Morrow and Co., New York, 1996, p 93. The book is the companion of the television show of the same name. The TV baker and recipe author was Lauren Groveman, a cookbook author and life coach. This is my edited version of that recipe.

RECIPE

Challah

Ingredients

FOR THE BREAD

  • 1½ tablespoons active dry yeast
  • ½ cup tepid water
  • ½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
  • 1 cup whole milk
  • ½ cup sugar
  • 1 tablespoon honey
  • 2½ teaspoons salt
  • 4 large eggs
  • 6½ cups all-purpose flour, measured and set aside
  • melted butter

FOR THE GLAZE

  • 1 egg
  • 1 egg yolk
  • 1 tablespoon water
  • sesame seeds
  • coarse salt

Method

  1. In a small bowl, dissolve the yeast in the tepid water. Be sure the water is not so hot as to kill the yeast. Set aside for 5 minutes.
  2. In a small saucepan over medium-low heat, combine the butter and milk. Stir occasionally until the butter is melted and the mixture is warm. Transfer to a large mixing bowl and add the sugar, honey, and salt. Stir with a large wooden spoon until completely mixed and the sugar and salt are dissolved. Cool if necessary until it is just warm to the touch. (No more than 110°F)
  3. Stir in the dissolved yeast and the eggs. Then add flour, ½ cup at a time, stirring with a wooden spoon to completely incorporate the flour before the next addition. When you have stirred in about 5 cups of flour and the dough is getting too stiff to stir, turn the dough out on a work surface covered with the remaining flour. Knead for at least 10 minutes until most of the flour is incorporated and the dough no longer sticks to your hands or work surface and is smooth and elastic.
  4. Wash, dry, and grease the mixing bowl. Shape the dough into a ball, brush with melted butter, and transfer to the bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and set in a warm place in the kitchen to rise until doubled, about 1½ to 2 hours. When the dough has risen, punch down, cover again, and let rise a second time until doubled, about 45 minutes to an hour.
  5. Deflate the twice-risen dough and cut in half, setting one half aside, covered, while you work with the other half.
  6. Divide the dough into three equal pieces. Roll each piece into a rope about 16 inches long, thicker in the middle and tapered at each end. Align the three ropes together. Working from the center, braid the three ropes together, tucking the ends underneath when you have finished the braiding. Turn the loaf around and, again working from the center, braid the three ropes together, tucking the ends underneath the loaf when you are finished.
  7. Repeat the braiding process with the second half of the dough.
  8. Transfer the loaves to two baking sheets lined with parchment or a silpat. Cover the loaves with a kitchen towel and let rise in a warm place for about 40 minutes or until nearly doubled.
  9. While the loaves are rising, whisk the egg, egg yolk and water together, forcing the mixture through a sieve so that it is smooth. Brush the tops of the risen loaves with the mixture; let the loaves sit for 5 minutes; and brush again. Sprinkle the glazed loaves with sesame seeds and coarse salt.
  10. Bake the loaves in the middle of an oven preheated to 375°F for 20 minutes. Brush the loaves with glaze and continue to bake for 20 more minutes or until browned and sound hollow when thumped on the bottom.
  11. Transfer to a baking rack and cool completely.

 

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September 16, 2017 · 2:07 pm

RAISED WAFFLES

Things just came together. Our range and oven have been out of service for over two weeks while we await a back-ordered replacement computer board. We have been relying on ancillary kitchen appliances: the microwave, an induction plate that I bought, a George Forman grill, etc. We had not yet used our waffle iron, so it was time. Peter and René had brought us a bottle of Canadian maple syrup from a recent visit to Montreal. Finally, the cupboard was nearly bare as I had been putting off going to the grocery store. A waffle supper with fried eggs done on the induction plate, bacon cooked in the microwave, and waffles in the iron seemed obvious.

This is an old family recipe. Carol made these many years ago for a family gathering in Santa Fe. The waffles were so good that I asked her to contribute the recipe to the family cook book. She called them the best ever, so I titled the recipe, “Carol’s Best-Ever Raised Waffles”.

Actually, the recipe is not original. It came from Marion Cunningham’s masterful revision of The Fanny Farmer Cookbook. Since then the recipe has been reprinted countless times, often verbatim, and including the internet sites, Epicurious and Food52. Most of the internet reviews are glowing, with some notable exceptions. One writer said that the waffles were so limp and tasteless that she threw the remaining batter down the disposal.  While it is true that the waffles will not be as crisp as what you might be used to, my hunch is that she used bad yeast or forgot to add the eggs in the morning or something. Other writers substituted oil for melted butter, vanilla-flavored almond milk for milk. or gluten-free flour for all-purpose flour. Some complained that the batter was too thin and added ¾ cup of flour. You could do any or all of those things, but then you would have a different recipe and a different waffle.

If you follow the recipe as written, you will wind up with a waffle that has the yeasty aroma of a French boulangerie, the taste of a fresh sweet roll straight from the oven, and a lightness that absorbs the unctuous flavors  of added melted butter and maple syrup. My latest effort resulted in waffles just as I remembered them from Carol’s introduction years ago. Keep in mind that if you plan on breakfast waffles, you need to start the night before; if you plan on a waffle supper, start in the morning.

RECIPE

Raised Waffles

Ingredients

  • ½ cup warm water
  • 1 package dry yeast
  • 2 cups warm milk
  • ½ cup (1 stick) melted butter
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon sugar
  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 2 eggs
  • ¼ teaspoon baking soda

Method

  1. Pour the warm water into a large bowl. Sprinkle the yeast over the water and let stand for 5 minutes to dissolve.
  2. Add the milk, butter, salt, sugar, and flour. Beat with a hand-held electric mixer until smooth and blended.
  3. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let stand at room temperature over night or all day. The batter should rise to about double its volume.
  4. Just before cooking the waffles, beat in the eggs and baking soda, stirring until well mixed. The batter will be very thin.
  5. Pour ½ to ¾ cups of batter into each mold of a very hot waffle iron. Bake the waffles until they are golden and crisp. Serve immediately or cool on a baking rack to prevent then from getting soggy.

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September 10, 2015 · 1:40 pm

KLAMATH RIVER SALMON

Peter is our family outdoorsman, and his wife, René, and their two girls also enjoy the outdoors. Several weeks ago they camped out on their trip to Alaska, and the girls gathered dried yak chips for the fire. That’s tough!

This last holiday weekend they camped out on a friend’s land on the Klamath River. They canoed and went fishing. The result of that adventure was three big salmon that Peter plans to grill.

We are babysitting our two youngest grandchildren, ages 4 and 2 while their parents are at a cooking demonstration in Hawaii. We’re just up the road from Peter and family, so we have been invited to the feast. We agreed to bring dessert and a side dish. Small price to pay for the chance to eat fresh, hand-caught salmon.

Peter and René are in the middle of a massive home renovation, so the salmon sat in a cooler on ice and dry ice in the middle of their kitchen. René made one of her famous salads. We cheated and stopped at Bianchini’s Market for corn-mango-jicama salsa, three-bean salad,  a loaf of Acme sweet batard, and some wine.

Dessert turned out to be an apple tart from Schubert’s Bakery on Clement Street in the Richmond district of San Francisco. It was hard to chose from all of the beautiful cakes, tarts, and pastries. Even picky eaters liked it.

We ate in the front yard al fresco as there is no dining room in the house right now. It was just as well. The temperatures in the Bay Area are breaking all records – in the 90s – so everyone does as much as they can outdoors. Baker Beach is jammed.

The kids played in the front yard as we enjoyed a glass of wine and the delicious put together meal.

Salmon cut into serving-sized portions
Freshly caught salmon iced in a cooler
The fisherman with his catch
Salmon ready to eat
An extemporaneous al fresco meal
Service
Apple tart

RECIPE

Baked Salmon with Parsley and Garlic

Ingredients

  • fresh salmon
  • olive oil
  • melted butter
  • chopped parsley
  • minced garlic
  • fresh lemon juice

Method

  1. Cut the salmon into 3 ounce serving pieces. Remove skin and bones.
  2. Baste with oil and melted butter. Top with parsley, garlic and lemon juice. Bake in the middle of an oven pre-heated to 400º F for 20 minutes. Serve while still hot.

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January 3, 2015 · 9:34 am

CASA DE HILLMONT SANCOCHO

Peter, our son, stopped by our daughter’s house in L.A. on his way down the coast to spend some holiday time with his mother-in-law. Before his visit he indicated that he wanted to cook dinner one night. It required some ingredients that we thought we could find at the Grand Central Market, including green and ripe plantains and yuca. The yuca was not to be had, but in the end Peter located some at the neighborhood grocery store.

The dish that Peter chose to cook had its origins when he was in graduate school. He found himself without housing and with very little money. Our daughter, Sarah, was in the undergraduate program at the same university. One of her teaching assistants, a doctoral candidate in mathematics from Colombia, announced in class one day that there was a vacancy in the house where he was living. Sarah passed the information to Peter, and Peter jumped at the opportunity. He wound up living in the garage for several months, rent-free. Then a bedroom opened up, and he became a permanent, rent-paying resident.

As with much collegiate housing, there was a steady stream of old and new tenants. Sarah even lived there for awhile. But the backbone of the place was the three Colombianos who lived there the longest: Carlos, Mario, and Andreas. They became good friends with our children, and an added benefit was that Sarah, the Spanish major, got to polish her language skills, Peter learned how to speak Spanish, and they both learned to cook Colombian foods. Peter still keeps in touch with Carlos, who is now a professor of mathematics at his home university.

Not surprisingly, the house came to be known as Casa de Hillmont after the street where it was located. And it had all sorts of unique features – the carpet with big holes, the reclining sofa we donated, unidentified insects (This was Texas, after all.) and the quirky landlady who made off with a bird bath. Mostly the food was standard college fare like ramen, but there were also Colombian classics like tostones, arepas, and sancocho. Here is Peter’s version of sancocho.

RECIPE

Casa de Hillmont Sancocho

Ingredients

  • 4 tablespoons cooking oil, divided
  • 1 medium white onion, chopped
  • 1 garlic clove, minced
  • 1 tomato, coarsely chopped
  • 4 to 6 pieces of chicken (thighs, drumsticks, breast)
  • 12 cups water
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • 1 green plantain, peeled and cut into pieces
  • 1 carrot, peeled and cut into large pieces
  • 4 medium potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
  • 1 yuca root, peeled, core removed, and cut into large pieces
  • 4-6 pieces of corn on the cob
  • 1 ripe plantain, unpeeled and cut into 4-6 equal pieces
  • 1 generous handful of cilantro, finely chopped
  • cream
  • capers
  • avocado, diced

Method

  1. In a large skillet, heat 2 tablespoons of oil over medium-high heat. Add the onion, garlic, and tomato and saute for about 3 minutes. Set aside.
  2. Brown the chicken pieces in the remaining oil in a large pot. Add the onion, garlic, tomato mixture and saute for another 6 minutes. Add the water, and correct the seasonings with salt and pepper.
  3. Add the green plantain and carrot to the mixture, and bring to the boil. Simmer for about 20 minutes; then add the potatoes. Simmer for another 10 minutes or until the potatoes are soft.
  4. Add the yuca root, and simmer until the yuca is soft
  5. Boil the unpeeled ripe plantain in another pot until it is easily pierced with a fork. Drain and set aside.
  6. Add the chopped cilantro to the chicken stew.
  7. Serve by placing a piece of the ripe plantain in every soup bowl. Ladle chicken stew over the plantain.
  8. Pass cream, capers, and avocado separately to garnish the stew. You should have freshly made arepas on the side. (Another post)
  9. Serves 4 to 6.

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December 28, 2014 · 12:10 pm

L.A. FLOWER MARKET, GRAND CENTRAL MARKET AND BUCHE

For a family outing, we decided to visit downtown LA. “Why,” you might ask. “There’s nothing there.” But you would be wrong. The downtown is being revitalized, and it has long been home to the LA flower market, two huge warehouses filled with flower merchants offering all sorts of cut flowers, plants, and vases and pots to hold them. It’s not the Chelsea Flower Show, but it is a pretty interesting place. In addition, the Grand Central Market has recently been redone. It has been open since the early twentieth century, but it had fallen on hard times. Now it has become more upscale, but it still has the feel of a Mexican mercado. Peter, our son, joined us for a couple of days from Silicon Valley, so he was in our group.

To get to the flower market, you have to pass through the garment district where bolts of cloth are displayed at store fronts. I though I was back in El Paso. For the flower market, you park on the roof top of one of the warehouses, ride the elevator down to the showroom floor, and pay an entrance fee of $1. Then you wander the aisles between displays of hydrangeas in many colors (dyed of course), bromeliads, cacti, roses, daisies, and this time of year, poinsettias being pulled from the shelves. Prices are remarkably low, so it is easy to fill your arms with bunches of flowers wrapped in old Korean-language newspapers.

The street between the two warehouses is filled with food vendors, and you can get pastries, humus, french fries, elotes (corn on the cob), and any number of sandwiches. But we were saving our appetites for the Grand Central Market.

We drove a few blocks, parked in the garage, and rode the elevator down to the market. It was an overwhelming sight. There were crowds of people, neon signs advertising various vendors, and stalls filled with the special offerings of every vendor.

Among the items we wound up buying was a huge bacalao that I got to make for a New Year’s Day dinner (along with black-eyed peas and cabbage, of course). There was an abundance of fruits and vegetables, but no yuca which Peter was looking for to make his Colombian sancocho later in the day.

Surprisingly, there was an oyster bar with a good selection of raw oysters and wine, so some of us paused there. Others chose Thai, Chinese, or barbecue. We passed up the Eggslut (Don’t ask me how it got the name) because the line was way too long. The place is one of the best known vendors in the market and offers eggs done in a myriad of ways.

Peter opted for a Mexican stand that was selling tacos and tortas. You could choose any number of fillings – chicharon, tripitas, tripe. For most of them, there was an English translation for what it was. Some did not have a translation. One of those was buche. This is considered a great delicacy, but for all my years in El Paso, I could never get anyone to tell me what it was.

Years ago, I had a waitress in a Mexican restaurant tell me that if I had to ask what a dish was, I probably didn’t want o order it. Those are words to live by.

Anyway, Peter ordered the buche sandwich even though the server seemed amazed and double checked that that was what he wanted. Peter got the sandwich, took one bite, swallowed, and then googled to learn that buche is pig esophagus. He put down the sandwich and headed straight to the barbecue stand.

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February 16, 2013 · 9:41 am

BISCUITS – A FAMILY SECRET REVEALED

My son enjoys cooking, and is very good at it, but  his scientist training attracts him to difficult recipes or those with a lot of instructions.   This is the edited version of Peter’s biscuits.  As I was collecting biscuit recipes from all of the good bakers in the family, I asked Peter for his version.  He sent me some copious notes in addition to the recipe: [1] Don’t use rancid shortening. Probably the voice of experience. [2] Use a pastry blender, although a large spoon works fine. [3]  Biscuits mix better on wood than Formica because the wood grain holds the flour. [4] To re-heat a day-old biscuit, put it inside a plastic bag and warm it for a few seconds in the microwave; then put it in the toaster oven for the final warm-up to remove the sogginess of the microwave. All useful suggestions either for the neophyte or experienced biscuit baker.

Other suggestions include: [1] the shortening in this recipe is on the low end of most recipes which go all the way up to 6 tablespoons of fat. The lower amounts of shortening produce flakier biscuits, the larger amounts produce soft biscuits. It’s only a matter of preference. Butter has more water content than vegetable shortening, so the finished biscuit is softer. Bacon grease is a good substitute, but it ought to be solid – not melted. [2] The less manipulation of the dough after you have added liquid the better. Folding is better than kneading so you get flaky layers. [3] Cold is better than warm. Be sure to chill the flour mixture before you add the liquid to get the flakiest biscuits. [4] Biscuits squeezed together in a cake pan will rise higher than those spread out on a baking sheet.

Peter learned the original, non-scientific version of his recipe from his maternal grandmother and then passed it on to his younger sister, who is a professional chef. She has worked in well-known restaurants in New York City and San Francisco. A common tradition in all of these places is the “family meal”. Chefs and cooks take turns preparing a meal for cooks and wait staff before evening service begins. The kitchen crews in all of those places are used to complex meals  with expensive ingredients. Yet in every single one of them, when Sarah cooks “family meal”,  cheers inevitably go up for her biscuits and barbecued brisket. There is never a single biscuit left when service starts.

In fact, the biscuits are so popular with restaurant staff that they will go to great lengths to get their share. One time a baking sheet of hot biscuits had just come out of the oven, ready to be passed around the table. Before anyone knew what was happening, the pan crashed to the floor, and the biscuits spilled out. Next stop for the biscuits was the trash barrel in spite of the cries of the hungry staff. One frustrated cook leaped up and went head down into the trash barrel to retrieve those precious gems.

Biscuit dough patted out to ½ inch thickness ready to be cut
Dough cut in biscuit-sized circles
Ready for the oven. Just barely touching, they will rise, but closer together they will rise even higher
Fresh and hot from the oven
A basket of freshly-baked biscuits ready for the table
What’s better with biscuits than Southern fired chicken, mashed potatoes, and gravy?

 

PETER AND SARAH’S FAMILY MEAL BISCUITS

Ingredients

  • 2 cups flour
  • 1 teaspoon  salt
  • 2½ teaspoons baking powder
  • 2 tablespoons shortening (Crisco much preferred)
  • ¾ cup  whole milk

Method

  1. Preheat oven to 450º.
  2. In a large mixing bowl, sift together the flour, salt, and baking powder.
  3. Using a pastry blender, cut in the shortening until the mixture is consistent and the size of small peas.
  4. The biscuits will be flakier if you chill the dry mixture in the refrigerator for 30-45 minutes.
  5. Add the milk, and mix with a fork, being careful not to over-mix.
  6. Turn the dough onto a heavily floured surface. Knead the dough gently by pressing and folding. Don’t overdo it!  Four foldings should be enough, and more than six is too many.  Coat the dough with flour before the final folding to make splitting the biscuits easier.
  7. Pat the dough into a flat rectangle about ¼ to ½ inches thick. Using a two-inch biscuit cutter, cut out biscuits and place them on an ungreased baking sheet. Gather up the scraps, pat them together and flatten them, cutting biscuits until the dough is used up.
  8. Bake in the middle of the preheated oven for about 15 minutes, or until done.

Yield: Between 12 and 24 biscuits depending on size and thickness

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